001e all right good evening everyone and welcome to the Ashlin planning board meeting of Thursday April 11th um a reminder that the session is being um uh broadcast and recorded So first on our agenda tonight well first I will call the meeing to order at 6:36 and then we always have a Clerk's report Kate yes Madam chair thank you we've received one email correspondence to the planning board since the last meeting all right thank you um next on our agenda is um we start our public hearings they don't go that quickly um the first one is six Chestnut Street site plan approval application this is we are just opening this this this evening um and this is just for the audience out there this is the old Dairy Queen building which has been sitting there
002for quite a while now yes uh so just to to lead into it uh first this this application was was scheduled to open on March 28th due to some office difficulties notification wasn't provided uh to the abuts and so therefore I just want say thank you to the to the applicants for their patients uh but we're here tonight so to get started I'm just going to read the public hearing notice into the um record so please um bear with me guys um I'm going to hold off a second hey Mackie yeah I just got to text that the the volume is not working the volume on the zoom or the volume on online online yep should be it's coming through one second okay Tech little diffic difficult it's coming through on the YouTube stream okay
003um can they hear the zoom is that uh Anna I assume you can hear us Anna are other people are you able to hear us she's the only one on the screen I don't know did you text Anna as well you know what it's my fault it's your fault M an can you hear us doesn't look like it oh she's no I just made her a co-host but she should still be able to hear yes yep I just she's in hey co-host yes she should have the ability to un mute herself does other laptop have the audio on because you're recording so it's on yeah should so is the is the person who originally said they can't hear they did they say where they can't hear it I don't know so she can here oh
004okay this happens a bit too much she can us we think people can line as well okay all right so I I believe we have our audio working to various sources so um if someone's out there listening to us or getting a stream well I guess if they can't hear us they can't hear me give instructions they'll just have to text okay okay um six nut CH six Chestnut Street Peter I think you were going to read the um public hearing correct okay the as the ashon planning board will hold a public hearing on Thursday March 28th due to the situation we are now opening the hearing tonight on April 11th in the second floor hearing room in ashon town hall 101 Main Street this public hearing can be joined via Zoom video conference please
005see the apping board agenda for this link the plen board will hear the petition of Adrien um Machado requesting site plan review and design review per chapter 48 section 6 of the Massachusetts zoning act and chapter 282 9.6 design review and 9.4 site plan review of the action bylaws the applicant is proposing proposing to revitalize the former Dairy Queen uh currently a vacant commercial property and repurpose it into a fresh produce market the lot area of the site is 18,000 ft and will have adjustments within the existing parking area an additional small landscape area and a minor additions to the existing single story building the property in question is located at six chest Street assessors map 14 Lot 474 deed book 48356 page 462 and is within the highway Commerce zoning District part parties wish
006to be heard on this matter should submit comments to the ash planning board ahead of time and or appear at the time of place indicated above materials may be viewed on by appointment at Ashton Town Hall during the normal business hours link provided for more for more information please Smit comments to uh Andor contact Peter Mack and list my office number and my office email so at this point I will introduce the applicant um and I already uh so Allan is here as a friend and as interpreter um and uh for the applicant application team then also Terry from Applewood survey is here uh to go over and review the site so the site is going is located at six Chestnut Street the old former Dairy Queen and the purpose is to uh and the
007proposal is to reinvest and to revitalize that site uh a site that's been vacant for 10 years um and to create a produce market selling meats and produce and maybe some sandwiches um and so that is overall the The Proposal in front of us there are some additions to the site I just want to make a note that this application uh has been heard by the Conservation Commission uh it is within jurisdictional due to the subb river um and the Conservation Commission this Monday night um approved um The Proposal here uh and so I will let Terry kind of walk us through the the site plan and if you want to make a note of uh any conversations that you have with the conservation agent that would be great um but I do just want
008to make a note that this is in the flood plane it's within jurisdictional boundaries of the Conservation Commission and that was within that memo that I sent out uh to the to the planning board and furthermore the applicant uh survey Terry the applicant survey Terry was able to submit a kind of a color um site plan just to kind of Identify some of the items that we May uh will what he'll present tonight so with further Ado I'll let Ty introduce yourself it's juster just so you can see it a little better I know it's small I'm sure do you want do I could kind of hear it anyway so I think it's okay um the I'm sure you're already familiar with the site what's out there but just real quick um virtually the entire
009property is paved with the exception of a little spot over here the area down right adjacent to the river and a small little section up at the uh intersection itself it has parking there 25 spaces almost all of them don't conform to current sizes and the aisle whds also are not uh conforming to anything that the the 24t wi with that typically at least Emergency Services likes to see um so uh just real quick with regard to conservation I've stayed out of it I let Susan MacArthur take care of it all we are within most of the properties within the flood zone fortunately for this this application the only area that's outside which is above it is right around the corner here um and uh a little bit over on this side here which is
010just enough for us to be able to replicate that um flood storage that's going to be lost the reason we're losing flood storage the orange area along here are additions that they want to put on the property off the the right hand side as you're looking from Union Street there's I believe it's a walk-in uh refrigerator or freezer or something that Dairy Queen used to use they're just going to square off square off the building right there this area in the front actually is on top of that concrete pad that you would have stood on if you were ordering from Dairy Queen in there it's got the over hang above it so they're basically just going to drop down from the that overhang the facade of that overhang right down to the uh to the
011top of the concrete pad and then just Square it off around the side over there um back to the uh the conservation issues again because these a portion of these um additions which is in the upper left corner over there of the plan uh is going to fill in some flood zone we had to replicate it on a foot by foot basis so the the way we're doing that is it's this sort of is a two-fold thing uh in order to play to provide a little bit of landscaping in front um uh all we needed to do is take the pavement out of this area right in here and drop the whole thing down 3 in and that 3 in is supposed to be top of the mulch after they're done so they may go
012down four or five Ines in order to put a couple inches of mulch on top of that there will be an asbo required by conservation at the end of this thing to prove that they did it right and conservation I'm sure will have jurisdiction to go and check over years over the years to make sure that all of a sudden this isn't all getting piled up in here because they don't take out the old stuff and put in the new um so uh the uh so that'll be the replication area on there um trying to make it look a little bit better we're going to do some plantings up there but we're kind of bound by um plants that the Conservation Commission would like to see out there because we are in in flood zone
013area and within the River Act area um so I had Susan MacArthur who's more familiar with plants and iron for this area here is proposing four aelas and three Fetter Bush I don't even know what that is but hopefully it's it's nice looking and those are going to go up in the front over here spaced across the whole area and then we're taking out there's a retaining wall that runs right along this uh in between the river and the parking lot and the pavement goes right up to that uh that um retaining wall we're taking out a 10t strip all the way along here um that's going to be regassed again it's not going to be filled in at all because we can't do that CU flood zone um they're putting six Arbor body along
014that stretch in there just to provide some screening from I guess the Chinese restaurant um there are you know a bunch of trees and stuff in here and when the leaves come out that'll that'll sort of block things from the from the river this will also provide a little bit of um you know right now the general uh flow of the water goes in this direction you'll get some infiltration um down along here this lot is very very very flat the water isn't doesn't move very fast across it at all um just so you're aware uh Union Street is 60 ft wide right here when they put this concrete sidewalk in it doesn't look like it's all that old that's raised up about 6 in off the existing pavement um normally the sidewalks will go
015back you know put a little Gap in between the pavement and the sidewalk but they put it right up next to the street which is fine but the the town actually owns from the the back edge of that sidewalk you know probably 7 or 8 ft down on this side and you know probably 5 ft as it get up around here they clipped over onto the Locust property as they went around the corner a little bit um so there's a this strip of Pavement in here we're putting this flood storage area and the uh Landscaping in that right of way and the reason we decided to do that is because we thought it would look really strange if we just left this strip of concrete pavement on the back side of the sidewalk and had
016this little island of of uh of landscaping up there it also helped with uh allowing us for nice aisle with all the way around the building which I'm pretty certain Emergency Services was very happy to have in there um the as far as the colors going here we we dropped it down to a total of 19 space 19 18 spaces the he doesn't need that many I have a calculation down the bottom for what they're doing seven spaces are required but the owner of the property wants to make sure that in the future if changes ever happen he's got that grandfathered then he could always come back in the future and say yeah I know there's a flood zone but I'll put it up on peers and and build a slightly bigger building with obviously
017with your approval um get through conservation with the flood issues on there but need the extra parking in there which is why he wants it um conservation kind of wanted him to take out a little more pavement but again because he doesn't want to lose what he's already got and if that pavement comes out he'll never get it back um he wants to maintain it the way it is so I've highlighted on the colored sketch here all the purple areas around the the edges here those are all the parking spaces and again those all conform to current parking requirements I also put right next to the building right here a uh sort of a delivery spot I expect that they probably will have no more than like a box struck showing up for uh whatever
018they're having supplied here that can easily come in off of chest Street go around the building park right there there's a door right in the back of the building they can unload and they can drive right out out on Chestnut Street without any problems coming in and out and that still leaves the 24t aisle coming through there that spot is intended with the exception of deliveries to be empty most of the time um so there shouldn't be any any weaving around cars or anything um with people parking over there at least they shouldn't be parking over there we're providing one dumpster in the back over here the reason I chose that spot was again for ease of of access garbage truck can com in off Union Street straight in pick up the dumpster go right
019back out just and straighten out without any issues three-point turns or something in the site over there there is a little bit of pavement that goes on to the next door neighbor's property we are removing that permanently uh and and um it'll just be whatever they use for landscape covering here whether it's mulch or it's grass or something that will be done over on their property to replicate um what has been there probably for decades um more than likely no one ever knew where the lot Lins were the light blue area I have around here those are areas that are going to remain Paving but are not part of the parking space areas in there um some of that area can be used for snow storage I expect snow storage will probably happen along um
020the the southernly border of the property down in here I can't imagine these spaces back here are going to be used very much at all um that's really about all I have to say on this unless you have any questions real quick I think one of the other things that came up in conversation was was opportunity put picnic tables on the river that's possible you know depending on how big these arbores grow into they look like they're spaced enough that they're not really going to create a hedge there might be some space in between them or they could put put them right along the the pavement that's going to remain right along this back side between the end of the parking and the 10ft strip that's going to be turned back from pavement into Landscaping
021this area is not meant to be a dine in type restaurant you know if someone comes in and gets some sandwiches they can go out and and you know have lunch sitting out in the in the parking lot or something but it's it's everything is take out the the just again the the dumpster and I have a detail on there the dumpster is got a panel fence all the way around it with a gate just to block uh the view so no one has to look at it and to uh try and uh keep any trash that may happen to blow within that area there we cannot have that fence go right to the ground for flood issues so there'll be a few inches up above the ground questions from the board I do have
022a couple of questions um the the first one U it just the plan in general I think seems to be very efficient and and well planned and compliant with even the parking sizes which we don't see that that often so that that that's all good um is is is there a reason why the handicap parking spot is um placed so further back I mean I see the geometry but is there an opportunity to have that closer to to the ordering um spot because then a handicapped person is going to have to cross the longest way right the we left the the 20t fort aisle just so they'd have access all the way around um if you look at the way had the parking over here before if you came in off of here and try
023to do 24t aisle you'd have to make an immediate right hand turn which probably a lot of cars would be swinging into the parking spaces in order to get around in that area there or they can come out and around in here um this is about 35 ft from the center of the uh handicap spot to where the front door is this is not an ordering type place like uh like Dairy Queen was you will actually go inside it's like a little mini market sort of thing where okay um but precisely so so there's no there's no chance that the space number 13 could be converted into like swap it to the other side of the of the row so that it's closer to that door the door's up the door's up front so I
024think I thought you saw that the door is on the side that little there there's a door in the side over here that will be used for deliveries so where's the other one the there's a the main door is going to be right in front when uh when we have have the sheets in front of us but when Peter comes back I'll see if we can put the slides up the so visuals bigger so that's one question just for for for discussion and and and the other one I have no problem if you want it moved over there I have no problem doing it okay um but I will let some the the others um app on that um is there any um strategy at the the Inception of the of the driveway and and
025the exit to try to dissuade people from cutting their red light and cross through the through the property I guess my first question would be has that been a problem I mean has I don't know um you know I don't know I was out there a few days doing the survey work I do know the police like to sit right here I've seen a cop there every now and then but probably they're not going to be there anymore so more than likely not um is there anything to stop them you know I've seen at another site over in Milford where people were doing that at a light and the it was a liquor store and the guys ended up putting a couple of back hes right there to prevent for people from doing that we
026obviously don't want to do that not only from a business standpoint but again but you you don't modifying the curb cuts are you the curb cuts are already there so you're not going to change any of we not changing them so you canot change an elevation or anything to make it a little more or put like a texture or something I don't know these These are these this is all part of that new sidewalk that went in there the the aprons that go across we really want don't want to tear up what they just built okay just put up the images here in a minute just to make it a little easier I think that's those were my questions so I I'll let everybody comment I had a question about the um and I may
027have misunderstood this the the proposed landscape area in the front and this was being put in to kind of trade for the um addition right the space of the addition is that right so that uh the landscape area in the front is being that's the replication area for the Lost flood storage we're dropping that elevation down to 3 in which is it might be the width or maybe slightly more than the thickness of the pavement that's out there um so that if you do get a flood this area is displaced but that water can go over into this spot over here so but you also said I think that and given the um what I think is the property line so a lot of that is is on Town property uh yeah well yeah I'm
028going to say probably close to three4 of it is so is that I mean maybe it's a question for I I just wondering is that allowed can you know is that for that makeup area of something inside the property to be happening outside the property line like in my eyes I it is a lot you know cont you know it's really kind of in under conservation obviously review because it is kind of it's a it's a flood storage uh matter so so I think it is and I think talking to Becca there was ample there was more flood storage than they're providing more flood storage than they are actually they're exceeding the flood storage far far more far more so even having that off off the in in that town right away uh that still
029from a numbered standpoint worked for the applicant so the extra flood storage is where it's not in the light blue no it's in this green area right up front that's where the replication going where those aelas and fush are okay so I was I was and maybe I'm not thinking about this right I assumed that they would be I mean they look roughly the square same square footage right now right what does the uh the addition area and the proposed land Cape area are those the two things that we're comparing am I no area area isn't what we have to replicate for we have to replicate for volume volume you could do a much smaller area if you just dug a big hole okay yes okay so you're providing in that area much more than
030you need right even though the surface area right and and part of the reason for that too was to try and make something that at least looked nice from a landscaping standpoint in the front rather than just the concrete jungle that's there now okay but to have one question what what what you're getting at because that's Town property um the maintenance of that area if something gets degraded um is there going to be an agreement that the owner will commit to maintaining another town well it it's kind of those two questions one is okay yeah the sidewalk what if they do want to put a wider sidewalk in at some point the town you know then I guess that would need to be re negotiated and then yeah the maintenance is a thing too it's
031not my property it's the town's property so that would have to be a condition I suppose and and I don't think that's a problem my guess is that Dairy Queen always maintained the pavement that was over there you clean it up they didn't want the place to look like a mess I don't think the applicant's going to have a problem saying hey I don't want this to to look horrible I want people to come into my business and not think it's just a a rundown uh building um keep in mind too if the town decided to widen that sidewalk and put it out my gut feeling is that this sidewalk filled in flood zone and it was never replicated when they did it if they were to go out there and say oh hey we're
032filling in their flood zone conservation's going to go hey wait a minute oh and by the way all the rest of the stuff you're putting in here too um so that they would have jurisdiction over any any future uh stuff that got put out there so if and I understand we are asking to allow this to be put in the on the town's property only because we think it's going to look a whole lot better mhm yeah now yeah yeah just trying to understand uh you know unfortunately I would have put it down here but the elevation drops off enough that it goes below the elevation that we need to replicate that so I mean so that so the area the light blue area just isn't available as replication area because it's too low is
033it the we need to stay uh in between the 177 contour and the 178 Contour 177 Contour 177 run right along in through here so we would have to dig out an area uh you'd have Pavement in cross-section you'd have pavement and you'd have to drop down and youd pop up back to Pavement over here so we could create an island over here that would push the parking back this way I'd probably have to get rid of that space the delivery space in order to keep the 24t aisle over there um but that also eliminates any um Aesthetics in front of the building too for what that's wor I'm okay with the way the site plan works and everything I'm just trying to understand um and it might be the answer might sometimes be cost
034right like if there's this big area of light blue that's pavement not being used as parking my first thing is like well why would you dig that up and let let the water soak into the ground you know I'm I that that makes sense and that's what conservation ask could be done and I go back to what the owner of the property who's not the the applicant said that in the future he does if that pavement comes up he will never get it back because of how close he is to the the subury river and in case in the future let's say 20 years goes down the road these guys have made a million dollars and say we're out of here we're going to go retire and he says well you know what I have
035a chance to put an office building in here or or some other use that requires more parking spaces than what's required right now he wants to make sure he's got that already in place and doesn't have to try and jump through hoops to try and get something that they probably won't approv that he already has now that's from the owner this is from the owner got okay one last comment sorry but but that given uh the fact that that's the owner's kind of intent I would say you could also have a little less parking and create what's needed if the town would say that that's a problem for example uh space number 12 which is at the Inception of the driveway seems like a car back in out of there will probably go into the
036in on onto the the walkway uh could could that space be um a similar Zone if you don't have it again I had this I had this originally with fewer spaces on there I was told by the owner he wants Jack him up as far as we can I know what the owner wants okay so would would this one backing out over here if it was let's say an SUV like a lot of people are driving nowadays yeah it probably would back back right out onto the apron a little bit but it looks like any car doesn't have to be an SUV would go into The Pedestrian walkway just to back out of there yeah I agree you know I have no problem eliminating it we have far than more than enough spaces out there
037the existing this image that you see here doesn't look as tight as what the scale looks on the drawing if this is the same spot as what you're talking about that looks like that's pretty comfortable ual for an Su to back out yeah but that's a force perspective I don't think that's uh yeah and I wouldn't put a lot of I don't know how those were made okay yeah you you can force the perspective on that program and just make it look a little wider angle but just by looking at the plan it it just geometrically you can see that the car if somebody's walking there leave the it's not I agree I don't have a problem eliminating space number 12 you know normally I say well let's slide them this way but then we
038lose our 24t now I could do the 24t off the edge of the building itself but they do have a couple of posts out here because their gas service comes in there the meter's outside and I really don't want people driving right up next to the meter in there no um so you know if you object to number 12 just just I'm clear I don't have any problem with what's being proposed in the front understand Street I'm just saying that that parking spot doesn't look safe to way this La out if it's a safety issue 12 should be eliminated yeah well like like I said I think it would be it' be good to know I mean it's if 12 and the little blue area there you know if if that can be used as
039water is space what if those can be merged if those can be merged the 12 and the blue space to I'm just not sure about this I I agre I understand that conservation is okay with it but I'm not sure planning is okay with it to be to used Town Land by an owner that's trying to hold on to all this you know all this pavement which which shouldn't be there so I'm not I'm not sure and if if I could it was not the owner who said put that right there that was my decision and again that was strictly aesthetic um if you want us to to put it in a different spot I'll probably put a couple of parallel park well again they're using it right now um we could put a couple
040parallel parking spaces in there so the owner would say or get some parking I suppose again they don't need it I don't mind it being a green space I have a problem with it being used for the to count for the offset when that's a part of the property yeah I don't have I don't have a problem if you want it's there planted great it it'll look great it'll be a sight Improvement it doesn't have to be that because it like you could say no that's Town property it's that's your problem right to the town but I have a problem with it being used um for to make up for an addition on the site that seems like it should come out of the property then right but if you no I understand what you're
041saying I'm just trying to see for for future things that may come by this board you this is so flat out there I'm going to have to look at my spot elevations that I have in here on all the survey points to make sure that if you did want us to put that replication back there which means we're going to have to reopen conservation um they uh that this area is within the same 177 to 178 I'm not sure if this comes up a little bit or goes down a little bit because I've got a 177 here 177 there and I I'd have to look at my spot elevation to know whether there's a hump very shallow hump right there or very shallow coming out I would yeah and i' I'd be looking for feedback
042from the board are you um kind of watching Anna she has a comment because I keep forgetting that she's there um in cyers space um I mean I I agree with that point I'm not sure like I like that this is I think everybody in town let me start I was very excited about this um that using Town property um a landscape versus a specific thing feels like we're we're essentially like giving away something and I I mean we Lisa me's an obvious one to talk talk too how that would be handled but it it's an easement but you're it's an easement for a condition which seems a little bit not probably the right way to handle it okay um what I can do and this was my first um design on this thing and
043that's when when they said hey we want some Landscaping up front I said oh great I'll just put it over there along this edge of the building that that flood zone elevation runs right along in here I originally had them taking out right along where these parking spaces are taking that pavement out dropping that down now in in cross-section and this is exaggerated this is the end of the parking space Here's the building taking that out lowering this down so the pitch was lower it still would flow out and that's where I had my replication area before um but in you know in doing that and it doesn't matter to me if if if you do that um you won't have any planting or anything up front we're just going to leave that pavement the
044way it is right now and what would that do to the delivery space can it still delivery space can still be there cuz we're only dropping at a couple inches okay cuz the area is wide enough that just that little bit of elevation difference makes up for the the flood storage we're missing CU we're not really filling in a lot of flood zone in here most of this area right across the front over here that concrete pad is just above the flood zone so we're okay there so it's a couple little areas over here we got it I forgot that there was already something there yeah okay so if let's just say now for the the benefit of everyone if the town took up the pavement there would would the applicant consider putting Landscaping which
045is sort of getting rid of some imperal service and making it look better if the town took up took up that Pavement in there and happen to lower it by three in that would work for us but I mean it I'm just we I don't control DPW or town budget we just should that's what we're here for to talk about ideas right because aesthetically it would be an improvement for everyone but I guess my point is the applicant's willing to do this on their dime yeah yeah K I I I think that um no I was looking at two things applicant I think should take care of it on the property probably but secondly if this can be an improvement everybody knows that we don't want more permeable surface we want less right so just
046as part of the project when you're out there doing things if the town took up the pay would they consider putting landscaping and maybe a benefit for everybody is 3 in lower as well yeah um I think that would fall under basically what you're saying well it's the town property you can't do anything on it so we would say all right fine it's the town property you take care of it yeah I think what what we what I believe we were trying to get at is to do that landscape area like you said because I think your design intent it's it's valid but not to rely on that to for compliance but do do the compliance remove parking parking 12 because of safety concerns if you can do it there fine then you're done if
047not do it the way you mentioned but do both and that would be that that would be a good imp just to jump in I think number one I think we have to check with the volume and how how our conservation agent Becca has calculated volume because I want to find that out first I do it you do it yeah okay so do you need that's why it's so far over it was even a question we we we I I forgot that the numers off the top of my head but you know we're filling in this much and we're replicating this much correct so what my question is is obviously looking at this area the landscaping area right how much replication is taking part on your property and how much is that is just an
048additional vegetation bed oh oh good question you know what I'm saying cuz I think I know where the board's going and they're saying you know what we're not going to count this whole thing yes this whole thing is being count counted as replication right however that's actually a good point I could probably do that because we have 27 ft right here correct we only need 24 I could always pull this back an extra 3 ft increase the amount of replication and conservation hopefully would say you're increasing it that's fine we don't need to reopen the heing and the sliver on your property would grow to take care of what you have to take care of that's correct to grow that to cross that Nexus and I I can do I can do a total uh
049volume that we're replicating and I can do a volume just on our property just on your property as long as those meat I think from what I'm hearing from the pl board is that as long as those meat what replication is taking place on your property fits the bill everyone's okay with that yeah they just don't want to we just don't want to count the replication that's being T that's being done on the town own right away I can do that towards the towards on the property that's an excellent idea and I think with marcelo's point of of parking spot 12 I understand that I would just merge that that parking lot 12 parking spot 12 with the with that kind of you know cross-hatching or whatever you know that with that little blue spot
050with that little blue spot you know just a merge it and so when you go back in here because you'll restripe it right is you're just going to restripe it and you know I don't know if if you're going to cross-hatch it or whatever you do but it's not a parking spot right but I think to find out that that that Nook of information right about what the replication is is going to be the key point and again this is not going to be a problem because if all of a sudden I say oh geez I don't have enough area for the room I'll just go down another inch or another two inches okay wa can we bring up um uh these are the architectural renderings think what we had in our packet yep it's
051what everyone has in their packet okay so and can we see the The View that's straight on with the addition the the front the front elevation right there yeah yeah that's good um oh I didn't realize it the door's a little closer to that handicap spot probably by about 5T I thought it was right in the middle the door and just to just before we go on do your clients want to make any kind of a statement about the about the their project or about the property or okay so I just to clarify the program is as Peter described meat produce sandwiches other okay all right so then um I just wanted us to since this is an addition as well it's not just reusing the the existing building so those of us have that
052frequented the old Dairy Queen many moons ago um so the concrete pad is now that glass kind of that glass area in front the edge of the concrete bad closest to Union Street is where that glass goes straight up from okay so that they're extending 8 ft the and the roof is the roof all already the roof is already there it's so it's just enclosing and on the other side so right now it's a symmetrical building right with the roof I think so so down the down the Chestnut Street side they're just extending that roof to cover like I don't remember does it already cover the freezer no I don't believe it do I think I know where you're going and yes that if looking at the front it will no longer be symmetrical no
053longer be symmetrical so be Oh you mean the gamb is not the gambell will no longer be symmetrical which I'm not sure I have a big problem with I'm just I'm just TR making sure we look at it right so and then that extra square footage inside I just assume just they just extra programmatic space right on that side yes that's an addition of 5.8 ft off the side I can there it is that that shows it asymmetrical uh you can see it would be this side right here yeah and then this side right [Music] here they will probably too Rel landscape that area area right on the corner that's already there that's up that's above the flood zone right in that area they will be putting a sign on the sign post that already
054exists and you know there are a couple I think they used that are kind of overgrown probably make that area look a little bit better too okay so um yeah so I see there's lighting added to the side that as well the architect added some lighting along the along the side of the building okay yeah I'm just bringing these things up because eventually sooner rather than later on a project of this scale we'll need to go through the conditions that we required to go through for a s plan review you know and um also it'll be going to the design Review Committee and one of the things that we had talked about with um Starbucks this print is terrible that you have I agree um is about one of the things um that may come
055up is the consistent a consistent visual identity shall be applied to all sides of the building all sides of the building visible to the general public now we take that to me in the streets kind of before you go in that when you circle around the back of the building so in this case obviously I mean that's kind of how it always has been even I don't think there's anything on that side um any windows or anything on that side but I'm just bringing it up as something that that might come up with our criteria if we if we need to discuss that um also I just wanted to go through quickly so people have in their heads the conditions of site plan review this is not a special permit site plan review and I'll
056just run through those make a note of anything that uh that you think of um one minimize use of wetland steep slopes flood ples and hilltops two minimize obstruction of Scenic views three preserve unique natural or historic features four minimize tree vegetation and soil removal in grade changes five maximize open space retention six screen objectionable features from neighboring properties and roadways seven give consideration to the impacts of the project on Town services and infrastructure um eight is about um utilities being underground um nine is about exposed storage areas Machinery you know being um set back or screened um number 10 site plan shall show measure measures to reduce and Abate noise 11 um site plan shall comply with all zoning requirements for parking loading signage Dimensions environmental performance standards um and 12 is um that
057it's consistent with the objectives of the comprehensive plan does anyone in that list have anything that jumped out at them that we should disc I me I think the um there there's a little bit of conversation so the river there and we we have talked about like other projects like trying to sort of value that like we maybe in all the planning along the way we didn't right and so that Landscaping along that side if that sort of keeps that that it's at least visible um keeps the river visible well it I mean there's a there's a lot of um what do I call immature trees not saplings but you know they're not old growth trees that are long in there when the leaves are out you probably not going to see that River from
058that parking lot um it was a little not impossible but a little tough just for me moving around in there getting the survey shots um the arbor are certainly they they take up space there are six of them proposed I don't think they're going to I mean these things have got to be spaced 10 to 12 ft apart I don't think they're going to grow together to create a hedge so there will be space in between but you could say well whatever view you have of the river right there the arbor is going to at least block some of it um more so this time of year than in the summer um but I guess my question would be how many people are actually going to be standing on the edge of their parking lot
059looking at the river you can't really see it from the street because that drops off pretty good right in that area there is the question then do they want to add them at all like we've never had them before do we need them well trees are good I mean I I think I'm just thrown out like yeah the mo the best use of that I I appreciate that they're trying to improve not only bring a service but trying to improve uh and I would have to check with uh um Susan MacArthur on that to see whether or not those Arbor bodies were required as part of some sort of mitigation with yeah trees are good and then I think um this is not a requirement but we've kind of discussed with applicants like trying to
060activate spaces for the public and including like a bike rack if possible and you know when you mentioned like the picnic tables that becomes semi-public space which would be amazing yeah I I don't think if you wanted a biker in there they've got plenty of room to stick on right over on this side over here that's a good idea my my only other comment was an infrastructure is the business going to be frying or cooking something on the premises or is just cold cuts okay so there's no problems with grease straps and things like that I think there is one already yeah I know but are they going to use it is there's going to be meats you know like will be meat but to my won be like fried food or things like that
061yeah we the applicant we did have a tech review Mee we all check we Che checked in with Board of Health so the Board of Health is working with the applicate you know correct yep if it's internal if it's going to be external what the uh obviously what the condition of the external grease strap is for Dairy Queen um what would suit the proposed business the best you know at right now I don't think it's a full proposed commercial kitchen is being proposed um but it's just a matter of what would suit the applicant at this time but they have met with the Board of Health yeah that it's it's an important thing because the gas trap is there we know there was one correct but it's been vacant for 12 years or so so
062it's probably not in great shape who knows I would know I would I would assume so yes okay just real quick their intention is basically the meets the vegetables a deli counter and they're going to sell sandwiches someone comes in I want a ham and cheese they just cut it you're not cooking anything yeah okay all right so this um this is a project that would be uh sent to the design Review Committee or because it has six or more parking spaces so some of these questions obviously with the um with the landscaping and and things um we can we can let them look at as a part of this does anyone have any comments from our perspective um and um for review but I think either something that else we want to talk about
063as a planning board and then secondly anything specifically we want to call out to um design review and our typical memo that we that we send to them I would have just three items that they may look into because of the rendition that we're seeing here uh I don't know if the materiality of the building is going to change is that a new sighting or or or what is it it's not clear to me and the roof seems to be the same roof that it looks kind of the way it looks when you go by this but it's going to be a a change in the roof so I assume is if the roofing is going to be new what what material it's going to be maybe they can look into that and then and
064thirdly the signage do you want some sort of sketches on what the signs are going to look like because my guess is they'll have the one in the building but over on this corner at the intersection the sign post with Dairy Queen sign used to be on they're probably going to put one up I can tell you that the review is going to want to see that so before you go you should be equipped to show them okay renderings or drawings with the yeah that me what's going to be there that meets the there's there standards um bylaws from the town the sign bylaw so that they would just have to meet that but I think it's a good question about the materials because it looks like it just look like the old Dairy Queen
065right but I think that that Roofing might be hard to match to extend it you know um I don't think that's so I don't know if that's an architect question but we can look into it yeah I'm not sure who to address with questions like that um that uh you know the so for the materials um especially I think the roof the siding is pretty easy to yeah the roof is very visible I mean looks red or orange I don't know if if you're going to put a new roof it wouldn't have to be that color but that's something that can be R yeah when you say it wouldn't have to be that color is it your preference that it was something a little more subdued would you ask yeah yeah just so I can
066give them some guidance on which way to go with this I think I think in my mind it's not a Dairy Queen anymore and it doesn't need to look like one from now until the end of time are you re Roofing yeah can you ask him if the architect's intention is to re roof it there may be a problem finding the same material that was on that whenever they built that come many decades ago and matching it um from his point of view he would like to basically put in new rou whole building but it would be metal something more up to date okay the whole the whole okay okay they they would like something a little less vibrant than what's there now from what you saying the that's obviously just so that it stands
067out on the drawing but it would be like a dark brown yeah I think but this is something when you go through the sign review you might want to bring the of what going to okay yeah so I think that's an important I think that's a a good point to come up that uh that at least this group isn't isn't married to the look of the Old Dairy Queen yeah so okay yeah an has her hand oh sorry Anna she's hold on Anna oh hold on Anna I'm Peter's trying to uh get his volume to work with the phone I can try to unmute but I don't think that works we can hear you now oh okay you're on yeah um awesome I don't know how you're hearing me whether it's the phone or or
068the zoom um I I think my my only thought on this project I think it's great to bring this kind of business into town and that's really exciting I think one of the things part of the comprehensive plan feedback that I've been hearing through meetings in the box is the community wants to see more of these types of businesses to be AC accessible so I think that's really exciting for the town um my only comment was to kind of figure out a way to bring more people to this space who may not be car um have capacity as far as Transportation like the older population in Ashland or the younger folks who might be you know whether it's kids walking from the high school Etc so if if possible if the applicant obviously we cannot
069require it but if the applicant is willing to um you know keep thinking about the bike racks or some kind of bus shelter to sort of open up room for future connectivity um since we seem to be moving towards more walkability as a result of the comprehensive plan and more interest in transportation and public transportation those were my only comments all right thanks Anna I I don't see a problem with the bike rack um I'm not certain they want to go to the expense of the bus shelter thing I'm not sure if the bus stops there or how you would get that route changed um and I'm not exactly sure where we'd put it and we'd run into the same problem with the flood stuff storage um and putting something like got up the main
070so the one thing that we can though since they really don't need that much parking is at least maybe put them in touch with mwrta so would they would mwta be able to pull into their parking lot right just to have that planned in slightly so we know what their bus shelter wants to look like pull off the street and stuff that's not happening there but I think it's worth that conversation and putting them in touch with that is it to have them pull in and drop off customers I don't think that would be a problem exactly yeah I mean we should at least it's kind of out of our hands but it's not out of our hands to discuss those things yeah so nothing built but an opportunity for people to be dropped off
071and picked up okay is that well and if they talk to them it might be some slight configuration of the parking lot and they're like we W make this work I I have no idea but I I think we'd be remiss not to try I would think with most of the size of those buses that I've seen they would be doing the same thing as as everyone else I would probably come in here and go out out there um especially if they if they were going in this general direction pull down chest Street you don't have as much traffic pull in take a rightand turn coming back out on Union and continue on Peter how can we facilitate that conversation or question well I don't even know if I'm I'm happy to put the applicant
072in touch with them I just I do not think the MW I think their their route is limited to Pawn Street at this point um just just as a note of this conversation but but I'm happy to put the applicant in in you know in touch with MW they don't they don't do uh 135 or anything like that I I don't know or main I do not believe so okay but maybe if they say when we do it this parking lot works for us right or some small tweak it's worth I think at least asking like I said I don't think the applicant would have any problem if customers were busted right to his front door okay all right um so the it sounds like then that's our list for the design Review Committee we'll
073put together a memo as we usually do send it design Review Committee and then they're free to you know go that way yep so I was just texting with Alvaro and and we'll work with you and and obviously Allan's more working than Alvaro and the applicant and so we'll get you the design Review Committee as soon as possible and then obviously I think there's a couple items just to kind of uh come back to yeah just it just in hindsight as review I'm going to redo this area here to show that we have our flood storage on our own property there will be some on the town's property too and that's just so it looks nice with one big area rather than an island of plants over there we're going to get rid of safe
074fall that's going to become part of the uh the crosshatch no parking area over there MH and um I'll ask about the arbor um and and see if that was a a requirement through conservation while you do that can you take a take another pass and see if you can have more proximity with a handicap spot through the door um I can tell you right now that's going to be tough to do um yeah just just study it and see yeah I mean like I said I I'll find out whichever distance is the shortest I just my my thinking was I knew the front door was on this side they'd be going right at the front door instead of coming around the building um that's from from this point anyone coming here would have sight
075distance looking in both directions from here cutting across the building's going to block if a car is coming around this way yeah that's fine okay okay then I think um I think we can continue this is is continuing this to next meeting is April 25th and I think depending on you know I just texted Alo regarding when design Review Committee is going to meet they typically meet meet but we have to advertise so hopefully we can get a meeting with them fairly quick and then we can come back here on the 25th um so I'm not you know I know Alvaro has been in contact with Allen is design review a um like a public hearing yes it is M so you need us here too they you no Zoom they're on Zoom they're on
076Zoom 100% they they would need representatives to Yeah question they would be discussing materials signage plantings you know that that kind of thing all right so it's more Aesthetics than it is yes okay all right all right yeah um if there is so if there is any information about certain plants were designated for a certain reason then that would be information that would be useful to them I'm going to call Susan tomorrow on that okay okay okay all right so we can schedule to come back here on the 25th and then Alvaro and I will be in contact with Allen and and obviously Terry and the applicant to get in front of the design Review Committee and then come back here at the planning board okay okay good all right thank you very much I'll
077make a motion to continue six Chestnut Street site plan approval to April 25th plane board meeting second and a roll call vote I think that was an i i Katherine Jers guy and Risha Kendall I so thank you we are excited about someone using that building and um appreciate the effort that'll go into it thank you all right thank you no we started early because we think we'll have a long night actually well hopefully we won't so Al tomorrow and we'll so since we have the other public hearing well so our second public hearing is one thank you so our second public hearing is um 151 Main Street site plan approval application Peter yeah so Ive uh been in contact with the applicant John malun of um excuse me of clover rad brewing and um
078I think from the last meeting I was able to tell you tell tell the board that the applicants um architect that was working for the firm had left and so there's a new applicant on board I can can tell you that the the the new applicant I mean excuse me the new architect um had been in contact with our Building Commissioner regarding the handicap parking spots and they were trying to tie down some loose ends I me talking to John mun today in um and within an email that you that you'll see email correspondence that kind of came late in the day under tab three um John preferred to continue tonight to the next meeting he apologizes for not having new material um however with that said um he does plan to be here at
079the next meeting and to bring forth the material that the plany bo asked regarding the handicap parking spot and um any any changes to the um to the area and to the front of the building to the wall with that said I know um with our um 120 days regard goinging s plan review uh that would expire well it would expire on May 3rd I believe and so therefore John mun has concurred that he's going to extend that um date of final action out to May 15th and so that will show hopefully will give the planning board uh at least two more meetings um I do have a draft decision uh for this project that leading up to the next meeting uh with new information I would like to circulate that to the board uh
080just to get everyone's kind of eyes on it um so we can kind of um conclude conclude this application yeah I had let um after our last meeting um I kind of made a big to-do list for the for the planning board um what kind of things to do between meetings I shared that with with Peter and elro and Anna and one of the things on there is that I did go through the decision that Peter had organized and I filled in well Peter took a first pass on it and then I went through um the criteria which are just the criteria I just read the ones for the downtown 9 to 49 Homer um do not apply for the for the fire station because it's not um it's not doing it's not using the
081add zoning it's using base zoning so only the ones that I just read apply to that project as well so it's pretty straightforward and we were going to send them out for this meeting too but it seems that we we don't have a it see it seemed a little strange to go go start going through criteria and stuff when we don't have a site plan in front of us right I am okay though sending it to you guys if you want to read those in advance like I said that it's pretty lightweight because of the it's just site plan review so we'll send those out so that it's in your hands and get this thing you know for a small project it's taken a little long but I don't I don't think that's in our
082court so um we'll get it get it uh through our process as quickly as we can all right so we already continued that right yes we did we took a vote I don't believe we took a vote not for that no okay we oh to continue it right right correct of the other one okay so um motion to continue is that also till April 25th that would include yes to move to may excuse me to April 25th correct so can we do it do we have to do two things or can I do it in one motion you can do a one motion okay I make a motion to continue the uh site plan review for 151 mainst Street till the April 25th planning board meeting and I make a motion to extend the accept
083the uh applicants request to extend the deadline till May 15th second well I'll second that Anna rollot De Anna tminit I marelon I Katherine Jersey guide and treasure Kendall ey okay so we do so the um the public hearing for the NBTA communities is scheduled to begin at 8 we cannot begin that early so um to the next even though I biggest fan is here Mr Joe manani um so why don't we what else can we take care of get one thing minutes yeah why don't we take care of the meeting minutes that's for February 29th we did get some in just a few days ago for for the next meeting but um we didn't get them in time to really get get it out so it's just the one committed to the last thing
084last be right in front of the one I guess right in front of the one so on this one Kate with clerk Clerk's report they didn't um it wasn't on the recording the recording wasn't I think happening at the time when you said how many correspondences you have so I don't know if you have that number um is this the minutes that we looked at last time and then said to redo a few things yes so that this is actually so um this is actually redone um mostly it's about um and and this is something we're going to talk about in a larger context at some point but I for one I think there was other people as well weren't comfortable with so many things being in quotes to me that felt like now I
085have to go back to the tape and make sure that's actually what I said um and confirm it that way and versus saying yeah that's the gist of what I said you know or what was discussed so this goes through and it takes out the direct quotes and summarizes what was said or what the issue was I'm pretty sure cuz I remember to check that last time but I didn't really note that we we actually didn't have any um and I think we could probably say that fill in that we didn't receive any and be okay adequate cuz it will get caught up reported if we did so no correspondence right correct okay okay okay on page three we seem to have voted twice for 320 P Street we must love that project is that
086right on top page three the first two three paragraphs no the first one is closing the public hearing and the second one is approving the application did we have did we kind of voted separately is that how it yeah we have to do that we did okay because in between there can be discussion usually we're so dis discussed out by then that we don't have discussion between so that paragraph should have come before the voting then the paragraph in between the two wordss no because you close the public hearing and then we can still discuss amongst ourselves but we can't have any other input from anyone okay and then we make the motion to approve [Applause] I don't have any changes I don't have any comments I don't ready for a motion just go ahead
087I make a motion to approve the February 29th 2024 minutes with the updated uh note for the zero receed correspondence in the C report and a second I'll second roll call vote de an tki i Marcel I Katherine Jers I and Trisha Kendall so those are approved um we have under 15 minutes we can do the uh Jake P to the is that that person's not going to be here right we never can the planning office update or the Starbucks that's in here has one before uh there one above the minut so why don't we do you want to take care of the culber is there anything we need sorry what so what do we land on what we're what are we going to take care of do the Starbucks lad [Applause] okay so in
088this um the originally was a small paragraph about the comments that were made Marcel had made some comments about following the lines of the building um Deepa had made some comments about actually I think it could be vertical and so I think we ended up kind of taking that out and this was again um Peter wrote it I edited it and then sent it to Anna that we thought maybe it's better just to leave it since since we didn't have agreement amongst our committee and that murals may be changed from time to time that maybe it's best to leave it up to the what would be the cultural Council the artist and Starbucks who is always going to be in the loop on this um but uh obviously it's the letter is from all of
089us so it's um but that's that's where that's where Anna and I landed seems fine to me yeah feels like it's better to keep it simple yeah simple it's okay okay then um do we need a motion for this yes I think we need a motion to well I'll make a motion to approve the proposed letter for the Starbucks mural as uh written andal oh second second and a roll call vote De Anna tpit I Marcel I Katherine Jers I and Trisha Kendall I so that's taken care of minutes to go we still have 10 minutes we are doing so well guys nine minutes sorry okay we have think 20 minute CH yes Trish in the board I I do have to apologize because I'm I'm traveling um for a personal trip with some family
090that I haven't seen in a long time I I will have to leave in about just as you guys start um at 8:00 so I apologize for that in advance okay yep that's fine we knew that you wouldn't be able to um stay for the whole thing can we do the updates in between via what the planning updates do you want to do the updates now should we save us for the end the 1060 main can that happen is that a long discuss should I think we might need more time for that 1060 yeah okay that's why I'm wondering can we do the the review Precinct one replacement for the MH yes um is there any do we have anything in there for that we do not but I can just kind of set I'll
091I'll kind of update everybody so when we did um so when the comprehensive plan was being formed um we received um a number of uh applications it can that can be attested to by Kate and Anna and we broke everybody down down to the precinct um Precinct one I believe had six um applications and we interviewed all I think we inter we we asked questions then we uh ranked the questions and then we interviewed I believe it was a top three is that correct Kate um so Jake Colbert was interviewed he was the number he was the number third person uh the number one uh the person that was selected overall um has resigned from the design I mean resign from the comprehensive plan committee um the second person um no longer uh can um
092attend the meetings Andor uh could be involved in the process and so therefore Jake colber uh was contacted by our town manager and he is willing to step forward and to fill the role as a representative uh from Precinct one uh and so the select board to my knowledge has already uh put uh has already um made a motion to to um uh Place Jake Colbert on the comprehensive uh planed steering committee and uh if if we all remember that's when we had those large joint hearings between the planning board and the and the select board to obviously um form that committee and so um it was a dual joint uh appointment and so the planning board is at being asked tonight to make a motion to appoint Jake colber to the comprehensive steing committee
093uh Kate and an I know you were on that committee do you have anything else that to add um no I do not oh lost so um I I think before we just kind of did the candidates in in groups and it kind was previously decided for us so I think um it's just uh making a motion to accept the candidate I make a motion to accept um Jake korth as a Precinct one representative to the comprehensive plan steering committee a second an roll vote oh Anna's not here oh she's here looks like she's Frozen though yeah she might be she not working Anki I okay I Katherine Jersy I and Trisha Kendall I so that is done um okay so little items I think meeting a box is going to take longer than five
094minutes I think if anyone needs a break we'll just take a five minute break um the public hearing is supposed to start it eight I'm hoping we have more people popping on um and Peter if we can make sure the slides are ready to go okay thanks everyone uh I hope it goes well I'll talk to you all later safe travels Anna yeah why don't we just take a a five minute recess four minutes five minutes just everybody on Zoom we'll come back at 8 o' so for e all right so it looks like we are back on back from a break it is now 8:00 and we are looking at opening um our public hearing for the MBTA Community zoning bylaw um you see we have one person here how many people are um
095online just the five uh yeah people coming in nobody's coming in just uh two people okay do we wait just a couple minutes and see if we get a flood of people nice presentation thank you yes so we're those in the audience we just waiting a few minutes maybe to hopefully let a few more people in who are looking to attend we tested the slides I sat weighing back to make sure people would be able to see exp more people I was I was so I sat way in the back chair to see if the type was big enough I's going to read this in the just okay yep that's good so as we wait uh for people to come in um I'm just going to town planer Peter Mack I will read the public
096hearing notice into the record in accordance with the provisions of Mass General Law chapter 48 Section 5 the Ashen py board will hold a public hearing on Thursday April 11th 2024 at 7:15 p.m. this uh hearing was re was pushed to 8:00 um to allow for um other business to be attained to the proposed amendments to the zoning bylaw into the ash excuse me on the proposed amendments to the ashon zoning in ashon zoning map the subject matter changes are being proposed for compliance with the multif family zoning requirements for the MBTA Community section section 3A of the Mass General R chapter 40a in specific note noted below this hearing will be held in person in the ashon town hall section second floor hearing in room excuse me second floor select Board hearing room in
097remote particip participation is available via Zoom video conference platform to join this meeting via Zoom please see the plany board agenda the proposed amendments will be on the following sections of the Ashen Zing bylaw a additions to section 9 8.9 titled MBTA Community ex MBTA communities Pawn Street multifam over District B amendments to section 9.4.1 titled procedures for site plan review and design review C amendments to section 4.8 titled rail Transit District D amendments to section 8.6 TI titled Wildwood mixed use District e amendments to the ashon zon map as followed uh the Ashen zor map was posted with the town clerk it was available uh the proposed zoning Amendment shall be excuse me the proposed zoning Amendment shall be made to the ashon zoning map and to the following Parcels number one amend zoning
098map by creating a zoning District Pawn Street mixed excuse me pawn Street multif Family overlay District to include the following properties zero Pawn Street assessor map 929 LW 105 369 Pawn Street assessors map 29 lot 151 to amend the zoning map by creating the the zoning District Wildwood mixed use Excuse me Wildwood Wildwood mixed use dis overlay District MBTA to include properties 100 Chestnut Street Ash Mass assesses map 20 lot 271 proposed only amendments in the map the proposed only amendment and zoning map amendments are available in the town clerk's office by appointment during regular Town Town Hall hours Andor on ashlin's MBTA communties website through the following link parties which be held on this matter should should submit comments to the pl board ahead of time and door appear at the time and place
099indicated above for more information please submit comments to Peter matek in a list my office line and my email address all right thank you Peter so um we have a set of slides tonight um just as a little introduction for anyone that's online most people know this um but uh we formed a working group back in September between the planning board and the select board that consisted of Select board member Joel manani myself Trisha Kendall Town planner Peter machic and um assistant Town planner Alo ELO Esparza who I think is I think I saw him on line as well correct um so um we've been working since September um on a a plan to put forth um at uh at Maytown meeting and so it has been published as Peter has said and um we're
100having the public hearings to determine um if this is uh indeed something that's that's good for Ashland so if we want to okay slide one so I will just be going through there's a series of 12 slides including this one um but I I think we'll go through fairly quickly and then just get to a larger discussion so next slide perfect okay this is just the review it's a big review for all of us I've heard it a million times but these are the requirements that the state has put forth for these MBTA zoning communities we need to create a zoning District or districts it can be in a number of places they have to Total at least 50 acres um they have to have a minimum of 20 acres or we have to have
101a minimum of 20 acres within 0.5 miles of our train station the individual areas of zoning so each district can be no smaller than 5 Acres each of those districts has to have um a minimum density of 15 units an acre and all districts have to allow multif family housing with no age restrictions by right so next Pier so that's the basic qualifications we're we're working with so and the other the other component of this so there's acreage and then there is um units so because we're a commuter rail um Community we have to take our current housing units which is 7,495 by the 2020 census we need to multiply by that by 15% and that gets us to 1,124 units of housing none of this housing has to be built um but we do
102have to zone for it so it's capable of being built next slide so the working group the four of us um these were the priorities as we kind of discussed it over a number of meetings and um figured out how we should approach this problem we decided to use what we have and by that we meant that the planning board and um the zoning board of appeals had already recently approved and number of large housing projects that qualified or nearly qualified for the things that um that the MBTA communities was supposed to address things close to the railway station housing um certain densities and so we decided to use those efforts to help us in our MBT to fulfill the MBTA Community um uh regulations the second was to keep the density as low as
103we could that's 15 units an acre mandatory but we so we wanted to try to keep it that way if we could and then we wanted to respect the ongoing comprehensive plan process the town has in invested a quarter of a million dollars into our comprehensive plan which is supposed to help us determine where we want density where we want housing and to make a number of decisions about our community and so the working group is a group of four and then the planning board and the select group is a bigger group of 10 to 12 to 14 depending on how we want to count ourselves also didn't really want to take didn't want to make big decisions that should be Town decisions so um so those were that that's what we started with and
104starting to look at the areas that we ended up working with so we found ourselves settling on these four zoning districts there's sorry three zoning districts there's four properties within those three districts totaling our total acres is 72.9 five remember we need a minimum of 50 and we have 72 so we're fine there um so one of those is the rail Transit District that where that's where Cirrus is one is the Wildwood District which is where the 100 Chestnut Street project is currently in construction and the other is pwn Street which we recently approved a project um near the residents or right next door to the residents at Valley Farm that has been approved but has has not started construction so those are the areas we're working with and those are the areas where the
105zoning changes have to take place all right and just to look at those in a little bit more detail the first area is um it's the smaller of the two just in the way we labeled things um ugc this is an over 55 community approved for 180 units um this is a project that we've most people know it's currently in litigation and it it's a friendly 40b it would be um 25% affordable it is not currently in construction so we'll go through a little bit later um the current density of that whole area is 20 units per acre because of the way the zoning is written the effective density what it really looks like or what it really is is 14 units per acre we explain that in a little bit and then B is
106serus Apartments so there's 398 units currently built there it has the same thing it has a cur current density listed at 20 um but an effective density at 14 again we'll explain that so that if someone's reading the proposed bylaws they'll understand what that what that means we would in both of those areas we would need to increase the density a little bit because we need it to be at 15 14 is not good enough to fulfill the MBTA zoning right so um next slide so the other two areas are um are uh properties um outside of that transit district one again is the V Village of the Americas that's the project currently into construction um it has 174 units its current density is 29 and we have put a density of 29 on it
107so um it just uses what we already have there's no incentive for building more units then other one is 501 Pawn Street that is approved for 125 units though nothing construction hasn't started um that is also a 25% affordable project um the current density is 32 and again we um left the current density at 32 but noted that this property also includes the residence of Valley Farm next door because um 501 Pawn Street is only four acres it has to be five in order to use it so we've used both of those both of those Acres as a district all right so this is the little tricky part when we get back to I wanted to explain a little bit about um when we look at the unit count and I wanted to explain why
108um the units at ucg and um Cirrus has that um it has one density in the bylaw and it's it's another density of what it actually is and that is because written into those um those zones this is for the U ugc Arabella um the parcel itself is 38 acres but there's some there's a covenant in place that when that parcel is developed 20 acres is given back to the town you know as a gift basically we can't count that 20 acres so even though it looks like 40 we can't count 20 of it because it's a gift to the town and then in that zoning there's written in the zoning it says exactly where you can find it in those zones 30% of it is is set aside for open space 10% well 10%
109for open space and another 20% for impervious surfaces like parking that you can't build on right so that's when while you go up to Cirrus the buildings are kind of far apart right so the density when you really look at the whole thing up there on those properties it's zoned for 22 but really it's only buildable it only comes out to 15 units an acre because of all this because we have to take out 30% of the land saying you can't build on that 30% so we have to we have to Zone Z it a little higher so um so that's true both for ucg and cus and Cirrus which is the next slide right so same same kind of condition except it doesn't have the 20 acres coming out because the Covenant is about
110once the last property is developed which is ucg the town gets the 20 acres okay so that's why the kind of the whole process is a little bit not a little bit a lot more complicated than it first seemed because all of the underlying zoning all of any Co any Covenant underneath something also needed to be examined all of that had to be reported to the state in order to see if the solution would work so anyway these were unit counts um if you can go to the next slide basically the number tweaking that we did put us puts us right at the unit count of 1,124 units is which is what we're required to do right so tweaking the numbers that's where that's where we got that's good so in other words we we
111would fully expect this plan to work Alo has been through it he's um talked to the state I think about it kind of pre submitted it to the state correct so some of the so our bylaws have submitted to the Attorney General's office they've kind of looked at them no red flags yeah um so we were we're good to go so this this should uh this should be acceptable and work fulfilling all regulations of the state it looks at properties that are already built being built or are already approved to be built um the risks there are some risks in this um Michael Herbert mentioned it a little bit at the last joint meeting we had and that is that um even if you the risk is really for the the um the projects with
112access um with affordable units that if the underlying zoning if the zoning that they're allowed is the same as what has already been approved with the affordable units someone might say well I'm just going to withdraw mine and re re um submit it but without that it would be at 10% affordable I think in one case at 12.5% affordable but right so um but they could just subit submit resubmit it at a lower affordability and it would fit the zoning that we've that we've put on it on the MBTA communities so that's kind of the that's the risk there how much of a risk it is I couldn't possibly say but there's a risk so that that's not a risk of the partials that we have tentatively selected that's a risk anyway if you if
113you say it's buy right I mean we cannot ask for 25% so I mean I I understand and I appreciate it's pointed out because I think that's important but if we just took had nothing to do with areas built because we Magic Ally had enough acreage somewhere to meet the 1,124 units to zone for we could only require at most 12 a half% correct by right that's right so it fair to say the risk but it's not quite it it's not quite that simple to say we're not getting 25 if they choose to do it because we would only be able to require 10 or 12 a half right no I mean I I think yeah I I'm kind of sick about that those projects could do that but it it's it's not an increased
114risk of this we're trying to comply we're trying to offer our town a way to comply with MBTA zoning by doing this we're trying to um what we you the working group is doing is trying to provide Our Town a way to vote on complying with MBTA zoning if you didn't take places where there are potential projects we could only ask for 10 or 12 and a half% that's my point so the risk is mushed in there and not unimportant but it I don't want people to think that's an extra risk of because the parcels you chose per se no no no no it's just um we're trying not to we're not trying to lose what we work so hard to gain that that that's the risk okay so next slide this is the big
115one this is what we call the game changer because just as we were putting these slides together um as everybody knows we got um a notification from the state that 10 to 60 main which we had intentionally left out of our deliberations for the reasons that I stated before um has been submitted to the state as a as um a 40b project there was a walkth through today um about that Marcelo and I attended and um so the question now becomes do we happy to obviously to discuss the plan as we have it but there's no um incentive that I know of for going in May versus versus doing this in November when things are changing um we're wondering and this is um been a question that's been asked to me by um several people
116is wondering about if 10 to 60 main is going to is is there's an application in there for a 40b why wouldn't we use that app that that acreage as part of what we might do for the MBTA zoning right now at 250 units that's what's being proposed we don't know if it'll be 250 units but that is a zoning of 32 units an acre so even if we put the zoning down there at 15 units an acre we start to spread out we start to spread out a little bit more of our risk in other areas so um yeah for the risk that we have which is maybe the biggest one is at 501 um or we decide to take out we decide to take out um an acreage like for instance at ugc
117maybe we just wouldn't use that acreage at all right we wouldn't have it as part of the MBTA communities we're just wondering if we want to look at the big picture so correct me if I'm wrong a 40b is 25% affordable so if they go through with the 25 if if the 40b is accepted and goes through that's 25 if we make this a potential area of the zoning you can only ask for potentially 10 or 12 a half% by the economic thing so that doesn't make sense to me to like I mean the it's I hate to even call that affordable because we know a $3,000 a month rent is in my opinion is not affordable so that's a SE issue but how so how the waiting to get us less affordable if you
118if you Zone that for MBTA I don't understand we're not expecting that it would be used as MBTA it's obviously going to be going forward as a 40b it's about being it's it's it's our first premise of what we as a group had decided to do which was use what we have and now what we have potentially what it seems like what we have now is different than what we had two weeks ago right different now that's a very I mean that's just that hasn't even been applied to the town so I I mean I can see you taking the Gamble and and forcing that down to as low as TW 10 or 12% because the fall town meeting would be november-ish and then it might not get accepted till January but that project we
119don't know the cue of the timeline of that project no I don't think it's about that so anyway let me let me just finish um actually I I think is that my is that our last slide yeah it's the last slide okay last slide so the point is um the point we're trying to make is that we were asked to do a job with a certain set of conditions that we knew about in town and since that time the conditions are changing have changed we don't there's things that there are things that are yet to play out right and so we as the committee and I'll just speak for myself and let other people speak for themselves um I'm a little wondering personally that I could see why we wanted to bring it to Springtown
120meeting but I would rather myself have six more months to see how things play out so that I can then make the best decision for Ashland about how we should structure the MBTA communities so that's kind of that's kind of where I am on it so we're looking I guess for comments both on that and on the plan as it stands right is it a good plan nope it's better than anything we should go with it um and and that's what this public hearing is about I don't know if how many we have now two people in our audience welcome Mark um and I don't know how many are online um but that's that's where we're at we're on we're on schedule for May but the in light of the working group the game has
121changed a little bit so Trisha do we know like is it a if we wanted to play around with it like just 1060 main slot in easily for one or the other like the parameters for yeah acreage and like is it an easy swap okay yeah obviously there's work to be done right where to be done but it's not insurmountable uh and yes you could take 60 M 10 to 60 M and you it's above the 5 Acres it's a little bit outside but we still have plenty of acreage inside the the .5 mile radius from the transation so that's taken care of so you can drop ucg or 501 Pond correct you can depress you can you can you can you you can you can change the numbers around yeah right which also takes
122some pressure off of the ugc um and it could take some pressure of that off that pawn Street uh by adding in now you can add in as many acres as you want right as long as 40% of the total overall acreage and the total number of units are inside that 0.5 mile radius and we do we can make it work and we can do so because we have Cirrus right cus is a great thing that we have for us um and there's so so yes we can it's not insurmountable but at this point it's too late to to to do it within the model and within the zoning bylaw to get ready for town meeting to do the whole advertisement um and so that is the situation we're in we have a plan that
123we we we we hit our goal right we hit our goal because we we came up with a plan that is suitable that fits the bill and and that we think um can be adopted Andor um accepted by the state uh but at this point obviously with things changing um 6 months will give us the ability to continue to study right and to continue to learn and but also to to rebuild a little bit and if we were to include 10 to 60 Main Street we could change the numbers around and or play with the numbers a little bit to to to kind of force some pressures off of lots that are right now inside the equation I mean I I have been on board with the working groups plan for you know weeks I
124me since you guys started presenting it um it made sense and also liked the idea of going forward at Springtown meeting in order to give ourselves some buffer if we needed the fall but I do agree with Trisha that this is you know leaving a potential opportunity on the table that is kind of could be lwh hanging fruit for this that minimizes our risk at other properties which we you just talked about the hard work put in to you know do what was best for the town and some of those other Lots um I mean I would be open to re-evaluating as things change is is 10 to 60 within the0 five miles it's just a it's one yeah it's just outside but um but you can still it's still it still can count so
125I I mean from what I know right now unless we have a timeline I would not support that because I I think the danger is that's go that could go to a by right 10 or perhaps I don't think we include that in the study area but we can say maybe say the 12 and a half% because it in my experience I mean any 40b friendly or not it was never settled in that time frame so unless someone can kind of convince me I think you're driving that project by adding it down a much much lower um affordability amount so it you can't ask for more than the 10 or 12 a half% so if we rezone to include that they are not going to be completed I I can't see how they be completed
126accepted and once they're accepted they have two years to build so they can go back and build 10% anyway they can do the same thing that those other partials can do so I I I'm not seeing how that is adding up to make sense wouldn't they either have to do the 40b or go forward with ours wiing so like either either they go forward with the yeah lower lower affordability threshold but then they're back before us which has benefits and that was just or they go forward with the 40b at the 25% which you get the 25% affordability out of that but it's a 40b they they're not going to be able to build what their proposing building in the 40b and also reduce it to 10% that's right so it's one or the other
127yeah go ahead Joe I'm I'm sorry Joe manani I'm part I'm part of the committee um but you're absolutely correct it it's it's it's one of the other and and they don't have they can't tweak one and then tweak the other to meet their requirements you folks have that ability to do that you folks can put them this is what you need to do during that time frame uh to get to uh Kate's uh some of the concerns Kate has I have the similar concern Kate with with respect to all this the one problem that I that I see is that there is a particular piece of property that we talked about earlier uh that's in that's in land court right now but the developers that had that property and met with the town they
128were they were ready to go they they would have been built by now this has been going on for almost a year and a half this this land this land battle okay so in in my mind we would have had that that project almost almost done almost done it usually takes 2 years for this particular project what it's it's a year and 8 months already waiting for this to happen and thankfully the Builder has faith that this is going to you know be part of their you know part of their project and for the for the future so if this gives us the opportunity to hold off a bit to make sure where this where this particular uh land pel is going to go then it that falls directly right into our you know right
129into our hands with the original design of what we wanted to do um and that relieves some of that that pressure of units per acre per acreage that that we were concerned about because that's one of the things that we all we're all were in agreement with is that we didn't want to have it look like some of the pieces of property that are in Framingham they're so convoluted with buildings on a specific area that the they can't breathe type because you have building on top of building and that's not what we want for ashine we want to make sure that there is enough acres for this building for for these buildings and projects to work so that way it's you know you don't have to roll out the window and say hey excuse me
130I need a cup of sugar and just hand hand it back and forth to one another you know I would use toilet paper but that was kind of gross however I just that's that wasn't our vision our vision was to make sure that we met the compliance of the NBTA zoning requirements which is what we have done but again this this whole new facet that's coming down the road I it definitely puts it definitely puts things in perspective and I would like to see this play out uh I'm not one for waiting but at the same token this may be something to wait for and see how it all plays out and uh again all we we have the plan that's that we feel comfortable with it may even be a better plan once we
131see where some of these other projects come into play and who knows it may it may be to our advantage that now we have more acreage and we can expand that so that way we're not condensing M the the units on on one smaller piece of property so what's the harm of going to Springtown meeting with this because you're going to have you've already done the work you got it accepted we got the lawyer you if we re-evaluate another another parcel downtown you're going to have to do that work anyway we could redo that at the fall town meeting if it seems like something potentially would make this better I I don't see why that wouldn't you're doing the work anyway and I know that people have an in order amount of work and every
132every public meeting I saw people recognized that and thanked you and I will add to that thank you right but that work has been done we're ready to go you're going to still do the work to look at that partiel if something comes through and then it can be Revisited at fall my worry with that though is then then in order to get any benefit from that the benefit to us including 1060 main would be removing another property where we feel like there's some risk to the town and some risk to the work that's already been done to get conditions that we want for projects and I worry that like including a parcel and then rolling that back at fall toown meeting I also worry about like the Optics of that with the town to
133say we just we just did this in the spring we're going to do it again in the fall and do a Switcheroo I I feel like it's cleaner to have one Proposal with that's very well reasoned go to town meeting one time it gives us more time to do public Outreach on it and get people sort of understanding I know there's also a lot of thoughts on the 1060 project and I think um I don't know I wor I worry that going forward with what we have and then swapping out I don't I I don't even know what that would look like trying to remove a property in the F but like we and if we can't then we lose the benefit of including it's just a it's it's a it's a warrant article it's
134a vote it's a Zone you know and it's just it's part of uh it's part of doing business when you come when it comes to zoning I I just worry that it's like a very quick turnaround to I I understand because I agree with to me it's the the risk that we outlined that's exactly the risk those stuff can happen in those 6 months right so um that that that's just it it will it happen I probably not like I have no idea right but it weighs on the minds of us on the on the working group that you know but and just a note and and I know we have one hand ra Claudia is that we have to be in compliance by December 31st of next year right right and so that's the
135that's the that's the deadline December 31st of excuse 24 yeah I'm sorry this upcoming December 30 23d uh December 31st I spoke I misspoke uh so we have one person on online with their hand up I'm going to ask uh if you may please Ju Just as a general comment because I was listening to the the the arguments both ways and after hearing all that I think I concur with the description that you that you made Trisha it seems like it's a win-win win uh is re the the potential to relieve pressure from from sites that would develop the way we want them uh the potential to to improve the affordability using that potential forb project um and the ability to do it clean like like uh you were saying um in in one in
136one thoughtful run I think this more chances that that the town and the town meeting would would appreciate it more holistically and and and voted in favor so that that plan to me makes sense I'm just having being part of the 1060 design process in last year and a half and what we've heard from the town we were anxious when we even heard 185 units now we are seeing 250 units 25% that to the developer is still 185 un units that they still get but what's advantage of that 250 is your affordability past that when they came to us it was 185 minus the 10% so from the developer point of view the 40b is a great approach for them but I I would be surprised if our town is going to just accept this
137so I'm curious I know we have that as a separate topic but what exactly is what happens after this 30 days time period that we have a discussion on 1060 what happens what is really in our hands or is that just what comes our way because to me I somehow feel what Kate was to me that I feel like the work that you've put in for now yes there is a bit of risk in that but it feels like we need need the town to react on that and if you keep that to the fall it with the hope that 1060 is going to happen which I'll be surprised in like you said in 6 months we are already in April um it would be magic if it will have that clear Direction you at
138that time when you go back to the town with this proposal and there are kind of lot of back and forth you've lost battle in both sides I think we are asking calling for more risk trying to say let's table this plan and wait to see how 1060 develops I'm not convinced on that myself it's if if I may just add another point to that well but you can if you just have a no let Claud she's had a hand raised that CLA Claudia Bennett I see you with the hand raised I'm going to ask you to unmute good evening uh you know first of all I just really want to thank everybody too I mean there's a uh an unbelievable amount of work that goes into almost everything that happens in the town that
139people don't realize and uh certainly uh we appreciate all the work that this committee this subcommittee has put forth uh to get us to this point um you know I just want to say just from a very simplistic uh point of view that uh while I understand that a lot of work has been done it would be nice to take it Forward I have concerns with then having to try to change it come fall if that ended up being our best um solution or our best um you know way to proceed come fall I also feel as though uh there's a lot on the plate right now for this town in terms of development and I think we be we need to be able to discuss uh you know openly all the different things that
140we're faced with at this point in time and this is definitely you know a part of that picture um if indeed it it's going to be a 40b project then I do think that we should get credit for it if you will um and then the other thing in terms of the 30-day um talk back I think for commenting I think that's been extended um I'm not exactly sure the date of the extension but we were granted an extension when Michael applied so we have some additional time for that however we I don't think any of us should get too excited about that because from what I understand um those the the the ability and the opportunity to give comment um often do not prove to be fruitful uh for those who are commenting um
141so I would I would be in favor of w another few months and and have some additional information take the time to really have the community be aware of all the things that we're looking at in the community around development not even just this single um issue and and be able to bring it to um you know an educated um public in the fall thank you Claudia Joe thank you thank you Peter I don't disagree with what you're saying I would just like that it's just not 1060 Main Street that that provides us the concern it's it's a piece of property that we currently have as part of our formula and that could easily be pulled away and that's the concern for me in a far more than 1060 Main Street is to be very
142honest with you um because of the stature of the the the project itself and how it would fit very nicely in in this whole area uh and it if it stays the way it's supposed to stay and I hope it does I mean we're putting a lot of we're putting a lot of wishful thinking you know in land court and hopefully it'll get past like I said it's been a year and eight months for this to this to go through and um you know there may be there may be some light at the end of the tunnel coming this way uh so if we get that extension for 6 months and we have that vote in the fall it would be more than likely that we would probably see some decision made on that piece
143of property and that would be very helpful for for us as this as this committee to keep that property where it is and not have it you know pulled off from underneath us uh and that could easily happen so if we keep if we it's just not it's just not that one specific you know item and you're right 1060 is not going to get passed and voted this going to be a long discussion it's going to get done however it is a 40b it's not a friendly 40b so will it get done sooner than later yeah it will be it will be and probably not to our liking but hopefully you folks can put some you know restrictions on what what can and what can't be done you know so you've got a lot on
144your shoulders that's going to be coming up on on 1060 Main Street and I and I don't uh I don't envy any of you have to sit down and listen to this and and try to you know and try to Corral a monster that's L A 40b do go does go to the zoning board of appeals just for note note of clarification but you folks can put you can put yes you can put certain things on there as well I think it's oh sorry k i i was G to say I think it's important to note that like I think the idea of including 1060 isn't rubber stamping the 40b project as as approved it's saying if this is going to be built as Jo just said it's going to happen sooner rather than later
145it's saying let's leverage it and Zone it for I think we had said 15 units an acre which is way under the 32 that they're proposing to build and it just helps us get credit towards what we need to do for 3A so it says we're in this very sticky situation with 40b let's get something out of it for MBT zoning 3A purposes and I think that's an I think it's an important point to be clear about that to the public that it's that including 1060 is is n saying we are super psyched about this project at since 1060 main it's saying let's get something good for the town out of it and be able to exclude another property from this much more generous Zoning for 3A and and leave it out and have a
146project hopefully be able to proceed as we had planned yes and I think that to me is worth delaying even though I was you know very much in the camp of trying to do everything we could to go to Springtown meeting yeah and just a note from a number standpoint yes and the 1060 is currently proposed at 250 no one is saying let's go 250 right we could do by right we could do zoning that brings it up to you know if you do the minimum 15 units per acre you're sitting at 112 right then right so if you do minimum of 15 units per acre at 112 you can then depress the other the other pressures right across the board on the other properties the further you you move that that 112 up up
147to say 150 then the leite then you can kind of play with the numbers and so that's what when I say you can kind of shift things around and shift pressure around that's what I was alluding to it's not to say just it's not to say that we have some magic solution in our head here you know because we don't right we were trying to work hard for this which is what we were just thrown for a loop too two weeks ago right when we had to you know just after our last meeting when we had to say okay how does this affect us so I don't know what the best solution is maybe it be right back to exactly what we're proposing but it seems like we should think about it and we should
148see what happens will ucg come out of come out of litigation probably not but maybe it will will something happen at 501 will they go into construction you know and they got a building perent away Maybe not maybe yes right but all that's more information that we use to make the best decision we can for Ashland and that's what that's I think what weighs on me not that we have a bad proposal here but that now I feel like I'm using incomplete information to make the best proposal I can for the community just not yeah but so with that Kate I have a question so because this argument makes a lot of sense to me what would you say if you can point out what is the great advantage to the town to ignore that
149argument and go for the vote on in the spring because I don't see it yet if you can explain well let's be honest conditions always change and we had to get the working group got going knowing that UC uh ugc was in Lan Court we don't know it Joe seems to indicate there might be some more information and and I mean if that's part of the puzzle I I feel a little bit differently but I'm not sure that we do have more information or if that's going to be built right and um I feel like the the weight does not make sense to me the way you first explained it maybe all these pieces together possibly but I I I I'm not um definitely not convinced but can you help me pointing what is the
150advantage because there is no information there is a 40b that has been filed on on on Mass housing um and it will go through who knows how but they are intending to go through we met with them today the developer is there and they have financing and they're moving through the process so that's no information so what would be gaining from not taking it into consideration just move forward as we had a couple weeks ago because there's no way that will be settled by town meeting so we're back we will be in the same situation in November we're just going to do our best to make decisions and what would be the difference if we are back to the same situation then the vote goes as I mean one one big difference and I will
151repeat that is you now you're putting sort of a uh everybody over a barrel you have to pass this because it it's due by by the end of the year I mean I guess we could say we'll have another special town meeting if it doesn't fail but the the whole point of this was giving people a chance to say Let It fail we we aren't speaking for the community right we're we're doing our best to present something and you're you're taking an opportunity for the community to speak away but you think the community also just learn about these new projects would they not take it into consideration like like some people in the committee are oh I I think so but since it's not going to be settled I I failed to see how that's
152going to change it much it it's ucg it's a 40b this has always been an issue things that you don't control we're just doing our best we don't control the that zoning law we're trying to react to it so if it was settled I would agree I don't think it's going to be settled and I don't see how that's helpful I don't know that it needs to be in my mind I don't know that 1060 needs to be settled I think like to Joe's Point again and to marcelo's like it's going to happen in some way shape or form and it's going to happen at higher density than 15 units an acre so to me like if that's what the way we Zone it It Whatever ends up being there is going to qualify under
153the zoning they'll go forward with the 40b no matter what I mean if they choose to go forward under the zoning that we put in place that's great um and it's I don't see how the incentives work for that but I think what we get out of it is using it for this purpose I don't think it has to be settled I think it's of all the of all the variables to me that are out there with all these different project with the unbuilt projects 1060 seems the most certain to become reality and I guess I agree with that because the because the the process that we went through 10 to 60 which was extensive and we put a lot of work into it trying to really craft something that was good for downtown uh
154but uh the owner of that property has been making an effort for a while now and now he found his way to me that is that that is more likely than not just in any case and we have uh Mark that wants to speak and I think elro maybe maybe wanted to speak but just uh I just wanted to say that like this public hearing also is not about taking any Vote or coming up with any discussion decision it's just a discussion tonight and I would hope that we wrap it up at 9: so okay um I'll let Mark go first Alo and then can okay thank you Mark son 49 haon Road wishing and understanding what's realistic is hurting your decision- making right now the state and this town are on two different odds
155right now with what to do how to get away from things and how to go forward today April 11th we find out different things came down the pipeline but our zoning has not changed even it's going to be MBTA zoning so what makes the board think if it's going to work for the town if the state's going to go with what they say and then thinking that Ash and Zoning might change for them how can this be an agreeable and not worth the time to go over and talk about it and then change in the last second it's my usual way I'm saying is the two-way street compromise understand so everybody can have an understand of what's going on and come out together on this but right now we're in a pileup of misunderstandings and
156W in 6 months it could be everything kumay or it could be a bigger pileup thank you thank you mack uh Alo I think you had we want to make a point pal yeah I just wanted to add that I guess when we were looking at the math as well if you see the total permitted for ugc was 180 and if you see at the total permitted for 501 it was 125 that adds up to 305 units and so we were looking at the fact that those were a higher amount of units than 250 at 160 Main so in some way we were putting a Jey those 300 305 units uh while looking at the 200 50 so that was part another reason why um or another point that we had on our last discussion
157so just wanted to add that thanks bud um so I I thought that the process was after hearing the the planning board does vote to like say this goes forward but is that not true so so it can just either show up on the docket or not so this has been submitted to the warrant it's been added to the warrant so this is the public hearing where the planning board either votes to recommend and to not to recommend right and so the pling board can discuss this and then but what comes out of this yes is a is a vote to either support to recomend and recommend the article at town meeting floor in obviously or to not support the article as printed in the warrant for reasons listed you know and so um and
158so I think we don't have to come to a vote tonight you know it's very it's very um new it's new right and it's very common for a planning board to open a public hearing as you know and continue it uh but we do have to give a recommendation at town meeting floor uh just with the time frame and and and the regarding the state regulations that we were under and so uh we have to have one public hearing which is what we're doing right now correct did did we did we put on a calendar a second one or do we have one right now so we have one right now was advertised and then it can just be continued to the next meeting April 25th which is obviously this the last meeting before town
159meeting uh and then the planning board will be asked at town meeting floor to give a recommendation um and neither that comes from a vote to either to support and or to not support the article as printed I feel like one thing that we haven't discussed about a potential upside of delaying including 1060 and this is the last comment I I'll make I'm sorry for being so vocal on this subject but um I mean I think that there's been some some public sentiment around like are we just evading the purpose of this should we really be leaning into the purpose of MBTA commus and there is like an element of okay we don't love that this 40b came in it's not a friendly 40b we don't like this the way that this is designed at
1601060 we're not saying Rec psyched about it but it's also 6 miles from the train station and that's probably much more within the the way that this that the intent of 3A was designed in MBTA communities is that you know people are going to maybe just walk up Pleasant Street and and hop on the train I mean I think the Optics of that over some of our other Lots you know we're thinking particularly I think about 501 Pond that I think is a potential additional benefit of including a project that while we are not thrilled that it is sort of eligible now for consideration it is there I I think that's a good point very yeah so so the plany board doesn't have to vote on this tonight I know it's nearing 9:00 and we
161do have the state sustainability coming on committee coming on at 9:00 but um but we can we can table this matter and just continue it with a motion to uh April 25th if appropriate can I ask one last question so in a scenario where 1060 happens at that point would 501 get off your chart or ugc well that's those are the types of things like I you know I don't know what we we didn't discuss that all we discussed is is this an opportunity or not an opportunity like other things besides 10 to 60 can happen in there that would push one thing us one way or the other push the board not not just not our little committee the the 10 of us or the you know whatever so um I I don't know
162that that's the big thing it's a big question mark for me and that's why I feel less unfortunately less confident about it than I felt two weeks ago before we knew about tend of 60 yeah inde think the Bigg thing like obviously am if it comes in if if when you when you add 10 60 to the equation right 501 Pawn Street right development permitted that permits live right 25% affordability right if we understand that a new owner is going to come in right and if we change the MBTA bylaw I mean if we adopt The mbt's Zing right and we say they have to then build the affordability component to 12 a half% right that developer may say hey well let's go I'm just going to rep permanent this thing and that's the risk
163just to paint it right dead and clear that's the risk and so without and then also the same thing with ugc that's a 40b that permit's still live right because of litigation and so that that that shot clock hasn't even started to tick yet a comprehensive permit's a live permit for three years from the date it's filed with the town clerk right and so if we rezone with the mbta's owning that land owner that new own that new de that developer that filed that application could say we haven't even broke ground on this why am I going to do 25% I have this new Avenue I'm going to go in this direction right so to to to wait the six months to see what happens we can me we can kind of continue to work
164with the model right and massage the model to a point where you're you're not eliminating all of the risk but you're at least moving and shifting numbers around to depress the values right and so that's that is that is to be clear and honest with you that's it right and so you yes you do lose a town meeting to vote on it but what you do gain is knowledge and further information that you can make the most informed decision for the town of Ashlin because we could end up in a lose lose lose situation where we have techy we're not using it and we have these other two project that are permitted and live that now have an incentive to switch things up and and lower affordability than we had wanted corre and that feels
165worrisome that's certainly how I have been feeling lately with the ways the balls are dropping lose lose lose is how I feel but I think there's an opportunity for a win here and that's what has me Landing with correct and and the win is you you're going to wait six months you're going to see what happens see what happens with 1060 Milli if they file before which I predict they will before fallt meeting you add them into equation you don't increase their densities up to you incre you you build in the model at 150 units right but you're taking those units and you're adding them to the equation where you can then depress it down in other areas and and in theory that's what we're looking at right now so like I said we don't
166I just want because I just did not ask if anyone on if anyone else people a few people did raise their hands online but if anyone would like to speak obviously they can do so um so please do it right away though now that we're wrapping up I'm just lost in my thoughts here um but otherwise we don't need to make that decision today everyone can kind of try to really think through the details in the next 10 in the next two weeks we'll continue it we'll we'll talk about it again after some reflection and then and then and then see where we are but uh obviously uh we put in a lot of work on the working group there's nothing I would like better than to take something off my to-do list like that
167love it but I'm not sure I can right now so I'm just throwing it out there transparently and honestly and it's up for us as a group to decide right so um that's kind of where we are so seeing no hands up there on our screen if someone wants to make a motion to continue I'll make a motion to continue the discussion for the MBTA community's um um byow change to our meeting on April 25th is there a second second that roll call vote Marcel I Catherine Jers guy and Trisha Kendall ey so we continue all right before we go off I just want to make a public thank uh just kind of announce a public thank you to alaro Alvaro is our assistant planner in town and and he is the uh the heart
168and soul behind obviously MBT communities are mapping all the gis work that that he does and so uh so you know Alvaro is is uh he knows MBTA and I'm sure he wants to get it off too but I just want to uh uh you know I just want to give him a look uh at the public meeting yes thank you Alo thank you thank you all right much FKS thanks Jo all right so next on our agenda um is the sustainability committee discussion of the specialized opt-in bylaw and I believe I saw Ash online yep right there in the middle yep uh how how you doing Ash I'm going to ask you to unmute and I will actually make you a co-host and then also um I will also make the gentleman from doe
169welcome a co-host please unmute in uh Ash the microphone's yours you thank you uh I am going to try and be kind to all of you for you because you've you've gone through quite a bit today uh Dylan thank you for joining us I am going to try and keep my comments as brief as I possibly can uh I want to try and SP save space for any questions you might have um but um we do have a warrant article coming up we we've talked about this topic before and uh the sustainability committee will be presenting uh a warrant article again uh to adopt the specialized optin code um so I wanted to just share a little bit of detail about it uh with the planning board and and hopefully uh all of you will
170will choose to support it uh at town meeting um so couple of things that that that I'll just quickly kind of put out there this is probably the four biggest points uh to think about when we're thinking about the opt-in code one is it's for new construction um it promotes sustainability increases Energy Efficiency um there are multiple compliance paths and it qualifies the town for additional Grant opportun unities um and and Trisha I'm I'm going to skip a lot of the the side slides on this so so just to kind of ground the planning board and and anyone else who's listening on this um this is a reminder that we as a green Community already have a stretch code in play that goes that that's in effect right now and that gets extended or rather
171expanded in July 20 uh July 2024 um and uh as part of that a lot of the issues that came up when we last considered this issue at town meeting sort of go away in the sense that the stretch code already extends out to um increase the efficiency requirements the EV requirements you know they they get Incorporated within the stretch code so they become applicable to the noun of Ashlin regardless of whether we we adopt the optin stretch code or not um so so what I'm going to focus on right now is things that would then apply in addition to the stretch code you know uh if you were to adopt the optin code if if that makes sense um so three things really come into play right one is all new buildings must be
172either fully electric or pre-wired um the optin code does have the flexibility to allow buildings to use fossil fuels but they must be pre-wired to move to electric and the main reason for that is that when you're building new uh construction it's easier to pre-wire in advance and much more expensive to do it after the fact second is if a building is using fossil fuel it must install on-site solar but there are exemptions where Sol is just not feasible you know whether it's due to shading trees whatever at this the site and then the third point that is in that would be IND difference so so that that be separate from the stretch code would be that new single family so this is big houses or big multif family homes uh anything over 4,000 square
173ft uh must be certified either as Net Zero or if it's 12,000 ft it must be basically certified as a passive house um sorry so so those are the three main things that sort of come into play everything else that we've talked about previously really becomes part of the stretch code that that already applies to to the town regardless right so these are the three things that would be in play with the opt-in code only for new construction it does not in any way apply for refurbishments all of that those issues sort of get pushed to the side uh and then um you know again just making re remaking the point right it's it's new construction not modeling added construction costs there's now actually a a great deal of data that's actually come into play
174uh since then um there's actually good studies that have been done since 2021 and 2023 which I can share with you if you've got the the appetite for it that that really show that it's it's it's a between a 1 to 4% increase um and and that also gets reduced as you think about incentives and the the the total life lifetime of the building and uh again the the code does not ban fossil fuels there are lots of compliance Parts unless it's a very very large building and um the the biggest thing that's changing and Dylan's on here if you've got questions about it right the the the state is now introducing a climate leader program so so it's you know we've been a green Community we've been a leader in the GRE Green community
175we've actually gotten access to Grants I think the last account that I had was around 700k of of grants that that the town of Ashland has received as a green Community uh but one of the one of the new things as as Green community st. that that the do and Dylan and other members of his team are working on is this concept of a climate leader you know kind of come into play if we adopt the optin code we'd start qualifying for it it's one of the things that qualifies it for qualifies for us it opens up additional grant opportunities I think those are still being worked through but you know some of the things that they're talking about is things like being able to participate in community um um uh Community um sorry don't
176help me here um the so uh yeah no Ash is doing really really well but uh for for and you know this is a really new thing so I don't I don't blame him so um climate leaders can help fund community outreach it can help fund um feasibility and Technical studies and option studies for um renewable energy projects for municipal facilities and it can also help fund the actual capital investment part of that to the tune of um several hundred, we don't have exact numbers but um since we're still working it out but it's going to be um the same if not more than what's being offered from Green communities which is um 200,000 for Energy Efficiency or 500 for a decarbonization project so we're looking at at least 200 or at least 500,000 with
177with climate leaders depending on the um depending on the technology that's being and the kind of project that we're of project yeah yeah uh we had a really robust discussion the other day we had an open Forum uh our open Forum today wasn't quite as well attended we chose to use that as a as a comprehensive plan meeting in a box uh for the sustainability committee but but on Saturday we actually had a fairly robust discussion uh on on sort of various aspects about about the opt-in code so so if you haven't seen it you know it is it is available on YouTube we'll send you the link but you know again I won't train this topic too much main thing was for me to share sort of a lot has changed the the the
178issues at in question are are easier to comprehend um I have 31 communities listed here I think at this stage we're up to 32 33 communities that have already adopted the opt-in code uh we've got much better numbers in terms of uh the actual cost of of improving this uh I can certainly share those with you and uh you know again I I think we're better educated uh here are some of the numbers for those of you who are interested in it and I'll again send these slides out but you know effectively uh for the data that's been collected so far since in the last three years so this is super relevant you know and it's it's across sort of the kind of development it includes highrises includes multi family includes affordable buildings you know
179by and large 81% of the buildings are are reporting less than 1% construction cost premium and when you're going towards net zero so that's actually a highest standard than the option code requires um so I think we've got got a pretty credible set of data now supporting it and and we have a much more simplified code that we need to adopt uh so so I'd certainly hope that that that as a community we do adopt it um Ash's always been sort of on the Forefront of of uh of climate change and and and adopting stuff like this unfortunately ashin has recently uh been the reason why other communities around us hasn't haven't haven't adopted the optin code so so I'm I'm hoping to correct that record a little bit and and I'm hoping to to
180Garner your support at town meeting um to to to adopt the code I'll pause your again just being respectful of your time and sort of the the the amount of energy you might have I'm happy to take questions um before we get started thanks Ash um before we get started um Dylan could you just explain your role at the doer and what you do there and your expertise of course um I am the northeast regional coordinator um within the green communities program within the uh Department of energy resources is the green communities uh program provides grant funding for municipalities for um Energy Efficiency and decarbonization for um municipal buildings um I work extensively with um with Sam Riley here um on the call um for for those kinds of Grants as well as assistance with
181um not just the town of ashin but um across the Northeast any any municipality that's interested in adopting the the stretch code if they want to be a green Community or the specialized stretch code so since I have um been in this position in in October I've helped rough um about um five or six towns with successfully adopting the specialized stretch code and Ashland is one of um 10 um that I'm helping out this for this spring um in adopting the code so we provide technical assistance and grant funding for municipalities great thank you all right I guess um we'll just open it up to questions and comments from the board this is a something that um it's not a zoning bylaw so it's not something that the planning board has to weigh in on
182we can we can decide to support or nonsupport or provide kind of no decision correct me if I'm wrong on any of this Peter but I don't we're not obligated to take a stand correct this is a general bylaw so the planning board is not obligated to hold a public hearing we can take a stance on it and obviously we can vote to support it and then we could obviously give that report to town meeting and clearly the sustainability committee would love it if you were to support it justement so I just I just have a uh well I'm sure I'll think of more because I've been when I'm not thinking about MBTA communities I'm thinking about the stretch code and specialized code yeah which yes um so I just wanted to clarify and I
183this this this should be very true okay so in the stretch code and I'm just going to provide an example here in the stretch code um a certain a certain area would apply to the stretch code and as soon as you get say an addition and it gets over a certain amount of square footage then you have to use the um you know you have to use the full stretch code is there anything in the specialized code anything with additions extensive Renovations amount of square footage anything besides brand new groundup construction that fits with that enforces the specialized code no the specialized specialized COD only only deals with new construction um so I made a misstatement at the last town meeting where I actually included that and it was confusing trure so so to your
184point with that you had made even in town meeting I I was myself confused because the documentation itself is confusing but categorically the opt-in code only applies to new construction and whatever applies in the stretch code is going to apply to us regardless because we're Community but the opin code only only applies to new construction and Dylan you can back me up on this because you've actually been much more into the process than I have that that's correct I have nothing to add okay and that's I'm I'm actually glad you brought back up because because I mean I'm I'm reading this stuff all the time and trying to digest it so I'm glad there's people that are doing it 24/7 like as a paid job that can help us here as well to answer these
185questions my next question is because I think um on the one hand you know on the one hand there's 4,000 sare feet and above um and and what is affected by that um which has to be if if talking purely single family residents here and that would have to be um all electric um and um but on H on new construction houses that are less than that like sometimes we talk about little infill houses or trying to make these smaller neighborhoods those houses of any size are affected by the specialized code as well right as far as the solar requirements as far as the hers rating or going passive house which would have to be over 4,000 square feet would have to be passive house is that right um Ash do you want to take
186that because there are a few points that I wanted to yeah so so I think even with greater than Square the greater than 4,000 you actually do have a pathway towards mix fuel so so I just want to be clear but at that stage they do need to be rated at 5 Z which means they basically need to be passive houses and they have the pr Zer okay so yeah yeah so to add to that for any kind of house no matter what size and for any kind of multif family apartment you can still have gas yeah um for a house that's greater than 4,000 ft that's also having the gas option you just need to have enough solar on the rooftop to be Net Zero basically so you can either be um a net
187zero house or you can be a passive house uh um for for a single family and and also noting that being a house that it's categorized as mixed fuel you could be all electric but now you want a gas cook top or a gas fireplace and that immediately makes you mixed fuel is that correct that that's correct anything any kind of uh fossil fuel that's used for um Heating and cooking and hot water would put you in the mixed fuel The Only Exception would be um like a like a gas grill um like a barbecue grill or a fossil fuel based generator backup generator Backup backup and yeah so you can still backup um because like with a heat pump or something you can have a backup but but otherwise you would be classified as
188mix field but but keep in mind forish sure that that you know that that's requiring basically that you then achieve a HSE rating of 42 and and this isn't something I'd normally share in a in a wide Forum but given it's the planning board right I I I do believe I think Dylan you you were sharing some detail about you know new new construction that H that's happening and I think um previously we've talked about it like we typically are achieving achieving that H reading on new construction anyway is that is that a fair statement for me to make or am I am I being too too expansive in my statement so um I'm sure the planning board or um at least the the planning department has has more information on this but there are
189quite a few developments like the there's one I don't I obviously don't want to give away the exact addresses but there's a multi family development and pwn Street um in Ashland that um has achieved uh for most of their units um has in the' 40s um and I think there's another multif family development elsewhere in in ashin that um also has um has units um within the 40s so this is happening in Ashland already um so I it's not a huge I don't think it is a huge stretch for for this town I just I just sometimes want to make sure we we talk about the details absolutely of of the project and make sure that they're clear to Residents as they as they listen to this one more thing I wanted to say is
190that in listening to the costs and I understand that you know on one thing dealing with costs for um a new build which is very different than a than costs for a renovation addition and which would this wouldn't apply to but um but sometimes in in in my own work work um and maybe I just tell you I'm I'm I'm I'm an architect I do mostly single family homes but sometimes when I'm looking at those costs that are given I can see that maybe the overall cost of a project that only a small component was dedicated to bringing it up to this level of construction but but what I'm saying sometimes is that that occurs after the scope of the project has been reduced because the whole scope of the project could not be afford
191could not be afforded anymore right so the scope of the project is reduced and then the then what's added on is a percentage so I went so I always have a little bit of question about that because that's what that's what I'm saying in terms of the stretch code in in my own work so that that's all I have for now yeah and I think Trish you're right right the stretch code adds adds uh a level of cost that that's you know whether it's the whether it's the building envelope or or seting and at joints and things like that you know uh or or the type of Windows you're using the the thing to to to keep in mind here is the stretch code expands to these limits for her rating for example in July
1922024 regardless of what we do with the opt-in code right so so those are those are built in uh and the optin code you know really starts really focusing on pre-wiring which actually is cheaper you know when you're building a new construction or solar unless you just can't do it in in shaded areas right and and so so it really contributes more towards the life cycle cost actually being lower in the long term for for that new construction rather than being higher and and sort of is a pure benefit for the person who's actually going to own the property and a lot of cases you know if it's a low-income family or something like that this is actually a net benefit to the community and and to the homeowner rather than than a detriment right
193because the stretch for B yeah I I understand and I I know all that um the important thing to understand in the real world that that I work in any minute that I'm not working on MBTA is is that um is that the the the future benefit isn't money in my client's pocket right now right so that's a cost they have to weigh right so they don't get they don't get a a voucher to use now because their their house is going to be more energy efficient in the future and so I'm not saying that affects what this I you know I think this is a good you know we want to go this direction but I think it's it's about being very honest about what's happening in absolutely in the real world you know
194and I've I've I've been on listening sessions with different members of the doe doe where they're listening to feedback from the building Community about about the stretch code and there's a lot of issues with it so I'm not saying that's the case here we're already in stretch code I'm just being I'm just trying to offer an honest perspective about the world I'm living in so okay to totally and and super real and and I think on Saturday when when we had Glenn uh you know on on the call as well he he joined our our open Forum he actually raised the same questions to Dylan and and we had a fairly robust discussion about it I think you're totally fair on that right um that there is a cost increment and and I think we've
195got to be acknowledging that um again the only point I was trying to make was you know the the optin code is separate from the stretch code the stretch code applies in July uh regardless of what we do with the optin Cod and that shouldn't be a reason why we shouldn't vote for the opin code but but I think your point is absolutely W frish I'm I'm not disagreeing with it understood yeah well I I do have some um some comments but I think that was a good start because um I'm also an architect I work on really large projects I'm working on on opting stretch coat uh locals at the moment and and and I've heard um all all all the rosy pictures that typically are sold with this and where you were going
196Trisha um the real world is not the academic world of when the codes are written the idea that the that the cost is only 1% I would not believe it for a second because I've seen it um the the the the cost is not just the direct cost of construction of a project but the inter costs are humongous and have doubled for the client uh because you have to hire a bunch of Specialists to do a bunch of calculations to do a lot of things so on the one hand we say in the town we want affordable housing we want developers to build things and then all the new construction or those developers are going to have to be hampered with all this cost and then uh Kate was saying for a different topic like
197what what is called affordable is not really affordable it it's an exercise that I think gets the middle class out of the out of the question because people that want to do something uh just can't it's it's it's it's too expensive already with the stretch code and we hear so the stretch code is already in place in the town it's already get going to get more stringent in a couple of months we're already on the large projects that we have um uh that we have permitted lately have accomplished a lot of what these objectives have so I struggle to see what the need is to impose a yet more string stringent code just for to Pat ourselves on the back say oh we're so we're so um a green a green Community I think we
198already are and I don't think it's it's necessary um it seems to me like the the this type of Regulation is is very tped down and the incentives come with it it's almost the the government trying to force you through bribing you with with with applying these things that then you have to deal with the consequences the the benefits are in the future in 20 some years for for for for the people that go this route and very few people can afford it um the the in in in general I don't think the the the town needs this I don't think the town would benefit at all from it uh I think there will be uh there there's there's a group of people on the town that are very persuaded about it and I totally
199see why it's very it's very attractive how it sounds I think uh uh for certain cities or towns that have a different tax base and a different level of uh of uh income and commerce these would be uh uh not really a burden because they will already are a magnet for for economic activity that's not what ashin is Ashan is very sleepy town and we're trying to uh to help it develop um um or orderly and um and fairly and I don't think this is going to help in in in any of those ways so I I I'm working through it uh the Consultants that I work with have clients that that are basically abandoning projects because they simply cannot afford to either either uh uh build to a certain standards and still make money
200on the project and and that that that is that is the the consequence so um in general terms I I will not support this myself if the if the board wants to to support it that's fine I will have stain um but that's the way that that's where I come from I think that was Marcel I I couldn't make out is it okay if I respond to you oh yes of course I mean I I I I was not um making an argument I just giving my opinion and I appreciate that I just want to clarify just just a couple of points right uh because when we talk about the additional cost we're talking about pre-wiring and when talk well that that that was my point uh hash that that that that that when you
201when you bring this type of data for the public to hear like oh it's only 1% it it it it lingers as as as as something that is different it's fair Marcelo I I the point I was trying to make was with the a again with the with the with the opt-in code the the main main features again we're looking at the the three issues we're looking at right it's pre-wiring on-site solar Weare it's feasible and and there are requirements for large buildings I'm not I'm not trying to escape that th those those three issues right but but I think it's important to keep the context on those are the three issues right anything that happens with the stretch code that sort of built in uh you know and and so let's talk about what
202the added cost would be right so so we're really talking about pre-wiring and the reality is that it is much cheaper to pre-wire for electric when when you don't have walls up when when you don't have uh drywall up uh you know because it is is it going to be an extra cost absolutely I'm not I'm not trying to deny that anyway but but but it it's about pre-wiring and the the second reality is that the only approach that that we have for achieving any kind of a net zero goal is to move towards electrification of new buildings and and new buildings are going to live so so it is new construction new construction is going to live for the next you know 40 to 80 years uh at minimum uh and if they're not
203pre-wired someone's going to have to open those walls up and put the wiring in at some stage because the the the concept that we'll continue to use fossil fuels in the long term is in and of itself not sustainable and and the cost of fossil fuels is going up so well yeah what the optin code does is basically say hey just take the time when it's the cheapest to do it to do the pre-wiring and you have the ability to do it do the solar I I I I don't think that that works quite well and and you're right of course is it's better to do anything before you close walls and it's more efficient but projects in this town are already doing it is my point all the projects the large project of new
204construction that these will apply to are already doing it so so then there should be no issue right so there should be no need right but there should also be no issue adopting it but but the the changing that regulation cannot be just because oh maybe worse changing a regulation is a solution to a problem and and we need to start seeing it that way so there are benefits though Mar right I about the add let Marcel finish the idea that the idea that all the buildings in in a in in in an imaginary world are going to become Net Zero is also not feasible the geds of our country and our cities cannot tolerate everybody having everything electric that is a fact in in in in many cities where where a higher point of
205electrification has has taken place uh on emergency there's a reason why the code allows you to have as for a for for a backup generator because because you will need it at some point so so so I think the the my point is that just because a regulation is is always much more than it comes the first time around it's it's an Open Door that's why you should always try to regulate to the the the minimum uh the minimum level of of of of bothering the public as possible to solve a problem just because it sounds good and and people are already doing it oh yeah then then let's put the regulation up I don't think that's an argument for me Fair points uh I I think long-term Massachusetts has a plan to increase the
206the grid capacity Plenty Of Studies have been done you know and and again totally acknowledging that this is a long-term change it's a long-term change in response to uh to crisis that that is emerging and you know I think it's incumbent on every town every city Every Nation uh sort of to tackle it and and and again the crisis in in question being climate change right um and and as a town we've chosen we've chosen as a town to adopt a goal to try and Achieve Net Zero by 2030 which is more by 2040 sorry which is which is actually more stringent than the than the state itself has chosen to and if you don't make the steps required to achieve like just common sense steps required to achieve that goal then then you know
207at some level were we lying when as a town we we we we basically adopted that goal we chose a town meeting to say to stand up and say ashin as a town is going to achieve 2040 you know that's zero um so every single time that then we bring up sensible Solutions logical solutions that help us move towards that step to move towards that goal you know that's a decision the town made right I didn't alone town was the town wasn't lying to to saying that and I know because we had this conversation before the 20 the 240 date was brought out of thin air just to be ahead of the of of what messages it has is wishful thinking that is not negative in in and of itself but it's not going to
208happen the town may desire to happen but then the implications are going to become app parent on on their own weight sure and and my my my statement to you would be that if you don't even take the smallest of steps which is to me this is one of the smallest steps we can take which is in new construction we take the sensible step of saying pre-wire in in advance of closing a wall uh then then we'll never achieve it right so forget about 2040 forget about 2050 which is by the way the state goal uh or 2060 or 70 or 80 or 90 if you don't start making some of those steps we effectively never achieve that goal uh so so it's a decision I think that the town needs to make um what
209I'm suggesting to you is in in terms of making changes in our behavior for one of the largest crisises that we face um this is truly a min mini step and if if you have uh compunctions about about taking even this step then then let's basically as a town what to not really care about climate change or not care about 2040 uh I think that's not a fair way to put it and the the point that we discussed before that step that you think is important to achieve that is already happening you don't need to change anything it's already happening let me so okay let me ask some let's yeah let's let me just ask some questions about the about this more about the specialized code you have up the slide up here that talks
210about uh multi family um talk to me about strictly commercial um say ashin you know we're talking comprehensive plan say we have a new biomed brand new biomedical building going up but obviously is going to have to adhere to the stretch code as far as energy it does it have to have solar panels if it's all electric no if like what go ahead Dylan Dylan you had your hand up yeah um if it's a mixed fuel it will have to have solar but there is going to be a rule change um at some point this year that it's going to require much less solar than uh would typically be needed for a commercial plant so let's separate out that biomedical facility for a second and talk about just General commercial like an office okay or
211even a municipal building so it would require um 75 watts per square foot of building area for the largest three areas for a biom medical building so a um a lab or a hospital those with a very high ventilation in the rooftop that requirement is going to be cut by 23 so it's going to be 0.25 watts per per square foot of building area for the largest three floors so that's substantially that's going to substantially cut the solar requirement on the roof space for um High ventilation needs buildings like like a hospital so still going to require solar but a lot less than another commercial building yes I chose a bad example in saying a biomedical building um so the um so with with the specialized code say if I have an office building the
212um I'm still following and when we have specialized code I'm still following you know say the the teddy requirements for understanding Heating and Cooling and um and uh if it's all electric it's it's not pre-wired it's just wired right because that's what it would use already Elric the only only buildings that are pre-wiring are ones that are using mixed fuel and they'll only be pre-wiring to certain locations because they still obviously have electricity um but those buildings like an office building would if if it's all electric it's not putting solar panels on it's only putting them on if it's mixed fuel is that right if it's mixed fuel yeah if it's a mixed fuel um off its building then it would require solar um at at the rate that I just mentioned okay I just
213have one more question um I think unless passive house and that's be and and um that's because Marcelo and I have been talking about this in terms of in terms of some of the buildings he's been working on that have been challenging and so um I just did a little Googling to try to understand what he was saying and and what I thought I understood about the specialized Cod I'm not sure you'll be able to explain this to me this is really more of a question for Dylan but I found two different pages of the cambrid .gv website and granted one of them is older and maybe they didn't have a handle on this at the beginning but both of them say the specialized code will require builders for both new construction and major renovations
214to meet high performance standards prepare buildings for all electric why does it say that was that a Cambridge mistake do you know if Cambridge has an Cambridge mistake yeah this was this was based to me at some point before and um you know what what I'm actually going to do I'm going to I'm going to make a note to reach out to the Cambridge folks so that that maybe commend that because it is wrong and I can confirm that's wrong and and Trish I made that mistake too you made that we we we all made that mistake I mean Dylan's on the call and I'll say this to him and I've said this to him before the do are really screwed the pooch when they when they rote this out right uh it was confusing
215as heck it's taken us more than a year to to fully understand the implications of the opt-in code uh and and even then it's taken us a year for for the stretch code to expand to some of the limits of the optin code for us to simplify the the the conversation around the optin code right um but the reality is it is what it is I think all of us were confused uh and now with with the stretch code coming into play with with July 2024 sort of looming I I think I think the the the conversation becomes simpler right it it comes down to these three things and and I think all of us sort of had levels of confusion uh some less more than than than others just one last question because I
216I I really don't know and I think it's relevant how does the stretch code how does the law in Massachusetts apply for this the the stretch code or the optin code for 40b projects I'm going to ask you know the to 40b um I think I got the most of that it was actually a little bit soft but um so 40b projects anything that's multif family would follow the multif family part of the the code with like the the building code is separate from any planning law so the way that the just the type of the building dictates what um thank I'm I'm just going to jump in I'm going to cut you off I'm sorry I'm Town planner Peter mck I can answer that question Marcelo so that the a 40b application can apply
217for waivers right and so say in in theory Cambridge or or a community in Massachusetts they adopted the the opt-in stretch code right to the highest extent the developer right would apply for a list we apply for a waiver from that code which when to revert back to the basic state building code on the basic energy code correct okay so that's goes to add to my point so we so we have very confusing codee that people are finishing to understand yet we are going to try to adopt it and and we're going to put all these uh all these new regulations on new development and any 40b project that comes will get a waiver not do all these not worry about climate change at all and we are not going to get any new projects
218that are not for that's the out that's the outcome until I I think that's a pretty extreme that that's a pretty extreme statement right there because not every project qualifies for 40b um so so I I mean sure I mean you can make that argument but but I think I I think that's a little bit that that's a little bit extreme and again I'll go back to the point that sure you know uh the state codes are the state codes the the the legislations are legislation we we have to operate within the the framework of the legislation that's out there um but but you know um at least as it results in in new buildings I think it's incumbent on us to to take the steps needed and and again we're talking about these three
219things right um if you introduce 40b sure they they can apply for wers um that that that's their right um and certainly I hope as a state that we'll close that loophole but but that's not that's not in debate right now that what what's in question right now is do we as a town in believe enough in in the need for you know future future proofing our buildings and and adopting some s sensible requirements requirements which by the way you know as you've yourself said Marcelo uh we often times more than meeting uh you know youve you you've validated that for me so you know why not uh take take that step and and then also take advantage of of uh you know being a climate leader you know take advantage of the benefits that
220come from and and more more importantly future proof our buildings so um I want to offer the opportunity for the other three people just it's been a very technical discussion I know about this and I and maybe maybe I'll State first that I'm I'm not um I'm not where Marcelo is but I'm I'm not I'm not jumping for joy either right because it's a more it's it's a it's a more it's just not as easy and it's more complex than it looks um than it looks just to you know go green it's just it's um and I believe in that I I you know as you know I I've taught courses I've chaired the sustainability committee um but I also have a one foot you know in my everyday practice but but I'm not where
221Marcelo is I I'm more you know um that's why to me I just want um I want to make sure the truth and the the facts are very transparent absolutely especially especially for th those in our community that maybe building a smaller house or maybe you know whatever so that they understand those things um and then can and then can decide for themselves how they want to apply it so absolutely but um yeah any other three want to jump in at all I mean just I would like to I mean we'll obviously get this and I don't know that I want if we're voting tonight I I'd want to kind of digest more and look look at it I I was not intending that we should have to vote after several deep discussions at 9:30
222at night without having time be unfair without having time to digest and and remember that we don't even have to vote we can determine if we would like to or what we want to do but we don't have to do that tonight so I um I think I absolutely share the concern around um the triggers for additions and Renovations and I think that was a point that you know we've said it was said at last town meeting I think that that will be a part a big point of public I'm sorry to interrupt you I can barely hear you so so maybe move closer to the mic um you know any lingering ambiguity around that point is certainly a concern for me especially if there's thoughts that Cambridge has it up and is enforcing it
223that would be it seems like enough of a concern that's out there with respect to that um but I also think Marcel's point on 40b is a good one I think that you know the more restrictions we put in place that make it sort of harder to use our standard procedures if you can just go 40b and get a weaver I think that's a worry um as a board that's facing you know three of these now the important thing to remember is about a 40b is that once we actually hit our 10% right they we're no longer vulnerable to table of course so it's a it's so it's a limited time frame of of course I think um it's but it's a valid consideration that like sort of the more hurdles folks have to jump
224through it makes that Avenue look um much more attractive and I I would definely yeah I need a minute to digested it seems like a lot happening at once when the stretch isn't even Fully live I I do want to clarify the Cambridge thing categorically it applies to new construction we've now spent a lot of time and and Dylan again is from the de like I I think we can make that statement very clearly it applies to new construction there is no confusion about it there's no there's no debate about it you know it absolutely applies only to new construction there is no question about it yeah and I'll also add that uh 40b developments do have to comply with State Building Codes that's in the 4B guidelines yes so they'll have to apply they'd
225have to um um they comply with comply with this the base building code with the State Building Code which is going to be changing I think this year up being upgraded upgraded so so again that that brings us back to you know the limit of what the opt-in code is is is is effectively simplify it so um Deepa um lot to think about here especially after hearing the pros and cons from the two of you but I'm curious there were um ashin you did said there were like 31 communities out there who opted for this um to going back to what Trisha was saying we have lot of single family homes and justifying that cost to what Marcelo is saying do we have data to show that this opting this is the right way for
226Ashlin is there comparative studies that we could have pulled out from the communities that you have on that scen yes so so and and I'm happy to share here obviously I'm trying to put a slide together right so it's brief on purpose but you know build environment plus has been collecting data data from 2021 to 2023 uh across all Net Zero buildings this is higher than the the the uh opt-in code requires right uh because opt-in code does have the flexibility of mixed use especially for smaller buildings and uh that that's been a pretty active process even beyond what the uh de has been doing right and uh so the the graph that you see on the slide really reflects sort of their collected data and and I'm happy to share the study with you
227um and off the off the about 30 million square F feet of Net Zero building Net Zero ready building that was completed in in in Massachusetts in the last 3 years and that includes you know everything um 7 million reported their cost data so 7 million gross square feet reported their cost data and 81% of them basically had 1% construction cost premium um that's just fact that that's not made up you know um I I can again share back that study with you so you know I chose to be more conservative in my slide because you know I'm one not a building professional and I wasn't associated with building en built environment plus I'm interested in what Ash's impact would be I I went with the 0 to 4% the 1 to 4% sorry um
228but 81% of Net Zero buildings built in Ashland that have reported cost data are in that 1% range and that's consistent across all building types right so so again I'll share the study with you um whether you you trust the study or not you know that that's due diligence you'll have to do um but I think that's about the most credible study that I've seen uh that's most recent that's not made up it's not projected it's it's actually based on real built infrastructure today not not from four years back when when costs were different not from 5 years back but from 2021 to 2023 okay so if there's no more questions from the board I think we'll need to I think we'll need to wrap this up for the for the this evening and um
229obviously we know how to contact you Ash I absolutely and Trish what I'll do is I'll take the the the the five or seven slides that I did did share with you guys the the links that I've talked about including on the slide and I'll I'll share that back with p and yourself and and maybe you can you can circulate that with the board so that they can yes ab abely and digest it yeah I appreciate you coming I appreciate you being organized about it and I appreciate you bringing your your backup do team so that's that's great so I appreciate you you as me very difficult questions last time chish I wasn't I wasn't ready to answer all of them so I fig i' I asked the hard questions cuz I can't figure it
230out myself right which is why we brought Dylan and and Dylan answered Glenn's questions on on Saturday as well and Glenn acknowledged for the first time that he'd got good answers so I figured I'd repeat the process I'm going to start walking around with someone that can answer all the hard questions that's a good idea go there you go there you go so thank you thank you for coming thank you all right absolutely and and it was a pleasure and and again you know we're trying to do the right thing for ashin right I think we're all aligned on on the right goal absolutely understood yeah so yeah all right thanks everyone thank you bye oh boy okay so I think well the rest of it is just kind of just kind of us we
231want we had a couple sections from meeting in the Box I think we should try to finish those even if some people can't stay even if there's just a couple people I think we should try to wrap them up I know you have a big deadline tomorrow Marcel um so why don't we have that last and those of us that can stay you could always write in your answers you could always send your answers directly to Kate and she could write them you know um but I know you are you are under a big deadline so the things we just wanted to um do uh is ju um the 10 to 60 Main Street discussion is just about um it's just about a process it's not about discussing anything today but I wanted to share
232that well Marcel and I went on the walk through this morning um we can talk about that a little bit I also want to share that Marcelo and alvro and I oh earlier in the week met with John um teldon oh me what did I what did I say you said that I met with you guys but oh my God alo [Laughter] alo oh my gosh I'm going oh I'm I'm I'm losing it so yeah so anyway pet Peter this guy Alvaro B those up on the screen um met with John trelon TR traan Tran John traan um who is the chair of the zba he was also on the walkthrough this morning and um and we met with him I I had asked to meet with him to understand um actually to start to
233understand if we can have a if we can have a meeting to understand what the zba does and how they work and what the planning board does and how they work not to talk about specific 40b projects to talk about process because um John and I I think rightly so thinks that would that's not the way his board should approach having these projects in to be having separate meetings with different boards except about process so that we can understand I mean they have a three-person board we have a five person board they have to be apparently unanimous we don't right so there's different ways that it operates but I think it would be good to establish that relationship and understanding 40 BS are no 40 BS you know it's just kind of the timing of
234the thing so we we talked about that a little bit he actually already last week I think met and went with the design Review Committee I think he knows Kathy and the design Review Committee and Kathy asked them to talk to the design review committee so they're a little bit ahead of us on this one um um but that'll happen after after town meeting it's not about us putting our comments in or anything like that the schedule um what I'm what I have on the schedule Peter and I talked about on the schedule again it's so now our 25th meeting is kind of getting kind of loaded but for us to talk about what comments we want to put forward um for 410 to 60 Main Street right so we're going to put that on
235the agenda for 10 to 25 we could we could send comments even in advance to Peter so we have a document to look at if we wanted maybe that would be that's correct 100% efficient way to do it like send in comments we can all have something to look at we can add to it so we that we really start that we're not relying solely on night two weeks one on one night yeah just on one night really you know one night just to make comments and address it so I think it's a matter of compiling a comments a comment letter is going to have to SED to you know the town manager's office you know you know Michael and and obviously I'm here to help Michael in any capacity draft a letter and for
236the say say that again so so we're going to start with some with something and and reply or may one of us going to well I think if you need have thoughts right you can put them in writing to me yep and I'll print them out and I'll compile a Word document and then I can send them out leading up to the next meeting so everyone can at least read what people's views are and then at the meeting we can come together and kind of maybe outline you know items that we would like to you know create a you know create comments on so I think in because you had said you'll send out an email saying Hey give to as a reminder to kind of provide responses yeah I can tomorrow I can I
237can resend that link but I think as part of that maybe we should include at the site walk today the um the representative from Mass housing said that there are seven points for lack of it that that Mass housing considers in looking at an application now some of them are financing you know are like but you say also that the commentary they only this is the way I understood it that they were only um review commentary that relates she certainly I think I mean it was a brief comment but I think she certainly gave the impression that like our criteria or whatever it has to fit into the description yeah free it's not a freefor all that's right that's right she's going to send it back right it it's I think it's out there it's
238not like a yeah so I mean I'll I'll try to dig out she said I believe she said seven so if we have that in the email people will be able to say okay I can't say a thing about financing right I don't know what the financing is but it says this and I'll respond to that so it's really you can say anything you want but so you understand what they might have actually to listen to so is it possible maybe um I know that there's a push to get a lot of public comment in on that link like those is it possible to sort of let the public know that like when you're making comments you know saying that this is you know huge and gigantic and going to stram the school system probably
239isn't going to work for the state but if you want to fit your comments into these seven things that the state can consider that is because I think that there's a push out there to get people to comment and that's great but it's not I don't want everyone's comments to be sort of fall on De ears because it doesn't fall into the parameters yeah I mean if if we can somehow put that on the um on the website um we can Mass housing criteria something that really makes it clear about direct your comments to these criteria that Mass housing like does have con consideration I'll work with I'll I'll reach out to the town manager's office tomorrow and I'll make that I I'll bring this up as a point well create a form that gives
240you those seven options only coms nothing more that would be awesome well I think also I mean I'm not sure where this overlaps with with the process but I mean we need to expel out the whole public process right like how are those they're collected there was a form but like what happens and right are we just stapling them all in a binder and submitting them or someone like I don't know right hold on but but the way I from Michael's email he wants comments from the boards yes so we will receive those comments but we will have to filter them and then convention to some comments that we sent out the board to be included in that documentation it's not that everybody's going to come and everything's going to go there that no he's
241collecting comments he is collecting public comments but since I I mean we I get calls about it you people like I want to be able to explain to if someone asks me for something like what is happening with the process which isn't entirely up to us but like we we should know that what is the public process right how does our stuff fit into that full process and I think also there needs to be like there's not a lot of context for those comments right now like there we got some drawings but like I didn't get anything from you know I don't know if anyone's going to put a memo of the site visit and then I was surprised to seeing the application on 1:30 that there was a meeting with someone in town and
242there was never I haven't seen any documentation about that so like all that stuff filters a context of what we're looking at like the the more information the better right and everything should be public yeah I mean I think um yeah the exact process um there was supposed to be a document about that too I have not read it like about the 40b process it's spelled out right so that should be distributed it should be posted online it's something we should go through at our next meeting so that we are like okay this is going to happen first this is going to happen second this is this is how it works right and then yes there's our comments and what whatever comments we're collecting that come through us that maybe we can ask Michael more
243about what does the final thing look like that he submits is it a stack of letters one from each board or does he have to take the stack of letters and squish it squish it into one document that he's allowed to submit like I don't know right exactly but we need to know that yeah and then we we would know better how to write a fancy letter or just give a bunch of bullet points right like which is it you know kind of thing so that's the information we need to have a productive discussion okay next um next week and I you know I guess it's uh you know I um you maybe we can note I'm a little hesitant to we can open it up to the public we probably get a probably get
244a lot of people I'm not sure right but Mark's gonna this topic May generate yeah but I also want to make sure we as a board that's that we're dealing with it for a year and know the ins and outs of that site probably more than anybody in town um that we have an opportunity to make sure we the five six of us have a chance to have our our voices in there not to exclude voices but I want to make sure we each have a chance to talk about the things we that are important to us after a year-long discussion right I mean yeah you can only write it's too big one time right and that's enough this doesn't sound like a planning board night topic it feels like it needs a separate dedicated
245unfortunate time that if we are really going to be diligent enough to read all the public comments assuming this is going to trigger a hell lot of comments that's going to be a lot of time consuming work well then all I can do is say we can put I can put out a one of those doodle polls or we can put out one m i mean I guess the first thing is people are I'm we can put out an email with the as well saying what nights in the next three weeks or whatever can you not do it and then maybe we'll see what we have in common usually it's like the Thursday we don't meet but can't do it next Thursday because that's comprehensive plan and I mean they're meetings are shorter so I
246guess we could pig piggyback a zoom on like an hourong Zoom or something so possible but usually so the first thing would be I think to send out a thing saying here's three weeks when can you not meet between the hours of 6 and 10 what nights can't you meet you know and then we'll see what's left because it's really hard to schedule as you guys know really hard so I also think we have to find out like technically the where we are in the process is under the control of the select board and are they planning on doing a public forum which I don't if they are then we Michael mentioned something correct it was like at a select board meeting which I I adamantly told the people Claudia is listening that I don't
247think that's adequate for this situation I think it needs to be a separate Forum yeah I think that's going to was my understanding but that's not how they left the last select board meeting but there might have been conversations so if there's a public forum right that planning board can go or not I think that might shift somewhat what you're talking about and and I fully support of like we have I think it needs to be separate one way another just to have enough time like I said with the caveat that it's incredibly hard to get six seven eight people together and so let's you know let's put that out there and so we will see we will try our best I'm not opposed to select board handling their own issues the way they went
248to so that I don't what they schedule is up to them I don't think we need to direct their stuff but we can decide what we want to do with our stuff so um so anyway that's that that's that's all I wanted to discuss tonight um the meeting I thought today the walk through basically consisted of walking around the building and then the whole thing was about an hour and 20 minutes and then we we went in very briefly not not everyone even went in if you've seen the building on the inside they did take questions the the team the um so Gordon was there um the developer uh what's their name uh uh svl uh svl Ash so I guess it's a Jeffrey inler is the uh principal yeah and then um the engineer
249whose name bowler bowler was the engineer and then the engineer the architecture um Embark was there mhm so um um and they were yeah I happen to for the architect so um yeah so I thought they were yeah my personal impression was not knowing any of them was that they've done a lot of these they understand the process they seemed um open to listening they were acknowledged that it's an expensive site I think we all know that right with the with all the mitigation issues and the um you know it's just it's not a it's not an open field you know so um you know they talked a little bit about that they I think some of the things they talked about um as far as public spaces and um relating to the community the
250importance of the site you know they they voiced those you know if you know how much you want to take it with a grain of salt you can but it I thought it I thought it could have been a lot worse I guess was the way I came away from it actually developer opened the statement by saying this is just the beginning of a conversation I don't know how heant is the first yeah that's right so um then uh they also um this was at the end I think you had already left Marcelo they talked about um that it's a bit of an unusual project because um commercial is not usually a part of 40 BS um and that's by by the state they said that commercial can be included but it has to be
251ancillary to the housing um which I thought was interesting so it don't almost seemed like their the AR the architect anyway seemed uh kind of interested in it because maybe it's a little different because it has a commercial component as well um was my impression so um yeah and then it was just basically a tour of the site trying to understand how far back from the where how far back the building is sitting and things like that so not a lot of detail please I'm yeah no worries um anyone have any questions like answer about the walk through there wasn't wasn't wasn't tons of notes right could to say but but there was representatives there from the historical commission planning board select board conservation uh there was three members of the conserv there was members
252of the Conservation Commission there John trin's only board of appeals Scott was there Building Commissioner was there I was there conservation agent was there Town planner assistant Town planner yep Jen ball assistant Town manager Michael Herbert Town manager um it it was a fairly well attended group it was two folks from Mass housing um and it was a you know it was a site visit obviously it was run by Mass housing um it was their meeting along with the developer however Embark the gentleman from Embark the architect and obviously the civil engineer uh did kind of comment on their plans kind of as as everyone kind of walked the perimeter of the building so is anyone is Mass housing or is anyone from Ashlin putting a memo that can be made public I feel like
253the more everything should be public about this or else people just feel like they don't have any say and that's not true they do have a say we can probably put together it'd be a very few notes because I didn't take notes or I I took I probably took 10 notes but I mean between everyone you're saying was there Town manager assistant Town manager conservation who was there basically what we did I think public should know and I think the more transparent the better I think it's fairly easy to do just don't like I said don't expect a whole detailed list of what was you know there's one person there's a couple people I couldn't identify but Peter might be able to might be able to know so all right so we will we will
254do that we can work on that excuse me I mean that no one did like a signin sheet usually they do on those kind of things I didn't get one no Mass it was okay like again there was M it was mass housings meeting it was not organiz we contact them and ask for any notes from them I didn't they weren't taking any notes they were going on a tour I didn't see them take any notes nope one of them was pushing a stroller with a baby in it and the other one yeah there weren't do we have a timeline of when we're getting 7po decision making checklist do you have like a timeline do you know is it available online yeah it's it's their it's their standard it's like looking up our bylaws okay
255yeah I'm going to try to research it I'll try to research it tomorrow yeah yeah I think with a very limited time not only for this whole process but also members I think we have to chalk out a game plan just so that we don't L up pointing fingers and not being efficient and really make sure that the public can weigh in and we as a board have time to go through that and if you're nominating one person or two to gather it's a lot of work in the limited time so I think we to come up with the game plan yeah so I would say I mean Peter and I already have like have a a to-do list from this meeting so I would say if you guys are are saying Hey where's that
256email make sure you guys say hey remember you're going to send us this email because yeah it's a long to-do list so I'll put that on you guys to remind us if if we don't get right back to you that that you were going to send this out and maybe it got lost in the shuffle so yeah we'll try to dig that out and just regarding like 40b I think uh I know tomorrow and you know we're we're looking to add information and and take you know add links and we do have a couple towns that have built up some you know a fairly good library with links about 40 BS and so hopefully we'll we'll get that up and running you know and um no I understand so while we're on 40 BS why
257don't we we we missing members but I still think we should have it out there about the the other yeah so you know further than obviously the 1060 Main Street we did receive another email that there is another 40b that is poised to apply for Mass Housing and so um you know just to kind of give everyone the heads up that there could be another you know possible Second 40b Coming Down the Line um right now we are at 5.62% in our subsidized housing inventory so we are open right and uh and so um just kind of put that on everyone's radar you know um you know it it really came came from a development company uh it did not come from Mass Housing and or any other state agency that could issue a a
258letter however you know it it is it is kind of uh we were emailed um and did receive notice through our town clerk's office that um a second 40b could be filed um within Day within days weeks whatever we don't know what that is um but that is the situation that we're Street where's the parcel it would be along uh Waverly Street and East Union Street I thought when we started this MBTA topic we said there are no more Parcels out there to have a large project and hey let's look at what we have but doesn't sound like there's few yeah there's a few you know there's not too many there's no there's not too many easy Parcels yeah but there's a few Joe mentioned a second one which would be a third nope that's
259what oh he said there were two more that's the one that we have were alerted of yeah uh there's another parcel that um that we have not received any communication on regarding a4b but I think you know um it's it's on folks radar yeah and that would be in the P Corridor so okay so um that's that I also wanted to just um if there's any updates and then we're going to go to meeting in a box um I just wanted to make one update on here that's not on this list is that um because we all received an email regarding 12 Pon Street in the pocket park um so actually after Charlie zimuto what I think I have to recuse myself anything of pwn street so I'll just go I it's they were pretty
260particular at the state about that so I'll just go get a drink of water all right well I'll just tell you then that um uh so you got that email about uh yeah but I had already commented to Anna at the time that um that uh that I think there was something about a pocket park but I can't remember if we used that term I was you know I I'd have to go back and look at it because I didn't remember I did go back and look at it the very next morning it does say in the conditions it uses the term pocket park in quotes I looked at the drawings it's not a it's kind of they're kind of paved areas with vegetations around and some benches it's not like this big park or
261anything right so I don't want to put the wrong idea in people's heads but I did talk to so that was we had the meeting Thursday on Friday morning I talked to Peter about that and asked him to reach out to Charlie zudo about about this and you did I take I took the orders and uh no no I did R out to Charlie early this week uh it's following up after well actually yeah after I filed the decision obviously I sent it out they have it uh they know about the the the 9 to 49 but I did have a conversation with him regarding to a Pawn Street and to set up a meeting to obviously finish off that project the state's going up the state will be in that area to finish off
262the sidewalks and and I did bring I will and I did bring that up as point and hopefully within the coming weeks I can kind of set up a meeting to go out to the site and and meet with Charlie to kind of you know finish up that project uh and and hopefully uh for him as well because I think everyone would love to see some some commercial entity move into those spaces in the basement forist and just not happen well it the the pocket I mean again pocket park is is that the outoor seating that was yeah you remember like there's like there's these little paved areas on the left hand side of the building correct yeah with some vegetation and a few benches and we called it a pocket we call it pocket
263park it's in it's in the decision that says pocket park but I like I said I think relative to the one even 9 to 49 with the pergola and the painting it's you want to be kind of careful I mean yeah maybe that's why we put quotes around it but anyway um we did want to go go back and say look this is what we approved and this is what's in the drawing and we have to have this so Peter is talking to has has already talked to Charlie about that long before getting the email and so it was in process was just waiting for our meeting to distribute that information so anyway I just wanted to let you that's just that update thank you for closing the loop on that okay and other than
264that I don't have any updates that I feel are need to be shared yeah I just have one new application uh the Joanne Drive the apartment complex they're trying to they're going to come and try to put solar a solar canopy or solar array over their parking lot uh similar to what the high school has um and so that is no yeah so that's just a new application that we'll see in the planning board process okay other than that I think we have everything's off the agenda unless Kate has something she wanted to report on that any other reports uh um no I'll just do a plug to do meeting in a box hopefully everybody gets to do it with their neighborhood their family something it would help and encourage everybody because the public this
265phase of public comment the very important is ending April 26th I did do it with CPC but I that was two days ago and I have yet to submit this the stuff have to read write my messy writing I did one last night and it was very it was it was a good it was a good time all right so I think that leaves us with meeting in a box how many sections did we have left oh this will be it's actually pretty easy because we have two but one I think when I I typed I I'm up to-date typing and it's sort of overlaps with stuff we've we've done so uh Activity six ways to play in and experience Ashland imagine the ideal future for Ashland's recreational offerings and cultural spaces events Parks festivals
266concerts open space ath athletic facilities and cultural landmarks one what would you like to change what would you like to stay the same two what recreational events programs and places does the town offer three how do Arts and Cultural programs enrich the ashin community four what types of gathering places exist in the town what amenities do the spaces have five how is information about community events and programs shared with residents just starting from the end first the sharing it's like I get everything almost information overload from that from the newsletter you know that it it's kind of starts out with all the business stuff and then there's all the event stuff I'm glad it's all in one you just you know that so but I I don't know how I I I don't get it
267from anywhere else but I I know it's coming on Friday or Saturday and I'm I look forward to okay what's happening but I wonder how people that aren't I don't know maybe maybe aren't on email like if they have a I don't know how else I would get it or how else it's out there besides that newsletter which I which I I'm that's all I need is the newsletter but I'm not sure about other people um a lot of it's social media yeah yeah with the events and stuff correct and then I think there are also those manyi groups for cultural activities that I know that there is a gathering in Corner Spot for something so I think there are lots of WhatsApp groups that's floating out there and I feel like sometimes I find
268info from there when you talk about social media what do you talk what about besides Facebook like I think it would be Facebook for I don't I don't use a lot of social media yeah I don't either that's F I don't know if like I don't know if The Corner Spot has like an Instagram or a Twitter or X whatever it is like I I they might I see Corner Spot stuff on the Corner Spot Facebook Town Facebook when they I follow those sites so I see them um I mean in terms of like envisioning what we have in 10 years I would love to see um like an enhancement of what we have at Stone Park I would love to see that space really activated it's so Central and would be so incredible to
269have that I mean you know you know when I think of like park in that way like that's we go there all the time there's a splash pad great playground really beautiful sort of open walking paths and um I feel like Stone Park could be that in Ashland I would love that I would love to see that um you know enhancement at the sort of continuing to build on what's happening at the community center and having that be sort of more of a central um space I think would be of great development 10 years from now um see more more segments of our community more sort of groups being able to use and leverage that space we were talking about this last meeting like it's pretty amaz like sneaky amazing what is in there um
270too yeah I definitely agree with like Stone Park that seems like a central area that yeah it has a playground yeah it has a basketball court yeah it has Pavilion but none of it's really has a wow factor to it right and it could be yeah and it could it could really you know um so I definitely agree with that I think um you know other places like you know Cadillac Park that I you know which Alo I think was involved in like um it has a lot of potential so I'm interested in seeing What Becomes of that even places like the dog park you know it is a Gathering it's a gathering place right so some of those things are already happening but I think Stone Park is one of the ones where there's
271no there's no plan for it [Music] um yeah so I think a big one is um like pool facilities and I feel like I'm so intrigued to see what the Y will bring to the table with that kind of thing you in terms of recreation thinking of it will have an indoor Pole right but I don't think and I don't think there's an outdoor pole just at the indoor pole um we have a lot of isolated moments and I think they're too static at this point it would be good to see how our comprehensive plan will help these Open Spaces to be a little more organic fluid and something that's very adaptable with the season changes um it's currently too static and isolated from one another being a we not a large town we are
272still a small town um so it'll be really good to see how the comprehensive plan will gather all the Open Spaces in Ashlin and start to tie in these moments that when you go across the town there is that fluidity from one end to the other and not a huge difference that all activities happen in just one corner and nothing happens in the other so that' be great also to see how I think we talked about this before about like different fields like the school Fields school like things that are part of school property can how can things overlap a bit more just with residents being able to use those I mean like playgrounds at Warren like I took my kids there all the time right to play at the playgrounds at warring waren when
273there wasn't School happening and of course it always have to be opposite of school but if those facilities say at the middle school or whatever can be enriched more so that they are really an asset for both like a shared asset between the schools and the town you know that um like you said be more activated during the summer and during weekends and things like that and we do have different Generations in town so I think it' be great to think about stepping back and looking at opportunities for different generations and there may be people who use the same open space in very different ways so opportunities to create for the town folks to I I like my walking PAAD so that's where I want to be but I don't want to be in the
274noise of when a active kid family is there so I think opportunities for different generation I think as we we are all aging and I think hopefully this comprehensive plan will open door doors for every generation to be and want to be part of Ashland let's see um Arts and Cultural we don't have to we didn't talk about that too much I think we we hit everything else so we can move on or it kind of ties in right like we are a diverse community so I think having that these moments will open up opportunities for different culture and cultural activities yeah I mean I think there are a lot of cultural activities that like I said I get them in the it'd be kind of maybe I know like doce Le um hangs artwork
275local artwork but I don't know like there other areas that maybe like almost like a a little art gallery or some place that features well it could be some traveling work you know by yeah artists from niic you know but but also featuring local artists you know or I know that would be kind of nice I don't think we have something like that it might just be a room but something I guess the library has some things like that you know has exhibits um but it could be something just for the Arts as well um let's see reflection on identif ify tensions and synergies this be a fun one for a planning board the comprehensive plan contain many different elements for example housing Transportation open space there can be tensions between elements as well as
276synergies or ways they work together is it important to recognize where hopes for one element conflict or work against hopes for another element in order to brainstorm solutions to balance competing goals an example tension between conservation and growth a Synergy between housing and economic development what are some potential tension points or conflicts between elements of your vision and goals what are some potential synergies or ways elements of the plan and goals can work together what else do you hope will be included in the comprehensive plan that's an easy one the ratio of built environment to open space um I didn't catch the first part the ratio of built environment to open space yeah I think that boy with just what Peter was reporting you know all the the things that are upcoming you know it
277really makes me think about um affordable housing versus overcrowding in schools you know um or any of the Town resources we've talked any of the Town yeah any of the Town resources but you know we obviously we care about affordable housing it's important we've talked about that numerous times but where's the where's 's the balance and if it grows so quickly like boy wow you know I'm concerned you know um so I think there's also uh you know something we talk about all these different amenities that sometimes it's like well we we want to have all these phenomenal things in our town but we don't want anybody else to come in we don't want any overcrowding so it's like you're trying to make this really good town but you don't want anyone else to live
278here right and I think that's sometimes we something we have as a town like we want it to be small but we want all these great amenities for ourselves and that's just not how it works right those things if you have all these amenities you have people that are going to want want to come in and then land that gets developed because it's it's worth people will buy those units right kind of thing so um it's a catch22 in a way yely how about what else do you hope will be included in the comprehensive plan I would like to have a real sense of where people want more stuff density orsus right and it might not be residential density I think we're going to that's coming anyway but like we talked about the Pleasant Street
279around the train station right it that it might be nice to get off the train and there's your your local pub right that you just go right in you meet you know whatever or or coffee shop on your way in or whatever it is it might be a good place what about um you know I think again I can't remember when I who I talked this stuff about but like the front area of Shaw or the front area of like where Mazi is like along the roads like these big parking lot and the building sits way in back like can that support more little stores or offices orice yeah like smaller things so that you have something along the street instead of just street parking lot and a building but something that isn't residential necessarily
280right like I think we got that we may have that covered but just but I would like to know where people are like yeah we could actually use something here you know or the right thing isn't here we have some industry here but that's not where I want to pop in with my kids you know kind of thing I really hope the comprehensive plan is going to be a real master plan for us to use um as we grow as a town it's going to be very hard to say we are not growing but I hope the master plan will be a good guide not only for planning board but for all the community to say you know what this is our downtown this is how this are these are things that's really special for
281downtown this is 126 Corridor this is what's really great about that and um I really hope that we are able to gather enough data to create this master plan that we can use moving forward and along those lines I I think um not to this isn't something to be included by I guess to to be very you know specific and actionable like like give us a road map you know this if we have this very aspirational plan that we don't have any sort of idea how to implement or any tools to actually get ourselves there I think that would be um a missed opportunity yeah things that'll allow us to things to that allow us to actually look at our look at our zoning bylaws and say no we're going to Zone this for this
282reason because the comprehensive plan said we want businesses along the strip you know so that we actually can modify our zoning to to because I'm not sometimes I'm not sure in looking at the bylaws if what's in there is really what the town would want now versus when whenever those bylaws were made y right and so it's like I think we should tweak them but how you know it doesn't have to be rigid but I think like you said need a road map need some tools that we could use which may evolve but it needs we need one I could help with that if you wanted you're right the road map I did most of the zon a updated mhm by email email address so I we kind of hit everything I usually kind of
283end and it's a little bit harder because we've done this over weeks but I can quickly read I don't know the best way the topics or I I can send this out I full disclosure it's on the printed format what it does is it just keeps scrolling so if you have section one you'll say section one but it just it's weird to read um but I can send that out and then if people have other comments uh maybe before I send it in I don't know the best way to I'm good I don't need to yeah just yes no I meant if you because usually we do it sort of continuously and then we I we kind of push and try to go through it and then give people a chance to anything else which
284you kind of got but I don't know since the other topics were a while ago if there's anything that needs to be Revisited my guess is you there was a pattern in all that we said in all these um there it was very interesting because I everyone has had a pattern I'm I mean I can say for the public they hit things the planning board did not which I'm very proud of I you hit things the public did but there are many things that public did that planning board did not so it's really fascinating yeah no I think that's great I mean things came up in CPC that didn't come up that I hadn't y so yeah no it's really I'm awesome we've heard many many that overlap and we have a consultant to smush
285all that together for us yeah well it's kind of in a way there's kind of two groups of things the things that overlap it's like okay but the the unique oneoff items kind of probably really make you think you know yeah yeah it'll be interesting the next um well thank you that's great thank um so we we have yeah we have till April 26 if you I'm just person Peter that person that wrote to me today I'm like here's the link could you do the survey right like every person by person just keep asking yeah just to make a note um I did post the meeting so next Thursday okay the consultant is going to have a our RK I mean I'm sorry rkg uh goson uh is going to have um a existing conditions
286presentation the slack board the planning board are invited did I did post a meeting uh but just to make a note um traditionally the comp plan was me is has been meeting in the um the basement in the library and Kate this is probably I don't know if this is news to you but that meeting is going to be switched to this room and just because of in the in the library basement the comprehensive plan and I traditionally use The Owl and the owl just like spins around the room and so to fit all the people all with the planing board on S board I was going to do row seating like we already have here in this room now this seating arrangement really wasn't going to work for the owl so I kind of
287made wanted to call just kind of made the change to bring the meeting here having the meeting in this room allows us to have wacka and wacka is going to come and broadcast live and I know some of the members are going to be on on Zoom so I'll run the zoom meeting just like the planning board meeting however wacka will be able to record this and then we'll be able to link it to our website and so I think hopefully it will hit a larger audience uh from the public it'll be live it'll be on Facebook live and obviously we can just post it and it'll be a higher quality which I think is really important rather than the owl well especially since it seems to be more of a presentation type meeting than
288a small group discussion type it this is like the end of a phase there's three phases through their process and this is is the like the beginning of something else but the end of a phase and and that's so yeah I I don't it's pretty important I think I'm a little checklist you and I Kate were planning to come in person and I think everyone else said likely Zoom so for for the 18th um I just add my um only life easier harder for her she is there I don't I don't know if I have her yet so yes I don't I won't be there yeah it could be on wacka TV you know what I mean but if you're in the room great but just to give everyone the heads up it's going to
289be broadcast Facebook live it'll be it'll be it's posted the meeting the plany board meeting is posted for this room with link so it should be all hopefully all set all right anything else remaining members so you have a public comment is it just something that we are oh last thing on the list they have public comment do you have any public comment Mark he was waiting for it one time to the mic you know can't sit down and then go back up again one time to Mark okay thank you Sony 49 haon Rose this is directed to our town planner it's one question which I didn't get a reply from yet okay can I can I speak to him please 100% okay it's on the agenda but never got discussed so I'm going to
290bring up the questions Mr matek Peter did you get my email you know what Mark I'm not going to lie I've got a lot of emails it's been a crazy week so let me dig through them tomorrow it was about the why W mix use okay and I what I wanted to bring up the questions and I was looking at that what it was on the agenda tonight and I was going to ask the questions was anything going to be changed on it and no is the is the Zone board going to be involved in this in this so the chain so the Wildwood so the Wildwood District right which was dis which so the Wildwood District right encompasses a very large swath right and that would include the the Wildwood District Mark has a
291couple different subects right and so what we were doing with the NBTA zoning was pretty much picking the one parcel of land which was F 100 Chestnut which that development is going on to satisfy the MBTA now it was cherry-picked right because it had the density and it had the acreage and so it had the unit count and it was about six acres right and so it it fit the bill but to do that you had to create its own new subsect right because I could not select the entire parcel which Village of the America's Encompass right now if included all of Village of the Americas and all that acreage I wouldn't have the density that would have fit the MBTA regulations so to create to so so to take that parcel of land and
292to take that development to use it within our calculations I had to cherry-pick it and create a new subsect a new parcel called the Wildwood mix use District to therefore then satisfy MBTA requ requirements and by Wildwood mix Special Districts yep 8.6 let's tell you I did look it up there's a table of usage yep is that going to be broken down changed around you know I have to go back and look at it top of my head right now but it was not the it was it was not the um when we when we did all the zoning work for this we we did not we we mirrored it however we we also there was a couple ones that really didn't make sense so we just didn't pull those right over but what we
293did pull over were all the items that would have worked to meet the MBTA criteria and would the the subcommittee redesign community be involved in this so it really wasn't from a design perspective mark it was really for compliance method okay okay leave that as a know it's okay okay and um and is for doing this is is there got to be a change of purpose and reason and you just told me your cherry picking basically for the M MBTA zoning yeah I'm c not quote unquote cherry picking right I am creating a district so that's the purpose I'm creating a district to meet the compliance of the to to to add those units and add that acreage into my MBT into ashen's MBTA compliance model so I'm creating we're creating a new District to
294add into the compliance model to help Ash meet compliance for MBT communities so in the bylaw is that bylaw going to be changed well that's going to be a debate uh for the planning board at the next meeting and I think that is also going to be uh up to the planning board to either to vote to either support or to not support the proposed only bylaw and again before I said fall asleep again or whatever I am willing to help because I know all about these zonings and WWI was one of the ones that was very intricate at the time that was with the V Americas and Fa property Mark that that was the most one of the most complicated projects that that I've had to iron out um with this 9 100 Chassy
295project thank you thank you all right I think that was our last agenda item so I will make a motion that we adjourn at 10:45 is there a second second that let's take a roll call vote Catherine Jersey guy Amanda Hayes I and Trisha Kendall I let's get out of [Music] here thank you Ma are you sleeping back there bud there I forget