001so we never joined with audio so technically it's not actually okay part of the yeah yeah test test s oh foreign coming up in three two one and relax all right good evening everyone and welcome to the planning board meeting of Thursday September 14th I will be calling the meeting to order at 7 16 and um reminding everyone that the meeting is being broadcast and recorded this is a joint meeting with the Ashland select board as well so I will hand it over to Rob to call their meeting order hi uh um I hereby call this meeting of the Ashland select board to order for September 14th 2023. all right so I see Kate one of our other members is uh on remotely so we will proceed to the second item on our agenda which
002is the clerk's report uh Kate Kate do you uh can you hear me are you do you want to give a report this evening that doesn't look good a little Kate are you able to hear us okay yes ma'am okay all right um were you able to hear the first part I just not anything clearly okay not just now okay we're playing with the volume a little bit um are you do you want to give a do you have a clerks report to give this evening uh briefly yes we've received um essentially two emails or related subjects and maybe a couple of them multiple since our last 824 those have been responded to by the chair and town planner so all correspondents received the cleaning bars up to date with the response all right great
003thank you Kate next item are on our agenda is public comment so if any members who like to members of the audience think a public comment hey good evening Steve Morgan 136 Concord Street I saw on your agenda but not on the selectment agenda that there's a Scenic Road report today um I don't know if that's actually going to happen today but I do have a comment on Scenic roads um I understand that the somehow the sustainability committee has become involved in Scenic roads and I just as someone who lives on a Scenic Road and I know there's been a history of things happening on the scenic road that are not supposed to happen on the scenic Road I would like to just provide the feedback that the planning board really should own the zoning
004and the scenic Road not the sustainability committee not sure what they're up to but it doesn't make a lot of sense to me that they would be working on Scenic roads and given their repeated late minutes I really have no idea what they're working on so I would ask the planning board to own and take responsibility for Scenic Road that's my comment for tonight all right all right I'm seeing No Other Well there could be public comment from online just if you have a public comment online please erase your hand thank you with our second public comment Mr Mark desoni can you please meet yourself and state your name and address hey thank you good evening Mark sorry 49 Hawthorne Road and uh I just wanted to ask a question before it actually got started
005because on the agenda after the your board and select board get to have your meeting on Detroit meeting was is the um 40 60 Main Street is withdrawing would that be food explain why before the agenda items open um we will be looking at that at the 10 to 60 Main Street um when we get there we're not going to address it at the time but but yeah we um you know Peter will explain that that is being withdrawn we don't have a lot of details at this time is that does that answer your question yeah well yes it sets me off with a mindset saying um there is a reason for it and Mr Manchester is going to be saying what it is and um the other thing was ever since you have probably
006participation in the beginning of the meeting it makes the rest of the meeting feel a little bit more going and understanding with how the media is going but I'm still on some subjects my only opinion opinion is myself only is that some of the discussions with the poet takes Way Long to what the subject matter is is there a way of cutting down from about our discussion to uh actually get them votes in sooner oh we certainly try to be as efficient as we can um do you have any other comments mark yeah that's those are two right there and this is one to make these Marathon meetings not to be a marathon because all the discussion around the board back and forth with the silk manner takes a bit of time and patience with
007the critical watching and not be able to comment with the sin and just hearing on and on and on that's it thank you all right thanks Mark are there any other comments all right seeing none and just for people that are under on more unfamiliar with our agenda a lot of the items at the bottom seven and eight in our agenda are different types of reports and updates that we keep there um just so that we have a space in our agenda to receive an update about a project if there is one often we there are no updates but sometimes someone has had a committee meeting or there's a project update and that gives us an opportunity to go through those um all right so seeing no other hands raised we'll go on to the
008first um major item on our on our agenda which is our joint meeting with the select board and the first and most important item of the three that are listed is a discussion of the MBTA communities act and for that I'm really going to turn it over to town planner Peter matchek who has looked at this in depth and has a presentation prepared thank you and so I'm just gonna uh everyone at the table has a PowerPoint uh the slides were printed out so it's a short nine slide uh PowerPoint uh and obviously this kind of was built from all the information that has been sent out um from the state and from what's happened in other communities and um I do want to make note uh I did send the link out to a
009pretty good website a pretty cool website I thought from the Mass Housing Partnership which kind of showed scale size different projects throughout the state there was a couple sample projects over in Sudbury so let's try to make note of that so with that said I'm going to share my screen so pardon the uh let's see if I can get this done and so I think tonight the major goal is this conversation is to kind of set the table for what is MBTA zoning and what we have to do in Ashland to kind of meet the criteria that the state rolled out so this is going to be the first of many conversations I think we're going to have but I think it's important just to kind of get the ball moving and to you know
010make sure that we're all pulling in the same direction and understand what we have to do so um just a quick run through through the slides is that within um pretty much excuse oh I'm sorry I'm jumping ahead I apologize it's always fun to do a PowerPoint with the zoom stuff and everywhere too okay I'm sorry so MBTA community so the MBT Community is a part of a Charlie Baker our former Governor put together Economic Development Bill everyone understands and I think here is at the time that the state of Massachusetts Metro Boston is a housing crunch house in shortfall and so the MBT communities is asking Susan towns to develop buy right housing units to help in this quote-unquote housing shortfall crisis that the state finds itself in today so within Metro Boston there
011are 14 season towns who are considered MBTA service committees excuse me service communities these service communities are the real core Boston cities such as Boston Quincy Weymouth these are 14 cities that have access to the red line the green line the orange line then Ashland is one of the 51 cities and towns which are considered a host Community we host the MBTA station down Pleasant Street and so therefore that is the category that we fall into with that we are one we are one of the 51 season talents that are asked to plan for 15 of our total housing stock that's going to be a key number that comes back up into a plate a little bit later 15 percent uh Additionally you can kind of see by this map that you can kind of
012see where the lines are um obviously we are on the Worcester line here you can see Northerly the Fitchburg line runs uh out you know North Northeast uh then the the Lowell line runs directly north of Boston with a Gloucester Line running up to the North Shore then obviously the the Green Bush line and the other various South Shore lines going to the south Salt of the city um and so here's a closer a map that kind of displays where Ashland is obviously Ashland's right here um Framingham and South bar are considered commuter rail cities um they are one of the other 51 communities and then Hopkinton Hall is in there and adjacent with Sherborne being a adjacent small town that small town small versus large towns are usually if you have less than a
013population number of X I think in the state's case for this it is 700 excuse me 7500 so sherborne's population I don't know it off the top of my head but I'm assuming it's below a certain threshold and so that's why it falls into that category so a quick overview uh in the points that we need to really kind of um set for the from the ground lures is that the state of Massachusetts within the legislation says that we have to have a area of reasonable size quote unquote that reasonable size is 50 acres of land so we have to Zone a minimum of 50 acres of land um and that 50 in the and so that's another key number 50 acres and those 50 acres have to be within a half a mile of
014us well 40 percent of those 50 acres have to be in um a half mile of the radius of the train station fun fact there's 407 square acres within a quarter mile radius just from a mathematical standpoint so as you're talking about size as we see the next map think think of that number so within the zoning um this has to allow multi-family housing buy right no special permits number two this zoning has cannot have any age restrictions right and it has to be suitable for families and children's children to live in um and so that is another key element and then we kind of went over the 50 acre minimum another key couple points here is that from a baseline standpoint the zoning has to have a minimum of 15 units per acre and
015so 15 units per acre is the minimum density that we're that we're Zoning for and then the second key Point here is 40 to the acreage has to be within that half mile District this is a Ashland zoning map obviously see the yellow which takes up probably I'd say 75 80 Town that's residential a um however the train station which is located right where my cursor is um you can see that that radius that was built from the location of the train station I was asking a question that the radius seems to be in two parts almost two bubbles in is that because it's that's because we measure the radius from the from the outside property lines of the train station so it's not a key point you know you're not seeing you're not measuring
016the radius from a single point when you build out the radius you're all you're you're you're building it out from the from the from the property lines of the MBTA station and and everyone knows it's a very linear parking lot and so that's why you have that kind of that that that air that rectangle not rectangle that buffer uh just a note obviously here MB uh this is Memorial Drive and the light blue that is RTD obviously the RTD District that's where Cirrus Drive is located that is where our Bella at Ashland uh the 40b permitted in 2021 is located um also furthermore on the excuse me what am I doing I feel like I haven't done a PowerPoint a long time of course yeah correct so that will be applied to the uh well
017let's talk about that right okay the zoning the underlying zoning does not have an age restriction right for that parcel I believe but the property and the project that was proposed and approved by the town of Ashland does have an age restriction so that's one of those questions that I still have to get some clarification on from the state of how that would all work out but the zoning per se I do not believe has an age restriction on it the project has proposed and permanent it does it was a 62 plus property and Peter just to clarify I I thought the state was saying zoning has to be there even if there's a standing project in theory a new developer could come in and put in something that's not age restricted so correct and
018this is the then this is the other this is the major point of the MBTA communities not to jump ahead but we're really doing it's a zoning this is a zoning exercise you know we're all going to think of Cirrus right we're all going to think of okay how many units is 398 units and that's upon 28 acres of land has a density of 13 units per acre right so that's what we got to think about 13 units we got to be a baseline at 15 right but that's great that project is already built on those 28 Acres but to your point Deanna is that it's not about what's built there right it's about what's allowed to be built there buy right right that's what the state's interested in the zoning exercise the calculations of
019what could be built what is that what's the possibility and so and there's also there's in there's all sorts of different things that a site has to you know you have to you have to develop along with housing for that stuff AI you know and you have to account for within a development process but at this point and for this zoning exercise to be an MBT Community it's about densities acreage and uses buy right uses so um that's where it kind of comes down to this area on purple is um is known as Adda it's part of the Ashland downtown overlay District this is the Ashland downtown overlay District at the planning board rezoned and did a zoning update on back in I think 2021 and this would include um 10 to 60 Main Street
020right here and that is outside of the 0.5 mile but just to give everyone a kind of a from a geographical standpoint this entire swath of the southern side of Pleasant Street was considered Adda I believe there's 22 acres of land within Adda that is within the quarter mile with a half a mile radius so I've already started to do some of these calculations you know throughout but it's it's just it's a long process it's it's a SL it's going to be you know an exercise so quick question just to go back really quick sorry I don't mean to make it yeah but so the purple that currently says industrial is actually Adda correct oh so see the hatch lines the the black hatch lines oh gotcha okay so that is a representation of Adda
021I couldn't see that either so thank you so Pleasant Street the southern side of Pleasant Street is zoned industrial all the way down but when the town adopted at on downtown Ashland overlay District that kind of embraced the use of form-based code and I think that goes back to the late 2000s I know Mark desoni worked really hard on you know incorporating that you know into the action bylaws um instead of rezoning instead of putting a different instead of changing the underlying zoning District which was industrial what the town decided to do was to create an overlaid district for Adda addb in addc just to make things more confusing at zoning sometimes is is actually a base zone so add B and C are zoning it's not an overlay district 80da is an overlay district
022and and it's really over the industrial zones in town so if we would change if we would need to change the zoning based on MBTA communities would we be changing the base zoning or would it be an overlay so if we are making all alter if we're changing or making it we're manipulating if we are manipulating Adda we are making changes to a overlay District if we manipulate and we'll make changes to anything within the RTD District per se we are changing base zoning so there is a little bit of a difference okay but both of those are allowed both of are allowed okay Peter can you clarify the the Blues rtda uh yes and is that 50 acres uh no rtda is much bigger than 50 acres so and is it more than 40
023percent of it is in the half mile radius I would say all of it is within the half mile do we have uh by right multi-family in that District uh no changes have to be made we have to make at the end at the one takeaway is none of our zoning districts currently meet the MBTA zoning regulations or legislation we're gonna have to make change to meet MBTA if the town and the boards decide yes we need to meet MBTA zoning legislation there has to be zoning changes presented but just to figure out the size it looks like rtda and RTD are both meeting the initial two steps 50 acres or more within the 40 more than 40 percent of each is within the 0.5 so for those two the only change we would need
024is buy right 15 units per acre correct yes I think it's I think a and d a is the blue a is the light is where my cursor is deeper is correct that's a d d e no that's e not a no I oh gotcha so that's e okay is the purple with the stripe which is that purple she's saying this is e yes this one this is Adda that's it that's not better up there but which one is RTD which one is this one where seriously that's e okay if it isn't so just a question you're saying we just have to create the zoning and make it buy right correct right but we have to be careful about making the zoning and making it buy right because at some point someone could then decide
025to build there right or not yes correct where they've already built there I was just going to say you only have a few slides yeah I have a few more slides okay go ahead and finish up there's a little bit more other elements right we have to kind of bring into the put into the Soup pot of soup here on this one exactly let's make it harder yeah uh a couple examples of density in Ashland I just dated Cirrus Cirrus obviously 398 units 20 28 Acres the density 13.99 so that's kind of a good Baseline to think about 501 Pond Street um you can you know see the slides but that is going to be built at a density of 29 units per acre Village of the Americas if you're just looking at 100 Chestnut
026Street which is under the construction right now on the street you're looking at a unit density of 28 Acres excuse me 28 units per acre if you income if you calculate the entire Village of the America's site which would be the units in the back the quad plexus and 100 to 130 Chestnut that density level drops to um excuse me uh 7.2 percent and so there is a mathematically there is differences when you start calculating this stuff uh 10 to 60 Main Street uh it was proposing this project PowerPoint was putting you know was using that development uh but that was being proposed at 23 units per acre um a couple other things here and this is kind of approaches that that this is kind of when it gets a little bit more uh interesting
027so the state of Massachusetts says the town of Ashland 51 other communities our host MBTA communities so therefore we have to we have to plan for 15 of our housing stock right it was estimated that the town of Ashland has 7495 housing units doorknobs within the 2020 census right um with that 15 is 1124 units so now we have to zone for 11 24. right at the low end we need to have a minimum of 50 acres and we have to have a baseline of 15 units per acre right so if we Zone 15 if we decide the town decides we like the density of 15 units per acre in actuality we have to Zone 75 acres of land to meet the state's percentile at 15 percent so these are kind of sliding scales what's
028right for the town of Ashland on the other side of it right if we say we'll take 23 acres of land I mean we'll take we'll we like 20 we like we just want to condense this into 50 acres the minimum acreage we actually have to zone for 23 units per acre by right and so that's a decision that the planning board and the psych board and the community are going to have to make if we decide to meet mbta's own regulations is it going to be 50 acres at the 23 unit level per acre level or is it going to be 15 units per acre in zone 75 Acres could we also just have a 70 or 100 Acre size no therefore less or and therefore less density or we have to have either
029a 50. so the minimum density has to be 15 units per acre but but you can mix and match you can mix and match so you could have like a 70 acre district and therefore end up with less density not less than 15. not less than 15. not less than 23. yeah you could that's what I mean yep you could have it you could but so so really so the you could have a you could have a zoning area that says okay if we're going to do and I haven't done the math to ramble this off but if you say okay I don't like 23 but I don't like 15. okay I'm going to do 20 right that means your acreage that you have to rezone is going to be somewhere between 50 and 75.
030so call it 62. right just for quick math but those are the numbers those are the those that's what we have to meet right so we have to have a zone no less than 50 acres and we have to have a density of no less than 15 units per acre and we have to zone for 1124 units and so with that and then 40 of the Acres that we Zone have to be within that half ma radius so can we use an actual District like rtde as an example like what's its size rtde do we know what the size of that one is right now it's greater than 50 acres is it like 70 100 like I think it's 94. that's what I saw in the last yeah so like if we rezoned that one
031what would be our density obviously above 15 but what would we get to like if we ReSound the whole 94 acres for RTD so now it would be it'll be 94 times 15. I'm sorry later so and does always have to be newly newly created zoning so right or could we so 40 has to be around the MBTA train station correct but some of it could be other places right so Chestnut Street correct could be could that even though it's already been permitted in his building but it's the correct you know it has a higher density could that acreage be counted to our what we need to create yes I believe it can okay so the only caveat when you do this right so when you start breaking zones up right yeah that no Zone
032could be less than five acres so per se I believe ten you know the Chestnut Street project is six acres right so yes you could add those six acres and rezone it and then you could count those six acres into your total acreage okay you would still need 40 of something to be inside so forty percent of your total acreage has to be told a unit counts has to be within that happens right no I no I I understand that but you are correct but the the thing that I'm getting at is that can be part of the 60 which is right outside okay because I know early on that was not considered right correct the initial stuff that was like like nope it has to be within your half mile and and many communities
033had a problem with that so knowing knowing that that now only has to be 40 percent in you know in that half mile I think from our perspective that could be a benefit for us correct especially with Pond Street and Chestnut Street anywhere without any kind of boundaries is that right so correct and you anywhere within the town boundaries from what I understand through the regulations it also be has a place that makes sense right that it's along a major transportation route that um you know that there's access to um that it's a it's a site that has that that can be supported with infrastructure uh and so that is just something to make note of uh just to kind of carry the conversation a little bit um obviously town cities and towns or the
03450 that the inner core cities that have Subway access they already had to adopt zoning I think it's by this Christmas upcoming Christmas they have to or indoor into the calendar year um the town of Ashland in the 51 other communities um we do have to um we would if to to comply we would have to adopt zonium by December 31st of 2024. so from this calendar year we have another 12 months and which which town meeting would that need to be spring so we from we would have an annual at the spring but also we would also have a special in the fall so we would fall could be as late as the fall and and I think a lot of towns are in our position a lot of towns are in our position
035we're saying okay what are we going to do how are we going to get there what's the approach going to be and you know wheels are starting to move um and so there are a lot of funding opportunities throughout the state people are starting to do a lot of work on it obviously we're doing the comp plan and that started up too so we have a lot of planning exercises already rolling um and so but I think tonight is just to set a baseline start thinking about it it's going to be more and more in the newspapers on the news a lot of season towns through the mass Municipal Association will be talking about it and so it's just a conversation starter and I think I think I think um I'm looking at my own
036notes and I think this information was in one of the memos maybe that Peter had online um but if we take that and I'm not I'm not saying that we should do this but just again as a reference that if we take you know Peter had pulled out three zones that are that we have and are really really close to meeting these so if we pull out Adda which is 22 acres and only needs a an upping of the density if we pull out addc which is two acres and needs multi-family by right instead of special permit and if we pull out a uh rtde which is serious which is 28.44 Acres that's our 50 acres and they're all within they're all within the the 0.5 but that would need to allow for you know
037two bedroom or no for Mo for um the two bedroom must be removed right in that zone yep so in other words it's like it's already there but I think what we have to consider partly is that okay do we want Adda to be buy right that's that's all of that side of Pleasant Street next to the train station do we want all of that to be um you know buy right 15 units in that kind of density you know that's a choice would that get to the 1124 units or was that that was that was I think that was with that was with all the acreage we need that's the acreage acreage so they'd be presumably more to get to the 11th that's true there so you just have to make that buy right
038at 23 units per acre well that's the question I think well I think that's that's one of the questions right or that's valid yeah or we can take actual like we can take eight rtde or RTD which are already over 50 acres um and not in downtown which has a lot of historic significance and due density where it's already happening like near Cirrus I think we need to give the public some options as quickly as possible my number one concern is compliance I think this the town of Ashland needs to make this quick and easy accessible to the public and give the public some real options like hey we could do one of these five things we the select board and planning board are thinking one of these five um we want to hear Public's
039input and move this pretty quick I think just to add one other thing in um on um rtde which seems to be 94 Acres now that's already where the um the cap is right the nienza cap there's some areas of that are unbuildable so even though it seems 94 acres in that zone it's not it's not it's not all available it's I'm not sure that's still eligible how does that work you know I don't believe it is there's how because we don't even have 50 eligible there could be some of it eligible to really cut up to really take a cookie cutter and really dice it up or maybe it's bad terminology um but to really kind of go in and take a take a take a look at it you know there is a
040housing restriction obviously on that cap for a good reason sure uh and so is that eligible no you know you don't think they'll find it eligible correct so let me ask a question so so Cirrus is a little over 28 Acres we have ugc which is I can't remember the acreage of that that parcel that they're planning to build which is already slated for what it's 180 units 180 units if it goes through yes but I mean if so if we did if we removed the age restriction and you know we think about the units for ugc which is already kind of planned for the units at CRS what else is going in at well we don't need to worry about no no I'm just saying like because I think part of it is what
041is the impact of the community so I think kind of framing it out as saying okay so we have one serious Apartments built we have another development that's already permitted we have the YMCA which even though we're going to put an overlay you know we're going to change the zoning that's going to be the one the YMCA we have part of that parcel which is Town owned which will be Town it will get it in the exchange with the ugc yeah 2016 Acres so I'm just thinking like could we potentially make it to Anna's Point easy and simple do rtde and basically say to the community you know this is already sort of been you know we're changing the zoning but the impact to the town is kind of smaller because I think that is
042sort of the goal is to really control how this works because to your point Pete about or Trisha about um Pleasant Street like do we want to rezone Adda and have potentially open that up to a lot of extra development in that area because there's a lot of older homes on Pleasant Street there's a lot of there's part of its industrial that I'm sure people would love to be able to to build on um so I'm just thinking like through because because the other part of it is this does need to go through town meeting so even when we do the public Outreach and we talk about this at the end of the day it will be a town meeting vote and I don't know what what is what is what happens Pete if we
043get to that point we put it to town meeting and town meeting doesn't approve it I think we just need a easy majority right for this I think it goes through easy majority it doesn't have to qualify for this year I'd like to make a just a point about that and I did to the planning board when it first came up but I absolutely um if we were going forward to comply I want to make sure we target Springtown meeting I don't I don't think it's a good thing to end up the first time it's voted on Fall town meeting because it feels like it's putting in front of the public like an you know you have to pass this and we're smarter than that better than that it can go to Spring there could
044be tweaks and you have another meeting um to recover I think to be honest with the conversation this is the second time playing birds had similar things that we know there's a a relatively simple way to comply that in theory will have very low impact and that seems like the first pass what we should be focusing on we should get all the acreage and talk you know take the cap out of it take the town on land out of it and really see what we're dealing with and then and Target make a work plan to Target Springtown meeting yeah I agree about the springtime meeting Peter and I were talking about this earlier in the weekend I think you know we want to have two bites of the Apple you know if if things don't
045go well or if we get some feedback that we didn't anticipate you know I agree that spring is more work for us right now up front but it's the smarter choice can I can I add that like as controversial as this is across the state I do think it's important to remember that it's the MBTA mandate meaning it's linked to transportation and we do have two areas in our community right now that are linked to Transportation where I live Pond Street that area and obviously we have our train station that many people use I prefer to take the train from West Natick but occasionally I go to Ashland so to me it seems very consistent and easy for the public to understand that to meet this mandate those are the two primary areas we should
046be thinking about because both of them relate to public transport and access in communities commuting to work if you will those are primary routes if you will for people to get into Boston I see the traffic all the time and those are the areas we should be Zoning for for density that's what the state is thinking about that is the intention of this law not to change or downtown historic properties you know what was he I'm sorry what's the other area you were talking talking about where I live uh near 120 126 right behind Shaw's is where I live but I'm very open and understanding that the state has the intention to dense my area because we are on a major road that people utilize including me to transport ourselves to Boston and so what
047I'm suggesting is the intent of the state of Massachusetts is not to take our downtown the vibrant historic areas of Ashland and make those dents the intention of the MBTA Transportation related mandate is to give us transportation to Boston that is the intention of this so let's make that happen rather than adding the controversy of our downtown historic area to add to that I would think that the state would allow to expand that 0.5 mile radius for that to happen because 0.5 miles is right in the in the heart of downtown Ashland no the downtown is just short of it well it's two tenths of a mile from it but we don't need to even touch it we can meet the requirement without touching downtown okay within within that 0.5 radius I mean Peter can
048you speak to that right it sounds like we've oh no I saw the map but on that map there's also the nianza capsite uh if they're talking about age restriction locations then that location of ugc is a restricted location I don't know if they plan on changing their uh their thought process on their building design I mean so there's a lot there's a lot of uh unknowns that they're going to have to deal with you shake your head no but I I see that you're going to tell the folks at ugc no you got to change your design that it can't be it can't be age restrictive but it says no no no no no no it's zoning no one has to change anything they don't have to change what they're doing we can just
049say that the zoning now is 15 15 units per acre acre okay and that's what they can do by right and unage restraint just a paper mandate paper mandate so if something is owned age restricted right now and we not result if something is being built age restricted right now if we rezone that area to be not age restricted 10 years from now that developer could sell that age-restricted property to a developer who could say oh great I have no age restrictions it's just paper yeah so um just to I guess think about where we are procedurally so the purpose of this meeting was I guess the one was to get a briefing and talk about moving forward but the other was I think we had talked in the past about whether we want to
050comply um or if we have issues or if there's other things we want to do sounds like you know I'm hearing that compliance is possible we need to look at some models but I just want to look at the board because we talked in the past about issues with the the act itself and you know our approach to it how are people kind of thinking about that I had one question about I think the one you know unfairness in this is that 1124 units based it's based on the fact that we have a lot of housing so therefore we have to build more we don't have to build just Zone enough Arizona that's their rationale and so the only thing um I'm just wondering is there is there any there's been some tweaking and adjustments
051to this is there anything about that going on the 15 of 2020 housing has anyone heard anything about that I have not I personally think that's pretty much that's certain that's gone that's baked you know that's done I think there there has and and I'm signed up to go to a a webinar because the state has changed a couple items regarding mixed use there was some pushback from a lot of communities mixed use how is mixed use especially in the downtown areas where communities are obviously trying to support Commerce um and obviously housing supports Commerce but you need a measurement of both right uh obviously to create a viable and a vibrant downtown so I know there was a lot of pushback across the state about how our mixed use commercial or the residential counted
052and um and I'm there's a seminar on that I believe in some time in next week or the week after I think there's also still a discussion about allowing part of it to be affordable so all right it's not they're still talking about can we you know you have to do this density by right but some of it can be affordable so being discussed or it's still being discussed and I think from what I've my takeaway is when I go to these when I when I listen in and I and I obviously take part in these seminars um webinars are um the state is allowing 10 so they're saying 10 can be mandatory affordable housing which matches up with obviously chapter 40b legislation any communities typically inclusionary zoning by law so you know 10 is
053getting the go-ahead anything anything above and beyond I think that's where the question marks are going to be so I think we can definitely lean on and build in 10 of all units shall be affordable which means Chestnut Street could work and Pond Street could work correct okay what's what's the implication of that doing it or not doing does that change the number of units built or how does that no so no so I think we're just saying mandatory if you're going to go through this development process that 10 of the units every game so we could mandate it should we choose to but should we choose to we can mandate that all you that there's ten percent are built affordable and so therefore as a unit per se say it's a for example is
054it 200 units that come in right 20 well 20 units are therefore affordable so then at the next go around that the two I can't believe I'm saying this at the 2030 census at the 2030 census when those 200 units are added on to the Shi count the 20 units that are going to be built with that development are going to um create no negative impact on that community's percentile okay so just back to Rob's question about comply or not to comply my my understanding is um that communities that decide not to comply with MBTA communities are no longer eligible for for state grants is that correct and then also Transportation related state grants not any state I thought it was everything through like Mass development and I think I know I have no I
055have not seen a full list of what your what you're gonna be getting what you're not gonna get like I'm sure all communities are chapter 90 funds and they're going to sound like you're going to lose school funding right correct yeah you're not going to lose school funding or Road money what you will lose grants though grants are separate from like chapter seven and when I say grants I'd say you know um the big one we got the mess a mass Works Grant can be millions and millions of dollars right and so the town of Ashland fought very long and hard and was granted a mat a very large sum of money through mathware I mean through masquerade but I mean with all due respect it seems like we as a community probably have an
056easier time meeting this requirement than many other communities because we've already moved towards density in key areas and so for me it's like a no-brainer we are exactly the kind of community that is a Target because we're on MBTA Community as somebody who uses the MBTA and drives to work it's an easy sell I think to the public because that is why people are moving here they're moving here to quickly commute to Boston they're working in the Greater Boston area so I don't think we're gonna have a problem convincing the public that this is an easy solve for us because we already have it I think the question we have to decide here is do we have consensus as to whether we want downtown to be part of this or not if we can reach
057consensus tonight then we have six months to town meeting and if we have some consensus we can start talking about resources of how is Peter's office going to pull this off is it a matter of pulling the bylaw for two or three areas of town and changing a few words making it buy right density or do we need to hire a technical consultant which the state can pay for to get this done and drafted and whole public meetings and so the quicker I think we can reach consensus on the downtown that seems to be the big item for debate I think it's just it's a little bit more complicated than that and I'm worried about trying to get consensus in the next 10 minutes or something in this meeting but only because when we look
058at the add map up there I agree with like um I know it was quality someone mentioned the historic houses maybe Brandy in that area and yeah so maybe we wouldn't want it that part of our downtown to be included but there is also this whole north side yeah where it is all industrial um the south side is the industry not the purple stuff yeah before you before you hit the road yeah and yeah I would have consensus on that yeah I personally don't have problem touching industrial zones as long as we're not touching downtown where our as people drive through downtown what's the issue with downtown I don't think we need to like go that far honestly like I don't think we've been talk of going to Main Street so well one time we
059had talked about that that would be useful to include um 10 15 1060 Main Street but it sounds like it's not within the uh so I'm just looking at the rest of the board I mean I think I think it'd be help at least to me you know I think we sound like we're going to be moving forward but I think it would be helpful to see different scenarios of how to achieve this and then that could be the basis of how we move forward and that would be something I think Peter would put together to look at these different ideas like here's one way here's another way and then we could visualize potentially what it could be like because I think we we need to think about that I think that's fair but we
060should give Peter some guidance like I for one would like to see an option where it's the Pond Street area where I live plus the serious area that is the um rtde that to me is my personal preference I I understand that we could also go towards the industrial area and towards downtown I could live with that if that is the ultimate agreement or consensus or the majority in this room but I would prefer to stay away from downtown I think the south side of Pleasant Street I think where all those were like the churches burnhams all that whole stretch going down to um that all looks to me like a good op a good area to be zoned this way but yeah it's just me and my mentioning that wasn't saying yeah we should
061take away all those businesses because that's not what I'm saying at all right no it's just a matter of zoning it yeah it's a matter of looking at the zoning and looking at where we are however many years into the future to look at to look at everything right so I mean would um would it be best to kind of create a mini working group you know that even if it's just one member of the select board and one member of the planning board and working with Peter and I assume Michael I don't know on the select word side yeah but to throw myself would be the ones yeah but also to be able to Liaison to bring things back I think that makes sense to make a small working group one from us one
062from from planning board with Peter and and I don't I don't you know Michael I think toward the end might be good but I don't know that he's you know he's not going to be doing the work for the gis and stuff like that uh the other thing I would say is let's also consider if we're looking at Pond Street also look at the parcel on Chestnut Street because as you look at the area around the train station yes it just has to be zoned a certain way but for me part of this is if it's going to be zoned that way we need to at least have some possibility that in the future if the housing is needed it could be built there and there are certain areas around the TR on Memorial Drive
063that we don't want to build on so by making it buy right zoning to me that seems disingenuous right but if we can because we can include Chestnut Street right we can make that you know just the section that has the parcel of 100 Chestnut Street that's already going to make a little morsel five acres right yeah right same you know Pond Street and stuff like that so ideally you want to make it you know one area if possible but if we can't meet what we need to within that let's look at other part Pockets that won't impact downtown and I guess the only other question or comment I have is I know we don't want to include all of downtown but if we're looking at you know 10 to 50 Main Street might be
064built up anyway might it make sense to put that zoning there that's all if I may that project has withdrawn so right but we all know what yeah right now anyway I guess my concern would be I I just affordable housing is a very near and dear thing to me so it's very important for me um and for many other residents who live and stay in town and live in an affordable location I just don't want to blocks out the affordable um units with respect to any zoning aspects that we're looking at you know I know we haven't we've been talking about inclusion Arizona for the last three years but nothing's actually been done about it and actually that's a tool that you can use in in your in your in your toolbox one of
065the develop them as well we have inclusion every zoning and that takes a little bit of the pressure off of you folks to make those decisions so I mean I just if we're going to do something like this I would like to see that coincide with an inclusion every zoning by law so I I just have something to add with that um I don't know that we need to go for the exclusionary zoning bylaw I think we're gonna I think we can streamline this and start talking to public and present auctions but I think it should be the minimum 10 but I would like to see part of discussions like what can we push that above 10 I read some stuff online that um they're definitely allowing up to 20 if you can show that
066it's economically you know advantageous or not advantageous so is that in the zoning um it well look all this stuff is loose and changing when they get pushed back in discussions so that is online right now though so if if we make let's just say we make 20 they have you have to say well that's that can or cannot be economically viable and that's a whole uh can of worms that Peter's been helping us we're trying to get an economic development tool but I don't want to settle for the 10 I'm with you Joe I I don't know that we can can settle for only that but I would like to make sure that's a parallel path what is the maximum we can ask for on affordable while we do we have some kind of
067technical help uh Peter that we can get from the state like if we came out of this meeting with a sense that we want to push for 15 let's say in whatever zones that we create can we reach out to the state and say hey we are thinking about 15 percent what do we need to prove that that can work that that can be economically viable yeah I can follow up you know I think as far as you know I think I do know that 10 is allowed and they're accepting it at 10 um anything above and beyond you know I think that gets into the realm of obviously technical assistance and then you're building okay you know if you're going to get technical assistance for that one element maybe it makes sense to get
068technical assistance for the whole zoning development you know that's what I would that's what I would say are you recommend I mean one of the things we'll talk we'll maybe decide tonight is whether push for consultant or so what do you have to say about that Pier what's your do you have a recommendation or you know what it's kind of funny in the grand scheme of things I would say yeah great because those would be awesome to bring in however at the same time we already have a consultant right now for the comp plan right and you don't want to put too many cooks in the kitchen and so I think can this be done in-house I think it's a lot of work and I think working with Town Council and you know in in
069having people able to kind of bounce ideas off would be critical I think going back to a point animate I think a lot of communities are gonna struggle with this zoning however Ashland is is densified over the last two decades and so therefore we do have some opportunities some low-hanging fruit to kind of to or some building blocks to use as a foundation which I think is great so I think can we do it in-house yeah I think we can but also you know does it make sense to go out and get a consultant another consultant for another zoning project on top of the consultant for the comp plan I think you're just adding in more complications than you make let's keep in mind that we don't have to pay for it the state will
070pay for this consultant for the MBTA project we'd still manage that so it's not like we would have to pay for it the way we did for the comprehensive plan the comprehensive plan consultant is not going to be involved in meeting this compliance role so it's a very very different role entirely what I will say is I love the idea of doing this in-house because it's simple to me it's really really simple if we can come up with the most simple solution possible figure out how much we can Zone at Sears figure out between Chestnut Street and Pond Street put it all together take out the bylaw change a few words it's done I don't think we need a consultant but if we start to make it more complicated if we start to add downtown
071to it if we start to make it more affordable we're starting to create controversy we have to prove economic viability for higher affordable to Beyond 10 we have to convince the public through multiple public meetings the downtown is fair game we're going to need a consultant for that and so I would make the case that if we are here with some consensus of Simplicity to rezone what's already dense we do not need a consultant and we could do this very quickly so I would say I think the simplest thing if we can make the rail Transit District work for this if we can change the zoning and it meets the density and it meets the area and it meets the acreage and all that stuff the rail Transit District was made for this this is
072why we developed the rail Transit District years ago was to have an area that was near the train station so true to be honest like you want to talk about something that's easy to convince the public that we have already thought about this like to me if if if the RTD meets the requirements to me that's a no-brainer and that's that's and instead of like like trying to show maps of like different areas that were pulling this piece and that piece and this piece I think this I think if we can make it simple I think that's I think that's our best our best um our best bet especially since since it's already either built or or permitted you know the majority of that that space so I would agree with that I would agree
073that if we can make it that simple my concern is that we're not going to be able to make it we're not going to be able to either a match the unit numbers that we need for that from that area or that we're going to have enough land but I think we can figure that out pretty quickly like it's not going to be figured out pretty I think we can like I think it's time for us to look at once you remove the cap out of it out of those 94 Acres what do we have left plus what do we have a Chestnut and what do we have a pond and if they bet if we sit down and we actually look at it we can reach consensus pretty quick and this is a quick
074change Peter do we have survey information for that whole for that whole track of land do we know what's there and what's buildable and what's not buildable is that information that we already have in those files that you just moved to the we have a lot of information okay yeah we have a lot of information we can do so and so and we have a lot of survey data we have a lot of acreage data that I can kind of pull together so um I think you know I think we have some clear you know steps and you know from what I'm hearing you know make it you know the simpler the better yeah and obviously you know within the rail Transit District obviously first however if we do have to look outside we do
075have to look aside and and I think obviously there's pros and cons to all conversations or in all realities uh and so I think that's something that we'll have to discuss further on down the line so it sounds like Trisha you're suggesting a working group to assist Peter in brainstorming once he has some data yeah I'm suggesting and like I said to keep like you said keep it simple maybe one member from each board to interact with each other interact with Peter brainstorm um so that we can get to some options and bring those here and to bring them to both board as quickly as we can and then whatever snags we hit along the way we can discuss those snags and and what direction we want to turn from there I'm just surprised that
076no Sultan is going to help us out because comprehensive planning is all about master planning right we are talking about the big picture of Ashland um I'm just surprised that they are of no use at this point for us to this along this process like looking at the zoning itself right they're talking about the big picture of Ashland what is happening in every this one I'm sure they have tools that we could utilize to come up sounds like we're looking at five six options I mean I don't think we have five six options it looks like it's going to be just matter of creating a spreadsheet with those different parameters which feels like simple but I don't think it's simple because it's just not number calculation you're going to have underlaying zoning this one's that's
077going to have but I'm sure and I'm also curious like between now and our spring um town hall meeting what where is the comprehensive plan team going to be where are they in their process so I mean what I can tell you and I I will allow others to speak on what's going on with the comprehensive plan but my reading of it at least my two sons is that the state has already planned for us and so this is not a matter of us as Ashland needing a consultant to plan right the state is basically telling us this is our plan our plan is that we are the Greater Boston Community need more dense zoning right next to transportation to get people to work so there's not much for planning purposes that a consultant could
078tell us because the state is basically saying we plan for you you're kind of done you got to do this or else well this setting parameters on the big picture right on the larger scale but we have a team that is so focused on Ashland and what's right for Ashland without us just looking at colors in a legend it's really important to understand like you said let's not touch downtown like those elements is what that comprehensive plan team is looking into so I'm sure they have and the tools that we could steal to make this decision it's just not a metrics that we need to look at we need to look at the big picture because it talks about density whether it's 15 units or 23 units it starts to talk about other implications that
079this is going to have which which we are probably not seeing because we are going to be stuck with that 0.5 mile radius and that 50 acres or 75 Acres I feel like when somebody is zoned out at that comprehensive level plan they should be able to tell us here are some options I mean they may be but keep in mind I'm going to let you land again I mean so Deepa I think for us to say that they won't help us at all I don't think that's a completely accurate I think we're not going to have them spend a lot of time but certainly when we talk about we're part of the comprehensive plan is looking at art community zoning so this will be part of that discussion and housing right so the the
080I think part of it though is where is that happening in our timing right we're having our first meeting with the consultant next week and then once we have that going we're going to lay out a plan as to when things happen might we decide to do zoning first but it's a it's a process so I think we don't know that we'll have the zoning discussion completed before we need to have this completed if we want to do this at Springtown that's May right it's September so it also I think it'll be part of the discussion of that but um that's why the comprehensive plan is uh is not rewriting our zoning that is very clear that's not part of the package right they have some recommendations but it is not that is 100 my
081recollection of the scope of work so I I think between the timing and and their scope of work we're we're not going to be getting more than minimal help as Yolanda said from that consultant yeah I don't think um I don't think deep was implying that a consultant will be rewriting our zoning I think it was more that yeah because when we talked about even the comprehensive plan early on we talked about let's move housing toward the beginning so that we can have these discussions and I think that's what comes into play here yeah but there might not like Yolanda is saying it might not be tight enough to do that so that might be something we just have to see as we go but I I would think as we're having the discussions about
082housing and and if they're zoning changes with the community certainly the MBTA communities is going to come up right I mean I remember early on when we heard about this we've heard a lot of people saying what what do you mean we have to meet this debt I mean people were not in in town are not happy about this but if we can find a way to do it with things that are already zoned or close to it I think we can help them understand why we should move forward with this I think one of the things the public forgets is that there's been a lot of planning already at the state level and at the local level for these areas such as rail Transit District Pond Street these areas essentially we had Consultants we
083had planning done decades ago and so in some ways we don't need to replan what we already did we already planned and I would argue that the state's intentions are clearly within the construct of exactly what the town of Ashland already planned for and as controversial as that might be as long as we don't touch downtown we're technically doing exactly what we've already been doing I would say it would be I'll let you jump in well I was just yeah I was just going to say so um before we get into the I personally would like to see a few different scenarios like I wouldn't mind feeders or whoever this working group is presents us different options and ways of doing it I think that's fine um so people can kind of think about it
084so but um so I think you were suggesting a kind of working group that would work with Peter one member from each committee is that what basically we're proposing here that's what I would propose just to keep it very simple and then have those members obviously report back to their group perhaps every meeting you know because I think we want this to move forward fairly you know quickly yeah but I also think there's a way well you know it's inevitable that the people reporting back also are going to be in touch with the comprehensive plan people because we all sit at the same table and to make sure that connection happens as well if there's anything that they should be mutually informing each other of and the timeline so I you know I kind of
085think the Springtown meeting is a good goal um so we're actually talking about this is September I don't know yeah next next few months and into February March to have something ready right is that kind of like the timeline what does your timeline look like I think timeline wise you probably want something you know early December to then go options to start thinking about it yeah Oh you mean to for us to start talking about it yeah because I oh sure but I was thinking more like the a product the finished product to start having public hearings and stuff no matter what you know April no I take vacation at Christmas time March yeah no no I'm not saying Christmas but yeah so we're talking about March February or March before you post it yeah
086yeah you know and and that's gonna be devil's advocate for a second sure the master plan is going to happen right and we're gonna do a lot of work on it right we can take advantage of working with the housing cons you know with our consultant and big deal the deadline deadlines are deadlines right what's the old joke about deadlines deadlines approach to be broken right so the deadline comes December 31st 2024 right the master plan is just starting to wrap up right it's gonna be a lot of work what if we work something through and we say okay we'll propose something for the spring of 25. and we're going to use all the work that we've done and we've wrapped it in and yes for five months we're not allowed to you know apply
087for Grants or something like that but five months goes by like this in municipal government so I think there's two options to think about here you know I don't think to say yes we need to do I I would say yeah let's get it for the spring that's great you know let's do it for the spring and the fall is not that bad either right and and if we're gonna piggyback on some of the work from the comp plan then maybe there's a little bit of a a lag time you know and so you know not just to throw it out there is a play in The Devil's Advocate position um but there's all different elements that you have to think about when you start the president which I was actually going to bring up
088right we were saying you know we want to do it for spring because if something happens then we can bring it to the fall but we don't know yet how they're going to respond if we say you know what we brought it to our fall town meeting and it didn't quite we have to do some tweaking I don't think we'll get we might you know if that happens we won't be the only community and what do we have to gain we already have developed these areas in a dense way right next to the MBTA just like the state intended we did exactly what we already planned for what do we gain in utilizing an aspirational planning process the comprehensive plan which touches upon so many different areas not just transportation what do we possibly have
089to gain other than failing to comply with a state mandate being part of one of many areas of our community or the state where the state is threatening lawsuits why would we want to literally follow the advice to break state law I I'm very much against that I'm not comfortable with that and as a resident of Ashland yeah I'm not in favor of bringing state law however you know I think it is pretty important to that it be in a discussion with the comprehensive planning committee you know I the that's a group of citizens who have stepped forward to be extremely involved in the future of our community and so you have people who are ripe to participate in this conversation need to hear it need to be able to take it to the to
090the larger public and you know to your point I understand the community's plan for like the real transit district and the state has planned that for for us I understand that however you know if you go out in the street and ask people they don't think there's much planning that's gone on to the one Cirrus came down so um you know I we need to take advantage the other thing is when we brought on this team the one I think the most important factor in this particular group was that they were going to they were had the best plan for involving the community I mean this is about the community and and I understand there's it would be great if it works out nice and simply and it really fits into what's already been laid
091down that's all very good but it has to be a conversation I think in in the within I would agree with that but I don't think we need to miss the deadline I think we can you can make the deadline that absolutely but I think Peter's point is just that it's not the end of the world yeah it's not the end of the world and who knows by the time we were maybe faced with missing the deadline it might be every other community is missing the deadline too so the state might react differently I don't think there's any reason to um I think it's impossible to try to predict right now how this is going to proceed maybe we're going to look at the first plan and we're like this is a piece of cake
092people the town is going to love this and it'll be all over maybe we'll have 10 schemes and we'll hate them all and we can't figure it out we have no idea so all I can say is like let's start the process Pete a lot of this depends on Peter and alvaro's hours we're going to have to work carefully with them to say oh Trish I can't just get I can't get into this for three weeks right maybe that's going to be the case and let's just see how the process goes and stays in communication about how it goes because we can't predict where we're going to be in December or may or next next November from where we're sitting right now we don't we have we're just starting this is our first discussion about
093it yeah so again I guess I would say like is there anyone from the select board knows he's wait a minute oh you know I'd be willing to volunteer for this I feel as though um being the least experienced member I'm not some you know I worry about what I can bring to the plate except maybe asking questions because I'm I'm not as well versed in some of this um I Claudia you're bringing a lot of knowledge of Ashland and that's what I bring knowledge however uh you know that so it sounds like we have I say I say we have a volunteer anything wait a minute Joe wants to volunteer the other thing I think you know I think either of you I think either of you would be good how about both of
094you what I think no I think we wanted to have one otherwise it's a subcommittee and there's all kinds of stuff to do I think it has to be one that's fine I have no idea um one is fine if it's a working group it's different then flip a coin so I mean I think either one of you would be great what I think for you Claudia because this happened to me when I did our when I worked on our first housing production plan I learned so much about rules and regulations and what it means for the community so either one of you whoever you know flip a coin or however you want to do it but so I take it so both Joe and Claudia are interested very interesting Okay so well why don't
095we we'll you know arm wrestle they don't have to make a decision and we are I mean I don't think it's it's bad to have two members I mean I don't know so uh one question one question well Peter had I'm not sure I understand ability to meet during the day but it's three for us two two oh two makes an official subcommittee okay so let's just stick to one to make it efficient you guys are going to bring it back to us right yeah to this group and while they're thinking Deepa I assume you are you are at capacity I think right I don't want to speak for you but I'm giving you an out if you need it hi okay she looked tired when you got she got here today um and Kate
096and Anna I assume given I have no problem with Trisha with you doing it in light of your notes you're on top of it this is this is me desperately so if you if you have interest in this topic I would have no issue having you step up and help Peter come up with some tables I certainly don't feel like I have to have it but I know you two are gonna your load's only gonna get heavier and so I wanna I know that I'm offering it but not I keep looking at Kate on the screen here but um no I'd be happy if if you can do that well and as you said okay yeah I can meet I'm very my time is really flexible which helps Peter out instead of having another evening
097meeting so my challenge yeah and marcelos I mean we're I'll add a willingness to help is when it's time to start rewriting the zoning I would be more than happy to utilize my Northeastern law degree to help pull research um or whatever you might need to change words the one takeaways if we do this in-house and I think it's capable I think it's going to be obviously it takes a village right and in every Community it takes a village and so it's going to take a lot of people a lot of you know experiences like obviously your writing skills and um our knowledge of the community and and what have you so I think it's it'll be a good it'll be a good process and and I'll guarantee it one thing uh Claudia you will
098learn a lot about zoning if you even if you don't want to so well it could be joke too I know so yeah so we don't need to so we'll talk we're meeting we have a meeting next week that sounds like a good idea is there a way to keep to before we come up to the spring meeting is there a way to involve or let the public know where we are in this process we have to maybe there are brainstorming ideas and maybe there are I mean I know it's hard to segregate noise from the actual facts but if there is a way that we bring along the community in this journey and not just present something come to this right I don't know what's the best way to do that I think maybe
099once we have a few options I'm not going to say a certain number then maybe that's a time where obviously we get together again and we make sure it's out there to the public that we are going to be discussing these options with would like some feedback because maybe that's where you integrated with the conference and plan process can we agree on November is it time to come back here with your your work and if we have another joint in November We can brainstorm how to get the public involved including the comprehensive plan steering committee so that whatever it is that we land on as a presentation for the public we can deliver to whomever it is that we need to deliver it to would November be reasonable I think so I think I think
100November planning board gets funny in November just because the fourth Thursday is Thanksgiving and it's my birthday and it's your birthday holy moly learn a lot of things call them Thanksgiving every four years or something like that a lot to be grateful for so with that I think yeah you know I think if it's a Thursday if it you know it may be I'm we may have to schedule it a psych board meeting but I think you know looking at that oh sure look at it could be a Wednesday night uh it could be a Monday night who knows I think we just have to be flexible and um what do we talk about the presentation of the scenario I think you can I think we can start talking about you know presentation and scenarios
101I think come you know November um and then you know December typically the planning board usually gets a good one solid meeting in December just because things get pretty busy at the end of it with uh old snake neck knocking at the door so you know I think uh Joe but we will have a new associate member who could help us spread the word with the public that could be one important task all right all right so finished here or yes we'll look at it we'll look at one of the November meetings maybe the select board meeting to have this next conversation with some at least draft scenarios like in front of us that sounds great um and the select word will let let us know who's gonna yeah um okay so the other two
102um so the other two items on the The Joint meeting um the first one is I'm just going to take them both together interim zoning related to comprehensive plan this might have been already discussed in point one and other items of Select board planning board coordination these these two points were kind of not meant to be like another hour-long conversation but more of a a chance for us to brainstorm about things that we wish we do have a chance to talk to each other about and so that they can be put on some future agenda so I just um I guess kind of open up the floor to those kind of topics of just throwing out there about things that we maybe should talk about together so Joe has raised his inclusionary zoning as something
103for us to come back to so I would suggest that we add that to our next joint discussion um so I want to honor that and what I would add related to that is that we no longer have a housing moratorium and from my understanding certain we're now susceptible to 40b and so I think we should give it some urgency to discuss affordable housing whether it's together with Joe's point of inclusionary zoning or not I think we need to take that very seriously and to comprehensive plan process which could take multiple years before you even start to Zone because usually there's a planning and then there is a implementation phase and so it could take another two to four years before we have an actual rezoning of our community meanwhile we have multiple years of
104vulnerability to 40b without a plan and we have a responsibility as a planning board with select board support and input to immediately start rezoning so that we can properly address the needs of our community and not simply fly by the seat of our pants whenever a developer proposes 40b so I would say um you know we did do Trisha and I were working with Peter and mapc on um an inclusionary zoning bylaw that we got probably 90 percent to the goal line um and in fact I think the last discussion was with the planning board actually before it went it was going to go to town meeting and then we kind of decided to table it um in you know because the discussion was that it was a it was a rushed thing we didn't
105want to rush it um it could be Revisited with some tweaks probably without a lot of heavy lifting although I do know that it will become a huge Factor when we start talking about the comprehensive plan so um so yeah obviously when we have that zoning inclusionary zoning slash affordable housing conversation we should not be starting with a blank sheet of paper yep so right so I guess the other thing is and yes I think both of those are things that we need to talk about but I guess the other thing for me and I know Joe supports us as well is in regards to affordable housing we can be doing things before we include before we change our zoning we can be doing you know as a community as a decision it can be
106said if you're bringing us an art a building of a certain size we are going to require 25 or any size building we're going to require 25 and that's right and hold on Joe and yeah but you don't you don't even have to have inclusionary zoning right as a developer comes in with a project we all know affordable housing is important and we know that if a larger you know anything over four units if it has 25 percent affordable all of those units count and let me finish and we already have a housing production plan that says if we do certain things and make sure that when new developments come in we can include more affordable we'll get to that point so you don't even have to change your zoning it's just an approach when
107new projects I agree I I agree with you you know I think I don't think you'll find anyone at this table that says not interested in affordable housing we we all have people that we know personally who struggle with that in this community um but I also think you know given the projects we have gone through recently on the planning board it's it's not the only thing we we have to look at affordable housing we have to look at business we have to look at traffic we have to look at schools we have to look at sustainability we have to look at open space so and you do too because you have a budget right so when those things all come into factors on the same project affordable housing doesn't win every time and so
108that's the thing that so that that I'm just saying that that um that our job is not that straightforward and so it will continue to be complex that one of these things doesn't rise to the top but there is something we can do that is more straightforward which is we can take charge of our own future like other communities that Peter has been involved with who purchase property and build affordable housing so it's much more difficult when you have a private developer constrained by zoning and certain different interests such as traffic et cetera et cetera it is a lot easier if we as a community if the group here can come together and say you know what we're going to develop as a community we can have public housing in this community and that would
109solve our problem very quickly so that would be that would be wonderful in the real world of Make-Believe because the affordable housing trust has been working for the last eight years to find a contractor that would be willing to do what you just said and we're not able to find one so let's have that conversation because people we're going to stop it I'm just saying so that's why we've been having this come within ourselves we've been having that conversation I I totally I totally understand I had a I had a conversation about similar things well I'm just just recently um but we're not going to discuss it right now right because it's going to be a heated one and we're all looking forward to that so um well it sounds like we've got some good
110issues to yeah yeah is there anything else besides inclusion Arizona housing which is its own topic so I was I guess but it's all housing it was Kate's yeah also the uh the sewer moratorium I'm sorry Kate can you say that again the sewer moratorium okay thank you because that's kind of related to all these things too so um yeah just to kind of piggyback on that so I saw some you know I suggested this topic um or it seemed like a good good idea because um you know the housing moratorium was thrown out and we are now using the sewer moratorium uh and we can apparently extend that um and although it's not subject to 40b although I think it's a little hazy because I don't know if a sewer system doesn't exist how
111you can build a big apartment building but you know there is that uh aspect yeah um so I guess what you know is that are we so in in terms of the profile or the the next two or three years until the comprehensive plan zoning recommendations come out so looking at it kind of like a big picture is there other things that we think we should do in the interim to Anna's point and we now have the sewer moratorium as our main um planning tool at the moment and are we happy with that are there other things that we want to identify we talked about inclusionary zoning and affordable housing in general which I think are all good but in terms of zoning things or is there anything we should be thinking about in terms
112of zoning are other other whether the procedural things about the 25 requirement I'm not sure the the tool for that but is that you know that's the kind of word I thought it's a conversation worth having about those things so I you know so I'm just open to ideas or thoughts on that as we are we happy with the general outlines of the zoning that exists and to go to Anna's point about years of of zoning and thinking are there immediate problems that we see so the next time a big project gets proposed and we all go well that's in the zoning so there's we just have to review it I mean is there anything that we've seen that we want to pick out and say look we know that we want to do something
113fairly soon so that's I guess I'm throwing that you did at one point um this is a while ago I think it was shortly after uh Western 81 West Union Street that we're starting to sell solar energy yeah so we're starting to look at some of the categories of the zoning of what's allowed in different zones um and uh so what our categories are when the zoning was created which I don't even know how many years ago that was now might be quite different than how we view um you know Pleasant Street now we might view that in a very different way we have a Riverwalk now we have we have other things that maybe are allowed under our zoning right now that maybe we wish weren't right and so those are little tweaks um
114in the zoning you know it really is a line item take this off I was thinking part of the comprehensive plan discussion when we're looking at our community we're gonna look at okay you know we have this kind of housing we have you know what are our needs I mean some of that will be part of the comprehensive it's true but we also just talked about that this is interim zoning related to comprehensive plan so here here's a challenge we've got 40 Main Street pulling out right and making it quite clear that they may come back as a 40b that's clear to us we do not know if the sewer moratorium will stop that in fact I don't think we want that to happen because we care about affordable housing right so we can't kind
115of have it both ways ooh we really want more affordable housing but thankfully we have the moratorium to prevent housing you can't do that you have to kind of make a decision as a community what are we doing if we want to create housing and opportunity for growth what does it look like so my suggestion is we start looking at economic development in Massachusetts if you if you you read the Worcester Business Journal what you're seeing is that where are the business needs right commercial real estate is struggling but there are certain forms of real estate that are growing quite nicely there is not enough hotels in the state of Massachusetts there's not enough the hospitality industry is taking off right you can see through the development of airbnbs Etc the future of zoning is
116going to be in hospitality and airbnbs and if you look at our our communities that are more urban that's where they are we are behind them right because we are not yet dense enough but we're going to be looking at those issues five ten years from now this is not rocket science let's read The Business Journal let's figure out where the economic development is I for one think we should start to rezone downtown to allow hotels which currently is not allowed I think Ashland could become quite vibrant if we attract that type of Economic Development and we stop relying on developers and multi-family housing for tax funds all right so I would say do a huge tangent because economic development is not what we like are tasked with at this point um Economic Development zoning
117is our task we are the planning boards so I would say Economic Development as part of the comprehensive plan will be a discussion I think a lot of this will be part of the comprehensive plan I think if we jump the gun on on pretty much any of this we're doing the community into service because we had promised that we were going to go through this huge planning exercise spend a lot of money a lot of time a lot of effort to do it so yeah while while I think that it's great to have ideas and it's great to talk about these things I think that um you know for for our time together I'm I don't think we're I don't think it's best served going through things that are going to be part of
118this comprehensive plan because because that's where the focus should be and that's what we're tasked with to do can I address that just so Ann I think those are great ideas but they do strike me as a comprehensive plan kind of process I guess what I was getting at is what's the near-term stuff that we as elected officials the next time someone files something and people think to think it's horrible and you know do we want to throw up our hands and say well you know 20 15 years 15 whatever they said that that kind of density was great here and this is what the guy's building so that's what's happening so so I'm just like is there something we should take action on we had a moratorium for a reason that's been thrown out
119what are we replacing it with or what are you know what do we do to be at least on this interim I'd call it a really a four-year period what should we be doing or what you know so I that strikes me as a great idea but I don't see that as a near-term kind of like oh where I mean it's a town meeting model right and so so at any point we can propose owning and the jurisdiction that the planning board including the comprehensive plan is to rezone I don't think one stops the other and the two are really interrelated and our communities that you know immediate there's many communities who have a Old Mill downtown who have done both you can do a comprehensive plan and at the same time Revitalize your downtown
120at the exact same time all right so we're looking at again we're looking at meetings that one that involves housing and inclusionary zoning and another that still might talk about these interim measures which like like I know that there are things that we may want to take out of the locations there are and I don't want to wait four years that's right until the comprehensive plan says no put that back in there we want that function there right so okay so unless someone has something different to add does the upper Charles Trail committee help and kind of a joint discussion are they hitting a plateau and is there something because it seems like last few projects that's come up a lot and they've seemed like they've gone back and forth they gave us the impression
121that they've gone back and forth back and forth and hadn't found a home in some ways that'd be great joint discussion I see Jen's waving her Jen you may want to come up here sorry Jen you gotta and then candidates we're going to wrap up and get to the next so we've been working with the upper Charles Trail so that's one of the during our Retreat um was one of the projects that we've tried to put some resources in over the next year so Peter and Alvaro um Michael and I have been working with upper Charles Trail looking at the current Parcels that they need easements sort of our initial look to see you know what kind of work can be done in the next six months and then 12 months um so we may
122be coming back but right now I think um we've been working just to do some deed work and then also some discussions around you know how feasible of some of the easements that are on the route um with some serious focus on the town owned properties so would that be uh would that be an item that you would give us a heads up or that hey we really could use a joint meeting about this there's things we need to talk about yeah for sure okay that'd be great good right so in terms of process then so in terms of discussing these issues is their kind of willingness to move forward to continue this discussion whether it's inclusionary Zone and some of these others I'm looking at my fellow board members November yeah that's right okay
123so we'll we'll include that in our November discussion okay [Music] with potential ideas for the MBTA zoning and where that's going to be and I have a feeling that's going to be a long enough discussion especially if we're going to put it as part of one of our select board meetings right because we you know so yeah I would say these other things we need to look at Future meetings to see how we can fit them in with everything else that we're working on I think future meetings and I think also looking at what other players are in here we had a housing meeting before we included other groups in that housing meeting and so um and and I think Brandy I'm looking at you because not too long ago you said hey should we
124have another one of these you know the one of these housing meetings so um but I do think that should be separate from getting the work done about MBTA okay so we'll we'll put it on some future we're trying to avoid those 11 30 nights that's right all of us are so we do have a responsibility to bring that to the comprehensive plan process the housing piece and I I squarely agree with that and so I would urge those folks who are interested I think we should have a housing venue with I think we had three boards last time and we were so thrilled and excited to get going and then we kind of stopped and I think we need to restart that so that we can deliver some input to the comprehensive plan steering
125committee as to kind of where we are as a community on those issues what are our limitations right because we've tried this I would recommend that when we talk about housing as the comprehensive plan we make sure that those boards are invited so they can be part of the discussion I don't personally knowing the work you know we have the housing production plan knowing the work that has been done for inclusionary zoning those are documents that can be presented to the comprehensive plan group and it can be part of that I don't know that the three boards need to have a separate meeting to discuss where we're at with these other things send the documents out let people review them and as we're in the comprehensive plan discussion housing and it's not going to be
126one meeting or one discussion on housing there's going to be a discussion with the public then there's going to be a discussion with the group with the consultant and then there's going to go back out to the to the community and I have no issue with that except we have to remember that's not going to create zoning change and so meanwhile while that really important process is happening we are susceptible to 40b and we have no we're essentially defenseless against any planning measure that we could choose and so if the idea is somehow we have to do one comprehensive Plan before we do zoning that is a mistake because we're essentially making ourselves completely vulnerable I think we got it we got the I think everyone here is well aware of of being in that
127position so okay so we'll continue that process so uh so we're good for now we obviously I think so lots of stuff to resolve okay um all right so thanks everybody for that I do appreciate you uh joining us here because we have to make some progress on these things it's tough as it is and however our many arguments we may get into all right discussions important discussions yes discussions debate um okay so the next item on our agenda which is in front of me is obviously the um associate member position um planning board was unfortunate to lose our associate member position at the end of June um so the person who is um you know Kevin McLean who was our associate member decided not to um um not to renew for the next three
128years he has a young child he's travels a lot for work and he just um could not do it though he was an extremely valuable I think everyone on the planning board would say it was an extremely valuable member of our team in the select board had helped him helped put him in that position so we were glad to have him there through some tough projects but that position has been open since the since the end of June so of course summer being a little bit tough time to get you know work done but we're happy to you know start out kind of the Fall with um maybe being able to fill that position I wanted to review just very briefly um as we had been through this in discussions in the planning board before
129we put someone in in the position uh the last time before Kevin Putin was in the position what the planning board is looking for just to make it clear is that we're we're really looking for someone who will be able to attend most if not all the same the same as any other member of the planning board be able to attend our meetings through the second and third second and fourth Thursday of the month they generally go to 7 15. we've been pretty good about keeping them at 10 15 or or a little bit less we have been quite a bit later than that though like I said we struggled not to go there anymore um and um and in that position the person really has a full voice in discussion they are um they
130are able to participate in any discussions that we have on on the various topics please correct me if I if I misspeak about something Peter um but that associate position member is only able to vote on issues that are a special permit so um not on a site plan review only on a special permit as per the Ashland by loss and I make a uh sorry a slight correction that I think it's only a special permit if somebody's recused is that correct oh yes sorry sorry Kate yes so um yeah so on yeah that's kind of critical right yeah thank you thank you yes yes yes and you know I'm not a night person right so um the the social position steps in and votes when a member when one of the five of people
131on the board has to recuse themselves and which has happened in the past whether it's because the project um the person is a butter to a project that we are that we are reviewing if the person has a I would assume has a um this is a friend or something of the owner of a property that we're reviewing is if there's some reason they need to recuse themselves also it's important for a person to be able to um sit in on those meetings every time because we can have a circumstance where for some reason um a health reason and some other kind of emergency reason that the someone has to a board member has to recuse themselves in the middle of um of a special permit application in which case the associate member could simply
132step in to that to that missing slot so thank you for that correct that was a big correction so thank you for that that was huge um so um yeah and also the also the note uh tonight is that why we hope to fill the position as soon as we can the planning board and the select board it's a it's a a joint position by majority vote of the two boards but the boards are not under obligation to fill the position so we fill the position when we find a person that we're that we're satisfied would be a good member of the team so um with that um procedure for the night Rob do you want to talk about that um I can if you want but yeah I think you should together I will
133I think we'll follow your lead in terms of what makes you correct me if I get it wrong I'll do that I'll listen we'll listen obviously I'm not perfect okay so um procedure for that for the discussion is that we will give each of you you know two to three minutes of just a personal introduction um being able to tell us about you know really whatever you think is important your you know how long you've been in Ashland your time here what you might be involved with what you care about um anything you want to share with us and then I believe hopefully you both received a list of just three questions that we had decided to provide you with in advance so you have some time to think about it we'll let you answer
134those questions and then um we can just individual members of the board can can ask questions after that um I think you should be free as you go along to ask questions of us as well we want to make sure if you're um you know applying for the position that you also get your questions answered and feel comfortable with what you might be going into so anyone have anything to add to that okay all right so I think my agenda again all right so first person on our agenda we went by last name alphabetical order so is Amanda Hayes Amanda I'll ask you to come up to the microphone and just give a two or three minute introduction thank you all so much my name is Amanda Hayes I've been in Ashland for just about
135four years um I am a commuter into Boston so I like Anna I ride the train um in Brandy I know we see each other often on on the train on the ride and in the morning I found this community by literally following the train line out to an affordable place to raise my young family so we had one little girl when we bought our house and now also have a young son so my kids are four and two and my husband and I moved here right before the pandemic started it was a very interesting time to start to get to know this community um the first places we got to know were the Open Spaces because in the early times of the pandemic we weren't gathering in small in in sort of indoor places
136with our young kids so um we really fell in love with the character of this town both of us are from the Midwest and sort of Love Open Spaces and appreciate our opportunities to spend time outside with our family I fell in love with this place and and sort of very immediately knew that I wanted to make it our family's forever home um and you know I just really don't Envision a place a time when we would choose to leave and so I think for me community service has always been a really important part of my life I'm an immigration lawyer I've dedicated my life to sort of giving back to to communities in need and you know for me uh it's a no-brainer to to try to seek to be part of the leadership
137in our town to make it a better place to really hear what residents need and want from their community and to try to build consensus around that and make that happen so um that's what drew me to the opportunity to apply for the associate position I think you know for me as well I I um I am excited about the opportunity to be you know involved in these discussions understanding that it's you know a very limited role in terms of voting um but a really you know for me an important way to help build consensus and and bring perspective and help drive those conversations so that's what's motivated me and a little bit about myself um do you want to sort of delve into the answers to the to the questions or did you or
138is someone going to ask them I'm going to turn it over to Peter who's going to okay so I'm going to ask you the questions so question number one describe one trait or skill that you use regularly in your profession that would be an asset to work uh to the work of the planning board yes so I'm an attorney by training um so I uh I said I'm an immigration lawyer I deal in very very complex regulations daily that is I am sort of in the trenches with a very Antiquated clunky law instead of regulations and trying to find a way to make that work for um corporate clients I mainly represent large businesses um that is my client population at this at this point in my career so really problem solving and taking sort
139of you know things that are um complicated clunky not intuitive and finding you know having a problem presented to me and finding a way to drive to a solution that works you know within the parameters of um the the structure that we're given in the regs and the in the legal framework and finding a solution for clients and individuals and individual families and and making that work for them so I think my superpowers are really um you know taking really complicated problems and finding solutions to them um in a way that uh is everyone can be happy with that has like sort of consensus at the end of the day uh thank you question number two describe a situation where as part of a group or committee with diverse viewpoints you successfully work to achieve
140consensus um this sounds like 9 A.M on Tuesday to me like I think um so my role I I manage a large team and a very large business account for our practice and I would say I sort of opened my inbox thinking I'm gonna do um you know a b and c and I'm immediately doing x y and z um with you know the problem of the day and um really consensus building is a huge huge part of of my job on a day-to-day basis and I think it's a part of it that I'm really quite excellent at um so in terms of sitting down with you know someone saying it has to be X Y and Z for these reasons and I I just can't see a way through it and someone else saying
141nope it has to be you know this way and I I just it's not going to work whether it's a technology perspective or cost and budget and savings and you know just sitting down and really taking a deep breath breaking it down piece by piece and finding a solution that works for everybody again that to me that feels like you know that's that's sort of what I get up in the morning and do uh question number three in your view what is a member's role in communicating with the public knowing that members are not permitted to speak on behalf of the board as a whole yeah that's a I think that's a great question so I think um I I know I haven't lived in town for nearly as long as many of you in
142this room um but I do sense that one of the common themes in town is um sort of Engagement and awareness and you know making sure that the community is aware of what's going on and the decisions that are being made um I think there are folks sitting here in front of me that have a great way of communicating I've learned about these opportunities through some of you here in this room um in terms of you know making announcements whether it's on Town forums and town boards so for me I think it's super important to make sure that anytime I'm communicating whether it's you know at the farmers market or making a post on the Community page or former Happy board I'm not really sure what we're calling it um but to understand that there
143could be a perception question that I'm speaking in my role as a planning board member to take that very seriously and to probably err on the side of not rather than than yes and so and when I am going to post that or sort of engage in that way I think making very clear um that you know you're doing so as your as a as a lay person not as a member of um of the board I will say I think I feel really excited about the opportunity to help engage the community a little bit more in the work of these boards because I've had the opportunity um to join meetings and and to watch and to participate as a member of the public and I think you know when you sit down and even
144today when we're talking about the you know you all are talking about the MBTA communities regulations you think you know people hear that and they're fired up but there are like 10 people that are so well-meaning and really want to find the right answer for our community and I think that that gets lost in the translation and so for me you know whether it's um I think um Kate is a great example you know posting the opportunity for the comprehensive plan and that committee to be able to say like Hey listen we want as many applications for this as possible because this is a really big deal for our community I learned about um you know that initiative from the from that information that she put out there and so I think there's a huge
145element to um to driving engagement just with information and I think that that is you know whether it's saying you know this is the agenda for the planning board tonight and you know this is what each item means in Lay people terms you know 1060 that's the Mills you know and making sure that that information is accessible to folks um and so I guess that's a little bit of a word salad but um for me it's sort of two two parts of the problem right making sure that when um you're posting or you're talking in the community that you're airing on the side of cautions I think it could always be perceived as a statement from the board um but then also sort of doing all we can to make sure that the Public's aware
146of what's going on in the hard work of these boards and um and sort of the thought process that goes into a lot of these decisions yeah so um question to the board because I never quite thought this through do we went to what talk to both candidates or should we and and then ask individual questions or sorry because we have individual questions okay so any um extra questions from any member of the board so I don't necessarily have a question but I did just want um everyone to know so several of us have met Amanda um through the comprehensive plan process so Amanda had joined our project management team meetings way early in the process um way before the steering committee kind of came together she was one of our only members of the
147public that came to our in-person meetings or joined us on zoom and she was enthusiastic and asked really good questions and was very engaged and even kept coming back even even though some of those meetings were a little on the challenging side so um but when we were talking about and then she applied for the the steering committee and we had talked about when we were um when we were a point in the steering committee that we had some amazing candidates for for the committee and and Amanda's uh Precinct that she had applied for um we had another really strong candidate for as well and so for me personally it was the the one the one thing that I wish we could have appointed to people from a Precinct because um when we talked about
148what we wanted from our steering committee was really to bring in new people some fresh perspective to have really engaged new members of the public that really hadn't been a part of the boards because we had plenty of representation from other boards so it was um just a really great experience to kind of get to know Amanda through that process and um you know my statement is just that I would I I think it's a it's great that she decided to to throw her hat in the ring for this position and I would highly um I would highly support her so yes thank you um Yolanda you're next I have one question and I always try to ask this of people who either step into a board and then potentially have to run for election
149so as an associate you don't have to be elected uh it's so important that we have people who run for planning board is it something that I mean maybe you haven't thought about this yet if you were appointed as the associate member and a seat opens up would you then consider running to be a full member of the board I would okay yes okay that's my only question what is what is in terms of is there an open seat no we just have an association we want to fill the associates um Marcel is just not here able to be here this evening I just wanted to clarify I would I don't think I would do that in a situation where I hadn't fulfilled my term as an associate member I think I would I I
150think I would want to make sure I fulfilled my commitment to the board in that position and but yes I've thought about running and I wouldn't be you know opposed to running for an open seat if it opened up I do think I would want to make sure that you know we weren't leaving the board in a large in terms of not having an associate member I I will add I think we're looking at a potential project that I will be in a butter on so we will have I think I want to say the Shaw's I don't know if it withdrew the project near Shaw's who knows what the latest rumor is but there's always a possibility that one of us will be recusing ourselves and frankly I think that's highly likely now with
15140b so uh it I think that even if none of us are running or we don't have an opening we're going to need an associate member yeah I do have a question for Amanda if appropriate I was actually Joe had his hand up hey just one quick question Amanda appreciate all your your thought uh your thought out answers one of the questions is uh you have two young kids yeah and this is going to be time committed will you be able to take that time away from your family and how will that affect your your situation at home um thanks for that question um I have a rock star husband and we are very 50 50 partnership and um we had a family meeting about this before I threw my hat in the ring and
152he's fully supportive um you know he's got stuff he does once or twice a month for you know hit to fill his cup and um and this would be my thing and I think that's one of the things that I felt so um you know coming to the comprehensive plan steering committee those meetings it was so energizing and you know I I just got this feeling just sitting in the room and you know I got it again tonight listening to the conversation around the MBTA um you know I just kind of wanted to roll my sleeves up and get in there and so I think it is really fulfilling for me and um I I mean I'm a hard worker that's I I have no issue putting in the time um and when I'm I'm
153pumped and motivated for something I'll find the time and I I have you know 100 percent um I've got the the rest of the haze Clan at my back on on this one okay thank you I appreciate that Anna um Amanda and I'll ask the other candidate the same question I think part of our um expertise as a planning board you know we all have kind of something we bring to the table but we also function as a unit when we make certain decisions to the best of our ability obviously we argue we we fill gaps for each other and our last associate member had some expertise if you will in certain areas that we lacked um kind of watching the planning board in action tonight or other meetings can you give us something that
154you would contribute to this mix of this specific unique planning board that could help us fill a gap yeah absolutely I mean I think um I don't want to presume to know everyone well enough to know what the gaps might be um I think you know listening to the conversation tonight um I I absolutely would have raised my hand to work with Peter um on the on the sort of um you know the project for the MBTA um to put some scenarios together for you all um because I think my what I really love is taking a really complicated problem and a logical conundrum and dissecting it and coming up with Solutions and so you know my mind was already sort of racing in terms of all right you know you move this here and
155I think you know Anna you were working in a similar way um so I don't know that it's filling a gap but um I do think that that um analytical skill set for me um in addition to you know I think um I would hope that I could really bring um an ability to sort of bridge some Gap with the community and to be able to sort of um be able to to say you know again this is what's going on tonight we'd love to have people show up here's the zoom link and this is what each agenda item means and even if it's just that um and I think those are the two things that come to mind for me anyone else let's ask one one question then this is uh from a list
156of questions that Marcelo who's not here tonight the planning board has and it might be apropos for our meeting the planning board has a very supportive and collegial group even when the meetings hearings and decisions are long difficult or filled with challenges and disagreements how can you contribute how can you contribute to help maintain or improve the current collegial nature of the board um I think I don't want to be repetitive I think I might have touched I think building consensus and sort of being diplomatic are some of my um better traits I'm I'm um I'm an oldest sibling of uh three and I have two younger brothers I think I was sort of from the jump um refereeing and and sort of um building Community you know I think if you go back to
157um whether it's captains of sports teams drum major the marching band resident assistant in college like sort of more of those um cheerleader type roles I I gravitate towards them um and you know I think for me um I really enjoy team building being part of a team and um I am you know all about at the end of the day you get to the same place and then you know that's that's where the team landed and that's that's you know that's where we are and now and now we're a unit so um that's kind of my approach to most things in life all set all right great thank you thank you all right and our second candidate um Stephen Morgan hey good evening I just want to provide us with a two to three
158minute introduction sure sure um Steve Morgan um I am uh Ashland resident for what going on nine years now um live off of downtown on Concord Street um I think I'm some members are familiar with me although I don't have personal relationships with any of the members um my background is I have an engineering degree from Worcester Polytech over in Worcester um been in doing projects technical projects and construction type projects of clients over throughout my 40-year career I currently work for a leading Pharma company doing um projects ranging from I.T to building modification projects for the for the company we have probably one of the most internationally recognized cultures of operations for interpersonal skills and how you run projects inside the company I run typically you know a dozen projects at one time with
159financial responsibility and also working with schedulers and and various constituent groups for functions to execute projects so so that's my background I also have some as I've probably mentioned previously I have some commercial real estate experience which I'm not currently involved with but I've owned commercial real estate in the past and have dealt with a lot of the issues that come up with regard to having tenants and buildings and modifying buildings and taking older buildings and rehabbing those buildings for for more modern use so that is part of my my experience space I final point I'd make is uh I recently expressed some interest in a zoning board of appeals position I do have an interest in planning I was advised at that time to come back and look for another position I thought this
160position you know fed fit the bill where there might be some some hesitancy with a full member position that wasn't elected and this is an associate member position so it seemed to fit the bill with the recommendation I received previously when you apply when you appointed the zoning board of appeals member so when I learned of the position I put my name back in the Hat and it seemed to be a good fit on that basis so that's that's my introduction sorry thank you Mr Morgan so we're going to start the to ask the three questions so first describe one trait or skill that you use regularly in your profession that would be an asset to the work of the planning board yeah so I think it would be a great asset for the planning
161board you know the team building and the functional execution skills that I use on a daily basis um you know I see a lot of variety of projects a lot of different personalities from different functional groups in order to have a successfully executing project you you have to have a a plan that progresses to conclusion I understand in government work sometimes things take a little longer than in in private sector but you know we're accountable to to work with people and accomplish consensus and get work done on a daily basis so that that is a key skill that I I use all the time thank you uh question number two describe a situation where as part of a group or committee with diverse viewpoints you've successfully worked to achieve consensus sure so um in in
162my world um I would I would pick a a complex project I did one for Santa Fe uh not my current uh employment but a past contract employment we moved a major regulatory change management system for them they've been working on it for about two years had different plant sites Global audience in addition to local audience different technology approaches being proposed business critical system that was used for product release obviously validated with the FDA and that that team had been struggling to to migrate that system and upgrade it something as simple as think of it as a an application upgrade but in this context dealing with you know so much data that you literally couldn't move it in a timely manner to do to do the work and so building the consensus around that team
163replanting that project taking the best ideas from the project and putting them into an executable plan um I think is a is a good example of of what you'd be looking at there you need you need to be able to implement things and have people lying to to support the to support the implementation so you know I think that that alignment is part of the key team building or or alignment process that has to happen people have to visualize the goal they have to be aligned to the goal before they can start marching effectively to a goal right so that all right thank you for that answer question number three in your view what is a member's role in communication with the public knowing that a member's excuse me knowing that members are not permitted
164to speak on behalf of the board as a whole well this is um this is a very key point of of a lot of relationships we have this issue with regulatory filings in in FDA regulated companies all the time because literally any any adverse comment you can make uh anywhere can can be misconstrued as a regulatory concern so here I think the really the focus is on um facilitating communication back to the board um you know not not indicating any answers necessarily but bringing people to the board for discussion being able to communicate documents putting people at things that are necessary uh you know to positively let people know what's going on at an agenda and I think those those those things are are really what individual members would be doing I I don't think
165individual members can really speak even the chair cannot speak for a board so that is pretty well known I don't know if that's the basis of that question but only what the board does together really really counts for anything in in Pub in public boards yeah foreign thank you I like to open it up to uh questions from either board you want to ask my questions the same when I asked Amanda so if you're an associate member and then someone you know currently on the board decides not to run the seat is open would you consider running for election for the seat I would um I think uh you know once you are working in an area you want to progress whether it's your your job or your appointment you know I think it's a
166logical progression to move to a full member once you've had the experience of associate member and working with the board I don't I disagree with the prior account a little bit and I think there's certainly no negatives associated with moving to the next to the next level when an opportunity opens up obviously you wanna you could run for election tomorrow with no experience and get voted in so I think it's it's progression you know it's typical of any professional role to move in a progressive way and and I think a voting member would be a progression from an associate member okay thank you Trish um Mr Morgan I asked the same question on did Amanda um take a lot of time and effort to be part of as an associate member and as as you
167heard uh earlier there's a possibility that someone will have to recuse themselves on a project and you'll have to be you know put into that position and it's going to take a lot of time and effort whether you be able to provide that time for the board to do the work that needs to get done sure I I do invest significant amount of time as as I think most folks know on Town happenings and town doings to stay informed um you know I I attend a lot of meetings sometimes in person not as much recently but I put the time in I also generally bring as as I think many of you know information or or case law or positions that are thought out in advance as opposed to just public comment of my own
168opinion and so most of my my comments that some are familiar with is based on you know my my understanding of fact based and review review of documents success Etc I'm an actual current planning project obviously I would be recused from the school project that I know we've had discussions on that so I certainly understand that recusal and what that means and the ethical requirements and so forth that are involved in the position so I I would certainly make the time and would review all projects and and obviously as an engineer very familiar with plans and what I'm looking at right so not an architect but I'm an engineer you know yeah I guess I'll repeat my question as well that was the goal um so as You observe the planning board tonight or other
169meetings you you can see certain gaps or certain expertise that we bring to the table so what would you what Gap if you will would you feel for us to make us a better functioning board sure so I I think the discussion tonight was was useful but I as as an impression of the discussion and I'll use that as a gap I felt I felt the board wandered toward the latter half of your discussion um I think that uh there might have been some attempts to bring the conversation back to conclusion but I think there was really a need there to stay focused in on the topic at hand and um you know that's perhaps something that that I might be able to help with here almost like as a time keeper because I'm a
170non-voting member is to try and help the conversation move in a positive way um you know again it's a different role than a voting member but here tonight I don't know if anyone on the board felt that but I I felt watching this that about halfway through the discussion on the zoning it started to churn on the same topic and and what seemed like straightforward conclusions were not yet a consensus and So eventually I think an hour and a half in the consensus was reached on a plan but uh you know there could have been some improvement there that would be the feedback uh Kate I don't want to miss you being up on the screen there do you have anything you wanted to ask or ADD no I I was good with those uh
171free questions okay yeah I was I just I feel like I missed Kate on the last candidate and uh didn't want to do that again if she wanted to ask something okay so I'll repeat um marcelo's question the planning board has a very supportive and collegial group even when the meetings hearings and decisions are long difficult or filled with challenges and disagreements how can you contribute or help maintain or improve the current collegial nature of the board well I think I think you know my background in in planning and project planning really really I think very um analytically and in terms of putting things together um I think there would be some benefit to some additional detail around agendas or topics as they're being developed not just because of an open meeting type concern but
172just as a way to break stuff down and work through stuff um I know it's been my experience attending meetings that sometimes you know you get your couple minutes and and then you don't get to talk again and so I certainly would support an environment that would allow allow for good focus and and moving through a logical path to conclusion which you know I think is everybody's goal I'm not saying anybody's not doing that I'm just not when you ask for where it could be improved I think some of the hearings I've been on have gone late late for reasons that might might be improved by some upfront planning so I'm not again criticizing the chair I just you know I'm trying to respond to the question yeah thank you um any other questions from
173the board okay we'll let you take your seat thank you um and then um yeah we just have General General discussion making a note to the board that we don't uh I just a reminder we do not have to pick a candidate but if we want to bring someone forward we we can do so Claudia um yeah I just wanted to comment I um I really appreciated uh some of the comments that Miss Hayes made in terms of I thought when she was talked about clunky non-not-intuitive matters that she works with and unfortunately I feel as though the planning board has to deal with that that those sorts of uh things all the time um you know I felt that she talked a lot about building consensus again it is I think no offense but
174sometimes it's painful to watch what you folks have to do um I I really appreciated the comment driving engagement with information I think engagement in this community is something that you hear over and over again about everybody's efforts to engage the community we're always looking for ways to do that and um you know driving engagement with information wow I just think that that it's a great little uh phrase and I also really I think that the connection to young families in the community could be a you know that was a useful a benefit other comments you know oh sorry Claudia I just want to say I I do appreciate people stepping forward and volunteering for positions um you know that involve certainly this this will involve a great deal of time um and I think
175that's uh important I think uh you know that's also a nice thing about our community is people do step forward other comments well I'll just yeah I'll make a comment you know thank you both for coming forward I think it's great especially getting new people involved um and um I think you're both highly qualified um and I think we've got some great candidates to choose from um you know uh you know Steve has you know very strong credentials I think in this kind of construction related that's my impression and you know I don't know if that's um you know is that something that would be you especially useful on the planning board and uh but you know they're both both very strong candidates so we're lucky to have them so um I did have kind
176of another kind of this is a side question is your design Review Committee fairly full and is there any interest in that or is it all these Architects and designers that you're looking for and it is it is fall at this time actually I think I think actually we we have one associate position open there as well um but the regular members are full yeah okay other comments thank you I guess I'll jump in um I'm certainly very familiar with Amanda's application because I heard of her application at the time of the steering committee meeting I think that um each candidate has certain strengths I keep thinking about kind of the needs of this particular planning board and what we have in front of us kind of the the up and coming challenges if you
177will whether it's the MBTA communities law or our comprehensive plan there's quite a bit of challenge to both processes that requires a lot of consensus and frankly a lot of cheerleader quality that jumped out at me relative to Amanda's presentation and I do feel like this planning board would benefit from that because although we are very collegial we have had moments of tension and frustration within our within our body if you will as a unit and I think it would be helpful to have that that being said some of the things that jumped out at me about Mr Morgan's application are accountability execution really focusing on those elements of implementation and execution while I don't think the planning board needs that right now I do wonder if at some point we may want to consider
178an alternative associate position so that in the event one associate member is not available because associate members just like other members could have whether it's family obligations or their own recusal and so I for one would be open to considering an alternative associate position and I do think that Mr Morgan could be beneficial to the planning board unique to specific projects where for example we are currently thinking about a tree bylaw and we are also working on the MBTA issue and we're working on the comprehensive plan and I can see someone with Mr Morgan's project management experience being helpful as an alternative member who perhaps is not present at every single meeting but we could ask him to essentially consult on specific projects and I think if we have that jurisdiction as a planning board
179we should consider it for specific assignments if you will if he's interested I could see that being a very good role for him those are my thoughts anyone else um I just like to say generally I think that we have two very strong candidates so I see no reason not to to take a vote um this evening to select one I also think um I like in his idea of potential alternate we I don't believe we're actually allowed like an alternate um associate member because we by State law can have one associate member but if there's there certainly is no lack of work on the planning board and if there's other roles I I would certainly be up for exploring that for the candidate who's not selected yes as far as I know there is
180only while the design Review Committee has two associate alternate members I think they're called there and we have only one us one spot for one associate member so that is what um we are able to vote on tonight um I think in terms of my own comments um what I have learned through my time in the planning board and um dealing with other boards as well many different committees as related to the planning board and sometimes before I was on planning board um is really to be able to with each member always kind of trying to ascertain how much um I can trust that member how much they are who what they say if they're the same person in all contexts um and don't kind of change Personalities in different contexts someone who's very transparent
181in what they um what their doing on the board what they're doing outside the board what they're bringing to the board um what uh if they're if they're bringing everything in up front way if there's ulterior motives if they're looking to trust their other members of the board and worth work with them if they're able to say you know I think I'm wrong about this or I think I might have made a mistake in order to take another Viewpoint and um and those are some of my you know beyond even um questions of you know experience if you've had experience on this kind of committee before or anything like that are more important to me about you know how you how I can depend on you not necessarily agree with you but how I can
182depend on you um as a person and um and so I really appreciated um I appreciated Amanda's answered the answer is I feel like she's very straightforward I feel like she's very transparent I've never met her before I have never talked to her before but that's the kind of um that's the kind of feeling I get from what she's saying kind of what you see is what you get and I might make mistakes putting words in your mouth perhaps um but um but I that's that's what I'm weighing and so um so I I guess I would I would support her Candace candidacy to the to the associate position so in terms of process typically if I correct me if I'm wrong this is my proposal that we and we've done this way in the
183past that we open it for nominations if a person is nominated you then we then take a vote and in fact my count is right that person gets five votes they would then be you are reading my mind okay very good as the chairs here so I will open it up to nominations if there's no further I'll make a motion to appoint Amanda Hayes as an associate member of the planning board for a three-year term ending August 31st 2026 June June 30th thank you all of our appointments are August 31st so okay so June June 30th 2026. is there a second and is there any further discussion all right in that case I will take a roll call vote from the planning board starting with Deepa I passing Jersey guy and Trisha Kendall I so
184we'll go um so how many that's four votes right there okay so we'll start with Claudia Ben and I yeah Kinsman I greavesai sure no all right so thank you Mr Morgan for your application Amanda welcome to the associate position of the planning board thank you yeah congratulations and thank you both for coming thank you especially and Steve I hope we can find something because you have a lot of energy and knowledge and I hope we can find something for you to to work on here um so at this time though we hate to see them depart the selector I didn't ask for it yet I'll entertain a motion Amanda let him go outside all those in favor say aye aye all right thank you it's been great being here thank you guys thanks luck
185boys um thank you remind Amanda to get sworn in thank you all and thanks for coming earlier yeah very nice very helpful [Music] yes so remaining on our agenda once we get rid of these folks taking up space at our table um is kind of just the oh we do have to go through the 10 to 60 Main Street um and then we'll have various reports and updates and administrative matters and all the always exciting meeting Minutes review um feel free to stay obviously but we will not feel you know we will not hold it against you if you if you hang out or if you decide to go home Chris did you tell Amanda uh to get sworn in you know we wait uh sorry Kate did you ask me something yeah did you
186uh tell Amanda to get sworn in um I think Peter did okay so yes so um okay yeah they as I as I um okay um the scenic um Scenic Rhodes is just always on there because it's an ongoing thing we're trying to get um out to the public um so I guess that's um we are going to get to it um yeah we are and fairly shortly so you might just want to hold on a minute um because I I know you had asked um had a similar concern I think at another meeting [Music] I haven't been around that long foreign are we still um yeah Kate's here okay so we're still good and we're still on okay so um Peter I'm going to let you have the 10 to 60 Main Street um
187special permit and site blend review so yes uh so 1060 matrix it's been in front of us for over a year now I know I'm not too I'm not going to go into great depth explaining the history of where we were obviously with the project obviously everyone knows exactly but I'm starting to think like I do but yeah uh and so really applicants uh I believe uh well he has filed on August 22nd 2023 a request from his attorney Mr Joe antonellis uh which is in your packet under tab number two um a request to withdraw the project without prejudice and so um that was file with that here uh with with the Plenty in office at our last meeting it was that project was continued to this date as you remember we have not
188heard this project since last may they requested a 60-day continuance and then again they another 30-day continuance on top of that so it was before the summer time since we actually had a open public hearing with this app application and so this request was submitted to me on the on the 21st of August obviously tonight was the night it was that project was continued and says therefore it tonight is is why it is showing up on the agenda um reasons why I think you know I think we can all kind of look at different angles you know but at the end of the day we're not the developer you know and so you know I don't know if we want to start theorizing about what happened but I think at the end of the day
189the project that was proposed two years ago um was not financiable and and so I do know that you know Mr Gordon was trying to find a partner a development partner I think he was unable to do that and or he struggled um to make and or to find a development partner and so therefore um he decided to withdraw the project into a file which with withdrawal and look at alter all you know different opportunities for property and so that is what they're this is what could lie ahead in the future obviously um they could refile they could refile as a 40b right now our shared our subsidized housing inventory is around 5.96 and so that is a possibility but at this point I think the project was designed and it was proposed uh using
190the bylaws using the add District it did not calculate anymore at the end of the day and and so that was that has been my major takeaway um from the conversations I've had with the application team and so obviously the withdrawal of this application you know when we already even though I would say it was still fairly early in the process but when we put a lot of work into it deep and I were in a committee even before way before it even came to planning board the working group but Peter you were a part of I would say it's four years yeah five years so um it is disappointing I know this is pointing to many yeah so it's frustrating especially when we started to see some good image images of coming of that
191it was kind of two steps forward one step back all the time but it was really kind of a blow when I found out that this was being pulled um because I thought we were making Headway it's such an important site for Ashland and um just hoping that uh you know it finds a good pathway for for Ashland um why is this appearing now or has it always been there it's just that we never talked about it you mean right here the one agenda like the solar overlay district is the last Point yeah I think that's been there before that there's an overlay District that covers downtown inner is correct so there is a solar Rover District usually it usually is weaved in with our industrial zoning and so all of Pleasant Street along Pleasant
192Street that's all zoned with our our solar or with it's within our overlay solar District but it's not a category that so in the on the major zoning map that you would see online through like Maps GIS or people GIS it's there okay okay yep that District obviously create helped create the how Street landfill solar array that's the cap landfill that the town owned that they release out what we developed with I believe amaresco to develop solar solar and then also if you go on Memorial Drive where um uh Citizens Energy Joe Kennedy they developed the solar site that is a budding uh the Memorial Drive and then also the area of the cap the landfill so that's all solar 16 Acres but it is within the downtown within zoning so one thing I wanted
193to say about this project I'm not going to repeat everything Trisha said because I agree that it's it was frustrating to do all that work and land where we did but I'm going to try to kind of imagine some lessons learned at least and I'll share one for me which is that viability of a project is not necessarily our expertise as a planning board it's not necessarily in our jurisdiction to say oh this is viable or this isn't viable but I do think for me one of the takeaways is that we need more resources as a planning board to understand what makes a project viable and what data points we need to understand it better so that there's almost like a language barrier between us and the developer in this project where there were these
194points in the conversation that I remember where we would say well why can't you do this he would respond well it's not viable tell us why and we couldn't quite get through that and so for me that is one one of my takeaways that I as a planning board member want to learn more about Economic Development and viability of what kind of projects are viable right now so I've started some of that research on my own kind of learning more about the challenges of commercial real estate right now what kind of what kind of businesses are actually looking to grow and obviously we have certain zoning challenges because we don't allow certain kinds of things downtown those are some of the things I'm taking away from this project and I hope that we as a
195planning board can try to make an effort when projects like this come forward that kind of disappear when we do all this work on them that maybe we need to more openly talk post more than kind of what did we learn and what can we take away from it yeah I do too I think when we have a full board again I think that would be that might be a great topic of what did we learn what might we do differently next time as as a board and make sure you jump in because I keep forgetting you're up there just you know feels like an empty room so um well along that lines I I do have I think we need to revisit under our zoning that um that cap on the fee on forward
196base code because if this was we um 301 Pond withdrew and we kept a portion of their fee which was I recall somewhere around twenty one thousand dollars for a much much much more limited time in front of the town of the planning board so that means essentially this cost us a lot of money from the town over that year and I I think we all agree on the board we've talked and we liked the idea of an incentive so I I don't think that's a negative but certainly um I think the costs are out of whack we learn from that so we probably should revisit that and Kate I for when I'm not as familiar with that can you just like explain it a little bit you mean a developer has to put in
197money basically I can take it well it's the uh application fees right but there's there's a waiver that can be granted um if the town planner says this meets our form-based code and then it's it's sort of a cap on the feed so Grant some kind of waiver Peter there's no waiver so it's in the bylaw that that any applique so it's in the bylaw there's no waiver um in my I in my eyes there's no way ever you know the application um if the application meets a zoning you know and and I would say the uh not to I have the bottles right behind me but if if the application meets the purpose of the Adda and or the old action downtown overlay District that the application fee is no greater than four thousand
198dollars so we put a maximum cap on it to say four thousand dollars for any project that is using add for its permanent Avenue and and so I think what Kate and and I agree with Kate you know there was a lot of time and effort spent on this project you know and um and so you know per se in in comparison where you have um 100 Chestnut Street right where they paid you know 500 per unit within that application fee they pay the application fee of thousands of dollars right call it just to make up numbers here thirty thousand dollars Thirty you know forty thousand dollars wherever it was but you know for this project of its size and its magnitudes of its scale the town just did not collect that large application fee
199the way the zoning bylaws there's literally it's one line in the zoning bylaws and I can point it out at the next meeting or I can send out a link to the planning board to say this is this is the line and I know the bottles are behind me I could grab it but yeah it caps the application fee at four thousand dollars now the applicant is still paying a peer review costs and all those Elements which is through that 53g account just like all of the applications but the town yes is not benefiting from a one-time large application fee and that was put in and to tell you the truth that was something that you know working with Tricia and I think you both were on the board in 2001 when we re when
200we before my time it was before both of you no um back in 2001 Trisha just going on excuse me 2020 oh my gosh did I say 2001 always [Laughter] excuse me 21. in 21 when we Revisited Adda we resid we revisit a lot that deal with mass flat roofs setbacks that was where I really our main goals because at that point you know there was 21 Main Street that was the only project it was 21 Main Street and 128 Main Street were the only two projects that have ever manipul ever utilized add zoning and and so with that when the town I believe adopted the new zoning the EDD zoning the whole Farm based code zoning which I believe was in like the 2013 realm time period it just to to motivate development it
201capped the the application if you have four thousand dollars I don't know where that number comes from I can only imagine but that is the one line in the application I think what I allowed to this electrician construction all along is after this new board came along we ripped layer by layer and went back to basics when we started to look at the design which not only helped answer a lot of those or concern a lot of the community raised about the existing historic buildings materiality the look and feel I think when this new board came on we literally started from scratch which by then that group had already put in two years of work which feels like they've been on this for a long time but reality is the two years changed the course
202of the project a lot right we went we started from scratch we went back to the basics we went to the concepts and I think it is unfortunate that they have been on it prior to that I think when we had that committee subcommittee they were on it for two years and there was always those renderings that was presented and how the community reacted to it and but when we started on it we said let's throw that away and start from scratch which helped but it just felt like it was a long process so it I wish we had I think it's so important for as a planning board to have a very clean process so that we take every project that way you respect to who is on the board and we heard tonight
203like we go round and round on topics it was so crucial to do that because each one of us brings such different viewpoints to the table and somewhere along the community members connect to those viewpoints whether it is design that was connected to materiality Historic nature of the downtown or whatever it is really important to have those conversations and sometimes it's unfortunate we have to get into the weeds and we have to go around and run about it without saying don't share more than a sentence it becomes hard so we had that couple of times tonight as we seem to go round and round but that was what the process was all about with for 10 and 60 main yeah I'm not trying to defend the plenty and but I will say this you know
204and I think going back to when we approve 10 to 30 I mean the Chestnut Street project Roy McDonald sat here and I think it was Anna that you asked him like what you know what was your takeaway you know working with the Plenty board and he said yeah you know we did go round and round on some topics but at the end of the day we came out with a much better project than we started with yeah you know what I mean so I think one of those guys that's kind of it's a pro and call conversation I I will say this particular project it would have been helpful to in light of all the effort that everyone invested I for one would have appreciated the applicant being here tonight because I think it
205would have given us a lot more context for where we are what they're thinking um I suspect this is not the last time we're going to see this project and and I do think it might be useful for us as a planning word to consider under what circumstances we certainly can't require people to show up when they have a withdrawal but maybe we should encourage it because it does have a purpose for the future of course they're not going to want to be here at 10 o'clock application but um so why don't we leave any I think we're wrapped up anyway on that but so um someone want to make that motion we still have to accept the withdrawal of the application I'll make a motion to accept the withdrawal of 10 to 60 Main
206Street special permanence like plan review application and without prejudice excuse me thank you and a roll call vote Anna tasmaniskey I passenger is a guy and Trisha Kendall I all right so um going on to topics again this is just where we kind of Hit the high points of anything that's happened so the first one of those is Scenic roads and uh normally I would say there's probably nothing going on with Scenic roads but I am actually seeing Mr Morgan in the audience I am actually not familiar with what you're talking about with um sustainability committee having anything to do with Scenic roads be while Mr Morgan is walking up to the to the can I ask a very quick question I want to say the last and this is in the minutes I had
207said hey I can help Peter or Alvaro put together a list of the trees on scenic routes that we've cut down or need to replant and I can't remember what happened with that so I can take care of that you're doing that I can take care of that not a big deal before Mr Morgan States I do want to say as an update we did order we did actually go through it remember the last meeting I said there's going to be a lot of over work with um to go through you know that whole long list I think it was 500 abutters on all those roads about if there's any condo associations yeah so Alvar and I went back through we're scrubbing that we're scrubbing everything that list did not include any of the condos
208right and so we are going to send it out to about 500 people we ordered all the PO the postcards and we're all also going to contact the condo associations but um so that is in the process and it was correct we did finalize and formalize that um postcard and so we should be able to kind of roll through that so it's just actually people who are actually on the road not coming correct correct and so you know the talent there was Tylenol properties on it so Alva was going through or scrubbing that list we don't want to send it out to more people than we already have or send them back to ourselves so that is happening it's so kind of move forward excuse me Mr Morgan microphone's yours all right well I I
209didn't have a lot to say but uh since the question uh was asked um the sustainability committee was about six months behind on the minutes so it's not surprising that you didn't see their minutes um I did have an open meeting law complaint that got resolved that caused them to post all their overdue minutes um I hope that was seen as positive so there are minutes there now that you could look at but they apparently have an ongoing Topic in their form and sustainability where they expect to bring a new tree by law to the pet town meeting now I don't know why they would be involved in the scenic Road in the tree bylaw which is why I'm concerned because I don't see that as a sustainability scope but they're working on a bylaw
210and I think they need to come here perhaps to talk to the planning board and explain what they're doing so um jurisdiction so they did come to us to tell us about their tree bylaw I think I chair that meeting I think Trisha was out but what I can tell you is we did not discuss scenic route specifically the tree bylaw would apply to the entire town of Ashland so perhaps you're referencing some kind of Distinction on their agenda which I haven't seen so but just so you're clear they've been very transparent with us and we are working together with them they've been working on a tree bylaw for many years right so the problem I've had on Concord Street is people taking down trees that shouldn't be taken down questions of interpretation whether tree
211growth over the road counts history growth which it clearly does this has come up in this form I think probably in the last eight years four or five times there's also an issue with the utility company coming over and doing tree cutting without coordinating with this board and so these are ongoing things that happen in the tree by law where people have taken down trees not had to replace them I think the work you're doing to try and come up with a process to restore trees and I don't think again you take a tree you need to repair a tree I think that concept makes sense to me I I'm just not sure what the strategy is and so when I saw it on the agenda reviewing it for two totally two different things the
212the sustainability folks are drafting a tree bylaw that with our input so that if they presented two town meeting the planning board properly because zoning is within our jurisdiction probably gives them feedback on the on the scenic roads tree thing I think this board has discussed a few times the importance of starting kind of a log if you will of trees that we take down and starting to brainstorm how to replant them I think you're referencing kind of a general concern that hey are you guys even aware of what's being taken down and that's something we can so I know that you have joint jurisdiction with conservation on certain trees where it overlaps with Scenic roads we've had that issue also come up and again I'm just interested if you've got a document maybe someone
213could share with me what your drafts are going to look like or what you've agreed to with sustainability I would be interested to know what we don't have any kind of drafters this is a this is a discussion they are they are drafting a tree bylaw which it's it's not have any public forums or anything except to allow cutting trees or to plant trees I guess I don't even know what they're up to because well I think you can go back and watch the tape of the last reading I was going to say watch the tape it has a lot of information but the the purpose of it like in other communities that have a tree bylaw is to Define as a developer whether private or public development that's a topic for discussion and debate
214a town meeting whether there are certain limitations to how you clear-cut and what you have to replant I think that I think I think that's great and I think that does apply to things like the school project near my home where they fail to plant trees that were in the design didn't perhaps plant all the trees that would have been required and received a waiver from this board so I think those are all very useful discussions um and and I would look forward to seeing that so thank you it's also like from the net zero point of view right so how there is that metrics that you have so much carbon dioxide that ratio that you have so as the committee is working on that so this is an important component clear cutting is one
215part of it which probably is the major one for Ashland that definitely look at that video we've had I'll go back and look at it I might have missed it abilities input is also from that Net Zero the final goal that they are getting as a committee I think that's a huge huge important part of that process right you saved the last meeting yes okay I do want to kind of comment on something you said which is you made you made a comment about a school project and a waiver that's not currently in our agenda and so I don't think we can just comment on it just mentioning the trees but I don't necessarily want to by not commenting agree to your um 100 explanation again I'm just until it's on the agenda we can't
216really comment on that project violation thank you all right so that's Scenic Rhodes and uh so we get a couple got both an update on that and okay economic it's a economic impact tool there's I don't have an update on that nor uh the parking memo Alvaro put out a parking memo we just we're still kind of working on it yeah I know we talked about size uh you know compact spaces size right now we can find parking spaces 20 by 10. um comprehensive parking memo to say what exactly we're talking about like what is are you talking about the size of yes so a couple things I think Marcelo brought up a couple months ago start to start talking about okay can you just make that and add that extra word to that sure
217Sparky memo I was I would say yeah you know right now playing the parking just who's my parking yep so we'll get the it's been on the thing for a while now but hopefully you'll be able to tackle it this fall yeah um do you guys need more time on comprehensive plan okay do you want to update um the biggest update I'm just gonna keep being a cheerleader the the first meeting with the consultant is September 21st and I think it would be nice to have a lot of community participation to to kind of basically welcome I want people I mean um to kind of see how their money is being used and I think that would be a great way to kick it off so just to publicize that I don't and come join
218it's a great opportunity for the planning board to be there as well the whole board where is invited um meeting the consultant is a big deal and hopefully you can come even for a few minutes Thursday September 21st it's we can get your details but you know you may not have multiple hours of your time but you can come by shake the hand at the Consulting my first uh this one as a president but uh my question to you is now having Amanda on board now we have three planning board members on comprehensive is not Amanda Amanda had applied for a a Precinct season because it's not chosen for the precency so she's not on the steering committee she can certainly participate in anything relating to the comprehensive plan and there has been some effort
219um to try to find a way to engage applicants who were not chosen to participate so Amanda may choose to be part of that but she's not formally on the steering committee okay so you should come next week [Laughter] all right so um design Review Committee has 9 to 49 gone okay so nothing there sustainability committee uh you met with them two weeks ago um here yes we had a planning board well was it virtual yeah virtual yeah virtually that's right it was in person was it wow okay yes it was it was a person no it wasn't it was no it was actually meeting yeah for a minute I'm like what no it was definitely like one of those things where we were all little heads on a computer that's right yes um I
220have a quick question about that I I think um we left that meeting saying we would like to have sort of regular uh short-ish um discreet topics to keep this going has anyone heard anything about that or is anyone going to reach out I have um okay okay so I had to meet I had a follow-up meeting the week following the virtual meeting on Zoom uh with Margie uh sustainability manager Samantha Riley and Chuck and we talked about um the sustainabilities um want for a tree bylaw I reviewed and it was actually really it was good for me I reviewed um four other communities bylaws and we kind of discussed uh options and you know the direction of the bylaw and I talked to Margie about a presentation about tackling a couple points of emphasis
221and or a couple points that she would like to drive some census on or can get to some senses including size of a tree what part you know what project this what projects this the you know the true bylaw would pertain to kind of the direction the purpose of of a tree by law so they do plan to come back on our next meeting which would be the 28th and right now uh the only project on that would be 949 Homer Street so I would suggest as long as a man is sworn in by then that might be a great potential project for the associate member to help on as well because I think that's going to be very um involved item and I'm just throwing out there that that might be good to um
222to consider as a involvement for our associate member but potentially if there's interest yes I was going to say we don't want to volunteer anyone to things that they might not be well she well she's excited let's grab her and before she knows what's going on whose side are you on Trisha I don't know come on on like I said don't tell her how hard it is we don't make them she might leave yes what are you doing it's exciting trees by law all right next item on the agenda is CPC and actually um so on the CPC after several months of kind of discussion well the select board had come to the CPC and asked if the CPC would take over the task of trying to figure out what is going on with certain
223properties around around Ashland which include Corner Spot which include the farmers market include some other things where money has been given property has been bought but there's no conservation restriction or the properties are being used for different purposes than they were originally intended for which creates a little bit of a logistic mess right so um so on that um so the CPC agreed to start taking on those things knowing that the you know the town hall is obvious the town staff is obviously way over obligated at this time with all the projects going around around town so Peter and I had a meeting just this past week with Lisa Mead to talk specifically about the farmer's market and The Corner Spot sites um and we'll be kind of creating a memo um about that at
224some point partly just to um solidify my own understanding of the very detailed in information that Lisa Mead had on these projects um and it is complicated um but I'll be reporting back on that I'm just letting you know what's going on could you is there a way we could remind ourselves through your efforts since you're talking to Lisa how we can use CPC funds for affordable housing I remember we opened up that door and we kind of got a high level presentation yeah and that was especially fascinating to me at least yeah and if you're talking to Lisa Mead already if we can get some more clarification as how CPC can be used for that it might educate us another projects yeah so that these two the two properties that I'm talking about some
225money was given to the CPC to these to the organizations to buy land but that's different than than before we were talking about like hey can we can we pay for 10 more units um but yes uh Lisa has a very good depth in-depth understanding of that as well and maybe she can help what I'm saying obviously Lisa's time is also money right and so it's not matter of like resource of she's giving us an hour for time or whatever and there's space for yeah no discussion maybe adding that if we have her I think it's an educational component that might be um yeah and might be also an invitation of the CPC to join us as well so that we're all on the same yeah I was just blown away that it's even a
226possibility and it's a source it's a tool in our tool set that seems really exciting it's a really big tool and there's money sitting there yeah how cool would that be what does understand kind of go first you're not you know City release excuse me there's it's it's I don't want to say it's easier said than done but there's a lot of components and elements one has to take into account when using CPA funds for a Ford browser yeah I'm just envisioning that if there's consensus in our community with the select board and others that we're going to do that that could be really exciting as a way to like push development to be curious about us agreed I mean that's why I was so excited the first time I asked Aaron Aaron Ladd the
227committee chair about it and he said yes you can do that I'm like oh okay okay so um so that ends that any other reports that haven't that aren't on this list that anyone has then um any updates any significant updates uh no the only one was one more states that they got I talked to everybody about that I'm still trying to find out more information about the litigation what the suit is I don't recall ever being served did we get served somehow no Lisa Guster it was really came through the town so so I think you know you know being I was never served this is the first time I've been named in the suit so the plenty of board members myself and the town are named in the suit so the mic you
228know everything right now is with the town manager's office Lisa Mead was the one that kind of received it um it's been pushed off to our insurance company Maya uh they're taking a look at it Lisa Mead has it our Conservation Commission has issued fines there's a court hearing on that and so this is being looked at and taken care of by legal by our legal team and so at some point we'll have an executive session at some point I'll talk to Lisa and I'll see I'll ask her what makes sense and go from there regarding any of these projects I really have a huge update on any of them uh 100 Chestnut Street continues to be developed construction continues to happen out there I do want to make note that we did receive one
229new application for a cell phone tower at 40 uh 400 Cedar Street which is our water tower and that is with T-Mobile and that will be on our first meeting in October to put don't we have a few Horizon ones up there are they going to start like falling on top of each other so T-Mobile 20 years ago the town permitted T-Mobile to be on top of the roof it's always been a concern because you're putting weight on top of the water tower so after years of back and forth with DPW director that and that we want to remove that equipment so after a 20-year lease expired we did not Grant we did not renew a lease for them um but recently there was there was four carriers around the sides of the tank right
230one on top T-Mobile was on top so two of the four carriers that were on the side merged and they're one therefore one carrier remove their equipment which opened up a spot on the side of the tank so waiting that the town waited to let that T-Mobile um contract excuse me term fall or just expire lapse then we issued RFP for the spot open on the side of the tank so now T-Mobile is going to come off the tank and go on the side of the tank but in doing so they're going to upgrade it with 5G capable equipment right and then oh are you done Mom though I just wanted to make one note in this category that um I'm going to start putting together just a little thing in the Town manager's newsletter
231Maybe once a month from planning board updating them on what we're doing so um you know just what's before the board maybe noting things are into construction not repeating any information that's in there so I just wanted to give a little heads up about that thank you okay probably probably the first one would be not tomorrow but next Friday um okay so I guess next meeting is September 28th and then we just had meeting minutes what's going with the Starbucks mural okay construction is on your way down at Starbucks move it along great kahulu board hopefully around later on the mural I did it the other night about like a word to describe Ashton's past present you know where you describe this was for what oh cool neat that's exciting that's awesome that's great news
232sweet good to know I have um do you have the meeting minutes yes June 29th July 13th yep you should be well I made my highlights in yellow but I don't remember what I'm changing so so we're looking at the June 29th right so I'm looking at line 29. oh yeah so yeah I think your notes are good yeah this the ones I have in here don't have your change I like your change well yeah so he that I'm sure it's fine but I guess actually my changes are not a part of the original document but we can bring up if you want to bring up the meeting minutes I just highlighted them myself but I didn't yeah for like a so this would just be line 29 something about it just doesn't read right
233yeah it floats and so my correction was um he endorsed the suggestion to have the select and planning boards meet to ascertain the status of the upper Charles Trail project because I'm not sure what I was really trying to say sounds like a reasonable change I think so a couple more it was this line right here okay yep no I heard that it's good thank you yeah so I just changed it to ascertain the status of the upper Charles Trail project yeah um and then jump in anyone if you have changes before me but I on um on 207 Kevin moet's name is just build wrong 207. yeah and on line one team and 119 where we are working there's like more discussion in between the votes I'm not sure why what number eight in
234the 118 after Kate's second is like no discussion oh the rest of the like you're saying that no discussion doesn't need to be there like we didn't really discuss it we just seconded yeah and voted not sure you sometimes you can have some discussion but maybe that doesn't belong there Peter can we get rid of no discussion yeah it's almost like a different person maybe it was doing the notes yeah yeah we don't usually have that in there yeah let's get rid of that I think a lot of times I think the [Music] I think 118. taking out this you know oh especially yeah because I think typically after the if someone makes a motion you do allow time to discuss but usually I'll say always we have already so thoroughly discussed the topic we're
235just right we just kind of do that when we're ready to vote foreign those are other instances in it of it yeah sorry should I make a motion I'll make a motion to so you got more 207. yeah so I'll make a motion to accept the June 29th 2023 minutes with the changes discussed and a second roll call vote I ask New Jersey and Trisha Kendall I so moving on to July 13th um I have on line 30 last name is misspelled design Review Committee so that might be my own that's my only edit my my version doesn't have numbers so I don't know what line this is but page three where it says Mr maltruk reported that Miss testamentski volunteer to complete a list of trees only because I'm not doing it can we
236put in if needed volunteered if needed to complete a list of trees no idea there's no lines on mine right so first go to line 30. yeah yeah correct that name already yeah if you were absent in this meeting oh interesting I was definitely not an absent because really so I was definitely involved I'm pretty sure I was there I don't think I'll go back and double check was there a meeting I'm trying to think did I I think when I was in Israel I may have missed one so if if I missed this one then I definitely wasn't volunteering for anything do you know what I mean so let's make sure I was actually there but I do remember some kind of conversation where I was like oh I'll do this so I don't
237honestly know if needed to complete a list oh I reported that Mr oh so then I wasn't there that's fine got it understood so then we're good to go okay with size I was absent you're right okay yeah that might have been an email that yeah perfect so Peter even this one has no discussion happening as well as I'm good I'll make a motion to accept the July 13th well I wasn't even there can I do that I guess I can but I'll make the motion to accept the July 13th meeting minutes as amended second dad and a roll call vote yeah I trust you it was very exciting I felt like you guys handled it fine based on the minutes [Laughter] other than volunteering me for something right I didn't do it anything else
238folks that we need to say before we adjourn I will make a motion to adjourn all right motion to adjourn at 10 28 is there a second second and a roll call vote