2026-09-02 - Planning Board Meeting

Summary

Opened with an open-forum inquiry from a marijuana cultivation company (Drew Fox Brands) scouting 36 Schoolhouse Road, referred to the zoning enforcement officer for follow-up. The board then heard a continued site plan hearing for a commercial building at 123 [Route], where the applicant (Kevin Quinn Engineering) proposed an unconventional stormwater recharge design using clean, unpaved-surface runoff instead of standard treated recharge — the board leaned toward endorsing the concept in spirit pending the town engineer's (Graves/Mike's) sign-off on final calculations, and granted a driveway-separation accommodation (29 ft vs. the 50 ft standard) based on a pre-existing non-conforming driveway. That hearing was continued to September 16. The board then heard a lengthy return hearing for the Hayden Enterprises gas station/convenience store/5-apartment special permit at Worcester Road and Old Worcester Road — covering traffic, fire access, water pressure, lighting, fencing, and hours of operation (proposed 5am–11pm) — and discussed writing a formal decision with legal counsel (KP Law), with a push toward designating at least one of the five apartments as affordable housing.

Issues discussed: Whistler Road Mansky Site Plan, Hayden Enterprises Gas Station Special Permit

Transcript

0:07 | So, being six o'clock, I'm going to open the uh the September 2nd, 2026 planning board meeting. Do we have anybody that
0:13 | wants to for the open forum that wants to make a statement or anything?
0:19 | Um my name is Jordan. Um I'm from Drew Fox Brands. We're currently operating a manufacturing facility in Holio,
0:26 | Massachusetts. Um, we are looking at a property at 36 Schoolhouse Road that is for sale in Charleton. Um, we've been
0:35 | trying to reach out for a few weeks now um to the city of Charleton to get some answers on your zoning bylaws that are
0:42 | in place. Um, so we're a marijuana facility. We're interested in putting a outdoor cultivation there. Um, so kind of trying to get information on what the
0:50 | setbacks would be if your city will allow it. Um, what kind of things you would like to put in place as far as odor. um control things like that if you
0:58 | will allow it. We're looking to put a lot of jobs um will be provided with that probably 40 to 50 employees as to which we're going to be getting from the
1:06 | area. Um but if we can get kind any kind of information on the zoning is I have it printed out here but it's not very
1:14 | clear on whether or not outdoor is allowed or not allowed. So on here sometime um it's going to be 36 schoolhouse road.
1:24 | Is it 30 number six? 30 space 6. Yes. 30 space 6 is the house. We have a couple house.
1:33 | Yeah. Okay, fair enough.
1:35 | Um, have you talked to our zoning enforcement officer?
1:38 | I have not been able to get a hold of him. So, I actually we've emailed a call. Um, I actually flew in from Michigan for this specific [clears throat] meeting um because we've
1:46 | been unsuccessful and our lawyers have also reached out as well too. Sorry to hear that.
1:54 | It's okay. Um, we figured this would be at least if we get face to face, maybe we can get some kind of um, clarification.
2:00 | I'm sure there's some vacations and all these and yeah, that's what I assume potentially too.
2:05 | The shirt is very quick and honestly he does
2:12 | communication or whatever. So, don't think that you're just being shoved cuz I promise. Um, let's
2:21 | I've given them my card as well as my email and my uh cell phone. So, you can reach out to me directly. Um, and I can coordinate this with you as well. Feel
2:30 | free to give me a call tomorrow and uh we can go from there. Okay. Thank you.
2:33 | And normal. So, the town hall is closed on Fridays.
2:37 | So, um if if I don't know how long you're here, but yeah. And so, what normally we we um will do for um for new developers.
2:49 | We can have a uh a meeting and bring in all of the right um department heads to sort of like have that basic discussion
2:57 | on what you might need, but the person you truly want to talk to would be zoning a postal officer. He has a lot of answers and a process.
3:05 | So, I don't know if Kurt is around or he was on a late station. He's back now.
3:10 | Um she can call him still.
3:12 | But yeah, yeah, he's starting with me. I can coordinate the discussion with myself uh you folks and Curtis as well. Okay.
3:19 | Maybe if we get something on the even for a zoom later or something like that.
3:23 | We can come back into my the owner of our company will actually be in town next week too as well and our other whole facility too and we can come in.
3:31 | Wonderful. Yeah, we can set something up for next week. Thank you.
3:34 | The building codes are online as well, right? The E360, whatever that's called.
3:39 | Yes. Yeah, they're all there, but it sounds like there's discrepancy where it's not great. Yeah, I haven't actually printed.
3:47 | Yeah.
3:48 | Yeah, it is actually easier to read them electronically. So, you can kind of search through highlighted actually.
3:54 | Yeah, it's when you print them out, I think they're even worse. So, um awesome. Anybody else?
4:04 | So, we have um I do probably have as well.
4:12 | You're welcome to stay.
4:14 | Yeah, I might honestly head out. I don't know much about your city.
4:18 | But it is beautiful. My first time home day this weekend.
4:22 | Oh, yeah. I did see that on my way. I actually do not have a card on me, but I will text you right now and I do appreciate everything and everyone's time. Thank you. Thank you.
4:30 | Um, so I have um a notice for of public hearing. Um, in accordance with section
4:39 | 27.1 and 207.2, The child and zoning dial by the child and play board will hold a public hearing on Wednesday, August 12, 2026 at 6:30 p.m.
4:50 | 6:00 p.m. in the planning board office in the George scenic country building 37 Main Street Chocansky
4:59 | 157 Drive 7 for the site plan approvals constructing 7,454
5:06 | square foot commercial building. This property is located at 123 road child and math assessment 26 P parcel 16 in
5:16 | community business Kevin Quinn engineering here on behalf of the applicant and owner before I get
5:25 | started can I ask about the composition of the board right now as far as membership we have members that are out
5:33 | um what we don't want to do is have a continued meeting and have members be unable to vote at a at a future meeting to close the hearing.
5:45 | So they will any member who's absent so long as they only miss one hearing then they are able to get um
5:52 | if the rule then they'll be able to Very good. Okay.
5:57 | And um you know our board member especially known as very seasoned so he would be
6:04 | able to video. Just want to make sure it's not not going where we shouldn't go. Um we were before the board August
6:12 | 12th. Um at that time we know we had received comments from Graves Engineering. We had a couple of questions about that. Um Mike's been
6:20 | away. We met with Mike. Um Chris Keenan of my office and Dylan met with Mike on Monday. He was back from vacation. Um
6:27 | Mike had commented that he feels that our means of recharging storm water was in conflict with the Massachusetts storm
6:34 | water management policy. Um you read the policy over carefully and very closely and he's not wrong. The a literal
6:42 | reading specific reading of that um basically says any storm water collected on paved surface has to be subject to
6:50 | storm water treatment and recharge in accordance with the standard. Um what we feel is that that's not meant to be a restrictive statement. That's the that's
6:58 | a statement of how it's done. Um it doesn't contemplate having recharge from another source.
7:08 | And why we feel this important is that um storm water is collected on a paved surface picks up particulates, hydrocarbons, salts and other stuff.
7:19 | Storm water treatment removes 80% of that. So that means 20% of these things go in there. 100% of salt goes into the
7:28 | ground groundwater is recharged in the groundwater table. We've proposed a system that collects runoff above the
7:37 | the development of the site and we collect off runoff from our site that's not paved surfaces.
7:45 | So the recharge we put in has zero hydrocarbons, zero salts, and is
7:51 | presumably very clean. Um it's not that this is prohibited under storm water management. It's that it's not contemplated.
8:01 | We feel um it's in the community's interest to at least consider that. Um, we talked to Mike a little bit about
8:08 | this to say, would you would you be able to give a statement to the board that you defer to the board? Um, Mike feels
8:15 | that he defers to the board on every question. The board always has the opportunity to to accept his advice and do something different. So, we're asking
8:24 | the board tonight to look at this and give us direction as to whether that's something the board could accept. Um, it's not a variance. It's not a waiver.
8:34 | It's simply we're we've provided a plan that complies with the storm water standards in a different way and our
8:41 | interpretation is that it's that it's in accordance with storm water standards.
8:46 | So what our plan now is we have a few nuts and bolts we have to address our plans including this. So what we'd like
8:55 | to do is res we'd like to resubmit the plan in a form that's acceptable to the board and hopefully at the next meeting have no no remaining unresolved issues.
9:05 | So I I guess I would ask the board tonight to give us direction on that.
9:10 | Come back to that in a minute. Um another question we have for the board pertains to the driveway. Mike correctly
9:18 | noted that the proposed driveway is less than has less than 50 foot separation from the adjoin from the driveway on the
9:25 | property next door. The standard says 50 ft. It's 29 ft of separation. Um it turns out that there was a driveway
9:34 | pre-existing on that site and that this is a pre-existing non-conformance.
9:40 | Um DOT reconstructed the the U entrance, the curb cut and the and the
9:46 | driveway ramp in there. Um and they followed along with the the the the
9:54 | original driveway. We have pictures here. This is pictures from 2005 and from 2007
10:02 | that show the driveway. You can see McCclure Engineering is our abing property on the left. That driveway right there is the original driveway.
10:10 | And that's paved and that's approved by DOT.
10:12 | Well, DOT reconstructed when they reconstructed Route 20, they rebuilt the curb cut and they put an apron into the site where that driveway was located.
10:21 | Apparently, at some time in the past, there was a farm stand here and there was a driveway that went up up into the site.
10:28 | So, what we're saying is this was a pre-existing non-conformance. Um, we don't I don't think relief is necessary
10:35 | because put a drivewood where one previously existed.
10:39 | Our bylaws say one thing and then not cuz that looks from there to there looks more than 50 ft. Are you saying the property?
10:48 | Yeah, it's actually 29.
10:50 | Yeah. And our the proposed driveway does not encroach any closer than the existing driveway at that time. It's not
10:58 | we're not any it is no closer than that that driver was was shown at that time.
11:05 | And I I think I mentioned it in in the last meeting when I was here that um our plan is kind of based around that
11:13 | driveway entrance. If we have to relocate it to comply with that 50oot separation, it would be very disruptive to the site plan.
11:22 | And the sight line is pretty straight there. in New Orleans. Yes, sir.
11:29 | Have we ever gotten a a letter maybe from Chris Mccclure saying does that at the meeting?
11:37 | So, it doesn't hurt. Okay.
11:41 | It's just a just again it's our you know we say that it would have
11:48 | to be variance but it's easier to deal with our variances than
11:55 | you know I'm less concerned about the
12:00 | driveway than I am with the storm water I will say this um this is not a um
12:11 | adversarial or we're presenting this to the board. Oh, yeah.
12:14 | If the board says, you know what, yeah, we're going to stick with Graves advice.
12:18 | We we'll make we'll revise our plan, we can certainly comply with the plan. We think it's in the interest of the community because we're recharging water. That would be very very clean.
12:28 | Right. I And I have um I just I'm I'm not an engineer, so that's I don't
12:36 | it could be even better than what saying um that's my that's my question
12:44 | with with that I I just don't know I I can't it's hard it's hard for me to make a call for say oh yeah um I don't know
12:52 | Cleveland if this is something that we if I can I'll add on so in the meeting
13:00 | with with Graves it looks like really looking at it and seeing what the issues were it sounds like [clears throat]
13:08 | broadly speaking, if I understood Mike on this, that he could see the general idea of this going forward. He had some
13:15 | specific tweaks that he would like to see and my understanding was that these are things that can be worked out and it
13:22 | wouldn't require an entire reviewing of the uh the approach you guys have taken to storm water was my understanding of what Mike was saying.
13:32 | So, kind of where it's at now is sounds like you folks are going to do the uh changes that Mike was requesting and
13:40 | Mike could look at those and then I think we could end up here in two weeks where Mike saying, "Yeah, I think everything looks good." Might be a little unconventional, but it does.
13:49 | I think I think key to that would be the board endorsing our approach.
13:54 | Yeah. Um and and I think it's it's it's a question that Mike would look to the board to say, "Yeah, we're going to we're going to accept what what corn is
14:02 | proposing." And and certainly if he if Mike has um nuts and bolts concerns, we can certainly do.
14:09 | That's what I I mean, if if if he's saying that the con this is not standard [clears throat] what they're teaching in the schools, right? But like but the
14:17 | concept makes sense and that's and I mean to be frankly I I've we've never had an opportunity on a site to do this type of design and we've never seen it.
14:27 | Um I think it's we we'd like to think it's kind of innovative but I think I mean if we can think out of the box and and and have it we don't
14:35 | need to you know I think if the board is concerned about I don't think the board is is accepting it cart blanch by accepting our
14:44 | approach. We can we still should go back to to Mike and have him review it under the context of yeah this concept is is acceptable to the board.
14:53 | How does the rest of the board available?
14:54 | Yeah the other way through through the chair I agree it's innovative for sure. I think the other thing that
15:02 | our engineer um pointed to after his review is how does mass EP weigh in on
15:08 | this? And so I mean that would give us a higher level of comfort I think if we could get
15:15 | even even their um ruling or reading of uh you know storm
15:23 | water management and I think they're going to go back to well it needs to be 65% of the you know the paved area going
15:31 | into well volutrically we definitely meet that standard. We met we met the 65% all day long. Yeah. The question is the source of water and the language in that
15:41 | in the the uh not the volume but from the source I think that's the spirit of of
15:48 | the law if I would read it that would be spirit it's got to be from impervious of your 65% is that's where
15:56 | we come up with the volume I mean whatever the board's comfortable is it is that could you satisfy that uh
16:05 | with a design change, you know, we we can we we've figured out a way to to re rework our design and comply to the letter. Okay.
16:14 | So, if the board isn't comfortable with this, you know, we're fine. We can make it work. If and if that being the case, that would
16:22 | be my recommendation to, you know, as a board member just to satisfy that. I think the spirit of the law is is pretty
16:29 | clear. Um, I understand the calculation then going into a recharge is a little
16:36 | bit different. Um, I'm certain the client appreciated that innovation.
16:44 | Good idea. Okay.
16:46 | Yep. I Yep. cut right on.
16:49 | What is the rest of the rest of I mean that was one of my concerns too is just the way that calculations
16:57 | and I'm comfortable if my Mike says work with him and and he feels
17:05 | um you know he feels I guess about the push like it's going to it's a different way of doing it but it still will satisfy
17:13 | you know do what it needs to do was the rest of the um the concerns on the graves acknowledge now or is it just
17:22 | is that the only thing we we need to resubmit plans we have everything okay um okay under with the exception of the the
17:30 | separation of the drivers. That's another separate question.
17:33 | So, how does everybody feel about the drivers? That's the easy one. Like it's the mascot put it that way. They feel they're good with the sight line. We're
17:42 | not talking. There's no safety issues because the sight line is clear.
17:46 | Um I mean it's really the issue is we have 50 ft for safety purposes, but there if everybody's comfortable, we won't have to go back and redesign it.
17:57 | I'm fine with that.
17:59 | the road there too. So that's I feel the I like the spirit of the storm water management.
18:06 | Okay, let's just talk about the just the driveway first. The driveway first. Do you feel comfortable?
18:09 | Well, if if the um I mean we don't know I don't know what the um the rules about the driveways
18:17 | are partly safety and partly probably environmental have to do with some of the storm water are by launch phase 50 but I would say
18:24 | mostly for for safety purposes. So because of sight line um
18:29 | snow and snow removal and um and
18:36 | this the state put kind of created that 30 30 foot on their own on their with their own
18:44 | designing um and the sight line that's on a piece you know in both directions is pretty solid
18:52 | one direction but um are we do we need them to go back and be redesigned this with the 50 or we good
18:59 | with with accepting the fact that they want they'll want to waiver particular strapple yeah just kind of just in general
19:08 | because they either know whether they should go back and redesign it the fact that it's there um a sign that DOT endorsed it
19:14 | they certainly had the opportunity to say they can maybe that can be
19:23 | so it's us because it's now it's about our bylaw like about like our zoning like our bylaw did we do we give them a
19:30 | waiver for the 50 ft and that question is my feeling is if it's the spirit and
19:37 | it's it the boxes all have to be checked a little bit more carefully during something that's a little bit done a little bit differently but um I mean
19:44 | that's one of the reasons we're here is to let go rather than so like like Lori said it's it's it's a
19:53 | divided highway now so all cars going the same direction because you're not going to have, you know, one car going this way, another car going that way.
20:00 | And I think that was probably intention. So that it's an easy one. And this one's a little harder.
20:09 | [clears throat]
20:11 | No, sorry. You can go. Well, as far as a storm water, I think it's just really the same idea to me is that an innovative idea.
20:19 | you need to step back and um maybe look at it from a little bit of a further away perspective because it's new and
20:28 | see how it's going to interact with the rest of the plan. But that if that meets um the boxes are all checked then I
20:36 | think it's a good Was the lighting discussed? Talking about lighting discussed we we have a um a phototric plan. Okay.
20:44 | And it does show that we have um 110 foot candle at the perimeter. Okay.
20:49 | We haven't the lights been specified and all lights reflection,
20:56 | you know. But what we plan to do is is just bring one package before the board all everything. But I'd like to come to your next meeting and be able to say
21:04 | that all the boxes are checked rather than rather than coming back in drips and Okay. Okay. That sounds good.
21:11 | Anything else just a storm water do we have if we want to
21:18 | I'm good with it if you want I'm sorry I'm not good with it. You you recommend you you mentioned that you
21:26 | could satisfy the this letter of the storm water management with the improvement.
21:32 | So to redesign my correctly more clearly to Yes, please redesign and capture the
21:39 | practice of your Does mascot um
21:48 | look at the storm in any way for any reason?
21:52 | The I don't know because of not that I'm aware of but I can look into that.
21:59 | They do they there are there has been in the past per persons at the D in in was that they were storm
22:09 | water that's what they did I don't know that the person that was there at one time I don't know D or DOT
22:17 | D for the for the storm water storm water the question was does DOT care I I I would say this if if we if we needed
22:25 | to get um a sign off from the D.
22:30 | I I just don't think I could promise that happen. I just don't think it's only because I I don't They typically
22:38 | don't have guys walking in off the street saying, "Can you look at my plan and tell me if if it's a great idea to sign off on anything?" Yeah. It's not really there's nobody who's assigned that task.
22:49 | So, I mean, you I'm always like, "Let's do everything exactly by the book and and we're going to risk and not set any
22:56 | new presidents, but I don't want to do just because they haven't
23:02 | done anything when when sometimes thinking out the box and their creativity is actually a a positive
23:10 | thing. I'd rather um see what I mean if if Mike sat you down and said
23:17 | don't don't do this but he didn't have that energy right. He he sounded like he was open to it. I I I think it's still
23:26 | the approach isn't dead in the water is really what I was getting from Mike that you can with this approach get where they're going, but we need to see what
23:34 | those plans are. And then that's where Mike would make that determination because we can still come back with a redesign with this approach where Mike's
23:42 | looking at it and saying, "No, this still doesn't meet the standards and we just can't get there." We haven't gotten there. Mike's open to this. I think that
23:52 | His opinion is that it can get there, but you know, we're at that point where we need to see the plan. So, it sounds like the question we're hearing here
23:58 | from the applicant is is the board okay with this approach? And I think Mike needs that to the board. I think
24:06 | and I think the board I'm hearing that the board's okay with this approach, then if Mike thinks it can get where it needs to go, am I correct in that
24:14 | assessment? You all would want to see an approval from Mike saying, "Yes, [clears throat] I believe this meets the standards. It needs to meet traditional method."
24:21 | Yeah. So yeah, I think as long as what you guys submit when Mike reviews it, as long as it gets to the standards that
24:28 | he's trying to get to that this could get the the sign off from the board. I don't think the board's going to object to it. Mike saying yes, this meets the standards.
24:35 | I'm I'm not sure the board I'm not sure we're all speaking the same language.
24:39 | See what I think Mike needs to have the board say, yeah, we're we'll we accept
24:46 | Quinn's interpretation. I had one board member saying, "No, we want to stick with the letter of the law." And and that's fine. If the board feels, you
24:55 | know, you want to stick with the letter of the law, that's fine. Mike needs a green light. Go for saying, "I don't care how you get there, but there's a place that we need to get
25:02 | for the for an approval, right? So there there are there there are certain um there's a certain place, a certain calculation that he needs and I don't
25:10 | care how we get to that as long as we get to the point where we're at the we're at that. Does that make sense?" It does, but the only thing is Mike's fundamental objection it his objection
25:19 | is fundamental that the way we're we we're obtaining recharge water is in conflict with the subdivision with the storm water management policy.
25:29 | So, we're saying that we think it has, you know, it's in the community's interest and our interpretation of the
25:37 | policy does not believe, we don't believe that's in hard, but he would need to hear from the board to say, "Yeah,
25:43 | we accept Quinn's interpretation and you can go forward." He would still he should still look at, like I say, we know we designed this the volumetrically
25:52 | we meet the quantity of of recharge required under the the um the policy.
25:59 | Um, but Mike would probably want to confirm that. But the fundamental plan that we have is what Mike's objecting to.
26:12 | I I I'm going with our town engineer on that. If he doesn't think it's acceptable at this point, then we need
26:18 | to come back and satisfy my I want Mike. I don't want it. So, how will we get there?
26:25 | Yep. Let's see how we get there from that point.
26:35 | Can I request to continue? How long do you do? Next meeting.
26:44 | I'll make a motion to um continue Mansky 1.3 West Road to September 16th.
26:53 | Second. All in favor? Hi. Thank you.
27:00 | You got to call Kevin Mr. Quinn thing to you, right?
27:10 | We have the hearing from from Hayden Enterprises on Worcester Road for the proposed uh gas station community.
27:49 | Good evening, Madam Chair, members of the board. My name is Al Chua. I'm a consulting engineer with offices in Massachusetts and I represent the
27:58 | applicant on this application. As you know, this is I think I believe this is our third time here. And uh just to walk
28:06 | you through a little bit what expired from the last meeting. So, uh at first we submitted our first initial submissions. This is for the proposed
28:14 | gas station at the intersection of Worcester Road and Old Worcester Road.
28:19 | Uh the propert is about four acres and about two and a half acres of the property was uh used heavily used for
28:27 | gravel uh activities [clears throat] in the past 30 years. Uh the uh my client is proposing to construct a gas station
28:37 | with a with a 5,000 square foot convenience store and five residential apartments on the second floor. Accesses
28:43 | from uh Wor Road. Um, we talked about this. Uh, we through the the the uh
28:51 | process, we hired the VA and associate to do a traffic study. They did a traffic study. Then the uh town hired uh
28:59 | MDM consultants to do the traffic reviews and I believe Mr. Mishel's here tonight for the next hearing. But at the last hearing, Mr. Misha was here also
29:08 | and walked through with the with the board on the issues on on on the traffic or the concerns that were raised by the
29:16 | uh by the uh neighbors and I believe all the traffic concerns were addressed at this time except one issue that was left
29:24 | open was the access from old Worcester Road and currently there's a gravel driveway from Old Worcester Road that
29:33 | access the site and at this time with this application. We propose to
29:40 | uh block it off with two gates and leave it as an emergency only for uh a per uh uh uh town personnel, fire or police.
29:50 | Our access to the site will be via two proposed driveways. One is a full access driveway to the west side. This will be
29:59 | an in entering and exiting and one will be exiting only along the east side of the driveway. Uh this will have to be
30:07 | approved by Mass DOT. We understand that if there's any changes to the access or the driveway configurations, we'll
30:15 | understand that we have to come back to this board through the process. There was on the original uh review. I believe
30:23 | Graves Engineering had about 50 comments on the storm water and the site layout and I think the first uh uh on the
30:31 | second submission we probably address 80% of those comments then there was another 20% we did address them and uh
30:38 | we submitted the our last uh uh revisions last month and uh I believe you do have the final or the second
30:46 | review from uh Graves Engineering I would just if you like me I did few open kind of comments and I would say they're
30:55 | very minor. I can go through them and explain what we're doing with those because I I think Mike says the design
31:04 | engineer should look at this and revise it as necessary. I don't think he needed to come back for review. One was a grade
31:12 | difference of 0.1 with one inch and we did that and another one had to do with the storage of the pond that was less
31:20 | than 1% of the required storage it was 99% but then due to maybe rounding so I
31:27 | did that and also there was uh the the uh the the one that I needed to to
31:34 | explain more would be the uh the loading and before we show the loading for the 30 foot loading because what we get most
31:42 | of our delivery is through box trucks and 30 ft is more than enough but I did revise the plans to make it 40 ft just
31:50 | in case you know we don't have an issue with that access uh I see someone from the fire department and we'll we'll get there I don't know if they're here for
31:58 | this but I would like to hear I did contact uh uh uh Chief Barton I sent them a copy of the device plans and uh
32:07 | we do have a template showing the access of the fire apparatus. I mean, you can see that we have a WB67
32:16 | that can navigate through the the site which is a 70 ft long. And this is the ladder. This is the biggest ladder that
32:24 | the fire department has. And also I have a temper showing that they can navigate through the site safely. Uh also there was a question about the water pressure.
32:34 | Some of the neighbors raised that. We did conduct a traffic a a pressure test
32:40 | and it came back as 92 static and 32 residual which is more than plenty. So our project will not affect water
32:49 | pressure for the neighbors. And also if you recall at the first few meetings we there were concerns about lighting and
32:57 | uh noise from from the from the traffic uh from the site. And I did have an overall plan showing the the site layout
33:06 | on the aerial. And I can show you that the closest neighbor to the site is about 450 ft. Also, we propose to
33:15 | install uh a six-foot white vinyl uh uh fence all around the the property facing
33:24 | the residential with arborites in the back and all the landscape was revised by reviewed by by your peer engineer.
33:32 | Um, I believe at this time we did address, if I go over the the lighting, the noise issue and the the uh the the
33:41 | buffer from the neighbors, the environmental. I explained that this is state-of-the-art gas station. It's a
33:48 | double wall with fiberglass constantly monitored 24 hours and also with the storm water we have all the valves that
33:57 | the that could be closed in case of of spill on the site that prevent the
34:04 | fuel from reaching either the ground or the wetlands. Um
34:12 | uh at this time I really asked the board that we need and I I did mention this before so many times so people can
34:19 | understand we're here for a special permit just for the apartments and the drive-thru because the gas station is an
34:26 | allowed use as of as of right. So we need to do a site interview which we did but the apartments uh is the special
34:35 | permit and the drive-thru. uh we have demonstrated that the drive-thru will have no negative impacts to the neighbors and I did submit a memo to
34:44 | that effect to the to the board before and uh I'll be happy to answer any questions that you have at this time
34:54 | to the chance of my concern um the hours for operation and I'm wondering if the fact that you
35:01 | have apartments might mean that you're more likely to curtail the hours. What are you proposing?
35:08 | Uh hours of operation, I believe we've talked about this before. Uh 6 to 10 to 11.
35:16 | 5 to 11. Okay. So, it's 5 to 11.
35:21 | And I promise, just to be clear, my client is here. I think I mentioned in the first hearing that he operates or he
35:28 | he has control of over 15 gas stations down the Cape and all through Massachusetts. Most of those people that living on top of the apartments are
35:36 | probably mostly people that work at the gas station and his other locations. But I mean for five, I'm not sure if it's going to be all occupied by the people,
35:43 | but at least majority of those apartments will be offered to the people that are working there. So, and that's what that was the previous trend on all these locations especially in Cape Cod.
35:57 | So the other feedback through the chair, thank you for making revisions to the
36:04 | design. So um just the storm water management off by 40 gallons or something. So that's been revised.
36:11 | I I I already revised it. I would you know I don't I I would submit the didn't revive the final with the grades
36:20 | and all that. I just error.
36:22 | It is. And I I mean we understand you know this system is designed to to to remove 100% phosphorus. You
36:30 | require 90 but I think we we remove 100%. And 90% TSS removal.
36:36 | And then can you just show me the loading area again? Um that that we're talking about the triangular.
36:43 | Well we we changed that. It was a triangle before but we did change the it's it's a rectangle now. And this is
36:49 | this area here. And it's 40 by 12. So, a truck will just back in out of the way of this drive through and wheel into the facility. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.
37:03 | And then the the the gas uh tanker trucks right here. The gas tanker right here. They stay on the top. They stay on the top.
37:12 | Yes.
37:13 | All right. How how many tanks? Again, I apologize. Two tanks. Two gas tanks.
37:19 | Uh no. Well, they're split the uh gas and and diesel. Diesel. Yeah.
37:26 | And how many tanks and the volumes? Just there. Two tanks. I think each one if I remember 20,000 gallons
37:35 | and 20,000 gallons of diesel 20,000.
37:39 | No, I think it would be we usually do 15 10 uh regular five diesel 10 regular
37:46 | five diesel. So, or five super and 10 regular 10,000 and five on this
37:53 | configuration. I'm not I can't uh it should be on the plan. I can't tell you exactly what uh
38:01 | 20,000 proposed one two 20,000. Okay. Right on top of the Wor.
38:10 | Yeah.
38:11 | Two 20,000 gallon tank. Yeah. So it will be 15 uh
38:20 | 10 regular 10 diesel and 20 regular 10 diesel and 10 super you don't
38:28 | use as much anyway I the configuration I could change but this has to be uh approved through the fire department
38:36 | and also through the selector for the storage for the brand new and I believe I mentioned Uh my client has also a transportation business that he deliver.
38:47 | He has about 12 trucks that deliver those so he can control the delivery to me.
38:54 | Was there going to be a liquor license, beer, wine sales or liquor sales in the store? We need a different.
39:02 | Yeah, but the intention is probably normally if you can get it and it's available, we would have to go through
39:09 | the uh through the state on this one anyway.
39:13 | and the select who spoke to the the morning officer and the select board when I first came to the town and there
39:20 | was a license available right yeah I'm sure there is yeah which is a separate I'm just curious yeah no I mean it helps with the now
39:28 | convenience stores you see they sell those things okay questions
39:38 | what are the what's the current hours of the honey farms the mobile station.
39:49 | I mean, do you have uh set hours in the commercial business district?
39:54 | Yeah. So, whatever those hours are, I don't have to comply.
39:58 | I don't want to, you know, permit this one for four hours.
40:00 | Yes. No, I mean, yeah, that's a good question. I don't think there's hours in the bylaw in the zone.
40:08 | There isn't, but in the site plan, I think there were hours for for for both when they were approved. So,
40:16 | [clears throat]
40:19 | so your plans say you said a white plastic white fence. Your plan say um white cedar. White cedar, right?
40:27 | You said no the plastic. No vinyl. The vinyl is around the uh what we use for vinyl. We use it around the uh the dumpster, I think. Okay. So, it's called cedar.
40:37 | Cedar. Yeah. Because it actually it's better for sound than Then the vinyl.
40:41 | That's why we we chose the the the white. That's fine. That was my question. You I thought you had said vinyl before. Okay.
40:54 | What What flag do you Whose brand will this be? We don't know yet. Example.
41:04 | Ah, good. I see. So under a franchise or something.
41:14 | How many applications you got in the works right now? Where else you just this one?
41:23 | Well, actually we have two going on. Yeah.
41:32 | I'm just going to jump in a little bit.
41:34 | Um, see I we met at the last meetings and the the planning director now coming in kind of mid project here.
41:42 | Getting a sense of kind of some of the things that it it sounds like that the board might want. What's your general
41:50 | sense of of your timeline when you folks kind of hoping for a decision to be made on this?
41:56 | Well, as soon as possible because I'll tell you why. And I mentioned that at the first meeting. I think this is our
42:03 | first step basically, you know, here and we still have to go through the state and mass DOT and then we have some
42:10 | utilities to do and we have open uh so we we were at conservation and conservation
42:19 | waiting for you I guess to approve the I don't know and I had the impression that you wanted conservation through they said no we want so we were hoping I I
42:29 | was hoping that you can vote on it tonight. Why do they Why don't we do any parallels? I I don't have an answer to that yet. Can we ask?
42:36 | Yeah, you [clears throat] give me give me some time on that one with with how conservation does things.
42:40 | Well, you've already met with conservation already.
42:43 | And they've given you comments. I mean, yeah, there was comments we there comments where there was a comment about
42:50 | the two 24in pipes that were in the in the wetland area that we didn't they weren't shown on the plans.
42:58 | And the comment was from their uh environmental engineer that those two connected they should act as one body
43:06 | and they there was a question about whether this work was legally or illegally done or something like that.
43:13 | So and they had concern about the storm water. Those are the two. So we went we sent back the survey out in the field.
43:21 | We located those pipes. So those are two connected and Rose went through the uh public records with D back to the six
43:31 | I can't remember 30 years ago she said and they found a permit so this wasn't a legal so there was a permit for this and
43:38 | the storm waters all resolved with the peer review so I don't they have no so it is parallel they're just they wanted you to to approve it
43:46 | they just don't want to so they are working with you they just have it in their final approval they said go to the planning board you had the plan board and and I thought
43:55 | you were holding the hearings on the same nights just I guess just because it was the the summer schedule because you were only one hearing the same.
44:05 | Okay. So, we're we're going in front of them next uh next Wednesday on the 9th.
44:11 | So, I'm hoping that I don't have to have the you if you close the public hearing and say, "Okay, you know, you can take your time." I know Chris will be working
44:19 | on probably on the permit and uh if he has any questions he can call me or uh
44:26 | you know any but I don't think there's any more material that we need to submit you know all the concerns that were
44:34 | raised either by the boards or the neighbors or everybody where you know with the peer review they all you know and we would like to move on because we
44:44 | need we have a purchase and sales agreement that we've already I think extended extended it a few times and and you know
44:50 | so you know we already in here and I don't want to tell you what the numbers but with we spent
44:58 | and by the way I have a check for $5,000. I got your your your mail on on Monday and uh yeah this is for the review.
45:07 | So we want to check our the off hours of operation for the other gas stations that we have. Okay. um just
45:15 | so we're fair across the across the board and um and look at um look at uh
45:23 | locations of of residences compared to what the other ones have too. So So maybe it isn't exactly the same because
45:32 | there are people living close or whatever. Let's let's um through the SH I mean we may have some comments here. Um, I think we can
45:41 | [clears throat] look at the gas stations online and see what their I mean the honey farms look like it's something.
45:47 | Yeah. So, and and uh I think that the spaghetti or the sitco
45:55 | you can look at the hours there for the sitco. So, um, I don't know. I I'm not sure I don't know if your plan was to continue this
46:03 | to another another time, but I'm not sure we I'm not sure there's any other information we need to make that decision.
46:10 | And that's just and because we're going to be voting on the apartments, right?
46:14 | Sure. Sure. But we've had that promise for a while. Yeah.
46:16 | And the um the question was does do these apartments factor into our affordable housing calculation and how
46:25 | do we and how can we make that happen or what kind of power or control that we have over that or say or um only because
46:35 | if anybody's going to fix that problem in this town it's going to be us and we're going to be like this. it won't factor in unless they're deed uh
46:45 | permanently. And so I'd like to ask our our our trustee attorney um if that's something that is um
46:53 | yes and then just uh so so another thing with as well I can begin writing a decision for this so that way the board
47:00 | has a draft review and you folks can also view that as well and that can be something that we workshop between now and the next meeting so you folks can
47:08 | see it and [clears throat] making sure there's no surprises or requirements that we're putting in there that you didn't expect. Um, as well as I know the
47:15 | board prior to me arriving here had um authorized uh legal uh counsel on this
47:23 | one which I think it would very much behoove you folks as well that we do have legal representation with this so that way we make sure that whatever
47:30 | decision is written is going to be something that's solid that wouldn't be um you know wouldn't get overturned on
47:37 | an appeal because I I made some mistake in there the way that I wrote it. Um,
47:46 | so my recommendation would be uh I think the one that was made our
47:52 | I just now uh spoken with it was KP Law uh who I think we'll be using for legal counsel. It would be similar to how we do grace engineering an escro account.
48:03 | We'd retain them to help in writing this decision and then we could be back at the next meeting hopefully with a draft the board would actually be able to vote
48:10 | on. Does that sound like an approach that works for everyone here on the board? Is that something that the applicant would be okay with rather than
48:19 | if the board to approve it today? I'd end up writing a decision and it'll be kind of a lot of administrative discretion in there as to what goes in
48:27 | there where if we continue it, it'll be more or less the same timeline, but then you'll have a much better idea of what's actually being voted on.
48:38 | I I I'm I'm okay with that, but the chair question. Um, so your main concern is is really around the apartments and
48:48 | the drive-thru also the special permits. That's the question, right? I mean, we're not I mean, it's
48:55 | not we thought I mean when the informal meetings with the town and the first time we brought this up and they thought maybe this is good for housing and
49:04 | that's why we put but I'll tell you one thing too. I mean we did the pressure test. The pressure test is excellent but
49:10 | we still have to bring a a service that is 750 ft from the site. So if we lose that pressure and then we need to do
49:19 | pressure pump and it becomes non-cost effective we might drop the apartments altogether. We might you know we're not
49:27 | saying that you know but we are here the drive-thru is with the convenience store. That's that's absolutely it's a
49:34 | it's it's an an accessory uh use to the use. So, you know, so if we don't if
49:41 | you're in doubt, I mean, we can drop the apartments and then keep the the drive-thru. And if you want to vote, I
49:50 | mean, I I heard that you're going to hire another uh I thought you had a council. You you're hiring another council uh for to write the decision
49:58 | to help write the decision. I think it would be And is that the end? My client will have to I mean are we Yes. I just want to
50:06 | make sure we understand that. So we'll have to pay for their services too, right? Yeah.
50:14 | I don't expect it to be exorbitant anything like that. I I think it would be a $4,000 escrow and then I imagine
50:21 | you folks would be getting I mean my chair and I'm not I'm personally I I sit on the zoning board of appeal in
50:29 | my town. I was the chairman for years and I'm still there. I understand how this works. I don't think but for you to feel comfortable for me, I'd rather have
50:38 | a clean vote tonight for this project, you know, and you know, it's not I'm sure you've done special permits before
50:45 | and I don't know if this is very complicated, but again again I'm not saying that this is not the the route.
50:53 | If this is what you feel like you want to do that my client is here and I think you know it's not something that uh we would probably be opposed to, right?
51:05 | But so so you you had mentioned you were talking to town about the housing and they were excited because of that.
51:10 | Well, first initial with the with the Yeah. the the building commissioner and I think it was like the the I can't remember the gentleman that was here
51:19 | the the town planner minister or the town planner prior
51:27 | Randy you know that was you know procedure that we can go through with this.
51:31 | Would these be designated as affordable apartments through the all this? I mean, on top of the gas station, I'm not saying that, you know,
51:40 | but it it is more affordable and I think my client can speak to that require a special special designation.
51:47 | I I'm not sure if this is if this is controlled by housing or by uh what do you do on the Cape with the Do you
51:56 | submit anything for housing like near the uh just one unit for one unit was but that wasn't a decision I think to be
52:04 | in affordable housing was a decision for one unit yeah through the through the chair I
52:12 | think the as u we've seen he he's been in front of several times he's made we've asked them
52:20 | to do the transportation study satisfied all the graves engineering requirements um I think this is an application that's
52:28 | ready to go. I understand uh the language, you know, for an approval, but
52:35 | um we can approve this maybe conditionally. It's always the case, I think, that uh Concom will want to wait
52:45 | for us for an approval before they give approval. [clears throat] I don't hear anything from Concom that is going to change the plans at all.
52:54 | And if it does, they would have to come back before us. that would change the plan.
52:57 | We said that with the with with the mass DOT and if there's something changed I mean special permit any changes will have to come back in front of the board.
53:05 | I don't see and again it's it's just if you have special you I'm sure you've granted
53:12 | special permits before or variouses or I mean not various you're not as No, I understand and I'm trying
53:20 | to thank you. No, I I really, you know, it's I have to tell you this is not that we don't like to come here every week,
53:27 | but you know, like it's really uh I mean I already paid for engineers, do traffic
53:34 | studies and reviews, you know, it's not then can we can we should we say we want you 10% we want an an affordable
53:43 | apartment with that like why without the decision the decision what needs to be designated as one. Do you have an objection?
53:53 | Yeah, I mean Yeah, that would be fine. Yeah, make that would help.
54:00 | Who else is going to solve that issue that we have in town? It's one step.
54:03 | No, I I agree. I'm I'm not saying that I don't think with all respect I don't think you need an attorney to you know
54:10 | if if this is in the bylaws and it says 10% is one unit and I don't think we've ever I have never done that before on this board. So I
54:18 | just that's why I said like do we have to ask our attorney how to but if you're asking you're not demanding I'm not sure
54:28 | there are some funding benefits to having affordable as you go if it's something we agree upon there's grants
54:36 | for it too we can yeah we can do one unit to be dedicated for housing I mean
54:44 | that yeah okay then conditional upon that maybe a a request to the applicant to
54:51 | put at least one unit into deed into [clears throat] the other gas stations I'm looking at a
55:01 | lot of them are we've got the mass pipe those are 24 it's the one that's on
55:09 | the other one on 20 is 24 hours so I just I don't want to add restrictions when we don't I mean you you'll selfrest
55:16 | you're comfortable with the 7:00, right? Yeah. So, if that's fine, then that's good.
55:24 | Um, do we have questions from the audience before we the I'm sorry, Holly over at 80 Worster Road.
55:32 | Um, the apartments that you're proposing, what are these single units?
55:39 | Are these studio apartments? What kind of apartments are these? Two bedroom apartments.
55:43 | Two bedrooms. Five twobedroom apartments.
55:57 | Hi Robin child for over 50 years in town for over
56:03 | 50 years. Thank you sir for choosing child to come to and spend your money in
56:11 | the spending. Um it's it's certainly welcome and uh the
56:17 | competition will be good for communities for the people within the community.
56:25 | Um I do want to throw this in there. I know that have gone through the 55 and over project that's bylaw that we have
56:35 | in town. If it's more than seven, if it's seven or more units, you then got
56:40 | to dedicate 10% of the uh units to be uh
56:47 | affordable and affordable is defined as uh no more than 80% of the median
56:55 | income. So, um, I don't, you know, I I think if the applicant is willing to do
57:03 | that, it's fine. But I don't think it's a good policy that just go go off the
57:11 | board here and say, "Well, I think we'll do this. I think we'll do that." So, how do the people from the outside know what's going on?
57:16 | Yeah. Well, we have an issue in town and if we can solve it like, you know, a little bit at a time, then it's the way I hear what exactly what you're saying.
57:25 | But but do it through the town legislation. You you can't just do it from sit sitting in the chair. Yeah.
57:33 | See, and again, I I I hear what you're saying and and and there is a problem.
57:38 | Uh the thing is is the problem can be solved if you help to be solved uh in
57:44 | quite a few different ways and cost of construction is just too much. I did want to ask just so that people get a
57:52 | general idea, but your budget's got to be close to $5 million to do this. I just did one in B similar.
57:59 | Yeah, I spent $6 million just six. Okay. And again, thank you for coming to our town. Thank you for for for helping to reduce the tax load.
58:10 | Thank you for providing the service that you're going to provide. And and uh thanks for uh like I said, as as far as
58:19 | uh keeping the taxes down and um welcome. Thank you. Thank you.
58:29 | Anything else?
58:33 | So, do we vote on each piece? I believe we have to do the the whole application. Do we um how do we vote on this?
58:41 | Um I uh I do apologize we didn't have a packet prepared for procedural vote because generally speaking uh you can
58:51 | vote on yeah separately the site plan approval portion the special permit portion uh then the conditions
58:59 | and I have for the conditions of hours of operation 5:00 a.m. to 11:00 p.m. Uh, and we want to have that be maybe
59:07 | modified by just return to a public meeting. So, you don't necessarily have to reopen the hearing.
59:13 | Just get on the agenda and then the board is able to modify.
59:16 | Is the drive-thru separate and the um and the apartments separate or is all one is it gas stations uh separate application?
59:28 | Two special permits, right?
59:29 | Right. And then yeah, I guess two special permits because we could approve one and deny another.
59:35 | Yeah. So yeah, I would do each [clears throat] one individually and then um the conditions,
59:43 | right? and the conditions. I think maybe just to echo the comments we heard, maybe we can uh phrase this as a request
59:51 | to the applicant to extend affordable housing to at least one year rather than a demand.
59:59 | I would like it make it conditional because it will if we do this for all of everything in the future that may have this then we'll slowly solve our
1:00:07 | problem. just one and and who knows the the price of the apartments might just fall into the into
1:00:14 | the right category as it is but but it's it's only my opinion I I think we heard agreed with
1:00:23 | yeah we're fine I mean I can I put forward a motion to uh approve make motion to approve the
1:00:30 | gas station filing site plan application uh with ours condition 5 until 11 p.m. I
1:00:39 | think that was the only condition for the gas station.
1:00:42 | The gas station do the special permits first or you want to do the site plan.
1:00:48 | So do the site plan site plan for the gas station site plan special then conditions all.
1:00:54 | Yeah. Okay. So I'd like to make a motion for site plan approval for the gas station. I think we need to close the public
1:01:02 | hearing for sure. Is there anybody else before we close this?
1:01:08 | Hearing none. Seeing none, I'll make a motion to close.
1:01:10 | Excuse me. Sorry. I just had one other question. I don't know if this is relevant at all. Um, as far as the water
1:01:17 | supply in general, like bringing extra water because right now that water source is coming from the town of Southbridge
1:01:25 | and that will be sufficient. no issues with housing, you know, water for five additional apartments and um the the gas station in general.
1:01:36 | Yeah, I think that to the pressure test that was that was requested by the fire.
1:01:40 | I just didn't know how that like affects South the town of South Bridge as far as them.
1:01:44 | Um I think there's enough capacity in the line to for future development. Uh you know that's that you they will have to go in front of the
1:01:53 | Well, we excuse me. That was the first step before we applied even for the special permit. I contacted them.
1:02:02 | So it was they said it's available because there's a 12 in main on uh uh
1:02:11 | on road right now a dry pipe because there's not enough to to activate that pipe.
1:02:21 | So, make a motion to close the public hearing for Hatim Enterprises LLC, Worester Road. Second. All in favor?
1:02:27 | I I So, make a motion to uh approve the gas fueling station application from HMI.
1:02:39 | um with a condition.
1:02:45 | Okay. With the conditions, uh I think the only one for the gas station was hours 5:00 a.m. to 11:00 p.m. with those conditions.
1:02:54 | I'll second.
1:02:56 | All in favor? I I make a motion to approve the special application for
1:03:05 | a driveth through use at the gasoline fueling station form Enterprises.
1:03:14 | This is for the sorry um uh I'll second that. All
1:03:23 | in favor? I I make motion to approve the special
1:03:31 | permit application for H five housing units uh for the application for HM
1:03:40 | Enterprises with a um one of the conditions being uh at least one unit is placed into
1:03:49 | affordable housing status. Um the sixth There's five
1:03:56 | five units. So housing units one out of the five units one out of the units to be placed into affordable
1:04:05 | housing status such that it would be counted towards their subsidized housing. Thank you.
1:04:14 | Second. All in favor?
1:04:16 | I I I Well, thank you. Well, thank you guys. Thank you. Thank you.
1:04:22 | We just want to make sure your buildings do look good. The one right there at the Born Rotary is a nice Yeah, too I believe.
1:04:32 | Yes. In the process. Oh, Yam. Is that the one?
1:04:38 | Was it Hyenas? Was it Hyannis? No, but the one I know the one on the board is very nice.
1:04:42 | Yeah, that's nice.
1:04:55 | Uh yeah, it um if you need to use you can figure it out.
1:05:09 | No, that one's fine. I can definitely write it. Uh my only concern is just uh not having a decision in front of us.
1:05:17 | We don't kind of have an employer plate condition. So if any kind of conditions that are objected to that weren't
1:05:24 | explicitly stated just put in a position where an applicant can say well we don't like this condition. So but no worries
1:05:32 | I'll make sure going forward that you know with these I would be prepared for a vote tonight.
1:05:36 | So my apologies on that. I will try to have a draft decision and maybe I should have just held off and said they can wait another week
1:05:43 | because next time next Yeah so long you can't submit it.
1:05:53 | So it may not even made a difference that we we pushed it out. I felt peer pressure just so you know. I'm just I'm just I think it's actually called bullying nowadays.
1:06:04 | You can't submit it till it's clear.
1:06:07 | So maybe that is but yeah I know I we haven't we've had other gas stations that have come before us that
1:06:16 | I'm also you know just being I know very sensitive [clears throat] to the
1:06:24 | in town to make a little business friendly I think we're really business friendly
1:06:32 | compared to I've watched a lot of business friendly it's a nice Is here
1:06:53 | not the first time again supposed
1:07:01 | madam chair how how long do we allow people to keep pushing off these We're in this in such a mess.
1:07:10 | Yeah.
1:07:11 | With that. So I don't I don't even know how to My fear is as you know the subdivision
1:07:18 | is it the subdivision law where the site plan approval freezes the zoning not the use. I mean freezes the
1:07:27 | property but not the use. And some developers use it to bypass our zoning.
1:07:32 | So if they continuously, oh, we're going to do something, but they're they're playing a game. They have space by reszoning.
1:07:41 | It's more about it's more it's the issue is more about that there's people living up there and it's still a mess.
1:07:50 | Okay.
1:07:50 | I think that's my I mean I don't know if you guys see anything, but it's it's it's a it's like it just kind of
1:07:57 | dribbles down and um we think it's getting a little bit better and it never does. Um, I don't know. I I don't
1:08:05 | I just wondered being you've been on board for so long and this has just been a mess up a pain in the ass since the very
1:08:13 | beginning and it's just never been a problem solved.
1:08:18 | Um, I don't know. I don't know what I mean. We we've got a public hearing here. Um, we've got people here that want to speak on it. Maybe let's do that.
1:08:25 | Take that in there and and we'll take it into consideration. Maybe like maybe we need to have a town hall meeting then to
1:08:34 | say what what what do we what do we do here if the town has to do something?
1:08:39 | Um, but let's do we have I guess I mean we can ask if it's questions they have. [clears throat] If it's just concerned if they wanted to hear a plan and it's something
1:08:47 | anybody who has comments on anything, we'd love to hear them. Welcome to comment if you want.
1:08:54 | Here's fine. I'll project um Bill Balencius David, but I'm also president
1:09:01 | of the Charlton Heritage Preservation Trust. And um I definitely feel for the the residents at the top of the hill.
1:09:11 | That's that is awful. Um so ship
1:09:19 | kind of specializes in making the best of bad situations.
1:09:23 | So if there's going to be a whole bunch more bunch more houses going in place, um we'd really like to be able to preserve
1:09:31 | some of the open space that's there right now.
1:09:34 | partly as a buffer for the residents of Meadow Lane and partly because it's like big enough for people to take advantage
1:09:43 | of recreationally and uh during the December 3rd 2025 meeting
1:09:52 | which seems like the last time they actually showed up. Not sure they did show up at the time.
1:09:58 | We did have somebody here recently a few weeks ago. Few weeks ago. Yeah. Okay. Yep. before that it was December.
1:10:06 | Yeah. Okay.
1:10:06 | Um there was a discussion about access to the open space. So two weeks ago or
1:10:14 | four weeks ago, four weeks ago, they showed up with a site plan and um they basically made the
1:10:22 | open space land blocks, which is a huge problem in Charleston.
1:10:29 | What good is landlock open space? It's a place where invasives just take root. Um it's areas that you can't manage.
1:10:40 | Uh so if you needed to get through to get diseased trees out or something, which is again big problem in
1:10:48 | Massachusetts, you can't do it. So you'll lose a lot more. Um, it looked like potentially there was an
1:10:57 | area um on the bottom of the hill where there would be access, but I think
1:11:04 | that's like access direct into a swamp, which is not access.
1:11:11 | So, I just wanted to leave that just through the chair just looking
1:11:21 | through some of the notes. So, the last correspondence we've had with uh the their PE from Punk until May 30th. I
1:11:29 | think that was the last correspondence with our engineer
1:11:36 | what Graves has had contact uh up to July 1st. So
1:11:44 | they got the documents they got July 1.
1:11:49 | foil and then there are some notes that you know they're asking for
1:11:56 | changes to the design from Graves Engineering.
1:12:04 | for those respons
1:12:14 | if I may. So Mike Ward 9-year run um so we're at the bottom of this development.
1:12:20 | So about a year ago, my understanding is that they went in I think without a permit and started clearing out a lot of land. My concern is the erosion control.
1:12:31 | We're at the bottom of this. So, if they're going to abandon the property, they're going to drag this out for years.
1:12:37 | The properties at the bottom of this are going to suffer. So, that's my concern.
1:12:42 | That's why I wanted to hear and I've been following this along for a while and I understand the frustration. It feels like this person has just kind of
1:12:49 | blown the town off. Made a purchase. I don't think I think they got in over their head and now they're willing to
1:12:56 | probably walk away from it or try to sell it for pennies on the dollar, but it's a disaster up there. So, just want
1:13:03 | to voice the concern of the people not just on the top of the property, the ones that are going to catch the rainwater, the runoff, all the the
1:13:11 | challenges that are going to come from a bunch of land that was cleared out improperly.
1:13:16 | Are they still working up there or I haven't seen anything.
1:13:19 | So, it was about it was actually almost a year ago. Is there erosion control current? I don't think so. I don't think so. Has anybody brought that to the attention of
1:13:27 | Yeah. There's not a single bail of air waddle or anything up there. When they did it, you know, again, it was about a year ago and I came in and I looked at
1:13:36 | all the plants. I was nice enough to let me go take a look at it and I shared it with all my neighbors and they're not
1:13:43 | happy. The fact that this person loved the idea, put more house in the neighborhood. Love it. The concern is now this guy is abandoning the property,
1:13:52 | abandoning the project, and we're going to be left with a fallout.
1:13:55 | Understood conition
1:14:03 | and make him fix it. What was the street? So I'm on deer run. You're on deer.
1:14:11 | So meadow turns into deer run and then you go up ponkin and then it veers off to the left. High press.
1:14:17 | Yeah. Um, and what was your last name? Quilter. Qu U I L T E R.
1:14:22 | Y and it's nine deer run. All right. Thank you.
1:14:26 | Can we send a correspondence maybe an email to conservation to open up just to as an FBI
1:14:34 | for better communication. Hey forwarding from Mr. Quilter nine deer run. This is what we've heard. that's
1:14:43 | come to our attention that people kind of want a timeline of the progress
1:14:48 | maybe um I think um maybe maybe Jane can actually put together a
1:14:57 | timeline because there's new people on the board that that also um definitely should see the um maybe we create a
1:15:06 | general timeline and see I just don't know our options I I know we've this has been in front of our
1:15:14 | attorneys before and we've tried to um to fix this.
1:15:19 | At least erosion control is something that might be able to at least immediately help you out a little bit.
1:15:24 | Yeah, it's it's a it's an absolute concern. Absolutely. With the slope downs, it it would hit 15 properties.
1:15:31 | We talked about like the the delays and the zoning and what what possibly could have been up there and stuff. So,
1:15:39 | I didn't realize he was here last meeting. I was I think was it the last meeting or is it the was it June meeting?
1:15:49 | He wasn't on the He wasn't he wasn't on the agenda the one or something like it was. Well, I I forget what happened. He showed up and then
1:15:57 | but I mean right now we don't have anything to act on here, you know, without any changes to his design.
1:16:06 | But now we have something that could you share what the change of the design was again I was here a year ago he had proposed I think it was 10
1:16:13 | properties some that had circled around one at a high crest and [clears throat] so the way it set up high crest on one side high crest on another y
1:16:21 | there's a gap in between and I don't think there's ability to close the gap due to wetlands so his plan was to build
1:16:28 | I think seven properties on this side three properties on the other um but again he up a year ago.
1:16:36 | I don't think the plan had changed. I think he went into some health issues over the past year and is what he had said. I think
1:16:44 | wasn't it listed for as one estate lot online though like he might be trying to unload it. Yeah. The whole thing.
1:16:52 | I thought I read it. Yeah.
1:16:54 | That was a sort of a rumor we heard through the neighborhood that he was trying to unload the property. But I I watch realtor and all those. So it was
1:17:03 | I haven't seen anything kind of come through.
1:17:07 | Yeah. I think maybe we need to have a town figure out discussion opposite.
1:17:16 | Can we can you coordinate a discussion and and all the the key people that need to be in that conversation? um because
1:17:24 | it might be a um a sort of a a group question to to our attorney to see we
1:17:32 | need to we need to we need to somehow draw some sort of linear one especially if we're seeing things
1:17:43 | being listed even even it's absolutely his discretion to list it's just it feels like it's not being it's not transparent and stuff
1:17:52 | and we're there to protect the town and our So can we can you just coordinate and have the right people in the room right so like in conservation
1:18:01 | just so there's a discussion in Andrew probably and and see um maybe it's worth a KP you know whatever
1:18:09 | of a discussion to say hey what are what are and we did that we did that a while ago too but what can we do to fix this
1:18:16 | and the concern about um you know there was this this open space and now it's it's modified like um is there anything
1:18:24 | else we can do for that because if um I I I love you good access to that the old
1:18:33 | space if anything comes on supposed to be a little cut out and used here and parking and they missed that
1:18:41 | turned into frontage. So so immediately though the erosion would at least help.
1:18:48 | So let's get all the right people and I certainly wouldn't want the town to be footing bill for this.
1:18:55 | Yeah. So it's and I'm sure it's not the town's been avoiding that bill for a long time.
1:19:00 | So you know thanks for coming in.
1:19:08 | Um, will you put your concerns in writing? Will you just put them?
1:19:15 | Do we have a couple? It's on record and we can pull those emails. I don't know about this space and I actually emailed you. Copy.
1:19:23 | Okay.
1:19:24 | Not too long ago. Just reiterating what I had done before. Okay.
1:19:29 | I just don't want it to be lost in the discussion. Yep. No, I'm not going to let it.
1:19:36 | [laughter]
1:19:38 | invested.
1:19:39 | Do we want to reach out to him to find out when he can come back in here and meet or do we want to continue this to our next meeting?
1:19:45 | We definitely want to continue to the time and date certain. Um, we continue to the next meeting and we do two meetings. Isn't the next meeting Jan?
1:19:55 | Do we do we have a lot on the 16th?
1:19:57 | Yeah, we have a lot on the 16th. If we want it just as a placeholder, we can just continue to the next meeting just so and then here or not. We'll just keep
1:20:06 | continuing it or we can really want no harm in doing that. We'll continue it to October our second meeting in October if we're really looking for a date
1:20:15 | because that and it will give you know just in case he happens to come in not it'll give him more of a notice and see if we can get that that internal meeting done sooner
1:20:23 | than later. So at the next meeting we can actually come out with some um some some real information on what we can do
1:20:31 | here and some options for the actually recommend um to give ourselves some time and I know
1:20:40 | we've got a lot on our next agenda and the 30 is filling up quickly. I would say continue to the 21st and
1:20:48 | 20th 21st of October. 21st of October. That will give us some time.
1:20:55 | Yeah, it will give us give us a little under the internal potential. I mean, you know, the attorneys take about four years to get
1:21:02 | back to us. Um, [clears throat] the uh let's again, let's not come back and just talk about, you know, let's
1:21:09 | have some talk about um or at least it doesn't seem like he's under any pressure to internal pressure to get this done anytime soon. So,
1:21:17 | okay. Um make a motion to extend the tonic hill estates WAR
1:21:24 | uh subdivision um public in to October 21st.
1:21:32 | 21st second. All in favor?
1:21:36 | I I Thank you all for coming. Thank you.
1:21:43 | Yep. Thanks. Thank you. All right. Thank you.
1:21:50 | We have um last but not least, we have Amazon um continued public.
1:22:02 | Oh, no.
1:22:10 | Oh, yeah. Oh.
1:22:17 | Wrong guy. Sorry. Mike Andre Mike Andre is not here today. He is dropping his kids off at school at college.
1:22:27 | Yeah. Yeah.
1:22:49 | My glasses are going to be grab you one too from a different packet.
1:23:10 | another cure for you. No, I have I have it. I found it.
1:23:18 | facilities that live before we open it.
1:23:20 | Can I ask that maybe we're going to be talking a lot about traffic and I know I asked the first time they
1:23:28 | were here but the trip how many cars on a trip and a trip is one way versus round trip because we
1:23:37 | were a little I was confused but we're going to have a lot of people watching this. So if that could be cleared up
1:23:44 | before his presentation maybe it'll help people understand the counts.
1:23:49 | We have our traffic, right? So I Yeah, the whole count thing.
1:23:54 | So after you open it, maybe plus some some definitions for the people watching.
1:23:59 | So when they say,400 trips, it's 700 in, 700 out. Yay.
1:24:05 | It's double. A trip is one way. And we discussed it [clears throat] at the informal meeting. Um at the time
1:24:15 | it was on the Yeah. I just that way people realize it's 300 in and then we the second trip out. So it's doubled. So it's 700 cars.
1:24:27 | It's 350 trips. But just so people at home can understand all the verbiage that we Sorry. Thank you.
1:24:35 | Okay. Of course. Um in accordance with section 200 um 3.2
1:24:43 | 6 and 207.1 and 207.2 two of the child bylaw and child and planning board will hold a
1:24:50 | public hearing on Wednesday, September 2nd at 6 p.m. in the planning board office in the George Cry building 47 Main Street Child and Mass on the
1:24:59 | application of Amazon 53 um road child mass for a modification of a previous issue special permit and site plan
1:25:07 | approval to add a last mile delivery distribution component to the existing facility under which independent
1:25:15 | contract drivers using personal vehicles will pick up packages on site for delivery to customers. assesses map 27 block parcel one in zone business park.
1:25:28 | So um as Lori requested um well we'll let you present them. I think
1:25:37 | you want to ask for the clarification [clears throat] just for any any terms you're using if you just want to define them as you go through your presentation since you know what does that mean one
1:25:46 | way two-way that sort of thing would be very helpful for anyone viewing this recording later at home we can do
1:25:53 | so my name is Matt I'm an industrial architect and engineer I'm a CESO with me tonight is Zach with Van Austin
1:26:01 | Associates a leading traffic expert in this part of the country certainly very adept at what they do. And sir, I think you're with MDM.
1:26:10 | That is correct.
1:26:10 | Bob's with MDM who wrote the peer review and we'll talk about all that in just a moment. So what I'd like to do is do a
1:26:18 | quick overview just in case anybody didn't have the earlier gist of what the program is about. Uh once I do that, I
1:26:25 | want to clarify like there's there's three traffic reports. So I want to talk about those just so everybody has it straight in their head and then turn it over to the traffic experts and we have
1:26:34 | some dialogue around that. and then open it up for any dialogue or questions if that be all right. Okay. So, this is the Amazon O3 facility at 53 Stirbridge.
1:26:46 | And as you take a look at this facility, the area that we're looking at um having an alteration, this is a
1:26:54 | supplemental program, by the way, so it's just a small little piece of the puzzle for this is you see the parking lot at the top left of the building there is the area that we're looking at.
1:27:05 | And what this does is it introduces a concept called flex. And what flex does is it allows a package that is urgent or
1:27:14 | time sensitive uh to be able to be delivered quickly to someone's household. So something that like needs to be there within hours. So if a young
1:27:22 | mom orders something at lunchtime, it's going to be there by the [clears throat] time she gets off work and be there at her house. All the other uh packages
1:27:30 | come at the normal means by which they go out. So, there's three facilities in and around uh the greater Boston area.
1:27:38 | Those three facilities load up trucks that come up and down your streets and deliver in the conventional Amazon blue vans. This is different from that. This
1:27:46 | is just the urgent supplemental packages that need to get there quickly. So, this little U area that you see here in
1:27:53 | yellow and green is a portion of that parking lot that is in the upper left.
1:27:58 | There's two yellow banks. They're existing that don't need any amendments.
1:28:01 | I just put them in yellow. You could easily identify them with a crosswalk going down through there. And then on the green ones, we would just simply add
1:28:10 | the bumper blocks and put a crosswalk out there to keep drivers safe and then jersey barriers. And I did take uh
1:28:17 | Curtis Mezcus had given us uh the indication that some snow removal equipment was there last winter. Did talk to the plant about that and they
1:28:24 | will scoot that down to the next available spot.
1:28:28 | So from a civil perspective, that's what that looks like. If you're wondering what a flex driver is, so if you look at these little carts, these are two foot
1:28:36 | by 4 foot carts. You can see on the right here, there's about 10 or 12 packages, and the person is taking the packages out to the back of their car
1:28:44 | and loading. If you notice, most of these are like Toyota, Corollas, and Honda Civics. That's common. And what
1:28:51 | these typically are flex driver is somebody that's asked to come and either do a one, a two, or a three-hour
1:28:58 | delivery. And the longer deliveries are because they're further out in more rural areas. The flex drivers are good for the community and that they
1:29:07 | typically end up being people that are summer retired or um a mom that has kids in school but has only a few hours and
1:29:14 | wants to work a little bit. So, it's good for the community to have the flex driver program. offers jobs for people that are supplemental to what they're
1:29:21 | doing and so it gets the packages there uh quickly to them.
1:29:27 | Uh the only change that we're asking for is for this flex supplemental program.
1:29:35 | If you look at the building, this is a big building. The area in gray is the only area that's being modified. It's
1:29:42 | about 8,000 square feet. And for product control, it's a chain link fence inside of the existing building. So all of the
1:29:50 | fire suppression remains the same. HBAC remains the same. Lighting remains the same. The chain link fence just acts as
1:29:57 | a perimeter product control so that the people on the inside of the plant aren't working with cahoots on the people outside of the plant to help steal
1:30:05 | product. So it just creates a separation barrier there.
1:30:10 | Uh we talked during the pre-application, we had talked about these window uh dispatches of sending drivers out to
1:30:18 | make deliveries. We had a lot of discussion in the minute when we turn it over to the traffic people. The discussion centered on the ride into
1:30:25 | work and the ride home from work. And so [clears throat] what we've uh made an election to do is to ask the owner to uh
1:30:33 | exclude the 7 to 8 a.m. window and exclude the 5 to 6 pm window. And when you see the traffic reports in just a
1:30:41 | moment, it's mostly that evening slot uh is your pinch point on Stirberg Trout 20. And so what we are presenting here
1:30:49 | today is that we would have um the bulk of the deliveries happening at 3:45 to 6:45 a.m. And you might be wondering,
1:30:58 | you know, why is that so early in the morning? People go home from work, they order things, it cues up, and then all of those items are picked, and then
1:31:06 | they're able to be able to go out the next morning. So, the bulk of that will go out before most people even go to work. When you look at the traffic data just a little bit, there's only
1:31:14 | singledigit cars on the road at those hours. It's a good time if you're going to have people out. It's a good time to have them respond. 7 to 8, nothing. And,
1:31:24 | uh, we'll have the client put that in writing. And then 10:30 to 11:30, uh, there'll be one dispatch window, be 20%.
1:31:32 | Another one in that 3 to 4:45 will be 20%. Nothing 445 coming out of the
1:31:40 | facility and we would stop it just at that.
1:31:44 | Uh, one of the other things is we'd like to ask that both for the benefit of the town and for the client is to just
1:31:52 | annually revisit it. So, just put a can opener on it annually reopen it and have the board look at it, have the client
1:32:00 | look at it, make sure it's working for you, make sure it's working for them.
1:32:03 | And that just creates a [clears throat] way of fair and honestly looking at it once a year and then adjust up or down.
1:32:10 | And then um another thing that the client had asked for is just some understanding that there are times when
1:32:18 | there are um a flexibility at a high volume like back to school is one. The Friday after Thanksgiving is another.
1:32:27 | Um so there there are like a couple times a year where there's peak times.
1:32:32 | They just asked me to ask you uh to just simply acknowledge that. So they don't expect big variations from it. They just
1:32:38 | ask that. Um the vicinity is uh route 20 coming across the top and I'll turn over to the engineers here in just a minute.
1:32:47 | Route 20 coming across the top and then uh 169 in the back. When I was here in June, I had suggested the [clears throat] idea that the delivery
1:32:55 | drivers go out of the back of the facility. When you read the traffic data, the data actually points to the idea that it's it's really at the end of
1:33:04 | the day, it's about a 5050 proposition out the front and the back. I think it would maybe be disadvantageous to bring
1:33:11 | them in through the back. And it might be advantageous to say don't put a restriction on which direction to send them. Let them equally come out of the
1:33:19 | facility and go to both of those so that it distributes that load equally across uh both of those. So, I'll leave that
1:33:27 | over to the traffic engineers in just a moment here. [clears throat] I also have a couple of images here um that are here for reference so that when we turn it
1:33:35 | over um they can talk through these uh intersections. But there's three reports. And so the three reports I want
1:33:43 | to mention are the first one is the uh March 20th 2026 report that was due to
1:33:51 | you. That is the annual kind of true up when the building was built. Here's what we estimated, what the traffic was, and
1:33:58 | then how is it doing now post build. I'm going to turn over to Zach in just a minute, but tell you how that's doing.
1:34:04 | The second report is dated June 3rd, 2026, which is addresses my it was time with
1:34:11 | my preapp meeting. That one was strictly meant to be this is when you add the supplemental program, that's how this
1:34:18 | relates to the original work. And then thirdly, the gentleman Bob here from MDM wrote a very nice peer review and what
1:34:26 | he does is he takes into account the proposal of what's being asked to be made and the considerations for that.
1:34:32 | There's six comments associated with that. I'll save that for Bob to be able to address. So Zach, if you'd like to take over with the two reports.
1:34:41 | So you already gave the overview of where we're at in the process uh with the reports and to review. Um so the
1:34:48 | main thing I'll clear up first um based on that table so it is going to be 700
1:34:55 | flex drivers um per day. That's what we're proposing currently with just 700 entering trips and 700 exiting. So 1,400
1:35:04 | vehicle trips is what it would result in. And so the main point we're currently working through the comments.
1:35:11 | We haven't submitted uh our response comments yet. Um but internally we've gone through uh and started responding.
1:35:21 | The main thing here is that we're shifting the traffic off peak so that we don't worsen the traffic conditions
1:35:29 | already when Amazon trips are getting out and the peak of the roadway is happening rush hour which is the 7 to 8 and 5 to 6 p.m. time slots.
1:35:39 | The other aspect and this is a little different from what he just previously mentioned um and this is also what MDM
1:35:47 | uh had recommended uh shifting the trips so all southbound
1:35:55 | into South Bridge to or from should all trips bound to South should be taking
1:36:02 | the 169 driveway. Uh and DM pointed out that in our traffic analysis uh there was some local service E and Fs which are undesirable uh traffic conditions.
1:36:13 | There was longer delays at that driveway in comparison to uh local service A and B overall at the signal on Route 20. So,
1:36:22 | we think it would be more advantageous to send any trips with Flex and also the Amazon facility for employees and
1:36:30 | everybody um bound to South Bridge to the 169 driveway and everybody else to Route 20. That way you can bypass the
1:36:38 | Route 20 169 intersection um and it'll alleviate some pressure there. Uh the last thing that I'll
1:36:46 | mention uh in regards to this is the traffic monitoring program for Amazon.
1:36:51 | So anything that we do here in terms of the flex delivery will be subject to mass DOT and state review as a part of
1:36:59 | the monitoring program. Um and that March 2026 we have that internally but uh it hasn't been submitted yet because
1:37:07 | Mass is still uh requesting some additional data. Uh but that's in the process and it's consistent with this
1:37:14 | September 2025 monitoring report as well. Um but that's all really was that
1:37:21 | compared to private prep before the facility opened?
1:37:27 | I don't have okay an exact number metric to give you on that. Um but [clears throat]
1:37:35 | with the traffic monitoring program, we are continuing to monitor um conditions out there currently and in the future.
1:37:43 | And you know if we re if we're exceeding certain thresholds based on mass and uh their
1:37:52 | conditions really uh then we have to go back and offer further mitigation. If there's any safety issues, you know, we're always looking at the crash state
1:37:59 | out there making says that do we get those reports to this office?
1:38:07 | Do we get those reports from we have we have requested us to give
1:38:15 | them to us. So they've supplied the traffic reports that they've done so far to the point
1:38:23 | but just recently done. So you just got through the chair. I have a question on the I read in there that that
1:38:31 | intersection is one of the top 200 in the state and that was prior to you
1:38:38 | even opening and that criteria was 2019 to 2022 [cough] [clears throat] which was in the middle
1:38:46 | of it COVID and it was still in the top 200 in that intersection of route 169 and 20. So I
1:38:55 | haven't heard discussed about that destination you're so proud of.
1:39:01 | Yeah. So, I believe that the HIPP destination, which is what they call it, it's a highway safety improvement program. They identify top crash
1:39:09 | locations in the state, and they have a map that you can go on online and look to see where they are, which ones are worsening. Some are head crashes, some
1:39:18 | are bike crashes, uh crash clusters, they call them. So, that one is uh in the top 200. That's part of uh our
1:39:27 | monitoring program. We look at that intersection and get crash data from the town uh and the police department.
1:39:34 | Um it's number 200 attitude. Yeah.
1:39:38 | But that was the year co there was no shipping going on.
1:39:42 | I do believe that it's based off of 2017 to 2021.
1:39:47 | They are a little and before [clears throat] LMG open as well. I know that doesn't put a whole lot, but it's it's kind of dangerous
1:39:54 | trucks filled with LMG. So, just putting that out there that
1:40:03 | church, have you guys seen the original site plan approval
1:40:10 | conditions that we put on the original and the traffic mitigation measures and the thresholds and all that? I had to.
1:40:17 | Yeah. Yeah. So, the original was to within a compliance standard of like 10%.
1:40:23 | And so in the 2026 Vanas report, it talks about the notion of 2.9% higher.
1:40:30 | But the revelation further beyond that is that kind of the telling story was that it was 82% lower in the morning uh
1:40:38 | peak traffic hours but higher in the evening by 35.4%.
1:40:43 | So the takeaway there is the 2.9% factor. It's within tolerance what was originally planned during the
1:40:50 | construction phase to take away after now that we're post and we're operating as uh less traffic in the morning but more traffic at the end of the day. I've
1:40:59 | been here about five times. Each time that I come I go and sit up at the cemetery there up on the hill and watch that intersection there at 20 and 169.
1:41:10 | Most of that traffic wants to go east and west uh through that intersection.
1:41:15 | And if if you look at like There's a graph coming up that's got like these turning arrows that Vanos does just to give you an indicator of like how
1:41:23 | traffic u traverses back in and through there. So what happens is is that a lot of this traffic is going east to west.
1:41:32 | Even coming here tonight, most of the traffic was headed back to the west and back up. So um the idea of taking the
1:41:41 | pressure off of that evening dispatch and make everything happen early in the day It helps stay within that tolerance of
1:41:49 | what's happening both for your town and for the client. So, I think it's good to push all that up early into the day.
1:41:56 | The the 1hour deliveries.
1:41:59 | Yeah. To keep them early in the day, keep everything keep everything out after 4:45.
1:42:06 | They can still get things out of the facility in that in that mid to late afternoon time frame. But I'm the one that asked them I asked them for two
1:42:13 | things. I said don't give this town a number that you cannot live by. So the
1:42:19 | 700 number is came from me is two times what they told me. So they told me 350
1:42:27 | is what they intend to introduce this program as. I doubled it and said that's the ceiling. So they intend to operate with it. And the reason I told him that
1:42:36 | he said you need to be a people of integrity. If you tell this town this is what you're going to do, you need to live by it. And then the second thing I
1:42:42 | asked them to do is this uh dispatch uh windows. If you remember uh when I was
1:42:49 | here back in June, we had proposed five of these and I asked them to take two out because after I read the traffic
1:42:58 | reports, I realized the pressure really is on that evening shift. And then Curtis Mescus was here in June. Curtis
1:43:06 | uh had kind of influenced me in June saying he comes to work. He evidently lives down on 169 South. He comes up
1:43:13 | that way. He was the one that told me, he said, "There is some pressure on that 169 entrance." So that's why I suggested, "Let's take these two
1:43:22 | dispatch windows and just take them completely out of play." So when someone's online doing their order, they won't be given that option.
1:43:30 | Like I'm just afraid that it's just not going to make the computer.
1:43:33 | It's more complicated than that. So if it's a standard delivery, it's going to come out of the other fac. who are set up for final mile and they'll come in
1:43:42 | the in the typical ubiquitous blue Amazon vans. If it's part of the urgent uh flex program where there's a time
1:43:50 | sensitivity to that, then it's going to get put into this program and they'll hit the nearest window of when they can based on when the person is asking.
1:43:59 | So there'll be there'll be three times a day they could hit that. If if a young mom is ordering big form and misses it,
1:44:06 | it's going to come at the next early morning shift.
1:44:12 | Who decides what is an urgent item and what is not an urgent item? I don't know if there's a list for that because I I
1:44:20 | mean I I've used the flex service before and you know golf doll balls delivered
1:44:28 | at 4:00 in the morning. I wouldn't consider urgent but you know it doesn't seem like there's a it seems like if it's in stock that facility they'll deliver it.
1:44:38 | Was that the only package you ordered?
1:44:39 | Yes. Because sometime what I've what I've heard across the country is sometimes if there's a oneoff order like I order gel packs for money. It's a very specialty item.
1:44:49 | Most people don't order those. I only order that, nothing else. It happens to come the same.
1:44:54 | So, I think there's u there's items that go through the system that are oneoff that would be not part of the ordinary delivery route that may come through.
1:45:03 | So, what it seemed to me is that if it was at the facility that has the flex drivers, it could come the next morning if it was something that had to be shipped there and sent out.
1:45:14 | I would think again being a big facility like that most of the stuff would be in stock that everyone would go out and flex delivery if they have a chance.
1:45:24 | Okay.
1:45:25 | Do you how do you control the how is you someone's working as a flex driver are they actually told to go out one driveway or another and it monitored?
1:45:36 | That's a good question. So they take my work on the civil plans, let me back up a page.
1:45:43 | So what happens is is on the civil plans, I don't have a pointer, but um
1:45:51 | on on the civil plans that I sent to Mike Andre, you'll notice there's these little green arrows that go through the parking lot and show the drivers how we
1:45:59 | want them to come in or up to the building. And then always, you see these arrows going down. So they have to follow that route for safety purposes,
1:46:07 | but also the green arrows where they connect out to the nearest surface street. My work on the civil plans goes into their programmed app that's in
1:46:15 | their cars. So when they show up to make a delivery route, it tells them, "Hey, we're going to go deliver these 10 packages. Here's the route you're going to take." It tells them the route there
1:46:24 | to come on to that campus. That's why I pose this question about the front and back of the facility.
1:46:30 | I really do think that it could be an advantage to not bring them in one specific way over the other and let them come in from either or depending on if
1:46:39 | they're either coming from South Bridge or they're coming from Stillbridge.
1:46:42 | There could be an advantage to you by having it distributed across both
1:46:50 | through the chair. I was going to ask a couple of traffic questions. It always comes down to traffic and then maybe we
1:46:56 | can ask Mr. to weigh in also. So, one of the uh Mr. like one of the slides you
1:47:04 | had was the turning diagram with that and I think it showed the peaks AM and
1:47:10 | PM and what we were Yeah, thank you. So this week morning
1:47:17 | peak so this is the 26 this the March 2026 data. This is the same data from the monitoring.
1:47:25 | And so tell me again what is the morning peak
1:47:32 | uh existing and it it was like it was only 23% of the capacity or something.
1:47:40 | It was like 82 trips in the morning or something like that. What was that particular or coming in Amazon?
1:47:49 | Yeah. in the morning peak. I thought I thought Mr. Fleck mentioned it was like Oh, yeah. Yeah. Here it is. 80.
1:47:59 | Well, there there's two things. One is they're looking at the pre and post build. Yeah.
1:48:05 | So, it was better in the morning than as opposed to the evening. But if you want raw and better in the morning, it was like substantially 82% less. Yeah.
1:48:16 | And the number was what? Okay. Peak morning. Peak morning.
1:48:21 | I was looking through this also. I have to get on the phone with our traffic engineer.
1:48:28 | Uh the project uh was identified at approximately 53.8% lower on an average weekday.
1:48:36 | And then if you go to the raw data back here, you can actually [clears throat] go into the approximate car counts by the hour.
1:48:46 | But the the peak what was the peak morning summary? What was that number?
1:48:51 | I don't have the isn't it in the reporting? I thought it was here percentage less than I believe that's what he just said.
1:49:01 | The percentage less was 82.
1:49:03 | Yeah, we have the measured coming in the Amazon, but I don't think it's 82, right? So the
1:49:11 | count Mr. reflect was 82 for the peak morning hour or something for the traffic NS traffic report.
1:49:20 | Yeah, just 82 is a percentage, but you want the wrong numbers.
1:49:27 | Yeah, 82 was the percentage. I'm sorry to get into so much detail.
1:49:32 | This is a a point where I think the traffic study history. So September 2025 which was
1:49:39 | previous September 2025 was the date it was measured right. Yes. Yeah. Right.
1:49:45 | So in during the weekday morning there were 75 cars, seven trucks. So 82 vehicles.
1:49:51 | Uh and that's total entering an accident. [clears throat] Um yes compared to the projected traffic
1:50:00 | volumes from our [clears throat] I don't remember the year that the the traffic 7 came out for the Amazon
1:50:07 | but from the original trip generation that's the 82% less not 82% 82 is the count
1:50:17 | but it's also 82% less here so the projected traffic volume 455 vehicle trips compared to 82 measured in
1:50:24 | September and this turning count diagram is from what period this specific is from March of 206.
1:50:33 | 2026. Okay.
1:50:35 | And I [clears throat] I thought we were I was trying to I guess zone in on that 2025 the September
1:50:45 | date and maybe I misread it or I'm not as familiar as as you guys are with the
1:50:52 | traffic studies, but maybe Mr. Michelle can can help with clarifying that or if um
1:50:59 | is this a good spot to Yeah. Thank you.
1:51:10 | Okay. So, um obviously there's a relationship between what's built and
1:51:17 | what's being proposed, right? What's built is obligated to provide monitoring reports.
1:51:23 | you've just received two monitoring reports uh from March and September 2025.
1:51:31 | Uh we just received those as well, right? So we haven't been retained to do a full review of those, right? Um that
1:51:39 | may be in the cards, but I did have a chance to look at that data to understand where things sit. And I
1:51:47 | understand that this project, the uh traffic report for this facility in part relies on some of that information,
1:51:54 | right? So account information is being represented.
1:51:58 | You know, in fact, they've gone back out in June, no, I'm sorry, March of 2026, right?
1:52:04 | And counted and and I think the blind conditions are not all that different. Mhm.
1:52:09 | Um so before we comment on the facility impact itself um to your question about
1:52:19 | how the existing facility is functioning relative to the record documents and the original site plan the original site plan
1:52:26 | conditions right that all relates to the monitoring of course now I I was a bit confused by the
1:52:34 | 82 vehicle trips as well um what's represent presented in the baseline traffic volume line volume information
1:52:42 | which is up on the screen there would suggest that during morning peak hours which is what's represented on the left
1:52:50 | side of that diagram that the total number of vehicles that are entering the facility and exiting the facility
1:52:57 | between the two driveways in combination is just under 500 vehicles right um I can't replicate the 82 vehicles
1:53:06 | that are represent presented in the moderate reports. And I'm not saying this necessarily incorrect. I'm just saying that um there's a disconnect. Um
1:53:15 | and uh I do understand there's a statement within the monitoring report uh from September that suggested that
1:53:22 | there was a shift change that would have the shift I believe earlier prior to the typical community peak hour. Mhm.
1:53:31 | Um that's something that was suggested during the peerreview process for that facility and that that memorialized is
1:53:39 | one of the potential mitigation actions in what's known as the section 61 finding.
1:53:45 | Right. So I think you know Amazon has taken the time to try to understand what they're generating and how it lines up
1:53:52 | to the record documents and have apparently made some attempt to try to shift that burden so to speak to an earlier hour.
1:54:00 | That said, [clears throat] um you know, we still need to understand why in in this report,
1:54:09 | which presumably is consistent with some of the data that was in the monitoring, the number of vehicles in the weekday morning peak hours is actually just under 500, not 82.
1:54:20 | Nowhere close to that.
1:54:21 | Right. So, so there's there's that question. Um now
1:54:28 | as it relates to the facility itself um we we also know that a substantial
1:54:35 | number of um the trips are actually oriented toward the route 169 driveway as opposed to 20 driveway. The premise
1:54:43 | of the signal was that it would meet a warrant which obligates that it you know accommodates at least a minimum amount of traffic in order to justify its use.
1:54:54 | um that seems to have flipped over over through 169 and as a result and I'm pretty sure what one of the monitoring
1:55:02 | reports indicates is that um particularly during an evening hour there's a substantial delay and a substantial queue that develops on that driveway.
1:55:12 | One of our recommendations that you know I think the applicant is working on is to try to better balance the trips between those two gateways.
1:55:24 | Um the we also want to understand um what effect that additional trip
1:55:33 | activity has had over the 21 169 drive uh intersection. Um in both of the
1:55:40 | monitoring reports I very carefully reviewed um it remains a high crash
1:55:46 | location. certainly above average. Um there's a a recommendation, a requirement to actually consider uh
1:55:55 | potential mitigation for locations like that that may have an above average crash experience. And I believe that's a good candidate for it.
1:56:05 | So in in both monitoring reports that were filed, there's no suggestion of what those might be. There's no detailed
1:56:14 | assessment of potential causal factors that relate to those crashes. There's a simply a reference back to a monitoring
1:56:22 | report that says it's above average, you know, u but we'll continue to look at it. So, we're suggesting that you need
1:56:30 | to do more than just kick it down down the road. You really need to understand what the causal factors are of the crashes. Do collision diagramming.
1:56:40 | identify potential ways in which um safety of the intersection can be implemented and and really that's tied
1:56:49 | to the larger facility as opposed to what's being approached now.
1:56:52 | [clears throat] So they are linked in that way, but it is an obligation of the u the larger facility to to take a closer look
1:57:00 | at that to suggest the issue. Um as it relates and and this is not in our review, but um there's this notion for
1:57:08 | the larger facility that based on the monitoring if signal warrants are met for the route 169 driveway that they would be implemented.
1:57:20 | My cursory review of those monitored reports suggests that there are at least four or five hours in a day at which those thresholds that would trigger the
1:57:28 | need for signal are met at 169 at 169. So we'd want to have a little more detail. Now that's subject to commentary on the monitoring reports.
1:57:38 | It doesn't show up in our commentary on what we've reviewed for the flux.
1:57:43 | Um and uh you know there there may be uh again ways through traffic management uh
1:57:51 | practices uh to to better manage not only the distribution of trips [clears throat] but perhaps even the time of day these
1:57:58 | impacts occur some of which has apparently been uh attempted at this point. Um those are our principal
1:58:05 | comments, right? But it's very much tied to what about the larger facility, right? It's kind of the gorilla in the room, right?
1:58:14 | And may I just add that in the I think it was a September 2025 traffic report
1:58:20 | from Vaness that satisfies their every year they have to do a traffic impact
1:58:26 | and assessment for the original site not the flex site but this will go on for five years forward and this is one of
1:58:35 | them September 25 and in the conditions that I mentioned it was this 10% threshold if the traffic volumes
1:58:44 | greater than 10% there should be mitigation actions taken which is a meeting among
1:58:52 | you know the town with the town what do we do about this with the Amazon with the operator themselves how are we going
1:58:59 | to mitigate this traffic um and one of those is the the PM evening peak trips
1:59:07 | were plus 35% over the build conditions so that right there triggers a mitigation action, let alone
1:59:16 | this has nothing to do with the this flex application like we need to get them in here and request a mitigation of traffic mitigation.
1:59:25 | 35% though is within that is a subcomponent of the the overall traffic numbers hit within 2.9%.
1:59:33 | The subset data of that is the 35 up in the evening, 82 down in the morning, right?
1:59:39 | But the gross counts are within less than 3%.
1:59:42 | Right. But any one of those is going to trigger a mitigation activity.
1:59:48 | So not total but any any of those hitting that 10% threshold.
1:59:53 | Yeah. The 10% I mean impact is really measured [clears throat] as what happens during the highest combined cattle period of the day and that's when people experience the moderate delay.
2:00:04 | So you're correct. You know the daily numbers are 2.9%. It's the distribution of those trips during certain hours of
2:00:11 | the day that creates the so-called impact that is really central to the mitigation actions. So that could dictate the need
2:00:19 | for some safety related measure at 20 169. Uh it could potentially trigger the need for signal
2:00:28 | at 169. Um, as a point of reference, the signal warrants analysis for the 20 quarter
2:00:36 | was marginal at best in the filings, the state environmental filings. Um, usually you want to get threshold of at least 75
2:00:44 | vehicles an hour for an 8 hour period is um there are periods of the day when that may actually not occur even though
2:00:53 | it is in fact signalized. Whereas the 169 driveway has upwards of it's more than 200 vehicles an hour
2:01:02 | uh for you know at least 3 four hours a day and close to that number for the fifth hour certainly level of service I
2:01:12 | mean that that 169 driveway was going to be a secondary exit and it sounds like it's now more of a primary entry exit
2:01:20 | for for the employees which is strange yeah and I'm not sure why that's the case um you know I've been to the site a couple times and and
2:01:28 | my GPS would say, "Hey, um, you use Route 20." Uh, but, you know, to be fair, if I drop the pin on the
2:01:37 | northerly, uh, parking lot, it'll tell me to use Route 20.
2:01:42 | If I drop it on the southerntherly or easterly parking field, it'll say, "Take 169." So, it's it's it's pretty close, right?
2:01:50 | But given the queueing that happens here, um, you know, 10 to 15, I wouldn't want to be the 15th in line, right? I I
2:01:57 | probably want to use them quite yet and that's why I'm not quite understanding why that doesn't naturally shift that way.
2:02:05 | Uh but there wouldn't the employees dictate where what direction they come in and South Beach has a lot of apartments and these aren't super highpaying jobs.
2:02:14 | That's what I was This is kind of the um the approach that we taking that I mentioned earlier for South Bridge South.
2:02:24 | Yeah. So taking it right out and left in off of 169 and then all other traffic.
2:02:34 | And just to summarize then I think there are some uh thresholds that have been passed that
2:02:42 | would warrant mitigation activity certainly at least a meeting and a review. Keep in mind that this all of
2:02:50 | these traffic studies from Vaness that were part of the conditions of approval have not been reviewed by our traffic
2:02:58 | engineer. So first step is to get them reviewed by MDM and then this is going to trigger a threshold activity and I
2:03:07 | certainly wouldn't entertain any changes to that site plan at all that we have in
2:03:14 | place until those mitigations are are [clears throat] done. Certainly not looking at any uh changes to the use
2:03:22 | that would increase uh traffic. uh it would decrease levels of service and it would just serve to heighten the
2:03:31 | threshold impacts that how far out to those traffic studies go uh radius wise I mean do they go all the way out to
2:03:40 | driveways and 169 a couple of other intersections street
2:03:52 | didn't count the middle of the night There's a lot I come in late. So the traffic count that did that.
2:04:00 | Okay.
2:04:01 | I was just clarifying with Bob. I didn't realize that Bob's report here does not take in the calculus of these two reports. I thought they had access to that.
2:04:10 | And in fact, uh, Mr. Fletch, we had a hard time to even get the reports. I was looking for them and
2:04:18 | uh apparently they were filed with mass dot but I guess we didn't then ask them or maybe they were but
2:04:26 | that's why so that you know sure that you have anyway so that's so I think what you're saying is I think
2:04:35 | we need to have a DM analyze all the data instead of just the
2:04:41 | previously stepping a little bit more And then that is going to trigger a
2:04:47 | meeting for, you know, some mitigation activities.
2:04:52 | I think it's also important to note that I'm not sure about this one. I believe that we're still waiting for comments from Mass for this one. Definitely for
2:05:00 | the March one that we're soon to be submitting and we're also currently doing a September because we're doing two a year. So, we're currently working on the September one internally.
2:05:10 | Um, and that'll all be subject to DOT review. So if they look at this and say you're open to 10%, we need you to do X,
2:05:18 | Y, and Z, then we have to respond to those comments with either mitigation or, you know, some other form of
2:05:25 | response to address those issues. So they should be calling those out as well.
2:05:31 | Lot a lot of DS are really slow in their comment response like 69 months. Yeah.
2:05:37 | Is that it's not uncommon? So a March report it could be like over this fall. Yeah.
2:05:45 | Right. But you know what the focus of our review would be pretty holistic. It would circle back to the reference
2:05:52 | documents which we actually were privy to at the time that this was being proposed. We would look at uh the March
2:06:00 | and September final reports to the extent the March uh data gets
2:06:08 | formalized and submitted. you look at that as well um just to understand a trend. Um [clears throat] but you know I
2:06:15 | I think it consistently shows at least in my very cursory review of two reports
2:06:22 | that there are definitely at least two areas three to three aspects of potential radiation that should really
2:06:30 | be considered. Um it doesn't guarantee that it has to happen but it it's worth a good good look.
2:06:39 | as it [cough] as it relates to the facility itself. Um, you know, we we document this in our commentary. Uh,
2:06:46 | we're familiar with the so-called last mile delivery process that uses.
2:06:55 | There's a facility in Westboro that has now been fully functional for a couple years and we had the opportunity to go
2:07:02 | out and measure its performance and um, you know, our understanding of that operation was that there would be 4hour
2:07:11 | civilian time slots that that were assigned. Um there were projections that
2:07:18 | our firm in fact made at the time uh that have been exceeded uh you know and that that perhaps has more to do with
2:07:25 | the evolution of the flex program and how they how they operate. In this [clears throat] particular case, uh we
2:07:33 | just simply want to have clarification, very distinct clarification about uh while there may be 700 routes
2:07:40 | identified, there's a reference to, you know, uh deliveries occurring either over 1 hour period, a 2 hour period, a
2:07:48 | three-hour shift. Um that could result in multiple trips on each route. And
2:07:57 | we'd want to understand the mechanics of how that works because really what's being presented for estimated traffic is
2:08:04 | highly the theoretical. Um it's it's it's one of these. It's not based on the actual operating facility. U there's no
2:08:13 | hard and fast parameters around it that that would be enforceable necessarily.
2:08:17 | But what I do like and in what was [clears throat] represented uh is perhaps a phase roll out of the program where uh you start with a certain
2:08:26 | designated a cap if you will on on the number of routes that are served. You monitor it, you validate its operation and then you expand it from that point.
2:08:36 | So that could be a provision something that we could talk about that way. It's trust verify,
2:08:44 | right? And you've had some experience with flex and other towns that also part of the reason I suggest we do
2:08:52 | an annual, you know, annual revisiting of it. I think it's worth, you know, it's good for you. It's good for the client. Everybody comes back and get it again. We look at it.
2:09:04 | I mean, I'm hearing some pretty long delays maybe with the mass. What do you call it? A section 61 something like that.
2:09:13 | So, these might take six to n months sometimes in other parts of the country. That's
2:09:20 | what it takes.
2:09:25 | Can I mean it it sounds that is there um well this is this is both site plan
2:09:34 | modification open the hearing is there any is there any time limit that's what I'm curious about time limit to open the hearing and then
2:09:42 | the time limit decision after we close and there's a decision but we have uh there's no state if if
2:09:49 | I'm mistaken about that we can always just ask for an extension and then as long as Right. I think if the applicant asks for
2:09:58 | an extension, it it bypasses any of those constraints on 90 timing. Right.
2:10:03 | If we ask you then to continue this for 12 months and wait for
2:10:10 | us to get our MDM peer review on all the traffic studies that they get the SE
2:10:17 | section 61 do report in and have the applicant themselves here to entertain a
2:10:26 | mitigation conversation with the planning board.
2:10:30 | That's probably we're saying that once we open a public hearing, which we did today, we only have so long to make a decision.
2:10:38 | And otherwise, it's automatically doesn't sound like we're going to have all the information.
2:10:43 | I I I should just just add that that's generally not an issue because with special
2:10:50 | with special permit, it's discretionary and a legitimate reason for denial is insufficient information. So when you're
2:10:58 | ever at a deadline and you were to say to an applicant, well, are you willing to extend this timeline? If they say no, then the board would simply vote for
2:11:06 | denial for insufficient information. So generally, it's going to be an applicant's interest to extend deadlines. So we'll watch that.
2:11:14 | So pay attention, right? That's all. Yeah.
2:11:20 | So, you know, looking at this for a benefit for the So, Charlton needs to put up with the increase in traffic, the
2:11:27 | potential increase in traffic. What benefit comes out of Charlton for this couple of things. It's a good question.
2:11:36 | So there's additional jobs generation that is associated with this that fits a niche in the market that is people who
2:11:43 | are looking for very short windows of employment that fits their lifestyle.
2:11:47 | So that's certainly one and then the overall you know broader economics of what's happening with an operation of
2:11:55 | this size in your community. So you've got you know the trickle down of that as well.
2:12:04 | be more specific. Gas [laughter] the the fact that the invest that you
2:12:11 | know multiple hundreds of millions of dollars worth of investment and then the payroll associated with that goes all out into those homes and that has a
2:12:19 | trickle down effect into where they spend those dollars in their localized economy. So it creates a trickle down effect in the local economy itself. It's
2:12:28 | basically the business itself being there.
2:12:32 | Yeah. The business being there, pouring into the workforce that's spending those dollars in your local businesses.
2:12:40 | Thank you. Yeah.
2:12:43 | And and I I would just, you know, add for your own benefit that like the town that I come from is a fraction of the
2:12:50 | size of Charleston. I'm headed back there at the end of September for a 40th reunion. They often ask me for like
2:12:58 | advice on topics like this. So like you have to grow your way into the future.
2:13:05 | So like there is no silver bullet. It takes time and patience and discipline.
2:13:11 | When I sat up at the cemetery uh and overlooked that intersection down there.
2:13:16 | Um to me it was a great insight to like localized behavior, the directions that people are coming and going. I did it three three different times the day. the
2:13:24 | different times that I was here. I spread that out just to compare. There's a lot to be said for just inspecting that and then looking at through a lens
2:13:33 | in your eyes of like how to grow your way into the future by looking at what's happening in your community because a lot of that traffic and and that's not
2:13:42 | even taking into account what's happening out on the toll road. The toll road backs up. It could be worse, right?
2:13:48 | So, a lot of your traffic is traversing through your your town east to west. You got a lot going on there, but you have to hurry the way into the future.
2:13:56 | I hear complaints that the uh the back roads are taking a blunt because everyone's avoiding route.
2:14:04 | They find the secret fast.
2:14:06 | So, yep. They're going down podunk north road to go to Stafford's crazy mason
2:14:14 | shooting over 395 more. So, Oxford too. Yeah. It just doesn't affect Route 20.
2:14:22 | our whole town. We can't ride bikes.
2:14:26 | There's a physician up the street that rides his bike to work. I Yes.
2:14:33 | So, it it does affect I mean, I understand the traffic counts, but what it does to us as a community, it's like people get mad that they have to take a different route and they lie.
2:14:45 | I got passed on Oscar Road. Do you know Oscar Road? Um, but on the other side is that nobody wants our taxes to go up, right, either.
2:14:56 | So, it's that balance of what we settle for.
2:14:59 | So, if this adds to it, will we get more taxes? And when do we stop? When is this?
2:15:06 | I mean, we get the tax increase for the assessment, right? Because that's only a small improvement, but still.
2:15:13 | Um, but I'm just saying we rate is actually very low.
2:15:20 | Wait, we're very very lucky and there's only two pounds that are lower than us.
2:15:23 | Okay. So, we we tried to be balanced in our decision making to be to protect the town and to also be fair. So, everybody's safe and
2:15:32 | through the chair. Um I now if we were to say no to this
2:15:40 | um what position would that place? In other words, what would this corporation do about that situation? What do you do
2:15:49 | when the town says no, you can't institute this part? What would that be?
2:15:54 | They spent a lot of money to get to this. So, I don't know the answer to that. I know that they would not be happy.
2:16:03 | What I'm I guess what I'm asking is what position are we in when when this large corporation basically is depending upon
2:16:11 | us to say yes. That's the position that I feel in bas it's based on, you know, you have a
2:16:19 | board of people that know the town and balanced in their decision making and it you know every set of deals.
2:16:28 | I I think we still need more information. Yeah.
2:16:32 | And we don't I mean you talk about mitigating factors and everything else and there's um we don't have all the information in
2:16:40 | front of us. I mean changing the way the lights are working you know that could make a huge difference.
2:16:48 | Katie Brook pinch point.
2:16:50 | The additional information certainly would be very helpful to us. I don't I don't disagree, but I think it'd be wise um to take a 12 month continuence I
2:16:59 | think would be u burdensome on the client to hear that. I'd like to propose maybe a way that we could allow for vote
2:17:08 | to happen time to continue to collect data, a way to work towards a point at which we'd have an agreeable way that we
2:17:15 | could introduce starting it, but putting a cap on that and a way to continue to come back and reanalyze it. So that way that the client doesn't have to wait a
2:17:24 | full 12 months yet we can see that it would be good to get more information in, understand some of these other components that might drive, you know, additional wisdom into what can be done.
2:17:35 | I also think a lot of questions will be answered once we respond to the comments from MDM as well.
2:17:42 | Do we want to um push out a month from now?
2:17:48 | Will those comments be in? Do we think we'll have the mass DOT report by then?
2:17:53 | I can't promise the mass one, but I can assure that the comments for this project will be in a month out is u correct. October 7th.
2:18:04 | So thinking October 21st or October 7th. 7th is booking up.
2:18:11 | I said 7th booking up kind of with this in mind. I am likely to be I could do the seventh. I could do the I have an agent parent situation that I
2:18:20 | have to tend to the last two weeks of October but the early part of October.
2:18:24 | Okay. I mean, I think the other uh I like the direction, but I think we also need to hear from the operator of the
2:18:32 | facility who will come in before us and get on an agenda before we I can bring I can bring
2:18:41 | So, why don't we do that for us? Maybe have them come in on the Senate and then we can discuss both issues.
2:18:47 | Yeah, maybe we'll have more information than you available. Will well will that give
2:18:54 | you enough time to perform your review of of at least I think three traffic.
2:18:59 | Yeah. So assuming assuming that we get retained to do that review I can have the review done within a 3we window.
2:19:06 | So uh and we could share that with you and and like find with that could serve as a discussion.
2:19:16 | Madam chair uh if they'll just bring me to two points that I bring up. So the retainer um
2:19:23 | for NDM. The quote that we got from you folks was for uh 98,000 lumpsum for the
2:19:31 | review of post occupancy traffic monitoring and finding and then uh plus an additional 3,000 on call budgeting covering up to 12 hours
2:19:39 | hearing attendance and review applicants responses. So if the board would want to authorize um we do that.
2:19:48 | Yep. Of course it's called policy anyway. Yep.
2:19:52 | Excellent. So that that that gets passed pass pass pass
2:19:55 | pass pass pass pass pass pass pass pass
2:19:57 | Yes. Yep. That would be uh both the applicant as well as I would recommend uh a $4,000 retainer for legal service
2:20:05 | as well for KP Law would be to recommend kind of upfront for both the board and for the applicant that we would want to have legal counseling on this.
2:20:15 | So was 98 MDM and 4,000 legal. what you're saying.
2:20:19 | Uh it was uh 98 and three uh for MDM and then 4,000.
2:20:28 | So that's what 12 uh 12,800 total form and that that scope for MDM included was
2:20:37 | it a March 2025, a September 202 and a March 2026.
2:20:43 | We could incorporate the if the March 2026 data report comes in, we can incorporate under the same umbrella.
2:20:51 | Okay. For all of those.
2:20:53 | Yeah, that would be I I I'm expecting that the March uh report would not look much different than the September report.
2:21:09 | to continue this.
2:21:13 | [clears throat and cough]
2:21:15 | I'll make a motion to consent that continue uh to the transportation peer review and Amazon 53
2:21:24 | delivery to October 7th.
2:21:30 | All in favor? I I thank you for your presentation.
2:21:36 | Thank you very much. Now, where are you playing in from?
2:21:43 | Uh, I live just north of Cincinnati.
2:21:47 | Ground stop on the way out here down in DC because of all the storms.
2:21:53 | I used to live in um Oxford, Ohio for a little bit and I worked at the uh Texas Roadhouse in Hamilton, Ohio. Okay. 30 minutes north of that. Okay.
2:22:04 | Were you up near Dayton?
2:22:07 | Yeah. Yeah. My favorite running around is from Hamilton along the river there. Yep.
2:22:16 | I'm with you. I am South. All right. Good.
2:22:22 | for you and for Jane. I've got some additional resources here.
2:22:28 | Thank you all. Thank you. Thanks.
2:22:41 | March 26.
2:22:45 | She's looking at for Thank you.
2:22:59 | You don't have to be near Massachusett.
2:23:03 | Mike Andre he he said it's hard to see the plans. He had asked for a set of civil.
2:23:17 | So this set right here is for Mike.
2:23:21 | And then everything this wall right here is what they
2:23:33 | changed
2:23:50 | and to that one and then two nothing.
2:23:58 | Yeah. So this
2:24:07 | before I realized it was ridiculous to go walking around. I'm just used to doing that, you know, wherever I go.
2:24:18 | And then I found out that you cannot revision CVS
2:24:31 | when you're if you take a bus off there, you can cross legally cross
2:24:38 | over towards cross to get over.
2:24:44 | Do we have all this digitally or just I can send you all sort of and those are easy fixes if you ask me traffic.
2:24:59 | No, I don't know. I've not been there.
2:25:02 | It's it's a little kind of hole in the wall place. No windows.
2:25:17 | We let the state.
2:25:26 | All right. Wait, let's chat about that more later. I apologize.
2:25:35 | Sorry, Jane, for the minute. I do want to say that I love coming here. This did you catch all that? This part of the country is absolutely wonderful.
2:25:46 | We like it. We like it. Um this this is the young fellow sitting next to me.
2:25:51 | Zach, you want to hold he's from this part of the country. Yeah.
2:25:57 | If I take it back to Thanks again. All right.
2:26:08 | Okay. So, what's a public meeting as opposed to a public hearing?
2:26:12 | Uh, just uh public hearings all have to be advertised in the paper and it's a specific thing that you're addressing
2:26:20 | where a public meeting public hearings happen in the public meeting. A public meeting is just a meeting that's open to the public.
2:26:28 | So, public any decision we make or discussion leads to just transparency purposes.
2:26:34 | recorded in the minutes. Um, anything we I see
2:26:43 | you came back for it.
2:26:50 | Uh, so we have the public meeting section, the Jenning Road extension. Uh, they have not come
2:26:58 | to us with what they need for the bond reduction. So, we're taking recommend take no action on that, but uh we do
2:27:07 | recommend that you do the uh annual approval extension request for the subdivision. When are they extending it to?
2:27:14 | Uh I believe one year. I don't know what that date certain is. J, do you have that? 9:15 2027.
2:27:23 | There it is. 9:15. Make a motion to extend uh the Jennings Road extension subdivision annual approval till September 15, 2027.
2:27:34 | All in favor?
2:27:35 | I have the housing production.
2:27:48 | Oh, yes. It's not yet. It's the housing production.
2:27:54 | So, we need to vote to um we're supposed to get a draft. So, we can potentially ask
2:28:01 | for changes or um vote for it as is or and discuss whatever problems. We have
2:28:08 | to either vote to approve it to accept it or to not. So, um I just open it up
2:28:16 | to just have a discussion on what what people thought about. And again, these are just things that I threw out because
2:28:24 | I I did. Um, but whatever else anybody wants to bring up, this doesn't have to be the whole discussion. So, this just happens to be what I put together.
2:28:34 | I thought it was a pretty interesting document to read. There was a lot of information in the Sometimes you're like, "Wow,
2:28:42 | you know, you definitely have to sometimes you just have to look at it a different way." You kind of turn your head a little bit and I I
2:28:50 | still don't quite understand how they look at that affordable stock and say that we have this many homes. We get
2:28:58 | some other rental units that would probably fall within that affordable range that aren't being counted because they're not
2:29:06 | because they're not, you know, filed as being available. There are a
2:29:12 | lot of over like overlap meanings a lot of um um even even around
2:29:20 | the lake there are some of those small places. So, how do we get those in the count? I guess to make it, you know, that is a really good question.
2:29:28 | The honest number of what's available in town for affordable housing?
2:29:33 | Like I I rent my other whole single family housing and it is cons based on like square footage like it's affordable based on the amount of bedrooms and everything.
2:29:41 | If you look at the numbers, there's an 80% what's that that threshold? 80% of the going price. So, it's it's onethird of the area median income.
2:29:53 | Yeah, I mean there were numbers in the 80% that issue of having a few do
2:30:01 | is like that or just register and if you feel registered or don't register is pretty complicated.
2:30:09 | hardly any state if you uh something just went through one of those plan the account the planners emails that we get and the
2:30:18 | number of towns that don't have it I think like a hundred have it 200 for example has a lot of apartments but I
2:30:27 | bet you a lot of them are I mean the [cough] it might be lower price maybe the quality stuff or whatever but they actually t into their numbers
2:30:36 | that's I don't know Southbridge had was like at 80% of what they needed.
2:30:41 | Selfbridgeidge had we're we're less than 10%. We're at like I have a three family in Salbridge and I and it's they're four bedrooms, right?
2:30:50 | It's it's um a three family and the tenants have been there for 15 years. So, we've never really raised that rent.
2:30:57 | They all pay under $1,000. I know I could be getting $2,000. Are they factor numbers?
2:31:02 | Probably not. No one knows what I because it's not registered anywhere.
2:31:06 | So, so I'm like in Charleston, how many how many things are considered under market value?
2:31:14 | So maybe we need to market it that way and get people to start registering their houses that they're already there advantage of doing that you know
2:31:21 | because do they show the income on there like how how does I mean I don't know what we don't need to reinvent this wheel though because I mean we have some
2:31:30 | consultants helping us don't sell plan that would be a great question to ask them
2:31:36 | what is I guess that's question is is I like the plan I think I understand the And there's some things that I'm confused
2:31:45 | about on on how we get there cuz I think we're a lot better off than what those numbers show.
2:31:51 | So I've been asking like what this means like does this does is this so we have to do this to even apply for certain grants. So I
2:31:59 | understand we have to do this as a part of a process. It's necessary like we need to do the you know um a recreation
2:32:07 | open space plan because we can apply for grants. So, so that's are we doing this because it's like hey consultant just
2:32:15 | give us something that we accepted in town and now we can apply for grants or is this something that when we are are
2:32:23 | making decisions in this town like the planning board do we have to right and like the master plan because you're supposed to be making decisions changing
2:32:32 | bylaws changing you know policies whatever to to to be in line with the master plan Is this and that's my I
2:32:40 | don't know the answer to that. Do we now take the housing plan and does that is it as important as sort of impose that on top of the the master
2:32:49 | plan or is this the attachment a um because I'm telling you that on the master plan it would not
2:32:55 | you know 100% beyond lying I it's but they had actionable steps to take
2:33:02 | from the housing plan on how to implement this and I do not like that they keep on saying pursue adoption in here because
2:33:12 | I'm I'm happy with consider adoption or or research further, but yeah, does this mean now if something comes up
2:33:20 | with a prop or with or the project in front of us and they're saying you're a housing plan and said you're pursuing, you know, like why aren't you pursuing this adoption? I just
2:33:28 | Well, isn't it too if we don't have the recommend?
2:33:35 | So, it's their way of going, well, you're not there, so you we're we're going to make you take it with 40B. Isn't it just kind of just stay?
2:33:42 | I mean, I never I never really insurance plan.
2:33:46 | I never really worry about that. We're we're very we're we're not going to be thrown with with a you know, a a 200
2:33:54 | project, you know, housing with 200 apartments because we just don't have the facil we just don't have the infrastructure to be able to do that. So, um, go to room.
2:34:04 | I I would argue that one because I know, um, sandwich right now is is getting a 40B. It's
2:34:13 | say it's 241 units. Um, they do not have town sewer. They do have town water, but that probably wouldn't have stopped them
2:34:22 | building their own treatment plant and recharging, low nitrogen plant, recharging, and also putting in a I
2:34:31 | think it's maybe 5 to 8 megawatt solar farm to help power
2:34:39 | and and fund the sewage treatment. So there's creative ways to get it done without having sewers.
2:34:47 | We have the land people I think will happen to us not unless it all gets taken up by
2:34:55 | solar. should have just said by and if we say no to some companies they may open up a data center instead
2:35:03 | right so I mean I you can't say never never you can't say no I know it's a few have been proposed
2:35:10 | within the last couple of years I mean if 200 even a 100 that doesn't mean that the person it's over that threshold based on our calculation
2:35:19 | yeah if we have 5,000 that number was off in there I think I sent an email on it In two places they said they count a
2:35:27 | number of households. So I was confused because I use that when I divide out how many megawatts we have
2:35:34 | versus the houses. So I went when they're doing the house counts. I noticed that thought I must I misread something at
2:35:42 | some point 10% of that.
2:35:45 | So 500 and Oh we only need to make improvement of a couple of percent.
2:35:54 | I just want to say just get for effort.
2:35:56 | Even even though we had we had the one down, 24 to go, right?
2:36:02 | It's we're not if we're not stonewalling, we're in a better situation. [clears throat] Yeah. We're not against it. Yeah.
2:36:09 | No, but I I am against spending money and time to do reports to have the state say, "Oh, you went and did all that work
2:36:18 | for zoning and now we're going to say we did what we were supposed to do." and then they changed the rules. So, is that
2:36:25 | going to happen again? But not with this, but what we need to accomplish is we need to
2:36:34 | be we need to either approve this plan or not. And I don't think I think we don't I think it goes in terms of the town meeting, right? It goes
2:36:41 | I I I don't think so. I think it just gets approved by the planning and the board approve the board of selectment. I don't think it's binding. I think it's
2:36:49 | you're acknowledging you're acknowledging [clears throat] to the state. Yes, we know what we need to do and we're going to try to get there. We have a plan.
2:36:57 | I would be happy that the pursue adoption that terminology I'd be I'd
2:37:03 | really like it to be changed to evaluate potential adoption.
2:37:09 | Consider that I like that. Yep.
2:37:12 | Right. Um because pursue I mean that's pretty like that means we got to go change our zoning and do an overlay district.
2:37:20 | We're gonna do whatever we can to get there. Right. So is that the only thing you saw?
2:37:24 | That's that's my big thing on all of these like um um So did you notice the uh one spot on
2:37:33 | shortterm rentals under 30 days? They suggest because we have such a housing
2:37:40 | shortage that that is adding to the housing shortage.
2:37:46 | Short-term rentals are taking houses off the market. There's a housing shortage.
2:37:50 | So, they did say um if it's an owner occupied home renting
2:37:57 | rooms, we don't we couldn't police that anyway, but that would be almost helps people stay in their home.
2:38:07 | Uh somebody He's on a fixed income, they have an extra room. So, I can totally understand that. But having corporations and people that live out of state buy up
2:38:16 | our housing inventory to rent them as they don't pay hotel tax, they're saying that we should do a study at it. That's what they're saying. Like
2:38:25 | on the short term, it's reasonable to understand what's you [clears throat] know I like support the study.
2:38:31 | Yeah. How many STRs does how many does Chelton actually have? And is there evidence of really real evidence of a problem?
2:38:39 | Um, yeah, it's not a problem, but it does take 10 houses or whatever the assessor said they if we make any regulation,
2:38:46 | [clears throat] we should, you know, we should respond like we shouldn't we should respond to a a demonstrated condition or a potential problem. We
2:38:54 | should Yeah, they're not inspected by the board of health. They're septics. The one on this particular one on Cranberry Meadow
2:39:02 | had septic odor and the house is being marketed actively marketed as a four bedroomedroom on a
2:39:12 | small septic. You know what it's like at Cranberry Meadow.
2:39:14 | It's a twobedroom on the assess field card and the homeowner lives in Rhode Island. So it's against our bylaw. It's against the bylaw.
2:39:23 | First of all, that's right. I mean, rent it by the month. There's nothing that says you can't rent them by the month, but it's
2:39:29 | these overnight and the big parties and the septics and they're not paying their taxes and the board of health hasn't inspected into the board of health, right?
2:39:41 | Yeah, I the I talked someone told me about this and I dove in and I won't be doing that again. There is a form to
2:39:49 | fill out if you think there's somebody violating a zoning because I had to wait three months for a lot of work on me.
2:39:59 | So there is a form now or there is there is now after my private complaint not through mostly.
2:40:06 | So Paty are you saying you want to approve this but with some please change this and then we'll approve it.
2:40:14 | My biggest issue is that person like they say it over and over. So I would like that to know to like again all right more research um and I I mean I went
2:40:23 | like I went through each I just went through their their like they have under that strategy section that's where I really focus on
2:40:30 | this is the strategy this is what we're saying we're going to do like it it almost commits us I just don't want to commit us to anything. Um, so, um,
2:40:39 | all right, let's go back to the the two, what were their first names, the two same first names, and ask them to change
2:40:47 | the So, you can approve it with those changes.
2:40:51 | Yeah. Word Smith it and then we'll approve it. And I don't think like that like any of these things were I guess it was it was just more like making
2:41:00 | everything sort of a maybe versus red kind of I expect that may should show. Yes.
2:41:08 | Who was on the committee too?
2:41:10 | It says Chelton Housing Production Plan Committee. Who was it? What are four people?
2:41:15 | There was no there was a list of like Well, they didn't list the names, but they said there was 20 and they broke them down in ages and so many between this age, somebody between that age.
2:41:23 | No names. I didn't think there were no names. No names. Break broken down into ages. Homeowners, renters, who was on the
2:41:32 | And most of this looks like four people rent, 27 owned, you know.
2:41:36 | Yeah, most of them were above 60. So, no one on this board was there. I didn't even know it happened.
2:41:43 | Nope. Didn't either.
2:41:45 | Just like I'm on the Did you You didn't know either. EDC didn't No one represent.
2:41:51 | Maybe somebody from EDC was on it. I don't remember. I think they reached out to realtors. So maybe somebody in EDC
2:41:59 | um you know I didn't I'm on the recreation commission. I didn't know we did a recreation space. I did not know.
2:42:05 | Didn't know. They were surprised that I that people were asking me about it. I was like, why?
2:42:11 | So, after this after we get the changes and and we approve it, um we need to start looking at
2:42:19 | supporting some of these things or or you know, bylaw changes, bylaw changes or, you know, talk to
2:42:27 | um community preservation funds. I'm not sure the town would ever go for that, but it's it's not really a bad thing
2:42:35 | considering the state matches whatever we put in, you know. So it's a good way to build a big
2:42:44 | land you see a lot of stuff people like you know it might solve some problems the problem is it raises everybody's
2:42:51 | taxes but yeah 50% one of the referendum questions coming in November is um the state is
2:43:01 | going to be able to say that single family homes get automatically approved on lots of 5,000
2:43:10 | as long as you have public water and sew it though.
2:43:13 | Oh, is that Well, I think as long as your septic can handle it, too.
2:43:16 | Yeah. So, you have to get and your your your water with the amount of bedroom.
2:43:21 | So, change, but imagine look at what we have for sizes of lots now. Imagine putting houses on 5,000, you know, just 5,000 ft.
2:43:30 | So, um that'll be on the ballot. So that's a physical requirement and then you don't need uh the variances
2:43:38 | go away and that would mean people could come back with all of their ANRs or anything else and split it up. Um, so that's why
2:43:46 | I can't find I was I wanted to see I think that's like I was reading it and it seems like they need to have public.
2:43:53 | It doesn't say septic it to me when I read it and again we might need to ask one of the land attorneys if that's true that it had to
2:44:02 | have public water instant. And I thought it it specifically says that but I'm like did I read it wrong?
2:44:11 | Yeah.
2:44:11 | Um because true because you couldn't except that you don't have a 5,000 foot lot,000 foot home.
2:44:20 | Yeah, you're probably right.
2:44:22 | So that's that's I thought I read on that. So I don't I and it's both public water and sewer too.
2:44:29 | So we'd only have very it would only be the main street, right? Like downtown here that would be I have another question on you though.
2:44:39 | Um, is this correct? Since 2002, the public school systems student enrollment has steadily declined by 23%.
2:44:48 | Yes, absolutely.
2:44:49 | So, but does that take into account how we allow uh school choice? We put out so many.
2:44:55 | So, that maybe maybe that's why they did the school choice back then to fill the classroom and they got the
2:45:02 | 4,000 a lot smaller classes. I I keep on saying shut down the elementary school and put it in the her and they're like,
2:45:11 | "Oh, no. We can't provide it." Oh. So, but that does does that take into account all the students we accepted through school choice?
2:45:20 | Cuz my kids went to St. John's and I got mad that they were selling my slots and the kids weren't benefiting from maybe a smaller class size.
2:45:28 | They were like, "Oh, let's We're only at We're only at Okay.
2:45:34 | Yeah, I read that. It's not just childhood. It's the whole entire country. I mean, especially now I mean in our state
2:45:44 | people are having not um can't blame.
2:45:48 | So can't can we go back on task? Yeah.
2:45:54 | Um so I'd like to get home at sometime to be here salary. either way. Yeah.
2:46:07 | Um, so I I I'm okay with making some changes if if if you want to make those changes.
2:46:12 | I think we need to approve this at some point. So, um, the wording in it doesn't I really don't think it and whatever else anybody else has for
2:46:20 | comments in here, too. I just I really just don't want to commit us to anything just in case it ever gets I don't think this is a committing document. I think this is this is just a
2:46:28 | stake in the ground saying, "Hey, we'll give it a try. and he's going to come out and go, "We're going to write you a D because you didn't do this, this, and this."
2:46:36 | So, I'm thinking that we're going to get like some sort of like, you know, how we have those white white paper studies they do on the town and like are they they're not following the housing plan.
2:46:46 | Yeah. Well, so can we just to maybe execute this?
2:46:51 | Can we send this uh and and planner types this? [clears throat] I just want to say that I I'll verbally do
2:46:59 | my notes often and it puts my things that come out of my mouth into the writing and I didn't quite read all
2:47:08 | [laughter] it. So Oh, here you're yelling at your kid right here.
2:47:13 | Um so yeah, so I'll sit here and I'll I'll have it I'll I'll read it and they'll
2:47:20 | set they'll Yeah. So, we just need to make sure that we don't put anything like that that like really says anything really stupid. Um, okay.
2:47:31 | Like I said, I mean just changing pursuant adoption to to something less committed stuff and just this just my
2:47:38 | thought whether everybody agrees with this question just for your do I'm going to meet with the folks from CRPC.
2:47:51 | uh where the the regional planning award is um to talk about this you need next week I can show this to them see hey can
2:48:01 | you guys what can you incorporate here while keeping it compliant with the state and if it's simple enough we can
2:48:09 | just do that and set that up so that we can look at it we'll do a little next next meeting if it ends up being you know more a
2:48:17 | little more controversial on their end I can invite them to our meeting in two weeks weeks and then we'd kind of do a final hatch out and take a boat um like that if you guys like it that way.
2:48:26 | That sounds good. Okay, sounds good.
2:48:28 | Wonderful. I will do that. And I would just like probably anything in the in here is decent, but anything that
2:48:36 | um that's I wouldn't Yeah, I wouldn't let I would I would kind of go through that. And I I sit you Yeah. electronically. So um
2:48:45 | anything [clears throat] in the back, I would just make sure that I'm not saying anything real video. I'm sure it's fine.
2:48:55 | Okay.
2:48:55 | So, when you meet with Smart RPC, do they come here or do you go there? And is it is it like we get so many hours a month? Is that how it works or are they just supporting this?
2:49:04 | Right now, they're just supporting this.
2:49:06 | Uh I beyond that probably, but I don't know.
2:49:09 | We just get an email. I think we get an email about credit hours or something. I I do have we do have Yeah.
2:49:18 | And and just going to the quarter remaining. Who's who's on the 12th?
2:49:27 | That's Bob. Bob's been going.
2:49:31 | But we can go. We can go if we want to, right? Good.
2:49:34 | I signed up for And you have a planner update?
2:49:43 | Oh, by the way, staff report your communication.
2:49:47 | Right on. Excellent. Fantastic. Glad you like it. I want to try to make that a little bit more standard with especially with
2:49:54 | Don't expect those for uh frontage watch, but uh for anything more common the bar high.
2:50:02 | We expect that at every at all.
2:50:06 | Oh yeah, absolutely. It uh it it helps uh it does a great job with the formatting. That's the big thing. It's for
2:50:13 | and you got to review it just to make sure it's got everything that you expected to be in there. the the the first AI draft that it did. Like I I kept the formatting, but all the content
2:50:21 | was like none of this. I can't use any [laughter] of this. But I like the way it's I like the way it landed out. It did a great job with that. Who was that? What program?
2:50:30 | Uh I use Claw. Yep.
2:50:31 | Uh that's the one that I like. Um and probably my favorite.
2:50:37 | Yeah, it's it's simple, easy, uh very powerful. A lot of stuff you can do with that. Um so I'm a big fan of that one.
2:50:46 | um for the planning director report.
2:50:48 | Just two things I wanted to update you guys on. Number one is uh the intervenor grant. Uh so for part of the
2:50:57 | BAS uh energy storage, there's a program that we can apply for. It's called intervener fund. So essentially, it can
2:51:05 | give us up to $150,000 as a municipality to um hire legal counsel to help
2:51:13 | navigate the uh the best program. To be eligible, you either have to be a town with a population under 7500, which we
2:51:20 | are not, uh, or you have to have some type of financial hardship. And it looks like the financial hardship that we could use is we only have a static
2:51:29 | amount of money in our annual budget for um, legal funds every year. And something like the best would have
2:51:37 | effectively wiped that out. Y. Um so that's going to be uh the angle as well as talking about our previous experience
2:51:47 | with um energy uh facilities with a uh uh uh the gas station leak
2:51:56 | that contaminated our water for so many years.
2:51:59 | This being kind of a unique concern to Charlton selfish landfill contamination.
2:52:04 | Yeah. So, we have um I have a draft uh ready to go for it, but we have to wait until they file and then we can file. Uh
2:52:12 | but as soon as they can't do it before can't do it before, but once they do it, then that opens the window. So, as soon as the window open, we'll be right.
2:52:19 | So, you think we'll get some even though most of that money is going to like environmental justice communities. No, I don't. We're going to get a penny.
2:52:26 | We have a high. That's all right. Let's see.
2:52:30 | EPF might as well. They want to apply in October. I think ESA wants to make an application. ESA.
2:52:38 | When I asked the time frame on one of the meetings, they want to finish the community benefit
2:52:45 | plan, not an agreement, the plan, sometime then.
2:52:50 | And I asked when the packet was going in. Well, 2027. I was like, well, that's only, it's pretty correct. You said in that
2:52:57 | first quarter, but you're right. If But that Community impact agreement is not legally.
2:53:06 | I'm sorry I threw that under you. You can't make it be.
2:53:10 | I think that I thought I thought there was I thought there was there was another way to make it that you could actually say fine, we'll support it, but we want it more.
2:53:22 | Well, it goes to the FSB and they decide. But I even said it in multiple meetings and I did it in writers and
2:53:30 | Why be we need it before construction because otherwise there's no leverage.
2:53:35 | So it it can be incorporated. It's something where the applicant does need
2:53:42 | to agree to it much like you know where can we compel somebody to make 20% of their units affordable. If they agree to
2:53:50 | it, we don't have to worry now. Well, maybe they'll agree to it, but the state does not mandate it.
2:53:57 | Legally binding agreement upfront, they need to.
2:54:01 | It needs to be like you need to get our lawy the lawyers together saying we both agree to this, but it's they're taking a risk that their buyer won't want it. But
2:54:10 | if they truly care about the talent, we know they do. I mean, I'm saying on record, we know that they love childhood. How many times have they they
2:54:16 | like enjoy talking to people Dunkin Donut gift cards? Um, right. Like if they do love us, then they will make
2:54:25 | a commitment and even if it means making a little bit less money to keep us safe.
2:54:30 | We'll see if that if if if you know they're they're just saying that or they really are going to do that. And we're not we're not picking on them.
2:54:38 | This is the first of many. And if we let this go through without a signed agreement, without the strictest, you
2:54:46 | know, that 855 fire code is only the the baseline. We can be stricter. We can board of health can be stricter. They
2:54:54 | can do, you know, insist on protecting the groundwater. This is the first of many. So if we don't do something now
2:55:03 | and and October one is the date that we have to have um a consolidated permit
2:55:11 | available if we say no we go on but there's a lot and a host agreement they
2:55:18 | don't even have to do host agreements so we're not in the driver's seat so unfortunately but we can make some noise
2:55:25 | but I'm not sure like who who's sitting there and doing that and having that in having that discussion like who who is
2:55:33 | in the room right now having that discussion that says all right we know this is happening let's get let's get everybody on board and get our lawyers together and make something I don't
2:55:41 | think that this I'm not sure there isn't no one's driving well the point person because Randy was
2:55:50 | out so everything is supposed to go to him do you know the name of that position that kind of you know the energy the this somebody
2:56:00 | who it's in the town was supposed to be the local governing official is Andrew
2:56:08 | right and he was the one that ultimately things are supposed to go through so he was doing he took that position because we we didn't have a planner to do that
2:56:15 | position because it's normally the I can tell you the planning board is taking the center stage on all of this right now so then so um
2:56:23 | other other groups are just citizen committees yeah so who needs to be in the who needs to be in that room who needs to we need
2:56:31 | so there needs let's who's who's working on a an agreement yeah I the I would think that the board of selectment
2:56:40 | they they are having a couple of community benefit meetings what is coming up next week community benefit is something
2:56:48 | and it's volunteers people just coming in right no one's really driving it but and they're throwing out ideas so
2:56:55 | they're just all trying to get things but it's fire department's talking. Yeah, I everybody's on different pages.
2:57:02 | Everybody's No, there's not enough like I um and I know we have we have the the people that they selected to be on their that committee thing too.
2:57:11 | Um can we um can maybe I need to meet the chair.
2:57:18 | Remember we you and I had a meeting meet with knows what's going on. I you know you don't know it's not happening.
2:57:26 | Yeah. That's why I'm there's there's things that more than a part-time effort. That's not need to be like a staff.
2:57:32 | I would I would think that somebody in in in the administrative's office is is working on putting things together.
2:57:39 | But you're also working on a thousand other things. I mean, yeah, I've been I've been working with Vander on this. He is currently the the point
2:57:46 | person on this. And again, why I took the the um I'm not sure this the application because it's something that I'm not sure there's been a serious discussion.
2:57:54 | He took the application. There is No, no, I've got the uh intervenor fund applications because that would be
2:58:00 | Andrew doing that, but it's like have a million other things. We all everybody has a lot of opinions on what
2:58:08 | we're doing here, but I don't think we got to some decision to be a team.
2:58:12 | Can we can the planning board is it the planning board and the select board meet together? Like how does that work? Do we do I go meet with the chair and say
2:58:20 | well I think we can have we can have our planning director speak with pot with
2:58:24 | pot with pot with pot with pot with pot
2:58:32 | big enough to be like a staff person because we only need whatever a couple of times part
2:58:40 | all of our staff you understand only works with the fle boy and it only works for us so at the end of the day we're instruing them what to do we're voting
2:58:48 | on on initiatives on so it's it's great that we have we have capable staff but at the end of the day they have to do it at home
2:58:57 | organization I wasn't thinking about that right because we and and if they're pursuing a certain thing they have to
2:59:04 | pursue what at least our two boards are saying to pursue whether [clears throat] we're going to fight tooth and nail or we're going to come up with an agreement
2:59:12 | or we're going to get our lawyers to bash out we need to kind of determine what what's going to happen there Um let's um well one thing that they at the
2:59:21 | last I think it was at it was a leader at the one of the town hall on one of the fire meetings they said they went to some meeting and
2:59:29 | I think it was an environmental justice meeting and they said that that woman
2:59:36 | you were there and then yes and some money was discussed for senior center like there was like money was talked about
2:59:44 | at that meeting. No, this was more just there was a bunch of uh DPW DPU from the
2:59:52 | state and a couple of environmental justice department employees. I think they all Yeah.
2:59:58 | And uh Jonathan was there from ESA and a couple me and Pat Stockwell and they
3:00:05 | were just checking in to make sure that ESA knew all of the requirements. So you have to have a checklist that documents
3:00:13 | all of this stuff and these are the dates you have to meet to understand and the final. So, it's kind of a formal if
3:00:21 | you have any questions ask us type of meeting now, right?
3:00:26 | They haven't checked us like it wasn't like oh how many what's the population?
3:00:31 | What's the income of and how many how did you find out about that? Jonathan invited me to this meeting.
3:00:39 | Oh, because I guess I'm on citizens. Yeah, maybe that too.
3:00:45 | Are you on that citizens group? Not really, but he invites me to everything because because I'm nice.
3:00:52 | Yeah. And you were chair, too. So, yeah.
3:00:55 | Um Well, you can reach out to Andrew. I'm going to reach out to the chair.
3:01:01 | And there's some new um documents that have been approved. Um the guy from CMRP
3:01:07 | Steven or he's the DPU person for the central mass. all there's like five different documents and one of them you
3:01:15 | can comment till next week and it's all about um not site assessment there's just so much
3:01:24 | for renewables yeah it's for solar it's like the final oh uh draft guidelines for bylaws which we followed
3:01:33 | in 2018 or 19 and picked them up in our they did it again
3:01:40 | the state so now they want draft, which I'm apprehensive to accept because we've already accepted them.
3:01:48 | Yeah. And what if something changes again?
3:01:51 | Then we got to go to town meeting and change it again. I don't know.
3:01:55 | But this this is a bigger issue. Like somebody's got to drive this thing pointwise.
3:02:01 | you and Andrew and our attorney or something have to be on this because otherwise they're just going to apply and we're gonna be like
3:02:09 | we need some decisions making makers in the in a room and and that is going to say and it's going to be the the boards are
3:02:17 | going to have to vote to say are we going to pursue this AB or C and I don't think anybody I think everybody has their personal opinions but I don't
3:02:25 | think anything was ever ever discussed right and not voted on and I don't even know if it can arguing in front of that is probably not a good thing.
3:02:34 | So remember the uh this parcel is 40 acres and I made a comment and it's on their
3:02:43 | website. I think I was before the select one and I said look if they there's something written in the law that if a second project comes adjacent to that
3:02:52 | one even if it's a different owner they get some benefits you know not starting from scratch
3:03:00 | and ESA put it on their website. Hi guys. Um they're watching. I did find it and I sent it I believe to this office.
3:03:10 | Um, I sent it to Paty, Dylan, and Steve.
3:03:15 | CMR 980 CMR citing part 1.02 project segmentation. I won't bore you, but it's there in writing. But number
3:03:24 | one, and I I wrote about this to the EFSB, waiver of rules, where good cause appears, not contrary to statute, the
3:03:33 | board may the board and any preciding officer may permit deviation from any rules contained in 980 CMR.
3:03:43 | So there's my proof. Wasn't kidding.
3:03:46 | They're going to do what they want to do. So, this adjoining this total 40 acres that they're renting next to an a
3:03:54 | substation that's being doubled in size or down the street on three-phase power up.
3:04:02 | So, they can go bigger than what they're saying.
3:04:04 | That's right. And it's it's bigger than all of us because they want it here. And right now, Tukes Ferry
3:04:11 | rescended their project. It was completely approved for the EFSB, but then they it was um they rescended it
3:04:21 | because the connectivity and the upgrade they needed to the system in Tukesbury cost more than they thought.
3:04:29 | So we have a completely already a nice package sitting out there floating in the state and Hillman is Hillman's going to look for a home.
3:04:38 | So this is only going to get worse.
3:04:42 | So Toukesbury is very happy and theirs was only 125 megawatt. This is 150. So
3:04:50 | it's bigger than us and it's too much work. Um it it's like you have to make a
3:04:57 | you have to take hours away. So like you have to dedicate four hours a week or something because like that's the effort
3:05:04 | it's going to take or it's an intervenor that you pay.
3:05:08 | Yep. And uh you know with that as well something kind of segus into another thing I want to get onto everyone's
3:05:16 | radar is uh data centers which is as it stands right now uh this is something a
3:05:23 | resident was reaching out asking uh how do we permit a data center do we permit them and looking at our bylaw it looks
3:05:31 | like [clears throat] because there's no better defined use that it does just fall kind of uh going to say more neatly even into
3:05:38 | heavy industrial um and potentially warehousing, but I think heavy industrial was kind of the the stronger use and
3:05:47 | all of the kind of things we have in our bylaw that could you could deny them on they can very easily overcome where you know it's putting you know too great of
3:05:54 | a strain on the infrastructure or if they can build their power and they can supply their own water or whatever they
3:06:00 | need to do which are ultimately go through We were getting the one that
3:06:09 | Selfridge is getting. I was I was I I heard Central Mass. I It was all up. Selfridge is getting a data song.
3:06:17 | Oh, yeah. It's It's a big one, right?
3:06:20 | So, are you saying we should change bylaws to We should definitely define data center
3:06:27 | and what that is and specific use. And I not saying that we should or shouldn't
3:06:35 | um ban them outright, but it would definitely be good to adopt it and kind of how when we would to adopt that have
3:06:43 | it prohibited in all zoning districts while a review would be conducted of how we should something like that.
3:06:51 | Somebody did it in uh Westfield. I believe there's other towns that have done moratoriums for a short term. Can can we get something on the warrant for October?
3:07:00 | Um I can try to move quickly on this if the board would like me to.
3:07:04 | Should be I mean at least put a data center put it across uses uh not allowed
3:07:11 | but at least define it as a use any I may be able to I can talk to the board's office. Um,
3:07:20 | yeah, Sturbridge did a moratorum on batteries and I don't think they heard back from the AG if it was even approved,
3:07:27 | but then they're following it up with they're doing the bylaws now.
3:07:32 | So, as long as you're moving towards something, give us a little reason, just time. But the minute we do a moratorum, that's when we got hit with preliminary cycle plans.
3:07:43 | You can always create an overland district on a two acres of land
3:07:47 | [laughter]
3:07:48 | there. Do we if if there is a data center that's going to that that wants to go into an industrial area whatever
3:07:55 | of of childhood are we going to prevent that?
3:08:00 | I just thought we just got re out by one by a resident about us saying let's make one low-inccome hot let's make one new
3:08:07 | apartment low income and um you didn't like that that we wanted right you didn't like that that we added one and
3:08:14 | and we obviously Rob didn't and so why are we so now we why are we saying we're going to ban data centers when potentially that could be our next
3:08:23 | Amazon with tax money I'm just saying it not that I won't I'm not there's a lot
3:08:28 | have pros and cons to it and I'm sure traffic if we're if we're right
3:08:36 | the other nobody that works in it right now we're going to we have we have it's noisy well over $und00 million that we need to
3:08:43 | spend on our schools we're not getting any help from you know from anywhere else and um we need obviously we need a big giant senior
3:08:51 | center that that's expensive and we definitely need another fire state we really we do need another and we have all
3:08:59 | Like why would we want to ban something that could potentially um give us this tax up to the voters?
3:09:06 | We put it up to the voters. That's why we vote. I don't want to frame it as a as a ban.
3:09:10 | I think it would be the adoption with restricted or or we don't want to put it in our neighborhood. with a placeholder that's
3:09:19 | saying we could have you know directly in our bylaws section 200 point you know whatever it would be data centers and then say you know this
3:09:26 | is a placeholder section as we're the town's writing this section give us a year I'm just being a devil's advocate say
3:09:36 | no one wants no one right no one wanted Amazon either but they're funding our town that's why our so special permit and
3:09:44 | I would say nobody wanted Amazon special permit and That one from town meeting they vote overwhelmingly overwhelmingly to the height. So that said they knew who it was.
3:09:55 | Yeah. I mean it has its problems.
3:09:57 | Nobody wanted NDAs. That's what they wanted right with putting um you know one thing definitely we want in the bylaw is
3:10:04 | something saying that it can't put a you know burden on water system right even writing some things like you
3:10:12 | must be able to provide your own power must be able to provide your own water.
3:10:16 | things like that. So that way those step back things do some research on it. I mean that's that's the kind of thing that's going to
3:10:24 | go to see you to to look at what some of the other towns have done or they didn't want me to add a loan from Mohammed and and we're going to ban that for what what reason?
3:10:35 | Yeah, it was nice he was listen and if it's people working for a low wage at the gas station, it probably is.
3:10:44 | That's kind of why brought it up. It's it's going to be if you like the camps where you work on Nucket, you get benefits for work.
3:10:54 | That's how you get people to work in shops on Nucket. You give them above. Yeah.
3:11:04 | Anything else like to house their temporary workers for the What was that?
3:11:10 | There there are companies that just bought a hotel.
3:11:14 | Yeah. to house to house their their workers for the summer.
3:11:17 | Woodmeister on that. I just need a signature on my water.
3:11:24 | Another one they took to the registry of deeds and they wouldn't accept it cuz the signature Where's my Okay.
3:11:30 | Oh, but uh you can adjourn. You can all sign it on your way out. Make motion to adjurnn.
3:11:38 | Uh second.
3:11:39 | All in favor? I put in