e he he says in case I need will you when am I know 6:00 it being 6:00 I'm going to call this meeting to order if everybody would please stop your chatter uh this meeting of March 25th 2024 if you'd please join me in a pledge of allegiance ALG to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all okay the first item on our agenda is a joint meeting with the school committee chaired by the town moderator John it's all yours thank you madam chair person um I'd like to call this joint meeting of the school committee and the U select board uh to appoint a uh member to the nooba Valley Technical school committee for the uh three-year term commencing April 1st 2024 terminating on March 31st 2027 um do we have any nominations I'll nominate the Slate of Sam poulton and Jody Murphy as candidates thank you do I have a second second any other nominations there being nominations uh the nominations will be closed I give uh the uh candidates an opportunity to present a few say a few words to both boards and if uh Jody Murphy's here I think her application said she's not available not available tonight okay Mr pton it's yours good evening I'm Sam pton currently serving um on the showa school committee did I hear that there is a slate nominated as I I apologize I nominated both of the applicants and you were one of them oh I understand anyway it has been um an honor and a prage um first I want to apologize for the Elma fund I'm still recovering for a stroke but it's been an honor and a privilege to represent chumford as one of our three full members and Alternate on the shova school committee for 31 of the past 32 years but I have to uh admit that uh I've enjoyed every single moment of it but who wouldn't we have a superb delegation a great school committee a superintendent staff and student body second to none last year we um excuse me I had asked to last year we had a student body of 20112 this year 218 an increase of six and that's been the trend for the past five six seven years we have a great place do that and they will come and come they do I am proud at every meeting to see chumford students introduced as athlete of the month student of the month Deca student our honors are Legion we lead the way not just with our attendance but with the great things that our students do noova has truly become chumford its other High School not better just different but the difference is remarkable our students not only get a full academic education they graduate with a certificate in a shop for the past 6 years we have had students at our graduation graduate in the shova with a 2-year certificate a degree at middle sex Community College just think of that a senior in high school graduating and before she gets her diploma she has a um degree from middlex Community College uh I won't say very much more except to compliment everyone involved Dr pigeon the staff especially the students and the select board and the school committee for supporting us every single year lately at town meeting I look forward to that support at town meeting this year again that's why it's very painful for me to say that um upon reflection although I put my letter in and would very much like to serve under ordinary circumstances um a number of reasons are preventing me from doing my best I'm at 90% which I think is pretty good but I'd like to be at 100% And what I hope to do is step aside I was hoping to see our second candidate tonight but I did get an opportunity to see her in December and Pat I have to admit I was kind of pulling for her and U of course we have a select board member with us on the board and um even though you a great addition to the board uh that was one heck of a speech that she made and um I know that I am leaving the committee in fabulous hands because we have a terrific alternate also that was just appointed and he's here tonight could you wave your hand what a remarkable young man and um I'm hoping that by taking a break I'll be able to come back with your full confidence and hopefully all of your votes a year or two from now or when ever there is an opening please don't forget about me so once again I just want to say come out and visit nooba it's well worth the tour and by the way we have lunch every day Monday through Friday at the Viking forum the food is fabulous look around and you can see our handiwork at the chumford Veterans Memorial Park this U desk behind which you sit is the uh product of the nooba uh wood shop uh this is just a sample of the outstanding work that they do so once again I want to thank you for uh 31 terrific years and um hope to see you soon asking for your vote but right now I think you can vote for a superb uh young woman who has ties both to the chumford public schools and the shch so Best of Both Worlds and the last thing I'll say is at um the last um school committee meeting I had asked informally the school committee if they thought it might be a good idea if they were invited to come in a um more official capacity to observe the meetings and perhaps be called upon if they had any anything to add and it was meant very favorably by uh by the committee I believe they're going to be taking it up in April and uh as my term ends March 31st uh the last thing I will do is Lobby the other members of the school committee including uh m W Miss wers to vote on that motion I proposed uh last month to have a uh trumps school committee person uh present to observe uh maybe get direct feedback from us so once again I thank you all very much sorry for the rocky start I wasn't quite aware that our other candidate wasn't here but once again she's an excellent candidate please let her know that I'm ready to help her in any way that I can transition onto the committee so that in April she'll hit the ground running and I forgot to uh mention Paul Coman I apologize you were just reappointed to your position with h vad again and Paul has been a um tireless advocate for what's best for not only the district but for the Town very difficult to walk that tight rope Mr manager and I know I appreciate it so once again thanks to everyone I hope to see you soon thank you Sam for your your tenure I think I speak for everyone to commend you and Express gratitude for your over three decades of service to the community that having been said we now only have one candidate so uh if I can just by Voice vote uh ask if all in favor of Jody Murphy to to be the new member of the nooba Valley Technical school committee uh say I I any opposed this I'll entertain a moment uh motion to adjourn the uh joint meeting so move second second all in favor thank you very much okay thank you very much take care I hope to see thank you sir okay to get back to the regular part of our agenda now we'll start with uh public service announcements okay the uh chelsford health department and the chelsford public schools in partner with the greater partnership with the greater Lowel Health Alliance is hosting Wellness from within after school club it's open to all McCarthy Middle School students every other Tuesday starting March 26th and it is facilitated by Shan ducher from the school system and Marissa Cameron from the health department if you are interested and have any questions you can call 978-250-5908 so for our next one um Harrison mayot from the clerk's office is will make this announcement good evening everyone the annual Town election is next Tuesday April 2nd the deadline to apply for a mailed ballot is tomorrow March 26th at 5:00 p.m. there is no inperson early voting for the local election if you have requested a ballot by mail before March 19th you should have received your ballot by now if you have not please contact our office all ballots must be received in the town clerk's office by 8:00 p.m. on April 2nd to be counted it is crucial to mail the voted ballot in the prepaid envelope as soon as it arrives or hand deliver the ballot in one of three ways the secure Brown Dropbox in the front of town hall the secure accessible Dropbox outside of the town clerk's office or return it directly to the town clerk's office during our office hours you can track the status of your ballot at chord ma.gov tryy ballot thank you in advance for taking the time to cast your vote in your local election thank you okay next up the chelsford health department is offering a free program called Creative Connections the program is designed to help parents and Guardians Bridge the communication gap with your teens with a free art session and creative session it is geared toward Middle School aged Youth and their parents and Guardians there will be two sessions April 2nd or April 16th from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. at the chumford Center for the Arts there is a um QRC code you can scan to register or you can call the chumford health department at 978 25052 41 next up we have an announcement from the chelsford minute man company they are inviting the general public to join them on their 13th annual Patriots Day March from chelsford to Concord the Minutemen boys and girl scouts and fellow citizens will relive the fateful day of April 19 1775 that thrust the colonies into the St start of the American resolution Revolution excuse me um the date is the Patriots Day holiday on Monday April 15th they will be stepping off at 4:00 a.m. from the Chelmsford common and they will be ending at the Minuteman national park at the old Northbridge in conquered at 9:00 a.m. for more information you can contact Captain John Greenwood at 6th Middlesex gmail.com or Reverend Sergeant Jim Curley at J curly2 comcast.net and next up the chumford health department is offering free fre youth Mental Health First Aid training uh this is training that teaches adults how to identify understand and respond to the signs of mental health and substance use challenges among children and adolescents from ages 12 to 18 uh the date of the training is April 18th from 9:00 a.m. to 300 p.m. it will be held in the chelsford town hall fire training room at 50 Bill rer Road and to register or for questions you can call 978-250-5908 at when we get to that on the agenda so really any other any other topics there is a moris levy on Zoom who wants to do public comment Okay moris Hand raised Maris Levy yes thank you can you hear me yes great thank you I had a little speech here I wanted to read um how how much time do I have two minutes or three three minutes okay great calling for the count Council to pass a resolution condemning the rise in anti-white hate we have a right to address our Grievances and regardless if you like it or not it's your job to hear these statements white people are sick and tired of being attacked robbed raped and murdered you can learn more at GTV flyers.com I want to tell the story of chanon Christian and Christopher Newsome of Knoxville Tennessee they were a happy white couple in their early 20s they were murdered on January 6 2007 the horrors started when they were carjacked and taken to a rental house both were raped tortured and ultimately murdered shannan died after hours of sexual torture she sustained a severe head injury and had bleach poured down her throat and had her body scrub to remove DNA evidence Christopher was sodomized with an object and raped by a Min of one perpetrator who was then taken to a s railroad tracks where he was forced to walk Barefoot to a location where he was ultimately murdered he was blindfolded with a bandana and G gagged with a sock he wore only a shirt and underwear after his murder the kidnappers set Christopher's body on fire the criminals were you guess it four black men and a woman in Northville Michigan a group of blacks lured a white family to a home with Facebook Market Place ad they then proceeded to hold a one-year-old baby in the father at gunpoint while they raped the mother you tell me how this is acceptable in our country for our women to be raped by violent criminals and just last week at East Heisel Wood high school in Missouri a white teenage girl was beaten by a black Savage to the point of being hospitalized in critical condition she had her head bashed on the concrete multiple times during the attack multiple blacks are seen acting out a bloodthirsty rage these types of attacks are the new normal for us whites and I'm sick of it it's great to see that a lot of people are waking up and are being red pilled people like to pretend that it's that it's not taking place but it is if you want peace um you have to ask for it thank you go to GTV flyers.com thank thank you is there anybody else anybody else on Zoom Paul no okay okay um next up is committee vacancies okay here's the open committee vacancies as of today the bicycle and pedestrian advisory committee has one three-year term available the board of appeals has an associate member for a one-year term Conservation Commission has one unexpired three-year term the commission on disabilities have has three unexpired three-year terms the Community Action Program committee has one unexpired three-year term the cultural Council has one three-year term the diversity equity and inclusion committee has one three-year term the historic district commission has an associate member position open for an unexpired three-year term the holiday decorating committee has two positions open the parade committee welcomes all applicants for one-year terms the public records advisory committee has has one opening for an unexpired term the Roberts field advisory committee has two unexpired three-year terms open the recycling committee has one unexpired three-year term and the tree committee has one unexpired three-year term in addition the town moderator is Seeking a candidate to fill an unexpired term on the finance committee expiring June 30th 2026 if you are interested in serving on a Town border committee please complete an online application available on the town website and for more information you can contact the town manager's office at 978 250 5202 or email TM office chelsford ma.gov thank you okay next on our agenda is a public hearing for um I guess we'd call it a poll petition but it's really not for a poll it's for a conduit on Smith Street do we have anybody here from Verizon to speak to this okay if you want to come up to the microphone good evening honorable members of the select Board of town of chelsford name is Alexander Lassing morero m a r r e r o my resident of 17 cross stre Malboro Massachusetts I'm an employee of Pike p a telecom and Renewables LLC an authorized contractor for Verizon New England Incorporated they have asked me to speak on their behalf about this petition and to go on the record concerning a memorandum received from the Department of Public Works Bryson is here by petitioning the select board for approval to place one 4in conduit from existing pole 3 located on the public way known as Smith Street running in a northwesterly direction towards the property line of one Smith Street Verizon is here by requesting this petition in order to provide new file service to one Smith Street Verizon will also like to make the select board aware that they agree with the conditions set forth in the memorandum dated March 19th 2024 by the public of public by the Department of Public Works I also answer any questions that the select board might have about this petition do any member of the board have any questions about it this is to support the choice housing poll on Smith Street yes yeah okay you would you any questions okay um this being a public hearing is there anybody in the audience that has any questions or concerns comments about this um this request for a conduit okay do we have any anybody on Zoom Paul that you can tell not for this hearing no okay okay ready for a motion I'll make a motion to close the public hearing second the motion okay a motion to close public hearing all in favor I I I will make a motion to approve the uh underground conduit petition for one Smith Street for Verizon New England Incorporated now second the motion a motion in a second all in favor I okay thank you very much thank you okay next we have a uh a change of manager license uh request for a change of manager at at bouis for their all alcohol beverage license um is there anybody here from bouis that would like to speak to this Shane Aluna is on the zoom this hearing so Shane if you could turn your microphone on camera if you wish okay one second sorry okay if you just want to tell us about this uh change of manager what the reason for it um I was recently promoted to General Manager at the boui in chord okay and nothing is going to change as far as operating hours or anything else like that correct no okay does anybody have any questions for Shan I don't think so all the boxes are checked all the right Bo is are checked yes so if we don't have any questions we can I will motion this isn't a hearing right I'll make a motion to approve the change of manager on the all alcohol beverages restaurant license for berui restaurant LLC doing business as berui Brick Oven restaurant at 14e Littleton Road I'll second the motion okay we have a motion and a second all in favor okay thank you very much you congratulations L thank you okay next on our agenda is um a discussion regarding the proposed chapter 4 be affordable housing project called Cobblestone place which is off maros Avenue and just um for the benefit of everybody here about this this topic um are you going to step aside George yeah okay a um uh select board member Dixon is going to recuse himself from the being a member of the select board and we'll sit in the audience um we will ask for a presentation from the from the applicant and after that I will read the the responses we have gotten from the department heads we will at that after that point have an opportunity for the public to make comments this is not a public hearing however so it's not going to be a question and answer type thing you can make your comments and they and uh comments will be included in the letter that sent to Mass housing for this uh for this project so Melissa go ahead uh good evening members of the board for the record attorney Melissa Robbins from the law firm of FN Robbins I'm here tonight on behalf of cobblestone 5 LLC for a project known as Cobblestone place off of moros Avenue in chamford uh also with me tonight is Katie Enright from Howard Stein Hudson is one of the project Engineers uh Casey Ferrera the other project engineer from Howard Stein Hudson as well as Larry gagnan who is the applicant um first I want to thank the board for inviting us to present not all municipalities do this so we appreciate the time that the board takes to uh listen to our preliminary presentation and we can answer any questions the board may have at this preliminary level I know you have Town Council here tonight and I won't bore you with all the process but the board may know we're very early in the process uh we just appli with Mass housing on March 13th uh what happens after that is that Mass housing does two things uh they send a letter to this board asking for comments a 30-day comment period which is often extended uh and they also schedule a site visit on site so the board members can see the site which I think is scheduled for tomorrow afternoon um at the site visit Mass a representative from Mass housing will be there I believe believe be Michael Buzby there tomorrow and they can answer any procedural questions that you may have for Mass housing after that 30-day period is over Mass housing then generally has all the information that they need and they can decide then if they're going to issue the project eligibility letter it's not until that time that we receive a project eligibility letter if we do that we can actually apply to a comprehensive permit to the chord zoney board of appeals and that's really when we have a full design for a project and have storm water and go through some of the regular process that uh the zoning board is used to seeing for project review so as to the details of the project I think we have a site plan up here somewhere visual aid the rendering sorry Paul putting you on the spot here uh so the project as proposed is for five units uh that might be unusual for the board to see I think the board's probably used to seeing uh dividable by four I'll tell you uh the general project you see come out of Mass housing or some of these projects is that 25% of the units are priced at 80% of the area median income and therefore you have three market rate units and then one affordable unit to offset that unit we are proposing to do one unit at 20 50% of the area median income which means only 20% of the units have to be affordable and that's why you you see five units instead of four uh so the difference between an 80% Ami unit and a 50% Ami unit is a 50% Ami unit is considered very lwi income I think in our Mass housing application uh you can see that the three bedroom unit that we're proposing will rent for about $1,650 and I think then then there's a $75 utility allowance so you can appreciate that's very affordable uh for a three-bedroom home in um chumford Massachusetts if you look at what a 80% Ami unit would be in the town of chumford that's about $2500 so the difference is huge and to offset that they allow you to have an additional unit so the base number of units you generally see in a project of the size is five or more that's why you see five um so we have five units on this plan as you can see we have two set up as a duplex style unit and then one Standalone unit all of these units actually 100% comply with the setback requirements in the town of chumford we also comply with all of the parking regulations in the town of chumford uh we have some preliminary comments from the fire department which we can easily comply with uh but we haven't made any adjustment to the site plan yet uh because we want this board to comment we would like to hear some of the neighborhood comments and perhaps meet with the neighborhood and then obviously the zoning board would be the last board to make some of the decisions but we're happy to make some of these adjustments if the board has any comments um or over and above some of the comments that are already in your packet tonight I have two Engineers with me here tonight so I won't pretend to be an engineer I will let one of them go through the project details all right good evening everyone Katie Enright with Howard Stein Hudson um Melissa brought you through a little bit about the project um the site itself is just over an acre um it's located on a corner of maros a um on the south side is actually three and the sound barrier wall um so the slope goes up from the project site to the sound barrier wall along Route three um to the West our single family houses um on marose and also Edon to both the west and the North to the site and then to the east there's additional single family homes um to the north of the homes on the other side of Edon is the North chumford Water District um we are in an RA Zone um per the town of chumford zoning bylaw which is a very low density residential Zone um to the north of us is the public Zone where we're adjacent to um and the property of the north Chums water district um across Richardson Road is an RM District So a multif family district and then to the south of us again is um the highway um with that we've done a conceptual preliminary plan a preliminary layout for two duplex units and one single unit to create the five um each of these are twostory um structures um with three bedrooms each um the road would come in or essentially the common driveway would come in at the corner of morose um along our project Frontage um which is all the way on the west side of the plan there the road would come in and then and then come into where the site itself opens up and that's where we're proposing the units um preliminarily we started to look at things like Melissa said parking we have more than two spaces per each unit on the site um there's an existing Stockade Fence um on the north side of the site and then to the west of the site oops what we panning for trying find trying to find the color L the pretty colored one separ link it's a separate link okay so if you look you go he's he's got the whole packet that's why he's trying to do it yeah the colored one was a separate link all together um the project would be served by a septic system where we currently don't have a sewer connection we would need to propose a septic system and have that approved through the Board of Health it would be a Title 5 system and it's less than 2,000 gallons per day or a little over 1600 gallons per day so it would be a regular tital 5 um septic system um gravity fed um to some areas you can see on the preliminary grading drainage and utility plan um the plan is proposed to be um designed to meet all of chumford storm water management standards and Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection storm water management standards and we're not within any buffer zones to any Wetlands for the site um as you can see there's um what we tried to do was minimize the amount of pavement and provide enough parking so we what we've provided is a 20ft roadway coming in from morose that's adequate for two-way traffic and also adequate for fire protection um I have also spoken with the fire department there's a letter I believe from Gary Ryan in your packet tonight um we've proposed and and drawn a turning radius plan that allows the fir truck to back into that turn area and be able to do it essentially a three-point turn and turnout we're going to look at locating that a little bit further down the road um for the fire department upon making any revisions and that shouldn't be an issue um the site itself will be served by Town water um and Electric and there's no gas um in the area of this project so we wouldn't be connecting to natural gas um as preliminary Landscaping we have started to show some deciduous trees um around the outside of the project to help with the screening along where uh the existing Stockade Fence is located and some Street trees also for shade um and there's patios behind each of the proposed units um some of the area we would be looking at putting underground storm water management so because the site would have an on-site septic system we've looked at where we would site um an underground infiltration system to take care of storm water um and we've done some preliminary soil testing out there so we're confident that we would be able to get a septic system and also the drainage on site very Sandy material with a fairly deep water table so um with that I'll turn it back over to Melissa and we're here if you have any questions and I'll be brief I promise uh so the just wanted to end with letting you know that Mr gagnan is a resident of the town of chumford a longtime resident he's lived here since 1962 he's not looking to develop this project and sell it he actually wants to permit this project build this project and then manage the project himself uh so he's looking to keep this project and will stay with this project uh throughout its development and through its Inception through uh renting and Leasing and all of that I also forgot to mention that because this project is a rental project and because we'll fulfill the requirements of 20% of the units at 50% Ami all of the units will count on your inventory so even the market rate unit so all five get to go on the town of chumford inventory it's one of the reasons that we went rental because if we went home ownership we'd have to do four times the units in order to get five units to count so as part of our reasoning to go towards a rental project to get all five on the inventory with that I will uh turn over to the board and we're happy to answer any questions the board might have um Virginia and Aon do you have any questions for the applicant at this time are you going to go through letters for um I I was going to do them after the questions but um is the road do you envision the road being a private road or a public road no the the road within the development would be a private road and it' be 100% maintained by the rental Association okay and is is five units on an acre is that an allowable density or is that going to require special permitting this would this would go through the comprehensive permit rules and regulations so what happens is we would actually if we get the project eligibility letter we can then file for a comprehensive permit through the zoning board of appeals and then we can ask for waivers from the general density allowed in this area so what is the general density allowed in this area it's one unit for 60,000 it's one unit for 60,000 Square ft so this exceeds that um allowance for density so you'd have to ask for a density waiver which is typical in all 40 BS that you have to ask for a density wer I understand I just my own personal reaction is five units on an acre seems really high to me um and I know I'm not the one that votes at the end but I'll just say it no I just wanted to mention too one of the things that I had forgotten to mention when I was up here before is essentially the the majority of this neighborhood is actually um lots that are 3 acres so around 12,000 to 15,000 square ft so even though it's a 60,000 square foot ra residential Zone um I don't believe there are any Lots in this neighborhood that meet that but you still have a much higher density than one unit per3 acres is about right so it's about three units per acre instead of five units per acre the rest of the neighborhood um not 60,000 Square ft is it 60,000 Square ft or is it one acre well this is this is a 40b so that's why they can go higher density this lot is not 60,000 that's great this is just this lot is just slightly over an acre which is under the required amount in the zoning District so Virginia's correct that what you're it's it's under siiz lot in the ra zoning District it's less than 60 000 sare ft okay yeah so you're also looking for other variances also right it looks like you have a frontage variants and uh with no yes there will be other variances that you're looking for they're absolutely well and the process for that is once you get through the project eligibility portion of the project and you get the letter from Mass housing you then have to file for the comprehensive permit through the zoning Board of Appeals and that's where you list every single waiver that's needed um that's contrary to the chumford zoning bylaw and that would be all vetted out once we know what the final site plan that Mass housing is going to approve but there are several yes do we have anything else I do but do you want to go no go ahead so I guess the other thing is um why do you need 14 parking spaces for five units most homes have two cars at the most I think the required parking spaces again I won't place is that a requirement of the zoning go ahead yes so so we have I believe two more than is required um but typically or the zoning requires two spaces per two plus bedroom unit plus one per three okay so we could certainly lose those two additional spaces um during the zoning board process if the board felt that we had adequate parking and I I noticed in the um in the mhfa application portion of the packet on page 9 of 25 the table says that one of the five units is Affordable but the text below it says that zero units are affordable so you might want to look at that I don't know if I'm just misreading it and then my other question is it appears that you're not making the affordable unit or any of the units um Ada accessible or handicapped accessible units well all of these units are two stories so they could be accessible they could be accessible on the first floor but they wouldn't be fully Ada are you designing any of the first floors to be handicapped accessible we could the generally the affordable unit can be designed as handicap adaptable which means that certain areas of the house like the bar and the bathroom and certain widths of the door are made proper so that if you have an applicant that comes in that they could be modified as such and that's something architect puts in place so that if you get a qualified person to move in that they can uh easily move into the unit with very little changes to the unit and I won't play architect anymore who would be responsible for making those changes the owner of the unit it would be the management association that okay that has the unit and it would be only if a qualified applicant would have to in but you don't you don't you don't plan ahead to make one of the units handicapped accessible no because you don't know if you're going to have an applicant that is accessible that needs an accessible unit that's is a family unit so it'll go through the lottery process just like any other unit in the town of chamford okay and then I noticed in um one of the department comments there was a comment about clearing all the trees um and you've got Evergreens laid out is this something where you would be um willing to even talk to like the tree committee and our DPW in town to see what might work absolutely yes yeah this is preliminary Landscaping we would absolutely uh talk to DPW and other interested parties including the abutters as to what they would be looking for for landscaping in that area yes and then there's a lot of um concerns that seem to come through in the in the department letters and I think also from one of our resident Communications about the leech field being nearby and the the um aquifer yes being there so can you comment on why you feel that is or isn't an issue sure no certainly um I mean right within the bylaws within a Zone 2 aquafer Protection District it's a it's a clearly a why a yes for all Title 5 systems so it's allowed in the aord Protection District um many communities outside of chumford don't have access to sewer um and significant portions of their communities are in aquafer Protection District so we need to meet Massachusetts Title 5 we also have to go through um a process with your local Board of Health where we'll go out and get witness soil testing um and we'll go through a review through your Board of Health that has peer review that will review all of those systems so to make sure that essentially the AER is protected okay and my last question if can I have one more is um we did also receive an input that previously a single family home was denied on this land could does anybody body know why or can you speak to that and why is this different sure that we I actually did that application in 2017 and the board was going to deny at the zoning board of appeals uh so we didn't Pro it went to the Zone what it was a single home that had to go to the zoning board of appeals because of the frontage issue and the undersized lot yes so and the zoning board of appeals was uh going to deny it and I can't remember in the cobwebs cuz I think it was 2018 if I withdrew or if it was denied but in any case it wasn't going to be approved okay thank you okay anybody you have anything else Paul did you have anything well I'm going to now I'll now I'll read the now I'll read the comments okay so we do have comments from several departments which I will um uh summarize those first is from the Department of Public Works uh they note that a full sight plan review was not conducted uh so they reserve the right to do that once the the uh formal application is submitted um they know there needs to be uh Provisions for an enclosed dumpster and that needs to be shown on the plans and it needs to be um uh Perpetual care for the dumpster that will be the responsibility of the property owner then you need to show all existing and proposed utilities uh clearly and accurately labeled on the plans and also Snow storage needs to be identified and as far as sewer comments um you've mentioned that uh there does have to be an on-site septic tank or wastewater treatment plant um which needs to be coordinated with the Board of Health um see the fire department they requesting a water flow test near the site uh they note that hydrants must maintain a 10ft clearance from any obstruction or parking spaces um and to avoid the snow storage areas uh emergency fire lanane they suggest it be relocated from uh unit 5 for easier access for the apparatus uh and also note about the uh snow storage is not shown and they want to see where that how that might impede fire access the dwellings have to be equipped with the firearm fire alarms meeting NFPA 72 and c and 527 cmr1 standards uh and those have to be permitted to the fire department and they note that you need to Lia through the with the fire chief to propose three potential names for the proposed private way and the application for addresses have to be made to the town of jood's 911 committee e911 committee the Board of Health um note uh notes uh as has been mentioned that this is in uh a high ACA for Zone Zone protection two and state water resource protection Zone 2 wellhe head protection area so you'd require be required to get from the Board of Health um permission to to you to to uh build there and um not have to follow the um regulations from the Board of Health the on-site septic system would have to meet Title 5 regulations and a dumpster would have to meet town of Chums with General Provisions uh Community Development notes uh again is located in aqua food Protection District and uh would normally trigger a special permit for lot coverage um they question how with three bedroom that it says that the although I I thought I read somewhere else in in your application but this it notes that the proposed units do not appear to have basements garages or usable attic space so question how a three bed a three-bedroom family um unit would accommodate adequate storage um all efforts should be made to preserve trees located within the setbacks um need to provide proper Line Screening with adjacent um houses with adequate landscape um the title 5 system uh is required and the establishment which also requires the establishment of escrow account um should it be needed for for maintenance and also notes that the greater loal Habitat for Humanity expressed interest in partnering with a local Pro uh 40b project for quite some time maybe this is a good opportunity to do that and we have from North chord water district again has has been noted there appear appears to be a leeching field for these homes um The Well fields from which uh North CH water district drives on the water supply uh there may be additional regulations that mass DP and the north chord water district um will be enforcing okay I think that conservation has no issues so I think that pretty much um covers the uh feedback that we've received from all the department heads so as I noted uh I will and and just so the those here um and on Zoom know I have received a couple uh we have received a couple other not notice notifications from um Neighbors about issues some that have not been brought up some that have so I will ask uh uh those here that want to comment on this they can come up to the microphone but again not this is not a public hearing that'll come when the zba gets a hold of this at some time in the future um so it's not going to be a question and answer but if you want if you have any other comments that you would like to be included in the letter that will go to Mass housing you're welcome to come up and present those comments at this point and please uh provide your name name and address when you come to the microphone Michael winning I'm for Edon AV please pardon my appearance I was exercising before this meeting um I've lived in there for 19 years and uh my concern of many concerns is the sewer in the water since Mr Gagner bought the house and slowly clear cuted the lot I've been getting more and more water in my basement to the point where two years ago I had to have a new bulkhead stairs and everything put in for $10,000 window wells water keeps coming in them and if you can look at the I wish there was a picture of the what I say the the topically throw where you can see the the grain of how the water is going to be going down my my house is over here this is my house the water comes down this way it's higher here as the more you clear and all this it's going to create even more to my property and especially with the leeching field being there the EPA has all kinds of concerns on website about pathogens and a sewer system that's not right and um you know this neighborhood doesn't have any multif family homes in it and now we're going to be having five units right there with a five house SE system them it's very concerning to me okay thank you very much um lot seven they have a well so I don't know if it does shows it on here but they have a well car and Cony syia what is your comment the sewer system for five house sewer system right there what did you say about a well uh lot seven my neighbors Carin Cony syia they have a well okay so thank you that's got to be something with that okay and uh just today some there were three people on my property within probably 50 ft into my property today um my camera picked it up there's someone was right next to my boat um three people I couldn't really get a look at who they were on the camera but um you know the first day we have a meeting and this people are just approaching on my property all right thank you okay thank you anyone else uh Brian hully 10 Edge laav I'm uh and a butter I want to thank the board for letting us speak tonight um no Mr hulie you did give me that yes I did so I won't go through all those questions but I have a list of comments okay so I'd like to list uh make make note of those sure the development of the duplex buildings does not fit into our neighborhood predominantly single family ranch homes uh I feel as an N I grew up there it's always been single family homes and I feel that that would be a detriment to uh you know the what our homes are worth down the road I think it'll be a detriment I really do it'll impact that and I think I gave you a a something there there's an appraiser going to be checking into it and they'll get back to you on it because I I have I have already contacted them so they're going to get back to you on that uh the concerns uh the parking looks extremely limited limited for a project of this scale we're concerned overflow parking will take place on Maro a which is a real concern um we are worried also about extra traffic this will bring to our small neighborhood uh as it is now we're getting a lot of traffic more traffic than we used to it's it's a quiet neighborhood but things are starting to get impacted with traffic the neighborhood has always had issues with Rusty water due to the old existing pipes will this new development create new issues and strains these pipes due to the new configuration I believe they will if the septic system fails waste could leak into the public water well Fields than any other development will the one-way entrance and exit become a danger in the event of emergency I believe they will will a FB in our neighborhood bring down the value of our already existing homes most certainly I vehemently oppose this build thank you okay thank you hi everyone Cindy lazinski 20 edelen Avenue here tonight to speak about this uh regarding this 40b proposal I served can you hear me okay yes I'm only little I served Chumps fire department As A Firefighter EMT for 20 years I'm now retired I like to share some of my concerns through that lens according to the applicant's plans the road is 20 ft wide 380 ft long that is the required width of a fire department Access Road according to NFPA a Access Road must have an unobstructed width of not less than 20 ft residents visitors delivery trucks service trucks will also be utilizing that road although the applicant has designated parking spots the reality is both day and night Vehicles will be parked on that roadway and snow banks will also bring the width down to less than what is acceptable any delay to a fire call results in more fire spread fire suppression uses lots of water yields lots of contaminated runoff this plan if approved brings five structures 12 vehicles and a dumpster to the site this proposed project is in an aquafer protection Zone too the wells for all of North chelsford Dr water are across the street thousands depend on this clean water I'd like to share some examples if an incident were to occur at that site typical car fire would yield about 750 gallons of contaminated runoff dumpster fire more than 1,000 gallons electric vehicle fire a little bit more common now unfortunately greater than 30,000 gallons of contaminated runoff why would we knowingly accept this potential risk at this time the lot contains an acre of mature trees it appears that the applicant will eradicate most if not all of them route three is above that lot and has long since been a source of contamination concern this lot is between the highway and our wells the trees are able to filtrate and sequester some of that contamination before it reaches the wells if this plan is approved that natural filtration system will be gone 20 years ago the mass D created a swap report for the North chumford Water District then as now our water system ranks high for susceptibility to potential contamination Mass D's recommendation 20 years ago prevent new development in zone 2 so here we are 20 years later still trying to protect our aquafer if this 40b application is allowed to go forward we will have lost the opportunity to protect the aquifer we will have lost the acre of woods that is a natural filtration system and we will have lost the respect from our children who will ask us why we couldn't have done better thank you thank you would you like a copy yes sure I don't know if you need one put yeah if you have copies okay thank you very much thank you for your time everyone thank you okay is there anyone else looks like we have another one Wayne Sullivan uh 11 marose Avenue uh my concern is the the entry wave the the road itself the way she shown the way it's shown right there it's actually going to turn into my driveway if you look at the corner of my house my driveway comes straight out I'm worried about backing out of my driveway looking for oncoming traffic also I have um some concerns about roof drain issues uh run off from from the roofs there's no to uh original Topo grades out there to see what the original topography was of the land and what's going to go on out there now and also uh would there need to be a sidewalk put in as well also to to gain access there's I don't there's an electrical pole on there too that I'm not noted could you clarify that comment there's an electrical pole down to the front that on the the uh original that got sent out on the email okay there an electrical pole right down here near the the street I think I don't know if it's oh maybe it is there can't see it okay all right I didn't see it on the original one that's just about it I was more worried about backing out of my driveway hitting running in in uncoming traffic coming out okay thank you anyone else is anyone on Zoom people on the zoom okay so if if you could raise your hand and then we'll recognize you Mark or Pamela do you wish to comment or lizelle they're they're not raising hands or turning off microphone so they may just be observing okay okay so um I guess I would encourage the applicant to meet with the the neighbors uh you've heard some of their concerns and uh we will be working on the letter the response to the uh to your application and uh I guess that wraps it up for today so thank you very much for coming and Good Luck Good Luck [Music] thank so you on the camera we were trying to find The Monuments okay next on our agenda is um a discussion with uh if you could is a discussion with um a representative from the planning board uh regarding uh the um access accessory dwelling units that are proposed in the governor's uh Bond bill so um is there someone who going to represent the planning board to tell us what you guys feel or do you just want to hear what we I most you like to hear what you guys have to say may micone well the the we had we had asked for you know maybe just a chair to come and tell us the planning boards they haven't had a chance to discuss it as a board okay we haven't seen it you you've seen it it it's come up at the end of your meetings in your leaone reports but they've never had a formal discussion is a board that's why they're here individually I think we have not seen the document did you send them the document yeah was that what was that what the meeting noticed the the attachment no no no the attachment that went out okay so I you know I guess the the purpose of this discussion was to see how the planning board felt about this I mean you know at at this at this point I don't know that we were anticipating any action other than to Advocate one way or the other for it uh and we were looking for some feedback from the planning board as far as the planning board felt about it I see we have what at least three members of the planning board here right um do so I should we wait on this I guess may my Pat just if I can sure um my understanding is that this is going through the next cycle legislatively to the I think to the ways and means Paul in a couple weeks in like two weeks so if we want to provide input I don't know that we have a luxury to keep delaying much further so maybe we should have a working discussion or something about chair maybe we speak as individual members if we sure sure I'm sorry I'm mother chair that's right don't forget okay like I said we do have three I I see three maybe it's does do any of you want to tell us how you feel about it and keep in mind you know this it's you can't do deliberations but you can tell us how you feel about it I'll speak for myself Mike Walsh the planning board I was under the understanding tonight that tonight we were going to hear a presentation about this no no that was not the intent at all so that's not the so I'm I'm going to speak by myself but I have not seen the document then okay for myself so I think we need more time to look at that cuz I was under the impression when they asked for the planning board members to come tonight that there was going to be a joint discussion regarding this this new plan law no that yeah that was not the intent communication Madam chair the the the the docu the the it's only a couple of paragraphs would we be able to have someone just summarize what they say for context for people who haven't seen the document well I I'm not sure that that's appropriate if if they would then go back to the planning would and then have their discussion um does does attorney have do you have any any okay but they would have to form I'm just saying can we get two sentences on what the legislation is proposing if if the board would like I can do that to context please have the chair but other um basically the the governor's Bond bill which is moving to the legislature right now in was filed in October oober the it was it was sent in the house side to the committee on housing first they released it about a week and a half ago as is in its current form what it provides under as well as a number of initiatives but in terms of the accessory uh dwelling units provision it would allow accessory dwelling units to be built by right in single family zoning districts in all communities um and and then let me explain what what an accessory dwelling unit is under the legislation it's a self-contained housing unit inclusive of sleeping cooking and sanitary facilities on the same lot as a principal dwelling subject to otherwise applicable Dimension and parking requirements that one maintains a separate entrance either directly from the outside or through an entry hall or Corridor shared with the principal dwelling sufficient to meet the requirements of the State Building Code for safe egress two is not larger in Gross area than half the gross area of the principal dwelling or 900 square ft whichever is smaller and three is subject to such additional restrictions as may be imposed by a municipality including but not limited to additional size restrictions and restrictions or prohibitions on short-term rental as defined in section one of chapter 64g provided however that no municipality shall unreasonably restrict the creation or rental of an accessory dwelling unit that is not a short-term rental and then further goes on to say that the use of land or structures for an accessory dwelling unit under this paragraph shall not require owner occupancy of either the accessory dwelling unit or the principal dwelling provided further that not more than one additional parking space shall be required for an accessory dwelling unit and provided further that no additional parking space should be required for an accessory dwelling unit located not more than a half a mile from a Commuter Rail station subway station Ferry Station or bus station so basically what they're saying is you just it looks like de has joined us the planning should formally open a meeting yeah we're going to have to okay uh well as as I said that kind of wasn't the intent but go ahead we have a little time well you're the vice chair I believe she's the chair on the line and she actually with us I see her picture can you hear us dadra can I can I'm sorry I have a family emergency I'm actually in pulling into the parking lot at um Medical in Wester I was listening as I drove here on the Zoom call and then I realized that you were I I thought it was going to be just a general discussion I didn't realize you were looking for specific feedback for me but I will just start to say that we haven't really discussed it as a board um to any great extent and I thought this was kind of an opportunity for the two boards to discuss um the the plan um my personal thought is I um at a minimum would want to see if we could Advocate to request or require um owner occupancy um I feel like that would go a long way in my mind towards um making it less of a negatively impacting to our community so de I I think if you're going to have any sort of substantive discussion because there are four members of the planning board present that you should formally open a hearing okay open a hearing I would open a meeting meeting yes okay the the agenda the agenda item says discussion with the planning board regarding the Massachusetts housing bill it doesn't say a planning board representative just so you know it also sounds like de might actually not be able to stay with us if she's right attending an emergency so she might have to hop off regardless I I will have to hop off I'm I'm going to walk into the ICU shortly so then I think it's probably better for you to just hop off and and not open a meeting yeah and then the members that are here can discuss this without needing it a public meeting okay that's fine then I'm just going to go back and listen to the extent I'm able to on Tel media okay thank you D thank you okay Mike sorry about that well under the circumstances I'll give you my opinion on this uh my crystal ball tells me I wouldn't be surprised if several other uh members think the same way but I'll just speak for myself um the notion of providing some excuse me Mike I think we still need D dearra to leave before you yeah turn off I'm trying to sorry just there we go there we go um it's this proposed legislation kind of pushes the line between what we've traditionally regarded as you know the uh you know the granny apartments and things like that H to a point where it would appear to make single family uh zoning close to obsolete that's my concern um that there just doesn't seem to be in any way given the way that the initial draft of this has been proposed to avoid putting two buildings on a lot and uh and filling them with unrelated people uh two of the aspects uh of uh of uh in-law apartments that uh that we try to to hold on to so that's my view of it I think it's a bit of overreach uh and I'm not sure where the state's going to go with it maybe somebody here's got a better notion than I do of what they're going to ultimately try to do but I'm personally not really not for it okay thank you good evening Madam chair members of the board John Souza um speaking tonight as an individual member of the planning board um this bill on acccessory dwelling units I think is very dangerous and it will radically transform our town from a single family home Community to a much denser heavily populated one um some of the things that concern me that I've heard from some of the Advocates of this bill uh that they use it they use the concept of intergenerational living to try to sell the bill I don't think any of us are against trying to find a solution for elderly parents or grandparents to live to find a place to live in the community but but what's concerning is then when you read the language that there is no provision for that that the as we've heard that the uh the occupant of the unit be a relative of the property owner and then uh We've also been told by some Advocates don't worry um not every homeowner in chumon will want to renter on their property so my issue with that is um that may be true in some respects but um as a previous speaker said I see this as a as sort of an attack on single family housing which makes up the majority of our town and my concern is if you if you that this will incentivize the sale and purchase of single family homes if this becomes state law Statewide you're going to see investors offering people money to sell their home and then when the the developer buys the home it's not going to matter and the and the original owner is sold it's not going to matter who's in the Adu to the to the professional investor they're just looking for return on their money um my other my main concern is with the density that this will cause is that um the byright aspect and the fact that allows detached adus is also a concern but my main concern as as a as a resident and a planning board memb is that the town does not have the infrastructure to support this kind of dense growth our schools are a capacity don't take my word for it Dr Lang and the school committee can expound on that our sewer system is at capacity and our roads as many all of us know are already clogged with traffic especially during rush hours um and the one thing I can guarantee in all this is that it's highly unlikely that the state's going to provide chumford with the millions of dollars that we'll need to build new schools en llarge our sewer system and redesign our roadways so I urge the board to contact our state reps representative catalo Aero and Elliot and our state Senator Mike Barrett and let them know that the harm that this is could cause Trum thank you thank you thank you okay I guess now it's up to us um as you mentioned uh Virginia there is some timeliness yeah that we need to act on this um we could um you know I could draft a letter and send it to our state reps and and Senator um highlighting the concerns that we just heard and any others that we have amongst ourselves that we've heard before my understanding too I think when it go is it the Ws and Means Committee they're going to are they the ones that have the public hearing I imagine they'll have a hearing or and then it will get released in some form and then they'll be action in the Senate and then probably go to a conference committee I think with the the desire to get it done by the end of July so you you will Ste stop moving pretty quick yeah and when is the hearing in two weeks they have not they haven't scheduled it yet but it's but they're they're um they expecting action soon there was the house even an informal session today they advaned legislation similar to this a separate bill moved that forward to a third reading so there's there's clearly a signal and if you've seen some of the recent uh comments from the speaker of the house that they're they're going to move on the housing bill um relatively soon uh and relatively you know significantly um the only I think I'd point out to the board is we do have Deb toera who's the chair of the housing advisory committee in the town this evening I did copy the chair of the planning board and the chair of the housing advisory committee of this U discussion this evening so I don't know if you if Deb wants to be recognized or if you want to hear from her but I didn't I didn't want to to least not be noted her attendance we have three chers here now um Deb would you like to um provide any comments hi Deb Verna housing Advisory Board just some brief comments we have been discussing this off and on for the last year seeing what was coming um we do have some concerns um about changing neighborhood character um we have also met with the Board of Health and they have a lot of concerns about how do you make this work which they have emphasized to us so there are a lot of moving pieces in this and I just think we need to keep pushing forward okay thank you you know one one thing that nobody's mentioned at all is the electricity additional you know impact on on the grid I mean I don't think we have that much power uh to sustain a lot more growth but that's only my opinion i' like I'd like somebody to find out our company or whatever if we did expand all this stuff and I don't know if they done that kind of research I would hope they have but yeah the administra the governor's Administration is working with the utilities in the state because it's not only aside from this you've got the whole issue of of of challenges posed by electric vehicles electrification of you know mass transit uh vehicles uh as well as the demands that are coming forward with electricity from Ai and other needs in the future the data centers and so forth so that's a big issue here you're going forward especially the new energy codes you the other issue that uh is is a concern was water and if you may have seen over the weekend or the end of last week the house Speaker noted the potential expansion of the M NW Water Resources to both the Southshore and the NorthShore including would be the town of chelsford as a they the opinion seems to be that they believe that the mwa has capacity that could serve those expanded areas in terms of water supply now again those are going to take quite some number of years and quite a lot of expense but they're that's again came from the Speaker of the House in terms of how he's trying to overcome some of the concerns on these proposals to add housing uh to the state's inventory but yes no question electricity is a is a is a is a concern um by you know and and we're and we're seeing it even in a micro level I've been working with one of the vendors on 129 trying to get for fornate 80 volt Service uh and they can't get a committed date from National Grid of when they can upgrade CU they need that for their expansion and operations for manufacturing in the 129 Corridor so electricity is a for for uh concern um to the vibrancy of Economic Development and Housing Development Paul we have a snippet here about from the MMA being oppos are they organizing a formal response see I've not I've searched high and low when this was released back in October the MMA provided notice out there and what they what they noted was that the bill would allow accessory dwelling units up to 900 ft as of right throughout the state with the ability for communities to set some reasonable yeah quote some reasonable restrictions unquote the MMA has opposed to this potential preemption of local zoning decisionmaking and will be raising these concerns as the bill makes its way through the legislative process um that's the extent of it I was not the more recent story that came when there was a hearing held a couple of weeks ago that went all day into the evening um the MMA provided testimony but I'm unable to find that testimony on the mma's website or elsewhere um but I think the mma's concerns are the idea and much like the MW yeah the MBTA zoning issue is the idea of preempting local zoning decision making and to my knowledge that has not changed at this date that's the Paramount concern is removing local uh decision making any thoughts um yeah I think that it's probably time I just feel like there's a lot of pressure coming from everywhere with the housing stuff and this is it sounds like there's a lot of concerns I think we have concerns on our board I think the other boards have concerns um the housing Advisory board has been talking about it for a year and the board help so they're ahead of us you know um but I I think it's time for us to kind of create some sort of formal um communication to our state reps um maybe with the collaboration of all of our boards yeah I mean I was thinking well Paul I me maybe we could do like how we do for the 40b and reach out to all the Departments rather than have a a a multi you know I mean as uh as Deb mentioned the board yeah the board Board of Health I'm sure the water districts have concerns um perhaps we could you know get a a list of all all of their concerns and consolidate them into a a letter is there a well I guess the other question would be are we taking a position or are we just saying here's our concerns you know what because there's a difference there's a there's a you can say I'm concerned and maybe tweak it so it's family members only or you could say we're opposed to this and this is why um maybe they'll come up with the answer my personal my personal leaning is on the opposition side I think we should try to stop it and also point out in there that it's it's not addressing failing wordss like here's the one of the the Clauses is this is um on the page 37 of 126 on the two-page thing that Paul sent out or attached to the packet provided however that no municipality shall unreasonably restrict the creation of rental of an accessory dwelling unit that is not a short-term rental so now you can put a tiny home on your property or attached to your property basically and start creating investment rental units all over town um and that that I mean this really concerns me and I I think that when we have this letter drafted I'd like to suggest that maybe we copy the MMA and I know there's people from Nim Cog here maybe we copy Nim Cog because I don't I think that the people who are out there advocating one way or the other ought to have input from the municipalities before they do it um or while they're doing it as they're formulating that that advocacy and I I I agree with what MMA is saying about driving it down to local decision making I think when you're trying to manage so much from the top it's going to it's going to crush crush us as municipalities we can't support it and now this well it's not just preserving why we all move to the community and the you know but but then from for all the infrastructure comments that have been pointed out we can't support it has the has the N call the regional planning agency had discussions or taking a position on the they can tell you in a few minutes okay can tell us now if okay I don't know if there's been discussions amongst the planning board and select board members on on them Cog yeah oh it's it's been brought up several times yeah would would you envision this letter being signed off by more than one board chair and committee chair well and I guess the question is the timeliness of it I mean if we could if we could wait until our next meeting um which is two weeks from today we could get all this this feedback and generate one one letter maybe that reference is just like the letter to MHP I mean all the you know the department heads don't all sign it right um so would the other boards vote in favor or against supporting a letter of opposition for us I think I think we would ask them number one concerns and number two if they want to take a stand on it and if so what that would be and we could include that I mean that's I don't know the problem is is with the calendar with with the town election next week and beginning month I'm not sure the other boards meet will be meeting for example Paul is this even on the planning board agenda their next meeting is until after your next meeting no the meeting no it's not on your agenda for wedes it's not on the agenda for Wednesday W I just asked Evan to put it on if we could you have to amend it okay amend it and put it on so we can get some real feedback and that that would be great because then you could take that into consideration before our next meeting okay and then do we want to write a letter or do we want to try and get our reps in here and have a conversation with them with all the board I think for timeliness we should you know go with the letter first first you want to document it as part of the formal process can we do the Second Step afterwards I think we have them coming in in in a couple of months which probably would be before they would vote on this yeah so we can add it to the agenda correct absolutely yeah y so that what's the what's the period to in to influence the content well like two months from now that's going to be over right right yeah most lik it could be enacted by the house before the end of next month then the Senate may take it up in May then it'll go to conference committee but then the conference committee is really Bound by what comes out of the house and Senate in terms of you know settling the differences between the two um so yeah as I again the um the exact dates haven't been announced but I think the intent is is to get this moving um you know in the house at least within the next you know few weeks they they're going to release the budget there on you is your sense that we have time to if the planning board can talk about it Wednesday then we could talk about it at our next meeting a meeting yeah okay let's let's do that and I'll I'll start working on a draft that we we can let me know okay all right so that brings us to log and they can provide any feedback they may want as to the previous discussion we had all right welcome well I was going to start with hello hello and I am Jennifer ra I'm the executive director of nim Cog I've met many of you already previously and I'm joined by hello I'm Kelly LMA the deputy director of dcog and and really this is this is um a great opportunity for us to really just talk about Nim Cog what we do and what we've been doing with the town of chelsford um in the past couple of years as well as what we're doing right now um so that that's the the purpose of this discussion um but I'm glad to also answer any other questions that you might have about other things that you've been talking about or or otherwise but um if I might start there first um so for those of you who don't know us Nim Cog the northern middle sex Council of governments we the regional planning agency based in L we serve greater L which of course includes Bill Raa um sorry chumford um Bill Rea uh drit dunable peppol tuxbury tsoro and Westford as well as L um so we try our best and have done so for 60 years now we actually were formed in 1963 um and for those years we've been a comprehensive Regional planning agency providing all types of services including for direct technical assistance to our communities to advance housing Economic Development Transportation environmental issues um and also GIS and data collection as well as Regional collaboration initiatives including um we are currently your sealer of weights and measure measures so uh we do that actually for all of our communities um as well as additional communities beyond the region um we have a 15 person staff we um our goal of course is to advance uh the capacity of our municipalities as well as to Foster that Regional collaboration and coordination we have an 18 member Council which includes Representatives including Pat of course um chair wues as well as um we have Anita tanini from the planning board and we also have Douglas Bruce who is our alternate member um and each uh each Town actually has two votes on the council from uh ideally the two uh the Reps of the select board as well as the planning board or City Council in the case of LOL um we meet monthly in a hybrid format the third Wednesday of every month of course anybody is welcome to attend um and the meeting is of course on Zoom as well as is at our office um we also one of our most significant sources of funds is actually through the Massachusetts Department of Transportation because we are the uh Metropolitan planning Organization for the region and what that means is that we help to program all of the transportation the Federal Transportation dollars that come through the region and it starts usually in the form of studies and analyses of traffic or Transportation issues um that are identified by our local Comm unities or regionally or from the state mot there's two districts actually in our region District 3 and District 4 Pat is actually the representative to the no from the council um and as part of our no planning process we uh for example last year we adopted our our longrange transportation Plan called Envision 2050 um as part of that process we then Advance uh Pro all different types of projects for Highway Transit and other locally or regionally um important or significant projects through the tip the transportation Improvement program we're actually in the process right now of developing the tip um for the next federal fiscal year which starts on October 1st um additionally we're in the process of developing a unified planning work program which helps us to identify other opportunities to move forward with projects in the future so we do studies or analyses so for example in a prior year we actually conducted a study of ledge Road um there was a presentation provided to this board in fact um early last year um by two uh nimock staff uh and at that uh juncture we identified opportunities for collaboration and continued discussion um monitoring of the traffic situation these were around conditions related to truck traffic in particular that type of study might eventually grow to become a tip project or an additional you know something that U merits further analysis through um some additional studies that could be funded through the unified planning work program um so we we basically we we do our best to work with each one of our communities on plans or projects that may also leverage additional funds or resources for your community or for regional projects um so that's just an example of that um additionally we uh recently worked with the town of your town as well as Bill Raa um on an issue related to Brick K Road and looking for opportunities to collaborate together and there will be some followup uh for that particular project um Kelly's going to speak to some of our more recent uh projects that we've been working on through the DTA program including helping the community to be compliant with the NBTA communities law um and then additionally uh we help the town with uh become basically maintaining your status as a green Community this is a program that the state provides it provides you with direct resources but it also actually provides funding to Nim Cog to provide Regional energy planning assistance and what that entails is that we help each one of our communities to both maintain their compliance through annual reporting uh seek opportunities for say decarbonization or uh studies of municipal buildings to bring down the cost of energy um and look for alternatives to move forward for example we worked with chelsford as well as other communities in the past year year on a net zero action plan scope of work and I think the town has been moving forward with some of those initiatives through for example looking at land use planning and other um potential actions um and then uh the last thing I'll mention that is that we also rece we are a partner to the economic development Administration which essentially means that we um can be a catalyst to help leverage additional Economic Development dollars for both local business growth and development or to Spur other types of revitalization and so through that program uh we are currently looking at a designation as an economic development District which would help us to bring in even more dollars for our region which we're hoping will move forward but what we will be doing is uh launching a five-year a new Five-Year Plan for a comprehensive Economic Development strategy um and then also and Kelly will speak to this um a Regional Housing strategy and so I'm going to stop there and let Kelly talk more about those projects thank you Jenny um so again my name is Kelly L I'm the deputy director I work with Jenny and all of our staff on a number of transportation and economic development land use and housing issues and climate resilience so in the coming year we are working with the town of chelsford specifically on a couple of projects um we are current we have been working with and we will continue to work with chords planning board on mpta communities compliance we are doing that work not only with chelsford but with six other communities in the northern middle sex region so this is work that we have done to try to understand the law and help communities apply it and help them go through the planning process with residents in their Community to understand what may be best for them and bringing something forward to town meeting so that they comply with state law in the coming year we will also be working with um Evan uh balansky on the n on the center Village Master Plan update so this was a master plan that Nim Cog did uh I think back in 2012 and we'll be updating that with new Transportation information and then also looking at land use housing and a number of other opportunities including Economic Development and climate resilience we're also working with the town on the um update to your open space and Recreation plan and I believe our um housing and economic development planner um manager Chris Hayes met with your housing committee last week to talk about your next housing production Plan update so that's another project that we'll be working on regally we are going to be updating that 5-year Economic Development planning process that's called The Five-Year SS so we'll be Implement we'll be nearing the end of our implementation of our previous 5year SS and then starting to plan ahead for what can we do as a region and an economic development perspective to support the region economically in the next 5 years we also just kicked off at home in Greater LOL which is a Regional Housing strategy so as we've listened to our various communities and we've done all of the housing production plans and pretty much in every single one of our communities um for the last maybe decade or so how continually emerges as a top issue um and so this is a way of thinking regionally about what are the best approaches and strategies and maybe what works for dunable might not necessarily work for chelsford what works for chelsford might not necessarily work for LEL but we can think about how those housing opportunities work across the region and start to develop strategies together and also think about how those strategies intersect with economic development and infrastructure needs so that we can equally plan ahead for those issues um and then finally regionally we are working on a regional digital Equity plan which thinks about internet access for all um and access to education equipment tools that people need in order to basically function in today's society Because the Internet and internet access is such a huge part of our Lives um and then we are working on the greater Lowel Vision zero plan so Jenny had mentioned how the SS document kind of helps our communities Avail themselves to Greater funding the greater Lal Vision zero plan is also going to do that that because it will basically set the stage for allowing our individual municipalities to apply for infrastructure funds for Safe Streets and roads for all so thinking about those important sidewalk and uh crosswalk infrastructure improvements that can make you can be made and then applying for federal grants in order to help to fund those projects and then last but not least um we are also working in the Boston nashal region so at sort of like the mega region level on a climate po climate pollution reduction Grant so this is thinking about climate pollution across the broader region and how we can address those things collaboratively with our Municipal planning or Regional planning agencies in Boston all the way up into Southern New Hampshire and just uh on the the climate pollution reduction Grant which is basically like a a large scale climate action plan um that too similarly will be an opportunity to then apply for implementation funds to address you know sort of big picture decarbonization so for example there might be multiple opportunities for housing authorities to work together to apply for a big Federal Grant in order to decarbonize to basically bring down the costs not only to the housing authorities but also to the residents uh living there and make for you know safer healthier living for everybody um so there are a lot of other opportunities that we're working on I'm glad to answer questions we also work very closely with our CEOs um through a regular monthly meeting and look for as as many opportunities as possible to collaborate for example um with Paul and his peers we elevated the idea of uh pursuing a regional an opportunity through the community uh compact uh program which is basically a grant program to municipalities as well as Regional entities um and we submitted an application for Regional Housing Services office which we have not heard back on that yet but um you know we are trying to look for other opportunities to collaborate and work together to do things that both benefit our local municipalities as well as things that would serve the entire region so um I think with that glad to answer any questions but that that was uh you know the main purpose of our of our visit this evening and and we get all that for what's our assessment for like $10,000 it is in the next uh fiscal year it will be $3,593 76 so I would say that's a quite a bargain yeah does anybody have any questions for Jenny or Kelly do you have an example of what your role is in the economic development side sure I'm still not understanding that yeah as um the role is really primarily a convenor and facilitator to understand what our communities want to do in terms of growth and economic development you have an extremely strong person here who's working on economic development for the town very active very engaged um Paul is also your manager is also very engaged in Middle sex 3 um and we work together collaboratively with both Local Economic Development uh staff as well as with uh middle sex 3 and other Regional entities like Mass hire the workforce investment board and uh the greater L Chamber of Commerce basically all of the different players across the region to find Opportunities to both um pull together an understanding of exactly where what we're trying to do how we want to grow as a region and then find ways to communicate that to both the state and the federal government to essentially bring in funding to move forward with what whatever those strategies or actions are that the region would like to pursue so for example um there might be a number of different Local Economic Development planning processes like in Chelmsford I believe there's one coming up with uh the Town Center Center Village uh master plan or local action planning and doing that kind of local planning work could eventually lead to some economic development funding through the Eda or other state programs but the key to that is designing a plan having a strategy which is that that s's document but also convening a committee of people there really like about 30 plus people who meet pretty uh quarterly um and talk about those issues talk about how they're work you know working on things locally or regionally depending upon the type of person participating so our role is really as convenor and um we also help to pursue opportunities and those opportunities could be for additional resources or capacity or funding thank you yeah you're welcome so to get to the previous discussion um I know that you might have some more insight as to where things are going and what the timeline might be for uh that housing bill or maybe not actually I don't have anything more to add than what the answers that were previously provided would have been the answers that I would have provided um it was moved out of the joint committee on housing as was noted in about a week and a half or two weeks ago and the next step I think is actually the bonding committee and then Ways and Means um and I don't and all I know is that it's in the legislative session and we all know when the session closes and what the desires probably are in terms of moving that out and onto the governor's desk and but that goes through the same legislative process as any bonding bill would um so I don't have any other information and no hearing dates have been scheduled um and in terms of finding letters or comment letters I I'm not certain if they are posted in a publicly available place but if I can find that information I will share it with your manager okay thank you you're welcome all right that is what I know okay anyone else have questions for Jenny Kelly is there on the brick hilm road is it something that we can discuss or something that's the planning board was making was in the middle of making a decision on a specific application and as part of that process um we worked uh collaboratively with the yourtown and Bill r on uh the potential resolution of an issue that came up during that discussion process and the resolution ultimately was and of course the application I think is still possibly under review or in in an you know an appeal period depending upon the timing um so I can't speak specifically to that application but what was deemed an appropriate resolution was to set aside a certain amount of funding to further study the possibility of a traffic signal warrant for that location which is basically at that intersection and since it is adjacent to the town of Bela we had uh pretty know strong dialogue with both managers and engineers and planners that's a 3A at the uh yeah 129 right by the Forum the intersection right there which is actually located in bka right um and so the the cons the desire I think is to get a traffic signal there you what everyone notes is the trucks coming out of UPS you know going on to 129 to Route three or turning left going back to UPS are the concerns but that area we know this there's the B there's the post office on brick Hill Road there's there's the Forum there's the there's a there a mosque uh and then obviously there's also the traffic that goes up and down 129 and Chumps at in Bara yeah so it's it is a AIT a busy intersection um and so the the first step as noted is to do the traffic study and warrant and then you're going to need to do the preliminary design so that you can eventually get onto the tip um to you know get the funding CU that's going to be millions of dollars I mean you know to do a full traffic ization there I was kind of hoping was a little bit more development on something I thought was something was going to be developed no this came out of the development at 93 brick Hill and Road adjacent to the existing UPS which was only a 60,000 foot storage building the one that's right across right from the driveway swampy areas right behind it yeah I do I have another question actually I'm curious that MW um kind of transitioning Up This Way Comes Up periodically I'm curious if you guys are hearing anything from the the other municipalities in the area interest [Music] questions um what I know is probably about the same as what you know about the mw's potential expansion and about the level of Interest I would think that all communities might be potentially interested in exploring that especially given various fiscal constraints to providing Municipal Water Supply and and addressing the number the magnitude of issues in it you know in the future related to water drinking water quality um so I think the communities are all looking at it as an opportunity and trying to understand what the MW will provide in order to make that happen potentially um and also better understand the timing what I've seen is that the MW has uh released a study about this and there are specific quadrants and like sort of areas or zones related to the potential for expansion and they're they're at a very preliminary phase of exploring that prelim that expansion um so I think there's a lot more dialogue to come and I think it's if if chumford is of course interested or seeking to explore that further I'm certain it'll come up in other uh you know Council conversations potentially at Nim Cog Council meetings and then also with the CEOs so I know there's interest thank you you're welcome okay any other questions all right well thank you so so much for coming you're very welcome hope you enjoyed the meeting that you watched thank you yes absolutely thanks for all you do you're very welcome thank you see you Wednesday okay next up is Christine Clancy thank you for for sitting quietly and patiently back there so long thank you I have a few updates tonight to provide I think the first one is the arpa update um so just go over this update we as of the last month we did allocate an additional project uh to from our Opa funds and that was the pilot smoke testing project so in total we've now allocated 57 projects to the arpa funds um which is about $99.79 million allocated to those projects of that um we have procured 87% of those projects and 66% have been in Voice or spent um again in terms of the timeline the timeline is this December where we want to allocate all the funds and we have until December 26 to complete the projects uh I've updated the spreadsheet that I provide monthly again the colors the blue and the green are projects that procured blue are complete the green is um procured but still in in construction or in completion phase um the yellow are projects that are partially procured the red are the uh the projects that have not been procured to date so to highlight things go over without going over every single project just to go over some projects um the testing and balancing projects remain to be procured we are still trying to uh find the facilities project manager we have that position still vacant so that is something that um has been delayed but we are you know we do have a goal to procure it this spring still um if we don't hire that that's something that uh match white are and I will have to procure uh moving further down there has been some updates to the Kensington Road Pump Station project uh we are doing some work right now retaining wall and getting the site ready but the balance of that project will be procured um through a capital process so there shouldn't be any um cost beyond what we've shown here in the arpa uh the another projects moving on just further down to item 47 48 49 these are the Watershed projects that we were able to um set aside last fall those projects are underway right now we just recently did the project kicked off kickoff that project is in a data collection um phase right now and then moving down below that projects 50 through 55 we're right now going through final design document development um with the exception of number 53 the remaining of those projects have been about 95% complete in terms of the design document um development and then in the next month we'll also be going forward and noi submission for some of those projects um so for next month I hope to have um a really good update with those numbers you know 50 through 55 um 56 was also recently uh procured and allocated just this past year that project is almost complete I hope to have that completed for next month and then 57 that is the latest project that was approved the last month select board meeting that project uh we just had to put together a scope and have we hope to have that um this spring procured and then in terms of the implementation this this summer the best time to do that project is this summer are there any and then then so following that we still have about 790,000 000 that's unallocated so that's what we really have to Target um my guess is that potentially this summer I mean I guess it's up to discussion of when we want to but I have started to create a list of potential projects um some of them we have them actually already near near design completed um but you know that that $790,000 that really is what has to be allocated before the end of this year and going back through all these projects too just to make sure some if there's any funds remaining that we would also look to update those projects as well okay any questions for Christine can I ask a quick question Harmony I can't remember Harmony Park was that was that on here as a drainage improvements project that was I don't know if that was uh proposed in the original but that's about a $400,000 project to add drainage on car is Street we don't have any drainage on car street so we the thing is so we did originally look to put it on here we talked about it we did talk about it the thing is is that when we go to do the when the mass doot goes to do the Westford um Street Pro or the the westf Street Bridge projects car street will be used as a detour so it's going to be tricky to maybe fit drainage in before um before the completion of those projects and those projects I understand are potentially a two-year duration so it's something that we would want to potentially so it's in our queue I just don't know it's I mean unless we acted on it immediately I don't know how we would we' have to do it either immediately or wait three years yeah yes we did recent I know we did try to do some local adjustments trying to install a leeching basin but really the the the the correct fix is to add drainage on the street yeah it's a mess I was there like two weeks ago and the whole parking lot is just water yeah we would it would take a months of design and then I would have to get an update on where those projects stand for um completion so it's something we can look at but it's something that has to be coordinated with that Pro with that those Bridge projects so should that still be on this list or did we take it off it wasn't on this list was okay it was I think it was in one of the long list at the one point it was on the 1.8 million the these were a lot of these projects were projects that were already in que could be potentially uh quickly more more quickly designed the um Carlile would be a more involved design process and I think that was about $400 $500,000 that so it was a pretty significant amount okay if you look at the I know you were talking about the timing of allocating the rest of the funding so for the projects not procured it looks like there's about 1.2 million at least not procured yet um probably more than that CU I just looked at the big numbers and then do do you happen to know like for the ones that are not complete that are partially or the work ongoing like what what's outstanding because it it just seems like there's still a lot of um there's still a significant amount of red and yellow and even some green and I don't it would it make sense to kind of let that ride for a little bit to make sure that we know what they're actually going to come in at before we start allocating the balance yes so I think I believe going back to the top of it uh like 1B that's a very large item this is the school HVAC system so it says $52,000 spent out of $569 so that's something I do want to look at the I guess the monthly burn rate and that's something that potentially we would adjust because that does take us to the next three years and then a lot of the projects that are green below that are HVAC related projects um number three is the one project and I did update it last month we we have that uh differing site condition where we have significant electrical um change needed so that is under design right now we should have an update by the end of this month um on what that we do have it carried here but we'll have an update in terms of the design being developed and then pricing for that um but the price is carried in here is just to move that project along um moving I mean a lot of the other projects I think are number six number 10 I would say those there's not there's not too many more surprises left yeah um and then the red the 14 the 17 to 20 those we do need to procure still um and moving on beyond that like the I go call non DPW projects 21 through um 28 and I think that's something we can look at a little clo more closely to see if there's any um updates needed there we haven't been as focused on those projects yeah uh number 34 we actually are advancing so number 34 is the Culvert structural assessments um we are advancing so that money will be spent but actually some of those recommendations fall in a later project listed in the 50s so I think to short is we're I guess we're tracking it monthly and I think some of the we know what the out you know what the potential surprises are and I think we've covered it if anything the prices would hopefully come down um I would I would think that a lot of movement is happening this spring and then a timeline potentially would be this summer for allocating um I do have a list of a couple projects that I could start to make a list just to share as potential considerations just to show you some projects that we have that are near shovel ready is that something you would want to see for the next month yeah let me know would be helpful yeah yeah because because what's GNA happen is you're probably gonna have to make a decision by July one because what what has happened is the federal government current standards they're saying you have to be obligated by the end of this December as Christine noted earlier but currently the standards don't include um Force accounts meet I like employees as a contracted obligation so they've asked now for a few months for the federal government to change that standard so for example we've hired some employees to the health department to do mental health issues and so forth if that doesn't change within the next few months then then you're going to have to make a decision saying you know we don't want to be turning money back and leaving it on you know leaving it at risk um and hopefully we'll have some guidance in the next couple of months um usually the federal government gives you significant advance notice and they do know that this is an issue for communities across the country but so I would think that we may have some clarity because if that's the case then we're going to have to not only look at these projects we going have to look at those labor accounts and saying they might they might say the labor is not yeah no that's the current standard right so what they're saying is is only a contractual obligation is considered obligated uh by the end of the calendar year so for example that we have an employee working in the health department who's doing Mental Health crisis intervention they don't they that would not that would not be allowable current under the current standards Beyond December 31st of this year because they don't consider that a contractual obligation if we have a contract with XYZ firm who's doing that then that's a contractual obligation so in other words they're not what what we call Force labors I.E current St staff and so forth um and that that's been hanging around now for a few months unresolved but again I think what's going to happen is if we don't have an answer by July one us and a number of communities are going to have to re reassess what do we do over the next six months because it's not just coming here for approval it's as you can see it's also the procurement and execution of of contract so so again stay tuned but we should have some clarity in the next three months but that could be another thing that we've got to look at which is why Christine keeps saying that we we'd have projects that they're ready to go remember we we have latitude um in terms of how we expend these money so we we would basically go just to not leave to not have to basically leave the money on the table for the federal government to take it back right I'm sure we can find a good use all of Penny yeah yes we will okay thank you sove on to the Sewer capacity moving on to the Sewer capacity I did want to provide an update um I know it's been a little bit of time so we had previously been providing updates uh on a monthly basis um but just to provide an overview so what we do we do we track our monthly flows we look um and look at also rainfall uh here is a chart showing rainfall over the past just over a year tracking the rainfall amount that we've track using a a local website um and and then ourf flow and also ourf flow combined with tsbo shown in the the maroon um our monthly capacity through Lowel is 87 million gallons um that capacity is has been exceeded in the past 11 out of 14 months and you can see that in this chart we have had a very rainy season the past 12 months um but you can see correlations sorry just getting a little feedback you can see correlations between High rainfall or snow melt and and um higher sewer uses and just an example is last month in January if you look at the number we had 111 million gallons our capacity again is only 87 so it's really just it's a astronomical number really almost unprecedented from previous years uh we did have over 10 Ines of rain in December High groundwater we also had 14 in of snow so I think it's a combination of snow melt and high high rain uh so we are still seeing the correlation between um increased precipitation or or groundwater and higher flows in our system um so next slide please so you know and looking at short-term midterm long-term mitigation effects we need to essentially and we've had meetings with d we need to find uh how to make our system tighter uh our syst system isn't that old so we really shouldn't have in as much at least infiltration in the system and we've done that initial analysis as a short-term uh mitigation effort to do some infiltration um and in investigations in about 12% of our infrastructure so just about 22 miles um that was completed over the past couple years what we found there is that we do have some infiltration we found about 22,000 gallons of infiltration primarily at the manholes very little in the pipes so that infiltration uh is is be found at manholes uh we do continue so right now that 200 M manholes there we are moving forward with designing lining of those manholes um that's a project that will likely take place this I think it will be at fall town meeting for construction appropriation um that is being design right now we also continue efforts uh monthly looking at and doing manhole inspections and if we do find infiltration that is something that we note uh and actually we just found two over the past two weeks pretty sign actually one being a pretty significant um amount of infiltra in infiltration in one manhole so we actually look to quickly repair some of those more I guess the not the 200 that's separate project but the ones that we find uh so every time we do find that we do note that as a correction and um because I'll talk I will be talking tonight too about our sewer capacity um credit transfer policy and so we are at a point where we're trying to track anything that we can take out of the system uh we also are doing the sump pump inspection pilot program so that is a program over the past year we have reached out to anyone in the community that has a sump pump connected to the Suare we had just over 180 interests um going through that list not all 180 people are are um they don't they're not eligible some people had a sump pump that some people didn't have a sump pump some people had a grinder pump some people had a some pump that just went out to the backyard these are some pumps that are connected to the sewer system we do know that groundwater is very high right now and and people call say I do have some pumps that are connected to the Sewer that is a considerable amount of flow that could be that actually technically is not allowed to be in the sewer system as part of this program we have told people we'll find that solution um and in a way to relo to relocate um the some pumps from their system um that analysis will be pending over the next few months right now they're doing the inspections and they have to do their um like finish their report and recommend recommendations but I imagine we'd have an update probably later this spring uh another mitigation effort is smoke testing so this is something that this is the recent arper allocation project this is something d d is requiring us to do and is can be a sometimes it can be a very quick way to find inflow or infiltration in the system people might have down spouts catch basins private catch basins um or some pumps connected to our sewer system we can smoke tests from the manholes and actually find where those where um those sources are through through smoke testing other communities have done it um and we are we're being required to we've moved this program up from next summer to this summer uh in order to try to find some of that that inflow really inflow in the system and uh also this past January we did develop a sewer credit policy we also had a you know we had a 2-year moratorium policy so replacing that with a a new sewer policy but also how can development continue in town so we do have a policy that's available on our DPW website our sewer division website and it it's it basically outlines how people can purchase uh capacity really for commercial growth opportunities and I'll get into that in the next slide um another item that I haven't we haven't done but it's something just considering is right now when you when someone sells a home people are going in for disconnects for w the water utilities water utilities not prod part of D DPW and talking to some other communities um there are some communities where the water is part of DPW so when their water department goes in their water department and their Sewer Department are are looking to see if there's a set a some pump system connected or to the Sewer so that's something that we could potentially it would have to be a bylaw created but just for any sale of home going in to inspect the property uh before the completion of the sale something to consider um potentially that could be potentially this fall uh moving on to long-term Capac so these all are short midterm really to be able to handle uh the current capacity situation that we're dealing with and also allow some growth what do we do for long term so longterm is is there additional capacity that we can seek in L LEL is going through a process where they still are significantly or PR predominantly combined system they're going through with some sewer separation effort they're having to remove inflow from the system we have had conversations with them just is it something we could buy additional capacity um in talking with them that is currently not an option but it's something that just we want to continue to pursue in at Point at some point in time would they remove enough inflow from the system that they could sell capacity to neighboring communities just something to you know potent it is a potential still an opportunity to consider as a long term and then the other opportunity is the uh connection to an mwb system about 10 years ago we did look at maybe doing an onsite or uh in town treatment facility to add capacity and there really isn't a viable solution or there's an availability of adding an outfall to the maram river so really the only other option for you know additional capacity is just what what our what would it look like to connect to the mwa system the two nearest communities are Bedford and Burlington um so that is something to potentially it could be through oper it could be through another alloc appropriation is just what would it cost um and what you know what what are the Is it feasible um looking at it I mean it would involve having a pipe go through other towns um but it right now seems to be the most feasible option compared to some of the other options so this just want to provide a sewer capacity policy overview we do have a lot of uh questions more for commercial growth so right now so this policy is available on our website um came out last January right now the policy does allow people to if you have a sewer connection you can increase your capacity by 500 gallons per day that really for a residential allows for people to add a couple bedrooms a few bedrooms and for a commercial that could sometimes be know 10 seats depending on uh how that equates to the title 5 calculation so it allows for some minimal growth um but something beyond that you would really have to seek uh Capac you have to purchase the capacity so to purchase capacity that capacity is only reserved for commercial growth so we do have you know for subdivisions or other residential requests uh we say that that capacity has been reserved for commercial growth um so we right now we have it priced at $35 a gallon and that really is the fee that we estimate it is to really take some of the infiltration inflow uh out of the system and it is required at a 2:1 ratio so when we say if you need 1,000 gallons you have to buy 2,000 gallons 1,000 gallons goes back to us back to the system and then 1,000 gallons goes to you other communities um has I've heard some even neighboring communities have a 10:1 ratio so I mean it is it is um typical to have have at least some ratio we just went with 2 to one um because we're charging I guess we're looking at a and we don't have much capacity we're trying to get as much capacity out of the system right now um we also have in the policy the option for commercial property to sell their existing capacity based on their usage we have not had anyone approach us this was something in the development of the policy was discussed as could this be an opportunity so it is in there but we have not had anyone approach us really asking too much about it um but just that is still in our policy when we go through so we have had over the past uh year we've had over 25 people inquire some people just are inquiring about it and you know development doesn't happen some people some we also have some um agreements in place uh of the 20 2,000 gallons we have we're we're actually essentially near the end of uh that amount um we've own what we require is that they have to make payment before certif certificate of occupancy so a lot of those projects are still in the development stages so we have I guess letters of intent um or some you know intent to um to use that capacity we've only had one applicant uh complete their part pay for it and now they're they're using that amount um and I just want to highlight too the capacity is based on a 10-year look back so we do look back based and is based on your water usage we do account you know if there's been covid where you see a significant decline we do omit that or if there's some other um sometimes there's billing errors where there's very very high amounts we do look uh to take that out but we look at really the mean or median average so where we are now is We are continuing just to as requests come in um continuing to allocate um really we have we're as we're taking infl out of the system it's going into the bank and then if people are asking for it we go through a process of evaluating it and then um I guess selling it at that you know selling it at that $35 a gallon at a 2 to1 ratio um the next steps moving forward continue to track that and also we have had in the past year a lot of questions asked and I just think we are at a point where we want to update the policy nothing significant but there's some there's some clarification of tweaks of how we've interpreted other people have interpreted it so um right now DPW is working on an update and I would say in the next month or two would' be able to provide that update I don't know if there's any questions so with the 22,000 gallons of banked capacity gone and the first slide that you showed that showed that we're consistently over our monthly allocation from LEL does that mean we we basically don't have any capacity right now so I would say except for the 500 gon so the 22,000 that has gone hasn't really been given it's been um promised or intended but it hasn't actually been put into the system because these are all developments the the what you see here of this chart this is purely based on I think our increase in flows so and and I think the 22,000 gallons is really a blip I mean what we're looking here is tens of thousands or almost I think just in January almost a million gallon change so um we're we're we're we're tracking every change but the 22,000 gallons that we've given away hasn't been recognized in the system yet so I guess we are at capacity so to be mindful so I get questions what's our capacity left and I mean I I don't know the answer to that I know you guys are administering the policy but it seems like our what we have left is zero basically based on the current conditions is zero but if you go back look if we if we I didn't go back after a year we look like we had some a little bit of capacity like 10% so uh it's hard to find out exactly how much is INF full infiltration we know it in the system so that's why we're trying to be mindful that we're only giving what we can try to take out of the system right now so we're we're counting and all these projects that are just in the pipe many short-term projects in the pipeline right now hopefully we'll find some additional capacity thank you we also want to see the plants flow in capacity because the what flow the Wastewater Treatment Facility in L um because if this is happening to us we want to see the flow you know what the what's happening at the plant because back in 2018 when this sort of you know really blossomed we were overcapacity in 2018 a wet year but the plant was overc capacity as well what we heard this past year fiscal year was that the plant you know season they put in 2 million gallons of untreated sewage into the into the arac river which was the concern but again if you put that aside what's the flow of the plant uh and so that's what we and we should be able to obtain that data relatively soon in terms of flow data because the question really comes down to Virginia is what is the impact of us being at capacity but what's also the impact of the plant being at capacity because the concerns that we have for flow are are shared by our our our other contributors to the system that Al that owned by the city of L drit um and tingbo um because when this is the Chelsea data but tingbo is based into ours but tsoro also has separate capacity through drit so we want to basically get a better understanding of what's going on in the other communities and what's going on through the plant and then the big question is is what's the doing as a regulatory agent uh and overseeing the plant operations and so that should come into Clarity uh within the next several weeks what you're saying is even if we War a capacity we may be shut off because of other towns and what L is doing right right right because that's what that's what we want to find out because what the agreement says is the the city of L has the ability to assess us for impacts of being over our capacity that's never occurred they've never done that we haven't seen that but we also want to know is well what is their permitted capacity in which there operational capacity and the problem was is we could never get any movement on that because they were going through the negotiations on the consent order that's now been completed uh by the 200 million uh do project that that was reported a few months ago um but now that that sort of is cleared what what has been conveyed to us is because our flow goes through their pipes we are going to be receiving double- digit Assessments in our flow treatment to the plant uh as part of the regional agreement in the years ahead but I think we also want to understand is well what is what is going on with that plant because if the capacity is a constraint in chelwood isn't isn't it also the plant's capacity a constraint for all the other communities including the city of L plus they've been turned down for additional uh cap you know additional capacity or to expand well they have no room to expand that's the problem it's on an island but we want to see what their plan is they yeah they don't have a plan yet right that's no there is no plan for expansion by by the city to expand their plant but that's what we want to see because we're seeing regularly plans for development in the city you know whether it's commercial and or residential and with I know I for one I'll say you know is the word I I'm wondering well how how does that occur when you've got a limited sewer capacity at the plant aside from the the combined sewer outflow issue we don't really have any other options either do we no not at the time it doesn't and that's that's why we're looking you know how about Bara we can't do B has turned us down they will not U bro it at this time because again they're reserving capacity for themselves and again when I mentioned earlier about the mwa sewer capacity water capacity that's been baned about but there's not been any similar Outreach from the MW regarding sewer capacity um so that's why we're exploring is the is their ability to connect to a Bedford or you know or Burlington and then the other big question is does the town want to do that I mean that that's going to be the bigger question is well what would it cost and then the other question is do you want to do that because can we afford it right afford it but also what are the implications of that for the for the community itself um so it's it's you know so anyway we're hoping to get um some data in the next several weeks about what is going on with the plant the flow and again what's the regulatory agency um which is the same one that's having us do the smoke testing everything else well how are they looking how is the D looking at the facility because it's of interest to us obviously so that's yeah that's where we're at okay any other questions all right I'm going to go right on to Paving and sidewalk master plan so I wanted to provide an update uh I I provided a similar presentation last year I did go in more in depth last year because last year we we had just received our sidewalk master plan um put that was put together so this is just update for uh our Paving and sidewalk update so we have our our pavement um management system system that we have 187 Mi of road that is a database that we have that we maintain annually um we look we use that database to plan looking out a few years and also annually looking at preventative maintenance or um more structural Rehabilitation to the roadway we also have a whole grading of the road system uh looking at all anyway from arterial roads to collectors and local roads and so we use this and this is updated by our engineering department um and also this we all also now that we have a sidewalk master plan that um those databases do speak to each other so we use them uh together to develop our system next up so uh when we look at pavement management the pavement management system we look at a rating of the roadway so anything from a zero to 100 100 being a brand new road zero being a gravel road uh we right and then we do also so this is in our system um each Road has a rating next slide please so there's different treatments recommended based on the rating of a road do nothing anything from a 93 to 100 and then you get down to routine maintenance preventative so where you start to see the ratings of 73 to 85 preventative maintenance that's where you might see some crack seiling last year we also implemented our pilot program for micro sealing that's more preventative maintenance beyond that you get into structural Rehabilitation of the roadway at different levels Mill and over sometimes we do spot mailing on a roadway or reclaim is the more uh more uh in-depth repair and that's really I think what we focus on on our pavement program I'll explain what we did last year and what we're doing this um upcoming year is really let Mill and overlay Mill and over recation and we are um we did a micro sealing and we do want to continue that and and so in terms of structural improvements based Rehabilitation yeah 0 to 60 6 is so 61 to 72 it's Mill and overlay typically sometimes you do some leveling and base rehab is where that's where you 0 to 60 you see the reclaim is really that's where you have is really the only option or full depth Reclamation um so what we do is we do a compilation of our roadway we have a rating of 78.3 um this year and it really is we did a lot of Paving last year and I'll get into it last year our number was 76.9 and this this year at 78.3 so that is great to see that Improvement and that puts us right in about the preventative maintenance category which is great is that majority of our roads are in fair condition this is and this is a long list I I'll have I'll summarize it in the next slide but this just shows all the roads that we completed this is really a screenshot of our database um it shows the name of the road the segments the treatment type um the the area and then the miles so in total this is and this also includes the uh mot portions of road so mot did Paving on Gren Road and North Road so that's also updated in the database so last year we did 13.6 miles of P of pavement uh or roadway reconstruction uh $1.26 million of town funds were spent that is separate from the mass doot funds they Gren Road and North Road were paid by mass doot we also spent 56 just under $57,000 in crack ceiling here's just some examples Pine Hill Road that was a road that was under reclaim Sandra drive so this was part of our micro seiling pilot and that uh actually we looked at it this winter and it did hold up well so we do want to continue that micr it's essentially a driveway what you have is a driveway seal that is applied to a a roadway and then we have an example here Erland Road Mill and overlay so we we do have a three-year outlook on our Paving plan but we we do publish the calendar year Paving so that this is um will now be on our website we actually just actually recommendation to award bids tonight we have a number of um products we have total of 9.7 miles proposed for a total estimated construction cost of $3.3 million a lot of that is Reclamation so as you do a more uh if as you do roadway Reclamation is the most expensive and something as whereas micro seiling is is the least expensive um repair a couple projects Drum Hill is on here so that is happening this year Dunstable Road um and also and I'll get into the sidewalk plan we do look at the sidewalk plan along with the paving plan uh I just want to note too that we it says here some streets are still being evaluated so all the projects are just out to bid a recommendation tonight there are a couple streets where we had flagged for for Mill and overlay but we just want to look at it to see if it if it can go if it needs to go to reclaim so there might be some minor tweaks from this list but this is the the list that was bid um in our in it just is mostly uh accurate Christina how do you how do you read this with the three street names there sure so the the um I apologize so like with the chart you were just on the the top the top one says Marin AB gr Road D that would be the name of the street and then it's from to from where from where Gren Road and dunable Road intersect Marin that's no have to apologize the next number is is the rating so you see 62 that's the roadway rating so we look at that um that is what we so sometimes a lot of times so 53 that's a reclaim uh also we also identify what is chapter 90 so this funding is chapter 90 we also have capital and also we have last year's uh allocation from the free cash as well thank you and last is the uh is the recommended treatment so do we not have many in in the low numbers I mean looks like the lowest number I see here is like a 44 yeah we I think a lot of I would say a lot of our streets are 50 60 70 well the average is 78 so we do still I would say there's a good what looking back at uh past few years we spent a lot of money on Mill and overlay we do need to focus start to focus on the reclaim so there's a good amount of streets that fall in the 40s 50s uh 60s and that's where we have to focus reclaim so that's why I think you maybe see a shift in the dollar amount from last year to this year because it does cost more to do reclaim you'll find every now and then some you know 30s and various reasons why we haven't done it um but for the most part I mean the average is 78 uh I I would say actually I do and I didn't provide it but we do have a breakdown of how many miles for each uh roadway rating okay and and obviously we're trying to get to those just the the funds obviously aren't there or it could be a various sometimes if it's under like if we know there's a development happening next year we don't want to maybe do the roadway reconstruction so this or if get National Grid knows they have have to get in there then we want them to get in there before we do the road so there's various uh considerations taken into effect or even maybe looking at the sidewalk program okay part of it is also the the category of the road you you've got high volume traffic roads like dun Drum Hill Road dunable road so forth where you've got higher volumes and higher speeds so you got to do those first one is you don't want to lose them but also it's a safer safety condition and overall condition as opposed to you tend to have like a little know Connector Road yeah little which is which is very low volume very low speed probably could be in worse condition but be but it it it falls down the ranking because of the the the the overall big picture of it yeah one that I get I get sure uh you know asked about frequently is Willis drive right exactly yeah exactly just doesn't have the just doesn't have the the volume that it's got you know that because you know if you just Target all your Monies to those roads then you would actually be losing spot because your your higher roads take more abuse and wear um so yeah the the other thing to not is there are a number of streets where uh the they're not accepted or they're unaccepted so we're also trying to go through that the database to make sure that the road's accepted actually parkur is on her park hurse is on here this year and that wasn't accepted which is uh hard to believe so we're going through the process of hiring a survey to make sure it's accepted so we can also do it this year uh but there are a number of other streets we get calls and that road isn't accepted so sometimes you see something that could be a rating of a 30 or 40 and then we look at it and we say oh this is not an accepted right away or not private or a private I I thought that was something we were kind of trying to focus on in the past years we have yeah and something we'll try to pick up in more in the future I haven't seen any the past couple years now that I think because a lot of it was just driven by you know addressing the road conditions okay that is something that we are looking at annually to to look at that list to see how we can update it so it for we do look at both uh how for the sidewalk program I mean the focus is we spend a lot of money on our pavement program but also want to look at improving our sidewalks um just last year we did 1,200 linear feet of replacement on Church Street we also did sidewalk on main street from the Town Line to School Street Wilson Street we did just outside here 415 linear feet replaced Central Square there was miscellaneous brick replaced in the center uh also what we do is last year when we did our uh our sidewalk master plan there's a number of curb ramps that need to be improved for Ada accessibility so we do Target at least 20 year out and that's 20 outside of the areas we're working in uh so we did Target 20 last year just to we want to uh work on on those annually so6 miles replaced $466,000 spent this is an example of 44 Central Square you can see before the ponding at that ramp and we improve that ramp to address that ponding so next year this this coming year we have I would say more sidewalk work occurring and I'll just go over this list here old Westford road so this is a new section of sidewalk this is a segment that I think was identified when we look at our master plan as a segment that U would be desired to better connect the the sidewalk Network also Old westf Road is an area where uh recently we had done some work um and it's on the paving plan so a lot of this I guess when we have new sidewalk we're also trying to coincide it with the paving plan Cushing place that was a project that that street is also under uh on the paving list so that they had been um a plan to make a new brick sidewalk on that uh looking I guess looking away from the center on the right side so that's in here park H Street there's a segment of sidewalk missing so that parkst street is in need of repair but also a good time to install the sidewalk so that's a partial new sidewalk as well and then going down the list long Spur Road Clyde stale Road Windsor Street coincides with our Paving program parkerville Road this is a new sidewalk that was at was as part of our Federal grant so outside of any funding that we have previously allocated whether through chapter 90 or the town um that is we just found out that we've been awarded $350,000 the project in total will be about 500 $550,000 um and we'll have money this coming fall for it but that is 3500 linear feet of sidewalk on one side of the street which is great because that was uh much requested by the especially adjacent to the BAM school so that's something that all the projects I think for tonight that we that are being recommended um a lot of the paving projects those are you know we'll be starting construction in the next couple weeks the parkerville road we're actually going to have to put out for separate project we're right now we're going to move to design and that would probably be something that would be bid later this uh later this uh summer early fall Essex Place in percher on road this was sidewalk that was originally anticipated last year to go coincide with last last year's Paving program because a lot of the rain and the weather um these just were basically pushed to this year we also like I said we want to Target the miscellaneous curb ramps so we're looking at at least 20 locations we have those um that is Al that is recommended through our Ada trans or our assessment and then 2600 linear feet that was delayed from last year Tings Boro Road this was a mast project they bid it last year I think there were delay with the rain that's anticipated to begin this spring so $2.5 million proposed 1.1 million estimated construction that doesn't include the cost isn't inclusive of mass Do's price or the parkerville or it does include parkerville Road um including that $350,000 Grant just a quick summary of the sidewalk master plan so we did do a whole inventory last year 462 miles um of sidewalk and also every single ramp is inventoried so we have this master plan in our dat we use this to coincide with the pavement management plan um very detailed every curb ramp and the sidewalks the length the width the material so it's it's great and we do update this annually um through with our engineering department uh here I just want to high so I already mentioned the 46.5 miles this was based on last year's numbers which is we you know we only did 6 miles so of our entire network we have about four miles of poor replace 25% is uh a fair we have a large percentage that are in good condition and uh 10% of the Network's in excellent condition and the 756 curb ramps those are curb ramps owned by the town so we still have there's a significant amount remaining um but we do want to Target at least 20 a year or more um it will take it's it will take us a while to get through them um but I think as long as we have a plan to pick away at it um that backlog is 2. million $2.2 million just in curb ramps and then in total backlog of just the existing sidewalk is $22 million so a significant uh you know needs between both the side that's just for the sidewalks alone and this the next slide so what we had looked at the opportunities to better connect the network I just want to highlight these three segments here so this is better connecting the network up on the top is Parkers Road uh to the right is uh Old West Road and then on the bottom is the biome school so these will better connect the network these are proposed sections coinciding with either the paving program or in the parkerville situation having a Federal grant opportunity um in totality there's 14.1 miles of opportunity so that's an additional $13 million above the $22 million so significant amount of opportunity for new sidewalk um also as we add sidewalk we have to look at the maintenance of it when we do install sidewalk we want it to be at least 5 ft wide because of the machines that have to down the side I'm sorry so this is where we're putting new sidewalk or this is where you this is our master plan to show so this this shows the entire town um anything in per Circle areas are PVE or sidewalks proposed for this year okay as as new sidewalk new new sidewalks the purple are are show the connections to the existing Network and then the other colors just based on I think the condition of it so I think different from last year uh is that we're you know this year is a big year we're making connections within our Network and adjacent to schools or near schools are there any questions no thank you thank you thank you and lastly I uh there was sorry actually just lost my piece of paper but there is a earmark request uh I know there's potentially an opportunity for think I left my piece of paper but potentially an opportunity for earmark uh opportunity and looking in the next fy2 opportunities what we've identified is the Stony Brook so right now we are designing the bridge School Street at Stony Brook Bridge uh Rehabilitation project some of going back to a 2017 report there's been some settlement of some of the uh Stones this vegetation uh where the pro the design itself we have allocated Capital funds is $150,000 we're proceeding with that design that it does involve coordination with cs CSX that's where just at a little bit of a hold right now because we do have to get onto the property to do borings we hope to advance that design this year the next steps though would to try to secure funding for that Rehabilitation and right now it's estimated uh about 500,000 $500,000 so the earmark would be the request for to care of the construction in in that amount of $500,000 and so why this is tonight is since our last meeting we did receive correspondence from congresswoman Tran's office um basically asking for project interest for the fiscal year 25 federal budget which you know begins in October um so when Christine and I spoke and knew she was coming in PR the request tonight we thought we'd bring this for you and hopefully have your approval that we could submit the the this project uh for federal funding much like we just received the funding for the parkerville BR project because it's it's a discret identifiable achievable project um and um as we saw she she she announced uh you know a couple weeks ago that she's had she was able to secure the funding for our project as well as other towns um uh and so again they're now looking for projects for the upcoming year so do you want to vote on this one how much are we asking for it's a it's not there's nothing in there it's a half million um so it's an increase above the funding amount we Reed the 350 this year but we did see in the past year you know there were there was you know majority of the funding went to the city of O however you may have saw that they they they had over a million dollars of funding for the town of Bara Center Improvement project which of course didn't get fun got you know didn't didn't Advance through the whole Community uh and there were other projects in other towns so when we looked at it and said well what given that we were sort of you know guided um in our request last year to around 350 or so we thought we would just take a leap to 500 to see if we could get it for this for this Bridge Project we also think that the federal government would be inclined to fund a Bridge Project given that their concern in terms of conditions of infrastructure um so that's why we we we suggested that this may be a very tangible clearly understood um also Community beneficial because if the federal government doesn't fund it we're going to have to fund it next year's Capital uh because this project has has to take place I think also the grant uh requests indicated projects that are near ready so we're advancing the design so it does make it a more attractive project with it being near ready what was the um what's the sidewalk hole that keeps getting brought up at town meeting is that getting add rest in the sidewalk plan I know one was the parkerville where we got funding the the other sidewalk concern and and DPW is struggling with this is the one on on Turnpike Road is how do how do you get that Gap School sou Center school or South no South Turnpike would be near the center school we have $500,000 we do have $500,000 in funding I didn't put it in this year's sidewalk plan because we do have a permitting obstacle to get over um but we have until December of next year to to use the fund so hopeful that it would be a project for next year we're just trying to find what's the the cons the wetlands replicate yeah right so we need to come up with 5,000 cubic yards of compensatory storage um we're having difficulty locating that finding that location essentially there's one point where we need a bridge and that that is uh in in order to do that we need to find compensatory storage um so if you go if you go the credit that's the repeated concern that keeps coming up in so we have the funding we have to just get to get through some wickets to use it it's the it's it's and we and Christine and her staff have have have sought assistance from National Grid on Wetlands replication thus far it's not not happening um so if you just visualize if if you if you are out sometime in the community you go past the credit union heading you know down you know towards mil road that direction you know so away from Golden Cove you know that way on the left hand side you can see how wet it is there and the problem is is you know you you need to have sufficient Road width for you know sidewalk travel lanes and so forth well there's Wetlands there there's no dry land and you can't go to the other side because of the houses that are there and so that's the issue is is it may you know we we're trying to find a wetland replication area uh that you know we we approach National Grid and we're trying to find a solution because the idea of building some kind of a bridge is ridiculously expensive did they put a big bridge in there down there there's a big cul there big CT there but not a bridge and so that's been the concern and you know because we've been talking about doing Turnpike Road for a half dozen years uh and we we you know time they building kinlock I mean if you go back to that perating thing and that's been the obstacle is is that Wetland area uh as you come again on that side on that side because you can see it no because if you can see it if you if you start at kinlock and start coming on you've got those indust buildings you've got dry land and sidewalk area and right of way the problem is is you then keep now coming from this way and approaching towards the credit union there's nothing there but wet other side of the street isn't an option just because the houses are too closed not white yeah there isn't enough RightWay because otherwise we'd have done it by now I mean I was just asking in the context of this if that was another consideration but we have the funding yeah it it's just it's just the permitting issue and it's it's not for lack of trying yeah we thought car there were other projects that we honestly thought of um we have we have a lot of needs um carile Street being one of them is this then if we got the funding and then having to do it in the next year or two and then if the bridge uh Bridge Project is underway it might be difficult to do that project so this do seem like a great opportunity because we're in the we're this year we'll complete the design want a motion I'll make a motion to um approve the town manager's request for a fiscal year 25 Federal earmark request for the school street at Stony Bridge Rehabilitation project I'll second the motion you have a motion a second all in favor Paul since we're talking about School Street um it reminded me about that train building yeah there there is an update um I did receive an update too bad Deb left the meeting but they did get the permit and I think in the next several weeks you'll see that coming down and being relocated finally okay wonderful for the the old Freight House yes believe it or not it it yeah as as Christine noted in one of her early comments it's very difficult to work with the railroad uh and that proved to be the case why it's taken so hung in this case as well they don't own it anymore either at least it didn't fall down yeah no it didn't fall down but it's going to be disassembled and then reassembled okay all right thank you thanks good see all right next up is um our proposed um Municipal property lighting policy uh so Paul if you want to give a recap of what you provided certainly so at the the last meeting of the board you had asked me to review the zoning bylaws and determine if there was any exceptions applicable to municipally owned property um so there's no General exception for zoning on municipally zoned um municipally owned properties um so I reviewed the bylaw and took a look at the the exceptions and there are there are some exceptions in there but none of them that would be applicable in this instance um so what that ultimately means is that town-owned property is subject to the bylaw which includes in section 19 uh 1953 4 C subsection 8 no flashing moving color open parentheses white only close parentheses or revolving lights shall be maintained so now there may be opportunities for situations where there's um lighting that predates the adoption of this zoning bylaw there could be pre-existing non-conforming status but leaving that out the only other way in which the town could have of um color lights approved on Municipal properties um is in section 195-43 when it comes to the use of colored lights okay is there any uh interest in doing that any appetite to I have no appetite no George how about you oh I think I you look like you're all ready to do we have bigger fish to fry still trying to swallow it but uh all right well I guess that uh I mean we we probably do need to come up with a policy similar to our flag policy just to reiterate I would say I mean unless we well at least when it just say by the bylaw just say according to town bylaws yeah yeah it's fine do we need to do do we need in this instance I don't think there is a need we would just tell people we can't do colid lighting but what you what you will see is is you will see the white lighting that for the mon for the monument in the center but because that's white yeah just want you know that done in the next several weeks by DPW the permanent install but but no there'll be no card as we'll tell people so okay okay all right that solves that huh well that was an easy one then thank you Paul welcome thank you for that so on to the regulatory agreements yeah uh re real quickly um you've you've sort of saw this at a previous meeting and now I'm sort of bringing them both in we have now before you the regulatory agreements and in the um local Initiative Program applications for the local action units for all the units at 255 prinson street so that that basically includes the six the six units for the um traml Crow development uh as well as the 56 54 units for the um the choice development on there so um what I'm seeking this evening would be for the board to approve the submitt of of the approve the the regulatory agreements in in uh local indust of applications uh and then authorize me to submit them on behalf of the town to to the state um so they can be part of our the town's uh subsidized housing inventory so 54 excuse me 54 54 plus 6 so it's 54 at the Choice development and then the six at the traml C traml Crow development so again we're bringing them both here I know you saw one of these over 10% right now then that would get us over the 10% but as Council notes that only will get us to 10% till October when when the choice units were were were approved um so that'll carry us to October of 24 so basically six six months or so from now so on on the first page of the first agreement that we have here the one that we saw last time this on the second from the bottom paragraph it says a total of 54 should that say 60 yeah no because it's two separate agreements the 54 is on the 2.08 acres and then the other agreement is six units on the 31.9 2 Acres so if you that's what I'm saying if you put the two agreements side by side there there's you know what is that the six in here right I don't see the six you have you you should you have two agreements you have two two agreements in there um so the the large unit which is the treml crow was 31.9 two acres which is six units the 2.08 acres is the 54 units which is the choice development so you should have in your packets the the two regulatory agreement and then the two applications that's why I want that's why I wanted to bring them all together so you'd see the whole puzzle okay and I have another question to is is a local action different than a local Initiative Program because this I mean Is this different than the lifp that we're going to be looking at next month yes well it is so the local Initiative Program there's two different aspects to it one of it is actually acts as a 40b subsidy program similar to the process that you saw tonight where an applicant goes to a a subsidy uh program gets a project eligibility letter comes in front of the board of appeals and pursues a comprehensive permit project but there's also a different aspect of lip where if the town has a local bylaw um that allows creation of affordable housing through that bylaw through a special permit process um that can be considered to be a lip and then you submit a local action unit application along with that lip so that you can add those units to your subsidized housing inventory so it's it's sort of two different aspects of a same program one is actually part of the 40b process and one of them is outside of the 40b process that allows towns to count units that they have approved through local local action okay so otherwise we would not be able to count these correct that's correct so until until executive office of Housing and livable Community signs off on the local action unit application these units will not be able to be counted on the town subsidized housing inventory okay it's a matter of timing in other words right yes it certainly timing is a factor one thing I will note I'm not sure whether or not eohc has reviewed and approved these regulatory agreements yet I mean it's a form document so it's really just fill in the blanks I don't know what objections they may raise but the potential is there that they may send this back to us and say we've made X Y and Z changes you need to re-execute this however I definitely recommend sending it to them executed now because the quicker we can get through this process the quicker we can get these units added onto our Shi so in the the first document is this 255 Princeton ra the second document is this 255 Princeton Street alexen La a and in that one that's the local action unit okay let me just keep going here so in that one there's a section called Community Support narrative project description and documentation and there is a narrative that starts with Alexon chelsford will consist of 340 units the fourth document is the choice la application but there's no that section is totally blank where it says provided description of narrative there's stuff at the bottom of the document after the signature pages so is that what is that what we're signing off on so like if if we just the first the first one that we approved last time that's the regulatory agreement for traml Crow MH okay then the second one in the packet you said that's the lau application right traml Crow right right each one you have a regulatory agreement you have your local action unit application okay so the third one in the packet is the regulatory agreement is that for Choice that's for Choice yes okay and then what I'm looking at is the fourth one which is the lau application for choice but that whole section that says provideed description is blank and then it goes to signatures and then after the signatures there's some content so I'm just trying to figure out what the document supposed to are we signing off on the content that's after the signatures I'm looking look at page two on that document where it says Community Support narrative it's blank and what should be there is a description of the process approving the choice units right so so that's blank and then there's the signature Fields after that and then starting on page four after the signature Fields is there's content about the developer and the project and the unit composition so is that document okay or does it what I'm saying you find it yeah it's so what you're saying is here on the Alexa right you so you've got this in here and the one for David's project is blank but then you have the accomp pages of the project description right so there should just be added to the choice one just the blurb explaining that process um and I think the board can vote to sign it still you know with the condition that that be added to it you okay for a motion sure we don't have to do each one individually do we do we I don't think so we can do them all together I will make a motion to approve the four regulatory agreements for subsidized housing units at 25 5 Princeton Street um with the choice Lau application modified to include the required narrative description of the project I'll second the motion okay we motion and second all in favor I okay thank you thank you you need me for anything else uh I think that should do it thanks have a good night all right um we'll look at our proposed meeting schedule for the month of April yeah hopefully it's pretty straightforward um a week from tomorrow is the town election the board traditionally would reorganize uh two days later on Thursday evening April 4th this year uh fortunately we have five Mondays in April this year so the thought would be the board would meet Monday the 8th which is two weeks from tonight um the following Monday is the Patriots Day holiday then the following Monday the 22nd the board would meet and then we would uh be at town meeting the following Monday the 29th I'm sure we'll we'll use those uh meetings very so they yeah and actually it gives the board two meetings of which to we'll we'll do the presentation on the warrant articles the first meeting in April but it will give you that additional time if you need it on the 22nd for your well we also are beginning that public hearing on the yeah we also have the public the local initiative uh on the 8th as well yep so we'll have some busy meetings yep so there please reor is at 62 also right correct yeah all right anybody have any issue with those dates okay thank you right um we have an appointment somebody who has applied for the vacancy under clean energy and sustainability committee um I do not know this person but U looks very qualified from his background anybody have any questions concerns looks okay me okay have a motion I'll make a motion for the select board to appoint Nicholas Mercier to the clean energy and sustainability committee for a three-year term ending June 30th 2024 now second at the motion there a motion in a second all in favor hopefully we'll see his name again in a few months okay bit Awards yeah just the DPW bid Awards this evening as as DPW director Christine Clancy noted earlier uh the DPW cond conducted bid openings for Mill and overlay and for full depth reclaim and Paving and hot mix asphalt uh obtain at the plant um for the paving for Mill and overlay there were four bids submitted the low bid was by was submitted by Newport at 17755 for the um Paving full depth Reclamation there were five bids submitted and you can see the glow bid was submitted by Newport uh at a price of $1,527 20 20 1,527 ,250 and then for the um hot asphalt mix had plant that was it was just one bid the bid price is $39,990 from wholesome which is the form aggregate off of uh Oak Oak Street so again I'd seek your confirmation for those three bid Awards any questions okay I just trying to read the letter I'll make a recom I'll I'll make a motion to approve the award of the mill and overlay in the amount of $1,775 500 the full depth reclaim and Paving in the amount of 1,527 ,250 to Newport construction court and a motion to award the hot mix asphal plant in the amount of 39,2 120 to hulc Neer Inc period I'll second the motion period okay we a motion in a second all in favor it's getting late to the end thank you and then the next one is for the for the high school kitchen Remodeling and upgrade um there were two bids submitted for that and we're recommending the bid to the lowest qualified bidder which was the low bidder uh in the am in the amount of 1, 15706 64 to perard Construction Corporation I'll make a motion to approve the kitchen model and upgrade award at the chelsford high school in the amount of 1,570 664 toic Construction Corporation I'll second the motion okay motion and the second all in favor great than and then lastly the bid award for the kitchen equipment purchase for the high school kitchen renovation and as you can see there there were um there were two three four five six seven uh people who obtained the bid specifications three of them uh submitted bids and the bid award is submitted to the lowest bid which was the lowest qualified bid of singer krid in the amount of $333,900 sorry I'll make a motion to approve Award of the contract for the kitchen equipment purchase at chelsford High School in the amount of $333,900 to singer kitridge a second motion okay a motion and a second all in favor thank you right thank you all right now we have reports yeah I'll go real quickly I recognize we're we're been here for our third hour um double poll report the way we left it with National Grid you left what ntion grid was you asked them to come back quarterly but to provide monthly reports what I have for you is the um March double pole report dated March 20th um basically where it stands in at this point we have um 66 double polls um and in terms of the balls in whose Court in other words who's next to act there are 13 uh by the town and two by the fire department um and just to give a reference point back in February the previous report there was 64 double polls two double poles have been added however the town of champet has removed seven a net of seven out of its court so a year month ago we were 20 we're in our court to get the movement done and the work so DPW has contracted uh because the weather cooperated uh to re to remove to you know to basically get a net of seven of those double polls uh addressed so now that the weather is getting better uh we we we'll hope to see more progress on this so that's where things stand on the double poles um at this point in time so and and I think even today they were doing some some work down here on Boer Road almost near um Turnpike and golden Cove so there was someone working on a double pole there so just wanted to let you know that we We are following up as directed by the board in terms of requesting monthly reports and then we'll have them come in uh next order yeah I was a little like I guess I expected to see the you know the the little box that would show how many were removed and how many were added I mean I I know I can ask National Grid to do that they've done that in the past helpful yeah I mean you can you could guess I mean you look at the ones that were this year and added this year although it says it was one that was added um 118 20124 I don't know how that happened okay I'll ask that next time submit the report thank you um real update on on coolest farm um and again it's it's up to the moment as of including work today but the coolest farm task force met last Wednesday this was a follow-up from the two weeks prior where they received the expressions of Interest proposals um for the property um and basically there wasn't a full whole component of the board there but there was a quorum uh and there was really a consensus because members who weren't there sort of submitted their opinions and writing long story short and you probably seen some of this um on social media but the task force does support the creation of native pollinator Meadow on the main 25.2 acre parcel U they also support the location of a wildlife refuge clinic on the main 25.2 acre parcel um they support ha cultivation on the 6 and 1 12 acre parcel that's located across the street from the main parcel on um pineh Hill Road and then for the 6.6 acre 6.66 acre parcel located off of Hunt Road they they support agricultural use of that property that was the only use that came forward and seemed to be viable because of the wetlands at that location um what the task force did agree to do is they're going to further explore whether an agriculture use by Western Nurseries can be accommodated the main 25.2 acre parcel um what what what I informed the committee of and and and and would point out to the board and the community is the proposed uses um for a wildlife clinic and by Weston Nurseries or any proposed use that would require a lease from the town of more than five years requires town meeting approval our town meeting bylaws basically require town meeting approval for any lease period of any Municipal property um for more than five years requires town meeting approval also I pointed out to to the task force and and and noted here is that um you also have procurement issues as well um in that we just can't say oh give us a f give us a x period number lease because we you know we want to lease it to x what you the town has to do a a um to put the building up no you'd have to get the approval to do it and then you know you know you get proof of funds proof of fin yeah you have to do a procurement process unless you're going to go through some special Act of the legislature um you know to direct it U but basically if so so for example if Weston Nurseries wants to use it for for their commercial operations on you know down the street you know that they have on on Pine Hill Road well you would have to get town meeting approval to well first thing you got to do is you got to get the preservation restriction on placing the property then you have to get the town me approval to lease for more than 5 years then you have to put it out to a competitive bid process um for for the proposed use of the property um so and the and noting that the preservation restriction on the property is is very similar to what we've been hearing updates from from the Conservation Commission regarding the Warren pole property um the town has to uh draft the preservation restriction that that's approved by a qualified third party nonprofit organization uh that would enforce the Pres ation restriction that to to date and chall it has been by the land trust and then you also have to submit that document uh to the message the executive office of energy and environmental Affairs um and again that would all have to occur before you do any of this type of work because you got to make sure that it's allowed and approved um to do that and as we've seen that that does take some time because it's not just drafting a RFP or a document you have to go out into the Baseline survey have a party go out and do that and and and develop that full plan and then also identify the uses and and what's allowed and so forth and again we we know that this takes time um so where the task force is at this point they're going to conduct another site visit which hasn't been scheduled at this point in time to to clearly understand and identify their recommended locations uh for the various uses on the parcels particularly the main parcel which has multiple uses from um you know Wild live Refuge Meadows handicapped accessible Trails parking and so forth um and then I then I expect that the task force will then come present to to you the select board for uh their their findings and recommendations um what did happen again is recently is this morning is the demolition of the res residential structure was uh was initiated and completed um and now the site has been filled by the DPW to create a you know a safe even level surface on the site um the next item and essentially now near the end of the dpw's um responsibilities and ass at that site because they are as Christine noted are Public Works director they're now pivoting to road construction and other as the season opens up um they're going to put gravel down to create a temporary 15 space parking area um in the distribut area near the front of the property they also um and I was out there this morning with Chris in in Joe Ericson our our Highway superintendent in addition to laying the gravel and creating that designated parking area they're also going to secure the property from um anybody who would wander out of the parking area to the rear of the property in other words you're going to see some big Stones the so that somebody doesn't leave the parking area and cause damage on the property um because if if you look at it now it's pretty wide open um so that that will occur uh in in the next uh couple of weeks um and then the only other final thing is the task force and I support the notion of there is some there we we do have time to get some initial agricultural uses out there this season namely while all this other stuff is taking place so um namely we can take the parcel that's um the 6 and a half acre across the street which has traditionally been hay I you we can issue a license meaning for this Con this growing season um and then similarly for the oneoff of Hunt Road give a license for the growing season um so that that area can at least be improved and and and developed like just hay yeah well hay hay would be hay would be done on the six and a half acre parcel AC off of pineh Hill Road I think you're hearing pumpkins or gourds that kind of thing off of Hunt Road but they want to get in there be and and and and do that work because if you're going to get seeds in the ground you really want to do that by June 1st so if the boy has no objections I would I will issue one day licenses one year one year licenses um to to the parties who express interest again it binds the town to nothing they're revocable at will uh it's very similar to the it's the license agreements that we have at Sunny Meadow and so forth that we we do annually with the farming activities over there so we would have a nominal payment you know for that use of the land and then they would go out there and basically turn the soil is but they're really going to turn the soil and improve it they wouldn't be putting up fences and things like that like for no because we can't we don't have all the process and approvals in place to do that to put structures if can't put fencing they but basically does is it it it allows some activity to take place as opposed to another year of it just overgrowing and growing foul because if you ride by on Pine Hill you can see that it's not been addressed in several years and that's when you start getting the growth and the thickets and particularly off of Hunt Road you've got a few years of growth there that they they got to go in and basically cut that and and and so again it just it just starts a process uh without obligating the town to anything in the future but otherwise it's going to sit vacant for another year the pumpkins and gourds was for the organization that donates most of their food so that and that's so that's the similar to what we did at Waton farm for them Y and then the the hay cultivation is that basically for-profit yes yeah very similar to what we do with Sheen Farm down the street it's the same we do that we we have a precedent for that already do we do we charge them for that yeah it's not a huge amount of fund the other one we charge like a dollar right right um no it's not not not Sheen at won farm for the one that does it for um to help feed the hung exactly y but but where it's a for-profit the for-profit farmers at Sunny Meadow Farm and at and um and at Sheen Farm they they pay they pay a cash payment to the town uh at the end of the growing season that's how we get to the payment that way they get the revenue from their activities and then they make a payment to the town is there consideration I thought I heard somebody mention like whether the wildlife would be on the main parcel or one of the smaller ones are they considering that or it's considering no it is considering that part of the site walk yeah it's part of the site walk um I mean there was a question about could you put the wildlife you know Clinic over off of Hunt Road would it fit there the problem is is what we don't have the wetlands have 25 acres is huge right the wet oh it wouldn't be the whole thing it would just be a portion the the the wetlands have been flagged but they haven't been mapped uh and so that's going to take some time other words because of the weather conditions they were able the Wetland scientist was able to go out there and identify the wetlands that now fieldwork has to be converted to a survey map that we can and then once you have that work then you know your buffer zones because you get the 25 foot non- disturb within a wetland and then the 50 Foot uh buffer zone and then that can determine Virginia whether or not you could actually fit the wildlife Clinic off of Hunt Road is there sewer on either of the smaller Parcels there is sewer at the there was there was um there's sewer lines going past them which you can make a connection yes there's there was a sewer obviously at the residential dwelling which is capped right um so that could be uncapped um and and yeah you could make um yes you could you you can make it make it and uh so we're looking at that I um we're again it's part of the effort I mean new houses asked the town and others to look for potential locations so we are looking at at coolest uh I'm also exploring other possible locations um where they may be able to to um you know to to locate in in the community so that's the coolest update um and then real real quickly um where we are with the north fire station it's good news um the vendor which is triumph modular who is the vendor for the modular project up there has agreed to replace the facade up at the North fire station what was agreed by Triumph and by the building committee recommendation is not to replace it with the same product um so that we're looking uh right now putting on an alternative EX a sighing the building committee is going to meet in two weeks from Tomorrow design you mean yeah no it's not going to it's not going to it's it's not going to be Brook it's G it's going to probably be some you know but it wants to fit with the industrial characteristic of the neighborhood yeah that it was right so that's that's that's what's going to happen that we've um again the building committe is going to meet in two weeks and we'll probably back here next month with the with the update and the plan saying this is how we want to proceed the the good news is this work should be done by the Fourth of July or so I mean it should be done by June so that's good news in terms of finally getting a resolution to the you know the facade and and and the failure of that product and then lastly um I just wanted to inform the board that we we have since our last meeting received additional settlement payments from the national opioid uh litigation settlements uh and the town received over $130,000 um you know from n from the settlements under the payment schedules uh again that under the new state law that goes into a restricted account and is us used only for the specified purposes that are allowed under the opioid settlement which are basically community mental health and substance abuse programs can any I'm sorry go ahead you sure M can any of that be used to so we've funded like additional Health Department position with arpa fund can any of that be used to appli toward that position yes and it also funds that it also funds that um program that you that you see promoted all the time about that the resource for all the residents in the community care Solace program that funding goes to that as well so it it does provide a community benefit that otherwise we wouldn't have or we' be funding through the tax is there a is there a deadline by which you have to expend the funds no but you have to report annually to the to the attorney that would provide some operating budget relief to extend that position that's under arpa right now y so but we we we do have reporting requirements that every fiscal year the town accountant has to certify the monies that were received and then how the monies were expended as part of the settlement agreement so that that's how that will happen yeah so my question is going to be what we have been spending it on and that's what we that's what yeah that's the the care solid program has been the one the big one which um again provides support services for anybody in the community um you know and and it's been very popular they provide monthly reports to the health department and copy me on the utilization of that program okay thank you thank you that that concludes my report this evening thank you all right we're on to minutes I means we're almost done you did a bad job tonight p a bad job it's all your fault yep anybody have any questions concerns about either set of minutes I'll make a motion to approve the select board minutes of September 29th 2023 and March 11th 2024 I'll second the motion have a motion and a second all in favor I'm assuming that's an eye there okay so on to leaon reports and referrals George anything tonight I do um couple quick ones the uh Conservation Commission is expecting to formalize their appointments for the open space and Recreation plan committee at its meeting tomorrow and then they'll do a kickoff in like mid April and then um the finance committee is meeting this Thursday and their current plan is to complete all the financial reviews and then to do their votes on the Warren articles and get that done okay I just have a couple of quick things everybody remember to vote on August second I mean April 2nd and um on our next regular meeting which is April 8th we'll have a full board for the first time in months and and George are you sure there's not something that you want to talk about Mr KO maybe all right Tommy was a great guy he he's being buried uh a week from of the masses a week from today right week from today 7:00 at St Mary's y I don't know if it's a uh life uh you know know if it's a real funeral I'm not sure if it's I think it's a real funeral mass but there's no calling hours there's no service celebration of life yeah celebration of life I'm not sure because he was a good guy you know course my I was tied up a little bit this weekend with my cousin so he passed and whatever but it was it's never easy no matter how old they are how long you know what I mean it just Tommy K was very very well respected by anybody ever know him he was a great friend of my dad's and then he became a great friend of mine so and so many other people and nobody ever said a bad word about him you know so God bless all right one more motion it's 9:19 and I will make make a motion to adjourn um a second I go I guess there we go all right thank you you don't want to turn e e