##VIDEO ID:aG8-yxXH8HA## for meeting of the Esau metal planning board to order those in attendance are Bill fansa candra CH Willam Russell Denver robt trell and we're joined by Rob wasila the planning director yep okay um first thing I need to ask if there's anyone in the audience who might be recording this meeting or or on Zoom if so please state your name and the method you are recording the meeting I'll ask one more time if there's anyone any audience or by Zoom who's recording the meeting please state your name and the method you're recording the meeting hearing none uh the approval of the October 15 2024 Open Session minutes do I have a motion to approve so moved have a second second any discussion hearing none all in favor say I I I um Mr clerk first order business case sp-202 d10 request for an amendment to special permit sp- 22-17 and subsequent Amendment sp-2 2007-10 at 64 North stre formally 6 stre assessor partial ID 1 a-22 D60 business owning District to allow for outdoor dining at villaitana applicant online Monita 666 North Main Street East meow Mass 01028 Mr bonavito or his representative here please come forward state your name and just for everybody in the audience Andor on Zoom please have a seat thank you uh so this planning board asks lots of questions of petitioners and others who come before this board and the primary reason we do that is because there are people on TV who have not seen all the materials that have been submitted in front of us so sometimes it irritates the petitioners but that's life and that's the world we live in so all right who wants to start hi my name is car sign in please sure good night my name is Caro bonavita resident of East Long meow 452 Parker Street been a resident of East Long medal for 30 years uh we open villo Town 27 years ago we've been in business for 27 years F through Co everything we think we uh establish a good business family um restaurant that people come into open seven days a week we're very encapsulated with the space space would work for our business a little for if we had an outdoor patio like everybody else does co uh showed that we can serve outside and and a good establishment okay present the plans Philip berdick architect landscape architect with Springfield Massachusetts I'm going to be presenting on behalf of the um 664 Main Street Main Street which is the building ofana this is the uh plan which you've seen already and going turn the Cana as well if you can angle it in just a way so maybe TV can see some of it Rob can you see yeah it's fine I can I already have a okay great the outdoor dining area familiar with was approved temporary side of the building same areas proposed as before no other site changes are proposed idea is that during nice weather they'd be able to use the space for outdoor dining they also when the restaurant itself has a very small vesu so there maybe times when patrons arrive waiting for a table they might be able to wait outside you know wait at a table outside when the weather is good temporary uh temporary B usage outdoor dining but you're going to do improvements to the outdoor space there's a there's a screen so they screen up parking side solid deck as well there was a deck there previously they're going make deck in and the enclosure is going to be noise proof taller smaller it's going to be a little bit taller it's going to be it's it's it's completely before it was po F now it's all got this sort of screen highly noise like noise suppression so they also want you know not to have the noise coming in as well okay if there are questions we'd be happy to answer I do need to can we do a motion open the public hearing move second all in favor okay so questions um I'll start parking so you're not close to even meeting the ratios it appears you're 15 spots off for that location the parking my understand of the parking was that it's one spot for every three patrons they have 30 parking spaces um designated for restaurant for the convenience store um so I believe that does contract across the street with the AFL Cil for their parking All U parking is not in the 25 years I've been haven't received any complaints about the part I don't want to talk about last 15 years I want to make sure that you comply with the zoning ordinance and how are you gonna comply with the zoning ordinance what's existing site so um it's the parking that was there previously like it's been there for 25 years so it's an existing condition which W we're not we're not seeing you are altering by adding additional space I'm not trying to be difficult I'm trying to comply my answer so hold on one second if I can so you're adding an additional 24 seats call It restaurant operates on the basis of reservations so when people show up for reservation they say would you like to D if sometimes they have patrons who request that they'd be able to dine outside when the weather permits so they're not looking to add additional they're adding give people the option of dining either indoors or Outdoors so if you don't have Walkins it's not like a Chili's or another one I know that I've been to the restaurant often but you're not addressing the question where are you going to meet the ratio for the you're saying that you want additional parking I'm saying the zoning ordinance wants right different than what I want it's what the Zing ordinance wants so how are you gonna get there so you said something about a contract we have a an agreement with the AFL SEO which has multiple parking spaces maybe 50 parking spaces directly across the street from us we also have valy parking too on the weekends so they do park the cars for them so shouldn't be any issues you pull up you get your car parked and they park it in across the street they come out you get your keys they go back they get their car and they bring it back so there not a traffic jam at all that we see and the Neighbors on the street uh have never complained about cars being there also because we don't allow that it's more of a family aren't we Clos very early 10 11:00 we stopped serving uh meal so usually by 12 o'clock the place is closed it's not a bar it's not a hangout so it's more family oriented so do you have that agreement in writing and is that something get that in writing something you just we've just communicated verbally we've used it over 10 years with them guess the restaurant's been successful for a while so theyve allowed us to use it they just say park no problem but I imagine if we ask they would give it to us so we're going to need that okay we're going to need something that is going to indicate that the parking and I'm not saying this is the final approval but something go ahead I was going to just clarify one thing so you know the site is shared between three different businesses you have those two retail places and then you have the restaurant so because you have all three of those businesses on the same site that's what affects the numbers for the parking ratio because of that retail needs about six parking spaces for every 1,000 square feet of retail space there's 1,800 square feet space total between those two businesses roughly that's about 11 parking spaces that's why the number of parking spaces required for all three businesses on site you have metrics for the restaurant and the retail combined that's about 49 spaces needed for the whole site so Mr chair the board could use in its discretion if you feel that there's other parking that could be made available for the business it could be satisfied with a written agreement if if you feel that is acceptable okay we need that in writing something sign I the president of the union or the property owner I would have to go to Providence for the president of the Union no you can you can call him and he can okay send you something in writing okay yeah um so we want something in writing that indicates that you have unlimited usage during your hours of operation and then I would like something in writing that talks about your valet service which I didn't know you had and I think it's wonderful thank you um I don't know I'm the only one asking questions but um I I I think you see where we're going we don't want Wood Avenue overloaded with additional parking I think is what it is I don't think it's been there we've been there 25 years now no we're not expanding I don't think there's been complaints I don't think the police department's had a complaint about us nope we've been a good tenant very difficult to be in the restaurant business for as many years as vill there just trying to cross every te and Dot every eye so yeah yeah it's a sensitive area we've had stuff happen in that with other businesses right now so um I agree I think the is there is there a traffic study for the city has a traffic study there any sort that you guys have a town has it so we can see something if there's any complaints with the city with traffic going by or parking if there were study if there were we if the police had gotten complaints they would have sent us a town and done a study on the traffic there hasn't been complaint but just generated a situation where there are complaints exactly and and just to let you know so the last um two restaurants that came before us we approved outdoor dining but the major focus on both of them which was East Village Tavern and I already forgot the name of the Mexican restaurant not far from you yeah Mexican restaurant yeah we spent a consider amount of time on additional parking requirements because it added uh additional seating for the restaurant and we're trying to treat every business exactly the same wherever we can so yeah yeah so I've been hogging the conversation my concern my concern was the parking spaces is I know I'm consistent I'm concerned with parking and you know I don't live too far from there guys do a phenomenal job there aren't any problems but we got to make sure that there aren't any any we don't cause any problems by allowing this that's all we're just trying we're not playing hard ball here we're just as Russ said we're just trying to be consistent because this board is always focusing on parking spaces and compliance that's yeah we we actually put the fella who opened the is it Pizza Hut or uh Caesar Little Caesars yeah Little Caesar you do in the pride Plaza in the pride Plaza you put them through the ringer yeah so uh poor guy yeah he came back four different times so uh he was smiling at the end though and he made changes yeah yeah he made CLA owner made them I'm pretty sure we we all your documentation come up shortly yeah more clarity around the park would be nice how many spots do you think are actually over across the street I I have no I would say at least 30 it's just visual I see but I know their their L goes way in the back and if they use for parking or whatever they use it for okay so we a plan with the documentation letter to that would be good yeah we can see the numbers 11 more spots that's all you need right yeah that's what I was call and and and indication that you have access to it during your hours of operation chck I had a few more things absolutely some comments from some other departments I'll just bring them up really quick but uh the one thing is um so our assistant uh superintendent DPW uh made some comments in terms of the parking spaces on what have so these comments include uh installing a stopline bar repainting some of the parking stalls um installing proper ballards so this plan I'll give to you tonight so you have it it has this markup and comments on it it's also on the open go portal too as a PDF document so if you went online you can download it or you can just email me tomorrow and I can send you a copy of it and those changes will be incorporated into the conditions of this permit if it was approved so you would have to make those changes accordingly and do those suggestions those are from the regulations of vpw which governs all parking lot design and uh maintenance Etc yeah so we want to comply with DPW safety reasons the own own feels the same l so if you think you can get all of that our next meeting is December 3D in two weeks we can just continue the hearing until December 3D y um Mr chair I actually have two more comments if that's okay so make sure these are all read out uh the other thing is in regards to a comment from the building department so because you're adding those outdoor dining seats you are technically increasing the occupancy load per building code because of that you will need to get a certificate of occupancy for the property after the special permit is granted to yes exactly also I've been told that did you ever file a building permit for the deck itself or no we file one for the original Co deck so okay you want to make sure that with them you we have an application exactly you might want to talk with them and make sure that's squared away just to make sure everything's permeated correctly um for many reasons um and also in terms of the bathrooms um you're supposed to have I believe three it's like one bathroom per 50 people or something like that I think the metric is because the occupany is now 118 I think that affects the number of bathrooms you have to have inside which means you know sink toilet Etc they're like a designated male female bathroom inside or is it just four bathrooms inside so they're all like unisex like anybody can use them okay um one's handicapped one's no I think they're all two are handicapped yeah and the other three are like follow in okay been there forever you know but all have to be handicapped you just have to buide so I would say you know talk to building department as well about that um make sure that you know that complies um so there's no issues moving forward of the co would be that exct compliance with the code I don't anticipate that being any major changes to your plans but I still want to make that clear to you guys beforehand just so you know in the last problem and then the last thing is very quick um the uh water and sewer administrator recommended having the water shut up valve box located before any permanent structure is put in place and he says the reason for this is because it should be brought up to grade so it's accessible for emergencies if it's not located in that area don't worry about it so if I were you I would also reach out to the water and sewer administrator after this meeting and discuss that with him and again I can follow up with you tomorrow with all this information if you like um definitely reach out to me I can help you out that's all I had Mr okay yes sir are you all set all set thank you two weeks uh okay well we we have to ask if there's anyone else in the audience who'd like to be heard but you can go back to your seats if you want okay so is there anyone else in the audience that wish should be heard on this matter ask again anybody on Zoom wish to be heard on this matter none um anybody want would someone like to make make a motion to continue it to the meeting on December 3rd at 6m second any discussion hearing none all in favor say I I okay see you see you in a couple weeks ready ready item all right business uh and oh no we don't have to close the public hearing we just contined yeah we good you don't CL new anr d224 09 request to combine two parcels 95340 and 95- 350 into one larger parcel at 896 Summers Road applicant Thomas K 265 milbrook Drive Esa M Mass 01028 hi how you doing I'm not Thomas K I'm here on behalf of Thomas K my name is Jason tiso say hi to Sarah thank you so Mr chair I can actually bring up the plans on the zoom I just have to be uh promoted as a panelist So Jamie I don't know if you want to promote me to um so I can screen share thank you I was let me right should be able to see it so let's just start with the anr you want to explain the anr or should I do it sure uh if you don't mind mind so basically um the piece of property used to be fors uh Garden Mark and it was split into two Parcels 34 and 35 34 was the residential 35 was the agricultureal so due to tax reasons 61a was on 35 residential be under 61a so that was different parcel we're not looking to do uh 61a at this point so we're just going to combine everything at one and just and make it one solid parcel and that's kind of the plan Mr chair you actually um it's hard to see on the screen but this right here where the cursor is going is the existing smaller parcel I believe Jason you said this is 896 right this little that that is 896 I I don't know if there is actually an address for the rest because it was just the residential address um and that was basically where the house was hope I'm sure you guys have seen it now it's looks totally different than it used to look basically they're dissolving the lot lines of the smaller property making it one larger lot so it's easier to build stuff on there if they were to do something moving forward okay questions hearing none I have a motion to endorse the plan so move have a second second any discussion heing none all in favor say I I no one's opposed so that passes next item uh sprw d224 01 request for site plan review waiver of a 176q foot Greenhouse at 896 Summers Road placed on to be placed on a site with no current principal resident building applicant Thomas K 265 mil Brook Drive East metal massenger okay all right tell us your plans so again I'm not Thomas K but I'm here uh representing and uh basically what we're looking to do is as you guys can see we have taken the old Forbes um gardam Mar uh property cleaned it tore down all the the the old buildings that were just uh sa Hazard and old house and our plan is to eventually build something different there um right now we're just looking to get a um a small little shed on there that we can kind of work out of and and and use as a a place to to put our stuff for now um it's 176 square foot you know yes we don't have a a building and maybe in hindsight we should have left the house and put the shed up before we put the house down we probably wouldn't be here but you know sometimes we don't think everything through but um yeah we're just looking to do a temporary structure there we don't know that that will be the permanent location of it we may move it at some point in time as as the site develops um we're still working through that site um plan and what we're planning on doing there so sign that we're not trying to disclose stuff we just don't have 100% of our you know took really for us to tear everything down to figure out well what what kind of space we have right and now that we know that we're kind of getting into what what we want to do so um this is really just kind of put something there we want to do a greenhouse because we are a farm we want to you know continue to do farming there and um you know kind of it's one of those things where you know in in this greenhouse uh lies the feature of our farm and that's kind of what we look to do do some events um on the property we'll start growing some stuff as it gets closer to the springtime and then we'll transplant that stuff into the into the soil once it makes sense and you know being as it's been this fall hasn't made sense to do anything there so really it's um it's just trying to get ahead of of the spring and what we what we plan on doing there and giving us a place to work out of um so we're not just working out of our trucks questions no do I have a motion to approve the waiver so move second uh any discussion hearing none all in favor say I I close say nay hearing none item PA is all right great thank you very much after the meeting I'll have you sign this and have sign these anr plans as well so don't run away yet okay I need to wait for any last stuff you're all set all right perfect thank you everybody shout out to you tomorrow about what to do next Once iess awesome all right thank you and I hope everyone's excited about the out there I'm sure it's the been kind of the Talk of the Town and now hopefully we uh can live up to everybody's expectation what it will be have a good night than care than care um discussion on Assisted Living use in industrial Garden Park District so Mr chair we actually have um some joh in the audience that wanted to discuss a potential zoning Amendment with you any on it um Bill the plants here um to speak on behalf of that so I guess Bill if you want to take away when you sign in um go right ahead for full disclosure probably what seems like a month or weeks ago uh Rob asked me to join a call about this uh concept So I listened for about an hour and it was interesting so okayy good evening William llant um been a business owner in town for about 35 years um own property in town and ran the business in town um back in 2023 I purchased um 199 denlow road that parcel AB buts um Long Meadow it's the last parcel it's about 2 acre parcel it's the last parcel in East Long Meadow butting uh Long Meadow Long Meadow side is a residential Zone um that's where the fields are the new fields that they they put in there and there are some power lines that go along the right hand side of the parcel and um so uh about a year and a half ago two years ago I started working with Paul tarnowski um and he was looking to do assisted living and memory care and um when I purchased the parcel I thought that that would be you know a really good use in that location um when you go to the industrial Garden Park um uh use table zoning table um that's not an allowed use uh in the industrial Garden Park and it's interesting because just down uh on Benton Drive um there are some similar facilities but that is that's in the residential Zone although it's on the street and looks like it's part of the igp Zone it actually transitions over into the residential Zone um so then I was looking at what is allowed and you know you have hospitals you have medical facilities and and dental facilities we've done we've we've done a number of projects in and around that area um so that's when I approached Rob and and asked him uh his thoughts and you know I've talked to some other people in town just trying to get uh their feedback to see if this would be an appropriate um ask to change the zoning table in igp for assisted living um to a special permit so it would will give the planning board the authority to look at a project and see if it is appropriate for um the location if and I think most of igp and and denlow and Benton um certainly in my opinion would be appropriate use as a as an assisted living uh facility but if there were another location that was not um thought of as as to be the best use um with what's around it then um it certainly would give the uh the board the ability to say that it's not appropriate um so I I'm just coming here as an informal discussion um to get your thoughts and um to see um you know what the board feels about it I think a facility like this would be um you know would be a benefit to the town to allow um people that age in place in their in their own Community um and I you know we have just some preliminary um preliminary ideas and I understand that you know this is not Project Specific this is more Global and and we have to look at how it impacts um other Parcels in town um but I just wanted to have that informal discussion so I just want to stress what he just said so if even though he owns a specific parcel should there be a z a zone change allowing Assisted Living it's for the entire District industrial Garden Park my comments I think originally if I can remember back six weeks or longer is I didn't really see an issue with it if you look at the industrial Garden Park and the types of businesses that we allow in there now it's really a very I don't want to say hodgepodge but it's very eclectic group different types of for you got businesses you've got self self storage units you have day a very large daycare you have manufacturing I mean you've got office post office you know a school bus facility and you know I just didn't so there were some uses there were some uses that were compatible I thought you mentioned medical facilities obviously there's doctor's offices physician practices dental and we just also auth yeah we just authorized Center for human development put in a psychiatric facility or 10y year lease anyway so I I didn't have a specific issue with it so and I you know the idea of also having come in through special permit allows this group some greater control so it wouldn't be allowed as a matter of right so but those were my thoughts I mean we're dealing with an aging population here in town and everybody knows it you know and and I'm in favor of it because you're going to need facilities like this you know I've been going through it on a personal level and it it's tough to navigate at times and you know it's it's cumbersome because spacing right now is limited and and the neat thing about this concept and again I know it's not Project Specific and we would we would come forward with with the project and with the details of the project um but the intent is to make it a homey facility um something that's not institutional looking something that feels and looks like home and again I I I understand that that is irrelevant when it comes to um the board and how we're looking at for the time being yeah yeah so why don't we just not yeah that's that so Rob you you do development what do you think think it's appropriate I do I'm just thinking of the other areas aside from Denow and then it would affect I think it's fine down I mean there's one on the other end you get closer after the towing a towing place there's another collected one down there right um I I think it's a fine spot for it I know I know of the property um I'm just wondering outside of that where else that zoning drips into the focus for ipg is that area right there just better I mean I don't see any issues with it on the other end of well to be honest I don't fully know the makeup of the district itself yeah it's pretty much it seems like it's larger businesses and then also some small ones kind of mixed in with it yeah and there has been a a larger concentration of medical practices Dental practices Orthopedics you know you've got attained physical therapy I mean so there there are I'm going to call it Medical uses as part of this and this I would take to be a medical use as well Cassandra I think it work I mean we just approved the other what I would deem is similar business over there so I don't see the proc yeah that was like overnight stays and stuff there will be overnight yeah so now was that um was that approved as a hospital use you know they didn't get us change for that no they did not doctor I can't remember do yeah medical yeah it wasn't overnight I don't think it was an overnight it's not like long term like shorter term maybe shorter term yes so it must be under medical facilit yeah Rehabilitation well you have our uh thoughts I I appreciate your time and uh hopefully we'll come back with something for you to to take a look at sounds good you thanks again okay robila zoning discussion I'll be quick um so want to include this in here because um I have pain stamp in progress on doing the Adu byw it's a first rough draft I'll be honest we're still waiting to hear back from some departments to give input um we did have the Town Council take a look at it for their IAL reading and they sent it back to you guys for a public hearing that's going to be scheduled on December 3rd and as you can see we're trying to fight a timeline because the deadline to implement this is February 2nd before the state law kicks in and allows for these things Allowed by right so we're still waiting to hear back from DPW Board of Health uh and then we still have to have Town Council look at it all that will be done before December 3rd hearing dates so so what you have in your packet now is just my latest rough draft um as well as a legal notice which has been included in there as well for your own records um overall the Adu bylaw is just one section but then also we had to make changes to three other sections of the zoning RS as well and the reason for that is so we can eliminate any sort of confusion any sort of language that might be contradictory and then to include some definitions of words such as short-term rental which the town was hoping to prohibit from these adus into becoming in order to do so we have to include the definition of AD or the definition of short-term rental because we have to reference it so you'll see as you look through this on your in your free time or whenever you want to you'll see why those sections were kind of included in this document so you know I wasn't really hoping to have a full discussion on it was more just of an update I was hoping the discussion could be saved for when we come back on December 3rd you have a more upto-date draft in your possession so that's that's pretty much all I had Mr chair I don't know if you want to give me any comments or feedback so I just I've given Rob my feedback um um you know Cassy and I have this discussion all the time about the the one where you think that you think that as a member of a local planning board that zoning is local but then you find out there are many things that are controlled on a state or federal level as an example our solar bylaw educational uses that have to be allowed without coming to the planning board um you know our cell tower issue of a few years back and here's another one the state is overriding local zoning by saying this to be done it has to be completed even though some May believe that it will dramatically impact the density of certain zones or really of almost every potentially of every Zone every residential Zone in town potentially single family residential well single family yeah um you know I'll just use an example I live on a street small Street 12 houses I counted at least three or four that could reasonably put an accessory like a standalone accessory dwelling unit on it and so that increases the density by 25% that means more cars more traffic more water more sewer more kids kids yeah more te more buses yeah the the whole gam and so I was telling Rob that just out of obstinance I may just vote no but then he assured me and we will when I look through this I'm going to look for those assurances Rob that they have drafted it to the point that would they they would put all appropriate restrictions on it that would um re potentially reduce the number of instances where people would be willing to put it on their property and I guess we'll walk through that on December 3rd did I was that a Fair assessment of yeah I can go through it really quick right now just not get too specific I mean so typically when you look at the different types that are allowed you have the detach which is just a separate building then you have like attach which is like an addition to your house but then that turns into a separate dwelling unit so technically you can either do like a two family where there's kind of both connected but obviously the Adu has to be smaller than the main house then you have like a garage or a shed that's prefabbed or maybe a rehabilitate existing structure or something that still has to be smaller typically if it's detached you need to have separate Water and Sewer hookups that run to the street which I'm pretty sure is the rules and regulations of DPW you have to have a separate electrical meter box run your own wires on your own internet if you're going to put internet in there um has to be insulated has to be habitable all year round has to have kitchen facilities has to have all this stuff the price just goes up on these things so you're look something that's probably going to cost you around 20 grand maybe more just to build one even if you're rehabing the existing building it's still in the tens of thousands just to do that work alone so you know other towns that have this bylaw in place such as like East Hampton or a hoio or chape typically you don't see too many of them being built you might see like one or two per year go before their board to be permitted um in a place such as like ammer for example you see more of them because that's a town where there's more money more development pressure Etc we don't Envision that becoming an issue here in East LA middle because of the restrictions we put on it which includes getting site plan review approval from the planning board no matter what and limit these things to no more than 900 square feet or one half the size of the main house whichever smaller whichever smaller yep so if it's a th000 foot house 500 is the most you can do so it's proportionally set up on purpose so these things will no matter what always be smaller than the main house and state law actually made that definition and that metric which is pretty surprising so so if it's 2,000 square feet the maximum is 900 exactly yep so anything larger than 900 is not possible for these also the other biggest thing to consider too is that owner occupancy can no longer be required for either building on site which is sort of problematic for us but that's just what the state mandates as fact so every other community that does have an accessory bylaw they actually require owner occupancy and that goes for most if not all the surrounding communities including ammer Northampton Greenfield all those communities that have it now none of them can enforce owner occupancy they all have to allow for both buildings to either have an owner or not to have an owner live in it which is going to set a pretty strong precedent moving forward uh especially for rental properties so that's why to supplement that we're going to create a registration process with my department or building it might be a shared thing through open of you know these these Adu owners will register just knowe whether or not they're going to rent it if they're going to live in it themselves just so we can keep track of them so we know how many of these things exist in town what they're being used for ETC so you know we're trying to put as much as we can to kind of curtail the explosion of these things to be built but in my honest opinion you're mostly going to see the atach adus come into existence because they're easier to do you know a lot of people already have additions they could just put separate entrances and then boom little kitchen bathroom get up to code that's an Adu so I think the reality is you're not going to see as many of the detached but again since you took out the owner occupancy thing you may you may not know so you know which trying the best we can to make this bylaw so we can enforce to the full extent of the law um while also protecting ourselves when we enforce it so we're not overstepping so that's that's pretty much all I had Mr sure so is there any discussion in your peers about towns just saying no uh the like the MBTA uh yeah I mean no because if we said no to it then state law is just going to govern everything thing and if we deny a building perit for an Adu they could technically appeal that and take it to court and that's probably when we' lose in court I also talked to some Attorneys at a conference I went to last week about the owner occupancy thing I asked him if people would ever challenge it like a municipality they said yeah but it's not going to get very far in the courts so it seems like the owner occupancy is going to be a thing of the past for these ad years fortunately so you know anything can happen but that's just well three lawyers told me at a at a conference last week so yeah you had three lawyers agree on the same thing it was pretty crazy yeah and they were doing that for free too yeah so any other questions on that please I I'm G to ask you at least within the next week or so if you could spend some time going through it and just send your comments to Rob yeah so all righty yes all right Rob um more on the director's report yeah let me just pull that up real quick so uh I included our upcoming meeting dates including the four of 2025 so January 7 21st and then the two and February I also gave you guys a copy of the schedule for 2025 it seems like the only conflict we have this year is just the town elections on June 3D obviously the schedule can be updated if we need it to be but it seems last year we have a lot less uh I guess Miss meetings because of events like that well there were four elections this year that threw a monkey wrenching to everybody what's the December 17th looking like of this month sorry this year of December yeah this of December this year this year this December I had a long day um okay out of you so nothing in the radar yet but could see that potentially be a date if the Adu public he continue for some reason that's pretty much it we don't have anything in the works yet for that meeting um I think the deadline for that one I just need to look at a calendar real quick I I don't know if it's passed already uh let's see one two three the deadline's actually this Thursday Russell so if we don't get any plane board permits that need a public hearing by Thursday at 3 then we technically don't have a need for it okay good but if the hearing gets continued on the third then that's the only thing yeah all right talk now keep going through this so as I mentioned December 3rd the public hearing on adus um to man want me to bring up some trainings that were coming up um they wanted to encourage us as a board to consider going to them I mean the first two here um are actually right before two meeting dates that we have coming up at 5:30 so it could be one of those things where we just come meet early and then watch on the screen and then have our meeting afterwards um and then the other three are kind of on non- meeting dates but are covering topics that are pretty important so just wanted to bring that up to you and see if anybody any interest in attending them their virtual webinars uh they're actually pretty good trainings um and the town would cover the cost for you to attend and if we all share the same screen that's only one registration fee so you'd be saving me some money so I just want to throw that out there as a as a something to consider and then in terms of the uh zoning mens for Town Council we have two uh commercial Klan which is still in the public hearing process of Town Council we don't know when the second reading date is going to be yet and we have our solar hearing which was continued to December 10th 2024 before Town Council those are gaining pretty good traction at the moment and the last bit of news I had is uh about some recent Grant updates that we've had Rebecca Lei Deputy Town managers done pretty good and gting all this money for us so the first one's a mass Works infrastructure program Grant in which we received one .9 million to do upgrades to the Chestnut Street water pumping station which is way overd we received the green community's Grant and the amount of 160,000 for weatherization improvements at the DPW service building which currently has no installation in their uh cafeteria area I believe and then a second Grant add to that project was from a program called the Energy Efficiency and conservation block grant program they gave us $21,000 to contribute to that same project so that's all I had keep getting money we keep making the town a better place uh thank you Mr chair Rob do you want to give an update on Center District uh study committee sure so we had gonna have Rob put us next to each other again too many RS um yes so we had the the community commit again here in the senior center uh had an open Forum uh which was productive they say uh had people draw out ideas of what they would Envision the zone looking like and we they're going to Overlay that try to come up with the most common um lines for that was people that agreed to uh some colorful comments I think we've got people uh somewhat on track now I think everyone understands what we're attempting to do here um but right now it's with the Pioneer Valley committee so the one thing coming with their L the one thing that surprised me was the extens into 2025 to have the work completed can you explain that the public so it from what I understand it started late so it's now going to go late right we're still going to get the full Year's worth of commitment out of it but we got going late I forget exactly what the reason was at the beginning um but we started in March allegedly and then now it's going to end sometime in March so it's just getting the full year out of it and Mr fonica do you want to as our representative and as chair of the CPC anything you want to add uh we approved four applications at our meeting last week uh two of them actually one is to re uh resurface and repair the Bell that sits outside of town hall right now that used to be in the bell tower that they can't put it back in the bell tower anymore because it's a little too heavy um we approved uh engineering study for the F uh the barn out at the brown property uh to start holding events out there and two um two small wreck grants one was to there's a drainage issue at center field uh authorized an engineering study to see what that improvements can be in the rough estimate on the cost is well over $300,000 so we've got to look into that and um Pine no the pool needs to be painted so we approved that I mean we got to keep investing in town is what we're is what we're trying to do because you know we've got quite a bit of money we did receive the state's portion to the matching Grant was down to 14% which equal out to be $66,000 cominging from the state they used to match 100% when this thing was all born but we know how those things work so that's it for Community preservation all right there's no other business I'm going to adjourn the Tuesday November 19th 2024 meeting of the planning board do I have a motion to adjourn so moved do I have a second second all in favor say I I that's