for through the chair we're live on hcam TV all right thank you Bob what do we have we have one two three four five of six all right well good evening everyone uh this is Gary trenle chair of the Hopkinson planning board I hereby call our April 1st 2024 meeting to order first into chapter two the acts of 2023 this meeting will be conducted via remote means in accordance with applicable law this means that members of the Public Public body as well as members of the public May access this meeting via virtual means participants May access this meeting through the remote meeting link is posted on the meeting's agenda and through the town's online calendar uh when required by law or Allowed by the chair persons wishing to provide public comment or otherwise participate in the meeting May do so by raising their hand or otherwise signaling their intent to speak this meeting will be recorded please take care to mute your microphone unless you have been recognized by the chair we will now confirm attendance of members please respond with present if you are on the call uh Rob Benson Rob is not here yet um Jane present Elise Elise is uh unfortunately not feeling well so she will not be here Matthew present Michael present Vic pres Parker I think he's on mute yeah it looks like he herebody he's not uned can you hear me yes now we can hear you Parker you just want to affirm that you're there I am president can you hear me yep we can hear you now are we at Real Time with Parker though I remember being delayed like 30 seconds at one point in a similar situation I am working I'm in a different geography so my connection might be slow but I will try to affirm votes in the chat too if that's helpful but I am here and present all right thanks Parker appreciate you calling and I will say I'm guessing we probably need your audible vote though for the roll calls um so we'll we'll work through it okay um well we do have a quorum and um we'll go ahead and get started um just a a quick overview of the agenda um we have um a couple of administrative items we'll hold off on the me on the minutes until the end um but we'll go ahead and start with the bond release request um and the anrs um we have a continued public hearing for stormw regulations and we have a guest joining us um provide some updates there um we have continued public hearing for elid Farms 3 um and then we have a new public hearing for Scenic Road permit at 41 Front Street so um let's go ahead and get into our first topic which is the bond release request uh from hopkington Highlands 3 uh meet woods and uh I see Mr melet is on uh welcome to the meeting good evening um so maybe we'll start if you just want to do a quick introduction um and uh tell us who you are why you are before us um just keep in mind that especially for members of the public that may not have the full background so um just just give us a quick recap of why you're here and and what you're requesting uh from the board sure so I'm myself mlet from mlet and Sun uh we built the hton Highlands 3 Mallette Woods condo project it was 24 units off of Overlook Drive this project was started back in 2004 2005 uh we completed it around uh 2011 and uh the project was complete but we did not have the asil plan done for a while um my SE had some health issues and whatnot ended up passing away and I was able to get some of the information from his son and had somebody else finish up the asil plan and we submitted it this probably a couple years ago it was reviewed by um an engineering form for the for the town uh there was a few things that we had to go and repair which we we did I reached out to the trustees of the condo association and we went and fixed some items there and added those to the plan and recently submitted back to the town um there is some things that we were not able to put on that plan which was some of the um structures for the drainage the drainage pipes are all marked on there but the structures themselves are not um I discussed this with the trustee for the association they don't have any issues with any drainage there at all um everything on the whole project is working well and there's really no issues at all with anything so um that's kind of where we're at all right thanks for the the introduction um and just to provide a little bit more context for folks um when a developer builds a project they put forward a bond that bond is intended in part to cover um uh any if the project were abandoned in some capacity then that's money that's set aside so that the the the town can um finish or resolve those issues so what we have before us here is a a bond that is uh almost 20 years old for $146,000 um and uh to Mr mallette's Point um the uh they've had some uh well the person the engineering firm or the surveying firm uh was not able to finish the job for health reasons um but um sounds like Mr mlet you've completed is it true you've got everything documented and completed except for the ASB built and the associated a couple of the associated structures so yeah the asilt plan is done um there's just some water drainage structures it's it's a huge uh section of the property that all that street drainage goes into um so what I discussed with the uh trustee was that I would give them the original construction plans as along with the asil plan too so they could see if they have had an issue where everything is there's really no other place that it could be there's Wetlands that that's all bets and everything so um I would give them everything that they have because the only way you can locate it is to dig it up which doesn't make any sense okay um Mr gilich do you want to just give us a quick recap from the town perspective on this this is a little bit unique for us I think so we had beta review um and they identified certain things that they can't verify uh to to Mr myette's uh statement um so kind of leaves us in a weird position where we can't verify things have been done uh we can't guarantee that the things will work as designed because we don't know if they're installed as designed uh so I leave it to the board to make the decision on you know on the bond and uh how much should be returned um or all of it be returned or what process you all want to go through uh moving forward on this I I really don't have any answers on this one unfortunately it's it's a weird situation and um it's up to the board to make that determination all right John do you have a a list that you could share of the items that are meant to be covered with that Bond let me bring it up sorry Mr M did you want to add yeah so when we were uh doing the construction on that project we had put money into a fund that the town hired a survey firm or engineering firm to come out and look at the uh items as they were getting completed before we back bu and I did talk to John to see if they had any documentation on any of those site visits or anything on it and I think he looked through the file and couldn't find anything um that would verify that that stuff went in but really we couldn't back fill anything until it was observed so and you know it's been almost 20 years since we started that project and everything has been working fine so yeah through the chair this is this is the letter from the town's engineer at that point in 20 in 2019 um establishing the bond amount of $146,400 these are the remaining work items uh 2009 correct 2009 right 2009 what did I say 2019 yeah yeah um so this is all I was able to find um I was not here so I don't have any institutional knowledge as to what was done or I I haven't even worked with FST so I can't I don't have a contact to reach out to at that point um so we're kind of in a a little weird spot where this is the information we have that established the bond um and then I will change over to what we had beta review and so these were some of the comments that Beta had so some items that need to be repaired okay Mr mlet you you've seen this report from beta yes okay um on the items that they identified have you addressed those or do you have any plans to address those so we addressed what we could um they have sent a couple of reports the first one was I believe a couple years ago there was some manholes that had been covered over we went and exposed those I think you just saw some of that in the pictures that they were just showing um we did everything that we could do I think most of the things that they're looking to verify are things that we can't verify unless we dig them up so that's kind of where we're at yeah and to to Mr May's point this is a letter from his surveyor responding to the beta letter and their comments of what things are missing and and the explanation is to uh the applicants perspective on those items so this is this letter that you're seeing on screen right now is kind of our stopping point we can't really go any further with the review because no one really has a Next Step okay so there there just to sort of sum it up um if we go back to the original bond amount um but I guess let me let me just say that that there's there's no way to verify the remaining items here because they are things that are underground and and require excavation to verify correct and then if we go back to the original Bond uh list I'll kind of give you a sense as to where I'm going with this um Paving uh finish pavement that should be pretty easy and there were some comments as to bit of Decay and what not on the sidewalks um finish loan and plantings and seedings that's pretty easy tennis court straightforward um The Well improvements so the the well there was a well that was installed before we purchased the property and as we were going it was pretty dry around that time but the well wasn't keeping up with what it what it needed to so we actually ended up drilling it deeper we uh hydr frct it and that was all approved by the state um I think in 2011 so that work was also performed okay do you have any documentation of that work or I do okay and if you provided that to the town or to beta um that would have been submitted to the Board of Health I believe so they should have copies of that but um I didn't submit it to Beta because it really it was nothing that there was different asbo plans for the water it's its own public water source so it's more of a state issue than what was on that asbo plan yeah understand I'm just looking at the the breakdown but I do have the acceptance letters and all that I can I can send those to John tomorrow okay all right let me take a pause here I've been asking some questions um and I'll open it up to the board to see if uh folks have questions thoughts on how to proceed or or uh how we uh move this forward in in some capacity or at least provide some some clarity Jane I'm just wondering if the DPW had anything to say about it and if there's any history of problems up there with drainage or other Road or sidewalks issues in the what 15 years since it's been done there has been any issues that I've heard of I think Brian Mop at the trustee is observing as well he might be able to chime in he's been living there ever since we completed the project M yes I I've been here since 2009 sorry Brian if you could just introduce yourself and give us your address just for the uh the records sure my name is Brian Moffett I live at four Trevor Lane hington uh in the melet Woods condo association um I've been uh on the board for probably I don't know how many years but seems like 10 at least um and uh I can attest that the roadway is fine the sidewalks are fine um Marcel had come in and hold up the manual covers that were were covered um that that work is all complete um I am not aware of any drainage problems um particularly in the back the storm water drainage uh the storms we've had this year um we have not had any any issues okay thanks Brian uh Matthew um two things one in line with James's questioning is are there is there any empirical way we can infer if anything else that we can't see is functioning properly over this time frame um the second thing is I'm I'm looking at the FST report which I think is actually what's being shared right now what's the far right column that has the total like I'm just trying to get figure out where all the numbers are from is that from the earlier uh bond that was added in how's that add up to I think so I I know this is all in my writing something that I submitted back then and I don't know if it was reworked after that or I don't remember it's been so long okay all it looks like I subm it on November 9 and then there was a revision done to it on 1123 where they changed some of the numbers but the amount on the right is what is currently it's a shity bond that's what the amount is now yeah if you look at the the amounts in the columns with the exception of the finished pavement changing to 37 Grand those all add up to 122 and then you have the 20% contingency so 146 400 oh I see yeah okay so those got struck out before as things got added that makes yeah looks like the Finish payment was was higher cost uh and then yeah it almost seems like things were added in there looks like the the the well improvements in the es built plan were added on from the original estimate so yeah I guess in in line with Jan's comments is like is there how long has that been running has it been the 20 years and is there empirically like what have we seen so everything was up and running at that point because the project was almost done um I I believe that the final D sign off for the um the well was either 2010 or 2011 which was after they repaired were done to the wall so everything's been up and running we had all the road infrastructure and before we even started building units there it's just the way you had to do that project because it's set up like a sewer system so everything had to go in all the drainage had to be in so all the street drainage and infrastructure was done probably by 2006 200 happen um so I have a a suggestion here that I'll throw out to the board um and I'll I'd see Michael you just raised your hand as well but I'm to me I I want to make sure that we dot our eyes and cross our tees here um my thought is is that we ask for two pieces of followup um the first is that we just uh document the evidence of the the well improvements since that's a a pretty substantial piece of this Bond and I think it's worth um and I appreciate you might have already provided that to the the Board of Health but um given this is our performance bond I think some documentation as to what exactly was done there would be helpful um and then the second I like the idea of just running this past the DPW to make sure that there's no um no issues that they been aware of and I don't mean to to doubt or question um Mr malador or the the homeowner that spoke previously but I think from our perspective it's it's probably just worth verifying those two things and then once those are done then I my hope is is that this would be reasonably straightforward to to to to vote on and and whatnot yeah so just to comment the this is a private private Street private subdivision so the DPW wouldn't I don't think they would know anything about what's going on down there but you can certainly reach out to them and as far as I know they don't they I know they don't plow it or maintain it or anything like that so Matthew yeah I just wondering if uh any feedback uh or comment from the condominium board um if this is a condominium uh if they had concerns Mr Buffett yeah as I as I stated earlier um there's I am not aware of anything that is unfinished or anything that is causing problems in the community so then I guess the other option is that we rely on the condo association um and if our concerns are potential Road and storm water on the site which are both would impact the homeowners more than anyone as well as the well improvements which are also just for the homeowners then the other consideration is that we could just move this forward based on the input of the homeowners association and and uh and take a vote on it through through the chair can I ask a can I ask a question of course I am maybe I missed it but I I'm confused why this wasn't done 15 to 20 years ago like what it's it's very odd the de the developer didn't look for his hund almost 150k Bond um basically back 15 years ago it's very odd the necessary review of the project from an engineering firm didn't have happen at the time like I don't understand what the series of steps were to cause us to be where we are today and I'd like to know why we are where we are today like what what was the what was the holes in our process to cause this to happen Mr M do you want to provide any additional information beyond what you already said well like I mentioned earlier um my surveyor at the time became ill he was fighting brain tumor or something like that and was ill for a while and ended up passing away and to be honest with you I didn't know that the bond was that much because the tennis courts and everything was all completed shortly after this date and I thought it was just the adill plan it's a shity bond so it's not a ton of money you know a year it's like $5,000 a year so um but yeah it just it took time to get somebody else in there that wanted to take it over and try to figure out how to get it all on paper it's it's a big project you know time goes by you get involved in other things too and not really dwelling on it like I said it didn't cost me a lot of money every year it's not like I have 146,000 that I get I'm going to get cashed out it's just a charity Bond so okay thank you yeah my fault I you know I let it last for sure but there was reasons why and you kind of get involved in other things and it's not on the top of your left that's all through through the chair I I appreciated his answers and I think we just I agree with what you said Gary uh just try to take some next steps to be sure and go from there [Music] um all right what are your thoughts on next steps I mean I think to me again I I recognize that the homeowners association is probably most important here but again I I want to make sure that we are maintaining good precedent from from our end so um I do think it makes sense to just provide some documentation of the well improvements um maybe the DPW isn't warranted there because to your point they they don't service that road at all um Michael sorry I know you had your hand raised okay you actually brought up what I was going to say I was going to say we should essentially just confirm the weal thing from our end could we query the board of health records that they have on it just to see what we see from the towns end too yeah I guess uh we could chase that down as well I I my only reason is that normally that would be the obligation of the the the bond holder to do it and it's just adding some additional work and you know we don't know exactly what we're going to find with the Board of Health whereas if the developers got full records of what was done or invoices or you know approvals or whatnot I think it's a little cleaner for them to provide it sure my only thought on that too was that maybe um there'd be some record in there too of what the um engineering firm that was reviewing it as well like maybe it's like stuffed in a you know like I think they used to store their records in the board of H in like Center School it's like in a file cabinet in Center school or something but yeah that was my only thought like I said I have the approval letters from the state after the work that I did I think that the the association had issues with the well and I think they put another well in afterwards on their own so so let's do this I'm going to suggest um two things um one and I I'll throw these out there um to the homeowners association but would the homeowners association be willing to um formalize a statement acknowledging that there's no remaining um that that that the the work that's meant to be covered by this bond has been been completed um and if the homeowners association does that um and Mr M if you could just provide the documentation for those well improvements then that just allows us to kind of cleanly uh move this forward sure I can do that how how would we um provide that uh you could just provide that to our principal planner John guch in a letter that's you know if you're the chair of the homeowner association then I'm assuming you can probably sign off on that but just just creating a paper traal for us to to show that we've um that we've found a way to account for this work that otherwise um isn't fully documented than okay so I think we've got a plan of action I don't think there's a need for us to vote on it today but hopefully both of those are pretty straightforward and um you know this will be a reasonably quick process for us uh once those two action items come back I'm just going to open planning board members does that all make sense to see reasonable all right and John do you mind stopping sharing your screen only because I can't see everybody thank you okay all right thank you uh Mr Moffett thanks Mr Mallet for joining us and um we'll see you uh again very soon all right thank you have a good night okay thank you um Let's uh let's quickly go to the anrs um uh five and seven honeyb pass um John I think it actually goes a little cleaner if if you're willing to intro these for us as to what's happening and then um is this Mr Market on is this yours yes it is okay well I tell you what either one of you if you can just um show the map on the screen walk us through what you're requesting okay so it's a change in lot lines so here is lot seven here is lot five it looks like lot five used to have this lot line and lot seven used to have this lot line so it is taking parcel B open up remember what what's going on here so parcel A and C so parcel a is here parcel C is down here are coming from lot five and being conveyed to lot seven lot seven is sending parcel B this big guy from this lot to lot five so it's a swap of land not impacting the frontage both Lots will still have the required lot size does not appear to constitute a subdivision and should warrant uh endorsement all right Joe anything that uh John missed no I think he's got it we just uh needed more room than we allotted for septic systems originally so we've add to alter those two losss to create extra area Okay um and I just have one question before I open up to the board um and I was actually just looking online where is honeybee pass oh maybe I typed it in wrong I was looking for honeybee Lane honeybee pass is one of the new roads for Turkey Ridge Subdivision ah okay probably not going to show up on any Maps right now perfect that's would explain it all right um the questions from the board no seem straight forward all right well um if there are no questions then I will entertain a motion to endorse the anrs four five and seven honey be pass so moved second all right ass be no further discussion uh Rob how do you vote Rob Benson yes Jane yes Matthew yes Michael Yes Vic yes Parker yes yes and Gary has a yes the motion carries unanimously uh thanks Mr marinot thanks John for walking us through that quickly through through the chair Just One update for Joe I don't know if you were here last meeting but we've got a new process for the anr so you can pick that up tomorrow oh sign it I will sign it on behalf of the board so you don't have to wait great thank you all right so um let's move on to our continued public hearing for storm water regulations um and I see we have uh Emily on here as well hello Emily um why don't we start with um John you want to just give us a process update um and we've been through this uh concom has now looked at it there's um some more recent red lines um want just walk through where we are from a process perspective and then I I think you're gonna you going to have Emily go through the the most recent changes or is that something that you want to do um so I'll let me bring it up on the screen the most recent changes and we can figure out how we want to do that so um we had originally submitted revisions uh well not submitted got revisions from DPW and and time Bond the dpw's um consultant to look into updating the rainfall calculations to be more Forward Thinking and so we're not building undersized infrastructure um along with this they had been updating storm AR regulations for DPW to be complying with ms4 so we combin the process so the revised version that you all have had in your shared folder for the last few meetings is that version concom wanted to take a a look at it they took a look at it and then a couple members of concom who are actually stormwater engineers in their professional life wanted to have a separate meeting to discuss with time Bon we did that last week so now the two versions or there's three versions in there the one that has been uh edited that was has been in there for the last several meetings a clean version with all the changes accepted and then this version which you're seeing on your screen now which accepts all the changes that were in there previously but then redlines the additional changes that we had when conom met last week to talk about it or the few members from K concom met and professional staff so this document that you see on your screen now is um the most final version of the redlined version and so you can see date changed here and I guess my question would be do we want to go through all the changes that we saw before or just the new changes so my preference would be just to go through the new changes because we've already reviewed the prior ones but I don't know I'll look to the board members to see if they have a I agree preference otherwise okay so a lot of this had already been changed um but now we're looking at the more recent version so this took out some of the stuff that was in here um and it's in in appendix B rather than in this area change some [Music] information and this is all really to be compliant with ms4 and then just a better way of writing the regulations and Emily please feel free and jump in uh actually you know what it might be better if Emily goes through because she's she's the expert um she can explain this better than me fumbling through it if you don't mind I can jump I can jump in yeah um so I guess the the last piece of background to throw in here is that while we had been working on this um Mass DP did also issue the mass DP uh storm water handbook as a draft for public comment so like this paragraph um we've included at the concom suggestion um some additional language to be more consistent with what's in the handbook when it comes to certain erosion sent control measures um and that's that's related to using you know some of your post construction from more bmps as temporary erosion and sediment control measures which again is not allowed but it's something that they've noticed and wanted to clarify here so we can keep going unless anybody has questions um this section in in the previous version you saw that this was a like an additional section with a lot of clarifications um under both the handbook and under the ms4 program there's much more increased um increased requirements for communities to make sure that there's long-term operation and maintenance of stormw War bmps so what we've done is changed it from um you know make sure you're operating and maintain maining these properly and keep records to a more proactive annual report from private land owners that have come in for a permit and we had thought about some some communities have wanted to include like an administrative fee because you know you do have to take this information in and process it but we decided not to include a fee for this because we really do want to encourage people to submit these annual reports and the town takes that information to justify to EPA that they're ensuring long-term operation and maintenance so just to add on to that um the town is working with some neighboring towns to get a grant to look at a regional storm water infrastructure enforcement agent and in as part of that Grant it would be to establish a database in the town of all this infrastructure and so that we would be able to track when these reports are submitted we decided uh to not include that filing fee because we wanted to encourage HOAs Developers and all of them to submit these and not feel like it's a burden because we want these reports we want to know that they're maintaining these we want to keep track of them uh there is an enforcement component to it and it's it's in a different section of the bylaw um which can still apply but we wanted to be able to have a a grace period where we can reach out get this information from uh individuals or HOAs and then if once we're once we're tracking everything in that database if we notice a pattern of reports not being submitted or you know there's a a lag of multiple years then we can go into enforcement but this is really for our benefit for the ms4 so we want to encourage the people filling out and submitting these reports to actually do it and so that's why we changed the filing fee and a little bit more and so I just want to give a little bit little bit of background because um there's more to this section than than reflected in the regulations that we talked about in the in the background thanks John um Michael I get to your question in a second but I I just want to provide a little bit more background either for members of the public or newer members of the board um you know when we review and eventually approve these subdivisions or development projects um you know we uh include compreh pretty comprehensive storm water management systems um that they have to build but um there's there's very little uh inspection or maintenance uh that that that the town can enforce upon them um as as time moves on so they are technically responsible to maintain them but if you go drive around town um you'll see uh many of them that that uh are not so the idea here is that the the the home owners associations or the the property owners um have some responsibility to submit a um a report that that outlines um appropriate appropriate details to make sure that they are functioning as intended to um and that they are uh they're being maintained properly so Michael yeah know I mean you're you're uh on the same track as me today Gary so my question actually d tailes what you just said so what are the components of the report I was just curious um for my own edification John do you want me to answer that sure okay there's no reporting template at this moment in time but it's it's usually fairly simple um some communities try to do it as a webbased form it could be tied to GIS it could be a paper form so I don't know the format yet but really it's we're just looking for like a self-certification that the maintenance has been performed with some you know specific details about what maintenance was performed or what was needed you know you could always have them attach a photo or something like that so just something simple to have them certify that the maintenance is happening um and what we would Envision until this program is a little more up and running would be like you wouldn't go out as a matter of course and try to inspect all of these you might be looking to potentially spot check some here and there no that makes sense yeah it's just validation that they're being maintained yeah that Mak but but with that that process would be determined in the future or is it up to the the the property owner to choose what they do I think that's a town process to be decided later like that's just an administrative process to set up the paperwork and the procedure okay all right and then I guess my last question is it's not just um Property Owners but like um our schools schools would be responsible for this maintenance as well because I I can think of a few systems on our school grounds that are not maintained either yeah yep so this I mean so this is really applying to any new projects that come before the plan board for a storm water permit on the public side of the house under the ms4 program there are strict requirements for M for municipalities to that have publicly owned and operated stormwater bmps they need to inspect them every year and keep them in working condition so there's a there's a certification that goes into EPA for the town of hopkington to say that they're maintaining their bmps too so we need to like bring those two programs together okay all right you want to keep moving forward the through the rest of the modifications yep okay so John's got section seven up section um a here was largely all new in the last version and here we've just made some modifications um largely based on what we're seeing in the stormwater handbook just so the language is more consistent because the mass stormwater handbook the spirit of this section stayed the same from the last version you've seen But the definitions of low impact development um and environmentally sensitive site design were really have been refined in both the handbook and 310 cmr1 so we've tried to make that um consistent and less confusing hopefully how low impact development and environmentally site design are related and work together and are tied to um liid techniques are are more what you're thinking for green infrastructure through the chair can I ask a question here sure so minimizing storm waterer impact uh I don't I don't want to speak for everybody but I'm not an expert in how to minimize stor storm water impact but it seems like our storm water regulations kind of trying to dictate landscape design and and um how that that seems counter and it doesn't seem to be the right thing to try to do like I don't even know how like here if I look at section two here site plans and Landscape plans for all proposed projects must take appropriate steps to minimize water used for irrigation allow for natural recharge of groundwater how is that an enforceable I don't even understand how that's an enforcable thing is there storm water regulations like are we going to tell any develop any person that wants to build a project they can't like any any tree any flowers anything that you that requires water I I guess I don't understand how the storm water regulations it's appropriate to tie to Landscaping that requires water and like the plants that require water and trees that require water would also help mitigate storm water issues so I don't understand I'm confused I guess by this that section of this um document so I'm looking for an explanation I guess really huh so yeah so this is something I think in an attempt to really break down some of the silos and the way that we've treated storm Warner runoff in the past we have to start thinking about the extreme ends of things so not just the large storms that we're seeing and how to mitigate that which you'll certainly see in here but also on the flip side when we're looking at extreme drought and you lose the ability to irrigate and we're trying to have more native species that are drought tolerant in general so that you're not having um you know denuded Landscapes and erosion because the vegetations died off so quickly in times of drought so I mean this is something that we're seeing um more commonly in storm water regulations I'd say as we're starting to think about Like Water Resources a little more holistically it's definitely you know it's not a requirement of the ms4 necessarily to have that number two in here no but but I guess through the chair I'm trying to think about technically the enforceability of this say say somebody has a project and they want to put in acres Acres of lawn and that that Acres of lawn is going to require water to be to look good and be usable over time versus fundamentally no laan no laan would require less water so are we the the the way this is written is it sounds to minimize water use for irrigation and basically is that is the letter of this document make that like really an un um unintended consequence not sure I follow your question about unintended uned like any anyone that owns a home on like an acre property in hopkington will want some lawn area and will want some shrubs and they'll want they'll want like a nice looking property so if this is saying the Landscaping needs to minimize water use in gen like is that so restrictive that language so restrictive that fundamentally putting in anything that would require water user irrigation is would violate this this uh language yeah I so so I guess two thoughts number one I I agree with you that this isn't overly enforceable um and because there's nothing to judge whether it you know in a in a binary world can't say whether it is or is not but at the same time I can also think of some situations um and I I think that that we as a board can push on some things um but you know for example um you know I think of all the times that I see irrigation systems that are dumping water into the street that are then going down a storm drain which then need to be managed well that's not a very well-designed system um if uh the ground itself isn't able to to recharge um and and you're getting runoff in some other capacity that's a poorly designed system and I I I um I think Emily's point about drought situations and um you know High high water demand plants if we go into a situation where they die off because of it like ground cover on a hillside for example um that can lead to problems long term so to me I I agree it's it's hard to enforce this but I think we can all recall times as board members where we've utilized things like this to push on Native species on pollinators um on on um you know just even on on you know Landscaping plans and plant selection that um you know that that could have they could have some positive effect um and and minimize the risk associated with with storm water management so that's that's kind of kind of my take I don't know if folks feel otherwise but um I guess my my question Rob is is there a downside to this I mean I is I think the downside is uh if this bylaw still is in place in uh still several decades from now and there's a board with a different a planning board that really wants to stand by the letter of this and basically say to a developer you want to build a subdivision with 10 homes you can't have any Landscaping that would be an unfortunate outcome in my opinion I to me me that'd be pretty hard to enforce when it says minimiz it doesn't say eliminate it says minimize water use for irrigation and to allow for natural recharge and preference towards Native species I mean I don't know not a not really a concern for for me I'm I'm supportive of it um it's not enforceable but I think it's it's good practice so that's just just my take any thoughts from other board members I agree I think we shouldn't really overthink these things to that extent um seems fine to me all right any other comments before we move on okay Emily what's okay next um I don't think there's too much to talk about with the waivers I think that all stayed based on our conversation with kcom folks this one okay yeah this was Fe again feedback from conservation um just about the timing of inspections of bmps um they pointed out that it's really important to get there before um they demobilize because if you see something after they've demobilized all the equipment they're like well it's too bad equipment's gone um and just making sure some of the infiltrating bmps have been installed correctly so we can keep going inspection maintenance this was just redundant language that we struck based on the section we talked about previously the omm okay moving on to definitions um there there were some Provisions about tree protection in the previous draft that we because there's some tree protection bylaw sounds like in the works we took that out because we thought it would just be potentially Overkill if that's being thought of separately so there's definitions that were related to that that were deleted like critical root Zone and drip line um environmentally site environmentally sensitive site design matches the Massachusetts STW handbook now in this um just so side note that we the definition of low impact development is in your bylaw so we could not change it but it has slightly changed in the Massachusetts handbook so we added some clarifying language into the into the body of the regul um going I have a question about the the tree changes and I I guess I'm I'm a little reluctant to pull those out just because we don't have a tree protection bylaw uh tree protection bylaw is likely going to be controversial um because there's not a clean way to to write it um and I think to me trees and protecting trees are one of the best ways to help manage negative effects of storm water and and uh in just general disruption from from development so I'm just curious to hear I mean is there are there other concerns Within These Clauses that that create some problems or is it is it really just the idea that well if we have a tree bylaw then we wouldn't want it to conflict with this I I think it's the latter I think that was the concerns and John tell me if I'm wrong I think that's what I heard from our conversation the other day if it's we we don't want to write something that's going to conflict in here okay I I I don't know I again I'm I'm curious to ask the the board members how they they feel about that through the chair are they proposing or somebody proposing a a tree bylaw is that why Zach has uh discussed and talked some about it in a lot of different capacities but um there's uh nothing in the in the near future it's one of those things that we all we all love theide a of finding ways to protect more trees and forests and woods um but the the execution of it um is just inherently challenging terms of how do you decide which trees to protect and and which ones you're okay taking down you know in this what we had written previously which I I have up in front of me but um we had written that at the discretion of the planning board existing trees on private property with a diameter at breast height of 10 inches or greater and existing trees within the right of way Andor Town property may be considered protected trees and be retained on the property and then it goes on it's just a brief couple of paragraph paragraphs about um marking those trees protecting the critical root Zone and drip line um with fencing you know so those trees can be retained it's it's certainly not a substitute for for a full tree protection bylaw but it g at least gives gives you some discretion to say like these these trees can't come down here with you Gary and I would be curious of taking Emily's language and then adding a addendum to uh disqualify any non-native species um could be a a healthy compromise because trees are essential to erosion prevention and I agree with your sentiment yeah I like that and would support that as well so what was I'm sorry was the thing about the fence again um thing about the fence was just once you've identified tree uh protected trees so the area surrounding a tree which includes at a minimum the critical root Zone and drip line for protected trees must be enclosed with a fence prior to land disturbing activity and remain undisturbed until work is completed on the property so as to prevent damage to the tree um the planning board may require tree replanting either on the applicant's land or on land AB budding the applicant's land with Express written approval of the owner um of such a budding land where protected trees cannot be saved it's just to prevent people from digging up the tree essentially what constructions going on yeah or damaging the [Music] trees any objections to slotting that back in through the chair question through the what about where the house actually would go like there's going to be a on any parcel there'll be a home and and in a lot of land in Hopkin there'll be trees where the house will go you want to cut those trees down too Rob so those trees will for the house to be built they'll need to be cut down so I I don't understand what this it doesn't distinguish from where the house is to like a tree at the edge of the property I don't understand this um I guess the question is is how do how does the planning board determine which trees uh to protect and which trees are permissible to cut down associated with a a project yeah and one more things through the chair like property owners have rights trees trees grow trees die like um I don't think we'll ever like my opinion is we won't get a any type of bylaw passed about trees anytime soon within Hopkinson I I think it's been discussed before and the general reaction has been that's not a good use of time but I I think trees are great but it's I I don't know how to yeah I I caution you on speculating on that kind of stuff because um I know a lot of people that feel very strongly otherwise and I don't know if it would ever go through or not but um I guess that's my point is that we shouldn't be deciding making decisions on this document um uh you know when we don't know what's going to happen in the future then through the chair then I then I go back to my first point I don't know how do you distinguish where like the house and driveway would go where it's not buildable a build they can't make build if they can't take down some trees typically versus a tree on the edge of the property that could theoretically be kept so again I'm not this isn't anywhere saying that you can't cut down any trees um but I guess my question that I posed before to Emily maybe she can give us some guidance as to how the planning board would evaluate which trees should potentially stay and which ones would be or which areas on a lot would be appropriate to to remove well and I do think that this ties into the environmentally sensitive site design which is required by EPA and DP to the maximum extent practicable like looking at your building envelope to determine where you're going to have the least impact and you know how can you develop the site so you need the you know the least storm water mitigation after development um so again it is written Loosely and I don't can I share my screen John because I can pull up these paragraphs let me let me try to do that just so you can see it oh it is disabled setting you should be able to do that now let me try Okay let's see uh screen two share and Emily really quickly while you're ping that up I think just as an I I think of um Chamberlain Wayland subdivision as an example that some of you might know um where they've clearcut a pretty massive amount of property and they clearly have a lot of storm water issues because of that um and so um you know certainly uh you need to clear some trees to build houses that's understood but um right now the the road is constantly flooded they're constantly making improvements or updates to try and manage that they've got massive amounts of land that have no shade they're all irrigated like to me that's a great example of of how a new um bylaw like this can can help the planning board enforce a little bit better design work than than what's out there today yeah and the I would delete this collection of financial contributions just so you know because there's an expanded version of this language where you can talk about like banking money for trees and it becomes more of its own bylaw at that point but this is just a paired back um couple of paragraphs to allow you to at least point out some trees again presumably within reason on the property um instead of just coming in and clear cutting the entire entire lot all right so so I I'd um I'd be in favor of of incorporating some of the tree protection language back into this um do uh I know a couple of us have commented on this and I we don't need to take a formal vote but I'd love to just get a sense as to how other other folks feel about it and if we see a clear majority that that don't want to then then could hold off on that but um through the chair how do through the chair how do we how do we account for ground mounted solar with this with trying to protect trees I don't well I don't not sure I understand your question like this is just basically a general storm water management bylaw so someone could put instead of a house they could put a sto a ground mounted solar array on a parcel of land and by Def and by to make it ground mounted solar they're going to clearcut all the trees where the solar array is going to go so I don't know how a storm water management uh like section of our bylaws will account for uh a parcel where a home goes versus a parcel where a solar a ground mounted solar array is going to go well the a ground mounted solar system would uh still require a storm water management system but if I that's that's why we have an engineering firm that reviews it and incorporates it it meets our standards and and bylaws that's what I'm saying so if our storm water management bylaw says you we have tree protection that seems to be in conflict with a solar developer wanting to clearcut the whole parcel it it's not saying that we can't cut trees down there's a famous uh story from Lake Forest Illinois in 1986 where Mr T cut down hundreds of trees in that exurb of Chicago and it's called the Chainsaw Massacre and there is president of communities Emily you're smirking like you know what I'm talking about there is president of uh communities adopting language similar to this I'm more than happy happy to share with the board their specific regulations which carve out property that's subject to development petition so there could be mechanisms Robert in the case that you're talking about to allow for that but um just food for thought that it's not a an absolute or we hope you we're not considering it as that Jan do you have thoughts oh we lost your J uh Vic do you have any thoughts Vick no it's just start this it feels like more of a gray area for me right now when I'm hearing both the conversations so not able to make up my mind to be honest okay um Parker any additional thoughts I feel like we should consider incorporating it reincorporating all right and um Matthew yeah well I I I hear some of the concerns that Rob's saying in terms of how does this get impacted how does this get implemented in practice if were to be adopted um I I I like having the the paragraph there I I think it does give us uh extra tools to work with uh in terms of the storm management uh storm water management plan um and I do uh like striking the financial contribution bit unless we want to talk more about that it just seems like it Alters the purpose of managing the water in that area um I agree Jane do you have any thoughts on the tree discussion no not really not right now okay so I I guess I'm I'm hearing uh one Rob I'm assuming you're you're against including any tree language in the bylaw yeah I would not I would see if we can provide pass any protection for trees as a standalone uh zoning change and not try to incorporate it into storm water man management where it could cause the whole changes we're trying to propose here to be at uh an an issue whereas I think if we can C keep it this clean to just storm water management it's easy and to pass and to basically say this is our the go forward regulation but when we start including uh things that could be confrontational like trees or landscape requirements it just makes it it just makes it people the general uh ability to ask questions greater so I would remove things that could be um ride questions just to clarify John question for you um do these changes all go before town meeting no okay so this is our right to determine and modify by this bylaw yes if this gets passed tonight by planning board it is effective tomorrow all right so um I think um what I've heard so far is uh two of us are supportive of it one is against it um I guess I'd just like to kind of continue the the straw vote and see uh where the others sit and um you know we can uh make a decision from there I I I'd prefer to get to to resolution on some of these details just so that we don't have to to go back and and and revisit again so of those uh either Jane or Vic or Parker or Michael yeah I mean I'm I'm very supportive of it you know I think it's a a good thing for um you know water retention in the ground and I think it's just it's better looking you know I think sometimes when they you know they have the subdivisions where they clearcut everything around and you just see like a hill with like you know boxes everywhere it's unappealing looking and yeah I mean this would be at the discretion of the planning board too right so you know it could change over time right you could have people who are more permissive on the board cutting down trees and people lessive so I think it makes sense I think whenever you go in to change um when you're going to build anything septic systems homes or whatever um I've seen of sometimes that they do try and protect a really old tree and quite often what happens is that the root structure is damaged inevitably during some part of this process and then two or three later years later they end up taking the tree down anyway but I mean it's it's not a bad idea certainly um there just nothing guaranteed but Jane isn't that why they they have the drip line of the the fence around it because I would agree with you I mean I can think of trees that they've gone and gone up to the three feet within the the root structure and well yeah no surprise but yeah but um yeah I've just seen it other times you know it's just prohibitively you know they try but often it it doesn't work it's a great idea so would you be for or against the tree protection language in this bylaw um how would it be enforced uh there's I think to our discussion prior these are our guidelines so there's there's not a clear mechanism for enforcement but it does I think Matthew said it well it gives the planning board some additional tools to push towards uh better smarter uh design a topic of conversation to be continued I guess um through the developer and the planning boards through the chair I think it gives us a opportunity to in the future to communicate that with the developers as well right since we have this language so we can just communicate the fact that you know trees should be protected whenever possible it doesn't hurt to have the language there certainly I you know it does show desire to protect the environment and prevent erosion so to me there's not much downside yeah I would be against it said too much uh Vic Parker thoughts for it Vic has more experience in recent history though dealing with existing trees on his property than I do but I'm for it yes that's where I was just trying to think through it because if this law comes into effect so how does this be enforced and everything sorry I have a bad throat so my voice is a little wonky um um I'm against this because I want to have this to be separated not to be part of the storm water that that gives more flexibility more thought process what we implementing it but being as a part of a storm water it it just gets complicated is what I have a feel of it okay Matthew final comments and then we'll sorry excuse me move on from this yeah I I having a part of the storm water management uh regulations I I think is different than saying we have a general purpose tree protection bylaw as well right this is uh the statements here are uh protecting the trees with the purpose of also managing storm water Etc so I do think it fits in line with where it's at and it's separate from it just saving trees for a bunch of other positive reasons as well yeah and it's a good point of clarity and and Vic just to make sure that we're clear this isn't going to this doesn't mean that that you're not able to go cut down trees on your property thanks this would be this would be for subdivisions and development projects um that need to take this into consideration so all right um so it sounds like uh majority are for including some type of of language um I realize that just means another round of of of edits or red lines um but um I'm hearing the majority of the board is supportive of it so um can we take an action item to update the tree protection guidelines in the bylaws let me try to zoom to where John left off just so we don't have to keep switching okay so we will add that back in the next version we'll put back the relevant definitions we've talked about this um [Music] okay this is one that is maybe nitpicky but um the new Mass handbook has moved from saying storm water best management practices or bmps to storm water control measures so we have a little bit of a mismatch of both because you've probably got bmps written into other parts of regulations in different places than in the bylaw so we just want to make sure we have both of those things um so nothing nothing major just a change of terminology okay management plan contents um again clarifications about L and environmentally sensitive site design might be getting to the end oh hang on performance standards for redevelopment sites okay based on feedback from conservation we changed this language about offsite mitigation so offsite mitigation is something that's allowed both under the ms4 permit for redevelopment and also in the Massachusetts handbook um but they thought that offsite mitigation should be at a ratio of two times the attenuation volume of the required runoff not recharged retainer traded on site um they thought that that would really incentivize um project owners to try to mitigate storm water onsite before they start looking at offsite mitigation um offsite mitigation has like additional criteria in the handbook now which is great um the other piece of this is you know off-site mitigation is it could be easy to facilitate something like that if there is um a developer that owns multiple properties within the same hu 12 Watershed and and could do that tradeoff it starts to get a little bit more complicated if they're looking for a site to improve say on Town property so it's just something to think about with the mitigation but in general the the the group with DPW and conservation thought it's it's a nice tool to have in your toolbx to give give folks an option to think of some Creative Solutions where there could be like an overall Watershed benefit if they if they can't do it on their site so Emily one question the the two times volume it sounds like there was a little bit of debate there is that a standard ratio or is that something I mean like like how was that determined [Music] and so honestly that that did come from the group um I could do more research to see if that's a standard ratio um I'm trying to think you know offsite mitigation is such a A New Concept you know I don't have a lot of background in how that's going to work or I don't have a lot of insight into how that's going to work out once communities start to put this into their regulations okay I mean is there any downside to this or is there I guess that's I mean we could engineer this to death and and we could probably debate a lot lot of stuff in it and at some point we need to move it forward but I'm just curious from your professional opinion if if this is something we should dig into a little bit more or if is there any downside to this um it's it's quite protective right with the two times I mean it is really the way it's written still encouraging people to do what they can on their own property so they you I think in a lot of cases they're going to select not to use offsite mitigation because they won't want to do the two times um attenuation you know that said it could potentially facilitate some of those like private Public Partnerships that you might want to encourage down the road um as the town maybe has increasing requirements to do their own stormw retrofits and enhanced stormwater bmps this could be a tool that you end up using more often maybe five years from now okay any thoughts from the board on this we don't need to have a ton of discussion if people don't have a strong perspective I'm comfortable relying on the experts here but um any thoughts I just need through the chair I just need some clarity what's offsite mitigation like what would that consist of or what's an example of that so sure let's think of an example so so let's say um your project site where you're proposing um you know multif family residential development has really lousy soils you can't meet the infiltrate you know the recharge requirements on site um for the size of the you know the development you're proposing but you also own another property two doors down or something like that where it's not developed and you could route the storm water there and do the recharge there something like that it's not a great example I'm not sure that's feasible but but something like that where you can do an exchange or not even taking the drainage here maybe you just have a you could have a potentially substandard system on this one property but then someplace else you put in you know much more storm water treatment but within the same watershed area so the thought is that the the the Watershed benefits would be equivalent that said it still could cause some local issues doing something like that that you'd have to consider so it's not a slam dunk by by any means doing the offsite mitigation I think it's with um and it's only for a Redevelopment but as some of these Redevelopment standards if you look at this it it has become you know Redevelopment used to be to the maximum extent practicable just try to make it a little bit better and there weren't really great criteria for that this gives actual numeric criteria for a Redevelopment which may be difficult to meet through the chair should there be consideration for gradient on the offsite uh like is 2x the you go back two times attenuation volume required should it does gradient matter at all because what if you have a site that's two times but it's a 45 degree angle and then do you understand or am I just like totally overthinking that I I was just curious and again Gary I apologize for giving the Weeds on this but the thought occurred to me no I I I don't think um well actually let me defer to Emily um like we're talking about like sight slope yes it would have to be feasible on the receiving site too so yeah if there were like major slope considerations or other constraints on the you know the site you're using for the offsite mitigation that made it not feasible or not desirable you would you would reject that plan okay so that's already part of the consideration and doesn't necessarily matter for this subsection yes you'd still have to be proposing like a you have to meet all the engineering standards for that mitigation project I mean I think the the key piece that I heard is that it creates a pretty big incentive to manage onsite without having to go offsite um and it but it still provides some mechanism to go offsite if there's no other options yeah versus versus telling someone they they can't build or they can't do the Redevelopment at all I feel like maybe over on Emily you wouldn't weren't a part of this project but I think over on South Street there was a project that maybe we enabled it wasn't a Redevelopment but we enabled some of that uh storm water volume to be recharged um on a neighboring piece of property because that's already the way the natural storm water system was functioning on site by that may not be the best example that I I I feel like I remember seeing something that was like you said it was a existing system in place um there were some improvements to it and in order for them to meet their requirements they they had to rely on a different parcel but it made sense to do so yeah some towns have been doing this sort of off the books it hasn't been really in their regulations but they've been just doing it they've been like well if you can't trade it on your property I've got this great project for you right down the street so it's really trying to formalize some of those what actually was like really beneficial projects that were happening for some communities where they could get some major drainage upgrades including storm water like runoff volume in quality let's let's go ahead and move on um so this is the Noah section this is what you originally asked for um the rainfall data which we've tweaked now that we have the mass handbook language in front of us but it is referencing NOA Atlas 14 we've used the exact wording from D so they're looking at the upper confidence precipitation frequencies multiplied by 0.9 they've done a lot of research to show that that's very protective given where they think storms are going in climate change um and we've really been clear about using tp40 is no longer acceptable you're using Noah Type C or D storm distributions um you know use of nrcs type 3 storm is no longer acceptable so it's really formalizing that whole shift before I go any questions on that okay um this was a comment from the Conservation Commission just about specifying how to do um when you're doing an infiltration BMP going a little bit beyond what's in the handook requiring Institute saturated hydraulic con connectivity test um it for anything that's requiring that receiving storm water runoff from 2,000 sare feet of more of impervious area with nrcs soils in groups B or C testing shall be in accordance with the mass hok and exfiltrate an exfiltration rate of 50% of the lowest test result so that's that's pretty consistent with the language but so really their concern was like these borderline soils like B and C soils where um if there's any kind of fudging of the infiltration rates it can be sort of catastrophic to the performance of the storm War BMP so just making sure that that's really thought through and the conditions are appropriate that really is the end okay thank you Emily um appreciate the run through I I have just just one last question for you um actually quite a few updates in this last revision um I mean is there other guideline updates or other stuff coming that could impact this further and I I know there will be at some point but I I just don't want to get through all this process and then a month later have other new language to to to update so I'll give you my kind of over under discussion on this because I think it's worth moving forward with this sooner than later I mean doesn't have to be today but you know EPA is looking for certain pieces of this to be included as soon as possible in your regulation and I would love in the next annual report to EPA to say that this has been addressed um that being said EPA is working on a new permit it could be out in draft format as early as this summer I mean I wouldn't I wouldn't necessarily bet that it'll be out in the summer but I'm thinking sometime this year we might see a draft ms4 permit the hope would be that it's in line with the mass handbook the mass handbook is only a draft so you know between now the remainder of the comment period goes through April and then potential final revisions could twak some of this so nothing is completely guaranteed but we think that this sets you up to comply with what EPA wants it's aligned with the handbook and references the handbook so even if it changes in the final you can still point to the handbook so I think you have more of an incentive to move this forward even if you need to massage it in a year because of the handbook update thank you I appreciate that um so I think just to sort of sum up what I'm hearing um sounds like as a board we're align on all the changes with the exception of the tree protection language that was in place um so I I'm going to recommend that we go through one last version of this um I just feel like it's a little premature to you know given there's some uh certainly some we had a lot of discussion on that tree clearing language so let's make sure that we get that to the point we're all comfortable with and then um you know I think we can close all the other edits out for the time being and then Circle back once more finaly that language and then we should be able to take a vote make sense yes good okay so then um uh let's see when's our next meeting our next meeting is going to be April 22nd so um I'm gonna recommend that we continue this or I'll entertain a motion to continue this public hearing to April 22nd 2024 good move second assuming no further discussion uh Rob how do you vote Rob yes Jan yes oh gosh I lost my CH here I'm going to fall out of order Matthew yes Michael Yes Vic yes Parker yes and Gary is a yes as well so thanks Emily appreciate it um okay thank you and uh yeah home stretch we're almost there for now until next year all right all right have a good night thanks you too [Music] um okay okay so next up we have uh continue public hearing for Elmwood storm water management permit for Elwood Farms 3 and I see Mr Merchant coming on camera guys hi we're getting we're getting an echo from [Music] you are you still getting from me a slight one yes and it doesn't look like anyone else's mic is picking up can't say I know how to fix that but I will see what I can do it it's probably uh manageable we can understand you it's not so bad that we can't hear you so maybe uh maybe we'll move forward and see how it goes I changed my microphone wondering if that helped yes Solve IT excellent um so I'm a little bit dark here sorry about that I swear I'm here um just came to give a brief update on where we stand with um our application I didn't want to go too long with without being in front of the board um but don't have a full presentation for you tonight um we have been going back and forth with PE um on their comment letters we think we're to a spot where uh we we can achieve a clean comment letter from them um and our Engineers are currently making the adjustments and the plans to be able to do that so um we' hope to get uh staff a revised plan set here this week that addresses all of um their outstanding comments there are also some uh outstanding comments from DPW that we need to work through that John and I are trying to meet together with the that staff um to work things out but we are U just wanted to give you the brief update of of where we stood nothing nothing major to report today all right thanks Ted um John anything to add from a town side or from a peer review side uh no nothing to add in terms of the review of the application um they're like Ted said they're working through with with par uh and we just need to get some stuff done it's a timing issue at this point just trying to schedule people um the only comment I have is when you vote if you vote to continue which I assume you will we also need to continue the decision deadline so I just want to put that out there now before I forget okay um and I know that we've continued this a few times so maybe I'll just take a moment and see um if there are any pressing questions first from the board um and then uh anyone from the public we'll start with the board any questions concerns no okay uh and then any comments or questions from members of the public I know there's not a lot to present on but we're letting the process work its way through and then we'll go through the the details and um address any uh any outstanding issues um once there's alignment between the developer and the our peer reviewed engineer okay um Ted I'm assuming you're comfortable continuing to April 22nd yes please um and then that would make our decision April 30th John week and a day okay so I'll entertain a motion to continue the public hearing for element Farms storm water management permit um to uh April 22nd and the uh decision to April 30th 2024 mov second all right so no further discussion Rob how do you vote Rob venson yes Jame yes Matthew yes Michael Yes Vic yes Parker yes car as a yes as well thanks Ted appreciate you jumping on all right thanks and we'll see you uh in a couple weeks great um all right the last uh hearing that we have before us is for a Scenic Road permit at 41 Front Street um John I feel like I ask this every time but do we need to vote on opening the public hearing good question might as well I'll look into it all right I will entertain a motion to open the public hearing for uh 41 uh for Senor gr permit at 41 Front Street Rob hson so moved second assuming no further discussion Rob how do you vote Yes Jame yes Matthew yes Michael Yes Vic yes Parker yes Gary's a yes as well all right um looks like we have uh Sam are you our applicant this evening yes I am ah welcome to the planning board um and appreciate your patience um if you can um start with your name and address and then um you just want to explain why you are before us tonight sure of course uh my name is Sam Woodson I live at 41 Front Street um and what we're looking at right now is uh the plot plan of 41 front um you can see the existing building there um that main rectangle and then off to the right of that you'll see the uh proposed addition that we're putting on the home um so we have uh an order of conditions that was just completed with the Conservation Commission um so during that process they mentioned to to me that uh we're on a Scenic Road and in order to um put in the construction entrance the temporary construction entrance that we're requesting we had to come um for uh a permit through you guys so um what you can see here is the the red um circles across the right above the words construction access um that's the existing stone wall location and then the black section is approximately where we're going to put um where we'd like to put the construction entrance but there's we'd have to remove part of the stone wall 10 10 ft wide and just move the Rocks over to the side for now um put in a gravel construction entrance and then when we're done we would remove it and then replace the wall as existing so really just to get to that to that construction area we have um our well is in our front yard and then there's a grade change so in order to go in through our driveway and then across the front yard and then over to the construction site it would be hard for the trucks to make the turn around the well um and then there's a grade change so they were concerned about the um our Construction company's concerned about the uh trucks getting up that little grade change so what you see here in the red is where we would be removing the Rocks temporarily and then that's from the other side and you can see that rock there at the bottom of the photo that actually marks our well so we know where it is um so we just we need to get around that so that's that's why we're asking for this entrance got it all right thanks for the intro um appreciate the pictures uh super helpful i' been Pastor House of many many many many times on my bicycle so I um I've seen that wall before so just super helpful to have those um so from a process perspective you know I'll just say to me this is should be reason going to be straightforward but we do have um a process that we use for hearings of this type um and uh that is in our packet but starts with the project intro um we'll get a staff report from John um quick discussion on decision criteria um and then there's a a whole lot of formalities uh in terms of uh in terms of waivers and conditions and whatnot so um but um yeah so we'll go ahead and work through that that outline um so next up would be staff report John do you w to give us your summary of this proposal sure so as you said I think this is pretty straightforward they just want to move the wall temporarily then rebuild it um I did note that they have one sapling that I think is three and a half in uh so that would have to be removed which is slightly over the threshold so I added a condition that the board can either include or remove but it's that the applicant shall there's a typo in it so I'll read the corrected version the applicant shall plant a tree of similar size and species to the one sapling proposed for removal after work has been completed and the stone wall has been replaced to its original condition all right thank you John um and and just so people know too there's there's some background as to why we do this and we've had some situations elsewhere in town where um uh stone walls were removed and rebuilt but to a very different style um some cases they've been modified and not put back or different Stone brought in and and so the the intent here is just to you know I think as a board we recognize that this probably makes sense for construction purposes we just want to make sure that it all gets put back together to resemble the the scenic and um potentially historic nature that that it is today so um all right so decision criteria um just to remind everyone uh chapter 160 covers our Scenic roads uh the planning decision planning board's decision on any application for proposed work affecting Scenic Road should be based on con consideration of the following criteria section 1606 the degree to which the proposed work would adversely affect the scenic and anesthetic values upon which the scenic Road designation was originally based the necessity for the proposed work in terms of Public Safety welfare or convenience uh compensatory action proposed such as replacement of trees or walls availability of reasonable alternatives to the proposed work which could reduce or eliminate anticipated damage to trees or stone walls uh and then whether the proposed work would compromise or harm other environmental or historic values uh consistency of the proposed work uh and then lastly consistency the proposed work with previously adopted Town Pol town plans and policies so that's what we should be weighing this proposal against um any questions or discussion with regard to the decision criteria Matthew um I I I had a question about the sapling but not necessarily the I I guess it it's kind of in scope of the decision criteria based on John's comment um I was trying to understand yeah I can either ask down okaye looking at the looking at the picture is it that little uh tree that's sticking out near the right end of the red line uh that that's just on the it's just in scope because it's on the side of the wall is that so yes so the the tree is between the curb um and the wall okay see if we can see it here it's it's pretty small is it off to the right it's off to the right right there yes to yeah okay kind of an ugly junk tree yeah well um and I guess Gary or or through Gary to John like what's how what's what's the specifics about how that gets enclosed like if that doesn't sound seem like it seems like a uh I forget the wording um like a critical part of the scenic nature so I'm wondering exactly how that gets covered in here so through the chair uh trees that are over three Ines in diameter at breast height are considered trees uh that are protected under the scenic Road bylaw I'll just jump out on this and say that I'm not terribly concerned about that tree that's growing crooked out of the wall anybody object to that no objection your s okay um all right other question so I think fair question Matthew um on the decision criteria any other questions or comments about the decision criteria NOP seems pretty straightforward okay from a waiver perspective um there are no requested waivers although I guess John question do we need a waiver on that three and a half inch tree no you could do a waiver or you could make a finding that says the tree appears to be I don't know make up some language that says it's not noncritical for the scenic uh qualities of the road nonviable to continue growing in the position that it's in I don't know so something to justify you don't even have to do that really it's just a compensatory action at the end and the conditions if you just don't want to include that condition in the decision it's not a big deal okay all right um so from a findings perspective um the proposed findings was that the board uh finds the work proposed the proposed work relative to submit a Scenic Road permit application conforms to provisions of chapter 160 and that all applicable criteria and standards set forth in section 16-6 have been satisfied and to me the key Point here is that this is temporary um so it's all going to be returned to the way that it was um minus that 3 and a half inch tree do you guys feel like we need any other findings or I think we're probably okay with this simple and straightforward all right um and then conditions uh John has included uh a couple of recommended conditions so I'll just read these out loud um the first is that the applicant shall provide photographs of the proposed area of alteration um after work has been completed these photographs shall be submitted to the principal planner for review and approval uh to the applicant developer shall provide the principal planner with a project point of contact and contact information prior to the isance of a building permit the point of contact information shall be kept current through correspondence to the principal planner until work is considered complete um and then three uh I think three we don't need that one anymore if I'm reading that correctly the applicant shall plant a tree of similar size and species the one sample sapling proposed for removal after work has been completed and the stall has been replaced to its orinal condition so I don't think we need that one um the only other condition that I would consider is that the just something to to to affirm that the stone wall is rebuilt with the same Stones um and that it uh it maintains a similar um look to what's what's there today and um maybe that's getting a little too specific or more specific than we need to here but I'm just still feeling like we've been burned in the past on this subject so I'm um looking to the board to see if something to that extent makes makes sense all right so then John I would propose a a replacement third condition uh says that the um uh the applicant shall ensure that the stone wall will be rebuilt with uh the original stones and uh Main maintain the same uh look and dimensions uh as to what currently exists Sam does that work for you yeah that's great I I I want to save the stones and make it look exactly like we never touched it so that's perfect okay any other the chair I was sorry I was drafting the condition when you were also reading it so uh how about this one the stone wall shall be reconstructed using stones from the existing stone wall or from the subject property and in similar style and dimension as the existing stone wall works for me any other proposed conditions okay um just working through the agenda here um is there any public comment doesn't look like we have a lot left but I do want to it is a public hearing so if people have questions or concerns now is a chance to ask okay I don't see any there um then um we can go ahead and uh move to a vote so um so I will uh I will then entertain a motion that the board finds that the proposed work relative to the submitted Scenic Road Perman application forms the provision of chapter 160 and that all applicable CR criteria and standard set forth in section 16-6 have been satisfied Pro Benson so moved second assuming no further discussion again we're just voting on The findings here uh Rob how do you vote Rob yes Jan yes Matthew yes Michael Yes Vic yes Parker yes Gary as a yes um and then we can go ahead and move to the uh conditions and approval so I will entertain a motion the board approve the scenic Road permit uh with the conditions uh as they were previously read allow by the chair and the principal planner Rob so moved second all right assuming those further discussion Rob how do you vote Rob yes Jame yes Matthew yes Michael Yes Vick yes Parker yes Gary is a yes as well uh and then lastly I'll entertain a motion to close this public hearing so moved second second Lori you got it all right uh Rob how do you vote Rob bson yes Jane Jane is yes Matthew yes Michael Yes Vic yes Parker yes and Gary is yes as well Sam thanks for joining us tonight good luck with the addition and uh I look forward to seeing how it progresses so awesome feel free to stop by thanks through the chair before Sam Sam I don't know if I have your contact information or your email um I guess it's probably in the application but I just want to be able to email you the decision I should be drafting it this this week and then f it with you and then we'll send it over so if you could shoot me an email when you have a chance that would be great sure and um which what's your email how do I contact you it's on the website um J G I've got your information on the application well I'll follow offline okay that's perfect great thanks all right um last order of business for us tonight is the meeting minutes um any questions or comments or suggested edits for them no they all looked good there were several minutes thank you Lori um and so if there are no comments or questions um I'll entertain a motion to accept the meeting minutes for March 4th and March 18th 202 4 so moved second assuming no further discussion Rob how do you vote Rob yes Jane Jane is a yes Matthew yes Michael Yes Vic yes Parker yes and Gary is a yes as well uh last but not least I'll entertain a motion to adjourn so moved second uh assing no the discussion Rob how do you vote Yes Jane yes Matthew yes Michael Michael oh yes right Parker yes Vic yes and Gary as a yes sorry I threw you guys off there I went out of order um all right thanks everyone good discussion have a great evening we'll see you all in a couple of weeks on April 22nd thank you have a nice spr break everybody cheers