##VIDEO ID:_hy7EB_VXfw## good evening everyone and welcome to the select board meeting of wow October 3rd 2024 uh we're going to start with a roll call we have Denise Lano hi here we have Roger Maran we have Alec rich and myself Steve Hornsby um Kevin Snider was not able to make it he's he's away on business so now let's start with the pledge of allegiance algi to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic stands one nation God indivisible with liy and jusice for all okay we have a small agenda it looks like but don't let it F you because we're going to be here for a little bit um right after that we have an appointment of a new town f for interim you want to talk about it mate sure we have uh an appointment for marily Kenny hunt and marilie was uh the clerk in Bridgewater and retired in May and has volunteered to uh come work for us through this election season it's going to be a great help and I know that marily LE has a daughter and son-in-law that are residents of Norton and her daughter is on the Conservation Commission do you want to come up and you don't have to say any show my face do you want me to get you don't unless I don't care you you don't have to it's it's okay we to make you uncomfortable um but I do want to say thank you for for stepping in so quickly it's very much appreciated you're welcome and it's hard to make me uncomfortable stick around then You' come then you've come to the right place Mr chair Mr Maron I make a motion that we appoint merily Kenny hunt as a town clerk second um as of effectiv October 2nd I'm sorry as of uh let's see says uh October 2nd yes second all in favor I make sure that it's just Tok no too late too late I think that vote has already gone through thank you marily we we will redo that yeah we'll redo that real quick Roger uh Mr chair Mr I'd uh like to amend that motion to make it a uh I'm sorry how long did you say for a permanent well interim doesn't say length so just keep yeah for interim town clerk uh for the town of not and effective October 2nd second okay once again all in favor opposed and again thank you very much okay I guess we're going to review and discuss or vote and or revote on the fall annual town meeting articles um since we have some presentations do we want to do those first sure I think that's yeah that way we don't have to have them staying here forever we'll start with uh yeah down street Water and Sewer that's uh Article 13 in your packets oh wh y you can come on up we have excellent unfortunately we don't have our our screen set up yet so we're going to we do have your presentation in our packet we'll put through with it all right so you don't have to advance nobody's going to be advancing the SL no we're doing it on Zoom anybody Che oh I'm trying to add it but I don't see it an opportunity to do share screen on this I think you have to get the permission from I'll get it Charlie listen me anybody any good jokes in the meantime we said good jokes Peter go ahead Peter while while you're waiting um I that okay you a free cash so I just wanted to give you uh suggestions on the use of free cash um right now uh free cash balance was $ 6,524 [Music] 39 um I'd recommend that we put a million in stabilization 1,500,000 in capital 125,000 in oped so that would leave 3,899 $39 then the Articles um for town meeting um engineering drainage Improvement 50,000 schematic design for the Middle School roof 50,000 separation expense 163,944 for the treatment of the ponds uh 200,000 prior year bills 1,884 and right now the budget supplement the drafts right now add up to 783 361 and then if you hold 280,000 technically for snow and ice um that would leave a balance of 2,370 6 35 to carry to next year okay do we have a breakdown of the budget supplements um PA did you get access yet no not yet um so right now um the largest uh budget supplements are uh I don't want have that stuff in the police department 81,0 616 uh for the overtime that's 75% of the overtime that was cut in the spring um 5,000 for expense also fire 1747 $765 and uh same thing that's 75% of the overtime that was cut in the spring and expenses 15,000 emergency medical expenses 23,100 um the school department 321,000 292 to reinstate staff positions and [Music] [Music] 16,826 to bring that back up to where has been every year um conservation 10,700 expense data processing 14,719 and salary 6,339 in expense there's the rest of the uh the uh the highway department needs 9,500 it's an expense to repair their a sweeper repair and a a j hook and then uh councel on Aging um they've had volunteers step forward to drive their van so $525 for expenses for the van Recreation needs 2400 that uh Melissa came to me and realized that they have to add more wood chips down at the tricentennial park and um she also wants to upgrade uh the security system down at the uh ELP and that would be $849 and then another thousand restoring the memorial investment um back to where where it was when it was cut in the spring those are just some of the uh okay are we are we able to use some of that free cash for um I mentioned I think last week and um and prior to the um the DPW position uh director position not not the salary but the the initial one time cost the recruitment cars things like that um we could use some of it for recruitment I don't know if you'd want to buy a car if we don't have uh anyone in the position yet yeah I I I remember I asked months ago um back in in the spring about this and and the cost was I think he was 250k and that was for salary plus uh plus a vehicle plus whatever else so that's why I wanted to get those onetime expenses covered and then the salary we could we could deal with on on the budget next year so I'd like I'd like to add I mean personally I'd like to add that in um through through you chair good I personally would not be in favor of adding another position at that level when we can't afford to keep the positions that we've had over the last several years we just cut a bunch of positions so I think before we start add another another high cost position that that is occurring expense over and over again that we think about reinstating some of what we lost first anyone else I believe most of what um some of this free cash is going to is a lot of those too based of what Mike just read pretty sure it's more than that do we have uh Mr chair Mr M um is there anybody here from the school department that could help us understand this $321,000 for school personnel I think Mike just read it off those two people that were being stating I went to the I don't want to do an injustice but I Nick did go over it with me and I don't I know it was um I I know it was I believe it was more than two positions but it was it was uh music and foreign languages which would be a couple no not foreign languages I'm getting no okay in the middle school for the Middle School no okay I'm way off so I know they're going to be at the finance committee on Monday night um to talk about it um two more questions I apologize chair some of the stuff that you read off in the budget supplements sound like they were onetime fees why would those be in budget supplements and not in capital um I don't think like the this security equipment for the park for instance was an example yeah it it's only $849 so I know I just think budget is right the recurring expenses and if we don't want to put it in there and then have that be an accepted right right recurring expense right because it's supposed to be one time and one thing that isn't in here yet um we have to add money to the town Clark budget because we won't have part-time clerk we'll have a full-time clerk so and one last question my apologies but in OPB I see that we're having to go to free cash for the fall for 163 159 is separation OPB right no um OPB is just for um retire health insurance costs so it's just a it's just a part of Separation right it doesn't cover um any of the um vacation that's ow people that retire any sick leave that's ow people that retire just it covers retire health insurance so that increase of 163 is mostly the vacation BuyBacks that kind of stuff vacation that's so are sickly buyback okay be okay if you pleas go forward yeah okay yep so let's wrap this one up and then we can move on to the water oh I guess we're not voting on this yet because we don't have the exact amounts okay that's just a draft so uh there will be some work done on that okay yeah you can you can present now I'm sorry for delay no that's okay um thank you good evening my name is uh Steve Peterson with Weston and Samson Engineers U Frank forer is also here from the water and sewer department and Paul dppi the town planner is also going to uh provide some input to this uh to this discussion um so just on the um slides that you have I guess the second one as far as introductions and agenda as far as the project overview I'm not going to go into any details about the specifics um we can do that if people have questions is water and sewer infrastructure in the El Street neighborhood is the project that we're talking about um what we really want to focus on is is I two the other project considerations and I want to break it into the two issues that seem to be driving the discussion on this project one of them is is is the biggest is is the reason we're even here and that is 47 Elm Street its importance to the town and what this project means to that property uh and then Paul will give some background on that too U and even before we get into a lot of detail on that the second issue is how this directly impacts the residents of elen Street and mil terorist in that area quick background on how it's set up and then we want to discuss um an alternative option that we think addresses the major concerns if they really are concerns that are going to prevent this project from moving forward so we'll get into that um and that kind of you know that'll cover the you know the cost cost recovery stuff and then just you know all along we'll talk about the you know the public Outreach you know how we got to here but most importantly where do we go from here so the next slide is kind of the key one um so I said two two issues we have 47 Elm Street the Improvement development of 47 Elm Street is the driving force behind this project if it wasn't for that property out there this project wouldn't come before us and we wouldn't be where we are right now um it's been identified as a priority economic Target area um it's been identified the there are limitations to what we could do with that property based on the existing infrastructure and that's why the town applied for secured grants for the project the grants are the cus we got grant money to do the design PID completely by grants and we have a grant in place $3.5 million to go towards the construction of this project um to make the improvements to the infrastructure out there you know the consequences I guess of not moving forward with some form of this project now is that you know that Grant will that Grant's going to run up this is this town meeting is our last opportunity to vote it in time to do the project and take advantage of the grant um so it will never be more cost effective to do this project than now so those are kind of the facts there so the direct impacts um to the local residents so as part of doing this project um the way it's been presented the way we've been discussing it is not just bringing the infrastructure to 47 Elm um but bringing it to all the residents in that neighborhood you know providing a project that um it provides the utilities um for all the properties along the way um the things that are driving the discussions are obviously money related right the cost of the project and then the cost recover how do we recover the cost um to the issue of the capital cost of construction one thing that we have done is we have moved forward with the public bid process we are going to have a bid opening for the project before town meeting so we will have contractor bids in hands with the cost of the project um to lend us to a better Comfort level with the numbers some of the feedback is and people are concerned that the the costs are going to escalate as we go so we'll have a much better idea if we have actual prices going in and then the other piece so that's how much does it cost and then how do we recover it so we've talked about this obviously the um well first let's talk about the water work so the the intent for all the cost of the water work is to be covered through the water base majority of the town is on water there's a large user base this is it's not a new utility it's an improvement there's a water man out there already um it needs to be improved it definitely needs to be improved to provide for 47 Elm um for the pressures that are needed there the water service that will be needed there um at some point it needs to be replaced either way it's it's on a list that that water M does need to be done then you have the grant monies so for the sewer cost you have the grant monies that'll take a chunk of that and then we've been talking and the way we have it presented is is with BS the rest of the cost is to be assessed through banss that's um very typical on how you know most communities do it that is how it's been done in Norton before um and the way we have the betterment set up so you think about it so the you have the the cost of the sewer project you take the grant monies off what's left and then you divide that among all the properties that have direct access to the Sewer so we've provided access to the Sewer for all these properties um and you divide it up among them the big thing that we've done here is the way the betterments units get assessed it's you know um based on equivalent dwelling units so a single family home is one unit we've looked at 47 Home Street um based on conceptual plans that have been provided for its you know best and highest use with the utility available to it we've identified what the vment assessment would be and we're attaching that to this property which means 70% of what's being paid through betterments is attached to the number of edus that would go to 47 Elm Street it's being attached to that property the other 30% um is being paid by the residents the residents um did now have access to the Sewer um one thing so we've had several had many meetings we've had several public meetings with the residents many things have come up we'll talk about all those issues that have come up one of the big issues that came up and has come to us in emails and was a big discussion at the last public meeting um we're quoting a betterment range with a high end of 12,000 per unit we're saying that's kind of the the high end and the concern that's come from the residents is they're they're afraid that that's going to that's going to slide in the other direction you know they're going to they're going to was something much more than 12,000 they're worried that we're not going to assess all those evus to 47m or nobody's going to come and build 47 Elm and the town's going to turn around and up their betterments to cover the cost so one thing that we are definitely recommending if we go forward with the article is written now is to put Lang because there is not language in there that protects the highend is to put language in that that makes it clear that the better is capped at 12,000 whatever happens we've got to stick to what what we're assessing to 47 Elm Street if they come back with something that's a lesser use and not as many edus as we're projecting we got to stick with what we assess that property for which you can do but that's just so that's what putting the cap on the V and I wouldn't um you know we've discussed it and we would highly recommend at a minimum the article the way it's written um to do that and I think there's a lot of people that will ask you for that if you don't do it it will come up that's that's definitely something that's that's one of the biggest pieces of feedback that we receive so the other issue um so that's a cost so we've talked before like about the betterments so let's say it is the high end it's the 12,000 um they can pay it up front portion over time we can talk more about that if people have more questions about that so then the other issue U that keeps coming up is the tie it and the requirement to tie it so it's all tied to the Future operation and maintenance cost of that system I talked about the water system you have a large user base a lot of people share in the cost of the overall water system is the opposite with the sewer system most people in Norton are non sewer um and the way that sewer Works sewer Enterprise fund it's you know it's quite frankly the people that you know they they add up their operation and maintenance costs to maintain the system that they have and they divided among the users we're going to add more infrastructure and not have people tie in you're just adding to the costs for the people that are already on the system it's I've said this before you know it's a multi-million utility it's not a build it in case you need it you need to decide that you want it and you're building it because you need it and you're going to use it and that's why the town has a bylaw town has a bylaw um that's not a Water and Sewer Commission rig that's a town bylaw that people have to tie in with seven years so it's another thing that that the home owners have to deal with so they have to pay the vit and then they do have to tie into the sewer uh within 7 years so there have been discussions about that and we can come back I guess where I want to go now is the alternative so the concern here is if those issues are driving the boat and and the town you know the majority of the Town feels that's not fair and we don't want to do that we can we don't have to bring SE everybody right we never envisioned it as a project where we wouldn't bring the infrastructure to everybody but the alternative uh if you go to the next slide um would be to do the water over the entire length because you have to right to bring the water pressure to anybody specifically to that property it needs the entire length of the pipe to be upgraded um and then you put the pump you take the Pump Station instead of putting it down the low Point El Street and picking everybody up we can just service 47l we can put the pump station at 47 Street and run a dedicated Force man from that pump station to the same place it's set up to pump now so it'll come down Elm Street across 123 and out to Pine Street and tie into the the sewers over there and it's not a sewer that people can tie into so that would be no gravity sewer and no properties connected other than 47 so if you go to the next slide you know what does that mean um so I kind of did side by side so we're calling the the gravity and force thing with LA that as a preferred that is what the town meeting article is that's what we put forward as we think is the best for everybody and then go on to the right is the alternative with just a force P for get the gravity suits so under the preferred option each property on Elm Street and milit terce is front to bank gravity sewer sorry the other opt option no gravity sewer no connections property value is a thing I mean that is um the availability of sewer does provide an increase um to the property value with sewer availability that's where the word betterment is derived from that's that's that's why they call it a betterment um because there is an improvement um under the Force main only there's just no impact to the property value associated with S as far as costs under the the first option as discussed home owners would pay a veter fee now and a cost to connect within seven years they would have to pay to hire somebody to connect them into the sewer under the alternative uh they would have to pay to replace their septic system at some point in the future we don't know when that will be we do know they don't last forever um so um that would be the alternative um as far as construction under either alternative you know the entire road is going to get dug up we're going to put water man over the entire length and then on one option we'll also put the gravity sewer in under the other option we just put a force so we're still going to you know dig up the entire Road and do all this it's I guess the the point with this is you know if and I think we have to go back back to the the discussion about 47 L because if people don't think it's a good idea to provide this infrastructure for 47 Elm then we we wasted a lot of time so we're trying to find a project that is going to have the support it needs utilize that Grant Monies to do what needs to be done to improve 47 mil we we feel the I mean obviously we think the better option is to is to sue everybody while you're there I'm just trying to be very careful not to speak for the I mean that's however the people feel it's the world of the people how the residents feel and I don't know how you'll you know is it is that a decision for the whole town to just decide is that a decision for the residents of elm to decide that's kind of what we're that's what that leades us with so that's what I have on that I don't know if we want to so Paul's going to talk about 47 Elm I don't know if you want to do do that and then have discussions about everything do it that way yeah let's have Paul come up and talk about that cuz that's that's a big part of it if you want to he's dying it's we may be getting this on Zoom me just do a quick check and if it's not I will anyway it's not up there yet Charlene says it's coming but um uh good evening board U I'm Pauli I'm the director of planning and economic development and um I just want to follow up with what Steve was saying and part of my job is to focus on economic development and Steve mentioned this project this proposal is driven extensively by the economic development opportunities at at 47 Elm Street and so I I want to first start just by talking or Focus primarily on why why is redeveloping this site so important to the town and um there's a couple main considerations first and foremost get rid of the blight we want to help you know improve the neighborhood it remove safety issue that's there um and so we believe that adding sewer to this site will greatly increase the marketability of this site and hopefully get it developed at some point um another factor is financial and specifically commercial property taxes uh as you may recall a couple years ago we had a developer propose who said that they were looking to take over the site there they're still looking um sorry that's just popped up uh and so the numbers I'm going to throw out there were based on what she had spoken about at planning board and at town meeting which was specifically about uh 140 units of residential and about 10,000 ft of retail we have no plans to that effect uh at this point that uh development team has not taken ownership this is just strictly hypothetical based on that number but we were looking at what a project of that size could potentially mean to the town in terms of property taxes and looking at a couple other similar projects um we'd be looking at a ballpark of about5 to $600,000 a year roughly back envelope which is a pretty big which is a pretty big earner for the town this is important in the context of a few things one of which is we're uh the town as you know has a goal of having at least 25% of all of its property taxes coming from commercial that's a minimum we're currently at 18 we've been rising know 5 years ago I think we were about 15% but now we're at 18 but we want to keep moving we need to get to 25 this is one of the few remaining tax big tax earners potentially um and and I'm going to show you a slide later on that shows what's left in terms of our vacant land uh but the reality is we don't have much vacant land left we we've seen most of it vacant land that's a zone for commercial or industrial use um so sorry now I'm getting access um there's also some some limited Redevelopment opportunities uh particularly um twe but please note that that site's being looked at uh for by a nonprofit they've been looked at for a few years and while that will be a great user the challenge is to us is if it's a nonprofit We cannot tax it uh let me just quickly uh add this to to zoom um and so um what I'm trying to paint a picture is is that we have we have some limited opportunities for redevelopment in vacant land and this is an important one the other thing too is um adding this would help with the debt service to the Mansfield foxb uh dorton wastewater treatment plant could because it could spread it to more you spread the cost to more users um and so if you look on your slide there's a map of the town and uh you see the parcels that are that are colored in red those are the vacant Parcels remaining that are in commercial or industrial land the two where I have circles are uh two of the two larger sites that are served by sewer the other sites aren't served by sewer one of those sites is the dot property uh just north of 495 on 123 across from Blue Star Business Park it's about 40 acres it was rezoned uh about two years ago to Industrial um do was gungho for us to rezone it we did at town meeting uh but since then they haven't moved on putting that out to bid we we keep asking for our legislative delegates who have been helping but do at this point is not expressing any uh interest to put it on the market yet the other big parcel um that we'll also be talking about at our presentation on another article is the uh property owned by right near TPC uh which is the PGA golf Charities which also is on sewer uh at this point the property owner is not indicating any interest in developing anything there so but then the rest of the sites are are have development opportunities uh but they also have environmental constraints so there will still be Revenue positive but they're not going to be you know bigger uh uh taxpayers but you know if they develop as commercial or industrial you don't have those added costs that you can get with residential I'm on the next slide now um and talking about while we're focusing on reading Barton part of my job as I've come back is trying to focus and working with Frank and Steve and some other Departments of how can we you know further our particularly sewer investments in town to help promote Economic Development most of our town does not have sewer and and the great majority both of our two main roads 123 and 140 do not have sewer on them and so we're working to come up with a strategy to figure out how we can continue to move extend sewer on 120 along 123 and on 140 uh to with the hopes that we can get Redevelopment because you know we're not this isn't 10 years ago we had a lot more vacant land we're we're you know forget who says God isn't making any more land and you know there's just not many vacant opportunities anymore so we want to look at those main corridors and you know you can look at the the uh the sewer on West Main Street as an example of things that are happening um we've already seen some some changes there um you know we're seeing now the old the Oldtown library now is which was which was closed for 33 34 years 33 years I don't want Peter to correct me again 33 years 19911 um but it it reopened because because we extended sewer to we also reasoned it but that was also because of sewer um the same developer uh you might notice across the street where the old bank was uh is now we haven't received any proposal for it but the fact that that building is gone is an indicator something's coming back but again that's because as a sewer um and you know poog Iron Brewing um you know was very clear they were going to leave that site because they wanted to expand and they couldn't with the septic system and when we put sewer in they've been able to expand and they stayed there and you know you know that's been such a great Plus for our town so I only I'm only bringing this up because um you know with Elm Street I I think if we have a successful project there putting sewer there that gives us momentum to go elsewhere into these areas and you know we're going to continue to work uh to find new tools there's tools out there that the state has for us that we need to take advantage of um you know again on these major corridors um but again if we're able to have success with Elm Street that helps us move forward and then um finally last slide I have is on the uh massworks granted it's $35 million and as Steve mentioned it was approved primarily due to the Redevelopment of the site if if we don't have if we don't pass the vote that 3.5 million gets returned and you know it's it's I'm speculating here but it's unlikely we'll see it again for a long long time for a couple of reasons one you know State funding issues are right now a challenge and I I would also be concerned if you know if we were to return that amount of money which they told us was actually one of the largest amounts they've ever allocated they might not look too favorably on us and if we do that and as Steve mentioned this covers about 41% of the total cost of the project and you know our request that at at town meeting I know Steve Will May cover this a little bit more you know the full amount is you know the 8 plus million but what we really look for as the balance which is about 2 and5 million if we were to so essentially we're asking for 2.5 million to get that $3.5 million Grant which is a return on investment of about 40% which is a really good return on investment and if this site you know if the site were built and it was built something along the lines of of you know what that developer had talked about again a lot of ifs and butts and all that but if we were making between 5 and 600,000 a year in property taxes you divide that by the 25 million we're asking for the site pays that back you know within about four to five years of course it doesn't go back to pay the debt on the sewer but it comes back to the town and overall property taxes so this would be a true investment so I just POS the question can we afford to lose that 3 and5 million that I'll turn it back over to Steve I think that really basically cover I mean the end slides are just really just comes down to you know next steps I mean town meeting is driving are we going to go forward or but that's kind of where we're at you know there's a slide about why I didn't cover all that stuff you know elri um we've had a lot of meetings we're trying to do our best to get the information out there presented it many times um I think at this point we just I guess looking to see where where the board stands and what kind of questions you have in order to inform your discussion thank you Stephen thank you Paul as well um I I I I know the board is going to have questions I had a couple myself um when the costs increase for this project which you know I'm not going to say f I'm going to say when um capping the betterment that mean that just means the town's going to pay corre for for any increase [Music] yes um and believe it or not uh that developer that Paul mentioned was I think that was my last planning board meeting before I ran for select board and um I'm out for re-election next year so it's it's been 3 years they still haven't pulled the trigger on anything I think I i' said that meeting it's it's forever ago that um I'm not a fan of of doing anything to please a certain developer um but it's I mean it sounded like a great idea but this far along three years later with no no commitment whatsoever that concerns me quite a bit well I think they're waiting for us to make a decision on what we're going to do with it and I guess one one point I would make to that is um you you know a number of people have said well we want a commitment from a developer on this and and I'm not going to try to change anyone's mind but I would just say that as I've looked at it it's what can we do to make this site more marketable whether it's devco or somebody else we get the sewer there we're increasing the chance of something happen at that site I would just caution about tying it to one because we've heard from a couple other developers it doesn't mean that that will happen but they're not the only developer out there and that's a tricky spot too because it has they have to clean up the environmental impacts from the the previous land owner so that that's that's why I mean that is a lot of my hesitation as well um and I'm sure I'm not going to speak for anybody else I'm sure you can speak for yourselves um my other question um is we're looking for what 2.4 or something or 2.6 million at town meeting right you have to appropriate the full right okay 8.6 is what's on the article right now um but when you break it down is to how it's being recovered 2 and5 million based on the estimates we have now is what's being assessed as okay okay that answer the question okay anyone on the board have questions goad Mr chair um so you said another alternative a dedicated Force man just for 47 cross correct and that would be paid for by so all the entire remaining assessment would be to 47 so the price of the the gravity sewer is somewhere in the to $2.5 million range so that's going to come off the cost of the project it's going to be cheaper to not put in the gravity swer so fronts everybody we're definitely saving money so the appropriation number would come down but yes the entire so now the vment the only property it's better is 47 47 cross now did you just say that the cost of that would be would you say roughly 2 and2 million for dedicated Force M no the the gravity Ste that we're taking out so the the whole project is if we build it the way we're proposing it is 8.6 million if we take I'm asking you about the dedicated Force how much is that piece of it how much would that did you guys get a price on that I do I don't remember so there's a price in the in the full so the force M's a little longer if we come up to 47 LM as opposed to being down at library Park where the it's proposed but the force man itself is is I think it's like a million and half to 2 million of the project cost now that mass uh Mass work Grant of the 3 and a half would that still be able to be applied y okay thank you so if if I can just tack on to that the remaining share that if all works out just like this like you presented 2.5 million is what we the town would need to come up with uh to borrow to borrow so if you remove that sewer portion we won't have to do that 2.5 million in theory as anything else no I mean I I think the betterment overall you know some of the D excuse me the Dynamics of it being you know the the the chicken of the egg you know we have the property that's a Brownfield site no developer is going to want to put anything into it without it being some sort of shy that they'll be able to do what they need to do with it and as it sits right now it's a huge liability our liability the town's liability um the overall betterment um as proposed I think is a lot better long term um I just wanted to get the metrics of uh what you said the dedicated Force main that possible option uh what that approximate cost would be 447 Elm and um whether that massw Grant would be able to be applied so I gave you the force cost I didn't give you the pumps you asked Force so there's also the pump station is another million and a half too so the project cost for that for that Force M to 47 now it has a pump station and a for so so what's the total cost so so if the total cost we're looking for is 8.6 if we remove the sewer portion What's the total cost around 6 to 6 and a half okay is that what and yeah that's what I was asking I apologize if I wasn't clear and I got a lot of numbers right I'm looking when I ask for a total I'm looking for you know the the the total I took it to little yeah that's why I I figured out what you were saying and I correct but that mass Works Grant would still be able to the m Grant is tied to it's tied to um housing and jobs so they're looking at that parcel is as economic development that's that's what the money is for okay and again we can't um you know that the current interested party isn't interested in a letter of intent or anything of that nature um to provide us any kind of impetus to move this few times we can certainly continue to to to ask for some commitment you see for me I mean a lot of intent would in my opinion go a long way I think but um again that's just my individual opinion do do they have any money into this into into this at all so far for anything pre-engineering anything that that we don't know all all I'm aware of is they've been looking at how to take ownership of the property through the bankruptcy courts but have they done their studies there was discussion we had with them a couple years ago that they would have to go through it but we haven't seen anything yeah from from what I recall they showed us um that they didn't do the engineering reports or they they just showed us kind of basically what it could potentially be so it was and that that was three years ago so I don't know if they've done anything since then I I mean I'd just like to see a little more dedication to the site whether you know skin in the game per se whe whether it be money or something in writing but I know you know what kind of between a rock and a hard place with it that's okay uh anyone else Denise I think you were next yeah I think Alec actually you asked the exact questions that I had was the price difference between the two options and if the grant was applicable uh in both options and I would say that sorry I would say that the development of that land whether it be the current interested party or somebody else I think is like we we don't as a town it might correct me if I'm wrong but we are not currently liable for that property because we do not have possession of that property in the town and and that's for good reason right we don't want to have possession of the property because it's an environmental risk right so if somebody can come in and clean that up it's good for the town for a lot of reasons um but if we can do it in the most efficient way possible that's good for a lot of reasons too right that's true so just um just want to be clear that the town is going to take this whole burden on be including the 70% for 47 Elm until somebody decides to come in and develop that land so if nobody develops it we're going to be responsible for the entire cost of the project the remaining cost after the grant money yep yes the entire remaining cost so this uh 70% is based on if we get somebody with this edu factor that you have for that property and you think it's going to take two years or so to fulfill this project it's a one-year time frame from when we award a year to build the sewer and water so we could be back here again next year saying hey we need another 1.75 million to cover the rest of this cost cuz no is developing that project we're going to have to cover this whole cost up front and hope to recoup that from somebody Who develops that project so my question is is that would wouldn't that give us more ability to determine how much of the sewer they're going to pay if they want if they somebody else besides whoever was saying comes in to develop that now where does this number come from I guess is how do you determine the number of edus per and what they what the Yeah it's got to projected um usage of the property how much water usage is going to be right and equates each edu is what a typical single family home and if you're going out to bid on this uh they going out to bid sometime in the next couple of weeks and you'll have that number um if that number comes in you know know substantially higher or lower will that change the um price of the town's portion or will that change who would uh benefit if the price goes down and who would uh I mean it affects it affects everybody affects everybody and so we based on what that price is right and I'm guessing where did you did we come up with this cost to begin with and how long ago was that determined and if that was two years ago it would seem to me that if we're going out to bid two years after these numbers were put together or when did you put these numbers together we've been we just did an we've been updating the estimate okay because these are back in Spring these are the same numbers we had yeah spr has Chang okay um so that was six months ago and so I'm assuming that the price has probably not gone down since then probably not that's why we're going to have this in hand okay thank you okay anything else from the board before I open it up no okay I'll take we can take questions from the audience you come up to the podium um just make sure you see your name and address and direct all your questions to the chair and we'll we'll go from there hi Debbie Wiston Elm Street although I appreciate the work that the planning board has done and I do understand how important 47 Elm Street is and the funds that it will bring in my question is where was the thinking on putting the burden on the residents I keep hearing that Sue improves a home that is not true I've talked to Realtors our representative state representatives daughters a realtor and other realtors in town what betters a home is location condition and value so stop trying to throw that smoke up the resident's tases okay number one number two if it is so important to the town why isn't the town taking it on and just focusing on 47 I understand that you want sewer in the whole town but do you not understand that if we connect to sewer you increase our water bills double or triple and you cannot decide if you water your lawn your pool and everything else so you are asking those residents to eat it in multiple ways with the tyin with the sewer and increased water belt so if it's so important that this be developed why is that plan a forc it in upon the residents rather than the town cleaning up the site and putting sewer there and you are assessing I was at the other meeting whoever develops that 1.7 million so that when it gets sold the town gets at 1.7 million but nothing comes back to us and we Elm Street is the guinea pig citizens of Norton for all of you so I have a direct question chairman to Paul what was his thinking there if it's so important to develop because I do agree with your idea but how you've done it is Beyond incredible to me and you've been in the planning board too with the overlay MBTA we need 750 units not 1,700 when are our leaders going to have our citizens backs thank you thank you all right um I I'm not going to I don't want to speak for Paul but I know it's not just Paul there's there's been a lot of people involved in this um put a lot of time in and effort in so um anybody's welcome to respond but I'm not sure I know I think the information has been provided okay all right is anyone else have a question is he going to answer come on what I that we missed you last week I know I'm sorry everything's been so busy F all 50 man Feld Avenue um I have a question for you chair about this project and this is just because of what we went through on my street at one point where we thought we were going to have a similar situation where they were talking about bringing the sewer in that 7-year tie-in piece is there um I think there were like particular exceptions you could maybe get based on certain circumstances are those things applicable for any of the folks who are concerned about this because I've listened through some of the meetings and I just don't know if I miss that at some point I think that's to Paul through you but I'm not sure I I I can kind of answer it and you can help me if I'm wrong um I know and Mike can help me too I asked the same exact question of not too probably months ago um and it's not uh officially we have to say yes but there are always extenda circumstances okay so it's so I I can't officially say you can take longer right but potentially if there was something really EXT yeah I I knew there were like things in the state about that thank you I was just curious that don't don't take that as yes no as the word of God here no no I am I correct Paul Mike okay it's a uh town by law enforced by the Board of Health and I'm sure if um they needed to they give someone a lot of leeway yeah I'm sure if it's a matter of tying in or or losing your home I I don't think they're going to force any I I would hope not or this is a town I wouldn't want to live in okay anyone else have a question come on up I know you uh Jim sha at 56 manfi that just a quick question um just to be sure on the numbers so was 8.6 million total Y and that includes the water M yes for the for the gravity sewer yes okay and then the just the Force main pump station for 47 LM was 6.5 yes they said take taking the sewer out would take out 2.5 okay so just wanted to clarify and the water main was two 2.4 2.4 so where were we now 6.5 6.5 yeah 6.5 without the gravity main deduct the water M 4.5 Grant is 3.5 so the town's investment would be 1 million if we did that is that yes okay but that map work I don't have an opinion one way or the other I just wanted to clarify cuz I wasn't sure and when I hear a lot of numbers and there's gray areas I just wanted to I believe uh the in the slides here 2.4 was coming from water rates so the remaining share would be the 2.5 from the town yeah so I I don't know how they work it project but on the just a dedicated main it would be 1 million from the town total unless it's coming from the water rates which I would recommend but I think they would have to rework that no he that I mean the way no he he's asking Frank to pay for it I saw you shaking your head that's why I said maybe you think about it and if I could just a quick clarification for Val's benefit the project by us was a private um Main and there's a difference between a private Main and a municipally funded Main and I think in the case of a private M main it's a little more lenient as far as if the cost exceeds repairing your septic you can get a variance to repair your septic it's not the case in a municipally installed main that that variance isn't available and I think I got that right if I got it wrong somebody correctly yeah there's nothing official um but okay anyone else you're making my job easy tonight thank you all right what do we think folks personally I think the the Force main in this particular instance in this location makes the most sense so I think we need to vote on recommending this to town meeting or not um but the article right now has 8.6 that's going to change if we some have to modify right yeah so what what we can do I mean we can either recommend or not recommend as is and then it would change the town meeting I mean we're not going to our our vote tonight doesn't take it off the the town meeting or put it on I didn't realize it was too late to modify it before it gets to the warrant gotcha okay yeah yeah and I if there's anything significant we can revisit it next week but I I don't I don't see that happening okay so if anyone would like to make a motion oh Mr chair go ahead go ahead I recommend that uh that we recommend uh AR number 13 for town meeting for the uh Elm Street Water and Sewer improvements I'll second okay motion a second to recommend the down street Water and Sewer extension improvements just clarification for a dedicated Force main or as presented it it should be as presented as presented presented yeah hopefully somebody out there will want to modify it at the time meeting I'm sure some of you will okay uh that that's that's well within the realm of yeah the the the scope someone can absolutely recommend absolutely yeah yep before we vote Mr chair I'd like this if we have some time for discussion absolutely to use the mic so the um the reason I'm recommending this U article is so that uh everybody in the town gets to have a say in it so that if we uh if we um recommend this it'll go to town meeting no I had said before whether we recommend it or not it's more than likely going to go to town meeting whether it's whether it's moved by thinkom or by the water department so our vote tonight um is whether we as a board recommend it um but it's still going to go to time meeting got it I believe I don't I think they're going to move it no matter what right no so it's not it's not like our previous vote we had to to put something on a ballot whether it was up to us yes or no that the people get the choice the people still going to have a choice yeah does that help mhm okay okay all in favor I I I opposed me okay three to one it passes or it's in endorsed so the next one we that has a presentation is the that was number 13 yeah that was number 13 so now we have number 17 the zoning bylaw Amendment okay this is for the NBTA issue CH I'd like to announce that um planning board chair Tim Griffin is on who is going to leave the discussion so so here here's the thing I don't think [Music] we can you hear me yes if he kind of put your microphone close my microphone's right on my so he's talking to Paul right now okay it's keep talking if you don't feel the audio is sufficient then um Paul is certainly capable to lead otherwise Jason do we have a mic on that do know it might feedb back if we do that yeah okay all right I I can hear it is if the board can hear it I'm okay with it can everybody hear me I can hear I can hear you yep Y and can you see the screen that I'm sharing no they have the hand out they have the hand out okay um well for anybody who's watching online or can see this yeah it is it's elsewhere um I'm just going to give a presentation here chair if that's be able to answer any questions at the end uh if you have questions just feel free to interrupt but um I think I I've done this enough time but I think it makes sense to go through the whole thing so okay so again this is the greatwoods overlay District which is intended to comply with mass law 40a Section 3 so I'll skip the agenda here um and dive right into the timeline this is a process that the planning board has been looking at for a while the state initially adopted this MBTA communities law in January of 2021 um Norton was designated as an adjacent Community according to the bylaw we don't have a transit station be we are adjacent to those that do um we receive final guidelines in August of 2023 and we begin working with sered the following month to select proposed zoning districts to comply um over the intervening seven months we worked on this and in April selected a a northern section of Mansfield Avenue through a site selection process which I'll get into in a minute um set in the time between then and now we have worked with sured to develop the bylaw to accompany the district uh and that it brings us to where we are today today um so again Norton qualifies as NBTA Adas Community the regulation requires one zoning District allowing multif family as of right meaning it's not subject to a special permit It could only be subject to a site plan review uh the district must be at least 15 units per acre and it must be at least 50 acres in size and it cannot be subject through age restrictions it can't be targeted as a retirement area or anything like that so 15 * 500 you get Norton's Target of 750 units on paper um I'll dive into what that number actually means in a further slide so just to speak to the law itself um the law does not require the town to provide the land or produce the housing it can't force the owners to to send sell the land to anyone or do anything with it uh doesn't require the town to provide or pay for any infrastructure doesn't require specific building types and there's no requirement to develop at all uh it only provides the opportunity to develop or replace existing uses and structures over time this is intended to be a long bylaw Pro a overlay District that over time promotes the growth of multif family in areas across the Commonwealth half half of the municipalities in the state are required to comply um so it's not something that will be developed all at once it may only be partially developed or may never be developed at all um so how an overlay District works for those who don't spend as much time with zoning as any of us um an overlay goes on top of the base Zoning for individual parcels um a property owner can build either under the base zoning or the overlay their choice um so again what is the purpose of the overlay District first and foremost it is required to meet the requirements of the state law um encouraging smaller housing typologies providing more affordable housing and and encouraging development are all things that this that the planning board looks at um but the driving force behind this law and I've said this repeatedly over the last several meetings that I've had um we would not be touching this bylaw or anything equating to it if it was not a state requirement plain and simple this is a state requirement that we're being asked to comply with um the state also has specific site selection guidelines um we need to consider how much is on sensitive land which would make it challenging are invisible to construct housing and it should generally encourage development of housing compatible with existing surrounding uses and minimize impacts to sensitive lands um so the site selection process that we did with sured um we looked at the town and looked at all of these different factors around um different features have a NE either a push impact meaning if is there something close to here that should push development away or told uh if something is close to this then it could potentially P development have a positive impact so all we looked at all of this stuff and I'm going to skim through a few slides here really quick the process that suret did was divide the town into 10 acre grids and then ranked each grid based on each of those factors over series of maps so this is climate all those climate resilience factors light is better in this case Water Resources lighter is better again uh the darker would be where there are aquifers Etc quality of life so schools libraries Etc priority areas for development that are noted by the town infrastructure sewer roads Etc and overall see you can see when all that is Blended together you see a fewer areas in dark red meaning they are generally not viewed as suitable for this kind of a project and some areas in Darker green along 123 towards adoro 123 towards the center a little bit South on 140 and a little bit north on 140 these are the parcels that the board ended up looking at and noticing as part of this bylaw um I'll know that in our last session um we did make a motion to remove um a couple of parcels from this list um in what we we were considering after our last meeting um and Paul I'll ask you just to give an update at the end of this with um what we're looking to do at our next meeting on the 8th to finalize our selection of the map um so at this hearing tonight um we don't have I don't think the final map approved by the planning board for you to look at but I think we're most of the way there and we also have the full language for you to decide if you'd like to submit that to town meeting as well um but these Parcels include um essentially have a large parcel in front of the TPC golf course which is owned by PGA Charities um and then there are a number of mult existing multi family properties on the opposite side of 140 which are part of this uh and those are the parcels that we selected uh why did we choose this um one the area already includes existing multif family properties and uses that make sense near multif family developments and it's served by water and sewer um Norton Center was an area that Sur had had highlighted is having a good mix of qualities uh the planning board decided to eliminate that due to concerns on traffic and congestion as well as issues with the Village Center core zoning uh the route 123 locations were considered we ended up limitating them due to some limitations of infrastructure and other factors and also the fact that it would require us to permit 15 units per acre in an area that was predominantly dominated by a lot of single family properties and neighbors um I may not know everything but I do know that single family homeowners generally do not like a whole bunch of M multy Family Properties going in next store um the board specifically chose to exclude the roach Brothers Plaza area and maintain and encourage commercial and Retail activity in that area um and we chose to include the existing multif Family Properties across 140 because they they're contiguous to the PGA parcel um and they're also currently existing non-conforming Lots um the area zone commercial and those residential us are currently nonform so allowing them in this overlay would potentially allow them to expand or do other things that conforming Lots can normally do ultimately we think that this location and I'll go back to the parcels again just for a moment um does kind of fit The Best of Both Worlds in this we think that it's an area that a if their development ever happens makes sense for a multif family property multif Family Properties and B speaking bluntly I think that this is a site that I don't think even if regardless of what would happen would ever be developed to the full extent of these Lots um because of its proximity to the golf course um while we've all seen condos near golf courses um the fact that this property currently serves as a buffer for the TPC means that it's very unlikely in my opinion um you never know what will happen down the line with a property but I have a hard time believing that this would be a property that somebody would want to fill um fully right next to the GOL course or that the current owner PJ Charities would allow that to happen um so diving into the bylaw itself so this is the second article going into the language again it meets the requirements of the law it's designed to promote to give incentives for both affordable units as well as mixed use uh properties so adding commercial uses on the ground floor of a property um the base is a maximum of three stories but there are bonuses available for affordable housing and top of the shop uh ccept again we want to encourage affordable units because if we're going to put in or allow the idea of additional units to be built we want to make sure that when it makes sense we can keep Norton above the 10% affordable threshold uh to allow us additional flexibility in dealing with any proposed 40b projects but overall the dimensional guidelines are designed to support smaller multif family housing types with smaller lot sizes and Frontage requirements and we looked to protect ad adjacent residential uses with a generally large vegetated buffer requirement um so this is the dimensional standards table uh from the bylaw um one item on Note here unless anybody really wants to get into setback discussions um the maximum units per acre that we've set here is 16 the state's minimum is 15 so from a we're fairly closely aligned with that um I do want to just note that we did adopt the town master plan in October of 2021 um three of those Provisions right here which we saw in the earlier slide are part of the master plan so we think that we are really we are still aligned with that mission and goal that the town has set up um I talked about the state comp requiring compliance to this bylaw uh they are swinging a big stick in enforcing it um in general law 4 A3 uh they specified that top list mouse works Housing Works housing choice and the local capital projects fund as programs that towns that are not in compliance will not be able to access um you can see on the bottom that we have received a number of Grants from those programs in the past um the second bullet list um and I know I SP spoke to the town manager about this at the fincom meeting earlier this week um the state has essentially decided that towns that are not in compliance with this bylaw um almost any in all discretional funding the state has authority over is in question uh so that second list is are programs that the state has threatened to take away from other towns uh specifically Milton is one example for not complying with the bylaw um but the short version is if you're not in compliance the state has decided that um you're not you're going to be on the the naughty list and um they're not going to be very uh giving with any of these programs there is a pending court case with Milton to determine whether the state can actually take away that second list of programs since they weren't specified in the actual legislation they were only included in the guidance that the agency issued afterwards um but in any case even the first four programs including Mass Works which I believe the grant that you just talked about for sewer is a mass work Grant um would be an impact to efforts that the town wants to do for Grant programs so um there is that pending case but that will not be settled by town meeting so from a what we have right now the state is essentially saying anything that we have discretion on is in question if you're not compliance period um this bylaw works with a compliance model which is based on acreage and ties in all of our dimensional standards and a whole bunch of things in a giant Excel spreadsheet um so this is an old version of the chart and Paul I guess you can again speak to this um with the lots that we've selected uh and the bylaws that we laid out um the number of units that we have the that are in the the chart right now this chart says 1722 fall I think the final number that we have from sured for the full list of lots is around 1,500 but again the final map would be something that the board would determine uh at our next meeting based on some additional research done by sired in the past week um Paul before I move on is that number correct from the data that Sur had sent over this afternoon uh I think it's a little lower I think it's around 12 1200 1200 okay um so 1,200 and if you'll excuse me um I know I need to update the title of this slide um if we need 750 units why does this overlay allow for more than that um again we've chosen the PGA site um we don't necessarily have to use that whole lot when we get to this final number um but we are going to have a safety margin um because when the state looks at this they are looking at gross buildable Acres they're not just looking at Acres so they're going to take out all of the wetlands that are on the site and a later slide will show that um so we are going to the board is going to look at a couple of different options um and we're going to try to get as close to what we feel is the lowest number um which this which will meet the state guidelines when discounting the wetlands and everything else um but I will be open and say to this board as I said to fincom the number that shows up on screen at town meeting is not going to be 750 and 751 so I am going to have this discussion a town meeting again um what is actually going to happen we're not going to get to 1700 units in any way shape or form um and that's even if um the existing owners of the sites of all of these Lots wanted to fill them up to the maximum tear down what's already there a number of these sites are already developed um even then there are restrictions on parking driveways coverage setbacks everything else that reduce the build-a area available um along with wetlands and other factors um so just to look at the wetlands this is the approximate Wetlands map for the PGA site we need to essentially discount all of those from our calculations and when we kind of about what the state would require when they look at our submitted bylaw and evaluate it for compliance um so just in a summary um the state requirements require compliance by the end of 2024 um I will mention that we did while working with sered ask if this was something that we could get for a Spring Town Meeting um the answer was no sered was not able to support us via the grand that we were working under under that timeline so we are where we are for fall town meeting um I went through the site selection process why we chose this site and where we and what we decided to do with it um and again the requirement is only the opportunity for development it does not mandate construction and it doesn't prevent development under under the existing zoning if desired um so commercial properties can go there now commercial properties can go there after um and if multif family is developed the requirements are designed to promote properties that we think are welld designed and encourage mixed user retail as well as affordable units so that's the end I apologize for going through a total of 27 slides with you um but that's the uh where we are now and if there's anything you want me to put back up on screen I'm happy to do so otherwise I'll uh I'll shrink it and uh unfortunately my Cas will be that much bigger in the zoom meeting all right thank you very much Tim I know you've gone through this 600 times so far so apprciate you doing it one more okay um I'm going to start off with a couple of questions um you want one of them I just I I'm stuck on the you know why are we I I have a couple statements one I think the state way overreached here but there's really nothing we can do about that um I'm concerned about giving the potential of 1500 units I know um it's not 100% feasible but some of these buildings are going to be three to five stories tall so that could actually result in 1500 units um I am concerned that one of the very few areas we have sewer in town is in this as well um but I will move on to my questions um okay that is one why did we choose an area with sewer rather than I mean anything else so Tim this was the I I'll say this is the we tried to find what we felt was The Best of Both Worlds in a site that a made sense with an area around multif Family Properties and met the requirements and we did that we knew that it did have sewer um that was from a multif family development perspective um that is a positive um we know that we ultimately we'd love to have commercial property built on that space But I would think that anybody who thinks the warehouse is going to go next to the golf course is probably a little bit overly optimistic um I do think there's a there's a scenario here where the action that we take here Spurs some sort of build on this lot that has been emptied uh or a portion of this lot um what we propose as something that maybe is incentivized for affordable units could turn into something that is some high-end retail shops and some high-end golf golf course condos and that's it um um so we're not trying to keep the commercial zoning away um but this is what the board felt was the best place to put this um I know I've had a lot of comments saying why did you put it here um I'll say what I said for to fincom we've been talking about this for more than a year um I have more fingers than I've had members of the public speak at all of our sessions about this combined um so we've been working on this for a while um at this point um as I said to fincom these are the lots that were noticed as part of this article so this is the area that we can talk about at Tom meeting there isn't really an ability to say let's put it somewhere else at to okay my I mean my feedback is um you know we had just talked about Elm Street and how getting Steward there is essential to developing commercial properties and you know we need to get that percentage of tax income up to 25% um so now we're we're looking at taking a place where we already have sewer and putting residential in there so that I mean that's my concern and I'm not I'm not putting this on the planning board at all I know you guys have done quite a bit of work I've watched um almost all your meetings on it so and and the other just the other part of this is is we looked at where else would we put it um anywhere else that we thought we would put it we felt that we would have a a whole lot of people who didn't think it fit there uh whether it's an area promin single family or something else that it doesn't make sense for this area I don't want it over here I don't want it over here um with all of the noticing that we did for this I mean we've talked to to the PGA property we talk to the other abutters but we only have one abutter show up to our meetings um it's been quiet yeah um I think if we proposed this on Hill Street or 123 or Pine Street or somewhere else um I have a feeling that there would be a much long much bigger crowd for all of these session oh absolutely so one of my last questions is um you know you mentioned in your presentation of um we've had grants back going back to 2018 of 4.5 million is that including the 3.5 for the Elm Street yes okay so we basically had about a million dollars worth of Grants without that down street yes okay about 10 different uh projects grants for 50 50,000 are so great so I'm not saying I'm not diminishing that at all I just wanted to make sure that that was clear um yeah I'll say that the grants and all those programs are step one the state has also basically has said they will also prosecute so that's actually I had that in my notes because I was on the fincom meeting last uh on Monday um who are they going to prosecute and how they'll sue us for not being compliance well well that's different than Prosecuting I mean okay I I I I just I found that I personally hold on one second Tim correct on one second there's it's not just you get to say okay you don't want the grants it's there's further action taken by the state again I understand that and I'm not saying that that you know we shouldn't comply it's it's a state requirement I understand that but when I when I am at a meeting and I hear to me that sounds like a fear tactic and I'm not a fan of that um and I understand that you're you're just relaying you're relaying what you what you've heard and what you've seen from what you got from sired um so again again I'm not bling I don't like it either Tim Tim hold on one second let me finish up okay like it we had a m hang bu I'm going to vote against this because I don't like the state strong aring it I don't think you can hear me yeah can you hear me Tim yes okay let let me let me finish up my thought before you jump in okay sorry yeah all right um yeah so what I was saying is is you know I am not a fan of of um of fear tactics I think everybody knows that from from the discussions on well some other issues in town that we won't bring up um but I yeah I I I do know for one thing U Foxboro I just talked to some people in Foxboro they they denied this at first it's going to a town meeting in November it's going to it's going to be denied again um so we're not going to be if this is denied at town meeting we're not going to be the only Town that's that's denied this um again I I I want to acknowledge that the planning board Paul you guys have all done a tremendous amount of work on this um and I don't want that to be lost in in any of the words that I'm saying but I I am um I'm personally against this as is as written so hopefully we can come back with a smaller map um and you said the next meeting is the 8th right yes uh their meeting next Tuesday um there was a request by uh a couple residents at the last planning board meeting to look at that PGA parcel to see could we split Zone it such that we get close to 750 so so Serpent's working on that they provided some materials it's been given to the board it's posted up now online it's in the Dropbox folder for planning board so that information is up there so okay Tuesday the board will be looking at that information and deciding are they keeping the proposal the selected Parcels as is will they shink it in some way okay so I I um that however the board wants to go with this tonight I think we should see that on we have a meeting on the 10th so so we should see whatever's whatever's changed there um and I you know I got to say even if any sewer is involved personally I'm a hard no so that's just that's my opinion um I'll open up to the board if they have any questions Mr CH yeah Mr Rich you might if I just say one more thing Steve uh yeah go ahead Tim so we've worked with surfed in complying with this bylaw through this whole process through a grant that Grant is essentially done so if we you try and do this again we are doing it either on our own or we're paying out of our own pocket yeah I mean that that goes back to you know what I was saying before this is this is what we got take it or leave it I'm not a fan of that at all I think there there are other options and I think um and again this is just my my personal opinion there are other options and anything with sewer I'm personally hard know so uh go ahead Mr rich so Paul and Tim uh again thank you for all your work on it um and aside from the uh Strongarm old school gapo tactics by the state um is there uh was there any consideration given to the uh the trailer park I think 250 Mansfield da and um I I I think the roach Brothers Plaza uh myself personally um I think that may have been um a good parel as well cuz they're clearly not interested in expanding their retail presence um so going up a few stories over there might be what was needed there to um breing some life into that property whether they do it or not that's a different story but just an option I don't know reaching out to them I know they've been um Gator yeah I know they really don't respond but maybe something like this I don't know maybe it would have maybe it wouldn't have um the the overlay it correct me correct me if I'm reading it you know wrong but this still a lot this is just a basic overlay in the historical definition of an overlay the zoning that is currently there commercials still can be built there yes if nobody comes to the table to okay they can still build anything under that's allowed under commercial okay thank you and um it by my calculations it looks like that it with the 1,200 units um seems like it's a I know you wanted to get some extra coverage to accommodate for the parking and drainage and things of that nature but it's 40% um roughly 40% more unit count is that too high is it too low I can speak to that I don't want to cut you off though do you want me to that just specifically go ahead to the chair what I know absolutely go ahead go ahead so the additional units over the anything over 750 we are not that is nothing to do with setbacks and drainage and everything else the only numbers that are going to be going over 750 are essentially ones that we think we need to take out because the state won't count the wetlands in the numbers okay understood I and I get it I know that it the area you know doing smaller developments but still same types of compliance issues with um you know parking and impervia surface and drainage issues and and everything else um so that is I know that the first number of 1,700 and change that was I think a little knock it out of the park one well well over and above but dialed back to the 12200 I think that a 40% bigger might be more accurate to accommodate for that other open space that that's required um and also did when we had the 1700 we were including the new 40b next to McDonald's and the one lot in between the multifamilies and the 40b so they were already developed Lots so in actual properties that might get built under this there's no difference the number the only difference is the numbers on paper so my I I to to tack on to that so why include it if they if they're already built the state allows you to well no I know that we had it in the in we had it in the initial in the initial map we decided to take them out because we didn't feel it was needed um so we did sorry go Mr so just I'm want to clarify that that what you just said Tim um the existing uh apartment building that was just built adjacent to Roach brothers that's included in this it it was included in the initial map that we noticed MH in our most recent meeting we decided to remove that from what we would potentially propose in the end why why would you do that to to lower the number on paper that and we found through our consultant that the state has said do not put this over 40 BS apparently a lot of communities were trying to do that and the state has said you cannot do that so the trail parks we weren't able to utilize in a 40b count calculation I don't believe they're part of the subsidized housing inventory that's what I mean they weren't they weren't allowed to be utilized correct as far as the achieving 10% I don't think they I don't think they work no question why wouldn't we include that you know what was the reason for not including that trailer park in this that's a lot of that's a big POS we actually we discussed it we discussed that whole area um looking at the area we saw the existing multif Family Properties on I'll call it the right side of 140 um because I'm terrible with compass directions um and then saw the PGA parcel and went we think this makes sense let's move forward um we knew we wouldn't need it to meet the numbers um and also bluntly we thought that if we did include it um we would potentially get a lot more resident opposition okay do you have any other questions thank you T thank you Paul Mr chair we'll just keep going down the line okay Mr Maran um I do have a couple of questions um I don't know if we just have a a difference in concepts of this whole proposal by the state uh to weigh down on all of the communities in town um different philosophy as opposed to CL uh compliance as opposed to what's best for the town um and if we're able we say that we didn't want to put it on top of the housing behind the McDonald's but we do want to put it on other housing I I don't understand what the concept is there and if you're saying it's because it's already developed why don't we why wouldn't we have put the whole overlay on top of a place that's already developed exactly like a trailer park yeah mobile home mobile home park that's a great question why did the once again dig in all right let's um I'll have questions resp yeah go ahead Tim that's what I was stucking for sure so to the point about the 40p as the planner has mentioned the state does not want 40 BS included we initially included it so it was part of the lot that lot one of the lots that we originally noticed it has been removed um the state does allow the overlay to be cited over properties that are developed um looking at this area in particular um the existing multifamilies on their own plus new even if we included New England ice cream we are short of the required area which would mean if we wanted to do it here and have it be contiguous the entire Zone does not need to be contiguous um we knew we needed to add an additional lot and the PJ property is the one that we looked that one that we looked at to get over the magic number in this area um as the planner has mentioned we are going going to look at what what might make sense to use a portion of that lot if that makes sense at our next session Mr chair Mr mer um you say that the uh Lots don't have to be contiguous can you explain um how much has to be in certain Lots I believe that of the 50 acres that dist has to be 25 has has to be one contiguous um and then the remainder of I'm going to get over my speeds on what the regulation spe specifies um for the purposes of this time meeting that's a point no other Parcels have been noticed I understand I'm just trying to uh possibly come up with some questions that you may want to have answers to when you go to town meeting I understood thank you um Mr chair Mr Mar so looking at this uh if we would have taken the New England ice cream plot and the housing that's along 140 and if you could split Zone that piece of PGA Charities property it would be a very small section of that that you would have need to have taken right we not sure yet I'm not we we were going to be looking at that on Tuesday but we didn't we didn't split the um Newland ice cream because we have removed it I understand it was removed I'm just saying that if it would have been left in and we would have only had to take in a small portion of the PGA uh charity site to come into compliance for the uh acreage that you needed correct and that would have been a very small portion of land that is not de already developed can you read how big thatle is I can't read as we've said we are going to meet and discuss the final map on Tuesday thank you ATT tenise do you have any questions uh I didn't have any F further questions thank you Tim and Paul I can tell you guys put a lot of work and time into putting this together with serid and I appreciate it and I am personally a fan of overlays I think it's a good way of structuring compliance with matters like this so thank you okay so U without any more from the board I'll open it up to the the audience if you want to come up and just say your name and address again for the records CL [Music] I didn't say to BR homework my name is Jim shev and I lived at 56 Mansfield Avenue and I didn't bring you any homework um thank you I I think it's been mentioned a couple of times that there may be philosophical differences um that we can explore certainly without negating the work the planning's board has put into this and has put into it in good faith I mean you can see by the methodology they've employed they've put a good faith and effort into it um and I can certainly respect the philosophical position they're coming from I can't share it but I can respect it um so first I'd like to address the U PGA Charities property um it's currently a 6 8 acre vacant parcel um So currently the and I almost hate to use the term but currently the town is making a profit on this they are charging more taxes than they are required to provide in Serv in services and and and I realize the town's not a company we don't try to make a profit we try to hopefully we try to serve the citizens of the town but still have to look at dollars and cents um under this uh proposal this lot has a potential for 1,88 residential units if you deduct the Wetland area and no one knows what the Wetland area is there's currently um some shading on the gis map if you look at other Parcels that have shading on it and if you look at going way back almost icient history back to the 70s we had what was called the Wetland Protection District which I I believe we still have it in the zoning handbook is that section 4 um and if you look at any of those they're greatly exaggerated so the only way we' know how much wetlands are on there is if we actually did an anrad and that's not going to happen I think we can reasonably assume that we could deduct the wetlands area and it's reasonable that a th units could be cited there under this proposal a comparable project would be East Main Apartments it consists of 188 units it's currently assessed at $3,683 th000 as it's taxed at the commercial rate of $384 it yields um $64,500 look at this proel developed a th000 similar residential units would yield $3.2 million annually in in tax revenue on the other side according to the latest census data we have 600 6588 household units we have 2376 registered students between the Norton school system southeastern regional Bristol Agricultural and those that are placed outside of the system for various reasons school choice or we can't accommodate the needs in any case we're looking at just dollars and cents it's students that we have to pay for um this yields a student household ratio of 36 going by that we should be able to expect 360 students to come from additional 1,000 residential units and I know that is debatable it goes up and down we've heard all kinds of numbers that just come out of thin air um these numbers aren't actual numbers but they're derived from actual numbers and I think they're closer than what we've been hearing it can be said that multifamilies bring in less students yes if you're building1 and a half2 million Golf Course condos most likely you're going to have less students if you're going to utilize the affordable com component you're going to have more students instead of less so so I think the average will hold that brings us to an estimated cost of 5,356 440 annually um that numberers derive from dividing the school voke and AEG budgets of 36,5 4,328 by the 2376 to derive an estimated $15,366.00 this cost is exclusive of capital expenses it's um exclusive of shared expenses um and it probably doesn't include some of the out of system expenses I I Tred to keep the number conservative approving this proposal at town meeting doesn't guarantee it and as Paul has already said growth isn't going to come right away it's going to take time but regardless of how much time it takes it doesn't matter um this brings us with a potenti exposes us to a potential deficit of 2,336 440 what that does is reduces the available per student funding levels to $4,525 or roughly $600 less per student that we'll have available we also risk falling below the foundational budget this point and put Chapter 70 funds at risk unless and we' have to would' be forced to do it unless we make Cuts in public safety to fully fund education because one thing's for sure we can't forego the Chapter 70 funds that's what $13 million um so we've got a potential of a th000 units a potential of requiring more Public Safety Services at the same time a potential of being a forced to make cuts um for that reason I think this is a bad proposal um and I'm against it I think we do need to take advantage of already developed sites not as a trick not as a game we're playing with the state not saying well we'll just use these sites because no one will ever build there but employing a different methodology employing one that says that Norton's wants hopes dreams and Investments come first before certainly we're going to comply with the state but we're not looking to I guess Tim said we if we don't comply we're going to be on the naughty list I don't think we're looking for a gold star I think we want to comply and keep Norton's needs hopes dreams and goals first to do that we look at already developed sites not saying they'll never be developed but saying if they were developed the tradeoff is different than a vacant parcel being brought up uh full into full compliance say we have a site with 200 units already on it and under this proposal it increases to 400 or 500 it's not good but it's better than going from zero to a th000 um in that light I've uh marked up um the next handout not homework um the language because the language affects us in the same way the map does um first and foremost it's entitled The Great Woods overlay District I'm thinking one we should explore other other places and accurately describe it as residential over lay District that's what it is that's what we're required to do second section um purpose there's a lot of language there that talks about um we're going to promote a lively prosperous multif family neighborhood close to existing Municipal services do we want to promote that or do we want to comply we can simplify it by saying the purpose of the great wood the purpose of the highdensity residential overlay district is to meet the requirements of Mass general laws chapter 4 a section 3A we're all set we we don't need to because what's going to happen and uh Steve you've been on the planning board before I've done a Torah Duty you're going to have applicants come in with a proposal you're going to start talking about it and they're going to say you said that you promote and they're going to start reading this language back to us I don't think that's a smart bargaining position to put that kind of language out there to have read back to us um as we move forward um in the definitions there's one of compliance guidelines um which it references the compliance guidelines for multif family zoning districts under section three of the zoning act um if you don't already have one it looks like this that's all well and good but there's no need to reference it there's nothing anywhere else in this language that you would need a reference so that that's just look housekeeping um we have a definition for mixed use development and top of the shop housing um you'll notice that I've crossed those off and I should get to that quickly and on the next page the same thing um on the next page the use tables um I hope it doesn't look too drastic but we don't really need one what we need to comply is high density residential that's all we need to comply I want to skip over the next page and get back to it if we go to the next page where it talks about density bonuses and that was the reason that I think we need to delete all of that previous language we've got density bonuses for afford aable housing that we can add a story go to four stories we've got density bonuses for if we put retail on the first floor and go to four stories if we do both you go to five stories do we want five story buildings in Norton that to me is too big of an Ask um and the states requiring high density density residential not downtown Mansfield uh which I I can't remember I think that's only four stories isn't it I think you go through the center of Mansfield is that four or is that five four five I I don't know which one it is five it is five five story I think Pet's work I'm not going to Hue with Peter he's always right um so yeah my position is I think philosophically we should reject um these density bonuses um and I think the rest of it is all relative to that so if we go back to the dimensional standards The Proposal is a minimum lot size of 5,000 square ft that's going to invite some scary stuff um we've got other places in the bylaw where we talk about commer commercial and Industrial properties requiring landscape buffers you take 5,000 ft and put a duplex on it and you just put a big hardship on all your commercial and Industrial neighbors so my thought there was if we increased it to 990,000 square ft now we're getting development that is substantial and in fitting with the neighborhood 5,000 square ft just stuck out like a sore thumb to me um minimum lot Frontage was 75 ft 300 seems more reasonable and then finally the maximum units per acre um 16 is only one unit above compliance but we don't need to be above compliance let's just make it 15 let's let's comply and let's put Norton first um to get back to the map and then I promise I'll finish I didn't mean to make it forever there are a lot of parcels in town that would be more suitable I realize that requires we would have to reject a town meeting and come back in a spring or possibly a special before the end of the year we could do that um hey we did it for something else true but anyways um if we stick with the the parcel we have right now if you Zone this overlay a depth of 400 ft on either side of Mansfield Avenue starting at the Mansfield line for 2400 ft we are well protected and it's done it it creates an area that very little likelihood of of us being CL certainly can be developed and the state needs to see that if we do something that can't be developed they're going to shoot us down it can be developed but it can't we can't be cloged by it um another area to look at 147 Elm Street you know it's possible for free we could provide enticement for somebody to develop that property um I couldn't help but think during during the sewer presentation that even if we go for just the Force main we're in the hook for $1 million we can assess that all to that property but if it's not developed we about a million dollar it's a Brownfield site do we want to spend a million dollar on a maybe I I don't know so that's one potential Place another one would be you brought up the trailer park not the one at 157 Mansfield L the one at 250 Mansfield l p um yeah that could be developed there would be a greater number of units there but it doesn't go go from zero to the speed limit so I I I definitely understand your reasoning on on changing the parcels but we they're going to they're going to rise that map for a town meeting anyway so we can correct we can discuss that and my my fear is we're going to need to reject that and come back or if we go with 400 ft from the Mansfield line down and I I I hear the argument that maybe it hasn't been noticed I reject that argument I think we could do it thank you Mr CH come on Mr Sher would you like me to respond to that uh yeah if you'd like to go ahead I appreciate all Mr Chavis thoughts he's spoken at the fincom meeting and our previous planning board meeting um four zoning articles when there are specific Parcels involved we are required to notice them and notice Parcels within a certain distance of that that is what gives them the ability to know my Parcels are being discussed at planning board meetings and potentially at town meeting um I am not considering any adjustments to any any lots that are not shown highlighted in Orange for the purposes of town meeting period yeah understood Tim I think um Mr she was referring to if it fails a town meeting and going forward but yeah know the parcels the butters do need to be noticed so I I agree with you on that okay we have a speaker just again for your name and W Winston El street I'm disappointed Alex and you're commending Paul to jeppi and Tim and the rest of them hold I'm going to I'm going to I'm going to stop you there I don't think okay we'll just say General leadership a town manager okay all I kept hearing is that this town constantly votes no the reason they constantly vote no even when they support the schools and other things is because we do not trust that our lead is have our best interest Tim has not addressed sufficiently why they want to go over 750 why you would try to increase those numbers and put more of a burden on our schools and I find firemen and policemen so what you've actually done is caus the citizens to say no once again and not move your gender ahead so I don't understand you've put a year and a half in this and you digging into that TPC when other proposals have been brought to you that would be more palatable and beneficial to nor thank you okay so I'm I'm going to I'm would you like me just can I just clarify just to one point there just to restate for everybody uh yeah quickly Tim so the state's requirement is 750 units on buildable Acres so the number that the compliance model provided by SED it ignores Wetlands so we do that afterwards so we're going to our goal is to have an area the state will see as 750 but if you look at just this is the lot size divide by the number of units it's going to be above 750 okay thank you for that clarification may I address him so no um so I'm going to recommend that because they're going to be meeting on the 8th and they're going to come to us on the 10th I'm going to recommend we don't take any action tonight if that's unless the board would like to it's fine no it shouldn't take action till they Define it okay all right so I guess that's it for for number 17 and 18 so we can start on the list of the rest of the Articles here okay um thank you everyone yeah thank you Tim uh and Paul very much appreciated your time tonight and and again I got to say it again your hard work I mean I whether we agree or disagree on this I think I think everybody knows how much time and effort you've all put into this and I don't think anybody's done this with any ill intents um so I want to make sure that that's known all right thank you guys um article one um article one unpaid bills so um we have the following unpaid bills and the finance committee has voted to recommend the town the uh we have one two bills both of them $867 74 from the Norton Public Schools one for custodial fees for town meeting and another for custodial fees for for the elections and two bills from Amazon um one for um the Council on Aging uh $49.75 and one for the fire department 98.98% water department has one bill of $579 to analytical balance and that would come out of their current uh water receipts okay well when I first heard that the school was building this I thought that was a joke um okay are we building them for custodial after the use the rooms here uh we didn't plan on it okay Mr chair Mr Mary what action do we need to take so that uh that sort of thing stops happening that we stop billing each other for uses of our own facilities that's a great question and I think um that's something that we'll answer with our working group of fincom and the school committee but I yeah I think from my initial talks that's something that should stop thank you I mean at least they could pay 70% of the costs cu there 70% of the budget so just saying yeah I mean it's I said this at a few meetings back I mean it's a small amount but just it adds up things add up like that and then we can't fund overtime for police or fire so um or hire extra teachers um I did Mr chair uh Mr Mar I want to be clear that I'm not just talking about the schools charging and the town for it I'm just saying anytime that any of us are using a Town facility we shouldn't be charging each other for uses of our facilities oh absolutely I was you know sorry I came off that way but I was joking about us billing the school so I apologize if came off differently thank you but U so so this we're looking for a um a motion to endorse a motion to recommend article one with $1,884 21 coming from free cash so move second all right motion of a second all in favor I I opposed okay um next is uh separation expense and let me just open this do do we need to make a motion for the Enterprise as well the water um yes I'm sorry go ahead to me uh I make a motion that we recommend $579 from the water Enterprise fund second all in favor I oppos thank you Janice um separation expense $63,500 the town clerk 23,43 4 uh police department 54328 the fire department 52,000 and the Board of Health $16,779.23 motion a second all in favor I I opposed okay moving on um this is um a request um to amend the the bylaw um Personnel bylaws we have had a salary survey done um by gov HR and um as part of that salary survey um the you can see on the chart that I provided you the current ranges and the recommended ranges um from gov HR um and just just to point out one of the the uh ranges that is really low low right now now is the Tom Clark and um talking to various people looking at the position none of them were looking at the salary that is currently in the range it would be in the new range but not this range and so what we did is um if you look at the information um I don't know if any of you need a new salary Ser you should have it but here's some if you don't um what we did is we used the 50th percentile on the salary surve and um they based um their ranges around that so we didn't go with the highest lowest the 50 50 all right any questions just one this is the first time we seeing this you haven't seen that before we haven't discussed have you seen it anybody else seen this no I don't think we've discussed it but I think we did get it in email I think but yeah but we haven't discussed it yet yeah I'd like to see this in percentages too sure what the percentage increases are because we we we've talked a lot about keeping our increases to the 2% right um no one um most of the people here almost everyone is in the range so it's not affecting other than one position it's not affecting uh the salaries at all okay yeah can we uh can we hold off on this until next we that's suggest yeah yeah we can hold off until to next week on this one and um on the operating budget amendments um would you like to hear from the chief and the deputy chief while they're here on their uh sure they sat here all night if if you'd like to speak you absolutely are welcome either one of you or none I think they speak themselves good evening it's uh 75% of the overtime that was cut I like to hear the town man just say cut he doesn't me you like that word but it was a cut and then uh some expenses so um it's not where we would like to be but it's better thank you Chief so I'll just you know same thing the 75% for the overtime is obviously to get back we had a couple things uh we've had some mechanical breakdowns so um we started the year basically in the m one of our ambulances right from the start um basically the blow went and a couple other things but other than that much some of the expenses 7 he read it off earlier I don't have I don't think he gave us thank you very much Mr chair Mr Mike um that sheet that you were reading from before earlier yeah no not that not not this one that we had draft uh yeah I mean we should we should have that the amount for that article yeah right when yeah we should finish that up tomorrow and get that to you I was just giving you some of the ideas I would also ask that we look at the items that are in that proposed operating budget and consider what's actually operating budget that's going to be carried over year over year versus things that are one-time expenses y thanks good point Denise all right um article s um I'd recommend recommend that we use uh put $1.5 million into the capital Improvement fund out of free cash okay any questions I'm assuming that's just to S secure some funding for the future that nothing's planned for that currently um some of it would be spent but it'll hold a lot for the future the the capital looked at the plan um this week and hopefully we're going to get a meeting together next Tuesday to vote on the plan and then they'll bring the plan to you for article eight next Thursday Mike what was what was the amount that we went over last night was that tot I I didn't bring my Capital folder with me so what I'm leading to is is is 1 and5 million what what is been every year what has been the number um it's it's varied um last year we did put a million in so what I think a myself I think a million if that's what the track record is and it's sustained we had well we also had a million less than free cash last year too so you know we have a year where we can get some money into um into the capital fund and into the stabilization fund and keep roughly 2.5 million um of free cash available so you start next year in May would balance in your free cash I just think in my personal opinion I think you know that extra 500 Grand going in stabilization I think would I we can appropriate that at any time can we change it any time out of stabilization yeah um it would require a 2/3 vot out of town meeting at town meeting okay Mr CH uh Mr pres uh Mr unit if we don't uh say yes to this tonight how does it affect you coming back with the number for article 8 to next week um know uh the capital committee can still come back to you with an article um and a recommendation but I would just like to see um I just see a lot of uh open space on these as we're going down and not a lot of uh the numbers that I'd like to see in them as we're going along so if uh if you'll have more information for us next week and we can run right through these so that we have the information as opposed to just continuing to have to ask for it at every I'd like to have it artic as soon as it's available to look at it beforehand yeah and the point of calling this meeting was to to make sure we got through these and I know uh the what closes on the 14th right yeah so we're we're we're at crunch time and this is the time for the numbers and I know pom um thinkom chair is here and she'd like to see those two I think they're meeting Monday so if they're meeting Monday we're going to have to go through stuff that we haven't even seen yet which goes against what I've been asking for for quite a while so um anything we skip over here we got to have those numbers I don't want to have fincom coming meeting in at two hours before town meeting and going through these again and wasting time I just ask a question yeah come on up Sandy s 141 place um I just wanted to as the um chair of the finance committee just see if we can get some ideas for you know what your priorities would be for the the free cash in terms of the budget supplements I mean I know you don't have all the numbers but the more information you can give to finance committee to you know talk about what what what direction you might be heading in terms of are we spending free cash on ongoing you know budget expenses or are we sticking to um you know what we tried to do in the past which is just on the onetime expenses there's there's definitely some things in the budget supplements that are ongoing um so I think finance committee was looking for a select board's input on um their priorities for that I I I'm not going to speak for the whole board I'll speak for myself I think um onetime expenses are are what I would like to see in this um I know and again I I wish Nick was here um but but Nick had a plan for the for the teachers and they were ongoing expenses but it was going to be um backed by the I'm not going to put words in his mouth it was going to be any of those positions were supposed to stick around and be built into their budget going forward um that would be the only reason I'm okay with that but I I mean I don't want to speak for everybody else but I think that's my that's my goal okay the only number that we have right now Sandy is a is a total number for Budget supplements it's not really broken out on anything that I've seen I mean I know Mike read it up to us but um I don't have anything that I can say yes this is what we're thinking of doing yeah I wrote it down that's it yeah I mean I know some of them are definitely um to your point but the concern of do we fund something only to not be able to fund it next year so that's that that that's the vom's concern um so again any any insights that you can give us cuz Monday is our last meeting so oh you have be meeting before 10wn meeting that's true sure which hopefully we won't be changing a lot of things in that way yeah yeah that's the exact concern Sandy does it make sense to fund something that's an operating ongoing operating budget item if we can't continue to fund it going forward it's just like a yo-yo you have a job you don't have a job have a job don't hold job doesn't make sense think I think everybody's on board that if if it's not sustainable with the uh 3% budget then we shouldn't be funding it out of free cash yeah does that help Sandy yeah thanks all right thank you is this about the article I I it's about do I have a right to ask you to reconsider the Elm Street vote and was it clear that it's going to town meeting as is or could the select board it's it's going to town meeting whether the select board endorses it or not it's going to go to town meeting no matter what but I would like it clear whether I I understand you're not endorsing it I would like it clear whether they are they endorsing it as is or the plan B just to do 47 l so we're we're we're beyond that one now unless somebody in the board wants to bring it back up other than that we're going to keep moving through our articles here yeah I don't see any need to revisit all right thank you article 12 well article 10 I don't believe we're going to need uh but we'll leave it there and uh could be a no action or you could vote no action right now article 10 article 10 we have to vote no action or just not just we can yeah um so do you want to vote no action Mr chair Mr Maron I'll make a motion that we take no action on article 10 second my motion is a second all in favor I I oppos okay um article 12 um this article and I know Steve can speak more on it too uh from the building committee perspective this article um would clarify at town meeting that money that was appropriated for the building projects in total all three the field um Council on Aging and the municipal center that the funds could be used to finish off any of the uh any of the building project that has to be completed okay so so I I alluded to this last week uh but I didn't have it in front of me so I couldn't give you the exact numbers so from the permanent building committee the the demolition of the town the town hall as was originally approved to town meeting looks like it's going to be 1.9 1, 94413 um and this is as of our meeting last Monday um remaining funds from town hall are 898476 remaining funds for the senior center are 7 79358 and I believe there's at least 75,000 left from the field project so that I mean that in itself shows that all three the project were under budget which is fantastic um that leaves us a deficit of $229,800 and I I and everybody else were adamant that we did not want to go back to town town meeting and request another $30,000 um so are there are other articles so then you need the other article I thought that you were just going to repurpose money that existed and you didn't need article um article 10 okay if you need article 10 we'll need a do we have a final number from the OPM yet or this is the final number from the OPM um and this is just just the math we did with the you said there was $100,000 in other articles that yeah okay so yeah I think we should keep article 10 and not do no action on that okay I'll bring those numbers to the next next next meeting F there's three or four articles that you can move into the project so I'm sorry I got into numbers and I didn't explain what was going on okay um right now each of these those numbers I gave you the 898 793 those are what the project was under budget and we can't take the under budget funds from the senior center and apply it to the demolition of town hall without town meeting allowing them to be combined so I apologize I should have explained that first um combining all of those which is what article 12 would do right would still leave us about $330,000 short and that's if you know nothing else happens um Mike had mentioned that there are other articles out there with remaining funds and we can combine all those hopefully at town meeting and that's what the placeholder article number 10 was for so okay we'll do that the next meeting those are articles that were appropriated during the whole um Town Hall Senior Center studies and um par for the Senior Center parking lot at one point and uh so we could move those back into the project so we have to go back and resend our recommended no action yes okay yeah Mr chair Mr Maron question first before we do that sure if I remember when we voted on these articles to build these buildings at town meeting the demolition of the Old Town Hall was included in the price is that correct correct and if it was included in a price how did we come up short so this is this is before my time on the building committee but I believe initial Mike you can correct me uh right at the very beginning they thought that that was too expensive so they pulled that out of the proposal and it is very early on in the process um I I can't I can't speak to why or or why that happened at all because I wasn't involved but um that's the case so before they go out to bid um they look at um from their estimators The Architects and opms have estimators that uh review the status of costs that they think they're going to hit be hit with during the project and at that time they felt that there wasn't going to be enough money to so they eliminated the demo of the building so that they would have enough money to complete the project and in hindsight it came in both the both projects came in a lot lower than they anticipated but um at the time they didn't know that so when they signed a contract with M Mo Cara that wasn't part of the contract all that was in the contract was the demo of the uh food pantry yeah so at the time the building committee voted to remove that from the project that that's that's all I I can say on that and I should mention that um the total cost of 1.9 million for for removal of the building they included a 20% contingency I think that can get knock down um but just just in case it is that High um that's why I think we should try to combine these other articles we don't want to leave anything to chance and I you know I I said it building committee meetings I I think everybody there agrees to we do not want to go back to the town for more money yeah um even if it's $5,000 I don't want to do that Mr chair Mr Maron I uh make a motion that we reconsider taking no action on article number 10 second okay motion to reconsider taking no action on article 10 all in favor I hi I so is an I vote to reconsider yeah so we put okay yes I so now we don't do anything until we get okay until we get the numbers of those funds that are available Mr check quick question while was still on that absolutely that 1.9 includes a 20% contingency yes okay um and it also includes uh and this this should be in front of you too so that's why you know I wouldn't want to take action on this yet but the town hall demo fees um let's see the OPM fees the contingency and the constru construction costs okay any other questions on that all right so this this we'll make sure you have copies of this before the next meeting too great um article article 14 uh Lake and pond management um as you can see um it's been working great the treatment of the the fonds I can remember on wiet when there was a little blue spot a little dot in the middle of the lake and the rest was all green um it's uh the cost is about 114 to 120,000 a year for engineering and uh the treatment itself um we have been borrowing uh for the this and uh we have 220,000 remaining um so I I'm recommending um 150,000 um from free cash be put into the lake and pond management and that would give us 350,000 which would get us three more years without having to go out and borrow money to treat chartle um Reser the reservoir and when it count it make sense to me you 200,000 is that you said 150 Mr chair Mr mer I recommend I'll make a motion that we recommend um article number 14 and to move $150,000 from free cash second okay motion the second all in favor I I opposed all right um article 16 uh it's there as a placeholder um but I don't know Mr chair Mr Mar I make a motion that we take no action on article 16 want to remove it yes can I suggest that we hold since that was Kevin's article yeah I I I did speak to Kevin and um he said we can remove it if if we we desire but I'm I'm fine if we want to wait till next meeting yeah I'm fine waiting for him y yeah so what are you doing on that now just leaving it we're going to leave it we'll more than likely it'll just be removed but I wanted Kevin to to voice his his opinion on it too um Article 19 OPB um recommend 125,000 we've been increasing uh our payment into opep by $5,000 a year um to get solely to our goal of $200,000 um it's a necessary evil you know no one loves putting money to sit in the op but um something we have to do okay so 200 125,000 Mr chair Mr Mar I make a motion that we recommend moving 125 ,000 out of free cash into opip Article 19 second all in favor I I opposed okay and article 20 stabilization my recommendation was to put a million dollars in the standardization and that would get us up over a little over a 5% um for our stabilization account so we've been trying to get to that point for number of years um it's good to get to that point and then every year if we put something in there we don't have to put that much in there just keep up so we stay at on 5% but once we get to this point it's a it's a good spot to be in that we're not playing catchup yeah makes sense to me Mr chair Mr Marcy uh could we wait till uh our next meeting for that to see if we want to put more than that into the stabilization um see how our cap comes in I'll fine with that okay okay is that it we're giving Sandy more work though all right uh right is there anything else anyone Mr chair Mr Mar make a motion to adjourn second okay all in favor I I I oppos pleas see you thank you thank you all very much