##VIDEO ID:UsDHzY8Ejz8## not [Applause] [Applause] good evening everybody good evening adequate notice of this meeting as required by the open public meetings Act was provided through the posting mailing and filing of the annual notice of regularly scheduled meetings of the Town Council on December 12 2023 the notice was on that date posted on the bulletin board in the municipal building provided to the Westfield leader and the Star Ledger and filed with the clerk of the town of Westfield Miss Ling me I have a roll call Mayor brindle here council members hav here Guardia here domagala here keeper here Saunders here armento here contract here he here please rise for the invocations be given by councilman donala and remain standing for this salute we meet to serve our community to use our resources wisely and well to represent all members of our community fairly and to make decisions that promote the common good we recognize our responsibility to the past and the future and the rights and the needs of both individuals and Community as trusted servants we seek support on our deliberations and our efforts here today may we act wisely and well the United States of America to the for it stands Nation indivisible withy and justice for all so before I have Jim come up and give comments we do have a proclamation for Red Ribbon Week they're not here I just want to say thank you um to our Board of Health who actually supports the types of programs Red Ribbon Week is intended to bring awareness about uh drug uh drug prevention and drug- free lifestyles in our communities and it is the week of October 23rd through 31st so I just want to acknowledge that proc Proclamation and it will be read into the um the public record um with that I'm going to ask Jim to come up give an update sure thank you mayor a couple quick things for the public um and the council reminder leaf collection uh actually started this week you remember last two two weeks ago we talked about leaf collection starting earlier uh we actually identified a number of streets in town where Leaf collect leaves are already down in very large numbers so we started picking up heavy areas this week we expect to finish that by Friday next week we will actually start one week earlier than normal the normal sequential collection which will start in zone two and Zone 7 uh and they will follow along reminder uh a couple things to be reminded of uh if if you want leaf bags for bagging leaves on your property you can get them for free at the Conservation Center Conservation Center is now open earlier than normal for the leaf season um two um street sweepers this year instead of actually coming at the end of the lead collection process will be with the lead collection Crews as they do their leavea collection so we can clean up the roads at the same time right after collections are done on the street and lastly if you're not signed up our nixel yet please do we'll be sending out on a daily basis uh nixel alerts letting you know where we're going to be the next day so if we know going to be on your street in your area please move your cars allow our crews to get out there but again I want to thank Craig Gibson our Public Works director and Richie Banks uh for accomodating the earlier start this year the crews are out there this week doing the work uh lastly just a reminder too we will be doing six Saturdays which start November 9th normally The Saturdays are dedicated to school areas because uh those are areas we can't get to during the week uh but if we get those done we'll move on to other areas too so um again the goal is to get these leaves up and off the street as soon as possible and uh right now with the warm weather and no rain uh leaves are falling earlier so um second part uh just a reminder taxes uh fourth quarter taxes due November 1st um again 10day grace period and thank you to all the residents that have already paid um three other things so um one on the agenda tonight we have a parking um an ordinance to to award a contract for parking management technology uh we spent quite a bit of time through the Public Safety Committee this year um doing some research on parking companies this is basically going to be an award of contract for software to help us design custom design a system for us that will be able to get our parking uh commuters residential and employee uh perits renewed online online payments online renewals no more of paperwork uh but most importantly uh weight list management system so residents who are on the weight list can go and check weight list on their own rather than have they call the office and also daily pass sales right now for those that buy daily passes you know of the process you go and see Helen or Rob at the at the lot at 6:45 7:00 in the morning you say hello to them you give them your cash and you get your permit for the day uh that's very uh nice uh Hometown touch but want to make it easier for residents we're going to start an online daily pass opportunity uh so all these items after it's awarded tonight will be custom designed we'll roll this out next year the other part of this award tonight is uh License Plate Reader software for the parking department so that when they enforce permits and so forth in the Lots or two hour zones on street it's much easier to enforce right now you have to take pictures chalking of tires a lot of uh heavy labor intensive items so again thank you to the council in anticipation of having approval tonight to get that going and it will spend the next number of months designing that software with the company uh two last things Paving reminder of Paving again we've had a great year of Paving both not only the towns work all of our roads are done with the exception of three roads that's Clover and Francis as part of one state a project and a section of elm between Dudley and uh East Broad Street is another state a project our engineer has submitted the documents to the state we did get approval from the state on the Clover and franchise project so he's going to try to get that get that out to bid in the next few weeks we may have a shot of getting that se that section done this year worst case it'll be done the spring of 25 and Elm Street we're still waiting the town of the state's response but our program will be done uh once those three roads are done on the Elizabeth toown gas side uh they have had significant Paving this year they are planning to do two areas of Paving probably starting late next week into the first week of November uh there are there's a school holiday for week in November they're trying to capitalize on that to actually pave uh a section of raway Avenue between West Broad and by the high school in front of the high school um Waton Street uh and a section of uh Trinity Place uh those are three areas as scheduled for later in the week of November 1st and the other areas we're trying to finish up this the um second grid of the coolage area which includes um Fair Acres Harding Salter fourth marcelis castman St Marks and sherbrook so they're able to do that in the next next couple weeks um they will have basically 90% of what they proposed this year uh to be done the last section that will not be done yet this year which they thought would be done was the Kimble Avenue grid uh they still have to do their infrastructure work there but again we've had over 80 plus roads touched in this town this year between the town and and Elizabeth toown gas and I think uh pretty good results the last thing I want to do just talk about the uh new street sign program talked about this a few months ago uh we spent a lot of time behind the scenes with Public Works uh working on this again this year's capital budget allowed the public works department to buy some new sign equipment and software and technology for their sign department so uh we have started actually it started yesterday uh the town for this purpose the town was broken into 50 small areas uh about 25 zones on the North side 25 on the south side and we've decided to do is start on the very far end of the north side and the very far end of the Southside so for example yesterday we had signed new street signs uh replacement street signs put up in the Tren Court Madison Avenue Overhill Cedric area starting that very far corner of the town and on the south side today started at Virginia um Maryland Grand View area uh and we will begin that process so we're going to have a map that'll be posted to our website very soon it'll show the zones and each Zone will be um uh you know cross-hatched when it's completed so people can follow along in the process and what this um entails is little we show inail here so um this this is an example of a very old um street sign that was just replaced Madison Avenue uh green signs white letters old style uh Fades uh not very reflective this is representative I'll show the public as well everyone's seen these around town um so we um are changing that and you see the size of the font this is the new version um double-sided so much larger um yeah much larger bigger fonts more reflective this is also a public safety initiative we had a lot of complaints um about street signs being faded some's missing so what Public Works is going to be doing now um starting yesterday they'll be going out some of the street signs are very easy to replace sign comes off new signs go up easy some signs though are covered by tree branches uh some signs might be in the wrong place I know there's one that's in the middle of a handicap ramp we're going to move those so when they get to each grid they're going to go through each area if sign pole has to be removed replaced if something's bent uh if there's branches covering something whatever it may be new signs will go up there's over 1,400 signs that have to be replaced part of those signs are signs on County roads this template here their larger sign plate larger font and the white border for reflectivity is the same template the county uses on their roads and we've talked to the county already and they uh have indicated they would give us approval to replace all the signs on their road that cross section our road so for example Lamers Mill Road Mount Avenue Central Etc we will replace uh all the signs with the same thing all these are being done inhouse U with our own sign equipment and so we will now have much better maintenance if something gets hit by a car or a truck we'll be able to go out literally next day and replace these and this is all saved we have a consistent sign program going forward um so again Public Works is very excited about this I want to thank Craig Gibson Public Works director Eugene Watkins our road supervisor uh Allison and um uh well Eugene's not here anymore but uh the the staff that designed this worked on the technology program and is in the process of doing this so a lot more to come one last thing to mention we'll get more details on this as time goes on our goal is to take all the older signs um that come down people may want these for their uh basements man cave she sheds whatever it may be um and uh we were going to work out a process to make sure it's legally approval approved to auction them off uh and the money we get from that we actually talked about going to a a Loc local um uh a town committee uh to offset some of the budget cost uh things like public Arts committee for example has been talked about we'll decide that at a later time but uh again very exciting program and and people will start seeing this all over town but it's going to take some time as Public Works does their normal work but they will get this in and already asss have already started going up so again thank you for letting us purchas the equipment and letting us do this and I know that um I think this is a nice branding opportunity and Public Safety brand opportunity for the town so that's my update thank you thank you chair Jun have been talking about those signs since 2020 we thought we were going to be able to do it for our 300th anniversary and then Co happened and anyway and here we are so it's great so um I have um some remarks to make before we get into the agenda tonight so bear with me because there's a lot to talk about so um and it's important so I don't want to rush through it um uh but there is one thing I want to bring everyone's attention to because it's something that this Council started talking about in January and that was on Friday uh Governor Murphy signed a crime bill into law that increases penalties for home invasions and addresses juveniles that commit them uh the new law with luckily with patched with overwhelmingly bipartisan support in the legislature I think there is one no upgrades the type of robberies we've seen in Westfield to a felony where criminals break into homes in search of car keys um which is now considered the equivalent to a home invasion under the new law so believe it or not when they broke in for car keys it wasn't a home invasion so now it is um it also extends prison time for people who were convicted of invasions and burglaries in possession of a deadly weapon and very importantly allows teens 15 years or older to face prison sentences up to 20 years for committing those crimes because what's happening those crime ring leaders in nework are using juveniles to commit these crimes because there were very few consequences now there are if they're 15 and older which is great um so we are we've been talking about this I think since early January um looking for the right Bill to support I had been leveraging my role on the Executive Board of the New Jersey lead League of municipalities to express support and had been providing relevant information to the sponsors from Westfield including even the ring video footage from the recent Breakin on Dudley so obviously more can be done to address crime but really I know the chief is very happy about this and we hope that this serves not only as a deterrent for criminals but empowers our Police Department to arrest and detain those who are caught committing these crimes on Friday was a big day I had the privilege of swearing in three probationary firefighters which brings the fire department Staffing to the highest level in 17 years um congratulations to Pro probationary firefighter Brandon jur probationary firefighter Raymond laric and probationary firefighter Matthew Egan and wish him safe and rewarding careers with the Westfield fire department and I just felt old because some of them were classmates of my daughter so that's when you know they're old um and just remind everybody I don't know if anyone was in town on Sunday it was crazy with Adam's Fest and everything there people everywhere lines out all the stores it was terrific so and the weather of course has been fabulous so Adams Fest is in full swing big lineup this week um Wicked Windows obviously are downtown there's that b wicked witch selfie stop on the train station lot and there's don't forget to cast your vote on the haunt your house contest and the Art Exhibit which is on the former nosos space on Central Avenue is a great exhibit where Charles Adams original work is there and of course everybody is waiting for Charlie's ale Garden which returns this Saturday to the Army Armory um and I think there's going to be some new information about that tomorrow right Kim yes so look be on the lookout for some announcements about Charlie zard um also a very popular event at Brightwood Park where the Westfield recreation department and the friends of bright Park they host that Jackal lanter Trail on trunk Retreat on October 26th um details and registration available on the website I went by last year it's crazy loaded with kids and it's supposed to again be a beautiful day so I'm sure it'll be very popular and then don't forget the Westfield Police Department along with the wck and Westfield Optimus Club hosting the trunk Retreat Halloween event on Sunday this Sunday October 22nd they've got the cops and goblins festivities from 12: to 2 um followed by the Halloween pre which does require registration so um it looks like it's going to be another big weekend in Westfield and very importantly it's another very very big week in a couple weeks uh there's a general election on November 5th and just as a reminder three ways to vote in the upcoming election you can vote by mail and you can actually request your vote mail bail in mail and boote ballot application until Tuesday October 29th you have until Tuesday if you still want to vote by mail my ballot is already in I'm happy to say um early in-person voting begins this Saturday October 26th through Sunday the third Union County College is the closest destination for us here in Westfield um but you can check all the other locations available elsewhere and very importantly November 5th election day um uh polls will open from 6:00 to 8 6:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. um any information about mail ballots early in person or just November 5th please go to uncount it's a very comprehensive site that gives you everything that you need to know most importantly please please vote please get your kids to vote please vote so regarding tonight's agenda we have some very important legislative items on the agenda this evening uh a few I want to highlight um several res uh resolutions to award for various Recreation items the replacement of the full fil filtration system at Memorial Pool authorization for the town to submit a Grant application for Memorial Memorial Park shade structure so they can hold outdoor classes and lastly authorization of a contract for the design plan of to tamacas park it's a very exciting development and later when we vote on that I'm going to actually have councilman kefir who's the Le on to the Recreation Commission maybe talk a little bit about before the vote um and um lastly we have an important ordinance on first reading to amend the One Westfield Place Redevelopment plan um but before we hear from Street works and our town professionals to present the proposed changes I do want to provide a little bit of background and context on what is some very good news in this project moving forward so as you will hear in tonight's presentation the amended ordinance reduces the scope of was what is allowed to be developed on the One Westfield Place Properties by approximately 25% which means a reduction in the project scale and traffic imp impact you may recall that I've said in Prior public remarks that we would continue to listen to feedback about the One Westfield Place project in fact last February after a favorable Court ruling for the town against the Westfield advocates in their litigation I made remarks at a council meeting about the path forward for the project offering reassurance that the elected officials and Street Works were continuing to listen to resident concerns I reiterated then that as details of the plans are finalized we would be seeking opportunities to address concerns without compromising our favorable Financial agreement and key project initiatives and I reiterated that we would be advocating for any compromises that could be considered as Street Works engaged in leasing conversations with potential office tenants and that's precisely what happened streetworks ultimately determined that some changes to the Redevelopment plan would be required to accommodate the needs of interested office tenants and we seize this as an opportunity to revisit the RDP and negotiate a series of changes that address many Resident concerns all members of the Town Council met with Street Works in April and provided their input after months of negotiations by our team of professionals most of our requested changes are now in the amended RVP the bipartisan Finance policy committee reviewed the amended Redevelopment plan at their last meeting on October 10th which which was then shared with every council member last week and is now up for a vote for introduction tonight Street Works in our professionals will be taking us through a full presentation of the changes shortly the main headline is that the project is being reduced by 25% yet still delivers $157 million in Reven Revenue to the town over 30 years that can support fuget future budget needs and or lower taxes delivers significant public benefits and support the following key objectives which we've laid out since day one that is expanding and diversifying our tax base restoring downtown jobs because we've lost 2200 since 2015 and increasing daytime foot traffic and producing improving pedestrian safety and traffic mitigation and advancing our affordable housing obligations while protecting the town from high density residential development and it's on this last point that I really want to speak more specifically and at length it's particularly important after we just received our fourth round of affordable housing obligation numbers from the state on Friday at 5:00 these obligations and every 10 years were up in our fourth round in the next 10 years these obligations require the town to specify how it will address its calculated affordable housing obligation for the next 10 years which they have determined to be 397 affordable housing units since this number reflects only 20 20% of what must be set aside for affordable units the total number of units that would need to be built to meet that obligation would be 2,000 residential units in Westfield which we know is simply not possible but it is premature to be alarmed in the last round for example we are originally obligated to to enable the development of 1,90 affordable units or 7,000 total units ultimately it was negotiated down to 69 which was 470 total units after former mayor scit's administration had productive discussions with the fair share housing center to arrive at a more reasonable settlement which reflected our realistic development potential all of the major projects that have been built over the past 10 years are a direct result of that settlement which reflect the best possible outcome for the town and spite of claims of overdevelopment by some residents you do not want a builder's remedy lawsuit to that end we will be forming a committee of elected officials to work with Town planner Don samit or affordable housing outside Council and topology to evaluate and respond to these numbers ahead ahead of the state's January deadline but fortunately we already have a head start the 64 affordable units from the Sophia American Legion veterans project and the one Westfield plays project will all count towards our fourth round of obligations the timing of receiving these fourth round numbers is indeed fortuitous and underscores why the One Westfield Place Redevelopment plan for the Lord and Taylor Properties is critical to advancing our affordable housing obligations and importantly protecting the town from potentially higher density residential development on those properties without a plan in place these properties would be at risk and most likely subject to much higher residential density requirements is part of any future housing plan requiring State approval that would give the town immunity from Builder remedy lawsuits this is not hyperbole in fact the fair share housing center had pre previously expressed Keen interests in the third round and seeing the Lord and Taylor Properties developed as housing which they brought up in the town's negotiations in our third round settlement in 2017 the town argued at the time convincingly that those properties should not be included since Lorden Taylor was one of our largest private employers which is clearly no longer the case the One Westfield plan for redevelopment of these properties has put us in the driver's seat by by establishing regulations which provide for affordable housing in a manner consistent with our master plan rather than as determined by the courts if any Builder remedy lawsuit were to arise additionally prior to the adoption of the One Westfield Place Redevelopment plan the Southside parking lot was zoned for mixed use commercial and residential uses but is now because of this Redevelopment plan Zone only for commercial use under this plan while the fair share housing center doesn't typically require Municipal municipalities develop their own properties the com God bless you the commercial only zoning of the South lot property provides an extra layer of insurance that no residential housing can be built there so in terms of next steps tonight is simply a vote to introduce the ordinance to reduce the scope of One Westfield place it will then be referred to the planning board for master plan consistency review and as with any ordinance there will be a public hearing at the next meeting on November 12th which is actually in three weeks instead of two due to election day followed by an adoption vote for those that have claimed short notice or lack of transparency tonight's introduction is exactly what the ordinance process is designed to do present the facts allow a few weeks for the public to get informed and an extra week in this case and then hold a public hearing to enable resident input before adoption the November 12th meeting will also have votes for the corresponding attendant attend amended Redevelopment agreement pilot and financial documents for introduction and adoption on December 3rd the Town Council will vote on the ordinance to adopt amended Financial agreements once these do documents have been adopted and approved Street Works will then present their site plan application the planning board for approval next year once again this is an amendment to the existing Redevelopment plan not a replacement plan if this smaller amended plan does not pass the council the existing Redevelopment plan for the larger plan that was approved and adopted in 2023 remains in place so in terms of tonight we'll be hearing from streetworks as well as our team of professionals whose valuable expertise has captured the input of our residents and elected officials to move the plan forward the presentations for the purpose of process will be direct Ed to the Town Council and only the elected officials will be asking the presenters questions this evening with an opportunity for the public to weigh in at the November 12th Public public hearing so with that let's move to the presentation and we're going to start off with Street works and it's familiar face Doug Adams and new mom uh Ann landow and then that's going to be followed by a presentation by our Redevelopment planner Chris collie um with some probably weighing in by our planner T Don s hit then our Redevelopment Bond Council Matt Jessup and our Redevelopment attorney Council Steve Millen so um with that we'll hand over that thank you may may just ask a quick question do you want us to save questions till the end yes yeah AB yes all questions you save to the end so take good notes and because I think the full have every have the full context is helpful there it is you all right okay thank you mayor council and town for the opportunity to be here tonight to present amendments that we're proposing for the one West Westfield Place plan as I as you mentioned an landow the design manager for the project uh will be helping me in this presentation getting into some of the more details I'll speak speak to some of the headlines and Chris Carr our head of design and planning overall is here as well uh to assist um we're excited to bring this forward uh these proposed changes after really careful consideration and continued Council and Community input that we've received on on the plan as we move forward including meetings held uh back in April uh with the council we've also been underway with Direct Communications with key anchor tenants that are necessary for the project to move forward uh as stipulated by the town and the plan itself in terms of pre-leasing requirements not only in the market but written into the the Redevelopment agreement itself in addition we've worked heavily with um potential residential builders that have been active and are active in the New Jersey market for multiple decades uh to potentially uh work with us on the various residential housing in the project um timing is important because as we work with these tenants and we work with these uh potential Partners which would be a great asset it's important that the project continues to move forward uh towards a reality uh and that is why we're in front of the the council today we have really tried to balance the requirements of these constituents the town and represented by the council the community which we continue to hear from as well as those anchor tenants and other involvements in the financing markets the residential markets to really create a project that is financially secure for us and the town but can be reduced in scale as we continue to he would be uh the goal of all involved going to skip forward the Amendments we're proposing tonight remain consistent with the town's master plan which was just undertaken before we started working on this plan and the RDP principles which will be covered by uh the staff after me our goal continues you know Lorden Taylor started here in 1939 this was built it was an original anchor for the downtown and we wanted to continue to be an anchor for downtown I'm going to read one of our mission statements that came when we first started thinking about this project we think is incredibly important still today we want to be an anchor downtown that serves as a national model for a Main Street Community one that prioritizes people over cars is De dedicated to sustainability walkability inclusivity and affordability and one that meets the needs and desires of all residents and downtown businesses including those who have been here for Generations as well as those that have just arrived just to go back and remind there are three primary zones in the One Westfield plan the West Zone on the original Lord and Taylor property property the north Zone which is almost completely proposed public improvements except for a residential building uh to used to screen the proposed public garage and the South Zone which is primarily corporate headquarters office and the public improvements at the highest level the plan looks similar that it did before but um myself and an will go through the specifics in each Zone over the next 10 minutes some of the headlines the program overall is reduced by 181,000 gross square feet or 25% those reductions are split pretty evenly between the West Zone and the South Zone one of the major moves there is to eliminate an office building in the South zone of 990,000 square ft that has also uh creates a direct reduction in traffic of between 36 and 40% during the peak hours um which is a big benefit to the changes in these plans it also lowers several building Heights by 15 to 30 feet in both the west and the South zones and that was one of the things that we've heard along the way from the beginning as well as uh continued through this process the South public parking garage can begin during the West Zone execution um and we are requesting to lift the age restriction on 16 of the West Zone Town Homes to expand the market rate offerings we will continue to um honor all of the affordable housing um that was proposed in the original application there are shifts to move underground parking to above ground but they are in all cases shielded by residential and Retail uses and not Froning on the streets themselves excuse me there's a lot of key um program elements that remain in the project the public improvements the North Town Square is remade and we'll go through that in a moment the Southtown green as anticipated before becomes a true place to gather on the south side of the railroad station the North and South public garages uh accommodate commuter parking which is replaced at a 1:1 ratio which is always one of the um unmovable uh goals of the town and 10 traffic intersections through the town are improved to create a better flow of traffic um post-development than pre-development there will be the Adaptive reuse of the majority of the Lord and Taylor building on the west Zone into an office building surrounded by residential and the residential counts remain the same as they were before despite the red red size of the overall project 205 residential units apartment tow houses and Lofts on the North Zone that is 174 market rate units and 33 affordable units or 15% as is required 138 units 67% are age restricted 55 and over um uh as was originally approved on the south side instead of two Office Buildings is a single office building of 12 20,000 gross Square ft that's a mass Timber office building on the south Zone there at the headquarters that we see is one of the very first mass Timber buildings built in New Jersey and we think represents the future of where office and Sustainable Building uh lies that area is also fronted by retail to make sure the South Avenue Retail quter remains active um the storm water retainage and infrastructure is dramatically improved since we are tearing nothing down but really replacing and adding on top of what are exist existing surface parking we are also continued to commit that do evening and weekend parking in the um office building on the south zone for use by the community and the retails going to go into the West Zone specifically again overall a smaller program that meets the need of the anchor tenant that is necessary to um fill and maintain the Lord and Taylor Building although we maintain the same unit count and affordability okay I'm going to talk a little bit about the physical manifestation of these changes on the west Zone um so the gross square footage of the residentials decreasing by about 30,000 37,000 squ ft um our unit count Remains the Same including the Flats on the Lorden Taylor site and the tow houses across the street on uh the Clark and Ferris site as well as the North Avenue site um our Heights are being reduced on the Lorden Taylor site on the West Side um we're going from six stories down to four on the east side we're going from six stories down to five um and our town home unit count Remains the Same um we are switching 16 units that were previously age restricted to non-age restricted um on the office which is in the center of the uh Lorden Taylor site our gross area is coming down by a little over 55,000 Square ft um and a reduction in the height of that building of um almost 30 feet so we'll look at that in the elevation in a moment um the office building itself will continue to have retail um along the street Frontage to activate the street um let's get into the next one so this is a table that describes some of the changes um just mentioned so again the height reductions on the West and East residential two stories on the West 20 ft there uh 10 ft on the East uh one story coming off there and then the two stories again almost 30 ft on the commercial building so that 36 ft that's remaining on the office building is what exists today it's not going to have um anything added on top in the currently uh proposed concept plan um and then you can see the overall gross square footage reduction on the site um some of the residential square footage has shifted around a little bit which we'll look at in the plan next um so that's why the East residential building has gone up a bit but the West residential has significantly decreased so it's an overall decrease okay and then looking at how the plan is organized um you see what was previously approved in the middle um and what we're proposing on the bottom um we still have the office adaptive reuse in the center of course that's the existing Lauren Taylor Building um and then on either side there's a residential building uh you can see on the amended plan uh we now have a parking deck on the southwest corner of the site and that's really to serve the tenant it's a it was a tenant need that we realized when we started uh working through these plans the parking was previously provided in the podiums of the Residential Building things um we really needed to separate out the tenants parking uh and have it not be shared with the residential parking so we had to find a place on the site for that we moved it as far away from North Avenue as possible that's why it's located in the South edge of the site and then it's lined with the West residential which you see to the north of that so the residential building is taller than the parking deck behind it and that will screen it from view from the North Avenue side um again in the center we have the office uh and Retail building so you see the retail uh facing towards North Avenue activating the uh Plaza space that's provided there and then to the right of the page is the East residential building which uh is a little bit reconfigured again getting the parking out of a Podium and instead the residential building is now wrapping a uh parking structure that is connected to it and um services that building and then in elevation you can see what was previously approved and what is proposed today and the height reductions um are reflected here so on the right of the page is the West Residential Building uh you can see that two floors have been come off uh taken off here so as the site topography goes up from east to west um that building actually reads as a three-story building um when you get to the um western edge of the site and you can see that you don't see any of the parking garage behind it um it's shorter than that building uh and then in the center um the portion of the Lord and tor that will remain is the sort of Western um chunk of the building we're proposing to remove four Bays from the east side of the building um and this 36t height is again how it stands today uh no no addition on top um and then again on the East uh East residential building one story has been removed and um it's coming down 10 ft do you want to go to the north side sure I think to to summarize from a non planner speak the the big shift here is to separate the the the parking that's necessary for the anchor tenant but then completely hide it behind the building in front of it and also as you move west that's the single family residential neighborhood to the west of our site and really we move the massing in the reverse order so the larger building shifted away from the residential neighborhood and still got 10 ft shorter and the other building um closer to the residential neighborhood on the west got shorter and much smaller uh so really trying to not only reduce the massing but shift it appropriately and keep it in a place where it's hiding any parking structures which is the original principles of the RDP is to not have those parking structures directly visible to the city to the street the north Zone frankly is the simplest we're not proposing any changes to the north Zone 29 market rate and six affordable uh flat units there at the train station those have always anticipated to be smaller units that would create uh a place of Housing close to mass transit requiring a lot less parking a lot less traff traffic and would just essentially use the public garage there so it ends up continuing as it was originally intended to Shield the public garage from the Main Street there and it's the lowest generator of traffic for that that location in residential um moving on to the South zone right again this is one of the larger changes we had two Office Buildings there as well as a full uh several levels of parking below grade that service those Office Buildings those Office Buildings were a great activator of replacing jobs and foot traffic downtown but they did generate uh a fair amount of traffic and those traffic improvements then that were approved and that were proposed and approved uh were to accommodate that we are cutting the office from 210,000 Square ft to 120,000 Square ft but maintaining the same traffic improvements even with a 36 to 40% reduction in overall trp generation during the morning and evening rush hour we do think that the continued presence of office there is critical to the overall plan uh we've gotten tremendous feedback from the market on Westfield and this location this town and we remain committed and very optimistic about this space and meeting the pre-leasing requirements that the town spent uh set for us um on that so um with that we can go over some more specifics okay on the south Zone um as Doug mentioned we have one office building now so the Western office building uh will remain uh it'll be reshaped a little bit um and it'll remain at 5 stories and 65 ft of height as previously approved on the uh East Building um no longer an office it's a a mixed use garage so garage that will service the office as well as the retail um it will be considerably shorter than the office that was previously proposed um currently we anticipate a three-story garage at about 36 ft um the um maximum would be up to 48 ft should the office require additional parking um the uh as Doug mentioned the square footage is being reduced significantly so from uh 210,000 Square ft of office down to 120 proposed um and then we'll keep the street street retail as originally proposed basically lining South Avenue as well as the public space um west of the uh office building um again the the plans to compare here um previously approved you can see it was two buildings both with uh office and then lined with retail and then the amended uh proposed plan below um keeping a lot of our priorities intact with regards to creating an activated Street um but also you wanting to reduce the bulk and the height on the site so you can see um in plan the retail stretches all the way along the front of the building facing south Avenue uh and then in elevation the height has significantly decreased on almost by half um in the proposed plan go back real quick also of noting um the distance between the two buildings which was uh coined as the boulevard a privately owned but publicly accessible space for Gathering but more importantly for a view corridor and access through to the railroad right if you didn't want to go all around if you're coming up the street that remains and actually gets wider in the proposed uh plan uh between the the building in the garage uh to provide more a view corridor more access more publicly accessible space between the building uh the to retail and the buildings behind uh the public improvements as I mentioned before the South garage Town Green Town Square and the traffic mitigation related to the initial phase of improvements would all be completed could be completed followed by a North Garage additional mitigations for the traffic uh in the second Zone this is the overall plan we are still committed uh as part of the public improvements to uh alternative ways of getting to the train station so obviously the garages can handle automobiles uh there's also flexible space built into them to handle bike ride share other ways that people are finding that come to and fro these days and here you can see the outline of the bike trails that run to the main infrastructure as well as the we've the project and the town pursuing a grant for pedestrian uh infrastructure over the uh the area to the West uh as well bridging over the road if that comes to be but we still believe uh that connectivity to the trans Transit oriented uh development is incredibly important you can see here the beginnings of the evolutions we've worked with the town and the staff these are really driven by the town because it's the town's public Improvement we move into a role of facilitator and consultant and expert at times but uh this is the South Green to create a Real Lawn um a place that's convenient to drop off and pick up that has adequate queuing so that everybody can get in out without traffic snarls uh and it works uh with our building as well so this is an early evolution of what will continue through this process on the North side you'll see this one moved forward first in working with the town it's critical the current intersection in front of the Town Square um has two entrances and egresses spaced apart and a road on the other side I was actually driving by there again today on my way here making it really difficult for pedestrians to negotiate safely this plan come up together because again this is public space publicly owned land improves the Ingress and egress organizes the intersection creates a much safer environment as well as we think an incredible Place uh to gather and as a Showplace for the entrance and gateway to the community um anchored now by the great new restaurant that we saw on the restored train station which I think they did a magnificent job in my opinion these are the intersections that were cons um are included and approved for to be upgraded as part of this project that continues even with reduced scope all of the original intersection improvements would still be um undertaken and put into place I think with that we'll turn it over but thank you for your time and I look forward to questions later thank you D so now we're hear from our Redevelopment planner Chris collie from topology okay thank you very much for having me set set my timer um my name is Chris kie I'm a principal with uh topology uh first thing I want to say to you is that I am here uh sort of with a somewhat different perspective um than the street Works folks I'm here really as the towns representative um so it's my job as the you know primary author of this Redevelopment plan and uh primary author of the amendment to sort of evaluate the proposed amendments the amended concept um against you know the overall principles that that we set forth in the original plan and the principles that um that that led to that document um so uh we've been serving in this capacity since March 2020 and thanks for having me back again this evening just um when you look at my document the plan that you're considering tonight you don't see building elevations so much you don't see um blueprints uh like you might see in the streetworks presentations and that's intentional because we should all sort of level set that the Redevelopment plan is really it's a box um it's a set of regulations a set of parameters the numbers in there are going to be round um they might talk about 262 or 263,000 Square ft of residential development in a Redevelopment plan we're setting a set of parameters not not a sort of precise um set of calculations like you might see in those drawings um but critically it sort of sets a detailed box that can lay out public improvements and Mand public improvements and make sure that the municipality gets what it's trying to get out of a project touched a little bit on History before but because this is an amendment um I think it's important just to sort of remember uh where we've came come from on this uh this is an abbreviation of a slide I used previously a couple years ago all of this kind of started From a planning perspective back in 2019 with your master plan reexamination you'll recall shortly after that properties were designated in need of Redevelopment June of 2021 you adopted your master plan which uh remains sort of The Guiding Light of this amendment and then in February of 2023 we adopted the original Redevelopment plan for this site and as I was sort of working through some of these changes and and and going back and forth and and evaluating the amended drawings that street Works uh was bringing forward and thinking about what they might mean for the actual content of a Redevelopment plan I went back to some of the slides we presented in January and February of 2023 just to kind of remind myself like why' the town get into all of this in the first place right so this is just a slide that we did 18 months ago and this is what we said at the time the key plan outcomes when I stood here before and the things that were really important were uh the public spaces housing opportunities economic activity improved sidewalks safer intersections modern parking greed and building design control and all of that with impacts that are mitigated so for me like looking at these eight or nine things here and evaluating are we still meeting those Provisions was critical as I worked on this amendment to this plan and I think um like sort of from a public policy perspective given that it's an amendment should be uh a bit of a Guiding Light I will say as a spoiler I have this slide at the end and I think the amended plan Still Still touches on all of these things in a satisfactory way so um Street work sort of show drawings about the changes to their concept it's really my job for the bulk of my slides here to uh make sure the council understands the the details in the document and how things have changed so I I'm not hitting every change but I did highlight the ones that I think are most important we'll start in the west Zone um and specifically Lord and Taylor so some key changes to the document in the Lord and Taylor plan uh a couple of them are related to use the original plan did not include urgent care as a permitted use uh given the sort of efforts by Street Works to work to secure a medical office tenant um we thought it was important to include as an additional permitted use in that zone urgent care which we've defined and limited in terms of square footage and in terms of parking you also heard from an that there's a new parking structure uh that's proposed to support the office tenant in there that's now explicitly written into the Redevelopment plan both from a use perspective but also um again sort of drawing a box uh limiting it in terms of where it can be located uh that needs to be set back from the street that it needs to be behind a residential building and that it's subject to certain design standards uh from a density perspective you heard a little bit about the reductions there uh the plan the maximum residential floor area permitted in that zone has been reduced by 10% from 300 to 270,000 sare Ft similarly with the Lord and Taylor the maximum floor area of that building has been reduced from 150 down to 115 uh the heights are reduced in terms of the the maximum permitted across the three buildings uh from 6 to 4 in the west from 4 to 3 in the Central and from 6 to 5 in the East uh with those changes there are some changes to the bulk Frameworks meaning where the buildings can be really one of the advantages of the change on the west side is that we were able to push that building the Western most residential building a little further away from the residential property there the buildings have shifted a little bit back towards the train train line which we've always considered to be the least sensitive um of the frontages given uh the neighbor being the train um and there have been there is a reduction in terms of the minimum amount of pervious coverage that's required uh in each of these zones so I will hit on that for a second um this is one that I sort of um grappled with for a while uh this request and and I thought a lot about the initial um goal of the project to reduce storm water right and if we're reducing the minimum perious surfaces can we still meet that goal and the outcome of sort of the back and forth here is that yes we're still keeping the standard in the plan to reduce the amount of storm water reduction by the 30% and also importantly all of the Landscaping standards that were in the plan remain um so from that perspective I felt like that reduction in the minimum minimum pervious coverage was appropriate um couple changes on the townhouse slide sides or townhouse sites these are the ones across the street here uh there's been a little bit of rejiggering of the units so previously there were 16 tow houses permitted on each of those sites two of those town houses sorry have now shifted to the uh what we call the North Avenue North which is the site right across from lordon Taylor uh Still Still 32 units just 18 on one site 14 on the other um sort of a similar change to the ratio that I mentioned earlier and there is a modification to the step back permitted um from the Bank of America as well as the old Coldwell Banker and that's to accommodate bringing two of the tow houses potentially uh onto this Frontage here those are structures that are already built relatively close to the line I think could create a nice Street front of John Clark uh that's the West zone changes South Zone you know been touched on um we added mixed use parking ructure as a permitted use I do want to spend a second on this we were very careful to not just sort of blanket permit of any parking structure along the South Avenue Frontage what the plan says is that you can have what we're calling a mixed use parking structure that's defined uh as a parking structure with an active Street Frontage at the ground floor of retail or restaurant along South Avenue it also comes with certain design standards about screening and about um the uses extending the entirety of self Avenue so that was really important for us in this amendment to make sure that the amendment didn't simply say parking structure as a permitted use but that there were sort of parameters for that that structure um as was mentioned the reduction in the office GFA this is one of those ones where you know we're building a box so the minimum that we've reduced it to is 140 um we have slightly increased the retail or restaurant and the rationale for this is we do have that Frontage now of the parking structure we want to make sure there's enough retail or restaurant permitted to to extend the length of that uh the height change was already referenced but I will say the parking structure is shorter than the previous office building that would have been allowed there four stories 48 ft um we've increased the minimum distance between structures and this is to really build in a regulation requiring the expanded Boulevard extension slight change to the front yard setback for the uh for for the really the mixed use parking structure um we felt okay with that because it's a smaller building and a shorter building and then the similar coverage ratio so you know when you look at the document you look at the red lines you might see a lot of red and for me again it was like are we still meeting the core objectives of the plan of the goals um and these key outcomes that we identified I think we are um and I think that's why the amendment sort of um meets the mark in terms of the overall project priorities uh just mayor already touched on this a little bit but just so we understand what we're doing and what's what potentially comes next council's considering an introduction this evening would go to the planning board for for consistency review uh would come back here for potential adoption should that happen there would then be subsequent documents about the RDA Etc and with that I'm going to pass it over to one of the attorneys who can talk about those things thank you and I know he hates it when I say it but word for Resident Matt Jess what am I doing here where's that from the beginning that was easy uh so good evening mayor council members um as I think the mayor just mentioned my name is Matt Jessup from MCM in Scotland and Balman and we are your Redevelopment Bond Council uh let me maybe lead with a little bit of good news um of everyone that you're hearing from tonight I have the fewest number of slides um so let's Jump Right In what's that till you're not allowed to speak um okay so you've heard a lot about the planning changes that are outlined and detailed in the proposed Redevelopment plan Amendment although not being considered tonight legislatively obviously there are associated economic changes to the Redevelopment project when you account for the type of changes that you just heard from so it's important I think for you the governing body for the public for everyone to get sort of a refresher on where we were and where we are based on these new um these plan amendments so some things important things that haven't changed and you've heard some of these already uh as you may recall the redeveloper is making a pilot payment a payment in Le of taxes on all of the Redevelopment that you just heard about that is not changing and the um amount of the pilot from a computation perspective is not changing right the redeveloper is paying 133% of annual gross revenue which as a reminder is all revenue from the project so rents parking fees if they charge them storage fees pet fees you name it if they're charging um rent for it or charging uh for it it is gross revenue we do not account for operating expenses this is not a net number all we care about is what they gross uh 133% of annual gross revenue in years 1 through five 14% of annual gross revenue in years 6 through 15 and 15% of annual gross revenue in year 16 to 30 so there's no change there to the proposed pilot um likewise no change to the concept that we are funding public improvements throughout the downtown you heard that earlier it's sort of a core portion of what this project is producing the Town Square North and the town green South the north and south parking decks all the traffic mitigation at the 10 plus intersections you heard about environmental remediation parking technology are all um still included we also do have the option to fund certain other public improvements that we had as optional improvements in the past you may recall the um underground walkway uh to get from the south to North Side vice versa The Pedestrian uh walkway to get from the north parking deck to the train station um and at the time we had Quimby in there as well I understand Quimby may end up being accelerated um so that may not ultimately be a part of the um public improvements the key public Improvement that has sort of moved from um one that we're doing to one that becomes optional is some of the Hardscape streetscape and Road improvements and we'll talk about that when we get to the budget um Financial protections we spent a lot of time last year talking about all the ways the town was protected in light of the fact that it's issuing uh General obligation Redevelopment area bonds um those all largely remain in place there is a new added security feature that I do want to spend a minute on because it's important um under the current deal as it stands today the redevelopers obligated to make their pilot payments in accordance with the amounts that we just I just read off to you but there's technically no guarantee that those amounts as properly charged would equal Debt Service on our bonds and of course we are using the pilot Revenue to pay debt service on our bonds that's a critical tenant right um how does that happen if the projects are you know 20% occupied for years and years and years then it's potentially a concern um but in that circumstance developer wouldn't be in default they'd be paying their pilot as they're supposed to but we would not be getting enough Revenue to pay debt service on our bonds so this new iteration proposes a minimum pilot payment equal to Debt Service on our bonds under any circumstance so so effectively through the pilot payment the developer is guaranteeing The Debt Service on the town bonds so that there is no possibility of a shortfall day one or you know year 25 uh when the bonds are being um ultimately being paid off the special assessment which was critical to provide uh and protect the town for construction risk uh does not change right as a reminder the idea there was we're going to be issuing bonds at and around the the time that construction starts and we need revenue from those projects once their construction complete but what happens if we issue our bonds and then for some reason construction stops the revenue never comes we don't have Revenue to pay debt service the way we protected against that was the special assessment um that is still in place with two sort of minor modifications one the five West Zone projects originally were all agreeing to pay their special assessment and to cover each other if anybody doesn't pay so if they each had to pay $100,000 and Y 5 didn't pay the other four collectively had to come up with the fifths $100,000 because now we're going to have a different office tenant than we are the four residential tenants they have really nothing to do with each other from a business Arrangement right they don't know each other they don't want to get involved in each other's finances so the four residential ures entities will continue to guarantee each others and the fifth medical will be on its own so the fifth medical will have to pay its share the four others will have to pay their share of course if the fifth doesn't pay we always have the lean against the property just like any other property in town that fails to pay its taxes that lean goes to tax sale you generate the revenue and we use it to pay debt Service uh similarly the north south you uh two what were three ures also were what we call cross collateralized if one failed to pay pay the others had to pick it up now the North and the South will be will sort of stand alone uh we are reducing from three Bond issues down to two this saves on cost efficiencies saves on cost of issuance it allows us I think to better line up when we issue bonds compared to when Revenue starts to come in um we are increasing the obligation that the South Zone office building be at least 75% credit tenant least before um we move forward on our side you may remember we had we have an agreement now the public Improvement financing agreement that has a couple pages of um criteria before we issue our bonds we are thankfully doing our best to simplify that and quite frankly provide more flexibility for the town to manage interest rate risk and benefit um to potentially lower Debt Service which provides more pilot Revenue back to the town um budget uh and finally you know there's a rest West Zone res itial development partner that's that you know Doug talked about um earlier and they provide that Equity infusion and financing certain to make sure that the project is going to move forward um this is a sort of key slide from a financial perspective right these are at least from my perspective all the key variables that we spent a lot of time on uh in February of 2023 uh showing you sort of side by side where our critical changes are so total public improvements go from 54.3 million to 41.9 million again that's really a product of the when the overall scope of a project comes down the overall amount of Revenue available comes down so it's reasonable to think that you know some of the public improvements are going to be you know not be as high a priority uh from a funding perspective so about 12 12.5 million doar of public improvements or public Improvement funding um that gets removed uh the North and South zone property purchase price remains at $ 11.1 million um I think this is notable for a couple reasons one the town is sort of relying on that money for two reasons at 50% of it gets used to pay for public improvements the other 50% goes to your budget um the other reason this is really notable is recall the appraisal that really valued that Land Based on per square foot office and as you've heard we're going from 210,000 ft of office down to 120,000 ft of office so you know you follow that same appraisal methodology the value of that property is cut dramatically and yet we are holding that purchase price at the same 11.1 million uh again redeveloper contribution the developer in the current plan is paying $8 million of of effectively an equity contribution into the public Improvement program um with the re with the resizing of the project and all of the reduction of the project the revenues are different the expenses are different obviously so it's not a surprised that we see a reduction in the uh redeveloper contribution down to $4.7 million which is still being used to fund uh 100% of which is being used to fund the public improvements our total expected uh borrowing uh secured by or repaid by the pilots is going down by $9.5 million 43.7 million over three Bond issues down to 34 a little over 34 million uh and two Bond issues as a result we'll propose to reduce the maximum bonds and notes that are currently authorized which is 57 million down to 45 million which again is basically a pro reduction we would do that through an amendment to the uh Redevelopment area Bond ordinance that's already in place and the Redevelopment area Bond resolution that's already in place again sort of future legislation that follows uh the Redevelopment plan interest rate on bonds Remains the Same I told you in February 2023 that's a conservative rate I tell you in October October yeah of 2024 uh that still is a conservative rate um I would argue 3.25% or so is a more reasonable rate for 25 years for a AAA credit like the town and not that we can guarantee that but just order of magnitude 3.25% on these bonds is another $4.2 million reduction in debt service which is really $4.2 million of additional Revenue into the town Municipal budget over that uh 25e uh period so interest rates you know matter right relative to um what's what's available here annual Debt Service is reduced obviously total 30-year Town revenue is reduced I'll say Obviously when you see all the changes including uh you lose an an office building right I mean that's $39 million of of project Revenue that was going to the town that you know you don't have as a result of the smaller scopes so we go from 214 million to 156 million our debt service is down by 15.8 million and so at the end of the day we originally expected over 32 years to have about 142 $143 million uh of available Revenue to the town for Budget purposes and that is now at about $13.8 million um again assuming all the same Apples to Apples interest rate comparisons Debt Service comparisons we have before this um shows you what we're funding in bond issue number one we sort of reprioritize and I think Doug hit on this a little bit rep prioritized how we're uh when we're going to fund which public improvements the key one here in the first bond issue is the South deck right the South par the South public parking deck uh goes up first together with the north Zone traffic the South Zone traffic the West Zone traffic the north s Town Square and the Southtown green all of those funding priorities are are moved up to the first bond issue recall that currently the first bond issue goes to fund the north parking deck um these improvements I would argue are more beneficial to the town they're more beneficial to the residents and at the end of the day the North Deck is necessary when there's a South tenant but it's not really necessary before that so to be able to put all of these improvements up front uh fund them through a issue together with that $4.7 million redeveloper contribution we think sort of makes a lot more sense from a financial planning perspective and providing more public improvements to the to the public uh faster and then again we're only down to two we only have two Bond issues so the second bond issue what's left over the north garage and the South Zone traffic which are the South Zone traffic mitigation improvements that are necessary to accommodate the office which is why those are sort of at the end because again until we're building an office building the North Garage isn't critically necessary nor is the South Zone traffic so um again a combination of bond issue and 50% of the land sale purch uh purchase price on the North and South zones fund those improvements and that is all I have so Steve are you uh yeah Steve do you want to talk about process or documents and so forth everybody kind of knows what to expect thank you than you I am happy to report I have zero slides Steve melenic from green bound R Smith and Davis good to see all of you again I serve as westfields Redevelopment Council um process and the mayor touched on it a little bit earlier today what you're doing today and what's on the agenda is an introduction of of an ordinance to amend an existing Redevelopment plan it is just that an introduction that will Kickstart a process by which the planning board hears it for consistency and reports back to this council with that consistency report along with any other recommendations it may have there will be a public Hearing in this room which will be 21 days from now so the public now has that time to absorb um and prepare um for that public hearing If This Were to be adopted that would allow the council to also consider several other pieces of legislation uh you heard from from Matt um just now about a lot of the financial impacts and changes to the bonds so there would be ordinances amending the bonds there will be ordinances an ordinance to introduce amending the financial agreements and special assessment agreements uh and then there'll be obviously resolutions which would amend the agreements that we have negotiated with Street works and a Redevelopment agreement a public Improvement financing agreement and potentially the construction agreement as well if this plan were not adopted uh as the mayor said then we are right where we are now um nothing is changing because this is an amendment the existing Redevelopment plan as it's written right now stays in place the agreement stay in place the development program that has been negotiated um would continue so I'm here to answer any other questions about process but I just from a Global Perspective since some of the last ones speaking I'll just say how this came about Street works as redevelopers of this Pro you know projects of this scale often happens when speaking with potential tenants especially anchor tenants like we're talking about here as well as capital partners and residential partners that they're speaking with they're we learn things and things have to be adjusted and they came to us at the same time we were hearing from you we were hearing from the public and it became an opportunity for our team you heard from Chris Matt me Liz and everybody else of your professionals had the opportunity to to take this opportunity to make this a better plan before recommending it presenting it to you and we believe that is now the state it's in that we have a smaller project yet a financially more secure project that is going to achieve all the goals that you as a council set out to do when this was adopted last year so happy to answer any of the questions you have but I think that concludes our presentations thanks very much so now I will refer to the council for questions sure yeah just Rich him say yes Keir yeah let me know exactly okay um first of all thank you for everyone I know it's tough doing this after a long day with other stuff um I had a question for uh Doug if you don't mind you don't need to get up if you don't want to okay uh Doug when I uh first of all thank you again for coming um when I came to visit you guys and your um at your facility here in town in April right I asked either you or someone else from your team and I don't know precisely if it was you I'm pretty sure I may have asked I think I did ask you I asked if considering changes in market conditions since the project was first conceived whether you still intended to go forward with the commercial office space as intended and you or whoever answered yes you did now obviously something changed from then to now and so my question is when did uh Street works first notify the town that it want wanted to seek an amendment uh of the Redevelopment plan and was that done in writing or was it done in some other fashion uh not specifically in writing so like I said first to address it we are still committed and believe in the office we had originally three Office Buildings right uh all of which the two on the South Side carried individual pre-leasing requirements for both um the the revised plan has the two Office Buildings the existing Lord and Taylor adaptively used and the one in the South so we're still committed to office we still think it's an important part of the plan we started discussions um with the town you know coming off of the meeting we had there where it was directly expressed to me traffic traffic traffic you know we still concerned about height we're still concerned about the amount of office and you know those other you know those types of issues so we went back thought about it B based on what we had learned and what we were hearing from the market and what we heard at those meetings and from your professionals uh and came back after that meeting to begin discussing sort of what can we do to hear some thoughts and we work through it with the planning professionals over the summer and into the fall that started in the summer yeah I don't I'd have to go back and look at the exact date I don't remember so there wasn't a formal letter or written correspondence on that no okay thank you I got one for you that's I'll stay here till I don't need be any thank you um should we have kept the original size project how long would it take to go ahead and find the tenants that you need to go ahead and fill that space uh it wouldn't take any longer to find the tenants but what the tenants are coming back in today's world saying they want which is you know evolves over time this project started for me five years ago um or original conception of it um the tenants come back with requirements and things they need they feel to address what they have to do for their employees and their businesses today so there's no additional time but they're coming back with things we need this so we need your plan to accommodate this thank you um so I met with you that day and uh I was one of the ones that was uh raising the concerns about traffic and parking and uh one of the comments that was made towards the end was this project has nothing to do with parking it's not going to help parking which was very distressing because I would say in the town people want better parking and less traffic we also discussed I brought up the comment that this project is going to bring a lot of traffic into the town whether you put light here or light there you have the same amount of roads with a lot more cars how is that going to help the traffic situation and now I know you know you said that it's 40% less of a lot so it's still a lot because presently it's not good was there a traffic study done councilman councilwoman hap good mentioned the other night that Mr feder Rico was doing a traffic study and we were supposed to get the results we did not receive any results so I'd like to know is there a present traffic study evaluating the situation and all the other um buildings that are going on in town um that's one question so I'll let you go with that yeah thank I remember and I I remember many of your questions it was directed at the project overall but specifically on the south Zone uh as well um there's no full updated traffic report what we did was we had 210,000 square feet of office we got together with our traffic uh consultant said if we're going to reduce some because we were also getting feedback from the state of New Jersey and do on how they calculate uh traffic and how they do it which is a different meth methodology frankly then um uh perhaps um some jurisdictions do it Etc so looking at at at that and said if we take the 210,000 ft of office to bring it down to 120,000 is it a prata reduction similarly because you have that many less people coming and they said for the most part yet which is why we have a range so far of 36 to 40% it's I believe a 40% or 41% reduction in overall office size so it's that range we have but we haven't you know until we get through and come back for site plan approval we still have that process to go through after with the town um it's really uh discussions with the traffic consult and just just to followup since we did have that meeting there was no effort to make any contact with us afterwards if you were so concerned about our our worries about this project I did not receive an email I did not receive a phone call nothing from Street Works nothing to indicate that you were changing the Project based on what we had indicated and I find that a little disingenuous to say that that meeting was what changed the project because no one ever had any contact with us afterwards actually if you'll let me weigh in on that please because um it actually wouldn't be appropriate for Street Works to be doing that and um you know this the purpose of this legislative body is to actually set policy we don't sit in the table and negotiate we have professionals that do that and it's just same reason we don't sit in the room with the uh with Jim when he's negotiating a Union contract it's the same thing we have professionals that do they're the ones that are engaging with Street works it wouldn't be appropriate for them to reach out and say did you do this we have a team of professionals that are advocating on the town's behalf and it's exactly what they've done just like any other thing we do in terms of process and that's so don't put that on Street works because it would be appropriate that is a process that we have in town well I'll put it on Street works because you mentioned that that meeting stimulated the change so if that meeting stimulated the change then we were affecting change with that meeting and our professionals took that input okay and it's reflected in what you represent we're representing the people of our town we were elected to set policy and correct make sure that we're doing the right thing correct right to set policy okay well and we're setting tonight right so but I would like to know that you know if if that's the case then we're kept in the dark ask a question I I would just say I do have a question for Doug but I don't think it would be appropriate for Street Works to be coming to each of us to say hey what do you think about this what do you think about that that's what this group is designed to do is to take the policy inputs we give them and the feedback they hear from us and residents and react to it and come back with a revised plan that's exactly how it's supposed to work it would be completely inappropriate for them to be reaching out to us on on an individual basis one we're not experts um that's why we hire experts to actually get to a better outcome and they do want to applaud Matt guys this back slap that he talked about is huge there is literally no risk to this town to make these public improvements 100% of The Debt Service is is covered by Street works if there are reductions in Pilot payments I just want to say thank you because I know that's something that we talked about and I'm glad to see it reflected but Doug my question for you is you talked a lot about tenant input can you bring to light for us what you're hearing from tenants about Westfield about this project both the Lord and Taylor site the Southside you referenced a lot of positive input and desire and interest in Westfield I think it' be really helpful for residents to hear what are you hearing what makes them so excited about Westfield yeah and this is I'll say it in general first we get input from a lot of sources tenants municipalities I do this across North America I will tell you that meeting was extremely helpful because we heard very concise very clear Direction on what people were thinking and I'm well represented by my experts you are as your well we took that away and I think did a lot of hard work over the summer some of it contentious but we think it resulted in in a a good amendment in the end what we're hearing is some specific things and I'll I'll speak first and most to the office uh comp component of of the building the market is Shifting in in some ways New Jersey is still a desirable place for offices there's a lot of density here um I think some 55% of leases in place today were signed preo so that's like there are a lot of businesses out there wearing clothes and they've lost a lot of weight and what's going through now is a sort of retailoring process where they're going into new space that's different it's smaller it's in a different location and we're seeing two main drivers a desire for downtown right clear and a desire for smaller space that makes their employees want to come to work hence the downtowns what is also driving is there's a lot of Office Buildings today that because they're functionally obsolete or the developer has problems with the building or other buildings in their portfolio not developers but owners because these buildings exist and tenants are looking to get out of those buildings so we see a great opportunity here for us and for the town for someone looking for a downtown place where they can move their office and get their employees back because that's the move I think it's now 3.1 or 3.2 days back in the office and we think it's headed to four question uh thank you again for being here I know it's not long presentation so I appreciate it um I I saw in the agreement and I think this question is for you but um that an Urgent Care was um added as one of the uses on the the Lord and Taylor lot right I'm curious um since we've got you know you've had the chance to talk to Residents and the council what was the residents feedback and the council's feedback of people you talk to about having an Urgent Care um in downtown Westfield I don't I don't know if I recall any specific to urgent care but the idea of a a medical presence there um did come up and by that I mean a medical presence of scale right that building is currently 140,000 squ ft we were looking initially to reduce it to 100,000 and the current modification is even smaller so we got positive that having the Right medical there would be a benefit to the town uh and obviously to us um part of what we're hearing from the tenants is that a piece of that piece of what they need to do to provide that may include um the Urgent Care we're not talking about full-blown surgery centers but an urgent care that would be part of a facility in there or its own little Standalone and in anticipation of that we didn't want to we heard it we understand it from the tenants so um we think it's important to include now and on that note Doug correct me if I'm wrong but the Urgent Care cannot face the street right it has to face it faces the parking garage correct not directly on the front so it's intended to be in the medical space and not the retail that's shown there quite another question go thank you um Doug thank you for it looks like a very responsive request to us to things that we've been hearing from the public for quite some time um I just wanted to ask you a little bit more about the above ground parking um obviously at least in my view one of the big appeals was having some parking underground in the original plan um your presentation talked about the fact that it' be shielded parking garages can you elaborate on that because I would prefer that you use the word camouflaged camouflaged or hidden yes yeah um yeah so the need for the above ground garages stem from number of things one of them is cost but it's not the main driving factor it's customer experience and employee experience where they have light air and they're not going in in addition the um financing and uh the different uses sharing the one underground garage is we're hearing not tenable in today's market so having a garage there um that is open to the light and air and easily accessible for customers and employees is really important but we understand the principles of the RDA so the the what you're seeing here is that from the street they're they're hidden right and there is some when you look like anything from the side or whatnot you may see glimpses of it um but overall the intent and the plan you saw today is to cover the entire front the entire facade that faces the building on the length Okay thank you um it looked like that was happening in the west Zone um in the South Zone it was a little unclear from the drawing um and uh it also looked like the retail was um less deep yes um so I would really encourage you to um engage in conversations with our current landlords who are trying to fill spaces about the kinds of um Square footages retail is looking for because we're looking to have more retail tenants selling things besides food um and so you know we want to make sure that we're accommodating the um the need to have a lot of diversity in offerings for downtown um and if I could just sure one resource we have at our disposal that's very valuable is our sister companies HBC owns saak fth Avenue we own saxs all fifth we own the Hudson Bay stores in Canada we have 10 10 some thousand employees in the retail business and we feel confident that space um can be occupied and activated along that uh with a great many retailers other than food okay and just one um last question can you the drawing looks like there's going to be some changes to the facade of the Lord and tailor building um so is it still you're going to be maintaining the facade so that you'll see the columns and you know it'll look like um the building that exist there today or will there be changes to it there will be some changes some out of necessity and some out of tenant necessity so the tenant that are coming here today uh are not going to be a department store right or it would be a department store still so we're going to have to modify the building so one of the purposes of adaptive reuse is really um the environmental benefits of that one of the worst things for the environment is steel and concrete so the fact that we would make steel and concrete pouring concrete is terrible for the environment so trying to maintain that also creates a much more Sustainable Building but we're putting retail retail in that works for today in the front of the building in a big portion of it in addition today's office tenant whether they're medical or commercial office while they like history they also want the building to look forward and be a place that represents their brand so until we get that tenant finalized it's hard to come up with exactly what that building is but we want people to remember and look at that building go oh yeah used to be Lord and Taylor now whether that means columns or the brick or the stone we'll have to work through uh with with the town and our designers on how to achieve that we're very proud of the building but I I can't tell you exactly what'll be retained or not and I understand that we're not getting into those details tonight um just trying to log some yes um requests I make one comment then I'm going to hand it over to council do G because I don't know if I saw this in your presentation but I think it would be a popular thing is um that you all are the owner of a liquor license yes and the original intention was that the liquor license was going to go in the west cell right but through these changes um to determine to put the liquor license on the south Zone and for those that maybe on the south side you're aware there is no liquor license on the south side of town currently um zero and another thing you may not know is that one liquor license can operate multiple establishments if they're adjacent to each other and have the same property owner so they could feasibly take their liquor license put it along this retail Frontage and operate and run three different types of establishments to operate dining and bars and restaurants to really truly activate the street um and that is you know a great workaround for our archaic liquor license laws in town but I think that's definitely worth mentioning so yeah it was one of the early decisions and you know if we were going to just take the building and divide it up into three retailers right then we wouldn't need it but a liquor license came on the market early in the process three four years ago they're not cheap um and we invested one and bought it um and it's important originally it was absolutely considered to be at a restaurant at that location with the residential Etc um and as the plans have evolved the the place that seems obvious for us is on the town Green in that office building as an amenity for the southide and to activate that as well as the office tenant there so councilman Donald you have a question uh yes um my question was um let's say post completion of this project and as an example of any other projects that You' completed uh is there a turnover rate in ownership of those properties and what is the time frame that that happens in yeah it it varies uh and it varies in the industry and it varies for us obviously if we bring in anyone um during the construction process it's subject to town approval your cons your experts can speak to that more um typically um you get a property completed and stabilized which means all the tenants are in residents are in they're paying rent you're at the place where you think it's gonna be stable for a while and that is one place where it could be sold right um sometimes it's held for a while if you believe the values you've created is coming up and sometimes there's a second turn of tenants that you believe will create more value and you wait for that and hold on to that we're a little different because we are at times opportunistic but we own I think 20 or so million square feet around North America so we may choose to hold things for the long term we've property for 15 years we've owned property for um 353 years so we do everything in between um when you do your traffic impact analysis for the amended plan will you consider the specific characteristics of the Urgent Care and what I mean by that is it seems to me that Urgent Care is unique in the sense that you're going to get a lot of people coming in and out um you know all day and I don't know how all day'll be open but can be you know going on for some time as opposed to like an office where guy checks in he works he goes home so will that be taken into consideration yes i' I'd have to remember if there's a specific uh ITC which is the intern International traffic uh guide book uh for Urgent Care I believe there is but yeah similar to food and beverage being different than traditional retail thank you uh so I think if I remember correctly it was a this is a 25% % reduction in the overall plan give or take yeah um of that 25% what percent of that reduction is from the elimination of the underground parking garages uh none the the the the reduction is based on the occupied space that counts towards the towns F the towns uh uh overall um how they calculate square footage for zoning got it so it's not included in that number not the parking now got it thank you number the total number of spaces for the project have come down I don't know the square footage have a couple quick questions sure um the first anybody else following up regarding the parking yes um the underground parking um I guess your experts felt that they couldn't dig below ground in those areas even though like a couple blocks I think the Sophia is doing underground parking so I just curious why two blocks away underground parking couldn't be placed it's it's not impossible um but it's different uses right res residential has a much less parking demand than office so putting parking below grade under a single building that's by itself I guess they found more feasible but for the parking for our tenant and tenants that were looking at that are looking for not only the proximity but how it feels to their customer and their employees they absolutely prefer it over there and it's what you're seeing predominantly still being built like it in in other locations and my second question is follow up the councilman Keepers from the beginning his first question um and I this would go to the legal council did the original agreement require written notification for changing the the uh Redevelopment plan and if so why was not written uh notification provided yeah the agreement provides a process by which they independently could trigger a a an obligation for this Council to consider they didn't they chose not to do that approach which was more collegial which is work with us work with our professionals we work with yours and then we can present them something uh con collectively again as as Doug said this started back in the summer if they exercise their obl their right under the contract to write and submit a written request we'd be before you on what they requested by that back then and very high likelihood is you wouldn't get us up here recommending it so they thought it would a b b approach and we agreed that working with professionals to present something that we were proud to present was the better approach I have a question for Chris so Doug doesn't get all the fun Chris can you just talk a little bit about the requirements building on Council and have Goods comments just about the screening of the garage on South Avenue what are we specifically requesting how many height what's the height of that retail yep Etc sure so um I touched I mentioned during my presentation that we have this term that's defined in the Redevelopment plan it's called a mixed use parking structure I'll pull up the definition for all of us oops so a mixed use parking structure a structure comprised of retail or restaurant bar uses and one or more uses used primarily for the parking of storage of Motor Vehicles retail Andor restaurant bar uses shall be included on the ground floor now what you've seen in their plan is sort of a double height similar to if you recall the the way the office was designed the last time sort of double height up front um and uh so that's sort of like an expanded version of the ground floor we have a separate section which you'll find um in the sort of design standard section of the plan where we talk a little bit about um the bread of that so the requirement is that the retail or restaurant use extend the length of the garage um one of the things frankly that we went back and forth with quite a bit was how much of the garage would have retail and restaurant and it was really I think critical um from our perspective to make sure that that extended uh the whole Lan so we've written that requirement uh is the plan does it require them to to do that extended height or that's an option um I don't think think that part is required um I will say that uh if you do get to a Redevelopment agreement there's sort of those much more detailed sets of drawings that go with that and we should certainly make sure that that double height ends up in those drawings got it okay thank you thank you should we move on to any more questions before we move to public comment and so forth anybody else okay um so we'll just move on the to the agenda thank you all very very much for those presentations and for being here it's very very helpful um may I have a motion to approve the minutes for the Town Council conference and regular meetings of October 8 2024 so moved by councilman Healey second sen Council contract any discussion all in favor yes opposed this motion is carried Miss ly do we have any petitions or Communications yes mayor on October 21st at 11:57 p.m. the members of the Town Council and I receive communication from the West Advocates expressing their disagreement for General a 20244 which is on the agenda tonight for introduction a copy of that email and a 38 page attachment has been distributed to all counc members thank you um now it's time for open discussion by citizens anyone may come up to the microphone and speak to the Council on any subject on which we have jurisdiction please state your name and address for the record and please limit your comment to 5 minutes Steven Goodman 322 are in The Circle Westfield thank you councilman and mayor I did attend the early 7 p.m. council meeting I was privy to a lively discussion amongst the council members and Mayors and uh Jim Gala and uh the lawyer regarding protocol transparency or the appearance of such starts with proper process and protocol it continues with information dissemination and discussion not just to committee members but to the rest of the council and the public the problem today is what that process is and is it the same for all projects or should this process be amended for some more extensive or expensive projects such as amending the plans for One Westfield place the timing or better the timeline for discussion dissemination of this information and public feedback that has been given for this change is not sufficient hence the apparent lack of transparency the public cannot even ask questions until the night of the vote of the council and therefore this is somewhat flawed I ask that you change the protocol for some of these projects so you expand it to the public before taking it into committee and making a decision thank you good evening Carla Bach 603 Lawrence Avenue since it's Inception two years ago Westfield Advocates has clearly and consistently communicated that this one Westfield Place project is too big too much for this town nothing we have heard tonight from topology Chris Coley Doug Adams or an Lando from HBC or gleaned from reading the revised Redevelopment plan since Sunday barely 72 hours has changed our very first public statements two years ago quote that the town and developers process for incorporating public input and effectuating project revisions will again be a vacuous form over actual substance this is from our letter to the editor November 16 2022 we also said that in business we know that the first offer is rarely the best offer but the town has not seemed willing to seek alternate proposals or negotiate a better deal for Westfield's residents what our assessment so far is the revised physical plan changes appear dramatic need time for evaluation and the financial terms if anything are worse for the town once we are able to obtain all the financial information necessary we should have a more specific assessment of the financial return on a risk adjusted basis the comparison is between the original and revised owp plans as well as the opportunity cost to the community and the public even Chris Coley might agree that an above grade parking garage whether it's covered by a one floor mixed juice retail to serve office tenants is not the optimal use for this South Lot location at this major Transit link we say again that the selling of the public town Lots without an evaluation of alternative proposals and Community input is an extreme approach that must not be motivated to seek out and attain the best development plan and result for this town's foreseeable future what gets built is not easily unbuilt we we have also said this regarding the upcoming affordable housing plan that both processes need to be deliberative and inform each other with a comprehensive master plan vision for this town that maintains our finances neighborhood character and quality of life Westfield Advocates cannot support this revision and we urge all the council members to take a fresh look in the current context and not validate this amended project and I would also suggest if you looked at other uses instead of office over on the west Zone you could add more residential since there doesn't seem to be an office Market thank you anybody else I think Mrs good Mrs Goodman I think she yeah yeah sorry Susan Goodman 322 orenda Circle I have several questions I know they won't be answered but I want to put them out there so the residents can hear I still go out there and I talk to 70% of the residents that never like this project to begin with and are not going to be happy with the revisions my first question is is why did The Visitor Center close when even though supposedly their lease was up they knew they were going to be making these changes that Visitor Center should have been demanded to stay open by the town a new model to be made and for residents to have several months to go down there and engage with the developer on the changes that were being made number two two and a half weeks ago we received our tax bill with the typical propaganda fluff insert that's in there and yes it is because when you go to the supermarket your friends come up to you and say did you get the tax bill with the propaganda fluff statement there was a whole section about the maze but nothing about this that was coming down now according to a message that mayor brindle sent to neighbors and friends this afternoon there was conversation about this since the spring why then shouldn't there have been an insert in our tax bill telling us that the developer wanted to make revisions on the original development and that we will have a chance as residents to have an engagement with the developer and the town to see if the revision is really what we wanted but no we didn't get that then yesterday I get a email from Linda habgood now this email says tomorrow night is the first legislative step in the council considering the requested changes to the plan and agreements and then we will spend the next two months considering and looking at the details hearing residents views and voting well now topology put up on there that we're going to pass this through the planning board and on November 12th 3 weeks from now we're going to vote where's the two months where's the public engagement where's the where's the visitors center so we can go down there and see what this is instead of a 100 Pages this thick that most people don't even have time to go through and most of our councilmen didn't even get to the last minute this has been works for months and we the property owners the taxpayers that pay the town's bills behind the scenes with our money we are disregarded we are in considered you decide what you're going to want for our town and we have no choice to say anything most of us don't want it otherwise we wouldn't have flipped four seats this is Hocus Pocus it's Halloween it's another thing that you're presenting we want to have a conversation about this we want to know more of what's going on you had no right to pull this and and then close the visitor center and you had no right not to clue Us in that this was coming down this is the biggest development that history of Westfield has ever had it will change our town totally and then the the 16 units that you're taking from age restricted oh that's what we wanted we wanted age restricted all downtown so that all of us old people could sell our houses and move downtown and walk everywhere and not drive our cars and then we won't have the clogged up traffic well now you're going to have 16 families move in and everyone's going to have probably one to three children and they're going to go to our schools that you promise we're not going to stress anymore with increased pupils and it will we already have a difficulty with taxes being raised constantly about the schools and now a referendum coming down in April for take out a big bond to get uh a full D kindergarten and everything so now you're changing the plans now we're going to have more traffic cuz those families are going to have cars they might even have two cars cuz they're going to have to drive their children all over no one's going to be walking to town like the age-restricted people so I think you should slow up not push this thing back through the way you're having to do it you should open up that Visitor Center or even just take a room here in the in the municipal building where they have activities and have a couple of sessions where the residents could come down and hear it for themselves directly from you what is coming down why you made the changes this is a lot to absorb in one night and then in three weeks you want to change our town I'm sorry M your time is up thank you very much for your consideration hi Drew kelleran 534 Boulevard um I'm going to be a little calmer calmer than the last speaker to Corum um here so here we go again with the same process cry the same cry made in the lawsuit by the same people making the same claims tonight that lawsuit was dismissed by the courts I'll remind you here's the reality about the public process performed by the town of Westfield the judge in the lawsuit confirmed that and I quote the town of Westfield governing body was not arbitrary capricious or unreason reasonable and was appropriately and adequately supported by the record this new this new Council and the Westfield Advocates claimed they wanted a smaller project well here you go here's the smaller project exactly what you wanted so I'm a little confused as to why this is no good either that doesn't really make sense to me but instead of being appreciative they'd rather play politics and seemingly would prefer to keep the larger project because that's what's frankly going to happen if this amendment isn't voted in thank you thank you good evening mayor brindle members of the council my name is Sharon Stockwell I live at 100 Nelson place my husband and I live in Ward one district one we purchased our home 22 years ago we are in the first neighborhood hood that is adjacent to the Lord and Taylor Building um when we purchased the house 22 years ago one of the selling points that the real estate agent pointed out to us is that we could throw a quarter and hit the side of the Lord and Taylor building so I don't think he was as excited about that as I was um so this has been our neighborhood for 22 years as you can imagine living so close to downtown different types of projects different kinds of issues come and go we have a lot of stress at times uh within our neighborhood because we are surrounded by parking schools daycares the why but this is something that I see is very positive this is something that I feel is going to enhance and improve my neighborhood and being so close to downtown when something is an improvement it's something that's very much appreciated so I like the original plan as well but I'm very happy to see that you have compromised that you have made adjustments that you have listened to the residents that you have listened to potential uh renters for the office buildings and that you've looked at this in a really comprehensive way and you've made the changes and you've made the adjustments that people have asked for so I too am confused why the project that is being reduced by 25% is still being met with concern and skepticism I appreciate all of the things that you have done I can't even imagine all of the hours and all of the Manpower that each and every one of you have put into this project and also into the changes of this project I thank you very much for all of your time for all of your efforts and I look forward to reading all of this information again it is a lot um you know to look at and I'm looking forward to understanding it more and looking at what the process is and following through with what that process is and I thank you all very much thank you good evening uh Denise Sherwood 642 handford place um I'm really not here to ask a question I'm here to show um my disappointment um for how um the information for today's meeting came about um I um my I was at the pre-council meeting and it was somewhat heated I guess um I come to find out that at the finance committee meeting which was October 10th if I'm not mistaken in the evening at 6:30 um uh there were um members there two that were for moving this forward and I think a couple that were not for moving this forward but from what we understand from the Town Administrator irregardless it gets brought to the meeting tonight my concern is from what I understand is that I think Dave keer you mentioned you were told that you could not share what went on in the finance committee meeting with any of your uh fellow uh Council persons that were not at the meeting is that true or don't I I I'm I'm just trying to understand it um my understanding was that um it oh no that you couldn't talk to the residents about it I'm sorry you couldn't talk to the residents about it until it was published on Sunday on the agenda and I just think um so we had between Sunday and when we got the red line version around midafternoon on Monday to take a look at that to see what was going on and I just don't know why there was um it just doesn't seem very forthcoming and it just doesn't seem like um a lot of you were involved and I hear today that you guys met with um HBC in April and then there wasn't it seems any discussion until October 12th and now the residents are finding out on Sunday that there's an amended plan and as far as people saying oh we should be happy with a 25% reduction it's not the overall project I think people were um I personally was upset that our Transit Lots most people most towns don't own their Transit Lots we do we're fortunate and we gave in a no bit we offered in a no bit contract back to HBC the opportunity to divide our uh South uh train station lot that's my concern Lord and Taylor okay Lord and Taylor's parking lots across the street that's another thing it's all the development going on in the southide that's an issue to me so if you reduce everything overall by 25% that still doesn't sit well with me because the big issue was what was going on at South Avenue so those are my concerns thank you for your time okay Bob magnam 603 Lawrence Avenue uh picking up on what Denise had said U our issue is really about the south South Street Street lots and in essence the selling of our uh parking lots uh to the developer and then what that means um our issue has always also been that then because we sell that we squeeze the public parking garages into very tight spaces sites causing those garages to be inefficient and more expensive ensive even the town's own parking consultant th acknowledged that in a meeting we the taxpayers are putting that bill for an inefficient parking garages that were squeezed into compare that to the private parking garages that street Works tenants will now occupy when you look at that uh the the the difference is Stark and we are really getting a short uh Short Straw relative to that regarding the north side Park public parking garage its erest remains problematic as anyone who's traveled along North Avenue during rush hour this uh this design exacerbates that by obligating all of the commuter cars to funnel onto North Avenue so close to the Central Avenue intersection uh I also wanted to talk about uh what is most disturbing which is the lack of transparency and process and not following the agreement agement uh as Mr Adams acknowledged no written detailed statement was submitted in accordance with Section 3.7 of the agreement the lawyers on the Town Council should wince when they hear a lawyer says they wanted to make it congenial also uh as far as I know nothing has been submitted to the Review Committee uh that's in section 4.19 A Review Committee was established Street Works was supposed to provide a monthly report on their leasing to date I've never seen that report I don't think it exists and I don't even know if the Review Committee even meets uh we haven't heard anything again the idea of lack of transparency we have a Review Committee and we hear nothing from that committee um relative to the residential units as the mayor mentioned around four obligates new developments to be 20% affordable as this agreement is being amended I would have hoped that the town push the redeveloper to provide the 20% not 15% uh in addition while this amendment has not been approved to move to the planning board there are discrepancies between topologies presentation and Street Works presentation the central building for instance is three stories and 55 ft according to topology not two stories and 36 ft as presented by Street works the west building is actually closer to the single story houses on the fourth floor they failed to mention that no step the step backs were eliminated at that side of the building thank you anybody else good evening I'm John Marcos 543 Arlington Avenue um I have several comments number one is the original plan was deeply flawed and the amendments are not good enough second of all three weeks is not enough time between tonight and voting on this plan yes or no third of all the plan and the financials should be considered together and should be voted upon together it is not prudent to vote on the plan without going through the financials and having a thorough bipartisan review of the financials unlike the last time using that financial advisor now as far as the commuters are concerned this is still a bad plan one for one not good enough there's population growth there's one seat ride just not good enough computers are being stuck with garages which are less efficient more timec consuming and more expensive the traffic flow for the garages and for the stations are simply inadequate they should be reviewed by the police and by independent traffic experts because you're putting all the traffic and pass uh pedestrians into two very small areas you're hiding the Southside train station and finally who is the guarantor is it Hudson Bay is it some small LLC and what happens if that LLC declares bankruptcy there are lots of flaws and we need an independent Financial review that's bipartisan and not the process that took place several years ago because the F the taxpayers deserve thorough reviews and the plan or the Amendments and the financials should be done voted upon and considered at the same time thank you very much hi everybody I'm Allison Cary 408 East dadley Avenue um probably going to reiterate several things that people have already said first of all um Westfield Advocates represents many people in this community it's not a small group and want to reiterate that that we are representing people in this community um regarding some of the changes that were made Mr Adams I find it implausible and almost laughable that you took people's feedback into consideration this was shoved down our throat a year and a half ago and you're coming back a year and a half later telling us you've taken feedback into consideration Miss Carrie with all due respect can you direct your comments to the council please okay um additionally there's been no discussion about changing marking conditions it's just all about Resident feedback which was completely ignored last year tra traffic studies independent traffic studies parking assessments concerns about Office Buildings were all ignored a year and a half ago um regarding financials half of you remember this we presented this this is over 25 questions about the financials for one must feeli place that were given to us and provided by Financial Professionals in this town residential commercial developers Finance professionals these were compiled and were presented to this Council multiple times emailed about 70% are still not answered so once again we've got three weeks to go through the financials that have completely changed you talk about transparency and due process it's not being followed okay to do you're doing the minimum and if you think it's right to give this town once again it's the same Playbook from a year and a half ago to give this town three weeks to digest all the changes above ground parking structure on the Southside parking lot I think that's been debated for over 30 years in this town it's tied up and ready to go nobody's been told about it nobody's had a chance to discuss it and here we go again so again I'm asking this Council to please give the town more time we went through this last time would a appreciate with this final rendition you let us have more time and lastly um I don't appreciate you berating one of the council members because he's asking questions on behalf of his constituents that's part of his job okay and to question the professionals who are representing us and who are giving you advice that's part of your job to not blindly follow exactly what they're saying so I appreciate the questions um councilman armento and um and all of you thank you hi I'm Sally Cowen alamino I live at 241 Hazel Avenue I've lived here for 28 years um I am not going to listen to the mayor and I am going to say thank you to The Experts thank you very much I know what I don't know I don't think I you all represent a large group of vocations but I don't think any of you all know as much as they all know I am horrified I've come before you guys before to say horrified by the division in this town over this issue and I've said this before and I'll say it again we come together beautifully when there's some horrible thing that happens in this town God forbid there's a car accident God forbid there's a house fire we are incredible then this is not incredible I don't understand the anger that you I see you shaking your head at me you were the one that was up here screaming at the mayor just direct your I'm sorry I don't understand it I think we should all do [Applause] better sorry no applause please thank you um okay anybody else there's I hear one more davea 22 Midwood Place uh thank you guys for coming out tonight dedicating your time thank you for the improvements to the neighborhoods fourway stop sign at Boulevard David and Mike thank you guys I'm sure you guys were a part of that conversation at least um wild stuff right I think I came out here about a year and a half ago for the first time to ever participate in town politics not enough time you guys asked for Redline document there's a lot of nasty comments online the 10 wouldn't produce it the town produced the redline documents after I compared the documents side by side it could have saved me some time but take what we get I don't know what it would take for you all to feel satisfied for everyone behind me to feel satisfied I'm not sure that's a bar that can be cleared but I think it's disingenuous and unfair to the professionals to sit there and say that they haven't actually addressed community feedback they went they've worked on this for a year presumably they actually addressed and studied things found information out went to the market weighed that against Community feedback and came back with a new plan that's 25% smaller that's a ridiculously large reduction I liked the original plan obviously everyone who's here knows that the new plan's still strong it's better than not having it at all I don't know what it would take to get a consensus development in Westfield but someone said it's the biggest development westfields ever have it's the only development westfields ever had it's the only one all the other ones have been residences that have effectively been forced on to us so thank you guys for the work you do working together coming together I know that the committee has two Republicans to Democrats I know that you guys worked closely with Street works and HBC HBC thank you for continuing to work with the Town Council thank you for your time and the improvements to the neighborhoods we do genuinely appreciate it I hope we don't have to keep coming back I got three young kids I'm very tired thank you all thank you John adir 426 Birch Place I'll be brief because it's way after 10 o'clock um I just want to say like Dave before me um I'm raising my wife and I are raising young children in this town we are excited about this town we are excited about change we're not afraid of change we are raising children and we want devel we we we're excited about development we're thrilled about streetcape improvements thrilled about the beautiful renderings of what our downtown is going to look like as our children get older and maybe they have children a generation from now uh we would be thrilled to we don't need more time we think we're ready by December we hope that the vote goes through and that shovels are in the ground the next morning thank you hi uh Carrie Murphy 502 cting Road um I just wanted to I can't remember what his name was but the guy who was up here right before the person here um there are actually quite a few developments going on in town which leads me to the first thing I'm going to ask again which I've been asking for the last two years a map of the development so people know where they all are he would then know that we have the crossings we have the development by Williams Nursery we have the Sophia that's going to be coming we have the developments on um North Avenue there are about what 12 is it 12 13 maybe developments I like to call them overd developments because we're overdeveloping our town if we could I'm asking again if there's a newspaper here please I'm asking for there to be a map of where all the developments are in our town so people are aware of what is coming where the traffic will be where the you know it's ridiculous that we we don't know where all these developments are and that's a good case in point he doesn't know of any other developments there's a lot of them anyway so anyway this is my time thank you um I'm also going to come up here and ask you if I know you're all on social media I know you're all on Facebook may I love getting your updates about Adams Fest awesome love that we have it in our town please use it to share with the residents things like this that are coming up people love to hear about the fun things happening in town no doubt but you know what they want to hear about the really important stuff too so that they can have some feedback and they can get more involved it's really really hard unless you're solely focused on trying to you know find out information or you know people share information most people are going about their daily lives with their kids and everything else and they're not really paying attention so if you could use your social media platforms to inform them of these kinds of things um you know the changes that are happening here the develop I mean let's just get beyond the fun stuff and get to the heart of some stuff that that's really important too um the other question I had was in regard to the popup shop that was the one Westfield Place pop-up shop in town that's now shut down was my understanding that that was going to be around for a few years um that it was going to go through at least the first phase or something like that in case people had questions or you know there were updates to the plans like this but there's no popup shop now so um I just I guess to understand why there isn't one there now with when the expectation I think was set early on that there would be one for several years um it was kind of you know taken down quicker than you know the Grinch took away Christmas from Whoville but um so anything we could do with that would be great too and just you know I was in that session earlier today about the pr process um and it seems odd to me that the council gets two weeks to go back and forth and talk about these changes and then you share it with um you know at this meeting I guess it's approved to go ahead and start sharing it with people but then the residents only get or or you guys only get like two or three weeks to share with tens of thousands of residents about what's going on so collectively like 12 people get two weeks to disc it but you hardly get any time to share it with us and get our feedback I don't understand that so I feel this whole thing is being entirely rushed I don't understand why I'm sure there's a reason I just don't understand why but I don't think that it should be I think you owe us more I think you know you've got a great town the people are really supportive for the most part of you um and just you know show us the same respect that people are showing you it would be nice anybody else okay hearing none um I close this portion of the meeting um you know I took notes I mean there's a consistent theme it seems about process and I'm just going to go back to what we discussed earlier and um this process is uh laid out legislatively there's an ordinance process for a reason this is the way every ordinance gets introduced we actually have an extra week as we said between ordinance introduction and adoption um and uh and we have we feel very confident in this process and it is true that there was a meeting in April with Street works and everybody up on this dayas I want to reiterate when you're claiming like we knew about this so long to my comments at February 27th from this de when uh I responded to the litigation the result from the the the resounding support of the judge and defeat of the Westfield Advocates case um and you wonder when you talk about Review Committee there was hasn't been anything to review because of the litigation that you yourself initiated and so um that absolutely put a pause in the in the process we got the resounding support from the judge is started moving forward they were deep in tenant negotiations um mentioned this notion about some changes that could be made we said this could be an opportunity if we can make it all work we have new councilmen let everybody weigh in they did we handed it over to the experts and here we are and so I don't want to hear about lack of transparency lack of understanding this is I I know listen it's the same old Playbook so I know exactly what your response is going to be exactly but your response is going to be so excuse me sorry so and this is exactly what I mean I think when we talk about respectful discussion um and I'll just comment on a few things before we move on um uh about the preview Center the preview Center was always intended to be two years always we said that up front um it got through an approval process and quite frankly it was a it was by the last six months nobody was attending even when there was open invitations and so forth so basically from a downtown Economic Development standpoint we had a very big piece of retail BAS basically beautifully situated but with nobody going in we all agreed including the landlord and the street works that could be better purpose to actually do something that actually drives the local economy so um and a reminder this is an amendment this is we are not introducing this process for the first time and and I'm sorry if you look at the red line it's not complicated it's not complicated basically you know what it says take every building height and and shrink it that's pretty much what it is in the red line and so I think um so we feel really good and confident about the process and about what this what concerns and opportunities that this has addressed um and I'll just last me um mention Mr marcos's comment about doing the plan and financials voted together there's a sequential legislative requirement you cannot do anything on any of those things until you have adopted amended Redevelopment plan so there's this sequence that has to happen that's driven by the legislature and that's what we're following and that's why we presented the financials tonight because a criticism of the last time is that the financials were not presented at the time of the introduction of the RDP so we intentionally moved up the financials tonight to be presented with the Redevelopment plan so everybody had the full picture and we're not voting on that for a few more weeks so I just wanted to to satis by that so um with that we're going to move on to the agenda this the legislative agenda tonight and I'm going to ask Council and Hapa to move to bills and claims thank you mayor we're going to we're going to continue with our meeting now so if you'd like to if you want to leave if you want to leave you can stay but if you want to say please be respectful thank you mayor I'd like to move bills and claims the amount of 498,000 86853 yeah I have a second second by Council mardia any discussion all in favor yes yes oppos this motion is carried next on the agenda is reports of standing committees beginning with the finance policy committee Council and have good thank you again mayor I have 11 resolutions I'd like to move as a package the first a resolution authorizing the CFO to refund Recreation Department fees second a resolution authorizing the CF to refund Police Department fees third a resolution authorizing the CFO to draw a warrant for the third quarter construction officials State permit fees fourth a resolution authorizing the CFO to draw a warrant to the treasur state of New Jersey for a burial permit fee five a resolution authorizing the CFO to draw a warrant for Board of adjustment escrow monies six a resolution authorizing the tax collector to issue a duplicate tax sale certificate seven a resolution to award contract for the design plan of tamaka Park eight a resolution to award contract for the replacement of the pool filtration system at Memorial Pool nine a resolution to award contract for the parking management technology 10 a resolution authorizing the town to submit a Grant application for the Memorial Park shade structure and 11 a resolution to approve the insertion of special items of Revenue in the municipal budget for the national opioid settlement yeah I have a second second my coun dagala any discussion discussion yes yes I want to discuss for a moment the major investment for the pool filtration system at uh the Memorial Pool Memorial Pool took a tremendous amount of vision and a tremendous amount of foresight and and uh a look in how this is going to fold out in the future believe it or not the pool was quite controversial and it was a very large piece of property uh the first step was by a Visionary Republican mayor by the name of Emerson Thomas and he appointed a gentleman by the name of Hollis plinton to be on the Recreation Commission what was unusual about that he was African-American he graduated from high school at Westfield High with my father in the 1930s it was as a result of Hollis plinton saying you know our kids my community has has nowhere to go to swim well when the proposal was germinating uh a lot of people said well there's lots of swimming pools minda wasin Noah heagan uh Highland Swim Club Willer grve Swim Club men Park Swim Club I can name them all uh but they didn't allow blacks or Jews or Italians that's the fact it seems foreign at this stage to say that I happen to have the Good Fortune to be the first head lifeguard swim teacher swim coach and adult swim lesson teacher in 1970 when the Pool opened it was very controversial it was difficult could could you actually have people from all backgrounds that didn't have to go through of some kind of uh screening device to see who could be in in the pool well it worked and for 54 years that pool has been the most successful Financial thing that's ever happened to Westfield it's so popular we just keep making improvements to keep it going again I'll go back to the to the mayor that actually made this happen a republican by the name of Don Snider and their pictures are out there in the hallway just a Visionary guy who wanted to get something done in spite of a lot of opposition but it worked it's it's similar to what we're trying to do uh with the downtown and I appreciate there's a lot of controversy about it every single person here except that front row is not getting paid includ all of us and all the people who are so interested enough to come out and and uh speak their peace but uh the investment into the uh Memorial Pool is well deserved thank you very much mayor can I can I Council can I bring up one um I thought that you and councilman kefir had some really good um information on the uh design plan for tamaka Park I'm sorry yes thank you I thought I didn't I somehow missed that was in here yes I'm sorry councilman I wanted you to give an update because it's very exciting sure yeah uh briefly uh so people may uh remember that we're embarking on a uh bit of a process to uh look into um upgrading tamaka Park and ways to do it and we are hiring a design firm they're called Dresner Robin and uh we talk about talk about consensus uh this is a great example of it there was a very broad-based committee uh of which I sat on I sat on it um a lot of people from Recreation sat on it a lot of stakeholders including people who lived near the Parker on it and out of the six firms we interviewed I think it was six it was five it was five um it was clear that everybody loved this firm the best and I'm really excited about them they they they get it um they understand the process that they're signing up for they've built in adequate time in their schedule to hear from the public repeatedly and get the feedback they are coming in with ideas but not precon uh preconceived notions they also said they want to approach with a quote light touch to the park to appreciate its natural beauty which I appreciated so very excited about these guys the one thing I just say is this is a long uh process right the design part will take some time U maybe eight months or so uh and then after that of course is the process to put things out to bid and and construct and what have you so please don't expect anything to happen happen soon but it is underway thanks thank you councilman okay all in favor yes yes oppose dis motion has carried I'd like now to move General ordinance number 2024-25 sure I mean like yes ccil okay thank you uh so I I think I'll start with the positives of what I see on this amendment plan um the first is reduceed Heights of buildings very good um less office space even better um uh the the guarantee on the public uh I'm sorry the guarantee on The Debt Service through the pilot Matt you still here great job buddy you may word for proud on that I think that's a great one um the the negatives to me though I'll hearken back to the core concept of the of the Redevelopment plan we still have 65t buildings uh we still have on the North uh War uh Zone that parking garage which I just think is going to be disaster so there's there's elements of it that still remain and therefore I'm going to have to vote no um and and the reason I vote no is because these core elements are still part of the amended plan if I had an opportunity to vot in the original West One Westfield place I would have voted not as no as well um so all that said though um you know revisiting those core elements um you may say that's wishful thinking at this point but the reality is that one W place came to us and they came to us because of economics and market conditions and that's what drove this it drove it because I can't get a tenant to fill all that commercial office space so I I would revisit respectfully uh some of the new concerns that we may have on this uh as a town and I would revisit some of the core assumptions but um that's not on the table right now so therefore I have to vote no um that being said we do have three weeks before any kind of official vote on this ordinance and I owe it to my constituents to keep an open mind which I will do I also owe it to them to keep them informed which I will do my best to do and so if people want to have their voices heard uh you know I'm going to reach out and hear everything they have to say and if somebody can change my or a lot of people can change my mind so big thank you all right guess I'm up uh even sitting here throughout this entire meeting I've been conflicted internally about this we asked for smaller size we asked for smaller buildings less tenants uh range reement of the parking garages and we both sit on the financial planning committee um it is very difficult and my entire Financial career quite honestly has been based in making some sort of deal somewhere buyer sellers find out what the market is and see what you do and as I was sitting here I'm sorry to go ahead and pontificate but nobody knows where I'm going but I do have a particular issue along the way so I looked at it this kind of holistically from 15,000 ft and I saw an event presented I saw that event as being a project that was too large to begin with public got angry there was a situation of that everybody internalized the information they picked the side economics at the same time potentially changed there was a display of kindness essentially a decrease in size which I think made everybody feel good to some degree and the question is whether or not that is really good enough there were virtues provided in this project I definitely can see them I definitely see that they're concessions the part that bothered me tonight and only tonight and influences my vote was the evidence of a threat that if you don't do it there's something bigger and I can't use the word I like to use but I'm ticked off about that I think that's what bothers me the most that you're sitting in this seat and you're making a decision and you're talking about all the great things that you could do and two people tonight ended up saying that there is a threat associated with it this this is my opinion and I think that's what set me off because I was very very close to understanding on how to go ahead and say I'm in the middle I can accept certain things there might have been one or two things on the table for me that I still would have pushed for and had conversations about that's all I have to say I'm sorry anybody else yeah so um I don't see that as a threat I just see it as a fact it's just reality and and so I liked the old plan I I did I I thought that it was just fine and great for this town um but I like the new plan too so that's why I'm voting for it um I have a few things to say um as the chair of the finance committee I should start with financial things first I think and I think it's very important to re reiterate a point that um David kefir made a couple of minutes ago um about the back stop of the principal and interest payments for Less bonding um that come with this new plan um so despite what some things that resident said earlier at the mic tonight this we're not at risk um we will be doing bonding to comply with the obligations that we have under this agreement to um put a couple of parking decks in place and um you know work on some public improvements but the the repayment of those bonds comes from monies that will come through the pilot or be supported by the um by the street Works Hudson Bay and if they don't pay because I think that also was a question that came up um we will be able to take all those properties back because we have a lean um so there's not a situation where we can come out behind um we come out ahead because there's um by estimates these are not guaranteed but by estimates um we'll get $17,900 th000 and new Revenue into the town's um budget over the course of the next 30 years and that is very hard those are monies that don't come easily to this town we struggle over $50,000 increases um in budget meetings every year and I've um been through seven budgets um so when you're talking about about Millions it's hard it's kind of hard to even imagine um almost $160 million that we will have to spend on um Capital Improvements that the town needs and you know in in the form of parks and Fields and new sidewalks and other improvements that um you know we can utilize for the benefit of the entire town um I think that the requested changes reflect everything that we've been hearing from the residents um in terms of scaling back um and so I am very comfortable um taking this next step to vote in favor of um introducing this ordinance which means that we will spend um the next three weeks talking with residents who still have questions um and and we'll be happy to answer any and all of them um and then there will be a couple more weeks before we finish out this process again taking feedback um from residents so I appreciate the fact that everyone came out tonight it's now almost 11 it'll be 11 o' before we get out of here tonight and I know that all of you had better things to do so I appreciate your engagement um and uh keep coming back for the next couple of meetings because we'll look forward to hearing U more of your questions and comments any else yeah I just have a couple things to say I think I think it's really important that we have to go back to the beginning why are we even doing this I think that's getting lost in this discussion tonight and the mayor did mention it but I think it's worth revisiting guys this project stemm from one of the reasons why we all were voted into office 7 years ago which is people were really worried about our downtown and the and the long because that is one of the the crown jewels of this town and it's one of the reasons why many of us moved here versus other communities that we could have moved to that have great schools nice people wonderful housing stock Tree Line streets Etc think about why you moved to Westfield it was really the downtown our downtown really distinguishes this town from others and and I know that was one of the big concerns when we first ran right so you know when we think about some of the core objectives of this plan preserve strengthen the economic Vitality of our downtown diversify the tax base improve the the traffic the the safety um I I have been on the finance committee for six years out of seven sitting on the on the council we barely can fund 3 million dollar of public improvements of capital every year so when we're handed the opportunity to improve and make I think $42 million of improvements virtually risk-free I think Matt could say I think it is risk-free to this town that's an unbelievable achievement right so I think we just have to I'd ask everybody to just step back and think about what is the real purpose of this right so then so that gets me to where we are tonight I did support the original plan and I liked it but I shared a lot of feedback that I heard from residents that I actually had myself which was you know I was very concerned about traffic on South Avenue right I represent W 3 and that's adjacent to w three so actually I'm very pleased with the changes right it's smaller but there's a I think it was a 36 to 40% reduction of traffic projected on South Avenue during peak hours that's incredibly meaningful but I like the other changes too in terms of the liquor license moving to the South Side nice uh Plus plus you know retaining all the core elements of this but scaling it all back so to me what's most important is we are this project as as redefined uh delivers on the core benefits of why we even bothered in the first place but I think really truly addresses the feedback that we've heard consistently right and that is what revision means right you revise something to make it better right I believe this project is better than it was before I don't think this is an opportunity to throw it out thanks so first I'd like to say going back to that meeting that I was at it I was at a meeting that supposedly was going to have some impact but was not even told that I was having at that having an impact with that meeting it was basically just to go over the One Westfield plan One Westfield one plans so I Begg to disagree with the mayor there's transparency no there was not transparency um again we do pay the professionals to do it but uh we're the Town Council we should be appraised of things of what's going on not 4 days before Oh there's a change in the the devel Redevelopment plan that's not transparency I'm sorry maybe that's the way government works maybe government needs to change uh I sat in the audience for last year and I watched how things were conducted a lot of people in this town felt that this plan the original plan was not good they had a lot of financial people come up saying it was a bad plan a year later now the plan has changed well you well it could be because we were elected could be you listen to the to the town people or maybe really the economics of the times Chang the plan and now we're changing you're changing the plan but to say well we're appeasing the town I can't prove that I'm skeptical go you know a little cynical in my old age um I also you know I'm not totally against I think the the Lord and Taylor site's actually nice you scaled it down I have nothing against that uh I think a lot of residents don't want a 65t well office building in this on this train station that's the reality of it or the the fivestory parking garage and yes I know this is a Redevelopment uh read not a uh the whole project was passed a year and a half ago much to the dismay of many uh residents uh councilman contract indicated that they were voted in to do to do what they did well you know what we were voted in because bipart there's bipartison votes for us because people were not happy with what you did it was not because uh they didn't want redel velopment they didn't want this Redevelopment there was a lack of process there was a lack of listening if if everyone was so concerned about listening to the residents why a year and a half ago didn't we not stop and instead of voting yes then did you not say Okay let's listen to the residence the 2,300 people in the petition hours that we sat out here and complained nobody listened so I think that's disingenuous to say you listened I think it's the economics of the time change the project that's the reality of it um I'm not pleased with the whole process and therefore I can't vote yes thank you mayor um so I want to address some of the things that the audience said and um I'm also a I have a young family in town um have a 16-month old daughter and I'm looking forward to the Redevelopment change and innovation in town and I appreciate the sentiment around like Westfield we can't live on the way we've always been if we want to get better we have to continually innovate and come up with the times and I totally appreciate that and I'm with the folks that that made that comment and I think councilman contract made a lot of good points of the changes to this agreement are good I think there's some really good parts of this agreement there's some things I disagree with there's some things I agree with but when I make my decision for the vote tonight I try to separate the subjective parts of this right the subjective parts of this are do I like 65 ft or 55t do I like a th 100,000 ft of office space or 200,000 ft of office space do I like x amount of parking decks y size like to me that's all subjective and we're all entitled to different opinions there what I try to focus on is what are the objective parts of this that I need to be true in order for me to be able to put a guesso and I look at the three objective parts of this it gives me heartburn the three things for me are one we sold our parking lots for 11 million based on a no bid process and I just want to put that part in perspective for one second okay I just want to put that in perspective for one second um I'm sure there's been a lot of rfps I'm just going to call out two rfps we've done we just did an RFP for tamaka Park a project that is a fraction of the size we did an RFP for the snack shop at the pool so my first objective part of this is there is no way that we should do a no bid RFP process now if an RFP came out and Street works gave the best RFP and we all agreed on it we should take it but I can't sit here and put my name on something when I don't know did we have better offers from other developers willing to build other things I I can't sign my name to know that this was the best offer on the table so that's the first thing um the second thing is I truly believe that 3 weeks is not enough to talk to Residents I'm just thinking about my own life personally in the next 3 weeks I could probably talk to I don't know 50 to 100 residence and with a with a um something this impactful and listen I think Street work said it right there are major changes to this great some great changes some changes I disagree with again subjective but there are major changes I don't see why waiting 3 six months and doing a slow iterative process and after 6 months if we all agree and residents feel it's a good thing then we should go ahead with it but I really don't see the downside I don't see the downside of just waiting for your or 6 months to give us ample time with all of our busy schedules to get a little bit more feedback from residents that's the minimum I could ask and then the the last kind of objective um thing quite honestly like I know the mayor mentioned there's only a few changes here for me if I'm going to sign my name to something and have my fiduciary duty I want to know that I've read through every little detail I know we have experts but my job is to question the experts and to be frank I heard about this really in Earnest for the first time on Thursday night last Thursday at 900 p.m. um I got a lot of this documentation this weekend the first time I saw financials was actually revised financials was actually today on this 9 print out that I haven't had a chance to digest let alone I don't think any of us could digest this I don't even think I've had enough time to go through it get my questions answered digest it to confidently put a yes vote on the table so I again I can't put my name on this um my fiduciary duty on this I can't put the resident's name on this and put a guess vote forward and then the last thing I'll say here is we're like applauding ourselves that we got a 25% reduction and that's awesome I just want you to consider the starting point we had if I offer you guys $100,000 for your house and then the next day I offer you $200,000 for your house are you going to applaud me and also tell me that I went up 100% And that's what I feel we're doing here we started at a bad starting point I don't care that it came down 25% so with that my vote will be no thank you okay thank you uh mayor um you know there's a lot of ways to skin a cat there's different viewpoints and obviously we've had different viewpoints expressed tonight about whether this project should go forward or whether it shouldn't she I had uh I had had a discussion at my 55th High School reunion in my backyard for the brunch on Sunday with one of my high school classmates who's here tonight objecting and he found out I was I was kind of in favor of the program U but we're still friends uh so we want to keep it that way and I think uh Senator John brami's really doing a good a good thing by emphasizing civility uh because uh when we don't have that uh we're in trouble I look at this uh plan in complete connection with Our obligation to have a constitutionally enforcable zoning project uh uh zoning law very much intertwined with that you must in order to have an enforcable zoning ordinance you must have a proper accommodation for affordable housing which means multi- family housing now a lot of people have said well geez what's going on in South Avenue what's going on in North Avenue that was initiated by mayor skitzki an excellent mayor a republican with the help of councilman James Forest another Republican because they saw the Builder remedy as a threat to the town the Builder's remedy continues to be a threat to the town unless we have reasonable approach to multifam housing where should that housing be should it be in the you know by Franklin school should it be by Washington School Jefferson School you know you buy up three lots you buy up three lots and you got a townhouse community of 20 people 20 20 tow houses suppose the Westfield Advocates litigation which they continue it's in the appell division now after being rejected by the trial court suppose they win what could Hudson uh Hudson Bay do with that property they could come to the town and say we're building 10 stories and 500 Apartments or 5,000 Apartments because you don't have a zoning plan that meets constitutional requirements you know this is a little bit complex but it's not too complex and I can sell in 2025 the concept that this plan allows for stability and relief from any possibility that a builder is going to come in and dictate what we do with any part of our property in other words I'd like to preserve the single family zones around the town that are customarily and have been single family zones but we can only do that if we use the properties that we have on North Avenue South Avenue and in town downtown uh effectively and I think this plan does that and I might say there's an old movie called The Verdict with Paul Newman uh James Mason was the adversary Paul Newman was a lawyer he had a case he brought to the judge and the judge was Miles O'Shea the actor miles O'Shea and there was a settlement offer and Newman Newman didn't take it and the judge says to him when they give you the money you won when they reduced the size of the the uh property or the size of the development by 25% you won you got what you wanted the height reductions are coming down that was the biggest thing I heard the height it's too high and frankly as a southsider lived all my life on the Southside the Southside parking lot is an eyesore it's a wasted resource and we need to do something about it this plan allows us to do something better thank you very much thank you judge Healey um I actually really don't have much to add um you know uh I've always acted from the best interest and intention of the this town 100% And I'm glad that councilman contract reminded us why we were so passionate about our downtown when we when we first were elected there's a Halloween store in our downtown when there's a Halloween store in your downtown that's not good and we fundamentally went about knowing that we need to create a new ecosystem for our downtown in order to let these businesses Thrive our businesses are filling up but I can tell you there are many that are not thriving and the reason they're not thriving ding it's because it's much easier to get a store a business to come in it's much harder to get a business to succeed they are not thriving many of them because we do not have enough residents to support all the establishments that have come to town especially these fast casual leaders we just don't and what you need you need people working and living in your downtown to support the businesses that we all love and it can't be just Westfield residents that's a fact um you know I'm I I'm very disappointed that this may go down on partisan lines we tried really really hard um to actually get to a place that we thought could be something that everybody could rally around I understand the positions that some of these guys are in um um I I I don't really know honestly quite frankly what more we can do I don't think in some cases there's anything we could do to get the support of some of these residents and some of the councilmen up here so we are just going to continue to be guided by our heart and our love for our community and our initial intention was to do exactly what we've outlined at the beginning and um and we're going to continue to do this I think I'm incredibly proud of this plan I was incredibly proud of the first one I think this is incredible win-win I'm incredibly proud of our professionals um who worked have tirelessly to come to an agreement and Advocate on the town's behalf um and I think a lot of that was um expressed tonight so um so with that you know uh and I do want to remind everybody this is just an introduction of an amendment if this didn't pass we would just rever you know you would revert back to keeping 75 foot buildings instead of 55t buildings that's what the zoning would allow so that's just a reminder of that's what this is um and uh and but I understand the the reasons why some feel like they can't support that but this is really about reducing the size and scope of what many of the folks in this room objected to so with that um uh let's see we'll please call did I do the second already did I do the second yes okay please please call the role council members have yes Dario yes no keeper no Saunders noo no contract yesy yes mayor ble yes this motion has carried councilman Healey please the please move the Public Works committee resolution I'd like to move a resolution authorizing the Union County deer management program once again may may I have a second second second by councel and contracts any discussion all in favor yes yes opposed this motion is carried may I have a motion to adjourn so move move by councilman Daran second second second good bye counc thank you all for being here tonight all in favor this motion is carried