Planning Board - Regular Meeting

2025 extending the suspension of certain provisions of the open meeting law general law chapter 38 section 20. this meeting of the bedford planning board will be conducted via remote participation to the greatest extent possible no in-person attendance of members of the public will be permitted but every effort will be made to ensure that the public can adequately access the proceedings in real time via technological means In the event that we are unable to do so, despite best efforts, we will post on the Town's website an audio or video recording, transcript, or other comprehensive record of proceedings as soon as possible after the meeting. So two items for uh the development session this evening public hearing for 145 davis road definitive subdivision plan middlesex development llc is the applicant and the second item is a public hearing for a 102 page road scenic road hearing for alterations to a stone wall derek gardner is the applicant In the business session, we have items for dark sky bylaw development, small clean energy facility permitting, data center permitting, tree protection bylaw, and 340 Great Road, as well as board members' reports from other boards and committee meetings and staff updates. And we have a goal of adjourning by 9 p.m. I so with that I understand that the applicant for the 145 Davis road subdivision is requesting a continuation.

Yes, we are just. we've just authorized the peer review and therefore there is no new material to present this evening so they we we request that you continue this hearing to the august 11th meeting all right so there is a request to continue to uh date certain august 11th 2026 mr mclean so moved uh and

Second. Mr. Hagan seconds. All right. How do you vote? Mr. McLean? Aye. Mr. Hagan?

Aye.

Mr. Crowley? Aye. Ms. LaFrance-Lyndon? Aye. And the Chair votes aye. 5-0-0. Public hearing for 145 Davis Road continued to August 11th, 2026. So with that, we move on to the public hearing for scenic roads. Mr.

Chair, there's a Derek Gartner with his hand up. I don't know why.

I'm trying to promote him to the... He... Oh. Oh, all right. He is the applicant of this next project.

Oh, okay. All right.

So with that, board members received the application in their meeting package. Tony, do you want to provide any intro before we let Mr. Gardner speak?

So 102 Page Road is an existing single family house proposed to be demolished and replaced with a two family house. That action does not trigger any review by this board, but the street is one of our seven scenic roads and they wish to provide two driveways since it's a two family house and there is a stone wall along the frontage of this house. So you have jurisdiction under the scenic roads act to review the changes to the stone wall. So the existing driveway would be closed, excuse me, would be closed in and the stones used to the stones removed to create the two new openings would be used to infill the space where the existing driveway is. So that's the, that's the basic part of the request. We see no issues with site distance here. This is on a part of Page Road that's actually quite straight. They did recently redevelop the property next door at 104 Page Road. You may well see at your next meeting an ADU across the street for 103 Page Road. Yeah. And the other comment I had made in my preview comments was that this section of page road has no sidewalk. So there's no impact to, there's no impact to any sidewalks here. So the sidewalks ended, uh, the cycle comes up on the other side of the road. It ends at Francis Kelly. And then doesn't, I don't believe we pick a sidewalk up again until you're up at Springs road. So, um, So kind of part of, part of a roadway network where we, the town hope to address the pedestrian mobility at some point, but also being a scenic road, it gets, it gets, uh, tight in the width of the right of way. But, um, but for this, but for this particular property, the request is to literally to make alterations to the stone wall, to allow a second driveway. both driveways being different from the existing location.

And I do have a slide to share for context.

Oh, yeah.

The benefit of the board and anyone listening.

While you bring that up, just a clarification, the sidewalk goes from on page row from Springs to Dunster. There is a small section of sidewalk on page. Oh, right.

So this is a relevant section of, uh, our general bylaws article 45 subsection seven. And these are the items we are to take into consideration and deciding, uh, to approve or disapprove the application. Environmental and historic values, scenic and aesthetic characteristics, public safety, relationship to road design, any compensatory actions, financial aspects of alternatives, and existence or absence of reasonable alternatives. Anyone want to take a look at that for a moment longer? Are we good? We're good? All right.

so with that mr gardner if you wish to speak to your application hello everyone this is uh derek gardner i'm not sure if you can see me but just wanted to make sure you could hear me can hear you awesome yeah i'm not sure what's going on with my video but um essentially the existing driveway is towards the middle of the property we'd be sliding The existing driveway to the right, about 10 feet, adding a new entrance right there. And then on the left side of the property, another driveway. Both the driveways will be 16 feet at the rock wall. And if you can see that picture Chris just pulled up, that image right there, the existing driveway, kind of in the middle of the property, and then to the right of that tree right there, the rock wall is very low, about a foot, and it's kind of filled with weeds and debris that will be cleaned up, opened up for the right unit driveway. And then roughly where the Gardner sign is in the image on the left side will be the left unit's new entrance, both at 16 feet at that rock wall. And then we plan to extend the opening or the existing driveway opening and clean up that rock wall and remain the character of that scenic rock wall and close that portion in.

Thank you, and I did copy the sketch from your application as well?

Yep.

As you described, 16-foot openings on either side of the existing driveway, and then you're proposing to close off the existing driveway, basically create new stone wall there.

Yes.

Okay. Mr. Crowley.

Can you just go back to the previous slide real quick? I'm just curious. Interesting. So I'm just looking at Google Maps and just trying to make sure I have the right house, which I do. Google Maps had a tree, the tree right in the middle of this picture, there was a tree to the right of it. And then there was two trees right to the left of the driveway that are in this picture, not there, but in Google Maps, they are there. Do you know what happened to those three trees?

No. No, I do not.

So they were not there when you bought the property or?

No, they're not there when I bought the property. I bought the property roughly two weeks ago and there was no trees there.

Now I believe, Tony, that all these trees are

outside anyways correct yeah these trees all appear to be outside of the right-of-way right and would not be subject to review okay other questions uh comments from the board mr mclean so the um

wall on photo right is somewhat run down but the wall on the other side of the driveway is actually in quite good shape and um so i'm pretty sure i've asked this question before in in in other hearings of uh this kind but what's our process when a wall is relocated what's our process for um making sure that's rebuilt and kind or to a similar standard?

So myself or someone from the building department will inspect it before the new structure gets occupancy permits.

And to Mr. Gardner, you're not proposing to cut any of the trees that we see along the stone wall?

No.

Okay.

I have no questions beyond this. I'm going to go back and share my screen again. so tony do we have any input from uh dpw or elsewhere regarding environmental or historic value of the wall we do not okay and it was pretty clearly modified when the the home was built to create the driveway opening so it is not in my estimation a pristine wall i'm

so uh mr crowley yeah i mean i like that you know he's gonna put two drivers in move the wall put the wall on either side all sides of the driveway i think that's a nice way to do it so hopefully you can make it look a little better on the side that is lacking some stones so maybe there'll be enough now i am and yeah my view is uh yeah

and creating a wall where there is none to compensate for the new openings and not planning to cut trees that meets, in my opinion, scenic and aesthetic characteristics. As Tony mentioned, no safety issues with the road. There's no sidewalk concern. The compensatory actions are covered by the proposal to construct a new portion of wall. And F and G don't feel applicable here. That's my opinion. Other takes?

Mr. Crowell. I'm just going to agree with you. Overall, I'm sad that the other three trees are gone, but it seems like that was done before. The picture from Google Maps is 2023, so who knows when it could have happened. What's there and what's there now, I'm happy with.

So I'm just going to close up some windows here. So do we have a motion to approve the? We have someone from the public. Oh, there is someone from the public. Sorry, I missed that. So NH16, can you identify yourself, please?

It might be. Might be correct.

Nicholas Howard, 7 Daniels Drive. I urge the board to deny the request to replace a single opening in the scenic drone wall with two new openings. To be clear, I'm not opposed to every modification of the wall. If the property would be better served by relocating the existing opening or making reasonable adjustments to its location while maintaining a single opening of approximately the same width, I can understand that. A single opening still presents the visual continuity of the wall and the appearance of a single home site. My concern is with replacing one opening with two. I do not believe every property with two wall openings is necessarily incompatible with the purposes of the Scenic Roads Act. In fact, I believe 100 Page Road provides a good example of when two openings can be acceptable. There, the property still presents as a single home site and the character of the scenic road is preserved. By contrast, 104-page road demonstrates exactly why this proposal is different. The two widely separated openings, each serving its own entrance, transformed the appearance of the property. Although it remains a single lot in name, it now reads from the street as though it has been divided into two separate residential properties, which is what I believe we are bound to be seeing at 102 at this point. That visual change, not simply the number of feet of wall removed, is what affects the character of a scenic road. I recognize that the applicant's chosen duplex design may function better with two separate driveway openings, but that does not make the second opening necessary. It means the applicant has selected a design that depends on additional alteration of the scenic wall. The property could be developed with a design that uses a single opening, even if that requires a different site layout or is less convenient for the builder. The question before the board is not whether two driveways are more convenient. It is whether permanently changing the character of this scenic road is justified. I respectfully submit that it is not. And I asked the board to deny the request for two separate wall openings.

Thank you, Mr. Howard. So I will invite the board to share their thoughts on that.

Mr. Crowley. I don't know. I don't know which one causes more pavement or less pavement. I don't know if that's really in our jurisdiction anyways, to be fair, because it is the whole, I guess, jurisdiction is the scenic road and just having two curb cuts versus one um a detriment to the road or you know change the character um i mean i wish other people in the neighborhood maybe would would chime in potentially but i don't know i'm struggling um i don't know any other thoughts from people i'm struggling with this mr reagan

i'm not struggling we want a great effort to approve two-family housing throughout the town of bedford having two-family housing and being a welcoming town to two-family housing means each of the houses gets their own driveway. So I don't see a problem here. You look at the property right next to it. I drive by that thing about almost every day of the week. I do not see a problem. It looks like a town that has a welcoming two-family housing zoning thing. And I support this and I move to approve the application.

Do we have a motion? Do we have a second?

Dawn. Could we see the photo again? Thank you. Well, I guess if it's still on the table, I'll provide the second. Okay.

It is so moved and seconded. Mr. Hagan. Hi. Ms. LaFrance Linden. Aye. Mr. Crowley.

Abstain.

And sorry, who am I missing here? John. Mr. McLean. Aye. The chair votes aye. 4-0-1. Alright. Alright, that concludes. I should say I'm. Documentation to be provided to the applicants times time frame for that.

Within a week, OK?

Thank you very much.

Thank you everyone.

That concludes the development session. Moving on to the business session. First item, dark sky lighting. Again, I have not developed a draft bylaw any further. Tony, you had mentioned, no, that was with the tree protection bylaw. Any communication with other planning departments regarding dark sky?

Uh, we are reaching out to a handful of, um, my colleagues that, that have such bylaws. And so we are assembling them for your review of hopefully maybe at the next meeting and, um, they will hopefully augment the work you've done with, uh, Chelmsford.

Very good. Small clean energy facility permitting.

So we did attend some informational events this past week over this topic. And most useful was actually somebody from the Department of Energy Resources explaining to the world of planners how they see this new law unfolding and it is not as maybe it's not as difficult as I feared in that they when they talk about a consolidated permit, what they mean is they want each board to continue to make its own decision. But then each of those individual decisions gets packaged into into whatever format and then the package of decisions is issued as the consolidated permit if any one of the if any one of the boards denies it then the overall decision is a denial The other piece they noted was that ministerial permits are not required to be part of the consolidated permit, but it's not yet clear which beyond the actual building permit. You know, such, you know, the plumbing permits, electrical permits, and any structural permits that the building department would issue are going to be deemed to be ministerial. But it is unclear, for example, many fire departments have their own little permits for various types of materials. or confined spaces and boards of health sometimes require a variety of permits that are not necessarily the same as the land use permits that either a zba a planning board or a conservation commission would be granting so the the extent of these ministerial permits still needs some clarification and um so we we're anyway so we're going to put we're still going to want to address in the zoning and it looks like i'll back up and it looks like you don't have to allow them in every zoning district so long as you create reasonable opportunities so reasonable opportunity is one of those things where Nobody's identified a strict parameter yet. But if you, for example, you only allowed this use on, say, 2% of the property across your community, then that's probably not going to pass muster. But if you you know, again, it'll come down to which towns have what types of opportunities, but it sounds like you could propose that such facilities be in commercial or industrial districts and potentially prohibit them in residential districts. Although we may also want to pay attention to where in the grid connectivity makes the most sense because investors in clean energy tend to need to be somewhere where the grid can accept the additional power so that's something we have to look at as well but so we're we're still looking at at those options but we'll have a more robust discussion in the near future as we put forward a more specific set of regulations mr mclean so two things one the it looks like the select board has to appoint the the the wrangler for for this it had a title which I of course of course forgotten um but so uh we've had uh some preliminary discussions with the town manager about that And it really is going to come down to whether it should be my position or the inspector of buildings, or the two most likely positions to be that point person.

And then the second question is just maybe a little bit off topic. I guess the last meeting there was some discussion about cutting down trees to put up solar panels. And is there anything in our current code that keeps people from putting up solar panels over parking lots?

No. But we hope to make it more user friendly.

What? Data center permitting

Similarly, we are talking with our colleagues and watching some communities across the state and across the country struggle with data centers. And if you were watching the state Senate last week, there was consideration of of a requirement that data centers provide their own onsite renewable energy, which was not adopted, but and actually that was withdrawn. But the issue was put out there for discussion and we'll be back in some format. But the The handful of Massachusetts cities that are adopting moratoria right now just to give themselves time to think about it. seem to be places that have more likely targets for data centers to occupy existing vacant buildings. So I'm not sure this is like, I'm not aware of any of our landlords entertaining such a use, but given how little in our existing bylaw discusses that topic, and it would probably fall within the broader category we have for a variety of research and development and technology uses that we want to make sure that we can pull that out perhaps and regulate it more specifically so that we can control or put parameters around trying to prevent its electricity use from having impacts on the residential users in town, and that its water usage does not impact water use by residents of the town. Those are the two big things. There are other issues related to fire safety and some other things that we're also looking at. we will be in a position as we get into August to decide whether to bring that forward in the fall or hold it for the spring. But we.

Is prohibiting them an option?

Prohibiting them. Let's see. Maybe, but I don't know if that would be contrary to what the governor's initiative wants but um i understood i'm just wanting to understand if that's an option available to us uh that might be because it's this is not a use protected by any statute at the moment thank you mr mclean if we wanted to focus on electrical uh interconnects what what's her lovers might we have

or could we put a cap on total power consumption?

i'm not sure we can because we we are not if we were a community that had a municipal power plant then we we could do that but the since we are not the supplier of energy i'm not sure we could do that yeah okay either either put a restriction on how they get their power or total power usage well i think we could set it up in a way that they it sounds like because that's what a lot of that's what a lot of the effort is looking at is how do you how do you make how do you set it up to make sure that it doesn't increase the rates residents are paying? And how can you also do it in a manner to make sure that the power they consume does not prevent your build out goals for other uses in the community. So those are the Those are the avenues we're kind of looking at. But I'm not sure how we, yeah, I'm not sure we could put a strict limit on some, you know, limit some number. I'm not sure we can limit the megawatts of power that they would draw.

I mean, in general, I'm not anti data center. do want to avoid um driving our electrical rates up though so yeah i i not wild about doing an outright band but some sort of regulation could be in order questions or comments from other members of the board

seeing none moving on to tree protection by law discussion all right excuse me there's a robert dorer with his hand up ah yes all right mr dorer i gotta find him so i can let him speak all right all right can you hear me now yes yes

I just wanted to reiterate, Chris, and the rest of the board, that the Energy and Sustainability Committee stands by to help. We know you have a lot on your plate, but to help on this topic, in any way data gathering experience of others, what have you. And I would stress just based on, it almost seems like an exponential growth in news stories, not just data centers, but news stories about data centers And I think the best approach, and I'm not an advocate for banning them. I use the internet. I use AI sometimes. And I think that's a little hypocritical, but being prepared to me is key. And being behind the eight ball is the worst thing you want to have happen if somebody shows up. And today, and I know it's been out before, but today 1A, one of the PBS shows had a good story on non-disclosure agreements that doesn't seem to happen much around here, but in a lot of parts of the country, municipal officials, probably mostly cities and counties, but maybe in some cases, self-directed towns, are signing NDAs and often the rest of the town, including other officials, don't find out that a data center is on their doorstep until it's a done deal. And to me, at a minimum, I think you should make sure the select board has committed not to signing an NDA. They shouldn't be signing NDAs anyway, except for a very specific tax sort of thing that even that they disclosed at town meetings. So I just encourage you that you grapple with this sooner rather than later. Heaven forbid you're prepared and one never happens. And I agree there's not many places in town, but you never know. And so that's all. I just wanted to reiterate that we're standing by to help if you need our kind of help.

Thank you. Thank you. And Mr. Howard, please go ahead.

Am I unmuted? You're unmuted. I would just like to add that in my opinion, it would be worthwhile to identify a reasonable power threshold for a given amount of acreage, above which a site review establishing that the power supply can be reasonably provided is properly planned for before construction can begin. And I think that's a reasonable by law that could be passed and would probably suffice to address much of the concern.

Thank you very much. Other members of the public or of the board? All right. Seeing none, True Protection By-law, again, I have nothing new to add. Tony, were you going to reach out to your counterpart in Concord about how their implementation has worked?

That is still in process. That's still an ongoing request. But yes, I don't have that feedback just yet.

I will say the research that I've done, I find it hard to argue for tree protection in terms of CO2 reduction. Yeah, if the area that was cleared was put towards housing, it doesn't take too many vehicles driving a bit further to overcome the CO2 reduction benefit. But there is a modest amount of literature on trees and vegetation mitigating urban heat island effects. And if we're going to make a technical argument in favor, more than just an aesthetic or neighborhood feel argument in favor, I'm probably going to lean into the urban heat island mitigation. Mr. McLean, then Mr. Hagan.

So it didn't come up in today's scenic byway. uh meeting but if it if trees had been an issue would that been us or would that have been the the tree warden that would have been us okay so i think in that case well i don't actually know so so in the proposed policy under exclusions it looks like it struck planning board um but left bedford conservation commission zoning board of appeals and historic district commission in place

But that is proposed as it stands. I believe Article 45 does empower us to make the review.

Yeah. I mean, I just, I'm wondering what the rationale for having this policy apply, sorry, not apply in historic districts if the zoning board's involved or in the conservation, or if the conservation commission is involved, but apply if we're the deciding authority. I don't know where that bifurcation's happening. It seems odd to my retired engineer brain.

I hear you. Mr. Hagan and then Mr. Crowley.

I am totally opposed to this tree policy as written. All it is is a nice sounding tax on the residents of the town of Bedford. When you separate it, pull out Conscombe and the others, you're only talking about trees on land that the town owns, which might be, what, 1%? Of the trees of the town and the only one that's going to have to pay more money to cut down a tree is the town of Bedford, which means everybody on this call. Why should we?

We lost you there, Steve. You back, Steve?

I'm trying.

I guess I'm just going to be talking.

You won't see my passionate face. Nobody should be cutting a tree on town land except for the town of Bedford. Therefore, I think this only applies to the town of Bedford, machines at DPW or facilities, and what we're going to do is make their job more expensive, which means we all pay for it. I see no reason for this policy. All it is is I have a very low opinion of BARC. It may have been well intended in the past, but it's shifted, even though I know there's good people that have worked on it, like yourself. This is about power, and that's what we don't need. This will raise the cost for residents of the town of Bedford. No one should be cutting a tree on town land except for the employees of the town of Bedford, and they will be clearing that with us or other town agencies. So we don't need this. We shouldn't have it. I'll speak about it now. If I have to, I'll speak at a town meeting. But we should, I think, I see no point for it. It's just a nice sounding tax for the people of Bedford. I've made myself more than clear. I'll be quiet.

Thank you for your input. Mr. Crowley, Mr. Howard from the audience, and then Mr. McLean.

First comment and then clarification question, because I am I'm terribly confused and I apologize. But first off, just to comment on what Steve just said, I mean, it's an applicant seeking to cut, trim, or remove a public tree shall apply to a tree warden for approval. So this means an applicant.

Let me jump in.

Yeah.

So there is a tree policy which applies to town-owned land. That is enforced and up for revision, considered revision. What I had suggested a couple of months ago was that we consider a policy that it would apply to private property. So the documents that Tony shared about the Bedford Tree Protection Policy, yeah, they apply to public land, not to private. Entirely different kettle of fish. Got it. Okay. I would cite the town of Concord's and the town of Arlington's tree protection bylaws, which apply to trees within setbacks and the protections apply. They're really geared towards redevelopment of a site. If you want to take down a tree there and you've lived there for years, go ahead. But if a developer buys a lot, there would be a one-year period where, this is Concord and Arlington's bylaw, where if they cut trees within the setbacks within that year, they'd have to replant or pay into the town's tree fund. So that's how Concord and Arlington handle that. tree protection on private property. It applies only to setback areas and there's a finite window.

Okay. It's all great. I didn't know if we were discussing that right now.

I have nothing new to report, so there's no proposal or even concept before the board other than to say I do have a favorable impression of Concord's approach.

Yes. And I feel like I have a favorable impression as well from what you just said. Um, okay. So back to the town of Bedford tree regulations, where the planning board is cut out of the exclusions, right? So these regulations do not apply to the following and planning board is no longer there.

Right. Let me, let me share, uh, the document that because people listening in may be quite puzzled as to what they're hearing, not seeing the text. All right, so applicability. I will read this aloud. These regulations apply to the care and preservation. These are regulations with proposed amendments. These regulations apply to the care and preservation of trees within the public right of way pursuant to Mass General Law Chapter 87. and facilitates additional notification, compensation, and enforcement requirements related to the harm or removal of such trees. Again, trees within the public right of way. It separately applies to the harm and or removal of trees on town-owned property subject to the control of Bedford Select Board under Article 64 of the Town Bylaws. So there's a section, I won't finish reading that, section one. In section two, there are exclusions. and the proposed the proposed revision would delete planning board from those meaning we're not excluded anymore so therefore trees that were under the the jurisdiction of the conservation commission zba or hdc um would not be subject to these regulations trees under the jurisdiction of the planning board would be

all right so see if i can see i can't see everyone i can't see if mr howard still has his hand up yes mr howard if you do please go ahead so first of all with regards to trees that are subject to the uh planning board um not entirely certain what those would be but for example it could include say as an if we were to uh remove um Shawsheen Avenue or whatever the little street is around that hotel triangle, and we're granting it back, trees in the public right of way along that street would be arguably part of the planning board's jurisdiction. And so that might be an example of trees that count. Aside from that overall on this general subject I just want to advocate for a planning board to have a long-term view beyond just this of moving towards something similar to Concord Carlisle Arlington and protecting trees in setbacks particularly front setback but also side setbacks or at the very least requiring requiring surveys when when pursuing cutting trees inside backs this is coming from a resident who had nine mature pine trees cut on his property by his neighborhood because they neglected to do a property survey even though i told them where what trees were on which side but uh that's long term, I think that is something that the planning board should be looking for in this general. But for the specific bylaw in question, addressing Mr. Hagan's point, this yes, this is kind of a tax on the town, but it's a tax payable to itself for the most part. And it's it serves as a discouragement for the town to approve removal of trees that could reasonably be protected. Particularly this applies to right-of-way trees. So things that might actually be on a property but are within a right-of-way being cut down to approve a different development. And so I think Mr. Hagan's reluctance there is Baffling that he would be so reluctant. But if you're a very pro development. I can I can understand not wanting any tree to possibly interfere with with building whatever trailer parks, you want to build so Getting to my point I am in favor of having the proposed tree policy being adopted where we're increasing and properly valuing trees rather than individually trees are worth $500, but making the town recognize that there's a difference between cutting down a six inch pine and a 24 inch oak and not having to pay the same pine, whether it's one versus the other. So that's what I had to say.

Thank you very much.

mr mclean yeah so so a little more background to make this clear right we have an existing tree policy and as mr howard implied and and in some sense this does not change that policy that much the main thing it does is increase the fees associated with removing the town tree um and i want to be clear here this is not a planning board proposal that we're looking at on the page yeah um i'm not sure where the who the proponent is but this is just for informational purposes yeah um and if you actually scroll down to section five so currently when the town removes one of its own trees it has to pay into the uh the the uh This revision actually removes that. If you look at clause B, activities funded with public funds shall be exempt from the payment of mitigations. It actually does the opposite of what member Hagen actually suggested, I believe. And just to provide a concrete example of where a town tree was removed by a private developer, the trees next to One Railroad Ave and that little chunk of public land that the bus stops sits on. which was a removal I supported, but it was a set of town trees that were removed to make way for a private development. The private developer removed them. In the previous meeting, we could have easily, a previous hearing, we could have easily had a situation where if those trees had been closer to the street that they would have had to been removed for, to adjust driveway so public trees removed by private developers does come up this will actually change it to make it cheaper for the town to remove its own trees although like referenced it's really peter paying paul so okay no so it doesn't matter i'm gonna jump in here i'll let mr higgins speak but i'm going to close this discussion because what we see here is not a planning board initiative

And the conversation, if there's a use for all information, it's gone in a very different direction than the intent of the business agenda item.

Well, can I just make a request that Tony try to follow up with staff about, with his peers, about why the planning board's being pulled from this and not ZBA, which I would think would be roughly the same. Is that a reasonable request?

We are actually given more power. I don't understand what you mean by pulled. Because trees are under our jurisdiction sometimes, right? You just mentioned. So now you need to apply to that.

Well, so, so that's fair, but I might say that ZBA should also be.

All right. So, so I would ask, since we are, we're, we're well off topic. I know, but I think this is important.

I respectfully disagree that I think this is important to discuss as a town. Maybe this isn't the perfect forum, but I mean, I think there's people that can discuss this cause we've been on different committees and everything. Um, I don't know. I mean, I guess John can talk offline.

I would strongly prefer that.

OK. I just want to make one data point. And the town did a lot of work up on the North Road, Concord Road, the one that goes to where the hair salon was, did a lot of work on that intersection and to put in a sidewalk to make it safer to get to school. An estimate that was made a short time after that when this topic came up, that would have cost the town, you and me, another $35,000 to $40,000 paying for the trees that were cut down. That's the type of data that I'm talking about. All right, I'll be quiet now.

All right. Thank you all for your input. I will offer bits. This does have a lot land use. It is, it is a land use issue, I am so I will say, I think it is appropriate for the planning board to weigh in. i'm. I would prefer that we engage in the discussion of this after getting some clarification from town staff as to why planning board has been proposing to be dropped here, what the consequences of that are, and when we have a more formal draft. Going once, going twice. Opportunity to give me a little flack for cutting off discussion.

Flack.

All right. Thank you.

All right.

Sorry, I have to rearrange. Windows on my home screen. I did talk with Mr. Cope. There is nothing new to report regarding 340 Great Road. Anything from town staff?

No. Okay.

See a hand in the audience. Nope, not anymore. Oh, see it again. Mr Gardner comment or question.

Yes, how you doing? This is a Greg Gardner 10 Holton St. I'm actually was on the line here with Derek Gardner for the Page Rd project and unfortunately I didn't think you guys were having the meeting last. The. the middle of july meeting i thought um it was going to be halted because of vacation for some reason i um didn't have it on my schedule but i i you know i wanted to just discuss like clarification on the adu process and i know you talked about it last meeting and um i just was Just wanted to, you know, just say a little something about it if you guys have a second. If not, I can, you know, make arrangements to do it another way, another time. I know you guys are kind of dragging along. We already answered your situation.

So Mr. Hagan, I will address the speaker. So the way that we have it set up, we don't have that as an agenda item. I think it would be legitimate for Director Fields to comment during staff updates if he's so inclined. So I'll defer to him at that point. But at this stage, I will proceed to reports from liaisons to boards and committees.

Okay.

So with that reports from liaisons to boards and committees, Mr. McClain.

So I went to select board meeting yesterday, which was mostly about, uh, their, their goal setting process. Um, Although they also appointed KP law as the new town council. Um, they've appointed the other firm. Sorry.

Yes.

Well, actually there were two other firms.

Uh, it's in the citizen today.

Yeah. Okay. They appointed a new law firm, not the old law firm. For some reason, I, I got my bit, bit set wrong. Sorry about that. Um, They also talked about liaison assignment reorganization. There's going to be some juggling. I don't know if that will affect planning board or not. Sean did express that planning board and comprehensive plan was was together a little bit too much for him. The goals were largely unchanged, mostly adjustments from last year to reflect the progress that's been made. The fire station is still a priority, but a different priority than it was a year ago. They were opened, and one example there was we have three solar projects in the work. They're open to still more, and they also want to broaden it to other greenhouse gas reduction projects. They got rid of the goal for employee retention improvements. They feel like that's in hand now. They had a goal to get to the bottom of the school funding for the Hanson families living in Lincoln. But the most important thing from our perspective is the added, well, There was a general question around, given that there's more development, do we need more space for recreation? And that morphed into a discussion about the select board talking more about development. And maybe the planning board and select board could talk more often. And what they ultimately ended up with was a... quarterly agenda item to go over proposed and in progress development in town. But there was this general feeling among some select board members that they wanted to have more visibility into into what's going on. So and you know, I don't know their particular members that we should reach out to. I mean, I think so. The perspective I take is, you know, at the end of the day, zoning in Bedford is actually owned by by by town meeting. Right. And it behooves us to, you know, use whatever levers we have to make sure that we come forward with proposals that are going to pass. And obviously talking to, and, and, and obviously the select board is a set of individuals who in, in, in town who you might expect to have their, their finger on the pulse of, of what's, uh, what's politically possible.

Right. I would say that we have a pretty good track record in terms of, uh, Zoning changes.

Yeah. Well, and it was also interesting that the examples they brought up were things which were actually in their wheelhouse, not ours. But the 210 Springs Road and then this business with the Arrowhead Hotel. But independent of what you or I think, there was some desire for more conversation.

Sure. It's a fine thing.

On the other hand, I don't think we have any development proposals coming up for the next town meeting.

Thank you. Other members with information to report? Mr. Crowley.

Yeah, and I'm not sure I have much to report yet. I need to reach out to the zoning board of appeals. With the laws that just came into effect in Massachusetts, I don't know if anyone read them or not. It was in the MISC area, I think, right? I don't know. It was in the packages, for sure. But that is quite the change, I can say, from being on the zoning board for 10 years in terms of the extending... I can't tell you how many cases we saw about... I'm trying to use the right words, but it's kind of extending a nonconformity. So if the front of your house is 17 feet from the road and it's supposed to be 25, if you wanted to make it longer, you had to come in front of the ZBA. You could do it. It was still a special permit. But now you can just do it. Now, I think, though, it is saying you can't increase the nonconformity, right, Tony? You can't go 16 feet now to the road. But you can maintain the 17 feet as long as you want. And you could go up too, though, right? Up to the height limit. But you could be 17 feet from the road and just go up and not have to get a permit, correct?

That's how I read it.

Yeah, that's how I read it as well, which it's a fascinating change. But I think even maybe the bigger one is the variance in terms of really changing the... making it much, in my opinion, much less difficult to get a variance. which again, it's just fascinating. I am curious, you know, we had this puzzle layout when I was on it, four or five things you had to pass. And I'm curious what the zoning board of the field is going to use. And I apologize. I don't have that data yet, but I'm going to find out. I'll get before you guys, I'm going to have a meeting with them soon. I'll plan something. So just, I, I, I do feel that is, um, I'm not saying it's good or bad, I don't know, but it's going to change things dramatically in town in terms of what we see for changes to houses. And maybe that's not a bad thing because maybe they won't be torn down. Maybe people will now make modifications because it's a little easier to make modifications. But changes are coming.

I'll add a personal story there. When we did renovation to our home back in quite a number of years ago. The plan, well, the house is set back from the road to 30 some odd feet, more than 30, less than 35. At the time it was built, it was conforming, but the setbacks changed and it's now non-conforming. I put in a proposal which reduced the overall nonconformity, but still left some within the 35-foot setback, and I had to go to ZBA to get approved, which was fine. But at the time, it was no small annoyance. It's like, really? I reduced the amount of nonconforming space, and I still have to do this?

Yeah. Sorry, if you don't mind me interjecting, I mean, it's fascinating. I put a portico in the front of my house. My house was less than 35 feet as well. Put a portico, which may be closer to the road, but we agreed not to make it ever enclosed, right? Well, now can that even stand anymore because I am so close to the road. It's a structure. Now I can just build a whole front porch because I'm 17 feet from the road or whatever. I am 20 feet from the road now and they can't. I don't have to go in front of ZBA. I may need to get a building permit, but just fascinating.

Thank you. Other members or we proceed on to staff updates. We can proceed on to staff updates.

Just so to follow on to the changes that are coming from the state that Todd just addressed related to variances. I will say that the Senate last week did vote in its economic development package to enable two-family housing by right across all residential districts across the Commonwealth. So basically taking what we've already done here in Bedford, but making it applicable everywhere. So we'll see if that comes to house version did not have that because I don't think they thought of it. But so it wouldn't surprise me if the conference committee kind of tries to carry that forward as part of the package of housing.

initiatives for this year um a variety of other things remain in flux sorry can we clarify that though but they say it's a lot about right so there's no far or anything like that either for non-conforming right well that's

We'll have to wait and see what comes out of the final bill. I don't believe there were any limitations beyond the natural setbacks of the local districts.

And people wouldn't be able to put on more limitations on a two-family house, right?

Well, that's until we see the final language, it's hard to say if our, our concept may or may not pass muster based on how they change the rules. So, um, but yeah, so standby for the state to again, uh, impose its will because for, for all the opposing arguments residents have to You know, like the legislators leading this cause have no sympathy for, for residents that are worried about growth issues that they raise. So it's going to be an interesting session and it needn't be resolved this week, which is a change from past years where there was always a mad scramble. Because if these big bills didn't pass by July 31st, they couldn't do it. But now, so long as each branch has passed something, they've changed the rules so that they can put them in conference committee and bring it up all the way through the start of the new session the first week of January. So they potentially could come up with new rules next week. Or they could also wait till after the election and do it, you know, in December when, when people aren't really paying attention, but, um, So we'll see. Similarly, there's no new news on this. Well, there's still a year on the current exemption from the open meeting laws so that remote meetings are enabled for another year. They are trying to figure out what they want to make for the permanent rules, and they have not yet finalized that. Also tucked in that bill is mandatory land use board training. So most of you are pretty good about staying up to date in, in land use issues and getting going to training sessions. But both here in Bedford and in other communities, and maybe more often, I see it maybe more often on zoning boards, where you'll have a long-term member say, I know what I'm doing, I don't need to go to training. And that is likely to change in the near future, where there will be mandatory continuing ed for um planning board zoning boards probably for conservation commissions although they they tend to go to annual training as already but um so we'll um We'll see how that comes out. My colleagues are trying to plan how that training can be provided. So we're looking at expanding the role of the citizen planner training collaborative, which is the entity that's already there to provide the training for most appointed and elected planning board and zoning board members. We just need to now Maybe also as you do for your ethics training, where there's that online test you have to take every two years through the state, we think there'll be a push to try to create something similar for certification of land use boards. So stay tuned for how that changes. On the with the gardeners in the audience. I did just today tell, because I didn't get back to them sooner, I did just today alert them that at the last meeting we did talk about the question of whether or not ADUs could be treated as a as an ownership opportunity. But each of you expressed very strong opinions that you were opposed to that concept and that as the EDU bylaw was originally written, that it needed to be accessory. Of course, it was written at a time when we thought they were only going to be accessory to single family units. And at the time it was the unit needs to stay in common ownership with the principal dwelling. And then in the meantime, the state said, you have to allow ADUs on any residential property. So where we had originally said, you can choose between an ADU or a two family, but not both, the state changed the rules. So we now have to offer both. And so, I think they wanted to offer some discussion points for you to consider in enabling that third unit to be a separate ownership unit um but i might suggest as the chair noted it since it wasn't on the agenda would you prefer to have maybe those comments submitted i think that's scheduled for discussion at uh yeah i think that's the right way to handle it um we'll take we'll take uh comments for for discussion and can put it on the agenda for an upcoming meeting Yeah, otherwise, things are looking better in the office. with at least one new employee in hand and she's doing very well and has actually come up with some excellent ideas for enhancing several of the pages on the website. And we today made an offer, yesterday we made an offer to fill the other vacant position in the office. And I did see that that was accepted today. So we will shortly have a front desk person. Well, I don't know how soon. I don't know what the start date is going to be. But we will also have that position filled very shortly. So we will be back at full strength. And hopefully that will give us a chance to catch up on minutes because it's just been one of those things that I haven't been able to keep up with.

All right, there's a hand in the audience. Questions, comments?

Yeah, Greg or Derek, do you still have a question?

You're muted if you do have one.

I guess we'll just write, you know, we'll email you the comments and questions. I think, you know, it's pretty clear on it. I just was looking for clarification on the bylaw itself. Just, you know, the intent of an accessory-dwelling... is to promote more housing in the town, affordable housing, economic housing. And that's all I was going to speak on. Not really as, you know, Greg Gardner needs to make a buck, just more as the potential for, you know, elderly aging in place and, you know, younger families being able to afford newer construction or you know as the project across the street from the development we did at uh 103 pages it looks like they're going to convert an existing ranch into an adu so that can be promoted as affordable housing so that's all i was trying to you know promote but i'll get an email together and um you know send it along and if we could speak at the next meeting that would be great yeah all right we can add that as an agenda item thank you thank you

All right, closing comments? All right, with that, I will entertain a motion to adjourn.

Move that we adjourn.

Seconded. Moved and seconded. John? Aye. Todd? Aye. Steve? Aye. Dawn? Aye. And the Chair votes aye. Thank you very much for a productive meeting and we'll see you at the next meeting on August 11th.