Planning Board - Regular Meeting

Are those expected by the end of this calendar year or whenever they get ready? Don, welcome. You may be the chair.

I think I am the chair and my apologies for being unable.

Congratulations. I'm looking forward to a stellar meeting.

You've never been at a faster meeting, Steve. I'll tell you that.

Oh, okay. Right.

All right. So now that I'm here, Tony, is this everyone?

Yeah, Todd confirmed he would not be able to be here tonight, and I didn't hear from Chris, which leads me to believe he is unable to attend.

Okay. All right. Sounds good. I'm going to pull up my agenda. Here we go. Okay. Okay. So calling the meeting to order pursuant to legislation extending the suspension of certain provisions of the open meeting law. This meeting of the Bedford Planning Board 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 the comprehensive record of proceedings as soon as possible after the meeting. So, my understanding Tony is that the, the development session has been continued to the next meeting.

Correct. Yeah. So they, um, both of the peer review is not quite finished in the applicant was advised that we'd be down to members and all likelihood. So they agreed to continue to September eight.

Okay. So this. So we're going to tonight basically review possibilities for the town meeting. Is that right?

Yeah, although you need to actually take a vote to continue the public hearing.

Moved.

Excellent. John McClain. Hi. Steve. And the chair votes I have continued to Yeah, one down, moving right along. Now I have to find that agenda again. OK, we have a whole list of things here in terms of the accessory dwelling, ownership options, dark sky lighting. So the accessory, should we just take them in order? Is everyone fine with that?

Yeah, we can just kind of go through them in order. Sure.

Okay. All right. So for the accessory dwelling ownership options, what is the action that's in front of us, Tony?

So the question is whether based on the discussion at the last meeting with the presentation that the Gardner contracting team made, whether you found any of those arguments worthy of you sponsoring some amendments to the bylaw or not.

Okay. Any members of the board want to weigh in on their opinions of what we heard last time?

Yeah, I'll speak. Everybody else can, of course. So I stopped by the development on, I guess it's Page Road 104 or so that's been in front of us. It's a duplex and then it's a freestanding ADU. And you look at it, it's three separate dwellings. And then it could be three separate owners. However, I think finally after that, I got decided that no, the ADU should be owned by one of the owners of the duplex. The reason is, if not, what it turns out is then by right, builders could build triplets or three units on all the lots in town, the duplex and an ADU that is owned by someone else. So really, this is expanding by road from two houses per lot, two owners to three per lot. And that's when I decided I'd be opposed to it. I didn't quite get a strong opinion, so I stopped by that place when I was driving today. So that's my opinion. No, we should not allow the ADU to be independently owned from either owner of the duplex.

All right. John, anything from you?

I mean, I'm in general for a liberalization of housing arrangements, but I don't feel like biting this particular apple off the tree at this point.

Tony, is there anything else we should consider about this?

I will say, having talked to the chair over the past week, that he is of a to member Hagen and also suggested that from the board's perspective of things to bring forward in November, that this maybe is not as urgent on the board's list of things and it might need, you know, Even if some residents were to bring this forward as a citizen petition, the question is whether or not it has a sufficient amount of lead time to be properly vetted ahead of a town meeting vote. So I think I'm not hearing great... I'm not hearing interest among any, at this point, of any board members of really... tackling this as a planning board initiative at this time.

Okay.

All right.

So then we can move on to dark sky lighting. Do we have the text of the proposal?

Yeah. Looks like my video just quit, but I can continue. Thank you.

Okay. Are you looking to share the text, Tony?

I'm working on it. I'm not in the office, so it's not as...

While he's doing that, I will make my... Singular comment, if you will. I read through the whole thing a few times, tried to figure it. I believe we should not apply this to single family homes on one lot at this time. Let it be applied to commercial and industrial and many unit developments, but not to single homes. Let this be in existence for a while while people understand it, and then we can decide if we want to add it to single home dwellings.

John, while Tony's working on getting the text up, do you have anything to add?

I'm just thinking that we have a neighbor's light that shines into our window, but it is actually on a two-family. I did notice that there's some sort of drafting issue that seems to apply to three-unit dwellings. There's a clause about... more than three and then there's a clause about duplexes but uh i think i think we accidentally left out three unit buildings and i would actually tend to include the three unit buildings in the the weaker part of the the law but just because meaning with the duplexes yeah but i mean not that we allow you to build Not that it's easy to build a triplex in Bedford, but if it was, I'd rather see it easier than harder.

So are you then on board with what Steve is saying about let's kind of tackle the big fish first?

I mean, it's already much less onerous for the smaller units, so I would be inclined to include them, but especially since that's most of the town. So... So yeah, I would take a more aggressive stance than Steve.

Do you want to make a pitch to convince your fellow board member?

Um...

I don't know your neighbor. I can't fix it.

Well, like I said, he's actually in a duplex, so it might not matter. I mean, the bar for small-scale residential was already a lot lower than the rest of it.

Yeah, that was my memory, too, which is partly why I wanted to see the text again.

yeah uh and of course now i'm having trouble finding the text and it's well of course i'm not in the office either but i'm never in the office so i don't get to use that as an excuse is that yes i have to admit my lips got tired reading the sign by law um Yeah, so Section 5, this section applies to all properties with single and two-family residential dwellings where the Section 4 applies for commercial and industrial properties, the common areas of condominium complexes and homeowner associations, and other properties with dwellings for more than three families.

Okay. Yeah, I think that's a clear... Yeah.

Yeah. Claire, but era to fix it or you know, it's no requirement for for for three family drawings that that'd be okay, too.

So any luck, Tony?

Yeah, it's just, it's taken an extra minute because my normal password didn't work.

So, I mean, I have section five in front of me and basically it says, you know, it can't be flashing. It shouldn't shine into the street or abutting properties. And yeah, includes lighting in general. Shall not unduly inconvenience abutters by having outdoor lighting shining directly into their windows or under their property. And there's an exemption for temporary holiday lighting. So, I mean, the bar for small-scale residential is pretty low. So I would... And like I said, I have a neighbor whose lights shine into my window, so... I have some sympathy for enforcing some standards here.

Okay, so Tony, is the desired outcome discussion or decision on this?

It is simply whether to not to make it the decision is simply whether to submit this or hold a hold a spot to to basically advise the select board for their meeting on Monday that we'd like to have a placeholder for this topic.

Well, what I'm hearing from the two other board members present is a general positive outlook on it with possibly a difference of how far to go. So that says to me, we want them to hold space. Is that fair to say, my fellow board members?

Yes.

We have some lighting rules now, don't we? If not, then yeah, we need to proceed with this. Some others I know better than the lighting. Just telling the select board we're thinking about this, that's easy to agree to.

Right, and if the board doesn't, if we don't conclude what we want to propose, you can always withdraw this before they close the warrant. Right, right. And there is time to resolve the final language because we would have, well, actually we wouldn't, because it's a general bylaw, you're not the board holding a public hearing on it, but we would hold some kind of a workshop on it. To go through the. These provisions, the existing provisions are a small subsection in the sign by law. And there's 1 paragraph that addresses. Parking lot lights, but very limited in scope and. This, obviously, most of you know, this is a pet project of the chair. And so I think, again, all we need for right now is that this is a topic that we wish to hold a place on the warrant for consideration in November. Is that a voting thing now? Before the end of September.

So to do that, do I need to take a vote on that?

No, the consensus is fine.

Okay. Okay. Moving down to the small clean energy facility permitting.

Yeah, so I had hoped to give you something to work with, but Kylie found some new information on Thursday that I think was very helpful. And then I also had a meeting yesterday with Newtown Council. And so my staff level proposal is still evolving. And so I don't actually have something to share with you this evening. But as this takes, since the state law takes effect on October 1st, whether we're ready or not, and you don't know necessarily what it's going to, what the language is going to look like, but I'm going to suggest that we ask for a placeholder on this topic. And that's all we're doing at the moment is asking for the select. When the select board opens the warrant on Monday, we're simply trying to tell them that we're going to have whatever number of zoning articles or at least the maximum number.

Does anybody have an issue with doing that?

No.

Okay. Okay.

So data centers is in a similar situation where, again, I talked with town council on this yesterday, and we're going to continue to revise a concept that we will share shortly. And given that the Given that the chair of energy and sustainability is in the audience, we will also share both these drafts with that committee as soon as we're done, which I hope to be within a week or so.

OK. OK, so down to the tree protection bylaw. Does anyone wish to speak?

This concept is to go beyond the tree to town tree policy for town trees. This is obviously something that A couple of towns in the county have a similar provision where they are regulating trees effectively either in the setbacks or based on a plan submitted at the time of a proposed construction. So if you are proposing demolition of a house and construction of a new house, or proposing an addition of a certain threshold, then you would be asked to identify existing trees on the property that would be removed as part of that construction. and then negotiate either planting of new trees or a payment to a fund. It is still unclear. from the examples of some of the neighboring towns, how that fund is ever administered. And this draft does not address that yet. I'm waiting for some feedback. My counterpart in Concord, since Concord has this type of bylaw, We've asked for some feedback on how they administer the bylaw, how many trees they've saved, and how the fund is managed. And my counterpart forwarded that inquiry to colleagues or to the staff in Concord who deal with it, but they have not yet compiled a response. So I'm kind of waiting to see that. Some of you may have noticed that the arbor resources committee was in front of the select board recently with. With proposed amendments to the town tree bylaw, and that did not gain traction at that meeting and there were several. residents at that meeting to oppose trying to regulate trees on private property. And I know there is differing opinions among this board's members as to how what extent of regulation or control to exert over private property. But we were asked to explore what some of the other towns have done, and that's where this draft comes from.

OK. Are there any members who would like to speak to this? John? Yes. Oh, John. I saw John first.

So I would like to advocate for a, so there's already a carve out for trees covered by, conservation, I would also like to advocate for a carve-out for trees covered by the Historic District Commission to minimize the number of double-hitters people have to go to. It's bad enough being in the Historic District and having a non-performing lot. I think in general, I'm fine within the concept, but I suspect it's not something we want to bite

touch away so i think in general it's fine but timing wise maybe a tad too aggressive okay steve um i'm opposed to this and i'll make a few points i will start with one um i read re read the existing town's uh policy to look for differences since this was also brought up by board i was at the select board review begin with, in our current town policy, there is a fund for tree management, et cetera, that can get where fees get paid into. The manager of that is the tree warden. It is not BARC. In this new proposal, it's BARC, which was the same as the one for the town when they tried to present it to the select board. This is BART trying to collect money from other residents of town, so they have a kitty to work with. I'm totally opposed to that, and I will fight this in front of the select board again, and I'm pretty sure they'll come up with the same answer for that. That's such an obvious shift. Having the town warden, tree warden, manage it makes sense. Having park rent does not make sense given some of the history. But also managing trees on private property, I don't see it. If a builder is gonna, like it's a teardown, they're gonna do a teardown, they're gonna put a new development of some kind, whether it's duplexes or McMansion or whatever, Having trees on the property makes the property more valuable, and the developer knows that. The developer is not going to clear-cut a lot if there's a better option, because nobody wants a clear-cut lot. I will trust the developer to manage which trees to keep, and number three, Bedford is essentially overloaded with trees already. 21% of the town is conservation land. Besides others, we have probably hundreds of thousands of trees in this town. Where are you going to plant new ones? I don't see it. I'd rather leave the tree policy that we already have, the way that it works. I do not want to get starting with managing, having authority to manage trees on private property. I think that's a dangerous mistake because that only grows. That's my speech and I'm sticking to it. Thank you.

Thank you. John?

So I don't see where the fund would be administered by BARC. I see that the fee schedule would be made in consultation with BARC, but not that it would be administered by BARC.

The disbursements will be reviewed by BARC. You have to read it carefully and know that this is just what they proposed to the select board.

Steve, do you have the policy in front of you?

No, I read it earlier enough times. Okay. Trying to... detect the semantics through it is not perfect. But when you know what the intent was already going to the select board, then this one, once I saw that Bart's name was near it, because in the town, existing warrant is just the tree warden. That's the only name that's going to be managing the fund. No reason to have other names in this

Yeah, I'm not seeing it, Steve. I'm looking at the document.

Yeah, actually, I'm just going to pause. Tony, is this something you know the answer to?

Yeah, if it reads that way, that was not my intent.

How closely to that it reads, I'd have to go back over and explain how I connected the dots. The dots may be farther apart for some people than others. I accept that.

Okay, mostly what I see is number three town of bedford tree fund there's hereby established a town of bedford tree preservation fund quote tree fund pursuant to mgl 44 section 54 and a half. Any contributions collected per Section 5.2b of this tree bylaw shall be deposited in the tree fund and shall be used solely for the purpose of buying, planting, and maintaining trees within residential neighborhoods in the town.

And that fund already exists.

That fund exists. Is that the one managed by the...

The tree warden.

The tree warden. Well, that's the... My reading of this is that's where this money is going. It's going into the fund. Yeah, right, right. And if that fund is managed by the tree warden, I don't see where bark comes into it.

Well, I'd have to go through this more carefully. Okay. I'm sure I can find a way to connect dots, but I don't think it's worth spending meeting time tonight.

Fair enough.

Because it's not going to go on the fall town warrant. So... And next time I'll have the dots better.

Okay. I need those.

I think we should get on to other stuff.

Fair enough. Fair enough. Okay. So, John, what is your thought on moving this forward or not?

I'm not particularly excited to move it forward for the fall.

Okay.

I am generally supportive of moving it forward, but I don't.

That's fair. All right, is that sufficient for you, Tony? All right. Residential sign regulations. Pull that up. And actually, is that something you can share as well, Tony?

And let me speak at a turn and say, I checked your Tony. I think there's only one section that is in red ink. That is what's new and everything else is the same, which makes it a lot easier.

The residential sign regulations.

Yeah. That it's, I think it's near it's way down in it and then it's in red ink. And I assume that means that's the change.

I mean, there's a bunch of things that are highlighted. I see a couple of red sections.

Yeah.

So what's the larger picture here?

Yeah, you want to read us? Yeah, so in this bylaw, much of what you see is the existing bylaw so if everything that's in plain black ink is what already exists there are just as some of the things that are highlighted are technical issues if you recall when we redid the zoning bylaw two years ago we changed all the terms so that references to either code enforcement director, building inspector, or inspector of buildings all use the same term, which in the zoning bylaw, we moved it to inspector of buildings because that lined up also with what the building code uses. But I will say that the The recently promoted inspector of buildings is also is actually using the term building commissioner. So we'll work out what that is. I was just highlighting these words as something to be Something to make sure we're just consistent across the bylaw.

Yeah. Got it.

It also refers to selectmen from time to time or the board of selectmen. And we've changed that as well. So some of those features are for that. Got it.

So the red ink is there.

So the red ink is there. So anything that was in that yellow highlight was really just a terminology issue. Except in this section where we talk about prohibited signs, we did several years ago eliminate the Limited Business District and the Northward Overlay District, and they were replaced with the Great Road Business Districts. So again, that's a... a technical adjustment. I do note that we also have this provision nine that you see on the screen here about movable chassis mounted signs are prohibited, but the town has a couple, so I want to make sure we don't prevent ourselves from having these mobile signs. Dave Kuntz, And then, so when we get into. Dave Kuntz, The regulations for residential districts in section two it really is this this red section here that. Dave Kuntz, That is. Dave Kuntz, discussing. Dave Kuntz, The ability for. the multifamily housing projects that are being developed in the multifamily overlay district to have a sign. And in some cases, if they have two primary driveways, they could have two signs. And then the discussion would be, what's the maximum size of sign that we would permit? The 32 square feet that you see listed there, 32 square feet is the size of a four by eight sheet of plywood or sheetrock. So that's where the 32 feet comes from. We're proposing for the moment a six foot maximum height. for the entirety of the structure and in most cases we're talking about trying to do it as a monument sign so that it has a base although some of the signs that have like two granite posts with a sign in the middle have also gotten some positive comments from the public so signs are quite um And they're a topic that often get very emotional when people come together to talk about them. But anyway, so in these cases, we are suggesting that such signs have to be reviewed as part of the site plan review. or in the event that it is a project being approved by the Zoning Board of Appeals under Chapter 40B as a comprehensive permit, that it be included in that discussion. So that way the placement of the sign and everything could be addressed.

Okay, why don't we pause there for a second. John, do you have something?

I'm still slow. Like I said, my lips did get tired before I read this whole thing. Basically, the goal here is some cleanup plus addressing a particular issue that's arising out of multifamily development, basically. It's a little broader than that, but that's sort of the proximate cause of introducing this section. As an aside, there are some things in the bylaw that surprised me. I guess I'm not allowed to have the flag I'm flying in front of my house, but We're not going to touch that, and that's fine now that I understand. Unless you as a board want to address it. I mean, I do at least a little bit, but not so much that I want to muck up the fall town meeting.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay, so is there, and that paragraph is the primary substitute?

That's the primary change, yeah. Okay. And then as I, yeah, everything else is, you know, what I'm going to call Scrivener errors. Well, not quite everything else. Yeah, some of them are simply modern, you know, catching up with the terms.

Well, there's one. I can't. Is there a page number? I can't quite. There's not a page number. And I don't know which part I'm in. But under 39.6.

Yeah, that's where I am. Yeah.

So we are basically saying the selectmen

Well, yeah, so this actually needs more discussion.

Yes.

But in my mind, it needs amending, and we just haven't worked out exactly what that amendment should look like.

Okay, so are you just looking what are you looking for from us tonight?

This is looking for agreement to push. Parts of this, or to push this forward, or at least. Submitting placeholder.

Does anybody want to. To make a stand to move it forward or not at this point.

I believe we should submit this. Okay.

What do you think? Yep. Okay. Like we get this one thumbs up. Alrighty. Let me get rid of this one too.

I think that takes us to the so there's no there's no update on the bed. That's the Bedford Plaza Hotel and some redevelopment of that neighborhood that the chair said we might keep that on the agendas for the next few meetings while while things appear to be happening. And there is no update this week.

Okay. So planning board liaison to boards and committee reports. Anybody wanna kick us off?

There has not been a select board meeting since the last time we met, so.

There we go. Steve, do you have anything on that for us?

Nothing worth repeating. That doesn't mean we didn't work awfully hard and drop sweat and all that stuff, but it's not worth the time. Okay.

Well, one thing that I will add at this point is the comprehensive plan, it will be ready for public review. I think it might be live today, Tony, is that?

I'd have to check to see if it went live today. Okay. It will be live by Monday.

I think I downloaded it today.

Okay. Yeah. All right. And yeah, so we, for Monday when they publish or release the next town managers report, we're going to have a, an announcement in QR code in that, in that publication as part of our announcements that the draft document is out for public comment.

So, you know, on, you know, as part of that, I will say, please share it on social media and, If you have the ability to put flyers places you frequent, announce places you go, talk it up amongst the people you meet, any kind of group that you associate with in town, whether it's your neighborhood, your church, your athletic club, whatever. let's see if we can get a lot of people to look it over and give us some, some feedback because it's, it will also have a, um, people will also have the opportunity at bed for day to, to weigh in, but it would be nice if they had a little bit of, um, Um, if they didn't have to come up with a reaction on the spot, which is what I anticipate Bedford day would be, you know, if they, if they could download it in at their leisure, kind of, you know, reflect on it and give us some feedback. So, um, then the consultant will be preparing, um, a memo summarizing and organizing the comments from the public and noting for each, um, whether the response is already addressed in the plan or if it's an editorial comment, and hopefully we will be able to adopt it in the foreseeable future. So it's been a big year of public input. We've talked to a lot of folks and gotten a lot of feedback. So this is, you know, this is the chance to kind of get it over the finish line with kind of a big finish. I would like as many people as possible to feel like they've been heard and that they see themselves and their perspectives reflected in the report. So please do what you can to get word out. Any other board committee related news? Okay. Tony, over to you. Staff updates.

So on staff updates, the gentleman you see on screen, Gibbons, is new to the office. He is our new community planning administrator. And this is week two. And But he's helping to make a dent in the backlog of minutes, which is not a very exciting task, but something we need to tackle. And... As other things pick up through the fall, we'll hopefully get him involved in many other more exciting projects. So this is for at least two of you the first time to meet him. Steve has met him in person, but you'll see him at subsequent meetings.

Would you like to take a minute and introduce yourself? Do you go by Nick?

Yeah, I guess. it depends on if somebody knows a Nick already. So, but I would say Nick and I grew up in Bedford and, uh, I want to say I've listened to every planning board meeting for the last four years or so. So, yeah, that's wonderful.

And you still want to be part of it. Yeah.

Yeah. don't scare him away.

Four years of media didn't scare him away. This guy's a veteran already.

Yeah. I wish I started taking the meeting minutes a year ago because it's taken me like a week just to do three of them. Yeah.

Yeah. Well, you know, you're going to be very well versed in everything that we've been doing. So, you know, I suppose it has that kind of silver lining to it. Um, Where do you come to Bedford from?

So I went to undergrad at Westfield State, and I did it for planning and sustainability. But I went to Bedford High School.

Very nice.

And then last summer, I did an internship at the town of Westwood. So this is my first full-time planning job.

That's wonderful. We're very happy to have you. We need... We need every hand we can get. We've got a lot to do. Tony, how are we doing?

Yeah, otherwise, Carly and I are scheduled to go to the Energy and Sustainability Committee on the 17th, partly so they can meet her. And we'll be talking about several topics at that meeting, I think. other trying to think of what other meetings I'm committed to attend a handful of other committees trying to, again, promote the comprehensive plan. And others will be maybe able to kind of review it on their own. But so Yeah, otherwise there's a variety of training sessions that staff has been going to or legal sessions on some of these more recent topics, including energy, you know, these clean energy requirements, data centers, and so on. how to interpret the changes the legislature just made to non-conforming uses and in theory simplifying the process, but it's still unclear exactly how to interpret some of those features because of the language the legislature inserted that is not commonly used. So we'll see. Otherwise, We continue to have discussions with Boston communities about their upcoming proposal for the Middlesex Community College parking lot that the state declared surplus. And so they've been revising their concept based on feedback we've given them. And we're still working out how to deal with the permitting process because the state really didn't didn't really define one. So we're hopeful that we'll end up pursuing a community development agreement through the select board and a site plan review with the planning board in order to get to the point of permitting that project. So the public will have some opportunities to weigh in on how that evolves.

All right. Is there anything else from anyone else?

So I had a question. Speaking of trees. So the barks revisions to the town's existing tree policy changed the carve outs around the planning board. Do you have any idea why that happened or why they made that proposal? Why did they make that change?

I'm not sure why the board was deleted from... I don't know if it was adopted or only proposed to be deleted. And I don't know why. Okay.

I mean, I can see the argument... but then they added a carve-out for the ZBA in, and I don't see the argument for carving out the ZBA, but not the planning board. I can see the argument for carving out both or not carving out both, but okay. You might have thought they would have talked to us, but...

Okay. Any more business going once? Going twice? John, again?

Move that we adjourn.

Okay. John McClain. Aye. Steve Hagan.

Aye.

And the chair votes aye. Thank you all for an expeditious meeting.

At least this meeting will be short, Nick. I was thinking that.

All right. Take good care, everyone.

Good night. Bye.

Good night.