Planning Board - Regular Meeting

good evening everybody welcome to the franklin planner board uh this is the june 1st 2026 meeting this meeting is audio and video recorded as well as on zoom Zoom call-in number is 312-626-6799, with a meeting number of 84986806774. Just as an FYI, Eric, you there? Yes, I am. Okay, so as an FYI, Chris is out. jay's on his way so it's myself mark and eric is online on zoom and will is out as well uh we'll take care of some general business uh at first and then we'll read into some of the other um hearings for when jay gets here so first item of business would be a covenant for 900 washington street uh if i could go to amy um also eric we're gonna do a roll call vault on on these as well okay i'll do the roll call all right got it This will be a covenant for 900 Washington Street. Here comes Jay. Yeah. Sweet.

One public meeting to the next. There you go.

We're just getting to it.

Tie it on.

Yep. Tie it on. That's what I use in the box lines. Fixing this tie. Fixing this tie. Yeah. That's good, though.

Trying to do that.

Yeah. Okay. Covenant for 900 Washington Street. Amy?

Sure. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. So 900 Washington Street is a four-lot subdivision on Washington Street. And they're looking to start construction over there. And a public road covenant needs to be into place while we hold the lots until they come back to have them released once some or partial of the infrastructure is in. I have had our town attorney, Mark Sorrell, review this covenant. and is to his satisfactory.

Okay. I had a quick question in reference to that. Well, one is four lots. I had a note on that. And don't go with nine. Is that common for us upon the final completion?

Let me pull that out. Sorry. Okay.

No question, it's just the duration of time. It's just about a year, maybe a little more.

Yes, that's fine.

And then they'll have to do, even if they sell the lot at the very end, they'll still have to put sidewalks, lighting, etc.

Yeah, they have to meet what the current approval was at the subdivision.

Just want to make sure it doesn't happen with what happened in the past. Jay, any comments or questions?

We don't take performance bonds typically, correct?

We will. What the process will be, not right now while they start it. Once they want the lots released, we'll have beta go out and put together an estimate of completion. Because they'll probably only have a binder code on. They won't have the landscaping in. And they'll have to bond that when the lots get released.

That's a slight leap. A little bit different than what we're accustomed to, but yeah.

No, that's how we've always done it.

That's how the town does it.

Yes, that's how the town's always done it.

Yeah. My preference would be to bond the entire road. I know it's not our methodology here. Maybe perhaps explore that at some point. Sure, yeah. I mean, it's a developer. If they don't have the pockets to play, that's not our problem. It just seems to be, it's, in my opinion, a safer way to handle it. Okay. But, you know, with that outside of our current... Modus operandi. I'm not going to jack this up for that. Okay.

Mark, any comments or questions?

The only question I had, if in a foreclosure, does the covenant, I don't know what the right terminology would, does that follow to the new owner if someone else were to buy it?

Yes. It gets recorded at the registry of deeds with the subdivision plans.

So it gets carried over to the next? Yes. Okay. Thank you.

Eric?

Comment or question?

Yeah, just one real small item, but in the second paragraph, there's two U's that undersigned, so just that grammatical correction needs to be made. Otherwise, no comments.

Which two? Eric, I'm sorry, which two were you commenting on?

Yeah, on the second paragraph where it starts with in consideration, the second line there has two U's for undersigned. I'll strike one of those. Small grammar thing. That's it for me.

Okay, good. Thank you. Okay. So make a motion to accept the covenant for all of the States, 900 Washington street. Do I hear a second? Second. All in favor. I think we have to roll call. Um, yeah. Jay's out. So yes. Uh, Greg Rondo. Yes. Jay Mello. Yes. Mark. Yes. Eric's thoughts.

Yes.

And next item of business, this would be for an endorsement for Tango Estates 2 Symphony Drive. If I could go to Amy, Department of Planning, I believe that's all set. She's the man who endorsed it.

Yeah, it's all set. The Planning Board voted on this on April 29th. The appeal period has passed, and there has been no appeals filed. So it is okay to sign.

Okay, so we'll make a motion to endorse Tanglewood Estates to Symphony Drive. Do I hear a second? Second. Yep.

Jay? Yes? Yes.

Mark? Yes. Eric?

Yes.

And Greg, yes. Next item of business, this would be for an appointment for the Community Preservation Committee. Jay's been on it the last few years, and it's a board member that participates in it, so I would make a recommendation that Jay Mello be appointed again to the CPC Committee. Do I hear a second? Second. All in favor? Eric?

Yes.

Greg? Yes. Mark? Yes. Jay? Yes. You're all set.

Thanks, gentlemen.

Thank you. Okay. Next item of business is a continuation of 70 Daniel Street Grillo Estates. It's a private subdivision. If I could go to Amy, Department of Planning, please.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I believe that there's still a few items outstanding with beta. If the board were to make a decision, they could be conditioned on that. I did receive a correction for the waivers that are now down to nine waivers. I shouldn't eat, but on the plans that I have listed here as well, where to make a decision.

Okay. Is Mike on? Yes. Okay, but before I go to you, I'll just go to the applicant. If you could just introduce yourselves for the record, please.

Hi, yes, Bruce Wilson. I'm a principal with New England Environmental and I'm just, we had four or five little items left on the list that's here. Some of them are, we made some changes to the drainage area. We gotta make sure that the line work all lines up over so when you add it up, they all, all matched, so we got a couple and then we had a typo. The spillway elevation was changed, so it's different in the hydrocad than it is on the plan. It needs to be tweaked a few hundred so that they match. The owner is here, the O&M plan will need to be signed. I mean, that's something we can do at the final, right? Okay. And then they wanted to take the four bay between the barns, I mean the four bay and the pond and just shift it a little bit to get. I said hey, I just didn't. But other than that, I mean, small changes. I mean, he wants to raise the pipe like 3700, so you know.

Okay. Before I go to the board, Mike, Mike, you there?

Yep.

I'm here, Mr. Chairman. Hi, how are you? Mike, I just want to double-check. As far as I know, when they were last here, you were pretty close. It's not right there. You're comfortable with this as we speak?

Yes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We previously met with Bruce and Bader, and we went through the comments. They made some revisions, and I think Bader's last comment letter, there are just a couple outstanding items. It's just housekeeping and cleanup-type stuff. There's nothing... significant with the design. There was no, you know, no disparate differences there. So I think whatever, I'd defer to Bader, but I think based on their, the last round that we saw, I think these last few things could just be cleaned up and on the final plans before endorsement.

Okay, good. Thank you. Matt, are you there by any chance? Or Steve?

Yes, hello, Steve Lee is here.

Hi, Steve. Matt couldn't make it tonight. That's okay. Steve, real quick, Grillo Estates, I believe everything pretty much got cleaned up the last meeting. You're comfortable with it as we speak?

Yes, yeah, there's, like everyone said, few minor housekeeping things that could be cleaned up with their final submission. So there's nothing that would hold back. You know, that would change the plans significantly. It's just making sure everything's right. Okay, good. Yes, I am comfortable. We are comfortable.

Okay, good. Thank you, Steve. Before I go to the board, is there anybody in the audience? I'll go to the board. Jay, any comments or questions?

I got nothing. Mark? No, sir. Thank you.

Eric, any comments or questions?

Yeah, just a couple of items for me number. 1 is it 1 of the T1 comment here reference the. Deference to the fire department, do we have a letter from the fire chief that they're okay with the turnaround.

I believe that yeah, that was submitted a while ago submitted a while ago February 3rd. Yes, OK, great.

Just wanted to make sure we had documentation on it. Number two is SD for references. The scale for the site plan is at 1 to 50 where our regulations require 1 to 40. I didn't see that waiver request in the list. I didn't know if that should be added.

Oh yeah, we can add that we can upload that to the list.

Great. Thanks. Thank you. Um, the other one was SW 25 referenced, uh, recommendation to have town agent verify the native soils on it. So in any sort of approval of this, I'd just seek to have that be a condition added into it as well.

The, um, towns, what a healthy agent was present when we did the soil testing. And then on the Form 11s and 12s that were submitted for the proposed house and the detention basin were all witnessed by Steve Donatelli.

Okay. Okay, great. So, Steve, you're all set on that then from Beta's perspective?

It was actually through the Board of Health, and the Board of Health inspector, his name happens to be Steve. Yes, that's correct. That does the soil testing for them.

And he was satisfied. Okay. So, Eric, yeah, Steve from Board of Health was satisfied with that as well.

Sounds good. Yeah, I was asking Steve from Bay Area, because it was his comment that was saying that a town agent should be there. It sounds like everybody's okay with it, though. Those are the only comments I had. Thank you.

Okay, good. Thank you. Okay, so... A motion to close the hearing for Grillo Estates. Do I hear a second?

Second.

All in favor? Yes. Jim Miller? Yes. Greg Ronda? Yes. Eric Stelzer?

Yes.

Okay. Now, make a motion on a vote of conditions. We'll tackle that one day. Let's see. If the waiver is requested, then. Pull him up here. I got him right here.

So in addition to the outstanding comments to be resolved by beta, the minor ones that we have, the following waivers have been requested. One, to reduce the pavement width from 20 feet to 20 feet where 26 is required. Two, to allow no curving where granite curving is required. Three, to allow a T turnaround rather than a paved 45 degree radius is required. Four, to allow a country grass swale and detention basin. Five, utilities to allow no street lighting. six to allow for a private well water supply for a future home seven to allow no sidewalks where to are required let's see eight is a duplicate on the plans from seven nine to allow iron pins were to be set where concrete bounds would be required and ten for the drawings to be submitted in a 50 scale rather than the standard scale as 40.

Get everything on that one, Amy?

Yeah, just a question on nine. They have it written as it said the 1 to 50 scale allows the entire.

Yep.

So you satisfied with how that's written or do you want it written differently?

Let's see. Just per our regulation. Yeah, so allow drawings to be submitted at a 1 to 50 scale. This allows the entire project to fit in a standard 24 by 36, so the applicant has requested that the town accept the drawing in a 1 to 50 scale, where the 1 to 40 scale is the town's standard.

Okay.

It's literally just saving paper and ink, so that's a good one. Okay.

So all in favor of the conditions and waivers, I'll give you a second. I'll go to Eric. Eric, you?

Yes. Jay Mello? Yes.

Mark Matroni? Yes. And Greg Rondo, yes. Thank you. You're all set.

Thank you. And I'll add that you put it as 10 on the scale. I'll get that on the cover page.

So just a couple little tweaks I had to do on just the scale and the waivers, and that's it. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Good luck. All right, and our next item of business, this is for 555 King Street. This is a cycling modification. Make a motion to waive the reading. Is there a second? Second. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Eric?

Yeah, on this one, I'm going to need to recuse myself for a potential conflict of interest. Okay.

Are you jumping off? I know Eric mentioned... You might jump off because I don't know if this is the last hearing of the night.

Eric, you're jumping off, right?

That's correct.

Okay. Thank you, Eric.

Great. Thank you.

Okay. If I could go to Amy before I go to the applicant first. Amy, can you give us a quick rundown of the modification of the site, please?

Sure. So they pretty much... provided an outline of what they're doing. It was approved at 255,400 square feet back in September of 2022. We're looking to reduce it to 234,790 square feet and increase in some of the parking where the building would have been built. I know that they are in front of conservation this Thursday with a modification to the plans with them. Beta has provided their stormwater review and has submitted a response letter to them. Okay, good. Thank you, Amy.

Before I go to the board and the consultants, if you guys could just introduce yourselves and if you could give us a brief overview of the changes so everybody watching can see.

Josh Berman with Marcus Partners on behalf of the applicant.

John Cusick with Bowler, the civil engineer of record.

We were first in front of you guys back in 2021. We initially came in with a 293,000 square foot warehouse. After discussing this with you over a good part of a year, meeting with the design review, we reduced the building down to 255,000 square feet and flipped it so that the loading docks were closest to 495 and not towards the residential. We came back in 2024 and asked for a two-year extension to get more time on our special permit. Since then, the market has turned. We're ready to move forward. What we've ultimately done here is cut off. There was like an angle on the end of the building We basically squared the building up, converted the building to paving. You'll notice that there is a net reduction in impervious here, so we reduced the impervious area. We are meeting with ComCom on Thursday. I'll just say all of this is outside of the buffer zone. All the wetlands are closest to King Street. And we are looking to get started here hopefully in the next 30 days or so.

Thank you. Before I go to the board and the audience, Mike, can I go to your DPW?

Sure. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. So we did take a look at the revised plans, and I didn't see anything that really concerned me. There were some slight modifications to the drainage basins from the previous design, so we did request that Bay to take a look at it just to get a more thorough look at. And I believe that common letter pretty much says that there are no significant issues. I'll let Bay to speak for themselves. We will still continue to work with the developer for the off-site mitigation for the traffic signal. There's going to be some coordination between the town and town roadway. and MassDOT for those signals and that whole stretch in there. So we'll continue to work with them through that process.

Good.

Thank you, Mike. Chair, if I could. Sure. Just one thing on the changes that Mike mentioned. So over the, you know, about a year and a half, we worked with National Grid to get an accent easement below the power rough lines. A lot of the changes that were made here were for clearances underneath the electric lines. So the basin revisions that Mike discussed were due to National Grid. So we now have full sign-off for National Grid.

Okay, good. Thank you. Matt, you there? It would be Steve. Oh, Steve, excuse me. Can you speak on behalf of Matt? Yes, I am here. Can you speak on behalf of Matt for this, please?

Yes, so I reviewed the response letter, our initial comments and the responses, and everything seems okay from our end. It seems like the reducing impervious area and You know, like Mike had mentioned, there were small revisions to the drainage that coincide with the revisions to the site plan. So we don't have any issues.

Okay, good. Thank you. I just had a couple quick questions and may help others. Truck traffic, it's not going to change the amount of vehicles in and out of the site? No. Okay. Flex space, when you call it flex space, can you explain what you consider as flex space for the additional parking?

yeah so we it would be it'd be accessory use to the building so again we don't have a tenant here we're building this speculative uh hoping that they will come once we're building it but if somebody wanted to use that for trailer storage car parking some type of outdoor storage it just provides flexibility to the tenant in there to have additional lay down area okay i just want to make sure that everybody else hears it as well we

no idling trucks in the back corner. That's more important for the neighbors and the drum space. And... Answer that, okay. I guess I'll go to the board, Jay? No problem.

Considering it's a net reduction overall of impervious and it looks like it's actually taking the development and pulling it away from the nearby neighborhood, I'm in support of this.

Okay, good.

mark no you uh you asked the question i was uh looking at for the flex base what what that was going to be used for so and no truck idling if this truck's going to be there so i know that was spoken of the last time i just want to make sure uh eric he checked out

Sorry, Eric. All right, I'll go to the audience. Anybody in the audience have any comments or questions? Just approach the mic.

Just a quick question. And I could have heard you wrong, so apologies. Through the chair, did they just say for outdoor storage? I believe that because of the neighborhood, outdoor storage was not going to be permitted?

I believe it was just for trucks and trail is not anything else, right?

No, it would be, it could possibly be storage. I believe under the zoning accessory use of storage is allowable use.

I can't answer. There was discussion about outdoor storage before. There wouldn't be outdoor storage. But the other item that might have changed since they were approved, which has nothing to do with them, but that new neighborhood that has been approved that abuts this warehouse, where before, when you were approving the warehouse, that neighborhood hadn't been approved. So I was curious to know, with the new neighborhood in there, like it removes the trees and such.

The one that's like right off of Washington Street, right by 495. We took the single family home, then like...

The 40B?

Yes.

Yeah, yeah. So it's actually not approved yet. They've got to file the ZBA. They haven't filed the ZBA yet.

Larissa Court, I think, was approved. No. So just my question is simple. Sorry. I'm making it longer than it needs to be. Sorry. Apologies. Just a question. If there's fencing between the parking lot, the edge of the property and the abutting property, is there going to be fencing there? If the new neighborhood is approved, what have you? I just didn't know. Initially, no one probably thought of fencing because it was all trees. I didn't know if there was... And if they're changing the topography of that area, if they could consider fencing in that area. If they're changing the building and such. It never would have been discussed before.

I think they were putting some additional greenery there along the back side to help offset some of that.

They're going in there. There's a road along the wall.

Yeah, so they're planting along the back side. in lieu of fence, which is a natural . It's a good tree sounding.

Yeah, and I was more thinking, right, and just growing, and I just was more thinking, you have to look at a whole area, and they hadn't started building And there was nothing there that we cared about before. What do you care if there's trees or not trees?

I think the neighbors on the back side, we did it for them, and that's why the applicant flip-flopped the building to put the loading docks on the 495 side as well to limit the amount of noise and whatnot that would deflect over there, if I'm not mistaken. Am I correct? That's correct. Okay.

Okay. Thank you.

That help?

That's it. No, thank you.

Okay, anybody else? So you're gonna have to go to ComCom?

Yeah, so we're on a hearing Thursday night. It'll be a modification to our existing NOI. Yeah, we had a kickoff meeting with them last week.

Okay, so we're probably going to just continue this until you guys come back with a calm, calm sign-off. Everybody good with that? So I'll make a motion to continue 555 King Street until... June 22nd. Until June 22nd. Do I hear a second? Second. All in favor? Aye. Aye.

Aye.

You're all set. Thank you. Thank you. The, uh, comics, questions? Porch Fest?

Porch Fest is this weekend. Graduation is, high school graduation is this weekend.

Yep.

Next Friday's Strawberry Stroll. This week is restaurant week with Franklin. The events don't end.

You picked the wrong month to go to Italy.

Yeah, really.

Well, if not, I'll take a motion to adjourn.