Affordable Housing Trust - Regular Meeting

Uh it is 7:31 and I'm calling the May 14th meeting of the Grafton Affordable Housing Trust to order. Uh we'll start with the roll call. Uh Brian Land present. Dan present. Colleen here. And uh Sarah present. All right. Uh we have no members of the public at the moment. So we'll skip over public comment and uh next item on the agenda. Welcoming our new uh director of planning and community development.

Yes, thank you. Um it's good to meet you all. Um everyone here and on Zoom from the trust. I'm excited to be here. Um I'm coming from Northern Middle Sex Council of Governments Regional Planning Agency in Greater LOL. I have experience working with trusts and affordable housing um in general. That's a lot of my background as well. So happy to be here and support you all. Um and looking forward to it. Yeah, we're uh happy to have you here. Uh [snorts] any any questions I guess for our town plan before we I think they'll they'll definitely start coming as we go over. Yeah.

Available for for questions, email, phone call and office just um I I'm available for all that. So [snorts] cool. Appreciate it. All right. Uh so next we have uh the uh 516 and 95 High Point Drive update. So uh we have Emma here from MHP. Um do we Yeah. So I guess do do you want to take it away?

Yeah. Great. Yeah. Good to be with you all. Um, so I had been in touch um by email with Amber in advance of the agenda going out and I um am here to share an update. Um so I had been in touch with Kathleen this week just to kind of get her read of the um parameters that I had put in the RFP around affordability. and that had opened up some questions about the history of the project, what the required affordability was. Um, my colleague Carson and I did some digging and from what we can find, there are 16 affordable units in the project that have been built. um this showed up in our research and also the um detailed SHI from EOHLC. So based on that, this RFP would require at least three affordable units at 80% AMI. Um as we've discussed, there are three parcels. one of them may not be as feasible as the other two for development. So assuming that at least two of the duplexes get built, that would be four units and three of those four or three of whatever the total that gets built um would need to be affordable. So this differs slightly from what I think we had discussed last time which was 60% of the units. I think in this RFP it makes sense to not do any percentage and just note that at least three of them need to be affordable.

[snorts]

So note that and I I forget how specific we're getting in terms of you know specifying duplexes or anything like that. Um, but I think we could were you thinking along the lines of saying that, you know, we've got three parcels and we need at least three affordable units. Um, whether that's three of theoretically six with three duplexes or three single families, kind of leaving that open-ended or I don't know how specific we'd want to be. I think that I mean that is is up to you all um how that um how you want to phrase that in terms and we can leave it open in terms of single family versus um versus duplexes. I'm okay with leaving it open because I want to get as many um proposals as possible. I don't want to limit people um right out the gate and then and then go from there. Hope hopefully we'll see some version of of what you just described, but um and I know I think we used Peter's way as an example um explicitly. I don't know if that gets kind of included in the RFP to say, "Hey, we're we're we're thinking of this if that's an option." And I don't know if you can give examples in an RFP, but

in the draft that I have, I'm not comfortable sharing it until we get this sorted out. Okay. Um, but I do have that in my [clears throat] draft. I had that in my notes from last time just in terms of fitting in with the existing development and then using that as an example that um that you all liked. So that's in there.

Just curious, when do you think the draft will be ready for us to review? Like what what are what's your timetable looking like? So, I expect by the next meeting, like in advance of the next meeting, I'll be able to share it. I was expecting to share it this week, full full transparency, and then this question came up about what the affordability um was. So, I just need to update it to reflect this, take out the percentages. Um, I think we'd also discussed an amendment to the comp permit and I think assuming that all of this gets built and goes forward, I I don't think that an amendment to the comprehensive permit um is needed. So, I expect to have a draft in advance of next meeting for you all to look over and we can discuss. So, I'm surprised that we need three units because the um I guess the the way the settlement work they it looked like we only needed two, but um so you said there's there's 16 that have been built, 16 affordable units.

Yeah, I got in touch with Amber and she listed 17. Um I I there's al it's been hard frankly to like look back and parse through the comp permit um the settlement agreement but the comprehensive permit sort of trumps all whatever documents were done. The comprehensive permit is the primary document. Um and that does call for 19. So, if the town has or the trust has evidence that there's 17, I mean, glad to look at that, but according to what the state has on record, there are 16. And from what we could find, there was 16. Um, but this does need to be like um finalized before we can start looking at drafts of the RFP. So if you all think there might be 17, we think there's 16, we should sort out for certain which of those is um is the number in terms of the two or the three. Um because obviously with such a small development, two versus three, it certainly makes a difference.

Yeah, I know. Um, I had had a pretty lengthy conversation with um ZBA's admin um because I couldn't find a final filed copy of the comp permit and there was so there was some litigation associated with this this comp permit um and um when it was challenged the court came back with a few required modifications to the comp permit that we acknowledged. Um, but I don't believe, at least I can't find evidence that a a final updated copy of the comp permit was ever filed. Um, so I've got the original. I've got what the edits need to be. Um, but I think, you know, that's my starting point. Um, unless you guys have been able to find something something better. Um, and then yeah, the only idea I had in terms of trying to to do any further research is, you know, it's only uh what 70 or so units um on the site. Yeah, I can just pull up the deeds for for all the lots and see um see if we find

more. The oro is uh an important detail because if it's uh what we have on the website, which is of course not official. Yeah. Um is 72 single family homes, 18 affordable, but it looks like that may have changed after that was put on the website. It may have been increased. So then that would put us at the 19 needed Yeah.

affordable units. And I can um the vice chair of the ZBA um Bill McCusker was also extremely involved in the settlement agreement. So I could reach out to him to see if he has any any more clarity that that might be able to help us pin it down to is the only other qu not to throw another wrinkle potential wrinkle in the works. Um, another question that came up when I was speaking with the ZBA admin is they've apparently fielded questions they in the building department um about um ADUs within this development and uh at least as of right now they they think they're running into an issue allowing ADUs because the comp permit specifies a maximum number of units in the development. And if that's the case, we could run into an issue with our duplex plan. If the comp permit specifies, say 72 units, um if we're trying to get that to say 75 with three duplexes, um that could be another thing that could end up resulting in a modification to the to the comp permit. Um just so that's on your radar if it if it wasn't already.

[clears throat] That's a big one. Yeah. I mean, I don't know how significant that would be for the ZBA to, you know, to allow a modification for, but um but [clears throat] it would definitely need to be a detail we'd need to address. So, just to kind of explain a little bit so we're not duplicating this kind of like looking into the 70 units. Um, feel free to double check this, but what we had done on our end was look at the regulatory agreement which indicated which lots were to be affordable and then cross check those with the addresses and looked up the addresses and found the deed writers.

Got it. And so you found us all you found the 16 that we that are on the SHI inventory. The SHI inventory doesn't go into detail. That would be something that you would need the town would have on record. Um but we did find the lots and addresses. Um [clears throat] and how I have a a list of um of what we found. Okay.

So, how crucial is that uh amendment to the comp permit about increasing the number of total number of units? Because if we get a proposal in and we love it and then it, you know, are we supposed to modify that before or or is that part of the process? like when do we potentially lose a developer when they realize I don't want to go like I I don't know. These are good questions. [snorts]

So, as long as there are three affordable units that get built, there is no need to amend the comp permit just to like does that makes like that would meet the 19. I get meeting the 19 and I'm I understand that part, but if it's going to exceed the total number of units in the development like he was saying with the ADUs becoming an issue because they can't it would exceed the total number of units. Could we potentially run into that problem ourselves if they're trying to build three duplexes so they get three market rate and three and now it's six and now we're above the total um for the whole project. So that I think would yeah I mean that's a yeah in terms of meeting the affordability requirement this would meet that in terms of other changes that you might need to make that is a good thing to look into.

Okay. And then as far as looking into it let's say let's say it comes back yes this is going to exceed the total number of units allowed. Should we modify it before we go out to RFP or is that something that we do once we have a proposal? I think if it's possible to do it before releasing an RFP, I think that would be attractive to a developer to not have to modify. Okay. So we should definitely look into that

in terms of So the question is if you want to maintain this property on the SHI you need to make sure there's it's 20 20% at 80%. Is that right? 20% of the units 80% AMI.

I think that's how the the original comp permit was drawn up. And so this is a developer that somehow got ahead of um the affordable units with um having built more market rate units ended up at the end of the project where the economics didn't make sense for them anymore to finish. So they had three lots that were left over. We were under the impression that they were they were two affordable um that they had two affordable units left to build and one theoretically um market rate. Um but they entered into a settlement agreement with the town to just be able to walk away from it um as it was constructed. So um it sounds like if all the math checks out, we might need to make sure these three parcels somehow contain at least three affordable units to to maintain the affordability compliance. Um, and then there's this separate kind of newer issuer question on if the comp permit specifies say 72 units in the development. Um, and our concept of three duplexes would push that theoretically to 75. Um, is that something that it sounds like it would be something that the the ZBA would need to approve a modification for? So, so if this if these are units that are related like the ADU would be a separate a separate issue, but if these are in relation to units that the developer would be building, those would be changes that the developer would make because though they would need to have the plans to make those changes. So the ADU issue is a separate thing, but if we're talking about changes based on the units that the developer would be building, those would be changes that the developer would make or those those

amendments to the comp permit the developer would make. And by developer, you're referring to theoretically a developer that responds to the RFP, correct? Yeah, because I think I'd be hesitant to go to the ZBA first, not knowing that a developer is going to agree with us that three duplexes is what might make the most sense. I for sure want to know what the max number of units are allowed and what our wiggle room is now. Like that's something I didn't even that wasn't on my radar, you know, three minutes ago and now that's all I can think about. [cough] I would definitely want to know that just for our Yeah.

sake. Um, but yeah, you it makes sense that the developer would have the plans to because maybe they're all just three single family units that they want to propose and it's not an issue or maybe it still is an issue. We I don't know. We got to find out. I mean, I I also would want to confirm how many units are in the development, like how many actually got built.

Yep. If it's if it's if there's 70 there currently and adding the two affordable units will make it 72 then that would be the by the way it's for some reason 25% in the comprehensive permit even though they're home ownership. So but yeah so if it's 70 currently built then that would mean that whatever happened with the um the settlement makes sense. If it's more than that, if the total number is more than 72 units, then I think it seems like a mistake was made during the settlement, too.

See, but even that's weird. So, so 25% of 72 would be 18. So, I guess Emma is part of the issue that if we're thinking three duplexes now, we've got to keep 25% of 75 units affordable. Cuz it would seem like if we're stuck, if we're focused on 25% of the originally contemplated 72 units, then the target for affordable should be 18. So we can we can look um back at this total number question. Um we can follow up on that question. Um, I do I think that the 19 is listed in the regulatory agreement and the comp permit, which to be quite honest, I think there's some discrepancies in the settlement agreement from what is in the comprehensive permit and the regulatory agreement, which those are the superseding documents. So, we will we can follow up on the total number of units because that's a good question to answer. And then in terms of the the 25% um that is just required under 40B. So that 25% regardless of whether it's home ownership or rental is the requirement under 40B.

I that that makes sense. And the question would be if there's if you're adding more units to the to the total unit count, if it goes up to 75, then you may need another affordable unit to keep the 25% um and keep that on the SHI. Yeah. If the total number of units in the development goes up, is that is that because of the ADUs? No, not because of the ADUs. If there's duplexes that are built, that adds more home home ownership units to the total number of units. There's three parcels, but that could would be six units on three parcels potentially, which would put that to 75. Is that right? Yeah. And you would it would cost um

18.75 and you have to round up. So that would be the only logical way I could get to to 19. Um but and I'm sorry if I confused the issue with the ADU thing. I was just um it was um how the conversation came up with the the ZBA admin um was talking about the the total number of units in the development having been a factor in some of those decisions and and wondering if we might run into the same sort of maximum number of total units in the development. Um that's something that we can follow up on. Um that's something we can follow up on.

Okay. So depending where we land before next meeting, this may be a continued discussion of this. If we can resolve it by email before the next meeting, I can maybe have a drop to share. Um, and Emma, I can I can reach out to you um after the meeting as well to see if we can compare notes on things that we've already researched. Um, okay. And like I say, see if if looping in um Bill McCusker or anybody else with some of the history of the development might be helpful. Um

okay, we have a staff um a colleague here at MHP who is also very well verssed in boardb. So I was going to loop her in and see if I can we can look at some of this together. Sure. And I can can get an answer. So let's definitely plan to be in touch between over the next week. Sounds good. Okay,

any other questions at this point on this? So building just just make sure I'm I'm understanding right. So building like duplexes doesn't violate the comprehensive permit, but making sure that we have that we're still having 25% affordable by the end is is a requirement. Yes.

I believe the only way that duplexes become an issue is if we exceed the total number of units prescribed in the development. So, if we say it made sense to, you know, one of the lots ended up being completely infeasible to develop, we put a duplex on one and a single family on the other. We're still at 72 units. I think we might be good. Got it. Um, you know, I think we'll probably still need to go to the ZBA for some minor modification because, you know, they didn't approve originally a duplex and and things like that. But I think in terms of total numbers and maybe more importantly in terms of the number of affordable units we need to get to. Um I think we would only need two more affordable units in that scenario.

If we exceed 72 then anything above 72 is going to round up to an additional affordable unit which could be what triggers the 19. Um but yeah, I think we need to look into exactly how key that 72 is. Mhm. All right. Yeah. And we can definitely plan to look um look into that and then we can be in touch by email. Um [clears throat] for sure. Sounds good. Thank you.

Hey there. I just want to just recap because that was a lot of information and then just from my own mental um snapshot of this. It sounds like there's kind of two distinct action items from this. So the first one being Emma, her colleague and Brian are going to connect about researching around the affordability aspect, confirming the number that we already have. Um, and then someone from the Affordable Housing Trust will get in touch with the ZBA to share this potential project that we may be getting an RFP proposal back with duplexes. We don't know yet. How will that work? And do we need to like assign an owner for that? I mean, I could take Bill's kind of temperature at a high level. Um, you know, the ZBA doesn't typically have kind of planning type meetings like the the planning board occasionally entertains where um, you know, applicants can kind of present um, concepts of a of a plan. Uh, just kind of take a temperature. Um, ZBA doesn't usually engage in that. At least they haven't in the the year and a half or so that I've been on. Um, but I can just see conceptually if um, you know, Bill's got decades of experience on the ZBA. Um, see if he has any thoughts on on kind of a best path forward. Um,

okay. Awesome. Thanks, Brian, for doing that. Is there anything else that we need to kind of make sure someone takes ownership of that we are kind of working towards over the next month before our next meeting? or were those the two main things? I think those are the two main things that were really important. Okay, one quick question is Christian, are you should I loop you in on emails for this? I've been I think Amber has been my contact at the town. Should I include both of you moving forward or what is helpful?

You can do that. I can get in the loop on this and maybe do some research as questions come up and assist on on this. So, yes, you can. Okay, cool. Anything else on uh high point? I'm good. All right. Uh, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks so much. And Next, we got uh update on 25 Worcester Street. Uh Andy, do you want to take it away?

Be happy to. Uh first, thank you for letting me uh attend remotely. It's a long way to Keen, New Hampshire, as I think you know, as as scenic as Grafton is, uh we've had quite a bit of movement. Uh uh I'm giving you some uh I have sent to Amber and I can share on the screen our latest site uh plan and the uh changes which have been very insignificant. We've moved around a couple of parking places to uh stay out of the uh uh parking buffers. uh and uh I think we uh uh are presenting pretty much exactly the same plan to the state that we have as we originally presented uh to the town and uh our uh uh since we uh last met or I last updated you, we have uh had Buller, as you may recall, we needed to get a waiver from the state to allow us to use Bowler Engineering who had done uh work on the parcel for the town uh that was granted. We've been working with them and with our architects the HK to uh reconcile their uh survey and civil drawings with the architectural plans and we have them reconciled and all on one CAD uh system. I if you'd like to take a look at the site plan uh I can share it. I've sent it to Amber so uh she can uh feel free to distribute it to the members uh if you'd prefer to look at it in uh detail on your own screens. Uh

are you able to share your call on that? [clears throat] C do you have the ability to share your screen Andy? Uh I think I do if you let me. Let me see. Sharing is not turned on. The host isn't allowing sharing for this webinar. Um well I I maybe I can share it. Um Amber sent it to the uh affordable housing trust email uh four hours ago. So all right, let's see.

And we we just had our uh weekly site meeting this afternoon. So, uh, that should be pretty much the latest version, but as you'll recall, there we go. Oh, no, that's the other one. Oops. My apologies. Um, give me Oh, I need I will need that, too. That's That's the one I need help with. Okay. It says civil sight drawing I think.

Okay, my apologies.

That's it. So, as you can see from this, this is virtually identical to uh the uh plan we uh uh have present had presented initially when this project started. Uh the uh uh parking area to the left is enlarged by one space I believe and the parking area to the right is reduced by one space uh to uh keep everything within the setbacks. The uh uh beyond that it's the same number of parking units. It has the same uh outdoor amenity areas and uh is built on the same footprint. Uh what I do want to note uh in uh looking at this is that the grade we've have uh had the grades from the bowler original survey of the site integrated with the uh the uh architectural plans and we're going to have a pretty good sized uh grade uh on the building. So what we considered today was the uh opportunity to uh essentially build the floor plan on two levels. kind of like a split level house from the uh 60s or 70s where the one to the right on your screen uh although they're both the same uh uh structure and would share elevators and circulation space and so forth. The uh uh right side would be dropped down in grade slightly to uh there's if you see there are two entrances uh onto Worcester Street, one to the left, one to the right. The grade

separating those two entrances is almost 20 feet. So in uh 100 ft of building, we have to lose about 20 feet of grade. And that's going to require some additional retaining wall structure. And uh it may actually be best to sort of, as I said, build it like a a 60s split level uh home. But uh other than that, it doesn't change the layout, number of units uh or square footage. So that's so that's the only thing uh that is significantly different that is going in to our submission to the state. Uh the architect is working with bowler to uh uh calculate the exact heights required and uh their work is should be done in about two weeks. So we're very close to ready being ready to submit. I can't give you a specific date, but the architectural and engineering firms should have their work done in about two weeks. Uh again, it's consolidating two different uh sets of of uh CAD files to uh uh make everything uh uh accurate to the to the inch. Uh so if you have any questions on the design or the layout, uh please fire away. No, no. Thank you for the update. The I guess my only question would be making it split level like that. I'm just trying to picture in my mind would it would still be accessible for seniors that might have mobility issues.

Absolutely.

Great. It it's it there are some tricks involved in in doing that but uh uh everybody today felt that we would be able to accommodate it uh within the footprint that we already have. So hopefully we'll uh we'll have specifics on that. The thing that we may have to ask the state for is uh possibly at some point in the uh uh length of the building uh going over the 35t height limitation uh of zoning. It won't be by much, but we do feel like we should ask uh for that as uh a potential possible request for a waiver is the 35 uh uh foot from uh sill to roof peak. We have, as you may remember, uh we have uh kind of a low hip roof on the whole building to fit in with the character of the surrounding neighborhood. Uh we didn't want to do a flat roof building because it is uh less compatible with the uh surrounding architecture. Uh but uh I I'm thinking after today's meeting that we will probably uh say that we may possibly need a waiver on the 35- ft height requirement. Uh if so, it won't be by much and it will probably be only on a portion of the building, but that's uh that's the only uh deviation from uh uh the the basic uh compliance issues that we've already uh included. It's everybody's getting it to to go sort of off script. Uh everybody is getting excited as this turns closer and

closer into a uh a real building with real uh structured uh detail inside uh the footprint of the building. We're we're uh our architecture firm DHK Associates has uh starting to get ramped up and uh Bowler uh who we had not worked with before but because of the potential conflict with the engineer we generally use who does who is the town reviewing engineer uh we thought bowler was the best way to get this piece uh together. We got waiverss from the state on that and they've been fantastic to work with. I cannot uh overstate how flexible and creative and how well they've worked with our architects uh again who have not worked with them on another project. So that's that's the general shape of the project. Uh I'd like if you are prepared to briefly review the environmental uh situation.

Can I ask a quick question before we go on to environmental? Of course. And it might it's just a design thing. As somebody who's on CPC, we always put a sign um acknowledging the contribution that CPA made to whatever project. Is there any way we can include something like that for this project to acknowledge that the Affordable Housing [snorts] Trust's contribution to this project? Oh, sure. Absolutely. Thank you.

That we couldn't do it without you. Absolutely. Um Andy, I have one other question. Um uh is would it be advisable or appropriate to um before you actually go before I This is going to go before ZBA, right? Yes. Um to give them sort of an early preview to just make sure there's no sort of deal breakers. Yes. We need to get the project eligibility letter from the state first.

Okay. And that is the uh that tri that generally triggers the uh uh approach to uh uh the local uh uh comp permit process. Okay. Um as I guess I would as early as we can. It would be really good to just have

as soon as we as soon as we sort of f in my experience the worst thing you can do with a ZBA is say we're going to need A, B, and C. Uh give them a heads up, say we're going to need A, B, and C. And then go back to them and say well we don't need B, but we need D and E. And uh so I want to have the uh the possible waiverss.

Yeah. uh uh firmed up in maximum detail uh before we do that. But yes, that is definitely uh and again other than uh a couple of uh setback issues which are real minor uh and the uh potential for going over 35 ft uh due to the nature of the site. Y uh I I don't think there'll be anything significant. Okay.

Uh the lawyer is putting together uh the list and when we when we have it finalized, uh I I I do think it's perfectly appropriate and we'd be happy to uh approach the ZBA. Awesome. Yeah. I just obviously want to do everything that we can to make the ZBA process as frictionless as possible. So I appreciate Absolutely. Yep. [laughter] So, if you'd like, I can go on to the environmental now, which is a weird uh flex. Uh, is that this other map here?

Can you bring the Sandborn Fire maps up? It's a two-page. There we go. All right. Now, if you can uh All right. That's That's the plot. And that little building in the middle is the school. Uh you can enlarge I don't know if you can enlarge it, but if you do enlarge it, you will see that there's a little black box in the middle of the building footprint. And the coding on the Sanford maps indicates that that is an oil storage tank.

What? This is 1904 and any school I've ever encountered in 1904 was heated by coal. And it wasn't until uh at the very earliest the 1920s that they started to replace coal with oil tanks. So, it's extremely rare to see an oil tank show up on uh a 1904 uh Sandborn map. Uh the Sandborn map for 1910 also shows the same black box, but it's kind of smudged. And then in the 1920s it disappears where which by the coding of the Sanford maps would indicate that they had removed the oil tank in the 1920s and either developed the first Edison electric heating plant or put a coal bunker in. I don't think that happened, but you never know. So if you go down to page two, you'll see the same thing show up again. Okay. Right in the middle of the school. It's moved slightly. It's it's about 20 ft uh to the left of the map, but uh but it's there. And it's coded as an oil tank uh or petroleum tank. This uh and I'm going to get in the weeds here uh a little bit. Uh the uh we think the maps are miscoded. We didn't find any evidence of buried tanks, but the school there is some dispute over when the school was finally or let's say there are varying accounts of when the school was finally demolished and uh uh under what environmental regulations and conditions

it was done. I have been told by probably the most authoritative person uh that it was uh probably the 1970s that it was uh finally taken down which would indicate that they had some environmental rules and practices and they probably didn't just bury over the uh an old oil tank and dump and push the building into the cellar hole which was what was done in earlier years as I'm sure you've all encountered at one time or another. So anyway, uh we can do a ground penetrating radar scan of this particular area. It's fairly expensive, but I I feel about GPR scans the same way attorneys feel about asking a question of a witness in open court. Don't ask the question unless you know the answer already. Uh so what I'm hoping to find out uh and again this is this is all in our environmental report uh which uh we had uh Hetti HTI uh do they're very respected company uh and their phase one uh shows this information these pages are extracted from their report. Uh so what I what would be extremely helpful the heady person the environmental tech who did this report uh reached out to the town to talked to the building department. Nobody can find any records of the demolition of the school building. Who did it? What the contract was? How much it cost? Uh any plan specifications or permits. Uh she was unable to get any from the building department. any accounts, any records,

even any sort of firstperson accounts that said that said, "Oh, yeah, they tore that down in uh 1978 or 1983, and I don't remember seeing any uh uh uh hazardous waste trucks hauling anything out." And I'm pretty sure they pushed the material into the cellar hole or I'm pretty sure they uh hauled all the material away. anything that uh anybody in in town, anybody reliable uh could uh come up with in terms of information would greatly inform the scope of the uh ground penetrating radar analysis and further uh environmental research that we have to do. I will tell you honestly that if there is a large oil tank under where the school used to be, that can seriously jeopardize the ability to do the project. I don't think there is. I am I I've read through the records. I looked at the original Sandborn maps, not the sort of lowresolution scans that they uh furnish, and I don't think there was ever an oil tank there. I think there was a coal bunker and somehow it shows up looking like an oil tank. Uh uh but uh in any event it had disappeared by 1922 I think. And that's that's the only cautionary thing we've discovered in the whole process through the environmental records and everything else. Uh, I would think if they took it down in the 70s or 80s, they would have had to at least note, oh yeah, we found a 2,000galon oil tank. Uh but

any help that anybody in town or in town government whether in terms of records or just in terms of recollections uh any information on when the school was demolished, how it was done, who did it, uh and whether any permits were pulled uh would be really helpful in focusing where we do the ground penetrating radar, how extensive a study we uh form, and whether we have to do test borings or diggings which gets god-awful expensive. That's the only significant well the only snag I won't call it a significant snag because it may be nothing. So, in like the worst case scenario, like what kind of expense are we talking about to to fully clean up the

I just worked on a site in another town where they spent about a half a million dollars. Uh, and it was a smaller, it was a factory uh setup that had some kind of a tank that stored some industrial product. It wasn't a big tank. You would, if this school were heated with oil, it's a big old uninsulated school. I know you've seen photos of it. The windows were huge, three stories tall. Uh, it would have taken an extremely large oil tank to heat it. I don't think it ever did, but again, that's what the only physical record, the only paper record that we have indicates. So, uh, assuming even if there were even if it was an oil tank, if they drained the tank properly, dug it out and removed it properly and put uh appropriate fill over it, you know, it's it's a $50,000 item in a $520 million project. If they left stuff underground, it's a whole different story. And just being completely unfamiliar with with these maps and and kind of the way these things would be depicted, um you're confident that if this is in fact an oil tank, it would be a buried oil tank as opposed to something that might have sat in the basement of the high school.

It could have sat in the basement. It those are interchangeable.

Okay? But it but again it doesn't make much difference. If there's a 2,000galon oil tank in the basement area of the school, it would have had to been been properly drained uh and and uh filled uh and cleaned up when when the school was demolished. If they didn't do that, if they just filled in the cellar and gee, there's a tank left there that has some inestimable uh quantity of heating oil in it. Uh we don't know what was in it when the demolition happened. Uh if it's in the basement or it's buried another 10 ft down, it doesn't really make any difference. It's still a big expense. I don't think that's the case. My gut tells me this is just a poor drawing. You do find them from time to time, inaccurate drawings from time to time. It's not impossible. But again, any kind of either paper record of the demolition of the school or any kind of firsthand uh accounts or witnesses from somebody who was around when the school was demolished uh and remembers it would would really help me. uh eliminate any risks on this and avoid any major uh expenses to find nothing. I mean, if I spend $50,000 uh uh doing test borings and ground penetrating radar, I've added that finds nothing. I've found nothing at a cost of something else that we could put into the uh into the building. you know, anything anything you spend on tests unless they produce uh significant changes in the building uh

is sort of wasted money. So, that's my uh plea. Now, if we have to, we'll do the ground penetrating radar. I don't think we'll do that until we've submitted all of the uh paperwork to the state and gotten our approval. Uh because we, you know, quite honestly have to borrow money to do this. And if it's enough of a problem that it kills the project, that's our problem. If it's uh so and we're a nonprofit agency, we don't have vast cash reserves. Uh so uh and we don't have any for-profit units or any non senior non-affordable units in this project to offset the additional costs. So uh so what it comes down to is we'll do what we have to do to make sure that there isn't a problem on this site. Uh but if we do that exploration work and it turns out there isn't a problem, it's I won't say wasted money uh because I'll sleep better. Uh and uh you know Tylenol PM is expensive. Uh but if uh uh if we do that work and it discovers something, it'll either it'll what we're going to find is in all likelihood and again this is based on my 50 years of doing this stuff on various old uh public sites and industrial sites. We'll either find something that really changes the parameters of the deal. It mostly makes it much much smaller uh you know 24 instead of 48 units let's say. or it'll be no problem. And we've just spent the money to reassure ourselves that there's no problem. There's no middle ground like it's going to be uh uh you know a problem that uh can inexpensively be solved. And I just wanted to go over that again.

This is just being fully transparent. I there is nothing that was found on this that uh Hedi would uh say would eliminate us from applying to the state or uh eliminate us from developing housing on this site. But I am going to have to do further explor explorations to make sure that that is the case and any guidance, any recollections, any paperwork that shows when the school was demolished, who demolished it, what it cost, and any anything else uh from that time period would be really helpful in narrowing down the amount of money I'm going to uh expend uh exploring this Uh Sarah,

I just I just I have a question. Um I kind of have two things. One towards Andy and then to the group. Um so Andy, as part of this process, basically you're you're at a fork in the road of making a decision. I just want to clarify this of whether we make the decision right now to do more intensive kind of radar testing which is an expense or the other path is we will as part of this there will be radar testing anyway as part of the development. It just will be the degree to which

I I don't want to drop 10 grand or 15 grand on something until I am a little further down the road with having a peel letter and having as much information about what looks at the site about what people know about the site historically. Uh it it seems doing it right now is like, [snorts] you know, buying uh pesticide to cover 5 acres of land when there's only uh you know, 200 square feet that that really could be a problem with whatever it is you're trying to kill off.

Sure. Okay. And so that makes sense and that makes me feel better that there actually there will be kind of that that double check. So then like to everyone else in the room, how should we approach this in terms of even getting like firsthand accounts? I mean, I'm sure there's yearbooks, crafting yearbooks at the library. Should we like go back to that and try to find if there are residents still here? Um, I'll be happy to go out and do some personal research with interviewing or with talking to anybody in town or with going to the library. Uh uh I mean you're you're far away. I mean I my kids still alive.

I'm in I'm in Worcester. I'm 20 minutes. I'm far away when I sleep

but try to sleep but uh uh but but we're in Worcester and uh uh the environment and if we do when we do go to the next stage of environmental investigation, the firm we use and the individual who's been our tech that's worked on this who is wonderful. If if the town needs environmental reviews, uh I've been just thoroughly pleased with the diligence that this uh firm and and their uh tech Stephanie Woods has shown in finding problems for me to investigate. Uh so so yeah, we that's no problem. It's just I'd like to get as much of a head start on what should we be looking for and where on the site should we be looking for it uh before we

I'm so surprised we don't have a record of that of when the school was closed and when and then when it was demolished. I think there is if I recall correctly there is a record of when the school was closed. Uh, it was closed in the very early 60s, I think. And I'm just relying on my memory, not on any notes at this point, but uh, real quick,

it was closed in the very early 60s. It was used to, as most towns do, to, you know, store lawnmowers or, uh, spare classroom equipment or whatever. And, uh, then sometime, and I, again, I've had there are two written records that are entirely different. Uh, and the Uh it was I think maybe 197475 and uh or uh or early 80s uh and I can I can personally remember the school standing there uh and I graduated high school in 1970 uh and by 1970 when we would play Grafton High School in athletic contest that wasn't Grafton High school it was in use. it was standing, but it wasn't sure as heck wasn't Grafton High School. So, anybody who knows anything about that would be really really helpful to contact and Stephanie and I will both do some research on it before we uh uh deploy all of the uh uh technical resources.

Uh Nicole, go ahead. What about the This might be silly, but the Grafton um historical society, even if they had some information about the functionality of the school at the time when it was functioning, like whether or not that was a coal bunker versus the oil tank type of thing, like even if we could find some documentation on that, that might might be helpful. That is most definitely not silly. And that is exactly the kind of thing I would like to do. Would um would interior pictures help reveal what kind of heating system they might very well. Okay.

So, just so everyone knows, I I already emailed the historical society. I emailed Skip Courier and I reached out to Jen Puzzi because she wrote an article about that piece of property and she cited 1980 is the year it was demolished. That's that's one of the sources that I saw was the 1980 reference, but some somewhere else there's a written reference of it being uh demolished sometime in the 70s. And again, I was I was around I spent time in Grafton and I recall seeing the building, but I'm sure it wasn't in use as a high school. That would have been I don't know 1970s, late

60s. So, in the 70s, so somebody posted a photo of the building from 1972, and then there's 63 comments under us on on Facebook. So, the these are the people we need to talk to. Um, and apparently it was called the canteen and it was like a recreation center at that time. Yeah. All right. So, yeah, I think I think uh reaching out to some of these people might be a good uh a good lead.

All right. Well, number one, a big out of town developer uh doesn't generally cold call people like this even though we're neither big nor far out of town. And number two, some people might still be uh some of the older folks that were uh familiar with it in those days might still be familiar with the fact that uh my high school beat your high school in 1969 for the Southern Worcester County Championship. Uh that was a joke. uh the uh so yeah any anyone on the group or anyone who's an interested party who could uh uh introduce me to one or more people that have comments and memories of that building in that use at that time. Boy, that's going to save a lot of time and a lot of money.

Okay. So, just to confirm part of that process because I actually have two neighbors that have are like third generation or like anyway, uh kind of cool story. Um so I'll go knock on their doors because they've definitely been here since the 60s. Um and then I would if they do have that information, I would need to connect them with you.

Yes, you have my email. email. Email is the best way to reach out and I'll provide my my personal cell to anybody who wants to volunteer any information. And if somebody that went to high school there in 1958 can say, "Oh, yeah, we had coal bunkers or no, they replace that in the 50s or any kind of information from that." Okay,

that that's the kind of stuff I'm looking for. Anecdotal stuff will narrow down the search. uh will reassure me that reassure us WCHR that there isn't a giant lake of uh oil under the former building footprint uh and let us get on with the work without pausing to do a whole lot of radar work. Okay, sounds good. You guys are the best. Anything else? Uh

u Mr. Chair, just um unrelated to the to the maps. Um uh and Andy, I really appreciated the the narrative that you um you put together and and sent over. Um I just wanted to call out one small thing in case um in case that narrative was becoming part of the project eligibility package or anything else. Um you cited a a 2.4% 24% increase in cost. I think that should actually be a 24% increase. I'm sorry, that is a typo. Yes.

Yeah. So, you know, um yeah, I think I think the point you make about, you know, the the total cost still coming in less than 500,000 um dollars a unit is is salient and still true. Um I just wanted to call that out in case this was going anywhere else. Yeah, I fortunately I have people to proofread my work and uh just by by the way we uh uh I don't I believe you've met virtually uh our uh junior project manager uh Noah Sher who is graduating from Clark with a master's in uh community development next week and will be joining us full-time as a full project manager. And so he's going to be working with me on this project. And uh we have another project manager. We you may have heard we got funded for our permanent supportive housing uh project in Worcester at the old hotel. We got funded for uh four tiny homes that the city uh had nobody to develop and they asked us to uh uh jump in. We're start groundbreaking is next Tuesday. So I now have two full-time uh excellent project managers in with masters in community development and uh Aiden and uh they both have central massroots. Aiden and Noah will uh be appearing on our behalf from time to time as we as we move as quick as we can toward construction. You all have my email and I am very open to answering any questions uh uh responding to any town contacts or

people that that want uh more information. We'll try to be very transparent about what we're doing, how we're doing it as we move down the road on this. Great.

It's a long road. These are not easy projects, but uh I feel very good about it. Uh about where we are today. We're we're we're fairly uh happy with the construction pricing. We're fairly happy with the uh uh uh we're very happy with the results of the environmental uh study with the exception of that darn black box in the middle of the school. I I tried to tell them it was an internet router. They weren't buying it, though. They're very big back then. Yeah. I mean,

any any other questions at any time? Just a comment. Just thank you so much for all your work on this. This is really awesome. So, thank you. Yeah. I I I think Yes. Thank you. I think you're all going to like it and I think the town is going to like it. Uh, you know, it's [laughter] it it's been fun to to work on. Uh, there there are parts of my job that are not terribly fun. This is a fun part of the job and our staff and our agency are very dedicated to doing this type of housing. We have a great team on board for this project and uh I'm very confident that we'll get where we need to go.

Right. Have a great night. [sighs] All right. Thank you very much. Yep. Thanks. Thanks. Byebye. All right. Treasures report.

All right. So, can be a fairly quick one. Um, not a lot of great news. Um, but, uh, so invest I'm sure if any of you were watching your own personal um, investments or the stock market in the news, uh, March was not a good month. Uh fortunately, you know, April and May have been better. So hopefully we see a pickup, but um we did lose uh just shy of $30,000 in our investments during the month of of March. We're still up significantly on the year. Um those investments are still, you know, working out very well overall. Um just March was a bit of a dud. And then you might see the third to the row to the bottom. Um there was a payroll adjustment. Um Mary connected with me when I asked her for the the March update um to let me know that they had been misapplying certain um payroll charges to us that that did not belong to us.

Um and so they they identified the issue and credited that back out of our accounts and put it where it belonged in the town's accounts um as of [clears throat] March 24th. Um, and so that was, you know, it's good that it was caught and good that it was replenished. Um, I thought for a second it might cause a little bit of a headache based on how we handle our admin expenses and and shift between the the CPA and nonCPA side of the house. It just so happens that as of when that adjustment came through um year to date after meeting the cap um that 10% cap on um that we applied to the CPA side of the house um we had incurred just over $5,000 worth of um admin related expenses on the nonCPA side of the house. So, um, rather than having to do some sort of split or kind of figure it out, say, well, since we've already incurred more than the amount of the adjustment on the nonCPA side of the ledger, um, we'll just apply the entire adjustment there. Um, since that's where it would have eventually flown anyway. Um, so that's the almost $5,000 adjustment you see there. Um, that's it. And I did confirm, so as part of the payroll um piece, I did confirm with Mary the only payroll. I wasn't sure um I think it came up even when we had the forum and somebody asked a question um you know what uh payroll charges we were responsible for. I wasn't sure if we got an allocation from say even Fiona or or any other staff. Um apparently it should only be Amber's time that's getting allocated to us. So, it should be fairly predictable. And if we see any other blips, um, I can follow up with with Mary to see if there's a reason for those. But that's about it.

Thank you again so so [laughter] much. You will never not be impressive to me. Well, now it's easy. Now it's just one email a month to Mary and and she's she's very responsive and and get gets back to us quickly. So, Mary is great. Yeah, [snorts] that's it. All right. Any questions uh on the treasures report before we move on to our next and most fun agenda item, I think before.

Yeah. Before we get that, you know, I guess we don't really know how the next couple weeks are going to play out. Um I don't know if uh for example, Mr. often has applied to um to join the trust as a full full member as of the next cycle. But um if this happens to be the the last meeting of of either Mr. Offen or Miss Roy, um thank you. But either [clears throat] way, see how see how it all plays out. Thanks for the reminder. Yeah, awesome working with everybody and um I love all the projects that are going on. It's uh really it's great to see so much activity happening. So, uh I don't know. Probably not. I need a break.

You've earned it. You've earned it. Uh but I I love the trust. I love all the work that you guys are doing and um it is something that uh sort of throughout my tenure on the board uh has definitely um raised in terms of my priorities. Um it was something that wasn't as much when I first got on the board, but um boy is housing needed. Um and uh yeah, so thank you. Thanks for uh everything you've done for uh affordable housing in Grafton. You're going to come to the groundbreaking ceremony though, right? Yeah. Yeah, sure. Yeah. Good. Absolutely. We'll have a shovel for you.

All right. Motion to adjurnn. Second. All right. Motion to second. Uh do roll call. I Dan I Brian I Matt I uh Nicole I and Sarah I we are adjourned. Thanks guys. Thanks everyone.