Master Plan Working Group - Regular Meeting

[Music] Call this meeting to order officially at 4 minutes past 7 on Monday, April 7th, 2025. I will call may do a roll call. Uh Bob Carol, Victoria Duckworth here, Lindsay Fox is Fiona say Lindsay is not able to make it. Amry Foley here. Deborah George, Brian Hoo here. Dantel Kimble here. Petri here. David Robbins is here. Sue Robbins here. Colleen Roy and Roshanna Tangi. Okay. And with us we have of course town planner Fiona Coughlin and uh Sarah O'Brien from our CMRPC team. So we will proceed. We have one action item on the agenda and that is to approve the minutes of the March 3 meeting. Um any additions or corrections to be noted? Any uh motion to be made? I move we approve the meeting minutes for March 3rd as written. Second. Moved and seconded. Any discussion of the motion? I never received any uh copy of the of the minutes, so I can't uh I can't vote on that. Okay. So, uh, oh, yeah. So, with no, uh, with no

discussion, uh, we'll call for a vote. Victoria Duckworth. Hi, Henry Foley. I'm not abstain. I just I don't think I've seen them either. Sorry. Okay. Brian HL I abstain. Shantel Kimble I. Essri I. David Robbins votes I. Sue Robbins I. And declare the motion carried by a vote of five in favor, none against and two abstensions. All right. So moving on to the uh main items our agenda. We have the formatted draft plan and implementation matrix review. Um, how do we want to go through this? I know I have a number of comments and some questions I want the group to answer regarding the draft plan. But, uh, uh, any any suggestions for how we want to go through this as a group here tonight? So, um Sarah, I don't know if you if you want to chime in, but um I was thinking that we could just have CMRPC give a summary of the comments. I mean, I we we did circulate them for for review. I I'm sure nobody not everybody got to see them um because there was there was quite a good amount. Um but uh I I think that may be most efficient for Seamar PC to kind of give a summary of the comments that were received and what were what were implemented and what can require further discussion from the working group so that we can um spend most of the time focusing on um the ones

that are um that garner a bit a bit more um discussion. Sarah, if if you disagree with that, you let me know. If I can preface the discussion with a little bit of technical notes too because at this point we have a lot of different documents flying around and if it be helpful to the committee I'd love to just go over you know what we have for distribution too. Yeah. That'd be great. So in your folder we moved all the previous drafts to kind of like an archive folder. So, you do still have them if you want to go back and forth or review, you know, what has changed. Uh, we followed the formatting that we went over with, uh, way back when with Elena and the non-chapter elements. So, that same kind of formatting. There's two versions of the full draft plan. One says compressed, one does not. The compressed one is because it is long. uh if you have trouble with your internet or your computer, it's the easier one to open and reference. Um but you will notice some of the pictures are blurry and little design things like that. If there's a picture that's blurry in the other version, then that's a note we would love to love. But the compressed version will look a little funky design-wise, and that will not be the version that will be dispersed to the public. That's just for your ease in opening it and scanning through it. um the design for those files is not as complete as it will be because the language isn't 100% set and we will go over some changes tonight that will be happening in the next round. Uh so little things like spacing and alignment and you'll see sometimes the action item header is on one page and the text is under another page. That's because we don't have the language locked in yet. So we can't do those little nitpicky design things that will come at the end. So, I'll give that

little disclaimer. Um, if you don't like pictures or colors or bigger things like that, for sure you can let us know, but you won't find perfect alignment on the text at this point, but we wanted to get that out to you to see what the final plan will look like. I know you've been very patient with the ugly word documents. Uh, so thank you for that. And then we have the same comment matrix we've been using for the draft chapters. I archived all the other tabs in red. So, those are no longer active. Um, those are all comments that we've addressed in previous rounds. And then there's a green tab now for these next round of comments. In the notes column, I uh kind of used tense a little to tell you if it's been implemented in the draft that you have currently. And then there are other comments that didn't make it into the current draft. So, those will be in the next one. Uh, so this is where it starts to get a little bit confusing, but I hope that's helpful to see. I used implemented to say it's been already done and then will change, will fix will be in the next draft that you'll be seeing. Uh, and we wanted to hold off on sending you that just so we could go over this as a committee and make sure all these changes are okay before we implement them. So, I think that's all the Yeah. Oh, and then we have the implementation matrix which is not in word version or inesign version which is the software we're using. That will remain in Excel um unless you'd like it to look better. We find towns usually like Excel because you can edit it as you go and check things off and use it to track progress. We've also talked about I think in the last meeting converting it into something like Air Table which would let you integrate it into a website if you wanted to um or have multiple people changing it kind of similar to

SharePoint. So at this point it is in Excel. We can still have comments on that in the same um comment matrix as the one we're using for the draft plan. What would be super helpful for this committee especially uh we have the lead and partner columns. if you are on a board or committee that you think should be the lead for a specific action item or would be a good partner or there those little local tidbits that we should know. Um specifically looking for comments on that would be very helpful or if there are other smaller plans that certain boards, departments, committees have that we want to align with for the priority column and the um time frame column. That could be a great opportunity to do that too. But yeah, if we could spend a little bit of time going over some content changes we've uh been recommended since the last time we spoke. There are a few bigger ticket items we would say. And then I see some of you are in this sheet. That's great. If there's other things you want to talk about or discuss tonight um be happy to do so. And I think there's a discussion to be had about the timeline moving forward. We could do that now or later. Fiona and Mr. chair. Yeah, I think um I know we're I'm sure we're all kind of uh yeah anxious to get this done. I'm I'm also pretty sure that we would like to make sure that it is as complete as we can reasonably make it. Um, and I I suspect that with the uh the the body of the draft plan, I think, you know, there's there are a few a few comments that uh items that we're going to want to discuss this evening, kind of try to get something nailed down.

And probably by the time we're done with the discussion this evening, we'll have a pretty good sense of how much more how much work is left to do in the draft plan. The implementation matrix, that's sort of a uh there there's there there's more on that that I think probably more work that still needs to be done. Um so I I I don't want to rush things through. I know we've got we've we've got a desire to uh you know offer this up at the May town meeting for a town meeting vote of approval. Um my sense is that time is a little tight for that but we I'm sort of open to suggestions for how we want to proceed with that. uh you know sort of we could also make the mistake of really you know just working on it and working it and you know refining it and refining it to to the point where we're never really quite done and I don't I don't think we want we don't want to do that either. So I' I' I'd be looking for everybody's sense of you know how much more work and maybe after we're done with the you know the discussion of the of the draft plan and whatever we discussed tonight with the the implementation matrix maybe the time we're by the time we're done that we'll we'll have a better sense of how much yeah how much more time we think we're going to need as a committee to get this ready uh and and what the next steps are going to be is sort of an obvious Guess next step is has to be presenting it to the planning board for the planning board's review and approval. That's probably has to that that sort of has to you that's one of the first things that once we think we're done with it that's first place it has to go but and then beyond that what else do we

want to do and and you know without without trying to get into too much of a detailed discussion right now on the implementation matrix and the implementation plan there's there's probably quite a bit more that we can do to uh to to refine that and expand band it. Uh but at some point we could say as far as the master plan is concerned, you know, we've got an implement implementation matrix and then we hand that off to an implementation team to to drill down into more detail. Just as one example of something that's going to have to be done is there are several action items which are really the same thing showing up in different chapters. So we want to we want to be able to uh connect all the related action items together so that we end up with although it appears as multiple action items in the in the implementation matrix it's really one task that some board or committee or you know group will will end up doing. So, I've I've identified some of those, but it's going to take some more work to sort of review the 167 action items, which is more than I was hoping we'd end up with. But I think it it condenses down into a somewhat smaller number when it's translated into actual work that that's going to be done. But some of that, you know, scheduling, assigning to uh to to responsible parties and you know, correlating related action items and dependencies. This action that has to be done before that has to be done. That is something we could at least contemplate having the implementation team do. So we don't have to we don't necessarily have to get that all nailed down in the

published plan with the with an implementation matrix. I I I think we we may and and we again we can talk about this more after I think after we've gone through what we what we mainly want to go through this evening your hand is up. Yeah. Thanks Mr. Chair. So I just wanted to just b give just a little bit of additional background. So obviously, you know, we're here tonight to review the kind of final version of the of the draft plan and the implementation matrix as covered by Sarah and Mr. Chair, but this these comments. So I did a kind of internal um email to boards and committee members and staff and department heads in the town of Grafton to kind of glean their initial feedback that matrix that Sarah has that people are in and see and that was in my email. That's that's the comments that we're looking at. So to Dave's point, you know, tonight we're going to go through those and depending on the discussion, you know, this could take a little bit longer because we still do need to have additional public comment period as well. So it's really up to the working group to decide their comfort level with moving forward um and take taking the time and waiting until you know fall. the planning board approval can can come at there's really no kind of scheduled time. Obviously, we're at the mercy of town meeting twice a year. So, you're kind of running the risk of, you know, having it not on people's radar for about four months um between the town meetings or trying to see what we can do um and get, you know, all final approvals and and and comfort and and a good comfort level from the group by ideally by the 5th. But um you know it really is up to the working group what they would like to do. I was um I just kind of wanted to make it known that there is another there's going to be another public comment period for a couple of weeks and then

those th those comments need to be incorporated as well. So it's feasible but might be you know might might be a little challenging to get it all. So just something to consider and Marie. Hi. Thank you. Yeah, I was going to just say something similar. You know, if we're looking at five weeks and having to have it go before planning in addition to I don't know if it comes through select board and obviously a public comment period. I would hate to um at this point I appreciate, you know, pushing it off another four or five months doesn't sound appealing either, but it would be a shame to um to try to push this process, especially like the public comment period through in such a short time. Um but again my first go around with something like this. So why don't we proceed through the the comments that we want to talk about this evening on the draft plan. And you know and I think you know that I I think I have a few things that I want to you know that I had not previously written down as a comment but I'd like things I'd like the group's opinion on. So we'll start with what Sarah's prepared to go through. Awesome. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Uh if you are in the chapter comments document, um the ones that I highlighted in yellow, thank you are ones that I think are bigger changes. Uh if there are ones highlighted in that are not highlighted in yellow that we want to discuss, I'm totally open to that. Most of those changes are in the narrative rather than the action item, objective or goal text. Um or they're just smaller problems that are in a 300page document that needed to be fixed. Uh so the first one is getting

to what Dave was talking about some of these action items that I think the goal is to have every chapter stand on its own in a way but when you put it all together some of it is redundant and those separate lenses of chapters um aren't as helpful for an implementation committee. So the first action item that was suggested to go was action item 3.1.5 in housing. Um so that was the first action item was about mixeduse development by transit centers and the second one was about mixeduse development. Um so those were combined. Um the second change was under economic development under action item 1.1.2 two uh was very close to action item 2.5.1 in the land use chapter. Uh let me rack my brain about which one this was. I think it was about priority um development parcels. So a plan to go through the town and look at priority parcels um for the town to develop or incentivize development. So we deleted the one under economic development and left it under land use just because it was bigger than just businesses. It was also some housing and preservation as well. Uh I think if we scroll down a bit to the next yellow um row 37. Oh, this one I would love to crowdsource a little bit. In the food map under quality of life, we have um a few spots that this commenter was not sure which places they were. It might be places that are now closed that we should erase off the map.

But if you want Fion and I can share my screen with this map instead if we want to go through it now or the committee can come back to this comment and provide some guidance if there's one on Snow Road and one on Upton Street. This was that life that Oh, sorry. Yeah. Yeah. I I I do want to come back to this map. uh uh partly to ask whether we want the map in the document and the reason for raising that question is that the text of the document never makes reference to the map. So the map is there but it's it it's not necessarily clear to the reader what the point of including the map is. So it it's and there are there end up in addition to the one that I put in the comment here that's highlighted in yellow. Uh there are two other locations shown in that map that I'm no I guess I mentioned two in the comment that is my comment by the way and there's one other that I have questions about. So, but be the the point of the map is to illustrate walking distance walking distances to various food retailers. Um, and like I said that I did not see a reference in the text to this map. So, my question is do we do we think it's do we think this map is useful in the context of the document? And if so, maybe uh at least a mention in the text as to look at this map and here's what that map tells you.

Yeah, that reference is action item 3.1.3. We look at it through like a zoning lens. So, it's not as much of about walking versus car as the map suggests, but it's still looking at that buffer of which neighborhoods do have the food retailer and which ones do not. Yeah. So my right my in my notes when I was reviewing this the other day I said it looks like it's related to actioned 3.1.3.3 but 3.1.3 I did not see that 3.1.3 doesn't reference that map in any way. Sarah if I may I think it might be helpful to to I think Do you have it up? Yes. Yeah. I'll stop sharing for a second and I can make this bigger too. Yeah, just kind of generally speaking, if there's a if there's a if there's a map or a picture in the document, the document should should point the reader to the map and explain explain why the map is there. So Brian, your hand up was earlier. Did you have a comment on this? [Music] The only comment I had was I know we were talking about deserts, food deserts and you know I guess that the only thing that I could see would be relative to a map like this but we I think comments in the past you know we don't have deserts

in in Grafton so I can't think of any other reason it would be there. So, we're focusing on the um the markers that that look um the symbology looks like a little home more or less. Um yeah, Snow Road. I I don't know what that that is. It's marked as convenience stores,armacies, and drugstores. I don't know what that one would be. There's literally nothing at that location except a house. Okay. So Sarah, maybe we can just make a note that one. And then I'd also note that it looks like Village Dairy down on South Ma or on Main Street is um called that as a meat market, fish and seafood market. It's a convenience store. Okay. Thank you. That yellow down there. Yeah. Yeah. The bottom left. Yeah. And in the center of the map, right the o off to the left of the common, there's a purple convenience store marker there. That is at the location of Wong's restaurant, which is not in the category food retailers we wanted to show on the map. But there's also a purple one right on the common or just off the common. And I don't know, one of those two maybe is meant to meant to re to mark the location of the Cumberland Farms, although neither one of those markers sits on is is quite at the location of Cumberland Farms. And other than Cumberland Farms, right around the common, uh the only other establishment that might be considered a food retailer

would be uh Bushel and Peek, which is Yeah, sure. North of the Common and and Bushel and Peek is sort of a restaurant, but they also sell just food for takeout. So they're Yeah. Similarly uncommon cow has some prepared foods and whatnot as well. Yeah. Yeah. So it's there's kind of a question of what what are these food retailers intended to represent? Are they is something that is if something is primarily a restaurant but they do sell some takeout for food. Do they do they qualify to be on this map? Maybe yes, maybe no. because I do not know where the data from this for this map originated. I've never I've never seen the source data for this. So, I've seen various versions of this map going all the way back to uh when we first began thinking about what should be in the master plan. But uh yeah, without without knowing the data source for this and and what what is represented by that, it's hard it's hard to to be sure how to interpret this and Marie and then Colleen. Yeah, I mean for me it just sounds like we need to look at this a little bit more closely with some input from the the folks who live here in the committee. Um, and like for example, the common, you might just be changing two of those markers to the orange and then just move over the other pink one on Old Upton to reflect a convenience store that's just closer to the common. But, you know, maybe just uh I don't think it's not valuable information. I think we just need to um clean it up a bit. Colleen, so my question would be the map kind of bleeds out into other communities and marks other parts in Shrewsbury, Worcester, all the way down, you know,

below that 122A marker. And I just I wouldn't be able to verify and know what those signify either. Is there a reason it's bleeding outside of Grafton like that? Yeah, I think that was a change we talked about last time we looked at the quality of life chapter to more accurate accurately represent those neighborhoods that do go into Worcester to for food. Um, but to answer the question about the source, it's a data layer from MAPC. You'll see in the legend it is from 2021 so it's going to be a little bit outdated but they have a full state map of food retailers that we started with and then tweaked it a little bit on what we knew but is definitely helpful to get some local knowledge on that too. Okay. So, do I get the sense that that the group the group thinks that the SNAP is worth including in the plan? Any any any objection to that? Let me put it that way. And I think you know some you know some added text in action item 3.1.3 to refer to them as say you know something something along the lines of you know consult with figure two to I don't know I'm not going to try to come up with the words off the top of my head but action item 3.1.3 does seem to draw something from the map. And so if we can if if if that could be explained in the text to help the reader, you know, sort of see what what they're supposed to get out of reading the map and and why it's interesting. Any further thoughts on that? Great. Thank Yeah, absolutely. You can

do that. So, back to the uh comment list. So, the next two big ones were also about a discussion we've had in the past with the town services and facilities chapter. So, this was specifically on the education action items. Sorry, I'm pulling it up in the draft, too. So, the first one, 1.1.1, was to construct a new prek to first grade facility to replace the two older buildings. So, this action item came out of stakeholder interviews with the superintendent. The recommendation on the comment is to not specifically say construct um but to suggest that a some sort of new facility should be for this specific purpose. Um might be a renovation or a restoration of North Graffton Elementary. So what does everybody think about this one? Victoria. Yeah, I I I really like your comment here, Dave. I I think that we've kind of gone back and forth a few times throughout this process about being uber prescriptive versus being a little bit more open for what future needs might be met. as long as sort of the the the feel of the law is is kind of what we're going for, which is that the town understands that there is capacity for it to grow and that we should be very um uh we should we should indicate that these two elementary schools are some of the oldest buildings, municipal buildings, and that and that they may

need to be replaced or may not, whatever that that may be. um long-winded way to say that I agree with you that we should kind of maybe go back on the prescriptive language a little bit. Dante, yeah, I know I had some big concerns about this, especially um just because it also feels a little out of step with um our current financial situation. Um, but I really like the idea of of shifting to that like evaluation of the need language and then um, you know, potentially plan renovation or construction accordingly as opposed to just jumping right to building a new school for, you know, pre-K through first grade. Any other uh, thoughts one way or the other on this? Okay. Got what? Got Do you have what you need out of this, Sarah? What's that? Do you have what you need for this? Yes. So, I will go with the I think you were very helpful in new language uh evaluating the need for and planning for future expansion, renovation or replacement of North Grapa Elementary School. Okay. Cool. So, the next one was similar. This was super quick. Sorry, I didn't unmute fast enough. It's both schools as I understood it, right? Not just North Grafton, but also South Grafton, right? Yeah. I think I think we we were looking at this item as uh recognizing the age of the the two the two elementary the two oldest elementary schools and uh and the likely need that something is going to have to be done.

And that might combine with the potential need for additional space. Uh just as a as a side comment related to this um I'm I'm going back 20 years on this uh but we uh when we when we looked at looked at school spacing we're looking at school space needs about 20 years ago and the the result of that effort was the plan to build a new high school but part of that was at the time 20 years ago growth was such that they were predicting we would have 4,000 students in the system by the year by the year 2020. So along with the new high school, the suggestion was made at the time that we we look at rent expanding North Grafton and South Grafton Elementary and we never did that. And in fact, the student population growth turned out not to be what we thought it would be 20 years ago. Uh but even 20 years ago, we looked at those two schools and thought then they would be in in need of something some work at some time in the future. So here we are. Okay, Amry, your hand is up. Yeah, thank you again. Just consistent with how I've been on this committee go all along is I feel like less prescriptive is better and you just that there's a case in point. So even identifying two schools, I just don't understand the need for that where it just could be. We're obviously going to, you know, in the future evaluate what is needed across the board. Um so I would say to take out individual schools. Um and again, just keeping it more of a global, you know, potential 10-year plan where others can look to see where the real need is at at any given time.

Just so I'm clear on rewriting it. Um, are you looking to spread this action item to be more than just the elementary school need? Yeah. Uh, for me, you know, who knows what we might need in five or 10 years. Um, so yeah, you're suggesting, Henry, something a little bit more generic along the lines of anticipating that we we may need to uh expand or renovate or replace some existing school buildings. Exactly. One or more existing school buildings without without really speaking to which ones we do, which ones we do when or how much or what. Yeah, Colleen. Uh, I hear what Amarie is saying and I I kind of agree with the vagueness. However, we know these two schools are the oldest and probably in the greatest need. So, as a future plan, wouldn't calling out one of our greatest needs make sense? While I agree the idea of being vague is helpful, but we're also creating a plan here where we want people to be looking and making sure that they're evaluating these schools for these potential needs. Any other thoughts? Sue, I tend to agree with Colleen. We've when you look at how old um Northcraft Elementary School is 1955 and then Southampton in 78 I think it's important to leave them in there so they get specifically evaluated as a priority over other schools. So I think it's appropriate to leave it just the way it is.

Okay, Victoria seconded. I I agree with Sue and Colleen. Okay. So, your hand is still if you had another comment. Essically referring to prek to first grade facilities. Aren't those the only two in town? So, of course, it'll be the oldest. I mean, for instance, isn't the the current seventh and eighth grade school? Uh, it was built well before 1978. Yes, if I remember right, the uh what is now the middle school was high school when my kids were there. It was high school when my parents were here and they graduated in the se early 70s. So yeah, I think that dates to around 1970. It's it's before that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I don't. So I I just just for clarification, you know, if we are only referring to prek and first grade, those are the only two in town, but I don't know that they're the oldest two overall facilities in the uh the school district buildings. Yeah, I think I think North Grafton Elementary at 19 1955 is is the oldest currently operating school building, but it's probably I think it's it's been frequently recognized that North and South Elementary are of concern not just because of their age, but also because of their size. Like I said, you know what? When we looked at stuff at at the school facilities 20 years ago, we identified those two as being candidates at the time, we were thinking candidates for expansion uh not replacement. But uh you know even just just because of the size of those two buildings in addition

to age that's probably the other reason why those two tend to stick in our minds as buildings that you but yep and that's fair. I don't mean but I just I guess I would lean more towards being less prescriptive as we were talking about earlier just to give the flexibility you know in the future when those needs are are specifically identified if if we if we wanted to keep continue identifying those in the action item it it might be might be along the lines of uh those being potential candidates for consideration but not consideration of of expansion of school facilities or replacement might not necessarily be limited to those. Although any anyway, I don't want to run my mouth off. Shantel, yeah, I was just going to add that um you know, the action item really came out of that conversation with Dr. Cummings where he specifically called out the need at the prek prek through first grade level. Um, so I think sort of honoring the spirit of, you know, his request or his um, idea without necessarily coming right out and saying we need to without jumping to the step of assuming we need to build a new school. Um, specifically highlighting the two schools at that grade level where he identified a potential need. um feels a little bit better aligned with what the outcome of of that meeting was as opposed to sort of then wholly going like super generic because obviously at any given time the school committee and the superintendent are considering the need for um expansion, renovation or or new construction. I think this that there

was a specific need identified at that grade level. Um not necessarily um because of the the age of the buildings or what have you. um especially given my understanding is that we've recently invested a lot of resources at the middle school and um North Street School um which are the only two schools that aren't you know that could potentially really be in that um in that arena since Milbury Street and the high school are both new construction. So, I I I feel like this sort of balances not being too prescriptive with not being too generic. Kind of seems like it it fits in a nice sweet spot for me. That's what it sounds like could be fair. Brian, I don't think this is going to make or break our our presentation here, but um kind of going back and forth about this. I you know we we've got an older junior high junior high school. We've got the two elementary schools that are obviously older. Um you know are we putting ourselves in a place where we're recommending that this is going to be something that needs to happen or are we just making a suggestion that hey we've got some older schools we need to look at them. You know we need some kind of replacement. We're not sure where that replacement is going to happen. you know, uh I think that's more of our our role versus um you know, kind of picking and choosing where things might actually go. So, that's just my opinion. Yeah. And let's keep in mind, too, that the the action items we we list here are are

are always going to be flexible. that is we can we can as time goes on we can choose to reinterpret them to revise them to abandon them. Uh there are there were a few action items or recommendations out of the 2001 master plan that we completely abandoned because the things things took a different direction. There was no longer a need for them. So and that's yeah that kind of flexibility is always going to exist. So this represents sort of, you know, our best guess as to what a future need could be. You know, and I I I kind of like Shantel's characterization of this is that it it responds to an initial initial concern that the superintendent raised at a at a specific set of grade levels uh but without being overly prescriptive. So, are we are we kind of content at this point to leave it at that? I don't want to spend the whole evening debating this one item. I have a proposed new action item in this column E if you can read it. Added in our favorite word, especially. So plan for future expansion, renovation or replacement of Grafton public school facilities especially and enlisting the elementary schools. All right. Have have we and and as we continue to review this, we can always circle back and uh and uh you know revisit this if we need to. But for now, are we okay? Hopefully if we can move on to the next one. Yep. Next one is about the vocational offerings. So we had the last time we

talked about this chapter changed the action item from specifically mentioning the Grafton High School third floor as the option for vocational offerings. Um, so then now the action item reads, "Increase vocational offerings within the public school system." This comment notes that the narrative under it does suggest that the high school third floor is a potential for placing those vocational offerings and would call for it to become um more generic in the narrative that we do not know the location of or where those additional classrooms or facilities should be held at this point. Anybody object to that? Sounds like we're good with that. Sorry if I may. I don't know where my raise hand feature is gone, but um I'm going to physically raise my hand. So, is this is this something that the the group wants to not even go not even go there? Because if it's so up in the air, I might not, you know, I'm just I'm just I'm I'm reading this and I don't have all of the background knowledge about, you know, the back and forth with with the third floor. So if it's if it's you know sometimes I feel like you know if if it's just too vague and doesn't seem to totally you know fe feasible really at all if if we're planning for you know third floor expansion if that's what superintendent said just kind of food for thought of is it is it something that's realistic at all. Yeah, I think I think my recollection of our last discussion on this, we were we were all comfortable

with the recommendation to increase voc vocational offerings. Uh what we had an issue with was connecting that future third floor specifically to the vocational offerings. have. I mean, it it potentially means I mean, you might end up wanting to add that third floor to make room in other parts of the building for the bay. I guess part of the sense I remember from the discussion was that it it the third the that the future third floor didn't seem like that would be a place where you would hold the classes for the vocational offerings. Uh so indirectly adding the third floor could free up some other space. So that's that's that's the connection that the third floor has to this. But I think I think if if uh well let me say I've got two hands raised. Shantel. Yeah. I mean I I think that the fact that the school was designed in that way um to facilitate expansion. I love the idea of that nugget of information being somewhere in the text, but I feel like saying that building a third floor is the way to expand vocational offerings made me very uncomfortable because again like like if you're going to expand the vocational offerings, you're going to go through a lengthier process to determine exactly where those things should happen, exactly how those things should happen. Um, and it's not necessarily going to be building a third floor on the high school. Um, that said, I mean, I think that it it's an important fact that we have that expansion capability and it probably should um it it makes sense for that to appear somewhere when we're talking about um our school

facilities. I'm just not really sure that marrying it to the vocational education is the best idea. Yeah. So what's on the screen in front of us now the the sentence the the the regarding the third floor is one potential option to add space for vocational programs is renovating the high school to add a third floor to the existing two-floor wing. Now if that was worded slightly differently so that it doesn't sound like that third floor is where the vocational option programs would go. Is that is that sort of you know you want to get away from making it look like we're saying that's where the vocational options should go. Do I get that right Shantel? Exactly. Brian. Yeah. I thought Shantel said that pretty well. So I won't say too much. I just say that uh the vocational was was talked about and certainly something needed to think about going forward. So that's it. Yeah. So, so some way of wording this, and I'm not going to try to come up with the words, exact words, but we we can we can we can mention that the high school has space for expansion by that third floor, and that may I'm not quite sure how to put it, but that that could free up space elsewhere in the high school for the vocational offering. with it without without I I I think the only thing we want to do here is we don't want to make it look like we're saying that third floor is specifically for the vocational programs. It's it it makes it it adds space to the high school giving the high school more room to do to do other programs without saying where those

programs go. Sue, I agree with you and I think we have to be careful implying that the third floor will be forational offerings because that will also imply if we can't use the third floor, we can't have vocational offerings if we don't get a third floor, which is not true. Yeah, we we might find that we could introduce some vocational programs within the existing space at the high school, right? Okay. Do we have been we have enough guidance on that? Sarah can go off and work the words. I feel good about that. Um, sorry, Fiona. I stole that stole your screen share. It gave me the option. Do you want to replace screen? I was like, wow. Hold on one sec. Let me get it back. Here we are. So, the last um note for town services and facilities was about sewer and the chapter as it stands is pretty vague about the sewer system capacity. The numbers that we have are from 2022. I believe we had an update on um numbers for 2024 but kept at that 22 2022 source. If anybody on the committee is knows that we can quantify the capacity from the sewer district, we can add more information and I think it'd be strong. Yeah, I think um when I wrote that comment, I was I was seeing that we have

you know y we say that the sewer system is at 70% capacity which you know sort of makes it makes it clear that there there is a fair amount of unused capacity. What I was trying to point out here was that we don't have a comparable statement for the water. We we don't there's nowhere where where we say well how close are the water districts operating to their capacity. And so if we can if we get a sense just I mean the only thing we the only thing we do say in the plan regarding the water district capacity is we're we're anticipating the water conservation efforts may be needed. But if if we can get the water drs to you just sort of tell us something like what the sewer department has told us that sewer is operating right now at 70% of their available capacity. Um of the currently available capacity of the water districts they have a maximum amount they can pump from their wells. How close are they to that maximum today? And of course, if you ask them that question today, you're going to get an answer that's kind of hedging because some of their wells right now are not actually operating. They're they've been shut down for excessive PAS or other reasons. So, the the way to ask the question is probably if all of your wells were capable of operating at their maximum capacity, how how much of that capacity are you actually pumping these days? And I I I I can't even begin to know the answer, but I think it would be it would give the reader of this plan a better sense of our water district's ability to handle future expansion. I'm not looking for

necessarily precise numbers. I just like to be able to say for the water districts, the same thing we said for sewer. Colleen, so for water, it's my understanding capacity can change throughout the year, right? Like in the summer months, it's going to be different than say, you know, right now during the wet season. Um, my something I would like to know between the two districts are are there is there any availability for additional wells if needed? It's my understanding South Graffton does not have availability to to do bring another well online because there's nowhere nowhere for one to go. um is that true for the other water district or you know and how does that impact growth going forward if one of the wells were to become um incapacitated for whatever reason and I know that that's something that South Grafton thinks about sometimes too after the big the big mill fire. So um you know in South Grafton it's there's a bylaw there's no inground irrigation that can go in. Um, that's not necessarily the same for all of Grafton, but in South Grafton, it's because of a water issue. So, I think I'd like to know that, too. Yeah. And it may be that concerns like that on the part of the water districts might might lead them to be reluctant to make any statement that could be interpreted as some sort of a promise or a commitment to future capacity. uh which you know I I I can understand that they would they might want to hedge on that but you know it you know it makes it more difficult for us to think about planning ahead if we just have no idea what their sort of theoretical maximum would be. And that may be something we, you know, without without trying to answer those questions tonight, we we we we can we can pursue that in in between now and

the next time and and see if we can get a see what kind of a sense we can get from the water districts on that. Any yeah, thank you. I can't find it right now, but the water district um the Grafton water district did do a study recently or they cons outsourced it to a consultant um relative to this. So, if I can find um and I'm sure it's on their website, there is a document with some of this information just relative to the the one the Grafton Water District. Go Brian. Yeah, thanks Colleen for updating me on South Grafton. I had no idea about the water. Um, but wouldn't that be something that we would mention that uh South Grafton is is limited in terms of their um well capacity at this point? Uh is that something that should be in this plan? So, I just want to be clear. I'm not talking about their capacity on the current wells, but I'm just talking about their availability to bring new wells online. I don't think that there's any location for a new well to come online. Okay, that's still a problem because if something happens to one one of the wells gets contaminated, where do we go? you know, there should be some kind of plan in place to to deal with that. At least we should be thinking about it. If there's only situation where there's this is available, but we can't expand beyond that, if something were to happen, what do we do as a town? So, that's my question too is when as far as the water goes because the water is outside of our purview for both of these water districts. So, how much

planning can we really do as a town beyond how do we integrate these water districts into um into the town more in the sense for planning purposes or for communication purposes? Yeah, that would seem to me to be a a good question to to put out there and and uh it's an important I think when we talk about water very important. Any other thoughts on this topic? If not, we can move on to the next highlighted item. So, I just want to quick ask Anmarie if in that study if she noticed if they asked any u made any statement as to uh potential for any new well locations. Yeah. So, I'm just on their website, too. I know I have it here. I would I would have to wait to to look through it to be sure. Um Okay. Sorry. But I can I just thought maybe you knew offand. Yeah, I read through it. I know. And I reached out to them um with some questions, but I don't I don't want to uh quote anything without seeing it. And I don't readily see it on their website, but I'm sure it's out there somewhere. Okay. If if I may, Mr. Chair, again, I don't know where my raise hand feature is. It's not showing up for me. Yeah, I think you know just my my professional opinion not speaking you know on behalf of the working group at all but you know I think it's a good idea to get a snapshot in time of the capacity with the understanding that you know it's it's it's not static right like the water department and South Grafton uh water district and the South Grafton water district can enhance um their infrastructure um I know that there's

you know we just recently had um South Grafton water district before us and one of Wells was offline for a number of years and they're actively trying to bring it back online to enhance their capacity. So, you know, I think it's just it I I agree. I think it's a good idea to understand and have maybe similar data point um from the water district so we can you know plan um intelligently for the future with the understanding that you know the system can be can be enhanced and um just kind of just some something to bear bear in mind because you know I think they're actively trying to do that all the time. So, um, yeah, I just as long as I guess, you know, a snapshot, I guess making it clear that, you know, this is the snapshot as as of now. And I guess that that kind of just it stuck out to me of like cuz when you see that, you know, sometimes I that that data point that can sound kind of severe um and it doesn't, you know, the data is from 2022, at least for the sewer, and it doesn't incorporate some of the more recent um work that's that's been done. So as long as there's kind of the understanding that the system is continuously being upgraded when there's funds available when state makes when the state makes money available etc. Okay if we can move on. It's already 8:00 and I I think we've got you know some some more material to go through here. Yeah. What what would be helpful for sewer is if Ann Marie you can um send me anything you can find in that study and if another member of the committee can help with South Grafton water district then we'd be able to add those points. Some towns do um have their districts report in town meeting. I don't know if

that's typical for grafting but but yes the next one is under land use. So these next few are suggestions on adding new action items. So this first one would be adding something onto the land use chapter on working with developers on entering into conservation restrictions or agricultural restrictions. So, I think we had a small discussion on this on how the town could work with developers on more like informing um on certain restrictions that are available to them since it is something that the town isn't super involved in. But this would be adding another action item here on this. And I might just keep rolling. If there's no discussion, feel free to cut me off. The next one would be also in land use to allocate funding for site and building assessments at town meeting for repurposing properties and land for development. And the one after that was specifically looking at the last goal in land use which is about implementing this master plan the most important one. So this would be um change from maintain staffing to implement the master plan to increase staffing and resources to implement the master plan. Any comments? I think this last one is a great one to end on. It's how will you implement the master plan? So, I think I'm trying to remember what we specifically

said, but I think we've talked about adding something on creating a specific master plan implementation committee. So, that is an option. Um, oh, what we left it on was pretty vague. It was assess staffing resources for master plan implementation. So the question at hand is do we want to word it as create a master plan implementation committee NPIC? Yeah, we may want to circle back on that when we talk more specifically about implementation. But I mean it seems like a master plan implementation committee or some some body charged with overseeing the implementation of the master plan is necessary. Not not to beat a dead horse, but I I I I created I asked the select board to create the open space and recreation committee for the specific purpose of overseeing the implementation of the open space and wreck plan. And so far, I mean, it's yeah, I I'd like to say we can command the implementation of everything and force everybody to do everything we said they should do, but re realistically, you know, there's there's a limit to what you can do. But I I have some ideas for what a master plan implementation committee could do once we've sort of adopted the master plan. But we can I I would defer that discussion for at least a few minutes if if not longer. Brian, yeah, I just because we're in land use, I I would agree with the idea of having a master plan committee, but um I did notice something. I don't even know if this is appropriate to bring it up at

this point, but um there was a description of South Grafton um which I thought we had gone through and said we don't like that kind of description. Um u it starts off on page 57, South Grain feels overlooked. It has derelct and shabby buildings, facades of restoration and lack of vibrancy. Um, that was just a paragraph on the page and I I thought we had discussed that. I didn't know where to put it. Um, I looked at the um the uh I forget it's called the spreadsheet uh earlier today to try to put something on there, but it didn't appear to me that there was a place where I could put it. So, I just want to bring it up and mention that and maybe you could take a look at it. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you. Yeah, thanks. I will say I hope this sort of language isn't offensive to anybody. The reason why it's in here is what I'll usually say is for grants. if you would like some evidence for specific grants to help South Grafton. Um, unfortunately the master plan will always focus on moments of opportunity rather than assets. But if this seems too far in one direction, we can for certainly reassess that area. And I think you said 50 page 59, right? Page 57. But I'm you know what I'm not familiar with how grants work. I don't want to be the one that says, "Oh, change it so we can't get a grant." So, um I'm just bringing it up. And it might not be that high a stakes. Sometimes grants are just a race to the bottom. And I'm a little nervous because South Grafton lost uh its environmental

justice group or one of them. Right. So, I think that's where this is coming from. Okay. But if it doesn't fit the tone of the master plan or what this committee would like to do, totally open to changing it. All right. Thanks. I I do have a few additional comments on various places in the draft plan that I I would like to mention this evening. Get the uh get the committee's reaction on this or thoughts. Starting with economic development. Um this is actually mentioned in the the comment matrix here but um the there's that chart or the map which shows assessed value per acre and I still think that it would be more meaningful for the reader if the chart itself was explicitly property tax revenue per acre. property tax revenue and assessed value have a have a straightforward relationship. But I think it's if people see that map and they see property tax revenue per acre, I think that's more meaningful for most readers than to have to translate assessed value into property tax revenue. Not not mathematically, but just to understand that assessed value is directly proportional to property tax revenue. Yeah, I think it it's it's slightly easier for people to see what we're getting at if it's the map is expressed directly in as property tax revenue per acre and the map doesn't look any different. You know, everything is the same, you know, same height, the same perspective and everything, but just labeling it as

property tax revenue per acre is uh is to me it seems more meaningful to the reader. Anybody have any thoughts on that one way or the other? I I'll go either way on it, but if what what's what's our preference Brian, I like your presentation there, Dave. I think that'll go very well. I agree. Okay. Any anybody disagree? Just because two people agree with me doesn't mean I'm right. Okay. I don't want to dwell on that. I just wanted to to make that point. Um, and this shows up in the first time it shows up as an economic development, but there are several other places where we have and I don't I don't remember if I included all that as a comment in the in the uh in the comment matrix there, but I've thought of several other the names we use for various places in Grafton um in the area around the common we the document sometimes calls it center village sometimes calls it village center uh and and so we you we ref we we should be using the same name for the same areas of Grafton all the time there's that I mean we we you know we we fairly consistently refer to the three south Grafton mil mill villages mill villages Saundersville Fischerville and Farnumville you know that's that's not an issue but we the document has several names for the area around the common myer is to call it Grafton center. Uh sometimes it's the Grafton Common and Historic District, but that's that's a

narrower definition, but the more more of the the the more informal kind of village center type of area that So I I like Grafton Center consistently to refer to the area generally around the common in North Grafton. We've got the mill village in North Grafton which I understand that as New England village is its name and that comes from the New England manufacturing company that first created it. But there again we've sometimes call it North Grafton. Sometime the term North Grafton to me it covers a whole lot more territory than the mill village. It's kind of centered around Washington Mills. So I would suggest and I I'm open to suggestions that that you know I think what what I'm pretty firm about is I think we should be using the same name for the same area of graft and throughout the document. uh and the choice of those names. Well, I guess you can look on that on the the the maps the village the maps that show village centers. I've used the cons, you know, the names I've chose there. Again, we can change them, but I don't want to dwell on this too much, but I think I'd like to get everybody's people's opinion. What what do you think is the best name to use the North Graffton Mill area? What do you think the best name is to use for the area around the common? And we use the common. So for as long as I've lived here, which is about 39 years, I guess it have I always known it as Grafton Center and most people that I've talked to understand it as that. So if someone said to metown center, I'd say where is that? Um so I think Grafton Center makes

sense to me. Um North Grafton always referred to it as North Grafton. I know it as no other, but I think people who've lived here the longest probably know some of this as New England Village. But um for newcomers and everybody else, they certainly aren't going to understand that or know that. And if we generally like calling it North Grafton, we want to we need to be able to distinguish the mill village of North Grafton with the the the the much larger area that's also generally understood to be North Grafton. Uh, and Marine, yeah, I think there in lays the question, you know, are you referring to North Grafton as an an a zip code um or are you, you know, again, within the master plan if they're speaking specifically for that that small village area. So, I think that perhaps it can be both. Um, uh, to your point, Sue, you know, I typically think of Grafton Center, North Grafton, South Grafton, and, uh, broken up by zip codes, but within those, you know, there's a Sonville, there's different villages, but, uh, I guess maybe it depends on exactly where it's referenced in the document. Um, I could see perhaps there's a need for both at times. Oops. Yep. I saw Emry's hand go up momentarily. Um, the one other the one other terminology issue that I have is sometimes the area around the common is referred to as

downtown. And that really just rubs me the wrong way. It's not a downtown. Yeah. The area around the common is a perhaps best described as a civic and cultural center of Grafton with the library, the churches, the common itself, but it's not a downtown. Downtown is where your businesses are. And and honestly, there is no nowhere in Grafton that to me the word downtown applies. So uh again I'm there I'm looking mostly I'm looking with all this I'm looking mostly for a consistent and as unambiguous as we can make it use of terminology for various parts of grafting. Bob. Yeah. Um you know we had this discussion for the old for the last um master plan. Our consultant asked and there was absolutely no agreement where the boundaries were even just between north south and whatever graph and center. Um, I personally I object to using the zip code at least for North Craft because it comes all the way down to Lake Ripple, doesn't it? At least one one side of the road. Um um I I you you how many how many ways do you want to divide it? Three or have more specificity. Yeah, we have in various parts of the m

the this new master plan here, we're we are we do at times discuss areas that we want to refer to generically as village centers where it's a cluster of businesses surrounded by or mixed in with residences. So I you know I've provided the map which shows eight areas that I've that that I'm claiming are village centers uh which is you know sort of the the the the three Southcraft and Mill villages so under the Fisherville and Farville which nobody's arguing about that it's the area around the common including but not limited to the historic district which on my maps I've been labeling Grafton Center. It's Yeah, there is the the Mill Village area, the historic Mill Village area of North Grafton, which I've labeled as New England Village to distinguish it from other parts of North Grafton. There is the new the the relatively new and not really developed yet transit village up around the MBTA station. I've I've proposed that we call the basically Worcester Street from Carol Road up to Snow Road as a central business district. It's that's probably the at least when I was trying to think of it that's probably the the best descriptor I could come up with for that area. And then up on Worcester Street over in the Wyman Gordon neighborhood, for lack of a better term, I've labeled that the Northwest Business District. Now, so most of some of the labels I've chosen for that are aren't really well defined or well understood. Um, but ultimately there are, you know, we we we I think we we we do need

to be consistent in how we refer to these different areas. And then then again I was just talking about the the the map of village centers generically. Beyond that there are other ways we we refer to parts of town such as South Grafton which encompasses the three mill villages and more. U there's a larger a larger area around the center of town that we sometimes refer to as Grafton center. There is North Grafton which of course sort of you know go stretches from Wyman and Gordon all the way out to Tus and you we think of all that as North Grafton. So it's difficult to come up and and like Bob like Bob said you know we can debate endlessly the names that we want to call these things but I I I'm looking for us to be consistent and reasonably well understood in this document. Ess your hand is up. Yeah, sorry Dave. I don't think that I've seen the map in particular they're talking about, but it sounds like we can get through this with three kind of larger geographic areas with North Grafton, Grafton Center, and South Grafton. And then each of those have smaller districts within them without necessarily having to draw boundaries. You know, it can be done through text or or you know, kind of bold or size of that text. So, Grafton common areas within the Grafton Center, Mill Village and Transit Village within North and North Grafton and then the the three uh village areas within South Grafton. Yeah, we can't we cannot draw precise boundaries. There's there's no basis. No, nor do I think that we necessarily need to. That's and that's a that's your point. I think part of your point. Yeah. And we're not, you know, I'm not I'm not looking for us to draw precise boundaries, but when when we're talking about a particular area of town, I want to make sure we're using the same name for it every time. And I absolutely agree with that 100%.

Yeah. They you know that they used to call where we are uh this this old part of the town as the farm district. Yep. Back in the day it was a farm district, right? And um it also matches up with where there's no sewer or water in them, the largest section of the town. Yeah. In in this draft master plan, we've kind of vaguely referred to that as the eastern part of Grafton. Yeah. Well, yeah. Again, you can't draw precise boundaries around it, but yeah, Elaine, your hand is up. Question. So most people when they hear Mill Village they think North Grafton because I have always thought South Grafton when I heard that and I think it's because of Mil Village Park. Yeah. Mil Mill Village. Mil Village is it probably at least in in in my mind from everything I've heard over the years. Miller village. We have four four mill villages in town. The three in South Grafton and the one in North Grafton are on Washington Mills or we we think of them I think of them all as mill villages. So yeah that that is the historic name though for where Washington Mills is. Yeah. the the that section east of the river. Yep. If you look it up on Mass Historic, you'll find that area labeled or named as North Grafton- New England Village. Yeah, I've heard New England Village referred to that that and they got, you know, some money for that area. But I I guess whenever I hear the term Mill

Village, my my mind goes right to South. But maybe it's cuz I'm from South and I don't know. Yeah, it it goes to where you're most familiar with. But yeah, if you want to if you want to get a a reasonably accurate historic name, historically accurate name for the North Graffton Mill village Mill area, it would be New England Village. So I think My marching orders will be to replace any town common area or town center with Grafton Center. Y keep it that way. I mean there will be times when we want to refer more specifically to the common and the area immediately surrounding the common. Correct. And we still we still want to use the term common for that. But if we're if we're referring to the common and a lot more of the area around it, then Grafton Center would be I'm not going to try to although I've drawn on my maps a a a boundary around what I'm calling graph center. It's it's just sort of it's very very approximate and should and should be understood as that. And the purpose for the village centers on my maps were to look at areas that we might want to focus on for development or redevelopment within because we we talk a lot about how we want to encourage and and get more development within our village centers. And so the purpose of that map was to here are the areas of Grafton I think we could think of as village centers. I don't want to beat that horse to death either. So I guess I for now let's let's just go with with what we've talked about as imprecise as it may be and give it some more thought if we need

to but I don't I don't want to dwell too heavily on that. Uh my next issue here comes up in the land use chapter and it's on the page in the in the latest draft. It's on the pages numbered 47 through 50. It's and that's not in the uh not in my comments on the spreadsheet there because I I only saw this within the last couple days. It's something I should have spotted a long time ago. But let me see here. Where was I in the land use chapter? And I'm going to try to point to where in that what I'm it's where we're talking about development since two since the 2001 comprehensive plan and there are several charts and graphs uh depicting the housing growth housing growth from 1990 to 2000 20110 2010 to 22 and my problem is that this issue this data which is taken from the census uh and most particularly the 2022 data which comes from the ACS is contradicted by the assessor data that I've been using to count housing units. It tell it tells a rather different the assessor data tells a a rather different story than the census data does particularly in terms of housing growth from 2010 to now and the breakdown between detached and attached multif family housing is the the story the story I get from the

assessor data is very different from what I get here and ultimately I mean you know the conclusions that is stated here on page the page that's numbered 46 uh let's see housing growth for example it states that housing in growth increased to 20% uh in the years from 2010 to 20 to 20 2022 and that's the the actual numbers are more like 9% or 8% depending on how many years you count. So overall, and I I I it's probably best not to try to go through all the gory details here in this conversation, but I have and I I I just say the the the assessor data I have like I said without at the risk of repeating myself, it tells a different story. One of the odd things I see on the the the chart on the bottom of the of page 49 in the document, which is page 45 in the PDF, it shows a negative growth, 41% negative growth in housing units, housing with 10 plus units. And that we didn't destroy that many. We didn't destroy all that all that housing. So that that is just obvious nonsense. So I don't know how we want to proceed with this but yeah and and maybe Sarah I can share with with you guys you share more offline and not as part of this conversation the the details of how how the data that I have that tells a significantly different story than the data that's currently in the draft master plan.

I I don't think it leads us to any changes in our master plan recommendations or action items, but nevertheless, it tell it tells a story that I think is quite misleading about particularly about the growth of multif family housing. It it it's gives it gives an impression that's at odds with reality. Uh and Marie, your hand is up. Yeah, I would just request the rest of the committee could see that information, too. Yeah. Um, let me see. I'm just trying to look and see if I have something that Oh, not right now. Just at, you know, if you're going to send it to Sarah. Oh, yeah. Yeah, that would that would that probably be best. I I I can put something I I I've I've got a lot of charts and graphs and tables, but I I I think I I would want to put that together in a Yeah, I wasn't I wasn't readable. Yeah. Yeah. I' I'd be happy to I'll share I'll share that. Yeah. without dwelling on it too much now I'll I'll share that with the committee and with and particularly with Sarah and company and we can uh you know we can say like I say it goes back to the different data sources we use and the ACS in particular is a it's it's unlike the dennial census the ACS is an estimate that has a fairly large margin of error and if if that's the only data you have access to you'll use it and you know it's sort of easy. It's sort of easy to look it up and use it, but you know, you know, the the SSR data I use is uh it's much more specific in terms of unit counts. And I've got I basically I've got I've got unit counts down to the building level. Dave, is this in the matrix?

This comment, I don't think I put that in the matrix. I really I I did not spot that issue until a couple days ago as I was reading through the draft plan for the third time. I missed it, too. So, it's it's something I should have seen a lot earlier, and I'm kicking myself for not having spotted it earlier. Mhm. Anyway, you know, just part it's partly in the interest of, you know, let's let's let's tell us let's tell tell a story here that's somewhere close to reality. And these numbers are always moving targets too every year. I mean, I've I've you know, in reviewing my data, I've seen actually some it appears that a few housing units have disappeared uh since the first time I calculated that data to three or four years ago to now. And it's things things change. The assessor's data get updated. Houses burn. Houses get torn down and rebuilt. So thing things change a little bit, but uh anyway I wanted to make sure let's see. Oh, and related to that there it's it mentions in the plan in in this section the census data does not provide information on which zoning districts the new new housing growth has taken place. Um I don't know whether that would be interesting what anybody thinks. would you like to see? I mean, it's it's for the most part not surprising that residential, you know, single family homes for the most part are built in single family home zoning districts. Uh the only thing that's I do have a breakdown by zoning district, uh if we if we ever wanted to include that, but I'm I'm not not sure we do, but I I bring it up because I want to know if anybody in the committee thinks that's really valuable. You know, the the only sort of interesting part about that is uh multif

family housing, condos and apartments, a lot of them are built outside of the multif family home zoning district. Reason for that is basically their 40bs. 40bs can be built anywhere. But does anybody think it's worthwhile to break down the housing development by zoning district? I'm inclined to say not. It's not that interesting. But if it tells a story if if you're going to see a pattern of obvious development, you know, as you said, Dave, single family homes built in single family districts, multif family, multif family, it's probably not a compelling story, but I tell you what, and since, you know, things are still a little bit in flux, we still have time to include if we want to, I will share with the committee the the data that I have, the breakdown of housing development by zoning district. I'll I'll put that in a form that you can actually read and interpret in a useful way. Uh right now I've got the raw data, but I'm not quite I haven't tried to format in a way that would be really telling a story. But yeah, I I will I will share that with the committee and you know, if we decide that it's meaningful, we can add that into the mastermind. I only bring it up because in the text of the master plan, they mention that we don't have a breakdown by zoning district. Well, we can get one. Mhm. Okay. That that that's all I'll say on that. That uh we'll we'll we'll share the data and then we can we can decide. Um, further on in that same chapter, we've got we just went over the the census data which is describing housing growth in terms of basically decades 1990 through 2000, 2000 through

2010, 2010 through 20. And then we've got these maps of housing development that I that I provided. And they cover different periods. They covered 71 to 84, 85 to06, and 07 to 21. Does anybody think that we should try to line up those numbers with the numbers by census decade? I think probably not. But just noticing that they were different periods of time used. Is that good or is that good, bad, or indifferent? Consistency is good. Again, I don't I don't I did not mention that anywhere in these the chapter comments that you see on the screen. Brian has a panda. That's another thing that just occurred to me as I was reading the draft for the third time this weekend. Brian, yeah, I just have a question, Dave. How were the breakdowns determined? Uh that's really all I had. Yeah. Yeah. Let let me if I can quickest way for me to answer that is to if I can share my screen And so where is the screen that I want to share? I've got too many open windows on my screen here. Sarah, just while Dave is is

pulling that up. So I think um are you are you comfortable with the marching orders as of as of right now? And once we kind of wrap up these kind of final comments from Dave, we can just briefly run back the schedule and and then break for the evening. You're feeling okay. Absolutely. All right. So the the three the three three maps that were included here, I've got 71 through 84, 85 through 06, and 2007 to 2021. Now the reason I chose these particular years they represent kind of eras of housing de development. Yeah. And and I I also develop maps going further back but 71 through 84 is basically when the baby boomers grew up and started buying houses. Uh 85 through 06 is where we had a lot of housing development grid. Basically, this is the time period where Grafton underwent intensive suburbanization. Sort of a a a term I think that probably describes this pretty well. You can see that on the map how how the housing development spread out into the outlying areas of Grafton. So, this was an era of intensive suburbanization in Grafton. And then 2007 to 2021, that's that's basically encompasses the the uh the era of housing development that was choked off by the 2008 financial crisis. And I I I have I've I've updated these maps since they submitted them. And we might want to put the updated maps in, but I've updated it to cover through 2024. But that's basically the these three these three time periods were time periods when you when you look at the

overall pattern of housing development the you in terms of the number of units developed each year it kind of breaks down there's you know the previous period would have been the postworld war II uh from 1949 or up through 1970 or so you know there was some housing development the housing development that was more narrowly focused in Grafton then, but it's really the thing that really stands out here is this area where you in the in the early 80s a lot of housing started getting developed up through 2006 or so and then things slowed down after the after 2000 they slowed down a lot but that's where it comes from to answer a long-winded answer to your question Brian. Um Bob your hand is up. Yeah, just real quick I'm gonna have to go but um I had a lot of trouble understanding. I think it's that fourth map there that the color scheme was both different than any of the others. And I just it didn't work for me. You might want to think about uh consistency and and uh making it so even I can understand it. Yeah. The housing that this housing density map here tells speaks to a very different subject than the uh housing development maps do. Yeah, that's fine. But um um I had trouble interpreting it, finding where I was and what it was telling me. Um it's just me. Never mind. Yeah, that that's that's it's kind of a hard subject to depict on a map even. It more than anything, it's just the the colors of Yeah, I I can't make the colors there. There's there's no consistency possible between the colors on that map and the colors on the other because they're they they mean have completely different

meanings. Yeah. But you have you you have a lot of white area on that. Yeah. [Music] Um just just don't worry about it. Yeah. Yeah. I I I can't I I can revisit that and see if there's if nothing else, maybe I should fill in the white areas or at least explain what the white the white areas are where there's no housing. You you wouldn't necessarily know that except by in inference. Well, anyway, a point taken. Fiona, your hand is up. Yeah. So, just a final two comments from me. So yeah, the housing density map Dave I think um there is a little bit of data omission there be if I'm you know the um uh North Grafton area I think is a little bit more dense than pictured based on recent projects. It's like five five millennium might not be captured there. Um exactly. Yeah. So I think just yeah just maybe um touch of that and then um just to go back to the original you know I think if we're presenting data and we've been using it in you know using ACS on a you know decade long time frame if we can align it I mean if the if the data is only available from a certain uh you know from 07 to 2021 as in the map here on the left I mean then that's the time frame that the data is available and we just provide a footnote explaining that to the reader but I do think that a reader is going to open the document and say well we've been using decade comparisons throughout this and now we're dividing it and why are we dividing it in this way and I just I think for flow uh you know the information flow because I think there was another issue that we had I think it was maybe the open space

chapter where there was some divisions between kind of obscure years and a lot of like working group members I think had were curious as like how how was this why was this divided in this way and I think that was just like the data that you had been able to pull from you know town meeting and CPC and and such but if we can have a consistent data you know snapshot time frame I think that would be great um and if we can't then just maybe we can put a footnote somewhere I can very easily produce versions of these maps you see on the screen here I can produce versions of those maps that match catch up with the 10 year the the 10-year s censusbased time periods. I've got I've got the data. All I have to do is plug different parameters into my JIS and I I get it I get the new. So if if and that that's sort of gets back to why I'm even asking the question was that you know the use of these different time periods I like I explained why I chose these particular time periods. It tells a particular story about different eras of development in Grafton. Do we need to tell that story in the master plan? Not necessarily. Okay. Or if we do want to tell that story, maybe we need some narrative to explain something about the history of devel in different terms. But that could easily be a whole another top subject. We're not currently in the master plan talking about development in terms of those eras for which I drew these maps and we don't have to if if if we'd like to fine but uh yeah I for consistency with you know reading the housing data that appears just a few pages before

this I I can I can see potentially why these maps And just as a minor point, the text here mentions two maps and yet we've got three here. So again, if if we want to align these maps with the same censusbased time periods, we can do that and revise the text accordingly. does, like I said, I I don't see anything in the text that really depends upon these maps depicting a particular time period. They may they may tell a sufficiently similar story if they're aligned with those other time periods. I I'll I'll work on that. I'll I'll I'll do the I'll do those maps and send them off. Yeah, I think that'd be great. I just Sarah push back if it's this is going to be reinventing the wheel in the text as well because you know if you've crafted a narrative around the data as as presented and it's telling you know again a compelling story I'm f you know it's this is just my initial thoughts and I don't want to I'm definitely not speaking for the working group but um I also just want to be realistic I'll tell you what it would be worthwhile and I I I will produce maps with the different time periods and I'll I'll we'll look at the maps. I'll share them with everybody. We can look at the maps and see you know the story we were trying to tell with these maps was kind of we had a lot of development during this time period and then not so much here. If if if the other if the newer maps different maps tell the story in a sufficiently similar way similar way that's fine because that's that's the point I think we were trying to get across here was

that you know we had periods of rapid development and periods of of slow development you know and how many different ways can we tell that story but okay let's see I mean was that everything I wanted to discuss here. I think um Dave just for in the interest of time we might need to car you know might need to we might need to add more comments of the matrix and then revisit it any of the outstanding issues in May. I'm I'm looking for anything else that I wanted to specifically bring up to the working group tonight and Oh, there was one question I had. It's kind of a small point, but it's something that maybe Yeah, I have I have my opinion on that, but I think I'd like to know what everybody else thinks. Um there's a there's a place in uh let me find that master plan talks in the this is in the town services and facilities chapter the the master plan talks about the adaptive reuse use and free and remod frequent remodeling of the former

Grafton High School. And I'm wondering what the best identification of the building is because it started its life as the uh the the Grafton Junior Senior High School when it was built around 1953. Uh by the time I got to town, it was it had just been converted for use as a municipal center. And what when I think of the former Grafton High School, I think of what's now the middle school because that was the high school when I started started out in this town. So I'm wondering and and there's another reference to 25 Worcester Street as a former Grafton High School that goes back uh even a lot farther in time. What do what do most of us think is the best way to describe what is now the municipal center when it was a school of a a former high school or a former junior senior high school? Yeah. I would kind of like to differentiate it from the former high school that's now the middle school. But is there what's what's the best name to use for that? Any thoughts, Brian? in there. Shantel, I thought you were talking about the junior high school uh or middle school, which I thought was has something to do with John F. Kennedy. I I I'm not sure where I saw the plaque, you know. I don't know if that would help. John F. Kennedy, I don't know that it applied to those, but it's I believe that plaque is on the the gym. Is it on the gym? Okay. I wasn't sure if it was a school or what it was. All right. That's it. That's all I had. Shantel, um I apologize. It might just be um me being fuzzy, but can you help us out with what the context of that is and why we would specifically need to call it anything other than the municipal center? Well, the the plan is talking about

the adaptive reuse and frequent remodeling of the building that is now the municipal center. But I think the point I think is making is that you know we we took an old school and we found a good way to reuse it. Now, if if actually no one thinks it's important to mention its specific prior use, that solves the problem. We don't have to think of a name for it. I feel like that's where I was leaning, but I don't know what the rest of the group feels. So, I think we should just leave it as municipal center and not mention former because not only was it a former, it was an elementary school as well at some point. So I would just leave it in municipal center. Anybody disagree with that? Yeah. Rather than trying to explain what it used to be. If we want if if we need to say if we need to say something about what it was before it was a municipal center. Call it a former used to be a school without trying to name the school. That works for me. All right, that answers that question. Was there anything else I needed the group's opinion on? I do have to hop off soon if if it's going to be much longer. Me, too. Yeah, I I don't think I I have nothing else that I want to bring up. I've I've brought up too much stuff already. Again, some stuff I wish it I should have brought up a lot a long time before this, but better now than after we

publish it. I The only other thing I'll I'll mention is I've got a whole whole lot of notes about little things that I don't think I want to I don't think I need to raise in during this discussion. I will send I will forward to uh Sarah at least Sarah and company uh all all my notes of you know spelling issues I found some of which I'd mentioned in the comments in the uh in the spreadsheet online but a lot more of which I spotted just re reviewing the plan over the weekend but we don't need to spend any time on that here tonight I will I will send that off and uh anything else I might come up with I won't hesitate to uh comment on Sue. Yes. I just wanted to know what we will be discussing um at our next meeting. What will be on the agenda? What direction are we going then? [Music] Yeah. board really that that sort of brings us to what's probably the uh you know wrapping this meeting is up. It was where do we go from here? You don't want to go. So okay so I think um we need to address some of the the outstanding concerns from this meeting. regroup in May, assess the comfort level of the group at that stage of the game, and then um hopefully, you know, be able to move forward with with the public the original timeline of the public comment period. Um, I think it's I think we're all pretty much on the same page regarding the timeline for planning board approval and town meeting that we're not going to make it this time around because town meeting is fastly

approaching. But um, if we could try and get um, most comments, the internal comment that we've discussed finalized by the next meeting um, and hash out any kind of final concerns then. That would be the goal. um if we do need to have a June meeting um you know then then so be it. But um I I think um we have a good direction here. Um and I and I think you know that that that's that's the that's the game plan for for the time being. Sarah, please uh elaborate on what I my goal my goal would have the May meeting uh confirm the draft plan ready for public comment. So, in order for that to happen, we'll need any outstanding comments from this committee by April 16th so we can try to push it back onto the committee to give you time to read it. We try to give a week for this giant plan. I'm hoping to give you more than a week to read it before the meeting. So, for that, we'll need every comment in by April 16th. Uh, and we'll close down that matrix at that time for, you know, the next round so things don't get confusing because we'll have a few drafts going. Sarah, could you give us a timeline of when we're looking for the public meeting, when we're going to have public comment? Uh if next month, which I'm getting ahead of it, but I'm assuming it might be May 5th is the next working group meeting. Um from there, we could have the public comment period. They're usually about a month. Um okay. So then we would close it before the June meeting. So if there are comments from the public, we could discuss them in our June meeting. Be my Thank you. If I may, Sarah, I'm sorry. I know it's late. Um, so planning board is meeting

on May 5th. That means Dave and I are out. Um, so do we want to think look at another day that week? Sure. Or after town meeting now that we now that there's not as much of a rush. Um, I think Wednesdays were okay with folks in the working group. So that would be the May 7th. Is that Does that not work for anyone? It doesn't work for me. That's okay. There's actually no day that week that works for me. Okay. the 14th too late for people. Is it Monday? I'm looking I was looking at Wednesday. Well, I was looking at that 7th the following Wednesday that after the 5th and then I also uh the 12th is town meeting. So that's out. Then there's the 14th that Wednesday. I thought Wednesdays worked better for the group if I was recalling from the um from before. I'm pretty sure right when is everyone know when we were starting out we we queried everybody for good days for meeting and I think Mondays and Wednesdays were I think Mondays were the first choice and Wednesdays were a second choice for at least quite a few of us. Does anybody have an objection to May 14th that Wednesday following town meeting? No, I cannot attend, but if everyone else can, go for it. I also won't be there. Sorry. But you've got other folks that maybe can weigh in that aren't here that can probably be there. Same here.

Then is is Ann Marie the only person that can't attend on the 7th? That is a Wednesday, correct? Yeah, that should be fine. Yeah, I could do the seventh. Maybe the seventh is better. Okay. So, I'll I'll move forward with with the seventh if that works for everybody just so we can you know, it's probably better to keep it in the same week. Okay. All righty. Sarah, did you have anything else that you wanted to to cover or discuss before we break? No, it looks great. I think we'll just stick with that. April 16th, if you'd like any changes made before the public comment period, that would be crucial implement. Sorry, didn't mean to cut you off. Yeah, I I'll send a reminder email out to the to the group as well before the 16th. That would be good. And everybody's going to read every word three times through, right? Yes, sir. Absolutely. Can I make a motion to adjurnn? Second. I think I heard a motion and a second to adjurnn. And of course, motion to adjurnn is not debatable. So, we'll do the roll call. Victoria, hi and Marie Holdley. I Brian, I Essex. I a votes I Sue I. And Colleen, I. Motion carried unanimous and we are adjourned. Thank you for your patience.