Planning Board - Regular Meeting

and kind of set the stage for the discussion.

Great.

One second. Mr. Chair, just because we're doing a remote hybrid meeting, we do need to do a roll call.

Yeah, Bob was in as an attendee. I just promoted him to panel.

There he is. All right, and Michael, the tradition is that the clerk kind of goes around the horn and calls off the names and everyone says present. So would you do that?

Thank you for that gentle reminder. Um, yeah, we'll start with our chair. Uh, Greg down low. Present. David Robbins. Present. Bob Hassinger. I'm here. Justin Wood.

Present.

Also present is Christian D'Amelio, our town planner, and I believe we have town council in conference room A.

Yes, here tonight, and glad to be with everybody. Thanks for having me. So with that, I guess I'll kick it off if I could. We're here tonight to talk about this, the Brigatti Village project. As the board members are aware, the appeals court decision came down some time ago and was not a victory for the planning board. That appeals court decision was eventually going to end result in a remand judgment from the land court. asking the Planning Board to order a new, to issue a new decision consistent with the Appeals Court's ruling. That amended judgment from the Lane Court has issued. That issued in May 20th. And what that judgment does, among other things, is require the Planning Board to issue a new approval decision for the project within 30 days of the judgment. So that, I think, Point number one is that the judgment makes clear that the planning board must issue a new decision approving the project within 30 days. the judge lane courts amended judgment gives the planning board the ability to include conditions in its new decision subject to a number of important caveats those are that the conditions should be standard which is to say that they should be conditions that typically appear in the planning boards prior decisions for projects of this size and scope and there are a number of specified types of conditions that should not be included in the decision categorically. So with that as the sort of framework for what a new decision, I think, must look like to satisfy the judgment, I sort of talked it through with Christian. Christian has taken up the task of producing the first draft of the decision that would do I think all of the things that we would want a plenty board decision to do within the operational limits of the Lane Courts instructions. I believe that that decision has gone out and probably was in your packet. The draft decision that Christian put together, I think, has sort of accomplished that job very nicely. It looks to me to be a comprehensive set of conditions, all of which typically do appear in planning board decisions for projects of this type. So I think it's consistent with the judgment in that respect. Um, and as far as I can tell, um, you know, the conditions that have been included in the draft don't, um, clearly violate, uh, any of the things that the land court said the plenty board couldn't do. Um, so the draft decision I think is a, is that Christian produced as a, I think an excellent, um, Excellent basis for getting a new decision issued that is consistent with the instructions included in the lane courts decision Going from there I'll share that we shared that draft decision that Christian had produced and we had reviewed with the applicant's attorney with the hope being that if there were any major sources of controversy generated by the draft that we could sort of get those out on the table uh talk them through and attempt to to deal with them um short of having to go back and argue about this to the lane court you know three weeks or a month from now so we got um a revised red line version of the decision from the applicants council earlier today there are a number of changes in that red line version i think most of them if not quite all of them can be categorized as attempting to provide a greater degree of specificity about what types of standards the applicant is going to need to meet after permit issuance during construction and before occupancy. The planning board's typical decision does include a number of topics that the planning board and its staff continue to look at during construction. And some of those, I think, are in the standard conditions somewhat discretionary. And I think, I don't want to make the applicant's argument for them, but a lot of the red line changes that they've suggested are an attempt to sort of provide a greater degree of specificity about what can and can't happen during the construction phase of the project. I'm not... ENTIRELY SURE IF THE PLANNING BOARD IS INTERESTED IN ENGAGING WITH THE APPLICANT'S SUGGESTED CHANGES. I'M NOT ENTIRELY SURE THE BEST WAY TO SORT OF GO ABOUT DOING THAT. I'VE DIGESTED THEIR PROPOSED CHANGES OVER THE COURSE OF THE AFTERNOON AND I KNOW CHRISTIAN HAD A CHANCE TO LOOK AT THEM AS WELL. I GUESS I'LL SAY THAT MY INITIAL REACTION IS THAT THERE'S A SMALL HANDFUL THAT I DON'T THINK The planning board should feel obligated to agree to a larger number of proposed changes that seem to me to be probably unobjectionable. And I guess a third smaller category of proposed changes where I don't have an opinion myself, but may be important and may not. I guess I'd characterize And again, I think the draft that Krishna produced, in my opinion, is consistent with the instructions included in the Lane Court's judgment. I think any engagement with the applicant's proposed revisions to that draft would be sort of considered under the category of an attempt to head off any further disagreement about this project. that could follow if the applicant somehow feels obligated to further challenge any revised decision that the planning board is going to vote before next week. So that's a long-winded, I think, summary of where we're at and what the task is. Again, I think the most important task is voting a decision that is consistent with the Land Court's judgment before the 30-day window expires. And with that all being said, I guess I'm happy to answer any questions or provide any additional information that I can.

Mr. Wood, I see your hand up.

Yes. So I just have one question just to check my understanding relating to our council's belief and what the situation is here. In the court's remand decision, there, number five, limited our ability to condition. It mentions no authority on remand to impose any conditions that E, would subject any dwelling unit to inclusionary zoning requirements, affordable housing restrictions. That's the one I'm wondering about because at the time of application, there was some affordable housing requirements in our bylaws at the time they initially submitted the application. Those have since been revised by the town, but my understanding is the ones that were in place as of the initial application are still requirement of this process. But I could be...

So I'm afraid the Lane Court's judgment is clear on that, that this project at this stage cannot include affordable housing restrictions. That is, I think, consistent with, I guess, both... It's my understanding that the current version of the inclusionary housing bylaw was not yet in place when the... This application was filed. That is correct. But in addition to that, there was earlier in the litigation, there was some discussion about the applicability of inclusionary zoning to this project. And there are some findings embedded in the older land court rulings that this project is not subject to inclusionary housing. So I wish it were different, but the status quo at the moment is that this project needs to be approved in accordance with the Land Court's judgment in a manner that does not include any conditions requiring affordable housing. Thank you for that clarification.

All right. So just to kind of level set where we're at, we had a judgment from the Land Court. Christian generated a new decision. Town Council believes that decision meets the requirements set forth by the Land Court, and then we received red lines from the applicant that, you know, we've just received today. So if I guess first I would say, are there any other clarifications, questions from the board? And then second, I would, I would maybe ask that the applicant just share a bit of context about the requested changes. So, but, but first any other clarification questions? So Michael, yes, please.

A brief question. We have a deadline to issue a judgment on this by council. Remind me when that deadline is. I know it's 30 days, but the calendar date.

It was the 18th.

It's either the 18th or the 19th, and I had it on my calendar as the 18th, but I ran the calculation one more time before walking in from the parking lot, and I believe it's next Friday. Friday the 19th would be 30 days from the 20th. Thank you.

So we don't have another meeting scheduled. So are we going to vote this tonight?

Well, I think that's the question is, can we get to a place of agreement, whether it's the decision or the decision, including, you know, agreed upon changes from this meeting. Otherwise we'll probably have to have another meeting the early part of next week in order to meet that deadline.

Well, I've got to say that I'm, I'm really unhappy about all of this. It's it's the way it's proceeded besides the outcome of the way it's proceeded. I've had questions I couldn't get answered. I've asked for things to be done that weren't done. Tonight's meeting even is messed up. We received draft. How many page draft decision? hours ago and then a revised one fewer hours ago in a form that was not made clear whether we're looking at things that are being changed or the way they're being changed too. And I have my own question about the process. We've never had one of these before like this. Could I just vote present when we get to the voting? No, I'm serious, Dave. Because I don't want to vote anything, just like, what was it, 10, 20 years ago, the case that was cited? Remember? Dave, you remember that? The one off of Providence Road?

I think that was before my time on the board.

No, but we talked about it any number of times during this.

We did, yes.

I was the one who voted against the dead-end waiver then, and I voted against it this time, and I believe... Is the court telling me that I have to vote against my... decision? Or can I not vote?

I think the court is telling us that we must approve the waiver, but that doesn't require a unanimous vote. So given that this is a special permit, it requires four votes in favor.

I got that. But I'm talking about when we get at some point, we've got to get to the waiver for the end of the dead end road. I want to be able to vote my way on that one. I'd like to be able to vote my way overall because it doesn't meet our rules, our subdivision rules. And in this, we've raised the question of whether granting this waiver In a case like that one, a few years, some years ago would somehow carry forward and oblige this board with only one person carried from back then to also grant a waiver in that condition. And how about this vote tonight? Will it carry forward and essentially negate the rule? Um, because the original decision, the judge said. He couldn't find anywhere that a previous vote mandated a similar road now. And I don't want to be getting into a situation where this decision is going to negate our rule going forward.

Okay, well, let me... Can I respond to the question? Yes, please.

So I guess my response to that is that the judgment obligates the planning board to approve the permit with the requested waivers by next week. It doesn't... matter terribly much for that judgment if the vote is four to one or five to zero. So I'm not suggesting that we need an unanimous vote. But what the board is up against is the need to issue that decision in that form by next week. So I'm not telling any individual member, Bob, how you must vote, but that will require that we have four other votes that are able to grant the rule.

Yeah, so given that we are here now, I would like to, you know, at least have a discussion about the current state of the decision and the suggested or requested changes from the applicant to see if it's possible tonight to wade through these requests and get to a place of agreement if that's possible. Great. So maybe we can hear from the applicant, just some context on, you know, broadly on the requested changes, anything that they want to add, you know, these are the standard conditions typically, right? There isn't usually a process of redlining a decision like this normally. So please provide any context and what you're, if there's any priority amongst them or what else we need to consider as we look at these in each one by one.

Happy to do it. So Brian Grossman, Strang, Scott, and Giroux on behalf of the applicant with me is also Dave Rossi. Two things. One, just in terms of even the context of the overall order, the court ordered me or my client, me on behalf of my client to file a proposed order. I did that and I, so the order you have in front of you I think is 100% the court adopted what I wrote. I tried to I could have written one that was more difficult and even more constraining. And I tried not to do that, one, to not get an objection, and two, recognizing that there are things that in a decision the board would need to be the right to include appropriate conditions. And I didn't want to go so far as to constrain the board from being able to do that or at least argue to the court somewhat unreasonably that you shouldn't be able to do that. In going through the decision, and candidly, look, I appreciate it. It was a lot of effort. And so thank you to the planner for doing it. And I understand how long it takes to do it, particularly with a project that's this old and one where you weren't involved in any of it. We got it late yesterday. I tried to turn around our comments as soon as we can to not delay anybody and not kind of unfairly prejudice you in terms of your review. I think the overall context of... My changes and my discussion with my client is this, there's a lot in a decision that, two things. One, it is frankly not unusual, at least on my end, that even outside of a litigation context where you have a project that's large and complicated, that we would get a copy of a decision or a draft decision and an opportunity to comment on conditions. In that context, most of our changes are this. We want certainty, and we think in this instance the circumstances demand it for both parties. so that leaving things in open ended discretion while ordinarily where a board may have you know this may be a somewhat standard condition the board may leave itself more discretion is only asking for trouble here the other thing from our from my standpoint and my understanding of both the judge's order and case law of decisions around conditions and later appeals of conditions is that if something goes wrong with that condition and you didn't appeal it within the time you needed to, you're stuck with it. So from that standpoint, if we are gravely concerned about a condition, then we're going to have no choice but to go argue this to Judge Vey, which is something I think I know I certainly don't want to do. I don't think town council wants to do either. So we'd like to get to a place where we all agree. We all may not love it, but we can all live with it. And so that's why in a number of instances where there seemed to be discretion, but that discretion is built around a plan that was before the board. It's the one the board is obligated by the judgment to approve that rather than leaving any sort of discretion, the answer is refer to the plan. It either complies with the plan or it doesn't. If it complies with the plan, there should be no discretion because this is what you're obligated to approve. And if it doesn't comply with the plan, well, that's Dave's fault and he needs to fix it. And he's got to comply with the plan and he's got to live with it. And so that from my standpoint and going through most of it with my client was really where we were, was we didn't want to leave a lot of questions for either party of how far can we go with this? What are we allowed to do? We have to build the plan and that's what you're obligated to approve. And we think a lot of the changes we did that narrowed some of the discretion really just narrow it to build what you said you were going to build and what we're ordered to approve. You know, candidly, there's some other things in there that, you know, we can certainly be happy to discuss any of them. You know, in terms of on a specific loan, you know, what were you thinking? What's the concern? If there's a concern, can we talk about it? If the language you proposed doesn't or, you know, that we proposed doesn't work, you know, can we fix it? We certainly would like to do that and work through it, and if we need another meeting to do it, we're happy to attend another meeting to do it. I hate dragging volunteers out to multiple meetings, but we're certainly committed to that process. Because really, Dave just wants to get this done, get it built, and have a project that he's proud of and that, frankly, hopefully at some point the town of Grafton will be proud of, too.

Now, let me just put my two cents in here, kind of off the top. While I had a chance to review the applicant's proposed changes this afternoon, and for the most part, I think that I would find most of them acceptable. I really haven't had sufficient time to look at them sufficiently closely to convince myself that, yeah, this is acceptable or no, this just won't work. I mean, a lot of these are proposed changes to what we always include as conditions in permits of this type. And looking at it more closely, I suspect that the additional specificity, narrowing it down to be more focused on the approved plans, I don't think I'll have a problem with it. But I, for one, really would appreciate having more time to study it more carefully before I agree to any of those changes.

I mean, from our perspective... You're within the deadline. If you want to hold seven meetings on it between now and the 19th, go ahead.

Then the question would be if we do schedule an additional meeting, it would be sometime next week. Okay. Today is Wednesday, right? Yeah, today is Wednesday. So we could meet the posting deadlines for a meeting as early as Monday evening. If we want to talk more about scheduling a meeting, for me, any evening next week would work.

Well, hold on. Just hold on a second. I just want to concede Is that the general consensus? I'd like to hear from Justin and Michael. Are you feeling as though you haven't had sufficient time to review this information for a vote tonight in general? Or is it worth having a discussion about some of the details now?

There are a few details that I feel like what we have the applicant and his counsel available, we could discuss now. Make hay while the sun is shining. Although, no, we're scrapping the sun. Yeah. Justin?

So I've reviewed this. I have some thoughts and comments that I find beneficial to get into. I don't have a strong opinion that they need to be gotten into tonight if other members of the board want to review this in more detail. I also haven't gone as deep as I... feel this particular decision deserves, but I could have some talk tonight on this, and I'd be most likely comfortable to make a vote tonight, but again, I'm happy to also schedule a new meeting if that's more amenable to the rest of the board.

Okay. Perhaps, I mean, so we're kind of caught in the middle here. I mean, I'm not I'm personally not, I'm feeling like there is a chance that we could discuss this tonight. Um, and, or at least start talking from the most kind of the, our strongest feelings about certain things down to the things that are kind of the, the full pack of, uh, you know, specificity language as people have put it. Um, perhaps what we can do is just let's, let's take, In the review of the suggested changes from the applicant, I believe town council had at least two or something of that small number that we felt sort of strongly that we would not want to include or would object to. Chris, could we just kind of address those as a starting point? Let's talk about those perhaps now. Sure. And then once we end that, let's see where we are in... whether or not we need to keep going or adjourn for some kind of further review.

Sure. So that would be the category of the applicant's proposed changes that we thought were the most problematic.

Mm-hmm.

Okay.

Yeah, let's talk about those now.

Great. So the ones, and this is sort of a combination of me and Christian, I think both, because we compared notes before the meeting. The first one that jumped out as a problem is condition C12. C12 is the condition that provides for The peer review engineer. Peer review engineer to do construction inspection throughout the process. I'm sorry, throughout the process of constructing the development. That is a standard condition, so it satisfies that element of the judgment, and the judgment does allow for inspection fees, so I think that struck me, and I don't want to speak for Christian, but it's both a standard regular type condition and also one that is of some substantial importance to the town to make sure the construction is proceeding, you know, proceeding in due course and complies with the approved plans. So I guess that one is one that struck me as one that likely merited some pushback on the change from the board.

Yeah, I would not accept that change.

I also that was the number one among my concerns was the striking of seats. Well, is a deviation from my understanding of what is usual in customary.

Can I just address that? I mean, who is the chair? And you're on TV. Yeah, sorry.

I'm on zoom here. But yes, please go ahead.

Our major concern is not so much that there should be no inspection and no inspection fees. It's, again, kind of the unfettered limit or lack of any sort of reasonable limit on inspection fees. And again, candidly, I expect, particularly certainly the planner and counsel, I know counsel very, very well, We just don't want to be in a position where, or Dave doesn't want to be in a position where he feels like he's being treated unfairly because of, I mean, candidly, look, this is a unique situation. It is very uncommon, I think, as I can tell you, for a court to order the actual, the court to issue the actual relief. And so given the history of the site and the history of interaction, there's some concern that there's, There's room to make things uncomfortable and to get into an area that does exceed the authorization in the order to not materially increase the cost. It does allow for inspection fees. I think a reasonable inspection fee amount is something we could live with, but we kind of want to discuss a cap.

The way the inspection fee is initiated is through the peer review. Maybe you know, but... Yeah, the 53G account? Yeah, so they would estimate what they think would be based on the review of the plans and go off of that, and that would be how we would come up with that amount. Do we have any idea what that is, or can we get that? Before the decision... With this timeline, I'm not sure about that. But really, there would be any deviation on that would only come up if there was changes in the scope for whatever reason. But it would just go through primarily a peer review engineer.

The other concern, this went through a significant amount of peer review. There was a ton of money spent on peer review fees during the burmaning process. Again, we just want to make sure that Whatever the peer review fees, and unfortunately, not having an estimate, I think, well, it'll be in accordance with the estimate. If that estimate's $100,000 and a reasonable estimate's 10, then the fact that it doesn't exceed the estimate isn't helpful. And that's why we really want to have some cost certainty around what that's going to be. I mean, I don't know what the town's ordinary... fee for this type of development, or assume you use the same consultant, and I don't know what you ordinarily end up asking an applicant to pay. If you tell me it's $5,000, that's great. If you tell me it's $100,000, that's going to be more of a concern.

Bob, are you raising your hand?

Yes. I expect this to go through like any other development and the same processes for any other as far as whatever fees you're talking about. That's just whatever it is, usual and customary. I don't even know how we get into a problem area. This is inspections during the construction? Yes.

You guys and Christian can disagree with me if I think I'm misstating what this condition requires, but it's my understanding that this is effectively just to assess provides some assurance that construction in the field is in compliance with both the approved plans and the construction standards that we expect the road and the drainage to be built to. And I think, I don't want to diminish the applicant's concern on this one, but I guess I would be willing to assume, never having participated in this exact process in Grafton before, that the Town's contracted peer review construction engineer is, you know, both qualified and probably not charging objectionable fees as a general rule or else we would have heard about it before. So I don't want to, I don't, so it, it's, I guess, possible that there's a compromise in the drafting or maybe in the factual investigation on how this has gone in the town in the past, but it, I guess I hear the applicant's concern, but I'm willing to assume that although we are talking about charging money here, that the amount is ultimately going to be objectively reasonable.

I would hope so. I think... in general, assuming things go according to plan and the usual customary types of inspections, again, I think that ends up being a reasonable number. But if I were someone who wanted to, and I'm not saying anyone on the board does, if I were someone who wanted to play games, I'd say, great, we're going to have an inspector on site every day, all day, you're doing construction, and you're going to pay for it.

And I don't think that's what you're saying you're going to do. Is that something that's a possibility, Chris? I understand the concern about negative treatment because of the situation, but what are the real opportunities for that to happen?

I guess there may be any number of ways to tackle this, but I guess one possibility might be to ask the applicant to suggest a revised version of Condition C-12 that both addresses the concern that we're articulating from the town side, defends against overreach in addition to that, but is a, you know, is still a new version of condition C-12 that addresses both of our concerns as opposed to just deleting it entirely.

So, I mean, it would, to me, and I don't know what the right amount is, but I mean, you could almost modify the first or second sentence as long as there's a not to exceed number. We know what that number is and it's reasonable. Everything else falls into line. I just don't know what your ordinary fees are.

Are we saying you're going to say what the fees are now before the construction and before any problems come up or any extra inspections are needed because of some condition? And we won't be able to do that because there won't be any more money? No, I think... I say we follow the usual and customary process. I have no idea how we could cause a problem the way we do this. I don't know how I... Tell me how we can do it first before I...

I don't see how we could put a not to exceed because... Ultimately the applicant is required to pay these fees There's no other way to have them paid and there's inspections need to get done Then they need to be paid for by the applicant and so we rely on our peer review engineer to tell us what? His fee will be to do those fees and that's how we come up with that and if for whatever reason there's any reasons why there need be some additional inspections. We could rely on our inspector to tell us that, our engineer to tell us that, and then that's why we would need more or less for whatever reason. I mean, I can think of a couple.

Okay, I've got a couple of hands up here. Mr. Rock and then Mr. Wood, please. Mr. Rock first.

Yeah, I do not want to waive the right to inspection or run into a situation where we run out of the ability to inspect should there be some sort of adverse finding. Would the applicant and client be satisfied with language to the effect of inspections shall be of the reasonable and customary, you know, quality and quantity associated with similar projects? Such that we are not punitive, you're not, you know, free of inspections.

we'd probably work with that. I mean, I think from what I'm hearing from the board, I don't think we're getting, we may not be getting to a place where we're, you're in a place to vote tonight. I think in that, with kind of that context, I would think, Chris, between you and I, we could probably get to a place that I'm comfortable recommending to my client. It's not what you hope for, but it's what you can live with and you might end up in the same place.

Okay. So, I mean, the, That sounds like, uh, for council on each side to take another shot at getting to alignment on a document that we can all then review with more time than a couple of hours. And we'll pull together another special meeting in the early part of next week in order to take a vote. Yeah. Uh, It seems like if that's where this is headed, you know, letting everybody free, you know, sooner than later tonight makes sense. And I appreciate everyone at least beginning the conversation because I just wanted to see, oh, are there things where we can just describe the context to each other and get to agreement? But it seems like there's enough here that, you know, I would put. you know our our faith in town council to kind of advocate for the things that we feel most strongly about and clarify the other things we you know that thank you to the applicant for going to giving the context of what the concerns are across a lot of the smaller language changes um but that's where i seem we're heading right now but justin please uh you know share your comments before we make that decision so one more thing on this c12 just briefly and then

response to what you just said as well. So on C12, one of the things that the town has typically done is we currently use Graves Engineering. That's who we're currently using as a peer engineer respondent. And in projects, my understanding is Graves has also made recommendations to the town that this project will need another peer review in a week and a half because of doing this thing. Or we'll just come back in two months. We rely on our engineer to tell us effectively what we need. So it's also harder to... at least in my mind, to specify, hey, this is how much it's going to cost. This is how frequent he's going to be coming because we don't know what we don't know. And that's what we rely on the engineers for. So that's just my only additional comment on C-12. I do have a comment, Mr. Chair, on C-22, which hasn't been mentioned by Town Council. And I think there's one or two other conditions that Town Council had to concerned about that that we should probably briefly talk about tonight before we move on?

Sure. So C-22 wasn't on my list of highly objectionable revisions. But because what they proposed in Condition C-22 is that um if they are in violation of the permit that prior to um initiating a revocation of the special permit that they be given a 30-day uh notice and period to cure and that they be given opportunity for a hearing before the permit is revoked i think those are uh reasonable safeguards to build into a permit prior to prior to a permit being revoked that that one struck me as one that um even though that's a departure from standard language it's one that um i i appreciate the concern from the applicant on that one and that one struck me i think my main thought is on just that one just to kind of say i

I don't have an issue with the defined period for fixing the issue. The kind of question to me is typically this board relies on our agent as a zoning enforcement officer of the town to conduct enforcement actions and do things relating to that, and I'm not aware of any situation where the board has had a public hearing in response to a enforcement action that we can then do anything because in the building, our zoning enforcement officers hands unless the applicant files in modification to as as a remedy for the enforcement action. Sure.

So I you know, if it if I was being sort of overly I don't know what the word is, but no, I it seems to me that condition C 22 is you know, boilerplate in your standard permits, but it is not entirely necessary because the zoning enforcement officer has the inherent authority under Chapter 40A to engage in zoning enforcement, whether you include this condition or not. And I think if the in the ordinary course of the zoning enforcement officer found a violation, he'd issue a cease and desist or a stop work order that would likely have a 30 day, you know, reasonable opportunity to cure the defect and if the violation was so egregious that there needed to be immediate action taken the zoning enforcement officer could run into court tomorrow and get an injunction so yes the there are a number of enforcement options available anytime we need to do zoning enforcement and i think condition c-22 i would regard as supplementing those not not not limiting them but you're absolutely right that in the ordinary course zoning enforcement would probably be undertaken by the building commissioner, not, not this board.

So just to be pedantic a bit with the phrasing of an opportunity to be heard at public hearing at a public hearing, would that be reasonable to include there? And would that basically fall under the idea of the applicant coming in for a modification or a public hearing of some sort, or that be something different that we don't typically do?

So I guess this is, this is all under the, under the heading of action being taken to revoke the special permit for violation. So if, you know, if they needed a modification, they would do that outside of condition C-22. Okay. That's fair for me.

Okay, and I've got a couple other hands here. But I am, and, you know, one thing I would say is if these are concerns about specific conditions, I'm wondering if we can all, having a little more time, communicate our concerns to Christian have Christian work with town council to understand those concerns, get back to us with some feedback about what is or isn't negotiable based on the court decision, and then work our way, like we said, to a new draft decision that's been seen by both sides that we can discuss and vote on. Bob and Dave, I see your hands up, but if these are specific condition discussion items, I'm wondering if we can consolidate and send those all to Christian so that council can review them.

And Mr. Chair, if I could maybe just, could I add just one?

Sure, please.

I think that sounds like a good approach to me, although I'm equally happy to sit here all night and go through all the conditions one by one, but that sounds like a good approach to me. I guess I'd offer, if it's helpful, guess my question for you would be is it most helpful for the board members to sort of go through that process with the applicant's red line draft that exists right now or would it be helpful for christian and i to put together a new draft a third draft i suppose that um attempts to flag what we think is objectionable and worthy of pushback and what we think is unobjectionable and probably able to get change. I don't want to presume to make that call for the board members, but I just want to have you guys looking at whatever is going to be most helpful to get this to the finish line next week.

Does that make sense? Well, it's a good point. Yeah, it's a good point because track changes is always tricky because it's just visually challenging. So I don't know. I guess I would ask the group. I mean, I would be fine with either looking at what we have right now and sending the concerns in the body of an email to Christian as a submission or letting another version of it be generated with, I don't know, very clear labeling about, you know, what's in and what's out or, you know, the whole track changes thing can get tricky, but... I don't know. Let me, let me, I think it's a good, it's a good question, but let me pause. Let, you know, first Dave and then Bob kind of say their piece and then we'll figure out what's next.

Okay. One of my questions was, have we done enough with C-12 that council on both sides has a good enough sense of what our concerns were and what we're looking for that we don't, we're done talking about it for tonight? because we sort of magically went from C-12 to C-22, and it wasn't clear to me that we completely resolved our discussion around C-12.

Yeah, if we could just reiterate our understanding of which direction we're headed for C-12, we're all present. That would be helpful.

My understanding was that the planning board is unwilling to give up the condition. because the condition is important. We need to include in the decision a mechanism that allows us to have a construction inspector and requires the applicant to fund that through 53G. But if we are able to include some language in that condition, that ensures that those charges are going to be reasonable, consistent with prior projects in town of similar scope and, you know, and provides some other, I think, general language that is going to signal some reasonable upper limit of what that would be, that that would be acceptable to both sides, but I don't want to speak for the applicant, and that's a drafting exercise that is easier described than done.

So with that said, unless there's anything further on that topic, I guess it's good that we spent some time, you know, working through some of the discussion. My second question is more of a suggestion along the lines of what Greg has been saying. And I think it's worthwhile spending some time this evening on some of the possible, the more notable points of possible contention. There's a lot of small stuff. As I said back near the beginning of the discussion, a lot of the changes that basically are referencing the approved plans as opposed to something more general or more vague. I don't need to talk about those things. I just want to look through. And this again, it's just me. So there's a lot of the applicants suggested changes. I don't feel a need to discuss tonight on the assumption that we are going to have another round of discussion and review. So I'm good with that. And I'm more concerned about hitting some things in this evening's discussion, hitting some things that are possibly more major points of contention or significant additions or omissions or whatever.

Yes.

Without talking anymore, let's move on. I won't talk anymore.

If I understand correctly from town council, there are two that were the most objectionable. One was 12, and then was the other 60?

60 was my second big one, and that...

So let's talk about that a little bit now, because I do think that the discussion on 12 was productive.

Did Bob still have his hand up?

Well, I'm sorry. Go ahead, Bob. We were talking about revoking the approval. Now, is that the one you're talking about, or are we just jumping another direction? This process isn't working for me very well.

I was done talking about the condition about permit revocation.

Right. So you still have another comment on 12, Bob?

No. Permit revocation. Which one is that?

That was 22. 22. 22.

We were on 22 when we dived back to 12. Okay. Okay. This is not really as well structured as I would like.

Well, Bob, what I'm trying to ask from town council for this live discussion is they had highlighted a couple of things that they felt were the most conscientious. Everybody has their own list. So, you know, if it's too difficult, like we're not going through them one by one and the conversation is taking us to other places. So I agree with you that it's not as orderly as it could be. if that's too challenging, then maybe what we need to do is stop and use a process more like submitting concerns to Christian and handling it in some way that's captured in writing and then gets manifest in a draft that we can review. We would have a week to set up this new process and execute it.

I'm sitting here wanting to ask a damn question about the subject that we're on. I need to have the conversation with the council to understand the thing before we go down all this other road. Go ahead, Bob, forget it, forget it. I'm gonna vote against it. I'm totally unhappy with the process. And this has been going on ever since this case started. that it's all going on around us, and we're not in the middle of it. I asked all along the way for things with counsel, and they didn't happen over the years of this process. And everything was done out of view. So I'm When was the last time that we were, well, first of all, how do you revoke really? How do you revoke, um, this? And have we ever? No, I don't think so. Don't believe we have not to my knowledge. And my knowledge goes back to 19 spring of 91. And, um, We're spinning our wheels here on that one. We don't have anything about revoking or not revoking in any other decision in all those years, as far as I know. And I don't see putting it in this one. It just makes no sense to me.

Well, again, I acknowledge this isn't ideal, right? This meeting was scheduled quickly. It's a special meeting. We were giving materials within hours of the meeting. So the question while we're together was, could we have a productive conversation while we're together? I think it's a real challenge to try to talk through this live unless we're going to go through it one by one, because I think there's a difference of opinion around, you know, are there some that are kind of acute points that really need to be dealt with? Are there some that are just part of a theme of specificity, if that's what we want to call it? Um, so that's, that's kind of what we're looking at right now is if we're, if we want to dig in and go through this in order live, that's a possibility, or we could adjourn and submit our concerns to the town planner So that town council can interact with us on those concerns and work his way with the applicant's council towards a draft that can be approved in the next week. Because that is something that is required of us. And that's not ideal, but that's required of us.

I think I'm happy. I'm happy with the list we got from, from, from our planner about these are okay. These, these couple, we ought to do a little talking about, and these couple, we should do a lot of talking about, and we're partway into that. And I'm, I'm happy to just, just settle that. It seems to me like, um, it would be a good idea to meet Monday night. That would leave time for yet another meeting. If, uh, if necessary. Dave and I had another meeting we were supposed to be at half an hour ago, and that's been called off. We can go on here, but I think.

Well, that's separate from this. Dave, do you have your hand up?

Yeah, so I have a couple of, in addition to that C60 from town council, I have a couple of other items that I would at least like to briefly discuss tonight before we go off and do another round of revision. But as I said before, I don't feel a need to go through everything in gory detail. At this point, we've got, I think, a few significant items that can be worked and incorporated into a revised draft. which we can then review in more detail, hopefully with fewer open issues at a subsequent meeting. So I would like to, you know, Greg, if we're done talking about some of the other things that we'd started talking about, continue with Council's list of the

Council's list of the most objectionable was 12 and 60, 6-0. And I'm certainly happy if folks have a number of things outside of those two that they find to be important to discuss tonight, then let's talk about them together.

And, Mr. Chair, just comparing notes. Mr. Yes, please. Mr. I think in comparing notes with Christian in advance of the meeting, I think he had also flagged 41 and 49 as sort of the other two to add in that first category. Forty-one is in condition 41, the applicant deleted the statement that the planning board preserves the right to require additional erosion control site stabilization measures at any time during the construction process and substituted instead that erosion control and stabilization measures are going to be as shown on the approved plans. So there's I think that the issue there is should the planning board preserve its ability to sort of require more, you know, as needed out in the field during construction. The other one was, I don't want to jump around, but 49, as drafted by Christian and in your standard condition, would say that there's no construction on neighboring, no construction parking on neighboring properties at any time, period. And in 49, the applicant added some language so that that condition would instead read that there's no construction vehicle parking on neighboring properties at any time without permission from the property owner. So opening the door to construction parking, again, with permission of the property owner on neighboring properties. And I guess I don't know, as a matter of fact, whether... that's likely to be a concern for this particular site, but that's another one that was a potential source of concern. But again, I guess in the category of potentially good news, those are the four conditions out of considerably longer list that the applicant had proposed revisions to that we sort of put in that first category of a potential problem. I think all of the other revisions, at least from our perspective, seemed like ones where there may be some room to work.

Okay. Dave, did you have another one that you wanted to add?

Not another one, but a comment on 41.

Who's going to set the order of what we're going to comment on? If we're talking about, which ones are we going to talk about? And Greg, which one are we going to talk about first?

Well, we discussed 12. Did you have anything else on 12, Bob?

No. I thought we passed over. I thought we...

We've, the next one that was proposed, I'm going down the list as presented by council. The next one was 60.

which is about, which one is that?

60 is about in the later stages of construction securing, providing security for completion of the infrastructure consistent as you would with a regular subdivision. That condition was, the applicant suggested additional language in that condition that would say, that the performance guarantee provided a security for completion of the subdivision infrastructure would not include, um, security for the top coat of asphalt for the access roadways and driveways. Um, and I guess I, in my experience, when you're providing security for completion of a subdivision, you would provide it for all remaining outstanding work, but I guess I'm, I'm not. So I was not, it was not entirely clear to me why that was an issue for the applicant. Um, And we discussed it briefly in the hallway, but I guess I'm not. If the applicant wants, Mr. Chair, if you want the applicant to sort of speak to that concern, that might be helpful.

Yes. So let's stay on 60 and the applicant a chance to comment on 60 and then the board a chance to comment on 60.

If I may, the reason why I was concerned about that was in order to complete the subdivision or the project and have it look as nice as possible, like we did at Hillview when we built those units over there, the last thing we did was put the top coat on. And I'd hate to have money tied up for the whole construction. Because when you do the last pavement, it just looks fantastic to have it all done in one shot. I didn't really want that money tied up for the whole length of the project from phase one to phase two. That was really the only reason was that I expect to pave, to do the top coat all at the same time for the project.

Okay, questions or comments from the board? Mr. Rock?

the bonding for the guarantee of a top coat that is usual and customary? So in this case, the applicant wants us to deviate from usual and customary. And I'm concerned as to why. They want usual and customary in some cases, but not others.

It's a private road, so it's not going to be maintained by the town. But also, from my discussions with the client, it's typically not something that ends up getting bonded off.

Is it going to be a private road when the project's finished?

Yes.

Okay.

Yep.

Just to Michael's point, the issue is that this is a standard condition that's being changed. So that opens up, that's a change that has not been done before specifically. So I think that's the primary issue, not that we want to, that we understand the concern, but this is a standard condition we'd be changing.

Yes. Dave.

Some of this is clearly a negotiation, right? I mean, we have the nuclear option of having to go back to Judge May. Nobody really wants to do that. So there's going to be some give and take. We can talk about things. I can take that back to my client and see if there's something else we can propose there. But you've heard the concern. It's going to be a private road. plan is to do it. Look, I don't think I tell anyone who's involved remotely with construction right now. You know, costs are through the roof. And so anything you can do to not tie up funds, even if that even if those funds are just to pay for an additional, you know, a bond for a fairly large amount is significant.

And these are only four conditions that we've flagged to oppose the changes for out of all the other ones. I appreciate that.

We appreciate it.

Don't think your efforts have gone unnoticed. We do notice that. I understand about the bond for infrastructure purposes, you know, water, sewer. I get all that. But to me, generally, the top code is more of an aesthetic than it is, you know, like it has to be done like right now. When we built houses, which we did in Grafton, Northbridge, and a lot of other places, we We usually wait at least one year to put on the top coat from when we put the binder down in order to let all the defects of anything underneath the gravel come to the surface so we can cut it out and fix it. And I envisioned doing similar circumstance. So that's not rushing to put the top coat down that's going to maybe have a soft spot in it and have an issue with it. Put the binder down, let the binder settle adequately, And then, you know, when we do the top coat, cut out any imperfections so that it's beautiful. I'm not new to Grafton, gentlemen. You know, you can feel free to drive through. I'd give you permission, Blackberry and Juniper Lane. We keep the property, in my opinion, absolutely spectacular. And we have great people, and I think we've been a total asset to the community of Grafton, if I can say so myself. We don't do crappy work. And, again, you should take a look at it. But that was the whole purpose when I talked to Brian. I said, I really want to have the top coat perfect. I want to have time for the road to settle, any imperfections to be cut out. It's a private road. I'm the one who's going to be maintaining it. I'm the one who's going to be taking care of it. I don't want it to be crap. I want that final pavement to be excellent when it's put down because it's very expensive. I just didn't want to tie up a large bond amount sitting there, which would give me anxiety that I have to pave it right away and then it not come out as well as it could. Again, I ask you folks to come look at our projects that we've done. And I think that you'll be very happy with the quality of work that we do and how they look. And quite frankly, BlackBerry and Juniper Lane were done over 20 years ago, and they still look the way they look today.

Okay. Go ahead.

I would like to point out that this is indeed a standard condition that we use in a definitive plan approval for a subdivision. The project before us tonight is not a subdivision. It's a multifamily development, and multifamily developments basically never, their streets are never, streets, roadways, drives, however you describe them, those never become public. They're never the responsibility of the town of Grafton. I had a moment this afternoon to look up the most recently approved multifamily development that we did, Broadmeadow North. We did not include any condition similar to this in that approval. It just wasn't there. The purpose of this for a subdivision is to ensure that should the developer walk away from the project, the town has funds to complete the roadway utilities. That is simply not an issue here. So to me, I don't see a need for this condition at all. Not based on what it's normally used for, not based upon previous similar projects that we've approved.

Okay. Bob, did you have a follow-on comment to that?

Well, yeah. How many projects with private roads have we approved, and how many have had this requirement, and how many have not?

That would take more time to answer than we have.

Yes. I don't ever remember not requiring it. It's customary. In a normal subdivision, there's a year, more or less, wait before the top coat goes down, I think. So this is pretty much normal with all of that. I think if some of my earliest time on the board was discovering that we had subdivisions that had stopped being built and someone went away and okay, what are we gonna do about it? I don't know exactly. what the town's legal position would be on, uh, this project. If it, if that happened, then with the way things are these days, who knows what's going to happen? Um, I think though, politically, it would be really a problem. Most people would be raising a cane about wanting their road finished. Um, and the town. It's got to be in the middle of that. So I would say that we should do what we've done in past similar projects, maybe even looking back at what we did in the others from these folks.

OK. Any other points of view from the board on condition 60?

Let me just suggest that this is something we could Bob asked sort of the right question. Other similar projects, what have we done? I only had time to look at one. So yes, to go a little bit further back and determine whether this is a customary decision, a customary condition for at least some, if not all, of the projects of this nature. We can't answer that tonight, but it's something that we could follow up on.

I can look back and see which decision it came from. From all these conditions, it came from the most recent two or three multifamily special permit approvals, but I can check exactly which one this condition came from. That's not a problem.

All right, Justin, did you have your hand up?

Yes. Just super briefly, I just wanted to say I agree with the idea of just using what is customary for us. I don't disagree with Mr. Robbins if this is something that we don't typically have done. There's no reason to keep it here. I think that's fair. I would just want to kind of stay with what we typically have done and beyond that, I think that's fine in my mind.

If we've done something like this for some similar projects in the past, we want to look at that.

All right. Do the planner and town council have an understanding of all the perspectives on condition 60 as we've kind of discussed it?

Yes.

Okay. Can we move on to 41? And I'm not going in numerical order. I'm just going in the order that they've been brought up. What's that? If council could remind us what 41 is and we will have discussion about that.

41 is the condition that provides for both planning board and conservation commission to go out to the site and no construction activity shall occur until the applicant receives written authorization from both confirming that the erosion control and site stabilization measures are in place. It does contain language as it was prepared by Christian that allows the Planning Board or Conservation Commission to require additional erosion control and site stabilization. The applicant is proposing to take that language out and say instead that that will all be done in accordance with the approved plans. So what's at stake in 41 is the ability to require additional discretionary erosion control and site stabilization above and beyond what is shown on their plans.

All right. I see many hands on the board. Can we give a brief moment to the applicant to just share any additional context on the request?

Yeah, I mean, it's consistent with the theme in terms of kind of the unfettered discretion and wanting to make sure that you had a thoroughly reviewed plan that was reviewed by Graves Engineering, reviewed by the other departments in the town, and the erosion control plan was approved. So that's what that's what they'll commit to doing. And I mean, even if we even if you accept our change, there's nothing that stops planning or the conservation, which from coming out and saying, Hey, could you do x? And he's not obligated to say no, he's not going to do it either. And can they in during some of the construction, and we tend to they realize they want to do additional erosion control, because it makes sense. And it's the right thing to do. Where we just didn't want to be is in a position where it's again, just complete, unfettered, discretion, sole subjective discretion, in some ways, you know, planning and conservation. to come out and give direction when the concern here is to make sure that everything's done in accordance with the approved plan.

Okay. We have many hands on the board. Mr. Hassinger, please go.

Yeah. It's been quite a while, but I think my memory is correct on this, that a lot of the discussion during the hearings looking at this project involved people below the project, in properties below the project, who were very concerned and had some professional background in these matters, and they were very concerned about what was really going to happen. And I think that some of that condition was put in specifically to respond to concerns about that situation. As long as the plan works out okay, no problem. But I think we had it in there, my recollection is we put it in there specifically connected with all of that discussion input from people at the hearings.

Okay, moving on to Mr. Wood.

All right, so similar to what Bob was saying, I think we did have lengthy discussions by the applicant's engineers and a neighboring resident that said he was a geological engineer that had those concerns. I think overall, I have some concerns just limiting to this to what was on the approved plan for the sake that conditions do change over time and that is something that our conservation commission has typically looked at to make sure that the site conditions end up are still appropriate for what was in the approved plans as far as water runoff bylaws and actual laws of the state i would be comfortable limiting this to this is just kind of off the cuff and this i would rely on council to kind of you know, figure out if there's legality or right way to word this, but it's something along the lines of, you know, at the limits of work or limit, you know, property lines, kind of making sure that this not in, you know, undue change in what was in the approved plans, if there is an undue change, then that this is still coming back into play. If that is making sense to think it makes sense to Mr. Jeff, I can't make sense.

Yes, please. If what I hear you say is like, look, if it's working, great. If what happens is there's demonstrably additional runoff onto an adjacent property or sedimentation onto an additional property, then you'd want the ability to address that.

That's roughly what I'm thinking. Probably I think we can work with that as a framework. I know other board members have their hands up, so I don't know what else is going to say, but that's kind of where my mind is at.

Okay, I think, yes. Okay, so I think Dave was next, and then... Michael, after that. So Dave, go ahead.

Yeah. So I think this is generally a standard condition. It's common for us to include this. in recognition of the fact that oftentimes, I don't know how often it is, I wouldn't try to characterize the frequency, but it does happen, that the best erosion control designs that the engineers can come up with and thoroughly reviewed and vetted, sometimes it turns out that they just don't work. the way it was thought they would work, it would work. And so this condition, I think it's been a standard condition of ours for about as long as I can remember, that the planning board and or the conservation commission are authorized to require additional or changed erosion control in order to address conditions in the field. And it should be no more complicated than that.

I think we can get there.

All right. So it sounds like there's something to work on between council. Michael or Bob, did you have something additional to that for this specific 41.

There was a comment, CONCOM looking at runoff. I don't know that CONCOM normally controls runoff. They would know more than I do. I think we're more responsible for runoff than they are. I think they're worried about the land that needs conserving. And there was the mention that this wasn't just, the concerns weren't just surface water. The geological concerns that the conditions down, layers down, are not necessarily well understood and well characterized. So it was best to have a way to be prepared, be able to deal with that if that should come. This case is much more likely to have a problem than other cases that we've ever seen. How much, you know, I say more likely, that might still not be terribly likely, but... It was a concern.

Okay. And Michael, any final comments on this one?

Yeah, I'll try and be quick here. You know, as design on plans is great, would the applicant be open to language to the terms of, you know, to meet performance standards? Because I don't want us to dictate how you control the runoff. If things change, as long as you do control runoff and hydrologic conditions, as things change, no, it's not our intent to be punitive or difficult here. As long as it meets the standard.

I think we can get somewhere. And pinning it to a standard, I was like that.

Okay. All right. Any other things on 41? Or do the planner and town council feel like they have the viewpoints on all sides?

Yeah, that's all good. I think we're good.

Okay. I will take a slight detour from the list that you gave us just to mention something I think that is related to 41, which is 40. And I have a question about the language that was removed about trying to preserve the number of trees. I guess that's my question to the board or to the planner. Is that something that CONCOM would have oversight on? No, not at all.

Can I tell you what I intended the change to be? Because I didn't intend it to be a controversial one. So the way I read the condition was that even within kind of the limit of work where we expected to, you know, we expect a lot of the clearing to be, or almost all the clearing to be, that you could read that condition to say, like, well, there are trees in that that we expect to clear now that need to be preserved as opposed to preserving and protecting the limit of, you know, near the limit of work and outside the limit of work and making sure that those are appropriately protected. And we just want to make sure that the landscaping plan and everything else has, again, per the plan, everything that was expected to be removed gets removed. Everything that's expected to be preserved gets preserved. And so if my deletion didn't accomplish that, but we agree that that's the intent, happy to work with everybody on that.

Okay. That was my question. Any comments specifically on that number 40, Bob? Yeah.

Don't we... Dave would remember, I seem to recall that some of the conditions, maybe even the rules, talk about significant trees and trying to protect.

Yes, that is under Grafton bylaw with the tree warden. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Okay. Yeah. I think the spirit of that is that it not just be indiscriminately clear cut, but if it, if there's some language that applies to what's been approved in the plan to be preserved or not preserved, then I think that would, that would do it for me.

Um, any other on, go ahead. I don't see existing trees noted on the plan. Is it possible that I'm looking at the wrong plan?

I don't I don't have that off the top of my my head if the one I'm not sure which one you're looking at.

We we might get away with just something along the lines of limit of work or something like that, which I think is fairly 30 in there. Yeah, fairly accurate. Yeah, covered on the plan and generally is not going to be outside outside limit of work is basically you're not gonna touch it anyway.

Work. Where where is the limit of work boundaries of the property?

Pretty close.

I'll trust staff and council to kind of work through it.

Share screen. Page C2.01 of site plan revised. It's pretty close to the property line with the exception of the very steep slope going down to Church Street and the wetlands, of course.

Okay. Any other comments on 40? All right. So let's move to the last one that was elevated by the town planner and town council, which was 49. Yes. So council, can you just remind us of 49 and the concern, and then we can discuss it in the same fashion. Sure.

Your standard condition 49 says that construction vehicles may not park on neighboring properties at any time, period. And as proposed to be revised by the applicant, it would say construction vehicles may not park on neighboring properties at any time without the permission of the property owner. So what's at stake between our version and their version is whether or not construction vehicles can park on neighboring properties with their permission.

okay i'll open it up to the applicant to just sort of explain any context there and then we'll take the comments from the board sure i don't expect it to be necessary um but i against how i i read the condition which is just one that made sense to me in the context of it we want to protect our budding property owners so we don't want you parking a construction vehicle there um and our if they if they're willing to allow it then um and we have the the express permission for it then The job to protect the landowner is done. They've consented to it. If the intent is something different, then I took a big swing and missed.

Okay. Thank you for that. Mr. Wood. Mr. Wood, go ahead.

I just flagged this because I was not sure if this had ever been written, had it ever been changed, or it was something the board would be comfortable with without reviewing it ahead of time. So that's why I flagged it. Okay.

so i i think for this particular property in and of itself i would be surprised if construction vehicles would ever park on a neighboring property even if they were allowed given the the topology and everything else for this for this property that said i'd be comfortable with this change the other thing i would probably recommend is we change it to without prior written permission just so that everyone's T's across. That's fine.

Okay. Filed with the board. But why do we change this from what we do everywhere else? I do remember there was a little bit of, I don't remember the details, but the existing abutters to the access road up there at the boundary, there was some oddness about that. So I don't see why we should do something special here that we don't do for other people. Okay.

Michael, did you have a comment?

What happens between two consenting parties is typically none of my business. I just wanted to point out that parking of commercial vehicles with the exception of pickups and vans on residential property is prohibited by the zoning bylaw or the drafted bylaw, one of those two.

Okay. All right. Any other comments on 49? Do the planner and council feel like they have the viewpoints of everybody on that one for negotiation?

Yes, I think so.

Alright, thanks for speaking. I'm looking at I'm looking at a tiny box of everybody. Okay, any other so we've talked about the four that the town council and the town planner have elevated. Any other you know, I think there's a whole grouping of them that fall under the banner as what has been discussed as specificity of language. Are there others that the board tonight we'd like to elevate as a larger concern so that we can have a similar discussion and leave, you know, Christian and Chris with enough to sort of work through a new version with the applicant. I'll start with, I think Michael's hand went up first.

Yeah, I don't want to impose undue restrictions on the building process here. And it could be that this already exists in one of the plans and I missed it. Part of the plan is typically to state what the maximum number of workers per shift is. Does that sound familiar? No. Is that just a dead bylaw recommendation?

We haven't done that to my knowledge in relation to construction in any way. But it's primarily when there's a business that would, and that relates to parking requirements rather than other stuff.

Never mind then.

We do sometimes do some specification about hours.

It's in here somewhere.

The hours are disclosed clearly.

That's in the draft. Construction days and hours are addressed in the condition. The reason we didn't discuss it is we didn't edit it.

Yeah. All right. Dave, any others to elevate?

Yeah, so I have two points. One, I think is fairly trivial, but it's still, I think it's worth mentioning tonight because in different ways, the applicant has called this out as well. Conditions C-17 and C-45, both, am I looking at the right? Yeah, both refer to MassDOT, obtaining permission, curb cuts permits, coordinated with MassDOT. And that would be appropriate for a project that touches a state right-of-way. This project does not. So those two conditions could be either eliminated or rephrased to the extent that it might be appropriate to have them coordinate with the town, because this project is interfacing with a town right-of-way, but not state. So you can work out the details in the language.

That's correct.

Now, that caught my eye as something that I should at least mention for follow-up. I'm not going to try to rework the language on this discussion tonight. The other point is something that's not mentioned anywhere in the draft decision, but this goes back to the original permit, and we never needed to resolve this. for the initial permit because we ended up denying it. So the question never really had to be answered. But it's worth, I wanted to bring it up and get a sense of where the board would like to go on this. To be specific, finding F14 in the original decision says, The plans show as the preferred option the treatment of the end of Drive A with pervious grass pavers. Exhibit 36 shows the pavement of this area if the board does not support pervious surface treatment. So the question before the board is whether And the applicant has clearly stated, going all the way back to the original permanent hearings and everything, the applicant has stated a preference for pervious grass pavers for that emergency access way. And the question to the board is, are we comfortable with that or do we want to insist on a paved emergency access way? The board previously has not discussed pervious pavement much at all, not in the context of roadway, except to say for roads that are to be accepted by the public, the DPW is absolutely opposed to pervious pavement. In the recent subdivision regulations update for low impact development, We did talk about pervious treatment, pervious surfaces for bikeways and walkways. And there we said that for anything that's going to be maintained by the town, we don't want it to be pervious. There's a lot of potential expenses associated with maintaining pervious pavement of any size. But we also said, and again, this is a subdivision rules applied to bikeways and walkways that a private privately owned and privately managed bikeway or walkway, we're okay with it being pervious surface provided that the owner provides the town with an operations and maintenance plan. So that's basically the extent that I can think of of the board's position on pervious pavement in general. So the question, and we don't, again, we probably want to get a sense of where the board would like to go with this. Are we okay with the applicant's preferred grass pavers for the emergency access, or do we want to insist that it be paved?

Which condition again was this, Dave?

It's not in any of the conditions.

It's in the previous decision?

It's a question that was raised in the original decision, but was never answered because we never needed to answer it because we denied that permit. So had we approved the permit at that time, we would have had to include probably a condition stating the board's preference.

But as it is- I see Bob's hand and Justin's hand. Are these comments related to what Dave brought up?

Yes.

Yeah. Okay. So we're talking, we're now, just to center us, we're talking about this condition that is not in the current draft, but was part of the previous proceedings. Okay. So Bob, go ahead.

Yeah. This was actually a, quite a subject as we were working on this. It comes back partly to the cul-de-sac length issue. If you don't have an access there connecting the end of that road back to the main road, then you have a very long cul-de-sac. or dead-end road, really. I'm not sure that the pervious treatment is the best when you consider emergency access and whatnot. So I'm inclined to say that we need to have a paved... It's got to be built the same as the rest of the road.

And I design requirements is I remember and certainly three of you live the four of you including Dave lived this but as I remember reading the record and even making some of the arguments is It was proposed to be pervious because that's what they thought you wanted. Final discussions during the hearing process were actually to have it be paved. Correct. And we were certainly happy to do that. So if paved is what the board wants, Dave's happy to do it. He thought that was the better course of action to begin with.

Okay. So Justin, is your question related to that?

Yeah, this is related to that. So first off, just very briefly for the board members that don't know, basically grass pavers is effectively the paving stones that allow grass to grow through them. That's roughly what it is. We had a better presentation at our hearing on this, but that's roughly the statement. I think for the hydrology expectations on the site, I generally would prefer the grass pavers, but for the I think I also remember Mr. Brasi saying, or the representative mentioning that the grass papers are also going to be a more expensive option. If I remember correctly, I don't remember. I don't remember. But the, the point I think is to Bob's point about it being worse for a dead end street. I also agree. But at the same time, I don't, based on what my understanding of the court decision is, I don't think we should be making any of our decisions based on the dead end street. That's my understanding as well. That said, I have a site preference for it, but I also see the same reason, so I'm open to just leaving it out and leaving it to the applicant and the approved plans to be decided. That's my opinion.

Any other comments on that one?

Is the board preferring this be what Justin said up to the applicant or an added condition that specifically addresses this?

I'd ask you to specifically address it.

Yeah.

I don't want someone looking back and being like, well, it doesn't say, so let's, you know, we can agree either way. Let's just agree and we'll put it in and everybody will know.

I want it to be paid.

Okay. We're happy to do that as a condition.

Yeah.

I do not care if it's paved or unpaved as long as the pervious solution will support a fire truck going over it.

Agreed.

Dave. Any other comments here?

So the reason I brought this up is because it was left undecided in the original permit. It was described, the grass pavers were described in the original permit documentation as the applicant's preferred solution. I think I just heard the applicant say they'd be perfectly happy and they might even prefer to pave it. Correct. In which case, what we need to do in this decision is basically just document that. And I think that it would have to be added as a condition. And it's precisely because it was left... ambiguous at best in the original permitting process, at least as far as the actual findings and exhibits are concerned.

No, that sounds right to me. We can add that as a condition.

Okay. All right. Do the planner and council have enough to add that condition based on this discussion?

To make it paved. Yes.

Okay. Any others to elevate to the list.

I have nothing else that I want to discuss this evening.

Does anyone else have a specific condition that they want brought up to higher priority or otherwise we're leaving the rest in the kind of bunch of they are for specificity and to alleviate the concerns expressed by the applicant and can be dealt with between counsel

in the creation of a new draft does that sound the current state of where we're at to everyone here are there other comments yeah i'd like to see it say us meet again as soon as we can so that we have as much room as possible depending on how everything goes

yeah so i think discrete next steps are taking the conversation that was had tonight for the planner and town council to work together um and in communication with the applicant and their council on coming up with uh a new draft that the board can review with some you know reasonable lead time as much as possible and then for uh you know i guess christian you and natalia to work on a date for another meeting early next week, um, such that hopefully we are into that meeting having reviewed something and having the ability to have a conversation, but, uh, less to sort out, um, because we've had kind of a back and forth and we're looking at something that's been reviewed by everyone.

Well, I think that deserves discussion to try and finalize right now if we can. Um, I mean, the lead time is pretty tight on this, especially to get the board something to review ahead of the meeting like happened today. But it's just sort of the nature of the timeline right now. I think Tuesday would give ample time to get everything put together to be reviewed. That leaves one less day as a buffer. that that's what I'm feeling would be most reasonable to get a revised product back to be voted on. And then if we can decide on it, if that's agreeable and we can decide on a time right now, then we can get the agenda posted tomorrow.

I'll take the two comments. I've got two hands up. So please Bob and then Justin share comments and then we can talk potentially about booking a date.

Yeah. The date that we have to have made the decision by is when? Thursday? Friday the 19th. Friday the 19th. So I want to be sure that we're not setting this meeting too late to not be able to have another meeting after it. If it's Friday, then Tuesday is okay. I was interested in Monday because that's planning board night and gives more time.

I think Christian and Chris need some time to go back and forth and get the next draft for us to review.

But I think we need to decide on the meeting. Things have not been going well with the posting and with the Setting up meetings and posting agendas and all of that lately.

Yeah. So, I mean, I agree that I think Tuesday is reasonable, both for the getting the materials together and leaving as much time as we can before the deadline. Justin, you still have your hand up. So what do you have a comment on this specifically?

My thoughts. Number one is. I would want to be able to have this material at least 24 hours in advance so that the board can have an opportunity to review it. I think during the days when I'm working, I don't tend to have more than 30 minutes between work and coming to a meeting. So trying to review this generally is hard. I was off earlier today, so I had a little bit of luck today. the that's generally the thing the other point is if this is due friday does that mean this is due to be stamped by the clerk's office on friday yes which means our next which means our latest meeting date is going to be thursday if it's an evening yeah so i i would suggest that if we think we can get this done in one additional meeting yes

post an agenda this week for a Tuesday night meeting and leave it at that. If there is even the slightest thought that we might need Tuesday and another date, post another meeting for Wednesday or Thursday just as a cautionary measure. If you don't want to hold the meeting, you don't have to hold the meeting.

That's what I was roughly getting to is that I think, number one, This particular room is going to be busy on Tuesday. This is the select board day. So there'll be most likely another meeting in this room that takes priority over us. That said, we could also host this fully remotely in theory, though in person tends to have some benefits.

Just check the room calendar. I don't think there's a meeting on the 16th, Tuesday.

You might be right, Mike. Michael, you might be right on that.

I don't think we have a choice. I think Tuesday is the next time we need to meet one way or another.

We still have to meet. The other point I was going to make just to kind of pull it out there is I would highly advocate if there's even a 1% chance of us having another meeting that we just confirm a date, post, and have it. If we don't need it, we can just file to the clerk's office saying meeting canceled.

Yeah.

and we don't need to do anything else, and that just saves all of us headache. That's a good idea.

That's fine. I'm hearing Tuesday and Thursday, and hopefully we only need Tuesday. I think that's fine. Tuesday and Wednesday, if people are free.

It doesn't cost anything to post meetings. Post Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday with maybe a little... that we might not need this. Be more hopeful, Bob. I think Tuesday is going to be what we need. No, I'm being prudent. Logistics is what I do.

Okay. I think we heard that we want to have hopefully the meeting to get it done on Tuesday and then at least one backup if not more, depending on how much time is needed to execute that process versus working on the document. Okay. Dave, I see your hand up.

Yes. Go ahead. For the record, on the room reservations calendar for Tuesday evening, Conference Room A is booked for the select board. Conference Room F is booked for the school committee, although that might actually... Schools move to Wednesday. Well, the committee, I think, had changed their meeting night, so I'm not sure if that's current.

We were just informed schools moved to Wednesday. Is that what I heard? Yes.

Could we just do all Zoom if we can't get a room?

Yeah, that's always an option.

Okay.

So I think logistics aside.

There are some other rooms that are good. like the one in the cable studio. It's actually quite good for something that will be a small number of people. So there are options.

All right, well, I'm going to leave that up to Christian and Natalia to figure out. What I'd like to hear from everybody is, are you all available at, let's call it the usual time of 7 o'clock on Tuesday the 16th? I am.

I'm available all week.

For me, I land at like 3pm on Monday, Tuesday through the rest of the week is clear.

Okay, so because that because kind of what I'm pulling from everyone here is if we can shoot for, you know, Christian and Chris, if we can shoot for at the latest kind of Monday morning to receive something. That will give a nice amount of time for the board to go through it, ask questions, what have you. And then we kind of come into Tuesday night, hopefully, you know, pretty clear on what needs to be discussed in the meeting.

That's I think that's a reasonable amount of time to give us. And I think we can we can get that out by Monday morning.

OK, so, Christian, if we can plan on. you know, the primary meeting being seven o'clock on Tuesday and then for at least, you know, one backup on Thursday at the same time? Is everyone available on Thursday at the same time?

No, I have a hearing in New Hampshire at 7. And Mr. Chair, one thing I did just realize as well, Mr. Chair, is that Friday is actually a holiday for the town of Grafton, which means, because it's Juneteenth, so the clerk's office will be closed on Friday, which means the deadline is technically Thursday. Is the court closed on Friday?

So that forces us to do a Tuesday-Wednesday?

The clerk's office in Grafton is closed on Friday. I think that makes it Tuesday, Wednesday.

All right. So then it's Tuesday, Wednesday. Is everyone available 7 o'clock on Wednesday as well?

I think that's consensus.

Okay. All right. So I feel like that's where we're at, right? We've discussed all the sort of high priority things tonight. I think council and the planner have enough context to interact with the applicant and their council in terms of generating a new draft. We'll hope to see that on Monday morning at the latest and then come into Tuesday night with the hopes of any final discussions and a vote with Wednesday at seven o'clock as a backup.

Are we doing these by Zoom or in person? In person. That's in person Tuesday, Wednesday?

TBD. I think we've got to look at what rooms are available, but I mean, To me, if it's just this group and it's not going to involve lots of members of the public, then having a pure Zoom is okay with me. I don't know if other people object to that.

There's a certain benefit to having a person that I enjoy for these meetings. That said, we do typically, as a board, try to make sure that our meetings can be hybrid. So even if every member of the board is in person, if

the applicants wanted to attend but can't be in person that zoom is most likely to be an option so why don't we why don't we plan on on hybrid then okay that may also make a difference as to video you know the the video records of the meetings that people can see um with if you're doing um zoom Hopefully we're doing it tonight. Yeah, you're recording. Some of the meeting rooms may or may not be equipped well enough to do video in some other way. So definitely you should have Zoom. In person, okay. Good.

Yeah, I think I'll ask that, you know, Chris and Natalia figure out, you know, what's available in terms of rooms and what makes the most sense. I mean, the main thing is, you know, this group has to be able to get together on Tuesday night, you know, with everyone having reviewed the material so that we have a chance at approving it then, if possible, with the backup of Wednesday. But as everybody stated, you know, we're up against a tight timeline here, especially with the holiday taking Friday away. um so i think we can leave it at that i'd like to ask you know christian and natalia to communicate with this whole group about the location and the means to get to uh the tuesday night and wednesday night meetings if necessary on wednesday night and then uh you know we will hope to see uh something to review by monday morning and be able to you know ask questions by email if needed um and so forth so i think that leaves us in you know, with our next steps leaving tonight, unless there are other thoughts or concerns.

Only other comment from me is if there are questions from the board members directed back to Christian or Natalia or me, after we circulate the new version of the draft, just make sure to send those directly to Christian and Natalia, but don't copy the other board members. Those should go.

Correct. Yeah.

Okay. I have a small request for both counsel and applicants. If there are major red lines that were not addressed this evening that are new, if you could just put a sentence in saying why that was a new red line for the audience, that would be much appreciated.

Sure.

Okay. All right. If there are no other questions or concerns, then I think we'll leave it to... Okay, Bob.

No, no, no. I'm going to make the motion.

All right. I will entertain a motion to adjourn. So moved.

Second.

Second. Not debatable. All in favor. Aye. We need a roll call vote for this. We need the roll call for this. Go ahead, Mr. Clark.

Rock, aye.

Wood, aye.

I was supposed to ask everybody. You go Mr. Wood, Mr. Hassinger. Sorry, Mr. Robbins.

Aye. Mr. Hassinger. Aye. Mr. Chair, Mr. Daly-Mull. Aye. Mr. Woods.

Aye.

Motion is unanimous. Oh, and aye. Motion carries unanimously. No, you got it. All right, so...

Thanks, everyone. See you next week and appreciate the patience as we kind of had to hop into this. And hopefully we got it organized enough to get ourselves to the next step.

Our half hour meeting took two hours. Wow.