Zoning Board of Appeals - Regular Meeting

5 p.m this open meeting of the grafton zoning board of appeals is being conducted both remotely and in person consistent with the temporary provisions of the open meeting law which extends remote meeting protocols through march 31st 2027. this meeting is convening by a zoom video conference and in person as posted on the meeting agenda which can be found on the town of grafton website please see the meeting agenda for details on how to participate remotely Please note that this meeting is being recorded. All participation in this meeting will be visible to others. If you screen share your computer, it will be recorded and may be broadcast later. This meeting may feature public comment. Anyone attending virtually, if you'd like to request acknowledgement to speak, please use the raise hand feature. and the meeting administrator will enable you to speak when it's your turn. Anyone on the phone, the meeting administrator will enable you to speak. Anyone in person, we ask you to step up to the podium to speak, and all speakers, please state your name and address prior to your comments or questions. And finally, each vote taken in this meeting will be done by a roll call vote. All right, so, Bill, how do you want to proceed?

Yeah, Brian, if you would drive, I think that would work best. You know, I think what we just need to do is maybe hear from the applicant. I think there's been some very recent changes and and or our attorney, Dan. Presumably there's not much to really talk about. And then we do want to make sure we before we close the public hearing that we ask one more time for any public input. Make sure anyone on the phone or in the room. And then we close for public input. I think we vote to do that. And then we can deliberate on the decision and vote on it if we think it's appropriate. Hopefully you can drive instead of me.

Yep, no problem. So actually, let's start with Dan.

Sure. So we got back some red lines on the last draft of the decision on July 2nd. I sent those to, I think, Bill and maybe Brian after that point.

Point of order, Mr. Chair. Should we take a roll call?

Brian, are you suggesting just to check to see if everyone can talk, or are you a roll call vote of some sort?

No, so I think unless it happened before I joined, I think we're required to call the roll for a virtual meeting. Yeah, I think you're right.

You're right, and I skipped it. So when I call your name, just respond in the affirmative that we can hear you. Miss Reid?

Yes.

Mr. McCusker? Yes. Mr. Mejia? Yes. Mr. Langevin? Yes, thank you. And Mr. Hill? You know, we can hear you. So go ahead and continue, Dan. Thanks.

Sure. So I circulated a clean version as well as a red line version yesterday. And that version, I think I sent it probably around noon yesterday to the board. That incorporates some what I would consider minor changes to some of the language of the conditions. There were no edits i believe to the waiver section um i think i highlighted a few of the changes i can pull up that email actually while we talk um just give me one second so the the highlights of the changes that were made um Included on section 82. Jason noted that in the. Prior pleasant street decision, the applicant had only recorded, I believe, 4 plan sheets, not the full plan, not the full set of plans. at the Registry of Deeds. As you may recall, the applicant was pushing back on our request that the whole plan set get recorded. So assuming that Jason is correct and I um i then i think it is appropriate to you know limit the number of planned sheets that need to get recorded at the registry i mean this is really form over substance but so that's one change that's the condition a2 uh condition c8 jason noted that the hours of construction uh in the town of grafton bylaws uh are 7 a.m. on Saturdays, not 8 a.m., which is what we had in our condition. So that changed the hours of operation from 8 to 7 on Saturdays. And then section condition C12, there was a requirement in that condition that the basin binder course on the driveways and parking lots would endure a full winter season. We eliminated that requirement Because it does say that if that's not feasible, that the applicant would post a surety if they can't actually let the pavement bind for a full winter season. And that's consistent with the past decisions we've had. We've allowed applicants to post a bond or a surety. in that circumstance so that if there is any damage or any problems with the pavement without going through the winter season, that we have funds to rectify that if the applicant doesn't rectify it himself. So those are the three what I would consider most noteworthy changes. The rest of it was really just form over substance. But I did send you the red line version yesterday at 541 my time. So that was probably around 11 a.m. yesterday. And then this afternoon we received or maybe this morning we received a couple additional edits to the clean version that I circulated from Jason and And again, those edits are really form over substance. The only one substantive change that I would flag on that had to do with the waiver pertaining to the parking setback. So if you recall, there's a provision in the waiver section that has to do with parking areas being set back from property lines. And There was, I think, an open debate whether or not the parking garages. Constituted parking areas and quotes for purposes of our zoning bylaws provision and the language in the waiver section had said denied because it was unnecessary because I think at the time we considered the garages not to be parking areas. But I would concede that it's not totally clear what the bylaw means. And so Jason was being conservative by saying, look, we should grant that waiver if it's necessary. So I'm okay with that change. I think it's reasonable to say that that waiver is granted to the extent that it's required. Because we're fine with these garages being set back 8 to 10 feet rather than the required 15 feet from those property boundaries. Again, the rest of the changes are minor. I'm happy to go through them. I mean, if Katrina, if you want Katrina, she could, you know, I'm sure post or share the screen to put that draft on the screen if you want to. But that's kind of where we stand with the draft.

Which waiver was that, Dan, on the parking?

It's waiver number 12 of the zoning bylaw. Page 36. There we go.

Page 36?

Yes.

So, if I may, too, just to add a little context, my notes from the meeting back in May indicated that this was the preferred language of the Board at the time.

Yeah, and conceptually, I have no issue. I just want to make sure that based on this wording, and I think this does it, that we're not, basically saying whether or not these are or are not parking areas. You know, I don't want this to be referenced as precedent that we called this parking areas or we didn't call this.

Yeah, I think that's where that caveat protects protects the town.

So is this copy correct or not? This is

The copy you have is correct. That was the most recent version, yeah.

Okay.

Okay.

So, yeah, I'm good with this.

Yep. Yeah, if you want to see any of the other red lines, Katrina could just change the view to all markups, but it's up to you if you want to go through it or not.

No, if there's nothing else substantive, I'm comfortable. Mr. Chair. Mr. McOsker.

I have gone through all of the red lines probably a couple of times. And I don't think there was anything substantive, whatever that word is. And I'm good with just kind of moving forward. But certainly if anyone else has not had a chance to and would like to see the red lines, we could do it. But I'm good with what we've got.

Okay. So anything else from the That was it. That was it. All right. Brian has his hand up. Mr. Langevin, sorry. The coloring on the screen, it's hard to see the hand.

No worries. So just a couple comments on the two, I think the first two changes that Attorney Hill mentioned. The first one on um Pleasant Street and Upton Street and what they filed the registry of deeds I couldn't find either of them having filed um plan sets yet it might have been an issue with my search so I'll defer to that the applicant if he was able to find something but at least with respect to Pleasant Street that obligation it kind of is required prior to building permits and there haven't been any building permits pulled yet for Pleasant Street so I don't know that I want to use that as kind of the indicator of what may or may not need to be filed. And even with respect to Upton Street, if we perhaps may have issued a building permit without them having filed all the plans we might have liked, I still don't know that that would be necessarily applicable to this case. The language that we had originally just referencing the set, the entire set of approved plans being filed was consistent with both of those decisions. So I don't really have an opinion either way. Just wanted to kind of share what I found with the board. And then on the construction hours. So I agree with the applicant that the bylaw, the bylaw actually Um, allows for construction seven days a week from 7 00 AM to 7 00 PM. So I think the board would obviously note that we're being more restrictive than that. We, by not allowing, um, construction on Sundays, um, the pleasant street and Upton street decisions, limited, um, construction to 7 00 AM to 5 00 PM, Monday to Friday and 8 00 AM to 5 00 PM on Saturday. And the current draft decision allows 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., so two hours later during the week, Monday to Friday, then the Pleasant Street and Upton Street decision, and then the hours on Saturday were 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. So again, not voicing a preference either way, just wanted to share with the board what those two precedents were.

Any comments from the board on either of those?

If the others want it fixed, we'll fix it. It was probably a mistake, I don't know.

I think there was more discussion about that, specifically around Pleasant Street.

Yeah, I think there was.

All right. So let's see. This time, is there any, anyone on the phone?

Nobody's got their hands up to talk.

Any one present in the room that would like to make public comment?

I'm Robert Brian Bonner, 21 Snow Road. So what are the final construction hours that are in the findings or whatever you're going to approve? Please.

So it's 7 to 5 Monday through Friday and 7 to 5 Saturday? Saturday. No, no.

I heard 7 to 7. 7 to 7. 7 to 7.

Oh. Monday through Friday.

I guess, I'm not sure when that changed. I thought it was 8 to something in the last meeting.

On Saturdays, it's 8 a.m. Yeah, but it got changed to 7, I believe. What page are we on? 16?

Page 16. Condition C8.

I don't know if that's appropriate or not, but it just seemed like a change from the last meeting. I want it clarified, please.

Yeah, 7 to 7 Monday through Friday and 7 to 5 Saturday.

Okay.

And then blasting is not permitted after 5 or before 9 a.m. at any time?

I mean, the fire department...

controls that anyways yeah the fire department controls any blasting that gets done so i heard something at the last meeting that summarized my feeling on this project i i'm taking the phrase out of context but in my context this project uh i don't like it and but i guess i'll have to live with it thank you mr chair miss reed

Just for the record, I feel like on a Saturday starting at eight makes more. I just think it's better for the butters. Just want to throw that out there. I think seven a.m. on a Saturday is a little early on a weekend. In my opinion.

Yeah, I don't disagree with that. So if I may, through the chair. The whole motivation behind the change was consistency with your own bylaw. And we obviously didn't push for the extensive nature of the bylaw. Basically, it's very broad. And we thought that meeting in the middle or not seeking what the bylaw required would be appropriate in this case, but extending an hour on a Saturday basically was where we're changing the, where we're recommending the change consistent with the bylaw. The bylaw basically goes to a decibel level. That's basically what impacts whether you do or don't. If you're doing something that creates a noise level exceeding a certain decibel level, and gosh, I don't know how you guys bonded to that, but it is what it is. But that's what motivated the hours. And we're talking about one hour from what was in the decision previously.

All right. Mr. Chair, if I might. Mr. Langevin.

So just a point on the decibel level. The applicant's absolutely right. That's in the bylaw. The way I interpret our condition is that it's irrespective of decibel level at the property line. So I don't think we're saying that construction's permitted between these hours. Yeah. Based on you know, what sort of sound is being generated. I think we're saying whether the sound exceeds the 100 decibels or not, I don't think we want anything taking place outside of these hours. Agreed. So, in other words, the bylaw almost implies that if you don't exceed 100 decibels at the property line that these limited hours don't even really apply. And I don't want the implication to be that that's what we're saying here.

Right. So I mean, the intent of this, and we've enforced this, is that there's no idling. There's no trucks backing up, no deliveries, no staging. anything on site prior or outside of these stated hours. So I think that's, I don't think there's any ambiguity in here. But Mr. Chair, Mr. McCosker.

So I'm looking at the draft from somewhere around May 22, which was I believe the first draft Dan did and then had some edits from the applicant. And now I just lost it. But there it is. At that time, we can see where Dan's draft had 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. and the applicant changed it to 7 p.m. Monday through Friday. Nothing on Sunday that hasn't changed. And Saturdays, it says eight to five. I can't find where or why Saturdays eight to five changed.

That was one of the changes in that most recent email from Dan.

Right. That's their request, is to change that from 8 to 7 to be consistent with the town's bylaw. You don't have to do it. In fact, you don't have to do 7 p.m. on weeknights. You can set whatever condition you want. I actually have a record of us talking about the weeknights at the May 12th meeting, and I My notes indicate that we talked about it and we agreed to 7 o'clock, but I don't have a memory of that either. But it doesn't matter. You're free to change your mind. So if you want to change it, that's fine.

Yeah, the 7 p.m. could have been talked about at 12. I was looking at documents where it first changed. And now I understand why I couldn't find the one. You know, I don't like the idea that Saturday is changed from 8 to 7. I do think, I mean, there are residents nearby, a whole bunch of them right across the street. I think to be able to have an extra hour of quiet on Saturday mornings is not unreasonable. I guess I don't want to see that change.

And Mr. Chair, can you reiterate what we did for Pleasant Street and Upton Street? Why aren't we following those same guidelines? Why would we? Because this is definitely more congested. So I feel like we need to really take into consideration. How long we're allowing this construction site to continue. 7 to 7 seems crazy to me. I don't remember that in the past. Allowing 7 to 7.

Mr. Langevin can keep me honest here, but I think the two changes from Pleasant Street and Upton Street were from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. on Monday through Friday and And then from 8 a.m. to 7 a.m. start time on Saturdays. I believe everything else is consistent.

Are you saying those changes were made with regard to Pleasant Street?

Those are differences in this draft versus prior to projects. Got it.

Got it.

I wouldn't be surprised if it's not just the prior two projects. I bet it's the prior bunch of projects.

I agree. On Saturday, I'm less, I guess I feel less strongly on the 7 p.m. Monday through Friday. But I'm open to hear any other opinions on that change.

I agree with both those points.

I agree as well.

All right. So it sounds like we want to change this back to 8 a.m. on Saturday.

Yeah, sounds like it to me. Okay.

So we can probably just reprint this single page, right?

Yeah, let's reprint that page. It's 15 and 16, so I'll reprint 15, 16, and replace it.

Okay. Hours of construction, I think, appear in a couple of places, so you just might want to be careful.

I'll double check.

Careful about that. Yeah.

As long as I get the signatures on the signature page, I can tweet the hours.

So... Well, you...

In condition C8, it says prior to 7 a.m. on workdays, should we put in parentheses 8 a.m. on Saturdays? Because that condition is still going to be regarding the backing up of tools, of equipment. Am I making sense of what I'm asking, Mr.

Chair? Yeah. So are you talking about that last sentence?

Yeah. Just to put it in that it's 8 a.m. on Saturdays. They can't have trucks idling or anything?

Or prior to the stated start time. Instead of having 7 a.m., just say prior to.

Sure.

Katrina, the other place it appears is on page 12. 12? Yes, it's in Romanette 1.

Okay.

Prior to...

Katrina, could you clarify what change you're making on C8? Because I'm not sure I understand.

So on C8, further down in, you have about the no equipment can show up or anything before 7 a.m., but since we're changing Saturday, so instead of having a time in there, we're just going to put prior to stated start time on workdays, there shall be no operation of equipment, tools, or vehicles, especially avoiding backup alarms. instead of a specific time.

Can you share that? Yeah. Yeah, let's share it so we all can see it, please. Thank you.

And I need to know the exact language.

So right, it's this right here. It's the last sentence. Oh, sorry. I didn't click the button all the way.

It's the last sentence, right?

Yeah. So right here where it says, it said prior to 7 a.m. start time. So instead put prior to stated start time. Sorry. On work days, or do you want a physical time in there, 8 a.m. and 7 p.m. or 8 a.m. and 7 a.m.?

I think I would defer to Dan for the right language.

I have to flip back to what I said before. Yeah, that's fine the way you've changed it, Katrina. That's fine.

OK.

Prior to stated summer times. So just so I'm clear, you're making the changes, Katrina, in the document?

Yes, that way I can print it tonight.

OK. Is it still in redline? It looks like it's, yeah.

OK.

So I actually, I think it's, Dan, I think it's better if you make the changes.

and just email it so that you have the master copy okay yeah yep okay so let me make that change prior to stated start time okay i would do times plural plural yeah okay Yeah, and I got this two sections where the hours of operation are mentioned at C8 and... Page 11.

Page 11. I'm sorry, page 12.

Yeah, I got it. Okay, so we're okay with 7 p.m. being the stop time weekdays, right? Yeah. Okay.

well i mean this member is any objection to 7 pm mr chair have we done this in the past allowed 7 pm in in time during the week i don't believe so i think it's we've always had 5 pm and this is standard language that i just copied over from prior decisions the eight the seven to five monday through friday Yeah. See, I think 7 p.m. is late on weekdays, too.

Again, if I may, through the chair, it's just all about consistency with your local bylaw. We're now not allowed to do what your bylaw allows us to do.

Do you really want to go there?

Well, I don't, but I'd like to close the hearing. I just want to put it out there for the record. That's all.

Mr. Chair, I just feel like we shouldn't be making all these exceptions when in the past we've never allowed anybody to work from 7 to 7 during the week. Not my memory. Correct me if I'm wrong.

Mr. Chair. Mr. McCusker.

Well, I don't feel strongly about it. I would be absolutely fine with bringing it back to 5 PM. I don't necessarily recall the discussion at the time. But I guess I, you know, I do agree with Ms. Reid. I mean, other projects we've had 5 p.m. And I don't know that we've even heard much, you know, pushback on that. So, you know, I think that this one especially being – you know, so many residences nearby. I think that that's the appropriate thing to do. And, you know, and having just lived with my own street just getting paved and a lot of noise associated with that work for just a few days, you know, it becomes gnawing on people who live there. So I would absolutely support going back to Pfizer.

Yeah, I'm not opposed to pushing back and keeping it at five.

I'm fine with that. I'm surprised nobody complains about the holidays on your side.

Not doing work on holidays?

Right. I mean, everybody works the so-called half-assed holidays in construction.

Right.

It's the stupidest thing. The only people I get... The two newest federal holidays are town, municipal, schools, state, and federal. And Massachusetts holidays, the only ones that really get it off are towns and state.

Right.

And I've argued this before and lost, so I'm not going to waste my breath. I don't know what these guys do with their men on them days because their guys still want to work.

In light of that comment, is there room for compromise that we agreed to the scaled back hours that you originally proposed and allow work on non-federal holidays? The so-called, I'm not going to repeat. I don't blame you. I don't.

Again, a lot of projects have been completed with those restrictions. And, you know, and the reality is, you know, there are a lot of people who do get those days off. I mean, granted, it's not everybody, but including schools. So, you know, I do think that we should treat them as holidays, whether we like the holidays or not, whether we get them off or not. You know, I think there's a lot of people that do so.

trouble is most non-union people don't get paid for not working those holidays but all right um so i i'm not really inclined to revisit this whole section i agree so i I think my understanding of feedback from the board is we want to change this back to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday.

I think there's at least three of us who do.

All right, Dan, you got that change as well? I got it.

Yep.

All right. So it's 5 now? Yep. Okay. I have no problem with that. Most...

All right. So anything else before I go back to further public comment? Hearing nothing. Any further comment in the room?

Did you want to come up and say anything? Hello.

Wendy Allen, 8 Frankie Lane, and thank you because I don't want to hear construction during the few times that we get to have dinner at a normal hour with no practices and games. As far as the bylaws, 29 units is what you're allowed. So, that's... that's what it's zoned for so if you're gonna say about the bylaws then go back to everything that's in the bylaws and not these billion pages of waivers but that's a side note so the water i went down a whole water rabbit hole and my first thought was okay so they're going to filter out the salt And then my second thought was, okay, that's going to cost us more money because I have a whole house filter. I've had it since I moved in. We put it in for the, and when the water's particularly murky, my filters go faster. So it costs me more money. So my regular cost is my filters and then they filter more. So that was my thought. Like if they have to start filtering more salts, that's going to cost us more money and stop and shop and the town already do salt. That's already a factor, but we'd be adding in. So it's equivalent to when my water's murky. But I was wrong because you actually can't filter out salt. So it's even worse than that. So I talked to Dave Erickson, the Grafton Water District manager, and he said that they don't filter out salt. He confirmed it. And he also reiterated that the town, on a side note too, that after they approve the project, that's when he won't have a say on it until that. And then after that is when the water district will decide if they can supply water, the cost, and how. Just a side note on that. That's what he says. I'm like, this is the process now. I've said do it multiple times. But anyways, so back to the water. So they don't filter all the salt. So I did a Google search. I was like, you can't be right. Google says filtering water is prohibitively expensive and energy intensive. So I went to DCR. The Office of Watershed Management, they do a lot of research. They actually have like graphs, like tracking how much salt is getting into the drinking water supply. And they have like a ton of really good information just on their website. I didn't even reach out to them, like just on their website. And they said salt is very persistent in the environment. It doesn't like go away. So they what they want is avoidance and they're teaching people how to avoid using more salt. They have a lot of concerns about the impact on the aquatic life, like generally not just this property, but you can equate as this property. any vegetation they even showed like how like trees die on the side of the road and things like that so any runoff and then once the salt is in the water supply it's corrosive to pipes in addition to obviously being bad for people that need to avoid salt in their diets and whatever else salt does that's bad so again this project is gonna corrode my pipes eventually by adding more salt into the system and and it's going to cost us more money so what they do recommend they have they probably have more recommendations than this but like the big one that i saw the uh dcr office of watershed management they recommend a salt brine which is 23 sodium chloride 77 water they said it's an upfront cost to buy the equipment but over time it saves 30 to 40 percent and that's what they're trying to get people to use like they even tell Like if you go to their website, like as like a homeowner, they tell us how to do it as well. Like you can just take like a sprayer and like do your own, do your own like driveway and stuff. So I think going back to the water, I mean, given all this information, we're all like, oh, they'll just filter out. They actually don't. So over time, our water is going to get a lot worse and it's already so bad. so i think we really need to look into safer alternatives and i think we need to stick to that because they bought a property knowing that it's in this district and i think that we have to come up with something to keep our water safe because once the the levels are too high and everyone's pipes are corroded and people are literally sick from the extra sodium we can't go back

I just want to clarify that the graft and water district was asked for their input and feedback multiple times throughout this process.

and provided not i know and i've said that to him to multiple i've had multiple conversations with dave and this last one like usually i go in the office this last one i did over email so i've said that to him multiple times and so that's why like i pulled information from what he said that they don't filter out salt and then i pulled it from google and dcr about the salt information So it's unfortunate. I know we talked about having a hydrologist at some point. It's incredibly frustrating to me. He has information but doesn't weigh in. We can't make him do that. But we also can't destroy our water supply just because he won't answer. Officially.

So one of the things that made this member of the board comfortable was that the storm water... management plan filters out well above the state required.

Can't remember the so sodium can only be filtered by reverse osmosis, some sort of like boiling and collecting the evaporated water and one more method. can't it's a it's a soluble so it can't be filtered out like that that's why it would be so cost prohibitive so unfortunately like that's going to go into the environment no matter what we do unless they do one of those that I only saw like three options to do it and I didn't dive too deep into that because I didn't expect anyone to like be building that I think Dave said we're filtering PFAS, the iron and the manganese right now. Or PFAS is coming online. So I know for drinking water, it's not going to happen. And I don't know if any place is doing it because, like I said, DCR is even saying avoidance is the way to do it. But they won't be filtering out the salt unless they're going to build one of those, like, a massive, like, reverse osmosis type of situation, which I... I mean, I don't know how they would, but so the sodium will be going into the environment and most likely the well, unfortunately.

If I may, through the chair, we had a very extensive conversation about this at the last hearing, and your peer reviewer, Jeff Walsh, was here, and we all came to this conclusion. It's obviously the prerogative of the board and the chair weigh comments based on Google searches, but you had a professional here a couple of weeks ago. And we talked about this for, I want to say, at least 20 minutes to a half an hour and just at that last hearing and quite extensively before then when we were weighing the conditions. So

I mean, respectfully, it's the office of DCR is where I got most of my information. I spent like 30 seconds on Google and an hour and a half on DCR. looking at what they say and then watching the videos and everything that they have on their website so i mean the thing is that i believe the same thing i was like okay we'll filter it out and then i was like oh well it's going to cost us more operating costs and that's going to be passed on to us and that was my first concern but now i know you can't like filter out the salt just not how it works so that's the problem is that we just didn't have that piece of information And without asking Dave, because I literally asked him, how do you filter out the salt? I had asked him the exact question that I needed, like after a couple of replies back and forth. And then he was like, oh, we don't. And I asked my other friend that works in another water department and is an environmental scientist. And he was like, I think Auburn might, but he wasn't sure. So, I mean... The problem is, we just didn't know that. So like, that's, I mean, so there has to be some expert that can weigh in besides like those sources.

But I mean, I think the it would have been on the Grafton Water District to raise this as a concern and ask for us to, you know, include a further condition or some limitation on that um and they just simply didn't give us any input so so he says after your comments yeah okay okay so after it gets approved then he can decide you need to do xyz that's what he's saying he said that to me not the case okay they've they've had their opportunity to weigh in and despite repeated requests of

offered nothing we wish they would yeah he he's under the impression that he can't have us he literally said he won't have a say on it until it's approved so i mean if he had any concerns he could have given them to us and it could have been incorporated into the comprehensive permit i gave him the link to that and everything so so he mr chair mr hill

I thought we specifically asked the water department these questions. It wasn't just, hey, do you have any concerns? I thought we specifically went to the water department with these issues. We did. Is that not correct?

And they gave us their standard answer of it's far enough away from the well, and they didn't give us any concrete answers or anything they were concerned about or any addition they wanted done. So-

I think that's the problem is we never asked the right question. No, we did. Well, how will you filter out the salt is the question.

Well, we asked if they had any concerns about it in regards to the closeness of the well and anything like that. I mean, I can't ask them a million different questions in more than 15 different ways.

Okay.

I mean, this is their job and that is their department and they choose not to answer it. That's... their prerogative and they can't come back afterwards and have us amend the comprehensive permit that's why we ask every department up front prior to and then as questions get brought up in the middle of the meetings i ask those i reach out to those departments and they'll either answer or they don't and we asked dave numerous times yeah okay and i'm sure you've heard you know the a lot of back and forth about the fire department you know that we've

received extensive input from them. Um, and that we would love to have that level of involvement from the water district, but we just don't.

Okay. Thank you.

All right. Any further public comment? All right. So any further comments from the board? Um, before we close the public hearing? All right, so is there a motion to close the public hearing on case number 910, the apartments at Snow Road, 40B?

I like it here.

So moved.

I need a second, please.

Second.

All right.

This is just to close the public hearing.

Right.

All right. So we'll do a roll call vote. Ms. Reid?

Yes.

Mr. McCusker? Yes. Mr. Adams? Yes. Mr. Mejia? Yes. Chairman votes yes. So the public hearing is closed. So Dan, is there any special wording or anything for the motion on this or is it just to approve the written decision?

The motion is to grant the comprehensive permit subject to the conditions as laid out in the draft decision dated July 9th, 2026 as further amended by the board at the last session of the public hearing tonight.

Don't move. Can we do that?

Nope. Was there a second?

Second. So, Dan, I just want to be sure, though. In the past, we voted on either findings or conditions something separately but there might have been some dispute at the time on some of those um i i mean i'm very comfortable with with voting on the decision as drafted which includes all the conditions and all the findings that's all part of the decision so i'm good with that i just want to make sure we're doing the right thing

Doing the right thing procedurally, you mean with the motion?

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. No, I think we've always done it this way.

Well, procedurally, as far as doing everything at one time and not doing anything, not doing conditions separately or finding separately or anything like that, that's what I was most concerned about.

no i don't think we've ever done that done it that way i i'm not aware of any rule that requires you to vote condition separately um you know and this is your deliberation session so i mean if if you still want if people want to still make comments or express their opinions now would be the time to do it before you actually take a roll call vote yep okay And this is a majority vote. Do we have five voting members? I can't remember.

Yeah, we still have five. So let me just repeat this back. Motion to grant the comprehensive permit as laid out in the public hearing on June 25th, 2026 and amended in the public hearing on July 9th, 2026 to the apartments at Snow Road. I think it's LLC.

I'm sorry, Katrina, did you say June 25th? What was that?

Well, that was our last meeting, was when we went through the whole draft, and then tonight.

Yeah, no, the decision, you're granting a comprehensive permit subject to the conditions that are laid out in the draft decision dated today, July 9th, 2026, as further amended by the board at tonight's meeting.

Okay, got it.

Yep.

Okay, and the It's all the regular members of the board.

Yes.

There's no alternate?

No. It's the five of you, the five original of you.

All right.

Discussion?

Any further comments before we vote?

I have one. I would like to vote for this. I would vote for this if we amended it by saying they're limited to 100 units. I will not vote for it the way it is. It's too much. We're going to double over double the traffic. There's only, like I've said before, there's only two ways out of Snow Road, East Street and Worcester Street. And all the traffic experts don't believe anybody's going to go to East Street. I totally disagree. Snow Road is a cut-through road. I cut through it all the time to go to Route 20 by the train station and the connector road to Route 20. Or if anybody's going to Westboro Center, they're going to go from that area, they're going to go that way to East Street. I just think it's too much for the area, and I don't support it. I know I've given a lot of comments in favor of the developer. The developer has done a lot. I don't deny that. He has done a lot, and hopefully if this passes, he pulls through with it all. But I would be in favor if it was 100 instead of 200. if we could put that in there.

Mr. Chairman. Mr. McCusker.

I'm just going to say that I started off not really very supportive of this development. I actually agree with Mr. Adams as far as it being too big still. But unfortunately, this isn't 40B. We're not in safe harbor. And as Mr. Adams said, the developer has done a lot. I think we've gotten a lot of concessions. I think we've done what the ZBA is supposed to do, and that's made this project as good as we possibly could under really difficult circumstances, the difficult circumstances being Chapter 40B itself. So I'm going to vote for it. I wish it was smaller, absolutely. I worry about the traffic, absolutely. I worry about the neighbors, absolutely. But I think we've done about as best as we can. And I think I'll be able to look back on it comfortably, knowing that we put a lot of hard work into this. We really did. And I think we did a good job. And I'll obviously be voting for you then.

The way I understand it, though, is we are in safe harbor. Whatever we grant in this permit, they cannot appeal. Now, I realize the consequences. They cannot appeal, but they can come back to us down the road with maybe a bigger project. I don't know. Or maybe they would live with it. I don't know. But... I feel that I'll still be here. I'll work on the second one. It doesn't bother me. And if it comes back with a bigger one, so be it. We'll vote it down again and let the state decide. At least my name isn't on it.

I'll just say that I was initially very against this. And I think we, I would agree. I think we've done a lot of work. I think the developer has, um, you know, made a lot of changes that we've asked for, but the, the one thing that makes me comfortable about this is that the intersection, um, whatever, is it Worcester street? Yeah. Worcester street and snow road. Um, that has to be completed. Um, before this project, before there's people living in this project. So that gives me some security that there's going to, it's not going to be this influx of people in the same traffic situation that we have now. Because I think that would be a disaster. But I really think this will be a positive improvement for that intersection. And I think with that, it can accommodate these additional residents. Ms. Reid.

Um, yeah, just to kind of reiterate what Bill and Brian have both said, um, again, kind of the beginning, I was the same, didn't like this at all, as I think we all were very, um, not super supportive and positive because of the size, but we need affordable housing. And I agree. We've spent a lot of time on this and all this work we've done to try to make it the best we can be the best that it can be. And I just hope that people realize that, you know, we take this very seriously. And I'm going to vote for it. Even though I understand the abutters, it's not great. Nobody wants it in their front yard or their backyard. But I agree that the intersection is going to be better. And I think all the other projects that we've approved that other people didn't want, at the end of the day, they seem to fall into place. And I think most people have been pleased with the way things have turned out. And I think this developer as well is going to do a really, really nice looking project. And so yeah, it's been a long road. So I'm ready to pass and vote for this as well.

And I would just like to thank the board for the diligence and amount of time and effort that has gone into this. Maybe there's been longer projects, but it's by far the longest that I've been involved in. So thank you to all of the board. Any further comments? Mr. Langevin. uh thank you mr chair um and i'll be brief obviously um as noted i i won't be voting tonight but i i guess my my two senses is all i kind of have left to contribute um you know and i'll just say that it it's been extremely helpful to have your um input you know throughout this process it's really you've raised a lot of valuable points and things that have um you know, that we've been able to address, you know, because of things that you've identified. So it's much appreciated.

No, I appreciate that. It's been a very educational, you know, year and nine months on ramp. But I think, I've mentioned in the past how projects like this would be entirely consistent with our housing production plan. I don't know if I or anybody else has specifically called it out, but the planning board also issued its updated master plan last year. And this project and projects like it would be entirely consistent with that. Focused on, there's a lot of concern in the master plan about actually in favor of higher density projects because they allow us to achieve some of the housing needs that we, or respond to some of the housing needs that we have while also preserving open space and keeping Grafton as green as possible. And so I thought that was worth mentioning. I think like a lot of the board, you know, I was really hesitant at the beginning. It felt too big and I'm a numbers guy. I'm a CPA. And I told myself, well, I need to quantify what that means. And for me, I think some of my early comments were focused around parking. I wanted to make sure that the project had adequate parking for the units that were coming online. And then obviously, I think for all of us, the traffic concern was paramount. And Seeing, you know, none of us are traffic experts. All we can do is rely on the applicants experts, obviously also our own. And seeing that the expectation is that the improved intersection will function better even after this development. And actually, when this was done, I believe the development was still at 168 or some larger number of units than where we're landing. That intersection, according to the experts, will function better post-improvements and post-build than it does today. And so, you know, that's really kind of what got me over the hump to be able to wrap my head around supporting it. I think, you know, I am generally supportive of housing during the course of this hearing. I've become a member of the town's affordable housing trust and uh but even when i was appointed to the trust um obviously you know members of the select board knew i was i was on zba and um asked about potential conflicts and and how those two could mesh together it's like well you can be in favor of housing that doesn't mean that you inherently believe it belongs everywhere or that every project um should should succeed or should go forward i think i think we've done enough i think we've improved this project

um obviously with the applicant um to the point where you know if i were voting i'd be able to vote for it thank you to the board and the applicant thank you any further comment all right so we will do a roll call vote um and we'll just use the order that I've used every roll call vote, I think. Ms. Reid?

Yes.

Mr. McCusker?

Yes.

Mr. Adams? No. Mr. Mejia?

Yes.

Chairman votes yes. So with a simple majority required, the comprehensive permit is granted.

If I may, I want to thank the Board for its deliberation. I've been doing this for 25 years, and the Board's really spent a lot of time in it, and a lot of thought, and weighed and balanced all of the comments received and processed them. in a way that made their way into the decision and the conditions reflecting your community. And that's really what this is about at the end of the day is a project that fits in your community. And I appreciate your deliberation. Thank you very much. Thank you.

And thank you to the developer. We look forward to, you know, hopefully a great resulting project.

So, Mr. Chairman, I will finalize the decision right now and email that to Katrina so she can put it into final form for signatures.

Perfect. Thanks, Dan.

All right. Thank you, Dan. Thanks, Dan. Can we punt on the minutes?

We can, but we've got to schedule a meeting at some point to do them. I can post the draft minutes until we have a meeting and vote on them. So... I'll do that. I'll post the draft minutes and then whenever we have a meeting.

Okay, let's do that. All right. Is there a motion to adjourn?

So moved. Second.

Miss Reid?

Yes.

McCusker? I'll take that as a yes. Yes. Yes.

Yes.

Mr. Langevin?

Yes.

Chairman votes yes. We're adjourned.