Planning Board - Regular Meeting

So we need to conclude tonight's public hearing

As our attorney will explain, I'm going to ask for a motion to adjourn the public hearing and not close the public hearing. And there's a particular reason why we're asking that. So the proposal will be to adjourn the public hearing until September 8th and continue accepting written

comments through september 1st could you explain to the board why we're adjourning and not closing sure uh there is a pending zone board application for this project uh right now the project is not confined with votes the board couldn't even act on this project yet i understand the upcoming zoning board meeting was cancelled due to lack of quorum and i believe last month's meeting was as well so this planning board really can't act until the zoning board issue gets dealt with. And I understand the board also wants the applicant to respond to some outstanding questions that's gathered and collected throughout the course of these public hearings.

So let's open that up for discussion before asking for a motion or other questions or comments the board would like to make.

I mean, I would be in support of a journey. I mean, you know, the progress of the zoning board. Okay.

Would you be willing to put that in the form of a motion?

I do make a motion.

Okay. So the motion is that we will adjourn the public hearing through September 8th, which is the next regular meeting, and that we will continue to accept written comments through September 1st. Is there a second on that motion?

Can we suggest a second?

Yes, we can. Let's go ahead and get a second, and then we'll discuss. I'll take it. Thank you. Sarah.

One other sort of completing the picture is that once we once the board formally votes to close the public hearing, we then have to take action within 10 months, right?

Or 62 days.

Yeah, so we have two meeting cycles, but we could also take action before that. So by not closing the public hearing until September. We definitely can't vote in September, but we could vote in October. So we have to wait till November and. It sounds like we can't take action in September anyway, for a number of reasons.

And this is a procedural issue that and I believe also the engineers expressed that they would be more comfortable with more than two months to finalize the engineering studies. But being able to act on this in a timely way is still within the scope of the planning board's expectation. So we have a motion and a second. Any further discussion? Linda, could you please call the roll?

So moved. Yes. Black. Yes. Woodfall. Yes. Mindful.

Yes.

Fear.

Yes.

Vocal.

Yes. We're moving on to item four in the agenda. Mr. Chairman, just for one second. Yes. Mr. Chairman, could I just say a few words and one quick question? I was just getting ready to call on the applicant to speak. Jeff, I've asked to speak. Do you want to proceed, your attorney? Okay, you're right.

I think your question, first of all, thank you for your time. We as a team have internally reviewed months of accounting so that they still keep coming in. So, you know, we are prepared to start seeing a response. I think you found some direction from the board as far as which comments they found relevant, which comments they didn't. So we're kind of looking for some direction before we submitted that written response, because we do have answers to all those questions. Some of those questions we have already answered, as one of the residents had mentioned, specifically the brownfield. You guys kind of covered that in the Synchronicity Act, within the whole analysis and all that. We can expand on that as far as this round of responses, but we actually had a response to your query in this very meeting tonight.

we're going to discuss the questions that we want to pose for you. And I suspect that we will have a document project by the end of the day tomorrow, depending on our conversation that outlines the areas of interest that we feel that residents have raised. So, so absolutely.

With the question about the engineering comments or was the question of the public comments? Right, OK. I just want to make sure that we're all on the same page.

Yeah, we're certainly working on responses and public comments, but we're waiting to put them in writing before we hear from you guys. Our engineers are also working with your engineer going back and forth on the SWIFT, so they're making progress as we go through these public hearings. But once we get your direction, you're ready to put the pen to paper and start putting those responses in. I just want to make sure we're all talking about the same comment.

You understand? Yep, just a few things. I'll be quick. OK, first of all, we're excited about the engagement and we appreciate that. John has already talked about that, so we will get to some of the questions and any other questions that are not in your purview that we deem necessary will answer on our website because we do believe that there are questions that deserve answers. Secondly, I just need to note we are literally one of the highest regulated industry there are. We're regulated by the state, the government, and as you can see, the city. So as far as us kind of sweeping things under the rug or sneaking things past people, it's a very insignificant argument. And it's actually a little bit offensive because we work and we give pain for that. But I have to explain that to you. And lastly, you know, Revon and I come up here and talk about this repeatedly, but I don't think that people really understand the significance that she lived in West Tides and her mother still lives here. So there's no way as a chairperson, she's going to allow negative consequences to occur to our parents. And I'm going to publicize it. I say that because I care about the people. I understand. That's why I do this work. And to disregard that is short sighted. We, you know, I do this work. It's very important. I do understand what the people need. I live in the building essentially by working with them every day. So I understand the conditions that we're in. And I just really wish people take things. Thank you for your time.

So we hope the night will illuminate a little bit more of what's yours. Thank you. So we have two bits of board business that I'm aware of. One is As early as February, Jeff and Ramonda and I talked about the board making a site visit as a board. And recently, several board members and I kind of said, maybe this is about the time to do that. So what I'm proposing to the board tonight is that we, if there are more than four of us, more than three of us, we would have to make the call meeting. I did talk to, speak to Gene, but we communicated this afternoon and he supports the idea of board site visit. I've spoken with Jen about it. He supports the idea. And so what I would like to do is discuss this idea tonight. And that would be, we have to post the meeting in advance. And I think one of the dates that we were looking at is the week of August 24th. I think going as a group is powerful in a couple of ways. Firstly, we get to collaborate and discuss what we're experiencing, what we're seeing. But also I think it demonstrates to the public a level of thoroughness that this board is taking in terms of its approach to this project. So I would entertain a motion that we convene a special meeting on site at HHA's office on sometime in the week of August 24th. And then if the motion passes, we can pull out our candles, our candles, our calendars and pick a date. Such motion. I'll leave it. Peter, second. Sarah, second.

Falco. Yes. Black. Yes. Woodhull. Yes. Michael.

Yes.

Peter.

Yes. Yes. Would anyone like to amend the motion with an actual suggestion for a date?

You both have flexibility during the day?

No, Jane said any time after 1 o'clock. And then we want to check with Jet also and her mom.

The only day that's not good for me is Wednesday.

I think you're during the day if it's Monday or Tuesday. Yeah. Sorry. maybe even within a week of the 24th yes and broncos narrowings down to monday or tuesday yeah yeah i could do during the afternoon um i could do an evening but if you want to during the day it would only be monday or tuesday

I don't have the fastest way to come, but it needs to be amended. So that's it.

Well, let's do this. Let's have your antique computer. And then we'll come back after we deal with the next item. The next item. Is it the 24th or the 24th? 24th. 24th afternoon. One o'clock. That's fine. One o'clock on the 24th. That sounds good to me. Alright, so let's plan on is convening and where should we meet? 41 website. I mean, I mean come to your office or that. OK, so that means the public might come there. There's an open meeting so. Alright, thank you all. This is going to be great and just in terms of our program, there's nothing organized. I don't think, but I do think in I think walking the site and kind of trying to understand the placement of, you know, of the structures and so forth, I think that would be very helpful for us as well. Thank you. We'll talk again before then. The next item is the comment review process. We're in the midst of a public hearing. We've already had, well, as of mid-afternoon today, we already had 103 letters. 18 public comments. We've now had another 15 or 20, and the letters just keep coming in. And I want to take a moment and thank Linda, who has been not only has she got blisters on her but also has responded to numerous FOIL requests. It's been a busy five or six weeks. So thank you, Linda. You've been a great colleague and supporter. So we've all experienced engagement in government, and it has varying degrees of satisfaction, and usually pretty low degrees of satisfaction. And there's probably no worse of feeling, at least I know, that if you make a public comment and you're really trying to be persuasive, but you feel like that fell on deaf ears, that you weren't heard. You saw no evidence that what you said showed up in the public record. So we're addressing that by taking, I think, a more proactive approach to how we engage the public. And this is going to be a two-phase project because we're only partially the way through the public comment period. So we haven't heard all the comments yet. So what we've done as a group over the last two weeks is begin to classify the public comments into different categories. responding to every individual. It's like there's a whole group of public comments that kind of fit into this category, another group that kind of fit into this category. And so initially, at least, we're building our process around that kind of structure. So we identify the, for example, one category is scale, density, and relationship to surrounding neighborhood. That's a common set of comments. then we will develop some questions that will relate to that particular category. Another is construction and demolition, site conditions, phasing, resident relocation, and project completion. So these are broad, but they act as buckets, if you will, for a variety of public comments that came forward. So we didn't, we're not going to respond to every public comment because there are public comments that while important, and valuable, they don't fall into our remit, you know, our charge. For example, the overall cost of the project. There have been comments about that, but that's not a matter that the planning board has an opinion about legally. State and federal housing policy, regional countywide distribution of affordable housing, local taxation and public funding priorities, broader social and economic policy questions, whether or not the applicant has sufficient funding, issues related to consolidated affordable housing versus distributed affordable housing. That's a big issue. But none of these are in our scope of responsibilities or authority. So you won't see those identified. They go into the public record. Those comments all still go into the public record for the permanent record for this process. So that's kind of where we're starting. The other thing I would say before I open it up for discussion is that we kind of are forcing this process in a fairly tight timeframe because we're going to keep this project moving forward. So between the last meeting, which was July the 21st and Sunday morning, we created this document, circulated it to the board for their review. And tonight we're actually going to be doing some wordsmithing. So stand by for maybe a little bit of boredom. But I think in the interest of keeping the process moving forward, we want to refine this document and get it into HHA's hands sooner so they can begin responding. How would we like to engage in this conversation? How would we want to start it out? Do we want to kind of frame what we're going to try to do tonight first? Sarah, I can see your brain just being a teacher over there.

I'm not sure if other board members responded directly to Ron. Three of us responded to the sort of all team circle with general reflections on like what were the themes that we're seeing coming out of the public comment. And Ron, I think you've done a great job. Let's read them out again, the themes. Number one was like everyone agrees that there's a need for replacement housing for bliss, another question. The scale and density, the relationships surrounding the construction and demolition plans, the site conditions, and I think this section is, section four is maybe not well labeled, but it seems to be more about like the contamination concern, the demolition management plans versus like the trucks, the staging, three and four kind of related. Phasing, resident relocation, right? Like what's the, you know, a question about asking the applicant to be like, what's the sequence and timing of, you're going to tear down this building and then, or you're going to build a new building and people will move in. The parking transportation matters, themes around municipal services and municipal infrastructure like sewer water, the ground floor streetscape landscaping impact, the overall like neighboring character. And then you've enumerated the things that I already said beyond the scope of the planning board. So I feel like you did a really strong job of of articulating what the core themes were, Nathan and I both responded with some edits with regard to, so like today I read a hundred public comments and I read the whole project file except the thousand page slip. And as a new planning board member, still trying to get clear on what is and isn't within our purview, but specifically the number of portions of the theme that are related, sorry, there are several categories of themes here that are largely addressed in the May 13th letter we got from the applicant. For example, when we asked the applicant, if we want to ask the applicant again, what are the design frameworks that guide your decision around massing or community integration? But we have mostly posed that question already and gotten a response, which we may or may not find adequate, But I was worried in some of the design consideration questions that the questions we were asking were a bit too vague. Because we were asking, you know, the overall site design objectives for integrating the redevelopment with the surrounding neighborhood, when a lot of people were making those comments were concerned that there wasn't retail on the ground floor, that there were no egresses. So if our question is why aren't there more egressives? Can there be more egressives? Why isn't there, why do retail fall out? Can there be more retail? I feel like we could ask more specific questions. It also then does get me into the, I just remain confused about reviewing the planning board in terms of directing an applicant with their, with their own choices.

I guess like there's like a sort of following question there is like, are we trying to summarize the questions that the public has asked for the applicant to then answer? Or are we trying to use the wisdom of the community that they brought to us to ask our own questions that we feel are unanswered in the project record so far? Because I think there are a set of things in the draft that you put together that I think we all agree have not been answered by the applicant. I think particularly around construction, like the construction plan. neighborhood impacts around construction. But there's a whole bunch of other stuff that's like been exhaustively described by the applicant already around, I mean, for example, the parking and traffic study, like, already exists. It sort of feels very good to ask the applicant again for a thing they've already done.

Or like the phasing and sequence. If the public is confused that, but there will be built a building, The HHA is federally mandated to safely rehouse every single person that's currently housed into the new building before they can tear down. So the sequence to me is extremely clear and I don't know what's unclear.

I think that there's like a shared. We all as a community should communicate really well. I think that that's like I think a shared interest between all of us on board and also the applicants. We have a shared interest in communicating to the whole community. what has already been answered. And so I think that the other thing we, Sarah and I were just chatting before this, but you can imagine us taking this document and instead of having it, it could be that we just ask questions and they refer back to us. That would be acceptable if we sit in the lab. I guess I just worry about creating a new burden on the applicant when they've already answered the question. It feels like we might be continuing to ask the same questions that we've already asked.

And just to be clear that this first document was a draft.

Yeah.

So let me sort of explain my rationale and including is that I want to make a document that was representative of the comments from the community. And if within the community, they don't know about certain things that have been answered, then that sort of teases that out. And then we can say, ah, okay, you'll find the answer to that in our minutes for our July 15 meeting. I mean, it gives us an opportunity to use this as an educational process for the community as well as informing our thinking. And then the other framework I had was the community speaks to the board and then we bring those questions And we own those questions ourselves. They get morphed into our questions because we've been influenced by the community to say, these are good questions we should be asking. So those are just two of my framing thoughts as far as creating the document. So what if we went down section by section and just analyzed whether or not, does that section feel complete? How would I change that? Would that be useful in the process? And everybody has a hard time doing that. And by the way, I think we've got three really good advisors with us, Linda and Rich and Andrew. And I would invite you to bring your perspective to this conversation as well to help us achieve what we're trying to achieve. And also keeping us on the right side of what's our authority. where we are with regard to engineering, and just drawing on your history and experience is a great value to this as well. Some of this was, you know, the purpose was, I guess, was trying to create some framework for this, because I also think this is a potentially a process that can be used in future projects as well. If we kind of capture the why are we doing this and what's the philosophy behind it, that's why I kind of included some of the other. And before we begin, one more thing. So we have approximately three more weeks of public comment, including what we heard tonight. So at the end of the public hearing and before our September 8th meeting, I think that we need to revisit public comments that have occurred from Actually from Sunday morning at 9 AM forward and see if there are any new issues that we need to include as a supplement to what we're doing tonight, OK? Would you like one of one of you lead the first the second set the second section? Sarah, you want to take us through?

Do we want to just focus on the request for additional written information? Or do you want to review like I mean, I think your your summary work is. is great. You know, one could get more technical, but we shouldn't, you know, in terms of the four kinds of comments, you express different kinds of things. But I think you're right. You say the public comments do not reflect a single point of view. But the question is, the design process used to establish the project's rights now say it's setbacks.

So where are you? I'm sorry. Show us where you are.

I'm looking at section two. I'm suggesting that as we go forward, we can talk about the narrative breach theme, just for the public breach theme. I've done a summary of the comments, and then there's a specific subsection request for additional recommendation. So this one was one where I, and I think Nathan agrees, that if we, that there's something, I have some sort of problem with sort of four different places in this document where we were asking the applicant to basically respond to the same set of questions we asked them to respond to in May. And so maybe they could issue a more holistic re-segment of the design framework. But this question just asked additional written information about the design process.

They gave us a whole presentation about the design process.

And I think from my perspective, I would be happy if the applicant just referred us back to... Just said, we already wrote it up. Yes.

C letter.

C letter for May 13th.

Unless there's something that we found unsatisfactory about the May 13th letter and the design.

Yeah, or a specific, I feel like it would be helpful if I were the applicant to, I want to speak for you all, but if there's a specific question that was not handled by me, rather than a more generic, tell us about the design process. You know what I mean? Like if there's like, oh, this one thing was not covered. What was it that you were talking about for us?

I mean, I know that the height is unknown. It's a measurement that we don't know. I know that people have lots of questions about the degree to which it interacts with the neighborhood. And so knowing sort of factually what the actual dimensions of the building are, are a way of completing the record to give people a sense of understanding of what is this relationship with the neighborhood? How is it different than buildings in the neighborhood? what are the precedents that the designers have used to define the scale. I think they're relevant to the conversation as to appropriateness, which I know we heard people talk about tonight.

We don't know the height.

It's been described as being four stories. I believe that we don't have actual height at feet. And because of the change in topography of the slide, you end up having

variations in the... So the concern in item two is that you feel that they may have already responded to that.

There may be some questions within that that we still might have.

So how do we reach that point? How do we get to that point where we can be finite and somewhat a little more microscopic?

Even what we've just said about like, how does the building interact? Well, there's, what do we want? What's like important for us to hear? It sits across the street from other buildings. There's crosswalks between, you know, there's, we know about view shadows, we know about light, you know, we think about shadows falling, but I'm, not sure what actually we're looking for when you're asking for these buildings to interact with neighboring buildings, any more than, say, has products all interacted with neighboring buildings?

I mean, the height is a specific measurement of scale in the relationship between one building and another building. There's uncertainty as to whether we have that information. So that's one point that people continually refer to when they wonder, what is this development? And it's a piece of information that will provide more clarity

Yeah, that was like a narrow specific, but good. I think I got a matrix in my inbox from the engineers that has that data now.

But I don't think it's entered into any official record. Yes, go ahead.

Okay. Yeah, I don't find the final building elevation that we have saved in our file.

But forgive me if I sound a bit because I'm a late person and then this particular matter, but I know we are all persons. Yeah, but during the public comment period, I know there was the concern about the delay with the zoning. So as far as the dimensions of the proposed building, how is that impacted by by the zoning? You know the action of the zoning within Hudson and is there any? What's the relationship on how it would impact the project moving forward? Just a general query that you have a. So are you asking if there's a zoning change? I don't think there is. But I mean, as far as the dimensions of the building, whether it was mentioned, we don't know the exact height.

Zoning is for the two townhouses. The main building is in a zone that doesn't have a height restriction.

Okay, so heights and zoning, those are not necessarily in the financial area. Can you ask questions?

off yeah yeah and if the applicant wants to interject at any point simplify things john if you or jeff have content that we're dancing around looking through my files so you can see the diagrams um showing the proposed building and see as far as how it looks with the rest of the community we did submit elevations but the ones i have you're correct they don't have diets on them but i think there were other areas in the application when we stated the heights but

should be on there um so you know that's something we can address that way it's in one package so does it come down to that we're just asking about dimensions on on item two this is just kind of one section there's there's i've heard other concerns about like the um the i mean peter wrote a great thing about the length of wall you know like how many how many doors you know, some people desire that this project where ground floor levels would have their own entrances or something. I don't think the plan would be any of that sort of thing, but do we have questions about, I don't know, why there are, can there be more doors?

Yes. Yeah, I mean, I think that some of that information is already there, but understanding the sort of just confirming, you know, how many doors per entry, how many units per lobby, seems to me that um this building has a all of the units share one lobby which is seems to be a design choice that actually replicates the design of bliss hours um and it is it operates at an institutional scale which i find problematic um so getting more information about that would be helpful just confirming that data and those measurements to be would be helpful so as an action point maybe the thing to do is to collaborate on sort of the questions that you have that

and get those into writing for here so that for the app. So I, but I contribute. Oh yeah, I know, but I actually, that's, I think, is it that this draft doesn't have Peter's email in it? Peter did send an email. Yeah. But that's not.

Yeah, it's, I feel like it shaped the themes, but this, a lot of the specific questions.

It's on, it's on the left, it's on, like, section eight. That's the only reason why we Oh, yeah, sorry.

Sorry, I was... Well, it's all too necessary. Maybe...

I feel like things that seem like really clear yeses, like there isn't a lot on the public record, is the construction management plan, the, like, people were very concerned about vibration, noise, I feel like dust control and things like that are part of this with. But staging traffic impacts and even the time like I don't know when I was really looking at all the secret missions, everything said a one two year construction timeline and then a lot of public comments like this is going to go on for a decade. So it would be helpful to disambiguate that. I mean, that's an opportunity for the applicant.

yeah i think it might be i mean that's a whole that's another section so um what i'd like to do is dispense with each section and and then move through it in an orderly way so what is the difficulty in in giving a fully representative set of questions to the applicant and having them answer the questions and if they've already

as if they've already answered them. They seem to get that they've already answered them. We just had evidence of the fact that they thought they had given us information that they did not. So this gives them a chance to actually complete the record. And we don't have to do this sort of public collaboration sort of editing. Does that feel like a valid proposal?

So make that clear for me.

You're suggesting we just give them this? Yeah. I mean, I feel like what you did is really represent a sort of a comprehensive review of the concerns that the public brought into the community conversation about the project. Yes, there's duplication because there's going to be duplication. It's a massive project. People have various levels of awareness, various abilities to access the meetings, various levels of understanding. And so the thoroughness is a bonus to me. I don't feel like we're being onerous by asking the application to be thorough on their representation of the project.

Well, and you know, as Jeff et al gets into this, and if they're looking at it and go, I'm not sure I understand what you're asking, then we're talking to each other. So we can move through this in a collaborative way. We can certainly simplify our task in mind if we decided to. And again, what I would propose is that if we did that, I would convert this into a letter sent on behalf of the board And it would get posted, I suppose, because it becomes a public document. And then at the end of this process, I think we would publish our findings for the public to see. I mean, here are the questions the public asked. Here are the answers that we have from the applicant. And then we close the loop with the public. We've had our conversation with the public. We've had a start, a middle, and a finish. I'm going to test the interest of the board and see if there's emotions of any kind floating around in anybody's mind.

So I have one objection, which is there are a handful of items in here where we're asking the applicant to provide commentary on things that are not part of our purview. So the thing that snuck in, so construction techniques and the building code and their compliance with it is not a thing that we as a board, as I understand it, and can ask um my personal view is that we should be continually focused on on like information and um being focused on what conditions for approval what information you need to get your people together um but that's my personal view

Did we just experience a moment when we thought there was information in the record and it's not?

Just to confirm, sorry. The heights are in the record, it's in the ball table. What I said before is they're not on the elevations. On the buildings it's 60 feet, the other one is 50 feet, that's on the ball table. And we did provide elevations, but you are correct, they don't have 5,000 on the elevations. So that's something I said before is we'll synthesize that information so we don't have it all in one place.

I just think to that degree, because of the complexity, the things so particular about new information and old information feels like the broader.

And there's one other concern I have, which is some of the questions on here are just so vague. They're just, they're so general in nature that I wouldn't know how, if I were the applicant, how I would even go about satisfying them.

And as the board, like what, what gets us closer to discernment if we're going to, if we're sort of repeating things that we already have heard the applicant say. And I think the applicant has to like read the room with the public comments and understand what's at stake in some of the questions that are being asked. But you pointed out some good ones here. I mean, I'm not opposed to shipping this document as is. I just, yeah.

could imagine more satisfying dialogue based on the questions that are actually at the root here well this is one wave right we have another like we have another wave of public comments that come in another opportunity to refine in terms of food we're talking about sort of coarseness or or resolution of questions this is the first um um wave of sort of general inquiry that's representative of public comments.

As an example, in Section 6, the proposed question was, the proposed function of state street is to include pedestrian, vehicular, and emergency access. I'm not sure if it's asking about phase 1 after phase 2 when it's pedestrian. I don't know what

I think what I'm hearing and what I'm feeling personally is listening to a lot of like deep emotions and listening that well to so many different people speak. It's not that it takes something out of you, but it makes you tired, right? And like this is a heavy document and it's eight o'clock. And I think at this point, it seems like we kind of maybe just want to get through it. And then we also have, but no, we need to edit go through it more thoroughly. And I can tell you right now that I don't have it in me to go through this stuff. Not right now. So I don't know, maybe if this is something, I don't know, it would probably be too far. I mean, if we could kind of maybe incorporate this into the 24th thing we're doing, I don't know if that's too far away to make it not, you know, and plus we heard a lot more things today that maybe could help us maybe sharpen this a little bit, you know.

Maybe I could offer some general guidance here since this is my views that the board is discussing. It should probably be posted on the planning board site and then the applicant can at least have a look at what this is we're discussing with the knowledge that this will be refined further so they can at least get going on it rather than waiting for us to say here's exactly what we're asking for. Just that

we're talking about the transfer of information benefits everyone here i don't think holding off really uh serves any purpose and i think i would be very happy to proceed with this document if we had included a preamble that said something like you can just respond holistically across themes yeah um like refer back to the previous submission yeah and like you could you can answer some of these questions with as as as answered already in whatever submission That satisfies.

We have a question from the back.

John Madio from Malco. Thank you all for this discussion. This is great. For our purposes, we'd rather have as many questions as you have. If they've been asked before, that's fine. We can either simply refer to the previous answer or add to that answer. I appreciate Council's comments. We're ready to get going. Whatever you can send us, we can start working on And let's be honest, once you get those responses are going to be more questions. Okay. So, you know, we're, we're prepared to take whatever incoming questions you have. And we can sort of help direct where we think that there are certain things that are clearly in the purview of the planning board. We'll comment on that. And, and where things are not, we may still respond and we'll put that on the website. And then your board will make a determination as to what you should value or not.

So here's the step-by-step that maybe we could follow. We vote tonight to submit this to them in a revised form tomorrow. I'll turn it into a letter and get it over to you. The public comments stop on September 1st or the 31st. We reevaluate any comments from yesterday through that date. see if there are any new broad content that needs to be added to this. We invite the applicant to submit a written response by the end of the month and then a verbal kind of review at our September 8th meeting where it gives us an opportunity to do discussions with them based on their answers. Is that a workable timeframe for everybody?

Yes.

And again, this is to help us complete the record. This is so And then my guess is, just based on what we know, when do we think we're going to have a zoning board resolution? Do we have any idea at all?

I can't speak for the zoning board. I don't know. I don't know when their next meeting is scheduled for. I know they're in the process of essentially scheduling a special meeting for the zoning board.

Do you have any insight on there? We just received the email at 6 o'clock tonight that the meeting was canceled. So we'll have to follow up on trying to get a special meeting.

Obviously, it's for September 8th.

Okay.

Yeah, it's supposed to be the 19th of August.

So if that time frame is suitable, then I'm going to return to the idea that we just, oh, I thought you were raising your hand. The idea that we go ahead and move to submit this to the applicant. If between now and, let's say, the end of business tomorrow, you just have some burning issues that you really want to, you know, you want to refine a question or clarify a question, then I would, let's just say, if you could give to me by the end of the day tomorrow, I'll just use my judgment if it's all right. And then we'll get it in your hands.

Okay.

Can we limit that?

Yes. Stand down.

Yeah, as long as we pre-include in that some of the construction management stuff at the end of my talk. One thing I can throw out there is to maybe get, if you're going to give it to them in pieces, because it's certainly not complete yet. So if you're going to give it to them, give it to them, make sure it's clear that it's a draft. But if everybody agrees to the buckets, so to speak here, that gives them a lot of area to really start responding. And if you're unhappy with some of the detailed questions, then maybe pull some of those back, delay that, rejigger how you want to say something very specific. But if they have these different themes, they heard all the comments as well, too. They can really start to fill in, provide you back a summary. And it is customary for some of this to just get regurgitated because you heard it as a board. but the public didn't hear it. So when they submit something back, it becomes a nice working document that the public can read as well. So even if they refer back or say some of the same stuff that you've heard before, at least it's a nice concise document for the public to hear.

So the chair would entertain a motion to approve circulating this document to the applicant as a first step in engaging them around public comments.

Thank you, Sarah. I'll second. Thank you, Peter. Did you let me have another one? Yeah.

Cobra. Yes. Slime. Yes. Wood bulb. Yes. Light bulb. Yes. Spear.

Yes.

Bulb.

No.

I got tomato.

Okay. Thank you, then. Jeff, I'll be in contact tomorrow about this.

Sounds good. Thank you. Thank you all.

Thank you, Executive Director Jeff.

um we have three more items of business uh 604 washington street is there anybody here from 604 washington street yes sorry oh god thank you

it's okay we're going to set up an easel here sure good evening everybody my name is eric with time bond engineer with my colleague bro sasser here to discuss 604 washington street parking lot this proposed parking lot will support the pocketbook Hudson project. Thank you very much. And I want to start off by just, yeah, yeah, and I'm going to pass out a hard copy and I'll send it to each of you to show in this application. Well, sometimes us engineers got caught up in the details. Sometimes we can take a step back and show everybody where we are, provide some context to the site. I just have a few very basic parallel images. Kind of showing the parking lot and its relation to the pocketbook connection. Maybe these are something to do with something.

And if I could, can I just ask a clarifying question before I get into it? This was part of a previously approved site plan for this board, right? This parking lot? Yes. The parking lot was previously larger than what is currently proposed, and this is a reduction in that previously approved parking lot. That's correct. That's correct. Okay.

So the board's looking at less than what was already approved, right?

Yes. It's just because due to some city function.

Sorry, can I clarify? That's not actually correct. The planning board application that was approved for pocketbook factory. Sorry, this is Sean Roland. I'm one of the managing partners. Sorry, I didn't realize. Yeah. It did not include a parking lot. It included a condition that we had to either have a parking lot or provide for 40 parking spaces through a permit in municipal lots. So there was no parking lot as part of the original site plan. So this is a new application. It is not an amendment to our existing site plan. it's pursuant to that condition on the site plan right yes but we've been meeting that condition by other means currently so it's not like it is not an amendment we're not applying it with this as an amendment does that make sense so they're not applying for an amendment

There's classifying this as a new site for just parking lot.

Could you speak to the intention? Like if you have an alternate currently, I know that there's neighbor complaints, but both beyond that, is there a motivation from your side?

It's just, it's a separate, like there's two ways to meet the condition. Justin Cappos, Right so like I don't the the intention with having it be a separate application is one it's a separate company that. Justin Cappos, That is not the property that owns pocketbook factories different than this company that is leasing this parking this land from the city that the purpose is to provide parking for pocketbook Hudson. But the way we thought it was the most efficient to do that is by applying rather than, you know, amending our current site plan, which has gone through, you know, went through over a year of review. It's just to do a very simple new plan for what we're doing.

Excuse me, this is Margaret Morris. Can you hear me?

Hi, Margaret.

Yes, Council President. I want to uh agree with what sean has just said uh the agreement was that they either had to have 40 permits or that they had to allocate parking so what you have in front of you i believe sean it's i don't know if it's 34 36 spaces in that lot um it's 34 right um But the initial agreement, and initially when this started, the pocketbook purchased 40 permits in a city lot. And now, after some negotiations with the fire department and DPW, et cetera, who we identified as a city, 34 spaces that the pocketbook could use at a cost. in the area behind the fire station. So that's what this is about. I just want to clarify that.

So it's the same place. It's just a new project to sort of formalize this development of this parking lot under...

It's an off-site parking problem. The current use of this and the only tip of this land is what? It's the city's formal fire department parking lot.

Correct. The current use is just a Parking lot, storage yard, it's owned by the City of Hudson. This portion of the site is leased to PBF tenant LLC, Sean Rollins, to supply the main parking lot.

And it's just the half. It's just the 34 to meet the conditions of the business. Exactly.

This parking lot provides 34 total parking spaces. The whole lot is 2.4 acres. The actual limit to disturbance is only about 0.4 acres. So, just to... There's a side one. Right. Yeah, that's one of the improvements as far as, as far as parking lots and compliance, we're providing two 88 parking spaces. We're providing six electrical vehicle charging stations, one of which will also be 88. So there's three 88 parking spaces. And those are connected to the new sidewalk, be a pedestrian friendly, 88 accessible ramp. So those. So indicated in red. So the red dotted line in arrows indicates the path of travel, but actually you need to take the parking lot to the Pachukotza facility, and that's less than 300 feet. Now that we kind of know where we are in the world, we're right across the street from the firehouse on Washington Street, 6th Street here. So we have all these on the portal, but we just thought we'd bring a hard copy of the site plan here. I can kind of move it around. You all can't see it, but I'll just go over the list of improvements to bring this parking lot up to compliance. Like I mentioned, we have two parking spaces and six electrical vehicle charging spaces. We have Tesla Level 2 destination chargers. We have an ADA pedestrian connectivity to the existing sidewalk. And we're also proposing an asphalt driveway to lead to this primarily gravel parking lot. In addition, we are providing six parking lot lights. It'll be 16 feet high. We have an elimination plan, but the goal is to illuminate this very dark parking lot while also trying to make sure that the lids of the lights stay within our property. So we made sure when we worked with lighting consultant that that was their mission to keep everything in the parking lot, but still provide a nice, illuminated, safe parking lot. Going further, to power both the parking lot lights and the Tesla chargers, We're proposing a 200 amp connection service panel on an existing pole right here, similar to how the recently built parking lot is also serviced to be off the scene pole. Similarly to this parking lot, to provide screening for visual buffering on the southern end, we're proposing a row of evergreens, most likely green genital varieties to match what was previously Planted on this side, right above the property line. So it'll be symmetrical to match what we have over here. They're planted at a spacing that will make sure that when they're first planted, it'll create a visual block, but also when they're fully grown, it'll give them spaces. It will not inhibit the actual parking spaces. Each parking space is fashioned with a wheel stop. And as we look towards the right or east side of the plan, we have a steep drop. And so we are doing two things. Parking lots, to meet actual requirements, need to be within 4% slope. And so we're just ever so slightly raising this eastern end. And we are going to taper out at a 2 to 1, providing erosion control and seed stabilization. We're also adding a timber guardrail at the end of the parking lot. So if any car drives over a little bit too fast, because there's no material change, there's a safety measure in place there. As far as site improvements go, that's That's mainly what we're looking at. During construction, we're trying to be very cognizant of erosion and sedimentation control. For that, we are specifying silt fenced on the low end of the site, and also there's two existing stormwater inlets, which we'll be blocking with a lot of protection. Speaking of stormwater, because today it's an existing gravel parking lot and we are replacing the gravel in kind, we will not need to be replacing or adding any stormwater measures. The drainage patterns will be the same, the hydrology of the site, is to remain the same. You are adding the ADA spaces? Yes. For the clarification, the ADA spaces and the striped parking areas to access them will also be paved with asphalt. And so there's a completely paved sidewalk and asphalt path from the ADA spaces all the way to the facility.

Is this private parking or public? It feels like you're carving out like half of the, you're carving that space out. So I guess just my first question, is it private? How do people know how to use it or who it's for?

It's private. There will be signage around to deter other people from parking on in the actual lot. And it will be only for, um, pocketbook cuts and tenants. And what's that boundary of, um, how does it, how does it divide itself from the rest of the, what's the, all of the services? Right. So, um, On the southern end, these circles represent the evergreen trees that are being planted. Because there is no material change between this parking lot and the existing larger parking lot, and also it's for the visual buffer, we added the evergreens to the southern ends. This area down here, there's probably about seven spaces that are today used for the fire station parking, but the rest of the site today has been used to stockpile snow in the winter for snow reporting. And so it'll continue to act that way. There's entrances you can access from Railroad Avenue. And so the trees also kind of add like a visual barrier for the trucks, don't make snow. It just keeps a good, healthy separation between the two activities.

Small question, are those going to be planted in ground or containerized? Because that seems like a tough growing environment.

Right, right. They will not be planted in gravel. I can guarantee that. We have a detailed construction documents and there will be a five foot a trench replaced with suitable soil. We wouldn't expense that, but you can already see another side of the property where they planted those existing arborvalleys if you were dying. It's a great issue to learn your lessons from that.

So this is a pretty straightforward project. Yes. I think it would be great if our engineer and our attorney could kind of take us through what our requirements are for this. I'd start off by saying it strikes me that we recommend that we wait for public hearing for this project. I don't know if anybody has a different point of view, but that would seem to be a step that we could take out in the process.

And just to clarify, your code allows you to hold a public hearing on cycling occasions in your discretion based upon forced thought on a potential level of public interest or any adverse impacts. So it's not a Mandatory.

And Margaret, if you're still on the line, is the fire department, they're totally happy with this plan. And you, I assume this is at least the city is doing so that you're all happy from all city departments perspective.

Can you repeat the question?

Since this is a lease that the city is doing, I assume you've checked the fire department.

Yes. So when when pocketbook was first in place, And Sean, please correct me if I go wrong here. There was an initial lease under construction and then the city agreed to, I believe it's a five-year lease, Sean, is that correct?

Yes, correct.

Yes, a five-year lease for this space. And this was done in consultation with DPW and with the fire department. um where we evaluated the uh dpw's need for space for uh snow issues fire department needs and so forth and so this is a five-year lease for this space um so it is to the question that was raised before is this private property this is city property that the city has agreed to lease to pocket brook to provide 34 parking spaces that they have agreed to landscape and manage. Sean, is that correct?

Yes, I think that's a great summary. Agreed.

Okay, thank you. Thanks, Margaret.

Thank you.

I mean, given it's a continuation improvement of an ongoing use and part of like a conception from the original concern about the pocketbook's impact on parking. I don't see why we would need a public comment.

And if we had public comments, the neighbors would probably say, Herbie, I bought my parking spot back in front of my house.

So what's our step-by-step on this? Well, you need to classify it. I believe it's a type 2 action under Seeker since it's an existing gravel and you're replacing gravel parking lot here, replacing it in kind, you said? Yes. I thought this was going to be an unlisted action. It doesn't really fall into either one of them. If you'd prefer that. But what I mean on this would be that it would be type 2 of 3rd and the original. But if they were mandated, yeah. Well, now they're saying this is not part of that. Right, yeah.

Everyone has to stand alone.

Yeah. And my opinion, this could be classified as type 2 action exempt from review. And I'll just read this section. Maintenance or repair involving no substantial changes in the existing structure or facility. So here we have existing gravel driveway or parking lot, excuse me, and they're replacing it in-kind. And formalized improvement.

Yeah. And adding the ADU. Okay. So that's my throwing it out there.

So board was so inclined, it could classify this action as type two exempt from further review. Because they haven't been able to have any response to that.

That's not what we want to go forward with. So we would need to take action on that then at this point?

Yes.

Okay. So action to classify as type two exempt from further review. Okay. Is there a motion for that classification?

Sure. Yes, sir. Okay, second. Yes, I'll second that. Very good, Linda.

Arthur. Yes.

Yes.

Michael.

Yes.

Spirit.

Yes.

Over.

Yeah. Then what?

I think we've asked the engineer to make sure there's no outstanding engineering elements, and if there were, if they would be properly included in any, as an additional potential approval.

think we go through a couple of those uh tonight uh back actually your first exhibit answered a lot of our questions already because that's what we're looking for just looking at this view that we see right here it doesn't play a whole lot but now seeing the whole path and where where it goes to uh super helpful so i'd like to see that made part of the the set um we had some comments on the lighting you had your lighting exhibit it showed uh that there was some overflow of lighting that was going into the property to the north and west. And I just wanted to make the board aware of that, but then we could discuss, I thought that we could discuss just what is happening on that site. I know there's some trees and then an immediate parking lot, and I'm not, fill me in, I'm not exactly sure what happens on that site.

Yeah, so the two adjacent properties are zoned the same. They're both R1GCT. And they both have similar purposes. On the north side, this is a new parking lot with a similar laying plan and buffers. On the southern side, again, this is just a gravel parking lot. So we're not necessarily, this isn't lightly infiltrating into a residential area up there. And again, our primary focus is safety. And you can, I think sometimes biometric plans are a little misleading because we have these different radiuses of illumination. What this is really representing is that the focus of the lights are within our property, and there's a very minor illumination on the outside, but we worked with the lighting consultant to make sure that it's focused on the captioning property.

Nick, can you explain the type of light texture?

Yes. We didn't show the spec, but I have it printed out because I received some at random and thought you might ask. So we have, just for visual aid, it's going to be a 16-foot kind of sleek, modern,

parking lot light i assume full cut off in a dark static environment yes do we know where the barracks are at the fire department i assume they must have sleeping clothes um yeah well that's true of course yeah so that's not good right yeah so i bring this up just because something minor like this a little bit of lead trespass onto another parking lot It's in your purview, you can waive that. But if that was a residential lot, we might want you to look at that a little differently.

If you're satisfying Dark Sky's kinds of conditions, then that would be the question I would ask. When you're eliminating a big property like that, it's a 602 agency property, but it's also parking lot.

Who owns that?

Yeah, that's what it says. Yeah, it's an auto body shop.

That's what we saw on the GIS.

Just a comment on the lighting. The lights are on the same property line. They do have shielding.

on the trees, so that's just a mirrored screen.

Oh, I know what I did have a question on. Just as you were discussing this, is each one of these spots going to be allocated to a particular user? Such as, are they all going to be assumed to be full on a regular basis? They will, as we are assuming, they will default on a regular basis, but they're not assigned to a particular individual. Okay, but they're all assigned to, for use? Yes. All right, so then that just brings up a quick question that I had about snow removal. Okay. You were talking about snow here, but I was thinking about that before you said it. If all of these need to be maintained open, where would we be able to have snow here, or push the snow? I was just thinking, have you created a little more room on the end? you could avoid having some missing spots yeah and so that we are providing five feet between the actual ends of the parking area and the timber frame guardrail um yeah that's it's a good point i guess maybe you could create a little more space at the end and it's just you know become the snow storage area yeah i think too yeah that's a good solution you know we could also you know the the club could definitely

kind of come at an angle and push it over the guardrail if you tied it in a little bit, kind of push between the arc spot and just through the corners.

Yeah, create a little space, but push back the guardrail because the plot will have problems when they take the guardrail.

From your perspective, could Mark go ahead and go to approve this plan?

Oh, absolutely. Yeah, and anything else that somebody wants to discuss?

So excuse me, sorry Ron, if I may speak to snow removal. May I speak to snow removal? Yes, so this is one of the issues that was discussed when pocketbook DPW and fire were discussing the allocation of the space because a portion of that lot is in fact used by the city for snow removal. So with regard to any snow removal that needs to occur, there is in fact a location beyond the space that's currently allocated for parking that is specifically, you know, there for putting snow in the event of a major snowfall. So that was actually part of the discussion with Pocketbook when this was negotiated with the mayor's office and the Common Council.

Okay, that's helpful. Who maintains this?

Is the city going to maintain this parking lot?

I'm sorry?

The new parking lot that's being proposed, is the city going to maintain it?

The space that we're talking about is owned by the city. Correct. And we had initially given Pocketbook a lease during development, and then they applied for a long-term lease for parking. Um, once they, once the, the, uh, pocketbook was established and in negotiation with DPW who had snow removal, um, requirements and space that they needed and the fire department, which needed spaces for trainings, et cetera, uh, the city and the mayor's office and pocketbook identified a number of spaces. that we could lease long-term to the pocketbook. But the snow removal situation was very much a situation that was discussed in those meetings. So that was part of the discussion. Because there's an area in the back of that lot where there are at least three different places in the city where in a major snowfall, we store snow. And one of them is in the back end of that lot. which is not part of the space that pocketbook has been allowed to lease for five years.

But pocketbook has to maintain this themselves. So if it snows, they plow this area that they're leasing themselves.

Right. Yes, that's a kind of a different issue. But I just wanted to mention the other factor, which was that the whole issue of when we have a major snow event, One of the issues that came into the discussion in identifying what spaces could be allocated to pocketbook and how many spaces needed to be allocated to the fire department, part of that discussion was also making sure that we had sufficient space for snow storage in the event of a major storm. But yes, the pocketbook would be responsible for applying their own lot.

That is correct.

Thank you, President Morrison. Thank you. So based on the the advice from our attorney and our engineer, that we can take action on this application now, approve it, condense it on satisfying any additional .

You don't need to vote to waive it. It says you may schedule a public hearing. I don't mind making that a combined motion.

For clarity of the record, why don't you just do a vote to waive or hold it? Let's combine it into a single action. So a motion to waive the public hearing and prove the application contingent on satisfying remaining engineering requirements is in order. Is that it? I need the motions. Okay. Conker, yes. Black, yes. Whipple, yes. Michael, yes.

Speer, yes.

Congratulations. Just look around here.

So item six under old business 110 South Front Street, Pacifica Hudson.

Greetings, welcome.

After the excitement of the housing project, the 8% parking lottery. So I saw that.

Yeah. So I have the updated site plan, but last time I brought a dozen copies, you didn't want them because you all have it electronically. So I don't have an email address for this meeting, but if you want, then you can.

Okay. We'll pass it around.

Yeah. So we were at the last meeting. You, well, first of all, I'm Jeff Irish. I'm the owner of Hudson's. Solar Solutions, the contractors, were contracted by a facility president to build it. I am not a licensed professional engineer in New York State, but I'm not the engineer running on the project because I own the contracting company that's been contracted to build it. So other people are checking that work. We were at the last meeting. He confirmed it was paid to a speaker and voted that way to confirm it. Then you also voted away the public hearing. So we did receive, after the last meeting, a letter from a company, Renia, with 16 questions. We submitted answers to 16 questions, and then about 2.14 this afternoon, we got alerted that they'd come up with a response to the question. So we didn't have time to update the site plan drawing, and make the minor revisions that we think are now required, but the answers are pretty straightforward and pretty simple. I think we're pretty close at this point. So I'll just go through those things. Just a little bit of the letter then, I guess, and some of the issues. Most of them, the comments, the response to the engineering company was that the comment has been addressed or resolved. There was a couple that deal with the easement and the, the need for an easement because there's a strip of land owned by a third party in between the two but the new engineers responded that they said our office would have no objections to having the final acceptance of all required easements or utility agreements in the condition of approval that's kind of the direction we're hoping to go as long as with the other small developments I'll go through that have to do with the site plan itself. So there was one about light. This area is already a parking lot. It's on South Front Street. There are streetlights along South Front Street. The lot to the south here is a huge parking lot. Amtrak parks a lot of their vehicles there and trucks There are huge lights already there. There are lights already around the Basilica Hudson building. And so the area is pretty well lit. One of the questions was, will there be lighting in the carport? The answer is yes, I respond, there will always be lighting. I have a picture of what it looks like. It's more of a pass around, more like mood lighting. It's LED accent lighting. It's blue in that picture. I think there's a knob and you can make it. Probably other colors or something, but it's it's very low intensity. It's it's mainly for kind of an aesthetic effect. So are there other blue lights in the in the area in the region? We don't think they're necessary given the existing area. So we're hoping that that suffices as far as the lighting question. Next question, there were some things about line work, wanting us to detail more accurately where pedestrians go and the exits on South Front Street, so we can add that to the site plan when we update the site plan with the Eastman work as well. There was a question about topography. Applicants mentioned the requirement for a 4% or minimum rate. This area is already flat. It's already a parking lot. If we walk out there, it's flat. There's no need for existing, for regrading what's already existing there. And then there was a question about screening.

This is a very industrial area.

This carport, we think, will be a major improvement for the aesthetics anything within about 200 or 300 feet of that kind of thing. So we're requesting that there not be a requirement for screening, given that there's an old factory across the road, there's the Amtrak parking lot, there's railway tracks and other things.

With the known developments that are occurring in the immediate area of South Bay and then ultimately the warehouse across the way, does that change the environment in any way that Oh, so you want to reconsider that?

It's totally on the other side. Like, you've got that's pulled down, and then there's like the whole basilica is between that development, and then it's like close to the water, close to the rail.

Yeah, this is Basilica Hudson. The railway line goes this way and this way. And the parking, this is the existing parking lot. It's three acres, it's all parking lot right now by the Appleton. and the carport would go right here. You guys own that?

It's right with the shipping containers, though? Yeah, I used to replace the shipping containers with... Tony, do you have an interview with him?

No, Tony's selling Kohler and Silver Hudson. There's a row of shipping containers right now, so the shipping container might be moved, and then that's where the whole framework goes. One question, is there any other parking lot improvement beyond just the carport? Because currently it's just like you say, it's like it's the tool library container and then there's other containers there. I mean, we will, obviously the new route will go where we distribute it and then have that spread over the whole lot. And then signage to actually bring people to the right place. So we're kind of still balancing signage to get people to find the right instance.

so our engineer richard and andrew both advised that uh from their standpoint they're ready for us to take action on the application uh pending a few of the engineering details that that are currently underway so uh any discussion on that or is there a motion to improve the application motion to improve computer thank you second second thank you yes black yes yes yes Yes. Welcome. Yes. Two parking lot night. Thank you. Unless somebody has some long story, they can.

Yeah. We don't have Mount Rays. We don't have Mount Rays. Right.

No.

That's okay. They don't have too many. I'm sorry.

They submitted something brand new today. Yeah. So one more note that we didn't have a discussion in our last meeting about a local law change that was recommended to, not recommended to us, but sent to us for our opinion from the Common Council. The President of the Common Council has withdrawn that action, so it's no longer on the agenda. So it's no longer a matter for us to be concerned about. So the drive-by-drive vote is not going to be an action by that latest decision. I don't have any other questions. And with that, the meeting is adjourned. Motion to adjourn? Sure, why not? I think it's within the authority of the chair. I didn't know my teacherly brain wanted to end.