Planning Board - Regular Meeting

did I miss anything we are uh here for the planning board meeting Thursday March 13 2025 um can we stand for a second and do the Pledge of Allegiance and we'll get going I pledge allegian to the flag of the UN United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one na indivisible and justice for all thanks everyone na um the first part of our agenda is board business the first uh item is the minutes of February 13th has uh everyone had a chance to review them and uh does anyone have comments on [Music] them I reviewed them I didn't have any comments okay uh can I have a motion to accept the minutes so moved second second thanks uh all in favor I I minutes are accepted bills do we have any bills um we do I just buried them okay have um three bills um one for office supplies from WB Mason um one for um one registration for the cptc conference um this weekend and one uh peer review bill for green International from uh for 550 New Town Road um since we mentioned the cptc uh it's this Saturday I'm going to go for one of the morning um presentations on the adus is anyone else going yes I'm going to go excellent what did you sign up for do you remember I don't remember I I was hoping the confirmation reminded

me but registration you'll get the I'll I'll look for you um yeah yeah I think I think I might have done adus and there was a couple others okay I'm just I just can't I can't do any more than the morning um that's great okay so other item I'm going to go through some um quick uh things and then we're going to have a presentation by Jim Dugan the Town Administrator um about uh the disposition of this building um we we were given some links to a few things one of which was the unlocking housing production commission report I made the mistake of printing it out not realizing it was 10 and some pages long if anyone if anyone needs if any wants to take this and look at it feel free otherwise you can um uh access it online it's it's quite comprehensive it um does not have any you know imperative of law but it's if they if some of these recommendations are taken up uh we may see some changes um we've also uh talk in our email talked about the the 40 why zoning um I encourage people to look uh that up and I I don't necessarily see its applicability to Littleton but other you know some of you may um find some something we could head hang our head on there uh Marin informs me that we

are can you explain the office C the office this um coordinator issue we're getting L we're getting someone back or whatever um well let's see so the planning budget for next year um as presented um includes um Cooper and I both full-time and then Lucia at 32 hours a week right now um she's being loaned out to um the greater land use Department while there's an opening there and then we'll get her back they'll get they'll get open okay fine I wanted to mention that um I do want to uh tell everyone that I will not be able to attend town meeting I have a long planned trip and um not planned by me but my wife and sis I go along um and so we will I'd like each of you to think about you know we'll have two issues the uh at least as of now the uh marijuana which is much simpler than it was last town meeting and the flood zone which I think pretty much everyone's eyes are going to glaze over about that so we'll deal with that later now uh Jim has organized um he had and the affordable housing trust people uh probably know about this uh he would like to bring forward to town meeting a uh a vote to declare this building Surplus and which would be the first step in repurposing this building and why don't you go ahead from there thank

you Mr chairman uh we also have uh fire uh calling in we have uh we have Town Council attorney attorney meral also available for any questions that you may have uh from from a legal standpoint uh this conversation had started over 14 15 months ago when I was interviewing for this position with the select board members on the vision that that that was happening with 550 King Street which also included a major component of deeply uh affordable rental senior housing for 30 to 60% Ami so as as the as time has gone on uh the um we as you know we've we've received necessary infrastructure funding or for first phase of uh of that for the infrastructure for there and that is going to break ground uh the middle of next month in April to Middle to the end of of of next month is uh when they will start putting in the infrastructure at 550 kingst street so as part of uh phase one the developer had had requested uh uh to to us of whether the affordable component in phase one can be postponed to a later date to a later phase uh in conversing with we have our internal team uh uh we we completely agreed immediately that that was not in the best interest of of the project of the Town actually and what uh what we we suggested back to the developer was if you accelerate identifying and capturing the afford the deeply affordable at an earlier component of the construction phase because as you all know the the project is multiple years

of phases you know seven eight eight years so not wanting that to get into into the rearview mirror and and stay there uh we thought that was an opportunity as leverage to say Let's uh let's get something that is a very ing need here in this community sooner rather than later and the first step according to Town Council would be to declare this property Surplus and allow us to do the necessary procurement process uh uh to go um uh to declared Surplus and identify uh the proper developer uh what has since since I met with various chairs of of particular committees uh to give them the the 10,000 foot uh description of this project uh more things have have evolved in a in a in a good way because one of the things that I had shared with with the chair with the chair chairpersons of those various committees was the fact that we would look at we would be looking at temporarily moving to uh another space and for us to vacate this uh which obviously would uh would cost would would cost money for us to do that however what has from the internal team so our team internal team consists of minin we've got Cooper uh we've got our Building Commissioner Town Council uh and we also have uh Ryan Ryan for for uh Finance Finance director and we also have Judy Barrett of Barrett planning uh who is well seasoned individual for these kinds of projects community outreach and Community engagement so what we would what has really come to the come to the surface uh is the light that for this is a perfect project right here we're talking 40 units of of those deeply affordable units and we would and

it's it is a perfect uh project for lwi income housing tax credits as we've been advised by by uh by our uh town councel and our consultant the low income housing tax credit is a daunting process the application is literally the size of the New York phone book uh it's it's a three ring binder it's a massive undertaking to to get to that point plus the developer has to be well seasoned in being able to accomplish that and have gone through the process before so it's in the best interest of the developer for this project to partner with a nonprofit uh affordable housing developer that has the track record but what we found advantageous to us is is that we can take off of the table is a temporary relocation as we identify as the part of the procurement process identify a permanent location with the potential of a certain level of a buildout on uh on an initial building of of a future of a future Town Hall uh so now which is good so we during that process of the low-income housing tax credits we won't have to relocate we would be here and but the main purpose for that low-income housing tax credit application the owners of the developer and the nonprofit housing developer will have to have control of the property they would essentially be the land they would be the landl so in part of the RFP process we would identify and make it perfectly clear the fact that we will we will remain here and then we will identify uh I mean it's my goal to go into it as I'll I'll be completely transparent a dollar a year I mean to to look at that uh so a lot of moving Parts

uh we're talking with we had a meeting with uh fincom the the uh the other evening we've uh presented uh to the select board uh was scheduled we we also uh presented to the Council on Aging and we uh scheduled I believe on the 19th uh to talk with the affordable housing trust uh in Greater detail such as I'm here with you right now uh so we can uh we in in preparation for town meeting there are a number of different data points that we are working on to to uh to identify uh uh to identify those those points such as the cost to actually uh what it would cost when we are ready to move and I'm talking moving would be probably 3 to four years away uh as uh so we would be looking at um something the the cost of as I said the RFP would be shaped in a way of we would identify that the site would be identified and there would be a certain level of development essentially a shell of of a of a building of a town hall but within that shell and the Building Commissioner and Ryan have worked very very hard and identifying components of that shell which are costly and some of those examples that I can give you is fire suppression systems uh handicap bathrooms ADA compliance uh uh hbac some Mechanicals that would that the Mechanicals that would go in there the things that would be ready for us when we move in so we would go in look at furniture and fixtures and and putting up walls and identifying that area and areas uh for for the different offices and the other thing the other Financial component is when we get to that point in working with the fin Comm uh we would want to make sure that any

expenditure Falls within the levy so it is not going to be something that we're going to go back to town meeting and say we need a debt exclusion we understand that what what the town is facing we are very sensitive to that and uh with and everyone is very supportive of the Shaker Lane school and I know that there is also conversations in regards to uh a DPW location so uh fincom is working very hard to identify a mechanism and a process uh of of making sure we're budgeting properly and minimizing or doing every effort we can to make sure that that burden is off the tax by as much as possible and for us to be able to budget for it moving forward uh to a point that the uh the process in which identifies the DPW and the Shaker Lane financing going forward is going to be memorialized uh with the super with the select board with the school committee the superintendent and myself and the finance director to make sure that as we get further down the road memories or positions don't change so because it's a very it's a very it's a strict uh process that the finance committee uh chairman vudi has done a marvelous job uh uh identifying a process so I'm here to to answer or any other questions we've got Town Council mar mar and Coober done Fant and fantastic and we have the building commission here for any particular questions um and looking to uh have a successful vote on May 6th and we could hope that uh the planning board can voice that support also at that meeting can I pause for one minute I'm done y um I uh the the 645 agenda uh continued public hearing is

for 55 uton road is anyone here for that I'm mentioning it because they've withdrawn their application right did they withdraw like they did the last time or is this a different type of withdrawal I know last time was without prejudice I think we are so um the request is to withdraw without prejudice that's the recommendation so we it is like the last time so we can expect them back in another year probably I could not comment on what their intentions are they what they've communicated to us is that it doesn't make Financial sense for them to do it okay so um we'll go to that in a minute but let's continue with no I'm I'm that's pretty much about it Mr chairman okay I have some questions please so so I guess I'm want to a little bit of clarity uh to start with you opened it up uh that this is related to 550 King Street uh here they were in two two months ago and this was I I asked them directly about this and this was not uh something that they said that they had in their plans uh there so part of me wants to know what changed in the last two months on that but the other part is I'm I'm board that if we want to uh you know identify this parcel and put it out for bid but I'm not comfortable at this point why we're tying it to 550 well I guess maybe I can answer that since I was on the I was on the board when we permitted 550 in the middle of doing 550 the discussion about this particular property came up as an alternative to the affordable housing that was there the thought was to put

all the senior housing in one place and make it deeply dis on it as as was stated and that it's been on the table for 6 years 7 years it's not it's this is not yeah but their but their their um approval is that that their buildings out there will include senior housing or affordable or off site but but this project would need to be it's on its own independent timeline uh it needs to be put out my understanding is is there was an RFI a few years ago uh that there was at least three uh organizations interested in doing this so I don't see how we are dedicating this project to how are we circumventing all of the open acquisition uh rules okay uh with this um Jenny can you chime in please no J can you help with the audio so I think it's this hi can you hear me now yes yes thank you um so we're not we we would have to go out for an RFP it is not a um oh now there's only me um it would not be certain that he would get that um awarded to him but the uh the RFP cannot be issued until town meeting has authorized the select board to declare it available for disposition so that's why this first step um may seem logically premature to declare um the town offices available for disposition now it's really the first thing that has to happen for a long process to to go

into effect no I and I understand that part of it what I'm what I'm concerned about is is why we're linking it to um affordable units at 550 since we can't guarantee that 550 would receive would be the successful we got excuse me I didn't sorry there's a an echo or a delay um I think that's just context to how we got here um that the you know the project started with discussions with the owner of 550 King Street um but it's been brought around to you know so identify this building as a place where we can have deeply affordable senior housing um which would be awarded to the most advantageous proposal that the town receives um after issuing an RFP so that may or may not be the owner of 550 King Street um and then what occurs with his other project um if he was awarded that contract would sort of be decided later I guess that's that I guess that kind of reinforces what my point is is I'm okay with with the discussion about uh you know the separating this parcel talking about making deeply affordable things there but I'm not comfortable any connection to the approvals at 550 and the expectations of their affordable housing units because they're independent projects they're not coupled projects and I'm uncomfortable with us saying that specifically even referencing 550 as part of this discussion because it sort of implies that we've already got a preferred bidder on something that we haven't even put out for the declared Surplus yet I concur yeah so I'm comfortable if we

want to proceed having a discussion about setting cutting a part portion of this parcel aside for putting out the bid for a deeply affordable housing but that's independent of any discussion of 550 yeah if so part of I mean what a general convers the general conversation that has been as I as I as I said earlier in which Mr monari had has referenced uh uh the conversation it also included identifying a site and a permanent off-site location to be able to do that and if there is as as as basically and I'll use a you know a very simple term in terms of a swap which is B based upon you going through the procurement process is permissible if you identify and say this is available you have to be able to create the 40 units of senior deeply affordable senior housing and in in in and but we're also looking to the opportunity to reestablish Town Hall location but that's not the proposal on the table The Proposal that we're talking about is is declaring this Surplus so that it could be put out to bid for deeply affordable housing correct and that a and that RFP the component of that RFP could include that what I just explained so the first step as attorney Merill said was to first step is to identify this that will give us that opportunity to move to move forward with declaring a surplus and then as we craft that as the as as general council is crafting that RP we able to identify what's the most advantageous thing for the town to uh to be uh to be to approve so I'll jump back in again since I was there six seven years ago for total Clarity so that everybody understands where we're coming

from this was discussed as part of the permitting process to close down town hall here to potentially build a town hall over there as Jim was saying as a swap and get deeply affordable here and that's all it's been he still has to win the bid so we're just being I and I shouldn't say wait you're just being transparent that this is something that has been in discussion for over six years and as attorney correct as attorney marille had had said I mean this would put out to it' be the opportunity would be available to any other property owner and developer within the town of Littleton so if there is if there is another property owner and and developer that would like to submit a bid and if that isn't the best if that's if they can fulfill the opportunity with uh the conditions that will be in the RFP fantastic in in regards to uh looking at the deeply affordable units uh looking at exploring the lwi income housing tax perit partnering with a a nonprofit housing developer which are all above board there's nothing yeah there's I think my discomfort comes about I understand that was historical context but what if I look at what's in the permit that none of that's in the permit it is actually in the permit in this permit is offsite potential yes offsite but not necessarily that it's this space it was that's not in the technically that's true technically it's true but this was always that's all I have to do I wasn't part of those I can read the the documents to see what's what's there the other concern I have is understanding the timelines uh of when 550 Apartments would come online and what would have been our expectation of when the affordable units would be made available versus the timeline of an independent project that that's at the

very we're just starting that now okay uh and because I'm not sure that I again because we are we end up then coupling the projects I don't know when our affordable units would become available uh because like right now I'm expecting that they become available when they uh finish construction of the building well and that was initial the the initial that was the request from uh the the developer of 550 to say you know can we postpone that or defer those affordable units to a later phase and then that's when we say so when we see the formal re for that can I finish please well I'm sorry there's a lot of things been this is what I brought up when came in two months ago is there was a lot of other discussions going on and what what was out in the public right now what you're talking about has not been in a public discussion uh there they did not mention that they would be looking to uh to do this when they were in correct uh now so now I want to start knowing what kind of timelines and other things that are they going to commit to so uh for this so that we know when that built their their first buildings built uh it sounds like they don't want to put the affordable units in there they but that now makes a gap of when we were assuming affordable units would be available to some unknown date based on an unknown Project based on unknown approvals on when those affordable units would become available I'm not comfortable with that ambiguity and those are all certainly all fair questions to ask during this site plan process when that comes forward um for the first um multif family units at the that site on inclusionary housing bylaw allows for the development to begin with um no affordable units right at the very beginning but they have to be um uh

ramped up um throughout the process um when we wrote that by law we understood that uh when you start uh multif family development it takes a lot to get it going and a lot to get started so most of the first units are um market right under any conditions so the C part of the discussion that I would expect the board to have when you um looked at the first um site plan I would actually beg to differ so I'm looking at exhibit a with the conditions and it very specifically talks about the anticipated construction years phase one of buildings oq and P3 20 to 2025 to 2026 with 287 residential units exactly that's right and that they are supposed to come into play at 10% of every building that's built so technically speaking 29 of those units should be affordable units um you're not taking into account the inclusionary zoning bylaw that gives a time frame of when those affordable units come on board I would like you to show that to us absolutely thank you I I I'd like to interject for a minute we're getting off it's certainly a topic we will be coming to but that's not what before us now what is before us now is whether we support declaring this building Surplus property the details of the deals the uh potentials I mean I have concerns I have concerns about the low-income housing tax credits because in our current uh situation in Washington they may not exist that's what that's again back to coupling the projects I I think I'm all on board with but but we've never talked

about Jim has never talked about coupling the projects because there is no contractual coupling at this moment then why think about it that what no I think it's totally reasonable for him to bring forward a very interested party if there was no one else developing in Littleton we'd be a little at Sea here about declaring this Surplus property what would happen to it we have at least one very motivated and qualified person to undertake the Redevelopment of this building but once again all that we're here tonight is to assess whether this building can be declared Surplus properties so rather than waste any more time can we just vote on whether we want to add this put our two cents worth in to say that we agree that this can be used as Surplus property and move along and and I and fine and all this other discussion is excellent and it's for maybe April I don't know when they'll be in here next well they'll have to be for they he says that he wants to start building in the fall and before you know he can't he can't do that until we hash out all this stuff so um and in the meantime if we had three other interested parties well well I I guess I caution the our board in the town and I guess the Town Administrator by opening the comments that 550 is interested in doing this you're projecting that you have a preferred bidder that that's a fair comment I'm very concerned about I think you should take that you know under advisement absolutely thank you Mr and and I have just a couple of minor comments since um it because it comes

into play in the later thing here um unwinding this parcel so a few years ago when I was on school committee I um brought forth the stuff to separate the uh School parcel from the town hall so that town hall was actually under care care and custody of the uh select board uh there um but I noticed that um uh the town never filed a formal deed modification to indicate that the parcel has been split uh there now likewise I don't know if it's been split for the senior center or the library uh there but if we're going to sell this building here uh clearly there's a lot of deed work that needs to go on as well as as my concern comes is the sh the parking in the back here shared between all three buildings uh where you know how are you going to divide this building out and then cut a enough for 40 parking spots for 40 units okay and allow access to the to the two recess buildings so I think there's a significant amount of deed and parcel work uh there what I noticed it ties together sorry I'm a little long- winded here is uh when we then get around to um you know everybody says uh because it's part of a 42 acre uh thing here our change and impervious is insignificant however once we split this off to a three two or three acre lot Almost 100% of this is impervious uh because of just the way the building's constructed which again then will affect all of the approvals later on these are all excellent points I want to identify those because I I just want to go on the record for the town to make sure that they're starting to address are yes if I can Mr chair out and uh so one of the first questions you had earlier Mr Baker was last time they were here this is the first you've heard of it essentially that wasn't presented before and that was a conversation that

that that was that was presented to us uh as a result of the request of the first 300 units on the of housing to be developed up the street of whether to postpone any affordable units and that's where we saw the opportunity to oops to move forward the deeply affordable component of the project at the Forefront instead of having it in the rearview mirror and delayed and delayed and delayed so getting now to your to your point about the so we part of our data that we're getting together is an engineering plan for this to identify exactly what we are talking about here as a parcel and and uh because to your point the complications of between the library and the senior center in the pox and wreck uh areas we want to make sure that we have a defined area last thing you talked about was 40 cars so the demographics that we're referring to the the population that you know there is there is very strong um uh indication and in fact the that we are we are talking about seniors in the 30 to 60% area median income the the there is the the potential of having 40 cars here even to half that amount is is extremely extremely unlikely and and as as uh Judy Barrett our our expert you know the expert within within the with Barrett planning she's identified and she's you know to the point of absolutely it's it's going to be you're not going to have 40 cars you're not going to have so it's going to be so minimal I I think for the purposes of this um meeting uh because these are all good

points but they're forward from this particular a lot of those are also going to come up at town meeting because people are going to have similar questions it's true M and that's absolutely that's totally true and that's Mr Duan is going to and we want to be able to make sure that we present yeah to the chairs you know and share the data as we are working team is working internally to make sure we have all the necessary information this is great feedback and we appreciate this because this is continues on our on our checklist of of to of to-dos but we are all the points that you brought up we already have in the key yeah and I apologize if my tone of voice isn't don't apologize this is these are all just you know I I have a bullet list of facts that I will go through make sure that uh get addressed so app I would like I actually have a question sure oh because I've been monopolizing you took a little bit of time I yield the floor thank you so my question I want to be very clear so when we're saying that there will be an RFP put out the RFP will ask for deeply affordable housing and to move Town Hall somewhere else it will be both it will have both of those components to it okay which is yes and and also a component that um the town will be able to remain here as a tenant until um they're ready to move actually start applying for you know there's going to be a a period of time where they're um where they're getting their ducks in a row and and actually getting applied for tax credits and whatnot and so if they can't be actively working on the project then town will remain in in in town hall as tenants for free so I I would ask any Bartlet well that lays out a time problem to me I mean we're talking three

or four years of stuff and you know we have to have a town hall that's ready to move into but to vacate this building so there's a I think there's a Time issue there I agree with darl on a lot of these other issues and I um I also question that this is writing an RFP which is open to the public but it's designed so that only one person is realistically going to qualify uh it's not NE not necessarily if there is another if there is if there is another property owner that has the necessary uh you know is willing to do the same thing they're more than happy to to submit I mean General council is working on that and I have 100% faith in general counsel that of uh of that this is something that is appropriate I I would submit that even the details of the RFP are not part of what we want to do tonight no I think we should all be interested in them as we go forward absolutely Ely but we simply want to uh um notice our intent to go forward with um really achieving something we've talked about for a long time was which is deeply affordable senior housing well I'm no I'm in favor of voting to make this building Surplus at some point I think that's a great idea would you make a motion um I'm very concerned about the timing and of of we're not talking about those details um as a first step I will make a motion that the that we vote to

declare this building Surplus I think that's a good way to put it first step I'll second that uh Perl you can't declare the building circl you say no no no we can't we're we're just we're just affirming you need to have a motion to support I believe that's what we did all right that's certainly what I intended that's what the intent was yeah so I am I am okay supporting the intent to declare this building Surplus for the purposes of of creating an RFP to uh for deeply affordable housing but I it ends at that point sure that's that's all that here for because we don't know what these details yeah no that's what I mean and and you know I I still one sorry I meant to just but I think the other part is I think town meeting is going to ask how are you how is this building Surplus given that it's occupied and you don't have space to move to it's a you know it's not an empty building so people are going to have a hard time with the concept I have the hard time with the concept that it's Surplus when we need it uh you know so again I think that's something you're going to have to make sure that you clearly address the town meeting uh there because I think it just raises a lot of question if this building was empty this would be a it's a legalistic I know but right and it's very good to hear what the concerns are and because there's a lot of people in town that are going to go would address your concern about you know the one developer thing that if we weren't if Mr Dugan and town the town was not upfront about that then

everyone would be making up stories and you know so it's but like I said I'm I'm good with what we we just agree so I have to wear multiple hats on this particular whole issue um so tonight wearing my planning board hat I have a lot of concerns about a project that um is very thin on details and so from that perspective I need to [Music] abstain I support it I it's the sort of astonished at that but I support it's the first step it was we when we had a joint meeting with the Selectmen six seven years ago to discuss 550 it was actually four years ago was in 2021 okay whenever it was four years ago the firstep that we all talked about back then was declaring this property Surplus in order to get to the next step that's all we're doing we're not saying it works we're not saying who's going to get it it's just declaring that it's the state says we have to declare itself service in order to put an RFP out that's first step and I agree with that and I'm supporting it well fine and if we have more questions that gets answered they'll answer it before it goes to town meeting vote I this has been an incredibly Rush process I I'm going to maybe sorry to interrupt your time there Anna I I I think I understand where you're coming from here but I think I'm making the point is we're we're only discussing declaring this parcel Surplus we're not discussing approval of any project on this parcel absolutely absolutely because that's a whole different ball game yeah why not even and and I and I want to make sure that and I think in of Anna here that we're not implying that we are endorsing any future project on it at this point so

the other aspect of this Surplus uh issue is an RFP cannot be issued yeah and so I know the technicalities of that but that's but that I what I'm saying is is my approval for Surplus does not mean it I endorse the project absolutely that we're not we're not proposing anything else there's no proposal for us we don't know what the RFP is we don't know who the bids are going to be we don't we just don't know and as it's been described to me at some point there's a lot of moving parts and they're and they're continuing to move putting it in our public record because I don't want to be quoted that the planning board supports the proposal because we're not at that stage we're only supporting declaring the project I don't want to go around and round with you but there is no proposal there is no proposal there's a vague outline of something that's my concern and I'm not endorsing that I'm endorsing and then how declar this property Surplus you know what so um did everybody have opportunity to vote okay and we have uh four votes I and one abstain thank you chairman of the affordable housing trust thank you thank you is correct thank you okay um next we have not even gotten out of board business uh we want to wait till the end for that no well I think we've covered everything um unless there's any board business that we haven't covered the the one um staff update was just to share the that the Westford planning board has their first application under their NBTA Community zoning bylaw and that's off of Power Road and C were uh developed a a memo just to share that information with

you it was linked to the is that the sand and gravel place that's the I looked at the map is that the old farmhouse that they knocked down right before the ski area it looks like I think that's a little further down the road from the ski area it's much closer to conquered road so but the maybe it's not that one but that yeah he included a map in the memo to it looked like it was a sanding gravel place but I I couldn't quite slide up and down the the map there to to see okay and uh that we also have in our proposed agenda a public input is there any input from the public on any non-agenda item if not we'll go forward with a continued public hearing for 550 New Town Road uh the applicant has submitted a formal request to withdraw the application uh U we will vote tonight on to um accept this request with without prejudice do we have any comments nope I'm good sorry can I have close the continued public hearing so first first we'll close the hearing thank you as is there a second second uh all in favor I I uh so the public hearing is closed uh can I have a motion to um accept the formal request to withdraw the application without prejudice uh so moved second second all in favor I okay next item 100 Taylor Street site plan amendment is there anyone here to talk about this okay thank you

[Music] [Music] the good evening members of the board my name is Robert Melvin with stamski McNary for the record I will be representing the applicant on a site plan for 100 Taylor Street uh 100 Taylor Street is a Contracting yard with three existing one-story buildings um and it contains a uh fill and gravel um storage area with uh bordering vegetative Wetlands uh at the back of the site to the South which project 100t buffer zone onto the property today we're here to propose an addition uh to the um one story building that's centered on the screen there um the addition would be um extension of the garage um that's in the current structure uh and would allow two a two-door garage in that area um the the addition is proposed on top of an existing what we're calling reclaimed Vitus concrete um this is an impervious surface it's not paved it's it's really just kind of a mixture of uh kind of compacted stone dust and um gravel so it it is an impervious surface um so the the addition is being proposed on an existing uh imperious surface here

um we have heard back from uh various Town departments um and I don't believe we have any major concerns um we did hear from the Building Commissioner um this week um requesting a plot plan for the property um and I believe that just about covers it I'll take any questions here the railro tracks are way in the back correct uh yes uh you can see to the uh East there's uh the Boston in main railroad there the top of so this was the old so nobody's here is going to know that but it was the old I didn't know there was a bowling pin manufacturing place no it wasn't a bowling pan this was the old um New England hardwood place it was you could go there and buy Oak and all theing from there yeah yeah so that's what and there was probably a building up there one time where you could go in and pick out all the old oak and everything else like that so this is just a little more formalized of what used to be out there 100 Year oh my God so with the um Henry when you request a plot plan um you mean a complete because we have a plan here but it does not show the complete extents of the plot or what's the issue uh well this this plan we' presented today is not a formal plot plan a plot plan would includes set back yeah exactly um and presumably the driveway continues to Taylor Street yes um he has uh Mr Carol has access um there is a separate parcel um to which he owns um but it's not included in this that that driveway actually continues down toward Taylor Street yeah are you asking for any waivers uh

nope no waivers no waivers questioned I have two things one one's a comment and one's a question CU I'm just not familiar with certain things um so the building butts into the driveway which seems odd uh there um given that that doesn't look right right well there's no plans to repave the driveway and and like I said the the surface there is all rendered impervious compacted gravel um so there really wouldn't be any issue with you know maneuvering around that structure but you show I guess part of it and maybe it goes back to a plot planning and the full engineering drawing but you're showing a building into the driveway what's designated as the driveway I just think that that's needs to be corrected maybe it's just moving your driveway on that drawing or something but I can't see how I could approve a building that takes up half the drive especially when it's around for the back access there I think you maybe should visit the site because I'm just looking at the drawing that's been presented to us and that that needs to be corrected um if you went down the driveway and wanted to take a a left into that big yellow area you could just turn and go in it was it's a wide open parking lot that's on that side but it's also but it's what accesses the back side of the building right but if you see here that that yellow orangish portion actually is on the um the down side of the driveway there too so if you if you were on the site and you looked the the pavement and the compacted area is you know it's very difficult to distinguish between the two it's it's pretty much all drivable area he has construction vehicles that I've seen it but again I'm just looking at what the drawing is showing me right uh here and I I just recommend

you fix the drawing so the driveway doesn't go through the building right uh there uh the other part and it's more of a because I'm new at understanding all of the regulations so when when we do modifications to a site uh that has impervious and they're going to do improvements to it is there any expectation or requirements to address some of the impervious percentage uh there so I know it's on currently on impervious pieces here but it's an improvement to the site but there's no improvement to the impervious um percentage on the site uh there is there anything in our requirements uh relative to that okay so the way I was thinking about it is there's no change proposed in the impervious cover on the site um so no trigger for a um special permit it's less than the threshold still is what you mean how big of a building do they could they add before it would trigger us to re-evaluate the impious on the site and this is sorry this not to you this is more of a I want to make sure I understand the technicalities of if if the build if the addition of the building was in an area that was not impervious then it would trigger it if it was over um what minimum 2500 square ft if I remember right uh can can't recall but the there are certain thresholds that could could hit um there are multiple here um this application didn't trigger any of the didn't hit any of the triggers could you just shoot me some background material on where that stuff is documents so I could just educate myself y absolutely okay thanks for and those

are my only two comments on the on the plan Anna um if we follow the staff recommendations around making sure that um an update is site plan is provided with the square footage of the proposed Edition and driveway access to site to be shown on the plan as well as the uh comments from light water and building I I I'm good okay Bartlet well yeah what Anna said and I I would like to know which side the doors are on you said that we had a garage door or two garage doors yeah so um on this plan the the garage doors would be on the North Face of that addition that's currently where the existing garage door is as well so so you're saying that Vehicles can drive anywhere in that yellow area right yeah okay I'm good I have no comment um what kind of motion do you need well if we have a motion tonight which I think we could we need to condition it with some of the comments that we've already had so we a draft decision to did I remember ask you to post it just post it yeah so there is a draft decision and what were the conditions can they be read y um so all comments um all comments from the light department water department and building department for the site plan this site application must be resolved to the planning board satisfaction prior to issuance of building permit and may include additional um specific items um from the light department water department and building department um as um same as written on the um cover sheet so which which were the which is

what Anna mentioned exactly right as well as the square footage and driveway access being noted on the plan correctly uh can I hear a motion to um first of all can I hear a motion to close the hearing it's not a hearing it's it's a site plan Amendment sorry uh can I hear a motion to uh provide a decision uh that we've just discussed with the conditions we've just discussed um for this property I didn't word that very well I'll make a motion to um uh per the uh draft decision recommendation from staff um that was previously read with the additional two comments of the uh square footage the square footage of the building and driveway access to the plan be shown so that would be conditions d and e do I have a second I'll second that darl I Hannah I bartl I I I okay thank you for your time tonight thank you thank you good luck and um Henry it's convenient you're here so you know what the conditions are when okay next [Music] um public hear we're going to open a public hearing for a Water Resource District special permit site plan Amendment and storm water permit at 50 5 Russell Street for new tennis courts at the Littleton middle school and we have some people here who do we have here y um so I'll do the hearing notice first the Littleton

planning board will hold a public hearing on Thursday March 13 2025 at 700 p.m. in room 103 of the shadex street Town Offices at 37 shadex Street to consider a Water Resource District special permit application under chapter 173 article the 24 aquar and Water Resource District of the code of town of Littleton um plus um we realized later that it's also requires a storm water permit so that ask you that get rolled into um this discussion as well the property is 55 Russell Street assessor map U1 19-21 owner town of Littleton School Department applicants town of Littleton in care of uh Tim melski um and agents um from activitas Inc the applicant is requesting approvals for new tennis courts at the middle school and withc come Baseball Field improvements at 55 Russell Street application can be viewed online at the planning board page of the town website at Littleton ma.org or at the planning board and town clerk's office during their business hours any person interested or wishing to be heard on the proposed work should provide written comment to the planning board office my email address by March 10th if possible or attend the public hearing please feel free to call the planning board office or email um me with any questions okay right introduce yourself and U give us your your Tim I am Tim okay so good evening members of the board and Marin and Cooper and thank you for having us this evening to discuss uh this project um and slight plan amendments uh as Mar mentioned uh we have Holly ganzer and Megan donu from activitas with us tonight as well as uh director Alicia day and Sal Marini from the park commission uh this project just to give you a brief history um has been going around town for quite a while um

it first came before uh the select board and the town um in its current phase uh 2022 and there were 18 locations across town that were looked at um to find where the new home of the uh tennis courts were going to be a large portion of this is because the tennis courts on this site here were delete it for the build for the construction of uh the senior center uh during that process uh it was narrowed down to one property and through the um design process the uh cost of that project uh made it uh prohibitive to continue that uh we went back to the drawing board uh looked at additional five sites and it was decided at the time that the existing High School tennis courts would be renovated um that was taken to town meeting it was uh approved by Boards and um the monies uh to do the project at the time were authorized in the process of that as well uh just because of the slope that existed at the um at the high school site uh and uh kind of going into that Indian Hill parking uh lot space uh there was going to need to be additional engineering and other things in order to build that particular court out in order to make it the Four Courts that we were looking for uh in this process the uh sewer project had began uh begun and we started um we had the high school Fields offline for a considerable amount of time uh we had issues with our youth sports and where we were putting them uh and we went back to the drawing board and really looked at how we could fix uh a lot of the problems um and additional Capital Improvements for less money than uh what we had looked at uh in doing so uh the varsity baseball team and all 90 foot baseball in the town of Littleton had been displaced for a considerable

amount of time and has been playing on Wickham field because of the project uh with the completion of jet field back when alumni was built the High School varsity team had already moved down to the Russell Street site um so in looking at that we were able to when the high school Fields came back online move all of our uh Green Space up to the high school by not utilizing the two uh the baseball field and the softball field up there and uh piloting that last year we were extremely successful and we got um a lot of positive feedback from these Sports uh this plan was developed uh as what we were then able to see as our where our open space and uh our usages were going to be uh and the Middle School site the field uh that is directly adjacent to the Middle School driveway was selected for the tennis courts uh in doing the design we were able to uh keep a full-size 7v7 field there uh traditionally just so everybody knows the Middle School field has been used for everything from football practice uh to our youngest uh lacrosse players uh typically it is used for uh Youth Soccer as well um but it's kind of a catchall it's also used by the uh Middle School PE teacher uh so in doing so we were able to uh resurface the tennis courts at the high school uh and then since that is a two- pack they essentially replace what we had here we're moving down there so they become kind of the rec courts in town um accomplishes a couple goals that we were chasing so that's the history um and without further Ado I'll turn it over to Holly uh thank you very [Music] much good evening Holly Ganer with activitas um Cooper can we go to the next so just to give an overview of the site and give you a visual to what Tim just described um the baseball site is

located on your page North here um it's an existing baseball field now um what we will be proposing here is just some upgrades to the baseball field the tennis site as Tim described is just adjacent in that open grass space um of the Middle School driveway so I'm going to dive into baseball first and then we'll move into the the proposed tennis project so just a zoom in of of the existing condition conditions of that area as you can see it's a baseball diamond now there is some spectator scening with bleachers and some informal team benches there as well there's also an existing 20ft back stop which is not doing a good enough job capturing those balls that are going into that parking area that you can see at the bottom of that image so what we are proposing to do at the baseball site we can go to the next one is namely putting up a new back stop it'll be a 40ft high tension netting system so it'll be netting um with an 8ft high chain link fence at the bottom of that um and that 8ft chain link fence is really to catch kind of the quicker balls um that are firing off and then the netting is to catch those those higher fou balls um additional improvements will be formalizing those team areas um putting a a structure in there that's an open air structure but just will have a roof protect the athletes from give them a little shade and in case there's a rain delay somewhere they can go um also formalizing just with some concrete um areas to put the existing bleachers back there some areas for storage um and then some areas for bull pens for the pitchers to warm up as well as batting cages and those will be the same the same areas with this as well we'll be um putting in Ada access right now there is no Ada accessibility down to this facility so with that we will be

Paving um two Ada access routes from the parking areas you can kind of see that on the bottom of the page here um where those Pathways come into come into the baseball field additionally we'll be putting in an outfield fence there is not a outfield fence there now so home runs aren't really that kind of grand slam isn't really achievable now so we'll be putting in a 4 foot high fence in the Outfield area so that those athletes can get that true over the fence home run um when they when they get that big hit um and then with that just to provide a little bit of a buffer so that those outfielders can can know when they're getting close to the to the fence is just a warning track which is just that kind of same material that the infield will be um we're not proposing any changes to the infield the grades out out here will remain largely the same with the exception of just the grading we need to do to bring those walkways into into the areas um for The Spectators in the team um but other than that pretty minor improvements just making this more of the of a facility for the for the teams that will be playing here since they have now relocated to that spot um as far as storm water because we are here before you for a storm permit as well as you can see this site is largely grass now it will remain largely grass we are proposing some increase in impervious but the runoff should be able to infiltrate as it's moving across the the field area without needing to put any sort of extra storm water um best management practices or storm wat man management features here so it will be allowed to just run off and continue before it gets to the the river and the stream that you see on your page right or off the property um so we aren't proposing any storm water best management practices here because the water will be be able to continue to do what it is now so I can pause here and we can ask questions about baseball or we can move on to tennis whatever you guys prefer I

prefer just to address them as we go along great um a couple of things U I'm glad I see I I had brought it up when I was on school committee and and I'm glad it's finally getting addressed is is is that there's no way to really there's no handicap access from the parking lots down to those fields however there is one other gate by about halfway up uh that you know up that side I would like to see that that be included in the project and upgraded so uh we had to discuss that and just by where that gate opening is there is no crosswalk or anything so just in discussing with the school we thought it would make the most sense to put it just right at where the crosswalk is and actually try to eliminate that entrance should be addressed cuz either fix it or remove it but I don't think leaving it in its current state is acceptable given that this much work is being done on the site uh there uh the lights I think the lights there's you're not putting lights no lights here no so I'll save that one for the tennis uh Court uh there um again I think it would be nice where that I can't read what it's the gray area over on top of the green where it's currently a mix of rock and um uncap lawn at this point it'd be nice to again just fix all of the grading and the the lawn uh not just the the little slivers that you have identified there uh on it and then the last one because you mentioned it was going to be a 4ft chain link fence and assume you'll have some kind of cover on the top of it because that would I notice all of the chain Ling fences now have covers over them so you don't impale yourself on them so that is yep standard practice is that the Outfield fence will have that fence cap just in case someone's reaching for a um a ball and trying to catch it they won't land that there'll be a cap on that okay all

right yeah so like I said um it would be nice if you address the that other access point in the grading and in grass in that in that other area since now is the time to do it when you're doing the rest of the project so in the area that you are referring to that is one of the sites that we're looking to uh spread material from the tennis court project because we will be removing material and that was one of the places that we've discussed um with the highway department doing screening of that material and and either stockpiling it over there for now but eventually utilizing it to spread depending on when the project gets done and when we want to have the field begin being utilized so we have a couple different um options for that yeah again I I I would like to see it as part formally as part of the project to fix that that area so it's just not left unkempt like it is today understood that was all that I had for this um process question so um both of the applications um so on this one the application is list um I believe um Justin McCarthy as the owner but it's not signed and so then also on the tennis court one He's listed and signed um so is that typical for the chair of school committee to act as owner or wouldn't that be Town Administrator or so um we do have the signed application that was came in later than the initial one did um the [Music] this part of the parcel is under the control of the school department so it seemed appropriate to have the chair of the school committee but I so I I meant to ask on on page nine of the application where it

says Identify the uses proposed in special permit application self storage facility is checked the truck facil terminal is checked um is this a form issue or what I don't understand why all these boxes are checked uh that manufact use of Transport toxic materials check and I don't think these are all supposed to be checked are they um so we asked the applicant to provide a um checklist when they submit it if you would also like a copy of a blank check list to use as you go through these steps sounds like what you're saying is the applicant check those well it's checked if if it is that must have been an error in the submission um uploading because I believe my copy does not have those checked and they should not be checked the copy in I in the on the website has got almost every box checked under this under the um okay there's several empty ones like sewage flow less than 15,000 gallons is unchecked which makes sense but um so it's not like a blanket checking on the things here I think somebody needs to go through and see what's wrong with our either the form or the application okay um we'll double check that we uploaded the same one that was was sent and if that wasn't we can we can certainly fix that because shouldn't be miss that my comment sorry to interrupt you that's okay so it sounds like there was a a followup document that was sent where it was signed correct okay thank you thank you for Carla um my only question is have you are you do you have to go in front of Conservation Commission because you're so close to Wetlands or you're in filling and changing the Contours no so on on baseball like I mentioned where we're proposing the filling that is far enough away that we are out of the jurisdiction of conservation and we did have a a pre-application meeting with both planning and conservation where they confirmed we did not need to file

for this project I'm good um and to let you know um we did send it out for a drainage review estimate we have the estimate back and the process U to the funding to get that paid for um green has uh provided an estimative uh date of March 21st to have the all the their comments back to us um and for both projects or just this one for thank you for asking for both the base this baseball field and the tennis okay okay uh can we go to the tennis courts so these were just a few images of what that what that n system would look like as well as just some example images of what that um Team structure would look like um we can pause on these for just a few in case anyone has additional questions after looking at the photos okay right moving on to tennis so just again a zoomed in image of that area that um we're proposing to put the tennis courts as Tim mentioned it's currently being used by the middle school for gym classes it's being used for for Youth Soccer youth lacrosse so this is being actively used as an athletic um venue currently so what we're proposing to put in is four new tennis courts um and so we're placing those um adj into the street outside of that I believe it's a 25 foot I can't read that from this far either um out of the setback of the street setback um and

you'll see we're well out of the the side yard setback here as well um and we are providing uh some space left over for that seven versus seven soccer so the the younger children soccer um has some space to use there as well as the the Middle School can continue to use that open grass space at for their Gym classes as well so there will be 10ft high netting on both your page North and page or not netting excuse me chain legink fencing on your page North and Page South um and that will wrap around the corners on um east and west but then we will drop that down to 4ot high fencing um on the endline or on the sidelines and that allows for um any Spectators just to to see through a little bit easier and if they really want to lean on that on that fence to watch um we are providing uh Ada accessibility from the sidewalk down the your right side um and then along the the top there and that is the accessibility and those are the only Pathways that we are providing there um as you'll see on the bottom of the page there the area indicated for uh infiltration and detention so in order we are converting this to a impervious area that was previously grass so to account for that change in runoff um we will be capturing this the runoff from the ports and diverting it into this infiltration detention Basin where it'll be given the opportunity to infiltrate before it anything that does not infiltrate will then um be piped into the street drainage and that's what we're proposing is pro um in the street drainage and all of those rates will be below the the existing conditions that we see out here so that detention Basin will be acting also as a um detaining the storm water from from leaving the site and slowing it down before it before it leaves the site so um that line of arbores that you see there that

right along the property line that will be remaining weren't proposing to take down any of those trees this project is not proposing any lighting um no new lighting here either and actually the the three lights that are there now um that are just lighting the grass area those will be coming down as a part of this project as well so open it up to questions darl uh not you I think you addressed the drainage concern and making sure that that water doesn't run into the neighbors uh there so I think I'm I'm all set Anna no comments harl I'm good thanks Mark I have one comment why know pickle ball so the pickle ball is going to be kept down at the Indian hillsite be generally pickle ball and if anybody watches the news it's very noisy and very uh contentious when it comes to the sound to come with that so we will be keeping that off that site so you are proposing pickle ball course we have pickle ball lines on the existing High School ports uh and just like that here at Town Hall was the only place pickle ball was played uh we we've in in our conversations and our pre- meetings that was something that was requested by the schools and we just felt because of the the climate around pick ball that was the best thing to do um you know it at the high school site there's Indian Hill there the High School site and then there's the main road so if there's a if there's you know the annoying pickle ball sound that's that's the place to keep it seniors get really loud when they play pickle ball is that what it is for sure it's the sound of the ball coming off the paddles oh yeah it's a very unique sound if you've never heard it and it's uh yeah well no because that that's good because again there's neighbors right on the other side there that that would that's not really be a neighborly thing

to do to them so just so everybody um it was also asked of us by uh the school committee uh these courts will be available to the public only during non-school hours so weekends and after school is closed it'll be the same structure as all the other space uh schools will have access to them first priority uh Recreation and then in town teams whatever we might have uh but as far as public entryway you just having public and kids and stuff like that we are going to have signage and everything to that to that uh end anyone in the audience have questions Mr D coost um Chuck D Co 609 New Town Road um appreciate the the engineers as well as um Tim alitia for taking pickle ball off of this plan because I believe initially it was um talked about at least and um removing those those those families actually one of the residen is right next to me I've heard from a couple residents on on that little Russell Street Extension um with regard to noise and lights both of those being removed most of their concerns are addressed but there are some other concerns that residents down there have relative to the great that the arities are staying but there's still going to be there's currently kids that come through those those arities into backyards and um that is there any consideration for fencing along the arites to separate the residential from the town property comment So currently as it it's there's not um the our provid line in my time here has existed uh there's never been any additional barrier requested um as far as usage

goes we don't we we haven't really received any complaints up until you know as far as you mentioning it now as that kids go over there um I I don't that was the first time that I've ever kind of heard like hey we have kids in the backyard over here um Shayla CLE I live at 31 Russell Street there is never really kids in our yard it's always just the occasional ball that goes over the fence where people are grabbing it you know what I mean but we're concerned to the fences because we have dogs and we always let our dogs without leashes because we're they're trained to do that um and we fear that it's with like with we know that there's going to be fences around the tennis courts and that was proposed but maybe something around the soccer Court where like I'm not sure but it's we're just concerned about people potentially like balls or people coming into our yard or the dogs going over there I just think that there should be a little bit more security for the Neighbors cuz I mean my house is literally in that proposition right there um yeah the plan on plan it shows the house it's yeah I'm literally in it so I think that's just a little bit of our concerns okay Sor I was just going to say I think the reality is that um with us being able to move a lot of the soccer up to the high school the reality of the usage of that for the Youth Sports I think would be extremely Limited in the future um the most you're probably going to see would probably be the PE teacher at the middle school okay Chuck just to clarify as far as the kids going through it I mean I've coached Sports on that field a number of years and um I've seen kids from out of town LaCrosse or whatever use those bushes as a restroom oh we there is we do have

bathrooms now well there is there is yeah there's the the portal parties that are put right on the sidewalk but if they're on the if they're on the opposite sideline it have to least resistance for young boys um so that's that would be a concern the defense would be something that and I spoken with shaya's parents and um that is something that they so to be clearability you're talking about offence at the rear where the playing field will remain I mean it's assuming there's going to be fencing around the tennis courts tennis courts for sure tennis courts yeah I would say at least to um as far as the tennis courts but probably a little further down um the the aies do get more dense as you go towards Russell Street from the soccer field um just the point about mean there's the traffic that's going to be there is not going to be like there's not going to be coaches there there's not in in all cases there's going to be a lot of people using these courts independently now hopefully the people using these courts will see the big orange Porta party and use it um but I just think that that extra precautionary measure is a small expense um to assuage some concerns okay any other comments thank you Mark uh Mark rambacher 205 fwell if these tennis courts aren't available for use by the public during the day where is the public supposed to play tennis during the day at the high at the high school loc so so we're allowed to play at one school but not the other school how is that going to be publicized and made known we're going to have signage up and it's something that um when we initially proposed the project that we had discussed um at the school committee meeting um and then when we did our

kickoff meeting we had discussed what the usages were going to be when we had all the representatives from the school there as well okay so now the the tennis courts are going to be competing with the pickle ball courts effectively right so that has always been the way that it was so this project the no it wasn't because there was pickle ball here and there's tennis at the high school and now there's pickle ball and Tennis at the high school right so we now eliminated no so there was pickle ball and Tennis here and to just break them up these were the rec courts pickle ball tennis and the high school was just two tennis courts mhm now we have two two courts if you took these and said hey these are now at the high school mhm that's just pick ball and tennis and then the other tennis courts are existing at the middle school mhm but before those courts weren't restricted I could use any of the courts any of the time of the day and now these courts aren't available so now during the day we have fewer available tennis courts than we used to have and I think that that would be a conversation with the school committee that was one of the things that they asked and part part of the rationale there is that the high school courts will be accessible from the 36 King Street parking lot not from the school property right but we don't restrict other uses I mean the track isn't restricted to use during this day why are we allowing the school committee to restrict this shoes right we built this with Community funds for the community and then we're then the school's telling us we can't use them I mean the reason this comes up is it's a safety protocol for the schools so at the end of the day like Tim had said I think that this is a a conversation with this one committee I

believe I believe in the in the initial conversation why this was different from other partials including Alumni field this is kind of like this because this is where Middle School does gym but we can use the track during the day when the Russell Street kids use it during gym so it's not any different and they're younger kids so and I can't speak to what the any more than that that was something that was brought up in the in the conversation okay um yes I have one more thing um regarding the hours of operation for president who are non School related um is there a going to be a limit of hours or a Time cap where we can stop like using the facilities because it I mean right so there's not going to be lights on the facility and typically Park um it's dawn to dusk so that's typically what we've encouraged in all of our Park facilities okay is there going to be a rule that states that like yeah there's signage at most of the places that say d d okay so from the planning board point of view we will have a peer review for the drainage um in a week or two um so can we continue this hearing to our next meeting which is um Thursday April 3rd okay and I would recommend putting this up near near the beginning of the year I totally agree if not first um and um you know I'm interested in this issue between the schools the

parks uh Etc um but I'm not sure it apparently we are the public hearing but I'm not sure that it's it's the thing for us to go into at this um um for what we're here to do however uh and you know two Selectmen are here um and uh that may be the better um Forum however the other thing is take under advisement the neighbors concerns that's what these hearings are for yep can I weigh in on this sure off kind of off the cuff I guess is the best way to put it um as far as the use of of the tennis courts I agree with Mr ramb Barker that they should be used for the public and the reason I'm weighing in on it is because I donated $200,000 to the town of Littleton to replace the tennis courts and I'm assuming that that's the money they're using to build these tennis courts they're using that at the high school am I wrong in that no I believe you're correct okay so I would like to see this public course allowed for not I understand about the students but students not going to be using them in the middle of the day because they're in classes you don't have tennis court tennis lessons in the middle of the day they do have PE classes PE is one thing but not tennis you know I mean unless anyway my point is that I I made a point to donate the money to have these built and I would like to see them for public use yeah absolutely and and like I said this this here was for the the permitting and we can absolutely have that that conversation with the school department I just want to make my point known that's all publicly thank you absolutely having been on the school

committee uh and the I actually don't even know what the status of the mo MOA between uh school committee park and rec and select board relative to use of facilities that is under control of the school committee and I think that this that discussion needs to be bounced to the school committee and negotiated there on it because I I I see both sides of those arguments uh there and um and I think we should stay out of that okay so thank you all for who was here for this issue so we continue you want you want a date April um Thursday April 3rd um at 6:45 p.m. in this room and today so anyone uh wants to follow through can be here for that thank you uh next is the the uh we're opening a public hearing site plan only wait wait wait wait oh we have I'm I'm sorry we skipped over the uh fls at jet field which is a site plan only review uh we have a lot of um need to open supporting material on that is there anyone here for that issue okay great are you from the who so good evening I'm Dave mcmanis I'm the president of Littleton youth baseball and softball Association we are the sponsors of this project and so in short what we are looking to do is put a set of Lights onto jet field so jet field is there located down at the middle midd School Russell Street uh Elementary School

complex right there adjacent to alumni uh it was recently renovated as you might know in 2018 and it is currently the primary uh softball field for all Youth Softball programs including the high school and so what we as a uh 501c3 are looking to do is uh pay for the full cost of the equipment and the installation of lights on that field uh we would ideally do this in the month of July after school has gotten out so we minimized the disruption there at the school committee uh on the school side and um after the completion of the project we would be gifting the lights to LPS as the owners of the project or the owners of the property rather so um we presented this project I did to the school committee back on February 27th uh they approved and accepted it and so we are now here before you uh I did include and provide a number of materials so I won't go through an entire presentation uh but I'm happy to take any questions that you have I I enjoyed your um the lighting suppliers simulations Etc um well you're you're here Prime primarily to um allow anyone who has comments on this to speak up uh in general there's really not much here for us to you know weigh in on so I'm going to well first of all let's go around our so I didn't see drawings of I see the application but I didn't see drawings in the in the links uh on the website see

where where you're talking I I mean I know where the field is but in terms of what the lighting plan was so this wasn't part so at the very bottom of the page for um 55 Russell Street that's where the jet field information is linked if I found it it must be there and the um it's something like the lighting analysis plan is is what's being shared oh under the 55 Russell Street not the not the two other links that are on the thing all I apologize I missed that there b Mark I don't have any anyone in the anyone in the audience yes I do hello my name is uh Christine zende I live at 336 King Street in Littleton and um I'm NE butter um and I'm concerned I I looked at your materials um online the the lighting uh company that's going to do this it seemed very you know very Hightech very you know it's going to the lights are going to follow the hits and you know just seemed like quite quite something I'm concerned that um in the materials it said that this would only be on uh 4 hours at a time is that correct so we made an estimate for um consideration for the additional operating cost that these lights would

uh generate and in that estimate is likely what you are referring to which is we put uh a 4-Hour window where those lights would be potentially used that isn't intended to be on every day it would just be when used and and it is purely an estimate could be more than 4 hours no I don't believe so because generally these are going to be used for games that would be beginning somewhere in the 7:00 range at the latest and um you're talking about whether it's high school or Youth Softball six or seven Innings a play so um I I can't imagine it would be on for more than 4 hours we were providing in our view a very generous estimate for that cost and this would only be during the softball season and would that be um publicized starting date and ending date so we have a uh softball season that runs primarily in the spring which starts in uh early mid April and runs until uh basically the beginning of June uh the high school has a similar program those time lines Youth Baseball Softball also has a summer program and a fall program the summer and the fall seasons are much shorter they're generally only about four to five weeks in duration um but potentially they could be used during those time frames those Seasons as well that's our intent so this would the summer be during the day would they be playing during the day or is it all evening we don't have any evening games currently because there's no lights on

the facility but there probably would be the day yes the legs would not be used during the day right I understand that so that that's not a problem but we could extend now into the evening because of that all the way through the fall it it it could I would say the the primary intent for these lights is to enable so so in the materials we also gave project rationale and this is one of the primary drivers for this project it's because when the high school plays they generally start around 4:00 if Youth Softball has a game after them the start time scheduled is 6:15 but through no fault of the high school right they're try we typically start even later and so it's really intended again we don't have a scoped up schedule to the specifics that unfortunately you're asking about but our thinking behind this was to extend the use of the field so that if our youth players are playing after the high school teams then they're able to get a full game in okay and in the in the uh slideshow by the provider of the lighting system they said one of the selling points was that the lights um don't shine off off of the field in a way is that you believe that you've seen that been demonstrated did yes I actually uh along with members of The Parks Rec Department here attended a demo of these lights back in the fall last year and 100% this is a different technology than you envision Big Field FL lights that you can you know generate a lot of light pollution around the field yes these

lights do not operate in that sort of way at all they're very specific to the field okay um you know my boys played Little League I'm I'm you know I'm all about this I think it's I love that the kids are playing it's great I'm just very concerned about light pollution um for people and Wildlife and um you know just want to voice what I my concerns and I'm sure there other people have those concerns too thank you thank you thank you I I'd like to make a a you know sort of an overall comment about the light pollution it's uh come to the four in many building codes we have a night skylighting building code um new buildings are not allowed to have spotlights that um you know just shine out into the thing this and because of that these Technologies are being developed and proposed uh I've been to communities in the west where you can drive through them and barely see anything but yet there's shopping centers all around you so um we as a planning board want to encourage that kind of Technology use um in all projects is is there a field in in Massachusetts that uses this technology that you could see or I I don't know is where did you see your um so the the demo that we viewed was a um it wasn't at a particular field it was uh made in a planing field it was a it was a demonstration that actually this the lighting company set up at an open

field so it wasn't at a specific ball playing field but do you guys Tim um ma'am I do have a list we work very closely with musco on a lot of things um so I do have a list that Mike provided me in my email and I happy to share with you some of the some of the similar projects I think one of the most current ones that they worked on I believe was in Wellsley okay but yeah happy happy to show you some of the stuff but to Mike's point we did it was a it was a demo that was set up in a field uh adjacent to a restaurant because they did a whole night with different kind of informational sessions about this and educational stuff so we did go out and view the different things um to to Dave's point they had uh comp P lights there as well so we were able to see four different uh versions um and if you haven't had a chance uh the video that uh Mr Yates referred to that uh Dave has put on the website is absolutely exactly what you see in that video is we experienced in real life so it was definitely [Music] there I I don't know within our you know our zoning the sort of the difference between 24-hour security lights and and playing lights that while the field is active um and like we don't have any standardized sort of closing time you know uh you know like 10:00 at night or for these types of special event lit things uh there like of these you know so because there I think there are different sets of issues associated with 24-hour lighting versus event lighting but we also don't have a cap on how late an event lighting could go do we we have it for businesses um I you're in the situation where

um you know you you you're game start and sometimes they run long for whatever reason but in general we're not talking Beyond 10:00 or I mean my daughter's played softball and I don't remember hanging out really late so so our our youth games actually have a Time cap to them so most of them don't even get the full six Innings lights aside because they can't start it ining after two hours I didn't want to impose it specifically on this project but I just was wondering whether we ought to be thinking about whether we include some kind of event lighting piece that says like 10:00 then that way it kind of puts and then if they want beyond 10:00 it becomes like higher screw approve it not that's something that should be considered when we have um applications we talked about it recently with the veterinary you know yes right and that was the safety lights but you know I don't want to necessarily propose putting a limit that the light should be off by 10:00 okay but but because that's unique to them right now cuz I I would believe we would want that to be uniformly applied uh to uh any of the lighting projects that are out but I bring it up mainly for our consideration that we ought to probably see if we want to address that consistently with you know light lighting is always a part of um and and it usually comes up we don't have many event spaces it usually comes up with um businesses um okay so but even like businesses that run an event you know separate from like I said the safety lighting that you need 24 hours hours okay I like I'd be very concerned if we were saying that we approving you didn't ask you know that these lights games go to 2:00 in the

morning that's like I would start saying I think we ought to be thinking highly about not doing that U you know okay thing and just a quick comment so um at first I did think this was going to affect any residents so I appreciate the fact that you you came and and voiced your your concern um because even sometimes during planning board meetings when we leave here you can see the lights you know across the way and they're really bright and so I hear that these aren't going to be like that that these are going to be different but I would I would agree that we should put some kind of a limit or figure out how to limit the time frame because if somebody really is living close by that is going to be affected by it we need to take that into consideration okay can we talk about this specific uh site plan um what exactly we are voting on do we what is so the motion that I recommended was the pling board vote on um approving the site plan for lighting at jet field as shown on the uh plan submitted can I have a motion for that um SEC not second um soov second uh All In in favor darl I I I I I okay so forward light the light the field thank you okay next um thank you zoning bylaw Amendment we're going to open a hearing for the zoning bylaw Amendment uh marijuana cultivation facilities and odor control bylaws uh proposal to amend

existing bylaw uh maren can you read the verbiage oh if you give me a minute I'll get there okay no problem we've all talked about this many many times we have a draft warrant article in front of us it's important to dispose of it in some form this meeting so that the um Selectmen can uh vote to put it on the warrant because this involves also a vote on the town warrant on the town um election do we know if the Selectmen are going to put it we don't so it's kind of a mood point if they don't put it on well why don't we approve it and let them figure it out yeah this is the next step the um following step would be um for the select board to vote to um included on the town meeting warrant and to schedule a ballot vote so that's their their next from our from our point of view has always been we've had a lot of citizen concern and we owe it to them to bring this forward and I would hope the selectman would feel the same way okay thanks for your patience uh the Littleton planning board will hold public hearings on Thursday March 13 2025 starting at 7:30 p.m. in room 103 of the Shad Street Town Offices at 37 shadex Street to consider zoning bylaw amendments as outlined below number 1 730 amend Article 28 adult use marijuana

establishments to preclude the cultivation of adult use marijuana in town pursuant to Mass General Law chapter 94g Section 3 and clarify the special permit odor controlair quality requirements for medical marijuana treatment centers and a second public hearing um amend article uh 16 wetlands and flood plane regulations deleting section 17372 through 173 6 and replacing with new sections 17372 through 17377 flood plane regulations to reflect updated FEMA flood insurance rate maps and flood insurance study and to remove reference to Wetlands which are covered in town code chapter 171 Wetlands protection the full text of the proposed zoning amendments are in file with the Town Clerk and planning Ward offices and can be viewed during their office hours or online um at the town website any person interested or wishing to be heard on the proposed zoning amendment should appear at the time and place designated or provide written comment by March 11th if possible please contact the planning board office um phone number email uh with any questions um sign darl K Baker clerk so we're going we have two um different hearings uh the first as we talked about as a marijuana the second is the wetlands and flood plane BL law um so and Town Council IA freed is available okay IA can you in a few sentences describe what we're doing here sure thank you that's weird I'm seeing myself twice um so you have two bylaw amendments related to marijuana in

front of the first bylaw Amendment would prohibit all cultivation from activities from occurring in town um as they pertain to adult use marijuana you would be prohibiting um marijuana cultivators at craft marijuana cooperatives and you would be restricting micro businesses um by prohibiting micro businesses that cultivate so that is the first set of changes it requires to amendments to the zoning bylaw um one to the map and then one to the allowed uses section so you see that as one of the bylaws amendments before you the second one is what I've us is more of a cleaning up I think we forgot to reference the mtc's the medical um uh facilities in one of the sections pertaining to oer controls and so this is just tightening that up by U making sure that those facilities are complying with those requirements as we originally discussed and then the um second article refers to or you were yes sorry so the second article we are right now it says the marijuana establishment shall incorporate back technology and I think we wanted to say the marijuana establishment or MTC okay and that is reflected in what I had before me so let's um this has been you know our goal is to limit cultivation in in town so we are uh prohibiting we're not prohibiting we well this is always a problem because we have a we have existing marijuana of an existing marijuana cultivator and this will not affect their ability to cultivate but it would

affect if they left and or if someone else showed up wanting to cultivate um that's fairly and this existing cultivator is both an adult use and a medical uh use cultivator so this would Pro uh would [Music] prude adult use and medical use now most of us are not familiar with a craft marijuana Cooperative or a micro business and I'm told that there is a one of these is it one of these that it doesn't even exist in Massachusetts so I'm not aware that any facility has opened that is a craft Cooperative or a micro business I am aware that there are cooperatives I'm sorry micro businesses in the permitting process with uh the Cannabis Control Commission but I'm not aware of any that have opened so you distinguish you you made made the distinction that a micro business will be prohibited from cultivation but not necessarily from being a micro business correct so um just to back up a step so we have marijuana cultivators that's your just standard cultivator facility they can go up to the the top tier 100,000 square ft of canopy That's What sanctuary is they are a marijuana cultivator then there are craft marijuana cooperatives and these are it was a license type that was created to allow um like a co-op type form of a business to to form and there can be different establishments in different communities across the Commonwealth and they can kind of pull their resources together but craft marijuana cooperatives can still be

large they can go up to the to the biggest tier so it could from a planning perspective still look very similar to a marijuana cultivator but behind the scenes it's operating uh very differently and then you have Micro businesses and these are what we call like small licenses and so they are capped at um tier one so these are like 5,000 square feet of canopy they are small establishments these aren't going to be large cultivator facilities marijuana micro businesses can be a cultivator like I said up to that 5,000 or they can just um uh manufacture marijuana so they can get it from somewhere else and then just manufacture it into a product they're capped there and I don't know actually off the top of my head what the um capacity is but they're very there they have to keep it small whatever um they're producing it has to be like small batch or they can do both activities so what we're saying here is in Littleton a micro business can operate but the only thing that they could do is um is produce product they would be able to cultivate the direction that I got from this board through Marin was that you wanted to prohibit all cultivation in town so we wanted to make sure we touched on all three different license types okay and we were educated during the sanctuary hearings that the smell is primarily a function of the actual growing of the pot okay so that being said that's go around darl um yeah so there's a i the technical details of this could make this very complex to explain as

evident just by the quick brief summary that we just received uh there um to me I think if we summarize it in terms of currently the town does not have craft marijuana cooperatives the town does not have Micro businesses the town does not have whatever the third category that we don't have and this bu this no we no those are no we we have medical and adult use no I'm looking at the ones that were prohibiting so you currently have uh there are three types of licenses that can cultivate a marijuana cultivator a craft marijuana cooperative and a micro business you currently have a marijuana cultivator in town that is sanctuary um you do not have a craft marijuana Cooperative or a micro business in so the simplified piece here is we're B we're prohibiting any future marijuana cultivators the town currently does not have any craft marijuana cooperatives so we're capping that at zero and the C Town currently doesn't have any micro businesses that cultivate therefore we're going to cap that at zero correct that very concise description that's accurate and if we can keep the discussion to focus on that those three points I think we can avoid the long discussion about the technical nuances between these because I don't think it matters relative to what we're trying to accomplish here yeah the only thing that I think from a technical standpoint should be explained is that we are not prohibiting medical cultivation this is just pertaining to adult [Music] years well we're prohibiting any more medical because we only have one and we're only going to we out one we

already did that right right right right we're not right no more can come in but if um Sanctuary shuts down let's say and they close up business no one else can come in and operate an adult use cultivation facility but someone else could come in and operate a medicinal y cultivation the reason I was trying to maybe just keep them separate is because one we've already dealt with and is not really the topic of of this piece here and my goal is is to keep the discussion straightforward so that we don't go into a tangent about something that this isn't even not even relevant to the modifications that we had like the medical marijuana cultivator I I don't want to end up in a discussion on that because that's not what we're talking about here I want to make sure that we have an easy Cris way of describing it to the public similar to the way I paraphrased it back to you although Eva you did you have said that the MTC will not will not allow us to preclude medicinal so we have we but that's already been addressed in the previous modifications however if this one went away someone else could show up but correct that's the only I I agree we should keep it simple and and really the the description here is that you're prohibiting adult used marijuana facilities from operating in town there may be some prior um there may be some legally non-conforming um establishments that can continue operating but really what you are doing is prohibiting adult use marijuana and the reason I'm proposing at that talking about it that way is is is that would be my recommendation also how we would present it at town meeting and then if somebody asked about yes the medical marijuana we have the technical answer for them but

if we put the technical answer to it in the presentation we've Blended together old business and new business and it's going to open up a flood of questions and comments from the public uh things that may not be relevant to what we're actually trying to accomplish with this we have a an advantage in this is short the previous one was 10 pages m double spaced um so I mean you know the overarching thing is we want to limit cultivation in town to the greatest degree possible I I guess what I'm implying is I I can implicitly volunteer to do this presentation at Town Hall okay we we need some yeah you know I mean obviously I want help putting the wellit you with a shot collar and we'll if you go down but I mean I I'm I'm teeing up I'm teeing up that I would volunteer to do it and I'm also teeing up how I would probably go about pres problem and and you have to understand the ins and outs yeah and but the ins and outs would be what I'd rather rely on having a technical answer a specific question rather than providing providing too much background information that opens up questions not relevant to the article great so any comments we have a board of Selectmen here I'm fine with or select board I I hope that what Daryl's suggesting is what goes into the print out so that it is clear and concise okay um in the absence of uh comments I have additional questions oh sure I'm sorry are they related to just the three points I they are related so um I Heard the word map being mentioned and so we're are we going to be presenting the map for any

reason of this bylaw no there's not an amendment to the map at this one the map is the flood plane the next next half of this are then I have a question about the second proposed amendment on this marijuana bylaw um so under air quality number one it talks about um green houses and when I went back to the original bylaw that we addressed or that we approved I should say there isn't any mention of greenhouse so is this like a brand new statement they were going to add so it's under air quality number one it says shall operate within an enclosed structure for purposes of the section Greenhouse shall qualify as an enclosed structure I don't have that on mine I don't have that online I have it online and and none of it is you would update the yeah wasn't R either right so this is the pro the one that we handed I'm sorry we just a new hand out for this evening say two and three and and the issue I think the greenhouse is interesting um because cultivation that's done outside of structures is proving to be really problematic right so I'm I'm going to back up a little bit sorry for not bringing that up earlier and thanks for the question um so the version that we filed with town clerk was the first version and then after working um with Town Council working through it and from the discussions before this is the version that um we're recommending uh that you move forward with to town meeting floor so we only allow it hydroponically so that means that darl and I were looking at two different versions when sorry Marin um I think I can help clarify so the first version

that was circulated show that has the red um that shows the changes to what's currently existing so your current zoning bylaw section 200 J1 is currently in place so all we're adding is the red what some people may be looking at is the draft warrant article and for the draft warrant article all I've done is identified section J2 and j3 because we're not touching J1 as what is changing so um J one is already existing yeah your current bylaw 200 J1 reads as drafted in or as written in in the in the black the only thing we've changed between what you currently have is the red or MTC okay so clearly we don't have the correct documents I think it would be most helpful if there could be someone who sends us the bylaw that was approved and the changes in whatever format you want with red lines not red lines but just so that we're all on the same page because some some of the difficulty comes in when we and happy happy to do that yes one one of the some of the difficulty comes in is um we're stacking this uh bylaw Amendment on before um town code has had an opportunity to to update the current printed version or published version of the zoning bylaw that's a bit of a lengthy process um town meeting does its vote um town clerk files um with Attorney General's office attorney general office sends sends back hopefully with their

approval W with their approval of this the prior um amendments from Fall town meeting um then uh Town CL uh has publishes notice of um this new bylaw and then there's a 30-day 90day period that public can um what's what's the right word can contest um that this bylaw was put in place properly and then after that that point we can send it to General code to be updated in and we haven't digested the tefall town meeting haven't gotten through all of those steps yet so where you're trying to do something in the fall and then then everybody else then something in the spring then right that's yeah so tonight so we both looked at what was on we want to well the goal was to advance kick the candle on the road no the selectman and they have a they have a hard deadine a hard de no I'm there um I'm I think what I'm just cons trying to make sure that I'm reading the right stuff absolutely and you in particular will need to know the stuff and so the part I'm looking at is on page two of the link that was on the packet uh there so I'm reading something that says proposed amendment two expanding special perit requirements yeah which is different than this piece here that says draft warrant article two m um right which one is what we're proceeding with right because one has three items and the other one has two they're exactly the same so Marin asked for two different documents I think that might be part of the confusion when you look at the the document that says draft amendments part two expanding special

permit requirements this is taking what is currently in your bylaw you you can see there's no warrant language it's just what is in your currently approved zoning bylaw and in red I've indicated what we've changed or what we propos changing which is incorporating the or MTC in subpart two and subp part three okay the other document which is the warrant article is how this would appear on the warrant if the planning board decides to move it forward and the select board adds it there's no need to reference subpart one on the warrant because we're not touching it and so that's why the warrant only shows subp part two and part three but the text is the same the text that is being proposed is the same okay so the only part that I have a problem with I understand now you know this the difference there is the phrase expanding special permit requirements I've always considered that we were doing an administrative correction to include mtc's that we did not that we were expanding special permit requirements right and that's part of why I asked that question that's just me using descriptive term from my perspective and what I think at town meeting they're going to latch on to expanding requirements and then we're going to be down a rat hole of questions about let's go back to number one right you know that that kind of thing here and I'm looking for you know the balance between making sure that we're very technically specific and correct but also making sure it's using language that indicates the intent that we had behind it and the intent on these amendments was a clerical correction not to actually expand the requirements because somebody reading this here is going to come to me and say why are you expanding these requirements and I really all I want to say is is we're

doing a clerical correction that was missed at at the previous town meeting yeah two those are two totally different things when I talk about it to people yeah so that's part of why I'm asking if we can get a copy of whatever was finalized from the last town meeting Diane always has her final stamped copy whatever that is and then the copy that you're referencing IA that you're saying has red on it this does not have any red and both Daryl and I took this from the link that was given to us right and that one doesn't have red because it was scanned back to us in black and white yeah so that that's why it's hard to understand at the in the in the terms of completing discussion and Mr chair in order to move forward here I'm comfortable with the two draft articles if that's what we need to put forward to the selectman I reviewed these I would like a motion quickly here and and understand the difference between the two documents I think we understand the um the new the small changes we need to make what we advance uh so can I have a motion I'll make a motion to um close close the hearing close the hearing okay second did you the audience well yeah well uh second all in favor I uh I'd like a motion to advance uh this uh yeah I I'll make draft warrant to the Selectmen to consider whether uh well we want to advance this warrant anyway but uh particularly to the Selectmen to consider um uh allowing it on the town ballot town meeting well we have town

meeting andley okay y sorry um can I have a mo someone say so moved so moved can I have a second second hi hi Hanah bar Mark oh I and I'm an I Okay so thank you I thank you next um we are opening a public hearing maren has read the verbage um that uh is credited to Daryl um uh for a zoning bylaw Amendment uh wet Lance and flood plane bylaw proposal to amend existing bylaw and this has come about because of um ch es in FEMA flood maps and their way of looking at these bylaws so to some degree we are being required to um accept these changes now um we have a lot of I since we have these great images I'd like um some orientation to them but also e or do we sell B on this okay so we have um but so this is a ver version of the bylaw that um did get back from the U full State review and has there were only two notes and I have recommendations on to how to handle those notes that's what's written in okay so I see that uh deleting the flood haard Hazard bound map because defition is not needed um and then the

uh zoning board of appeals uh as the reviewing um for [Music] um okay now so let's put this aside for a minute and then let's talk about the maps were you Cooper I know you've been working with these were you able to understand whether there were any material differences between the old and the new maps I did not okay I I you know I [Music] mean I I think it goes down to individual properties possibly um and it's not particularly our purview to assess the public hearing what those are yeah was one noticed for both yes you did yeah but I'm really interested in seeing an aerial view of the Quarry but anyway so just a question procedure these maps are not open for discussion it's yeah here's the quy right here and and for the most for the most part the bylaw isn't either because we need to follow through with this uh to protect uh people who seek flood insurance in town of which you said there are about a dozen um yeah DCR us know that they think there are 11 or 12 um households or properties in in Littleton that currently carry uh flood insurance so if we don't um follow through with this those Property Owners will not be able to get flood insurance um yeah Littleton could be dropped from the flood National flood insurance program would not be available for um homeowners to purchase okay and there may be other homeowners who

purchase flood insurance through their homeowners but um probably not anyway so yeah I guess that that's you know it was kind of two parts one so this is informational but it's not open for debate not really no right right um however uh how does somebody know if they their status has been changed do they receive something from somebody or do they have to proactively look up their Lot number and check um from the town's process they would have to look up their property it becomes a property owner correct thing here and their insurance company is not necessarily going to notify them or anything it's a personal responsibility the bank will notify you if you become if you go into a flood plane and I know for I know that for a fact because they did it to me so yeah they'll if you property all of a sudden goes into a flood plane they're going to want insurance on it and if if you got a mortgage right the mortgage have a morgage and if you're not don't have a mortgage it's a personal responsibility whether again those would be just points I think we'd want to make to people and if you're purchasing a property you would you know would be their title search would probably show and and then just another caution um 10 years ago or so when we did this last time updated the maps um there were some um under underhanded um disreputable maybe insurance company that were reaching out to Property Owners saying guess what your property has changed you need to buy this heavy duty insurance from us so I would set you know just put that caution out there to if you get any information like that um you know call Town Hall and we'll help you I'm just also in terms of how we would be framing this to the public most of this is not open for discussion this is just you know these are the maps

you know uh and they're a matter of fact fact it's not a matter of decis you know decision uh here we have no discretion to change any of this information right you you do at the Peril of the process um I have two questions yes so I get that we've got the bylaw the written bylaw but how are residents who are going to vote on this going to look at these Maps or are they going to look at the maps they you have to go to G okay and then and then screen you know then screened for flood plane and then screened for property boundaries and and I I would imagine that people who would do that are you know like in the Beaver Brook area um Bartlett you should check I just want to make sure that War I just want to make sure that that somewhere we have the easily accessible link for folks because if they're preparing for a town meeting and looking at this and they're going huh I wonder if I'm in in this new flood plane um yeah and I that's one of the reasons we spent so much space on the um flood plane bylaw page saying these are the different ways you can look at at the properties um the other thing is if we do nothing it's they're going to go into I get that I'm just wanting to make sure that our residents are informed no they would they would have to uh and Henry if someone came into your office and said I want to I you know I think I might be in the flood plane what would you say to them would you say go onto the website and they go I don't even have a computer like what would um what would happen the JS map J is probably the best way for them but but could they be accessed like in on the

front counter actually on the front counter we have the computer with the big there and we've all been known to walk residents through how to look up the that's my question okay great yeah just so that we have an answer to that question about and then the second one was that they under the purpose in here it specifically talks about wanting to make sure that emergency response is um in the no um water quality contamination so my question is has the planning board planning department sorry requested input from the potentially impacted departments you know like fire police light and water Health Department again from the standpoint of how they need to be in the know about things about a zoning bylaw I'm happy to reach out to whoever you choose well I I mean it would be fire police um I think it's probably more um pertinent to to coastal areas well and and then you know as as we close get closer to town meeting having their input yeah on file would be good okay the only thing the fire department want is another inflatable a boat yeah another boat that's all barl wants a boat too maybe you could Cano okay um okay any other comments I think can I have a motion to um approve the flood plane the draft flood plane bylaw proposal before us to bring forward to town meeting I have to close the hearing first I have to close the

hearing first so yeah you've been out of the year you think you get sorry um so can I have a motion to close the hearing so I have a second okay now can I have the proposal that uh I spoke of before to approve the draft flood plane bylaw proposal to uh bring to town meeting Amendment but but beforehand I'm going to say I we closed it but we didn't vote to close it oh good point darl I chair I hi okay Mark yes uh uh oh yeah if I had this I would be doing that okay [Music] um next uh can I have a vote to recommend uh the proposed wetlands and flood plane zoning bylaw as discussed in zoning well I don't think this is written correctly but to bring forward uh to the town meeting so moved second Daryl hi hi hi hi hi okay now yes before you move on um those two articles are you guys also voting to recommend them before they go to print yes so that was part of your vote I'm just just for clarity yes okay thank you um and there is no more moving on can I have a motion to yes second yes hi hi we are oh I was out voted