Planning Board - Regular Meeting

Good evening, everybody. I will call to order the June 3rd, 2026 Planning Board meeting. Please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. All right, Mr. Rudd. Who do we have? Who do we not have? Are we all set, sir? Okay.

I don't see Jeff. So you can appoint Ryan to vote for Jeff until he comes in, and then John's not here, and you can appoint Ryan to vote for John.

So I'll do Ryan for Jeff, and I'll do Jason for John. Okay. Fantastic. We have nine voting members. All right. Let's get into some administrative board work here. Ms. Karen, how are we looking? Looks like I see an extension that we have to talk on, regional impact that we want to discuss, and some notice of mergers.

Do you have minutes in there?

I do actually have minutes as well. I have one set of minutes for May 13th. Mr. Rugg, do you want to take those? Yes.

Or do you want to wait? Yes, Mr. Chair. For the minutes of May 6th and May 13th, I'll make a motion that we accept the minutes of May 6th, 2026 as presented.

So moved. I have a motion. I have a second. All in favor, starting with Ann, please.

Ann Ciampa. Aye.

Giovanni Veroni. Aye. Tony D. Aye. Jason Knight. Abstain.

Arthur Rugg, aye.

Aye. Willette, aye.

Goncarz, aye.

Sean Faber, aye. And the chair votes in the affirmative. All right. Kelly, I see an extension here. This is for, what project is this for? I only have one set of minutes. Oh, do you? Yeah, the 13th.

Oh, okay. Okay. All right.

I have an extension request for 222 Rockingham Road looking for a motion to grant the 120-day extension. So moved, Mr. Chair. I have a motion for Mr. Rugg. Do I have a second? Second. I have a second. All in favor, starting with Ann, please.

Ann Chaffa, aye.

Giovanni Verani, aye. Connie Dee, aye. Jason Knights, aye. Arthur Rugg, aye. Ryan Ouellette, aye. John Cruz, aye. Sean Faber, aye. And the chair votes in the affirmative. The extension request has been granted. Kelly, we'll go with this regional impact. Do you want to talk on that a little bit?

Sure. So the regional impact that the chair is referring to is actually in the city of Manchester. The city of Manchester is following the regional impact process per the state statute. Up on your screens is the proposed 44 single-family residential cluster subdivision and off of Baudwell Road in Manchester which as it relates to London area is one within a thousand feet of our municipal boundary which is one of the trigger points for a regional impact determinations and to go through that process more generally it's in the area in closest proximity to old Derry Road and Hunter Mill, Old Derry Road, Auburn Road, so those primary intersections that we have in the northern part of town. So just as a reminder, the regional impact process allows the regional abutting communities to participate and comment in the review of this project in this instance and provide comment. What I did is I reviewed the submission that's up on the screen. I drafted a letter. From the board, which I got up now, and it's also in your packets, but essentially the focus that I. What I focused on was traffic impact again with respect to the old dairy road. Hunter Mill, Old Derry Road, Auburn Road areas, and then any kind of left a little broad, any other roadways or intersections within London area that may be impacted by this development. So again, this is London area's opportunity to provide comment to this project. Again, that's in the city of Manchester as part of the regional impact determination process. So, if you've had a chance to read the letter and you have. Feedback or changes, I'm happy to make them. And then the intention would be to send this off to the city for their consideration.

Can we intentionally call out Auburn road and 28 sure the traffic impact section.

As we know, there are other activities in that general area, possible activities in that general area in Londonderry, and some of those concerns were fire. I'm not sure, I don't know what is able to be done between towns, but I don't know if some kind of collaboration around that issue can happen. They're also considering putting a development in that area.

You mean like a regional collaboration for emergency services?

Yeah, or I mean, or expanding the fire the RFI department in handling that, but they would kind of pitch in. I just don't know what the limitations are, what we could ask of them. I know it's a legal thing that they need to talk to us about the impact, but that is an impact of that area, especially with the other possible things that could go in that area.

So the focus of our comments should be it's reactive, too. how this impacts Londonderry. So yes, we could make a general comment about emergency services and if they are going to be impacted to consider it. The city doesn't have to do anything that we say or any other, what any other municipality comments, but they do consider it. So we can certainly add something like that into the letter.

Yeah, I mean, because it's possible that they have the same concerns, and then maybe we can work something. Maybe it's not the conversation, or maybe they just ignore it. I don't know. But do you agree, Mr. Chair?

I mean, I think the comment that we could more specifically tie to the project would be the concern of additional emergency services because of the increase in traffic would really... be what we could try to have.

Yeah, so first of all, I think the letter to Manchester is very well written, very well crafted, very well wordsmithed. I think talking about services, we could ask them to show us their plan. Manchester, what's your plan to service this new development? How many minutes are you anticipating your trucks are gonna take? And craft it that way. Like you said, you can't make them do anything, but if it comes back and it looks like our services are closer than their services, we're gonna end up there a lot, 75% of the time, in mutual aid, which is not how mutual aid is supposed to work. So I think asking about what their plan is might be to that point to add to it and see what you get for a response.

And likewise, maybe they're planning on putting something up there to handle that, which would potentially help us in the future. I mean, I'm just throwing things out there. Have you seen their budget? Yeah.

Not going to happen.

I'll note too that this is, um, it's in design. So, it's my point being, it has. An iterative process to go through still, but this is our 1st opportunity to.

Comment, and if you look at the, there's another massive development proposed on mammoth road right around there. So I'm sure they're considering all of this stuff. I'm sure they're going to have to make some modifications.

Which we commented on that one as well, on South Mammoth.

Yeah, and so let's be clear. It's under the table right now. Let's put it up on top of the table and have the elephant trample all over everything. All those... majority of the cars coming out of that 440 lot subdivision are going to be trying to get to the highway exit five and and there's nothing we can do about it so um i'm glad the traffic information was included in here i mean my biggest concern is looking at this is bodwell road and hunter mill road i mean that that those if they start using those as cut throughs with all of that those neighborhoods are not

Can it be meant for that? And I would be unhappy if I lived in those too. So I'm. Be glad to get the information back from them at least about what the traffic volumes look like. So we can start thinking about that a little more.

Can we can we send somebody to those meetings? Would they let us talk?

It's public hearing.

Oh, yeah. Is there a. Is there a process that we would so the.

Just to back up a little bit. So the regional impact process is handled through the regional planning commission. Okay. Um, they manage that process. But if you're asking, can you participate. In the flight board hearing in the city, you can attend and participate.

And so what's the, what's the protocol. Would we be going as a concerned legendary citizen. Or as a member of the legendary planning board, how does that protocol work?

Um, so typically.

Because I know the chairman would love to go. He's got plenty of free time. This has got your name written all over it.

Tony, if you remind me, I'll join you. Tony's asking.

If you... Well, it sounds like you're going in your capacity as a member, a board member. Yeah.

Is that, well, I'm asking if that's allowed, I guess, as well.

You can.

Because I don't know, Tony, I've testified before in Manchester.

You can testify as either.

We have a little bit more of a formal process than we do, and you sign in and everything else, but I've testified before in Manchester, and you can't.

No, but I understand I can, but I don't want the chairman to be embarrassed because he's speaking for the planning board when there's some RSA somewhere that says you can't do that.

That's all I'm asking. Just identify who you are. I am a member of the London Dairy Planning Board. You know, we had a meeting. The planning board would like me to communicate this message to you.

Well, that's, so to that point, that's what I would clarify, is I would make sure that if you're going to say something and your intention is to represent the consensus of the board, make sure it's the consensus of the board. If you're going to say something as one individual, just like you do here.

I'm one member of the planning board not speaking for the planning board. They may be giving us regional impact on this, but there is Considering what we have going on with the possible PUD up there, we have very little leverage here.

I understand that, but I think it's important for them to hear that there is concern.

I agree. I'm still trying to figure out who's going to live in these thousands of units that are being built, but that's a different story for a different day.

Anything else from the board before we keep going here?

So I'll make the edits, and you're comfortable with me sending it?

Yep.

Because I've got to send it tomorrow.

Please, send away. Send away. All right. I have one more thing here. I get a notice of merger for a few parcels. Tax map 15 lot 2 is 523 Mammoth Road. 15 lot 183 is 525 Mammoth Road. And 15 lot 184 is 527 Mammoth Road. That we will see here shortly, just so everybody knows. Mr. Ruggs.

Do you want a motion, Mr.

Chair? We don't necessarily need a motion for it per se. It's just announcing it. All right. Moving on. Kelly, do you have anything else before we get going here?

That's all I have.

All right. All right, we have a formal application for modification to a condition of approval granted by the planning board on December 4th, 2025, relating to offsite roadway improvements prior to issuance of the first residential building certificate of occupancy, 5 Kitty Hawk Landing, Map 17, Lot 5-5, Village Run Technology Hills, Zone Industrial 1, Industrial 2, AR1, and C2. Funded Area Holdings LLC is the owner and applicant. If you want to come on up, feel free to. Kelly or John, do you have anything you want to add to this before we start discussing?

I have nothing this evening, Mr. Chair.

I just want to emphasize what the ask is and that is it's specifically so the board conditionally approved this portion of the Technology Hill PUD which is the residential portion in December of 2025 so this request before you is specific to one of the conditions of approval from that conditional approval So just to keep us focused, that's what we're talking about, is modification of that particular condition, which I'll defer the applicant to get into detail on. But again, it's for the residential component of the Technology Hill PUD. That's conditionally approved and focusing on modification of that condition.

All right, so... To make this simple, we have a condition, number six, that's requiring completion of off-site improvements prior to occupancy of the first residential building. You have two buildings that are ready for occupancy this year. You're coming and saying, can we get relief from the request, get a certificate of occupancy for the two buildings before you start or finish the... Offsite improvements, so. Relatively straightforward, John. We have had some things like this before that we haven't had an issue with. Correct? Correct. Obviously, I can understand the need for it. You've got to get. You got 2 buildings that are ready. I get it. You want to get people in them. When do you anticipate these off-site improvements being completed?

So it's a little bit of a function of the approval of the plans. We believe we've addressed the comments. We've resubmitted those final designs. It's in the town's hands now to review and approve those. Hopefully we've met the expectations.

And then how many buildings are there?

What's the answer? Are there nine in total? Yes.

Correct. I guess ultimately what I'm getting at is I don't want to see ten months from now building two and eight and oh hey by the way could we have another A LITTLE BIT MORE RELIEF HERE BECAUSE WE HAVE NOT DONE THE OFFSITE IMPROVEMENTS. I CAN ABSOLUTELY UNDERSTAND AND SUPPORT GETTING YOUR BUILDINGS OCCUPIED, BUT WE WANT TO GET IT DONE, AND, JOHN, I HOPE THAT WE AS TOWN STAFF CAN WORK WITH THEM TO GET WHAT THEY NEED COMPLETED TO BE ABLE TO START THEIR OFFSITES.

THEY'RE ALSO AT THE MERCY OF EVER SOURCE, NEEDING TO RELOCATE UTILITY POLES SO IT'S NOT JUST THE TOWN.

So this goes back to really Eversource. We've had projects where the slow reaction has been them, so it's not new. But have you had any communication with Eversource?

Much. And you hit the nail right on the head. They're not giving us any definitive timeframes on which they're going to perform their work so we can perform ours.

Sounds about right for Eversource.

Mr. Dick? Thank you, Mr. Chair. In a perfect world, what's the start date for the off-site? In a not perfect world, what's the start date for those? Because I'm telling you right now, I'm waffling right now because even though I read the traffic study, I read the comments by the traffic counts, and everybody, all the engineers, they commented on it as well. But I'm waffling on how I'm going to answer this one. But I can tell you for sure, if it comes back again, I'm going to say no. Correct. Before you even get here, if that's even legal. So, I mean, I know you're at the mercy of these. Can we rephrase?

They're in construction season. When we ask, do they believe in this construction season, will these off-site improvements be completed?

sure is that possible that is our understanding yes yeah I mean I yeah I mean it is what it is that you have two buildings that according to everybody everybody that is an engineer on that kind of thing that looked at it said it's insignificant traffic but at this point every car is significant and so And by the way, Nick, congratulations on your promotion. Thank you. I'm glad you brought your bodyguard with you tonight as well. This is between the two of us. Yeah, so thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Um, I guess my concern is, um, I mean, I, I, I see both sides cause I know that, you know, you're probably, you know, hemorrhaging money at this point and you need to get some money going the other way. And I, and I get that, but we have a problem in this town where of traffic and. I'm concerned that we're about to make another mistake to make traffic bad. I'm sensitive to the Eversource issue, and the governor is usually the solution to that issue, unfortunately, if you can reach them. But that's my concern because, you know, traffic, weird traffic, we're literally going to say, and I get it, I'm sensitive to that. I just don't know what the solution is. I mean, we want this project to be successful. We want it to open. We want more housing, all of that above. But I'm worried about the traffic and presidents coming back to us and saying, you did it again. We did this big development and you didn't handle the ins and outs first. I mean, I don't know if there's anything we can do as a town, if the town manager can call up to the state and try to get this going or whatever. I know Eversource is a pain, but they do respond to the state typically.

John, are you held up on anything? Are you waiting on anything from them outside of whatever has to do with Eversource?

So, again, they recently resubmitted the off-site improvement plan. We need to look at them and confirm that the turning lanes are long enough, the tapers are correct.

But what I'm getting at is the ball is in the Town of London area's court, not in their court at the moment.

In terms of giving them the green light to say to Eversource? Yes. Yeah. Okay.

And if I may, Mr. Chair, our contractor, North Branch Construction, Bruce Blazon, is with us. They're prepared to start the off-site immediately upon giving approval.

We're actually very anxious to get it done. There's no doubt in my mind you are. So... Does the board have anything before I go to the public? Anybody else?

Ann? I just had a question. I always worry about on Grenier Field Road, the 18 millers coming down that road. And I hope you can get it done as quick as possible because I'd hate to have...

You know a stack of cars there and had brakes on a truck or anything else Which two buildings are one and nine So the upper right hand corner of the common So if you move the mouse up, yep, that's nine and one is right about it.

I

You had a third building in on that, isn't there?

The leasing building, which if you move the cursor to the left, is the third building that would be operational. Right. And it's a small office building. We're not talking significant trips there.

Okay.

All right. So this is a public hearing. I will open up public comment. If anybody has anything, feel free to come on up. Seeing none. Come on. Absolutely. Can you just come to the mic real quick, Mr. Selinsky? Thank you.

Can you move the microphone up to the... I got you. Thank you.

Ken Selinsky, associated with Londonderry Holdings. One comment. The main concern, I think, is the left-hand turn from Harvey Road. In the past, L3 Harris, formerly Insight Technology, operated out of two buildings there with about 1,300 employees. L3 Harris is now out of the smaller of the two buildings. At one time, there were 500 people working in that building. That building right now is vacant. We're fitting it up. We bought the building. We're only going to have maybe 40 people in that building for the next two years. So there's 420 people less. COMING DOWN HARVEY ROAD AND TURNING ON THAT STREET. THAT'S FAR LESS THAN THE NUMBER OF PEOPLE IN THESE TWO BUILDINGS.

WONDERFUL. THANK YOU, SIR. ANYTHING ELSE FROM THE PUBLIC? SEEING NONE, I'LL CLOSE PUBLIC COMMENT. YES, SIR.

I JUST WANT TO SAY THAT THAT ALLEVIATED MY CONCERN. I DID NOT KNOW THE HISTORY OF THAT, AND SO, I MEAN, AGAIN, MORE MOISING IS BETTER FOR THE PEOPLE, SO I'M OKAY WITH IT. ALL RIGHT. YEAH, YOU CAN COME UP.

Hello, everyone. I'm Bruce Blazon, the principal of North Branch Construction. Nick, you know me. I don't necessarily need that. I'll speak to the off-site improvements. So we are poised and prepared to do off-site improvements. The Harvey Road side will take us about six weeks. I'm confident that we'll have approvals here in this month of June and prepared to act immediately. We have had many conversations with Eversource. We have a work order number, but without a signed set of plans, we cannot actually file for that work order to follow through. Six poles need to relocate. There's already a turn lane there. We're just widening it. confident that we can get through that. If I can give you an update to the project for a minute, will that help? Yeah. Great. So we've been on site for about 17 months. If you've had the opportunity to take a ride up on the hill, there's been quite a bit of activity. I'll point out if I'm hopefully not going to blind anyone with my laser pointer of what the progress of the campus has been, OK? Kelly, you'll let me know if I'm blinding you. So our retail building is fully complete. Childcare building is now in framing. We have come across our bridge is complete. Our landscaping through Akira Way to the area around the leasing building is complete. We intend to topcoat pavement before July 1st from the area of Acura Way all the way through Kitty Hawk down to the other side of the project. Our leasing building, as indicated, is complete. Our buildings number 1 and 9 are nearing punch list with an anticipated occupancy of August 1st. All the rest of the buildings are completely framed and into roofing, exception of building two, where it will be framed out by the end of August on that building as well.

Which one's number two?

That is this one here, ma'am.

OK, thank you.

So we've had a really aggressive framing made great progress. The commercial buildings, this is the on-point building. which is a 20,000 square foot building for the spot on project. We have a weather tight shell. We're anticipating completion by November of this year. I'll phase back to childcare. Childcare will be done, completed, paved, landscaped, and certificate of occupancy end of this year. Our Envision project, the 234,000 square foot manufacturing building, we are going into foundations in three weeks. So we invite the board. If they like, schedule an appointment with us. We can give you a tour. But I felt it would be handy to let you have the confidence to know that we have the largest site contractor in the state of New Hampshire for you to do offset improvements as soon as the paperwork is signed. Thank you.

All right. Thank you.

Before we get going, anybody have any other questions?

I'd just like to reiterate, please don't come back. Yeah. Please don't, because...

the offsites it's got to get done i that's all i can say thank you mr chair not a problem all right i'm looking for a motion to grant approval the modification of condition six on the village on technology hill uh site plan approval to permit issuance of certificates of occupancy for residential buildings one and nine prior to the completion of off-site roadway improvements at harvey road technology drive Grineer Field Road, Kitty Hawk Landing, subject to condition that required off-site roadway improvement shall be completed prior to the issuance of a certificate of occupancy for any additional residential building within the development. And subject to any additional conditions deemed appropriate and or already placed on the residential site plan application approved December 4th, 2025 by the Planning Board. I have a motion. Do I have a second? I have a second. All in favor starting with Ann, please. Mr.

Chair, real quick. With John back, he probably... I was voting for him. Ah, yes.

That is true. Well, as soon as I show up, I become a voting member.

Yeah, exactly. No, I'm saying I no longer am.

Ryan's voting for Jeff. Correct. All right. All in favor, starting with Ann, please.

Ann Champa, aye.

Giovanni Bruni, aye.

Tony G, aye. Arthur Rugg, aye.

Ryan Millett, aye. John Farrell, aye. John Cruz, aye. Sean Faber, aye. And the chair votes in the affirmative. Thank you, gentlemen, very much. Thank you. Mr.

Chair, one last housekeeping item. We will be having a ribbon cutting on July 7th. The governor will be coming along with a whole bunch of other dignitaries.

We'd like to invite... Can you talk to her about Eversource? Yeah. Absolutely. It works.

We'd like to invite all of the planning board members as well. Absolutely.

I would ask if you could send town staff over the invite. They'll get it over to us.

We will do that.

Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Have a good night, folks. All right, we have a formal application of a site plan for 60 residential units with associated site improvements along with a conditional use permit for 597 square feet of wetland buffer impact in the C2 zone in Route 28 Performance Overlay District, 196 and 198 Rockingham Road, Tax Map 15, Lot 66 and 66-1. S&S Metals Recycling is the owner and Gino Bernard is the applicant. Good evening, folks. Kelly and John, before we get going, do you have anything?

There is just one outstanding checklist item in order to act upon it before you accept it.

So I am looking for a motion to accept this application as complete in that this checklist item will be waived for acceptance purposes only and will ultimately become a condition of approval.

So moved, Mr. Chair. I have a motion.

Do I have a second? I have a second. All in favor starting with Ann, please.

Ann Champa, aye.

Giovanni Varani, aye. Tony Day, aye.

Ryan Willett, aye.

Arthur Argyle, aye. I'm sorry. All right. Cal Cruz, aye.

Sean Faber, aye. And the chair votes in the affirmative. All right. Good evening, gentlemen. The floor is yours.

Good evening. My name is George Chadwick with Bedford Design. Here with me tonight is Gino Bernard, the developer, Scott Thornton. To my right here, I'll speak about traffic. I do have Andrea Kenter. She's the environmental engineer to discuss any questions or answer any questions the board may have from an environmental standpoint. We're here tonight to talk about the Village of Londonderry. The project's located at 196-198 Rockingham Road. That's tax map 15, lot 66 and 61. Those two lots will be consolidated via notice of merger, and the town has a copy of the notice of merger in their file to be acted upon. The final lot will be known as tax map 15, lot 66, the parcel zoned C2. The proposal is for 60 rental units located in three buildings, 20 units each, in a courtyard type arrangement with a green space in the middle and the parking around the exterior. The board recalls I brought a project for this lot forward conceptually. We had a single building at that time. The board had asked that we look at sort of making a. A courtyard type of arrangement instead of having a single building. So we did listen to the board. We did do that. We broke that single building into 3. and had created sort of a courtyard, what we believe to be a courtyard type of arrangement. As part of the sale of the property, SNS Metal Recycling will complete cleanup of the site. We've submitted our soils and groundwater monitoring plan to both DES and to the town. As I stated, Andrea Kenter with Tomford Environmental Services is with me tonight to help answer any questions, specific questions the Board may have. As I said, the project's in the C2 zone. It meets all structure and buffer setbacks. There's 111 parking spaces around the exterior of the buildings. The buildings will be located on municipal water in sewer. We'll be providing a 10-foot-wide sewer easement along a portion of the frontage of the property to the town of Bedford, excuse me, town of Londonderry, for an existing sewer line that runs along the frontage. We have all state permits, including the DOT curb cut permit. That permit required a left-hand turn lane to be constructed as you go east along Route 28. We met with the Heritage Commission, the Conservation Commission. I believe they both have had no issues with the project. There is a waiver that's being asked. That's from Section 4.12C, 1980. which requires trees greater than 15 inches be shown on the plan. In this instance, the area of development is fully void of trees. It's the area that's already been disturbed, and it's gravel and metal products that are scattered about the site. The area of trees on the parcel will not be disturbed. We also require two conditional use permits. A conditional use permit for 597 square feet of new wetland buffer impact and to restore 3,693 square feet of wetland buffer. That wetland buffer being restored currently is gravel and metal products and it'll be restored to a vegetated state. As I said, we did meet with the Conservation Commission and they recommended approval. There is a second CUP to allow the residential in the commercial zone. At this point, I think I'll pass it along to Scott to talk a little bit about traffic and the study that was done and follow up with any questions the board may have.

Thanks, George. Scott Thornton with Vanessa Associates. We met with DOT out there on the site in July of last year. to get them familiar with the site and to also go over what kinds of information they'd be looking for to issue the driveway permit. They were basically looking for a review of site distances and a review of the trip generation for the project. At that time, we expected that we would have to put in the left turn lane to the site Because it was not going to be an option for left turning traffic to wait in that painted median there to cross two sets of double yellow lines. So we were expecting it at that time. We looked at a couple different options. One was a two-way left turn lane. One was a BUT WE EVENTUALLY FINALLY SETTLED ON AN EXCLUSIVE LEFT TURN LANE IN THE EASTBOUND DIRECTION. SITE DISTANCES MET. WE EXCEED ASHTOE, TOWN OF LYNADARY, DOT ALL SEASON SAFE SITE DISTANCE AT THE DRIVEWAY. I DON'T KNOW IF WE HAVE A PLAN OF THE LEFT TURN LANE.

CAN YOU BRING UP HIS PLAN? IT WOULD BE THE SECOND ONE THEY SENT OVER TO YOU.

TODAY OR YESTERDAY?

I have it on a thumb drive, if that's easier. She should have it. It's right there on the very bottom. See a left-hand turn? There you go.

Yeah. And this went through probably four or five... ITERATIONS WITH DOT IN ORDER TO GET THIS CONFIGURATION, BUT IT MEETS ALL OF DOT'S STANDARDS. THE DOT REVIEWER, WHO I THINK IS ALSO THE TOWN'S REVIEWER, STANTEC, HAD SOME COMMENTS REGARDING THE DESIGN AND THE STUDY, BUT IN GENERAL Everything is satisfactory. DOT issued the driveway permit in March of this year. And I think that's really it from a traffic perspective. If you have any questions, we'll be here to answer them.

So with that, like I said, I do have Andrea with me to answer any specific environmental type questions. But I guess we're here to answer any questions the board may have.

All right. I'll start with the board. Somebody just said Jacob there.

So, George, I am the state chairman of the Water Council, governor's appointee. So I spend a lot of time in the DES building. Sure. So that I'm able to, you know, At some point, I'll get asked about this, so if the environmental person could educate us a little bit more, that would be great. I'd really like to understand what. What the has said, what's the point of view? Obviously, they'll have to be some clean up.

well i really appreciate some more details sure so i'm andrea kenter i work with tomford environmental and i have uh worked with the current owner of sns for a number of years through a series of companies i've been at um The project has been receiving state funding, ether funding for MTBE release on the property. So in other words, he does not have any underground storage tanks or above ground storage tanks. He had a release of gasoline. based on the salvage operations that he's conducted. So he has funding. That funding has supported any investigation, excavation. He received money for concrete pads for dismantling vehicles in order to keep fuel out of the ground. And it continues to support his groundwater management permit and monitoring. So he's on a groundwater management permit that requires sampling twice a year. That is, we just finished the spring event. And all those documents are online with the DES portal. So you start talking about cleanup. How long is cleanup going to take? So cleanup as far as getting rid of the scrap and his dismantling business, he's bound by solid waste rules to finish that through a series of documents that have been filed with solid waste. So he's got a closure plan, which he has to abide by. And what does that look like?

Are we talking about a year, 10 years?

No, not at all. So no, no, no, no. Two separate cleanups. So the solid waste portion of it is closing out his scrap metal business. And that entails getting scrap off the site and leaving it as a clean slate, basically. He's got closure obligations for the environmental impacts, which is different than the solid waste rules. And that... continues until soil and groundwater meet state standards so he's yes signs off on it you can't build anything no that's not true no um i mean he's got structures on the property and he's operated as a business with with buildings and he has impacts they're relatively mild impacts compared to a lot of salvage yards For example, he's got a little bit of Benzene and he's got some empty be in the groundwater and then the whole point of the soil and groundwater management plan that accompanied their alteration of train permit was to put the document to the yes for review which. spells out how those impacted media, soil and ground order will be handled during development. And so it was reviewed by, submitted to AOT, but reviewed by the oil and petroleum group for comments.

How much, I mean, like when they built Home Depot, they had to take 18 inches away. How much of the top soil, the top, you know, are you gonna go six inches down, 10 inches down? Like I said, Home Depot was like 18 inches.

So it's not site-wide. We do have a figure in the Soil and Groundwater Management Plan if that's, if it has that.

So there is contamination that's going to have to be taken off site?

There is contamination that can be taken off site it does not have to be taken off site. We've identified areas that we know of with impacts and that was all in the soil and groundwater management plan if if they're working in that area and there will be some one building one of the buildings has a significant area which has identified impacts that material has to be managed accordingly. And either reused on site if it's acceptable as backfill or if not, it's taken off site to a licensed facility, tested and taken off site.

What makes it acceptable to be reusable?

That's up to the engineers. So for example, if it's a very clay rich product or it's unacceptable as far as aggregate for their backfilling of utility trenches, that's a call that the site engineers would make. I can tell them if it's impacted or not impacted, and then it can be reused on site.

So if I can help you out and you're right so again that the site is 3 acres 5 acres George so within that site they have identified areas of contaminated soils. So if that contaminated soils is in an area that they're going to have to excavate for the foundation of the building. They're going to go out in a sample that material they'll test that and whatever Huckamucka Jesus is in that if it's too high, then they and they they can't just spread it out elsewhere on the site. For instance, under a parking area where it will be capped in the future with asphalt, then they need to truck it off site again. And so that's kind of what the protocol is. And that's how they do that nowadays.

Is there areas that are contaminated that are not being touched?

uh kelly did you find that figure yeah for the the management plan

So the other thing though to India so when you hit groundwater though groundwater is all obviously a totally different animal. So if they hit groundwater have to pump the groundwater they may end up having to put it into a frack tank.

Right there are a couple of options in either can go on a frack take it could be treated in discharge to municipal sewer if that approval is obtained there a couple of options for for treating groundwater.

Depending on the levels of what is in the water. Do we know what's in the water.

Yes, pretty good handle on what's there. Yeah, just based on... So figure four, I think... All the stuff in a junkyard.

Anything that's in gasoline or oil. Anything that's in gasoline and oil.

The stuff in a junkyard.

You cyclic hydrocarbons. One more. One more.

Back. While we're waiting on this, you mentioned MTBE, right? Yes. It's in the water. So is this one of those where you start... Moving stuff around and that starts to shift and gets deeper into the water. I wouldn't say deep. We obviously have some serious water issues in town.

Yeah, you do. Not deeper into the water. In other words, not deeper into the water and spreading off site. It could laterally spread on this property.

How deep is deep?

So this site has a pretty good gradient to it. So ground order ranges anywhere from 2 feet to 10 feet on this site. So I'm not sure in the central part of the site whether or not dewatering will be necessary for their foundation work.

And the co-ass broke runs right by this thing.

So what are you going to do to? Well, there are monitoring wells, which are, so groundwater flow on this site is towards the wetland to the west, northwest. And we do have a pretty decent well network that's right on that bank, as well as a piezometer right at the toe of the slope near the wetland. So there's a pretty good handle on what groundwater flow is and contaminants on site.

Am I looking at the areas in red are contaminated?

So, yeah, what you see on this map are the three outlines, the dark black outlines are the three proposed building locations. And then the red clouds are those areas which we know are documented soil impacts. So that could be, it's spelled out in the soil management plan, but they're our VOC impacts in certain areas, there are PAH impacts in certain areas, there's TPH impacts, and there's some metals, arsenic in particular. And so you'll see some of those are, two of the areas are fairly linear, and one of them is in, I don't know what building that is, George, but...

The top right one there.

Yeah, the top right is... B.

B.

B. So the management plan dictates that an environmental professional will be on site during the excavation of known areas to field screen and sample as needed, and then on call for any material that's observed during excavation earthwork, which is suspect, has odors, has staining, has, you know. Who makes that call? That would be probably the site super that's on the project.

Does DES come in and inspect it after that and say it's okay? No. So I'm a guy who grew up with Love Canal. Some of you aren't old enough to remember what Love Canal is. So you're building a building on top of something and the state's not going to come in and say it's okay?

Well, that area, for example, in Building B has been excavated and we know what's there and what's remaining. The site's been drilled significantly. So we have a pretty good handle on where impacts are and how deep they are.

Which way are the hydrocarbons flowing?

Well, the figure before this or after this is the groundwater flow. I think before. That's the MTBE one. Figure five, I think.

I'd like to know the direction they're going, what depth are you measuring, toluene, benzene? Sure.

So this is the groundwater flow map. You can see contours and blue arrows. So those blue arrows are the groundwater flow direction. So it's basically the impacts on the site are down gradient or down flow of the current dismantling area, vehicle dismantling area.

Giovanni had his hand up first.

So if I understand this correctly, And I don't think I like it or I'm comfortable with it. If you have contaminants on the site and if they're not in the footprint of your construction area, you're not cleaning those up? You're not remediating that?

Not necessarily. So that dovetails with closing the site. So in other words, DES in the long term will never close this out in their state file unless soil and groundwater meet state standards. So it behooves a site owner, somebody who's taking on the environmental responsibility to achieve those metrics as soon as possible. We have some hot spots, which we know of, which are outside of the building envelopes. And if I can convince George and Gino to deal with those, it will get this site-to-site closure a lot faster than not dealing with them.

So a follow-up on that. So you have 60 families here. I mean, this is why I'm concerned. Because it's like, okay, I only have to... clean up our neat where I'm disturbing the soil or my footprint is the kids are out back playing around they're probably going to go down co-ass brook by the way where that pro where that pollution runs off to is in one of our prime wetlands which is you know co-ass brook that's a concern and then You know, I think this site needs to be completely cleaned up and remediated. DES can't mandate that. You're going to have kids out there running around on the lawns, playing around. And in addition to that, I'm hoping that you'd take a certain level of topsoil. You're going to have so many years of broken glass out there. and crushed into this soil that I think there needs to be some really significant I mean we get we got to give you two two conditions for this thing to even exist one is to do multi-family in a commercial zone the second is you're increasing your unit card from 16 to 20. which we haven't done that yet we've done the first part and you know it's like this needs to be done right

Mr. D. So if I read the plans correctly this afternoon, it looked like you had 13 wells on the site, monitoring wells. Yep. And could you, for my sake, but mostly for everybody who's going to, for the 61 and a half people that watch this tape after this meeting's over, could you explain What a monitoring well is what it does how often do you look at it? What's the importance of it when there's a well get closed down? And just kind of thumbnail it please.

So these are environmental monitoring wells. They're not potable water sources by any means These are generally these in particular are two inch PVC pipe which are put in with a drill rig and They have a generally a 10-foot section of slotted PVC screen, which intersects the water table during drilling. That's determined. And then they're completed either flush with the ground surface or as a standpipe. And those are used as snapshots in time where we go out. In this case, it's on a groundwater management permit. So the state says twice a year, you're going out there, you're collecting samples from this suite of wells. And you're analyzing for X, Y, and Z. And then that data is tabulated and is public record.

And who does the sampling, please?

Actually, my company has done it for him for quite a while.

So the owner of the property hires an environmental consultant to do the work.

Correct.

And does the state mandate that that landowner continue to have these wells monitored? Yes.

Yes, there is a recorded groundwater management permit for this site, and it does not become unrecorded until he meets standards.

And that process follows with the land, not with the owner. So if it changes hands, the process still has to happen regardless of who owns the property.

Correct. And that paper trail is depending on how the sale is structured. So I have certainly had clients over the years that have kept that environmental liability. They want to be able to manage that the way they want. And I've had, I'd say, more often than not, that environmental liability transfers to a new owner. Right. But that's part of the purchase and sale process.

Thank you for that. Yeah.

And when that happens, when a site has a formal groundwater management permit, there is a form that is filed. It's one of the DES in their rules, which there's 45 days, 30 or 45 days to file that form which demonstrates the transfer of that permit. So the current owner releases it and the new owner accepts it.

And so having been- unfortunately involved in one of these, if that paperwork isn't done, if it isn't filed, if whatever, whatever kind of calamity you want to call it, and the state DES comes into the site, it's my understanding, or it was my understanding back then, that the current owner owns it, whether you want to or not, if there's cleanup that needs to be done, the state's not going to pay for the current owner is. And it's up to that current owner, if they got screwed on the P&S, they're responsible to go after the previous responsible party, the PRP.

That has happened, yes.

And so I know it's happened. I know for a fact that has. And so regardless of what the calamity is, the new owner is going to be responsible for a cleanup if one is found down the road. Yes. Regardless of who caused it.

Yes.

Thank you.

Unless it's a brownfield site, which this is not. But it's not. But it's not.

But it's not. How many of those in town?

Three brownfield sites.

How many monitoring wells would there be once this site is complete?

That's a good question. So we've identified three monitoring wells that are within the building envelopes, which will be destroyed. And there will be a monitoring well network that is put back. Obviously, they're not going to be able to replace three of those wells, but they'll be in close proximity. So the DES will want to make sure that there's still a viable monitoring network that monitors the impacts until it meets closure.

When you say it meets closure, what does that mean?

So there are, DES has a set of rules which hazardous waste and petroleum group abide by, and those rules have soil remediation standards and groundwater standards. So a site has to meet those.

And the expectation is that- These monitoring wells are going to continue to monitor because the site does not currently meet correct requirements correct.

It's close. It's actually like I said I I work for Eight or 10 salvage yards throughout the state. And I'm not saying this because I'm standing here representing my client, but this is one of the more benign ones.

It's hard to believe, but it is as far as groundwater. What does it look like to make it that there's no wells on the site because it meets what the state's standards are? What process is that? I'm trying to wrap my head around like, We're building houses putting people in it on a site that's getting actively monitored because it's contaminated and is an issue But we're gonna allow people to occupy buildings until the time that these wells now are

Sure, I guess another level of comfort is the state has actually two sets of groundwater quality standards. One is protective of indoor air. So if, for example, if there's a petroleum source or a hazardous waste source in the ground in soil, and it volatilizes into soil gas, which can then enter a building. There's a set of groundwater standards for that. This site does not even come close to meeting any of those standards. Vapor intrusion is not an issue.

So it sounds like a full site remediation isn't all that difficult. I keep hearing this isn't that bad. This isn't that bad. The site's not terrible.

It's one of the better ones I've seen. Well, from a monetary standpoint, it is. I mean, to take 12 or 18 inches off an entire site when it's not necessary is a is a significant cost impact to a project.

Pardon? What constitutes not necessary?

Well I mean the state DES is only going to require that you meet your soil standards and you've got you've got data that supports where those are. So those are the areas that need to be addressed. unless a surprise comes up during redevelopment and something is found that's unanticipated, which may happen on this project. I don't know.

I think Tony was up first. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I did have a follow-up. So I was right. There are 13 monitoring wells currently on the site, right? So noticeably absent... was the lot that's being merged in, I think, has no wells on it. Is that correct? And my question is, why not?

I'm not sure where the lot line is.

Yeah, it's right to the left. See how on your plan? It's a bottom square. The bottom left corner.

Correct.

Yeah. So why is it? Is that currently part of the recycling operation?

No, well, no, it's not. And it hasn't been historically, he's been up in that northern corner. And then the dismantling has been along the eastern boundary.

That's just where the same buses have been sent.

That's where the junk cars are. Shouldn't we know if there's anything migrating onto that lot before we decide if we want to build on it?

Groundwater flow doesn't suggest that it is migrating onto that lot.

Have there been any testing done on that lot?

I don't think so.

I would suggest that we need to have that tested. I don't know how I don't know how we can not ask for it to be tested I mean it just doesn't make sense to not test it Giovanni you were next yeah I would go back to like the full site remediation and making sure the site is completely clean I mean

The fact is, is that it's zone C2. So if you used it for retail or office or office space or what have you, but you're going to step above and you're saying, give me a conditional approval to use it residentially. That's where, in my mind, it changes the game. Because if you have retail establishments there or a gas station or a medical office building, you're not living there. You're not rolling around in it. You're not getting out of your doctor's appointment and rolling across the backyard. There's a different standard that we have to understand that we're living up to here.

So what I can tell you is that... wastewater council the water council is going through a whole process of updating everything to be a lot more strict and we have on the water council right now we have uh 25 hearings that we're backed up on so these are the type of things we see yeah and so so then to giovanni's point yeah to geo i'm sorry sorry you could go and then we'll so to giovanni's point

Shouldn't then, if building B, I think, is what we called it, is being built on top of a hot spot, then shouldn't building B be monitored for air quality, at least initially?

I think I'm sensing I didn't convey something appropriately. So these red areas are areas with impacted soil which will be removed, right?

we will be on site to supervise the screening and stockpiling of that material sorry to interrupt you so where the big pillow is that's going to be stripped out yes yep yep because it's been it's an idea because it's the top that's contaminated it's an identified area with impacts correct Thank you. Hold on one sec, Jason.

I'm sorry, so I didn't mean to imply that they were just going to be putting up those buildings over those areas regardless. Those red areas are areas with impacts that we know about and we will be on site to supervise the removal of those.

Thank you. So when those when the wells and the testing and everything meet state requirements and don't have to how does that get determined like I know you I know your your team is doing the testing and you're sending the data into the state does the state come back and confirm or do they just look at the data and go okay we're good.

Oh, do they come back and collect? Yeah, exactly.

So like you send them something and it says, okay, you know, this is now good. Does the state DES confirm? No. Or do they just? It seems like some giant best faith effort.

That's how everybody's going to do the right thing. Oh, yeah, we're going to. The site super will let us know if it's contaminated.

Then again, similar to George, who's a PE, I'm a PG. I have a license to uphold.

I understand that, but. You know, this may be five years from now. You may be retired. I hope so. Who knows who's doing the next? You maybe have sold the property once it's built, and now we're dealing with completely different people who did not have to come in front and take these bullets, right?

In my professional opinion, this site is actually very close to site closure. It really is. And I'm hoping this pushes it over the edge.

Like I said five minutes ago, let's get it to site closure. What are we even talking about? If it is this close to being closed, clean the thing.

Well, by cleaning it, I mean if these identified areas meet soil standards once we remove the soil and the groundwater continues to look better in the next year or two, then site closure will be requested.

So part of the closure is going to be, for lack of a better term, waiting for the land to cleanse the toxicity of what's dropping down into it. Correct.

This site has never had active remediation with the exception of soil excavation.

And all that takes is time. Correct. You keep testing and you find that it's deeper and there's less of it and it's deeper and there's less of it and then eventually it's underneath the state standard and it's declared done.

Petroleum will degrade naturally.

You hit the nail on the head, Tony. That's how it's done.

Somebody had a question over here. Hold on one sec.

Ryan. My question is actually for John. John, in this town, have you seen uh residential built uh on land that has had uh soil contamination problems yes the nevins nevins are there any issues that you know about uh since that happened But that I'm aware of and when they did that what was their preparation the same type of stuff that we're talking about here As far as did yeah, totally different contamination.

Yeah, I'm not sure was Tinkham garage.

Oh, yeah Okay, so in your opinion You know, their plan, does this seem pretty, like, okay to you? I mean, you're a high guy to please, so I would like to get your opinion. He meant that in a nice way, John. We work together in different ways, and I get him now, and he's very valuable. So I would want your opinion. Like, does this seem standard to you?

In my opinion, as Andrea is saying, the cleanup is going to be a matter of them hogging and hauling that material out of there. So right now, all that material has got petroleum products in it. They're going to dig it up and they're going to get rid of it. So whatever the, and I'm using stupid numbers, it's got 100 parts per million in that soil. So that material will be gone now, so it won't be leaching out of that hot soil.

It's like cutting out a cancer.

And would you let your family live in these apartments?

I'm not an apartment guy, but I understand.

Brother, sister, cousin. If it's done correctly, yeah.

And as Andrea says, DES isn't, you know, the town's on the hook for the enterprises rent a car up on the north end of town. And that was a leaking underground storage tank. We'll be monitoring that forever.

it just takes time and but again but i think we can all agree this is a better use for the site than the current use oh absolutely okay yeah yeah much like we still monitor overton evans we still monitor at auburn road i mean that's going to be monitoring beyond our laptops but but the elephant in the room is the fox is guarding the hen house yeah and and but that's but that's an sop

The way the state does it. Absolutely. I think that's Ryan's real question, right? If that's SLP, and that's how it's done. I mean, and to your point, at Moose Hill Kindergarten, that entire site was stripped, but that was different. That was apple chemicals. And heavy metals and aluminum. But at any rate.

And to Jake's point about why don't you just clean it up, I think since this is conceptual and it sounds like it hasn't changed hands yet, I'm sure the developer is trying to figure out what am I getting myself into here.

This isn't conceptual office.

This is a this is one of the most of the city already transferred.

Well, no, but this is there's nothing but I will love this. This is a site was that we're going to have some way.

But what I'm saying is we're trying to figure out what it's going to take to make this happen. Those 2 lots aren't even merged yet.

It's a condition.

Chair. Yes, sir. Real quick. I just want to confirm the two areas they removed. You say removed.

Is that going to be reused somewhere else or completely off-site?

He said removed. She said it could be reused on site.

Let me answer that. I got two responses. One, it'll be removed off-site. We won't reuse it. The second part of it is our client has agreed to... hire the environmental engineer to carry through with the project. So there will be consistency. There will be the knowledge and the professionalism and everything that you see in front of you tonight will occur.

So the duration of this project is going to have a third party engineering firm. Bless you. environmental engineering firm.

Unless they build it. But in 3 years or when the tax exemption is up in a 7 to 10 years and they flip it and then it's someone else and then

I'm really good at chasing new buyers.

It is not close. Closed by then which is an indication a couple years it should be closed. According to the expert.

So George is the intention to do the cleanup. Again you can go out because you wouldn't even need a an approved site planted to go out there and do an environmental cleanup today.

That would be done as soon as the land transfers hands.

So if S&S was off the site, S&S would go out there and actually do an environmental cleanup. Again, Andrea, you would take some confirmatory samples from the excavation, probably a couple of water samples, groundwater samples. So it went from 100 down to 10. so they they would report that to des then they would make the determination do we have to chase after it further or what is the deal basically and then they'll have a strike a line in the sand for july of 2026 and then and then you're ready then you would be ready to to start construction is that the intent yes And again, it would be after you've done the cleanup, you've got your confirmatory samples, and you get something from DES saying, go. She's the question.

Yeah, I mean yes.

It's not it's not a mandated cleanup at this point. So it's it's being done to better the site in an effort to get it to closure right so it's a self-directed cleanup.

Yes, but again and I know Andrea you're going to submit it in July and I'm going to get a response to July of 27.

The honest petroleum group is faster.

Yeah, so I'm just saying that so that the board members understand it. Because they'll see the excavators.

I guess that's something we haven't talked about internally, whether it's the cart before the horse. So I guess I envision this being in conjunction with development. You've got the equipment on site.

That's why I'm asking the question, because I understand what you mean.

So it will be, once the land is transferred into my client's hands, he will start the cleanup. And we'll take the necessary samples.

Mr. Rugg. My question is, where is all the data being stored? Where is it kept? Who's in charge of it?

Sure, it's all public information. It's on, are you familiar with the DES one stop portal?

I haven't been in there recently so I don't go through but my question is is it available to the town is it absolutely the public here. Yes, and could you send the data to the town also I could sure okay we'll do that.

Is there a do you have a step by step. We're mediation plan that's been put together for this.

Well to some degree that's what the soil and groundwater management plan is it it's it's a step-by-step process of how those materials will be managed.

But it's not a war plan over and not know is that was as you know what I'm looking for is like an actual actionable plan I understand what you're saying, but yeah, legitimate plan of this is how we're going to know nothing like that has been filed or prepared a look of a scope and sequence course.

which would kind of make sense kind of so COVID sequence guys what I do every day I know it kind of makes sense I think I think you're right yep so I have a question I have a question for John when you when that scenario you just went through is that just for the areas that are impacted by the buildings or is that the whole site that you I go to Andrea because again, she's the PG and again if that's where I keep hearing honestly is that it's just the areas that are impacted.

I know enough to be dangerous when it comes to environmental stuff, but I would rely on Andrea.

Currently that is the plan is to address the areas where we know there are impacts. There will be somebody on site to oversee that removal and documentation. Then during development And I know this is, we will be on call. So if impacts, if something unusual is encountered, we will be right back on site to manage it.

So when you say impacts, are you saying just the areas that you're impacting on the site where the buildings and pavement?

Buildings, utility, pavement.

Not the whole site?

Well, a lot of the site is being reworked, so I...

I understand, but there's something where it's not being reworked. Are you planning on cleaning that up, too?

We don't know that there's anything wrong there, though.

Do you know if anything is right there? Good question. You've got to know both.

Have we identified, and I guess that's kind of what we're all getting at here, is we're talking about areas that we know of. Have we tested the whole site to see if there's anything else that has an impact?

Well, the answer is we haven't tested the site in which they weren't merged in.

Exactly. So, if I may, so the last time you were here, I asked if there was a phase one assessment done, and the answer was yes.

Do you remember that no, no, okay, I don't think this is the only thing I don't think this is an a phase one assessment also has not Tony Tony this is beyond a phase is way beyond a phase.

I know I understand that but I'm I'm going up the ladder. I'm going up the ladder so it hasn't been a phase one assessment so that has been a phase 2, 3 or 4 so absolutely and so how much I'm telling you right now if we're going to get into this a little bit later on because it was a mess that happened i think on friday as i was going by that site by accident the the fact is if i walk through that site today with my work boots on that i really like when i came out of that site i would throw them away and so my question is What's being done with all this topsoil that has whatever it is on there? It doesn't look like dirt. It's a mess. I don't know how else to describe it. So you're going to put 60 units on there, and there's going to be kids in there. And what do kids have? They all have a pail and a shovel. And I have this color hair, so I remember pail and shovel, OK? And they're going to be digging in that dirt or whatever that's left on top after they put six inches of loom on it and compact it to try and grow grass on it. The kids are going to be way under that, which is why for Moose Hill Kindergarten, they stripped the whole site. It's more than just the groundwater. The wells are measuring the leachate. Is that the correct word? Whatever. It's leaching, whichever way it's going, the groundwater. But you're not measuring or looking at What's on the top? The top four, five, six inches of the dirt, gravel, or whatever that's there, who looked at that?

Anywhere a monitoring well has been drilled, or in this case, two soil excavations have been completed, and test borings. A test pit.

Site excavation is a test pit, right? So you did a test pit in one area, one snapshot in time, right?

We've done two soil excavations here with approximately 450 tons taken out of each area. Those have been tested extensively. Anytime the monitoring wells in, there was soil sampling that was done as part of the drilling. And then there was an area up in the northern part of the property where a pretty dense test boring program was done a number of years ago. And all those had soil samples.

So I'd like to ask the board if there's any appetite for some kind of whatever. Besides that, monitoring wells, test pits, whatever, on the piece of land that's being merged into this one.

Because we don't know what's there.

And again, there's no indication that it's bad, but there's no indication that it's good either.

I think that could be easily resolved once the property changes hands and we deal with the red areas.

Chicken and the egg thing.

Well, we deal with the red areas.

We got decisions to make.

Yeah.

That's the problem.

Give me my approval and we'll transfer it and then we'll deal with it. That's a no.

We could test that lot that is looking to be merged, that lower corner.

Yeah.

in conjunction with the other excavation work.

And what is the board, as far as all the surface material that may or may not be there, what is the board looking for us to do so that you are satisfied that the material will be removed or has been removed?

Remove the material. Well, I don't necessarily think it has to be removed. You want to know it's there. I want to know if it has to be removed. Yes, exactly. So I want some sampling done incrementally at surface. And in my life, everything was six-inch lifts whenever I was doing anything. So every six inches to a foot, give or take, as far down. Put at least how big of a... Is that a three-quarter acre, that piece of land?

Yeah, something like that, approximately.

Give or take? So at least two wells, based on what you have with the rest and the spatiality of the 13 that are on the property now. If you just use that same ratio, you need at least two or three there. And Giovanni had a comment.

I think you're looking to change this from commercial, the use from commercial to residential. You're not getting my vote until I get full site remediation on this piece. And we haven't gotten off the environmental side, but I drive down that road every day and there's a new tire track from an excavator or something that rode out on Route 28 that scarred Route 28 or somebody's trailer scraped across the road. I can address that at the proper time.

Yeah, because that was part of what I was going to get into it later, but that's part of what I drove through in one of my sports cars, so I was not real happy because there was tar flying all over the place, chunks of tar, where you could see the track hoe went over Route 28, Rockingham Road, and to me it's permanent damage, so I'm sure you already know about that. I think what you're saying... Let him answer that. Yeah, that is correct.

DOT is aware of it. We've been made aware of it. The landowner is taking care of it. It's going to be fixed.

Kelly, can we have the town hire its own third-party company to do some testing here?

That's what I was going to ask. We shouldn't be deciding where these are going.

And you can have the applicant pay the cost.

Yeah, because we can do an exaction for that. We are allowed to do an exaction.

specifically for things like that and make the and and insist that the landowner pay for it yes sir and george i think what you're saying as soon as soon as it gets transferred we'll take care of all this but i'm pretty sure one of your conditions transfers that get a full site plan approval it will be and that's something like andrea said the chicken and the egg situation that we'll have to take care of which is where if it is a condition of approval

It will be taken care of.

And he was going to work tonight would not before we even get there with. Does the board have any appetite to walking this site and looking at it? I don't know what I'm going to see.

It's a dirty junkyard.

Exactly. What are we trying to gain by walking it?

I mean, to really get an idea of what the site looks like. I don't know. I've been in a number of junkyards. Exactly. Over the years. Exactly. They have junk in them.

I think the best part is looking at the data that comes from the sampling. You have an idea what is happening there, and a lot of what's happening is under the ground. Not on the ground.

Sheriff, if I may, this is the town's opportunity to clean it up. If the lane doesn't get transferred to my owner, or to Gino, the junkyard will continue.

We'll study it.

Oh, you know what? Don't even try and put that on us. If we don't do this, the junkyard's not getting cleaned up.

Okay.

Yeah. Well, the town council just approved SNS metal for another year on Monday. That's fine. I couldn't find the results, and maybe they're on here. How many parts per billion is there of ether in that soil? As into that I found a poem 2019 that said it was a 100 but what is the soil or groundwater crap, I don't know so we have the reports that.

The answer that I don't I have some data on a map from 24.

The test you just did.

We haven't got the data back we just collected the same you just collect them and was it done before that. Would have been last fall.

Okay, and do you know any like how far off were the results from?

Standards very close. So for example MTB as a standard in groundwater of 13 In 2024 most of his samples were under 20 and

Okay, so I guess what I'm saying is, is if our main concern is the groundwater. And if it sounds like that, that we're not going to move forward without trying to get the site cleaned up, would it be acceptable to. To make it condition of the approval. To be X amount to meet. State standards or whatever it's bad. And I guess what I'm saying is it's better than denying it outright because that's what it sounds like. What's happening right now.

No, what we're going to be doing is looking for a motion to continue this in about 2 seconds here. I am going to look for a motion to continue this. We need a 3rd party company coming in hired by the town. paid for by the applicant to do the testing that we've discussed today. We need testing done on the smaller site as well that hasn't been identified for starters. So with that, can I have a motion to continue, please? So moved. Do I have a second? Second. For discussion?

For discussion. Go ahead. Thank you. So who owns the site that's going to get merged in?

Same company.

It's the same. So, okay. So you're not... Okay, so there's no abutter. No. The abutter is the same company. The same company, thank you. Mr. Chairman.

Kelly, let's shoot for- Mr. Chairman.

Yep. Before you do that, do we have to open this to the public?

I don't think so. If we're continuing it, we don't have to open it to the public.

You're continuing the hearing as well?

Correct.

Hearings continue to- Okay.

Yeah, we're good. Kelly, let's continue this to either August 5th or 12th. It doesn't matter to you, we'll do the fifth, August 5th.

It doesn't matter to her. I know. Might want to ask the town manager.

Guys, there's a reason I'm doing August 5th, because it's not going to happen in July. She's leaving, we got a lot going on, it's not going to happen. You only have one July. Will the town have the results by August 5th? That's the question that I'm asking.

Is it giving you enough time to- My question to the board would be, so what do you want them to do?

What do you want the consultant to do? Right. I want the consultant to test this law in its entirety and verify that what's being told to us is accurate.

Would you be comfortable with a work, as you call it, a work sequence plan or a work plan from us?

Absolutely.

And allow us to go out and pop in another monitoring well and

I'd rather be at Stantec or somebody else that we would hire.

In my view, there's two different conversations. There's a work plan that you're expecting the applicant to provide through their third party.

Correct. At time of cleanup.

Thank you.

Correct.

Separately, you're talking about the town hiring a third party inspector for... Its own monitoring and inspection process to include. 198 rocking him, which is that other lot.

Yep. No, no, again, not an inspection. They want. Our 3rd party consultant to do an environmental study of her. Thank you.

That's on 198.

On both on both to include 1 on 1 verification. The other 1 is testing.

Got it. Yes. So, if you're asking for a consultant to do that, then they're going to have to go out and put in their own wells. They're going to have to go out and. You know, survey that next slot and put in whatever monitoring stations they have to put in for that. i'm not an environmental engineer but i don't know how long that takes but i'm going to guess it takes more than 60 days absolutely all right so possibly and i'm making this up as i'm going at the moment so possibly could we take the data that they have And go to the state and ask them for help and ask them to look at this data. While they take care of the separate lot, since they're already out there and work on that and bring us the results for that. And again, I'm making this up as I'm going.

Okay, I'm one person and I'm gonna allow back you on this because I'm gonna go back to the fact that Why don't you if you did it for for office or commercial? What its own for is less of a residential impact I completely agree with you and what you're doing now is you're introducing people living there 24 hours a day rolling around dirt and to Ryan's point to me it's more than just the groundwater it's what's in the soils when to tony's point the kids are out back with their shovel and bucket digging through it

half of this town's already drinking their water. So we are in a motion right now.

I just want to clarify one point. So you're talking about continuing, right? So we don't have to work the terms of your condition. I was just trying to get an understanding on record and for staff that's going to be here as to what the task is prior to whenever we're continuing to. So we can work on what the details of that looks like and with the applicant and staff and come back at a later date to make sure the board's good with it.

You can make it the fifth as a continuing state and then we'll know by then where we're going.

All right, so I have a motion. I had a second. Who seconded it? I think it was Arthur. Was it Arthur?

Yeah, I did. Okay, I'll take responsibility.

All in favor starting with Dan, please.

are we doing continuing the plan oh okay fine um ann champa aye ronnie veroni aye tony d i athelrog guy ryan willett aye sean faber aye and the chair votes in the affirmative thank you gentlemen and ladies have a good night thank you before we um this is our last item for the night right you can speak as you wish i'm just saying if we if this is our last night so i don't have you guys been reading all the stuff in the state around housing and all the different communities the one in chester the one in manchester and everything else so i started asking people a bunch of questions and everything about the apartments that are already built in town and i'm being told that the ones at woodmont are at 90 capacity So we've got this one, another 80 there, 400 there, 1,000 over here, 800 over there, and all the other communities have the same thing going on. Anybody know who's going to move into all these places?

Hopefully young people, considering we have nobody in this state under 40 years old. You know what I'm saying? I mean, I'm just throwing it out there.

I feel like the statement of lack of housing is almost like the state's way of trying to get more people to move.

That's what I said. Yeah, I'm just throwing it out there. The numbers are becoming staggered.

Yeah, so that has nothing to do with the planning board.

I know. I'm just asking everybody to think about it.

I mean, it's a good question, and it's an interesting exercise, but it has nothing to do with the planning board. You didn't say it did. The developers.

Well, economics says that the supply will drive down the price of it.

I'm just saying, think about it a little bit. Look into it and read about it.

If you look into, Southern Hampshire Planning Commission came in here, what, eight months ago? And they did a comprehensive study of population growth was like three years, five years, ten years, and the demand that's going to need. And it gets worse as it goes on in the years. So if you want to do the research, you should look at that.

The traffic will become the number one topic that it has been for the last 20 years. And you'll actually go out on Mammoth Road at 8 o'clock at night and there'll be traffic where there's not now. So that's my point for bringing it up.

And part of that is, you know, the state, we are awful at doing anything proactively. We are awful at putting money towards things that we can plan instead of just throwing Band-Aids on it. So it's going to get worse because the state doesn't seem to really care.

Just live free or die, maybe.

Well, yeah. Until you have to drive on those roads.

By 2050, our population is going to start decreasing. This is statewide.

I just want to state for the record that we received 4 documents before this meeting I thoroughly reviewed and I sat down in the 30 documents to review and I cannot prepare for this meeting unless I have all the documentation and so I'm just going to I'm probably going to say in every meeting until IT gets around to sharing just it's it's it's there's got to be a way to share these documents and I understand they can't be they don't want to be emailed or whatever but you can right click and then put it on OneDrive and it's on one drive already you just share it so i don't know how how some of you guys make the you know go through all these tony and i were just talking about that before the meeting too and i said it last meeting i'm just going to keep saying it until hopefully we can get access to these these documents because like tony you know i like i like to be thorough and go through everything it's hard to do that when i'm when i'm scrambling and the guys up there i'm trying to listen and everything so just want to say that sorry

no you're good um thank you thank you obviously we are going into uh a time where our planner will no longer be here and we're in the hunt for a new one um looking for a little opinion on the board side of things i think it's an appropriate time for um the planning board either myself or a member of the board to become a bit more active with the planning department the engineering department as well as the town manager in the design review phase pre-application meetings so on and so forth to kind of help us through what the next steps are here i'd like to nominate tony yeah the chair always does that oh so i'm not looking to nominate anybody what i'm looking for is the board to say yes we're comfortable with with me as your chair making a decision to to seek a bit more involvement be it myself or somebody else on the board um as long as you're not making any decisions by yourself you're all good with the town staff and the applicant earlier than

So, Mr. Chair, the board already did a consensus on this. When Kelly, at one point, when we were talking about this in workshop, it was going to be, there was a consensus vote taken and it was unanimous that the chairman of the planning board or his or her assignee could sit in on the Pre-development, pre-application, planning session, whatever the heck you do upstairs.

Help me out. Design Review Committee.

Design Review Committee. And the consensus at that time was yes, that was a while ago. Might be a good idea. I think what you're trying to do is to revisit that and say yes, this would be a good time for us to do that. Looking for a board consensus again because it's been quite some time, probably 10 months or so since we last talked about it.

It would definitely make this meeting much smoother, for sure, if there were more involved.

I hate for DRC.

Yeah.

You get the time? I'll be in Florida half an X month, Turkey the month after.

Yeah, so it was the chairman or his or her designee, or designees as it were. And the question is, does the board have an appetite for that, yes or no, for a consensus standpoint? I think it would help out town staff in this time of need as well. I personally think it will help the board for meetings. And so that's the question on the table right now. everybody good yeah yeah fantastic anybody have anything else i got a couple things yes sir um so um i'll do the easy one first so i believe july 8th we're scheduled for for a july 8th meeting i will not be at that meeting and i'm wondering because of the way the fourth of july holiday breaks are we going to have a consensus are we going to have a quorum that night or not? Is it worth moving it to the 15th, which gets it completely away from the 4th of July thing? Should we keep it at July 8th? How many people are going to be here? How many people are not going to be here? It was something that came to me the other day. I don't have any problems with the 15th. I guess it would...

I agree, because it's a kind of... The 4th is on a Saturday, right?

There's a ZBA meeting here. But my concern would be other meetings.

The ZBA meeting? Yeah.

So there's a ZBA meeting. But we have another location.

We can have it somewhere else. Oh, if ZBA is the 15th, then you can move to the 27th. Have it in the nuclear bunker.

Actually, the 15th is not going to be very good for me, so... We're getting into vacation season.

I mean, the question is, who's going to be here on the 8th? Who's going to be here on the 8th?

I'll be here.

I'll be here. I'll be here on the 8th. Jonathan, you said no.

You're not sure?

Yeah. You will be here?

Yeah.

So, we'll be all right. I'll be here.

You will not be here? Unsure. Unsure. Unsure.

First, I will not. Eighth, I will.

Okay. There was not one scheduled on the first.

Eighth.

It's not the first Wednesday of July? We only have one meeting. The meeting right now is scheduled for July 8th. I'll be at 100% attendance. You will be there? Yes. Okay. And you will be here? Okay. So we're all set. We're all set for July 8th. A couple things came up at the town council meeting on Monday night that I want to address. Okay. One thing, there was a request for the town council to talk to the planning board or whatever about what we're doing. The quote was, the planning board is making a mess of things, quote unquote. That's an exact quote. I watched the tape three times. I'm not sure that's how it was meant, but those are the words that came out of the person's mouth. No, we are not making a mess of things. What we're doing is we're following the state constitution, the state RSAs, and the town's regulations. The town council by statute cannot interfere with the workings of the planning board. This is an autonomous board. The town council can make a suggestion or ask, but they cannot direct. If I'm interpreting it correct, I'm not an attorney.

The only power that they have over us is the power of appointment. That's it.

So the other thing is I want the board to be aware that 67421 comma Roman numeral 5 in brackets J. I don't know how you're supposed to say that. There's a protocol for that. I don't know how to say it. um which says that the planning board can do exactions okay especially where the town does not have uh an ordinance of impact fees but we can do exactions on a development that's coming in and as i read it and i read a bunch of the case law as well uh It's pretty wide open.

Can you explain what an exaction is?

An exaction is telling somebody, basically, you have to put a turning lane in.

It deals with particularly traffic, highways, and there is case law that supports that.

There is. And I can tell you of the case law, the developers suing the town, the developers lost when it came to exactions almost every time.

Yeah, that's where the town has very clear power. Yeah, we used to do that when we told them to put in certain turning lanes or no turning lanes or closing of roads.

I will tell you, just to get it out there, According to the RSA, it's limited to highway, which is a road, drainage, sewer, and water. You're going to be somewhat careful because it's pertinent to that development or what that new development would do or not do or whatever. This is specific. But an exaction can be done. And it looks like the state is pretty lax on it because the case law has been in favor of the town almost every time. I would also like to tell you that the, for those of you, by the way, who haven't done the office and planning and development test you should do it I've done it twice now it's very informative it refreshes your brain and I will tell you the last time that I took it one of the questions was wrong and they were pretty quick in in fixing it so but they fixed it and they didn't correct my grade So but I made them, so I now have 100 now again. But so I want you to know that according to Richmond Company versus the City of Concord in 2003, the planning board has an obligation under the New Hampshire Constitution to provide assistance to all citizens. The subdivision site plan process should not be an adversarial process and the planning board has a duty to advise applicants and otherwise work with them as they attempt to negotiate the permit process. So that goes back to a little bit about philosophically where I've been all along and you've heard me say it a hundred times, the applicant or the owner of the land, not necessarily the applicant, because they're not the same sometimes, right? But the owner of the land has rights too. And it's our duty to do the dance between the owner's rights and the RSAs, the Constitution, and the rules and regulations of the town of Londonderry. We have to play that dance, right? We have to dance and make it right for everybody. So it's the taxpayers and the citizens, the town as a whole, town administration as a whole, this planning board, the town council, and the applicant. We have to do the dance. It's our duty to do the dance. I believe we do it well. And I think we do it well. But there's a lot of stuff that happens at some of these meetings. And Monday was an example of it where something wasn't corrected. And no one is present to make the correction, to say that's not true, to read an RSA, to understand the case law or be available to show the case law that's out there. And I think it's important that it get out. And I think it's important that we all understand that our role is multifaceted, all right? It's not as easy as it seems. It's not as black and white as it seems. And most of the stuff that we see on social media, and some of it came out today, to do what social media is saying is against the law. It's plain and simple. It's against the law. You can't do that. And there's a lot of talk about attorney's fees and whatever. You want to see how high the attorney's fees get when one of these developers comes in and sues for not following the RSAs and case law. You're talking about real money. And the developer walks away from that case with rights that they didn't have if we just did what we were supposed to do. So we have to be really careful.

And the next one.

And the next one after that and the next one after that. And so we have to be very careful. So think about that exaction thing. Think about what I said. And if you have any questions, you know how to get a hold of me. Thank you for entertaining me, Mr. Chair. And if you want, I'll make a motion.

I just have one quick thing. Office of Planning and Development, their noontime webinar is going to be on impact fees. So I just got the info for it. I'll send it out to the whole board. Thank you. So you can attend it. Usually it's from noontime to 1 or 1.30, depending upon how many questions they get. But it's very informative.

Wonderful. So moved. Anybody? All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Have a good night, folks.