Planning & Zoning Commission - Regular Meeting

All right, welcome everyone and I would like to call to order this August 20th, 2026 meeting at the Madison planning and zoning commission. We have 4 public parents tonight, so I would 1st, like, to just read through the process for public hearings. During the public hearing, the applicant will be invited to present the application, explaining to the commission and others present what is being requested. The applicant or staff will share all application materials on the screen as needed. Comments of town agencies will be read for each application if there are any. There will be clarifying questions from the commissioners. Then there will be an opportunity for clarifying questions from attendees. For Zoom attendees, please raise your hand through the Zoom platform and wait to be called on and unmuted. As this public hearing must be recorded, attendees will state their names and addresses before asking their questions. Next, those who wish to support the application may come forward, and then those who oppose the application may come forward. Again, it is necessary for speakers to identify themselves each time they speak by stating their name and address. The applicant will then have an opportunity to address any questions or concerns raised by the public or commissioners. And once the public hearing is closed, the applicant is free to leave or remain for the balance of the regular meeting during which the commission will try to reach a decision on each application. Each applicant will be notified in writing as to the decision of this commission and has a right to appeal to superior court desires. decisions of this meeting are available the day after the meeting by calling the land use department at 203-245-5631 after 9 00 am all actions tonight taken by the commission will be by roll call and commissioners and staff will identify themselves for the record before speaking

I won't distract you.

Seated this evening are members Mike Bugda, Michelle Clark, who's an alternate, Max Caroon, Jeff Downs coming in on Zoom, Vice Chair John Duzza, Secretary John Morgan, who's on Zoom, Bob O'Connor, and myself, Carol Snow Chair. Oh, actually, we have Janet checking, so how about we see who it is. That I was missing tonight, I think, yes, perhaps it's okay.

Thanks.

Stop present this evening. It's town planner. The recording of this meeting will be made available on the town website for viewing. Additionally, I would like to ask that we treat each other respectfully throughout the meeting and a reminder to please turn off your phones. The town planner will now read the legal notices.

Notices hereby given that the Planning and Zoning Commission will hold a public hearing on Thursday, August 20th, 2026, beginning at 7 p.m. in Meeting Room A, the James Madison Room, Town Campus, 8 Campus Drive, Madison, Connecticut. This is a hybrid meeting, and attendees may also join via Zoom webinar through either the webinar link or call-in information. The webinar ID is 915-915-9500. eight one nine six six seven three five and the passcode is four five two one three eight dial in number is one six four six five five eight eight six five six the following applications will be heard number 26-26 boston post road u.s route one madison center project phase three Zone D district applicant is the town of Madison. This is a major downtown village district alteration for road pedestrian and landscape improvements along the Boston post road in the downtown area as part of the originally approved Madison center project. Application number 26-27, Boston Post Road, U.S. Route 1, Britton Lane, and West Wharf Road, zones R1 and R2. The applicant is the Town of Madison, Major Downtown Village District, alteration for pedestrian improvements, including sidewalks and crosswalks on Boston Post Road, U.S. Route 1, Britton Lane, and West Wharf. application number 26-29 plus a coastal site plan mill road map 42 lot 3 zone r1 owners swpg river road llc coastal site plan application and special exception application pursuant to section 4.4 l and 4.12 uh 12 excuse me small single-family cluster developments to construct a development of 18 detached single-family residences, a private road, and associated site improvements for access, utilities, subsurface sewage disposal systems, and stormwater management system. Copies of these applications are available for inspection in the Land Use Office. Further details on how to participate in the webinar are posted on the Town of Madison website, www.madisonct.org. All written correspondence can be submitted to the Land Use Department via email at landuseatmadisonct.org. Dial 203-245-5631 for assistance. Dated at Madison, Connecticut, this 27th day of July, 2026, Carol Snow Chair. This was published once in the source on August 6th and once on August 13th, 2026. Thank you, Erin.

We've received a request from the attorney for 26-29. special exception and coastal site and mill road that we will reorder tonight's agenda and open that public hearing first so he can provide a brief statement and then immediately request that the public hearing for 26-29 be continued to our September 17th, 2026 meeting. So first, could I have a motion that we restructure the agenda accordingly?

Thank you, Mike. Michelle, can we make further discussion about it?

All in favor?

Aye.

Vernon Jeff, yes?

Yes.

Okay, so could I have a motion then to open the public hearing for 26-29 plus seat, that's the coastal site then. No road map 42 lot 3 zone R1 owners as WPG river road, LLC, coastal site plan application and special exception application pursuant to sections 4.4 L and 4.12 small single family cluster developments to construct a development of 18 detached single family residences, private road. and associated improvements for access, utilities, subsurface, sewage disposal systems, and strong water management system. Could I have a motion? So moved. Thank you. That's from Bob Conner. I'm a second. I got my first. Any further discussion? All in favor? All right. So the public is open, and I'd like to invite the attorneys. Bernice.

Again, my turn.

You're welcome to have the microphone.

There's a microphone here.

You may not need it.

The actual room microphone is right there, but if it seems louder, it doesn't count. I'm going to transfer it.

Let, you know, good evening Madam chair commissioners. My name is Chris McKee and I'm an attorney live here in Madison at 31. I'm here tonight with my colleague and Co counsel. Marjorie Shansky on behalf of our client. The owner and applicant WPG river road LLC, whose principal is Bob. As you may know, Bob lives in Madison with his wife and daughter, and he is the founder of principal wealth partners of town business, which employs 30 people here in town. As you may also know, he recently developed and we were before you for a site plan approval for the building that he built at 48 Wall Street, which is the headquarters for his principal wealth partners business. In April of this year, Bob purchased the 5.548 acre parcel at the intersection of River and Mill Roads for the specific purpose of building a small cluster development, which is permitted by special exception under Section 4.12 of the Madison Zoning Regulations. He assembled a team of proven local professionals who have all, together with Bob, spent the last four months designing and engineering a truly beautiful community development of 18 new single-family homes, which comply with every requirement of Section 4.12 and the other applicable codes and standards and regulations. Mr. Paolucci is very excited about pursuing this project based on the clear and obvious need for this type of housing in Madison. He has noted that Madison is currently experiencing a 30-year low in available housing inventory. His numerous clients have frequently and repeatedly requested and expressed the desire for smaller, new, individual homes with reduced maintenance responsibility and cost. Like all of us, he has watched our residents who are aging and who wish to reduce the size of their homes and their maintenance and repair obligations leave for other towns and states because they have no options available in Madison. Bob's purpose in pursuing this project has been repeatedly recognized and embraced by this commission in its housing policy discussions, in its enactment of Section 412 back in 2013, and in the recent plan of conservation and development. One of only seven stated policies in the POCD is to diversify Madison's housing supply to meet the needs of households with a range of incomes, family size, and ages. Numerous town plan studies, workshops and forums have concluded what we all already know. There are simply not enough housing options in our town. Through this application and proposed project, Bob is taking action rather than just paying lip service to the problem. Yesterday, our team became aware of a group of neighbors that has plans to oppose the application and have hired an engineer to allegedly support the opposition. That engineer, who makes a living opposing development, has submitted a report. We are requesting a continuance of the public hearing to respond to yesterday's report and other correspondence from neighbors. Additionally, Mr. Paolucci needs time to reevaluate his plans for this property and to consider available alternative ways to pursue his goal of providing more housing opportunities for people in the town where he lives and works. Accordingly, we request that the public hearing be continued to the September 17th, 2026 regular meeting of the commission at 7 o'clock p.m. here in meeting room A, town campus, 8 Campus Drive, Madison, Connecticut at 7 o'clock p.m. Thank you.

Thank you. But I have a motion then to schedule to continue this hearing until September 17th. John Morgan 2nd, any further discussion on favor. And I want to thank everybody who came out tonight and also all your letters are red. So we really appreciate them. I'm sorry for the inconvenience. But I think actually this is kind of a dress rehearsal, so we'll have more chairs next time, or be in a bigger place.

Bigger room.

Thank you for coming and turning in. It was a great night. We didn't hear that. When is it being scheduled for? September 17th? September 17th.

September 17th.

Is there going to be a proposed change prior to that? I don't know. We'll find out.

It will be posted. application materials are available linked to agendas and the current links on all agendas now are are the applications online so as documents are added to that application they're visible okay to the public so you can continue to use your links

The regulations are, yes, there's not going to be further discussion about this application now that the hearing has been continued to September. So if you have questions. But as far as the process, no, the motion, the information comes in, it gets uploaded as soon as it's received. If you have questions about the public hearing process, I'm happy to answer those through a call in the office. Absolutely.

I just want to say it was very hard to find that application, and I had to call Land Use twice to figure out how to find the application, and she very kindly walked me through it, and I still couldn't access it.

We have a paper copy here in the office. You're welcome to come. All records are on file here in the Land Use office as well.

always call or contact Erin email or call if you have any issues with getting access to the land use email I have access to absolutely that reaches our department thanks

Public hearings.

If we have conversations, we could take them into the hallway or one of the other rooms as well.

Thank you.

All right. Next on our agenda is a continuation of the public hearing for 26-10, 397 Durham Road. Can I have a motion that we continue that? Okay. Michelle, any discussion on favor? That was, I'm sorry, just catch that.

That was John John motion. And then my second. Oh, John, Michelle, thank you. Hey, so I can get it for you.

Thank you for offering a seat in the crowd. I'm just going to close soon in that black situation.

Okay.

Plan up your revised site plan. Okay. Okay, great. Is this good enough?

I believe screen sharing is on this TV now. And I can.

Okay, so the last time I saw you guys about this, we had some suggestions about moving parking. And so we did manage to move the parking in here and take it that's uh you added some lighting uh they're bollards like a couple of parking areas here and then there was a grill area here that's moved over here just create a patio for it that's why it's a little further from the building so people have a lot of space i'm not getting all that poke from the grills um so that Those are all the changes we made there for your suggestion. I think they're good ideas. If that's good for you. And then the only thing, the other thing I might show is just the facade. Okay. The latest.

Were there any lighting changes you want to talk about?

The bollards. Yeah, we put bollards.

And you said you moved the parking because the last time you talked about parking and the walkway and lighting, making sure that we had safe passage for our residents.

Yeah, we had the parking over here, which is kind of far. It's true. And then you have to have a long walkway and more lighting so it's more efficient and closer to the building. So I thought that was reasonable. And we were able to work it in pretty easily.

In reading, I didn't see any changes to the impact on any of the areas surrounding the property, so we didn't move Anything else? So, none of the white lines or anything around it is impacted negatively. I saw something in the tree.

So, yeah, the tool tree is where the existing parking areas, the wetlands, Maria patel, our wetlands officer did meet with David to review the plans and and then say that that. relocation of the parking area is still within all of the limits of disturbance that were approved and can be modified as a field change. So it doesn't require a full return holding up this commission of approval.

Actually, with this plan, we might be able to save a few trees, especially this big tulip here. There might have been a couple other large trees that we'd have to take out, and now we don't have to touch them. So it's kind of nice in that way, too. And it leaves a better buffer between the road and the building, any other site changes.

Great, thank you. We said, do I grab things the last time?

Yeah, I just wanted to make sure everybody was comfortable with the site plan facade because I was the only changes. A couple of things I don't know what I showed you guys exactly, but.

The color samples and material samples here.

Even brought in a little mock up.

Aaron?

Hold on one second. Yes, John. The audio is very choppy. I think both Jeff and I are having the same issue. I don't know if anybody else on the call, but it's hard to understand. It's fading in and out.

Is there a David maybe slide this way over a little bit closer to the.

Yeah, you're welcome to set this on the table.

If anyone will share there.

Yeah, we can use the microphone.

So, yeah, that's just a little mock up with the science. That's fiber cement. Just covered the seams. And we just covered the seams with a little bit of the same materials. That's very subtle. And that would be the siding color. The windows are fiberglass. They have a limited color selection. I would have preferred a green. But I felt something darker with the contrast. So this isn't the black. It's a gray. But proportionately, that will be even thinner than the trim. And the actual trim will be thinner. Don and Jeff, can you hear this okay?

Yeah, it's improved. I'm going to screen share that rendering as well.

Okay, thanks. Yeah, the shingle color this year, that has a flat color in it that's Exactly the same. Almost exactly the same. And that was like the door color for the four entrance doors.

And ACCA approved all these, too. Yeah.

Finally had to. And yeah, I don't know what I showed you last time.

This is completely different.

Yeah, we did have a different microphone, please to David.

If he's on that, just because John and folks online will be able to hear.

I guess the biggest difference is, you know, the gable entry. I don't know if they have that. before it was sort of more of like a flat, shed-ish roof. So that just makes it look a little more standard. And then we added some lights to the doors just to have light to the entrance hall. And that's about it. The divided lights, when we're done, they might actually just come down to the center of the window. If I do single hung windows, it just works out better to bring into the divider strip. This works with casement windows, but casement windows are much more expensive. Is this on? Go closer. What's that? I have to be.

Is it on? Is it on? Pull the switch on.

Yeah.

Is it clean?

Yeah, it is. Okay. I hope everybody can hear me.

Yeah, either that or just walk.

Okay, so that's the only real change is the other elevations should be about the same.

The floor plans didn't change in any way.

Yeah, floor plans didn't change.

Yeah, it looks good.

Is this 2x4 or 2x6 construction?

Well, it would be two by six if I do it that way. I'm actually looking to do the walls anyway, maybe have structural insulated panels. I just always thought it's a much superior construction method. You have much more structural stability. The building doesn't move as much. It comes as a package with the insulation and everything already there. The roof would still be kind of a vented truss roof, just because of the cost of SIPs and structural elements for that. But it's very easy to add insulation into those if you design it and vent it properly. So, you know, in that area of the building, it's easy to insulate. So we're good.

Any other questions? Any other questions from commissioners? Jeff and John, any questions?

Not here, no. No, I'm all set.

Any questions from people in attendance? Where is this? Where is it? Yeah. The address, it's on Durham Road.

It's 397 Durham Road, so you know where the golf range was on Route 79. It's just north of that. There's a little old cottage there now that we can put this up.

And it looks like we have one hand raised online. Joseph?

Joseph P. Joseph, if you could identify yourself for the record.

Sure. Can you hear me?

Yes.

I'm Joe Piccirillo. I live at 421 Durham Road. So I live very close to the property, and my main concerns are the potential effects on the nearby homes from the shared patio, the exterior lighting, the additional activity, and the traffic. So I understand the patio is located on the south and southeast side of the proposed building. So I'd just like to know what screening, lighting controls, hours of use, or other safeguards are proposed to prevent noise and visible lighting from affecting the neighboring properties.

Well, yeah, the grill area is on the south side, so that's far away from any Part of the parking too would be shielded by the building. This grill area would be shielded by the building too. And there's, you know, quite a good separation of land trust property on the north side than neighbors. And on the south side, you have the old commercial building from the golf range will remain there. So there really shouldn't be that much. As far as the lighting, I'm just looking at bollard lights. So those are lights that are maybe three to four feet off the ground with a light on the top of a little post. So it's not going to be excessive area lighting. There might be a little bit of down lighting in the eaves, but also on the south side of the building where it wouldn't be that visible. to the neighbors. You know, there's a portico, so the portico probably have some lights and that would be it. That would be the recessed or surface mount in the ceiling in the portico. Let's see. And, you know, that's what we have.

Does that answer your questions?

It does. I appreciate it. Thank you very much. I think the one final question, just to double back on my initial query, just in terms of noise level and the particular concern for the shared patio where there might be parties or music playing, is there any sort of noise? How do you plan to address that in terms of hours of use?

Well, I mean, certainly if any neighbor has a problem with any kind of activity on my property, I'm happy to talk to you about it and, you know, address it person to person whenever, you know, anything should arise. So just contact me and we'll talk about it. And, you know, we see how we might address it. You know, adverse to that, you know, and I'd be sensitive to that as well. You know, I'm not going to, you know, necessarily allow people to have large parties, you know, many, many vehicles, what have you, because it is a. you know, multi-unit building. So they're going to be living with neighbors as well. So they'd be disruptive to each other, you know, on the same property. So that could cause tensions and conflicts amongst the tenants as well. So I certainly wouldn't be interested in encouraging those kinds of conflicts.

Thank you.

Yes. I apologize. Last time I was here. Could you say your name? My name is Laurie. You know, the last time I was here, we were talking about dog and cattle in the old ballpark.

Right.

This is that.

No, this is a totally separate application. Yes.

Shrink everything down. Are you connecting the two? This is a apartment pool?

Yeah, this is a separately deeded piece of property. So it's not on the old golf range property. It's another piece of property adjacent to where the golf range was. The dog activity application has been entirely withdrawn. So we are not pursuing that.

Okay, so now this little cottage or whatever that was there... Which was what? I don't know. 1,213, 1,400 square feet?

It was about 1,200 roughly.

And now you're replacing that with a...

Right.

Yeah, well, it's 1,200, so it's like 4,800 square feet.

So you're going to take a lot of the trees down. Yeah, so 40 by 60 buildings.

A lot of trees to clear the property.

Well, actually, yeah, there will be some tree removal, but we're going to try and keep it to a minimum, keep as many of the large trees as we can. And most of the new building is going to occupy the footprint of the existing building and some open area in front of it. So a lot of the tree, we will have to, most of the tree removal will be just to get the septic in, which is sort of unavoidable. But a lot of the trees we're removing for that are smaller trees.

I guess I'm just wondering, all of a sudden something small turns into a massive amount of trees and wildlife, habitat, vegetation again. Natural corridors for wildlife. There are towns that have natural resources inventory that really makes sense to do to find out how we as a community can live with wildlife. And I'm not blaming you and saying they're the problem. It's just a big concern that all these buildings and developments are happening. And we're really not necessarily taking that into consideration. We have a bigger system. We're trying to do this as well.

Yeah, very sympathetic to your arguments, you know, and I've done a lot to encourage that on my own property, actually converting the golf range from the golf range into the solar farm. From a hydrological point of view, from a wildlife habitat point of view, we recreated an extensive little wetland area there. If you'd like, I could set up an appointment to show you. You know, I'm very sympathetic to those kinds of things. And I, you know, really, you know, I'm on your side when it comes to that. But I think we need a balance. You know, we do need housing for people, you know, and some upgrades. And You know, there is a feasibility aspect to it, too. You know, this cottage is in very, very poor shape. So it's not something that is feasible to renovate and as a single-family structure. You know, the only way to make this viable is to have some kind of a multifamily structure, you know, do it as a commercial enterprise where, you know, it's rented out to somebody else.

Right. Right.

Well, of course. But that's, you know, the way to think about it.

So it is already established. And you would have taken down and put up a large building. So you wouldn't have to remove all the certain things.

Yeah. All right. Well.

David, would you like to just give a quick summary to how long this process has taken for this project? particular application?

Yeah, well, I've been at it for quite a while, actually, just because I started...

It's not a sudden new thing.

Yeah, I started working on just the septic engineering took a year. And so, you know, that was an issue that took a while with a few different visits with excavators and doing the soil tests and getting through the engineers and that. Some meetings coming here. True, I've been distracted myself, not always focused on the things that I do. But, um, you know, I'm hoping now that I can put some more focus into it once I've added it through here.

And so after this process, then D comes in for environmental protection is that standard?

This application has already been reviewed locally, does not require state permitting from DEP local jurisdiction for inland wetlands and permits have been issued by the agency already.

Thank you. Joseph, he has his hand raised still. I don't know. If that's still up there, do you have another comment?

Joseph?

I do and I appreciate everyone's consideration for this. I just wanted to follow up briefly on the question about the patio since there doesn't appear to be a defined restriction on the use of the shared patio. I would ask the commission to consider as any condition of approval, reasonable hours of use for the outdoor patio and appropriate restrictions on the amplified music or any other activity that could create noise affecting the nearby residential properties. As he suggested during my previous question, it makes it a personal conversation between me or neighboring properties and him. And I think it should be more of a structured ordinance or something in that vein.

Thank you, thank you. Right, if there are no further questions that I have here.

Sorry, I didn't see you. I'm on Fairfield Rd. Kind of piggybacking off the question about trees. Doesn't seem as if. Was that taken into consideration? And the reason I'm asking you is, and their performance development is probably not far from here, pretty much just level on the . And it does have a significant impact. And so I can appreciate you said the process going on for a while, but are you taking consideration for this in any time?

David, do you want to respond to that?

I think his question is more for the commission.

Well, so the public hearing is about the application. I will just quickly say that to several points about natural resources inventories, I think we have that scheduled to happen in Madison. We have a tree advisory committee. Is it ad hoc committee? who are writing, you know, who are compiling information and making proposals. You know, as you may know, our regulations are undergoing revisions, and if we can add some of those, either through ordinance or through our regulations, some of the You know, proposals that are that are really good ones about at least identifying where the major trees are. So we know what we're working with and. You know, we can extend it, but right now we don't have that in our regulations and I don't think we have it in our ordinances. So we do the best we can with what we have. As far as our regulatory.

Yeah, 1 thing too. If you go back to the site. We did include a rain garden there to capture the roof run on it. So, you know, that is an enhancement for the environment. You know, and it's a pretty good size and we have a mixture of native plants in there that. It's a maintenance thing to keep the native plants viable. You have to. Expand some effort to keep the invasives out of it if you want a rain guard to continue to have that native characteristic here to it. So, really, we're doing our best, but at the same time, we need to have some kind of compromise. We can't stop all development. We do need some reasonable development. What attracted me about this too is that it's a small infill development. What people don't like, and I personally don't like, is what they did up here. They cut down all the trees. If you have smaller lots that can be redeveloped for somewhat denser development, instead of single-family homes, maybe two, three units, four units, five units, that are dispersed more broadly throughout the town, you actually have a better kind of aesthetic for the community. And, you know, more kind of integrated neighborhoods where everything blends in a little better. So, you know, it's sort of a model that I kind of support and I think is better than, you know, what you see happening where they're, you know, clearing large lots with existing forests. Okay, thank you.

Are there vacancies on the tree advisory committee? I would encourage everyone to get involved, if possible.

Well, I just mean just that. I mean, a tree ordinance. I've been in meetings before where many people said, why doesn't this town have a tree ordinance? My gentleman stood up and said, there's been like 150,000 trees taken down over the last 10 years. And I'm not saying you can be right.

We're going to move on and get back to this application. Thank you for your comments. i have a today but i have a motion to close the public hearing then and move to deliberation my second by paul's honor and he's really just gentlemen favor jeff and john you're with us yep yep we can take them right now since you don't need to present we can take the mic back yeah My thoughts, I think there's been a significant improvement from what we saw in the beginning of this project, and we really appreciate that. Down to the details of the trim, we appreciate ACCA's input, which is advisory, but I think they've made a difference too. Any other thoughts or comments?

Well, I think the environmental issues, right, those came up, I didn't consider them, but that was a year or even two ago when we approved the 4,800 square feet. So that, we crossed that bridge quite a while ago. And sure, it's a consideration. I think also the example down the road might influence that in the future, but it's there. On this, I mean, the question on this is the patio. Do we want to include any type of condition?

we can because we it's not within our traditions that would require an ordinance again another ordinance that we don't have violations i think it goes to the state level but usually the first step is contacting the owner or the landlord and trying to work it out one-on-one which is what

suggested to make a recommendation versus um a stimulation like we recommend that there be some sort of agreement in not inviting it's not binding on our problem it's a recommendation much like we recommend if you go back to aka and think about the design and the the siding and the roofing and the windows etc

Carol, this is John Morgan. There are existing noise ordinances. Those are in place. If there's a problem, then people need to either reach out to the owner or reach out to the police department. I'm not comfortable with trying to put in some sort of an ordinance. John, is there a noise ordinance?

There's not a noise ordinance in the town of Madison. There's construction hour restrictions as part of a building permit. But I think in this case, the commission should consider Other approvals of multi-family residential and whether or not. Noise restrictions were imposed. Okay.

That yeah, some of your guidance.

I feel comfortable not putting it in and encouraging people to. And then, you know, there are different levels, like, as I mentioned, there is a state ordinance. So I think it can sort of work its way up. If it gets out of hand that much, but I hope it doesn't.

I agree. It's no different than a . Yeah. Agreed.

All right. Whatever you play, you're welcome. Anybody else?

Could I have a motion, then, that we approve the application? And as per the draft provided, the staff recommendation is consideration.

Motion.

Thank you, Mike.

Are we ready?

Yes, just announce you. Let's get a 2nd. Then go ahead and read.

Following draft resolutions offered, the Medicine Planning and Zoning Commission approves application number 26-10, 397 Durham Road, Map 78, Block 16, Zone RU1. Owner, 397 Durham Apartments, LLC. Applicant, David Klein. Special exception applicant pursuant to Section 4.1. by 60 foot four unit of planning and associated site improvements, including driveway, parking, utility, subsurface, sewage disposal system, stormwater management system, they show them on the plan, site development plan, property, LC 397 Durham Road, Madison, Connecticut, prepared by Angus McDonald, Gary Sharpe and Associates, dated January 8th, 2025, revised to June 25th, 2026, in architectural floor plans, client apartments, 397 Durham Road, Madison, Connecticut, prepared by Craig A. Longberg, dated October 3rd, 2025, and into June 2nd, 2026, and incorporating Aga facade material and color recommendations with the following conditions. One, zoning enforcement officer be notified at least 48 hours prior to commencement of any regulated activity. Two, that all erosion and sedimentation controls be installed prior to any site disturbance and be maintained for the duration of construction activities until the site is sufficiently stabilized to the satisfaction of its own enforcement officer. The silt fencing and stockpile area shall be relocated to avoid construction impacts to the 42-inch tulip tree noted on the site development plan. All building and site lighting shall be dark sky friendly and not exceed 3000 K temperature.

Four, the existing gravel parking area on the northeast portion of the site shall be removed and reverted to natural vegetation.

Five, an as-built survey of all improvements, including stormwater system components, shall be submitted to the Zoning Enforcement Office. The submittal shall be completed prior to the issuance of a final certificate of zoning compliance. In the event that changes to the approved plans are required as a result of other agencies' infirmity to support proposed activity, Madison's Planning and Zoning Commission reserves the right to continue with said changes that may require modification of this approval. This approval is made based upon the body and the proposed use and permitted use for Section 4.1.135 of Appendix 1, and that the standards, prerequisites, and conditions specified by the regulations have been met. Public convenience and welfare will be substantially served Any appropriate use of neighboring properties will not be substantially or permanently injured. Effective basis approval September 3rd, 2026. Thank you, Mike. Any further discussion?

All in favor of the approval?

We are done. We're good. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you, David.

Take care.

Next on the agenda, we have 26-26, Boston Post Road, U.S. Route 1, Madison Center, project phase 3. So, D-District, applicant, Hamlet, Madison, major downtown village, for road, pedestrian, and landscape improvements along the Boston Post Road in the downtown area as part of the original project. I have a motion to open the public hearing for this application. Mike Pogda, second. Bill, any discussion? All in favor?

All in favor? Second. I invite I'm just transferring our town engineer Rob Russo and his team at SLR over here. Okay, great.

Just double check wrong.

Rob, do we have everyone from your team? Paul?

It should be Paul. Paul, do you have anybody else joining?

I believe Joe is on the call, just in case if something comes up regarding landscaping.

Which Joe?

And Alexi Callagher.

Oh, Callagher. Yep, I got it. I can promote just in case.

Jeff and John, is the sound coming through okay for the Zoom attendees?

Yes. Yes, it is.

Great.

Okay, Joe's coming over too. And you're going to screen share, Rob? Yes.

Okay. Okay, whenever you're, everyone, everyone ready?

Yes, we're ready, thanks.

Okay, well, good evening. My name is Rob Russo. I'm the town engineer here in Madison. I'm here to present the Madison Downtown Center Phase 3 project. With me this evening is our consulting engineers from SLR, Paul DiStefano, Alexi, and I think Joe Kelleher is on, right, Paul? Yep. So basically, as those of you who are aware, we've been in town for a number of years where this project basically constitutes finishing the remaining third of the downtown center project. This was originally approved by Planning and Zoning over a decade ago. It was constructed over a decade ago when the bids went out originally. You know, due to the high cost of materials and labor at that time, the town didn't have funding. So we went with the selected low bidder, the qualified low bidder, and it was valued engineered. And the value engineering basically got us the two thirds of the street that you see today with the big brick paver sidewalk. decorative street lighting, the median, you know, essentially stopping on the north side of the firehouse and on the south side up to Henny Penny. A few years back, approximately two years ago, we received additional funding through steep grant and transit oriented development TOD grant. Those two grants with some additional town funding is pretty much getting us to the finish line and allowing us to construct this long overdue remaining third of the project. Basically, the plans I'm going to show in a moment are basically consistent with the... are consistent with the original plan and the original approval. There are two changes that are being made that I'd like to specifically review and I have SLR here on for any technical questions you may have. So without any further ado, let me share the current plans. Does everyone have that?

Yes.

Okay. So basically, Amigo, let me start at sheet two to see what we have done already. So let's start at that. So basically, this is the post office and Walker-Lowden building on the south side. So all of this moving west was completed as part of the prior phase of this all the way to the firehouse here, which is currently actually under construction. And then this is the... Hathaway, but here's the Henny Penny blot right here. So basically our project is essentially just the continuation of this. We'll be continuing the median. We'll have a flush paver median in front of the firehouse for obvious reasons. The fire department needs to be able to gain access to either direction east or west or east. Then we'll have a raised median here. that'll be planted with landscaping irrigation. And then we have another flush paper median here. And again, that was at the direction of the fire North Madison, I mean, not North Madison, Madison Host Company fire chief, because just in case there's a queue of cars here, the fire department has the ability to kind of jump this island and cross through the intersection. Pretty much though, the rest of the improvements to the west to Durham Road and to Meigs here are consistent with the prior plan, continuing the brick paper sidewalk. We have landscaping, street trees in each of these islands here. The decorative street lighting that you see out there today is gonna be continued. The island arrangement that you see here is essentially A, what was approved over a decade ago and essentially mimics what's out there today, except instead of it being either flush brick paver median or raised median, planted median here. Right now, it's currently two double yellow center lines in these approximate shapes, pretty much. If you go out there today, that's basically what it is. So that's pretty much it. This is pretty simple. It's just a continuation of what, you know, what could not be achieved a little bit over a decade ago. But I would like to call your attention to two somewhat significant changes that we're making here. The first one is in the middle of the street. Right now, in the center median, we have these brick refuge areas. I'm sure most of you have seen them. There are these brick areas in the median here with intermittent landscaping between them. You know, the town feels that, you know, over the past decade, it's become a little bit too much with pedestrians walking out of their car and then crossing right in the middle of the street, hitting these areas, especially with the vegetation and cars coming from either direction. We felt, in coordination with the chief of police, thought the mid-block crossing here is a safer and more appropriate crossing, especially at the location that it is. It's generally mid-block from the majority of the businesses. And this will be an MUTCD-compliant crosswalk. The crosswalk will be the same decorative paver design that we have at this end. And then in the next phase, we're going to do The next intersection we're going to do the same kind of decorative crosswalk over here with the brick pavers. So this mid-block crossing is a new substantial piece of the project that was not included in the original plan set. The other sort of change we're making here is the Tuxes Pond Walkway. We noticed that when the original bid came back, it was an alternate to do this sort of decorative entrance to the Tuxes Pond Walkway. A few years back, right around COVID, we redid the Tuxes Pond Walkway with the new step lighting, new cable railing. And we have that little pocket park on the north side, which I think it looks beautiful, honestly. But that being said, this area here, when we were looking at this, the alternate was very significant in cost. And there was a high amount of, it was, in my opinion, a little bit overly landscaped and requires a high amount of continuance maintenance. And if we're not able to keep that maintenance, I feel like this area could kind of go by the wayside pretty quickly and not look as nice as it should, especially an entrance to something so nice as the Texas Pond Walkway. Also, the original design included having to procure an easement from Cumberland Farms. which is, again, a conversation we haven't had yet and also really unnecessary. I think the 10-foot-wide easement that already exists and recorded is more than enough room to broaden some nice options and an entryway to the walkway. So that's pretty much a summary of the project, is the extension of basically status quo, what's out there to the intersection here, with some improvements to the mid-block crossing and the Tuxes Pond walkway. entryway now before i open this up to questions the tuxes pound walkway we do have some sketches that were that slr had completed um that were discussed at the academy the other night and i'd like to have joe from um slr just kind of briefly kind of discuss these these few sketches here uh sure hi this is joe kelleher at slr everyone hear me okay

Yes, thanks.

Okay. So, yeah, as Rob mentioned, we just met with ACCA on Tuesday night and discussed this. We got their blessing. And what this is, is... basically a continuation of of the the downtown brick walkway it would be seven feet wide and you can see in the little the plan view at the bottom of the page there kind of shows the the walkway this is basically just kind of like a typical section so the the walkway itself is much longer than this but this just kind of shows the um the the typical situation and it's when we when we go with like a seven foot walkway which we want to do we're really only left with um about two and a half feet um that's currently out there And so we've we've come up with this fence design that was, you know, part of an earlier conversation where people had kind of preferred. I know it's really it's a little small on my screen, but there's an image on the top right of the page. That kind of shows like a raised lattice panel fence. This is probably at a more residential setting. But that was kind of an option, an earlier option that we presented that people liked. And the reasoning for it was interesting. It kind of allowed us to get some plantings in a narrow space because if we just did a fence right down to the ground, we were really just going to be left with, you know, a foot or a foot or six inches to do plantings. And we didn't feel that was necessary. really substantial enough. So by kind of lifting the fence off the ground a little bit, allowed us to do some nice decorative plantings below. And so what you can kind of see here is that the fence would be a total of six feet high. And it would use like a lattice panel that would have really kind of small openings. We're proposing like a one inch by one inch grid. And this would be painted white and have some nice decorative post caps on it. and then planted below this lattice fence we have a gem box inkberry which is it kind of mimics a boxwood but it doesn't have any of the disease or maintenance problems and it's also a you know a native plant and then in front of that Inkberry were proposing a variegated liriope. It's just kind of to get a little color in there, a little bit of a different texture. It does get a nice little purple flower. And so we just felt that this would be a nice decorative treatment for that area. I think the previous design, like Rob said, was a little over-designed. It was a lot more modern. And it was a bit maintenance heavy. These plants are all easy, low maintenance plants. They don't get very big and we feel they're appropriate for the space. And then the last thing I'll note on here is there'd be some bollard lighting. You can kind of see them, they're kind of ghosted in there, but those would match the bollards that are at the other Tunxis Pond site that Rob was mentioning. And those are spaced, I think, approximately 20 or 22 feet on center. And then finally, the fence would kind of slope down from six feet down to four feet where it meets Main Street and just a little bit more of a pedestrian scale. And I think we came up with a nice solution. Again, ACCA really liked this, and that's the proposed plan that we have.

Thanks. Thanks, Joe. Um, and then again, so just a couple of sketches for the sake of time, you know, we have some additional landscaping and some trees that are being, other than the tree trees that are being installed, um, you know, at the majority of those islands there, uh, as well as the, uh, grass and plantings in that center median there. We also have these two little pockets where we're going to do some landscaping with these two trees and some of these additional plantings. This is right at the intersection where the new traffic signal is going to go at Durham Road and Boston Post Road. Also at the entry to that Texas Pond walkway, the island that's in Cumberland Farms, we're going to speak with them about improving that little island there and adding some additional plantings in there as well. Again, nothing super critical in here. Just, again, making it look nice. This is an aesthetic project, especially with the decorative streetlights and the brick pavers and the granite curving. We just want everything to look great and match the intent of the original design. And then lastly, you know, this is something I want to bring up, and this is something that's come up in the past few weeks, is in front of the Arrow Dome building there, part of the original design included these small, low-growth plantings. And then over time, these plantings have kind of deteriorated for whatever reason, and they've remained vacant for a while. And now there's this river stone in there kind of to just, you know, prevent any type of hazards. But we had SLR kind of look at this, and I'll chime Joe back in. Right now, we just have a couple options for this frontage of Aerodome that we may or may not incorporate. But I know ACCO is particularly excited about option one. But yeah, Joe, if you could just briefly just go through these two options real quick.

Sure. Okay. um so yeah the the option that i think um everyone was you know preferred um i i kind of personally prefer a little bit is the the monolithic granite seat wall so uh again it's kind of small but if you look at the existing um condition out there in conjunction with the image that's on the right showing the granite seat wall what what we're proposing to do is kind of remove the plantings that are there and replace it with a monolithic granite seat wall. What that is, is it's the same material as the granite curbing that's out there. And so it would coordinate very well with the materials that you see out there. And what it really does is allows the grade change that's happening. So where the sidewalk kind of abuts the curb, you're at a lower level than the, the entrance into steamed. And right now there's basically one step from the lower sidewalk up to the higher sidewalk. And then it kind of ramps around the backside and that's where, um, they've introduced that planting. And we were, um, Once we removed it, we were a little worried that if we did something just lush and low, that we didn't want to create kind of a tripping hazard where that change in grade happens from the higher level to the lower level. And if someone's not paying attention and there's nothing substantial in their way, you could easily kind of, you know, step in the wrong space. And we really wanted to try to avoid that. So we tried... This granite seat wall option would really kind of make it a really nice feature because it'd be a place to sit and wait for friends or, you know, just... decorative or aesthetically would look very nice and we'd maintain that brick step that's currently at the the center of that strip so you'd have a brick step in the middle and then on the left side on the right side you'd have this monolithic granite seat wall again you could sit on it And most importantly, it would allow that that grade change to happen with the higher level behind it where it meets the business and then the lower level in front of it where it meets the curve. And then just lastly, I'll touch on the other option that we did present, which is on the right. And that's. we were just calling like a mortared river stone bank. Again, it was a way to make the transition. You can kind of see from the image there, it was a way to make the transition from the higher level to the lower level. We would use like a decorative beach stone or river stone and then mortar them in place so that they don't wash out or go anywhere. So that still is a viable option that you could have the, you know, brick step remain in the middle. You could have these mortared riverstone banks to the left and the right. That is potentially still up if someone, you know, preferred that. But I think most people were more excited about the granite seat wall option. Yeah.

All right, thanks, Joe. So yeah, that's pretty much it. Again, there's mostly a continuation, but if there's any questions, definitely open to anything.

I have a few questions. Going back to the fence at the entryway to the Texas Pond walkway, how far in does that fence go toward Texas Pond?

Hold on, let me share that. Oh, sorry. That goes all the way. It's going to go all the way from basically the beginning of where, if you line up the beginning of the firehouse, it's going to go from that point all the way to the actual wood railing at the way the walkway starts.

Okay. I can't see. How many feet is that approximately? I'm just curious. Okay.

I feel like it might be around 120, but Paul might know better. I would think about 120 feet.

Now, my other question was about the aerodrome. I'm glad you brought that up. I'm glad you're looking at it. Why is that change in grade even there? I mean, none of us were on the commission 10 years ago or whenever that decision was made, but what is it?

Mike Nygren, Truthfully, I was not involved either so it's very hard for for for myself to comment, my only assumption is that, like the to maintain Ada compliance. Mike Nygren, And the building elevation the finished floor of the building is is relatively high compared to the neighboring buildings and then there's the roadway grade is what it is, and I think they need to maintain. an ADA compliant access to the building. That's my best guess. But again, I can't truly speak to it. I was not involved way back when.

I have to say I've tripped on it. Yeah. And I've been walking there thinking, what the heck is this here for? If it's a ramp for access, obviously that's great. But it just seemed like a kind of strange solution. But I guess we're stuck with it.

I had a question. You said you were going to remove the bricks and the median on Boston Post Road? The little stepping bricks?

I'm sorry, where are you talking? Where on Boston Post Road? You talked about the little stepping bricks that are in between the medians now.

The areas of refuge.

The refuge, yeah, the refuge spots.

Yeah, we're going to be removing those.

Right. So is there anything else you can do to prevent people from jumping across anyway? I mean, they're going to still do it, right?

Yeah, well, yeah. So we are going to remove those and we are going to add additional landscaping to kind of fill those gaps. We're not going to leave the gap. We're going to fill in, I mean, whether we could find... you know it's tricky trying to find you want to make it a little bit denser but you also don't want plantings where they grow over into the road which we've had that condition a few times and we've had to remove those plantings um so but we could look at certainly some plantings that can help prevent almost like a natural barrier but the truthfully if if people really want to get through they're going to get through yeah

Thanks. Carol, John Morgan, I have a question.

Are we still three lanes westbound at the 79-1 intersection?

Yeah, Paul, do you want to take that one?

Yes, but you don't have the, is that the full plan set, Rob, or is it just a small?

Yeah, I'm just going to try to find that page.

Yeah, just to show the pavement marking page. Usually down. Yeah, you could use that too. That's fine too.

All right.

There we go. Yeah, there you go. That shows the left turn, right turn.

Okay, great. Thank you. What page is that? I couldn't find that.

I think that's the index plan there, but there are signing and payment marking plans. There should be SPM all one towards the end.

That looks like it's at the end. Oh, here it is. There you go.

Okay, perfect. Thank you.

You're welcome.

You're welcome.

Yeah, so you're planning on extending the median all the way out, correct? Is that what I'm looking at?

It's going to be extended down, so it looks like it will be... Let me go back to the... Yeah, so basically this is where the median currently stops, or plus-minus. We're going to put like a nose on it right now. And then from that point on, it'll be a flush paver median. So essentially it'll be flush with grade. You could essentially drive over it very similar to what it is now. And again, this is for fire department access to be able to come out of the firehouse and head eastbound. So that'll be the situation until you get almost basically to the Tuxes Pond walkway. And at the Tuxes Pond walkway, We'll have this median here, which again will be a raised median with plantings and this will be irrigated. And then back to at the intersection here, it'll be back to a flush paver median. And this island here and this island here, it's basically near identical to what's out there now, except this will be flush paver median and this will be a raised planted median instead of, you know, double yellow center lines that are out there now.

Would it prevent anybody coming east on Post Road from being able to turn into Cumberland Farms and then coming west on Post Road from being able to turn in and out of Henny Penny? Wouldn't it create kind of like forcing you to go in that direction?

Well, technically you should be doing that now, so I don't know if I want to admit that. It's an illegal turn right now. Just because you could physically make the turn doesn't mean you're supposed to be making the turn.

It's double yellow right now if I'm coming east on Post Road trying to turn into Cumberland Farms. It's a double yellow. I can cross there. You're essentially going to be taking out people's ability to cross that road and turn into those respective gas stations. They're coming the opposite direction, right?

right yeah you can't you can't but again my point is is you're not supposed to be crossing double yellow centers either but yes physically there will be a barrier now where you can't do that so so for traffic pattern then if if as you're saying and if i'm coming east going towards the library i cannot make the left turn into cumberland barns i have to go all the way down past the library

Yes, you can make it. It's literally exactly what it is right now.

No, it's a double yellow, right?

It's just if you need to travel, these vehicles do not cross over the raised landscape. That's correct. But what you can envision is the raised landscape bed being extended.

That was always part of the intent of this project from traffic improvements and pedestrian walkability.

That that was not a change from the original to some environment adults.

So that'll that'll raise up, but then it'll get down and be flushed so that fire trucks can get in and out. So what's to prevent people from doing a little me there.

More enforcement. Any other question same as now.

Any other questions from commissioners? We have 3, any questions here? Yes, all right.

71 pops road. I just want to say, I'm, I'm thrilled that you're taking out those. Would you say refuge areas on the current? Yeah, because I always thought they just promoted jaywalking and also then. So people with certain disabilities didn't also have the privilege of jaywalking. But along those lines, I would just ask that the area on the south side sidewalk that you were talking about earlier with the differing grade to just ensure that each Flat area, either top part or bottom part or the other side of the, on either side of the. Sprint model with all. Um, is wide enough to accommodate people with mobility case and also keeping in mind that that. Maybe made narrower by people sitting on that seat. And so maybe it does need to be a little bit quiet. I don't know how wide it is right now.

No, absolutely. That's a great point. And we will certainly accommodate that in the design.

Thank you.

Yes.

I'm very confused about the lattice fence.

Can I have your name again? I'm confused about where the lattice fence is going. If it's north of the firehouse. 120, I just, where is I can't visualize. A lot of sense.

Well, it's along the driveway access to the back of the firehouse.

We're going into the walkway that leading.

Yes, the Texas. It's a physical division between the walkway to Texas pond. And the driveway access.

To the fire. That's necessary. Yeah, hang on. I think I could share this. So, yeah, it'll be basically, you know, here's the beloved combis. And then here's this entranceway here. You know that obviously doesn't look too hot right now and that's what we're trying to improve and also going back to the ADA accessibility question in front of aerodrome building, make sure we maintain that. Redoing the Texas pond walkway. Oh, perfect. You know this this grade here from, you know, as you can see, there's still some utility cuts from the prior phases. We'll be able to kind of regrade this where you'll get ADA compliant sort of grade up to, let's see, there's the entryway to the walkway. So basically that's the length of the fence is basically from this corner down here all the way to basically kind of where this make-believe hydrant is. That's not a real hydrant, by the way. Yeah.

And all of that is for neighbors now. It's going to be a whole new walkway. Correct. Correct. That'll be much better. And so are trees also being taken down, the old trees, but the new ones not?

No, so I don't think, Paul, there's no trees being taken. In fact, I think this is a project where there's nothing being taken down. I think we're adding significant landscaping and trees as part of this.

yeah i mean if you go back to that street view rob i don't know if you still have it up uh if if anything it might be some um overhanging branches or something we're not taking anything significant down we're actually yeah it's like overhanging branches from the trees over near coma and farms yeah yeah that tree stays yeah some of those branches will obviously have to be trimmed and then um We're not touching any. There's actually a significant tree near the new mid-block crosswalk that's being proposed, which we are not affecting either down in the previously completed part of the project.

Yeah, let's cut that off before that picks up traction. We are going to take every precaution to not even sniff the roots of this tree. We are going to make sure this will not be touched. I know that's going to come up in a question or an email this week.

I think it's also too important just to note that, you know, the state of Connecticut has also reviewed these plans in conjunction with the traffic signal, new traffic signal they're putting up at the Durham Road intersection. So they have reviewed these. They've provided us comments. So they're very much in line with the improvements being made on Boston Post Road.

And is there anywhere where we are paying more attention to Boston Post Road?

So, yeah, I'm sorry, I didn't get the cost of the project.

I'm not not necessarily review of this budget. Okay.

But what you find it as part of the budget that's already posted. So, it wouldn't be part of our discussions.

Yeah.

This should be online.

Oh, sorry. 1 more question. Yeah. I think you're going against human nature. Could you give us your name? Sorry, Katherine Ferguson, 11 West Wall. I think you're going against human nature. People are going to cross the road, and we know that they do. If you look at Deep River, they've got lots of crosswalks, unbelievable number of people still cross the road. The other thing with that central reservation is that it dips down. goes up again because there's concrete and it's really horrible trying to to get over that kind of place and go up again and we're all going to do it. So I don't understand it. They do things a lot better in Old Saybrook. that do use the crosswalks and the bounties are lower. I think the bounties are more attractive on the same road. So I would actually ask you to go down there and have a look at it. You might also want to go to the river and see how bad those are.

Thank you. We have two questions from people attending via Zoom. Great, yeah.

Betsy and Tom Meehan, if you can identify yourselves for the record.

You'll have to unmute. You're still muted.

Betsy and Tom.

Okay, we go to the next person.

Yeah, we can give them a minute to. Figure out the microphone just Joseph. Can you identify yourself just. Or did I click Fran?

You kicked me.

You bumped first in line. Okay, Fran, can you identify yourself then, please?

I shall. Fran Brady, 108 Genesee Lane, North Madison. The co-founder of Mad for Trees. And that's who I'm talking about. I'm talking about Fran Brady here. I'm also a member of the Tree Advisory Committee. Just wanted to say a simple statement of appreciation to Rob Russo and his team. I am so grateful to hear that native trees are being considered as opposed to the non-natives that have not done so well during that first phase of this project. Using native trees will follow in the successful footsteps of our neighbor Guilford. And one more request, as you're installing that wonderful fence toward Tux's Pond, could you also please remove all the tree of heaven that surrounds Tux's Pond and the walkway so that we can stop having spotted lanternfly attacks? flood our our our facebook pages with people concerned because it is a concern it's a valid concern um but it's uh right now they're feasting across all parts of our town thank you thank you thank you we have jessica okay jess sorry about that oh that's quite all right can you hear me

Yes, fantastic. This is just Joseph 129 Green Hill road, Madison, and also a member of the bicycle pedestrian advisory committee. And just wanted to 1st, thank everyone in the room and. P and Z members that. that have to do this way more than I realized and appreciate your volunteer and your commitment to our child. And I just want to echo what Fran said, the big shout out to Mr. Russo, Mr. Kelleher, and the staff there for preserving, saving, and planting native trees and shrubbery and making our town more walkable and safeable. Safe walking and biking. Sorry, it's also bedtime over here. So that was it. I'm very in support. I love this progression and really grateful. Thank you.

Any other questions?

No more online, but they're answered here.

Kit Wilcox, 485 Warmest Road. Long-time listener, first-time caller. Just have a curiosity in regards to the Texas walkway and such. Is there a reason it does not necessarily connect all the way to the parking area behind the movie theater, post office, etc. ? given that it sort of just stops right there near the firehouse, as it were, in that direction, then kind of circles around, but also sort of stops shortly after you get past CBS's parking lot and such, and being able to kind of connect another walkway back there since the topic happens to be up. And I didn't know if there was a reason that it just sort of is so abrupt.

Yeah, so basically that's all private. To get to the movie theater, that end of the street, that's all private property. You would need easements across all those properties. You know, the crossing across Cumberland Farms and then, man, I'm ashamed I don't remember the property owner's name because he's such a great guy. But the owner of where the Verizon and Webster Bank, that property is, When we were doing the walkway, we were in close contact with them, and that actually goes over private property as well. So currently, there are easements that go over both those properties that were obtained back in the 90s, 96, 95, when this was first done. So to extend this across over other private properties, those of you who are familiar with our downtown center utility project, procuring the easements for the utility services was quite the adventure to say the least. So yeah, it's very, very difficult to put like town amenities through private properties. Thank you.

Okay, if there are no other questions. I thought you should put your hand online. No, it wasn't online. It was in the room. Um, can I have a motion then that we close the public hearing and move to deliberation in a 2nd, 2nd, 2nd session on favor. So, the public hearing is now closed. We'll talk about it. I think it looks great. Will we complain about it? Yes.

Right.

And I know is that. As a biker, you know, that long strip down through the middle of town has always been a problem. You know, when you look for it, you look for, like, where is the best place I can cut through? And to the woman who said, it's human nature. Yeah, I'm one of those. Maybe we all are. So we'll just see how it goes. But I think I don't know who that's got in the middle. Or she's a woman.

A quick comment is that, you know, the Texas walkway, a lot of people don't know it exists. And that fence will tend to say, well, it's an introduction, too, and it will point it out. So, great.

I think it's going to make it look so much nicer, because, I mean, you're, like, so beautiful down here, and then it's, like, John Morgan?

Yeah, Carol, John Morgan. The, oh my gosh, I lost the question. Do we need to make a recommendation for the monolithic granite versus the river stone? Or is that already set?

In your conditions? You can, yes. You can absolutely weigh in on what materials you want.

Do we need to? Is it already set to be the monolithic granite?

No, both options were presented to ACCA. ACCA made their recommendation to be the granite sitting wall. Yes, that was their recommendation.

I didn't hear that. Do we decide? Or is it a recommendation we make? Who decides on the design?

You can make a finding with your approval.

Yes, I would go with the structure that. Yeah, because I agree. I mean, I'm sure for myself.

All the festival on them. Yeah.

Yeah, I'm going to bring a little bit. Look, yeah, that is a condition and.

Have we done a traffic study or thought through the extension of the median at all? Have you guys done a traffic study on that?

You can't ask any more questions. Okay.

Yeah. I think they did the traffic study when they looked to redo the traffic lights.

It makes sense.

Thank you.

Okay. We have a staff recommendation for approval, draft. So can I have a motion to approve? Motion to approve. Michelle, thank you. And second, John Morgan. Do you want to go ahead and read? John, do you want to read the resolution?

I don't have it printed out. Michelle can do it.

The following draft resolution is offered under the Madison Planning and Zoning Commission approves, application 26-26, Boston Post Road, U.S. Route 1, Madison Center Project Phase 3, Zone D District. Applicant Town of Madison, Major Downtown Village District. Alteration for road, pedestrian, and landscape improvements along the Boston Post Road in the downtown area is part of the originally approved Madison Center project, as shown on a plan set. Madison Downtown Center Phase 3, prepared by SLO Consulting, dated April 25, 2021. One, that the zoning enforcement officer be notified of this full meet hour prior to the commencement of any regulated activity. Two, that all erosion and sedimentation controls be installed prior to any site disturbance and be maintained for the duration of construction activities and until the site is sufficiently stabilized to the satisfaction of the zoning enforcement officer. Three, that any existing vegetation that is part of the originally instrumented Madison Center project continue to be maintained and trimmed to preserve the aesthetics of the streetscape. Any dead trees shall be replaced in a timely fashion.

And for, can we, I could suggest some draft language for you. The improvements in front of the aerodrome building shall include a monolithic granite sitting wall.

And then we support recommendation. Should we say that.

Supporting support a support recommendation. Okay.

And having taken the shipping. It was broken out there, you know, his nails. with the bum hand.

You have to continue. Yes. In the event that changes to the approved plans are required as a result of other agency permitting to support proposed activity, the Mass Planning and Zoning Commission reserves the right to review some changes and may require modification of the approval. This approval is made based upon the finding that the proposed project meets the design guidelines of the downtown village district and will further enhance the goal of maintaining the character and viability of the commercial downtown. The effective date of this approval is September 3, 2026. Thank you so much. Any further discussion? Erin, you got the condition in there? Yes, as supported by AFRA. Got it. One question. Can I ask a question? Discussion? Yes. Does the third condition take note of the discussion that we have regarding the preservation of that large tree? Yeah, that is a good question.

Should we note that? It's noted on the record, and I believe in the plans, if you'd like to have language in there. This is referring to our existing dead trees out along the

Smaller ones that were planted as part of existing street trees that have not been maintained.

I have dead branches and others that are dead and need to be replaced.

Yes, thank you. All right, I think we're good. All right, it's unanimous. Thank you everyone. next on our agenda i think it's the same team group the same team yes um this is 26-27 boston post road u.s route one britain lane and west war zones r1 and r2 applicant town of madison major downtown village district alteration of pedestrian improvements including sidewalks and crosswalks on the boston post road just route one britain lane and west fork could i have a motion And there was a second like a really discussion on favor open. Okay.

So, my name is Robert, so I'm the town engineer Madison. This is for the crosswalk sidewalk project here. This is started back in 2023. This is a lots of funded project through the state of Connecticut. So lots of local transportation capital improvement program. We had to go through the SCROG, which the acronym is South Central Regional Council of Governments. We went through our SCROG, which they ultimately approved the project and submitted it up to the CTDOT, which ultimately got us the lots of funding. So this is 100% state funded, as well as incidentals, construction, inspection, etc., um the project is also endorsed by the local traffic authority as as previously mentioned the d.o.t board of selectmen bicycle pedestrian advisory committee and it's consistent with the town's bike walk master plan complete streets policy and finally the plans uh town's plan of conservation and development um the project actually encompasses two areas of town um one area that's being permitted under this application and the other area the east end of town connecting sidewalks to all the businesses over by Lenny and Joe's, all those businesses down there, Salt Meadow Park, Hammond Asset Park. So that's one half of this project. The other half of the project is, and again, this is specifically identified in the town's bike walk master plan, is connecting ultimately the town green and ultimately downtown to the Madison Surf Club and to the Madison Beach areas, because there's really no real pedestrian access. And as noted in the town's plan of conservation development, creating these pedestrian interconnectivities is of vital importance. So basically, this basically connects the town green to the Surf Club Road. Surf Club Road is sort of due to its sort of the tidal wetlands there and its tidal influences. We did a demo project last summer. That's the conversation for another day. But this project for this application extends from the green to Surf Club Road. Basically, I'll go through the plans real quick and just kind of let you know where this section of the project, how this leads and what we intend on doing. And again, like the last project, you know, we'll open it up to any questions, design or anything else that you may have. So if you hang on me one sec, I'll just share my screen. Okay, so. I have a normal plan set that we had that, you know, we're at pretty much final design now. And it has all these different types of sheets. But for the sake of presentation purposes, I'm going to use the plan set that was prepared for the Historic District Commission. They're a little bit easier to understand with some of the colors and the rendering on here. So I'm going to start actually from the town green side here. This right here is the town green. Basically, there's the existing paver sidewalk network from the town green. We're going to connect to that network and head west across Copps Road to Britton Lane, stay along the north side of the road down this way, and ultimately terminate at Boston Post Road. As you can see here, I know it's a little difficult, so let me zoom in. I'll save this for the discussion because I know the tree is going to come up. But basically, you know, in order to create space for the sidewalk, in addition to creating a more geometric intersection, I think at some point in time, whether this sidewalk project happened or not, I think because of the high speeds that have traveled on Britain Lane here due to the poor geometry here, of the existing intersection, you know, cars basically fly down Britain Lane, you know, usually roll through the stop sign, or you have to look back almost over your shoulder to kind of look east. And again, this was in dire need of geometric improvement. So we're taking the opportunity here to make these geometric improvements to the intersection while installing the sidewalk. Actually, let me back up a little bit. I should note that one of the comments from the HDC, going back to, I think it was May or June, was this was originally proposed as concrete sidewalk. And they had made a great point that, you know, due to this being in the historic district and, you know, we're connecting to brick paver walk here, and you'll see that we're going to ultimately take this to Lantern Hill Road. I know I'm skipping a bit. We're going to actually move ahead and make this actually all brick pavers as well. We had a call earlier this week, you know, who actually gave us the idea. And we thought it was a great idea considering this paver walk coming down Lantern Hill Road. And we're going to be terminating brick pavers here. Kind of makes sense to finish off the north side and do these as brick pavers as well. So let me just back back up. Sorry. Back back up. Okay. Okay. So basically, we're going to continue, we're going to do these geometric improvements to the intersection here on Britton Lane, and then we're going to continue west along Boston Post Road. As we follow Boston Post Road, we're going to get closer to the road here. Obviously, we're all, everyone's pretty much aware of some of the grade challenges in this corridor here. We're going to be necking it down to from a five foot sidewalk to a four foot sidewalk to limit the disturbance that we need to do in this area. At approximately station 3850 here, we're going to need a very small two and a half to three foot retaining wall along the frontage here. um again we spoke with akka about this on tuesday uh i we could revisit this at the end of the presentation but this is kind of the the versa lock wall we're proposing and these are sort of the uh available colors um akka's sort of preference was the natural gray to kind of contrast the uh The kind of brick pavers that we're going to use. The intent is to kind of match the color and even the same paver, the Belden brick paver, if available, match the same paver as the downtown center to make the kind of area, our whole downtown sort of historic district look consistent. So, yeah, we're going to be heading west here, necking down to a four foot sidewalk, have this, you know, short retaining wall in here. And ultimately, the right of way is extremely wide in this area. So we're going to, you know, veer off and kind of meander heading west to ultimately terminating at Lantern Hill Road. You will have a crossing at Lantern Hill Road. And then we had a question the other night. Before I get to the crossing here, let me just start with this. We had a question from Aka. Why is this sort of 90 degree piece here and 90 degree piece here? Well, when DOT, this project originated as a mid-block crossing based on, you know, the chief of police and the local traffic authority have received a number of calls for this mid-block crossing, as well as over at Dudley Lane on the east end of town, about there's no safe way to cross from the north side to the south side. So the project started at its inception as just having these crosswalks. And then, you know, we thought having a way of means of ingress and egress to these crosswalks would make sense. And we started with a very small amount of sidewalk. And then the DOT came back when we applied for the lots of funding and proposed a expanding the sidewalk network. And one of their suggestions in those comments was adding, these two here are bus stops. So it allows people coming into town from the West or the East to get off at these stops and have the ability to A, access the town green in downtown, or have the access, the ability to head South down West Wharf and head towards surf club beaches, et cetera. So at this intersection, just like at Dudley Lane as the other part of this project, we're going to have the rapid rectangular flashing beacons, also known as RFBs. We're going to have them on each side of the street. So you could press the actuator on here. The lights will blink. Cars will slow down and stop. And then you'll be able to cross to the south side or north side and ultimately head down south on West Wharf. terminating at Surf Club Road. So that's pretty much it as far as this application goes with P&Z. We're looking, so just to, you know, recap, we're looking to go from the town green, which is here, west along the north side of the road, ultimately terminating at, you know, Lantern Hill intersection, and then having the ability to A, take the bus, or B, head south to West Wolf Road and continue on to your destination. Again, this design was noted as an area of significance in our Bike Walkmaster plan, providing pedestrian interconnectivity. And, you know, so that in combination with the request the local traffic authority got with providing these crossings, we were able to make a pretty nice pedestrian improvement project out of that. And also in conjunction with the improvements happening on the east end. So that's pretty much it. Any questions, feel free to address myself or any of our design team at SLR.

BQS West Fork?

Yes. We don't have that in the rendering, but I can bring up my normal set of plans here.

This is part of the application. It comes to portion. So similar to the historic district, it ends even with the property line of the parcel on the east side, on the corner of West Wharf.

So I think it's

The historic district, I think, ends at this parcel right here, somewhere over here. The village district.

The sidewalk will go all the way down. However, the DVD, the village district runs concurrently with the historic district.

The only reason you're seeing this is because this is an application. Portions of this project fall within the What's that? What's your timeline?

Rob, when is this project? What's your timeline?

Well, with this project as well as the downtown center, I might as well just revisit that one. Both of these, we're hoping to, you know, this is the last local permit that we have, and then we'll be sending these up to DOT for their final district approval. And if all goes well, we'd like to get this out to bid. late fall, early winter for a spring construction start time. Paul, does that sound good to you?

Yeah, Rob, that's spot on. I mean, obviously, depending on Connecticut Department of Transportation, their final review, final blessing, our goal is to get this into construction spring of 2027. That's great.

We're going to see if any other commissioners have questions and.

So, just to make sure I understand that this project that we're discussing today is the sidewalk is ending where we saw the village district. Right? And what about the rest of the going all the way down the circle?

No, it does go all the way down to Surf Club Road. The Village District itself does not extend all the way down to Surf Club Road, but the sidewalk is proposed to go the entire length of the Country Club. That is the overall. Yeah, Rob, do you just have an aerial of that again that you could pull up?

Oh, yeah.

Let me share that.

Rob, John Morgan, that would be pavers all the way down? No, so basically...

I wish I had a hole. So basically from... Let me zoom in a little bit here. So from the town green here all the way on the north side to this bus stop would be the brick pavers matching the downtown center. And then once you cross the intersection here... uh we would this would be five foot wide concrete sidewalk for the length of west wharf all the way down to surf club road okay so yeah you're going from here it goes down west wharf road and then all the way to basically that crosswalk, the gulf.

Yes. Carol, I have a question. This is Jeff Towns. Have you talked to the country club about having a sidewalk right along their first fairway there, and if there's any concerns about safety with people walking that?

Yeah, so we've spoken to them a number of times. We actually have another meeting with them coming up. We're trying to schedule another date. There's another few things that we'd like to discuss. But, yeah, we have spoken to them about that, and they've expressed their concerns about the errant golf balls. But, again, if you go out there today, you know, you see people walking up and down West Wharf now. So having them off the road on a sidewalk, you know, it's not – the golf balls – don't seem to be that much of a deterrent. And to me, getting the people off the road and onto the sidewalk is still safer than people walking on the street. I mean, I have a son going to Daniel Ann High School and a daughter in Polson. I see kids their age, 14, 13, 12, on their bikes, the scooters, on foot, traveling up and down there every day. I know I'd feel safer with them off the road and on a sidewalk, regardless of whether golf balls hit or not.

Okay.

Thanks, Jeff. John, did you have a question? Yeah. Rob, the flashing crossing lights are only going to be at the Route 1 West Wharf intersection?

As part of this application, at the project area that we're presenting to you here, yes. We are doing another one at the east end of town, but again, that's not a part of this. Great. Thank you.

Okay. I'm just trying to visualize those DVDs, crosswalk lights. There's not a stoplight or an intersection light there. It's just going to indicate to the cars that they need to stop and let the pedestrians cross.

Yeah, we have them on Bradley Road. In fact, one of them just got hit by a car. So the one that's on the train station side is down and out. But the one on the south side is still there, and that's probably the best – the best one to use. It's basically, there's a push button on it. It has the crosswalk with the down arrow or the diagonal arrow showing where the crosswalk is. And then basically you press the button, they blink for a duration of time. They're solar. So we're not, we don't have to, we don't have to meter the service or run any connections to, to, from any poles or anything like that. Well, you know, they, they have standard MUTCD and CTDOT compliant solar flashing beacons that we intend on using on this.

Yeah, Rob, one thing to note too, they're lit up as well. So there's lights that actually light up the crosswalk like at night if you push them.

That's good. Thank you. Okay. No other commissioner questions? Yes.

Okay. 9 Britton Lane. So aren't there wetlands at the end of Britton Lane? That little creek that you'll be paving over, that's wetlands, right?

I mean, no, we're not impacting the wetlands, no. We're within the wetland boundary, but we're not impacting the wetlands as part of this.

You're going on wetlands. Excuse me? You're paving on wetlands. No, we're paving within the existing footprint. That little creek is not wetlands.

Well, so that's the reason why we're pulling the road away. So that's why another reason we're asked about why.

It's on the other side of Britton Lane. Before it hits Boston Post, there's a creek there. We have wetlands behind our church. That's all wetlands. Marsh. It's a creek.

I think it shows how you curve out into the street a little bit.

Away from it.

Away from it on existing roads.

Yeah, we're keeping where that's that's the reason why we're also making the geometric improvement, not just to make a safer intersection, but it's also to keep away. If we just we also if we kept the current alignment, even though geometrically it's not it's not really it's not it's not great in its current state. But also we're doing it to be able to pull the sidewalk away from any of that vegetated area there. Perhaps could you pull up the sign again? Because I think it shows how you've been. Oh, yes. I'm looking at it right now, and I thought I shared my screen. Yeah, so basically that low area is back in here. You know, we're well out in front of this, and then we're pulling the road away. So, you know, again, we're within, and we're abutting, we're not putting like a snow shelf in here or a grass amenity strip. we tried to put a two or three foot amenity strip in here and push the sidewalk back uh yeah we would definitely be in the head wall and in the wetlands there but as it currently stands our proposed design design does not do that either okay uh yes yes i got a few questions rob first of all thank you for um

Houston, could you identify yourself for the record?

Sure. Tom Ferrero, 485 Boston Post Road.

Oh, I put a face to the phone calls. Yeah, that was me.

Thank you. I've got a couple of questions. Actually, I didn't have this question initially, but now that you're talking about those crosswalks, people come around that pretty often. Have there been any studies at all, like traffic or speeding? Because you come around there pretty quick. And like, especially if you're coming, if you're going east, I'm sorry, if you're going west, it's kind of a blind spot there.

Yeah, so there have been studies there. In fact, you know, that's part of the reason why with those that your speed sign that's up like a couple hundred feet down from our location. And that just doesn't show you your speed. That actually collects data so that the police department has access to the number of vehicles, the speeds they're traveling. Whenever you see those your speed signs out there, it's not just a flashing indicator of how fast you're going to get people to slow down. Those actually do collect data, too, as well as I think the deal. I think the chief at one point had the. the state come and study this intersection as well. So yeah, no, it does. They do travel at a relatively, I don't know what the exact 85th percentile speed is. That's like, they do spot speed studies to figure out,

you know this is the speed limit here and how fast are they actually traveling pretty quickly yes you know anyways as long as you've done that that was just a question i had a couple other questions so um with the sidewalk going in 485 boston post road first of all i'm not sure if everybody knows but that 485 boston post road is actually lot one of the lantern hill subdivision so eventually that will be developed it's actually a lot more of the development so i think so the the future plans would be for the insurance to come off of lanternville road and there won't be a 485 boston post road okay so like right now we have a driveway going into Um, right there, um, going into 485 Boston Post Road. Eventually in the future, and there's no plans, by the way, like, yeah, right here. So right here where you have the, this is the driveway, I believe. Going into, there's a great house there. This is lot 1 of Lantern Hill development.

It's not built yet.

And there's no plans for it to be built? I think there used to be a gas station. The gas station was over here. That was all part. So anyways, eventually when someone does develop it, the entrance to this home here will be here and this will go away. So I just wanted to let everyone know that. But there are no plans for that. Question I had was on the maintenance. So now there's a sidewalk there. Am I responsible for the maintenance now? Like shoveling the snow and... That's an ordinance, not within the purview of this commission. So the answer is probably yes.

Rob can survive that.

That's why I ask your question. It's not so much maintaining the sidewalk, but I know there's a bus stop there, so it becomes even more important to probably maintain that sidewalk rather than just have a sidewalk in front of your house and you probably might wait a day or two. With those, you know, with the bus stop there, it just seems to me to add more liability. So I was wondering if the town that was, is the town going to shovel the bus stop or how's that going to work?

So again, as Aaron said, we have our town ordinance that it's the, the snow, the maintenance and snow removals, the responsibility of the abutting property owner. Again, my stance is, you know, we've with a, this is our second sidewalk project in as many years, and this is the most frequent question we get asked. And, you know, I, the best answer that I can respond to is just citing our ordinance because that's, what's factual. If, if, there's a disagreement or there's a, you find that it's unfair that with these projects that, you know, that that onus is put on the abutting property owner that unfortunately that's not an answer that I could give you. That's something that you could bring to the board of selectmen and then discuss further because making ordinance changes are difficult, whether it's for sidewalk maintenance or anything else. but it's also a greater conversation. So again, I know people wanted me to be able to give a better answer, but my answer is that as of right now, the current ordinance states that sidewalk maintenance and snow removal is the responsibility of the abutting property owner.

So who's going to maintain the bus stop, the two bus stops there? Is that possible?

Whoever the abutting property owner is here. Not me, but just a question.

Yeah, the golf club, the South.

Yes, it'll be the golf club, and then that's Gutierrez. Well, that's fine. Just curious, will the town maintain the bus stops? No, they won't.

They will not.

They will not? They're responsible. We're responsible. Okay. Yeah. In the drawing, Rob, in the drawing, you had a silt fence. Can you just explain that to me? There was a silt fence by near 485 Boston Post Road in Rockledge.

Yeah, so this right here, this silt fence? Yeah. Not to sound condescending, but... It's over here somewhere. I'm sorry. You go ahead. I missed that. I thought it was over here somewhere. rock ledge on the north side of the sidewalk is there silt fence proposed there it doesn't show it here but in here there's still fence here and then there's still fence all along here along the north edge of the disturbance can you briefly explain what that The reason for that is... Yeah, so not to sound condescending, but do you know what a sill fence is?

I don't know what that is.

That's fine. And that's fine. I want to provide an accurate response. So what a sill fence is, it's a temporary fence that has you know with wood stakes and this facilitation fabric that is in between the wood stakes and that is solely that is solely in there for erosion when they're when they're constructing the sidewalk any fine materials or anything if you know if they're constructing the sidewalk and there's a rainstorm or anything that causes sediment deposits to move, the silt fence is there to catch it before it would enter your property or any adjacent properties. It's just a temporary fence that's there during construction. And then as soon as construction is completed, these wood stakes and the silt fence is yanked out by the contractor and you never knew it existed. How long is the construction going to take place once it starts? Oh, that's a good one, Paul. That's a you question.

Yeah, Rob, I think we estimated, based on the recent sidewalk projects done in town, which were done pretty quickly for the length that was installed, I think we're estimating like four to six months. But that's the entire project. So this area alone that we're looking at, You know, maybe maybe two months of that. But like I said, that's that also is very dependent on the contractor that's selected, the manpower they have. So that's that's a little it's a bit of a guesstimate until we get a contractor hired.

will the people who live at 485 Boston Post Road be able to access their home during this period? Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah, we do that. So we have cops. Cops and Warpus Road now is under construction. You know, we're doing roadway reconstruction, curbing, drainage, some sidewalk up there. And yeah, so the contractors, they do this... it's part of normal practice and they'll make sure that they'll coordinate with property owners when they're working, fronting the property and make sure that you have access or if there's anything that you're seeing out there, any type of disturbances, you know, they could certainly help remedy and restore, you know, something that, you know, if it's not up to par or you need access or,

whatever it is that generally the contractors that we hire and we vet are um experienced enough to work you know hand in hand with the property owners that's all i had thank you 45 grantwood drive so rob you mentioned uh earlier about there will be trees coming down can you let me let us know from the green dinosaur club how many original mature trees will be removed for the cycle

Sure. So, yeah, so we can let's let's start with let me share my plan again here. So right now, let me start by saying we're not anticipating any trees that are running along the country club, the golf course. on West Wharf. There's one that's kind of close. And I think if we take care with the construction, I don't think we'll have to replace it. So I think there's nothing on West Wharf as of right now. The most significant one, and again, I've seen chatter about this one, but basically, you know, due to the roadway realignment and then pulling the sidewalk away, the one that's right on the corner here, it's actually only like a few inches from the road. Um, it's a large 36 diameter tree here at the corner. This is the most significant one, um, that's going to have to go. Um, and I think it would have to go even regardless of the sidewalk. I think when, if, and when we were going to replace, we were going to reorientate and realign this intersection, which again, I think is in, it is in need for, for that type of, uh, improvement. Um, you know, there's just this one tree sitting here by itself. Over by, Paul, what was that section that we were talking about the other day?

Towards Lantern Hill. Yeah, right there. Right there, Rob. I think there might be two or three in there. You know, there's a cluster of trees throughout there. We did, you know, ACCA did make a similar comment. They had a similar question. You know, we did tell them that we do plan to hold a a line item budget in the contract to maybe install a couple of new ones, um, as part of this project where it makes most sense, um, for the couple that will have to come down. You know, one thing you just got to be careful of is when you're excavating for the sidewalk. If, if you do cut into some roots, um, you know, we don't, we don't want to take a chance, leave the tree and have it, you know, have a diet a few years from now. So we're, we're pretty sensitive to that. Um, and we're gonna do whatever we can to maintain most of them, but there will have to be a few that get removed.

Yeah, and again, the town is, you know, because there's a wide right-of-way, I know a lot of this is state right-of-way, so replacing some of these trees in the state right-of-way might be tricky. We'd have to discuss with them if they'd be okay with us planting new ones, but if there's other locations here in the project area where we could add trees, especially if we're removing trees We're moving a few. I'm certainly not opposed to that.

And the ones along the green as well. Any there? There's a pine tree that kids decorate. There's the ones along the green.

The ones along the green? I'm trying to think.

I don't believe so, Rob.

No, there's nothing... There's nothing along the Green or Britain Lane outside of the one at the end of Britain Lane and Boston Post Road. There's nothing on Britain Lane or the town Green that's being impacted.

So I walk down the sidewalk on Woodland Road and when it's icy, it stays icy. Just to let you all know that. And there is a crosswalk on Woodland that always stops when I'm standing there. Unfortunately, sometimes that doesn't happen.

yeah it's it's tough any other questions here yes uh tyler morrison i'm here as the vice president of mass country club obviously uh with respect to west dwarf road a couple questions i i agree with the idea about getting the foot traffic away from the side of the road but as foot traffic gets a little bit closer to potentially flying ball balls um are there any plans to include some sort of signage or the red words on our flag.

Yeah, so I spoke to Ian about that in one of his prior emails, and I noted to him that we could definitely find MUTC-compliant signage, and I don't have any issue with adding a few additional signs along West Wharf. Okay, thanks.

And the second question is, with respect to the culvert where the stream goes under West Wharf, Are you guys still comfortable with the idea that there's not going to be any other significant work there to put the sidewalk in?

Yeah, Paul, do you want to talk about that location? I know that's outside of this application that leaves the downtown village district. I mean... Darren, do you want me to discuss that now since it's – I mean, we could certainly discuss this offline much more. And, in fact, I'd like to get you guys in to talk a little bit further in the next week or two. I know that sheet on – I'm looking at it right now. That sheet on West Wharf is outside of this application.

Yeah, Rob, real quick, just to answer. No, we do not anticipate any impacts to that existing culver or the headwall there. The work is roadside of the headwall. We're not anticipating impacting that. Thanks, Paul. Absolutely.

Stand up. Two hours. Thanks, Sterling. I know somebody's doing it. And, Rob, I want to thank you because I've attended meetings with you, and the change from concrete curbing and concrete sidewalk to at least brick sidewalk and maybe granite curbing is an improvement. And I've been speaking with Tom Boyle, who's now the chair of the Historic District, but I've also learned an awful lot. Six months ago, I contacted the state. talked to Deputy Chief John Kinney. He gave me two deputies to talk to because what he told me was the town does what they do. It goes to the Department of Transportation. If there is any funding, and I understand it's not through the DOT, then it has to go to the State Historic Preservation Fonds. They have the last say. And I've already spoken to a couple of deputies with some concern about Well, they're not concerned anymore about the brick that's coming across Britain Lane because I'm right on Brain side. But they are concerned about the granite curbing. And I know in the last meeting, I expressed that in the interest of what the state was interested in. So my first question is, has that been removed from just Britain Lane? I know you have to do something maybe a little different on the post road, but did you remove the granite design on Dutton Lane.

Yeah, Paul, I'm trying to look at the plans. What do we have for there for the for the curbing?

You can take a look at the plans there.

Trying to find the coal out for the curbing.

Yeah, I can't recall off the top of my head.

I don't have the plans. I did suggest at the last meeting before I think The local commission went into a conversation with you about that. I suggested, and what the state is interested in, is there is no granite curbing on the large spring. They would like to see that sidewalk impressed in the grass, come to the end, add cops, white line, continue across, and go right between my hedge and my mailbox, and run across if it could be connected to the everett property which is in between which is also historic 1910 i don't know i don't know what that neighbor wants to do but it should at least be in the grass with no granite curving the state is looking to try and get that change and if if i have to have them stated i've already talked to tom boyle within the last three weeks And he's thought that's a great idea. I don't know whether he's brought that to your attention, Rob, but I know that that's something that is a redesign that the state is interested in.

Yeah, so I... We haven't seen any comments from the state on that. So I understand we only respond to the formal responses that we're given. As far as the granite curb, though, I'm not married to that by any particular means. If that's a concern of yours, again, we were using the granite curbing and the brick paver sidewalk as it was a discussion amongst the historic district. Um, if using concrete curbing or, uh, bituminous curbing is, uh, is preferable. And that's, that's agreed upon by the historic district. I mean, we could certainly go back to that. I mean, it is cheaper.

So I have, I have a, I don't have a call with Tom Boyle, the chair. I've already had several conversations. I've shared a lot of email and documentation that I've had over the last, you know, conversations that I've had with the state. And so he's looking to bring that to your attention. I mean, coming up on that.

Yeah, yeah, I'll speak. Yeah, I don't have a problem. I'll speak to him on Monday about that because I'd like to get the HCC's recommendation and just like I'd like PNZ's recommendation on the color of that retaining wall. So I certainly Monday I could definitely pick his brain about the curbing and what the historic district would like to see there.

The folks at the state would like to see that's you know if that's something that we can do that's something that they're interested in and that will be a comment that will come from them because they did say it's at the dot but it hasn't gotten to them for you know for approval okay you're saying no kirk right no curbing keep it flat in the ground that's the way it comes right off the green yeah going and basically coming Right inside of my hedge and shooting down. So it's probably two, three feet of green on this side. And I hope you don't take out my hedge on the other side. We're not. I spend a lot of time on that hedge.

Just so you know, though, by eliminating this curbing there and these basins on that street as there is now, so just so you know, and not that we're going to do this. I'm being honest with you. I don't intend on removing the curbing. If we did remove the curbing, you do understand, though, that like your property and Mr. Everett's property and then the church, like you're going to you're going to see more water on your property sheet flowing off. If it instead of it keeping in the road and going in the drainage system, it's going to sheet flow onto private property. So I just want to make you aware of that.

We've lived there for 20 years, and I can tell you where the water is is on the small green, and it's not in front of my house. So I think if we want to get out there and measure it, but I have also measured it with a tape measure, and looking at a five-foot red brick, I know that there's plenty of room to come across and be able to safely walk all the way to the corner. Now, Okay. My second question, and this is of concern that I brought to the state's attention, is that there is a house in the 1700s, the Talcott Bradley House, the red house on the corner, and there's a ledge literally going almost into the road. I don't know if there are any plans to move that ledge and the state couldn't tell, and they haven't seen it from the Department of Transportation, is there any plan to remove any ledge in front of that property?

Paul, do you want to take this one?

Is this the house along Boston Post Road? It is.

I'm the owner here, just so I can make myself known.

Okay, the one where the landscape block walls in front of? Yeah. Yeah, so there is, we will need to remove some of the rock there to put the sidewalk in, yes. And how will that rock be removed? Not, it'll be hammered and chiseled with a machine, with a pneumatic hammer. That's how they do it.

The foundation for that house is probably 30 feet from the road right now.

With stutter owner of the 519 Boston poster in question also a member of the board of police commissioners. I've only owned the house for a few months and lived in for a few months. So my apologies if I'm not speaking. Thank you for making me aware of all this because I'm still getting my getting my feet wet with all of it. Um, as soon as Dean made me aware of this project, um. The first thing I was concerned about was my foundation. When this house was under inspection, when I had it under contract, the big concern was the foundation, particularly the foundation of the center stone chimney. And it was in very bad shape. I almost didn't buy the house as a result, but I did. And I've done some repairs on it to keep it in shape. Currently sitting in five figures. Could end up in six. And... As soon as I started talking to my folks who I've been working with on getting the foundation into shape so that my house doesn't collapse, they were obviously extremely concerned if there's going to be anything with that rock ledge because it's loose stone down there. There's no masonry. That's the way they built them in the 1730s, apparently. So I'm still getting my feet wet with all this, but obviously this is a big concern. Existence of the sidewalk isn't a huge concern for me, but if the construction makes the house fall down, that's a big concern for me. So I know you've been out at this for a lot longer than I've even owned the house. So do you have any info on what kind of impact this construction is going to have on the foundations to the antique houses in the area?

So the project is currently in the hands of the State Historic Preservation Office. It got submitted to them, I believe it was last week. Yes, they are the ones that will review it. I'm sure your house will get flagged if it is historic. And they'll look at and question us if they find that to be a concern. I know... The state right away is fairly, you know, wider along that northern stretch of Boston Post Road. I mean, something we have done in the past on other projects, depending on what type of answer we get from the, we call it SHPO. they may recommend like a pre and post condition survey. You know, a lot of times if, if there are older foundations closer to the work zone, they may recommend that gets added to the project, which essentially would be somebody, a private entity or, or a company, the contractor who gets awarded the job hires to come into your home, inspect the foundation and, before the project starts. So document everything, go through everything. And then once the project is complete, then you would get the same exact thing done, what we call a post-survey, so they could see if anything shifted, anything's moved, anything along those sorts. And that's essentially what that's meant to do, is to cover the homeowner of any potential adverse effects. Now, like I said, we probably will find out more once we hear back from SHPO. And then we could certainly, you know, this is why we have these fallback hearings. We will certainly take that into consideration as this project moves forward. And if it's something we do have to add to the project, then we will go to Scrogg and talk to them about getting that cost added to be able to do those surveys and go from there.

I am concerned because, I mean, the foundation, I've started to do work on it. But, you know, I talked to seven different antique foundation contractors and the opinions I got from most of them were it's, you know, some of the issues were some of the worst they'd ever seen. Foolishly, I bought the house anyway and have been working on it. Yeah. But and I've got it. I'm happy with the way it is now. But, you know, the early early responses I've gotten from the folks who know these foundation know this foundation is. are why I'm here, because they were very concerned. And frankly, like a pre and post survey, like if the center stone chimney is collapsed, I don't need a survey to tell me that it went bad. And that's the level of concern I have about the type of work we're talking about, because this foundation is on the rock ledge that we're talking about. And the chiseling or hammering or whatever will be happening maybe 20 feet away from the foundation. So it's going to have an effect. um and i'm you know i just bought this house i really don't want to fall down um i don't think anyone wants to fall down it's an important part of town's history so these are my concerns as an abutter but a new property owner are you getting notifications okay so that thank you d yeah i had i had to walk down to his property for the other day because i wasn't sure if you saw the sign in front of my head

And he didn't know anything about it. And I said, I'm concerned, more concerned about your foundation than mine, because I also have a stone foundation, but it's three houses down. And I know if there were any blasting, I'd be impacted. And what the state told me was about the calibration. They put in a measure. If it moves an eighth of an inch, a sixteenth of an inch, or something like that, they would measure the impact. Now, when I asked the state preservation office who would be responsible, they weren't sure whether the state. But then they said, it's probably not the state. It's probably the town. And then I said, how would that work? And they said, maybe a bond. So I'm thinking, I don't want to have my foundation change. And I don't want to have the town change. right now and it's doing fine. I am more concerned about that Talcott Bradley house because it is sitting on that ledge. And so that's why I went and I met And I'd never met him before, and I said, I hope you don't throw me out, but I'll have a conversation. I'm a reasonably friendly guy. Well, thanks for raising this. Paul, do you know if there was any measurement in a foundation that's impacted, and it could even be across the street, who would be paying for that repair? Sure.

It would typically fall under... It's not going to be the town. It would typically fall under probably the contractor's insurance. But like I said, I don't want to say anything on the record tonight. We have to review the properties, exactly which one. I don't have the set of plans right in front of me at this moment. I'd have to see the proximity of the foundation to the actual chiseling that we're talking about. So I don't want to promise anything to anybody we will certainly we hear both of you loud and clear and we will certainly take it seriously and and make sure you know that we incorporate anything we need to in the contract documents to ensure that there's no permanent loss of the house or anything of that of that kind okay

We have questions from people online.

Yeah, I mean, there were just there were 1 other thing relatively minor, but. There is a garden that's on that rock ledge that. Um, the prior owners, the, um, the Anderson's and next to the next door, uh, owners, the cart, legit said, maintain, I'm sure you've all written by it. I was pretty excited to inherit that and that was pretty sad to hear that's going away. Um. So another consideration.

Hey, Paul.

Hey, Paul.

I'm sorry. I have one final question.

Yeah, I'm anticipating.

Okay, thank you. So, my final question is, we were talking about trees. I'm not as concerned about the trees, but there are 10 utility poles. That would have to be moved because there's no way that you're going to be able to put a four-foot sidewalk on the north side of the post road without somehow removing them or relocating them. What was the plan to relocate those? Well, hold on.

Did you say 10? Yes, I've counted them. Well, no, it's not 10. What is it, like two or three, Paul?

I believe at the most, too. Yeah, we limited the purpose of the location of the sidewalk was to limit pole relocations. Part of the reason why the sidewalk meanders up away from the road towards Lantern Hill was to accommodate the grades, the grade changes through that area, as well as avoid as many utility poles as we can.

I think I only see two on here.

on the U.S. board.

I just walked it. I'm not sure. That was my concern, but I'm still not sure how they're going to fit the sidewalk in front of the utility poles, because the utility poles are right up against the ledge and everything else down there. What's more in this?

What's more in this? Walker High to 9 Britain Lane. Honestly, it makes me wonder if you guys even have walked the property. That Wetlands Creek goes underneath Britain Lane. The rock goes down to Route 1. I mean, you walk it, and you just see it right there. There's no way you can put a sidewalk into the street. You see what I'm saying? I just don't know if you've even looked at this.

They have. Yeah, we obviously... We, of course, have to.

I mean, we have...

The only way we have information to design it is from a full topographic survey. And from that, that's what our... That's what we design off of. Of course, we have seen it. Sometimes it's very hard to visually... anticipate how things are going to get installed until you actually see them go in. Sometimes it's deceiving. Keep in mind, too, we're not doing anything that, let's say, most of this is a state-owned road, so we can't just go put things in and design things without their approval. they have to grant their blessing to us. They own the road, whatever we do, they need to review thoroughly and approve. So just please keep that in mind as well. That is with the sidewalk against the road, where it goes to four feet with the landscape block retaining wall, all the things as you come off of Britain lane, all of that has to get reviewed and approved by them as well. So again, We don't go into this with blinders on. We are professional engineers. We take pride in what we do. I certainly take it as a little bit of an insult saying that we haven't even looked at this, but you could certainly feel the way you feel. But we do our due diligence. We cut cross sections. We look at elevations. We look at everything to ensure things can be installed properly. Now, Is everything 100%? Absolutely not. Every single project I've designed in my 19 plus years, there is always minor changes during construction. That's just how construction goes. But this, we are being thorough with the design. We still need the state's final approval. And then we will, you know, proceed.

We're going to take time for a quick question here, and then I have five people waiting on Zoom to ask questions, too. So if you could keep it as brief as possible, that would be great.

I'll do my best. Thanks. Catherine Ferrante, 71 Cops Road. I actually live kind of across from where you'd be to Underwatch and Cops Road, to give you a sense of where that is. My husband and I walk a lot. We walk down Cops. We go down Island Ave. We go down Middle Beach Road. We come back up Cherry's Lane, Cherry Street, West Fork, down West Road, down Britton Lane. Britton Lane. is the safest spot on that whole route. I do not see the need for a sidewalk at all, especially considering the stated goal of the project is to connect downtown to the surf club. Britton Lane takes it out of that way. And as we know from earlier discussion tonight, the desk rooms will take the most direct route. No matter what, if they're going from downtown to the surf club, that's not Britton Lane. um moreover that intersection of britain lane boston post road for drivers is very clear i mean you just turn your head and you can see all the way to downtown it's it might be the best intersection in all of town so i'm confused as to why we want to make changes to it take down mature tree Are we getting complaints about Britton Lane, about that intersection? What is the impetus for all this? Moreover, the funding for this, I understand, is the state funding is transportation related. So how does having a sidewalk down Britton Lane align with that? There is a bus stop. at the corner of Cox Road and Boston Post Road. I don't know why we're not putting a sidewalk continuing it down Boston Post Road to the bus stop. We're leaving grassy, uneven terrain around that bus stop instead of providing a paved path for people and their mobility aids to get to the bus stop. It's just, I don't understand Rick Lane at all. What is the rationale?

Do you want to Continue to have public comment and then allow the applicant to address those.

I feel like we've already addressed most of those things. That was just basically a comment refuting them. I feel like I've discussed the geometry of the road, why we're putting it here, what it's funded by. To answer your question, lots of transportation program, they do allow... HAB-Jacques Juilland, Non road non roadway related improvements, meaning like sidewalk and pedestrian improvements in bicycle improvements for HAB-Jacques Juilland, Non collector roads. So even though this isn't classified as a collector road Britain lane. It was accepted into the lots of program. And again, I gave all the alphabet city of all the organizations that supported the project who do think it's appropriate, who do think it's a good idea. So I don't think we need to go further. I think we've answered all the questions that you noted.

As a taxpayer, I think it's a waste of money to put a sidewalk down. Hey, Adam, thank you. Thank you.

Yeah, so they're raised online. Erin, there's Fran. Yeah, I have Fran first. Fran, if you could identify yourself for the record. Yeah, hi. I think I'm the chair as short as possible. Thanks.

I missed that last part. But anyway, I'm Fran Brady, 108 Genesee Lane, co-founder of Mad for Trees and a member of the Tree Advisory Committee. As Catherine just mentioned, I have a lot of similar concerns about the validity of the judgment. And Rob, don't take this personal, please. You're taking it personal. First of all, I want to talk about that tree. That tree is a white oak, maybe a swamp white oak, that has a circumference of 117 inches. That's 37 inches DBH, not 36, 37. That makes it approximately 185 years old. That tree is shown as a mature tree on the bicentennial drawing of the town green area that the Garden Club commissioned for the bicentennial in 1976. That's an old tree. I've got to make sure I do everything in the right order here. I would like to, again, respectfully challenge the geometric improvement at Britton Lane. I was there this morning in my car. I walked it. I walked around the tree. I looked, I was in that corner. You could see, as Catherine said, miles in the current configuration of there's no impediment at all there's 18 feet 18 feet between the white the white strip the white uh you know uh traffic marking for the boston post road to the tree so it's only when you change the configuration do you then put the tree in jeopardy it becomes a innocent collateral damage of this project Why not put the sidewalk on the south side of Britain Lane and then make it go around the tree toward the Boston Post side? I don't understand why it has to be. Is it because you want to take advantage of existing sidewalk by the church? um, there's plenty of room on the South side to put a sidewalk. And, and can you, so my question is, can you squeeze it in and can you avoid this disaster of cutting in this tree down? My last, my, my last comment is that, um, uh, let me just make sure I lost my place. Um, Sorry about this. That's pretty much it. I guess if you don't believe in all this and there's no plan B that can be looked at, for God's sake, please do the right thing. And as the ACCA committee asked for, replace that tree. That DBH is 37 inches. You should replace it not with one tree that's four inches in DBH. You should place it with nine trees. There's plenty of room to put it on the south. If you're not going to put a sidewalk, you could put some shade trees on the south side of Britain Avenue. Plenty of room for more trees. Don't give me one. Give me nine. So that's my comment. And I hope we can proceed with the regulation improvements that the advisory committee has provided to the zoning committee and to the land use department as soon as possible, because we address these kinds of issues and we don't have to like beg and plead. Thank you very much.

Thanks, Graham. Thank you. Next we have Betsy Antonian. Yes.

Betsy and Tom Meehan, here you go.

Great.

Can you identify yourselves for the record?

You unmuted, but I'm not sure your microphone is working. You can move on to Tom Boyle and come back to Betsy. Yes, to give permissions to your microphone. Tom Boyle?

Tom, you're muted.

There you go. OK. I hear you. I just wanted to quickly address something that came a few minutes ago. And that is that, of course, Rob Russo came in with all his plans at our last two meetings ago from the 390 Boston Post Road. And I'm the chair of the Historic District Commission. And we got those plans completely. We also asked for some changes to them, which Dean Sterling just mentioned, which really consisted of brick pavers rather than concrete. And I think the original plan called for asphalt curbing, and we approved concrete curbing. More than happy to look at that again. We have not heard anything from any member, any entity in the state. So as far as we know, what we have approved is just that. Brick pavers along Britton Lane for the sidewalk and concrete curbing, which certainly we're happy to take a look at. And we're certainly in sympathy with the homeowners on Britain Lane and the Rubble Stone Foundations. I live in a house built in 1741, so certainly understand that. But that's beyond our purview. I just wanted to let everybody know that we are right on top of this. And if we hear anything from the state, we'll certainly comply with whatever it is.

Should we try Betsy and Tommy in again, Terry?

Yes, Betsy and Tom, are you unable or able to unmute?

Sir, go back maybe and take Jessica Joseph. Okay.

Jess, you could identify yourself.

Thank you. Jessica Joseph, 129 Greenhill Road. I'll keep it brief. I just want to applaud PNZ for keeping this moving along. You know, Mr. Russo and his staff are, you know, just as I'm listening to everyone, I sympathize. I also live in an old home, 1880. And I really do sympathize, I think, Mr. Russo and really the whole team there just continues to hear everyone acknowledge, go above and beyond, satisfying the historical society in town. I just I can't really express. And honestly, I'm just shocked the amount of ways that the town bends over backwards and are also residents and neighbors. So I just also want to make clear that people are walking it and people are biking it and people have strollers and wheelchairs. And, you know, the fact just remains as much making it safe. And I don't you know, it just seems kind of. This seems like a no-brainer, but just wanted to chime in and share my support. Thanks. Okay, thanks.

We have Betsy and Tom waiting, maybe, and then also Alex Provence, and then TBD, I see.

One more.

Anybody need to break?

Betsy and Tom, are you able to unmute?

Can you hear us now? Yes.

Yay. Okay.

Thank you. The Zoom had trouble. This is Tom and Betsy, me and six Todd's Mill Circle. Okay. What I wanted to discuss was the topic of bringing the sidewalk and all the hurdles that we're going to face. The crosswalks that are the current sidewalk we have going down all the way to Cherry Lane. Can't that be improved first? And second, when I continue to hear the talk of West Wharf Road and no trees are gonna be harmed going down West Wharf Road, that question for a future date keeps coming up, but there's gas lines there, there's telephone poles, and there's underground fiber. And all these costs associated Who's going to pay for them in the long term? And the other thing, those multiple crosswalks and the traffic and safety issues that are going to develop. Most people, I've raised four kids in this town for 30 years, and most times when we go from Post Road down to the beach, we've gone through Cherry Lane and Island Avenue, and we've gotten down there without having to go down West Wharf Road. I don't hear any complaints from Cherry Lane about bike traffic. strollers, joggers, all of that happens every day. So this project of major proportions, I don't seem to hear how much it's gonna take to go down that West Wharf, especially with the utilities that are involved on that side of the road and how many trees are gonna be removed and the grassy knolls on West Wharf that we've sat and watched parades from, how much is that gonna be disturbed? So the project itself, seems like it's going to be a bigger expense than anybody's putting out there. I don't see a lot of budget numbers for the long term going down West Wharf, and that's what I'd like to see. And also when our member there, Ms. Russo, you said that you'd feel a lot better going down West Wharf if my kids didn't have to be on their bike on the road. Is this a bike path and a sidewalk, or is it just a sidewalk? Because there really shouldn't be a bike or an electric scooter or anything on that sidewalk. So it's a contradiction saying that's a safety, but we don't want electric scooters and bikes on a sidewalk. So can you explain that, please?

Thank you.

Thank you.

You really want me to clarify? Okay.

I just wanted to say, if you want to wait until we finish hearing the remaining comments to respond.

Yeah, let's hear the remaining comments because I think 95% of what he said I already spoke about. So let's just move along.

so um next up is alex covalence province alex if you could unmute and identify yourself for the record good evening this is alex province 917 boston post road just a few um comments and concerns Rob, I'm sure you know what I'm going to bring up, but I'm going to start on a positive note. Not you, Alex. Come on. Don't take it personally. We're all just concerned residents that live here and our own property here or grew up here and want to do what's best for the town. So I'll start off with the rapid flashing beacons. Statistically, I know they save lives, but as a former member of BPAC, and I know the LTA has discussed it as well, it does take some defensive walking that I hope some education will be provided. put forth to help teach people that just because the lights are flashing does not mean that they're seen and it's not necessarily a green light to walk. Still need to really make sure that cars are making eye contact with you and are indeed going to stop. I know people don't always know or pay attention or are used to driving through crosswalks. So I hope for the sake of safety that some effort will be taught to people. And also drivers are often caught off guard and rear ended. because they make a quick stop last minute, but statistically they will save lives and I hope And I think it's a good thing. Another positive thing, I know Atka had talked about the different samples, the gray and the slate gray for the retaining wall. I would suggest maybe a few blocks are just put out for the next few seasons just to see what they look like in situ and different lights and different seasons. And the answer may become pretty obvious of what looks good and natural and replicates i think what active was hoping for which was granite um would it would it be very expensive and probably easy to do um now to the tree rob I discussed it and it was brought up. There was concerns. And I know you part of what you do for a job. You've got to make make it through quickly and, you know, deemphasize the tree. But to Fran's point, there is a map that he shared from 1814. which was the bicentennial year that mapped out all the trees and cataloged. And it was a white oak tree number 22, which would make it a 185-year-old tree. Oak trees can live two, three, four, up to 600 years. And in fact, when you drive down our village, You can sure plant nine smaller trees, but you'll never in our lifetime or your children or grandchildren will ever get a tree this magnificent and special. So a few concerns or suggestions I should say. One, if the tree does get removed, if it's shredded or chopped up or put out to decay, pretty much all the carbon dioxide that it sequestered in its lifetime and put into its tissue is put back into the atmosphere. So as we all are concerned about climate change and sea rise and stronger and more frequent storms, that tree is sequestering all the carbon from 185 years. And if it's removed and just you know, shredded, it will decompose and all that carbon is put back in the atmosphere and we're back where we started. So I would hope that if it does come down, it gets repurposed and turned into something that doesn't get, you know, doesn't decompose. I don't know, find someone and have it turned into furniture or planks and use.

Wrap up in a minute.

I think I'm free to speak as much as everyone else did in the audience, and I'm sure I'm much- You've got over four minutes, so if you could- Thank you, Chair, but- Your point, that'd be great. The quicker you allow me to speak, the quicker I'll finish. The generations, my next point have driven that stretch of Britain Lane and it has come up in the chatter that you call it on social media. But none of us have ever had any issues there and generations of drivers and as you've heard and mentioned tonight. But if you were to change the orientation of that, why not just make a sharper turn to the south well in advance of the tree and add green space to the western side where people are saying wetlands exist and make it a win-win situation where the wetlands are given a buffer from the street, the trees preserved, and you have a more circuitous stop that would actually not allow cars to race through, which was your point. I'm sure there's more expense that would be entailed, but you could simply just make your turn quicker and sharper and head to the post road and keep the tree. ANCA also brought up the charm that these old roads have, and that You know, that's part of why we live in Madison or why people like love Madison is because we do have these walkie streets. But if you are going to, you know, for safety, do something, then let's, as Scott Murphy says, be bold and do something really spectacular and make it a, you know, a real win. So we get to keep the tree and get green space and slow down drivers. And lastly, I would like to end, just so that there's clarity, because I don't believe it came up, I'd like to see someone pull up an image of the tree and share it with the audience, those in the crowd, those listening on Zoom, and the Commission, so we can actually put a vision to what this tree is that we're talking about. And it might change the notion of tree to something that's a lot more special. Thank you for all the volunteer hours you guys put in, and I appreciate it. And to you too, Rob, and everyone else that's doing their best. Thank you.

Thanks. I'd like to add that if you have something new to say, we'd love to hear it. But if it's already been said, I don't think you need to keep saying it again and again. So we have someone, TVD, waiting to be heard through Zoom platform.

Terry, if you could identify yourself for the record. Yes. Terry Vanden Dolder. Long last name. That's why I abbreviate it. I live on Bartlett Drive. I do want to emphasize the things that were said by Catherine, by Fran, by Alex, and by several others in the audience whose names I do not have. But the Madison Plan of Conservation and Development emphasizes the natural resources as one of the most important things that people love about this town and want to protect in this town. The most recent Smithsonian Magazine issue talks about the efforts in South Carolina of them trying to preserve and save a 300-year-old oak tree. We have a tree that could be that tree in not too many decades from now. When are we going to value mature trees, those silent sentinels, those witnesses to history? When will we value them the same as we value historic man-made buildings? They are far more important because they are irreplaceable. I do not understand why a sidewalk on the south side of the road was not considered. Or maybe it was, but why not go there instead of with all these other complications? I agree, going on Britton Lane doesn't make sense. To me, it's insane to risk any damage to the historic home where the ledge is. We all love the look of that home and those gardens.

We've already heard these comments, I think. So if you could... If you could kind of wrap it up, we'd really appreciate it.

This is one that you may not have heard. The town of Suffield, Connecticut recently redid the sidewalks on their main street. I will send you some clear pictures as to how they went to great extreme efforts to avoid the damage of mature trees on their main road. It's important. It's what makes the town what it is. And as far as those who said that they've used topographical maps in doing the planning and the designing of this concept, I challenge you, if you have not done it, you need to get down on the pavement and walk it. It's a whole different perspective. Walk. Same thing goes for Green Hill Road. Thank you. Thank you.

Betsy and Tommy.

Again, Madam Chair, we can take one more from Betsy and Tom Meehan if it's something new, if it's new information. It's already been said. You don't need to repeat it.

Betsy and Tom, do you have new comments? Can you hear me now? Yes, we can. Okay, great. So these are my questions that I have. There's already a walkway on Route 1 from Britain Lane to downtown Madison. Why do we need one on the opposite side of the road? I don't understand that. Number two, I don't have confidence in Rob Russo. He talks about his children having bikes and scooters Yes, we already talked about this, but then take Cherry Lane or take another way. But scooters do not go on the walkway. Why do we have a walkway on the golf course side of the road? I don't know why someone's talking while I'm talking.

Betsy, I'm trying to get you to stay focused on the application that the Zoning Commission is considering.

with questions to the applicants yes why is there a walkway on the golf course side of the road when on the residential side of the road would be much safer and only a certain amount of houses would be effective since they do not stay in their front yard they have backyards that they Enjoy okay, I don't have a lot of confidence in the 1st portion is not part of this application.

I'm sorry.

Isn't West work part of this conversation.

Yes, we've received your comment questioning why it's not on the East side of the road. What what is your other question? Why is it not on the South side of Boston post road? And why is it not located on the East side of West warf road?

Perfect and then I don't want scooters or bicycles on the freaking sidewalk. All right.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Rob, would you like to respond.

Yeah, sure. So on the south side of Britain Lane, there are also a number of trees on that side. And then you're also adding an additional two crossings. You're adding one across Britain Lane and then you're adding two across Britain Lane, one at the south side and the north side. So it depends. just geometrically, it works better on the north side than the south side. And again, if tree removal is a major concern, even though you're not losing a 36 inch diameter tree, there's still two, three trees I'm looking at now, three trees in a utility pole That'll have to be removed if we put it on the south side. As far as the east side of West Wharf, I mean, that one to me is like a no-brainer. We decided not to put it on the east side very early on, where there's numerous grade changes. There's even more trees on the east side of West Wharf that are very close to the road. Because of the grade changes, you'd have to impact private property, which we don't have to do with this project. We could keep it on Britain Lane and on the west side of West Wharf. We could keep it within the town's right-of-way. And then, yeah, I'm just going down West Wharf now. I mean, there's a number of landscaping, you know, fences, mailboxes. I think there's a little rock wall. So yeah, the impact opposed to putting on the west side of the east side of West Wharf is very clear. And I know everyone's adamant about the kind of boots on the ground observation approach here. So I could combat that with, if you look at West Wharf, I mean, it's clear that the sidewalk should be on the west side with the amount of impacts there would be on the east side.

Thank you. Okay, we have hands raised, but Lianne Hurdle has not yet spoken.

There's someone who hasn't been heard yet that we would like to hear from. Lianne, if you can unmute yourself and identify yourself for the record.

Hi, can you hear me? Yes, we can. Okay, I'm Lianne Hurdle, 23 Bradley Road. I just want to say that I do have confidence in Rob Russo. I'm on the bicycle pedestrian advisory committee and I appreciate all the work that he and the PNC and everyone else involved is doing to find a way to safely connect our downtown to the surf club. I don't actually have a question. I think that this has been a well thought out plan and I just wanted to voice my support. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Commissioners, can you take more questions? That's at your discretion. So I think I'm going to say that we've heard from everyone. We hear you loudly and clearly. And also I want to, I want to emphasize that your letters are on the file and in red. And so fully considered and fully considered. So please keep them coming. I think for this public hearing and for this application, we've got a lot of information. Rob, we appreciate you and your team's responses to all these questions and comments. I WOULD LIKE TO ENTERTAIN A MOTION TO CLOSE THE BUDGET HEARING. ANY DISCUSSION? JOHN AND JEFF, ARE YOU STILL WITH US?

I'M HERE. YES.

LET'S MOVE TO DELIBERATION. ANY THOUGHTS, ANY ADDITIONAL QUESTIONS?

It just seems like the train's rolling down the track. I think maybe our best bet is to try to bring us into the community, right? The noise of the tree's more sensible.

I do like the idea. I share a similar concern about the removal of the train. And I do like the idea of making a safe connection from downtown to the beach area, recognizing that that tree is special. I think someone mentioned doing something with it. I thought it was a great idea. But I do have a concern about the movement of the tree and if there's any way around it, I would ask that we consider that. I am also concerned about the crosswalk down across from connecting Lantern across to the West Fork Road. I share similar concerns and I'm not certain that I understand how those will work and how cars are going to stop. So I just need to, I'm pondering that in my head.

Okay. Michelle, wouldn't it be safer than it is now? This is John Morgan.

Oh, John. Okay, good. Yes, John.

I mean, there's nothing there now. I mean, it's a free-for-all.

I'm at that intersection a lot.

having something there that would potentially at least slow some cars down. Obviously, there's got to be some sort of education about how, you know, maybe a sign that says you just can't walk out without looking. But to me, it's just would be so much safer than it is now.

It's important for the commission to understand your purview in reviewing this application and under what lens you are reviewing it. And aspects such as the crosswalk and safety, those are things that I think the town engineer has heard that crosswalk is entirely regulated by DOT being on a steep road and specific standards that have to be met. For safety, I think it is good that there are members of the bike ped committee in attendance at this meeting and can very well add. And Rob is 1 of the staff members who liaise that committee and they can do outreach and many of their. activities and programming their website and things like that as far as educating folks in general on the beacons but the whether or not to place those or to place that crosswalk in there is not under the review of the commission thank you for the clarification i i want to add also that i'm very upset about that tree coming down possibly um

And I'm frustrated that the Planning and Zoning Commission has really not much that we can do about it because we don't have anything on our regulations. That said, I really appreciated the comments. I think it was from Rob, but it might have been Paul, that there might be money in the budget to install new trees and that you're aware of it too. You've heard, you know, they've heard from numerous people Public citizens and us as well that we were disturbed by the loss of that oak tree. If there's anything that can be done to, obviously you can't replace a tree that's that old, but if there is a way to find in the budget replacement trees, that would be great. Is that all I can say?

Any other thoughts?

If it changes, I think it comes back to us. Is that the process, Erin?

Well, so you close the public hearing, so you can't accept any alternative plans or suggestions from the applicant. So you are left to deliberate here on what you have.

But do you mean in the future if there are changes?

They were already talking about things that may be considered for some reasons and things

Like the design of the hearing back from ship. Oh, yeah.

So, I'm wondering, I'm concerned about that.

If the state, if a state agency and that standard language in. Your approval. When another agency has yet to review an application state agency, if there are changes that are made, that does not eliminate the commission's ability to have that plan that approved plan come back for. Yeah, so they need to make changes.

I have a quick comment. I will repeat what you said, our chairwoman, but yeah, absolutely. You know, just as in a broader context of this thing, I'm a commissioner. I'm not an engineer. I'm not trained as an engineer. But I know I'm a political scientist, I'm a social scientist, and I know that nothing gets railroaded in this town because there are so many checks and balances at the state level, across agencies, and you guys are here and we're listening. You know, so I... With that, I checked. There are experts, and these guys are the experts. And they have no money in the game. They really are doing the best they can and listening. In some cases, they may make a different decision than I would, even if I did have their expertise. But there are good reasons for doing it, and there's trade-offs. And sometimes when you do any public project, Somebody gets hurt or you're never going to build an airport or a road or do anything. So with that in mind, I just I'm not criticizing you guys for coming here. Fight the opposite. Come and tell us your concerns. That's really important. But I also think there's, you know, at different places, we really have some things in our governments that can be pretty sleazy. But this isn't one of them. And so thank you, Rob, and your team. And thanks for you guys to come here. And I, yeah, I'm not saying you guys don't know me.

It is within the purview of this commission. I believe that you can make a condition or recommendation language in your resolution if this were to approve the sidewalk project as far as recommendations for preservation of that tree at that intersection in keeping with the Historic nature of that and I know I'm sure this will be a conversation with the historic district commission again on Monday in discussion. You can also add language like you said. About in lieu, you know, if if that is the. Alternative, you're not the policy deciders. Within your regulations on that of road alignment.

However.

Sorry, if you have, if you have concerns, you can also make the recommendations that if the tree does get removed. What you would like, or suggest to be planted within that area. I think that's fair language today, but it's not currently in your draft resolution, but you can add that you can add.

Um, I also, I'm just, I keep thinking about the house and I'm really worried about. So, I don't know if we have anything in our jurisdiction there. I'm just expressing my concern.

That's part of the construction process of that for the engineering project. So that is something that is not handled through the planning zoning commission, but could be handled through. the engineering firm and the contractor who was doing the work. And again, waiting on feedback from SHPO as part of this because of the funding source

It's not a not a contingency. Well. Like, because, I mean, my, my concern and this guy's house, I have to be. Yeah, pretty pretty nervous as well. It doesn't seem like. Anything I heard here. Makes it seem like there's any sort of coverage if something were to go wrong and see that that could be a possibility could be on the table, but it doesn't seem like it's been something that has been brought up the food chain. And I understand that these guys still need to do an and find the actual builder or something, but like. I'd hate to have this go forward and it not be seen through and then this guy's sleeping under the tree that we saved because he doesn't have a house anymore and no one's there to help him out. So I think that's something we need to at least be conscious of.

Is that my question is something that it's not something within the village district review process. You're looking at the village district for design standards, materials, consistency with maintaining character. Down town, you can make a general statement that. You know, encourage that during construction activities. Uh, historic buildings are protected, protected, but beyond that, you have no regulations, no regulatory. It's really, it's really just an acknowledgement within your regulation.

Yeah. You know, we had no jurisdiction, but we made a comment just so. That's a good express our concern.

So, Aaron, do you feel like making some revisions. We have a draft resolution. I'm happy to take a motion to approve the application. And we can add some of the language we've just discussed.

Well, one last thing. I think I know the answer to this, but everyone brought up the point you had. Start shoveling stone sidewalk that I didn't ask for. I know it's not an ordinance, but it is an ordinance. I know. Sorry. Excuse me. It is an ordinance, but is it anything that, like, I know these people are going to appeal it. They're probably gonna go to the town and see if they can get an exception. Is there anything that we could revisit that as well?

That is entirely a board of selection. And then right.

But I have a motion that we still moved and we have a draft resolution. Do you want to go ahead and read the draft resolution and we can discuss the additional recommendations? Jeff and John, are you with us?

Yes.

Yes. It's okay to move to. Yep. At this point, I think we do, but if you want to start reading what we have, and then when we get to maybe. To the conditions we can add language.

Sure. The following draft resolution is offered the medicine planning zoning commission approves application number 26 dash 27. pedestrian improvements including sidewalks and crosswalks on Boston Post Road, U.S. Route 1, Britton Lane, and West Fort Worth Road. As shown on a plan set, sidewalk and crosswalk improvements, Boston Post Road, U.S. Route 1, Britton Lane, and West Fort Worth Road, prepared by SLR Consulting, dated June 2026 with the following conditions. One, that the zoning enforcement officer be notified any regulated activity. Two, that all erosion and sedimentation controls be installed prior to any site disturbance and be maintained for the duration of construction activities until the site is sufficiently stabilized to the satisfaction of the zoning enforcement officer. Anne, go ahead.

So then three, can we add language about trees?

The commission acknowledges the proposed for the removal of a 36 inch DBH oak tree at the intersection of Boston Post Road. The commission...

I have one question about what was written, what we read so far. It doesn't say anything about changing Britton Road at all, or Britton Lane. Where the fact that... The reason the tree would be taken out is because they're going to improve that intersection. So, I mean, they just talk about the sidewalks in that beginning. So I don't know if that should be mentioned at all.

It's on the plan set. Right.

I think the description, yeah, pedestrian improvements, including sidewalks and crosswalks. I guess that can go in here, too. The Commission acknowledges the proposal calls for realignment of Britton Lane, which includes the removal of the area.

Yeah, we can put it even in the context of the tree, because that's what disturbs us. Britton Lane. That's a good point, Jeff.

and the removal of a 36 joke at the intersection of Britain and Boston Post Road. What is your next thought? There's a wedge.

Sorry, still to finish the tree. If there are no options to tree removal, then we, I mean, I don't know what we can say. We encourage any alternatives and replacement and also to Make, I don't know the use of the tree afterwards and I don't think we need to say, I don't know.

I thought this was about the planning.

Yes. Planting trees. Yes. We're planting to tree.

Okay. If there are no options to tree removal or alternative. Yes, the commission. Deeks replanting or it would be the legend. How many trees?

Yes. Maybe appropriate appropriate for the landscape area and.

What will grow? Do you have a recommended number? Not necessarily.