Planning Board - Regular Meeting

Our first item is public input if there's anybody in the room or online that has something they would like to bring before us That's not on the agenda tonight. Please speak up now Yes, please All right any anybody here that's for something other than that's on the agenda already Don't think so. Okay, and I don't see anybody online So I think we can move into our action items. So our first action item is the draft decision for the site plan approval at 13 Meadowbrook Road. Kristen, do you want to just give us an overview of where we're at with that and any new comments that need to be made? Sure.

That public hearing started at the last meeting. We went over their site plan and voted to draft the draft decision, which was sent out at the end of last week. So if there's any comments on that, we can go over that. But at this point, be ready to be voted on.

And just to kind of call it out, this is a protected ADU by the standards of the state.

Yes, this one met the standards for that.

Which means that if there's nothing that we object to, the state says we must approve it by default.

That's correct.

Unless it is noncompliant or varied.

That's correct, yes.

It's by the right. Did anybody on the board have questions or comments they wanted to share about this draft decision?

No questions or comments at this point. Same.

The square footage checks out?

Yes, that one was 900 square feet, which is the maximum. It was in a single-family zone. All the criteria was met when we looked at it, so.

Great. If there's no other questions or comments, I'll entertain a motion.

I'll move that the board find favorably on all the findings, grant all the requested waivers, and grant the site plan approval with the conditions all as drafted. Second.

All right, moved and seconded. Any discussion of the motion? Hearing none, all in favor? Aye. Aye. All opposed? Motion carries unanimously. All right. We can move on to general business. So we obviously have to wait until 7.30 to start the public hearing. I didn't see any bills. Did we have bills? No. No bills. Minutes of previous meetings. So we had the minutes from April 6, 2026.

Move we approve them as drafted with any adjustments we discuss.

Second.

seconded any discussion of the motion hearing none all in favor aye all opposed carries unanimously staff report staff report a couple of things I just wanted to highlight that are coming up in the near future or underway I think you may remember The MVP 2.0 grant was applied for and awarded to Grafton, so that's the Municipal Vulnerability Preparedness Grant through EEA. Grafton had been part of the initial iteration of that. And we're going through that again. So we were awarded that grant We just signed the contract with CMR PC. They're gonna be our planning vendor to move that forward It's about a two-year process and will result in what's called a seed project So based off of what's found in the the planning phase will start a project from that which is part of the funds we were awarded That's one project Next meeting, which is scheduled for the 13th, we'll have two representatives from CMRPC come. One will be coming to talk about the DOER, Clean Energy Siding Assistance. That is the updated regulations from DOER, Department of... Energy something? Energy something, yeah. The state. The state, yeah. regulations that we're working on coming into compliance with I know Bob was at one of those meetings so they're gonna come and talk about what assistance they can provide or any recommendations they have as we work towards that date and then also there's another project they're working on for us separate from that which is the flexible development bylaw so they've been working on that for a little while now and they'll come and update us on what's next to complete that project Finally, another project CMRPC is working on the permitting guide. I think you've got a presentation on that before. We're working on completing that. Should be done by the end of July. That's all I have.

Relating to the DOER clean energy stuff and assistance, would that fall under some state grant or is that under the DLTA hours?

They have some separate program funding specific to that, that they're able to provide assistance at no charge to the towns. Okay. Thank you. If memory serves, they're working with several towns on that. Yes, I reached out to them based off of our previous meeting, and they said they'll come and they'll look at our bylaws and provide some recommendations and whatever else we need to do to prepare to comply.

Thank you for being proactive.

thank you Christian any other questions for Christian um do we have I thought I'd put it here do we have a meeting with the select board I don't know that that will take place yes the joint meeting is I think Natalia still working on finalizing all that but that went on being unhappy we have it did she was targeting July 7th yeah that's the last I heard that so I'm assuming that was going on but I'm not sure yeah that's correct

Is it I gave her my availability for that, but I didn't hear a confirmation on it I think she's working with the TA office to finalize everything but it's I anticipated to happen that day because besides the Appointing the associate there were some other things mentioned that They had the select board indicated interest in talking about that data centers

know yeah but there were two things yeah the centers and something similar yeah i don't i don't remember hearing about anything other than the associate appointment and the data centers i i did hear about that so i i've asked that if there's anything that they want the planning board or myself to prepare ahead of that that i can prepare that i haven't heard anything specific yet, but I did hear that that will be coming up.

It could be the initial discussion of the topic.

My only nitpick is I'm a Star Trek nerd, so it's data centers. What's that? I was saying I'm a Star Trek nerd, so it's data centers, not data centers.

And how does that typically work in a joint meeting like that? Are they just bringing in discussion topics? We're going to their meeting.

um in order to do this appointment are they going to bring kind of the the topic and that's what i would expect so i i would i'm expecting if there's anything they want us to prepare for for that that i can do that okay um and if so i'll reach out again this week just to make sure that we have all information that we need and we we will need to post as well for us for that day with the topics that we are going to be discussing at that meeting but

Yeah, that would be one of the things that Natalia is still working on. Yes. Setting an agenda for our part of the meeting.

I did send back to Natalia, I suppose, that I really want to know when it's scheduled, when we're going to do it. We're not going to sit for a couple hours waiting for them to get around to us, which has happened before.

I know she's aware of that, so I'll check in, but I know she's working on that piece.

Yeah, the ones I've been involved in, it sort of happens right at the top of the meeting.

Yeah, well, sometimes it does.

In a perfect world, it would be 715 on the dot, but I definitely hear Mr. Hasinger's concerns that, yeah, sometimes it's 845. All right.

Any other questions for Christian on the staff report?

Great. Go ahead. One thought. Has there been any permitting coming across the desk relating to the old Burger King, Pepperdine Express, that parcel next to Savers Bank, the McDonald's, I think is the company?

No, nothing new on that that's come through. I know there's anticipation for that, but I have not gotten anything new.

Okay. Because the last action on that was they got a variance from the ZBA. Yes.

Which presumably means that they are now at some stage of working on the permitting paperwork, which would eventually be filed with us. Yes.

Okay. And there may be updates from other departments, but not from this department.

Yeah. I'm interested as a whole, but I was only asking for us.

All right, any other questions? Okay, let's move on to correspondence. Did anybody see anything in correspondence worth calling out?

Nothing caught my eye. No.

Anyone else? There's some notices from Shrewsbury and Worcester. All right, how about reports from planning board representatives on town committees and CMRPC?

I went to the annual CMRPC meeting. I found out I'm re-elected to vice chair, I think. Congratulations. Congratulations. Well, it wasn't terribly difficult. We get together and decide what the ballot will be. And no one ever, I don't think I've ever seen a write-in

And did they already have a session on the data center bylaws? Did CMRPC host that? Who was hosting something? I had a conflict. I don't know if it already happened. There was at least one with CMRPC, I believe.

That may have been what Bob and I attended, which was the clean energy siting. So they didn't have one on data centers yet?

Related, I think. I didn't attend it, but I know...

I don't remember. When I reached out to CMRPC anticipating the meeting with the planning board, I mentioned that we may be looking for some assistance with data centers. They have limited guidance at this point as far as direct guidance from the state on that, but I know that that's a topic that they're dealing with as well. I don't remember there being – there may have been a data center webinar, but I don't – I don't recall it.

Yeah, apologies if it wasn't CMRPC that hosted it. I just remember it kind of came across my email, but I had a conflict, so I didn't know if anybody made it to that.

Yeah, I don't remember. I don't remember. Nothing in my email has ever caught my eye regarding data centers, except some queries on the mass planners listserv, where there are a number of communities that are interested in knowing more about data centers. There was some talk about moratoriums on data centers. There's one or two municipalities that, if I remember right, have actually implemented at least a moratorium, if not a more comprehensive bylaw. My impression is discussions on that topic are sort of in, it's a rising concern here in the Commonwealth.

Not much action has been taken. Before our next meeting as well, I want to look into it. I'm going to just say it out loud, too, because other members want to try to check. I guess in 2024, I saw something just last night that there was an executive order relating to accelerating data centers, and that was signed into law. I don't know what the actual outcome or specifics were yet, but that was in June or July of 2024.

be interesting to know how data centers which can range from the computer room back there to you know many acres i suppose uh how they fit into particularly the kinds that people are worried about fit into our zoning i think it's probably same as solar fields or you know any uh light industry you know well i think it's a it's a building

yeah it's a building full of electronics really only one place that it can go in town and that's why I'm in Gordon's that's that the land in front of Wyman Gordon's that's there's no other place for a data set of data whatever you want to call it to go that you know a concern the concern and maybe Christian when we go before the board maybe you can have a list of of items or you know bullet points that show you know average water consumption, electricity consumption. It's not an issue of being a traffic issue because it's not a traffic issue other than during construction because there's thousands and thousands of workers that are going to work there. But that is the only place in this town that you could put a data center, data, whatever it is.

It depends on how big a data center you want. The ones people are worrying about.

I read a thing in the Wall Street Journal the other day You know, they don't want small data centers, you know 10,000 square foot data center, you know, unless they're gonna stuff it in the city somewhere they want, you know Hundreds of thousands of square feet and I'm Gordon's is the only place in town that you could do that yeah, and I'm sure that the owners of that piece of property are We're aggressively looking for someone to buy that Very aggressively.

Yes. The thing is, power would be available. They use a lot of power in, and that makes a lot of heat that needs to go out. And apparently the most popular arrangement, probably the cheapest one, is to use available water, just natural water. Suck it out of someplace and dump it back in. And I'm not sure that there's the kind of water that they talk about.

Well, so that's the issue with a lot of places that they go is that they can't provide the cooling water for the system itself.

Some of the newer, more expensive ones that are built also have self-contained water filtration systems that the cooling water is literally all self-contained within the building. And so they don't need to use external water except for an emergency fire or something like that. Well, ideal, but that's also more expensive. Yeah, more expensive, for sure. The heat.

The heat still has to go someplace, maybe just into the air. But I'm not sure that they're all that great for Grafton because, as I understand it, not very many people work in those buildings.

Once they complete it.

Once they complete it. No, no, I'm not building great for whoever gets to do the building. But not many people work in it, and I'm not clear how much taxes

Most of the I would think most of the value is in the computers and whatnot And I don't know how that gets taxed Personal property that would be a person that would be that would be huge but so there's a big thing I was saying, you know, we it's the only place to put a data center the Taxes that will come in off of that data center would be huge for this time. You think what who wants it?

Even outside the computers that are put in there, there's a lot of technology that goes into actually the orchestration and setting up of a data center, the flooring, the infrastructure in general, how the power is distributed.

know, for both backup and not, you know, for two different power things, or three, sometimes, usually a substantial on site backup power supply, which requires traditionally either diesel or natural gas, those generators are exercised on a regular schedule to keep them in good shape. So that could also be a concern.

Sometimes a networking is set up outside of the typical providers, like it would be the company that provides Verizon's back end would would usually typically be connected to there or something like

Well, it's a good question from Ray about if everything is as it is today, where do we think something like that would fall in the zoning? I mean, that's the largest probably piece of open industrial zone property.

Under our current zoning bylaw, my interpretation from having read it recently extensively is that it would not qualify as heavy industry. Because heavy industry is a very circumscribed set of activities. So that would kind of push it by default into OLI. So unless we proactively change that, which I think is the merit of the discussion.

And the other note, too, is companies like NVIDIA right now are starting to investigate the viability of quite literally data centers in a box where they have an individual homeowner put a basically a double the size of a typical outdoor AC unit you know on their property wired to their own electricity and their own cooling system and water system and that is you know provided though I don't know how that would fall under our bylaws right now probably would be allowed I'm guessing but it's a thing to think about to concern yep I mean goods would make a great sports facility great sports

sports fields, baseball fields.

And was that site permitted for some kind of a distribution center at that point?

Yes, yeah, $331. That's still active. It's been for sale actually since they got the approval.

Yeah, but...

We would hopefully have only renewed it for a year you have to exercise it and there hasn't been any Exercising and it also had to stay during the during the period of appeal appellate process but

My question is, if there is lots of taxes, because I've seen people question that, and it might be different tax schemes in different states, is that better or worse than what was permitted there?

Tax-wise, it would be better because of the personal property and the building.

But in terms of impacts to the town and?

I think it'd be people jumping on roofs if the data was going to go in there.

I'm pretty confident that the people living across the street there would be delighted to not have warehouse traffic there. A similar sized building, but zero traffic.

They'd be probably more delighted if there wasn't a four-story building at all.

So I think maybe what the board is looking for, obviously in this joint meeting is our input on how it fits into zoning. Do we need to make zoning changes in October at the October town meeting to address this address? Not that one, but address the, the data center, you know, situation. Yeah.

And as I said before, some towns are have implemented or are looking to implement a moratorium, like a one or two year moratorium on data centers. so that they have time to study the zoning and adapt their zoning to, you could do a very limited period moratorium for the purpose of adapting your zoning, figuring out what you need to do for zoning.

I'll probably say this again on Tuesday, I look at that as the only option in my mind for anything this year to pull out of town meeting floor, because I think there's a lot involved that I'd want to research and try to do a little bit more understanding, even though I know a lot, I don't know a lot in the zoning or law process of it, but before I'd be comfortable backing any sort of proposal for a zoning process.

Yeah, I'd be happy with something like a moratorium because a lot of towns are studying this, and so I don't want to reinvent the wheel if somebody else comes up with a good wheel. Right. And giving us time to let multiple towns research the topic, and collectively we figure out what, if anything, we want to do with zoning to deal with it. Yeah.

i don't know this off the top of my head maybe somebody does uh in with the oli zoning is there any kind of restriction on water use or power use or you just put up your building and you consume what you consume no if the water department if the water company says that they can't provide you water which i think that that could be i think well it's certainly an issue for us right now because each side of town is down in a major well i think i don't think these places are using uh

water from the street there many are using using that you know natural well whatever you call it so naturally water tap their town provided water some are you down some are digging their own wells they're just south of 50 in the state of Massachusetts it's a 35 to 40 of them have been relatively good neighbors there are five or fewer who have been extremely poor neighbors to their have their host towns were they bad how were they poor uh not compliant with the plans that they have put forth uh wanton disregard for oh we got a bunch of people that do that yeah yeah that's routine right now

You were saying besides people who don't do what they're told, which we already have some tools for that. Right. What else?

Overdrawing on water, a lot of installation of traditionally backup power generation that is not permitted. Like, yes, it's Tier 4 diesel, but they're skirting a lot of the permits on that.

That might be something to think about. I don't know. But backup power is not going to run that long.

They have to turn on every generator once a week for 30 minutes. Yeah.

And they have to run for 72 hours. So what that is, for example, I mean, I put 72-hour generators in nursing homes. It's a 1,500-gallon tank with a generator sitting on top of it. So if you're going to put in 1,000 KW generator, you're going to need it.

know close to a 5 000 gallon tank diesel fuel so there's all kinds of things that's yeah so those are all things we can should will look at yeah i think understanding you know if nothing changes where it might fall in the zoning and then some of the kind of most targeted concerns i think from myself would be if something like this could fit in the zoning and then not have any real check on the power usage or the water usage i think that's something that would be you know consideration in this case.

If they're going to use municipal water, which they most likely will because I don't know if there's an underground source or an alternative source that would provide them the water at the scale they will need it. So they have to get permission from the water district and at the scale that they typically use commercial water, our districts are not going to allow them to. So that's That's the first showstopper. The second showstopper is whether they can get the power they need from grid. You don't just hook up to National Grid. Basically, you have to work with them. You tell them what power you need, and they'll tell you whether they are capable of supplying that power to you.

From our recent hearings with Wyman Gordon, we know that Wyman Gordon draws directly from the high lines next to them, right next to this property also. So that's why I said I think they could probably get power in more so than in many places. I just thought the water, for the most part, the water district wants water that's going to be good for people to drink. If you want to cool stuff, maybe there are opportunities for wells in places that have water that the water district can't use.

The water and property may be a poor choice for digging the well, even for that reason.

For historical reasons. Anyway, it's... interesting for us to be aware of the issues that are going to come up with this topic and I said I know I know we're not the only community that's interested in this what I can do a minimum ahead of the select board the joint meeting is I do want to know if there's any specific they are wanting us to talk about but I can yeah come up with informational memo

Just to start the conversation, I don't know if we'll fully answer everything, but I think based on the select board meeting, there will be some additional actions that we may take just depending on which direction the town wants to go.

If anybody's curious, in Centec Park, there is a data center. happens to be located just over the line in Shrewsbury, State Street Bank. It's a much smaller data center than the large-scale operations that companies are trying to build now.

It's actually Amazon now. It's not the bank anymore, it's Amazon.

Yeah, I remember hearing that they had sold or were going to sell it to Amazon.

They have two independent power supplies, Shrewsbury Power Our power. And they get water from us. They get water from us. And it's two of everything. I don't know whether anybody else goes back that far, but I got to have a tour before they finished it because we had to do a lot with the permitting. Yeah, it was something more.

Yeah, so I think, obviously, where it falls in the current zoning, as we would expect, And maybe somebody mentioned, you know, there's people doing moratoriums, you know, with kind of a timeline on it, if we could get an example of what somebody's done there. And then if anybody's done something more sophisticated than that, maybe an example of something like that to look at.

would be helpful but I also understand the comments from everyone here that it's it's early so to get real specific with a bylaw by uh the fall it's tough I think by May most likely if we wanted to do something at all on zoning we could easily enact a moratorium and at the fall town meeting because those are pretty straightforward we've seen several examples of those on the planners list Yeah, all right.

Yes, and I could probably talk for three four hours in a single minute on this topic Yeah, all right.

Well, I just want we just we just crossed into 730 here. Yeah.

Yeah, so any final comments here before we start don't The hot thing right now has been the towns that are turning down battery storage and that that is Well, there are towns around here who are really uptight about that. So we want to be sure that we know what we know about that subject. Okay.

Yeah, we don't really touch on battery storage in our zoning bylaw today. Right.

They're going to talk to us about that specifically.

Yeah, that fits into the DOER topic, solar and battery both.

Yeah. Okay, good. The state's helping us to not have to worry about that by making its own rules.

Yeah. Good. all right well no not good i'd like to well i'm glad that we'll have some guidance or some context to consider uh all right let's let's move to the public hearing yeah we've got i believe we have some folks here it's a little past 7 30 so um we're kind of resuming the public hearing for site plan approval at 189 brigham hill road um and so as we left it last time there were some questions around whether or not the disqualified as a protected ADU so Christian can you give us an update on where things stand and anything new that you've learned that we can share before we continue the hearing the public comment yes from the last meeting I've been in contact with the owner the applicant and

and provided me all the information that we requested. He mentioned he was going to try to make it this evening but may not be able to, but I do think he gave us all the information that we had at least requested from him.

He is on Zoom at the moment as an attendee.

Okay, perfect.

We could promote him to panelists so that he can participate more fully. Yes, sure.

But the two outstanding questions that we had to ensure that this met the criteria of a protected use ADU was the square footage of the principal dwelling compared to the accessory dwelling. And then there's additional questions if the non-conforming status of the principal dwelling affected the approval process, which for my research and all the information I found, this application does meet the criteria of a protected use ADU. based off of everything that I found. So from that information, the exhibit was posted, and if we can go over any questions you all have, but I believe we have enough information at this point to... That's to my recollection, those are the only two things that were left up in the air after the last hearing.

By the way, Mr. Salton declined the promotion to panelists. He is able to speak if he wants to. Okay.

parking that this will have need can be required or not this would require three spaces and there was at least five spaces I think six there are six listed so two inside the garage and then

I just watched a video from some other part of the country where ADUs were working differently. It was like a tight cul-de-sac, and they were building solid around it with ADUs, and there already wasn't enough parking for the people who were there already, and apparently they have some different parking rules than we do, which is why I wanted to ask.

but so just to be clear this one requires three and there's six total yes there's an excess okay and the second driveway pre-existing although would not be approved if it were new construction is grandfathered and is not applying because it's already there yeah that that that would not affect this adu application thank you and can and Christian can you just give us exactly the the confirmed square footage of the primary dwelling

Yeah, that's what I had found. I think the assessor data has the same square footage of the basement compared to the living space. The applicant suggested a little bit less. I think that's because part of it is finished and part of it is not. But regardless, there's sufficient square footage to meet the criteria.

For protected, so it would be allowable up to 900 or up to, I'm sorry, so they're requesting 700 and they have at least 1,400?

At least, yes.

Okay.

Yeah, there's at least confirmed 1,737. I think there's more than that, but they're sufficient to meet the criteria. Okay.

And the footprint of six, or the footprint that they've proposed is 672 square feet. That is based on the exterior dimensions of the house, not the interior square footage once it's finished out. So 672 is a generous high end, I think.

Okay. And I will, I did some independent research in though I'm not 100% sure, it does what I could find says that square foot is even an unfinished basement if the ceiling is at least 6 feet 7 inches. It qualifies. This material, what the applicant stated, is 6.83 feet, which is well above 6.7, though not full foot, but still above. So it counts as total square foot, and the total square footage of the house is what counts for the...

adu law not finished livable space yes okay all right so so just to recap the two questions were about does the non-conforming structure affect the approval or the status of a protected adu the answer is no and we were trying to confirm the total square footage of the primary dwelling to make sure that the what they're applying for in terms of square footage for the ADU was compliant and it is yes okay so that's that's where we stand today any other comments from the board does the applicant want to say anything before we open up to the public comment I'm not hearing anything, so that update being shared, we'll open it up to anybody who wants to come to the microphone and comment. Please say your name and your address.

A lot of people have no comments.

So am I seeing just, there's no comments or questions at this time from the folks in the room? There don't need to be, I just want to make sure that you have the opportunity.

Sure.

Somebody needs to just come to the microphone and share their name and address and then we can

My name's Ray Balser. I actually live in Barry. That's my mother. And so I'm just speaking for her. She has some questions regarding with the size of the apartment, how many people, are there any limitations on the number of people that can actually live in the place or cars that'll be parked there regularly or permanently because the driveway is directly adjacent to the next door house lot and having the extra traffic and cars sitting there may or may not be impactful. So it's just a question on, is there any limit on number of people people that actually live in that department? And two, are there any limits on the number of, can they have the full six cars all the time there?

Okay, so. The limitation on number of people living in the building would just be based off the fire code. So they couldn't exceed any fire code limitations on that. I don't know off the top of my head, but I believe this is a one-bedroom, so whatever the one-bedroom

I think it's two bedrooms, one bath. Two bedrooms, one bath. And like we said, 600 some odd square feet, a little under 700, right? So I guess they would have to be in compliance with the fire code for a living space of that size.

And as far as parking, limitless as long as they're just filling the nut, overflowing the driveways?

Yes. Yeah, the bylaws specifies how many parking spaces they need. They do exceed that as far as our bylaw goes. But as with any home or apartment or anything, if they're parked legally on their property or on a public way, there's not really much to say about that as long as they're legally parked.

Okay. All right. Are there any other questions here? All right. Thank you, guys.

You're welcome. Any other questions or comments from people that are here?

If anybody on Zoom wants to say anything, raise your hand on Zoom if you want to speak.

All right. I'm not seeing any other comments or questions, so I would entertain a motion. I move.

Go ahead. I move we close the hearing, and I guess we have to... direct staff to prepare a draft decision for hopefully for our next meeting.

Second.

Moved and seconded. Any discussion of the motion?

So I'll have that for the 13th planning board meeting. Okay. All right.

Hearing none, all in favor? Aye. All opposed? Motion carries unanimously. All right, that brings us to any other items that can lawfully come before us, right? We got through all of our general business, correct?

We did indeed. I move we adjourn.

Second. Second. Not debatable. All in favor? Aye. Aye. It carries unanimously. Thank you. We are adjourned.