Planning Board - Regular Meeting

Seeing as it is 7 o'clock, I'll call this meeting to order. I believe this is a special meeting, so we'll just go straight to the action items, which are the draft decision of the judgment and order on remand for Brigatti Village. SP 2019-2 slash SPA, 41 Church and 14 West. I think we're just picking up from last week's conversation, so I don't know if Christian and Chris want to open up the conversation and then we can... kind of hear the comments from the board and work through them in a similar fashion. Sure.

So since we met last Wednesday night, I think there's been some hard work underway to create a new version of the draft that you guys have in your packet for the meeting tonight. What that work entailed was immediately after the Wednesday night meeting, Kristen and I collaborated on a draft between the two of us that to capture all of the revisions that we discussed in the meeting. As between the two of us, Christian took the first crack at it. I looked at it. And between the two of us, we produced a draft that we thought had captured what was discussed on Wednesday. We shared that draft with the applicant on Friday, and they returned a slightly marked-up version of that draft with their, I would characterize as, I think, fairly minor revisions on Sunday evening. And then we shared that version of the question. I discussed that, again, among the two of us. And then that is the draft that was shared with you on Monday morning. So there's been some... Revisions to the draft, there's been some back and forth between us and the applicant. And I think the way I would characterize it is that as between myself and Christian and the applicant, we've come up with a draft. The current draft, I think, seems primarily acceptable to us. I think the one sticking point that we left in the draft for further discussion was the condition C60 and the question of whether or not the security code for condition C60 would or would not include the top code for the project. I believe the applicant continues to believe that that shouldn't be included in the draft. And the compromise that they've offered is that we include, instead of security for the top coat, a deadline of 18 months for the applicant to complete it. And presumably they would. And also presumably if they didn't, we could always enforce that through fines or an injunction in court. That is the, I think, only remaining open question as between us, but obviously this is a question for the board, so I sort of welcome any questions that the board may have about anything you've seen in the new draft, and I'm happy to talk through it.

If it's okay, I'd like to kind of hear the, have people list off whatever conditions they want to discuss, and then we talk about them. Well, this is for you, Bob, because we got him switched out of order last time. Do you have a general comment?

No, I just mentioned sticking point. I wanted to ask about that, how that worked. We can discuss 60 right now. That's the one, right? The top code. Whatever the number is.

Yeah, that's C60. So let's start there.

And I have one question on C60 as well. I would like to add 64. Yes, I have.

That's the one that I'm, well, yeah.

I also have it. before we get into 60.

Sure.

So it's 60, 64.

Which other conditions do people have that they want to discuss?

I have no comments on anything other than 60 and 64. Okay.

Anything outside of 60 or 64 from Justin or Bob?

I think I'm good. I'm just double checking.

Sure. And I had a small question on 57. Which one? 57. The list I have right now is 57, 60, and 64. And if there aren't any others, then we can perhaps take them in numerical order. Sounds good. How's that sound? All right, so my question for 57 was just, you know, we're taking out this sentence about the satisfaction of the board, and maybe this is just to help me get my fullest understanding of it, but it says, you know, the stormwater to the plan, what if it's not working? Then what happens if there are complaints? Because that's something I could see, you know, a butter's coming in and asking about. So what's the process? that there's an issue with stormwater, even though it, you know, technically meets the plan.

So you're after the project is considered complete? Is that what you're asking? Or before then? I would think after.

I mean, well... You want drainage to be... Oh, this is...

Prior to the occupancy permit. Right, so it would be before it's complete.

So this would be a case where the peer review engineer would review this and sign off that it's done in accordance to the plans and it meets the engineer's expectation. So it performs to the plan, right? Okay.

paired with 58, which also requires them to certify that it's been installed in accordance with the plans. And do you have to go and have a peer reviewer just double check that under 58?

So that's my answer. The peer reviewer is the person. I just see the board's satisfaction being removed. So we're relying on the peer reviewer. That makes sense to me. Any other things on 57? Let's move on to 60.

60 is not relative to the top code. It's something that I think admits to a quick answer. The way 60 is written, take a step back. The way 60 was written before this, it talked about phases. And on the plans, the most recent plans, There was one sheet of the plan that shows the project divided into two phases, phase one and phase two. So my question on 60 was whether the applicant intends to seek occupancy permits on phase one before completing construction on phase two. or is the intent to complete all the buildings and then seek the occupancy permits?

We plan on getting occupancy certificates as the buildings are completed.

Okay, so you can read the latest language I saw in C60. You could read that as you can't get your final occupancy permits until all the road work and utilities is done. I'm not sure that you would want to be constrained that way.

I mean, I certainly don't. That's not how I was reading it, nor do I think that's how it was intended. It was the final, whatever the final closeout, last CO is, is the one that that date would be keyed off of in terms of getting this.

So this, as written, it wouldn't prevent you from getting the buildings occupied as you build them.

Correct.

I believe that that language is specific to the final option. That was my concern. I didn't want this to unnecessarily constrain you.

Thank you. We don't want to create any problems. That's why we're working so hard not to have them.

Thank you. I think that was an easy answer. It just cleared up the uncertainty in my mind on that. I appreciate that. There are other points on C60 that we may be discussing.

Okay. What are the other comments on C60?

I didn't... No, I don't think I was... I just had a... About the naming. I thought, doesn't the post office get to say so? But we don't. We think, no, or if they do, that's your problem, not ours. On the naming? The C-60 plus one? The fire chief and the police chief, definitely. Because when they say go to Leland for the fire, you don't want two Lelands there are.

I totally agree.

We don't want two Lelands out there. Yeah, I assume that was why that was in there, in case there was a brassy way and a brassy circle. Totally get it.

Is there anything else, anybody else? Other comments on 60? Yeah. I mean, if I could just... Well, 60 or the red thing? Anything that's... 60.1. 60A.

Yes, I presume all the conditions have been renumbered appropriately once we're done with this. Yes. So, yeah, that one about the naming made perfect sense to me.

Oh, just for my part. I feel like I was the one. So I push back on the question of including the top coat in condition C60. But for my own seat, I guess, given where we're at with the decision and the applicant's willingness to agree to a condition where they would just need to complete that within 18

I feel crunchable in assuming that the applicant will actually want to complete the work. I have no reason to doubt that. It's really like that 18-month deadline seems to me to be sufficient to cover the worst-case possibility that you don't get that top foot done on time.

And my limited understanding as well is if the top coat stays not done for a long period of time as well, it's just more wear and tear on the road that's going to happen and be on the property owner and applicant to deal with in the future. So I think it's reasonable.

I mean, ultimately, the property owner is responsible for everything here. So this is a case where it would... I don't see it ever coming to the town having to try to complete any of the work. No. It shouldn't, but things seem to come to us sometimes. But somebody, see somebody's always going to own, somebody, not the town, is always going to own that property.

Correct, it remains private.

Yeah, it's private property forever. And thus the property owner ultimately is held responsible for everything that happens there.

Yeah. And we thought the 18 made sense, given what David said earlier about trying to get one season in. And then just depending on the timing of that final, I almost did a year, and then I was like, well, depending on the issuance of that final CO, if it's issued in December, the asphalt plants are closed, his hands are tied because he's done with them. That just made sure that we were able to get through that season, make sure we get asphalt plants open, and get it down. It also, in my mind, gave a leash, right? There was no room for Someone said, well, it's not down yet. We go, yeah, but we still have some time or whatever. It's just open-ended. There was no closure. We gave 18 months. So for the past 18 months, the building inspector has a very easy deadline to point to and say, look, you're out of compliance. We're going to enforce.

And until the top coat goes down, like the manhole covers and things, drainage fixtures and castings will be slightly proud of the surface of the road?

We keep them even until we're ready to pave. We don't want the plows going over and hitting the manhole covers. That's not good.

That's standard procedure.

You have to raise it right before you do the top.

When you see them raising the manhole covers and other fixtures, you know they're getting ready to do the test. Watch for the trucks with the black stuff.

My concern, I've been through more than one project housing markets crashed, people went out of business before the work was done. The year and a half before the final quote is consistent with what usually happens in a subdivision, although the acceptance doesn't happen. Normally it's a public way, it gets accepted at the end of that time after. final pavements down, everything's right. So I'm just, if somehow What happens? I think the property owner's problem.

So this, I think the, as I think of this, you know, this is a, this is planned as a rental, this is planned as a rental project. Ah. As opposed to a home ownership project. And I think. The concern about bonding the top coat is probably, in my opinion, a little bit more pronounced in an ownership project, where you would expect the developer to sell off the homes and then be off the offsite. But if we're here, we're going to have a unified owner of all of the rental units. I think it's safer to assume that. there's going to be one owner of the project that we could enforce against if we needed to go compel the completion of the payment.

If this were a condo project, the condo association would be responsible for the road rate. Correct. So it's very similar to the rental project in that you have a well-defined owner of the roads. In the case of condos, it's the condo association who everybody owns an undivided fraction of the roads. In a rental unit, it's the long-term owner of that. Now, these guys could sell it to someone else, but someone else would be taking on all of the obligations.

Right, so the way this reads, 18 months after the final CO, whoever owns the property is responsible for that top cover, and the town can seek recourse to that.

Okay. I'm not sure whether the town needs to seek recourse, but who knows what happens there. You know, it's... All those folks are going to come in and raise holy hell about the situation. And they're going to start looking for, I mean, we had, it was a big subdivision down in South Grafton that developer went away. And it was a big deal about getting it finished.

As it is right now, this C60, there's no requested edits from the board, it seems like. Right, I think it's...

Okay, yeah, good point, Christian. So I think unless there is, if we're good with C60 as written, then we'll move on to 64, which was the other one that Michael proposed we chat about.

Yeah.

All right, so Michael, go ahead.

So 64 is mentioning that Drive A should be a paved road. like all the other roads. I like this. I have a few questions and a few concerns. None of them I think are major blockages. Some for my own information and some to potentially clear the way to remove any hassle or snag down the road. So currently on the plan there is a semi-permeable surface for driving on that's chained off. If that were to be paved would the chain still be there?

I would remove the chain if I could, but if that's up to the board, if you want it. The alternative is it was depicted on the plan, did not show chains. It showed signs, unspecified wording, it showed signs at each end of that section that was intended for emergency vehicles. So I was guessing that those signs were intended to read for emergency use only. I'm not sure if you have to refer to the plan.

I can't go off the top of my head, but I would think if we pave it, we would just leave it open so that it could be used.

So if your intention is to pave it consistent with the rest of the road so it becomes just another part of the roadway, and it's not a problem, I'd rather like it, but my concern was that as depicted on the plans, it was still depicted as an emergency access.

Should we add the condition in there saying that that will be paved and consistent with the rest of the road and no blockage, no chain, and no gate for that section?

I think that would work if that's what you would like. Would that work for you? It certainly works for me. Okay. And this is one more question for you of your intent is if it's paved, I'm hearing your intent is that if it's paved, it's paved as a regular road. Correct. That was my understanding originally.

We can just hopefully modify C-64.

The rest of the access ways and then open for public use.

Is the layout of that section fully consistent with

I would have to look at that. Sorry, Bob, I don't have the plans. It may not be because it was designed to be emergency access only.

So that would be worth clarifying that. And the point I had on 64, which kind of goes along with what we're just talking about, is that Road A is the major road through there. talking about road A being paved really should be clarified as applying to that portion of drive A that was originally designated as emergency vehicle access.

I'm going to look on my plan here to see if I can find it.

Maybe we should say that it be built consistent with the rest of the road and then if the plan If it turns out that there's a problem with that, come back and work it out at another time.

Page C2.

What page?

Page C2.01. My intent with this is not to give you a hard time, but if we are building to the plan, we should capture all of the things that are not according to plan in the conditions so that everybody is seeing eye to eye moving forward.

I 100% agree with you. So if it says... after the the lap after the vehicles built consistent with the rest of the road open for public use so it's going to be consistent with the rest of driving so the rest of drive a's is

marginally narrower than the actual pavement. Yeah.

Thank you, Justin. I was just about to do that myself. I'm assuming. Yeah, I'm on 3.02. 3.02, okay. Yeah, it should be fine. Great.

That's fine. Thank you for picking that up.

The other questions that I have, and again, these are not meant to be difficult. No, no, I'm glad you're clarifying. That's excellent. I didn't see a percent coverage of impermeable surfaces in the plans. I think that's actually on the first page. Okay. It's totally possible that I missed it. So my concerns are percent coverage of impermeable surfaces And any drainage, you know, storm water drains, et cetera, for that, putting that language into C60 such that you have the way to add those fixtures, you know, within reason to, you know, deviate from the plan which we're sticking to to make it consistent with the standards.

Thank you.

Can you roll that to me again?

Since you're making it impervious, if you need to put an additional drain connection somewhere to connect it to the stormwater management system.

If you need to put a stormwater drain there to service this region that is now going to be impervious, we should put language into the approval allowing you to do that for this section. And I don't know how close we are to the impermeable rating. If that becomes a problem as well, we could have language to address that.

My memory, this is just going by memory, not re-reviewing stuff. When Graves did look at the plans, they asserted that the The rainwater calculations and such was also appropriate with this emergency vehicle page version.

Perfect.

If there's slight change to width or something, it might change the calculations, but I don't think there's a... Yeah, just a note on this, what you see on the screen, the set permissible.

If there's a notation on there, it indicates the width is 24 feet. Okay. It's hard to see at this magnification. And that's the same as the rest. That's the same as the rest.

If it refers to this picture consistent with the plans, that should be adequate if it's built to this.

Yes. That is as shown on what will be the approved plans. So I basically was...

I'm not sure what page it is. I can refer to this page.

It's C2.01.

So if it says consistent with the rest of the roads and built to the plans on page C2.01. To the plans for access paved alternate.

Okay.

Yeah, best be as specific as we need to be referencing this. And that covers both the applicants and us.

Yeah, I like it. And then the only other thing is if it's not going to be emergency access only, just let's have that confirmed in the commission. So, again, it doesn't come back later. It says emergency access only.

See, that was one of my original concerns. It's labeled as emergency access on the plan.

100% right. Good catch. If that impervious goes to pervious and goes from Bullard and chain and lock to open, you'll need probably a road sign there to direct traffic, you know, which units are which way. We could add language to allow that.

Yeah, well, one of the things that we don't approve or disapprove in a special permit, typically the signage. There's a lot of signage that's indicated on the plans, but additional signage is basically whatever the applicant wants to provide, as long as the building inspector approves it as being consistent with our sign by-law. If there's anything that's...

In anything regarding traffic grid, I have to have the chief of police and fire department review everything. So the signs, part of the traffic control is going to be getting them to sign off that.

I do not think that in this permit we need to deal with that. It's something that the applicant will want to concern himself with.

Okay. Well, Christian, would you sort of read back what the proposed new version of this condition would be so that everybody can...

So the language will stay how it is, but there'll be an addition of additional language that says it'll be built according to the alternative plan on page C2.01. And it will not be specific to emergency vehicle access.

Not limited to emergency vehicle access. And I would make sure the paved alternate is in the name just to be.

I'll reference this title without, yeah.

As long as it's sufficiently clear to anybody who reads the special permit. Yeah, we can take care of that. We can reach a complete understanding of it ourselves, but agreed. Well, we'll have a videotape of this meeting. Yeah.

So does that new version kind of satisfy everyone in terms of specificity around what is allowed and including this alternate? Okay. All right. So it sounds like, having worked through the list here, 57 can remain as is, 60 can remain as is, and this modification of 64 is the one modification we're making live in the room here.

I will confess that had I given it more thought before answering Christian's, Christian emailed me, does this look okay? And I thought, yeah. And then, of course, afterwards I gave it more and more thought. I don't think I would have thought of everything that we've discussed here. So this is good. In particular, I wouldn't have known that your intent would be to have this as a regular part of the road. Because, again, that wasn't documented on the plan. No, I appreciate that. It was a good catch.

Yeah. All right. So any other conditions to be discussed? Very minor typographical on the signature page. Strike the word associate.

There's no correctness to technically correct.

Any other comments or questions generally about the draft decision? If not, I'll entertain the motion.

Before I move or have a question for the board, does any member feel we should take any of the waivers individually for a vote before we move on to the whole thing?

I mentioned early on that I'm concerned about Waiver 5. I voted against it. I voted against the similar waiver, what, 20 years ago? For the same reason, same circumstances. I feel like I need to resolve, is the court telling me that no matter what I think, I have to vote in favor of this?

The court is telling the board that it needs to approve all of the waivers. That's not helping. So if the board wants to take a vote on the waiver separately, we can all walk out of here having satisfied the court's judgment if each waiver gets four out of five votes.

If you want to vote against it, that is perfectly fine. And then at the bottom, because it doesn't have the waiver it needs, I can do the same thing.

Or can I? So each of the six waivers included in the decision and the decision as a whole needs to get four votes. You can vote no on everything, provided everyone else in the room votes yes.

And I'm sure they're going to do that. So anyway, I'd say, can we do waiver five? Because then the motion can be everything except waiver five.

I move that the board approves waiver number five for dead end access may not be longer than 500 feet. I'll second that.

Okay. Moved and seconded. Any discussion on the motion?

I've made adequately clear. My objections are... planning board has a responsibility for the development of the road system in the town. It long ago made a rule about dead-end roads and what it wanted it didn't want a lot of long dead-end roads. I agree with that policy. This It was, I think it was my hard idea to put in the, we can waive it if we get, you know, if there's an adequate, something adequate benefit to the town. In both this case and the previous case, I don't feel that the town is getting an adequate, it would take, because I feel so strongly about it, it would take a strong, strong benefit of some sort. I'll do it the same way the next time one of these comes by. And I think we should consider taking out the footnote in the rule about a waiver if adequate. Because we can waive whether the law says, whether the regulations say that or not, can't we?

On which part?

Rules and regulations. Subdivision rules and regulations. The board can waive whether or not we said so. Let's consider taking that out.

Does anyone else have a question or comment or something to discuss about this waiver specifically? Hearing none. All in favor? Aye. All opposed? Opposed. Passes four to five. So having voted on that waiver specifically, are we now able to look at the rest of the document?

I will make a motion that we approve this decision which includes funding favorably on the remaining waivers one through four and waiver six and proving all the standard conditions as written, all the conditions as written and as discussed today for the modern case we made. Second.

Moved and seconded. Any discussion of the motion? Same discussion. Hearing none, all in favor? Aye. All opposed? Opposed. Motion passes. 4-1. All right. Move we adjourn. I don't think there are any other lawful items that can come before us, so I have a motion to adjourn. That's not permitted.

Do we need or want to take a vote about canceling tomorrow's meeting? I don't think we need to vote on that.

Do we need to vote to cancel it?

No, you don't need to.

You tell him to cancel the meeting.

I thought that was the case. I'll put it on the table again.

We'll see you again on Monday. You tell him to tell Natalia.

First and seconded.

Then we adjourn.

All in favor? Aye. So voted.