Planning Board - Regular Meeting

You're on. [Music] You can start there. Okay. Usually there's something that says recording in

Okay. Welcome. In accordance with the provisions of Mass General Law Chapter 30A section 20, notice is hereby given that the Zoning Board of Appeals is meeting tonight, Wednesday, October 15, 2025 at 700 p.m. in the town hall meeting room 124. Members of the public are welcome to attend this in person at 1 Liberty Lane, Northwork, Mass, or by the remote Zoom connection provided. Please note that the in-person meeting will not be suspended or terminated if technical problems interrupt the remote connection. We do have a quorum here tonight. We have um everybody here and we have Chris, one of our board members on Zoom. So, thank you all for coming, joining us. Sorry. Excuse me.

Yep. This is David. [Music] Yes. We want to make a motion for the first one. Sure. Yeah. Would we come back or Okay. All right. Yeah. We'll start from 14 uh stop river. I have a couple fire alarm systems that call every once in a while. Okay. So, we start at 14 stop river. Oh, very good. Yeah. All right. And I think when we make a motion to Sure. I'll make a motion that on 14 Stop River Road to a motion to close the hearing. I'll second that motion.

Is there any comments on that? Any any questions? All those in favor to close the hearing say a roll call vote. Jose Bastio I. Tim Martin I. Josephine Cordahi. Chris. Chris, you're there. He's muted. Chris, we can't hear you. I'm going to have to abstain because I am in a butter. Hang on. Am I on now? There we go. We can hear you now. Yeah, I say I. Thank you. All right. Thank you. So, that hearing is closed. You got the four votes. Yep. Okay. Thank you. And is Tom on the line already?

No, I I thought that uh it actually was going to be Ariel joining us. Um I'm getting a text. She's coming into the meeting now. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Um we did get the the deliber we did get deliberations um for 57 Ever Street and for Pine Street. Did you guys get a chance to look at those prior to because we're going to sign them tonight? Oh, I did. Okay. I did, too. Yep. Okay. All right. So, I to review the minutes for the last meeting. Yep. Um, do we want to do that, too?

Well, view the minutes. You want to skip? Yeah, if you could go do the minutes, that would be great. Okay. All right. So, we're going to skip. Okay. ing just to accept the minutes from September 17th. I make a motion that accept the minutes for sub 7 September 17th as written. I'll second that motion. All in favor say I. I know. Tim Martin I. Joseph I. David Axburg. I thank you. I'll sign it after the meeting. All right. Okay.

Thank you. Um we did have um some articles updates and that was um that Rich was going to present to us but he had to go to the advisory committee tonight. So he is not here. You all should have a copy. We do have a copy provided them. Did anybody have any Chris? You want to mute yourself again please? We'll call on you when we need you. Thanks. [Music] Do we need to vote this? Do you vote on anything tonight or just an update?

This is an update. I think this is justformational, right? I don't think we had to vote on it. No. Right. Planning board. Yeah, planning board voted last night. They did vote on them. Okay, good. Yes, I was at the meeting. Okay. So, uh, being advised is a it's more of a advisory that we have these and we're presenting them at town meeting. Okay. And as far the right as far as the writeups for uh the decisions. Yeah. Let's see. Let's start with this um the 15 57 street. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I I read read through it. This is as written. The decision looks good. Yeah.

And we approved it already. Yes. So if I should make a motion to accept the decision written or was wait for a certain time. I'll second the motion. Yes. Make sure uh Okay. Yeah. So I make a motion that the accept the decision for the special permit as granted for um 57 Ever Street as written. Yep. I'll second that. Thank you. All in favor? I Joseph Best Festiano. Tim Martin I. David Aber. I Chris. Okay. Chris I. Josephine Kodah. I Okay. Very good. And we'll sign that tonight. Yep. We will. There's four of us here. So, Right. Ariel's joined us.

Okay. Good.

All right. All right. Let's uh halt and we'll go back to um the 700 p.m. Tommy Platone and Abbyville Development LLC. Great. Hi, Sue Jacobson, affordable housing director. Thanks for having me tonight. Um, I actually asked the Del Placido Development to come bring this forward. Um, we spent quite a bit of time meeting with uh Mass Housing and a solar company because uh all of the market rate units are going to have solar on them and our hope was that the affordable units uh could have solar on them as well. We've had some complaints about the cost of folks electric bills with the heat pumps that provide heat and air for these homes. Um, and we spent quite a bit of time and thought we were there. So, I delayed the lottery because the pricing was going to be different than what we had had prior to this. And unfortunately, we just couldn't get Mass Housing to kind of do what we needed them to do to make this work or agree to an agreement to make this work. So typically deplas development is ahead in their affordable units. I just because of this delay. This lottery ends November 4th for 8 fourbedroom single family homes and I'll be holding the lottery on November 13th. I didn't want that to hold up the sale of a market rate unit because we held back hoping that we could get solar.

So I do have a question. Sure. The affordable housing from what my understanding is is to be in keeping and non-standoutable from the rest of the community. So in other words, your fair housing market houses are supposed to be very similar in look and feel as the affordables. Correct. The only affordables don't have solar panels. Correct. Everybody else has solar panels. Correct. We brought that to the attention of mass. How do we get around that so that you don't have people driving in saying they're affordable, look, they're affordable, they're affordable, they're affordable.

So, the company that's providing the the market rate units and they're paying for it obviously is going to uh have a lease or purchase option and uh all of that material will be made available to the buyer. Our hope is that um you know we have some history on some other units here in town that don't have solar um and what their electric bill expenses are. And the hope is that these folks will either choose to lease or choose to purchase. But we did bring that to the attention of Mass Housing and said this is kind of an impossible situation. Um the developer did did agree to absorb some of the cost of of installing solar on the affordable units, but certainly can't absorb all of the cost. Um but we just couldn't they move a little slower than than some than we do in some areas. And we just couldn't get them to understand how well we had to increase the price of the unit and it fell out of the calculations that we use. um it was going to reduce the price of their utility bills significantly. Um because right now when I price a unit, utilities don't play into it. Taxes do. Um insurance does, interest rates do, um but utilities don't. So it it it opened up a much bigger box because we expressed our concerns. My concerns as from the affordable housing viewpoint is that these utility expenses are going to just continue to rise and rise and rise and these heat sources that that you're asking developers to use it, you know, it's it's going to become a problem. So, we're not quite there yet. I I think, you know, if we have potentially another project come to town in a year or two, we may be there. Um, but we are going to

work with the affordable buyers and you know they do have to get mortgages. So, as long as they're not kind of at the top of their limits, their debt to income ratio, I think that they can make it work. But re, you know, we did we did bring that to their attention.

There there are programs out there where the actual company will put the solar panels on. you get a rate and it's a fixed rate or a variable rate from year to year to year, but um they own the panels, they own everything and then uh and they put them on, they do all that. So there's no cost to a developer or to the homeowner. The only cost is that they get a reduced rate from what the power company's charging per kilowatt. And it's kind of you can lock it in or you can get the incremental ones.

I think I'm going to learn a lot solar. Yeah. No. And that and that works because a lot of a lot of people have taken that up. Now the finance company that's financing all that is the one that actually makes the money um and they get the rebates and all that kind of stuff, but it still would now look the same as the rest. Correct. Um so we are going to work I am going to work hard with with you know the buyers and um this uh solar company that Del Placido is using for um

the development has all types of programs. I mean many many different programs. So um you know I think that we'll be spending a lot the affordable housing department will be spending a lot of time on that and trying to get folks into a you know better a better place. I know that uh the Enclave, which is another Delasio development, um many folks up there are now moving to solar. Many of the affordable buyers are are jumping on that that train as well. So, okay. The split split units over that side. Yeah. Yes.

Through the chair to Susan, if I could on the proposed change, it it it amends it modifies section H.7. I'm just not sure what the original what that section currently says. So, it's typically one affordable for every four market rates. And in this instance, we're asking that that they be able to do they'll have an affordable ready. They have one ready now. So, the soonest I can close on that is the end of December with a November 13th lottery. I need 45 days to bring that to close and then they'll have another unit done in February. So, what I didn't want it to hold up was the market rate sales from the end of December until the end of February. So now instead of they they'll probably have six market rate units.

So four to six. Correct. Thank you. [Music] Ariel, do you have anything to add?

Um yeah, I just wanted to add that the market rate homes are paying for solar as part of their purchase price. Right. Okay. Right. Yeah. I I have no issue with the modification as written, you know, modified. Do we just make a motion to accept the modification? I think you can make a motion to accept that. Yeah, I'll make a motion that they accept the modification of the comp permit as written for the uh the rate of affordable.

I just have one more question before. Yeah. Is it on the on the modification that the final line says no more than four affordable units may be leased at any one period of time. Is that a modification or is that No, that I don't believe that language has changed. Okay. Okay. Thank Thank you. I I'll second the motion. Okay. All in favor say I. Roll call. I Joseph Fino. Tim Martin I. Joseph Jose. David Aford. Thank you. Thank you. We got all the eyes in there. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you to the advisory board. Thank you Ariel for coming. Appreciate it.

Thank you. [Music] The last item is the uh has the decision decisions been written up for the special permanent variance for one Pine Street? Yeah. I reviewed the the write up. It's u written as as we voted that we we're done denying this both both permit and variance being denied. So I make a motion that accepted as written. I'll second that motion. All in favor say I.

I just bestiano. Tim Martin I. David Axburg guy Josephine Cordahi Chris. Very good. So move. Um just a lot of signatures tonight. That I think that's it. We did the minutes. You approved those. We approved that. Right. Mhm. Um I think that um somebody should make a motion to vote. We want to You want to do what? Stop River Road. You closed it. You closed it. We closed it. We didn't vote anything. We What? We didn't vote anything. We've closed the hearing.

We closed the hearing. Yeah. But did we want to There was no decision. There was no need for a decision. We had no decision to be made, right? We just closed the hearing. We just closed the hearing. It's done. Yeah. There's no decision, no nothing. Everything stands as was. Don't we have to either approve or deny his appeal? Um, can we do this or did we do that already? I don't think. Yeah, double check. I think I think I think we upheld the I think we upheld the we we we in the past upheld the decision of the building inspector. I believe that we do that before closing the hearing.

That's a good question. I thought we left it open. You know what? Let's We can still do Let's make a I'm going to um reach it out to Rich right now. Okay. Thank you. Yeah. My understanding was that Yeah, we discontinued it from the last hearing. Correct. That's correct. We knew the commissioner was going to meet with him right after the last hearing. Well, we can we could take a roll call vote.

Yeah, I'll make a I'll make a motion that we uphold the uh Northolks running enforcement office offic's decision regarding 14 Stop River Road. Second. All in favor say I. I just Fino. Tim Martin I. Josephine Kodahi. I David Axburg. I Chris M can't vote it. I can't vote it. I abstain. Sorry. David Axburg abstains. Okay. Like we're there. I was I was going to ask her any pending hearings for next month. Do we have any pending hearings? Well, she's What's pending for next month? Um 100 are Pawn Street. Okay.

Tower AT&T. Oh, okay. Okay. And you get town meeting next month. Yep. Uh November 19th. Okay. Be our next meeting. But right now, that's the So, where's the tower that they're proposing? No. Oh, where the solar panels? They're trying to get a the other car. The other carriers are on the radio towers. Yeah. They're trying to get in there as well. Man, that really is a moonscape and a half up there. Yeah. Well, it's good. That's what happens when I touch it.

Hopefully, by the time it's all said and done, it at least turns green. There's a lot of rock there. Yeah, a lot of rock. All right. But the uh the only the towers in the um uh wireless district with other towers if you think about it. I did I did also hear this week that our DPW superintendent has left. Is that correct? Yes. So I did. We have no superintendent at this point. No.

Okay. They did they did the am I correct in assuming that like to knowing that they did hire someone to work for the uh DPW recently maybe a couple months ago director he mean acting director maybe someone a little lower than assistant or I don't know not as yeah not as the director I think they have I did see someone that used to work at the place where I worked at the home for little wanders years years ago. Oh, wait. Blair Blair's left. No. What was his name? Blake Rain.

Yeah, Blake. Yeah, Blake. I I had I had had dealings with him a couple of times and I thought he was always good. So, I think he's going to be missed by some. Maybe not by all, but he will be missed by some. So, thank him for his time here and we look forward to whoever replaces him. Agreed. Um the um you need to consult with Rich anymore or we good to close the meeting? Um yep. He's he must be busy with advisory. So, all right. You good with we did what we did with the um 14 stop. Okay. Then make a motion to close the meeting.

I'll second that. All in favor say I. Roll call. It's 7:27. All right. Josephino I. Tim Martin. I David Aber. Josephine Kahi. Chris I. Thank you very much. See you all next month. Okay. November 19th.