Planning Board - Regular Meeting

The laws cross the street from the back of my backyard. The lights in my face. It needs it needs actually to be toned down. We're going to get you know we're going to get it. Well, yeah. I I just wanted, you know, just talk to her about it. We're gonna get this sorted out. Just so you know. I believe it. I believe it.

Someville planning board meeting for Wednesday, December 10th, 2025 will please come to order. Adequate notice of this meeting as required by the Open Public Meeting Act has been provided. A copy of the notice specifying the date, time, and location was one posted on the bulletin board outside of Burough Hall. Two, mailed, faxed, or emailed to the courier news, and three given to the clerk administrator. This meeting is a judicial proceeding. Any questions or comments must be limited to the issues the board may legally consider in reaching a decision, and the decorum appropriate to a judicial hearing must be maintained at all times. Roll call. Uh, Andrea Dair is excused this evening. Chris Addex here. Larry Cleveland here. William Kale here. Jason Kra here. John Manilio here. Barry Van Horn here. Council member Vroom here. Mayor Gallagher

here. Chairperson Warner here. Please stand for the pledge. I aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all.

Okay, we are going to have to wait till the next meeting to uh for the minutes for November 12th because they did not get sent out in time. So we'll do that at our next meeting in January. There are no resolutions or hearings. So we'll move on to discussion items. So we will begin with so just to confirm again I know you guys saw it on the agenda. These items that are under discussion we will are formally going to be discussed by us having preparation. Um but it does not necessarily mean we have to vote on them when we're discussing. We do have one resolution 157. Oh, we do the Krower the easy check

that was sent out I think yesterday late. It's not I apologize. It's not I apologize it's on the agenda but I think the draft or the finalized resolution went to the board members yesterday. Sorry for the short notice. Um but um what was the address again? 157 East Main Street is the easy check formerly known as the Krower building. This to refresh the board. This is the application where they were proposing a commercial kitchen

and what used to be a convenience store lottery prior to a convenience store was a gas station I guess in the 80s. So it's in the flood plane and the resolution talks about raising the compressors and everything that we had discol

Chris Addex. Yes. Larry Cleveland. Yes. Jason Kra. Yes. John Manilio. Yes. Barry Van Horn. Yes. Council member Vroom. Yes. Mayor Gallagher. Yes. Chairperson Warner. Yes.

Okay. Back to discussion items. Uh so like I said, that doesn't mean we're going to vote on them. It just means that we will have that formal discussion, starting that formal discussion amongst the board. After each of these items, uh, we will open it up for the public for them to have comments on anything as well, and then we move on to the next. So, we will start with our ECBD, uh, re-exam. Mike, you want to kick it off with our sheet here first?

Yes. This Thank you. Um as discussed at our last planning board meeting uh the the questions and the italics was put into an addendum for the lots and blocks to basically address the concept plan that the board saw I think May June of this year. So what you see here is the lots and blocks which was the concept plan and the various setbacks trees and and aesthetics in the 70 foot that we talked about and some definitions that were already in the they're in the ordinance but as I'm just trying to make it so anybody can read this and understand without going through the land use ordinance and the redevelopment plan. try to make it so that it's clear like for example the GFA it's it's clear in the ordinance but you have to drill down that a parking deck isn't in in the calculation so I just said it's not in here so it's easy to understand what's in and what's not and it's basically what we discussed the setbacks are rather tight uh on veterans two three feet and we had discussed as long as the sight lines you'll see language having the so the pedestrian sidewalk and motorist are we don't not impeding anything or the safety distances and that it's you feel safe the lighting when you put a big structure near a sidewalk sometimes you can get shadows

so you'll see language regarding the that the lighting is adequate all the sight safety triang triangles meet there's a zero foot off of East Main that's to the rightway which is the majority of the sidewalk so Mike can you can Could you clarify that in the language a little bit because it sounds like the building's right on the curb line for the street and I can clarify understand that there's maybe just reference what the sidewalk width is. Yes. As it relates to Main Street versus the building so people understand that.

Yes. Uh this is draft. Uh given that it's the end of the calendar year, we do have some time. I'm looking at Colin to get this right. So I can drill down on the sidewalk right away to make it more clear what is going on here. But basically it's the it's the route. It's the state highway which has a big rightway. So the majority of the sidewalk is in the rightway. So the building is I'm going to say 15 feet off the curb. But we can clarify that. I think that's important.

Yeah. And the rest of it is uh but we discussed the emergency services that language is lifted right off as we've done in prior applications. Uh the flood hazard it says you have to have the garage which one foot above the flood hazard or as required by D. So it's basically saying that you need a D flood hazard permit and you got to follow it. And then the setbacks are a little unique on Hamilton because there's an angle. It's not straight. So you'll see setbacks per lot and block just because it's a diagonal and that's why it's that way. So it's all about trying to make this easy to understand. So any opportunity to make this clear in here in this addendum, the concept really is the dendum should be the in my opinion the You can look at the addendum and follow it clearly. It won't have every little nitpicky detail, but the overall concept should be clear.

So Mike, I just have one question. On the first page, I guess Roman numeral 3 A2. I don't if that's a run-on sentence or missing a period. I just don't understand the first sentence. It's you're talking about 3 A uh A2 at least 35% of dwelling units. Yeah. shall be onebedroom. Yeah. Then it says studio and threebedroom units are permissible. Less than 3% of the units or studio and 3% are three bedrooms.

I can I can clarify that, John. That's it's a good point. Uh what is came out of the fair share is this building may have to have threebedroom affordable units. So this is trying to say that's not counted. And if if you need a three-bedroom for affordable housing to the universal housing uh UAC, it's called may require the affordable component to have some three bedrooms. So that's just anticipating that those three bedrooms if required by the fair share planning is permitted in the in the redevelopment plan. And uh and does that does that automatically

all of the three bedroomedroom units are all going to be affordable? No, I say it's not counted. I it says that if we if three bedrooms are required for affordable housing, they're not counted towards 3%. The developers is permissible. We've done this in the past. A very small uh for studios and three bedrooms. I do believe the studios were treated the same way. It's a very small percentage, right?

And John, it's a good point. I'll clarify that sentence. The idea is the same ratios we've been using before, but there's some flexibility since we haven't we've done this more than once. This this body has to allow flexibility on the studios and a certain amount of three bedrooms. That's and unless the board feels differently about that. Uh the 800,000 square foot it all remains. There's nothing being reinvented this way. It's just more clarity and trying to make it concise um based on the information we have.

How does that restriction or that removal of those apartments, how does that affect overall? Why don't they just go all the apartments are this? This is the floor area ratio. This is whatever it is. But money is another story. Affordable units is another story. Why is that excluded from the calculation? The concept plan the board saw did have a few percentages of uh studios in the plan. So there is it wasn't just solely one and two bedroom. So this is trying to acknowledge a little bit of flexibility to do something other than one and two bedrooms. Okay. That unless the board feels differently. This this is draft.

Yeah. Just I just want to make sure understand this right. So they can have 3% studio, 3% um threebedroom. If they're going to do more than that to include in our fair share uh plan, they could go above that 3% of those, but they have to be then drestricted. The the percentages for the fair share are not counted. The 3% whatever affordable housing says that's not counted towards the 3%.

Uh that's a question in front of the planning board. what should there be 2%? Uh you typically we've done flexibility in something other than one and two bedrooms. The majority is one and two bedrooms but in the past uh this board has provided some flexibility on studios.

I'm personally not I'm I'm okay with the studios and waving on how I feel about those three bedrooms. We've we've really done a a good job throughout to stay away from the three bedrooms because we know that statistically that could potentially add that's where that that mark is where you could potentially add school age children. You have full families moving in which you know and I I'm not trying to discriminate but we've always tried to restrict that in our apartment complexes. Um so I don't know how the rest of the board feels about that specifically.

Yeah, I I would agree. I think we've we've balanced that very well. Um I I do like the fact that if there is an affordable component for threebedroom, we it will be it it shall be included in that. That I think is appropriate. Uh but I don't know that threebedrooms are I don't know that we've done three bedrooms in any other development. Uh there's I think Edgewood did Colin. Is that correct?

Very small number. We can certainly take it or go 1% or nothing. It's whatever the pleasure of the board is. Right now it's 3%. Is it 1% for three bedrooms or zero? Take it out and leave studios and the only three bedrooms will be affordable housing should be required by these the statutes. And I think that's why I'm waving because there may come where it's a requirement under the affordable housing. So that at least that's offering that threebedroom. But if it's not going to be a requirement, I really prefer no three bedrooms. Okay. Anybody agree, disagree?

So, we'll leave the 3% for studios only and leave the language that says if you need a three-bedroom for for fair share, of course. Other than that, no threebedrooms. Yeah. My only question again is does this automatically zero every three-bedroom apartment to be an affordable unit? The whole point of all of this is to make it so that it's invisible to the outsider if apartment A or apartment C is affordable. If you know that apartment A is a threebedroom, that's automatically affordable. I have a major problem with But the general public's not going to know that, Larry, unless

they will because it'll just be the way it is. No different than building five is affordable housing over there. If we make it so that this can be taken out as a reason to accommodate, the whole project should be accommodating of affordable housing quality flat out. If we start to go, well, only three bedrooms qualify automatically. No, we're not saying only three bedrooms qualify. We're saying that affordable housing could make that a requirement of their their portion. And if it is, they may say that they need to be three bedrooms. But if the building is not structured for three-bedroom apartments up front,

then it's not an issue. What I'm saying is we're doing inclusionary, which means 20% of the units in the building somewhere will be affordable. You're not going to be able to see it on a door class or anything. Okay. Will be my thinking in the way inclusionary works is not in one zone. It's seamless. It's going to be seamless as long as it's not going to be easily identified. If you recall, our whole discussion both planning board at the council was that we didn't want a single building. We wanted um like in this inclusionary housing, the ability to have a unit here, a unit here, a unit here, so that it integrates seamlessly into the project.

I that's exactly what Eric has has outlined here. Then fine. No stigma, Larry. There's every effort's being made so we don't have that quote quote what you just said the stigma of and and that's been since day one. Yes. Yes. A caveat of any fair share housing from the other meetings we had. Certainly. Yeah. I appreciate it. Thank you.

So I can make that clarify the setbacks and the writerways. Uh change that to the 3% is only for studios. So clarify and John get that sentence right. And the aesthetics are already in the ECB. So I didn't I'm not talking about aesthetics. The EV part, we got that covered. This is this is when someone a developer can look at this and understand exactly what needs to be done from a massing point of view and talks about you're you're itching. I see it. Well, yeah, because that's what I should go to page 4.

Well, correct. I agree with the paragraph, but what I want or what what I think the environmental commission needs it to say and it should be specified is the caliber of the tree. A minimum caliber you're saying? And not three because three means two and a half and that means Edgewood properties. No. No. It's got to be bigger because that's 70 feet on our gateway and it's got to be broken up. There have to be trees on the street. If they have to notch them out, I don't know what they have to do. They have to figure out something and maybe some plantings up on the platform on the plaza area, however you want to call it.

It's just too much. 70 ft of glass and steel. That's great for New York City, not so much for us. So, I I agree with you. one. Uh, however, what I would say is that the the environmental commission can recommend to the planning board. They can't demand the plan. No, no, no. I I I just saying that this is what I think that's going to want to to talk about. So, I'm going to ask the same thing. So, so let me finish. So, I I agree with you and and um I think the calipers should be increased because I think they should be substantial trees when they go in. Yes. So that they can look as if they've been there not 40 years, but you know, it's not a little tiny shrub and they'll get there.

It's not a Whoville tree. They'll get there. So, yeah. So, so I agree. Uh I would defer to Mike on what that caliber is. I I don't know. Um but it's got to be bigger than than what we're we're requiring right now. What are we requiring right now? Three and a half.

Certainly. I'm sure we I feel comfortable. We can say minimum four four inches and define where it's measured. I was going to say I think that's important too because I've learned a lot about tree measurements and it really all depends where you measure that caliber. And yes.

Yeah. I I would also I'll go a step further. Uh and and what I would say is the spacing that we have um in downtown this is a little removed. So I think the spacing can actually close up a little bit on the trees. It doesn't have to be as far apart. So I think the staccato of the trees can be more as opposed to, you know, one here and then 60 ft down the road you got another one. How do we close that up? How it And part of that is aesthetics. And I think Mike, you you're better off, you're better suited to figuring that out. So it's adding trees to the entire project to soften uh once it's in and up. That's it.

Yeah. beef that section up. There's also to the engineered soil in my opinion is very important for giving the roots space to grow so they don't heave the sidewalk and for moisture uh so that the some flexibility for the spacing like what the mayor said because of the underground utilities. We've had the challenge of putting tree grates on top of a gas man and then you can't put the engineered soil and it becomes I can't do it coal. I can't put the soil in because we're hitting all these utilities. So I I'm trying to the intent here is to give flexibility, get them the number of trees, but work around the infrastructure so we get the proper engineered soil, the proper caliber and the staccato.

Right. So I will beef this section up the 4 in and discuss what we just talked about the spirit. Anybody else? That was the quickest tree one we've ever had. All right. So, you're going to make those I'm going to make these It all goes well as long as I agree with Larry. I was going to say [laughter] I'm going to make these changes and you'll have another draft for the next for the reorg meeting. Okay.

You'll have the changes. Um, what I'll do too is I'll highlight the changes in red so that you can see what was changed and what was left alone. It make it I think a little easier for everyone. All right, staying on the ECBD. Has anybody had the opportunity to actually look at the full ECBD beyond what we've been focused on in these block and lots? It's okay if it's a no. I don't want to have a discussion. I don't want to start a discussion if we're not prepared for that. No, I don't think anybody's prepared for that.

So, I think that's our next step though is to start really looking into that. Um, this we will finalize hopefully at our next meeting and then I think that opens up that gateway for us. No pun intended for the gateway here. Uh, I have one suggestion. Yes. that I think that because the Eastern Business District has been 20 years old, we might think about maybe breaking it up again. That's what that's what the next step will be is where where do we go from here? This make this the Eastern Business District, but make things across the street a different one going down Park Avenue.

I don't know if we need to make it a different one, but we can we can better delineate within the current plan on where we stand. It's okay. Yeah, we can break it up in the in the existing plan. Yeah, that's what the that's why we're pulling this away is because we I think a lot of us feel that we're at that same thought processes maybe what was good for the whole redevelopment area 10 years ago. Can this be considered an overlay or the other part of it an overlay of the existing? I think Larry, we're going to do that. Basically, the ECBD was came up in the 90s, died on the vine, resurrected in ' 06 07. It's a little long in the tooth. Yes.

So, I think what the board's look the charge is to refresh this to reflect where the burrow is going and maybe different sections, maybe an overlay, maybe no overlay. Yeah. to see what where the you know what the Jeff auto incorporating where the the vision of the burrow is for the next 20 or 30 years because frankly the plan is it's pushing it was literally came up and most of this I didn't write from the 98 99 so we're talking about a plan Larry that's 25 27 years old that I I thought it's time and and to your point Larry that's what we're looking before started. So there you go. That's how long I've been here. Okay. But to your point, that's what we're looking

say. Say long in the tooth, Mike. Is that That's also true. Yeah. [laughter] Is as as a whole now on the remaining portions of the plan, where do we see that going and what might need to be broken off into other pieces? Um or might might not. But that's that's the direction I think I would like for us to move starting at that next meeting. And even if it's just that initial of saying, hey, this one here, I definitely disagree with everything, you know, and then that gives us our next portion to really look at. I agree with Okay, moving on. Storm water. Yeah, Mike.

Thank you. Um, you have I you have a hard copy. All this information was prevented in the last two or so planning board meetings. the the proposed ordinances from the different groups, what the model ordinance says. For the benefits of this discussion, the table, you have a hard copy of the table which summarizes the current burough ordinance, what needs to be changed and the proposed uh changes from the environmental commission. So that's the basics. If you start from the top down and just overview 30,000 foot, I think you start with what's the definition of a major development. I think you start there and then once the board's comfortable with that, then everything else trickles down. But I think you start with what a major development is by definition. So right now the ordinance, the state says one acre of disturbance and 10,000 square feet of motor vehicle surface. And the current ordinance, as the B board knows, the D allows municipalities to be more restrictive than the state standards. In this case, the burough ordinance is more restrictive. It ties in anything with 5,000 square feet of disturbance uh and uh with a disturbance in the half acre versus an acre. So that was done, I do believe, in 2023. Prior to 2023, it mirrored the state definition. So the question for at least for me is where's everybody's thinking on what the definition of a major development should be?

Who wants to start? I mean, I think the changes that was made in 23 is satisfactory. I think that we have to remember the size of our our our burrow and I think that's relative to the size that we're not we're not Bridgewater. We're not Edison. We're not a lot of these larger towns. I think we have to be realistic as to what a major development is for Somerville. I agree that we leave it at the half acre instead of increasing up. I agree. I agree. Good comments.

Okay. I the next topic is creation of a minor development application. The major is going to stay where it is. We understand with the one caveat is with the major right now is one of the proposals was the burrow is exempt from groundwater recharge because it's a regional center and for numerous reasons. the if the question on major the major issue with the majors is do we require groundwater infiltration in the burrow which right now it's exempt by state statute that's a big big issue right there uh in terms of infiltration when I say infiltration whether you have to infiltrate a water quality storm and uh right now it's not required it's not in the ordinance and it's not required on the state level for the burrow because it's a it's a regional center. So the the thinking is in the regional center when things are very compact to infiltrate you have to do groundwater moning analysis and you might have wet basement it's very tough to do this one having the tight soils that the burough has clays and silts. Secondly is structures are very close together. So you have a groundwater mounding you could impact somebody else's property from wet basement. around mounting is this the water table's eight feet down and we're going to infiltrate when you infiltrate you get you raise artificially raise the water the water table and then you have to do modeling to show that you're not adversely impacting that it could be very much of a challenge in when you have small lots and structures within 50 feet 30 feet of not impacting somebody else

and this would be a requirement of a homeowner to do that

that if if they meet the definitions of a major development and it's in the ordinance. Yes, it would be everyone who meets the definition would have to do the groundwater recharge. Uh that's one of the proposals right now. You're exempt. So that's one of the big items in my opinion that the board should thoroughly discuss. Uh because the challenges in front of the board is the soils. Okay, you have tight soils, silts and clays. You have to dig down. Yes, the Brunswick shells down there and it's probably you got primary and secondary fractures is a nice way of saying there's there's fractures in the if you get down past the clay in the bedrock but then you have the issue of the water table elevation basement and the overall impact of others other than yourself. Barry, did I sum that up decently? [snorts]

Yeah, I mean couldn't have said it better. So the right now the proposal is to require groundwater recharge for the water quality storm which is exempt. So that's where if it's a just for major it would right it's for major it's one of the proposals is to put it in for majors requirement. Let me let me make sure I'm tracking here. So we're discussing which item in this list. It's on the second page on the second page. Second one up. Yeah. Okay. I think I'm following that. Sorry, guys.

It's one of the major, if you look at major developments, if we're sticking with the 2023 definition, the next major, in my opinion, change is the recharge requirement. Right now, no one has no applicant has to do recharge. That's the way it's been. It's been that way since day one, since the regs came out. The burrow has always been exempt. And this current ordinance doesn't require it, but the proposal, one of the proposals is required. Technically, can the burough require it? Yes, I do believe the D allows the bur. It's not a D requirement. It's not a D requirement. It's something that the municipality needs to decide for itself. This is a recommendation from

environmental recommendation to require groundwater recharge. And I'm just raising there's there's some concerns with challenges based from a compact lot and from a soils but it just kind of ballpark just so I can understand is there a high cost or time period or time investment in doing this work evaluating recharge. Yes, to answer your question, Chris, you have to do modeling and certain number of borings and test pits to demonstrate you that it works. And if you do all this work and it doesn't work, you got to do it over again.

So, you don't there's no guarantee you spend x amount of money, it's going to work. There's no guarantee. You get the data, you see where the seasonal high water table is, and that's a if anybody's familiar with septic rules, it's the same thing. septic rules is you have to determine where seasonal high water tables. You need two feet uh infiltration. You need a barrier separation and these rules you need one foot separation. So you can't do the test pits during summertime. It's a specific time where you can put wells in. It can be very costly and you don't know the outcome being if the outcome is negative then you have to go back and do something else. There's no what I'm trying to say there's no guarantee. you do the work, you're not locked in that it's going to work.

So, you might not even be able to build on a lot.

If it if you end up intersecting the water table, your mounding analysis, you don't have the proper separation, then it's a fail. If you intersect a a basement, it's a fail being you're impacting the structures, it's a fail. You can't you don't want the rules say I think it's 36 hours, you don't want standing water because it makes mosquitoes. So that's why they want the separation. You can't have a basin that's filled with water because the mound came up and it won't drain. Then you have mosquitoes and fragmitees and all these issues. And that raises the question, how do you do this if you have a very tight site? And the conventionally in the Pelands in big areas, Bridgewater, you're going to do some kind of wet bump basin, something where you're going to have a basin. In Somerville, because of space constraints, you're probably going have to do this subsurfacely, which really raises the cost. infiltration pipes below ground so you don't see it because you don't most times I think you're gonna have constraints of whereing the fine space for this

I'm sorry I was just going to say I think I can sum it up there's a reason we're exempt I don't think we should change it I think we should leave it as is being exempt I don't think we should make it a requirement because it's pretty burdensome on not even just a homeowner but even a developer like you said it's going to go subsurface And it's just I don't think it's practical for this municipality. I mean, Barry, you deal with it all the time. I know that John's dealt with it a lot. I've dealt with it. Oh, he hasn't.

No, I mean, at at the end of the day, in order to make it work, let's say it doesn't work on the site, there's two options. You have to make your system bigger to give you more surface area. So everything infiltrates in the ground and you reduce the amount of mounding uh which will limit the amount of you know developable space. So the developers have to go back or whoever is coming in for the improvements would have to reduce their development to make it work. And again like Barry said the reason that's in place from the state is you know PA1 is considered urban areas. you have smaller lots, you have less land to work with and and that's the reason why they they provide that exemption in there. So So the state thought about this? Yes, they did. Surprisingly,

um and and so from their perspective, there's a reason why a regional center like ours is exempt from it. It's one of the few times I'm agreeing with the D. [laughter] Just saying. Well, that was kind of gonna be my question and comment is what was what's the what was their uh basis for making the exemption, but you've already answered that to make the exemption is surprising. So, there's usually a pretty pretty good reason.

If you're trying to do smart growth, compact redevelopment, it's very challenging to make this work in that mindset. If we're trying to go tall and transit oriented and everything the bureau has been doing successfully, if you have to do the infiltration, you're going to be what Barry said, you're probably going to be end up forcing putting this under a parking lot. So, so is it modeled more for the suburban or rural communities that are not fully built out that are looking to build out and and therein lies? I think it's a problem with high density and and from the state's eyes, I think they would say the burrow is high density.

We I know we'd argue on that one, but compared to a branchburg for say this is high density compared to Branchburg, we have space to do this without impacting your neighbor or the development itself in branchburg. Yes, you have the room. Um I'm going to agree that we I don't think we need to change this. Sounds like most people are on board with that. So, I don't want to beat it to death, but yeah, I agree with you. I'm good. Same. Okay.

Um, the next major change or proposed change is that is to have a minor development defined in the regulations. Uh right now if you're under the major, which you just beat up, you're back to the ordinance, which for 20 years or longer, what we've been doing is getting the storm water to the street, uh curb face discharges, so that you're not impacting the neighbors. Uh trying to get whatever you're not developing, you're doing an addition for a house, Larry. You're doing a driveway. The idea has always been to try to get the storm water to the street so you're not impacting your neighbor. this and they're because they're exempt. They're not by definition a major development. Therefore, we don't deal with water quality or water quantity other than trying to get it to the street and showing that the street has adequate capacity from the stormwater conveyance things. This is what we've been doing because when we don't do this, when I say we the burrow, we've had issues with development impacting the adjoining properties and there is a challenge right now. uh like Katherine, if you have a property sloped away from the street, how do you treat that without having the adverse runoff on your neighbors? So, there is a couple examples of challenging situations, but 95% of the time, the burrow has been very successful of getting the water to the street, which generally doesn't impact anyone. You do have some icing. You'll have these curve face discharge sump pumps and you have zero degrees and you have icing along the curve face and it drives DPW guys a little crazy if you get zero degrees because your sump pump's raining off and why are we doing here? Because the catch basin is not nearby and it's either that or your neighbor's property. So

you have to pick your poison in my opinion. So that's the way it is. If you're not meeting the definition of a major development, you're basically exempt. And that's working with the applicant, the homeowner, to get the storm water so it's not impacting people. That's what we do. That's what the burrow has been doing with this proposal. It basically reeregulates anything over 400 square feet, which means then you have to do the B everything we talked about in the future development.

It's cumulative. And there's some I'm sure we can get into those weeds, but the question is, is it for new developments? There's some language that says if you take the deck out, you're covered. You're regulated even for existing stuff if you pave over it. But the question is, you're kind of caught back into water treatment and winter quality and borings and all the testing for what's being proposed as a minor development. So minor developments. This could high likelihood of impacting homeowners. MOT 20 by 20. Yeah, I'm trying to picture. I'm a no on this one. You could I I don't have a lot of I don't need to hear a lot more. Okay.

That's a lot. It's a big burden for homeowners. And I think that was going to be my comment if if anybody else wants to jump in is is this one here. 95% of that impact is all directly on our neighbors and residents and friends and family. That's we would all be every single resident out there and and in this in a lot of things that we've been doing and working towards has been trying to make it um I hate using the more user friendly for invest in their properties. I hate saying easier because it's not always easier. It's just it is it's more user friendly. It's and it is more adaptable to um what some of the things that we need to see as improvements in these properties as we move forward into the

without beating it up anymore um because I completely agree. I mean and then the language here just to continue and and we can go into this I don't know if it falls in this one but even with a minor development then if you wanted to replace your deck because it was rotted you would now have to go back and do all of it as if that deck never existed. You'd have to meet those standards. And so I'm just never going to replace my deck. I'm gonna let it fall. If you pay your driveway, Yes. Yeah. And I think Repave your drive. You repave your driveway and you have to pretend it was never there and meet all the storm water management that they're

saying. So I think it's incredibly cumbersome. Well, and I think it also discourages what we're trying to encourage, making it an easy, I'll use the term easy, but you know what I mean, an easier path, you know, more user friendly in order so that we can upkeep these properties and update them. This specifically I see as a complete opposite of what we as as council, burrow, uh, planning board and zoning board have also been trying to do for the last, you know, few years of trying to move towards, you know, acceptable, more user friendly Yeah. I mean, as it's written, if you replace the decking on your deck, you have to hire an engineer to do soil testing, hire an engineer to design a BMP, hire a lawyer to deed restrict it, and then pay an annual storm water uh permit, which is a nice word for tax,

and then come to us. So, it's for variance. Yeah. It's just your $10,000 deck just turned into What do you charge now? [laughter] probably probably added another 10 15 maybe 20 if you have a greedy attorney. So Cara's not here so I can say that. Barry just to to summarize you could more than double the cost of the construction just on storm water. Is that a fair statement? Double or triple the cost at least of whatever the construction is. Is that true John?

No that's a fair statement. I actually had some numbers here I was going to share with everybody, but yeah, I mean, I didn't even think about the attorney cost, but you know, just, you know, let's say you're building a 400 foot deck. Um, that alone, I don't know what what just a 20. It's a 20 by 20

20 or a patio, let's say it's $15 a square foot. I mean, you're spending $6,000 to build a patio. You're going to spend that easily. Infiltration testing is $1,000. An excavator is $750 to a,000. Uh, hiring an engineer, I think at the low end, you're $1,000. and you actually have to build the system. So, at the end of the day, you're doubling the cost. I think what we're doing is we're we're kind of incentivizing people to do things without approvals and they're just going to go out there and build patios without zoning permits. Um, again, I I went through this in a little more detail and I I want to thank the environmental question. They did do a very thorough job on this. Um, but it's more of comes down to three things to me. The practicality of implementing it, um, the costs. Um, And then the site it itself, like the town is underlined by, like you said, shale. Um, I go down three feet. I hit solid shell. Um, so that limits what you can use for storm water. I know there was a list in there of green infrastructure. And out of that list, I I believe there's probably three or four that are practical um given the shell. Uh, brass whales won't work uh because they don't provide any water quantity um reduction. Uh vegetative filters, same thing. don't provide any water quantity reductions, which is we're trying to do here. Uh, green roofs won't work because all roofs are are are pretty much pitched for residential. So, you can't do a green roof. Uh, pvious pavement is a possibility, but there's a lot of maintenance involved. Um, especially for a homeowner on that that effect. Uh, dry wells, again, I don't know if will work just because of the depth of of bedrock and you have to get through the bedrock and I I just don't think that'll be a viable solution. So you're left with small scale bio retention or rain gardens which would work. Um or the other thing is rain barrels or sistns. And then again I was doing the math and you know your typical rain barrel is 50 gallons I guess. So 400 square foot deck

would require um I think it was 800 [clears throat] 800 gallons. So that's 16 rain barrels or again I I don't know how feasible that is um in practicality. So it really leads you to like a above ground basin. a rain garden, a small scale infiltration basin, which would work. Um, but again, it has to be designed properly. Um, and it would have to be deep restricted because I know the next homeowner is coming in, they're going to just regrade it and get rid of it. Um, so yeah, I mean, it's just going to be hard to implement is what I see there. And then again, the costs, I think the costs are going to

be as much as the improvement. And again, we're either going to stop um homeowners from improving their lots or we're get people doing it um without approvals. So that's my my thoughts on it. I think it was well said. You were you were pointing towards the uh the box above the green infrastructure. That's what we were talking about. Correct. Um the vegetative filter strips that just shrubs. So,

so that provides water quality only for the BMP manual. So, if you go into the manual, it doesn't provide any quantity reduction. So, it doesn't take in account what the I guess how it's written here is to provide two gallons for every square foot of storage or volume. So, that's why it's if you go through the green infrastructure, I think there's another table in there that says what it does, quantity, quality, recharge. Um, so those two items are are not actually in table If you go I'm looking at the table one green infrastructure on the original. Uh I'm not sure if you have that Larry on the discussion. Oh okay.

Yeah. So on there it has a table and it says what the best management practice is and then it tells you if it does quantity recharge and what the TSS removal is. So grass swell does not provide quantity and vegetative filters does not provide quantity as well.

Yeah. During the presentation that the EC gave, I think one of the statements at one point was you just have to put in a couple shrubs if you put in a patio. And I wanted to chime in at the time, but I know we weren't getting too technical, but it that's a gross oversimplification. We're not just putting in shrubs. the shrubs with engineered soil and sand underneath with maybe an under drain. Under drain's got to go somewhere. So, we're not just talking about putting in a couple shrubs and calling that a BMP. That's not a BMP. That is landscaping, which is not covered by this. So,

yeah. I mean, the other thoughts I think the opposite way is maybe to incentivize uh people to if they want to do something over like the impervious coverage that's permitted in the zone, maybe they would, you know, put in some type of storm water system um to allow them to do something that's not allowed by the ordinance or by the zone. That's some way, you know, that's way

right now, John, the ordinance allows 5% additional if you address stormwater management on your way of thinking. It's it's in there right now. We had thought about that 10 or 15 years ago. We made the changes One of the concerns I have is when you have a homeowner, a lot of times as soon as they get approval, typically from the board of adjustment, they want their construction permit yesterday. With these rules or these minors, you could significantly delay getting a construction permit by months.

And it's very hard to explain. Right now, we we the challenge is to get them through in a timely fashion. Yes, there's there's a rub right now that the system is already burdensome. It takes too long. Why are we doing this? I just want to put this addition. We should be encouraging redevelopment in people to invest in the community in their house. And if you forget the cost, Larry, if you do this and cost them another four or five months because the homeowner is not going to understand. They're going to have to hire someone. And unfortunately, until this is designed, you can't issue a construction permit. It's just not going to happen. So I I think that it's going to be a sense of frustration from a delay from a construction point of view.

My my recommendation is going to be that we remove the minor development out of it and take that out of all of them because I think you know when you go through all anything that's a minor we're just being too com in my opinion being too cumbersome on a homeowner and I don't think we want to get into that making everything so difficult and expensive. But I I think that any kind of improvement on your property should not affect your neighbor. We have we already have that order. We already have that. You need to make sure that that is highlighted and known to everyone so that if you're going to put in a deck, whether you get a permit or not, you can't make it so that you have extra water on your neighbor's property

to and Larry does not mean you can get do a deck without a permit. [laughter] I'm not saying, but you would just You're just talking about what people are going to do with or without the because of the cost or the cumbersome nature. We Well, we have I mean, if they get a permit to do a deck, they're going to have to show that they're not impacting the neighbors as we sit now, right? So, I think we have that in place already. Yeah. Mike Mike, what does that speak to? Do you recall what that the the water runoff into another neighbor's property? There's a land disturbance permit.

Yes. that it I'm going to say about five years ago uh DPW was spearheaded an idea of a land disturbance permit and it's for applications that aren't in front of the board that don't require a soil erosion permit. So if you don't have 5,000 square feet of disturbance and you're not in front of the board of adjustment or the planning board, you have to fill out a land disturbance permit which in theory addresses storm water runoff. uh they fill the appointment out and I do believe the county on behalf of the being the burough engineers reviews the application. I've been brought in but it's usually Mark Ibrams and with the county who looks at the specific application to address under the land disturbance permit and then there's also the civil route. I mean if there is a a serious issue a neighbor has the ability civily to to hold their ne the their neighbor accountable. That's That's there too.

I just wonder if we don't set the example, what's Bridgewater going to do? What's Hillsboro going to do? Well, the example of trying to take care of our own town, trying to But Larry, I don't want to interrupt you, but I want to make clear Somerville is very different in our in our landscape, in our mix than a Bridgewater or a Burn.

No, no, I understand that completely. But if we're going to go to them eventually and say, "Hey, you got to do this. You got to do that. You're killing us. We're getting all of Bridgewaters water because they're not doing anything to mitigate any of the water. We just get it. We just get it. We We There's nothing we can do. Bridgewater does what they're going to do. We get their water. Hillsboro is going to do what they're going to do. We get their water. We have no moral author. We can just ask them nicely.

Well, there are existing storm water regulations that they have to abide by on any development. And when they seal a manhole in Bridgewater and we get water on Southside Park, which is still Bridgewater, but it's our park, this becomes a problem. This is things that have happened in our area. I don't think about this addressing. Yeah. This is not addressing saying that if we're addressing our own water issues in our town and things that are going on, we can then go to other towns and go, "Hey, we're doing our part. What are you doing? Not doing anything. But I still think we are doing our part.

We're doing that here and that's the scope of the discussion of this and maybe not that for now. I think we are doing this. Yeah. I just I'm just concerned about removing all minor development. It it opens it up to a lot more issues because we just say, well, everybody's a minor. It's mostly all minors. We can't a bunch of minors. But the but the solution is not disabling the ability of a homeowner to invest in their property. Yeah. We can't win on the moral high ground and then have the homeowners strapped with requirements here.

And I think that's when we when we had the initial look at this, the one thing that I said and and it's, you know, something we've discussed before is this is where education comes in to regulate this. As has been said very clearly, it's going to be very expensive not for us, for the homeowner. But that's where we work with the environmental commission and send out information about, you know, when you're doing things on your property and the importance of, you know, we had a few people come through in previous years talking about um a wild, you know, uh front yard or a wild backyard, you know, um and there's residents in town that have that. But but providing those things so people will understand what true good green infrastructure is rather than as was pointed out some of the things that have been mentioned in here won't do anything to mitigate seepage outside of your property. So I I think we scrubbed this. It wasn't in the original. It's not in the states. Um and we move forward but we find some way to educate the the population about how we can you know be better neighbors. And I think that that's what the mayor was saying before. We can work on finding a way to to bridge this gap, but this right here would be extremely cumbersome and expensive.

Yeah. Just just to piggy back what Roger said, you know, it's kind of off topic, but I've worked with a handful of ECs throughout the county in various roles and by far Somerville has the best environmental commission in Somerset County. I I will go on record and say that wholeheartedly. There's other towns where the EC does absolutely nothing. I'm very familiar with that. I think their skills at education and community engagement will have far greater of an impact than any ordinance will.

Yeah. And I think action and environmental stewardship maybe is the best word will do way more than any permit and [snorts] any BMP will ever do. That's my

education. Education and incentive based. Yeah. Not and you talked about both of you talked about incentive based. I think that's a much better approach than than the mandatories and the compliance. It doesn't people aren't as accepting of of the mandatories and the compliance. They are understanding and they want to learn about um education and incentives. That's and we can't hamstring the ability the the the ability of the homeowner right now to improve their property is difficult enough. Um and and you'll see we're doing these one-off ordinance amendments um to in order to satisfy that. and it's something as simple as a fence or something as simple as a corner lot. And and you know, we're trying to understand from the homeowner's perspective, we can look at it from this very textbook approach. We're 50 by 150 lots on average. We're not textbook. We're were built out. um and to try to take those standards that are really designed for suburban and and rural areas and and shoehorn them into Somerville at the expense of the the taxpaying homeowner. It doesn't work. It doesn't. So I was going to say I think the county I want to say like 10 years ago they had a program where if you did build a rain guard on your site there was some type of monetary cont. So, I mean, I don't know if the county still has it or if that's something

the regional center partnership still has stuff like that. Yeah, rain barrel program. Rain barrel program, things like that. Something to think about. I think that the environmental commission will be more than happy to provide additional education, encouragement. I think for the minor developments based on overall, yeah, based on what I'm hearing, I can do a markup because from what the direction here is, a lot of this goes away. Yeah,

it becomes cleaner. I think it would be fruitful to do a markup to get rid of the the weed stuff. If we're not doing minor, all that language goes away and then drill down if anything else we need to discuss. If that makes sense. Yes. In the case, I was about to say this is we're going to see a lot of this go away. 80% of it goes away because of those positions on the minor development and keeping major and not doing the infiltration groundwater infiltration. I think about 80% goes away. So I can clean this up and and and then we can drill down the board on what out the outstanding items the small potatoes so to speak. Good.

I'm good with that. Okay. So to be continued. All right. So just on open business again, this is stuff that's no formal discussion, but we're leaving it on there so that we are aware and the public's aware of some open items that we still have which neither need to may need to be addressed in the future or we just need to provide some updates. Um New Jersey's new there are new noticing requirements. Uh Cara was going to come today to explain. And we're going to have Mike do that and we can have Cara here at the next meeting if you have any questions specifically. But there have been updates. Two cents. Yep.

Um starting March of next year is when these rules go into place based on on the municipal and property owners, developers that they have to do noticing to a website, a burough website, a website and and it's there. So they're getting away from the postal. There's no more stamps. That's and it appears to be starting March of 2026. That's August. Okay. Um we're still moving forward on the master plan update and review. Um we'll re begin to revisit that right after the first of the year. Trior, did we get everybody's in question? I was asked not to say that. So I'm not going to ask you. I

I really don't know at this point. [laughter] Um but we will follow up on that. to ensure um tree ordinance, same thing. We're going to start that after the first of the year. Zoning is just always going to be one again one of those that especially as we get into like we get more into the ECBD that that's where we can start reexamining some of our zoning. Um and then the only other thing that I really wanted to just kind of give an update on is the timeline. So, we are going to be we are currently updating it. I think every day it gets updated again, but Colin and I are still most of Colin are still working on this. So, we will, you know, hopefully by

Yeah, by reorg we should have an updated timeline. Um, we were a little overly zealous in what we thought was our first initial timeline. So, we're going to try to be a little more realist realistic and give us some breathing room. Really, what the u biggest impact on our timeline was the storm water and the tree ordinance having to squeeze those in. So we we need to figure out where we can push things. So current timeline that you see is not um gold anymore and we will have an updated one for hopefully by the reorg meeting.

Um no other architectural no R AB approvals to review. I have no other comments. Um I will open up the meeting to the public for anybody who has for anything not on tonight's agenda. Okay. Hearing no public comment, we'll close public session and a motion for adjourn. Oh boy, I got one item.

I apologize the board's on the agenda, but we got a regional center notice from Bridgewater for a development application. As the B board knows, uh if you meet these thresholds, you're the rarity in Bridgewater have to notify Somerville and we do the same thing on applications. There is an application 360 Miltown Road for a self storage 88,000 square foot self storage that's climate controlled. It's where it is Jason right across from the 4 grounds the baseball field right there and soccer field. It's directly across the street from the main entrance of the 4 grounds. It's like four miles from here.

Yeah. Yeah. Typically, if it's doesn't appear to have an adverse impact traffic or other the bureau, the planning board doesn't issue a corresponds to Bridgewater. If it does, we've had Lar Larry knows we've had applications right on the municipal border for something a warehouse that then the burrow the planning board typically issu issues a letter. In this case, it's so far away. I figured I'd do this verbally if that's unless is that is that area even in the regional center? I don't think so. I don't think so either. I think it's obviously not all of Bridgewater's in the region. Correct. Right.

And just so it's the the developer is the same developer proposing a similar application in Sonville. It's not in front of this board. Just to let you guys know that. So it's just for edification unless someone thinks this might have an impact in Zville and wants to comment to Bridgewater. Uh other than that, it's just to let everybody know. Nope. I think it's far enough away. No impact. Okay. Uh motion to return. So move. Second. All in favor? I. All opposed.