Planning Board - Regular Meeting

Please note this uh meeting may be broadcast or rebroadcast and recorded at the Westward Cat. Uh we have our town planner Joe Genowitz and assistant town manager Jeff Morsette with us this evening. Uh we'll start as always with open forum. Mr. Genitz uh just two items Mr. Chair. So 37 P road they did request to continue their this matter to May 19th meet meeting in order to address peerreview comments. look for additional time to do that. Uh then the 0415 GR road item, there was a deficiency in the public notice publishing in the newspapers. So unfortunately they have to wait until May 19th as well. So that's it. If anybody is here for those uh be continued to May 19th meeting nothing further. Anybody from the board? No. Thank you. Okay, great. So, uh, do you want our comments on the continuation request for 37 powers now or when we talk about 37 powers? Well, I guess we're on it anyway. Yeah. So, can I get a motion to continue to May 19th in this room, 7 p.m.? Second. I don't love the idea of continuing this with such late request from the applicant to have no comments on this. To be perfectly honest, I find it disrespectful of this board's time that we got notice at 10:00 in the morning today after we spend all weekend reading a 291 page packet. Yeah, I would there's a lot of comments from uh uh from community members who expressed concern. I read every page of the packet. I want 3 hours of my Sunday back to be perfectly honest. There's other matters tonight that would have been nice, you know, if we had a light agenda. There's a a meeting going on at the Millennium School about the turfing of the uh fields at Nutting. There's a number of other things that this board can occupy its time with rather than preparing for a meeting that gets delayed. Um Joe, I the the peerreview comments came in on April 29th, 2025. That's the date on that document, right?

Well, depends on which peerreview uh comments. I mean, the MickMod general development standards is the big one, right? There were three separate peerreview documents, each substantial. Yeah. The the the big one was the Dodson and that's that's the big one that dropped on April 29th, right? Sounds about right. Yeah. I mean, that's the date on the document. So, is that when the town staff had the document was April 29th? Once we received it, we forwarded it to the applicant, right? Just I don't want to interrupt, but I don't know. I think it's an appropriate discussion to have, but maybe when they're here, who when the applicant is here? Well, the attorney for the uh look, here's here's my point. I'm asking a general question of uh town policy as far as when this board receives notice on when we have to prepare for a meeting. With all due respect, Mr. Chair, I I think I'm not trying to make the point necessarily on this applicant. Yep. But I'm trying to understand the flow of information between applicants in the town of Westford before this board has asked for their time to prepare for a meeting for a public hearing that then does not happen because of what I consider extremely late notice, 10:00 a.m. same day. and whether or not under those circumstances this board needs to entertain a request for no comment or not. That's the question I'm asking. That's a good question. So, so Friday based on my calendar was what? The first which was at least two days after the applicant could have or should have received that information that there was peer review information, right? Is it not reasonable to assume that we could have known on Friday in the meeting packet not to prepare for this item? So on the date Jeff respond. So without going into the specifics of this application and having a conversation about the general process flow I do

think as compared to most applications this is a very complicated application which as you've looked at all the materials there's just the plan sheets alone um as you sift through the peerreview comments they're very um some of them are straightforward and some of them you know is probably going uh topics raised in that are going to have a a sort of big effect on subsequent reviews, policy conversations by the board. They have a lot of folks on their team and I think if they had it a day and a half, business days or two days, I don't know that they could have honestly sifted through all that information, had their team meetings and made a conclusive decision, you know, by the Friday to get that that out. So whether it's not a perfect process, if you want to have a future conversation about that, we're happy to entertain that. I do just want to point out it was a significant amount of information for the applicant to react to. I understand it's not convenient for everyone and then you have to balance is it better to go forward when they're not able to have a meaningful conversation about the peer review. Would it be helpful to have the peer reviewers and the applicants team sift through some of that to refine it to the things that they need the board to, you know, weigh in on? There isn't an obvious right or wrong answer. It's just that going through past practice, the board has routinely reacted to these requests and has honored those requests. And given that the applicants team is not here, they usually don't allow the public hearing to continue without benefit of the full dialogue instead of a one-sided dialogue. Darren, you've been here, you definitely have been on the board longer than me. Yeah, I can recall many times we've entertained continuations. Normally those are not those are told to us in the packet. Do

you recall a lot of Monday morning requests for I I've seen ever but it's not common. It's not common. Yeah. Typically would be you know few days notice but it's it's not the first time I've seen it but it's not common. Agreed. Well listen in the interest of moving on with the agenda since we should have a light agenda tonight. I guess I would propose that if we are continuing perhaps we should given the volume of changes and the sheer magnitude of everything in the peer reviews we should give the applicant ample time to prepare for that and perhaps we should continue to our June meeting. So, in regarding the dates, I did note we received the um the tech which was the traffic review that was dated the 22nd and then Dodson and Flinkers and Tai and Bond were both dated the 29th of April. But to your point, I agree. I um I'm assuming the applicant was flying up from Virginia, so probably knew on Friday. And that's upsetting that we didn't know Friday because they had to have canled their travel because they were supposed to be flying last night or this morning. Again, in the interest of giving the applicant amble time um to be coming well prepared the next time they sit in front of this board. Perhaps we should continue to the June meeting and give them plenty of time to work with town staff on uh and the other point is we also have the abutters who were trying to attend and they had to get word out pretty quickly. Correct. I'm not insensitive to the impact to the, you know, community members who wanted to participate in this and the short notice that they were told. I mean, they may have made adjustments to their schedules to be here tonight or whatever. And and if they caught on to it, I saw the, you know, several Facebook groups were sending around urgent notices that this item was actually continued because apparently there was going to be strong turnout for this. The other thing I would like to ask town and town council when these situations occur, are we

permitted to have a discussion on this if they're not here? That's my question because it's just a request for a continuence. Doesn't mean we grant it. You want to be heard attorney? Um, Mr. Chair, I just will say that I made the continuence. I was out of the office at the end of last week. I apologize for that. You know, it's not my normal course of action to request day of meeting. What I also try not to do is waste this board's time. Uh, to Jeff's point, this was a very substantive report. I tried to pierce through it quickly to see if there was anything of substance that we could actually have a discussion with with the board tonight. I know that you have three three third party reviewers that would also have to attend. So, in the interest of not wasting time, I decided to continue the meetings. My clients are actually here in Massachusetts. So, yes, they did fly up. Uh I also wasted their time and them coming to Massachusetts. So, it wasn't just this board's time. I do apologize for the late notice. It's not my general practice. Uh it was my decision to not waste this board's time this evening and not to bring your third party consultants in when we haven't had enough time really uh to review to this very substantive review that we got the last uh day. I think it was Thursday that I got it or Wednesday night. Um but they all turn off of each other. So we need to respond to dots and flicker. We need to respond to our um civil and we need to respond to tie and bond. So I apologize. Uh this is my fault. uh we would request to go to the next meeting because hopefully we'll be able to respond to some of those comments or see what we have issues to certainly have the abutters here to um have their comments as well. But I apologize for the late notice about the continuence and and not going into specifics. My general comments were going to be at the highest level. Uh it was obvious from the three peerreview reports that we really needed to step back from the board's position and allow the applicant and the peer reviewers ample time to discuss amongst themselves before they even try to present I think to this body here to the abutters. Um and that was

especially apparent given that all three had a significant number of concerns uh regarding the the application. Um, and the other the last thing here is I do think at some point we need to get the applicant in line with the board's comments from the last meeting as well as the preliminary design review we did back in I think it was October because it almost doesn't make sense for them to proceed forward addressing in minutia the comments from the peer reviewers when I think we've expressed significant concerns from this board here all five members at the last meeting and we need to somehow get everybody in align with the broad des plan before we go into specifics. All right. So, Dylan, you want to make a motion? Well, it sounds like attorney Robbins would still prefer we continue to May 19th and I will give significant time should we need to continue if we don't have substantive um feedback from this board. I agree with with Bob. When I read the packet this weekend, I said, "Well, I don't see any changes from the applicant in this packet. I'm seeing significant content in the peerreview information and I thought what we would have tonight would be an opportunity for us to have a conversation with the applicant. Perhaps I don't even expect the peerreview people to be here. I just expected the report and that I think to Bob's point, this group would have been able to opine and give some guidance to the applicant that might be helpful in refactoring the plan." Sure. We're not having that conversation tonight. So, what we're hoping is that you're going to go back and refactor the plan and we're going to see something meaningful on the 19th. My personal opinion is that could be a miss because you may then get feedback from this board that you could have gotten tonight and now you won't have benefit of that as you go and rework this with the peer reviewers. But I will defer to the applicant's preference on whether or not more time or May 19th makes more sense. Well, just

to Mr. Okconor's point, um we may have some sub substantive issues we need to ask the board before we go forward with the plan change. we just haven't had an opportunity really to absorb all of these comments and decide what even the questions are to the board yet or what what we'd like the board to react to. Um, and I think perhaps we may have that on the 19th. And I think you're right that may still not be an opportunity that we have third party reviewers here, but maybe just a conversation to have with board and with the adviserss to see how we proceed. Yeah. And I would suggest the applicant review the board's comments from the last time we had that the hearing, right? because at that time we expressed significant concerns about the overall direction of the project and when I read the comments tonight they were very specific this weekend from these three peerreview teams and I think they got way down in the middle and we're not at that point we need to step back and say what's the overall concept and and I have to add I have to agree with Bob and Dylan that you know I initially even before I looked at the peer review looked at the plan and said whoa nothing's changed. So, I think we have to look at the 10,000 foot level and try to all get on the same page before we, you know, get into the minutia. And I would add, too, that a lot of the comments from the third party reviewers are consistent with the comments we made after the first review in the last meeting. So, I think once all that's ironed out, it would be a good time to have a second conversation about that. Yeah. Agreed. All right. So, uh, could I have a motion to continue this to May 19th, 2025, 7:00 in this room? So, second. All in favor say I. I. I. Thank you very much. Okay. We have uh 0415 Grat Road due to deficiency of notice. Uh, can I have a motion to delay the opening of the public hearing till May 19th, 2025? Second. All those in favor say I. I. All

right. First general business item. We have lot 7 and 8 Rotten Road. Uh looks to be an ANR plan. Uh lot line adjustment. Uh let's see if I Yeah, create new lot line. Lot 8 formerly parcel A which has frontage on Lonway extension. This plan also consists of lot line adjustments between lot 7 and 8. And so very briefly um you saw this plan I believe back in February uh consisted of creating law six and seven at the time and lot eight was identified as parcel A. The applicant has since uh provided evidence to town council and town council does agree that parcel A could be considered a block he could be utilized as frontage. Um so now you have the I guess in some ways updated ANR um in order to identify what was parcel A with some minor line adjustments um as lot eight. Great. Uh any questions from the board on this? No. Okay. Well, uh can I have a motion to endorse with no determination as to conformance with the zoning? Second. All those in favor say I. I. I. Thank you. Uh 87 West Street after the fact request for project ed uh generating more than uh 1 acre of disturbance specifically for the construction of a 6,000t garage removal and installation of a drainage infrastructure. This is uh PB2414 87 West Street. Good evening, Mr. Chair. Again, for the record, attorney Melissa Robbins. Uh, with me is Matt Hammer uh from Landflex. And I'll give you a little background here. And usually, I know you don't get

so much on storm water, but since we did file this, as you just noted, in 2024, I just wanted to give you a little bit of a history. Um, this is an applicant, uh, Dave. It might have been a little confusing when you opened it up because he actually does own two properties right next to each other. 87, um, and 89. 89 is actually his plumbing business. 87 is this property that he bought in 2023. Uh the property was actually mostly permitted in 2020 and built in 2021. Um unfortunately in 2022 the person that had lived here and built this um garage actually died and Mr. Seed came in and bought this uh property. I would say that the property was pretty much completely built including the garage but not all the site work was finished or done. Uh when Mr. deed got out there, he started moving around some of the site work to complete what he thought was the work out there and unbeknownst to him um and it was brought to his attention by former building commissioner uh Henry Fontaine that he had then disturbed more than an acre. Uh so he then tripped a storm water permit. Uh the issue for Mr. and Mr. Hammer is that we don't know exactly what had happened out there before. Uh we were trying to finish the site the way that Mr. he thought was best, but obviously he tripped over an acre, so we tripped into storm water. So, here we are today. Uh Henry Fontaine um issued an enforcement order and said we had to file for a storm water permit. Our first suggestion was to undisturb the earth, which we had then disturbed, be back below the acre. Uh but he did not think that was good since the site had some drainage issues. Uh conservation also had some issues that they'd like us to address. Uh Mr. because he being a longtime Westford resident and also a direct butter um part of the neighborhood for a long time decided he wanted to actually solve the issue. So here we are today. Uh we've been through a drought, we've been through some snow, we wanted to see some storm issues out there. Uh we've been

through some back and forth with engineering for some time. Uh they are satisfied with the design as it now stands. Uh conservation is also satisfied. I think that's noted in your staff report. And uh once this was all finished, they wanted to make sure that the board of health was all set with setbacks. The board of health is all set with setbacks. So we're finally here today, one year after the application uh to request that this board approve the storm water plan so that we can actually go forward with this construction. Uh we do have Mr. Hammer here today that can go through some of the specifics of the design. If the board should have specific questions, we can go through it or we can go through the overall design. Um, I did see in the staff report that they had requested sit set setbacks on the garage. We can obviously put those on there on the final plan. Uh, I think they had also requested that we come back on the 19th so they can have a little time just to draft this decision which is completely fine. We can revise the plan in that time as well to address those concerns and any concerns the board might raise tonight. And that's the full story. U you can if you have any questions for Mr. Hammer. He's here to answer your questions as well. Go to Bob. You got any questions, Bob? Comments? Yeah. Um, trying to understand first off the elevation change because I kind of got the elevations up at the the site, which is up around just about 295 ft. I know as we slope off, it's it's down to 250 over um to the right side of this plant. How what's the the elevation when we get like to the base of the driveway to the front of the property? down here down here. We have not conducted survey down to the that it affects the existing driveway but it is sloping down to the right and down to the driveway. Correct. So you have the G. Oh, for the record Matt Hammer

Lamplex Engineering surveying 60 Fletcher Street low mass. So you have the driveway here that currently comes up and it forks goes to the existing single family dwelling here and then it forks here to the the garage that was installed and constructed. This building sits at approximately elevation 296. Okay, this area here has already been disturbed and there's a rip wrap slope here which brings you down approximately to 276. Okay, so that's a 20 foot elevation difference. The water in this area here all flows in this direction. You have a power line here that uh slopes down in this direction. And then you have this area here which is a low point that essentially reconnects to the power line in the in this location here. The other question I have is another tough one. Um this is a residential a parcel. Can I ask what the function of this garage is? It's just used for their own personal use. It's in no way tied to the business. In no way tied to the business. And as you can see from the grade, it'd be very hard to trickle the business into that use. You'd actually have to come up the driveway. The grade to Mr. Th's property even to this property is um a significant grade. Um but no, none of this site whatsoever is being using being used for business. the uh the other property actually has a special permit for business use and has

a significant garage of its own up there and um truck parking and all of that. So, the thing that has me also I talked to Jeff and Joe about this earlier today. Um this plan that you have submitted to us was submitted with the address of the commercial property. They prepared for Yeah, I think that's their mailing. His mailing address is 89, but the property address is 89. Personally, probably would have been best if it was kept separate. Okay. So, so when we put who it's prepared for, it's just the client's address. Both addresses, right? Yep. So, so sorry. Yeah, it just so happens that this address is right next door. I agree. I understand that. Yeah, it's confusing. So, yes, the property is 87 West Street. So, we can revise that just to be just to remove the address. Trying to be clean here because it looks like this has a potential commercial use on a residential parcel, right? And there is none. This is 100% residential. Actually, when this was originally permitted in 2020, it was controversial at the time because of the garage size. Uh but there was no prohibition against the garage size. So, as long as it's being used residentially, it's not in uh it is in conformance with your zoning. We can update that. Yeah, that's an easy fix. Okay. Yeah, I'm pass it on. Listen to the rest of the discussion. It's just Yeah. Yeah. My only question was about the use residential. Yeah. If engineering is satisfied, I'm satisfied. Yeah. Likewise. Um the only thing I would ask uh Attorney Robbins is uh with this does get approved, would you they be willing to a timeline since it's been sitting for a year to get this construction complete? Oh, yeah. And they they'd like to start construction out there. So, absolutely. We can work on that within the decision to come back at the next meeting with something proposed. All right. With that, um, can I get a

motion to direct staff to prepare a draft decision for the next meeting? So moved. Second. All those in favor? Continue this to May 19th, 7:00 in this room. So move. Second. Second. All those in favor say I. I. Thank you. Thank you. May 19th. It's going to be busy. It'll have a busy night. All right. Our next general business item is PB2102, Defenderive Subdivision uh 0 and 37 Carlile Road, Diane Lane. Bond release request uh to close the bond and release the remaining 15% uh retainers for the project. Uh before we get begin, I did see there's a waiver uh looking to uh not uh pay the application fee on this. Do you want to be heard on that, Attorney Rob? Yes, please. Uh again, Melissa Robbins for uh the applicant. Carile Roads Home L Carile Road Homes LLC. Tongue twister. Uh with me is Matt Waterman from Lant. Uh we're here tonight for a release of the um bond, which is not insignificant. It says retainage, but it is $23,327.77. No little number. Uh we did ask for a fee waiver, which I generally wouldn't do. Uh but we just went to town meeting. So this plan was just reviewed for road acceptance. So there isn't another review that is necessary. Uh town meeting did just review this. Uh town council reviewed the deed. Deed was approved. Plan is actually recorded. Uh so we're not actually for a bond reduction. This is just a release because of town meeting acceptance. Uh which is why we asked for a fee waiver here of $613.20. Uh town staff have any opinion or comments on the request? No, just that outside of this specific

application, um we were planning, as you know, we're working on tiered site plan review hopefully of this board's consideration prior to the Falltown meeting. Uh we were looking to update our overall fee schedule um because as you know your fee schedule is kind of embedded in your subdivision rules and regs and that would take public hearing to make changes even to the fee schedule there. So we we're hoping to have a fuller conversation about fee schedules at that time. This is one of those cases if there is not, you know, additional reviews or additional work being done, the end of the day, it's their money that they put up and the town, as you pointed out, you know, they've already accepted it. It's already recorded. It's already ours. So, um, I was going to have a conversation with the board. Is it appropriate to charge yet another additional fee to simply return their monies or perhaps they get folded into the process at the end if differently you know but we don't have any objection given that there's no additional work happening between town meeting and and now so practically speaking for bond for future bond reductions this could be part of the road acceptance process and then not have to come back to the planning board for another review when the road is obviously done to everybody's satisfaction So when it comes up in discussion later, that might be a good time to put it in there. Any discussion? Bob? No. Johnny? No. No. No. Please discuss it. All right. Can I get a motion to wave the application fee on PD 20 21102? So moved. Second. All those in favor say I. I. Okay. Now on the bond release, you want to be heard attorneys? Yes, please. Uh so all work is completed. Uh the rest of the requirement was that we got the deed approved by town council. Uh so we did work with attorney Klein and did get that approved. It is on record. We did submit copies of the recorded documents

um to the town as well as the myar which has been recorded. Um so everything is of record and complete. Uh so we're asking for the rest of the retainage for the road to be returned. Um and I heard at some point there was a questionable tree and that Mr. Guthri's offered to replace that tree if that tree yes doesn't survive. We don't we don't think it's dead. I know that there was in a butter that had raised a concern about a tree at the last meeting, but the we think the tree is just a late bloomer. Uh so we're going to give it till the end of June to bloom. Uh but we would ask that uh we I already put on record that if it doesn't bloom by June that we would replace the tree. All right. Perfect. Sounds like a Monty Python. This tree is not dead for lack of a better term. Uh but that would be our suggestion that if we we give it another month or so and if it doesn't bloom by then we'll replace it and we've already put that in writing to staff. All right. Uh any other discussion board? No. No. A motion to release the remaining 15% retainage for this project. So moved numbers. Oh. No. I think if you say remaining remaining. Okay. Okay. All right. Motion second. Who seconded that? Was that I did. Thank you. All those in favor say I. I. And lastly, can I have a motion to release the triparty agreement? So moved. Second. All those in favor say I. I. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. Thank you. Uh our last item in general business is review and consider request for participation in the town's open space and recreation plan update process. Mr. Morset, Mr. Gentleman. Yeah. So, um, as you may or may not be aware, every seven years or so, we look to update our open space and recreation plan. Um, our conservation resource planner has put together a draft charge for the, uh, committee to do so. Um, it would be, I guess, a bigger ask in the first year. Uh we would likely have probably about

five meetings or so uh as part of the the full plan update and then it would likely be meeting every six months or so following up on you know action items, objectives, you know, identified in the updated plan uh to check our progress and or rep prioritize as needed. Um so you have the draft charge in your packet. Um you know lease wanted to plant the seed. Uh I don't know if anybody's uh really itching to participate in this uh committee. We may also have a request for Route 40 uh corridor study in the very near future as uh the RP just came due uh on Friday. Um and likely the pedestrian plan funded through the MBTA communities um catalyst fund. Um so be a couple things we'll be asking of you boards to participate board members to participate in. So at least one will get this on your radar. Um, again, I don't know if anybody's really looking to do this one uh in particular. Um, but I know you also have your reorganization coming up probably at your next meeting following the election. So, all right. Uh, so we can fight about this offline and I'm wrestled to see who takes this one. Miss Boso, this is a draft. This is a draft um charge yet to be approved by manager, but uh this is the draft that was submitted. Um and so we think it's appropriate for the planning board to at least have a voice if you want it. Uh you don't want a voice, we can relay that as well. So there's going to be now three committees here coming up for appointments here very soon. The other two I believe are predicted to be just one year assignments and that would be the pedestrian uh plan around along 110 and then and then there's the route 40 core stud. This one

here might be a little longer and it just might be useful if we could indicate what the expected duration of this committee is because that that's the one thing I read and wasn't it was it sounded like it was more than a year but couldn't tell. Yeah. Yeah. The idea would be you know during the duration of the plan so the next few years we'd have a plan board member. Doesn't that necessarily be the same? I mean, even if we just say it's forecast to take two to two and a half years, but something to indicate. Well, you're appointed for three year terms. So, I mean, I couldn't tell if this going to take 10 years. I mean, but I I guess uh I mean, it's a it's a valid thought like part one is we got to do the overall update and then once it's updated, then it's more checking and follow through. So, it's kind of like different. So, maybe there's a way that could we can relay that thought to the writer and see if they want to you know, first year or two is focused on the actual update. And my and my last point here is um with all these committees, I've received a number of questions about, you know, with me running for planning board, why can't we get fresh blood? And I said, you know, one of the things is how do you develop that? You can develop it by having members join master plan committees or these kind of committees here. And my suggestion would be that this these positions get advertised not only in this meeting but through the select board and other meetings maybe conservation um just so that more residents are aware that if they want to get involved this is a great opportunity for them to get involved in planning in in with the town and working in this area and becoming educated so that they can join these elected positions uh more easily. So just my suggestion. Any other thoughts?

Okay, we'll move on to the review of the draft minutes from uh March 17th. I get a motion to approve the minutes. So move second. Any discussion? No. All those in favor say I. I. I. All right. Uh, anything else for anybody? No, I just have a suggestion for staff. Um, we've continued a few things to the the next meeting. Yep. In the interest of respecting other folks time, maybe have some of the potentially shorter items before 37 powers rule. Sure. That's usually deferred to the the chair chair. That's makes sense. That would agree 100%. Okay. The agenda comes out. We'll make sure that happens. All right. Do that. All right. Motion to adjurnn. So moved. Second. All in favor say I. I.