Planning Board - Regular Meeting

Uh this meeting will be recorded and may be broadcast or rebroadcast on Westford cat. Um so as we well to note uh we have two board members who unexpectedly uh couldn't make it in person but we do have them on the line and uh Darren is expected to join us shortly. Uh all votes will be taken by roll call before we begin. Uh anything for open forum Mr. Mr. No sir Mr. Chair uh Joanie don't uh anything for open forum? Nothing from me. Thank you. I'm good as well. Thank you. All right. Anybody from the audience? Seeing none, uh first we'll go to uh general business item request to release remaining bond for Cloity Flame, which I'll recuse myself and hand over to Bob. Okay. So, um this is a matter that is really just a check the box kind of item because town meeting has endorsed this. I'm going to turn over to Jeff. Sure. a description of the uh the item at hand. Thank you. So, Cloverleaf Lane is a subdivision that was completed um as built was satisfactory. Town meeting accepted and all the legal documents including the easement is recorded at the registry of deeds. So, the town is responsible for that road. We no longer have any legal reason to withhold uh hold any bond. So, we just never ask the board to take a vote to release that bond. So, that's what we're asking you to do at this time. And the amount of that bond is is immaterial to release the bond and it's entirely. All right. So, um I'll make a motion that we uh release the bond um at this time. Uh now, as we um have two members not present, we're going to make this as a roll call vote. So, Joanie, you need a second. I a second. Joanie seconds. Okay. Okay. Joanie

I Dylan I and I say I. So it's it's 30 and one abstension. Thank you very much. Turn it back over to Mike. Thank you. All right. Uh now to PB2514 uh Westford Bakery takeout food truck request for administrative review and approval multiple locations including but not limited to 15 river street car road which is Jack Walsh Field Mr. Chair. So actually that applicant is literally before the recreation commission at this moment. they'll be heading over here earlier. But just for background reference, um this is one of the things ironically that we're looking at addressing with tiered site plan review process. In the past, this board has reviewed such requests as long as they have owner authorization and it's subject to satisfactory review by public safety departments. Uh the board has approved these in the past, but I know the applicant would like to have a few minutes before the board later after she's uh through with the recreation commission. So I don't know if you can indulge her uh a little later in the agenda, Mr. share. Sure. Absolutely. Do we want to act on it now or I it would be great to have her here. I think in she can explain to the public the services she provides. And we'll hold that for a later time. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Next, we have item C, uh, discussion potential zoning bylaw amendment for the creation of a tiered site review process. And we have the pleasure of having Kelly with us tonight. Yes. And and where should it sit there or wherever you like? Great. Maybe I'll sit next to you as that way we're together respond to questions together. Um, good evening members of the board and for everyone who's online. Um, my name is Kelly Lynama. I'm the deputy director at the Northern Middle Sex Council of Governments. We're the regional planning agency that serves LOL Westford and the other seven communities around Greater

LOL. Um, with me here tonight is Isabelle EMTT. We'll let you introduce yourself real quick. Good evening everyone. I'm Isabelle EMTT. I am a regional land use planner too also with NIM. Um so I just wanted to give a quick introduction and then Isabelle's going to get into a few more of the technical details. We have been contracted by the town of Westford um using our district local technical assistance funding which is a state funding source to help you in considering a tiered site plan review process. Um tonight we're just going to talk through a little bit about the project overview. We'll talk touch on uh site plan review in Massachusetts just very briefly. Isabelle is going to present um some details about your current site plan review process and some recommendations that we've come to through meeting with various project proponents, listening to the planning board meetings, I think from 2022 where you did a number of um role playing exercises and then we have a couple of questions for you to help us in clarifying the next steps and what sort of zoning amendments we might we might want to work with you to craft. Um so if we can go to the next page here. Oh, and I took Darren seat down here. Okay, thanks. Um, so we uh we began this project in April. We met with uh Joe and Jeff from the land use department to review the scope. Um, and then we have been in the process of doing some research looking at best practices, case law, and meeting with project proponents. As we move forward in this project, um based on our discussion tonight, we'll take a look at your actual zoning. We'll provide some recommendations in an actual amended format and we'll give that back to you. Um all of this is with the intent of having a recommended zoning a set of zoning amendments to bring to town meeting this fall. Um and again, as as you're aware, as you discussed, we're looking at developing a three- tiered

site plan review process really to try to streamline site plan review. The intent of this is to give staff a certain amount of jurisdiction over small projects or things that are uh very simple, very clear buy right to buy right uses and to not burden applicants, particularly small businesses with a lengthy or prolonged process and to kind of re reduce some of those processing fees. Um we also want to align projects of appropriate scale with the kind of hearings that they should have. So this will ideally um with the right calibration allow you to really have a a total public hearing process for the kind of projects that do warrant public comment and public hearing, have a smaller process for minor projects, and then allow staff some administrative review. But the intent of that too is that staff would then also have the ability to kick something up to a minor or a major site plan review if it seems like it would it would warrant that kind of action. Uh we looked at site plan review in Massachusetts. This is not defined in mass general law. It's mass general law is pretty vague on it. And what that means is a lot of communities have really it's it's sort of a local creature. Um everybody does it in their own specific way. But I think through case law um we've seen a number of instances where the supreme uh the supreme judicial court the conditions that have been imposed on different case law have really made sure that I think when we're looking at tier site plan review we want to make sure that you have very clear criteria. Fortunately your zoning has already established some of those clear criteria. We just want to calibrate what levels are triggered by different types of review. And we just want to make sure that site plan review is consistently applied. And I think one of the things when we talked with project proponents, it's already clear that you're very you're applying site plan review very consistently. It's just a matter of what things actually should be brought to a minor or a major level of review, which is which is what could be um reviewed at a an administrative

level. In a lot of Massachusetts communities, site plan review has three different tiers. And so when we go on and talk about this, when we talk about administrative review, this is review by staff. So these are looking at staff as technical experts. Um it is typically done with a combination of uh planner or land use staff in combination with your b your building commissioner. Um and sometimes health and human services u sometimes police and fire just depending on the on the type of project. But this is something that doesn't get brought to a to a public meeting. your minor level of review. It's a it is brought to a planning board meeting, but it's not something where you're notifying a butter. So, it is a public hearing uh or sorry, is it it is at a public meeting. The board then has the ability to weigh in on the project and shape that project, but you're not going through the additional process of having a a really extensive application and um notification of a butters. And that is reserved for major site plan review. So we go to the next slide here and I'll hand it over to Isabelle. Thank you, K. So when we're when we looked over uh site plan review in Westford, uh there are currently three categories. There's general site plan review, review of exempt uses under Dylan's law, and then there's the large scale solar. Uh it's a uniform process regardless of the project size or complexity and it can apply undue burden to applicants for very simple changes such as a change of use or with no modification of of the site. Next slide. So we conducted a couple of interviews with uh with u lawyers who have done SPR with Westford extensively. Um and the

comments that we received basically um centered around uh SPR triggers being overly broad. Uh the current process can sometimes discourage small businesses and tenant turnover. Uh the bylaw does uh lack flexibility. However, there was a lot of high praise for town staff for being helpful during the process. Um and a tiered site plan review process would offer significant benefits in terms of simplifying the process for simpler changes. Next slide. So in terms of recommendations, thank you. Um for the administrative side we are thinking smallcale building or site modifications uh minor exterior changes uh change to an equal or less intensive use which is an item that we'd like to discuss with you tonight. Uh in terms of the minor site plan review, this would be for moderate expansions or additions, changes in use with minor impact or smallcale new construction. And that second point with changes in use is again something we'd like to discuss. Uh the major site plan review this was large-scale development, significant new construction, projects or uses with significantly more intense intensive impact and projects requiring a special permit. All of which we're interested in discussing tonight. And as Kelly hinted at, uh, in terms of the reviewing authority, uh, the administrative would would be handled by land use management staff, a building commissioner, or someone in the planning department. Minor would involve a public

meeting with the planning board. The major would require the planning board with input from other boards, commissions or peer review as well as potentially the special permit aspect. And these and the previous slide went over basically what that would look like qualitatively. This is how we measure it quantitatively. Um so with administrative new construction of less than a th00and square feet um minor would be between 1,000 and 4,999 major 5,000 or more. Uh additions would be between 500 and 1,000. Same pattern uh except major would be 2500 or more. parking increases, changes of use, uh site disturbance, uh storm water impacts. That's another topic we'd like to discuss with you tonight. And uh anything else? Uh common plans with land disturbances are more than one acre for minor. Um, in terms of other recommendations, uh, administrative SPR for temporary uses, NIMCOG's current recommendation would be to remove this from the SPR process and have it be its own completely separate review process. However, that we understand that this is a topic that the board is interested in discussing and we have it as one of our discussion topics. Uh in terms of requirements, obviously an administrative site plan review would be much more simplified. It would be more reviewed at the staff

level with a faster turnaround and compared to a major it would require more compared to a major that would require more review. So uh we'll take it to discussion questions. The first thing we really want to focus on is how does the town want to define minor? Uh first, is the town interested in removing usebased triggers to SPR entirely basing thresholds instead on impacts such as parking and square footage? Second, should hours of operation be included as a consideration for SPR and or what other measures of use intensity should be considered? And finally, do you support aligning SPR for protected institutional uses with an administrative process similar to the limited review tier used in Lexington? And if I can just add, when we're reviewing to when we're referring to the limited review tier that's in the memo, there's a there's an additional table of some of the peer communities that we looked at. Lexington has its own separate process for uh do uses or are religious, educational, and childcare uses that sort of kind of those are considered protected uses by the state. And so they have a special process for that. Um, and I don't know if if um if we want to pause here and if you have any questions before we get into these questions or if you want to start a conversation procedural question. So say for example it's it's defined as a minor um somebody comes in looking for a a a change a minor change however it would impact storm water management which would be you know major. Would it be combined or would you do it separately? Yeah, I would recommend that the um whatever triggers the highest level review would be the the triggering factor, right? So, you might have no addition, but you might be doing some creating a lot of impervious service and then you're you know that would trigger

that would move you up to New Jersey. Great point. I have two two questions. Sure. One minor one. I noticed on the recommendations you had recommended uh food truck permitting processes go to minor SPR and interestingly enough our first item tonight which we're going to take up sec after this one um deals with the food truck and that one we were looking to make administrative. So so I think we we had looked at some processes in other communities. A lot of communities in Massachusetts have a process that's entirely different from site plan review for those temporary uses. Right. And if and and that would be our recommendation, right, is that you actually those things get moved over to um the first the first pass would be an administrative review by your board of health, by your planning department. You're they're looking at the same kind of things, they would be looking at with administrative review. So, it's still getting reviewed. if it's something that that team would feel needs to have a broader discussion or they could always pick that up, but we would recommend having that be separate than from a site plan review process just because those are usually so temporally based and if they do become permanent, that process of becoming permanent would then possibly trigger site plan review. Mhm. My second question is um I appreciate I mean there's a great level of detail here making uh taking tangible numbers and using them as the determining factors. The one thing I don't see in here though is the factor of um if there are a butters coming to discuss an item there's a there's a it's no matter what the size is we could get a large number of interested parties on a topic and I think that right there should kick it to minor SPR. Um, I'm I'm I we need a process by which we allow the public to to state their

concerns and and and and be part of the process if they so desire. So if we do get a butters, I don't think we should be remanding that to administrative review because that takes them out of that process. So essentially uh that could be included under that second question of what what would we consider? what components are we going to consider to make something minor? That's something we can certainly Yeah. two projects could be totally identical just because of the neighborhood they're in. So I guess I guess that's the challenge, right? Because if you have a by right use and if it's not more intensive than an existing use and I don't know how we could make one person go through more hoops than another person just because the neighbors don't like it, right? And so that's where I think when you go back to case law, you want to be careful about making sure that you're consistently applying consistent. Right? Um, and that's where that's where you might if if there's actually a use that is um that is so controversial that it should require a butter notifications or a butter um the ability for a butters um comment then maybe it shouldn't be a by right use. Yeah. Right. So anyway that's my one concern. So otherwise yeah looks very good. Um go through the discussion. Yeah, I mean I think we could probably go through these discussion questions real like one at a time and if anyone wants to weigh on them then we can take these comments and and put them into our recommended um amendments. And I think like like um Isabelle mentioned these first three are really around how do you define minor? Um we could talk about minor all day but there's got to be some kind of definition that's along with it. Um we looked at right now you have um you trigger site plan review for a change of use and I think there are certain things that are implied by a change of use which is might might be that because you're changing uses your parking requirements are changing or because

you're changing uses the hours of operation might be changing. I think what this this first question is trying to get at is do you need to use a change of use as your triggering element for site plan review or could you remove use entirely and instead base site plan review on the the scale of parking impact or the scale or the changes to operation of hours or something that might actually that that would more quantitatively um calculate impact or intensity. I think that's a great idea. simple change of use without any parking or anything else could be administrative. But if there's going to be parking applications or more people or anything like that, bump it up to the next one. That makes total sense to me instead of just a straight definition of change of view. Yeah. Can I can I ask a question please? So when you're saying Yes. When you say eliminate youth space, um, does that my my concern is if we get a new use that we haven't seen before in the town, I want to make sure even if it's very small, a very small piece of property and there's no real parking issues. I just want to be sure that we are going to be able to deal with it, especially if it's controversial. Well, I think if it was a change of use that wasn't allowed by right, it would have to come before us anyway. Yeah. So it would be something that would be no. Okay. So it's only use space that are allowed by right is what you're saying. Yes. I didn't read it I didn't read it that way when I read it. So okay then I'm fine with it. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Question. Yeah. What happens if No, I guess what if someone needed a special permit there

in No, never mind. We'll sort that out. Can Can I ask a question, please? Um, wouldn't we maybe want to consider if the change in use is going to one that requires less parking versus one that requires more? That is a topic we'll get to definitely. Yeah. And I think that's why we're wondering if we eliminate a change of use as a consideration entirely. And it it seems like often the discussion is really about parking because all planning seems to be about parking. Um if if it's really more about like if it if you were reducing the required amount of parking then that could potentially be considered administrative. If you're increasing the amount of parking whether it's administrative, minor, or major depends on the number of parking spaces. But that sort of happens indep like use in your zoning helps an applicant understand how many parking spaces they have to provide but use itself wouldn't be the triggering factor for something having to be subject to site plan review. Essentially it'd be easier to downsize in terms of use as related to parking. And that's what we're trying to to um take into account with administrative review. And with administrative review, staff would consider the use and the parking requirements. Yes. Yes. Based on that. Exactly. And I think sometimes the conflation of multiple factors that all categorically could be considered administrative. If there are certain layered on factors, staff might want to kick that up to a minor level of review and and that would be something where they would we would write that we would draft the zoning amendments in such a way that it would enable to them to do that. Essentially, we're trying to prioritize what components should trigger each tier. Yeah, I agree. Expanding the use would

probably something to Yeah. Okay. Um wondering if you want to consider hours of operation as a consideration for a level of site plan review. Um or if you have any other ideas about what might be considered like changing to a more intense use. What if somebody wants to do overnight operations where it was previously typical business hours? Like might depend. I don't know. There's a lot. Yeah. You know, I think that's probably would kick it up. Again, it's expanding the use, right? So, I think you're expanding. Yeah. Okay. I mean, I I agree that I think we should consider change of hours. Um because you're right, if somebody wants to do something overnight, that could be a different kind of impact. Okay. And I think we could work we could book we could work with staff to define to figure out like what are those sort of definitive breaks in like yeah starting point for the board's consideration. Yeah. 9:00 10:00 something like that. Um and then your thoughts on kind of keeping do protected uses as a separate review process. M um I know even though there are protected uses, even though childcare is a protected use or um religious uses are protected use, sometimes you might get an application for a very large building um that is allowed under the zoning, but other if it were not a protected use, it would still it would it would trigger like a major site plan review. But you might want to consider some sort of um a a slightly different type of review for a protected use in order to kind of protect the town from any um accusations accusations of discrimination or just to make sure that those uses are that you're following the dober amendment

when you're reviewing those uses. My question there is as I thought about there some examples recently, you know, a child care center which is a brand new building on 110. Okay. So that was pretty intensive. Look, there was a traffic study and it was pretty intense. And then there was another uh church that was done fairly recently further down 110 and that that was a number of meetings too in terms of talking about parking and traffic there too. So Okay. And a number of hearings. Yeah. So even though we're limited what we can do, I think in some of those cases we have a lot of input in terms of that especially the traffic and parking. Exactly. There's never a question of allowing or not allowing. It's a question of dealing with the traffic impact and access to a major road. So perhaps it's the same process then and you just have the additional the introduction of administrative review. So you know a childcare use going into something that used to be a different use that might be something depending on the parking impacts that might be something that is now administrative instead of requiring full sight plan review. Yeah, so so I'm sorry again. I'm confused because I I would say that protected uses shouldn't be excluded only because we had that issue with the child care. So are you saying they will be excluded or they won't? No. um saying that they would probably be subject to the same thresholds as other as other uses and so they they they would still have administrative minor and um and major. Okay. Super. Thank you. Thank you. Right. Any other questions? Any other comments on these three questions here? Okay. I think we can move on.

So our next set of questions uh first should projects requiring the special permit or variance from the board of appeals also be subject to site plan review. Another question about cumulative impact should the cumulative total of square footage from additions be evaluated over a declined oh excuse me defined period of time for the purposes of determining SPR thresholds? And finally, is there some square footage that the town would be willing to exempt from SPR? We currently recommend less than 500 square feet. So the the point behind the first question is really like if something is going for a special permit or a variance process through the zoning board of appeals and that board is already reviewing in other communities that often wouldn't trigger site plan review because you don't necessarily want the decision of one board to be in conflict with the decision of another one. that said a and for smaller use for smaller things uh although I guess a small an administrative level uh site plan review might not uh it might not align with a variance or a special permit from the zoning from the board of appeals anyway but it's just if it's already getting a review and some kind of permit from your board of appeals would you want it to go through a separate process of site plan review either administrative minor or major depending on the thresholds My thought on that is is it's it's it shouldn't if it was going to come before us anyway, it should even though maybe another board has looked at it. Okay. Okay. So, it's just mainly then looking at the thresholds, not whether or not Right. I mean, I don't Bob. Yeah. Yes. Okay. Dylan, any comments? Well, I I was basically you

guys are saying what I was thinking, which is if the ZBA considered the same things that this board would consider, then I would agree that it's probably redundant to have two boards weigh in, but I don't think we necessarily evaluate the same things today. I I totally agree with you, Mike, that yeah, that they don't um we evaluate different things. Therefore, we need to still see it. All right. Thank you. um some communities um to maybe avoid an applicant who's trying to get in under the radar by doing small additions year-over-year, which might be prohibitively expensive, but they still might do that to to avoid a major site review process. Um they set a certain threshold like three years or five years. So, you're calculating the total the cumulative additions over three years or five years. Um instead of just having it be every every application is considered on its own. Um it seems like you might want to incorporate that cumulative element. Um would you prefer three years or five years best practices? Yeah, I think best practice three or five wouldn't make a big difference but okay consideration is important. Okay. And we could do the same for parking. So, accumulated cumulative um increases to parking, but that's probably also triggered by square footage. Anyway, parking can get a little more complicated because sorry, it could be a a shopping center and we really have to look at the cumulative parking spaces, not just maybe the tenant that we are dealing with. Joanie, yeah, I totally agree. We have to avoid project splitting. So perfect. Okay. Um the if you look back at that

table we had for um additions we had recommended that um anything between 500 and 1,000 square foot of addition be administrative site plan review. And the idea of having that start at 500 square feet is that some projects might just be too small to warrant site plan review. Um wondering if you have any um any comments on that? Nothing in particular. Or would you be okay with not having site plan review start until 500 square feet of addition? I'd be fine with that. I'm fine with that. I'm also good with it. Again, it's increasing parking spaces for the administrative increase is great, you know. Okay. Okay. Last three questions. Um Oh, sorry. Okay. No. Uh, so the first one, we've kind of talked about it a little already, but should we exclude parking lot restriping or reconfiguration from SPR unless the number of spaces or total paved area increases? Is there value in planning board review of parking design? Second, as we've promised, uh, does the town have interest in separating the process for temporary uses from SPR entirely? And finally, should we tailor application requirements for administrative minor and major SPR projects to align submission materials with the scale and complexity of their proposals? So, the first one around parking lots is really like if if an applicant wants to restruct their parking lot to allow for more compact spaces, right? So, they're increasing

the total number of parking spaces, but it's not they're not changing the amount of impervious service or if they're making some larger spaces, but they aren't um they have more than adequate amount of parking. Is that something that you would want to have kicked up to a minor level of review or do you believe that would would staff would it be okay with you to have staff review that? My opinion, staff is more than capable of reviewing something like Yeah, but I do think it needs to be reviewed by staff. Yeah. Okay. Um it's it's less the size of the spaces and more of the the lanes, the navigation or the circulation worrying about the circulation, especially safety vehicle access. Sure. And that's where Yeah. I think having like police and fire in on that review team would be a benefit. Okay. Um I agree with um staff review too and it's restriping and also the signage. Some of it might be um okay the differences between no parking, no standing, no stopping. Okay, that's coming up a few times. I'm seeing that online for some of our existing shops now. Okay. Um anything else on parking? Okay. Um so for temporary uses um what is your interest in having temporary uses be a whole it's a separate process that's distinct from site plan review yeah we just have to define what temporary is okay yeah I think it's looking at like food trucks outdoor dining that's seasonal that doesn't need to be uh like a Halloween shop in a something that's like a three month or less use yeah I mean we got it defined temporary Okay. Be more administrative. Yep. Board of Health. Yeah. So, can I ask what about like a temporary building? Like if someone wants to construct a temporary building,

you know, because they're going to do work, they want to start their business, construct this temporary, you know, or you know, not really trailer, but something temporary. How do we feel about that? I have a concern about temporary buildings becoming temporarily semi-permanent. Have have you had any instances of temporary buildings or other than a a construction trailer or we haven't but I think Jonie you would still have the review of a building inspector to make sure it's built correctly. You know, it's not like it's it's the these aren't now a matter of right because we're coming out of our hands. There still have to be maybe a matter of right, but they still have to go through processes to make sure food trucks are inspected by boards of health building inspectors instruct constru inspect construction. Right. No, I understand that. My my concern is, you know, constructing something uh because someone comes in um and then they want to construct they have they have something they're going to do by right on their property, but then they want to bring in a temporary building, construct something temporarily because they're going to need more time, whether to secure funding or for whatever reason. And then suddenly you have this tempor and they come in with a temporary building. some suddenly you have this temporary building and oh then their funding falls through and oh then this happens and oh and then that temporary building is suddenly there for 10 years. I just I I mean just a thought something to think about. Yep. I I think it's good to think about those unintended consequences. One thing we could look at is how other communities look at temporary uses as like having having them come back up again for that temporary review process. So once you hit a certain number of days, it has to it has to be reviewed again administratively just to make sure it's not a temporary use that's becoming permanent. I like that idea. Okay. A provision. Yeah, that would be good. A good provision. It's a time limit on the

temporary building. Perfect. And it could be kicked up to minor if it's Sure. I guess that and and if that temporary use if the app if the owner does want to make it permanent that would then have to go through that would have that would then go through site plan review based on whatever triggering thresholds it it met. Um okay and then the final question is really about tailoring those application requirements if there is a I think part of the rationale for asking this question is because you might have a change of use from in in an existing building. So you have a tenant that's changing and nothing else about the site is changing. You don't want to have to you might not want to have that sorry I don't want to lead you here. You might not want to have that applicant have to provide a whole site plan you know site plan with storm water and drainage. That's a burden. So what we would recommend is having a different application for Okay. Okay. Yeah. Um, any other any other questions come up as we go through this that you want us to think about as we're drafting some recommended amendments? So, so on that last one, I just want to make sure that we get enough information on a minor that we don't have to because again, a minor we're trying to do in one night. So I think we have to be sure that we get enough information that we don't have to like question and oh what about this and what about that. So I think we have to be careful about how much we limit. Yeah. We can provide you with some with some model applications too. So you could take a look at those before you get into approval. All right. Sounds good. Thank you. Great. Thank you. I know you you gave us a few sample towns. Mhm. Do you what's the inventory of towns in Massachusetts that have a three a tiered system? Do you know? I know there's 300 something towns in Yeah. Um I I think what we're trying to look at is who rises to the

top is recommended. Um and that's that's kind of what drove the communities that we were looking at es especially since uh some some tiered site planning is like two levels and it and it seems like what Westford and Bela the other town we're doing this for wants three. So we looked at towns that were mostly putting it into three different thresholds. So, it kind of also depends on what structure is desired. All right. Well, Kelly, this is all Jeffrey. I don't know. Did you want to invite the public if they If anybody in the public has any questions, comments, I promise. Melissa Robbins, 45 village road. The only thing I can think about to streamline this process just a little more is there's a policy where engineering staff doesn't get involved until much later in the process. Especially when we're going to the third bucket where we're going to a full site plan review with a special permit. Perhaps allowing staff to cut engineering loose prior to that first meeting would really expedite the process because what happens right now is we apply, we wait the 30 plus days to get in front of the board. We give an overview but we have actually no substantive feedback to respond to and sometimes that makes us have to continue even another meeting beyond the next 30 days. So that would actually help move the process along if you're going to follow between those two buckets. The middle middle or last now is that policy Jeff or is that just process? It's a custom that has been around for a while something we can discuss. Yeah. Anybody else? All right. Thank you, John. All right. Great. So, we will be back in uh at a future meeting. Um and we'll share materials with Joe and Jeff. Either they'll share them with you or we'll bring them back and present them

ourselves. So, thank you for your time. Thank you very much. Thank you. So, with them coming back, what is our requirements so we can meet the fall town meeting? I'm sorry. What's that? What are our timing requirements so that you meet the fall? So, they're going to prepare draft language hopefully to begin. We can share something with you um by early July or your July meeting rather and then we'd have to start the public hearing process shortly thereafter. Yeah, probably for your August meeting when we would start. Okay. So, I do want to point out, Mr. Chair, I know Westward Bakery. Yes, we can recall PB2514 bakery takeout food truck request for administrative review and approval of multiple locations including but not limited to 15 river street legion field and Carlau Road Jack Walsh Field. Good evening. Hi, good evening. This is Su Seage 83 Cold Spring Road Westford and maybe you want to just describe your business and why you're here and what you're looking to do. Sure. I started Westford Bakery in 2022 um after discovering there's no bakeries in Westford and then uh I've been doing this for 3 years now from my residential kitchen. I have been permitted and certified from the board of health. I started a drinks and desert trailer which is like a 9 ft small concession trailer. I'm selling my baked goods, coffee, chai and a couple more um Indian drinks out of the trailer. I've been doing events in the nearby towns for like different fes and stuff. Um, now I want to like sell more from the local soccer fields, Edwards Beach, Porch Pond, uh, during the summer vacations

and during the soccer games when parents are desperate for coffee and we have like nowhere nearby to go. So, these are all my pictures. That's the trailer. Make sure you go to Edwards Beads a lot. Awesome. Uh any comment from staff? No, just that um for each of these locations u she would need uh owner respective owner authorization. They're not all in the same location and it would be subject to satisfactory review by public safety departments. I will confirm that she's thoroughly permitted all set with the board of health. She's been through that process and I think you're actually offering as you mentioned in other communities. Yeah, I've been doing it in Groten um and a couple other that I forgot right now. Um but yeah uh for the um permits from the owners I have been um renting the commercial kitchen from St. Mark's Church for my trailer usage and uh I have the owner's permit for parking there in their uh parking lot. I am paying a rent for their parking and rent for their um kitchen. And the other spots that I uh mentioned here comes under the town's property. Um, so yeah. Uh, Dylan, you have any questions? No, I'm good. Thank you. Joanie, um, my only concern or question was on the um, Lincoln Street location because, you know, with the chaos that is that area, is that going to be a problem? Which location was it? The same street.

Yeah. Well, again, it's going to be true for public safety, right? It would be. Yes. I like the idea of the fields. In fact, I wish you had done this when my kids were playing little. Um, yeah, that's those are they make a lot of sense to me cuz it's not right in the flow of traffic where this is, especially in the morning. Gets pretty busy there. So, that would be my only concern would be the one here on Lincoln Street proposed. Yeah, I was thinking just on Mondays at the Lincoln Street when Muffins on Mine is closed and there's nothing nearby and uh maybe after the Boston road closing is done, all the construction is over, maybe the traffic will reduce. That's next winter. Yeah. This is day one. Um, in my opinion, I'm okay letting public safety review completes, but if you want to limit it. No, I'm very comfortable with that. As long as public safety is looks at parking and traffic flow, I'm happy with that and staff of course. Can I get a motion for PB2514, request for administrative review and approval for Western Bakery takeout food truck? So moved. Second. All those in favor? Bob. I. Darren. Hi. Dylan. I I I also got some samples. I didn't know there would be so many people, but I just got few. I have red velvet cupcakes and gulab jamun bun cake. It's a famous Indian desert that I infused in a form of a cake. Uh it contains nuts. So, and since it's after the vote, it can't be considered a brig. That would be a gift maybe. So, thank you very much. Thank you. Thank

you. Good luck. We'll put something in writing for you. Okay. Thank you. All right. Next, we have a re the uh review of the draft minutes April 22nd, 2025. I got a motion. I'll make a motion to approve the minutes. Second. Uh any discussion, Dylan? I'm good. Tony, I'm good. Just make one amendment. minutes of uh April 22nd. April 22nd. Yeah, I didn't call her out. Um All right. So, we got a motion in the second. All those in favor say I. Bob. I. Darren. I. Dylan. I. Joanie. I. And I say I. All right. For our first public hearing, we have PB25070 and 415 Grunt Road as well as an unnumbered uh road parcel. uh special permit for a common driveway. Uh this continued from May 19th, 2025 goods. Make me sit next to them all. Why you taking my cookies away? All right. Good evening. Good evening. Sorry. Matt Waterman with Lantech Consultants. Uh here with Mark Gallagher with Seal Harbor LLC. Um we are in front of the board at your last meeting on May 19th um for the continued public hearing of a special permit for the common driveway for lots 7 and 8 off of Graten Road near Lonway Extension um and a

storm water modification for lots six, seven, and eight. Um at the last meeting uh the the the proposed well just quickly over the the proposed site improvements do reduce limited work. We do reduce the curb cuts on route 40 and we reduce the impervious area needed. Um I thought the board was fairly certain or comfortable with the with the special permit. Um we did meet at have a site meeting last week on the 27th. We met with Joe and DPW and the fire department. Um the focus of that discussion kind of was more specific to the extension of utilities, water and electric from Lonway up. Um and then we also quickly discussed the preference for the for the maintenance of Lonway extension. Um and Mark with Seal Harbor has committed to paving the along his frontage um 20 ft wide and clearing 13 and 1/2 ft tall. uh the fire department was satisfied with that requirement. Um we also would be going from from our property line north to Route 40. We'd be patching and repairing um the pavement um kind of in place. Um we did submit updated plans. I know engineering hasn't had a chance to review them. Um but we did address all of their comments and concerns. Um we also included some of the items we discussed at the sitewalk. Um, and I know staff has drafted some draft decisions, but we'd be happy to answer any questions. Um, we did have to ask for one additional waiver that was brought up by the engineering department common drive regulations require that we provide a sidewalk on for all common drives. Um, we didn't feel like this was necessary where the common drive portion of these driveways is only 50 ft long and there's no adjoining sidewalks to connect to. um be happy to answer any questions.

Great. Joe, does engineering have anything to tell you at this point? They don't have any concerns that we've heard of at this point. Um as Mr. Waterman alluded to, they've submitted revised documents, but they haven't had a chance to thoroughly go through them. They didn't notice any issues at this point or nothing that couldn't be handled as conditions of approval. Um Bob, any questions, comments? No. Darren, questions, comments? No. Provided engineering is all set. um have feedback. I'm happy to appreciate the maintenance agreement. Uh Dylan, any questions, comments? Uh no, I'm good. Thank you. Going no. If engineering is good, I'm good. All right. Anybody from the audience have any questions or comments for this application? Mr. Morsette, would it be appropriate to uh subject this to engineering? So, one suggestion might be to, it sounds like the board is good with the approach. Um, it may be suitable to close the public hearing, but it might make sense to make sure we um do a little more work on the decision that incorporates all the waiver requests, memorializes what you see here tonight. Okay. We could have it ready for your next meeting or That would be fine. Does that work for you, Mr. Wman? Yep, I think so. Unless Mark has any comments he'd like to offer, but just like to get started as soon as we can. All right. So, can I have a motion to close the public hearing? Second. All in favor? Bob? I. Darren, I Dylan, I sorry. Sorry. I Dylan, we can't both be on at the same time. Sorry. I um motion to continue this to our June 16th. I think you just you just closed it, right? So you're just approving with draft staff's prepared draft decision for next meeting. So I want to add that. That would be wonderful, Mr. Chair. Thank

you. So we can we continue this meeting to uh June 16th at this room unless otherwise specified at 7 p.m. with approve with and approve this application and direct staff to uh draft a decision for review. That good? Sounds great. Okay. Wait. He moved. He second. Thank you. All those in favor by Bob say I. Bob I. Darren I Joanie I. Dylan I. And I say I. Good call. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Good luck. Thanks. Good luck. Okay. BB2509 11 cornerstone square US50. Uh this is a motion for a special permit to increase the size of the sign. This will be the first public hearing. So can I get a motion to open the public hearing? So moved. Second. All those in favor. Bob I. Darren. I. Dylan. I. Joanie. I. And I say I. The motion to wave the public notice. So move. Second. All in favor. Bob. I Darren. I Dylan I Joanie I I say I gentlemen. Thanks Mr. Chair. Um I'm not exactly sure where the applicant is for this item. I don't know if they have it be out in the hallway or not. Um but generally speaking it's a proposal within Cornerstone Square um to have a sign that's slightly larger than what would be allowed under the bylaw approximately by six square ft. That's for our neighbor right there. Here we go. For a sign that's six square ft larger than what would be allowed under the sign bylaw within the midst of cornstone square. So I don't know if the alco want

to go through any of their materials or how they feel they meet the special permit criteria. Yes. Hi, my name is Mat. Uh I'm from Falcon Graphics. Um I'm trying to finish up the Zach and mobile accessories sales and repair signs. Did you give all the information about the sign? If you guys have any question, I can answer what's there. What's there currently? Is there currently a tenant in that space that uh we 33 total space up and down and then 9 in in left and right? Yeah. Do we know who the current tenant is there or previous tenant? Yeah, previous tenant. Previous tenant has a bigger sign right there. Has bigger sign almost double. Who is it? Uh, another um, telephone repair company. So, the one comment question I had on the application Mhm. you made a great case for why you need a sign, but there was nothing to state in there why you needed a bigger sign. Not bigger, smaller than existing one. It It just simply said you needed signage to attract business. Um, and what I couldn't and obviously a Petco is a very large sign. They're allowed that by right because of the the size of their business. Um, I had no way to make a decision as to whether this sign seemed too large for the size of the storefront. I had I mean I had asked staff last month if we could last meeting if we could try to get some

comparisons of showing how this compared to maybe an existing sign for that location or a sign for an adjacent location that was of comparable storefront size. But I just had no way to see if this was a reasonable request. That makes sense. So, I think you're saying your proposed sign is smaller than the sign that is or was there before, but it's still there, but it's still larger than um what is normally allowed under the bylaw. So, I think if I we could see what the existing sign looks like and we get the comparison, I'm fine with that. But again, I had nothing to tell me why it had to be this size cuz all the way deep, you know, they want to stand up. Customer can see better possibly. That's why uh and one question I had too. Is that white background backlit or is there is just the blue letters that are lit? Just a metal background and then individual letter Zach lit. That's what's Okay. Y comments last questions. Yeah, I mean a little bit maybe down the road that Bob was going with this. Um, you know, look, just anecdotally looking at Cornerstone Square, I feel like to some degree, I'm not sure if the there are some stores in there where the signs are so small that it's actually difficult to see them as you're driving around. And so I'm not sure whether or not what's permissible per the bylaw for the amount of square footage of the business necessarily makes sense in a big location like Cornerstone where you have lots of shops. Um, punch line is I don't have a problem with this request because at the end of the day it's like three feet like across is all we're talking about and the scale

of that building. I don't think it's a big issue. But I just find myself wondering about the consistency of the overall signage within a location like Cornerstone. given the different sizes and configurations that the businesses can take in there and whether or not I don't know we need to reconsider whether or not in a location like Cornerstone there's almost like a minimum square footage of the sign regardless of the size of the business because it's just a big you know mass of building and businesses and if you have ones with very small signs and ones with very large signs it just sort of overall appears inconsistent and I think it's hard for the businesses with the smaller signs to stand out and get any attention in that environment. So we did do something like that for Westward Valley Marketplace actually, but we never received such a request um from this plaza owner. Um but it has been done just like you said that we found that the smaller tenant spaces were being penalized particularly if they were inside corning unit. They really didn't get a lot of visibility. Um but that's not what's before the board at this point in time. It's this one sign application, but We can reach out to the uh plaza owner again. We've done it in the past. You know, can you tell us what was there before, Joe? I can't, but I bet you someone in this room can. Do you know what does the sign say there now? Um I don't know. I exist in pictures, but still uh similar same company. Similar business company. Yeah. CP telephone. Yeah, that's right. CP, Jody, any questions, comments? Um, I don't really have any questions or comments. Um, I I kind of agree that it's hard to tell without the scale, but if it's smaller, I don't think I'm overly concerned.

I'm looking online. Can I just ask if that sign is to scale? relative to the door. Looks like above that one. This one. This one more scale. That was the scale. Yes. Yeah. So, yeah. Yeah, I don't have a I don't have a I mean I think if I'm looking at what I think are the adjacent businesses today, the sign seems like it's going to fit in character. Darren, thoughts? No, I'm it's okay with the side. I'm I'm fine with the size. I think as long as it meets the other criteria in terms of u channel lit and not back lit, I'm happy with that. All right. Can I get a motion to approve? Oh, anybody from the audience have questions, comments? Yeah. Um, Emily Teller, 9 Texas Road. Bob, you didn't get any information that you asked for from staff, right? In terms of other signs in the area. Well, we were now looking at it uncable, but we can't see it. But I know that's So, so I think going forward, I would like to make sure that we in these kind of situations see what the at least the placement looks like with the adjacent spaces. I guess, you know, I just feel like just because the one there is bigger for whatever reason doesn't necessarily give you enough information to vote that this is okay if it doesn't meet our bylaws. I mean, that's what we have bylaws for. So, and I know that the owner of the organiz of the property is not very cooperative in any way, but I just feel like that's that's what we have bylaws

for. So, that's my comment. Yeah. Also, uh we do have a bylaw that says that lights have to go off on businesses. What is it? Half an hour after closing. 30 minutes. We put those in every one of those decisions if it's illuminated. I don't know what the enforcement is, but that would be a good thing. Thank you. All right. Uh any other comment? Just the last one. I would emphasize that I went back and looked at the application. It does say justification of request. And that's one thing I'd like if we could in the future try to ensure that that is justification is actually included with the application cuz in this case I don't think the justification was included. Thank you. All right. So back to PB2509 11 corner control square. Is there a motion to approve uh special permit to allow? Motion to close the public hearing. So moved. Second. All those in favor? B. I. Darren pack Dylan I. Joanie I. Uh motion to approve the application for the special permit uh to allow a 20.63 ft sign whereas a 15t square foot sign is allowed. 11th cornerstone square unit 500. So moved. Is there a second? Second. All those in favor say I. Bob. I. Dylan. I. Darren. Hi. Jodyie. I. I say I. Thank you. All right. Moving on to PB2510 subdivision Kinwalk Drive 64 right away

66 Main Street. Continuation of the public hearing from May 19th, 2025. Attorney Robbins, Mr. Fleer. Good evening. Good evening, Mr. Chair. For the record, attorney Melissa Robbins from Ferrell and Robbins. Also with me tonight is Dave Guthrie, the applicant from Markstone Builders LLC and Mark Slagger, the project engineer. As you stated, we're here for a continued public hearing. Uh we were waiting for two outstanding issues, which was come from the engineering department, which we have received. Uh the engineering department stated that they had no issues with the waiver, but they did have some comments and revisions they wanted to the site plan. Uh we have absolutely no issues with their comments or requests and we will make these revisions to the site plan prior to your next meeting. Uh the other request before the board was to receive fire department comments about the current width reduction request um and to speak about the current conditions and the allowance for leaving some of it the same in order to accommodate multiple uh residential structures. to have the chief's comment up there on the board. Uh he is uh satisfied with the layout as modified, but he would not be inclined to allow for a further reduction, nor would he be inclined to allow for us to use the existing pavement to accommodate multiple structures. There was nothing new for the board other than that. Uh so we're happy to answer any questions the board may have. Great. Joe, I did see a report from engineering. Anything else from them? No. And I think all the comments to attorney Robin's point are fairly minor and I think the applicants willing to revise plans. So nothing further. Any questions? I just want to make clear um did you agree to the recommended changes by engineering? We will require we will make all recommended changes by engineering and we'll make them prior to your next meeting so that the plan will be revised to reflect those. No further questions. Nope. Thank you Dylan. Uh nope. I'm good. Thank you.

No, I'm good. Thank you. Okay. Anybody from the audience like offer anything on this? Okay. Uh seeing none appropriate to close the public hearing and ask staff to write decision based upon. Mr. Chair, if I may, if you want to leave the public hearing open, that way we can just draft the condition prior to the next meeting. Uh make sure that the conditions are in line with our revised plan because we do have to submit a revised plan uh into record. So if you want to leave it open for the 16th, we'll update the plan set, work with your staff on conditions, and come back on the 16th. Okay. Motion to continue to June 16th, this room 7:00. So move second. All those in favor say I. Say Bob. Say I. Paul. I. Darren. I. Dylan. I Bob. I. I say I. Great. Thank you. Okay, next we have PB2512 478 Graten Road and also with Stanley Way. Uh this is a public hearing to consider the application of valid site plan review for the construction of three commercial buildings associated parking. Uh this is the first public hearing on this matter. So can I have a motion to public hear? Second. All those in favor say I. Bob I Darren I Dylan I I say I need a motion a motion to wave the reading so move second all in favor say I Bob I Darren I Dylan I Joanie I say I good evening the attorney Robin show today good evening Mr. chair for the record, attorney Melissa Robbins from Ferrell and Robbins. Um, also with me tonight is the applicant from Vel, Inc., Gary and Mary Joel Label, and also the project engineer, Matt Waterman from Lante Consultants. Um, as you stated,

we're here tonight for an application for phase 2 for a property that we're now lovingly call Stanley Way. Uh, the property is located in the industrial A zoning district and contains about 4.5 acres of land. Uh currently the site contains two buildings and for lack of a better direction here they're in the bottom left right there. Joe Genowitz is circling them. Uh those were done under site plan review and are mostly completed with some outstanding site work to be done. Uh the proposal before the board is to construct three new structures which will be 4,000 5,000 and 6,240 square ft in size. Uh the addition of these structures will trigger permits outside of site plan review which was already obtained. So the permits that will now be required is a major commercial project special permit. Uh the improvement will also require a special permit to render the site more than 15% impervious under your Warp Pod 2 zoning district. Uh we also will need a storm water permit and we're also seeking a reduction in parking which is required from 148 to 134. Uh we do have some initial comments from town staff, but before we get into any of that, what I'd like to do is just turn over to Matt Waterman to go through the site in more detail. Good evening, Matt Waterman. Thank you, Melissa. Um Melissa went kind of through the existing conditions which on your screen is pointing at this one. Um doesn't work on that one. Uh it's this kind of the lower portion of this development. Um the the infrastructure that was installed for Stanley Way, the parking that was associated with the first two buildings on the lefthand side. So kind of the lower leftand corner is is the phase one. Um, and as Melissa said, there's three new buildings. Um, two in

the back and one out front. Um, the smallest one being out front facing Groten Road. Um, we did kind of rotate that. We worked with our traffic engineer. Um, as far as the parking layout and and some of the turning radiuses for the cars for accessing this um when we were doing some conceptual work. Um, but it also, in my opinion, helps kind of screen the project from Route 40. um as you're driving along Route 40. Um the additional buildings uh are an additional 15,240 square feet for a total of 26,480 for the site. Um we did have a traffic study being prepared by TEP. Um I spoke with Kim today and he has the final draft for traffic full traffic study on his desk and hoping to submit to staff and the board uh by the end of this week. Um and and it's consistent with phase one um as far as with the the generated traffic. Um obviously it's a derivative of the the the square footage of the building. So it does get bigger with the buildings, but um for this portion of Route 40, you know, stopping site distance, the triangle the the site triangles are all really good along Route 40. um and don't anticipate any u major recommendations with the traffic study. Um parking, as Melissa said, we are hoping to green bank some of the parking spaces. Um the total count um required under the bylaw using the most conservative um calculation is 148 parking spaces. We're going to reduce that by 14 down to 134. Um so phase 1 gets 57 spaces and phase two gets 77. The green bank spaces are along the right hand side of the project still doesn't work. Um these 14 spaces that was done um we were trying to screen and

pull away from the the residents on Grten Road as much as or excuse me Russell's Way as much as possible. Um I'm sure most of you are familiar with Russell's Way Greystone project. Um the the building that is along Route 40 is actually a commercial office. I think it's a a patent attorney that's in there now. Um but then the next two houses behind that structure are residential um buildings. Um and so that's why we were trying to pull those parking spaces away. And I'll get into that again with landscaping. Um the percent impervious uh we do render about 51% um impervious. There's 13% building and 38% uh pavement. Um we do infiltrate all of the pavement um through underground infiltration systems um which is kind of the performance standard that this board expects if we are going to exceed the 15%. Um and then we're also trying to green bank some of the parking spaces to help uh reduce the amount of impervious area on site. Um storm water is similar to phase one. Um it does have a closed drainage system, catch basins, manholes with underground culttech infiltration systems with uh special treatment system in the in the first row, the isolator row. Um it does meet all the performance standards for storm water management, TSS, water quality, um and all the BMPs that are expected with a stormwater system. Uh we assume that that would go off to either engineering or peer review. Um, and we can certainly address any questions or comments that they generate. Um, lighting and landscaping and architectural and then I'll be done. Um, but similar to the lighting and landscaping with phase one, we tried to minimize the amount of poles. They're all downward facing. Um, limited the yard lights to um, and you can see the

red dots on our rendering. Those are the light poles. Um, we tried to keep them away from the residential on Greystone side. And then on the left hand side or the westerly side um the the lighting is affixed to the buildings um facing the parking lot um with no lighting on the back side of the buildings. Um using the buildings to kind of screen the development to to the neighborhood Donado Drive. Um the again they're all dark sky friendly. Um the landscaping plan um we do have a fencing and evergreens that run along the westerly side. Um and in phase one, you can see some of the plantings that are in place. Um the fence is not has not been installed yet. Um but we would continue that along the westerly side behind buildings four and five um with evergreen plantings um and a stockade fence um in between the two buildings. On the right hand side, we try to minimize the limit of clearing as much as possible. And then we have uh white pines to be installed or or planted um along the the property line to the east to help screen the residential structures to the east. Um and then along the frontage we have, you know, kind of what the board expects along Route 40 um within that 25 ft planting buffer. Uh lastly, architectural. Um they're similar to the what's out there today. I'm sure most of you have driven down Route 40 at some point seen. They are structural frame with reinforced aluminum siding. Um they're approximately about 28 ft. They have commercial doors. Um and be happy to answer any questions. Just a couple other things, Mr. Chair. Quickly, uh we presume the traffic review would be necessary. That's why we went ahead and um cut the traffic engineer loose on a full study. Uh we will send that along to engineering. I'm presuming since Jeremy is still by himself that uh traffic will be going off for third party review. We will leave that to the discretion of your

engineering staff and also that engineering and storm water would be fully reviewed. Uh just one point just because this is interesting because we're doing it in two steps is that the entire site must come into compliance with your major commercial projects uh standards. So even though it's the second part that is tripping us into this level of review, the first part must also come into that level of review. So when we're talking about landscaping, we're talking about screening, we're talking about storm water and other site compliance, it's for the whole site one and two, not just phase two. So I want to make that very clear that this entire site is for a major commercial project special permit. It's its entirety of the trips the requirement. Um I think that's it for now. I'm happy to answer any questions the board may have. Great. Thank you. I will note that this still has to go to engineering and some staff comments will probably be I want to interrupt you. Um, can you just confirm that when you say um, land bank or green bank, what you mean is the site is laid out so that you could install them if needed, but they remain a planting area until that time or grass area and that your drainage system is designed to accommodate it in case they are ever built out. Is that correct? Yes. And everything you said is correct. So, the green bank, as Jeff described, they they they get graded out, they get grassed. Um, they don't get paved. The drainage system is designed to handle all 148 parking spaces. Um, and then they don't build those spaces, but if the building inspector at or at the pling board in the future decides that more parking is needed, um, they could simply be added without having to increase this, um, storm water system at all. Thank you. Um yeah, as I was saying, this still has to go to engineering. That's high level review. So any high level comments? Start with the board. Bob, now the only thing I noticed in here was slight inconsistency in the natural gas. It does appear that natural gas is going to be installed into the site and I know in the

introduction that was the one utility that was seem to have been left off. And I believe and I I I'm 90% sure that natural gas is being installed and I I just want to turn over and confirm with Gary. Yeah. Yeah. So natural gas is being Yeah. I found places where it says it was being installed. I found places where it said it was available and then I found a place where it was just missing. Yeah. No. And that was a typo if it was that it is expected to have natural gas on site. Um probably just want to discuss maybe how this gets phased with the existing uh facility there in terms of uh any safety concerns and make sure engineer looks at it from that perspective. Looks good. No, we the applicant had talked about potential addition to the site, you know, when they first came in. So I'm not it's not surprising. So yeah, looking forward to hearing from um engineering. It's pretty consistent with what the front the first phase already looks like. So, just curious to hear engineer's comments. Dylan, comments, thoughts. Um, no, I mean, I agree. I mean, we have to hear from engineering and all that. You know, I guess I think if we're going to talk about a sitewalk, the only thing I could see being of interest is to like get a look at the distance from the um some of the houses on I guess at Seonado Drive maybe and um just figure out the density of the foliage that's in between them to help inform some conversations maybe around the required plantings for like screening the buildings, you know, in that back area from some of the houses in the back. But, um that's it for now. Great. That was going to be my next question. Does the board want a sidebar? I would. Yeah, great. Uh, Joanie. Okay. My only concern, and I apologize because I was not on the planning board when this the first phase was approved or when this the start of this project was approved, but given that my my

question is more a I guess a use question. Um, are we really going to do we really have occupants for all these buildings? We have these two. We have the same thing being built on Kyle Thompson. We have the same thing being built on 110 behind Sullivan Tire. So, you know, just a general question. I just don't Are we building stuff that's just going to sit there vacant? Respectfully, Julie, that's for the owner to suffer or something. Yeah, that's Well, no. I I agree. I I know that. I just I just wanted to ask the question if that was, you know, if you know, are those are the buildings even occupied? I I haven't really seen a whole lot of cars there and I know they're still being finished. So, um but I I agree. Okay, that's fine. I just wanted to bring it up. Thank you. All right. Anybody from Sorry. We would be looking for a vote from this board tonight to authorize uh the establishment of a 53G account in case the engineering department would like outside help. um in traffic review. Um but if it's not needed, then obviously we wouldn't establish it. Okay, great. I'll go to the audience. Anyone here have any questions, comments, thoughts? Can I please come up to the microphone? Give us your name and address, please. Hi, this is Krishna Kokuna. I'm one of the butlers at Poras. Uh so uh my first question is the screening when we are talking about the screening uh I do see uh the existing phase one uh when the cars are parked the direct uh light from the cars are hitting my bedroom window which is on the second floor cuz the elevation of the first phase parking lot is more than 8 ft above my the property line. Okay. So that was my first question of the

including more screening and then on the other side if you see the approved plan they have the fence approved venile fence for 6 ft but this side there's no venile fence where the greystone for Russell's way or the next five Russell I mean six Russell's way is the next property of so there's no venile fence there and also I see the r3 trees uh where the new phase is going to be there they're planting uh six trees there. Is there any way we can have more trees coming towards this towards including Yeah, that that's a pointer. Um that was my these are my questions. Okay, great. Great. That's they're great questions and great comments and I think that's something that we can ask the applicant to look into. Mr. Warmer. Yeah, just quickly um and I it kind of with the scale of what we're looking at, but there is um evergreens planted along this stretch in between that I did not allude to um along the top of the slope. Um um but we can certainly make sure that we follow up and make sure that we're addressing their concerns. Great. Um but there is some evergreen plantings at the top of the slope. Um over here we're at the bottom of the slope, which is why we did the white pines. um kind of a larger tree knowing that they're down at the bottom of the slope and then the evergreens um at the top of the slope. So the same arbitaries continuous correct it'll be more. Uh so other question since the elevation of the phase one um it is may more than 8 ft from the property line the venile fence which they're going to um install on the this side will it be more than 6 ft cuz even if they put 6 ft I could definitely see everything uh from the garage lights pointing towards the window. So is is there any way they can increase the height of the venile fence?

I think can something you'll take into consideration. We can absolutely. Okay. Thank you. So there's going to be several more hearings on this at least. So they'll do some more renditions of the plan and hopefully address your concerns. Thank you, sir. Thank you. Mike, can I just interject? Um his question, you can sit down, sir. I don't um got me looking at this. Matt, could we update the photo you're using here? It's giving the false impression that there is a tree buffer between this and DD in an auto drive. And that tree buffer according to Google does not exist anymore. It does not. Um and I thought we well in AutoCAD we have a an imagery that automatically comes in. We could certainly try and get an updated aerial image. Yeah, that's I mean I don't think it changes the concern with four and six Russell way. Um, no, but they've cleared the whole behind both houses. We showed the two houses on the right. There's the existing house, which is kind of a stone greenhouse. I think it's along Route 40. And then behind that, there's two houses on the right, and then there's four houses on the left. And as Bob says, they on the two houses on the right, they've cleared right to the property line. Um, and that was on the approved plan. I looked at the landscaping plan today for Donado. Um so and what we did was when we worked with the the developer to to screen behind buildings one and two. Um so there is an earth berm with arborite planted behind the first new structure on dinonado which it's like behind building number two. Correct. Um but we can certainly update the imagery. All right. Yes. Please go up to the microphone. State your name and your address. Sure. Hi, my name is Sad Mata. I live in 3D Donato Drive. Um, so when we moved into the house, uh, obviously the construction phase one was going on. And

when we when we spoke with the developer, he said that either we're going to do not uh our developer, he said we're going to either do fence or put some trees on it. Um the rational was it will give you privacy and no one can walk to your property from the commercial land. Uh we have noticed that it's very easy uh to cross the property line. So when I saw the proposed um 6ft vinyl uh fencing I was also curious when that is going to be uh done and if at all it will be done. Can we raise the height from six to slightly more? So the same concern with the other colleagues are having from the car line or uh we also have the same issues cuz we also have the same thing in the morning in some of the rooms where there's too much light coming on. Okay, great. Well, I'm sure they'll take those comments into consideration. Be sure to check back at our next meetings. All right, thank you. Please come up to the microphone name and address. Hello, I'm Romesh. Uh yeah, you don't need to speak for Yeah, I'm Romesh uh from 5D drive. Uh that's where next house to them. Um this uh the major one major concern is again the fence uh uh I think at least with at least 10 ft it will be to the first floor level. So uh again without the fence right now the kids we have kids in the don uh they are taking they're curious to kind of go into the commercial side without the fence. The priority is the fence to be built as soon as possible so that the concession any noise kind of gets suppressed and the kids will not accidentally go into the construction

site. So the fence should be a priority. U and also at um the evergreen on three which sedat they had like this tiny bushes and it takes forever to uh get to a privacy uh height. So we prefer something uh whenever they're putting uh the um privacy trees uh be behind 5D n I want them at least uh 6 ft or 10 ft to start with so that we don't have to wait for a longer time for the privacy trees to grow up and also other thing is the maintenance of the privacy trees uh they can get disease and so they should be taken care u we see that uh predator I um binary trees had some disease and they're not growing as fast. So those are my major concerns and also wanted to see an updated plan as somebody commented out. Um there's no trees at all there. U so we want to see what what is the trees that is going to be there. Uh I don't know if there is any tree line behind five on that other side. Uh that would be retained as well. So all right thank you very much. Thank you. Maybe consider a BM too to put the trees on. That way they're automatically higher. Hi. Name and address, please. Hi, Mary Domin. Uh, number six Russell's Way. Uh, so, uh, questions on, uh, lighting. Um, it's really, really bright right now, phase one. So, is there any way that lighting can be toned down? I mean, it's I would call it light pollution almost. I mean, I get it that you need security lighting, but you know, maybe that can be at the front of the buildings or motion sensored after, you know, 7 or 8 at night because it it's really bright

and this is summertime with all the trees in, you know, in bloom. So, um, that's one question. Second of all, um, you know, the white doors on the buildings, this is an architectural question. um you know, if they weren't white, you wouldn't really even see these buildings. So, if we could have not white doors on these buildings, maybe paint them gray to match the buildings uh would really go a long way. And um also, um for the permitted time for this, is this going to be done timely? Like, how long is the permit going to be able to be open? And because phase one and two were very slow. I mean that the permit was open a long time. So I don't know what the rule is. Generally it's 2 years after the decision. It's two years. They they have to then get a building permit. Doesn't mean they have to be completed. They can get a building permit within two years of decision. And then when you start construction, how long do you have to finish? I don't know the answer to that question. They have at least a year. But if there's um they have to check that with the building commissioner. There may be at some point some it's a building commissioner question really but permit's only good for so long until they okay and then the uh other question is uh during construction can there be work hours that are like at least 7 a.m. or later cuz you know we get trucks idling at 6:15 in the morning. We get backup beeping 6:00 in the morning. We had a load of something dumped that sounded like a blast at like 6:15 in the morning. So, you know, I think there are specific hours in which you can work in town. Okay. Well, with uh special permit, this board has a little more discretion. So that's something that they can work with the

applicant on for construction of of operation basically. Yes. Okay. That'd be great. Um also what's the So it appears the setback rule is 15 ft. Is that correct for commercial building to a property line? That's what seems to be shown on the the plans. So for a sideyard setback that may be the case. Uh you may get a different answer for front yard setback and rear yard set back. Okay. So um how about a retaining wall? Is that considered a structure? Does that need a setback? But Jeff that I was that was Clint I just noticed I was looking up the the setbacks even though because of the orientation of this building the rear of the building is seems to be using the side setback not a rear setback just because of the orientation of the building relative to the property and the difference is 15 versus 30 ft in industrial land. Right. It's the rear because it's not facing the street. Right. It's Yeah. But it's still it's a sideyard, right? If it's a side lot line, they need to meet a sideyard segment requirement. Yeah. The zoning by doesn't get specific to the rotation of the buildings. Typically, it's more the configuration of the lot, the front, sides, and the rear. Yeah. And they define them as connecting two fronts. You know, it's very specific how they define the sideyard. They're static. It's so that you can't change the location of your building to circumvent what a sideyard is. The sideyard is the same. Yeah. So, I'm sorry. What's your question? So, um so my question is then that the side yard say for building three um is 15 ft the side from the property line. Uh what's a retaining wall considered? Is that considered structural? No. No. So if the retaining wall uh meets a certain

height, it may be considered a structure and would then need to meet setback requirements just like a fence if it exceeds 6 ft in height may need to meet setback requirements as well. Okay. So currently the retaining wall shown I can't tell the height of it but is probably not a requiring a 15 foot setback. I can't answer that yet. No, correct. I believe it is less than 4T. It's at the toe of the slope and it's just right along the property line, but we will double check. Okay. Yeah. Um, yeah, that's the big concern on lighting and if there is more lighting put in, if it could be face down the parking lot would be Can I just comment on that? Please come up with the microphone. I just want to say that I'm Gary Level. I'm Gary Lavel in the app again and we'll definitely address all those. But about your lighting concern, we go we are dictated by the police to keep those on 24/7. So we I tried to get them I tried to get them shut off early. They wanted them on for their you know when they do their cruising through. So I'm happy to accommodate whatever you want cuz I I knew that was going to be a problem. But I'm happy to do whatever the police wants to do. We can readress that with them for phase two and see if there's something else we can do. But I'm happy to look at that. Thank you. Hi, Rachel Feninger. Um, 476 Graten Road. Um, so we had a couple concerns. One actually jumping off from the retaining wall question. So, when the um drive when the the parking spaces were built, uh, the land was raised like 8 ft. So, the property used to be in line to our yard and now it is 8 ft high. Um there's a sign saying that snow storage and it is heavily heavily salted, just

to note, is being put right here. Um we have concerns about um everything that is melting into our yard and damaging some of our plants. Um and we were requesting if maybe snow storage could be moved, if it's possible, over to this area. Um which would not have that big drop off into our yard. Um, we did also have a lighting question because it does come right into our bedroom for TW like all night, but as you said, like um that's not a note. Um, one second. Oh, we were wondering when I mean it would seem to me that snow storage runoff might not be in agreement with what the runoff calculations were originally and that needs to be examined. So, that's something that we'll make sure engineering takes a look at as part of the review. I don't know if the applicant wants to offer anything. No, we can certainly look at that. I can't remember off the top of my head. I think it does drop down to the towards 476 and we can make sure that we address that comment either with signage or re-evaluating snow for that front parking lot in particular. Okay. Thanks. And then the last one was just wondering um you know like privacy is a big issue and people are parking right there constantly right in next to our kitchen and we're just wondering when those trees might go up. I know that the the fence sounds like it might be in the future but there has been no tree planting um in the the forward part of the plan as of yet. You haven't or when you anticipate those trees going? I know that they started the landscaping. I'm sure you've seen it. Some of the blowing and seating has been going on. They just caught the grass season hopefully. Um I think they were holding off on the plantings just kind of incorporated with this final landscaping plan to make sure there wasn't any changes. Um but we can certainly press to get that done once we've kind of gotten some some headway with this phase 2 development.

I'm sure they'd appreciate it. Uh anyone else? Yes, please come to the microphone. I excuse me. My name is Mark O'Brien and I live at 477 Broton Road, which is kind of at right here. Great. And I I I guess one question I have is what are we trying to decide tonight? I look at the picture and I see, you know, the iron rollers and whatever the next building is, and I see three new ones, two two there and one to the right. Um, now I think I heard one of you say that this has been be ongoing for years, but true tonight. I'm sorry, I can't hear you. I I think in listening that I heard maybe it was you say that this is going to go on for for years. No, what I said is that has they have the ability. So the the permit's good, our decision is good for two years. So they have to fill pull a building permit and then they have some time after that to actually build it. I don't know their time. Okay. Um, so some questions I had going up Russell's way as I don't take a walk. There are two bridges and there's water underneath all that area there and I don't know is that in this picture somewhere or is it just further? I think that red line on top is probably the the am I correct Mr. Waterman? Correct. And the first bridge for Russell's way is is just offscreen to the north. Um that line up there probably the 100 foot buffer. Is that right? Correct. That is the 100 foot buffer. We did get that confirmed with the conservation commission before submitting with an ENRAD or an abbreviated notice of resource area delineation. So that is been recently confirmed and updated. Um and you can see our clearing doesn't go

any closer than 100 ft. So we stay outside of the 100 foot jurisdiction of the conservation commissioner. So, so where are these new buildings meeting the top two would be? It is currently dry. Correct. Absolutely. And what I thought I had was um there's um there's a septic system like if you're on road uh across from the iron horse, I'm sorry, the iron rose. There's a septic system and is that septic system going to take care of everything or is it gonna be something else? Yes, the septic system was designed to accommodate um originally it was I think 3,000 gallons per day, but we're staying well under that. Um we've been working with the board of health to address those concerns and using um we had to do a current title 5 inspection and then we've connected in buildings one and two. And with phase two um we have the ability to connect buildings 3, four, and five and still stay well under the original design flow and not have to modify the leech field in any way. We would just have to update the tanks to connect the new buildings. They would each need their own tank. Okay. And I do think that there has been some work done on the septic system relatively recently. I I moved in there in 2001 and I know some work has been done after that, not necessarily pertaining to all this. Um yeah, and and I had him go in there and clean it out. At one point there was some vegetation that had grown in. So early on when we before we even started permitting phase one when we kind of got going on this project, that was one of my first recommendations was to have a licensed installer go in there, do the title 5

inspection for the board of health, but also go in and cover up or clear all the vegetation that had grown in. We were working with the board of health out front when we had to connect phase one in. So we were doing a pump test and so they were uncovering the debox and so there has been some activity but no activity on the leech field itself. No modifications to leechfield. It's been cleaned up. It looks better now. It does. Absolutely. I agree. Yeah. Um, and I know people have commented that there has been brightness overnight and as you could imagine, um, me living on Red Cross. That's true. Mhm. Wakes you up in the morning. Actually, the island is I think open at 6:30 for Thank you. Thank you. And Mr. Chair, just to that point, I see the lighting is a big issue and public safety obviously is a major issue. So, we want to defer to the police department, but we also want to be good neighbors. We're in a mixeduse area, so we'll reach out directly to the police chief and the safety officer to see if there's something we can do to be more night sky friendly and better neighbors to our residentials out there. Great. Thank you. Uh, any other public comments? One behind it, Lyn. Hi. Uh my name is Anne Bavino. I live at 479 Groten Road, which is, you know, facing the the building. And uh my concern is sometimes there's big trucks that pull in at night like 9 10:00 and they're facing my property and they they have their headlights on. So they're facing that the lights come into the living room and the bedroom and I don't know why they can't park towards the

building, you know, to avoid having the lights right on my property. And I I think maybe the police too park there and leave their lights on. Yeah, I'm not sure. They're just patrolling Route 40. Um, another concern I had is um I'm wondering about the well if this development is going to affect the well for me. My well is at 140 ft down. Do you have any thoughts on that? We could ask engineering their thoughts on that, but I mean they're not blasting or anything there. You don't anticipate any blasting? We do not. Everything that was done for phase 2 was either removed with a hammer or an excavator. Um the stormwater systems designed in accordance with storm water management and the offsets to groundwater and similarly the septic system is designed in accordance with the title five. Um, so it's expected to meet the performance standards of water quality. Um, the only time that wells kind of become an issue is if we're within 100 ft of them, but um, we're not. Okay, good. That's a relief. Uh, that's all. Yeah. Thank you. We'll let attorney Robins talk to the police for you. Really? She's got a history with him. Just a question. Yeah. Right up the microphone, please. Um hi. So all the concerns which will the neighbors have raised so far or those noted and then we'll be having a next hearing to get in more information about it. Is that is that what is expected? So just keep your eye out. We'll continue this. We'll know and we're going to continue this before we leave. Um but you keep your eye out. The agendas can be directly sent to your email. So you can always everything is

online. So we can request that the notice to be sent to you directly for our agendas to review. Sure. Thank you. Anybody else? Uh what do we anticipate for Oh, we'll get to that when the vote um for review on this. Uh Mr. Chair, I would anticipate that we'd like to go to the July meeting. I think your next meeting is only two weeks away. So we'll certainly need more time. July 21st. July 21st. Yes. And if we want to schedule a site visit, we can coordinate that with uh your staff as well. Uh so we would ask that we go to July 21st and we'll also vote to set that 53G account should uh engineering staff want to send anything out for third party review. Right. So hearing that, going to get a motion to establish the 53G account and need in case they need it for traffic review. So moved. Second. All those in favor say I. Bob. I. Darren. I. Dylan I. Tony. I. Before I before I go, uh, Dylan, Joan, do you have any comments before we continue? No, I'm I'm good. Bob, any comments? All right. So, they can a motion to continue the public hearing. Where are we? PB 2512478 Groten Road to our January 21st meeting here. July January. July 21st meeting 2025 here in town hall room 2011 7:00 second. All in favor say I. Bob. Hi. Darren. Hi. Dylan. Hi. Joanie. Hi. Hi. And I say I. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Yeah. We'll take a three minute break. Is this your [Music]

Oh yeah, go ahead. [Music] Yeah, you're over there. Yeah, you can sit there and eat cupcakes. Your heart's still like Take one. You have to make sure you're I know. We can move too. [Music] It's okay. [Music] I don't think so. [Music] Okay. I did. If you start, everybody's going to start. I don't think the chair likes anybody opening the cupcakes. It's not him. But doesn't slide. Jeff, is there more cheers we can pull in for this? Well, then we create another problem. That's okay. We'll just walk in. It's fine. We're fine. There's

nobody else in the hall, so we'll just leave the door open if you don't mind. Okay. Is this on the TV? Is that on the TV there? No. I way to pop that on. Yeah, it is on out there. Nice. Y free temple. Yes. Ready to go. Good evening everybody. Uh we're opening up our public hearing for our second hearing for PB250537 Powers Road for site plan review uh and family uh residential developments of 530 units, five residential structures, six garages, two club houses associated with utilities and parking, landscaping, special permit for fivetory residential building, a storm water management permit. Um, you want to start, Attorney Robins? Yes. Uh, good evening, Mr. Chair. For the record, attorney Melissa Robbins from Ferland Robbins. Uh, we have the whole team with us tonight. I'll just

introduce them quickly. Uh, we have the applicant Jim Dunlop. Chris Copeland somewhere way in the back there. Nick Ramen who's also here this evening somewhere in the hallway. Uh, we also have Brian Gudro from Hancock Associates. Uh, Jeff Dirk from Vanessa Associates who's our traffic engineer. Ian Rammy who is our landscape architect from CPPley Wolf. and Nick Griffin who's our architect from Cube 3. Um, as you stated, we're here tonight for a continued public hearing in accordance with your MCMOD bylaw. I won't go through the full name. Uh, since the last meeting, we have received all third party review letters. Um, we have responded in writing to the traffic peer review. Uh, Jeff Durk is here tonight and we'll go through that briefly after um, our initial presentation. Uh, TC is also here tonight on behalf of the town. We have not responded to Dodson and Flinker's letter or a tie-in bond letter. Uh the reason we've put that on hold is just because we want to make sure that we have the board's agreement conceptually as to our design before we proceed. Once we get a conceptual agreement with the board, then we will go through and revise the plan set and also address every comment in writing. So that will happen. But after we get through this evening hopefully. Um on the screen Joe's making me run my own slides. Okay, here we go. On the screen is our revised concept plan which has been revised to address many of the concerns raised by the board and the abutters at the last meeting. Um but before I turn over to the consultants and talk more depth into this plan and the changes that we've made, I want to back up a little bit and decide talk about how we got to this point in the design. And perhaps I should have done this at the first meeting, talk about how we got here. Um, most of the time when I come here with a project, we talk about a proof plan, which is like a preliminary subdivision. We have to show the board what is our proof plan and what are you offering special permits and waiverss against. I did not do that and I think I put the board at a disadvantage. So

right now I'm asking for a list of waiverss and a special permit for height, but you don't know what the base base plan looks like. So, we have gone through and done a proof plan. Now, we did talk about this preliminarily, but I don't think you've actually ever seen it on paper. This is a potential proof plan showing 530 units in a fourstory layout with streets and blocks and parking in the general location that it's allowed. The clubhouse is still on the site plan as you can see. Um, but this plan because of the four-story design eliminates many of the bonus features you see in the open space which is similar just like in open space development. Um, this is exactly why your MC mod is designed the way it is so that you can allow for waiverss and special permits that make a better project that may be unique to the site. That's why we've asked for a special permit for the additional story. It allows up us to go up to a fifth floor. your bylaw allows for it. I just want to be clear because I think there's some confusion. This is not a density bonus. We're not asking for an increase in the units that we can build out here. We're asking to go to a fivestory building with that special permit. Um, with the five stories, and I'll flash back to this guy so you can see it. Uh, with the five stories, it allows us to increase our footprint. It allows us to have approximately double amount of the open space on the site. It allows us to design that central green area, public parking area, accessibility through the site, allows us the accessibility to the abuing properties. It allows us public parking in the front so the public can get to those amenities. And I just don't want to be forgotten that that AC that access to Bell West looks little, but that accessibility is actually our gateway right to 110 that allows us accessibility to the sidewalks, from the sidewalks up to other intersections and directly into other trail systems in the town of Westford. It also allows us the

extra space for that beautiful trail that runs around the entirety of the site, which is almost an acre, which will also be a public amenity. The grounds for the board allowing the five story I just want to read it to you because I think it's important is this is the requirement for a finding additional publicly accessible open space andor trails andor improvements to open spaces trails or facilities beyond the what the zoning bylaw requires. The public benefit may be on or offsite. I would argue that it's very clear that this fulfills that special perma requirement that allowing for the fifth story which is not a density bonus certainly gives a better site design and allows for lots of public space open amenities that you would not otherwise get on the site with a fourstory as of right design. I also would like to point out that given the site location, we did prepare a plan here just conceptualizing our site plan over the current area. We will have no detriment to the surrounding area by allowing this fifth story. I actually think and I drove out to the back of Bell West today, a residential use at this property will actually be an improvement to the site as a whole uh for Bell West certainly because it will remove that industrial use that's directly abuing their property. Um the other uses to that area including Bell West is a mixeduse area which is uh Bell which is about 180 units. There's another 240 unit large apartment building. We have Net Scout Nokia and also another commercial use out there and what I would call a large sea of parking in the rear of that site which is not used by anybody. Um, additionally, although I don't think the fifth story will be a detriment whatsoever to our surrounding uses, as pointed out by the board at the last meeting, we'd be happy to screen any um utilities that we put on the roof to our abuing residential neighbors, so it

doesn't have any sight concerns for them. The five-story design also allows us to keep the burm along P Road, which is unique to the site, which actually screens our residential abers that live along P Road. Um the proposed use if we go to this as of right plan would dig into that buffer quite a bit. If we keep the site as is with the five stories the closest structure to P road is 170 ft. Theo closest residential structure to P road is 390 ft. That's a significant setback to P road and certainly a benefit to those residential butters. that'll be screened from not only that BM but also the distance between their homes and these new buildings. Uh don't get me wrong, we do have other MCMOD waivers we have to ask for. Um both Tai and Bond and Dodson and Flinker has pointed out a couple other waiverss that they think we may need in addition. I won't go through them in depth, but just quickly, uh, the MCMOD waiverss themselves are to the blocks, the parking number and locations, the bike reduction from 532 bikes to 133 bikes, and the po pole height for lighting. I just want to point out that these are technical waiverss for which we have to meet a requirement that the board can deny. So, if you feel as though we're moving through this process and we don't meet the requirements for waiver relief, the board doesn't have to grant it. just like an open space residential development from a preliminary subdivision. Um, all other waivers are subdivision waivers and I would classify these as purely technical and they're even heightened purely technical because we are not a subdivision but some of these roads are considered roads. Um, and the bylaw is written in a way that we have to ask for subdivision waiverss. It sounds confusing. It is confusing. Um when we go forward with the site site plan design, we will work through these

with tyin bond and make sure that we've addressed all the subdivision designs waiverss that we've requested to the satisfaction of tyin bond and your engineering department. I promise I'm almost done. The last items I just want to quickly review are some of those highlevel items that the board and the abuters had asked for at the last meeting. And just quickly at the front of the site, we will have a a bus stop structure. Uh we've accommodated that. You will see it on Jeff Durk's plan when he talks about the improvements along P road on the access road on the lower part portion of P road southern portion of P road I see the arrow there now under Bob's head the uh that will be shifted so that it is away from the butter's entrance which was pointed out in one of the earlier comments. Um overall traffic will be addressed. Jeff will speak to his response tonight and again you have your own review engineer here to address that. um concerns over pedestrian connectivity throughout the site. We will discuss that this evening. As you can see, just even on this grade out site plan. Uh we have a lot more crosswalks. Some of them will be raised uh that creates connectivity throughout the site. Um also there was uh significant concerns about trash and recycling. Um certainly more recycling because you know if it makes if you make it difficult people will not do it. Uh, so we will have valet trash and recycling within this development, which means that the unit owners actually don't have to leave their building to do trash and recycling. It's lovely. Uh, there's a company that will actually come to a designated spot each outside each unit, and they will take trash and recycling. They're in charge of sorting it, compacting it, and putting it in the receptacles, which eliminates that issue altogether. I love valley trash. I want to propose it everywhere. Uh, and with that, what I'd like to do is turn it over to Nick from Cube 3 just to go through of the highlevel conceptual changes that we've meet made to this plan to try to address the blocks and streets concern raised by the board at the last meeting. Thank you. I'll take that uh

Yes, there is a red light too for the pointer. Yeah. All right. Thank you. For the record, my name is Nick Griffin at Cube3. We're the architects for the applicant. Uh, so as Melissa mentioned, this is our new proposed site plan. I'm going to walk through it in a bit of detail on how it's been updated and how we've incorporated it to better work within the MCMOD regulations. So, uh, as you'll see, overall the building structures remain similar. We still have the two clubouses up front of the site. Uh, one thing we did look at, oops, I'll go to my get through your sites here. So, we did update the, uh, roadway in front of clubhouse A. This is our main clubhouse. uh based on comments from the board at our last discussion. So, we've incorporated a one-way turnaround uh versus two. We've angled the parking spaces and incorporated a delivery parking only sign and area as well as having our drop off sorry as well as having our drop off area um before the parking spaces and that works with the parking across the street there for the public parking up front. So, that's just a side note there on the updates we've made based on the previous conversations. Uh again, the overall site plan still have five residential buildings beyond the two clubouses. I'll get into the details of each one, but more significantly, building one and building four have shrunk down in size, and the units have been moved to the buildings farther back, deeper into the site. Um and then we've incorporated and redone our street network um to again work with the MCMOD uh requirements. So, the main thing we did was incorporate a street. Before we had kind of kept just P road as our only street. Um but per the regulations we've went to a street in blocks layout. So we've incorporated this street the loop road up front as well as uh this one street right down the center of our build our between building 1 14 two and five and ending at this town square that we've had previously where we have you know separate pavers and an area for um food trucks and kind of open uh activities for the center. And again, this is a a

through way there. You can drive right through um here. I know that was not clear in previous design, but this is Ken Drive. They may be able to block it down for events, but it is a roadway that you can pass through uh normally. So, this street, I'm going to walk through the regulations on how this street has been updated. Before, this was a parking loop with perpendicular parking. Um so, now we have a street that this section on the top right is from the regulations. So, I'll kind of walk in and out. Um, our roadway is parallel parking on either ends with angled parking um, along the rest of that. As you can see, there's some exits in here for parking additional, but that's the main street that has as the requirements have parking on one side or both. From there, we have our tree belts that run along each of these parking areas. Again, that's a minimum of six feet and they kind of pull and push as they come along. From there, we have our sidewalks in the yellow here, a minimum of five feet. And there's a number of crossings that Melissa mentioned. These three in the center, which we'll look at more detail later, are raised. And again, all the other ones crossing are painted. And then there's a number of parking and uh additional sidewalks out out from this loop here. This is just based on the 5ft minimum along the tree belt. And then this area between the sidewalk and the buildings um is mostly filled with green other part other uh plantings and pathways. And the setbacks in this mcmod are a little atypical in sense that there's a minimum and a maximum. So this red belt here shows u the minimum the maximum off of the back of the setback. So the setbacks are not from the roadway, they're from the back of the of the sidewalks. So this red belt is 20 to 50 ft off of those sidewalks. So as you can see, we have moved building one and building four to be within that. We've moved them out from the street. We've moved building two into that um range. Building five uh with the widening of the street fell

within that range. And building three based on that again courtyard, our town uh center there, it falls within that. Even now that we've widened the road up front, our clubouses both fall within that range. So now along our main street here, all buildings fall within that minimum and maximum setback. Um, also with the regulations, all the our main entries will be off of the street. So I've located them here uh for each building for our main entries. These will be well um visible with with canopies and we will have of course additional entry points and egress points for these larger residential buildings um and the clubouses. But the main entry points will all be off here. And they all intersect with the network and pedestrian network that um Ian will talk about here in more detail. So if we walk down the street kind of from left to right, uh you can see the sections through these streets. So uh section A where there's parallel parking looking out into that town center. Again, we have our street parallel parking on each side. You can see that tree belt that is is a combination of trees, plants, and there'll be some brakes for benches and bike uh racks and such. And then the pathways on either side, light poles, and then our setbacks to our buildings. Section B where it's in the center between building one and four, you have the the angled spaces as you can see. And then again, the the tree belt and the uh sidewalks. And then lastly, section C by our clubouses. Uh same parallel spark is there. The club houses differ in length, but they're much uh shorter up front of the of the project. This street allows us to then break our our site up into three blocks. Again, per the regulations. So, we have one, two along our street, and then three is kind of a unique situation here at the end of our street. So, walking through those blocks, we have block one, which is the clubhouse a building one and two. This is around this large green that we've tried to maintain throughout this process. It's about an acre and a

half of outdoor amenity space for the residents. Again, three buildings with parking to the rear now and just that that street along the south and to the east of this portion. Block two again has three buildings separated along the street with openings in between for parking. We have our amenities kind of flanking the block here with a larger outdoor amenity behind clubhouse B and then a larger one here kind of in the courtyard of building five that connects with the path um all along building five and we have you know it's linked together to along building four. And then block three here to the rear again kind of transitions all our outdoor amenity space to the front of the building as in that town center here again where we have additional hearts heartscape. We also additional um outdoor amenity program at the rear of this one and the parking wraps around to the rear uh with our garages as well. Uh just to give you a little bit more visuals. So we'll going to walk through a couple perspective renderings um from the pedestrian point of view. So the first one here is just behind clubhouse B looking down this new street uh between building one and four. Uh again, so we're on the south sidewalk here. This street here to the left goes into some parking. We have building one to the right. Uh building four to the left here. As you see, building one um is again similar to our architecture from the previous version. And then we've started to work at the buildings on the left side of the street here as a similar but different. One of the main things is we have a base here on the right. You can see there's some gray uh base there where we've stepped back the top floor on the the left buildings there to work with the scale and and kind of give a similar feel but a different look to give each building a little bit of its own look and feel. But you can see the raised courtyard or the raised crosswalk here. Um in the center

we have our street, our angled parking, the sidewalk um that we're looking down here. And then if we keep going down the road, this again is just outside of our main green looking through building two and five to this outdoor town center. So again, you have the sidewalk angled parking that turns into parallel parking. See the food truck here in the back where we have the additional hardscape again parking with screening and our larger amenity, outdoor amenity to the right here kind of sneaks through. And then our our view from last time which again is into that main courtyard. Again looking back at our clubhouse. Uh still the intention here is to have this is our main outdoor amenity for all all tenants. That's what I got in this question. I'm going to pass it on to Ian who's just going to walk through a little bit more of the landscape design. Thank you Nick. For the record Ian Ramy with CPY Wolf Landscape Architects. We just have a couple of slides that talk about the landscape design. So, as a refresher from our our first presentation, our big approach with the landscape really is to sort of heal the site and bring back a lot of green. If you remember, uh the existing condition on site today is a degraded kind of open pit basically of earthwork operations. And our strategy has always been to really green up the site, bring in robust landscaping, and have this new residential community uh really center upon a common green space and have a green space that has um a range of programs and activities for the residents um uh equally distributed throughout the site. Um the new thing, as you heard uh from Nick and Melissa, that we've been working on is integration of this new street. Um what that allows us to do is to um introduce a more kind of tangible um uh block mentality of the

development. Uh but it also allows us to still preserve that initial concept of having that centralized green space. So we sort of have the best of both worlds in this scenario. Uh if you remember that uh centralized green space around bu the clubhouse, building one and building two, it's about 2 acres of consolidated open space that starts at clubhouse A has a extensive network of walkways and programmed open space. Um it basically goes from clubhouse A all the way over to building 3 where we have our town square which is an urban plaza. Throughout um the new streetscape, we have raised crosswalks that really encourage walkability throughout the site and tie the outer buildings to this central core area. Uh we also have nearly mile long or it's about 3/4 of a mile long perimeter walkway loop that circles the entire site. It's open to the public. It engages with the natural settings around the site. It has views to um the ski resort. Uh it also has other sort of uh passive recreation and active recreation opportunities around the perimeter uh to really kind of have a very active public realm throughout the site. Um we're still calculating the open space number, but right now we're providing uh more than two times the required open space on the project. Uh in the previous iteration we had about 380 proposed trees with the new street and the tree belts that Nick had mentioned. Uh we have about 450 new trees. So that's about 118% increase on what we had previously. Uh we previously had about 180 uh,000 square ft of native and adapted plantings across the site. Uh with this added vegetated strip associated with a tree belt and the reconfiguration of some of the open space, we now have 205,000 ft of plantings. Um and as I had mentioned, we have almost 117,000 square ft of outdoor resident space, which was previously a little bit less than that.

And then just as a reminder, sort of the central green space. These are uh just a flavor of some of the open space amenities that we're um looking to provide. So starting on the left side with clubhouse A, the primary clubhouse is where we have our pool courtyard, shade elements, outdoor uh cooking and grilling areas, probably some fire pits and lounge activity. uh we'll likely be looking at an option like a community garden where residents can grow vegetables and flowers and sort of um engage with the community on that level. Uh we have a a shadeheavy sort of central courtyard area with walking paths and passive seating and then we still have a large sort of open lawn area that's flexible use for play. And then as I mentioned, we have this sort of special town square area which could be for special events um sort of closed down to traffic, have food trucks and have other sort of community- based events. Uh so that's sort of high level of all the um open space amenities that we're seeking to provide here. And I think with that, I'll hand it over to Jeff Durk to speak about traffic. [Music] Good evening, Mr. Chairman, members of the board. For the record, my name is Jeffrey Durk um with traffic engineers for the project. So, I just want to go through a summary of where we've been since the last um hearing that you've had where you did discuss traffic. Um we've had the benefit of a peer review from your consultant. Uh we received a comment letter dated April 22nd. We've since, as you heard from our attorney, responded to that peer review. There's two parts to that response. The first is a summary letter where we've gone through each of the points and said how we've been responsive to each of those comments. We took no exception with any of the comments. Um they were very good. They've resulted in a brand new traffic study uh which we've provided to uh as part of the record. Uh so what that is is it's a comprehensive document that incorporates everything that your peer reviewer has asked. So what I'm going to go through now is just a couple of

slides that talk about the changes that have happened from the original transportation assessment for the project. Um, so this slide may look familiar from the last presentation. It it was essentially the study area that we evaluated for the project. What's notable in terms of the change is as a result of comments from your peerreview consultant, we've expanded the study area uh to the east. So we've picked up a couple more intersections along Littleton Road at Cornerstone Square, the signalized intersection to the plaza there and then the Boston Road intersection. Uh the reason for that request from your review consultant was two-part and I have a slide to talk about. Um one of those parts was looking at the distribution of traffic. So one of the things that we were asked to look at is current US census data. Looking at the current census data as it relates to residents of the town of Westford. Um there's a large portion of residents that work within the town. And so what that did was cause a shift in traffic more to the east of the project site. So, as a result of that, we have more traffic that is traveling up to Littleton Road uh to at the Powers Road intersection that's going to make a right-hand turn, and he's either going to continue easterly along 110 or use Boston Road to get onto the 495 interchange to then travel uh either to the east, so towards l or heading into the town center area. So, as a result of that, we've had those two additional intersections because we're adding traffic to an extent that the project could cause an impact in terms of increased delay in vehicle queuing at those intersections. So, we've expanded the study area, included traffic counts in full analysis of both of those intersections. The other reason that adding those two intersections is critical is because that Boston Road intersection, which I know everybody is very familiar with, been reconstructed several times, accommodates a large volume of traffic. And I think what it relates to as um for the project itself, we don't have a significant impact at that intersection, but what is uh warranting additional evaluation is that

continues to be a high crash location. Um it historically has been on the state's high crash list for probably the past close to 10 years. Uh improvements have been done. There's been a road safety audit conducted at the intersection. Uh the road safety audit did result in comments from the town as well as mass DOT that are reflected in the most recent set of improvements that were done there. However, there's still a large number of crashes occurring at that intersection. So, as your consultant was looking at it and asked us to look at it as well as a part of this project was not only to see how we might impact traffic operations, but also to look at whether a fresh look at safety at that intersection might result in some additional improvement. So we've undertaken that as a part of this new analysis that's been provided to you as well. The last thing on this slide is um just pointing out the coloration that you see on there. So what's been important and which what you've heard from the prior speakers is about pedestrian and bicycle connectivity. So what this slide is also showing where you see the orange dash lines are where there existing sidewalks. Where you see the blue lines that's where there are crosswalks. So all of the major signalized intersections along 110 have crosswalks. There are sidewalks. There's current road improvement projects that are going to expand upon those facilities. So, a lot of the discussion that we've had both as a team looking internal to the project site where you've seen crosswalks linkage happening as it relates to bicycle and pedestrian connectivity has about how we integrate the project walkability, bikeability into the existing infrastructure, but also the infrastructure that the town is going to be advancing in the future. So, um this slide is showing what's there today. And then what your consultant also asked us to look at again in the traffic study is what are these future road improvement projects that are happening in the area. And so we've shown where these road improvement projects are in relation to the project site. So again, Boston Road improvement project currently under construction. Uh we'll

add pedestrian and bicycle amenities there. That will extend basically from the main street area all the way down to the interchange area where there are existing sidewalks. will connect into the Littleton Road corridor. There's some existing sidewalks that you had seen on the previous slide, but then there's also another project along Route 110 that comes down to Powers Road that's going to add a shared juice path on the south side of the roadway. Uh that will then connect all of the infrastructure from Boston Road right down to Littleton Road, connect into this new infrastructure project that will then extend it down to P Road. So, what we've been working on with the town is how do we connect up to that infrastructure? Um, the town actually in looking at all of the residential development that's happening in this area and these road improvement projects has now retained the services of a uh planning consultant to look at how do we link these facilities down P road to where the project site is. And what we've done as a part of our project is having conversations with the town and mass DOT as to constructing infrastructure along the front of our project that will then link into what the town is looking at as a shared juice path that would then travel down P road connect into our site and then the amenities that we have within the site and then you heard discussion about how the connection over to uh the Bell project gets us then out to 110 as well. So there's been a lot of planning that's gone on as it relates to the pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure both within the site and then how we will link up to these existing facilities and plan future facilities and the master planning that the town is is currently undergoing uh with regards to those connections. Um your consultant also asked about which you probably heard of is the Massachusetts Environmental Policy Act process which the project has been subject to. uh we do need a state highway access permit from the department of transportation because P road is under the um jurisdiction of the

department of transportation. So because of that there's certain thresholds that we evaluate. Uh one of them being the amount of traffic that's produced by the project. Um and because of that we've had to make this filing under the Massachusetts Environmental Policy Act. The benefit of that is the town also gets peer review not only from your own consultant but also from the department of transportation um who who has thoroughly reviewed the project and this idea of connectivity has been something that has really been a subject of both that review and then these subsequent conversations uh that we've had with Mass and the town and what's been presented to you tonight and this connectivity that we're speaking about is all consistent with these discussions and how we plan on advancing the project and linkage into these uh future facilities. facilities. Um, as well in looking at the distribution of traffic, and this is really taking a few steps back. Again, what I wanted to show you is the change in the distribution. We had more traffic heading along Route 110 to and from the west. We've shifted that traffic to be more toward the east of the project. Um, it didn't result any significant real variations other than PO, but when you get to the west of P Road, the traffic numbers have actually gone down a little bit. We've added more traffic to the east as it relates to how the project impacts the roadways. What we found in terms of looking at the impacts is consistent with what has been reported previously. If you looked at delays at any of these intersections before and after the project, the delays didn't go up by any more than 10 to 15 seconds. And the reason for that is that as we look at the amount of traffic that the project produces once you get away from the driveways and this slide here is a good representation of that what we call trip dispersal. So as you get away from each of the driveways the traffic numbers get smaller and smaller. So as we head out to the 110 quarter where most of the traffic is oriented we have a series of connected traffic signals that process the traffic and they actually process

that traffic very efficiently. So, as we're looking at these impacts, as I mentioned, delays did not go up by any more than 10 to 15 seconds. And if you look at the amount of traffic that's backed up at any one intersection, if you stop at a traffic signal, there's a certain number of cars that are queued in front of you. Uh, that queue of vehicles didn't increase by any by any more than four vehicles. The other thing that I can report, and we very often can't report these as a part of our traffic analysis, is outside of the Boston Road corridor, no movements are operating at what we be considered an unacceptable operating condition. And we define that as a level of service of D or better. Uh what that means is delays at any of these intersections uh do not exceed 35 seconds, let's say, um during any of the peak hours of the day. So the commuter peak hours before and after the project, that's you have the same conditions. The only location where we found that there were movements operating either at or over capacity was at Boston Road. Um it was confined really to left turn movements at that intersection. Uh so we are looking at improvements really dealing with signal timing um at that intersection to deal with offsetting the net impact that the project would have at that location. So that continues to be a central point of the mitigation for this project. Um, as you might recall, we are really talking about retiming the traffic signals along the entirety of the Littleton Road corridor um at two touch points. Uh, so recognizing the number of units that are going to come online here, uh, the two touch points that would take place would be at 60% occupancy of the initial phase of the project, which would be somewhere around 300 units. Uh, we would rettime the traffic signals, and then we've also would go back out there and rettime the traffic signals at 80% occupancy. So what we're really doing is we're saying as a result of our analysis, we're showing the project doesn't have a significant impact at any of these locations. In fact, the Powers Road corridor continues to operate at levels of service that are well above D or so

better than D um with or without the project. So no significant changes. As I mentioned, the only location where we had an movements operating at or over capacity was at the Boston Road Quarter and we have plans to implement improvements at that location there um as well. But this signal retiming, I think the importance of it is the signals are operating fine today. We want to make sure that they will continue to do so in the future. And so retiming the traffic signal at those two touch points allows the project to get built, the traffic to get on the roadway and then we make the changes to the traffic signal system. The last thing I want to make just in terms of a point on this slide here because there were some questions about uh other projects in the area, importantly the projects that are taking place in Littleton. Uh so we did review those projects. There were two of them in fact. Um one is known as the Northern Bank redevelopment which is a mixeduse project. Uh that project and its associated traffic is included in our modeling. Um the larger project which I believe is the King Street Commons project, King Street Crossing, King Seed Crossing. Um so at the time that we prepared a traffic analysis, there was no traffic study. So all we really had was the estimates that were in their Massachusetts Environmental Policy Act filing, which just quantified. It says we expect the project's going to generate this amount of traffic. The important things for us as traffic engineers is we need to know the distribution. How much of the traffic is coming through this area. But also importantly is mitigation. You do not construct a project of that size without mitigation uh to go along with it. It just it has to be uh done. The last thing that you want me doing is assuming the mitigation that would take place for that project because essentially what I could do is say well that project adds more traffic to this area than our project is. So, I'm just going to assume they're going to have to ret time all the traffic signals. Well, now I'm going to add my project's traffic and then I'll tell you no impact and we don't have to do any mitigation. That's not a proper way for us to do analysis. Um, so for that reason, because there's no traffic study, we do not have traffic projections at the time

we prepared our analysis for this area. We've acknowledged the project, but I think importantly as we're thinking about our mitigation is the traffic signal retiming will occur as the project is constructed and the traffic is realized on the roadway network. That gives time for those other projects to potentially get built, even partially add their traffic. We're still retiming the traffic signals. It doesn't matter what happens in Littleton, whether those projects are built or not, we're still committed to retiming the signals. Either way, from the standpoint of the residents of the town and the flow of traffic along the corridor, the traffic signals are still rettimed. So whether we include it or don't included as a part of this initial analysis, what actually happens on the road is going to be reflective of whatever happens with those projects that are being constructed. So the last slide I have is our site distance assessment for the project. And this site distance assessment, um, what it's showing on the slide here is the two driveways. And I apologize cuz we've kind of flipped the slide. So, uh, to the right would be north. Um, to the left would be south on the slide. So, the north driveway, we're showing the site what's known as the site triangles in orange. The south driveway, they're shown in yellow. What the purpose of this? Uh, we've done an analysis and your review consultant has verified this that if you go out in the field and you look to the left or right, you do have the proper sight lines for the driveways to operate in a safe manner. Um the posted speed limit in this area is 35 miles an hour. We measure the speed of traffic. The speed of traffic is just over 35. It's not it's not 40. It's it's actually less than 40. We've assess the sight lines for 40 m hour, which is common practice. You generally go a little bit higher than what you measure or higher than the posted speed limit. The intent of the strong is really just to show the sightelines that are available, what's required, but importantly to the extent that anything would need to happen, say vegetation trimming or maintenance of that vegetation, what we're showing is it doesn't happen on private property.

It all either happens within our property or within the mass DOT layout. So what that means is we can basically control the maintenance of that vegetation. So to the extent that the board, you know, puts a condition that you need to maintain clear sight lines, which is I think your consultant would recommend, I would recommend, that's under the control of the applicant, we will get a state highway access permit. We need one. A part of that permit will also require that we maintain these sight lines. So this is demonstrating that we can actually do all of that work and we don't need uh permission from anyone other than the state, which is going to issue that permission as a part of the DOT uh permit approval process as well. Um lastly, I think you had seen on the architectural slides that we did add the LOL Regional Transit Authority bus stop um to the north driveway. So set in uh as part of the sidewalk network that's there. So um you will be able to walk from the site, have a bus shelter, have a concrete pad with that bus shelter to be able to um access the bus service to the extent that it's um extended down in this area. And again, that's an ongoing discussion with the town, the developer, and the regional transit authority. So that is the end of my presentation. Um again the peer review I think has been very beneficial. Has helped us in flushing out some of these items in site plan. Um and as we'd expect it's really also kicking the tires on the transportation analysis to make sure if we're off one way or the other the mitigation and the project still works and we've delivered um that analysis to your consultant. So I think that's it. Thank you Mr. Pri. So I think as you know we have work to do still. Uh, we still have to revise every sheet of the site plan. We still have to respond to every comment from Dodson and Flinker and Tai and Bond regarding their request for more information as to our waiverss and their information even to our blocks, our streets, our layouts, our trees. Uh, but we can't do that and we don't want to do that until we make sure the board's absolutely comfortable conceptually with our layout and design. I know ultimately we still have to prove our grounds for our waiverss and our grounds for our special permit, but if

the board generally isn't satisfied with the layout and design conceptually, we don't want to proceed and update plans. Right. So, what I think I'd like to do is we have consultants here and just get a brief I know some of this is new to them, but I'd like to have them chime in. Sure. Uh we have uh Jean Christy, who is our civil review from Tegan Tegan Bond Bond. We have Dylan Susman who is our MCMOD to make sure they're following what we've uh put into play here from uh Donsson and Flink Flinker Flint and then a traffic consultant from Tech Sean Cororo Sam. Uh so Sam I'm sorry. So while if you would Sam since you've already gone back and forth if you want to give us your thoughts uh what where we're headed and how things are going. I need a microphone. Uh no it's being all picked up. All right cool. Um just for the record everybody in the room uh Sam Gregorio I'm the senior traffic engineer at DEEC uh professional engineer in Massachusetts been actually working with the town of Westford on a multitude of projects uh on the public side for probably the last decade or so um probably seen me at a lot of road safety audits we've done in town of those uh TC has not actually gone through fully the peerreview letter that VAI reissued or sorry their responses to our peer review letter so I'll reserve we'll say full judgment you'll obviously we get at the next meeting. But in that based on the information that Jeff has provided, um um the general thought on most of the comments that TC had were either in general concurrence with what they had in their original study or what I would say as things that may were at least cursorilarly addressed by uh Jeff in his presentation. Um in terms of kind of getting the idea of what the expectation on the town side uh would be is obviously all these road most of the roads in the study area as shown are by mass UD uh they really have a lot of say what's uh going on in their roadways in terms of the mitigation as well P's road as well as 110 um one of the things I will mention then and Jeff had mentioned

it just to kind of give an idea for the board of uh he had mentioned like the 35 second threshold what makes D versus E if you're 35.1 seconds for instance And something just to keep in mind, a lot of these signals in this area are operating on a 90second or 200 second cycle length. So when you're talking about 35 seconds on average, that means you're less on a less than one light cycle. So you're probably getting through on one. That doesn't mean everybody does. If you're the last one to show up or you're the back of the queue, good chance you might be waiting for a second one. But in Massachusetts, it's not out of the mouth possibility that's happening anywhere in Massachusetts, even Westford. uh until you get out you know well past you know 190 you start getting to that more rural part of the state. Um so in in this sense where mass up would also be looking at in terms of where we've hit those thresholds for what D versus E is. B is where you'd want to be if you're designing new to a roadway. Everything here is not new. These roads have been here now for hundreds of years. So and we're constricted on how far we how we can make them just because there's buildings there. There's houses there. A lot of things historically bound. We have a lot of wetlands things like that. So the expectation where we hit for a lot of the intersections DE u is actually quite acceptable generally for a Massachusetts maybe a little different if you were somewhere like Nebraska and what we're thinking about because this is the same consistent methodology we use across the country and it's all standardized so we know expectation for every driver they see something here they see something somewhere else it's the same thing that's how we try to operate everything uh in the in the US so in this sense I guess one of the only two things that I come up with at least Now in the preliminary sense obviously there might be more as I go through that responses but um on the site plan just looking at obviously we were talking about the race crossings um at each of the locations where the screen look um very great idea the only thing I would caution and say to the board is we might want to look at that first parking space that's angled right up against that anybody backing out of that is

going to back up over the bump. Um, and once you do that, there's a hesitation from the driver and you start thinking about what's behind them. Not that they shouldn't be looking behind them, but you don't want someone hesitating when they're doing it. You want them to just be doing it because when hesitation, everybody else doesn't know you're hesitating. Uh, so it's just things like that or and obviously Jeeoff had brought up with the sidelines and it's going to be in both probably your conditions. It'll definitely be in the state's conditions maintain maintaining the vegetation uh in those sidelines. And where I want to bring that up just as a second thought versus what Jeff had said is on the landscaping plan that was shown there were trees kind of shown along P road. Those might have to get pushed back from where the site line actually is shown. Um I'm assuming that you know 10 years from now the canopies will be up high but you know when they first get planted there they're going to be out low natural lake. So we want to think about where we want to put those. Um just but that's more of a if as comments come in on the landscaping plan. Um, other than that, again, I'll obviously have more when it gets to the uh responses uh more in detail. Um, I don't expect there to be too much. It seems even what Jeff was saying even by redistributing out the volumes of the different locations that we were talking about. Uh, it seems like a lot of that has been at least addressed. I'll obviously have to look at the results of that analysis for more. Um, in terms of the other developments, uh, King Street, it's King Street Commons. Um, the traffic study for that was actually issued today. to the state. Um, I know because I wrote it. So, um, so just in general for the town's benefit, without knowing the exact number because I don't have it right in front of me, we're talking about probably roughly 10% of vehicle traffic heading up towards 110 across the town line. That doesn't mean when it gets to when it gets to any of these intersections, it might be lower at that point because it'll start branching off. I mean, just like Jeff had mentioned, once you hit every street, there's going to be cars moving off. Um, so 10% of that development on an hourly basis is not going to be so crazy um once you get

to that point. So once you get up towards the end of P's Road up to um it's going to be a lot less than that probably. Uh so just something to think about. Um that information will send over to Jeff now that it's public record now as of today. Uh and that's being again that that project is also going through MEEPA as this project did uh as well and that's going to be a long process with MEPA and the state with them because obviously 110 little is also owned by the state so it's going through that state action as well. So other than that that's all I have for the moment. Again, we'll have a full response letter issued to the town probably very shortly um both on the traffic study itself and then we also had traffic related comments to the site plan um which again some of the stuff you've been addressing for us. Great. Thank you. I'm here for other question comments. Yeah, we'll get to you after we get through everybody will have commented questions the ability to ask questions. So I think in reading the the the letters between with Jean and Dylan there was a difference of what's a street, what's a block, what isn't. And I think thankfully some of that's been cleared up tonight. I'll go Jean to you first. Sure. I think um for the record, my name is Jean Christie, principal engineer at Ty and Bond. Um we performed the civil design review of the project. Um do want to say just up front that we did decide early in the project that or early in our review that we weren't going to do storm water review yet. That will be a separate one once we get it fully designed and you know stop all the moving parts. Um so that will happen later. Um, I think with some of the the the streets and blocks and things, we're going to default to Dylan on on some of that. Um, you know, I think we pointed out kind of some of the same issues, but default there. Um, as far as the subdivision items go, um, yeah, we'll definitely talk about them. I think some of that construction pieces of it are really important to implement to the project, but we'll talk about which ones are really, you know, most important with the engineering folks. Um, and looking at some of the other

items, uh, we're looking at the subsurface utilities like the water and the sewer and things like that. We definitely have questions about how that system really works. Um, so I think our our first round of comments here are pretty general. They're a little more high level because we want to fully understand everything before we start really getting into the weeds about things. Um I know that between us three we've had there was a number of overlapping comments. So we all have the same kinds of thoughts in our head about where some improvement could be had. Um you know we're you know like I said the storm water I think will be a big topic uh when we get a considerable review not necessarily a big topic but we'll take some time on our part. Um, but I think in the meantime, we're going to work with the applicant separately, if that's all right, with the board to kind of address some of the questions that we have, um, get some information back and forth and look forward to seeing those statements. Great. Mr. Chair, if I may, just quickly, um, I did hear from the water superintendent, Mark Warren, uh, because we did pay for the water study through the water department and, uh, they hope to have a report next week. Yes, Dylan Zman. I'm Dylan Zusman from Dawson and Flinker. Um, we reviewed the the plan's compliance with the development standards that are comp contained within the make them up bylaw, which is a lot of it. Um, so I guess I want to start off by saying the design complies with many of those provisions and there are a lot of those provisions. So there are a lot of things that does right in compliance with the bylaw. Um, as was described by Attorney Robbins and the team, um, one of the main one of our main concerns with the with the previous version of the plan was just clarifying how streets were defined um, and how they're applied in the in the proposed plan and also blocks because basically the way the MCMA bylaw was set up was

um, with an intent that streets be a main amenity in projects that they produce. walkable um desirable places to to traverse on foot and on bicycle. Um and with that in mind, many of the standards were were set up with a framework of you had to create blocks. There had to be streets around those blocks with sidewalks and tree belts. Um and then buildings had to relate to those streets and the setbacks, as I mentioned, were were built off of those streets. So with a lack of clarity in the initial plan, it was difficult to evaluate um compliance on on many provisions. Uh the revised plan is more clear now about having a street through the center. Um it's been improved with uh a tree belt as you can see in in the rendering. Um and with uh front setbacks that comply with the zoning now um and with clarity more clarity about the blocks which then enables the applicant to more clearly comply with the parking requirements that parking be beside or behind buildings. Um so overall I would say that the revised plan um complies with the zoning more than the previous one and the list of waiverss that they would have to request has um diminished. Um they still would be required to request a waiver for the length of a block but waiverss for front setbacks and tree belts and so on have have been eliminated. Um overall I think that the design raises a question which is a question about the the intent of the zoning and the context. Um so as I mentioned the bylaw kind of put forth a vision for the MCM mod of a more walkable urban area. Um something more similar to what you see on the screen. Uh the applicant proposed a plan which you know is is a reasonable thing to do which is more

focused on ease of access to parking for residents um and a more centralized green space. Um, and so I think there's been, you know, it's a little it's a little difficult to meet both the intent of of the zoning and the applicant's intent and what they perceive to be the needs of their future residents and the context in which they're operating. Um, and I think those are, you know, legitimate questions to consider um while the board is operating under the um under the framework of site plan review. So the the you know the project is proposed under MCMA MCMA which allows development by right. So this big picture question of sort of what's the intent of the design and whether it complies um gets a little squishy and the project's allowed by right. Um, so I raise that I think because um I have some sympathy to the applicant and I also have some sympathy to the planning process that we undertook together um and the zoning that was written. And I think it's really important to to figure out what's realistic in this context and to strike a balance um so that you can have consistency in future reviews of projects going forward. Um so um a difficult a difficult line for the board to walk to simultaneously recognize that the developments allowed by rights um but also deal with some of the areas of the zoning that were um not as clear as I would have hoped when I wrote them. Um and also uh conflicting opinions about the the appropriate design for the area. Um, I think as attorney Robin said, there

are a lot of details yet to be worked out. There are a lot of things that we flagged as needing additional information. And I think it's perfectly reasonable to hold off on them providing that information until the board generally says whether the the plan is in the right direction. Um and whether this new approach to sort of one central street and now walks um complies with the zoning. Um so yeah, I think that's my my overall take on things. Thank you very much. I think what I'll do is go to the board first for questions regard any of the peer review or the applicant and then we'll open it to the public for questions or comment. So Bob. Okay. The first I guess question relates to Joe and Jeff. Um obviously there's a revised presentation that you have that was displayed today. Can this be put up to the town website so people can get access to that? Okay. So that's just a note to the public that that will be a this will be available hopefully tomorrow. Um I guess my first question is really to um to you Sam and to Jeff with VI and that was why wasn't the King Street Great Road intersection shown in that uh traffic diagram as as as at least one of the contributors and one of the recipients of this traffic. Um I think it's actually closer to the site than the Boston Road um Littleton Road intersection is. So it would be because of the amount of traffic that was being added to the intersection didn't fall above a level where it would cause significance. Meaning that if we measured the impact of the project before and after um that what it would show is no change. Um and so that's why the the intersections that you that we've analyzed fall within the category um that would be classified as

a location that would be impacted. And by impacted it's generally traffic volumes will increase by 5% or more or you add 100 or more vehicles during any of the peak hours of the day. So that's how we've kind of developed the study area that you see. It doesn't mean I mean just even as Sam was talking about the project that he was working on, it doesn't imply that we're not adding traffic. What it implies is that we're not adding traffic at a level where it would cause changes in levels of service or significant increases and delays. Okay. Do you agree with that stamp? Yeah, I have actually no objection because and that's a general rule of not even just in math general traffic profession that we all generally abide by. uh where it's just that's just where you get the level of impact is again just even just to put in perspective where we say leaving like a 100 new trips a day from the worst hour of the day basically the peak hour uh for for residential development which is carrying overlap to the commuter traffic one car every 40 seconds new something like that you wouldn't notice a car on the roadway new every 40 seconds from what's already there so That's how we that's how that number kind of gets thought about. Um or 5% once you get to a point of 5% then you're really starting to change how maybe everybody's starting to interact with each other. So I have no objection to how that's put together for that. Obviously I guess one of the major changes I've noted since the last time was the angled in parking on the the main spline road if you would. I guess my question goes to the three peer consultants. um if what your sense still is about the layout of this road infrastructure cuz we we we had concerns our our first meeting back I think in March with um what it seems to be just navigating one large parking lot around the site. Um I'm looking for you. Are there any

recommendations you might have in terms of improving the traffic flow? Um, I I understand the trade-off that Melissa presented in terms of kind of the the comparison baseline plan versus this. We just wonder if there's some middle ground where maybe things got spread out a little bit to create a bit more of a road type infrastructure through the development as opposed to just navigating a large parking lot. Yeah, and certainly the angled in parking is is helping with that, but from the safety and traffic flow. The other thing I'd like to comment about those spaces is learning the lesson from Cornerstone that on these main roads, hopefully there can be restrictions about the size of vehicles that are allowed to extend out into the traffic corridor. Um, that's one of my biggest complaints about Cornerstone today is you go through there on the main spline road and you get a couple large vehicles, you now have traffic in one direction, has to wait for traffic from the other direction to clear for you to make your way around this large truck that's extending out into the the the flow lane. So just kind of looking for all of your comments about what you might want to see that could be better here for improving safety and traffic flow. And I I'll actually start just on the traffic safety component of it where and we'll remove I'll remove myself from the zoning aspect that was just brought up there where parking is allowed and where's not. So in the general sense let's say we're putting the parking here uh regardless of what the zoning says and it's agreed upon wage or whatever. um in a operational sense of how people are getting necessarily in and out of the spot. It's not not so atypical or a different than a normal head in parking space would be. So the angle angle parking is a general thing that we have for compliance we do at a bunch of

different places. We do reverse angle parking in places as well. So that itself I don't think is it necessary the car I think actually the safety concern is actually what you said it's the because you have angle parking is there a sense of the larger vehicles now hanging out over or even if that was headin parking you actually almost have the same thing doesn't matter if it's angled or not the angle comes in is what's actually in the angle space with it so is there a proposal that there would be curve stops in it there is curve stops you basically if on a 19 ft space you've effectively lost 2 ft of that space so now any pickup truck I have an F-150 in the parking lot here it's 19 ft So that would overhang into the front. So I think that's more of the sense of if it's just a normal parking space, it's there's nothing in the parking space and you can do the full angle. Most of the cars are going to fit into it. 95% of the part of the car fleet is not the size of my F150. Um so someday maybe we'll get there. Uh I think that's where I think my focus on any safety would be is are we actually because you want this to be your main drag because we're going to have by directional traffic. How wide is the lane comparative should be maybe it's not maybe it's more than compliance issue but if you make it 20 feet instead of 19 to the corner and this is the angle of distances not necessarily the order distance but um and then even something I was talking about earlier how close are we putting these crosswalks how many parking spaces do we lose versus if we did something just like on normal parallel on street parking uh which would be more more typical to a main drag location and then the annual park but again going back. There's nothing that's not compliant outside of the zoning or whatever is allowed to have head in or angle parking anywhere as long as it's sufficient and doesn't block the other uses that the site needs to provide. So, I think if I could just add to the parking space discussion. So, the parking spaces are standard parking spaces. We're not asking for any compact spaces or things like that, which is when you start narrowing or reducing the length or doing the curb stops and I

don't think we're proposing any curb stops. you typically would have those in a um shopping center. So, we have standard parking spaces that will fit larger size vehicles um and they're 90 foot long. So, they're going to fit obviously the majority of of the fleet of vehicles. I think the other distinction here is what we had talked about. Um we have a lot of discussion about the pedestrian connectivity. If you look at where the locations of the crosswalks are that go across the drive aisles there, you know, they logically make sense to have this connectivity, but they also logically make sense from a traffic calming perspective. So, we'll look and make sure that we don't have vehicles backing out into where the raised crossings are. But the raised crossings are done in spaced in such a way and it just happens to be opportune in terms of the connectivity that's happening. You are not going to get to a high rate of speed going through this parking lot. you will bottom out your vehicle very quickly. These are residents that are going to live here, so they're going to be driving these roads all the time. Um, even frequent visitors, you are going to know that you are not going faster than 15 mph. If you do drive faster than 15 mph maximum, you will rip the exhaust off your vehicle going over these. So, I mean, that's what these are made for. And it's not that we just have one. These are repeated throughout the development. So in nowhere along these drive aisles are you going to be able to get up a rate of speed where it would be unsafe for a vehicle backing out of a parking space. But I think importantly for a pedestrian crossing. So that is a change from the previous site plan. It was done very deliberately to address um some of the comments of the board about this making sure that as we have drive aisles through parking lots as you described there's a lot of circulation happening in a parking lot. If you live in the back of the site, if all these vehicles that are going through the front of the site to get to the back of the site. So that's the reason why these traffic calming elements have been introduced. We are not asking for anything that would shrink the size of the parking spaces so that we couldn't have larger sized vehicles parking in there. And we are proposing anything that would like a

curb stop that would reduce the length of the vehicle that could fit in those parking spaces. And I think even in looking at the landscaping, the sidewalks are set back from the edge of that traveled way. So even if you're looking at somebody pulls all the way up to the front, unless there's a tree right in front of you, there's enough room for that vehicle actually to get further into the spaces. So there has been some thought put into it. Now, one of the questions I asked, I think at the first hearing, was relative to placement of the crosswalks and whether they were in the proper locations. I think one of the locations I noted that didn't seem to be appropriate uh or wasn't covered was the location by the uh pool houses. Um and I'm not sure I saw any change take place there, but obviously you want to get that sidewalk optimally placed so that you have a raised crosswalk. Um it just seemed to me that the two clubouses, if you have a large event taking place there, um that's going to be a place where people are going to want to run out possibly across the the road and we'd like to make sure that that gets addressed for safety. So clubhouse A, clubhouse B. So there is a there's at least a there's a one crossing here and then one crossing on each side. Thank you. Yeah, I'm not sure that's necessarily the ideal spot. Um would like the consultants to look at that as well. Um it just seems to me that you know the shortest distance between two points is the direct line. So we'll need to look at where the door accesses are and where people might be coming between two events there and how they get from point A to point B. In this case, clubhouse A to clubhouse B. Right. And I think residents are going to find their way and that's going to be where your crosswalk needs to be. But um I think my my concern about the angle parking is um you know coming in residents coming in from P road and going through that main drive. They're paring into a space but then they're

backing out and they have to go through the rest of the development. They can't go out the main road area again. The spaces these spaces here around the entire length because those are right in and then right in going the other way. So either folks have to go around and bypass that main drag to come going like counterclockwise through the site to get to those spaces or they're backing into those spaces which I think is probably the more dangerous maneuver. Um coming out of those spaces would probably be both the dangerous but um you know with the angled parking those are some of the challenges I see there. Um, I think the the combination of parallel angled and then 90° might get confusing for some. Um, like do these spaces mean something different? You know, and I don't know if there's any signage that needs to happen to keep that clear that they're free for everybody or they're not, you know. And the other question probably maybe it's probably best Eugene, but looking at um that area out near the front that's going to be the bus pickoff area and how parents might drive up there with a car and then how are they going to exit the area? I'm well aware of what happens in Westford today with people driving in subdivisions down to an intersection and as soon as the bus leaves, they're doing U-turns and three fivepoint turns in the road. So that could become a a crazy area right there at that entrance with that kind of activity taking place. And we'd like to factor into the design how parents can go up there and easily turn back into the development from where they came regardless of where they came from cuz they're going to come from maybe building five or building three and do different maneuvers. but some kind of a rotary or somewhere that helps them turn around and get back safely without impinging or no traffic

to that cuts down on cost of schools. So we so we have l we've at least from the standpoint of where that we'll call it where the median is there's no parking or anything that can happen on that road because otherwise it would block it. But to your point, we also in the ideal world, I don't want those cars back out on P road. So what I don't want is them going around a circle and using P road. So we'll look at that and how we can accommodate it within the project site as well as looking at the ankle parking because I see what you're we also don't want repeat trips within the site that don't have to repeat themselves. Right. So and the other thing with the engineers here, I did ask the last meeting also how you're going to design um package delivery into this large development. You know, I I expect Amazon to be driving up in trucks several times a day dumping a load and you need to think about how that gets handled in the development and can be done safely as well. So, I believe that one last I believe that actually was in the plan actually it's on the one of the slides. Yes, we have a designated area in front of clubhouse A. All the mail and package comes through clubhouse A. It's not distributed through the buildings. So, we have designated loading only drop off area. Okay. Um, but again, they won't be going throughout the site. It will all be at a one last minor question just to the applicant to make sure you are aware that your neighbor to the north there, Bell, is going to be imposing parking fees for visitors. Um, I'm assuming that's going to have a little bit of an impact potentially on illegal parking and what might happen up in that corner up uh by building three in the garages. So that's it. Do you mind if I respond to that? Yeah. So we we spoke to to Belle earlier this week about that um as part of the planning for the broader pedestrian connections. They said they've always charged for for guest parking. The only change is that their

their method of doing it. Um so they've always required people to pay for guest parking. Now they have these parking meters essentially. Um so it's a change in method, not a change in actual charging. That's as as somebody had visited there for about a year when when somebody lived a friend lived there. That is not correct. That is not accurate. There were spaces you just pulled in, parked in, and went in. So, um, do need to look at that further. So, thank you. That's it for tonight. Dylan, while you were on that subject, so you talked to the folks at Beld. Did they talk about the pedestrian connection there? Did they talk about encouraging that? Were they for it? Or I'm just curious to see if that's would encourage you opening up that whole area for kind of, you know, pedestrian access. I mean, I think that's really more of a question for your applicant, but yes, they told us they were very excited about having more pedestrian connections across the area and about having that connection and said they were working with the applicant and the town to make that happen. Great. find out the right legal agreement that makes it possible. I was just curious and you said brought it up so that's great. So, no, I appreciate the uh I think this is an improved uh revision. Um certainly takes into account some of the things, you know, the kind of spirit of the McMod in terms of blocks that concept does a better job of doing that as well as the incorporating the the sidewalks and the setbacks and sort of the the three blocks area. Um, you know, the my only still my question is there's five buildings. If if some of those buildings were fourstory, maybe some of that parking could be parallel to that main area and that could improve the traffic flow. Um, you wouldn't need as many

squats to have angled squats in there and you could just have parallel which is more consistent with uh the McMod uh design as well. Thank you. Uh Joanie questions. Uh yes, sorry. Um okay. Like everyone else, I am very very concerned about that that angle of parking. Um and I assume that's all we're really talking about tonight is the parking, not the height of the buildings and things. Well, we can talk about everything, Jody. Yeah, everything. Oh. Oh, we can. Okay. So, um I I mean like Bob noted, I mean driving trying to drive in Cornerstone is a death wish. So, because there's that the parking people are backing out into the street. Um and whether it's, you know, whether you limit the where the vehicles can park, whether you say even if you say, you know, compact cars only, the biggest, you know, longest vehicle is going to park there, they just it's going to get ignored. So, you got to be realistic. Um, and and I like the idea that maybe if we, you know, lowered the height, you know, went to four some four stories, maybe we wouldn't need as much parking and then have, you know, parallel parking, which would work a lot better. Um, I am also super concerned about the bus stop. Um, and that where you actually have that curve, guaranteed parents will park on that curve. Um, I mean, parents are, you know, they're they've got to go to work. They're in a rush. they're not going to go walking back to their car that's far away. Worse yet, if it's a rainy day, a snowy day, um they're going to park on that curb and we're going to have you're going to have a bigger problem with congestion. Um you know, and kids kids running around, things like that. Um and and it could be a big problem. Um my I am concerned about the building height. I know that is an issue uh for a

lot of folks. uh you know uh butterers and and residents um you know have to defer obviously to the fire department if they're you know if they can really handle five stories but I am very concerned about how it's going to look you know from P road from I I understand it's you know you've got the banking you've got the trees but still it is that their towering structures at five stories and the height it's not only five stories it's the total height of the building. Um, oh, another thing on the parking, uh, concerned that I I'm sorry, I should have mentioned it at the same time. Um, the, you know, the bylaw, and I think it was mentioned, is pretty clear that parking is supposed to be behind the building. Um, behind or on the side, not in front. So, a a little concerned about that. um some of the other things and again I don't know how far you guys really want to go in in one session but um because it's it's into the weeds uh about meeting town detail town standards and things like that uh just real quick bringing it up I I am concerned about asking for waiverss to not meet town standards um and to and things like as belts waving as belts those those to me are kind of like basic things that you know the town would re would really need um So, um, as far as the traffic goes, you know, I hear hear everything. Um, tr truly, you know, done traffic studies, understands traffic studies. Um, but trying to pull out on P's Road and take a left, it is not easy. So you you I think to think you won't have a serious queueing at your entrances um when people are trying to leave in the morning um or leave it you know any time of the day really. I think there's going to be a a big cue um at those entrances because it is just it's a difficult it's

a difficult road. Although the speed limit is is lower people and you know obviously the days you would you were doing it you you you got some good speeds but typically people drive pretty fast on that road. So um kind of those those are kind of my big concerns. Um, so if if you could do anything to try to get rid of that angled parking in the front of the buildings along the main road, um, you know, however you could do it, you know, whether it be kind of, you know, re kind of moving a few things or, you know, you know, maybe moving the clubhousees a little, one of the clubouses a little or putting it to more into the subdivision into the subdivision as opposed to it right at the front possibility. I don't know, but maybe you could get some of that parking away from the main road. Great. Mr. Chair, if I may just quickly address just the fire department concerns, we have met with the fire department on multiple occasions. They had no issues whatsoever as to the building height with the additional story. I think that was also reviewed when we were writing the McMod bylaw. And then um that we've also met with them on multiple occasions every single time we change this roadway configuration. They're generally our first meeting to make sure that we don't have a fire safety issue because you don't go any further if you can't get a fire truck around there. So, uh, we have met with them on multiple occasions. And just a quick quick comment about the asbuilt. The asbuilt waiver is to the subdivision road construction detail standards. It's not to the overall asbuilt for the site plan. So, that's one of those things I'm talking about in the subdivision rags. It's more of a technical waiver. Um it's not an actual wave from asbuilt because obviously these will have asold plans. So that's something we will we will respond to when we get deeper into uh Jean's letter from Ty Bond. One other part Mike to to Joany's point because she didn't get to see the presentation here. Um when they showed us the layout for the fourtory

buildings, it was the same number of units five the 530. So the the parking requirement was the same. It just didn't need the waiver for the height because it spread the buildings out over a larger area. Right. And just to to Bob's point there, I mean, I think one of the issues here is trying to weigh and and to Dylan's point as well, you have rules and regulations that set forth an as of right plan here. So, you can go that path, but I think you've written your MCMOD bylaw in a way to allow for waiverss so that you can look at these sites uniquely on a case-byase basis and each of the waivers. So, we hear you. You know, you don't like the angled parking along this roadway. It's something that we have to examine. The proximity along the roadway may not be an issue, but certainly this layout's an issue. So, we have to address that. That's something completely within the board's discretion. Uh, so I just want to make sure and, you know, to Dylan's point, yes, uh, there is clear-cut lines in the bylaw. There is wiggle room and squishy area and some things that aren't clear, but that a lot of those are within your purview to grant waiverss or not. uh it's completely in your discretion for us to ask for them and you to say no, we don't like it and to go back and redesign it. So, I just want to make sure that's clear that it's not this is not an all or nothing question that we're having this evening. It's a question of whether conceptually we should proceed down this road. Go ahead, Mr. Chair. I'm sorry. Yep, no problem. Right. And and and Melissa, thank you. I really understand that. Um, I think from, you know, at least in my my mind, you know, I I think I wouldn't want to see you do a lot of work, uh, come back and ask for waiverss that, you know, the board isn't crazy about, and then, well, maybe they granted maybe they're not, you know, and then you're redesigning. I mean, I I don't want to see, um, I don't want to see the developer, you know, the the proposer wasting design money, you know, doing and redoing. So that's why I I think we're kind of trying to bring up some of these big points and say, "Hey,

the these are a real big concern. We really have to address them, right?" Um, so we're going to come back to the board for comments after ask Don if he has any questions. So don't if you have questions and we'll take the audience questions and the board can make their final comments. Uh, Dylan, I uh I I do have questions and I do have comments. Um, thanks. So the first h uh are for the traffic consultants because I guess unlike Joanie I I am not a traffic engineer but I have a lot of uh familiarity uh questioning network and systems engineers and I understand the optimism that sometimes go into these analysis. Um so as I understand it we have 2,300 additional vehicle trips per day per average weekday against the current Westford Earth Material site that's there. Am I I'm understanding that correctly. I'm just I'm going to jump double check the number in terms of the net. It's on page 647 of the packet. Yes. The net increase is 232 vehicle trips over a 24-hour basis. And that's two-way traffic. So half and half. Okay. So So I I have some questions. So with you're anticipating 222 vehicle trips during the weekday morning peak hours. We have a location that's anticipated to have 530 units and 8 I forget 12 parking spaces. How do you arrive at only roughly half of the locations will produce a morning vehicle trip to go to work in the morning? Is I guess let me ask the question a different way. Is there an assumption of the use of MBTA services to get to work in the analysis that we have in front of us in the packet? So the answer to that question is no. there's no assumption of use of alternative modes of transportation to uh single occupancy vehicles. So essentially our analysis is this is an autocentric project that you need an automobile to get to wherever you want

to go. Um so that's that that's so the the answer to your second question. The answer to your first question is to be very clear the the numbers that you're mentioning in terms of the we'll just call it 200 vehicles that's during one hour of the day. So between, let's say, 7 to 8:00 in the morning, the project is expected to produce that, let's just say round numbers, 200 vehicles. Between 8:00 and 9:00, it doesn't mean that there's zero trips being produced. What it does mean is that the amount of traffic produced outside of that 7 to 8 period is not 200. It's something less than 200. It could be 199, but it's not 200. So we're not saying so when you're looking at the numbers as you're describing you know your system approach view the numbers that we're talking about is if you graph the numbers it's a sinosoidal curve. So the peak of that curve where the 200 happens is the peak. It's the spike of that curve. So it it goes up like a bellshape peaks at 200 and then drops off. It doesn't drop off to zero. It slowly ramps down. So you're going to see a spike in the morning where you hit 200. It then drops off. You'll have a little spike that'll happen in the afternoon, not 200, probably around 100, goes back down, then it spikes again in the evening, gets somewhere close to 200 again in the evening, and then drops off. So if you plot this over the course of the day, you'd see those peaks happening. We are analyzing the peak of the project added to the peak of the roadway. So that is as you said we analyze to be very clear an absolute worstcase condition where the peak of the project's traffic occurs simultaneously with the peak of the traffic on P's road or route 110. So it is it's an overly conservative on the

high side analysis of the impacts of the project really to prove out that there's adequate infrastructure and capacity to accommodate the peak of the project on the peak of the roadway and then we assess impacts and mitigate those impacts. Okay, great. So, was there any consideration in the analysis of potential future um MCMOD projects that would be potentially taking place that would use the same roadways? And I guess let me ask it a different way. What would be the I guess how close to grade E you know when we say we won't have a level of service of D or below I guess or D or we'll always have D or better in the intersections that could be impacted by this development. How close are we to the breaking point of degrading those intersections to a level of service of E? because there are other MCM mod sites that could also use P's Road as an egress point that could have a delitrius effect on the performance of those intersections with a future development. And it would I think this this board needs to consider not just this development but potential future developments that could also use P road as a a point of entry and exit. So I have to each intersection obviously has different gradations in terms of how close they are to capacity at each of those. So there are submovements that again when we're doing our analysis we're looking seven years in the future. So we're looking at the year 2031 with buildout. Um similar to what I was talking about with the other projects that we included each and every project has to be evaluated on its own and assesses the cumulative impacts of all projects that came before it. So, as we're looking at this project, it includes traffic from all projects that are currently known and proposed, have submitted the traffic

study, have traffic estimates, and have identified mitigation because it goes along the same lines. If I were to include those other projects, I would have to assume similar to this project, they need to stand on their own and mitigate their impacts, including all projects that came before them. So, that's what we've done as a part of our analysis, and that is the standard practice. So, we included all projects that are either currently have plans before town boards or have been approved that have not yet been constructed. And that's standard practice. Any pro any any project that's going to come after this project has got to do the same level of analysis and include our project and mitigate their impacts because that's the standard that we're we're being held to. Great. I I appreciate the answers. Thank you. Um, Mike, I guess, uh, Mr. Chair, I'll just I guess I'll end with my comments then. I mean, you know, I appreciate the effort that went into the traffic study. I guess hearing public comment, it strikes me as hard to imagine that that we aren't going to see an impact to congestion on the roads that that take people away from this site to work and then back. But, I mean, I'll have to defer to the to the experts on that. As far as the site itself, uh, you know, I continue to have concerns as I had in the in the first time we heard this with, um, site circulation and and traffic moving through the site. I share the concerns that Joanie and others have mentioned regarding the alignment of the parking spaces. I think um the interesting to me is the conclusions uh that I think the other Dylan from Dodson Flinker in page 619 of the packet regarding the layout of the open space in the site. I mean, when I look at that, I I appreciate the design work that went into trying to create a common space in front of building two, but when I look at this and I'm trying to put myself in the shoes of a resident on the

sort of northwest corner of building 5 or the I guess northwest corner of building three or the south uh west corner of building four, I I don't know how how often I would actually advantage myself of that open space if I was trying to get out and actually enjoy something. And I'm other than going to clubhouse a I don't know what draws people to that space. And I guess that in a nutshell is sort of my concern with the overall proposed site plan is I think that that open space is great for people who are living in buildings one and two. I think less so for all of the other buildings. Um so I'm I'm not sure and I actually think the proof plan which I was able to pull up from the box location. So thank you. I actually think ironically the proof plan arguably is closer to what the bylaw was talking about if those spaces around each building were sort of creatively designed actually does a better job of achieving what the zoning bylaw calls for with like a unique open area around each building that the residents of that building can take advantage of. Mr. Chair, if I may just quickly to Dylan's point, we did there is a slide in this package that we go through and identified the open space to each block. So now that we have the street, we have block one, block two, block three, and we've generally identified the open space areas to each of those blocks. One of the exercises we have to do if we go forward with this site plan and in our plan revisions and responding to Dylan at Dodson and Flinker is identifying the open space to each of our blocks and making sure that our open space for the blocks meets the requirements of your zoning bylaw. And if it doesn't, we would be back before this board for a waiver of that open space for which I said that this board could deny those waiverss. But I do think uh most of the open space now for each of these blocks

does um meet the standards of your bylaws. We've been very we've kept a very close eye onto it as we've identified the streets in each of the block areas. Thank you. Thanks. I guess my last comment then is is in regard to consideration of waiverss in general for this. You know, I think there has been a lot of public comment as well regarding the impact that a projects of this scale have to resources in the town. Right? So, there's traffic obviously is one, but you know, some and I know that there'll be more information coming to us. Um, but consideration of like draw on water, people have had questions of power. you know, I still haven't heard enough yet about like creative use of solar in the site and things like that that mitigate some of the impacts to like town resources that, you know, we already know are somewhat strained and will be more so in the years to come. So I I guess speaking to the applicant, my consideration of waiver requests would be commensurate with what I see the applicant proposing to do to mitigate some of those long-term impacts to Westford Resources. And that's all I have, Mike. Thanks. Thank you. Um okay, we're going to go to the public for comment. Please remember to go up to the microphone, say uh your name, your address. Um, I will remind everybody, I know that the height of the building is a huge issue. We've all received the emails and the comments um that they're there what they have their slide showing what they could do with the fourstory buildings and what they propose to do with the five story buildings and how the difference works out with more open space. So, they can keep that in consideration. Um, when you come up and you have questions, you ask me the question and then we'll direct it to this the correct person to answer that question. So you can make a line behind that microphone please. Ian Nogler 8 nonset lane. Um the best thing I read in the peer reviews was from Dodson Plinkler whom they were

charged with the MCMOD review. It states and I quote, "Alternatively, the number of dwelling units could be reduced. While the MCMOD allows up to 15 units per acre, it does not guarantee that 15 units per acre is feasible on a site like this which is heavily constrained by wetland on only about 60% development. I would argue that given all the acreage the town has included in the MBTA overlay district, which I believe is 5 351, and the potential this has to be over 5,000 units, we should make developments adhere as closely as possible to all standards as described in the state and town MBTA overlay district zoning bylaws. Um, this committee spent two plus years coming up with the bylaw and to allow so many a variances on the first project is setting a bad precedence. The project has multiple requests for variances. This is due to the nature of the landscape. Out of 35.62 62 acres, only 21.6 are developable and 18.2 buildable. If the developable acreage was a standalone parcel, the project at 15 units per acre would only allow 324 units, over 200 fewer. I know the wetlands are allowed to be included, but that is contributing greatly to the density, the number of units, the asphalt, trash, the needs for so many variances, and the general crowding. Think about that. 530 units on land that only should have 324. You do not have to approve 15 units per acre. I would also like to point out in the presentation to town meeting in March of 2024 on the slide named new growth calculation examples which I have copies for you. It showed this parcel is 250 units with the ski area showing 300. The numbers being thrown around now are more than double that was presented and voted on by the voters. Also during town meeting it was stated that setbacks and wetlands would reduce the number of units. This is not the case. Now, I'm going to get on to building heights, which I know you maybe don't want to hear about, but at the very end of the discussion of this topic at the planning board meeting October 7th, 2024, the applicants representatives asked the board if it would be amendable to go to five stories to make space for a public amenity along the front. The comments from the board

were make 10% affordable so we could keep our inventory at required levels. That's not them giving us anything. That's in the bylaw 8.10.9. The second thing they said was a request to look into parking underground/hidden to increase the apparent amount of green space. There was reference to the size of black top and asphalt. The third thing that was mentioned was work diligently with the budding property parcel to get vehicular access. Reference an interite circulation of vehicles between bell and 37 powers. Another thing that was criteria was mentioned was cut down access to powers road to one entrance. Use the benefit of access to little road. Another thing that was mentioned is going to five stories with sidewalks to the daycarees and another lastly it was mixeduse component of it. The first item as I stated is in the bylaw already at 8.10.9. As best I can tell the rest are not included in the current design and I guess they're calling the trail around the outside as their public amenity. But given the trails that are across the street around Kennedy Pond, I'm not sure who's going to walk around here and stare at four or five story buildings. Um during this meeting, same meeting, there was also mention of considerable height when it was only four stories. That was when they had the four stories and people called it considerably height. Um the town also did a multif family survey where question nine asked which option best aligns with your preference. Twothirds of the respondents opted for shorter buildings of two to three stories with less open space versus four stories and more open seats. 66% of the respondents did not want four or more stories. Um in the presentation at town meeting in March of 2024, the voters were told that you don't get waiverss for no benefit to the community. I'm not seeing any benefit to the community with adding the fifth story. We have plenty of acorage set aside from MPTA district that we need allow this on the first project. As this is the first type of this project in town and setting precedent, I would ask that you do not approve the special permit and you have the application stick to the zoning bylaws as written and voted on by the orders not only as it relates to

building height but also building dimensions. Thank you. Um and then I have a question on the parking. If there's a the angled parking, if there is a function in the town square, how are people going to get to those parking spots? The ones that are angled the south side, I guess I Well, Mr. Chair, there is room. So, it's hard to tell on the site plan with the closeout. So, but where the red and yellow triangles are, there is room up in that area for off-site amenities so that you can pull through that area if you don't want to block off the Ballard area. But if it's blocked off, if that area is blocked off, I think at the March 17th meeting, there was discussion of holding, you know, communitywide events and blocking off that whole area. So now you've blocked off that whole main road. I think this is somewhat premature, but your point's taken. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. Hi, my name is Arun and uh I'm a resident of 46 Powers Road and the way the plan is uh stands now, I have a big objection to that road that's open right in front of my house on 46 Powers Road, right in front of my driveway. So, that's my biggest concern about that. And the other thing is I don't know why there is a hesitation of uh providing an access road to the conquered road and having two openings on P's road. So maybe have a road going into uh conquer road right there bypassing P's road you know from that corner uh building three in those three garages. So that would uh have an impact I mean have a significant improvement on the traffic on P's road. I don't know. How would you get to Crocker Road? I don't right now. There's no access to the adjacent property. Right. They don't own that propert. So that's not part of the parcel. No, the

adjacent parcel has not agreed to allow connectivity uh through that parcel which is uh private property. Tech Park West and Bell Western. Okay. Yeah. But as of now then I think my main concern is that road opening right in front of my driveway over there. No, I have I asked that question the the the March meeting about get that's and I've Melissa knows I've been very Yeah. And the other thing is u residents on that road actually walk on that road because you know there's no walkway or anything and we go in the trailside trailside way to you know walk and then access the lake from that trail at the end of the street. having that many cars. I think we are very concerned about that as well. Good. Thank you. Good evening, Fred Metler, Vine Brook Road. I just want to follow up on what he was talking about. Uh Kennedy Pond, it is like way nicer walking there than on those concrete sidewalks. And you know, tens of kids and families go down there from Vbrook every day and also from trailside. And selfishly, I hope nobody discovers Kennedy Pond from this development, but I'm guessing they will. And I'm just wondering, is there a way for pedestrians to cross P's Road to get to that? That's a good question. And that would be something the state would have to do. Correct. Dance. Yeah. And we've actually been working um trying to see if there's any connectivity in the area. Uh Dodson Flink are wearing a very different hat for the town of Westford as you know has got funds through catalyst fund and is looking at this entire area including the MBTA community area to see if there's a potential for connectivity including crossings and connectivity to uh through trailside included through the red line through uh the ski area all the way up to 110. So that's all being examined. Uh as a matter of fact I think your staff is also working on some

additional funds applications which may be due tomorrow the next day. uh to go back to the state for additional money so these can actually be go to fruition and some more studies can be done so that we can get some accessibility and pedestrian amenities in this area. Yeah, just to be clear I'm talking about pedestrian access. There's no parking on Vine Brook to get to the Kennedy Pond. There's very limited parking on Trailside. They would be walking across P road to get there. Right. Terrific. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. My name is Paul Feltry. I live on 23 Vineberg Road and my major concern is uh safety and travel on Pace Road. We saw an awful lot of presentations regarding connectivity crosswalks uh similar to what Fred said, but not south of the development. Vinebrook Road uh is very difficult to get get out of line of sight. There's a curve there, trees, brush, fence. Um, you kind of take your life in your own hands when you pull out out of there. When you talk about a traffic analysis of 11 seconds of 33 seconds, if you drove out of Vineberg Road in 11 seconds or 33 seconds, you're having a great day. It's a It It is a very highly traveled road. No sidewalks, driving a bike on that road, you're taking your life in your hands. I think the town has to look at to

incorporate something of this magnitude. What are you going to do to P's road to make that safe? Thank you. Thank you. And again, I think just to point out that that is a state road, but I think that obviously they're going to need permits from the state to Yeah, it's a okay, it's a state problem. It's our problem, right? I mean, we safety is safety is something we all need to be concerned with. I agree. Hi, Christina Green, one Chesapeake Drive. Um, just to be clear, I am on the finance committee in Westford, but I'm speaking just um, representing myself tonight. Um, my question is more of a process question. There's been, it's been alluded to, um, you know, the the amount of resources that a development this size will put onto Westward resources, um, the schools, the fire, public safety, all that kind of stuff. When do we get that sort of do we get that sort of analysis at some point and what's the timing on that? So I think that as Attorney Robin said the War Department should have their report shortly. As for schools and police, I don't know that is there any study that we do with that. Jeeoff, we can't we're not allowed to uh seek mitigation for that. I'm not asking for mitigation. I'm thinking budgeting and planning for the future. Oh. So in that regard, yes, uh as these projects come in, we will gather that data and share it with the schools so they can better plan for the future. But we don't yet have an approved project. We have estimations from nextdoor developments from what the likely numbers might be, but as these get leased up, we'll be taking that information and sharing it

with school side for planning. Okay. All right. Thank you. Hi, my name is Jim McMaro and I live on Kingspine Road. And so to the scope of the project, um I've been following this since um and I want to speak to Jeff, but I'm going to talk to you like you advised me to. I did go to a presentation at the Stonybrook Middle School. I I don't know was that two years ago or three years ago? It was much longer than that. It was it was a few years ago and you know I do pay attention to a lot of things in town and this has been one of the things I've paid attention to and my recollection is along the road that the state of Massachusetts um told the town that we would be required um to approve something like 925 units is do I remember that correctly? So your memory is very good. There's no requirement for any units to be built, but we were on the hook as a town to create the potential for at least 924 dwellings, right? And so my I seem to recall that somebody in the town came back to the state and said, "Well, we'll agree that we don't really have to build, but if you want to build up to 5,000 units, or was it 4,900?" It was close to 4,900. Is the Okay. potential on paper. Okay. So, I guess my point is the state said, "We'd like you to agree to build to maybe build 924 units." And the town of Westford came

back and said, "Well, we'll agree to put 4,900 units." And so, I'm just making that point and I'm dovetailing off of um what this woman um pointed out. I think is Westford 32 square miles or 38. How big is this town? 30 32 square miles. So, and I know this is in the future, but I think the Regency is projected to be 300 units. The Regency Hotel. So, and and what is this one? 530. So, that's 830. And about and it's not in Westford, but it is 2 miles up the road. the IBM project proposal is for something like 150 residential units. So, I do think we need to take all of this into consideration um when we're talking about a project like this. So, thank you. Thank you. West about 30 and a half square miles. Uh Jim Hunter, Nonset Lane. The big issue here is it's 530 units on a buildable 18 acres. As a developer, he's trying to maximize his profit, get as many units as he possibly can, and we are seeing the impact of that. Parking is going to be very difficult. My question I have is it's 15 units per acre. The total site is 35 acres. So that's how we're getting the 530 as a right to build. Am I correct of the developable land under the B? Yes. But we're getting the 530.

It's the full site acreage. 35.6 acres times 15 minus the excluded certain excluded areas. Yes. This is that's my point. There's about 14 acres that is wetlands. So let's reduce that down to 20 acres. 21 acres 15 * 21 that's 300. How are we getting 530? When we did the overlay district all the wetlands are excluded in the calculation. Our density requirements were consistent with what was laid out by the state. So it's consistent with the state requirements. Right. But according to the MPTA community act when I went into the website when you to to determine your density requirement you have to exclude the wetlands in the calculation in the overlay district. You got to answer the top of my head without Yeah. I mean I can read it to you. I I can answer this question. So the state's definition of density in MTA community zoning law excludes wetlands, right? The title five septic areas. Um, and it requires you to zone for 15 units per acre across the district. Um, but it does not allow you to include that definition of density in your bylaw. So there's there's no So the density that's calculated by the bylaw um is on the full parcel. Okay. So you're telling me we can't put that in our bylaw? No, we were

specifically ex prevented from putting that but then the state mandates our overlay district. You have to exclude the wetlands in your calculation to meet the 924. So why are we allowing a developer, a site to include the wetlands when the state mandated you can't include the wetlands? This sounds ludicrous to me. So what we're doing now is in 20 acres of land, we have a density of 27 units per acre. Forget the 15. That's what So we're trying to pack 530 in there. I just don't understand how this makes any sense. Valid point, but unfortunately that's water that's under the bridge at this point. Right. The act has been voted in by town meeting. But well, he's saying it can't it can't be part of the bylaws. It's part of the state requirement for for our overlay district. We can exclude wetlands, but we can't exclude it on a site. So when you have a site that has wetlands, then a developer gets a bonus. he gets more units per per density. I think the reason for why the state excluded it was they didn't want a town trying to put all of the district. Well, you got to make it viable development. So, of course, you should exclude it and it should be excluded here in this site as well. Um well I if anything you can take it into consideration because the parking to me is is dangerous. You said you've been to Bell Westford many times. The perpendicular parking both sides. I was wondering if that was going to be what's that really like? Well, we all know what it's like in front of

Aviva and Family Eye Care. Very difficult. very dangerous. Viva was in my mind when I said cornerstone. Well, okay. But that exact space right there is, right? Getting getting in and out is is really tough. Yeah. Uh and there's a little more, you know, through traffic going on there. But Bell Westford, there's less through traffic. It's uh sight specific. There's nobody going if the two buildings in front of Bell Westford have the perpendicular parking, but there's no through traffic trying to get to a building in the back with 130 units. So, I went there four times and this is what I observed. It it was I was like, "Wow, we've not even brought this up." People get their groceries, they have these foldable wagons, they put them in the street, which is a lane, and they load up their wagons, and they got their kids running around. I was like, "Wow, how's this going to work?" I have a foldable wagon because of that, right? But they're blocking the street where crew cars have got to go through two buildings in the back, 130 and 100. And then the other thing I saw was there was a I don't know if he lived there or they were doing work in somebody's apartment. It was a little electrical box truck, but it was greater than the 19 ft that you brought up because it was halfway into the road and he had to put a cone in the front. That was in four visits. That's what I saw. Taking into consideration what kind of parking we have going on here. Um but it boils down to the fact is there's 530 units. Um also we haven't heard anything about visitor parking. Uh one of the

varants require it was you asked for only three three visitor parking spaces per building and I think our bylaw requires at least 53 divided amongst the buildings. You're asking for only 17. Why? because we don't have enough parking. What's going to happen when people move in with box trucks, U-Hauls? Are they going to block the street completely? Where are they going to unload and unload? Losing my train of thought. Uh, hold on. Oh, the angle parking you brought up. My one of my concerns is if you pull in and there's nothing available, what are you going to do? Do a U-turn down by the the last building and go back? And those are going to be prime spots because they're right in front of the building. I don't understand how angle parking helps anything. Um, oh, nothing about snow removal. Where's all the snow going to go? Again, I think this is very preliminary, right? With their new design, hobby, this is preliminary with their new design. They're trying to get direction from us so they can get into more of those details. Okay. Okay. Lastly, all the I've been following this since October. Um, all the permits plans, there's multiple pages. You're comparing fivetory, three or fourtory site plan. And there's been no change in the building sizes or structure. And in all your permitting plans, you give all the breakout for studios, onebedroom, twobedroom, threebedroom for a fivetory. The number of units in each building.

You also have all the details. If these buildings were fourstory, this would be exactly the number of studios, one bedroom, two bedroom, threeb units, and it would be 425 units. Then tonight, I feel like there was a lack of respect tonight. Out of the blue, you present this project plan that if it's not five stories, this is what it's going to look like. We didn't see this until we got here. But up until this date, everything has been same buildings. We're just going to make it fourstory. This is what it's going to do. So, as a resident, I'm taken back. I feel like it was almost a threat. You're going to lose your berm. And uh I think this what has to be done here is you ex you go with the plan that's been presented and it needs to be four stories, 425 units. You reduce your parking. If I have the paper with me, I'm going to ask you to wrap it up. Okay. Behind you. So if you go four story you got 100 only you have 157 less parking spaces required that could in the through road could now probably be a through road and not perpendicular parking um it you could reduces your visitor parking bike storage it reduces the bike storage which you also want varian to have that redone uh that's about it I can go on and on. Can I just respond to what that I understand you may not have felt respected tonight by seeing that at the last minute. We kind of asked them to present that. Um we in many of our zoning bylaws when we have projects done before us ask them to do a proof and so you might have a conventional plan

presented to us uh and then we will steer it towards a flexible development to get something better. And that's what's happening here. Um, it wasn't meant as a threat, but it was meant to show what giving five stories did in terms of other improvements to the site in terms of increasing trying to maintain the 530. Understood, but they but it wasn't meant to be a threat. Okay. Well, last minute that's what it felt like when we showing up here. Jeff, for what it's worth, I did strongly encourage the applicant to provide uh what a course concept would look like because I felt our planning board should have benefit of that information as a basis of comparison. Thank you. Well, I don't think that was the best design for that. Thank you. Jim Garcia, five rail tree terrace. Uh this is the first time I've seen this project. I saw some picture from some uh email from one of the people in Vinebrook a few months ago. Uh but anyway, I met Jim for the first time and he showed me that that uh proof plan and I was the one that said that's a threat. You know, this is a Soviet style and I've been to Czech Republic and Russia in the '9s and I've seen those large concrete, you know, rectangular buildings, four stories. They're probably they weren't five stories, they were four stories. And there and this is one of those complexes. So I know that was the proof plan of of if you don't give us the 530 units and fifth fifth floor, you're going to get a Soviet style apartment complex. Uh but I'm I'm pretty much repeating everything Jim said. This is basically 20 less than, you know, 20 uh acres at 15 units per acre. 300 350 maybe 400 units. It's not 530 units. And if they bought another 10

acres of wetlands, would they be putting 800 units here? They probably would try. Um, so uh I think the proof plan was if we don't get our fifth story, we'll just give you a very large uh laid out fourstory place with, you know, no greenery, no no open spaces, etc. So anyway, so I'm repeating myself here. next one that the new plan with the fifth story. Okay, you're gonna have five stories. You're gonna have air conditioners on the top of that, which means you're gonna have another stories worth. Maybe they're going to put a a fence around it, or you're either going to see, I'm sure people have seen Route 93 in Somerville. You can see all those air conditioners sticking out of the top of the building. That's where it's going to be. So, we're not going to have five stories. We're going to have six stories worth of of blockage. Uh the uh the the definition of streets versus blocks is very tenuous. that is not a block, that is not a street, that is a a one-way deadend uh alley, uh where and and I I sort of like the the angled parking because it's takes less time to get in and out, but somebody gets in, it's blocking the whole road. And again, we've all been to Cornerstone. I think a few people have driven around the Mil Pond area nearby uh uh St. An's Church. I went there once on a Sunday morning. Nobody's there and it was tight. This is going to be like that but times times five. Um so uh it's you know the I think adding all those extra trees and greenery looks good on the plan but it's I mean you need more open space. You don't need more trees. Uh I think that's just going to tie things up. Uh getting out of Vine Brook. Yes. I I live in Vine Brooks. It's hard as hell to to get out there in the morning. uh all the extra traffic going into uh uh the lightened uh by market basket on a on a weekday

afternoon, say Friday afternoon, you can't even get over to uh to the left turn to get out of there because if you're in the right hand lane, you can't on on Littleton Road right before you get to the that the light in front of Market Bass, you can't even get over. You have to basically just blow past it and take another route. Okay. Okay. So, uh, so I guess my my my my bottom line is if if they buy 10 acres of wetland, do they just smash more units into a, you know, 30 acres of 20 acres of buildable space? So, I just think the uh, and I, you know, and I I think we're almost like we're being held hostage. we got our our permit for 530 units by taking the whole, you know, 20 something uh acres and we we get 530 units. Well, they they don't get all the all the variances. Uh so I mean it should be something more reasonable, more like 400 units. Wrap it up, please. Thank you. Please, Vicky Barry, 10 Trailside Way. Um agree with everything they say. won't repeat it, but you did all your traffic studies that showed the distances. Me getting out of Trailside Way in the morning, it's going to be painful. If I ever want to make a left-hand turn, I don't think it's going to happen. Right now, there's a dip in the road. So, you're taking your life in your own hand. When you say, "Okay, is it clear there? Let me look on this side. Oh, I hope a car didn't show up in that dip because now it's going to hit me as I get out." Um, I don't know if any stop lightss are going in near this 800 or 500 some odd units. If there is, it's gonna back up. So, I'll never be able to make a righthand turn out of my road. Okay. And then the last thing is you have 500 units all entering out onto one street. One would think you'd have to find a way with that many units to find another even for safety, another exit.

So, if they can't find a plan to work with Bell or Dell or whatever it's called, I don't think it's an acceptable way of having that many units go out on a two-lane road like Powers Road that's windy, dippy, and very little border on the side. Thank you. Thank you. Hi, David Penfield, Vine Brook Road. Um, I have one point I want to emphasize that I heard about the school bus and parents driving their kids to where the school bus is and then after the bus leaves, everyone's doing crazy 7-point turns. I think you mentioned it in U-turns and whatnot. Um, I see it on Vinebrook corner of Vinebrook and Nat every morning. So, I want to make sure that gets addressed. Um, then I had two questions. one you talked about a bus is the LRTA bus coming down they looked into proposing something like that but firmed up on it okay and then uh my second question is I don't know if this is possible but is it possible to put commercial um space in this development maybe a grocery store and a restaurant making it a really walkable neighborhood because walkability was mentioned many times here tonight And I don't think people are going to walk out of this neighborhood up to 110 to go anywhere. But if you had a restaurant and a grocery store within the community, they would be walking there and that may reduce traffic coming out. Okay. Thank you. I'm Diana Carpenter, 29 Bark Road, and I just want to reiterate what my neighbors have said too. It is impossible to get out of Byber Road. Um, and I realize the power road is a state road, but is there anything we can do to talk to the state because even coming from

um, Nishoba Valley Ski Area, if you were to go down there at um, towards the new development, if people try to take a left-hand turn into that development, we're going to have a backup more of traffic. So like on 110 when you go into Bell, they have a specific left entrance to go into that development. Could anything be done to P road to ease some of the traffic? Um especially going into that and also um Huh. And also um they people do speed. I leave at my house at 5:00 in the morning and it's it's crazy the number of cars that go back and forth. um to act in and back in little town. Um Jeff, it could we ask is it possible that we would ask Sam or Jeff with VI to kind of look at the existing condition of traffic on Vineborg in the morning and then I guess in the morning exiting and then look at what would be the impact to uh that traffic statistic of of getting out with this development. Is that is that something we could ask? So a peer reviewer has a very limited scope. It's to review traffic information provided by the applicant and whatever is customarily associated with that. I do not know what information if any the applicant's team has put together for that sort of data. So I honestly I would ask maybe to Jeff if it's possible for you to look at that particular intersection vine road morning rush hour. Let's just take it simple. look at what kind of the existing condition is today and what the impact of this project would be on that condition. Um just to kind of validate and build upon what the neighbors are

telling us is their concern. Yep. We can I mean yeah it's absolutely easy enough for us to do that. Yep. Thank you. That might be a little difficult. Yeah. I I think I think we'll do the we need to try to we'll do the best we can. The request just came in. We'll try to get the traffic count scheduled, but the comment was make sure schools are in session. We obviously want to make sure schools are in session. Um so I'll, you know, and it's a very valid um comment. We'll see if we can capture the data next week um and and get it. I mean, that's um that's probably the best we can do. Thank you. Okay, thank you for and just for reference on top of what Jeff had just said in terms of even if the county couldn't get done before school's in session, the general difference between where the next intersections are versus the amount of parcels that are in there that contribute your traffic, it's actually easy to back check up the road to see where you are compared to if you did count I mean when does Westford Academy the seniors are out that might have already happened right so they're not going to be on the road anymore but you can easily look down the road to the next intersection and Are you 30 cars different or are you 100 cars different? 100 cars different, you upwardly increase your numbers just a little bit. Um just basic program if this was here, I could assume this would happen. That might be included as part of that all because the counts don't have schools in session. We have ways of balancing that out pretty easily um in that fashion. So just to put that in everybody's mind that Thank you. We are limited that school's not on 12 months of the year either. So we are Hi everyone, my name is Tay and I live on two trail sizeway and I want to echo the concerns of many of the people here about the size and the density of this project. I think the biggest concern from my end and from what I hear from many here and many of people who didn't come here but

they have they share the same concerns is the that this type of project does not fit the walls the infrastructure that it's a very windy road. It's a bad road with bad traffic takes us a lot of time to pull in and out of our our streets. the the town infrastructure and everything that is the parking and all of those illnesses are coming from the size and the density of the project. I think we as a town what we need to strive to do in everything in your power as a board is to reduce the scope of the project and make this actually a project that can succeed otherwise this project seems to be starting on a very bad footing. So I would encourage you try to do everything that you can do to reduce the size of the project. Thank you. Thanks Becky Bronson Vine Brook Road. Um I also um agree that the size of the project should be reduced. And one question I had and it came up uh a little bit was um you're talking about 500 units. I'm assuming 500 families um probably younger families with children. Um and that is going to put a huge impact on the schools. And I know there's been talk in town about Robinson School and whether they're going to um get rid of it entirely, renovate it, merge it with other schools because school enrollment is down right now in town. Um, but I really feel like there needs to be some kind of proactive look ahead to what's going to happen if you suddenly have a ton of new children coming in and needing schooling and access to schools that has the town

really thought that through? Thank you. Hi, my name is Jennifer Clero and I work as a director for the Cameron Senior Center. Um, and just listening to everybody, you know, um, I know we all have our our asks and um, I know my ask is quite probably not possible, but I'm going to I feel like if I don't ask um, I'm not doing my job. And you know, we just heard that school enrollment is down and our older adult population is continuing to increase and we right now we are facing um I know Nancy Cook sits here uh sits is in here um and serves as a chair of Westford remembers and we have a lot of older adults that are facing homelessness and I understand that this project um they're meeting the compliance of 80% of the area median an income. That's true. But we have people here that are truly struggling. They have lived in this community for generations that are again are facing homelessness. I don't know if that's Westford. If there could be some consideration for our older adults that maybe four or five units, I know that it can't be. I know Jeff, we've had a discussion that it can't be designated for older adults. But even if we had four or five units that were 60% of the area median income and below, that could possibly provide an opportunity for an older adult on a fixed income to live there or someone that's a young family that's that's working a lower wage job to remain here in Westford. So, I would just ask that you would just give that some consideration. And then last, um, when

we're talking about connectivity, and we've also spoken about the LRTA, the COA transportation program is the biggest provider of public transportation in Westford. We provide door-todoor service. And I'm just wondering how older adults and people that are disabled and we're talking about connectivity, how what's the transport, what's the transportation plan for these individuals if that could just be considered. Thank you. Thank you. First, I thank everybody for staying so late because unfortunately this is the third continuence. Here we are now. It's almost 10:30 and everyone's still here. So, thank you so much. Um, hello. My name is Barb Cornelius. I live at 10 Aset Road where my family and I have resided for the past 33 years. All three of our children attended Westward Schools and we moved here because the town's natural beauty and commitment to preserving its historic character. I want to begin by thanking my neighbors who have thoughtfully reviewed um and presented their concerns surrounding the proposed 37 Powers Road development. Their work is thorough and compelling and I fully support their efforts. I would like to briefly add my voice to the discussion, particularly about the scale and impact of this proposed project. The plan to build 530 apartment units on a two-lane road like P Road is alarming. It's estimated that this could add over 2,300 additional vehicle trips per day, severely burdening local infrastructure, increasing traffic risks. In addition, the transportation impact assessment. I didn't see that it took into account the ski season, which is wood, a tiki restaurant, when traffic's increase, or the lines of sight limited when you're

exiting trailside, vinebrick, or equestrian, which people have brought up tonight. To put this development in context, Bell Westford currently has 420 units across five fourstory buildings. Adding five-story buildings with 530 new units would result in 950 apartments in a very single small area. If I use a conservative estimate, say 2.5 residents, and these are studios, one, two, three bedrooms, and town houses, but I'm saying 2.5 residents. This would bring 2,400 residents, nearly 10% of Westford's population of 24,543 to one small corner of Westford. This raises serious concerns. There's some zoning inconsistency like acting grat and littleton carile conquered they allow two to three stories for having five. The environmental impact concerns me about the wetlands disruption pollution from herbicides pool chemicals excessive strain on natural resources and on butters you know the town water supply. Infrastructure stress our electric grid particularly on route 110 is already near capacity. Adding hundreds of units could push it beyond its limits. The town services, police, fire, and schools are already under budget constraints, especially in light of the recent override boat vote. Um, as Ann brought up, the MCOD compliance peer review makes an important point. If required parking cannot be met, the number of units should be reduced. The bylaw allows up to 15 units per acre. does not guarantee it's appropriate or feasible, particularly on land that is only 60% developable due to wetlands. Furthermore, the town preserv presentations for the MD MBTA law, there was one in January and slide 50 that

outlines modest building types, town homes, two family units, stacked flats, and smaller apartment buildings. Then in February, slide 24 shows 250 units at 37 P road, 300 at Nohoba Valley Skiaria, and 275 along Littleton Road, which which makes this 530 unit proposal appear disproportionate and inconsistent with broader planning goals. Westford's 200 20 or Westford's 2025 strategic plan, which aims to preserve what residents love about the town today while guiding us towards a brighter, more sustainable future. The housing production plan outlines strategies such as encouraging diverse housing options, promoting town homes and smallcale multifamily units, and developing tax incentives for small home building. Nowhere in the plan does it mention large highdensity apartment blocks of this scale. I fully support the goal of creating more affordable and diverse housing, but the growth must be balanced, strategic, and aligned with the character and capacity of our town. This development, as currently proposed, does not meet those criteria. We rely on this board to uphold our zoning bylaws approved by our community and manage our growth thoughtfully. Please consider the long-term impact of this proposal, not just in numbers or tax revenue, but in how it will affect the community quality our community's quality of life for both current and future residents. Thank you very much for your time and dedication. I really appreciate all the effort that's gone into this project. Thank you. Any last comments? Are they doing sidewalks the full length of their property? Uh, are you doing sidewalk? Uh, no. Right now, we're

showing sidewalks between our two entrances, but not the entire length of the front edge. Do you want me to read my argument about why they should do sidewalks the full length, or do you want to save that for another night? Why don't we let the next rendition of their plan? That's fine. I will note that it is commented in our peer review that we asked them about that. So, it's not in a vacuum. Just a question. Having listened to all this, um I think I heard someplace that this project was going to be totally electric out of the gate. Is that correct or did I misunderstand something that I heard or read? Yeah, we're will be in compliance with all electric standards now and we already have a letter from National Grid that uh has the amount of power for our site. So, we have no issues with electricity whatsoever or being compliance. So, that means electric, heat, everything, everything's electric. Okay. Just want to make sure I understood that. Okay. Thank you. Anybody in the other room? Any questions? Carol Finn, I'm on Asbet Road and I appreciate the comments of my neighbors and others and I do agree with them. And I had one more thing concerning what the last lady said. I had heard I thought that um I don't know if I read somewhere just one line that someone had mentioned that national grade could not um handle the electricity going to the new development project. So is that uh Mr. Lorett answer that question? So there were two potential projects. This is the first project. The other is the one at the Regency. They are working through a variety of other site constraint issues. the regency site. Uh this project um did receive um word from National Grid that

they have adequate capacity to service their needs. However, at this time for the Regency location, they do not benefit from that. In fact, they're undergoing a study right now to find how they can provide um required power for their development. The Regency is a question mark. I see. Okay. Thank you. Sure. Okay, no more comments. Go back uh to the board. Bob, you have anything you want to add? No, that's a lot. Um, no, I think we just have to have a discussion about what we want to see as the new direction. The one thing I did appreciate, and I did ask this, I think I've had one-on-one conversations with uh Melissa and the applicant u prior to the hearing, you know, one of the things I have asked about is mixed use development. Um and would love to see some kind of a market in there given the number of units. Um appreciate, you know, that was one of the comments that we heard. I'm not sure I'd call it a grocery market, but a small market. and a small restaurant would be nice. Um, I think it would go a long way to also humiliating and maybe giving something back to the neighbors who feel like this is a major impact to them. So, something down that end of the town would go a long way. So, I may know somebody who might put a bakery in there. I know somebody with a little pig truck. No, I think the comments from the residents is pretty consistent with what we've talked about so far. All right. So, waiting for the the next meeting,

Jeffrey. So, we're trying to provide some meaningful direction to the applicant. Yeah. And I've gotten some inconsistent or mixed reviews from the board. It sounds like, and please correct me if I'm wrong, some of the top concerns were about the angle parking along the main spine. Um, a lot of concern about the bus pickup and the disasters that ensued after other locations in town, like giving careful thought to that. Um I'm not sure if the board is interested in knowing what um each of the scenarios might look like as viewed from P's Road in terms of I know there was at the beginning of the process there was at least some sort of um sketch that gave a two-scale version of like here's P road, here's the clubhouse buildings, here's the apartment buildings. I don't know um to what extent that might have changed. I think um it might be helpful if that could be either we have a section. Okay. Yeah, I think that would be good information so that this board and and the public know what um what the differences are and what it might mean as viewed from Powers Road. I think that's good information. I think to have a lot of it already. I just think it might be helpful to to include. I don't think anything changed from the first. So the two sections we did um were through the clubhouse and the first residential building, building one. As I mentioned, that building did shrink down. So it did pull 20 ft off of P Road. And then building four, which also shrunk, uh pulled 15 ft off of P Road. So it went building one went from 370 ft off of P Road to 390. And building four went from 540, I believe, to 555. Okay. Yeah. I I would I think since we had this discussion in March, I have

taken more note of the site. Certainly like to pay attention to the viewshed from P's Road. One of the things that I kind of used as a benchmark was there's some large piles of uh earth materials out there. And when you go up on Littleton Road and look down towards Bell in that site, I don't think the viewshed is impacted that greatly up on Littleton Road, but much more so along P Road where all of our um community participants came from tonight. Um so I certainly would like to see some focus paid on that viewshed. Um, I had some concerns back in March about what it would be on Littleton Road, but kind of haven't done my own independent look. It's that's minimal. Um, maybe the board wants to conduct a site visit so they could witness firsthand the screening that exists now, how it might look. I think that would be good for the board to consider as a site visit. Um, I also I heard some comments, not necessarily from the board, about the amount of guest parking. Is that a concern for the board? Is that not a concern for the board? I'm concerned about two things. One, it is the guest parking for this site. make sure there's adequate guest parking, but I'm very concerned about what's going to spill over uh from the adjacent site and impact the ability of this site to meet parking needs. I mean, with the other site charging a fee, that's my one concern. Go on, Dylan. I have a question regarding that proposed site visit. So Jeeoff, am I understanding this right? You'd like the board to go and observe the site from P Road to try to gauge the screening of what a fivetory building might look like

from P Road. Well, not so limited, but I think it would be helpful for a sense of perspective like what exists now for P road. You know, looking at the adjoining properties. I just think if if we're concerned about screening, I think it makes sense to take a look at what is there and, you know, how that might be impacted, you know, by the various options there before the board. I don't I don't disagree. I I think what could be appropriate if the applicant um would like us to consider five stories is perhaps they could arrange for something like a balloon test where you can put an object in the sky 55 or 60 ft high so that when we're doing that sitewalk we can actually see what that would look like from that vantage point because I think it's going to be hard looking at a site from P road to try to imagine what 50 ft high looks like from hundreds of yards away. Yeah, you beat me to the punch, Dylan, because I was just going to bring up the fact that we did the balloon test for the communications tower up on Kai's um road back 22 years ago and flying a few balloons for a couple of these buildings. I think we have to do more than one balloon. I would suggest, you know, maybe picking the corner of each of the buildings somehow and flying a balloon for that end of the building would let you see from different perspectives cuz there are going to be slightly different uh clear lines of sight through the development out to the various viewpoints out on P road. So, if we could fly some balloons and tag them or something, that might be a good way to make that observation during the walk. So I don't know what the applicant is or is not willing uh to commit to but um just for the sake of conversation u given that this is still could be preliminary or not you

know I I think multiple corners I think it might be enough to get a sense of here's a building here's a balloon um we do the the three close just a couple of them to show you I think we can figure it out okay you don't need to see the one in the back you need to see the ones in the front. Yeah. However many balloons we can do, I think it makes sense. Okay. And I I think I just add I think seeing that it would get it would be very helpful. The other question I have is that I noted that you at some point in the in the huge package there was information about kind of to correct the line of sight on P road. Um, is that correct that you were going to actually like cut back the banking to um straighten out the line of sight? Just to verify, I don't think we need to. No, that the sight lines that are currently provided meet actually exceed what's required for safe operation. What we showed was that the sight lines that are available lie entirely along the frontage of the property or within state highway layout. So that was the purpose of the drawing was just to show that the sight lines don't cross private property. Okay. Okay. Okay. So one other thing um and you know in your in your landscape plan, one thing that I I note is um that you know you do I mean you do have a lot of landscaping and I I noticed that this time of year now obviously everything's in bloom. You know obvious in the winter it's a piece of cake to to see. Um, so I do think it might be worth another look too while we're there um to kind of, you know, sit there at the end of of West Mitch. I know the entrance isn't exactly the same location, but and and actually for us to actually observe those lines. I think it would be helpful.

All right, Jeffrey, sorry. Can I ask a self I don't want to pass this opportunity up with all our peer reviewers here. So I don't know if and it doesn't have to be tonight but you know we've heard a lot of references to cornerstone square which is you know commercial development and the backing up whether it's perpendicular or angle that might be suggested here. Do you feel the same way about a development like that versus an all residential development? Do you have the if you have concerns, is it the same level or do you feel differently or is it too late for you to even think about that tonight? I just want to I got to ask cuz you know you're here. So, but it can be for another time. I'll go first. I haven't got the I haven't got the send help message yet. So, it's coming. I'm Kids are probably asleep though by now. Um, I think in a general sense of, and I think I mentioned this before, that difference between angle and perpendicular in terms of the safety of getting in and out is not really going to be any different. That doesn't mean it's not perfectly safe. Doesn't mean it's not not safe. It just means that those being angle is not really going to change the fact of because angle has a benefit too versus the perpendicular of like I said was it's somewhat easier to get out because you're already at the you don't have to make a full 90° pivot. You only have to make a 30°ree pivot at coming out for instance. So in in that sense, I think it's more of how what kind of spacing is the whole entire drive aisle versus where those parking are versus what you expect to be on the road. And like I mentioned earlier, that's kind of really the issue that you would be seeing if there is going to be an issue. Um, in terms of what the comparison would be to to cornerstone and the difference between that and what this would be, I I would generally sense is the amount of traffic that you would see on the main drag is probably going to be more in cornerstone. uh just because what's in there that development

generates a lot more trips than this would ever do on a typical day. Um that's not to say that this is going to be a large number here. Just means compared to Cornerstone and what you're dealing with there and everybody driving in um they're in a rush. They don't live there and that's a big part of it. The people who are going to be driving here, they live here. They don't want to they're going to be the person who's going to be walking the next time, too. So that does play a factor into it. They are going to generally drive favor with raised cross and things like that. 15 mph not an unreasonable speed to expect on here, especially when there's multiple crossings where if you only have one, you pass the first one, you step on the gas and then you pick up the speed, you've lost. You can't do that if there's multiple. Um, so I think in the general sense when you compare to cornerstone, I think all the items of it's to me it's more about the size of the vehicles that would be in there. Although I do disagree and I think somewhat what was said earlier, you can't just make them all compact too because one, you need a you need con compliance with that and if you don't have enough spaces for everybody else and no one has a compact car, what are you going to do then? Then they're just going to park wherever still, right? So it's just the nature of how people are going to drive and people are going to find the easiest way. Um so and not even to say that what's the vehicle fleet going to be in the future? Is it even going to be compact cars? Even when we see things like electric vehicles, you assume they're going to be smaller and then you look at the side of a truck and it's not. So, it's just a matter of you try to make the the vehicle fleet is only like 15% or lower compact car anyways. So, trying to make anything that's really anything larger than that would not even be something that people would use. Uh, rightly so. So I think it's all about where you are with that spacing on the roadway itself, how much you would expect people to um over overlap into the roadway. And again, although what you had mentioned, it only takes one to

do that. So um so I think if there's if there's a trade-off for it'd be different if obviously in this side there was a trade-off for how many parking spaces we had already on the site and what you could then do where now how many angle parks you have. are the odds on parallel on street instead. Um I think we are under the zoning requirement at the moment. Um I think that is one of the waiverss being asked for. Right. So um so we don't necessarily want to get rid of more species either at least for the unit count that's on here. So um it might be as much as maybe the benefit becomes the main d drive bile becomes somewhat wider. Doesn't mean it needs to be 30 wide. It just means what are we looking at in terms of total width? How does it compare to the current zoning ordinance for the overlay district? Are the requirements against that for going bigger because you want it to be that actual tight urban view as well. So you're kind of balancing you almost can't have one without the other. Um so you have to trade which one is actually the thing you want to look at uh more or just become that is the if it is a width requirement or the effective width in the sense are you adding shoulder lines um in there saying that you want to I'm just saying options so even if you did widen out you put a shoulder line in the effective width of the roadway becomes still the same but then you maybe have more space for any overlapping um so in that sense I I think in a safety sense it's it's regardless of what type of parking you have there. I think it's no not really any different. So it then becomes just a question of do you have the parking? Okay. So thank you. So Mr. Chair, I think we've got a lot of information tonight and I know it's late. Um, and I think that Jeff has taken some of the most important information, but it sounds like the most important critical piece at this point is the site visit with the balloon test in order to design to drive the height of these structures because without clarity as to the special permit as to

the height, we can't proceed with the actual site design. Uh, it's critical in moving forward with dots and flicker and tie and bond and to some extent TEC. So, I would suggest that we try to schedule a site visit very quickly. um and then come back to your June 16th meeting um and have a discussion as to where we are. Um and we can try to address the other concerns during that time as well. Uh because you can tell me if I'm wrong, board members, but it doesn't sound like you're in a position right now to tell us whether or not you're comfortable with fivetory building. So that would be my suggestion to the board. We can schedule some time with your staff and circulate some dates and times and see how quickly we can get a balloon out there. I'm not sure if we need any other specific direction tonight other than that critical issue. Um we understand the issues with the parking, the angle parking, the we understand this the concerns about uh bell and the guest parking whether it's adequate. So we'll look at all of those issues because they seem to be the driving force on whether or not the height is okay. You got to stand up to the microphone. So I think if you're also if it's I think we can address the parking issue as well. If we don't go to the five stories and we go to four we don't need as many parking spaces we can go to parallel park. You didn't address the units the number of units. So is that out of play? Are you No, no, no. So shouldn't that be one of the key issues besides just parking and stuff that 500 maybe a little bit too many for the area? So that's part part of the consideration and part of the consideration with the height certainly. Um, all right. Anybody have anything else? I get a motion to continue this matter 505 37 Powers Road to our next meeting June 16th. Did you want to discuss a site visit scheduled? We'll

have to schedule that. I think we'll have to do that offline. Yes. Okay. Uh, please be We're not done. Uh, in this room 2011 at 7:00. Second. All in favor? Bob. Hi. Darren. Hi. Dylan. Hi. Y. Hi. Thank you. Uh, everyone. Thank you very much for coming. Um, we'll meeting again on the 16th. Questions, you can email to staff at the planning board. Um, we'll try to address those questions and keep your eyes open for agenda items. Also, thank you to our consultants for coming. Yeah. Thank you very much. Dylan with an I and Dylan with a Y. All right. So, uh, moving on to Dylan and still here. We don't have any correspondence. All right. Motion to return. So, second. All in favor?