Planning Commission - Special Meeting

Ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the August 17th, 2026 meeting of the Westport Planning and Zoning Commission special meeting. And as you may have noticed, pursuant to state law, there is no physical location for this meeting. This meeting is being held electronically and live streamed at westportct.gov. And the meeting is also being shown on Westport's Optimum Government Channel 79, which is subject to availability. The public, of course, may attend and offer testimony during the meeting by using the meeting link published on the agenda prior to the meeting. And our meeting agendas are always available at westportct.gov on the meetings list and calendar webpage. Your written comments, if received for the public meeting by 12 p.m. on the day of the meeting, will be distributed for consideration by members of the Planning and Zoning Commission. And of course, any written comments received after 12 p.m. on the day of the meeting will be entered into the record, but not distributed until the next business day. All of our meeting materials, everything that we use, everything you can read is available at westportct.gov on the Planning and Zoning Department webpage under Planning and Zoning PNZ Planning Application and Recent Approvals. So again, my name is Paul Leibowitz. I'm the chair of the Planning and Zoning Commission, and I'm welcoming this evening Commissioners Michael Kammeier, Bree Injeske, Patrizia Zuccaro, Michael Calise, and Craig Schiavone, and I'm expecting also both our alternates, Nicole Laskin and Michael Vellante. Of course, joining us is Michelle Pirelli, who is our Planning and Zoning Director. um so brie if you'd like could you take us into work session which is first sure and then item number one on our agenda tonight is the approval of the minutes from july 6th july 13th july 20th and july 27th 2026. okay uh commissioners has everybody read it and does anybody have any changes seeing none i motion for them to be approved i will second that all right all those in favor say aye aye

Aye.

Thank you very much. Okay, Bree, what's next?

All right. Item number two on our agenda is the pre-application discussion of proposed developments at 606 Riverside Avenue, application number PZ2600524. Time allotted for the pre-application is 20 minutes.

All right, great. And this is Mr. Adam Blank.

Yes, sir. Thank you. Good evening, Adam Blank, Land Use Attorney on the project. With me is Celan Pather from Byam Field Architecture. He's going to give you a brief update on the architectural changes since the last time we were in front of you. After Celan presents, I'm going to talk with you a little bit about a our revised affordability options, and hopefully we can have a discussion on what makes sense on the affordability component of the project. Matt Edwardson from the developer Spinnaker is also with us tonight. I expect he'll jump in on that discussion and can also answer other questions that you may have. I believe Rick Redness, who is also assisting on the project, may also jump in with comments. over the course of this evening. With that very brief introduction, let's jump into it with Celan. Thank you. Good evening, everybody.

Adam, can you hear me? Yes. Thank you. Good evening. My name is Celan Palta-Federico, Principal of Bindfield Architecture. I'll share my screen. I want to go quickly here to give Adam and Matt some time to go over some important stuff. All right. So this is a very similar presentation to large overall buildings as we've done before. This is what we presented to ARB. It was fairly positively received. We focused here mainly on the changes that we've made. We discussed both with you and ARB and a couple of new ideas. So we left this image in. We can come back to refer to it. This is what is existing today. we were making the point with ARB that we think the adjustments we have made are improvements over the last three meetings with them, they agreed, but that's the context. There are no significant changes to this first floor plan. We discussed before that we made a change to this corner on Charles and Riverside to create a pocket park. We're looking for a sister pocket park on Riverside and Railroad. I'll show you that at the end of this slide deck. But larger point being that this first floor plan is unchanged. So on this, this is now the fifth floor plan. We made the point before that we had set the fifth floor plan back further than it was before. Yes, I will make those points again, but you can see how this building essentially layer cakes from four floors to the fifth floor plan and then again to the penthouses that are the loftiness of the sixth floor right now. On the next slide. What I'd say about this is that the massing of the building has remained largely unchanged. We've made an effort to reduce, increase the setbacks and reduce the height. I'll show you that we've reduced the height. Mr. Chairman, you asked us to look at it last time, we did. but the massing of the building hasn't changed. However, inside the building, we're playing with the unit mixes and how big the units are, and that will yield a unit count between 150 and 160, 140 and 160, depending on what our mix is. But there isn't a set unit count right now. Can you start? Mass that unit count? All right. So that massing that we presented you before consistently over the last couple of meetings after the change to setback, that's the massing that we'll have now with the reduced height. This is the loft level. We made the point before that we had eliminated units on the sixth floor. This allowed us to pull all these units in and create relief on the edges of the building so that the higher mass is contained further away from the roads, which was the design intent from the beginning. ARB asked us to look at detail on the materials that we were going to use. We got into a lengthy discussion with them on what those should be and what those could be. This slide shows that. It shows that we're thinking of traditional materials, weathered materials, high quality, with most of the buildings being either a carpet siding, a shingle-style siding, or brick. One change that potentially can come out of this is this corner building might turn to a shingle, That was the very end of our ARB meeting. And depending on how this meeting goes and our next steps, we will consider changing this corner building to shingle. The couple members of ARB just thought that that would help the composition. But I think overall, we're happy with the material choices as high quality. This is the elevation on Charles Street that you've seen before. I think we came to consensus that although there was a comment of breaking this up, that this was the right architectural approach. We reinforced that point by showing these buildings. I'm sure you know all of these. These two just happen to be, this one happens to be directly across from our site, and this one at Long Railroad Place. And the idea here is to show that there's a history of the factory aesthetic with brick facade, in this immediate vicinity. And we're tapping into that. We think it's appropriate. And that's the way we spoke about our composition here. And I think it was well received. This is the overall section. I think we showed you this before. Sorry, I know we showed you this before. This is new. This was to show site sections, to show them how the massing steps back from the road, and also show light and air into the buildings. The zoning that Adam will uh has has suggested has a height control that limits the buildings on the edges of the site closest to the road including our site we're including ours um to 30 5 30 foot for factory from 35 foot for pitch roof along railroad place and around franklin and that as you can see allows for light and air into the new apartment building And here's that layer cake concept that's reinforced in these massing diagrams. Again, the design intent was to step these buildings back from the street and have the master building where it belongs, mostly internal, to that block, the block defined by Franklin Charles from a certain railroad. So this is a cut through looking at this railroad place. This is Charles. Here's a freeway. This is cut the other way. Here's a river on the right. There's Franklin on the left. There's an existing building. This is that parking lot, there exists an open parking lot. I realize often we should have put a building in here to show the zoning implications of if someone built here, but it's the same concept. That box would be 30 foot in a flat roof, 30 foot at a pitch roof, which will allow light and air. And here's, again, that massing. diagram showing that on Riverside these buildings are lower. Here's the mass of the building at the back. This section is just cut through the heart of one of the legs of the building through here and that's why it looks so high. It's cut right through here. So that mass that you're seeing is over 30 feet away from the property line and close to 40 foot away from the street line. Although that that this mass looks high. It's much further back from the street. Here's a height study, Mr. Chairman, that we're looking at. We made a conscious effort to drop the height. The purple or cyan indicates where we are now. The blue is where we were last time we met with you. And this green outline here is the 21 Charles, the building next door. This is the penthouse of 21 Charles here. So ignore this. This is where the antennas and so on go up. But this is the roof of the penthouse here. I said to you, I represented to you before that we were even or just a little bit above that penthouse level. And we took a little bit out of every floor of our residential units. And we're working with the garage heights and we believe we can get three foot out of the building. That's what that number represents, which allows us to be two foot eight approximately below that 21 child's upper floor. So the short story there is that we dropped the building height. We want to run one more idea about you, and this is a placemaking idea. When we were talking to ARB, they really liked the idea, I think you did also, that we created this plaza at the corner of Charles and Riverside. And Spunica happens to control, well, not happens, but controls this series of buildings all the way up to this alley. If you've walked us out, I'm sure you have, you know where that alley is next to Tarantino. And we were suggesting that in order to continue this idea of activity along the street, turning around onto Riverside, and instead of waiting for the release point to happen at Charles and Riverside in terms of a public space, we said, if we get this project going, and our purchase is defined up to this property line right now, everything north of it, there's an opportunity, there will be an opportunity to potentially take the house that's on this corner and here, up at this line, and move it backwards. Literally move that, do a little bit of work on it. The facade is what's important. That's this house here. This one right here. Take that one, move it backwards, and create a plaza in this area. And if we do that, it creates an opportunity maybe to put retail in here. We're thinking about that as well and create a plaza that bookends a facade on Riverside. And because of that, creates a extension of the activity on railroad place. That would be a nice addition, potential addition. And this is what it could look like. That's where we finished with Airbnb, and this is where I'll finish with you, saying that if we have this plaza, here's our building, here's the architecture, here's the port story built into the roofline and how it continues down the facade that faces River Place and how it sits above the existing retail, we create something here, and you've seen this before, and we create something in the corner of Charles and Riverside, maybe we have something. in terms of placemaking, we'll have something that's better in terms of placemaking. And that's where we are. Adam, is there anything else you wanted me to hit?

I think that covered the changes. So unless there's questions right now for Celan, maybe we'll talk a little bit about affordability.

Sure. Commissioners, anybody want to have questions regarding what the Bindfield Architects is showing us? Yeah.

Can I ask a quick question? Maybe I missed something. What we're looking at right now on screen, we haven't seen that corner before, right? Or wrong?

Correct. You have in renderings and so, but you haven't seen this treatment where we opened it up to a plaza.

So you're opening, potentially, the concept is to open this up to a plaza. But the buildings that we're seeing right here, you're building the, I thought you didn't have that. That's not the property we're talking about.

And yeah, that's why I tried to, Matt can jump in at any time, but I'm saying to you that. Although it's not part of this application, Spinnaker controls these properties. Oh, gotcha. So now we're talking about... Sorry, I'll just qualify this. It's also why I was saying that when there's a height limitation on these buildings to allow for them to remain at the scale they are, or scale that's allowed right now, so that the scale along the streets... is kept low and that's the design intent, it's also limiting Spinnaker's properties. Matt, do you want to explain that a bit more, maybe, in terms of ownership? Sure.

Good evening. Matt with Spinnaker Real Estate Partners. As Dylan did a good job explaining, we do control it, but via contract, unlike 606, which is the kind of the application or the pre-application we're talking about today, that parcel, that 16 railroad place is controlled via Spinnaker or an affiliate of Spinnaker by a contract that has a kind of outside closing date a while out. But we would have every intent, you know, for kind of if our 606 application is looked upon favorably, and if you guys like this, this concept that ceiling is used today to. Kind of proceed with that and potentially kind of submit a separate separate kind of site plan application for for these improvements on 16 real place.

You go back to that picture. Thanks. How far back does that the. Wait, the area, the open area again?

So we figured, yeah, we figured we could get that to be about 30 feet. 40 feet from the edge of the road, 30 feet from the property line.

But is the whole brown shaded area, that's all open? This is all open, yes. Okay. on the left-hand side of the adjusted house footprint? What's in that open space?

So there's a lot of work to be done to think about how these buildings connect, right? Because there are two tenants here. There's a tenant here and a tenant here. But the big picture idea was if we want to improve this, we have to do some work on the exterior facade of this building. Maybe this facade opens up the back here, and that gives that retail an option to spill out to that plaza. And that maybe the height change, because if you've been back there, you know that this has got a higher level for a service deck, higher than the parking, adjacent asphalt parking. Maybe you can get down from Tarantino to a back deck and then change grade inside this house footprint, for example, to get down to this plaza. So there's a few options there. I would agree.

Ideally, it opens up some more possibilities for a business like Tarantino's to have more outdoor dining beyond just a couple of parallel spaces along railroad. But there's a lot of kind of infrastructure things that would have to get work through back of house storage behind there and kind of just internal circulation from their restaurant to that backside. But we'd love to kind of be able to present that to them and see if there's a way to turn that into something more than back of house.

And Tarantino's where the mouse is right now? No, no. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Oh, that's my mouse. Sorry. Okay. All good. Thank you, guys.

I have a quick question about the house that you want to move back there. That's somebody who currently lives there. What's that being used for?

I think it's primarily storage. The current property owner, I think, is using it for some storage, but I could be mistaken there.

I'm sorry.

No, go ahead.

I was just going to say, why is there a need if it's only being used for storage to move that back just so that the current owner has more storage? But if you're going to take over that property at some point, it would be nicer to have a bigger open plaza there and not have that house there.

Maybe I'll let you kind of correct me if I'm wrong, but I think it's nice to maybe have kind of three faces, three sides of that courtyard of activity, and that house would be kind of repurposed for some type of activity that would spill out into the courtyard as well.

Okay. Yeah, and we ran with the idea at the beginning as a central design concept. We said that even though Spinnaker controls this corner, we thought that leaving that corner as is, as it's been for 100 years or whatever it was, is an identifier for the area. And let the corner turn the way it turns today, and we just improve it. So that moving the house back reinforces that idea. Understood.

And you're saying that that area that was marked as amenity would possibly be used for retail?

Yeah, we've got a few moving parts here. We're figuring out grade and so on. And Matt was just saying literally today that maybe these two spaces go away and then this could become a better retail space in Spallage here.

Okay, that's it for now. Thank you. I like the look of this plan. I think it's definitely an improvement on what's there.

Thank you, Nicole. Other commissioners?

Paul, can I ask you a question? You're asking me a question? Yeah, because you're going to remember this. Craig, hold on one second. Did we have sightline issues with that corner in the last iteration that we were kind of toying with? No.

Okay, cool.

That was it. And then one thing I'll offer up, sorry to interrupt, but this rendering takes some liberties there. And that sidewalk in front of the corner building there is probably about a third of the size of what's depicted there. But we would happily have that conversation with the town if it made sense. Kind of a better access from 606 to the train station would serve our future residents and the neighborhood. I'm happy to collaborate on that. Good point, Matthew.

Craig, did you have something you wanted to ask?

Yes, I have two questions. Could you go back to the Charles Street rendering?

This one?

Yes. There were stairs and stoops.

Yeah, that's that one.

That's that one?

Yep.

Yes, yes. And what are the... Has that been changed since the last time we saw this?

No, I mean, it changed two meetings ago. That's what I think.

Okay.

Yeah, and last time I showed you this celebration.

Okay, so it's evolved.

The only thing we added was... Yeah. And the only thing we added was the materials to show the Airbnb.

Okay, that's what I was concerned about. Second question. I'm just don't know how you figured it out. Environmental remediation of the cleaners site. How are you handling in that? I don't know, you may have covered it before, but I'm sure you're handling it, but how is that going and who's funding it? Does it need to be completely remediated? Are you capping it?

Matthew, before you jump into that, do you have a presentation on that? Because that's a whole separate category under itself. Do you have new information you want to give us there? Otherwise, we can finish with the architectural stuff.

Yeah, we have, we can answer, I can answer the question, but we don't have anything prepared or any presentation material.

Okay, go ahead and answer it then.

Thank you. Yeah, so the grade, the existing grade of the site kind of slopes up from Charles to Railroad Place. And although our first level is approximately meeting the grade of Charles Street, there will be some soil removal required for this project, and that will obviously be handled according to all regulations. Deep in EPA requirements, and similarly, there'll be a licensed environmental professional kind of involved to make sure we're kind of beyond that soil excavation that any hot pockets of contamination required to be removed because of the historical uses do get removed. And there will probably be some kind of engineer control cap and land use restriction to make sure any other soils that aren't required to be removed based on the proposed uses. are inaccessible and aren't causing any further issues.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Other commissioners? Anybody want to weigh in on the architectural side while we have Mr. Patter here? All right, I do. I have a couple of things I want to add to you. So first things first, just as a general observation, I do like the changes and the direction, I should say, that you're heading in here, because obviously you heard us the last time. And I know you're going to talk about the units, so we'll get to that in a minute. And we'll talk about the size of the units, the affordability component, et cetera. But I like that you're paying more attention to the Riverside retail side of it. It looks like you're addressing some of the upper floor massing changes here. Those are all good directions. Adding terraces and setbacks is always good. We like to see that. It adds interest to the entire thing. The additional plaza is, I think you're absolutely on to something here. But I do want to caution you about, you know, whether or not a building stays or goes because, you know, you do have... You do have historic preservation issues from that corner as it wraps around and the buildings that are there. I do like your offer to possibly re-radius the corner and address the sidewalk. All good stuff, really is. What I'm interested in hearing from you is what you think... I mean, when I first looked at this, it seemed to be an apartment building with a couple of retail establishments attached to it. But now it actually looks like you're getting serious about the streetscape on Riverside, which is absolutely uppermost in my mind. How does this look to the people on the ground? Obviously, you are sensitive to it because you've pushed back upper floors. But I'm also interested in how it looks to people on the ground, how much retail you can put in there and truly make it a viable part of that community and things that are needed within that community. And opening up this space, you know, I like the rendering. I don't know if that's possible. It's a nice picture, but God only knows if you can actually accomplish that. I doubt if the alley is that wide. And I really want to see you address things like the trash. I believe you had the trash remediation back there, etc. So we're still going to need to know answers to those kind of questions. But from what I can see, this is all heading in the right direction. But obviously, we need to still talk about the big room in the elephant, and that is the affordable portion of it. So if nobody else has any questions about the actual building itself, why don't you jump into that?

Sure. Sure. So at the last meeting, obviously, there was a lot of discussion on affordability. And what I think we've tried to make you cognizant of is that To some degree, that's going to be tied to the unit count that they sort of run in tandem together. And we know that there was a desire for a lower unit count and a higher percentage of below market rate units than what we originally pitched. So we really did try to take a look at how we could keep the project feasible and reduce the unit count and increase affordability. We tried to work with the numbers a bit. But also, I think one of the ways that we came up with, I think, a couple of viable paths was by consolidating units, creating larger average size units. So as you just heard from Celan, since the last time we were here, there's really not a dramatic change in the building's massing or its size. But what we are now proposing, and I'll put some stuff up on screen in a second, but we are now proposing on cutting down on the number of those smaller units and increasing larger size units, which that in and of itself does potentially allow for some additional retail at the street frontage on Riverside. And it does help us increase the percentage of below market rate units. I'll share screen. Are you able to see those two affordability scenarios? Sure do. Great. So we've kind of pitched for you two options, and it's slightly different, even slightly different than what was in our materials that you may have received in advance of this meeting. So one option is 20% affordable at 80% of SMI. And The other would be 10% at the 80% SMI with 10% at your workforce. And I will just point out, though, we had run our numbers at 120% of AMI, but we could deal with making that 110% of AMI, which matches up with your workforce housing regulation, workforce housing definition. So under the one scenario, you get 20% of the market rate units would be affordable at 80% SMI with 158 total units. So you're getting 132 market, 26 affordable, 158 total units. We can bring the unit count down to 140, but if we bring it down to 140, the tradeoff is that instead of 20% at 80% SMI, it's 10% at the 80% SMI and 10% at your workforce, which, you know, this is what that is. looks like. You get 23 affordable units for 140 total. Again, the affordable is of the market rate units. I know in most of your zones, your affordable is done of the total. In the zone that we're in now, and I know that it's all changing, but you do use 20% of the market rate units. And that is a way for us to make this work at 20% with 20% of the market rate units. The only other point that I want to make on the affordability scenario is that there is, as was discussed, some contamination and some remediation that will be necessary. We are hoping to obtain a brownfield grant that will help cover some of the costs related to the remediation, which will be extensive. But we're not sure that we're going to get that grant. And so if we get the grant, we're The proposal I just gave you is the proposal that we're comfortable with. If we're not able to get that grant, then we would want to have the ability to still give you the 20% of below market rate units, but to let the developer elect which units would be below market, which would be smaller units. It wouldn't be an even mix of studios, one bedrooms and two bedrooms. It would skew towards those smaller units. So those are our two proposals. We're hoping that one or both is acceptable and open to discussion on them. And I think that's sort of it for our pitch on the affordability. Okay. Commissioners, you've heard their pitch. And is it easier if I leave the share up or take it down? Whatever is best for you guys. We'll let whoever's asking the questions.

I just have the first question I have for you is that why does the cost of environmental remediation determine the number of affordable units?

Well, if... If you just in just very broad picture here, if you were doing all of the units at market rate and you had no contamination remediation costs, right, that would be a cheaper development to make with a higher return. The more affordable units you put in, the lower your return is. If you, on top of that, have to spend millions of dollars on remediation, that can make a project not feasible. There's not a tie between the unit size and remediation. It's just that there's costs and there's benefits. If we're going to have to pay for the remediation without a grant, then if we're going to still try to provide 20% affordable, smaller units lets us do that.

And did you go through the previous materials that we were looking at on this particular site in terms of remediation? And if so, what's your estimate of the cost?

I'll let Matt speak to that. Yeah, we have those reports, and we've reviewed them. Our LAPs reviewed them. We do have an estimate, but we're kind of still refining it as we kind of figure out where the, as we're kind of playing around with the height of the basement. There's still a few variables there, so it's kind of a rough estimate at this point.

Do you have any doubts that the brownfield grant will be obtained?

It's conditionally available, but there's a lot of government programs that are aiming to solve one thing. There's a lot of other requirements associated with it that, given the location of the site and some other things, may be a challenge to accomplish. So we're working through some of those as we kind of in parallel to talking to you folks.

And how deep into those conversations are you?

We have some experience on other projects that have been dealing with some issues within a flood zone using deep funds. And we're trying to get a determination whether there's a waiver for this site in particular.

And on those other, when you have that experience, did you end up reducing either the number of affordable units or the bedroom count or size of those units?

No, but there was a different kind of baseline affordability requirement.

It wasn't 20%.

Right, yeah, it's below what we're proposing here for sure.

Well, regardless of the percentage, I'm scratching my head, literally, trying to figure out why the affordable units take it in the shorts if the remediation costs a lot of money. You know going in. that this is a brownfield site. It's obvious. And so I would think that the overall plan, regardless of how many units are going to be put there, 140, a million and 40, you have to understand that we're not looking to tie the environmental to the number of affordable units that we get from here. Right.

And I'm just just to be clear that footnote there, it's not, it's, it's not, it's not dictating the difference between the 158 and 140. Um, it's, it's only applies if the, if the grant is not obtained, it allows kind of a, the, the unit mix, not the total number of units, but the unit mix of the 4 bolts to to very slightly.

What's our margin of error? How are you going to know that we're going to get a lot of one-bedroom or studio apartments versus two- or three-bedroom affordable units? How will you do that math?

I think it would skew mainly to studio ones if we did not receive the Brownfield grants. Okay.

So, and if you do receive it, tell me what that looks like. Because, and by the way, I heard, Adam, I heard you say that we tie it to market rate units. I don't think we do. Michelle, do we tie our affordable to market rate units or do we tie them to total number of units?

Michelle Crowley, Planning and Zoning Director. Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't know my video was up. We normally look at the 20% of the total units. The only case where we've done it tied to the market rate units was in GBDSM, where we did the percentage that way. But generally, every other reg is tied to the total number of units.

So gentlemen, why should this commission prefer a lower density alternative? What's in it for the town specifically to tie this to the total market rate units? I don't see why we should do that math. We don't do it anywhere else in town.

Well, I think I recognize you don't do it anywhere else in town. It's just a challenge here to really make that work with the concessions on unit count that we've made. I mean, if you want 220 units, yeah, sure, 20% of total unit count, we can make that work for sure. But we've tried to do all these step backs and we've tried to really cut back on the buildings massing and on the unit count. And something's got to give, right? We just can't keep cutting down and cutting down and cutting down and then say, you know, great, we'll add all of these other public benefits. We can do it at 220 units. Okay.

I have a question. You reduce the number of units, and my understanding is you increase the square footage of many of those units, but have you reduced the total square footage from your prior proposal of the building?

Only slightly. So it's fewer units, larger average unit size, slight overall reduction in square footage where we added some additional setbacks.

So basically, reducing the units reduces the demand or the 20% that we've asked for. I understand. Yeah, we maintain the 20%.

I just wanted to make that. Yeah, we maintain the 20% just on a lower total number of units for sure.

I understand. Matt, I should just add that the lot we... The last time we showed you the building, we didn't introduce mass from then. But the previous, we reduced the mass from that, where we changed all the sixth floor to lofts. That was a significant reduction on the upper floor.

Got it. Other commissioners who want to talk? These gentlemen would like our feedback.

Sure. I so I mean I'm looking at this so it's it's not 20 percent of the total units. It's closer to 16 percent of the total units is what you are offering for affordable in these scenarios.

DIRECTOR DEWOLF- Yes 16 to 17.

DIRECTOR HAMPSON- And it's still it's it's it's low and I'm not really seeing I'm not convinced that that is the best path forward here. I don't feel like you're offering a significant concession in this current plan to deviate significantly from what is required, especially when this is a conditional offer, when it's conditional on that Brownfield grant. Do you know when you would find out about whether you get the grant?

It's tied to shovel readiness, which is tied to having approvals and financing.

So not for a while. All right. So you would need our approval first before that would even go in. For me, it just seems too... It's not a concrete plan and it's a lower plan. And in the end, we could end up with a massive, just almost 100% residential and very, very little affordable housing. And it's only going to be smaller studios that are the affordable units. And so I'm just not, for me, this isn't working and this isn't, you know, the design of it and everything, you know, that's one piece of it, but I don't know that this, this adds up for me. I mean, personally, I would prefer a proposal that, you know, is more definite and that offers, you know, because, I mean, we do, we are, the reality is that we're faced with the 830G reality and we need to, you know, accumulate points aside from, you know, providing affordable housing and workforce housing And I think those are great, including the workforce, if you don't get the points for, but it needs to be meaningful. And I just don't think that this right now is meaningful.

I would just point out that if we went through kind of, I know no one likes to compare it to other towns, but there's no other town in the surrounding area that requires the 20%. Yet all those towns, for the most part, are providing more affordable housing. So if the goal is to provide more affordable housing, maybe the 20% is a burden as opposed to something that actually creates housing. It might restrict housing and affordable housing when you actually do an analysis. And our kind of second scenario that we presented there was comparable to one of the only other towns that actually gets close to 20%. And that's Greenwich, but it tears it 10% at the ETHES strategy level and 10% at what they deem affordable to the average town employee, which works out for them to about 110%. It basically works out to your workforce housing regulation.

Yeah, and I understand that. And I know that 20% could be discouraging more housing, but that's where we are. And that's the problem. That is our town's plan that we're working with.

Yeah, I understand. I'm just not sure it's actually creating the affordable housing you guys are looking at. If we can, just so we have concrete feedback as opposed to just, you know, kind of doesn't work. Does the, you know, if you ignore the, or if we unwound the percentage of market versus percentage of total or the skewing to smaller units, so the two options, you know, the, you know, 20% and 80% or the kind of tiered option, or, you know, if we just started there, do... Sure.

I mean, I think fewer units in general would be better than more units, just overall. That would definitely be my preference. And I think that, you know, as far as like affordability goes, I think workforce housing is an important thing for the town to have, even if it doesn't mean that we get the points for it. From my perspective, I would be okay with, you know, a trade-off on affordable if it means that it's fewer units overall. If you're affordable mix included workforce. But again, I just don't know that this mix, just given that we could end up with a bunch of like studios that are for workforce and for the affordable. And then I just don't know that that's what we want. So yeah. something more concrete and something that would not potentially leave us with a bunch of studios for workforce and affordable is going to be my strong preference for this project.

Great. Other commissioners?

I completely agree with everything Bree just said. I'm on the same exact page.

Could you go back to the slide you had with the number of units affordable, given the two different scenarios? Right, okay. So proportionally, these affordable units are not equaled out to the market rate units. And I didn't understand when Bree said, you know, there was an emphasis on efficiencies to make it more efficient, I'm sure. I had not understood that. And maybe you could walk through that again.

I guess, I'm sorry, can you maybe just rephrase that for me?

So when you weight this proportionally for... affordable units vis-a-vis the number and breakdown of units that you're building at Marketly? Is it going to be the similar proportion? Brie mentioned that you were talking about efficiencies rather than proportionate share of if there's two bedrooms, you know, we give them one two-bedroom if

yeah yeah do you do you understand me yeah adam you want to take that yeah sure go ahead matt yeah so the the between the two um if you if you the last footnote is the only thing that kind of changes the the the proportionality of the affordable to kind of market rate unit mix um and that only is proposed we're hearing hearing um feedback on it but that's only proposed in the event that the brownfield grant is not received which creates a kind of a burden, an additional burden on the project's economics. And thinking kind of environmental cleanup of contaminated sites in prime locations might be a public kind of benefit that maybe this is one way to help make the numbers work a little better, to skew them further. to a slightly smaller, same one-bedroom average unit, one-bedroom size market rate versus one-bedroom workforce would be the same. It's just the overall mix would skew smaller. But that only happens if the brownfield grant was not received. And if it was, it would be proportionate. And in scenario two, it would be proportionate and skewed even larger units compared to scenario one because overall the average unit size is larger and the mix is skewed larger.

So we really don't know what this project's going to look like until the brownfield grant is sussed out.

We're not saying that scenario one versus scenario two is subject to the brownfield. We're looking for you. Are you open to exploring one versus two? And if you like one better, we'll go with one. If you like two better, we'll go with scenario two. We were hoping. that there be some ability to, especially on the scenario two where the unit size is skewed larger and the gap between market rate and affordable is that much larger, that there might be some flexibility in the mix.

For me as a commissioner, it is difficult to make a decision or reach a comfort level until those numbers are all in. And, you know, we can say, okay, there's a first scenario and a second scenario, but we really don't know what it is. We're in limbo.

No, but we're not, we're not, these are, we're asking you to tell us, which, you know, Would you potentially, if it allowed us to reduce the unit count, would you be open to scenario two? And if so, we would happily kind of go down that path if there was consensus. We're not asking for you to give us optionality after you guys approve it that we can go scenario one or scenario two necessarily.

I like the reduction of unit count, but you're not reducing the square footage of the property or the density. And I'm not sure what my comfort level is. I understand the less units you build, the economically it's more efficient. You don't have to put in the most expensive elements in a unit, kitchen, bathroom, plumbing, all of that stuff. and the economics do change, but I don't know what we're getting as a town from it. And again, the Brownfield grant, which was a really substantive grant. And my understanding is we have it as a town. It's perhaps there's a lot of paperwork that goes with it to transfer it, but it's a substantive grant and it could change. It's clearly gonna change the economics of this whole equation.

So that is factored in, but there's not to get into too much nuance, but there's because the projects in a flood zone or portion of the properties in the flood zone. You know, when when the state gives out grant funds, they look to have the site designed to a 500 year flood. which is a significant higher burden than what zoning requires and then town requires. And that would change the plan itself. You would basically be, you won't get any retail. You'd be raising the whole site up, you know, much higher off the road than what's currently there. And we wouldn't want that. And I don't think the town would want that. So if that requirement stayed, my understanding is they provide waivers and maybe this location makes sense because such a small portion of the site gets clipped with the flood zone. It's not the whole site and it's not right on the waterfront. But we haven't gotten that feedback yet.

You know, as a commentator, I'll leave it at this for me. You know, I like what you've come back with in terms of design. I'm really, really happy with that. And, you know, the project, I think, is moving along. We obviously want to do a project down there along the lines of what you're talking about, but... I think the traffic impacts, which are really important, are not going to be as substantial as other projects we've looked at. The scale is still high, but... Perhaps it's livable down the road, but, you know, again, we keep on coming back to this affordable housing. I don't, you know, I would be in support of this project if we could, you know, cover... a proportionality that's equal to the number of units and the size of the affordable units, I would be concerned if you guys were going all with efficiencies. In terms of the brownfield money, that's a substantial chunk of money. And how does that impact necessarily the flood issues? How does that interrelate? Because you brought that up in kind of the same sense.

Because the state has, like I said, a lot of government programs have a lot of different strings attached and requirements that are trying to solve all the problems, not just the one that the environmental or affordable housing. They all come with other strings attached, hiring requirements, prevailing wage, those type of things. And flood is just one thing that the state adds on to their list when they're giving out their money.

Thank you. Craig, anything else?

That's it for now. Thank you.

Other commissioners? Sure, I'll jump in.

A few things that I just was thinking about. The environmental issues. What's the plan with the soil? Or the thought process, is it capping it? Is it removing it? What's the thought process there?

It's a combination kind of any, any soil that's that needs to be removed just based on the. The site plan itself will be characterized and removed appropriately. under an LEP supervision. And then that LEP will also tell us that if, you know, beyond that, there might be some pockets of kind of contaminated, kind of maybe highly vaporized stuff that needs to go based on the proposed use there. And we'll address that. And then beyond that, the building itself would serve as the cap with the vapor barrier and the engineer control and land use restriction and all that. So a combination to, you know, as a simple answer.

Okay. Remember to commissioners that this is a pre app. And so those, those details would definitely fall into the site plan special review. And one can assume. that since this is going to be a heavily scrutinized spot, that they're going to have to meet some rather rigid quantities for what they do. What they're looking for here is whether or not they can move forward with the pieces that they've just presented.

Right. And just, just thinking on environment, we clearly say we're going to kind of meet all the deep and EPA requirements. Um, if, if the town layers on or as anything beyond those requirements, you know, we'll, I'm not aware of it. We'll take a look. I know there's, there's some, you know, engineering had some drainage questions regarding that. We're, we're talking to that department on, on those issues.

Okay. Um, as it pertains to the, um, Workforce housing, I'm not sure there's much, you know, there's benefit to workforce. The actual numbers, 110% of AMI, I think the benefit to the town is to only dealing with SMI. You know, it's just, it's the state that we live in. It's the fact, it's the fact. There's nothing we can do about it. But to me, it's, we have to focus on SMI only. Um, in order to achieve whatever, you know, what we want to achieve as a town. Um, so that's where I stand in that court. Um, you know, just that we're as a planning zoning commission, we're tasked to buy by the state rules and that's kind of how I feel is that we should abide by, you know, looking at SMI and benchmarking against SMI only and not looking at. Um, no, and. I'm thinking about this as it feels like it's over 100 units per acre. So I'm just trying to make sure that, you know, with this explosion of density that the town benefits somehow from it. Then going to thinking about that, the public amenity space or the amenity space, is that open to the public? Like the plaza and whatnot, that would be open to the public?

The plazas would be open to the public.

Ideally, the restaurants or the businesses surrounding those plazas have some use. Obviously, those businesses would be open to the public.

When I was thinking about the picture you guys showed, it looked like the trash was right next to the plaza. Is that going to be... Maybe it should be, as you think about it, maybe mask it and make sure it doesn't smell? because then it would detract the usage of the plaza if it stinks of trash. Or if the trash is dragged in and out of there and it's a mess, if your intent is to build this nice space for the community and then the trash goes in and out of there, I mean, I'm assuming you don't want it like that either. Yeah, I get it.

Yeah. That'd be a combination of kind of improvements to make sure that ventilation is proper in the trash room, but also a maintenance plan where as the bins get dragged out, that they get cleaned up after themselves if there's any spillage. Makes sense.

So, yeah, those are my points on this topic.

Okay. Any other commissioners? Mr. Zuccaro, Mr. Calise. Any help for these gentlemen?

No questions.

Okay. Well, I'd like to just add a couple of things right here at the end. First of all, I do believe that this parcel can take on the density that you're looking for. It's right next to the train station. It's already got a high volume of commercial conditions. It's near 95. It's an existing mixed-use center. I think there's easily 45,000 to 50,000 square feet of older commercial parking structures down there. And while it is certainly environmentally complicated, I'm pretty sure that you can figure that part out. And so, you know, making sure that the density is, you know, if you're looking for that type of density, then we obviously as a town would want to be looking for what is the return to the town for going that large. And I think that tonight I certainly heard some additional things, and I think that's good. But I think you still need to put your thinking caps on when it comes to the units. I'm not comfortable giving a higher percentage of smaller units to an affordable group. than the market rate units. And I wouldn't want to be showing that as the cornerstone to our offering in the affordable arena. I mean, we're trying our best to be better than that here in Westport. You haven't talked about parking much, and I don't really care because I don't think this is the venue for it. We haven't talked a lot about traffic, even though that is certainly still a big part of this. And I'm not sure you probably have anything new to tell us there. I'm encouraged by the mixed use, by the increase in mixed use. I'm worried about what a pedestrian looks at when they walk Riverside and they look up at this building. What will they see? If they're going to see inviting restaurants, entrances to shops, stores, things that invite them to sit down, benches, squares. If they're going to see all of that, then we did our job right and you guys designed something of value to the town. If they're just seeing another apartment building with a few retail attached to it, it doesn't give that much back to the public that I would like to see. So public space, the planning of public space, very important down there. Sunlight, seating, landscaping. uh activity uses pedestrian circulation all of those really really important if we're going to do something let's do it right once um you know why would somebody who doesn't live there why should they come down think about that for just a moment what attracts them to the the area they're attracted now we want to continue that we don't want to interrupt it we don't want to ruin it for those who who use it now um I guess you've already talked about the upper story setback as much as we can. I think it's a non-issue. I don't think we can see it from grade level. And so I think you've done a good job there. And that's it. That's the best I could give you in terms of feedback. I haven't heard you talk much about the view from Franklin. And I'm a little worried about that back-end portion. As you walk up Franklin, there's still a lot of real estate there. And I don't know if you're just planning on having balconies and windows. So, again, it's something that I'll be looking for to see how that lays out in your final iteration if you choose to come back with a plan. And again, how does the public benefit from this? the, you know, from this iteration that you've presented to us. What's, you know, what fundamentally does the town gain? And that's it for me. Anybody else? So I'll throw it back to you, Matthew and Adam and Celan. Did we answer the questions you came to get answered?

I think we got your feedback. So I think you did as best as we can. I mean, I'm not sure that we had a uniform consensus, but it seems like, you know, there's a preference for even market or even units of unit size and closer to 20% of total units. We'll see what we can do with that feedback. Okay.

Let's keep moving the ball along, please. Can I just chime in for a second, Paul?

Sure. Guys, I want to say that just a thank you for continuing the pre-op process here. I think that we've never been in a position to have such a big development come as a pre-op like this multiple times. And I think it's very helpful. It might not be as quick as you want it and But I think it's helpful for us, and it's helpful for, you know, we're giving you a little bit of feedback here. So we just wanted to thank you for that.

Sure. Thank you guys, too, for participating with us in that.

Appreciate that. Thank you very much. Bree, do you have control of the agenda?

That I do. All right. We're on to agenda item looks like probably three, four, five, or three and four. Are we taking those two together?

Yes.

All right. So number three is municipal improvement, CGS section 824 at 70 North Avenue, application number PZ260084. And... Item number four is 70 North Avenue special permit site plan application number PZ2600275. DIRECTOR HERSEY- Very good.

And who's taking the lead on this. DIRECTOR DEWOLF- Good evening Mr. Chairman. Eric Barbieri Parks and Recreation Director. DIRECTOR HERSEY- Thank you. Thank you. With me tonight, I have Nick Quattrano, our park superintendent, Michael Ginta, who is our operations superintendent, and Mike Mahoney is also here from Moscow in case there was any other further information that you might need from him. My thanks to Michelle and Amanda for keeping track of some of the requests from the last meeting. So as you can see, there were a number of attachments to the proposal tonight. Four in all, I think, that we submitted. I'm happy to talk about whatever it is that the Commission wants to talk about. But, Michelle, if you could allow Mike Leginta to share his screen. He's on the call. I figured, Mr. Chairman, I'd just go through these documents. I'm not going to read them word for word into the record, but I figured I would highlight some of the things that we have worked on. Thank you. So one of the things that came up was just having a policy put together that is going to allow people to get these fields, use them, and then their responsibilities, any enforcement or ramifications if the rules and policies aren't followed. So I would like to point out that we do have a current field rental policy that exists. We're in the process of adjusting some of those policies. There's a lot of documents out there that I think needs to be cleaned up. I've spoken with... our Parks and Recreation Commission Chairman, and we are going to try to get to these things in September. But we do have a field policy in 2024 that does allow for after the top users, which basically exists of our Board of Education, Parks and Recreation, Continuing Ed, and then some of our sanctioned youth groups, we do allow outside groups to rent facilities. So none of this paperwork is specifically leaving out any rental or renter. They were referred to as outside groups in the 2024 meeting, but the Board of Finance was also looking for ways to increase revenue. So, you know, allowing groups to use fields is one way to bring in more revenue for the town. So moving right into this policy for use of town lighted fields, basically, One of the feedback, the significant feedback that came back was that we want to have monitoring of the use of the lights. So we are committing in this document, as you can see, under staff monitoring requirement that whoever is using the facility and using the lights will have to pay a fee to have one of our staff there to supervise, not just to make sure that the lights go off, but can supervise behavior in general. And as you can get down into responsibilities, you see that the organizations do have some responsibilities that they need to make sure that they're protecting the facility, picking up their garbage. making us aware of when their time is coming to an end, et cetera, et cetera. So we tried to make the organizer responsible for the proper use of our facility. There was also the demand for some enforcement. I will say that our existing field rental policy does have language in it currently that talks about any misuse of the facility. Organizations could lose their ability to rent our field, so that exists already. But we spelled it out a little bit more impactfully here on the specific town-led athletic fields form that basically they can lose their ability Ability to use the field and the lights that there could be some other fees involved if they don't follow the procedures correctly And that our staff will be there to to make sure that that's being enforced I think it's still up in the air and for the Commission to consider whether you want a staff member at every single field that has lights on and maybe some of the policies are for a certain amount of time, but I Given the fact that this technology does have timers set to it where you can turn fields on and off, to have a staff member sitting watching an adult softball game or soccer game, whatever it might be, seems a little bit, you know, it's something to consider as you guys go into considering what we're doing here. But certainly we want to make sure that the neighbors feel comfortable and that the rentals are going the way we want them to. So we're willing to have the, or at least propose that the organizer has to pay for that staff member to be there um at least at the beginning um so i think that was the as far as the use of the the lighted athletic fields specifically um so i'm gonna stop there before we go on to the other items and just see uh mr chairman if there's specific questions around the use policy very good okay commissioners

The use policy is a document that they presented to us. It's in our list of documents. Anybody have any questions for Eric on this? Mr. Barbieri on this? Yes, I do. Go ahead, Craig.

Sorry, Michael. Go ahead.

No, no. You first.

Okay. Have you thought about... limiting rentals to daytime use rather than nighttime use with the lights. And the only reason I would bring that up is because it is so sensitive to the neighbors. It may be kind of a last stop that we not rent out. during evening hours where the fields are lighted.

Yeah.

Have you considered that?

Yeah, I mean, I'm not putting that in the request. If this commission decides to limit the hours for certain groups or certain days, I think if a group is going to organize and raise, you know, $1.2, $1.3 million to make some significant improvements to a couple of our facilities, that we should try to get the maximum use out of it. But I do understand the neighbors concerns and that the Commission is listening to them. But this I have not reduced the use request, not that we couldn't talk about it in the future, but I have not reduced the use request at this time.

Just one follow-up. I liked the work you did on this and your attachments, and you codified them, and that was very, very helpful. One thing that was particularly encouraging to me, which you're kind of backing off and saying it may be unnecessary, is having somebody there through the whole game to make sure the lights are turned off on time. And as you mentioned in your proposal, trash is cleaned up, the fields are left in the right shape. And so I understand there's an expense associated with it, but... I really liked the idea when I read it.

Yeah, maybe. And maybe Craig, if I could, I didn't mean what I meant by limiting the time was, you know, maybe we, we fully staff these rentals for the first year and then we reevaluate whether or not staff is necessary or something. I certainly, I think we need at the beginning to make sure that the groups are fully understanding their responsibilities and we're making sure that the lights go off. I didn't mean that we would be leaving in the fifth inning of a seven inning game. We also talked about in the past that there could be, a roaming supervisor that goes around. I know some people like that for budget purposes, but they didn't like it for other reasons. So certainly something that I'm willing to Talk about what the best policy is. This particular draft of policy is talking about having a staff member that is paid for by the renter to be there for the duration of their event, at least for the first X amount of time, whatever the commission feels comfortable with. And maybe there's not a set amount of time. Maybe they think that should be in perpetuity.

Okay. And segueing into the idea from there, I like the proposal that you were going to put up. And I don't know if you're calling it an advisory committee, but pull together a committee that will be reviewing, you know, how this is working in the first year. And I thought that was great.

Thank you. Yes. I mean, that was kind of like the last document we're getting into. That is something that was part of a the stipulated agreement with the last go-around with lights. And so we kind of dusted that off and took a look at it and thought that it could serve a good purpose and have a venue and a place for people to go if they felt like there was some issues. So we would be in full support of that committee, yeah.

Thank you. Thank you, Craig. Other commissioners?

I'll chime in for a minute on this. Just so... In other applications, we've said do something one way and then after a year, let's reevaluate. I understand we're saying, are we going to hire a babysitter to turn the lights off and charge the user of the field, whether it's the soccer program or the lacrosse program, if it's some resident's Playing soccer, you know, and remember commissioners, every field, like different rules, different fields. So maybe on one field, we don't do that. Another field, we do do that. But maybe it's like, hey, if you bust the rules, you're going to do this. And if you bust the rules again, you're never getting a permit again. You know, something where it becomes more severe. And maybe for the first X number of six months, whatever it is, or first season, we have to have somebody there just, you know, because there's protocols in place and then you train the people and then hopefully the people can abide by the rules and if they don't, big permits are pulled. But, you know, so my take on it is I like in concept, but like, do we need a babysitter to do this? Maybe, maybe not. I don't know. If everybody's, you know, responsible residents, maybe we don't need a babysitter. But that being said, you know, some of the fields currently are left on from time to time. And that's, you know, we know we have a problem. I mean, that we don't want lights on if there's no one on the field. So just on that topic, that's my general feedback, that I think we can phase things in and out. And you should have the flexibility to do that. You know, in this way, people can prove that, you know, hey, we're off the field early. We're going to, you know, let you know. So you can turn, you know, or let, you know, whoever the responsible party is know that, hey, we're off early. Let's shut them down. Yeah. We pause there. You know, we're going to talk about an enforcement committee or what you're going to talk about. Just have the right people on the committee. I should be smooth. You should be fine. Okay.

Anything else? No. Other commissioners? Anything to add, Nicole?

I had a quick question. I don't know if this is upcoming in your presentation or not, but I think we had asked for some more of an explanation about usage of all the fields and which fields in town are actually being used and which aren't and why not. I think there had been a point made about us having So many fields per 10,000 people in town or something per thousand people. And I'm just curious if you did any legwork on that.

No, I have to tell you, and I'm going to try to put this the right way, but I think at some point the commission has to trust the professional staff that we are telling you the truth when we get requests from youth groups and outside groups saying, That we just don't have fields to give them. And they've come and spoken on these commission meetings and said, we need more fields. We need more time. We're turning kids away. The fields are being used. In fact, I just, you know, Nick Petrano, our park superintendent, just wanted to take a field offline this fall. And I vetted it around all the people who are in charge of renting fields. And it was determined there's just no way. We can't do it. We want to give a better quality natural grass field. In fact, Nick worked on it. We seeded. We did a lot of work. And with the summer that we had and some of the conditions we had, it didn't take. So now we're actually spending thousands of dollars to put sod down to have the field ready for those user groups. I think the intention is that no matter who it is, all the different youth groups, it is going to be intended for the older age groups of those folks. If this commission... does allow adults to use it, then adults would be allowed to use it at that later time. But I think we showed a usage guide in one meeting that said who would be using it now, who's using it now and who would be using it if we expanded the hours. So without, again, without saying to youth soccer, which I think is unnecessary, tell us who's using the field from six to seven 30 at this field at this time, you know, it's, that to me is asking too much of them they're volunteers we know that they're using them it's over the top for me but i just i understand that people want to know the fields are being used but the simple fact is they are and and the park master plan um you know the drafts have come out of that said we need more fields we need more artificial turf fields we need more uh opportunity to have quality fields which this would provide because it's artificial turf so if it rains during the day we still have fields to use at night So no, there's nothing else to provide you to prove that we need more fields. The proof is in the pudding and the proof is in the request that we get from the youth groups and their testimony that they've put into these hearings.

I understand. It's just that this is a special permit here. So we have a lot of discretion and we really need to be confident that the need here can't be met by other alternatives. And I don't have, I haven't heard anything about the long lots fields. And I would appreciate hearing more about that and how they're going to be used in the future.

Yeah, I don't have any information on the long lots field other than my understanding is it's going to be a grass field at some point with drainage and irrigation, but I don't, I haven't got a lot of communication from that side of the house, but eventually when that field becomes available, it's something that would be usable, sure. I don't know the timeframe on that either. I have no idea when that would be available.

No, I see it's a total disaster right now. I've driven by it recently. But I know that there's a lower field there and there's an upper field. And it looks like they've both kind of been raised right now. But I am curious about whether or not either of those fields will be regulation size and could be used for lacrosse and soccer.

I heard that the two lower fields will remain, I think, 299 soccer fields. And Nick, I think Nick, you can confirm that, Nick Quattrano, if you're on the call. But I think it was the idea was 299 fields down below where there were soccer fields before. And then they lost the baseball field slash soccer field where the school is now. And then the bigger field that's going in where the gardens were.

So you don't know if it's regulation size or not?

The bigger field or the smaller ones on the other side?

The bigger one, the bigger one.

The bigger one, my understanding is going to be, it would be regulation for a soccer field, yeah.

And do you have any information for us as to how it's being used, how it was used up until the construction?

Where the gardens were?

No, the upper field at Long Lost.

The upper field, it was primarily soccer, some baseball limited, but it was mostly soccer in the outfield.

And that was regularly busy?

Yeah. Oh, yeah. Absolutely no question. Regularly busy. Yes.

Thanks. Thank you, Nicole. Other commissioners? All right, I guess I'll go. So first of all, thank you for bringing forward the community lighting plan, field lighting policy, the sound mitigation policy, and your overall management plan. Those were all things we had asked for, and it was nice to see that they now exist. And so we do have guardrails and policies and things that must be followed. I want to ask you just briefly about the Community Lighting Committee. I noticed that it said it was going to be reactivated.

When was that active? So my understanding was part of the last, I think it was probably the football field, but Mike Genta on the call could correct me, but I think when they first went to get lights, part of the stipulated agreement was that this committee would be formed as a body that folks would go to with any questions, concerns, and that the neighbors would be part of that committee so that they their voices could be heard. So that was the committee kind of once that recently expired. So once that expired, the committee kind of went by the wayside. But we saw it as something that could be useful moving forward with a new opportunity, a new request for lights. it sounds like it was something that was desired last time and it could serve a good purpose.

Yeah, I agree there. In fact, I think it's an excellent step forward. It'll give a place for things to land, such as complaints or compliance or problems. It'll give people some sort of assurance that there are people whose job it is to vet issues that come up. So yes, I'd like to see that, and I definitely want that as part of this, for sure. As far as the first season review goes, I don't see why not. And then if the training wheels can come off, then great, they come off. I'm fully in support of that, and I think that making sure that shut-off times and lighting complaints and noise and traffic are all attended to will give you guys some muscle reflex on how to handle this going forward. maybe not needing a, as Mr. Kammeyer put it, a babysitter going forward. So I'd definitely like to see that first season review at the end of it. If you have a committee whose job it is, and then absolutely want to know about the individual statistics that we will judge by. So, for instance, any complaints, a compliance log, as Nicole was mentioning, who used it and when, how did it go, what were the complaints. And you'll also have an opportunity then to identify any issues that have come up, things that you need to come back to the Commission for, or if business is working, then going forward from there. Now, as far as the sound mitigation goes, I was very pleased to read in there that you have addressed most of the issues. And I just want to have you flesh out a little bit of how you would – how you foresee a complaint being handled should there be a sound mitigation problem.

Yeah, I think – well – I think that perhaps that the committee could deal with both lighting and sound issues. You know, we could create, you know, it would be a hybrid committee. Certainly, the department would be prepared to handle any incidents that come up. But I think it's important that the staff be part of that initial year one. And when I say staff, I'm including the Board of Education, you know, to enforce these rules. Because as you know, it's not always Parks and Recreation or youth groups. The Board of Ed has a significant amount of use of these facilities. And they have the most amount of flexibility with the plan, obviously, as they should. But I think, you know, if we have to staff, similar to what you just talked about, Mr. Chairman, I think Commissioner Kammeier was getting at, is that if we find there are groups that are misusing these or breaking these policies, then the first step could be that we do require a staff member to be there and they have to pay for enforcement. And then we go down from there with suspension or termination of their privileges to be able to use these fields. There is going to have to be some self-policing, too, of the people that actually rent these facilities in the organizations and groups. And I go through this when I have my own daughters playing. I mean, sometimes you get groups that are loud and obnoxious and they need to tone it down. So we're going to have to be prepared to address some of those. And it could involve staffing of hours that we're going to charge to the group. But it's pretty strict. And I think for the most part, the coaches understand it. They know they can use whistles and the air horns are going to be only for limited game use purposes and announcements, safety at that facility. So I think it's important for everyone to understand that I have no problem with pulling anyone's permit, enforcing any policy, policy and procedure I am all about. So enforcing those rules and if people can't adhere to them, then they lose that benefit.

Okay. I agree. And that should be part of your management plan. Absolutely. We haven't talked about... I'd like to talk about some... some housekeeping here. Just, you know, obviously you're going to have to bring forward an 824 because an 824 is part of this. But I want you to understand that normally we leave a lot in the 824. It fleshes out things that need to, you know, to clear distinctions of what will go on. But in this particular case, I believe that the special permit requirements is certainly... Look, it'll still be the enforceable land use approval, but I think that this approval needs to have the teeth in it. Now, what am I talking about? I would like to see specific end times for games and practices, clear distinctions on when the end of play is and when the lights go out. In other words, not leave them for... um uh you know the individual fields i want a a broader context and then if the individual field wants a uh a different usage on that field for a specific reason they can ask for it through the special permit so a universal shut off time a universal cancellation if you uh I'm sorry, a shutoff following a cancellation or an early completion, those should all be in the actual definitions of what we mean by lighting our fields. And I also was, I'm not happy, I'm sorry, I'm not, I don't think we're done with defining the amplified music and amplified sound. I think we need to be very clear as to what we can and cannot do and give those things definition. Is there a difference between somebody's car speaker going loudly in the neighborhood. Well, that's not necessarily somebody who's involved with the play, but yet it is still amplified music. We want to clear that up so that we don't leave anything to interpretation.

Mr. Chairman, if I could on that comment, I think that's a great point. And I think It does need a little bit of more thought from the context of it, and I go to a lot of youth athletic events. Teams, when they warm up, whether it's U12 or U14, girls, boys, travel, whatever, premiere, lots of times they do have a small speaker on the sideline as the girls, boys are warming up, and there's a little bit of music for them to be able to listen to while they're doing their warmup. Is that considered amplified music that's going into a neighborhood? I don't think it is. But if that's something that the neighbors are going to be concerned about, then we have to address that because it's music like, for example, at the beach, We try to say that, you know, the music should stay within a certain amount of feet, 20 feet away from your own blanket. So if they are going to have some music for their warm-up, it's not going into neighbors, it's in their specific area. And it's part of the fun, it's part of the camaraderie of sports to have a little bit of music, but it shouldn't be being amplified throughout the neighborhood. I totally agree. So I think your point is valid and well taken.

Okay, very good. If you're going to have a community lighting committee, I want to make sure that neighbors are on it. That seems kind of obvious, but I want to say it so that it becomes part of the record that that would be desirable. Any change in the use or increase in the use, I want it to come back to the P&Z. Obviously, with an 824, it actually is part of an immiscible land use that you do have to come back. But I want it to be a little broader and a little more stringent when it comes to the utilization of the fields using the lights. So normally, we might give you a waiver. But when it comes to this, I want it to come back for the full commission so that everybody gets a chance to talk about it. I definitely want complaints and corrective logs written and kept so that we can view them and they're available. They should be publicly available as well. Your contact information, obviously, publicly available as well. And that's it. I think if you follow... The guardrails that you enumerated in the community lighting committee, the field lighting policy, the sound mitigation policy, and the management, I think you're on track. Last but not least, I read with great interest the planting plan. And while I'm not an expert at what each tree looks like, it sounds like a lot of trees placed in a very conscientious way to protect the neighbors. If you would spend a few minutes on just fleshing that out for me, I would appreciate it.

Yep. And if it's okay, Mr. Chairman, I'm going to have Nick Quattrano, our park superintendent, who kind of put this together with some thoughts and ideas from the neighbors who are around and being affected. Nick, are you on the call?

Yes. So yeah, Nick, which I'm the park Superintendent. Yeah, I I can appreciate the concerns of the neighbors with the with the lights and how they're going to impact their their homes and home life. So it's hard to see, at least on my screen, but I've got three areas that I outlined briefly, which you can see there to the north outlined in red or orange.

That's right.

Yeah, so in my notes, I think I selected after I walked the site, that'll be 12, 8 to 10 foot. They're red cedars, eastern red cedar trees, 8 to 10 foot, spaced 10 feet apart in a single row. Okay. Yeah, it's the top line there. Sorry. So it's 22 trees staggered in two rows. That's a pioneer species of tree. So it's usually the first type of tree that grows in a cleared area. They like full sun. They're a native plant and they'll do really well in that location. And there's plenty of space for 2 rows to plant and it should be an effective visual screen for for that end of the property. Further to the north on the outfield of the baseball field is space for one row. Of That's actually an area that was recently cleared. One row of red cedar trees, if I remember my notes correctly.

Yeah, that's your 12.

Yeah. Any questions on that? No. And where's the green circles? So the green circles, there's a gap in the existing vegetation behind the perimeter fence of the field. As I understand it, at least from the perspective of center field on that grass field, it looks like there's just about almost no visual barrier between the home across the street. and the synthetic turf field. So there's enough space for three, maybe four Norway maple trees. Doesn't sound like a lot of plants, but that's a tree that gets rather large and should provide very effective visual screening right there.

Okay. Very good. Do you have also, will you guys commit to a provision where should things die, not necessarily what you've planted, but ongoing maintenance? Should we discover that there's gaps that have shown up similar to the ones you've identified here, that you will make that a priority to fill those gaps and that it'll be part of the ongoing maintenance of this field?

Yes, absolutely. I can answer that. I mean, if we're going to say that we're going to put in some screening for both visual and hopefully some sound mitigation too, then we're going to make sure that we keep up with that. Absolutely.

Yeah. Not only what's there, not only what you're planting, obviously, but also what's there. Things get hit by lightning, fall down, die, whatever.

So the answer is yes, but there's also a little bit of a And this needs to be clarified with the Board of Ed of who's responsible for those areas. But overall, it's the town's property. They need to be maintained no matter who it is. I think Nick had tried to look at other areas to plant other trees, but it would require taking down other trees to create some space to fill in, in which we don't want to do. There is some significant amount of coverage on multiple sides. So we don't really want to do that. But yes, we will absolutely do our best to make sure that, you know, as things fall and we'll pay conscious attention to making sure that that buffer is maintained. Maintain the buffer in perpetuity. Thank you.

Commissioners, discussion of the landscaping plan? Comments? Patrice, you have your hand up. I can't see a hand, but go ahead.

I just have a quick question. These trees, how tall do they grow to?

Norway maples can grow in excess of 60 feet.

And those are the green circles, right?

Yes. And then eastern red cedars, depending on conditions and sunlight, the same. It depends on how much time they have. between 30 and 50 feet.

30 and 50 feet, okay.

Thanks. Other commissioners? Okay. Then I'm going to throw it back to you guys. It looks like we're wrapping this up. Michelle, I never asked you if you had anything to add in here, did I?

No. um i can we just take down the screen share sorry i was meant to mention that a while ago um i just wanted to make reference to the uh comments from um amanda tranovich uh she just it went through really what was described by the applicant that the planting plan um the policy for the use of the lights the sound mitigation plan and the community lighting committee policy were all submitted um I also just wanted to put on the record that a member of the Planning and Zoning Commission asked our staff to contact the police department to obtain records of noise complaints at 70 North Ave, 134 Cross Highway, and 170 Riverside. And we received comments back from the police department. Deputy Chief Ryan Paulson stated that in the last 10 years there have not been any noise complaints related to those locations except for one in 2021. and he did not believe it was in relation to any activities on the field. So since that was submitted, I just wanted to make sure that that was part of the record. No, I think that covers all of the new information that's been submitted. My feeling is the application is complete, and then it's up to the commission to determine if any additional information is required. Since, again, this is a special permit, we need to have broad discretion to require additional conditions. That's all I have.

Thank you. Do appreciate that.

Can I add one thing?

Yes, please do.

As a condition, and I know I brought this up at every meeting, I'm very concerned... Sorry. I'm very concerned... I think I'm getting cut off. I'm very concerned about the road down by Wakeman Fields. There's no street lighting. I appreciate that The town has come back and suggested bollards by the paths. But if anybody drives down that Wakeman Road at night, it is pitch black, absolutely pitch black. So I know it is not up to... This committee to determine whether or not street lights should be added there, I can't imagine that anybody in this town with any knowledge of safety or who've had children playing on those fields after dark wouldn't agree that we have to address the lights. So as a condition of this proposal, I would want that investigated and turned over to whatever body needs to look at it. It's a matter of public safety and it just should be reviewed.

Mr. Chairman, if I could. Sure. Yeah, we do totally understand that. We also discussed in the previous meeting that we do have temporary lighting that we could set up from the field to the parking areas as needed for safety. I think that's important, but I think long-term, we are pursuing a landscape architect to look at the layout of that entire area from the entrance to the middle school and beyond, because it's the flow and the handicap accessibility in some of the spaces that are immediately next to Wakeman B are, in my opinion, wasted. And the layout could be tremendously better. So it is something that definitely has to be addressed, especially the handicap accessibility. I mean, I have had complaints in my time as director here about the accessibility of Wakeman. So that is something as we do improvements to our parks, not just this park, but all of them, we have to make sure we address. But in the short term, Commissioner Chavone, I think we do have to probably use the temporary lights to be able to make safe access to and off the field, because while the field will be in safety, you know, in exit mode with lower lighting, once you leave that area, as you've seen on some of these portrayals and renderings, it's very dark outside the area. So I agree with your opinion there.

Okay, very good. Good addition. If nobody else has any more questions for this commission, it's time to go to the public. Last chance to ask the applicant for information. Seeing none, let's go to the public. Now, in this case, we would invite you to put your hand up. There are electronic hands. And if you can't put your electronic hand up, please do unmute yourself and call for my attention. We'll try and get you in in an orderly fashion. First on the list, Mr. McClave, would you please give your name and your address and then tell us what you need?

Damian McClave, 148. Greens Farms Road in Westport, obviously. I am responsible for the rec soccer adult group, just FYI. We have 148, actually 149 household members in Westport that are part of that group. If you average it out at about $15,000 per taxpayer money per house. We bring in about $2.3 million. The group has been around since 1981. I have ran the group now for the last 20 years. So adult rec soccer is incredibly important for us. On top of that, I'm also responsible for the over 40s and the over 50s with Jim Wolf on the men's adult soccer community as well. And for somebody that has run this group for a long period of time, we also play on Sundays at 4 and we play on Wednesdays at 5.30. And in the fall and the winter and the springtime, We also do the lights at Greens Farms, and we have for the last 15 or 10, 15 years, I guess, at this point. The light is pretty simple. When Donny DeVito was there, it was a key, turn on the lights, turn it off, turn back in. The key to Donny now with Parks and Recs is very simple on the computer system. We rent the field from 8 to 10. The lights go on, and at 10 o'clock, if you're in the parking lot and you're not ready, the parking lot becomes completely dark. The lights just go off automatically. In the 15 years that I've been doing it, we've never had an instance at all for anything at all in terms of behavior or anything else that goes on with the field. It's been incredibly important for all of the adults. environment in westport but with 148 members and over 40s and over 50 teams and i can tell i can attest to you that the fields are busy because we go to parks and recs all the time asking for fields and there's never anything available you're literally begging all the time so the question about our fields being utilized i can absolutely guarantee you from my 20 years of running the rec soccer and adult soccer community, I can absolutely guarantee you the fields are being used. In terms of the lights availability, where we were renting, always renting greens farms, because that was the only field that had lights available for the last 10, 15 years. um frustrating to some degree last year when they were fixing the grass because we couldn't play on it it was you know on off on off so having lights in the turf environment the two turf fields i can't even emphasize to you how important that would be in terms of availability the amount of adult people in westport that actually play and enjoy and are part of the rec community is incredibly important i can't explain to you that So that's my two cents on it. It's an incredibly important thing for people that do like exercise, do like soccer, do like being part of the adult community and definitely being involved in the fabric of the Westport community. And on top of that, this group, as you know, we're very proud of the United Nations when they come up for the weekend. This group hosts the soccer group from the United Nations. We host the game for them And we do it over at Romano Field. We supply all of that. Personally, I paid for the referees and the setup of that for the last number of years as a personal donation to the group because it's very important also for the Westport community. But please don't misunderstand how important adult sports is and exercise is to the adult community. And I think it would be a complete injustice if we're not included in that environment when it comes to the fields being available. That's my feeling. Thank you.

Thank you, sir. Appreciate it. Next, I see Ms. Jacobs, Valerie.

Yeah, before I go, Paul, I see that there are some RTM members. Would you like them to go first? I know traditionally that's been the policy.

Go ahead, Valerie. You're first.

Okay. If I had a title for tonight's program, I'd call it Promises Promises, just like the Broadway play. We keep hearing about all these children who are being turned away. Now I just heard that this is really for adult use. I'm also hearing that this is a way for the town to make money. That was Mr. Barbieri's opening comment, part of his opening presentation. I'm also hearing that if they don't get enough hours, then they're not getting enough big enough bang for their buck. And I just don't see why P&Z should be basically held hostage to this to the detriment of the neighbors. Because the way the ordinance is written, you cannot approve these lights if it's going to have an adverse impact on the neighbors. And The neighbors have made it clear, and I don't think planting 10-foot trees with 70-foot lighting poles is going to solve the problem. In terms of coming up with rules, they've had years to come up with rules, and they haven't done it except now they're scrambling in the last couple of months since they want to get more lights put up. But the fact is, They can't manage what they have. We've seen it at Greens Farms. This week I wrote or last week I wrote a letter about the state of the turf over at the PJ Romano field. If I hadn't brought it to their attention, I'm not sure that they would have gone over there to clean it up and examine it to see if it's safe. What I'm really saying is that it's great to have all these promises. They're well-intentioned. But when push comes to shove, it's the public and it's the neighbors who need to be protected. We cannot rely on these promises. In terms of a committee, when the Levitt was reconstructed or rebuilt, the then selectmen appointed a committee to deal with noise. And no matter how much the neighbors complained that the rules weren't being followed, the decibels were being exceeded, Nothing happened. Forming a committee is the age-old way to shut neighbors up, but they don't really have the power to do anything. So I don't really think, I mean, form the committee by all means, but that's not going to solve the problem. And I also want to stress again, for I think the third time, that I am still getting phone calls from moms who do not want their children playing after dark. And they want them home for dinner. They want some quiet time where they can do their homework and wind down and get them in bed at a decent hour. My grandchildren go to bed by 7. You're planning on keeping these fields open until 9 o'clock, I think, during the week and later on the weekend. In addition, from what I just heard, by the way, I haven't heard a word, not a single word, about the environmental impact on this from Parks and Rec. The birds are going to be affected, and they're most affected in the spring and the fall, and they're most affected on foggy evenings. Have I heard a word about that? No. And finally, the proposal to put Norway maples, the last time I checked, those were considered invasive. And in addition, bringing in temporary lights, and by the way, Craig has a great point on this, temporary lights, what are they going to be running on? Generators? We're going to have more gas-powered fumes in that neighborhood just to run the generators for the temporary lights? And who's going to pay for that? Are the Westport taxpayers going to pay for it, or is this secret group that's raising the money going to pay for it? There are so many unanswered questions, but the main point is that the neighbors are going to have to listen to the noise. Their children's lives, their dinner times are going to be disrupted. It is a huge, huge impact, and you will be lucky if there's not a lawsuit over this. Thank you very much. I have been listening to them. We don't want to meet them.

um somebody's mute cynthia haddad please until it's her turn to speak michael have you got your mute button there working on it paul working on it thank you next i see uh eric lowenthal mr lowenthal how you doing bud hey can you hear me yes now we can uh let me see if i can get my camera on hang on one second

There we go. All right. Good evening, everyone. Eric Lowenthal, Nine Mellon Patch Lane, one of the main abutters to Wakeman B. A few of the points that I want to share tonight are ones that I've shared on past calls, but after hearing the comments and as we get closer to a decision point here, large kind of concerns still remain in my eyes. From the beginning, I've never been one who's been like, we can't have any lights or that none of this makes sense whatsoever. But as we've gotten deeper into this process and more information continues to trickle out, the feeling just continues to get worse and worse. So what started as a little bit of extra playtime and the girls don't get proper attention care on the varsity side for soccer and we need, you know, we heard from youth sports and stuff, but at any step of the way where us as neighbors have repeatedly said, hey, maybe not so late or maybe a little bit less. We were always told either, hey, we can talk about that, which we never did. And here we are, kind of at the goal line of this being jammed through, as what it sounds like based upon what I've been listening to here tonight, to also... it's not about the kids, right? Anytime, oh, can we use a little less light? Well, no, we can't stream varsity lacrosse games in at the highest level of competition. Can we end a little earlier? No, the adults, and we have to be able to rent this out to whoever Parks and Rec wants to rent this out to until 10 o'clock at night, essentially, in my backyard. That is not even remotely close to acceptable to this neighborhood. All for expanding use, more turf field, let the kids play. Varsity games don't start any later than 6 o'clock. Let's call it quits after that. That is an extremely fair compromise to this neighborhood. And we don't need it. Again, that's great. I play adult sports as well. Doesn't mean it needs to happen in the middle of a neighborhood. You need to find another place to play those because while adult sports are important, so are our livelihoods. We've worked extremely hard to be able to afford and maintain these properties in Westport. We don't need our lives disrupted until 10 o'clock at night and have noise be subject to rent it out to any private group that we want to turn a profit off of. It's completely unacceptable and should not be considered. You want varsity to play starting at 6 o'clock? Great. Call quits after that. We've also heard tonight about the temp lights. I was never, frankly, that concerned with the light spillage throughout all this, and my big thing has always been the noise and the hours of use. But after hearing now how good the must-go lighting plan is, but now we have to pop up temp lights, which are probably going to be pointed right at my house, and we heard how poor those are, and that's at 9.30 and 10 to 10.30 at night. Like, no way, no chance. And the only solution for that is, hey, then we probably need to build more lights and fix the parking and probably add more stands. Like, this is not about lights. This is a turning point for how this property is going to be used in this neighborhood. And it's trending towards full-blown athletic complex. which is frankly just something we can't have.

We live here.

We're trying to raise kids here. Again, a little bit of extra play time, but it sounds like the master plan is to turn this into a full-fledged athletic complex. What's next? Probably another turf field, more lights. It's just not the right part of town for that. With that, I'll conclude. If there's this many questions about how are we going to light the pathways, what does the exit plan look like, who's going to pay for that, this thing is nowhere close to be ready to be approved in its current proposal. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Ms. Simonetti. Tony Simonetti.

Yes, thank you. Just a couple of thoughts. Again, I will firstly state that I am not in proximity to any of the fields in question here. So I am not directly affected as a property owner, but I'd like to speak up on behalf of and in support of the property owners who will be infected affected by this intensification of use, which is how I see it in the night hours. So I really think that the property owner's interest should trump any other interests at play here. And I think they've been eloquent in explaining their point of view and their concerns with these proposals. Secondly, I'd like to say that Commissioner Laskin had some very valid questions that were not answered. And I think the questions about field usage have never been adequately answered for a long time, that we don't know how the Long Lots fields, we're spending so much money that we don't know how the Long Lots fields are gonna play into this equation at this point in time, to me is appalling. And I believe there's other fields, I think one of the Long Lots neighbors brought up a field, I can't remember the name of it, that is not used as much as it could be. Maybe, I think she's on this call, maybe she could comment later on the name of that field. I know there's a baseball field on Bridge Street that I don't know how much use it gets. So to me, Commissioner Laskin's questions have not been answered and I think she deserves an answer to that. And finally, I'll just say the noise, the intensification of use, the light pollution, the issues that Ms. Jacobs raised with regard to environmental impact and the neighbor who just spoke before me so eloquently, these all should be taken seriously by this commission, thank you.

Thank you very much. Ms. Lautenberg, Ellen Lautenberg.

Okay. Hi, everybody. Okay. Try not to be too repetitive. But I just want to touch on a few points. Going back to, I know somewhere in some of the notes, it talks about this property as being school property. It's not. It was originally part of the Wakeman family from the farm and it was conveyed to the town in order to be open space. And I could not find the actual agreement, but my understanding is you're not supposed to really have permanent fixtures on there. However, that's already been violated multiple times because you've got various pieces of things already on that property. Back in 2012, when the high school football field lighting was incorporated, part of that agreement, and that's all in the record that you guys have in your website, said no lights from December 1st to September 1st, except certain special events, which are limited to a handful per year. The lights can be used till 8 p.m. Monday through Friday. If special events scheduled for a Saturday night, The lights on the proceeding Friday must be off no later than 7 p.m. My point being that there are limitations that were put on for the high school football field that have not been really incorporated here. So that's just an example. I know that the lighting is requested. It says September through November and March through May. with limited use in the winter. So first of all, I think we need to understand and define what limited use in the winter means, because just in terms of that wording, it could really mean anything. And does that mean you're talking full months, September, October, November, March, April, May? So I'd like to know that, or is there a date within that, you know, dates within that that confines that a little bit more? I know we keep going back, well, some of us go back to a potential proposed schedule of games. All right, let me start over. Commissioner Alaskan was talking about the fact that we haven't really seen a really full-blown schedule of where they would like all these teams to play, how many teams there are, how many fields we have, all of that. I understand that that might be sort of difficult to really put on paper. However, I do think that it would be good to know how many more games and practices they believe need to be scheduled because it gives us some idea. Are they really talking about five days a week? Are there two games every weekend? you know, soccer in the fall, lacrosse in the spring. And how many are we really talking about? I think that to say that it's six days a week, you're going to be extending for several hours till 9 and 10 p.m. at night may not be needed. I appreciate that there are local adult leagues that want to play, and I don't have any problem with local adult leagues. I do have a problem with outside leagues leagues who are looking to play in our fields. So I do have a problem with that. Noise. It is important to have limitations on amplified noise, things like bullhorns, music, et cetera. But I think people underestimate, particularly during a game, when you already have the spectator, you have the bleachers there. During a game, the spectators are pretty much loud throughout the entire game. So I don't know how you control for that. Yes, you can turn off music and limit the music after halftime and things like that. But I think it's really important to know how many games we expect to be played there because the spectator noise is loud and continuous. Also, I think it's important for us to establish that whether Wakeman is where all the varsity soccer and lacrosse games are played. Um, I don't know the answer to that. Where are they currently played? When are they currently played? Um, what is the plan for Lafleur field, which is behind high school? Is that used for varsity games? I think those things have to be taken into consideration. Um, a couple of less quick things. Um, The memo from Westport Astronomical Society does mention the environmental harms that can occur. I know Valerie brought it up, and it has not been much of a focus. I just want to point out that this memo is in the record because it's not totally meaningless. And it says that... The nighttime light pollution is also disrupting our circadian rhythms, negatively impacting health and well-being, and threatening wildlife. I think that those things have to be taken into account as well. And again, six nights a week is a lot of extra light. Two last comments. Wakemontown Farm, once a year, they have their big fundraising event. It's called Harvest Fest. I was told that they ended at nine o'clock. It's a Saturday night event in deference to the neighbors. This is just sort of an unwritten agreement they have with their neighbors because they feel that it is really appropriate to be done by that time. And they do it, they stick to it. Um, and I think that nine o'clock is quite late enough on a, on a Friday or Saturday. And finally, um, I know I've heard a lot about how some of the girls teams aren't getting enough playing time. And, um, The lighted turf fields are not going to solve that problem. If some of the girls are not getting enough playing time, then Parks and Rec needs to even out that schedule some other way. But this is not going to solve that problem. So I really sincerely hope that the commissioners will think about asking for some additional limitations on the times and on the noise for this request. Thank you.

Thank you. Do appreciate it. Ms. Grayson, Jill Grayson.

So I am an RTM member as well as Ms. Lautenberg. I'm District 8. My district is the other side of Cross Highway and a little bit up North Avenue. I use these fields a lot. I've grown up on them. I walked yesterday and I found out about a baseball field 25 and over or 35 and over league that we rent the baseball field to. We do a lot of this apparently. And that's wonderful that we make the money, but I don't think that's the point here. I have to agree with Ms. Lautenberg, so I don't repeat a lot of the stuff that Ellen said. But I went to the P&Z last Thursday and I picked up a piece of paper called, excuse me, Memorandum. I will stop riding my bike. And practices, no amplified sound. There's so much sound, it staples. On the football field, if you walk by there during practice, no one is going to stop that if we haven't stopped what goes on at Staples. If you go by Wakeman Field for a walk, of course, after 4.15 PM on a weekday, there's a lot of music coming out of those practices. So we need to figure out how to deal with noise disruption for the neighbors. I was at Whippoorwill the other day and it was pretty loud. A gentleman spoke at a meeting the other night about people for the, there was a lacrosse something going on a couple of weeks ago. People were at Wakeman Field at I think eight in the morning and they were there till 10 or 11 o'clock at night partying. We can't have that. The RTM is responsible that the neighborhoods are safe and people can buy their houses and not have them desecrated by an extra amount of playing time on fields. I don't disagree or I agree that if the girls' times or the boys' times you know, are not sufficient, then we have to divide it up. But I think most of this should stop no later than seven o'clock because then the neighbors are safe and we get enough people on the fields. If it's other adults, You know, we have to deal with that since I'm a supposed athlete and I still play tennis several times a day. I walk on the fields, I'm going back to jogging. I really think the fields need to be open, but that doesn't mean we need to rent them out to other groups at all. So I'm not gonna talk about the environment because someone's better than I am, Um, no one calls. I live near Coleytown. I've grown up here. You know, we get noise from the fields. We hear it. No one ever calls the police to complain. You cannot expect neighbors to call the police department to complain, no matter what time it is. Once I did call about a neighbor and the police told me there was nothing they could do. So I can't imagine they're going to do anything about people playing soccer. I don't really have much to offer after Ms. Lautenberg, because she took up most of my wind, which was good. So thank you, Ellen. But I really think we need to consider who's using these fields, what they're using them for, and why we need 70-foot or 80-foot lights if we need to do this. It's disruptive. It's going to be disruptive to my district It's going to be disruptive to Ms. Lautenberg's district. A lot of RTM members had no idea these problems. I called two people in her district and they were not aware of this. So I think we need to get more Westport owners, homeowners positions. I understand that there are fathers who want to be able to go to their kids' practices at 9 o'clock at night, but I think we need to really take a good look at this.

Thank you. I appreciate it. Mr. Messia? Christopher?

Hi. Hi, everyone. So I want to talk tonight about the implications of sleep deprivation to adolescents and the town policies that would potentially cause that by participating in late-night activities. Many of us, including me, have brought up to the Commission the contradiction in Westport's Board of Education decision to move back school start times to improve adolescent sleep. with a potential decision from the P&Z Commission to add lighted fields for evening practices. I think there's something fundamentally irrational about the town pursuing a policy with one hand while undermining that very policy with the other. It's difficult to credibly tell adolescents that sleep is important enough to restructure the school day around, while simultaneously creating policies that make it harder for them to get to sleep in the evening. So in 2020, I think some of you may know that Westport pushed back school start times by 30 minutes. They moved the middle school time to 8.30 from 8 a.m., and they moved the high school start time to 8 a.m. from 7.30 a.m. And the Westport effort was occurring against the broader scientific and public health consensus that insufficient adolescent sleep is associated with significant consequences.

I'm sorry, Christopher, I apologize. Could you tie this into what the subject is tonight regarding the field lighting at Wakeman and PJ Romano, please?

I will. I will. So during the Board of Education process, they brought in sleep experts to discuss the issues. And notably, a woman by the name of Dr. Tara Zipporin-Snyder presented the topic and she was instrumental in helping pass the school start times. Uh, to to later later time now, we've lights lights need limits has been contact with Dr. Snyder and she offered to present to the commission. To help you better understand the implications of of sleep deprivation. As well as the impact of later evening activities on that. So she wasn't available tonight, but she did offer to come back and speak to the commission. So I would like encourage you to invite her and listen to her thoughts on the subject. But in the meantime, I did have a chance to read her book, on the subject, which is Educating the Exhausted.

And I wanted to bring up a few of the... No, I apologize, sir, but you reading someone else's book to us, I don't see how that's going to help us make a good decision. If you'd like to forward a copy, that's fine, but please, let's stick to what we've heard tonight from the applicant and apply it back to... what the issue at hand, please.

Okay, well, as you have several times, you've interrupted me in the middle of my presentation, but I'll make another point, one last point, and I'll close. But I think the obvious thing here to consider, Paul, is that if you have an evening practice at nine o'clock, The students then still have to go home. They have to drive home. They have to shower. They have to eat dinner. They have to finish their homework. They have to have a period to just decompress before they actually get to sleep. And so this policy that the town is pursuing is in conflict with the policy that we've already pursued to get students to have more sleep. And so a lot of us have brought this up. You know, again, you listen to everyone's questions, but you don't actually respond to them. And so I would love for you to actually respond to this, to talk to the Board of Education and to listen to Dr. Snyder and consider whether or not this is actually a good policy, because I really don't think that having kids practice at night as other people have brought up is a smart decision for those students. Thanks.

Thank you, sir. Appreciate your comments. Robbie.

Hey, Robbie. Nice to see everybody. Yeah, you guys can come over and make sure my kids eat well. On top of going to bed on time, we are not in control of how people parent their children. I'm here to speak up for the thousands of children that are not here yet to speak for themselves. We do not have enough field time. I have three daughters. They absolutely get shorted on field time, specifically because they play on outliner sports like rugby. One of the things you said in the pre-op, Paul, was that the Spinnaker project was in the right location for that intensity and that increased usage. Well, where else are we going to set up lighting in town that's going to allow for this increased usage? Yes, it is going to be increased. We need the ability to have more time on the fields. Where else are we going to set up fields to have these sporting activities happen? There are really no other locations besides this. I live on Riverside Avenue, so this is my neighborhood. I also want to support a little bit of the adult programs. It is really important for quality of life. to be able to go and play team sports, not just as kids. And we get the last little bits of time to get access to these fields, which is appropriate. But as the father of three daughters who constantly has to kind of fight against the tide to make sure that they are taken care of and have the same amount of time that the boys get, specifically lacrosse, football, soccer, without having more field time in the fall when it gets dark at 5 o'clock, really screws them so yeah i get it you're worried about money and we're worried about birds and worried about property values and all this other stuff and it does make total sense to me in some shape manner or form but there is no other spot to be able to increase our usage of fields i mean and i've said this in previous meetings if if you do not allow this to move forward you are limiting and crippling these kids that aren't even in the program yet we're getting ready to put in hundreds and hundreds of apartments where are those kids going to go play They're going to go down to Riverside Avenue and they're going to play at PJ Romano's Field. I mean, this is really the opportunity to make an improvement in quality of life for our community, specifically the kids. And I'm going to lean into the ladies right here because I love my daughters and I want them to get on the field as much as possible, but also for the adults that want to go play softball or go play soccer or whatever in the limited time that's left on the schedules. It's really important to look at this bigger than just the folks that are here complaining about it. This is a multi-generational improvement for our town that will increase quality of life for everyone that wants to participate. So I really urge you to approve this. It sounds like the folks that... Parks and Rec are doing everything to bend over backwards to allow the best possible result. There's always compromise. There's going to be even more apartments in this town, and these kids don't have backyards and pools and play sets and all the things that I saw in that picture of all those very large two-acre property homes. They need fields to go play on. Let's give it to them. Thank you.

Thank you, sir. Appreciate your comments. Ms. Macia, Diana.

Yeah, hi. So my name is Diana Masha. I'm a Whippoorwill resident and I'm in close proximity to the site. So I've spoken at several of these hearings. And so I'm going to step away from some of the technical issues we've discussed and talk about the decision itself. So my background and advanced degree is actually in policy administration with a specific lens on driving positive social impact. So as I've attended these hearings since May, I keep coming back to something very basic about making sound policy decisions. You start by clearly setting up the problem, defining the problem. You establish a scope with data and evidence. You consider different ways of solving it. And then you may even map a theory of change for impact evaluation so you can weigh the benefits of a proposed solution against the costs and consequences. And after months of hearings on this application, I still struggle to understand that progression here and throughout these many hearings. So what exactly is the problem? The premise underlying this application seems to be that Westport desires more field time. But what has surprised me throughout these hearings is how difficult it's been to quantify that need. When questions have been raised about field utilization and unmet demand, we've heard about that more field time is needed. But saying that we need more field time is not the same thing as demonstrating how much we need it, who needs it, Why they need it and why. So I would have expected something fairly comprehensive and straightforward. Total field capacity across all sports and fields, current utilization, the full list of teams that we can't accommodate and their age ranges, the hours of unmet demand, what is temporary and what is structural. And it's that last distinction that matters because we know that some field capacity has been taken offline during Long Lots' school renovation and that some of that capacity will eventually return. So instead, the rationale for this project has seemed to expand and change over the course of these hearings. We've heard about desired utilization. We've heard about different sports and sports and leagues. We've heard about the needs of school teams and rec programs. We've heard about gender equity issues. They're all legitimate issues to examine, but they're not necessarily the same problem, and so they don't have the same solution. If there's inequitable access to desired fields or playing time for girls, then let's identify it and solve it. If there's a shortage of rec fields, let's quantify it, et cetera, et cetera. So the scale of the stated problem keeps getting broader and the justification keeps changing, but the proposed solution has remained the same. It's always lights on this field. And so I think that deserves much more scrutiny. why is this field the solution um ultimately it's one one field we've heard uh the extraordinary number of constituencies that have been blasted through email groups that have needed it soccer lacrosse rec programs so we come back to the question what is exactly are we solving with with this particular design um The other question is what alternatives were evaluated? What other field sites were considered? What possibilities were rejected? What other criteria was used? And how did we decide that this was the solution? And that's what makes it feel, very backwards to me as a policy decision. The question seems to have become, how do we make lights work on this field? I think that the better policy question would have been given Westport's actual recreational needs, what combination of solutions meet those needs with the least cost and impact to the community? So these questions can lead you to very different places. And there is a basic issue of scale here that I don't think has been resolved. If the problem is as varied as we've been told, then this field alone cannot solve it. And if the problem is small enough that this one field can solve it, then we should really be able to quantify exactly what the problem is. So the negative impacts and the costs also belong in the policy equation. And that matters because additional field hours aren't free just because the field exists. There are trade-offs. And so over these months, I have focused on what it means for the people living immediately around the site. Other neighbors and fellow residents have also mentioned the environmental implications and artificial light, extended nighttime activity. And those considerations are in the policy equation, too, and should not be minimized. I have owned my home for 16 years, as you have known. And when I bought it, I was buying besides a school and athletic fields. I expected games and whistles and my own family, we participate in those events. But there has always been a natural endpoint to that activity. It gets dark. games end the cars leave the neighborhood becomes quiet and there is value in that we should not have to prove that darkness has a value we should not have to prove that quiet has a value that doesn't mean that things can't change and we know that the westport community's needs can change but when you're asking a group of residents to absorb a permanent cost for The public's benefit, I think we have an obligation to be exceptionally clear on what that benefit actually is. So, what I'm left with is I've, I've spent an enormous time over the past several months, reading the materials, listening to testimony and trying to understand this, but I am actually just less convinced. And I'm saying this because I still can't trace the clear line from problem. To data and evidence to alternatives to this particular solution. And so we've watched rationale change and expand. But the proposed solution has remained remarkably fixed. So I think that that should give this commission pause. And, um. You know, repeating one more time that we need one more field and field time doesn't really accommodate the growing list of needs. Listing more groups that might use the field doesn't demonstrate how this site is the right site. And for me, that's what's been missing in the process. So before you make this decision, I hope that you return to the basic questions that you should have started with. What precisely is the problem and what actually are we trying to solve? Where is the complete data and what does it tell us about the scale of this project? What alternatives were considered? And when its benefits are weighed against all of the costs, why is this the solution in this particular location? So if there's a decision that will permanently change this site and the lives of the neighbors around it, I urge you please to re-examine how you have approached mapping your problem to the solution. Thank you.

Thank you, I appreciate that. Do you have those comments written, by the way?

I do. Yeah, I'm happy to send them.

Thank you. Next, we have Mr. Davis, Mr. Carl Davis.

Thank you, Carl Davis, Whippoorwill Lane. When BNZ last met on this topic, you asked the applicant to return with a management plan for these lights, and that was a reasonable request in response to a record that's replete with examples of parks' inability to meet existing regulations with regard to its lit field inventory. specifically with regard to the regulation that says lights must be turned off immediately when not in use the applicant said complaints of the neighbors about their current inability to meet this requirement were unreasonable because it would require a parks employee to sit and watch every field something that was preposterous if not impossible i'm surprised that parks didn't submit the management plan the commissioner requested but i'm more surprised that something they implied was impossible preposterous is now apparently going to be an official parks policy According to this new policy on use of lighted fields unveiled four days ago, those using lit fields would pay for a parks employee to actively monitor all lighted field use. If this was at all likely to occur, I would welcome it, but there are two clear reasons the Commission cannot put any faith in this parks policy when deciding if the applicant can meet the regulations that PNZ is tasked with enforcing. First, they told you it wasn't possible a few weeks ago and you should believe them. But if the proposed users of the fields wouldn't get their money's worth with slightly shorter lighting windows, the applicant can't honestly believe they'll absorb this cost. Second, parks general rule number 15 explicitly allows them to waive any of their rules for any reason without public notice and without recourse. So the chair's supposition earlier tonight that parks has brought forth guardrails that must be followed is just patently false and borders on misleading boosterism. Simply put, P&Z must not give any weight to a parks policy when evaluating whether this application will meet regulations. And you need look no further than the applicant's attempt to dial back the scope and duration of this four-day-old policy in their presentation tonight. So when you evaluate the application's ability to meet PNZ's regulations, you must rely on the text of the application and the record full of examples of their inability to meet the regulation requirements, including their own admissions. And the only remedies you have are to reject the application or impose whatever conditions you believe will ensure compliance explicitly and in writing. Nothing else, and certainly not a parks policy, will be enforceable or sufficient to ensure PNZ regulations are followed. This new policy, like countless earlier promises to do better, cannot be a factor in your evaluation. It's a distraction in the latest in a series of examples of the applicant saying whatever it needs to get your approval. If you go and listen to the historical testimony on the applicant's rationale for this proposal, you can get whiplash. It started with a push for gender equity until they realized they were seemingly admitting bias in scheduling, which would be a Title IX violation. Then it was practice time for kids until you rightfully wondered what parents would want their kids practicing until 10 p.m. when they already start school earlier than medical experts suggested as a direct result of the desire for more time for sports. At one point, it was the opportunity for the kids who supposedly can't make teams today until Senator Murphy shined a spotlight on how private equity investment is creating artificial scarcity in youth sports. And most recently, when a lighting expert pointed out the specifications of their proposal were absolute overkill for the use of Wakeman, they insisted that the lacrosse team needs the ability to televise their games. Their story has changed a lot as they've met resistance, but I suspect this push for a dedicated lacrosse facility is the closest to the truth. It probably doesn't move the needle in the court of public opinion, which is probably why it took this long for it to come to the fore, but it aligns with the applicant's inability to commit to any type of repercussions for the Staples Lacrosse affiliated private entity that violated countless parks rules earlier this summer, despite countless comments to their contrary. In summary, Mark's rules have absolutely no teeth, and it's PNZ's duty. If they fulfill their duty, they would need to reject or add significant additional conditions to this application. Anything less would be a dereliction of your duty. Lastly, I don't want the bias of the chair in managing this hearing to go uncomment upon. He's regularly allowed the applicant or its proxies to read materials at meetings, including a letter from a supposed expert who explicitly refused to appear to support their positions or answer questions, and which was already in the record, but has repeatedly denied to similarly accommodate the family that lives closest to Wakeman B. Thank you.

And Ms. Castado, Ms. Emma Castado.

I can't see myself. I don't know if you can see me. We can. Oh, wonderful. Okay. Oops.

Don't worry about it, Emily. You're good.

All right. Thanks, everyone. So I'll keep it as quick as I can, but I did just want to hop on and say I just wanted to remind everybody, the P&Z and the applicant and everybody else on this call, that we're limited here by the regulation that's in place. Like, the P&Z cannot grant what the regulation does not permit, and P&Z can't you know, going forward, administer these lighting fields in a way that is in violation of the town's regulation, right? And so there was just a couple of things I heard tonight that... raised questions for me is how it could possibly comply with the regulation. So the first one, there was discussion around rental of the field and the regulation governing lighted athletic fields does not allow private rentals. It limits the lighted fields for the Westport school teams and community athletic events. And that's great, right? Because that achieves what we're trying to do here. It allows the adult leagues for local residents to play. It allows our town's girls who are underserved to have access to fields. It allows for the kids that don't have access like that is all permitted. But private rentals are not. And it doesn't matter if Parks and Rec has a goal to try and monetize its assets more. It can't do private rentals of lighting fields without violating the regulation. So I just wanted to sort of flag that, that there might need to be a different rental policy. During the day, they can rent fields and maybe have more flexibility around it. But when it comes to lighted fields, there are other restrictions in place. And then the second thing was the use of amplified sound. The regulation prohibits amplified sound except in limited circumstances for high school games. It's very clear. And the definition of amplified sound is very clear. It's the use of any device to increase the volume of sound, whether it's a microphone or a speaker, right? So what that means is it does not allow for warm-up music, for... PAL, pre-PAL games, or any portable speakers to be used under the lights. Again, during the daytime, these can be used. That regulation doesn't apply. But when the lights are on, there is no amplified sound. I thought the example given of people sort of sitting around in a small group with a speaker at the beach, that's not all the same thing. These pre-game warm-up music, the kids want to hear it as they run around the entirety of the field. It's really, really loud. And quite simply, it's just not permitted. So again, I just wanted to flag during the day you could have pre-warm-up music, but under the... The regulation doesn't allow it. And I know it's fun, but that doesn't impact equality of use by the girls or keep the kids off the field. It's really not necessary. And I feel that's something very easy to give to the neighbors to help sort of balance that. My time's up. So thank you all so much for listening to me.

Thank you. Appreciate it. Ms. Bateau, Ms. Wendy Bateau.

Hi, I'm a representative from District 8. Also, I'm not speaking so much for constituents as I am just in general comments. First, I'd like to thank the previous speaker. I did want to talk about regulations that weren't P&Z regulations. There are ordinances concerning these things and other town regulations, so please keep those in mind. I also wanted to thank Ellen Lautenberg. agree with everything and I'm not going to speak amazingly to environmental issues here but I would like to point out that the agreement between the Wakeman family and the town does exist and it does call for that space to be open space in perpetuity and I don't know why that has gone by the wayside. There have been a number of legal consults into it and I don't know what happened to that but we saw it most recently when the farm was requesting $200,000 to resurrect and rebuild its barn so that the many, many, many thousands of kids that use the farm, every year would have additional time and additional space to make use of the farm education and recreation programs, $200,000. This appropriation is going to come to many, many, many millions of dollars, if I'm not mistaken, and it will come to the RTM. Now, I have to say that one of the previous speakers spoke to the point that this commission seems to have already made up its mind. And I have to say that I've noticed that as well. One of the questions to... to the parks and recreation commissioner was whether he would agree whether they would agree to maintain the foliage the the plantings another one was whether they would keep records the issue isn't whether they will keep records the issue is what they are told to do if this goes through um If they haven't kept records, given the many, many, many appropriations we've made for information technology and for parks and recreation, it begs disbelief to me that they haven't kept records about who has played at what times on which fields. And if they haven't, then right now, starting right now, they must keep track of that and provide that information. So, for example, if this appropriation request comes to the RTM, we can actually see. I see that my time is up and I just would say, I think it's very important to not simply say, trust me, but to actually provide information that people who have to make decisions can use as basis for these decisions. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Vettel. Ms. Dorfman, Ms. Emmy Dorfman. I think we lost you there. Did you fall off?

I can't hear you.

Yeah.

Hello.

Okay. Give it a shot. Go ahead.

Okay. My name is Emmy Dorfman and I'm a captain for the staple soccer team.

Go ahead.

I think we lost you there. Did you freeze? You might be frozen. No, you're good now. I mean,

Hello.

You're good.

Sorry. So I'm a captain for the Staples girls soccer team. I just wanted to speak on behalf of the entire girls program and just express how having lights at Wakeman is so important to all of us. Being able to play night games like the lacrosse teams and the football team is something that we deserve, too. It's unfair. that almost every school in Fairfield County has lights. We travel there for night games, but we can never host them. Additionally, our practices always get cut short because as it gets closer to winter, it continues to get darker earlier. I hope you can value this perspective from the people actually using these fields. I know there are many perspectives to consider, but prioritizing the youth of our town and the future generation should be a priority. I hope the town realizes how big of an improvement this would be to our community and all the student athletes at Staples. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Next, we have Mr. Barry Beatty. Barry? Beatty? Sorry.

Yeah, jumping on. Pretty appropriately timed, considering one of my high school captains just spoke. Good job, Emmy. Now, not trying to shut any of me down, but As far as the lights are concerned, I don't know who thinks we're going to be practising by 9pm. Whenever I've sent any requests in about the use of these lights, I'm coming from the stance of, I don't want these kids having to leave school early. They represent their school and their town. When we get into the state games, which we regularly do, and we host the games, which we regularly do, our kids are leaving school at 12pm. for a 2 p.m game because it's getting dark if if you gave me if we handed out our schedule i would want to keep my games at 4 15 kickoff all the way through the fall i have zero interest in being on the fields till nine o'clock at night because i have my own actual life but i do think these kids deserve as student athletes if they wanted a night game maybe it's a senior day game or something like that that's something that i can discuss with the kids but i do i do believe they deserve a fair opportunity I did have a couple of questions because this whole hearing is just like, for a scatterbrain like me, it sent me all different directions. People are asking for the parks and rec to show the field usage. I don't understand why they can't show it. We have a timetable. I don't understand why they can't show that. And if there's a proposal to be had, Has there already been a meeting with all the user groups to determine what they would need and what they wouldn't? And if they haven't, then I would say, why? I'd have no problem sitting down and saying, here's exactly what girls soccer need and here's what we don't. Right now, the way we are, we're having to drive across the PJ Romano. And I was in a car crash three years ago. It wasn't my fault. I suffered horrible injuries. I don't need 30 kids, convoying kids across town to a different field in busy traffic. The safety of these children is paramount, in my opinion. And that's a daily stress for me. The use of lights. Ideally, I would like to have lights on turf at Loughlin and we'd be in the high school and the high school team to stay in the high school because then the middle school can use it to their heart's content and the youth groups can use it. But as we are right now, we're up there. I would like to be able to keep our schedule 4.30 all season so we don't have to leave school early, miss class. As student athletes, they should be able to fill the full day as students and then come represent their school at a reasonable time. I'm not trying to be on the fields any later than 8pm ever. I heard a lady talking about the music at 4.15. That might have happened once in the summer. I got a phone call. We turned it off. We don't play music. So whatever the neighbours, whatever the commission, whatever PNZ, whatever you decide the rules are, I can absolutely assure you from my end and the soccer end with the youth groups, we will 100% adhere to those rules. It's about... It's about the whole community kind of serving the purpose for the children that they want to succeed. And if we all have to agree on something, then as adults, we can do that without being angry and being aggressive towards everybody has their own opinions and their own concerns, which is entirely fair. I just think we can all come to a very fair agreement that the lights should go off at a certain time. and we can just move on with life and i don't think they should be on after 8 p.m in my own personal opinion but going all the way back to the start of the meeting if you're going to hire someone to be getting paid to pick up trash i'm going to start sending my receipts because i've been picking up trash in wakeman by myself for the last five years just to make sure that place is presentable for any people coming in it it it needs care for it's going to take a community And I truly believe that Westport being the community I've worked in for the last 16 years of my life is one that would thrive with the right rules and regulations in that everybody can adhere to.

Thank you. Appreciate it. Mr. Wolf, Mr. Jim Wolf.

Yeah, coming off mute. I'll be brief because you guys have heard from me a couple times on this. So 311 Greens Farms Road, co-president of the Westport Soccer Association on a volunteer basis. Just start by saying I'm super sympathetic to the neighbors' concerns, and I hope we're able to find a collaborative way to address those concerns and You know, I agree with Tony and some of the others that they're being very fairly and articulate eloquently articulated, I think she said. And I hope we can find a nice collaborative approach. And I think what we what PN Parks and Rec has done between the last PMZ meeting to discuss this topic and today has moved the ball down the field significantly. And I think we've made really good progress. I'm not going to reiterate all the points around the importance of fields, the demand, the decline. in the natural grass fields as happening season over season. And Emmy Dorfman, I just want to highlight that she did a phenomenal job speaking. I had intended to underscore an email that I read posted to the docket from Alexa Van Aken. which I thought was extremely well positioned and very thoughtful. I think the kids are underrepresented in this whole issue and we're hearing adults expressing adults' perspectives and the kids just really need to be heard. And I give Alexa a lot of credit for taking all that time to write that email and then Emmy jumping on today to be on this Zoom with all the All the participants and very thoughtfully express her opinion on it. The other thing I would say is we have limited existing turf resources. And we will be talking in the future about additional turf fields. Our natural grass fields are in decline. Lighting and increasing the capacity of existing turf assets is a way to rest our natural grass fields and reduces the likelihood that we will have to put in more turf fields in the future. Now, I'm not saying I'm anti-turf or not saying we don't need to do turf. in the future. But if we are appropriately and maxing in a considerate way to the neighbors, the existing turf assets, we are reducing the need for turf and the likelihood that we need additional turf in the future because it better positions us to rest grass fields. Now, I make that point in part because I think a lot of the people who are expressing concerns about the lights will also be expressing concerns about the turf. So I make that point in the spirit of collaboration, and we just need to think about the greater need and also have the foresight to think about what we're talking about today and the context of what we're going to be talking about in the future. So I don't have much else unique to add on the topic. Please take the time to go read Alexa's email. And if anyone has any questions for me about Westport's utilization, please feel free to reach out to me and follow up.

Thank you, sir. Appreciate it. Frank Dubinsky. Frank.

Hi. Thanks for letting me speak. I'm Frank Dubinsky. I'm the president of the Whippoorwill Land Association. I was late to this call. Can somebody please tell me what the current proposal is for the end time for the lights to be turned off?

That's on the PNZ to decide. The proposal was in the original application.

So the proposal, I believe, is 10-10-30. Is that correct?

Well, so the proposal is, I believe, 10, and then the lights go to 25% power so people can get off. Right. So lights... Okay. Just so you know, Frank, that's the... Yes, that's in the... That's the proposal. Yes. Okay. So that's the same proposal from the original application.

Okay. And we've been doing this for three months and we just heard soccer coaches talk about not wanting to be on the field past eight.

So why is the proposal still 10 to 10 30 PM?

Why aren't these conversations happening that the coach mentioned? Like, it seems to me that 25 years ago when Bedford was built and these fields were put in and our association wrote letters requesting that no lights were put on these fields 25 years ago, when our members actually had the town put restrictive declarations on when and where these fields could be put, we've been waiting for this for 25 years. We knew this was coming. And to rush this through in three months without doing the due diligence we just heard about that hasn't been done doesn't make a lot of sense. There's a right way to do this. And this is not it. So more conversations need to be had The participants who wanna use the field should be listened to. They should get together with the town, come up with a schedule, a real proposal that reflects the comments of the neighbors, that reflects the needs of the students and the athletes. And then that proposal should come forth. And I would ask that PNZ make sure that if something is proposed here and approved, that it doesn't become a canary in the coal mine for the thing that we worried about 25 years ago, that this would become a full athletic complex with many turf fields and lights all over. That is something we could not bear, that your neighbors could not bear. And things like this happen all the time where you have one approval and then everybody rests on that approval for the next approval, et cetera, et cetera. So please consider all of these things and do more due diligence before you vote. Thank you.

Thank you, sir. Appreciate it. Ms. Shelby Kiefer. Shelby.

Dr. Kiefer. It's nice to see you all. I don't mean to be snarky. I'm just feeling a little snarky tonight after watching some of this. And also because my letter that says it was received was not posted to the website in time. So I'm not going to read it into the record, though I've seen that done many times. just give a couple quick notes uh i think maybe jill talked about this we don't call the police in 2026 when there's a noise complaint a lot of reasons for that i won't go into the details but we we don't call the police they're here for serious public safety concerns i think you guys would agree with that um in fact we had a big debate during the apocryphal uh lacrosse tournament, whether to call the police because we thought that that was like kind of an insane thing to do. But then someone had a full-size gas grill and we said, oh, I guess we should call the police. So we did. But it's interesting because that wasn't in the list of complaints because we had complained both about the gas grill and about the noise, but that didn't make it into the police report. So... That is what it is. I usually go first. I'm going towards the end tonight, so I just want to respond to a couple things. Frank, plus one on they want to be off the field at 8. Why do we keep saying 9.30, 10.30? Barry says he wants to rehab Loffler. Sounds like a good idea to me. Commissioner Kammermeier, different fields, different roles. Interesting thing to say. Somehow this whole thing is PJ Romano and Wakeman in a package deal. So I hope that comes true. Mr. Barbieri, you're shaking your head. I don't know. It feels like we've got this whole, I hope we have, when you come down to the things. Mr. Barbieri, will you pull Coach K's permit for the lacrosse tournament? I don't think he will, but they didn't follow the rules. Also, you recognize the layout needs to be better, the road needs to be better, the handicap parking. Why put the cart before the horse? Fix the road first, then add the lights. How long will the trees get to be 30 to 50 feet? Probably 20 years. I hate to sound ungrateful here about the committee, but I have a full-time job. I sit on Metro North 16 hours a week. I have three kids. I'm on the board of the Whippoorwill Lane Association. I'm on the PTA. And now I need to be on a lighting field committee. How much unpaid labor is expected of me to enjoy my home? Laskins' point on use, Barbieri says, trust us, trust the professionals, trust us, but verify. We have to verify. And then the Masha family is the closest to butter, and you just cut them off. It's wild. You think that lights have nothing to do with sleep? When the school made the decision, they said they couldn't start at the time the medical experts said because they didn't have lights on the fields. Well, now we have lights on the fields. Are we going to start school later? Probably not. Now my prepared comments. You guys have gotten to know me. You know my children, you know my property. You've taken me away from my life over 100 plus hours. Every few Monday nights I miss time with my kids to have this call. Today I'm missing my vacation, not to mention the mental load the week up to and after these hearings. I'm quoted what I say in these hearings. They're some of the first online search hits, which affects my personal and professional reputation. Despite my personal value of privacy, I'm gonna talk about my job tonight, what I'm an expert in, my life's purpose, what companies hire me to do is to teach people how to be more effective leaders, teach them how to say hard things, teach them how to hold other people accountable, how to make decisions on data, not loud voices, politics and special interests. And I'm adding tonight treating people with dignity and respect, particularly the people who are most affected by what's going on. So you guys are our leaders. I'm going to give you an opportunity to encourage you to be leaders tonight. The Reg 3219-5 says no adverse effects on the surrounding residential property. We've been telling you over and over again, there will be adverse effects. Please listen to us. Applicant says, trust us. We will take care of the neighbors, but they haven't earned that trust yet. Their supporters telling you voting against lights is voting against kids. That's not true. There are other ways to solve this problem and lights are the shortcut and they want you to press the easy button. We've come to you. People have said we're eloquent. Sometimes we're kinder than others tonight. Maybe not, but We came with data and evidence, we've done the work, we've sent the letters, sometimes they get posted, sometimes they get read, sometimes they don't. And by and large, our suggestions have been ignored. This is your chance to do the right thing, to have them do real use studies, to hold them to the requirements of regulations, to make them prove they can be trusted, to pull permits from rules violators like Coach K's for-profit lacrosse tournaments, to make sure they will actually turn the field lights off They need to prove that they are capable and resourced enough to follow through on the policies they just proposed. You should be as skeptical as we are because we have years of experience as their neighbors. Do not accept promises. Once the polls are in the ground, we lose any leverage to hold them accountable. I'm coming to a close here. You might wonder why we're so tight on Whippoorwill Lane, why we show up on these calls in a united front. The truth is we just lucked into living in the best place in the world. We have 15 young kids on our street and they run between our houses. Everyone is funny and kind. We have rotating Sunday dinners. We have this incredible life and now it's a little bit in jeopardy and you think I'm exaggerating. But these lights impact and these lights impact will be adverse and they will be significant. And if I didn't love my neighbors so much, I would be on my way to Coleytown despite all the renovation and hard work and money and time it took. Not to mention the courage it takes to move here not knowing anybody. I can buy another house in Westport, but I can't buy the community we have built. What's happening here is not right and it could happen anywhere in town. If not lights, then some other unsustainable or cash grab proposal we could move and instead we will fight, we're organized, we're steadfast and we aren't going anywhere. The applicant must do better. Commissioners, this is your chance to show your leadership. Vote no on these lights.

Thank you, Ms. Shelby.

Dr. Kiefer, thanks.

Thank you, Shelby Kiefer. Appreciate it. Ladies and gentlemen, that takes us to an obvious break point where we can now take at least five minutes of bio break time. And Mike Phyllis will be back in five minutes. So that is at 9.08. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for rejoining us. We are back in session after a brief bio break. We've now heard from the applicant. We've asked questions. The public has had a chance to speak. And so I'm going to first throw it to Michelle and ask her if I've missed anything.

No, I don't believe you've missed anything. I think we've covered everything.

Okay. I'm going to bring it back to the applicant then and ask him if they have any parting words that they'd like to impress upon us before we take our next actions.

No, thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think we've had numerous meetings on this and everyone's made their opinions clear. So I thank you for the opportunity. All right. Very good. So, Commissioner, it is...

sorry mr chairman if i may oh i'm sorry nick please go ahead yeah i i just wanted to correct my previous statement that ms jacobs identified um in the planting plan yeah i believe i i might have said norway maples planted to the east of the property uh in the report it's written uh piscia abies it's it's norway spruce so that was my mistake duly noted

All right. Very good. We have that correction to the record. So commissioners, it is our chance to decide at what inflection point we're at. So I'd like to go around the room and ask you if you are satisfied with the record, need more time are ready to close or have more information you require of this applicant. Why don't we go from right to left? Um, Michael Ken Meyer, you're first. Um,

I have read everything that has come in on both sides of the table. That's posted on the website. And I will continue to read everything. So we listened to a lot. I think that I have a lot of information to think about. I've been thinking, I've been taking notes. And I'll just say that I think I'm good. And just the one thing to Dr. Kiefer that, you know, each field does have different rules and they're not being bundled together because we're listening to everybody. That's where I was going. And that's where I maintain. We listen. to both sides. And we're volunteers too. And we've spent hundreds of hours to remind you volunteers. So we try to do the best we can. And we said it's a balance, right? And we're not popular for balancing. We just try to get it right. So yes, Paul, I'm good. with all the information at this point.

Thank you. Ms. Zuccaro, I have you on my screen next.

Okay. I still am looking for additional information. I think I've said it multiple times that I want to know what these poles are going to look like. You're putting 70-foot poles in a residential neighborhood and we have no idea. where they're going to be exactly how they're going to be powered and what they're going to look like. I cannot support something with not understanding what it's going to look like. And I think I've been, I've been asking the whole entire time. And I wonder too, if we're going to put a 70 foot pole there, is there, um, you know, maybe we could utilize the poles, right? You know, we could put like cell antennas on there and because it's going to be above the tree line, maybe we could get better cell phone service in that area if we really are committed to putting 74 poles in a residential neighborhood. So those are my thoughts. Thank you.

Thank you. I appreciate it. Ms. Laskin.

Where are you on this? I've really been struggling on this one, I have to tell you. I've given this so much thought off of the calls. I'm having a hard time with it. I feel like there is a need. but I don't feel like we have been shown that the need cannot be met with other alternatives I don't feel like we've been given an adequate demonstration of field utilization across town and I worry about approving this Without that information, so I'm really struggling. That's where I'm at right now.

Okay. Can I ask you does that mean so you are not ready to close or and you would like to keep it open and continue. And grill the applicant with more information.

Well, that's what I'm struggling with because I don't know if keeping it open here is going to bring me any more comfort because I feel like Parks and Rec is honestly very sincere in what they want here and what they have presented to us. And I appreciate their efforts. But I also feel like I haven't, I've asked a few times and I have not gotten the answers to some questions besides being told, trust me, trust us. So I don't know if keeping it open is going to bring me any more information.

Okay, I get it. Mr. Kamar, do you have your hand up? No, no, sorry. Oh, okay. It's weird. Unless you... No, I just was going like this. It looks like there's a hand up, but okay. So, Ms. Injeski?

I... Similar to what Nicole said, I think that the, I understand, I don't think that Parks is trying to like mislead us in any way. And I know Mr. Barbieri said to trust that there is a need, but then we hear from Coach Beatty that his needs wouldn't extend past eight and he'd be happy to put together, you know, a list of what times he would need. And we've had other representatives from other sports organizations, you know, testifying about this. So, I think that you know if we could just get some something a little bit more concrete from these from these people that are are willing to testify in support of these or from the Parks Department just about what their actual needs are. And I think that would be helpful because it's been a question that a lot of the neighbors have. A lot of the public comments are not believing that there is a need for this. So I would see some benefit in just having something a bit more concrete on that point.

Very good. So the issue between keep it open and continue, ask more questions, or close it and deliberate with the information we have?

I would say keep it open and ask questions. It's been going on for a long time, but that's where I am.

I see Michelle's going to correct me now about having to close, but go ahead.

Yes, I did just want to mention that we are all out of time on this application, so it would have to be withdrawn and resubmitted. They've given us a full extension, and we have to close the hearing by the 27th, I believe it is, and we don't have any meetings until September 14th. So I just want to make sure that's out there. The path would be withdrawing and resubmitting or closing tonight.

Thank you. We appreciate it. There you've heard it, gentlemen, ladies. Mr. Calise, what say you?

I just feel as if we do not have sufficient information, most significantly about the scheduling. I think some of the aspects of the infrastructure are unclear. But the scheduling and solutions, if there are future problems, is not satisfactory to me. I think that whatever is approved, as far as usage is concerned, should be by special permit and subject to review after a specific period, like one season or one year. Thank you.

Very good. Okay. I have the same thoughts that you all do, although I seem to have answered a lot of those same questions regarding the... Regarding the usage, they came to us and told us why they needed it, so I thought they answered that. I thought that bar was answered. In fact, I thought we answered it when we... when we went down this by approving lights as on admissible property, this was before this application even came to us. So we did this in subcommittee, we had testimony. So I thought we went down this road and I thought we had- Can I ask you a quick question on that?

Yeah, go ahead. Didn't they show us a PowerPoint in the very beginning of like this process with a sample schedule? Yes. Yes, they did. Do we need more than the sample schedule? Is that what we're saying on that topic? Is that what we're saying? We need more than the sample schedule? Because it's in the record. That's why, to me, I'm thinking, do I know something that, like, I saw a sample schedule. No, we do.

Okay, I remember that. Sorry, was that based on? That was the Parks Department put that together as part of like the second round, I think, of questioning in response.

I think so. Michelle, do you want to?

Yeah, I mean, apologies if I forgot that that was there. It just seemed like it hadn't been.

It hasn't been talked about in a while. I agree with that, but it was in the record. You know, the same way that on day one, Vijay Cirillo had said no amplified music. after a game starts and no amplified music for practices. So that would mean amplified music, they, the applicant, would only want amplified music for high school pregames. That's what's in my head, is only high school pregame, no practices. And then I heard, you know, and then we were talking tonight About the need, and that's on us to put conditions on an application. So I'm thinking the back of my head. Okay, I can put conditions on an application. They can ask for the world, but that's up to the to say, this is what we'll allow. After we discuss it in work session, of course. So, on that topic, there has been. In my head, that's why in my head I'm saying, okay, I think I have enough information to close because I'm trying to think about questions that we've been asked. And can I answer these questions? I can make a decision on those questions. As far as what the light poles look like, I've seen pictures of them at a meeting in a slideshow.

Yeah, I've seen them too. Have you seen them, what they look like in the neighborhood and the impact that it would have? Yes, you have. You've seen them over there. You've seen them because I have not seen it. I've gone through all the stuff online. I have not seen it. So maybe you could tell me exactly where it is and I can refresh my memory.

They showed them to us at the site visit where they're going to be put in the ground, right? That's one. So we know exactly where they're going to be put in the ground on the site visit. But I don't disagree. Is there a specific rendering with a rectangular fixture? Because I know exactly what it looks like. It looks like a baseball hat. In that specific tree, they showed an example of what it would look like. And I know in my head where 70 feet is because I asked the question of where 70 feet is because they showed us where 70 feet was.

They showed you with like a balloon test?

Or they showed you with pointing? They showed us with a picture. Okay. And I know exactly where 70 feet is in my mind. Maybe you don't in your mind. That's okay. I just know in my mind where 70 feet is. I went out to the field and I thought about it and I looked, right? So I spent a lot of time, but maybe that's just me.

No, no, it's not. It's not just you. They did bring back a presentation when they were asked. The lighting gentleman from the lighting company brought in schematics and drawings. And I'm not sure if Patrizia, if you were there that day.

There has not been any drawings that show and depicts this. There has not been any drawings. And if there has, it should be on the website in the record. And I've been, I've scoured the website. I've done it multiple times and I'm unable to find it. So now if I'm wrong.

I'm sorry, you're saying you're not, you're not, you don't know what they will look like.

No, what I'm saying is that normally when an application comes in for a site plan, we get a survey in a site plan, and it shows us exactly where it's on a map, and then it shows us the conduits in which it's going to power it, and then it shows visibility. We just had it earlier today with the pre-app. They showed us a sight line from the side view showing the height as compared to some of these surrounding areas. We haven't seen that at all. We're talking about 70-foot poles in a residential neighborhood, and we don't know if it's going over the tree line. At least I don't know. I'm sorry if I missed it.

Okay. They did provide us with photographic evidence of what it would look like. It was in their presentation. It is on the website.

It does exist. Please tell me where it is on the website.

I'll go look at it right now. First, let's try to get through this, which is we're trying to decide what to do next. I was in the middle of going through my list. One of the things said here, and I think And I think I heard it one way, and I'm hoping that the way I heard it is correct. But what I heard was that entities would come to Parks and Recs and ask to use the field. And they would give an estimated time when they would be done. And that would have to be approved by Parks and Recs. And when they were done, they would leave the field and the field would go dark. That was my understanding. So if somebody is saying that on Tuesday in October, they want that field from 4.30 to 7.30 and there's nobody else afterward, the field goes dark and they shut off the lights. They don't automatically just stay on until... an agreed upon time to shut them off. That's not my understanding of how this works. They have the digital equipment and they are able to use it to turn lights off before an agreed upon time. We certainly can come up with our own end time. We're not obligated to utilize their suggested, you know, what they would like. We can decide on our own whether or not we want it to be 8, 9, 10. You know, after listening to the neighbors, I'm sure all of us have an understanding of what we might want to do. So...

Go ahead, Michael. Parks and Rec presentation 62626 online. It goes through some of those questions that we all had. Yeah, I know. I just pulled it up on my screen here. And like it's a PowerPoint that Parks and Rec put together. Yeah, I know. Right? And it has some sample schedules in it. And if we scroll down, we can see exactly.

what um 70 feet looks like we can see what the light pole with the fixture like what the actual fixture looks like as it's um they also did a site yeah they also did a site visit we did a site walk they came in they explained to us that they were going to be running conduit from the school all the way across the field they told us exactly where it was going to come across it had to go underneath the wall they explained that um I got that information, but maybe I was listening differently than others. So.

Yeah. Can we talk about it then? Because I still don't see it.

I'm sorry. I pulled it up.

Thank you, Michael. I appreciate you.

All right. Well, hang on one second. Hang on. Before we go into individual items. Mr. Bloom, I believe you needed to weigh in for us. Right.

Can you hear me right? Yes. So good evening. Ira Bloom, town attorney. I've been listening all night. In fact, I've been listening for all the hearings. And there's been a lot of evidence. And as Michelle told you, you are out of time in terms of the public hearing. You are out of extensions. So your choice is to close the hearing, one, or to have another hearing, I guess, before the 27th, Michelle. or sometimes we employ a tactic where the application will be withdrawn and then resubmitted, thus starting the clock, and we incorporate everything from the past record into the new record and just keep going. And we've done that many times, but it's not necessarily the preferred approach because it really does extend this for a long time. But we can do that if necessary. So you're out of time, and that suggests that we spent a lot of time, as you have, working on this tough issue, and you've all spent a lot of time, and I understand that. So, I mean, just to sort of frame this from perhaps a legal perspective, the starting point is you do have a regulation that allows for lights on fields. You passed that a year or more ago. It was not appealed, so it's on the books. And so we start with that. That is your starting point. And you have materials that must be submitted. You have to decide whether you have all those materials now, landscaping plan, sound plan, all other requirements, management plan. You need to decide that and evaluate those plans, which I believe have been submitted as far as I can determine. You need to decide whether there are adverse impacts on the neighbors, unreasonable adverse impacts. So that really is the question here. The regulation, the law, our zoning regulations do allow for these lights. So that really frames it, and that's really what you have to decide. You have to balance everything and decide whether the regulation has been satisfied. By looking at all the evidence. And so I suggest you focus on that. Because this is dragged on for awhile, it's it's understandable that perhaps not everybody remembers what happened at the first couple of meetings. I don't remember everything either, but if you are reminded that you do have the information, the schedules you do have a reasonable idea what the polls look like. I do, I think. having listened. And you have to evaluate all of that, the comments from the neighbors, the comments from their expert. All of that has to be balanced. And you have to make a decision. You can approve the application as is. You can modify the application by looking at the hours, imposing conditions. You have that authority. Or, of course, you can deny it as not in accord with the regulations. And I think you're pretty close to the time where you're ready to close it. I'm listening to this discussion the past several minutes and hearing your comments. If you feel that you need more information still, I would suggest that you be very specific. and ask the applicant to provide very specific information to close those gaps, if you feel that there are gaps. On the other hand, if you feel that you have everything at this point, then you have to make a decision. And that decision should not be made tonight. A, it's getting late, and B, you have other items. So you can close the hearing, close the public hearing, and then the clock resets, for another period of time to make a decision which i think will take us so i understand your scheduling into september you can schedule the next deliberation session the work session for whatever you want but i think it's most likely in september and then you'll have to make a decision um and you'll have a discussion uh it's in public although the public cannot participate but you will discuss it in public And I will be there and we can start talking about how you feel about whether the applicant has complied with the regulation. And that's going to be, that's going to be your decision. Yes, no, or some modification in between. You do have the power to, as I said, to make, to impose conditions, to look at the hours, to look at the other conditions, in terms of who uses it, setting up some management structure or some other committee that's been discussed. You have all of that you have in your authority if you choose to approve it. You may choose to deny it. So that's probably the next step, unless a majority of you feel that you still need some additional information, and then we're going to have to either have a new meeting before the 27th or um do this um withdraw the application and resubmit it which we do on occasion it's it's not necessarily the preferred way to do it but we do that to buy additional time so um i hope that kind of frames where you are um And I'm happy to answer any further questions about the process if you have any.

Thank you. I appreciate it. Always good to hear from the town attorney on how we adjudicate this. And again, going back to what I was asking, the answers that we were getting to the question that I asked were really work session questions. They were very specific questions about specific aspects of this application. What I'm actually looking for is the overall, are you ready to close and then parse through all the information that we got, which we do as a body. And we make those decisions based on what we've heard. Or is there questions that you have that can only be answered by the applicant that you feel has not been given yet? That was why I asked it the way I asked it. Maybe I should have said, are you ready to close? So I'm going to go back around the room. Are you ready to close? I'll start with you, Mr. Calise. I'll go in reverse order this time.

Okay. So what exactly are we voting for?

Voting on whether or not to close this application.

All right, I vote to close.

Thank you, sir. And going back in reverse order again was Bree Injeski.

Yeah, I take back what I said earlier. I see that my questions are answered in the record. So yes, I'm good. I vote to close.

Ms. Zuccaro? No. Ms. Laskin? No.

No.

Mr. Kammeier? I think I'm good to close, yes. And I'm a yes as well. The measure passes to close.

Do we need to take a motion?

Wait, wait, wait. Paul, you should probably make an official motion, get a second, and take a vote officially.

Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah, okay, yeah. I thought that's what I was doing.

You have to do that on, there's four different ones? There's four.

We only opened up two of them. We're only on 70 North Avenue right now.

Can I just add a comment on the 824, which is a different item with a different timetable. I guess my suggestion is that, as I understand, and Michelle can help us out here, there's not enough time to postpone that. So what we do is we will have a withdrawal of that request and a resubmission. It's only 35 days on an 824. An 824, as most of you know, is really a planning request. When there's a substantial improvement to town property, which this is, is it consistent with the town plan? It kind of carries along with the special permit site plan. My suggestion is that you defer that. If you're going to close the public area and special permit site plan, then postpone the 824. It'll get withdrawn and resubmitted so that you will decide the 824 at the same time that you do the special permit site plan sometime later, presumably in September.

That was my understanding of how this would work because the 824 has to come back. We're out of time on that. Right. All right, so you've heard the legal counsel, so now I'm going to throw it to Michelle and ask her from a process point of view, do you want us to vote on four individual pieces or are the two 824 superfluous at this point?

Yes, I think that, I mean, I think ideally if Eric's still here, would he make a motion to withdraw or would he put on the record he's going to withdraw and resubmit or is that not needed? Attorney Bloom.

I guess I think if Eric will withdraw it and then resubmit it, I think that'll be sufficient.

Okay. So then I think we just go ahead. Eric, do you want to?

Yeah, no, I'm if process wise, we need to have them kind of go at the same time. I'll do whatever it takes. No problem.

Okay. So then I think we just need a motion to close the special permit for 70 North Ave. Okay.

I'll make a motion to close the special permit site plan for 70 North Ave. Do I have a second? I'll second that. All right. All those in favor, I'm going to go around the room. Mr. Kahnmeier? Aye. Ms. Zuccaro?

Nay.

Ms. Laskin?

Nay.

Ms. Njeske?

Yes.

And Mr. Kalise? Aye. Mike, you're unmuted. Mr. Calise? Mr. Calise? You're on mute, Mike.

I'm sorry, I didn't realize my voice was off.

It's okay. This is a vote to close 470, North Ave.

So I say no.

Okay, and I say yes.

So now we're going to do the second one, which is... Can I just ask, Paul, did you identify who seconded that? Because I heard a couple of voices at the same time. Three has a second.

Did we lose Craig? Yes, yes. Craig told me she had to jump off. All right, so that was three to three.

I'm sorry, Mr. Calise, again, you changed your vote just now. Is that right?

Say that again?

You changed your vote right just now and I'm just making sure that that's what was your attention.

Yes.

OK, very good and let's do 170 Riverside municipal improvement. Let's go around the room. This is a.

What were the votes?

Yeah, it wasn't clear to me either. So Mike Calise just said yes, so it was all? Yes, to close? Is that what he meant?

Correct.

Oh, okay. I thought he said no to close. I'm sorry.

We did first, but it's his vote. Can I just ask for clarification? Just to make sure. The motion doesn't carry a three to three.

That's correct. You're entitled to ask for correction or clarification.

Well, I just want to make sure it's clear that... Why don't you ask Mr. Calise if he wishes to close or not, yes or no? All right, I'll try one more time.

Commissioner Calise, we have a motion on the table to close 70 North Avenue. You wish to not close it, yes?

Yes.

Or not close it?

No, close it.

Okay, thank you for that clarification. On 170 Riverside, we're going to ask the same question. The question is, do you want to close? I'm going to ask Patrice first.

I think you need a second first, right, on your motion.

Yeah, you'd like to make a second.

I don't want to second your motion. So does somebody else want to second your motion? I'll second it. And then I'll respond.

I'll second your motion, Paul.

All right, Michael will second it. Okay, so no, I don't want to close it.

Okay, very good. Nicole?

No.

Ms. Injeski?

Yes.

Mr. Kammeier? Yes. And Mr. Calise?

Your voice is off again, Mike.

Mr. Calise, close 170 Riverside.

170 Riverside correct question is do I vote to close it correct answer is yes, thank you Sir and I vote yes as well.

Michelle do you have what you need to now schedule this for work session in the future.

Yes, I do thank you.

And do we have instructions that we've given to the applicant. As far as the 24 is concerned.

Yes, he's going to withdraw and resubmit both of the 824s to restart the clock.

Okay. So we're done with this except for one last comment that I'm going to make, and that is now the hard work starts, gentlemen, ladies, because you have a record in front of you. both a regulation on the books that we voted in in 2023, as well as this application, which we've now fully heard. And so the record is deep. And it has a lot of comments, has a lot of letters, has a lot of information to go through. And I implore you, please, to not have any gaps in your knowledge and come back ready at the time that Michelle prescribes, fully equipped to make a decision based on what we did here. That's all. If Ms. Injeski would like, can we go to the next item?

The next item on our agenda is number seven, which is municipal improvement. Connecticut General Statute Section 824 at 112 and 114 Roseville Roads, application number PZ2600485, request for a report from the Planning and Zoning Commission submitted pursuant to CGS Section 824, municipal improvement by David Ginter, PECFM. Redness and Mead on behalf of the first selectmen for construction of a sanitary sewer main to service 112 and 114 Roseville Road located in the residence AA district PID number E11081000 and number E1108000. Do you want me to open up number eight as well? Yes, please. Yes, please. Number eight is 112 Roseville Road, 114 Roseville Road, and 3 Elwell Drive, subdivision application number PZ2600304, submitted by David R. Gittner, PECFM, for property owned by 12... 112 Roseville Road LLC Roseville Partners LLC and Frederick and Melissa Post for subdivision of property to create one new building lot by reconfiguring three existing lots and proposing a new road located in residence of a district PID number E 1 1 0 8 1 0 0 0 E 1 1 0 8 0 0 0 0 and E 1 1 0 8 3 0 0 0.

Thank you for that. I appreciate it. Michelle who do we have tonight.

We have Mr. Dave Ginter.

Very good. Mr. Ginter, the floor is yours. Thank you. Good evening. David Ginter from Redness and Mead here on behalf of, I guess, the First Elections Office for the 824, as well as the owners of 112, 114 Roseville Road and 3 Elwell Drive for the proposed subdivision of the Roseville Road properties. Let's start with the sewer main extension. As part of recent sewer improvements, specifically WPCA contract number 73, which was completed within the last year or so, the sewer main was extended easterly on Whitney Street to the intersection of Roseville Road and included a lateral connection provided to house at 112 Roseville Road. That connection has not been made as of yet. but the sewer extension has been made up to that point as part of previous improvements. The proposed sewer main extension that we're here seeking a positive report from you on this evening is to extend a low pressure sewer main up Roseville Road in a northerly direction, approximately 70 feet, to serve a new subdivision located on the easterly side of Roseville Road. Essentially, the sewer main extension will be continuing up the existing driveway of the 112 Roseville property. Due to the number of properties being connected, the existing 4-inch lateral that exists serving 112 Roseville is not sufficient to carry the flow from three houses. And due to the grading of the roadway existing of Roseville, the proposed new coastal ridge, as well as utility crossings. We've worked with the WPCA staff and are proposing a low pressure force main to serve those three residents within the proposed subdivision. As noted in the staff report, these properties all lie within the future sewer area line, the blue line, and falls within the moderate to high need category. We did do soil testing in October of last year. We did 22 soil tests on that property. And found seven of those test pits indicated a ledge at depths less than 24 inches, which is not suitable for septic. We performed another, found another six test pits, had ledge between 24 and 48, which is potentially suitable for septic purposes. However, additional testing fill would be required to be brought into the property, and more engineering work would be required to make that a suitable location. Considering that more than 50% of the test pits we had were, you know, I'll say substandard, and knowing that there was an available sewer connection already for 112 Roseville Road, we decided that no further testing was going to be necessary and we would move forward with the sewer main extension application. While the sewer main extension is going to serve three lots, I just want to clarify that one of those lots, again, 112 Roseville Road already has a sewer lateral to the property. Again, it hasn't been connected, but it's already been assessed all the fees. So we would be seeking the extension to serve two new lots that aren't already connected onto the sewer system or already part of the plan, if you will. Mr. Chair, I don't know if you want me to keep going into the subdivision application or pause for a moment and go over anything related to the 824 and the Superman extension.

I think for brevity's sake, you can keep going and then we'll circle back.

All right. Very good. Thank you. Switch documents here on my screen. Right. So for the subdivision itself, there's kind of two parts to this. One would be a lot line adjustment with three L will drive. They are not. in my mind, part of the subdivision. But because of the approval process, we have not completed the lot line adjustment as of yet. We wanted to make it through and get approval on the subdivision before go ahead and closing and transferring of that land between. So it's technically, you know, as submitted, a subdivision between the three parcels. Where at the end of the day, we're looking at, you know, four parcels total. I view this simply as a lot line adjustment with three Elwell where the land would go to the two Roseville parcels. And then the two Roseville parcels would be subdivided into three. Hopefully that makes some sense to everybody here. The lot line adjustment with Three Elwhill consists of about a third of an acre of land that would be merged into the 112 and 114 Roseville properties totaling 4.26 acres of which currently there's just under a 10th of an acre of wetlands, just under six tenths of an acre of steep slopes and about 0.13 acres of an access and utility easement serving 116 and 118 Roseville Road. Currently 116, 118, and 114 all share a common driveway further up Roseville Road than where we're proposing the new roadway here. These lots all lie within the resident's AA district, which requires the one acre minimum. With the acquisition of land from 3L, well, there is enough land to, in theory, create up to four lots. However, given the need for common private road, the steep slopes and the wetlands, three lots is the maximum that is practical and feasible out here. Based on the plans, and Michelle, do I have access to share?

Yeah, you should. I sent it over.

Thank you. Okay. So I have the subdivision map up here. As you can see, there's a fair amount of vertical relief on the property, both from the frontage of our property inboard, but as well as along Roseville Road, where the southern corner of our property is higher, and Roseville Road drops as you go to the north. Given all of the slopes that we have out here and the cut and fill regulations that we are contending with, it was decided upon to put the proposed coastal ridge road, the private road, at the southern end of the parcels, roughly where the existing driveway for 112 Roseville Road exists. This allows us to work with the higher grades within Roseville Road, making the slopes into the property a little less drastic and harder to deal with. But it also puts us closer to the intersection of Whitney Street and allows us to make some sight distance improvements in this corridor by moving some retaining walls back that currently exist out there. There's some historic retaining walls along the shoulder of Roseville on the easterly side here. And we're able to pull those back and improve the site distances at this intersection, improving conditions for everyone and making it a safer condition for the folks coming off of Coastal Ridge. Remember, this would be net two houses coming off of this driveway as 112 Roseville already comes out in this location. Let's see here. With the road being proposed in the southern portion of the property, we are able to create the three lots. One lot would be to the north of Coastal Ridge, partially where 114 and 112 currently exist in this area. And then we would propose two additional lots in the easterly and southerly portion of the property. There is a point uh two three give or take acre open space parcel uh to the south of the proposed road where there are some steep slopes and provides a nice landscaping buffer between uh the road the subdivision as well as the neighbors uh located this is a typo here apologies this is 110 roseville road not 100 and we we've worked with this neighbor i believe she's on the call this evening but we've worked with her and discussed this open space here so that we have a landscaping buffer between her their property and the road in any of the new lots that are out here. A schematic plan was prepared showing the maximum amount of coverage in the property here. That's the maximum development. This maxes out the coverage per the zoning requirements with a driveway, a pool, all the belts and suspenders that one could potentially build on these properties. At this point, the intention is not to build this plan. I did submit alternate site plans that were approved by the Conservation Commission earlier this year that had smaller footprints. That is what the developers are looking to actually build. But per the regulations, we had to design, show you that we can handle drainage according to the maximum build-out. So that's what this plan does. From a stormwater management standpoint, we do have stormwater management provided on each individual lot and a larger drainage system located at the bottom of the proposed road adjacent to Roseville Road to handle stormwater runoff from the newly created road. We've met with town engineering staff to discuss this and review this. We are proposing to make direct connections into Roseville Road due to the steep slopes on this property. As a result of that, we are required to upsize some existing conveyance infrastructure within Roseville Road itself. So there's a net benefit to the town by being able to have larger pipes carry more stormwater runoff that runs off through the area during a storm event. And all the connections will be made there. The town has reviewed this and has approved it. And I believe, I don't know if it made it into the record or not, but I have a letter or an email from the DPW director that he's okay with this as well, these connections. As I said, assuming that we receive positive endorsement from you this evening on the 824, we would be having all three lots tie into the sanitary sewer extension. Again, it's going to be a low pressure sewer main running up the road and each individual house will have their own low pressure pump station on the property to serve and tie into that sanitary sewer extension. We will seek the approval for the sewer main extension from the Board of Selectmen, as well as the individual connections for Lot 1 and 2, as those two lots, I guess, would be the two new lot, new connections. Lot 3 would be, in my mind, taking the connection that has already been approved for Lot 1, the existing 112 Roseville Road property. We do have in the package an in-depth sediment erosion control plan that was reviewed and approved by the Conservation Commission and will be adjusted as needed to accommodate the actual individual development on each lot. We did spend quite a bit of time with the Commission, Conservation Commission, discussing the S&E controls and the phasing of the roadway work itself and think we have a good plan for that. uh we have met with the tree warden to discuss the removal of one tree within the town right-of-way there is an existing tree uh located it's this dot right here adjacent to the existing driveway into 112 roseville road to accommodate the new roadway the proposed roadway we do have to remove that tree given the retaining walls that are along the edge of the property and their close proximity to the roadway the steep slopes at the top of those walls And the site distance concerns, we have agreed with the tree warden that we'll provide a fee in lieu so that they can replant trees of equivalent size and caliper elsewhere in town to make up for the loss of this single tree here. I did see in the record today online that there was some comments from the neighbors at 7 Salem Lane, which abuts the property to our east on lot number one, which is the lot furthest east on our plan here. While we don't have a landscaping plan put together as of yet, there certainly will be a robust landscaping plan that will be implemented at the construction of that house as is typical for construction of this type in town here. Let's see, what else do we have here? We did receive approval from the Board of Selectmen for the encroachment waiver for these existing retaining walls to keep existing walls in the right of way, as well as moving those walls to improve site distance to get the new roadway in. I think that's kind of everything. I guess I'll turn it over to you guys and let you ask any questions, unless there's something else specifically you want me to go through real quick right now.

That's very comprehensive. Thank you very much, Michelle.

Thank you. I'm not going to reiterate a lot of what Mr. Gensler already stated. Again, this is subdivision to create one additional lot. I'm sorry. Resulting in the creation of three new building lots. There's three, I'm sorry, three lots that are being reconfigured and there will be a 3L will continue to be a separate building lot. There will also be a new roadway and the Conservation Commission did approve this application and they also approved an amendment to the wetland boundary. The Town Engineering Department submitted comments stating they were satisfied with the road opening permit and all of the drainage and the set of erosion controls. All that were approved on July 16th um encroachment waiver was already discussed that was received by the board of selectmen aspic health district also submitted comments stating the septic system abandonment applications were submitted and they'll have to be finalized before any building permits are issued the open space parcel is 0.229 about 9,975 square feet, which is to be preserved in its natural state in perpetuity through an open space declaration. And that's kind of the basics. I'm here for questions. Thank you.

That's hardly basic, Michelle. All right. Very good. Commissioners. First of all, David, thank you for bringing this to us in such a comprehensive way. I do appreciate it. My first question actually to you, though, is this took a long time to get here and there were many iterations. Can you just give me kind of a high level what changed from what was withdrawn to what's improved with this new one?

Certainly. So the original 824 application was submitted, and as it relates to the 824, nothing has changed. We just ran out of time. As you heard Mr. Bloom indicate with the last couple of applications, you have, I think it's 35 days to open and close and render a decision on the 824s. So as we were working with staff both the engineering department and the tree warden to address some of their concerns regarding drainage and the removal of the tree. We ran out of time, unfortunately, with the 824. So the sewer main extension has not changed from what was originally submitted.

All right. Very good. And I just wanted that on the record. It was what I thought it was. So thank you for that. The road itself looks fine. I have no issues there. I like the way it sets off against Whitney. I believe that's a good compromise for sight lines and drive times. Yeah. That area of Roseville can get pretty fast, as you know. People tend to speed. And so I was a little worried about that, but you seem to have addressed it. The driveway, as it moves its way back, has a spur or a hammerhead, I believe. What is that for? Who uses that?

So because we have three lots proposed to be served off of this private roadway, we are not required to put in a true turnaround or a cul-de-sac. So the fire department, we met with the fire marshal early in this process to make sure that we addressed any potential concerns that he had. So that hammerhead is primarily for him. So if he did have an emergency, whether it's fire, EMS, whatever, they have the ability to turn their larger vehicles around at the end of that private road as opposed to, you know, depending on how the driveway configurations work for each of the individual lots, they may not be able to turn themselves around there. So that's what the purpose is. Okay, very good.

And the drainage that picks up all the road drainage, I noticed that that is on the existing septic fields now. Can you describe to me the process behind removing the septic fields underneath and putting in the new drainage?

Certainly. Yeah. So the septic fields would be abandoned. We would fill out or finalize the paperwork with the health department. We would completely remove all of the septic fields. If that house is not vacant, I think it is. If it's not, we just have to let it sit for 30 days. and that would be sufficient for the health department to let any of the biomats and things like that around the existing septic system to stop doing what they typically do in a septic scenario, we would remove the galleries and any of the stone and put in the new drainage system. Given the soil tests that were done in the area, as well as some of the grading that we have to do to get the new road in, we are going to be digging the drainage system in lower than the existing septic field is and given that there's going to be ledge that we're going to be contending with so those drainage systems will be a tight water tight system doing all the water treatment and detention not percolating into the ground so there will be no you know cross-contamination with any potential septic that would potentially remain but again We've done it successfully in other towns where you can convert septic systems after 30 days into drainage infrastructure. So I'm not worried about anything with that at this point.

And that'll have no impact on the wall that's out there and then obviously the roadway as well? That is correct, yes.

Okay, very good.

It's interesting what you did with Elwell. Does that impact that property on Elwell at all? Does it become... any less usable by taking that swath?

No, because, you know, just eyeballing it, it's, you know, 30 to 40 percent of the parcel that we're taking from 3L is wetlands. And then obviously the rest of it would be wetland setbacks. It's really a non-usable portion of that property. It wouldn't be suitable for septic in the future for them. And there's really no development rights that they would have between your zoning setbacks and compared to the existing lot line that exists around that as well as the wetlands. So no, it's not a usable section that they're losing.

So it strictly was to give the, I guess that's a unit number one, enough usable land. That's correct. And I use the term usable loosely.

Yes.

Okay. And let's talk about what happens when you come down this road with heavy machinery. Tell me what life will be like for the neighbors. How long will it take? What's your posture as far as protecting the road and the neighbors?

So... Joe Diamond is on, I believe. He's part of the ownership group, the development group here. He could probably speak quickly to construction timing. We would obviously be constructing the road first and then working on the residences either concurrently or after the road is completed. But there will be a phasing plan that's in place so that we will protect residents. stormwater runoff from significantly impacting any of the neighbors and or the drainage infrastructure in Roseville Road and again that was reviewed in depth with conservation both at the public hearing as well as during a site walk that we had with the conservation staff and Commission itself during their review process so the road would get cut in Right now, the initial access would be both through 112 Rosewill, but temporarily from the existing common driveway that 114 shares with 118 and 116 to do some of the initial earthwork and clearing. But then primarily access would be coming off of 112 Roseville's existing drive as we're cutting in the new driveway. Again, S&E controls will be in place surrounding it throughout the life of construction. And thankfully, there are no neighbors that would be directly impacted by runoff for the construction of that road as the grade of these two parcels 112 and 114 generally slope in a westerly, northwesterly direction and get out into Roseville Road before it would cross any directly abutting neighbors.

And what can the people who travel on Roseville every day, what can they look forward to?

Well, it'll be your typical construction site where you're going to have vehicles coming and going as material is either hauled off or brought in. Do you anticipate a road closure at any time? There will be... Yes, there will have to be lane closures to install the sewer extension, the 70 feet of the connection within Roseville itself before it turns into the property. There will be lane closures associated with the drainage installation. And we will work closely with DPW and the Highway Department to ensure that we have a phasing plan in place so that there's at least one lane of traffic at all times able to get by. We will not close down the entirety of the road ever. I assume that this activity will be occurring during the day hours, not nighttime work. There will be flaggers, police officers, et cetera, in place. The road will be closed. Any excavation will be closed at the end of the day, whether it's steel plates or backfill. And two lanes of traffic will be able to continue on after hours, I'll call it.

And as long as you brought it up, what about blasting?

Yeah. There is ledge out there. I assume that there will be some blasting that will be required as opposed to chipping the rock. I know it's blasting or chipping is always a contentious thing, and some people like one over the other. Blasting has been done by this developer in the past. They're not scared of it. They're used to it. There's blasters that they work with. who have a good reputation, and there is a whole permit process that they would go through with the fire marshal in town to ensure that there's no adverse impacts. I assume that that would be the case here. Blasting is the quickest way to get through any rock as opposed to days or weeks of whole ramming, which is the constant pinging of those machines out there on that rock, which drives everybody absolutely crazy. Okay, great.

You've answered almost all my questions. The last one I have for you is the conservation easement to the west of the property. Who is that in favor of? Whose strip of land is that?

The conservation easement to the west?

I'd say behind the third house, in the rear.

All right, hold on a second.

Let me share my screen again. All right, I'll go to your example. To the left. Keep going. Right there. Oh, this thing right here?

Yep. So that is the access easement. That is an existing access easement for... All right, let me back up here. So this strip here is technically owned by 114 Roseville Road, and that is the common driveway that takes them up currently in this general direction before they veer off to the right to get up to the existing house in the rear. This is existing house 114 Roseville Road. That common driveway is shared by 116 Roseville Road as well as 118 Roseville Road. So this easement will remain. It's not a conservation easement. That is an access and utility easement so that 116, 118 can keep their access to Roseville Road as well as their utility connections out to the street.

And nothing you're doing will change that access for them?

No, we're not touching that roadway. We are 116 Roseville Road's overhead utility lines runs right through the middle of the parcel, right in this general direction, right through the middle of where we're proposing house number three. So we are going to be relocating their overhead service and coordinating with them to ensure that that falls within the easement area. That, I think, is the only utility or impact that they would have as a result of this.

Very good. You've answered all my questions. I appreciate the information. Other commissioners? Just going to hang me out there, right? Okay.

You were very thorough, Paul. I have nothing.

Paul, you did an amazing job. I want to thank you as well.

Oh, stop it. Just come up with one question. One. One. I beg you. You want one question? Yes, sir. What color is the grass on the property?

Currently, I proposed.

Proposed, of course. Green. Okay.

Let's keep it that way.

I do have one question. In one of the comments from the neighbors, there was something about removal of a portion of a shared fence. Is that going to be reinstalled? Do you know what was removed?

Which... comment. Was that from the 7 Salem Lane? Yes. Yeah, I don't know anything about a fence that was removed over there. I assume if a fence was removed and it's a common fence or it was, you know, our fence or we, you know, or the developer, you know, adversely impacted a fence, we'll certainly work with them and replace the fence as necessary.

Okay. And then as far as like a Planting plan, it'll be screens?

Yes, there'll be a planting plan that will be prepared as part of the zoning permits.

Okay.

All right. Thank you for bailing me out, Brie. Okay. Michelle, did we miss anything?

No, I don't think so. Just have to go to the public, I think.

Oh yeah, I'm sorry, I knew that. Yes, the public, would anybody like to speak about this proposed subdivision and 824 new sewer development? If you'd like to put your hand up or wave at me, I'd be glad to call on you. And if not, it's okay, we can move along. Last chance.

I think the hamburgers are trying to unmute.

I'm trying to figure out if that's what they're doing. I see Ms. Haddad has raised her hand. So, Ms. Haddad, you're up.

He's on mute. I get it. So...

Did the tree warden approve the destruction of the houses, of the trees that separated our house from 114?

Because I saw he approved Ward 12. I wonder if he approved those houses, those trees being torn down.

Michelle, did you understand that?

I think I understood that. Did the tree warden approve? The trees that are being taken down on the other property? Is that what you said?

Yeah, the trees that are on their property line, between their properties?

Well, the tree warden does not... Go ahead, Paul.

He only gets a say in the tree that's in the right-of-way on town property. Private property, they are allowed in... Connecticut, and certainly in Westport, they do, they are allowed to landscape as they see fit. If you're If you're thinking that your view from your property is going to change dramatically, then make your voices heard today as to what it is that you feel you would like to see happen. And we can ask the applicant if they would review it with you. How's that? Okay, that's great. I mean, what's your address? I'm sorry. What's your address? Oh, you're the 17th. Okay. So you wrote a letter? Yes. Okay. Mr. Ginter, you want to make sure that the applicant is conversing with this gentleman and lady, please. Certainly. If there needs to be new trees planted on your portion of Elwood, El will.

It's not El will. It's not El will.

The other side. It's on the other side. It's Roseville back to Salem Lake. Okay. Mr. Ginter, you know where they live? I do know where they live, yes. And you're on it? We're on it. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Ms. Haddad, again, you're unmuted.

I think that they were speaking from there. Yeah, that was them.

Okay, that's them. They're together. We'll lower your hand now. And then we'll mute you guys.

You guys are good? Yeah, they are. Okay. All right. So anybody else from the public, now's your chance. Please put your hand up. Anybody have any questions? No? Seeing none, I'm going to come back to the applicant and ask him if he has any final thoughts.

No, we will work with the neighbors and discuss the landscaping with them. Outside of that, I thank you for your time this evening. All right, very good.

Commissioners, do I have a motion? Motion to close. I will second that. All those in favor, say aye.

Aye.

One, two, three, four. Mike Cleese? Mike Cleese? Aye. Thank you. Appreciate it. Ms. Secretary.

All right. Mrs. Actually, sorry. Well, yeah, that's right. Hello. I know. All right. We are on to item number nine.

We have to close both of them.

Oh, okay. Motion to close.

That was the 824. Now we're closing the subdivision.

Thank you, Michelle, for keeping us on track. Who would like to read a motion for that second piece?

I'll motion to close.

I'll second that. All those in favor. Do you know what you're closing here? Does everybody know what they're closing? Second piece. Yes.

Subdivision.

Subdivision. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Three yeses.

Yes.

Three is a fourth. Patricia?

Yeah.

Five. And Mr. Calise? Yes. I'm not playing this game. Yes. Okay. Thank you. Are you happy, Michelle?

Yes.

All right. Now number nine is text amendment number eight.

I'm sorry, Bree, but are we opening something after 10 o'clock? Something, a new agenda?

Oh, I don't know. You have a great point, Michelle. Let me take a crack at this. There's 62 people online. Hang on a second, Michael. Michelle, what does the byline say? Bylaws. Bylaws, thank you.

I do actually have them on my computer. Thank you.

Let's do that first.

I'm going to take a second, sorry.

Is it 11 o'clock?

should have given you a warning that i was going to ask you okay um bylaws stay meeting opening

Unless otherwise voted by those commission members present at a regular meeting, no items of new business on the agenda will be taken up after 10 p.m. All right.

So we need to vote on this, as Ms. Zuccaro has rightfully shown us. And so the question will be, I'll kind of wing it here, given the nature of the hour, but in deference to the amount of people that are here who are interested in hearing this, how does this commission vote to go forward with the next item?

One point of order, Paul. This one, according to the agenda, this must open by August 19th. So just putting that out there. Yeah.

We would have to open it. We could open it and then immediately continue it.

We could open it and continue it, or we could open it and hear it and continue it. We have a lot of things we can do. Thank you, Ms. Injeski. So I'm going to make a motion that we vote to at least open the hearing. Typically, somebody has to second.

Yes, I would second that. I would second that we should open it at the very least.

All right, so now we're gonna go around the room, vote on whether or not we're going to stay in committee and work on this. I'm gonna start with you, Ms. Zuccaro, since it was your motion.

Yeah.

I'm sorry? I will vote to open, yes. Vote to open. Mr. Kammerer? I also vote to open. Ms. Laskin?

Vote to open.

Ms. Zangieski?

Open.

Mr. Calise. Open. And Mr. Liebowitz is open as well. All right. Ms. Ingestin, would you open it?

Yes. All right. Text amendment number 874 PZ2600386 submitted by Andrew Polabella to modify section 40 dedicated in open space and recreational districts permit fenced recreational dog play area in the dedicated and open space and recreation district number one by special permit approval. A copy of the text amendment is available online at www.westportct.gov on the Planning and Zoning Office web page under P&Z pending applications and recent approvals. Copy may also be viewed at Town Hall 110 Myrtle Avenue in the Town Clerk's Office and Planning and Zoning Office.

Very good. Thank you for that. Who is reading this for us?

The applicant is Andrew Colabella.

Mr. Colabella. Good evening, Paul. Thank you. And commissioners of the commission. The reason why I'm coming to you guys tonight is text amendment because I believe it is important to distinguish between allowing a use under the zoning regulations and actually approving specific project at Wenzel Park. The purpose of the proposed text amendment is not to approve a final dog run, its precise location, size, design, fencing, access, or other site-specific details. Rather, the text amendment establishes whether such a use may be considered within the applicable zoning district in the first place, which is a DOSRD1. It would make little sense to spend significant time and resources developing a final site plan, engineering details, cost, specifications, systems, drainage, landscaping, what have you, elements for something that is not presented permitted by the zoning regulations and therefore has not been determined by pnz to an allowable use hence which is why i'm coming with you guys with a text amendment before going out to design and have feedback from the parks recreation commission who are still hearing this matter the reason why i bring this up is the logical sequence is to first determine whether the use may be allowed text amendment is approved then the specific proposal can proceed through the appropriate land use review process a special permanent site plan are the functioning key elements that allow the commission you guys to evaluate an actual proposal and impose appropriate conditions likewise any required 8-24 review addresses the municipal land use considerations applicable to this specific project Approving a text amendment, therefore, should not be confused with approving construction of a dog run. It creates regulatory ability for a proposal to come forward and be judged on its individual merits. Therefore, what I am proposing tonight in this text amendment is to open it up as it is. And add 7 to 9 words to allow a dog run if to be constructed by planning and zoning if passed. Rules to the park do not change. Off leash and on leash areas do not change. The park stays the same. It stays as a open, accessible, recreational, athletic use play area of 29 1⁄2 acres. where dogs have been running around with owners and walking trails at approximately one mile length of trail for the last couple of decades. There is also a legitimate planning purpose behind allowing a fenced-in dog area in a park that is otherwise intended for open space and passive recreation, including dogs who already use Winslow Park, hence why it has signage for dog park, dog rules, dog bags, even accessibility for dogs to drink water, as well as accessibility for play and recreational use. A properly designed fenced area solves the following issues. Roadway safety. A physical enclosure reduces the possibility of dogs leaving the designated area and entering adjacent roads or parking areas. where there have been several incidences where dogs have actually ran out onto the road and have been struck and killed, even in areas where fence was added and raised by a generous resident, and there are still open areas. Conflicts with passive users. It provides separation between concentrated off-leash activity and people walking, sitting, reading, exercising, or otherwise enjoying the park passively. Unwanted encounters, people who are afraid of dogs, uncomfortable around them, or simply do not want interaction with an off-leash dog have greater predictability about where that activity occurs in the park. Small dog activity, separate areas can provide a safer environment for smaller, more vulnerable dogs. Accountability, a defined enclosure establishes clear boundaries and makes rules easier to understand and enforce. Waste and maintenance. Concentrated activity allows waste stations, maintenance, surface conditions, and where to be managed in a defined location, currently where it exists now. Protection of surrounding open space. Rather than allowing the most intense dog activity to occur through a large area, some of that activity can be directed into a controlled footprint. Preservation of passive recreation. By separating higher energy dog activity from others, the remainder of the park can actually function more effectively for passive enjoyment. A fence itself does not automatically transform the character of an entire park. It can be management and a safety tool that addresses conflicts created by an existing use. The question before the commission at the text amendment stage should therefore be as straightforward. Should the regulations permit a fence dog area to be considered in this district subject to the commission's subsequent review and approval of an actual special permit and site plan? If the answer is yes, that does not predetermine what will ultimately be built at Winslow Park. It simply allows proposal to move to the stage where the commission, the town, and the public can evaluate an actual plan, address legitimate concerns, and determine whether that specific plan is appropriate. That is precisely why we have a land use process. That is why I am before you tonight to discuss this matter. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Michelle.

Yes. Thank you. So I just briefly wanted to discuss the proposal. This is a text amendment application to modify section 40 of the regulations for dedicated open space and residential district number one. The application was transmitted to all appropriate agencies, and the period for the referral has been, the time has now, we are able to review this application. Sorry, give me one second. Stop comments. were dated August 13th, were submitted by me. There's history of the regulation and when we originally adopted the DOSRD regulations as well as modifications since that time. The original DOSRD regulation was created in 2004 and has been subsequently modified Lastly, in 2025, which allowed modifications to allow for adaptive reuse of buildings at Barron South. There was a pre-application meeting on this topic for the potential text amendment to create a fenced dog area at Winslow Park. That was on April 27th. And a link to that was provided in the staff comments. There are the dedicated open space district. One is designation is to allow certain town owned open space park areas to be maintained for passive and non organized recreation. This is the purpose statement says this includes undeveloped park lands, beaches, wooded areas, meadows and Riverside areas. So right now section 40 dash 2.1 permits the following specific improvements and facilities in DOSRD number one and two, which are walks, paths, and such, and temporary freestanding restrooms and water fountains. So, since the regulations do not specifically permit a fenced dog area, the Commission has should consider whether the proposed uses is compatible with the existing park uses. I did just want to go through the potential benefiting properties. The two properties that are in DOSRD number one are 359 Post Road East, aka Winslow Park, 29.5 acres, and then 191 Hills Point Road, which is Sherwood Mill Preserve, that's 0.97 acres, also in the DOSRD number one. So those would be the two that would be potential beneficiaries if this text amendment is adopted. Comments from the Historic District Commission indicate, I'm sorry, the Conservation Department indicate that they generally support the proposal. Just a reminder that you're acting in your legislative capacity when reviewing text amendments. You have the authority to adopt, deny, or modify regulations, and you should consider if the text amendment is consistent with the standards and the zoning regulations, as well as the comprehensive plan. which is the zoning regulations and the zoning map, as well as, I'm sorry, the POCD. And there's some sections of the POCD that are referenced in my staff comments. No other town departments had any issues. And that's all I have. I'm here for questions. Thank you.

Thank you very much. I do appreciate it. All right. So why are we here? I'd like to definitely keep this hearing focused on the zoning amendment before this commission, not on whether or not you are favor or opposed to a particular type of design, structure, fencing, placement, hours, usage, maintenance, drainage, lighting, landscaping, None of that. What we're here to do is decide whether or not Section 40, which holds the DOSRD1 designation, whether or not it can be amended so that a specific use, in this case, fenced recreational dog play area, I didn't come up with that, can be considered as a special permit Anything we do for this particular application does not automatically approve anything. All it does, it gives permission if we approve it, it gives permission to those who might want it to bring one forward. And we get to do this all over again with those specifics that I just enumerated. This is actually very similar to the previous application where in 2023, we decided that the immiscible property can and should have lights. And now an application has come before us. So this is of the same ilk. Special permit and site plan will be required for any change in a DOSRD1. It'll also require an 824 from the first selectman's office because it is permissible land use. So again, just to be clear, there's been tremendous public interest in this proposal. And rightly so. But I want to remind you that the question before us tonight is not whether or not a particular dog area or selected location within Winslow Park Those are for later if we get there. Those will be accompanied in a special permit and a site plan. And we welcome the testimony of all those who have gathered tonight and speakers are welcome to speak their mind, but try to think of it and frame it in terms of does the town want to open up the zoning for this particular area type of designation to allow this type of use it's a use question and with that i will open it up again to the rest of the commissioners commissioners questions for the applicant brie please um sure uh so with all of that in mind um i really have two

General questions. The one has to do with why we would exempt all fenced in dog play areas from setback requirements. Because I realize that's in there for a very specific reason. And I guess the question would be to Andrew, are you okay getting rid of this elimination of setbacks? Because I think setbacks serve a purpose, especially if it's going to be something that's going to have a bunch of dogs in it, that we might want to keep those away from residential neighbors.

Good question. So Andrew, you're kind of going to be on the spot tonight.

I don't know if he's on here anymore.

He might. Well, I'm going to add my voice to your consideration or your concern and say I, too, do not believe that it should be exempt from setbacks. End of story. Period.

Great. I agree. My second point is that this would apply to all properties in the DOSR D1, which also includes Sherwood Mill Pond Preserve. And while I think this might be appropriate for Willensville Park, I don't know that this would be appropriate for Sherwood Mill Pond Preserve. So I'm throwing that one out there.

Andrew, do you have any comment there? Seeing none, I'll again agree with you, Bree.

I, too, do not believe there needs to be... Mr. Leibowitz, did you ask for my comment? I'm sorry that the service was scared.

Sorry, I'm just... Let me just finish my sentence and then I'll get back to you. Hang in there. All right. So obviously, Brie, you've identified the difference between a 29-acre site and a 0.9-acre site, or if it's even that big. I'm not sure it is. And so I do not believe that this should be considered part and parcel for that particular Allen's Clam House park. I don't believe it's appropriate there. If it's appropriate at all, it would have to be Winslow and only Winslow. So I agree with you there.

Andrew, your turn. Can you just repeat the question? My service was just skipping out. I'm sorry about that.

Sure. The first question had to do with eliminating setbacks. I don't believe that it is appropriate to completely eliminate setbacks for all dog parks that may be proposed in the future. that's that's the question there is if this is a generally ethical rule not looking at specific plan um i don't think the setback is is necessary for enclosed dog play areas in general just uh there was just a lot that you just said so just to clarify you believe that setbacks are not necessary in a dog run area or they know are necessary I believe they are necessary and I don't see why you would want to categorically eliminate them from setback requirements.

I understand that. The original plan, the original proposed concept was to have this dog run on the northern end of Winslow, which would be up against that stone wall. But given that there are options out there, that Parks and Recreation Commission is reviewing. I'm reviewing other members of the public who are considering and reviewing. It is, I can understand, and I'm amenable to having setbacks. I do get that. I do understand. Like I said, this isn't, you know, there have been rumors, and I love them because it just makes me thrive, that I am open and amenable to the public's thoughts comments options um if we if you think that having a setback is necessary then i'm okay with that i mean i was told otherwise but you know it's i'm okay with that okay great um good glad to hear that and the second thing that uh paul and i were talking about is that the dosr d1 includes um sherwood mill pond preserve and

While Winslow might be appropriate for this, I do not think that Sherwood Mill Pond Preserve is. So I guess the question is, would you be open to amending this to carve out Sherwood Mill Pond Preserve or to put some type of standard that would not let this go there?

Yes. Speaking for this, speaking with experience, I actually helped build that park. And the last thing I would want to see be done to it is, a salt water preserve be approached in the future, whether I'm alive or gone, to be turned into a dog run. And given the WPLO and as well as other mitigating factors in respect to FEMA, I would never see anybody trying to propose something. But then again, it's politics. It's very surprising, unfortunately. So I'm very open to that as well.