Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

The development team owns that they're looking to move forward and develop. So this is our proposed site plan. It's a little bit outdated from the most recent version that was submitted within the past few days, but it's generally similar. So it's comprised of three separate buildings. There's building number one and building number two, which are the buildings situated along Grove Street, so kind of the bottom portion of the sheet here. Building number one is a 3,700 square foot restaurant. That's the one that's right at the corner of Grove and Brookfield. building number 2 is a 2600 square foot restaurant just located, you know, just adjacent to that. Neither a quick serve restaurants. These are full dine-in, dine-in type restaurants. And then at the rear there, we have a 10,800 square foot multi-tenant retail building. Tenants are still kind of up in the air for those ones, but we're currently contemplating two restaurant uses and three office uses. We're also providing parking, sidewalks, landscaping, lighting, utility, and stormwater improvements. One thing that I'd like to point out, and it's similar on the other properties that we've kind of dealt with in the neighboring area, we do have those two kind of large Millbrook culverts that run... sort of south to north throughout our property with those easements are encased within a fairly large drainage easement that there are certain restrictions that kind of drive the development layout here. So we feel we've come up with a good layout that works well with those culverts. But just wanted to point that out as it is something that played a big role in kind of the layout and the scheme that we currently have. From a parking standpoint, breaking down the different proposed uses, zoning requires 147 total parking spaces. Our current plan provides 153, 15 of which are EV spaces. We're providing a total of six accessible parking spaces to meet the ADA requirements. Those are sort of spread out between the different uses just to provide ADA for each specific building. We're also providing, I believe it's a total of 12 bicycle parking spaces, so each building kind of has its own designated bike rack area where I believe there's four bike racks for each building. From an access standpoint, there's three two-way driveways, so these are all full movement driveways, two of which are coming on and off of Brookfield Street. There's sort of one just in front of the bottom left restaurant, so the building number one restaurant, and then there's one that's sort of closer to that rear retail building. The third driveway is a full movement restaurant. driveway at the southwest corner of the property, which would be the bottom right corner of this sheet. And that's really, it's in the same general area as the driveway that served the previous development that was on this site. So that curb cut kind of does exist today. Another thing I'd like to point out is Powers Court at one point in time did cross through this site and connect to Brookfield Street. That has been the portion that sits within our property has been extinguished. So Powers Court does sort of dead end now at the southerly part of our property uh so we've worked closely with planning staff um on providing a gated access there we there is still some legwork to be done with fire just to make sure that we're providing a gate that everybody is kind of in agreement on just from a safety and access standpoint um vehicular circulation throughout the site is pretty straightforward it's it's all two-way there's no one-way circulation And as far as pedestrian access, we have new ADA accessible sidewalk connections to the front, I'm sorry, the two restaurant buildings to Grove Street, as well as Brookfield Street. We are also, and this was not shown on the previous plan, but the most recent site plan, which I believe is in this presentation, but nonetheless, we did submit an updated site plan.

I think it was before the, yeah.

Yeah, so this is, this is the kind of latest and greatest site plan. So one of the comments that we received As part of our original DPRS memo was to provide kind of a pedestrian access from Grove Street through the site to the rear building. Previously, we were just kind of relying on foot traffic going along Grove Street, traversing up the Brookfield Street sidewalk, and then kind of accessing that rear building that way. We have changed that. We've kind of designated concrete sidewalks, raised crosswalks, just to sort of provide some additional walkability throughout the site. Just to highlight a few of the other plan differences, again, this plan that's on screen right now is the latest. So we removed one trash enclosure. We added some additional bike racks, as I sort of hit on. We added that sidewalk. Some of the EV parking moved around a bit. We did add... So we're going to be replacing all the sidewalk, the existing sidewalk along Grove Street and then the majority of Brookfield Street along our frontage. In doing that, we're going to recreate and provide new ADA ramps at the street entrances. If you look at the bottom left of that plan, you can see we're also providing a new sidewalk across Brookfield Street and then also another new sidewalk that goes towards the trolley yard retail across the street. One other we're also repaving. We've agreed to repave up to the center line of both Grove Street and Brookfield Street. Again, that's that's along the majority of the frontages for both of those streets. I talked about removing one trash enclosure, so we previously had four. The most current plan has three, so really the idea is each restaurant sort of has its own designated trash enclosure, and then the rear retail building will share a trash enclosure that's sort of situated in that southeast corner on this plan. That'd sort of be the top right portion of the property. From a stormwater standpoint, we did receive comments from DPW about our stormwater approach. We're currently exploring providing some sort of infiltration or detention, just some way to better reduce the runoff rates before discharging. We do have two direct connections into those culverts, which we do understand requires a notice of intent with the Conservation Commission. that's something we'll be filing and and prior to doing so we'll have our stormwater approach a little you know further designed based off the comments we've received to this point utilities we've also met with the water department specifically to talk about our water connection um restaurants the building one again that's the one along the corner of brookfield and grove that's going to go in the water is going to tie into brookfield street the other restaurant is going to go straight into grove street and we did some testing for where our initial thoughts were to send the rear um building water to or get the rear rear or get the water from um and that turned out that those flows were inadequate So we're actually gonna be getting water for that rear building from Grove Street as well. Sewer is relatively similar. We have a few different discharge points, but there's adequate sewer within Grove Street, Brookfield Street, and even within the site that we're tying the proposed buildings into. landscaping. So we did submit a full landscaped plan. We're providing a significant amount of new landscaping throughout the site. It consists of multiple species of canopy trees, evergreen trees, shrubs, grasses, perennials, different ground covers. We have received as part of our DPRS memo A handful of comments specific to landscaping so we have no objections to to the comments we've received to this point so we'll absolutely be incorporating those into into future plan sets. we've also provided a lighting plan. Just a series of pole mounted light fixtures and building mounted lights to provide adequate light levels throughout throughout the development. With that being said, the next handful of slides are architectural specific, so if Raf Hernandez is on and wants to speak to those.

This is Steve Carey in the Planning Division. I will give Rafael the ability to speak. Just give me one second. All right, Rafael, you should be able to unmute on your end now.

Hello, Rafael Hernandez, Acropolis Design. Worcester, Massachusetts. Yeah, the first slide is the building in the front right side. It's a Cava chain restaurant, stucco facade, metal awnings, aluminum storefront, and a stone pattern based on the requirements from the tenant. Next slide. So the same building, just all looking from different directions. The top one is looking at what you would see from Grove Street. The brown area is an enclosure for storage for the tenants. And then the rear door is the door for the access. This is the next slide. That's the second restaurant's first watch. As he said, it's a full service restaurant with an outdoor space and common areas to gather. So these are some preliminary renderings of what the outside will look like. Same thing, stucco facade. uh stone base um on metal and awnings and outdoor seating for for a number of tenants and then there'll be a mural on the right side in that lower three bay there was some renderings included i'm not sure they're in the package um next slide yeah so you this is the first watch this is pretty accurate to what the building will look like as you see has stucco siding, niche you have patterns on some areas and the metal awnings and the signage. Next. This is the building in the rear with the five potential tenant spaces. Next slide. This will have a mix of facades of stucco, clapboard, shingles, e-fist patterns and aluminum storefront and a flat roof with reflective materials. This will mimic what we've done next door at 282 Grove Street. some of the same architectural details of that building that's being built right now that was previously approved. The top picture is what you would see from Grove Street to the left and the right. And the rear is not really visible because it backs into a large retaining wall. So it's kind of tucked into the rear portion of the property. Next. Thank you. If you have any questions, let me know.

Yeah, I think that's really all we have. As I mentioned, we do have our traffic engineer online if there's any traffic specific comments. We did have a little bit of back and forth with DTM regarding traffic. I think we've kind of come to an agreement and addressed all their comments. But again, if there's any questions, we're happy to answer.

Sure. Thank you. I think at this point we'll turn it over to staff for their comments.

Sure. This is Steve Caring, the Planning Division. As the applicant noted, this is a development involving three buildings, two restaurant buildings that are going to be right sort of adjacent to Grove Street, a larger multi-tenant building that's at the back, 152 parking spaces in the lot, access to the site. There's access off of Grove Street, a couple points of access off of Brook Street, As the applicant noted, there also is access off of Powers Court, but because it's a private street, it's not in up to city standard condition. We don't want to see vehicular circulation from that site. The applicant has agreed to put basically a gate there that would be accessible to the fire department. We've had a condition of approval added to allow the fire department discretion in how that gate looks. We appreciate that the applicant has worked with staff over the past several weeks to make the site a bit more accommodating to pedestrians along Grove Street. They've added that pedestrian path that I'm highlighting with my cursor right now so that if someone walking down Grove Street was trying to access the multi-tenant building, they could do so through the site. The applicant has agreed. We haven't seen a revised grading plan yet, but the applicant has agreed verbally or at least via email that the pedestrian paths could be slightly elevated to create sort of a consistent elevation for a pedestrian moving through the site. serve as traffic calming for any cars that might be inclined to use this site as a cut-through. They've also removed one of the dumpsters that was on site that was located previously where I'm indicating with my cursor. That would have been pretty visually prominent from Brookfield Street, so we appreciate that being removed. And it sounds like the applicant is also willing to provide some additional glazing on the Grove Street sides of the of the buildings. If the applicant is able to comment on that, that would be great. We're also conditioning the addition of more trees within the lot. The site, as of now, at least the most recent landscaping plan we've seen, I think, is about seven trees short of interior landscaping requirements, just based on how many parking spaces would be considered interior. There is an excess of about six parking spaces right now. About 147, I believe, are required. I think 153 parking spaces are provided. So with those six excess spaces, there seems to be some wiggle room there. to provide additional landscaping islands. Obviously, those have to be located outside of the conduit that's indicated with those dashed lines that runs through the site. This is the Millbrook conduit. It ultimately drains down to Green Island. So understanding that is a bit of a site constraint for where trees can be located. But again, I think there is adequate room with the excess of six spaces to provide those interior trees. And then the last thing I'd just ask the applicant to comment on There are EV charging spaces provided, which is great. If they could comment on the level of EV chargers that they are anticipating, that would be great. And then glad to know that infiltration options are being considered. This will be going before the Conservation Commission as well, and I imagine that will be a point of discussion there as well. But yeah, glad to answer any questions the board has.

Thank you. I might give the applicant an opportunity to respond to a couple of those comments from staff.

yeah yeah so i think that the first one i think there's two the ev charging and then the glazing um which i'll turn over to raf but just to hit on the first one the ev and the level of ev chargers that we're proposing um i did speak with the client and i we're we're currently thinking those are going to be level two um chargers and then raf if you want to hit on the glazing along grove street they repeat the question Yeah, so I know the comments come up a few times about considering and providing additional glazing for the restaurant buildings along Grove Street.

The tenant has a very specific requirements on on the layout of the interior of these units. And we're pretty limited on the amount that they can do because of the kitchen requirements and the floor plan for the cover restaurant and. And for.

for first watch sure uh through the chair to the applicant we have a condition of approval 1d that's um add additional glazing to restaurant one and two along grove street um we could add um where feasible um i i guess i would encourage particularly for uh the this this building here that i have up on the screen i believe is the grove street side of the building, restaurant two, I believe it is. I guess I'd just ask the applicant to just discuss what options there might be for glazing along that sort of fairly blank wall underneath the CAVA signage.

Yeah, I think we can commit to having additional conversations with the tenants about providing additional glazing, especially along Grove Street.

Yeah, we can discuss it with the tenant regarding maybe having some higher windows that doesn't affect the floor plan of the interior that the tenant requires. Because that side is where the, actually it's where the bathrooms are on the floor plan. I don't know if the floor plan was included for the covered restaurant in the package of the interior. I don't know if I can share my screen. That's OK.

If bathrooms are there, obviously, that's not a fee application. We could add as an addendum to that condition 1D, unless demonstrated not to be feasible, if that language is acceptable.

I don't think we have any objections to that. OK, great.

Okay, thank you. I think I'll pass it on to DPW if they have any comments.

This is Leslie Rodriguez for DPW. The only additional comment that I will have before, in addition to the one that was already provided, is that we will require an additional bonding. This bonding is not It's not a condition for this moment, it's a condition for when they open the permit. We just want to notify the applicants beforehand. Thank you.

Okay, thank you. We'll move on to public comment. Is there anyone in the room that would like to speak on this item? Not seeing anyone jump up. Is there anyone online? Not seeing anyone with their hand raised. Okay. So why don't we move on to board discussion? Start with Mr. King online.

Overall, happy to support this project. I think with the staff conditions as noted, it's good to know that the African cementable is adding more glazing along the Grove Street side. But in general, happy to support it. Thank you.

Thank you. Mr. DeLera.

Thank you. So in general, I'm supportive of this overall, but I do have a few questions and comments that I would hope to express here. So through the chair, I do have a question for the applicant. If there's any type of drive-through, whether it's a traditional drive-through or digital drive-through that's planned for restaurants?

Sorry, no, no drive-throughs.

OK. And there's no expectation or desire for a special permit to be pursued down the road, if it's even feasible to install one?

No. To be candid, it's nothing that we've discussed as a team. The two restaurants, First Watch and Cava, I'm not sure if you're familiar with their programs, but they're both go in, sit down, eat there, or take out type restaurants. So it's not something that we're considering anytime soon.

OK. Secondly, again, through the chair regarding deliveries. To the best of your knowledge, where would the primary access point be and what kinds of trucks might be used for these proposed tenants?

Sure, so we did designate loading areas on this plan. I know it's tough to see, but so for the restaurant buildings, we're contemplating kind of that driveway as you pull up into the site off of Grove Street, sort of parking in that general area. One thing I want to point out here is that for the restaurants, it's important that their loading and unloading activities are done off hours. So, you know, There won't be customers accessing the site, maybe a handful of employees, but it should be pretty quiet when they're making those deliveries. And for the rear building, similar situation. It's kind of as you were to follow that same driveway, kind of up towards the trash enclosure for that rear retail building. And for the size of trucks, I mean, we're not, there's no uses being contemplated here that would, I would imagine, require anything bigger than a large box truck or a small tractor trailer, but we have provided truck turn movement showing that those types of vehicles can circulate the site.

Thank you for that. So just a couple more things. In general, I agree with the overall staff comments. In particular, I agree with the recommendation about rotating Restaurant 2 to try to activate the Grove Street face if the changes are made to facilitate that possibility. So that's something that I would like to see. And then regarding the glazing and the exterior work, From what I can see, it appears as though some of the other locations, for Cava for example, they seem to have superior, more aesthetically pleasing designs outside. So I imagine that should be feasible here if there's a will to do it. Because as it stands right now, what I'm seeing, it's rather bland.

Yeah, we will absolutely. We've worked fairly closely with both First Watch and CAVA throughout this process in developing these plans, so that's something that we can absolutely take back to CAVA and work on that.

Yeah, the CAVA building is still at a schematic design phase, and we'll take every opportunity to try to dress up the facade further with the tenant. All right.

Please do. Very good. Thank you. That's all. Thank you.

This is Steve Carey in the Planning Division. Apologies to interrupt board comment. I just, back before public comment, I just wanted to note that there is a public comment in your packet. I just want to make sure the board attention was drawn to that. It's a fairly long comment, but I just, it's broadly addressing sort of the orientation of the buildings towards the, you know, towards the interior side as opposed to towards Grove Street, which I think is a bit what Board Member Dallara was just getting at. So anyway, just wanted to draw the Board's attention to that, and apologies for the interruption.

Okay, I appreciate that. Will Mr. Resende, any comments from you?

I think the previous comments encompassed my concerns here, so I have nothing else to add.

Okay, thank you. Mr. Chiumi?

No comments, thank you.

Okay, for myself, I think I'd echo a lot of what Mr. Dallara said. I think it's really important and I appreciate staff working with the applicant on this to activate the buildings facing Grove Street as much as possible. I think this development reminds me a little bit of the trolley yard. I think a similar discussion was had at that time to make sure that this isn't an inward facing suburban style development because we're pretty close to, we're only like a mile from downtown here. want to make sure that we're not making this entire corridor car-centric. So I do appreciate the applicant's willingness to work with us on the glazing, as well as some of the other items, the internal pedestrian circulation and the trees. So yeah, happy to support it. But yeah, I do encourage the applicant to do whatever they can and to work with their tenants on making those facades and buildings up front, Grove Street, to be as welcoming and pedestrian-friendly as possible. I don't think there were any changes to the conditions besides some additional language to 1D. Other than that, I believe we would be ready for a motion. Mr. King, would you be able to...

Sorry about that. I was speaking as I was muted. I would make a motion to approve of new business item number three for 278 Grove Street for Brookfield Street and for Powers Court with the conditions as noted and discussed in the meeting.

Second. All right. We have a motion and a second. Mr. King?

Yes. Mr. DeLera?

Yes. Mr. Toomey?

Yes.

And myself, yes. The application has been approved. Thank you. Appreciate it. Thank you. Okay. Moving on to item number four, one new Bond Street, a public meeting for a definitive site plan.

Good evening, Mr. Chair. For the record, my name is Joshua Lee Smith. I'm an attorney with a law firm of Bowditch and Dewey. I'm here representing the applicant, RD Mass Inc., in connection with this application for site plan review approval. I'd first like to introduce the team to the board. To my left is Larry Cohen of Restaurant Depot. To his left is Keith Curran of Bowler Engineering. Online is Victoria Dresdek, who is with ADA, the Architect of Record. And we've got, I believe we have Sean Kelly, who is, is he in the room? Sean Kelly is here. He is with Sheppel Traffic Consultants. And last but not least, we've got two representatives of WBDC, Roberta Bryan and Craig Blaze. So we've got a brief presentation that we'd like to run through this evening. But to kick things off, I'm going to hand it over to Roberta. Roberta's going to have some remarks.

Good evening and thank you. Roberta Bryan, Worcester Business Development Corporation. Just to take a minute of your time to sort of set the overall stage, this is our first project of Green Tech Park located up at the former St. Gobain property. A lot of moving parts with this project. We have acquired the parcel, 51 acres, in 2022 and have since then embarked on a very intensive process of master planning, of neighborhood planning, of site planning, which you'll see soon, as well as marketing. So we're so excited that Restaurant Depot will be our first end user in the park. New Garden Park is the 501 , a wholly owned subsidiary of WBDC that is selling the parcel to Restaurant Depot. That parcel along New Bond Street, as you will note in the presentation today that the team does, is more of a commercial use. Part of our master planning that we heard from our neighbors, from our neighbors along West Boylston Street, from the school across the street, and from our marketing team is that the commercial nature of West Boylston Street really should come down into the park and complement the uses on West Boylston Street and not compete against them or contradict the feeling of the neighborhood. We're excited with our infrastructure planning that we're doing within the park, bringing new public streets into the park, allowing the neighborhood to now travel through our park in the ways that it happened prior to in the early, up until the early 90s when the neighborhood could access Norton and early St. Gobain before security concerns required gating. So you'll see in some future meetings our road construction development in those plans. You'll see some plans that show a different layout, in particular along the Restaurant Depot property lines. Those are future roadway improvements that will occur. We've worked very closely with the city planning staff, with the Department of Transportation and Management of the city as well to ensure that the design that we will be conducting and the resulting construction will comply with city standards as well as new complete street standards that we are taking into consideration. We're also working on entirety of access of three points into the park, Shore Drive, which has a signalized intersection, Ararat Street, and what is now called C Street, which will be the first road that gets constructed, and then up to the planned north, New Bond Street with West Boylston Street as it exists today. So just wanted to set that table for you. Thank you again for your time. Thank you to the city that has supported this project from the very beginning, as well as the state and the federal agencies that have provided funding for us to complete this important project. We believe the 30 acres of advanced manufacturing along Interstate 190 will definitely complete our mission, WBDC's mission, of bringing jobs and increasing the tax base for the municipality. I'll turn it back over to Josh, but Craig and I remain here to answer any questions on the overall development of the park.

Great. Thank you.

Thank you, Roberta. Steve, if you could go to the second slide. So with that set up, obviously this is a site, a very prominent site. I'm sure everyone is very familiar with it. It's got a very rich history in the city, affiliated with St. Cobain and prior to that Norton Company, which has been a long time employer, very important to the city. So this redevelopment is truly a monumental endeavor that is being led by WBDC, and we're very excited to have Restaurant Depot, again, be the first out of the gate to present this project. Here you can see this is a nice rendering that shows, again, as Roberta had mentioned, many of the future pad-ready sites will be geared towards advanced manufacturing. But tonight, we're going to be talking about a wholesale use operator, Restaurant Depot. Steve, if you could advance to the next slide. I'm sorry, maybe back one more. Sorry, back and then back one more. Right, so that bottom right-hand corner there, highlighted, that is the lot that's proposed for the Restaurant Depot site. Running to the north is New Bond Street, which intersects in proximate area of what's today known as C Street, as well as Storrs Street. Next slide, please. And then here is the layout showing potential future additional pad-ready sites, again, running from West Boylston Street, running southerly, and then to hit the bend of the road along New Bond Street to the Restaurant Depot site, and then continuing on to C Street and then ultimately to Ararat Street. Next slide, please. And one more. So this slide, and it may be a little bit difficult to see online and in the audience, but the purpose of this is to show that this project is unique in a few ways, but one of which is, and Roberta had alluded to this, this project, sequentially, it's being presented to the board in two iterations, one with respect to the current street layout. Um, so we'll, we'll show how the project is going to be cited and the building is going to be, um, constructed in relation to the current layout of new bond street and store street. However, um, once restaurant Depot acquires title to the lot, uh, and then constructs and builds and becomes operational, um, new bond street will be modified as Roberta had mentioned. So as part of what we've submitted tonight and as part of the planning and design, We have designed the project with the first iteration of the current with the current street layout, and then looking forward into the future, contemplating the future street modification of New Bond Street and the modification of Storr Street. And the good news is that both iterations fully comply. So this project is a so-called buy-right use, buy-right project in that only site plan review is required. Dimensionally, with respect to parking, everything complies. But the red outline there shows the future road layout as it will be reconfigured. Next slide, please. And here we've got the proposed site plan. So I should step back a moment and just let you know, as Ed mentioned, Restaurant Depot is a wholesale operator. They're in the business of selling bulk-sized goods, food-based products, to businesses and, as you can imagine, restaurants. That's the business they're in. So what's being proposed... is a approximately 50 000 square foot building the lot on which it will sit is about a little over four acres in size and again it'll be slightly adjusted as the street gets adjusted and modified So about a 50,000 square foot wholesale building, and the site is entirely within the manufacturing zone. Coupled with that will be accessory surface lot parking spaces. So in total, there will be 171 parking spaces, which is completely right-sized for restaurant depots, operations restaurant depot owns and operates a number of facilities throughout the northeast including massachusetts and surrounding areas near near worcester so we believe that the number of parking in terms of the size to parking ratio and knowing their customer demand that 171 parking spaces is is exactly appropriate I'll also mention, and I believe Roberta mentioned this, there are three means of access to and from the site, two along New Bond Street and one along Store Street. A total of five loading bays will be provided for trucks to traverse in and out. The truck loading bay area is on the right side, or I believe that's the southerly side or easterly side of the property. And along that side as well will be the employee parking area. In addition to that, we've also provided a number of amenities, including there will be exterior secured covered bike storage as well as open space areas for employees. We've had a number of meetings with staff even pre-filing. This project has gone through a few modifications, largely in part due to Michelle and her team and feedback that we've received from them, a lot of thoughtful comments, including reconfiguration of the building to provide for more Efficient access for vehicles, but also more efficiency with respect to pedestrian pedestrians traversing to and from the site in addition we've added a number of trees in response to staff comments as well as Provided some additional screening and as I mentioned some open space areas again for employees the site is quite constrained with respect to the grade but we've managed to design for that and still be able to provide hit upon a lot of the goals and objectives that the city that the city staff typically has and this board with respect to walkability of pedestrians so we've added some walkways one of which we I think we'll get into a little bit more detail later for pedestrians and customers coming to and from the building. With that, I just wanted to give that brief overview, and I'm going to hand it over to Keith, again, civil engineer of record.

Thank you, Joshua. Appreciate it. Keith Cohen again from Boll Engineering. Josh hit on a lot of the site elements. Then he also touched on the grading. So as you turn New Bond Street to Store Street, the grade significantly raises. So that was one of the site constraints. So there is a small retaining wall down in the bottom left, which is the southwest corner to note by that access point. And then again, later on, it's not shown on this plan, but we're going to add a walkway along adjacent to that Southwest access that will get you also the front door So therefore you'll have pedestrian access also at all three of the vehicle access locations to connect to the right-of-way drainage wise We're gonna we're meeting all of the state requirements deep some put it catch basins and proprietary water quality units prior to a subsurface infiltration basin that's going to be located in the loading dock area in that turn circle and And then for utilities, again, everything's obviously public. The water and gas will be coming off of Store Street. The sewer electric telecom will be coming off New Bond Street. And just to go back to the drainage really quick, after the infiltration, the discharge will be tied to the infrastructure in New Bond Street. I'm, again, here to answer any questions pertaining to the civil design. I need it later. Thank you.

Great. Thank you, Keith. And we did want to give an illustration of the aesthetic design of the buildings. This is not a Cava restaurant, but these are very typical standard for Restaurant Depot type of a design. We think it's a good aesthetic appeal, certainly adds to the site. There'll be a lot of robust landscaping. Again, we've added a lot of trees as well as other shrubs in order to beautify the site. Steve, can you advance to the next one? This is just another depiction of the entry portion, the customer side portion of the building. And now I'd like to hand it over to Sean Kelly.

Good evening, Mr. Chairman and members of the board. For the record, Sean Kelly with Chapel Engineering. On behalf of the team, thank you again for having us tonight. What I'd like to do is just take a few minutes to walk you through our study, how it was conducted, what our findings were, what our recommendations are. Just as some background, Chapel Engineering has actually been involved in the master planning efforts for C Street and for the park in general. And as part of that work, we've done a complete master plan traffic study looking at the full impacts of the 500,000 plus square feet of development. And based on that study, we developed the subdivision plans that we've done before this board for C Street. including improvements at Ararat Street, improvements at New Bond Street, and then the upgrade of the corridor to basically meet complete streets design criteria with the multi-use path, enhanced lighting, enhanced landscaping, enhanced utilities, and things of that nature. So we have done a full master plan study, and the work that we've done for this project basically builds off that to ensure that the improvements that are planned for the park will support this project. Next slide. Typically, when we do these reports and these traffic studies, what we rely on is data that's published by what's known as the Institute of Transportation Engineers, or the ITE. And the ITE develops land use codes that lets you generate how much traffic a project will produce during peak hours, critical time periods. Unfortunately, the ITE does not have a land use code specific to this use. There are warehouse rates that are, frankly, too low. There are rates associated with larger clubs such as a BJ's or a Costco that, quite frankly, are much too high. So what we've done is we've utilized empirical data that was collected at six operational restaurant depots, four in New England and two in Pennsylvania. And based on that, we developed trip generation rates that let us determine how much traffic these typically generate during the busiest hours of roadway activity. And what the data shows is that typically the peak hour generation varies somewhere between 57 to 58 vehicles an hour. It's about 25 to 35 vehicles entering, about 25 to 35 vehicles exiting. So in terms of an order of magnitude, every other minute you're going to have an entering vehicle, and every other minute you're going to have an exiting vehicle. And these increases are in line with what we had assumed would be the magnitude of traffic as part of the master planning efforts. Most of this traffic will be shooting up the reconstructed C Street. We've recommended and designed improvements to Ararat Street that will facilitate traffic entering and exiting the park. It's a convenient one intersection away from the 190 interchange, and that's going to be really the regional gateway to and from this project. Smaller levels of traffic will come in off Route 12 and also Shore Drive, but those will be smaller compared to the C Street increases. Next slide. So in terms of our conclusions and recommendations, again, the project generates about a trip per minute, about one trip in, one trip out every other minute. We've looked at the increases to delays in terms of the infrastructure that's being proposed, and they're minimal, a second or less, and certainly the capacities there to accommodate the project. We've looked at the available sight lines that will be provided, both under the current geometric conditions of New Bond Street and Store Street, as well as the future realignment, and the adequate sight lines can be provided under both scenarios. We're recommending that all signs and pavement markings that are installed be installed in accordance with MUTCD manual uniform traffic control device criteria guidelines, and that any landscaping proposed is designed in such a way as to not impair any sight lines. And then lastly, we've recommended that the applicant agree to implement a comprehensive transportation demand management plan including a transportation coordinator, promoting the use of transit with employees, facilitating a ride-sharing program, and also providing bicycle racks in a weather-protected area for employees of the facility. And we're confident that with those recommendations and the access plan as defined, the impact of the project will be mitigated and minimal, and that the infrastructure that's been designed to support the park as a whole will be adequate to accommodate this project. That's all I have for tonight. I'd be happy to answer any questions you might have.

Thank you.

So that concludes our formal presentation. There were a number of comments that were set forth in the DPRS memo, which I'm sure we'll get into. But yeah, we'd like to conclude it there.

Happy to answer any questions. Thank you. All right. Thank you very much. Yeah, let's turn it over to planning staff.

Sure, through the chair. This is Michelle Smith in the city's planning division. We've heard a lot about this project, which is the first within the Green Tech Park, which is an exciting benchmark for not only New Garden Park WBDC, but also for the city. So exciting to be here. I'm not going to belabor a lot of the comments that were already provided by the expertise on the project team, but just quickly to repeat, we're in front of the board for a site plan review here based on the size of the development that's happening in this manufacturing zone for what is technically a business use, a wholesale use from a zoning perspective. The proposed building is about 50,000 square feet and they're proposing 171 parking spaces, which is well in excess of what the zoning ordinance requires for this type of use. As you heard the traffic consultant describe, there's not really necessarily specific parallels in terms of trip generation from our zoning ordinance perspective. There's also not necessarily an identical parallel. So this is kind of lumped into a broader warehousing type of use when it comes to that perspective. So just a little caveat on the kind of inflation of those numbers. So we did ask if they could explore reduction of some of those spaces. It's our understanding that they need all those spaces based on their peak demands and peak seasons, which you'll see that note in the staff comments. The applicant, I'm sure, would be happy to comment further if the board had any other desires to talk about that in that regard. In terms of circulation, I'm just going to highlight some of the items that are kind of outstanding. I expect that the applicant may want to discuss. So you can see on the screen below here the red, which the board members would not have seen in the plans that were initially submitted. But responsive to the feedback that our office has provided and the applicant's team has been able to develop, we had asked for a connection through this southern portion along the southern driveway or somewhere along Store Street. So if you are an employee and you're walking to work and you're taking transit, or maybe you're taking your lunch break and you're going to the gym at the Y, that there's a convenient route for you to leave and be able to come back or arrive into the site without having to kind of walk north or walk through a driveway. So there are some challenges here with respect to grading. So the applicant has proposed this design with some concerns in terms of the requirements for accessibility. We were able to consult with our colleagues at Inspectional Services and the Department of Transportation and Mobility, and everyone feels pretty comfortable understanding that we don't think that it would be an infringement on any of the requirements of any of the codes to construct it as they're proposed, accessible access is proposed on New Bond Street. But we do have some language that we've conditioned with a couple updates that you'll see in red related to enhancing flexibility and ensure that it's unless it's prohibited by law. So that's one A. So we've made some modifications to that. A number of the other comments relate to enhancing landscaping to comply with the interior tree requirements or adjust some of the other plantings to create additional buffers. The site, while it's located within this larger green tech park, really this kind of industrial park being redeveloped from the former St. Gobain use and prior to that Norton Company, it is across from Abby Kelly Foster Charter School. So we do have a kind of sensitive receptor despite also abutting lovely 190 and a railroad bed. So we do have some other less sensitive receptors, but one that is, so there are some requests there for additional screening and landscaping, which we believe the applicant was amenable to. Happy to go over those in more detail, but again, not going to belabor all the specifics of those. IN TERMS OF OTHER COMMENTS, WE DID HAVE A COMMENT CONSISTENT WITH WHAT THE BOARD HAS REQUIRED ON OTHER PROJECTS INCLUDING THE SITE TO THE SOUTH FOR SANCO BAND'S ADMINISTRATION BUILDING AND OTHER PROJECTS WITH SIMILAR CONTEXT AND VISIBILITY. related to rooftop equipment. Typically, the board requires that be set back and then screened if it's visible from the surrounding public realm. Given the elevation change for the highway, we think likely it won't need any screening, but it's possible that it may. I think the applicant may have some reservations around that. We did try to adjust the language to be a bit more flexible, and we did shift that condition to be prior to building permit to ensure that they've been able to fully develop out the MEP plan For the building which they I think don't have at this point in time a couple other items got shifted if board members had looked at prior iterations of this and In terms of what you heard Roberta Brian talk about related to the timing and sequencing of this project It is the first which is exciting, but it's also kind of dovetailing with other work that is underway so the board members are familiar with the C Street subdivision and approved an A&R to configure this lot in the shape that you see here out of a previous larger lot. So a lot of these pieces are kind of moving pieces and they haven't necessarily come to fruition, specifically the future interconnection. So there's some nuances with the road, the future road and the ownership. So you'll see in our conditions a few additional items that are a little bit unusual just because of the unusual nature of the kind of timing and sequencing of that, which I think the applicant was agreeable to. And that does include a plan which is consistent with what the board had required for the subdivision related to the offlining of the gates that currently control or restrict access to the site. Because a portion of this, if the board members recall, a portion of the site south of Storer Street ends up being essentially private. private property, even though it looks and functions like a street. So for public access and avoidance of confusion, we have a request for that to just be pulled forward and paralleled prior to the building permit to make sure that we all are on the same page about the timeline and plan for adjustment to those controls for circulation adjacent to the site, which obviously gave access to a portion of the site. And I believe about 10% of the trips anticipated would come from that direction. So that's where that condition is coming from. Otherwise, I think those are the big sticking points. So the one additional item which I think the applicant wanted to discuss further was our standard condition related to light temperature. Our typical condition the board members will be familiar with is a 3,000 Kelvin light temperature, which is a warmer, closer to yellow light that's on the white spectrum, but shifting more towards that white light to avoid shifting towards the blue light. We're all familiar with negative health effects associated with blue light. There's some effects on wildlife. So this is essentially the standard that's set forth by the Dark Sky International, which is an Entity that certifies fixtures for minimization of light pollution. So that's where that standard comes from It's been something that the board has put forward over time Many years at this point as a condition for projects was a condition on similar projects in this vicinity including projects to the north as well as the administration building for a single band to the site that was recently constructed and Finally, we just have a request for an update related to stormwater report, just reflecting that this is new development, not redevelopment, and then some conditions that pull forward the transportation demand management plan conditions that were recommended from the traffic study, as well as some adjustments to our typical conditions for construction management plan to just emphasize the proximity to the school and ensuring that there's some coordination about peak hours, not just with typical traffic, but also with that particular drop-off pattern to avoid having equipment be delivered needing to stage in the street for whatever reason. Unlikely to affect it just given the size of the site, but is something that was included in there given that sensitive receptor. I'm happy to talk about anything else, but I think our council likely has conditions that you want to discuss, modifications too.

Okay. Thank you. Before we turn back to the applicant, I'll just check with DPW to see if they have any comments.

Leslie Rodriguez for DPW. We don't have any comment at this moment. Thank you.

That was easy. Would the applicant like to respond to staff's comments or call out any conditions that they had a concern with?

Yes, Mr. Chair. So I'll briefly touch upon the parking as that was something that having represented other applicants in the city for various types of uses. I know that the board can be sensitive with respect to sites being over parked in certain circumstances. Oftentimes, however, it really becomes somewhat of a case-by-case basis based on the nature of the operator's business. So in this case, Restaurant Depot, as a couple of items that Michelle had mentioned, there are peak periods. This is somewhat of a seasonal business. During certain holidays, during certain points of the year, there is more customer demand, certainly. And Restaurant Depot has actual direct experience in certain locations where they've been under parked. And then they get customer complaints. They could potentially lose customers in that circumstance. That's not a good thing to be under parked when customers have a high demand. So there's a seasonality component to the parking. In addition to that, If you, one analogy, one way to think about it is, so this use category is under the City of Worcester zoning ordinance falls under a wholesale use. So if you think about a typical either wholesale operator or distributor type of operator, those types of operators, they do have certain number of employees that come and go, but they are largely have truck traffic that's coming and going. Trucks coming in, trucks going out. In this case, this is the big key difference here is that you've got your customers coming to and from the site as opposed to a typical wholesaler where you've got freight going in and out with respect to the truck deliveries going out to the end users. Here, the customers are actually coming to and from the site. let almost like into a retail type situation although building commissioner clearly agreed that this is a wholesale use so that is in large part why did the technically under the Worcester zoning ordinance. This is a one space per 1,000 gross floor area ratio requirement. As Michelle mentioned, it is, and as Sean had mentioned as well, it is a bit of a unique animal in that you've got that sort of unique operational aspect that I just described. So that's with respect to the parking. And again, a lot of this is based on empirical firsthand data. Restaurant Depot certainly knows its operations and the demand based on the size of the building. With respect to the, so a couple of other items with respect to the DPRS memo, and I do want to underscore, we work pretty tirelessly with Michelle and her staff, as always, working cooperatively. The vast majority of the comments that are set forth in the DPRS memo, we completely agree with. A couple that I do want to point out, however, one pertaining to, I'll start with the rooftop. So the rooftop screening. So I want to, I know that there are a couple of examples, Michelle and her team had cited them. One being the administration building at the St. Cobain site right next door. That can be seen from the highway. And so just fast-forwarding a little bit, the only real issue that we have with this comment three, this item three, is really we like the fact that it's confined to the rooftop. However, when you're talking about streets and the public realm and visibility from the public realm, I think right now the intent is that that also includes if you're at the vantage point looking from the highway. So if you're driving... 60, 70 miles an hour on the highway, if you can see the utilities on the rooftop of this industrial building, that's also inclusive in this comment. So we're hoping to strike that one component. Because we're quite comfortable that from the the actual public ways, the city ways, the row, New Bond Street, Store Street, and the surrounding local roads, that the rooftop utilities will not be visible. But from the highway, you can't avoid it. Now, I do want to qualify that, however. So this is a little bit distinguishable from even the administration building that Michelle had mentioned. And Steve, if you could advance the last slide. So there's also, in addition to this, there's a tree line buffer here. Yep, you had it. There's a tree line buffer that runs right along the highway. No, sorry. Actually, you had the aerial. Yeah, right there. So you can see that tree line buffer that runs right along the highway. So there already is, and we're not touching that. So there is some already baked in screening, and those are mature trees, by the way. So that will provide quite a bit of cover. The administration building, by the way, is to the plan right of that. So there'll be a tree line buffer. And as I'd mentioned as well, in addition to that, this is an industrial building. And it's not distinguishable from an administration building. I think Michelle or one of her team members had also mentioned there's another example from the highway over on Washington Square. Again, it's not an industrial type of a building. So we feel as though it's having rooftop utilities yes from the from the ground with respect to the public ways city operated rights of ways that that makes sense for visibility we're okay with that but from the highway it's just unavoidable so we we'd like to qualify that item number three and then secondarily with respect to the the lighting So the lighting, this is item 18 on the DPRS memo. On this one, again, the only issue that we have here is that it's suggesting a warmer temperature of 3,000 Kelvin or less. So certainly, and I've done enough projects where representing large-scale multifamily developers, large apartment, mixed-use projects, maybe even a business project that might have a commercial project that might be surrounded by residential properties where 3,000K or less It's completely reasonable. Here, this is an industrial park. Yes, it's going to be advanced manufacturing. There's going to be other types of commercial users, but it's largely industrial. And we feel as though 3,000 is not actually the industry standard. So we actually looked into it. We spoke with the vendor. Keith spoke with the lighting vendor who prepared the photometric plan and the light location plan. And what he was reminded of was that we did actually, in fact, agree to reducing the warmth of the fixture. So the wall packs are going to be 3,000 Kelvin. Correct me. Is that right, Keith? So with respect to the wall packs, those will be a warmer temperature. However, the light poles, the freestanding light poles, this particular manufacturer, which is a pretty standard manufacturer, doesn't include 3,000 Kelvin for freestanding light poles because it's not really standard. It's not quite as common. So I wanted to point that out. And it really, this ultimately comes down to safety. One of the first things when we were coming together as a team, there are certain pick lists that I was describing to Keith and his team as to what you might anticipate that the city would be looking for. One of which had to do with the light locations and the spread of the light and spillage and whatnot, but also the heights of the poles. So we know from experience that the city typically, including in industrial areas, industrial properties, doesn't like to have the poles themselves exceed 20 feet. So we explained that to him, but if you have a taller light, it can cast a broader light over the parking lot. If you have shorter poles, then you need more of them. Same thing with the temperature. If the temperature goes down from 4,000 to 3,000, there'll be an inverse result that would cause more poles, which I also don't think probably the board would be really happy about if you have more light poles. Certainly, it wouldn't be great for the designer because we'd have to re-look at design with respect to where do we put these additional poles because now the light warmth is lower. in our mind and Restaurant Depot, they have their standard for a lot of locations starts at 5,000. So we went to 4,000. We feel that that's reasonable. So that's what I wanted to say with respect to these two items pertaining to the rooftop and then the light warmth. But other than that, as I said, we've worked really closely with Michelle and her team and we're in agreement with everything else.

Okay, thank you. Unless there's any additional comment from staff or the applicant, I think we'll turn it over to public comment. If there's anyone in the room looking to speak on this item, come on up.

Thank you. My name is Tony Economo. I'm the District One City Councillor in this area. As you are well aware of the importance of this development. Greentech Park for not just Worcester, but the north end of Worcester. This area here once produced many jobs, many family jobs there as well. So it's refreshing to see the WBDC and St. Cobain come together to bring this reimagined plan to us. And further on top of that, I am here to speak in support of Restaurant Depot's Site plan and encourage you to look at it and approve it this evening so we can get started on this next phase in this chapter of Green Tech Park Thank you Thank you Anyone else in the room looking to provide a comment?

Not seeing anyone in the room anyone online

This is Steve Carey, not seeing anyone with their hand raised.

Okay, thank you. All right, so we'll move on to board comment. And I'll just kind of try to summarize what we just heard. It sounds like the applicant is generally okay with most of the conditions, except for looking to have a discussion on number three related to the roof screening and number 18 related to lighting. With that, I would turn it over to Mr. King online. Do you have any comments?

Sorry, I'm off mute. I'm just, I think overall what I would have brought up was brought up by staff, so happy to proceed. Thank you.

Okay, thank you. Mr. DeLera.

Thank you. I have no comments or concerns. I also am happy to support this. Thank you.

Thank you. Mr. Rezende. I'm pleased to see this development.

My only comment is that I would keep the lighting fixture condition. I know this is an industrial park, but it's in a valley surrounded by residential areas, and I think it's important to keep that light pollution down.

Okay, thank you. Mr. Toomey.

No comments. Happy to support.

Okay, thank you. For myself, also very happy to see this project moving forward. Obviously, this team has been in front of the board quite a few times for different aspects of this larger project. Exciting to see the first actual site coming forward. With regards to the two questions that we have in front of us on the roof and the lighting, I would agree with my colleague, Mr. Rosende. I would support keeping the condition in for the 3,000 Kelvin temperature lighting. That is a condition that we... I'VE BEEN ON THE BOARD FOR SIX YEARS AND WE'VE CONSISTENTLY USED THAT FOR EVERY DEVELOPMENT. AND I WOULDN'T REALLY WANT TO START A PRECEDENT ESPECIALLY IN A HIGHLY VISIBLE LOCATION AND A LOCATION THAT HAS THE OPPORTUNITY FOR SEVERAL MORE SITES. to kind of waiver from that. I understand it may result in requiring a few more light poles to be installed on the site. But again, I think this is a standard that we've conditioned in many, many, many projects and I'm not sure that I would support wavering from that here. Similarly with the screening, I know the screening has been something that we have looked at in many projects and I would, I think it would apply here similarly. I understand there's concern looking at it from the highway, but I think the way that staff is viewing this condition and considering the aesthetics from the highway, I think that's an important thing. I'm not sure if the rest of my colleagues have any additional thoughts on keeping those two conditions, but that's where I stand. I'm happy to support the project overall. I just want to get some clarity on these two conditions before we move to a vote. Does anyone on the board want to chime in?

I'll go ahead. I'm in agreement with you, and I would prefer to see staff's recommendations adhere to.

Agreed.

Mr. Chair, can I just, for clarity, how many voting members are there tonight? Four? Four. Four.

Through the chair, just to clarify in terms of membership, we have online board member King and board member Rosende.

And Laura.

I'm sorry. Thank you.

Yes. So we have four voting board members. Mr. Rosende is an alternate and it's not voting on this because it is a definitive site plan. It sounds like Mr. Dallaire, Mr. King are also supportive of keeping those two conditions in. I don't know if Mr. Toomey has any additional thoughts.

I would agree to keep those.

Okay. So I think that's the position of the board at this point. If the applicant is willing to work with the board and the staff, I think we would... to be ready to move to a vote on this.

I would make a motion to approve. I'm sorry, Mr. Chair, can I confer with my client? Sure. Thank you, Mr. Chair. So one question that we have with respect to the rooftop equipment, based on the elevation of the highway, the question and concern really pertains to how does one screen the utilities from that vantage point? And how do we take into account the tree line buffer? Because we feel, again, that that constitutes screening. So are we trying to make these completely invisible or just minimize it? And that becomes quite subjective.

Sure, through the chair. I can maybe clarify and then have the board members comment. But specifically, the language states minimize the appearance. So that's something that staff would work with the applicant on to ensure that what's proposed is appropriate given some of the surrounding effects, including the change in elevation of the highway, mature landscaping that we see in some of the locations that you can see on the aerial image here as well as the proximity to the railroad and the the kind of birming effect that may create depending on what portion of the site so we'd work to that with the applicant on that um we're not looking for any form of like enclosure along the top um it would be perimeter um is basically what we would be looking for if there was screening that was necessary around the perimeter of whatever mechanicals are which i know maybe the applicant has a sense of, but in terms of staff's perspective at this point, we're just not sure what that might be. So that's my generic response as to kind of preserve flexibility for the variety of features that may end up there. I believe, based on the conversations we've had, everything is going to be recessed in towards the center of the roof, which should also help from screening. I think likely this vantage point that you're seeing here, I think it's unlikely that we'll have concerns about that particular vantage point. But perhaps from the north, from the south, again, I think the railroad and the elevation of the highway probably won't be an issue. But ultimately, it's up to the board to make the call and make a determination. The applicant did request to essentially keep that, but just clarify that the public ways exclude Interstate 190. Again, it sounds like the board would prefer to keep this in, but obviously, as this continues, if it's helpful to add language within the latter sentence, we can say that consideration shall be made relative to existing mature vegetation and the elevation of surrounding waste. Happy to have the applicant suggest other language that helps them get more comfortable. But ultimately, it's the discretion of the board.

Okay. And yeah, I think the key word that you called out was minimize, which is in the condition. So I don't, I think that leaves some room. My, my read on that is that it leaves some room for flexibility. You know, I think what staff is looking for and what the board is agreeing with is that we like to see some screening from the surrounding streets as well as one, one 90 you know, I think if that can be accomplished in a reasonable way, it sounds like staff is willing to work with the applicant on that. I think that's what the board is looking for in the intention of the condition. Would the applicant be open to some of the additional language Ms. Smith just suggested?

I understand what Michelle is saying. It's still not a science. It's sort of a black and white type of a scenario here um uh let me jump ahead if this makes any difference um in talking with my client and and keith uh they are willing to uh go they are willing to allow for the the warmer 3000 kelvin or less with respect to the lighting which is is not going to be necessarily an easy thing as i mentioned they're going to have to find a manufacturer who's going to have to look at the design, provide potentially more poles, locate those poles. It's going to have to go through Michelle's team. So it's not a small effort in that regard. Again, for an industrial site, which I think is pretty standard, you go to other communities, it's 4,000 Kelvin. And again, if you take one example, Restaurant Depot worked on the Brook Street project, the former movie theater site. That was directly across the street from a large-scale apartment building. We agreed to 3,000 Kelvin there for that one reason. But here, it doesn't quite, I think, make as much sense. However, notwithstanding, we're willing to agree to the 3,000 Kelvin. So going back then, with respect to the rooftop, given that, could the board be willing to allow, and it would be an easy fix with respect to item three, that with respect to the rooftop, you could just simply qualify this language, equipment from abutting city public ways in the first sentence. And the next sentence, again, any rooftop equipment visible from surrounding city public streets. to confine it to exclude it from the highway. And I'm also thinking about this from WBDC's perspective, who I know that we are setting a precedent here. So Mr. Chair, I appreciate that. And from your perspective, this is setting a precedent. You don't wanna set a certain precedent. At the same time as well, WBDC, they're thinking about their future advanced manufacturing operators who are gonna be coming here. And now it's, you do it here, you're gonna have to do it for every, all the other ones, I'm sure. So, and I just know, you know, those are gonna be larger sites. This is the small one here at the bend of the corner. This is the smaller lot, if not the smallest in this subdivision. So it's setting a precedent and it's setting a negative one from WBDC's perspective as well.

Absolutely. Hi, first of all, my name is Larry Cohen. I'm from Restaurant Depot. Most importantly, I want to thank the town for the support of the project, because that's the bigger picture. We've been looking in Worcester for years, and we finally found a great site. It's very exciting for us. As Michelle can attest, we've had many conversations with them. They've had a lot of requests, extra trees, make the fence from steel to wood, and all of them to me made a lot of sense. They added cost to the project, but at the end, we have a better finished project. My concern here is we've screened equipment in the past, but we have somewhere between six and eight rooftop units. And to me, it's just very subjective what screening means. Typically, when you walk by the site, you look up and can you see them? But when you're looking from an elevated Highway you're gonna see everything on the roof So as Michelle said do you have to screen from all directions from some directions? From the top you said no from the top It's just a very vague statement and we really want to come into this town with a good relationship with the town and we don't want to have something open-ended that we have to fight with. So that's my concern. And I've done that before, where you'd agree to something vague, and then down the line, you have to figure out what it means. So I'd much rather kind of figure it out tonight, and everyone's on the same page, and go forward, if that makes sense. I think we're trying to be reasonable.

And through the chair, just to clarify, you know, typically if we weren't considering things like vegetation, a screen for a rooftop piece of equipment that was visible from a vantage point, whether it's below or above within the public realm would typically comprise, you know, the materials, something that the development team typically selects, but often we see folks select metal, some sort of perforated metal, and it typically is four-sided around whatever typically rectangular shape unit is on the roof, and it would just cover the four sides of the unit. So that's typically in the past. If a screen is necessary to prevent that from being visible, then that's typically what we would see as far as a specification that would come in on a plan. Again, if there's a diagram that's provided that shows that that's not going to be visible based on the other vantage points, one side of the enclosure could potentially be eliminated. I don't know if that addresses the concern. I also don't know if the board members share that perspective, so I appreciate the desire to discuss to make sure the language is clear to everyone, but typically that is how we've interpreted that based on our understanding of the board's desires.

Thank you, staff, and to the applicant for those comments. Yeah, I guess I'd like to get the pulse of the board on this. Again, I think the board is overwhelmingly in support of this project, but just looking at clarity on this rooftop screening issue. I guess for myself, the screening from 190 to me is actually almost more important than from the surrounding city streets because there's limited residential commercial uses in that area. um you know and i think this new uh industrial park is going to be a gateway to the city and you know i think visually that's a consideration for me is you know the visual impact of this uh from 190 but Um, so again, I, I think, uh, city staff was looking to, uh, make some adjustments to the condition to make it more flexible so that it is, uh, isn't a, you know, a massive burden to the applicant. Um, and if you know that that's kind of the compromise that I would lean towards, but I would, um, yeah, like to hear from the rest of the board.

I would tend to agree that I prefer flexible language on it. I can understand from the developer standpoint that it is rather difficult to screen from an elevated point. And if they do have to go too tall, you get into structural difficulties as well. But I'm open to hearing from the other board members as well.

I agree with that too. I think on the side of both the applicant and the city staff. Historically, there's been a very. fruitful, productive relationship between the two sides, all in the pursuit of this one common goal, which is a very good goal. And so I think adjusting the language to provide the flexibility, but maintaining the need to have the screening from the highway must be maintained. And I think both parties could achieve that in the way it's being described. So that would be my preference.

thanks thank you uh mr rezende or mr toomey yeah i've got nothing further to add on this that hasn't been said thank you my curiosity is the um the the height of the building roughly in the height of the trees that are on the highway i know those might not be something that we had anticipated that you'd have off the top but that that i think would impact that Again, personally, from my standpoint, driving a lot of highways, looking off the side of the road and seeing something on the top of the building doesn't necessarily bother me. I can see you're in the streets and you're very close to it in a neighborhood that might have an impact relative to that. But, you know, how much cover do the trees actually provide versus the... I didn't know if there's a Google view that we could be able to get a feel for that, what that would look like. And I assume the building is probably about the same height as a normal warehouse club would be?

Yeah, I believe it's about 34 foot to the top of the building.

Which, again, takes a pretty good angle to be able to see what's on top of the building. You've got to be removed from it pretty well.

Exactly, yes.

And again, the comments earlier relative to the, you know, you get into... high-tech manufacturing, a lot of the stuff they have to have for being able to exhaust stuff and that from buildings, as you get into the future development, that's gonna become a bigger issue relative to that because of the right type of manufacturing we're looking to bring in, I would assume, as a city. those roofs are going to become very populated because of that. In some ways, that's the type of manufacturing it is, and I would worry about the screening and the future implications that you set now versus going by on the highway and how some of that's going to look. That's our feeling as well. I'm looking a little more flexible on that.

Did you want to?

Respectfully, I just want to address the precedent issue because I think it's incredibly important for WBDC. We have spent about $30 million to date in prepping this site, this 51 acres. We're not done. We have about 10 more acres to go with buildings on it. I just want to remind the board of what this site looked like before. Sort of antiquated buildings with a lot of deferred maintenance, older brick prior to, obviously, standards that we have today, even though the city does not have design standards. Still, the city does endure to create a pleasing look for its local roads, and I appreciate that. My concern here is the jurisdiction of the highway and the local planning board. I think those are in conflict. I think we and the applicant are very much in favor of adhering to screening as it relates to what you see from local roads of which you have your jurisdiction, and we appreciate that. Imagine a 500,000 square foot building along Interstate 190. And to Mr. Toomey's point, imagine that being a biomanufacturer, an advanced manufacturer with a significant amount of infrastructure on its roof. We are doing everything we can to create jobs in this city. And that includes discussions about how we can help with assessed values, how we can accept help with tax bills, how we can help with site prep, and lowering the cost for private companies to come in and create jobs in every way possible. For us to then saddle a employer with a half a million dollars worth of screening on a roof to protect the view from the highway, I think is something that we just can't overcome. And this will set a precedent. And this decision will be looked at by future end users as they go forward and begin to do their due diligence for their site plan. Again, respectfully, I feel we have improved the area incredibly. You'll see the type of design that is coming to this area as represented by Restaurant Depot, by the school, by the administration building. But we cannot sit quietly and allow this precedent, this increase in cost for our future employers in this city, which is truly the goal of this park, is employment. And to Josh's point, to bring back as many jobs as possible. And that is not an easy thing to do in any area, but in particular, in the city of Worcester. So I would just ask the board to continue to think critically about what this is asking future employers to spend to be here in Worcester and provide jobs.

Thank you. I think we've heard some compelling points from the applicant about how this does how this would affect not only this project, but the rest of the park. I guess one piece of information, we don't really have what the elevations are between the highway and the top of the building, so it's hard for me to really assess what kind of structure you know, it was just a 10 foot, you know, small, some kind of small screening, or is this like a mega structure that's going top of the building? So I think without that information, it would be difficult for me to, um, considering how much the, uh, some of the points that the applicant made to impose, to impose screening when I, I feel like maybe we are missing a little bit of information. So with that, and with the interest of moving along here, um, I would be willing to, to, uh, drop that condition unless staff has any really pressing concerns about that or the rest of the board. So I would turn it over to my other board members for a comment.

I am okay with dropping the condition in this case. It seems like they're open to the screening, but the main concern is just the highway at this point. So okay, dropping it and just what it has to continue working with the city on it. Thank you.

Mr. DeLera or Mr. Zende on line.

Thank you. I don't think the staff is necessarily expecting the applicant to be held to an intransigent standard. I think a simple good faith attempt to mitigate would be a reasonable goal to achieve. I do understand the applicant's concerns. It's incumbent upon us to make the best decision that we can for the site at hand. And with that said, I'd be willing to forego that portion as well.

Okay, thank you. Mr. Resende?

Yeah, I could. I'm persuaded to remove that condition.

Okay, thank you. And Mr. Toomey.

Again, I agree that

screening especially from the highway is not necessary locally where you can see on the streets a different story but from the highway i don't think it's uh necessary okay thank you um okay you wore us down we'll remove it from the highway um i think someone provided language to just have it seen from city streets and yes you're comfortable with that i appreciate it mr chair okay we can run through the specific language if you'd like Yeah, if you want to review that specific language, this is for condition three. I think it would be adding language specifically for rooftop screening only from city streets.

And yeah, we can just clarify excluding interstate 190, just to be clear. I think that was the concern that they had. That works too. Address that.

Perfect. All right. Yeah, so excluding the highway. Yeah.

Okay, I think with that change to condition three, it sounds like we're ready for a motion.

Okay, I would make a motion to approve new business item number four, subject to the conditions as mentioned in the meeting.

Second. Okay, we've got a motion and a second. Mr. King. Yes. Mr. DeLera? Yes. And Mr. Timmy?

Yes.

Myself is a yes, is approved. Good luck. Thank you very much.

Thank you again for everyone's support. We're very excited about the project.

All right. Next up, we've got item number 651 Providence Street. This is a public meeting for a definitive site plan and a public hearing for a special permit for relief from minimum off-street parking and or loading requirements, parking, dimensional requirements, and landscaping requirements. And just to note that alternate member, Mr. Rosende, will be voting on the special permit.

Good evening, Mr. Chair, members of the board. My name is Matt Echol. I'm an attorney with Fletcher Tilton on behalf of the applicant, Mr. Joseph Gallagher, who's here with us this evening. Also joining us is Mr. Nick Dewhurst from Bowler, Mr. Luke Beck from Cube 3, the project architect, and Mr. Sean Kelly from Chapel Engineering. We're before you tonight with a presentation seeking to erect a new five-story residential building. with 50 units and 50 parking spaces. The project is considered an eligible development and will create much needed new housing units, including five affordable units at 60% AMI. It'll also allow for improvements to stormwater management, a decrease in impervious area, and new landscaping. The project is designed to include an interior bike room and two amenity spaces, which you can see towards the bottom right there of the rendering on the cover page. The zoning district is a RG5, and the lot size is just over 36,500 square feet. In terms of the relief we're seeking, we're looking for approval for the site plan from the board, as well as a special permit for modification of parking, loading, and landscaping requirements. Just to go a little bit further into those details, we're seeking a waiver of the requirement for the two loading spaces that would typically be provided. However, I would point out we are proposing a pick up and drop off spot in close proximity to the front door for Ubers and deliveries and the like. We're also seeking a waiver for the requirement for a tree every 20 to 25 feet. I would note we are still working to provide that, but in working with staff, we are keeping that request in case there's any problems with feasibility in that moving forward. We're also seeking to reduce the drive aisle from 24 feet to 22 feet. That is somewhat of a late development and what that allows us to do is increase our landscape buffer to 5 feet. So that was actually a suggestion from staff looking at this proposed site plan here. It's in the top left. the parking space for the parking spaces for the parking spaces for the parking spaces for the parking spaces for the parking spaces for the parking spaces for the parking spaces for the parking spaces for the parking spaces for the parking spaces for the parking spaces for the parking spaces for the parking spaces for the parking spaces for the parking spaces for the parking spaces for the parking spaces for the parking spaces for the parking spaces for the parking spaces for the parking spaces for the parking spaces for the parking spaces for the parking spaces for the parking spaces for the parking spaces for the parking spaces for the parking spaces for the parking spaces for the parking spaces for the parking spaces for the parking spaces for the parking spaces for the parking spaces for the parking spaces for the parking spaces for the parking spaces for the parking spaces for the parking spaces for the parking spaces for the parking spaces for the parking spaces for the parking spaces for the parking spaces for the parking spaces for the parking spaces for the parking spaces for the parking spaces for the parking spaces for the parking spaces for the parking spaces for the parking spaces for the parking spaces for the parking spaces for the parking spaces for for one to one parking ratio and we're requesting this in connection with our submission of a TMP plan as well as a special permit through the board. Just to give a little background, we did previously receive a variance from the ZBA for the front yard setback. So looking again at this screen, going from the top to the bottom of the page on the left side, we are proposing a six-foot front yard setback, which is a variance from the normal required 15 feet. Just to give again the background, this allows us to have more parking in the rear as well as a larger usable open space for the future residents. So this was already approved by the zoning board. To give a little bit more background on the site, and if I could ask just to switch back a couple slides to see some of the aerial views, there's currently a three-story structure. We can go back one more the other way. Yeah. So kind of center page right there is the existing three-story structure with a garage towards the rear. You can see this is at the corner of Providence Street and Harrison Street. Outside of that building, the lot is predominantly and almost entirely a paved parking lot that formerly served that three-story structure. The lot is accessed off Providence Street. This will continue. However, we are shifting that curb cut away from the intersection a little bit. This site is ideally located it provides access to multiple forms of transportation as noted in our transportation management plan which was created to outline these various forms of transportation. for future for future residents and visitors this includes those 50 on-site parking spaces bike storage both inside and out with the majority of that being located within a dedicated bike storage room which is accessed directly off providence street and you'll see that when we get to the floor plans we're also in close proximity to both bus stops as well as union station and as mentioned we do have the pickup and drop-off space for deliveries and ride shares and the like The building design, which Luke can speak to a little bit further, does read, as you can see here in the elevations, as a five-story building as you move kind of down from Harrison Street towards Providence Street. There is quite a grade change, so the main entrance as well as the lobby and the bike storage room are all kind of plan bottom left there. I should say the top elevation, but towards the bottom left of that elevation. So we've worked on some additional glazing there as well as architectural details to make that really inactive and welcoming lobby and entrance and really improve upon the streetscape. As you head up towards Harrison Street, you can see the change in elevation. The parking garage gets essentially buried So it's below grade as you move up towards Harrison Street. And then you'll see at the corner there is where our two amenity spaces are located. And this was specifically done to really activate that corner of Providence Street as you wrap around Harrison Street. So we're proposing currently what would likely be a residence kind of lounge meeting room as well as a gym for the residents. And that really just, again, a lot of glazing, a lot of windows to really have that inviting pedestrian experience and just improve that streetscape as a whole. Of the 50 parking spaces, 28 of them, if we can go to maybe back to the floor plans, 28 of them will be in that interior garage. 22 exterior spaces will be provided in kind of three different areas. The plan also includes accessible spaces, compact spaces, and some EV charging spaces as well. Just to run through the program, we are proposing eight studio units, 21 one beds, and 21 two-bedroom units. So a mixture of mostly, well, half studio and ones, or a little, maybe two-thirds, I should say, and then the remaining is two beds. At one point, we did have some three-bedroom units, but those have now been eliminated, and it'll all be studios, ones, and twos. That first floor again, which you can see here in greater detail in this rendering will provide the main entrance and lobby, the bike storage room, which will have multiple entry points for ease for future residents, as well as those interior 28 parking spaces. The second floor will have 11 residential units with those two amenities spaces. And again, looking at this rendering, they'd be kind of in your bottom right as you wrap around Providence Street and Harrison Street. And then floors three through five will each contain 13 residential units. Again, overall the project's been designed to provide some much needed market rate and affordable on-site residential housing opportunities with ample parking and transportation options. We really believe this is an improvement on the underutilized site and the landscaping and stormwater represent a dramatic improvement to the site as a whole. We did receive staff's memo and agree to Essentially, all the conditions we did discuss kind of at the 11th hour, a few minor modifications, which I believe were agreed upon. However, I'm not sure if the board has seen those, so I'm happy to discuss those as we move forward tonight. And finally, for the record, I would request the waivers as outlined within the staff memo. With that, I'm going to turn it over to Nick Dewhurst from Bowler. If we can go back to the site plan, he can dig a little deeper into site circulation and how the site was designed. And then briefly, we'll turn it over to Luke for a few additional architectural details. Thank you.

Thanks, Matt. Again, for the record, Nick Dewhurst with Bowler. So I apologize if some of the stuff that I'm going to mention is a bit repetitive. I think Matt did a great job covering most of it. But so as Matt mentioned, this is a five story. building in footprint about 12,700 square feet so it results in about 63,000 square feet of gross floor area. Parking is Matt said there are 50 total spaces. 22 of which are surface parks meeting their exterior to the building. And then the remaining 28 are within that garage area that's sort of the ground level of of of the building. We're also providing five EV parking spaces along with three future EV ready parking spaces. And we're also providing that interior bike storage room that Matt hit on as well as some exterior bike racks sort of to the northeast corner of the building. Access is relatively straightforward. We're providing one two-way full movement driveway at the north westerly corner of the property. From there, it's just sort of two-way circulation, kind of loops around the site into the garage where the garage is also two-way circulation. There are multiple direct pedestrian connections both from Harrison and Providence Street that bring you to the different entrances throughout the building. One thing that I think is important to kind of paint the picture of here, and I think the renderings do a great job of it, but with the elevation change here being about 20 feet today from of the north of the point to the south of the point of the site it takes getting a little creative with the grading so the site sort of I'll say it's kind of tiered in the sense that there's sort of a lower tier and an upper tier so if you can imagine the parking is sort of at that lower tier and then at that upper tier there's sort of that amenity area and these are kind of divided by a retaining wall just to kind of make up that grading and elevation difference and those are you know, the two different, you know, you can go from the amenity area to the parking area or that lower tier with some steps. Trash, we're providing a fully enclosed trash enclosure. We're also providing, from a landscaping standpoint, a significant amount of new landscaping, numerous plantings throughout the site, and a few kind of specific areas I'd like to highlight are a row of arborvities between the sidewalk and the building along Providence Street, and then street trees along Harrison Street. We provided a full photo metrics plan showing a handful of parking lot light pole fixtures as well as wall mounted building mounted light fixtures just to achieve those adequate light levels. One other thing I'd like to kind of point out that I think is important is we have agreed to provide some restriping of some of the existing pavement markings, specifically at the intersection of Harrison Street and Providence Street. They're sort of faded today. Specifically, it's some stop bars and crosswalks, so we have agreed to provide that restriping. From a stormwater standpoint, We did receive a comment as part of our DPRS memo about providing additional, or I guess I should say providing infiltration or detention, because the current design just proposes some catch basins that ultimately discharge along with the roof runoff to the combined storm sewer system within Providence Street. So that's something that we're absolutely going to explore is providing some sort of infiltration. We do have some tight site constraints when it comes to groundwater and soil conditions, but if infiltration isn't feasible, we'll certainly explore detention in that condition. utilities are also you know fairly straightforward just there's plenty of infrastructure within both Harrison and Providence Street so we do have water and sewer connections direct into the municipal systems as well as an electric service and a new ground pad mounted transformer that's tying into an existing utility pool. That's really all I have from a site standpoint. So I will turn it over to Luke just to run through some architectural points.

Thanks, Nick. Good evening, everyone. Luke Beck, architect and senior project manager with Cube 3. Thanks again for your time this evening. Matt did a great job of touching on the higher points of program and architectural detailing. I'll touch on a few finer points. So just to orient everyone to this view, the orange lobby box on page left is facing north. Harrison Street is page right and Providence Street is at the bottom of the page. This is the this is the first floor so it's the parking level it's partially buried into the grade the orange lobby box that you see on page left is is fully above grade it's accessible from the parking area and has direct access to a stairwell and the elevator core of the building. The bike room next to it has direct access to both the lobby area and out to Providence Street. And both the lobby and the bike room are clad with large format glazing to create transparency and activation out to the street. We can advance to the next slide, please. So this slide is the second floor. It's almost a typical floor plate, except for the two amenity rooms you can see page left. So those orange boxes are a private amenity lounge and fitness area for the occupants of the building. We'll look at it in the rendering, but the exterior walls of these spaces will have also large format glazing to, again, kind of create that transparency and activation onto the street. And the amenity lounge room has a door with a sidewalk providing direct access out to the corner as well. Next to the amenity fitness room. Oh, sorry, if we could jump back, please. Oh, there we go. Next to the amenity fitness room, you'll notice there's a stairwell with a corridor we have ganged that provides also occupant direct access out to the side yard, and that side yard has convenience access out to the street as well. Thanks, we can jump to the third floor. So this is the third floor, which is also the typical floor plate for levels four and five. The balance of the studio one and two bed units are distributed across this floor plan. Each of the floors is served by two stairwells, an elevator, and a double-loaded corridor, which is that white ribbon in the middle. From here, we can jump to the Providence Street rendering, please. All right. So this view is looking up south on Providence Street towards Harrison Street. And we've taken the facade of the building and broken the top three floors down into volumes that are proportionate in scale and rhythm to the existing triple-decker homes in the neighborhood. And we've clad these volumes with a traditional fiber cement lap siding, which is a further nod to the material language of many of these homes. The windows in these volumes are ganged together with a flat fiber cement accent panel, which creates a bit of a second layer of rhythm and texture as you're looking down the facade. The notches that form these volumes travel down to the second floor and the material language is applied across the second floor to create a bit of a base that forms the start of the residential levels on top of the parking level. As the facade comes down and hits the sloping grade along Providence Street, as Nick mentioned, we're including a series of evergreen arborvitae plantings to really soften that edge between the sidewalk and the building. And the wall behind those arborvitae will be clad in a textured fiber cement siding that will die into a small stone water table to, again, kind of introduce that second layer of rhythm and texture behind those plantings. As we look at the end of the building facing the parking area, we can see the lobby and the main entrance, which is the exterior wall is clad with a large format glazing that wraps around and passes the bike room as well, which we feel really, again, creates that theme of transparency and activation out to the street front. We're exploring the idea of including some large format super graphics with bike themed art on the walls of the bike room. So as the passerby is looking in, they can really engage with the program in that space. And then finally, we're including a metal clad eyebrow feature that's going to wrap around the glazing at both of those spaces. And you can see that's the light horizontal bar that wraps over on top of the glazing. And that will serve to really create some hierarchy in those spaces and act as a wayfinding feature that lets passersby know that those are really active points of the building with main entries for building users. We can advance to the next slide, please, and I'll touch on a few other points. So this is the view angles looking in the opposite direction here from the corner of Providence and Harrison. And again, we can kind of see the large format glazing at the amenity fitness and amenity lounge rooms facing out onto Harrison Street. Again, creating that transparency, that activation. We can see the door with the pedestrian walkway out to the sidewalk. I think that concludes the architectural portion. So I think we're all set.

Thank you for your time.

Yeah.

Thank you, Luke. That does conclude our presentation. We'll happily take any questions or comments from the board. Thank you. Great. Thank you all.

I will turn it over to planning staff.

This is Steve Gary in the Planning Division. That was a very thorough presentation, so I don't want to be redundant, but just to give a little high-level overview. This is a 50-unit, five-story building with 50 parking spaces. It's before the board because of the unit count trigger for site plan approval. They are reducing parking, are proposing to through exclusionary zoning. They're providing 10% of their units are going to be affordable. That's five units. They're going to be affordable at 60% AMI. As the applicant mentioned, they've been to zoning board to get a variance for front yard setback to be able to bring the building closer to the street, which allows for more room for parking at the rear of the building, which is generally speaking in an arrangement for buildings and parkings that planning staff is supportive of. So through that CBA process, the applicants worked with us to provide an additional door at the corner of Providence Street and Harrison Street into the lobby there, which we're very glad to see. As pedestrians might use the site, they might be accessing Gaskell Field or the WRTA stop that's on Providence Street south of the building. So glad to see that residents of the building can come and go through that door now. They've also provided additional glazing down by at the northern corner of the buildings. We're very glad to see that. Attorney Echo went through the relief that's being sought under the special permit, but I'll just reiterate it here. They're waiving the requirement for two loading spaces Instead, they are providing a pull-off area for deliveries and ride shares, that sort of thing. They're seeking to waive the landscaping requirement to have trees every 20 to 25 feet on the northern parking buffer, northern landscaping buffer. We do have a condition of approval that basically those trees should be provided unless demonstrated not to be feasible just because of site constraints or sight lines. They're looking to waive the parking layout requirement to have 24-foot aisles that would normally be required be 22 feet to allow for that landscaping buffer to be 5 feet. More supportive of that, it would be less impervious service, which we generally like to see. And then, as I mentioned before, they're varying the parking under the inclusionary zoning special permit. They have provided a transportation management plan. um, that offers, um, some of the things they would do to make sure that, um, the 50 spaces that are provided are adequate for the, for the number of tenants and talks about, um, public transit options, ride sharing, um, you know, uh, nearby municipal parking, that sort of thing. Um, so I guess, uh, there was a couple of, well, I also did want to mention the, the applicant has, um, and if the applicant could touch on, um, what might be possible for stormwater detention, that's something that They are overall reducing impervious surface on the site from what's existing, but just given the increase in wastewater that's going to be produced by 50 dwelling units, and the fact that this flows into the combined sewer overflow that's in the Providence Street right away, we'd love if the applicant could just comment on the feasibility of providing stormwater detention, if not infiltration. And then with regards to a couple of conditions of approval that I know that the applicant was looking to have tweaked, and staff is supportive of these tweaks. Under for the special permit conditions of approval, condition five, with regards to the charging for at least eight e-bikes and scooters within the bike room. I just want to add the caveat provided this is acceptable to Worcester Fire Department. Just my understanding is that fire departments can be sometimes a little bit about EV, not EV charging, but electric charging for bikes and scooters. So again, adding the caveat provided this is acceptable to Worcester Fire Department. And then under the definitive site plan, there's a very sort of the mirror condition of approval is condition G. So again, also adding that language at the end of it, provided this is acceptable to Worcester Fire Department. And then condition M, With regards to providing outdoor furniture for the rear amenity area and details for them, the applicant has stated that at this stage of the development process, they really don't quite know what that outdoor furniture is going to look like and are hesitant to commit to it. So I guess there's a couple options here. One is they could either add the language, provide sample outdoor furniture. So that, you know, demonstrates a commitment to providing that, but doesn't lock them into a particular spec. Or condition 1M could be moved to prior to issuance of building permit, which would be a little bit longer, further down the development process. So I'll leave it to the applicant to state which of those options they'd prefer for 1M. And then, as I noted, the addition of provided it's acceptable to Worcester Fire Department to condition 5 and condition of the SPECIAL PERMIT APPROVAL AND THEN CONDITION 1G OF THE DEFENDIVE SITE PLAN APPROVAL. AND THAT'S ALL I'VE GOT FOR COMMENTS.

OKAY, THANK YOU. BEFORE I TURN IT BACK TO THE APPLICANT, JUST WANT TO CHECK IF DPW HAD ANY ADDITIONAL STAFF COMMENTS.

FOR DPW, DPW WILL REQUIRE FOR THE APPLICANT TO PAVE PROVIDENCE STREET FROM FULL WIDTH to cover all the it really X. All the utilities, thank you that would be all.

Okay, thank you. Does the applicant want to address. I think a couple of any questions or comments from city staff think there's a question about stormwater and infiltration.

Speaking to the condition relating to the furniture, I think we would take option one the sample provide a sample of

uh typical expected furniture to be used and then in terms of stormwater nick i don't know if i know you touched upon it briefly in a presentation but i don't know if you want to reiterate yeah yeah i'm so we're going to explore um we're going to explore the opportunity of infiltration again there are some some constraints that might make that difficult but um if infiltration isn't a possibility we'll certainly explore detention okay

Thank you. And just a clarification from staff. Is there a condition already in there that addresses that? There is.

Condition 1A of the special permit conditions is written such that asks infiltration to be provided unless soil conditions show that it's unfeasible. And then if infiltration is unfeasible, detention should be provided with a capacity proportional to the increase in wastewater caused by the project.

All right. Sounds like that covers the different scenarios. All right, I think we can move to public comment. Is there anyone in the room that would like to speak on this item? 51 Providence Street. Not seeing any hands in the room. Is there anyone online?

We do have one person online. Angelica, I'm going to unmute you on our end. You just have to unmute on your end.

All right. Hi, everyone. My name is Angelica and bear with me. I'm not very comfortable with public speaking. I understand that this project is going to be built. I just wanted to share the impact that it is going to have on our community. We are a resident and owner of a unit directly adjacent to this proposed plan. and I'm not sure if the developers have visited or spent time in this area. Currently, this site is being utilized by the community for various things, mostly extra parking. Parking in this area is very limited for the current residents as is. Additionally, the church located on the corner of Waverly and Providence also utilizes this lot for services. So as a community, we're greatly concerned about the impacts that it's going to have. In terms of congestion, we're incredibly concerned with just safety, public safety, the intersection of Harrison and Providence. is dangerous. There has been multiple times where there have been close calls. Multiple cars have ran the stop sign. While I think it's lovely that the developers are offering to paint the cross box, I think much more will be needed to ensure the safety of the public. especially with the influx of cars and of people. Overall, it seems as though this project will unfortunately stand out in comparison to the other buildings in our neighborhood. The glazing is pretty, but it's going to take away from our character. And it seems as though this project is just simply too big for the space that it is on. I just wanted to share those comments.

Sure, thank you. Is there anyone else online? No one else with their hand raised. Okay. I think with that, we can move to board discussion. I'll turn it over to Mr. King.

I'm just...

Happy to support this one in general. I'm aligned with the staff comments on this. I do understand the abutters and the neighborhood's concerns. I hope they do work with the applicant to address anything as they do come up.

Okay, thank you. Mr. DeLera.

Thank you. Yeah, in general, I'm very supportive of this. In particular, I would like to call out the choice that the applicant has made to build the affordable units rather than electing the payment in lieu of option. We need these affordable units right now, and especially at the 60% AMI level. So I'm very pleased to see that. Regarding the abutter's comment, I understand it. I appreciate the challenges there. And I wonder if this might be a candidate for the installation of a traffic signal. Kind of a general rhetorical question, but it's something that could be taken up as a request to, I believe, Department of Transportation and Mobility or petitioning city council.

Thanks. Okay. Thank you. I think you bring up a couple of good points there. Mr. Resende. No comment. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Toomey.

One question I have relative to the parking. Once we get snow in the winter, are there accommodation that those outside spaces, nothing is lost due to snow and how is that going to be handled?

Yeah, so there is a relatively sizable landscaped area kind of off where those EV parking spaces are. So I believe the idea is that there would be snow storage in that area with the understanding that, you know, if the site gets to a point where there's no more capacity for snow, then that would need to be dealt with and likely hauled off site.

Again, I understand it's a really tough neighborhood for parking one-to-one on that, but if you lose them in the wintertime, it's even worse for that. I'm going to support the project. I think it's great and adds added housing.

Great. Thank you. For myself, looking at both, we have a definitive site plan and a special permit application. For the special permit request. I have no concerns happy to support it same with the site plan I really appreciate the the time that the applicant put in To some of the design of this to this of the site Particularly some of the glazing and activation along the storefront deciding the building right along the street. I you know, I appreciate that the butters comments I regarding parking and hopefully if there is any traffic concerns that result from this project, they can reach out to the city DTM and their counselor, as Mr. Delero said, to get those issues addressed. But I actually think that the size and scale of this project, while a little different from the kind of traditional triple deckers in this area, it kind of fits in that almost, middle-sized multifamily housing that the city is really looking for. So I think this is a really important project and I think it fits well on the site. So I'm happy to support it. It doesn't sound like we have any outstanding discussions on the conditions other than changes to five under the special permit and one G and one M under the design and site plan or yeah, the definitive site plan. So unless there's any other discussion from the board or any other final comments or concerns from the applicant, I think we might be ready for a motion. I'd make a motion to close the public hearing. Second. Motion's been seconded. Mr. King? Yes. Mr. Dallara? Yes. Mr. Rezende? Yes. Mr. Toomey?

Yes.

Myself, yes. And maybe we take these votes separately. Mr. Resende, you will be voting on the special permit, but not the site plan.

I make a motion to approve the special permit for item number 651, Providence Street, subject to the modifications mentioned by the chair. Second.

Thank you. Mr. King? Yes. Mr. DeLera? Yes. Mr. Resende? Yes. And Mr. Toomey? Yes. Myself, yes. The special permit is approved.

And I make a motion to approve new business item number 651 Providence Street, the definitive site plan subject to the conditions as discussed.

Second. Motion's been seconded. Mr. King?

Yes.

Mr. DeLera? Yes. Mr. Toomey?

Yes.

Myself, yes. The definitive site plan has also been approved. Thank you and good luck.

Thank you very much.

Thank you. Okay. Moving on to item number seven, PV Street Right-of-Way. This is an application for 81G and Chapter 12, Section 12, Private Street Improvement.

Good evening. Mike Andrea, Graves Engineering. Also with me tonight was the owner applicant, Rod Haddad. He had a family emergency and had to leave, so I apologize for his absence. We're before you tonight for some work in public and private ways associated with a project at 2 Northboro Street. Briefly, the project is a rehabilitation of the site. It contains an existing approximately 3,000 square foot building on a quarter acre parcel. The building has been vacant for a number of years and is going to be converted into a restaurant. Mr. Haddad will be moving his business from Shrewsbury, where he's been operating successfully for many years, to this site. So along with the building improvements, we're improving the site by adding more parking. There's really one or two parking spaces on the site now. Again, it's been vacant for many years. Creating new curb cuts, landscaping, utilities, lighting, etc. The application before you tonight is for the improvements within portions of Plantation and Peabody Streets. In particular, the work there is including a concrete walkways implantation one of which will house to bike racks which we were not able to accommodate on the site. So we've coordinated those with the TM. A walkway extension along Peabody Street connecting the plantation Street walkway to the curb cut of those curb cut on the site. In some landscaping improvements in this sort of trying to layer between the sidewalk in the building where it's just grass now. So that is the work as part of this application. I'm happy to go into more detail if you like.

All right, thank you. That'll turn it over to city staff.

Sure, through the Chair, Michelle Smith, and the Planning Division again. So this is a Chapter 12, Section 12 review through the Planning Board. So you are reviewing the adequacy of the surfacing, grading, and drainage that's proposed within the private street. The public street is up to DPW to review, but you have the pleasure of reviewing private streets. So in this particular instance, we're looking at Peabody Street, which is a 40-foot right-of-way layout with about a 24-foot wide improved curb-to-curb paved, no sidewalk, The applicant is proposing to extend a sidewalk along the frontage on their property over to where their driveway is proposed to the south. And so that is a cement concrete sidewalk with vertical granite curbing per city standard that is along the site. It's about 60 feet or so of sidewalk. And then the remainder of the area is either within the public realm or essentially will be restored to the condition that it is. Upon completion of construction, we have recommendations for conditions of approval on page two of three. I will just note that at the time we issued this, which was on Friday, DPW had not provided a comment letter. We got that on Tuesday, and so this doesn't actually reflect those updates. So I'll just recommend that you include the condition that is outlined on the July 13th DPW memo related to the water main. They're looking for this information on the plan, which may be already on the plan or will be related to, but they just want to make sure it looks like it's a 1950s era service. So they're just looking for that information to facilitate the development that the client is proposing. Happy to answer any questions. Thanks.

Great. Thank you. I'll turn it over to DPW to see if they have anything more to add.

We don't have any additional comment for this at this moment. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you. Let's go to public comment. Is there anyone in the room looking to speak on this item? Not seeing anyone in the room. Anyone online? No one online with their hand raised. Okay. Let's move to board discussion. Mr. King.

No comments on this. Thank you.

Okay, thank you. Mr. DeLera?

No questions or comments for me. Thank you.

Okay, thank you. Mr. Rezende? No comments. Thank you. Thank you. And Mr. Toomey?

No comments. Thank you.

All right, same for myself. This seems pretty straightforward. Looking forward to a new restaurant in the neighborhood. Sounds like it'll be a big, exciting project, and... We'll stop by sometime. With that, I think we are ready for a motion.

Make a motion to approve new business item number seven, the Peabody Street right-of-way.

Second. And I think we want the motion to also include the July 13th DPW letter that includes one additional condition. Yes. Second that. All right. We've got a motion that's been seconded. Mr. King? Yes. Mr. DeLera? Yes. Mr. Toomey? Yes. And myself, yes. The motion has been approved. Thank you and good luck. Thank you. Okay, moving on to number eight, 149 Malden Street and Zero Morgan Street. This is a public meeting for a definitive site plan amendment and a public hearing for a definitive subdivision plan amendment.

Good evening, members of the board. My name is Donald O'Neill. I'm a lawyer here in Worcester. I'm here this evening on behalf of Loring Enterprises in connection with the request that we've made to amend the definitive subdivision plan and the definitive site plan that were voted on by the board after a public hearing on February 18th. and basically the gist of the request is that we're seeking with respect to the subdivision decision the imposition of a requirement in the decision which requires that the applicant construct the curbing on the project and which are different than the board's own subdivision rules and regulations specifications. And the specifications, as I understand it, that they're referring to are the Department of Public Works standard construction specifications, which actually are intended to apply to public works projects that are put out to bid and it's a requirement it's intended to inform applicants or who are going to be bidding on projects what the requirements are I don't believe there's anything in it specifically which in any way relates to subdivision control There's certainly no provision under subdivision law which delegates the authority to adopt specifications for the rules and regulations of the planning board by the city council. There is a procedure under Chapter 4181Q, which provides for the adoption of rules and regulations, and it does require a public hearing with notice. I couldn't help but notice that you have that on directly after this hearing. And the subdivision rules are to be established by the planning board, not the city council. And in that regard, there are a couple of objections that we have that relate to, firstly, relate to the berm to be installed in the project and also to the requirement to cement concrete sidewalks as opposed to the bituminous concrete sidewalks that we had proposed. The second part of the application that we filed was for amend the site plan and that one is a little bit more I think maybe straightforward in that the request that we're making there is There is a provision which was included in the recommendations made by planning that the applicant be required to pull all of the houses forward to the maximum extent possible in conformance with setback requirements. And I did, in anticipation of this meeting, I did review the meeting on the 18th. There was actually quite a bit of discussion that took place about that issue. And at least as observing the meeting, it appeared to me that the board... decided in the end not to require that condition to be imposed. I think when the, and I could be wrong on that, but I think when the matter was put to a vote, there was sort of an overall approved with the conditions outlined by staff, notwithstanding the fact that There was this discussion which took place two or three times. Kevin Quinn, who made the presentation, was asked about moving the building forward. He explained that the applicants had laid out this plan, they had a reason for what they were doing, and that that was not going to work in terms of the proposal that's been presented. One of the things we did look at is there are 13 lots that are in this location. Seven of them already are pulled as far as it could possibly be forward in conformance with the setback requirements. And those seven are actually set back fairly far from the road. So if you were to pull them forward, there are six that could be pulled forward slightly more. Three of them are at the end of the cul-de-sac, which already have minimal front yards. If you pull those closer to the cul-de-sac, number one, you're going to expose the people living in them to a much smaller front yard and also would say probably headlight traffic from people using the cul-de-sac to turn around that would be raking the front of their house so those are three there are three others and I do I did present or do have for the board's review a sketch which I'VE ALREADY SHOWED IT TO STAFF, BUT IT SHOWS THE LOCATION THAT YOU WOULD END UP WITH IF YOU WERE TO PULL THE OTHER SIX FORWARD. AS YOU CAN SEE, THERE'S ONE COMING IN.

SORRY, JUST A REAL QUICK CLARIFICATION. WOULD THE BOARD MEMBERS ONLINE HAVE THIS?

NO.

OKAY. JUST TO MAYBE DESCRIBE IT FOR THE BOARD MEMBERS ONLINE.

Pardon me?

I don't think the board members online have access to this.

OK. Just maybe. Yeah. All right. Well, then I'll just describe by looking at it. OK. So I just described what you would have with the cul-de-sac at the end of the street. Those are already closer than any of the other houses to the street. And shifting them forward even closer would, I think, be a little bit odd. Looking also at the project, on the right-hand side, the second house could be shifted forward however if you were to do that the two houses on either side are set back and what you would end up with is They would be looking at the back of the other house into somebody's backyard, which is more typically, I think, a private area for the residents who would live there. You've got the same situation on the opposite side of the street where the third lot in could be shifted closer to the road, and that would have, again, two buildings behind it Um and what you would end up with due to the fact that the other house locations are are where they are based on meeting the setback requirements. Um it would be wouldn't be a consistent look to the subdivision so that if you're going to have seven houses that are set well back from the street, it's a little odd to have kind of a zigzag house layout so that you've got some that are very close to the street and some that are set back the other thing i would note that is i mean these are these are fairly um sizable lots uh and uh if you have a size if you have a smaller lot um this issue doesn't really come up because there's not enough room actually to push the houses further back from the street in this case the overall outcome of moving these forward as shown on as described and shown on a sketch that we have prepared which I understand the public doesn't have access to but I think it doesn't make any sense. It certainly doesn't help with the layout of the lot, and I think that it's unreasonable for the board to impose this condition on the applicant. The applicant's been in the construction business for 80 years. They know what they're doing, and I'm just looking at this. I haven't been in the construction business, but it makes perfect sense to me. I don't know why anyone would want to move into one of these houses with being two other houses in your backyard that are basically the front of the house, or why there would be actually no privacy for those houses that are shifted closer to the street. And it would just be as kind of a disjointed, ridiculous layout for subdivision. And I understood just watching the meeting, it seemed that the board, Mr. Lavalley had said that you could go through this exercise and think that that would be fruitful. And that the applicant was asked a couple of times if there was a way to do something about this and was told no. And that it was voted on as presented, which I understood was voting on the layout, which was before the board, which is the same layout that's before you tonight. And that it somehow got picked up in the overall just reference, blanket reference to the staff's recommendations. But to the extent that... that that wasn't the case and that the board was still interested in imposing that condition. This is what you would end up with. We think that it's not pretty and it really doesn't make any sense given the fact that the other seven are going to be well back from the street. They might as all be well back from the street. So that was the issue with regard to the change that we were requesting to the definitive site plan approval. And I did look at... In the staff memo, there's a recommended change to the conditions. If the board approves the request, that looks fine to me in terms of striking the provision. So it's not much to say about that. Now, the other issues were related to the sidewalks to be installed. And the applicant, the plan that was before you on the night that you heard it, what did in fact show asphalt sidewalks. And looking at the subdivision rules and regulations, I'll admit that it's not clear precisely what's required. It does give two material specifications. It gives a specification for concrete, and it gives us specifications for cement. Oh, I'm sorry. For asphalt and for concrete. I get mixed up with the bituminous concrete and then the asphalt concrete. But basically, the specifications are in there for both. And the way that that was interpreted... by my client and also after consulting with Department of Public Works was that basically you had your option. If you went with asphalt, those were the specifications for asphalt. If you went with concrete, that that was what was required. And it's set out as a material specification, but it doesn't specifically require one or the other. But I guess the point would be If asphalt sidewalks aren't allowed, why are the specifications included in your subdivision rules and regulations? It would seem to me that that's an indication that is allowable without any specification one way or the other being provided in the rules and regulations. The other thing that we're looking to get was the requirement that the granite curbing be used throughout the subdivision. In this regard I don't think that, again, just to go back for a minute, the city's standard specifications, they don't really have any bearing on a subdivision where the board has its own regulations regarding construction. But the provisions under the board's own rules and regulations and I do have copies I'm not sure if you've looked at those but I've got the. And those are 2 of you here too but. The regulations and they're pretty short so we can go through. But the. And before in doing that if I. Asher to look at H.

And I think just to clarify for the board members online, we're looking at the board's subdivision rules and regulations related to curbing of roads.

It's on page 56 and 57. And if you could just take a minute to look at that. What the regulations provide is that on arterial roadways the use of vertical granite curbing. And on the next page, under berm, it says residential collector and residential roadways. Wister standard berms shall be utilized for both residential collector and residential roadways. In the memo from staff, which you have on page five, there's a discussion on this point. from staff, which I'd like to take a look at because I like to take exception with a couple of these provisions. But if you look at the bottom of page five, it says curbing materials, subdivision outline, regulations outline two construction options for sidewalks, Worcester standard berm, In vertical granite curbing per section X10H. Regulations differentiate between two types of roads. Establishing an arterial where granite curbing is required and residential streets where standard berm is specified. That seems to me... if you would look at the wording of decision. I think that. There's no distinction between specified and required this and first of all the requirement if you look on the vertical side and says. Doesn't say granted is required it says that curbing is weak is required. On both sides of the street. And then what it also says is. Curbing is required on both sides of all arterial roadways and shall be vertical granite curb. Now the berm says Worcester Standard Berm shall be utilized for both residential collector and residential roadways. The shall be occurs in both cases. Shall be in the granite curbing and shell B in the berm. Shell B doesn't mean maybe. It doesn't mean that there's some other option. It says that that's what's required. And I would take the position that under the rules and regulations that you have in effect, that if you wanted to install vertical curbing, you would require a waiver from the subdivision rules and regulations. Because the subdivision rules and regulations are very clear. It says, shall be. So you can't do vertical without a waiver. Just like you can't do berm on an arterial roadway without a waiver. We didn't ask for a waiver. You didn't grant a waiver. you are now requiring vertical curbing where the regulations say that they shall be Worcester standard burn. So I don't see how you have any authority to do that. And I think it's basically a clear situation where your regulations require, it's not just specified, it's required. And a requirement such of that nature can't be waived by the board. would have to be requested by the applicant and no such request was made. So our request basically is to eliminate the requirement for vertical curving and follow the board's own subdivision rules and regulations. We also think that with respect to the sidewalks that we should have the option of installing either or, that both would comply with the regulations in effect, and would ask that the board, all of the things that we're talking about tonight were actually included on the plan that was presented to you on February 18th. and that's the plan that we would like to have approved and in looking at the Recommended conditions of approval if the board votes for approval I see that the staff has Indicated The possibility of striking the curbing requirement but leaving in the sidewalks and our request would be basically to strike both and provide for the um what we've requested um you know there's a little bit there was some confusion i think in at the meeting between the parties in terms of the applicant certainly didn't think that they were agreeing to the granite curbing or the cement sidewalks. There wasn't a whole lot of discussion about that really. I mean, there was some discussion. A lot of it was about moving the buildings. A lot of it was about the turning radius on the end of the cul-de-sac. and issues similar to that. And I think there was, it was a long meeting. The previous hearing took two hours. This meeting took about three hours. And I know that not because I was involved in it, because I was after all of them at that meeting. So I think it had gone on for a while. So it wasn't, I think it could have been maybe delve into a little bit better at the meeting on both sides in terms of what was actually being requested and what was being granted and what the circumstances are. But again, I would go back to point out that I think we have good reasons to keep the building placement at the way that it is. that what would be proposed by staff wouldn't be an improvement by any stretch of the imagination. It would make for a very unattractive subdivision layout. On the curbing, I think it's crystal clear that you have no authority to require the applicant to do vertical curvings regardless of what the city council decides for public works projects where the city is doing the funding that's got nothing to do with subdivision controls and with the sidewalk the sidewalk is Maybe not so clear, but I think the way that our interpretation is legitimate interpretation and would hope that you would go along with that. Chris Keenan is here from Quinn Engineering. He worked on the plans, also was involved in dealings with the staff. Some of this also has to, I think some of the confusion maybe relates to There was a staff turnover that took place at that time. Victor Panak worked with Quinn Engineering for a long time in terms of coming up with various back and forth situations in the plan. The staff memo was issued on, I think, December 19th, and he left like the following day. So there was no follow up on that. Quinn Engineering revised the plans and resubmitted them to planning on December 29th. After that, six weeks went by. There was no communication really between anyone and Quinn Engineering until the staff memo came out, which was sent to Quinn Engineering at like 5.08 on February 17th. So it was received the following morning. It's an 11-page memo, and maybe there should have been some more discussion at that time about some of these conditions of approval. But they had been with staff for six weeks. And I get the fact that there's turnover and there's a lot to do and the rest of it. But I just think something got lost in that whole process. And in this situation, I believe the applicants is within their rights to... seek approval based upon the rules and regulations which are in effect. And the purpose, if you look at the subdivision control law, basically provides the authority of the board to adopt the rules and regulations with the proviso that if you comply with the rules and regulations, you get approved. And there is an ability to, you know, either in compliance or with waivers. And again, I would say with respect to the curbing, or berm, we didn't ask for a waiver. You didn't grant one. So I don't see how it's possible for you to require something which actually violates the subversion rules and regulations in effect, which specify shall be berm. That's all I have to say. Happy to answer any questions you might have.

Okay.

Thank you for the thorough overview and explanation. There's a bit to unpack there. Apologies to the board members online who didn't receive these materials handed to us. If there are any questions on that, let us know. I think at this point we turn it over to staff, both planning staff and it looks like we have the law department here as well to provide some insight from the city's perspective on this. So why don't we give you guys the floor.

Sure. Through the chair. So, uh, I'll just highlight that we provided this memo to all members of parties involved, including the board and the applicant right at 5 30 PM. So, uh, assumption is that no one has read this fully. Um, unfortunately that is the, the attorney O'Neill mentioned that we were dealing with staff transitions and resource issues, and we are continuing to deal with that. So There were hiring freezes that did not allow us to fill the position, and we always operate on not enough staff. So that is just the circumstance in which we function. So apologies for that, not having that content to everyone in advance. In terms of what's in front of the board this evening, you've heard a lengthy presentation, but just circling back, there are two different requests for amendments. One is for the definitive site plan, which I think Hopefully the board members will recall similarly to staff that probably that is, it's not necessarily a scrivener's error based on the motion in our staff review, but I think it was generally something the board had intended to strike, but just simply did not do. So with respect to the site plan, we have essentially recapped the comments that the board staff had provided back in February of this year. So that's on pages six and seven of the memo, which essentially in a nutshell was all of these homes are set back about 100 feet, which is pretty unusual for the city of Worcester in the immediate vicinity homes are. 15 to 30 feet back from the street. Typically, that's the kind of usual urban form that we have in the city. So this is somewhat unusual. We outline all the different topics. They vary from 45 feet to 100 feet. We had highlighted the impervious surface that that creates with additional length and driveways. as well as the additional tree removal that it sort of necessitates by shifting the structures further into the site. The proximity to 190, where the existing vegetated buffer that's located in the right-of-way there, kind of on the south side, if you will, of the highway is about 100 to 150 feet. And essentially, that's what will be left with the development proposal. So those were kind of the comments that staff had made relative to Heat Island noise attenuation and privacy screening at the time. And essentially, my recollection, having watched the video a number of times at this point from the discussion that took place, was that generally, the board was in favor of what staff had. Essentially, no one wanted to continue the hearing or, you know, require specific modifications to the buildings. And there wasn't much discussion on that beyond when it came to a vote, beyond the conditions that were outlined in the staff memo. So there wasn't sort of a, we'd like to strike this condition. We also didn't necessarily highlight that specific condition in our comments either. So it just got approved as often as the case with the conditions as outlined in the staff memo. So essentially, you voted after some discussion to essentially say, we don't want to continue this. We're good with this the way that the houses are, even though we think it would make sense for you to move them. But if you don't want a larger buffer from the highway, that's fine. I think I'm quoting essentially what the chair, Albert, had said at the time. So I think the intention of the board was likely to strike that condition. It just, again, never got codified through that. So I think staff is in the same page and had a similar recollection to the applicant as to the likely intent of what the board had moved. And for the applicant's benefit, we did specifically request that the board members reviewed the videos from the meeting so that folks were able to recall specifically what the discussion was and provided video timestamps of when the discussions occurred. So I think, again, the condition that we have written up is essentially what the applicant is looking to do. Necessarily take issue with that. We just reiterated the comments that we had provided before which is what resulted in that condition being included in the staff comments Happy to answer any specific questions about that Otherwise, I'll get into the mess so the the curbing and the sidewalk material so Again, there's a lengthy memo here the first two pages are referring to recommendations for conditions as well as the waivers that were expressly approved and And I'll let our legal counsel comment on how waivers work if the board wants to talk through that a bit more. But then on pages four, five, and a portion of the top of page six, we go into sort of a procedural history, which for the applicant should essentially be all the facts that they're already familiar with. But for the board, this is just recapping sort of a timeline, if you will, of what happened. October, November, December, three different iterations of plans all show concrete sidewalks and granite curbing. DTM issues comments in December as well as planning. Both of those comments require requests. concrete, sidewalks, granite curbing. We did have a staffing transition at that point. Victor, who was the planner on this particular project left. I did speak directly to him and he did indicate that there was no time at which he had the impression that cement concrete and granite curbing weren't going to be used it was our impression that the applicant understood the importance of that as a policy of the city council and something that we generally are looking for to be perpetuated in all the development projects that we have here in the city so that that's sort of the i'll say lay of the land and staff understanding of that we received revised plans on december 29th in those plans there were updates to the details No adjustments to labeling specifically that refer to, in one place, bit, conk, walk, and another place, conk, walk. So within that, as Attorney O'Neill mentioned, conk, bit conk, and cement conk are often getting conflated, but bit conk, as is often abbreviated on plans, is bituminous concrete, which is asphalt. cement concrete is often just referred to or abbreviated as concrete so those are the two different things that we are are caught up in in part and then also the curbing so just just clarifying that there were some discrepancies within that detail there was a an updated detail that was provided that did include a detail for the sidewalk being asphalt And then there was a response letter that accompanied that and where we had essentially asked for the road layout plan to be the type of curbing material to be reflected on that. They had indicated that there was an asphalt berm designation added to the detail sheet. And then under the comment, which was the comment that was in the DTM memo from December 10th and December 19th, which was carried forward to the memo that was referenced from February 17th and had not changed. So all the while the applicant had that condition. Specifically, it was enumerated differently, but specifically it stated that the sidewalk and wheelchair ramp details could be found on a certain plan sheet, but at no point specifically says we've changed this to a different material type and are no longer using the materials that this condition is requesting or we are opposing this condition we don't want to comply with this condition. So that that's sort of the staff understanding is that that condition is being carried forward and that is is essentially what was put forward again in the memo on February 17th, which that condition, as I said, didn't change, but it was enumerated, I think, again, differently as 1Pi rather than 1R based on other changes to the memo. And then on the 18th, the day following, the board did approve the subdivision with the conditions and waivers that were outlined in the memo. During the hearing, specifically, I stated that it was not a mandate of the subdivision regulations to provide granite curbing and cement concrete sidewalks, but that it was a recent standard that the city had adopted and that the applicant and their representative had committed to providing that through the condition. So I highlighted that verbally for both the board based on staff's understanding of the previous commitments and at no point during the hearing were staff corrected or was there a expression of discontent with that particular condition and i appreciate but also know that quinn engineering is in front of our boards often and regularly kind of negotiates conditions so i think they are familiar with the board's sort of typical process so apologies if this feels uh adversarial, we like to typically work these kinds of things out between staff and applicants ahead of this platform and forum. As you saw with all the other cases this evening and I think the board's familiar, our intention is never to get to a point such as this. Anyhow, going back to why the board has required as it has over the last many years at this point in time, since at least 2021, where the city manager issued a policy related to, we called it an interim policy related to city streetscape. This basically said we're using concrete for new and reconstruction projects, unless there's an exception where there's existing asphalt and asphalt's everywhere. In that particular case then there is is a sort of flexibility that's given in terms of latitude for TPW So using that policy is effectively moving forward DTM and DPW have been Requesting specifically that there be cement concrete sidewalks and granite curbing that be installed with projects In the public realm and for streets that will become public such as the intent is for this particular subdivision So, with respect to the board's actions, we highlight a few different subdivisions, four specifically, because we don't have a ton of new subdivisions that are coming into the city. Lots of other types of development, but the kind of subdivision sprawl, we kind of hit a little bit of... a hard stop with that for a variety of reasons, mostly that we just don't have the land for it. But the Planning Board approved on January 24th, 2024, a subdivision for Brant Lane that required the same. Same thing happened for Burnside Court on June 24th, 2024, and then again on September 3rd, 2025, The board approved a subdivision for C Street, which we were talking about earlier, as well as a subdivision for 270 Webster Street and 21 to 25 Clover Street, all of which were required to provide granite curbing and cement concrete sidewalks, or agreed to that as part of the conditions working through that with staff and the board. So when it comes to the regulations, the board members have access to the regulations. We ask everybody to look at those and become familiar. The board also has access and hopefully is familiar with them based on the other items that we have on the agenda this evening, as Attorney O'Neill also highlighted and mentioned in front of you and we discussed previously. um the board is familiar with the relic nature of the subdivision regulations the city has applied for a grant to overhaul these we don't know if we're going to get that grant but part of the reason that we haven't been able to update these is because we don't have the staff resources and in some cases technical capacity to update those regulations So we are trying to do something about that larger picture issue, but for right now we have what we have. And so what we have on the books is regulations that specifically say two different things for sidewalk materials. Sidewalk materials, subdivision regulations allow basically two different options. Sidewalks for concrete, Cement concrete and sidewalks for asphalt or bituminous concrete. So the two different options are laid out there's not a distinguishment or You know specific context in which one is defined as being appropriate and and the other is defined as not And it has been the board's consistent policy through its precedent and practice as well as recommendations from staff to put put forward the requirement that concrete cement concrete be used and And that is derived in part from the need for the city to comply with accessibility standards, what those accessibility standards are for PROAG, for ADA, and the durability of the material for long-term maintenance, right? If ultimately what's being constructed is something that the city is inheriting and has to maintain, all of its taxpayers are funding that maintenance process. So that is why we have required cement, and it's been the board's practice in my experience to do that. Kerbing, on the other hand, the subdivision regulations outline two different, they outline three different street typologies, if you will, arterial and then two different forms of a residential street. In both residential streets, types. The standard is specifically specified in the regulations as being Worcester standard berm. We don't have a specific detail or specification for that, but other provisions within the regulations allude to that being bituminous asphalt when you look at the sort of construction checklist, I think it is, from DPW. that's appended to the regulations that provides that reference so presumably as the applicant has assumed that is an asphalt curb so that that specific type is specified for the two different residential types there is a standard for granite curbing but again that is associated with an arterial type street those types of streets are associated with kind of the cross-section and width and arterial being much larger than a Residential street of which this is the smallest type That's proposed so that feels pretty clearly that the board has the latitude to decide The materials in terms of the sidewalk you have two different options in the regulations The board has consistently requested required and did in this case require cement so for that reason Typically, we would ask you to uphold that, and that would be the recommendation here. Ultimately, it's ultimately at the board's discretion. The applicant is seeking for you to modify that. There is another standard. That standard is one that DPW is working to eliminate. As of yesterday, they've issued an updated policy with respect to SideWatch, which we did include here. mostly it was prepared in relationship to The amendment that is in front of the board for consideration after this to the rules and regulations which basically outlines that the city standard for sidewalk construction is concrete sidewalk with vertical granite curbing So that is on the record to help clarify for the future in terms of the berm or curb, that's something that staff would ultimately defer to the law department on. I think the regulations are specific in that regard. And while it was staff's impression that the applicant was agreeable to the conditions that were outlined in the staff memo and had been outlined since December, that is clearly not their impression. And so they are asking you to reconsider based on that misunderstanding. I'm happy to go over more things, but essentially just quickly directing your attention to the actual motion back to what's in front of you on page two. So we had recommended that you uphold the piece relative to the material type, cement concrete, because we think that's within your... wholly within your purview to do with the regulations. And then the motion that we outlined, we're not suggesting necessarily that you make this motion. It is your determination to decide what you would like to do. But specifically what the motion that's written does is basically it would keep the cement concrete requirement and it would strike the granite curbing requirement. But ultimately, you should adjust this as you see fit, along with any other waivers. The board had waived a few different things for this project, specifically the dead end length, without which the applicant would lose lots, if I recall their description at the hearing, as well as centerline radii and plan requirement to show large trees. So those were the waivers that the board expressly granted. It's also staff's understanding that the board not expressly granting something doesn't necessarily mean that the board didn't authorize a waiver. So the fact that you did not expressly outline a waiver, as Attorney O'Neill suggested, from the standard for a berm, being a Worcester standard berm, doesn't necessarily imply that as an error based on our understanding of case law. But I'm going to let... our attorney comment on that if there are specific questions in that regard because I don't want to misspeak in that respect. Happy to answer more questions. Ultimately, if you do move to a vote this evening, we would just recommend that you affirm whatever waivers you granted before unless you no longer feel that they're appropriate for some reason. And we did add an additional condition that should be adjusted to just reset the five-year clock to five years from today's date or a different date should you not vote this evening. So we just have reflected today's date in there. So those are the two pieces of text you see in red on page two.

Thank you. Thank you very much for that also very thorough overview.

Could I briefly respond? Sure. Yeah I don't want to belabor the point but just a couple of things. One is Ms. Smith has said on one hand that it's not mandated but then goes on to say that it was required in these other subdivisions. One of which was that New Bond Street industrial subdivision that was shown a couple of items ago, which is not a residential street, not a residential feeder street. On the other list, they're signing a subdivision on Federal Street, Myrtle Street, which is downtown. The other provision is something on Webster Street which I'm not sure where that is but Webster Street is not generally perceived as a residential street. And also again also so I don't know whether those in fact this is a question of apples and oranges. are those residential feeder streets? And it says here that they were required. Were they required? Did people object to the imposition and the board force them to adopt the granite curbing over their objections? I don't think so, because if that were the case, then you would have amended your rules and regulations two years ago when that happened. And it's all, you know, I get that... The subdivision rules and regulations were adopted in 92. They've been amended 10 times. If you look at them, you'll see the amendments that are listed. There's no sympathy on our part for the fact that you haven't updated your rules and regulations. It's not our fault. And if you wanted to require granite curbing throughout, then you should have amended your rules and regulations. You should have done that when the city adopted this new policy, if you feel that you want to impose the same conditions. And you didn't. So the fact that somebody else had a subdivision approved that had those conditions and again New Bond Street I suspect that they probably had no choice in that situation given the nature of the subdivision and whether that street would be considered an arterial street certainly not a residential street. You know, the fact is you have rules and regulations. People, when they develop their plans, are entitled to rely upon that. And the fact that somebody else didn't object when maybe they could have shouldn't mean that we can't object when we feel that the board is exceeding its authority. And the other consideration is at that meeting, which I watched it twice, so I've seen enough of it. I actually sat through it once. But there wasn't a butter that called in and talked for a very long time. And one of the things that she talked about was the Worcester standard berm being used in the subdivision. So it's pretty clear everyone knew that that was being used. The detail sheet on the subdivision clearly shows asphalt sidewalks and Worcester standard berm. Now they're saying the planning office isn't sure what the Worcester standard berm actually consists of. But I don't know how it got the name the Worcester standard berm, but I'm pretty sure that DPW Understands what that means and I think the engineers understand what that means so I don't think there's any Confusion about what that actually means it doesn't mean granite vertical granite curb it I can tell you that So I think the the history of other subdivisions the history of the City Council whatever they want to do is I don't see how it relates to anything that is before you. And all of this is within your control. And if you felt differently, then you should have amended your subdivision rules two years ago. But you didn't. And I suspect you'll be amending them shortly after this meeting. But this is an applicant that... is just relying upon the rules and regulations. They shouldn't be punished for that. They shouldn't be forced to do something that's not required. And, you know, we'd like to get the relief that we've requested.

Okay.

Thank you. I'd like to give the Law Department an opportunity to chime in if you have anything additional to add.

Through the Chair, Through the chair, I would add that I'd recommend, well, I'd add that the regulations state, as we've all heard, Worcester standard burn. So it's not 100%, it's not necessarily clear what it's stating, but I would recommend an alternative approach to what has been.

Through the chair, if I could just clarify, I know Attorney O'Neill asked, and apologies, we could have provided the context as to the use, but for the Webster Street subdivision, this was a 250-foot residential cul-de-sac with five residential single-family homes, I believe. They were single families, so very, very similar. Yes, obviously C Street is a different context, but still was required. And with respect to Burnside, yes, that was in the downtown. Brant Lane was also a residential context, although it was for a multifamily development. But those are all the ones we've had.

Thank you. Sure.

I apologize for the length of our presentation. I just want to clarify how we ended up with asphalt on the plan set.

Sorry, can you just give us your name?

Sure. Chris Keenan from Quinn Engineering. After receiving the initial DPRS comment letter, I reached out to Andy Truman, Director of Engineering, to clarify whether granite curb and concrete sidewalks were required for this project he specifically came back and said no you can install asphalt berm and asphalt sidewalks and thus we made the changes to the plans had I noticed or realized that staff had left the comment in the letter requiring granite curb and concrete sidewalk I would have objected at the time, but staff often leaves comments in the decision for the board when they haven't had the opportunity to review the resubmission from the applicant, especially when those comments come from another department. Thank you.

Through the chair, can I add one more thing? Sure. It is in the law department that the intent of the rules and regulations of division regarding the sidewalks of the material provision is that that's reserved for the option of the planning board and the case by case determination of what's appropriate in the circumstances. And that's consistent with case law as well.

Okay.

Thank you.

All right. We've heard a lot. I do want to give an opportunity for anyone in the public to provide comment at this point. So if there's anyone in the room, why don't you come up to the mic?

thank you mr chairman members of the board again my name is tony econ with district one city councilor on behalf of the residents that i heard from up on morgan street they request that the sidewalks continue to be concrete with granite curbing as when that street gets selected for resurfacing in the near future, that would be the standard that would be brought forward as well. So I just wanted to be here to advocate on behalf of the residents. Thank you. Thank you.

Anyone else in the room? Not looking like it. Anyone online?

Before we get to public commenters online, I do see that Leslie Rodriguez from DPW has raised her hand. Sorry, Leslie. No, I apologize. I didn't speak up sooner. But Leslie, you should be able to speak now.

Yes, Leslie Rodriguez for DPW. I just have a question for the board. And it's... are you gonna allow them to do concrete with asphalt? Or are they doing asphalt for the sidewalks?

I think that's what we're about to discuss.

Because if they're gonna do concrete with asphalt, then they will have to do four feet of loom and grass to divide the concrete from the asphalt. I just want to let them know that.

Thank you. And through the chair, I believe there's a grass strip that's shown on the plan. Just to clarify on that. But we do have some other folks. We do have some other folks that are online, residents that are online. And I think probably we can come back to staff comment too.

Sure. This is Steve Carey in the planning division. Dina, I'm Dina Tedeschi. I'm unmuting you on our end so you can be unmuted on your end.

Hi, good evening. My name is Dena Tedeschi. I'm a Morgan street resident and I wanted to comment tonight about this action item and to just counter something that attorney O'Neill had mentioned. This developer has never made. Housing development at any point, and the research that I did about his, their development projects, so the dominant length and projects related to construction or restaurant and additions. So just want to make just a counter comment to that, but also want to encourage that any. Curbs that would be that standard that was discussed at previous meetings that would be continuous, but also any sidewalks with concrete. I appreciate the explanations about the different kinds of that for this evening, just to be helpful for the members of the public. Because I think that's really useful. Additionally, though concrete is so much more aesthetic. It's also better for the heat index. It's also better for all the different areas or anyone using strollers. If you're going to be in a multi. Single family community, these are all really important factors in addition to the fact that concrete is significantly longer lasting and would look much better. It just would be a better continuous part for this neighborhood. So just wanted to share that piece of information and to abide with the city scape complete streets directive from the manager city manager back in 2021. Thank you.

Thank you. Um, do we have anyone else online?

This is Steve Carey in the planning division. I do see we had a phone number that had their hand raised. They actually just had their phone number, their hand go back down. If that person does want to speak, it is star nine to unmute yourself. So maybe we'll just give them a moment to say we'd like that.

Hello.

Hi.

Yes, hi. This is Mary from Worcester through the chair. At the February 18th, 2026 planning board meeting, many residents, including city councilor Tony Economo, spoke in opposition to the Morgan Street estate subdivision. Despite raising many valid and vital concerns, the project was approved. Loring Enterprises was granted an absurd amount of waivers and exceptions to many very, very serious issues. This sets a precedent to future developers. What is the purpose of residents expressing issues when developers know all they have to do is ask for a waiver or extension and it is granted to them? Loring Enterprises should have done their due diligence and looked at all the city regulations, including the citywide streetscape policy, but they did not do this. While many other city construction contractors are easily able to find access, and understand city construction details and directives, such as concrete sidewalks and granite curving? How can any large-scale construction developer, such as Loring, not follow these same easily accessible online guidelines? Also, the citywide streetscape policy can easily be confirmed by many city departments, had they been asked. By not revealing all the necessary documents signed by the chief development officer, This shows unprofessionalism and carelessness. What else is this developer going to forget to do or overlook? This also occurred when the developer initially submitted official documents, which included typos, incorrect street names, and incomplete paperwork. This is not the first time they have failed to do their due diligence. It leaves a very uneasy feeling with the residents and should do so with the planning board also. Anyone can drive through all five districts of the city and clearly observe that almost all city roads were constructed in accordance with complete street and city-state construction standards. It is known by many Refugeville contractors who do work in the city that concrete sidewalks and granite curbing provide a much more durable, long-lasting, and therefore safer travel service for the public's safe walkability. additionally during the winter months granite curbs will provide a much more durable curb for snow plow for snow removal on morgan street asphalt will crumble quicker and make plowing less effective asphalt sidewalks begin cracking and wearing down much quicker than concrete this will open up a school of tripping hazards and safety concerns for pedestrians more immediate than the concrete option this is why the city's citywide streetscape policy was approved and implemented. But here we are five years later after its approval debating whether it should be implemented or not. It is very common in construction for budgets to be adjusted due to the scope of the work changing. In particular, converting from asphalt to concrete and converting from asphalt curb to concrete curb occurs very frequently in the industry. Is it possible that the only reason this is an issue is that it appears to be minimizing someone's profit? Since when does public safety and approved city directive have a price tag? In closing, the citywide streetscape policy is easily acceptable as all other city developers access, read, understand, and abide by it. This developer should have done the same. Thank you.

Thank you. Is there anyone else online?

This is Steve Carey in the planning division. Not seeing anyone else with their hand raised. Okay, thank you.

Why don't we move on then to board discussion? Sounds like there are three key items here that the board needs to discuss and work out. One is the... issue with the location of the homes on the street in the definitive site plan. And then there are two issues with the definitive subdivision plan. One is the material for the concrete sidewalk and the other is material for the curving. I think the definitive site plan and the location of the buildings will be a little bit easier to parse out, so maybe we can discuss that quickly get that, get that over with. Um, it sounds like from everyone who's reviewed, uh, some of the video, myself included, um, the intent was to strike that con the condition one a, which was, which would have shifted five of the 13 homes forward. Um, and that never really got codified in the final decision. So I would be okay with striking, with that amendment to strike that condition. It sounds like staff is more or less okay with it. They did bring up some concerns about increased impervious pavement, loss of some screening and vegetation. I think those are valid concerns. I do think the applicant's point about having kind of a, Jigsaw line of houses is also a valid comment. But yeah, my position, I would be okay striking that comment, but I would like to hear from the rest of the board. Maybe start with the folks online, Mr. King.

I would be inclined to agree with the chair on this one, thank you. Okay.

Thank you, Mr. DeLera. yes i i agree with that okay um mr rezende and i i i acknowledge that mr rezende wasn't uh may not have been here for on the board at that time yes i i agree with striking that okay thank you mr toomey i agree as well okay sounds like there's a consensus on that to strike the condition for the definitive site plan For the definitive subdivision plan, talking about the sidewalk and the curbing, based on the analysis and comments from the planning staff and from law department, it sounds like the sidewalk, that the board has the latitude to require either concrete or asphalt. Historically, we have done concrete on other subdivisions. There's also a city policy that's several, if not longer years old, directing sidewalks to be concrete. So if it appears that we have the latitude to make the decision between asphalt and concrete, My position is that I would like to see the concrete remain. Yeah, and I guess then shifting to the curbing issue, it does seem fairly clear to me that the rules and regulations do call for asphalt berm for the curbing. So it seems like we may have less latitude on that front. issue or item that I would want to bring up rest the question about is roadway acceptance. It's my understanding that if you were to install asphalt curbing that could impact the ability for the roadway to be to be accepted because I my understanding is a roadway acceptance may require. Granite curbing. I was wondering if staff or anyone could chime in on that.

Sure, through the chair, just to clarify. Ultimately, public acceptance is a decision of the city council, so it would be up to the city council to make that determination, depending on the timeline for construction and where the city is. Otherwise, if that were not to happen, it would be left a private street. I think we've had some conflicting information coming out of DPW trying to get an answer on that, so I couldn't definitively tell you whether or not the street would be accepted as public as of tonight.

okay so ultimately City Council will decide regardless of what the administration were to recommend but okay and we did hear from a city councilor who had an opinion on granite versus asphalt I guess that's worth consideration from the applicant. I don't know.

Sure. But I'd be surprised if they wouldn't accept the street that's built in full conformity with the city's own subdivision rules and regulations. But if they do, they do. That's for them to decide, and they can explain to the homeowners who live in that new subdivision why they're not accepting their street.

Okay. Yeah, so I guess for myself, as I kind of explained for the sidewalks, I would be in favor of maintaining the concrete as the material based on past practices and our ability to choose, which seems to be pretty clearly outlined in the subdivision regs. As for the the curbing, it seems like we have less flexibility and may have imposed a condition that does not match what our subdivision regs require. Obviously, as we've discussed, it looks like we'll be addressing that in the next agenda item. It's given the number of subdivisions that we have these days, this is something that just maybe hasn't come up or gotten caught recently. So I'm glad to see that we're the city's jumping on this to address it for the future, but I think for better or worse, we may be, our hands are a little bit tied in terms of the curbing material. With that, maybe get some other board member discussion on this. Would anyone online like to kick us off? Maybe Mr. King?

Yes, I mean, I'm aligned with you on that. I would say concrete for the sidewalk and asphalt berm, just given the latitude we have on this one. Thank you. Thank you.

Mr. DeLera?

Thank you. Yeah, I agree with your assessment on this. And so I would like to see the concrete sidewalk maintained. It's clear that this has been the goal of the city in recent years, trying to push this along. And I believe it's the right thing. Thank you.

Thank you. Mr. Rosende. I support Mr. McCormick's position on this. That seems to be the way to go. Thank you. And Mr. Toomey.

A question I would have, I understand there's a big difference between asphalt, berm, and granite. What is the difference from a cost perspective versus concrete versus bituminous for the actual sidewalk? Is that a big difference between the two versus if you were able to go with the asphalt berm? and a concrete sidewalk is that more amenable than you know obviously not having to deal with the granite does that does the concrete versus asphalt what is the difference in terms of construction costs for the the difference between concrete sidewalk and bituminous sidewalk or your decision to go if you were making the decision between the two taking the uh the curb out of it what is the If it's the board's... Why would you decide concrete versus asphalt? I assume price would be one of the bigger aspects.

Price is the biggest issue. Between granite curb and asphalt berm, you're looking at a 10 to 1 difference in cost.

I understand that granite is... I'm talking just on the sidewalk itself. Between the side... Asphalt versus concrete, which is... You're looking at a 2 to 1 difference.

Twice as much cost for concrete versus asphalt.

Through the chair staff can just comment relative to the numbers that the Department of Public Works has provided staff relative to the other item on the agenda the calculations the board has access to they're not mathematically easy without me doing some equations which I can do if desired but essentially it's about 60 percent more to do granite curbing and cement concrete sidewalk over asphalt and asphalt based on the pricing that the city has for its contracts. That is, I'm saying it's 60%. I'm not giving you the numbers because the numbers that we're paying are going to be, the price is going to be higher per linear foot or per cubic yard or however you calculate it, just based on the city paying prevailing wage. So that's specific numbers. But order of magnitude, based on that, it's about 60% more. That's granite and asphalt. Sorry, granite and cement concrete.

Is that just the sidewalk or is that the curb?

It's both I don't have that the the calculations are appended to the next item and you'll see it's a colored matrix and it's because They're square yards versus cubic yards versus linear feet. So you have to do the math to figure out the Equatable so I I can do some math and get you the number but I don't have it right now Okay, that's again

There's a compromise kind of not having to do the granite, but being able to do the concrete and You know I Think if it's the board's decision to go with asphalt berm and concrete sidewalk, that would be acceptable to the applicant Okay, I would support that then that's a good compromise all around But that's what I would support. Okay.

Thank you All right, so It sounds like there's a general consensus on the board, maybe even from the applicant, maybe even from staff, to retain the concrete sidewalk as the material and replace the granite with asphalt berm for the curbing. I just want to give staff or the applicant any last comments.

chance to add any comment if we're if the board's missing anything critical right now yeah that that naturally I like it all but you don't always get everything that you want and I would say that the you know the it's the curbing which the sidewalk and I also think that under the rules and regulations it' s also a little bit more clear cut. We can live with the concrete sidewalks as long as and in terms of the relief on the placement of the house we appreciate that and think that You know there's a reason why we went through that and they're happy to have the boards Acquiescence to our wish on that okay Glad to hear sounds like we figured this out a little bit I Think we're ready for a motion

Can we do this? I think we first would need to close the public hearing.

Yes, I make a motion to close the public hearing.

Second. Motion's been seconded. Mr. King?

Yes.

Mr. DeLera? Yes. Mr. Toomey? Yes. Myself, yes. Motion, or hearing has been closed.

All right. I make a motion to approve new business item number eight, subject to the conditions as discussed and modified during the meeting.

And maybe just to clarify that that is, as outlined on the staff memo, striking condition 1A of the definitive site plan, striking the condition 1PI, the section relating to Granite Curb, and extending the subdivision approval to 2031 in condition 23.

Yes. And I second that.

OK. Motion's been seconded. Mr. King. Yes. Mr. Dallara? Yes. Mr. Toomey? Yes. Myself, yes. Motion approved. Amendments approved. Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Good luck with the project. Okay. Moving on to item number nine, amendment to subdivision rules and regulations, curbing and sidewalks.

through the public hearing. Much of this discussion we just had. So as you all have realized, we need to update our regulations to be expressly clear and to align with the other standards. And it's come to our attention that they are not. While we know that they are outdated in many other ways as well and are working on resolving that more broadly. We thought it was important to bring forward this change. So you voted at the last meeting to advertise a public hearing. So this is your public hearing to discuss this change to your regulations at which public has the opportunity to weigh in before you codify anything. Should you vote tonight, we will work to file the appropriate documentation with the city clerk and the registry of deeds to update these. So what we are changing, we are adjusting the regulations to reflect the materials. We're deleting out the reference to asphalt sidewalks. So sidewalk materials will simply just be listed out as concrete, as cement concrete, and they will be required to be of the same dimension, size, et cetera, that they were required to previously. So we're just eliminating the option to have asphalt sidewalks. Relative to curbing, we are eliminating the asphalt berm from the regulations and just adjusting the language around curbing so that vertical granite curb isn't required just for arterials, but it's required for any street type. So we are just getting rid of the asphalt berm and saying you have to use vertical granite curbing. If someone would like to propose something else, you are glad to consider a waiver. should they put that forward for you. But this would eliminate those references throughout the document. The regulations, there's a few different occurrences where we refer to BIRM and the DPW standard for that. And then it would also update the three different sections that are located within the regulations in forms C3 and 4 in an appendix. So we would update those so DPW has redrawn These, and apologies that we weren't able to get you this sooner, but it did take some time for them to adjust and then for other staff to review. We only got these late this afternoon. So there's a five foot wide concrete, cement concrete sidewalk that would be proposed. And then there would be, you know, the same distance for each of the cross sections.

There's no change to anything else.

The curb to curb distance is going to stay the same. The width of the curb is still six inches wide. And then the width of the grass strip is going to be proportional to whatever size right-of-way it is adjacent to the minimum five-foot-wide sidewalk. So those details the CPW has drawn up here. So you can take a look if you would like or if you have any comments. otherwise we included the policy document that was updated from dpw to help clarify this as well so there is no confusion moving forward so that's great outcome of of this as well and then we also included the cost differential for those so basically based on the prices that the city pays tracking like 75 bucks versus 120 bucks for the combination of asphalt and asphalt versus cement concrete and granite curbing. So again, that equates to about 60% increase in cost. In looking really quickly, I think the price of concrete versus asphalt in terms of the sidewalk material, if I'm reading the numbers right that DPW has, I think it's really only a matter of like $3, but I'm not sure that that is totally accurate because there may be maybe other items that are needed and obviously there's an uh there's some influence in the cost based on like the number of driveway openings that occur in a stretch of road so that's a factor that adjusts but it's i think relatively for the material it's not that much of a cost differential, but it's really where it comes to the curbing material that is more expensive. My understanding in that particular project that we just discussed though, that it's only an order of magnitude of $35,000. So it's really not that much of an additional cost. But we are where we are with the regulations. Let's change them. If you feel strongly, as I think folks would like to have felt in our previous discussion, that we should be upholding that standard and continuing what the city is doing itself forward, which I will clarify for a long time, that was part of the reason that these regulations have not been updated, I think was because the city itself may not have been performing that same standard. So harder to hold someone else to that standard when we're not doing it ourselves. so all these documents i think confluence of them coming together is echoing that this is the city standard this is what everybody's doing and we're making everybody do it so happy to answer questions that you have otherwise we would recommend the amendment as drafted so that's our rules and regulations amendment for 2026 it's the first one that we've got for this year i will note attorney o'neill mentioned we had updated the regulations 10 times we have but that's been to like adjust the fee schedule and require peer review if the board wants it And I think to align with changes to the subdivision control law many years ago, or delete a requirement to label abutters to abutters on the plan, none of these are changes to the technical standards. These are like minor silly little things that planning staff were easy to update for us versus like we don't have CAD, we can't go in and manipulate and create a new cross-section. You know, these are things that, you know, have to be coordinated interdepartmentally and obviously affect others. So just a bit of context too as to why I think that there haven't been more updates as there should be. So we'll try to do better.

All right, thank you. And I just would want to acknowledge that it is a lot of work to take on these kind of document-wide updates. So I appreciate that the, Planning staff is taking this on, looking for grants. I'm sure all the city councilors that are listening right now would hear that the planning staff would appreciate additional staffing support to work on these kinds of projects. We have a very empty room here, so no public comments in the room. Anyone online? Nobody online with their hand raised. Okay. So let's move to board discussion. Any comments on the proposed amendments to the subdivision rules and regulations? No comment. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Mr. DeLera.

Thank you. Well, I'm glad to see this happening. I do have a question. So how does this proposed change affect the replacement of existing sidewalk, but specifically asphalt sidewalk.

So yeah, just to clarify, so your standard applies only to projects that come in for approval from this board for construction of a subdivision. It also applies to projects that are looking for more than one building on a lot of approvals, so we have a bunch of condos with a shared driveway. You might be seeing something that would also be subjected to these regulations, so their internal walkways and any walkways that they're showing on the site we would require to be up to that same threshold. There are also other types of approvals that the zoning ordinance codifies are subjected to these standards. So things like cluster developments and continuing care retirement communities all also have to fall under those same regulations and standards. So it applies more broadly than just to subdivisions. So it does actually apply to a decent amount of the projects that you see. But specifically when it comes to sidewalk construction and reconstruction, that is fully within the DPW realm and wheeled house. And all of those projects are approved, managed, and constructed through the Department of Public Works. So DPW is basically the one that is handling those. So separate from what the board is seeking to do, the policy document you now have a copy of that was issued yesterday is basically DPW saying DPW's standard for anything and everything is cement concrete and granite curbing. So there shouldn't be any new asphalt sidewalks being put back unless someone is cutting into an existing one and has to repair a patch or a trench. those types of repairs you're going to see continue to be put back in asphalt if something's already asphalt. But as we resurface and reconstruct, those should be moving forward to be cement, concrete, and granite curbing. That's my understanding of their policy. I've only looked at it once just because we just got it yesterday, but you all have a copy in front of you. But that is my understanding of how DPW plans to use that policy, interpret that policy, and apply that policy moving forward. But unfortunately, the board does not get to make a determination on those projects. That is something that is within the DPW's realm. Hopefully that answers the question.

It does. So it's essentially a policy that coexists with DPW at this time.

Correct, yep, we're paralleling that. There are other pieces to that policy that they issued yesterday that are inconsistent with your regulations also, which we will have to work with them to adjust. But for now, something is better than nothing, so I'd recommend you still proceed with this. The piece that I refer to is that they're saying that the standard for a sidewalk width is six feet. Your standard in the regulations is five feet. We did not advertise that we were going to change that, so we cannot change that this evening, and I don't think you should wait to change that. your regulations on the materials to just let other things get aligned because it could take too long and that will affect the entire cross-section and width of the road. It starts to unravel other things and becomes much more complicated for us to update. We definitely don't have the bandwidth to do that probably for minimum six months and based on recent changes to the state law, possibly much longer. So that is my recommendation is that you move forward with what you have now. And we're moving incrementally better and forward in the right direction.

Absolutely. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Resende, any comments from you on this? No comments. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chiumi.

As we sit today, would we approve a subdivision without a sidewalk?

So the subdivision regulations currently and what you're proposing to do doesn't change that. But what the subdivision regulations currently require is sidewalks on both sides of a road. And again, if someone didn't want to do sidewalks on both sides, they could come in and request a waiver. So originally, the applicant that was just in front of you came in and said, we only want to do sidewalks on one side. And you all said no. no we want to see sidewalks on two sides staff also said that but ultimately that was something that they had commented on they withdrew the waiver request but i think the board members had indicated um that that you know they wanted to see sidewalks on two sides so again i've seen things in the past where they say if we put sidewalks in here you're going to have to shovel them and people say i don't want to worry about shoveling so i want to make sure that we are going to have sidewalks

and that that becomes a requirement and then these just fall in the line with what the rules are for that.

Yeah so basically you require sidewalks on both sides of the street the applicant again could seek a waiver from that requirement and based on a context you know say it's right next to a wetlands there's somebody that lives there it's a big detention basin and it's a dead end cul-de-sac there's definitely nobody who's going to be walking on that road you have in fact waived that requirement in the past but in a context that you know seemed appropriate or you felt was appropriate. often my experience is that that's been dead end cul-de-sac where there's also a wetland involved that would otherwise you know you'd be infringing on the wetland by having the sidewalk so case by case the board gets to decide that and again what you're you're considering tonight wouldn't change that at all if there was not a sidewalk would granite still be required or would a

Is that part of what we're looking at as well as to what the standard berm versus the granite if there isn't a sidewalk?

Yep. If there isn't a sidewalk, there would still be a requirement for granite because the curbing and sidewalks are independent in the regulations. So the curbing is a separate standard than the sidewalks, although we think of them intertwined. The subdivision regulations, if we look at the cross-section, I don't know, Steve, if we might be able to pull that up actually. Okay. on the screen just for everybody to look at, because I know we talk about a lot of this stuff in theory, and it doesn't always make sense without a picture. But essentially, if you imagine the road, the very periphery of the road, the edge of the right-of-way, is really what we're looking for the sidewalk in. So the very edges of the road, there's a five-foot sidewalk. Think of that kind of coming in towards the center of the road. Then there is a grass strip. The width of that grass strip varies depending on what size width right-of-way we're talking about. So, for example, on a 60-foot wide section of road, which is going to be more of like an arterial, sorry, not an arterial, our second most intense residential street, which I think we say residential collector, don't quote me on that, that is a 7-foot, 6-inch grass strip. In other cases, it's closer to a five-foot grass strip. And then you have basically one lane of travel with potential for parking, and that breaks down in that context to 17 feet. You get to the crown or the center line of the road, and then you've got basically the same thing on the other side, just working the inverse. So if we pull up the detail here, yeah, so you can see. So this is, you know, basically you're looking at a cross section of the road. We took a knife into the road and cut it in half and pulled the earth apart like we had a crazy earthquake. Hopefully we don't have any of those. And we're looking underneath. And so you can see the road with the berm in the middle, that kind of peak is the crown in the road. and then at the edges where we have the curb, and then basically back of curb, you have the grass strip, and then you have behind that the sidewalk, and that is the end of the road. So that's what we require. So even without the sidewalk, you would still have curb and then just a bunch of lawn. Or if they're doing something different than this, you have to decide to approve it, right? So it's a waiver. This is the standard. They can't do this. You have to decide that it's appropriate, and maybe you decide that it is because, again, there's a wetland and nobody's going to be walking over there because there's no houses and it's a dead end or some other circumstance. But typically that's the kind of instance that we see where the board has deviated in the past.

Okay. Thank you. Yeah. Okay.

For myself, yeah, this kind of unfortunate miscommunication with the subdivision we just talked about, but it's resulting in a policy improvement here, so I'm happy to support it and look forward to all the many new beautiful sidewalks and all the subdivisions in the future. I think we are ready to close the public hearing. I make a motion to close public hearing.

Second.

Motion's been seconded. Mr. King? Yes. Mr. DeLera? Yes. Mr. Chimney?

Yes.

Myself, yes. Hearing is closed.

We have a motion to, we approve this. This is our, we own this.

So a motion to approve the subdivision rules and regulations amendment as outlined.

Yes, I make a motion to approve the amendment to the subdivision rules and regulations as outlined. Second.

All right, motion's been seconded. Mr. King? Yes. Mr. DeLera? Yes. Mr. Toomey?

Yes.

Myself, yes. Motion's been approved. No communications or board and policy procedures, I think, are holding on the minutes, and I think we're ready for a motion for adjournment.

We have eight hours, Mr. King. Eight hours. Sorry.

I tried. This decree in the planning division will be real quick on these A&Rs. 240 Moreland Street is not properly before the board. We don't have a signed application form from both parties on that deed. 52 Butler Street, also not properly before the board. They were not able to get us the materials in time. so what we do have for the board for endorsement is 90 aylesbury road this is in the rs10 zoning district each lot to be created here is required to have 80 feet of frontage for a single family detached home which they do um and then 16 squantum street and calumet avenue this is a corner lot they're shaving off a small portion parcel a it's not to be considered a build-up buildable lot that is explicitly labeled um and then the remaining lot would be i believe that's to be conveyed to the abutting lot um Think and then the existing lot is obviously remaining with adequate frontage And then 37 Knox Street. This is essentially to the lot lines shown Dashed and marked as old lot line are to be dissolved essentially So there's going to create two larger Lots as you can see in the darker darker line And I believe that They are to be considered not to be considered building lots to be proposed. Knox Street, as I understand it, has not been actually improved. And they do have that as a note, that the lots to be created are not to be building lots. So the board should endorse 10B, 10D, and 10E.

Okay, do we have a motion for endorsement of 10B, D, and E?

I make a motion to endorse 10B, D, and E. Second.

Motion's been seconded. Mr. King?

Yes.

Mr. DeLera? Yes. Mr. Toomey?

Yes.

Myself, yes. A&Rs have been endorsed. And now I think we're ready for a motion for adjournment. Motion to adjourn.

Second.

All in favor say aye. Aye. Motion meeting has been adjourned. Thank you, everyone. Good night.