November 13, 2025 – 212 Cochituate Road Advisory Committee – Video & Transcript
November 13, 2025 - 212 Cochituate Road Advisory Committee
sorry so we'll convene the uh meeting of the 212 constituent road advisory committee for
thursday november 13 2025. it is 6 30 p.m this is a hybrid meeting where people can watch this
meeting remotely with the link on the town website and also be on tape you can watch it on
wake him at a later time if they wish we invite people to provide public comment meeting tonight
is being attended in person by myself by team milburn phil whitney myself tom faye and online
we have stephanie rich we may be joined joined by others as this meeting progresses
the agenda this evening will include public opportunity for people to provide public comment
we'll then discuss the thoughts ideas experiences and recommendations of persons associated with
housing for disabled adults who have appeared before our committee to date as part of the process of
fulfilling the committee's charge our discussion may include nature and severity of disabilities
of attended residents as well as the number and scale of structures at the four acre parcel of
212 constituent road among other things um we won't consider the um minutes of department six as
they're not complete yet um and regarding item five um i will report on legal responses by town council
and legal questions raised at an early meeting likely at our next meeting um so uh at this time i invite
people in the room to provide public comment anybody not anybody online by public comment nope okay um so um
thank you challenger so we have met um at least six times as a committee and referred from various
individuals um who have uh loads of knowledge on the effort to uh address the needs of disabled adults
and um i personally learned a great deal and i hope other members of the committee have also um
and i thought tonight would be a good opportunity for us as a committee to
uh continue the discussion that occurred at the last meeting which i was only able to attend a portion
of but i did watch the meeting online and i found it very uh very helpful particularly the discussion
members had about uh what they might want to do with this four acres um and gene i want to turn the
floor over to you at some point to chat about um the research you've done on this topic
if you'd like we can wait a bit later um as other members of the committee maybe join us or if you
want to get into it now you can i'm happy to wait okay um so um maybe um we would proceed at this point
with kind of continuing the discussion that the committee had uh at last meeting about about the
site and what they're hearing what preferences they may have on um um what like
what recommendations we may make to the select board relative to this site um so hey john good to see
you but john thomas is with us at 633. um so stephanie um based on what all the things you've heard
um do you have a vision in your mind as to what what you'd like to see at at 212 constituent what kind of
um service yes um i guess i feel a little bit clearer about it um i would i kind of almost envision maybe two
residences um it would have to be ada compliant um so that it could could be uh utilized by people with
with uh all kinds of disabilities and also as they aged and i think it also would need to be um
yeah dds um designed so that dds funding could be used to support the individuals throughout their
lifespan i would see this as a a lifespan kind of thing and that um a lot that a lot of them
would probably come and go to day programs the the bus could come in and out of the driveway um
and um i guess that i'd see that way so that you know being accessible and and and something set up so
that dds would handle it and i would love to see some kind of waiting lists preference or something so
that um local residents would have a chance to get you know to be able to live there um
and um so that's kind of what i it's coalescing for me can i ask your questions um oh yeah and
also that you know there would be caregivers living there so there might be flexibility in the design so
that you could have more residents or merit more caregivers depending on the needs of the uh the
individuals that happen to be living there let me ask you a question stephanie do you um have a see
have a preference for individuals with more intellectual disabilities versus those who have physical
disabilities um yeah i would say this for for intellectual disabilities because they would um they
would um people with physical disabilities could live in more of the existing kind of you know options
um if they intellectually didn't need that kind of support you know they there are other options for
them they're not options for people with developmental disabilities intellectual disabilities
okay can you say the answer again stephanie am i trying to follow you say that once again please
there there are the people with intellectual disabilities really don't have the option to live in
existing uh options okay they need more support than that okay great um welcome bill good to see you
um so let me throw it out to you bill um continuing the discussion that the committee had at the last meeting which i did watch um um on wake him do you have a vision in your mind based on all the things you've heard as to what i work best at uh 212 constituent and i did like last week i did cover whenever our last meeting was i kind of summarized the things that we had learned from all of our meetings with folks um but i think stephanie said it really well like i don't think i could add too much to what she just said in terms of what what i'm thinking is that um given the the space that you know two homes will be better than one of course um and that uh they would focus on a fairly um like a group of individuals that would need a fair amount of support a lot of support enough support to warrant a building with a person who lives there to or people who live there to support them but also proximity to a community where they may well be able to participate in the community maybe not in a walkable distance but in a supportive you know transported distance um something like that um really resonates with me as well and i think stephanie said it really well um uh john thoughts yeah i guess i would piggyback on to what what the previous two speakers said um i think the whole issue of ada compliance is is respectfully i think it's kind of a non-issue because i think any program that's going to be developing a property to serve the groups that we've been talking about will be bound by ada compliance so i think that's that kind of is part of the mix anyway um but yeah i i agree with everything that stephanie said and also uh what bill said particularly about the reality that it's not a uh location that um you know lends itself to walkability but i mean compared to the rest of the town i mean it's very typical i think if anybody's going to develop a program in wayland they would have to take into account uh the kind of limitations that that particular location uh the reality of it that you are going to have to drive places to either get to a day program uh a work site or uh just integrate into uh social activities um i i do think that it's important to uh sort of bear in mind the fact that we've heard from a lot of very reputable uh contracted vendor agencies that do this kind of stuff and have been doing it for many years decades um in many cases and i think regardless of the uh you know the population that we're we're all envisioning might be served uh at this location you know we we can't really dictate exactly what that population is going to look like it really is going to be up to uh presumably an agency that is both going to have a a pretty heavy hand in developing the site but more importantly providing the commitment and the operation uh moving forward the operational budget and i think uh a reputable agency with a good solid track record is something that ought to be part of any rfp or uh any consideration uh moving forward um john um i want to ask you a question um you've made comments in the past about dds's role relative to this site um and i just want to get a better understanding of your thinking on this uh are you comfortable with say an rfp that would invite an organization a charles river type organization or that organization on connecticut who has the ability to build a structure and operate um a facility are you comfortable with that model um uh and uh where do you see the state's role relative to this particular site from your perspective all right i didn't hear the last the last sentence tom that you said well yeah what what do you see as a state's role concerning oh the state's role i'm sorry i didn't hear that part right um well again we we get back to the question of what comes first the chicken or the egg um you know i i think the state does have a role but i think ultimately you know they they are going to be a um a guide a guiding factor versus a deciding factor i think it really is going to um come down to which agencies out there that we've either heard from and maybe that we haven't heard from uh express a desire to uh develop the the parcel and create a program moving forward that will hopefully you know uh be in existence uh be in existence 10 years from now i mean that would be my my hope that we're we're going to settle on a uh an organization that's that's committed to being um there and creating a successful program for the long haul um to the extent that the state is involved i mean the state is a is going to be the the the primary funding source for that program if that's the model uh that that goes into that property versus some of the other uh sort of ad hoc uh more more quote unquote innovative models that we we've heard from which i don't necessarily object to i just think um you're you're taking a bit of a risk you're taking a bit more of a of a of a a risk when you consider the track records of some of those models versus some of the more traditional models and i think that's where the state um in terms of a a funding source can make a big difference in terms of what is going to last long term versus potentially uh fall apart more short term i don't know if that answers your question it does i'm not convinced that the um organizations for example that that provided that responded to our rfi aren't well funded um and don't have a track record um but to your point i do agree with you that um i suspect uh the town would be better off with working with the organization that is sufficiently funded uh just to provide some consistency and i think we all want an organization that um is not only a partner in this effort but will be here for a long time and be a true uh community member as with their residents um bill what are your thoughts yeah at least what i remember hearing from a lot of the presenters is that while it may not be a formal written document um having some pre arranged relationship with dds is really important like if you build this we will support the the 10 slots that are there and somehow these groups get that agreement but it it may not be a formal contract or something like that but they sort of need that before they will break ground and i don't know how you do that but i i think we would need certainly to get some idea of how many slots would be approved by dds before we go too far down the road right because if they're gonna say no to something and yes to something else then we need to know that but then also whether we leave it to the people who are responding to the rfp to arrange that with dds so that they come with both some acknowledgement that dds is on board and they're ready to build or whether we help do that i don't know how that works exactly but it does seem like something in that space and john probably knows more than we do but um has to be worked out or explored or something because you can't just dive in and hope they'll come join you well i think that's true and i think the rfp uh when it's issued would include language along those lines bill that would um um request some assurance of that organization's relationship with dds and and able to demonstrate a track record relative to uh dealing with dds in a positive way bill whitney uh i agree with everything that's been said uh but uh from what i've heard dds would typically provide a maximum of three to five people in residence i think it'd be a shame if we had only three or five people that were taking care of in this four acre site um we've heard about two different models uh one is the dds model uh from some very experienced well qualified and apparently well-financed groups you've heard from a couple but we've the other group of people we've heard from are you know arguably startups uh the one being um uh the uh minuteman arc where uh there was discussion of the notion of creating a uh an intentional community by andy rickard uh we also heard from high-spirities community uh catherine stanley and her group uh which again is uh a following model that's been successful in the western part of the state to my knowledge hasn't done anything in the eastern part of the state uh one idea would be to to divide the site uh which might oblige the town to think about seeking some cpa funding uh work other means to affect the construction of an internal road uh which is uh adds a layer of complexity uh but it could also provide utilities to the site there to the individual parcels uh which would help i think the financial feasibility um i'd be interested in hearing committee's thoughts about having a kind of traditional uh dds funded or participating in one such building and then looking at the other model which is a private pay or something where the reliance on the public assistance is really to the individuals who then pay rent uh perhaps uh with a section 8 voucher and uh pay for uh their proportionate share of the operating cost also to stephanie's point um i clearly agree about the accessibility question and i think though that there are also individuals with uh multiple disabilities uh perhaps a family member of mine has uh a number of challenges uh really some significant learning disabilities and also physical disabilities uh who would benefit terrifically from living in a group living situation so i i wouldn't want to close the door entirely on people with uh physical disabilities because some of them do need significant support uh so i guess those are my thoughts and to your point bill my memory is that the high spirit proposal i think included individuals with this is with physical disabilities i think uh perhaps multiple disabilities i recall at least uh catherine talking about right that's right her daughter so right yeah um which excuse me goes to the point of uh i think stephanie you've praised which is flexibility but uh building any building built in massachusetts has to conform with the ada but if we further require that each unit have sufficiently wide doorways uh to all of the units to enable wheelchair access uh rolling showers that kind of thing i think that would be pretty useful i do agree with your point bill about um uh properly maximizing the four acres and reminded of a comment that steve merritt made at the meeting last week that you picked up on and that is you know when the state says no you you continue to talk to them and try to betray them otherwise so um maybe we'll cross that bridge uh gene number thoughts sure well there's a great deal of overlapping my thinking with other members of the committee uh we all want to see responsible experienced partners both building and managing the property um so there's a lot of commonalities um i've gone a slightly different direction i did as a result of spending quite a bit of time doing research on this subject um and i came across um a regulation that was really interesting and i believe that our chairman put it in your packet so you may have seen it it's titled facilities consolidation fund uh integrated dds units tip sheet and it's just a simple document uh to introduce the idea uh that dds is perhaps more flexible than we thought and they are participating in projects that have more units where the dds um disabled housing is embedded in a larger community and um what they seem to like about it is that it does make a community and address issues of potential isolation of a group home from the people around them um and uh there there are some uh under under these auspices there are some that have been built built um and operating there's a relatively large one that charles river is doing right now that is way larger than anything we're looking at but i spent a lot of time looking at how they composed their facility in terms of um you know a group home within a building plus uh other kinds of disabled people who don't qualify for dds support but are supported by other agencies plus uh some uh some just straightforward affordable housing units and some of these also have a small number of market rate units in them um i can't remember whether charles river was doing that or not so i i kind of worked up a scenario using the data i collected for a uh 20 unit building um which appears to be eligible for many of these uh funding sources under current rules uh the 20 uh unit building would have eight dds uh units in it uh four cbh units these are disabled persons who do not have dds uh funding uh and would be you know people who would have perhaps autism perhaps mobility issues um then four units at uh 60 percent of amd uh and four units of market rate um which is allowed under the law in this kind of structure because of the being mixed with the disabled units in this way um it gives me hope that something like that could be done um and i suspect uh some of these entities who have already done this might advise us and since we already know charles river we might want to speak to them again about you know how how they think about doing a smaller scale combination of the strategy that they're building in need um now another reason i like thinking this way is i i i'm always very um cautious about thinking in silos uh the town has a lot of need for housing and we're in this committee addressing a specific site and a particular group of people with certain issues however our select board has to take care of all the other housing issues in town as well and so i see in this site an opportunity to integrate meeting the needs under dds for some people who are substantially uh disabled plus adding in some other units of other kinds of housing for people who have uh other issues and uh coming up with a project that will address a range of needs across the town so that's enough i think i'm going to interrupt for a second i'm i want to make sure brian boja who's a member of the committee he's not trying to get on um i will check the computer and i have no but let me see if i can do this here nope so reaction to uh dean's idea of a much larger um uh structure with the structures at this site anybody so i guess very i oh sorry but i would just say quickly that i i appreciate um the desire to use this space for as many people as possible i just have to remind the committee that when we approved this with the town it was with a vision of a fairly low impact type of development and not um a large-scale activity now of course the final vote allows the select board to do what it wants to do but when it was presented to the town it was two relatively small struct or two structures for relatively intensive need people and so um and and i'm confident the neighbors would would um want us to consider that the visual and physical impact of a structure when we think about size maybe that's what i'm trying to say um bill
i was kind of anticipating bill's comment um i think it's a very interesting idea i don't know if this is the right site but certainly worthy of consideration yeah um anybody else stephanie um maybe um you know um um some com uh you know maybe adding a little bit of of um space there for for someone with um no physical disabilities that you know do um so that you could get more than four to five people on the site you know a couple more just again two houses but uh maybe it would be a little more open to someone with a physical disability who wasn't on dds i'm not really sure how that works though i like the idea of it not being isolating but i also think we shouldn't get too large because that's not what it's supposed to be god so uh just referencing because it's been mentioned a a few times the um the development that charles river is working on um if you would want to um i i would encourage folks to uh do a google uh map search of east militia heights i believe it is which is where the location is uh for that particular development it's it's a very isolated location in the town of needham it's it's basically on the on the top of a pretty large hill um i i would agree with with the other uh folks that have uh commented on the idea of i i just personally uh think that that location might not be the the best place for such a densely um situated uh development i mean we we would be talking about uh a small apartment building i think if you were looking to serve 20 to 30 folks in in that location and i i don't know i just i think parking um the the impact would would be just a little bit much for that particular location no i i agree with the consensus i appreciate gene's research um and desire to maximize the units i can uh as shane alluded to the town the select board would certainly welcome the opportunity to increase our affordable housing numbers various reasons i'm just not convinced this is the site to um place such a large structure for a couple reasons one i'm not sure it fits well into that site in that neighborhood and second um uh from a safety perspective um
i i think it's it possibly problematic and i just think the the safety aspects of individuals uh adults with disabilities is is paramount and um i'm just concerned about that that type of structure arrangement would would provide the maximum safety um well i'm certainly going to try to change everyone's mind we wouldn't expect anything less good for you we are talking we aren't talking about a property tucked into some little narrow lane in a neighborhood we're talking about the major road in town it's the kind of road that we would build a public building on i mean it's where our town administrative building that we're sitting in at the moment is right on the main road it's where you put fire stations and schools and you know other other buildings that serve the public libraries these main roads are dotted with large buildings serving the public uh this is not a small intimate neighborhood i think a building with a little presence on this site would be consistent with what people will see as they drive down the road and they go by the churches and the retirement homes and all those things along that major road i think especially if we build it in traditional new england architectural style that pretty soon people wouldn't even notice it was there because it would just blend in to the streetscape um i will say though sorry i just have to say one thing it is a neighborhood and it is relatively small and there are people who know each other and live there so it is a neighborhood but i agree with you um there are design considerations that could make things fit in um but i wouldn't say it's not a neighborhood and it's not people yeah i don't mean um i live on 126 okay on concord road so i know my neighbors but uh what i'm trying to say is it's not going to be a large building tucked into some tiny little neighborhood on a skinny road it's a numbered highway the uh um the the site is on 60r which is residential and as opposed to commercial which i think is a factor in uh evaluating the size of what um uh would be best it when size of an obstruction that would uh be appropriate you know well i'd be i'd be delighted to um produce some drawings at a future meetings showing how this could be fitted on the site in a very low impact visual way um so i wanted to bring the committee's attention to um our packet from august 7th of 2025 but this is just for your reference relative to a sample rfp in that packet is a sample rfp for the town of chelmsford uh it can be found on page 13 um of that um of that packet for a meeting of actually i think it was eight six or eight seven to 2025 um also in that same packet on page 49 is an rfp that was referenced by steve merritt in our last meeting concerning section eight vouchers i just mentioned that just for um uh informational uh purposes um so early on when we met as a committee bill whitney uh expressed his willingness to put together a report from our committee um to the select board which is june or later than february 15th i remember from the meeting from last week there was a suggestion made by you john about possibly hearing from individuals to parents in wayland who have special needs young adults to get a sense from them about their needs so i will i'll work on that to follow up um on that issue and try to see whether any of those individuals will appear with us uh to talk about their needs and expectations for the children going forward and how whalen might be able to help them um so bill whitney um from your perspective uh what other topics or criteria maybe or input do you like from this committee to maybe initiate a report or that we will eventually hopefully uh sign off on and submit to the slide right um well i i infer there's a consensus about having uh a group home on the site uh that would be uh dds supported uh i gather the usual process is for uh dds either go to experienced developers saying hey uh we really like you to put together a proposal uh or on the alternative uh the developer rather than in this case the town would go to dds so i'd be interested though in uh the committee's thoughts about whether it would make sense to also provide for the possibility of an alternative model anticipating that dds would allow maybe one structure uh on the site that of support that it wouldn't wouldn't allow to group homes and if there is a willingness to consider something that is private pay or other than dds supported okay can i ask you a question bill uh to clarify your comments my understanding was that the rfp would invite um organizations to build and operate and at at uh at this site and they would be dealing with dds as opposed to the town um either contracting or pursuing dds that's right that's my understanding okay all right great um but but to your point i don't know that one entity necessarily would be the developer and the operator we've heard about yes correct uh kind of joint ventures so right okay um and um would an issue be filled pro um private i'm sorry for for for for profit and non-profit
and and also lease versus on it might be well to leave the door open when respondents tell us what they prefer right i think if we expressed a willingness to consider not for profits given that they wouldn't be paying property taxes which the developer might reasonably infer that the town would rather get property tax revenue not a property tax revenue and with respect of lease versus sale uh i think again uh if i were putting together a draft for which i have volunteered or was volunteered um i'd be uh i draft in such a way as to have some flexibility and allow the proponent or the respondent to suggest what they would feel is uh most comfortable most financeable in watching the meeting from last week one issue came up when steve merit spoke about his work with the roach family foundation and the homes that they operated they operate in norwood and walpole they're a for-profit company they're a for-profit organization but during the meeting there was a discussion about um the deeds and john you may have brought up you may have asked the question and um i think the impression i got from the committee was that that you all thought that they had purchased property from the town was given it but but brian i don't think that's the case right didn't they purchase they owned they owned yeah right they did so the issue of a deed restriction is an issue because they own the property so if if i think the question is asked what if they go under if they go under it you know they'll the foundation will put it up to sale or maybe they'll sell it to another organization to operate it to help um with disabilities or maybe they won't okay so i just wanted to make that that uh that clarification um uh you had questions bill adams i think john was ahead of me but i'll go right after him i have my physical hand up not my virtual
um yeah i i just you know i i don't necessarily have an answer to my own question but my my question would be why why would we necessarily want to limit ourselves to either a for-profit a non-profit maybe i mean we've heard some very interesting models you know i would question uh you know whether whether or not uh long-term they they might not be quite as uh stable a bet as some of the other traditional uh agencies that we've heard from that have been in business for 50 60 years but but uh to their credit i mean why would we necessarily not want to hear uh a proposal from some of these other um entities that that are that are doing different things that are doing more i mean hazard to use the word innovators but i mean they're doing things that aren't cookie cutter approaches um um and since we're talking about it maybe there might even be some uh families that would be interested in developing the property or or a piece of the property if we're considering uh subdivision um i i think we we ought to uh consider any kind of recommendation about the wording of an rfp that would allow all of those folks to be able to submit a proposal i mean cast cast a wide net i mean we can certainly offer guidance and suggestions in terms of what we think might be the most sensible um consideration but why wouldn't we want to consider uh uh from a wide array of proposals
um bill i'm sorry uh uh bill has yeah so i i agree with that um what i was going to say is i know folks have reached out to dds in the past and they've been it's been hard for them to take a a formal stand but i wonder now that with all we've learned if there's a way to either in front of this committee or perhaps in a more informal setting to have a conversation maybe between the leaders of this committee and dds to get to do some reality testing or like are we thinking about this the right way where is dds right now are they becoming more flexible in their thinking or less flexible um no one has to promise anything but you can often learn a lot by an informal conversation now that we've formulated our ideas better and i guess i would encourage and i doubt they would come to this whole committee and lay it all out so if there was a way to have a conversation in a more supportive space it might be worth considering i have i'm smiling so he might know more about uh well no i i know bill's made an effort um i'm sorry i know tom has made an effort and i i actually called uh and left a message a couple days ago also tom i'm happy to you know continue trying to to make that happen no i have reached out my sense is that they're hesitant to come before this committee and talk turkey uh because um of a lot of reasons and uh i think in part because um they do have different models throughout the state and i do think they maybe uh give a little here and give a little there if them to come in and make you know statements about public policy is um something they probably just don't want to do right but but to your point bill i think a more private conversation would be very helpful and i think we can make that happen and i know gene has some contacts as well and uh so i think we can make that happen and um i will say this you know i think we've all been um appreciative of the positive comments that the individuals who have come before this committee have said about the town and our efforts and i suspect that the state feels the same way that they appreciate the town of whalen's efforts in this regard and i hope is that that goodwill will help us achieve our our goals you know uh relatively easy fashion time will tone um so limited experience with state government but i know they're actually it's easy for them to say no you'll never get a definite yes but if it is a no on usually people will let you know that and so even that would be helpful for sure right um but to bill whitney's uh idea of um a more private um maybe private owned or operated parcel next to a more traditional group home i'm reminded john thomas of your um ask at the last meeting about the family you know within whalen who has a need it reminds me of the uh high spirit composers you know that it seems like a similar need necessarily but uh it seems similar but when i was listening to the media i thought to myself well um could this family and i have friends in the same same situation could this family buy another house and win and and achieve kind of what the what the roach family foundation did in norwood and walpole like just they they bought homes and they filled homes with the delta disabilities and uh um is that right that's correct they they bought existing houses yeah right um so um is there something about this site john that you think that they uh particularly like or see an opportunity that they wouldn't otherwise see in purchasing another home in the town well i think first of all as we all know real estate's really expensive um to have the opportunity to start from scratch and have the support of the town uh and maybe have i i again i maybe getting a little ahead of myself but or this committee in terms of what we're prepared to uh offer but if i were a family uh and i were offered the opportunity to build on two acres roughly speaking um that i didn't necessarily have to pay market value for i think that would be a tremendous incentive i mean we've got two family members that are part of this committee that are on this uh part of this meeting i mean what what do you guys think if if you were in a situation like that where you had the uh opportunity to uh to develop a home for your family member from scratch and i know this is a big a big caveat but and if you had sufficient funding from dds to provide for a program moving forward the the necessary staffing uh you know would that be attractive to to you and what you how would dds pay if a family owned the house so i'm envisioning uh in my scenario uh that the family member would be the recipient of person-centered funding so that can range from ten thousand dollars to hundreds of thousands of dollars so i mean in some cases that would be sufficient funding to provide for the operational needs of the you know individual residents moving forward i mean we're talking about funding that's that's basically on a par with group home funding per uh i think john it's actually it's it is certainly attractive i think that given that we're talking about new construction you're you're adding a layer of difficulty complexity uh you know uh anyone who's remodeled a kitchen knows the hundreds of decisions you have to make and uh the consequences of the contractor not showing up and all that so i wouldn't minimize the uh uh the aggravation factor and and uh you know there's permitting to be done uh i think your developers have to put up money at risk in order to get entitlements uh design fees all that stuff before you get permanent financing so uh i don't know uh i think with uh three years of uh uh advance notice sure they could put some together i personally would find it daunting but maybe others wouldn't um so what did you yeah uh i'd like to ask a question about a different direction here for a minute uh so this committee has permission if it wishes to develop one half and sell the other half we we could make that recommendation okay so the a half lot would that bring a half million dollars um so in other words we split the four acres yes but the four acres what what is a two acre lot in whale and sell for now uh do we know i wouldn't venture to guess okay yes well let's just say for purposes of discussion a half a million bucks after expenses yeah um so maybe another way to use this would be to um and i'm going to talk about accessory dwelling units again so you're forewarned um you know people are looking at accessory dwelling units to house disabled family members and um brian you know is is looking at um if people can build a deed restricted affordable adus for people who might qualify for um funding next state funding dds funding something would it be possible to sell one of those lots and create some kind of grant program that would allow people to give people a grant to help build a deed restricted affordable adu to house a disabled person who lives in wayland is that in the realm of does that maximize something brian is that that maximizing the value well i mean what what i'm hearing from my fellow committee members is that you know they they they have some preference for the traditional dds model which is you're housing four or five people well if we have enough money we can hot you know house four or five people another way so that would allow one lot to stay residential which would be the preference of the neighbors i think and the other one to be the group home and we all we're starting with some concerns that dds might refuse to have two houses next to each other that they fund which is why you were putting forward one dds and one pursuing some other kind of funding right um so i just want to make sure that we're thinking broadly about how you know everything could be boiled down to dollars except human compassion um so we maybe we can uh find a way to use those monies and achieve the same objectives if we're only on that lot going to be able to help four or five people maybe four or five people embedded in the community it's something worth thinking about a little bit i would uh hey gene to have uh the prospect of selling one of the parcels for five hundred thousand dollars and there might be people on the select board or elsewhere who might say hey we could use this to go with the water yeah i know that that occurred to me um excuse me the other thing that occurs to me is that it's possible that one entity could develop a dds supported group home and another model that would get out uh you know this this uh providing housing for this population um i think that's true for my reading yeah there's a there's a lot of we've heard from some sophisticated and experienced people and uh uh but in particular you know we heard about uh the arc that is exploring while they do group homes they also are exploring other models and you know if you had one development entity doing both that i think would be ideal just in terms of coordination or mm-hmm who shares who bears what portion of the common costs and so on Frank Bojo other other other families other families in town who have purchased to you know and purchased a home and um uh privately to house individuals with disabilities i i don't know of any personally but i know there are uh we've had clients who have the means to to buy a home in um you know we we've been working with section 8 vouchers and so forth but they have uh the means to support to purchase a home and do exactly that so the challenge is under the zoning rules that um you can't have unrelated persons and under under one roof the exception of this you know state statute that permits um educational organizations which is uh why we can do this at 212. um you know whether that was a factor in in nowhere to walpole with the roach family foundation or not whether i don't i don't i don't know what the account was not um are there other um considerations for me that uh you'd like to hear comments from the committee uh relative to elements in a report to the select board well one approach i've been thinking about is um to sit to recommend to the select board uh with the committee's concurrence obviously that there be a uh tentatively designated developer or developers of the site and give them basically exclusive right to negotiate and also to give them some confidence that they would reasonably be able to spend some risk capital to do design to do permitting to have conversation give them standing they have conversation with dds and then at the time that hopefully they were able to uh dot all the i's and cross the t's that we would then be at the time would then be in a position to do a final designation and have a closing with the construction contract ready to go the financing ready to go and so forth uh in doing so and you give the developer for developers 12 months 18 months to put it together and if they didn't perform then you have the ability to yank the tentative designation and give it to someone else so as i've thought about that it it may be possible to consider someone who is uh trying out a new model or has less experience than some others and uh still but not necessarily tie a wagon to that outfit because you always have the ability to
yank the designation if they're gonna perform um would it concern you that developers may be scared away by the upfront cost without a guaranteed return the reason that developers make a lot of money is that they put up risk capital and
i think most feel gotta spend money to make money but whether that applies to uh non-profits in the business of developing affordable or housing for people with disabilities i don't know how would your proposal differ from say an rfp that says this is what we like to see uh present your proposal and then the board reviews those submissions and makes the decision what's what's the difference well the i think the the the rfp does all of that and then the town can say we'd like this outfit or these outfits uh we're going to give you 12 months to finalize your proposal and if you perform great and if you don't then you don't it would go forward with you so um you know you'd have to have that conversation with with the developers but i think if they were to go to dbs with that designation in hand uh if i give them standing with dbs and also confidence to you know spend some money on more detailed design legal right all of them um um excuse me and you know we go we could go back to some of those people with them we've met yeah and say what do you think of this approach to be almost like a phase one and phase two spelled out on the rfp or just here's here's what you need to do in order to compete for the tentative designation okay assuming you perform within a certain period of time you you're it if you don't perform you're not it and being an experienced developer you've seen that in the past with the projects well yeah i didn't i used to work for a public agency in boston that did a lot of disposition of property and there again i mean this will well financed sophisticated developers uh for-profit developers some of whom turned out to be non-profit but on case by case basis right that's that's the model i'm familiar with okay um thoughts or questions on um bill's comments yeah i mean i agree with that approach and we don't want to tie our hands uh from the from the get-go we were i think like i mentioned before i really think that a developer working with an agency a partnership uh is going to tell us what what is feasible and hopefully it meets our goals also um but i don't think we can do we can have one without the other at least my feeling is it would be an extension of what tom was talking about right like you would put it out there you'd get a bunch of proposals and you'd pick one and have a tentative agreement right so work on this for a year so an idea might not have to be perfectly baked to get selected but it has to be pretty darn close and then it could be finalized it would give us a little more leeway the select board a little more leeway but it wouldn't be that much leeway it would still have to be a well designed proposal from a really reputable group
um are there other information bill whitney that you'd like to include in the uh recommendation report to the select board i don't know discussed well i'd be interested in whether the committee members have feelings about that i personally find it's easier to work for a draft yeah so i'd be happy to develop a draft for the committee's review and comment okay uh and if there are particular things that people have in mind that i'd be very interested in hearing so people comfortable with that we put together a draft and then we come back together and after having reviewed it and i'll make sure the packet and it would by the way just so we're clear about what it would be at our next meeting because i think it's appropriate to cancel our next meeting and to give you time to put something together and maybe the meeting after that which i think is early in early december if we're ready then fine but i would send you the packet it's a uh on a date that would give you enough time to digest it to discuss it um uh subtletically in our next meeting does that make sense everybody let me uh question clarification so is it your intention to put forward a plan where those two lots are treated separately and you're looking for a single vendor who's going to propose something for each of those sites well Jane i think i'd want to afford uh the opportunity for one developer to develop two buildings uh and say you know uh invite proposals for either or either or both okay i think it would be important to spell that out as an option though bill because otherwise i mean i i i think it would be too ambiguous to uh assume that somebody would
would make that uh part of their proposal that they could develop two buildings versus one i mean we are the town of wayland after all so sorry well i mean i i would i would make it clear that that that's an option for for a developer to be able to even do that i mean otherwise i think i think the the aura of who we who we are and where we live uh might you you you might restrict proposals to only uh folks that are thinking they could only build one are you referring to the cost of the land john no just the the ability to to build two buildings versus one i think is huge i i just think you know we we've been talking about this for for a while now and i think we're we're all kind of on the same page and accepting the two buildings would be a feasible realistic practical possibility but i think somebody coming into this uh wouldn't necessarily make that assumption for uh for this town that they could even do that so i'm i'm supportive of it is i'm just reinforcing there seems to be a fair amount of concern about the size of the building now we have residents in wayland that are six thousand square feet seven thousand square feet five thousand square feet are we going to specify a maximum footprint you know i give me a hint is that going to help i mean part of the concern is getting neighborhood acceptance of residents how are we going to define the size of residence that's going to be acceptable well when the neighbors met with us i think we discussed the idea of setbacks one of the legal questions that town council has been asked is whether the town i think the answer is yes but when the town can include in the rfp uh setbacks on on the property i think bill adams that was a uh topic that came up when the neighbors would put it with us correct yeah yeah it was a question yeah about whether it's yeah yeah and so we i think if it's probably we can we could do that i think legally the town could do that and then the rfp if that's your question well i'm still lobbying for more units so if we have one lot where they would build a traditional five resident unit and then a second lot that looks like a bigger house how much bigger could we go if we're going with a different funding source and are not limited by dds preferences
that's a good question i'm not sure the answer i don't i certainly don't have the answer please think about it well but we'll be the magic kingdom um sorry just one point about that is it's not just the house size right it's the parking lot and the traffic and people coming and going it's a whole enterprise but no that's a good point i think it's a good question and a fair question like what's too big um nobody um when in doubt uh defer i would uh i think i'd come up with some language that talks about uh consistency of uh scale and character of the buildings uh respecting their architectural neighbors or something to that effect and kind of leave the door open um you know somebody may come in and they may have a terrific proposal except it's too big or not big enough and i think we uh would want to reserve the ability to have a second round of uh the ability to uh uh to seek um modifications to the proposal so let me play devil's advocate for a minute bill whitney um by offering an arfp uh the organization developer to develop both problems are are we are we uh walking away from your other idea and that is to have a um the dds focused property on one on one part of the site and then or the private operation on the other half right what do you think is it isn't majorly exclusive well i think it's unlikely you'd get a proposal for two dds finance buildings and i'm not sure the state would go for that anymore because you know it we've got dds supporting multiple units in the same building at charles river they're they're going to be set up so there'll be staff living in the building and there'll be a group of four over here and a group of four over here yeah no not living in the building those are not supported those are they're going to have remote cameras and stuff they're not going to have people supported living with them these these people all are much higher functioning that are going in that um charles river heights okay well perhaps i've misread but no i i kind of agree with gene though from what i heard is one group said dds would never agree to two on the same site and another one said you know what this town is innovative and there's a huge need and sometimes you have a conversation and it becomes possible and so i i heard both angles actually so i don't i don't think i heard for sure that it would never be possible but it we did definitely hear that it's not it's not usual it's not the standard you know specifically i would say i asked charles servers about um you know that for jj and they they do not they will not have live-in help these people are are left alone for hours of the day they have the two houses here would both be highly supported environments but they could be two right next to each other which some people say that's impossible and some people seem to say i don't think it's impossible bill i think we've heard from some agencies that say they've been discouraged to develop that kind of a model but we've also heard from folks that have that have built a model where there's four on one side of a duplex essentially and four on the other side and these are brand new models that dds is funding and just a point of clarification dds is not funding the construction of any of these homes right i just want to point that out but they usually provide some assurance that if you build it we will come we will come and fund it right so i think one of our goals here too is to make recommendations that will serve whalen residents effectively so what i'm getting at is a whalen a whalen preference which i think um is a bit of a challenge with dds or less of a challenge correct me if i'm wrong with a uh non-dds facility they've had more success with that right the roach so one idea then is to have that second site uh uh focus not focus but make it easier for whalen families to house um uh that they're adults adult children um so just i just throw that out there you know maybe we we lead you know leading this dds lead the horse to water and because it does seem like they have some flexibility and things have changed over the years yeah they could also backfire but uh right yeah never accept no for an answer like steve merritt said right do we want to uh afford though the opportunity for um clients other than dds clients to be accommodated on the site um well the organization i understand it let's say it's a we'll call it a dds facility whoever runs it they i think they have a right to accept private pay if that's when you get it right and i'm thinking more about uh you know the uh the nature and extent of the disability of uh the residents um would you want to have diversity there one with on-site staff living staff and the other might be you know or people who have jobs state programs and so forth yeah yeah i'm not sure whether um the best mix uh uh um i don't know the answer to that question i invite others to comment on what they heard i i think bill i i appreciate where you're coming from i really do i just don't know if we're in a position to to micromanage that that kind of um detail of the operation of the program moving forward i mean you you could throw that in and that that could be something that we would ask uh
somebody bidding to to take into consideration i just don't know how they could guarantee that uh down the road no i don't think it's stipulated i i think it's just you afford that possibility uh whereas if you're saying we're going to try and get two dds supported facilities on the same site is that really what we're going to do
um are there other areas that would you like to get feedback on um if we pretend they put it before the patriots game yeah i just one one final thought um so i i agree that we're not going to get dds and buy an extension one of their residential vendor agencies that might potentially bid on on this uh to allow for a whalen set aside which is something that i think we'd all ideally like to have in a perfect world however i mean there are different ways to approach this and this is why i keep going back to the idea of inviting families that live in this town to participate in this process because while dds can't make that uh promise that they will create a carved out set aside in uh their residential contract say potentially to that would fund this program uh into the future the families that are are being served by dds can absolutely advocate for that particularly families that either live in whalen or perhaps contiguous towns and i see stephanie nodding her head you can absolutely go to dds and say look i don't want my family member served out in the berkshires i want them serve locally and that is a powerful uh tool and if we could tap into that somehow uh then we might be able to inherently build in uh a local preference if if we could get the word out on the street to families that have um family members that have residential dollars that wow guess what there's going to be this uh resonance that's going to be developed one way or the other in wayland uh we we would really encourage you to get on the phone with your dds service coordinator and say look you know i want to be part of this and that can drive dds to actually think about who they ultimately want to serve uh through through whatever contract they end up putting together so i just wanted to throw that out there from my experience working in a dds area office working on the other side of the coin uh working at the state house i mean that that's that's how it works that's how it operates i think that's a great point john so so whitney would you agree that it'd be more prudent for us not to be in the 19th but maybe shoot for the third then cross our bridge then yeah okay all right so we'll plan on that folks we'll plan not to meet on the 19th we'll meet we'll plan to meet next in the third and if that's untimely we won't hold that meeting either are there any other final comments before i entertain a motion to adjourn hearing none i'll entertain a motion to adjourn so cool if bill whitney has moved all those in favor uh john said yes john no i now here i i don't even have i need approval oh yes sorry bill out yes stephanie yes yes jane yes um brian yes um yes seven zero thank you all for your input time
um so let me throw it out to you bill um continuing the discussion that the committee had at the last meeting which i did watch um um on wake him do you have a vision in your mind based on all the things you've heard as to what i work best at uh 212 constituent and i did like last week i did cover whenever our last meeting was i kind of summarized the things that we had learned from all of our meetings with folks um but i think stephanie said it really well like i don't think i could add too much to what she just said in terms of what what i'm thinking is that um given the the space that you know two homes will be better than one of course um and that uh they would focus on a fairly um like a group of individuals that would need a fair amount of support a lot of support enough support to warrant a building with a person who lives there to or people who live there to support them but also proximity to a community where they may well be able to participate in the community maybe not in a walkable distance but in a supportive you know transported distance um something like that um really resonates with me as well and i think stephanie said it really well um uh john thoughts yeah i guess i would piggyback on to what what the previous two speakers said um i think the whole issue of ada compliance is is respectfully i think it's kind of a non-issue because i think any program that's going to be developing a property to serve the groups that we've been talking about will be bound by ada compliance so i think that's that kind of is part of the mix anyway um but yeah i i agree with everything that stephanie said and also uh what bill said particularly about the reality that it's not a uh location that um you know lends itself to walkability but i mean compared to the rest of the town i mean it's very typical i think if anybody's going to develop a program in wayland they would have to take into account uh the kind of limitations that that particular location uh the reality of it that you are going to have to drive places to either get to a day program uh a work site or uh just integrate into uh social activities um i i do think that it's important to uh sort of bear in mind the fact that we've heard from a lot of very reputable uh contracted vendor agencies that do this kind of stuff and have been doing it for many years decades um in many cases and i think regardless of the uh you know the population that we're we're all envisioning might be served uh at this location you know we we can't really dictate exactly what that population is going to look like it really is going to be up to uh presumably an agency that is both going to have a a pretty heavy hand in developing the site but more importantly providing the commitment and the operation uh moving forward the operational budget and i think uh a reputable agency with a good solid track record is something that ought to be part of any rfp or uh any consideration uh moving forward um john um i want to ask you a question um you've made comments in the past about dds's role relative to this site um and i just want to get a better understanding of your thinking on this uh are you comfortable with say an rfp that would invite an organization a charles river type organization or that organization on connecticut who has the ability to build a structure and operate um a facility are you comfortable with that model um uh and uh where do you see the state's role relative to this particular site from your perspective all right i didn't hear the last the last sentence tom that you said well yeah what what do you see as a state's role concerning oh the state's role i'm sorry i didn't hear that part right um well again we we get back to the question of what comes first the chicken or the egg um you know i i think the state does have a role but i think ultimately you know they they are going to be a um a guide a guiding factor versus a deciding factor i think it really is going to um come down to which agencies out there that we've either heard from and maybe that we haven't heard from uh express a desire to uh develop the the parcel and create a program moving forward that will hopefully you know uh be in existence uh be in existence 10 years from now i mean that would be my my hope that we're we're going to settle on a uh an organization that's that's committed to being um there and creating a successful program for the long haul um to the extent that the state is involved i mean the state is a is going to be the the the primary funding source for that program if that's the model uh that that goes into that property versus some of the other uh sort of ad hoc uh more more quote unquote innovative models that we we've heard from which i don't necessarily object to i just think um you're you're taking a bit of a risk you're taking a bit more of a of a of a a risk when you consider the track records of some of those models versus some of the more traditional models and i think that's where the state um in terms of a a funding source can make a big difference in terms of what is going to last long term versus potentially uh fall apart more short term i don't know if that answers your question it does i'm not convinced that the um organizations for example that that provided that responded to our rfi aren't well funded um and don't have a track record um but to your point i do agree with you that um i suspect uh the town would be better off with working with the organization that is sufficiently funded uh just to provide some consistency and i think we all want an organization that um is not only a partner in this effort but will be here for a long time and be a true uh community member as with their residents um bill what are your thoughts yeah at least what i remember hearing from a lot of the presenters is that while it may not be a formal written document um having some pre arranged relationship with dds is really important like if you build this we will support the the 10 slots that are there and somehow these groups get that agreement but it it may not be a formal contract or something like that but they sort of need that before they will break ground and i don't know how you do that but i i think we would need certainly to get some idea of how many slots would be approved by dds before we go too far down the road right because if they're gonna say no to something and yes to something else then we need to know that but then also whether we leave it to the people who are responding to the rfp to arrange that with dds so that they come with both some acknowledgement that dds is on board and they're ready to build or whether we help do that i don't know how that works exactly but it does seem like something in that space and john probably knows more than we do but um has to be worked out or explored or something because you can't just dive in and hope they'll come join you well i think that's true and i think the rfp uh when it's issued would include language along those lines bill that would um um request some assurance of that organization's relationship with dds and and able to demonstrate a track record relative to uh dealing with dds in a positive way bill whitney uh i agree with everything that's been said uh but uh from what i've heard dds would typically provide a maximum of three to five people in residence i think it'd be a shame if we had only three or five people that were taking care of in this four acre site um we've heard about two different models uh one is the dds model uh from some very experienced well qualified and apparently well-financed groups you've heard from a couple but we've the other group of people we've heard from are you know arguably startups uh the one being um uh the uh minuteman arc where uh there was discussion of the notion of creating a uh an intentional community by andy rickard uh we also heard from high-spirities community uh catherine stanley and her group uh which again is uh a following model that's been successful in the western part of the state to my knowledge hasn't done anything in the eastern part of the state uh one idea would be to to divide the site uh which might oblige the town to think about seeking some cpa funding uh work other means to affect the construction of an internal road uh which is uh adds a layer of complexity uh but it could also provide utilities to the site there to the individual parcels uh which would help i think the financial feasibility um i'd be interested in hearing committee's thoughts about having a kind of traditional uh dds funded or participating in one such building and then looking at the other model which is a private pay or something where the reliance on the public assistance is really to the individuals who then pay rent uh perhaps uh with a section 8 voucher and uh pay for uh their proportionate share of the operating cost also to stephanie's point um i clearly agree about the accessibility question and i think though that there are also individuals with uh multiple disabilities uh perhaps a family member of mine has uh a number of challenges uh really some significant learning disabilities and also physical disabilities uh who would benefit terrifically from living in a group living situation so i i wouldn't want to close the door entirely on people with uh physical disabilities because some of them do need significant support uh so i guess those are my thoughts and to your point bill my memory is that the high spirit proposal i think included individuals with this is with physical disabilities i think uh perhaps multiple disabilities i recall at least uh catherine talking about right that's right her daughter so right yeah um which excuse me goes to the point of uh i think stephanie you've praised which is flexibility but uh building any building built in massachusetts has to conform with the ada but if we further require that each unit have sufficiently wide doorways uh to all of the units to enable wheelchair access uh rolling showers that kind of thing i think that would be pretty useful i do agree with your point bill about um uh properly maximizing the four acres and reminded of a comment that steve merritt made at the meeting last week that you picked up on and that is you know when the state says no you you continue to talk to them and try to betray them otherwise so um maybe we'll cross that bridge uh gene number thoughts sure well there's a great deal of overlapping my thinking with other members of the committee uh we all want to see responsible experienced partners both building and managing the property um so there's a lot of commonalities um i've gone a slightly different direction i did as a result of spending quite a bit of time doing research on this subject um and i came across um a regulation that was really interesting and i believe that our chairman put it in your packet so you may have seen it it's titled facilities consolidation fund uh integrated dds units tip sheet and it's just a simple document uh to introduce the idea uh that dds is perhaps more flexible than we thought and they are participating in projects that have more units where the dds um disabled housing is embedded in a larger community and um what they seem to like about it is that it does make a community and address issues of potential isolation of a group home from the people around them um and uh there there are some uh under under these auspices there are some that have been built built um and operating there's a relatively large one that charles river is doing right now that is way larger than anything we're looking at but i spent a lot of time looking at how they composed their facility in terms of um you know a group home within a building plus uh other kinds of disabled people who don't qualify for dds support but are supported by other agencies plus uh some uh some just straightforward affordable housing units and some of these also have a small number of market rate units in them um i can't remember whether charles river was doing that or not so i i kind of worked up a scenario using the data i collected for a uh 20 unit building um which appears to be eligible for many of these uh funding sources under current rules uh the 20 uh unit building would have eight dds uh units in it uh four cbh units these are disabled persons who do not have dds uh funding uh and would be you know people who would have perhaps autism perhaps mobility issues um then four units at uh 60 percent of amd uh and four units of market rate um which is allowed under the law in this kind of structure because of the being mixed with the disabled units in this way um it gives me hope that something like that could be done um and i suspect uh some of these entities who have already done this might advise us and since we already know charles river we might want to speak to them again about you know how how they think about doing a smaller scale combination of the strategy that they're building in need um now another reason i like thinking this way is i i i'm always very um cautious about thinking in silos uh the town has a lot of need for housing and we're in this committee addressing a specific site and a particular group of people with certain issues however our select board has to take care of all the other housing issues in town as well and so i see in this site an opportunity to integrate meeting the needs under dds for some people who are substantially uh disabled plus adding in some other units of other kinds of housing for people who have uh other issues and uh coming up with a project that will address a range of needs across the town so that's enough i think i'm going to interrupt for a second i'm i want to make sure brian boja who's a member of the committee he's not trying to get on um i will check the computer and i have no but let me see if i can do this here nope so reaction to uh dean's idea of a much larger um uh structure with the structures at this site anybody so i guess very i oh sorry but i would just say quickly that i i appreciate um the desire to use this space for as many people as possible i just have to remind the committee that when we approved this with the town it was with a vision of a fairly low impact type of development and not um a large-scale activity now of course the final vote allows the select board to do what it wants to do but when it was presented to the town it was two relatively small struct or two structures for relatively intensive need people and so um and and i'm confident the neighbors would would um want us to consider that the visual and physical impact of a structure when we think about size maybe that's what i'm trying to say um bill
i was kind of anticipating bill's comment um i think it's a very interesting idea i don't know if this is the right site but certainly worthy of consideration yeah um anybody else stephanie um maybe um you know um um some com uh you know maybe adding a little bit of of um space there for for someone with um no physical disabilities that you know do um so that you could get more than four to five people on the site you know a couple more just again two houses but uh maybe it would be a little more open to someone with a physical disability who wasn't on dds i'm not really sure how that works though i like the idea of it not being isolating but i also think we shouldn't get too large because that's not what it's supposed to be god so uh just referencing because it's been mentioned a a few times the um the development that charles river is working on um if you would want to um i i would encourage folks to uh do a google uh map search of east militia heights i believe it is which is where the location is uh for that particular development it's it's a very isolated location in the town of needham it's it's basically on the on the top of a pretty large hill um i i would agree with with the other uh folks that have uh commented on the idea of i i just personally uh think that that location might not be the the best place for such a densely um situated uh development i mean we we would be talking about uh a small apartment building i think if you were looking to serve 20 to 30 folks in in that location and i i don't know i just i think parking um the the impact would would be just a little bit much for that particular location no i i agree with the consensus i appreciate gene's research um and desire to maximize the units i can uh as shane alluded to the town the select board would certainly welcome the opportunity to increase our affordable housing numbers various reasons i'm just not convinced this is the site to um place such a large structure for a couple reasons one i'm not sure it fits well into that site in that neighborhood and second um uh from a safety perspective um
i i think it's it possibly problematic and i just think the the safety aspects of individuals uh adults with disabilities is is paramount and um i'm just concerned about that that type of structure arrangement would would provide the maximum safety um well i'm certainly going to try to change everyone's mind we wouldn't expect anything less good for you we are talking we aren't talking about a property tucked into some little narrow lane in a neighborhood we're talking about the major road in town it's the kind of road that we would build a public building on i mean it's where our town administrative building that we're sitting in at the moment is right on the main road it's where you put fire stations and schools and you know other other buildings that serve the public libraries these main roads are dotted with large buildings serving the public uh this is not a small intimate neighborhood i think a building with a little presence on this site would be consistent with what people will see as they drive down the road and they go by the churches and the retirement homes and all those things along that major road i think especially if we build it in traditional new england architectural style that pretty soon people wouldn't even notice it was there because it would just blend in to the streetscape um i will say though sorry i just have to say one thing it is a neighborhood and it is relatively small and there are people who know each other and live there so it is a neighborhood but i agree with you um there are design considerations that could make things fit in um but i wouldn't say it's not a neighborhood and it's not people yeah i don't mean um i live on 126 okay on concord road so i know my neighbors but uh what i'm trying to say is it's not going to be a large building tucked into some tiny little neighborhood on a skinny road it's a numbered highway the uh um the the site is on 60r which is residential and as opposed to commercial which i think is a factor in uh evaluating the size of what um uh would be best it when size of an obstruction that would uh be appropriate you know well i'd be i'd be delighted to um produce some drawings at a future meetings showing how this could be fitted on the site in a very low impact visual way um so i wanted to bring the committee's attention to um our packet from august 7th of 2025 but this is just for your reference relative to a sample rfp in that packet is a sample rfp for the town of chelmsford uh it can be found on page 13 um of that um of that packet for a meeting of actually i think it was eight six or eight seven to 2025 um also in that same packet on page 49 is an rfp that was referenced by steve merritt in our last meeting concerning section eight vouchers i just mentioned that just for um uh informational uh purposes um so early on when we met as a committee bill whitney uh expressed his willingness to put together a report from our committee um to the select board which is june or later than february 15th i remember from the meeting from last week there was a suggestion made by you john about possibly hearing from individuals to parents in wayland who have special needs young adults to get a sense from them about their needs so i will i'll work on that to follow up um on that issue and try to see whether any of those individuals will appear with us uh to talk about their needs and expectations for the children going forward and how whalen might be able to help them um so bill whitney um from your perspective uh what other topics or criteria maybe or input do you like from this committee to maybe initiate a report or that we will eventually hopefully uh sign off on and submit to the slide right um well i i infer there's a consensus about having uh a group home on the site uh that would be uh dds supported uh i gather the usual process is for uh dds either go to experienced developers saying hey uh we really like you to put together a proposal uh or on the alternative uh the developer rather than in this case the town would go to dds so i'd be interested though in uh the committee's thoughts about whether it would make sense to also provide for the possibility of an alternative model anticipating that dds would allow maybe one structure uh on the site that of support that it wouldn't wouldn't allow to group homes and if there is a willingness to consider something that is private pay or other than dds supported okay can i ask you a question bill uh to clarify your comments my understanding was that the rfp would invite um organizations to build and operate and at at uh at this site and they would be dealing with dds as opposed to the town um either contracting or pursuing dds that's right that's my understanding okay all right great um but but to your point i don't know that one entity necessarily would be the developer and the operator we've heard about yes correct uh kind of joint ventures so right okay um and um would an issue be filled pro um private i'm sorry for for for for profit and non-profit
and and also lease versus on it might be well to leave the door open when respondents tell us what they prefer right i think if we expressed a willingness to consider not for profits given that they wouldn't be paying property taxes which the developer might reasonably infer that the town would rather get property tax revenue not a property tax revenue and with respect of lease versus sale uh i think again uh if i were putting together a draft for which i have volunteered or was volunteered um i'd be uh i draft in such a way as to have some flexibility and allow the proponent or the respondent to suggest what they would feel is uh most comfortable most financeable in watching the meeting from last week one issue came up when steve merit spoke about his work with the roach family foundation and the homes that they operated they operate in norwood and walpole they're a for-profit company they're a for-profit organization but during the meeting there was a discussion about um the deeds and john you may have brought up you may have asked the question and um i think the impression i got from the committee was that that you all thought that they had purchased property from the town was given it but but brian i don't think that's the case right didn't they purchase they owned they owned yeah right they did so the issue of a deed restriction is an issue because they own the property so if if i think the question is asked what if they go under if they go under it you know they'll the foundation will put it up to sale or maybe they'll sell it to another organization to operate it to help um with disabilities or maybe they won't okay so i just wanted to make that that uh that clarification um uh you had questions bill adams i think john was ahead of me but i'll go right after him i have my physical hand up not my virtual
um yeah i i just you know i i don't necessarily have an answer to my own question but my my question would be why why would we necessarily want to limit ourselves to either a for-profit a non-profit maybe i mean we've heard some very interesting models you know i would question uh you know whether whether or not uh long-term they they might not be quite as uh stable a bet as some of the other traditional uh agencies that we've heard from that have been in business for 50 60 years but but uh to their credit i mean why would we necessarily not want to hear uh a proposal from some of these other um entities that that are that are doing different things that are doing more i mean hazard to use the word innovators but i mean they're doing things that aren't cookie cutter approaches um um and since we're talking about it maybe there might even be some uh families that would be interested in developing the property or or a piece of the property if we're considering uh subdivision um i i think we we ought to uh consider any kind of recommendation about the wording of an rfp that would allow all of those folks to be able to submit a proposal i mean cast cast a wide net i mean we can certainly offer guidance and suggestions in terms of what we think might be the most sensible um consideration but why wouldn't we want to consider uh uh from a wide array of proposals
um bill i'm sorry uh uh bill has yeah so i i agree with that um what i was going to say is i know folks have reached out to dds in the past and they've been it's been hard for them to take a a formal stand but i wonder now that with all we've learned if there's a way to either in front of this committee or perhaps in a more informal setting to have a conversation maybe between the leaders of this committee and dds to get to do some reality testing or like are we thinking about this the right way where is dds right now are they becoming more flexible in their thinking or less flexible um no one has to promise anything but you can often learn a lot by an informal conversation now that we've formulated our ideas better and i guess i would encourage and i doubt they would come to this whole committee and lay it all out so if there was a way to have a conversation in a more supportive space it might be worth considering i have i'm smiling so he might know more about uh well no i i know bill's made an effort um i'm sorry i know tom has made an effort and i i actually called uh and left a message a couple days ago also tom i'm happy to you know continue trying to to make that happen no i have reached out my sense is that they're hesitant to come before this committee and talk turkey uh because um of a lot of reasons and uh i think in part because um they do have different models throughout the state and i do think they maybe uh give a little here and give a little there if them to come in and make you know statements about public policy is um something they probably just don't want to do right but but to your point bill i think a more private conversation would be very helpful and i think we can make that happen and i know gene has some contacts as well and uh so i think we can make that happen and um i will say this you know i think we've all been um appreciative of the positive comments that the individuals who have come before this committee have said about the town and our efforts and i suspect that the state feels the same way that they appreciate the town of whalen's efforts in this regard and i hope is that that goodwill will help us achieve our our goals you know uh relatively easy fashion time will tone um so limited experience with state government but i know they're actually it's easy for them to say no you'll never get a definite yes but if it is a no on usually people will let you know that and so even that would be helpful for sure right um but to bill whitney's uh idea of um a more private um maybe private owned or operated parcel next to a more traditional group home i'm reminded john thomas of your um ask at the last meeting about the family you know within whalen who has a need it reminds me of the uh high spirit composers you know that it seems like a similar need necessarily but uh it seems similar but when i was listening to the media i thought to myself well um could this family and i have friends in the same same situation could this family buy another house and win and and achieve kind of what the what the roach family foundation did in norwood and walpole like just they they bought homes and they filled homes with the delta disabilities and uh um is that right that's correct they they bought existing houses yeah right um so um is there something about this site john that you think that they uh particularly like or see an opportunity that they wouldn't otherwise see in purchasing another home in the town well i think first of all as we all know real estate's really expensive um to have the opportunity to start from scratch and have the support of the town uh and maybe have i i again i maybe getting a little ahead of myself but or this committee in terms of what we're prepared to uh offer but if i were a family uh and i were offered the opportunity to build on two acres roughly speaking um that i didn't necessarily have to pay market value for i think that would be a tremendous incentive i mean we've got two family members that are part of this committee that are on this uh part of this meeting i mean what what do you guys think if if you were in a situation like that where you had the uh opportunity to uh to develop a home for your family member from scratch and i know this is a big a big caveat but and if you had sufficient funding from dds to provide for a program moving forward the the necessary staffing uh you know would that be attractive to to you and what you how would dds pay if a family owned the house so i'm envisioning uh in my scenario uh that the family member would be the recipient of person-centered funding so that can range from ten thousand dollars to hundreds of thousands of dollars so i mean in some cases that would be sufficient funding to provide for the operational needs of the you know individual residents moving forward i mean we're talking about funding that's that's basically on a par with group home funding per uh i think john it's actually it's it is certainly attractive i think that given that we're talking about new construction you're you're adding a layer of difficulty complexity uh you know uh anyone who's remodeled a kitchen knows the hundreds of decisions you have to make and uh the consequences of the contractor not showing up and all that so i wouldn't minimize the uh uh the aggravation factor and and uh you know there's permitting to be done uh i think your developers have to put up money at risk in order to get entitlements uh design fees all that stuff before you get permanent financing so uh i don't know uh i think with uh three years of uh uh advance notice sure they could put some together i personally would find it daunting but maybe others wouldn't um so what did you yeah uh i'd like to ask a question about a different direction here for a minute uh so this committee has permission if it wishes to develop one half and sell the other half we we could make that recommendation okay so the a half lot would that bring a half million dollars um so in other words we split the four acres yes but the four acres what what is a two acre lot in whale and sell for now uh do we know i wouldn't venture to guess okay yes well let's just say for purposes of discussion a half a million bucks after expenses yeah um so maybe another way to use this would be to um and i'm going to talk about accessory dwelling units again so you're forewarned um you know people are looking at accessory dwelling units to house disabled family members and um brian you know is is looking at um if people can build a deed restricted affordable adus for people who might qualify for um funding next state funding dds funding something would it be possible to sell one of those lots and create some kind of grant program that would allow people to give people a grant to help build a deed restricted affordable adu to house a disabled person who lives in wayland is that in the realm of does that maximize something brian is that that maximizing the value well i mean what what i'm hearing from my fellow committee members is that you know they they they have some preference for the traditional dds model which is you're housing four or five people well if we have enough money we can hot you know house four or five people another way so that would allow one lot to stay residential which would be the preference of the neighbors i think and the other one to be the group home and we all we're starting with some concerns that dds might refuse to have two houses next to each other that they fund which is why you were putting forward one dds and one pursuing some other kind of funding right um so i just want to make sure that we're thinking broadly about how you know everything could be boiled down to dollars except human compassion um so we maybe we can uh find a way to use those monies and achieve the same objectives if we're only on that lot going to be able to help four or five people maybe four or five people embedded in the community it's something worth thinking about a little bit i would uh hey gene to have uh the prospect of selling one of the parcels for five hundred thousand dollars and there might be people on the select board or elsewhere who might say hey we could use this to go with the water yeah i know that that occurred to me um excuse me the other thing that occurs to me is that it's possible that one entity could develop a dds supported group home and another model that would get out uh you know this this uh providing housing for this population um i think that's true for my reading yeah there's a there's a lot of we've heard from some sophisticated and experienced people and uh uh but in particular you know we heard about uh the arc that is exploring while they do group homes they also are exploring other models and you know if you had one development entity doing both that i think would be ideal just in terms of coordination or mm-hmm who shares who bears what portion of the common costs and so on Frank Bojo other other other families other families in town who have purchased to you know and purchased a home and um uh privately to house individuals with disabilities i i don't know of any personally but i know there are uh we've had clients who have the means to to buy a home in um you know we we've been working with section 8 vouchers and so forth but they have uh the means to support to purchase a home and do exactly that so the challenge is under the zoning rules that um you can't have unrelated persons and under under one roof the exception of this you know state statute that permits um educational organizations which is uh why we can do this at 212. um you know whether that was a factor in in nowhere to walpole with the roach family foundation or not whether i don't i don't i don't know what the account was not um are there other um considerations for me that uh you'd like to hear comments from the committee uh relative to elements in a report to the select board well one approach i've been thinking about is um to sit to recommend to the select board uh with the committee's concurrence obviously that there be a uh tentatively designated developer or developers of the site and give them basically exclusive right to negotiate and also to give them some confidence that they would reasonably be able to spend some risk capital to do design to do permitting to have conversation give them standing they have conversation with dds and then at the time that hopefully they were able to uh dot all the i's and cross the t's that we would then be at the time would then be in a position to do a final designation and have a closing with the construction contract ready to go the financing ready to go and so forth uh in doing so and you give the developer for developers 12 months 18 months to put it together and if they didn't perform then you have the ability to yank the tentative designation and give it to someone else so as i've thought about that it it may be possible to consider someone who is uh trying out a new model or has less experience than some others and uh still but not necessarily tie a wagon to that outfit because you always have the ability to
yank the designation if they're gonna perform um would it concern you that developers may be scared away by the upfront cost without a guaranteed return the reason that developers make a lot of money is that they put up risk capital and
i think most feel gotta spend money to make money but whether that applies to uh non-profits in the business of developing affordable or housing for people with disabilities i don't know how would your proposal differ from say an rfp that says this is what we like to see uh present your proposal and then the board reviews those submissions and makes the decision what's what's the difference well the i think the the the rfp does all of that and then the town can say we'd like this outfit or these outfits uh we're going to give you 12 months to finalize your proposal and if you perform great and if you don't then you don't it would go forward with you so um you know you'd have to have that conversation with with the developers but i think if they were to go to dbs with that designation in hand uh if i give them standing with dbs and also confidence to you know spend some money on more detailed design legal right all of them um um excuse me and you know we go we could go back to some of those people with them we've met yeah and say what do you think of this approach to be almost like a phase one and phase two spelled out on the rfp or just here's here's what you need to do in order to compete for the tentative designation okay assuming you perform within a certain period of time you you're it if you don't perform you're not it and being an experienced developer you've seen that in the past with the projects well yeah i didn't i used to work for a public agency in boston that did a lot of disposition of property and there again i mean this will well financed sophisticated developers uh for-profit developers some of whom turned out to be non-profit but on case by case basis right that's that's the model i'm familiar with okay um thoughts or questions on um bill's comments yeah i mean i agree with that approach and we don't want to tie our hands uh from the from the get-go we were i think like i mentioned before i really think that a developer working with an agency a partnership uh is going to tell us what what is feasible and hopefully it meets our goals also um but i don't think we can do we can have one without the other at least my feeling is it would be an extension of what tom was talking about right like you would put it out there you'd get a bunch of proposals and you'd pick one and have a tentative agreement right so work on this for a year so an idea might not have to be perfectly baked to get selected but it has to be pretty darn close and then it could be finalized it would give us a little more leeway the select board a little more leeway but it wouldn't be that much leeway it would still have to be a well designed proposal from a really reputable group
um are there other information bill whitney that you'd like to include in the uh recommendation report to the select board i don't know discussed well i'd be interested in whether the committee members have feelings about that i personally find it's easier to work for a draft yeah so i'd be happy to develop a draft for the committee's review and comment okay uh and if there are particular things that people have in mind that i'd be very interested in hearing so people comfortable with that we put together a draft and then we come back together and after having reviewed it and i'll make sure the packet and it would by the way just so we're clear about what it would be at our next meeting because i think it's appropriate to cancel our next meeting and to give you time to put something together and maybe the meeting after that which i think is early in early december if we're ready then fine but i would send you the packet it's a uh on a date that would give you enough time to digest it to discuss it um uh subtletically in our next meeting does that make sense everybody let me uh question clarification so is it your intention to put forward a plan where those two lots are treated separately and you're looking for a single vendor who's going to propose something for each of those sites well Jane i think i'd want to afford uh the opportunity for one developer to develop two buildings uh and say you know uh invite proposals for either or either or both okay i think it would be important to spell that out as an option though bill because otherwise i mean i i i think it would be too ambiguous to uh assume that somebody would
would make that uh part of their proposal that they could develop two buildings versus one i mean we are the town of wayland after all so sorry well i mean i i would i would make it clear that that that's an option for for a developer to be able to even do that i mean otherwise i think i think the the aura of who we who we are and where we live uh might you you you might restrict proposals to only uh folks that are thinking they could only build one are you referring to the cost of the land john no just the the ability to to build two buildings versus one i think is huge i i just think you know we we've been talking about this for for a while now and i think we're we're all kind of on the same page and accepting the two buildings would be a feasible realistic practical possibility but i think somebody coming into this uh wouldn't necessarily make that assumption for uh for this town that they could even do that so i'm i'm supportive of it is i'm just reinforcing there seems to be a fair amount of concern about the size of the building now we have residents in wayland that are six thousand square feet seven thousand square feet five thousand square feet are we going to specify a maximum footprint you know i give me a hint is that going to help i mean part of the concern is getting neighborhood acceptance of residents how are we going to define the size of residence that's going to be acceptable well when the neighbors met with us i think we discussed the idea of setbacks one of the legal questions that town council has been asked is whether the town i think the answer is yes but when the town can include in the rfp uh setbacks on on the property i think bill adams that was a uh topic that came up when the neighbors would put it with us correct yeah yeah it was a question yeah about whether it's yeah yeah and so we i think if it's probably we can we could do that i think legally the town could do that and then the rfp if that's your question well i'm still lobbying for more units so if we have one lot where they would build a traditional five resident unit and then a second lot that looks like a bigger house how much bigger could we go if we're going with a different funding source and are not limited by dds preferences
that's a good question i'm not sure the answer i don't i certainly don't have the answer please think about it well but we'll be the magic kingdom um sorry just one point about that is it's not just the house size right it's the parking lot and the traffic and people coming and going it's a whole enterprise but no that's a good point i think it's a good question and a fair question like what's too big um nobody um when in doubt uh defer i would uh i think i'd come up with some language that talks about uh consistency of uh scale and character of the buildings uh respecting their architectural neighbors or something to that effect and kind of leave the door open um you know somebody may come in and they may have a terrific proposal except it's too big or not big enough and i think we uh would want to reserve the ability to have a second round of uh the ability to uh uh to seek um modifications to the proposal so let me play devil's advocate for a minute bill whitney um by offering an arfp uh the organization developer to develop both problems are are we are we uh walking away from your other idea and that is to have a um the dds focused property on one on one part of the site and then or the private operation on the other half right what do you think is it isn't majorly exclusive well i think it's unlikely you'd get a proposal for two dds finance buildings and i'm not sure the state would go for that anymore because you know it we've got dds supporting multiple units in the same building at charles river they're they're going to be set up so there'll be staff living in the building and there'll be a group of four over here and a group of four over here yeah no not living in the building those are not supported those are they're going to have remote cameras and stuff they're not going to have people supported living with them these these people all are much higher functioning that are going in that um charles river heights okay well perhaps i've misread but no i i kind of agree with gene though from what i heard is one group said dds would never agree to two on the same site and another one said you know what this town is innovative and there's a huge need and sometimes you have a conversation and it becomes possible and so i i heard both angles actually so i don't i don't think i heard for sure that it would never be possible but it we did definitely hear that it's not it's not usual it's not the standard you know specifically i would say i asked charles servers about um you know that for jj and they they do not they will not have live-in help these people are are left alone for hours of the day they have the two houses here would both be highly supported environments but they could be two right next to each other which some people say that's impossible and some people seem to say i don't think it's impossible bill i think we've heard from some agencies that say they've been discouraged to develop that kind of a model but we've also heard from folks that have that have built a model where there's four on one side of a duplex essentially and four on the other side and these are brand new models that dds is funding and just a point of clarification dds is not funding the construction of any of these homes right i just want to point that out but they usually provide some assurance that if you build it we will come we will come and fund it right so i think one of our goals here too is to make recommendations that will serve whalen residents effectively so what i'm getting at is a whalen a whalen preference which i think um is a bit of a challenge with dds or less of a challenge correct me if i'm wrong with a uh non-dds facility they've had more success with that right the roach so one idea then is to have that second site uh uh focus not focus but make it easier for whalen families to house um uh that they're adults adult children um so just i just throw that out there you know maybe we we lead you know leading this dds lead the horse to water and because it does seem like they have some flexibility and things have changed over the years yeah they could also backfire but uh right yeah never accept no for an answer like steve merritt said right do we want to uh afford though the opportunity for um clients other than dds clients to be accommodated on the site um well the organization i understand it let's say it's a we'll call it a dds facility whoever runs it they i think they have a right to accept private pay if that's when you get it right and i'm thinking more about uh you know the uh the nature and extent of the disability of uh the residents um would you want to have diversity there one with on-site staff living staff and the other might be you know or people who have jobs state programs and so forth yeah yeah i'm not sure whether um the best mix uh uh um i don't know the answer to that question i invite others to comment on what they heard i i think bill i i appreciate where you're coming from i really do i just don't know if we're in a position to to micromanage that that kind of um detail of the operation of the program moving forward i mean you you could throw that in and that that could be something that we would ask uh
somebody bidding to to take into consideration i just don't know how they could guarantee that uh down the road no i don't think it's stipulated i i think it's just you afford that possibility uh whereas if you're saying we're going to try and get two dds supported facilities on the same site is that really what we're going to do
um are there other areas that would you like to get feedback on um if we pretend they put it before the patriots game yeah i just one one final thought um so i i agree that we're not going to get dds and buy an extension one of their residential vendor agencies that might potentially bid on on this uh to allow for a whalen set aside which is something that i think we'd all ideally like to have in a perfect world however i mean there are different ways to approach this and this is why i keep going back to the idea of inviting families that live in this town to participate in this process because while dds can't make that uh promise that they will create a carved out set aside in uh their residential contract say potentially to that would fund this program uh into the future the families that are are being served by dds can absolutely advocate for that particularly families that either live in whalen or perhaps contiguous towns and i see stephanie nodding her head you can absolutely go to dds and say look i don't want my family member served out in the berkshires i want them serve locally and that is a powerful uh tool and if we could tap into that somehow uh then we might be able to inherently build in uh a local preference if if we could get the word out on the street to families that have um family members that have residential dollars that wow guess what there's going to be this uh resonance that's going to be developed one way or the other in wayland uh we we would really encourage you to get on the phone with your dds service coordinator and say look you know i want to be part of this and that can drive dds to actually think about who they ultimately want to serve uh through through whatever contract they end up putting together so i just wanted to throw that out there from my experience working in a dds area office working on the other side of the coin uh working at the state house i mean that that's that's how it works that's how it operates i think that's a great point john so so whitney would you agree that it'd be more prudent for us not to be in the 19th but maybe shoot for the third then cross our bridge then yeah okay all right so we'll plan on that folks we'll plan not to meet on the 19th we'll meet we'll plan to meet next in the third and if that's untimely we won't hold that meeting either are there any other final comments before i entertain a motion to adjourn hearing none i'll entertain a motion to adjourn so cool if bill whitney has moved all those in favor uh john said yes john no i now here i i don't even have i need approval oh yes sorry bill out yes stephanie yes yes jane yes um brian yes um yes seven zero thank you all for your input time