October 29, 2025 – Conservation Commission – Video & Transcript
October 29, 2025 - Conservation Commission
What's up? All right. Since we got a quorum at 633, I'd like to open the Conservation Commission meeting for Wednesday, October 29th, 2025.
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Pursuant to Chapter 2 of the Acts of 2025, this meeting will be conducted via remote means in accordance with applicable law.
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With that said, we're going to go right into executive session, so we're at 2A. Actually, no, right now, myself, Lisa, Shannon, Luke are all dialing in remotely. Linda's at the headquarters there. All right. To help make the motion, and if someone would make the motion, all I have to say is, so move. So, I will entertain a motion to go into executive session under GL30A to discuss strategy with respect to litigation known as Matter of Planning Office of Urban Affairs, Inc. St. Anne's 40B, OADR, docket WET 2025-015, because I declare that discussing the matter in open session may have a detrimental effect on the litigating position of the Conservation Commission, on the Commission, and the Commission to return to open session. So moved. Thank you, Luke. Before we go in, I also like to invite Linda. Before I say that, I'm going to make sure we're also going to, Linda, invite you, Tom Faye, Amy Quetzel in with us as well. So, with that, Luke, do you still make the motion? Yes, so moved. Yes, so moved. Thank you. Do we hear a second? Second. Thank you, Shannon. Roll call, please. Shannon Fischer? Yes. Luke Legere? Yes. Lisa Aubin? Yes. All right, folks, we'll be back in a little bit. All right, seeing we've got a quorum back. Thank you, folks, for being patient with us. Let's go back into the public hearings, please. So this is 3A, 108 Lakeshore Drive DEP file number 322-1042. It's a continued notice of intent filed pursuant to Wayland's Wetlands and Water Resource Protection Bylaw and the Wetland Protection Act. It's been by Melissa Haley for the prior unpermitted renovation work and completion of said work at 108 Lakeshore Drive in Wayland, Mass. The proposed work is with 100 feet of Dudley Pond, and the property is shown on Assessor's Map 46B, Parcel 35. Linda. Doug Dillon is here to give us an update on that project. Okay. Oh, there's Doug. Can you hear me? Yep, I got you. Yep. Yeah, sorry for the delay in between updates. Our engineer, he got married. He left the country for a handful of months to facilitate that and has recently returned, thankfully. That was an unforeseen sort of event that I wasn't able to predict. But he is back and I was able to get him on the horn, you know, after speaking with Emily over email today. And, you know, he's kind of back in the saddle for this project here, just ensuring the updates. Linda and I had an exchange over email probably a month and a half ago now. And, you know, he's been able to implement those changes to the plans. And I'd like to get those in front of you guys for, you know, as soon as I possibly can after his hand flows. But that's sort of the long and short of it. I've been, frankly, waiting, you know, with my kind of sitting on my hands just as much as you guys. Okay. Thanks for the update. Hope you want some more fun. Yeah. Yeah. Grease. Oh, then. Great. Linda, anything from you? You're muted, Linda. Linda, you're muted. No, this, we just, I asked Doug to join us so that he can give us an update. We hadn't heard from them for a long time. And this enforcement order is going on two years. So I wanted to get some idea of what the timeframe is. Okay. And Linda, remind me, what's the next date of our meeting in November? The 19th, is it? I don't know.
Okay. 17th. Is it the 17th? Yeah. Perfect. Commission, anything? We'll just wait to hear from Doug and the team out there back at it. Yeah. I just want to circle up with him one more time and get these stamped and, you know, get submitted to you guys, you know, proper number of hard copies and so on for your next meeting there. It is the 19th. Sorry. The 19th. Yeah. The next meeting is Wednesday, November the 19th. So we're then looking for continuation then to the 19th. Is that enough time? Yes. Yeah. Okay. Do you want to ask for a motion for a continuance to the 19th? Okay. Okay. I get a motion and it continues then to November 19th sometime after 630, please. I move that we continue the hearing under the act in chapter 194 to November 19th after 630 PM. Thank you, Luke. Second. That was Shannon. Second. Thank you. Roll call, please. Shannon Fischer. Yep. Luke was here. Yes. Barbara Howell. Yes. Lisa Aubin. Yes. And Sean. Yes. Thanks. Thanks, Doug. You for your time. Okay. On to 3B. 397 Boston Post Road, also known as Russell's, DEP file number 322-1048. It's a continued notice of intent filed pursuant to Wayland's Wetlands and Water Resource Protection Bylaw and the Wetland Protection Act submitted by Dan Skihan for the after the fact paving work and installation of a stormwater management at 397 Boston Post Road and 99 Pelham Island Road in Wayland, Mass. The proposed work is a 200-foot riverfront area and the 100-foot buffer zone of avoiding vegetated wetlands. Property is shown on assessor's map 23, parcels 004 and 015. Linda. There was a peer review, I believe, in your packet, so we did hear back from Dillis and Roy. They reviewed the stormwater management, had some comments, and their engineer at Russell's still needs to respond to that and has asked for a continuance. They would like to continue until the December meeting. And when is that right tell? Oh, gee whiz. You have to, it's way too much. I think it's, is it the 10th? No, wait. So now I got to look at the calendar. I think it's on the 3rd. Sorry. Okay. Looks like there's one on the 3rd and the 17th. 3rd? Yeah. December 3rd. Okay. All right. Commission, can I get a motion then to continue this sometime under both sometime after 630 on December 3rd, please? So moved. Thank you. Luke, do I hear a second? Second. Thank you. Thank you. Shannon, roll call, please. Shannon Fischer. Yep. Luke Legere. Yes. Barbara Howell. Yes. Lisa Aubin. Yes. Sean Ferz. Yes. All set. Thank you. Okay. On to the 3C. This is 169 Rice Road DEP file number 322-1053. It's continued notice of intent file pursuant to Wayland's Wetlands and Water Resource Protection Bylaw and the Wetland Protection Act submitted by St. Bill Petter, Mercurius, and St. Mina Coptic Orthodox Church for the work at 169 Rice Road in Wayland, Mass. Proposed work includes a demolition of an existing church and construction of three new buildings, parking surfaces, a courtyard, a sports field, and stormwater management systems. The project is done with a 200-foot riverfront area and a 100-foot buffer zone of a boring vegetated wetlands. The property is shown on Assessor's Map 40, Parcel 08. Linda. The applicant has requested a continuance until our next meeting on November 19th. Okay. Can I please hear a motion to continue this under both for sometime after 630 on November 19th, please? So moved. Thank you, Luke. Do I hear a second? Second. Thank you, Shannon. Roll call, please. Shannon Fischer. Yep. Luke Legere. Yes. Barbara Hall. Yes. Lisa Aubin. Yes. And Sean Fersen. Yes. Thank you. Excuse me. On to 11. Sorry. This is 3D. 11 Cameron Road DEP file number 322-1054. It's a continued notice of intent filed pursuant to Wayland's Wetlands and Water Resource Protection Bylaw and the Wetland Protection Act submitted by Adam Murato for the construction of an addition to a single-family home at 11 Cameron Road in Wayland, Mass. The property is shown on Assessor's Map 38, Parcel 149. It is located with a 100-foot of a bordering vegetated wetland. Linda. This applicant has also asked for a continuance to our next meeting. Okay. Are we getting bonus pay on the next meeting, or what? All right. Can I please have a motion then for continuance under both? Yes. Under both for sometime after 630 on November 19th, please. So moved. Thank you, Luke. Do I hear a second? Second. Thank you, Shane. Roll call. I think that's Lisa I heard. It's Lisa. I'm going my head and sound, Shane. Oh, you're throwing me off my Groundhog Day here. Roll call, please. Shannon Fischer. Yeah. Luke Legere. Yes. Yes. Barbara Howell. Yes. Lisa Aubin. Yes. And Sean Fares a yes. Thank you, folks. On to 3E. 67A, Loker Street, DEP. Do we have a number for this one, Linda? I do not have a number for this one, no. Okay. Sorry, no DEP number. This is a notice of intent filed pursuant to Weyland's Wetlands No Water Resource Protection Bylaw and the Wetland Protection Act submitted by Matt O'Connor for the demolition of an existing barn and construction of a six-unit compact apartment facility at 67A Loker Street in Weyland, Mass. The property is shown on Assessor's Map 48, Parcel 42. It is located within a 100-foot buffer zone of a boring vegetated wetlands and 200-foot riverfront area. Linda. I believe we have Oak Tree Management on, so I'm not sure who wants to take over discussing this to the commission or presenting the project. Hi. My name is Matt O'Connor. I'm trying to turn on my video. Okay. Well, can you all hear me? Yes. Yeah, you're good. Okay. Sorry about that. Hello, Weyland Conservation Commission. We are presenting plans and have submitted an NOI for a six-bedroom supportive housing home that we'd like to build at, and I'm going to refer to the property as it currently exists 67A Loker Street, and then we applied for and been granted a change of address to 1 Hobbs Road, Weyland. So, the parcel of the new house will be designed for people with cognitive, physical, and developmental disabilities. We think that this project is needed. Housing like this is needed in the town, and we've been working together with some of the people on the call here to propose and go forward with this project with, you know, advice and direction from your board commission. Okay. Do you have any plans you want to show us, or is this just kind of a preliminary heads up as to what's coming through? We've submitted the site plans, and we'll be going forward for site plan approval because of the use, the end use of the property. Perfect. Yep. Someone just brought up the plan. Perfect. Oh, thank you. Thank you. Whoever did that, thank you. Brandon Ducharme with Davey Ross. We did the engineering for the project. If you want, I can just give a quick overview. So, the property is at the corner of Hobbs Road, Alden Street, and then there's an intersection with Loker and Alden Street here. It's about 0.78 acres, so a little under an acre in size. There's an existing two-story barn that's currently on the property. And what we're proposing here, as Matt said, is the new building footprint is going to essentially replace pretty close to the exact footprint of the existing barn. And it's obviously in the same location. And in doing that, what we've done is we've added, or currently, there's two forms of ingress and egress into the site. There's an existing driveway here up Alden Street, as well as there's an access way that runs through here off of Hobbs Road. The way the site is, it's higher in elevation here in the back. Even with the existing barn now, it's essentially a walkout on the back. So, this is a lower level with basement access. And the new building is going to be similar to that. So, the main entrance would be off of Hobbs Road here. We've provided a parking area with 12 parking spots. And this would have first floor access in accordance with ADA accessibility standards, which will come from the parking lot into the building. And then, as with the existing barn, there's a walkout in the back that there will be access to garage bays providing maintenance. Things such as rubbish and recycling will be contained within the building there. So, in pulling together the design for this, we've provided stormwater management. So, for both parking areas here, what we've done is we've provided deep sump catch basins that get collected to a manhole. And then, there will be a storm scepter treatment unit that will polish that water. And then, we're providing subsurface infiltration here with an overflow that would tie into... There's an existing 30-inch drain that connects the wetland area on the opposite side of Hobbs Road to the wetland area just south of Alden Street here. And then, there's an existing catch basin behind the barn now. We're obviously going to remove that and provide an additional catch basin right at the entrance to Alden Street there that will continue to tie into the road drainage within Alden Street. So, quickly, just looking also at the resource areas. As I mentioned, there's a wetland on the opposite side of Hobbs Road here. This is actually a perennial stream with an associated bordering vegetated wetland that goes to this headwall here. And that culvert is about 260 feet long. It goes through the property via an easement. It comes over to the south side of Alden Street where it empties out here. And then, there's a small pond with an associated wetland there. We've obviously depicted the 100-foot buffer zones to both those sections of wetland as well as we're showing the 200-foot riverfront area. Where the stream itself goes through that culvert, the riverfront area terminates at the end and then begins again both at the beginning of the outlet and obviously where it daylights over here south of Alden Street. We've gone through, there's also a septic system that's proposed for the units. And again, that footprint is here. We've provided a copy of the septic plan that was designed by another engineering firm that was included in the packet. And we've gone through, there is some removal of trees and we have a planting schedule on one of the sheets that goes over the number of trees removed as well as a planting schedule to address that part of the bylaw. And with that, I think that gives us just a pretty good overview to kind of get comments from the commission. Questions? Okay. Thanks, Brendan. Linda, start with you, please. Did I get a planting plan? I'm not sure. It's on this sheet, C3.1. So we've got the schedule of trees removed and we have the plantings. Okay. Okay. I do have a few questions. Just want to make sure you guys are ready for conservation review. Did you get a curb cut permit from the DPW for Hobbs? I have an existing curb cut permit that I didn't exercise that was originally intended for construction entrance on that side, but it was never built. So, yes, we did get. So, yes, we did get. Was it temporary construction? Temporary construction? Temporary construction entrance? melt equipment? Theme just Peasellam, yeah. know that. But this deployment is where we don't have the housing plan. No. . Oh, no. Early in the project, we were working on this for a couple of years. entrance uh to the house further down hobbs road um and i did go through um you know the steps to get that uh you know approved um but that has now that that license or permit has now expired so i'll have to reapply with uh um you know for this modified curb cut permit as shown in this drawing okay well you know i don't think we want to put the cart before the horse until you get that i mean you know it doesn't make sense for us to approve this plan without knowing for certain that you have a curb cut allowance from dpw okay okay um also did you is the septic client approved um it's on darren's desk uh as we speak okay so no so sorry to answer the question no the septic has not currently been uh approved i've not gotten those plans back yet okay uh we are trying to apply also to um demo the barn that's a whole separate permitting process i don't know if the board can uh approve that or or if they can condone that at this point or if there's anything that we could get um started i mean we don't we don't have any jurisdiction over the demolition of the barn so okay i mean you're not causing an alteration by demoing because you're going to leave the foundation is my understanding no we're going to remove it's a stone boulder uh foundation concrete foundation that will be removed there's also a concrete floor that is uh still you know partially covered uh by the existing uh barn structure as it is uh as it stands today uh they had been numerous uh numerous in the you know uh in the 70s there was a fire so the barn had been much bigger uh but we will be removing all historic and current uh barn uh you know foundation and structure okay and then i i do wonder about the need for having such a large parking lot on the on the on the on the south side of that on the alden side i mean you already have 12 spaces uh within the riverfront and on the north side is there a reason why you would have such a large parking area on the south side uh that is uh less congested by uh homes single family homes and the design uh of the building is to try to you know disrupt uh the neighborhood as little as possible so the um recycling the trash would be through two um you know garage doors on the back lower elevation of the building which uh brings the servicing of the building you know further away from the abutters on the hobs road side yeah but it looks like that allows for the trash truck to sorry i apologize no that allows for the trash truck to uh enter enter and to turn around in that uh space but that's bigger than the size of the barn i mean is it really that necessary um because you're owning a lot of impervious and it doesn't appear that you're picking up that are you are you managing that that runoff from that parking lot yeah so that that'll get picked up that catch basin and that's all included in the drainage report that was submitted just going over the so the catch basin in in the road in the public road is that uh the catch basin is is right here um just inside the driveway so that proposed catch basin will be picking up that flow uh there there is an existing catch basin that's behind the barn now that will be removed and this this new one will be installed and that's that is addressed in the drainage report okay so i see there's an additional parking lot on this property too that's associated with the apartment complex is that new has that always been there this lot up here in the back is is new to the to the left of that that so this is an existing driveway parking area that's associated with 67 local street so there is an easement access and utility easement that encompasses that uh for that use yeah but that that that parking lot was expanded also when when the the apartment complex was rehabbed and that's why i'm just asking how how new is that because now we have an additional impervious on this on this property within the riverfront that wasn't permitted so that was an existing a parking area that was repaved okay was that all you do okay all right and um i guess i my my next recommendation to the commission was that there is a a large hydrocad uh drainage report for this um i would um uh i would request probably a peer review for that because that's that's not something i can manage um with the with our resources here can i ask sorry and uh if i may uh just clarification on what that means we're just asking for an independent engineer to take a look at your drainage report and provide comments to the conservation commission i got you so is is that somebody that the town would hire or we would hire um uh we would hire them and you would pay for it pay for the review um has there ever been a waiver given um for payment of an independent review company not that i'm not that i know of no but is that uh all on your list yeah again there's no there's no ep file number so there's um there's not much we can do um other than you know um review and and i mean uh you know ask questions and things like that i do think that um making sure that they have a curb cut allowance and they have an approved septic plan is important because any one of those could could significantly change the design of this project so i wouldn't i mean i guess i would wait to um advance a peer review until all those other factors are sort of cleared up and and finalized do you um happy to do that i'm trying to think if in the meantime do you want us to take a vote to allow you to take a peer review whatever that may look like when information comes into us then or or no well it depends on if you want to see the revised plan or not you know if these plans get changed due to based on you know the feedback from dpw and and health department um oh i'm yeah i'm just saying giving you permission to uh start a peer review before next meeting if if you get that back but if not we can just wait till next time anyways yeah i think i think it might be better when we just wait till next time okay uh commission before we make any motions any thoughts comments concerns on this one not much we can do we just need a dp before number before we can do anything but is any comments let's help make it now i mean i certainly echo linda's concerns about what seems like a pretty significant amount of paving parking area on less than an acre we've got a fairly large lot in the back here with twice as many spots as units we've got this really large parking area in the front and if i'm reading this driveway correctly on the side this is a is is this as large a driveway as i'm reading it um it looks really big so this whole lot is taking a lot of pavement so i'm concerned about that and then my other question is looking at that looking at what i think is the planting plan i don't think i've seen any species am i am i missing them or is it just numbers we showed the location and size of the plantings and then we have there was just a note that the plantings would be in accordance with the recommended list of plantings that the commission provides okay um and it yeah so in terms of the parking um i know looking at the plan but with the two garage bays there the width of that parking from the garage bays towards alden street that's it's about 31 feet so with a typical driveway apron coming out of a uh residential home is usually around 35 feet just to just to provide uh room for turning movements to come in and out of that garage and as matt said also is we've got uh trash collection being able to i mean is there a recommended or uh was is the would the commission recommend something with regard to their concerns about the parking meaning it is there something that is either acceptable or unacceptable or um yeah i mean i'll speak for herself i i think more of the concern is making sure that all that runoff and impervious is is picked up somewhere on on site so that's kind of our overall um jurisdiction here but i think you know that's kind of the thought and also whether they're less of it it i mean it linda's right it does look like it's wider than the building if i'm interpreting this right so it just you know if this could be reduced i mean speaking purely for myself especially given the neighbor's apparent paving over part of this as well um speaking for myself okay so let if i'm just taking notes here sorry so if we're to do less parking we would have to re-engineer uh this plan again i mean i also defer to some of you know like thoughts from other folks but this this is my thought is like is there a way to reduce the amount of paving on this lot this is a small lot with a lot of paving uh okay i i would just chime in on that too i i agree with what shannon is saying what linda said it's it does seem to be a lot of pavement a lot of parking but i think also you know to linda's point off the top um if you're i think you said you're gonna have to go for site plan review i just don't know as i sit here right now whether there are a certain number of spaces that are going to be required under zoning for this use um so i guess really what i'm getting at is i would encourage you to look for ways to reduce the parking but it also might behoove you to kind of get into that site plan review process as well just to understand you know if you come back and tell us we can't reduce the number of spaces this is what's being required by planning you know that would be a factor that i would certainly take into consideration as well but uh if that's not a factor then yeah i think trying to reduce the number of spaces and the overall pavement would be great okay can i get no please no my only other comment was if if this is and matt you said this is going for site plan approval does the drainage report get reviewed by the by the town for that and would that be sufficient for the commission's review instead of you know paying to have it reviewed twice i'm just not sure what you guys typically do right yeah typically it's just one review for all the different land use departments we're not going to have separate reviews depending on what and uh they know they might they might they might ask for that also so that's something i know are you going in front of zoning or are you going in front of planning board or neither uh i'm sorry linda i apologize could you repeat that it's so do you need to go in front of the planning board or the zoning board for this yes plan i believe i have to go in front of uh landing board and i believe the site also okay well i i would encourage you again to to start that process first because if if anybody has changes to the design it would most likely be the planning board so um i think i think we're going to have to put a pause on this for the time being and um we i'll work with planning board to come to um uh find a peer reviewer to do the stormwater they will ask for it also and then we'll just do one peer review and they may have additional requirements i i can't speak for them so um i would yeah like i said i would encourage you to start the planning or planning board or zoning board process and whatever you need to do and put a pause on this for now okay yeah i have met with the the uh town planner um that has given me some advice uh on on uh for for a planning board and he's helped me fill out the forms or give me some guidance i should say and filling out um their um you know documents and i guess as we were talking about the impervious just a general question or just to make sure i understood what was said earlier is that um the way the property is graded the existing barn and the new proposed footprint there's going to be kind of like the walkout level that you're proposing with the two garage bays on the south side and then the north side is where the first floor is the main floor and that's why like the ada parking needs to be on that back side is that correct the way it's designed right now with the sorry the back so it's a handicap van um that will be used uh to transport people and the idea was to you know kind of hide that larger uh van under the building uh in the garage so i uh minuteman arc has a uh these you know these larger um you know vans but that's again so that would not be parked out in the open uh on the uh higher elevation it is a sloped site like brandon right but the higher elevation has the handicap parking spot right that has to be level with the first floor oh yes yes yes it's ramped yeah sorry i apologize if i miss it nope that's okay it is ramped up um you know so you can get in a wheelchair from the parking you know into the into the first floor got it but then the bottom bay would be um where the the van would be parked yes okay yes thank you okay so with that i think we need to continue until this next time we get dp number and hopefully it'll be in front of a few other boulders is the 19th linda in time frame good i i don't know i really don't know i don't know where they're on the on the if they're going it's in front of the plane or a zba i don't know when that meeting would be scheduled but i think i would encourage them to do that first before they come back to conservation correct could you guys want to keep it to the continuous end of the 19th or our next meeting and hopefully have more by then if not we can only just continue after that uh yes please that's if that's the next available date yes sir yep okay um all right commission i'm looking then for a motion for continuance under both uh for some sometime after 6 30 on november 19th please so moved thank you luke do we hear a second second thank you babs roll call please shannon fisher yes luke lazier yes barbara howell yes lisa aubin yes and sean fairs a yes all set see you in a few weeks okay thank you all very much i appreciate your support appreciate it thank you uh on to us number four this is the public meetings for a 37 45 and 47 waltham road uh carroll school d-1046 as you continue to request for determination filed pursuant to whalen's wetlands and water resource protection bylaw and the protection act submitted by the carroll school for the construction of a new school building with associated parking areas septic system and utilities at 37 39 45 waltham road and whalen mass proposed work is partially within the 100 foot buffer zone of a boring vegetated wetland property is shown on assessor's map 5 lot 14 15 and 16. linda i'm either in front of the planning board tonight so they they um asked to continue the hearing uh since they can't be at two places at once i guess um and uh i don't i don't remember if we got the peer review back for this one or not anyway so i'm not sure um i i don't have the plans or the project in front of me but they did ask for a continuance also um planning board also asked to hold a joint meeting at some point with for carroll school and coptic church um since they're both they're both those projects are in front of us and planning board so that that might be a possibility in our next meeting too just so you know okay all right on to number five okay never mind uh stormwater and land disturbances 5a 15 training field road swld-145 linda um i believe we have the homeowner here i don't know oh there she is susan yes hi everybody hey susan how are you so this is a this is a fairly old one too um it was part of an enforcement order for the removal of trees and a large number of trees without a permit so she's come back to us with a planting plan i believe that was in your packet yes i can share my screen as well if that's helpful sure thank you okay hey how is that for everyone perfect thank you great sure my pleasure so um this is uh i can scroll down and there's a key so this shows the location of 23 plantings um from the native list uh and um the key is here so two a's and you can see the position etc i can't share both of them at the same time i don't know if you prefer to look at this first um and then let me know i can advance to the key that shows you what each of the letters represents in terms of the native plantings we chose or someone chose for it for us you can go to the key if you like sure thank you of course okay linda anything from you well yeah it it is disappointing that you're not you're not planning for me all mainly just just shrubs i mean you took down 10 very large trees 150 year old maple trees beautiful maple trees go ahead barbara beautiful large maple trees
i'm sorry but i could on the um on the packet the number of maple trees that were removed i wasn't able to to see those i saw that there were six 20 inch pines removed but i couldn't see the number of maples removed uh four i believe thanks including a 36 inch diameter one i guess um i guess for what it's worth uh we moved from weston earlier in the year and we had a lot of tree work done on our property so we had a relationship with a tree company when we moved we had them come look and they advised us that um they felt that um they felt that the trees were dangerous they were held together with cables and they were immediately adjacent to the house um we took their their advice seriously because we had a 10-year relationship with them in our previous home and also because they couldn't do the work they weren't equipped uh to do the work so subsequently we had two additional tree companies who gave us the same advice so i guess just for what it's worth the the tree is certainly um miss howell were gorgeous and um we were told that they were a danger to the structure a number of times by experts including one we had a long time relationship with thank you i appreciate that so i'm i'm sorry for it certainly um so what would the linds there i'm here oh um anything else no i was i was just hoping that there would be a mix of i mean there's there's two flowering dogwoods and everything else is shrubs and i was hoping that there would be at least some replacement of of trees um on this property versus just um a variety of native shrubs i i sort of back up what linda says i think in a lot of the towns who have um somewhat stronger rules it's it's kind of um eye for an eye in some way so a canopy tree needs to be replaced by a canopy tree some of them go so far as to suggest species maple goes down maple goes back in um and so i kind of echo linda's disappointment in this a lot of habitat was lost and it's not really being significantly restored because a shrub simply cannot have the same ecosystem effects as a mature tree including you know carbon sequestration habitat food for lepidoptera you know um you know water capture all of that so it's a significant loss anybody else okay um yeah i mean yeah i guess i i'd echo the same um but this is what if it's in line linda with our planting plan right we're good i i haven't checked that yet because i didn't have i couldn't find the diameters of the trees that were removed and um without knowing what size they were it was um um because that's not on their application at all that i have here so unless i missed it somewhere um i'll go back and look at emails exchange i've had email exchanges with emily and again we did hire someone to make sure that you know the native plantings were compliant the diameters were compliant the numbers matched i mean as well as i can interpret it english on the documents i received it is it is compliant um i'll look for you know i'm searching my email i mean i have a really small plan and the only thing on here says 36 inch maple and the other three i have no idea what the size was it's impossible to read that i can't or i mean is the applicant are you iron like are you more open to you know considering trees i mean you know thinking of the wildlife that live in this neighborhood it it behooves them it would be sort of a powerfully beneficial thing to do um but um are there is an extensive amount of plantings on our property um i i i feel like we invested and hired someone to make sure that you know that we did this in a way that was considerate and compliant both um and there's so there's so much uh on this property with regard to plantings of all types i feel like it's pretty balanced linda do you buy the numbers on the i didn't have those i don't have those in front again i don't know the size of the trees and until i find that out there's i can't come up with a number that of replacement i mean i do know i'm fairly certain that um large trees all require six shrubs so if you take down um 10 large trees i would think you would need at least 60 shrubs so but again i'm i without knowing the size of the trees that were because i can't read the plan um a better assessment here okay uh good good um i was really excited to join tonight and i'm really excited to be part of this community and um i am i we complied with everything that we were asked to do um and so i'm just a little bit concerned that i i feel like i feel like i gave the right answers and you're changing the questions or something i'm saying i can't find a way to do it and um i don't you know i want i want to be a productive and positive part of this community but we did comply exactly with what we were asked to do yes that's it's your point i'm confused linda how did emily give her information to talk with a consultant like someone at some point knew a baseline of info so i guess it was emily who knew the information to give her consultant for the plantings at some point it's in our bylaw it's in our chapter 193 regulations right for the for the replacement stuff and i went i went looking because it said it said on on the plan board of health so i went looking to the board of health plans and i didn't find that same plan so i'm just looking for the information to find out the only way you can come up with compensation is by knowing the size of the tree because it's all based on the size of the tree so i just i just need to go back and find see if i can find um better information on the trees that were removed um and and then i come up with just to confirm that their compensation is is matches what the our requirements are in the bylaw so so i guess can linda can you work with susan in the meantime to make sure that's correct and that way once that's confirmed susan you don't have to come back the next one we can okay i do have the email from emily that um shows the tree replacement guidelines and you know all of the information that we followed i'm happy to forward that if it's helpful i'm sure it's just standard stuff that you guys have um right again i i certainly don't want to be difficult but i yeah no so i think just implied
i just i just want to make sure it's correct before we you know um we ask you to move ahead and invest in the in the plantings and everything okay so yeah so i guess work with linda i'll find to make sure that whatever you're what you're telling us is the right compensation assuming that's correct then you don't be you don't have to be the next meeting we can you know do all stuff without you here as long as linda gives us a thumbs up okay so i'm gonna do nothing uh since i have the trail of what we were asked to do and what we did it's just a matter of when they're matching that up and then let me know if i need something else okay exactly right tomorrow morning get with her and she'll be pretty quick to clear it up i did i do just want to say like like as you know these are some beautiful shrubs and they they do have value and you know flowering dogwood is a stunning plant and like you're adding beauty and and don't don't feel bad like i would have personally preferred trees because i know what what benefits canopy trees give to the wildlife um but you know i have aronia clathra mirica myself at least wonderful and so you know just to just to add that in there thank you thank you very much we did try to we we you know like i said we want to we want to do what we need to do and we're happy to be a part of the community so i appreciate that very much thank you thank you so yeah yeah you sign off to work with linda and take care and we should be good to go okay thank you everybody for all your help have a good night i won't be back in the office till next week so we'll i'll work on it next week okay okay thanks okay on to this is 5b 19 moral moral road swld-159
um oh who's on nick arthur on ted you said you want to present the project to the commission yes hi i'm nick arthur the property owner and builder and i have my engineer ted doucette here um ted's probably more suited to answer some of the technical questions so ted do you mind just giving a quick rundown of the project no good to go do we have to open the public hearing or anything or are we good to go okay all right um all right so yeah this is um our first foray into this uh tree removal um and uh stormwater bylaw and uh we feel that we are complying um this is a house that's being um torn down and a new uh one being built up in its place um the plan does say four bedroom uh we have decided the owners decided they want to get to a five bedroom so i need to upgrade the septic system but nothing is changing about the footprint that you see here uh oh you don't see it here because i'm not sharing screen uh let me get onto that okay so uh yeah so this is uh 19 moral um interesting well kind of interesting lot shape here you can see that it it's a through lot goes back to uh lake road terrace here it's kind of down at the end of moral almost um before you get to the uh to the pond but um you can see the smaller house here that's being torn down and then the larger footprint going here um and then the proposed septic system that has been approved for four bedrooms and uh in this area we have uh a stormwater infiltration system uh it consists of uh two of these uh larger um chambers and set on crushed stone and surrounded by crushed stone you can see there's a a bunch of trees here that are coming down that are you know some of them for the portion for the safety of the home and within the footprint and then just some other ones that are um have been determined to be brought down you can also see some plantings here uh the proposed trees um and some proposed shrubs in here a couple more trees over here and you can see the count right here um hoping i can i use the correct document um um but it you know accounts for we're proposing two shrubs um well actually a total of eight six shrubs and five trees um as you can see the the replacement required and then what we're proposing for what's been removed and the stormwater sorry just a question on the trees because i could only see four count 14 on them on the plan that are marked with an x but i saw 15 in the table i think there are like two places it said 14 and two places it said 15 so i just want to confirm the number of trees that are coming down is it 14 or 15. i think it's uh it'll be the one that has everything that has an x and thank you for bringing that to my attention i i didn't catch that earlier um one two three yeah yeah sorry no that's probably me that's probably me yeah uh if there are 14 x's uh we are proposing to take down 14 trees and i'm um based on some of the comments i heard from the last hearing just a few moments ago we may not have our ratio perfect here and i am certainly open to planting more trees than shrubs if that's what the commission would prefer to see but uh and or happy to mitigate for 15 trees even if we're taking down 14 so seems like just uh yeah i believe the count i believe the count is for um for uh you know the 15 trees so yeah one tree you know hey great get an extra get an extra tree in there uh uh courtesy of this owner but um yeah i mean i i thought it was good balance i mean we got you know five trees you know i don't think i know i think the ratio is okay i don't know anyway uh and then the stormwater is um the stormwater infiltration um uh will infiltrate um a 10-year a 10-year storm 24-hour uh type 3 storm uh which is calculated as a 4.7 inch rainfall so all of the water from the 2500 square foot roof will be infiltrated without any um any runoff caused by that structure or that impervious area can i briefly borrow help from my commission i lost myself in this pdf somewhere can what what number and our giant packet are these pages on yeah i don't i'm not sure it's in there shannon's i didn't i'm not finding it either i i go right from the 15 training field to the certificate of compliance request oh yeah i'm looking right at this one i'm not looking at our back it's before oh it is before it's on page 286 i even made a note of that okay i'm i'm i'm caught up i'm sorry sometimes i like to follow along on my own and i just could not find where you were talking i'm carry on i think that's probably the best and quickest overview of the project one thing i think it is important to note is uh we're not proposing any grade change at all um the site for all practical purposes is pretty flat from front to back so all of these grades are existing and proposed it's one of the flatter sites we've uh been able to work on so no no proposed grade changing perfect which is another point that i missed is uh no erosion control is proposed i'll just point that out there i mean there's no stockpiling there's no big you know stripping of a road so this and then like you said it's generally level and if there are any grades it all slopes back down to the into the property so no erosion control just want to make sure that's clear no i will note that um and i think linda's aware we did install silt fence around uh the property already um so we haven't done any any work but we did put erosion control in just with snow coming and okay freezing temperatures it's we figured better to get it in okay uh linda start with you please i do count 14 trees on your plan and there's 14 trees on on the table just to clarify it's just your narrative says 15 but then there is one right next to the leach field that's i don't know if that's going to survive uh um all the um the work that you're planning on doing around the leach field because you you would be you would be generating there though wouldn't you ted for for installing and leach field i mean here's stockpiles to me and stockpiles to other people who have been doing this for you know well i know i've been doing but i mean stockpile it is a stockpile to me is something that's going to be 30 feet high or you know 20 feet high and it's going to be left on the site forever it's going to be sit there without any any erosion control or anything on it yes there is going to be materials stored on site if you want to call it a stockpile too yes but it's not going to be much more than six feet it's just going to be some of the loam stripped off while for the area of the septic system and it's going to be put aside and um you know it's it'll be it'll be it'll be stored if you want to call a stockpile there but yes it's not a stockpile that's going to be sitting there for you know for three months that needs to be that needs to have erosion control or it needs to be seeded or anything so that's just part of the process of septic systems yeah no i get that i mean typically we just ask for a while just just you know put a run erosion control around it but i'm i'm happy to agree to that yeah but just to clarify too in your um in your narrative you make it sound like that we don't have a bylaw um but we we have well have an approved bylaw it was it was voted on in 2015 um it's just the regulations are still in draft and the reason for that is that you know we haven't voted on them but the you know we use them as guidelines because it provides you with information that you need submittal requirements okay so because otherwise you send me something if it's not complete i'm going to ask for more and delay the project whereas if you know exactly what you need to submit you know that's important and we can get the project you know approved a lot faster so which is why yeah i emailed you tonight when i got back i saw your email and i talked to another homeowner on a project we're talking about and i admitted i was i was confused about bylaw and um and regulations so yes um yeah he came and gave me a lot of grief today so you know for not that he has to comply with a um a non-existent bylaw and i had explained that yeah so but um but again there's there's some trees in here i mean if you're going to take down one more by this leach field is there one of these that that can be saved i mean there's a few of them that really aren't in the in the work zone at all so i just didn't know if that was there was a reason why they were coming down more so just to open up for some yard area i don't know how many of uh you guys have had had the uh i have driven by this property it's very very overgrown and it was more so just to be able to allow the future homeowner to grow some grass bring in some sunlight we are no means our intentions is to clear cut this lot and i'm certainly happy to replant more than we're proposing to take down um the ones that we're proposing are the ones that we thought would um do what i just said and also um i will need you to pick up your um runoff from the driveway the new driveway because what one of our requirements in our chapter 193 is that you cannot send your runoff down into the municipal right away that's that's one of the um purposes of this bylaw okay you need to manage your own stormwater and so the runoff because it looks like it's pitched in a way that goes straight into the street okay so if you can come up with a way of managing that and then send that to me okay we can do that and also if the plans the plans sound like they're going to change anyway with a um different septic system or a larger septic system is that right it's up in the air deciding if we if we want to do that for now we have a four-bedroom septic system approved um and i'm not sure that we're moving forward with that at this point okay so with the uh with the you know the fit go ahead sorry go ahead so with the 15 count um tree that that'll that'll um that'll that'll uh include the one next to the uh septic system too i can update that plan um so we have it accounted for on the plan but not xed out i think that happened because um you know that tree was going to come down only as part of the septic system and then once we realized that there were um other trees that were wanting to be removed that's when we came into this this process here so that's that's that's why that tree wasn't included but i'll show it on there okay so what i need is just an updated plan to show the correct tree removal and um how you're going to manage the driveway runoff right yes yep all right well i mean i'm okay with uh the close i mean the commission allowing me to finish this one up if they want me if that's how they want to proceed all right commission thoughts comments questions concerns uh i just wonder could you mouse over the trees that are just going for the sake of like lawn and grass uh so yeah so here's uh for these probably in the front here um you know like but it's lawn grass open space sunlight and a place for a family to put a swing set you know it's not just you know it create i can probably answer it because as a builder i know what the intentions are a little a little bit more from my perspective it was it was most of them i would say that the tree uh directly to the left of the driveway at the bottom um ted if you're able to mouse over that that one maybe for argument's sake uh could stay and the one above that more so just with canopy overhanging the roof you know i hate to five years later see moss growing on a roof already so um i would say most of them maybe for the exception of that one on the left of the driveway i'd be open to keeping i mean i would certainly encourage that i would hate to see mature 18 24 inch trees taken down for the sake of a potential lawn like when i you know lots of kids don't even like the lawn they would prefer to climb a tree um and you know i so i would prefer not these trees aren't climbable these trees aren't climbable and i mean it's everybody has a i think everybody has a right to a lawn in a swing set you know to me but uh i mean you know lawns cause massive ecological damage across the entire continent so the idea of lawns being a necessity is sort of like a holdover from europe that's caused untold damage so i'm just saying like it would be great to see some of these trees not taken down for a long understood for myself okay anybody else commission are we okay granting the permits and letting linda finish up uh on her end not make him come back yes awesome can i get a motion then please can i continue this no no we're granting a a permit on a 193 yes i i i move that we issue a permit under chapter 193 um contingent upon linda being satisfied uh with any revisions as discussed thank you luke do i hear seconds wait here second someone's no one second emotion sorry sean i'm still a little stuck on the trees coming down for no reason i'm thinking about it would uh barbara a second barbara you're second emotion well at least they're gonna give us more information like why can we continue it until we get the when are we gonna get the information well i can tell you why i want to continue not want to continue it we've got seven other things we've continued already and it's just a matter of little little i's and dying and t's that linda can take care of i trust linda to do her job that's why and i'm happy to uh if if a ratio is part of the concern i am happy to plant a couple more canopy trees and uh open to hearing uh of species that the commission would like to see which i'm happy to work with linda on okay that would be great yeah and keeping that tree at the uh front left as i mentioned i don't think that necessarily needs to come down yeah mature trees add a lot of property value more than even a newly planted tree yeah i i i i think uh there there we're still keeping we're trying to keep the biggest and the nicest ones um that was certainly our intention but i know what you're saying no discussion folks we'll go back discussion or we can second the motion we can't sit on the motion all day or because i'm gonna move something different that you're gonna deny the permit and i need specific reasons under 193 you're denying it and it can't be our opinions i thought somebody moved and we're waiting for a second yeah we are luke made the motion i'm waiting for a second or or another motion thank you thank you barbara second roll call please shannon fisher all right if barbara seconds then yes okay that's okay luke lazier yes barbara howell yes lisa aubin yes sean fairs yes thank you all right thank you all right we're on six certificate of compliance 6a 25 lee road dep file number 322-1047 linda um this is a septic closure um the the whole emily did a site visit today it appears that everything's stabilized in the front yard looks like it's been completed i what i need to confirm is that they put in the 15 foot notice sir but um i think that we can probably um just say yes to this and i will confirm that that has been done okay you know if you do commission anything else if nothing else can i get a motion then please to approve the certificate of compliance for 25 lee road so moved so moved second thank you luke thank you babs roll call please shannon fisher uh yes luke roger yes barbara howell yes lisa aubin yes and sean fairza yes thank you on to 6b this is 5 juniper lane swld-112 linda um i believe we had we were asked for due closure on this project and there was some some question about whether or not that um that this is the conditions have been met of this permit to making sure that everything was um compensated for and then there was a request for two additional trees to be removed for a solar system that one they want to put in so that's i think we wanted clarification on that because it is cumulative um you know the way that the bylaws is written so um we would need if you plan on taking more trees down there's going to be more more compensation required for that so and that's the question was do you want to amend this permit or do you are you going to file for a second permit so real quickly before we get into it i'm going to direct a butter so i'm going to hop off shannon and luke you got you got uh got the con here folks i'll come back in one hi there um i'm the uh owner of five juniper um i'm not i'm a little confused as to what you're saying linda and in removing additional trees well we we received um an open gov permit from the building department that you're planning on putting in solar panels and that that's currently required the removal of two more trees so we are not planning on removing any more trees um they had we did get the approvals from the building department to do solar panels however um the trees that they were um talking about um are not on our property um so they went ahead and resubmitted a different plan for the amount of panels uh due to sun hours so they reduced the um project from i think it was 36 panels and then they backed it down to 31 panels um bringing it from 103 percent production to i believe like 87 percent which we were fine with um but again we have no intention of uh doing any more tree removal um i think that it's just because the google images for the property are so outdated that they had questions but um they submitted pictures and we've already received the permitting for going forward with the project with no further removal okay um is where would i find that is that in the building permit or is that and do you have that information um so the the last thing we saw in open gov was that you were taking it down two more trees so no um we we are there's no intention of that that's why there's no application or anything like that um we're not required to and they've pushed through uh for the permitting um and gave us the approvals with the how our land and and the current trees are so there's no intention to do any further removal okay and the site visit did indicate that there was a lot of trees removed in the backyard because we did give you permission to take down like a multi-liter beach tree in the rear but it looks like they it looks like they were all removed is that true we took down the beach trees because they were dead um i think when you did the site visit you confirmed that many of the beach trees in massachusetts had in fact died and without you know reason um there was a cluster of them that were taken down um but they were dead and diseased they weren't healthy and they were dropping huge branches uh into the backyard and as i discussed before uh in meeting uh initially is that um most of the trees that we took um would have been exempt for um septic dead and diseased danger to the property um but and just general use of the property and then with the intention of uh solar and future septic um the trees that we did take we did a replanting plan we went above and beyond the replanting plan uh i think we were required to do six native species we did 12 junipers we did two highbush blueberries um the highbush blueberries produced berries uh last year and this year but emily upon her site visit said that one of them didn't look healthy that aside the junipers are thriving um there's 12 of them they're healthy we also uh planted 13 emerald green arborvites um unfortunately half of them didn't make it um it is our intention to remove them and and most likely uh replant even though they're not a native species but we did do 13 emerald greens um mostly six to seven feet um our junipers i believe are about six feet and we also did four uh green giant arborvites as well okay all right because i mean the permit says 11 trees so and again i was um however a lot of those i think were exempt and i outlined that in um and i showed on two separate um we had amazon tree and walnut tree service um give indications of which trees were dead and diseased which would have been exempt and then which trees were exempt for uh future septic and then um the remaining trees that we took we did the replanting plan for
okay so can i get like the total number of trees removed and how many were dead versus actually like actually dead versus dying versus diseased um i don't know if linda has that in front of her um i don't have it in front of me but in i had provided conservation with the uh tree estimates the original tree estimates and on those the reason i provided two was because on one they kind of outlined which trees that they recommended um that were posing a threat and that were not healthy and then in the second one there was also so it was just a correlation of like information um we ended up going with amazon tree but all of that was submitted uh two years ago when we applied for the permit yeah i i have two different estimates i think this is the problem we had before he was gave me two different estimates for amazon and both of them have different different tree counts one has 11 and the other one has five six seven eight nine 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 um i gave you two for one would have been from i believe walnut amazon they're both amazon and one had 11 trees and like i said this is five six seven eight nine ten eleven twelve yeah the other one has 16 trees on it so we took 11 trees okay okay and out of those 11 off the top of my head i believe there was only um we were only required to do replantings of six native native species and we did 14 replantings and all right like it was just again it's just confusing because i have multiple you know multiple quotes that have different numbers on them that's why it's you know it wasn't clear always in from the beginning so is juniperous communists being considered a tree or a shrub in this context a shrub okay good okay are we counting the green giants and the arborvitae is native in this no i'm just saying we we replanted 31 total but for the native species we did 14 species we did 14 and the requirement was i believe six per your bylaw it's six i think it's it would be six trees but it would be i think depending on the size of the tree the number of shrubs is greater than that so okay but like any action like that would additional information that would have been requested like why wasn't that done when we submitted our replanting plan this whole thing like this whole thing though this has been going on two years we we have an abutter at the time too jen was in a butter um you know you guys entered the property on numerous occasions unannounced we got a cease and desist it felt very personal it didn't feel ethical we've gone above and beyond what has been asked of us i've lived in wayland my whole life like we bought here we we love the neighborhood we wanted a yard for our three kids that was safe we want to put in septic because we don't have a septic system we're trying to bring this 1950s ranch you know up and do making it beautiful because you know it was kind of behind the times and it is our full intention to maintain our investment to have the replantings do future plantings i mean so i'm just i'm just not understanding like what else you're needing from us all we're trying to do is just close out the permit when emily was here for the site visit she had mentioned that like maybe there would be future um stipulations and conditions which if it's my understanding in your bylaws the commission hasn't imposed any performance guarantees at the present time unless i interpreted that wrong and please correct me if i'm wrong um however you know i think that we've done our due diligence i think that you know our intentions are are good we're trying to do everything right and ethical and this just feels um a little bit personal and it has from the beginning so i just wanted to speak my piece on that because um it doesn't feel super neighborly and i don't love that well i'm just going back to the original question jane which was are you taking more trees down because again that information in front of us as an open gov permit and we get everything electronically and that was the reason i wanted to inform you that again it's it's cumulative cumulative once you take once you start the tree removal process take more trees down you still need to compensate and that's the reason that's the question i had for you and and the commission needed to understand that too because they're the person they're they're the group that makes the approval but if you're saying you're not taking any more trees down then now we can close out on this permit the question to me to you that i was trying to trying to convey is if you are we can amend this permit or you can close it out and and apply for a new one those those were the questions i had for you and that's again you know i think we've we've cleared that up okay okay great i i'm letting you all know there's zero intention of removing any further trees we got that permitting i think because like i said before the the uh satellites were out of date so when they were doing aerial views all of the original trees were still noted in the property so they did a site survey and took pictures of what is current and then they went ahead after that and reduced when we said we weren't removing any more trees reduced the number of panels for sun hours to adhere to no further tree removal okay well that's that's that's the whole reason for you know asking you to come is because again we have different information here in front of us okay i just want to clarify for my part i think this was before my time so part of this is i'm getting the lay of the land for myself because i don't think i was part of the original stuff so a lot a lot of what i've been asking is just clarifying um so i can get my best sense for it sure is the this is was there ever okay never mind okay hang on i'm just thinking through some stuff for myself here i do want to say i like the hickory tree i like that you put in a hickory you don't see that too often going in and it's a cool choice i wish we would see more of oh i thought i thought you took down a hickory i'm sorry i didn't care i took it i didn't i we replanted the um junipers and the high bush blueberries and then the emerald greens and the green giants wait okay so wait wait wait okay so the none of the green so the green marker only the bottom part of it is the replacement plantings the the top green part is adding to the list so cut removal of oak trees the four trees on left side what are the green check marks and the x's mean here in this context i can't see this i can't see what you're looking at so i uh i'm i i apologize i don't have it in front of me so i'm i'm not entirely sure what you're referencing i don't see i don't see any x's there's just circles for the junipers and then and then um a high blush blueberry on the corner i think i shannon are you talking about the marked up sorry if i could just the marked up uh it's a july 19th 2023 estimate from amazon there's it's marked up is that the one because yes i mean the way i read that key is the green check mark is replacement planting and the red x is dead or exempt is the way it's classified okay but then there's no so that's helpful for those top ones but then it's less clear for the subsequent ones where the beach trees was their replacement was it was there not three pine trees hickory tree oak tree little pine um i think i think that can i mean i i'm not 100 sure shannon but i no no no i think so i think that i think when you then come down to the list the three pines the hickory the oak and the little pine were taken yes right and then the 12 junipers and the hybrid excuse me the high bush blueberry were the replacements yes that's correct okay okay and are these three marker ones sorry i'm i'm i don't mean to be so confused but i think i am just confused by this so looking at this the act you know debtor exempt septic green check mark replacement planting are these pine trees hickory oak little pine explanations for some of the species when it says cut and removal trees left side of house like is it saying indicating the size they were that were cut okay so the three pine trees that were removed were dbh 11 to 20 inches and so forth is how i read it okay but that's six trees were removed that weren't exempt and those were the sizes okay and then they're included in that top typed part yes okay all right i really had to catch up on this this confused me a lot um i also had to look up juniperous communist that was a new one to me actually um okay so the only legend that we have is this map that marks the shrubs but not the other replacement plantings and not the trees that came down
right i think that's right correct okay so i if i could just ask a question just to clarify are all the replacement plantings alive and healthy i think i heard maybe at least one of them didn't make it so all of the junipers the 12 junipers are healthy i was actually asking sorry sorry i was asking linda but no you can go ahead oh no sure go ahead there was a question on one high bush blueberry but okay and a couple and a few of the arborvitaes didn't make it either right correct but they weren't um native species so they were just kind of a bonus not necessarily you know we did plant those however the junipers and the high bush were the native replacement plantings and then the arborvitaes were bonus okay and that that's where i was ultimately going so linda the sort of the native plantings that we required as mitigation have all survived yeah like i said except for probably one high fish blueberry okay maybe the one of the blueberries okay okay thanks i just wanted to be clear on that so none of the native replacements are trees they're all shrubs yes this sort of bums this bums me out like like the other permit did where well there's really you know shannon there's really nothing we can do about at this point like i said it's two years old and again my question was mainly about if there was going to be additional tree removal so um you know i think i think we just need to move on with this one okay yeah if you're comfortable with it yes and i just wanted to make sure that um my understanding or clarify that there will be no additional performance guarantees or stipulations attached to the closure no we don't we don't take in uh money for performance guarantees so for this okay okay that's just what i was told so i just wanted to clarify i do like your commitment to junipers because you're on juniper lane and you planted so many junipers all right so i'll issue a closure on this one if everybody's okay with that uh yeah we should probably just take a vote okay uh so i guess if are we ready for motion shannon i i i guess yeah i i guess so okay uh i move that we issue certificate of compliance for five juniper lane swld dash one one two second okay i think maybe you do you want me to lead the vote or you shannon i don't want to stop oh oh right sean's not here i don't want to step on your toes no wonder well i don't i have no urgent burning desire to be chair um so you're still vice chair you you get to do the hard work am i i thought you were okay uh fair enough wait am i right here now did i forget how to do that oh i'll do it anyways just because i'm here um yeah all right roll call vote please shannon fisher yes lisa obin yes barbara howe yes yes and luke leger is a yes as well am i am i the vice chair now did i thought you were but maybe no i forgot we did all that and that it's in effect now okay well thanks for doing it sure all right let's move on to thanks everyone thank you i have a flight tomorrow morning so we uh i'm going to be leaving the meeting here shortly just to tell you just uh because i gotta go um we're on to 7a then community preservation committee application due to not 13th hamlin woods improvement linda what you got kid uh emily put this together um i guess this is this is something that we've had tons and tons of complaints on the beavers have really done some damage over there the the whole you know trail is somewhat submerged sometimes it's knee deep in water depending on how much rain we've gotten so we've really got to do some boardwalks over here on a different bridge and we'll probably that's what the um the application is going to be it's going to be um a contracted it's going to be somebody besides us building this um because it is it could be up to a 300 foot boardwalk that goes along that the first part of that trail if you're familiar with that there's really no way of rerouting that um so so that's that's really all we've come up with for a cpc application this year so this trail on the other side you're talking about yeah off of hamlin woods off of the um off the parking lot there yeah which trail there is only one that comes off the parking lot barbara that goes on the left to the left of the parking lot and goes right along the the top side of the impoundment oh that trail that's floods yeah it's often flooded yes it is you know what we keep losing lands good job to the beavers they're bringing them back but yes uh also boardwalks it's you know it's surprisingly a heavily used product uh um uh property i'm always surprised to see every time i drive by the the parking lot can be often full you know and even the oddest times of the day so um like i said we've gotten many many complaints about that so and i keep telling people like there's nothing you can do we don't have the resources to do that in our office we we have to hire somebody and for that we need money so historically that
conservation area always got more um visits than any other oh no i think her just takes the number one seat here so um all right so you're looking for a motion to approve the draft proposal right yeah i don't know if you got anything again we're still waiting for a quote from the from the contractor to put this you know to so we can put a cost in here but it's pretty straightforward it's just a matter of revamping this whole section of the trail so it's it's passable okay gotcha okay everybody good with that everyone make a motion to approve the draft proposal for hamlin woods so i'll get off to the barbara and out there luke want a second one though or else that's right luke second that one yeah i'll second it roll call please shannon fisher uh yes luke leger yes barbara howell yes lisa aubin yes and sean fairs yes thank you uh anything in complex not anticipated by me or anybody else anything else anybody have anything come up the last second well i think i might need some advice or maybe uh a change in our in our rules and regulations um a huge uptick in professional dog walkers have showed up and just uh i mean we've always had them at loker i haven't really enforced much over there um we get them occasionally at greenways but the complaints we've got in recently has been a herd farm i mean we had we had one dog walker last weekend with 14 dogs off leash okay and and six seven eight you know that's that's really pretty common i guess so i got a call today um from somebody who was out there walking like oh they showed up so i went out there and approached them and um just completely non-cooperative they had no interest in even learning the rules which are three dogs and only two off leash i told them i have every ability to find them if they continue showing up and with you know packs of dogs that are off leash at the time we'd lost one already it was running in the woods somewhere and again the rules say you have to have control of your dogs you know you can't just let them run loose everywhere and you know they form pack mentality they go after other people and dogs you know in a group it's really unsafe and um it's a company called trails and tails or tails and trails out of watertown i mean they drive all the way out here just to use our properties because it's pretty much uncontrolled you know we don't have the kind of um a dog officer that we really need to keep a keep an eye on these things so um i you know i i'm i you know other than using the mom voice i am you know i can i could start finding them once they show up again but um you know i just wish i had we had a little bit more teeth you know to to keep this from happening and you know that guy he had seven dogs he didn't have a poo bag on him okay you know like so he didn't even clean up after his dogs all right so we have three more than anything so so i'm one clarifying question um when you said he this he is it so it's one person walking all these dogs or whatever oh yeah he wasn't interested in learning the rules i guess i'm confused you actually caught him red-handed with all these dogs yes yes so couldn't you say well regardless of what you're interested in hearing i'm gonna go ahead and get your license plate i'm gonna find you as of right now like why are we not finding him already like what's the do you need do you need our permission or can't you just find without us i mean typically our if you look at our rules and regulations it says you you know you get a warning you know and i had already called um the company on monday and left a voicemail and told them that they can no longer use our properties you know they it's it's limited to three dogs where you you cannot bring you know packs of dogs out here and i guess that was completely on on you know maybe she didn't hear it maybe it wasn't you know um vocalized to the other people in the company so i thought i'd give him one last chance and say you cannot have you know seven unleashed dogs here you know and and he goes you know he wouldn't give me his name he wouldn't give me the company he worked for i mean it was you know it was just and i what i ended up doing is blocking the parking lot he couldn't get out until he told me who he was working for and who i was who i was going to be finding you know in the future and i don't like being put in that position you know i mean it's it's you know there's nobody but just me out there and you know a group of seven bucks and uh i just i know we can't you know it's going to be ever impossible to restrict dogs altogether but i just wish we had a better way of enforcing this you know and i mean we have two poo stations out there and the guy can't even pick up after his dogs you know i mean it's it's crazy so couldn't this be a similar kind of act to our our infamous tree bank that thank you lisa for helping work on this coming up is if it's if it's we'll find you ten dollars you're great okay if it's oh you get a thousand dollars per violation per dog right now now now i have your attention and so we we have the teeth they're just not very sharp so why why don't we just look at something that says all right anytime linda happens to be anywhere she can find per dog violation a thousand dollars no you know no no warnings it's it's on our maybe make a sign no dog walking more than whatever but why why make it harder than it has to be is just make the financial penalties so strong it gets people's attention so right now it's a hundred dollars that's what's in our regulations and there are signs on both sides of the trail that says you know you can only have three dogs and two can only be off leashed but people just choose not to you know abide by those so so make sure i understand so this example this person could get a fourteen hundred dollar fine seven i thought there was 14 dogs no today there was seven oh but regardless but it's okay and so in my question what what would we in that example be fining for because you can't prove the dog didn't poop or are you saying because it's not on a leash like what do you is it over a certain amount off a leash is the the finding yeah he had seven off leash dogs uh one of them was gone i mean you know was completely out of control you know um again he none of them were in control for the most part um you know not under leash or voice command um and yeah he's he's not supposed to be there as a professional dog worker he's not supposed to be there with seven unleashed dogs so the limits three you said three three i mean it is a major public safety risk like that many dogs not in control pack mentality like kids and other people's dogs have have died or been mauled um you know without a control dogs it's a public safety hazard if this if this guy does not have control of those dogs um yeah i'm certainly in support of of stronger things is it possible we could even ask the town to post police there once or twice to do we know what times a day this happens typically or what days does he have around we put a camera up on monday um and it looked like they're pretty much there between 11 and 2 for the most part and if you look at the bylaw and the regulations in town this the police does not have enforcement capabilities you know it's it's really the dog officer and this is a dog officer in eight years nine years i've never laid eyes on and she really has no interest in going out and regulating you know professional dog walkers i don't think you know she sees that as part of her job she sees that as part of our job to manage open space so um uh yeah i mean again i could go out there with a fine booklet and you know issue issue fines to them but and again i don't really have the time just been you know wandering around herd farm um unless unless i know somebody's really is there you know if if i if i have a report that there's a perfect professional dog walker but otherwise there's got to be something we can come up with to you know deter this and you saw you know weston has has a the professional dog walkers have to be licensed and it's expensive you know if you want to use open space you have to have a license you know um to use it and again you know that's an option but we have nobody to enforce it for the most part so you know until we have enforcement capabilities that's going to be another that that'd be another tough one so i suspect they also come here because it's also hard in weston i think that's why they're all at loker because you know that's that's the closest one to weston so i think why can't you you made a comment like we're waiting for more authority so again what what's stopping us from granting the conservation office linda brian emily anybody in their employ if seen this violation it's and if you want to increase the number to make it a little bit more sticky and a little bit more owners i'm i'm so i guess am i making it too simple by making it by deputizing you and the whole office anytime you see the violation on the spot you know i mean or no we can do that but again you know i none of us have the time to do this you know we're a three-man a three-man department and we have way more work in this office that the two of us can handle and brian you know is does does 1200 acres of open space by himself you know manage that we we don't have the time for this right well i guess my point is not make it onerous is but you're out i mean you're out in the field and so when you happen to come across and by the way if the fines big enough they're paying thousands of dollars in fines it's not going to be happening very i mean we can curb you know attitude and behavior pretty quick there i think so yeah is this a fine to the dog walker or to the company i would have to issue it to the dog walker because he's a person who was you know who's there um but like i said today he wouldn't even give me his name you know and uh again i'm not the lawyer let luke speak in this but i wouldn't even ask for a name you take a picture of the license plate the fines going there i don't care if it's the owner of the the commercial car but yeah i i mean that's i think that's it i don't think we you know i think it sounds like from what linda's saying the problem is really just one of having a bandwidth right like we we just you know there's just not enough folks on staff who aren't already totally swamped with their other job responsibilities to be able to take this out and shoulder this responsibility so i think you know if that's the problem it seems like we had this we had a lot of conversations around this you know a few years ago i recall um it seems like that was kind of the main thing we kept coming back to so it sounds like that's just the same problem but i think you know sean what you suggested to me makes sense i think yeah linda that's you know if you if you've got the license plate and you saw it then we just issue the tickets i mean i frankly think if you're telling me that's gonna be seven hundred dollars i think that's a lot of money for somebody in this in that business i would guess and if it's going to the employee who's out there walking those dogs surely that bill is going to get its way back to the company that employs that person and if right i mean i would think there would be some action taken if they get whacked with a seven hundred dollar fine yeah just yeah but i mean i like i hear you linda i'm not trying to make more work for you i'm just it does seem like that's the best we can do is when you see it just hit them with a fine i think if that happens a couple few times word will start to get out hopefully would it i mean listen i got a lot of writing work i got to sit down and do i could bring my laptop there from 11 to 2 and just stake it out and look to see what happens there's only one parking lot for herd farm right there is i think i mean i will say you know shannon that that would be awesome if you're willing to do it and i i think just the other thing to keep in mind is and i think linda was kind of getting at that it can get pretty contentious with these folks i mean i i know just from other towns i've seen this come up um it can get pretty ugly um so just you know be careful out there i guess is is all i'm really saying um not trying to dissuade you from doing it but just no yeah it's what's the i don't say the legal process but let's i'll use myself i'm out there i see this clear infraction i you know whatever take a picture license plate send it to linda hey 10 dogs you know all at least whatever she then issues this this fine i'll say my deputy type but like kick guys can any citizen do this like at her i think i'd have to i have to look at the i'd have to look at the bylaw and remind myself but i i mean i think if we want to get really technical about it sean whoever is the sort of enforcing officer or authority has to be the person issuing i think there's probably a pretty good argument to be made that they really have to be the person observing the violation too that's why um right so i i i think you know maybe if you take a video and a picture and send it maybe that does the trick i don't know we're pretty far outside of my practice i would feel really weird writing a ticket out for some dude and i wouldn't expect you to do that again i think all we really need is photos video and the license plate to prove that somebody's breaking the law you know breaking the rules of the of the conservation committee you know of our open space so there'd be no need to confront you just sit there take a photo and count the dogs yeah make sure you have a photo of them off leash you know and all the dogs that they have and and a license plate okay i certainly i couldn't do it every day but certainly i have plenty of days where i just work very hard at avoiding work and i could use well i mean required but to that point though like are there could we enlist volunteers you know people in the town that hike these trails a lot you know i don't i don't know what's what's able to be done here but if you have enough you know i'm sure there's plenty of like the people that called up linda there's plenty of people that get frustrated by that because they're not picking up the dog i love dogs right and there's no bad dogs there's just bad owners okay so you know if they're not picking up the poop and they're letting them off leash etc um you know those are the rules but i again i just don't know if we could you know enlist some volunteers people that walk the trails that you know can help you know spread the word like they're not supposed to be doing that and it could be contentious but you know otherwise they'll take over all of our conservation trails you know that's exactly what happened today is if people are out there walking i want them to call me but a lot of people just don't want to be put in that position either but you know there'll be some people who do that again you know the only problem with you that shannon would have by sitting in the parking lot is like today um the dog walker did gather his dogs and had them all on leash when he entered the parking lot because now that's a place that he needs you know he's responsible for somebody else's dogs and he doesn't want to have somebody backing up into it you know and so you wouldn't necessarily have the ability to um you know take pictures of i mean but isn't that he's not interrupting but isn't that still like too many dogs yeah it is too many dogs it really is it is too many dogs i mean is it if the if the rule is three and you know with two off leash and somebody shows up with seven eight ten fourteen dogs i mean to me like that's it right it doesn't unleash off leash whatever yeah yeah no you're right you're right but no no reason to confront just you know photos and uh um uh drivers the license plate is all i need so all right so photo of the dog the license plate wait all right i have to write this down exactly because if i actually do this so again watch your while shannon writes this down so linda's are we solving what you're at was the ask hey i'm seeing i'm seeing increasing dog walkers help me out by doing this are we solving what you're asking for or well yeah i just want to bring your this to your attention because again it's been an ongoing problem for many years um you know we've talked before about even restricting dogs on certain properties you know where we have a lot of wildlife and a lot of habitat i'm not sure that's going to go over really well that's just going to probably bring more dogs to places like herd or other places so i i just don't know what the good solution is i really don't but um it's really i mean i think i think word's gotten out that you can come to whalen with as many dogs as you want and there's no leash laws there's no nothing again i'd love to see a animal control officer that actually works for the town i think that would be a huge um plus too is to have you know have a relationship with a with a dog officer um ours is contractual um and like i said i've never seen her so um i think that's an issue too and we need to change the contract uh huh are we paying this person and they're just not showing up or like what's she gets paid uh to do what uh you know she works for the police department and she's supposed to she's supposed to come when she's called and she's supposed to pick up dive animals do rabies testing on on roadkill um you know and deal with kennels and um so she's i mean that that job is already broad it is pretty broad but again you know she she does not she does not walk open space properties or you know check to see if you know the rules and regulations are being followed she basically comes when she's called by the police department so so while we do it i'm happy to help here so you know i'm always out taking calls i'll just i'll finally email me wherever what what areas what times i'll start trying to adjust my call schedule and so i'll be that guy let's try that see if that helps and if not my other solution i recommend at some point is we just a hundred dollars to luke's point is it's a lot seven dollars is no joke seven hundred dollars isn't seven thousand right and so to get it so we could increase the fine somewhere in between there to where it's no one wants to get caught doing it versus all right if it's only x amount of dollars i'll i'll risk a couple hundred dollar fine once every couple months to get my business in the you know i mean so that's the other balance that we may have to take but in the meantime i'm happy to start throwing out some some fines and sending people your way okay do we have to formalize this like no it's already it already is formalized okay i mean i see on the website right in the conservation properties visitors with dogs and the first bullet is all dogs must be leashed in parking lots and conservation areas and then there's further bullets that says you must have no more than three and two only two can be off leash but when i read the first bullet it's like you're not off leash at all yeah but again we have nobody here to enforce right but even that it's just confusing like the first bullet is conservation areas must be leashed and then a few more down it's like you can have three but only two can be unleashed and as long as you have voice command so but it says leashed or in voice command right but the first bullet just says all dogs must be leashed in parking lots and conservation areas on the website so it's you know if you don't look any further you're like i've got to leash my dog if you don't look at the other bullets but um yeah people seem to know that you can't bring a dog to the refuge and they don't you rarely see dogs on refuges and mass audubon the same thing they don't have people on all their properties but people just know that mass audubon does not allow dogs but when it comes to conservation public conservation they seem to ignore us and when you speak to them they give you a lot of lip so you don't um maybe it's who would give you lip bar who live in this town but um they don't they're rude to you
well let's uh see we see if we can change some behaviors here so we'll start i volunteered for the refuge for you know as long as i've been on this commission and i never ran into dog problems because they didn't bring their dogs
well hopefully we can you can change the behavior a little bit but i'll be the guinea pig for the first month i'll i'll they can rant at me if they like well maybe you'll see me in the parking lot sean okay with my laptop you know not writing yeah yeah well without internet out there i'll have no choice i'll be forced into writing um so we just need a photo of the plate and a count on the dogs and if you feel like a leg stretch go get a photo of the dogs off leash yeah photos and videos okay i mean you know weston's dog thing and it's a lot it's a lot better fleshed out it also points out that like aggressive or dangerous dogs are not allowed on you know any dogs displaying aggressive or dangerous activity dogs must are not allowed on there they'll be sighted dogs must not disturb visitors um to municipal lands and must be under physical control in the presence of visitors and disturbance can be unwelcome approaching tucking touching jumping on displaying threatening behavior so even if someone's just getting a dog running up to them you know that's strongly discouraged in weston they they flushed it out a lot more and i like fines higher let me see their fine schedule um well for what it's worth shannon i'm out in the western woods a lot and there's dogs off leash all the time
you can say what you want but that doesn't happen in the field so yeah yeah but it is a real hazard having like seven to fourteen dogs just running uncontrolled if nothing else they're going to devour or like you know be super interested in any of our ground nesting birds oh i'd love to ban birds i mean dogs during the you know bobbling nesting period but i i think i'd have a bullseye in my back at some point so um yeah so i mean this is going to be a topic of further discussion like i said i gotta go i have a very early flight so um okay i'll let you guys finish up and um approve the minutes okay all right linda safe flight yeah all right no public comments that i saw no one's hands up we're all alone yep we're all alone here we go babs october 8th minutes we good to go or what fine yes anybody want to argue with that smart move maybe want to approve then the minutes for october 8th 2025 please so moved thank you luke do i hear a second second thank you shannon roll call please shannon fisher yes luke lejeer yes barbara howell yes lisa aubin yes there's a yes thank you uh that's all i got anybody else have anything good just to say i don't worry i wasn't offended that none of you showed up to my workshop at the macc fall conference on saturday i didn't take it personally i didn't take it personally that's not why i'm bringing it up i'm just mentioning it what were you teaching it was the roles of conservation commissions in the 40b permitting process i know it's sexy it's exciting i know you're all kicking yourselves for not i can say i can tell you answer that i haven't gone through the process with uh the hands our role is nothing we're hogtied that's that's stay out of the way yeah yeah we don't need anything yeah it was a quick presentation i bet oh that's great actually luke i actually really am interested in like trying to pick up some more knowledge and get you know expand my competency in this area so if you're teaching courses just please shoot me an email drop me a line like let me know i would and it's in enough advance that i know to sign up because i would love to actually do more of the macc courses okay a lot of those courses way back so did i they were good i took a few of them um i think i heard when i was somewhere when i was off the meeting i think officially shannon you are the vice chair i heard you and like luke i think going through who technically vice technically you are but anybody can do it but i want to make i think i heard that but if i didn't then like women i think i yeah i think i blocked it from memory but i got this reluctant promotion shannon tried to weasel out of it but i i was holding strong yeah all right good uh all right y'all i think that's a quick emotion for adjournment then please so moved go here seconds second thank you shannon roll call please shannon fischer yes uh luke was here yes barbara howell yes lisa alvin yes and sean fairs yes we are officially adjourned
With that said, we're going to go right into executive session, so we're at 2A. Actually, no, right now, myself, Lisa, Shannon, Luke are all dialing in remotely. Linda's at the headquarters there. All right. To help make the motion, and if someone would make the motion, all I have to say is, so move. So, I will entertain a motion to go into executive session under GL30A to discuss strategy with respect to litigation known as Matter of Planning Office of Urban Affairs, Inc. St. Anne's 40B, OADR, docket WET 2025-015, because I declare that discussing the matter in open session may have a detrimental effect on the litigating position of the Conservation Commission, on the Commission, and the Commission to return to open session. So moved. Thank you, Luke. Before we go in, I also like to invite Linda. Before I say that, I'm going to make sure we're also going to, Linda, invite you, Tom Faye, Amy Quetzel in with us as well. So, with that, Luke, do you still make the motion? Yes, so moved. Yes, so moved. Thank you. Do we hear a second? Second. Thank you, Shannon. Roll call, please. Shannon Fischer? Yes. Luke Legere? Yes. Lisa Aubin? Yes. All right, folks, we'll be back in a little bit. All right, seeing we've got a quorum back. Thank you, folks, for being patient with us. Let's go back into the public hearings, please. So this is 3A, 108 Lakeshore Drive DEP file number 322-1042. It's a continued notice of intent filed pursuant to Wayland's Wetlands and Water Resource Protection Bylaw and the Wetland Protection Act. It's been by Melissa Haley for the prior unpermitted renovation work and completion of said work at 108 Lakeshore Drive in Wayland, Mass. The proposed work is with 100 feet of Dudley Pond, and the property is shown on Assessor's Map 46B, Parcel 35. Linda. Doug Dillon is here to give us an update on that project. Okay. Oh, there's Doug. Can you hear me? Yep, I got you. Yep. Yeah, sorry for the delay in between updates. Our engineer, he got married. He left the country for a handful of months to facilitate that and has recently returned, thankfully. That was an unforeseen sort of event that I wasn't able to predict. But he is back and I was able to get him on the horn, you know, after speaking with Emily over email today. And, you know, he's kind of back in the saddle for this project here, just ensuring the updates. Linda and I had an exchange over email probably a month and a half ago now. And, you know, he's been able to implement those changes to the plans. And I'd like to get those in front of you guys for, you know, as soon as I possibly can after his hand flows. But that's sort of the long and short of it. I've been, frankly, waiting, you know, with my kind of sitting on my hands just as much as you guys. Okay. Thanks for the update. Hope you want some more fun. Yeah. Yeah. Grease. Oh, then. Great. Linda, anything from you? You're muted, Linda. Linda, you're muted. No, this, we just, I asked Doug to join us so that he can give us an update. We hadn't heard from them for a long time. And this enforcement order is going on two years. So I wanted to get some idea of what the timeframe is. Okay. And Linda, remind me, what's the next date of our meeting in November? The 19th, is it? I don't know.
Okay. 17th. Is it the 17th? Yeah. Perfect. Commission, anything? We'll just wait to hear from Doug and the team out there back at it. Yeah. I just want to circle up with him one more time and get these stamped and, you know, get submitted to you guys, you know, proper number of hard copies and so on for your next meeting there. It is the 19th. Sorry. The 19th. Yeah. The next meeting is Wednesday, November the 19th. So we're then looking for continuation then to the 19th. Is that enough time? Yes. Yeah. Okay. Do you want to ask for a motion for a continuance to the 19th? Okay. Okay. I get a motion and it continues then to November 19th sometime after 630, please. I move that we continue the hearing under the act in chapter 194 to November 19th after 630 PM. Thank you, Luke. Second. That was Shannon. Second. Thank you. Roll call, please. Shannon Fischer. Yep. Luke was here. Yes. Barbara Howell. Yes. Lisa Aubin. Yes. And Sean. Yes. Thanks. Thanks, Doug. You for your time. Okay. On to 3B. 397 Boston Post Road, also known as Russell's, DEP file number 322-1048. It's a continued notice of intent filed pursuant to Wayland's Wetlands and Water Resource Protection Bylaw and the Wetland Protection Act submitted by Dan Skihan for the after the fact paving work and installation of a stormwater management at 397 Boston Post Road and 99 Pelham Island Road in Wayland, Mass. The proposed work is a 200-foot riverfront area and the 100-foot buffer zone of avoiding vegetated wetlands. Property is shown on assessor's map 23, parcels 004 and 015. Linda. There was a peer review, I believe, in your packet, so we did hear back from Dillis and Roy. They reviewed the stormwater management, had some comments, and their engineer at Russell's still needs to respond to that and has asked for a continuance. They would like to continue until the December meeting. And when is that right tell? Oh, gee whiz. You have to, it's way too much. I think it's, is it the 10th? No, wait. So now I got to look at the calendar. I think it's on the 3rd. Sorry. Okay. Looks like there's one on the 3rd and the 17th. 3rd? Yeah. December 3rd. Okay. All right. Commission, can I get a motion then to continue this sometime under both sometime after 630 on December 3rd, please? So moved. Thank you. Luke, do I hear a second? Second. Thank you. Thank you. Shannon, roll call, please. Shannon Fischer. Yep. Luke Legere. Yes. Barbara Howell. Yes. Lisa Aubin. Yes. Sean Ferz. Yes. All set. Thank you. Okay. On to the 3C. This is 169 Rice Road DEP file number 322-1053. It's continued notice of intent file pursuant to Wayland's Wetlands and Water Resource Protection Bylaw and the Wetland Protection Act submitted by St. Bill Petter, Mercurius, and St. Mina Coptic Orthodox Church for the work at 169 Rice Road in Wayland, Mass. Proposed work includes a demolition of an existing church and construction of three new buildings, parking surfaces, a courtyard, a sports field, and stormwater management systems. The project is done with a 200-foot riverfront area and a 100-foot buffer zone of a boring vegetated wetlands. The property is shown on Assessor's Map 40, Parcel 08. Linda. The applicant has requested a continuance until our next meeting on November 19th. Okay. Can I please hear a motion to continue this under both for sometime after 630 on November 19th, please? So moved. Thank you, Luke. Do I hear a second? Second. Thank you, Shannon. Roll call, please. Shannon Fischer. Yep. Luke Legere. Yes. Barbara Hall. Yes. Lisa Aubin. Yes. And Sean Fersen. Yes. Thank you. Excuse me. On to 11. Sorry. This is 3D. 11 Cameron Road DEP file number 322-1054. It's a continued notice of intent filed pursuant to Wayland's Wetlands and Water Resource Protection Bylaw and the Wetland Protection Act submitted by Adam Murato for the construction of an addition to a single-family home at 11 Cameron Road in Wayland, Mass. The property is shown on Assessor's Map 38, Parcel 149. It is located with a 100-foot of a bordering vegetated wetland. Linda. This applicant has also asked for a continuance to our next meeting. Okay. Are we getting bonus pay on the next meeting, or what? All right. Can I please have a motion then for continuance under both? Yes. Under both for sometime after 630 on November 19th, please. So moved. Thank you, Luke. Do I hear a second? Second. Thank you, Shane. Roll call. I think that's Lisa I heard. It's Lisa. I'm going my head and sound, Shane. Oh, you're throwing me off my Groundhog Day here. Roll call, please. Shannon Fischer. Yeah. Luke Legere. Yes. Yes. Barbara Howell. Yes. Lisa Aubin. Yes. And Sean Fares a yes. Thank you, folks. On to 3E. 67A, Loker Street, DEP. Do we have a number for this one, Linda? I do not have a number for this one, no. Okay. Sorry, no DEP number. This is a notice of intent filed pursuant to Weyland's Wetlands No Water Resource Protection Bylaw and the Wetland Protection Act submitted by Matt O'Connor for the demolition of an existing barn and construction of a six-unit compact apartment facility at 67A Loker Street in Weyland, Mass. The property is shown on Assessor's Map 48, Parcel 42. It is located within a 100-foot buffer zone of a boring vegetated wetlands and 200-foot riverfront area. Linda. I believe we have Oak Tree Management on, so I'm not sure who wants to take over discussing this to the commission or presenting the project. Hi. My name is Matt O'Connor. I'm trying to turn on my video. Okay. Well, can you all hear me? Yes. Yeah, you're good. Okay. Sorry about that. Hello, Weyland Conservation Commission. We are presenting plans and have submitted an NOI for a six-bedroom supportive housing home that we'd like to build at, and I'm going to refer to the property as it currently exists 67A Loker Street, and then we applied for and been granted a change of address to 1 Hobbs Road, Weyland. So, the parcel of the new house will be designed for people with cognitive, physical, and developmental disabilities. We think that this project is needed. Housing like this is needed in the town, and we've been working together with some of the people on the call here to propose and go forward with this project with, you know, advice and direction from your board commission. Okay. Do you have any plans you want to show us, or is this just kind of a preliminary heads up as to what's coming through? We've submitted the site plans, and we'll be going forward for site plan approval because of the use, the end use of the property. Perfect. Yep. Someone just brought up the plan. Perfect. Oh, thank you. Thank you. Whoever did that, thank you. Brandon Ducharme with Davey Ross. We did the engineering for the project. If you want, I can just give a quick overview. So, the property is at the corner of Hobbs Road, Alden Street, and then there's an intersection with Loker and Alden Street here. It's about 0.78 acres, so a little under an acre in size. There's an existing two-story barn that's currently on the property. And what we're proposing here, as Matt said, is the new building footprint is going to essentially replace pretty close to the exact footprint of the existing barn. And it's obviously in the same location. And in doing that, what we've done is we've added, or currently, there's two forms of ingress and egress into the site. There's an existing driveway here up Alden Street, as well as there's an access way that runs through here off of Hobbs Road. The way the site is, it's higher in elevation here in the back. Even with the existing barn now, it's essentially a walkout on the back. So, this is a lower level with basement access. And the new building is going to be similar to that. So, the main entrance would be off of Hobbs Road here. We've provided a parking area with 12 parking spots. And this would have first floor access in accordance with ADA accessibility standards, which will come from the parking lot into the building. And then, as with the existing barn, there's a walkout in the back that there will be access to garage bays providing maintenance. Things such as rubbish and recycling will be contained within the building there. So, in pulling together the design for this, we've provided stormwater management. So, for both parking areas here, what we've done is we've provided deep sump catch basins that get collected to a manhole. And then, there will be a storm scepter treatment unit that will polish that water. And then, we're providing subsurface infiltration here with an overflow that would tie into... There's an existing 30-inch drain that connects the wetland area on the opposite side of Hobbs Road to the wetland area just south of Alden Street here. And then, there's an existing catch basin behind the barn now. We're obviously going to remove that and provide an additional catch basin right at the entrance to Alden Street there that will continue to tie into the road drainage within Alden Street. So, quickly, just looking also at the resource areas. As I mentioned, there's a wetland on the opposite side of Hobbs Road here. This is actually a perennial stream with an associated bordering vegetated wetland that goes to this headwall here. And that culvert is about 260 feet long. It goes through the property via an easement. It comes over to the south side of Alden Street where it empties out here. And then, there's a small pond with an associated wetland there. We've obviously depicted the 100-foot buffer zones to both those sections of wetland as well as we're showing the 200-foot riverfront area. Where the stream itself goes through that culvert, the riverfront area terminates at the end and then begins again both at the beginning of the outlet and obviously where it daylights over here south of Alden Street. We've gone through, there's also a septic system that's proposed for the units. And again, that footprint is here. We've provided a copy of the septic plan that was designed by another engineering firm that was included in the packet. And we've gone through, there is some removal of trees and we have a planting schedule on one of the sheets that goes over the number of trees removed as well as a planting schedule to address that part of the bylaw. And with that, I think that gives us just a pretty good overview to kind of get comments from the commission. Questions? Okay. Thanks, Brendan. Linda, start with you, please. Did I get a planting plan? I'm not sure. It's on this sheet, C3.1. So we've got the schedule of trees removed and we have the plantings. Okay. Okay. I do have a few questions. Just want to make sure you guys are ready for conservation review. Did you get a curb cut permit from the DPW for Hobbs? I have an existing curb cut permit that I didn't exercise that was originally intended for construction entrance on that side, but it was never built. So, yes, we did get. So, yes, we did get. Was it temporary construction? Temporary construction? Temporary construction entrance? melt equipment? Theme just Peasellam, yeah. know that. But this deployment is where we don't have the housing plan. No. . Oh, no. Early in the project, we were working on this for a couple of years. entrance uh to the house further down hobbs road um and i did go through um you know the steps to get that uh you know approved um but that has now that that license or permit has now expired so i'll have to reapply with uh um you know for this modified curb cut permit as shown in this drawing okay well you know i don't think we want to put the cart before the horse until you get that i mean you know it doesn't make sense for us to approve this plan without knowing for certain that you have a curb cut allowance from dpw okay okay um also did you is the septic client approved um it's on darren's desk uh as we speak okay so no so sorry to answer the question no the septic has not currently been uh approved i've not gotten those plans back yet okay uh we are trying to apply also to um demo the barn that's a whole separate permitting process i don't know if the board can uh approve that or or if they can condone that at this point or if there's anything that we could get um started i mean we don't we don't have any jurisdiction over the demolition of the barn so okay i mean you're not causing an alteration by demoing because you're going to leave the foundation is my understanding no we're going to remove it's a stone boulder uh foundation concrete foundation that will be removed there's also a concrete floor that is uh still you know partially covered uh by the existing uh barn structure as it is uh as it stands today uh they had been numerous uh numerous in the you know uh in the 70s there was a fire so the barn had been much bigger uh but we will be removing all historic and current uh barn uh you know foundation and structure okay and then i i do wonder about the need for having such a large parking lot on the on the on the on the south side of that on the alden side i mean you already have 12 spaces uh within the riverfront and on the north side is there a reason why you would have such a large parking area on the south side uh that is uh less congested by uh homes single family homes and the design uh of the building is to try to you know disrupt uh the neighborhood as little as possible so the um recycling the trash would be through two um you know garage doors on the back lower elevation of the building which uh brings the servicing of the building you know further away from the abutters on the hobs road side yeah but it looks like that allows for the trash truck to sorry i apologize no that allows for the trash truck to uh enter enter and to turn around in that uh space but that's bigger than the size of the barn i mean is it really that necessary um because you're owning a lot of impervious and it doesn't appear that you're picking up that are you are you managing that that runoff from that parking lot yeah so that that'll get picked up that catch basin and that's all included in the drainage report that was submitted just going over the so the catch basin in in the road in the public road is that uh the catch basin is is right here um just inside the driveway so that proposed catch basin will be picking up that flow uh there there is an existing catch basin that's behind the barn now that will be removed and this this new one will be installed and that's that is addressed in the drainage report okay so i see there's an additional parking lot on this property too that's associated with the apartment complex is that new has that always been there this lot up here in the back is is new to the to the left of that that so this is an existing driveway parking area that's associated with 67 local street so there is an easement access and utility easement that encompasses that uh for that use yeah but that that that parking lot was expanded also when when the the apartment complex was rehabbed and that's why i'm just asking how how new is that because now we have an additional impervious on this on this property within the riverfront that wasn't permitted so that was an existing a parking area that was repaved okay was that all you do okay all right and um i guess i my my next recommendation to the commission was that there is a a large hydrocad uh drainage report for this um i would um uh i would request probably a peer review for that because that's that's not something i can manage um with the with our resources here can i ask sorry and uh if i may uh just clarification on what that means we're just asking for an independent engineer to take a look at your drainage report and provide comments to the conservation commission i got you so is is that somebody that the town would hire or we would hire um uh we would hire them and you would pay for it pay for the review um has there ever been a waiver given um for payment of an independent review company not that i'm not that i know of no but is that uh all on your list yeah again there's no there's no ep file number so there's um there's not much we can do um other than you know um review and and i mean uh you know ask questions and things like that i do think that um making sure that they have a curb cut allowance and they have an approved septic plan is important because any one of those could could significantly change the design of this project so i wouldn't i mean i guess i would wait to um advance a peer review until all those other factors are sort of cleared up and and finalized do you um happy to do that i'm trying to think if in the meantime do you want us to take a vote to allow you to take a peer review whatever that may look like when information comes into us then or or no well it depends on if you want to see the revised plan or not you know if these plans get changed due to based on you know the feedback from dpw and and health department um oh i'm yeah i'm just saying giving you permission to uh start a peer review before next meeting if if you get that back but if not we can just wait till next time anyways yeah i think i think it might be better when we just wait till next time okay uh commission before we make any motions any thoughts comments concerns on this one not much we can do we just need a dp before number before we can do anything but is any comments let's help make it now i mean i certainly echo linda's concerns about what seems like a pretty significant amount of paving parking area on less than an acre we've got a fairly large lot in the back here with twice as many spots as units we've got this really large parking area in the front and if i'm reading this driveway correctly on the side this is a is is this as large a driveway as i'm reading it um it looks really big so this whole lot is taking a lot of pavement so i'm concerned about that and then my other question is looking at that looking at what i think is the planting plan i don't think i've seen any species am i am i missing them or is it just numbers we showed the location and size of the plantings and then we have there was just a note that the plantings would be in accordance with the recommended list of plantings that the commission provides okay um and it yeah so in terms of the parking um i know looking at the plan but with the two garage bays there the width of that parking from the garage bays towards alden street that's it's about 31 feet so with a typical driveway apron coming out of a uh residential home is usually around 35 feet just to just to provide uh room for turning movements to come in and out of that garage and as matt said also is we've got uh trash collection being able to i mean is there a recommended or uh was is the would the commission recommend something with regard to their concerns about the parking meaning it is there something that is either acceptable or unacceptable or um yeah i mean i'll speak for herself i i think more of the concern is making sure that all that runoff and impervious is is picked up somewhere on on site so that's kind of our overall um jurisdiction here but i think you know that's kind of the thought and also whether they're less of it it i mean it linda's right it does look like it's wider than the building if i'm interpreting this right so it just you know if this could be reduced i mean speaking purely for myself especially given the neighbor's apparent paving over part of this as well um speaking for myself okay so let if i'm just taking notes here sorry so if we're to do less parking we would have to re-engineer uh this plan again i mean i also defer to some of you know like thoughts from other folks but this this is my thought is like is there a way to reduce the amount of paving on this lot this is a small lot with a lot of paving uh okay i i would just chime in on that too i i agree with what shannon is saying what linda said it's it does seem to be a lot of pavement a lot of parking but i think also you know to linda's point off the top um if you're i think you said you're gonna have to go for site plan review i just don't know as i sit here right now whether there are a certain number of spaces that are going to be required under zoning for this use um so i guess really what i'm getting at is i would encourage you to look for ways to reduce the parking but it also might behoove you to kind of get into that site plan review process as well just to understand you know if you come back and tell us we can't reduce the number of spaces this is what's being required by planning you know that would be a factor that i would certainly take into consideration as well but uh if that's not a factor then yeah i think trying to reduce the number of spaces and the overall pavement would be great okay can i get no please no my only other comment was if if this is and matt you said this is going for site plan approval does the drainage report get reviewed by the by the town for that and would that be sufficient for the commission's review instead of you know paying to have it reviewed twice i'm just not sure what you guys typically do right yeah typically it's just one review for all the different land use departments we're not going to have separate reviews depending on what and uh they know they might they might they might ask for that also so that's something i know are you going in front of zoning or are you going in front of planning board or neither uh i'm sorry linda i apologize could you repeat that it's so do you need to go in front of the planning board or the zoning board for this yes plan i believe i have to go in front of uh landing board and i believe the site also okay well i i would encourage you again to to start that process first because if if anybody has changes to the design it would most likely be the planning board so um i think i think we're going to have to put a pause on this for the time being and um we i'll work with planning board to come to um uh find a peer reviewer to do the stormwater they will ask for it also and then we'll just do one peer review and they may have additional requirements i i can't speak for them so um i would yeah like i said i would encourage you to start the planning or planning board or zoning board process and whatever you need to do and put a pause on this for now okay yeah i have met with the the uh town planner um that has given me some advice uh on on uh for for a planning board and he's helped me fill out the forms or give me some guidance i should say and filling out um their um you know documents and i guess as we were talking about the impervious just a general question or just to make sure i understood what was said earlier is that um the way the property is graded the existing barn and the new proposed footprint there's going to be kind of like the walkout level that you're proposing with the two garage bays on the south side and then the north side is where the first floor is the main floor and that's why like the ada parking needs to be on that back side is that correct the way it's designed right now with the sorry the back so it's a handicap van um that will be used uh to transport people and the idea was to you know kind of hide that larger uh van under the building uh in the garage so i uh minuteman arc has a uh these you know these larger um you know vans but that's again so that would not be parked out in the open uh on the uh higher elevation it is a sloped site like brandon right but the higher elevation has the handicap parking spot right that has to be level with the first floor oh yes yes yes it's ramped yeah sorry i apologize if i miss it nope that's okay it is ramped up um you know so you can get in a wheelchair from the parking you know into the into the first floor got it but then the bottom bay would be um where the the van would be parked yes okay yes thank you okay so with that i think we need to continue until this next time we get dp number and hopefully it'll be in front of a few other boulders is the 19th linda in time frame good i i don't know i really don't know i don't know where they're on the on the if they're going it's in front of the plane or a zba i don't know when that meeting would be scheduled but i think i would encourage them to do that first before they come back to conservation correct could you guys want to keep it to the continuous end of the 19th or our next meeting and hopefully have more by then if not we can only just continue after that uh yes please that's if that's the next available date yes sir yep okay um all right commission i'm looking then for a motion for continuance under both uh for some sometime after 6 30 on november 19th please so moved thank you luke do we hear a second second thank you babs roll call please shannon fisher yes luke lazier yes barbara howell yes lisa aubin yes and sean fairs a yes all set see you in a few weeks okay thank you all very much i appreciate your support appreciate it thank you uh on to us number four this is the public meetings for a 37 45 and 47 waltham road uh carroll school d-1046 as you continue to request for determination filed pursuant to whalen's wetlands and water resource protection bylaw and the protection act submitted by the carroll school for the construction of a new school building with associated parking areas septic system and utilities at 37 39 45 waltham road and whalen mass proposed work is partially within the 100 foot buffer zone of a boring vegetated wetland property is shown on assessor's map 5 lot 14 15 and 16. linda i'm either in front of the planning board tonight so they they um asked to continue the hearing uh since they can't be at two places at once i guess um and uh i don't i don't remember if we got the peer review back for this one or not anyway so i'm not sure um i i don't have the plans or the project in front of me but they did ask for a continuance also um planning board also asked to hold a joint meeting at some point with for carroll school and coptic church um since they're both they're both those projects are in front of us and planning board so that that might be a possibility in our next meeting too just so you know okay all right on to number five okay never mind uh stormwater and land disturbances 5a 15 training field road swld-145 linda um i believe we have the homeowner here i don't know oh there she is susan yes hi everybody hey susan how are you so this is a this is a fairly old one too um it was part of an enforcement order for the removal of trees and a large number of trees without a permit so she's come back to us with a planting plan i believe that was in your packet yes i can share my screen as well if that's helpful sure thank you okay hey how is that for everyone perfect thank you great sure my pleasure so um this is uh i can scroll down and there's a key so this shows the location of 23 plantings um from the native list uh and um the key is here so two a's and you can see the position etc i can't share both of them at the same time i don't know if you prefer to look at this first um and then let me know i can advance to the key that shows you what each of the letters represents in terms of the native plantings we chose or someone chose for it for us you can go to the key if you like sure thank you of course okay linda anything from you well yeah it it is disappointing that you're not you're not planning for me all mainly just just shrubs i mean you took down 10 very large trees 150 year old maple trees beautiful maple trees go ahead barbara beautiful large maple trees
i'm sorry but i could on the um on the packet the number of maple trees that were removed i wasn't able to to see those i saw that there were six 20 inch pines removed but i couldn't see the number of maples removed uh four i believe thanks including a 36 inch diameter one i guess um i guess for what it's worth uh we moved from weston earlier in the year and we had a lot of tree work done on our property so we had a relationship with a tree company when we moved we had them come look and they advised us that um they felt that um they felt that the trees were dangerous they were held together with cables and they were immediately adjacent to the house um we took their their advice seriously because we had a 10-year relationship with them in our previous home and also because they couldn't do the work they weren't equipped uh to do the work so subsequently we had two additional tree companies who gave us the same advice so i guess just for what it's worth the the tree is certainly um miss howell were gorgeous and um we were told that they were a danger to the structure a number of times by experts including one we had a long time relationship with thank you i appreciate that so i'm i'm sorry for it certainly um so what would the linds there i'm here oh um anything else no i was i was just hoping that there would be a mix of i mean there's there's two flowering dogwoods and everything else is shrubs and i was hoping that there would be at least some replacement of of trees um on this property versus just um a variety of native shrubs i i sort of back up what linda says i think in a lot of the towns who have um somewhat stronger rules it's it's kind of um eye for an eye in some way so a canopy tree needs to be replaced by a canopy tree some of them go so far as to suggest species maple goes down maple goes back in um and so i kind of echo linda's disappointment in this a lot of habitat was lost and it's not really being significantly restored because a shrub simply cannot have the same ecosystem effects as a mature tree including you know carbon sequestration habitat food for lepidoptera you know um you know water capture all of that so it's a significant loss anybody else okay um yeah i mean yeah i guess i i'd echo the same um but this is what if it's in line linda with our planting plan right we're good i i haven't checked that yet because i didn't have i couldn't find the diameters of the trees that were removed and um without knowing what size they were it was um um because that's not on their application at all that i have here so unless i missed it somewhere um i'll go back and look at emails exchange i've had email exchanges with emily and again we did hire someone to make sure that you know the native plantings were compliant the diameters were compliant the numbers matched i mean as well as i can interpret it english on the documents i received it is it is compliant um i'll look for you know i'm searching my email i mean i have a really small plan and the only thing on here says 36 inch maple and the other three i have no idea what the size was it's impossible to read that i can't or i mean is the applicant are you iron like are you more open to you know considering trees i mean you know thinking of the wildlife that live in this neighborhood it it behooves them it would be sort of a powerfully beneficial thing to do um but um are there is an extensive amount of plantings on our property um i i i feel like we invested and hired someone to make sure that you know that we did this in a way that was considerate and compliant both um and there's so there's so much uh on this property with regard to plantings of all types i feel like it's pretty balanced linda do you buy the numbers on the i didn't have those i don't have those in front again i don't know the size of the trees and until i find that out there's i can't come up with a number that of replacement i mean i do know i'm fairly certain that um large trees all require six shrubs so if you take down um 10 large trees i would think you would need at least 60 shrubs so but again i'm i without knowing the size of the trees that were because i can't read the plan um a better assessment here okay uh good good um i was really excited to join tonight and i'm really excited to be part of this community and um i am i we complied with everything that we were asked to do um and so i'm just a little bit concerned that i i feel like i feel like i gave the right answers and you're changing the questions or something i'm saying i can't find a way to do it and um i don't you know i want i want to be a productive and positive part of this community but we did comply exactly with what we were asked to do yes that's it's your point i'm confused linda how did emily give her information to talk with a consultant like someone at some point knew a baseline of info so i guess it was emily who knew the information to give her consultant for the plantings at some point it's in our bylaw it's in our chapter 193 regulations right for the for the replacement stuff and i went i went looking because it said it said on on the plan board of health so i went looking to the board of health plans and i didn't find that same plan so i'm just looking for the information to find out the only way you can come up with compensation is by knowing the size of the tree because it's all based on the size of the tree so i just i just need to go back and find see if i can find um better information on the trees that were removed um and and then i come up with just to confirm that their compensation is is matches what the our requirements are in the bylaw so so i guess can linda can you work with susan in the meantime to make sure that's correct and that way once that's confirmed susan you don't have to come back the next one we can okay i do have the email from emily that um shows the tree replacement guidelines and you know all of the information that we followed i'm happy to forward that if it's helpful i'm sure it's just standard stuff that you guys have um right again i i certainly don't want to be difficult but i yeah no so i think just implied
i just i just want to make sure it's correct before we you know um we ask you to move ahead and invest in the in the plantings and everything okay so yeah so i guess work with linda i'll find to make sure that whatever you're what you're telling us is the right compensation assuming that's correct then you don't be you don't have to be the next meeting we can you know do all stuff without you here as long as linda gives us a thumbs up okay so i'm gonna do nothing uh since i have the trail of what we were asked to do and what we did it's just a matter of when they're matching that up and then let me know if i need something else okay exactly right tomorrow morning get with her and she'll be pretty quick to clear it up i did i do just want to say like like as you know these are some beautiful shrubs and they they do have value and you know flowering dogwood is a stunning plant and like you're adding beauty and and don't don't feel bad like i would have personally preferred trees because i know what what benefits canopy trees give to the wildlife um but you know i have aronia clathra mirica myself at least wonderful and so you know just to just to add that in there thank you thank you very much we did try to we we you know like i said we want to we want to do what we need to do and we're happy to be a part of the community so i appreciate that very much thank you thank you so yeah yeah you sign off to work with linda and take care and we should be good to go okay thank you everybody for all your help have a good night i won't be back in the office till next week so we'll i'll work on it next week okay okay thanks okay on to this is 5b 19 moral moral road swld-159
um oh who's on nick arthur on ted you said you want to present the project to the commission yes hi i'm nick arthur the property owner and builder and i have my engineer ted doucette here um ted's probably more suited to answer some of the technical questions so ted do you mind just giving a quick rundown of the project no good to go do we have to open the public hearing or anything or are we good to go okay all right um all right so yeah this is um our first foray into this uh tree removal um and uh stormwater bylaw and uh we feel that we are complying um this is a house that's being um torn down and a new uh one being built up in its place um the plan does say four bedroom uh we have decided the owners decided they want to get to a five bedroom so i need to upgrade the septic system but nothing is changing about the footprint that you see here uh oh you don't see it here because i'm not sharing screen uh let me get onto that okay so uh yeah so this is uh 19 moral um interesting well kind of interesting lot shape here you can see that it it's a through lot goes back to uh lake road terrace here it's kind of down at the end of moral almost um before you get to the uh to the pond but um you can see the smaller house here that's being torn down and then the larger footprint going here um and then the proposed septic system that has been approved for four bedrooms and uh in this area we have uh a stormwater infiltration system uh it consists of uh two of these uh larger um chambers and set on crushed stone and surrounded by crushed stone you can see there's a a bunch of trees here that are coming down that are you know some of them for the portion for the safety of the home and within the footprint and then just some other ones that are um have been determined to be brought down you can also see some plantings here uh the proposed trees um and some proposed shrubs in here a couple more trees over here and you can see the count right here um hoping i can i use the correct document um um but it you know accounts for we're proposing two shrubs um well actually a total of eight six shrubs and five trees um as you can see the the replacement required and then what we're proposing for what's been removed and the stormwater sorry just a question on the trees because i could only see four count 14 on them on the plan that are marked with an x but i saw 15 in the table i think there are like two places it said 14 and two places it said 15 so i just want to confirm the number of trees that are coming down is it 14 or 15. i think it's uh it'll be the one that has everything that has an x and thank you for bringing that to my attention i i didn't catch that earlier um one two three yeah yeah sorry no that's probably me that's probably me yeah uh if there are 14 x's uh we are proposing to take down 14 trees and i'm um based on some of the comments i heard from the last hearing just a few moments ago we may not have our ratio perfect here and i am certainly open to planting more trees than shrubs if that's what the commission would prefer to see but uh and or happy to mitigate for 15 trees even if we're taking down 14 so seems like just uh yeah i believe the count i believe the count is for um for uh you know the 15 trees so yeah one tree you know hey great get an extra get an extra tree in there uh uh courtesy of this owner but um yeah i mean i i thought it was good balance i mean we got you know five trees you know i don't think i know i think the ratio is okay i don't know anyway uh and then the stormwater is um the stormwater infiltration um uh will infiltrate um a 10-year a 10-year storm 24-hour uh type 3 storm uh which is calculated as a 4.7 inch rainfall so all of the water from the 2500 square foot roof will be infiltrated without any um any runoff caused by that structure or that impervious area can i briefly borrow help from my commission i lost myself in this pdf somewhere can what what number and our giant packet are these pages on yeah i don't i'm not sure it's in there shannon's i didn't i'm not finding it either i i go right from the 15 training field to the certificate of compliance request oh yeah i'm looking right at this one i'm not looking at our back it's before oh it is before it's on page 286 i even made a note of that okay i'm i'm i'm caught up i'm sorry sometimes i like to follow along on my own and i just could not find where you were talking i'm carry on i think that's probably the best and quickest overview of the project one thing i think it is important to note is uh we're not proposing any grade change at all um the site for all practical purposes is pretty flat from front to back so all of these grades are existing and proposed it's one of the flatter sites we've uh been able to work on so no no proposed grade changing perfect which is another point that i missed is uh no erosion control is proposed i'll just point that out there i mean there's no stockpiling there's no big you know stripping of a road so this and then like you said it's generally level and if there are any grades it all slopes back down to the into the property so no erosion control just want to make sure that's clear no i will note that um and i think linda's aware we did install silt fence around uh the property already um so we haven't done any any work but we did put erosion control in just with snow coming and okay freezing temperatures it's we figured better to get it in okay uh linda start with you please i do count 14 trees on your plan and there's 14 trees on on the table just to clarify it's just your narrative says 15 but then there is one right next to the leach field that's i don't know if that's going to survive uh um all the um the work that you're planning on doing around the leach field because you you would be you would be generating there though wouldn't you ted for for installing and leach field i mean here's stockpiles to me and stockpiles to other people who have been doing this for you know well i know i've been doing but i mean stockpile it is a stockpile to me is something that's going to be 30 feet high or you know 20 feet high and it's going to be left on the site forever it's going to be sit there without any any erosion control or anything on it yes there is going to be materials stored on site if you want to call it a stockpile too yes but it's not going to be much more than six feet it's just going to be some of the loam stripped off while for the area of the septic system and it's going to be put aside and um you know it's it'll be it'll be it'll be stored if you want to call a stockpile there but yes it's not a stockpile that's going to be sitting there for you know for three months that needs to be that needs to have erosion control or it needs to be seeded or anything so that's just part of the process of septic systems yeah no i get that i mean typically we just ask for a while just just you know put a run erosion control around it but i'm i'm happy to agree to that yeah but just to clarify too in your um in your narrative you make it sound like that we don't have a bylaw um but we we have well have an approved bylaw it was it was voted on in 2015 um it's just the regulations are still in draft and the reason for that is that you know we haven't voted on them but the you know we use them as guidelines because it provides you with information that you need submittal requirements okay so because otherwise you send me something if it's not complete i'm going to ask for more and delay the project whereas if you know exactly what you need to submit you know that's important and we can get the project you know approved a lot faster so which is why yeah i emailed you tonight when i got back i saw your email and i talked to another homeowner on a project we're talking about and i admitted i was i was confused about bylaw and um and regulations so yes um yeah he came and gave me a lot of grief today so you know for not that he has to comply with a um a non-existent bylaw and i had explained that yeah so but um but again there's there's some trees in here i mean if you're going to take down one more by this leach field is there one of these that that can be saved i mean there's a few of them that really aren't in the in the work zone at all so i just didn't know if that was there was a reason why they were coming down more so just to open up for some yard area i don't know how many of uh you guys have had had the uh i have driven by this property it's very very overgrown and it was more so just to be able to allow the future homeowner to grow some grass bring in some sunlight we are no means our intentions is to clear cut this lot and i'm certainly happy to replant more than we're proposing to take down um the ones that we're proposing are the ones that we thought would um do what i just said and also um i will need you to pick up your um runoff from the driveway the new driveway because what one of our requirements in our chapter 193 is that you cannot send your runoff down into the municipal right away that's that's one of the um purposes of this bylaw okay you need to manage your own stormwater and so the runoff because it looks like it's pitched in a way that goes straight into the street okay so if you can come up with a way of managing that and then send that to me okay we can do that and also if the plans the plans sound like they're going to change anyway with a um different septic system or a larger septic system is that right it's up in the air deciding if we if we want to do that for now we have a four-bedroom septic system approved um and i'm not sure that we're moving forward with that at this point okay so with the uh with the you know the fit go ahead sorry go ahead so with the 15 count um tree that that'll that'll um that'll that'll uh include the one next to the uh septic system too i can update that plan um so we have it accounted for on the plan but not xed out i think that happened because um you know that tree was going to come down only as part of the septic system and then once we realized that there were um other trees that were wanting to be removed that's when we came into this this process here so that's that's that's why that tree wasn't included but i'll show it on there okay so what i need is just an updated plan to show the correct tree removal and um how you're going to manage the driveway runoff right yes yep all right well i mean i'm okay with uh the close i mean the commission allowing me to finish this one up if they want me if that's how they want to proceed all right commission thoughts comments questions concerns uh i just wonder could you mouse over the trees that are just going for the sake of like lawn and grass uh so yeah so here's uh for these probably in the front here um you know like but it's lawn grass open space sunlight and a place for a family to put a swing set you know it's not just you know it create i can probably answer it because as a builder i know what the intentions are a little a little bit more from my perspective it was it was most of them i would say that the tree uh directly to the left of the driveway at the bottom um ted if you're able to mouse over that that one maybe for argument's sake uh could stay and the one above that more so just with canopy overhanging the roof you know i hate to five years later see moss growing on a roof already so um i would say most of them maybe for the exception of that one on the left of the driveway i'd be open to keeping i mean i would certainly encourage that i would hate to see mature 18 24 inch trees taken down for the sake of a potential lawn like when i you know lots of kids don't even like the lawn they would prefer to climb a tree um and you know i so i would prefer not these trees aren't climbable these trees aren't climbable and i mean it's everybody has a i think everybody has a right to a lawn in a swing set you know to me but uh i mean you know lawns cause massive ecological damage across the entire continent so the idea of lawns being a necessity is sort of like a holdover from europe that's caused untold damage so i'm just saying like it would be great to see some of these trees not taken down for a long understood for myself okay anybody else commission are we okay granting the permits and letting linda finish up uh on her end not make him come back yes awesome can i get a motion then please can i continue this no no we're granting a a permit on a 193 yes i i i move that we issue a permit under chapter 193 um contingent upon linda being satisfied uh with any revisions as discussed thank you luke do i hear seconds wait here second someone's no one second emotion sorry sean i'm still a little stuck on the trees coming down for no reason i'm thinking about it would uh barbara a second barbara you're second emotion well at least they're gonna give us more information like why can we continue it until we get the when are we gonna get the information well i can tell you why i want to continue not want to continue it we've got seven other things we've continued already and it's just a matter of little little i's and dying and t's that linda can take care of i trust linda to do her job that's why and i'm happy to uh if if a ratio is part of the concern i am happy to plant a couple more canopy trees and uh open to hearing uh of species that the commission would like to see which i'm happy to work with linda on okay that would be great yeah and keeping that tree at the uh front left as i mentioned i don't think that necessarily needs to come down yeah mature trees add a lot of property value more than even a newly planted tree yeah i i i i think uh there there we're still keeping we're trying to keep the biggest and the nicest ones um that was certainly our intention but i know what you're saying no discussion folks we'll go back discussion or we can second the motion we can't sit on the motion all day or because i'm gonna move something different that you're gonna deny the permit and i need specific reasons under 193 you're denying it and it can't be our opinions i thought somebody moved and we're waiting for a second yeah we are luke made the motion i'm waiting for a second or or another motion thank you thank you barbara second roll call please shannon fisher all right if barbara seconds then yes okay that's okay luke lazier yes barbara howell yes lisa aubin yes sean fairs yes thank you all right thank you all right we're on six certificate of compliance 6a 25 lee road dep file number 322-1047 linda um this is a septic closure um the the whole emily did a site visit today it appears that everything's stabilized in the front yard looks like it's been completed i what i need to confirm is that they put in the 15 foot notice sir but um i think that we can probably um just say yes to this and i will confirm that that has been done okay you know if you do commission anything else if nothing else can i get a motion then please to approve the certificate of compliance for 25 lee road so moved so moved second thank you luke thank you babs roll call please shannon fisher uh yes luke roger yes barbara howell yes lisa aubin yes and sean fairza yes thank you on to 6b this is 5 juniper lane swld-112 linda um i believe we had we were asked for due closure on this project and there was some some question about whether or not that um that this is the conditions have been met of this permit to making sure that everything was um compensated for and then there was a request for two additional trees to be removed for a solar system that one they want to put in so that's i think we wanted clarification on that because it is cumulative um you know the way that the bylaws is written so um we would need if you plan on taking more trees down there's going to be more more compensation required for that so and that's the question was do you want to amend this permit or do you are you going to file for a second permit so real quickly before we get into it i'm going to direct a butter so i'm going to hop off shannon and luke you got you got uh got the con here folks i'll come back in one hi there um i'm the uh owner of five juniper um i'm not i'm a little confused as to what you're saying linda and in removing additional trees well we we received um an open gov permit from the building department that you're planning on putting in solar panels and that that's currently required the removal of two more trees so we are not planning on removing any more trees um they had we did get the approvals from the building department to do solar panels however um the trees that they were um talking about um are not on our property um so they went ahead and resubmitted a different plan for the amount of panels uh due to sun hours so they reduced the um project from i think it was 36 panels and then they backed it down to 31 panels um bringing it from 103 percent production to i believe like 87 percent which we were fine with um but again we have no intention of uh doing any more tree removal um i think that it's just because the google images for the property are so outdated that they had questions but um they submitted pictures and we've already received the permitting for going forward with the project with no further removal okay um is where would i find that is that in the building permit or is that and do you have that information um so the the last thing we saw in open gov was that you were taking it down two more trees so no um we we are there's no intention of that that's why there's no application or anything like that um we're not required to and they've pushed through uh for the permitting um and gave us the approvals with the how our land and and the current trees are so there's no intention to do any further removal okay and the site visit did indicate that there was a lot of trees removed in the backyard because we did give you permission to take down like a multi-liter beach tree in the rear but it looks like they it looks like they were all removed is that true we took down the beach trees because they were dead um i think when you did the site visit you confirmed that many of the beach trees in massachusetts had in fact died and without you know reason um there was a cluster of them that were taken down um but they were dead and diseased they weren't healthy and they were dropping huge branches uh into the backyard and as i discussed before uh in meeting uh initially is that um most of the trees that we took um would have been exempt for um septic dead and diseased danger to the property um but and just general use of the property and then with the intention of uh solar and future septic um the trees that we did take we did a replanting plan we went above and beyond the replanting plan uh i think we were required to do six native species we did 12 junipers we did two highbush blueberries um the highbush blueberries produced berries uh last year and this year but emily upon her site visit said that one of them didn't look healthy that aside the junipers are thriving um there's 12 of them they're healthy we also uh planted 13 emerald green arborvites um unfortunately half of them didn't make it um it is our intention to remove them and and most likely uh replant even though they're not a native species but we did do 13 emerald greens um mostly six to seven feet um our junipers i believe are about six feet and we also did four uh green giant arborvites as well okay all right because i mean the permit says 11 trees so and again i was um however a lot of those i think were exempt and i outlined that in um and i showed on two separate um we had amazon tree and walnut tree service um give indications of which trees were dead and diseased which would have been exempt and then which trees were exempt for uh future septic and then um the remaining trees that we took we did the replanting plan for
okay so can i get like the total number of trees removed and how many were dead versus actually like actually dead versus dying versus diseased um i don't know if linda has that in front of her um i don't have it in front of me but in i had provided conservation with the uh tree estimates the original tree estimates and on those the reason i provided two was because on one they kind of outlined which trees that they recommended um that were posing a threat and that were not healthy and then in the second one there was also so it was just a correlation of like information um we ended up going with amazon tree but all of that was submitted uh two years ago when we applied for the permit yeah i i have two different estimates i think this is the problem we had before he was gave me two different estimates for amazon and both of them have different different tree counts one has 11 and the other one has five six seven eight nine 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 um i gave you two for one would have been from i believe walnut amazon they're both amazon and one had 11 trees and like i said this is five six seven eight nine ten eleven twelve yeah the other one has 16 trees on it so we took 11 trees okay okay and out of those 11 off the top of my head i believe there was only um we were only required to do replantings of six native native species and we did 14 replantings and all right like it was just again it's just confusing because i have multiple you know multiple quotes that have different numbers on them that's why it's you know it wasn't clear always in from the beginning so is juniperous communists being considered a tree or a shrub in this context a shrub okay good okay are we counting the green giants and the arborvitae is native in this no i'm just saying we we replanted 31 total but for the native species we did 14 species we did 14 and the requirement was i believe six per your bylaw it's six i think it's it would be six trees but it would be i think depending on the size of the tree the number of shrubs is greater than that so okay but like any action like that would additional information that would have been requested like why wasn't that done when we submitted our replanting plan this whole thing like this whole thing though this has been going on two years we we have an abutter at the time too jen was in a butter um you know you guys entered the property on numerous occasions unannounced we got a cease and desist it felt very personal it didn't feel ethical we've gone above and beyond what has been asked of us i've lived in wayland my whole life like we bought here we we love the neighborhood we wanted a yard for our three kids that was safe we want to put in septic because we don't have a septic system we're trying to bring this 1950s ranch you know up and do making it beautiful because you know it was kind of behind the times and it is our full intention to maintain our investment to have the replantings do future plantings i mean so i'm just i'm just not understanding like what else you're needing from us all we're trying to do is just close out the permit when emily was here for the site visit she had mentioned that like maybe there would be future um stipulations and conditions which if it's my understanding in your bylaws the commission hasn't imposed any performance guarantees at the present time unless i interpreted that wrong and please correct me if i'm wrong um however you know i think that we've done our due diligence i think that you know our intentions are are good we're trying to do everything right and ethical and this just feels um a little bit personal and it has from the beginning so i just wanted to speak my piece on that because um it doesn't feel super neighborly and i don't love that well i'm just going back to the original question jane which was are you taking more trees down because again that information in front of us as an open gov permit and we get everything electronically and that was the reason i wanted to inform you that again it's it's cumulative cumulative once you take once you start the tree removal process take more trees down you still need to compensate and that's the reason that's the question i had for you and and the commission needed to understand that too because they're the person they're they're the group that makes the approval but if you're saying you're not taking any more trees down then now we can close out on this permit the question to me to you that i was trying to trying to convey is if you are we can amend this permit or you can close it out and and apply for a new one those those were the questions i had for you and that's again you know i think we've we've cleared that up okay okay great i i'm letting you all know there's zero intention of removing any further trees we got that permitting i think because like i said before the the uh satellites were out of date so when they were doing aerial views all of the original trees were still noted in the property so they did a site survey and took pictures of what is current and then they went ahead after that and reduced when we said we weren't removing any more trees reduced the number of panels for sun hours to adhere to no further tree removal okay well that's that's that's the whole reason for you know asking you to come is because again we have different information here in front of us okay i just want to clarify for my part i think this was before my time so part of this is i'm getting the lay of the land for myself because i don't think i was part of the original stuff so a lot a lot of what i've been asking is just clarifying um so i can get my best sense for it sure is the this is was there ever okay never mind okay hang on i'm just thinking through some stuff for myself here i do want to say i like the hickory tree i like that you put in a hickory you don't see that too often going in and it's a cool choice i wish we would see more of oh i thought i thought you took down a hickory i'm sorry i didn't care i took it i didn't i we replanted the um junipers and the high bush blueberries and then the emerald greens and the green giants wait okay so wait wait wait okay so the none of the green so the green marker only the bottom part of it is the replacement plantings the the top green part is adding to the list so cut removal of oak trees the four trees on left side what are the green check marks and the x's mean here in this context i can't see this i can't see what you're looking at so i uh i'm i i apologize i don't have it in front of me so i'm i'm not entirely sure what you're referencing i don't see i don't see any x's there's just circles for the junipers and then and then um a high blush blueberry on the corner i think i shannon are you talking about the marked up sorry if i could just the marked up uh it's a july 19th 2023 estimate from amazon there's it's marked up is that the one because yes i mean the way i read that key is the green check mark is replacement planting and the red x is dead or exempt is the way it's classified okay but then there's no so that's helpful for those top ones but then it's less clear for the subsequent ones where the beach trees was their replacement was it was there not three pine trees hickory tree oak tree little pine um i think i think that can i mean i i'm not 100 sure shannon but i no no no i think so i think that i think when you then come down to the list the three pines the hickory the oak and the little pine were taken yes right and then the 12 junipers and the hybrid excuse me the high bush blueberry were the replacements yes that's correct okay okay and are these three marker ones sorry i'm i'm i don't mean to be so confused but i think i am just confused by this so looking at this the act you know debtor exempt septic green check mark replacement planting are these pine trees hickory oak little pine explanations for some of the species when it says cut and removal trees left side of house like is it saying indicating the size they were that were cut okay so the three pine trees that were removed were dbh 11 to 20 inches and so forth is how i read it okay but that's six trees were removed that weren't exempt and those were the sizes okay and then they're included in that top typed part yes okay all right i really had to catch up on this this confused me a lot um i also had to look up juniperous communist that was a new one to me actually um okay so the only legend that we have is this map that marks the shrubs but not the other replacement plantings and not the trees that came down
right i think that's right correct okay so i if i could just ask a question just to clarify are all the replacement plantings alive and healthy i think i heard maybe at least one of them didn't make it so all of the junipers the 12 junipers are healthy i was actually asking sorry sorry i was asking linda but no you can go ahead oh no sure go ahead there was a question on one high bush blueberry but okay and a couple and a few of the arborvitaes didn't make it either right correct but they weren't um native species so they were just kind of a bonus not necessarily you know we did plant those however the junipers and the high bush were the native replacement plantings and then the arborvitaes were bonus okay and that that's where i was ultimately going so linda the sort of the native plantings that we required as mitigation have all survived yeah like i said except for probably one high fish blueberry okay maybe the one of the blueberries okay okay thanks i just wanted to be clear on that so none of the native replacements are trees they're all shrubs yes this sort of bums this bums me out like like the other permit did where well there's really you know shannon there's really nothing we can do about at this point like i said it's two years old and again my question was mainly about if there was going to be additional tree removal so um you know i think i think we just need to move on with this one okay yeah if you're comfortable with it yes and i just wanted to make sure that um my understanding or clarify that there will be no additional performance guarantees or stipulations attached to the closure no we don't we don't take in uh money for performance guarantees so for this okay okay that's just what i was told so i just wanted to clarify i do like your commitment to junipers because you're on juniper lane and you planted so many junipers all right so i'll issue a closure on this one if everybody's okay with that uh yeah we should probably just take a vote okay uh so i guess if are we ready for motion shannon i i i guess yeah i i guess so okay uh i move that we issue certificate of compliance for five juniper lane swld dash one one two second okay i think maybe you do you want me to lead the vote or you shannon i don't want to stop oh oh right sean's not here i don't want to step on your toes no wonder well i don't i have no urgent burning desire to be chair um so you're still vice chair you you get to do the hard work am i i thought you were okay uh fair enough wait am i right here now did i forget how to do that oh i'll do it anyways just because i'm here um yeah all right roll call vote please shannon fisher yes lisa obin yes barbara howe yes yes and luke leger is a yes as well am i am i the vice chair now did i thought you were but maybe no i forgot we did all that and that it's in effect now okay well thanks for doing it sure all right let's move on to thanks everyone thank you i have a flight tomorrow morning so we uh i'm going to be leaving the meeting here shortly just to tell you just uh because i gotta go um we're on to 7a then community preservation committee application due to not 13th hamlin woods improvement linda what you got kid uh emily put this together um i guess this is this is something that we've had tons and tons of complaints on the beavers have really done some damage over there the the whole you know trail is somewhat submerged sometimes it's knee deep in water depending on how much rain we've gotten so we've really got to do some boardwalks over here on a different bridge and we'll probably that's what the um the application is going to be it's going to be um a contracted it's going to be somebody besides us building this um because it is it could be up to a 300 foot boardwalk that goes along that the first part of that trail if you're familiar with that there's really no way of rerouting that um so so that's that's really all we've come up with for a cpc application this year so this trail on the other side you're talking about yeah off of hamlin woods off of the um off the parking lot there yeah which trail there is only one that comes off the parking lot barbara that goes on the left to the left of the parking lot and goes right along the the top side of the impoundment oh that trail that's floods yeah it's often flooded yes it is you know what we keep losing lands good job to the beavers they're bringing them back but yes uh also boardwalks it's you know it's surprisingly a heavily used product uh um uh property i'm always surprised to see every time i drive by the the parking lot can be often full you know and even the oddest times of the day so um like i said we've gotten many many complaints about that so and i keep telling people like there's nothing you can do we don't have the resources to do that in our office we we have to hire somebody and for that we need money so historically that
conservation area always got more um visits than any other oh no i think her just takes the number one seat here so um all right so you're looking for a motion to approve the draft proposal right yeah i don't know if you got anything again we're still waiting for a quote from the from the contractor to put this you know to so we can put a cost in here but it's pretty straightforward it's just a matter of revamping this whole section of the trail so it's it's passable okay gotcha okay everybody good with that everyone make a motion to approve the draft proposal for hamlin woods so i'll get off to the barbara and out there luke want a second one though or else that's right luke second that one yeah i'll second it roll call please shannon fisher uh yes luke leger yes barbara howell yes lisa aubin yes and sean fairs yes thank you uh anything in complex not anticipated by me or anybody else anything else anybody have anything come up the last second well i think i might need some advice or maybe uh a change in our in our rules and regulations um a huge uptick in professional dog walkers have showed up and just uh i mean we've always had them at loker i haven't really enforced much over there um we get them occasionally at greenways but the complaints we've got in recently has been a herd farm i mean we had we had one dog walker last weekend with 14 dogs off leash okay and and six seven eight you know that's that's really pretty common i guess so i got a call today um from somebody who was out there walking like oh they showed up so i went out there and approached them and um just completely non-cooperative they had no interest in even learning the rules which are three dogs and only two off leash i told them i have every ability to find them if they continue showing up and with you know packs of dogs that are off leash at the time we'd lost one already it was running in the woods somewhere and again the rules say you have to have control of your dogs you know you can't just let them run loose everywhere and you know they form pack mentality they go after other people and dogs you know in a group it's really unsafe and um it's a company called trails and tails or tails and trails out of watertown i mean they drive all the way out here just to use our properties because it's pretty much uncontrolled you know we don't have the kind of um a dog officer that we really need to keep a keep an eye on these things so um i you know i i'm i you know other than using the mom voice i am you know i can i could start finding them once they show up again but um you know i just wish i had we had a little bit more teeth you know to to keep this from happening and you know that guy he had seven dogs he didn't have a poo bag on him okay you know like so he didn't even clean up after his dogs all right so we have three more than anything so so i'm one clarifying question um when you said he this he is it so it's one person walking all these dogs or whatever oh yeah he wasn't interested in learning the rules i guess i'm confused you actually caught him red-handed with all these dogs yes yes so couldn't you say well regardless of what you're interested in hearing i'm gonna go ahead and get your license plate i'm gonna find you as of right now like why are we not finding him already like what's the do you need do you need our permission or can't you just find without us i mean typically our if you look at our rules and regulations it says you you know you get a warning you know and i had already called um the company on monday and left a voicemail and told them that they can no longer use our properties you know they it's it's limited to three dogs where you you cannot bring you know packs of dogs out here and i guess that was completely on on you know maybe she didn't hear it maybe it wasn't you know um vocalized to the other people in the company so i thought i'd give him one last chance and say you cannot have you know seven unleashed dogs here you know and and he goes you know he wouldn't give me his name he wouldn't give me the company he worked for i mean it was you know it was just and i what i ended up doing is blocking the parking lot he couldn't get out until he told me who he was working for and who i was who i was going to be finding you know in the future and i don't like being put in that position you know i mean it's it's you know there's nobody but just me out there and you know a group of seven bucks and uh i just i know we can't you know it's going to be ever impossible to restrict dogs altogether but i just wish we had a better way of enforcing this you know and i mean we have two poo stations out there and the guy can't even pick up after his dogs you know i mean it's it's crazy so couldn't this be a similar kind of act to our our infamous tree bank that thank you lisa for helping work on this coming up is if it's if it's we'll find you ten dollars you're great okay if it's oh you get a thousand dollars per violation per dog right now now now i have your attention and so we we have the teeth they're just not very sharp so why why don't we just look at something that says all right anytime linda happens to be anywhere she can find per dog violation a thousand dollars no you know no no warnings it's it's on our maybe make a sign no dog walking more than whatever but why why make it harder than it has to be is just make the financial penalties so strong it gets people's attention so right now it's a hundred dollars that's what's in our regulations and there are signs on both sides of the trail that says you know you can only have three dogs and two can only be off leashed but people just choose not to you know abide by those so so make sure i understand so this example this person could get a fourteen hundred dollar fine seven i thought there was 14 dogs no today there was seven oh but regardless but it's okay and so in my question what what would we in that example be fining for because you can't prove the dog didn't poop or are you saying because it's not on a leash like what do you is it over a certain amount off a leash is the the finding yeah he had seven off leash dogs uh one of them was gone i mean you know was completely out of control you know um again he none of them were in control for the most part um you know not under leash or voice command um and yeah he's he's not supposed to be there as a professional dog worker he's not supposed to be there with seven unleashed dogs so the limits three you said three three i mean it is a major public safety risk like that many dogs not in control pack mentality like kids and other people's dogs have have died or been mauled um you know without a control dogs it's a public safety hazard if this if this guy does not have control of those dogs um yeah i'm certainly in support of of stronger things is it possible we could even ask the town to post police there once or twice to do we know what times a day this happens typically or what days does he have around we put a camera up on monday um and it looked like they're pretty much there between 11 and 2 for the most part and if you look at the bylaw and the regulations in town this the police does not have enforcement capabilities you know it's it's really the dog officer and this is a dog officer in eight years nine years i've never laid eyes on and she really has no interest in going out and regulating you know professional dog walkers i don't think you know she sees that as part of her job she sees that as part of our job to manage open space so um uh yeah i mean again i could go out there with a fine booklet and you know issue issue fines to them but and again i don't really have the time just been you know wandering around herd farm um unless unless i know somebody's really is there you know if if i if i have a report that there's a perfect professional dog walker but otherwise there's got to be something we can come up with to you know deter this and you saw you know weston has has a the professional dog walkers have to be licensed and it's expensive you know if you want to use open space you have to have a license you know um to use it and again you know that's an option but we have nobody to enforce it for the most part so you know until we have enforcement capabilities that's going to be another that that'd be another tough one so i suspect they also come here because it's also hard in weston i think that's why they're all at loker because you know that's that's the closest one to weston so i think why can't you you made a comment like we're waiting for more authority so again what what's stopping us from granting the conservation office linda brian emily anybody in their employ if seen this violation it's and if you want to increase the number to make it a little bit more sticky and a little bit more owners i'm i'm so i guess am i making it too simple by making it by deputizing you and the whole office anytime you see the violation on the spot you know i mean or no we can do that but again you know i none of us have the time to do this you know we're a three-man a three-man department and we have way more work in this office that the two of us can handle and brian you know is does does 1200 acres of open space by himself you know manage that we we don't have the time for this right well i guess my point is not make it onerous is but you're out i mean you're out in the field and so when you happen to come across and by the way if the fines big enough they're paying thousands of dollars in fines it's not going to be happening very i mean we can curb you know attitude and behavior pretty quick there i think so yeah is this a fine to the dog walker or to the company i would have to issue it to the dog walker because he's a person who was you know who's there um but like i said today he wouldn't even give me his name you know and uh again i'm not the lawyer let luke speak in this but i wouldn't even ask for a name you take a picture of the license plate the fines going there i don't care if it's the owner of the the commercial car but yeah i i mean that's i think that's it i don't think we you know i think it sounds like from what linda's saying the problem is really just one of having a bandwidth right like we we just you know there's just not enough folks on staff who aren't already totally swamped with their other job responsibilities to be able to take this out and shoulder this responsibility so i think you know if that's the problem it seems like we had this we had a lot of conversations around this you know a few years ago i recall um it seems like that was kind of the main thing we kept coming back to so it sounds like that's just the same problem but i think you know sean what you suggested to me makes sense i think yeah linda that's you know if you if you've got the license plate and you saw it then we just issue the tickets i mean i frankly think if you're telling me that's gonna be seven hundred dollars i think that's a lot of money for somebody in this in that business i would guess and if it's going to the employee who's out there walking those dogs surely that bill is going to get its way back to the company that employs that person and if right i mean i would think there would be some action taken if they get whacked with a seven hundred dollar fine yeah just yeah but i mean i like i hear you linda i'm not trying to make more work for you i'm just it does seem like that's the best we can do is when you see it just hit them with a fine i think if that happens a couple few times word will start to get out hopefully would it i mean listen i got a lot of writing work i got to sit down and do i could bring my laptop there from 11 to 2 and just stake it out and look to see what happens there's only one parking lot for herd farm right there is i think i mean i will say you know shannon that that would be awesome if you're willing to do it and i i think just the other thing to keep in mind is and i think linda was kind of getting at that it can get pretty contentious with these folks i mean i i know just from other towns i've seen this come up um it can get pretty ugly um so just you know be careful out there i guess is is all i'm really saying um not trying to dissuade you from doing it but just no yeah it's what's the i don't say the legal process but let's i'll use myself i'm out there i see this clear infraction i you know whatever take a picture license plate send it to linda hey 10 dogs you know all at least whatever she then issues this this fine i'll say my deputy type but like kick guys can any citizen do this like at her i think i'd have to i have to look at the i'd have to look at the bylaw and remind myself but i i mean i think if we want to get really technical about it sean whoever is the sort of enforcing officer or authority has to be the person issuing i think there's probably a pretty good argument to be made that they really have to be the person observing the violation too that's why um right so i i i think you know maybe if you take a video and a picture and send it maybe that does the trick i don't know we're pretty far outside of my practice i would feel really weird writing a ticket out for some dude and i wouldn't expect you to do that again i think all we really need is photos video and the license plate to prove that somebody's breaking the law you know breaking the rules of the of the conservation committee you know of our open space so there'd be no need to confront you just sit there take a photo and count the dogs yeah make sure you have a photo of them off leash you know and all the dogs that they have and and a license plate okay i certainly i couldn't do it every day but certainly i have plenty of days where i just work very hard at avoiding work and i could use well i mean required but to that point though like are there could we enlist volunteers you know people in the town that hike these trails a lot you know i don't i don't know what's what's able to be done here but if you have enough you know i'm sure there's plenty of like the people that called up linda there's plenty of people that get frustrated by that because they're not picking up the dog i love dogs right and there's no bad dogs there's just bad owners okay so you know if they're not picking up the poop and they're letting them off leash etc um you know those are the rules but i again i just don't know if we could you know enlist some volunteers people that walk the trails that you know can help you know spread the word like they're not supposed to be doing that and it could be contentious but you know otherwise they'll take over all of our conservation trails you know that's exactly what happened today is if people are out there walking i want them to call me but a lot of people just don't want to be put in that position either but you know there'll be some people who do that again you know the only problem with you that shannon would have by sitting in the parking lot is like today um the dog walker did gather his dogs and had them all on leash when he entered the parking lot because now that's a place that he needs you know he's responsible for somebody else's dogs and he doesn't want to have somebody backing up into it you know and so you wouldn't necessarily have the ability to um you know take pictures of i mean but isn't that he's not interrupting but isn't that still like too many dogs yeah it is too many dogs it really is it is too many dogs i mean is it if the if the rule is three and you know with two off leash and somebody shows up with seven eight ten fourteen dogs i mean to me like that's it right it doesn't unleash off leash whatever yeah yeah no you're right you're right but no no reason to confront just you know photos and uh um uh drivers the license plate is all i need so all right so photo of the dog the license plate wait all right i have to write this down exactly because if i actually do this so again watch your while shannon writes this down so linda's are we solving what you're at was the ask hey i'm seeing i'm seeing increasing dog walkers help me out by doing this are we solving what you're asking for or well yeah i just want to bring your this to your attention because again it's been an ongoing problem for many years um you know we've talked before about even restricting dogs on certain properties you know where we have a lot of wildlife and a lot of habitat i'm not sure that's going to go over really well that's just going to probably bring more dogs to places like herd or other places so i i just don't know what the good solution is i really don't but um it's really i mean i think i think word's gotten out that you can come to whalen with as many dogs as you want and there's no leash laws there's no nothing again i'd love to see a animal control officer that actually works for the town i think that would be a huge um plus too is to have you know have a relationship with a with a dog officer um ours is contractual um and like i said i've never seen her so um i think that's an issue too and we need to change the contract uh huh are we paying this person and they're just not showing up or like what's she gets paid uh to do what uh you know she works for the police department and she's supposed to she's supposed to come when she's called and she's supposed to pick up dive animals do rabies testing on on roadkill um you know and deal with kennels and um so she's i mean that that job is already broad it is pretty broad but again you know she she does not she does not walk open space properties or you know check to see if you know the rules and regulations are being followed she basically comes when she's called by the police department so so while we do it i'm happy to help here so you know i'm always out taking calls i'll just i'll finally email me wherever what what areas what times i'll start trying to adjust my call schedule and so i'll be that guy let's try that see if that helps and if not my other solution i recommend at some point is we just a hundred dollars to luke's point is it's a lot seven dollars is no joke seven hundred dollars isn't seven thousand right and so to get it so we could increase the fine somewhere in between there to where it's no one wants to get caught doing it versus all right if it's only x amount of dollars i'll i'll risk a couple hundred dollar fine once every couple months to get my business in the you know i mean so that's the other balance that we may have to take but in the meantime i'm happy to start throwing out some some fines and sending people your way okay do we have to formalize this like no it's already it already is formalized okay i mean i see on the website right in the conservation properties visitors with dogs and the first bullet is all dogs must be leashed in parking lots and conservation areas and then there's further bullets that says you must have no more than three and two only two can be off leash but when i read the first bullet it's like you're not off leash at all yeah but again we have nobody here to enforce right but even that it's just confusing like the first bullet is conservation areas must be leashed and then a few more down it's like you can have three but only two can be unleashed and as long as you have voice command so but it says leashed or in voice command right but the first bullet just says all dogs must be leashed in parking lots and conservation areas on the website so it's you know if you don't look any further you're like i've got to leash my dog if you don't look at the other bullets but um yeah people seem to know that you can't bring a dog to the refuge and they don't you rarely see dogs on refuges and mass audubon the same thing they don't have people on all their properties but people just know that mass audubon does not allow dogs but when it comes to conservation public conservation they seem to ignore us and when you speak to them they give you a lot of lip so you don't um maybe it's who would give you lip bar who live in this town but um they don't they're rude to you
well let's uh see we see if we can change some behaviors here so we'll start i volunteered for the refuge for you know as long as i've been on this commission and i never ran into dog problems because they didn't bring their dogs
well hopefully we can you can change the behavior a little bit but i'll be the guinea pig for the first month i'll i'll they can rant at me if they like well maybe you'll see me in the parking lot sean okay with my laptop you know not writing yeah yeah well without internet out there i'll have no choice i'll be forced into writing um so we just need a photo of the plate and a count on the dogs and if you feel like a leg stretch go get a photo of the dogs off leash yeah photos and videos okay i mean you know weston's dog thing and it's a lot it's a lot better fleshed out it also points out that like aggressive or dangerous dogs are not allowed on you know any dogs displaying aggressive or dangerous activity dogs must are not allowed on there they'll be sighted dogs must not disturb visitors um to municipal lands and must be under physical control in the presence of visitors and disturbance can be unwelcome approaching tucking touching jumping on displaying threatening behavior so even if someone's just getting a dog running up to them you know that's strongly discouraged in weston they they flushed it out a lot more and i like fines higher let me see their fine schedule um well for what it's worth shannon i'm out in the western woods a lot and there's dogs off leash all the time
you can say what you want but that doesn't happen in the field so yeah yeah but it is a real hazard having like seven to fourteen dogs just running uncontrolled if nothing else they're going to devour or like you know be super interested in any of our ground nesting birds oh i'd love to ban birds i mean dogs during the you know bobbling nesting period but i i think i'd have a bullseye in my back at some point so um yeah so i mean this is going to be a topic of further discussion like i said i gotta go i have a very early flight so um okay i'll let you guys finish up and um approve the minutes okay all right linda safe flight yeah all right no public comments that i saw no one's hands up we're all alone yep we're all alone here we go babs october 8th minutes we good to go or what fine yes anybody want to argue with that smart move maybe want to approve then the minutes for october 8th 2025 please so moved thank you luke do i hear a second second thank you shannon roll call please shannon fisher yes luke lejeer yes barbara howell yes lisa aubin yes there's a yes thank you uh that's all i got anybody else have anything good just to say i don't worry i wasn't offended that none of you showed up to my workshop at the macc fall conference on saturday i didn't take it personally i didn't take it personally that's not why i'm bringing it up i'm just mentioning it what were you teaching it was the roles of conservation commissions in the 40b permitting process i know it's sexy it's exciting i know you're all kicking yourselves for not i can say i can tell you answer that i haven't gone through the process with uh the hands our role is nothing we're hogtied that's that's stay out of the way yeah yeah we don't need anything yeah it was a quick presentation i bet oh that's great actually luke i actually really am interested in like trying to pick up some more knowledge and get you know expand my competency in this area so if you're teaching courses just please shoot me an email drop me a line like let me know i would and it's in enough advance that i know to sign up because i would love to actually do more of the macc courses okay a lot of those courses way back so did i they were good i took a few of them um i think i heard when i was somewhere when i was off the meeting i think officially shannon you are the vice chair i heard you and like luke i think going through who technically vice technically you are but anybody can do it but i want to make i think i heard that but if i didn't then like women i think i yeah i think i blocked it from memory but i got this reluctant promotion shannon tried to weasel out of it but i i was holding strong yeah all right good uh all right y'all i think that's a quick emotion for adjournment then please so moved go here seconds second thank you shannon roll call please shannon fischer yes uh luke was here yes barbara howell yes lisa alvin yes and sean fairs yes we are officially adjourned
