March 4, 2026 – Conservation Commission – Video & Transcript
March 4, 2026 - Conservation Commission
Okay. With that, we've got a quorum at 633. I'll begin the Conservation Commission meeting for March 4th, 2026. The location for in-person meeting and wheelchair is accessible. If you need other accommodations in order to participate in the meeting, please contact Waylon's ADA coordinator at the following link.
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With that said, I know we're all dying in remotely. I see Cliff Lewis, Luke Legere, Jenny Brown, myself, Lisa Aubin, Shannon Fischer, all dying in remotely. We're also asking Marty Nover to sit in. She has some background. Some of the cases will be working on in Linda's absence. So thank you, Marty, for hopping in. Oh, and there's Babs hopping in as we speak. Hey, Babs.
Hi. Am I on?
Yep. You're on and you're good. Perfect timing. Just introducing everybody. So Barbara's now, we're all here, all dying in remotely. With that said, call the meeting to order and do the public hearings. So let's start with 1A. This is 108 Lakeshore Drive in the Wayland 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 submitted 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 within 100 feet of Dudley Pond, and the property is shown on Assessor's Map 46B, Parcel 35.
So since Linda's had an issue, we're not here this week. Emily, any updates that you've received on this case since last we spoke?
I do believe Linda actually did meet with the applicants last month, I think on last, exactly a month ago. And then after that meeting, the applicants submitted this revised material based on her comments.
Gotcha. Gotcha. So this is comments with Linda's work on, working on it. Okay. Perfect. And Marty, any notes on your end of this one?
No, I have not seen the additional information, no.
Okay. No worries. All right. So is anybody here for 108 Lakeshore Drive? Doug? Well, thank you. You're on mute there, Doug.
Can you hear me now? Yep. There you go. Yep. Yep. Doug Dillon for, as you said, 108 Lakeshore. Just as you and Emily said, we met with Linda a month ago, got some tentative plans, got those written up in a new revision for the plans, as well as additional detail on the planting plan. Kind of, you know, as you said, just getting that tentative kind of thumbs up. And, you know, Linda, my understanding, has not been here for this week. So just, we're kind of waiting for her to get back. So that's all. Got it. And so, quick question for you, Doug. So when you worked with Linda, has Linda seen this final addition with your, with your, her comments incorporated or not yet? So, we all met myself, the engineer, her, and the homeowner, you know, old school, right? You know, plans on the table and kind of just drew out a suitable plan, you know, that we can work with moving forward. I, you know, had to have those implemented by the engineer, sent those hard copy and digital. And then, you know, I think very shortly after, you know, I reached out. She said she hadn't gotten to them yet. And then, you know, she, she, she had to step away for, for some time, which is this week now. So. Okay. Perfect. So, let's, let's do this commission. First of all, commission, any thoughts, comments, questions on the updated revised plans? I wonder if you could just walk us through the changes that you've made. Oh, I, um, sorry. I, I, uh, didn't come necessarily to, to present. I just, I'm actually here, um, substituting for a colleague tonight. Um, I, I, my intention, I, I'm trying to keep with the kind of getting the thumbs up with, uh, Linda. And I just want to wait until she is able to fully review the plans before we come back properly to the meeting. I'm just kind of giving you a quick little update to keep you in the loop, guys. Awesome. So, so you're looking for that in continuation. And by the way. Emily, when's the next date of our, uh, meeting or continue for next time? I think it's the 24th.
24th of March. Okay. Um, so I get perfect then. So I guess make sure I'm understanding, looking for continuation to the 24th, Doug. Sorry, Sean, just, is it the 25th maybe, Emily? Yeah, it's the 25th. Okay. Sorry. Sorry, Sean. I just wanted to make sure we had the right date there. Yep. I appreciate that. Um, so I guess, yeah. So unless there's any other immediate comments from anybody, I get the idea is to finalize this with Linda between now and next time. So the 25th, we're ready to vote. Okay. Commission, we go with that? Okay. Looking for then a motion then for, uh, under both for continuation sometime after 630 on the 25th of March, please. So moved. Thank you, Luke. Do I hear a second? Second. Thank you. Sound like Lisa. Uh, roll call, please. Luke Legere. Yes. Barbara Howell. Yes. Lisa Aubin. Yes. Cliff Lewis. Yes. Shannon Fischer. Yes. Jenny Brown. Yes. And Sean Ferzi. Yes. Thank you, folks. Okay. Doug, we'll see you, at least for that case, in a few weeks. Thank you, Doug. All right. Thank you. Thanks. Uh, all right. We're on to, this is 2B, uh, 169 Rice Road in Whelan, DEP, file number 322-1053. This is a continued notice of intent filed pursuant to Whelan's Wetlands and Water Resource Protection Bylaw and the Wetlands Protection Act submitted by Whelan Storm, uh, and Whelan Stormwater and Land Disturbance Bylaw submitted by St. Philip at her precarious and St. Mina Copic Orthodox Church for the work, uh, 169 Rice Road in Whelan, Mass. The proposed work includes a demolition of the existing church and construction of three new buildings, parking surfaces, the Courtyard, Sportsfield, and Stormwater Management Systems. Uh, the project is in with a 200-foot riverfront area and a 100-foot buffer zone of a boring vegetated wetland. Property is shown on Assessor's Map 40, Parcel 08. Uh, so going with the same thing. Emily, any, uh, updated material since last time you want to update us on? The planning board, uh, filed their final decision on the 13th, and then after that, the applicant submitted two planting plans, a buffer zone plan, and a memo from their wetlands consultant. And we also got, like, four comments from abutters and a letter from the, an attorney representing the abutters. Okay. Thank you.
Um, and before I move to Mari, who is here for, or on behalf of the applicant? I see someone raising their hand. Emily, is someone supposed to be moved over here? Do we know? Hi. Uh, this is, uh, Sean Lennon from Studio DSK, uh, Art, the Architects. And I just wanted to let you know that we met with Linda, um, back, I think it was in January, to, to talk about, um, one of the outstanding issues. And that was the off-site mitigation. She informed us that, um, that was something that, uh, the town would not, um, uh, sort of allow or, or participate in. And so we went back and, um, uh, reworked the plan to see if we could get, uh, to within the allow, allowable limits, um, within the 200-foot buffer. We've done that. Um, we removed, um, three parking spaces and increased the pervious space from impervious space. And we've submitted those, um, that plan showing that. And so, uh, when Emily said that, um, plans were submitted, that was one of them. And we also, uh, resubmitted the, uh, landscape plan.
Okay.
Thank you. Um, and Marty, any notes on this one before we open this up? Yeah, just, just a few, a few notes. I had, I had done a peer review on this, on this project and submitted comments back in November. Since then, I know there's been a lot of back and forth with the applicant, the commission, and the butters and so forth that I've not been involved in. Um, but I did spend a little time looking at things, and the one thing I wanted to, um, bring up to the commission's attention is the, the planning board decision. Um, it's section, uh, 3.27. It talks about the driveway, the access road into the site, which is through the riverfront area. It does talk about, it does say, um, that the, the location and the widths of the driveways must be coordinated with the department, um, department of public works. Which indicates to me that there may be some plan revisions, um, to maybe the, the actual, um, permanent and final dimensions of that access road. Um, so I think that since that's really a key issue for the commission, since it's through the riverfront area, it actually bisects, um, the riverfront area that the commission should continue, um, this hearing to get, to get the final plans to just confirm, um, that they meet performance standards. The second thing is that they notices, um, the applicant committed to, um, constructing the project in five years, as everyone knows, the, the order of conditions is only good for three. So, um, just wanted to bring that to the attention of the commission. So at the end of three years, it's really, you know, there's no guarantee that the commission at the time will continue, um, to extend that, extend the decision, um, or require it. A new notice of intent. So, you know, those are the things to think, you know, maybe the applicant to think about, um, the other thing I noticed in my comments, um, back in November was that, um, I brought up the fact about the connectivity of, um, this riverfront, um, the area is, um, has protected open space. Um, there is, um, there is, um, there is development, um, throughout the area, so, you know, it is, it has been fragmented a bit already, and this project will fragment it even more, um, given the fact that they're, you know, the whole sites will be, um, pretty much cleared and developed. And the only, um, remaining, um, remaining wooded area is that, um, narrow, um, riverfront in the front of the, of the, of the site, um, along, uh, Rice Road. I brought up, you know, asking the applicant, recommending that they take a look at connectivity and how, um, the project may have an impact on the riverfront's ability to, um, protect wildlife habitat. And they did respond in their February comments that, you know, the area was already, you know, you know, the, um, the rivers across the street, you know, there's already impacts. But again, you know, and admittedly that's so, but, um, this project is going to have even, it's going to cause even more of a, um, fragmentation problem, um, in the whole regional context of, of, of Snakebrook and the riverfront. So I was hoping at the time that they would look at it and maybe scale back, scale back some of their development in the riverfront, maybe even outside the riverfront, just to provide, um, more, um, protected migratory area for wildlife that may be traveling through. So, you know, you know, once this project is, is, um, is, um, is built, it's going to, you know, it's going to be a seven day in and out, there's going to be lights. Um, so that really front riverfront area that, that is, that's being retained really is not going to have much of, um, habitat, um, quality left. So those are just my, um, you know, quick look at it and, and where things are at currently with the project. That's it. Okay. Thanks Marty. Appreciate it. Um, can I just interject super briefly? Sorry. I'm substituting my colleague. I believe we have a number of our project team stuck in the, um, attendees, uh, slot. We have them again, Naomi.
Um, and they're, they're intending to speak. I just wanted to have them. Oh, gotcha. Yep. Emily, I can do it. If you can't, I got, I think, um, um, did I get everybody over? You did. Thank you. Yep. Oh, there's two more. Oh, sorry. One more thing. One more thing before I forget. Sorry. Um, you know, the performance standards, the riverfront, it says the commission may allow, um, impacts that meet the, you know, meet the, uh, performance standards in that section. It, you know, the keyword is may. Um, so it's not, you don't have to, if, you know, if they're under the 5,000, it's, it's a may. So it, it leaves the, you know, the commission a little bit, a little bit of latitude to, you know, take a look at, you know, what's really going on on the site currently and what will happen afterwards.
Gotcha. Thank you. Um, okay. Before I open commission. So I think a, just make sure I heard you correct. Um, there's some, some things open in the, in the planning decision. And so therefore the plans could change here. So either way, we're gonna have to continue this to the 25th. So I guess in that context, I think commission, if we can give any, um, certainly before Linda comes back and has her own thoughts, but any thoughts, comments, concerns, we want to give them now that they can work on. So we can be in a, a better state here when Linda comes back in a few weeks, um, with the context that we have to continue this anyways. Um, so I guess, I guess with that question, uh, in regards, into the, regards to the parking places, uh, I'm not, you're mandated to have X number of parking places, depending on the size of the, of the church area and the number of seats. Are you still going to be in compliance with those rules?
Is there anybody wants to answer that? Or is anybody particularly you're asking that too? I think we still have some, uh, guys in the, uh, attendees section there, uh, Naomi, uh, one second, Naomi, Sean, I can, I can respond to that. Oh, please go ahead. I'm bringing Naomi over. Gotcha. And if, um, if you have Sean Malone in there as well, uh, you can bring him over.
Yep.
Perfect. Thank you. Yep. So in terms of the, um, reduced, uh, parking spaces, that is, uh, that's amounts to nine occupants, um, and the owner, um, has stated that they're, uh, okay with reducing the capacity. Um, so in terms of. Does that mean they're going to reduce the size? Uh, no, just the, uh, the, uh, the occupant load within the building. Um, so they're going to do that.
Um, we would reduce, um, the amount of seating that is, is, uh, currently called for in the church itself. And what's going to prevent you from just going and putting those seating back in after the thing is built? The fact that we were only approved for, um, the number that, uh, parking allows. So, um, you're going to request that the conservation commission and that the planning board go back in and, and, and monitor this? Mr. Chair, uh, Jonathan Silverstein, counsel for the applicant, respectfully, um, parking standards and occupancy loads are not within the conservation commission's jurisdiction. Um, we did this in order to reduce impacts on the resource area, which I would presume the commission prefers to produce. You're going to, you're going to have to go. You're going to have to go. You're going to have to go. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Got it. So yeah, you can ask some, some of those questions. That's fine. So let's not get hung up on, on this little clip. So I just want to make sure commission, as it pertains to the plans that we were given and the updates that we have, we have to continue this anyways. Are there any thoughts, comments we can, uh, give to the applicants so that they can be working on whatever we think now? Um, I have a question. So who's that Lisa? Yep. I have a question. Yeah. So, um, the last peer review update I saw was from December 23rd. Um, and there were a lot of comments in the peer review related to stormwater. So chapter one 93. So I wasn't sure Sean, when you met with Linda last month, it sounds like you were focusing on riverfront mitigation, but did you talk about any of the requests from the peer review on stormwater? Uh, no, you're talking, I'm talking Sean, Sean, Sean, Sean, Sean, Sean, Sean, Sean, Sean. Yeah. Okay. No, the, uh, the, uh, subject of the meeting was really to talk about the, um, the one 94 section, um, and how to deal with the offsite mitigation, which is what we did. Okay. I mean, I know, you know, our regulations were, were not adopted until December, the updated, updated regulations, but there are a lot of questions here, which, you know, if we can work with you guys just to get them addressed, if they can be addressed, and maybe that's worth another, you know, meeting with Linda, um, before the next meeting.
Okay. That would be up to, um, the church.
Mr. Chair, if I could just address that briefly. Also, um, I will note the peer review, uh, the commission jointly commissioned the stormwater peer review with the planning board, um, the planning board approved the site plan, including the stormwater management system, um, clearly determined that the comments of the peer review were satisfactorily addressed. Um, I'm not saying that's binding on the commission, but, um, um, um, um, um, we do believe that we have satisfactorily addressed all of the stormwater peer review comments and that the stormwater management system complies with all of the performance standards in the bylaw. Gotcha. Thank you. Commissioner, anything else? Other comments? Sean, I would just, uh, echo Marty's comments and really encourage the applicant, first and foremost, to look for any and all ways to reduce the work that's being performed in the riverfront area. Um, I, I will say, uh, I, I heard Mr. Silverstein's point certainly about what's within our purview, uh, but similar to Cliff, you know, when we'd asked previously whether the applicant could reduce parking because of the massive amount, uh, of, of impervious that's going on in here for parking, we were told essentially there's nothing we can do because of zone. Um, so I, I do think Cliff's questions were fair with that said, regardless, I would encourage the applicant to look for ways to reduce any and all work in the riverfront, um, and, and to try to reduce parking and, and really reduce the project in any way as possible. Uh, it just remains in my view, far too large for the site. I think the impacts are far greater than they should be or need to be. So, uh, that's where I'm at, sort of the same place I've been, but I would just, I guess those are my comments for the, for the applicant tonight. I also echo. Excellent. Oh, sorry. No question. I was just going to say that, you know, my view is also still that this plan is just dangerously at a scale, um, and inappropriate for this site. And it doesn't really sincerely take account for the fact that forests are not just empty, unimproved spaces waiting to be paved over to make them useful. We've had some really wonderful, thoughtful comment from the public and to quote one, you know, forests and open land are working assets and once destroyed, these systems and their functions, which are doing so much for us, cannot be brought back in a meaningful timescale for us. This damage would be, would be permanent. And it's not just a small lot. This is a multi-acre forest. And, um, I think it's something that's really, it would be a fundamental loss to, to the town of Weyland. Um, and I also don't think the argument that just because some of the habitat has been degraded means let's go ahead and destroy some more. In fact, I think the counter is true in which we should do everything we can to preserve what we can, um, as we learn every day more and more about the critical importance of healthy ecosystems. Um, I still feel very uncomfortable about the stormwater effects of the loss of over 500 mature trees. Um, and I also urge the applicant to look at ways to really scale this down as much as possible, you know, or if they really don't want to, they could follow the lesson, um, you know, the trail paved by groups like terrain who found already degraded developed sites and turn those into what they needed. There are alternatives. I urge the, I, you know, I really urge the applicant, um, to scale down or find a site where something this large would be appropriate. Humans really are not the only lives in this town. Um, and it's worth protecting all, all our lives because it benefits all of us. Thanks, Jen. Anybody else, Commission? I'll say my comments to the last.
Okay. The only I'd say is echoing, um, I think it's too big for the site that we're in. Um, just because playing board was okay with the stormwater has nothing, no bearing on us. I, I'm certainly concerned about the stormwater. Um, and the other thing I'm, um, I'll ponder aloud and I need to talk to our town attorney in the meantime, I don't know how concom gives a permit, which we know expires in three years on a five-year project. So it puts us in an awkward end of three years. This is a new NOI we're coming back with. Um, and we, we, we serve three-year terms here. It might be seven new human beings sitting here in front of the group. And what, and so are we asking for an extension to the new one? So I need to think through that. Frankly, that it's, it's the, again, playing board can make their own decisions. I don't, I'm not sure I'd agree with the timeline because we don't, our permits don't play on a five-year timeline. So I need to talk with town council in the meantime, what, what that looks like and how that plays into all this, frankly, but that's kind of my, those are my two main comments. Um, stormwater massively when I look at, uh, cause I think again, too big for this, this lot and, and, and out of that, out of the waterfront. Um, so yeah, I've got the same, similar comments. Um, I would also note, uh, the record we have received many emails. I'm sure we'll make public, um, uh, for this project. Um, so obviously we can't read them all out tonight, but we, we did see, received several emails. Um, so commission, anything else on our end? Um, before I, I, sorry. Those emails are they, will they be part of the record, the emails? Yeah, yeah, I, I just, yeah, what limit takes care of all this stuff. I can make sure there are anybody on here listening that we did receive those and we appreciate, but many, too many there to read aloud. Um, so, um, commission, we, we good on that. Um, let me just make sure before we, again, we are happy to continue this either way. Um, I don't see any, any hands, um, for this again, to your point, yes, the cliff that will be made, but I take that back. Um, do you see one, uh, quick comment, uh, Dennis Murphy, you can come on and talk, please just give us your name and where you live, please. Yeah. Good evening, Mr. Chair and members of the commission. I'm attorney Dennis Murphy from Hill law in Boston. I represent the condo associations that, uh, I've identified in my letters. Um, and I just want to be sure cause they don't appear on your website. Uh, have you received the letters I submitted in January and last week? Okay. Thank you. We have. Yeah. Yeah. So let me, let me go with a working knowledge of what I've already put in writing and respond to what's come up so far today. Um, in addition to the changes that Marty Nova identified, the planning board decision itself requires nine more changes in final plans that are due by mid March. So the plans you have in front of you are not final. Uh, in addition to that, uh, entryway, there is a requirement to have a further public hearing at the planning board for the scenic road. They are proposing to move the entryway in, in a way that is contrary to your own, uh, scenic road rules. The scenic road rules say that you can have just one entry onto a scenic road. They are asking for two, both of which would be in the riverfront area. That is still a pending permit subject to a public hearing under state law that has not occurred and not been scheduled. So we're looking at, uh, further plan revisions that are, uh, likely to come forward. Beyond what, uh, Marty Nova has already identified. Another point that I think many of you have brought up is the issue of the stormwater. And those of you who participated in the joint hearings, uh, you heard your own peer review engineer from DTG say multiple times, we need to run hydro cad and stress test the system. Those are his terms, uh, stress test. This is a tabletop exercise. It's very easily done. The site is going to be 61% plus impervious coverage, more than three acres on a five and a half acre site. That is a finding, excuse me, a finding in the planning board decision. So don't take my word for it. Some engineer calculated and the planning board has actually issued a finding with a number in their decision. So that really needs to be studied, uh, in full, uh, chairman made the point that you're, you're not bound, uh, by what the planning board has decided. Uh, I can tell you, I attended all those hearings. And in my estimation, I don't believe your own peer reviewer thinks all of the stormwater issues were run to ground. I believe that there are major issues still to be, uh, properly vetted. Uh, another point I would like to make, because I think the metrics are important. Um, you have very clear regulations about tree protection, tree preservation, tree replacement and removal. And the, uh, gross loss is 528 trees. Um, there is a calculation, but my eyesight doesn't allow me to read the numbers on that plan that was submitted last week. Um, the net loss, even with the replacement is still over 300 trees. And if you do the math, that doesn't meet your two to one ratio under chapter 193, section eight, which is, uh, your, your tree preservation, uh, portion of the, uh, local bylaw. So at the very least, you're looking at a plan that is not compliant with your, uh, your own rules. And I think that, um, attorney Silverstein rightly said that the planning board decision dealt with zoning, uh, you're tasked with dealing with very different state and local laws that have not been vetted in the planning board process. And we'll need to on all of these issues, including riverfront impact, which is one that has been studied, the, uh, tree preservation issue and the stormwater. Um, and let me stop there because I think I've, uh, I've covered most of what I wanted to say in response to tonight. Uh, please read my letters. There, there is detailed information that I hope, um, is helpful to the commission. Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate it. Um, we have another hand, uh, go ahead. I'm not sure who this, uh, there we go. Good evening. Uh, this is for the church, representing the church. So, um, I just want to recap. So the, um, the stormwater has been fully reviewed by DGT. Uh, there has been no changes made to it. Uh, the original submission, which was made in August remains exactly the same. We've answered all the questions and there was many questions, right? All the questions for this thermal review have been fully resolved, okay? We have completely complied with 193 and 194, uh, based on the town feedback and the unwillingness for us to do work, mitigation work on town land. We are, uh, we're doing it all on our land and that results in a net reduction of, of three parking spots and a reduction in impervious surfaces there of, I think, 96 square feet. So that is an improvement of what exists over there. Okay, so I guess the question is that the proposal here is for a continuation. I'd like to understand what is the, what issues remain open for us to litigate or to discuss with respect to this project, because we are completely compliant with 193 and 194. Stormwater is- I can help you out. You're stating opinion. You think you're compliant. We haven't voted whether or not you're compliant. So your opinion is you're compliant. We need to vote on that. So a lot of things are still open, one of which that we don't have the final plans and then we need to have an open discussion about stormwater. And so on our end, there's a lot, right? And so your opinion is you, you satisfied it, but we have not voted on that. So, so is, is the opinion that we have not, we have not voted on that, but you, the statement is that we're not compliant with 193, 194, or we are compliant and we're not sure what, what, so when- We haven't voted on that yet. So we haven't got all the information yet. So that's what we're talking about. We'll continue to the 25th. Linda will be back. Have a few more questions answered and presumably you'll, the playing board meeting. So we'll have more information and then we'll openly discuss whether or not you're compliant or not. And obviously you can hear us openly discuss that, but we haven't had that discussion yet.
Mr. Chair, can I make one point? It's Jonathan Silverstein. Yep. Go ahead. It is not uncommon for there to be multiple approvals required from different state and local entities for a project. And the notion that one approval authority cannot act on the plans before it because there might be changes required by another would put applicants in a catch-22 situation that prevents getting any decisions. We have presented to you the plans that we're asking you to act on. If we need to change those plans because of any other approval process, we would have to come back to you and ask for you to change those plans, just as we will be presenting revised plans to the planning board based upon the changes we've made to satisfy the riverfront performance standards. So the notion that the commission need not act on the application before it because of a requirement for the scenic road bylaw or curb cuts or any other approval is simply not accurate. I want to be really forthcoming because I want to be transparent. The church is not going to dramatically redesign its project or reduce the size of the project. We believe, and as you said, you haven't voted on it, but we believe we satisfy all of the performance standards. We have exceeded the non-binding tree replacement policy that was in place at the time we filed our application, and we will commit to that if we get an approval.
And we just don't, we don't want the commission to believe there's any chance of us reducing the size of the project. But if the commission is going to deny the project on that basis, then we prefer not to have it dragged out. We don't think that's a valid or lawful basis to do so. But we are prepared to answer any outstanding questions about the performance standards we're required to meet, if there are any, but we're not aware of what those are.
So you're asking us not to continue and make it a closer hearing right now? That's not what I'm asking you, Mr. Chair. I'm just trying to be up front with you. We think we've met all the performance standards, where if someone wants to identify ways in which they believe we have not, we're open to hearing that. But contrary to what Mr. Murphy said, we have satisfied the non-binding, non-regulatory tree replacement policy. We've more than exceeded it, actually. And that information has been provided to the commission. And doing so is going to be contingent on us receiving an approval. But we're happy for you to continue. If you feel you need to confirm that we've satisfied the performance standards, I just didn't want you to operate under the misconception that the project is going to be revised. No, I appreciate that.
Okay. Any other questions, comments? There's another. I'm sorry? I just put a raised hand in the attendees. Oh, there is. Oh, sorry.
Attendees. Kenneth, I believe. I question if anybody in the concern. Sorry, sorry. Real quick. You identify where you live there, Kenneth. Randy one. Thank you. I sent a lengthy email to the commission yesterday dealing with standard measurements of how much water is absorbed by trees and the impact of water flow, snow melting, flood conditions by removal of trees. And although I have read the entire Oak Hill document, my simple question is, does that document take into account the impact of removing the trees? Because I've looked at the metrics and I've even heard about, you know, the work that's been done. But measuring the impact of conditions today, as opposed to measuring the impact when 61%, according to the planning commission, of that ground will not only have deep-rooted trees removed, but will be paved. So from the perspective of flooding, snow melt, my only question is, is that factored into the calculations done by Oak Hill?
And I'll let Mr. Silverstein or anybody else answer that. Because I keep hearing about all the work that's been done, the research that's been done, and yet there's one simple metric that I haven't seen spoken of anywhere. Instead, it seems to be, we're talking about the current condition. It does not take into account what the environmental impact will be, and this is ignoring the impact on wildlife, but what the environmental condition will be when the trees are removed, you know, with regards to the amount of water the trees absorb, how that impacts, you know, drainage, how that impacts snowfall and snowmelt. And for the church, it might be fine and dandy, but as one of the embutters, my concern is that replacing trees with concrete can result in our being flooded. But again, if I'm wrong on this, I'm more than willing to be corrected. It's just, I didn't see that reference in any of the Oak Hill documents. But I'm not an engineer, so maybe I missed it.
Thank you. Anyone want to answer that question real quick? I'll talk about, I can't answer it off the top of my head, but you want to answer that?
Oh, no, there we go. Yeah, to the answer, Sean is here, perfect. I am, yeah. Thank you. Good evening, Mr. Chair, members of the commission, Shell Malone, Oak Consulting Group, civil engineer. The simple answer to that question is, yes, that was considered. The standard analysis in stormwater is you take an analysis of the site as it exists today. You have certain areas designated as impervious, as woods, as lawn, and these all are given different runoff coefficients. How much runoff comes from those areas. Then we look at the site in the proposed condition and considering the loss of wooded areas or lawn areas or the conversion of impervious areas. And that creates a delta. So your proposed condition, adding impervious, increases the amount of runoff from the site. So then we design the stormwater management system to account for that delta and to take care of that increase in runoff. So that's why we have the infiltration areas proposed, as we do. And the net result in this case is we do not increase the rate and volume of runoff from the site with the proposed development because of that stormwater management system we're constructing. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks, Sean. Okay. Commission. I'll end it with us. Any last comments or concerns before we make sure I think I heard them say that you're okay to continue to the 25th with the caveat that you say you won't change your plans just as a backdrop. Thank you. Any other comments? Commission. Let me know. If not, we'll look for a continuation sometime after 630 for the 25th under both. I just want to answer the one quick question that's in the webinar chat where we can see the comment that was made by, I don't know if it was Kenneth or a different Ken, but we can see the comment that replacing the trees. So just to point that out. Otherwise, I'm good to go, Sean. Thanks. Thanks, Jim. Okay. Not going to get a motion in folks. Well, I move that we continue this hearing under both the State Act and Chapter 194 and Chapter 193 to March 25th after 630 PM. Thank you, Luke. Thank you, Shannon, for the second. Quick roll call, please. Luke Legere. Yes. Barb Howell. Yes. Lisa Aubin. Yes. Cliff Lewis. Yes. Shannon Fischer. Yes. Jenny Brown. Yes. Yes. And Sean. Yes. All set. We'll see you folks in a couple of weeks. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Uh, on to 2C. This is 67A, uh, local street and Wayland DEP file number 322-1056. It's a continued notice of intent filed pursuant to Wayland's wetland and water resource protection bylaw. And the wetland protection act submitted by Matt O'Connor for the demolition of the existing barn construction of a six-unit compact apartment facility at 67A Loker Street in Wayland, Mass. Uh, property is shown on assessors map 48, parcel 42, and is located within a 100-foot buffer zone of a boarding vegetated wetlands and 200-foot riverfront area. Emily, any update on this one here? Uh, they requested a continuance to the 25th. They submitted, or they're submitting an application to the planning board for their next meeting. Awesome. Thank you much. I move that we continue this hearing under Chapter 194 and the State Act to March 25th after 6.30 PM. Okay. Thank you, Luke. Do I have a second? Thank you, Cliff. Roll call, please. Luke Legere. Yes. Deborah Howell. Yes. Lisa Aubin. Oops. Sorry. I was on mute. Yes. Cliff Lewis. Yes. Shannon Fischer. Yes. Jenny Brown. Yes. And Sean Fairsey. Yes. Thank you. On to 2D. So 68 Lakeshore Drive, DEP file number 322-1057. It's a continued notice and intent to file pursuant to Wayland's Wetlands and Water Resource Protection Bylaw and the Wetland Protection Act submitted by Jeremy Jenkins. For the after-fact work permitted at 68 Lakeshore Drive in Wayland, Mass., including installation of a floating dock, gangway ramp, retaining wall, patio, and repairs to the covered porch steps. The property is shown on Assessor's Map 42D, Parcel 56, and is located within 100 feet of a boring vegetated wetland bank and land underwater. Okay. Emily. Any updates on this since last we spoke? They also requested a continuance to the 25th to revise their site plans. Okie doke. I move that we continue this hearing under Chapter 194 and the State Act to March 25th after 6.30 PM. Second. Thank you, Luke, for that. Thank you, Cliff, for the second. Roll call, please. Luke Legere. Yes. Barbara Howell. Yes. Lisa Aubin. Yes. Cliff Lewis. Yes. Shannon Fischer. Yes. Jenny Brown. Yes. And Sean, there's a yes. Thank you. On to 2E. This is 123 Dudley Road, DEP file number 322-1061. 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 Joel Goodmanson for the construction of a single-family home, septic system, and stormwater management system at 123 Dudley Road in the Wayland Mass. The proposed work is 100 feet of Dudley Pond, and the property is shown on the assessor's map 47A, parcel 72. Ms. Emily, it looks like a new one, yes? No, it's a continued. Any update on this one? Yeah. The applicant's team submitted a revised stormwater report and revised site plans for this meeting. I think that was set. Perfect. Thank you. And, Marty, do you have any comments on this one before we get going here? I don't have any comments at this time. We're rocking on. Here we go. All right. So, who's here for 123? Who wants to present this here? The updates as it were. Good evening, Mr. Chair. This is Seth Donahoe with Dillis Roy Civil Design Group. I'm here tonight on behalf of Joel Goodmanson and Robin Greenleaf. They're both also in the audience, along with their architect, Andrew Cohen, and their council attorney, Daniel Hill. So, if it's all right, Mr. Chair, I can give you a brief summary of changes that have occurred since we last discussed this project, and then also share my screen. Please. Fantastic. All right. Hopefully, before you is our revised plan set. If someone could just nod and let me know if it's on your screen. Yep. Fantastic. So, we had discussed this project at your meeting back in February. At the time, we were looking at replacing what is an existing dwelling on the property. That's this brown area here. And there's an existing septic system, both on the lower portions of the property. So, this is a sloped lot from Dudley Road on the top of the screen. It goes down to Dudley Pond. The pond gutter consulting had completed the delineation of the bank of the pond, and that's what these highlighted buffer zones are deriving from. Since the last meeting, we have conducted additional soil testing that's highlighted on the plan. There was prior soil testing on the site. Groundwater was not encountered in any of the holes. So, it's very sandy soil. We're showing a depth of in excess of 12 feet to groundwater, and that's important to note because that's where the majority of our infrastructure is being placed at the furthest distance from the pond and also at the area that has a maximum offset to the groundwater table. The existing conditions plan, other than that, is essentially unchanged. Our client and the architect worked together to reduce the building footprint. The building size was a concern that was mentioned to us by the commission members at the last meeting, and also a strong desire to minimize the footprint of the area of alterations. So, a couple major changes associated with that. Previously, there was a driveway that accessed Dudley Road parallel to an existing driveway. We've greatly reduced the footprint of the driveway, and we're utilizing the existing driveway. So, that's this area that's highlighted on your screen. The house itself has been reduced in size. And then there was questions about the stormwater management system. So, we're proposing to mitigate the entirety of the roof runoff and impervious surfaces on the site, as required by your town's bylaws. And that's a subsurface area with a series of catch basins and proprietary treatment structure that will essentially clean or allow the stormwater to be infiltrated in the system, compliant with your standards. That area was previously on a knoll off to the side of the site. With the architects' and applicants' changes in the building footprint and general condensing of everything, we're able to position that next to the proposed dwelling and preserve this area of the site as well. There's some tabulations on the plan. The commission noted that you did want to see tabulations. The total proposed impervious area within the buffer zone is now reduced to 3,894 square feet. That's a reduction of over 1,000 square feet from items that were here when we were last time here. The other item that the commission wanted us to look into is potentially relocating a temporary construction entrance. We had that on a lower section of the site. We've now moved that up to an upper area of the site that generally parallels an existing road. And as I mentioned, we did do additional soil testing. That occurred last month, admittedly under not great conditions because it was a lot snowier than we wanted. And we were able to utilize an excavator through that very area. So we've gotten construction equipment through that area already. And we're able to complete our testing in that area as well. Overall, the reduced footprint related with the changes, it has reduced the number of trees that are required to be removed on the site. As we discussed last time, this is a wooded site. It has tree replacement requirements under both Chapter 193 and Chapter 194. Our client is in the process of working with an arborist and a landscape architect to meet your mitigation requirements. We discussed last time of a desire to do offsite mitigation. The commission has indicated to us that that is something that really hasn't been done. And I understand that your bylaw is very new or your regulations are very new at this point. So we're working to bring a resolution to the commission to meet the requirements on site to the maximum extent feasible. And then hopefully work with you as your regulations evolve. So that's a high level summary of the changes that have occurred since I was last before you. At this time, as it does have a stormwater component, the applicant is hoping that we could move into a peer review process related to those technical items so that any modifications that come from that can be incorporated in any future changes of the plans. Okay. Thanks, Seth. Appreciate it. Commission, thoughts, comments, concerns? I'll go last. I know in the last meeting, there were a few trees on the lake. I guess just like west of the house that the owners were asking if they might have permission to remove, but I didn't notice that in this updated revised set of plans. So I just wanted to check. It was like three to five trees near the water. That's correct. They did have there some leaning trees that they would like to remove if it was agreeable to the commission. But based on our discussion at the last meeting, that's something that we have removed from the plan at this time. And one other question, just because it's a little bit new to me being new to the commission, but with the green roof, how does that factor into the stormwater calculations? So I did read that obviously it takes time for the green roof to establish, so it might not be fully effective right away. So I didn't know how that factored into the stormwater. So so the green roof, I'm going to zoom in real quick. Oops, I'm moving it. There's a there's a lower tiered roof. These are these dashed areas. So essentially the the ground level floor at the driveway side will look out on this green roof. The stormwater requirements, the 100 year storm is in excess of eight inches of rain in a 24 hour period. The green roof would not mitigate the entirety of that. So there's a collection system built into the house itself, and that's going to convey the excess runoff to the infiltration area. So in the stormwater management calculations that that were updated and submitted to the board, the curve number associated with a roof. There's a high value associated with that. It's essentially impervious. There's a slightly lower value associated with the green roof. The green roof. Well, has has many benefits. It's primary benefit is mitigation of short duration storm events. It it certainly does that. But but we have a system proposed that's to meet the town standard of the must, much larger storm event. So like Boston, for example, they focus on mitigating one inch of runoff, essentially. That's that's that's all they can do. Your standard is much higher. We we have a much higher bar to reach here. So that's part of why we would like to enter into the peer review process. Gotcha. Anybody else? Christian, I want to thank the applicants for really trying to work on this and being amenable to making some changes and doing everything they can to preserve some more trees and even at the cost of making their design smaller. And I'm just it's really nice to see. Thank you for doing that. And this is a very side comment. This is certainly not something in any way that would affect it. But I saw an interesting paper. I just read the abstract today on ecological etymology that was looking at green rule, green roofs down in Argentina and saw some interesting factors that would affect sort of the biodiversity of it, including like substrate depths and some of the content like sand or plant litter. So if you guys wanted to promote and cultivate life, you could have some fun doing that. So in no way is that any factor that I would put in, it's just more of a fun thing that made me think of this project. Thanks, Sean. Yeah, I agree with Shannon. I appreciate the applicant and their team hearing what we said last time and making an effort to address the issues we raised. So I certainly do appreciate that. And yeah, I think it seems to me, obviously, the planting plan is still in process. So I look forward to seeing a more final version of that. But the only other thing I can think of, Sean, is exactly what the applicant's requesting here, which is to get a stormwater peer review lined up. Yep. Thanks, Luke. Anybody else? Okay. So yeah, so I'll echo what's been said. Awesome improvement. Thank you for incorporating that. And agreed. Next step is to get a peer review. So I think what we'll do is we'll continue the hearing to the 25th. And I'll send a quick note to Linda that we've asked now to start that process to pick a peer review and start that the minute she gets back. So I think we're all on the same page there. Okay, great. I didn't realize she was out of town. So I had sent her an email to the similar effect, but I trust that when she returns, that's something that can move forward. And well, that was she for the estimate directly to the applicant or? Yeah. So she'll work with you guys on that. The, who she's going. You guys get to stay in it. So yeah, she'll, she'll work with you through the peer review. Yep. Fantastic. I'll make sure I'll email her too. So she sees that when she gets back at the top of her email list. Okay. Just taking a quick vote. I know Linda sometimes likes to have us vote. Do the peer review. Make it clear. She's got the authority. Yep. Good call. Want to make a motion there, Luke? Sure. Yeah. I move that we authorize Linda to proceed with a peer review consultant to look at stormwater for this project. Second. Thank you. Do we hear a second? Thank you. Cliff. Roll call, please. Luke Legere. Yes. Barbara Hall. Yes. Lisa Alban. Yes. Cliff Lewis. Yes. Shannon Fischer. Yes. Jenny Brown. Yes. Yes. All right. We're all set. We're all set. We'll see you folks in a few weeks. Thank you. Take care. Thank you very much. Thank you, Luke. Thank you, Cliff. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. All right. We're all set. See you folks in a few weeks. Thank you. Take care. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. That's a public meeting. This is 56 Lincoln Road. request for determination, sorry, D-1053, request for determination filed pursuant to Whelan's Wetlands and Water Resource Protection Bylaw and the Wetland Protection Act submitted by Stephanie Smart for tree removal at 56 Lincoln Road in Whelan, Mass. Property is shown in the assessor's map, 07, lot 45B, and the proposed work is in the 100-foot wetland buffer area. All right. Emily, anything in particular on this one? This is a new application submitted by Heather Highmark, who I think is here. Perfect. Okay. Marty, any quick notes on this one? We're good? I'm just looking at it. Love it. Heather, I think I saw you here. Yes, I'm here. Yeah. Yeah, I have a couple of slides to share with the committee tonight just to introduce you to the site. Also, can you please advance the owners? I think Stephanie and Alan are... I see a hand-raised for an Alan VanderMeulen. Yes, that would be them.
It looks like there was somebody who wanted to comment on Dudley, I see, in the chat, but... Oh, whoop, I'm sorry. I didn't see that. This is... Can everybody get moved over? Can you hear us now? Yes, we can. Okay. Do you want to address the Dudley comments first? Should we put ourselves on mute? I'll roll back in. I'll come back to them. That's okay. We'll go with you. Okay. I thought I missed them. Okay. All right. So I'm Heather Highmark. I'm a landscape architect, and I've been working with Alan and Stephanie. They've purchased this property about two years ago. They've been there almost a year and nine months. And I want to just hand it over to them for a moment so that they can introduce themselves.
Okay. Well, I'm Alan, obviously. This is my wife, Stephanie. We thought we'd just speak a couple of words. We've both been very involved in conservation and ecological causes throughout our lives. Stephanie was actually an environmental major at Dartmouth. I began with starting an environmental club in grade school when I was in fifth grade. We've both been doing it ever since. We moved here from Lincoln just two years ago. We lived on Beaver Pond Road, which is only about three miles from here. We were at that property for 16 years. When we first moved there, it was absolutely filled with very mature, happy invasives. We had bittersweet, buckthorn, honeysuckle, Norway maples, beautiful stands of garlic mustard, and later on, wall lettuce. And we spent many weeks every May and early June pulling out mounds of garlic mustard and later on in this season, wall lettuce. We got very good at that. But we did pretty much eradicate most of the major invasives on that property during our time.
Stephanie is a lifelong horse person, which is why we moved to Weyland and to Duck Puddle Farm here on Lincoln Road. It's been a horse property for many, many years with its antique farm, which is right next to the main house. There's pastures here, big field across the street, and also there's an outdoor horse arena. And just like we were in Lincoln, we are looking forward to being good stewards of the land. We've spent the last two years kind of working through the property. We've done a detailed land survey. We work closely with Heather on that. We've looked at the plants and species of plants that are here. And particularly in the pastures and around the house itself, there's a lot of...
Okay, we'll call them non-native plantings. Random might be a better word. And so one of the big reasons we asked Heather to come on board is to help us develop a long-term plan for the property so that the changes that are made are in line with our bent towards environmental and conservation concerns and also consistent with this being a horse farm. So I think that's enough from us for now. We'll leave it to Heather to speak from here. Thank you. Okay, I'm just going to share a couple of slides with you.
Actually, I wish I had done it in PowerPoint. It's in PDF, so I can't really get rid of all the marginalia. But so this is showing you Duck Petal Farm. It is actually three building lots combined into one. 44 is this large lot with the pond back in the woods. 56 is the lot that we're going to be talking about today. And then the main house lot, which is 48.
This shows you the conservation restrictions that are on the land held by Sudbury Valley Trust. So while it is just over 34 acres of land, large amounts of it are protected by either wetlands protection or the conservation restrictions that are on the land. So here you can see how 48, the main house envelope in that lot, is one of the few areas not in a restriction. This is the pond field that we're going to be talking about. This is sort of one of the main pastures and the writing ring is in this field. And then it goes on to this larger area beyond. The pond field pond, it's really like a farm pond. It drains into this larger pond behind.
So one of the things that what we're here to ask for tonight is a request for determination on what we'd like to do within the buffer area, the 100-foot buffer area of the farm pond, where there are three very large weeping willows, Salix babylonica, which is not the native willow. It's an invasive willow. It's a very, they're dramatic, they're beautiful, but they grow fast and they're very weak wooded. This little comparative diagram here shows you sort of the difference between the native willows and the weeping willow, the babylonica there. I also tried to blow this up a little bit so you can see it better than on the plans, that the willows are also, at this point, pretty well riddled with, this is not an insect. I think this is all bird damage. I think that we've got woodpeckers who are really drilling into these trunks. So these trees have been there since 2015, and they've gone rapidly, and they are quite large. And what has been, one of the things that's been happening is that the pond has been drying out during the summers because they are so thirsty. They are more thirsty than a native willow is. And the neighbors have been mentioning to Stephanie and Alan how that never happened before, that this is sort of a new phenomenon. So they are 16-inch caliper trees. There's three of them. We would like to take them down. We'd like to just cut them at the base, leave all the root systems in place. And then we would like to do a tree planting of native trees. We're looking at five river birch, one Atlantic white cedar, and shagbark hickory, and some swamp oaks that we'd like to put in along the fence line and kind of surrounding this pasture area. And there is, the existing woodlands are mostly mature white pines with mixed hardwoods, and there are some cedars and oaks sort of in that mix. So this is the plan. So here we've sort of zoomed in. You're not seeing the entire property, but you're seeing sort of the main house and the barn, and then the farm pond here with the 100-foot buffer around it. These X's here are the three willows. It's got this small island that's in the pond. And then the orange dots here are showing the new trees along with this dark, this olive green one here is the new cedar because along Lincoln Road in this area here, we have a mix of deciduous and evergreen trees that are along the fence line there that we'd like to sort of continue to sort of play into that. In this photograph, well, actually, I have some larger images of these photographs. So you can, this is the bark image that I just showed you with the bird damage. And then, let's see, I will go on to show you those. I can zoom in on this a little bit. So Sudbury Valley Trust is the holder of the conservation restriction, and they have walked the sites with Stephanie and Alan. They're in support of their vision for how they want to maintain it and cultivate the land. And they wrote us this email regarding these three willows, basically reiterating that the conservation restriction does not stop them from being able to do planting and clearing and removing exotic species. And they also say here, I underlined it, that this includes maintaining vistas. So one of the reasons why we want to remove these willows is that it blocks the views from the barn of the riding ring. So it makes it very hard in terms of safety to kind of be at the main house and be able to sort of see the riding ring beyond these willows. So partly they're not native, they're an herbaceous species, partly they're undesirable in terms of what they're doing in terms of the function of the land, in terms of the horseback riding purposes. And so those are really the two main reasons why we want to remove them. And then the game being that we would be enhancing the area with native plantings, native tree plantings. So here you can see from the riding ring looking up the hill, the barn is sort of on the other side of the willows there. So that sort of communication back and forth is hampered. This is not even during the height of the drought, how the farm pond is getting really sort of sucked down and depleted. And then this is this little island, which we'd like to have permission to go in there and just, you know, remove some of the vines and invasive materials that are on the island. This is an old cherry tree. So our tree planting, there's sort of gaps along this tree line nature of Lincoln Road in here. So we'd really be sort of filling in some of those gaps along here with the new tree planting, as well as on the other side of the field.
So what we're hoping for tonight is a negative determination. So we can proceed with this work and get it lined up for the spring. We'd love to be able to remove these trees while there's still permafrost in the ground. And then just purchase our new tree material and get them in this spring. And that's our intent. So happy to answer any questions that you have. Thanks, Heather. Commission, will open up to us first? Lots of comments, concerns. I'll say mine to last. I just, I think this is great. I live not too far away and my husband and I love going for walks on this street. It's absolutely beautiful. And, you know, the fact that you're taking out invasives and planting natives is, is great. I don't have any further comments. I just, I think it's a great plan. I had one question. Do you really think that taking out these three trees is going to replenish that much water in the pond? Well, go ahead, Alan. Yeah. What we've been told by the neighbors is they have never seen the pond go dry before, except in the last couple of years. Yeah. The only thing that's changed is those trees are there. Now the pond definitely gets low in the, in the summer, you know, like an autumn. You haven't, you haven't, you haven't done the calculations. I was just curious. No, we haven't done any calculations. Not sure how. I was going to say, don't, don't get your hopes up. Willows are incredibly thirsty trees, though. Yeah. They'll dry something up. I, I just want to say, this is like gorgeous and thoughtful. Like more things like this, please, would be lovely to see. I have a quick question, which is, if you're cutting them to the base, which, which I like, I like that you're not stump grinding. Um, is there a risk that these are going to re-sprout? Cause willows are really, do you, do we want to consider having a tri, like a triclopy or stump application like that? Well, if you would permit it, it would probably, well, go ahead, Alan. I mean, I, I, I think that they will sucker for quite some time. They'll, cause there'll, there'll be a lot of energy in that root system and they'll keep suffering. So we'll either have to just keep at it until they do exhaust themselves and, and, and stop, uh, or, uh, you know, or apply something to, to sort of speed along that demise.
Alan, what did you want to say? Well, I was going to say, I certainly don't mind walking out there with clippers every so often to cut back any suckers. And we're, we're kind of hesitant to use chemicals unless we absolutely have to, especially near the pond. So if we can avoid that, we would prefer to do it that way. Go for it. Yeah. Besides my son, I was taking the tractor out and wanking down brush. So, you know, if he's a 16 year old, if he wants to drive the tractor, more power to him.
Love it. I certainly like doing it that way better than the chemicals. And I would agree with Shannon and Lisa, that I think this is a really thoughtful plan. Um, like Lisa, I, for the past 20 years or so, I've spent a lot of time going back and forth through that property. It's a beautiful area. I can attest that pond has been dry the past couple of years. And I don't recall that ever having happened in that 15 to 16 years prior to that. So Cliff, I don't know if this will do the trick or not, but, uh, it's true that it's been much more dry these past couple of years. It would help if we didn't have drought conditions. Yeah. All state, yeah. Drought. And it, it never, never was dry like this until we've had these drought years. Yep. And this has been, for me, one of our favorite birding places for the Christmas bird count. And for decades, I was assigned Lincoln Road. I can't do it anymore, but, uh, the birds will appreciate it.
Great. Yeah. Um, go ahead, Jen. Go ahead. Just keep on more praise. I just really applaud you guys for your stewardship and enthusiasm. And it's so lovely to see. And, you know, I just, thank you so much for caring and acting on that as well. Thank you. Thank you. Um, I mean, what more do I say? Yeah, I think I'm, I'm agreement with everybody. It's a great project. Well done. Nothing I'm not going to add to it. So, um, if we're all in agreement, can I get a motion for a negative determination, please? Sure. We issue a negative determination of applicability under the state act and a permit under chapter 194. Thank you, Luke. Do we have a second? Thank you, Cliff. Quick roll call, please. Luke Legere. Yes. Barbara Howell. Yes. Lisa Aubin. Yes. Cliff Lewis. Yes. Shannon Fischer. Yes. Kenny Brown. Yes.
Have a good evening. You too. Um, let's go on to, oh, I'm sorry. I go back. I'm sorry. There was a comment. Someone had their hand up. Who actually?
The last one. Apologies. I missed the hand. Who was it? In the chat?
We have skipped. Uh, Claire. Can we allow Claire to speak? Yep.
Claire.
Claire, are you still there?
Hey, Sean, it might be worth just noting before, um, these folks speak that we have continued the hearing already, so technically, um, just to make sure any comments they want to make would be in the record, I would suggest they put anything you might want to say tonight in writing to us. We have continued, so there will be another opportunity for hearing, but, um, I just wanted to mention that before anybody says anything. Yeah, good point. I was going to apologize. Thank you. So, yeah, we didn't close the hearing, but, yeah, apologies, Claire. I didn't see the hand there before we closed it, but we are continuing for a couple weeks. Okay. What, is it okay if, if we share our concerns now? Well, we can do it, but we, we just know it's not part of the public hearing, so you have to, like, you send it into writing, or you want to just tell us, but it's not part of the, the public hearing, because we closed that hearing. So it wouldn't be an official if you send it by, by writing. We continue, we didn't close it, we continued. I'm not to be, continue, sorry. So, so you would, you would have an opportunity to make these comments again in a few weeks. You're more than welcome to speak now, but it's just not, like Sean said, it's not going to be part of the record. Okay, that's fine. I'll, I'll just, since I've been here, I'll just say what I came to say, if that's all right. Sure. I did submit, actually, a letter, like, sort of late this afternoon, and I apologize for the, could you identify yourself and where you're at? Yes. Yes, of course. My name is Claire Moretti. I reside at 125 Dudley Road, which directly abuts 123 Dudley Road. Um, this bill would be approximately 40 feet from our home. Um, and I'm speaking on behalf of myself and my husband, Mike Moretti, who spoke during the last committee hearing, um, two weeks ago. Um, so we had some concerns we, we wanted to share. Like I said, we submitted a letter sort of late this afternoon, so I'm sure that no one has had a chance to read it yet, but I, I wanted to share some high-level thoughts with this group. Um, and I'll, um, absolutely reiterate those concerns again at the next hearing. Um, but first and foremost, we wanted to flag that we did look at the file history for this project, and we wanted to highlight that a prior NOI that was previously filed by Goddard, um, showed wetlands on the project site, which is contrary to the present NOI. Um, so for that reason, obviously, we'd really like to reiterate that we feel a careful peer review by a wetland scientist is very critical for this project. Um, we also, as I said, submitted a letter this afternoon because we engaged a wetland scientist to review the NOI and the revised plans that were recently submitted. Um, the wetlands scientist submitted a formal letter this afternoon on our behalf, and we do ask that that letter be considered in connection with the wetlands peer review. Um, I wanted to share a few high-level concerns from that letter that are articulated probably in much more gracefully in the letter than I can do right now. Um, but just a few sort of key points that we wanted to flag for your consideration. Um, the first being that there was no planting plan or O&M for the partly green roof. Um, the wetland scientists that we engaged also felt that the soil analysis performed by Goddard, Goddard was not sufficient, um, especially because it was performed entirely in the septic leach field and there was no test hole in the location of the actual stormwater infiltration BMP. Given the site's history of septic issues, um, particularly with, particularly with respect to septic leachate at the location of the old leach field, we feel like there really should be a very careful investigation on this issue. We also felt that a careful stormwater peer review is important. So thank you for, um, for requesting that just, just now. Um, the Goddard, our, our wetland scientists also felt that the Goddard wetland report identifies the bank of Dudley Pond as a wetland resource area, but did not clarify the methodology used to delineate the bank boundary under the WPA regulations or chapter 194. And so again, we, we, we feel that a careful wetlands peer review is extremely important to clarify the position of the bank or any other wetland resource area present on site, including the wetlands previously identified by Goddard in this area. We're very curious as to where those wetlands that were previously identified have gone, given that there has been no development on this site. Um, we agreed with Linda's position in the prior hearing that the, um, pervious pavers referenced, um, should require a cross sectional detail for the pavers. And I don't believe we've seen that just yet. Um, and we do feel that the pervious pavers should be considered impervious for purposes of the stormwater review. Our wetland scientists also noted that the proposed limit of work and erosion control lines are very close to several structures and retaining walls. And the applicant should clarify how construction equipment workers and materials will be accommodated with the proposed work limits, especially given the very, um, difficult constraints of the site and the fact that the project is, is very close to the site boundaries. Um, there were a number of references in the last meeting to a screened in porch. It's not clear to me if their applicants are proposing to go forward with that. We didn't see it in the revised plan, but it also wasn't in the originally submitted plan either. They had mentioned that they intended to build a screened in porch on the prior foundation, which is well within the 30 foot no disturb zone. And so we wanted to clarify that we feel that applicants should confirm that they are not going forward with that, but if they are, then we feel this needs to be included in the plan. Um, and we feel that that should include the plan should address the proposed demolition methods for the foundation, which is very close to the pond, the equipment access, the limits of disturbance, the materials that will be used to backfill the foundation area. Um, we feel that there needs to be a lot more information provided about that if it is the case that the applicants intend to go forward with that screened in porch on the around the old foundation area. The plans also reference retaining walls labeled quote by others. And we feel that applicants should clarify the materials and construction methods proposed for these walls and whether any concrete washout area will be required during construction. It is our wetland scientists experience that structures quote by others unquote without sufficient enough detail during the permitting process tends to be a recipe for disaster and consternation due to discrepancies between the commission's idea of how it should be built versus the way the contractor actually builds it. And it's our opinion that at a minimum, there should be a special condition that requires the applicant to provide those details for approval by the commission before the work begins. Given the constrained nature of the, of the site that I just previously referenced, we feel it's important to understand where construction materials, soil stockpiles and equipment staging areas will be located during construction. And we feel these areas should be depicted on the plan. We also feel that the applicant should consider providing a construction phasing plan to illustrate how site work, excavation and infrastructure installation will occur within the proposed limits of disturbance. This is an extremely difficult site to build on and we can imagine that applicants will need to involve cranes, et cetera. So we feel like due to the complexity of that, of the site, there should be a phased construction plan that should be clearly outlined in addition to the plans that have already been submitted. This comment along with my prior comment about the construction material and equipment storage originates from the observation that the applicant is maximizing construction on site and affords very little room for good housekeeping practices on the construction site. We do not feel like this is a realistic plan for the site. As Mr. Donoghue just mentioned also, there's still no definitive plan for replanting of the trees. And we strongly feel that the replanting elsewhere should not be permissible. We agree with Linda on that point wholeheartedly. And our opinion is that allowing trees to be planted elsewhere is a form of exceptional relief that should not be granted here because there is only self-imposed hardship here resulting from the maximized development approach. We feel that if the applicant cannot fit replants on site, it's only because they are seeking to maximize their space at the expense of Dudley Pond. We also have serious concerns about the commission granting this exception were they to consider it given the precedent that it would set for the rest of Dudley Pond. I'm sure many of you are aware that other developers are seeking to develop lots on the pond to the objection of many local residents. We also wanted to note that the surrounding area is predominantly covered in beech trees that have beach leaf disease and are expected to die in the future. The subject property is dominated by maples and oaks, however. So if these trees, which are predominantly maples and oaks, are felled, it poses a coverage and biodiversity risk to the fauna of the surrounding ecosystem. As Linda voiced in the February 11th public hearing, the proposed construction entrance is steep and somewhat constrained. And we feel that the applicant should confirm that the proposed access route is feasible for construction equipment and materials delivery. It is our wetland scientists' opinion that the erosion control or limit of workline is incomplete. For example, how would equipment get to the screened-in porch area and the old foundation? What is the total work area? The current site plan shows an open-ended erosion control and limit of workline, which is not recommended, and we are concerned that a lack of clear boundaries will result in builders taking liberties with this vagueness. Our wetland scientists also noted that the soils are around deadly pond are very coarse and therefore infiltrate extremely fast. Applicants are proposing galley leach fields, which have been banned in several other states, including in Rhode Island since 2008. Our wetland scientists described that as a glorified cesspool. We, of course, do intend to raise this with the Board of Health, but this is obviously extremely concerning given the possibility of groundwater and lake contamination. And given the water quality monitoring efforts and the invasive aquatic plant problems already existing in the pond, of which I'm sure many of you are intimately aware, we don't, Dudley Pond does not need yet another contributing factor to these issues through the proposed septic system. So, thank you for hearing our concerns. I appreciate that this hearing was continued. As I said, we just wanted to raise these. We did submit a letter outlining everything a little bit too late, unfortunately, but we strongly feel that the NOI is not complete and we feel that it should be resubmitted when it's actually complete and in final form. I believe there are a few other neighbors from our neighborhood here who also raised their hand to speak. Thank you. If I could just ask one question, just so I'm clear. I think you mentioned you had a wetlands consultant who had filed a letter today, and then you had separately submitted something today as well that I understood? No, that was the only letter that was submitted on our behalf. Okay, thanks. I just wanted to make sure I knew what I was looking for. Thank you. Yeah, thank you. Thanks, Claire. We won't skip. I see a skip up. Are you sure I got it? Skip? Yes, I'm here. Oh, sorry. Your hand is on. Make sure you, would you have a question or comment? Well, Claire did a great job summarizing a lot of my concerns, so I don't need to reiterate everything. Skip, can you identify yourself, please? Yeah, Skip, where are you from? Sorry. My name is Skip Miller. I live at 121 Dudley Road, which is next door to the property we're discussing, 123, and I'm speaking on behalf of myself and my wife and family. I think Claire did a great job explaining everything, so I don't need to take much more of your time. I guess what I would ask is, in the future, if we can just make sure if there's any hands raised that we have the opportunity to speak before votes are made and decisions are passed through. I definitely appreciate that. And then, secondly, I just really want to reiterate the remnants of the existing house. It's a foundation, but it's also a fireplace. It's a chimney. It's so close to the pond. Extreme caution needs to be made with whatever happens at that location. And then whatever does happen, I don't see why those calculations are not included in the master plan for the property. And I would just like that to be looked at very carefully, because there's things that just seem to be missing as far as this whole proposal goes, as far as what they're intending to do. Certified letters, either not going out, not going out on time, not being received, and then just being told, well, that's too bad you didn't get your mail. Seems to me like it's trying to get rushed forward, trying to not have people be aware of it, and to push it through with approval before people having a chance to object to it, which I really don't appreciate at all. And last meeting, you know, this is a very reputable engineering firm. They forgot to include their pavers in the impervious area calculation. I mean, that's just suspicious. And it makes you wonder what else we're missing. And it speaks to what is the plan for that existing foundation? How is it going to be treated? What's the screen house, boathouse idea being built on the shores of the pond? What about the ash and toxic concerns that are in the chimney and fireplace? And how's that going to be treated? Cramming this mansion onto a site that's too small, too steep, and too complex makes no sense to me. Um, I just, they have sediment barriers immediately next to retaining walls that are supposed to be built by others. That is not even constructible. It's not even real. Um, I'm very skeptical of this entire proposal, and I think it needs to be looked at extremely carefully. And I really hope, um, that we can protect the pond, protect the site, protect the neighborhood, and really protect ourselves against future development that have their eyes on this property and are looking to do potential harm to the pond, which is the last thing we want. Um, so that, that's all I'm going to say on the matter. Um, and thank you for listening. Thanks, Kip. And just before I apologize that, uh, that was my fault you weren't called on. I thought you were remnants from, uh, from the prior, uh, meeting, but we did continue it. So we'll definitely have more opportunity to chat about that with them. So thank you. Okay. Thank you. You got it. Um, all right. I think I got everybody now. Yep. Okay. Um, we are on to 4A public outreach activities. Emily, what you got for us? I think Linda just wanted to include this. So, uh, Shannon and Lisa, who've been working on public outreach activities, can kind of report back to what they've been up to. All right, Shannon, Lisa, far away. Um, we have been working, um, the, uh, we were not able to get, uh, our warrant article in this year for municipal escar ban. We are trying to do it the way other towns have done it and go to the select board and others and present the materials and ask if this could be done as a policy change. So we've been creating some educational materials that we can spread around as needed. And, um, we've, um, spoken with Tom Fay today and, you know, started to feel that how this could be done. Um, he seemed optimistic and open to the idea. And we're really hoping that we could get the town to join, um, with 49 others in banning the use of second generation anti-coadulant rodenticides, um, on town owned property. And it might take a few steps, but we're taking the first few right now. Yeah. That's a good, good call. Thank you for setting all that stuff up. That was, that's good. I think Tom will be a big help. You seem to be pretty open to it. Yeah. Love it. Thank, thank you for doing that, taking a lead on that. Also spring is coming. Big night is coming. This is a good time for everyone to get ready to get outside and go to your nearest vernal pool and pick up some frogs and salamanders and help them across the road. So we're also ramping that back up too, with Emily's being a really big help with helping me make that happen as well. Rock on. The rivet rangers are back? Activating the rivet rangers. All right. Love it. Thank you for doing that ladies. Um, 4B topics not anticipated. Nope. In fact, Lynn had to take care of some things. So she kind of jetted out early this week, uh, hopefully to be back next week. Um, so just kind of FYI. So that's where she's going to again. Thanks for Marty for stepping in and playing with us this evening. Um, public comments. I think I clear, but just, well, I'll make two mistakes or three mistakes in one night. No public left to comments. Thank you. Okay. Uh, Babs, how are we looking for the, uh, February 11th minutes? We good to go or what? Yes. I gave a minor comment to Emily and it was
okay. Babs approves with little minor edits. Anybody else thoughts, comments on that? Look good to me. Okay. You want to make a motion to approve the minutes with Babs's edits, please, for the February 11th, 2026? So moved. Thank you, Luke. Do you hear a second? Thank you, Cliff. Roll call, please. Luke Legere. Yes. Barbara Howell. Yes. Lisa Alvin. Yes. Cliff Lewis. Yes. Shannon Fischer. Yes. Jenny Brown. Yes. And Sean Ferzi. Yes. Thank you for the minutes. Um, Marty, anything else lasting on your end? I think we forgot all good. Nothing on my end. Cool. Thank you. Thank you again. Oh, I will say real quick. Uh, this is the, sadly, the sign of the times we're in. I, I saw another concom member out in the wild. I met Jenny Brown in person for the first time in this ever. It was very strange. Yeah, it was strange. Like, Jenny? He's like, Sean, it's me. Yeah, behind a mask. Um, so anyway, I, I told her we, we do need to have, um, a very, you know, no, no work chat, uh, get together. We were hoping to do it last spring. We never got to it. So, uh, when she gets back, Linda and things held down, let's have an in-person something with former and current and maybe future folks. Very good idea. We, we used to do that on the board of road commissioners or board of public works every, every, you know, at least once a year, just get together. Sometimes it's a meeting, sometimes it was not a meeting, but it's nice to see people. Exactly. We used to do that here too, but we haven't done it for a long time. Yep. Yep. We haven't met someone. I know we're bad for bringing it back this year. You're the party planning committee. Tell us what we're doing. Barbara, you're gonna help me plan this party, okay? Party planners. Okay. Awesome. Love it. Uh, all right. I got nothing else. Anybody else say anything else? Let's move for a motion to adjourn, please. So moved. Thank you, Luke. Thank you, Cliff. Roll call, please. Luke Legere. Yes. Yes. Barbara Howell. Yes. Lisa Aubin. Yes. Cliff Lewis. Yes. Shannon Fischer. Yes. Jenny Brown. Yes. And Sean Kersey. Yes. All right, folks are all set.
Can you hear me now? Yep. There you go. Yep. Yep. Doug Dillon for, as you said, 108 Lakeshore. Just as you and Emily said, we met with Linda a month ago, got some tentative plans, got those written up in a new revision for the plans, as well as additional detail on the planting plan. Kind of, you know, as you said, just getting that tentative kind of thumbs up. And, you know, Linda, my understanding, has not been here for this week. So just, we're kind of waiting for her to get back. So that's all. Got it. And so, quick question for you, Doug. So when you worked with Linda, has Linda seen this final addition with your, with your, her comments incorporated or not yet? So, we all met myself, the engineer, her, and the homeowner, you know, old school, right? You know, plans on the table and kind of just drew out a suitable plan, you know, that we can work with moving forward. I, you know, had to have those implemented by the engineer, sent those hard copy and digital. And then, you know, I think very shortly after, you know, I reached out. She said she hadn't gotten to them yet. And then, you know, she, she, she had to step away for, for some time, which is this week now. So. Okay. Perfect. So, let's, let's do this commission. First of all, commission, any thoughts, comments, questions on the updated revised plans? I wonder if you could just walk us through the changes that you've made. Oh, I, um, sorry. I, I, uh, didn't come necessarily to, to present. I just, I'm actually here, um, substituting for a colleague tonight. Um, I, I, my intention, I, I'm trying to keep with the kind of getting the thumbs up with, uh, Linda. And I just want to wait until she is able to fully review the plans before we come back properly to the meeting. I'm just kind of giving you a quick little update to keep you in the loop, guys. Awesome. So, so you're looking for that in continuation. And by the way. Emily, when's the next date of our, uh, meeting or continue for next time? I think it's the 24th.
24th of March. Okay. Um, so I get perfect then. So I guess make sure I'm understanding, looking for continuation to the 24th, Doug. Sorry, Sean, just, is it the 25th maybe, Emily? Yeah, it's the 25th. Okay. Sorry. Sorry, Sean. I just wanted to make sure we had the right date there. Yep. I appreciate that. Um, so I guess, yeah. So unless there's any other immediate comments from anybody, I get the idea is to finalize this with Linda between now and next time. So the 25th, we're ready to vote. Okay. Commission, we go with that? Okay. Looking for then a motion then for, uh, under both for continuation sometime after 630 on the 25th of March, please. So moved. Thank you, Luke. Do I hear a second? Second. Thank you. Sound like Lisa. Uh, roll call, please. Luke Legere. Yes. Barbara Howell. Yes. Lisa Aubin. Yes. Cliff Lewis. Yes. Shannon Fischer. Yes. Jenny Brown. Yes. And Sean Ferzi. Yes. Thank you, folks. Okay. Doug, we'll see you, at least for that case, in a few weeks. Thank you, Doug. All right. Thank you. Thanks. Uh, all right. We're on to, this is 2B, uh, 169 Rice Road in Whelan, DEP, file number 322-1053. This is a continued notice of intent filed pursuant to Whelan's Wetlands and Water Resource Protection Bylaw and the Wetlands Protection Act submitted by Whelan Storm, uh, and Whelan Stormwater and Land Disturbance Bylaw submitted by St. Philip at her precarious and St. Mina Copic Orthodox Church for the work, uh, 169 Rice Road in Whelan, Mass. The proposed work includes a demolition of the existing church and construction of three new buildings, parking surfaces, the Courtyard, Sportsfield, and Stormwater Management Systems. Uh, the project is in with a 200-foot riverfront area and a 100-foot buffer zone of a boring vegetated wetland. Property is shown on Assessor's Map 40, Parcel 08. Uh, so going with the same thing. Emily, any, uh, updated material since last time you want to update us on? The planning board, uh, filed their final decision on the 13th, and then after that, the applicant submitted two planting plans, a buffer zone plan, and a memo from their wetlands consultant. And we also got, like, four comments from abutters and a letter from the, an attorney representing the abutters. Okay. Thank you.
Um, and before I move to Mari, who is here for, or on behalf of the applicant? I see someone raising their hand. Emily, is someone supposed to be moved over here? Do we know? Hi. Uh, this is, uh, Sean Lennon from Studio DSK, uh, Art, the Architects. And I just wanted to let you know that we met with Linda, um, back, I think it was in January, to, to talk about, um, one of the outstanding issues. And that was the off-site mitigation. She informed us that, um, that was something that, uh, the town would not, um, uh, sort of allow or, or participate in. And so we went back and, um, uh, reworked the plan to see if we could get, uh, to within the allow, allowable limits, um, within the 200-foot buffer. We've done that. Um, we removed, um, three parking spaces and increased the pervious space from impervious space. And we've submitted those, um, that plan showing that. And so, uh, when Emily said that, um, plans were submitted, that was one of them. And we also, uh, resubmitted the, uh, landscape plan.
Okay.
Thank you. Um, and Marty, any notes on this one before we open this up? Yeah, just, just a few, a few notes. I had, I had done a peer review on this, on this project and submitted comments back in November. Since then, I know there's been a lot of back and forth with the applicant, the commission, and the butters and so forth that I've not been involved in. Um, but I did spend a little time looking at things, and the one thing I wanted to, um, bring up to the commission's attention is the, the planning board decision. Um, it's section, uh, 3.27. It talks about the driveway, the access road into the site, which is through the riverfront area. It does talk about, it does say, um, that the, the location and the widths of the driveways must be coordinated with the department, um, department of public works. Which indicates to me that there may be some plan revisions, um, to maybe the, the actual, um, permanent and final dimensions of that access road. Um, so I think that since that's really a key issue for the commission, since it's through the riverfront area, it actually bisects, um, the riverfront area that the commission should continue, um, this hearing to get, to get the final plans to just confirm, um, that they meet performance standards. The second thing is that they notices, um, the applicant committed to, um, constructing the project in five years, as everyone knows, the, the order of conditions is only good for three. So, um, just wanted to bring that to the attention of the commission. So at the end of three years, it's really, you know, there's no guarantee that the commission at the time will continue, um, to extend that, extend the decision, um, or require it. A new notice of intent. So, you know, those are the things to think, you know, maybe the applicant to think about, um, the other thing I noticed in my comments, um, back in November was that, um, I brought up the fact about the connectivity of, um, this riverfront, um, the area is, um, has protected open space. Um, there is, um, there is, um, there is development, um, throughout the area, so, you know, it is, it has been fragmented a bit already, and this project will fragment it even more, um, given the fact that they're, you know, the whole sites will be, um, pretty much cleared and developed. And the only, um, remaining, um, remaining wooded area is that, um, narrow, um, riverfront in the front of the, of the, of the site, um, along, uh, Rice Road. I brought up, you know, asking the applicant, recommending that they take a look at connectivity and how, um, the project may have an impact on the riverfront's ability to, um, protect wildlife habitat. And they did respond in their February comments that, you know, the area was already, you know, you know, the, um, the rivers across the street, you know, there's already impacts. But again, you know, and admittedly that's so, but, um, this project is going to have even, it's going to cause even more of a, um, fragmentation problem, um, in the whole regional context of, of, of Snakebrook and the riverfront. So I was hoping at the time that they would look at it and maybe scale back, scale back some of their development in the riverfront, maybe even outside the riverfront, just to provide, um, more, um, protected migratory area for wildlife that may be traveling through. So, you know, you know, once this project is, is, um, is, um, is built, it's going to, you know, it's going to be a seven day in and out, there's going to be lights. Um, so that really front riverfront area that, that is, that's being retained really is not going to have much of, um, habitat, um, quality left. So those are just my, um, you know, quick look at it and, and where things are at currently with the project. That's it. Okay. Thanks Marty. Appreciate it. Um, can I just interject super briefly? Sorry. I'm substituting my colleague. I believe we have a number of our project team stuck in the, um, attendees, uh, slot. We have them again, Naomi.
Um, and they're, they're intending to speak. I just wanted to have them. Oh, gotcha. Yep. Emily, I can do it. If you can't, I got, I think, um, um, did I get everybody over? You did. Thank you. Yep. Oh, there's two more. Oh, sorry. One more thing. One more thing before I forget. Sorry. Um, you know, the performance standards, the riverfront, it says the commission may allow, um, impacts that meet the, you know, meet the, uh, performance standards in that section. It, you know, the keyword is may. Um, so it's not, you don't have to, if, you know, if they're under the 5,000, it's, it's a may. So it, it leaves the, you know, the commission a little bit, a little bit of latitude to, you know, take a look at, you know, what's really going on on the site currently and what will happen afterwards.
Gotcha. Thank you. Um, okay. Before I open commission. So I think a, just make sure I heard you correct. Um, there's some, some things open in the, in the planning decision. And so therefore the plans could change here. So either way, we're gonna have to continue this to the 25th. So I guess in that context, I think commission, if we can give any, um, certainly before Linda comes back and has her own thoughts, but any thoughts, comments, concerns, we want to give them now that they can work on. So we can be in a, a better state here when Linda comes back in a few weeks, um, with the context that we have to continue this anyways. Um, so I guess, I guess with that question, uh, in regards, into the, regards to the parking places, uh, I'm not, you're mandated to have X number of parking places, depending on the size of the, of the church area and the number of seats. Are you still going to be in compliance with those rules?
Is there anybody wants to answer that? Or is anybody particularly you're asking that too? I think we still have some, uh, guys in the, uh, attendees section there, uh, Naomi, uh, one second, Naomi, Sean, I can, I can respond to that. Oh, please go ahead. I'm bringing Naomi over. Gotcha. And if, um, if you have Sean Malone in there as well, uh, you can bring him over.
Yep.
Perfect. Thank you. Yep. So in terms of the, um, reduced, uh, parking spaces, that is, uh, that's amounts to nine occupants, um, and the owner, um, has stated that they're, uh, okay with reducing the capacity. Um, so in terms of. Does that mean they're going to reduce the size? Uh, no, just the, uh, the, uh, the occupant load within the building. Um, so they're going to do that.
Um, we would reduce, um, the amount of seating that is, is, uh, currently called for in the church itself. And what's going to prevent you from just going and putting those seating back in after the thing is built? The fact that we were only approved for, um, the number that, uh, parking allows. So, um, you're going to request that the conservation commission and that the planning board go back in and, and, and monitor this? Mr. Chair, uh, Jonathan Silverstein, counsel for the applicant, respectfully, um, parking standards and occupancy loads are not within the conservation commission's jurisdiction. Um, we did this in order to reduce impacts on the resource area, which I would presume the commission prefers to produce. You're going to, you're going to have to go. You're going to have to go. You're going to have to go. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Got it. So yeah, you can ask some, some of those questions. That's fine. So let's not get hung up on, on this little clip. So I just want to make sure commission, as it pertains to the plans that we were given and the updates that we have, we have to continue this anyways. Are there any thoughts, comments we can, uh, give to the applicants so that they can be working on whatever we think now? Um, I have a question. So who's that Lisa? Yep. I have a question. Yeah. So, um, the last peer review update I saw was from December 23rd. Um, and there were a lot of comments in the peer review related to stormwater. So chapter one 93. So I wasn't sure Sean, when you met with Linda last month, it sounds like you were focusing on riverfront mitigation, but did you talk about any of the requests from the peer review on stormwater? Uh, no, you're talking, I'm talking Sean, Sean, Sean, Sean, Sean, Sean, Sean, Sean, Sean. Yeah. Okay. No, the, uh, the, uh, subject of the meeting was really to talk about the, um, the one 94 section, um, and how to deal with the offsite mitigation, which is what we did. Okay. I mean, I know, you know, our regulations were, were not adopted until December, the updated, updated regulations, but there are a lot of questions here, which, you know, if we can work with you guys just to get them addressed, if they can be addressed, and maybe that's worth another, you know, meeting with Linda, um, before the next meeting.
Okay. That would be up to, um, the church.
Mr. Chair, if I could just address that briefly. Also, um, I will note the peer review, uh, the commission jointly commissioned the stormwater peer review with the planning board, um, the planning board approved the site plan, including the stormwater management system, um, clearly determined that the comments of the peer review were satisfactorily addressed. Um, I'm not saying that's binding on the commission, but, um, um, um, um, um, we do believe that we have satisfactorily addressed all of the stormwater peer review comments and that the stormwater management system complies with all of the performance standards in the bylaw. Gotcha. Thank you. Commissioner, anything else? Other comments? Sean, I would just, uh, echo Marty's comments and really encourage the applicant, first and foremost, to look for any and all ways to reduce the work that's being performed in the riverfront area. Um, I, I will say, uh, I, I heard Mr. Silverstein's point certainly about what's within our purview, uh, but similar to Cliff, you know, when we'd asked previously whether the applicant could reduce parking because of the massive amount, uh, of, of impervious that's going on in here for parking, we were told essentially there's nothing we can do because of zone. Um, so I, I do think Cliff's questions were fair with that said, regardless, I would encourage the applicant to look for ways to reduce any and all work in the riverfront, um, and, and to try to reduce parking and, and really reduce the project in any way as possible. Uh, it just remains in my view, far too large for the site. I think the impacts are far greater than they should be or need to be. So, uh, that's where I'm at, sort of the same place I've been, but I would just, I guess those are my comments for the, for the applicant tonight. I also echo. Excellent. Oh, sorry. No question. I was just going to say that, you know, my view is also still that this plan is just dangerously at a scale, um, and inappropriate for this site. And it doesn't really sincerely take account for the fact that forests are not just empty, unimproved spaces waiting to be paved over to make them useful. We've had some really wonderful, thoughtful comment from the public and to quote one, you know, forests and open land are working assets and once destroyed, these systems and their functions, which are doing so much for us, cannot be brought back in a meaningful timescale for us. This damage would be, would be permanent. And it's not just a small lot. This is a multi-acre forest. And, um, I think it's something that's really, it would be a fundamental loss to, to the town of Weyland. Um, and I also don't think the argument that just because some of the habitat has been degraded means let's go ahead and destroy some more. In fact, I think the counter is true in which we should do everything we can to preserve what we can, um, as we learn every day more and more about the critical importance of healthy ecosystems. Um, I still feel very uncomfortable about the stormwater effects of the loss of over 500 mature trees. Um, and I also urge the applicant to look at ways to really scale this down as much as possible, you know, or if they really don't want to, they could follow the lesson, um, you know, the trail paved by groups like terrain who found already degraded developed sites and turn those into what they needed. There are alternatives. I urge the, I, you know, I really urge the applicant, um, to scale down or find a site where something this large would be appropriate. Humans really are not the only lives in this town. Um, and it's worth protecting all, all our lives because it benefits all of us. Thanks, Jen. Anybody else, Commission? I'll say my comments to the last.
Okay. The only I'd say is echoing, um, I think it's too big for the site that we're in. Um, just because playing board was okay with the stormwater has nothing, no bearing on us. I, I'm certainly concerned about the stormwater. Um, and the other thing I'm, um, I'll ponder aloud and I need to talk to our town attorney in the meantime, I don't know how concom gives a permit, which we know expires in three years on a five-year project. So it puts us in an awkward end of three years. This is a new NOI we're coming back with. Um, and we, we, we serve three-year terms here. It might be seven new human beings sitting here in front of the group. And what, and so are we asking for an extension to the new one? So I need to think through that. Frankly, that it's, it's the, again, playing board can make their own decisions. I don't, I'm not sure I'd agree with the timeline because we don't, our permits don't play on a five-year timeline. So I need to talk with town council in the meantime, what, what that looks like and how that plays into all this, frankly, but that's kind of my, those are my two main comments. Um, stormwater massively when I look at, uh, cause I think again, too big for this, this lot and, and, and out of that, out of the waterfront. Um, so yeah, I've got the same, similar comments. Um, I would also note, uh, the record we have received many emails. I'm sure we'll make public, um, uh, for this project. Um, so obviously we can't read them all out tonight, but we, we did see, received several emails. Um, so commission, anything else on our end? Um, before I, I, sorry. Those emails are they, will they be part of the record, the emails? Yeah, yeah, I, I just, yeah, what limit takes care of all this stuff. I can make sure there are anybody on here listening that we did receive those and we appreciate, but many, too many there to read aloud. Um, so, um, commission, we, we good on that. Um, let me just make sure before we, again, we are happy to continue this either way. Um, I don't see any, any hands, um, for this again, to your point, yes, the cliff that will be made, but I take that back. Um, do you see one, uh, quick comment, uh, Dennis Murphy, you can come on and talk, please just give us your name and where you live, please. Yeah. Good evening, Mr. Chair and members of the commission. I'm attorney Dennis Murphy from Hill law in Boston. I represent the condo associations that, uh, I've identified in my letters. Um, and I just want to be sure cause they don't appear on your website. Uh, have you received the letters I submitted in January and last week? Okay. Thank you. We have. Yeah. Yeah. So let me, let me go with a working knowledge of what I've already put in writing and respond to what's come up so far today. Um, in addition to the changes that Marty Nova identified, the planning board decision itself requires nine more changes in final plans that are due by mid March. So the plans you have in front of you are not final. Uh, in addition to that, uh, entryway, there is a requirement to have a further public hearing at the planning board for the scenic road. They are proposing to move the entryway in, in a way that is contrary to your own, uh, scenic road rules. The scenic road rules say that you can have just one entry onto a scenic road. They are asking for two, both of which would be in the riverfront area. That is still a pending permit subject to a public hearing under state law that has not occurred and not been scheduled. So we're looking at, uh, further plan revisions that are, uh, likely to come forward. Beyond what, uh, Marty Nova has already identified. Another point that I think many of you have brought up is the issue of the stormwater. And those of you who participated in the joint hearings, uh, you heard your own peer review engineer from DTG say multiple times, we need to run hydro cad and stress test the system. Those are his terms, uh, stress test. This is a tabletop exercise. It's very easily done. The site is going to be 61% plus impervious coverage, more than three acres on a five and a half acre site. That is a finding, excuse me, a finding in the planning board decision. So don't take my word for it. Some engineer calculated and the planning board has actually issued a finding with a number in their decision. So that really needs to be studied, uh, in full, uh, chairman made the point that you're, you're not bound, uh, by what the planning board has decided. Uh, I can tell you, I attended all those hearings. And in my estimation, I don't believe your own peer reviewer thinks all of the stormwater issues were run to ground. I believe that there are major issues still to be, uh, properly vetted. Uh, another point I would like to make, because I think the metrics are important. Um, you have very clear regulations about tree protection, tree preservation, tree replacement and removal. And the, uh, gross loss is 528 trees. Um, there is a calculation, but my eyesight doesn't allow me to read the numbers on that plan that was submitted last week. Um, the net loss, even with the replacement is still over 300 trees. And if you do the math, that doesn't meet your two to one ratio under chapter 193, section eight, which is, uh, your, your tree preservation, uh, portion of the, uh, local bylaw. So at the very least, you're looking at a plan that is not compliant with your, uh, your own rules. And I think that, um, attorney Silverstein rightly said that the planning board decision dealt with zoning, uh, you're tasked with dealing with very different state and local laws that have not been vetted in the planning board process. And we'll need to on all of these issues, including riverfront impact, which is one that has been studied, the, uh, tree preservation issue and the stormwater. Um, and let me stop there because I think I've, uh, I've covered most of what I wanted to say in response to tonight. Uh, please read my letters. There, there is detailed information that I hope, um, is helpful to the commission. Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate it. Um, we have another hand, uh, go ahead. I'm not sure who this, uh, there we go. Good evening. Uh, this is for the church, representing the church. So, um, I just want to recap. So the, um, the stormwater has been fully reviewed by DGT. Uh, there has been no changes made to it. Uh, the original submission, which was made in August remains exactly the same. We've answered all the questions and there was many questions, right? All the questions for this thermal review have been fully resolved, okay? We have completely complied with 193 and 194, uh, based on the town feedback and the unwillingness for us to do work, mitigation work on town land. We are, uh, we're doing it all on our land and that results in a net reduction of, of three parking spots and a reduction in impervious surfaces there of, I think, 96 square feet. So that is an improvement of what exists over there. Okay, so I guess the question is that the proposal here is for a continuation. I'd like to understand what is the, what issues remain open for us to litigate or to discuss with respect to this project, because we are completely compliant with 193 and 194. Stormwater is- I can help you out. You're stating opinion. You think you're compliant. We haven't voted whether or not you're compliant. So your opinion is you're compliant. We need to vote on that. So a lot of things are still open, one of which that we don't have the final plans and then we need to have an open discussion about stormwater. And so on our end, there's a lot, right? And so your opinion is you, you satisfied it, but we have not voted on that. So, so is, is the opinion that we have not, we have not voted on that, but you, the statement is that we're not compliant with 193, 194, or we are compliant and we're not sure what, what, so when- We haven't voted on that yet. So we haven't got all the information yet. So that's what we're talking about. We'll continue to the 25th. Linda will be back. Have a few more questions answered and presumably you'll, the playing board meeting. So we'll have more information and then we'll openly discuss whether or not you're compliant or not. And obviously you can hear us openly discuss that, but we haven't had that discussion yet.
Mr. Chair, can I make one point? It's Jonathan Silverstein. Yep. Go ahead. It is not uncommon for there to be multiple approvals required from different state and local entities for a project. And the notion that one approval authority cannot act on the plans before it because there might be changes required by another would put applicants in a catch-22 situation that prevents getting any decisions. We have presented to you the plans that we're asking you to act on. If we need to change those plans because of any other approval process, we would have to come back to you and ask for you to change those plans, just as we will be presenting revised plans to the planning board based upon the changes we've made to satisfy the riverfront performance standards. So the notion that the commission need not act on the application before it because of a requirement for the scenic road bylaw or curb cuts or any other approval is simply not accurate. I want to be really forthcoming because I want to be transparent. The church is not going to dramatically redesign its project or reduce the size of the project. We believe, and as you said, you haven't voted on it, but we believe we satisfy all of the performance standards. We have exceeded the non-binding tree replacement policy that was in place at the time we filed our application, and we will commit to that if we get an approval.
And we just don't, we don't want the commission to believe there's any chance of us reducing the size of the project. But if the commission is going to deny the project on that basis, then we prefer not to have it dragged out. We don't think that's a valid or lawful basis to do so. But we are prepared to answer any outstanding questions about the performance standards we're required to meet, if there are any, but we're not aware of what those are.
So you're asking us not to continue and make it a closer hearing right now? That's not what I'm asking you, Mr. Chair. I'm just trying to be up front with you. We think we've met all the performance standards, where if someone wants to identify ways in which they believe we have not, we're open to hearing that. But contrary to what Mr. Murphy said, we have satisfied the non-binding, non-regulatory tree replacement policy. We've more than exceeded it, actually. And that information has been provided to the commission. And doing so is going to be contingent on us receiving an approval. But we're happy for you to continue. If you feel you need to confirm that we've satisfied the performance standards, I just didn't want you to operate under the misconception that the project is going to be revised. No, I appreciate that.
Okay. Any other questions, comments? There's another. I'm sorry? I just put a raised hand in the attendees. Oh, there is. Oh, sorry.
Attendees. Kenneth, I believe. I question if anybody in the concern. Sorry, sorry. Real quick. You identify where you live there, Kenneth. Randy one. Thank you. I sent a lengthy email to the commission yesterday dealing with standard measurements of how much water is absorbed by trees and the impact of water flow, snow melting, flood conditions by removal of trees. And although I have read the entire Oak Hill document, my simple question is, does that document take into account the impact of removing the trees? Because I've looked at the metrics and I've even heard about, you know, the work that's been done. But measuring the impact of conditions today, as opposed to measuring the impact when 61%, according to the planning commission, of that ground will not only have deep-rooted trees removed, but will be paved. So from the perspective of flooding, snow melt, my only question is, is that factored into the calculations done by Oak Hill?
And I'll let Mr. Silverstein or anybody else answer that. Because I keep hearing about all the work that's been done, the research that's been done, and yet there's one simple metric that I haven't seen spoken of anywhere. Instead, it seems to be, we're talking about the current condition. It does not take into account what the environmental impact will be, and this is ignoring the impact on wildlife, but what the environmental condition will be when the trees are removed, you know, with regards to the amount of water the trees absorb, how that impacts, you know, drainage, how that impacts snowfall and snowmelt. And for the church, it might be fine and dandy, but as one of the embutters, my concern is that replacing trees with concrete can result in our being flooded. But again, if I'm wrong on this, I'm more than willing to be corrected. It's just, I didn't see that reference in any of the Oak Hill documents. But I'm not an engineer, so maybe I missed it.
Thank you. Anyone want to answer that question real quick? I'll talk about, I can't answer it off the top of my head, but you want to answer that?
Oh, no, there we go. Yeah, to the answer, Sean is here, perfect. I am, yeah. Thank you. Good evening, Mr. Chair, members of the commission, Shell Malone, Oak Consulting Group, civil engineer. The simple answer to that question is, yes, that was considered. The standard analysis in stormwater is you take an analysis of the site as it exists today. You have certain areas designated as impervious, as woods, as lawn, and these all are given different runoff coefficients. How much runoff comes from those areas. Then we look at the site in the proposed condition and considering the loss of wooded areas or lawn areas or the conversion of impervious areas. And that creates a delta. So your proposed condition, adding impervious, increases the amount of runoff from the site. So then we design the stormwater management system to account for that delta and to take care of that increase in runoff. So that's why we have the infiltration areas proposed, as we do. And the net result in this case is we do not increase the rate and volume of runoff from the site with the proposed development because of that stormwater management system we're constructing. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks, Sean. Okay. Commission. I'll end it with us. Any last comments or concerns before we make sure I think I heard them say that you're okay to continue to the 25th with the caveat that you say you won't change your plans just as a backdrop. Thank you. Any other comments? Commission. Let me know. If not, we'll look for a continuation sometime after 630 for the 25th under both. I just want to answer the one quick question that's in the webinar chat where we can see the comment that was made by, I don't know if it was Kenneth or a different Ken, but we can see the comment that replacing the trees. So just to point that out. Otherwise, I'm good to go, Sean. Thanks. Thanks, Jim. Okay. Not going to get a motion in folks. Well, I move that we continue this hearing under both the State Act and Chapter 194 and Chapter 193 to March 25th after 630 PM. Thank you, Luke. Thank you, Shannon, for the second. Quick roll call, please. Luke Legere. Yes. Barb Howell. Yes. Lisa Aubin. Yes. Cliff Lewis. Yes. Shannon Fischer. Yes. Jenny Brown. Yes. Yes. And Sean. Yes. All set. We'll see you folks in a couple of weeks. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Uh, on to 2C. This is 67A, uh, local street and Wayland DEP file number 322-1056. It's a continued notice of intent filed pursuant to Wayland's wetland and water resource protection bylaw. And the wetland protection act submitted by Matt O'Connor for the demolition of the existing barn construction of a six-unit compact apartment facility at 67A Loker Street in Wayland, Mass. Uh, property is shown on assessors map 48, parcel 42, and is located within a 100-foot buffer zone of a boarding vegetated wetlands and 200-foot riverfront area. Emily, any update on this one here? Uh, they requested a continuance to the 25th. They submitted, or they're submitting an application to the planning board for their next meeting. Awesome. Thank you much. I move that we continue this hearing under Chapter 194 and the State Act to March 25th after 6.30 PM. Okay. Thank you, Luke. Do I have a second? Thank you, Cliff. Roll call, please. Luke Legere. Yes. Deborah Howell. Yes. Lisa Aubin. Oops. Sorry. I was on mute. Yes. Cliff Lewis. Yes. Shannon Fischer. Yes. Jenny Brown. Yes. And Sean Fairsey. Yes. Thank you. On to 2D. So 68 Lakeshore Drive, DEP file number 322-1057. It's a continued notice and intent to file pursuant to Wayland's Wetlands and Water Resource Protection Bylaw and the Wetland Protection Act submitted by Jeremy Jenkins. For the after-fact work permitted at 68 Lakeshore Drive in Wayland, Mass., including installation of a floating dock, gangway ramp, retaining wall, patio, and repairs to the covered porch steps. The property is shown on Assessor's Map 42D, Parcel 56, and is located within 100 feet of a boring vegetated wetland bank and land underwater. Okay. Emily. Any updates on this since last we spoke? They also requested a continuance to the 25th to revise their site plans. Okie doke. I move that we continue this hearing under Chapter 194 and the State Act to March 25th after 6.30 PM. Second. Thank you, Luke, for that. Thank you, Cliff, for the second. Roll call, please. Luke Legere. Yes. Barbara Howell. Yes. Lisa Aubin. Yes. Cliff Lewis. Yes. Shannon Fischer. Yes. Jenny Brown. Yes. And Sean, there's a yes. Thank you. On to 2E. This is 123 Dudley Road, DEP file number 322-1061. 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 Joel Goodmanson for the construction of a single-family home, septic system, and stormwater management system at 123 Dudley Road in the Wayland Mass. The proposed work is 100 feet of Dudley Pond, and the property is shown on the assessor's map 47A, parcel 72. Ms. Emily, it looks like a new one, yes? No, it's a continued. Any update on this one? Yeah. The applicant's team submitted a revised stormwater report and revised site plans for this meeting. I think that was set. Perfect. Thank you. And, Marty, do you have any comments on this one before we get going here? I don't have any comments at this time. We're rocking on. Here we go. All right. So, who's here for 123? Who wants to present this here? The updates as it were. Good evening, Mr. Chair. This is Seth Donahoe with Dillis Roy Civil Design Group. I'm here tonight on behalf of Joel Goodmanson and Robin Greenleaf. They're both also in the audience, along with their architect, Andrew Cohen, and their council attorney, Daniel Hill. So, if it's all right, Mr. Chair, I can give you a brief summary of changes that have occurred since we last discussed this project, and then also share my screen. Please. Fantastic. All right. Hopefully, before you is our revised plan set. If someone could just nod and let me know if it's on your screen. Yep. Fantastic. So, we had discussed this project at your meeting back in February. At the time, we were looking at replacing what is an existing dwelling on the property. That's this brown area here. And there's an existing septic system, both on the lower portions of the property. So, this is a sloped lot from Dudley Road on the top of the screen. It goes down to Dudley Pond. The pond gutter consulting had completed the delineation of the bank of the pond, and that's what these highlighted buffer zones are deriving from. Since the last meeting, we have conducted additional soil testing that's highlighted on the plan. There was prior soil testing on the site. Groundwater was not encountered in any of the holes. So, it's very sandy soil. We're showing a depth of in excess of 12 feet to groundwater, and that's important to note because that's where the majority of our infrastructure is being placed at the furthest distance from the pond and also at the area that has a maximum offset to the groundwater table. The existing conditions plan, other than that, is essentially unchanged. Our client and the architect worked together to reduce the building footprint. The building size was a concern that was mentioned to us by the commission members at the last meeting, and also a strong desire to minimize the footprint of the area of alterations. So, a couple major changes associated with that. Previously, there was a driveway that accessed Dudley Road parallel to an existing driveway. We've greatly reduced the footprint of the driveway, and we're utilizing the existing driveway. So, that's this area that's highlighted on your screen. The house itself has been reduced in size. And then there was questions about the stormwater management system. So, we're proposing to mitigate the entirety of the roof runoff and impervious surfaces on the site, as required by your town's bylaws. And that's a subsurface area with a series of catch basins and proprietary treatment structure that will essentially clean or allow the stormwater to be infiltrated in the system, compliant with your standards. That area was previously on a knoll off to the side of the site. With the architects' and applicants' changes in the building footprint and general condensing of everything, we're able to position that next to the proposed dwelling and preserve this area of the site as well. There's some tabulations on the plan. The commission noted that you did want to see tabulations. The total proposed impervious area within the buffer zone is now reduced to 3,894 square feet. That's a reduction of over 1,000 square feet from items that were here when we were last time here. The other item that the commission wanted us to look into is potentially relocating a temporary construction entrance. We had that on a lower section of the site. We've now moved that up to an upper area of the site that generally parallels an existing road. And as I mentioned, we did do additional soil testing. That occurred last month, admittedly under not great conditions because it was a lot snowier than we wanted. And we were able to utilize an excavator through that very area. So we've gotten construction equipment through that area already. And we're able to complete our testing in that area as well. Overall, the reduced footprint related with the changes, it has reduced the number of trees that are required to be removed on the site. As we discussed last time, this is a wooded site. It has tree replacement requirements under both Chapter 193 and Chapter 194. Our client is in the process of working with an arborist and a landscape architect to meet your mitigation requirements. We discussed last time of a desire to do offsite mitigation. The commission has indicated to us that that is something that really hasn't been done. And I understand that your bylaw is very new or your regulations are very new at this point. So we're working to bring a resolution to the commission to meet the requirements on site to the maximum extent feasible. And then hopefully work with you as your regulations evolve. So that's a high level summary of the changes that have occurred since I was last before you. At this time, as it does have a stormwater component, the applicant is hoping that we could move into a peer review process related to those technical items so that any modifications that come from that can be incorporated in any future changes of the plans. Okay. Thanks, Seth. Appreciate it. Commission, thoughts, comments, concerns? I'll go last. I know in the last meeting, there were a few trees on the lake. I guess just like west of the house that the owners were asking if they might have permission to remove, but I didn't notice that in this updated revised set of plans. So I just wanted to check. It was like three to five trees near the water. That's correct. They did have there some leaning trees that they would like to remove if it was agreeable to the commission. But based on our discussion at the last meeting, that's something that we have removed from the plan at this time. And one other question, just because it's a little bit new to me being new to the commission, but with the green roof, how does that factor into the stormwater calculations? So I did read that obviously it takes time for the green roof to establish, so it might not be fully effective right away. So I didn't know how that factored into the stormwater. So so the green roof, I'm going to zoom in real quick. Oops, I'm moving it. There's a there's a lower tiered roof. These are these dashed areas. So essentially the the ground level floor at the driveway side will look out on this green roof. The stormwater requirements, the 100 year storm is in excess of eight inches of rain in a 24 hour period. The green roof would not mitigate the entirety of that. So there's a collection system built into the house itself, and that's going to convey the excess runoff to the infiltration area. So in the stormwater management calculations that that were updated and submitted to the board, the curve number associated with a roof. There's a high value associated with that. It's essentially impervious. There's a slightly lower value associated with the green roof. The green roof. Well, has has many benefits. It's primary benefit is mitigation of short duration storm events. It it certainly does that. But but we have a system proposed that's to meet the town standard of the must, much larger storm event. So like Boston, for example, they focus on mitigating one inch of runoff, essentially. That's that's that's all they can do. Your standard is much higher. We we have a much higher bar to reach here. So that's part of why we would like to enter into the peer review process. Gotcha. Anybody else? Christian, I want to thank the applicants for really trying to work on this and being amenable to making some changes and doing everything they can to preserve some more trees and even at the cost of making their design smaller. And I'm just it's really nice to see. Thank you for doing that. And this is a very side comment. This is certainly not something in any way that would affect it. But I saw an interesting paper. I just read the abstract today on ecological etymology that was looking at green rule, green roofs down in Argentina and saw some interesting factors that would affect sort of the biodiversity of it, including like substrate depths and some of the content like sand or plant litter. So if you guys wanted to promote and cultivate life, you could have some fun doing that. So in no way is that any factor that I would put in, it's just more of a fun thing that made me think of this project. Thanks, Sean. Yeah, I agree with Shannon. I appreciate the applicant and their team hearing what we said last time and making an effort to address the issues we raised. So I certainly do appreciate that. And yeah, I think it seems to me, obviously, the planting plan is still in process. So I look forward to seeing a more final version of that. But the only other thing I can think of, Sean, is exactly what the applicant's requesting here, which is to get a stormwater peer review lined up. Yep. Thanks, Luke. Anybody else? Okay. So yeah, so I'll echo what's been said. Awesome improvement. Thank you for incorporating that. And agreed. Next step is to get a peer review. So I think what we'll do is we'll continue the hearing to the 25th. And I'll send a quick note to Linda that we've asked now to start that process to pick a peer review and start that the minute she gets back. So I think we're all on the same page there. Okay, great. I didn't realize she was out of town. So I had sent her an email to the similar effect, but I trust that when she returns, that's something that can move forward. And well, that was she for the estimate directly to the applicant or? Yeah. So she'll work with you guys on that. The, who she's going. You guys get to stay in it. So yeah, she'll, she'll work with you through the peer review. Yep. Fantastic. I'll make sure I'll email her too. So she sees that when she gets back at the top of her email list. Okay. Just taking a quick vote. I know Linda sometimes likes to have us vote. Do the peer review. Make it clear. She's got the authority. Yep. Good call. Want to make a motion there, Luke? Sure. Yeah. I move that we authorize Linda to proceed with a peer review consultant to look at stormwater for this project. Second. Thank you. Do we hear a second? Thank you. Cliff. Roll call, please. Luke Legere. Yes. Barbara Hall. Yes. Lisa Alban. Yes. Cliff Lewis. Yes. Shannon Fischer. Yes. Jenny Brown. Yes. Yes. All right. We're all set. We're all set. We'll see you folks in a few weeks. Thank you. Take care. Thank you very much. Thank you, Luke. Thank you, Cliff. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. All right. We're all set. See you folks in a few weeks. Thank you. Take care. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. That's a public meeting. This is 56 Lincoln Road. request for determination, sorry, D-1053, request for determination filed pursuant to Whelan's Wetlands and Water Resource Protection Bylaw and the Wetland Protection Act submitted by Stephanie Smart for tree removal at 56 Lincoln Road in Whelan, Mass. Property is shown in the assessor's map, 07, lot 45B, and the proposed work is in the 100-foot wetland buffer area. All right. Emily, anything in particular on this one? This is a new application submitted by Heather Highmark, who I think is here. Perfect. Okay. Marty, any quick notes on this one? We're good? I'm just looking at it. Love it. Heather, I think I saw you here. Yes, I'm here. Yeah. Yeah, I have a couple of slides to share with the committee tonight just to introduce you to the site. Also, can you please advance the owners? I think Stephanie and Alan are... I see a hand-raised for an Alan VanderMeulen. Yes, that would be them.
It looks like there was somebody who wanted to comment on Dudley, I see, in the chat, but... Oh, whoop, I'm sorry. I didn't see that. This is... Can everybody get moved over? Can you hear us now? Yes, we can. Okay. Do you want to address the Dudley comments first? Should we put ourselves on mute? I'll roll back in. I'll come back to them. That's okay. We'll go with you. Okay. I thought I missed them. Okay. All right. So I'm Heather Highmark. I'm a landscape architect, and I've been working with Alan and Stephanie. They've purchased this property about two years ago. They've been there almost a year and nine months. And I want to just hand it over to them for a moment so that they can introduce themselves.
Okay. Well, I'm Alan, obviously. This is my wife, Stephanie. We thought we'd just speak a couple of words. We've both been very involved in conservation and ecological causes throughout our lives. Stephanie was actually an environmental major at Dartmouth. I began with starting an environmental club in grade school when I was in fifth grade. We've both been doing it ever since. We moved here from Lincoln just two years ago. We lived on Beaver Pond Road, which is only about three miles from here. We were at that property for 16 years. When we first moved there, it was absolutely filled with very mature, happy invasives. We had bittersweet, buckthorn, honeysuckle, Norway maples, beautiful stands of garlic mustard, and later on, wall lettuce. And we spent many weeks every May and early June pulling out mounds of garlic mustard and later on in this season, wall lettuce. We got very good at that. But we did pretty much eradicate most of the major invasives on that property during our time.
Stephanie is a lifelong horse person, which is why we moved to Weyland and to Duck Puddle Farm here on Lincoln Road. It's been a horse property for many, many years with its antique farm, which is right next to the main house. There's pastures here, big field across the street, and also there's an outdoor horse arena. And just like we were in Lincoln, we are looking forward to being good stewards of the land. We've spent the last two years kind of working through the property. We've done a detailed land survey. We work closely with Heather on that. We've looked at the plants and species of plants that are here. And particularly in the pastures and around the house itself, there's a lot of...
Okay, we'll call them non-native plantings. Random might be a better word. And so one of the big reasons we asked Heather to come on board is to help us develop a long-term plan for the property so that the changes that are made are in line with our bent towards environmental and conservation concerns and also consistent with this being a horse farm. So I think that's enough from us for now. We'll leave it to Heather to speak from here. Thank you. Okay, I'm just going to share a couple of slides with you.
Actually, I wish I had done it in PowerPoint. It's in PDF, so I can't really get rid of all the marginalia. But so this is showing you Duck Petal Farm. It is actually three building lots combined into one. 44 is this large lot with the pond back in the woods. 56 is the lot that we're going to be talking about today. And then the main house lot, which is 48.
This shows you the conservation restrictions that are on the land held by Sudbury Valley Trust. So while it is just over 34 acres of land, large amounts of it are protected by either wetlands protection or the conservation restrictions that are on the land. So here you can see how 48, the main house envelope in that lot, is one of the few areas not in a restriction. This is the pond field that we're going to be talking about. This is sort of one of the main pastures and the writing ring is in this field. And then it goes on to this larger area beyond. The pond field pond, it's really like a farm pond. It drains into this larger pond behind.
So one of the things that what we're here to ask for tonight is a request for determination on what we'd like to do within the buffer area, the 100-foot buffer area of the farm pond, where there are three very large weeping willows, Salix babylonica, which is not the native willow. It's an invasive willow. It's a very, they're dramatic, they're beautiful, but they grow fast and they're very weak wooded. This little comparative diagram here shows you sort of the difference between the native willows and the weeping willow, the babylonica there. I also tried to blow this up a little bit so you can see it better than on the plans, that the willows are also, at this point, pretty well riddled with, this is not an insect. I think this is all bird damage. I think that we've got woodpeckers who are really drilling into these trunks. So these trees have been there since 2015, and they've gone rapidly, and they are quite large. And what has been, one of the things that's been happening is that the pond has been drying out during the summers because they are so thirsty. They are more thirsty than a native willow is. And the neighbors have been mentioning to Stephanie and Alan how that never happened before, that this is sort of a new phenomenon. So they are 16-inch caliper trees. There's three of them. We would like to take them down. We'd like to just cut them at the base, leave all the root systems in place. And then we would like to do a tree planting of native trees. We're looking at five river birch, one Atlantic white cedar, and shagbark hickory, and some swamp oaks that we'd like to put in along the fence line and kind of surrounding this pasture area. And there is, the existing woodlands are mostly mature white pines with mixed hardwoods, and there are some cedars and oaks sort of in that mix. So this is the plan. So here we've sort of zoomed in. You're not seeing the entire property, but you're seeing sort of the main house and the barn, and then the farm pond here with the 100-foot buffer around it. These X's here are the three willows. It's got this small island that's in the pond. And then the orange dots here are showing the new trees along with this dark, this olive green one here is the new cedar because along Lincoln Road in this area here, we have a mix of deciduous and evergreen trees that are along the fence line there that we'd like to sort of continue to sort of play into that. In this photograph, well, actually, I have some larger images of these photographs. So you can, this is the bark image that I just showed you with the bird damage. And then, let's see, I will go on to show you those. I can zoom in on this a little bit. So Sudbury Valley Trust is the holder of the conservation restriction, and they have walked the sites with Stephanie and Alan. They're in support of their vision for how they want to maintain it and cultivate the land. And they wrote us this email regarding these three willows, basically reiterating that the conservation restriction does not stop them from being able to do planting and clearing and removing exotic species. And they also say here, I underlined it, that this includes maintaining vistas. So one of the reasons why we want to remove these willows is that it blocks the views from the barn of the riding ring. So it makes it very hard in terms of safety to kind of be at the main house and be able to sort of see the riding ring beyond these willows. So partly they're not native, they're an herbaceous species, partly they're undesirable in terms of what they're doing in terms of the function of the land, in terms of the horseback riding purposes. And so those are really the two main reasons why we want to remove them. And then the game being that we would be enhancing the area with native plantings, native tree plantings. So here you can see from the riding ring looking up the hill, the barn is sort of on the other side of the willows there. So that sort of communication back and forth is hampered. This is not even during the height of the drought, how the farm pond is getting really sort of sucked down and depleted. And then this is this little island, which we'd like to have permission to go in there and just, you know, remove some of the vines and invasive materials that are on the island. This is an old cherry tree. So our tree planting, there's sort of gaps along this tree line nature of Lincoln Road in here. So we'd really be sort of filling in some of those gaps along here with the new tree planting, as well as on the other side of the field.
So what we're hoping for tonight is a negative determination. So we can proceed with this work and get it lined up for the spring. We'd love to be able to remove these trees while there's still permafrost in the ground. And then just purchase our new tree material and get them in this spring. And that's our intent. So happy to answer any questions that you have. Thanks, Heather. Commission, will open up to us first? Lots of comments, concerns. I'll say mine to last. I just, I think this is great. I live not too far away and my husband and I love going for walks on this street. It's absolutely beautiful. And, you know, the fact that you're taking out invasives and planting natives is, is great. I don't have any further comments. I just, I think it's a great plan. I had one question. Do you really think that taking out these three trees is going to replenish that much water in the pond? Well, go ahead, Alan. Yeah. What we've been told by the neighbors is they have never seen the pond go dry before, except in the last couple of years. Yeah. The only thing that's changed is those trees are there. Now the pond definitely gets low in the, in the summer, you know, like an autumn. You haven't, you haven't, you haven't done the calculations. I was just curious. No, we haven't done any calculations. Not sure how. I was going to say, don't, don't get your hopes up. Willows are incredibly thirsty trees, though. Yeah. They'll dry something up. I, I just want to say, this is like gorgeous and thoughtful. Like more things like this, please, would be lovely to see. I have a quick question, which is, if you're cutting them to the base, which, which I like, I like that you're not stump grinding. Um, is there a risk that these are going to re-sprout? Cause willows are really, do you, do we want to consider having a tri, like a triclopy or stump application like that? Well, if you would permit it, it would probably, well, go ahead, Alan. I mean, I, I, I think that they will sucker for quite some time. They'll, cause there'll, there'll be a lot of energy in that root system and they'll keep suffering. So we'll either have to just keep at it until they do exhaust themselves and, and, and stop, uh, or, uh, you know, or apply something to, to sort of speed along that demise.
Alan, what did you want to say? Well, I was going to say, I certainly don't mind walking out there with clippers every so often to cut back any suckers. And we're, we're kind of hesitant to use chemicals unless we absolutely have to, especially near the pond. So if we can avoid that, we would prefer to do it that way. Go for it. Yeah. Besides my son, I was taking the tractor out and wanking down brush. So, you know, if he's a 16 year old, if he wants to drive the tractor, more power to him.
Love it. I certainly like doing it that way better than the chemicals. And I would agree with Shannon and Lisa, that I think this is a really thoughtful plan. Um, like Lisa, I, for the past 20 years or so, I've spent a lot of time going back and forth through that property. It's a beautiful area. I can attest that pond has been dry the past couple of years. And I don't recall that ever having happened in that 15 to 16 years prior to that. So Cliff, I don't know if this will do the trick or not, but, uh, it's true that it's been much more dry these past couple of years. It would help if we didn't have drought conditions. Yeah. All state, yeah. Drought. And it, it never, never was dry like this until we've had these drought years. Yep. And this has been, for me, one of our favorite birding places for the Christmas bird count. And for decades, I was assigned Lincoln Road. I can't do it anymore, but, uh, the birds will appreciate it.
Great. Yeah. Um, go ahead, Jen. Go ahead. Just keep on more praise. I just really applaud you guys for your stewardship and enthusiasm. And it's so lovely to see. And, you know, I just, thank you so much for caring and acting on that as well. Thank you. Thank you. Um, I mean, what more do I say? Yeah, I think I'm, I'm agreement with everybody. It's a great project. Well done. Nothing I'm not going to add to it. So, um, if we're all in agreement, can I get a motion for a negative determination, please? Sure. We issue a negative determination of applicability under the state act and a permit under chapter 194. Thank you, Luke. Do we have a second? Thank you, Cliff. Quick roll call, please. Luke Legere. Yes. Barbara Howell. Yes. Lisa Aubin. Yes. Cliff Lewis. Yes. Shannon Fischer. Yes. Kenny Brown. Yes.
Have a good evening. You too. Um, let's go on to, oh, I'm sorry. I go back. I'm sorry. There was a comment. Someone had their hand up. Who actually?
The last one. Apologies. I missed the hand. Who was it? In the chat?
We have skipped. Uh, Claire. Can we allow Claire to speak? Yep.
Claire.
Claire, are you still there?
Hey, Sean, it might be worth just noting before, um, these folks speak that we have continued the hearing already, so technically, um, just to make sure any comments they want to make would be in the record, I would suggest they put anything you might want to say tonight in writing to us. We have continued, so there will be another opportunity for hearing, but, um, I just wanted to mention that before anybody says anything. Yeah, good point. I was going to apologize. Thank you. So, yeah, we didn't close the hearing, but, yeah, apologies, Claire. I didn't see the hand there before we closed it, but we are continuing for a couple weeks. Okay. What, is it okay if, if we share our concerns now? Well, we can do it, but we, we just know it's not part of the public hearing, so you have to, like, you send it into writing, or you want to just tell us, but it's not part of the, the public hearing, because we closed that hearing. So it wouldn't be an official if you send it by, by writing. We continue, we didn't close it, we continued. I'm not to be, continue, sorry. So, so you would, you would have an opportunity to make these comments again in a few weeks. You're more than welcome to speak now, but it's just not, like Sean said, it's not going to be part of the record. Okay, that's fine. I'll, I'll just, since I've been here, I'll just say what I came to say, if that's all right. Sure. I did submit, actually, a letter, like, sort of late this afternoon, and I apologize for the, could you identify yourself and where you're at? Yes. Yes, of course. My name is Claire Moretti. I reside at 125 Dudley Road, which directly abuts 123 Dudley Road. Um, this bill would be approximately 40 feet from our home. Um, and I'm speaking on behalf of myself and my husband, Mike Moretti, who spoke during the last committee hearing, um, two weeks ago. Um, so we had some concerns we, we wanted to share. Like I said, we submitted a letter sort of late this afternoon, so I'm sure that no one has had a chance to read it yet, but I, I wanted to share some high-level thoughts with this group. Um, and I'll, um, absolutely reiterate those concerns again at the next hearing. Um, but first and foremost, we wanted to flag that we did look at the file history for this project, and we wanted to highlight that a prior NOI that was previously filed by Goddard, um, showed wetlands on the project site, which is contrary to the present NOI. Um, so for that reason, obviously, we'd really like to reiterate that we feel a careful peer review by a wetland scientist is very critical for this project. Um, we also, as I said, submitted a letter this afternoon because we engaged a wetland scientist to review the NOI and the revised plans that were recently submitted. Um, the wetlands scientist submitted a formal letter this afternoon on our behalf, and we do ask that that letter be considered in connection with the wetlands peer review. Um, I wanted to share a few high-level concerns from that letter that are articulated probably in much more gracefully in the letter than I can do right now. Um, but just a few sort of key points that we wanted to flag for your consideration. Um, the first being that there was no planting plan or O&M for the partly green roof. Um, the wetland scientists that we engaged also felt that the soil analysis performed by Goddard, Goddard was not sufficient, um, especially because it was performed entirely in the septic leach field and there was no test hole in the location of the actual stormwater infiltration BMP. Given the site's history of septic issues, um, particularly with, particularly with respect to septic leachate at the location of the old leach field, we feel like there really should be a very careful investigation on this issue. We also felt that a careful stormwater peer review is important. So thank you for, um, for requesting that just, just now. Um, the Goddard, our, our wetland scientists also felt that the Goddard wetland report identifies the bank of Dudley Pond as a wetland resource area, but did not clarify the methodology used to delineate the bank boundary under the WPA regulations or chapter 194. And so again, we, we, we feel that a careful wetlands peer review is extremely important to clarify the position of the bank or any other wetland resource area present on site, including the wetlands previously identified by Goddard in this area. We're very curious as to where those wetlands that were previously identified have gone, given that there has been no development on this site. Um, we agreed with Linda's position in the prior hearing that the, um, pervious pavers referenced, um, should require a cross sectional detail for the pavers. And I don't believe we've seen that just yet. Um, and we do feel that the pervious pavers should be considered impervious for purposes of the stormwater review. Our wetland scientists also noted that the proposed limit of work and erosion control lines are very close to several structures and retaining walls. And the applicant should clarify how construction equipment workers and materials will be accommodated with the proposed work limits, especially given the very, um, difficult constraints of the site and the fact that the project is, is very close to the site boundaries. Um, there were a number of references in the last meeting to a screened in porch. It's not clear to me if their applicants are proposing to go forward with that. We didn't see it in the revised plan, but it also wasn't in the originally submitted plan either. They had mentioned that they intended to build a screened in porch on the prior foundation, which is well within the 30 foot no disturb zone. And so we wanted to clarify that we feel that applicants should confirm that they are not going forward with that, but if they are, then we feel this needs to be included in the plan. Um, and we feel that that should include the plan should address the proposed demolition methods for the foundation, which is very close to the pond, the equipment access, the limits of disturbance, the materials that will be used to backfill the foundation area. Um, we feel that there needs to be a lot more information provided about that if it is the case that the applicants intend to go forward with that screened in porch on the around the old foundation area. The plans also reference retaining walls labeled quote by others. And we feel that applicants should clarify the materials and construction methods proposed for these walls and whether any concrete washout area will be required during construction. It is our wetland scientists experience that structures quote by others unquote without sufficient enough detail during the permitting process tends to be a recipe for disaster and consternation due to discrepancies between the commission's idea of how it should be built versus the way the contractor actually builds it. And it's our opinion that at a minimum, there should be a special condition that requires the applicant to provide those details for approval by the commission before the work begins. Given the constrained nature of the, of the site that I just previously referenced, we feel it's important to understand where construction materials, soil stockpiles and equipment staging areas will be located during construction. And we feel these areas should be depicted on the plan. We also feel that the applicant should consider providing a construction phasing plan to illustrate how site work, excavation and infrastructure installation will occur within the proposed limits of disturbance. This is an extremely difficult site to build on and we can imagine that applicants will need to involve cranes, et cetera. So we feel like due to the complexity of that, of the site, there should be a phased construction plan that should be clearly outlined in addition to the plans that have already been submitted. This comment along with my prior comment about the construction material and equipment storage originates from the observation that the applicant is maximizing construction on site and affords very little room for good housekeeping practices on the construction site. We do not feel like this is a realistic plan for the site. As Mr. Donoghue just mentioned also, there's still no definitive plan for replanting of the trees. And we strongly feel that the replanting elsewhere should not be permissible. We agree with Linda on that point wholeheartedly. And our opinion is that allowing trees to be planted elsewhere is a form of exceptional relief that should not be granted here because there is only self-imposed hardship here resulting from the maximized development approach. We feel that if the applicant cannot fit replants on site, it's only because they are seeking to maximize their space at the expense of Dudley Pond. We also have serious concerns about the commission granting this exception were they to consider it given the precedent that it would set for the rest of Dudley Pond. I'm sure many of you are aware that other developers are seeking to develop lots on the pond to the objection of many local residents. We also wanted to note that the surrounding area is predominantly covered in beech trees that have beach leaf disease and are expected to die in the future. The subject property is dominated by maples and oaks, however. So if these trees, which are predominantly maples and oaks, are felled, it poses a coverage and biodiversity risk to the fauna of the surrounding ecosystem. As Linda voiced in the February 11th public hearing, the proposed construction entrance is steep and somewhat constrained. And we feel that the applicant should confirm that the proposed access route is feasible for construction equipment and materials delivery. It is our wetland scientists' opinion that the erosion control or limit of workline is incomplete. For example, how would equipment get to the screened-in porch area and the old foundation? What is the total work area? The current site plan shows an open-ended erosion control and limit of workline, which is not recommended, and we are concerned that a lack of clear boundaries will result in builders taking liberties with this vagueness. Our wetland scientists also noted that the soils are around deadly pond are very coarse and therefore infiltrate extremely fast. Applicants are proposing galley leach fields, which have been banned in several other states, including in Rhode Island since 2008. Our wetland scientists described that as a glorified cesspool. We, of course, do intend to raise this with the Board of Health, but this is obviously extremely concerning given the possibility of groundwater and lake contamination. And given the water quality monitoring efforts and the invasive aquatic plant problems already existing in the pond, of which I'm sure many of you are intimately aware, we don't, Dudley Pond does not need yet another contributing factor to these issues through the proposed septic system. So, thank you for hearing our concerns. I appreciate that this hearing was continued. As I said, we just wanted to raise these. We did submit a letter outlining everything a little bit too late, unfortunately, but we strongly feel that the NOI is not complete and we feel that it should be resubmitted when it's actually complete and in final form. I believe there are a few other neighbors from our neighborhood here who also raised their hand to speak. Thank you. If I could just ask one question, just so I'm clear. I think you mentioned you had a wetlands consultant who had filed a letter today, and then you had separately submitted something today as well that I understood? No, that was the only letter that was submitted on our behalf. Okay, thanks. I just wanted to make sure I knew what I was looking for. Thank you. Yeah, thank you. Thanks, Claire. We won't skip. I see a skip up. Are you sure I got it? Skip? Yes, I'm here. Oh, sorry. Your hand is on. Make sure you, would you have a question or comment? Well, Claire did a great job summarizing a lot of my concerns, so I don't need to reiterate everything. Skip, can you identify yourself, please? Yeah, Skip, where are you from? Sorry. My name is Skip Miller. I live at 121 Dudley Road, which is next door to the property we're discussing, 123, and I'm speaking on behalf of myself and my wife and family. I think Claire did a great job explaining everything, so I don't need to take much more of your time. I guess what I would ask is, in the future, if we can just make sure if there's any hands raised that we have the opportunity to speak before votes are made and decisions are passed through. I definitely appreciate that. And then, secondly, I just really want to reiterate the remnants of the existing house. It's a foundation, but it's also a fireplace. It's a chimney. It's so close to the pond. Extreme caution needs to be made with whatever happens at that location. And then whatever does happen, I don't see why those calculations are not included in the master plan for the property. And I would just like that to be looked at very carefully, because there's things that just seem to be missing as far as this whole proposal goes, as far as what they're intending to do. Certified letters, either not going out, not going out on time, not being received, and then just being told, well, that's too bad you didn't get your mail. Seems to me like it's trying to get rushed forward, trying to not have people be aware of it, and to push it through with approval before people having a chance to object to it, which I really don't appreciate at all. And last meeting, you know, this is a very reputable engineering firm. They forgot to include their pavers in the impervious area calculation. I mean, that's just suspicious. And it makes you wonder what else we're missing. And it speaks to what is the plan for that existing foundation? How is it going to be treated? What's the screen house, boathouse idea being built on the shores of the pond? What about the ash and toxic concerns that are in the chimney and fireplace? And how's that going to be treated? Cramming this mansion onto a site that's too small, too steep, and too complex makes no sense to me. Um, I just, they have sediment barriers immediately next to retaining walls that are supposed to be built by others. That is not even constructible. It's not even real. Um, I'm very skeptical of this entire proposal, and I think it needs to be looked at extremely carefully. And I really hope, um, that we can protect the pond, protect the site, protect the neighborhood, and really protect ourselves against future development that have their eyes on this property and are looking to do potential harm to the pond, which is the last thing we want. Um, so that, that's all I'm going to say on the matter. Um, and thank you for listening. Thanks, Kip. And just before I apologize that, uh, that was my fault you weren't called on. I thought you were remnants from, uh, from the prior, uh, meeting, but we did continue it. So we'll definitely have more opportunity to chat about that with them. So thank you. Okay. Thank you. You got it. Um, all right. I think I got everybody now. Yep. Okay. Um, we are on to 4A public outreach activities. Emily, what you got for us? I think Linda just wanted to include this. So, uh, Shannon and Lisa, who've been working on public outreach activities, can kind of report back to what they've been up to. All right, Shannon, Lisa, far away. Um, we have been working, um, the, uh, we were not able to get, uh, our warrant article in this year for municipal escar ban. We are trying to do it the way other towns have done it and go to the select board and others and present the materials and ask if this could be done as a policy change. So we've been creating some educational materials that we can spread around as needed. And, um, we've, um, spoken with Tom Fay today and, you know, started to feel that how this could be done. Um, he seemed optimistic and open to the idea. And we're really hoping that we could get the town to join, um, with 49 others in banning the use of second generation anti-coadulant rodenticides, um, on town owned property. And it might take a few steps, but we're taking the first few right now. Yeah. That's a good, good call. Thank you for setting all that stuff up. That was, that's good. I think Tom will be a big help. You seem to be pretty open to it. Yeah. Love it. Thank, thank you for doing that, taking a lead on that. Also spring is coming. Big night is coming. This is a good time for everyone to get ready to get outside and go to your nearest vernal pool and pick up some frogs and salamanders and help them across the road. So we're also ramping that back up too, with Emily's being a really big help with helping me make that happen as well. Rock on. The rivet rangers are back? Activating the rivet rangers. All right. Love it. Thank you for doing that ladies. Um, 4B topics not anticipated. Nope. In fact, Lynn had to take care of some things. So she kind of jetted out early this week, uh, hopefully to be back next week. Um, so just kind of FYI. So that's where she's going to again. Thanks for Marty for stepping in and playing with us this evening. Um, public comments. I think I clear, but just, well, I'll make two mistakes or three mistakes in one night. No public left to comments. Thank you. Okay. Uh, Babs, how are we looking for the, uh, February 11th minutes? We good to go or what? Yes. I gave a minor comment to Emily and it was
okay. Babs approves with little minor edits. Anybody else thoughts, comments on that? Look good to me. Okay. You want to make a motion to approve the minutes with Babs's edits, please, for the February 11th, 2026? So moved. Thank you, Luke. Do you hear a second? Thank you, Cliff. Roll call, please. Luke Legere. Yes. Barbara Howell. Yes. Lisa Alvin. Yes. Cliff Lewis. Yes. Shannon Fischer. Yes. Jenny Brown. Yes. And Sean Ferzi. Yes. Thank you for the minutes. Um, Marty, anything else lasting on your end? I think we forgot all good. Nothing on my end. Cool. Thank you. Thank you again. Oh, I will say real quick. Uh, this is the, sadly, the sign of the times we're in. I, I saw another concom member out in the wild. I met Jenny Brown in person for the first time in this ever. It was very strange. Yeah, it was strange. Like, Jenny? He's like, Sean, it's me. Yeah, behind a mask. Um, so anyway, I, I told her we, we do need to have, um, a very, you know, no, no work chat, uh, get together. We were hoping to do it last spring. We never got to it. So, uh, when she gets back, Linda and things held down, let's have an in-person something with former and current and maybe future folks. Very good idea. We, we used to do that on the board of road commissioners or board of public works every, every, you know, at least once a year, just get together. Sometimes it's a meeting, sometimes it was not a meeting, but it's nice to see people. Exactly. We used to do that here too, but we haven't done it for a long time. Yep. Yep. We haven't met someone. I know we're bad for bringing it back this year. You're the party planning committee. Tell us what we're doing. Barbara, you're gonna help me plan this party, okay? Party planners. Okay. Awesome. Love it. Uh, all right. I got nothing else. Anybody else say anything else? Let's move for a motion to adjourn, please. So moved. Thank you, Luke. Thank you, Cliff. Roll call, please. Luke Legere. Yes. Yes. Barbara Howell. Yes. Lisa Aubin. Yes. Cliff Lewis. Yes. Shannon Fischer. Yes. Jenny Brown. Yes. And Sean Kersey. Yes. All right, folks are all set.