August 11, 2026 – Housing Partnership – Video & Transcript

August 11, 2026 - Housing Partnership

Autoscroll:

call the meeting to order and welcome Robin. Thank you. And do you know everybody? Can we do brief introductions? Yeah, we can do brief introductions if you want. So yeah, Robin Borgstedt and I'm on the planning board so I'm here to join your crew. I'm a lawyer. I work for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts Department of Correction doing labor and employment primarily kind of issues and legislative drafting occasionally and things like that. And I don't know, I've lived in Whalen a long time. A long time. I think if we added up the numbers of our group, it would be hundreds of years. I think I moved here in 1992, I think. Oh, that's a new company. Relatively speaking, but compared to most people, it's not. It's pretty good. What year did you move here, Mary? What year did you move here? 68. Oh my god. I was four years old. Just to rub that in. I moved here in 77. Wow. 1956. Wow. No, I was born in the Richardson house. Where's that? It used to be called Boston Lying In. Oh. Oh yeah. Brigham and Women's. Yeah. But. Your parents weren't living there. No. That was just the hospital. We were living in, I think on Broadway. I think I lived on Broadway in Cambridge. Oh, in Cambridge. Oh, I lived on. When I was born. Hancock Street. Way back when. Okay. So, Jean? Yeah, I'm Jean Melver. My father lived in Wall Street. Let's see, I moved here in 98. I've served on a number of committees since I've been in town. I was on the EDC when we did River's Edge, now Alta Oxbow. I worked on the committee for the new COA, did the five-year master plan review at one point, proposed the design review advisory board or something like that, and I can't remember what else right now, but a bunch of things. I've done a lot of different things over a long period of time. Okay. Sort of dilettante. Not. Come on, Jean. I'm Mary Antus and I'm an agent. I've been on every committee, board, a fair number. Many. Many, many. Mary is extraordinary. We all know that. Robin Hartfeld, thanks for being. On our committee. I don't know that we have, in my tenure on this committee, which I don't know, it's been quite a few decades. I'm not sure we've ever... Joanne Berman. Oh, okay. That's right. So, it's been a long... No, she was conservation. I'm not sure that we've ever had a kind of consistent member that really... Yeah, well, there was a conflict in the meetings for so long, so... Well, we could have sorted it out, but we didn't, and it's... Yeah. No, we were never... Not at all, neither. Right. And we are very grateful, I think, to you for participating. And it's incredibly important to us to be connected closely to the planning board, and I think that we really saw that with the ADU experience, that how much we wanted to work together and I think how much I think we contributed to the final product. And it's great having another lawyer. Jim, he's a lawyer. You're a lawyer. Kathy Boundy, who's not here, is also a lawyer, and that's just awesome. So, my background is that I taught at Tufts for 38 years, and my field is U.S. housing policy, and... She's our expert. Well, I've been puttering around with this for decades. My particular interest is affordable housing built through nonprofit organizations that is kind of out of the private spectrum. So, nonprofit-owned housing, public housing, were all things that, as an academic, that I studied and wrote about more exhaustively than, I don't know. But that was my career, and I've been on this committee for a few decades, and... And you served on the planning board. Oh, yes. When I first moved to Wayland, it was the blizzard of 78, and one of my neighbors... We were out, of course, shoveling snow and... I thought you were going to say cross-country skiing. Well, we were going out... In those days, my husband and I would go around the neighborhood trying to help other people get out of their doorways. We were young and strong, and, you know, we were all shoveling each other out. And my neighbor, Lorraine Greif, said, oh, you've got a Ph.D. in urban planning. Why don't you run for the planning board? And I was brand new in town, and I said, okay, why not? Sure. That's how I ended up on planning board. Somebody said, why don't you do that? I was like, okay. It wasn't contested. It was uncontested. Me too. Otherwise, I would have said... And I remember at the... We're grateful to those people. No, I didn't last all that long because I ended up getting pregnant with our second child, and it just did not work well with nursing schedules and two... Evening meetings. Evening meetings and two children under five. It was like, why did I get myself into this? So... I had to resign after a few years. And as it turned out, I really knew nothing about planning at the local level because that's not what I studied as a graduate. Anyway, that's too much, but... But the thing about planning board is nobody knows anything about it. I mean, Annette has some land use background, but the rest of us, we know nothing. I know nothing. I'm not that kind of lawyer. I might as well be a dentist for all the... Really? That's really the way I felt. Ph.D. in urban planning. I am not getting this. No, I'm not getting this. So anyway, we've been hunkering down on the housing stuff for a long time, and I think everybody who joins this committee just cares incredibly deeply about trying to expand opportunities for people who can't otherwise afford to live in town or who have special needs that we need to try to attend to. So that's kind of what we're... Handing over to me here. Ta-da, the baton. Yeah. Well, I guess my background and my career has really been primarily in environmental management, water resource management internationally, so really looking at environment and development and working with a lot of different international organizations, mostly UN system and so-called Bretton Woods Group, in other words, the World Bank Group, and I transitioned into the humanitarian sector about 20 years ago and started working with Red Cross Red Crescent because it seemed to me that the needs of the most vulnerable, which are actually the majority of the global population, were systematically not represented or included and that we were on a trajectory for not a good future if we didn't address this merger. So I guess... everything that I care about in Wayland, I care about everywhere. And I did grow up with a real-estate lawyer who was on the conservation commission back when the conservation commission was actually doing planning in Wayland, and I meant to bring tonight the 1962 master plan, which is amazing. Oh, I bet. But I'll bring it next time. I mean, you know, it's got all these overlays. It was, you know, Alan Morgan was really, you know, driving the whole thing. But, you know, projections for, you know, where Weyland could increase density of housing and where to acquire conservation land, anticipating growing, I don't know, you know, to like a population of like 15,000 in Weyland. I mean, it was really planning. And I think we, I think we have, you know, this amazing kind of historical foundation. And there were a lot of activist planners who really cared about what we call the environment these days. But it's also, it's the character of the community. And I'm very opinionated. And I feel that Weyland has, you know, let go in ways that surrounding towns, Weston, Lincoln, Sudbury, have held on to water resource systems and rural character as values. And I think that's why their property values are greater than ours are here. But I think there's also this underlying problem that when I was growing up in Weyland, everyone who worked for the town was able to live in Weyland. You know, police, fire, all the town employees. And to me, it's just, it's just untenable. It's a tragedy that that is no longer possible, that it's not economically possible. So diversification of housing is really, I think, where I come from. But development in a way that not just, you know, respects, conservation is more than just a nice thing. It's something that we have to do. If we want to hold on to any kind of water resources, especially affordable water resource systems going forward in a changing climate. And it's also something that we have to do, you know, as a community. If we, you know, if we want to continue, you know, to thrive, I'm also on the Human Rights Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Committee. And we, you know, we need to come together as a community. We need to kind of embrace this unity and diversity principle, you know, figure out how to get along with each other. But we need to be making decisions. And I, I feel like, you know, Weyland is so averse to doing anything new. And in housing, we have to do something new. So I'm really looking forward to this new housing production plan as an opportunity to truly be forward looking and to take, you know, kind of a, you know, a more data-driven, science-informed, data, data-driven approach.
I told you I was opinionated. Robin, I'm Jim Grumbach. I am a lawyer. Not quite retired, but maybe a year from now. I'm a trial lawyer, I, the most fun I have is suing insurance companies. So my, my, my experience as a lawyer is in the insurance industry. but I've also developed a general practice over time and I have always had some interest in real estate although I'm not terribly knowledgeable about it I've always been a conservationist love nature I walk I swim and love the outdoors I I am a we moved to Wayland in 1989 and you know raised two kids here and one of the concerns they have is they moved out because this place is not diverse it's too lily-white I understand that and I realize it's unaffordable for you many people and those are problems I was on the zoning board for about 15 years from 1999 onward I was on EDC with Jean I think Jean actually suggested that I join it and and I was a neighbor of Becky's Tunisi who was the EDC for the most part who's brilliant she's got some wonderful ideas isn't she still on it she yeah she is she's no longer a neighbor though thank you um I was lucky enough to be invited to take a course called white people challenging racism four years ago and it was fabulous and I decided that affordable housing was something I wanted to continue with. So I've been with this group. I applied and was not initially accepted because there were too many other people. And by the way, for whatever it's worth, before I became a member of the zoning board, I applied for the planning board, and I was rejected. Or it was suggested, yeah, it was a temporary spot, but Maureen Cavanaugh applied for it, and she is a planner, so she deserved to be on it. She was much better than I would have ever been. But I do recognize the importance of the planning board based on my time with the zoning board and my time with this board. And I would like to establish a better working relationship with the zoning board. I hesitate to say adversarial, but I think at times that we're viewed as a pest or something. And I would like to be viewed more as a part of the planning board to help them flesh out issues, to help them develop public participation from other parts of the town and other boards for issues. And I think that would be a good thing. And I think that was true with the ADU provisions that we dealt with last year. It's been frustrating at times because we've backed things like the conservation cluster warrant article from when... Mallet. Mallet, thank you. The solar compact thing. Solar compact. And, you know, I know planning board has other things, and it's on its docket, but we have a very different view and very different capabilities than the planning board, and I would hope that we could sort of get more closely aligned. So one reason I'm really excited to have you here is because you are a lawyer, but you're also a member of the planning board who I found to be very open to what we, are doing and what we need and what we think is important. So for me, this is a real plus. Yeah, I mean, as the planning board, since I joined, it's just been nonstop a barrage from the legislature. You know, here's the MBTA communities act, quick. You need to have this ready for your town meeting. Oh, here's the ADU law. You need to have this ready for your town meeting, which is in three months. And it's just been one thing after another. And then all of these Dover Amendment cases have just been... I hope we can be a support. I hope we feel like a support. Watching your meetings, and it's just, I don't know, honestly, it's exhausting just even watching what you guys are dealing with. It is so hard. It really is. And, you know, like the, with the Rice Road project, you know, I felt pretty good that we got them to commit to having some of the units be capital A affordable housing. Yeah. Because I didn't think we were going to be able to stop them from doing what they want to do. Even if we tried to, it would have cost us millions to have fought it, and we still would have lost. Yeah. But look at that. We got them to commit to that. And they really didn't want to. Well, you know, we went through that at the zoning board with the Telecommunications Act and with 40B. And with the Telecom Act, the best thing that ever happened is, I wrote the decision. That wasn't the best thing. But we turned down the application of, I think it was Nextel. It wasn't Nextel. It was maybe Verizon, for the clock store. And they took an appeal, and we went to mediation. Oh, by the way, I am a mediator as well. I've been mediating for 40 some odd years. We went to a mediation with a guy named Tom Arnold, who I know. He used to live in Sudbury. And we made an agreement with them to move the tower so it would co-locate on top of Reefs Hill, which gave the town money. It was less of a problem. It didn't have a fall zone next to Camp Chickamee. And there were fewer residents, although Janone and her family were. There were a lot of residents near the top of Shaw Drive. But it was an existing facility. So it was a sensible resolution. And I worked with Brian O'Hurley on that. He and I were. Dr. Boas was involved in that. Yeah. He was involved in that. And Brian was from the, I think the select board had asked him to join. And I joined from the zoning board. And that worked out well. So. But it's important. I know how much of the planning board has to deal with these huge things. But there are other things that we may be able to help with. Because you're absolutely snowed in. It's brutal. Yeah. And there are a couple of other bills that are in front of the legislature this year that are going to be similar. Just they're going to drop it in our laps when we have a couple of months to go before down meeting. And you know, it would be, frankly, if we could offer some support to the planning board. I mean, we don't deal with the bylaws the way you do. But we, you know, we are sensitive. We're smart. We know people. We know other parts of the community. We may be able to assist you in a way that, you know, I'm not sure you got the assistance up front for the MBTA law, which was a bear. And it might have been helpful if there had been more of a sense at the beginning that there were different constituencies or different concepts or whatever. Or, you know, even during the process, if you had come up with something and said, we need to brainstorm, but we don't have the ability, who can we contact? Contact us, because we have an interest in it. We would like to help you. We'd like to help you out. We'd like to be part of the solution rather than coming in after the fact when it's too late. So I just wanted to say that we would like to help. When I was younger in town government, I was friendly with George Ives, who was the long-time chair of the planning board. And I've gotten to know Gretchen Schuller. I mean, it's an important committee, and we'd like to... Okay. ...help out however we can. Okay. Okay. It's nice to do this, because we learn things about one another that we haven't... It's true. ...known, so... Good. So, the minutes. Jim made a number of corrections. Are there any others? I didn't find anything else. I was just... Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I was just awed, Jim, by your finding where I left two spaces instead of one. No, I noticed that. He's really good at this. I don't know what it is. My eyes are riveted... You're amazing. ...with spaces. I kept looking. Okay. Where is there something substantive? And it was just all these little corrections. Yeah, well, I don't know what it is. They... I've been described as having a mind that really focuses on unimportant things. That's amazing. No, it's a good legal skill. I don't know that I can attention to detail vote that we take Jim's minutes as amended because I wrote the original minutes but maybe somebody else can I could second that if that is a motion well there's I'm hoping Mary has at least one more correction I retract and I'm not even finding it now I thought it was in the list of accomplishments oh it's B under number 10 working with the housing authority to secure funding yes and I didn't remember that and I asked Brian and um you you He didn't remember it, and I looked in the town reports, and the HUD things were in the 70s, 77 maybe, and according to the town report, the partnership was not started until 81. Aha. Okay. I mean, I didn't remember that, but... So I'm not sure... We should delete that then. Yeah, that's great. It should be deleted. That is fact-checking. That was brilliant. Mayor, you get the law degree tonight. That was... I don't know where we... Somebody had mentioned that. So we're just striking that? I think we should strike it then. I just deleted it. I thought that Kathy went through a list of things, and I must say I didn't know. We didn't double-check it. Well, I think for Robin's sake, last meeting we went through kind of in sort of a bit of a defensive mode of what have we done, because we are sort of a vulnerable committee in a sense of, you know, we have no real power. As Jackie always tells me, no wonder you're short a member or two. You tell everybody you have no money, no power. You know, we don't own anything, and we don't make any major decisions like a planning board or... But we think we are an effective advocacy voice for what we care about, the affordable housing piece, and this was kind of a way of putting together a list of items for when we go to Michael McCall and say, or to the planning board and say, let's be partners, let's do more together, let's, if you've got, like for McCall, if you've got a 40B, we used to be kind of the first line of conversation with developers and start the conversation with them, but we are no longer doing that, but we'd love to participate if there were an opportunity. Anyway, this was our kind of list of, look what we've done. Yeah. You know, sort of, it was a way of our sort of announcing to ourselves and to others our role in a number of issues, and I'm sorry that we got caught in overstating something. Well, it's that I knew we'd have bought them, you know, a really long time ago. Yeah, but we weren't involved. And I know the partnership's been around for a long time, too, but I did find... Yeah, this inconsistency. Excellent. Thank you. Thank you. Research. All right. So, is there a motion and a second for the minutes as corrected? There was a motion by Rachel. Well, can I make a motion to accept my own minutes? Sure. Okay. I move that we accept the minutes as amended of, what day was that? July 8th, 2026. I'm a second. Janot had seconded. And don't forget Mary's amendment. I said as amended. Oh, yeah, but... Oh, I thought you were dating the amendments on the 8th. No, no. No, it's the minutes of July 8th. I'm sorry. I said as amended, and that includes your brilliant, Jim. Thank you. And Mary's deletion of B of M. And Janot seconded it. Okay. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Any opposed? I will abstain. Okay. You don't have to, but... No, but I will. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. So Janot is going to take the minutes tonight. Jackie is recovering from some surgery, and so she will take Janot's place probably at the next meeting. Thanks, ma'am. That's okay. Thanks, Janot. So we have a variety of updates. I don't know if there's anything new with Good Shepherd. You know, I heard from Philip. I wrote what he wrote to me on July 9th. I wrote to him again within the last few days. I always do it too late, and I haven't heard back from him to find out whether, you know, are they resolving this financing issue. I don't fully understand it, but hopefully they understand it. Probably the award was keyed to a specific, you know, cost. Yeah, budget. And those costs. The costs have changed. Changed. But in any case, I trust that they're going to figure this out. I wonder if they're waiting for the new legislation to either pass or not pass. There's a piece of legislation pending which would allow religious institutions to build low-income housing by right. Wait, no. In the Massachusetts legislature. It sounded like this was federal funds. Yeah, but they might. But having this law change in Massachusetts might ease some other things for them. It might make the process easier for them. They might be kind of, not dragging their feet, but they might be curious to see if this law changes before they really get underway, because it will probably make permitting easier for them and things like that. I don't know. I just trust that, I don't know if you're familiar with the organization that's sponsoring this, Robin, but the Archdiocese of Boston has a non-profit planning and development organization. They are absolutely first-rate organization, and I just trust that they'll figure it out. They've got a lot invested in this, and hopefully they'll figure out the financing piece. Do you want to give a two-minute background? A two-minute background? So Father O'Leary, David O'Leary, who had been the priest at Good Shepherd, was the one who came to the committee. He was on our committee as a representative. He was a representative of what was then the Clergy Association, and he said, you know, we've got some land. Yeah, no, I'm familiar with the project. There you go. Yeah. No, I'm familiar with the project, but there's this new, it's called the Yigbee. Yes, in my... Yes, in God's backyard. Oh. Huh. Reducing local barriers to development while requiring meaningful affordability. It's in the House Bill. That's so funny. So, yeah. Yeah. And another one that would allow... Duplexes by right in residentially zoned district across the state. I don't follow you with... I'm sorry. Is the legislation, for the legislature, to allow affordable housing to be built? Duplexes are just, doesn't have to be affordable. Okay. So it's two families within... Yes, duplexes. And people are worried. I mean, I've read stuff about this. People are worried that they're going to take down one unit and put up two luxury condos on the same lot. You know, and maybe one modestly affordable older home and replace it with a million plus condos. Yeah. I mean, with both of these in Wayland, septic will still be a limiting factor. Right. But across the state, it's a real concern, particularly in urban areas where you've got very small lots and some older homes, it could ruin... I mean, it's like everything has a bottom, you know, a flip side to what sounds like a good idea. Right. But there's this downside that it could really hurt the housing stock and hurt affordability. Right. Anyway. Okay. The housing production plan, Jean is our person on the selection committee. Yeah. So we met, and it was the town planner and his assistant, and the... Kelsey. Yeah, Kelsey. The assistant. So it was the planner. The assistant to the planner and the assistant... So that's Anina. ...manager. So Anina is Robert's assistant. Right, yeah. Yeah, and me. So that was interesting, because I'm not used to sitting in a group with predominantly staff. So different perspective. That was different for me. Anyway, so we had two proposals. We scored each individually. We scored the proposals. Both proposals seemed to meet the minimum criteria, and that they could be chosen because they could deliver on the minimum acceptable factors. But the group was unable to come to a decision who to pick, so it was decided to get together and write some questions to be sent to the... ...contractors, vendors, and let them answer those questions, and then we'll reconvene and try again. The tension in the group seemed to be one of the providers was a really large, really experienced, has done a zillion of these, you know, made a very professional presentation, the other group I would describe as scrappy. They were, from their photograph, appeared to be younger people. They had a less formal proposal. They spent more time talking about ways to reach out to the public with things like putting up a display in the public library to try to attract attention to the process, and so we seemed to be divided between, you know, how do you feel about going with somebody who might have a, I think the word being used was cookie-cutter approach, you know, versus... Which is the first firm, the first firm that you're mentioning, versus... ...versus the ones who are barely done enough of these. Is that really true, that they barely... I mean, my sense is Goldson has been around a long time, and they've done... They were... They were the second choice when we went with Barrett in the last round, Barrett Consulting, and Goldson, as I recall, was the second choice, so my sense is they had done a lot of housing production plans. They have. Yeah. The other group hasn't. They've done a few, and they've done other kinds of consulting plans. Oh, I thought the first... Was the first one the bigger firm? The bigger firm was Goldson. Oh, the big... Oh, okay. And the other one was... Okay, I thought it was the other way around. No. Okay. I don't remember the name of the other firm. Okay. Yeah. So, I'm afraid this is going to slow us up a little bit. So, no decision's been made? Because, yeah, there's no decision made. Wow. And... Is that a problem? It is a problem. Well, we need to get going on it. It's a problem. I mean, we... You know? Our housing production plan is out of date, as of I forgot what date, but we had made a schedule, and I think we're now a month behind the schedule. There was a... Was it from Goldson? Yeah. Saying what's happening? Yeah, yeah. There was. Because they were hoping to be under, you know, a decision or under... Well, so, for Robin, I'm the newest member of this committee, so... Not anymore. And, you know, when I saw that this was coming up, I thought, what a terrific opportunity to bring together all these different committees. There are committees of town, all of whom interact with housing and how we plan for housing, and get everybody in on the conversation right at the beginning, saying, hey, you know, there's no point in this group working and coming up with a housing production plan that you haven't come to the table and talked about. So, I want everybody, you know, I want the EDC and anybody who thinks housing affects their committees. Yeah. That's what I want to do. And that surprised the other people in the meeting. Like, they've done these before, and, you know, there's a process, and you just, you know, it's very scheduled and laid out exactly what you do, and this sort of pep rally stuff wasn't part of the plan. And... But I... So, I'm urging all of you... Yeah. I know this isn't the way this is normally done, but, you know, when you develop a plan without input from all the players is when you run into lack of cooperation, you surprise people in ways they aren't pleased with. So, the more we could do soon to go to all these committees and say, we want this to be the team, you know, effort. We want to put forward something that you guys actually want to do. You know? And you can see a path to actually having it happen. So, we'll see when we have our next meeting, you know. I know that's hard for staff because I don't think they're really allowed to do that. That isn't their job. Definitely not encouraged, no. No, it's not their job. But I thought they needed to hear it. And that that was a possibility, and that hopefully we can get people who are on committees to... So, should we make a list of the various committees that we think at some point should be brought into this? I mean, you mentioned EDC, planning board. I mean, we've got Robin, so we've got the planning board... Right. ...involved. Well, you've got Robert, too, so... Robert, right. And, like, conservation could be part of this... Absolutely. ...conversation? ...can be part of it. Well, you're sort of mixing... It's a huge issue. Yeah. So, you're mixing because there's town boards, but then town staff. Right. Right. So, there is a land use group in town staff, but there's a lot of resistance within that group to collaborating on things, and Robert can attest to that. So, because there's already a shocking lack of cooperation. So, and we've been pushing back. Like, you know, we have to hire people. You know, we have to hire consultants when there's an application, and we're now pushing conservation to work with us so that we hire one consultant who does all of that instead of hiring separate consultants who are on separate timelines. We're like, no, let's get one person who's going to do all of it. So, but that's, you know, conservation is sort of the low-hanging fruit. They're easy to get on board if someone else is going to pay for the consultant. But, yeah, getting all of those boards. All of those boards, but also the staff. Because the staff and the boards is, they're apples and oranges, and it's very difficult, too. Yeah. Well, I mean, at the very least, we should make sure that we, somehow, that they're brought into what's happening. Maybe there should be a communication that perhaps Eugene could write up and get your committee's approval to send out. Maybe there should be a committee's approval to send out to some of the key boards and just inform them that this process is going on and that they're welcome to participate, you know, in terms of, I mean, they've missed out on this first round of interviewing people, but there's lots more once the client is chosen or the vendor is chosen. Yeah. There are many, many steps and public meetings and, you know, input from various boards. But I'm really glad that you're doing this because I wouldn't have thought that this would happen. Because I wouldn't have thought of that if I was still hunkering down on this. I've done it so many times. Like, I'm, like staff, I'm sort of on automatic, and I wouldn't have thought to raise the questions you're raising. So, I'm really grateful that you've done that. Well, thank you. I think one group, I think, who wants to come to the table probably is FinCom. If you've been reading what's been written about them in the local paper and such, I think they're really finding themselves over a barrel in terms of where do we find new sources of income to pay the town's bills. And they're kind of not throwing up their hands, but saying, well, here's a problem we can't solve. You know, people don't want their taxes raised, but there's always so many taxpayers in this town, you know. And if our costs keep going up, then our taxes are going to keep going up unless we get more entities paying taxes. And the divisor changes, and everybody doesn't have to pay so much increase so fast. And I think that's an important conversation to have. Like, every time when we try to build around here, there's a ton of pushback. And it's like, because I think nobody is thinking about failing economics over time. You don't have money. You don't have more entities paying. You can't fix that. The taxes are going up. Well, there was a great article in the Wayland Post several months ago about the extent to which Oxbow, for example, I mean, not the condos, but the rental development. Yeah. What is it called? Whatever. Yeah, Alta Oxbow. Is like the major or second major taxpayer in town. Those are hugely important. Yeah. And it was the first and third. And the third one was, I don't even remember, but it was like the role of affordable housing and actually paying the bills. And I think we've got to keep talking about that as a real asset. In addition to what the meaning of affordable housing is, it actually does pay the bills. It actually does contribute heavily to the tax base. Can we say to Jean, keep doing what you're doing? Yeah. Absolutely. In fact, we could also say, we're glad there's a new sheriff in town. Yeah. Well, anyway, I'll report back when we finally pick a vendor and we'll run around and figure out who we ought to talk to. Okay. The next is the 212 proposal. Any update on that? I asked Tom Fay about that. That's the 212 couture. Yeah. I'm from the Which is Supplative housing. The disabled person housing. And when I talked to Tom, what he said is they hadn't been able to put out the request for proposal because they have not determined whether or not they're going to sell the land or do some kind of lease arrangement with the land. And so that means they have to develop two additional complete documents. That describe the two possible scenarios with all of the, you know, action items in them and conditions and attach that to the RFP before it goes out. And that is proving to be a long and burdensome process. Because nobody's going to want to bid if they don't know how they're going to secure the land. Yeah. And so they're going to be shown a very detailed option A and option B. And say, cut in half, and say, cut in your proposals, say which one of these you want. Very smart. So that's what he told me. So it's stalled until that work gets done. I was pleased to see him quoted as saying, you know, as few as five people and as many as 30. Yes. I was very happy. I was very happy to see that too. That's great. I am continuing to talk about that. I am continuing to talk about looking backward at old models and how that can hamstring you when there are some new models that we can go ahead and look at and that the government agencies are cooperating with these new models. They may be saying they're, you know, provisional or experimental or something. But they're operating. They're being built and they're operating, you know. So that's what I hope we'll look at. We'll look at some of this newer stuff. And the fourth item is, any updates from those of us who took on tracking responsibilities for ADUs? I did speak with Nathan in the building department. And he said... Yes. He said that he thinks that cost is the primary inhibitor or barrier. And that it's generally about 300,000 to create an ADU. And the applications have slowed down. So I just agreed we'll keep in touch with him. I did invite him if he starts to get a sense of, you know, what might be ways to streamline or help people or barriers that, you know, we might want to tackle, that, you know, we would welcome his meeting with us at some point. And that we just agreed to keep in touch on ADUs. Okay. And I attended the 495 Metro West Partnership Housing Committing meeting, at which the topic was ADUs. And it was a three-person panel with Amy Dane, who we've heard from before, Bruce Falk from Merrick Law Firm. Myrick O'Connell. And Mark Robidoux, who... Robidoux, who was from Southboro, and I think is, you know, a staff person. And the interist said that there have been 137 applications in the 495 area, of which 104 have been approved. How many applications, sorry? 137, of which 40 have been approved. And Amy said that we've had ADUs since 1970. There have been more than 1,000 applications approved since the new law, and that would be statewide. Bruce Falk said the most common challenges to the law are lot lines, utility connections, activity in the AG's office. Mark Robidoux... Robidoux said that Southboro has had ADUs in the town since last year, and they've had one application this year. He doesn't expect legal challenges to the regulations. And then getting back more to Amy, the misconceptions are that most ADUs are for relatives. Right. That they're very expensive for rentals, and that it's important to know that ADUs can be rented once the relatives leave. Cost is the biggest impediment, but when modular companies ramp up, the cost will come down. Septic is also a big expense. And Amy had several suggestions. One is to look at Title V. And see if the bedroom requirements can be modified, and could the regulations be clearer. Or second was regulatory relief, which is extremely complicated. There are 351 cities and towns that have different zoning regulations that are difficult for homeowners to understand, although not so much for developers. Third was building codes, and that's where Robidoux came in. Building codes require two egresses. Some don't take into account mounded septic systems, or agricultural properties, or seasonal uses, and the changes to variances. The hardship is gone now. And CBAs are busier because of that change. So it's still a work in progress. The other update I would add is that I sent an email to Mike Stady, who is the chair of the Housing Trust, and we thought that Habitat would be starting. The construction of a three-bedroom unit on the same property as the one building that the trust uses. Thought it would start this summer, but he says they are still tied up in land court. And so he suspects that construction will not start until next spring. Which is... It's a place near the CVS, is it? Yeah. Hammond. Yeah. On the Hammond Street. What is it? 12 Hammond Road. Yeah. So then the next steps. Last time we talked about... But I apologize. This is not on the agenda. But a couple of other projects from the past have come to my attention. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. But I'm thinking, one is, there's a born that we talked about a couple of years ago on and I don't know if anything's ever happened to that. I haven't. I think they have. They are moving ahead. Well, there's a little. So it's on and it's not on technically. So and they are working on putting in the trying to do a Dover amendment application. Right. for supportive housing for developmentally challenged adults. That's what we had talked about with them. So the problem is that in order to qualify under Dover, they have to have basically an agreement in place with a nonprofit to operate this. And the nonprofit they've been working with doesn't want to sign the agreement until they have the approval, but they can't get a Dover approval until they have the agreement. And so they're working on different ways to approach it. Is Mark Corner working on it? I don't think so. Okay, he was at one point. Yeah, the name doesn't sound familiar, but we haven't met with them for a while. But they don't necessarily need Dover for most of what they're doing, except that it's multifamily housing. It technically becomes like a boarding house, even though there's an illegal boarding house next door. We can't allow them to build a boarding house unless it is a Dover educational use. And they need to have that contract before they can qualify under Dover. So they're trying to work with their lawyers to resolve that. And they can't do it under 40B? That doesn't allow for it? No, we're not susceptible to it anyway. But also, it is a boarding house. It's not even multifamily because they don't all have kitchens and everything. It's separate bedrooms. Yeah, so it's a boarding house otherwise. Okay. So there are some issues with it. But they're working on resolving it. I think we have them at the meeting at the end of August. I think they're coming back, and we'll see where they've gotten to with that. But they're trying to move forward. It sounds like a catch-22. Yeah, they didn't think they had to have the agreement in place. And the nonprofit, which is the ARC or something, they don't want to sign the agreement until they have the approval, but they can't get the approval until they sign it. The lawyers are talking, and hopefully they'll get somewhere. But they are trying to move forward. And it's a good plan, and they definitely want to tear down the barn. Good, good. We had spoken to them and encouraged them to get a lawyer. So I'm glad. The other is Cascade. And Cascade came to my attention because Brian O'Hurley sent out an email to a bunch of people, including me. There was an executive. There was an executive session at the Conservation Commission earlier this week. Apparently there is, I think it's now the third owner of Cascade. The second owner transferred it to a third owner. They, I'm guessing that they are trying, I'm guessing that they're not doing a waste treatment plant anymore because they're trying to.
They're trying to get the Conservation Commission to override its objection to there being 100 feet from the stream, which is a trout stream. Yeah. Apparently the current gubernatorial administration, which I like very much, is pressuring them to get this project moving. And I understand that the commission, the EOHLC, I think they're the commission, their decision was overridden by the governor's office. And so there's pressure on Conservation Commission to make a deal and get this to work. And I have to say, I was on the zoning board when we permitted that. It's a terrible project. It's too big. I, and it would be, it's unfortunate. That we, that one of our town boards is being pressured to do something which isn't, doesn't seem to be kosher. Now I think, actually, I guess I have the board wrong. It's the DEP, I believe, that is the, which, they issue superseding orders of notice or whatever it's called. And I don't know if there's any way we could get involved. But this is an important piece. So DEP is trying to get CONCOM to back off on protecting the trout stream? That's my, that's my understanding. Now this was an executive session. I don't know a lot about it. I did speak to Sean Fair, who's the chair of CONCOM. I worked with him years ago on EDC. He, you know, he couldn't really talk because it was an executive session, meeting. Yeah. But this is something that, it's an important piece of land. It's an eyesore. It's an important project. It would be great to have more affordable housing. It's, it's much too much on that piece of property. I don't know what to say, but I would hate to lose another opportunity. For affordable housing and, you know, have it happen behind our backs because one commission or another. It was a rental development? It was originally. I don't even remember the details. It was originally for sale. Then they changed their mind and made it rental. And I think they're back to sale. I don't really care whether it's sale. Well, I prefer, I prefer, for affordable housing, I much prefer rental. Oh, yeah, yeah. Because we get 100% of the credit. Well, also, also, I, I've just heard too many difficult stories about the rental home ownership unit, the home ownership affordable units within market rate condos, particularly small developments, where it just, it just seems to be problematic with, it, it, I don't want to get into that. Yeah. But there's a hard, it's a difficult story to try to support the home ownership when you've got market rate, you know, people. And the market rate is effectively supposed to be somehow subsidized. But not only do they subsidize it in the, in the purchase price, which they're aware of, but they're subsidizing it in the snow plowing, in the trash collection, in, you know, major repairs. And there's a lot of resentment. And there's no funding to help the ongoing homeowners who may also be stretching their budgets to get their home and their upkeep. And there's, you know, there are issues. I mean, that's why. So it feels inequitable. I've talked to people at the state about. You know, there should be a fund that the developer puts into some kind of ongoing maintenance fund to help the market rate homeowners offset their costs because they're real costs that these people are absorbing. And it doesn't create for good neighbor feelings when you're, you know, it's one thing you paid more to cross subsidize. But anyway. But with that particular development, it seems like from day one, they've been told over and over again that they're overdeveloping the site. And that they need to dial it back. I mean, I look at the condos that they built on the other side of the clock store. Yeah. Oh, yeah. I think, you know. Twelve units there. Yeah. You know, something reasonable.
How many units? Sixty. It was sixty. And I think originally they wanted to put a parking garage underneath and they were told it's going to be flooded part of the year. It's nuts. I just didn't remember the number. Yeah. So I don't know if we can get back into. The loop, but I wanted to put all of you on notice and ask you to. How could we get into the loop? I don't know. But if you talk to anybody, I mean, it's before Concom now. I'm assuming it's going to have to go back to the select board. I don't know. I have no idea. I mean, when I was last there, it was a decision by the zoning board. They appealed it. It went to the EOHLC. And there was a settlement. The housing, you're talking about the Housing Affairs Committee. Yeah, whatever. It's the one that hears at the state level, the 40B's Housing Affairs Committee. The deal, it was settled in mediation with the proviso that they would build a sewage treatment plant, which was ridiculous. A million dollars. I mean, it just wasn't going to happen. And where are they going to put it? And it's already such a small site. Well, there was room for it. But it was just, it was crazy. And so it hasn't gone away. It's been another three or four years. They haven't lost the permit. You know, I frankly, if anything had to be litigated, this would be a good thing to litigate. But, you know, I don't understand how these developers or the state or whatever it is has gotten so much control. This development stinks. Somebody should sit down and get a more reasonably sized... Nobody's going to touch 40B because you start messing with 40B and it's going to go. I mean, everybody's... We know the flaws of 40B. I don't know. I understand. I mean, I hate to say it, but... But if it's a stalemate... It was Mahoney's in the beginning. What? Danny Gainsborough with Now Communities. He made a bid. And they wanted more money than he was offering. And, you know, Danny grew up in Wayland. He does all these green projects. He's working on Fort Devens. And, you know, he would have done a beautiful project that was properly sited and sized. But Mahoney's wanted to squeeze for more money. Yeah. And then Zeef just... It was... I don't know what the deal was. I think Zeef goes back 10 years at least. Yeah. I mean, I remember... But then he either went bust or... Or he sold it and it's been sold again. But it's crazy. And I don't even... You said it's on a third owner now? That's my understanding from Sean. So, you know, we are the agency, frankly, that should have an interest in it. I don't think the zoning board cares anymore. It's out of their hands. It's going to come back. I assume it's going to have to come back to either zoning or planning for a final permit. But it strikes me that we are... Wouldn't it come to planning? Nobody has any... I think unless it's police, fire, conservation, you know, we have very little control. Once... Well, no, I understand. But it'll go... Right. I mean, once you have a new comprehensive permit or a new order of conditions... Mm-hmm. Well, there's a new order of conditions. That's why it's at CONCON. But assuming that some other arrangement is made, I assume it's going to have to go back to... to either zoning or planning because there will be essentially an amended... I don't know if they have any power, though, unless police, fire, or conservation has found it problematic. I'm not sure... Well, but conservation has. So, I think the only thing you could do is let conservation know that you support them. I mean, they're the ones... All you can do is let them know that you support them. I mean, the police and fire have signed off on it. I don't know that it's even gotten that far. You know, I mean, is that what we should do? To me? All you can do is let them know that you're there for them. They have the leverage. I think fire safety, you know, and conservation are the only things that the town really has leverage over. You know, and a letter that says we absolutely support reasonable development on this site, and we'd be so happy to work with somebody to help them, but Conservation Commission should, you know, stand behind the... The conservation issues. The conservation issues and... The brook, the brook, whatever. Yeah, support the brook. Support the brook. Support the brook. Okay, I'll draft something and I'll pass it along. Yeah, and I think that's a hard part about that site is that the brook pushes the building up against Route 20 and makes it visually unappealing. Yeah. And it would take somebody really working hard or willing to dial it back, and sadly that would mean making more luxury condos than... But it's better than what's there right now, which is nothing. It's horrible. It's horrible. Welcome to Whalen. Right. You know, and honestly... If you build some really nice condos, people who are in big houses will move into those condos, they'll downsize to those condos, and we've opened up right-size housing for people. Yeah. So even luxury condos... Just drive over the line into Sudbury. There's all kinds of nice ways you can do it. Luxury condos have a place in the housing market just as well in a town where people have no place to downsize. You're right. Yeah. So... Yeah. There you go. Or you could have luxury condos with smaller townhouses or something. But, you know... You know, you could do what they did at... It's a great idea that... At Mainstone Farm and at... Not... I'm not... Not where? Not Mainstone. The... The clock store? By the clock store. Covered bridge. Which one? Where? What street? What are you thinking? Everybody just keeps saying things. Main Street. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And the same thing at Watertown Dairy where they sold... So that would be... That's a great idea. So, I will draft something. Thank you, Jim. Oh, thank you. And I'm sorry it wasn't on the agenda. I didn't really want to put it in the writing. That's fine. So... I didn't think it was a good idea. Yeah. To go back onto the agenda in terms of ADUs, one idea that I had is to get the message to the Board of Health that when they have people who are coming in with an application for a new septic system, that there could be a new septic system. There could be something on the paperwork, the Board of Health, on the forms or something that just a little asterisk, just tell people that if they might want to build an ADU on their property sometime, that they could consider... When you're building a septic system, it's really easy to increase your capacity. If you have the space, build in for an extra bedroom and an extra bathroom or kitchen or whatever. And to suggest to people who are putting in a new septic system, whether it's a replacement or just a new one. Mm-hmm. They could consider whether they might down the line want to add an ADU. They could consider adding capacity now to make an ADU cheaper later on. That's a great idea. That's a good idea. Mm-hmm. So this would be a letter to the Board of Health? I don't know. What do I know? I think... But... Brilliant. Certainly a discussion with them because you could... And Julia would be very open to it. Yeah. And Darren would be very open to that. Why don't we put that on the agenda to have a meeting with Julia perhaps about... Just letting people know. Just letting people know. Just letting people know this is a really good time to think about whether you might want to be adding on to your house, whether it's an ADU or whatever. It's easy to add capacity now rather than once you've got a sealed, approved septic system and then you realize you want to... Add a bedroom. Add to it. Great suggestion. So much more expensive to do it then. Great suggestion. Yeah. Yeah. I'm just an out-of-the-box kind of gal. I actually... We did that at 60 Shaw Drive. We had to put in a septic to rent. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And so we did a seven-bedroom septic thinking that we might want to carve an ADU out of this big house at some point. So we would be at least able to do that since we had to single that money into the septic. We built our original house. We added on capacity just in case. You did. Yep. Very smart. Very smart. Yep. Very smart. Okay. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. So our updates are filling up our agenda. So the next steps at the last meeting, we talked about an article regarding the WHA achievements. WHP. I'm sorry. And then meeting either with Michael or with the planning board. And Jane was working on that, I believe. Yeah, I have a first outline of what it could look like. It's long, and so I'm thinking about, do I need to talk to the paper about, you know, do we need a series of three articles over, you know, a few weeks or something? That's a great idea. Yeah, short and sweet. Yeah. And people will remember, retain more. Like a Dickens story. Every week you get another story. Guess what's happened to Pip this week. Yeah, so if everybody feels ready, I will make a draft, and you can... Was that list that I put together helpful in drafting that? Okay, good. And you'll delete them on... About the scattered site. Yeah, we took out. Yeah. That we can't claim credit for. So, and if you wanted to talk to the planning board and Michael McCall, you could ask Annette if she could ask Michael McCall to join the planning board for a meeting with your presentation. That would be great. That would be cool. To do it all at once. Yeah, and that would really be, you know, like with the planning board. And the goal of this meeting would be to just sort of say, we're here, ready to work with you, to collaborate with you on issues that pertain to the housing issues in town. And we want to be part, like, as you said, the MBTA discussion. We weren't pulled into that. We felt we should have been, and we didn't insert ourselves, and we weren't even aware of how much was going on because we didn't follow it closely enough. Yeah, but that was a hard process. That was before I came on to the planning board as they were wrapping that up. I came on just as it went to town meeting, basically. But... Yeah. They had to use consultants for that. I mean, it was very little within the town's hands. Yeah. Like, the map of the town went into this computer program, and it spit out the very small areas in town that qualified. It was such a strange... It was not a law that was written to apply to towns like Wayland. And so when Wayland got fed into... It was, you know, like an old-fashioned... It was like, you know, the old-fashioned computers you saw on TV when, you know, in the 70s, where they fed somebody, and things in, and... And then something got spit out at the end. And, you know, it just... It gave you a map of the town, and there were very limited areas that were available to be chosen. We really... Well, there's limited land, period. Right. And there were so many restrictions. It couldn't be available to use as a school. It couldn't be available to be used for this or that. Park and record. Yeah. You know, it was so limited for a town like Wayland because it couldn't be wet. You know, Wayland, if you're saying, well, it can't be even... Near wetlands, well, forget it. I mean, that's like nothing. It's half my backyard. Yeah, so it was so limiting that there was no... There was almost no reason to invite commentary from anybody because even the planning board had no choice. Yeah. You know, the parcels that were chosen were the only parcels that they gave us. So, and it was... The folks over at Mainstone, it was just... Yeah, people sold their units and moved out. Because they... They were worried, but they'd been told over and over again that it was nothing... It could never happen. And it's sad. I didn't know that people... That part that was in Mainstone... One of the condos sold their units because they got spooked. Apparently... They got spooked. Yeah, so... I'll share that. Yeah, I mean, Annette went and met with them and explained that... Which condo developed it? So the area... There's a... One of the MBTA parcels is sort of... It's Glen Oak. It's all down... The hills. No, across from the hills, which is still a hill on the hills. Colts Way. Yeah, Colts Way, that area. So they were... That's what the state told Whalen had to be one of the parcels. But the thing is, in order for that to be used for multifamily housing, every condo owner would have to agree to sell simultaneously. And the rest of that development would have to agree to sell it off. For that use. So it was just... It was... It's never going to happen. It's not possible. It could never happen. And that was... The economics wouldn't work. Those units cost so much. Right. That by the time you do... But even if you could... You could not make a profit. But even if you... Even if that wasn't a problem, just the act of selling it all to somebody to develop was never going to happen because it was a condo. That it just... It was not possible. It was completely... Completely unimaginable. And the shame of it is how silly that the state made us pick that as a parcel. I know. But there was... But then people did actually sell out. There were people who panicked. Panicked! There were people who panicked. There were about three units that came on the market like that. Yeah. All at the same time. All priced pretty low. And... And they came to our meetings and... All the friends that said, you've been talking about buying a condo. There's a panic. Yeah. You know? Go look at them. And they came... Talk to these people. They came to our meetings. They came to all these meetings. Annette went and spoke to them. I mean, everything we could do to try to explain to them how legally impossible it was for this to actually come to fruition. Because even if you... You know, if you had three people who didn't want to sell, that was the end of it. You were never going to get to the threshold of, you know, closing it out as a condo. Of course, as a state law, it just adds to the whole level of discipline that we're talking about. But, you know, that's not the case. It's part of the problem. But, you know, towns were pushed into creating these... Well, yeah. Fabricating sites. Right. I don't know how many of you saw the video of the Marblehead town meeting. Where the man gets up and says, so this is... We're voting on nothing. Yeah. And the selectman says, you're correct. We're voting on nothing. But it... And I would imagine Marblehead was probably pretty similar to Whalen in that the computer spit out parcels that were like, this will never get built. It was a golf course. It was a privately... on golf courses well and golf courses could get built on but where it's multiple properties you know whether it's condos or even just you know multiple private homes yeah but the owner has to want to make it multi-family housing some golf courses and not marblehead but like around here there was some concern that if they had selected sandy burr that who you know the owners of sandy burr might have been like well this is a chance to make a nice buck but sandy burr didn't qualify so yeah interesting back land up by the pain estate but that was already developed yeah really interesting yeah so it was bizarre so um i will uh check with annette about a meeting with both well let's let's let's Let's get the article done before we set up a meeting. We can do this, that in the fall sometime, but let's get the articles done. Let's get our stuff out there and just then make our argument that we want to help. We want to participate. We want to help. We're here to be involved as much as we can on issues that pertain to our committee, I think is the message we want to get out. I think it'll be good to follow that after these blockbuster articles come out. Thank you, Jean. Yeah. Hopefully get some public interest to the idea. We are a member short, and we would love to fill the seat, so that's another hook once people get really excited about this work. Which brings up, we saw at some point where they said that was supposed to be a select board member. We were going to ask to not have it be a select board member. Is it a select board, or is it ... It was a select board, but we're also ... The clergy, the Wayland ... Well, that's Janelle. Oh. Is that right? Yeah. You're the clergy member. I knew. Wayland to Faith? Yes. Okay. Okay. Great. Congratulations. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I'm not going to be the one to step in the bee's nest. So that's basically the next step. Great. So I thought we would have a lengthier discussion, so it worked out fine. Well, I wrote, once we get our first article published, Mary will ask Annette if we could invite Michael Call to join us. Right. And I'll see about Julia at the next meeting. Great. Okay. Now, you had also made a very good set of proposals about our meetings. For the next ... Yeah. ... 10 months. I thought that was terrific. Yeah. Jean was going to say something about duplexes, but we've already brought that up, so that's not there. We did get an email about doing the annual report, and since Jean was not listed with the minutes. I asked her if she would do that, but now you've got two things to write. Is that ... Okay. It's not a problem? It's not a problem. Okay. So she will have a ... For punishment. For punishment. Yeah. So we'll have an annual report draft that I can send out with the minutes and the agenda of the next meeting. Okay. Okay. Okay. And ... So that ... Are we going to talk about reducing minimum lot sizes? What? Are we going to talk about reducing minimum lot sizes? In ... I'm just following what we had in our agenda. I think we should have a major agenda item of kind of out-of-the-box ideas. Okay. I think this is ... But I would like to talk about it a little bit tonight, if we can. Oh, okay. Yeah. So I was just going off of Robin's point, where the planning board was working so hard and looking for sites to build on and finding nothing. So what do you do when that's what you've got left? I mean, what we've got left is sites that are already zoned to specific sizes. We've got conservation land, and we have a bunch of stuff that maybe is not conservation land, but it's so wet, nothing can be built on it. So, in the face of all that, how are we going to build more housing? I think changing zoning someplace is something we've got to talk about. You literally get out one of those big maps of Wayland and start walking through all the locations and say, how is this zoned? You know, is there any ... Is there anything we can make some reasonable arguments about for changing zoning to create sites in which housing can be built? Believe it or not, they actually did that in that 1962 ... Oh, I'm sure he did. I'm dying to see it. I'll take a picture of it, and we can share some of the overlays. Yeah, and now there's a whole lot less land. All those years have gone by, and things have been filled up more. But, I mean, literally, what do we do? Yeah. They've actually sort of pixelated old school style where you could increase ... I think it was something like where you could increase density with four additional houses, and there's a dot, and you see the whole town has dots carefully sprinkled around. Where there were spaces. Yeah. I mean, that's one of the reasons I love the ADU thing so much, is that it makes an end run around that limitation. You don't have to rezone anything. You now have a spot to build. So, we've got all those, and maybe that's what we've got. But, I think it would be really good to spend some time talking about that, saying, is there anything ... That would be a great conversation with the planning board, I think. It's actually a better conversation to start with Robert and Anina, and start with them, so that you get a really good understanding of how the zones are all built. The zones are all ready, and the table of setbacks, and all that kind of stuff. And, I would start with them, so that you get a really good idea about where we are already, and where there isn't room to change that, and where there is room. So ... Who's Anina? Anina is Robert's assistant. Okay. Anina? Anina. And, she's actually very bright. And, she's been this whole time? Is she the land use person? She gets shared with ... I think she gets shared with land use. Okay. Okay. Yeah. So, she's not full time with planning board, but she's very good. She's very bright. Yeah. Is she from Venezuela, or from ... I don't think so. She's from here. She was South Asian. Okay. Oh. No. Yeah. I think she's just American. Mm-hmm. Is that right? Was his prior assistant from South America? No. No. There was Aniri. Oh. So, she was at land use. She doesn't work for the town anymore. Could have sworn. Okay. But, Anina has been here for a while now. And, she's lovely, and very bright. How about inviting them to come to a meeting? So, it's not one person going there, or ... So, they work for the town, and I think they would rather meet during the day. So, and they don't need to meet with all of you, necessarily. But, to get you started, and give you a really good idea about where we're at already, I think one or two of you sitting down with them, and then them giving you ... they can gift you the current maps and the current ... tables that show what's what and where and they probably have some ideas about where you could make perhaps some small changes but i don't know it's that then you'd need to come and have a discussion with the planning board because it would have to go to town meeting so right and that might not that might be a hard sell at town meeting so right and that's why it's important to have this conversation with fitcom involved to talk to the citizens about you know if you don't want your taxes to go up we need more taxpayers then comes a whole another can of worms yeah i know i know since they're having trouble keeping but also talking with conservation because you know i mean what we're what we're really looking at is ways to increase density right and we need better options than the conservation cluster you know the conservation cluster was designed what 40 50 years ago i don't think anybody really knows that what it is and how if they wanted to make to avail themselves of it they don't even know how but even if it was designed for mainstone so mainstone would not keep selling off house lots to pay their taxes right and it worked yeah but we need a higher density way of still putting land under protection because we need that land um i mean we need it for a lot of reasons but functioning ecosystem functioning ecosystems and that's also what makes for functioning septic systems and it goes into the larger questions about do we want to make it easier to have environmentally engineered septic systems do we want to have make it easier to have gray water systems because you know i mean the bottom line is in wayland uh even if it's legal under state law you can't do it um because the town will bleed you dry um with your lawyers and your engineers and then say we're basically doing a lot of work and we're not doing a lot of work and themed just with the gone denies but it goes back and can go back and 85 gefährd and planning and and and help them and encourage and then bring the instance back into our community yeah i think that's that's a very interesting contribution to how i think we have done in that regard etc you know i think that's a collaborative effort because it's just so that you're going to be interesting to hear from others that have been past and i'm sure we can type of septic system that would be closer to the surface, but it was equally efficient. I didn't know anything about the science. They ultimately got into a battle with the DEP, and I... Well, that site, they were trying to cram a lot of units onto that site. Well, they were trying to... 16, and then they went down to 12. I think they were trying to do what CBS did. But either way, I mean, there were a lot of problems, again, with overbuilding on that site. But the developers seemed to be willing to cut a deal, but there was one particular butter who was very, very strong in opposition, and he had a lawyer, and they managed to get the DEP involved, and it just wouldn't pass muster. But I remember that he accepted... Again, they were trying to cram too many units. Oh, I understand. But they also did that... I'm sorry. They also did that at the place... On Davlin Road, between Davlin and Old Farm, where there was a vernal pool, and there was an issue of doing an alternative septic system. I always wondered how they got all those septics into that little tiny space. You know, I think there are ways to do it. I'm not an engineer by any means, but I've been involved with some properties where that one went in, and it's been fine as far as I know. And Tom Sciocca... He lived right next door to that. I know it's an awful lot. Just, you know, he was adamantly opposed to that place, but it seems like it's gone in, and it's been okay. So, I think the idea of alternative septic systems is a good one. I mean, this is something that it's worth investigating and tinkering and thinking. It's a way to resolve a big issue. So, I think it's good. I don't know if I've shared this before, but it was, I don't know, it was just a big eye-opener to me when I learned that Rubio Water, Jay Thrasher, did the, what looks like a swamp behind the supermarket in Weston Center, is a blackwater system for 37 or 38 businesses. I've been at that place many years ago. Yeah, no, it's been there for years. This is behind Brother. And we could eat by where the... You know, next to the church. The swamp is kind of encroaching on the parking lot next to the church. You know, when the water's high, it... Yeah. Yeah. So, that is a, that's a septic system for... It sounds like... For all those Weston Center businesses. Is that right? Huh? And it's been successful. Yeah. It's been years. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. That's interesting. It's an environmentally engineered system. Which, yeah, we could, we could use those in Wayland. So, for the next meeting, which will be September, the third, the third Wednesday in September, I'm suggesting that we set these dates and then... If we need to change them, we can change them, but we don't have to spend time every... That is September. I can't, I can't do the 16th. Okay. And I'll be bicycling in Vermont. Mm-hmm. Nice.
Well, I mean, I think there's a question about whether we try to keep to the schedule, and even if one or two people can't be there, it might just be simpler to say, this is the schedule, and now that we've got it in our books, we'll try to... Work around it, and no... We still need a quorum, so... Yes. So, Jim, we will miss you, but maybe we should just try to keep the schedule and just respect the... Unless you want to do... Is that okay? Yeah, I could do... Oh, yeah, I'm sorry. That's fine. I will not be there, but go ahead and schedule it. Yeah. So... So, maybe a couple of us should go see... Robert. Yeah, that was my next question. And kind of explain to him what the committee would like to hear about. Yeah. And then invite him to this next meeting. No, I think Robin's point was that we should meet with him, get the information, and then bring it back to the committee, not to put the burden on Robert and his staff, since they don't love meeting meetings. I mean, unless it's a really urgent meeting, I think we should try to respect meeting them, and... And then bring the information back to the full committee. Is it possible for this committee to have a day meeting? I generally cannot. You cannot? I mean, briefly at lunchtime kind of thing, but... Okay. As long as you're out defending the Constitution, I'm really good with that. But the one... Defending the Constitution, I'm really good with that. I wouldn't say that my work rises to that level, but... For me, I'm not defending the Constitution. I'm just suing the insurance company. Anytime you want to. So, I'm assuming... You want to be one of the ones to go. Who wants to come with me? So, that's a question to meet with Robert and Anina to get a sense of where it might be possible to make some zoning changes. Kathy might be interested in doing that. Okay. So, I will check with... I'm going to volunteer, Kathy, but you can check with her. And I can... No, he's not here. Jackie, too. Take Jackie. Jackie works during the day. Oh, all right. Fine. I'd be happy. I'd be happy to go with you, too, Jean. Jackie works in housing, Wellesley Housing Authority, I think. I think it's Framingham, but... Oh, it's Framingham. You're right. Framingham. So, I'll check with Kathy, and do you want to see about a meeting date? Sure. Okay. We'll get a couple dates, and we'll see. Okay. So, we have our next meeting date. And Jackie, as well, she'll take the minutes. And we will see about Julia coming to that. And between now and the next meeting, we'll try to meet with Robert.
So, it may be a couple of meetings. I think maybe just a short one saying, this is what we'd like you to school us in. You know, we need your... Help to help us understand this, and sort of set the stage. Give them a couple of weeks, and then come back. So, we're not asking them to talk off the top of their head. Well, and he will know what he knows, and what he might have to do some research. So, he can... Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Are we planning on the third Wednesday of the month for meetings in general? We'll have the third Wednesday in September, and then February, March, April, and May. So, Mary sent out a whole list of all the dates. Sometimes it was the third Wednesday. Sometimes it was the second Wednesday, I think. I'll look at my email. So, it had to do with trying to work around the planning board schedule of keeping Wednesday nights. Since we want to... Make sure we don't exclude Robin automatically by conflicts. So, it's the third Wednesday in September, the second in October, November, December, and January. So, the 14th of October. Yeah. So, I suggest we all look at that memo, and see if that's going to work. And put that into your book, and see if we can all work around that. Great. Okay. Okay. Okay. I think that will make a lot of sense. But we've got the two next dates, the September and October meetings. So, it's the 14th in October. 14th in October. Okay. That's fine. And I guess I'm up for minutes that night. And November is also the second Wednesday, which would be the 11th. October, November, December, and January are all the second rain days. So, that's November 11th. Yes. That's Veterans Day.
And you'll have the beginning article, maybe, and the annual report. Jean notes that the 11th is Veterans Day. Is that a federal holiday? It is. The town building won't be open that day. So, we have to change that. Okay. So, that is... So, we have to look at that. So, October... Okay. So, it would have to be the 28th, unless we do it as a... No, we're looking at November. Yeah. The camera would be the 11th. The 25th, and that's the day before Thanksgiving. So, maybe pick a Tuesday then. Then they have to pick a Tuesday then. Yeah. Okay. Well, I'll look at this again, and look at the holidays and... Great job doing that, Mary, trying to get us to put her all into the sheet. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And I just emailed you the planning board schedule, in case you didn't have that. No, I do have it. Okay. Yeah. It's online, so... So, is there a motion to adjourn? I will move to adjourn. And the second? All in favor? Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Okay. All right. Very good. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.