May 27, 2026 – Planning Board – Video & Transcript
May 27, 2026 - Planning Board
Good evening. It's May the 27th at 7pm. This is a meeting of the Wayland Planning Board. It's with remote access only via Zoom. I love you, note taker, Ira.
I need a little levity tonight. That's perfect. So, I call the meeting to order. I'd like to take attendance via roll call and then I'll go over the agenda. Jesse Newberry. Here. Ira Montague. Here. Robin Borgestedt. Here. Annette Lewis here. And Ira's note taker is here. The agenda this evening is public comment first, then review. Well, we don't have draft minutes to review. Sorry. We'll be held over to the next time. Uh, selection of board officers, chair, vice chair, and clerk. Then a recap of FY 26 planning board goals for 27. Uh, there are a bunch of things listed. We can go over those later. Uh, updates from the town planner and the chair, uh, including amendments to the fee schedule. Uh, and then just updating on some items and then, uh, board comments and concerns. Um, I'm not aware of anything, uh, that has arisen in the last 48 hours. You aren't either. Are you, Robert?
Sorry. Sorry. Um, not that I'm aware of. Okay. Great. Um, so, uh, is there any public comment? Nope. Nope. Just wake him. We're good. Oh, okay. Sorry. Hmm. Okay. Um, well, selection of officers. So, shall we? Sure. We shall.
Who's dying to do it? Well, don't jump it once, people. Well, I could nominate somebody. Um, but I don't know if anybody would take the nomination. I can do clerk if I can remember what it means. It means reviewing the minutes and, um, editing them. That's what it means. Okay. All right. Unless somebody else wants that. I did that a long time ago, but I can, I mean. Okay. You're not fighting for it, Jesse? Um, I mean, I did, I, I did it for this last year. It was, it was fine. But if Ira wants to do it, that's fine. No, I don't want to do it. Hey, if he's dying to do it, give it to him. I wouldn't say I'm dying to do it. Well, you, you were so good at it. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said anything.
All right. Jesse, it is. Thanks. I want to know what Annette wants to do because I think. I know what I don't want to do, but I don't know that there's a big choice. Um, it's going to be another busy year. Yeah. And, um, we're going to have a lot of zoning stuff again. Ugh. I know. Um, and a bunch of applications, but a lot of zoning stuff. Um, I'm not dying to do it. Um, I've talked to Robin and pushed as hard as I could because I thought it was her turn. Uh, I don't think she's quite ready, but she will have to do it next year. Um, she's ready because she's not ready experience, which she doesn't want to do. I have too much other stuff going on. Oh, I certainly understand that. Yeah. So I'm happy to stay as the vice chair and, you know, with Annette and I, if we have a lot of zoning stuff, it's great to have two lawyers being able to do that kind of stuff, but I'm not ready to step into the chair just because of the other stuff. And it may be that partway through the year I am, but, uh, And I would relinquish any time. Yeah, I know.
Um, so when I can, I will, I'll just say that. So unless Jesse wants to be the chair. I think I'm in the same boat, Robin. Yeah. Yeah. So should we just, what, shall we keep the same officers that we have? I think so. Are you okay with that, Ira? Unless you want to do it. Yes. I'm okay.
Jesus. Are you sure you're not going to cry? No, I'm not.
Unless you want to be the chair, Ira. No, I've done that twice, believe it or not. Yes. I know. For more than two years, actually, I think. I don't think I was that effective. So you guys, you guys take it. Okay. So let's have a motion, um, for perhaps a slate and we can just do it all at one vote. Um, I move that we retain Annette Lewis as the chair, that Robin Borg said as the vice chair and Jesse Newberry is the clerk for the next year. Unless we decide to make a change mid-year. I'll second. Okay. Uh, any discussion? Well, that's great. All in favor. Jesse Newberry. Yes. Ira Montague. Yes. Robin Borg said. Yes. Annette Lewis. Yes. Yes. Okay. That was easy.
I've gotten a second wind this year. It's good. It's good. We need that. We need a third wind too. Um, so let's do a recap of 2026 and think of some goals for 2027. Uh, I put the, I put the goals on the screen. I, okay. The ones for last year or? Yeah. I just remembered. Great. Cause I had them in front of me. I just remembered that I didn't put that on the screen. Or I didn't. In the packet. Right. Uh. Those were your goals. Yeah. I'm just, I'm looking at mine too. Well, some don't, applicable more. So. Okay. So we had. Fish and Cornelia reviewer applications.
So, so.
Uh, especially dwelling units, we passed that. So that was. Yeah. And we did the how to. How to draft amendments to increase in size. Right. Um, did not get rid of the as right of affordable ADUs. The special permit for affordable ADUs. So we did that. So that's. Passed over the ground mounted solar. Which will be coming back. Uh, continue planning for over 20 in progress. Not drafted the, the bylaw yet. Got a little tied up of other site plans. Outdoor dining, uh, site plan regulations. No, not really exactly. For the outdoor scene, we need to do that. And then regulations with conservation commission, department of public works and regulations of stormwater. Don't progress. Don't progress. Yeah. Well, I mean, we tried to coordinate, but. Yeah. Up with regulations. In the meantime. So there are a few that need to carry over, uh, for next year. I think, um, I thought that in general, um, when the applicant did what they were supposed to, that we had relatively efficient coordinated reviews, um, when the applicant wasn't willing to work with us, they weren't as efficient. Um, yeah, it, you know, we're not always in control of the efficiency factor. Right.
Um, but you want to keep that as a goal for next year as well, or do you just want to forget it? Just forget it. I mean, I think it's an, it's something that should always be on our goal. We should always be striving to have efficient coordinated review of applications. It's kind of why we're here. Okay. So maybe we'll keep it. Yeah. Okay. Um, then, uh, the ground mounted solar stuff, um, there are regulations that were in your package, um, that were adopted by the state. The state's supposed to be coming up with a model bylaw, but they haven't. And, um, the, uh, whatchamacallit? Uh, the clean energy stuff goes into effect July 1st and by October the 1st, we need to have a consolidated coordinated program in the town for issuing decisions. They have to be, um, the way it's set up. You have 12 months from the time the applicant, well, the applicant is supposed to have pre-meetings with, uh, a group of departments, uh, that would be coordinated by the town. Uh, then, uh, they're supposed to take the information they get from that file an application. And then we have, as a town, 12 months to get a decision done. Um, there are, the regulations from the state are okay, but they're missing things that we would need to have in our bylaws. So that's something that we really need to start working on. Um, Robert and I have a meeting with, um, the town manager that I've been asking for, probably for four or five months at this point, uh, on June the 3rd. Um, and the energy person and, um, the facilities fellow and, uh, Ellen Tone from the energy committee. And, um, I put together an outline of what the major tasks are that the town has to do. It's not all Robert. Um, but some of it is, uh, I just was getting really concerned because we weren't going to be in compliance. So Jesse, if you want to, when we start moving down with the regulations, since you're the most familiar, that would be really great. Yeah. And for what it's worth, I mean, Ellen came up to me at town meeting and we had a chat too. And, and, and, um, she's looking forward to us continuing the conversation on this too. So, and some of the things aren't in her bailiwick at all. And some of them may be. Yeah. And, and honestly, if you look at, at this state regulation, like, you know, ground mounted facilities are only mentioned like once in the thing, and it's just the definition. So there's a ton of work to do here just to make sure that we actually have some protections that go beyond what the state just put in there. So, yeah. And there are places as I read through it, where it's still confusing. Yep. So, so we can, we can get some clarity going on it and hopefully, um, collaborate together to, to get it done for next year. Great. So, um, yeah, we got to keep that. We, we, technically we did draft the bylaw. Yeah, we did. So, so we accomplished our goal. Now we need to collaborate to enact a bylaw, I guess. So, um, Robert, we would have, if you want to put this together or do you want me to do it? Which one? The goals? Yeah. Yeah. No, I'm, I'm, I'm keeping an eye on it. Okay. Then the first bullet and then the third bullet. Yeah. And then, um, definitely the continue planning for the Route 20 corridor. Um, I sent our outline, you know, I copied you all, um, but I sent our outline of what needed to be done to, uh, the chair of the select board. And, um, um, today I got a note that they want me to come in on January the 1st to go over it with them. Um, you're more than welcome to come. Um, if you want to come, we'll post. January or June? What did I say? June. Oh, it's a different one. June. It's June 1st. I thought you said January. No, I could have. No, I could have. I bet it's June 1st. Hey, Robert, Bill Sterling's in the attendee list. Okay. Um, can we bring him over? Why isn't he in our list? Did they not have him on the list yet? I don't know. I guess, I guess not.
Who puts in for that? No, I get, I get Larry out of the list because Larry's like, I don't want these emails anymore. He sent me, you know, saying, can you remove me from the list? I'm like, I'll get you removed.
Are we bringing Bill over? He's there. Oh, great. Hi, Bill. Hello. Sorry, you didn't get your own tag. No, I didn't get an invite.
Robert, can you talk to them? Yeah. So that he can get an invite?
It's because he's not in the email show right now. That's why. That's all. I'll ask IT to add him. IT glitch. Oh. Yep. They're worried about the cameras right now, so it's the biggest priorities.
So go ahead. What were you saying, Nat? Okay.
I want to just pull up the panelists again. What was I saying? The meeting on June the 1st, at that same meeting with the select board, the town center owners were supposed to come in and talk to them. Robert and I had a brief meeting with them today to just go over what kinds of things would require amendments of the master special permit, what would require just phase one, what would require phase two. And they decided that they thought they might come in to us on the 10th to go through precisely what they're looking for before talking to the select board. So they were going to ask the select board to take them off of the agenda for June the 1st. So for the meeting with the select board to go over the Route 20 requests that we made, do you guys want to be at the meeting? Do you want to be able to participate? That's going to be June 1st? June 1st. It's a month. What time? I'm 710. Okay. I'm tentative. I might be able to do it. I might be able to. I can make that meeting. Okay. This is live or Zoom?
You could probably do it. You could probably do it Zoom. I'll be there live. Okay. If it's Zoom, I'll definitely be there. Okay. Robert. Yeah. Thank you.
You said June 10th. Is that correct? June 1st. June 1st. Monday. June 1st. It's 710, supposedly.
I just want to keep making sure that I don't miss something. On the list, we'll continue the Route 20 corridor stuff. Why is that keep going out of focus? Yeah, it is really out of focus. It's hot.
Okay. We need to take the guidelines for outdoor seating that Robert put in the packet and turn them into regulations.
So, is there somebody who would like to turn them into regulations? Or can you do that, Robert? I can do it. Okay. That would be great. Or, I'm sorry. Anita can do it for me. Okay. That's whoever. Okay. That would be great. Then, and we'll continue to try and work with the Conservation Commission. I did send a note to Sean Fair, who is the current chair, and asked if we could have a combined hearing on Hobbs Road, but I haven't heard anything. So, I will send him another note.
So, so far, Robert, can you put that up again? Sure.
So, coordination review applications, draft biolar for ground-mounted solar, bulk energy, which this would be to address the state requirements. Route 20. Right. Site plan. And I guess you'd also add coordination with Conservation Commission, too, if you want. Okay. So, yes, that's to be five of last year's six. Okay. So, that's out to receding. But we're going to have some other things coming down the pike. So, there's a bill pending now in the Massachusetts legislature that was submitted by the governor. It's House Bill Number 5386. There were hearings on it last week. I don't know how they went. But it's called Winning Global Investment, Talent, and Innovation. But it would require an overhaul of our zoning bylaws, especially site plan review. It would take site plan and make it a state-sanctioned application, just like we have for special permits. And they would change the appeal period to be the same as it would be for a special permit, similar to what the select board was looking for. But the way that the law is drafted, I saw a number of things that were very confusing. And I contacted our town council to find out if they were going to be submitting comments. They said they hadn't looked at it yet, but were thinking about it. So, I put my comments. If I had comments that I wanted to make, let them know. I put my comments together. I sent them to them, and they then sent those to the state in their format. And they picked up everything, I think.
One of the troubling things is it talks about for each vote or each question, every member of the board needs to vote separately on each question. So, that would mean we would be sitting there for hours going over every single individual piece of the decision, which is really cumbersome. And then it would have to be recorded in the decision. So, I asked if they could work on that. There was the definition of bus station, again, was screwed up just like it was in the MBTA thing. So, I asked if they could clarify that, and they asked for that. It's the sections that we, it's not the whole bill. I think it's 45 to, where is it? 35 to 45. Those sections are the ones that reflect us.
I think it's like page 19, maybe. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Okay. So, they're amending the Zoning Act. And in the line 356, Site Plan Review, the review and approval process under a municipality's zoning ordinance or bylaw that establishes criteria for layout, safety, and impacts of a proposed use or development. And whether a proposed use of land or structures is in compliance with reasonable performance standards, which we'll look at in a minute in 7a. Provided, provided, provided, provided, provided, provided, provided, that site plan review and the performance standards applicable thereto in connection with any protected use pursuant to Section 3, that's the Dover Amendment, or any other section of this chapter, shall be limited to the extent required by the provisions of such section. So, it would still limit us in the Dover Amendment, which would still limit us in the Dover Amendment cases. Can you go to 7a, Robert, which comes up like later, way later, like page 45, maybe? Which section? Section 7a, then it's before that. Sorry.
Section 5, section 7? Section 7a. I'll find it in a minute.
And this is Section 7, but this is what you're looking for. We're looking for Section 7 of the statute.
I'll find it in a minute. Right here? Yes. So, the performance standard thing. It means reasonable, written, municipal zoning regulations, published industry standards and best practices applicable to site plans, and relative to traffic circulation and safety, pedestrian safety and access, off-street parking and loading, emergency vehicle access, stormwater drainage, screening, bulk and height of structures, exterior lighting, and storage or other outdoor service areas. And when you read through this, it sounds as though the kinds of things that we do with design will not necessarily be allowed. So, hopefully, with our council working with the legislature, they can try and fix some of this stuff.
But we're going to wind up having to make, for the fourth year in a row, changes to the bylaw. And it's going to be lickety-split, because this is an emergency bill, which means it goes into effect as soon as it's signed. And we're going to not have anything in place, because of when we have town meeting. So, it will be fun again.
Crazy, because what about this makes it an emergency? You know, I'm familiar with when a bill is an emergency. This is not an emergency. Will you tell the governor? I know. I'll go have a chat with my boss. I mean, I did ask if they would ask if we could have a longer lead time. And I suggested more than a year. And the town council wrote six months. And I thought, well, that's not going to do us any good at all. Six months. Most towns have their town meetings in the spring. Right. Have it go into effect next summer after all these towns have had their town meetings. Right. But you have to draft the stuff, too. Right. Yes. And we don't know the form of it when it passes and what other new things we tacked onto it. Right. Or if it changes. That's correct. So, that's another goodie that we have hanging out there. And I know that Robert wants to do some more housekeeping amendments. You don't? Oh, yeah. I want to do one every year. There's always things. Trudy, the town clerk, is anxious that we do. Many more. So, that she can revise the entire code. Honestly, I would do one every year. It's good practice. Just to get, catch things that are, like. Because there's always things that are wrong. I've already thought that's wrong. You have so many things wrong in a bylar. So, yeah. I'll discuss some quick thoughts about the sign bylar, which was put on the back burner because we had way more important things to talk about. So, we have Article 5, which is the sign bylar today, that contains only two sections about signage. One's about signs and one's about interior lighting and temporary signs. It's very limited to current and protected business owners. We've had a lot of issues in the past or in present, too, where things are very limited. And we are sometimes doing things that are not completely compliant with the bylar. But we also want to be, as possible, pro-business and be friendly to them. So, especially with temporary signs, the building commissioner and the, aka, the zoning enforcement officer, has been allowing new businesses to put up temporary signs for two to four weeks at a time. So, when Dunga Donut opened up, he allowed them to put up a banner and a temporary signs. And their business has been pretty good at putting them down. We tell them it's time to take them down. So, Dunga Donut had them up for maybe about two weeks and they took them all down once they were able to showcase that they're here and ready for business. Some possible ideas to look at, to rewrite it, would be to confirm the authority of the special permit granting authority for signs and the number of signs. It's not very clear in the bylar. Or I don't, or I, in the building commissioner, in the building department, don't, don't, it's not 100% clear. Also, creating a regulation for temporary signs, revising the maximum dimension, a number of signs that a business can have and the number and how big a signs can be. Revising the allowed lighting options, updating that to present day, including options for other signs. So, allowing signs, putting in writing for signs for town, for churches, all of those non-business uses and non-business zoning districts. Expand design guidelines, criteria for signs, different size of signs per different districts. This is something that the building inspector was interested to explore. Or, do we, can we have, could we have, could we have different signs for Route 20 compared to South Wayland? So, something to kind of explore. Landscape requirements for new free-signed signs. So, when you have a free-signed sign, could you require, you know, a little of a, some shrubs and, you know, some flower beds? And then, also, sign material requirements, what kind of material is there? Could we have different requirements per district? So, Robert, you had prepared something that we were going to use for this last town meeting, but we had too many zoning bylaws. Can you start from there? I had to go back to find where, where, where, I don't, I don't know if I had started drafting anything. I might have. Yeah, because I, it's sitting right here in front of me. Oh, then, then, then, then I'll go back and find it. I'll go back and find it, then.
When we met with the zoning guys, I forget which one of them, but one of them said that he would take some zoning bylaws from other towns that he particularly found helpful and send them along to us, and he never did. Right, that was Tom White. Yeah, so maybe Robert touched base with him? I also have one from Acton that I thought was well done and has some of the, some of the things I discussed, like landscape requirements. And if, and if you have a landscape requirement, you would also provide, to create the provision for, if someone has, does not want to provide landscape or they don't provide enough landscape, if there's a threshold, then they can also go back to the zoning board of appeals to.
There's some, we just need to expand it. It's not, it's not, there's not enough room for things where it's not helping the new businesses or it's not, we're not creating a, we should be creating a, some kind of criteria or some, some steps and procedure for a new business. And, you know, they're allowed to put up for a month and then take it down. And it's, it's not like the building commissioner is, would be helpful in enforcing it. And they, and they, they seem pretty on board to support that. So. We also have to think about the signs that aren't political signs, but they're like, who does it? The maple tree service. They just put signs wherever they want all over town without permission. And those things can't, I mean, I don't think that we want those. I don't know, but to think about how to deal with those. Yeah. Overall, we have to, we need town council opinion on so many things because there is a famous landmark case for signs. It's probably 20, 2005, 2006, potentially in Arizona, another big sign case that made a lot of, made a lot of bylaws get changed because of, of what was, it just to make sure we were, make sure we're compliant with the Supreme Court case that ruled in favor of a church with their sign, what their language was. So we need to, a church is different than a commercial institution. I know, I know, but, but, but we have to make sure that we're compliant with that too, because that, that, that case, that case would also rule or some authority. So, um, I will go back. But we can have, but we can have a bylaw that says, you know, if you're putting up a sign, it has to be on property that you own a rent. And if it's a property, you know, a sign for a business that's going up on a customer's property, it has to be gone within a week. Um, we have, I think our bylaw talks about six months actually. Well, that's a long time. While they're doing work on the property. While they're doing work is one thing, but if like Maple Leaf is sticking a sign up on your yard because they mowed your lawn. No, they're sticking up a sign even when they're not your customer. Right. Because they put theirs down. Yeah. So, but there should be rules about, you know, that it can only be on a customer's property and only for so long after the work is done. I think, I think we have something like that in the bylaw already. Yeah. So make sure.
Bill, is this something that you would like to work on? Yes, I would like to work on that. Okay. So do you want to work with Robert and then we'll present it to the board and then we'll, or if you have any questions as you're doing it, just bring them up and we'll deal with them. Yep. Yep.
All right. Talking more about the small clean energy infrastructure facilities, sitting and permitting regulations that we all know that. I can give you a little bit of an explanation. We have to have, there is an overall responsibility. There has to be one person in town who's delegated to be in charge. And the town has to create and manage a community benefits plan and create a form benefits agreement. They have to negotiate, the town has to negotiate community benefits agreements with the applicant. And they have to follow and comment on, in town, somebody has to follow and comment on state legislative developments, regulations, guidelines, with assistance from others on the team. There appear to be six distinct guideline documents referred to in the regulations that are, that we don't, they, I don't think they're all available yet, but they're referred to. Um, and, uh, we have to amend our zoning bylaws. Um, as I said, and there's supposed to be about model bylaw coming out, but who knows when it'll be out. Um, and then for the town, we have to have at least one staff person managing a consolidated local permitting program. Um, there are listed town departments and boards that have to be informed and trained. Uh, the town manager, uh, the town manager, the select board, the conservation commission, the planning board, the zoning board, the board of health, the fire chief, the DPW, and their staffs are specifically listed in the law or in the, the regulations. Um, um, and town has to decide who the person will be, who will interface with the applicant. Um, there's something called a site suitability mapping, which is a model similar to the MBTA model. Um, and we're probably going to need the help of the GIS coordinator to manage that. Um, in that you get site suitability and scores and somebody has to interface, uh, oversee an interface with the department of energy resources on that. And we have to implement a program, uh, and need to amend our bylaws. Um, in, in, in, in, if you look in the regulations at 29.06, it talks about, we, I think we'll have to do something with setbacks and maybe more. And the way that they define setbacks, um, is basically the area on the parcel on which the, um, energy facility is cited is what they seem to talk about for setbacks. It's not real clear as remember when we were having trouble deciding, is it the footprint or is it the overlaying area on top when you have solar panels? Uh, it's not real clear what they've got. I don't think it necessarily works. Um, and then, as I mentioned, there's the pre-filing documents and, uh, we have to set up a process. The town has to set up a process for that. It's not clear that we, as the planning board, will have to do this, but somebody in town has to do this. It seems like a good thing to discuss with, uh, Mike McCall and everybody on June 3rd. Oh, it is. That is why I've been, yes. Yeah. Yeah. Um, does this, so this is clean energy facility setting and permitting. Does this cross over into the ground-mounted solar question? Yeah, it is. Um, but I assume it's also wind turbines and wind turbines, um, bio, uh, what's it called? Biofuel. Yeah. Things as well. And the, uh, energy storage systems as well. And there are size limits on what comes, gets permitted at the town and what gets permitted at the state level. Um, and there's an interplay there. Um, we need somebody who's going to assess the sufficiency of a permit application and materials. And, uh, when it will be okay to deviate from what's required. Uh, there's, uh, a review period, as I said, of 12 months total after receipt of a complete application. Which, if you're dealing with, it messes with a bunch of our regulations. For us, for site plan, um, we have to have a decision within, is it 60 days, Robert? 60 days after. But this says you have to have everything within a year. So it doesn't work real well. The same thing for conservation. They have to have their decisions at certain points in time. So if you were, the way this is set up, if you were to have different boards coming up with decisions at different points in time, it would screw up the appeal period. Because you have to appeal within X amount of time after the issuance of a permit. So we have a lot of work to try and do with the state. We had, I had wanted to comment on these regulations a while ago. But our then energy person, who's not with us any longer, told me that it would be inappropriate for us to comment and that we should keep a low profile. So, um, if we have, if the town lacks resources or the capacity or stamping or staffing to conduct the review, uh, it can, within 60 days after receipt of an application, request that the state energy facility siting board conduct the adjudication and we wouldn't be involved. Um, and that's pretty much what's there in broad brush. It's very long, very complicated and too complicated for the common man. So once we talk to McCall, then we'll see what it is that we need to do as a planning board. Any questions? Why does the legislature hate planning boards? I don't know, but that's, I mean, it's just, it's crazy. You're not even letting us do it well. No. And it's just one thing after another and all these super complex things that we are not, you know, I guess at least we have two lawyers, uh, an architect and maybe, and Jesse, what's your background? Are you an engineer of some sort? Not an engineer, but I work with engineers every day. Engineer adjacent. Yeah. And, you know, we're supposed to handle this kind of stuff. And it's just like, seriously?
Frustrating. I agree. That was my question. Sorry. More, more comment. So, uh, framed as a question. Framed as a question. Yeah. I'm really afraid that it's going to fall on. It's going to mostly fall on me. I know. I think so, too. I have a bad feeling. Well, it's bad because it would be under control. Well, that's true. But, but still, it's going to be a heavy lift. Well, I got to say that what they're trying to do, though, makes a lot of sense. Having gone through years of trying to meet deadlines and get through various boards in any given town, it's every town has this problem. And I think it's, it's probably about time that they say, you towns all have got to get your act together and help people figure out how they get through this process. I think it's, it's good intentions. I know it's complicated, but it sounds like a good idea to me. Well, it is. Um, and I did it years ago, um, on a utility project that brought power in from Canada. Um, and we did do the consolidated thing. The, the issue here, unfortunately, is the timeframe that they're giving us to get it. Cause it's complicated. We have so many regulations that will not match what this is, but I think I agree with you. I've wanted to have consolidated hearings for years. It makes sense. Yeah. We had that problem with the zoning board. You know, it went, people didn't know who to go to first and then they'd end up doing a whole lot of design work only to find out that what they wanted to do was not going to be approved. It's like, it doesn't make sense. Yeah. Well, I know that, I mean, Robert will talk to people if they come in and, and work through things with them in advance, but some people don't do that. It seems to me that what they're proposing really ought to apply only to really large projects because if someone's doing a small project, they don't really need that. Um, uh, well, this is just for the energy stuff and it's for the, uh, smaller energy stuff. The big ones go to the state. Okay. I think it's 20, I think it's, um, up to 25 megawatts, which isn't real huge. Um, um, okay. Um, Robert, do you want to talk about the fee schedule? Oh, wait, is there anything else that we've forgotten that people want to put on goals for this next year? I think we've got a full plate, but.
Do you more real planning? That's my advice. Yeah, it would be nice to do real planning. That's true. Um, yeah. Okay. So, um, you run that by. I mean, if you could go through, um, there was a appeal of the, um, of the. Coptic church. Coptic church. Sorry, I didn't think of saying it. Uh, Coptic church. I can write that document in the packet. Um, most of it is pretty, just trying to fight the denial. Um, and there was a question that I was brought up of why they just didn't, um, withdraw, just let the appeal go and then, and then reapply in the issues because there'll be, um, under the new chapter in one 93 or one 94 regulations, which should, they don't think they would be able to comply with. So that's why that's why they're, they're appealing it instead of, um, just reapplying for it. Um, now the site plan condition in the decision about the timeline does not change. So there's not, as far as I know that there's no pause on that. So they, they are still required to start in two years and finish in five years. And as far as I know, they still need to do that within the timeline. You know, except that during the appeal period, I think that under this, the section of the, uh, it was either the regulations or the bylaw, um, during the appeal period that stays the parts of the five years, but they've already used up three months already. So I think we have to keep track of it. Um, but that doesn't mean that they shouldn't be going after their other permits now. Well, and how many times did we suggest to them that they get all of these other ancillary approvals before they pushed for hours? You know, we kept telling them that, and they kept pushing us off and saying, no, no, this is how we want to do it. Okay. Evidently, um, with what they worked out with the conservation commission, um, Robert, you can correct me if I'm wrong, or you can say it. Um, I think that they took some parking spaces away, um, and they did something else. So they'll need to come back to us. Yeah. If they, if they, if they got approved on conservation, they would have to come back anyways. And then, and they knew that they had to come back anyways. I did flagging to them that there was some changes. So I personally have spent time behind the scenes, reviewing their plans and reviewing all the stuff behind it. So it's not like they, they approved that we put the site plan and I haven't heard from them. I've been, I was reviewing stuff. I have spent some time. With them. Yeah. With they, with they approved. So yeah. For now that's on hold. So they're not going to be coming back to us until the appeal is done. I'm assuming. No, which could take a year or two. Who knows? Who knows how long it takes for mass, mass DP. So I wouldn't expect a solution unless some, somehow they cut some deal within the next like year. So we could. Okay. Fun.
Uh, Fisca, we, we, we've had, we looked at this a while ago when I put on the screen. I cleaned up a little bit. Um, but this was a while ago because I remember Jennifer Steele was on here and had a lot of questions. And one of the main questions that we had was that a lot of the regulations didn't, just did not, would need to be changed. The regulations within either the rules or regulations or citations in the zoning bilayer itself would have been modified. Um, one of the reasons why we tried to do a fee schedule was for the, um, MBTA multifamily relay. And that's, that was the main piece of, of making sure that we had some updated fee schedule for that. Um, so when someone does eventually apply, hopefully one day that we had that ready to go, we can apply that, that fee. Um, but the main fees are the filing fee, the advertising fee, which the applicant usually pays the new civil directly, the mailing fee, which we, we figure out what the postage is and number of buttons based on each application. Um, the review fee, which is usually the, um, the peer review fee when you go down to, um, footnote number four, that's the review fee for the under the 53, the mass general, mass general law is times of 43, section 53 G. And then the construction inspection fee is usually when after the fact. So when we have a peer, we get another peer review money after the fact to make sure that the third party peer review goes out and to make sure that they, they install the, the, the stormwater, um, material and devices correctly. So, and especially for these big projects where I would rather a professional go out there than me or Linda Hanson go out there and something goes wrong and it kind of, and come back to bite the town because I'm not, I'm, I'm not professional. I'm not a stormwater and knowing what devices of how they do it correctly. So, and it's also easy for the third, for the third party peer reviewer to do it because they already, they already reviewed the project and then they, like, all they need to do is go out there and just wait and sit. So the first one we did that was for, I believe for, uh, various Christian Academy and we've, we use that consultant for that. So, and that's been put into the decision for, for visit, very, very Christian Academy and also for the Catholic church, just for those really big projects. And also when we do that, does Linda also do it for conservation or is, is it just the, it's the whole person, but nope, it's for the, it covers, covers both. So she doesn't grow. So I, okay. I just want to make sure the person doesn't get covered, charged twice. Didn't appreciate it of that. She's happy. She's happy that we're getting collecting money for that. Is that she isn't on the hook to do that. It would usually be her and I may to go out there or it could be me, but I don't, I don't have the experience to know what exactly the devices are. Um, so she's, she's very appreciative that we've been putting them in the decision so that we have money in a back pocket for those inspections. So are any of the fees changing? They went up a little bit because this hasn't been updated in years. There was some weird rogue fee schedule that I believe that Sarkis did on his own. Um, but, but he's been, he's been updated for inflation. I think to make sure that's more reasonable than what they had in the past. Okay. But I mean, when we went over it, when Jen was on the board, did we finalize it? And that's what this is, or has it gone up since? No, that hasn't changed since then. Okay.
The MBTA one had, had a base fee of 3,000 hours and then it had a collection per dwelling unit. Um, would we, we'd be pretty similar to like an, a, some, some towns have like a 40 B, like you pay a fee, uh, a filing fee and then your base fee and then you pay a fee of how many units you have, if you're a hundred units or you have 12 units is a base fee and a per unit, uh, calculation. So, um, no, they all went up a little bit, um, ADU. That one's important too, cause that, that's going to come down the pipeline soon too. So, but the, I think the issue that, that, um, Jennifer Steele brought up in the past when she was on the board a year ago was that some of these, uh, references are not correct based on the bylaw or based on the, the regulation rules and regulations too. So those need to be updated. Um, all of the regulations can be updated at a, at a, any public meeting except for subdivision, which needs to be, um, at an advertised public, public hearing. Um, that's the only subdivision is the only one that needs a requirement of a public hearing notice to be sent out to the abutters, not to the abutters, but in towns and also the newspaper, all data regulations can be done at any kind of regular meeting at a posted regular meeting itself. So would the changes be, if there's a dollar amount in the regulation, we would be removing that and saying CP schedule? Yeah, I thought I would do. It should be, someone should have cleaned up years ago to make sure that when that, we don't have to cross reference every time it does that. Um, but this, I might understand these haven't been updated in like 2004 potentially. So they, they were kind of updated with Sarkis, but I don't think it'd been updated since Joe Layden was the time planner, which was around 20, you know, 15, 20 years ago. So, so I would ask that we just take a look at it on their own. I don't want to spend too much time at this meeting to go through it. But if you have any kind of comments, I mean, I'm going to, I'm going to look at, look it over again. I'm going to look at all these references over again and make sure that it's clear. But also my understanding too, that we can add, we don't need the select boards approval for these. I know a lot of departments building and health and fire and select board had their last year, had a, a updated version of this, of their fee schedule and had the review. Um, I'm going to double check, make sure that that's not true if the, so the select board have to review this again too, but my understanding that the plan board can just approve this and this can be put in place with. Just run it by Michael to make sure they're comfortable with the numbers, but, uh. I think that, I think that any number that can go up, I think the, the town manager office and the, uh, finance director would be very pleased, especially if they've been up in years, but, but I will let them look it over and if they haven't got a red flag, like this is a lot, or this is going to get a lot of pushback, I will put that in consideration. If these are the same numbers that we looked at a number of years ago, I think we were comfortable with them. The question becomes, should they be escalated? Yeah, I mean, they did totally, I did put them up to make them in some also a flat number. We just know we're not, we're definitely not charging enough because this has been up in years. Have you, have you checked, uh, to see if they're comparable with other communities of our size and type? I can double try and check, check out communities. Yeah, I can do again to make sure, but, um, last time. It's true. We should see what the current numbers are. Yeah, I can check you in. I'll check out some, some comparable communities. When did we do this before? Two years ago? I looked at it like two years ago and then I got distracted by all the other stuff that's going on and it was not a high priority at the time. Right. And well, Jennifer was on the board at the time. And what do we have online? Oh gosh, let's see, outdated stuff probably. Why don't you just check and get back to us for that?
Let me see.
I thought that this was the one that was online and that you were just making changes to it. No, online it looks a lot different. It's not like the paper just. I think we had it in. It looks very, it actually looks very similar to it. It just didn't like a, hey, don't block it. I thought we had done it in a spreadsheet kind of thing. The one online is not, it's just written text. I think when we worked on it with Jen, it was in like a table. Right. Right. That's my recollection. Yeah. Which we have a lot easier to work with. Yeah, whatever format, whatever format the board wants to use, it's fine. But we should not be behind, you know, with all the inflation that's been going on. We just don't want to be undercutting our income, especially for large projects. I can see trying to keep the fees low for small projects, but for some of the big projects. So the difference between the planning board and the ZBA and these fees is we're dealing a lot with like bigger developers, not to say that they can pay more money, but we're not dealing with like homeowners, which we're dealing with, you know, or someone wants to build a subdivision or someone wants to do, you know, a site plan approval for a, you know, multifamily building and those are the bigger projects where they already budgeted in that they need to pay X amount of money to do the permitting of it. But it's not like, you know, your neighbor wants to put a shed and then you go to ZBA for a variance or a special permit where it's, you know, you need to keep it somewhat reasonable because if we're comparable to other towns, you can just say that to them, say, this is the same thing you'd pay in Western and Newton. Yeah, I'll look it over again, compare, but when I looked at it for, I went from the numbers and I think, I think Anita also looked it over in last year too. And this is what we came up with. But do you want this in a spreadsheet? What format did the board want to see this in? I thought, Robin, what do you think? I thought that the spreadsheet thing. I think the spreadsheet is helpful for us reviewing it. And then it goes into this more elaborate format for people to, for it to be sort of posted for people to see what their fees will be. Right. I'll put it in a spreadsheet too, so it's consistent and then have it. Yeah. And look at what you did before, what we had before with Jen. Look at that again. Yeah. Look at that again. It's fine. All right. So we're in progress. Okay. But we should make sure we do it relatively quickly because Yeah, I'm going to try. Yeah. It's coming down the pike. Yep. Um, the church, uh, sidewalk coming on up on this Friday at eight o'clock. One road, which is right off of Loker street. Um, June 1st, we discussed that also, the special accounts, we, the town has, the set board, I'm sorry, has hired a special counsel for Dover amendment articles and the town, the, the special counsel lawyer had reached out to me about just asking questions about where the project were in the process with Catholic Church, British Christian Academy, all those different projects. Um, at this point, I have not engaged with him on anything new with hogs or anything else. Um, but I think that would be, if we have any big questions, I think we'll reach out to him. But at this point, we have a pretty good understanding. Unless you're a big technical question, we need to ask, we can go about that. Um, but I also have no, I don't think I need real direction for the town manager of, of how to use it. Is it, do we need to talk to the town manager and then go to him? Or do we, can we go directly to him? There have been no real directions on that. So I need to ask Michael about that and how he wants to handle that. Because usually town council, we need to go for the town manager to get permission. But if we're using special counsel, like just on one topic is, is okay just to talk to them. Like, it's not true. Yeah. Um, the, the way that I found out that we even had this person was Robert and I got an email that said, uh, Michael McCall. It's Benjamin Tymon is the man's name. And he's with Tymon Davis and Duffy. And they're in Boston on Broomfield Street. And, um, he had sent an email to Robert and me, uh, after asking, um, miss, uh, what's the name? Michael McCall, if he could. And he, he wrote, nice to meet you. My contact information is below and I look forward to working with you. If you need Dover amendment advice on the Coptic church revised proposal, one Hobbs Road or anything else in the queue Dover related, have a nice weekend. So I wrote back to the town manager and said, that's nice. How are we supposed to use this person? Do we, are we supposed to have him at hearings? Are we supposed to have him review our decisions? Are we supposed to have him write our decisions? He said, oh, he's to oversee. And I said, what are you talking? I mean, and then I was told that, um, I could ask one of the select board members and in particular, uh, how to use the person. And I thought, no, I'm not going to do that. Well, I mean, if they want us to use them, they need to tell us what they want us to do with them. Well, and how much is budgeted for it? Well, all of that. Right. I don't know that there's anything budgeted for it. Yeah. I would assume it would just come out of, come out of the, uh, social council budget, town council budget in general, but I, I don't know. I have not been advised or, um, discussing this topic. So go with the flow, I guess. Right. And I don't even know how they decided on the person. So I have no clue. Nope. Right. Uh, okay. So for our next meeting, it's on the 10th and we have Hobbs Road at seven o'clock. And again, I haven't heard anything back. Right. I was talking about the next meeting was on June the 10th. Sorry. And it's seven o'clock. We have Hobbs Brook. Um, and then the town center people are coming in and they're going to show us what it is that they want to do. Um, and hopefully get feedback from us on, uh, what has to happen to be able to do that. We talked through some things, some things, um, will require an amendment to the master special permit. And if they want at the same time, they can do their phase one and phase two amendments as well. Yeah. And any special, other special permits that they may need, uh, to, to give a very brief discussion on that, the double science, um, sorry, monument side at the front on the both sides of the route 20 side entrance. And then also the route 27 entrance coming into the plaza. And then they also told Alyssa have, um, and how to make that more protection friendly. And then third, how to, um, activate some of these spaces, not the town green, but the other green spaces that are there in within their purview, how to open those up for, to activate them for uses. So yeah, some great ideas. Now they need to discuss that, get some more feedback. And then from that process, they need to, we need to have public hearing based on what they want to do to amend them master special permit. So they understand that there's a, there's a little bit of process. We can't play, but we can't just at the next meeting snap their fingers and approve everything that there's the process to do so. But, um, yeah, I think we're, I think we're going to shape the way we're in a pretty good discussion today. Um, so, and it's exciting that they actually wanted to do something and do something efficiently. So. Robert, if you know where the, um, link is to the town center. Yeah. I'll send it to them. Them and us. I don't know why they find anything anymore since they changed things. Yeah. Um, what time should I tell them to come for that meeting? We had Hobbs Road at seven o'clock. Um, how long, what time should I, for the town center, what time should we schedule that for? How much time do you think we'll need for the Hobbs Road? Well, it depends on if you have a peer review. I reached out to the peer review consultant because I had not received anything from him, so. Okay, well. I'm an hour and a half for, for Hobbs Road. So, potentially like 8, 15, 8, 8.30. Yeah. For a town center. Yeah. Because that, they might, might take about an hour to an hour and a half. So, I'd say 8.15 and they can just be ready at 8.15. And if it's, they're ready for 8.15, if not, like, I mean. Okay. The board things. I can, I'll give them all of them at 8.15 for now. Okay. And then we'll have two sets of minutes, hopefully. Yep. Or three. We'll have the Monday meeting too. The Monday meeting. If we, if we. Yeah, sorry. I forgot about that. And will you put up, um, a notice about the site walk too? Oh, yes. I can do that.
I mean, I don't, it's not a meeting meeting, but normally we tell people we're doing a site walk. Yeah, I'll put that tomorrow. Yeah, that won't be, um, enough time for 48 hours. So, you need to make it clear that it's not a meeting meeting. It's just a site walk. Yeah.
Is there anything else that anyone wants to talk about? No, I don't have anything. No, thank you. Would you like a movement to adjourn? Movement. A motion to adjourn. It's been a long day. We can't do it. It's eight o'clock. What did you say? I said it's eight o'clock. You can't do it until like 1230, right?
Only if you want to. Bill, well, wait, before we do that, has anybody found any more bodies for the design review board? I talked to Ann Gordon. I hope she sent a letter in. Did she, Robert? I worked with her. She's actually very good. I'll follow up with the town manager's office to see, uh, they, they, they, they, they're not sent it over to me yet. And see if you talk her out of it. Well, I, I, she, I know she was interested, but I didn't know, like the town manager's office didn't, didn't afford it to us. And like, please, please put this on, you know, agenda to discuss it or to vote. So ask so that we can, if, um, be good to get a buddy, what is her background? Uh, she was, I remember she was on the council on aging for a long time and was running all their communications, very good on the computer stuff and graphics and so forth. She's got a really good head on her shoulders. I think she'd be great. No, I know she does. I was just wondering for the, under the bylaw, it's got those criteria. No, I think it's too much. We talked about the the last meeting. I think we had other people that weren't meeting those qualifications for years. So I'm not saying we shouldn't, I was just asking, because I think that if there's a way that we can say that she has, you know, like the certain qualifications, if we can tick a box, we want to take it. Um, are we ready for you, Jesse to, um, resign and then appoint Robin? Yeah. They were actually looking to meet on the 24th, which I think we have a meeting that, that night. Um, the 24th of June. Yes. Um, but they said that they would, when I talked to Rachel, they would adjust. Yeah. She said she would adjust. Um, yeah, I'm ready. I can do that. Okay. Robin, are you ready to take that on? Uh, I guess so. Yes. Unless, unless Rob, unless Ira wants to take it on. No, it's fine. Okay. So, um, I'll have to write a letter to the court. You have to write a letter, um, to the town clerk and resign. And, um, Robert, I think we can produce a letter because I think we're the ones who are the appointing authority, right? Yeah. Can you produce a letter for Robin? Yeah. Um, we should probably take a vote. Um, uh, can I have a motion to appoint Robin Borgestedt to the, um, housing partnership, right? It is housing partnership. I'll make the motion as stated. Is there a second? I'll second it. Okay. All in favor. Ira Montague? Yes. Jesse Newberry? Yes. Bill Sterling? Yes. Robin Borgestedt? Yes. Annette Lewis? Yes. I don't want you to have to be on all those boards, but we got to figure out something to do. Yeah. Well, and if we can get one more person on design review, then I come off because I'm not qualified other than as a planning board member and Bill is so. Right. And that having one planning board member is really more appropriate. Um, okay. So you'll see about Ann and maybe, um, Bill, you want to reach out to her to see if she did send something in? Sure. I'll be glad to. That would be great. How are you coming on the design review stuff that you've been working on? Hmm. I would, I've been wanting to wrap it up for a long time. I'm afraid Annina has been spread so thin now that, uh, uh, it's like eight weeks between meetings. So I, I asked her to send me a file and she sent me a PDF. I, I, I mean, a file that I can edit. I think I'll just go ahead and do it myself. Okay. Yeah. She didn't take it long. Um, recently she's spread pretty thin right now. Um, she's been covering for the, for the billing point who's been coming for a different department. So she's like, right now she's been an offer. She's been working and planning me, me once a week at the most. And hopefully that's go, hopefully go back to normal very soon. Well, I'd like to actually sit down with you, Robin, and, and go over some of the things you and I had talked about. If we could just meet, um, you know, for half hour or so, but I think we have to do it in a public meeting. Yeah. The two of us, we can meet anytime without having to post it. Two people can meet. No, we really can't. But, um, if you were going to have coffee somewhere, you could have coffee somewhere. Got it. Oh, I don't drink coffee. I guess that's not going to work. Uh, yeah, because I thought the rule was only two people, uh, can meet more than two people. It's a public meeting. No, your design review board is a five member board, but you only have three on it so far. So when two of you meet your quorum. Uh, it's no, that's not true. The quorum is three people out of the five. We can't have any meetings of only two people. Well, whatever, but you can't. No, we can't have a meeting. It's not a meeting. No, I'm not arguing with you. Yeah, you are. No, I'm not. I am just telling you that two of you on a three-person board cannot meet. Well, I'm telling you that two of a, two people on a five-person board is not a meeting. It's legally not, we can't even vote at that meeting. I think I had that experience in the last year. It has nothing to do with voting. Bill, you need to read the attorney general's guidance documents. Oh yeah, I'll be sure to do that. Okay. That would be helpful. Just go back, just go back, Bill, and just double check. Make sure that there's no issue. If there is, then just don't meet. That's fine. Or just, if you guys bump into each other and you bump into each other and just, so just, just figure it out. It's fine. Okay. Okay. Very counterproductive. I'll just say that. Public meeting law is very counterproductive. Yeah. I guess I don't find it so difficult. Personally, I've been doing it for however many years. Yeah. Sometimes with drafting, it's hard not to be able to collaborate that way. Right. But it, right. Yeah. Okay. But you can always have a Nina send me sort of the most recent copy, and then I can. I have to ask her. She's out of town this week. Yeah. Yeah. But then I can run through it. And I can edit PDF, so. Yeah, we'll go past the PDF. So if he sends you the PDF. Yeah. You can edit a PDF. Yeah. All right. I can forward you the copy I have. Okay. There's a link to the town site. Okay. Are we ready? Yes. I move to adjourn. Okay. Who's second? Second. Second. All in favor. Ira Montague? Yes. Jesse Newberry? Yes. Bill Sterling? Yes. Robin Borgestedt? Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes
I need a little levity tonight. That's perfect. So, I call the meeting to order. I'd like to take attendance via roll call and then I'll go over the agenda. Jesse Newberry. Here. Ira Montague. Here. Robin Borgestedt. Here. Annette Lewis here. And Ira's note taker is here. The agenda this evening is public comment first, then review. Well, we don't have draft minutes to review. Sorry. We'll be held over to the next time. Uh, selection of board officers, chair, vice chair, and clerk. Then a recap of FY 26 planning board goals for 27. Uh, there are a bunch of things listed. We can go over those later. Uh, updates from the town planner and the chair, uh, including amendments to the fee schedule. Uh, and then just updating on some items and then, uh, board comments and concerns. Um, I'm not aware of anything, uh, that has arisen in the last 48 hours. You aren't either. Are you, Robert?
Sorry. Sorry. Um, not that I'm aware of. Okay. Great. Um, so, uh, is there any public comment? Nope. Nope. Just wake him. We're good. Oh, okay. Sorry. Hmm. Okay. Um, well, selection of officers. So, shall we? Sure. We shall.
Who's dying to do it? Well, don't jump it once, people. Well, I could nominate somebody. Um, but I don't know if anybody would take the nomination. I can do clerk if I can remember what it means. It means reviewing the minutes and, um, editing them. That's what it means. Okay. All right. Unless somebody else wants that. I did that a long time ago, but I can, I mean. Okay. You're not fighting for it, Jesse? Um, I mean, I did, I, I did it for this last year. It was, it was fine. But if Ira wants to do it, that's fine. No, I don't want to do it. Hey, if he's dying to do it, give it to him. I wouldn't say I'm dying to do it. Well, you, you were so good at it. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said anything.
All right. Jesse, it is. Thanks. I want to know what Annette wants to do because I think. I know what I don't want to do, but I don't know that there's a big choice. Um, it's going to be another busy year. Yeah. And, um, we're going to have a lot of zoning stuff again. Ugh. I know. Um, and a bunch of applications, but a lot of zoning stuff. Um, I'm not dying to do it. Um, I've talked to Robin and pushed as hard as I could because I thought it was her turn. Uh, I don't think she's quite ready, but she will have to do it next year. Um, she's ready because she's not ready experience, which she doesn't want to do. I have too much other stuff going on. Oh, I certainly understand that. Yeah. So I'm happy to stay as the vice chair and, you know, with Annette and I, if we have a lot of zoning stuff, it's great to have two lawyers being able to do that kind of stuff, but I'm not ready to step into the chair just because of the other stuff. And it may be that partway through the year I am, but, uh, And I would relinquish any time. Yeah, I know.
Um, so when I can, I will, I'll just say that. So unless Jesse wants to be the chair. I think I'm in the same boat, Robin. Yeah. Yeah. So should we just, what, shall we keep the same officers that we have? I think so. Are you okay with that, Ira? Unless you want to do it. Yes. I'm okay.
Jesus. Are you sure you're not going to cry? No, I'm not.
Unless you want to be the chair, Ira. No, I've done that twice, believe it or not. Yes. I know. For more than two years, actually, I think. I don't think I was that effective. So you guys, you guys take it. Okay. So let's have a motion, um, for perhaps a slate and we can just do it all at one vote. Um, I move that we retain Annette Lewis as the chair, that Robin Borg said as the vice chair and Jesse Newberry is the clerk for the next year. Unless we decide to make a change mid-year. I'll second. Okay. Uh, any discussion? Well, that's great. All in favor. Jesse Newberry. Yes. Ira Montague. Yes. Robin Borg said. Yes. Annette Lewis. Yes. Yes. Okay. That was easy.
I've gotten a second wind this year. It's good. It's good. We need that. We need a third wind too. Um, so let's do a recap of 2026 and think of some goals for 2027. Uh, I put the, I put the goals on the screen. I, okay. The ones for last year or? Yeah. I just remembered. Great. Cause I had them in front of me. I just remembered that I didn't put that on the screen. Or I didn't. In the packet. Right. Uh. Those were your goals. Yeah. I'm just, I'm looking at mine too. Well, some don't, applicable more. So. Okay. So we had. Fish and Cornelia reviewer applications.
So, so.
Uh, especially dwelling units, we passed that. So that was. Yeah. And we did the how to. How to draft amendments to increase in size. Right. Um, did not get rid of the as right of affordable ADUs. The special permit for affordable ADUs. So we did that. So that's. Passed over the ground mounted solar. Which will be coming back. Uh, continue planning for over 20 in progress. Not drafted the, the bylaw yet. Got a little tied up of other site plans. Outdoor dining, uh, site plan regulations. No, not really exactly. For the outdoor scene, we need to do that. And then regulations with conservation commission, department of public works and regulations of stormwater. Don't progress. Don't progress. Yeah. Well, I mean, we tried to coordinate, but. Yeah. Up with regulations. In the meantime. So there are a few that need to carry over, uh, for next year. I think, um, I thought that in general, um, when the applicant did what they were supposed to, that we had relatively efficient coordinated reviews, um, when the applicant wasn't willing to work with us, they weren't as efficient. Um, yeah, it, you know, we're not always in control of the efficiency factor. Right.
Um, but you want to keep that as a goal for next year as well, or do you just want to forget it? Just forget it. I mean, I think it's an, it's something that should always be on our goal. We should always be striving to have efficient coordinated review of applications. It's kind of why we're here. Okay. So maybe we'll keep it. Yeah. Okay. Um, then, uh, the ground mounted solar stuff, um, there are regulations that were in your package, um, that were adopted by the state. The state's supposed to be coming up with a model bylaw, but they haven't. And, um, the, uh, whatchamacallit? Uh, the clean energy stuff goes into effect July 1st and by October the 1st, we need to have a consolidated coordinated program in the town for issuing decisions. They have to be, um, the way it's set up. You have 12 months from the time the applicant, well, the applicant is supposed to have pre-meetings with, uh, a group of departments, uh, that would be coordinated by the town. Uh, then, uh, they're supposed to take the information they get from that file an application. And then we have, as a town, 12 months to get a decision done. Um, there are, the regulations from the state are okay, but they're missing things that we would need to have in our bylaws. So that's something that we really need to start working on. Um, Robert and I have a meeting with, um, the town manager that I've been asking for, probably for four or five months at this point, uh, on June the 3rd. Um, and the energy person and, um, the facilities fellow and, uh, Ellen Tone from the energy committee. And, um, I put together an outline of what the major tasks are that the town has to do. It's not all Robert. Um, but some of it is, uh, I just was getting really concerned because we weren't going to be in compliance. So Jesse, if you want to, when we start moving down with the regulations, since you're the most familiar, that would be really great. Yeah. And for what it's worth, I mean, Ellen came up to me at town meeting and we had a chat too. And, and, and, um, she's looking forward to us continuing the conversation on this too. So, and some of the things aren't in her bailiwick at all. And some of them may be. Yeah. And, and honestly, if you look at, at this state regulation, like, you know, ground mounted facilities are only mentioned like once in the thing, and it's just the definition. So there's a ton of work to do here just to make sure that we actually have some protections that go beyond what the state just put in there. So, yeah. And there are places as I read through it, where it's still confusing. Yep. So, so we can, we can get some clarity going on it and hopefully, um, collaborate together to, to get it done for next year. Great. So, um, yeah, we got to keep that. We, we, technically we did draft the bylaw. Yeah, we did. So, so we accomplished our goal. Now we need to collaborate to enact a bylaw, I guess. So, um, Robert, we would have, if you want to put this together or do you want me to do it? Which one? The goals? Yeah. Yeah. No, I'm, I'm, I'm keeping an eye on it. Okay. Then the first bullet and then the third bullet. Yeah. And then, um, definitely the continue planning for the Route 20 corridor. Um, I sent our outline, you know, I copied you all, um, but I sent our outline of what needed to be done to, uh, the chair of the select board. And, um, um, today I got a note that they want me to come in on January the 1st to go over it with them. Um, you're more than welcome to come. Um, if you want to come, we'll post. January or June? What did I say? June. Oh, it's a different one. June. It's June 1st. I thought you said January. No, I could have. No, I could have. I bet it's June 1st. Hey, Robert, Bill Sterling's in the attendee list. Okay. Um, can we bring him over? Why isn't he in our list? Did they not have him on the list yet? I don't know. I guess, I guess not.
Who puts in for that? No, I get, I get Larry out of the list because Larry's like, I don't want these emails anymore. He sent me, you know, saying, can you remove me from the list? I'm like, I'll get you removed.
Are we bringing Bill over? He's there. Oh, great. Hi, Bill. Hello. Sorry, you didn't get your own tag. No, I didn't get an invite.
Robert, can you talk to them? Yeah. So that he can get an invite?
It's because he's not in the email show right now. That's why. That's all. I'll ask IT to add him. IT glitch. Oh. Yep. They're worried about the cameras right now, so it's the biggest priorities.
So go ahead. What were you saying, Nat? Okay.
I want to just pull up the panelists again. What was I saying? The meeting on June the 1st, at that same meeting with the select board, the town center owners were supposed to come in and talk to them. Robert and I had a brief meeting with them today to just go over what kinds of things would require amendments of the master special permit, what would require just phase one, what would require phase two. And they decided that they thought they might come in to us on the 10th to go through precisely what they're looking for before talking to the select board. So they were going to ask the select board to take them off of the agenda for June the 1st. So for the meeting with the select board to go over the Route 20 requests that we made, do you guys want to be at the meeting? Do you want to be able to participate? That's going to be June 1st? June 1st. It's a month. What time? I'm 710. Okay. I'm tentative. I might be able to do it. I might be able to. I can make that meeting. Okay. This is live or Zoom?
You could probably do it. You could probably do it Zoom. I'll be there live. Okay. If it's Zoom, I'll definitely be there. Okay. Robert. Yeah. Thank you.
You said June 10th. Is that correct? June 1st. June 1st. Monday. June 1st. It's 710, supposedly.
I just want to keep making sure that I don't miss something. On the list, we'll continue the Route 20 corridor stuff. Why is that keep going out of focus? Yeah, it is really out of focus. It's hot.
Okay. We need to take the guidelines for outdoor seating that Robert put in the packet and turn them into regulations.
So, is there somebody who would like to turn them into regulations? Or can you do that, Robert? I can do it. Okay. That would be great. Or, I'm sorry. Anita can do it for me. Okay. That's whoever. Okay. That would be great. Then, and we'll continue to try and work with the Conservation Commission. I did send a note to Sean Fair, who is the current chair, and asked if we could have a combined hearing on Hobbs Road, but I haven't heard anything. So, I will send him another note.
So, so far, Robert, can you put that up again? Sure.
So, coordination review applications, draft biolar for ground-mounted solar, bulk energy, which this would be to address the state requirements. Route 20. Right. Site plan. And I guess you'd also add coordination with Conservation Commission, too, if you want. Okay. So, yes, that's to be five of last year's six. Okay. So, that's out to receding. But we're going to have some other things coming down the pike. So, there's a bill pending now in the Massachusetts legislature that was submitted by the governor. It's House Bill Number 5386. There were hearings on it last week. I don't know how they went. But it's called Winning Global Investment, Talent, and Innovation. But it would require an overhaul of our zoning bylaws, especially site plan review. It would take site plan and make it a state-sanctioned application, just like we have for special permits. And they would change the appeal period to be the same as it would be for a special permit, similar to what the select board was looking for. But the way that the law is drafted, I saw a number of things that were very confusing. And I contacted our town council to find out if they were going to be submitting comments. They said they hadn't looked at it yet, but were thinking about it. So, I put my comments. If I had comments that I wanted to make, let them know. I put my comments together. I sent them to them, and they then sent those to the state in their format. And they picked up everything, I think.
One of the troubling things is it talks about for each vote or each question, every member of the board needs to vote separately on each question. So, that would mean we would be sitting there for hours going over every single individual piece of the decision, which is really cumbersome. And then it would have to be recorded in the decision. So, I asked if they could work on that. There was the definition of bus station, again, was screwed up just like it was in the MBTA thing. So, I asked if they could clarify that, and they asked for that. It's the sections that we, it's not the whole bill. I think it's 45 to, where is it? 35 to 45. Those sections are the ones that reflect us.
I think it's like page 19, maybe. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Okay. So, they're amending the Zoning Act. And in the line 356, Site Plan Review, the review and approval process under a municipality's zoning ordinance or bylaw that establishes criteria for layout, safety, and impacts of a proposed use or development. And whether a proposed use of land or structures is in compliance with reasonable performance standards, which we'll look at in a minute in 7a. Provided, provided, provided, provided, provided, provided, provided, that site plan review and the performance standards applicable thereto in connection with any protected use pursuant to Section 3, that's the Dover Amendment, or any other section of this chapter, shall be limited to the extent required by the provisions of such section. So, it would still limit us in the Dover Amendment, which would still limit us in the Dover Amendment cases. Can you go to 7a, Robert, which comes up like later, way later, like page 45, maybe? Which section? Section 7a, then it's before that. Sorry.
Section 5, section 7? Section 7a. I'll find it in a minute.
And this is Section 7, but this is what you're looking for. We're looking for Section 7 of the statute.
I'll find it in a minute. Right here? Yes. So, the performance standard thing. It means reasonable, written, municipal zoning regulations, published industry standards and best practices applicable to site plans, and relative to traffic circulation and safety, pedestrian safety and access, off-street parking and loading, emergency vehicle access, stormwater drainage, screening, bulk and height of structures, exterior lighting, and storage or other outdoor service areas. And when you read through this, it sounds as though the kinds of things that we do with design will not necessarily be allowed. So, hopefully, with our council working with the legislature, they can try and fix some of this stuff.
But we're going to wind up having to make, for the fourth year in a row, changes to the bylaw. And it's going to be lickety-split, because this is an emergency bill, which means it goes into effect as soon as it's signed. And we're going to not have anything in place, because of when we have town meeting. So, it will be fun again.
Crazy, because what about this makes it an emergency? You know, I'm familiar with when a bill is an emergency. This is not an emergency. Will you tell the governor? I know. I'll go have a chat with my boss. I mean, I did ask if they would ask if we could have a longer lead time. And I suggested more than a year. And the town council wrote six months. And I thought, well, that's not going to do us any good at all. Six months. Most towns have their town meetings in the spring. Right. Have it go into effect next summer after all these towns have had their town meetings. Right. But you have to draft the stuff, too. Right. Yes. And we don't know the form of it when it passes and what other new things we tacked onto it. Right. Or if it changes. That's correct. So, that's another goodie that we have hanging out there. And I know that Robert wants to do some more housekeeping amendments. You don't? Oh, yeah. I want to do one every year. There's always things. Trudy, the town clerk, is anxious that we do. Many more. So, that she can revise the entire code. Honestly, I would do one every year. It's good practice. Just to get, catch things that are, like. Because there's always things that are wrong. I've already thought that's wrong. You have so many things wrong in a bylar. So, yeah. I'll discuss some quick thoughts about the sign bylar, which was put on the back burner because we had way more important things to talk about. So, we have Article 5, which is the sign bylar today, that contains only two sections about signage. One's about signs and one's about interior lighting and temporary signs. It's very limited to current and protected business owners. We've had a lot of issues in the past or in present, too, where things are very limited. And we are sometimes doing things that are not completely compliant with the bylar. But we also want to be, as possible, pro-business and be friendly to them. So, especially with temporary signs, the building commissioner and the, aka, the zoning enforcement officer, has been allowing new businesses to put up temporary signs for two to four weeks at a time. So, when Dunga Donut opened up, he allowed them to put up a banner and a temporary signs. And their business has been pretty good at putting them down. We tell them it's time to take them down. So, Dunga Donut had them up for maybe about two weeks and they took them all down once they were able to showcase that they're here and ready for business. Some possible ideas to look at, to rewrite it, would be to confirm the authority of the special permit granting authority for signs and the number of signs. It's not very clear in the bylar. Or I don't, or I, in the building commissioner, in the building department, don't, don't, it's not 100% clear. Also, creating a regulation for temporary signs, revising the maximum dimension, a number of signs that a business can have and the number and how big a signs can be. Revising the allowed lighting options, updating that to present day, including options for other signs. So, allowing signs, putting in writing for signs for town, for churches, all of those non-business uses and non-business zoning districts. Expand design guidelines, criteria for signs, different size of signs per different districts. This is something that the building inspector was interested to explore. Or, do we, can we have, could we have, could we have different signs for Route 20 compared to South Wayland? So, something to kind of explore. Landscape requirements for new free-signed signs. So, when you have a free-signed sign, could you require, you know, a little of a, some shrubs and, you know, some flower beds? And then, also, sign material requirements, what kind of material is there? Could we have different requirements per district? So, Robert, you had prepared something that we were going to use for this last town meeting, but we had too many zoning bylaws. Can you start from there? I had to go back to find where, where, where, I don't, I don't know if I had started drafting anything. I might have. Yeah, because I, it's sitting right here in front of me. Oh, then, then, then, then I'll go back and find it. I'll go back and find it, then.
When we met with the zoning guys, I forget which one of them, but one of them said that he would take some zoning bylaws from other towns that he particularly found helpful and send them along to us, and he never did. Right, that was Tom White. Yeah, so maybe Robert touched base with him? I also have one from Acton that I thought was well done and has some of the, some of the things I discussed, like landscape requirements. And if, and if you have a landscape requirement, you would also provide, to create the provision for, if someone has, does not want to provide landscape or they don't provide enough landscape, if there's a threshold, then they can also go back to the zoning board of appeals to.
There's some, we just need to expand it. It's not, it's not, there's not enough room for things where it's not helping the new businesses or it's not, we're not creating a, we should be creating a, some kind of criteria or some, some steps and procedure for a new business. And, you know, they're allowed to put up for a month and then take it down. And it's, it's not like the building commissioner is, would be helpful in enforcing it. And they, and they, they seem pretty on board to support that. So. We also have to think about the signs that aren't political signs, but they're like, who does it? The maple tree service. They just put signs wherever they want all over town without permission. And those things can't, I mean, I don't think that we want those. I don't know, but to think about how to deal with those. Yeah. Overall, we have to, we need town council opinion on so many things because there is a famous landmark case for signs. It's probably 20, 2005, 2006, potentially in Arizona, another big sign case that made a lot of, made a lot of bylaws get changed because of, of what was, it just to make sure we were, make sure we're compliant with the Supreme Court case that ruled in favor of a church with their sign, what their language was. So we need to, a church is different than a commercial institution. I know, I know, but, but, but we have to make sure that we're compliant with that too, because that, that, that case, that case would also rule or some authority. So, um, I will go back. But we can have, but we can have a bylaw that says, you know, if you're putting up a sign, it has to be on property that you own a rent. And if it's a property, you know, a sign for a business that's going up on a customer's property, it has to be gone within a week. Um, we have, I think our bylaw talks about six months actually. Well, that's a long time. While they're doing work on the property. While they're doing work is one thing, but if like Maple Leaf is sticking a sign up on your yard because they mowed your lawn. No, they're sticking up a sign even when they're not your customer. Right. Because they put theirs down. Yeah. So, but there should be rules about, you know, that it can only be on a customer's property and only for so long after the work is done. I think, I think we have something like that in the bylaw already. Yeah. So make sure.
Bill, is this something that you would like to work on? Yes, I would like to work on that. Okay. So do you want to work with Robert and then we'll present it to the board and then we'll, or if you have any questions as you're doing it, just bring them up and we'll deal with them. Yep. Yep.
All right. Talking more about the small clean energy infrastructure facilities, sitting and permitting regulations that we all know that. I can give you a little bit of an explanation. We have to have, there is an overall responsibility. There has to be one person in town who's delegated to be in charge. And the town has to create and manage a community benefits plan and create a form benefits agreement. They have to negotiate, the town has to negotiate community benefits agreements with the applicant. And they have to follow and comment on, in town, somebody has to follow and comment on state legislative developments, regulations, guidelines, with assistance from others on the team. There appear to be six distinct guideline documents referred to in the regulations that are, that we don't, they, I don't think they're all available yet, but they're referred to. Um, and, uh, we have to amend our zoning bylaws. Um, as I said, and there's supposed to be about model bylaw coming out, but who knows when it'll be out. Um, and then for the town, we have to have at least one staff person managing a consolidated local permitting program. Um, there are listed town departments and boards that have to be informed and trained. Uh, the town manager, uh, the town manager, the select board, the conservation commission, the planning board, the zoning board, the board of health, the fire chief, the DPW, and their staffs are specifically listed in the law or in the, the regulations. Um, um, and town has to decide who the person will be, who will interface with the applicant. Um, there's something called a site suitability mapping, which is a model similar to the MBTA model. Um, and we're probably going to need the help of the GIS coordinator to manage that. Um, in that you get site suitability and scores and somebody has to interface, uh, oversee an interface with the department of energy resources on that. And we have to implement a program, uh, and need to amend our bylaws. Um, in, in, in, in, if you look in the regulations at 29.06, it talks about, we, I think we'll have to do something with setbacks and maybe more. And the way that they define setbacks, um, is basically the area on the parcel on which the, um, energy facility is cited is what they seem to talk about for setbacks. It's not real clear as remember when we were having trouble deciding, is it the footprint or is it the overlaying area on top when you have solar panels? Uh, it's not real clear what they've got. I don't think it necessarily works. Um, and then, as I mentioned, there's the pre-filing documents and, uh, we have to set up a process. The town has to set up a process for that. It's not clear that we, as the planning board, will have to do this, but somebody in town has to do this. It seems like a good thing to discuss with, uh, Mike McCall and everybody on June 3rd. Oh, it is. That is why I've been, yes. Yeah. Yeah. Um, does this, so this is clean energy facility setting and permitting. Does this cross over into the ground-mounted solar question? Yeah, it is. Um, but I assume it's also wind turbines and wind turbines, um, bio, uh, what's it called? Biofuel. Yeah. Things as well. And the, uh, energy storage systems as well. And there are size limits on what comes, gets permitted at the town and what gets permitted at the state level. Um, and there's an interplay there. Um, we need somebody who's going to assess the sufficiency of a permit application and materials. And, uh, when it will be okay to deviate from what's required. Uh, there's, uh, a review period, as I said, of 12 months total after receipt of a complete application. Which, if you're dealing with, it messes with a bunch of our regulations. For us, for site plan, um, we have to have a decision within, is it 60 days, Robert? 60 days after. But this says you have to have everything within a year. So it doesn't work real well. The same thing for conservation. They have to have their decisions at certain points in time. So if you were, the way this is set up, if you were to have different boards coming up with decisions at different points in time, it would screw up the appeal period. Because you have to appeal within X amount of time after the issuance of a permit. So we have a lot of work to try and do with the state. We had, I had wanted to comment on these regulations a while ago. But our then energy person, who's not with us any longer, told me that it would be inappropriate for us to comment and that we should keep a low profile. So, um, if we have, if the town lacks resources or the capacity or stamping or staffing to conduct the review, uh, it can, within 60 days after receipt of an application, request that the state energy facility siting board conduct the adjudication and we wouldn't be involved. Um, and that's pretty much what's there in broad brush. It's very long, very complicated and too complicated for the common man. So once we talk to McCall, then we'll see what it is that we need to do as a planning board. Any questions? Why does the legislature hate planning boards? I don't know, but that's, I mean, it's just, it's crazy. You're not even letting us do it well. No. And it's just one thing after another and all these super complex things that we are not, you know, I guess at least we have two lawyers, uh, an architect and maybe, and Jesse, what's your background? Are you an engineer of some sort? Not an engineer, but I work with engineers every day. Engineer adjacent. Yeah. And, you know, we're supposed to handle this kind of stuff. And it's just like, seriously?
Frustrating. I agree. That was my question. Sorry. More, more comment. So, uh, framed as a question. Framed as a question. Yeah. I'm really afraid that it's going to fall on. It's going to mostly fall on me. I know. I think so, too. I have a bad feeling. Well, it's bad because it would be under control. Well, that's true. But, but still, it's going to be a heavy lift. Well, I got to say that what they're trying to do, though, makes a lot of sense. Having gone through years of trying to meet deadlines and get through various boards in any given town, it's every town has this problem. And I think it's, it's probably about time that they say, you towns all have got to get your act together and help people figure out how they get through this process. I think it's, it's good intentions. I know it's complicated, but it sounds like a good idea to me. Well, it is. Um, and I did it years ago, um, on a utility project that brought power in from Canada. Um, and we did do the consolidated thing. The, the issue here, unfortunately, is the timeframe that they're giving us to get it. Cause it's complicated. We have so many regulations that will not match what this is, but I think I agree with you. I've wanted to have consolidated hearings for years. It makes sense. Yeah. We had that problem with the zoning board. You know, it went, people didn't know who to go to first and then they'd end up doing a whole lot of design work only to find out that what they wanted to do was not going to be approved. It's like, it doesn't make sense. Yeah. Well, I know that, I mean, Robert will talk to people if they come in and, and work through things with them in advance, but some people don't do that. It seems to me that what they're proposing really ought to apply only to really large projects because if someone's doing a small project, they don't really need that. Um, uh, well, this is just for the energy stuff and it's for the, uh, smaller energy stuff. The big ones go to the state. Okay. I think it's 20, I think it's, um, up to 25 megawatts, which isn't real huge. Um, um, okay. Um, Robert, do you want to talk about the fee schedule? Oh, wait, is there anything else that we've forgotten that people want to put on goals for this next year? I think we've got a full plate, but.
Do you more real planning? That's my advice. Yeah, it would be nice to do real planning. That's true. Um, yeah. Okay. So, um, you run that by. I mean, if you could go through, um, there was a appeal of the, um, of the. Coptic church. Coptic church. Sorry, I didn't think of saying it. Uh, Coptic church. I can write that document in the packet. Um, most of it is pretty, just trying to fight the denial. Um, and there was a question that I was brought up of why they just didn't, um, withdraw, just let the appeal go and then, and then reapply in the issues because there'll be, um, under the new chapter in one 93 or one 94 regulations, which should, they don't think they would be able to comply with. So that's why that's why they're, they're appealing it instead of, um, just reapplying for it. Um, now the site plan condition in the decision about the timeline does not change. So there's not, as far as I know that there's no pause on that. So they, they are still required to start in two years and finish in five years. And as far as I know, they still need to do that within the timeline. You know, except that during the appeal period, I think that under this, the section of the, uh, it was either the regulations or the bylaw, um, during the appeal period that stays the parts of the five years, but they've already used up three months already. So I think we have to keep track of it. Um, but that doesn't mean that they shouldn't be going after their other permits now. Well, and how many times did we suggest to them that they get all of these other ancillary approvals before they pushed for hours? You know, we kept telling them that, and they kept pushing us off and saying, no, no, this is how we want to do it. Okay. Evidently, um, with what they worked out with the conservation commission, um, Robert, you can correct me if I'm wrong, or you can say it. Um, I think that they took some parking spaces away, um, and they did something else. So they'll need to come back to us. Yeah. If they, if they, if they got approved on conservation, they would have to come back anyways. And then, and they knew that they had to come back anyways. I did flagging to them that there was some changes. So I personally have spent time behind the scenes, reviewing their plans and reviewing all the stuff behind it. So it's not like they, they approved that we put the site plan and I haven't heard from them. I've been, I was reviewing stuff. I have spent some time. With them. Yeah. With they, with they approved. So yeah. For now that's on hold. So they're not going to be coming back to us until the appeal is done. I'm assuming. No, which could take a year or two. Who knows? Who knows how long it takes for mass, mass DP. So I wouldn't expect a solution unless some, somehow they cut some deal within the next like year. So we could. Okay. Fun.
Uh, Fisca, we, we, we've had, we looked at this a while ago when I put on the screen. I cleaned up a little bit. Um, but this was a while ago because I remember Jennifer Steele was on here and had a lot of questions. And one of the main questions that we had was that a lot of the regulations didn't, just did not, would need to be changed. The regulations within either the rules or regulations or citations in the zoning bilayer itself would have been modified. Um, one of the reasons why we tried to do a fee schedule was for the, um, MBTA multifamily relay. And that's, that was the main piece of, of making sure that we had some updated fee schedule for that. Um, so when someone does eventually apply, hopefully one day that we had that ready to go, we can apply that, that fee. Um, but the main fees are the filing fee, the advertising fee, which the applicant usually pays the new civil directly, the mailing fee, which we, we figure out what the postage is and number of buttons based on each application. Um, the review fee, which is usually the, um, the peer review fee when you go down to, um, footnote number four, that's the review fee for the under the 53, the mass general, mass general law is times of 43, section 53 G. And then the construction inspection fee is usually when after the fact. So when we have a peer, we get another peer review money after the fact to make sure that the third party peer review goes out and to make sure that they, they install the, the, the stormwater, um, material and devices correctly. So, and especially for these big projects where I would rather a professional go out there than me or Linda Hanson go out there and something goes wrong and it kind of, and come back to bite the town because I'm not, I'm, I'm not professional. I'm not a stormwater and knowing what devices of how they do it correctly. So, and it's also easy for the third, for the third party peer reviewer to do it because they already, they already reviewed the project and then they, like, all they need to do is go out there and just wait and sit. So the first one we did that was for, I believe for, uh, various Christian Academy and we've, we use that consultant for that. So, and that's been put into the decision for, for visit, very, very Christian Academy and also for the Catholic church, just for those really big projects. And also when we do that, does Linda also do it for conservation or is, is it just the, it's the whole person, but nope, it's for the, it covers, covers both. So she doesn't grow. So I, okay. I just want to make sure the person doesn't get covered, charged twice. Didn't appreciate it of that. She's happy. She's happy that we're getting collecting money for that. Is that she isn't on the hook to do that. It would usually be her and I may to go out there or it could be me, but I don't, I don't have the experience to know what exactly the devices are. Um, so she's, she's very appreciative that we've been putting them in the decision so that we have money in a back pocket for those inspections. So are any of the fees changing? They went up a little bit because this hasn't been updated in years. There was some weird rogue fee schedule that I believe that Sarkis did on his own. Um, but, but he's been, he's been updated for inflation. I think to make sure that's more reasonable than what they had in the past. Okay. But I mean, when we went over it, when Jen was on the board, did we finalize it? And that's what this is, or has it gone up since? No, that hasn't changed since then. Okay.
The MBTA one had, had a base fee of 3,000 hours and then it had a collection per dwelling unit. Um, would we, we'd be pretty similar to like an, a, some, some towns have like a 40 B, like you pay a fee, uh, a filing fee and then your base fee and then you pay a fee of how many units you have, if you're a hundred units or you have 12 units is a base fee and a per unit, uh, calculation. So, um, no, they all went up a little bit, um, ADU. That one's important too, cause that, that's going to come down the pipeline soon too. So, but the, I think the issue that, that, um, Jennifer Steele brought up in the past when she was on the board a year ago was that some of these, uh, references are not correct based on the bylaw or based on the, the regulation rules and regulations too. So those need to be updated. Um, all of the regulations can be updated at a, at a, any public meeting except for subdivision, which needs to be, um, at an advertised public, public hearing. Um, that's the only subdivision is the only one that needs a requirement of a public hearing notice to be sent out to the abutters, not to the abutters, but in towns and also the newspaper, all data regulations can be done at any kind of regular meeting at a posted regular meeting itself. So would the changes be, if there's a dollar amount in the regulation, we would be removing that and saying CP schedule? Yeah, I thought I would do. It should be, someone should have cleaned up years ago to make sure that when that, we don't have to cross reference every time it does that. Um, but this, I might understand these haven't been updated in like 2004 potentially. So they, they were kind of updated with Sarkis, but I don't think it'd been updated since Joe Layden was the time planner, which was around 20, you know, 15, 20 years ago. So, so I would ask that we just take a look at it on their own. I don't want to spend too much time at this meeting to go through it. But if you have any kind of comments, I mean, I'm going to, I'm going to look at, look it over again. I'm going to look at all these references over again and make sure that it's clear. But also my understanding too, that we can add, we don't need the select boards approval for these. I know a lot of departments building and health and fire and select board had their last year, had a, a updated version of this, of their fee schedule and had the review. Um, I'm going to double check, make sure that that's not true if the, so the select board have to review this again too, but my understanding that the plan board can just approve this and this can be put in place with. Just run it by Michael to make sure they're comfortable with the numbers, but, uh. I think that, I think that any number that can go up, I think the, the town manager office and the, uh, finance director would be very pleased, especially if they've been up in years, but, but I will let them look it over and if they haven't got a red flag, like this is a lot, or this is going to get a lot of pushback, I will put that in consideration. If these are the same numbers that we looked at a number of years ago, I think we were comfortable with them. The question becomes, should they be escalated? Yeah, I mean, they did totally, I did put them up to make them in some also a flat number. We just know we're not, we're definitely not charging enough because this has been up in years. Have you, have you checked, uh, to see if they're comparable with other communities of our size and type? I can double try and check, check out communities. Yeah, I can do again to make sure, but, um, last time. It's true. We should see what the current numbers are. Yeah, I can check you in. I'll check out some, some comparable communities. When did we do this before? Two years ago? I looked at it like two years ago and then I got distracted by all the other stuff that's going on and it was not a high priority at the time. Right. And well, Jennifer was on the board at the time. And what do we have online? Oh gosh, let's see, outdated stuff probably. Why don't you just check and get back to us for that?
Let me see.
I thought that this was the one that was online and that you were just making changes to it. No, online it looks a lot different. It's not like the paper just. I think we had it in. It looks very, it actually looks very similar to it. It just didn't like a, hey, don't block it. I thought we had done it in a spreadsheet kind of thing. The one online is not, it's just written text. I think when we worked on it with Jen, it was in like a table. Right. Right. That's my recollection. Yeah. Which we have a lot easier to work with. Yeah, whatever format, whatever format the board wants to use, it's fine. But we should not be behind, you know, with all the inflation that's been going on. We just don't want to be undercutting our income, especially for large projects. I can see trying to keep the fees low for small projects, but for some of the big projects. So the difference between the planning board and the ZBA and these fees is we're dealing a lot with like bigger developers, not to say that they can pay more money, but we're not dealing with like homeowners, which we're dealing with, you know, or someone wants to build a subdivision or someone wants to do, you know, a site plan approval for a, you know, multifamily building and those are the bigger projects where they already budgeted in that they need to pay X amount of money to do the permitting of it. But it's not like, you know, your neighbor wants to put a shed and then you go to ZBA for a variance or a special permit where it's, you know, you need to keep it somewhat reasonable because if we're comparable to other towns, you can just say that to them, say, this is the same thing you'd pay in Western and Newton. Yeah, I'll look it over again, compare, but when I looked at it for, I went from the numbers and I think, I think Anita also looked it over in last year too. And this is what we came up with. But do you want this in a spreadsheet? What format did the board want to see this in? I thought, Robin, what do you think? I thought that the spreadsheet thing. I think the spreadsheet is helpful for us reviewing it. And then it goes into this more elaborate format for people to, for it to be sort of posted for people to see what their fees will be. Right. I'll put it in a spreadsheet too, so it's consistent and then have it. Yeah. And look at what you did before, what we had before with Jen. Look at that again. Yeah. Look at that again. It's fine. All right. So we're in progress. Okay. But we should make sure we do it relatively quickly because Yeah, I'm going to try. Yeah. It's coming down the pike. Yep. Um, the church, uh, sidewalk coming on up on this Friday at eight o'clock. One road, which is right off of Loker street. Um, June 1st, we discussed that also, the special accounts, we, the town has, the set board, I'm sorry, has hired a special counsel for Dover amendment articles and the town, the, the special counsel lawyer had reached out to me about just asking questions about where the project were in the process with Catholic Church, British Christian Academy, all those different projects. Um, at this point, I have not engaged with him on anything new with hogs or anything else. Um, but I think that would be, if we have any big questions, I think we'll reach out to him. But at this point, we have a pretty good understanding. Unless you're a big technical question, we need to ask, we can go about that. Um, but I also have no, I don't think I need real direction for the town manager of, of how to use it. Is it, do we need to talk to the town manager and then go to him? Or do we, can we go directly to him? There have been no real directions on that. So I need to ask Michael about that and how he wants to handle that. Because usually town council, we need to go for the town manager to get permission. But if we're using special counsel, like just on one topic is, is okay just to talk to them. Like, it's not true. Yeah. Um, the, the way that I found out that we even had this person was Robert and I got an email that said, uh, Michael McCall. It's Benjamin Tymon is the man's name. And he's with Tymon Davis and Duffy. And they're in Boston on Broomfield Street. And, um, he had sent an email to Robert and me, uh, after asking, um, miss, uh, what's the name? Michael McCall, if he could. And he, he wrote, nice to meet you. My contact information is below and I look forward to working with you. If you need Dover amendment advice on the Coptic church revised proposal, one Hobbs Road or anything else in the queue Dover related, have a nice weekend. So I wrote back to the town manager and said, that's nice. How are we supposed to use this person? Do we, are we supposed to have him at hearings? Are we supposed to have him review our decisions? Are we supposed to have him write our decisions? He said, oh, he's to oversee. And I said, what are you talking? I mean, and then I was told that, um, I could ask one of the select board members and in particular, uh, how to use the person. And I thought, no, I'm not going to do that. Well, I mean, if they want us to use them, they need to tell us what they want us to do with them. Well, and how much is budgeted for it? Well, all of that. Right. I don't know that there's anything budgeted for it. Yeah. I would assume it would just come out of, come out of the, uh, social council budget, town council budget in general, but I, I don't know. I have not been advised or, um, discussing this topic. So go with the flow, I guess. Right. And I don't even know how they decided on the person. So I have no clue. Nope. Right. Uh, okay. So for our next meeting, it's on the 10th and we have Hobbs Road at seven o'clock. And again, I haven't heard anything back. Right. I was talking about the next meeting was on June the 10th. Sorry. And it's seven o'clock. We have Hobbs Brook. Um, and then the town center people are coming in and they're going to show us what it is that they want to do. Um, and hopefully get feedback from us on, uh, what has to happen to be able to do that. We talked through some things, some things, um, will require an amendment to the master special permit. And if they want at the same time, they can do their phase one and phase two amendments as well. Yeah. And any special, other special permits that they may need, uh, to, to give a very brief discussion on that, the double science, um, sorry, monument side at the front on the both sides of the route 20 side entrance. And then also the route 27 entrance coming into the plaza. And then they also told Alyssa have, um, and how to make that more protection friendly. And then third, how to, um, activate some of these spaces, not the town green, but the other green spaces that are there in within their purview, how to open those up for, to activate them for uses. So yeah, some great ideas. Now they need to discuss that, get some more feedback. And then from that process, they need to, we need to have public hearing based on what they want to do to amend them master special permit. So they understand that there's a, there's a little bit of process. We can't play, but we can't just at the next meeting snap their fingers and approve everything that there's the process to do so. But, um, yeah, I think we're, I think we're going to shape the way we're in a pretty good discussion today. Um, so, and it's exciting that they actually wanted to do something and do something efficiently. So. Robert, if you know where the, um, link is to the town center. Yeah. I'll send it to them. Them and us. I don't know why they find anything anymore since they changed things. Yeah. Um, what time should I tell them to come for that meeting? We had Hobbs Road at seven o'clock. Um, how long, what time should I, for the town center, what time should we schedule that for? How much time do you think we'll need for the Hobbs Road? Well, it depends on if you have a peer review. I reached out to the peer review consultant because I had not received anything from him, so. Okay, well. I'm an hour and a half for, for Hobbs Road. So, potentially like 8, 15, 8, 8.30. Yeah. For a town center. Yeah. Because that, they might, might take about an hour to an hour and a half. So, I'd say 8.15 and they can just be ready at 8.15. And if it's, they're ready for 8.15, if not, like, I mean. Okay. The board things. I can, I'll give them all of them at 8.15 for now. Okay. And then we'll have two sets of minutes, hopefully. Yep. Or three. We'll have the Monday meeting too. The Monday meeting. If we, if we. Yeah, sorry. I forgot about that. And will you put up, um, a notice about the site walk too? Oh, yes. I can do that.
I mean, I don't, it's not a meeting meeting, but normally we tell people we're doing a site walk. Yeah, I'll put that tomorrow. Yeah, that won't be, um, enough time for 48 hours. So, you need to make it clear that it's not a meeting meeting. It's just a site walk. Yeah.
Is there anything else that anyone wants to talk about? No, I don't have anything. No, thank you. Would you like a movement to adjourn? Movement. A motion to adjourn. It's been a long day. We can't do it. It's eight o'clock. What did you say? I said it's eight o'clock. You can't do it until like 1230, right?
Only if you want to. Bill, well, wait, before we do that, has anybody found any more bodies for the design review board? I talked to Ann Gordon. I hope she sent a letter in. Did she, Robert? I worked with her. She's actually very good. I'll follow up with the town manager's office to see, uh, they, they, they, they, they're not sent it over to me yet. And see if you talk her out of it. Well, I, I, she, I know she was interested, but I didn't know, like the town manager's office didn't, didn't afford it to us. And like, please, please put this on, you know, agenda to discuss it or to vote. So ask so that we can, if, um, be good to get a buddy, what is her background? Uh, she was, I remember she was on the council on aging for a long time and was running all their communications, very good on the computer stuff and graphics and so forth. She's got a really good head on her shoulders. I think she'd be great. No, I know she does. I was just wondering for the, under the bylaw, it's got those criteria. No, I think it's too much. We talked about the the last meeting. I think we had other people that weren't meeting those qualifications for years. So I'm not saying we shouldn't, I was just asking, because I think that if there's a way that we can say that she has, you know, like the certain qualifications, if we can tick a box, we want to take it. Um, are we ready for you, Jesse to, um, resign and then appoint Robin? Yeah. They were actually looking to meet on the 24th, which I think we have a meeting that, that night. Um, the 24th of June. Yes. Um, but they said that they would, when I talked to Rachel, they would adjust. Yeah. She said she would adjust. Um, yeah, I'm ready. I can do that. Okay. Robin, are you ready to take that on? Uh, I guess so. Yes. Unless, unless Rob, unless Ira wants to take it on. No, it's fine. Okay. So, um, I'll have to write a letter to the court. You have to write a letter, um, to the town clerk and resign. And, um, Robert, I think we can produce a letter because I think we're the ones who are the appointing authority, right? Yeah. Can you produce a letter for Robin? Yeah. Um, we should probably take a vote. Um, uh, can I have a motion to appoint Robin Borgestedt to the, um, housing partnership, right? It is housing partnership. I'll make the motion as stated. Is there a second? I'll second it. Okay. All in favor. Ira Montague? Yes. Jesse Newberry? Yes. Bill Sterling? Yes. Robin Borgestedt? Yes. Annette Lewis? Yes. I don't want you to have to be on all those boards, but we got to figure out something to do. Yeah. Well, and if we can get one more person on design review, then I come off because I'm not qualified other than as a planning board member and Bill is so. Right. And that having one planning board member is really more appropriate. Um, okay. So you'll see about Ann and maybe, um, Bill, you want to reach out to her to see if she did send something in? Sure. I'll be glad to. That would be great. How are you coming on the design review stuff that you've been working on? Hmm. I would, I've been wanting to wrap it up for a long time. I'm afraid Annina has been spread so thin now that, uh, uh, it's like eight weeks between meetings. So I, I asked her to send me a file and she sent me a PDF. I, I, I mean, a file that I can edit. I think I'll just go ahead and do it myself. Okay. Yeah. She didn't take it long. Um, recently she's spread pretty thin right now. Um, she's been covering for the, for the billing point who's been coming for a different department. So she's like, right now she's been an offer. She's been working and planning me, me once a week at the most. And hopefully that's go, hopefully go back to normal very soon. Well, I'd like to actually sit down with you, Robin, and, and go over some of the things you and I had talked about. If we could just meet, um, you know, for half hour or so, but I think we have to do it in a public meeting. Yeah. The two of us, we can meet anytime without having to post it. Two people can meet. No, we really can't. But, um, if you were going to have coffee somewhere, you could have coffee somewhere. Got it. Oh, I don't drink coffee. I guess that's not going to work. Uh, yeah, because I thought the rule was only two people, uh, can meet more than two people. It's a public meeting. No, your design review board is a five member board, but you only have three on it so far. So when two of you meet your quorum. Uh, it's no, that's not true. The quorum is three people out of the five. We can't have any meetings of only two people. Well, whatever, but you can't. No, we can't have a meeting. It's not a meeting. No, I'm not arguing with you. Yeah, you are. No, I'm not. I am just telling you that two of you on a three-person board cannot meet. Well, I'm telling you that two of a, two people on a five-person board is not a meeting. It's legally not, we can't even vote at that meeting. I think I had that experience in the last year. It has nothing to do with voting. Bill, you need to read the attorney general's guidance documents. Oh yeah, I'll be sure to do that. Okay. That would be helpful. Just go back, just go back, Bill, and just double check. Make sure that there's no issue. If there is, then just don't meet. That's fine. Or just, if you guys bump into each other and you bump into each other and just, so just, just figure it out. It's fine. Okay. Okay. Very counterproductive. I'll just say that. Public meeting law is very counterproductive. Yeah. I guess I don't find it so difficult. Personally, I've been doing it for however many years. Yeah. Sometimes with drafting, it's hard not to be able to collaborate that way. Right. But it, right. Yeah. Okay. But you can always have a Nina send me sort of the most recent copy, and then I can. I have to ask her. She's out of town this week. Yeah. Yeah. But then I can run through it. And I can edit PDF, so. Yeah, we'll go past the PDF. So if he sends you the PDF. Yeah. You can edit a PDF. Yeah. All right. I can forward you the copy I have. Okay. There's a link to the town site. Okay. Are we ready? Yes. I move to adjourn. Okay. Who's second? Second. Second. All in favor. Ira Montague? Yes. Jesse Newberry? Yes. Bill Sterling? Yes. Robin Borgestedt? Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes