November 12, 2025 – Planning Board – Video & Transcript

November 12, 2025 - Planning Board

Autoscroll:

This is Wednesday, November the 12th, it's 5.30 p.m. in the evening of the Weyland Plenty Orchard Water. One of our members is participating remotely, so I will do attendance by roll call vote. Can you see Jesse? Well, I'm going to take it by roll call. Jesse Newberry, are you present? Jesse, can you hear? Jesse, can you hear? I think it's a statue. Jesse. Hey there. We're taking roll call. I'm taking your attendance, Jesse Newberry. Here. I remind you. Here. Robin Worstead here. Larry Greenwood here. Annette Lewis here. The agenda for this evening is calling the meeting to order, which I've just done. Then we're going to deal with planning board number 25-02, a continued public hearing for 169 Rice Brown, St. Theropiter, and St. Anna's Coffee of Orthodox Church, a site plan of approval public hearing. Then at 6.50, we have public comment for matters other than the church project. Then at 7, we have a hard stop because we have a public forum for an accessory dwelling unit public forum sponsored by the housing partnership and the planning board. At 8.30, we have approximately review and approved draft minutes of 10, 15, and care 29. And then we have approximately 8.45, TB25-06, which is 3640 Lerker Street. It's a proposed divorcement of an approval not required plan. Then we have updates from the tenant letter, board comments and concerns, and matters not reasonably anticipated by the chair 48 hours in advance of the meeting. I'm not currently, I have nothing currently, I have nothing that I was currently advised about, so at this time, I don't have a matter that was reasonably anticipated, less than 48 hours. And then we have the jury. So, I'd like to begin an open hearing for the Catholic Church at 169 Rice Road. Pardon? No, that's later. So, for many of you, you haven't participated before, and even if you have, I'm going to read the provisions that we are bound by as planning board. There is what is referred to as the Dover Amendment, and I'm standing so that I can project, so I hope you can hear me. So, it's been an an alimentary. And you have, we need a microplot. We don't have a microphone. Look at that stuff. We should have a microphone. And these people won't be able to hear, but let's try it. It's better. Well, I won't be on the camera. But I can't say no. Sorry. Can you hear me now? Oh, yeah. Yes, sorry. Under Massachusetts General Law, Chapter 48, Section 3, it says that subjects which then may not regulate, and Paragraph 2 says, No certain ordinance or bylaws shall prohibit, regulate, or restrict the use of land or structures for religious purposes on land owned or leased by a religious sect or denomination, or by a non-profit educational corporation. Provided, however, that such land or structures may be subject to reasonable regulations concerning the bulk and type of structure, and determining yard sizes, lot areas, setbacks, open space, parking, and building covers requirements. Then we have our very own bylaws who picks up that statute, and it provides at 198-606.3 when reviewing and acting on a site plan application for the principal use of land or a building or structure for daycare, educational, nursery school, or religious uses that are exempt from regulation under Massachusetts General Law 48.3, That's what I just read. The Planning Board shall apply reasonable regulations concerning the bulk and height of structures, and determining yard sizes, lot area, setbacks, open space, parking, and building coverage requirements. So that's what we're dealing with. And I know we've gotten many letters from all of you. I'm not going to be able to sit up there for the hearing. I'm sorry. We've gotten many letters from any of you. I'm not going to be able to sit up there for the hearing. I'm sorry. We've gotten many letters from any of you, and there are certain things that we cannot, we don't have the ability to influence. You as neighbors have the ability to engage with the applicant and see how far you can get on the date. things that we can't deal with. So this evening, I'm going to open it up to the church to make sure that we can't deal with. So this evening, I'm going to open it up to the church to make their presentation. Then I'm going to call on our peer review consultants to inform the board and the public of those things that it has concerns with, and or any suggestions that we can't deal with. So this evening, I'm going to open it up to the church to make their presentation. Then I'm going to call on our peer review consultants to inform the board and the public of those things that it has concerns with, and or any suggestions that it has, and then we'll open it up to public comment. And I'll ask in public comment for you to keep your comments short, not repeat what you've heard someone else say before. And so that we can have a productive time sensitive reading. So. Madam chair. Madam chair. My name is Tom Kearns. I'm the president of Studio PSK Architects. I live in Concord, Mass. And practices in Concord, Mass. And thank you for being in front of you all this evening. I'd like to share some introductory thoughts, and I will do my best to be brief. Can you say it louder, please? Oh, I will. Thank you. I will. If you're not hearing me, I will do my best to project better. Thank you. So I, I hope that we all agree that this community deserves a place to worship. One that provides symbolic identity, authentic to their culture and their religion. Make sure I'm addressing. A place that provides an invitation to participate. A church that is iconic. That inspires and creates a sense of pride for the church community and the entire community. The Mass Dover Amendment protects these poor beliefs. New England churches, some here in town, actually, have provided these community worship focused environments for centuries. Churches that are typically nestled into villages and neighborhoods that bring the community together. Churches here in town and throughout New England, in our beautiful towns, that provide symbolic hierarchy through their position and their architectural expression. Churches that are often marked with towers. Beacons that reach to the heavens and provide a call to gather and to prayer. The St. Philippator Church design, we believe, offers a balanced commitment by this amazing group of church leaders. I really mean that. This is a kind of lovely commitment and we've been working together for this moment for years, actually. The church looks to the authentic historical, cultural, and religious references to inform the design. References that have reflected the Coptic church culture and architecture for over 2,000 years. Ultimately, creating a church that has integrity and a church that is timeless in serving the community. That's our goal. The church is sited to fit in and stand out. It's doing both. And I want to agree with the historic church that you have. And I'd like to mention widely called Desert Desert offenses and Pret site to. I might as well include, as being shut down on theattie's culture and that raise the cultural there for us, and I'd like to mention it. And it's done for you to just consider the attention to the biblical community. architecture employs arches and domes and towers as its essential language, reflecting the heritage of early Egyptian Christianity. Towers, as proposed and we'll see tonight, are not unfamiliar in New England towers. Majestic and iconic, our experience and our research indicates that historical tower heights can range from 80 feet to 180 feet. We're in the lower end of that range. Some in town are in that in that range. Our proposed towers are about 100 feet overall. From the tower bases, about 87 feet at the entrance. From Turkey Hill, about 82 feet. We believe First Parish in town is somewhere between 80 and 90 feet, just to give you that kind of reference. In summary, I would just like to say we are committed to providing a harmonious composition that welcomes both spiritual reflection and community life. A beautiful church for the community to gather and worship in peace. Thank you. Now I'd like to ask my colleague to give us an update on some of the changes we made. Hi, my name is Sean, and I'm sure you've seen me in the other meetings. Since we've last met, we have listened to your comments. We've also spoken with the town planning board, and we have gone back and tried to address these as best we can with staying in the original sort of feel for the church. Also doing things that would help you, the neighboring residents, feel comfortable with what is going on. What we've tried to do was make your comments and take the planning board's comments. As I go through, I have the same document here. It's on the screen, and we can talk about what we have done thus far. At the same time, we have received comments from the peer review. We got those last week. So we're working on responding to those by the middle to the end of next week. There were a lot of good comments that came from the peer review, and we thank you guys for those in the time that you put into it. Some of them include the scale of the project. They agreed to be removed. Increased traffic, increased noise, and in terms of scale, I think that a big job that we've designed is nestled into the hillside. We realized that there is a great exposure to the front of the church on the Rice Road side, deliberate, and at the same time, we've tried to keep the heights on the back side lesser. The height of the existing trees that remain around the perimeter are disguised. We have some images that we put together that I think, in terms of the construction, there are, as you well know, there's three buildings. The first of which is the church through the site plan review. From here, we'd like to move into the schematic design and then the design development to design before we do. Construction for this type of building would be expected to ask in building C. There would be an 18-month lull between the end of construction and the design of the next building. I think that the building would probably take about the same time as built. The building C go into design probably about that same period afterward. The construction of that may or may not
yet to be determined. In terms of the increased traffic, we've worked at MDM, who is a traffic consultant, who have done studies. We have basically found that there is not as hit the traffic happening on Sunday mornings generally, and that the driveways have been actually moved based to safety. As you enter and design the building just yet, but what we typically do is we provide enclosures that minimize the noise coming from building systems, and the hours for which people are on the site is generally during a time where it is not for you all. As far as the lighting, we have also had a lighting study done. We have not designed the lighting yet, as we're just going through site review, and what we're planning for actually in meeting the dark skies night regulations is a plan for essentially deep-pointing downward. So spraying off into surrounding residences, and what we have also done since our first meeting is looked at the trees and replacement planting, and we're proposing to do a hedge-like tree system that is around the perimeter of the site. Your view from that, and keeping the noise down as well. This may be hard for you to see up on the screen there, but what this is is a view that it's a rendered view that we've taken from the southwest portion of Rice Road. So if you were coming from the south down Rice Road, the charts would be on your right-hand side, and you can see that the existing trees around the perimeter, this would be in the right-of-way, do a very good job of buffering the view to the church. And it's not until you get to the driveway where it opens up that you would actually see the front of the church. At the same time, we're also adding some additional trees in that area to help in the areas that are a little light. We'll go to the next view. And what we've done also in the bottom right-hand corner is taken existing photos so you can see that there really is that amount of coverage and that amount of buffer there. And I think it just helps you to understand that we're not trying to try to blow smoke with the rendering. So this one is from Turkey Hill Road. And you can see that the combination of trees that will remain standing in combination with the trees that we're putting in there do a very good job of buffering that view to the church. Even with the height of those towers, you can see that when you're standing on the road, and I know that the folks that live, you know, higher on the backside of Turkey Hill get a different perspective from this, but I'm trying to show you that if you're walking down or driving down Turkey Hill Road, it will be buffered. The church will be buffered quite well. That's what we're trying to show there. In this one, what we've tried to do is we've listened to the concerns that have come from y'all in the letter. And what we did was try to plot your residences in red and the distances to the church. And I don't want to go through all of them here. But if you, you know, like to talk about your specific residents, you know, afterwards, we can do that. But this gives you a good idea of exactly how far your residence is from the church complex itself. You might want to just give a few numbers because you really can't do that. Yeah. So, um, if I look at building C, which is eight Brandywine, that would be 440 feet. The face of the, the building B. Building B is the, the largest one. It's sort of, uh, vertical. It has, it looks like a, I'm sorry. Are you either right in the corner? I, I do actually.
I should have taken that out. I'm sorry. Yeah, Sean, I'll see my, the red line is 300, which is three and four times. Yeah. Turkey Hill Road is on the right hand side. I'm getting there.
So, so Turkey Hill Road comes right down here. And so the building I just spoke of is this one right here. That would be 440 feet. This face of the building here. And how tall is that building? The building is, but the towers. The towers would be here and here, and the dome would be right here. So this building right here is the church. This building right here is the Sunday school and classrooms in the recreational building. And this building right here is the diocese. So this building, building C, building B, that would be the height of them. How do you know how far or how tall they are? Can we do the questions? They're, they're, they're, they're conceptual. Actually, they've gone past, they're conceptual. They're schematic and we've laid them out. We know what the. We'll do questions after. Okay. So just continue with your presentation. We'll have a time afterwards for people to ask questions and make comments. Okay. Thank you. We can talk about that afterwards. We can move on to the next one. This is, this is, um, a site plan that, uh, has been done, uh, by our landscape architect. Um, and you can see that remember the building, there are Eastern red cedar and, uh, some white cedar, uh, that, uh, make their way around and provide a, a buffer. That's in addition to all of the replacement trees that we, we have throughout the site. I think we have now a, uh, proposed amount of, uh, 235 trees. Sean, um, I'm Naomi Paschal of the Charlie Paschal of Landscape Architecture. Um, we actually, in this last round, in our, in this month's recent submission, have added 107 Eastern red cedars. And those primarily are along the, I was like pointing at myself, primarily along the, the northwest, uh, northwest sides here along, this is again, Turkey Hill. Um, and so we've added in a really solid hedge row along the edge. According in progress.
They'll be, they would go in roughly. Um, and then we've also added in along the riparian zone along rice road, the front, um, to really fill in as Sean was talking about those gaps in, in the existing canopy with, uh, camp cypress, which is the Atlantic white cedar. And those also would be going in around 16, both trees grow between 12 to 24 inches per year. So they are back, they're, they're actually selected to be evergreen and fast growing. So those are the additions. Again, it was 107 Eastern red cedars added to the plan and 26 Atlantic white cedars added to the plan. As well as the, the, the deciduous, uh, canopy trees and, um, that we had previously in our, in our design. Um, that plan basically has the same information, but we, and I know it's very difficult for you to see, but, um, there is a planting schedule down in the, which, uh, basically lists all of the, the shrubberies and trees that are being added. Um, up on the top, there was a, um, series of, uh, charts that, uh, talked about the replacement. Yeah. And again, the replacements have been exceeded at this point. Um, previously we were meeting them and now with these additional, we have, um, exceeded the, the local tree ordinance, um, for the replacements, um, of the trees that were, that were taken up. That calculation is, is, is a bit, uh, tricky, um, because they, they're, the way in which it's calculated, but it's all on this, if you pull off a bit on this, um, on this plan, there is full charts that show exactly how everything is calculated and, and counting for all the trees to be removed as well as when the trees were planted. If you have a number of that plan, it would be helpful to give that number. Um, the number of the plan as far as it's, um, yeah, it's sheet number. That is L-4-0-1.
And that was, um, most recently submitted with, uh, the date of November 5th. And right to the board, we had submitted, uh, additional material, all which are not included in this, uh, presentation. We wanted to highlight, um, the changes here, but you all have, um, those, that additional material. So, in terms of lighting, um, I just want to point out that we have, um, we're meeting, uh, the code minimum lighting here, dark sky compliance, uh, which, uh, keeps things, um, uh, comfortable and, um, keeps it sort of a soft flow. Uh, the color temperature of this is about 3,000 K, not bright white, and it's not incandescent, so it's somewhere in the middle there. Um, uh, let me see the windows in the building. So, you know, as we look at this, we haven't, I go back and say we haven't designed, uh, the lighting inside because we haven't designed the building. Um, but we will do and take all measures to the light, the ambient light that grew out of these buildings, um, to a minimum. And, uh, in talking with our engineer, we're trying to keep the foot candle level to about one and a half, um, foot candles, which is, is very low. In terms of the time for lighting, uh, uh, time clock controls, and in terms of the facade lighting, so the, the front of the building, um, it's scheduled to go off one hour after the last service. That's typical. Interior glow, uh, that is also scheduled to go off one hour after service as well. Signage, uh, scheduled for all these lights are basically scheduled to go off one hour after their service. So, um, there are, again, you might, um, talk about it, but there are high time services. Yeah, so for facade lighting, there's only really one facade that we're lighting, which is the one facing lights from, right? So, all the other, all the other side of the church are actually locked up. There's only the facade facing, uh, the main side of the church, which is facing in Paraguay. That's right. And I want to point out that we are blocking, um, we're stopping the transmission of light, uh, from coming from the tower on the turkey hillside. Um, we will only have light coming out basically on the right hill roadside. The parking lot at two is scheduled, uh, only to stay on, uh, one hour past, uh, the, the service. Um, and everything is on, um, on a time clock in their center. So, um, uh, wayfinding will need code, um, by going on if, uh, someone walks down a pathway, um, that lighting is on. It does not have anyone getting injured on the site. So, that's how that light will work. There's a photo cell in OCD sensors that control this. Um, and that's how we plan to take care of the lighting. Although you can't see the numbers that are, uh, dispersed around, um, the light fixtures are proposed in these rounds, uh, red locations. Um, and obviously where the, um, light is closest to the pole is going to have a greater foot candle, but as it, it moves away, everything, um, will basically stand around, uh, uh, 1.2 to 1.5 foot candle. So, it's very low enough for, um, people to, uh, get around safely, uh, when in the parking lot. Um, when we get to the front of the building, um, the church that is, you know, we jump up to about three, 3.1 foot handles. Uh, there's a drop off there, which is right in this area right here. And this is the plaza that leads up to the bridal stair. So, that's what I'm talking about. We also wanted to address, uh, concerns, um, to the planning board. And a lot of the concerns that the planning board and you folks have are one in the same. And so, you know, they, uh, overlap somewhat. And, um, so we tried to, to cover, uh, certain things here. Um, the building heights, um, as I said, buildings B and building C, um, they meet the, uh, required height, which is about 35 feet. Um, the church, uh, we, as you heard from Tom, have towers that are, uh, about 100 feet when you look at the, the overall height of it. But as you, uh, see it from a different perspective, which be from the back of the building or the front of the building, they'd be very nice. And so, uh, to the hillside nicely in the, in the hillside does a lot to help us with the height of those, those towers and the, in the dome. Um, so we received, uh, peer review comments requiring a minor revision to the plans and Sean, you might, um, you might talk about this, but these revisions, the system will fully comply with the Massachusetts stormwater policy and reduce the rate and volume of stormwater to rice road as compared to the existing condition. So although we are adding, um, parking around the site, um, we have systems in place that will not allow that water to go off into rice road. Um, we are collecting it. And Sean, you may talk about that a little bit more. Um, septic system also on the side is, um, has been reviewed. We have had the health department, uh, require a few minor revisions, um, to the plans. And once the, uh, revisions to the septic system, uh, are, are taken care of and, uh, they will fully comply with Massachusetts title five, as well as the Wayland board of health requirements. So we've listened to those comments that came back from, uh, peer review and we are addressing those comments now. We have a fully compliant system.
The utility easement, uh, will allow for storm drainage to be built within its limits. We have, um, at the bottom right hand corner, which would be the southwest side, there is a shell oil season that passes through, uh, the, the corner. Um, and one thing I wanted to point out is that there is per trail system, uh, uh, through the, actually goes through the site and we are adding a walkway over by the, uh, playground that will enable residents and, um, trail hikers to, you know, continue, um, their path, uh, through the, the church grounds to get to, uh, the other side. So I wanted, I just wanted to make it known that that will be there. And in terms of Turkey Hill and the proximity of the road to the, to the property line and to the church, um, the access road is quite close to the property line, but there is, there is a buffer between the property line in Turkey Hill. And let's see if I have a, on the, the earlier sketches, you could see that there is, um, a buffer of about, in some places, um, 30 feet, uh, between the road and the property line. So in between that area, you have existing trees that we're not taking down. They will remain there and provide that buffer. And then there is that new series of trees that Naomi talked about, um, going in. Then there's the access road and then there is, uh, the church. So there is quite a buffer between, um, you know, Turkey Hill road and the actual building. We do have, um, we do have a couple of things that sit within the setback that would be, uh, fencing around the soccer field. And the soccer field is, it's essentially, it's a half soccer field. It is, um, for the, the children that are going to Sunday school to use. It is not a soccer field that, you know, we're inviting, uh, you know, outside leagues or, you know, any of that to it. Again, you might talk, um, meets the requirements, uh, within the setback. It's, um, no greater than six feet. The other area that we have, uh, a wall, a site wall, um, in the setback is, uh, the south, uh, side of the site, which is, um, over on the church side. And that is also no higher, higher than six feet. So pretty much covers, um, the items that, you know, we've taken a look at and made changes soon. Thank you. Yeah, Sean, do you want to talk a little bit about, um, the septic and storm? Um, sure. Yeah. I'd be happy to. Um, I honestly don't recall if we've, uh, had that kind of initial presentation with this award. I know we did with the conservation commission. Sorry, man. Uh, for the record, Sean Malone, Oak Consulting Group, I'm the civil engineer for the project. Um, and do we have a, maybe a site plan we could show up and grab a laser pointer. I can bring through a couple of things, give people an idea of what of a site plan. Just an overall site plan. Thank you. Um, so as Sean mentioned, we've designed a stormwater management system to, uh, be fully compliant with the state stormwater policy, um, and also to provide your treatment and, uh, recharge for groundwater. Um, our system also goes above that and actually reduces the amount of runoff, um, coming from the site to rice road. So general description of the site and what happens with the stormwater, um, the site slopes from, uh, the high point up here and basically down to rice road. There's a couple of flow paths over this way, uh, and outlets mainly via the existing drives, uh, and some overland in between. And then the stormwater from these points flows through existing catch basins within rice road. Um, so there's really not that much capture on the existing site. There's no treatment mechanisms. Um, none of that. So with our proposed site, we generally keep the same drainage patterns. We have high in the back, lower in the front. And we're installing a series of deep sump catch basins at some key points here before the runoff leaves the site. Um, and these deep sump catch basins are then routed to the subsurface infiltration areas. We have one here and we have a second over underneath the field. And what these consist of is large diameter, plastic pipe, uh, 36 inch diameter, so three foot perforated. They're embedded in stone. Uh, so the water enters into these basins from the, from the catch basins, enters into these infiltration basins and seeps into the ground. Um, we did want to say 12 test pits, maybe 14 test pits out in this site, um, all throughout this area. Did several up here, several in here, several in here, we did several in here and over in this amniac. And the test bit showed that the site soils are a really nice coarse sand, very conducive infiltration. So, um, they're really, um, able to absorb all the stormwater, uh, that the additive pervious services are, are regenerating. So, as I said, with this system in place, we're actually, um, preventing stormwater from entering rice road. We're going to have a little bit of discharge just from the bottom parts of these drives. And then just in this grassed area, and that's it. Everything else is captured on the site and retained. Um, we did receive some peer review comments. Um, we're adjusting some things. I would categorize, uh, categorize these comments as, uh, requiring relatively minor changes. We're not looking at any wholesale, uh, design changes. We do need to gather some more information. They asked for some additional test pits over for, uh, this basin over here. We had one just outside and they'd like us to put two within the basin. Um, so we're going to provide that. Um, and then we'll have the system completely compliant. The other thing that Sean mentioned was the septic system and the septic system consists of, uh, some large septic tanks and a grease trap, uh, that'll capture all the sewage from these buildings located in this area and then flow to a pump station and then discharge to these two septic fields here. Uh, and again, these are test pits in that area were witnessed by the board of health or the health agent. Um, we've designed this system per title five. We'll be using a presby system, which is a state of the art, uh, field system, which really provides some enhanced treatment. Uh, we received comments from the health department. We've generally made all the revisions and, uh, to respond to those. We haven't handed those in yet. I expect to do so in the next couple of days. Uh, but again, all the comments have been resolved. No major changes to the, uh, the design and we'll have a fully compliant system. Um, and I think that kind of sums up the stormwater and Seward would be happy to expand on anything anybody needs to do. Uh, I think it might be beneficial to have, um, MDM, uh, talk a little bit about the traffic study as well. Good evening, uh, Dan Dumay, senior project manager with MDM. Oh, Dan Dumay. Yep, Dan. So we went out and did a traffic and parking, uh, memorandum on this, on this project. Uh, we, what we basically focused on was the site driveways, the existing drivers. There's one here, the existing driving center, and then there's one currently out to Turkey Hill Road. So we did daily traffic counts over 24 hour period, um, to quantify the number of trips going up in and out of this church, uh, on a weekday or Tuesday. And then we looked at the peak conditions on a Sunday. Uh, and basically what I said is during the commuter periods during the week, very low traffic generally, about 30 vehicles or less. Can you talk about the date we did these was in July. So everybody, so, but as a church, we did reach out to the church and we asked them what the occupancy of the church from normal operations. And they said that they're operating between two and 300 commissioners were there during the Sunday that we counted. So that's typical for a 370 seat church. Uh, what we did is we used industry standard data from ITE, um, to look at trip generation for the expansion based on the number of seats. So we have the existing counts. We projected off based on ITE as well as empirical, whatever the most conservative was. And we use that to look at the driveways in the future. How far into the future did you look at them? We used existing plus the sites. We could find out the impact of this thing with it fully built. What year did we know? It's 2025. So what year? We didn't design year. So we did, we did the existing counts and we added the additional traffic to the church to it. I'm sorry, I'm confused. Normally when we do a traffic study, if your current conditions and you look at at least five years, this build out will take much longer than five years. So I'm trying to understand. So we looked at the existing volumes on Rice Road and the volumes of the church and everything is operating out there. It's a very low volume roadway and the church is operating at very well level of service, level of service A, out of A, B, C, D, E, F. It's A, very minimal delay. It's less than 10 seconds per car exiting the driveways onto Rice Road in July. In July. In July. In July. So what we can do is we could, we could project that we could go through the effort and spend the client's money to go seven, 10 years out wherever we want to do with a growth rate for this area, which is typically around a half to 1% per year. And we could add, then add the traffic to it, but it's not going to show any material change in impact from this project. So we didn't go through all that effort because we're showing that everything works in level of service A. The church is a nominal generator during the peak commuter hours. And what happens at this church is in the Sunday morning, between seven and nine in the morning, all the parishioners come in. There's about 50 people that come in for the existing church over that one hour period. And then they go to the different services and everything. And after around noontime, they start to leave. And they leave over an extended period of time. There's about 50 vehicles over the hour leaving. I don't want to belabor this and you can answer it later. But the projection is to go from 300 parishioners to 570. Correct. So we used what we counted and we prorated it up using industry standard data and empirical and picked the higher of the generator and added that to the existing traffic. So we did increase it up to the 570 seat church. Thank you. Dan, could you speak to, sorry, Jonathan Silverstein. I'm the applicant's council. The point's been made a couple of times that your account was taken during the summer when school wasn't in session, in your professional opinion, based upon the times that the church generates traffic. Does that impact any of your conversion? What about weather?
Guys, questions? Questions are for athletes. So in general, the church generates a traffic on a weekend, specifically on a Sunday, which is the lowest, one of the lower generators of the entire week. So we would expect that there would be a lot less seasonal variation between like a June, July. When schools are in session, it doesn't matter for this thing. So typically on a normal world, rice road during the week. If you went out there, this is a generator that's going to generate all this traffic, seven to nine, four to six, and everybody's commuting to and from work. We would expect the summer would be lower than normal conditions. We would bump it up to an average condition. But as this is a weekend on a Sunday, you can go on vacations, people are off of work, few aren't working anyway. So we would expect that the traffic, there's probably no material difference between the July and most other months. Typically, the winter months are the lower of any generator, but we would expect the point of reference in the summer and the traffic is considerably lower than it is for the rest of the year. So if it's a real concern, the board, we could go out and during the next week or two, we could collect an ATR volume on a Sunday on rice road and compare it and provide that data to the board. If that's something that that you want. We did get the peer review from chapel. We're currently going through and addressing we believe we can address all of their comments and hopefully we can work with them on any other issues they may have. If they want to really have us look at a seven year out, we could provide that data, but we don't feel it's going to provide any material change. We'll let them see. You can hope they're here tonight or not. Is there anyone else from the team who wants to speak?
Again, Jonathan Silverstein, I don't know if the board wants me to speak to the two letters I submitted. I'd be happy to, so. We'll respond to those sitting here, so maybe we should wait for those and do that later and have our peer reviewers speak, and then the public, and then we can talk about those. Thank you.
This seems like the best place to stand. I can see everybody. Everybody can see me right here, correct? Good evening. My name is Bert Corey. I'm a registered civil engineer. We did the peer review, worked at BGT, formerly school fair burgers, so a lot of experience in this. We wrote the peer review letter. We were basing it on the regulations and reviewing for the plans and the supporting documents. That document is on the website, so if anybody wants to go through the full detail of that, it's there for you to look at. As Sean mentioned, they're going to respond back to that peer review letter, and there'll be responses for each and every item that's on there. That'll also be posted, so we'll be able to go with the whole detail. I think, you know, just to go over the high level though, we had an opportunity of doing a site walk, and as we were walking on the existing site, one thing that came to mind is, how are we judging the bulk, the size, the scale of this building? And we were having a little bit of a hard time finding our way around the woods, the wooded area. Sean was helping us out with some of that though. And one of the things that came up in discussion, and it's in the peer review letter, is to show us some type of a framework of the size of this building, and we were suggesting that possibly some type of a balloon set to be hung up into the air that would represent the height of these towers. So at least from from our standpoint, we can stand back and we can see where these towers are going to be reflected as a balloon. Now that's a balloon, that's not a tower, but it's probably the closest that we can come to it. We know that the pine trees that are there are relatively high, probably about the same height as these towers, but I think at least by representing the building towers as well as the church building itself, which some type of a balloon system would be very helpful for one of the planning board, but also for the abutters to get an idea of where this building is on the site and the size of it, the scale of it. So we're suggesting that in our review letter. It seems to be something that I think would be very important to the planning board in making their decision. As we're walking around the site, obviously we're trying to locate ourselves and see where things were, what's being proposed as they relate to the existing conditions. It was suggested, and it's also in the peer-reviewed letter that, you know, if some stakes could be put into the ground that would represent corners of the building or a center line of the emergency access road, we'd have a better idea of where things are on that site. So moving on, we also know that we have some new entrances. The three entrances that are there are going to be reconfigured. As part of that work,
we were thinking about the the scenic road being Rice Ab is the scenic road. There needs to be some type of a filing if there's going to be any trees that are removed within the right of way. It appears that that's going to be the case based on the site plans. So that's another formal filing that would have to be submitted. Let's see, moving on to some of the site review items. There's some cleanups and coordination that needs to be done on the site plan, between the site plans, the architectural plans. I don't want to go into any of the detail on that. The stormwater system is a well-designed stormwater system. There's sandy soils on the site, as the engineer mentioned. Those soils are really amenable to infiltration. The low groundwater table or the lack of those groundwater table that was there, it helps out with that cost. So one thing that can happen is a lot of the stormwater that's generated from this site, which has a lot of impervious cover, it can be put back into the ground relatively easy under those situations. There is some pre-treatment issues that need to be addressed so that the water that does go into the infiltration is somewhat clean before it goes in there, because the situation is we don't want to have any type of clogging that occurs in the infiltration system. One of the one of the suggestions in my review letter was that, you know, maybe do a stress test on the infiltration galley. Let's just assume that the maintenance is not up to stuff and some of that, some of the the grit, some of the some of the solids get into the infiltration galley, start to clog the pores of that to prevent some of the infiltration, it'll slow it down. What happens to that water at that time? In this particular case, it's a it's essentially a standalone system. It's been designed so that as the water comes up on the 100-year storm event, it remains within the infiltration galley. As a stress test, the engineer can possibly run it at a slower infiltration rate to show that this water will come up, where does it go? Right now the the overflow is at the catch basins that are at the the driveway entrances. So the water would overflow at that point and then into Rice Road. But that's that's under a scenario up there with poor maintenance. So give me a second here while I just scan through my notes. The the Board of Health plan that was mentioned, we're not reviewing the Board of Health. We do know that under the regulations for a septic system of that size, it requires a hydrogeologic study. Essentially, it's uh it's to look at the mound that occurs underneath the septic system. When you put a lot of water into the septic system, there's essentially a bell curve that it's created underneath. Of course it's really good sandy soils here, so you know we don't know what that's going to look like, but that grounding study would would be able to show that. The proximity of the septic system though in relation to the stormwater system, we don't know if there's going to be any uh not interferences, but any interaction between those two types of systems. So with the Board of Health requiring a hydrologic study, hydrogeologic study, it was also suggested that maybe take a look at, you know, what kind of a mound could form underneath the the stormwater system to see if there is some type of an interaction. Again, sandy soil, you know, it's whether it's it's going to be an issue or not. Why not uh why not take a look at that though? Um, fairly fairly fairly uh a lot of impervious uh cover on this particular site uh and those are the the the two really concentrated areas of putting water back into the ground. Uh there's also uh when we when there's talk about uh phasing the construction whether it's uh building a b or c a b in the church, b i think is a community building and c is the diocese center. Um the regulations talk a lot about uh or require a lot of uh input on erosion and sediment controls during construction. One of the things that we'll be looking for is essentially a construction management plan that looks at those phases and how that site would be uh maintained and operated during construction so that exposed soils uh don't just get you know flushed out into the rice road into the into the the drainage systems. So there's there's going to be a lot more information that comes up with that information for the uh for the erosion and sediment control. I mean um not something that uh you know it's is taken lightly though uh because you know part of the stormwater management uh through Massachusetts as well as the local regulations is is to maintain the systems over a long period of time so that we don't run into into issues with erosion and sediment control. There are some other smaller items uh water supply that was you know there was something where it is there's a water main that's in rice road we want to make sure that there's there's enough water to supply those buildings for fire suppression um so the the applicant will be looking at that lighting right now it's hard to say what's going on there is a lighting study in there that that represents how the the process of what the the applicant is looking at ultimately there'll be a photometric plan we believe that would show foot candles uh throughout the site uh but that also yeah that would be for the uh the weapons too uh looking at the uh the chapter 194 regulations again going back to a lot of renovation controls and the controls that would be in place during construction this happens to be a uh it's it's greater than an acre of disturbance so it will require a filing with uh with nifty i mean i'm sorry not nifty with the uh notice of intent for the epa uh and a swift will have to be generated or a stormwater pollution prevention plan which really details all of the construction measures that would be put in place during construction when there's a lot more exposed soils and that that's a requirement i mean i think i think that covers most of mine from a from a high level again i don't really want to get into a lot of the details it is posted and there will be a response probably within a week or so anything i missed well thank you
and is that something that's dealing with you uh that's yes um can you identify yourself and give you a review yep um kirsten brown traffic peer reviewer with chapel engineering associates um i appreciate uh the board allowing me to be remote tonight we have um a sick kid and uh an illness lingering around our household so i didn't want to uh impose that uh any of those extra germs to the board or any of the residents so i do appreciate the accommodation for being on zoom tonight um we did provide a uh full review of the traffic memorandum that was supplied by mdm uh we did have um some outstanding comments i'll walk through some of the critical comments now uh we generally uh we review the traffic studies uh with regard to compliance with uh state guidelines and standard traffic engineering practices um so i'll just walk through some of the the more critical outstanding comments um we did notice in the study uh there was a lot of mention of just phase one of the project i understand that the church is going to be expanded and that is what um mdm analyzed however there are several additional ancillary facilities uh that's going to be joining the site including the youth center um expanded sunday school senior housing i believe in a diocese center uh so we did we did suggest that the applicant uh review impacts associated with traffic with those other phases of the development um and then uh per some of my later comments i just would like to point out too that the the traffic engineer for the project um looked at the intersections as noted um the existing site driveway intersections with rice road um that was kind of the bulk of the traffic analyses uh depending on some of the responses from some of my um more recommendations or concerns with the trip generation of the site we do recommend potentially expanding the study area to include some of the critical intersections within the study area which may include rice road at old connecticut path to the north or even further south rice road at mainstone road uh depending on some of the findings of the trip generation which i'll discuss uh shortly uh i it was discussed that the the traffic counts were conducted during uh june and july uh after school area schools were um on summer break typically as traffic engineers we kind of if we can we will wait to collect traffic data until school area schools are back in session um given the the increased facilities on site including the youth center and and um the potential residences and um just the the extra uses on site including the soccer field things of that nature uh we do suggest that the applicant look into how traffic uh will be impacted on rice road uh when area schools are in session i know that they had used a mass dot permanent count station but that night might not be representative of the traffic conditions during the school year uh particularly on rice road where it's very residential um it was also noted that a site distance study was completed as part of the assessment um i know that the site is going to be regraded the site driveways are going to be slightly relocated with the addition of the site driveway um on the north side of the site the egress only driveway so we did recommend that a site line plan and profile profile meaning that it'll show the vertical nature of the roadway to ensure that site distances can be met um the minimum requirements to ensure that they can be met in safe operation um can be expected so we did request that to be completed as part of the the next submittal uh we also noted that a crash analysis wasn't prepared as part of the the traffic study um we asked that a crash analysis be prepared um particularly along the section of rice road and potentially at those additional intersections um that i noted previously which may be included uh depending on any changes to the trip generation of the site um we did have a bit of um comments associated with the trip generation that was completed as part of the study as noted by the applicant empirical data was collected um and on the site i believe on a tuesday thursday and sunday um because i think there's a summer camp that goes on out there surprisingly actually showed that the thursday data was higher than the tuesday data which was what was used empirically um so we asked the applicant look into that uh they also noted that they looked at it trip generation data um for the expanded church and and sort of picked a conservative method to estimate trips for the site um there was a little bit of confusion in the uh the data that was provided so we asked for um a little bit more explanation in the data uh i know it was mentioned um by mdm just prior to me speaking that um they confirmed that on the day that the traffic data was collected that the site was operating operating normally with uh 200 to 300 parishioners uh that was one of the comments we had in the study actually was to confirm that um nothing was going on perhaps that week they did only collect one sample size of data for that sunday um it is summer perhaps people are on vacation maybe it wasn't representative of a of a typical service um so we asked that the applicant confirm that uh they could alternatively uh potentially collect the data also on an additional uh weekday and sunday too to confirm their their estimates that were used in the study um we noted that they used a previous edition of the trip generation manual i compared to the most up-to-date dish edition which is the 12th edition and it doesn't result in any changes based on the ite estimates but i just wanted to make note of that um again there was a few more comments on confusion with the tables that were provided there were some bar charts that showed the peak periods of traffic so we asked for some more clarification um moving on we did discuss just previously uh the question was raised why a full traffic study wasn't prepared for the site um based on the whalen site plan review and approval requirements a traffic study is required um so i i recommend that the town determine if if they would like to see a full analysis here it sounds like uh construction of the site may be well into the future so it could certainly be warranted um depending on what else is going on within the study area um one thing another additional thing that the applicant looked into was um parking on site based on current operating conditions so that's the the size of the church now um it was noted that actually the uh the peak parking demand on a sunday was 109 parking spaces i think that the site now only accommodates 85 parking spaces um so they are over capacity at this at this time and that also lends me to think about the future when um this the church is going to be in operation while construction is taking place um assuming there's a portion of the parking areas is closed for construction how will they accommodate uh parking demand on site while the construction is going on um and again also to confirm that that you know the site was operating at at at or near normal capacity to confirm that the the parking data that was collected is valid um similar to the trip generation data that i that i just uh noted um it was also noted that then when they empirically look at the data that under future conditions 173 parking spaces would be required for that additional church space um i and 191 parking spaces are are proposed on site um i just want to note too that there are increased ancillary facilities on site that don't exist today expanded facilities whether it be the the classroom the the residences again um it is likely that more parking than that would be required then for the expanded facilities so we ask that the applicant take a look into that to confirm that there is actually going to be enough parking on site especially when all these other uses are in play as well um just going quickly uh the app we did note that if parking is exceeded that they would find either off-site parking locations or they would stack uh provide stack parking it's not indicated where the stack parking would be located on site or where the remote off-site parking would be located if the parking demand is exceeded um so we did request some more detail on that uh just just because based on our preliminary investigations parking could be tight under future conditions as it is today um there were a bunch of comments on um or recommendations made by mdm on um and on things that should show up on the site plan that didn't show up on the site plan um including some additional signage on the one way uh right turn only egress on the north side of the site and then some pavement markings to sort of reiterate that turn and turn restriction so we did ask that that also be included on the site plan um just quickly scrolling here to make sure i include everything um we also noticed that there was an auto turn analysis for the fire department um we obviously uh always recommend that you know the proponent coordinate with the with the fire department regarding accessibility to all sides of each building and um to all places on site that they might need to be uh we didn't see an uh an auto turn analysis for delivery vehicles on site so we recommended uh the applicant provide an auto turn analysis of the largest delivery vehicle expected on site um jumping a little towards the the site plan review i know i've mentioned some comments already um there was a discrepancy in the number of parking spaces um i believe the the site plan noted 190 parking spaces the traffic study said 191 um when i counted this parking spaces on the site plan i came out with 188 so it seems like a few different numbers so if we could clarify uh the correct number of parking spaces especially since parking could potentially be tight on site under future conditions um moving on um under future conditions it seems like the parking areas are kind of uh under future conditions assuming full build out of the site with all phases um it may be beneficial to include wayfinding signage um it seems like certain parking areas are best designated for certain areas on site um wayfinding signage since the entrance to the site is sort of narrow uh may help vehicles decide whether they're going to go left or right upon entering the site and to keep from um clogging up that entryway um and then i think that was it um again just the parking is over capacity today how will that be managed in the future under um construction conditions and also at full build out of the site but those are sort of the high level um you know larger comments within the traffic review um i can elaborate on anything that uh the board may have questions on thank you very much um i think what we'll do now is move on to public comment because it is um quarter of seven and we have a hard stop and i don't want to recruit people from talking but we will have at least another hearing um i'd like to um jane slummer i believe asked permission to speak so and then jane slummer i'd like our attorney to speak if that's okay as long as he introduces himself yes good evening madam chair members of the board my name is dennis torfi i'm an attorney from hill law in boston i represent the management boards of the turkey hill village anybody here from turkey hill also the management board of the fields anybody from the fields um and i wanted to just say a few preliminary things uh so first i appreciate i go to a lot of night meetings and i appreciate the receptiveness and the thoughtful feedback that the team has given after just one round of comments so uh this is on the right track in terms of the iterative process that we have to engage in uh under the dover amendment uh so kudos to the design team and the applicant for being receptive to what the board has suggested its peer reviewers and all of these folks behind me um one thing that i would ask uh i do a lot of cell towers so i'm familiar with the balloon test if we're going to do that could you please publish the date so those balloons don't last very long and if we could just publish the date so people know to go and look at the balloon when it's up in the sky um the gas easement that i think has been discussed and there's been some uh correspondence about there's actually um turkey hill village is a one way in and that gas easement is also an easement in favor of that village to provide alternative access so it's not as easy i will submit something um i may be confusing something with the fire road but i'll submit something once we have our title done uh so that you have that in writing i also would would suggest that the board um consult your own town council on issues related to dover uh attorney silverstein who i know very well is uh extremely knowledgeable about these things but his memo cited just one case about an rv camp there are actually two other cases directly on point one involving lasalle college and one involving regis college right over here where they tried to do housing under the dover amendment i'm happy to submit something but you're going to want to take the advice of your own town council on legal matters um yeah the last uh couple of points um in your regulations you're empowered to consider harmony and scale and i know that's the tough one those are the sort of subjective standards and i i appreciate uh the peer reviewer suggesting um on i wasn't at the site visit but i read his report the idea of superimposing the proposed buildings over the uh existing conditions plan which i think may help give a sense of that uh also i appreciate that there's been uh very generous replacement but there are still 770 trees to be removed um and uh i'm very grateful on behalf of the folks whose uh properties will be shielded by the landscaping uh for those additional trees um but we're talking about phasing and one of the things um is that if if you could preserve the trees in each phase until you go to the next phase rather than hire every yahoo with a chainsaw to come in and just level the place because it feels much less like a construction zone if you're doing it in phases and you're only taking down what what you need when you need so with that i'll sit down and thank you for the opportunity to address
uh i'm sylvia deas from one brandywine turkey bill um and um really annette and the board thank you very much i'm not here to reiterate the issues because you know them not just from us but from a lot of other people the meadows and the fields and all that but um i am after hearing the presentation i'm a little concerned because i see there's a lack of openness openness and transparency in the information imparted to us which really doesn't breed trust and the plan and on you guys and we should be neighborly and breed the trust for example now they never submitted they never indicated when the lights really would be out like we we had hopeful for nine o'clock the traffic report other than the biggest flaws in july is the fact that their after summer programs increase for the school for those school children and especially now that they're going to have the soccer the indoor basketball or whatever so that should be taken into consideration during the non-summer because those programs you'll you'll increase them and it's going to affect the traffic um and then the rice road i'm glad to see that from 10 initial trees that you're going to have more to it yeah have to have buffered um but why do you have to even cut them just cut the ones that really just needed to open the roads you don't have to cut all of them but anyhow what i really wanted to say was that i find this um plant selfish and disrespectful uh selfish because i feel they're hiding under the dover amendment to include things that i have no religious purpose so like the senior housing for the members only the the basketball door an indoor basketball court uh apartment for visiting dignitaries we have fine hotels around here a soccer field and quite a few of things that i haven't mentioned for brevity's sake uh disrespectful because i feel that they have not considered the impact it will have on the neighbors the road and the ecosystem ours and whalen's community charm really will be destroyed they want the church by choice to be seen from rice road but by choice our communities were asked not to be seen and we're very well hidden to maintain that charm and so that's what i'd like to do and so you know we recognize that they have the right to expand and we and we uh recognize that but we prefer it be done in a neighborly and respectful manner thank you um gretchen schuler please stay here yes if you can uh question schuler 1260 connecticut path um i'm halfway down from rice road towards uh five paths um i am extremely familiar with the site i was a member of the church of the holy spirit and came in and out of that driveway many times over 25 or 30 years and um it's dicey it's dicey coming in and out and so it will be uh an issue and i realized it's going to be the landscape etc um i i'm very sorry about the um comments about the highlighting the church i think the church this is these um are going to offer the church so you don't look at it that doesn't seem um the way that we would want to be part of a neighborhood let's be part of a neighborhood and let's um think about not so much the architecture in this sense but i think the architecture is very important um but all the uh the impact on the neighbors i'd like to say that this land was part of the hamlin farm and all of the land around was part of the hamlin farm and the family has continually tried to preserve as they um gave given the um land up for the condominiums all the condominiums had to have conservation buffers in perpetuity the land directly across the street from your property is all in perpetuity conservation um i chaired the committee in this town uh helped the um uh the family um preserve 200 acres and that is all in conservation as well long rice road on old connecticut path and that's the the general feel of what they have tried to do for uh 150 years on their property that they've owned um on the property and i think it's really important that we continue that type of um conservation and uh sensitivity to our landscape um and to the road of scenic growth they're not going to widen that road we've been worked very hard to keep our scenic roads 20 feet but they are i know it's not enough for for lots of traffic but the way it is thank you thank you
uh so what that's the one person online arlene chase oh no no no that's good again oh okay go to online arlene could you please identify yourself arlene chase from turkey hill village um i have a question on uh managing stormwater um drainage so are there provisions for capturing water running off the buildings and although i understand this your your study showed that there's soil is sandy there are going to be large areas now that are paved rather than covered with trees and trees help manage stormwater runoff um is is that all going to work how is that going to work
like you can answer that quickly yes uh yes and there there will be capture of the uh the roof runoff particularly in the interior courtyard um and then other portions of view of the roof uh will shut off to the parking lots and captured by those systems um the second question was the pavement so the whole basis of the stormwater study is looking at the site as is today and looking at the site when all the impervious areas are added so we take those comparisons and figure out how much stormwater is being generated and then design the system to take care of that thank you thank you thank you these that we've chosen are you driving piles or is this some kind of maybe that construction or have you even started to explore with the foundation
i can say that we have not uh gotten into that yet we're uh merely uh looking to gain um site approval but you can be sure that uh when we do work with our engineers they will choose um the right system for that so they'll analyze the soils and and um design the right system for that uh yeah yeah your name is i'm sorry i couldn't hear you am russ thank you i brandy one i take exception to two of the comments that the first speaker made i counted at least eight times you said excuse me excuse me i counted at least eight times you reference community well community be clear is your client the church there are multiple communities here turkey hill village we consider ourselves a community and i didn't hear any acknowledgement on your part of any community other than your client secondly you made a point i agree you talked about how there are multiple churches with big towers frequently they're sort of a i don't remember the term you use but they're sort of a very open public ground surrounding them but then you repeatedly talked about how this church is being nestled in the rustic area well that basically about you you know sort of the next part you're arguing you're not comparing apples to apples thank you yeah
if people people wanting uh comments and questions we'll stop and we only have like a few minutes left so my phone died and i'm trying to read something sometimes okay anybody else again i i i this is richard golden from 303 dalia drive i this is mostly a question for the church um seems like as i'm listening today your ambition for what you want to be is the thing that is impacting the neighborhood if this was an old church you wanted to break down you want to build a new one up but i heard that this is now a diocesan center and does a diocesan if you can correct me is this the diocesan center diocesan center for the coptic church and is that with its majestic plans no disrespect to the engineers and the architects we're trying to do something for you to to make this diocesan center but all the diocesan centers don't sit on a country road in a small town
the last public comment for this evening you can submit your comments in writing uh we will schedule our next public hearing so make this quick i'll make it quick because i did want to speak and the state union oh kathy steinberg and i hope play um to the initial comments because i i think they they go both ways as i've heard here and it's also speaking to the the enormous effort this community and investment has made in the preservation of this property and i think emily dickinson said it best some keep the sabbath going to church i keep it staying at home with a bubbling for a fire and an orchard for a dome some keep the sabbath in supplies i just wear my wings i instead of telling the tolling the bell for church our little sexton sings so i'm asking you to respect and honor the place where i worship all those trails all that nature all that ecosystem because that is my community and amongst us here are a lot of parishionists so i think not to be a competing interest but to be um something to be considered as we try and work with thank you so let me ask you can you stop applauding
we can do one of the two things we can try and determine when to have a continuation of this hearing going forward now or i'm talking to the council or we can um recess this we have another uh public forum that we had planned way before this project came up um and then we could get back to this afterward tonight tonight do you have any sense how long the other forum what do you think of this power of times i would think yeah yeah i mean my sense unless you unless the board wants to have a discussion with me about my two letters tonight i feel like we've heard from the peer reviewers we need to respond to the peer reviewers um we've had public comment willing to come back my senses we we could probably break here without losing too much time unless you feel that the board feels different the only thing that i'm mostly concerned about is you wanted to talk about your comments we have comments coming back to you on your comments um and we can't really discuss them if we end the hearing so um if it could be possible for you to do to do something for a short time and then come back um then we could recess this um and then get to those things because there are a number of things that we've seen in the plans um that weren't picked up by anybody else and we want to discuss those with you yeah so would that be okay excuse me hold on a second greatly if we're going to see yep if we're going to suspend for an hour you all have the option of watching the adu forum uh not suspending the meeting but suspending this discussion you can leave and go home and join on the zoom because then you can watch and participate or you can stay and watch the adu forum and then participate you can go sit elsewhere in the building and then participate but you can go home and join on the zoom if you'd like to observe the discussion that takes place afterwards or participate further but if you can if you're leaving if you can move out quickly so that we can move on to our other business that would be great and i'm going to take a moment Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
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Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And that includes, for example, size limitations, setbacks, and parking. Okay. So consistent with the Affordable Homes Act, the express purpose of the ADU-related statutory and regulatory changes is to encourage production of ADUs with a goal of increasing the production of housing. The regulations speak of the need to balance municipal interests and regulating the use and construction of ADUs while empowering property owners to add much-needed housing stuff. Highly significant, I think, is the fact that the legislature added ADUs to Chapter 40A, Section 3, which is, we'll do this here, recognizing this protected use along with educational, religious, and agricultural uses as included among the Dover Amendment protected uses entitled to statutory protection from local zoning requirements. Section 3 of the Zoning Act expressly provides that a town's zoning bylaw cannot prohibit unreasonably regulate or require a special permit or other discretionary zoning approval for the use of land or structures for a single ADU. Okay. So inclusion of ADUs in Section 3 is a protected use, subjected to only reasonable regulations means that the town cannot impose its rules on ADUs if doing so would nullify the use or excessively burden the use without appreciably advancing legitimate zoning. That's the background. Tonight, we're basically going to have three panels. On our first panel, Robert Hull, town planner, and Robin Borgestedt of the Planning Board will take us through the key provisions of the new state law, the regulations promulgated by the Executive Office of Living and Livable Communities, and applicable way of bylaws and processes, okay? For example, dimensions, setbacks, fire safety, septic, and conservation, especially relevant, obviously, to applicants who may be considering or exploring the ADU option, whether as a means to age in place, to house family members, care attendants, or as a source of income, new income, rental income. The panelists will accept Q&As after the session, after each panel will have Q&As, but we are asking that you not personalize the question, keep them in a way that they would allow, you know, be applicable to others. If there are personal or private questions, you should be taking them up, and they're going to indicate that they're willing to talk to anyone, to Robert Hull's capacity as a town planner or to the building commissioner. The second panel will also feature Robin and Robin, and they'll be assisted by the building commissioner, I believe, Malpensky, in responding to questions. They will describe siting and construction processes, range and a variety of ADU administrative steps necessary in seeking and obtaining permits and licenses for proceeding with the creation of different types of models of ADUs. We'll offer some insights about the challenges in construction and site preparation. Unfortunately, the director of public health, Julia Youngen, is unable to join us because of illness, but she has provided us with some key information to share with you, and you know, Medla Desuarez of the Housing Partnership will share Julia's thoughts as well as her own on the third panel, which will focus on septic rules, capacity issues, and concerns, specific ADUs, as well as, hopefully, some possibly economically feasible alternatives to traditional septic systems. Thanks for your interest, and let's begin. Yes. You're welcome. I'm sorry. I have some issues. I'll speak slowly. I'm going to go on for attending this essay dwelling unit public forum. I'm just going to go through a quick summary of what the law is and where we're at today. So what does it mean to you? It's a secondary residential unit. It can exist inside the unit. It can be detached, attached to a garage, and also attached to an existing secondary house that we have today, or it can be a detached building, a tiny house, a granny flat, or on top of a garage. So these are some examples. You can see a detached on the left, attached in the middle, and then material up on the level. It could be in a, potentially, a store. It could be in an attic, potentially, if everything's functioning correctly. It could also be in a barnaby. It could also be in a basement. It could be in front of a garage. There's so many different options. I don't know the options. So section three, we've done the building act, and it's once now. That's a protected use. The Affordable Housing Act, Home Act, is a use, too, as a by-right use that's allowed as accessory to a 6-7 family use. These protected uses are allowed in section three, and they're subject to regional regulations on the municipal level. EDU, section seven, described it as a self-contained housing unit, including a sleeping, cooking, and standardized facility, and the same law as a principal dwelling, subject to otherwise applicable and dimensional parking requirements. Need a separate entrance, can be larger than half, no greater than half the gross floor area of the house, or 900 square feet. So 900 square feet is the maximum that you could have. And it's subject to general regulations, so we can allow for a maximum of short-term rental. So in the town of Wayland, we do not allow anyone to rent an ADU less than 30 days at a time.
Actually, it's a little, it's a little dense, but just talked about how we can't require a special permit for the first ADU. Can't, can't be on our, can't, you can't require an on-on-on-off line, so we cannot say, you know, you can have, you can, you have this ADU, but you have to, you need to live it. You can, this ADU, the ADU by-law allows you to rent out to anybody you want. And then it talks a lot about parking within a half a mile of transit, which we do not have. And it also just, the state talks about how they're going to provide guidance and regulations. So the law came in effect in August 6th, 2024, section 7th, and then section 8th came in place on February 2nd, 2025. The overall change to that town meeting that the planning board made in connection to the state law, the town did not want to fall behind and have the state law be the government power, the town wanted to align those provisions. So we changed the definition of ADU. We amended the regulations to allow for a building grant review by the building department. I amended to allow that the plan board may grant more than one ADU by special permit beyond what's protected use. We aligned with the 900 square feet requirement, added a provision to allow that the ADU cannot be rented less than 30 days at a time, which then provides this, or here to say, ADA at KRP or any other kind of short-term rentals. We reviewed and matched the state five requirements, matched the parking requirements, and included requirements for affordable assessing and dwelling units, which we'll discuss at a different date. It's a little hard to see, but these are the requirements for setbacks. We're the, the, the single family mental district in the roadside business, which is another zoning district. We have to, we allow ADU by right, because we, it's a, single family use is allowed by right, by special permit in that only district. And they can answer any kind of questions or discussion, but I don't know, I want to save some of the information for the second panel. Well, the setbacks. Yeah. There is a table at the end of our zoning bylaw that is dimensional requirements, and you can look at that table. It's, I think it's available online. You can look at that table and you can see for each zoning district, if you're in a 20,000 square foot zone, 40,000, 60,000. Um, what the minimum setback is, what the minimum lot area is. And if you're going to put an ADU on that lot, you have to comply with all of those requirements. So you will have, if you have one building and then you're going to add a second building, they all have to mesh. It's also important to note that when you're talking about ADUs, uh, it is by right, but if you, if you still have a non-conforming lot, you still have to go through it. It's just allowing that if you have a conforming lot that you can have ADUs by right, but you would have to go for a special permit for the addition, which is in this town is, is not a, it's not a stop, but it's just another step in the process. And by non-conforming lot, he means a lot that doesn't meet these requirements. For the, for the set, for the, uh, for the main building. The main building and the main lot. Yeah. Particularly the lot coverage. You know, if you're restricted to 20% of the lot coverage, if you're going to put an addition on, you know, on the side of your house, you may be very easily going over that 20%, um, or getting too close to your lot line. Yeah. So that's really just an overview. I mean, uh, some people have seen this, um, we, this is very similar to what we prepared for our town meeting, but it was just kind of a, a, a frustration to remember what we're at today and what changes were made in a town meeting. Because we had only a few months to kind of reflect and, and to react to state law if we're in place. And the town did not want to be put in a position where we have a, a file that's out of date and state law is the one that is, governs the requirements. We want to make sure that it's very easy. And so when we read the file, they're reading exactly what state law plus the addition for a special permit for a, uh, additional. So we do allow one ADU as the city law requires, but we also allow a special permit for a ADU if it's detached as a second one. And that, that's something that was part of the, uh, regional law that we picked up. We have not seen that yet. So it's still looking for the first, uh, candidate for that project. And that's by permit? That's by special permit. Yep. How many ADUs are there? I don't know. It's, it's hard to go back to look at it. Are there any questions on the first section so far? Oh yeah. Okay. Okay. If it's a separate building, you wouldn't need a separate separate building. Potentially. Uh, that's, that's, each property is different. So you could have, you could expand it. If you have, if you prefer a new one, it, each property is different. That's the problem. We can't really, like, it's up to you to figure out how to design that yourself. And the board of health is more than ready to work with people on that. You may have, you may be eliminating a bedroom in the main part of the house. And that gives you the capacity, but you may be adding a bathroom. So then you're dropping back. So it's a, it's a balancing act with the board of health and title five. So it's very individualized per site. And so that's something you really have to come in and meet with the people at the board of health and talk about. All right. So we move on. You just add that if you are someone who likes to get into the weeds and read the state regulations, they have a very nice sort of Q and A about septic systems for ADUs. A lot of questions that have already come up that can be anticipated. Might be of interest. All right. Move on to the next one. Sure. Let's meet you. Yes. I'll stop there. Oh, I'll stop my screen. Yeah. I don't think you know this. Nate, you want to unmute and join the conversation. Good evening. Good evening. You want to run through your checklist that the building department has? Introducing it. Yes. So this is, you want to introduce yourself. Nathan Molczynski. I'm building commissioner for the town of Wayland building department. So do you want to run through your checklist and explain what's on there and why? I'm sorry. Say again. You want to run through your checklist and explain what's on there and why? On my checklist? Yes. I don't know if I have that checklist. I can pull it up. Yep. I don't have it available. No. Okay. I'm pulling it. I'm pulling it up. Do you want to just talk about the process for obtaining building permits for ADUs? So, so far we've, we receive applications online for ADUs and we've permitted like eight ADUs to date. They all have been detached. None of them have been a in, in home dwelling ADU as of so far. We did have one person that was inquiring about doing that, but they did not go through with the whole process. So what we look at when you're doing an ADU is as Robert just went through the checklist and we're, uh, the, uh, the, uh, what zoning you're in, what, uh, your, your setbacks for your zoning. Uh, if you have, uh, uh, capabilities for septic, uh, for your, um, ADU. adu sometimes uh if you don't have enough septic that your existing septic will have to be enlarged or a separate septic system if possible can be added um you have to have a curb cut for the um for the dwelling to have a you have to have a parking spot designated for the adu and um uh and then uh 900 square feet is a maximum and i know there have been some previously we discussed that were permitted previously but um right now like i said we're at like eight units um so the departments uh that you have to go through is the health um fire have to have all fire capabilities for smoke and co detectors um conservation commission if applicable uh public works for the curb cut and um uh then we need a complete set of plans uh for foundation storm water management um uh and um it all does apply to the stretch energy code uh and then a homeowner can pull permit as if they'd like but we recommend that people hire a contractor to be responsible for putting an ad together and uh doing all the work uh and that person would have to have a csl hic workers comp and liability insurance and uh we uh had one little hiccup with one so far um and it was uh in town and uh actually it's changed of contractors and we just went through that process last week but so far it's been smooth sailing for adus and um it's uh it's been an effective tool we look forward to seeing some more uh adus in the future um and uh it's uh it's it's a good i think it's a good idea that the state has implemented this uh adu format um robert do you have anything to add no i would i also add that we it's all online now so you can apply from open gov you make a login you just submit all your documents then all the different departments that are linked in would see it so don't even go through it our department would go through they review it they can see yeah we can see electronically so this plan you can everything is online now for this application so it makes a little bit easier so if someone wants to to go in and see what all the applications are that they have to where do they go you can go to open you can go to the open gov and you can actually search where do you find open gov uh it's a it's a website it's on it's on our town website also the building department it's only handed out to people thank you so the the information sheet that we're talking about i think it's being handed out tonight but also it's available at the building department you can swing by and pick up a copy um and it kind of spells out gives you a checklist so it's um and if people have questions nate they can come in and talk to you correct absolutely we're that we're available almost every day um appointments are preferred sometimes because we do have a lot of other inspections and um things going on but um we'll make time for everyone and we can discuss things over email or in person okay and um we were hoping to have somebody from the tax office the assessor's office here tonight uh they were not available to be here but their overarching theme they wanted to express to everybody is that putting an adu whether it's affordable or not is going to increase your property tax values um and that's something you should be prepared for and that was that was all they had to say about that
and the range from building according to building the range is about 200 000 to 600 000 bucks to printing to you so the range is really wide for free standing or yes yes 200 yeah i would have thought it would be more than that depends on what how big it is and and what you're you're expecting and what your site prep costs are if you have a septic that can handle that and you have a site that's easy to prep and you have a prefab adu then maybe you can get the cost down that low that seems a little low but this is the range yeah yeah the site preparation costs are pretty high so i don't know what was the 200 thousand hour range but my guess is probably closer to 400 600 000 yeah it depends on what kind of material is inside inside the adu too but we'll just get the range from excuse me going forward yeah oh yeah all right any questions on that part of the presentation is it required that there be separate utilities to the adu such as water gas light brick heating oil no no there's no requirement so you sit the ones that have given meters they can do that okay and uh i don't understand correctly that a separate curb cut is required even if it's in addition to an existing building no you need to have a curb cut or at least the main building it's already there and then you need to be able to have a parking spot for the adu um you mentioned that there were uh eight new adus for this year i'm curious what how many they were last year in other words but how effective is this probably new from it nate do you know that how many there were last year yes um well it didn't it would be it would be zero to the adu no there were there were none last year just this year since the beginning of the last year they acquired a special client so the threshold was much harder to get one now by right you're just all building right by right only up to 900 square feet but people are now just maxing out and getting the 900 square feet and it's not to say there aren't people in town who have what you might call a granny flat but it didn't get permitted as a an adu uh wasn't available to be rented out it was you know a secret apartment inside about yeah sometimes there are um those kinds of apartments that have gotten approval um and other ones have been built without approval and i do not believe that the ones without approval are grandfathered um all right okay yeah hi good evening i'm kristen hichard i'm the director of the regional housing services office um many of you probably know liz russ but i'm the new director and we're transitioning this year um i just wanted to add um just a quick comment i know there was a question about any tax incentives there is a new state law that is starting to gain some traction that's called the affordable housing property tax exemption it's something that needs to be locally adopted at town meeting um and then regulations could be created by the select board but there is an opportunity um for tax exemptions um if properties are deed restricted so that may be something that you want to talk about at your next session um but there is some opportunity there to provide some relief to property owners that are possibly building adus and interested in um restricting them at a lower rate not i apologize not deed restricting but actually um offering them to eligible um renters that are income eligible so it doesn't have to be deed restricted would that be eligible for that um subsidized housing list or not that would only be eligible for the subsidized housing list if it were a deed restricted and in compliance with the lip program the local initiative can you send that citation to robert yeah thank you that what salem did salem did a overall petition yes they did okay i think robert and i have that from the chap i'm reading here um all right moving on okay um we also wanted to talk a little bit about septic rules capacity and the options for adus unfortunately um julia our health director um is out sick this evening but she very kindly um put a lot of work into preparing um some background information that i'd like to share on her her behalf um she says once again so sorry can't be there tonight i actually put a lot of time into my personal knowledge studying adus and title five so she's put this together to try to share with us some things that she thinks we'd be most interested in but she starts out by saying please do keep in mind that each property where an adu may be proposed is going to be very different with different floor plans different type different age of septic systems different land area size there are also potentially sensitive environmental factors conservation requirements as well as potential attention to nitrogen loading if you're in a um overlay uh groundwater overlay zone so each application will still need to be reviewed on a case-by-case basis and won't have a simple answer there is no really one size fits all for applicants so to start off um she wanted to share some basic background information about herself and darren um to assure you all that they have a lot of experience and knowledge in the area of title five or massachusetts septic system law and they are here to help julia and darren have been working in local health for a combined 50 years they have a lot of experience working with the state environmental code title five and our local regulations as well as doing installation inspections review of plans and helping people to navigate the review process for both large and small projects they hold a number of title five certifications and special licenses participate in regular trainings which is not necessarily the case in every town so our health department is really a resource for us here in wayland just as a reminder the board of health is a regulatory authority so the charge of the health department is agents of the board is to regulate and enforce state and local regulations so julia says to prepare ourselves for adu applications they have been discussing adus at several board of health meetings at staff meetings in the land use department meetings and they've also had a meeting with town council they have also attended some trainings with the mass dep the department of environmental protection as recently as last week conference where there was a refresher update provided on adus to reinforce understanding she says it's a lot to digest and the state handouts are very lengthy hard for most people to grasp unless you're already familiar with title five after the recent meeting with the town council they decided to pull together a general guidance document to help help people to get started in this process so that is going to be worked on in the next few weeks unfortunately they're not going to be able to provide a document that actually outlines specific scenarios for edus um because requests in general are just too complex and as mentioned would be property specific you have to get into the details of each individual site um also as mentioned earlier there you know there are going to be different floor plans different types and ages of septic systems and that is kind of a crucial area i'll talk a little more about um land area and the potentially sensitive environmental factors and conservation requirements have to be considered as well as we mentioned nitrogen loading there are regulations around nitrogen loading and there are also requirements in some cases for mitigation measures so therefore each application will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis and as such if any variances are identified in the review process process the applicant would still need to go before the board of health even though um you may initiate the process as of right on a positive note um she says we both the staff in the health department and the board board of health determined early on that they really want to be open-minded and flexible in areas where they're able regarding adu applicant reviews they have already been reviewing applications as nate mentioned and have been working successfully with residents and applicants and contractors and thus far have not encountered any major roadblocks to projects but once again it is a case-by-case basis so they recommend that anyone interested in doing an adu should initially hire an engineer or a sanitarian to review their septic design to determine in general if it can be done they are available um the board of health and in the health department to assist by answering questions by telephone via email you can schedule personal meetings they also suggest checking with land use departments um to look at projects that might be more complex she says we do have some tools in our toolbox um that have been outlined on our meeting agenda tonight um there are um i think robin touched briefly um there are ways to for example eliminate a bedroom turn it into an office in a house so that you can have a bedroom um in an adu and maintain the septic capacity for the existing number of bedrooms so the way that bedrooms are determined um robert you can probably cite chapter and verse uh better than i can but uh there are requirements yes for closets and um how those bedrooms are counted um is fairly objective but all of that would be something that you would go over um every applicant would go over with the board of health and they will also consider innovative innovative and alternative technologies when they are allowable if they're state approved um and if needed um would be willing to consult with the massachusetts um dep the department of environmental protection um or the board of health um julia and darren are happy to answer questions that you may have um email is great the department email um if you want to send some questions uh with more personal details um to her the email address is help at wayland.ma.us so as she mentioned um in the state regulations um there are some innovative alternative septic systems that are allowable in the state of massachusetts if they meet um with local site approval so you would have to go um through the plan um with the board of health to ascertain whether or not some of these systems um could be utilized but there um there is as i mentioned um available information um on the state website under um auxiliary dwelling units under adus about septic systems and there are a lot of questions and answers that go into a lot of detail about things like nitrogen reducing alternative systems um there have been questions about whether or not for example um gray water systems could be implemented to reduce the load on existing septic systems um in most cases um that is probably not going to work but it doesn't mean that if you are building a new um adu with its own septic system that it could not be built with a gray water system and then the design would take that that different loading into account um there are also some requirements under this title five that are triggered if you do um begin an adu process so um i know from personal experience there are some of the um more elderly homes in the town of wayland that might have septic systems that predate um something even the 1970s regulations and for example if you have um a septic pit or a cesspool that does not conform to title five and you would need to um be looking at investing in upgrading the entire system to accommodate the existing building with an adu there are also requirements um that if you have an adu you would need to have a double tank or a separate tank kind of a system um there are some workarounds again i mean it would have to be based on an inspection of your tank the system that you're proposing that there are these t valves that um there are some workarounds that are possible so i think the the big message on the septic is that um it appears to have been a significant barrier um in the past um the state law does allow for alternative systems which could be gray water systems could also be things like composting toilets um but you would have to go through a um plan specific approval process to see if that would work for your site for your site and the um the boards obviously the planning board and the uh health department are very much um here to help robert you have anything to ask no i think it's case by case that you get a lot of questions about like what they do by subject and you know it's case by case of here can you can you can you contact with the habit can you get rid of a bedroom and you're putting a bedroom and put this as a unit so it's ask the questions it takes time to talk to the staff to figure out before you actually invest a whole lot of money inventory right are there any questions yeah kathleen um can you remember what the link is for the um the site that has all that septic information is it a mass.gov oh oh the one yeah it's from the mass department of environmental can you speak louder so that they can be a word of the title five and guidance on q a so it's it's under it's under mass dep department of environmental protection that's where you can find the title five um information for adus specifically there's also a website about adus on the livable community uh department of housing and livable communities webpage and if you just google adu or accessory dwelling unit in massachusetts it'll come up as i have all the stats so there was a um a state asked for a request for a survey of all the different communities and how many adus so there's the the number of adus that were allowed that were um granted by the town and by last september so each year so you can actually you so you can actually look at all the stats so you see how many how many did by by two months ago how how many did it you can get how many did uh that way permit you can see all the stats there's an whole interactive map and a whole spreadsheet how many withdrawn how many applied for how many approved so there's a lot they did a lot of uh number gathering to figure that out that information is required under the statute you're correct yes and we we did provide a stats to them so okay on to your question yes i put in a septic system a few years ago and at that point in time the contractor suggested that i add more space to it than i needed just in case and i'm just thinking that for the planning board or anybody else maybe not for you know existing things but when people put in a new system you encourage them to add a little more maybe one more room or whatever as my memory bank said it was very cheap to add an extra let's say the extra bedroom even though i didn't need it and that'd be in one way thinking ahead if we want to encourage adus in the future to make sure that when someone comes in and wants to put a new septic system in that we encourage them to say not a three bedroom make it a four bedroom even though that's all you've got because who knows in the future and that would be one way for the town to be encouraging future development in that area exactly anybody else hi uh with mallet um i know the um subject requirements have a lot to do with bedrooms and how many you have and how many you can eliminate and so forth uh and i looked on the wayland zoning uh definitions and there wasn't actually a definition of a bedroom um in the in the code so it's the board of health yeah it's not part of the zoning it's part of the board of health title five regulations okay and they're the ones that define if it has a closet in it it's a bedroom and you and the board of health's overarching theme in the comments they sent us to relate is that come talk to them because every single site is so completely unique that it's just come talk to them just like go talk to nate go talk to the people over the board of health they're happy to discuss your system as it exists and what your needs will be and kind of how how big of a problem you're looking at so any other questions no do you have any closing remarks no just the only thing i want to say is i know the um robert could have noticed the other day about the closing production plan is up for renewal or this is beginning here um but i think it's important to note that the prior housing production plan 2022 to 2027 the changes in the statute and the affordable home home act and as it's reflected here in terms of changes in the bylaw by wayland are very consistent with our closing production plan goals the state mandate requiring town and municipalities to recognize protected use
basically facilitates the housing production goals removes the discretionary special permit barrier by streamlining the process by creating diverse and low impact housing to adus creating adus within existing homes basement garage conversions or small detached structures that are accessory to the main home and diversifies the housing stock stock and keeps it low impact and doesn't change the nature of the neighborhoods if it's you're in their own home and you're in your own your own yard by simplifying and making more predictable the process by creating smaller potentially more affordable adus homeowners are assisted in creating space that's more responsive to their needs one of the things that had come out of the housing protection plan goals was the surveys for the people wanting more about how to deal with seniors healthy aging in place one of their needs but about young people needing to get started in life and having these exorbitant housing costs adus there are opportunities here to create um to think this through um and then we're not even talking about yet we will be on december 2nd the idea of the affordable adus in terms of being restricted to help us maintain the 10 percent required for the um the housing inventory and keeping us below the 10 percent and the 40 being comprehensive i just want to add that every adu that is added if it's not an affordable unit it's an additional housing unit and that counts against the 10 percent so you will be increasing the number of housing units that we have to match with affordable units especially if you don't come to that by working toward creating affordable be respected adus for income eligible i will say a couple of people welcome to have concerns and that practice we have before we're in the wayland or to another town that also was way behind way ahead of the game and we a few years ago we allowed it by right before the state law came in place and there were people concerned oh if you pass it tell me the next day you're going to have a line at a door next year we had one yeah so it's it's time it's money it's space i desire so it's an option it's a it's another option of toolbox to use but it doesn't mean that everybody is going to say this is this is my answer so but something seems to be working with the state law um you know i mean if nate has already had eight approved this year i'm i'm wondering um you know some of you who served on planning board for or served in the town for some time and nate you know your experience in the building department what what do you think have been the constraints what are the reasons that they weren't using just just going around going on a board it's more time it's more short of it's more time go to public hearing it just can you serve it's just uncertainly like they invested the money i think you're denied so it's like but now you buy right you you because it's a requirement you check it's a cool so i mean that's just that's the really short answer mad green mr sterling um i wanted to bring up something that's come up uh in the past wayland has um um a number of buildings residents that are larger than average in the same massachusetts and i've actually had people mention to me that but here's an example they have a 5 000 square foot house and they wanted to subdivided in half so that their young children and their families could move into the other half their own independent entrance their own driveway and so forth and this bylaw for some reason absolutely 900 and i'm thinking maybe that's not appropriate for later where we have larger buildings right if they want to subdivided in half and i think we should make it possible yeah so going back to the last time meeting we only had a few months to react to this project process and if we let the plan board as we call we call we're talking about having a special program to allow it bigger however the issue was if we match the state law the vote was 50 percent at town meeting if we add all this extra flexibility it goes to two or third percent two out of three uh super majority vote at town meeting and based on town council's opinion it was better for us just to do the easiest thing comply to the state law and then come back to it at a late day yeah that was a last town meeting yeah so we hope in the next right so the next town meeting we do hope to put in a special process a special permit process for larger adus those will still be by special permit i i think that's all right i think as long as you make it possible right that's our intention for the people it was more of a strategy how are we make sure that we're going to make sure it passed yeah exactly so yeah thank you so everybody if you come back we have a december 2nd one more comment uh mostly uh must an adu be owned by the owner of the principal residence you know i could imagine that uh it might want to be financed separately it might uh you know if there are multiple family members involved this uh you know should the principal owner no longer be around there and there be multiple children uh is there any way to uh accommodate anything else would be condominiumizing correct so it does have to have one owner because otherwise what you're talking about is a condominium if there are separate owners on one piece of property so multi-family if you're in that so and i know either my view we differ on this um i don't think that's determined yet i think this is going to be a result in the courts and i do think that um look you know we're looking ahead at that one but certainly neither the adu nor the home primary the principal dwelling need to be owner occupied that we know um but your question is different and it does raise a question that i don't believe has been resolved and the attorney general opinions are addressing it in their in their context of approving different states and they're raising questions so
the way it's look the way it's written now it has to be one property owner um and anything else you are welcome to condominiumize your property and turn it into separate ownership but for right now the way the law is written it does have to be one property owner it has to be one lot and one property owner you can have multiple property owners um of one lot like so you and your child can own the lot together okay but if it's going to be they own that part and i own this part then you're condominiumizing oh cindy oliver online we have a comment online cindy oliver okay quickly though because we have to get back to our other meeting okay i understand you have to get back i have a very short and concise comment on all of this um thank you all for your time and your interest in this can i assume you can hear me um with respect to the comment around i have a large space and can i can i split it if i'm not mistaken one of the driving factors there are safety driven zoning guidelines in terms of what you can do structurally and it might be prudent to share that information with respect to what constitutes an in-structure adu versus say in-law apartment the historical laws uh uh pertaining to which etc um i think you know bottom line is the state state mandate here dictates that this is something that should move forward i think it's a good idea i think the people just need to be better informed and i think it's a good opportunity for the town to produce some some guidelines in terms of in-house external space setbacks etc all of that and to maybe put together some sort of guideline chart those guidelines already exist and and the distinction between it being that might maybe a few some of these these questions that come up throughout these meetings and make things move along more quickly and i thank you nate and everybody else who's participated in this and uh thank you for people here who are listening those distinctions are really irrelevant whether it's attached or not attached for most purposes those aren't really relevant what you really just need to do if you have questions is go and talk to nate um and talk to the board of health and they'll set you on your on your path to freedom and uh that's it i think we're all done for tonight thank you thank you thank you you i'm going up on his question is a special permitting or additional space going to be available before the town meeting or after the only after time get it passed
all right thanks for coming
here's Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
I was hoping that we would hear from counsel for the developer, for the church. He submitted two memos to the planning board and he wanted to address them. That would be just fine. Wonderful. Thank you, Madam Chair. Again, for the record, Jonathan Silverstein and counsel for the applicant. The first letter I submitted was in response to a couple questions that came up during the initial public hearing session. The board asked me to provide further explanation of our position regarding the proposed studios and one-bedroom apartments in Building B, and our position as to why that qualifies for use under both the Town Zone and the Dover Amendment. I have to take their position and mine. Essentially, it's this. The church has been in Gloucester, Worcester, extremely early, impacting the church. The church has done its best over the years to get this issue. As to these members, as you can imagine, it's very difficult on a Sunday morning to go all over to these various communities to get people and bring them to church and then bring them home of these units. The church is not going to make money on these, going to lose money. The only reason we're looking to build these modest units is to provide a player community for the years of the church, expensive to find housing nearby. It's unsustainable to have to get rides from all these disparate communities to attend church service.
So the reason for these to include these units in the community center, I would submit that under the broadly defined protections of the Dover Amendment, that this, I would submit, should not be sort of context of the project as a whole. It's within the overall purpose of the project purpose. And I cited to the most recent pronouncement of the SJC, which I think supports our position. Since this is intended to have attendance, these units are going to be created and maintained by the church.
The religious services suggested case. I actually cite that case in my letter, in addition to the Hume-Link case. The college case said, which is much less clear, the instant case, luxury apartments were going to be essentially sold to seniors. Obligation of those seniors to have any affiliation. Here are modest apartments that will be owned and operated by the church, within a church building, not on a separate luxury residential development across the street. But even in that case, back to the land court, with this, a finer effect could conclude the proposal will primarily serve educational purposes. Even on that record, there was enough to send it back to the land court to make that determination. But the determination was never made. Because they dropped the project. But the SJC acknowledged that even based on that record, a finer effect could. And this record is much... Actually, this record is not clear. And I think we need to answer some questions for us. And we have spoken with our town council. So how are the tenants selected? You have, right now, 300 parishioners. You probably have 570, which is the number you've given us. How do you pick the 24? So it will be based on need. So mostly, probably, likely based on distance of travel, right, and need. So inability to drive, inability to attend services, because of distance. It's going to be restricted to church parishioners. There'll be a sign-up sheet. There'll be a sign-up sheet, right. And, you know... Is there no lottery within that? Perhaps a lottery, but we prioritize based on need, right, because we have more demand than we have... I understand that. You have told us that on the site, and that's why I'm asking the question. Right. So that being a method of prioritizing, it might be based on need.
I think you'll have to be a little more specific on what you mean, because to match any of those tests, you have to know what you're doing and why, what the religious significance of living in one of those units is, and how that furthers the overall religious obligations or precepts of the church. So to reiterate, those units are going to be rented to people who are unable to attend mass regularly because of their, where they live, their inability to drive, and their inability to find housing locally. And it's... And that these units are going to be made available to those parishioners for the explicit purpose of allowing them to live on site and attend church without, so that they don't have to, or find someone to give them a ride. And I should say that these people already attend these services and use the church, some chunk service that we provide to bring them to church. And is there only 24? Are there currently only 24? I don't know what the number is precisely. I think, yes, I believe it's 22. No, no, the chair is asking if there are only 24 people who need this. No, I think there are probably going to be more. Probably more than that. We can build more units if you want. I mean, we can't solve every problem, but the fact that we can't accommodate every parishioner doesn't, doesn't in any way support the notion that this isn't for the purpose of helping them attend church. I guess I'm not clear on how that's a fair or relevant inquiry. Well, if, for example, I don't know what your age qualifications are. We don't have any criteria in all of the cases that deal with Dover and within kinds of things. There are criteria that you have to meet in order to satisfy the Dover and then what the I mean, respectfully, that's not true. There's no criteria stated. The question is, is it, is the driving purpose to support the religious use of the property? And we are telling you, and there's no basis to suggest otherwise, unlike in Regis College, where it was clearly intended as a moneymaker for the college, here we have modest apartments above the Sunday school to let elderly parishioners attend mass. We don't have any criteria for what is elderly. We don't have any information on what the rates are going to be for rent in relationship to market rates. Can you tell me how that supports religious, the determination of whether this is religious? Yes, because if you're dealing with units that are market rate, then it becomes, in my mind, it may become just housing. There are many people who can live off campus in different facilities. I don't, we're not comfortable yet with your analysis. It's very shallow, quite frankly. It doesn't, it's not in depth enough for us to make any informed decision on why, because somebody wants to come to church on Sunday, they should be living on campus and we should be allowing that. We don't, under our bylaw, we don't prohibit apartments. We are not prohibiting them. You could work with our housing authority and you could create multi-family housing. You could create individual housing. It's allowed. And religious uses are allowed. So what the Dover Amendment, I believe, speaks to is we may not make any kind of regulation that prohibits these things, and we are not prohibiting them. So I need to understand, or we all need to understand, what it is about these particular units that gets us over a hump that makes it alright for you to call it part of your church. Well, I guess I'm confused. If it's not prohibited under the bylaw... Then we'd be happy to deal with it not under the Dover Amendment application. We would be happy to deal with it under a separate application. An application for what? An application for multi-family housing. Which is what? A special permit, a site plan approval? It's probably a special permit, but it's not, we don't think it's Dover. It's Dover. Well... That's where we are now, I think. That's where we are, as the board discussed this. We're not going to discuss it right now. That's why we're all here. So I guess what I'll say is, rates that are going to be charged, the units, how the people who are going to, how we're going to choose from among the parishioners who want to live here. To me, frankly, far beyond the board's purview as to those things. And you said it's a shallow analysis, but the case law says that if the purpose is to help with attendance and of religious services and operational, lowering operational burdens on the church, which this clearly does, because right now we're trying to organize shuttles to disparate communities so that members of the church can come and attend service. The age of the members, you know, what constitutes senior housing. Again, I don't see how that has any bearing on the determination. It's a matter of, is someone unable to attend church because of their personal circumstances? So maybe I can explain it a little bit better. I understand what Annette is getting at. So let's say you have a parishioner who lives in Gloucester, and the barrier to attending services is the length of the drive, but your units are going to be market rate price. Well, there's plenty of market rate housing in Natick, let's say. Lots of apartments that are available in Natick, and perhaps they could live in Natick, which is a lot closer than Gloucester. So if there's, if these are market rate apartments, but there are similar market rate apartments available in a neighboring town or nearby, then that makes the religious purpose void. They could live much closer where it's very easy for them to get to services. So if someone doesn't drive, they can't drive from Natick any more than they could drive to Gloucester. And respectfully, a dormitory, a college is a dormitory regardless of what the dormitory charges, the college charges. But the case law deals with that specifically, and the educational uses it does. I think there's the Tufts case, there's Radcliffe case. And it says nothing about what's being charged. It doesn't have to because of the context. It needs to have residential facilities in order to run the college. I believe that's what the case to say. Do you need to have residential? That's not the test. Well, it's not the test. We may disagree about that. Yes, we may. But the other piece is if these people don't drive at all, living on Rice Road in Wayland is going to be an incredible hardship. There is nothing available. Respectfully, that is we've been answering a lot of questions respectfully that are far outside the purview of Dover. And it's not the board's decision of whether this is a good idea or a bad idea, whether these people will be happier or safer or more fulfilled when they live together on the church community, or if they live in native and have to take an Uber to the services. That's not the test. That's not the test. It's not the test of whether you need a tower at all. The SJC would... What are you talking about the tower? No, I'm using it. You're missing my point. The SJC specifically said it is impermissible to inquire as to whether anything is necessary. That's not the test. The test is whether it is legitimately in furtherance of the religious purpose. And if the board's going to decide that people who are unable to attend without being shuttled from disparate towns isn't in furtherance of the religious purpose, then I guess it's going to do that and we'll have to litigate it. I don't know why you would do that, but it's your decision. I would note and request that the church itself suggestion that that's not a religious purpose. At a minimum site plan should be granted for that so that at least we're not held up while we litigate. I'll open it up to the rest of the board and then I'd like to continue with the line. Does anybody have any questions? So the folks that will be living in the housing, are they moving there? Yes. Yeah. That's their permanent home? Yes. Well, this is kind of going all over the place, but one thing I thought of, would there be a criteria of how often this person would have to go to church? Or if they end up just kind of living there for whatever reason, do they still qualify as someone? Who is part of the parish? I mean, I think it's very different from saying someone who has no, no connection chooses to buy a luxury. Is there going? I could just finish. I'm trying not to interrupt anyone else. You buy at Regis College, a luxury condo actually matriculating. That's relevant. These are people who are only moving here. I mean, would you tell your story about your mother? So, hi. My name is Mariette. Can you have your phone name and your address, please? Sure. My name is Mariette Barsoum, and I live at Threema Cumberland in Framingham. I am part of the church, and my mother and my father are 76 years old. My mother does not drive. She, at that age in her life that she wants to be close to God and she wants to attend every single service. I work full-time, and I don't have time to bring her to church for a Bible study or anything like that. And on Sundays, the day that I don't show up and I tell her mom, we're going to church, can't even tell you how her day, the whole week, is just miserable. So, if you ask me if I have the option to have the church in, absolutely. This woman will be in heaven. And also, I want you to understand and realize the culture and the religion aspect of the Catholic Church. Our seniors, and I would say our seniors start at the age of 65 and above, they live and breathe Christian and Jesus. For them, after that age, they brought you up. They brought you who you are and successful. It is now their turn to come closer to God. So, for them not to be able to attend any of the masses and beg their kids to take them to church is beyond. I wish one day when I am older that I don't have to beg my kids to take to church. But the reality is we also have families, have work, I have schedules, and I can't take them to church. So, when I'm hearing you guys say what's the criteria, well, it is somebody who wants to be there to be able to attend Bible study, to be able to have. One thing too, I can't even tell you. The joy in my seniors to just be around people who are together and just like listen to a sermon together or discuss something with the Bible. This is their lot. They have nothing else. They're tired. They're very well-to-do people and they had life. But right now we're, they just need to spend a little time. And suppose your parents wouldn't be allowed, wouldn't qualify. Suppose they wouldn't be one of the 24. So, listen, we believe that there are people that are in need more than others. I personally, somebody will talk about Gloucester, that she has no children. She has nobody. Just imagine that if you live in Matic and you have to drive all the way up to Gloucester and then bring them back and then bring that. That's a whole long day. Not for us as me as a young woman. It's for them. It is very, very tiring. We're talking about people with diseases, diabetes. We're talking about people with blood pressures. We're talking about all of that stuff like that. And what you guys are not realizing is like them alone versus being around in the community. It really does change the psychology of them. Doctors will tell you all the time, just having them with each other. It changes their level of, I don't know how to say it, but it's like their life becomes better. So, if these people have infirmities and need some kind of extra care, are you going to have people on staff? No. We're not looking for that, right? No. But I think what we're trying, what Marit is trying to say is that it is an incredible hardship, right? That I don't think the world actually understands for these people to let them rest. It's a mere impossibility for them to be able to do it on a regular basis. And if it's something they need, if it's something that they want, and it's the service that we provide today. It's not a hypothetical service that we're going to provide, maybe perhaps in conclusion. It's something we do today. And we've been doing it for four years, five years, right? We have a shuttle. We own a van, okay? We've owned it for six or seven years now. We go and pick these people up. We have to have volunteers do this, right? It's a long day. It starts at like five in the morning, goes up to like six at night. This is a service that is required. It's an incredible hardship that we're enduring today. But now I don't think that's what we're getting at. So I think the question, like I think there was a question about, you know... Requirements. Requirements, right? But honestly, do you really think somebody is going to live in a Coptic Christian community, on Rice Road, be coupled from everything, where they don't have a car? Because this is what you want to do. It's just, it's not a, it's not a realistic scenario, right? That I have somebody who is going to go there because it's just fun to be in this community that they don't want to be in. It doesn't make sense. And I wanted you to hear from Mary, because there's this undercurrent that we're trying to pull one over and that, you know, oh, you know, you're not going to even make, people are going to move there, they're not even going to bother going to church. It has nothing to do with it. And I want you to hear how insulting that is to people who are just trying to do something good for people in their church. This isn't, we're, we're not charging market rates. We're not, we're not going to charge the same as someone who goes to, you know, the new senior apartment facility on, on, in Sudbury. Like, this is people who want to move to the church property so they can go to the church. That's what this is. It's really simple. At least I'm missing something. It's really simple, right? It's not a matter of preventing this. It's a matter of how it wants to be classified. Is that right? We're not saying, oh, you can't build these things. So, well, then I guess I wonder what the, what the point of this interrogation is. Well, if they did have very clear requirements, you know, can't drive, needs to attend mass, they had a list of things, and what difference would that make? Because if you look at the other case law, there were criteria that you had to have. I'll send you the links to all the cases if you want to read them. Right. And was this something our legal team discussed, or you, on your own? No, we discussed it with our legal team. Yeah. Well, Madam Chair, just forgive me. It is not the boards to tell you what criteria to look at. It is the church and the clergy to say this person is in need versus this person is not in need. And it's a little bit different. Look, I just want you to realize something. You're looking at it as individually. When you come into the Coptic community and you come into the spiritual people, it's a little bit different. So, forgive me. I just have to say that it's not. I hear you. And I'm not a lawyer. But just as a passion, I don't think it's the boards to tell me whether this person or this person is. Forgive me, Madam Chair. What I think she's trying to do is indicate what would be helpful to have it fit within the legal confines of... I heard a decisive statement that the board has determined this is not a... No. No. That is not the case. No. I heard you say we don't think. So, I don't know. We didn't hold the board because we can't hold the board, which is why I wanted to continue this hearing so that the board could weigh in. Moving on... With your permission... Can I just say that even within... Oh, Deacon George of Galilee from the church, even within the church itself, we can't divulge information on people's health condition, whether their family life, even among the clergy. So, it's almost part of the confessional. Right. We're not asking for that. So, for us to give you criteria that this person must be a certain age, this person must be attending a certain time, that starts to move into... Fine. So, we're not talking about senior housing. No. We're just talking about housing. Right? Okay. I mean, I'm just really trying to clarify what it is that we're talking about. So, this is senior housing. It is for people who regularly attend the church. Right? It is not for arbitrary people. So, these are for regular senior attendees of the church. Right? Now, they can be living in Gloucester, they can be living in Worcester, they can be living in Matic. Every situation is a little bit different. They have to be prioritized because we probably have more need than available units. Right? So, we're not looking to build 50 units. We're trying to keep it at 25, which is that we can really be able to provide the service we have today. I'd just like to move on a bit. The second part of your memo dealt with the soccer field, which personally, just speaking for myself, I don't have a problem with. I think it fits under Dover. But just so that you know, in reading the bylaw, you didn't look at the definition of recreation. And recreation is a town recreational use. That's the last piece, the last clause separated by a comma. I did look at that definition. And it seems to me, or other town uses. It doesn't seem to modify. Town does not modify the preceding. Well, then we just agree, because that's not how I get it. I guess it's moved. Yeah. And I just to be honest. I did look at it. Also, in your write-ups, I just want to be clear. I think we are going under a religious use, right? You seem to step over to educational. The use is both educational and religious. It's a non-profit educational corporation. They teach Sunday school. They teach. Can you present, just give us that background, the corporate documentation. I wasn't able to find it online. Sure. What? All I could find was the IRS certification for charitable organization. And the tax, gift tax is different, I think, for a church and an educational institution. So, that would be helpful. The graphic is different for zoning and tax purposes. But I'm happy to address that. Thank you. I mean, honestly, I don't see how it matters, because all of these uses are in furtherance of both missions. But if you're questioning the legitimacy of the classrooms, is that the reason? No. I just want to understand if you're applying as a religious organization or as a religious and an educational corporation. It will just help in a decision in writing it. And with regard to the, we appreciate the information that you've provided. It's very helpful. I do think that it is relevant. Because it's the same thing as, do you have the right to be in front of us? Do you own the property? It's a property right. So, I don't think that the Dover Amendment prohibits asking that question. And we appreciate the answer. There are in your plans. Do you want to mention about the plans? Yeah, I do. I just want to give them the number of your plans. Sure. There's a few plans in the plans where it says building A, B, and C, and it's rotated differently. It's on multiple ones. You had one up here tonight. And the one you had up here tonight was, I think, your land sinking plan. And maybe it was your traffic plan. You had two in different places. It was mislabeled. And there are many of them in your application that are mislabeled and it becomes very confusing. Thank you. You're welcome. I'll send it up to the board and then I have a bunch of other questions. I have some questions from back during the time of the presentation. I have a call. Mr. Kearns, you have noted that you were offering a balanced commitment from the church leaders. What is the balance that this commitment represents? The balanced commitment that I think the church is supporting is, as I mentioned in my notes, both this authentic reference to the historical, cultural, and religious references, like they inform the design, and make this an authentic place of worship. And that is balanced with a site consideration that moves the church to the middle of the site rather than at the street, that positions the towers away from Turkey Joe, that buries some of the building in the hillside, that goes above and beyond with regard to landscape screening, that reorchestrates the curb cuts to kind of minimize disruption. So while there is a kind of reference to architectural custom that informs its design, I believe that the church leaders have been open to a balance of response to the community, the context, and the opportunities to sacrifice. So I just think that's the balance I've seen in our work together over the years where there's been this kind of creative openness to using the opportunities in this site to make this as pleasing and as sympathetic a proposal as it can be. And as I mentioned, as I mentioned, I think also in terms of balance, with regard to churches in the region and its site position and its buffer, it's probably about as understated as many churches that we can imagine. Typically, typically, New England churches stand in the foreground are lit, you know, these white structures with up to 180, 200 foot towers, right, on some kind of major green space. We are in the middle of the site, and we've created a lot of investment and energy in kind of buffering and softening the views. And we have, I think, I think in terms of balance, it's just such a great question to be like, keep going, I'll try to be very brief in this place. But just the lighting alone, when you look at New England churches and the existing conditions with regard to writing, they are really illuminated, many of them. I'm not saying all, many of them, very illuminated. We have, our leaders have said, no lights on three sides of this tower, on these towers, right? No lights on most of the facades except the one that faces Bryce Rugger. There's very few churches in New England that would agree to that. So I just think in terms of this balance, while there is architectural precedent that guides us in terms of creating something that's authentic, they certainly have been very open to all kinds of considerations, from my perspective, in terms of the kinds of projects we do. So I hope I'm not answering the question. That's the balance I think they found. My response to that is those other churches you referred to are generally, as you say, on the town green, in the town square, in the center of town, and not on a country road. Many of them are immersed or knitted into a community or a neighborhood. There's, yeah, there's hundreds. Most of, here in Whalen, they're mostly here in Whalen. So, in terms of the lighting, so there will be no lighting other than on the rice road faces of the buildings? Yeah. Yeah, that's... And that you're committing to it? Yeah, yeah. I mean, I would imagine there would be security lighting. Yeah, and that's why, yes. Thank you. So, there needs to be a general low level across the site for safety, right? And as was presented earlier, and that is also sensor-based, right? So, it's not on a light, right? It's on what needed. But in terms of lighting facades of buildings, it's new. And we have submitted a full lighting plan with a photometric study. So, then, during the presentation, I think it was John who mentioned that lighting would all be off one hour after services. What about other events when there are other types of events going on at the church? Because services are in the mornings, generally, from the schedule that's in the application. Then you don't need lights on at all. If there are events in the evening, social events or other types of events, will lights always go off one hour after those events? So, lights will always go off one hour at the end of the event? And that's all the lights? Services. That is correct. Okay. So, again, I think we really want to be very respectful of our neighbors. We have a great relationship with our neighbors. We want to be very respectful of them. We always put ourselves in the same situation. We don't want a light shining at my house, and I think it's the same thing. So, we're trying to be pretty competitive. So, we don't have services at night in general. There's, you know, things like, you know, Easter Mass and that sort of thing, right? But, in general, our services are doing today, you know, on, you know, on dates like this, we need to release lights after that for an hour, and then it gets going back. So, that's different, then. So, will there be lights on after dark, even when there's no event at the church? No. What we've said is that lights will be on one hour at the conclusion of the last service. Okay. So, particle of lights will be on motion center, so if somebody's walking, they will trigger on, they will stay on for 50 minutes, and they will turn on. Okay.
And then, a lot of my comments have to do with the traffic studies, so I think those are best addressed, really, to the traffic study folks. But, your traffic study did not extrapolate out to all 570 parishioners, is that correct? That is not correct. So, it did? It did. Okay. But, only for the Tuesday, July traffic? No. Your traffic study was based on numbers for a Tuesday and July. The Sunday. The Sunday and Sunday. But, our traffic study announced that they didn't actually use the Thursday data. Yeah, they said they did, but they chose the highest to be the most conservative. Okay. So, if you can just address the traffic for a moment, I just want to make sure the board understands the pattern of traffic at the site, right? So, our services are mostly Sundays. You know, people would trigger in around 9, and they would trigger out by 3. So, 9 to 3, that's where all the traffic is. Right. During the week, it's very minimal service. It's probably one-tenth of the attendance on Sunday. The dates we've picked to do the analysis that MDM did happens to be during summer camp during the summer, which is two weeks during the summer, which is much higher utilization of the church than normal, about five times the regular rate. So, on a Sunday, it's 100. On a regular weekday, it's about 10. On a summer camp, it's about 30. Just kind of in proportion, right, what the numbers are. So, the numbers they've picked are actually the absolute worst numbers you would actually see. I should also say that there was a bit of confusion about phases B and C of the project, right? So, phases B and C of the project actually don't add any more cars. It's exactly the same cars. We're not bringing in any more cars, right? It's the same people that are attending the church that are going to this Sunday school building versus the old Sunday school building, right? It's the youth that are in the church that are going to go to the basketball court. These are not many people coming up the street. These are exactly the same people moving from one to the other. So, the net impact of actually having the additional buildings, it actually probably spreads out the departure time over a long period. It should actually probably get a better traffic pattern, right, where you add the other buildings and other services for the reason that you have the same number of cars leaving over a slightly longer period of time. But again, that was a summer traffic study. And as it was pointed out, meaning Wayland's population drops dramatically in July and August when people go and leave for their summer homes. And it seems like your church attendance was lower than usual as well. But I'm also concerned in terms of the traffic study that where you moved the second exit, before that exit entered onto Turkey Hill Road, it released traffic onto Turkey Hill Road. Now it releases vehicles onto Rice Road and people can only turn right from there, which will make it nearly impossible when church is letting out for people on Turkey Hill Road to exit Turkey Hill Road, I fear. And that really wasn't addressed adequately, I think, in the traffic study, because changing that traffic pattern is definitely going to have an adverse effect when church is letting out for people who might want to leave Turkey Hill Road. And I would be interested in seeing that study, because I think that's a significant change and will make it much more difficult for the neighbors to exit from there. So let me just say, I mean, I'm not a traffic engineer, right? So let me just start. As a person who attends church every Sunday, right, there is not a Turkey Hill at the same time that I'm leaving the church. It doesn't mean that it doesn't happen. I think it's exceptionally unlikely. There's not a lot of traffic out of Turkey Hill to start with. And the traffic out of our church is fairly minimal because it's spread over multiple hours. It's not where a church where mass concludes at 10 o'clock and 200 cars try to leave the church between 10 o'clock and 10.15. That is not the pattern of use in our church. The pattern of use in our church is people linger for two or three hours for services, and they will leave over this two or three hour period of time. And you can actually see this in a traffic study, right? Because if you do the same thing for, let's say, a church where everybody leaves at exactly the same time, but it's not the pattern that we have. Right, but it's still a significant change because right now where the driveway is, the people coming out of the church have to yield absolutely to the traffic that's on Turkey Hill Road. And when you change that driveway, it's going to be the opposite because you're going to get onto Rice Road before Turkey Hill Road and really change that traffic pattern in a way that adversely affects. And so I'd like to see a study that considers how that would affect the neighborhood traffic if people can come out of there and, in effect, block people coming out of Turkey Hill Road. And if it were a significant number of cars, that's a big change for Rice Road. And so I would also say that the vast majority of the people attending the church today come from south, because they're like, right? I would say it's maybe 70% or at least maybe 70% or 80% coming onto the main entrance of the church versus the one on Turkey Hill. So the one on Turkey Hill today sees almost no traffic. And we feel that with this proposed change, we'll probably see even less traffic because it's a radical number of things. I'd still like to see it addressed in the traffic study.
Let's see. I had a question that I think has to be addressed to the engineers. Our engineer was discussing, oh, yeah, Bart was discussing the low water table. But I'm curious to what extent the low water table is attributed to the persistent drought that we've been having. And if that drought pattern changes, if that's going to be a significant change that should be considered. I can tell you just because I've done this enough times, they don't rely on where they actually hit the ground water. They look at what's called modeling in the soils to determine where the ground water table is.
Yeah, I understand. But we have been in a very persistent drought. And for example, there's water right across the road from the church, which is not present right now. But normally that area is all, it's wetland. So I'm curious if in some of the testing, if that would have an effect. I think that's just it for me. You mentioned some legal cases that were different than Regis they cited. Well, Regis wasn't a final decision. I know. But would you share the ones that were decided? I'll say a couple of them. I'll say a couple of them. All right. No, I'm excited. They want to see it. No, they know. They know. I'm excited. I'm excited to get to you. Oh, you did? Yeah. All right. Yeah. Oh, great. Oh, look. I read it earlier. You were like pushing camp. And then there's another one to your end in New Year's. All right. There's only a handful of cases. Yeah. Oh, great. Yeah. Is that a stat, a memo? Correct. Yeah. I sent it to you guys. But that was, it just a, there's no opinion based on it. It was just getting facts. It was just reciting. Just citing facts. Here's the case. Here's what the ruling was. Just to give a background. This was, this was done months ago when, you know, we're starting off and this had to do with senior housing and also the, the Belmont case with the height, just to kind of give the board a little bit of a, I digest a little bit of, here's a piece on that, that I'm not trying to worry about, but these are, these are the cases that I'm concerned. Yeah. I don't have this time. Thank you. Is Jesse still here? I don't think he is.
I found my notes on some of the plans that we dealt with on proposed lot coverage in your write-up, I believe it says 20%, and on plan C-200, excuse me, that's on plan C-200, it says 20%, and on page two of six in the DSK application, it says 18.03. So if you could just get all your numbers together and make sure that they're consistent, that would be very helpful for writing your decision. Thank you. We, I'm sorry, were we reiterating the allowable to be 20%? No, you were saying that was worth the coverage on this. At least that's how I read it. Okay. The building square footages and the footprint square footages on C-600 don't match the text of the application.
She was that? C-600.
Also on C-600, it seems to have the buildings mislabeled, and if you compare that with DR-02, DR-02, or compare DR-02 with L-401, you'll see that they're right next to each other in the sequence, and you'll see that they're different.
In regard to your photometric plan, we heard tonight that you don't have any final lighting plans, so how did you do a photometric plan? It was conceptually based to provide light safely across the site. It looked like, and the most recent one that you submitted, it wasn't really the photometric plan, but it was how far the light extended, and it's extending off of the site, which is not, I don't believe, permissible.
I'll check that, but I... Well, in the pictures, it looked like you had different colors. This is the one with the colors, right? Yes. The blue and the yellow. Yeah. And it looked like there was light leaving the site.
Also, the fact that the building was... I don't know if this is what you did say, but it's what I heard, that the building wasn't designed yet, who are still working on design. We have gone through conceptual design, yes. We have yet to enter schematic design phase. There will be additional subsequent design phases to produce more and more detail and definition. But the outside shell will not change, its location won't change. All those subsequent phases will be based on this design. And I don't know if I thought I heard this, that some trees might be added in the right of wind. And if that's the case, then you'd have to get permission from the town BPW, probably. In the right of wind. That's what I thought your landscape person said. Along the road. She did say that along the road. She said along the road. I didn't take that to mean within the right of wind. Oh, I did because she was talking about the right of wind, so. We're going to be filling in one curb cut and replacing it with a different one. We would assume that the town would want us to put trees in there and we're happy to do it. If the town doesn't approve that, then we won't do it. Right. You'll need approval from the Department of Public Works for the curb cut. And it would be good if you had that before we finished up here so that we know if they're open with it, so that that's part of the overall site plan. My understanding on scenic road is that it's not that's only Matt. I'm not talking about. No, I responded. I'm sorry. Someone just said scenic road and that was a comment of the irreduer as well. Yeah. I wasn't even referring to that to take trees out of the roadway. There's a state law that isn't even zoning that requires the arborist, who is the DPW board, to determine whether the tree can come out. So that's their decision. And then where to put the curb cuts is their decision as well. And in the application, it states that no water can enter or leave the property. And I think you said that it wouldn't be. So I just wanted to make sure you knew that. It's just a question on your soccer field. I understand that you're going to have six foot fence. I noted that you're on the one closest to Rice Road is right off of your exit driveway. Do you think that six feet is enough? Do people fall from going into the roadway? Or are you going to turn off the clothes that roadway when the kids are playing? Or how are you going to do that? I think we'd be happy to put up a taller fence. But frankly, we were doing it to avoid the need for waivers based on comments we received during the first day. And I don't know how the board feels. I know we just had a case, a Dover case. And the board did not approve, would not approve higher fences. So again, I'm concerned about safety. And I just want you to be aware of that. And perhaps tell us how you can deal with the safety of people coming out. If the board approves a higher fence, we'll put in a higher fence. No, that isn't what I asked. Is it primarily going to be used for soccer? Or is it really just a field for kids to play? I think probably both. And just to be clear, it's in the exact location of an existing soccer field that's used in exactly the same line. This isn't anything new. The existing soccer field has the goal right beside the exit line? No. It's aligned differently? It is. And that's the issue. Okay? It's not a problem. We would just like to know what your plans are so that people aren't having to have or be in danger of a ball coming over and getting them.
There is no sidewalk there. Is there? And there won't be. All right. It's right. Yeah. It's just not hard if they have the whole video to pass. Yeah. Right. She's talking about it. Yeah.
I don't know how the board feels about it. But our consultant did explain that the traffic study did not go forward into the future. There was future traffic in the area. I believe that's what she said. And I just didn't know what happened in herself. Do you want more traffic information or not? I would. I don't see it changing much from what they said. But what would that be based on? Do you know? Well, what would that be based on the end? It's okay. They have to look at what the area will be. And based on the number of cars. Yeah. Okay. And I don't know how the applicant feels about that. I mean, I'll say broadly, traffic is limited to how it intersects with parking. That's what I'm saying. And you need to do studies of intersections two miles away and making us, you know, do additional traffic counts. And, you know, I think at a certain point, we really want to pass it from and not answer questions. If it's going to process out further, thousands of dollars on additional consultants, and then thousands of dollars peer review on issues that aren't really first purview to a point where we can't, on the issue of projecting into the future, I mean, major development projects that we foresee in the near future on Rice Road. We can certainly have MDM apply, you know, a commonly accepted factor for the future. I'm committing to something here, but I think that's reasonable. We also want to, we can't impact assessment that's going to extend into other intersections. That's a lot of work. That's a lot of money, and we won't be able to agree to that. How much of an influence would that be on a decision that we would make, within how much protection would it be? As the gentleman explained to the lawyer, where traffic intersects the parking lot, we have jurisdiction. We don't necessarily have the ability to make them in the traffic city. But I want to ask this question, then. You've given us the timeline for construction, and I took from your application, and I just put in what I thought I saw, and I'm just going to run to where it is. Thank you. So, I don't know when your true clearing and construction infrastructure would start, but that's a question for, you can answer later, but you've said that 18 months after the site plan approval, we'll start with the church building. So, the church building approvals from the time, I believe, we're filed with the 10 o'clock, running for two years. And for your phase one, you could probably fit within that two-year window. Once we go beyond that, I'm not sure you're going to make it into the window. And the future years are the things that are giving some of us concern.
And have you given any thought to phase one being your project, and then when you know what you're going to do in your other projects, that you come back? No. I mean, we know what we're going to do, and we need to know what our approval allows. I mean, generally speaking, that two-year deadline is to exercise the permit. It's not to complete construction. No, but it's substantial construction. Commence. Substantial construction. Right. Commence substantial construction, which will be commenced within two years. And if we need to come in and ask for an extension, we can do that. But we need to know. I mean, this is a huge planning project. It's a huge financial commitment. We can't be coming back and, frankly, battling a room full of angry neighbors, again, all over the same project. That's not fair. We can't build a church. Let me say this. We can't build a church. We can't build a Sunday school to support that church. It makes no sense. Right? So, you know, the church there that we're proposing is based on our projected reading. Right? If I can't have a Sunday school building to support that, then what are we doing? I can't build a 570-person church with a 150-person Sunday school. It doesn't make sense. Right? I've got to have these things work together. Right? I understand that timing becomes difficult for us because you will not have started your next phase for a minimum of, it looks like, 18 months afterward. And it could be longer than that. So, regulations change over time. Special permits are only good for a certain number of years by state law. And most other kinds of permits are only good for a number of years. Conservation is only good for a number of years. Building permits are only good for a number of months to get started. I will say that phase projects happen all over the place, and they take longer than two or three years. And uniformly, been doing this for 30 years, I've never seen the suggestion that a phased project has to be complete within a two-year window, and that's not a requirement of your bylaw, and it doesn't have to be a requirement of your approval. So, I didn't say that it had to be a requirement of your time frame looks like, at a minimum, if everything went really well, it's a seven-and-a-half-year process.
And that's really disruptive for the community. So, I'm trying to understand if there is a way, with your agreement, or not, for approving a first phase. If you're asking us to do that. I'm not asking you to agree necessarily. I just was trying to get your temperature. And I will discuss it with Ward as well. I just don't see how we can give you a seven-and-a-half, or more-year permit.
It just doesn't. Let's keep the board talking about that, okay? There's one point you aren't going to be looking right now. Okay. Well, we have to talk about it. Yep, fine. Are there any other questions that anyone else has?
We're on the left here. Yeah.
The next three meetings we have is, December 3rd, the 10th, and the 17th. Right. But we only have an extension currently through the 10th. Correct. So, the next meeting that we could do with you is on December the 3rd. I don't know if you will be ready by then. And you can let us know now, whether you will. And we probably need an extension of time. December the 3rd. December the 3rd. Yeah. December the 3rd. December the 3rd. Yeah. Yeah. How about 730? 713. What do you think? Oh, God. We have to do this because we had the other thing already planned. I don't want to do 530. 715. Can I have a motion to, well, that puts us really up against the gun on the decision. So, can we get an extension of time on the decision? What's the current time on? The 10th.
And I would be on town. When? On the 10th? On the 3rd. Okay. Well, we'll have someone from staff be there. But what that really means is, even if, let's say, in a great world, the 3rd, you actually approve something, I still back into the office from Europe on that, to that, by Monday. What's the date? And I'm looking. So, I'm just trying to think of, like, the 8th. So, that means that, you know, two days, I would have to take everything, re-watch the whole meeting, do all the things. So, from the 10th, I'm just trying to think of, like, what's the most fair to try and answer the 2rd. Yeah. I mean, the decision we ran as soon as possible. Like, I'm not going to hold it back. Like, we have that. We're not looking at JVRO. How about December 31st? So, how about if we did, like, January the 2nd? Would that work? Or does it have to be a long year? Well, the only thing that we can just point out to me is that Orthodox Christmas is January 7th. Oh, my. No, no. What am I doing to that? And I think the community would, like, what its prospects are. Okay. Why don't we try for the 31st? We're not going to, I mean, I'm not looking to jam anyone up. We're not looking to jam you up, either. I just want to make sure that we write, because the decision we write can be appealed by many people. And we want to make sure that we write it well, so that we don't get into difficulty. I'm just trying to understand. I didn't see any specific appeal provision in the bylaw for site plan review, which under case law would mean that it goes under the things that you do special permits for. At the end of the regulations, I think, is that how you appeal? And I think it goes to the zoning board, and then it goes, you know. I'll check they're repeating. So what's the, what is it? Carolyn is who we're here. Oh, okay. What's the carryover date? I'm sorry, is it the, is it the? December 31st. Okay. Do we have any deliverables that we would like from them, or is it just, oh, let me see. They're still, like, going back and forth with the consultants. They have plans, and they have said that they're changing. We have pointed out some things that need to be changed, and I hope that you will really look carefully for plans to make sure that they do match each other, because that's not something that has been on. That's very neat. Oh, yeah.
So where, where do we, what's it? We're making, we're, they're going to extend, they agreed to extend the decision timeline to 1231. Is that agreeable? Yes. That's what they said. I mean, the bones of the decision are written. So all the, the game piece of it, all the public comments, all the staff comments, up to date. It's not just the findings and the conditions, so. Which is a big deal. Which is a big deal. Which is a big deal. But, but, but I don't know if we'll spend hours looking, going for all the staff comments and, and, and public comments, putting it in, up to date, and every time I get one, I update it. Yeah. So what about meeting on the 3rd and we're meeting on the 3rd and we might have to meet somewhere after that to get that. And so I'd like to continue this hearing until December the 3rd at 7.15pm. May I have a motion to do that? To move. Is there a second? Second. Okay. All in favor. I reminded you. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. And Jesse is not online. That's not. No. That's not. It's 4-0. Okay. Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you. Sorry about my passion. Thank you very much. Can I go to YouTube? You lost your blank? Minutes on the other one. The minutes, I remember the board reviewed them. The first set minutes, we think they're ready to go. They're a little bit long. It took me a while to bring it down from like 11 pages down to 8 pages. Going through the three times, there's a lot of detail and there's like a lot of points up for us here to like discuss. I did take away a lot of the public comments and I just. Say, the more time, the next is more. I don't think you can use all of the people you have a chance to look at those. Yes, I did. No, we're in space. Anybody have any issues? Okay, can I have a motion to approve the minutes of 10th of June 25? I move that we approve the minutes of 10th of June 25. I second. You are out of time. Okay. Are you hearing? Yes. Yes. Robert, can you make sure that when we go through votes, that I'm always last unless I happen on occasion to be first? Okay. Thank you. On the 15th, that was reviewed by That was the 15th. Reviewed by somebody who I remember and then Jesse also, the taxpayers because Jesse had some. That was the 15th. It was 29th. You just said 15th. 29th. Okay. 29th. He said that Nick was a bit low. He was. I remember he was on. I can't confirm. He was on at the side view? No. No. He didn't have his camera on or anything. Okay. But he was on there. Yeah. He said he was. I added it there. I added it there. On the 29th. Exactly. That change. That change came in. There's one sentence, seven, I think. There's another sentence. On the next page. Hey, did Leo confirm that the only way would be present? He was at the side walk, right? He was. I'm sorry. I thought that was him. He said no. I thought she did. I can leave it. I'm just. That's what she said. Yeah. It's the bike ride. Yeah. That's the only way. She might have said that when we were on the. I know she said it on the site visit. I don't know. Sure. Okay. Fine. I thought she said it in the meeting. I don't know. Okay. So that's out. And if that is. That's it. Okay. I move that we approve the minutes of 10, 29, 20, 25 as a minute. Don't approve it. Second. Anybody? I can't. I can't. I can't. I can't. I can't approve it. Everybody's approving it, right? So, Ireland. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Okay. Four zero. Eight. Two property. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. Two property. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. Well, there's a minute. There you are. Clans. Two properties together. Homeowner's turn off. This property is going to sell. This property here. You can't grab that. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. they've agreed to do so. And I had no issues. I interviewed it and I had no issues. And don't know why, but that's not really part of you. Not my business. But I think it's just that, I think they want to put us in the back and increase the setback potentially. So. Is there a motion? No question. A motion to approve and our plan for 36 to 40 local streets. I move that we approve. And our plan for 36 to 40 local streets. Third time. Aye. Aye. Okay. I have a plan update. The next meeting is next Wednesday. I will work on the agenda. And that's going to be the new COA, I think room A and B. and that's for the Carroll School. And then also the Serena Road amendment has come back. Oh. That was originally tonight. And right. We didn't have to push it back one week, which now I'm actually really happy we did. And we're next Wednesday. Next Wednesday. We're going to be before Thanksgiving. The 19th. So are we off? No, we have to sign up. And then see if we have anything else. Yeah. Okay. Very good. Yeah. Let me show you. Let me show you. Let me show you. Let me show you. Let me show you. Let me show you. Let me show you. Let me show you. Oh, What are we called? Electric pans? Oh, no. Herald pans. Robert, were you digging it? We have a knife? All right. Well. Again, as my dog's side. How many do we have to buy? I have one more, too. We have a paper one, too. We need to use regular guns for that. All right. I would say the same one. Yes? Oh, OK. I'll come back next, and bring us on a Sharpie. I know. We'll be back there. We'll be back there. I haven't got one of those fine Sharpies. I know. We should get a fine Sharpie so we can do it. I don't get it. We've been saying that for five years. No, it's fine. I don't know. Yeah. Ooh. One more, too. One more, too. Robin, me, Larry, and I love it. Oh, yeah, sorry. Here's the other one. Here's the other one. Here's the other one. No. Oh. It's almost out of ink. Can we have a fine point? Oh, we should have a fine one. Is there like a... Oh, I'll look in the... I'll look in the... I don't remember. I don't remember. I don't remember. Yeah, that's what I remember. I think it's basically a one. Yeah. Yeah, I think it's a wrong point. Yeah. Oh, what, to sign? Yeah. Oh, yeah. No, we have three. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. We're just fine. Extra legal. Yeah. Yeah. Extra legal. Yeah. Unabased. Yeah. Um. All right. Yeah, yeah, I think it's a good point. Yeah. Oh, what? To sign? Oh, yeah. No. Three. Like, you're just fine. Extra legal. Yeah. yeah oh yeah no we have three i'm sorry we're just going to say we're up to the air right extra legal yeah um yeah there's this well let me just up the uh agenda
now for the next one oh for that there's not another
could not get it could not get the continuation and jesse um you'd like to talk about this over i want to do
is there anything right here
no no we don't know you may want to take your hood off
i'll actually talk about it um and when we were public we haven't done it in a while
do we typically have the questions come to us or right with the acronym
yeah i was a little with the pointing and that it gets so i think you've done this once before you said we need the board here represents the town and you asked your questions
we don't get to
i almost said something but because yeah i know i don't know if he had said something if he had said like one more thing i was very sorry yeah i was almost there he kind of he was better after that first one but still okay i don't know can i have a motion to adjourn i move to adjourn
all in favor yes yes yes yes