November 17, 2025 – Joint EDC Fincom Meeting – Video & Transcript

November 17, 2025 - Joint EDC Fincom Meeting

Autoscroll:

So, the Finance Committee with the EDC will be called to order here, and we are recording this for right here. It will be available, if it's required by law or allowed by the chair, persons wishing to provide help or otherwise participating in the meeting may do so by a chance per person. Unless you need to call your group to order, review our minutes. Guys, we'll just call the order real quickly. So, this is calling the order of a meeting with EDC. It's all happening in person. It is being recorded by way canceled. So, we will let you know when the recording is recorded. We are in person. There are four of us here. Myself, Aaron Kelly, Katie Harris, David Valarie. There are four of us here of ours. So, we are officially called to order. Everybody else has been gone? Everybody else has been gone. Sorry, Rob Quimby and Roman. My name is self and Bill Giudici, Carl Barnes, Bill Huss, April, and IRIS. I don't see anybody for public comment, so go ahead and give me minutes if you can. So, the only order of business before we get into the meat of the is the minutes which were circling. I think it has IHASA, so it should be just substituting a method for IHASA. And I think there was a box. Sorry, where? Because of the first sentence? Can you have any same notice? Ah, thank you. And then the vote for minutes. The comments about the minutes. Did you note it in the sentence? That's true. Sorry, because it's usually my note in the minutes when I do it. You're fine. Sorry. I had some comments as well. Please. So the first was in minor, but at the very end when we took the vote to adjourn, you had six to nothing with you. And then secondly, I believe, I thought when we were discussing the water, the split of the water rates, that we took a vote. I remember making a motion about accepting and supporting the hybrid. Would you end up not following up on that motion? I think that was a follow-up. Because I know we, you know, I was wordsmithing it, so I got it right. I remember you going back and forth. And then I thought that there was a second in a vote, but maybe we decided, no, we don't need to vote. I wasn't sure. We hadn't been asked by a select board to weigh in officially at that time. Right. And so, but we did go around to get the sense. I just remember cracking the motion. I know, I know. And then when I saw it, not in minutes. And then I was asked to actually express the opinion of FinCon, which I did. And I checked in with Iris, and she was the one that wasn't there. So we should probably, if it was recorded, we probably should check to see. Because I remember making a motion, but maybe we passed on it. Yeah. I think we formally voted. I don't think we formally voted, is what I recall. Anyway, we should at least approve the minutes as edited. Try to get it. I'll second it. All in favor. I wasn't there. So I want to thank you for our joint meeting time. So we've had a couple members of the public one. Do you guys have any public comment people? So seeing none, we'll jump right into a quick PowerPoint presentation. I say quick because it's only 15 slides, but it has a lot of information in it. I hope this is in the way for anybody. Mostly it's my crew over here, so we should be. I should mention, I should introduce Nini Mahalan, who just walked into our newest EBC member. Is that the select board when you got approved? So I'm going to give you a copy of the presentation when we're done. So you don't worry about furiously. Just to give you a whole bunch of relative data. Right? So putting things in perspective, going to be putting some numbers on, but just the really order of magnitude numbers. What can really make an impact and why it might not? How does it kind of follow that? Just to give a general perspective. And some of the tools in our toolbox. So with that, it's always depressing for the EBC to see that our commercial tax base is only 2.8%. When we started EBC back in 2011, I think at the time we were like 4.5% and we were depressed then. And it's only shrunk further. Just because, for the most part, residential just keeps increasing in value. Right? And our commercial just hasn't grown. So, you know, particularly the gross weight of the commercial has stayed much flatter where the residential has just taken off. So we're now down to 2.8%. So it means that if... Just having curiosity, the square footage of, you know, whatever is the building... I did not find that out. That was one of the things I was getting one of those trivia questions we're going to find out. But I'm just going to ask the assessment. Just curious. Because it feels like maybe some square footage flies. You'll see a little. So we have to think a little bit outside. So with that, Phil and I were talking and just have the back story on Alta Oxbow. Clearly this is a set story. So we literally took an underutilized eight-acre parcel of land. It was contaminated. No water. No sewer. An old septage plant. A contaminated dirt pile. The police firing range. I mean, it was just like... It was a hot mess. And it had no permitting. And so at the time, early on, DPW was thinking about putting a new facility there. And so EDC had just started and we're all like, wait. This is like... Even though it's a difficult site, it has amazing frontage. You're on Route 20. We just don't have that many commercials. So we talked with the select board. The select board's okay. Well, you know, tell us the highest and best use. And so at the time, you know, Town Center was just... Had just opened up and was kind of getting going. Didn't need more retail. Clearly office before the condominiums. Nobody's going to live here. But you know there's this new thing. Multi-family is really sort of up and coming. And so the magic was, we started putting together with Sarki, is realizing that if we did a number of apartment units, if they were 25% affordable, all the communities around us. Sudbury was getting shellacked with 40 Bs at the time. Weston was starting to. We really hadn't had a bad one yet. But it was just a matter of time. So with this site, we're like, okay, well, we have this site. It's not permitted. If we tried to sell it, we couldn't even give it away. I mean, Town Center went through seven years of permit. I mean, it was just horrible, right? Wayland is known for being difficult. We are what we are. But ultimately, if we can take that site and permit it ourselves, then typically that's one of the plots where you make the most money in any development is between unpermitted and permitted land. Where you start with nothing and then you have rights to build. So if we could permit it ourselves, and the beauty of it, because we owned it, we could de-restrict it. We could say exactly how many units, exactly the affordability, what it looked like, how tall it was, all these criteria. We could mandate that because, so that's what we did. And so we had gotten from Springtown meeting in 2012, we got like $3,000 to really look at the site, all the due diligence, all the environmental. What about the wetlands? What about all of this stuff? What's the cost to demolish the septic plant? So that we had every single piece of information we could possibly have for development. So then we got all that information, and then we broke the zoning. We went to town meeting in 2013. At the time, residential needed a two-thirds vote. We came back in 2014, and we were able to get the zoning for 100. It ended up being 218, just because there was an ability to add on, and we actually needed that. We originally started out at 218, we kind of scaled it back a little bit, just to make it a little bit more palatable. But ultimately we were able to bring it back to 218, which got us to our 10%. So financially, besides kind of cleaning up the site, that was difficult. A lot of numbers. So the sale of permitted land was about $8.7 million. Ultimately what we did is we had them bid on the permitted land, and then the developer took care of all the cleanup. The septic, like everything on site. We didn't want to touch a thing, because for us that's super expensive. For them it's just sort of a normal process. So it covered about $6 million in costs, and still left about $2.7 million in cash proceeds to the town. We had an $800,000 building permit. We got not one, but two Mass Works grants for $4 million. And then the biggie is that we added a $73 million back. The $2 million in cost, the developer paid for it. Basically, the developer essentially credited against the purchase price. So with that, that's the gross. That's the gross. So the developer is willing to save that. Basically, well we basically, they said that they would pay that, but they had to pay the cleanup, and all the connections, all that stuff. So they paid the net to us. It's as if they paid us and we did it, but we didn't. So the key is that $1.1 million in tax revenues. That is higher than even what we projected. Why is it higher than that? We actually did financial studies, and we looked at it really closely. Because it was a concern of, if we're bringing in taxes, are we really, is it net? So that's what's important. And so it looked with a third party, we actually did it in that one, and looked at what are those town services. But all the roads, infrastructure are private. All the maintenance, private. Everything's private. And then ultimately, they've tied into the wastewater system, kind of that separate from the town. So really, it's just schools and it's public safety. And COA, right? This front building is 55. It's age restricted. There's about 66 units in there. So there's added people who might be senior services and emergency services. Other than that, it basically, it really comes down to whether you're generating students. With our financial studies, we looked, these projects just don't generate a lot of kids. The rents are quite high. You can afford a two-bedroom or a three-bedroom at $4,500 or $5,500 a month. You can probably rent a small house somewhere, right? So our total intent was to try to find a price. But ultimately, otherwise, typically for apartment projects, that's always a concern with 40Bs. People are like, gosh, we're going to be growing with kids. It just doesn't happen. So when the consultant did the original study on 190 units, he was projecting conservatively there might be up to 25 kids. As of a year and a half ago when we asked, there were 16. Asking most recently for nine. Something in that range. It's basically one kid per year. So if anything, you're not adding classrooms. You're not adding teachers. It's really just sort of taking that extra desk. But you're still collecting from the state for that student. So if anything, we're sort of making a little money on those kids because it's not... You can add more students without it. So all in all, that $1.1 million goes on. They get more calls from Council on Aging, but we also have this new Council on Aging building, right? So, but $1.1 million can pay for that extra person. So somewhat beyond the numbers, we created 55 affordable units at no cost to the town. When we try to build affordable housing, $400,000, $500,000, $600,000 to build a unit that's probably only worth about $250,000. It's so expensive for us to build. Here we created the zoning, got them all for free, in fact. We achieved that 20 to 10% affordability to block unfriendly 40Bs. We created additional outflow. We connected to the wastewater plant. So if you know anything about the wastewater and town center, it's not our plant that's the problem, it's the outflow. We need to discharge this water somewhere. We're right in front of the river, so a lot of this is lowlands. So half of the capacity can go on the river, the rest of it we have to find somewhere to put it. So these guys were going to do their own on-site wastewater, and they had a huge septic field. We're like, okay, why don't you connect wastewater and then send it back, and we can use your leach field. And that's exactly. So some of the MAPS Works funds, that's what it did. They brought a lot more users capacity to that system, but more importantly, gave outflow. So it really helped put that on much better financial footing. And then also we ensured the design with design guidelines and deed restrictions and really control what we wanted to look like. No more than three stories close to the road, higher heights farther back. How does the building space, what does it look like? All of that stuff, when you own the property, you can dictate these things. So from you guys, there's a lot of intangibles there, but just fun facts like the financial tally, like how it actually hits our financials. So the sale of the permitted land, $8.7 million in cash and cleanup, which we would have spent to clean up that site to use it. The building permit, the MAPS Works. We spent some due diligence funds. I know we spent some legal. I'm sort of throwing a number at it, whether it was $400,000 or $200,000. It was, you know, it's not 50, right? It took a long time to get it through. But up front, $13.1 million. But the beautiful thing is that $1.1 million. So if you actually put it on a net present value today, just trying, you know, whatever you want to use as that. You know, a three and a half rate is basically what you can float a bond for, right? So the 30 year bond, it's worth $27, $28 million. It's huge. So when that created $40, $41 million worth of value for the town on eight acres. So the further happy news of this, I did check in with the assessor and looked online and saw what the assessment is. Because it sold, the building sold to BlackRock in 2024. Typically developers will build it, stabilize it, and then they'll sell it to a pension fund or an insurance company who will just own it for the long term. So they sold it for $98 million. So what always happens, and I'm watching like, whatever you sell, yep, they get reassessed. They know it. So I looked online and our assessor has actually assessed it at $98 million. But that's, you know, if it sticks it at $98 million, we absolutely should ask for it. Wait for them to say no, that's one and a half million. So with that, you know, it teaches you a few things. It teaches you... Is this fiscal year 26? This is fiscal year 26. Or is it, we're in 26 now, right? Uh, so this is the value, uh, oh yeah. Because this is the valuation that's coming out? No. Yes. What is the valuation that's coming out? No, it is for fiscal year 26. It's your final valuation. The interesting thing, 24, it was a great number for some reason, it dipped in 2025. I don't know if they could talk their way. They shouldn't have. I mean, the rents were going like this. They shouldn't have. Um, so part of it is using land that we have. We don't always have that energy. How do we get... And this was a very big bump, but... So the interesting thing is when you dive into the data. Uh, this multifamily is not the true economic. What is the economic engine? So high assessment values, efficient land use, digestible density, people are okay with it. High value per acre, low town cost. Just like Alta Oxbow, private roads, private infrastructure, very low services. Usually primarily retirees, retail lines. So it basically is like a commercial district. It cranks out on the revenues and doesn't pull a hole. So put it in perspective, so our commercial tax base is $160 million. Alta Oxbow, yay, $73 million. We basically created one project, half, equivalent of half the value of our commercial tax base. Townhomes are worth $550 million. It's three and a half times. Mainstone, Overture Place, Willowbrook. Kind of these off the side. You drive down Rice Road. It's kind of set back. It's just this very efficient way of building. And it also maintains open space. It just clusters it and makes it very efficient. And also typically private. So getting into what this means tax rate wise. Alta is $1.1 million. All commercial is $2.5. Townhomes. Those are the existing townhomes. And most of them are assessed at about a million bucks a year. You know, if you want to buy one at town center, they are arranging about a million one of them. They're assessed at about a million. We are just very good at building expensive wood it is. So whatever that engine is, it works. So to compare it to commercial, so town center over 21 acres, the assessment is river trail place, six acres tucked behind, not even the one that's over by 126, which is Wayland Commons. Just river trail place is worth almost exactly the same on six acres. And then you have Wayland Commons. So the condos at town center are worth twice with the commercial. It just has the parking. It has, you know, it's just sprawly. It just needs more space. It's less efficient. So overall, like town center commercial is worth about $2 million an acre from an assessment basis. Off the charts, at this, Altaxco is about $9 million an acre. But that is a very big development. You can get pretty darn close to it at that $7 million. It's something that people are generally see, touch, and feel it. I'm not hearing a lot of people driving down the rice road saying, I can't. But ultimately, it's just sort of something that's a little more palatable. It carries good value within a package. So how do you encourage townhounds? Right now, we need to reduce permitting barriers to building townhounds. It's tough to build a cluster development zoning, which means you have to get a special permit. Anything about permitting special permit is up to the discretion of the planning board. It's difficult to discern what they're supposed to be doing. It's usually long and protracted. Ultimately, ADUs right now are as a right. The state did ADUs. Special permit, no longer drawn out. Have to be a community. It's the same thing. It has to be. Can't be drawn out. Are we getting ADUs built that way? There have been some forums. I think people are trying to get it streamlined. But again, it's as a right. So if you follow the rules. They permitted eight. Sorry. Oh, really? They permitted eight. And I'm sure that there will be more. So the same way, if you just set up the rule, that makes sense. Just like we set up the rules. People follow the rules. So it's efficient site usage. So it has, you know, typically minimum five-acre site. I think right now the cluster is minimum. Right now, you know, you can set a minimum open space. Typically, the only reason why people don't like townhouses is because they were 40B and they were wedged in somewhere. Like if you think of old Connecticut path, you know, you're at the lights and then you're heading toward the high school on the left. There was this group of townhomes that were kind of shoved in right next to somebody's house, right next to the neighborhood behind. There was not a lot of buffer. That's what ticks people off. But if you actually follow a cluster or you do this, then you would have adequate buffer. You would be able to keep that green space so you don't feel that density right on top. So if we can write that zoning and get it to be as a bright, you would get no people doing it. And if you remember when we were going through and trying to do the zoning on the self-storage, there was another guy who was trying to do the solar compact cluster. It was because they had a cluster development. They were trying to get permitted and they couldn't get it done because cluster development didn't permit. And they just spent thousands of dollars on engineers and designers and ended up getting that to write the zoning so that if they behave and if it was, you know, ultra energy conservative, you know, all this, all these great remedies that they would, that didn't happen at the time. But it's kind of the same premise. How do we encourage that good development? So the key is really ample buffering along the province. If you do have property owners close to it, keep it off the street, keep it from your butters. You can do it in a way that basically masks it. If you think about Rice Road and you're driving along, you kind of see them through the trees, but you have that buffer. So perhaps you could limit it to two or three locations in town. If that's even feasible, if we want to try it out. We did that with our zoning this past year to try to limit it to locations. But ideally part of it is having the zoning, but part aim to grow our tax by maybe two or three of these medium developments, 40, 50 units over the next three to five years. And we can think through what that looks like. And then perhaps encourage existing condo properties to add incremental. Like on Rice Road, and we have someone who lives in the MBTA, which we'll talk about. But they have conservation land. But then there's common area that's common to all the condominiums. A lot of the condominiums there are now 20, 30, 35 years old. They've just gone through big assessments. New roofs, siding, windows, decks. So now their condo fees are through the roof because they essentially financed it. Right? If they could build another three or four units, it accrues to those owners. Right? So they could buy that down. And then they have more people to share across their condo fees. It brings down their condo fees in a good way. Creating housing units, helping the tax base. So there's ways to do that. It just takes that. So MBTA community zoning, another biggie. So MBTA zoning requirements, just a quick refresher. We had to do 50 acres. We are MBTA adjacent. We don't have a train station. The next accountant does. So we needed 50 acres, which constituted one 25-acre parcel. And then the other 25 could be any assortment. Just those parcels had to be a minimum of five acres. Across, you had to create a minimum of 15 units an acre. So that 15 times 50 means that we were creating a minimum of 750 units. Doesn't mean they're going to be built necessarily. It just means that we have the zoning that would allow. So the key, again, is that as a right, no difficult. So that's often what stops builders, stops projects, makes them hugely expensive. You know, a lot of the stuff that you're hearing at the state level now with the housing crisis, a lot of it, you know, can get held up with the permitting, which is just, and it just makes it more expensive so that housing doesn't get done. You move to a massive break. Yes. Any zoning change, you'd have to do that. So at Town Meeting 2024, we had four districts. What did they call your district? It was some generic name, but it's, I call it Colts Way because that's the name of the street. Well Stone Ridge. But it was called, they called it like the Wayland East or something. Yes, yes. Totally generic. But it's basically Colts Way. It's one of the subdivisions at Mainstone. They picked it and they said it in the middle of planning board meetings. They picked it because you wouldn't build on it. And so they picked it. Right? So, and you wouldn't because it already had condominiums on it. So for somebody else to build, they would have to buy out every single owner, tear it down, and then build a higher density. I mean, it just, it makes no sense. Plus a lot of the 25 acres of wetlands, it was just crazy. But with MBTA Zoom, it just, you had to plug it into the model. It was a model and didn't capture some of these. So, some towns and cities decided to sue the state and others just wiggled around it. Right? So, it's called kind of a paper district. The state calls it a paper district. We're in compliance, but the state is very attuned to these. And some, you know, there was an Amazon warehouse that had just been built and they put the residential zoning on top of it. You're never going to tear down that Amazon warehouse. You know, it's like, are we really trying to create housing here or are we just planning it? So, part of it, that's fine, but there's an economic impact to that. The other districts, Route 20 West, the Candela area. If you're kind of turning on into Longfellow, it's the property just to the left. It's the old Candela. Now, there's a food pantry out front. And on the right-hand side, that office building kind of straddles both Wayland and Sudbury. That's 7.8 acres there. Alta Oxbow, we counted 5.8 acres. You cannot have an age restriction. So, we can only count our two buildings. So, we counted 5.8 acres, put 32 units an acre, 186. I mean, actually 152, but that's okay. Whatever. Play the math game. And then, Town Center, there was 11.5 acres and a large amount. There's actually 311. More than I thought. And that's on? That's the region? That is basically, if you think of Town Center, it's kind of behind, you know where the wastewater plant is? Yes. Behind the hardware store, that parking lot. And then, it kind of continues along Andrew, because you can put housing above the hardware store. And then, it comes down to Lissa Avenue, which goes after the bike path. So, it's kind of that name. But for any of that, that should be developed. Sorry. Yes. There's no reason for it. So, the max units, it can vary across. So, Alta is the highest. Clearly, that was the max. But ultimately, you know, with Gold's Way, it's only a 10. It's only a 10. Only 250 units. But the average of 18, it happens to be 904. So, the question is, what's it actually worth? So, we take Ulta-Oxpo, the same numbers we just saw. Ulta-Oxpo, assessed value, ultimately is about 334. That's the assessed average. Now, Ulta-Oxpo has 25% of its units affordable. MBTA caps at 10. So, by very definition, the rents are probably going to be higher at MBTA, but this just uses likely conservative. But with that, tying what these values are, there's 302 million. What does that mean in terms of tax revenues? Some of it, Ulta-Oxpo has already built. So, you're down to 3.7 million. But to Phil's point, we have a couple other glitches, right? So, as we know, Gold's Way is a paper jester. We kiss goodbye. The 0.8, that food pantry's already opened up. So, 0.8 is probably high. It's probably more like 0.6, because some of the, one of the three parcels have been taken. Ulta-Oxpo was built. Town Center has a D3. So, we were all excited. Yes, let's definitely put density at Town Center. It needs more density. It's great. And then realizing that because Raytheon had the property, has the AUL, has the controls of the property, they allowed a certain use and type and amount of housing there, which we have built out. I don't think it might be something. Probably not enough. So, ultimately, it's up to Raytheon. And Raytheon, at this point, is brought out by... Raytheon bodies, yes. Oh, whatever, yeah. So, there's, you know, this happened years ago. Very little patience for opening back up again. You know, the lawyers are just saying, no. Like, why would we bother? Just open something. Even if the developer here would, you know, take on that liability. They would. We'll build on contaminated land, all steps, inventing. You know, it's completely fine. But they're just saying no, and they can... So, the question is, is there any way politically to get them to move on? And that's... Or could the legislature pass a bill? There's got to be some way. This has been a lot of conversations. So, it may be stuck. But the key is, you know, of that 3.7, unbuilt, 2.9 of it. We can't touch it right now, unless we change it. So, we have said before, when the economic development bond bill, when that was just in its fruition, I think it was spring or summer when they were putting it together, one of the politicians had called Michael McCall and said, you know, you know, if you wanted to have like a small book in your market you asked for, and Michael would call me, and I'm like, I would give you like these things. But the top 3. One of them is re-looking it. It wasn't looked at. And that's important. So, we were awarded $100,000. We haven't gotten it yet because the funding is critical. See the funding, but there's funding to re-look at that. That can make a... So, concepts so far. So, Alta Oxbow lessons are, use our own land if we can. We have to hang on to the land that we need, but we do have some excess. So, if the excess, that's just... So, if you can activate some of our own, it comes to us in land value as well as account. Encourage high value, relatively low impact growth. So, where you have higher impact, like Route 20 West over near Candela, you can have something larger. Closer to other places, you probably want something smaller, right? You put it where it makes sense. Alta Oxbow made sense. It had no abutters on a busy road. It just, you know, it just made sense there. So, you tap it in and you put it where it makes sense. Townhomes is tapping the way. We're good at these. They sell well. Values are holding. So, encourage a steady, aged, responsible new growth. MBTA communities, how do we revive these lost opportunities? Put the higher density where it works, lower elsewhere. And the key, grab density for townland. So, I will say this once, I will say it again. Zoning is money. Zoning is worth... When we did Alta Oxbow, we awarded ourselves zoning and it was worth... Zoning is worth money. So, we had suggested, why don't we put it on one of the town parcels? Because then we can also control what we want it to be. It wasn't picked up. Why are we giving away valuable zoning to everybody except... With those... Do we have town properties that you will put... So, those are kind of outside the box. Inside the typical box is commercial development. Right? So, that's what EBC is supposed to be looking at. Commercial districts, et cetera. We're never going to double. It's not. We don't have the infrastructure. We don't have wastewater. We don't have any of that to be supporting twice our commercial. But 25%? We could either add 25% density, which means we're adding square foot within the existing. Or we can add 25% value. And that's not an and, or that can be and. Right? How do we take what we have and make it better? How do we make it more attractive? More vital? More entertaining? More interesting? Getting people more... So, if we were to add 25% density. So, up zone Route 20 Wayland Center. We've been talking about the Route 20 master plan with the planning board for three years. It still is not done. We're going to miss 2026. The first it could possibly get done is spring of 2027. What does Wayne Gretzky say? You miss 100% of shots you never take. Every year that we push this off, we are pushing off. We don't know when it will take off, but you are guaranteed that you're pushing it out another year. You're just giving up those revenues. Get the master plan done. Reduce the parking rules. This is one of the biggest hurdles in our town. We have huge parking requirements. And it's strictly... As a town, you make up your own rules. And everybody knows that our parking requirements are too high. And when they're too high, it stops you from... It just adds cost that you don't need to be spending. It makes it more expensive and it makes it more difficult to get. We know this. We see empty parking lots all the time. Town center. The office building across from Mel's. Like the parking up back, but out between that and Sunrise. Always empty. Always empty. China Rose Plaza at the end. Not even anything there. Like it's just all this parking just sits there. Even the CVS, right? All this parking was built. And even excess was planned for. Just in case. Never filled. How do we fill some of this empty asphalt? How do we get a regular parking ratio? Nobody wants to look at asphalt. Let's make it more productive. And then the unicorn density. Where it's typically very hard to bring in a lot of density. This is why self storage over in Catituate was the unicorn. Basically in one building, because it was square. It was efficient. It was set back. It was low impact. It had low waste water. Low traffic. Low light. Low noise. Everything. It was a large project with a small footprint. Effect wise. And it would have literally been worth everything that Donalyn's and the Starbucks Plaza combined. That's how you could evolve Catituate by 25% one project. These are the sort of things that we need to do. How close did the vote get on that? What's that? How close did the vote get on that? It was a very difficult process. The planning board did not want to support that. Because the planning board typically does the zoning. And then select board was literally time. So we did have a citizen petition and it's fair. At that point we had, I remember we had the vote and we're like, there should be more information. Because so much of it just hadn't gotten out. People were hearing rumors more than hearing the facts. Because we couldn't even have a meeting in town. Like it was just, it was the game's playing, right? So it never even really got. So it's just like, people's, you know, their presuppositions, self storage must have very few impacts. The next door neighbor loved it. But ultimately it's just very hard. When you change zoning, it's a 2.30. But what you can find at unicorn density, sometimes you can find that. And you can vault with one fork in it. And you're adding some square footage at some of these. Like if we can get, now that Liberty Pizza is rebuilt. If we can get him now, once he's up and running, to extend a little bit and take the gas station on the corner. You know, it's like it's adding on. If you can add on 25%. But that's going to be incremental, right? It's going to just take time. So what about adding 25% value to commercial districts? How do we make what we have? So part of it is getting more. Town center, we know it's just sleepy, right? Because of how it's programmed, how it's tended. It just touches it. So that's why we're all very excited with the new owners who look like they know how to run a center like this. So encouraging town center new 20 programming. The playground, which is David's great idea. You know, this is a good thing for the town. But huge, huge vitality. And the splash man. And the splash man. Oh, the splash man. Sorry. I didn't think that one was going to... That was a tricky spot. The kids don't break you on. Yeah, you're rebranding it. Okay. Exactly. Terrain, we have Russell. You know, Farmers Daughter in Sudbury. We have Lansing and Weston. All these great, you have this green corridor. The rail trail, exactly. So a leaf farm, mainstone, all of these. Like it's this, we could really market it that lifts everybody's... And then there's the physical. So there's improving the Route 20 center side blocks and streetscape. So we set aside, we approved money last town meeting. So it's time, that's going to be a long one. But ultimately we have to design it and then get in line at the state. But then the state, because it's a state road, they'll pay for it. And then the approvals are all done for that, right? So we need to do the design. So we authorize the first part of the design. The DDW is going to be already. So that'll probably take a year, year and a half to get that design process. Then we can find it. You cannot get in line at the state until you have that. We can set village design standards to elevate the appearance. Right now, nothing pulled you back from doing vinyl siding. Really horrible, you know, fluorescent lights. Just, you can build whatever you want. So if we really want to be like Concord, which is what everybody's center needed, we need just those few design criteria. So Bill is head of the design review board. And so he's done a lot. He's done a lot. The second bill. The second bill. So there's a lot that's there recommended, but there's nothing binding. Yeah. So for the most part, people will come in and do a project, will come down and sit with Bill's committee and they'll talk it through and they'll take the recommendations. They don't have to. Right now, when we did the zoning for the pre-order pickup window, we just put in a few things. It's like four or five things. Signage is no higher than six feet. Like tastefully done, not like signage up in the air. You just have to mask your HVAC with shrubbery. You just like simple things, lighting, coloniality, like just village design. It's just some very simple things, but those things will make it look like a more cohesive district. We're going to give an update. And then something simple like allowing convenience stores at gas stations. How do we elevate the value? Right now we have this fluky thing where convenience stores are not allowed at gas stations. So gas stations who renovate, the only reason they do it is to put there's no way to do a convenience store and nobody's renovating. So if you ever wonder why all our gas stations look like. Okay. So the one that's grandfathered is the one that's by Coach Grill. And then I'll tell you the one that was farther down next to the Whalen Variety tried to do it. Remember? They tried to put in a Dunkin' or a little convenience store. So that is holding back all of our- When we pull up people are- 85% of people were in favor of this. It's just a relic. It's like 1,500 people. Sorry, does this seem- I know we would kind of- It's a little tough. Yeah. So all of that, getting that. And it's kind of surprising how little was actually done. The buyers at Town Center, they totally want to pull into that. So it's just important. It's all part and parcel of that. How do we make it work? How do we elevate it? So we can get 25% added value. It's not going to be as high as some of the other ones was. So- So your own tools in the toolbox, besides our big three. The commercial districts. Some little ones. New revenues. Meals tax. We honestly were not aware we had meals tax. Why? Because it's gotten collected for a long time and it just goes right. Most communities take some of their meals funds and they set it aside to do certain things. Right? So we- If we can target our new- We're going to have terrain. At Duncan. If things go well tomorrow night. Townhouse. We're getting some more restaurants. That's- What is the new tax now? It is 0.75%. So- No, it's only about 300,000. Yeah. So I'll show you that in a second. Okay. So- Sorry. Do you apply that revenue to- So I'll show you in a second. Okay. I'll show you in a second. And then, so the other one, just taxes like that. Those are- Like the Airbnb. The Airbnb. The Airbnb. The Airbnb. We do have a few of those properties. Right? And so part of it, instead of meals tax, which is a point, you can charge up to 6%. You can actually get some reasonable value, even though we don't have that many units. So again, it's small, but if you could use that and slingshot it and have a better- And then it's the other toolbox, which we'll get into detail, but creation of value or building smarter. So part of that is like, not necessarily building our task space, but as we do things, think about value in mind. How do we build smarter? How do we offset costs short-term in our building? How do we find creative solutions? So as we look at it, this is grouped into high, medium, and low. And then sort of indirect. But high impacts. So MBTA community zoning, we've gone through the numbers. If we move the 25-acre district to 120 west, we were suggesting that you could draft a district that started it all to Oxbow, jumped across the street, caught the top of the south landfill around the back, caught the back of Clapper and Ritchie, the Maserati dealer across the street, Candela, and then over to the side. You could easily do a 25-acre district. The only thing is that there was a pinch point where we used the rail trail as a connector. You can use a public way. For some reason, we kept being told that it wasn't possible. I'd be wildly surprised when we talk to the stadium. This one's buildable. The other one's not. Are you guys okay with this? I'm sure that's not. None of that's RQX. Uh, it is. Well, it's where the rail trail is, right? So... But as far as this 25-acre district? No. No. It's just like, it crosses over Route 20. We don't have to ask permission from the stadium. Yeah. Right? It's just, it's connected by a right-of-way. So it doesn't mean that they have to sign on to this area. Is that considered in the original? We suggested it. My guess is if it can create housing, I think we can get beyond this little risk. It's a question, do we want to? And then Mahoney's, whatever it's called now, Cascade or something? Is that... No. So that one is already, you can't use 40B. Right? So that one's already been approved. So it's kind of off the board. It's kind of further along in their product. They basically improved. So if you actually activated that million three that was at Mainstone, you'd have to move those existing districts that are already there somewhere else. So that's why it's just a wash. Right? And then somehow shake loose town center. Either we're going to shake loose from Raykeon, or if we can't like put that zoning somewhere else where we can do some good. Right? And it doesn't have to be a 25 acre district. It doesn't have to be 11. It can be five. We can figure that out. So how do we recapture? How do we make that 2.9? So what if we added a 50 unit town home? Kind of like a river trail place is 42. Right? Just drive through there. You kind of set that back in the woods. If we did that three times, that would be 2.4 million. How do we find those sites that make sense for that? It's set back enough adjacent conservation land. You can probably contribute some more to it. You know, you could find these happy solutions if you were motivated to do it. Or you could. So how do we activate excess land? And people, you've heard this mentioned a couple times. We had said this during MBTA. Orchard Lane is a 13 acre parcel that is under the jurisdiction of a school. Surrounded by woods. There were some suggestive playing fields. The neighbors didn't like that at all. What if we took just six acres of that 13? Carve it out wisely. Put it in the right spot. Make sure there's buffering. Whatever's left over, ideally that should be able to use something else in the future. Whether it's a land field or whatever. Maybe more housing. That could be the choice. But don't plunk it right in the middle. Like this. Wisely carve that out. Set it back. Permit to say 50 townhomes. You can have the same thing as Alta Oxbow. Say exactly the number of units. What they look like. Sizes. Affordability. All that stuff. You can put it out in an RFP. Have bidders come. If you sell roughly townhomes usually are like $100 to $5,000 a piece. You're probably going to have a little bit of roads and infrastructure to get there. So on a net basis, Florida and developer pay probably about $80. Again, this is sort of spitballing. But that means $4 million in sale proceeds. What if you took that money, split it between Happy Hollow and Clayfish. $2 million could make it different. And then the question in the tax revenues. Once you put those $50 million in your tax base, that's about $800. So these are sort of the high impact. More than a million bucks, right? These are sort of the biggies. And which one did the one in Orchardland uses townhomes property? And the others use townhomes property? So it has less. We're building less. I mean, you could take those. But just presuming that, you could double it if you want. But these are just setting up the zoning. Working with property owners. Encouraging them to do that. Changing the zoning so it's easier. Even if the zoning hasn't gone through yet, marshaling through the process. Working and getting that. And from a town role standpoint, that's the one thing that the town... Yes. With this, we would need to change the district. We kind of... We changed that zoning. So we would have to go to townhomes to change the zoning. With this, if we're creating kind of an as-of-right townhomes zoning, that would have to go to townhomes. So we would have to change our zoning to do that. What we've done before. All to Oxbow. It's like educating people, understanding what it means. And part of it is just seeing. So those are kind of high impact ones. Notably not the commercial. How many stories would be that? No. So if you put MBTA there, like if you took six acres, right? And it was 10 units acre. 60 units, right? That's going to be kind of similar to River Trail Place, right? It's just going to be sort of that mostly townhomes. It's, you know, the masters on the ground floor. It's all, it's kind of a loft and second bedroom up above. It's like, you know, a two story building. You wouldn't get apartment buildings back in the woods. Yeah. Yeah. So you could. Yeah. So typically, you know, if you have 75, 80, and you get the same value, building less square footage to it, they'll make that decision. Yeah. Right. So we're able to add 25%. And again, that's going to be over time. It's only every once in a while. But if we can aim and maybe add 10% in a couple of years and aim to add the next 15, you know, get some momentum that we're adding that 25%. As of year five, we're like $600,000. That's kind of what that means adding square footage. Adding 25%, you know, if you walk in there or drive in any strip mall, whatever you're looking, could you add 25%? Sure you could. It's just a question of getting the zoning done to allow that and then working with the property owners so that they expand. The details starting to come back, you're seeing some of these are, you know, they're making sense. Adding the value, same thing. You know, again, if you add 25% value, same thing. Do we push right now? Like really working with town center, really getting that program, adding the playground, doing the corridor. 320 center sidewalks, that's going to take a little bit longer. But it's all these things float the boat, right? So we're really getting it going. I mean, we're going to see a radical change even by next radical, it's wrong. We're really positive change by next summer. Terrain will be open. We'll have activity in that place for the first time in seven years, right? So exciting. Signage, lighting, the dentist office out front will be renovated. That will be part of terrain. Duncan will be open across the street. Town center will be a whole different distance. It's going to be a different world. So you can see how some of those will float. So again, these are like $600,000, right? And it's 25% a lot, right? It takes time because they're all individual property owners. We don't find those unicorns. Interestingly in here. And the owners of the individual properties change? A lot of them don't. They've been in the properties for a long time. It's really hard to get them to improve. So you have to find those property owners who are looking to have to, have to. Have that don't. They will never. Part of it, that's why it's nearly impossible. Unless you're tearing everything else down with smaller property owners. So the interesting thing with adding the value of the commercial district. This will add like $600,000 a year by year. But the real push will be in elevating the overall. If we get town center, Route 20, firing all cylinders, we're going to be really cool. So even if a 2% increase in your town appeal. If you have a million dollar house, is someone paying $20,000 more? If you're doing it well? Yeah, they will. So what does that mean? You have $5.4 billion in residential tax days. That means another $108 million. That means $1.7 million in increased tax revenues. Sounds great, right? But we're all the same pie. So we're all the same number of property owners spreading across all those costs we need to cover. We haven't widened our pie. So you'll be the beneficiary. It'll be great while you're living here. And you'll benefit when you sell. But it's really not going to help your tax bill amount. We really need, if anything, it might hurt it. Because if the residential, again, is growing faster than the commercial, it'll be good. And that will definitely help. But it doesn't necessarily.
So low impact, the meals tax. So right now, we're kind of in the $300,000 range. Right now, the fee is and beverages. So if we're, you know, these terrain, Dunkin Town, if they bring in $8, $10, $12 million meals tax, that means new. You guys probably won't let go of that. But new, $60, $75, $90. If we use that, if we targeted that, what if we hired an economic development director? And that will just radiate out. What if we have microgrants? How about we have short money to health influence do we have out there? How much does that make that look and feel of that corridor? Just look. Supporting events and programming, that's huge. Some people here. Business district social media, landscaping, startup businesses. Short dollars can make a huge. Same thing with the rooms tax. So you can go up to 6%. Not all communities do. They typically range 3% to 6%. It's paid all by the party outside. When you book an Airbnb or VRBO, they add at the end. Whoever's renting pays it. It's not the property owner. So there are maybe about 10 properties. Say, annual revenue guessing, about $75,000. It's basically about $6,000 a month. Four in low months, paid in the peak. Total $750,000. A 6% tax vote for you. You could take that money and help slingshot it. How can we use that productively? Not so it just falls. School takers. How's it going? Any rate. So, indirect impact. And so this is where it's a little bit atypical. But it's a thought process. A penny saved is a penny earned. A million saved is a million earned. It's a million that we don't have to raise. It's a million. Create value wherever we can. And there's three general ways. How do we build smarter? We consider not building. How do we help offset costs for the things we want? How do we create value instead of just, we've got to pay for this. We're going to have to fight over it for three or four years until it finally gets passed. How long do we talk about this community? How do we find creative solutions? So, the building part, we all know, building as a town is ridiculously expensive. It's crazy. With procurement law. With prevailing wage. With all the design requirements. We live, it's like 30, 40, 40% more expensive than the private sector.
So, town offices, if you know, our town building. There's been discussion whether we have a new town building somewhere. If we build it, we spend a thousand bucks a foot here. And we have the land. And there was a shell of a building. Right? We spend, what, $12 million on 11,000 square feet. A thousand bucks a foot. It's crazy. And it's not just us. This is what community. This is why we're advocating buying 14 million on the market. You could actually buy it, including the land. Amazing location. Right next to the ball fields. For 283 bucks a point. 5,300 square feet. By buying that instead of building it somewhere else, it saves you three. So, it just takes some ingenuity. So, we had suggested that. It sort of went to the select board. And it started petering out. Just because it's hard. Like, you have to focus on it. Right? The beauty of it is that the accountants wanted to stay and pay rent. It wasn't going to cost us a dime. We could keep them in as long as they wanted to pay rent. And then we could figure out what we wanted to do with it. But I think that opportunity that ship may have sailed. But we need to kind of think creatively about how we spend. And Kathy's here. So, the school, you know, this thought about building a new elementary school. So, we built a new high school process. And the biggest. High schools has a lot of specialized space. Labs. Stage spaces. Like, everything is really specific. Has to be more technically oriented. Newer is better. Right? But elementary schools? Every elementary class is a box. Doesn't really matter even what the walls are. Because they're going to get covered by artwork. And, you know, posters and this and that. It really, it's really the teacher. And so, the question is. Instead of building new. At a thousand bucks a square foot. Do we just refurbish the entry in the halls. Like I was saying. Short dollars. So, it feels newer. Right? Do we really need to recreate them? And the analogy is like with your house. Right? If you built your house. 40 years ago. Right? Did you take care of it along the way. And update it along the way. Sure you did. Right? You didn't sort of let everything fall apart. And then 40 years later. Wake up and say. Wow. This is really crap. We're going to tear down our house. And build a new one. You know. Sometimes you need to. The high school had a lot of technical things. Right? If there's something structural. But elementary schools. A lot of it. Those boxes. Those classes. Are pretty much the same. That's when all of us. Were going to elementary school. How do we keep those boxes. And change what we need to. Remodel the kitchen. But don't tear down the house. Right? How do you add on for special needs. Or whatever it is. Whatever those needs are. Is there a way to do that? Is there a way. Instead of paying. A thousand bucks a foot. And yes. The state pays for part of it. But. Huge. So. It's the perfect new. Versus the lightly used. We built the high school. That first year. We had a new high school. Year two. Drive it off a lot. As soon as you drive it off a lot. It's not new anymore. So. Do we really need perfect new. Affordable housing. We mentioned before. Zoning versus building. Zone. Zone. Free. It's totally free. Zoning is money. If we build it. It's so expensive. We have to do replacements down the road. If we zone it. Other people. We got St. Ann zoned. The entire thing. 60 units. Deeply affordable housing. Zone instead of build. How can we offset costs for things we want? So. How can we create value. At the same time. As we encourage. So. The next time. We build a playing field. And Bill always used to say this as well. So. When you are carving out. That playing field land. Carve off like. Spot for 10 or 12 pounds. So. You can permit it. And sell those lots. Selling those lots. Pays for the field. Those tax revenues. Pay for the maintenance of the field. Like. How do we create value. We need to have that. Because we can't afford money. We don't have to. How can we do these things. So that it helps offset some costs. And help pay the tax revenues going forward. To maintain it. To keep it up. Same idea. You know. Out of the school. But can you carve off. Some of the space. And you know. Get some money. And help offset. Some of those costs. Every million saved. Is a million back. New town offices. Facilities. Zoning. Create development rights. Elsewhere. Create. Zoning. We could go to town center. And say. You can have a little bit more square footage. And we're going to have this. Right. As long as you build the shell for us. Or whatever. Right. It's creating. Working with the property owner. And creating that zoning. That gets you the value. Right. Similar to not build. Have others build. Alta Oxbow. The site clean up. We didn't want to touch that. With a ten foot pull. One. It was complicated. But two. It would have been. Hugely expensive if we did. It probably would have been nine to ten. So anything that. That the developer can do. As part of their project. Piggy back off of it. Like when we were talking with self storage. We had their arts wavelength space. We were getting for free. Right. How do you piggyback. And be able to get some of those benefits. That you're otherwise paying. And then. Activating town building. Once you're out. Everybody kind of has this idea. That if we just move out of town building. We just. Sell it to a developer. It will suddenly pay for a town building. Nowhere close. That building is so old. Needs so much money. Right. You're going to get that. And you're going to need this. So it'll be part of the equation. But it does not. Give you what you need to have. How do we find creative solutions. Create public private partnerships. So the playground. We've been talking about. Ideally we would. If anything use CPA funds. Just because it's there for recreation. But ultimately. A lot of these towns. Are using public private fundraising. Which is fundraising for that task. The proposed storage center. Love it or hate it. At middle school. It's a public private partnership. No cost to the town. Just get past the environmental stuff. Town pool. It was self funded improvements. It was non profit. Recently there were some CPA funds. But it was basically. Taken on as an entity. One fun one. Creating teacher affordable housing. If we are using some school's land. For housing. For example. If you know. Finally decide to site a school or something. Carve off a little bit. For housing. We own it. Specify that it's for teachers. What we're fighting right now. Are costs of personnel. Salaries. Benefits. Etc. Salaries are a direct result. Of having to be able to afford housing nearby. If you could. Create affordable housing. That was for teachers. You might not have to pay them as much. And it would help your school budget. Not a ton. But ultimately. Once you're above 10% for affordable housing. If you're below 10% and you need those units to count. They have to be an open lottery. You can't say it's got to be for the teacher. Once it's over 10%. If you don't need those for your account. You can do whatever you want. It's your land. It's your deed. It's your recommendation. It's whatever you're saying to the buyer. The property. So there's creative ways to create value. Besides just growing the tax base. But it's thinking through. And actually I ping Kelly Lappin. Because this sort of overlaps. FinCon where she was. And then Capital Improvements Committee. Part of this. How do we think creatively. Because we keep having. Looking at the capital plan. We have some big ticket items. Have you shared this presentation or. Not yet. So I'm going to send it to her. Yeah. So we might actually go see it. Unless it can be. Right. So but it's how. How can we be smart. And figure out a few of these things. Because usually you have that land. That isn't a perfect fit. Necessarily. A little bit left over. But if you cite it properly. You can realize some value. But if you're not thinking that way. Won't even enter your realm of consciousness. Right. And that value will just. So all of these. We have a bunch of tools in our toolbox. And there's probably more. That we haven't thought of. Right. But this just kind of gives a sense. Of low, medium, high, indirect. What kind of order of magnitude. So then it's a question. Part of it is. You know. Ultimately the financial summit is. You know. If there is no more growth. Right. If we stay on our current path. Your tax bill in five years. Is going to be here. So. Show the analysis. What if. Low growth. Medium growth. Look at those tax bills. In five years. What is the acceptable level of taxes. And what is the acceptable level. And figure it out. Right. So it's a larger question. What growth do we want to create. And where. What pace. Do we want to grow at. How do we want it to look. Because we can control a lot of that. And then how do we outreach. So growth is embraced. And grow suitably as a community. Alta, Oxbow. People are like. River's Edge. You'll never be able to get this past. It'll never happen. Right. Once people understand. What it's doing for them. They get it. Right. And you think about it right now. It's great to have the Alta Oxbow example. 400 people have probably moved in there. 218. Maybe 350. Right. Has the axis of the universe tilted in Wayland. Route 20 traffic still sucks regardless. It doesn't. You know. It's not like it suddenly got. Insanely worse. Right. We can handle. A little more density. We can handle. A few more kids in our schools. We can handle some of this stuff. Which can then help. Bend that curve. Or we can choose to do that. 100%. What you don't swing for.
Thank you. Thank you. So I gave you all that stuff. So I purposely didn't send it in advance. Just because it's a lot. But we'll give you a pronounce of that. But so part of the. Questions. Yeah. Yeah. Go ahead. Do you give your list. Yeah. Be fair. You made that list based on. It's feasibility and it's timing. So part of it. I was thinking about doing like a timing. What's quicker and less longer. I think that would be very helpful. Because in my mind. It's. It. You know. Often when you think of. How to get. Low hanging fruit. That's mostly. Some valuable. People start to see. The value return. And then it starts to sort of. Engage people more. Right. And motivate them that they can get. That to me would be. We've got. Certainly the impacts. We know. Potentially questioning. Other. You used. I think sometimes. There are times. And I guess. I'm wondering. What would you say to that? Like. What's your reaction to that? Is it. A situation where. People are. Perhaps letting their perception. Of what's gone wrong. In the past. Stop them from. Being a chance. Or do you feel like. Actually no. These are very vetted opportunities. More sustainable. And. I'm just curious. To get your stance on that. I do hear that. I'm concerned. And when they have them. So one of the biggest is. Yeah. A lot of it is perception versus. So if. We didn't have it on here. But if you had to guess. What's local occupancy? Okay. Ninety percent occupied. Yeah. It just so happens. That the empty spaces. Are in very prominent locations. But ninety percent of it. Is occupied in Memphis. And it's not. It's not retail occupancy. It's services occupied. It's services. Which has a different feel. Yeah. Than what. People thought it was going to be. So it's. Yeah. And so part of it. We're actually doing an infographic. On town center. Because. The rumor is. That it's a fail. Never lived up. It's got caught up in the retail. Sausage making. In the last. Since COVID. Right. Amazon was coming. It's just a different vibe. That an owner just. Didn't really know. What they were doing with it. Right. Sadly. As much as we try. They were just remote. They were an insurance company. Didn't know it. But ultimately. From a tax perspective. It's done very well. Much better than projections. Right. Why? Mostly. Right. But. It is. Financially excess for the town. It just doesn't quite have that energy. But hopefully that will change. I think. With the. I think that will help. But a lot of it is. When you hear the people. Who are saying. It's a failure. You ask them. Were you in support of it. At the beginning. And usually. If they were in support. At the beginning. Then usually. They're much more. Oh. It doesn't quite do it. But it's. Better than what it was. Type of thing. But I think. One of the big things. Out of the bat. The building town festival. That had 7,000 people. I couldn't find a parking spot. I was out of the country. But I heard. Literally. You could not. I couldn't even. I can't imagine. Couldn't find a parking spot. So we need more. We kept trying. This is just. Whatever. Yeah. Overrun. I also do. One question I wonder about. And not for. You know. Like Sudbury. Or Weston. Which both seem. Antegodally. Well Sudbury just has. More people. They didn't always though. What's that? They didn't always. I don't know. I remember when. When I moved into. When I moved into. Sudbury was a sleepy town. A little further away. Not much of that. Yeah. But did. 20 years ago. Sudbury was all Route 20. No. But did it have it. 30. Oh it didn't. Yeah. In your note. About town center. Having. Had the expected. Tax payoff. That. Is an excellent point. To bring to people. Yeah. I had not heard that. And that is an excellent point. In terms of. What are your expectations. Is that expectation. Or in your case. There were going to be. Exceeded expectations. And actually not something. For. Certainly. The tax. So that's why we started. Doing the infograph. Is because we kept getting. The same questions. Our first one was. That was for ours. The second one was. The Whole Foods Plaza. Because everyone drives by. What the heck is going on. Why isn't people like. What is going on. What's the story. And that's why we put a. One page infographic. Really easily digestible stuff. Next one was. Liberty Pizza Plaza. What's going on. Why have they moved forward. What's the timing. Who's coming. What's staying. You know. All that kind of stuff. These are the same questions. You hear all. What's going on. So now at least. We do have. The Wayland Post. That's out there. Good information. And questionable information. But it's getting out there. Right. It has. It at least has a vehicle. Whereas before we didn't. But I think it's still. This infographic. And to be able to post it. And be able to refer back to it. And just easily digestible. So as soon as we have the name. Of the bottom. Put it in there. That's a huge message. But it's also. When you think of failure. That's. It's usually town center. Like. Conchitu is okay. It's not like it's a failure. I think Starbucks Plaza did well. You know. It's just Wayland Village. Which was a nightmare. Because it was just being. Essentially fully leased. But it was just a dark space. Right. So it's understanding what that was. But ultimately. You know. If we can get people to understand. What town center. Can be. But then also what it has been. It has been helpful. Could it have been better? Is it still doing well? I don't know. Format or how. But I would do something. Almost a. Conversation amongst. You and another person. To talk through the. Yes. The infographic. Sort of captures it. But it needs more than that. To be able to. Yeah. Yeah. Fireside chat. Yeah. Yeah. The other thing too. Is like. I think. There's so much in here. Right. That people don't understand. That we've been talking about for months. We need to. Right. So we can all start going in the same direction. Figure out like. How do we change. Like the stroke of Wayland. How do we do it. And how do we all agree together. Because that's important too. Right. We don't. One of us telling with and head of row. We're just presenting facts about what.
Especially as we think about. You mentioned your optimistic. About the new owners. And tell them. Is that based on something specific. Are there some ideas that they're. We've met them. Have. Is there a plan for disclosing that. When this happened. Is it what. Yeah. They haven't announced. Yeah. I agree. So it's still. But yeah. It's just a process. There's a lot of potential. I do wonder about an RTX solution. To take that. It's got to be something. So. Part of it. We heard. For true or not. You know. It's like. Well. Is there a tribe. Did they really try. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. It's like. We get a concerted effort. Get our electeds involved. Like really. Let's really focus. And then you have the new property owner. And then really do it. Because they're clearly incented to do it. And so. You know. That's kind of. That's kind of low hanging through right there. It makes sense to add housing there. So. You know. In as much as it may take time. To figure out other locations. That one. You've got a sea of parking. That you'd love to see. That broke it up in the middle. With some housing. Yeah. You know. You could easily see it. Sort of plug and play. And that. So that would be a great one. If we can get past. I have a quick question. What was your name again? I'm sorry. Iris. I'm Karen. Were there other things you were thinking about. When people were mentioning. About projects. It's just great for us to know. Oh. Nothing specific. I just think it's one of those things where. You go to all these meetings. And. You're really listening to. Especially at time meeting. When people stand up. And I remember the rezoning. Of the drag through. And a lot of people. That was their no. A lot of the people who stood up and said no. They did not say no. About actual concerns. It seemed like. Over having. A pickup window. It seemed like. Their actual no's. Was based on. A historical let down. Um. And I don't know. I don't know. That's what I took away from it. Is that. Unfortunate. Whether they're failures or not. I don't know. Right? Yeah. It may not be failure. Right? Some people just don't want things to change. You know. It's just that human nature. That's exactly what's happening. Yeah. I was kind of. I was thinking about these. You know. What aren't these failures? And it's not. The projects have failed. They fail to get started. In a meaningful way. Nothing's happened. That's. That's an exaggeration. That's a gross exaggeration.
But that's the feeling. Made progress. I actually have. Hey. So. This was a real surprise to me. I expected this meeting to be all about how we can get. It's good in front of the boats. Um. Sure. It was not on my radar. So. One thing that we found by doing the survey. For the people to get some data survey. So I think it's a need to work with you guys. To put out another survey. To answer some of these existential questions. Give people some of this information. And say. Hey. Townspeople. Can weigh in on this. Like. Put your. Some of your opinions. So that we can kind of. Make some of these decisions. Get people's body. And move forward. And truly. Like. The. The fear of brick up window. Right. It passed like. 84. And so. Like. And that. That really tracked with. What we. Through the survey as well. So. Like. There. I'm sure. Things don't work here. What not. But. Like. It actually was reflective of the people who showed up. And. Like. It's pretty representative. Where do you meet resistance? It sounds like. The town meeting has been an issue. Through. Is that the major obstacle? I see. Before that. You get it through the departments. And. The town personnel. And. It's convincing the. The people live here. Conservation committee. Yeah. Planning. To be. Planning board technically. Any new zoning should go through the planning. Okay. So it's a question. Your planning board. Planning board is a blocking board. Okay. It should be a planning board. For. Change. And grovers. Who don't want to see growth. Okay. Where it's going to get stuck. Right? So. Part of it is. You know. If you want to change it. That's a planning board. Right? And so that's part of it. But then it's also just. Part of this polling. Just opened eye. As soon as we could set it. I still remember. The whole thing about. The convenience stores. At gas stations. Presenting the results. And it was like. 85%. 90% of people. Were in favor. Of convenience stores. At gas stations. As long as they're done. Nicely. Like. Cumberland Farms. Extravaganza. Off the highway. Right? But if you do it well. And we all have seen good. Good ones that are done. And you know. 85 to 90% of people. There was an audible gas. From one of the planning board members. Who had said in the past. That'll never pass. You know what? Just ask people. They still. They won't want it. That's right. I was shocked. We were asking people. Are you in favor. Of fast food. In favor. In general. In favor. For a limited. Couple of locations. Or not at all. Over 50% were okay. With a limited number. Or without even a cap. It was like. Pretty tough. It's so valuable. And it's like. I think. Just. Because I helped. With that right up. But just having that information. And having that reference. Yep. And having that information. Available. Yes. And it takes it out of the boards. Right. And what's in their head. Or what's in their lived experience. And takes it back to the people. I think it gets back to your point a little bit. And your point too Iris. Is that. People of our town. Don't have the information that they need. To be able to. Know what's going on. That the town center. Is 90% occupied. And town homes. Are the economic engine. So I think. A big part of it. Is sharing this information. I think another. Personally. Another. Good one. We've been talking about 40%. Because I think a lot of people. In town. Are thinking. What it actually could be. And one of the negatives. That I have heard. Was the. Building next to Goddard. On 30. That. When that was approved. It was supposed to have. So much town. Like affordable housing. And then. Con. Or. This is what I heard. I don't know how true it is. Yeah. That. The. Applications for those. Were never submitted on time. So they got past. All the zoning. And they never captured. Those. The amounts. That supposedly. But this is. The negatives. That you hear. So I think. The education. Of a lot of that. Is. Important for. Count people. To understand. 40B. Is very strict. And you have to demonstrate. That 25% affordable. They absolutely did. And they're on. Our affordable housing. But. When people don't know. And don't know where to look. Then that's where the rumors start. Right. If you don't like that building. Then. Oh. I heard somebody say. That we really didn't get. The affordable units. And now we have this crappy building. Right. It's just. People left to their own narrative. Often. Head off. In different directions. But many people are in. Wayland Community Forum. Same thing. There's a topic. Woo. It can go way off reality. Right. But it's just. I heard. I think. Oh. That's. That's the information I had. And you know. It's just. It's not always true. But it travels. Right. I definitely want to. At the right time. Yeah. I'm not sure. What that will be. You know. Just something for us to talk about. In our meeting. So I was just thinking about that. If. How would they maybe react. Before an override goes to a vote. But I think we have to sort of lay out. Yeah. And there's already all kinds of. Statements going out there. And today at select board they're hopefully. Going to be. Checking the box. And going to be. Going to be asked questions. Because you know. In the void. But this is a. Project. Sort of. And it gets back to. The benchmarking kind of. What are. So yes. Surveys. Depends so much on how. I mean. You mentioned. But you know. If you had pictures. Or you had. Examples. So. He said. Tastefully done and modest. So it's not.
But it's sort of. Laying it out. What do we. Then there were boards. Who told us. No. No pictures. Because. Okay. Leading and this and that. Right. So it's like. There's. There's. But we would also be happy. To help distribute anything. Thanks. Yeah. Even work on it together. Yeah. Go to some of these questions. Let's ask. And so what we did with our survey was. You don't try to ask. 150 questions at once. It's time. Yes. And do multiples. Right. That's it. Like. You only have limited attention span. And you want as many people as possible. Make it simple. Make it clear. Targeted. You know. Like. Come out in different rounds. If you have a lot of different questions. They're marketing exercise. Yeah. You know. One of the projects that I'm just curious about. Because I didn't see it in the presentation. Was the Ultima Homie site. And I'm just curious. Yeah. That one's a 40B. So it was the. It was approved by the ZVA. But conservation. Essentially what was approved by conservation. Because of. It's all part of the Sudbury River. Yeah. Whatever the brook is. It's a spawning ground for some special kind of trout or something. True. So it's. Concon was highly attuned to it. So what they said in their approvals. Was to have a super duper wastewater system. Which is extremely expensive. So the developer saying. I can't do that. Makes it financially feasible. So right now it's at the state level. Yeah. So someone owns it. The developer owns it. Yes. They're just. They talked about trying to make it a smaller project. It would. There's been a lot of different. It's. Not surprising at this point. It's different. Because it's not bigger. It doesn't. They changed it to. For some reason. They had some sort of negotiation with the conservation commission. And they said. It was going to be homeowners. Which ties their hands. I don't know. It's just. With interest rates being high. It's just. Construction costs are high. It's just. Not surprising. It's. Been slow walking. Because it's not like the market's screaming for it. Right. It's just. It's a whole project to build. Yeah. Still sits. Are you considering. Any new. Zoning. Law changes. No. What we had suggested. Was just doing the really simple. Kind of changing our zoning. So that we had the village. And the signage. And the. You know. Mass. Just simple things that we had had. In the pre-order pickup. But just across the districts. For the Route 20. For Route 20. Yeah. But were you guys. Changing zoning. And simplifying. Yeah. So we were thinking about that. As a very. Yeah. So we want to do a simple one. But again. Sort of planning board. No. We'll take care of it. And master planning. No. We don't. The problem is. By next summer. All these things will be open. As soon as new things open. Adjacent property owners. Well if those standards aren't in place. We're going to get input signs. And we're going to get the awful stuff. If we just don't have those simple rules in place. Right. Literally it's not that hard. Right. But you've got to have the. You've got to have the motivation. So that's the low hanging fruit. And then the next one is starting to look at some of the zoning. Whether it's MBTA. Whether it's for town homes. You know all this. To make it easier for. That we all want to. Do you have any asks for the finance committee? I think so. When we were talking about the infographic. And trying to get some of this in. We can share it with you. And get comments. Sure. We would love to kind of issue it jointly. I think that would be great. Because you hear a lot of the questions first hand. Yeah. What's the time cable? None. I don't know. We're going to do the town summer one. Pretty quickly. It'll probably be like right after the new year. New year. Okay. Great. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. As soon as the draft. We'll take out a new conversation. Probably just about the time. When did people get the one? That's not until March. Right? It's only when people start. But yeah. We'd love for you guys to work on it with us. And you know. That message would be fine. And part of one of the. Does EDC have to stay in its wheel. The commercial development. Or economic development. Right? We just stay in the commercial wheelhouse. We got the whole budget. We got all the money here. So we don't have a wheelhouse. What we learned is economic development is economic development. And we need to find what we can find. I understand. And so. We're all trying to do the best for the town. So we can do that. And then also we're meeting with the select board on December 1st. So part of it. In as much as. Once you can digest this. Think it through. Where you see. You know. What do you see as paces. You know. You know. How that budget is growing or not growing. Ultimately. What are your bests? We've loved it. We've loved it. And so. We're all trying to do the best for the town. So we can do that. And then also we're meeting with the select board on December 1st. So part of it. In as much as. You know. Once you can digest this. Think it through. Where you see. You know. What do you see as paces. What you know.
Do we need that. Half a percent growth. Do we need the 1% growth. Like. If you had your ideal. If we were comparative to other towns. Whatever it is. Like. What would you see. As your FinCom. Recommended growth. Yeah. And then we can. Go with that. You know. You might have opinions on how to get there. Yes. For that to. You know. Go through. Oh absolutely. Digestion. But. Individuals. FinCom. Or even if we just have. You know.
That would be really great. As we do polling. Yeah. Polling. Messaging for this infographic. And then ultimately. The larger recommendation. Yes. We can come together as a recommendation to the select. Correct. That's pretty. Good. Thank you very much. So I will give you each one of these. A little long electronically as well. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I don't want it. It's unclear. Like. Hesitant to have. So Bill. We may. On our agenda. We are going to hang on. And talk for a few minutes afterward. This summer first. Did you guys have anything else. That you guys needed to do. Before you. I'm not aware of anything else. We're done. Okay. Motion to adjourn. Calendar. Do you need a motion? No. Motion to adjourn. Second. In favor? Aye. Aye. What's up? No. First of all. December. Yeah. So. 12-1 next. 12-1 next. 12-1 next. Where is this? 12-1 next. 12-1 next. 12-1. What's concentration? Yeah. All right. Yeah. Yeah. Really. Nice. And you can see. This is scary. żyć bounty Raw. Applause. 230 both. Favourite. 2nd only. Number 1. Chopper. Hot scale. Off. wah curochi. Panamines. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. It's generic. Like one of the things with setting up an ABC, right, or you know taking certain steps that's mostly with built environments, but it's not looking at how you're running. but it's not looking at how you're going to work. That's the town manager. The town manager, yeah. In the past, we didn't have a town manager. We had a town manager. So as a town manager, they should be looking at them, right? But still, have you seen his calendar? Like, he has tons of stuff. So really, I think visioning is really, this level of course for the board of directors, they should be the ones looking overall, with Michael. But it really is them who should be focusing on, instead of who's getting a liquor license next week, right? It's just, what are we doing here? Right. Because everything, somebody's just doing what they're doing in the new shit, in the little, and the big stuff is not getting less than the worst of the year. So it does. So with the select board, usually boards, I was saying to Karen, of course, you were not still asking, but December 1st is a joint meeting. Come in person, do a better role in person. But we'll talk through some of our goals, and I had a list of our top things that we wanted to talk to this level board about. I don't want to say anything that we're only doing, but just making sure they're aware, and we're in the list of it, right? Just making sure we're in the list. Part of it also was summarizing this meeting, right? And so the question is, you know, like, what's the feedback? So when I was talking with Carol, she was like, oh, it's great, so you guys can give the feedback of what you're doing. So I think, you know, what we heard from them is, it's surprising, right? It's, you know, it's not what we thought it was. We thought it was that, you know, we were in here about the commercial stuff. It's like, people have like a, they envision, like, history that maybe doesn't, like, align with the facts. Just because they don't have to pick it over. Jacks, yeah, exactly. And I think that they, you know, I think it would be great to be helpful. Definitely helpful to that. Any other biggies? Honestly, like, regurgitating the slides and then doing the pie chart and the bar charts. I think we'll kind of compare how long we have. I mean, it takes me to be 45 minutes a year. Not the full deck, but the pie chart and the two bar charts that tell the data about the story. Not necessarily, like, the recommendations you're given. Okay. The data is just part of that. What is that, really?
Are they the novice members? Versus, you know, it's that 2% of the very local businesses. The 98, the quiet, the 9... Jizz. Jizz. Okay. So those would be, um, actually what they expected. The towns, importantly, info getting that historical info out there. We've done a few photographic. I think it was interesting. As they digest, we digest more. We figure out what is the true master plan. What is the plan? What is the foster plan? How much? You know, we're just, you know, we create strong hands for it. So the master plan is working on, and that's so niche. This feels like it's more like a strategic plan. This is a strategic plan. How much are you going to grow each year? Yeah. What are the people who want to grow? And then you get through the tasks to learn more of the projects that are going to grow. It's a little strategic plan. But I think Michael McCaul has that somewhere. So I think the slug board has to figure out, okay, is this such an adjustment? You know, how many years have we really had the proper shape of the selection? The roles and responsibilities are still shaping up. Like, we're in the division, the lanes, and, you know, kind of separate, but now we're in financials. Like, you don't have the luxury to not have too much. I don't have the luxury to not have too much. I don't have the luxury to not have too much. So look at the side logs, and it's just like, you know, you're not on the five-year capital plan. So at least, you know, the capital improvements, planning, because everything you announce is around. How do you share that? How do you share that? There's a plan, but it's capital and capital. I have something that's supplied by the water. That was part of what you said. And so, you know, that's well, part of that side. I need a big take that. What's your thought on the Rappaport? Oh, the Rappaport. Right. So that, they looked at every town, personally. Yes. And it's all categorized and . I'm almost wondering, since, like, you're calling out the engine is Rappaport. Can you go through the Rappaport to summarize which one? Sorry, because they, supposedly, you might not get, like, a bigger size of the town. And it's quite size. One fifty. Privately versus downland. Does it bring in the same amount of revenue? It's the same. We effectively would take townland and sell it. Right. So, anything is . So, anything is . So, anything is . But then it's the same tax revenue. What are they . Right now, we don't have this . Looking at parcels that are over and talking to those who want to do this. As part of it, you can do the zoning all day long with this project. To introduce Bill Sterling. Great person. Who is the Design Review Board. And Kathy Steinberg, who is on the working group for the budget, what did you guys call it yourselves? The Budget Working Group. Don't do it. Good name. The name works? Great. Straight forward. Very straightforward. But it was thinking of some of this stuff, but mostly on the expenditure side. So, I presume they're all in the economics. That was a great meeting. So, now we can present to the select board. I think it's the select board that's got to, they've got to take this by themselves. Well, they have to make it happen. They have to make it happen. They have to make the decision to make it happen. Yeah. We can run with it. Yeah. But if we can do it jointly with the FinCom and . Well, yeah. Get them commitments first. And then they talk to the . Everyone . Either that or just do the zoning without them. Right? No, they'll have to respond to the . Yeah. We shall see. I didn't want to bring up the meeting. We're out of waiting. This takes care of five minutes. Oh, we're not. This is, this is, I can tell them to take it out. Is it off? It's not. We can, we can enjoy it. What do you want? Maybe I won't say anything. We're still a quorum right here. So, we're just finishing up ours, but. You did a really good job of the five-year plan. Mm-hmm. Of course, what happens in the next five days. If you're identifying properties that could be looked. Mm-hmm. Public information, but I think I'd also take a look to the next five years. See what will have to happen. It would probably come up at 10 meeting floor. I wouldn't bring it up, but. Wait, what do you mean? So, like thinking about, like. Well, you've identified some properties that are kind of low for gaining fruit, as you call it. Yeah, like, or in fortune lane is not. And so that's great. You get through the first five years. Okay. You know, you've got to. What happens then? Yeah. Because our, our growing tax base is where they have to come up. Part of it, too, with the FinCon, we're in this, in this crunch, something. Something has to roll up. Basically, the next eight years, and then something rolls off, and we're in a better place. Okay. Well, that's, and then, that's why you say, we'll deal with that in five years. Yeah. So we were way behind every funding we have, but it's like sucking all the off. Once that's paid off, then we're not in the same crunch. But it's still. But in the back of your mind, it's always, you know, when you're looking at properties, you should all say, okay, this is phase one, and that's phase two. For example, if you're taking George Harris lives there. Orchard Lane, yep. The school, Orchard Lane. Mm-hmm. You don't want to build that in such a way that you can't use the next six acres for the second phase. Exactly. Or another 10 acres, whatever it is. You've got a master plan. Why stewards? If you really looked at a ton of acres, I remember Bill always looked at that. Yeah. The gag, the gag when you say, what are you saying? Some of it is 20 acres. Or some content. There are quite a few. And I thought even, your idea of five acres, you know, the five acre developments. Mm-hmm. I think it'd be a really good idea to do an inventory of all of them. Yes. We were actually just talking about that. And then we jumped and brought that. They had done a RAP report, I should. Yeah. It reminds me of the name. They've gone through all of the townian properties. Yeah. And looked at the zoning and said, what would be feasible? Which one? That's correct. You need that. In theory, we can go through. You wouldn't make it public information or else you'd have a lot of you man's criminal mind. But I think that it's good to have in your files. But I think especially. Part of them, you pick one. Yeah. How can you write the zoning so the neighbors are fine with it? It's just like, you can do it if you're not. Yeah. The zoning board also went, they had a working session at the Public Safety Board. One of their meetings where they took the maps and they laid them all out. And they went through all the parcels. Did they really? And identified them. The meeting has no minutes. No. And it was not on my cam. Like recently? It was just before the MBTA. Oh. So 24, so that was the spring of 24. So it was the fall of 23. I can tell you why I have the notes. There's not a ton of parcels out there. No. But if you could get that map, which has all their comments and everything. Yeah. Which is a public library board. No. So she's talking private parcels. All the private parcels. So there's account on parcels but also private parcels. It was everything that MBTA, every five, that was a possible five acre food that was considered for the MBTA. And that's what I was talking about. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Which you gave a little video on the Rappaport. Got it. There was a meeting where it was sometime in 20... It was in the, yeah, the fall of 23 and I'd go back, I can go back and look at it. If you look at it, I could probably find it because the minutes of that meeting were this big. There was a paragraph we reviewed. But yeah, there's some research of this book. But those maps, those maps should be somewhere. Yeah. With all their notations. Yeah. But if you pick from one site, a 10 acre site, and if you worked it through that process... Yeah, I like that because the buffer will help the neighborhood. Well, we did, I think, a 50 foot buffer. That's why I'm bringing it up again. Coptic Church. Mm-hm. And if they had a 50 foot buffer. Yeah. It would look like crameless. Uh-huh. And it's really pretty good. When you plant... Yeah, it's evergreen. You get some... It's green. You really don't see from the road. And I think that you don't need, you don't need as many acres. You need a 50 foot buffer. Really, if you wrote the zoning that had very prescriptive things. Yeah. But you're able to meet it. Yeah. You have that 50 foot butter from the butters, if you have what you need to do. Yeah. I think that's going to have to be a muscle job where everybody else is saying we have to do this. And then they'll have to waffler. You're right, because they're elected officials. I guess they'll say that. Yeah. I'm part of it. You can select more. Just like you did with it. They still have to review it. But also, yeah. Anything else that we want to... Nice to meet you. Great to see you. Thanks, Bill. Great report. So, next meeting is December 1st. Usually, the start of the meeting is December 1st. Usually, they're starting at 630 these days. So, I guess we'll probably be at 730 or 730. Oh, we'll probably be a small slot on that agenda the same way that you did. So, I'll try to get a little bit longer, just to get the points of this and then also... Do I hear a motion to adjourn? Motion to adjourn. Amy, motion. Are you a second? I second. Ah, maybe a second. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Maybe aye. Return at 850. Peace.