Zoning Board of Appeals Meeting - January 22, 2026

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. I'd ask that we all remain standing for a moment of silence in honor of our soldiers past and present.

Thank you.

All right. So, at this time, I'd like to announce that this meeting is being recorded by Dartmouth Community Media and also that our next board of appeals meeting Well, I don't have it here. So, when's our next board of appeals meeting? You usually announce those or is that something that's still up in the air?

We're going to make the determination at the end.

12th. I'm sorry.

Okay. Are you certain before I announce it?

I am.

Well, we'll announce the next scheduled meeting. We normally do that at the beginning of the meeting. However, um our schedules have been sort of up in the air based on these 40B projects that we have. So, I will announce that further along.

So, at this time, I'm going to have the 12th.

It's the 12th.

All right. So, I can announce to everyone at home and the viewers here, viewers at home and also the people here that the next scheduled meeting will be February 12th at 5:00 p.m. here at town hall. Now, moving on to the public hearings portion of tonight's meeting.

The first case we have, it's a continued case. It's variance case ZAV2-14.

It was continued from January 8th, 2026.

The petitioner was attorney Michael McVey. Uh, the owner is Martin Dartmouth Realy LLC. Subject property is zero state road known as map 53 lot 2. It's located within the general business partial aquifer zone 3 district. The matter was legally advertised prior and we waved the reading of the abutdders list at the last meeting. In this case, the petitioner is seeking a variance to

construct an Audi Volkswagen dealership on the site with proposed parking encroaching on the required 40 ft from street line to 19.5 and they're seeking relief from 375-24.3C subp part 2 parking facility setbacks.

Parking facilities shall meet the following setbacks of 40 ft from the street. The property is located at zero state road in the general residence, excuse me, general business partial aquifer zone 3 district and we've already identified it. We've already read into the record the last meeting the concerns from other town boards and also the denial letter. We had I believe we've had uh public comment. We had uh

some public comment from some of the abutters with questions. Some had concerns uh which we were able to or either the petitioner was able to address. But given that it is a public meeting, I will always provide people an opportunity to be heard. Is there anyone in the audience that would like to be heard to either speak in favor or in opposition to this request?

All right. I can report to the viewers at home that there's no one here in the audience that wants to be heard. I believe we also had some dialogue with the petitioner in which we indicated that uh if we were to move forward we would ask them to put together a decision which they have a proposed uh findings for us which I'm reviewing and at this time I would move forward to um

are we going we're not going to close the public hearing. I'm just going to read this now and we'll close the public hearing later as usual.

All right. So uh the board has determined the following. The subject property at zero state road is located within the general business district and partially within the aquifer zone 3 district. The property measures approximately 37.7 acres which is 1,642 2112 ft. The subject property will be served by town water and town sewer. The property is the property is currently vacant with no structures or

improvements on the site.

The petitioner PRM Auto Holdings LLC is seeking a variance from article 18 section 375- 24.3C2 parking facility setbacks in order to construct the Audi Volkswagen dealership on the property.

The parcel is burdened by its unusual oblong shape with its shorter dimension along State Road. In addition, a wetland area partially bisects the site. As a result of the property's atypical configuration and the location of the wetlands, development is forced closer to State Road. The proposed setback from the road to the parking facility is consistent with other automobile dealership parking facilities located

along State Road. The proposed use is subject to site plan review by the Dartmouth planning board. The board after hearing all the parties and concerned residents finds that the proposed setback from the road to the automobile dealership parking facility will not create substantial detriment to the public good or substantially deregate from the intent and purpose of the bylaw. The requested variance meets

the statutory requirements for granting a variance pursuant to Mass General law chapter 48 section 10. The four-prong test. The first prong is there are circumstances related to soil, shape, and topography that especially affect the subject property that do not generally affect the zoning district in which the structure land is located. Our reasoning and rationale would be that the property has a unique shape and

topographical conditions that make it difficult to achieve the required setback for the parking facility without pushing the project footprint further north into protected wetland areas. Subp part two, a literal enforcement of provisions of the bylaw would involve substantial hardship financial otherwise to the petitioner. A literal enforcement of the zoning bylaw would require the

project footprint to be shifted further north into a wetland area, increasing mitigation costs and resulting in greater environmental disturbance.

Subp part three, desirable relief may be granted without detriment to the public good. Desirable relief may be granted without substantial detriment to the public good because the proposed setback will be generally in line with the character of other large commercial projects on state road. and subp part four. The variance will not nullify or substantially dergate from the intent or

purpose of the bylaw. Our rationale is that the use of the property for an automobile dealership is consistent with the purpose of the zoning district in which it is located. We have the usual conditions where they got to get all necessary permits approvals from other town boards and agencies and also they're going to need site plan review and they are well aware I'm sure that there are some conservation issues. I'm

sure I think there was some speaking of a notice of intent that needed to be filed prior to at the last hearing. So, gentlemen, um, at this time, I would call for a motion to close the public hearing.

I make a motion we close the public hearing for variance ZAV2-14.

Second that motion.

All in favor?

I I The eyes have it. So, um, having read the proposed rationale and the proposed findings into the record, what's your pleasure gentlemen?

Uh, I make a motion that we approve variance GAV25-14 with the findings and the conditions as stated.

I second that motion.

All in favor?

I I I the eyes have it. Congratulations, Mr.

Marky. Good luck.

Yes. All right. Moving on to the next matter that's on tonight's meeting agenda. It's also a continued case. It's variance case ZAV2-12 was continued from January 8, 2026. The petitioners Mr. Paul Cussen who's also the owner of the subject properties one Cleveland Street also known as map 117 lot 169 and it's located in the general residence district. We've read the legal ad um and we've waved the the uh notice

of the abut not notice, excuse me, the reading of the abutters into the into the record. We've waved that previously at the last hearing. And in this case, the petitioner is seeking a variance to construct a one-story addition 9 12x 27.7, 9x 14.2 and by 14 kitchen extension, and a 9 and 1 half x 11 porch extension. Encroaching setbacks.

Encroaching into the required line of sight triangle and exceeding the maximum amount of lock coverage. A variance is required for the following. To encroach setbacks from the required 20 ft to 6.7 on Cleveland Street, a variance to construct a visual barrier in the intersection site triangle setback and a variance to exceed lock coverage from 50.9 to 54%. They're seeking relief on the article 375-10.4D

4 D setbacks subp part two intersection site triangle setbacks 3B and article 375-10.4F which is percentage of lock coverage. So gentlemen I don't know if you remember this one but this um was a matter in which Mr. Custom was before us. There was a concern that I had raised uh he had told us that he'd be willing to cut back and he was going to provide us a plan. We continue continued it. Um he I

know he was a little disappointed that we weren't able to move forward. Uh however uh I was not able and were not willing to do so without having a finalized plan, a revised plan and also the ability to go by and look at the property. I can report that I did go by and look at the property. When we were here last, we were presented with a photo that showed uh basically some

stakes with either strings or some markings off of an area that would that would protrude and I guess to his to the best that he could represent what the encroachment would be into this setback area. that wasn't there when I went there yesterday. As a matter of fact, I went there around lunchtime.

Um, so I was hopeful that we're going to get something here today. Either a plan uh or maybe a request for a continuence, but did we get a request for a continuence? Either telephone call, email, nothing.

Nothing.

Well, I know I think Mr. Cussen was leaving the state or something going to Florida. So, I'm not sure, but I think his engineer was at the meeting and I was under the impression that he was going to come.

So, I I'm not sure what happened, but um I think we I think my I suggest that we continue the hearing.

I just give them the It's always been a practice at least that I've been you and I have been on this board. We always give people one know what circumstances are and all that, you know. So I think it's being fair and maybe I don't know if you want to shoot him an email or something, you know, just to see. I mean, so the only thing is this, it's been

past practice for us to always grant one continuence.

I'm not want I don't want to depart from that. I treat everybody the same.

We never even though I don't know why. So we give him the benefit of any doubt. Okay.

And it's not really I mean at the last meeting he agreed that he was going to cut the the the deck to meet to set back within the triangle. And I think, you know, I don't think it's uh it's an issue. So, uh if you recall, he asked us to erase it from the plans and we said we would not erase it. He had to come in with a new

plan and his engineer said he would put it together and appear tonight.

Okay. So, based on that um again that just argues that we shouldn't grant any continuous because we didn't get anything even. So, not only he was aware, but his engineer was aware. But again, it's always been the practice of this board, and I don't think we need to depart from this. Basically, one opportunity to let them know that we're going to continue it. Now, it may not be the next hearing date. It might be the

one beyond that, but let's see what we got for for uh congestion here on our schedule.

I I don't even know what to do.

Let me ask you this. So, what do we have on for the Let's look at the 12th. What do we have on for the 12th at 5:00?

Hawthon. Oh, I'm sorry. We have um zero state road. We have 576.

Did you say state road?

Yeah. Um what is that one?

I I I have a mind block. That one is that's something new.

Yeah, I believe so.

Check it out. I can go check it out.

Um and then eight mono court. That was the one that they didn't show up.

Remember court?

Oh, they filed again. Yes, they refiled because you you denied Is that the jungle of the deck?

No, this is um Yeah. Yeah, I remember down off Clammet Street, I think, down the village down the street area.

And that exactly.

So, we only have two on for that day.

It would be three.

This would be three if we put it on.

That would be four.

Oh, so we got three on. Okay. What about the next date?

That is the 26th.

Okay. February 26th. And what's on?

We have two right now.

Two. We'll put it on for the 26th.

So, I'll entertain a motion, gentlemen.

Talking about the 26th of February.

No, I'll be here.

Okay. Why am I thinking you're missing?

Which one is that?

I'm missing the next meeting.

The 12th. Okay.

Hold on. The time constraints on this.

I'm worried.

Well, they have to send them a continuing time.

Oh, but if he Hold on. If he doesn't sign it, if he doesn't sign it by the 26th, is that going to put us beyond that? I have to go through the dates when it was submitted and whatnot.

Concerned about that because I don't I don't want him to be I don't want it to be granted without constructive constructive uh allowance. Uh can we can we can How about we take a recess? We'll take a quick recess. I'll let you take a look at that.

All right. Why don't we do the minutes and then we'll take a recess and I'll go.

Yep. We can do that as well. Okay. Uh so let's move on to the minutes that we need to approve. All right, gentlemen. So, the first one we have on So, we're on to the administrative portion of tonight's meeting. It's review and approval of administrative minutes of October 30th, 2025.

I have nothing to add.

Um, I have nothing to add, Mr. Chair.

So, I make a motion that we approve the administrative minutes of October 30th, 2025 as written.

Second. All in favor? I I the eyes have it. Next is review and approval of variance ZAV25-10 810 court was denied without prejudice.

Yeah, this is the one that they refile.

Yeah, they didn't show up.

Okay, I have nothing to add on this.

I make a motion that we approve uh the minutes of uh variance zav-25-8 for 8 bono court which was denied without prejudice as written.

Second.

All in favor?

I I the eyes have it.

Next is review and approval of comprehensive permit ZCMP-25-2 minutes of October 30th, 2025, 498 OSP road.

I have nothing, Mr. Chair.

I have nothing to add. July.

I make a motion that we approve the minutes of October 30th, 2025 for compre comprehensive permit um ZCMP-25-2 as written.

Second the motion.

All in favor?

I I I the eyes have it. Next is review and approval of administrative minutes of November 13, 2025.

I have nothing to add. Neither do I.

Nothing.

I make a motion that we approve the administrative minutes of November 13, 2025 as written.

Second.

All in favor?

I.

I. The eyes have it. Next is review and approval of use variants ZAV2-11 Fon Corner Road.

Forner. Let me see which one this is.

Um, I have nothing, Mr. Chair.

I have nothing to add to that.

Was this one that I um I I recused myself on?

No.

No.

No. False corner. Was that the uh gas station? Is that Okay.

Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's the one.

No. No. That's not the one.

All right. I make a motion that we approve the administrative the use uh variance minutes for ZAV-25-11 20.

Yes. Fonts Connor Road as written.

Second.

All in favor?

I have it. Last but not least, review and approval of varants ZAV 25-4 Fonts Connor Road continued to December 11, 2025.

This which one is this one? This is the AV. This corner street.

Which one?

Thatch street.

Which one?

This is 25-4 France Corner Road.

Continue to December 11, 2025.

Oh, that's a typo. It's got to be a typo.

I think the date I got a November 13th I'm holding.

I got a November 13th here, too. But CAB 25-4.

I got CB2-4. Okay, that's what we should be approving.

All right. And that's the date. So, I'm going to restate it. Review and approval of variance case ZAV 25-4 Fonts Corner Road.

Uh, dated November 13, 2025.

Yes.

November 13.

Yes.

2025.

That's what I have here.

Okay. Yep.

And this was the subject property was 25 Thatcher Street.

I make a motion that we approve the variance minutes for variance for petition zav-25-4 for 25 Thatcher Street as written.

Second.

All in favor?

I I The eyes have it.

All right.

Okay.

Well, you need to go back to um Yes. I think we're going to take a short recess.

Okay.

So that you can check on that before we continue if it's going to be the 12th or the whatever because I want to make sure we don't the date because I know he filed this a long time ago. Right.

Well, yeah.

But there were he actually changed plans midway through the process to prolong the situation.

Right. He it started October 16th, but it didn't get processed until December because of the issues with the different plans that Well, let's check the dates and see if we have 16.

But also, I mean, I believe I mean, if I email him the continuence form, either he signs it, sends it back, or he'll have his representative, which would be But if he doesn't What if he doesn't sign it? And then the date that comes up is the 26th and we're going to have to have an emergency session on it.

If it's before the 26th, we'll have to meet and act.

We'll have to meet and act on it. We'll act on it by the 12th. That's what we'll end up doing. If they don't get back to us by the 12th, let them know that we're going to have to act on it by What do we So, we could do that now and put it on for the 26th or better off just checking the date just to make sure. Okay? Because for all

I know, for all we know, it could be another week and if it's another week out, we've got a problem if we continue without him signing that. So, I will tell you when.

All right. You want me to sign this? All right. So, let me just uh we're just going to um take a quick recess. Okay.

Okay.

And we now have to go back to variance case ZAV2-12.

This was a case that was previously continued from January 8th of this month. Um the petitioner is not here, gentlemen. So, uh, we've had just some brief discussions as to what date we could actually, uh, continue it to. It appears to me from the secretary that she's told me that we could put it on the agenda for February 12th at 5:00 as we only have two other matters on for that evening.

Mhm.

So, what's your pleasure, gentlemen?

I make a motion that we continue variance ZAV2-12 to February 12th, 2026 at 5:00.

Second that motion.

All in favor? I I the eyes have it.

All right. Um so that pretty much wraps up everything that we have for our 5:00 session. It is now I can report roughly 5 43.

Um our next session has to do with the comprehensive permits and that starts at 6:00. We don't want to start that until we have everyone who wants to be present be able to be here for the 6:00 hearing.

So, we're going to go again into a recess until 6:00 where we reopen tonight's meeting to deal with the 40B for O Westport Road. Okay.

Good evening. The zoning board of appeals meeting of January 22nd is back in session. Moving on to comprehensive permit case ZCMP25-2, which was continued from December 11th of 2025. The petitioner applicant is Robert Lincoln. The owner is Sherbrook Farms LLC. The subject property is 498 O Westport Road, also known as map 48, lot 29. Properties located in a single residence B district. The petitioner is

seeking a comprehensive permit pursuant to Mass General Law Chapter 40B and the comprehensive permit guidelines to construct 156 units of which 39 will be affordable units. and the property is located at 498 O Westport Road. I'm not going to read all of the sections that are applicable to this because they're quite numerous. So, um, this matter, as everyone who's in attendance here

tonight is well aware, this matter was previously opened, and I'm going to call upon the representative of the petitioner, um, to explain to us the progress that's been made with the, uh, plans or any type of studies of the sciences that they've been undertaking and how that's been going with our experts, our peer reviewers. Floor is yours.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Um, good evening and good evening members of the board.

Uh, my name is Tanya Trevson. I'm with Marion Shaughnessy and Yudi representing the petitioner. Um, microphone.

It is.

Yeah. Closer. Is that better? Yeah.

Better.

Okay. I'll speak louder. How's that? All right. So, tonight um is a continuation of the prior hearings. Uh we have uh Steven Sraagusa from Bowman Engineering who's going to be presenting on traffic.

We have Brian Clingler um who is the head of the environmental group uh is going to be providing an environmental um review of the property uh to address some of the concerns that the public has raised about the site. Uh we also have Damian Demitri from Kaneko Engineering um to do a brief presentation on the civil plans for the project. Um for the civil the process is um kind of flowing

right now. Um the petitioners experts are responding to Nich's um peerreview comments. Um so they've been going back and forth, but we can provide an an overview of the civil for you.

Um so we have conceptual plans for that.

All right.

So since we already have I guess uh the presentation ready on the screen for traffic, is that where we're going to go with this at this point?

If it pleases the board. Sure. Yeah.

Unless you want to take anything else first.

No, not at this point. We'll do the traffic. He's already got his computer ready.

All righty. Thank you.

All right. Good evening. My name is Steven Sagus. I'm with Bowman Consulting. Uh we did the traffic engineering for the project. So, since we met last time, uh a lot has happened and there's been a lot of back and forth with uh Niche Engineering who did the peer review. Um, so I just want to briefly run through kind of an overview of what we've done since the last meeting. Um, and kind of just go through

a few slides here. Um, so a quick traffic timeline. So, uh, the first, uh, two, uh, were addressed last time. So, we did a a TIS in October 2024. There was initial peer review done, um, in October of 2025. Uh we then met uh after that initial peer review was done and then we had some followup uh with Nichch. Uh so we responded to those initial comments uh in December of 2025.

A second peer review uh was issued in early January of this year and then we issued a second response to comments uh in mid January uh last week um to hopefully address as many of those outstanding concerns as possible.

Um, so last time, uh, as part of the October 2024 TIS, um, we only had one intersection, which was Old Westport Road at Lucy Little Road. Um, as part of the peerreview process, um, we were asked to look at a couple additional intersections, uh, including Old Westport Road at Crossroad and Old Westport Road at UMass Dartmouth. Um, so we went back out and collected new data um at those all three of those

intersections to include those in our study area. Um, I can go back to we can go back to the site plan uh in a little bit, but this is a new site plan uh which I know Damian will will speak to a bit. Um, our methodology. So, as I mentioned, we collected additional data in November of 2025. So, what that included was additional turning movement count data at those three intersections um during

the weekday morning and afternoon peaks.

Um and then we collected 48 hour ATR data along Old Westport Road, which again was a comment from the peer reviewer to kind of get a a longer stretch of time rather than the initial 24 hours we did. Uh we did it over 48 hours to try to capture any fluctuation in in traffic due to UMass Dartmouth. Um we updated our crash data to include um the newest closed crash data per mass

DOT. Um and then again we we updated our entire existing condition uh analysis as well.

Um again part of the peer review process we updated our trip generation comparison. So um when we originally did the TIS uh there was one edition the 11th edition of the trip generation manual was the newest. Uh so we provided a comparison with the 12th edition of that same manual uh which provides a bit more uh updated rates and I know we spoke through it a bit last time. Um and

we actually decided that the October 24 2024 TIS uh actually the 11th edition provided a bit more of a conservative estimate of trips. So we continue to use that. Um and again the the peer reviewer um acknowledged that that would be the correct way to go. Um, so we updated our trip distribution again per the peer review request. So, uh, we did hear last time that, uh, traffic along Lucy Little

Road that trips from the site probably would be using Lucy Little Road. So, we approximated about 5% of traffic to and from the site um, using that roadway.

Um, and then we also updated our site distance analysis because the site driveway shifted um to make it more aligned with Lucy Little Road and make it more of a four-way intersection rather than an offset intersection. So, we updated our site distance analysis there. Um, and then again, we updated our capacity analysis to include all of these changes that uh that we put together. Um so concluding that um again

found there were no significant safety concerns uh as a result of this project.

The site distances again meet all of the astral standards. Um there's minimal delay in queuing caused or you know anticipated queuing and delay caused by the project. Um and we've continued to coordinate with nich uh to resolve any of these outstanding comments as we move forward. I think the biggest part of this uh that I wanted to kind of um talk about was some of the next steps that

are going to be taking place. So, as part of this mitigation of this project, going to work with the town to provide some additional signing and striping along Old Westport Road within the vicinity of the project. Um as well as along Lucy Little Road, um specifically some signing and whatnot to kind of uh reduce speeds and hopefully increase safety along those roadways. um because

I know that that was a main concern of of residents and abutters um and the town as well. Um we're going to put together a traffic monitoring program.

So what that means is post occupancy between 6 and 12 months post occupancy go out and collect data again at the same intersections and along Old Westport Road um and then identify if there's been any significant changes in volume or safety or anything like that.

again recollecting crash data. if there is a significant change coming back, working with the town to see if we can identify any further mitigation um along those roadways and putting together a transportation demand management plan and again working with the town to see if there's other ways to reduce single occupancy trips to and from the site, whether that might be a a shuttle um or

something of the sort um to kind of help out reduce those number of trips that are going to be coming in and out of that driveway um during the today.

Um, with that, that is kind of just a brief overview of where we are. I'm more than happy to answer any questions. I don't know if you would like to go to the next discipline or how you would like to proceed.

Um, you want to hear from I don't know. I'd like to hear from I'd like to hear from Nich is here as well. Excuse me.

I think Yeah.

What did she say? What?

Somebody from Nich is here.

Oh, yeah. Yeah, that's right. That's what I was hopeful. Yeah, I see him here.

I see. I was hopeful. and then and then I would allow the audience if they have any questions to propose pose them to him and then he can provide any type of responses to that.

Sounds good.

All right. Thank you very much for the presentation. So at this time I'm going to call upon our expert to come forward and explain to us what he's uh been made aware of. Yes, you can come to this podium.

Good evening everyone, Mr. Chair, members of the board.

Again, Jeff Bandini, senior project manager with Nich Engineering. Uh we were the town's peerreview consultant on the transportation impact study. Um, so as Steve mentioned, um, we have a pretty comprehensive timeline of our involvement in this project dating back to, um, October when we first submitted our initial peerreview letter. And I've been working with Steve, uh, continuously since then to resolve a

number of the issues, um, that have been presented both at that initial hearing back in October and that Steve outlined for you this evening. um in in and I'll just walk briefly through uh Nich's comments and some of the high level ones that uh are mostly resolved at this point. Again, uh we did present a response to comments letter in early January um and received a comment letter

last week which we are still working to resolve. Um I've had some productive conversations with Steve um and feel like we are in a good position um so I'll just go through some of those um for you this evening. Um and and Steve hit on those in a couple of his slides already. The traffic monitoring program um is is the biggest one. And then the single occupancy vehicle um bullet point

was also mentioned as well. There was a couple other items that were traffic engineering related that we wanted to point out um prior to uh the presentation on the site plan in case during the site plan presentation um the applicant's civil engineer is able to hit on those as well.

Um the first one is we had requested a clarification if MEPA was going to be provided if the applicant needed to submit to MEPA. Um from our understanding there is no state action associated with this project. Um but I wanted to point out should that change during this process at all and MEPA is required that the applicant u work to submit that documentation and coordinate with the town as needed. Um the second

uh site related issue was um the parking waiver. We had requested as one of our comments that the applicant look at the number of parking spaces that would be generated uh by the project and number of units based on the Institute of Transportation Engineers publication parking generation which can be used in tandem with the town's zoning regulation requirements and that we had requested

that the applicant coordinate with the town if a parking waiver is needed. Um, I will also add that if if it's the the town's point of view that a parking waiver could or should be granted um by the slide that talked about the reduction in single single occupancy vehicles, that could certainly be addressed as part of the parking waiver as well. U couple other things. Um, the site distance that was discussed. Um,

one of our initial recommended uh, modifications to the site plan included shifting the uh, driveway to be located directly across from Lucy Little Road to create more of a four-way intersection with the site driveway and Lucy Little under stop control. Basically, what this would do is sort of minimize the amount of conflict with vehicles turning in and out of Lucy Little Road and the site

simultaneously. And if you were to align those driveways, you would have more of a geometrically sound design. But with that comes some potential concerns about vehicles either exiting the site or traveling north on Lucy Little Road and kind of sort of traveling directly into either the site or Lucy Little. So, one of our comments was to make sure that we were that the applicant was coordinating

with the town to make sure that the uh geometric design or modifications to that intersection andor the signage and striping related to that was up to engineering standards in terms of you know sort of minimizing that potential conflict.

Um so, a lot of a lot of these comments have been resolved. Um, one that we're still working with the applicant and the applicant's team on is one of our comments related to the pedestrian infrastructure at the relocated site driveway, which again, as I mentioned, would be located directly across from Lucy Little Road. I don't know if it's beneficial to sort of zoom in on this slide or if you want me to kind of come

back after the applicant's uh engineer makes his presentation, but I can give you sort of a highle overview of um our comments at this point. So, basically the site is located on the north side of Old Westport Road, which is directly opposite from the side that UMass Dartmouth is on that sees a lot of pedestrian and bicycle activity. Um, and there's also a sidewalk located on the

south side of Old Westport Road as well.

So, you know, by under understanding the the site design and and and reasonably so, the applicant has presented um pedestrian uh accommodations to provide pedestrian ramps and crosswalks from the site side on the north side of Old Westport to the south side where as I mentioned the existing sidewalk exists and the side that UMass Dartmouth is on.

So part of our uh commentary was mostly related to the design and location of that pedestrian infrastructure. Um right now we're show the site plan is showing a crosswalk on both the west and east sides of Lucy Little Road which we would agree that providing enhanced pedestrian infrastructure at both of those locations is sound. However, we want to make sure that the ramp design on the

southside, which is owned by the town, is designed to Americans with Disabilities Act um and Mass Massachusetts Architectural Access Board regulations in terms of its ramp design with respect to uh you know, running and cross slope and things like that such that um that's to the standards that have been um outlined by by those two entities. And because the crosswalks are proposed

um approximate to the intersection with Lucy Little, we requested that the applicant work with the town to either redesign the existing ramps on both corners of the Lucy Little Road intersection or come up with some sort of way that um the applicant can ensure that if those existing ramps are damaged during construction that they would be replaced in kind. So, we're actively working with the applicants team on that

in determining what kind of ramps those are going to be and where those are located. Um, I also point out that the applicants crosswalk that they're shown and potential pedestrian ramp is located um either approximate to or not quite at the walkway of the abutter that's located on the southwest side of that intersection. So we request that the applicants team work with that abutter

to make sure that the ramp design is is coordinated effectively with that abutter to make sure that it is either at the end of the existing walkway or slightly offset depending on the pleasure of that abuter and obviously based on coordination with the town as well since that's town owned property.

So that's that's what I have for you this evening. I'd be happy to take any additional questions on Nich's peer review or any other questions that that the may be presented to the board this evening.

All right. I'll follow up with you later with regard to what remains outstanding.

But at this point in time, I'm going to ask if any of our board members has any questions as to what's been done um or the analysis that's been done at the at any any part of the traffic.

Not at this time, Mr. Chair. Attorney Newman, I I I just have a question. Where you line up Lucy Little and the entrance is are we talking for Connor stop?

So it would be a two-way stop control.

Basically the Lucy Little Road would be maintained under stop control and the site would be under stop control and Old Westport Road would continue to function as it does now. It would not be a four-way stop. It would be a stop for the minor approaches only.

Lucy Little is already on the stop control now. Correct. Yes.

Okay. So, it' be one additional stop control.

There's no stop sign.

Okay. Hold on. Hold on. You'll have an opportunity. One sec. So, your understanding is it is that's fine.

We'll we'll take comment on that. Is there anything else? Uh, attorney through the board. Do you mind if I respond? Do you want to Well, I was going to allow people to speak if they want to come forward and then you could answer the questions.

Okay.

But first, we want them to identify themselves. So, I'm going to set some ground rules as to how we're going to conduct Understandable. Yep. And then we'll obviously we they want to have an opportunity. We're going to grant them that opportunity.

Absolutely.

Um and today we're going to talk about traffic for now anyway. Okay.

So if there's anyone in the audience that would like to come forward who has any questions or concerns, you have to address them to the board first and then we will be able to um call upon our consultant or maybe even the uh petitioner's consultant to elaborate on any of the concerns that you may have.

So at this time um we're going to open the matter up for public comment. If there's anyone in the audience that would like to come forward, please identify yourself by stating your name and your address and then whatever question or comment you'd like to make.

There's a gentleman in the back that's raised his hand. Come on up.

Good evening. Uh Jim Costa, O Westport Road. Uh the questions are for this gentleman over here.

All right. But you have to direct them to me.

Okay.

Thank you.

When did you do the most recent traffic study? Because school's been out of session. And I just wondered if he was over there last week.

And the same thing with the six-month evaluation.

Will he be doing when the schools in session? That's probably the most busiest time.

There's no buses on the route. So what' you say about buffer zone? Sorry.

No bus. Assert buses. Whatever. Yeah. So it's not on the route. I'm just wondering how these people are going to be walking up and down the road, I guess.

Okay.

The sidewalk going south from the entrance.

It's is a uh will there be a sidewalk going in there? Because if it is, it's going to be a boardwalk because where the guard rails are, there's no there's no land. The um owner excavated right to the town line, right to the road.

Okay. So, are you saying that the guardrails are where there would be a sidewalk?

Where the guardrails are going south from the entrance, there's no sidewalk there now. No existing sidewalk.

Okay.

And if there were one to go in there, it would be difficult. It would have to be a boardwalk because the previous owner excavated right to the right to the road.

And just one other question, what provisions are you making for ebikes? I can just see them flying out of there.

I didn't hear you. So, provisions for what?

Ebikes. Uh, electric bikes.

Oh, those are my questions. Thank you.

So, we're going to take these one by one.

First, I guess when was the most recent traffic study?

So, we collected data in November of 2025, early November 2025 when before Thanksgiving break when when schools were still in session. Okay.

Um, what about this six-month review? I don't know how much reliance can be placed on this because once the project is already built, we already have the problem. How do we fix it after? It's sort of a how do we we should have built a better mousetrap sort of situation.

But I want to hear from you what your understanding of how that would work.

So that 6 to 12 month period gives us a little bit of kind of flexibility there to make sure that we're collecting data again when schools are in session and and everything like that. Um, but what that does is it gives uh the town an opportunity to to look at that data once it gets submitted and then determining if anything, you know, especially with speeds or uh maybe delays at the

intersections. um what the applicant might be able to do to help mitigate some of that, whether that's some additional striping or some signage or um something to that effect um to kind of help mitigate those those delays or the increases in speed or safety and things of that nature.

Okay. Um what about the situation about no sidewalk existing? He's referring to the south. Um the sidewalk there runs east and west, but I guess he's saying on the south I believe believe he's saying the south side of O Westport Road.

So the Excuse me. Can you do that again, sir?

This is the area here I'm asking about sidewalk over here. This is where the guard rails are been excavated right to the town, right to the road.

All right. So, it's the north side of O Westport Road to the to the west of the driveway.

Okay.

Yes.

So, uh as of right now, and I can I can let Damian uh speak to more of the the site side of things. Um Okay.

But I think it's it's more just connecting to the sidewalk from the site to the south side of of Old Westport Road. Um extending, you know, reconstructing the sidewalk to the east of the site all the way to the property line. Um, but there I don't believe there is uh a plan to construct sidewalk to the west of the new driveway. But again, I will let uh Damen speak a bit more to that.

Okay. And is that because they're not expecting a lot of traffic coming from foot traffic coming from that area, right? It' be more probably towards UMass, Dartmouth, and into that area.

And I think the last one is uh any provisions or any type of consideration that's being had for ebikes. Um, not to my knowledge. Again, when it comes to kind of site construction and EV charging and all of that, I I'll let kind of Damian speak, but I think the concern from the gentleman is more about the flow of traffic and not necessarily some of the amenities. Whether or not that's been

taken into consideration, I don't know if I don't believe that there's a traffic lane on that roadway. I mean, a a bike lane, I should say. I don't believe that there's a bike lane.

There's not. There is a striped shoulder, but there is not a bicycle lane, a designated bicycle lane.

Correct. Okay.

All right.

Is there any other comment that you can provide us on any of thing that was anything that was elaborated that you have any um incon you feel that there's an inconsistency with your understanding of it in relation to how the gentleman's presented it to us?

No, not at all. The only thing I'll add is is is part of the traffic monitoring program. That's why we wanted to highlight a 6 to 12 month um occupancy is is so that in case we came back and said 6 months and 6 months happens to fall when school is not in session gives us some flexibility to work with the town to make sure that that traffic monitoring program is conducted at a

time that is consistent with the what the town wants to see and is it gives us the ability to see the data that we're looking for both from a capacity and safety perspective. But you know with all due respect to the science right what can be done after it's already there and what enforcability do we have or does the town have to actually make any modifications because if anything is

going to be needed there I would think it's going to be considerably expensive and if it's considerably expensive people run.

So what's your experience in that? Well, basically, I mean, that's that's why we're here now is to make sure that we get to a point where we're comfortable with the site and that we we basically uh recommend the traffic monitoring program as sort of a safeguard, right?

Like we're we're not we're going through our methodology, right? And the process that we see both from the applicant standpoint and the response to comments standpoint. We've now provided two letters that highlights a lot of our concerns with respect to traffic and and our consideration is that we've incorporated a a lot of our concerns and the applicant has provided responses to

those concerns with you know aside from the one that we're still addressing.

However, the traffic monitoring program basically safeguards us in case there is a particular need for something down the road in terms of after occupancy that we did not reasonably foresee is part of this process. So, when we say capacity, right, you know, I don't foresee this being an issue, but if there is a possibility of there being like a four-way stop there, if this if the traffic numbers were to dictate this,

and I'm not saying there is because given the numbers, that's far off, but in a different situation, that could potentially be a case where we would say something to the applicant like you could look at making additional improvements at this location. Um, I think the the bigger potential issue is regarding safety, right? We we talked last time about Mass having closed data that is a couple of years old now at

this point because Mass goes through all of their data and they check it and they recheck it and they can't finalize it until everybody signed off on it. So if there's other data that either Massdot gets or the town gets that says, "Hey, there needs to be additional improvements here that we did not foresee as part of the site plan process." We've talked about site distance. We've talked about vegetation

clearing. We've talked about signing, striping, reducing speeds, and all of that. So, basically, this this conversation that we're having is actively aimed at making sure that there is nothing needed. However, that traffic monitoring program safeguards us in case that is not the case.

Thank you. Someone want to come up.

Good evening. My name is Rogerio Dart. I live at 7 Gford Avenue.

Uh I guess I have two questions. My first one would be why the studies were stopped across road. There's plenty of traffic that is dealt with cutting across Greystone and Summit and Gford due to the school overflow heading down Old Westport Road. So that's my first question.

And uh my second one is why are we entertaining a stop at this proposed intersection instead of a stop light?

Because I'm just curious.

And that's it. Thank you.

When you say, hold on, just for clarification, when you say a stop sign, why are we just entertaining a stop? You want a stop light to be somewhere a traffic control light? You want it a four-way traffic control light. Is that what you're suggesting? I'm wondering has that been explored? Is there a problem with that? I just want to hear some some things to that effect. That's okay. Thank you.

Thank you.

Those are two. Let's start with the first one. Why were the studies stopped at Crossroad?

Sure. So, that was in response to uh the initial peer review is collecting data um down on the east side of uh you know, east of the site there. Um, when it comes to the the the intersections that should be included in a traffic study, uh, typically the normal is about five if you're if you're adding about 5% uh, of traffic to an intersection uh, or 100 trips per hour to an intersection, which we certainly

do not meet in this case, um, then that intersection should be included. So as you get further and further out and the distribution of trips kind of goes east, west, north, south, um obviously the number of trips kind of dissipates. Um so Cross Road is probably at the at the tail end of of the study area we should be including. Um which is why initially we only had that one intersection just

because the number of estimated trips wasn't wasn't high enough given the distribution anywhere else. Um, but that was really in response to the peer review is making sure we got got those intersections.

Okay. The second question was uh why we're not exploring a four-way traffic control traffic light. The traffic light.

So like a traffic full traffic signal.

Yes.

Um it honestly it just would not meet the warrants of a of a traffic signal through the MUTCD.

It would actually probably work against things. Right.

Right. Because now you're stopping mainline traffic. Um, and obviously you would increase safety at that point.

That that is a obviously when you can stop traffic and pedestrians for especially for pedestrians. Um, but I think in general just would not meet any of the warrants and I think it would actually hinder traffic along Old Westport Road.

Okay.

Is there anyone else?

That gentleman I'm sorry we had spoken earlier but you're next. Jack Lions, 9 Strawberry Lane. Uh, my question is to the board. What type of protections are going to be put in or controls will be put in for off-site parking?

The site right now is negative in parking spots for the potential numbers of cars at the site. So, how are we going to prevent parking on Old Westport Road and more importantly Lucy Little Road? Lucy Little Road is a historic scenic byway within the town. It's one of the original streets. It's very narrow. You get off-site park or you get on street parking on Lucy Little. It's now a one-lane road.

How are we going to prevent this next? That's it.

Okay.

Mr. Seruso, is that who it is?

Yeah. Um I'm trying to understand I guess a response to uh so we put together some parking analysis as part of the peer review of uh as Mr. Bandini was saying earlier about uh looking at a the parking generation of the site um again through it which does the trip generation manual. They also have a parking generation manual for similar sites um to understand what that parking demand might look like. Um there are I

believe 267 parking spaces on site. Um and as part of the and let me find the exact numbers that the the numbers would give us here. Um so I'm not mispeaking.

Um but it certainly is a a less lesser number than 267 is uh what the 85th percentile of demand would be uh for the site based on the number of units.

Similar to as we were talking about last time, this isn't just a a parking demand rate for every single potential site, whether that be retail or residential or restaurant, whatever it might be. it is very specific to the land use. Um, which is an apartment complex of this size. Um, so that that is where the rate comes from. So it is very similar sites that this is taken from.

Do you support that position that positioned?

Excuse me. Uh I do and and that's part of why uh one of our comments had mentioned the park potential parking waiver um and potentially the applicant putting together a um transportation demand management program which was mentioned in Mrs. Sarraus's slide that talked about I don't know if you want to pull that up for additional context. Um I know there was a lot of language on that particular slide so I just want to

make sure that the board and and and the folks can can understand. Um basically um what that does is it it looks for ways that the site operations can reduce single occupancy vehicles for instance uh you know a shuttle be that to um the newly opened uh South Coast Rail MBTA stations which were opened you know not even a year ago at this point. Um, and then also UMass Dartmouth being a large

sort of employment and student center.

If there's folks that reside in this development, which we hope there are, and that want to get to UMass Darmouth, either by, you know, pedestrian or car or something, that there's opportunities for those folks to get to these places without having to own a single occupancy vehicle. And a lot of times we found that to be extremely successful. Um and then also you know providing other ways

that there be a transportation demand management either if if and and I don't want to get too much into the the site operations but if there's some sort of stipen or rental credit or something like that if you don't have a vehicle on site or whatever the story may be depending on on how the applicant wants run wants to run the operation but there are certainly ways that um that can be

presented in terms to reduce that single occupancy vehicle. So that in turn goes handinhand with the amount of parking demanded on the site. Um as far as the parking on Lucy Little, part of our comment uh I think it was number 11 was to address the safety along Lucy Little Road and install proper signage, be it a stop sign or install, uh more retroreflective striping or something like that. We could certainly or have

the board condition a a um installation of no parking signage or something like that that goes hand inand with that potential safety benefit because we do see we do recognize that Lucy Little Road is a narrow roadway. Um you know so we don't we don't support there to be sight parking along that roadway. So anything that the town could do to sort of prevent that would we would we would

be uh on board with that decision.

Thank you Mr.

Chair. Yes.

I have a question.

Hold on. I I promise that lady should be next.

Oh, all right.

Oh, you have a question of him for him?

Oh, I'm sorry. So, I'll let you ask the question to him.

Okay.

What is IT parking? What's it? The the anacronym. What does that mean?

Institute of Transportation Engineers.

And they put out a a manual telling you how many parking spaces should be in a project that has 152 units. Is that correct? It's basically a comprehensive assessment of parking for different uses. So, apartment complexes happens to be one of them. As Mrs. Sarrausa mentioned, like if you go into the manual, you'll see ones on uh you know, grocery stores, convenience stores, and it'll tell you typically how many

parking spaces are generated by that use. Generally, we rely on Stop you a second. There's a table four on this comments and your comments and his comments says that for 152 unit lowrise residential there should be 193 parking spaces or am I reading that wrong? 242 parking spaces and they're putting in 267 and you had concerns about that. I just want to make sure that the board was aware that parking

could be an issue presented by either the public or or other folks and that that also the parking generation is separate from the town zoning requirements. So in our reviews, we typically like to have the applicant check the zoning regulations against what it says. And if there's no issue with what it says, then there's no issue at all. We just want to make sure the applicant is providing the requested

information for comparison purposes.

Okay. Thank you.

Yep.

And what is that bylaw? right now. Is it one and a half per per unit or is it two cars per unit?

Do not know off the top of my head and I apologize for that.

Okay.

Well, I should know but I should know too. Thank but I don't remember. I don't think it's that high.

Yeah, if you can come up.

Just identify yourself.

Get this resolved.

All right. Um, hi Damian Demetri Kico engineers and scientists. um here as the site design engineer uh for Sherbrook LLC for the project out uh 498 Old Westport Road. Uh so an introduction so as far as the parking standard and this was a comment that we had back and forth um with our discussion with Nich. The town bylaw defines the parking requirement.

The standards for this zone are not applicable to this use. Um they do you guys do not call out it's a it's a single resident zone use. We're going in as a comprehensive permit. So therefore, you know, we're getting a waiver from that. An apartment complex doesn't have a specific use requirement associated with that.

There's two that could potentially apply. One is a two per dwelling unit, but that's for a single family dwelling unit, a house, right? A home. The other statement is a um for renting of rooms, but again that's an assumption of someone renting a room in a home, right?

And that's one per renter, right? My question that I originally brought up to niche was how there's no definition of what a renter is because that could potentially apply and then again the two two per single family home. We and that was a conversation that I was going to bring up at this meeting. it was comment um D6 within the niche where they you know asked us to add compl um calculations based on

renters and my question back to them during our conversations was what is technically a renter per the definition of the town bylaws and they actually they mentioned to bring it up to you guys and to ask how you would want it.

Um I would defer personally to the or not personally from the client the preferred is to go with what the IT says what they recommend. my applicant on many of his other 40B projects a 1.75 ratio is more than adequate. The IT which um the IT ratio that we said for saw for this project is a 1.55 ratio.

Mhm.

So we're above the um parking ratio for what the IT standards say um with that.

And you know again just so for the numbers that um yeah 193 was the or the 242 was the 85th percentile um that um Stephen had presented in his uh portion of the project. So again um it's we were we will request a waiver from the bylaw to um if there is the two parking is how the board would like us to go. um if we're if it's the one renter, you know,

we'd say one renter per unit um is and then we'd be over um for that count as well. So it it's um that's why we're deferring to the it translates to 273 SP spots and you're proposing at this point 267. So, we're short six short um so I just did the quick math. 156 units being proposed at 1.75 parking spaces per unit. That translates to 273 units.

Okay. Um you know, so again, the the numbers are round, you know, potentially rounded one way or the other there. One point it's again, we don't have a regulation that we're hitting there. So, we're running with, you know, the 276 was the adequate number of parking spaces that made sense with the layout of the project.

Um, you know, I just I don't want there to be confusion. I I I heard 267. Did I Did I miss 267?

Yeah, you just said 276.

26.

I apologize.

267.

267. I apologize. A little dyslexia.

Continue.

Uh, yeah. So, I mean 267 is the unit count that we have. Okay.

Or the parking space count that we have.

I apologize.

I didn't forget about you, ma'am. You can come on up.

Hi, Iris Begley. I live off of Fisher Road. One of my questions was about the parking. I couldn't understand how with 152 units, you don't have at least two parking spaces for each one. So, I know we've gone a little bit back and forth, but I'm still a little fuzzy on 1.75 parking spaces. How do you determine when you move in whether you get two or one or one and a half? seems like

there's going to be some type of a parking shortage based on just what I'm hearing here. My other uh question was around the traffic study. You talked about crossroads and going maybe a little bit further. Well, I live in the opposite direction. I think it should be extended to beaten road because there's a lot of traffic off of Old Westport and Old County at that point going on to

beaten. So, I don't know if that's been considered at all. And then the other question I think it also ties into parking was you mentioned a shuttle and I was just curious like a shuttle to where who's going to be taking a shuttle? What is the expectation around that? If I could get a little bit more information, I think I heard the gentleman behind me send something about UMass Diamond. So, I guess the

expectation is you might have some students living in this property and they might take a shuttle. I'm not sure if that's what the expectation is, but I'd like to hear a little bit more about where people are going to take a shuttle, which would save on single card trips in and out of this um property.

Okay.

Absolutely. Um, you know, three points there if you could address all three.

We'll start with the parking.

Yes.

Yeah. I believe that was somewhat addressed already in terms of the It was a little bit, but I agree it's a little bit fuzzy. It's been fuzzy for me too.

But if you just if as well as you can clarify, I guess one of the problems is we don't have a zoning bylaw for this particular area that says or dictates. I know in the city of New Bedford it says in certain districts it's 1.5, right, per unit.

That's what the bylaw is, right?

We don't have one. We don't have a multif family bylaw in this town. But continue.

I was just going to piggy back on on the me on the methodology that that Damian and and Steve mentioned was, you know, the calculations with it. To me, I mean, that's this the town bylaw or or guidance, let's call it, and it is is the best information that we have. And to that end, if it's if that information is not being met, then the applicant should be requesting a waiver from the

parking relief. And from our point of view, that could certainly be subsided by providing um the TDM measurements, which you know is that that sort of last two bullets on that screen there in terms of reducing the single occupancy vehicle trips to the site. To the other point about the shuttle locations, I had mentioned previously it could be to UMass Dartmouth, which is a large employment uh you know student center.

The other being it could be um to the commuter rail stations which provide direct access to Boston which hasn't even been operational for a year. I mean it opened back in in March 2025. Um the other one which I didn't mention previously was there's a lot of shopping centers within the vicinity of the site.

it. I could see a situation where the shuttle could provide an opportunity to get to grocery stores or retail or food service or shopping or something like that that could do a loop to say from UMass to the commuter rail station and then come back via shopping or maybe there could even be a smaller loop that does just the shopping. Again, it it it would be the applicant's pleasure to

present something like that based on, you know, how much uh you know, uh allocation and resources they'd want to put into something like this in determining, you know, size of the shuttle, frequency of the shuttle, things like that, right? Driver's insurance, all of that plays into that that sort of calculation.

Thank you. The next the next issue, did I forget one?

There was one about the parking as well.

Oh, you already covered that one, right?

Yes. Intersection intersection of Bowman.

Oh, the traffic the other way. Oh, that was to uh That's right. Been Road to Mr. Sarraus's point. So, as far as that intersection not being included, certainly falls within the purview of the intersections that we decided to comment on that would realize 5% of the site trips or greater or 100 I think it was 50 trips during a peak hour. So, understandably so. you know, we weren't able to include every

intersection within a certain radius. We had to look at intersections that were included based on that methodology and the applicant was able to provide the information that we provided and not only that um committed to the traffic monitoring program which again is on this screen as well which uh Mrs. Sigus had mentioned and and I clarified a little bit um earlier.

Thank you.

All right. Is there anyone else?

I got I saw this gentleman first, but you'll be next. Come on up, sir.

And my name is George Riggo. Uh I live on five Glenn Street, North Dartmouth, Mass. I'm just curious on the uh the garbage that's coming from this.

Who's is the town going to be responsible or who's responsible? And where's the where's the trash going to go after it gets picked up?

I think that that question would be better posed to the next person that's probably going to come before us, but if he knows, I'll let him answer it.

I think it would be better posed to the next person coming after me.

So, we're going to reserve that question.

Okay.

That's not his area. That's not his area of what he's actually analyzed on this project. Neither has our expert either.

But it is a concern. I I think it's a legitimate concern. Anything else?

Yeah. Uh this the town of Dartmouth became a town in 1964 and 1664. But it seems like this town is going into a city. They want to make this town into a city and uh that's not what this town should be about. I mean really.

Thank you. There was another gentleman.

Good evening, Mr. Chairman, um Ian McGonagal, Lucy Little Road. Couple of questions. In the traffic study, initially you said there was a 24 or 48 hour monitoring it monitoring of it. How many What day was that on? Was that on a Monday, a Saturday, a Friday?

You have to address the questions to me.

Oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Mr. Chair.

So, you just want to know when it was done in November?

Well, that's my first question. Yeah.

What day was that?

What day of the week?

I noticed that they usually pick Wednesdays, but I'm not sure what he picked here, but I'm sure you'll let us know.

That'd be interesting to understand that.

I agree. Second question is on the parking. We know that there's perhaps a shortage of parking. Will people in the apartment buildings be allowed to have guests because that will certainly exacerbate the parking situation as well at peak hour. So something to consider.

Um I had a third question.

Well, let's start with those and if I come back to the third question.

All right. So I remember the second one.

The first one first one was the ATR data.

That's right.

Over 48 hours. So we do those in the middle of the week. Um, so this was Tuesday and Wednesday. Um, unless a town or municipality prefers it, um, to be on a weekend for one reason or another, uh, ATR data is is typically and and turning movement count data at intersections done during the middle of the week when traffic is highest. We kind of avoid Monday and Friday. Um, and then weekends

again, unless there's a specific need for it.

Okay.

Um, and then the second was parking with guests. Um I mean my response to that would be with the IT parking generation um it is not only spec similar to the trip generation it is not just specific to uh who is living there let's say for the residences it is parking for the site as a whole whether that be um guests or residents it just looks at parking as a

whole um and what the demand is for that site Um I don't believe it goes into the level of detail of being residents only or if there's guests or visitors. Um it is for for the whole site. Um so that that number uh is inclusive of probably residents and guests and and anybody else who might be visiting that site.

Come on up.

I'm assuming that some of the um Mr. Mr.

Chairman, I'm assuming some of the units will be occupied by by children.

There'll be children involved.

Where will the children play from a safety concern perspective?

I think that's the next person that comes before us. That's similar.

I'm just thinking about traffic and coming out onto Lucy Little Road and all.

No, that would be with them.

We got a question too. Next person. Come on up, sir.

Uh Norman Dilva, 523 Old Westport Road.

Number one, worst case scenario, I just want to know where will overflowflow parking be allowed? Will you allow parking on Old Westport Road? Is a town going to allow that? How are you going to deal with that? No matter whether you put 150 spaces or 250 spaces, eventually at times it's going to overflow. How are you going to handle that? Well, I'm I'm being told that they'll do an analysis

within six to months to a year after the project is in place. That may be too long if there becomes and what happens if you need more parking places afterwards.

I believe we have a traffic commission in this town. Do we not have a traffic officer? We have a traffic officer who basically decides where signs are going to be. It used to be Mr. Vieiraa, but he's retired now. I don't know who's who's assumed his role. But obviously, if there were concerns of people parking because it would be I think it's going to be very dangerous if anybody parks along Osport Road. Absolutely.

And also Lucy Little Road.

So if there were signs that say no parking along that and we can make that a condition.

Those are the that's why these here we can't stop this but we can put conditions that would minimize the impact that this will have on us as neighbors for all of this. And that's one of the things that I think we should probably put as a condition that there's not going to be any traffic.

There going to be I mean no traffic, no parking. There's not going to be any parking along the O Westport road within a certain number of feet. We're not going to put it along the entire roadway, but a certain number of feet would be tremendously inconvenient as an occupant to be able to legally park your car a half a mile down the road and still walk back, if you get what I'm trying to say.

I understand.

Okay.

So, that's obviously something that we could consider.

Okay. Um, number two, um, buses, whether it be school buses or S, whatever it is, Southeastern Regional Transit buses. Is there facilities in there for the kids to wait for school buses and for the uh, you know, for SITA buses so people are not standing on the road uh, waiting for buses?

That will be probably probably brought up on the ne with the next individual as to where the location for that is. But we've learned on another 40B project that the school department will not allow for a bus stop on the site. They don't drive in there to go pick up children. And I I don't know if that's any safer or not safer, but they will actually require it at the roadway.

Is that my that's your understanding?

Yeah, sounds crazy.

All right. So, hold on one sec. We'll have that council.

Yeah, that's the uh town administrator received a email from the school department confirming that they do not go into private developments. So, there will need to be some accommodation along Old Westport Road adjacent to the entrance. That's a safe waiting area for students.

So, we'll address that with the next person as to the PL whether or not they may already have something on their plan. Um, and it's already taking that into consideration. So, I'm not going to jump the gun on that until we figure out where they're at.

Okay. Uh, number three, um, have any of these traffic studies taken into consideration all the new buildings going up like the the one across from the Caskin Pig, the big housing development there? Um, the other one the I don't know the one near the ledge.

Does that stuff has that been considered in the traffic evaluations?

I don't believe it is because it's so far removed, but I will I'll defer to this gentleman to give us an explanation. This we can question this methodology all we want. I'll be honest with you, I have a lot of difficulty understanding this methodology just because it doesn't flow to what I have the capacity to understand. I just don't think it makes sense sometimes. But once they do an analysis for traffic and it's

below a certain amount of traffic, they don't go out and go do analysis at other intersections. They stop at a particular intersection because that traffic doesn't exceed what the methodology requires them to actually do any further investigation on. And they basically stand behind they call it they've got these acronyms right they got the IT they got the TDM they've got they've got them all and these are people who

supposedly around the country have made a determination and they review this every so often because it was just a new study there's a new one that came out what I think it came out last fall that they actually when they first started this they were using an old um not methodology but the old parameters for the methodology and now they've elaborated further with some new they call it. I don't know what what edition

you guys on.

12th.

The 12th. Okay. So, we were on the 11th and now they're on the 12th edition. So, I I I understand that, but I don't think they're going to go out there. But let's see what he's got to say about that. So, just so you understand, this site is probably you'd have to take Been Road.

The probably the closest way to get there would be Beaten Road um and then pick up Reed Road and come along. So you're talking about not by how the crow flies, but you're looking on by driving probably about a mile. Let's say 3/4 of a mile.

Did you take that into consideration?

So we did contact uh when we first did the study and the way we do every traffic study is it's called our our no build scenario. So we have our existing conditions which is the counts that we went out and took um and then the next is that no build scenario. So, it's a future scenario that takes into account other developments in the area um and also applies a generic generic growth

rate uh to the volumes to account for any developments that may happen prior to this development happening. So, it grows those volumes and that gives us kind of our base for uh comparison for including kind of site generated trips.

So, I guess that was a long-winded answer of saying yes, we take into account projects in the area if the if when we reach out to the town uh they tell us to include that that project.

Okay. Can I say one thing?

Sure.

With all due respect, Mr. Madurus, I don't agree with your uh premise that we can't stop this. I think that I would love to see the state come in and tell us that we are putting we're putting our water supply in danger and that's okay or that we our service system can't handle this development and for them to say that's okay because I think we as people from Dartmouth need to stand up

for Dartmouth. Thank you agree and I'm hope I'm wrong about that really. I I truly do but I just don't see it. Um it's it's a state mandate and that's where basically we sit here most of the time. The first hour that we were here we're dealing with variances and with special permits. That's what we deal with. But basically because of the fact that 40B exists, they put that all

aside. All the master plan that we put together, all that planning, all of the all of the the grief that we deal with as a board to promote a certain type of development within a certain parts of our town. It's emasculated by 40B.

I hope you're right, sir.

Come on up.

Jack Lion, Strawberry Lane. Just a followup to a comment you made as far as no off-site parking. Is there anything we need to do to get that written into the regulations for something like this?

So basically at some point um if they continue with this and we get to a point where we need to approve it, we will be putting together a decision and it will be it's a comp it's part of the comprehensive permit and there'll be a litany of conditions and waiverss for the project. I'll defer to her. she can provide a better explanation cuz it's very likely she's going to be drafting

it in conjunction with their attorney as to what conditions we're going to be placing on here and there may be some push back as to some of the conditions but that's one that I've noted great if there's anything else we got more time to talk about them but there will be more hearings and we just if they make sense then we have to put them we can put them in place

second question I have now for a few comments that were made about a shuttle shuttle to UMass Dartmouth uh One proposal that was in play maybe 5 10 years ago was a company from Pennsylvania wanting to come in and build off-campus housing within that site and uh it that got shut down. Are there any prop any proposals, any regulations, anything in this to prevent this from turning into an off-campus

housing unit and or morphing into an off-campus housing unit? I live adjacent to the university.

Wintertime, I don't have a problem because the windows are closed. Summer, fall, it's party city. I mean, we all of the you who went to college, you know what a bunch of unsupervised adolescents are going to do in a situation like this? What do we Is there anything the town can do to prevent this from becoming an off-campus housing site?

I'm going to defer to her.

So, by the way, this is councel um Susan Murphy who's been appointed to us to assist us through this process. And she provides us legal counsel and she also there are times that there are questions. I don't know I don't know how this works. So, we're here to to basically listen to her, follow her guidance, and I'm sure that she can provide some sort of explanation to what you're saying.

So, I'm going to I'm going to back into my answer if that's okay. Um, so this is a comprehensive permit under chapter 40B as we've all been discussing to build a certain number of units. Um, under that statute, they're required to maintain in perpetuity or the board will require that they maintain in perpetuity 25% of the units for affordable housing. There is all sorts of um parameters and

regulations that govern how people get chosen to live in those units. So we know that there will be controls around who lives in the 25% affordable units.

Um the town cannot tell them who they can or cannot rent to for the other 75% of the units. So it is possible that students could elect to rent these units. It will be the discretion of the owner to decide who they choose to rent to.

So maybe is the answer. Maybe it will be, but it it's not it's not a it's not the uh UMass Dartmouth that's owning this project, at least in this point in time. So the private owner chooses who their tenants will be.

All right. And I guess my last point, I hope. I don't know. Probably not, though. Um as this is what the fourth 40B to come in within the last year.

Um no it's the third one in the last year.

When's the last time an inventory was done on affordable housing in the town as far as making our percentage we've done that.

When's the last time that was done and where are we at now with the proposals for all of these new sites?

Right. So the town is and I had the exact number. I believe it's 7.87% 87% 8%.

Right?

When was that 8%.

So that that is updated periodically. So what happens is the town has to periodically submit forms to the state and then the state actually um maintains the formal inventory for every community in the state.

And every time a new unit is created, the town will put together what's called a unit application and they submit it to the state. The state says yes, this qualifies. and they they put it on the inventory. Um my understanding from speaking to the town administrator's office um since I've become involved last August is that there may be a a a small handful of applications that are waiting to go in, but it's only a few

units. none of the other projects that are pending right now, even the preserve that was um approved a number of years ago. But so as soon as the board approves a a project and the permit is issued, those units will count, but they only count if a building permit is issued within a year. And then if a bu a CFO, a certificate of occupancy is not issued within a certain period of time,

they fall off. So that's what happened with the preserve. It was approved. It was on your inventory, but the developer was delayed. So none of those units are counting right now. They just received a certificate of occupancy for a small number of units. Um, and so the town can then request that small number, but it's only incremental because they're only doing one small building at a time. So

if you know if or when any of these pending three are approved and then they get submitted to the state then you know particularly if all three of them are approved in the next however many months there's going to be a huge jump on the inventory and that will stay in put provided that the projects proceed um in a timely manner. So that's how the inventory works and I think the town's

pretty much on top of where they are right now. because it just seems that none of these projects would be proposed in the first place if it wasn't 40B.

None of these developers would be taking on Old Westport Road, I just speak for that. If it wasn't a 40B site, well, better yet, sir, as a zoning board, we wouldn't be able to give them a variance for a multif family project in a single residence B zoning district.

It's just not doable with us. It'd have to go before a town meeting. Yeah, as the comment was made by the traffic person here that uh the parking is not this isn't zoned for this type of building. So, it's not appropriate to put it at two um vehicles per unit. Why not?

There are always two if there are two adults in a building apartment, there are two cars for that apartment. If there are three adults, there are three cars for that apartment. And we all know that you're short on parking. Where are people going to go? They're not going to go park at the mall and walk over or have somebody pick them up and drive them to their apartment. They're going

to end up in the neighborhood. Well, there isn't a lot of neighborhood.

You got Blossom Court, Lucy Little Road, Old Westport Road. None of it can handle any on street parking right there. It should be shut down. And it's just ridiculous and it wouldn't be going on if it weren't for 40B. And going back to Mr. Dilva's comment, we as a town need to stand up to this type of stuff because this is our water. I believe about 40% of the town water comes out of those two wells,

maybe even a little bit more if I don't know if they're in operation.

Well, when they're in operation, I don't know if they've been in operation. within a mile there's three major town wells.

Well, we have the director from DPW here. He can probably speak as to which ones.

Okay.

All right. Thank you.

I don't think there's any questions at that point, but obviously the point the two points that certainly have sparked something with me are the part no parking signs potentially and we got to consider about the two units, two cars per unit, two spaces, two parking spaces per unit.

All right. Is there anyone else that would like to speak on the issue of traffic? Come on up, ma'am.

Carol Cabraw from Lucy Little Road. Just a comment, not a question. Um, when you were talking, this gentleman was talking about uh potentially having a shuttle bus.

I got to tell you, I don't think people are going to want to take a shuttle. If you are w working at UMass Dartmouth right down the street, nobody's going to want to wait and oh, the shuttle's going to come at this time. Let me wait a little while. We're all in hurry hurry today. You're going to go do your grocery shopping. You're not going to wait for the shuttle. You're going to

take your car. You're not going to jump on the shuttle. Maybe some people will, but the majority of people are not going to jump on the shuttle to go to stop and shop or to go to their job that's a mile down the street. That's just my opinion.

Well, I tend to agree with you. It's not a way of life that people who live in a community like ours are willing to adopt if it's a big city. Yeah, I believe that that's more likely an option. I tend to agree with you.

Just Mike.

All right. Anyone else?

Oh, come on up, ma'am.

We're going to take a short recess in a little bit. I got to take a bathroom break.

My name is Virginia Louise. I'm at Five Strawberry Lane. And the question I have is with regards to Lucy Little. Uh the last time we met, I believe I I spoke to the peer reviewer about how far they went down on Lucy Little. Um and I what he told me, I believe, if I recall correctly, was they didn't go all the way down around into the S-curve or down

into at the end of the road. And you know how Lucy Little is. I think anybody who travels on it knows that it's a it's a a difficult road to navigate. We've had three accidents this summer on that road on the Scurve. Um so I what I'd like to know is could we at least initiate the traffic study to really look at Lucy Little? You can go stand on Strawberry Lane and watch.

All right. He's going to explain the methodology. We'll have our expert answer that question for you. Is that the only question you have?

Yeah. Yeah. I'd like I'd like to see them really look at that. I I'm I'm I'm understanding what he's saying and what they're saying about your methodology. I don't think they went down the road. You can ask him.

Absolutely. Let's see what he's Let's see this gentleman what he's got to tell us about that.

Hi. Um when we were here last time was when we presented the findings from our first peer review which was the end of October. Mhm.

So since that time, we had presented our peerreview letter and the applicant has provided responses to that peerreview letter that did include methodology and traffic counts at Lucy Little Road which were not previously um indicated at the time that we spoke regarding that. So part of our recommendations in our peerreview letter said that the safety along Lucy Little Road should be

included as part of the assessment in the overall safety plan that is um outlined as part of this project. Um, and that safety should be coordinated with the town and the town's DPW to make sure that um, any safety measures that need to be implemented along Lucy Little Road should be included. In other words, we're not confining our recommendations to just Old Westport Road or Old

Westport Road at Lucy Little, which were the basis for a lot of our traffic data recommendations.

However, our recommendations with regards to traffic safety included Lucy Little Road, including signing, striping, um having the applicant re review the pavement condition and things like that. We also recommended that the applicant adjust their trip distribution percentage to include um some methodology to acknowledge that at least some traffic to and from the site would be using uh Lucy Little Road which was

not previously illustrated in the applicant's original traffic study. So it's our our standing that the applicant has provided safeguards that Lucy Little Road will be examined as part of the safety plan for this project.

And has he submitted to you what those safeguards would be?

Um to this point we left it general as to they would be coordinated with the town if there's issues with particular curves or pavement markings or uh particular pavement patches that maybe you know uh needed to be repaired or something like that. We leave that to the town's discretion um that the applicant work directly with the town in case there's something that the town is aware of that they want us to to fix

that was not included as part of our initial study area.

Okay.

Thank you. All right. So, this will be a good time. Um, I think when we get back and does anyone else have any questions, this is not over. We still got the next person to come forward to talk to us about civil. Come on up.

Danielle Charbano, Lucy Little Road. I'd just like I know we've talked about adding signage for no parking. Um, I would like to point out that Lucy Little doesn't have any speed limit signs whatsoever on it. And maybe that could be added for these people who are going to be new.

Um, as someone who lives on the Scurve, that's quite a debacle.

We've lost a telephone poll three times, was it for the locals, this year? So, okay. I I understand the concern. Who at the town are they going to be speaking with about the traffic situation? Is it DPW?

All right.

Normally, it would be the DPW. Yes.

Fair enough. Thank you. All right. So, at this time, we're going to take a short recess. I guess we're going to change um individuals who are going to come before us and we'll move on to civil and storm Hold on.

We're moving on to the next expert to come forward and present his case.

Can I just ask one quick question?

Okay, come on up.

Bill Medeiros Blossom Court. So, I just have a question that 156 units, correct?

Yeah. How many one-bedroom units, how many two-bedroom units, and how many three-bedroom units are going to be in there? So, that one Okay, because the the question that I have is, are there going to be deed parking spots? So, those 256 spots, is that just for the condo people or is that for guest parking as well?

Guest parking. Okay.

So, um let's come forward with that's you. If you could go up to the podium.

Oh, that's him.

And that would be with him.

Yeah. So, he he may that might be a good question for when he's done.

So, exactly. I thought you were going to ask a question about traffic.

It's it's the same thing. It's traffic because now the traffic is if it's it's two parts. So, because we're going to do this, I'll have you we'll we'll answer we'll ask those questions first when he's done cuz the question I had is it's going to be a traffic when they're out parking at Old Westport Road and they're blocking the bike.

I think we already kind of blocked that up by basically putting signage on the roadway. No, signage ain't going to work.

Well, it it can be enforced. It can definitely be enforced.

Who's going to enforce it? Just like the cops that enforce it on Chase Road in Font's Corner next to the mall. When people are blocking traffic, you're sitting there through three sets of lights.

Don't argue about it.

I know. I'm just saying. Well, maybe we'll make money with tickets.

Okay, that that's not going to happen.

You and I both know that.

If you can move on, sir.

Thank uh just to introduce myself again, Damen Demetri, Kico Engineers and Scientists. I'm the site civil engineer for the project. Um the development site gra um drainage grading uh you know are the components that I'm uh in the site layout uh and which I'm in charge of. Um as kind of previously discussed you know um the project 400 um 16,500 uh square foot apartment buildings um about threetory residential units um

within an amenities building shown here.

These are the four units right here on the plans. um a clubhouse building as I already put associated parking in and along throughout the development along the sides of the buildings. Um and uh for the property there's um yeah 152 units total. Um there's a breakdown of roughly um three bedroom um four threebedroom units per uh building. 19 two-bedroom, 16 uh onebedroom.

Hold on. You're going too fast for me.

Hold I pull and those numbers I are you know in flux of how it goes that is the current how many threebedroom um as I understand it uh four threebedroom 43 four oh four threebedroom units how many twobedroom twobedroom 19 so it's again I I feel that's off because my mouth comes out to 39 twobedroom units and 16 onebedroom uh there might be one off there as I the counts I'm making up

are coming to 39 again the architecturals are um you know being worked out but the unit count will remain as uh previously four per building.

Per building.

It's per building. Yes. Yes. Okay.

So if you want to get the actual math you multiply it by four.

Mhm.

Yeah.

Okay.

Okay. Um so those are the unit C uh unit for that for the site. Um you know a lot of this is already presented. I'm not going to go into too much depth on the um layout.

You know it can be seen there. Um there was a lot of back and forth with Nich or not a lot of back and forth yet. There was a lot of comments from Nichost requests for clarification. Nothing that came from us um as we saw as a major concern um you know adding a little bit clarity to the design um but for components that have already been designed and you know um again niche can

come back uh come up and have conversation for their review. I won't get into it too much. Um, but the system, the drainage will be um catch basins uh throughout the site into a manhole systems, an underground drainage system uh which will connect to uh one of these three underground infiltration unit systems. They're big underground half shoe uh um moon, you know, shaped empty chamber for volume. water will be

stored in there, infiltrated um treated by the soil, treated by the catch basins, um that have hoods, manholes. Um all of this falls under the storm water standards and the designs of that. Um in addition, there's two open air infiltration basins along the edge of the project. Um again, that has been reviewed um by niche. Comments came um we will be responding to those comments um at a later date with the revised set

of plans. Um, so that's a generic of the uh site overview plans. I would I'm just going to jump into responses on the parking. That's obviously um a higher concern. Um, again, we find the parking is adequate at the site 100 uh 1.75 ratio um for the projects, you know, per the IT manual. All of that is relative to what we have seen in these types of projects. We're pretty confident, we're

confident that that is adequate. Um, you know, we not as even if it is two, you think two cars per unit, not every person is at the facility at a time. You know, people work at different points of the day. People have those things. You know, again, the calculations were based off of manuals, things to that extent.

That being said, with an understanding of the concern and those things, currently parking on the site is a um, you know, come and go as you please.

there's a free and open parking to those who are in the residential units. What we can do is after the six-month review, we could have a condition that in that six-month review, if there is a parking concern, if there is overflow parking, if there is something to that, then we can set restrictions on the units. We've done that on other project. We haven't actually done it on other projects

because it's never a problem, but it is something that we've offered for other projects that say you have a three-bedroom unit, you're restricted to two spaces. you have a one-bedroom unit, you're restricted to one space, right?

And then that was away from a um you know where the six-month review will be helpful in resolving that issue and that could be something that could be brought up um as a condition or you know again just part of the review. So that that is a solution um if that ever does become a problem.

Um so that is the parking there. Um, other comments that have came up uh during this meeting, parking uh west of the end or not parking, I apologize, a sidewalk west of the property is not proposed. There is no existing sidewalk in that area. It would be a sidewalk away from the school building and into a empty non-sidewalk port of this. There's also not a sidewalk from Lucy, you can't see it on the sheet,

Lucy Lane in this direction, uh, in its entirety as well. Um so again, sidewalk we're proposing from the site entrance towards um Dartmouth uh university or college.

See if we can get a cleaner plan here.

Here we go. So that yeah, this would be the sidewalk attaching right here. The proposed sidewalk. Um garbage collection was also brought up. Um our you know the garbage will be collected by a waste management firm. Again, our applicant has worked with many firms before. They will be a license hauler. They will pick up, deliver, and you know coordinate with the DPW the best days for that.

Typically, it's once per week. It will be into the garbage, you know, large garbage facilities um throughout the site.

So, there are dumpster locations.

There are dumpster locations throughout the site. Yes.

Okay.

Um so, those will be um typically picked up once per week and a waste management firm will be handling that and you know, hauling and dumping it in a legal manner. Um, I have one other question that kind of stems from what Mr. Medeiros was saying. Of these units, what is the anticipation? Are these going to be sold off as condo units or they going to be just managed as apartment units? As a

uh from my understanding, it's managed as apartment units.

So, one one common owner u property management company and rental units.

Uh from my understanding, yes, that that is correct.

Thank you.

Okay. Um so those were three uh major topics that were brought up here. Um second the uh buses and amenities for children um throughout the site. Um we do have two large open amenities areas just open um you know uh the landscaping plans you know um there's fire pits there, you know, there's other open areas on either side of the amenity building. Um in addition again um buses we did originally perceive that they

would be you know allowed into the property that has come up that that is not allowed. Um we would likely be amendable um if it is a traffic you know we'd have work with the traffic engineers to understand how um a bus stop along the frontage of the property um would affect traffic in that area.

But you know there is adequate space here to add a um a waiting area for students andor other transportation services um at that moment. So it you know again we are the applicant is amendable to installing one of those if that um is how the board would like us to proceed. Um again it it's the the two sides of the coin right you know safety an area for bus stopping you know is a a

transportation service something that the town wants in that area. Um so then uh no parking signage along um uh Old Westport Road and uh Lucy Little. Um applicant would be amendable to you know that being a condition and those being installed along the property. It's not a major concern if that if that alleviates um some of the town's concerns there. Um they would be amendable to something to that. Um and then

okay. Uh so those were the notes that I had did have um for concerns that came up during the traffic. Um but I will open it up to the board um and uh to for questions or or anything else that may be a concern is our consultant on this.

So um Mark Gabriel is is um unavailable today, but he is send associate.

Okay.

Hi, my name is Sandy Brock. I'm a registered professional engineer in Massachusetts and other places. I happen to have just to understand what my role has been on this particular project. I have done a lot of 40B reviews over my career. I actually helped mark and I did a QC on the the actual peerreview letter. So I'm familiar with the plans.

I'm also familiar with the letter. So what I was going to do is give an update of where we are at at this particular time. And so, and I think the applicant has already outlined some of these things is that we did an initial peerreview letter that 17 page page review letter that you've all seen that has gone to the applicant. The applicant has reviewed it. Uh we had a meeting on

the 14th of January to kind of go over their questions on those particular uh comments that they had, you know, comments on or questions on. So, we went through that and just to give him some of our insight of why we brought up those particular ones. If you're interested, I'm happy to go which ones that we talked about. Um, and then after that is basically we're now waiting for the updated review plans, updated

calculations. Um, and obviously once we get that information along with their responses to our our original comments, uh, we'll be updating our uh, response letter. Happy to go through the letter.

I'm sure Mark has gone over it in generality or what we discussed at that meeting. Happy to get into details and obviously if there's any questions happy to answer those.

Thank you. All right. So, at this point in time, is there something you'd like to add?

I I just unless I missed it. I don't know if there was a timing.

Talk a little louder.

I'm sorry. I don't I don't know. I apologize if I missed it, but I don't know. Is there a timing for when that's expected? The revised plans. Uh we're working on currently we're hoping to submit um early February um to get that in February.

Right. So now that you've heard a little bit more about the project, they're still they're going to make some changes from what they're telling us. Is there anyone that in the audience that has any questions?

I saw him first. You'll be next, sir.

Joseph Louise, Five Strawberry Lane. Uh to the board.

Sorry, I didn't get the name.

Joseph Louise Five Strawberry Lane.

Thank you.

Um based on what was just said here with regards to the mitigation of groundwater at the site, um it was mentioned that Sistern would be underground infilt uh infusing the water back into the into the ground off of the um the runoff areas. Is there uh any thought of the quality of that water that's going to be into those sistns that's going to filter back into the ground um based on all of

this traffic, all these cars that are going to be parked there? And I'm sure they're all going to be new cars that don't leak any oil or anything like that or gas. So, I was kind of concerned about that.

Absolutely.

Thank you.

I think our expert can speak to that.

Uh absolutely. Um, it has to meet state requirements of the stormwater manual.

Part of the stormwater manual is a percentage of what they call TSS, which is total suspended solid removal. The theory behind that is is that you're, you know, what you're talking about potential pollutants from vehicles and so forth actually attached to particles.

And the whole idea is prior to the water going into these systems that go directly into the the soil and into the ground, they go through a series of water quality devices. Um, so there they're various types and basically they have to remove a certain percentage of total suspended solids in the effort to clean the water prior to going into the ground. And there is when you look at a

site like this, obviously your parking lots are your key pollutant sources. Uh you also will have roof runoff which is relatively clean. Of course, nothing's clean because it falls from the sky. You have pollutants in the sky. So there is a basically a standard that they need to follow as far as the storm water regulations in Massachusetts. And at this point, they're following it. And

obviously that is something that we're checking on. So hopefully that answers the question.

All right. Are there different systems to effectuate that?

Yes. And I I'll let the applicant go through the series of uh different types of systems that they have on the site. I look through them, but I'm just I'm sure he has a better sense of what they are.

Happy to give you any kind of comments and how they work. There's a various number of either, you know, uh nature-based systems, which is a filtering system. There's also um structures that create a vortex that settle out and create a velocity to zero. So sediment settles out. That's another way of doing it. Uh one thing I will add before he kind of goes through what those structures are. Um they do

need to be maintained and part of the conditions will be that they have to maintain those systems. It is a private system. I would also recommend as a condition is that the ultimate owner of it has to submit information to the DPW that that inspection and actual uh maintenance is actually occurring every year. It's all required under different requirements in the state and federal government and so forth. So that's a

reasonable something reasonable to ask.

We do that already um in projects within the aquafer district. Yes, we have them have put together maintenance plans.

Yeah, the in an aquifer you would actually have a higher level of TSS removal. It's actually the other part of that as far as depending upon where you are is how much you have to treat. So it it's the way the storm water manual works is sometimes you have to treat the first half inch, other times you have to treat the first inch. It makes a difference in the size of these

structures or the systems. So it's, you know, if in an aquifer area, it's usually a minimum of one inch. And there's also some other potential requirements of what you can actually have for uses in those areas.

Okay. Thank you. Come on up, sir.

Jim Jim Costa for uh Old Westport Road.

I have four questions, I think, here.

Will there be an on-site manager?

Will there be on-site security?

Will the garbage times not interrupt people sleeping?

Will they go with the town um quiet times 7 to 10 or something?

And then on the catch basin, I have some information from the mass D hazardous waste. That's my source for this information.

Like uh in gasoline there's a chemical called MTBE. It's an additive. Like pchlorate in fireworks. It travels thousands of feet underground. This is a zone 2 aquifer. We have wells on both sides.

I'm concerned about the MTB and gas uh gasoline the additive. I can drop you there. You can look at this.

Sure.

also talking about the um uh the catch basins inside this uh area.

Um, apparently there's a problem at one time with maybe uh I had some family that grew up in the city and in the projects when you're going to change your oil, you pull over the catch basin, pull a plug. Apparently, this was a problem in Westport, too, because the town of Westport set up uh their catch basins with signs no dumping.

And because of the um this area is a zone 2 aquifer, um the town used to have signs placed in front of it that were um posting that uh please protect our water supply, but somebody pulled them out in front of that sand pit.

So, that being said, uh this is such a sensitive area for our drinking water.

We have well fields on both sides and you're going to put catch basin water in the ground. Doesn't make sense to me.

Those are my questions. Okay.

Can you provide some explanation to that? I'm not expecting you to answer this but Okay. To to the treatment system.

The treatment system.

Okay. All right. Yeah. So um the treatment system works as um previously explained it's requirements under the mass D storm water standards. Uh the system is called a treatment train um in which a pre-treatment requirement is um placed on the storm water runoff prior to being infiltrated into the ground and the infiltration itself is part of the treatment. So um how it initially starts

is the actual catch basins which I show the detail here are equip equipped with a deep sump um so again a location for sediment and particles and and um sinking material to fall to the bottom which um as explained you know captures some of the pollutants. Add additionally there is a hooded um outlet pipe. So um similar to how a septic system works or anyone um with that knowledge, right?

Things that float will remain floating at top. The hood enters deeper into the water, you know, um uh depth of a foot or so. Um and floatables like gases, oils, um even debris, leaves, anything like that will float and stay on top.

Right? So the water that comes out of the catch basin itself is a clean it is treated at that and that's the pre-treatment device that is a it's consider given 25% credit um from the total credit we got to get to 80% um but that 25% is actually wiped out in the later version in in how the train goes right to what we go to yet. So that's the first line of treatment. It's not

the classic catch basins um that you may have seen in historical places. Um these are new. They're required under the storm water standards. Um they are designed by this. This will be part of the conditions. Um you know it is in the plan set so is part of the proposed design. Um so then we continue. I'll go back to the drainage system. This actually shows it a little more clearly cleanly here. Um so from the catch

basins it goes into the underground infiltration chambers. So like these little circles and then the connection that's the drainage pipe network. um that then enters into the um other components of the treatment drain. So catch basins will then enter into the you know a man um manhole um through the drainage piping and then the first chamber within the infiltration rows is lined with a um a filter fabric that

collects additional pollutants out of the um out of the storm water prior to then um being dispersed to the rest of the chamber system. So that that chamber itself is completely wrapped in a filter fabric. Um that filter fabric then collects sediment collects part you know all of that within that area and actually you know makes it easier to clean the system because it it is more

contained. So from then it dischar you know it um perforates through the rest of the system into the underground chamber system. Um there's 4T of separation from the bottom of our system to groundwater. So with that separation again similar to septic systems this is all per master storm water standards um and those the the soil acts as a removal of pollutants that is a filter itself

it's very much how water is treated in many you know classically through this.

So these systems tried and true have been part of you know um engineering knowledge for a long period of time. Um that is the way that our systems for those underground chambers work. Um in for the exterior um infiltration basins. Again we have the catch basins to a manhole. Um and rather than the underground um filter fabric that is wrapped around the chamber. It enters into a sediment for

bay which is an open air for bay that is a little bit higher in the air. And that's where initial sediment and pollutants are discharged into, collected and maintained in that area before they're then um discharged into the infiltration basin which again the same treatment occurs as the underground. The treatment occurs in the soil um and how water is filtered in these classic pract engineering

practices that have occurred for an extended period of time. So that you know this is all per storm water standards. Um the zone 2 has a extra requirement of a 44% pre-treatment. Um the infiltration basins get 80% after pre-treatment. Sorry if I'm saying this a little convoluted. So the catch basin get is a pre-treatment uh device.

The infiltration chamber fabric wrapping of the initial chamber is a pre-treatment device. Both of those are required meet the 44% TSS removal requirement prior to the infiltration chamber and the infiltration basin discharging that water in or recharging that water into ground. um we want to recharge the water into ground because we're trying to compensate for the the impervious area where water is

separated. So it's a balance. It's a it's made up of these practices that are engineering standards. Um we meet all the mass storm water standard requirements. It is being peer reviewed.

Um I think I gave um enough information.

Happy to to clarify anything that might be um misunderstood.

I think I get it. Do you want to ask another question?

Yes. Could you please put that up? Uh your first diagram there of all the different stages.

Um are you talking about the the details?

Manholes.

The manholes. Yeah.

The details.

All right. I've seen the town has this I believe on Old Westport Road. I've watched them pump that out. It fills up with sand down here. Once it fills up with sand, all the water and the nip bottles and all that stuff flow out. So that that's a failure right there. So you're going to catch it over here with the screen fabric.

No.

No. Um, so in your regards to your concern with the operation and maintenance of the catch basins and sediment building up in those and floating as a privately owned site, we have an operation and maintenance plan that is part of the storm water report that is in conjunction with the storm water standards that requires that the catch basins are inspected and maintained on a, you know, quarterly and

yearly basis for the amount of sediment that goes in them. So it's a 4ft sump.

The sediment is supposed to be measured on a periodic basis, I believe quarterly. um to to the point where it hits 18 in and then at once it hits 18 in it's inspected it's required to be pumped down. So again maybe the um the town structures that you've witnessed have had that issue. This is a privately owned site um that will have a operation and maintenance plan that they're required to follow.

Thank you.

And finally, he hasn't answered the question how he's going to filter out the gasoline additive that's water soluble. Well, you're making a Hold on.

I think you're assuming that that exists in the water.

No, it doesn't exist. It's It's in gasoline. So, if it were a gasoline MTV, right?

It's MTV. So, you're assuming it's on site that there's MTB on the Yeah. Somebody's gasoline tank leaks.

Oh, okay. I see what you mean. All right.

Can you answer that question?

Uh, good evening. I'm Brian Clinger. I'm the principal um with KINO Engineers and Scientists. I run the environmental group.

Just a little louder because I can't hear you.

I'm Brian Clingler. I'm the principal uh geologist with Kico Engineers and Scientist and I'm the LSP for the site.

MBT is a historical problem a co it's added it was an octane enhancer added in the late 80s. Um it it did have a problem with code solveny. It moved very quickly in groundwater, but they they stopped using it. So it's no longer used in gasoline. It was outlawed. It was banned. So as a current issue with releases to that site or potential releases to the catch basin, it would not be one.

So that was that started when they started requiring unled gasoline.

It was Yeah. was when Well, exactly.

Lead was the issue in gasoline. That was an octane enhancer. They they they put in in in as as a substitute to leaded gasoline.

That's not there anymore.

Not there anymore. It's been banned.

That's Yeah. No, that's the the information I gave you just came down from the D website. Oh, I'm sure they're concerned because sometimes it's still in existence.

Yeah.

But it's not from any current it's not from any current use. Based on what I'm understanding with them is they're not putting it in gasoline as an additive anymore.

It hasn't been banned in Massachusetts.

Other states have banned that chemical.

It's no longer added to gasoline, but is a significant concern. Obviously, it's an environmental issue with with large scale releases. In particular, the Cape Otis Air Force has a huge MTBE problem that is acres in size, but um currently it's not in gasoline. So from a microcosm of this site, MBT isn't a concern cuz he's trying to he wants me to understand that it's from cars that are

parking on site that could leak fuel or leak oil.

That's not going to happen based on your understanding.

Correct. Cuz MTB is not in that gasoline.

We have our expert here. We're going to ask her.

And this is where I'm totally honest that I say I'm aware of a lot of Yeah. So, so a lot of these different, you know, pollutants come up and so forth. That is not I am not a, you know, a, you know, do things with 21E and I do not, you know, I am not an LSP. That's not quite in my field. I mean, I think it would be very easy to check and

that's something that we will do just to confirm it, but I don't want to say something that I'm not 100% sure.

There's a lot of other things like phosphorus and other things that we have to deal with in the storm water. I can go through that and what you can and cannot do. That is not the question.

You're here as an expert for storm water for us, right?

He's here as a geologist explaining and I guess he's going to talk to us about some of the environmental concerns we're going to segue into.

A licensed site professional. Yes.

Great. Okay.

All right. So, we're getting short on time. I always promise my board that we'd be done by 8:00. It's not going to happen tonight, but we're going to keep it short. So, um we're going to move it along now to some environmental concerns because I'm sure people want to hear about that as well. Oh, Mr. Medeiros, you had asked me a question before. Has that been answered by this gentleman?

For now, for now.

Okay, good answer.

I still have not. My question is, so it's you're going to review this, right, in 6 months, a year later. So, what happens when they change that? So, it's going to be individually owned or is it going to be a complex?

The units?

Yes.

The unit. It's a complex apartment building.

Okay. So, when they they decide to switch that over?

Yep.

What's your What are you going to think about? What's your your plan for? What's the plan after that?

Well, as units are then sold at that time, right? There's a turnover in apartment units, right? So, if if it is an issue with the parking at the time, right? We we've seen that, which is not something um the applicant is concerned with at the time, we can apply this deed or these restrictions to the apartment.

So, when someone goes to buy an apartment, it's note you have one parking space, right? And that will that will be associated with the rental of that unit, right?

What's the total number of rooms like bedrooms? Let's just say so you have to direct sorry you have to direct the questions to me.

Sorry. Total number of bedrooms. I'm sorry.

So I guess you could do the math.

Um but if you multiply them by Excuse me.

156 units. That's total units.

I have the You're right. You're right.

Could you have I'm not asking how you have that now. How about he have that the next time so you know how many how many say well the total units is 156. You're saying how many total bedrooms. Is that what you're asking?

Yeah. Because the problem is is you can have three bedrooms, three cars. So he's going by units by parking spots. So 154* zoning bylaws usually go they say a single family home. It doesn't say if it's an eightbedroom home or two. I get it. But the problem is it's two parking spaces.

Yes, I understand that. But if we can't change the stand, we can't impose greater standards upon them than we otherwise would impose on the district.

The problem I have is this there's they cannot park in old Westport Road. If I if there's my driveway fits two cars, I park out in the street, right in my culde-sac. My question is that's what you do now?

Yes.

Okay. So my question you park on Old Westport Road now?

No, I don't park in old I park in my street where I live on I live off of Old Westport. I live on Blossom Court. So if I park, if guests come over, they park in the circle in the culus. Nobody parks out in old Westport Road cuz over there there's a bike path. There's a bike lane. So my question to you is what is their plans? If there's 154 units and

there's 400 bedrooms, that means there's 400 potentially 400 cars. What is the plan that they have in place? That's where those cars are going to go. I don't care about units. I care about bedrooms because if you have a three-bedroom unit, you have three cars potentially. If you have a fourbedroom unit, you have four cars potentially.

Their math to me doesn't add up, right?

So, the concern that I have for safety traffic is where are those cars going to go?

In 6 months when he leaves and this is all sold, they don't deal with it. The people are going to deal with it. So, the concern that I have is where are those cars going to go? You got people that walk. You got people that ride bicycles. Where's the what's their plan for that?

One sec about the bedroom situation. Can you explain that on what the analysis is with that? It's I don't believe that that's how these things are analyzed, but um I'll hear from you.

No, they are not analyzed um on a unit, you know, a bedroom count unit uh perspective. Um they're analyzed on unit or by the zoning bylaws. um you know are typically the standard you know again single family unit two bedroom or two parking spots is sta the standard of how these things are typically analyzed what I am saying in response to that with your concern to the bedrooms right if we

will go forward with the design is sh we believe that a 1.75 ratio is adequate if that is not and there becomes a concern at the six-month review of the traffic study we will start limiting the part so a threebedroom unit even though there's three bedrooms. We can limit that unit to two parking spaces through through Oh, hold on. That's not how this works, right? Questions to me.

Yep. Okay. So, what's the plan? So, no, let him finish. I'm Okay, go a finish.

So, so it's in the renters's agreement in the owning of the in the renter when they sign their lease agreement, it is you are allotted these parking spaces.

You are allotted two parking spaces that is in the operation and maintenance of the facility. So, that that is how that would be enforced. That would how there would be parking assignments and there things to that extent of course. Yeah. So they'll designate areas on deed right. So if you decide to buy a condo they're going to say this you are deed this this is your spot. So when my question is out of those 256

spots how many are designated guest spots and how many are going to be designated to the people that are living in that condo? Cuz that's going to change a lot because if you only so if a person buys two designated spots you're you're not even including guest spots.

If somebody decides to come and visit these people, where are they going to park?

So, so again through the chair, where are they going to park? That's the question that I have cuz if you block Old Westport Road, there's another 340B going down on Hway Road that's going to be coming up traffic next to the mall.

So, what's the plan with there when cars are cutting through because of traffic and everything else?

Take the question first. Right.

Chair, do you do you mind if I jump in this point? So I'm not a traffic engineer, but I can speak to in addition to doing this job for over 30 years, I also spent 11 years on a planning board.

So I reviewed many of plans just so people understand my background. Um as as the chair has as noted and I believe the consultants, there's there's frameworks for how parking requirements are determined.

They're either determined by um the zoning bylaw which is done on for residential either on a per house or per unit type of basis or and and or and it's not even or and there are these professional like the IT that have been mentioned in when you layer on the 40B on top of that these are a lot of these questions that are being raised today.

These these are concerns that are personal to everyone in this community as they rightly are. But there are also concerns that have been raised by residents in all communities that have faced 40bs. And there is an extensive body of case law decisions by by courts and the housing appeals committee that hears appeals of 40bs that discuss what are the appropriate standards. And as the as the board moves forward and

considers this decision and considers is there enough parking and those types of things, part of what my council is going to be in discussing with the board is what are the standards that they can apply. So, I I think that all of these are questions that people have and they're reasonable questions, but at the same time, as a matter of law, the board has to look to either the zoning bylaw,

which as we noted doesn't have anything specific for multif family housing, has to look at the industry standards, and has to look at what case law has said about what are those reasonable standards. So, I I feel like these are all I understandable questions, but they're getting outside of what the board like the board can't um sit here and say, "Well, what if what if what if what if I

I think the board's going to need to look at what the law provides and make decisions on that basis. But I defer to you, Mr. chair as to you know we can you know how much conversation but I just wanted to provide context for for the you know everyone to understand is the analysis he his analysis he said and I get that right as a lay person that's an easy deduction

to make is these are the bedrooms this is what you're going to do but that's not the methodology that's applied to this right and the board's not and the board's not allowed to apply a methodology that's different than the professional standards so that from a matter of law so that's That's just what the kind of the the uh kind of other aspect of this that I just wanted to mention.

So what's the bylaw state for residential in this situation? Cuz this is obviously going to be this situation.

It doesn't speak to this situation. It says that in a single resident in a single family home, two parking spaces.

Okay. So what's in the situation with this then the industry standard?

What's the industry standard on that 2?

They're saying it's 1.55. It could be as low as 1.55. They're saying they're at 1.75. They're not at 1.75. They're about five or six cars short. A lot short.

Higher. Higher.

Oh, higher.

But that's not including That's not including the guest watch. That's including just for cond.

They're above the 1.55. They kind of said 1.75, but they kind of rounded up.

They're probably more around 1.71 or something like that.

1.71.

Okay. Is that including just the residential people? That's that's the question that I have. I'd like to know what's the parking spots. Maybe a future meeting we can discuss that. It's 267 parking spots that they're proposing right now.

Okay. So, that's including guest spots and everybody.

Well, there's no designation for guest spots. If you look at the zoning bylaw, we don't have guest spots.

Well, they're going to have assigned deed spots. They're going to say either one or better.

Maybe, maybe, but not in the beginning from what they're telling us. Even if they do, that's something they're going to have to self-control within themselves.

Yeah, but that's the question that I have. The concern that I have is what happens in 6 months if it's not adequate. They're going to come back and they're going to say, "So, where are they going to where's the cars going to go? They're going to park in old Lucy Little Road. You can't park in Old Westport. You're gonna block Lucy Little Ro, which a narrow street as it is. I

mean, signs don't work. With all due respect, they don't work. We all know that they don't work. They don't obey.

I disagree. Okay. I disagree that signs don't work.

Signs don't work, right? They're speed limit signs.

Of course they do. They don't. They fly right on that street all the time.

Well, but listen, they work. That's what police are for. They have to enforce if there's a requirement that you ride or you drive at a certain speed limit.

That's what the police are for.

If they see you.

All right. Well, if they see you. Well, the thing is is as a community, all you're going to do is call the traffic commission for police and they go out there. They put a unit out there.

I've done it many of the times. I'm a big rat. I don't care. But that's beside the point. But the concern that I have is these guys are going to do it based on a 1.55. They're going to in six months they're going to say it's done.

They already made their money. Things done. Now, the concern is we're stuck with it. And that's the concern that I I'd like to have this answer.

I understand that that's a concern.

Yeah. Like I said, I understand it's a concern, but I don't think that we can as a board address it to the extent that you want it addressed. Still, by the point I'm saying, I'd like to know in writing. So this way, if there is an issue down the road, I want to know who I'm going to sue if, god forbid, there's an accident and I get hurt with this.

Well, I'm not here to advise you how to handle that.

Well, I want it in writing cuz I wonder who I'm going to go after.

We don't we don't provide any opinions in writing, unfortunately.

All right. Um, is there anyone else that would like to speak? Come on up, sir.

All right. We're going to be moving on to environmental after you.

Uh, Joe Louise again, FiveStar Lane. Um, one question I had real quick. um to what storm level standard are they applying their storm levels? Uh is it the current one or are they taking into account the um progressive one that that takes into climate uh changes 100 years? Right.

So I'm sure you'll you'll tell us that mass D has certain regulations and you're following and you're meeting within those regulations.

Yeah. Um so our original design used TP40. It's a specific rainfall intensity. They gauge the storms and you know everything from one two three year you know the intensity of the rain um increases with the frequency of the storm right 100year storm it's not that it will occur every hundred years it's that there's a 1% chance that it could occur at any point in time but that's how it's written out

um we currently went with TP 40 um the peer review has asked us to move to the atlas 14 data um which is the uh newer model um we will do that and the storm again in our revised plans will address that additional um will address that new um progressive um model uh model amounts.

Is there a reason why you suggested that more what he's labeled as a progressive model?

TP40 is about 60 years old. Okay.

So it's it hasn't it's not commonly used. It's in for my opinion it's not engineering practice currently as what we're doing in Massachusetts. We've moved on to and this is again this is you know standard practice is a little bit hard to explain. Um I sit on my concom we do a lot of peer reviews. We do a lot of designs. A majority of companies have moved to the Noah 14

which is was put out about seven eight years ago maybe 10 um years ago. So that is but to kind of get to the question that is what excuse me excuse me gentlemen I can't have I can't hear her right of hearing I can't hear. Sorry. So, so the Noah 14 was put out several years ago and that really updated uh the calculations or the rainfall data for the 210y year

things like that. I think the question by the applicant is is talking about resilience in looking towards the future. So right now there's some updating going on by the federal government. Have no idea when that will be done on basically predictions. So based on what the current regulations are for the state of Massachusetts, the the Noah 14 is direction they're going.

There will be new stormwater regulations coming out um at some point that will change those numbers, but we don't have those regulations and when we did the peer review, we we looked at the current regulations and current standard practice.

Thank you.

All right, so we're going to move on to environmental.

One more.

Kevin Louise, Five Strawberry Lane. Um, I'd like to submit something uh into the uh formal record. Um, but first I have uh four separate questions and mainly rhetorical. Um, who is the owner of KICO Engineering and Scientists Incorporated?

Who is the owner of Kico Building LLC?

who is the owner of Sherbrook Farms LLC and what is their uh registered um of business?

And the last question or twoprong question that I have is uh regarding oversight um what is the process in which we select the board selects oversight and are there any uh uh investigations into the connections of those who are oversighting for peer review and I'd like to submit these records uh for formal review for a formal review.

So, we'll table that for now. We'll address that at the next hearing. But we'll take a look at these collectively.

I'll make you'll make copies for everyone so we can take a look at it and we'll see how we address it the next meeting.

Council, can you can you also um the other items that you were given, Mr.

Chair, by the public? Would you mind giving those to Michelle as well so she can make copies?

All the pictures. Yes.

Yeah, that file right there.

Pass them down. No, you know, just give them to Michelle so she can and you want to see everything to Michelle cuz she just needs them for the record. Thank you.

We're going to move on to environmental otherwise we're going to be here really really late. So the environmental expert please I know you already came forth on something else.

Yes, just to reintroduce myself. I'm Brian Klinger. Uh I'm the principal geologist with Kico Engineers and Scientists. You got to speak a little louder closer to the microphone. Slower.

Sorry. Uh I'm a principal and I'm the licensed site professional um for this for the site. Um as this is the first time we've been in front of the board on the environmental issues, we'd like to prevent present a brief um site history of of the property as well as the um assessment history to date.

How long is this presentation going to be?

Super quick.

Okay. But with it's tough to talk about environmental issues without giving some background of what has occurred out there and and then sort of a brief history if that's okay.

Sure.

Um I can summarize very quickly. We have two two recognized environmental conditions out of the property. one related to a fueler release um which is being addressed under the Bureau of Wayside Cleanup with D and the second being um solid waste issue related to concrete dumping on the property which is being addressed with the solid waste division of the department of environmental protection.

So there are two separate issues that that exist on the property.

Correct.

All right.

My name is uh my name is uh Mark Brochu uh project manager with uh KICO engineers and scientists uh working on this uh environmental cleanup project and I'll be speaking specifically to the documented release of petroleum at the site related to former underground tanks on the property.

Steve.

Yeah.

I think he's nice. Oh boy.

Very much

a scroll through as you need to.

Okay.

So, a lot of this information was pre uh recently presented at a public involvement plan meeting that was held in December. Um, this is basically the presentation that we provided then. I'll try to move a little bit quickly through it. Um, uh, this slide just shows some of the history of the site. Um, gravel mining. This history dates back to the early 1900s. Uh, concrete production.

There was some solid waste disposal on the property uh for extended period of time from the 30s through the early 2000s. Um and there's various um solid waste uh that has been placed on the property that uh Brian will be speaking to specifically, but I'm going to to be speaking specifically to the uh documented release of petroleum as I mentioned. Um, this plan here, I know it's a little tough to see, but um,

there were a number of tanks on this property at one time, and they were removed. I think I have a slide for this.

Yeah. So, um, we had there were tanks removed in 1992, 2019, and there were a number of tanks removed in 2018 as well. So, currently there were no remaining underground or above ground storage tanks on the property.

Um, we are aware that the site is located within a drinking water source area.

It's within a zone 2 uh recharge area, a potentially productive aquifer, and there are, as was mentioned, several well fields in the immediate vicinity of the property. So, this property is held to the most stringent uh mass D groundwater cleanup standards uh the GW1 standards, which are protective of drinking water.

So, uh, back is around 2012, um, a previous consult environmental consultant for the previous owner, uh, Prime Engineering, um, began environmental due diligence investigations of the property. They advanced a number of test borings and installed a number of monitoring wells across the property and um, performed a number of groundwater sampling events.

Uh they also oversaw in the 2018 2019 time frame uh the removal of underground storage tanks and specifically tanks that are located back here.

This is what we are calling building one. The tanks in question were located immediately behind building one. Uh those tanks were removed under the oversight of prime engineering. They identified a release of petroleum hydrocarbons to soil and groundwater at that particular location. Prime's investigations prior to that also focused on other areas where there were tanks located uh and various other

potential environmental concerns that were identified on the property. Um this was one location where a release of uh in this case petroleum was found to have occurred.

Little bit zoomed in here. Um this is this release area represents a relatively small portion of the property. Um centered on the location of the former underground tanks. If you can see my cursor, well you can't. Um is the red area the release area? That's that's the release source area. There are residual concentrations extending up behind uh building two here. Uh but basically the

plume the contaminant plume is really isolated to this this corner of the property containing buildings one and two. Uh there have been a number of wells installed at the perimeter of the property to the north. Um groundwater has been shown to flow to the north on on this across this property but there have also been wells installed along this um both the norths souththeast and west of this release area. Um, no

contamination has been identified at or approaching the property boundaries. So, it is fairly well delineated the lease or release and it's contained um to this this front what I'll call the southwestern corner of the of the property.

Um so going back to the initial investigations uh there were a number of contaminants that the uh that prime had analyzed for uh volatile organic compounds metals petroleum hydrocarbons um and none of these compounds were detected above the the mass DP riskbased standards in in the soil samples. And um there were concentrations of metals that were detected um but those would be consistent with naturally occurring

background levels at that time. So um they also didn't identify any significant field indications of contamination at their boring and well locations.

And um again the one area where petroleum impact was encountered was this area behind building one. Um, having identified that release in 2019, Prime oversaw the removal of the tanks from that location, confirmed there was soil and groundwater impact related to those tanks, and then um this was all done for the prior owner. Uh, and then things kind of ground to a halt for a while. Um KICO came in uh initially

uh in the 2023 time frame and um resumed some testing in the area.

We we took some up updated groundwater samples from the area. We did identify contamination at this location. Um sorry I'm skipping around here, but this is uh so that was the soil conditions. This is the groundwater conditions. Um there were really only three wells on the property. MW2, 102, and 103 uh that have to date exhibited any concentrations that are above the applicable groundwater or drinking water

quality standards on the property. Um, and then in 2017, really only one of those wells, MW102, which is a well located near the the tanks in question, uh, contained concentrations above the drinking water quality standards. Um, no other metals or VOCC compounds were detected above those standards.

Um, so KINico resampled several of the wells that had previously exhibited concentrations. This is in 2023 now. And again, only that one well exhibited concentrations above the GW1 standards.

Um I won't go through this any great detail but the concentrations identified in groundwater triggered a notification require requirement to mass DP prime reported that condition to mass DP in May of 2017 and um since then the site has gone through this uh this regulatory program under the Massachusetts contingency plan.

Recently, KICO submitted um a what's called a phase 4 comprehensive uh response action plan to DP that lays out um the proposed response actions to address the contamination in soil and groundwater at the location of the tank near building one.

That plan uh includes several several different approaches, combined approaches. Um we're proposing to excavate remaining contaminated soil at the location of those former tanks. Uh it'll be a fairly deep excavation. The groundwater at this location is greater than 15 ft below grade. Um the the point of the excavation is to remove any remaining source contaminated material that would potentially impact

groundwater. A lot of the contamination in the envir you know in this type of environmental setting is held up in the soil pore space. So when you can remove that contaminated soil uh it goes a long way to eliminate eliminating residual concentrations in the groundwater. Prior to backfilling that excavation we're proposing to add remedial additives to the ground. Uh in this case per sulfate

and calcium peroxide. Um these are non-hazardous uh remedial they result in non-hazardous remedial additive byproducts. These remedial additives will stimulate uh naturally occurring biological activity for further degradation of any remaining petroleum uh in groundwater. It's it's challenging to to reach the GW1 standards. They're very low um as they should be for for drinking water considerations. Um we

feel that this approach provides an aggressive uh means of of achieving those standards.

There'll be an extensive amount of post remediation monitoring. Um wells will be sampled and if wells were destroyed during the process of the remediation they will be replaced surrounding this area and extending down gradient upgradient and crossradient and those wells will be sampled both for the petroleum contaminants of concern and the remedial additives that we're adding to the ground. This is all this is all

pursuant to Massachusetts contingency plan regulations and uh response actions perform response action performance standards.

So our ultimate goal is to reduce any residual petroleum concentrations in soil and groundwater below the MCP standards uh to achieve a permanent solution uh with no conditions for this uh for this specific release.

Brian, I'll let you speak to the I will be brief. Um, as Mark had mentioned, there was solid waste um concrete piles that have been discovered at the site. They're they're large in volume. Um, and this fall I uh walked the site with the Department of Environmental Protection, specifically the solid representatives of the solid waste group and the U. um Bureau of Air Quality and the owners agreed to enter

an administrative consent order following the cleanup of the uh petroleum release. Um an au administrative consent order will be initiated between um uh the development and uh the bureau to work in concert to address the solid waste piles. They primarily the piles themselves consist primarily of concrete. There is some brick and asphalt in them. um they aren't been known none to date to have

been painted concrete or whatnot, but that will be addressed as well. Um and uh they the specifics of it haven't been defined yet, but but it will be in the near future in 2026.

So So when we when you say solid waste, it's not like we think the landfill with with people's trash. No, this is because of the fact that there's large chunks of concrete there. Is that what it is?

Correct. The term is ABC asphalt, brick, brick and concrete, but the proportionality of it is primarily concrete. So um of a number of receiving facilities on Commonwealth because it's a recyclable material will take asphalt, brick and concrete.

They'll crush it and they'll reuse it and for sale. It's a structural um fill below roadways and whatnot. So in this case, they they brought the material on the site, but they never processed it.

How much material are we talking about?

Significant. probably it's it's in the thousands of cubic yards. The piles are quite large. Okay. All right.

Mr. Mr. Chair, excuse me.

Can I just ask him a couple quick questions?

Yeah, I'd like to make So, actually, this is not really within our purview as part of this application. Correct.

Yeah, that is correct. So, if you could just provide an explanation for the audience as to what our role is with this particular aspect of the and the concerns of the neighbors.

Right. So the reason why the applicant is here and providing the presentation is that there were a number of concerns that were raised by both members of the public but also some of the uh town officials um regarding kind of conditions on the property. Those were conveyed to mass mass um housing finance agency which is what's called the subsidizing agency which provided the site eligibility letter to this

applicant. One of the requirements of their letter that allowed them to move forward with this application was that they should provide the town with an assessment of any required remediation related to the previous use of the site.

So, because that there were questions both from town officials and from the public about what's gone on with the site and those were expressed to Mass Housing, Mass Housing thought it was reasonable for the board to to get some information about that. However, under chapter 40B, only um local regulations are within the board's purview. In this case, everything related to um environmental remediation is all under

state law and the board doesn't have any jurisdiction over anything that is a state law. They are required to fully comply with state laws. Um but the board doesn't have any jurisdiction to tell them what to do, not to do etc. with respect to this because they are um super the the boards anything that the town might locally have concerns about at least as far as the cleanup goes um is all governed by state law.

So mass D is basically the governing body when it comes to that. They got to meet their standards.

If they require that they do more testing, they've got to do it. if they say that it's good enough, they could stop.

And so I did have a couple of questions related to that if I went there real quick.

Just to color that in, but it's a privatized system. I'm a licensed site professional. So I'm licensed to do the cleanup. They can audit my work and um they do audit my work, but um I'm still the one who governs the cleanup and we follow the regulations and must adhere to those regulations. We submit the report to them and they keep it on file and and we'll review it and audit it.

But they don't dict they don't they don't control what's done out here. They do on a solid waste perspective, but not under the Bureau of Wayside Cleanup.

That's a privatized system for LSPs, which I am and Mark is.

Right. But but there are state regulations that he as a licensed professional is required to follow.

Correct.

So I a couple of questions. Is is the AC the administrative consent order has that been issued already?

No.

Okay. So and and so that's forthcoming.

But they we've agreed that we we would first address the petroleum release and then and the acco is going to be on the solid waste correct piece of it and then um with with respect to either the um kind of is it a you know 21E is that kind of what you're under or under the solid waste do you anticipate an activity and use limitation of any kind? No. And no other type of restriction, conservation

restrict, no nothing else from but just ongoing monitoring.

Correct.

For a number of years.

Yeah. Yes. If groundwater again, we're dealing with the GW1 standard. So if if the concentrations come back perfectly clean non-detect you know, you're looking at three or four quarters of groundwater sampling, but after that it stops.

Okay. So not nothing that um would affect the use of the property for residential purposes. Okay. Thank you.

All right. So, at this point, um, we're going to be moving on for another date and we got a deadline that council and I we have to discuss. Be kind enough to come up to the podium.

So, I've been told that we have a deadline on this of February 23rd to close the hearing. Um, do we have a scheduled date with them, another scheduled date, or we don't have a scheduled date right now? the date that there's one date that the board has reserved on your calendars for a potential meeting if is that right Michelle February 26th we have it every two every other right I I think it had been kind of

maybe earmarked possibly right February 26 but I don't know if that is happening but um so there's the continuing to whatever the next date will be but then there's the bigger question of an outside date so we have two questions for the board for me is the deadline date that's okay so Let's talk about a deadline.

How far out are we going to go? Um, we don't we don't have the the board doesn't have the revised plans yet.

Um, also folks, you can't be talking in the audience. I can't hear the lady.

Um, so the the the plans are hoping to come in sometime early February, I believe. Yes. The civil engineer said those will need to then be reviewed by staff and peer review. Also, um I'm not sure where things stand. I don't know if you have any updates as far as providing um the water and wastewater um information that was needed on the impact on the water supply, the water system and the wastewater. Do you do you

have sense?

That's part of civil. Yeah.

Does and can are you able to respond to that or I don't know, Tim, I know Mr.

Barber's here. I don't know if he's received any information yet. No. No.

So, there had been a request even at the last hearing a while ago that there be communication between the applicants, consultants and DPW in order for to get all the calculations on the water demand and also on the wastewater um flow. I'm not a engineer so I'm using right terms.

I believe I believe the applicant had intended to meet with uh DPW and there was an issue about them not wanting to meet without the consultant there and we were trying to work that out.

Okay. So anyway, that's just something No, that's all fine. Everyone just needs to talk to who they have to talk to.

It's not a problem. We just need to factor that into timing.

Okay. Yep. Um, so anyway, so with that in mind, I how far out at this because and then once all the information is in, then there's the matter of the board having a, you know, a meeting where they can discuss the waiverss and walk through those with with the applicant.

Um and and then either the board can close the hearing and then it will proceed and deal with the conditions or it will can be done in a public hearing where the applicant has a chance and there can be back and forth. So we've just got to factor those things in and I guess it's up you know obviously I defer to the board as well but a question of

do we want to pick a target date and then as we get close to that date evaluate where we are or what makes the most sense. I'm just looking for a deadline date.

We can we can look at something in May or June perhaps and then reassess when we get to that point.

Yeah, a deadline date in May for now would be great because it gives us a lot of time to get the rest of the stuff in order. I guess you you've got some work to do on your end. There's a meeting that needs to happen. Do we have a consultant that's going to do the peer review for us with regard to the wastewater impact?

Yes, I believe the um information would be reviewed by DPW and Stantech.

Stantech.

Okay, fair enough. All right.

Um so what do we got for Did we say May?

The only week I'm not available is the week of um May 4th. I would not be available if the board would like me to be here.

That was May 7th. Oh, the whole week you said.

How about May 14th?

It's a Thursday.

Sounds good.

So that would be that's not the that's not the next hearing date. That's the the deadline for the close of the hearing.

Start there. We can work backwards.

And then I believe that um Viera has the form unless you have it there. I don't have any forms. Okay. The form we can write in and have them sign it before they leave tonight.

Okay. Thank you.

So May I'm sorry, what?

May 14th.

14th. Okay.

Are you around? Quiet.

Attorney Far, are you around May 14th?

Good.

All right. So now, what about the next meeting date?

This stuff.

So with respect to the next meeting date, because the the plans are in the process of being revised, that's civil.

Um, and then your peer reviewer will need to review those. I understand it's a 17page document at this point. They're going back and forth. Um, I would say March something.

Mhm. We got March 5th and we got March 12th.

We can't do We can't do what?

No helping on Oh, that's right. You can't do it.

That's right.

I'm not here.

So, in the month of March and April, I can't do Thursdays. So, we're going to have to shift those to Mondays. How's May? How's March 9th or March 16th?

You would have backto-back Monday.

Yeah.

Excuse me.

You'll have backtoback Mondays. We have 9th. March 9th. Okay.

March 9th.

March 9th. Yeah. Gentlemen, we have one we'll have another 40B on March 2nd and we'll have this one on March 9th, which is back toback. Is that all right?

March 9th.

Yes.

Our board meeting in this room.

Oh, that's right.

Okay.

16th.

How's the 16th? March 16th.

Oops.

Okay.

Wait a minute.

16th. 16th works. Attorney Faria, March 16th.

We'll see you then.

Okay. Thank you.

Oh, yeah. We got to make a motion.

Um, are we ready?

You go.

We have two motions. One is to continue.

Well, first one, I would say on the extended hearing date and then the second one just to continue this hearing.

Are we talking five o'clock or six o'clock?

These are six, right? Are we going to have a hearing at five o'clock, Michelle? It depends on whether it's too far ahead. Some of them are too far ahead or no.

Okay.

Uh first will be the um I'll make the motion to extend the deadline for the May right?

For the close of hearing for the I'm not closing the hearing yet.

No, no, no. You're extending the deadline for the close of hearing.

That's the first motion.

That's the first motion. Yes.

And then we'll make the motion to continue. Um, I make a motion that we uh extend the um the deadline for the uh comprehensive permit ZCMP25-2 to the uh May 14th, 2026.

Second that motion.

All in favor?

I I I the eyes have it.

Okay. Now, I make a motion that we continue comprehensive permit ZCMP25-2 to March 16th at 6:00.

Second that motion.

All in favor?

I I I the eyes have it. All right. Um, you'll give me those dates, you'll send them over. All right. So, that takes care of that. So, we'll see you back in March, I take it.

All right.

Thank you very much.

Um, motion to adjurnn.

Yeah, we're going to need a motion to adjurnn.

Motion to adjurnn.

I make a motion that we adjourn.

Second.

All in favor?

I have it.