Zoning Board of Appeals Meeting - June 29, 2026

Good evening and welcome to the zone zoning board of appeals meeting of Monday, June 29th, 2026.

So at this time, I'm going to call upon everyone so we can rise and pledge allegiance to the flag.

I pledge algiance 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 and more importantly of the soldiers that are in harm's way in the Middle East.

All right. So, uh, I'd like to announce to the viewers at home and anyone here in the public that this meeting is being recorded by Dartmouth Community Media, and that our next Hathaway 40B scheduled hearing, well, that's actually for June 29th, which is tonight. Um, and our next Sherbrook Farms 40B hearing will be heard on July 9th, 2026 at 6 o'clock p.m. here at Town Hall in room 304.

Moving on to the public hearings portion of tonight's meeting.

The first case that we have on is actually a continued case. It's variant ZAV26-3.

The petitioner applicant is Cody Santos.

The owners Mark and Lisa Santos. Subject property is 367 O Westport Road, map 49, lot 23-3.

The property is located within the single residence B district. It was legally advertised on April 30th, 2026 and May 7, 2026.

And in this particular case, we have a denial letter. Let me see if I can find that.

I think we read that.

Oh, yeah. We did already. That's right.

So, we've already read into the record the building commissioners deni denial letter. We've also read in any comments from other town boards. And in this case, the uh petitioner is seeking a variance to construct a 30x 50 barn located with setbacks of 30 ft 30.6 ft from the street and 11 ft from the side boundary of the property. The lot was expanded to include parcel A in the OSRD

subdivision recorded in December 2012 at the registry of deeds. The planning board issued a special permit to allow reduction in sideyard setbacks to 15 ft but maintain the 60oot setback from the street. A variance is required to reduce the front and sideyard setbacks, parking facility setbacks. The property is located 367 Westport Road, single residence B district. I just figured I'd

read that into the record for anyone here who had not been in attendance at the last meeting and also for our viewers at home if they may not have seen it and viewed the last meeting. So gentlemen, I did receive a letter um don't know if you recall the case, but this is one in which I think we asked them to go back to the drawing board and have them make some modifications to the

plan. So I we received the office received back on Thursday, June 25th, an email um and it was it indicated that good morning. This is Cody Santos from 3670 Westport Road. I am scheduled to come to the zoning board meeting Monday, June 29th. I am asking for a continuation for a later date for I have not heard back from my surveyor since asking them to make adjustments to my plans. I've been

waiting a couple of weeks to hear back from them and call this morning, June 25th, and he is away right now. Thank you. So, I've been told by the secretary of our office, um, Michelle, that they've been working, it appears that they've been trying to work diligently in obtaining, um, the ability to have the modifications made to the plan. So, knowing that, gentlemen, um, if anyone

has any comments or any suggestions or any objections to their request for a continuation of the matter, kind of let me know.

And if you don't, I think it's reasonable. All right, then I'll we've done this before. Uh we we've always extended the courtesy to the applicants. So if your pleasure is to uh Michael, we need to pick a date.

Excuse me. Oh, yes. We need to pick a date.

Next date is is the 9th of July, but I don't think so. What do we have on?

It's not a matter of what we have on is whether they have enough time. So we want to give enough time. When's the next date after that? We're hoping with um Miss Murphy and I were going over dates today and which we'll go over after halfway and whatnot. Okay.

We're hoping July 30th.

July 30th.

That's what we're hoping to have.

Okay. So, um I'll entertain a motion for July 30th at 5:00, gentlemen.

Okay. I have a quick question. We have any time frame concerns.

You would sign the paperwork. Yeah, absolutely.

And and if we have to, we'll bring it up in the next in another meeting if we have to.

I make a motion that at the request of the petitioner that we continue variance ZAV-26-3 what my six 26-5 to uh July 30th, 2026 at 5:00.

All right, I'm just going to hold just one there. I think she said it was 26-6.

Six.

Okay.

If you could restate it, please. Sorry, Mr. Yman.

Not a problem. I make a motion that we at the request of the petition that we continue variance case ZAV-26-6 uh to July 30th, 2026 at 5:00.

Second.

All in favor?

I I I the have it.

Okay. All right. So, gentlemen, um actually the next matter we have is a six o'clock matter, but we also have on the agenda which we can obviously because they're only administrative matters, we can take them out of order.

Uh we have review and approval of minutes and also administrative minutes and permits and other matters. So, we do have a quite extensive list. I think we got about 10 matters on. So, the first one we have and if we're in agreement and moving forward, we in agreement moving forward on that, gentlemen?

Yes.

Trying to make good use of time.

Sure. All right.

I'm not sure if you want to take like maybe just 10 minutes recess just to go through the Absolutely. We can we can we can do that. Absolutely.

So, the board will be in recess for about 5 to 10 minutes.

It's actually back in session.

We're moving on out of order into the administrative portion of tonight's meeting. The first matter that we have is review and approval of administrative minutes of April 13, 2026.

I have no comments, gentlemen. I have any comments?

I have no comments, Mr. Chair.

Gentlemen, none. None.

Okay.

I make a motion that we approve the administrative minutes of April 13, 2026.

I second that motion.

All in favor?

I I I. The eyes have it. Moving on to the next matters, review and approval of comprehensive permit ZCMP-25-1 minutes for 970 Tucker Road.

I have no comments, Mr. Chair.

I have no comments. Neither do I.

Gentlemen, I have none. No comments.

I make a motion that we approve the minutes for comprehensive permit uh ZCMP25-1 for 970 Tucker Road.

Second that motion.

All in favor?

I I the eyes have it. Moving on to review and approval administrative minutes of April 30th, 2026.

I have no questions, no comments.

Gentlemen, I have none. Mr. Chair, gentlemen, uh, I make a motion that we approve the administrative minutes of April 30, 2026 as written.

I second that motion.

All in favor?

I I I The eyes have it. Review and approval of special permit ZSP 26-6 minutes 8 Barono Court, which was continued for March 2nd, 2026.

I have no comments, Mr. Chair.

I have no comments.

No comments.

No comments.

That is that number 25-6 or 26-6?

It is. I'm sorry. It reads as You're right. Uh 25- It reads as 25-6, but it's it's noted as 26-6. Which one is it?

25.

25-6.

I made a correction. We haven't uh make I haven't made the motion yet, but Well, hold on. Are you sure? Because this was filed in 2026, was it not? So why would it be a 25 case?

It was 25.

It was filed. I I thought we dismissed it. When we dismissed it, didn't they have to file again?

And then they filed again special permit in 2025.

25.

Okay.

So gentlemen, what's your pleasure?

Uh I make a motion that we approve the minutes for special permits 25-6 for 8 Bono Court.

I second that. I second that motion.

All in favor?

I I the eyes have it. Moving on to review and approval of comprehensive permit ZCMP 25-2 minutes for 498 O Westport Road continued for March 16, 2026.

I have no comments, Mr. Chair.

I have no comment, gentlemen.

No comments.

No comments.

Uh, I make a motion that we approve the minutes for comprehensive permit ZCMP25-2 for 498 Old Westport Road.

I second that motion.

All in favor?

I I The eyes have it. Moving on to review and approval of administrative minutes of May 21st, 2026.

I have no comments, Mr.

I have no comments.

Neither do I. Gentlemen, comments. I make a motion that we approve the administrative minutes of May 21st, 2026 as written.

Second.

All in favor?

I I. The eyes have it. Review and approval of special permit ZCP 26-6 minutes of 367 O Westport Road.

I have no comments.

I have no comments, Mr. Chair.

Neither do I, gentlemen.

All right. I make a motion that we approve the minutes of special permit ZSP-26-6 for 367 Old Westport Road as written.

Hold on, gentlemen. Um, according to this, it's listed as a variance case for minutes.

It says special and we have a special permit on the uh agenda. Oh, yeah, you're right.

So, I think this was a this was a variance case, not a special permit.

All right. So, we should we should label it as ZAV26-6.

So, if I could have that motion renewed.

What is it? It's uh it's a it's a variance. It's not a special permit. I got it over.

I got it. That's right.

So, it's a it's a ZAV 26-6. 26-6. It's a variance, not a special.

Okay.

I make a motion that we approve the minutes for variance case ZAV-26-6 for 367 Old Westport Road.

Second.

All in favor?

I have it. Moving on to review and approval of comprehensive permit ZCMP 25-1 minutes for 970 Tucker Road which will continue from April 13, 2026.

I have no comment.

I have no comments, Mr. Chair. Uh, do I have this one? Is it uh 25-3?

Oh, I have this one missing. Okay. Uh, 970.

Is that the right number? 25-1.

Tucker Road.

Okay. We have a little bit of a problem.

I don't know why it says Tucker Road.

Okay.

That 25-1 I don't think should be there because I don't have that packet. So, I'm going to withdraw that for now and we can we can we can uh post that for the next date if there is an issue. So, it's moving on to review and approval of comprehensive permit ZCMP 25-3 minutes for Hathaway Road continue from April 6, 2026.

I have no comments on that.

I have no comments, Mr. Chair.

Gentlemen, no comments.

All right.

I make a motion that we approve the minutes of comprehensive permit ZCMP-25-3 continued from April 6, 2026.

Second written. All in favor?

I I the eyes have it. I decided to put that on the agenda.

The other one. Okay.

Okay. No problem. All right. So, I believe that concludes the administrative portion of tonight's meeting. So, we're going to um just take a quick recess again until actually we're going to recess till 6:00 until we start the 40B. Zoning board is back in session. Moving on to the um public hearings portion of tonight's meeting.

The next matter that we have is comprehensive permit ZCMP-25-3.

The petitioner applicant is Philip Cadero on behalf of the Hathaway Dartmouth LLC. I think that that's incorrect. We've already addressed that once before. Someone will have to tell me what the correction is, but I think that that's how it was entered. Um, the subject property is Zero Hathaway Road, also known as map 57 M1. It's located within the single residence district.

We've already waved the reading of the abutters list and the matter was legally advertised on December 18th and December 25th of 2025. The petitioner is seeking a comprehensive permit pursuant to Mass General Law Chapter 40B section 20-23.

The comprehensive permit guideline 760 CMR56 from the Massachusetts General Laws Endowment zoning bylaw regulations.

The petition is proposing a development on approximately 113 acres to be known as the Hathaway to be located at zero Haway Road in the single residence a district. The development will have a total of 300 residential units.

All right. So, um, good evening everyone and we're can obviously this is a continued matter. It's been continued a few times more and more information. Um, so the last time that we were here, I think that we had a lot of concerns about traffic. However, we're actually not going to address traffic tonight.

Probably going to be another night for traffic. I think we've got some other concerns that we'd like to bring to light so that if the residents have concerns that those can be addressed, there could be some guidance that's provided to the applicant so that if there's some changes that can be made to address those concerns, those are the times that they can send off those experts to go work on whatever needs to

happen there. And then in the interim, obviously, we try to work on some of the traffic concerns as well to the extent that those can be addressed. So, is there anything else that I need to be concerned about right now, Susan?

Yeah. So from a timing perspective, the uh date to close the hearing is next Tuesday, July 7th.

Okay.

The board is not meeting between now and July 7th. So um without um an extension, the board would have to vote to close the hearing this evening.

So you'll just have to um cons have that conversation. All right.

So we'll have that with the applicant at some point.

All right. At some point. Fair enough.

We don't have to start with that, but we can we can see how we get along with what they've got to propose here this evening. So, is there any area of science that we want to address tonight?

Is it water, wastewater, storm water?

Well, there's um there is a list um that is recommended for the board, but whatever order you want or if you want to leave it to the applicant's list. Um it was kind of they had uh introduced kind of the step back uh floor on the buildings closer to Eisenhower Road. So if the board wanted to explore that more fully, um there's kind of the parking where the applicant is still seeking to bank some of the

parking as opposed to building it all out. Um there's some landscaping questions that have been raised by the planning director. Um and then uh there's the waiver list which the board has not discussed in a in a public meeting yet that we could walk through.

Um and there's also a kind of water wastewater update that could be given.

So these are all topics at board's discretion or if you wish to All right. We'll hit upon those uh as we proceed, but one of the things I failed to do at the opening is I think there's an email and there's a letter that I would like to read into the record that was submitted to the board. So, I just want to read it. I'll start off with um a letter from James Griffith uh of 134

Hathaway Road and it's addressed to the board and it says, "I appreciate the fair and thorough way that you and the ZBA have conducted the various public hearings relating to the Hathaway project. This proposed development would be just across Eisenhower Street from my home. I am sympathetic that Dartmouth along with many other Massachusetts communities needs housing. However, I do

not believe it should come at the cost of the town otherwise. A point made by the proponents at the most recent meeting that they did not consider traffic generated at our end of Hathaway Road to be gerine to anything needing remediation because the Haway Road Route 6 intersection is soon to be fixed is quite flawed. They fail to understand that this project Haway Road Route 6 intersection is designed to fix the

accident issue, the worst intersection in Damoth, not the traffic issue.

Indeed, the proposed Haway Road/Tucker Road connection might be safer, but it will not have fewer vehicle trips, nor the same, nor just the additional from Hathaway Road, but rather indeed many more because it will become one of the very few north south travelways in our town. I'm not an engineer and so cannot dispute the numbers proposed by Vaness and Associates. However, my simple

calculation of current plus 1644 per day, the halfway or half of the half or half if the travel is 50% in each direction and additional Tucker road traffic equals quite a mess. Not just for me and my neighbors, but for the town. Um, indicates that there is zero sidewalk, zero bike lanes, zero public transit, lots of alcohol nips as I walk.

A project half the proposed size would be a problem, but 300 units is truly crazy. Thank you, Jim Griffith. All right. So, gentlemen, um, can I entertain, would you, gentlemen be willing to entertain a motion to file file the letter?

I think they filed online, right?

They're automatic on once it's once it's delivered to the board and the board has copies, then it's automatically in the record. You don't need to vote to accept into the record. But um I think if if if they haven't been posted to the portal then um we should get copies to the applicant of any of the butter or resident letters that come in.

But this is in the portal correct?

No, it's not yet. It's come to the board. So the board has it and so the board's using it as part of the deliberations, but we should also be providing copies to the applicant.

Okay. Sure.

So we just be sure to get that to them.

And there's another email that I wanted to read into the record as well.

And m Mr. Chair, do you mind if I just note so is this one is regarding like the water the water usage?

The next one. Yes.

I just note so um Mr. Barber hadn't gotten a copy of this either. So he's going to Before I read it into the record up, let's give him a copy and then when he comes up we'll read this into the record as well. Can you make a copy of those?

Yeah. Oh, he has one now.

We just gave him a copy. Okay. So at least because there's a lot of factual things that there's a lot of statements in there that Mr. Barber should probably check them.

Yeah, I agree.

Think some units.

But but I I I'm not suggesting you not read into the record. I just want it. I just think we Mr. Barber should review it so he can provide some I'd rather read it into the record just so that everybody has the information.

For whatever it's worth, I want to read it. Um it's I believe from a Susanlair.

It's I apologize for the lateness and yet another letter from me concerning water issues on a halfway project. In part this is due to the data given during the last town meeting and in part because I delayed in doing this.

According to the town's DPW water rates in quoting according to the town's DPW water rates are increasing due to the rising cost of daily operations, supplies and materials. In addition, several town wells were taken offline after a storm in 2020 due to the contaminants.

Because of this and continued high water demand, the town must purchase additional water from the city of New Bedford. The town has been working to bring those wells that are offline. At present, the work is not complete.

Diamond spend spends approximately $2.2 million yearly in buying drinking water from the city of New Bedford. In Massachusetts, the average yearly consumption of water per individual is 4,660 cubic feet. As of July 1st, 2025, fiscal year 2026, New Bedford's posted water rate is 47 $47.70 per 1,000 cubic feet, which translates to $4.77 per cubic foot. This would mean that for the 300 apartment complex with

an average tenency of 2.5 individuals per apartment, Dhammit's water use will increase approximately $16.4 million since the town meeting must override the budget every year to accommodate present overbudgeted water costs. This amount would put a burden on every household in the town in the form of a tax or fee increase. That one property would cause an increase of 3.5 million cubic

feet of water use, a number not possible with our current water system. If my math is correct, that means that each household in the town would have an increase of over $1,000 in water use fees taxes until the water insufficiency is corrected to bring it to present need and then enlarged to fit the Hathaway and other future projects. The average annual sewer bill in Massachusetts for a

single family home is typically around $933 to $1,259 or 670 cubic feet. An additional 300 families would increase the burden on the treatment facilities by 200,000 cubic feet. An earlier plan to mitigate the treatment facilities would cost $8 million or 3600 per current Dartmouth household. Adding the additional 300 household units could require a rebuild of nearly 40 million or 3,000 per

household. No amount of water remediation offered by the developer comes to mitigation of this situation.

Since several of these apartments are low and middle income, I would submit that the rest of the town's households will have to take up an uneven portion of the bills to accommodate the bill.

Since all of this does not yet take into consideration the effect of prior approval for apartment complexes, I believe that this constitutes both local in terms of a butters and townwide concern. Thank you for putting up with my tardiness. And um it's from Susanlair, I believe.

So I am not I'm not indicating that these numbers are accurate. All I'm saying is I'm reading what this woman is trying to bring to our attention that she believes these numbers to be. All right. Um, now having read that, I guess we'll take it. Well, let's bring the the petitioner up, see what they want to address first. What would you guys like to speak to us about tonight?

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. For the record, Mark Donghue from Pledge Tilton on behalf of the applicant. Um I I don't I don't don't necessarily want to trade it off, but we want to talk about whatever is important to you. Um what we did do just to set the stage is we had put together a letter before the last public hearing that addressed two matters. One was a traffic contribution to

improvements that the town could direct.

And the second was an explanation of what we had done in the past with regard to addressing the height of the building and its impact on Eisenhower Street residents and what we were proposing to do. I had a chance I didn't attend the last meeting. I had a chance though to watch the video and I didn't get the sense that there had been a discussion on those points and certainly not a

consensus. Those are important to the applicant because members of this board have said that they are prepared to vote no based upon the height as presented.

So I think it's a good place to start because it's a gating issue certainly for further discussions that would impact.

I think that's warranted. Um so I'll let any of my board members speak. Um I have I have a certain position on you know the modifications that were had. Uh, but if there's any concerns that you guys have on any of this, if you'd like to state whatever your thoughts are. So, I think what they're trying to address is they're looking for some direction, so to speak, as to Would it be helpful, Miss I apologize

for interrupting. Would it be helpful if we at least got we we submitted some materials to the portal, but to make sure everyone's seen them, would it be helpful if we got them up on the screen?

It was also, I think, we're going to produce from a couple of vantage points what the what it would look like, right? Um, so I think that'd be helpful for me, I think other members of the board and also some of the people who are going to be the immediate abutters of this. So if you want to bring that forward, can you do that?

So that we're making an informed decision.

Yeah.

Do you have the the elevations that just got posted last Thursday? The public has not seen them. So is it possible to put those on screen? Yeah, you probably have to do that from uh through the chair. Can I distribute some information to the board?

Yes.

Thank you.

Thank you.

These are the same bigger ones that you have.

The same thing these are. Yeah.

Oh, yes. You know what? I I think that Michelle already sent these to you.

The these are just hard copies of documents that Michelle had emailed to you previously.

Oh, yeah. I saw I saw this. If I could just have a couple minutes just so I could take a look at some of this, please.

I saw I read this too. Stand tech.

So the the package that I just gave to the board, Mr. Chairman, members of the board, covers a host of issues um that as as been indicated are are certainly fruitful for discussion this evening.

Um, I think that the the architect is on his way, but um between a civil engineer, a lawyer, and a developer, we'll figure out a way to play architect in some fashion. Um, what I suggest maybe is because he's most familiar with how it was created, ask Mr. Cadero to kind of walk through what you're seeing.

Um, so you can at least have it in context and then we can try to answer any further questions the board or certainly the public may have.

Great. Sure.

Is the chair all said? I know you wanted a few minutes to leaf through that information.

Some of this is already was provided to me. Some of it was right. So, anything that was on put on the portal, which I believe the majority of this was put on the portal on Thursday um we have copies.

Sierra had already forwarded to the boards, they have copies of all of this.

Well, that makes me feel more comfortable that I've already looked at some of this.

I think I think the only thing that's new is the last there's a there's a memo regarding the ANR plan um which I I had not seen before, but I believe the other materials the board's received already.

this right here.

And there's a another last page after the blue sheet.

How do you get there?

The ANR was submitted before the last hearing, but this the memo. Yeah, that I I don't I it may have been submitted before. I don't recall seeing it, but but that's on the ANR plan, which um we haven't we haven't discussed either, but didn't have on the list for today through the chair. the the ANR plan was submitted through the portal at the prior prior to the prior meeting, but there's there was a memo in this

packet talking about lots A, B, and C that's dated the 25th. So that I don't think wasn't at the prior hearing. That's newer.

Yes. Okay. Thank you.

What was presented at the prior meeting before it the purpose of the ANR is to merge the the the three lots.

No, it's break it up into three lots.

It's three lots because as from the very beginning was explained is our intention to donate the open space. We're also donating the piece. Um when we get to the ANR we can walk you through it but there's a piece that's going to the church because they currently park corner. Yes, I remember that they currently park on our property by license.

We touched upon this at the last meeting just briefly. Okay, I remember now. Yes.

And what we did to follow up on that is we proposed a condition that could be put into the at a decision that outlined how it would happen. And uh we took a first cut. Our in-house attorney in conjunction with um Mark took a first cut at what that condition would look like to facilitate Susan writing the condition uh to put it into the permit if we go that route.

You're not you're not looking to keep that little parcel separate.

the tiny little piece.

Tiny little piece. No, the C piece. No, that's that's being donated to the church because they currently use it for parking by license.

So, what we're doing is we're looking to extinguish the license so they don't have to in the future. They could run the risk that future owner us could say we don't want them parking there anymore and cancel the license.

So, am I understand this is an area that they're already utilizing. They may be encroaching on this property.

Well, they have a license.

They have a license.

They have a license, he said. Yeah.

Yeah.

But the application for the just to clarify the the site eligibility letter um site approval letter was for the entire hundred something acres, wasn't it? When it went to Mass Housing, wasn't it the entire acreage was part of the the intention of donating open space?

Okay. And that I I'll have to go back and and and read that. But is that that was that was in the application to mass housing, was it? Okay, I'll go back and reread it.

Mr. Smoo is here if you'd like.

Okay, come on up.

Hour.

Perfect timing.

We're only waiting a half hour for you.

No, not No, not true.

We were just about to undertake, but since you're here, we'll turn the stage over to you.

Would you mind just walking through the hike?

Sure. That's great.

So, let's go to the slide.

Okay. So, we've prepared this to talk about how we've brought the scale of the building down. Um, I think I've I relayed some of this to you the last time. By the way, Clay Smoke, Smoo Architecture out of Westboro, Massachusetts. I've addressed the board before. Um, this is an basically an elevation facing Hathaway. The top one is as how it was originally designed, originally presented to you. The bottom

is how we're currently uh proposing it and they are the same scale.

The difference between the top and the bottom is a couple of things. First of all, as I said, what we've done with the um we worked with our uh mechanical electrical plumbing engineers and created an area in the center of the building so that the screen wall that's 3 ft high was pulled all the way back to the center core. So, it sort of disappears because it's pushed back from view. So, building appears much lower.

This is a fourstory building at this point. This is buildings A and B. And then of course as we move towards Eisenhower we have dropped that building that's building B. We've dropped that elevation down. We've taken the upper fourth story and set it back. So that building as you're as you move towards Eisenhower is 33 feet tall. Next slide.

So this is a perspective and this is a sectional perspective. So, we're it's almost like we've cut a we've cut a slice through the ring road that runs between uh the landscape backyards of Eisenhower looking towards our buildings. And what you need to understand and and I think that um Phil Cado will show you after this is what the view would be from the individual homes on Eisenhower. The benefit of

being in the actual homes and in the backyards is there's a lot of landscape and topography difference. So, this is a little deceiving, but what this does show is again at the top we're looking at the buildings with Haway on the farthest to the left, the grade dropping down from left to right. You're looking at a fourstory building on the right, a fourstory with a walkout basement in the

center, and a four-story with a walkout terrace level basement apartments on the right. And again, what we've done is looking at the lower again, we've pushed that screen wall back. And more importantly is we have pushed back the upper story of the buildings back. some of the buildings is 35 ft as far as up to 45 feet I believe. Uh and that's shown on one of the exhibits that you

have from uh from last time. But so the the buildings that are facing the backyards of Eisenhower are three stories and three stories with what we call a walkout terrace level.

Excuse me.

Yes. Well, I think we have to walk through. We have to walk through.

That's not how this works. You've been here before, right? We have to let them speak. Then if you have a question, you pose it to me and then we'll pose it to them so they can provide the responses.

Making it so easy. I really appreciate.

All right.

Now, I'd like to know I have to wait for him to finish first and then he has to finish first, ma'am.

And then when he finishes, then I'll I'll open it up for public comment.

Okay. I promise you'll have a chance, sir. Yes.

Um, so again, really the the the purpose of this exhibit and the prior exhibit was to show the effort we've made to bring the scale of the buildings down significantly as we approach the Eisenhower neighborhood. Next slide. I think that just keep in mind we may have to come back to this one to address.

Of course. Of course. Okay. Uh, I think I'm completed with that. If you wanted to take a question now or I could come back and take a question.

You like to take a question now? I would love to take a question.

All right, ma'am. If you can come up, you need to come up. You need to You need to come up, identify yourself, and then you can ask me the question.

I'd like to know.

No, no, no. Call ma'am.

Ma'am, talk to Ma'am.

Ma'am, please.

It's me and you. I know. I don't I'm not as good-looking as he is, but it's okay.

Just me and you and then we can ask them. Okay.

Identify, please. Your name and address.

I'm very confused. Geraldine Perry Lopes, 19 Eisenhower Street. That's the last house at the bottom of the street in case anybody's interested.

Um, I'd like to know how many feet the threestory buildings in the back are going to be because stories doesn't mean anything to me.

Feet is what I understand.

Good question.

Thank you. Thank you. So we can just keep in mind that you know you got three stories in the front and four in the back.

That's right. So let's go back to that tent.

So what would it be in the front and what would it be in the back?

Exactly. Just can we go back to that exhibit the Okay. So the building just just for clarification for our viewers at home and for folks that are here the top display that's how it was initially proposed and the bottom one you probably know this and I apologize if I'm just reiterating what you already know and the bottom one is how they've made some modifications with some of the

concerns that members of the board have have expressed and also um the abutters and other town members. Thank you.

Okay, thank you for your question. Um, so the building that you're concerned about because you're at the bottom of Eisenhower would be on the very bottom, right? Okay. Each floor as you go up is 11 ft. Okay. So the the the threetory piece, try to imagine that building. You see there's a piece that sticks out.

That's all those are three stories tall.

Okay. 33 feet. Then the ground is dropping off. I'm sure you've been in houses where you're at the front and then as you walk around the ground is dropping off the side of the house and then the basement has a walk out. That's what's happening here. So the side that is where the cursor is right there. That a little bit further up. I want to show her all the way to the right on that

building. All the way to the I mean to the left on that building. Okay. That area is 33 feet. Then it drops down, drops down, drops down until you get to where the walk out is and that's 44 feet.

So at the tallest point it will be 44 feet.

It would at the tallest point at the bottom of the slope is 44 ft.

But that's only the portion of the buildings that abut or come close to abuting the property owners on Eisenhower.

Right.

All right. Now, what about the rest of the structure further back? So if we were to go in a southerntherly direction to the higher unit, how high is the one from the four and then the five?

That's right. So going from the 33 foot height as you head southerntherly, you go back about 40 ft. The building pops up then to four stories tall and it is 44 feet at that location on the south west. Thank you. The southwest facade of the building is 44 feet and the southeast is 55 ft. But it is set back significantly. In fact, I think it's set back from that right hand the furthest

right hand corner I believe is 40. The right hand corner the upper level is set back 47 ft. So you don't you can't even see where it pops up and becomes 55 ft. 57 57 ft 57 feet back from that face.

It's significant.

Come on up.

Daniel Rodri, 17 Eisenhower Street. Um, so you mentioned 55 ft in height. The the building height was addressed to be 55 ft in height. Does that include the power pit and all the mechanical HVAC equipment that' be on the roof?

I think he indicated it's 57 now, right?

He was corrected it's 57, but you're going to explain that further. it what it is is each of the floor plates when you get up to that where it's 55 ft then it is set back there is a screen wall that's 3 ft tall okay and there's mechanical equipment but because it's so far set back you cannot see it from the ground you can't all right hold on hold on so just set the screen

from the front of the building you can't you can't see it because when you stand when you stand and you look up to a building from their from their perspective and the um screen wall which is only three feet tall is set back a distance of approximately 20 ft from the edge of the building.

You cannot see it and you're taking into consideration the amount of distance from that point of the building to their home.

Yes. On Eisenhower, that's your that's your understanding or your position?

Yes.

All right.

All right. Hold on one sec.

You guys have any questions about that?

Uh I think I do. Uh I I think it's a little bit confusing probably for the uh uh neighbors. Uh just to reference the site plan, I know we mentioned uh building B, C, and E. Is building B is the closest to uh uh Haway and BC is the middle one and E is the one to the north.

This is three stories.

No, if we can go to the Eisenhower. Uh, go to the Eisenhower. Gotcha.

Next slide.

Right. So, the the one on the left, the closest to Hathaway, is that building that's building B, I believe. Right.

Building B.

Okay. And the one behind it, the middle D.

D is a D, right? And then C, right?

F.

F. Oh, F. Okay. That's why I don't have the site plan. That's what I was trying to get. But basically, we're saying that the front of the I got the front of the building. Uh, you're following the grade. You're saying you're around 33 feet height from the finished grade to the top of the building that is closest to Eisenhower.

If we have three-story building, right?

And then in the back it drops to 44. So the average height in between somewhere 38 ft, right? And then it jumps another 11 ft to the back once you pass that 55 ft setback. Correct.

Right.

I only ordered a setback of 40. How do we go from 40 to No, one is 4157 something like that. So the average if I'm looking at this building from Eisenhower the average height of the building that it's closest to Eisenhower the Yes, we'll call it 38 ft.

Okay. 38 plus plus or minus.

Yes.

From the finish grade, right? I don't know if this helps.

Got to come up.

Ma'am, you want to ask a question, right? Come on up, please. You got a question? Come on up.

Which one?

What are you looking for?

This is an old change.

You should You have the new ones, right?

Uh, one of the questions I have is in back of my home.

That's the new one there. It's there's a big drop. just put it there and a big drop about 10 ft or something.

So you're saying from the back of your home?

Mhm.

So that's in a southerntherly direction that there's a drop in elevation by about 10 ft, I think. So that's how it looks to me because and that it's always been that way. There are big rocks in back.

Okay.

So uh and that's why I have the question. And I want to know first uh if they're going to excavate, if that's the right word, those rocks and uh fill or what are they going to do?

Well, first of all, I don't know how far back these houses are going in relation to your lot. I'm not I don't know if they're going to butt directly where you live. Maybe they can provide us some perspective on that.

And he may not be the one to provide that answer, but we'll ask him anyway.

So, I think the question is, gentlemen, if we can, this lady, I forgot her name.

This lady lives at the last home that's on Eisenhower Avenue. She has concerns.

Well, if I Yeah, that answers my question, I guess. If you look at that right now, ma'am, they're pointing at your home.

See the red dot?

The red dot.

So, directly behind your home, it doesn't appear that the development is going to except for that little bumpout that's there. It looks like, I don't know, maybe a spade. um that area there, if you go almost due south from your home, it doesn't even look like there's going to be any type of real uh alteration to that area.

Am I wrong in in my assessment of that?

Just to clarify, Mr. Chair, for the record, Phil Cordero from Allen and Major Associates, you are not wrong. And just to answer what the spade is, it's a small storm water basin in that location. So directly behind the home, there's no excavation of the materials along the property line, but we do need to dig down uh 4T 4 and 1/2 ft in here to create a pond because as everybody knows, the storm water runs from this

easterly direction towards the westerly direction down towards the wetland. So it sort of goes caddyy cornered this way. Because of the development, it has to be wholly contained and captured. The water that's running off the back of the Eisenhower homes runs down this slope is being captured along this slope and will be held back in a small storm water pond here. So there is a small excavation

uh off the property line for that to take place but then the grade through here remains the same.

Does that make sense?

Does that make sense?

It makes sense, Mr. Gado.

Thank you.

And I see the lines. Those lines I believe have some dimensions as to what the distance is from the existing homes to the proposed buildings.

That is that is correct. So this particular plan uh is slightly dated uh in that this plan is showing you the corners of the buildings. Uh now the buildings have not changed but the plan that we had submitted prior to or presented at the last meeting um enhanced those dimensions to now show you what the setback dimension would be to the higher story of the building. So where that step takes place. So Jack, if you

could zoom in uh right here at the corner of building B, please.

And I I'll just I'll walk the the board and the public through. So right here at this corner off of the property line because that's the closest that we can measure this dimension. I know it's a little bit blurry but it reads at 106.2.

So what Mr. Smoo was mentioning is that this first step in the building is 45 ft back. So this area through here not designated but this is where it would be the threetory and then it becomes the fourstory 45 ft back. So that distance to that corner then becomes 147 and a half. So we're trying to dimensionally convey to the board to the public the distance that is created by creating

those setbacks. So as we continue to walk down this dimension is 132 but effectively where the taller portion of the building is about here is 173 and a half now as presented uh per Mr. Smook's plans a moment ago. Continuing downstream 110.4.

This building step is 57 ft from this corner. So approximately in here. So this setback becomes 140. This uh is 993 through here. It becomes 166 through here. Moving down 103 at this dimension to the step, it becomes 132.7.

91.8 here becomes 158.6. Now, I know I'm throwing a lot of numbers. Um, there's no quiz at the end. I'm not expecting everybody to remember those, but the takeaway is how far back the effective height of the building is now going to be from the properties property lines.

So Mr. Smoo identified the actual building heights numerically. The member identified what that average height is numerically. But because we're actually stepping it back a good distance, it visually will reduce the massing of the height. And I have some some sections to present to the board this evening to illustrate that further.

Come on up, sir.

You know the drill.

It's a Thomas Babington from 19 Kennedy Street. So the the distance that they're talking about reducing the top floor is probably not much longer than this building, this room that we're in.

They're talking about 40 some odd feet that they're going to lip trim off for a length of the top floor. It's probably a few more feet longer than this room is.

That's not going to make a huge visual difference.

And they they're talking about the the view from the ground floor. Well, some of us have second floors.

That changes the total perspective. I'm a retired design engineer. These renderings are horrible. There's so much more they can do from a civil engineering standpoint to give you a true visual of what these buildings will look like from Eisenhower. And they're not delivering because they don't want to.

Thank you.

Stop on this side of the room. Come on up, sir. Oh, Jim Griffith, 134 Hathway Road. I live just on the other side of Eisenhower Street, um, facing Hathway Road.

And I'm not an engineer, but if you were standing in the backyard of the people on that side, the south side of Eisenhower Street, and you were looking up at a building, you might be looking at an angle like this. But if you were inside your house, you can see a lot more elevation. And if you were in my house, which is higher in elevation to any of those houses over there, I'm

going to be looking straight at the roof. And the people next to me on the other side of Kennedy Street, they're higher than I am. Now, I'm not saying that the height is the beall and endall of this project, but uh what has been portrayed to us is misleading at best.

Thank you.

Come on up, sir.

Ron Doolong, 24 Dean Street.

Um, I was just over there. You guys let uh there's uh affordable housing over there in Dartmouth Street. New building just being built.

That had nothing to do with this.

I know it has nothing to do with it.

Well, you said you guys let Well, well, there was a town. It's a town. It's in the town. It's in the town of D, right?

Well, the town of D, but Okay. It's in the town of Diamond on D Street over by Planet Fitness. That's three stories. Pretty big building. still a pretty big building. It's three stories and that's in a um it's not a residential area. There's all kind of businesses over there. Planet Fitness, Master Le, right? Okay. You're going to put a fivetory. It's a it's essentially a fivetory building. 55 ft high is a

fivestory building in a a residential area. And and they were saying that we won't even see the uh rooftop units.

Well, I can't see the rooftop units of the credential building either. you're looking up like this, you can't see any of those units. But like he said, when you're in your if he's in his attic and he has a window in his attic, he's going to see everything. The buildings are way, way, way too high. That's all I got to say. Thank you.

Let me let this lady come up. Okay, come on up.

Love Almeida 11 Eisenhower Street.

So So just for a second, can you open that up? I wanted to point to me as to where 11 Eisenhower where a house is.

Um the third house down.

Third house down. So one is that your house right there?

Yes.

Okay. Thank you.

Okay.

All right.

So my view I will be looking at a park you got lot according to that plan.

Is that correct?

Excuse me. What's the question?

Are you going to be looking onto a parking lot?

The park you got? Yes.

Well, I think there's parking areas that will be the closest to your property.

They're they're closer than the actual buildings. I can say that.

So, I have an issue with the view that they were showing from the backyards.

Like, it was already mentioned if if you're standing in in my backyard right behind the home, you sort of have a a direct view. If you are further down into my mat yard because it slopes down, those buildings are going to look even higher.

And also I have a deck off the second floor. So now I won't be looking directly at the rooftop or that parrot pet or whatever he was saying. There's all that mechanical things that you can't see.

So I may be seeing that from right now.

All right.

Thank you. Okay. And one one other thing I would like to explain to me the exact distances from my property line to if there's other be any existing uh trees left the whole buffet area if there are put in pot in on the side that they're talking about. I'd like to know the distance from that to a potent area.

And if so, is there ought to be a retaining wall, a fence?

That's my question.

Okay, we'll have them come forward. I think you wanted to address a couple concerns already. Mr. Cado, if I could, Mr. Chair, let me just address that quickly while it's fresh in my mind. um the way this area of the site works. So I will start by a quick reminder which is that we are showing parking along this northerly property line. It was our our request, our intent that those are

shown as banked parking spaces to only be constructed out of necessity. Um I know the board had indicated their preference to increase the parking ratio uh for the units and that we may be required to build them and that's certainly fine. Uh but that was our initial intent and the reason for that was to just maximize that horizontal distance that the abuter had mentioned so we could maintain as much of this as

natural vegetation as possible. the geometry between all of these homes generally level through here, but this continues to drop off dramatically both in this direction, the east west and then also the north south direction. Uh so the question was what's happening here? Am I going to see a parking lot?

So if those spaces were to be constructed, they would be at an elevation that is approximately 10 ft lower than this adjacent grade here. So if I were standing here, this parking area would be approximately 10 ft lower than that. There would be a retaining wall between those two. We want to support that grade while maintaining as much vegetation as possible. Uh but you would be above that parking lot. So it

is our intent by the landscaping plan that you would not be seeing a parking lot. You would see the dense vegetation that we are proposing to plant in that area. Uh we had also spoke about the height of the trees being 8 10 12 feet high in terms of evergreen screening through there. We had also introduced on our property the notion of a fence at the highest point of the property and I

believe Mr. Calhoun and he can reiterate it here at the prior meeting. We had also introduced the notion of an opportunity for uh potentially affected homeowners along Eisenhower to be given a stipent that they could install fencing or landscaping to their discretion uh if they felt they wanted something more. Uh so we've we've tried to take those grades into account into this site plan design which as a

reminder is why we have the multiple stories with the walkouts as we walk down the hillside. I'll take a pause if there's any questions on the parking matter and then I'll go back to the architectural. M Mr. Chair, do you want to stick to the the building height and then or do you want to mix I mean I mean they're somewhat intertwined but Yeah, they are. But um just trying to keep message here if I may.

Absolutely.

I think this I we also discussed this with the with the other uh 40B.

Yeah. Um, your parking space is a 9 by18. Is that is correct? Yes.

Okay. So, is there a way I don't want to change your design?

Can we go to 8 by8 on half of the spaces or the spaces along the buildings there budding Eisenhower? I think you might gain another 25 ft of buffer. might help you with the slopes, might help you with the retaining wall, but gives another 25. I think we're trying to, you know, and I think we allow in DMT, I think we allow compact spaces, too. Certain percentage of 8 to 16. We're not going

that route, but your width is the issue here. It's not the depth, I believe.

Uh, so it would be the depth here is what we're concerned about. If I if I may, could you put up Jack, could you put up the other plan, the parking plan?

Just to clarify something. I thought that you indicated that those parking spaces were only bank spaces but they could be if the board provided some direction on that then they could be built out but you didn't want to do that for the reasons that you explained.

Yeah, that that is that is correct. It it's our opinion that we the group collective benefits from keeping the vegetation there as opposed to putting parking there. Um so that's why we are presenting those spaces as banked. If I could, I don't want to interrupt the flow of your question, but I think I can address it with this particular graphic that we prepared. So the area that we're

talking about these parking spaces here, and I'm going to draw these into conversation also. Um, what we've introduced here is the concept. So dimensionally, the width of the parking space that we are proposing is 9 ft. So that is this direction is, you know, I guess it's uh east to west. The depth is 18 ft. So here what we're showing is the town of Dartmouth zoning bylaw does allow compact parking spaces to to a 30%

maximum and those parking spaces are 8x 16. So what we are showing you in here is that we could create a conversion if it were the board's pleasure to make these parking spaces 8 by6 the compact which would be allowed under the zoning bylaw. So that extra two feet delineated again this way results in a benefit towards the abutments. The same is also true here as a reminder we have wetland

resource areas. We would propose the same concept to give that additional separation towards the wetland resource areas to work within the confines of the dimensional requirements of the bylaw along those two lines of parking. Again, we are talking about these are designated as banked parking spaces. We build them if we need them. Um, but if were we to build them, we could build them to a compact dimension at 8 by6.

I I don't believe that two feet is going to make a difference. No offense. That's why offended. That's the B.

I meant more the the parking that we're going the in the north and south directions in front of the building. And you don't have to reduce the size of the building. I don't want you know, but if you can push everything in the southerntherly direction, I guess another 25 ft.

Mhm.

Might give the neighbors more buffer.

May I cl So just to clarify, are you suggesting Yes. these spaces through here.

Go to eight on those if you can, which that could potentially collapse the site in an east west direction, but I'm not sure it would benefit the neighbors, which would be in this the north south direction, which is why we were suggesting moving the dimension here versus in here.

No, I bet w with the the one that are perpendicular to the building right along through here.

Yes. You have maybe like 25 parking spaces along the let's call it the northerly side of the the northerly buildings.

Mhm.

So if you reduce that by a foot for each parking, you might be able to to push the parking and align it with the line of the building and that gives you another maybe 25 ft of Yeah, you know, I mean, might help you with this with the storm water, too.

Yep.

Keep it the way it is.

And I'm not sure. I mean, we're trying to come up with the balance here. We're not, you know, we understand what, you know, obviously you're not going to be able to please every single person in this room, but at least this might help with the screening and providing more buffer and another larger distance and visual from the building or I apologize, but I'm not sure I fall.

Can you explain it to me one more time?

Yeah. Can I can I ask a qu because I might can I ask you if I end if I clarifying and then we'll see if there's I don't know if you have the sheet C103

I'm not sure we have uh through the chair I'm not sure we have all of the individual plans but ostensibly whether we're looking at this color graphic they're all the same there's there's bank parking spaces on the southwesterly side right next on the church side right there's also the sport court so that's I think an issue because there's a prior prioritizing of the sport court here but let's pretend the

sport court wasn't there if you're talking about 18 foot long parking spaces on the west that are being banked on the west side the whole if those were not to be built The whole site could be moved 18 ft to the left. The parking spaces along between the buildings, I think the board members indicating could be shrunk down from 9 to 8. So you could make up the difference of banked ones and the whole

site will have shifted 18 ft to the left.

Is that what you're suggesting? Is that what you were suggesting?

Shift. Yeah. shifted as practical to to the south side.

Obviously, you don't have an issue with the church, right?

Right.

Right. like if they and again I mean spaces they can ship this whole you don't have to go crazy with the plans at this time because we don't know if you could just do quickly maybe uh the the site layout and just see what kind of buffer you get and we can look at that because I mean we're trying to balance we know you know if you can live with the 8 foot parking

space I think eight is reasonable not all of them you can do you know mix them. But um we're trying uh what Oh, I'm just listening. I'm listening.

So, so I mean they're concerned of the size and the proximity of the buildings to to the to to the properties and you know I mean we appreciate you making the efforts and you're you're trying to work with us and we're trying to come up with something that we can present and see how they would uh the neighbor would would feel about this you know so yeah um we welcome all the ideas and um one

of the key elements we've been working on from the project eligibility letter to now is every time we've moved off that property line I didn't hear what you just said about what after the el eligibility letter what did you say the project eligibility letter to today we continue to work on that issue because that was brought up could we move the buildings could we and we've gone through 13 different more than that

now we're probably at 18 or 20 but that property line is one of the areas where we don't need relief.

The side setbacks we meet times three, four, five, couple, a few.

The side setback on that side of the property, side setbacks I think are 50 feet or 40.

Uh 20 20 20. Thank you.

20.

Thank you. Um so we're sitting now way more than 20.

Yeah. Um, but we welcome the idea about where you'd be agreeable if we went with compact spaces.

The sport court was not on the plan that went to mass housing. Is that correct?

Sport court was um an idea that uh we worked through with the church, right?

Because the church is But if you're talking about Never mind. If you're talking about the impact of the buildings on the neighbors and the ability to shift things further away from them, what's more important?

The sport court or shifting the buildings away. So that's a value judgment, right? that may not be dollar signs like the value judgment of being able to shift everything another 18 20 feet over and not include a sport court which was not part of the original project eligibility letter site plan. So, it's just an idea that's being floated to be considered.

And and and if I if I could though, what I what I would ask for from the board is feedback towards those ideas, that particular idea, because we did walk away from the earlier meetings about parking and making sure we had more than adequate parking on the property. So, if the notion is eliminating those spaces in favor of shifting, you know, we would like to hear some feedback, right? and then reducing the width as

the board potentially reducing the width as the memory which would get you more spaces of any of those bank spaces. So, so we we understand I mean obviously there's there's a limit the the space that we are uh suggesting is 9 by 18 maybe they go down to eight by 18 you know so for every seven or eight spaces we would gain a space so there is a little bit of

gain in there so we can get some of the parking back but there's no scenario where even squeeze playing it all together would would equate to the loss of the 40 42 44 spaces along that southerntherly line. So, I'm I'm not being um um contentious to the suggestions. As David mentioned, we welcome the feedback and those are things we could take a look at. But in looking at elimination of those

potential spaces, that is contrary to some of the early discussions with the board about having as as adequate a parking ratio as we can on the site.

Please, what is the parking ratio as it stands now without the build without the buildout of the uh other spots?

Is it 1.17 something?

If you may u hold on please.

I have to go back a few meetings.

All right. Take your time.

And Mr. Chair, if I may, I mean the issue is not the setback if the if if if you're meeting the the height requirement. So I not making a issue of the uh so the height is more meeting the height requirement.

No no he's mentioned that they meet the the setback so it shouldn't be an issue on that side. So the issue is not the setback it's the building height.

Well I guess that's a question for the board too right. So let's pretend we go to the plan with no sport court if if everything gets shifted over 20 ft. There's still plenty of room if the board was willing to give a sideyard setback variance um to still bank parkings potentially bank parking over there neighbors right to benefit the neighbor because all you have to you say to benefit west is mostly

okay so hold on you keep saying west I think southwest south is that way north is kind of diagonal it's south is to the left okay so south this so if I may the the church we'll consider the church self in this discussion. Okay. But that's self, right? So I mean there's there's what though how wide is the sport court is what almost 100 ft wide.

So um is it 97.6? Am I reading that? N the sideyard setback right now is 97.6 feet according to sheet C103.

And you only need 20 ft.

You could push the whole thing over 20 feet, still have plenty of room to bank parking spaces over there and still have it and not need a side sideyard set uh setback variance. That am I am I correct? I'm sorry. I spent 11 years on a planning board, so a little bit of it coming out. Um but yeah, I'm just trying to as the board's trying to grapple with how to y

make it all work. I'm just kind of trying to take what the board is saying and maybe bundle it into some ideas for you to consider.

Sure. So if I and we can we can engineer it. I'm happy to do it. Maybe this becomes a bit of a workshop discussion, a working group discussion. Part of the tradeoff uh though as we move south is we are chasing grade across the site. So the closer we get uh we have to introduce retaining walls, sloping things like that that so there. So mathematically horizontally what you've just laid out factually correct.

Um, but once we put it into execution, we need to think about what those retaining walls look like, what those slopes look like, and what we can constructibly and and feasibly build.

Um, and then to answer the question, just so I have it, with the banked parking, we would be at a 1.57 ratio. Without the banked parking, we would be uh 1.14.

1.14.

Yes.

and 1.57 with bank.

Yeah, we we want to my target was a 1.7 ratio.

Is that something you can attain?

This is at this and this is with the 300 units even with the stepbacked buildings. So,

I'm just Yeah, it's fine.

All right. So, is there anyone here that has any further questions about what we're discussing? All right. I'm going to start from there. We're going to work your way over. This gentleman, come on back up.

You know the drill, sir.

Jim Griffith, 134 Hathaway Road. Um, can I assume that we're still talking about 300 units?

Yeah.

And how many nonbanked parking spaces are proposed?

How many? I don't know that number, but I know the range.

It's 1.14. Must be like 320 something.

Exactly. How many that translates to, I'm not sure, but I think that man can answer that question.

Indirect I'm not at the podium. 341.

34 without the bank spaces. Yep.

341.

And with the bank, it would be how many?

472.

472.

Thank you, Mr. Cadero.

So, my question is, what circumstances would cause the non-banked parking spaces to be built?

Well, we could ask that they be built now. We can make that a condition actually change their plans and propose them as being built.

Yeah. I don't want them built because they're going to be right. They're going to I I understand that. I understand. So, it's a it's sort of a trade-off, right?

Well, I'm asking what the circumstances are because if this is built, I'm going to be living there and I can I'm just imagining all the trees that constitute the buffer on the south side of Eisenhower Street uh someday are going to be visited by chainsaws. They'll cut them all down. They'll build the the banked parking spaces on the north side of that and I'm still going to be living

there. So, I would like to know what the circumstances are that will cause the nonbanked parking spaces to be built.

I guess it's one of two things. I guess one is whether or not we want them built as a board. We decide that they should be built. or two, a parking issue were to exist in the future as a result of only having 1.14, we could make it a condition that if there are parking concerns that exist there that we could require that they build out those additional spots.

Well, the and there's a third, which is okay, maybe I haven't thought of it all through.

The third one being their residents have a demand for the parking and they want to satisfy their residents and so they choose to build them. So that's even if the board doesn't require it.

And my and my suspicion would be that they're calling them banked parking spaces now because they don't want this issue to come up for the people who live on Eisenhower Street. And I where I live on Hathway Road and the people next to me on Kennedy Street, they don't want that to come up. They want those to remain quote banked, meaning we're not building them. Meaning it won't interfere. you won't be looking at a

parking lot uh out your back window.

That I think that's what's going on.

They want them to be said to be banked even though they have no intention of not building them. They are going to build them because one parking space per unit will not work.

341.

Thank you.

Thank you. Um I've already got to move over to the left. I'll start back with you. Oh, council, you want to come up?

No. Well, Mr. Mr. Chair, I just that that that row over there is is 44 spaces. The bank spaces over on that on the what are we saying? Northerly side on the westerly side as well.

Maybe a question for Mr. Cordderero. If if those 44 were not built, what's the rate what's the ratio? It's something less than 1.57, but it might be a helpful number for the board.

Thank you.

He may not have that calculation.

No, no, I'm saying yeah, I'm not asking him now. I'm just saying if you could do the math.

All right. I think this young lady had her hand raised.

Amy Coelloo. Uh 10 Eisenhower Street. Um I'm across the street up higher. So the height of it's it's too high. This this whole project it's it's too big. It's too the scale is too big. The density is too big. The solution is simple. Just reduce it. Reduce it and everything. You know, there's less. They won't you won't need as much parking there. It'll there won't be as much traffic. I I don't

understand why he just can't reduce it.

Thank you.

I think this other lady had a question.

Do you have a qu if you don't have it?

Okay. All right. Come on up and then I'm going to shift over to that gentleman.

Li 11 Eisenhower Street. I think my question um didn't really yet answer.

I'd like to know from my property line over to the retained wall supposedly for the banked part in how many feet is that?

Well, I think with with the har proposal I think they have a dimension that's close to the corner of your lot. It may not be directly on your lot, but it's very close to the corner. Oh, it is on the corner of lot your lot based on that sort of that visual visual there to the corner of the building. How many feet is that Mr. Cado? Is that 107?

Awesome. May I stand up here with you?

Yes.

The house.

Let me just confirming the house is that is her house.

That's you right there. So this dimension from here to the property line is 113 ft. So here to this property line 113.

Okay.

But I Okay, hold on. And what what about the other one above? That's on the other corner. Hold on. I'm asking him the question. What about the other corner?

See the blue line? That's Yes. Right there. What's that?

From here to property line is 103. This actually reads 103.0 ft. Mr. Chair, I think she has a different question. I think she wants to go to a to a She wants to know if if you have to build if you if you do build that bank parking and you put a retaining wall behind it, how close will the retaining wall be to our property line? That's what she's asking.

So, if I may I So, do through the chair to answer the question. So, what you're seeing here is underneath here may be difficult. The parking spaces go to approximately here.

So you'd be looking at 20 feet from the property line to the back of those spaces slash retaining wall in right in here.

So they' be about So the retaining wall will be about 20 ft from the property line.

Yes, Mr. Chair.

Below the grade, but below grade low the the grade will be lower than the properties here along Eisenhower Street. Yes.

And there won't be a retaining wall there.

That's what they're proposing. There's going to have to be because of the difference in elevation.

Uh 6 foot one, excuse me, six feet.

I think he said it was 10 ft earlier, but I'll let him elaborate.

That's even better though.

How many feet is it?

So, it it varies, Mr. Chairman, as you move down the slope. So, it's somewhere between 6 and 10 feet as you walk down.

So were were all of these spaces to be constructed, the wall gets taller as you go down towards the rear of the property as the rest of that grade dies off. So it varies between 6 and 10. I don't have the exact numbers. They they are on the plans. Um so we have the rough grades. I don't think we we we did not tag wall elevations because again the notion here

is this was banked parking for us. But we know approximately what those grade elevations would look like. But are they seeing the wall or is the wall below their their backyard?

It would be below their backyard, below their ey line. So if I were looking towards the project, eye level, the wall would be below their eye level as the grade continues to drop down and then a a fence to avoid drop off of someone off the wall. So we we are proposing by the plan to put a fence along the property line to protect. So if the spaces do not get built, it is a slope

through there with the fence. If the spaces do get built, it's a retaining wall also with the fence through there.

But now the fence becomes fall protection barrier to the height of the wall greater than four feet and we need fall protection.

Thank you. Come on up.

Daniel Rodri, 17 Eisenhower Street. So, two questions. My first question still wasn't answered. C. Can somebody, Mr.

Chair, can you tell me how big the buildings are? How tall are they at the maximum? Not at the step down side where they step it down to 3 ft, but what's the max building height?

I think it's somewhere around 57 or 58 feet. That's my understanding. And that's including the parapet, the part that's going to screen off the screen wall that's going to screen off the uh the mechanicals on the rooftop.

Okay.

So, the building height hasn't changed.

I don't know if it's actually changed.

Okay.

Well, I know. Well, when I say changed, yes, some part of it dropped.

The max has not. Correct. The maximum hasn't changed.

I don't know if the maximum's changed or not. I'd have to go back and look.

Okay. And this is in flux, right? We're just we're discussing this, right? But as it's proposed based on the drop off on the northern portions of of buildings B, D, and F that those buildings that those areas on the northern part of it that have dropped down to a three and fourtory area, that maximum level or the average that sort of he was able to hone out is about 38 ft on that side there. That's

what I'm able to extract.

Okay. Yeah. My question is about the max. So, but thank you.

Thank you for clarifying that.

Um, so c can they or can somebody identify how big is the buffer of vegetation once they build the bank parking spots?

From my understanding, it's probably going to be about 20 ft the top of that retaining wall to the property lines.

Okay, if they build those. Now, the other thing is this. We can put a restriction that those don't ever get built. That's something we can do. However, that also creates issues later on where if there is a need for them to accommodate the occupants of those buildings and their parking needs, then they're going to be restricted as to what they can do.

That's not the town's problem.

Excuse me.

That's not the town's problem.

No, it's not the town's problem. But I don't want it to become your problem where people stop parking on your street and then they're walking either along the front of Hathaway Road.

You could fix that with resident parking, right? Excuse me. You could fix that with resident only parking. I I understand that there's a fix, right?

But, you know, policing it something else.

Um, and we have plenty of vigil not necessarily something that, you know, I would want in my neighborhood.

Okay.

Yes.

Gentleman in blue jacket.

Certainly. I know. I got to come back to you. I'm going left.

Yeah.

Just Yeah. Just one other question about the Mrs. Lopes was asking behind her house there is that um retaining pond for the storm water runoff. Yes.

Um, right now there are two big rocks there, right? And if you look, there's Eisenhower Street and what runs perpendicular to Eisenhower Street is Indian Rock Road. So there's some tribal um preservation information there. I wonder has the historic uh looked at that.

I invite you to call the state and see the the proper agency and department and explore that, but that's kind of beyond our purview.

Okay. Isn't that f federal law that the the board can't override?

No, I'm not aware of anything. I have nothing been presented to me unless you guys are aware of anything.

No, they need they need to comply with all state and federal laws. 40B only applies to local regulations.

So, if there are any federal issues out there and it comes up, they're going to have to address them, but it's not anything that the the board's been presented with.

Is that the same for the the building height uh in relation to the New Befford airport and the FAA?

Yeah, that's a federal law. So if there's an issue for the FF FAA, they have to comply with the FAA regulations.

The board can't wave those.

Okay.

So yeah, thank you, sir. Come on up.

Good evening. Edward Pico, 188 Hicksville Road. I've had the opportunity to go over to the neighborhood that's going to be impacted by this, spoke to the neighbors, looked in their backyards, and I have to say, as a homeowner that would not be impacted by this project directly, other than the amount of traffic that it'll drop in the middle of Hathway Road and Route Six, I would be

absolutely appalled if I had a parking in my backyard all of a sudden. We're talking about 20 ft in most cases, which my estimation would be from this podium to your seats. Imagine your right to enjoyment in your backyard being taken away when you have people staring at you in your backyard while you're trying to have a barbecue and they're sitting in their cars looking at you while you're eating your cheeseburger.

This project has so many issues with it that they're uncounted and you know I know we're talking about to your point Mr. Chair u about the number of parking spots that we have. So we're we're talking about what your goal is 175 13 depending on where it goes if we build the bank. If we don't build the bank, these people are going to have to have visitors, I would assume. So, these

spots that they're talking about, I have seven vehicles in my driveway because I have six drivers in my house and one soon to be on the road. So, for these are units that have two-bedroom or threebedroom units, we expect that they're realistically only going to have 1.3 cars per unit, where's the other 1.7 cars coming from?

And are we do we believe that when these folks have company over, are they going to park at the Dartmouth Mall and they're going to run shuttles back and forth for these people, or are we going to have to tell the people on Eisenhower and Kennedy, um, sorry, we're going to put up neighborhood parking signs only, but we're going to rely on DPD to enforce that.

We're we're looking at all of these root issues, but we're not looking at the root cause. And the root cause itself is just the size of this project. It doesn't work. The only thing that it works for is the dollars and cents for the developer. That's the only thing that's working here. It doesn't work for the people that live there. It doesn't work for the town. It doesn't work for

our roadways. It doesn't work for our water supply. It doesn't work.

So, I appreciate your time, but we we've got to do better with this. And I know that we want to put things in place to uh you know, restrict this and restrict that.

We're still going to have the core issue, the root cause, and the root cause is that the just the sheer size of this project. And uh you know I my heart goes out to the individuals on Eisenhower Street because I would be absolutely devastated if my backyard I now had to look at somebody in their car while I'm trying to have a family barbecue or to celebrate something. It's shameful. Thank you.

All right. Come on up.

You're next.

Um, so a lot of these comments have merit.

They're one of the reasons why very early we suggested working sessions because everyone that we've talked about involves some concession being made by this board in a definitive fashion in order to achieve certain things. We're going to move the project south. It means we're going to eliminate some area parking that's not going to get built.

There's going to be fewer parking spaces either now or in the future on the site.

Those are realities.

Those are good for working issues, but it's not in all Canada the best way to spend what right now is the last public hearing of this project. What we do know is this to try to become more definitive. The buildings that have been as have been reduced in size are the buildings the applicant is proposing.

Whether they can slide some distance at some consequence, which would require an affirmative action of this board subtly is something that design people will have to figure out and what the consequence is. But the buildings are going to be the size they are. And we need to know whether that's going to be acceptable to the board or not in order to move this process along in some logical fashion because we are

all of these design issues are hitting us during the la the hour and a half of our last public hearing. And so I think we need to have some understanding as to whether the concessions that we've made all the way through in already moving the buildings in proposing the the reserve parking along that side so that it only gets built if there's certain needs as have been identified the three

needs that could exist are are acceptable or not. Candidly well I'll share this with you just to provide some direction for your client.

I don't know what you mean by shifting of the buildings. I think the buildings are pretty much where they were, where they were initially presented to us.

Mhm.

One of the concerns I had early on that I voiced, and I'm only speaking for myself here, that I voiced was there were four and fivetory structures throughout the project. I had a lot of concern about the height of the project based on its impact that it would have on the immediate abutters to the north.

I was hopeful, truly hopeful, that your client would have come back with a more significant concession than just partially dropping off the northern parts of buildings B, D, and F.

I just thought that quite frankly, it was very little. It was nothing. Quite frankly, to me, it was insufficient. In addition, then I come to learn I was expecting I was hopeful that they were going to come back with all the buildings coming back at three and four units and as a result of doing that that we would just incidentally would reduce the numbers from 300 down to something closer to 200 units. I look

at this and Mr. Pico certainly touches upon it where this really doesn't work.

It's too much based on the size of this lot. That's my opinion and the concession of dropping just a portion of those three buildings I don't think is sufficient. The other thing I want to know is how many how many units are being relocated to other parts of the building as a result of you reducing the height requirement. Not the height requirement but reducing the height on the northern tips of those three

buildings. How many units were actually being impacted? We and as had been indicated in the correspondence that we submitted to this board uh much earlier this month, we haven't done those calculations. All of those calculations require a full-blown redesign of the internal design of the buildings. Mr.

Smoo touched on as the last meeting some of the concessions that could be made by reducing amenity space and the like to do it. I don't know whether we're going to get to the 300 units, but we're not going to give them up as part of the reduction in the height.

But but there there are floor plans though, and the floor plans indicate the proposed location of units. And I I didn't bring the floor plans from the original application with me tonight, but anyone could look at the floor plan and say, "You're cutting off 40 feet.

There were x number of units here times three." and say how many units that is before it's redesigned. That's how many units are being affected.

Right? That's an easy number attorney for someone to give. And so that's a choice not to just look at a floor plan and say we're affecting one, two, three, four, however many units, right? I'm sure Mr. Swoop knows that answer.

We that if he had if he's worked with the floor plans. So that's all the chair is asking and I think that's a fair question that he's asked. Whether or not you're willing to give up the units is a different question, but I think that that's an easy answer for Mr. Swoop.

My turn.

Yes.

Thank you. There's no doubt that the math is easy to do to determine that based upon the plans as exist now the impact of the reduction. What I don't want that confused with is a reduction in the total number of units in the application that we are reserving the right to redesign the buildings the internal parts of the building only the internal in such a fashion so as to still maintain obtaining up to 300 units.

Well, I think we we're at a uh impass.

300 units is not something I could support.

I just that's where I'm at. There are there are a lot of concerns here and it's not just the building height. When I look at it collectively, I got significant concerns about the traffic that this is going to impose.

We've got the building height issue.

We've got water. We haven't even gotten to wastewater or water impact or water requirements. And I'm not even being skewed by this letter. I'm not even knowing whether or not this letter that was sent is even accurate. We got the parking concerns. At best, I think that your best you're going to get to 157 based on the numbers that you have.

Uh there's got to be a concession with the number of units. And if that's something your client's not willing to do, then we know where we stand today.

But another thing is this. I'm only one person. So I want to hear from these other two gentlemen. Get a sense of what they're feeling on this because you don't need me. You you don't need you two out of three. You get you get what you need. You you get where you need to be.

I don't know.

Okay.

Uh Mr. Chair, um just looking at the property, I understand uh it's a 100 acre property, but seems from designing, if I'm look at this, it seems like we maximize every inch on the property, which I understand. So to jeopardize if if we apply the the setback from the retaining wall if we build those uh uh bank parking I see that we're 25 ft from the edge of the wetland we're almost at

the street with hardly any buffer in the front which is hatway maybe we can say you know it's a hataway road but to have 20 foot buffer from the neighbor on one side and another 20 ft seems like and I don't know where your 300 number comes from really and this is something we always struggled with what people come and say 150 units 120 130 so there must be some formula you know to come up

with that number but seems like this is maximized to the fullest with the setting or this the the the shear of the of the project. I I think reducing the units might help in traffic, might help with parking, might help with whatever you know we've talked about, but I don't know.

All right. Are you done, Mr.

Attorney Newman, gentleman just went up to the That's okay. No, no, I want to hear from I want to hear from I want to hear from the alternates, too, if they have any comments.

I I um 300 units I think is way too much. I also think that the height needs to come down. Um there are I don't believe there are any fivetory buildings in Dartmouth, but there could be. uh and we have that parking issue to address.

So, um I agree with you, Michael, that uh there needs to be some concessions and I could probably live with the project with the concessions, but not as it stands right now.

Attorney Faria, anything you don't have to add. Just I'm just asking. I want I want everyone to have a moment. I just I just would like to say that uh I can't see anything in this project that benefits the town of Dammouth and it's going to devastate the traffic.

Everything about this project devastate the town. It's not the town of Damoth that uh we've known and uh one of the problems I find here is when I look through this 40B I keep hearing things about 40B. 40B is just destroying this town right now. It's not destroying Westport. It's not destroying fair haven towns around around us. And I don't have any problems with the developers here. I

think they doing what they developers do. Try to maximize the profit and I I don't really have any problems with that. But this project I don't find anything. The height of the buildings, the parking space. I just did one of the I figured they needed over 500 parking spaces. And what you said, Mr. chairman too is that if they don't have the parking spaces, they're going to be people visiting uh Fourth of July

parties. Those people be parking at Eisenhower Street and ruining ruining every quiet enjoyment those people should have in the town of Darmmouth.

So, there's not one thing that I can say that I would support in this project.

Anything, Sean?

I just had a question about the uh three buildings on the right that's close to Eisenhower. Um is there any way of putting the three buildings to the north so it's not so close to Eisenhower? You got so much land in the back instead of leaving it as is it conservation land?

Yeah, there's some conservation land on the back. That's where they're limited.

So although it's 100 some odd acre parcel only I think eight or nine maybe 10 acres is actually usable for this type of how many 16.

I mean 16 15 16 Oh, 16. So about 16 acres is actually usable. So they kind of their footprint is limited, but they are trying to maximize what they can utilize that footprint for. Um I didn't mean to cut you off, but I just want to make sure you had a question. That's my understanding. And if they if they want to provide any further clarification to that, they can. But the rest of it is in

essence wetlands, which they've suggested that they're going to try to donate uh you know, preserve it some way somehow. But I don't know what type of, you know, wetlands relevance or natural resource relevance they have that there's any agency that would even want it. If anything, they may have to retain it and they would continue to pay taxes on it. That's typically what happens if they can't find someone.

Um, anything else, gentlemen, chair?

Oh, certainly.

I did say you were next, but he went up.

Let's let's let him speak. A couple of things and I'd just like to walk through it.

It's great to have all these ideas and more we're more than happy to try to address some of them if we know we're getting to a positive decision, but it literally is 45 minutes before the hearing closes. We've been asking for this. We've been asking for meetings with the neighbors. My personal cell phone has been on your town website for seven and a half months and not one phone call.

We've worked with the church. The sport court is there to the benefit of our future residents as well as the church.

The height issue, the height has been the height from the very beginning. The planning board reviewed our project eligibility letter. They knew how high the building was. They knew where the buildings were located. They made recommendations and then we chased their recommendations and we got them all.

The parking concern.

So, hold on. I hold I just want to I want to clarify your point. Are you trying to tell me that the planning board in reviewing this they were in approval of a four and a fivetory building? No. They wrote a letter. You can read their letter. It's in the record. They wrote load wrote a letter to the Commonwealth to Mass Housing.

Okay. And made recommendations. And if you watch their hearing when they discussed our project, they specifically said, "Let's not just say no. What?

Let's put some goals out there and let's have them chase them. And if they can chase them, if they can move the buildings away from Eisenhower, if they can move the buildings as far away as they can, if they can do XYZ, and you can read their letter, it's 9 months old, that letter, and you can, we actually prepared a summary and submitted it to this board on an item

byiteem basis. We did that 60 days ago.

In every single one of their concerns, our engineer went through and said comment response and what we did. You get to the height issue. We're lower than the other projects you currently approved.

We're lower than the Shorebrook. We're almost a foot and a half lower than the Sherbrook.

They're taller building. You want you go to the parking and everybody raises a concern, well, if I have a Fourth of July party, I'm going to have an overflow of guests. That's great. When you own a home, when you live in an apartment building, you can't have those events. You can't have a crazy number of guests. You can't overpark. If you don't abide by the parking rules and regulations, you're in violation of your

lease. And when people say the parking is not going to work, we're confident that it will work. We're confident that the studies by the Commonwealth on parking ratios would work. This site actually scores really well as far as the ability to walk or bike ride to the new train stations. So, it works.

The unit count the unit count can be accomplished within the existing footprint. We pushed the buildings back on the top levels as far as we could until we ran into the stairwells. Once you run into the stairwell, you can't go any further. So we can get the units within that, but that's our risk. If our footprints approved, our unit count is approved, we have to come back to the board with

that. But we're we're willing to hold that. But the other thing you got to realize is 25% of this project is affordable at 80% AMI.

That's got a heavy load on the developer to make a project work. And this project does work at 300 units. you start shrinking the project, it does not.

As far as sewer and water and those issues, there's been a lot of back and forth on that. Our attorney presented a letter to you. Our engineers presented a letter to you. Stantech issued two reports over a year and a half ago confirming that there was sewer for us.

There was sewer for the other projects.

There were recommendations that were made to us. They recommended that we change the sewer line in front of our property from 8 in to 10 in to make it marry with the 10- in down the way.

There's impact fees that more than cover the cost of all those things. So to say the project doesn't work, it's the exact same thing we hear at every project.

Everybody comes and says it's too big. I see something I don't like. But think back to the basics. If you own a single family home and the gentleman running for state rep over there said he can't enjoy his cheeseburger, I could stand on my property line and be the most obnoxious neighbor in the world and there's nothing you can do about it.

If you have an apartment building that's next to you, they have to behave. It's a managed property. It doesn't have problems. And we went to great lengths to study what the people next door would look at, including when they made the recommendation. Some of the people said, "What you're doing isn't enough. We need more plants on our property." So, we went and we researched what good private

landscaping would cost for them to build their own buffers for their own make their own improvements. And you'll see there's a letter in the file already and we presented it last meeting that we were going to establish a landscape allowance for the immediate abutters which equates to $5,000 per house so they can do their own plantings. If they decide not to planting do their plantings fine but they're eligible for

it. So we've listened to all the things you've asked for. I think the engineers would attest that the traffic is not an issue. The engineers would attest and people will raise their hands and say the engineers are not fabricating the information. Your engineer signed off on it. Our engineer signed off on it and the 40B we're not even responsible for existing conditions offsite.

So we would ask that the board seriously give thought to really looking at an approval with conditions and if the conditions don't work for us then we appeal them. But if you want to say no to us and you want to deny us you know that's your choice and and we'll be forced to appeal it. And that process is is timely, is expensive, but it doesn't typically reach a result that people are asking for. You're looking

for a quality project. That's what we're trying to build. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Yeah. Hold on. I got to give that gentleman an opportunity.

Okay.

And I also want to hear from Mr. um Barber before we wrap up.

Yeah. Okay.

And then we got to know where we stand moving forward. We're going to talk about that too, right? Whether or not they want to do a work session or if they want they want to continue this or they want us to force they're going to force a hand to a vote, whatever it may be.

Yep.

Got the floor.

It's Tom Bington, 19 Kennedy Street. I know this could be the last meeting, so I want to get one traffic thing covered.

Well, I don't have time to read it right now. I'll give you the synopsis of what this Oh, this is multiple copies. I'll give you a quick summary.

So, we've already talked about the Burger King intersection intersection project for a number of times. That's the Sure. Give them one.

Absolutely.

Haway Route Six interchange.

There's another project on Mass DOT that would go from Hathaway to the New Bedford city line and that would improve some of the the road conditions on Route 6 which would include the intersection of Sloum and Route 6. I reached out to the project engineer at Mass DOT. That project's going to get cancelled.

It's going to get what?

Cancelled.

Is that this one that you're referring to here?

That's the one. This is the one would be This is not the Burger King improvement.

This is from Hathaway Road on Route Six all the way to the New Bedford town line. So that would include the intersection of of Sloum and Route Six.

So when you look at the traffic, they've made the assumption that most of the trips are going to be heading north to the Route 140 interchange.

The Ruin 140 interchange for people living on Eisenhower and Kennedy Street isn't really a problem. It's a problem for the poor people that have to go into New Bedford because they have to cut across a a travel lane to go north on Hathaway. When we get off on 140 South or 140 north, we're just we're just merging with the travel lane. We don't have a problem with that now.

So the the level of service that we do have a problem with is Slokum and Route Six, the Come on Farms intersection and the Burger King one. They've deliberately have shifted more of the travel problem towards New Bedford at the Route 140 interchange. That's not really the issue. If you need to go pick up your kid at school, if you need to go to a ball game at the at the fields at

rush hour, that's where the problem is.

So, I just want to make sure the board's aware that that if anyone's ever said anything about in previous traffic analysis about future improvements for Route 6 that would include Sloum, they're not going to happen based on the project engineer at Mass DOT.

The only thing for clarification, my understanding was the improvements that were already pre approved, allocated or budgeted, whatever term of art that they use. Yep.

That was for Hathaway Road. Correct.

And Route Six. Correct. That area there.

Correct. and also in front of Tucker Road uh and in front of the former state police barracks. Right area there that is supposed to go out to bid next spring.

That's right. That's supposed to be the key that would be a key date.

That's supposed to be in the spring of 2025. That was represented to me at a prior hearing and we're now in the summer of 2026 and I haven't even seen anything changed on the roadway.

Correct. So there's only it's going to go out for bid next spring. But but the problem I have as well is that the the studies that have been done by the traffic engineers already take into account the improvements that haven't taken place yet.

Correct.

Okay. So I don't even know if those improvements are going to have any net benefit to the users of the roadway and and those engine and those engineering designs were done years ago based on probably old traffic data.

I don't know. I'm not going to sum I'm not going to try to you know because they've been in they've been in design since like 2014. So hopefully they've been updated with with fresh data.

Hopefully they have. Thank you.

Certainly. Mr. Calhoun, come on up.

If you just occur, when a gentleman says something's canled and a DOT official told him it was cancelled, he should read what the DOT person I read the letter. I read it. I understand. It doesn't say it's canceled, but and just for clarification, according to this, it says this project is currently on hold and it is not clear that it will move forward. So to me, there's a lot of ambiguity there. Doesn't mean it's

canceled. Doesn't mean it's going forward. It's somewhere in between.

Anyway, somebody raise somebody raise your hand. Come on up. I already gave you a couple tries.

Sorry.

Come on up.

No. No. Come on up.

Laura, 11 Eisenhower Street. I just want to make a mention about the traffic data that the developers traffic MJ whoever they are that does the data. Um I had mentioned this before early on. They never included any data from Saturday or Sunday traffic at all. Nowhere have they ever brought that data into that question has previously been brought up.

Yes, I did bring it up.

All right. when they it's been brought up and it was addressed by the traffic consultant and the next time they're here um they will provide a further explanation to that but they normally take a day in the middle of the week sometimes I believe Wednesday there's a there's a way how they actually acquire this data and that's the accepted way that's been provided within these uh methodology and you can speak

I believe they did Saturday counts I don't know if they did a Saturday count I had only heard about a Wednesday count right But anyway, um, but that's the methodology of how they how they do that.

I don't know how much of a difference it actually really makes at different times of day. Um, there's going to be problems. I don't care what day of the week it is.

Quite frankly, could be a Monday, Sunday. We've been there's going to be there's going to be an impact with that.

Mr. Chair, I just I just want to respond to a couple things um that were presented. So the letter in which um the applicants um Alan Major kind of did a comparison of the town's concerns that were given to mass housing and then how they believe they'd address them. That's dated June 9th. So that's 20 days ago, so not 60 days ago. Um the letter from the planning board is dated July 9th,

2025. So this was done when they apply to mass the subsidizing agency mass housing for site approval.

The boards can all you know any local officials can kind of bring input all that information is consolidated and then it's submitted by the town administrator's office to mass housing.

So the planning board's uh letter dated um July 9th does say and there is one two three four five six seven stated these challenges are not with the intention of being barriers but to rather raise the question of how to overcome them for a better final product for future residents. So with respect to the buildings, what the board says, and I'm quoting, there are concerns with the proposed

elevations of the buildings and the existing versus proposed contours of the proposal. While the existing site currently slopes downward away from Hathaway Road, the finished floor elevation between the rear buildings and the front building is only 2 feet. I think what they're saying is it goes down significantly more than two feet, but the difference between the buildings in the front and the back is only 2

feet, which is a rather drastic change from the existing contours of the site, requiring a significant amount of fill to obtain this difference. Coinciding with the same concern, the abuters to the northeast, which is the where we've been referring to it as the north, Eisenhower, would be subject to shadowing and similar scaling impacts.

There should be some consideration towards the proposed structures impact on the existing single family dwellings of the area as a new structure of that size compared to the existing single family dwellings would not be appealing to those currently living in the abuing homes. despite the appearance of higher grade for such existing homes. That's what the planning board said. The

planning board never said they were okay with the project as it was presented.

Now, the applicant has responded that between the plans that they submitted to Mass Housing and the plans that you saw when they applied and you opened the hearing I believe back in January, they did make some changes and I believe and not speaking for them but paraphrasing the the buildings were shifted some amount to the south. So, I think that's what they're referring to is the planning board raised the

concern. The town raised it. It wasn't just the planning board. I think all the town officials that were responding in the project eligibility letter stage raised it. And they did change their site plan before they filed with the board. They didn't change the height of the buildings.

Um, they didn't change the grading. They shifted things a little bit to the south. So I just want when the representations are made that the planning board, you know, kind of threw up confetti. That's not how that happened. They had a lot of concerns.

I suspected that.

And they had a lot of concerns, but they approached it professionally and they said, "Listen, we're not here to just write a letter saying, "We don't like this. Make it go away." We're going to try to give constructive input. And that's what they did. they did not say they were would favor this project. So I I just want to make sure because I don't obviously didn't speak to anyone on the planning board, but I

don't believe um that they would like it to be represented that they were actually supported this pro project.

They were giving input to try to make it an improved project. Um I know you want to speak to uh Mr. U Barber about the water and the sewer. The the fees that would be charged are fees that are paid by our every project and it's for the impacts of the use of the water. It's not to go and make have to change pipes out for a project that's requiring that

now we need a bigger pipe. And that is why the Hawthorne 40B is responsible for swapping out a water pipe for a larger diameter pipe in front of their project, which is not getting paid out of their um their imp their fees, their sewer, their water connection fees. It's being paid by them because it's their impact of their project is pushing the pipe over its uh capacity. But Mr. Barber can

speak to that better than I can. Um, and I think you already spoke to the traffic. They didn't say there's no problem with the traffic. They said if all of the improvements are made as proposed in the recommendations of Mr. Durk and as reviewed by Mr. Finland, then the traffic impacts will be mitigated. It that was an if then, not there's it's fine and no problem the

way it is. So I I just want to make sure that the the you know the facts of what occurred is clear as opposed to how they may have been presented. So I don't know if you want to Mr. Barbara, are you willing to come up just to give us a little insight where we're at with the water concerns and the and the wastewater because I usually end these for eight and we're just about approaching eight.

Good evening. Tim Barber, director of public works.

Thank you. Um, so where do you want me to start?

I'll let you decide.

We have the email that you read earlier.

We got an email. Did you take a look at some of those numbers?

I did.

Is it unfair for me to ask you to provide an assessment of anything that was raised in that letter?

No, I did. I did. And with some quick math, it it it looks like um some of the actual values were correct. Like spending of $2.2 million per year from the city of New Bedford, the average use in cubic feet, but that's something we're already incurring already.

Correct. Yeah.

Okay.

Um the the actually the cost per cubic foot was incorrect. They had uh more or less than what they stated.

We actually pay more. I think she has the actual residential cost for that.

that New Bethford charges their residents, they charge us a higher rate.

So our our rate is higher.

And um and in their calculation, it looked like while they they probably calculated the cubic feet and estimated 16 million in increased cost, they didn't divide by either either a,000 or 100 to get 100 cubic feet or the,000 cubic feet. Uh, which brings it down to um it was 166 about 166,000 extra based on herd pricing, but it was about just over 200,000 additional um based on our current pricing.

Okay.

Now, what about the the demands of this project for for waste water? I mean, for water. Let's start with the water demands. Is it something that the infrastructure that we currently have along Haway Road is going to be able to accommodate?

Yeah. So, looking at the water infrastructure, uh so so to let I it was submitted to the board early today. I received uh late late uh this afternoon uh draft um report from SANTC and based on the on the review of water uh the water main sizes um on site and offsite uh it looks like though the pressures and the volumes would would be uh okay um in in in compliance we would need additional

uh you know review by the fire department for for uh fire suppression but but the there weren't recommendations for any any replacement or upgrades of of our water infrastructure.

There were some uh recommendations for upgrades to the plans uh regarding the water infrastructure which is some of the technical uh data that we can work with the applicant and their engineer for on the wastewater side. Um, similar to uh what we found uh when we looked at this about a year and a half ago that there were sections of of sewer main that are recommended to be replaced uh

based on on the sewer flows uh to allow to provide capacity uh out on Hathaway Road as well as uh pump station improvements at our north pump station which is one of our largest pump stations.

Where's that pump station? Uh it it sits along the Pascam River behind Friends Academy.

Okay.

In a flood zone. So yeah, you want to make sure that's protected and and and doesn't reach capacity.

What what's the capacity right now? What percentage are we at?

I don't have that data with me, but I can get that to you. So we recent we also did a a flow and loading study and uh and we actually and we do have flow from the north station. So I can look at that.

Any questions for him?

No.

How about you Mr. Newman?

No I don't have any questions.

I also had bas some comments on uh the letter that was sent. Um so the applicant regarding uh capacity uh and mitigation fees.

So their calculation of $1,14,900 of mitigation fees isn't all mitigation fees. So in fact the $438,000 of those fees are actually connection fees or system development fees. So when we issue a betterment assessment for construction of of sewer infrastructure, if we took that whole cost of that project and assessed all the residents that again connected, it wouldn't be affordable. So that that cost is

actually reduced and the the the system development fees and connection fees add to that system development um as we pay those loans off and you know for in our long-term loans at a low percentage.

So the actual mitigation fees are about 5 576,900.

So the go back to the connection fees.

So the connection fees are based off of what a normal residential home would pay to connect to the sewer. So based on an average of three bedroomedroom home, we divide the number of bedrooms by three and that creates an equivalent residential unit. So every three bedrooms would pay the same connection fee that a residential home would pay.

So that so that equates the $438,000.

the total connection fees.

Have you had conversations with the applicant about these fees?

Yes. Yep. Absolutely.

And does it seem as if that you you could reach an agreement as to what those would be and they would be willing to pay for those?

Well, they they did um include the calculation of those fees. They just called them all mitigation fees and they're not all mitigation fees. Um they they also did request a waiver of all utility fees, utility fees, all the utility connection fees, uh mitigation fees, II fees, all all all municipal utility fees.

I'll give you a chance. So, I would recommend uh not approving a waiver of those utility fees because a waiver of those utility fees puts all all of the improvements or upgrades that are needed on on the backs of the rateayers. So, so the the mitigation fees that that were calculated are are designed for treatment uh mitigation at the treatment facility. So for uh aeration improvements, nutrient

removal, uh bioolids, um sledge removal and and biochemical oxygen demand. So those all require additional capacity for for these. So any of the capital improvements like uh upgrading pipe or upgrading a pump station, that's not included in those mitigation fees. And we have in the past we had said that those are the standard uh approval uh path for for most uh for all uh developments in town. So there are all I

think on the the Delano apartments on DMA Street. They paid mitigation fees.

They are paying connection fees. They're also paying capital improvement fees for pump station upgrades um based on their their flows and and capacity. Um, uh, Attorney Murphy also, uh, mentioned the Hawthon. So, the Hawthon 40B agreed to upgrade a water mane to improve the the volume to the site about 300 ft of water man. So, so there are other projects. Also, the preserve 40B, they

they paid um $300,000 towards pump station upgrades and design as well. So that and those are specific for those upgrades.

All right.

So m Mr. Chair, so just for clarification in um on the waiver um I'm not going to get the waiver.

Yeah, there. No, but the waiver the waiver is for the sewer. So it wasn't water, just sewer. I think when we were talking earlier, he and I had not reread this and and thought it was both, but it's just the sewer. It's not the water. Just for clarification on that one. So, thank you.

Yeah.

Calhoun, you want to come up something to say ear if it's been resp. All right.

Great. Um, council, where does this leave us?

That's a good question.

Um, I I appreciate your your desire to end at 8:00. Um, I think a recess might make some sense. What I've heard at least is a consensus of the board that uh is moving toward a denial. Uh, as Mr.

Calhoun indicated and as I indicated at the first public hearing, our goal is an approval with conditions we can live with. If that's not the intent of the board, we should be clear of that. Uh if there isn't some way to discuss that in a working session in some fashion, then people will do what they have to do. But it'd be a shame to rush out of here uh precipitously um and think that's where

we have to be since this is our last time we have a chance to talk.

So, I'm going to to do a workout session. If one of you want to sit instead of me, that's okay as well. Um, I'll leave it you guys to decide if you want me to sit in or they sit in and whoever else you think we should suggest to be there um that would give us any guidance that anything will come up.

Right. Um, yeah. I mean, if I would like to have there.

No, I assume Mr. D attorney Donnie would be involved. Yes. Or someone from your firm.

Most definitely.

Yes. Okay. Yeah. So, they would have counsel. You would want to have counsel.

Oh absolutely.

Um, you know, if if that's if that's the direction everyone go, if there's an extension and that's the direction it goes, then that can be sort that can all be that can all be worked out. The board should designate who they would like to have. It can only one of you could participate in that. Um, if you if you close if you if you were So, the alternative is if you close the hearing, it's not

you have you don't have to make a decision tonight. You close the hearing, you have 40 days. You can meet one time, you could meet 10 times. It's no input from anyone. No new information come in.

And you sit and you talk through all this and you decide which way you want to go. So that's that's it's either that and you're not making you're not making any final decisions tonight, but you're not also not communicating with the applicant about potential ways to tackle any of this.

The other option is an extension with Well, there was a lot that was thrown at them this evening. They got a lot more direction. I think we got to wait to see if they want to, you know, look at it from their perspective. See if there's another way that they could present it to us, maybe with a smaller number.

Um, well, look, it's easy then it's easy for me. So, is it what's what's council's name? Mr. Donahghue.

Attorney Donghue. Yep.

Attorney Donahghue. Is it an all or nothing for 300? Because if it's all all or nothing for 300, then I don't want to waste your time. I don't want to waste your client's money and I don't want to waste my time or this board's time.

I I I don't know if it's all or nothing at 300.

Okay.

But I don't but I don't also want to waste time. And what what I'm pretty sure I can say is all the buildings aren't going down to three stories.

What that means as far as the number of units might be open um you know based upon it. um what that then means for the number of parking spaces. You know, you can have, you know, reasonable people can have reasonable discussion on it, but it's going to be I I don't want to mislead the board to think that some of the comments made by board members are are going to all end up being adopted.

Well, the thing is is this. I I don't like to be under deadlines. if I'm willing to work in good faith with your client to see if there's another number that would be and I give you an opportunity whatever time you need in order to put that together so you can come back to me with some sort of a proposal that we can bring forth and see whether or not the board collectively is something that

they could adopt.

I I with all due respect we would only do that if there are working session in which a board member is able to represent that they're going to support that concept when it gets revealed to the public.

Right. So I don't want to speak for my members. Are you guys anyone of you interested in sitting down with them? I have no problem just stepping back. You guys sit down with them um and see whether or not there's something that could address the concerns. You heard from me. I you heard from yourself obviously and you heard from him. Um even some alternate members were able to provide, you know, dict.

If you want, if you want, I'd be willing to nominate any one of you to sit down with them or if you want, I would sit down with them. Whatever I'm going to do, I'm going to do in good faith, right? And uh my issue, my problems, I have 25 projects right now in the office, so I I can't I have two public hearings every night beside this one.

So, you know, this is I don't want another job for me on Okay, fair enough. So, I get you.

Sorry. But I mean, if you I can if there's any we can Oh, no. We can't do that. Yeah.

No, we can't do it together, right? No, no, not together. But, uh but I I think there's some room for improvements. I really do. You have a great team, great architect, and great civil. So, I agree with that.

There's some room.

What do you think of the lawyer?

What do you think?

Oh, yeah. Well, no, I mean, we're talking about the plans, so yeah, not the legal stuff.

Fair enough.

I asked for it. That's fair. That's That's fair. Okay.

They have a great team.

I'll offer myself up. Um I don't want to spend time a lot of time unless there's something that looks like it's making some headway. So even if we need another one after that, it looks like it's going in a better direction. I don't want to vote against this outright, but I just there's got to be a greater concession than what's been put forth.

What is the concession you're asking for?

Excuse me.

What is the concession?

Well, let me ask you this. I'd like to and I don't want you to answer this right now because it's an unfair thing for me to ask. If you reduced all of the northern buildings down to three stories, what would the unit number be then? And what would the what would the parking ratio be?

three and four on B, D, and F.

That's something that I think that I could live with in the sense that I could tell these people that we may be worse off if we vote against it. Because what you're offering me, you're pretty much going to get it any if I vote against it, you go up north, they'll do what they're going to do. And if they come back, I can always look at them and said say, "I tried to minimize it. They

weren't willing to do it." And that's where we're at because I don't think from a profitability standpoint, this is where the the the margin lies. We have two other projects that we are going to approve.

One we approved was 137 138 units.

Another one that we're close to approving is 156 units. I'm only speaking for myself. They haven't voted on any of this. But if we grant both of those, that's 294 units out of two projects. This one project is 300. And Mr. Calhoun. Obviously, he's very good at what he does. I'll give him that.

He's very good. But at this point, it's almost seeming to me it's 300 or nothing. And if that's where he's at, it's easy for me. I can go I can go to home. I can sleep really well.

But I'm not looking for an answer. And the fact that you have pause means to me that you're good at what you do. I think as an olive branch or sort of a suggestion at this point, let's agree to continue this. Not a long time, maybe 30 days. After the holiday, we'll put together some work session, see what you guys can come to me with and we'll we can discuss it and then we'll bring it

to the board at large and see where they're at. And I know these people aren't going to be happy. I know whatever it is, they're not going to be happy, but I have to feel comfortable that I've done something to try to minimize this. And I don't feel that that's where we're at right now.

Can I ask you clarification?

Absolutely, sir. I don't know what the number is. I'm not giving you a number because I don't know what that is. I'm not talk talking. I'm talking about schedule.

Um, if we're going to have a working session, we would like that in relatively short order like right after the holiday. Uh we'd also like a commitment from the board that if we're going to extend this out as much as 30 days that in my observations of the way this board works is you don't close until you get close to a final decision.

So you can address your conditions and then on that last night when you close you're pretty close to your final addition or what and then you vote that decision. You don't take the 40 days. if the board would agree not to take those 40 days that we basically use the clock effectively because we have to make a decision that we either need to get on with this or we need to get on to the appeals.

I understand your position. Let me just say this and I'm not going to speak for her because it's the time limit is really with her. I think it makes a lot of sense that we are able to work with the applicant right up almost to the end. You can already see what direction we're leaning in at that point because we're asking the questions. you're providing the information, you're giving

us basically a nod that we're okay with this, we're okay with that. We're going through the waiverss list basically line by line. We're going through it and then if after that there's still a few points that need some discussion or some uh work out with DPW because that seems to be always a concern is where DPW is at, where the fees are going to be, whether you agree to the fees, all of that. we

sort of continue it for another hearing to give you the the parties an opportunity to try to discuss that and then by the time we close the hearing you are right we are close to having at least the framework of what an agreement would be but her she's the one that puts together the final language and obviously you know there's at that point sometimes there's even assistance between their council and our council to

try to work that that out one of the so can I can I just can I just speak to the timing for a ificant to like your question about the timing.

So yeah, that's so what happened with Hawthorne? So that's the one that's already approved and done and filed. No appeals um of the permit. So it they closed the hearing after a couple of extensions.

There were I think at least two extensions, possibly three. And then they closed the hearing. There was by the time they closed the hearing, a draft had been circulated. So at the night the hearing where it was closed, there had been some comments that had come in from the council. There were some issues that the engineers had.

Those were all kind of bounced around at that last hearing. uh with a closing with an understanding that some of the language needed some tweaking and finessing. There would be no new information submitted in violation of of the regulations because the hearing was closed, but the actual wording was sorted out between me and the attorney and the engineers kind of said this is what we mean. We wanted to say what we

actually mean. But it was the 39th day when the board actually met, voted, and it was filed the next day. I mean, technically they have 40 days to act, and then another 10 days to file, but we've been trying to stick to the 40 days. So, that one it did because of the amount of back and forth, especially with the engineers. It was school vacation week. There were all these schedule issues on the on the Sherbrook.

Um, they've granted a number of extensions. They're coming back.

They're still granting extensions.

Yeah. So that extend the next extension is until next Thursday because at the last hearing which was the hearing where it was going to close there was a lot of conversation like you're hearing tonight of can you shrink the parking spaces and most of that was because there was like no trees no open space no nothing shrink the parking spaces maybe rearrange create a little open space area over

here. the engineer work directly with the planning director to sort out, okay, how do we fix the parking layout? How do we where do we fit in some more parking lot trees? What Oh, wait. We missed these waivers. Thank you. We'll add them to our waiver list. Um working with DPW on um on kind of the wastewater impact to try to see if there's a number they can agree to. and we'll see because now

it's Fourth of July weekend and I don't have the information to update the decision. But I mean the goal is to try to at least be able to close the hearing with that framework in mind and then sometime later in July there will be a deliberation that's you know a dis, you know, a discussion of the board that's not a public hearing but we'll fine-tune everything and the board will vote. So

that's what the process has been. And so there's no desire to drag stuff out for the multiple days just for the sake of using up all the days. It's a matter of just dotting all the eyes and crossing the tees and factoring in a holiday weekend. People go family vacation. So I just but I just want them to understand that there's there's a method to the madness. It's not like let's just drag this all out as

long as it can. So I I'm apologize. Mr.

Chairman, I'll make myself available July 9th at 2:00.

Whoever else you think should be at that meeting. Let me know. Susan would try to bring them in as well.

All right. I could I could do that as well. We have a hearing we have the sherbrook hearing at six o'clock that night as well. Okay. Just I just I'll be in zoning board mode. Mr. chair.

Um, one requirement is that when you go into working groups and you try to do these things which are truly conceptual ideas, we would want u consensus of the board that if we're doing that, that will probably be addressed in terms of conditions. So, for example, if we're shifting the building 10 feet to the left, it would be subject, it would be a condition that we're going to move 10 feet to the left, subject to a

followup adjustment in the storm water management program.

And but we wouldn't be going back into peer review and literally just spending all kinds of dollars. And if if you if you look at the Hawthorne decision, that one's different because that was more of a single family subdivision, but there was a lot I'd say most of that decision is post approval plan modifications. Um the Sherbrook one, which I I uh the draft is public record copy of it was

provided to attorney Du today. It has the first couple that one those plans are very far down the road similar to your plans. So they are postapproval conditions are not as not as long a part of the decision but that I think the board is familiar with that concept and it's not that's not an issue.

Okay. Do you mind if July 9th work for you Bill Clay?

Mark.

Yeah. I have a 2hour time limit.

I'm not expecting it to go that long.

You're not as positive.

You never know. Um, and then you know, Mr. Chair, I can talk to to the staff depending on what the topics are going to be. We'll see if the planning director's available. We can see if Mr.

Barber's available. If we're going to do it here at town hall, we can do it right in that room out there.

Okay.

Did you see this?

I've already got it on my calendar.

Yeah, you did.

We just got that draft in late July.

Yeah, tonight. And Tim's familiar.

I'm sorry. So I I'm sorry. So the the schedule if this was going to close tonight based on the board schedule and when they have other applications they have to hear. I believe Michelle was the 30th is the day they're available. Are you available that week?

It's a Thursday as well.

Yeah, it's a based it was based on when the board members are available as well. I think that that was the week they were available the 27th or the 30th that week when Michelle pulled them.

I can do the 27th as well if that's better for counsel.

I'll be enough hot water.

30th. Fine.

Yeah.

Where did he say he was going to be?

30th.

Oh, he's he's going to be in hot water because he's away. Supposed to be away the whole week. So we Okay. Would attorney Eckle be?

No.

All right. So, July 30th, 6 o'clock.

Obviously, whatever documentation they need to file, they'll file.

Has um form there that he she needs.

July 30th.

No, we need the form before they leave.

Okay. So, we'll vote for it obviously on the condition that they signed.

Michelle, we'll just fill in Don't worry about that blank. We'll fill it in the date that the the hearing opened. Are you saying?

Y.

Oh, I have the date the hearing opened.

We can fill it in.

Yeah. Yeah.

Well, why don't you go get it? We'll just hand write it in. Print it out.

All right. So, just so that the people that are here, if you're not certain, 40B is a state regulation, it's an entire section of code that deals with affordable housing. And within that there's an allowance to help the developer, help the town members to try to have an opportunity where they can sit down and work through some of the nuts and bolts of what is or what may be the issues that are keeping the

project from being approved by the board. I think that I have voiced with clarity some of my concerns. I think you've also heard from the other voting members that they have some concerns as well. Whether or not they align directly, I don't know. But I know that there's certain variables that certainly that they have concerns about that they're would like to see some some sort of concession by the um developer in

this case. I don't know what's going to come of that meeting. It may last 10 minutes and they're not willing to or what what they present with me me with is not something I think I could approve or even have the other members approve.

But whatever it is, I have to take it to the board at large. You're going to hear whatever the final proposal may be. Um there may be some back and forth uh as to what that what that is. And my concerns are the height which you share, the parking and the traffic concerns.

And I think some of that can be resolved if they reduce the height which would in turn reduce the number of units which would in turn then also uh reduce the amount of would increase per on a on a ratio. The ratio would increase as to the number of parking spaces in relation to the number of units. Those are my primary concerns with this. Now, there's nothing that we're going to be able to

do other than having the numbers be reduced that's going to impact or mitigate the traffic more than or get it to the level that you think it should be at. That's not going to happen. There's going to be some there's going to be impacts as a result of this project. And it's something that we all have to live with because I travel along that roadway a lot. I don't live on Haway Road, but I

travel along that roadway quite often.

So, I know the concerns that you have.

Um, I share in them and I know that they're familiar with them, too. They've been in town for a long time. So, I'm just trying to express to you and explain to you where we're going to be at. I don't know where we're going. All I know is I'm going to listen to them.

Uh, see what they're proposing to us.

Uh, sort of provide them a little more guidance maybe if they that's what they want to extract from me as to what my comfort level would be. And then we'll see what happens. But I know this, I'm going to do it in good faith with an eye towards uh with an with an eye towards reaching what I think would be a proposal that I think that the board collectively could could agree to. So,

um that's all I can share with you because that's all I know about it at this point. Ma'am, you raise your hand.

Yeah. Mr. Chair, can I just can I add something to that if I don't mind?

I Mr. Calhoun has said since the first hearing back in January that he is willing to talk with any of the abutters. He is he has put forward an offer with respect to mitigation that they would pay for on their own properties. It's the board can't negotiate that for private property owners. The board if the board issues a decision the board could note that that offer has been made. But if any of the abutters

have any inclination or even just curious as to what a conversation with Mr. Calhoun would be, then that's obviously not the board. The board can't the board can't tell the applicant to do anything on anybody's private property, but they've he's made the offer. If they wish to at least hear him out, then that is an option they also have. and I thank you for that. So, he has indicated that

and I think you you you get a sense of the gentleman's character. I think that you could sit down with him. I think you could speak to him if you had some concerns. I know that there's been a proposal that's being made that they're willing to uh allocate a certain amount of money per lot owner for the uh construction of a fence or for some plantings, trees, whatever that may be.

Those are things that you can negotiate on an individual basis with the developer. Um, so as an example, they may come to me and they say, "Well, if we lower these buildings by X amount, then we're not going to put any money towards any buffer area or any trees or any fence." That may be something they come back to us with. And at that point, we got to decide, weigh it all out and

see whether or not that's something we're willing to entertain. Just throwing I'm not saying that that's going to happen. I'm just saying that that's a possibility of something that could be brought out. And if you are able to address this with a developer directly, you might be able to get something and bargain something for yourself that would limit or minimize some of the impact.

You want to come on? We're going to wrap this up very very shortly. So I got this lady and you I actually you did raise your hand first, but come on up. Ma'am, you can come up first. Come on up.

Yeah, come on up.

Geraldine Lopes, 19 Eisenhower Street. I just want to know after you have this meeting when will be will the public us be advised of what your decision is?

The next hearing which will be I think July 30th we haven't done that formally but we're going to be extending it to July 30th at 6:00 here in this room.

We can't come to that.

Well that's not the meeting date. That's a new me that's a public meeting date.

Yeah.

Okay. So the workout session is something we can't even have more than one person there because otherwise it's a violation of open meeting laws and we don't want that. We can't do that. So only one member of the board can sit down with all of their experts. I believe Mr. Tim Baba will be there as well so that we can discuss all of the concerns. They're probably going to rehash a new proposal to us or some

modifications to the existing proposal and then that will be presented publicly and then my members will learn of that at that point and then we'll decide whether or not it's something that we're willing to uh to agree upon and maybe it will still require a little tweaking here and there publicly which these things they they morph right these proposals morph as the process moves

along and the other two have there been a lot of you know give and take with those other projects. All right. You want to say something, Mr.

Pico? You're the last person for tonight.

Just on the question, sir. Do we know off the top of our heads what the maximum height of fencing that you're allowed to have in the town of on the zoning bylaws, it's 6 feet.

6 feet.

Six feet.

It's with this special variance, I think.

Well, although it's a 40B, so the board can grant a waiver and allow a higher amount if it was proposed. the board could easier question. It's 6 feet in town. That's our zoning bylaw. Now, they could they could ask for a 15t fence and we could grant a waiver.

Well, I'm just thinking. So, if the residents on Eisenhower were to say to the developer, um, we want a 8ft fence in our backyard or 10ft backyard. Would they be able to get a waiver or is that only they could ask they could ask for that to be a condition?

Okay. that we would impose in the in the decision. If that's something they want to collectively ask for, they could ask for it.

But it would be nice if that's something they wanted to do that we knew beforehand so we could discuss that. I could discuss it at the workout session.

Sure.

All right. That can always be relayed just indirectly through our secretary.

Great. Thank you for your time.

Michelle is just printing out the form.

She'll be here on one.

I'll entertain a vote.

Oh, no. Excuse me. A motion. I apologize. A motion.

Uh, I make a motion that we continue comprehensive permit ZCMP25-3 to uh July 30th at 6 p.m.

I second that motion.

All in favor?

I I the eyes have it.

All right, gentlemen. So, any other business that we need to discuss? Any other business? Pass, present, old business.

All right, then I'll entertain a motion to adjurnn.

Motion to adjurnn. Second that motion.

All in favor?

I I The eyes have it.