remotely. Perfect. Um, I’m going to officially call the meeting of the Hamilton select board to order, uh, on Monday, March 10th, 2025 at 7 p.m. We will do a roll call vote because we have a member joining us remotely. So Tom Myers, I’ll begin with you. Amis here. I’ll be there in person shortly. Perfect. We look forward to seeing your face here. Rosie Kennedy here Bill Wilson here. Caroline Wille here. Uh, just a quick note about The large blank screen behind us. Um, at this time, we are not able to get things on the screen. That said, Joe will be showing things on the screen, which people who are on the on video, we’ll be able to see. We just won’t be able to see them in the room. I do believe for our 8:30 we have physical. We have physical things, um, but we’ll do our best, uh, without this, and the way things go, like it may just come on. And so it’ll be a miracle. Um, all right. Let’s begin with our usual, um, announcements of board openings. Everybody’s favorite part, uh, we have one opening on the affordable housing Trust. Two openings on the conservation commission, uh, one associate opening on the Council on Aging, one opening on the Cultural council, one opening for a member of the historic District commission, um, and everybody get ready for this one every time, 2 openings for 3-year terms and 2 openings for 2-year terms. Uh, one of which must be a real of the, a realtor and one of this one and one of which must be a resident of historic district for the historic District commission. Uh, as always, we look forward to folks getting involved. If you’re curious or wondering or have questions, please send them to Joe and he can tell you about how fun it is to get involved with town government. Um, but wait, we also have, there’s a second page. Uh, we have a human rights commission, one at-large opening, uh, and 3 openings on the Hamiltoninham Cultural Council. um. So lots of opportunities to get involved. Next, uh, we do have our public comments section, um, just a reminder, if you do have a public comment, it’s 3 minutes on something not currently on the agenda. If it’s on the agenda, we look forward to your comments at the time that we talk about the subject on the agenda. Anybody have anything they’d like to chat about at the top of the hour. Anything on the internet is interested in speaking right now. Nope. All right, uh, with that, I will go to board and town manager reports, uh, Bill Olson, anything to share with the public to do so much to it. I love that attitude. Rosie, anything from you? Great. um, Wilson, just a reminder on Saturday, 3:15, uh, at the Cutler School is an open house from 10 to 12, so you can learn more about the uh the color school project. Great. I love that. Uh, agree, nothing for me. I think we have a juicy, uh, Tom, did you have anything you wanted to share with the, with the group? Nothing for me tonight. Thanks. All right. Can I just have one thing? I real quick real, real, real, real quick. I, I, I think it’s a good, it’s a good news piece. Uh, many people know that our assessor left to go to Marblehead a few months ago after a search we had, uh, promoted Jane Dooley from assistant assessor to director of assessing. She is only a couple of credits away from being fully certified, uh, she came very well recommended by the state and she did great in the interviews, so we’re happy to see uh promotion from within. We’re very happy for, for Jane and she’s a local residents, so I’m very happy that her friends and neighbors all know, now I know she’s the director of assessing. Yeah. Well Well earned Well earned Well earned, well earned congratulations stop by our house and chat. I wouldn’t recommend that. Quick stop by. I’ll give you one more. Do you have one more important thing you want to share? OK. Uh, perfect. Uh, next we have a consent agenda. There are 4 items on the consent agenda tonight. We have approved the request for the senior banners, banners on Bay Road, may remember these from last year. Hugely popular, uh, approved requests from friends of the library to hang their annual book sale banner in front of the Council on Aging and use the electric signboard. and then the approval of the minutes from October 16th and February 24th. I will entertain a motion to approve the consent agenda. Awesome. Any questions, comments, concerns, or queries before we take a vote? I think the senior banners on Dave Road is the most wonderful idea. It’s last year, so happy to see it. I mean, did I almost have a car accident reading them at 35. an hour possible, but otherwise, um, all right. Uh, we will take a roll call vote starting with Tom on the phone. Tom Meyer’s eye. Bill Wilson and I. as a kid I sorry Caroline I consent agenda passes, um, and now we are on to our regularly scheduled agenda and look at us 10 minutes ahead of schedule. I. That is what they say. Um, alright, the first two items that we have tonight are approving, uh, appointments. The first is the appointment of, uh, Joanne Copeland as a uh Can’t remember tenant member, sorry, I can’t read. Uh, member to the Hamilton Housing Authority Board. I will entertain a motion for the approval of the appointment. I move that we approve um Joan Copeland. To the tenant member of the Hamilton Housing Authority Board. Second, awesome. Any Additional questions or comments before she’s again, very involved. That’s a great job, lovely, lovely to see her appointed. All right. Um, anything down there? Roll call vote, starting with you, Tom. On Mars I Ol Rosie Kennedy, I Bill Wilson, Caroline, I, yeah I have it. Joanne, thank you, uh, for your service. We’re grateful to have you on the board. Um, next, bad news bears we have the approval of the appointment of Edward Weldon the 3rd, uh, to the Board of registrars of voters. I will entertain a motion to approve the appointment. I moved. Second. Perfect. Um, any discussion, we do have him in the room if anyone wants to grill him or. Asking questions. Welcome to come up and say hello. Would you and say hello. Would you Yeah, we, we’re not really rushing now. Yeah. You have a joke. Anything to entertain us. No. Open mic night. Yeah, it’s just. Where do bad rainbows go? Prism. It’s a light sentence, but it gives them time to reflect. You’re welcome. All right, I will take a vote, starting with Tom on the phone. William Rosie Kennedy, I Bill Wilson I Caroline Bill UI, the eyes have it. Perfect. Um, the next is a request from the American Legion to support an application for a Beano license. I, I had a lot of questions about this, y’all, um, from the Mass State Lottery Commission, uh, I’m happy to entertain emotion. I move that we approve the beano license for the American Legion. McDonough from legion is here. OK, perfect. Can I have a second. Awesome. Um, let’s, let’s discuss. Isinoquino? No. You know it’s more like bingo. So you’d So you’d in person, uh, event where people would come to, um, play in the Mr. McDonough from the uh Mr. McDonough, come tell us about being. Will you come up here just so that folks on the, uh, call can hear. Good evening. My name’s Leyla McDonough. I’m live at 49 Birch Street in Hamilton lived here about 7 years prior to that I lived for 40+ years in Beverly, but I grew up in northwestern Maine and I was going to be drafted to join the Marine Corps and flying helicopters in Vietnam. However, I joined the American Legion to be part of the community, and then I learned that to really because of age and etc. uh, a lot of people leaving and then the pandemic, which killed. I really hurt us economically. So in my mind, there are 3 sources of income, the kitchen. The hall and the bar they call it the. Trophy room, um, patent placement. I see, I see an opportunity to try you know. And I got the application. And I spent prior to that, I’m gonna wander a little bit. I spent over 2 years to get the 501c back for the firm for the for the lesion. They had not filed properly and lost it in 2013, but I got it back last May after over two years on my own, my own money, chasing it down, but I got a 501c4 and trying to chase it and make it a 3. But anyway, we, we are taxis are they close that with our application. They wanted proof of a high history. I looked it up, uh, we settled, uh, we celebrated the 100th. Anniversary in February 2020, but the 100th celebration of this post was actually 2019. actually founded in 1919, right after the major. And you know, I also doing my research, probably most people don’t realize that it was impulse that dug the swimming pool. And now some of their children, uh, as sons were telling the stories Bill Tye, for example, who you probably know, was head of public works at Wyndham and now involved to some extent with the school system, told me how he remembers bringing sandwiches, uh, to his friends who were digging out and it was like 3-foot walls. I mean, it was very well built, and I think Zamel, if I understood him right, is the one who really Masterminded engineering of that. But anyway, so here we are looking at something that’s pretty old. I roughed out a list of what I felt that we do for the community, so. I just, cause a lot of people don’t realize what we do do even though we have a handful of people. In January we had a dinner for the volunteers. There’s no payroll. Everybody’s volunteering. Everything that comes in is either paid, expenses are paid for by cash or deposited, and I keep a log on that. A blood drive which is coming up, we clean up the buildings twice a year and inside. We sent 2 to Boise State, you know, ladies auxiliary sends one girl to the girls state. We provide 2 $1000 scholarships. We plan and execute the Memorial Day events. I don’t think realize how much effort goes into that. We prepare the flags as 3 by 5. I had them changed to aluminum poles because two anal to like all the wooden ones are just sites, so we have you redo we hang the flags. And there’s about 100 along Bay Road Railroad Avenue. We, we visited the school the Friday before Memorial Day. We placed our flags in the cemetery. There’s about 900 of those stick flags. I get on my hands and knees. I plant the geraniums. Those crosses, which I think are really kind of neat. There’s 24 in each garage, so that’s 48 and uh plant flowers, including the war memorial. I retrieve some of the some of the uh funeral wreaths, the Christmas wreaths this weekend because they were you know. Had gone by their collar now, so I thought it was just debris. I put one over the muzzle of the tank and then I climb up the this fall to Christmas time to put it on, and my daughter was with me and I said, shitt Catherine, I don’t think I know how to get back down. Anyway Uh, we treat the flags and we redo the same drill July 4th and Veterans Day. We prepare a service, a breakfast on Sunday before Memorial Day. I hope everybody comes to this Memorial Day breakfast. It’s, it’s free. Uh, we have a little speaker, and then it, it starts at 8. We’re out of there by 9:30, 10 because I like to have a group go to one of the local churches afterwards. And then, uh, Veterans Day and all the last November 11th, 11th hour, 11th month, 11th day. And we have a breakfast that morning. And the same thing, I would welcome everybody. Rosemary was kind enough to, to come to, uh, uh Memorial Day and Veterans Day. And um then we have a uh Halloween for the neighborhood and then we have a free Christmas party and I noticed the Christmas party. Um, it was mostly single moms with their children and from not just Hamilton. And I think that’s because if you go to the mall, it probably cost you 75 to 100 bucks to get a picture with Santa. You know, anyway. Bino is bingo in my mind. And can we just ask, so it’s um, folks, do you do it nightly? Is it a, a specific night I just want to take small bites of this. It was just my idea. It used to be a big fundraiser, particularly the Catholic Church and everything. I’m Catholic, so I know that big fundraiser, but the demographics have changed. There’s more people with my color here, you know, they might like it. Unfortunately, uh, side story, my wife passed away in November. We’ve been married 54 years. She was at Ledgewood for almost a year, and I noticed they had been on and uh it keeps you going, you know, there’s, there’s a sociability part of it. Rules and regulations from the state. They don’t lose a chance to try to get a buck out of it. We have to kick back to them percentage we approve the application, but in the state still needs to approve the license. Yeah, you, you’d approve it, you’d approve the, but if, if you approve it by a vote tonight, you’ll sign the application. It’ll go in to the state and the state will have the final say is whether the police chief police also signed off, which he did. Anyway, thank you. Appreciate it. Thanks so much for the overview too. Um, any further questions or comments, or should we take a vote? Just thank you for your service You know, thank you for your efforts for the 501c4. Thank you for all that list of many great things that the Legion does do. I think the more that the community can go, you know, to the Legion and, and you know or like you said, food, drink, uh, you know, if this will help, not only people with their alertness, but maybe provide some income for the, the Legion as well. I’m all for it. Agree. I do love bingo. Um, all right, we’ll start with a roll call vote. Uh, Tom Myers. Tom Meyers, I Rosie Kennedy, I Bill Wilson Caroline Boe, I, uh, we will pass this down and sign it right now. Um, And we’ll get that moving. You um. Would hold while I find my agenda. There we go. Um, all right. Next is the review of the annual town. Meeting, uh, and close the warrant. Um It’s currently open, right? We don’t need to reopen it. All right, um. We don’t need a motion until we’ve reviewed it. And make a motion to start reviewing it, but you don’t need a motion until you have to close it, so we don’t need extraneous motions here today. Um, all right. Let’s talk about the warrant. Hello, sir. Tell us everything. So, uh, good evening, Tom McEnany from KP Law. Uh, so Joe asked me to prepare the draft warrant, which we worked on over the last week or so. Um, there are the number of articles that appear on the warrant every year. Uh, there’s a number that we still need to kind of finalize some of the wording on in addition to the usual warrant articles to Those kind of standard financial articles, budget, um, approval of the enterprise budget capital expenditures, stabilization, OPEB, those, those sorts of things. Um, there’s also some additional articles this year. One is to accept, uh, the provisions of the Hero Act, which provides uh added exemption for veterans for real estate taxes. Um, adoption of the special energy building code, um, which was um a new article this year extension of the lease for the Cutler school, a number of different zoning bylaw amendments that have been proposed by the planning board, which, uh, we’ll still need to work on some of the final language with um the, the board on that as well as the citizen’s petition and of course, um, the uh, consolidated school project. Hey, can I, sorry I really interrupt. Yes, sir. On the application for the Beano license, we have to recommend days of the week and hours of the day. Oh, OK. We can talk about that. Leland, do you have a A rough you just do the regular times they’re open. I think we’ll just try it once a week or once a month, uh, I gave like 4:30, 5 o’clock. Weekends or weekdays? Do we want to be restrictive out of the gate? What if it’s successful and you wanna. I wouldn’t want to be so restrictive we have to make a recommendation on the application on what, uh, what days of the week and what hours per day, and it’s only 11 line for each one. Can you just say? All hours of operation? Well, no, cause he’s, he, he checked the box 6 p.m. to 12 midnight. But we’re not, we know it’s not gonna be till 12 midnight, so there’s no way that other set hours that the Legion has for guests. Well, I think Tuesday night seems to be the act of weeknights for meetings. So, uh, in my mind they should do it Thursday night. OK what time do they close. Yeah. Yeah Yeah That’s OK. So we can just, do you want me to do Monday through Sunday or Monday through Friday? There are people there usually Monday through Sunday at night 66 to 10. They may come down and play pool or throw darts and then hey, I got in at what time? 10 but you said you might want to do afternoon. But he checked the wrong box then. On the front. Oh, cause you, you said 6 to, yes. What, what are the other options? 1 to 6 p.m. and 6 to midnight. It says check one. There’s we make our own box. It’s Representative from commission will visit me. All right. Is this for him or for you? I’m part of a whole packet. Do you need the whole packet back? Did all signs except for Sorry, you were missing one signature, but you got a majority of you want to give it back to me you’re awake Rosie I know. Well, I did, I didn’t have time to read it. I blame Rosie for you. You’re following It’s Joe’s fault. Pardon? We have a majority, you have 4 on the, on the application, so it’s fine, um. I’m sorry, Tom, please continue, so that, that was all I had as far as just kind of the update in terms of just a general overview of what’s included on the warrant this year. Um, I don’t know if you, I, I prepared a draft warrant, which I believe was included in the package. There are some articles that will still need some further work, um. In terms of some of the finalized language and like I said, um, we had, we just received the planning board articles last week, so, uh, one of my colleagues reviewed those, so we’ll get the comments back to the planning board for review. Uh, there were a couple other articles that I just needed some more additional information just to kind of fill in the blank, but I believe that the warrant is pretty complete at this point in terms of at least the. Uh, this specific topics which will be covered in the warrant this year. OK. Do we go, what do you? So I, I think the plan was to uh to go through a lot of, I mean, you can go quickly through the standard articles, so through article. But the ones that have comments, do we need to address the comments or just note that part of the approval is right, I think, yeah, I think if you want to just note that the approval will include, um, you know, if you want to improve the, the warrant subject to further revision by town council and the town manager, I think that would be fine. So like for example, on the Uh, Article 1-1 is the election of offices, so I, I didn’t see the warrant of the election warrant on the website yet and, and perhaps I just missed it, but I just used the same language that we had as last year, so that will just need to be updated just to make sure that, um, those same officers are all up for reelection and that the same number of positions, for example, like on the library trustees is the same. And is it on Thursday, April 10th, or is it Tuesday? The election is on Thursday, April 10th. Oh Thursday. Perfect. OK, um, let me, I know that I know that the chair of the planning board is here, I think, to address questions about the planning articles, the chair of the, uh, Economic Impact Committee is here to address, address questions about the stretch code that they proposed, uh, be added. We have, uh, a couple of the citizens petition, there’s, I know there’s folks that want to talk about some of the placement of Uh, articles, etc. so I just let’s, I would say the, the first, so through page. 7, so through Article 2-7. Right? That’s sort of our, well, even the next 3 or 4 we have those every year, but we trust fund stabilization fund and Wendy Wendy is on the it’s really when we go to 2-12 for the consolidated school project. That’s right, yes. And I will note on previous pages there are editorial comments about Content that needs to be updated and, um, the 2/3 vote is only required, uh, in certain purchase instances. So just those will be part of the The notes of approval. There’s no material changes there. If we vote to approve. Um 211, sorry, uh, does that, could that be in consent? I mean, there’s no real, uh, grant request. It’s all financial transactions. Internal, right? I think we usually, I think the plan is to determine what goes in the consent at the uh at the next meeting, but um. Probably be better to make sure we know exactly what’s being requested before we decide whether they going to, so we should have a, I, I know there’s no grant request. Yeah, yeah. OK. So for the, uh, 12-2, the consolidated Elementary school project. Uh, there is a recommendation that we send this to Bond Council, which may material change the language. Probably not. This is the language that my guess is it won’t, but I always just like to double check just to make sure Bond councils on board since it does involve a borrowing ultimately, but the language that is used for this article came from the school district actually because they. Borrowing and it’s standard MSBA language, and that’s the stuff that uh Eric had said we actually can’t change. OK, um, any questions or comments about that, even though we can’t change it that much, you know, here’s the 142 minus MSBA minus enforcement. So we can do that in the brief summary that’s included in the warrant articles and we’ll, we’ll work on that in the next week to try and draft the brief summaries, but the warrant language is, as we said, is uh required by MSBA and if you it. There must be a may not, if, if you change it and it gets voted and approved, it may not be accepted by MSBA so we can put more specifics into the summary. In summary, yes. We can, we can vote on the. Consolidation before we vote on the lease. I mean, they’re actually separate. You’re gonna have to renew the lease of the Cutler whether the school you don’t have to do one before the other procedurally. No, because we already renewed the lease for Cutler for 30 years as a part of the, I thought you did in the winter, but you didn’t renew this one, the, the issue with the lease is the lease take the lease isn’t a money thing because we don’t charge this the district really so it winds up in section 3 of the warrant instead of section 2, which is where all the financial articles are. I understand. I just want to make procedurally it’s not. Not voting one before the other improperly. I don’t anticipate that creating any kind of problems as long as the lease gets approved. Yeah. OK, um, moving on to section 3. Um Yes, ma’am. Why they warrant is for the 142 instead of the 91, which is the actual borrowing amount. Um Two reasons. One is that’s the language that was sent over by the school district, so that’s what has to be included in the warrant and that’s what’s approved by MSBA and second, MSBA and most state grant programs require you to appropriate the full amount of the project cost, including ultimately what gets reimbursed. It was the It was the same It was the same for the project we had to vote for the full 15, yeah, because it’s a reimbursement grant you pay for it upfront and then you get reimbursed. Afterwards. we actually borrowing more than that then? Are, are we actually borrowing the 140? You, you’ll have authorization to borrow up to the 142, but presumably that’s something that’s worked on with the finance team ultimately so in terms of. When you borrow and the timing of borrowings would be something that Joe and the financial team would work on and we and we’d do it in concert with China of one in this case because we’d meet Mark looking to make sure that we had adequate. capital on hand to pay the bills as they come in, but you wouldn’t need to have a whole 142 million at the start of the project, so. It’s, it’s a it’s a revolving uh uh reimbursement. So as we lay outlay capital, we get a reimbursement back so it limits how much you have to take out at a time, so. Um, OK, so in section 3, we have first the hero Act, um, I do see a question here about whether the town is seeking to accept clause. Uh, 22 J, so the, the language that, that I had spoken to Joe about, um, and the, the, the warrant language I had received a while back when I first looked at this was to adopt clause 22i, which is the real estate tax exemption. There’s also a tax exemption that can apply to personal property as well, which is, you know, less common, but 20 clause 22J deals with a similar personal property tax exemption. reply to veterans as well if you accept the act of assessors discussed this in their meeting last month and voted to only look for uh 22i. They didn’t think that 22J would make a significant impact in any real sense and thought it would be better to just go with the 22 I. Got it. That was their recommendation personal property taxes generally get assessed, for example, if you have a, if it’s your second home, and you’re using it for rental purposes or um certain um equipment for businesses, for example, if you had a if you had a landscaping business, um, you know, things like that, like your equipment could get taxed as personal property taxes, but for most people, if it’s your primary residence, you do not receive a personal property tax bill. There’s no taxation associated with that. All right. So we are saying that we are not seeking acceptance of clause 22J only 22 I assessors didn’t feel that there was a need for it, so that’s, that was the recommendation. OK. Any more questions about that? Was there somebody that will explain that to the general public so they understand what they’re voting for. We, we can have somebody, we, we can have our new assessor at the meeting. Look at the hat and we can include it in the summary as well in a brief summary we can explain what it is that this by voting to accept this act, this is what, what it does, yeah, yeah, I’m just wondering if there would be any harm to accepting 22J as well or um Just in case I think, you know, there are a lot of landscapers in town and what if somebody was a landscaper and he had a haul his equipment and Wasn’t making a whole lot of money as a disabled veteran. I’m just wondering. Is there any harm to accepting both, or do you recommend that we only accept I so it’s ultimately it’s a policy decision for the town in terms of, is there harm, you know, it, any harm would just be, I suppose, and I don’t know that I would classify this necessarily as harm, but there would be an additional exemption amount that could be available to certain people who otherwise qualify, so, um, so you would collect less tax revenue. I don’t my from what. Um, the town managers indicated the assessors have taken a look at it and they didn’t feel that it was going to be very impactful, so they didn’t feel the need to accept it, but you know, as far as I don’t see that there’s necessarily harm and other than the sense that, you know, there’s a possibility that there would be some personal property that would be exempt from taxation, so the rest of the taxpayers kind of make up the difference, right? I mean, and to the town itself, $300. Exemption, I mean, the town would be losing that tax revenue might be a lot of money to somebody who’s living on a very limited income so that was the reason I asked that, I mean, I, I was just trying to follow pay deference to the elected board that made the recommendation, but the board of selectmen can do what they want I just bring it up because the goal was to have as many exemptions for disabled veterans as possible. Well, we can pull it out. Of like what I mean you could, if you want, we can add a warrant article to accept um clause 22J as well or alternatively, um, you know, you, you could ask the board of assessors to take another look at it and we could do it at a either at the next special town meeting or next year an annual meeting I don’t wanna wait then, I guess. I think it’s important that we pass this now. I, I just bring it up for the sake of Being sympathetic to the needs of of a certain population. OK, OK. Do, do you want me to add it then? Well, my sense is that the board didn’t see that it was going to benefit anybody. I, I don’t think that they would have recommended not to adopt it if they thought somebody was gonna apply for it and and not get it, so yeah, there’s a lot of ifs ands on 22J, which doesn’t seem like it’s actually. It gets implemented very much. Cause it’s tough to do it. True, true. Not just like a take it, it’s a, it’s a, it’s a riddle to figure it out. No So, I’m not sure that it makes sense to over a longer discussion about it. So I, I think we, we leave it as is for now. I would be curious. If we had a board that make made a recommendation. I’m not challenging that recommendation. I’m just curious what impact assessment. was done and what data they used to make that choice. And so if we could just follow up and say, you know, we ran. This, that and the other, and this is what we think. That way we Somebody asks, We know. We did. I’m making a note of it. We’ll get a, we’ll get a. communication from the professors for you. All right, uh, 3-2 is the adoption of the special energy building code, um, into the general bylaws, um, and then we do have a note from council to review the draft bylaw to confirm, uh, that this is what the town intends. Is the buy lot in the packet? It is. It’s on page 25 in the packet um of the of the warrant packet. That’s correct, yes, so yeah, it was kind of lengthy, so I included it as a separate appendix as opposed. To in the warrant article itself, but it’s a standard. Standard language that was Provided by Exactly whoever came up with the um. Whoever forwarded us the bylaw in the proposed warrant article, it was in that packet that came over, so this is a model bylaw that was drafted by someone I’m not quite sure who, whether it was the international Energy Conservation Code Group or some sort of group of building officials, but this is the standard language I came over, but I just wanted to make sure that this is exactly what was intended, so the article was recommended by the Hamilton I’m sorry, Environmental Impact Committee, um, That was their request that the select board seek to put this on the warrant. They provided the draft language and um It’s before you. OK. But our, but our billing officials said. It feels the other way, correct? Yeah, which, uh, rich opines that, you know, since 2008, he has been against 2008 when he was employed in another community he’s always been against making changes to the local um building code that don’t aren’t in uh conformity with what’s going on around the rest of the state. So he, he You know, notes that caution. He, uh, he did say that it’s the select board in the town meetings, uh, desire to pass it. He’ll enforce whatever’s in, in, uh, implemented, but it was his, his recommendation to just His feeling is that eventually the international code catches up to where these local efforts want to go anyway. So if you just give it a little bit of time it’ll eventually catch up but codes in our other towns do around us, but we’re voting tonight whether it’s on the warrant or not, is that the town ultimately has to make the we heard about it for the first time last meeting. Right. I just don’t feel like we’ve had enough discussion because there’s one thing we’re gonna make it onerous on our if people wanna do it voluntarily. They can do it voluntarily. But to put the onus on our To after one meeting, just to me doesn’t seem like it makes a lot of sense to rush it. I mean, we could, we could vote for it next, next year. But I, it needs to be more discussion and especially since we have already a different opinion to our billing official. So, I think there’s two questions here. I think the speed to warrant is certainly a question, and we can pull that out. I think the second thing is, is that the HEIC does have a Mandate we’ll call it, to help us reach our zero net carbon goals, um, and we’ve asked them to please give us studied initiatives that will help us do that, and I think that’s what this represents, um. And I think Based on the other recommendations, HEIC has made that we have not followed, um. I would be interested after John, just to have you come up and say a few things because I, I wonder at what point we do start. Voting into practice, some of the things that they have recommended that kind of gives some assumptions on what it might do. Well, that’s what I was gonna say after John I’d like to hear. I wasn’t here last week when y’all talked about it, but John, please, McGrathincom, um, I echo, uh, Bill’s comments, um, the Fin income generally likes to hear from both sides of arguments, and I don’t even know who to talk to. So I really think, um, if it’s that important, let’s bring it back in June, but I think it’s out of respect for Both sides of the building trade, I think it would be good to have them come in and vet vet it thoroughly, so we just don’t want to make a rush decision. So that was our thoughts. Emmett, come on up. So, yes, I’m on the environmental impact committee. Uh, we were formed two years ago with a mission to advise the select board to help get Hamilton to being uh net zero carbon in 2040. The real aha moment for us, so I apologize this did get kind of come on pretty late in the whole game was two issues this year. One was the successful town hall project, which took 10 years to get funded and a lot of the delay in that was all energy related and all that, and we had to go out and get special grant funding for that. The 2nd rail driver was when the boiler at the high school blew up, then the town has just gone and invested to build a new boiler. It’s going to have a 30 to 50 year life cycle, uh, so, you know, are we going to replace that boiler before 2040? I kind of doubt it, but my understanding is we’ve already gone ahead and uh purchased it, so we’ve missed that opportunity. That’s why it’s a little bit of a rush, um, going on here. Now we have a school project and we We’re going to have a school project, nobody knows which one, but that’s gonna require a lot of funding and all that. The purpose for this is, it has, I talked to Rich today, and he’s going to get back to me by Monday on what the issues are with going from the stretch code that Hamilton already has to this specialized code, which is just a notch up and Rich didn’t know the difference, so he said he’s going to get back to me. on kind of what the differences are, uh, but it’s a very, very small lift for the town and in terms of changing the building codes, uh, and so I, I’ll get that information to you, but I just, you know, if we wanna get some grant funding for the schools, but the real mission here is to become a climate leader community, and you have to have this to get designated a comment leader community, and that will entitle you to more grant funding than when you’re just a green community like we are today. So that’s the purpose. It’s not what the regulations bring. It’s that it puts us in a different level, and we have opportunities for grants that are not available to everybody else or to us right now. And we’re pushing, we’re working also very hard with Wenham. Uh, they’re a little bit behind us, so if this slips one meeting, you know, it’s not gonna kill us, but if we want to get that funding, uh, for the school system, I encourage you to go fast. Perfect. Thank you. I, I totally agree and appreciate with what you’re saying, and I’m, I’m a licensed. builder, know the code, sustainability, follower. I just, so 100% for it. I just, it’s always a process we talk about here. Yeah, I don’t think we follow the process if we, if we, if we rush and we can do it in June. I mean, so. That’s what I was gonna say. I think if, if, if we can outline for the HAIC. The process that we would want to go through in terms of like, Public review public meeting probably speak to people on both sides of it, get some more, I think we are already planning a special meeting in June, so we wouldn’t be talking about, you know, a year, um, But that would, I think, buy some time to go through the process and then and see, but I’m obviously open to other people I think that I wouldn’t say this this decision is necessarily uh uh us not wanting to endorse the synonym means. I think it’s just making sure that it’s fully baked and that everyone gets a chance to really assess the impact. I think that’s the the biggest key. I don’t know if you were present for the zero net carbon debacle town meeting of 200. What was it? When did we put in the zero net carbon? But it was a similar thing where we had like put it in at the last minute, y’all remember and the town hadn’t reviewed it a referendum was a referendum and it sort of caught it like got us kind of off on the wrong foot. And so I think the socialization piece of this is probably to the benefit of the vote, um, if it’s something that we want folks to get behind, yeah, I just, I just have one question. It’s not super, I mean, it’s related, but it’s not um super urgent, but have, you said you’re, you’d be eligible for more grants under this, uh, Under this code. Is that state grants or is that federal grants, do you know? Or is there it’s a combination. There’s a list in the pack that I gave you, the DOER has some grants that there’s, uh, mass school building authority has some grants and so they’re looking for those climate leader communities to make showcases like we’re, we’re doing with our town hall and there’s more for Hamilton to do than just get this one, you know, uh, code and advanced. We, we’ve got to go and apply for it and there’s a big long process, but this is one of the roadblocks to getting started we realize there’s probably a pathway that we need to look at, that’s part of the meetings, like what’s, what’s what’s, what do we do today, what do we do next week? What do we do next year. Um, one quick question I have which I don’t know if you know the answer to, but I mean the boilers are great, you know, the boilers are great example. Does the stretch code apply to facility maintenance work or just new construction? You know, wherever you can get grants, so if they, you know, you can go can go enforcing the school not to replace the boiler. Can you, can you use this there’s a stretch code allow you to enforce that on no, it has the search code doesn’t really deal with that. It is more about grant you’re talking about this is more about getting the grant funding for other things, uh, so if we were going to go and, and put um uh whatchama call it, the, the wells down there the heat like geothermal, yeah, geothermal, then we could just go and do that and I understand what you’re saying. I didn’t quite pick up, but now now I get it. No. I mean, I’m definitely for it. I just. Want to respect the process and the consensus that we need to build. OK, well, thank you, appreciate it. Thanks, um sorry, I just had a quick comment as an add on to that, uh, Deb Safford Hamilton. Maple Street, um, a lot of what he was talking about was commercial properties and um I think it’s really important to make sure we understand when you guys are doing the codification of it, the, the cost analysis of it, what, what the cost is for residential construction and, um, the new construction and renovation because I think I, I think I’ve read that it’s really both. It’s not just for new stuff, but let’s make sure we codify the cost of these things to make sure it’s not onerous because it says there’s no tax implication, but there’s definitely a lost to this, to the residents. I just want to make sure that that gets recognized. Thank you. Um, so motion to Yeah, I will I will entertain a motion to, um, Who, um, Sorry, I can’t. I’m on the wrong page. 3-2. Yeah, to remove Article 3-2, uh, from the annual town meeting warrant. There’s a reasonable Buddha, is a reasonable too. At this point, say, with the goal point on the June time meeting, or would you like to do that at a different time? I’d say just put it on a future time meeting and we’ll see what our opportunities are right. Put on Future tell me because I want to make the commitment that we’re gonna, yeah, I agree. Did you make a full motion or did you make a motion that we put uh That we remove Article 3-232 and put it on a future town meeting. Um I will, any more questions, comments? All right, uh, All in favor. The eyes have it. Did anybody have a no, any nays? Sorry. Jump the gun there. Um, all right, uh, 3-3 is the extension of the lease of the Cutlass school. This does not have comments from council, and I think is the 50-year, um, lease request for That’s correct, yes. Um, next we have uh I’m so sorry. 3, sorry,,,,, 456 and 789, which were all zoning bylaw. Updates, is that correct 10 and 11 1 11 as well, yes, so in the so. 43-4 through 3-10 are all uh articles that we received from the planning board, so I had one of my colleagues take a look at it. There were some comments on that, so we will work with the planning board to get those in final form. The form of the Warren articles themselves should be OK. Uh, we’ll need to work on some of those specific language. It’s going to be included in the appendices, uh, 3-11 was not one that came over from the planning board, but, but that one did come up fairly recently, um, there’s. um, FEMA has updated their flood plain maps and so this is something that will need to be addressed and if and if it’s not addressed by July 1, I believe is the cutoff date, then people could run the risk of losing any flood insurance, so, uh, it’s important that we put this one on the warrant so I talked to Joe and he suggested that we include the placeholder there so but that’s something we’ll need to work on the language, uh, planning board, it comes really from the state, there’s really no changes to make, but we just need to make sure that that’s on there in my opinion. So Mark Connor is the planning director, did today draft a uh an article to address this. This was an item that was brought to our attention by DEP, uh, just about a week or so ago. Unfortunately they’ve been trying to email Patrick Graffitt since November, and he was gone, so it accidentally slipped, um, we didn’t learn about it until about 11.5, 2 weeks ago, conferred quickly with the EP and with Amy Questle at KP Law, Mark. got back from vacation today and quickly drafted, uh, uh, an article that will comport I know this is rushed, but as Tom said, if the town doesn’t pass on a change to the floodplain overlay district by July 8th. Anybody in the town who’s in a flood plain will not be able to buy flood insurance from the National Flood Insurance Program. So I don’t think this is something we want to delay. Um, we know we have a time meeting on April, on August, um I’m sorry, on April 5th. We have time to advertise it, um, I. be my recommendation that the board asked me to forward the draft article drafted by Mark to the Planning Board for a public hearing, uh, it comes from the, the select board. It doesn’t have to be initiated by them. Ask them to hold the public hearing and uh make a recommendation in time for the April 5th time meeting, I, I. I think that’s a very prudent idea, just a general question, how many people in town do we have that live in the flood zone. Do you have any idea? I don’t know I can, we can go back and look, but I, I was more focused on the logistics of getting the article ready in such a short amount of time.. 11 is too many. Yeah. I, I don’t know that I can provide that by April 5th. I wanted a color coded map. floodplain map. So Joe, just walk through the timeline, right? So zoning bylaws take 2/3 vote, right? So billing consensus is more important than everyone is going by law. Have they, have these been voted on in the planning board meetings, let’s start. Let’s, I think that’s a good segue to the starting with 34, this is the GPOD language change, right? And that’s a tiny one. Small editorial. Would you like to come up here to the microphone? Um 3-5 is uh. A, it says zoning bylaw Amendment sections 4.1.2 and 4.2.4, but I don’t actually see. Oh, it’s in the appendix. OK. Can you tell us what 3-5 article is in reference to? I have the memorandum that we transmitted to you, so I have it right here. So, 35, can you just help me here with. Yes. It’s, it just said 3.0 and Section 11 Section 4.1.2 and 4.2.4. this Oh, those are the ones from the building commissioner. OK. Yes. Uh sorry about that. I, it’s not there’s a lot of paperwork. So, um, Rich Maloney proposed these and so these, these are um. Zoning bylaws that he administers um although um. There are instances when the planning board is involved, but he identified um Scrivener’s errors, I believe in um the table of dimensional regulations, so these are are absolute corrections to comply with, um, uh. uh, zoning bylaws that were adopted and then uh so and then he’s. Has some um changes with respect to averaging setbacks, and these are all changes that he’s recommending based on his experience and, and how. Just things work in the town. OK. Um, and then, uh, there is a change to section 6.0 regarding signage and I think this is something that was brought to the attention of the select board because um it’s a First Amendment issue. There, there was a requirement that certain signs that are pertinent to free speech be removed and I think that’s why this is um this temporary signage is it’s just removing the time period, but it remains at 5 signs. Helon. OK. And then he had suggested new definitions for uh ground floor area business and ground floor area residential and, and these are rather technical things that the building inspector, um. addresses in in the normal course of his work. OK, so I’m gonna pause there for a second. Are there any questions on up to 3-7. Yes. Take it away. So I understand there’s a building. Commissioner’s opinion of what, but has this been vetted by Our council and as it come up in we have we have our public hearing on all these amendments on Wednesday, March 12th, and Rich Maloney was involved in this, so it’s been vetted and the the planning by a third party though I understand he’s giving his opinion, but by a third party. But he’s been reviewed by by Robin, Robin Stein has been, uh, actually town council Robbinstein changes that that they’re not just like spelling changes, they’re changing setbacks from 50 ft to 25 ft and from. Zone board, the planning board. Well, no, the, the, the change from the zoning board to the planning board is to make it consistent with what was enacted previously at town meeting. This was a mistake in the zoning bylaw, and basically the zoning bylaw that appeared on the town website, unfortunately, um. He has a lot of errors in it which I probably agree with you. I just want to make sure someone’s, now that we’re checking, checking the areas that we checked them, double checked them. Yeah, well, so we identify, well, which identified these errors and with respect to the averaging of setbacks, um. It it’s something that’s in his purview. I don’t know that I don’t have the expertise to vet that, uh, and we’ll find out at the public hearing if there’s any pushback on that, but I, I don’t. But the setback, is that a change or was that a correction? It’s a it’s a crossing out or 50 ft from the street central line which is averaging setbacks. It’s not actually changing the setback. It’s in the circumstance where you average the setbacks on a particular type of lock so the general setbacks that apply to different lots of good going to remain the same. This is a particular section dealing with averaging setbacks. When it might not be crystal clear how how how they measure from the center line of the road, which is really tough to do, but it’s been that way for a long time and we’re gonna just change it. Seems like it’s once you’re not going to change it. The town is going to change it. Well, but this, this has been going through the process and I’m sure there’ll be 12 riveted on the building commissioner to do this. I mean this is something that he brought to us to the planning board and recommended it and uh Mark Connors agreed and uh. This is within their purview and I and so I. If this is something that works for him in the town. I, it’s someone else can question it, but I, I defer to his expertise on this. Yeah, I’m not questioning expertise. I just want to make sure that we do we want to ask Rich to join us at the next meeting. Uh, would you like Rich to join us on the. Zoom meeting on the 24th to talk about it. Would that work? What’s, can we ask, we’re having a public meeting, right? I want to know if they had a public meeting. They haven’t had one. Wednesday Wednesday Wednesday if any builders come in and see this and and have a problem with it, they can, they can voice it then. So that’s I’m all in favor of correcting mistakes and errors. I just want to make sure we don’t. crack something doesn’t need to be corrected, right. But uh it it will get vetted on Wednesday. OK, so let’s also Just follow that. If you hear anything Wednesday that makes us think that we might need to. Stop it on Wednesday. Oh, there’s public notice. It’s yeah, no, it’s been advertised in the Salem news for the last 2 weeks. Yeah Yeah yeah, it, it had followed the state public uh hearing notification law, so to say, hey, get some guidance as part of our vetting process. No, but Rich, which works really closely with the, all of the builders that, that generally work in our community. He has a good relationship with them. I’m sure whatever he’s recommending is based in part on what he’s heard from them as well as his own experience. I mean, he’s a 30-year building commissioner in the state of Massachusetts. He’s here and in Danvers, and he’s the one who doesn’t like the HEIC article because it’s not developer friendly, so I think. I think he’s probably pretty consistent. I think, um, I think here down in the um legend for number 5 when, when you talk about the um setbacks, um, it looks like or 50 ft from the street center line that was deleted. Well, what I’m saying is that’s what it was and now so you could have used. Either, right? I mean, whichever is greater, so I mean I live on a small street, so I’m, I’m not sure which one would be to to my advantage, right, exactly, but um I don’t think there is 50 ft between my lot in the middle of the street, so there’s that’s between my house and the house across, I think this is making it consistent, you know. And, and it’s also based on if, if you live in a particular area like I’ve been um pining for a front porch and it definitely would not meet the setback requirement, but when you take the average of, are you talking about the houses beside it, or you just talking about an absolute setback. Well, with respect to averaging setbacks, that’s, it says no building needs. be set back more than the average setback of the buildings on either side a vacant as long as we’re not killing Rosie’s porch, I think this can go through. We’re not changing the setbacks or you know, all of those things. It’s just for for a specific purpose because it relates to nonconforming laws, right? I, I think, OK. All right I understand Bill. So this is going through a public process on Wednesday. We will probably here. Deafening feedback if there is any, but otherwise, yeah, OK, um, the next two or the next one is the ADU by the 3, yeah, 3-8 is the, the ADU, um, you, you didn’t, you, you stopped me. Oh, I apologize. Oh, there were more. You had more questions. I thought it was all waiting till the public hearing. I apologize. Keep going. I love it. We’ve been talking about temporary signs for a long time about revisiting this and we’re not even enforcing it as is right now. Personal property. Yeah, this is in the zoning bylaw. This isn’t your signage for the the slide board approves, so why are we rushing to, once again, why are we rushing to change it? The law is not in conformity with state and national law on free speech. So it makes sense to fix it and make it. because it doesn’t conform. people can put up their big stop 3 banners. What’s, I think we’re, it’s it’s a that’s not it’s just the opposite we’re just trying to make sure we’re just trying to make sure our law doesn’t stay forever. Yeah, take out, takes away the days. Yeah. All right, so you’re, this is to conform. So once again, our attorneys have agreed this is now conformed to state law, right? Tom, that’s not Robin Robin Robin Robin Stein has actually reviewed all of these, except for 3 days 11. So it’s it’s it’s a review you can go to 38, sorry. I, I don’t want to rush anyone though. Um, so, I just know that this is kind of might be a meaty one. The, did y’all talk about ADU, the ADU last week in the select board meeting. We had, we had several meetings on the ADU and no, no, y’all have. I didn’t know if we, if we as a board have OK. Well, you just get just like a quick, oh yeah, and so there were a lot of problems with section 3.0 at the table of use regulations was um in some respects it is this the two pages of cross through that I’m looking at, so we have amended the table of use regulations, um, and then in importantly we’ve eliminated section 3.4, which is conversion for temporary additional living area we reserve. the number but uh according to Rich Maloney, this bylaw has never been used in, well, if it has been used, it’s never been enforced. It, it basically related to people putting uh in-law apartments in their houses and they’d get a, I guess some type of a permit to do the work, but I mean it, it. It, it just was never, never used, never enforced, and, and it, it unlikely ever would be and uh because it’s, it’s So, Rose, uh, Barney, I do have a question. So I see, I, I do see the six pages of strike Through. Right, this version is it? Simpler, stricter, what’s, what sort of principally it’s it’s simpler and part of it’s because it conforms that so the the state, the state, the state effective February 1st. It makes it by right that a home can have an accessory dwelling unit which. Previously it was a special permit only in Hamilton now they need to update this is our existing got got got it, got it apartments and it required owner occupancy and I thought we were amending the state. I was like, I don’t know. We, we drafted a whole new uh bylaw provision that tracks the language in the state regulations. OK, I think Tom, did you, you, are you, do you have a comment relative? Yes, uh, thank you. Just, uh, real quickly, so, um, the version that we included in the appendix is the version that Marty most recently sent to us. However, when, when Robin Stein from my office did review it. She did indicate that some comments and other proposed changes that she had made to a prior version of this. We’re not included in the most recent version that was sent over, so we just want to make sure that we have the final version restrictive unit stuff yeah there was a few different comments that she had. We addressed her comments, I believe, and so the memorandums that you have should reflect her comments because she joined us at her that whatever came over in the memorandum. That we received recently sent her a draft and then she had comments and we went through each and every one of her comments at one of our meetings. Right, but what came back to us most recently did not include. It didn’t appear to address certain comments that she made, so her question was, whether or not the planning board didn’t want to make those changes or not. So my point is just that we need to make sure that before the warrant gets published, uh, that we have the exact versions that the plenty board wants to and I believe this is this because she made certain recommend recommendations and we discussed them and some we accepted and some were not required by, um, the, the, the new statute, um, so what you have is the highlighted here. And it looks like that’s what she had highlighted in her comment was, her the EOL or EOHLC, you can’t have more restrictive requirements that applies to the principal dwelling, but we’ve kept this in your memorandum. So are we choosing to keep that, uh, you know, I apologize because I don’t have that highlighted version with me. That’s OK. I, I just want to, so it looks like there is at least there’s two comments in The warrant, what’s in the warrant packet that are not addressed in the memorandum that I have printed here, but it is highlighted, interestingly enough, in here. So I think we’ll just need to, again, finalize. We’re not born on the language. No, we’re not voting on the language. I just want to make sure that we, we know that the restrictive nature of the two-story. Uh I see. is something that we know is going to be looked at. So what is the highlighted language? It’s in, um, so in the ADU in section 3.6.4. Requirements for access so accessory dwelling unit, um, point number 3. The last two sentences, the detached accessory dwelling unit shall meet the minimum setback requirements for accessory buildings. See section 4.1.5, accessory buildings with a zoning bylaw when proposing a detached structure, the accessory dwelling unit shall not exceed 2 or 25 ft in height. And Robin comments, you can’t have more restrictive requirements than applies to the principal dwelling. You know, I apologize. I mean, do you have the memorandum I sent this, that’s what I’m seeing that’s highlighted, I think you might have gotten the memorandum, the draft memorandum that I sent to Robin, and then I sent you one dated January 30th, that was finalized. As long as As long as there’s a I have a big old stack of memorandums you’re reading 3.1? Uh 3.6.4. Point number 3. See that that that doesn’t comport with what I have. I have 3.6.4.3 is elevations depicting all building facades of the accessory dwelling unit, the elevation shall include all. Include all exterior building materials. So OK. Uh, we, we’ll definitely get this, uh, finalized after the public hearing. They can’t be finalized until we hit the Wednesday night, Mark and I will make sure that what comes out of Wednesday night is what’s in the appendices for all of these. And again, we’re not approving language. I just wanted to make sure that I understood what, what we were looking at what the what the items still are. Are you having fun following this on the blank screen fun for everyone? I always find a used version to worry about version control. OK, and then does anybody have any additional questions or comments about the ADU. article All right, so the next one is the zoning bylaw, uh, the 3-9, which is inclusionary housing bylaw, uh, that is also included in the appendix of our packets. Right in the in the genesis of this was, uh, the fact that during the um. Hearings for the special permit for um the 133 Essex Project. Uh, there were, uh, dis disagreements about the interpretation of the inclusionary housing bylaw and two provisions were referred to town council Robin Stein for her interpretation and so we ask the uh affordable housing Trust for some recommendations, but what we have done in this inclusionary housing by law, most significantly, there’s some minor edits is, is to clarify that language so that there can be No question of what the intent was, uh, in terms of, uh, counting the number of inclusionary housing units per project and also the uh amount of the, uh, payment, um, in lieu. OK. And then the other thing that we did add was that the Affordable units with, uh, would be deed restricted in perpetuity. You know my husband will be glad to see that this is finally clarified. I know he really, he felt strongly about this, um, preference, right? Pardon me. You can’t codify local preference, right? But, uh, town council did work extensively with us on this, so this really this. Um, reflects her, her comments. We, we had the most issues with the uh as you can see with the accessory dwelling units because the regulations didn’t address every single aspect of what we have in our, um, um. In the bylaw there was a reg change or is it just a reg change? Well, there are state regulations governing accessory dwelling units, so all our bylaw has to comply with them, but there’s some other more gray areas where we had some wiggle room as to what we could do. All right, um, again, we’re not approving language. We’re just making sure we’re clear on what it is that’s, that’s being provided within the article. So does anybody have any additional questions about the inclusionary housing bylaw for. I, I did have just one comment, um, Robin did have a comment specifically on this one. So again, we’ll work with the plan, I saw that. At this point, I’m just assuming the version is the wild wild west. I just. Um, OK, the next is 3-10, which is uh a zoning bylaw amendment for site plan review. Um, and so, um, This is really an important um. Uh, by one And what we’ve added here is the requirement for a pre-application conference, that pre-application conference, uh, will not be binding, but it is a way for the planning board to um guide applicants uh through through the process and. F3A were ever to become um. Uh Enforceable here in Hamilton, uh, which, as we all know, is multi-family housing as of right. It is subject to site plan review so this new bylaw will give us some, uh, more, uh, A tool to help guide that process, uh, the other important things here with and I won’t go through all of it, but my memorandums do summarize most of the contents was that we took out a lot of the uh Regulatory aspects of the uh of the existing bylaw, uh, for example, the number of copies and, and, and where you filed them and so, so those, those regulations can be changed, uh, much more easily than a bylaw, so you need a public hearing on the regulations, but obviously the bylaw itself has to go to town meetings. So by taking out those more ministerial things, it gives us flexibility and the old bylaw had, you know, Just so many copies to be filed here, there and everywhere, and with the electronic age, some of the stuff was a little bit um outdated, so most of the content of this bylaw is the same as in the existing bila, it’s just been reorganized in in a more cohesive fashion. So just an FYI, and I don’t know if this is true or not, there are lots and lots of blue comments in the one we have. So that’s what I was gonna say is this is not a bylaw to my understanding that was reviewed by council. Uh, Robin Stein in my office prior to seeing it when I got it from Joe last week, so they were fairly significant comments with respect that’s odd because I don’t have those comments. Yes, um, you, they were in the warrant, but you, I, I didn’t get them until they got him in the warrant, so we haven’t, I, I feel blindsided because I’ve never seen them. Well we’re I didn’t, I didn’t have them either, so we can forward a couple of questions before we just talk about doing that, but Well, I apply the process of clean up. process because it is onerous and we don’t have a lot of development in Hamilton because it is onerous or maybe it’s a good thing or a bad thing. I don’t know, but um. A lot of times when you, when we, we, we, we rewrote the um a bylaw, you know, a few years ago and went through a big public. He and stuff, but We, we had to rewrite the whole thing because it was a bad format. It’s much harder when you rewrite the entire thing rather than make change because it’s really hard to compare the changes with the original when you you cross out the entire thing and rewrote it, probably because it was so bad you had to rewrite it from scratch. Well, at some point. At some point, you know, it’s even more confusing the way you’re suggesting sort of analyze whether it’s, you know, it’s substantive changes are just administrative changes, so that’s what I’m concerned about is that, is that, um, once again, this is a pretty big bylaw to rewrite, especially with so many. So even if we say, oh, it’s fine, we’re gonna have a public hearing. This one seems to have Well, it seems to be like, what’s the reason for I I understand that the 3A rush, but what’s the other rush to put it on this year’s warrant. A lot of work went into it, but we haven’t. It doesn’t look we’re at the point we’re ready to even discuss it. So, how do we, convinced me that this is the right. The right town meeting to put it on with so much, I have to say I forwarded all these this memorandum that I have in front of me was forwarded to the select board on January 30th. So I don’t know what more we could do. I mean, you, you’ve had this material and, and, uh. As I said, there are um there are. Some may be more uh stringent requirements here, but they’re, they’re also is an out for small projects some of the, the what you say is onerous is not going to be applicable to the vast majority of applications for site plan review that the planning board gets. Yeah, I’ve always looked the worst case scenario, even if it’s one a year. Not make the worst case scenario a really bad worst case, but like I said, I, I applaud clean it up. I think these things need to be cleaned up. I’m just wondering. And once again, it’s like if you, we, we got the memo in January that we’ve only met 2 or 3 times since then what the what the form we have today has. Has 2 dozen comments that need to be cleaned up. So I’m just wondering if it’s convinced me that it’s, this is the right me to have it on, I’ll be convinced. I’m just, I think it needs to be done, but once again, convinced me that we’re ready to put it on To Me is in. this year. Well, I, you know, I have to apologize because I haven’t seen Robin Stein’s comments, so I don’t know how substantive they are or whether they’re um. But you know, on Wednesday this is our task is to clean this up. I’m doing FinA hasn’t seen this yet either. Yes, the Fincom has seen it. I haven’t seen the comments, right. Oh, they haven’t seen the comments, but they’ve seen these memorandum. That’s my opinion. So the goal of tonight is to, is to close the warrant. Worst case, we can’t open and close the warrant on the 24th again. Is that a true statement? You can. You hate it when I say things like that that a double negative, you lost me. Oh well, so I, I’m struggling a bit because I agree. I saw the, I saw the notes from Marnie. I had, I know, I knew that these were coming. I had looked at some of them. I, some of Robin’s comments, I think do speak to the stricter. of this, and I think that’s what we’re acting to. That said, if this is something that the planning board has reviewed and passed. Within themselves and are going through public process. They haven’t, they haven’t had the public hearing yet, so they wouldn’t have voted on it yet. They’ll have a public hearing Wednesday night and then vote on, on, on the different recommendations. I think we will ask Robin Stein to attend our, our, um, Meeting on Wednesday. Yeah, I guess my question is, are we reacting because we don’t think the public should vote on it? Are we reacting because we are reacting to something being stricter and we don’t, and we’re uncomfortable with that because I think those are two different things. Um, I, I mean, personally, I, I think I, I would be helpful just to see resolution of some of these comments because some of these seem pretty major. I mean, just the whole pre-application conference, it seems like Robin Stein’s calling into question that as an onerous process and highly unusual. So that might not even be something that might be permitted. So I would like, and it’s not fair for Marie because you haven’t, I know you haven’t seen me so I know I’m not blaming you. You’re just seeing these for the first time and I think it would be fair for Marty to be able to review these and have a response that we could address, um, And maybe a subsequent meeting let me respond to that. This pre-applicat. Pre-application conference is a way to avoid problems, you know, to identify problems and try and resolve them. Site plan review is, is, is, is unique. It’s not, it’s not authorized by statute and fundamentally, if an applicant complies with these requirements, the planning board can only condition the project. So because we can’t deny a project simply. In our discretion like we can with a special permit. It’s helpful to have some. Real guidance for the applicant because the project will undoubtedly get approved with or without conditions and so if it’s not onerous, then bad projects and I and I’m really. Well, we have to focus on projects that would be larger because I’m not suggesting you’re wrong there’s a, I’m just looking at the comments from Robin and I want to make sure that, you know, you have a response at some point and we can address that to make sure that we’re not in, you know, conflict with any sort of that Tom is getting at is that when we talk about that it’s, that it’s a required. up, but it’s non-binding. That’s fine. She just says, this is, you know, could be the subject of challenge on the ground that it’s onerous given that this is, this is as of right or discretionary, um. As is the nature of site plan review. So I think she’s, yes, and my response to that was that is that the the the pre-application conference is not binding on anyone. It’s really just to help an applicant get through the process and so the planning board can understand what the applicant is doing and also make suggestions to improve the project can someone as a part of, um, site plan review choose not to show up for a precondition approval. Well, do they have to do it or avoid like Let me ask you this, if you were in the applicant’s position, would you really want to litigate that? No, I’m just saying like, you know, go ahead. Well, no, and these are some of the things that, that need to be, I think we clarified, you know, for example, with respect to that specifically, it says a pre-application conference shall be required prior to the admission of site plan review application for the following types of applications, right? And so it’s not all applications, it’s just. Right, but it doesn’t strike me as that’s like. It, it seems the language seems to be mandatory and not something as a suggestion which seemed to be what I heard, but, you know, and those are things that can be clarified. It’s, it’s mandatory in the sense that come and tell us what you’re going to do, but they can proceed to do what they intend to do regardless of what the planning board would suggest to improve the but if somebody put in a site plan, put in for a site plan review, but had not done this. Would you deny their site plan review. Well, that’s, that’s a hypothetical, but I think that’s I think that’s very, that’s a very common question, right? I mean that’s that’s whether that proves whether or not it’s mandatory or not. I, I think the question is if a large project. Is gonna submit to site plan review they’re going they’re gonna have experts, they’re gonna have people have to bring it. So you’re asking them to come twice, so they’re not going to come to a, a pre-meeting without their experts and then so they’re gonna have to pay all those people to come to you twice and that’s, that, that starts to get into it’s more onerous than what anybody else would normally have to go through. And that’s why I think, I think that’s why Robin said this is something that could be challenged, um, if, you know, by Developers if they or or even just a contractor on a large home building project we’ll actually have to then address that on Wednesday. I mean we can strongly recommend not make it mandatory, but, um, I guess in a sense that we we worry about getting sued all the time, but you know, if you have a project, would you really sue over that? And I don’t know that you would have to bring all your experts. It’s really just to come in and, and, and lay out what you’re going to do so that if there’s if there are problems, um, they can be resolved. It’s supposed to be collaborative. It’s not supposed to be onerous and, and how we can address that we can, we can look at that but I just don’t like voting to put out a warrant where the language hasn’t been determined yet. I don’t understand what the rush is for. We have other meetings where we can establish the language that’s the question if, if it’s something that we feel strongly enough, needs to be removed from the, can I just also add that the existing bylaw has mistakes in it. I get it. For site plan review. It has, it has references to other bylaws that are incorrect. That’s why we take a phased approach, and the first time, the first approach is to take care of the errors and the legalities and the second approach is to, to put in things that we would prefer as best practice. I think what you’re suggesting is best practice, is probably a good best practice to do a pre-conference. But it’s It’s not just fixing errors and grammar, so that’s, that’s my. Once again, we, we talk about process and then we don’t do the process. Well, what is the process? My understand language before we decide to vote for it on the warrant. Right, well. Is it up to, is it up to the planning board to finalize the language and then put it to the public or is it up to the planning board to finalize the language and let you vet it before you put it to the public. That, that’s the question about the process to public hearings and language and we’re going to get that language set, but I mean this actually though, I had requested that the all this material come to you in January. And to give us more time and it never got on your agenda. I mean, I, I have the emails, I can’t comment on that, OK, so in the interest of time, we, we have a couple of things that we still have another large conversation after this. The question remains, there, we can keep this here. We can wait until Wednesday, we can hear and if we are still uncomfortable, we can, we can have an open close on the 24th to remove something if we don’t want to. We can proactively remove it right now if we feel like this isn’t the process we want to go through, or we can, yeah, I think the plan boards followed the same for this as it has for the others for some reason, it, it, it seems like this one didn’t make it to town council as early as the others did, but um. They’ve got the public hearing posted at advertise their people ready to speak to it. I think it would probably be good to let them go through the process Wednesday night. Robin Stein can be there perhaps they massage language, get a better, uh, version out and then they, we have other articles on the, on the warrant that we’re going to address. between now and the time we posted, so OK, so we’ll do a final review on the 24th. And if there’s any concern at that when we have the public hearings, I mean, they’re members of the public who have comments as well. I mean, and that’s, that’s the whole purpose of the public hearing, but the, the existing, as I said, most of what’s in this, uh, 10.6 revised 10.6 is in the existing um. Bylaw. We’ve just clarified things and to the extent that there’s any real fear of litigation, I think litigation is sometimes overstated. I don’t think people sue us over small things is, is, as much as people think, um, we can make that pre-application of uh maybe not mandatory, but darn close strongly or something. Yeah. I’m, I’m not worried about the lawsuit. I’m worried about the person who doesn’t do something because they’re scared of regulation and then we, then that’s some that right like buy buy right and it’s, it’s supposed to be a seamless process, and now we’re throwing up a barrier, and I feel like especially in the climate we’re in with 3A showing that even it by right, we’re creating additional obstacles to housing is concerning that, given that as Marie points out, this is kind of considered best practice, particularly with larger projects. Do you think that there’s some sample language you could borrow from another community that has a recommendation for, uh, a pre a pre-application conference for large for projects of a certain size that maybe we can bring to that conversation. With that pre-application language there are pre-application, uh, conference is required and the senior housing bylaw that the um um uh but the senior housing by law is a site is, is a special permit. You don’t, you don’t want NSL to have the same level of, for, for something that’s supposed to be by right. I am gonna move us along. I’m concerned about getting older. So we’re we’re just going to leave it and let the planning board have their down the path I think. If the, if these are, we’ll forward this warrant to you, if these are things you haven’t seen, obviously, and then if they’re could you send that to me tomorrow maybe we can have a call later this week, Thursday or Friday after the. Public hearing and just see if there were any material changes one way or the other. Then we can talk about it on the 24th. Does that work? Yes. OK. That’s good. Thank you, Marty. Um, the next is 3-11, which is the, uh, the FEMA flood maps. Um. So I, I just got the draft of that today, um, how we’ll have Mark send to the planning board. If you vote it that way, we’ll have Mark send it to the planning board, ask them to, uh, complete the public hearing so that we can have it included again this is gonna mean a a great deal to anybody who lives in flood plain in town, so I don’t see us challenging the planes. Uh, no, right, my, my understanding is that the language is from the state and you have to use their language without changes. OK. Um, good news, guys. We’ve gotten through the zoning parts. Um, we want one question that I did have just in terms of structuring the the warrant. Did you want to have a separate section that just deals with the zoning as opposed to in section 3. Did you want me to set it up as action that aren’t zoning. Let me go back to the top. It’s Hero, the energy build code we, we pulled that so it’s lease extension and hero Act and petition and acquisition of easements as well as the revolving fund spending limit increase 512. 345, yeah, so it would be 5 articles in, I guess, you know, section 3, and then we could move zoning to section 4, or we could make zoning section 3 and move these to section 4, however you want to do it. Make it, yeah, make it, make, make it make it, yeah, we’ll zone 4 for zoning article. Um, all right, we’re gonna continue this with, uh, 3-12, which is the recreation revolving fund establishing a new spending limit. Yeah, so this is just real quick and easy, uh, this is a further testament to how successful our rec department is. They are programming that takes in money that they gonna have to spend on that programming so many people take advantage of the programming that the amount of money we have to spend to carry the programming out continues to go up so they’re asking for an increase again. this is none of this funding comes out of the tax base. It’s all um user fees, so, um, but without doing it, then you would be hamstringing the recreation department from adding additional uh programming, which our residents seem to like so. Would anyone like to guess, and Tom probably knows how long it took for camp to sell out. It wasn’t bad this year. Last year was within like 3 minutes. Ours was 20 seconds for fifth graders. 2 seconds. I did. I was, I was, it was, you would have thought it was a Taylor Swift concert. Like no one could talk to me. I sat down. I was like a strategy that like nobody get on the internet. Nobody stream anything. Shawn Timmons is a is a charismatic guy. I’ve never wanted to like use my power for evil the way I wanted to be like Sean. No, we have no pole in case somebody’s wondering, I can’t even get my. In a camp. And we don’t have good Wi Fi in my neighborhood. So it’s very unexpected. If a wind blows. That’s right. You’re not signing up for camp. Anyway, Tom, could you put that in there? Something about camp? OK, great. um Yeah and I think we increased it from the 200s to the 700s last time and now we’re increasing it to 825, yeah, some of this too is also, you know, cost of things, so the the fees. Oh, they’ve gone up a little bit. There’s inflation and so cost of things you have to raise the fees to count the costs and then now all of a sudden you’re running from my recollection was a few years ago we combined the pool revolving fund with the re revolving fund which caused a fairly significant increase. OK. 3-13 acquisition of easements on Woodbury Street. Alright, so that, that is the town had received uh some grant funding to look at a um pump pump station that would help us connect to um Salem, Beverly Water as a backup and uh the, the only location for that pump station to go is on uh green belt land Greenbelt, I believe, is voting or has voted already to grant us an easement, but because it’s a an interest in land, it just came over last week as well, um, we, we weren’t even sure that we were gonna get the easement and then shot Tim, Tim Olson got, got the easement and sent it to to Tom without letting. Me, that was Tom called me. So we had to add that last minute, um, if. If we don’t do the, if we don’t accept the easement, then we won’t be able to build the pump station to allow that emergency water source. OK. Any questions about that? Tim also. Yeah, and he’s on vacation, so I, I really appreciate him dropping that in on my lap last week. It’s been a heavy winter. He’s got a lot he’s got a lot on his plate with town hall. I, I, I get it. And that, yeah. OK, uh, the final article is 3.14, which is the Citizen’s petition requesting that we abandon efforts with respect to school consolidation and pursue the use of resources for maintenance of, um, Bucher Winthrop and Cutler School. I think that, sorry again, I think the two questions here are, one, there was a request to move this up in the warrant. That’s my understanding, yes. Um, this second is. It’s non Binding. So whether we move it up or not. Doesn’t actually make a difference because we would still take a vote on the school because this cannot override. The school vote, if even if this was yes and the other one was yes, we would go with the school vote. Right, correct. But I think there’s a lot of information from from what I understand, I mean there there there are possibilities and I think it’s important that people come, coming to town meeting, not wait until the very last to hear this at, at the very least and so um I am requesting in, in the sense of fairness to be able to. um, Duval draw that information before the school consolidation so that people will have a full picture of what they’re voting for. My guess is that discussion come up during the school vote regardless. Well, but this is a formal presentation because it is a citizen’s petition. Do you say formal presentation, what do you mean what do you mean by formal citizens petition go at the, so I think the challenge is that like, will the data still go through the same vetting process as the data that’s presented as a part of the actual school project. Well, you know, I don’t have the answer to that. I, I believe it’s not any individual analysis, but it’s just factual data that’s out there the way I understand it. And it’s just going to be presented, um. As more information for which people to make which people can make. We have always done citizen petitions last. I don’t know that we ever not done this, but this is a separate this is they would tell you it’s a very important, but people can I I think it’s important that people have an opportunity to hear it. I do too, but Perhaps I can pour a little oil on the, on the, on the waters here, um, thank you, Bill Baer town moderator. Uh, the by I says, this is a decision that will actually be made by town meeting. The bylaw says that articles are taken in the order that they’re in the warrant, uh, Unless there’s a 2/3 vote to change it out of order. So this would be taken up. Um, at some, well, I guess before we got to these articles at town meeting, but it’s an art, the decision will be made by town meeting, not by. Well, I mean, we are, the, the, the board’s order is ordering the warrant right now. So the warrant hasn’t closed and the board did just discuss moving the Hero Act, the leases, the, uh well, they they, they, they essentially it it talk that you discussed moving the zoning bylaws 34 through 311 to warrants. That’s part of our purview. So, so then so the, so the, the hero act, the adoption of Special Energy code, the recreation revolving fund, the agro. easements and citizens petition would be in one section and all the zoning articles would be another. It just need to based on what you just said, now we just need to determine is that which is which, which goes first and which goes last. Right and uh. Just Yeah, um, so uh, I mean, traditionally I think in, in Hamilton as well as most towns, the citizens petitions are usually. At the end of the warrant for the most part, but, uh, they don’t necessarily have to be. The board has the discretion to put it wherever you want in the warrant. And in this case, if we were to leave it in section 3, it obviously wouldn’t be at the very end if we did the zoning afterwards unless the board wanted to have a separate section 5, for example, that was Citizens petitioned articles that included this, but ultimately, even if the board decided to put it at the End of the warrant as traditionally has been the case. To meeting can vote by a 2/3 vote to advance the article if it wished to do so and take it out of water or otherwise pursuant to the town’s bylaws, the articles are taken up in the order in which they are set by the select board. It’s a mute point where it’s right now, right? Everything will be done by the time we get here. It doesn’t feel like the citizens getting the opportunity to Let the rest of the citizens digest it and, and use that in their own boat. Yes, I, the, the vetting question is, is the challenge, which is what we’re saying is that the information that’s been provided by the The groups that have been asked to provide this data and have presented this data to the public and have presented vetted, vetted data we’re saying all of that which went into the decision to put the school on the warrant should be at the moment of a vote. Come after data that we have not seen from sources we will not check with numbers that we know nothing about. We don’t know the models, we don’t know any of that. And then we’re saying put that before. The vote for the school. And hope that that data sways people to vote against the school. I think that, I think that that’s disrespectful to the process that the FENO and the school board and all of those groups went through to make sure that that data was clear and concise and and consistent, um, I haven’t seen the data though. Well that’s my point like where, where it’s like I, there was a a Facebook post just this weekend where somebody says, we ran the numbers and it’s only 56 million to completely renovate all three schools. Well, if somebody stands up in town meeting and tells the entire town, it’s $56 million to renovate all three schools that they ran the numbers. What does that mean objective data that that we don’t know about there, there, there might be. Right. And and the sense of fairness since this is such a huge question, um, I, I don’t think anybody is going to come in and say, We can renovate all preschools for 56 million without objective data and. People have a right to make their decision at the time, but I think it’s unfair to put this. And when nobody will have a chance to hear. But, but, but, but Rosie, but listen, listen to me, we’re gonna have a very In-depth discussion. Um-hum. We’re, we’re going to hear both sides of the story for those things are welcome to come up to the microphone and speak to what they want to speak to. They don’t have to wait to the end, but to put this before. So, so. I just, it just, I don’t, I don’t see that makes sense. So the question is, um, is the moderator going to say this data is not relevant to this particular vote, therefore, it won’t be accepted and you need to sit down. So I think it’s, I, I think it’s uh so that’s, that’s a concern. Yes. Uh, John McGrath Fincom, um. The Finan would appreciate um a chance to understand the data that’s going to be put in front of the public for every Um, Warren article. Um, the Fincom does operate as the eyes and ears of the taxpayer, and we do try to listen to both sides of the argument. Um, So I would appreciate and actually did request, uh, information on the citizens petition and was denied. So I just think it’s fair, um, to get that information out because what we will do is we will digest it and put it in our book recommendations. Um, so I just think it’s fair to everybody to, you know this is legitimate. Well, I, I don’t know. I think it’s just fair. I mean, we’ve taken on a role to Um, provide Point of view from 5 citizens who have volunteered their time to look at every topic. I mean, it’s going to be a very healthy conversation. Um, I just think it makes sense to, um, Get it out, um, and I, and I personally have requested some scenarios that we could jointly vet. Um And work together on so we can get that information out from both sides of the conversation, um, and after attending 15 school building committee meetings trying to gather information and trying to make sure that concerns from the public that are raised in like in this form, get in front of the committee and they get addressed. So I just think it’s healthy for the community to get the information up and out, um. That that’s all. Um, uh, I actually don’t know off the top of my head know who’s putting out the citizen’s petition. I just know it’s a huge issue and so if I were, um, I’m sure it’s in the um clerk’s office who made the petition. Your, um, when would this have to be vetted or or um brought in front of the Fincom by so that there would be an opportunity for moving this um this article to a different spot I answer that question for you? Yes, but I mean, I would say that. We are voting on the warrant tonight and the order to close it, so I would expect they would come here tonight. to plead their case. Are they here tonight to plead their case? I haven’t spoken to. I’m not, yeah, I mean, I’m asking the audience, if you’re here to plead your case and get up there and plead your case. But if not, I don’t know what we’re, why we’re even talking about it. Well, they’re saying we have who, um, Mr. Mm hm. I’m sorry, I don’t remember his name we get an ask from them to move it, from whoever? I didn’t. Not to me, but I think somebody spoke to Rosie’s, nobody’s asked me. But I would say contingent, you know, that we got a chance to look at it and bet it, so there could be a response to it if we feel there are errors in it. Otherwise, you know, most go to the end like you had said before, but if it’s relevant to an early discussion, there’s an opportunity to see the data and information so that it could be vetted or You know, some other discussion to know the data refer back and say yes. Oh. Well, are, are we agreeing to keep the warrant open pending the planning board review? you’re closing. We, we may, you may, you may, you may reopen it. I was gonna say maybe we suggest they come to the 24th meeting if they want to make a request and make them want to come you’re welcome to come and plead their case and provide the data. I mean, I, I don’t know who you spoke to, but if you want to communicate that message and say they’re welcome to come here on the 24th and provide the data I don’t even know if that gets up in a while, but it needs to be better. ahead of time, I think. Yeah, yeah. Hi, Tosh Blake, Sagamore Street. Uh, I’m not involved with this, uh, this foreign item. But I just, I think to Rosie’s point, which I agree, it only makes sense to put it at the beginning or earlier than the, the general voting for the, the school funds because hopefully the information is correct and if it isn’t, it can be rebutted, I assume in public comments, plus town officials could, you know, if there’s something said that was way off, they could correct it also comments when the school budget uh presentations are made also that There’s an opportunity to correct what was said earlier. But to put it after that, that vote would moot the whole thing and make it a completely, a complete waste of time to put it at the end and kind of, I think, um, you know, disservice to the public. So, hopefully the people that are signed this did this citizen’s petition have correct numbers. I don’t know who they are, but, um, and if they can talk to Final, that’d be great and get, you know, kind of get, you know, if, if they’re willing to do that, but even if they’re not willing to do that, if since it’s a legit a item, have them have their say and just rebut it either have people, you know, rebut it from the audience and also town officials rebutted if it’s incorrect. You’d have an opportunity to do that. And then also the town can make its case or the school committee or whatever for the the school budget and that would, I think makes the most sense then you wouldn’t have to go to the extra step of having a vote to reorder it at the meeting, just be more streamlined and I think fair to everybody. Thank you. Um Bill Baer again, uh, I’m just thinking out loud here a little bit, so I might make a different decision at town meeting, but, um, Some citizens have contacted me about. This issue And One of the suggestions or possibilities was that they wanted to present slides, so hard data, you know, this is, and obviously, anybody can, it’s been said, so anybody can get up and speak to the issue and as lies there within the four corners they can. That’s acceptable. Um, but for Everyone, anybody that submits slides, and I’ve told them everything has to be submitted at least a week beforehand for my review and for the administrative staff to be able to put it on the Um On the, uh, in the slide deck. So I certainly appreciate that. Uh, Mr. McGrath’s wanting to be able to review things, but if there’s going to be that, if, if the citizens are talking about that kind of data, it’s going to have to be publicly available. To me and presumably to anyone else, at least a week ahead of time, or I would not allow it to be shown at town meetings, so that might be on the table at the end of the auditorium. Everything’s supposed to be. Reviewed everything’s for administrative, you know, mostly for administrative reasons, but also so that, you know, that I can review it, but yes, everything’s supposed to be in at least a week. We have a book of recommendations, so it wouldn’t be in there. If it only came out a week at a time when the book of recommendations close, so, so to speak. I mean we’ve had, we’ve asked the, we’ve asked the FICO to have that to us by, um, what was the day I gave you because it’s, it, we have to, it goes out, it, it gets published with the warrant so we will be having that done uh more than a week ahead of time. It’ll be, uh, I think we gave him to. Yeah, I. March. So, so, this is an opportunity the this petitioner to to come forward that that’s. Fair with the um possibility of being moved um in place in the warrant. I, I think that’s a very fair um suggestion it’s fair, but it’s our job. It’s not the point of view right our job. To put together very well prepared, organized, and thorough town meeting and we’ve done that for the last year. And now we’re being asked without any information and nobody here to represent themselves to change what we’ve done. So I, I, I have no intention of moving the unless somebody else makes the motion I will like in if, if this thincom has made a request for the data. For this alternative and has not seen it, and, and he does not plan on seeing it. I do not have attention, intention of moving this, um, in front of an 18 month long prepared presentation to the town that represents both sides and, and fair and balanced and transparent work. I have no intention of moving this up without. Well, I think we have talked about having the opportunity to have um The person, the petitioner come forward and I think that’s a, but a no vote on the school project is the same as a yes vote on this. So I, I don’t know why we would have to set up a separate vote with separate data with separate information that has been prepared in And a 30th of the time of the data that has been prepared by the elected boards of the town school districts, um, position, it’s either yes or no, it’s either it’s either all process. It’s yes there are options if we see that if It’s yes there are options if we see that if It’s yes there are options if we see that if so that people don’t feel like they have to vote yes or they will have nothing to show. They will have nothing. If they vote yes on this anyway, because it even mentions MSBA in the citizen’s petition, which means we have to get back in line for MSBA and go through the same process again. So whether you vote yes or no, we are back at square one. That was always going to be the outcome of this process. Yes, that’s true. That it the the school vote is a yes or no, but I don’t think everybody who goes to town meeting is going to feel comfortable, it’s going to be all up or all down, but it is all that’s going to be about that. Excuse me, let me just, let me just finish my statement that there is, in fact, um, a waiting period for the next opportunity, but perhaps it’s not so long as we are being told, and I think on that and that’s backed up by evidence of a. in Haverrell. And so I think it’s important that people understand that they’re not throwing the schools into the garbage pile if, if, if this vote didn’t go, um, that there are other opportunities and it won’t be a year’s long procedure. It will be a year-long procedure because we will still have to Prepare funding bond fund, even if it is 3 months to get him back into MSBA. We still have to apply. We have to go with the plan. We have to do the same thing we did before, which is show the cost relative to renovation with consolidation. It is a no vote on the school kickstarts a renovation process. And Right, so it’s the same thing it’s the same thing with the data that we already produced shouldn’t be going to town meeting, feel that they have to spend $143 million or nothing, and I think unfortunately there’s not been a whole lot of discussion, realistic discussion about middle of the road issues and, and I think that’s important you don’t think that’s going to come up during the discussion? Well, it’s coming up in the hundreds of people lined up to that point of view one more comment. And then we, we need to move on because we have people in the room for our next agenda item. Yes, Debs. The first is that I think the intention behind it, and I’m not the author of it, but I did sign it, is to prevent what happened with the middle school where it was turned down, and then they voted again and then they voted again, and then they wore us down and they did it. And I think that one of the intentions behind this petition is to say if it is voted down, don’t come back with another version of it, please pivot and focus on renovation. That’s the first thing. And the second thing in the spirit of transparency, um, I just feel compelled to say that when the statement of interest was submitted to MSBA in 2021 and I think it was May of 2021. The box that is checked is for building, and then there’s a little box. This is really for the public consumption here. There was a little box that then says, uh, is consolidation a priority, and that was checked yes. That this was a district priority to consolidate. OK, that was in 21. I just want everyone to process that. There was a warrant and in uh October of 22. A year and a half later, For a feasibility study. For the Cutler school. OK. I don’t think that this is this is really relevant because that warrant said nothing about consolidation, and it was a feasibility study to determine what should happen at Cutler. So a year and a half before we voted 1.5 million for feasibility study for what to do with Cutler, it was already predetermined by the district that they wanted to consolidate. So I think when people realize that, there’s a lot of mistrust, and I think that’s part of the energy behind what’s going on with the citizen petition is that we have been through a charade, in my opinion. If the priority is consolidation, why did that warrant article not say that the priority is consolidation, and we want a feasibility study to explore consolidation, because then that discussion could have happened in 22, and not now when it’s already, you know, the cows out of the barn, he’s down the trail. The trains left the station, whatever the analogy is. But I think that’s a lot of the energy. I know I’m just saying, but we wrote the awards, but we approved the warrants, so I do appreciate the thoroughness tonight of looking at the warrants and understanding. I just want to applaud the group here, but I’m just saying that there’s a lot of understanding. I think that’s the energy behind the citizen’s petition to have that information explored so people understand and we can have it a informed vote. Thank you I think it’s a fair comment. I think that to move on, there’s a lot of distrust and petition because we don’t have any information, I don’t yeah, that’s where we all sit, so Give us almost like it’s an if then saying Right. Should we abandon it now that it was voted no and that’s kind of what you just described there. Yeah it’s a if it’s a no, should we abandon all future efforts that there is an option. There are options out there. And then also to inform that should it get voted down because we know it’s a non-binding thing, it’s really just to, to get the community an opportunity to, to influence. should it be voted down, which way to go. OK, um, we are running about 20 minutes behind schedule. Sure, so just real quick, uh, one question I had on this one is just, did you typically, as, as you know, the citizen’s petitions usually end up at the end of the warrant, um, as it stands right now, it would be, it would be the last article in section 3 and then Section 4 would be zoning. Did you want to move it to after zoning or just keep it in the at the end of section 3. Um It should probably, if it, if it stays at the end, it stays at the end. So it goes after zoning until unless we change that next to the agenda as well. Yeah, the citizen, could you, was that a joke? God, um, OK, I, we do need a motion to close the warrant. Make a motion to close the warrant. We need a second. All right, uh, all in favor. I, the ayes have it. Um, man, the 24th is going to be action-packed. OK, so you are not. Well, let’s just say that again. This meeting room is, is booked by the library for the 24th, so the meeting on the 24th will be by Zoom only, so everybody paying attention on Zoom we’ll, we’ll advertise it like we always do. It’ll be a Zoom only meeting, but I told you what happens when the wind blows in my house, so who knows if I’ll be there and and set up a laptop right next to me. OK, thank you. I have nothing else. I will get you the draft. warrant uh within the next week or so grateful for that. Thank you and I will also work with the planning board chair as well to make sure we have that out um, all Thank you, Tom. Appreciate it. You’re welcome Thank you, Tom. Appreciate it. You’re welcome 23rd? Well, no, so, it’s going to be a robust discussion, I guarantee that we’re to all sorts all sorts all sorts all sorts we can’t be the 19th, but the 23rd is possible. No, no, she’s not available the 23rd June 26th, yeah, let’s try that. Um, OK, so, uh, we have. Actually, I’m gonna wait and do that one after. Is that OK? Uh, is it, is it all right if I take us out of order to talk to Gordon Conwell since they’re here. All right, um, next up is the uh the discussion of the progress on the draft development agreement with Gordon Conwell, uh, Gordon Conwell is here with us. Marijuana is here, um. So is John, did John make it online? He is here, John. Yes, good evening. Hi. Just a heads up, you’re not, um, on the screen in the room because the screen in the room is not working, um, but we do see you on Joe’s computer, but if you feel like you’re not, if you’re, you’re trying to get in touch with us and we’re not saying something, just yell loudly. OK, got it. Thank you. Of course, so for context for the board, uh, we have been in discussions with the seminary since Rosie Keep me on September. Se around September, um, about putting together a development agreement for the sale of the 209 units, um, and 11 acres on the lower campus. Uh, the idea when we first met was, um, to work with the seminary to, uh, help them sell those units to create market rate housing, uh, in exchange, we would, um, They, they would agree to make 25% affordable at 80%. AMI, um, that those conversations then obviously continued with other, with other things. We, we’ve talked about, um, opportunities to, um, put the middle campus, uh, in to a deed restriction up for, you know, Ever, but not technically, um, as well as, uh, eventually passing an overlay district for the, what we call the upper campus, and what you’ll see here is a map and Marilyn, I’ll actually have you. point that in a second. Um. The reason we’ve come to the board with this today, uh, we’ve now, I think we’re on the 3rd draft, the 3rd, 3rd draft over a dozen probably, but these, yeah, the most recent ones were on a 3rd, 4th draft and I think that at this point, there is a, as everybody knows in negotiations, there’s a delicate balance between, uh, you know, what people are willing to give and what they’re willing to take and when you pack your toys up and go home, and it’s it’s a conversation that I think the whole board is ready to have now. It does not mean that the current draftability represents Our final satisfied draft. It means that at this point, uh, there’s, there’s push on both sides and we’re, uh, Marilyn’s here to, to talk us into, uh, his perspective, no, I’m teasing, um, so Marilyn, why don’t you give us your, your sort of Thoughts on the matter and then we’ll, we’ll continue a discussion with the board. We are not going to take public comment until after the discussion, uh, between the seminary and the board is completed, uh, at which point we will, um, open up for public comment, but not as a part of the active conversation. Madam, thank you very much and members of the select board appreciate the opportunity to speak to this, uh, actually it, it goes back to 2020 when the seminary started looking at uh at selling the the student apartments in 2021 we had an agreement, we’re under agreement with Harbor Light to do 100% affordable apartments there we were in front of the zoning board, uh, that got a lot of uh concern from abutters. And so due to that pushback, we agreed with Harberla and they agreed to. pull it off and do really step back and do more of a holistic view of the entire campus that was this, that was the concern was, well what happens to the rest of the campus, um, and so then in February of 2022, the, the Hamilton, uh, Master Planning Committee approached the seminary and said that they’d identified the seminary property as a very good one to do some commercial uh pro business and and uses there and in fact we’re saying that it could be part of the commercial. overlay district. They approached us and the board of trustees at that point said that that was fine. They agreed that they’d be willing for that, uh, to, to go forward with that, uh, and so in in the spring of 2022, the seminary submitted a proposal to the planning board to simply put the entire parcel in what exists now is the commercial overlay district. Uh, the planning board then took that and they began working and they did an extraordinary amount of work over the next 18 months or so, working really hard to try to come up with an overlay district. they drafted their own. The select board though, uh, engaged to consultants, Gamble Associates and Abraham Abramson Associates, uh, to study and they, they gave it this remit. This is from the select board at the time saying, uh, have them study to quote provide greater tax and other benefits than achievable under existing zoning. So that was the remit of the consultants that the that the select board engaged the seminary participated financially and in in that work as well to we spent about $60,000. The town spent more than that, uh, for those, the consultants met with the butters, met with town’s leadership, etc. and in April of 2023, they submitted their report to the uh the planning but rather to the uh select board, uh, and that’s a matter of record. And then in 2024, uh, we’ve begun work again on the development agreement. There have been drafts for the development growing back almost 26 months, more than a couple of years, uh, and we worked with a council, uh, John Whitton, who’s on the call on the Zoom, uh, and then the uh the the town manager and then more recently, uh, both the chair of the select board and Ms. Kennedy have joined those discussion over the last several months. So we are very thankful to the select board the prior select board and then this one for the work that you’ve been doing over the last 3 years with us. We, it’s been cooperative and we’ve enjoyed that and, and are thankful for that, uh, and so we’re glad that we have this opportunity now to finally have a full board discussion about it. Let me just point here briefly to the plan that we have, uh, I can have this is a chief of staff for the president, the seminary Presidentundquist is Mia Erle. If you can point out, we’ll just, there are 3 main campuses. This really comes out of what, um, The, the, the consultants viewed and then the planning board did some work and sort of looking at three different places, the upper campus here is uh the yellow area and it’s predominantly the ups up part of the, the hill with the, the care building which is the main one and the big steep on the cross, and then the retreat house, uh, down there and then a small house called the gatehouse, which is down toward Bridge Street. So that’s the upper campus, uh, the dark blue. area is the middle campus, and that, if you can see there’s a, a, a light blue line on that. And you can see that the, the, the middle campus is predominantly wetlands. That’s the wetlands designation, uh, it, it goes all the way out to Essex Street and along, um. Long Woodbury and within that, uh, is an area the red lined area is, if you’ve been to the seminary, there’s one beautiful lawn area. It’s a big grassy area and we’ll get to what that is, but this is the restricted area that the seminary, uh, is, uh, is has been willing to put into restriction. It’s about 11 + acres and um and again it’s, it’s if you’ve ever played any games out there, disc golf and etc. That’s, that’s where it all. happens. The pink areas are the two the two subdivided parcels that would be sold, they have the 6 apartment buildings. There are 3 pairs of apartment buildings, uh, and so those are the lower campus what we’re calling on. So those buildings have been there, the ones up top in the pink, have been there for about 50 years. Uh, these other ones are 40 or so years, uh, there are 209 units total there, uh, and. They’ve been, uh, from various times in the history of the seminary they’ve been fully leased out, uh, and, uh, there’s plenty of parking and the rest for it. So those have been there uh for a long time. So there’s a two step process to this and in the planning board chair requested that we take the first step, which is this one, to reach a development agreement with the select board after which then there’s a zoning overlay district that will be designed and, and then approved by the planning board and put to vote at the town meeting. So it’s a two step process, uh, this starts it, it’s a key part of it. Uh, it allows the town and the seminary to, to reach agreements on some of these fundamental issues and then the planning board to come in. With a zoning overlay district that will work on those issues. So I want to split two things. One is I want to talk about the advantages to the seminary and why we’re interested in doing this, and then what are the advantages to the town uh in entering this development agreement and there’s, there are 2 for the seminary and there are 9 for the town. Uh, so I’ll start with the the the the the seminary, the, the sale of the apartments is of course key to the seminary, uh, they’ve been there for a long time. They’ve been fully occupied. Uh, they’ve, the, the town is used to it, the abutters are used to those having people in them. We’re not building anything new. We do have a builder, Vince McNutt, or rather a buyer, Vincent McKnight is here tonight as Alex Westra is on the Zoom call. They’re both the buyers, they’re available for conversation or any questions that you might have. They have longtime ties to the community and we are very, we, we picked them because we’re convinced that they’re gonna do a really good job investing in these and making these apartments that the town to be proud of. Uh, so that’s the first piece and that’s it, there’s a clear advantage to the seminary because we’re able to convert the, the, the apartments into uh into financial resource which is which are very important to the seminary at this point. Uh, Secondly, we want in the upper campus, uh, to have some business and commercial uses and, and it’s in the draft that’s been provided to the uh the board, but these would be business commercial professional administrative officers, no retail, uh, maybe a restaurant, coffee shop kind of thing in the existing buildings, so to the extent that we could repurpose in the short term, uh, some of the existing buildings to, to rent them out for, uh, facilities for those uses and then going forward that that would be an allowed use under the zoning bylaw. Uh, you know, one consistent theme that we’ve heard over the last 4 years from Butters and others is people like the seminary. They actually really like to have it there. They like what’s there. Uh, we’ve been there for 50 years, uh, by the way, I’ve lived in Hamilton for 60 years, so I’ve grown up with it and I, I know the area very well, uh, so people like the seminary, they’re actually fearful of the seminary leaving. And so part of what we’ve been doing is try to allay those concerns with how we develop this now, the numbers of commercial uses are much smaller. smaller than what the planning board had in mind and certainly with the, the consultants had in mind, so we’ve restricted it down now after hearing concerns from abutters and others. Uh, you know, that right now, if, if the somebody were to sell everything, which it has absolutely no desire to do. Uh, there’s the zoning would allow for somewhere between 70 plus, uh, 1 acre McMansions, uh, and I think almost nobody wants that, certainly not the seminary, not the town. So, uh, that’s what’s allowed there now. other than the use of the seminary as a religious and educational institution. Uh, doing this is really what would allow the seminary to stay there for many generations, and that’s his intention, uh, to do so. So then, let’s turn to the, the, the things that’ll the benefit the town, and again, there are 9 of them. The first is there’s going to be a substantial increase in tax revenue uh right now, of course, the seminary as a charitable organization and religious organization doesn’t pay any taxes and hasn’t. That’s it’s, it’s right under the law, as, as any of these other charitable organizations do, uh, but this, these would become then on the tax roll. Our estimate is that it’d be something north of $500,000 a year in tax revenues and would grow. Uh, I think I can be corrected if I’m wrong, but I, I looked, I think that would vault those apartments and those owners and to be the top, uh, the number one taxpayer in, in, in the town. I’m not sure that there’s anyone who would be paying more, uh, and given the recent conversation about the schools, uh, that’s, that’s no laughing matter to go from 0 to over half a million, and of course that would grow over the years as, as those buildings appreciated in value, uh, so that, that’s our first and I think a substant help to the town and a benefit to the town under this agreement. The second is, is the Madam Chair mentioned, uh, we are agreeing to a 24, 25% affordability requirement. We’re not required to, but as part of this agreement, we, we’re willing to do that. That’s going to be a seven-figure uh haircut for the, for the seminary in terms of, of, of the sales price because it, it reduces the value, uh, to the buyers. We’re willing to do that. We, we know it, it helps the town with the affordable housing. inventory, uh, and then moving from that to the 3rd advantage, uh, the town has asked the board has been asking us that we would cooperate with the town in seeking with the state to have all 209, 209 units, uh, be designated as part of the inventory and of course that becomes a significant benefit to the town in terms of uh 40B. So, uh, as well, we’ve, we understand that the town manager has sent a letter recently into the state. Uh, seeking to have the seminary, these units be considered toward the 3A issue and you know, whether that, that’ll work, we’re fully supportive of that if the somebody can help with something like that, uh, we want to be supportive. The 4th thing, uh, this, and now we’re looking at this again, the plan that red dotted circle, uh, we are willing to have we’ve we’ve talked to the abutters, we hear their concerns, they’ve been concerned about additional development on the property, uh, That is the best buildable piece on the entire parcel. It’s the majority of the middle campus, it’s the flattest area on the campus. It would be minimal site work required to start putting buildings up there, uh, but the seminary is willing as part of this deal to tie that up with a restriction under the a deed restriction that would disallow most construction we’ve, there are just a few exceptions like parking areas, if there was need for wastewater treatment plan. accessory buildings and that utilities, that sort of thing, uh, but basically there wouldn’t be any new buildings on that area. Uh, that’s of course that that would be a uh a significant cost to the seminary of not being able to build on that. The fifth thing is a set of zoning restrictions. So again, we’re allowed right now, we could sell it to a Toll Brothers or others to put in a great deal of of single family residences, um, but what we’re willing to do is to give up the right to do any residential development, uh, so we couldn’t sell it to anybody to put residential units in either the middle or the upper campus again, that, that restricts the kinds of buyers that would be interested, uh, but we are, uh, we’re, we’re willing to do that as part of this, uh, this deal. Uh, you know, a couple of things about uh the Dover Amendment. There has been a recent request that the seminary consider waiving. Stover Memon, as you know, and perhaps others don’t know, but the Dover Amendment is basically a First Amendment right that that’s uh put into law in Massachusetts that allows religious and educational institutions to build on their property toward their mission to further their work as educational religious institutions, uh, and we, we are really not in a position to, to waive that with respect to the um the upper campus uh or or the middle campus outside of that restricted area, uh. There’s, you know, it’s it, the trustees, the board is would not authorize it. They have fiduciary obligations as trustees to the institution. Uh, we have lenders, uh, the lenders, the value would be considerably lowered if we weren’t able to change things. Uh, we don’t know where the world is moving and, and the world of commerce and the world of education is moving very quickly and changing very dramatically. We don’t know what in the future students and faculty and academics and staff will need, so we just need to retain the ability. That we’ve had for 50 years and uh that we would presumably be able to use for the next, uh, 50 years, you know, there’s, there’s a significant loss to the seminary. If you look at the planning boards, uh, most recent design, there are dozens and dozens of town homes that are uh that are designed to be on this property. That’s what the planning board felt was one of the best uses for it, uh, the consultants agreed that over 55 was a really good way to go with this. But again, we’ve, we’ve heard the abutters, they’re very concerned about additional billing like that, so we’re willing to restrict it, but we can’t give up the ability as a, as an original religious and educational institution to go and and cut our ability to build for what we do. We’ve actually heard from some of the abutters who’ve been very candid with us, which we really appreciate, you know, one of us said we, we, you, you should be able to do whatever you want. We’re concerned about what happens when you leave and so if you left, and of course, we’re saying we don’t want to leave and, and we appreciate the ability. to continue to do what we need. Uh, I, I would point out one thing which is we’ve been dealing with the select board now for for almost 3 years. Uh, the first iteration of this development agreement came out 26 months ago and it was, it has just a line right in there it says this does not affect your, your Dover Amendment rights, uh, that doesn’t curtail them and restrict them in any way. This is just something that’s come up, in fact, even in October, there was a version that that had language that effect this is only something that came up in November. So, uh, unfortunately, we can’t, we can’t accommodate. That particular desire. Uh, 6, we’re gonna do a monetary contribution. Again, we paid $60,000 for the consultants. The seminary is willing to pay another $200,000. That’s to offset the legal and the, and the other additional consultant costs that the town has incurred. Uh, we want to be able to make the town uh well with respect to those funds. Uh, 7th. And this is a big ask. This is a big ask by the town, which is to permanently waive any 40B abilities. So while we would be selling the apartment buildings, we would still have 40B rights and ability to develop the property under 40B, uh, that, as you know, is, is very attractive to build to developers, it allows us, it would allow us to disseminate or allow a buyer to to circumvent zoning restrictions on the local level, uh, and of course, that’s one of the reasons we’re we’re agreeable to providing uh these units toward the affordability requirements, but in any event, the town is asking the select board has asked us to waive those and again assuming we can do this deal along the lines that we’ve presented, uh, the seminary is willing to forfeit that into the future, uh, and that, that’s going to be helpful to the town, and again, the seminary is willing for that. Uh and it thing is a preservation of historical way that we’ve treated our neighbors in the town’s residents. Seminary has been very generous for 50 years. We love having people there. People play there, there, there’s a disc golf course that people play on. There’s, uh, soccer fields and the rest that they come and play, uh, they walk through there, they ride their horses and neighbors do, etc. Uh, we’re glad for that and, and historically we’ve done that we like to continue that going forward. And then 9th, there have been concerns raised about the wastewater treatment plant. Uh, we’ve just finished about, uh, close to a million dollars of upgrades. To the wastewater treatment plant, uh, based on concerns that some abutters have raised, uh, and we would also make a commitment to the board that in the future, any of the needs that would any of the wastewater treatment requirements for any buildings currently or anything new that’s built there would need to be serviced on site by our own facilities, uh, and we’ll make that commitment to the town to do that. Of course, that’s also regulated heavily by the state, so we’ll have to comply with state. So we, we feel confident that uh this is a good deal that we’ve been able to come together from. It’s like every deal, it doesn’t, we certainly aren’t getting everything we want. We’re giving up quite a bit. It’s going to be costly to the seminary. We’re getting what we really need is, is the ability to, uh, to sell the apartments and uh and to have some additional uses up on the, the upper campus, uh, and the litany of things that I provided the town will get, we think that the great majority of people in town will appreciate this, recognize that it’s a good give and take, and then it’s a good deal for. everybody, so we would, uh, we’d ask that you consider it closely. So, uh, before we get to questions from the board of which there are, you’re not out of the hot seat. Um, I do John Whitten, I did want to give you, if, if you’d like, a couple of minutes, if there’s anything that you would like to say or clarify or, or add context to, uh, before we open it up to the board for. Questions. No, thank, thank you, Madam Chair, and good evening members of the board. I, I think Maro accurately presented certainly the chronology and the discussions we’ve had, I, I have not commented back to the board on Marilyn’s latest draft, um, so just, just in terms of whose commented on what, um, but I think what Marily submitted to the board is very consistent with our prior conversations, but I have in commented on the specifics. So thank you for the opportunity, Madam Chair, but um. No, I, I, I, I’m good. Thank you. Um, all right, with that, I would defer to members of the board, um, Rosie, you’re welcome to go first if you’d like, or if others have clarifying questions, um. Rosie wrote a memos, Rosie had a memo for us. I think um my first um, thought is that Um The the middle campus that um. The exceptions for the um. speed restriction, um, do you want this is a copy of your, OK, thank you. Thank you. Yeah, so they. Um OK, so let’s start with there’s a, there’s been a change in what we understand is the upper, middle and lower campus, um, specifically to the buildings, the gatehouse. And the retreat house had been moved to the um to the upper campus from the the middle campus, um, and so that’s, that’s a change, um, I, I think that needs to be discussed further, um, about what, what would happen to the to those buildings, um. I think and I, a question about that. So I think when we talked in January. The idea was that there there would be no expansion to those buildings that at the time we were talking about middle campus, which is the ones you’re referring to, and then I think since that time and one of the changes to Rosie’s point is that y’all do have an interest in expanding and increasing the buildings on that little campus, and that was, that did come as a surprise. I thought we were saying. That the footprint of that middle campus would not change, but then those moved to the upper campus. So yeah, I’m not aware that we agreed to that and I it was definitely raised, right? You raised the, the question about whether they’d be expanded, um, and my, I don’t know, I know with, with counsel, we’ve been talking about that as a necessity that we would need to at this point just understand the seminary has now moved a number of its administrative staff into the retreat house, uh, and so they’ll be running the, this administration. there, and it’s likely that there will need to be some expansion of that building at some point, so, and similarly, you know, the gatehouse, uh, it’s, it’s tucked in there. There’s some flat land it, it would be a reasonable building to, to, uh, to expand, uh, you know, undoubtedly, uh, you know, there’s there’s just they’re, they’re ripe for being able to expand a little bit to provide uh provide use for the seminary for its work. Uh, so again, we’re we’re giving up the ability to Create residential units, uh, so we couldn’t sell those buildings and then have someone come in and put residential without coming back and, and changing that. So, uh, the uses would be under Dover. Yep. And in terms of reactivating dorms that currently are not in use. Do you have a plan or a projection of how many you would bring back online. Well, there are the possibility is that the ones that are up on the top and they’re not all offline, they’re, they’re students staying up in the up in care building, uh, it would really just be a resumption of what was going on 10 years ago, 15 years ago, 20 years ago, uh, in fact, I, I, I lived down in one of the, the apartment buildings in the mid-nineties and you couldn’t find a parking spot. I mean that was just, uh, it’s, it’s it’s ebbed and flow through the years, so it would not tax any more than what’s happened historically. Uh, so with selling the apartment buildings, the hope is that students will continue to rent. It’s just we won’t own them. We’ll now be tenants or our students will be tenants, so there’s an intention and hope that, uh, some of the, the students will still rent from there, particularly the married students, uh, because the, it’s more, more or less the single ones that would be living on the upper campus. Um, right, and, and the families are people that come for a longer period of time, you would just Put them somewhere you’re not thinking about expanding to add additional student housing. I, I, I’m not aware of adding additional plans to add additional housing at this point, uh, again, there are going to be 209 units, uh, that you can ask the, the buyers whether they’re gonna be interested in in renting to the seminary or the seminary students, uh, my understanding is that that’s certainly something that will be available for that, uh, and they’re well suited for seminary families because they’ve been there for 50 years. OK, so I think one of the things that is a little confusing is you talk about um you want to put businesses, small businesses in the in the existing buildings um up on the upper campus. Now you’re talking about in the event it’s sold as part of the overlay district or are you talking? Currently, as, as is owned by Gordon Conwell. Well, the hope would be that if if we could lease out some of those spaces that that would provide us with revenues that would contribute to the bottom line of the seminary, so and retain ownership, uh, so that’s the idea is that some of these could be repurposed again in the in the short term for cash flow purposes and then the decisions could be made in terms of whether those were needed buildings, etc. but uh yeah, it would be within the, the same square footage. Uh, of, of the buildings and the footprints of the buildings is, is the concept is just the pre-existing buildings not expanding and if we expand them, then it’s subject to special permit from the planning board in the event that it’s sold under Dover, you have, you have the right to do virtually anything, so I’m, I’m. feeling like the two issues are being conflated a little bit, so under, under Dover you can expand for educational or um. Or religious purposes and you wouldn’t need any type of a special permit, so I don’t, I, I’m not quite sure what you’re referring to when you say if you expanded, you would need a special permit. Do you, do you see my? Sure, yeah, no, I’m sorry if that’s confusing. So what I’m saying is that uh the, the uses the commercial business professional office, those kinds of uses would be uh in the existing buildings, so and the footprint, the square footage that they are, that’s what would govern those. Uh, yes, certainly under Dover if the seminary wanted to add to any of the buildings that can do that or add a new building, certainly. So and I guess this is the first I’ve I’ve heard of this particular idea from seminary and I’m wondering how putting commercial businesses would fit under the Dover Amendment. Can you explain that? Sure, well, that’s the thing. So again, this is a two step process so the the the select board is it will reach an agreement with us hopefully and, and then we can go to the, the planning board for. the zoning overlay district. So this would be part of the zoning overlay district and we’ve become a, a permitted use as a matter of right under the overlay. That’s, that’s pretty confusing, um, he did the Dover Amendment, uh, so, so you’re talking about. Sounds like where the Dover Amendment is convenient, the seminary would like to continue to use that, um, but I honestly don’t understand how a religious organization under Dover Amendment and all of those properties up there are, I mean, all of those buildings up there are built and maintained under the Dover Amendment. So how can they under the Dover Amendment be used for uh commercial businesses. I, I don’t understand. Sure, yeah, well, they wouldn’t under the Dover Amendment rights No, in other words, the seminary would retain its Dover Amendment rights to build what it needed for its mission, for its religious and educational purposes as it has for 50 years and as every charity and religious and educational institution does all across the country. Uh, so that would just continue. There’d be no change to that. But what we’re looking for is an agreement here that would then go to the planning board and the planning board is gonna design an overlay district. And one of the components of the overlay district will be the ability to use pre-existing buildings for the purposes of commerce and business and and professional office. Does that make sense overlays. Commercial on a Dover amendment property. Is there a precedent that we could look at? Well, it’s, it’s, yeah, it’s not needed. So in other words, the, the town, the planning board in the town at town meeting can vote to create whatever zone it wants so it can do an overlay district to do an overlay district over, you know, the entire Browns Hill and, and other acreage, right? Uh, it, it then that land as long as it’s owned by a religious or initiation institution can be used for religious or educational purposes under the Dover Amendment can improved under the Dover Amendment, but those improvements, any buildings have to be used then for educational and religious purposes. So the zone right now it’s zoned single family residences one acre zoning, but there isn’t a single one family residence on the place, uh, I guess maybe won the gatehouse or something, right? But there, we haven’t built any of those, we could, but then once you build them and sell them, and they’re no longer owned by the educational institutions, so they would not be subject then to to Dover. So the is here that we’re proposing would be under a, a zoning overlay district and they’d be permitted under the overlay district as we just zone the upper campus for um your your benefit. I, I don’t understand. I think it’s like when you put a Starbucks in a building owned by a college. I think that’s what we’re talking about, that the overlay applies to the existing buildings, the same way, like in any college campus, you’re saying you can put in a for-profit. Bookstore, boutique, anything like that. I think that’s what he’s referencing right now, because the underlying zoning is single family, they cannot do that. But if the overlay were to happen, It’s the, they basically get the best of both worlds. You can build under Dover, but you can lease for profit so my I guess my question on that would be to John Whitten, um, John, in that scenario. If the seminary is leasing a portion of its existing property to a for-profit business, the town would have the right to assess taxes to the for-profit business for that portion of the property that’s being leased. Yeah, that’s, that’s absolutely correct. I mean, the Dover exemptions go for the portions of the parcel that are used for religious or educational purposes and not to others. So as long as the property is used for the charitable purpose, not just the property tax exemption, but 48 Section 3 will apply. The moment that there is a change to the use away from the religious or educational purpose. Then it’s open both to the assessors and to the applicability of zoning. Um, if, if I could, Madam Chair, just to respond to, to two other things. I think Marin might have misspoken in terms of the upper campus proposal, my sense is those uses would be by special permit, not by right. Um, Mary and I, that, that was my understanding based, based on I, I, I thought the direction, so if it’s, if I’m correct, and it’s by special permit, that would give the town obvious control over those proposed uses as opposed to by right, and then let me just say the second part, and then I’ll, and then I’ll stop, uh, and then relative to spot zoning, that’s always an issue every time a parcel of land is changed to a different designation from other parcels. There’s a possible argument of spot zoning. The, the issue is, is it a singling out for disparate treatment from all the land surrounding it and in this case, I think the answer there would be no. Generally speaking, spots. is a deliberate attempt to create something that is not consistent with everything else around it. When you adopt an overlay district that almost removes the notion of spot zoning, because there’s an intent to create this new district. So the problem with spot zoning is it’s very hard to generalize. You kind of know it when you see it. In my opinion, overlay districts by themselves do not constitute spot zoning, but again, the devil’s always in the details. Thank you, Madam Chair. Do you guys have a, is there a cafeteria on campus or was there at some point? Yeah, there was a cafeteria there manages the cafeteria now it it’s, it’s different, so it’s been in-house at times. I think it’s been, uh, there’s an external vendor. I’m not sure now whether there’s there’s a third party vendor runs a food service for profit. What’s the difference between opening up a food service specifically for the educational and religious abuses and it and it only serves their, their community, the, the for profit businesses would be. serving the wider community so if they, if they did open a Starbucks at the top of the hill, anybody in town could drive up to the top of the hill and go to Starbucks. So just if I can just mention attorney Whitten’s point, uh, the, the current draft does distinguish between expansion of the pre-existing buildings, so our, our hope would be that we could have the site plan approval. I’m not sure it’ll be necessary, but that it would be a matter of right for existing, the pre-existing buildings without any changes. So for example, if, if a counseling center wanted to rent space in what is currently the academic center. There are a number of offices there that we’d be able to do that, uh. We’re, we’re not sure that we could easily do that currently, but under the zoning overlay without need for a special permit, but if we were to uh build or expand the footprint or the square not change the square footage, but expand the footprint, then it would be subject to special permit. That’s, that’s the proposal at this point. Because you would be expanding, not for religious or ethic. Correct. Yeah, yeah, to expand the uses under under the the zoning overlay district, um, but we’re trying to, we’re trying to get to a position where we could lease out space without a lot of hurdles so that we can get the revenues coming and again, it would be taxable so it’d be added to that number that the, the seminary would be generating for the town, so John, the the taxes, you said once you’re, once you’re You go into commercial, what percentage of the property gets assessed for taxes at that point. Well, the, the assessors will have a formula um in my experience with that formula is it’s very site specific, so they’ll be the percentage of the 102 acres that are not devoted to religious practices or religious purposes, and that amount of land not devoted to the seminary would be subject to the assessment uh as full fair market value. So it would be treated as if it were. any other parcel without overprotection. So it’s hard to say, man, uh, in terms of how much land we’re talking about. So the seminary would have to defend its nonprofit status, and it’s tax exempt status once the overlay district were adopted because now there are portions of the land that the seminar is going to claim is devoted to religious practice, and then there’s going to be portions of the campus that will. will not be, and the assessor’s mission, of course, is to find taxable revenue, so it, it, it’s going to be. It’s hard to generalize. What is not subject to Dover is going to be open for taxation and applicable for the overlay district, um, without any of the Dover protections baked in. So, so for example, the town has Asbury Grove in, in our Tax rolls. Asbury Grove is a religious organization and the land of the entire site is uh. owned by the nonprofit entity, but the individual houses that are are. Lived in and owned there are separate, and they are owned by individuals who don’t have Dover protection, so the town in the town annually assesses taxes on the building structures only on the properties in the, in the uh in the grove so that we can get back the taxes that are owed on what is not part of the reliious like if, if you You have people. In classrooms and in dorms in her, and then you put a couple of offices in there. Does that whole building become a taxable property, or is it specific to the percentage of what like does, does one commercial business in a building create a taxable entity or do you actually shield yourself from that because as long as 60% of the building is still for religious purposes, you don’t forego. I think the town would make an argument that at least a portion is being leased to a private entity, and we’ve calculate that. square footage or some percentage of the overall we’d we’d seek taxes on that part that’s being rented made that argument to at at the least. What’s that you make that argument to whom? Well, we’d make that argument to them then they’d have to try to dissuade us as to why we’re wrong. So let me just run through a scenario, right? just so I understand, right? So overlay district, the existing buildings, put a couple offices in, right? So you got 208. Beautiful apartments down at the bottom of the hill. There’s now Starbucks, and there’s a Dunkin’ Donuts, and there’s a dry cleaner, and then there’s, I mean, how far do you go? I mean, what if you turn the whole thing into a commercial property because you’re making so much money. I mean, I’m trying to understand what, where’s this thing stop. Once you have an overlay district, well, that’ll be, so that’ll be, so I believe their proposals to work with the planning board on what would be allowed under the under the uh Overlay District and they’d already said that they weren’t proposing retail uses in the overlay district. So, um, that as, as you say the, the, the, the fine details would have to be worked out by the planning board, um. And this is a, this is significant narrowing. The planning board, uh, generously had a whole list of uses that went, you know, the R&D and medical uses, etc. so we’re saying we don’t necessarily need all of that. Uh, we would, you know, we’d be able to, we think it would help us to be able to do office space and professional things in business, that sort of thing. Uh, but eventually it could be 100% of the building, it could be commercial. If it did really well. Well, a lot of draft, the development agreement. Only outlines. The The later step of working with the planning board on whatever the development group, whatever the overlay district would be, that would then go to a town vote later. Until such time as that happens. Everything’s in stasis on the upper campus. And then We would, we would give it to Marty. Marty with that. Be developing said she looks so excited at the prospect. Yeah Um, because I think. Yeah, I, I think that there’s, I, what I’m sort of understanding is that we tried to sell the, the camp, the whole thing and nobody, nobody wanted it lovingly. The market. The market spoke wanted it and then we still need an influx of cash, so we have this bottom. And now we realize we have this big set of buildings and we need to monetize these buildings. Um. I think the challenge will be what level of comfort the town has with monetizing those buildings and what level of control. We have because if you can keep Building under that overlay and adding more businesses, I think that’s counter to the spirit of the agreement, which is, yeah, that wouldn’t be the intention, right? That’s why we’re, we’ve focused it in on pre-existing buildings. new staff and others out, build new buildings for them and then fill that up. No, cause it’s just, it’s just a pre-existing so it’s governed by the square footage and the footprint of the pre-existing building is that part of the Phased approach of turning that to business versus, you know, used for the that no, that’s, I mean, that’s, it’s not connected. It would, it would work out to be that, you know, but right now it’s a matter of consolidation, right? So that we can just keep them in in heat buildings, etc. and not have to, it sounded to me as if that’s more to service the businesses in there versus having, you know, the community come in there, or am I wrong? I is for I think they’re the the I think there of the overlay allows for Restaurants, then they would be open to the public restaurants because this is now a part of our commercial district in town. I didn’t know if it was more like a cafeteria for the businesses and within it would be it’s a flip the bird. It’s no pun intended. I didn’t mean, I, I literally meant the rest. I wonder what their special sandwich would be for us, right? Yeah, well I think it’s, it’s just, just to answer the question, the governing factor here is the square footage. of the buildings and the footprints of the pre-existing buildings, so that’s, that’s the idea is what’s there if you, if we want to move it a foot, we’re in front of the planning board for a special permit. So it’s, it’s not a matter of, so if we go build a new building, we can’t use it under the new zoning cause it, we could use it in our zone, uh, uh, Dover amendment, but it’s not a pre-existing at the time of the passing of the, of the zone. I understand. How, what governs or ensures, like, what’s the bar for proving that it’s for religious or academic purposes. Like How, how like you could be like, oh, we’re we’re, and I’m not saying you’re doing this, but like we need another administrative building for offices for people on campus, and then 6 months later, be like, oh, we, we didn’t need them. And then if that becomes. No, because again, the govern, it’s, it’s, when you pass the bylaw and we sign this agreement, the pre-existing buildings. That’s it, those, yeah, yeah, we’d have to come back, you know, you’d have to have another change of the zone, etc. So where we are now, and I welcome many more questions because I’m not tired at all, um. I Yeah, I just, it’s still, it’s still previous time, yeah, um. The uh, the seminary, uh, They, they were really hoping we were going to vote on this in April. We’re not, um, and, and they know that, but they’re, they, the hope is that we would be able to vote on zoning changes, um. And at the same time that we do a special time meeting in June if that’s the decision of the board. I won’t be here. Um, but We, we need to get to 99% on this agreement, and we, we are, I think we feel we’re at 86.5 we’re needing I think um for I think it’s the 4th time that’s been set down. I think the devils are the details, and I think the problem right now is that the, the trust and the dance that’s happening in those details is, is part of the challenge, which is We don’t want to do anything that Locks the town down 50 years from now into a situation where we have decrepit buildings that we can’t sell that are there that aren’t do anything, um, but neither do we want so much flexibility that we have 6 flip the birds and 3 Starbucks, and, you know, 19 therapists, though I will go see one, in that building and so my question may be to John Whitten is like, how do we tighten the screws? Here To address some of, I think, I think Rosie had a couple of good points in her email about clarifying. Some of those use cases, like, are there still screws to be tightened or do we need to look at the version as it, as it is now. That, that, that’s the question I have is like, let’s say plot everything well great got 9, a lot of money for the town, 9 points, but the zoning on the upper campus is the overlay is what we’re sort of but. How, what is that process that now, now it has to go to planning board. They write it and then it get voted on by Tom Meat. What happens if all that gets voted down or gets changed, like what happens then to the whole agreement on the upper campus and do whatever they do under Dover. And everything else stays the same? No, if, if we I mean, actually, no, if, if, you know, the overlay district’s also gonna to actually provide the ability for the apartments to be operated separately without any, you know, for the apartments, not the overlay for the uppers, it’s one overlay district, so so has has to has to pass in order for this is not, there’s not a phased approach. It’s all or nothing. No, the development of it as a phased approach, but it’s a singular overlay district. Yes, and, and we’re looking for those for this select board to vote the the the agreement, right? So we’ll get the development agreement because the, the chair of the planning board can speak to it, but she’s, she’s wanting us to do this first, and then, then she’ll move it into the, uh, the planning board. So if we can get that done now, then she’ll be free to moves Hello Marnie. Please come to the mic on December 19th, 2023. You have a mind like an elephant. Continue the planning not. Me personally, personally, but the planning board voted to pause our efforts on the brown seal overlay district to permit the negotiation of a development agreement and here we are 14 months later. I mean, that’s speedy. We’re we’re 86.5% there. Look at Osco, so. Uh, I, I have one comment so if the seminary is now a landlord. Mm Are they a religious when or educational institution. They’re now a landlord. I, I wonder what happens to your Dover Amendment rights under that scenario I, I have. A question about that, um, the other thing under Dover. The seminary can expand the footprints of its buildings. And then A year later We don’t need them and then they can be commercial. Uh, available for some type of commercial development. So the, the predicate of all this is that there’s some demand for businesses or offices and, and I personally doubt that. I think that if anything there’s more demand for residential development, um, in, in town than it is for another, uh, area for commercial or business development. I, I don’t see that as a, as really that viable. Now I’m not an economist, but um, I think the market spoke and there was no interest in it at all, uh, but I would surmise that um that the um Residential development or senior housing or something like that could be very attractive. Um, the other point I’d make is that the Brownsville overlay district that the planning board, uh. Worked on for for many many months does not appear to have garnered much interest and so I don’t look at that necessarily as a springboard for uh uh an overlay district along the lines of what’s set forth, uh, in the term sheet that I saw. And I, I have Just I, I saw those terms and and I was confused by them. I mean, there was no specific uh provision that said the underlying zoning would be eliminated now the planning board took one vote with respect to the brown till overlay district and that was to eliminate the underlying zoning. So that’s not even mentioned to remove the residential zoning. The one acre, the one acre to remove residential, just the one acre uh risk of the 50 some um. I make mansions. Uh, so, and the other thing. That, that, that’s a real possibility because the is that the the seminary under chapter 48 section 5 as a property owner. can propose its own overlay district. So what happened was the planning board worked on the overlay district and we waited many months and when we finally got the seminaries’s response to our overlay district. Um, it was not. Uniformly positive would would say that. So I, I’m thinking. Why doesn’t the seminary draft the overlay district and under that scenario the planning board issues a report with recommendations. We’re flipping the scenario, but the seminary knows. Has a great idea of what it wants. And it should know what. Needs to be in an overlay dis. Yeah. They can draft it. I mean, we’re all volunteers. No one’s paying me to draft it. Well, I think it takes part of the challenge with the first round overlay was the ambiguity of what success looked like, right? Because we needed to, there were multiple possibilities for how it might be sold and how it might be broken out, and I think what we’re saying here is Keep you honest. There, there’s, there’s no if this happens on the middle, then this happens on the upper and this happens on the lower. We’re deciding what happens on the lower and part of the middle. And so the overlay is really Now narrowed to the remaining, well, now what they’re calling upper. Well, actually, the overlay is the entire campus. No, no, I know, but before the question was what if they wanted to sell them separately and they wanted to do this like, we’ve taken 2/3 of it off the table through the development agreement to say this is what we’re saying would happen, right, but my understanding is that what if circumstances change, I would assume that the seminary would. retain its right to sell the upper, but the overlay camp is going to stay with the property, not with. That’s the beauty of it, but the overlay they’re contemplating uh. retains all the existing buildings not saying in, in, in, in a year or two, but say. 10 or 15 years, but We just don’t know what will happen in that period of time, but a developer could come in and demolish all the buildings. I mean that the understanding that I have is that that that the buildings really are not that adaptable to, to, to some uses and so if For example, a senior housing project could be lucrative on that site. Some of those buildings could be demolished, so an overlay district has to account for that eventuality as well. Agreed, yeah. So it’s, it’s, it’s a very complicated process and so the terms that you see don’t have any reference to uh buffer zones along the edges of the properties and what happens with trash and all the other types of things, uh, that are, are in zoning bylaws, so. Um It it’s, it’s a big job to try and get it right, the planning board made every effort, but now, um, the circumstances have changed, and I, and I don’t think our um overlay district that that we work so hard on, um. Has much uh. I don’t know how it could could accommodate this type of um. Of development, I think you’d almost have to start a little bit from scratch. I mean, they’re, they’re elements that you could grab from that, but, uh, I don’t know that it’s, uh, Is that that that that this vision is what the planning board envisioned when it started working. I mean, would, would it? Truly be Like, would you be open to that original draft of the Overlay district coming from The seminary as a starting point. Yeah, like, yeah, yeah they would have to look at it, but what happened was that that the seminary eventually after so much encouragement provided us with a red line version of our brown overlay district and by there wasn’t much left bleeding, yeah, I remembered very red. OK. And so, so, uh, Again, uh, you know that the There’s this, there’s this real tension between the Dover Amendment rights and and the commercial development of the upper campus because uh and, and I, I don’t mean this in negatively, but you have to think about this because if you’re a landlord and you’re renting. Uh, space to businesses. That’s not within Dover. Let’s just wonder if there’s a precedent like what precedent do you look at for us to sort of understand what that Amendment protects religious and educational, I’m just asking for press another Dover facility that rents out commercial space. Is there one? I, I’ve never encountered one because it’s antithetical to religious and education that’s what I was wondering if there’s some, you know, it’s obviously a Starbucks in a, in a, in a, in a, uh, a classroom type of setting it’s probably, it might happen. But you know, if the primary objective is to rent out a whole section of a building. That’s not a religious or an educational use, that, that’s a business. Seminary is no longer religious and educational. It’s, it’s involved in business, so I don’t mean that negatively. No, well, I think I, I think that there’s a couple of streams here. One is, so we have to sort, no, I boards rolled to swirl. Just. Yeah, John, um, so I real fast, John, I see you’re off of mute. I, I think that There, there are questions which pertaining to the development agreement and what this board wants to see in that development agreement, which is a component of a larger initiative, which is then the overlay district, which is then the, the devil in the details of, of what that overlay pertains to and what is Dover and what is that, and that’s, I think what we’re saying is there’s the development agreement and then there’s a, an educational period of time whereby lawyers and not me, um. dig into what would even be. Legally feasible within that overlay agreement relative to Dover, because I don’t also want to go through the process of like developing an overlay district that then doesn’t hold water in court and I’m sure what, what I, what I’d say is the, the, your, your question a few moments ago is, is really the correct one, which is what goes in the development agreement and what goes into the overlay district and it’s fine to have a lot of overlap, but the development agreement is a contract, zoning. can change based on town meeting. And because we don’t have a master plan requirement in Massachusetts, zoning can change whenever time meeting wants it to change. So there’s very little predictability on the long term protection of zoning. So the town’s best protection would be through the development agreements, contractual, the seminary would be contractually giving up rights in exchange for promises from the town and then with the hope of the overlay district. The overlay district is the literal definition of kind of moving the deck chairs around, so it is going to be where things can go and what the scope of the parking lot configurations can be. The development agreement is a much broader contractual obligation that the town is trying to get the seminary to execute to protect against future land uses that even if it were prohibited by zoning. wouldn’t give you enough protection because zoning can always change. So the development agreement gives the select board in the town an opportunity to lock down portions of the parcel that you all agree should be locked down, and of course it’s consensual. The seminar is going to have to agree to this as well. So I would use the development agreement for the broad strokes and use the overlay district for the minutia importance, but still minutia. So I, that’s how I see it and that’s how we’ve always kind of approach this is the development agreement contract is, these are the things I promise to the town with the idea that the overlay district is going to allow other things to occur. And I, I think to, for the select board to use the development agreement to get the prohibitions that you think are the most important prohibitions for the future long term. That’s a good use of the development agreement because the overlay district is going to permit certain things subject to zoning. The development agreement, the whole notion is to limit the possibility of certain things from happening, even if they’re allowed in zoning, the development agreement would prohibit them, and the development agreement is going to control, and that’s the power of the development agreement. Do you think that Dover rights can be abdicated in a development agreement and can be upheld. No, my, my opinion is they cannot and or even if they could, I would not recommend it, and the reason why is, this is Massachusetts. We’ve seen each and every of the Dover Amendment cases turn in favor of the institution, not in favor of the municipality with only one exception, that’s the La Salle College case. Every single time, including the Belmont Church, including Boston College, Tufts University, where I teach the institution always prevails because of the way. Section 3 has been interpreted. So I would not want to push that button because I could see a potential plaintiff down the road, not necessarily this. Current occupant, but somebody else who would say it violates public policy to give up rights that the court has so clearly granted. I, I could be wrong, I could, I could be right. It really doesn’t matter. It’s just something worth avoiding if you can. And I don’t think the development agreement should per se say the seminary abandons its Dover rights rather what it could say is the following uses and structures shall not be permitted on the lower campus. who are on the middle campus or on the upper campus. I, I think that’s a better way. Of approaching it as opposed to full take on of 48 section 3. I, I, I would not recommend that. OK. I think it’s a more circuitous but still a more effective path to that, and that’s really what, what I think Marilyn is saying to, to the board tonight, which is here are the things we’re agreeing to prohibit. And I, I think that’s the way to approach it, not to ask the seminary to waive their Dover rights because what happens, I’m sure I’ll just go on for one more second. What happens if the seminary flips the property to the Catholic Church or flips the property to some other religious order, uh, we’re not going to agree or, or I think take without a fight, their ability to pursue Dover protections. I, I, I think this is something worth avoiding taking on head on, and there’s a better way to do it contractually. That, that’s just my advice. OK May I ask? Marilyn bore John to either of you have any information related to the question that Marty raised about your ability to be landlords and maintain your Dover protection. I’d be happy to look into it. My, my understanding and it may be attorney Whitten has as well, you know, I think Harvard owns millions of dollars’ worth of real estate that they just, they just rented out. Uh, so I, I think it’s a pretty typical thing, but it becomes unrelated business income. You’ve got to file taxes, you’re, you know, it’s, there are a number of Complexity so but they’re not and the personal property tax on the businesses around themselves. That’s good. It’s triple dipping not triple dipping. It’s, it’s dipping 3 times but, but well, it’s, it’s one of the advantages we said, right, is, is if this, this is something that would generate more tax revenue to the town in addition to the apartments. I think so. Oh, sorry, John, go ahead. Yeah, no, no, thank you, man. I was just gonna, I agree with marijuana, uh, I mean, I can think of several examples where there are educational institutions benefiting from Dover, uh, but they do have a Starbucks or they do have food service or they do have for profit entities. What, what happens is the institution doesn’t lose its Dover protections. What it does do is have to pay taxes on that square footage because that square footage is not dedicated to religious purposes. The Dover protect is broad and global, it may get lost for tax purposes or it may get lost for some use purposes, but the seminary would not be at risk, in my opinion, of losing its Dover protection from its that is entitled to because it had a for-profit enterprise working within the campus. So, I mean, and we just, we have so many examples out there. Harvard is a good one. I, I’m just thinking personally a tough. I, I can think of. Several instances where for-profit agencies and organizations are working within a Dover protected use, the city collects taxes, but the Dover protection still apply. And I’m the president introduce the buyer so we could and then, and then we’re gonna. Um, good evening. Good to be here. I thought that since the buyer, one of the buyers is here tonight, you see that he really does exist. This is Vince McNutt, you want to just introduce yourself? Sure. Excellent. Everyone, uh, Vincent McNutt, um, on behalf of the buyer as they mentioned, my partner, Alex Wester couldn’t be here tonight, um, although he is a very local, uh, graduate of Hamilton’s on Zoom. Oh yes, he’s on Zoom, right. Hey Alex, um, we just wanted to thank everyone for, for their efforts, you know, the, the town boards, the, the neighbors, Gordon Conwell, um, 86.5 is an encouraging number. That’s a good percentage, so you know we’re, we’re happy to hear that, you know, and, and, and we’re here to, to work collaborative collaboratively with with everybody and we look forward to a resolution and providing some, some needed uh housing to the, to the community. So we’re here. We’re, we’re a local group and any questions, you know, please don’t hesitate to, to reach out to anybody involved here. So thank you all. We, we appreciate the time thanks. Yeah, I mean, if you told me there was an 86% chance of rain, I would take an umbrella. So That feels positive. Um, so we We will not be taking a vote. To to codify anything here. What I do think I would like to hear from the board is, are there clarifying questions that we feel we need to ask because I think the, the amount of work that’s going to have to happen between meetings to take this further is a lot. Um, And are there things already that you do or do not see represented here. That you think we need to better represent? In order to get the development agreement. I think I, I hear from John that like we need to maybe codify some of those grayer areas in this, um, But then I think there’s a, a separate workflow, which is the overlay, but I specifically for the development agreement, do folks on the board feel like they have the information, or at least the questions for that information to feel like we can make progress. I applaud the progress. I think it’s, I mean. A joke about the time, but it’s very quick and a lot of processes in our book, so applaud that. I still am questioning though the commercial aspect of the overlay, which I don’t have a problem with it in theory. I just think about 20 years down the road, what does it look like? So I’m looking at worst case scenario. To put it in an office space or a coffee shop or whatever. Doesn’t seem to make a problem, but what happens 10 years down? I I I think that’s where we do go back to the overlay, the original overlay to see how those use cases were handled, right? Cause the original Brown’s overlay had commercial commercial, yeah. We’re basically just saying there’s commercial. But they still own it but if commercial is limited to the existing buildings and you kind of know what the worst case scenario is right now pluses and mins are both one. I don’t, I, I actually like most of the plan. I just want to see what it would look like, modeled to look like in 1010 or 20 years. OK. So it feels like we have consensus to continue to move forward. But we have some very clear. Next steps, I think with John. Yeah Um, Madam Chair, what, what do you want from me and from the seminar? Right, the overlay district cake. Alright. Um, I, I do, I do think that, uh, to Marie’s point, um, you know, The the first. The previous attempts at the Overlay district were thwarted for a number of reasons, one of which is like we don’t know what’s in y’all’s head, and I think you, it would be in the best seminary to, to just be fairly honest about what’s in your head and what it is you really want. Um, we’re good at saying no. Um, we’re known for it. Um, but I think that’s a better starting place than, than restarting a process that requires, you know, to Marty’s point for us to tick and tie something that ultimately isn’t going to work, um, and I think to focus that specifically on The, what we’re now defining as the middle campus, I think making sure that anything that we thought of before aligns to this map and we’re all using the same map is also important, um. But even if you could get a straw man of what you think that development agreement looks like I think that overlay district Overlay District. The Venn diagram of the overlay versus the, the, the development agreement, I think that allows us to see what those things that are caught in the middle are so that we can decide what if that needs to be codified in this before we move forward, um, so if that feels fair, I think, I think we go from there, um, I think the only other thing we haven’t discussed is some assumptions about the. Um, 209 units and the 11 acres associated. Last we talked, it was nothing about the footprint changes, nothing about, there’s no additional expansion on that property. Yeah, if I could speak to that. Yes, please. Yeah, so because there’s they they’re, they’re paired up, the two, there are 3 pairs of buildings, uh, Harbor Light had had proposed and it, it, it, it, it was to connect the buildings, there’s no elevators in them right now. So it would provide the ability to put an elevator stack between each building, perhaps some amenity space is a common room, uh, laundry facil. that sort of thing. So that, that’s what we’re hoping we could have just that according to site plan. I, I, I think the planning board is OK with that concept that a certain amount could be expanded just to connect the buildings, not to add any more apartment units, but just to be able to put in, uh, shared, shared uh facilities like that. So I think that’s a great example of like, we need very specific language about what is allowed, how much is allowed, can you, you know, are you pouring pavement and doing foundations and to what degree, um. So that we know at least square footage like how big do you expect this? Will there need to then be maintenance roads to and from those things, how, you know, I think, but it’s yeah yeah yeah so I, I again, I think I don’t want us to just like assume that, well, that’s, that’s going over there. But I, I think that also needs to be represented in that would be part of your overlay, what you’re this is what you’re talking about for part of the overlay to develop connections and um expansion for elevator use, yes. Right, right, yeah, we just, you know, we’re reviewing the development as a way of making sure that everybody in the town understands what we’re all agreeing to. And some of it is going to be fleshed out in the overlay district, but we, you know, it’s, they have to go together, so we can’t have one without the other. They both have to pass but I do think the preservation of like Our assumption. Or at least expectation is that there is no meaningful expansion of the footprint of that 11 acres and those 3 buildings. That’s, yeah, that’s correct. That’s not the intention, yeah That’s, yeah, that’s correct. That’s not the intention, yeah I ask clarifying question? So the two purple pieces that are that are the, what you’re now calling the lower campus and huge house the buildings. I see that they both intentionally have frontage on, uh, Woodbury, is that just to make sure that you have a way to, or do you plan to offer a recommended. alternative uh site access to those locations? Oh yeah, great question. No, there’s no intention of changing it. It was to just get frontage off of the roads for A&R purposes. Yeah we need to flesh that out in the overlay district too that you had, they had the, the sites both have frontage, but there, there is no plan to use them, but the frontage is there so if it changed in the future for access, right? I mean it would require coming back to planning board at that point. OK, um, I was gonna say I’m happy to open as long as the board is comfortable, we’ll open to any public comment. Irwin, thank you so much for joining us. I’m sure we’ll be in touch as soon as tomorrow. Hello. Hi, I’m Valerie Peck. Um, I’m an abutter at 37 Miles River Road, and I’m going to be very brief, I promise. But it’s still very unclear to me where things that are going to affect a butters are going to be contained, whether it be the developer’s agreement, or the overlay district and specifically, as we get into the realm of commercial hours of operation. I mean, we are all, it’s a neighborhood of homes, it’s not a, you know, 24 hour dry cleaning service. It’s not, you know, we’re not going to let the light um, buffer zones, you know, I, I think that I felt very comfortable when the planning board was involved because I think they were very sensitive to what is the predominant nature, and I still, I don’t want to drag this out, but I still have a lot of concerns that this agreement is already going before the board, and if that is what’s going to run with the property, if that’s going to protect us in light of future zoning changes. I think it’s really important that abutter’s issues are also addressed and I just literally have this two pages, I guess is all it is, I think, and I want time to kind of digest it and and understand legally where our protection is, isn’t a butter and a taxpayer to bring this out in the light so that you can start, and, and there was no intention for a vote tonight. No. And we stop and we still have to write the zoning bylaw. It has not been written yet, but I’m. So things like buffer, buffer zones, lighting, you know, no parties at 3 in the morning for a, you know, disco ball thing that’s that’s that’s not in the agreement. Which are the types of things that usually handle in zoning. They’re not handled and it has to be voted on town meetings. So unless how many votes and passes it, nothing happens, even if we vote for it, it doesn’t pass until town meeting passes it by 2/3 vote. So it’s we do the development agreement and then we do, and, and then there’s the overlay district and that package goes together to town meeting and it either all votes up or it all goes down. OK, and my, and my last comment then is it per John though it said that something that really provides the protection in his long-lasting is the developers’s agreement, not the, not the overlay. So I’m more concerned that permitted uses are flushed out in the dra in the developer’s agreement then and then the overlay. For, for long term protection, so I just wanna make sure sure that, that are here, some some and that’s where I think John like My understanding was that permitted uses sat within the overlay. Always, but Is there an opportunity for per permitted or at least prohibited uses to be in the development agreement? Yes. Yeah, absolutely. So the, the development agreement could have categorically prohibited uses and that would be because it’s a voluntary agreement, the two parties can agree on what those prohibitions are. So yes, I, I, I think it’s belt and suspenders a little bit, so if it is duplicated in the overlay district, that’s fine. But the concern, certainly from the abutters, but I think from the town as a whole, the concern is, can we contractually Limit the future uses on this property, and the answer clearly is yes, and then the overlay district can further limit but also provide some relief for things that the the town wants to support. That’s the whole purpose of a special permit and or site plan review. But, but I think that’s why you start with the development agreement. What are the things we can both agree on that will be prohibited now and forever. Anything that has a disco ball, OK, no, no disco balls and noise, noise, lights. A bell factory and kennels. Yes, OK. So I think this is great. I know it’s getting late, um, there is not a vote to be had here. We have two other quick items. Um, is there any other? Public comment Right. Nothing here, nothing here. OK, wow. Alright, um. The next is the approval of a date for a special town meeting in June, um. The options on the table, we’ve vetted this with Corinne, we wanted to do it as close to the end of schools as we could, but we have Thursday, June 26th, or sorry, Thursday, June 26th or Monday, June. 29th, I may have those dates wrong. Hold on. 30th is a 2. 28. Yeah, Thursday, June 26th or Monday, June 30th. Does anybody have a preference? First, huh? Thursday. It’s a special town meeting. Yeah? Uh, I think we did 6:30 last time. OK. Either day I’m out. I’m not here. I’m in Florida both days, um, so I mean tentatively let’s say because even if you have to move to 50, that’s OK, so if somebody can make a motion to approve a special time meeting on Thursday, June 26th. I would be grateful. 22nd, uh, all in favor, uh, last, uh, I would like, uh, do you want a motion for June for March 24th? For the remote only well we just have this discussion. I don’t think we need a motion. We just want to make sure everybody knows that the March 24th meeting cannot be held in this room. The library has rebooked this room and that’s not our normal meeting night so we have to do that meeting by Zoom only. The key part for that for the board to understand is that that is the night that you’re going to, um, you know, finalize your, you’re gonna vote on all the, on your recommendations for all the warrant articles and. That morning, then that, that night or the next morning, I have to circulate the signature page for the warrant so that that’s signed when the warrant gets published, so you all need to be to borrow Caroline’s phrase you all need to be local so that I can get that around and signed by everybody on Tuesday morning. We did a good, we did a good one. All right, so everyone, the meeting on the 24th, it’s remote, but you have to be available the 25th to sign the warrant. Tuesday the 25th. Um, you’re, I don’t care about your new business, um, I’ll. accept a motion to adjourn. All in favor. Thanks