I think it’s OK now. Yeah, it’s stopped now, yeah. OK. All right It is 7:03 p.m. and I’m calling the September 2nd, um, planning board meeting to order. Uh, the meeting is being recorded by HW CAMM. Nevertheless, I will call roll because I think it really um helps the um uh. person who transcribes our minutes.

So when I call your name, would you please indicate that you’re present, Pat Norton, Jonathan Poo, Jonathan Poor Bill Wheaton, Bill Wheaton present, Beth He present. Darcy Dale. Darcy. Amil Dahlquist. Abelquist Jeff Austin. Jeff Austin present and Marie Crouch present, and I note just for the record that

Matt Hamill is not present. so we have a number of items on our agenda, um this evening, the first item is um a discussion of the comprehensive permit application that has been made by um. uh tobacco Hill Capital Partners. Now I note that the ZBA is considering that application on

October 1st. We have another planning board meeting on September 16th, so I am proposing that we continue our discussion, uh, with respect to that, um, application until September 16th. However, in the interim, if you have had an opportunity to review the application to review the materials that, uh, Patrick Reford put together, uh, I

would suggest that if you have additional comments or points that are not included in those materials that uh you forward those comments to uh Mark and perhaps he could revise Patrick’s materials in light of our planning board decision and the new application. Uh, I particularly, uh, am concerned about the um waivers that the applicant is requesting and

let’s see if I can. uh, pull them up So, uh, those are, uh, those waiver requests are items that I think the planning board, uh, could legitimately address and uh you have to scroll through the application one would not want to print the entire thing out but um there are a number of waiver requests,

um, in particular, uh, waiver of the stormwater management bylaw. and uh we can recognize that the amended stormwater management bylaw would be in effect for that property. so that there are requests for waivers of various um sections of that bylaw as well as the table of use regulations and it

kind of goes on and on. So if anybody wants to uh make additional uh comments I would suggest that you forward them to Mark and we can revisit this on September 16th. Does anyone have any objections to that? I have a question um so all of these comments are very, very, um, brief and kind of overview,

yet our decision is very detailed. Um, so those are two like very opposite ends of the spectrum of information. Yes. Where are our comments meant to be in that spectrum, very brief couple sentences here or there or um we, we have at this point, probably the most background and information on this

proposal. It’s basically the same as what was in front of us previously, um, with a few changes of units, but it’s the same, it’s the same topography, the same design, uh, so my question is, can you give us some guidelines on to what degree are we supposed to be commenting on this. Well, I

think that the most important thing that can be accomplished here is to attach the planning board’s decision to our comments and urged the ZBA to read that decision carefully, so I think our comments could be general pointing to uh specific uh pages in the decision to support those generalized comments. So might I say then or assume that

probably nobody on the ZBA is gonna have the patience or the bandwidth to, to dive all the way through the, the decision and that maybe we could distill distill or summarize it. It was 25 pages single spaced and all I can say is that I think the CBA in the exercise of its due diligence would be absolutely

remiss and not reading our decision, and I believe um I spoke to the chairman of the ZBA. I ran into him, and he had said he was planning on reading every last detail. So I just had said we might be sent. I can’t remember what we were, how we got into the conversation, but he did say he

would be OK then. Digesting it all, but I think distilling and summarizing could be valuable because it is very dense, it’s very dense. If you recall we had various topics that we discussed and so it might be helpful to look at those, um, and, and suggest that the ZBA considered those points as well.

So maybe almost like you would highlight something. I think that makes a lot of sense because even if somebody reads it all, they might not. you know, they weren’t here for all those conversations. Right. So chapter 40B allows the developer to override zoning. Right, local zoning, but they have to obtain those wages?

Does it allow the developer to override other environmental bylaws in the town like stormwater like um uh, you know, conservation land, I mean, what, what They can’t, it’s my understanding that federal law can’t be challenged, but they can obtain waivers, but I don’t think those waivers are mandatory. by any stretch of the would be the question I’m

for the ZBA. 40B only, only exempts the developer. from local zoning ordinances, not from other non-zoning town bylaws or federal laws or anything else. Well, I’m not sure about town bylaws but certainly federal laws. and state laws council about that? Let me, let me put a finer point on that because I, I, I

like where Bill is going, what he’s asking there. For example, 8.1.12 is not a zoning bylaw. 8.1.12 is site planning. for everything that you ever put on a site. Um. and that is an is its purpose is an environmental bylaw, not a use bylaw, a zoning bylaw or um you know,

anything associated with that and it, as we’ve said before, it mirrors the first steps in the stormwater management manual, the first step prioritized and it mirrors that. So the question is is, is that piece of our bylaw as well as the um uh, volume 2 chapter 1 Piece of the stormwater

Management, uh, bylaw. are those non zoning issues or those environmental issues. Yeah, I may, maybe the town council could help us. To the extent that she and, and you could point it to familiar with the exact wording of 40B and what it could be very specific

question. It, it could be what I just said. 8.1, the, the, the starting point for this project was 8.1.12 and volume 2, chapter 1 of the Stormwater Management Plant’s first step, where do I put this thing? Where’s the right place for it? That was violated completely. That first step in both bylaws.

Then they did all the engineering and they met all the BMP calculations and whatnot, um, so technically, yes, they overengineered it so that it it it by calculation it was a good project but by initial design it was a horrific project. The question is is what I just said, does it

have any validity in this conversation? Well, I think it has validity to educate the ZBA. Now I know Amy Qustle was involved with the ZBA and providing counsel for them at some point in time, before it was determined uh that uh the uh they they had to abide by

the cooling off period before they could uh actually file the application. So, uh, I unfortunately, and I apologize for this, don’t have a hard and fast answer for you about, uh, what regulations they can that they don’t have to apply, but it, I’m inferring from the fact that they’re seeking waivers

that they have to obtain the waiver. if they could just ignore it point blank they wouldn’t be seeking a waiver, so that’s my inference. Do we, you mentioned a 25 page single spaced I, I think it was something like that. It was long. Mark, is that up on on a website? OK. Uh, in my

understanding is I’m happy to check with counsel, but my understanding is they can apply for waivers from any local bylaws or regulations, but not from a state or federal, right, and those waivers do not have to be granted, do they? No, not unlike a waiver from local zoning, which is their right.

Well, they have to ask for it and they and the ZBA has to be granted The CBA does not have to grant the waiver and so our position would be ZBA read our decision review our comments. and please do not grant waivers with respect to certain really important considerations like the stormwater manage manual

and 8.1.12 and we went through all of that in detail and that’s in the decision I’m surprised the town doesn’t have a legal position to deny the permit application based on the fact that it’s the exact same design and project that got denied as part of a special permit process. not requiring

the ZBA and everybody else to go through all this effort, like why can’t the town just deny the application straight out, knowing that it’s a it’s the same project It got denied the special permit, not from a zoning perspective, from a design basis perspective, so an environmental design basis, not a zoning design basis.

Environmental design, that’s really really important distinction. Right. Uh, you know, I think that’s that’s in the, in the regs are made up to answer your question, Pat, I mean, it’s basically two different uh applications. One is for the special permit. The other is for the comprehensive permit and, and the requirements are different for

both. I mean you need a project eligibility letter from the executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities before you can even file your application for a comprehensive permit. So the, the purposes are entirely different. I have questions about how and, and it may be and I’m not that familiar with

with the uh 40B regulations, but the, the, the application has a requirement that one resident of the affordable unit be over 55 and my understanding based on what Jill Mann always said was that um that with affordable housing uh they they it has to be available to families with children. and by

default if you have one person 55 or older, and they’re a parent, it’s unlikely that they’re going to have small children just because of the age it’s not impossible, but I, I infer from, from the entire application that the one thing they don’t want on those steep slopes is little toddlers

rolling down the rip rap. So we’ll see but it is two different applications with two different sets of criteria so they can fail on one and see succeed on another, which is their intention with regards to your argument, wouldn’t it be the case that since our senior housing cluster bylaw. is part

of our zoning, that they were just argue um, we don’t have to abide by that. Oh, they’re seeking waivers from that. Oh, they are. Oh yeah. I, I can’t tell you what pages the um waiver materials are on because that’s not the way they, they didn’t number all the pages but if you scroll through, it has a

waiver request and that is 1234. So, you’re taking a waiver request as a. evidence of the fact that they, they think they do have to about that. Yes, OK Yeah. I do. And so maybe you know some waivers are less problematic than others, but certainly, uh, the stormwater management waivers are, are would be critical. because we,

we denied the stormwater management, uh, application, um, as well. and basically on the same grounds as you mentioned. so anyhow, I think that if we all take a stab at highlighting for Mark what we think is most important and then pointing to the pages and the decision that supports that thinking and I

remember uh you in particular, Jonathan, uh, when we went around the table and everybody uh justified their vote on the special permit you spoke to that point at length. Only for 45 minutes. Oh. So I, I don’t think we and to quote somebody who watched it, they said it was, it was that machine gun

pace. Machine gun Jonathan, um, so, um I think that that we can have a fuller discussion on September 16th, uh, and maybe Mark, you can, uh, if once everyone should get their comments to Mark, um. well before September 16th. is so Mike, even bullet points would be helpful. Do you remember

what the date was of that where you get where everybody went around. and shared. It’s 2 days, 2 meetings. September of 2022, somewhere. Somewhere some somewhere around there the two meetings. The decision was was it November 2022? It was definitely 2022 because that’s why I came on, but I couldn’t

vote for. Yeah, I’m just thinking it might be helpful for the chairman of the DBA anyways to see those the last two videos if he’s in, if he’s willing to watch it. Yeah, yeah. Because that gives a little more um it’s a little more background. I mean, we were really thorough in the decision.

We went through the purposes of the senior housing bylaw that has less relevance to the ZBA decision, but it was when we actually got into the nitty gritty of the findings where one of the findings required us to evaluate 8.1.12 that that that was the heart of the decision. so, uh, so I’m

looking at my calendar, so if the 16th is our next meeting, if everyone could have, um, their comments to Mark, how, how soon would you like them, uh, by maybe Thursday the 11th. Is that enough time Uh we could shoot for a week, so by Wednesday, I would say. The 10th? Yep. OK. That’s fair One

editorial comment. The irony here is that over and over we said that that is a developable lot but not that way. And what do they do is they come right back with the exact same thing. Mm Enough editorial ways. OK. Is it worth spending time on this item until the ZBA has

cause it, it’s not an actual appli it’s not something to consider and tell the ZBA. Well, the ZBA the waivers that are required to consider it. Will the ZBA has its first hearing on October. 2nd, I believe what did I first uh we’re providing our October 1st. Yeah, not for the applicant. No, it’s for the

ZBA, yes. Oh, this is in advance so that they OK, I misunderstood. Yeah. So, and, and, and like the planning board, the ZBA can require a components of the project to be peer reviewed. and I suspect, uh, safe tobacco trails and watershed is not sitting on their hands. So they’re digging

into their pockets Right OK So if, if there are no other, uh, comments we can move on. So the next item is a follow up from the uh July 14th special town meeting. Boy does that seem far away, doesn’t it? does Where did the summer go Uh, so we have, uh, frequently asked questions, um uh. Mark compiled

these, um, are there any um comments, concerns, anything that was omitted. A few seem redundant like we could probably consolidate a few of these. shorten it up. That’s probably true. I just took everything. Everyone sent me didn’t edit anything, so yeah, like, why make these changes? Why pursue this? That’s pretty much what is the advantage? How

does it protect our far? They’re really related. Those are all one like one answer. Sometimes the answer to the question is, yeah, the same for many of these, but what are the some of the major differences between the new and the old code? That’s a good question.

Um one thing I got asked a couple of days ago I wasn’t clear to everyone is that. there is no future requirement to consider anything else to meet the law like. it was in context to the Winthrop school, but the zoning changes that we proposed the town vote yes to adopt. fulfill the requirements.

There’s nothing to do afterwards. Um, I think people felt like there might be like another thing to consider down the road. No, it’s the attorney general who has that, uh, last word on all this, but not the town we’ve done whatever it is that we needed to do with respect to 3A, assuming that

when the town did do that, that it was a man, a mandate, and then now we have the foreign-based code and I think that the form-based code and the floor area ratios that incorporated within that along with all the other metrics is is going to prove to be very beneficial to the town in the

long run. I guess what I was meant to say was that I don’t, I, I looked through the questions to see if one of these may have addressed like what. is there another like requirement to do something else. This is the, this is, this meets the cook, this meets the law and it was there’d be

no benefit of the town to consider you know, swallowing up other acres of land that get made available to shove into the 3 egg. No, we don’t have to do that. Right. Well uh, there’s no required to do that Gordon Conwell site. be available if it’s uh Yeah, somebody was asking me about

the 3A would be over it. Why wouldn’t we move Well, their suggestion was why wouldn’t we move the 3A zone on lower Asbury over to the seminary once. that was just. Well, those are sort of speculative questions at at this moment in time, so I think they’re good questions, but they’re not

answerable questions. Well, you can’t do it at Gordon Conwell right now, but it’s be in the, it’d be if in the future, if in the future, and so if we were to do those kinds of swaps or or additions, it would be a zoning amendment, right, so I guess Pat, what’s, what is your, what’s your, what’s the

fundamental underlying question is, you know, is the winter. I think people are wanting in winter school specifically does that get adopted as part of 3A, and the answer is no, with the current zoning that’s being proposed is not part of the 3. It’s not part of the 38 and it actually can’t be as a school,

but it, that’s the, that’s the question on the mind. Yeah. Yeah, and the, the answer to that is, is it’s excluded under the executive orders regulations, yes, so should that be added here? I’m wondering if that’s my question. I understand the answer to the question I’m asking she

disappear, so the question, but if that what happens to the Winthrop school if it becomes it would have to be sold’s not part of the question, I know, but it’s like what everyone’s asking. Right, no, no, but it, that’s a question that can be wouldn’t be protected anymore though it’s not school even if

it’s but it would still there would have to be a zoning amendment, yeah. so there are multiple steps before it could ever be considered I think it might be worth a question. Oh, absolutely. Mark could answer, and the unfortunate thing is and the unfortunate thing is we had an opportunity to include

it in the, in the form-based code, but it was such a hot potato that we excluded it so now, so now it’s unprotected. It could have been protected. Now it’s unprotected if it becomes a a a non-school. Jonathan, it couldn’t have been included. I mean, everyone was under the misconception in the form-based code, it could have

not 38. It could have been it could have been it could have easily been in the form-based code and it was a hot potato nobody wanted to touch it. We did a lot of work on it even and then took it out so it could have had protection even

though it wouldn’t have people thought that was an end around to get it away from the, the town as a school. It was really just what if in the future it ever changes? Wouldn’t you like to have protection? No, they said, so that’s, that’s what you voted. You, you’ve got no protection on it. So as you

wish. it is protected in the zoning currently in some way. meaning because there’s no overlay to say it could be commercial or uh high density, you know. No, but somebody could come in, but you could subdeve subdivide it. Somebody could come in with a special permit, you know, for a special

permit and the underlying code, so there’s some protect it depends on what you need to consider protection, I guess. Well, I remember the town owns it, so, yeah, someone has to buy it from the town, the town meeting has your, that’s for. The problem is we have a current situation where people

feel like no, we voted and voted and voted and so they’re gonna, they think they’re gonna vote and vote and vote until they get what they want. If somebody buys, wants that property, that’s what’s out there is people are concerned that if somebody wants to do whatever they want to do with

that property. They’re just going to continue to have a vote like they’re doing on the school. Whether we agree with that or not, that’s what’s out there. But you could always change the form-based code in the future, so it’s all adjustable in the future. Yeah, they just, but it, it, it’s a,

it’s a major question that I think is missing me. that we should add and I’m sorry I didn’t add it earlier when you asked for, it is, it is the select board that makes the decision on what goes on the warrant and, and the uh the agenda. So. keep that in mind Yes I guess the other question

that if you agree on the questions is there’s a fair amount and we, are we intending to have 29 answers to go with 29 questions or we eliminate the eliminate redundancy. There’s a lot of redundancy in some of these questions. I mean, uh, I think the idea is to have something that kind of bite

size for people and not like a twenty-page document. So, um, maybe 10 or 15, something like that. Whittle it down? Yeah. Half. Half of these See, here’s a question that I rather like in, and will there be a formal design review board to make sure the downtown is looking its best. I mean that’s an

interesting question and the, the zoning, the town center zoning, uh, authorized, uh, the formation of a design review. committee how that would be structured and what um what its work product would look like. is up in the air, but we can we can answer the question that

not so much for the purpose of making the downtown look its best, but for having guidance as to how the form-based code can be dutifully implemented in a way that that fulfills its purpose. Strikes me that the first part of that answer would be a first step is design guidelines before you have a

committee because otherwise the committee is could be very arbitrary in how they interpret design guidelines would be step one. That’s that’s step one for the committee to utilize. the question you just asked and a lot of these other questions are, are kind of like how does form-based code protect our town or the benefit of code.

It’s the same question really. Yeah, and the eminent domain, um. uh question uh I, I don’t, Mark, did you ever share the questions and answers that I did with the planning board. Yeah, they’re online. So the eminent domain is never say never, but that’s the thorniest one to answer, and I think it

might help to answer it as kind of as a as a practical matter, it’s not likely, likely, yeah. And if you look at the historical use of that, it’s few and far between and usually for some significant, very large infrastructure project and there’s no infrastructure projects planned in anywhere near this town in the, in the

case of New London it was a very controversial decision. and, and the Supreme Court authorized the taking of property for economic development. and so it wasn’t just a big infrastructure project. It was a big project to encourage economic development and Pfizer turned out to be a beneficiary of that.

So that was what made it so controversial is that uh not only was it uh goal of the the city to have this economic development they had a plan to execute it with with a big uh corporation like Pfizer. So the answer, the answer needs to be a simplified so that it’s basically what people hear is

as a practical matter, no. Not going to happen. As a practical matter, and it would, um, it probably would violate our state’s constitution and it would it would never withstand appeal. So when, when I started, uh, looking at questions and answers. What I was trying to do was to drill down into um

the flow chart that Amil had done and, and he had a series of questions, where is your site? What do you want to do, and then it, it defaulted into to different scenarios and then there were the references to the actual sections of the new

uh bylaw, and I thought for uh a lot of the questions if we could formulate the questions so that they could track this flow chart and then include this flow chart um with the questions and answers. I think it’d be very helpful. I think it also is a first step toward the design guidelines. In other

words, if, if you’re, if you’re your FAQs track the, the flow chart and the flow chart, you know, tracks what the regulations and process are. There’s literally your first step in design guidelines, right, right, uh, and so I know that uh Amil. uh reached out to Joe asking about um contacting Ute for um a uh follow-up

session and uh that was August 13th I think, uh, that we might need to uh send a supplemental request. I think it might have fallen through the cracks. Yeah, I think so. I think somebody made the comment that the decision on this, um was going to take 6 months to a year, I guess, to clear. the AG’s

office, EOHLC that why not wait until later, so maybe somebody has taken that up as a Waihiri kind of thing because, but I think it’d be while it’s still fresh in our minds, I think it’s important that we get a training session from the people who wrote the code. to, uh, so we can ask direct

questions and get answers, you know, in a face to face manner. I think it’d be very talk to Joe about it and he said he thought it was valuable He wanted to get a number for a UTL, um, I emailed UTL and they said, um, you know, they,

they’re, they, they like the idea of it, it’s like some like written sort of idea of what the proposal is. Um, they want a scope of work, OK. you know we’re asking them to do. We can work on something like that, I would think that that could be

something like um you’ve said many times before a ticket for a test drive, do a, a few sample case permits, you know, you take a couple of, you take a couple of different types of properties and you run through some scenarios and apply the code to it and just see how it works. Yeah, I think the first

thing we do is a top-down look at the whole thing, the general application. and where the main pieces are that we need to deal with and then take it for a test drive toward the end. Let’s look at a couple of scenarios that uh could be questionable. or not as straightforward. You might

think it’s and they may, they may already know where the problems are in this code, if there are any, uh, because they put it together and they would know where the difficulties might lie. So that’s why I think it would be valuable too. Mike, I have a question, have the two articles been combined

now so that we actually have one town center code. in the actual zoningbila? Yes. Uh, I believe we had to submit that to the AG’s office as part of the review, but I we haven’t published anything online, obviously, because it’s not approved by the AE yet. Right. But I think it would, it certainly would be helpful for

me to have that because in in the uh the goal here was to drill down to these different sections of the town center code but it if we don’t have the combined code because the, the, um, second article amended the first article. So unless we have the final version, it’s hard to track what the answer

is because you’re going back and forth between the two. So just for internal purposes, uh, we would really, we really need that. So if, if we could get that, uh, that would be enormously helpful, and it could go up on the planning board’s web page with caveats all over it subject to final

approval. Yeah, yeah, that would be great if you see That would be really helpful and it would, it, it would enable us to answer these questions better. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I think we, I can get that for you. And we have yet to hear from the AG on ADUs, right?

Yeah, they requested an extension, so I believe the new deadline is September 18th. and they had some comments about site plan review, but I think some of the comments looked more ominous than they actually were. Yeah, it was a lot of, it was a long letter for just deleting three letters, three words from the document, so.

Right, so I think this might be a to be continued. um but, uh if anybody wants to uh play around with the questions and consolidate them. and provide answers uh, just raise your hand and I will, uh, deputize you to be um a guru on this topic. so much enthusiasm. when I can fit it in the schedule.

Right, right. Because the next item is something that is occupying or will occupy a lot of our time, um so uh, I’ll review and I’m going to rely on AML to to correct me if I make any misstatements whatsoever. So uh, this afternoon uh the group, small group of select

people Amil and I, Joe, Merwin Walters, and uh attorney from Nutter McLennan. had a meeting the primary focus of which was to get the development agreement finalized, and I can report that there was progress made on that front and in addition, we had an opportunity to speak. relatively briefly

about the overlay district and so um uh. Attorney Walters was, was there obviously and he had, he did provide us with some comments with respect to the Brownsville Overlay District. He’s on the, he’s on Zoom, so you two can correct me if I misspeak in any way, so, uh right now the the goal is to

have the Brown’s Hill Overlay District, um, considered at a special town meeting on December 9th. That’s a really tight schedule, but as I’m beginning to uh find we’re always on a tight schedule. We never have, we’re never given enough time to really do anything. We’re always being

rushed, so in this instance I think we have good bones in our. round till of Overlay District, uh, the comments from the seminary are more constructive than negative um indeed I went after the meeting, uh, home, and I went to my computer and I went through the overlay district again found some typos,

not surprisingly, made some edits and also attempted to address some of the points that Merwin Walters made in a memo that he directed to this group of, uh, people trying to put this development agreement together so whether I was successful or not, uh, we can find out um tomorrow because

we’ve scheduled a meeting, uh, from 12 to 1 to try and um get some of this language squared away. I do not think that the language itself in the Browns Hill Overlay District is going to um uh cause the planning board uh, a lot of work The heart and soul of the brown tail Overlay District is

actually in the tables. and, and this is where AI has been incredibly helpful, uh, and you have the materials that he put together, uh, but before we actually get to the tables, I think that that it’s be really important for AMI to review with you his thinking and um explain the uh the the first um

uh handout that he has and it’s captioned BHO District Development and it has just fabulous information in it and then also he has a density analysis and a reference to the Ipswich bylaws, and I think that those um those uh introductory materials really will inform how we evaluate the

tables that actually go in the uh Brown’s Hill Overlay District. So the overlay district incorporates 5 tables and those 5 tables have they, they summarize information and they contain, uh, the matrix, uh, that will guide any future development of the site. Why you just to go to your first

point on that, maybe just to look at the schedule quickly on, so a December town meeting work backwards from the notice and all that. Right. What is the date this needs to be done by? We have to vote our recommendations. on November 18th. On which one? In November 18th? Yes. In November 18th.

So that’s the proposed zoning. Yes. that and the point that I’ve made repeatedly and I emphasized it at our meeting. uh. there are lots of viewpoints here but the bottom line is, if we do this work we want it to get adopted at town meeting. and that means it has to be uh something that the

citizens son of Hamilton can understand and that they can support and they and we had a luster of plants. We no longer have a luster of plants. So they will have to understand how the metrics affect the intensity of the development Uh, but one thing that’s different in this version than in the

prior version is that all future development or expansion of existing development uh, is subject to a special permit. Now that the seminary is retaining its Dover Amendment rights, so they would have the ability to expand existing buildings or build new buildings if. they chose. I would assume if they thought it was economically appropriate to

do that and I can’t see why it would be, but that said, any, any other type of development on that site, uh, has to be by special permit, and that’s a big difference because we try to envision a a cohesive uh site, and I, and I think it would be helpful, Jonathan, if you retold your story about

your client who got checkmated because they didn’t have a vision for the entire site. Do you remember that story? Um, I have a variety of stories like that, but um, yeah, that’s one the one, the one I I emphasize that because that’s why we need a special permit. because we have to be able to modulate

what’s happening and and think about what potentially could happen in the future so that we’re not so compromised that the really great project can never be built because there’s not no land left or there’s no access road or whatever and please tell your story. I think it was, was it a trucking

company? It was some kind of I’m not sure which one you’re referring to, but uh, a, a bit of piecemeal problem solving lot by lot is the story where a large parcel was sold off in Gloucester. It was a hilly site, um, it was beautiful it was

leggy, it was full of mature trees and, but it was sold off piecemeal instead of with a vision. So one by one each lot was sold off each lot was developed, each person who bought a lot clear cut to their edge. So they still have a forest next to them cause they’ve nothing else has been

built next to them. So each lot clear cut, built their house, did their retaining, whatnot, hilly site, and then by the time it was all done, everybody had clear cut, so the basically the beauty of the site had completely vanished. What started off as a beautiful picturesque site that each

person was buying into was erased through these these piecemeal decisions clear cut to the edge, clear cut to the edge, develop this, develop this without a big picture of how you would retain some open space. So that’s one story was that at all helpful? So in other words, that’s piecemeal,

piecemeal thinking with a with an undesirable outcome by the the people investing in it, the people living there, undesirable outcome. It was the checkmate story. Jonathan I think it was some kind of a it was a indus was it? I don’t know. Yeah, they closed, they made some early decisions that

closed off a better decision down the, down the line. Oh, that that’s OK. Yeah, I don’t remember which one that was. I’ll, I’ll think about it. So just back to the schedule quickly, to have a to have a proposed overlay district on the November 18th. I imagine the select board in the town

and the seminary would like a shot at reviewing what gets proposed, which means we would discuss those comments on the November 4th meeting, which means actually we’d have to have a zoning proposed during the October 21st meeting. to give everyone time to review what’s getting proposed to actually vote on, right? And, and work your way back and

allow time for those things. Yes, and, and so right now, um uh, the select board and Merwin Walters has some of these drafts, and I will. the version of the BHOD that I edited. just this afternoon, I will send to Mr. Walters tomorrow morning, but I’m hoping by our next

meeting we have enough progress that we can really start, uh examining the uh metrics in the tables. so you know, I, I say we’re 2/3 there. I just want to give us an accurate dead like a an act target which is really October 21st and if the public

hearings were that’s what I was going to ask. The public hearings were to be contentious, and there was a lot of pushback then then I’m not sure where we would stand. I mean, if, if it were clear that there was no public support for it, which I

hope that’s not the case, uh, but we have, there are a lot of balls in the air, but I want AML to start um talking about his materials because I think it’s really important. I know, Pat, you were concerned about the FAR, but as Amel explained to everyone, FAR is just a tool.

The metrics are what’s really important and then those metrics are tested by FAR. Got it. Did I get that right? Uh, pretty close. Close. Anyhow, you use the FAR to test whether or not, uh, whether or not you’ve got the intensity of development right. So if you’re, if you want um a modest amount

of development, but your FAR comes out at 0.5. You’ve failed. You’ve done something wrong. Uh, so it’s, it, it, the FAR might just be one little piece of a, a much, much more comprehensive analysis. So I’m, I’m going to stop talking. I want you to talk. Thank you. just to, just to get back to, uh, go ahead,

uh, just looking at the calendar, the basically, if you’re to stick with this December 9th, but the next meeting in 2 weeks, the planning board would have to be in a place where they feel comfortable uh, scheduling the public hearing We do that at the end of September.

Public hearings would be in uh late October and early November The planning board basically have to wrap up work by November 18th with its recommendations. sort of the planning board side of things if we stick with it December 9th special time me. Yeah It’s a lot of ground to cover a lot of ground to cover

and all I can say is that for those who were on the planning board with the first iteration of the BHOD, what’s now on the table is a really condensed version of that, uh, with special permit being, you know, the, the primary driver of what’s happening here. just because we don’t have this

vision for the site. So again, I think Pat wants to to meet twice a week, so we can get it done. I was gonna make it. Marty said 2/3 of the work are down, but oftentimes 80% of the work is in the last 20% of the job. Yeah. S That’s usually you

complete the 1st 80%, in the greatest amount of time and then do, do the last or actually just the reverse in a short amount of time and it takes you a lot longer to do the last. you know, to get the the 95 is the, is the number.

95% takes uh a very long time, but get that last 5% is a long haul and we saw that with the, uh, town center dis district. We didn’t get an opportunity to do a road test. uh, as a board for a lot of these projects. I mean we did a lot of work on

our own on it, so. I’m OK with the, with, with the code. Mark, can you just put the, uh the map? on the uh screen The overlay district zoning diagram. As Marty said, we had a, a good meeting with Myron, uh, uh, this afternoon and we’ll meet again tomorrow, which puts a

pretty short timeline, and I, we indicated to him that for us, a real uh necessity tonight is to get a feel for what, what is the appetite on this site and how would you measure that if you were to in an FAR or square footage or something. uh to get

closer to that goal because that’s really a driving force going forward, and I’ll get into that a little bit why, why that’s important. as it was brought up, uh, this was given to, uh, Gordon Conwell and put some area takeoffs on this. We do not have a survey plan. This was, this is a, we call it a

diagram, but it’s pretty close. Um, so this is the breakdown, which is a really a blending of our original overlay district plus work that Myron had offered in his, uh, conception of an upper campus, middle campus, and a lower campus where now the lower campus is strictly the um use of the sixth dormitory buildings, uh,

he’s absorbed utilities building into the middle campus uh and he would like the upper campus to go down that access road down to Bridge Street. You can see that 8 acres that is a steep slope area as all of us know just driving along Bridge Street. That is in excess of 25%. It’s, it’s in almost up to

30% in some areas, so it’s a pretty steep, uh, pitch all the way up. I did a takeoff about 230 ft long to get the top and bottom numbers and it, that’s what it is. um so what we insisted on was the heritage landscape that was one of the

uh, one of the priorities from us from the beginning. to preserve, uh, an area that has been designated by certain authorities to to be of uh a lot of value, environmental value. and then the, the NZ zone to the left is a natural zone which is mostly wetlands and but it but it is one of the

access roads to the site off Essex Street, uh uh we came back with discussions from, uh, well, I’ll, I’ll say that till later. So that was the first one that we uh had given to Gordon Conwell, and we did get some responses, uh, today on,

on that with a couple of will ask us to kind of talk about some moving some boundaries and so forth, uh, which implicates a lot of things. We start moving boundaries, it just changes a lot of the calculations and but again, my goal tonight, if we can is to get to a number or a number

range from X to Y would really be helpful so that we kind of zero in on our negotiations with uh Attorney Walters, you know, going forward. We don’t have a lot of time to do this. We can’t meet on and on again. So I think it’d be great if we could get really a lot of input

from everybody on the board what what hesitancies they, they have for particular um densities and so forth. This is about density standards to put in the zoning regulations which we are obliged to do. And so if we go to the uh mark to the BO BHOD District Development chart. District development Yeah, that’s it. Started off with a,

what is the developable area on the G, uh, Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary site. There’s a 102 acres. Uh, we did a yield analysis on this where you, you actually exclude conservation areas protected and unprotected, so we excluded the heritage landscape, 14 acres, natural zone 28 acres, steep slopes, 8 and the browns

Browns Hill Reservoir, a cistern area about 2 acres. So in fact, we figured from 102, you’re down to roughly 50 acres on that site that are developable. That’s an important determination, I think, and this is part of the procedure that you know, is part of that 8.1, 0.12, you know, identifying conservation areas protected and unprotected.

um and again, all these, if you want to debate the natural zone is mostly wetlands and buffer areas and so forth. um and B, what is the existing FAR? development and sanity on the site. Upper campus, all the, uh, the land area is 19 acres. The existing building floor areas

amount to 166,000, including the gatehouse, which is part actually of the upper campus in that district anyway, it’s at the bottom of the hill, but it’s at in that district. So 166,000 plus almost 167,000. square feet That’s an FAR on that area of 0.20. on that whole site, uh, in the upper campus. We looked at the middle

campus. Now this is the least populated. The way the boundaries are drawn, they exclude now all of the dormitories, the upper should you exclude the, I mean, it’s a tiny number, but uh you exclude the steep slopes, I think in the acreage which consumes the gatehouse, you remove the

gatehouse from the square footage that goes into the FAR the gatehouse is at the bottom. It’s below the steep slopes. I know they were interested in remodeling that for sale, not to enlarge it. necessarily, but to keep it. It’s not on the slopes actually, but the acreage isn’t taken into account. It’s the acreage does

not include the gatehouse. So I’m wondering if we’re missing the acreage then in the land area. Well, we did the takeoff on the entire before excluding any land up there. We did the takeoff. uh, between the Jonathan Ditt in his office and also I did it on the GIS map. 1 acres includes the area of the

gatehouse that’s not steep slopes, OK. So the up the middle campus, um, is again 19 acres plus or minus, uh, floor areas really we’re gonna include the retreat house in here, even though that’s the heritage landscape area we’re gonna, we have to finesse how we’re going to treat that for

any kind of uh uh reuse or uh change. So, but we’re going to put it in for now as an existing floor area in the middle campus. Anyway, the existing buildings square footage is 36,000. The FAR is 0.04. Again, that’s a reference point. Lower campus, that’s where the six dormitories are,

194,390. square feet Low area ratio is 0.37. Um, so the summary uper campus, middle, lower campus, the average across the board across the entire site right now is 0.18 is the FA uh FAR level. Uh, again, overall square footage, this is just undevelopable area, square footage in square feet

divided by um well actually the floor area divided by the acreage in square feet, square feet over square feet gives you the ratio with no dimension. on it. That’s 0.18. So what we had previously proposed, and this is why I brought this up because you put a lot of work into the illustrative plans

from the beginning with Jonathan, we were working on the big question was how intense is where’s the sweet spot? Where is the best place to put this project so that it would not be overbearing for the, the abutters or the town and fit in the concept of that location in an R1 zone, um.

uh, our one D zone and um what we came up with in the 4 plans and I don’t know if you have those uh, I don’t know if anybody can remem remembers. We do have them here if anybody wants to look at the, I think everybody has a copy on their, on their,

um, packet, in their packet. OK, yeah, the 4, the 4 plans are here. So if you want to look at plan one, I’ll just go over it really quickly. This was a concept where at the top of the hill we had gone strictly residential. This was a set of

duplex houses could be senior housing or not, but, uh, then again, it was basically a residential developed in a manner similar to the boulders concept. At the bottom, at the middle campus, so that’s 40 units, 46 units as opposed to 19 currently as of right. That seems like a fairly reasonable.

trade-off for um. clu clustering where we wanna um OK Yeah the middle campus we folded in to the middle campus, the, uh, we eliminated the original stables district that’s gone, that’s been absorbed by the middle campus now. So those townhouses in front of Pilgrim Hall, again,

we, we looked at this not so much as a design, but mostly as a way to assess what would what would a density of this nature feel like in terms of visually? What’s that’s the biggest difference. If you sit, I mean, right now, that’s a huge open field and you know you’re,

you’re, you’re sort of saying we should have a maximum of 146,000 square feet of floor area which is 4 or 5 times what’s there now. and that field is basically being turned into a little village. Exactly. So the, so plan one was to raise that FAR if that’s the way we’re going to measure it.

You’re right, it had, would have a total land uh total floor area of 182,000 square feet. If you look on plan one of um the initiate this development of density analysis. uh, sheet that you have in your packet this one that has the breakdown of all of the square footages and the areas and so

forth and the FAR. So the idea here is uh to build this out. We started off with a low intensity, medium and a high intensity. We then worked with Abramson’s numbers because he came up with about 6 or more scenarios on different development from. uh, from all of his consultation work on the

site. We did a blending of what he had was, uh, suggesting and what we were doing to put them together and this is how we got to the plans 1 through 4. So it was an evolution of a design to get to an understanding and a feel for what a particular

buildout would look like. Uh, this is two dimensions, but you, you, you get a good sense about uh and this, this is really the equivalent of an the importance of these sketches and why it’s important now is that their proof of concept plans. What it tells you is that yes we can talk about so many 1000 square

feet, but can you actually make it happen? What will it look like? Uh, where, what kind of space do you have between buildings? How big are the buildings? That’s the whole reason you do something like this is that it really is a, uh, it is a proof of concept and this is how we, we arrived at

the square footages for each one of these plans. and maybe not so surprisingly, Plan 1 and plan 2 were pretty similar. So if you look at uh plan 2 the one after this marked down. We kept the same residential composition on top of the hill. What we did was insert, uh, a senior living care building at

the bottom, which was roughly 25,000 square feet and on two levels 50,000, roughly the size of the residence hall. in Ipswich residents at Riverbend. Riverbend, I’m sorry, uh yeah, we did it. We looked at it online, took the measurements off the, the data online on the GIS and replicated it, frankly, and then put in the parking

around it. pretty much as they had. Again, it was an idea, this is not a final design, but this is to come up with a concept of a building of that size that might fit into this area. I thought it fit fit nicely with the taller dormitories right across the road, scale kind of blended in

there. And then there were fewer residential it’s still the townhouses, but then multiplex houses in addition. So plan number 2, that total composition again, if you look at the development density analysis. Plan 2, total square footage, middle campus, 180,000. 114 square feet, 0.22 is the FAR for that. Uh, on the top of

the campus for plans 1 and 2, they were identical. We had 122,00826 square feet. 0.15 density and uh uh, plant 2 should have been the same number I had 0.14, but it should have been the same, it was the same concept, the same number. So if you look at plan 3, this is where we varied the,

the bottom. or the top. We, we switched to reuse of the existing buildings at the top. And according to David Gamble, they were suggesting that you could conceivably put another 160,000. So essentially they’re saying right now you have 164,000 square feet between Curhall Library, uh academic Center and the chapel.

You could put another 160,000 in that concept. So you look at the, the breakdown on the chart development intensity analysis upper campus district Plan 3. We’re now up to a total floor area of 327,283 square feet or 0.38. number as the FAR. Again, the FAR doesn’t tell you what

it looks like. It tells you how many square feet per acre is there. That’s, that’s the benefit of that number. It’s, it’s a measuring tool. Uh and then on the upper campus on Plan 4 it was the same thing, um. so now the, the upper and the lower campuses have been two options each, 2 options on

the upper campus, 2 on the middle campus. We came up with these 4, it gives you 4 possible scenarios of, of different arrangements. and it, we got the range then if you look in the right hand, Mark, if you could put on the development density analysis.

uh. on the screen So when you say this amount of floor area added to each of these zones. Is that maximum by right. or maximum by maximum no matter what you do, no matter how much we love you and give you a special permit, you can’t exceed that. No, these, it’s

right here is just for helping us determine what we should do. So this this well wait a minute, if I’m a neighbor or you know somebody who lives in this area, I think what we should do is leave as much as green as possible. So I, I’m, I, it,

it’s, well, we’re not gonna satisfy everybody on this. We have to satisfy Gordon Conwell as well, but, but it’s really, we’re looking at this, no, hold on a second. There’s a reason we’re here to have this zoning. is so they can sell the pro the apartment buildings. So they can de decommission their Dover Amendment buildings. There has

to be an into some private use. There has to be an underlying zoning for that private use. Doesn’t, doesn’t, it could be you know, um, allow no more development. You could buy, you could allow a little bit more development. It could allow whatever you want, but the purpose is just to let the existing uses transition.

from Doverprotected to to market Um, I guess, given that we have everything is by special permit. My inclination would be to set these I mean, but I can’t, I mean, I don’t, I don’t know whether the, you know, 40 units up on top is by right. or the 40 or and whether the uh

160,000 of extra commercial development up on top is by right. If it’s by special permit then I mean there’s no right. You have to come in with a plan and we give you or don’t give you a special permit to build whatever you’re planning to build, let me just explain.

So what AMI is doing is he’s looking at what we had done in the past Right. That’s off the table now, but, but the, the exercise showed the different range in FAR. So what we’re trying to do here is get a range of plan and an overlay district. Everybody is happy with or or finds acceptable,

but everything now in in the Browns Hill Oberlay District will be by special permit. So it’s the metrics that will go into that special permit that we have to look at now. So for example, that that that uh scenario 4, which had the highest FAR is something that I don’t think anyone is seriously

considering anymore. because in the last analysis this is one thing that we observed at our meeting. is that this will be the 3rd or the 3rd town meeting this year. and it’s in December and they, they, there’s a question whether we can even get a quorum but if we do get a quorum, one can surmise that

the abutters are going to be uh a large percentage of the people who make up that quorum. So if the zoning passes, it will have to pass with a 2/3 majority. So our sensitivities have to take into account the uh those of the abutters. So, so this is an exercise. So why

are we, I understand that, but if we present them with an exercise which has all of this development. I think the chances of getting those people to approve the zoning. These have, that has nothing to do with what the public sees. This is so the planning board can have a metric. This is a tool

for us tonight, but will the, will the ordinance, as it goes through as the overlay district as it goes through contain numbers like this, not like me, no, no. no, not the, not the maximum 121, you know, uh 10 probably we don’t have to use

the FAR, which is, I think, a good thing to use. We now have it in our other code downtown, but we could, there, there could be language in, in Ipswich gave language uh of uh like take your total acreage and multiply it by 3000, and that’s the maximum square footage you can have in the

work, you know, on the site, something like that. I’ll, I’ll go over those in a minute. What’s what’s also important. What’s also important to remember here is that you, what the town needs to avoid is if this is developed piecemeal, remember what they asked me for the, the piecemeal stories and

I couldn’t remember which, which one was the right one. But if you don’t have some sort of an overarching view of the total buildout and what that intensity or density is, you do it in pieces and you’re back to the story I did tell, which is

oops, we did too much piece by piece by piece like the frog boiling and, you know, slowly in the water. You got to look ahead and look at what the whole package looks like so that there’s some guardrails so that if you put, you make it more done than here, then it less dense there.

examples. There were no guardrails to anything. Here there are guardrails. The guardrail is the special permit. The guard rail is but that would be middle of is going to be all developed basically for residential, and there are two options on the upper campus. One is commercial, one is residential, but we have to

look at it as in its entirety you can’t just let, let there be no metrics and then and then approve it or disapprove it special permit, one special permit at a time and then hope that the end result will make some sense. Well, I’m not sure

that’s the case. If you, if you have a special permit, if you had a special permit for each of those 18 houses or however many there were that did clear, clear cutting, and you could regulate the clear cutting. You could have done a piece at a time and you’d just say, no, I’m sorry. Now what you’re

doing is we’re, we’re headed towards a bald hill zoning, as you consider it, if you apply it to the whole campus. could allow for a piecemeal approach of a special permit process to do this, that, and the other thing without, you can’t envision everything when you develop the code. So I would

actually argue the opposite of what John is arguing. I think by piecemeiling the overlay district, you’re actually taking consideration the whole as part of what’s in front of you as an actual project, which is where we got hung up last time. We try to create this thing that compassed the whole

campus and everyone got hung up on. It can’t be that. It might be something else or whatever it is, but why don’t we just do an overlay district for the thing they want to sell, and then do an overlay district for the next project that comes about, having taken consideration what’s already

been developed. because then you have it in context. It’s not like an imaginary project that you’re not wondering about. We started off and, you know, we heard from the president of the school. If they could sell it next year, they would sell it, the whole site. It’s changed since then. Now they

want to separate. uh the dormitories and sell that off and they’re going to occupy the site for some indeterminate number of years. Uh, again, we’ll get back to the cohesiveness What we’re looking for is a concept over the whole thing that blends together and so putting the metric but it

doesn’t blend if you’re going to do commercial on on the top, that doesn’t blend with uh the apartments below. It’s sort of doesn’t matter, Bill, that much. It, it’s, it’s what blends is the form of it, and that’s what we’re trying to do Mas usually, it matters. The use matters

hugely. If it’s one owner across the whole traffic. traffic will vary depending. I, I think nobody’s proposing. That’s why we have a use table that we thought we agreed to everything and, and that use table that you can have X, Y, and Z, and that’s why we’re dealing with those particular

buildings. I think if you want the best shot at getting it approved in December. You limit the overlay district to what the project is and people have surety in that. Well, that’s not an overlay district then because right now if the seminary wanted to sell the lots, the two lots, the A&R

lots, they can do that. And then the uh the buyers of the apartments. because those apartments of pre-existing nonconforming uses could turn the apartments into housing but they could not change the square footage of this building. So for example, they could not combine the two buildings. uh with a central uh shaft containing an elevator and

various amenities. So by having the apartments in a more comprehensive overlay district, it increases the value of the apartments. And well I think what we, we have to go a step further and, and finish the uh the I don’t actually, the, the people who are buying the apartments don’t do development.

What they do is they buy buildings, apartment buildings, and they syndicate them and they put them into a fund and they manage them and so on, and I agree that continuing that use. in the middle campus, residential you know, higher density. but if I was in a butter, I would say, why, why,

why do we have to have uh, you know, 100, 150 extra units down there. How about 20? How about, how about allowing them just to build one little unit, one little connecting building. Why do we have to have all of that. We want, we want to talk about building height. We want to

talk about maximum square footage, we have tables that have to be filled in. We haven’t done that yet. This material here is prefatory to to making decisions, so, so those illustrative plans just inform our discussion because they are an indication of what that FAR was. We’re not contemplating those particular plans anymore, nor are we bound

by FFAR, but if you go back to the, uh, the BHO District Development. Uh, what Amil did is he just for, for context provided us with the FAR for 2 acre residential zoning. 0.05 for 1 acre 0.1, but 1 half acre 0.15, and for one quarter

acre.2, which is um the average on the campus right now is 0.18 So we could make a determination as a planning board, that the FAR for the for the campus should remain at approximately 0.2. It’s a kind of a backwards way to do it though. these are just illustrations used to get an

outcome for an FDA, no, not, right? Well, right, but it’s not to get an outcome, it’s to inform a discussion of what the outcome should be. They just illustrate, but the benefit of the property right now is that there’s some density in areas if you apply to 0018 or 2 FAR to the whole site, it’s not

what you want in the end. That’s not where this is aiming. So let me, let me, let me just see if I can say something different to here. I think what people are getting overwhelmed by is there’s a lot of numbers in front of us, and a lot of

pages. What you’re after is 5 simple charts, 5 simple tables that give you symmetrics or maybe it’s 3 tables, maybe it’s 6 tables, but some simple tables. Let me just finish. But in order to fill out those tables, you need a reference point, OK? And so what AMI is doing is he’s giving us a bunch

of reference points so that we’re not just throwing darts at these tables. But I think you’re, we don’t need tables We need, we don’t need tables. No, you don’t. So it’s just we start with a, it’s just easier to read. Let me, let’s just go over what Ipswich did, all right? because they have a

section called density Standards. Now, how would you deal with density standards? over a campus? Yeah, over the whole site. I applied to the area that I’m looking to develop, I suppose at a developer and I’ll have the developer tell you how much you want, is willing to spend to build something there.

Well, the town planning standpoint, you’re a town planner. you have the opportunity here to work with, with the owner of the property to to come up with some degree of redevelopment and new development on a site. What would you do as a starting point I’d look at the areas that you want to prioritize density and and leave other

areas open. So I’d look at the districts you have, which is what we’ve done, what is developable, what isn’t, because they have to identify the land that’s developable. and then you realize the best ones that they, they can develop are the two flattest areas there in the site, the

upper campus and the middle campus, those are the two most desirable from a developing standpoint because they have the least site cost, but I’d make sure whatever we wrote was in context of the other one also like. you know what I mean, we, we’re not looking at them as the same This is, you can’t

look at it as one you can have a different density on the top and a different density on the bottom, if, if we want to do that, that’s what we’re trying to find out, Pat, but what is it you want more on the top, less on the bottom, or reverse.

What I, you know, what we came up with in these four plans is that ironically we came up not a heck of a lot of variation in square footage in different ways to do it. And the question is, so this is the point of inflection. Now, what do we do?

Do we go more or do we go less? How does everybody feel about that? You know, do you think this is enough development? Is this too much or what’s your feeling? We’re not, I’m not trying to make that decision for the planning boy. It’s not my call. It’s the planning

board. We have to come to some agreement, so we have to agree on a strategy seems to me to get to how much development can we do? Development is square footage, primarily. We’re not trying to establish the the beauty of it, the forum, that’s a whole different, that’s where, that’s where you get ylan

review. That’s where you get some also some indication that you want to cluster buildings maybe or you want to have some other conditions within the, the overlay district that gives some indication about the, the, the nature of what it all is gonna look like. This is about how many square feet per unit

area on the site. This is all I’m trying to do tonight just kind of lay it out and we took the effort to come up with these concept plans so that we demonstrated, yes, this is doable. We’re not saying you have to do it this way. We’ve thrown it out the window because Gordon Conwell doesn’t

want it. So, but what’s still valid about all of that is I felt pretty good about where we landed in terms of this is, you know, feels good about we’re not overdoing it or we’re not underdoing it. They have, they’re entitled to kinda get a good value out of their property and so we took a look

at what other communities. I, I did some research. What, what Ipswich did with their great estate. uh, and they came up with metrics that are half of what we’re giving. Gordon Conwell now 1 half of the square footage. If, if this were to be considered a great estate in Ipswich, you know,

and if they hadn’t, if Gordon Conwell hadn’t built all of the for example, if they hadn’t built all of the buildings on the top of the hill, but it was just the greatest state. they would be allowed on the upper campus 54,000 square feet according to the Ipswich 54 right now they have 164,000

square feet, so that’s 3 times. and the same thing in the in the middle and lower campus. In lower campus, uh, Ipswich said they can build 33,000. They have 194,000 square feet. So that’s what another town did for a great estate site which is mostly open space, wide open

for development uh, and that’s, this is how they zoned it. This is a zoning bylaw that they have. that gives you direction and density. This is what this the town of Ipswich is saying this seems right to us for new floor area. And they did it

again for maximum density on uh they use an 8% lot area times 8% is the maximum. So upper campus, they said you can build 66,000211 square feet. Floor area ratio 0.08. Right now we’re at 021 on the top of the campus. Again, that’s just the number, but it’s an indication of where roughly you know,

we’re, we’re 1/3 of what Ipswich would allow up there. Ipswich allowed something for, for rehabilitation of existing buildings. They allowed a lot of bonuses there, you know, 5 square feet for everyone, yeah. for every, yeah, for every square foot that’s a big, that’s a generous one. We have our, our buildings are historic

buildings and are not any register as far as I know, but if you were, we have only 30 32,000 square feet retreat house 14 7 2023 Pilgrim Hall, 15,000 plus Gatehouse, I don’t know if that’s historic, but let’s throw it in. 2200 So 32,000 square feet. So the new floor area increase is 161,000

on the whole site. Those two are additive in the Ipsos bylaw. They’re not one or the other. Yeah, yeah. yeah. So you could do both, but yeah, they, yeah, but right now there’s right now there’s 400,000 square feet on that site right now. built. so so yeah, you could add the 2,

um, 161 plus 32, so you’re up at 200, but we got 400,000 built on the site. Again, it’s not apples to apples because it is a built site because of the Dover Amendment. The, the question for us is it’s going to be passed on from, if, if they don’t sell to another educational institution. It, it

go to a private developer, they’re seeking a private developer. They have a potential buyer apparently for the for the apartments so we’re trying to figure out working with them, what, what can we as a planning board support where we’re interested not just in economic development, which is really important. for us, but the environment you know,

keeping the landscape, uh, and some social needs like maybe a little more housing. Butt and plus the revenue for economic development. Those are the things we as a planning board, I think those are the tools we should be looking at on any, any type of project, any size project, frankly, so I, that,

that is what we’re, we’re what we’re really grappling with to get this done on time. and it so uh so we went through what’s our time frame to come up with an underlying overlaid district that allows them to sell the apartments. What are they looking for November 18th Well, we have the hearing, so don’t

we have to have the language by the hearing? We would have to have draft language by the hearings, which would be, uh Brilliant, mid late October, October 21st mid to late October. So, in terms of the draft language, we have that now. In the brown tail Obila district. What we don’t have

are is the uh the the the metrics in the tables because that is some the language in the bylaw is in, in some senses pretty straightforward. The most important uh language in the byot tracks 8.1.12. uh, really clarified so there’s no ambiguity. That’s the uh, uh, the design process. and so the

findings require that the design process, if you will, be followed so that we get development that’s integrated into the site and also uh is respectful of other development on the site and also recognizes the potential that there could be future development, which is a big which is a big ask but

the language that’s in the brown tail over Lake District now if you were to parse it carefully, you can track it back. to the, um uh, open space and farmland development by law and the senior housing bylaw. So there’s nothing new under the sun, so a lot of the

language in the Browns Hill over way, there’s like the actual English is already in existing bylaws and so with respect to where ratio, as I said originally that’s just one component we have to look at building height, um, the, uh, building footprint, and that’s what we’re getting at. um, and

with the recognition that that the abutters are are going to make up a good portion of the residents at a special town meeting assuming we even get a cop. So we have to, we have to pay attention to the reality that if we want to get this

passed, we have to uh take that into account, and we shouldn’t forget though that that God. that there is the potential for some revenue here for the town. Right. And anybody who’s at least familiar with the town of Hamilton knows that um, I don’t know how far away we are from

insolvency, but you know, we need revenue and uh so we would be naive to say that there should be no uh development on this site beyond, you know, the seminary. We don’t want anything else because this is one of the few tracks in town. I, you know, that’s, I, I have, I have to say that’s something

I just completely, totally disagree with. I think the upper campus is a total white elephant. I think if you actually built 300,000 square feet in total. On the top of that hill, that would be uh given the location of the everybody’s gonna drive to that. That’ll be 66,600 cars a day going in and out of the campus,

um, on one little two-lane road. it’s just, that’s, that’s a doesn’t compute. It would, I would the trans the transportation impacts of, of that amount of commercial development at 500 square feet per person. We, it just, it, it doesn’t make, it doesn’t make any sense. I, I agree that we probably have to allow them to

reuse the existing buildings to transition the existing buildings, but I would not allow uh any more square feet in the commercial option. Your plan number and I, and I don’t think that’s what I intended to say. I mean, we can get revenue as a town from residential, I understand, but the town is

hoping sure it’s 300,000 square feet of commercial property, uh, at some value, yields a lot of tax revenue. I cannot conceive of a company ever wanting to do that, and I cannot conceive of the impact of that. uh, you know, it being worthwhile in terms of of environmental and traffic impact on the town to

get that. I would just take, I would say you can reuse these buildings, but we can’t, the town that, you know, feels it’s just infeasible. to allow more extensive commercial development. in terms of square footage on on that on that top part of the site. I, I think that’s entirely legitimate and

that’s the way I’m leaning, frankly, because that gives you a 0.21. square footage and I think making the existing building any addition that people can always ask for in addition to some of these buildings, you know, to connect the buildings or do a few little things, little mighty

things that that get, that’d be a special exception, but I, I have to agree with you on that. So that, that would be, I mean, if the rest of the board agreed with that, I think that would be a positive step. I, I wouldn’t allow. I’d like to brings in most revenue.

um, because commercial properties, there’s no we all pay the same rate. and, and wouldn’t it, but they don’t use any services. That’s the argument. I mean, they, they, the, the residential plan here looks terrific. It looks just like the great hill in Topsfield or, you know, and it’s got sunset

views up there, um, now you do have to demolish 15 40,000 square feet of, uh, it’s a lot of it’s brick, I’m told it’d be actually pretty easy to demolish, but um I, I just don’t think we should plan for that. I don’t think that should be a plan. Well, no, and I don’t think that was the

suggestion, because I don’t think there’s any demand for, for that kind of oh, that, that with that, yes, that, that, that goes to the question, would any company actually want to do this when there’s no access to highways, there’s one lane that they can get in and out of. There’s no expansion.

If you’re a company like New England Bioabs, one thing you’re always thinking about is, oh, we, we discovered this, we do this, and we want 3 other buildings. We want to, you know, expand. We want to have that as an option, but you’re not, you don’t have that, that as an option in the site. It’s all

crammed right in. Um, I, I just that came, that came from David Gamble in his study. He was the one who was, uh, who came up with 16,660,000 addition to I know, I know, and there were people back to back, people back then who said commercial brokers were chomping at the bit to go, uh, show this

property and what happened to one company that uh actually did a deal in the last 3 years was in Manchester, Selig signaling, and they wanted flat land near a highway where they had expansion capability, all the things that this site doesn’t have and um. I, so I mean, I, I just, but that’s the

purpose of this meeting, Bill. OK, well, then I’m, then, then I’m exercising. I’m, I’m fulfilling that purpose. I don’t know if there’s an argument on the other side of it. So we want to maximize revenue Yeah. We want to maximize open space, and we want to minimize intensity density, intensity right? Right.

And, and we did suggest to uh the seminary today that they look into a traffic study because obviously making the access, uh, two ways from Bridge Street. would be enormously helpful in modulating the overall uh Except, except the exit having lived right across from that accident, that exit is something like a 30 degree

slope, that, that, you know, ices up and he has a sight line and you get about one car every 2 minutes getting out of there. Uh, that, that, that doesn’t work. I just, I, I don’t understand and get why the overlay district can’t be just restricted to the project.

corporate. Why do we have to do it over the district for the campus. There’s no purpose in having an overlay district. They can just sell it. No, they can’t because the to be developed, it needs to be, you need it, like you said, you need to increase the footprint.

So why don’t we create an overlay district for the project that’s in front of us. It has surety, and then add the density that, you know what to connect the building it were that simple. If it’s that simple then I suggest that the seminary just do that.

Why should we? Because there’s no, it, it, it doesn’t, uh, advance the ball for the entire site now. the seminary at one point was going to sell the entire site. we don’t know if they were if they were to receive a very high offer for a good portion of the site or the or the remainder of the site,

whether they would take it and if they, if they did, it would be very helpful for us to have an overlay district in place, particularly because we have, we really have the bones of one, so I would suggest right now, and, uh, and tell me I’m wrong.

Why don’t you look at tables 4 and 5, which have to be determined. off worldbo. I mean, because that’s the object here. What, what does the planning board? uh, think is the right approach. for these metrics and, and, and Bill, I’m not saying you’re wrong. I but these, these, plans here they were

informative, but they’re no longer on the table. They are uh, I would hate to say it. Well, it does, I mean, I, I, I, I I love the concept of the islands. No, uh, if I look at plan, if I look at plan one, if I look at plan one and I’m a residential developer. and I

wanna gamble. I wanna tear down the top of the hill. This looks like a pretty reasonable thing. I’ve got, you know, uh,,, $1.5 million dollar townhouses on top with a beautiful view. I’ve got apartments down below some the other density uh nestled in that, uh, you know, next to

that. I, there’s some open space throughout it. It kind of makes I’m not sure I would agree with, uh, all the numbers, but it’s sort of uh it makes sense because the the debate about whether you want the 2nd entrance onto, um. what’s the name of the road But again, we’re not, we’re not trying to

adopt any of these illustrative plans. We’re trying to figure out what the metrics are and to do it, we need some uh data points. We need some touchstones so that we know if we pick a number, what is it, what does it feel like? What does it look like? That’s the purpose of looking at these

illustrative plans, and that’s the purpose of looking at 4 of them, not one of them, and we’re not picking one. What we’re doing is we’re looking at what amount of sight gets used up and what amount of open space is left. if you pick up a range of metrics. I mean, it the, the, the question would be

on plan number one, is there actually a market for that much? multi-family housing in the town of Hamilton because you were increasing it. from by a huge amount relative to the buildings that are already there, but nobody’s promoting multi-family housing here. There’s nothing really has nothing to do with what’s the

question is on the table. The question is, um, amount of square footage on this site. In what areas just like Amil said before, do we want more up top, more down below, the same amount in both places, um we have to start somewhere or we’re just throwing darts.

Right, and I think I’m tending to want to even go back further to what Pat was saying, which is, I think we need to really discuss what we think is gonna pass. And if we don’t think a whole thing will pass because we don’t know the whole plan.

I don’t know. I did, I think what he said had a lot of value, and I think it’s worth a discussion of just doing something for that one section that we know what they wanna do with it. Again, if you look at if you start looking at even just

piecemeal at the site, what comes up as a bunch of questions, and Bill alluded to some of them, you know, what’s the access? What’s the traffic? Where’s the, where does the additional septic go? How does this all fit together as a package if you start doing this

in pieces, it’s very easy for um the outcome to be something that is not what the town is looking for in terms of um density in, in certain areas of it. It’s, it, it ignores the need for buffers and ignores um the preservation of the heritage landscapes or the, you know, the unprotected resources,

the steep slopes. It just piecemeal problem solving never works, it just never works. the butter is going to be more interested in a comprehensive plan. There’s no comprehensive plan. We just have to pick some numbers here. So there’s gonna be much less paper on the table when if we can get through this,

if nobody has the appetite to look at reference numbers, we can just go to the tables and stick numbers in like Marnie said. Just, just pick some numbers and stick them in there. But I think Amel should be applauded for the amount of homework he’s done to give you a tool so that you have some

reference points. So you have some, you have some context for what other towns are doing, for what was explored in the in the illustrative plans. It gives you a whole bunch of information so that you’re not guessing. Is there a reason why we’d apply different residential metrics than what are already. allowed and residential zoning. Why would

you apply different residential metrics for these Well, you’re trying not to promote single family, you know, the underlying zone is 1 acre, so they’re entitled to they can do that 9 houses there right now. If you look at the 50 acres, take 10% out for roads and so

forth. So they could do that right now and it’s a terrible use of the site. It actually, it would destroy the site, consume every bit of open space, fill it with roads, fill it with rip rap, fill it with, it would just it would be unrecognizable and nobody would go up there, you know, so if

you could do that, but that’s not the highest and best use of the site for the town. It’s certainly not the highest and best use of the of the the the asset for the there’s a seminary. This is a 100 acre site only 50s developable. It’s 100 acres and it all, it all contributes to one kind of

image here in town. And the idea is to maximize everything on that. Enough revenue, this is one of the few sites left to maybe help with the revenue in town because it is a large potential development site, but we don’t want to make it too large, but we can’t skimp it down either. Uh, it is a

potential commercial on itsophicus commercial buildings already there. We’re talking about giving them as of right existing buildings, even though they’re uh pre-existing non-conforming. but that, that seemed like a, a, a, a good, that came out early in our discussion with Ken Barnes as part of it, and so that’s been part of the the the the uh

discussion. I particularly was hoping for a little bit more of a mixed use down in the lower campus, not that to generate any traffic, but I thought that’s a, that could be a real neat community with a couple of assets that could make that a place that people might go to in the area in the neighborhood.

but it, it turned out that residential really was a priority. So I think residential will be almost certainly uh but I guess my question is why. if there’s an underlying zone that’s allowed. Why would you pull a special permit to adopt a more restrictive residential. The overlay district is your choice

whether or not to apply it if there’s a. if there’s an underlying, it’s district eliminates the underlying zoning. Oh, the overlay OK, they agreed to it, so they agreed to eliminate the underlying zone, yeah, yeah, it’s not an option, no thank you. And again, it, it doesn’t serve anybody. that to go back to single family houses

sprawled, it doesn’t,, it doesn’t serve anybody’s the overlay district. Yeah, I don’t know why they call it an move the because it’s confusing I guess but they’re, they’re optional overlays in their mandatory ones. This is mandatory. This is a mandatory. be more clear just to call it a, a new zoning district.

Yeah. Overlay, I think it’s overlaid over the existing zoning, you have kind of the option. I find it confusing. I don’t know why this, this is the first town I’ve been involved in it uses it, but I think it’s common in Massachusetts, but I guess I mean I I think the idea of these zones was really nice.

I did great. I just don’t agree with the commercial on the top. And I think that all the plans have the middle campus. Well, then we can go, maybe we start with the use table, revisit the use table. Let’s do that. Let’s let’s get something done. Let’s try to get something done here instead of going in circles.

debating whether we should look at, at reference numbers. Table 2, if you want to look at, that’s, that’s our use. uses in districts Yeah, this would be one because we’re we’re actually using building types as a finding mechanism here. So here we have the tops, uh, districts abbreviation LLC, of

course, is lower campus, middle campus, and so forth, going left to right. And then all the categories allowable uses on a left-hand column. And we had to start off with the residential attached dwellings, multi-dwellings, so attached are 23 or 4 households, multi-dwelling is 5 or more. They would include actually the apartments that so uh and then

townhouses as another uh variation on housing. and then reuse of existing residents, the gatehouse, that’s a minor thing,, 2000 square feet, but it’s permitted by right. I mean, this, this is very reasonable. The the question comes down to how many units or how many square feet. Exactly. Yeah, that’s what we’re here to

determine. And I’m looking for, I’m looking for a table where I can fill in the num the numbers and like uh 5. 5. Table 4 as the. Tablespoon. No, 4 is just lot dimensions. But let’s just, let’s stay as Jonathan was. Let’s just, let’s just finish the task. Yeah, that’s so

residential looks OK for everybody. Yeah. Now you go to commercial business institutional and professional. Again, uh, the top one is reuse existing business institutional residential. Again, the residential is the gatehouse and only, but we have, so we have on the middle campus, we have a permitted use because those would include Pilgrim

Hall. But that’s just existing buildings existing buildings. Right. If you’re going to build anything new, any of the other plants, all the, all, you know, 90% of what you see here is a special permit because they’re new buildings. So the next one expansion existing business institutional special permit. Middle campus, upper campus pos the, the, the special purpose

on the uh lands uh heritage landscape is the retreat house. So we have 3 special for any expansion of the retreat house special permit. You look at medical services, a clinic. or a doctor’s office, special permit. care facility for elderly, 7 or more clients, special permit. middle campus, upper campus. New office business professional, special

permit. middle campus, upper campus. new institutional that could be like a gallery or museum, maybe get, it’s a public assembly, special permit. middle campus, upper campus. Those, those are what we came up with before. I don’t know, wanna to change those? No, I, I, I, I don’t know, I’ll support

him. Maybe a buy right use as long as you don’t change your footprint. It doesn’t take into account what I think that’s a is that covered under reuse? It’s reuse, but for a different purpose. And if it’s a reuse for a different purpose, you might want a special permit.

You mean the use of the use of the word use in reuse, is that what’s bothering you a little bit. You, the, the que you’re, you’re, you’re gonna reuse the library in its current footprint, but instead of a library, you’re gonna operate some other, you can repurpose it, yeah, without a permit.

is what we’re saying. I think that’s what’s being said. I think he might want a special permit if you change the use, not Yeah, that, that’s language that could come out in, not, not on the table, uh, could come out in the, uh, in the code itself. So you want to use to be subject to a special

permit. If, yeah, if you don’t change your footprint, but you’re changing the use, then I think that triggers a special permit. Well, of course, you’re going to be changing the use. Nobody’s gonna have classrooms in a library. So if it’s one of the uses that’s enumerated that they’re going to reuse it for, there shouldn’t be a problem.

Well, I think it would be on the huge buildings. Look on the bottom of it, but yeah, of this, it says accessory uses. These are allowed, OK, so here, I’ll give you an example. I’ll, you want an exam exam example. We’re gonna take some of the buildings at the top of the

hill, and we’re gonna turn them into a prison OK, now that would be, and we’re not gonna change the footprint. I’m gonna change your prison and that would be allowed under this, right? No. No. No. Why? It’s not I mean well used to use, not listed is not permitted. Oh rats, I couldn’t use that one,

you could, you could put 166,000 square feet of medical services. without a special permit Right. And I’m not sure you want to say that. Yeah, uh, yeah, doctor’s offices, clinics, people driving in and out, it would be, uh, they bump into each other But that goes back to my whole thing about the top

of the hill shouldn’t be a commercial use. I don’t think the middle of the campus should be commercial. I thought, yeah, I think it’s a beautiful residential site, the whole site. It’s just a question of what density and where. what kind of residential. And I know that the butters would feel

that way too. I think commercial triggers a lot of. I’m not sure what the, I’m not sure of the town benefit of a commercial development on that property is. Not having kids in the school system. So that’s going to be a financial hit if you have a lot of kids. and I think um I think with some

variation, if you had all commercial, it would be a problem, but if you have some, I think it helps with um possibly the traffic because maybe it’s traffic at different times. I don’t know. No, commercial traffic is much, much, much worse per worker per whatever. So the only thing I

could think of is really the student. issue. kids. Do you want to focus on commercial for a minute and do we want to choose one or the other? middle campus or upper campus cause I’m not sure both campuses support commercial development. Well, let’s just look at what a definition of a commercial

building is. All right So what we did was put uh table 3. Can you put that on the screen here Hm to see if, if we could change the wording in any of this to make it sound less threatening. So so we have uh, the overview at the top says

building types are used as regulatory mechanism in this bylaw and not all building types are permitted in all districts. So this is, this is an attempt at a description of what each building type. would be or in terms of the established. So if you look at new business professional halfway down. uh, a business establishment which does not

offer a product or merchandise for sale to the public but offers a professional service to the public would be in this category. However, general or personal service establishments are not to be included in the definition of business office. Uh, new institutional are used for public or semi-public purposes and must fit as integral parts of the

neighborhood’s institutional buildings maybe community centers served as landmarks and places of assembly. They have a sense of prominence within their respective neighborhoods. What I’m getting at is I wonder do you want to take a look at any language here that you want clarify the concern you have on the um the, the existing business institution, the reuse

of existing business institutional and buildings include Cur Hall Retreat House, Pilgrim Hall, Chapel, library, academic building, learning centers, and support offices, reuse of existing building institutional buildings fit within the existing campus at Integral and Functional parts and serve as landmarks in places of assembly. And that just means anything.

Yeah. Right. That’s not, uh, that’s not you’re not, you’re not really limiting the, the use in some sense is not involved in that. except it falls within a business category. Why wouldn’t, uh, why wouldn’t a prison be uh it’s a. So a marijuana facility is not government buildings. No, you’re good. All right, I guess

it would be a separate use. We don’t, aren’t clinics and general personal service establishments that are not include general Purvis. general or personal service establishment are not to be included in the definition of business office. So. trying to apply commercial development to business or professional building type. and entire the

line between what what has been excluded from here is retail, you know, I know that’s when you people think of commercial, they think of retail stores and so forth and that’s what kind of drives up the traffic. Retail’s not being allowed, but, but then you’re excluding the personal service establishments.

Personal service, they’re not included in the definition of business, but they are in the professional, but they’re allowed in commercial development So it’s professional service to the public would be the clinics would be the doctor’s office, would be an architect’s officer. which is not a lot. It’s, it looks like it’s not allowed.

No, everything, everything is just an elaboration of something that is allowed. allowable use is that title of the table OK. Uh I still think special permit or commercial development that even reuses the footprint of the buildings. because it’s you’re, you’re concerned, OK, OK. You wanna, you wanna consider different things at that, just changing the

existing buildings. uh the idea to Gordon Conwell we wanted to convey was those buildings do not have to be removed, that you can be. reused and the question of repurposing them has not been discussed really repurpose it to something would have to be a special firm, and I think that’s, that’s

legitimate. We’ll think of a way to work, work that out. Got it. Right, so I, I understand that as well because obviously depending it could generate traffic and so all the other medical clinics and whatnot, they’re all special permits, so we can examine them very closely. As to their effect on

the site. It’ll have different utility requirements, things of that nature so that clarification might show up in table one. Yeah yeah Has anybody looked at table one Pretty straightforward. talking about the development and permit requirements part. Yeah this is where we can add it actually right there on table one, so you know, I’ll take

care of that. Let’s just get back to the uses again and finish that. table up T 2 So with that clarification on commercial, just going to civic recreation. again we had talked about library, museum, art gallery, studios, art, dance, music. and the trails, uh, which would we were looking to get those to be as of right.

throughout the whole site So that’s why all those districts are covered. Uh, this is one that came up light industrial research and development. Again, research offices. This medical analytical, financial, so it’s not really um industrial heavy industrial or manufacturing. at all, but this would again would be in the category of kind of research and development but

not a lot of development Again, this is all special permit, but it’s, it’s indicated in there as a possibility because this could happen on the middle campus or the upper campus. and Bill, your point was you wouldn’t even want that to happen in the existing buildings in terms of intensity

of use on the upper campus. Is that correct? On the middle or upper, what are we upper campus? In other words, if you look at, well, if we took 166, I mean, we turned this into office space, heaven forbid there’s so much surplus. But if we took it in as 160 uh, that’s 400

workers. Yeah, so, so the question is, is your, is your position that you’d like to remove this line item on in table 2 because even if we limit it to the existing buildings, it’s too much. Yeah, if I look at table you’re talking about the light industrial. Yes. Yeah, over

here on this. right here. Oh, I’m, I’m reading the, the, the, the descriptions on table one. um, compare table 1 and table 2. And while Bill’s thinking about, I guess that that members have have a feeling about that that that whole section. I think

we’re gonna get if if you look at 10 if you look at the well, going back but commercial development anywhere on campus will trigger that many will trigger the same metrics for traffic. Whether it’s on the upper or the middle. Yeah, you figure so much per square foot, right? It’s just a question of

quantity right? The commercial on the top is already 160, now you, you’re gonna allow 300. So, you know, that’s 400 vehicles per hour out of the, out of the top, out of the existing use and maybe 60 to 800 out of the um new uses. with a new additional use The existing lower campus, I mean that was

units. Yeah. I guess I’m trying to think of like this whole campus as far as cars in and out every day. and maybe if we’re allowing by special permit, commercial use both on the middle and upper campus. We might want to think about you know, using that would be a traffic disaster. That would be

a traffic disaster. Us, using the, the references you provided back getting into a different much lesserloer ratio or some maximum of 80,000 square feet or something like that, cause if you look at the illustrative plans and what they represented in me, you’re looking at 180,000 square feet

on the middle campus. and I’m not sure you’d want to allow commercial. to buy special permit for that amount of space. I know that Abramson, when they did his final report, Abrahamson had a actually a traffic count. for all of the uh various options that they were offering, yeah uh gamble

and um Abrams and So that was not a study by any means, so it was not really a survey. No, and there was a reference back to 10 and 10 years ago when the campus was very active. How much traffic was there in and out of there, but um there was a traffic number put on it.

That’s very different than workers coming and going every day or uh it’s like our site has 400 to 500 people coming to the site every any day. How many 1000 square feet are you?? 4,000,000, but it’s on it’s on Coney Road. It’s on Highway 1A. We still have people in Waldingfield there.

concerned about that amount. for that size campus. It’s 150 acres, so yeah. 400 I mean, I drive, I drive through that site occasionally at 20 miles an hour creeping around little corners like this and going up and down 15 and I’m going 600 to 1000 people per hour trying to do that. But 400 cars and uh,

I guess, I don’t know, these, these are some metrics that might be interesting to back into the to the square, the, the uh highlighting the benefit of what you did now in the square footages. going into, I mean, everything is open for discussion on this. This is the purpose of this purpose put it

on the table and then just pick it apart. It’s good and I think part of the arjuda that we’ve been having too is that like we I mean, I’ll. looking at it for the, we got the link this morning and it’s like, it’s, we’re consuming it all at the

same. You’ve been looking at it for a week or two. Yeah or 3 or 3 or 2 years. I mean, I guess I, I just, uh, yeah, I would say I have I have real trouble seeing institutional, commercial use in that Latin. And I have, I’m a, and I’m, I, I, I, the plans

for the upper on the residential end look quite reasonable but if you look at the middle campus plan the amount of square footage there. additional square footage is well, it’s pretty similar to the residential on the top. Mhm 120, 140,000 square feet. um Oh yeah Well, the other thing is, well, no, no, the other thing

that’s going to happen here is that um whoever buys that property first, we’ll develop it and that kind of settles, you know, at least in the foreseeable future. Gordon Conwell apparently is going to stay there. indefinitely, I guess at this point, uh, occupy the site. But if they were to

sell off, it’s, if they were to get an offer and the upper campus or the lower campus, they, in fact, they are considered, they’re considering splitting the upper campuses into two pieces, roughly separated by the cisterns that are up there. So they have two areas on the top in that 19 acres that could be.

separated. I don’t see a problem with that, but the, but the idea I think is that they would like to sell probably occupy part of that summit, sell off the other piece. So they’re thinking in terms of what, what is to be sold. Nobody’s gonna buy part of the upper. You can’t get, you can’t get anybody to buy

the whole of Upper, uh, you know, a business. So nobody’s gonna wanna buy part of the upper. Nobody’s gonna want to develop a residential development in the middle of a of a theological seminary building, uh, that doesn’t, that’s just another interesting question that that comes out of

that those comments is what do we feel the minimum lot size is. In other words, we’re we’re trying to avoid piecemeal development. What’s a minimal lot size and, and that’s, and that’s another number that we need to fill in the blanks on. Yeah, that’s because it’ll, it’ll come down eventually to

lots because I think they’ll sell off large pieces, but it’s just my guess, and then it, it’ll be divided into lots by a developer. again, depending on the purpose of them, so. you know, I say you can’t assume that because a single family developer isn’t going to want to develop the middle campus of

there’s no apartment buildings surrounding them housing that’s just not, that’s not what Scholl Brothers, it’s not what anybody wants out of a residential denial development and similar, similarly, if, if you’re not going to get people to develop any single family developments in the middle campus They might be willing to develop the. upper campus with

apartments. I mean, the upper campus if there were apartments on the lower part but um I’m wondering, Bill, if, if you could take this and just mark it up by hand and get a, get a I just don’t want any commercial development, anywhere, anywhere, and I want to have probably reduced number

of residential in the middle campus. That’s it. That’ll be good to hear his homework assignments so I know that, you know, you’ve you’ve explained the material. done a good job explaining it, and now we can. I think there’s a lot of information here to chew on, and I would encourage that, everybody to look at it and if

you have questions come in with a questions and if you have ideas first time you’re seeing it, so it’s pretty tough. Oh this has been around a long time, yeah, that’s the thing. I mean, you have to start somewhere. Yeah. You have to put the, the material on paper so we can evaluate it. Uh, you

can’t just evaluate things in a vacuum, and that’s why there’s this all this information here. Yeah. But I think at our next meeting we have to be prepared to go forward and you know, and, and I hesitate to even broach this, but we, there has to be consensus to go forward. So if

anybody uh, there, there are now 6 of us. It’s unfortunate. I, I won’t tell you about with all 7 of us, but we need a majority of planning board members to move forward. So if we have people saying no, we don’t want to do this. Well, Mr.

Walters needs to know that ASAP, as does the select boy. don’t think anyone said we don’t want to do it. I think we’re just. you need a contrarians to ensure that when you all agree that you’ve landed in the right place. Well, there you go. Thank you. Find that silver lining. Well, it’s, it’s, it’s

9:10 and so there were other items on our agenda, but, uh, I think that uh there’s probably a little to no appetite to, uh, pick up. Um-hum. Uh, revisions to the estate overlay district. No. Solar or renewable energy bylaw, although I think that’s a great idea and. Was there, just to me, I had 11 question

about that was, was the idea, this would be a local bylaw to encourage energy efficiency. Would it, would it be a carrot or a stick? Are we gonna It’s, it’s something that appeared on our agenda, and I think you should direct that question to Mark, what did you, what did

you have in mind? A carrot or a stick? It’s just some solar, and we don’t have a sometimes have a solar sort of sidewalk, we don’t have one, so this would be site plan review. um. It is to say you have to put solar on any roof you build, or

is this to say, we’re going to give you a tax abatement for 3 years if you do it, or is this carrot or stick? What are we looking at? It could be a mix of both, OK, that’s specific to solar in the bylaw that might be something to discuss.

I think. to be honest with you, if we’re gonna kind of move forward on Gordon Carnell, that’s probably gonna be the suck up all our time till December, so um, we should probably revisit this in December, but it’s just something to have on your radar. And Mark, was your, was that your, um, input also on the

retaining wall? Is that, was that come from somewhere else? That was from Bridge Street, just the idea that some towns require a special permit for these big tall retaining walls that we’re seeing is as the lots kind of dry up in town and the lots get harder to develop if you go to see, I think, more

of these retaining walls, things like that. Many towns, um, have a height of a structure, becomes a structure. Now there’s a height of a retaining wall, if it’s more than 4 ft or 6 ft, it’s a structure, and then it’s subject to all of the regulations and structures.

It’s very simple. I actually there’s still 4 lots to be developed. Right. and, and that could be done pretty simply actually properties or sales, so don’t let them slide. That shouldn’t. That’s right. Through anybody’s radar. I mean, they need to. pay attention to that stormwater management bylaw. So for our next meeting,

I think uh. I uh we have a lot of homework to do. I mean uh, there’s lots to be done. There, there really is a lot of work to do. We need to look at, uh, 133 Essex and and I, I just have to urge you to read all these materials, including the

brown taillovi Lake District, very carefully because your input is, is, is so important to the success of this, and we are sort of proceeded from where we had been but I am sensing that there’s a real shift to a new uh way of looking at this site with, with less uh. uh. appetite for a

significant commercial development, so. Um-hum. So if you want to limit traffic related to say a medical office building or any kind of use that would generate um increased traffic that may be beyond what um the town I mean how, how would you effectuate that within these tables and

within the bylaw. So it, it’s nobody’s going to be right or wrong here. We have to hit that sweet spot where where where the the bylaw can be passed. We have the opportunity for a cohesive site and um no buildings or are too big, there’s no, there’s uh not more density than than the town can

uh. envision, so look at the tables and see how that could all be effectuated, and AMI has uh put into table 5 uh a floor area ratio of 0. 2 which just for ease of reference here is about the equivalent of 1 quarter acre residential zoning. Actually,, couldn’t, couldn’t we develop the upper campus

within the current senior housing bylaw? probably That’s an overlay, right? It’s an overlay, yeah. Well, senior housing is not an urban, it’s a special purpose, a special purpose. So, so, so. So. For hypothetically, if you said minimum lot area for the upper campus, 19 acres. Someone could come in, demolish the buildings, and put in a senior housing

project. comparable to the boulders Yeah, why didn’t we get Larry Smith to do that? Give, give up. How about the developers of the boulders. Sure. I mean, I, I, it, it, it’s and, and I think then I think maybe you go to the town and you say, look, they want to

sell off the apartment buildings. So what we’re doing is we’re creating a zone down there that allows you know, some modest expansion of apartments to be consistent with those that are already there asopposed to developing some. please everybody do, do your homework because so far, um, Amy and I have taken the laboring war, but that won’t

get us a final product and whatever our final product is, it has to um first off, it has to be accepted, but excuse me, the seminary, so if they reject it outright it’s a non-starter, but it has to get by town meeting. Bottom line um, do you want to ask Byron if he has any.

anything he wants to share. Mr. Walters do you have anything to share with us? Right. Thank you so much, Madam Chair, and thank you to all the members of the planning board, uh, and it’s been a tremendous amount of work done already. So, yeah, we’re, we’re optimistic with

the direction of things. I, one thing I’d say just on the commercial, uh there is some importance to that to us as we talked about before in terms of being able to convert the existing buildings, uh, and you know, the use that’s in there now is essentially commercial, you know, we’ve had uh 250

employees and probably 1200 students at the same time coming in and out of there uh on a daily basis, so the neighborhood and the areas has taken a lot of traffic over the years. So just maybe encourage to think maybe there are some commercial things that might need a special permit, but, but

if we could have something in there that will allow the conversion of some of those buildings or at least portions of the buildings, uh, you know, while we’re there, that’d be helpful. But uh yeah, we’re working, we’re gonna meet tomorrow with uh with the chair and, and uh and ML so we we’ll

keep this going. We, we know we got a tight time frame. OK thank you, thank you for that. It was helpful Uh, any, uh, further business Yeah. So there’s one last thing to do Motion to adjourn. Do I have a second? All in favor. All in favor. Everyone’s in favor. Who’s not in favor. I, I, I