00:00:00,160	S1:
All right. It is 7:02 p.m. and I'm calling the Hamilton Planning Board. March 24th meeting to order. Uh, so, uh, when I call your name, would you please indicate that you're present? Uh, Jonathan.

00:00:15,480	S2:
Poor Jonathan, poor present.

00:00:17,359	S1:
Emil Dahlquist.

00:00:18,480	S3:
Emil. Dahlquist.

Present. 00:00:19,679	S1:
Darcy.

Dale. 00:00:20,440	S4:
Darcy. Dale.

Present. 00:00:21,760	S1:
Matt Hamill.

00:00:22,679	S2:
Present.

00:00:24,000	S1:
Uh, Jeff.

Austin. 00:00:25,079	S2:
Present.

00:00:26,000	S1:
Marney. Crouch. Present. Oh, and, uh.

00:00:30,839	S4:
Mr.. I think you're here.

00:00:32,880	S1:
Mr.. Wheaton. Are you present?

00:00:34,439	S4:
I'm present.

00:00:35,799	S1:
And so I note that Ben Hur is not present, and Pat Norton is not present at the moment. They may arrive. So, uh, this meeting is being recorded. Um, and so, uh, we can dive right in, uh, to our land use application. So we have a form format and and and and an approval not required request. So, uh, the gentlemen who are here have filed up this application, and could you please identify yourself for the record, because I'm unable to make out your names too.

Well. 00:01:21,030	S5:
Attorney Rich Calvin, nine Ocean Drive, Ipswich, Massachusetts.

00:01:26,230	S6:
Uh, Angela. Priscilla, the homeowner.

00:01:28,349	S1:
Okay. And if you just give us a little background, uh, I we have the, uh, the mop and. Oh, we actually have a nice bigger map. Thank you, Mark, than the one I printed. So just it's much more legible than the one. Yeah, the one I was reading was very difficult to read. So, yes.

00:01:49,670	S5:
I actually was here last fall for another plan with Welch and Lampson.

00:01:53,909	S1:
Oh that's right.

00:01:55,069	S5:
Yeah. Here we go. 25 years without coming. And now I'm here twice.

00:01:58,579	S4:
Oh, well, maybe.

00:01:59,379	S1:
We'll see you in a couple meetings. Good for business. We're good for business.

Right. 00:02:06,140	S5:
So this is a very simple matter. Andrew Baldwin, his wife Martha, own four bucks, which are shown on this plan inside the solid line. And the house itself is on lot tilt. It doesn't show the house. But that was the first purchase by Angelo, and then his parents or others needed him. Lot three and you can see books and pages for each of those deeds. And then let one be came at the same time, really with lot three. And the last little piece was this lot one A, which was just conveyed out to Martha and Angelo by his parents last November. But it was done. That one was done just by a description that was metes and bounds, Which is not the best way to do it, but there was kind of an urgency to get it done with the idea that we'd get a plan done. Um, and so this plan, as it's noted, kind of in the left, upper left, it says lots one, A, one, B two, and three are to be combined to become one. What we have the reason for taking a lot one a from Paris was a datum conforming that was 20,000ft² in the district. So okay the parents land is just raw land. Unbelievable for now. So they just gave them a little piece and now he's in a conforming. Uh, and I met with Mr. Conners to review the plan, and it was really his suggestion to make it clear to this board that that all these other parcels were already owned, to add the books and pages just to show that we weren't creating anything, not not subdividing anything. And that might have been a more involved process. We're just combining all of those lots. And so now the the description, if he ever goes to sell or they sell right now you have to reference in the description of what two what a plan and what three and what one be. Now this plan will get recorded. And if and when they ever sell or just refinance this with lot with the hard boundaries now consists of what they own. And the assessor is very glad to have this.

00:04:26,009	S4:
Oh yeah.

00:04:26,850	S5:
She had she meets him down and she was like please can he get a survey? Yes. You have to put a plug in for her. So this makes it this is good that now there's a surveyor saying, yeah, the lot one a which went on in November. The surveyor surveyed it. That's about it was now it's on a plan. And that's the only piece that actually has to be added to the assessor's map because you right now their current tax bill already is the other three lots. Okay. Now this one, this little strip.

00:04:56,959	S1:
And when it's all combined, will it be referenced as lot two or.

00:05:00,920	S5:
You know it. They didn't what you'd really if I were the attorney drafting the deed I would say the land with the buildings thereon and the reference shown on the plan of land, and you can write it down in the right corner. And then I would add at the bottom said parcel consists of lot three, lot two, lot one villa, just so that someone who looks at the deed and then looks at the plan says, oh yeah, now there's no there's no reason to put a deed on record. They own it. But hopefully whenever somebody, you know, if they get a mortgage, I don't know if they ever plan to get another mortgage. Hopefully not.

Right. 00:05:40,279	S4:
Hopefully not.

00:05:41,720	S5:
Hopefully it sells.

00:05:43,519	S1:
At least not now.

00:05:45,000	S5:
They'll just reference this plan. And then the description could say it consists of these four lots Yeah. Show them.

00:05:51,310	S1:
Right. Right.

Right. 00:05:52,550	S5:
So.

00:05:53,430	S1:
Do any board members have any questions?

00:05:55,910	S4:
Seems pretty clear cut to me.

00:05:57,709	S1:
It seems pretty logical to me.

00:05:59,509	S2:
This bass road, more of a paper road? Yes. Doesn't physically exist.

00:06:03,550	S5:
That's right. Okay. That's true.

00:06:05,509	S2:
That's what I'm puzzled about. Looking at the map. It's not there.

00:06:08,910	S4:
Yeah, I didn't see it either. I was looking for.

00:06:11,189	S5:
It in the paper roads.

Yes. 00:06:14,110	S2:
And is there anything? There's nothing built on the paper road. It just creates another trace in a sense. Another frontage. Or did.

00:06:22,629	S5:
I mean, the frontage is on Birch, right. But I, you know, Bass Pro.

00:06:26,149	S6:
Bass Road is in the back and it's just a dirt ghost to a pond.

00:06:31,350	S2:
Do other folks have rights to it? I mean, I know it's not germane to this. I'm just trying to understand the context.

00:06:36,350	S6:
On the other side so that that's the way I see.

00:06:38,949	S5:
But does it actually have a path even or is it just look like yard?

00:06:42,509	S6:
It's it's hard gravel coming down the road.

00:06:46,589	S2:
Okay. So it's on. It's completely unimproved.

00:06:48,990	S6:
Oh, yeah.

00:06:49,629	S2:
Yeah. Okay. Okay. Just trying to understand what I'm looking at.

Yeah. 00:06:55,310	S3:
Yeah, I noticed that, uh, look at the GIS map, and it looked like you had parcels two, three and one be drawn on the GIS map, but the one A was missing. So now you explained, I believe, what happened. The sequencing of it. So now you're, uh, apparently they were separate or stayed separate, and now you're putting everything together because they didn't indicate the individual lots on that GIS map.

00:07:21,709	S5:
Right. I mean.

00:07:22,750	S3:
They didn't separate a lot. Two from three.

00:07:24,910	S5:
One tax bill. Yeah. But, um, but if you were to describe the property without this plan, you'd have to save a lot to. And you, you'd refer to a plan that was done in a 15 years ago or so, and then you'd save a lot three on another plan that was done. And so the description becomes much easier to just say, yeah, it is all four of these. and the assessor will adjust the eyes and everything else accordingly.

00:07:53,139	S1:
So were there houses on lot 70 and lot 68?

00:07:59,860	S5:
70 is like four and a half acres. Is it? That's just vacant land. Just mostly.

00:08:04,939	S6:
No, no, no.

00:08:05,699	S3:
It's wetlands.

00:08:06,339	S1:
Wetlands.

Okay. 00:08:07,899	S5:
I don't know what's up. Is there a neighbor there?

00:08:10,699	S6:
Yes.

00:08:11,220	S1:
Just out of curiosity.

00:08:12,620	S4:
Yeah.

00:08:13,220	S6:
I think 66 is. Is a neighbor over 68? 68?

00:08:18,019	S5:
Yeah.

00:08:19,019	S1:
Yeah.

00:08:20,180	S5:
Yeah. I mean, they didn't they didn't show the house on this plan. They don't really need to. No, no, no. Sits on block to.

00:08:25,500	S4:
Some.

00:08:25,699	S5:
Of the screen. You know they added to over the years probably. Yes. To give them a bigger yard or I don't know what the back history.

00:08:33,700	S1:
Oh there's something.

00:08:35,259	S5:
On this box. Can you zoom in a little bit?

00:08:37,620	S6:
Yeah.

00:08:38,259	S2:
So are the pools indeed in the paper road right of way?

00:08:41,580	S6:
No.

00:08:42,700	S5:
Oh.

00:08:42,980	S6:
They're okay.

00:08:44,809	S2:
I mean, I know GIS is notoriously inaccurate.

00:08:47,970	S6:
Um, the paper is probably a good 30, 40, 50 hours this way. Oh. So the.

00:09:04,889	S6:
Uh, the paper odds over here.

00:09:10,570	S6:
That's right.

00:09:12,970	S2:
Is that a pool?

00:09:14,490	S6:
Yes.

00:09:15,649	S7:
That pool is part of one.

A. 00:09:19,570	S5:
I didn't even know there was a pool there.

00:09:21,450	S6:
No, that pool would be. My parents live.

00:09:25,490	S3:
That's lot 70.

00:09:27,289	S5:
That's for your parents in the back.

Mhm. 00:09:30,330	S7:
But that sliver one eight is right there next to the 75ft which. Yeah interacts with that pool.

Correct. 00:09:38,289	S5:
You are correct. I mean I didn't even know there was a pool there because I've just been adding a piece to make it conforming. Um, you know, if that were ever to become an issue with neighbors or something, that's one of those things where the neighbors say, oh, we want to use that road. Right. And please move your pool.

00:09:58,200	S6:
Towards that, not near the road.

00:10:00,360	S5:
I know you say it. Right. It might be within the way, but not where the actual road.

00:10:05,440	S2:
Often the physical element is different from the legal boundary. They might not mess.

00:10:09,840	S5:
It up wider than where the actual road is within it. And that's not uncommon for folks, too. Yeah. You know what? It's paper. And hopefully if it's ever becomes an issue, you have to deal with it then.

00:10:25,399	S4:
Okay.

00:10:26,039	S1:
Well, um, does anyone have any other questions? This is a part of Hamilton that I'm not really familiar with. I mean, I think if you don't have if you don't know someone down there, it's not like it's on the way to anything.

00:10:40,080	S4:
Yeah. Nice and private.

00:10:41,909	S1:
No offense, I mean.

00:10:44,309	S6:
Yeah, definitely.

00:10:46,549	S4:
Yeah.

00:10:47,190	S5:
Yeah.

00:10:48,070	S4:
Not a bad thing. Yeah, it's not a bad thing.

Yeah. 00:10:51,149	S6:
Yeah.

00:10:51,629	S5:
That's really.

00:10:52,549	S2:
Weird. Tons of paper roads in this part.

00:10:54,750	S4:
Yes.

Yeah. 00:10:55,629	S5:
Yeah. That's right.

00:10:57,149	S1:
And I think, like, every island road goes into Essex.

00:11:01,509	S6:
It does? Yes.

00:11:02,870	S1:
Because I had a friend who lived there and she lived in Essex.

00:11:05,830	S6:
Yeah. Yeah. It's at the very end.

00:11:08,429	S4:
Yeah.

00:11:09,309	S6:
It goes fantastic. There's a sign saying Entering Essex.

00:11:13,350	S4:
Right.

00:11:14,549	S7:
Is it a dead end road or is it Thruway? Gregory Lane.

00:11:17,870	S6:
Road. It's a dead end.

00:11:19,070	S7:
But it is an Essex at the end. Oh, wow.

00:11:22,070	S1:
And it's all ledge because she used to talk to me about.

00:11:24,710	S4:
Her septic system.

00:11:26,710	S6:
That's like all camps. But there's all camps down there, and it ends up right at the lake.

00:11:32,269	S4:
Oh, nice.

Yeah. 00:11:34,629	S6:
I wish I could dredge the lake and clean it. It was such good. So nice. Years ago.

00:11:39,789	S1:
Is it?

00:11:41,070	S4:
Yeah.

Um. 00:11:42,269	S6:
They put the boat ramp in and everybody could use it, though. We could take it in by a boat. Just sort of take over the lake.

00:11:48,870	S4:
Right?

00:11:49,149	S6:
They couldn't figure out. They could put the carp in there. They would eat it, but that would kill the fed. It's just like it's just all getting older, bro.

00:11:56,590	S1:
Oh, that's too bad.

00:11:57,590	S6:
Yeah, it's.

00:11:58,350	S4:
It's dangerous too, for people.

Yeah. 00:12:01,389	S1:
Yeah. I think there's algae in there sometimes that's dangerous to dogs.

00:12:06,669	S4:
Yeah.

00:12:07,990	S1:
Well, that's too bad.

00:12:09,350	S6:
I think the kids are going to take ice out of it.

00:12:12,590	S4:
Oh, yes.

00:12:17,870	S1:
Have your parents lived there a long time?

00:12:19,909	S6:
Yeah, yeah. My parents had that in there, so they've been there probably 67 years.

00:12:25,350	S4:
Wow.

00:12:27,509	S5:
The scary part is 60 years isn't that far back.

00:12:29,750	S4:
I know, I know, I know.

00:12:36,710	S1:
Hey, this is a part of planning for business. How old we are.

00:12:43,700	S4:
Okay. Okay.

Okay. 00:12:46,659	S1:
He's a youngster over there. We have some youngsters over there. Okay. So I will. In the absence of any more questions, entertain a motion to approve this application for endorsement of a plan believed not to require approval.

00:13:03,100	S8:
I'll make a motion that we vote for the application for endorsement of plan. Believed not to require approval.

00:13:09,899	S4:
Do I have.

00:13:10,659	S1:
Any planning board members on zoom, by any chance?

00:13:14,940	S2:
No, we do not.

00:13:16,539	S1:
We do not. So with that said, all in favor.

00:13:20,860	S2:
I did, we did we second it?

00:13:23,500	S4:
We did.

00:13:23,740	S2:
It second.

Seconded. 00:13:24,700	S4:
So the second.

Second. 00:13:25,779	S1:
Second. Okay. Now we'll vote. All in favor?

00:13:28,419	S4:
Aye.

00:13:29,500	S1:
Any opposed? Congratulations.

00:13:35,379	S5:
Would you like to buy? A lot? When we like to buy.

00:13:38,409	S2:
Yeah. They all sign at the end of the meeting and you can look it up.

00:13:41,490	S5:
Oh, I guess I'll get it.

00:13:44,889	S2:
Should I be the platform? So it'll be at the pet homestead?

00:13:49,610	S5:
Yeah. Oh, yes. Yes. But.

Okay. 00:13:51,730	S2:
Um, yeah. So any time from where, I'll be there.

00:13:54,370	S5:
You think? Okay. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Thank you very much.

00:13:58,490	S4:
Thank you. Yeah. You never know.

00:14:07,250	S6:
Have a.

00:14:07,490	S5:
Good.

00:14:07,690	S4:
Night. Thank you. Thanks, guys.

00:14:16,610	S1:
Okay, so the next item on our agenda is grant opportunities. And we must thank Mark because he brought these to our attention originally. So, um, uh, in your package is, uh, a memorandum that I sent to Marc and Amel, and it was really almost for my benefit as well, because I went on the Commonwealth's website and looked at the various grants that they have available to communities, and I identified three that I thought had potential. And I'm not going to go through the memorandum. I will just say that the the first, um, grant program that I identified called the Massachusetts Downtown Initiative Capital Grant program, which is, I assume, administrated, administered by the Executive Office of Economic Development, seemed to be the most, um, suitable for the types of things that we might like to do here in Hamilton. So if you haven't read it, it's on just a summary of it on page. Pages two and three of the memo, which should be part of your package if you want to just skim through that real quickly. Or alternatively, I could just read the introduction and you'll see why I think it's so good. That might be a good thing for the record. So I will do that. So the Massachusetts Downtown Initiative Capital Grant program strengthens the economic and cultural vitality of the Commonwealth's downtown village centers and main streets by investing in vibrant, livable centers that attract residents, stimulate business activity, and promote equitable regional growth. Building on the foundation of the original MDI Technical Assistance Program, MDI capital helps municipalities transform their downtowns into thriving, walkable, and inclusive Destinations. Through a combination of design and implementation grants, the program advances both local and statewide economic development priorities by reducing vacancies, increasing pedestrian activity, and fostering resilient, business friendly districts that enhance quality of life and reinforce Massachusetts reputation as an exceptional place to live, work and invest. And the capital planning grants specifically reference the public realm. And so I think this is really something that we should strongly consider. Although Mark advises that, um, in applying for grants, you are not limited to just one planning grant. It would be possible to simultaneously submit a grant under the Community Planning Grant program so that that's a topic of discussion, but I also wanted to just highlight some of the aspects of the one stop, um, grant application process. So the Commonwealth, if you go on its website, it has templates for different grant programs. So in your package is um, there should be uh, community one stop for growth planning and zoning community planning template. And I just want to point out some things about this. Uh, so there's a possibility of a joint application. So I would be remiss in not indicating that if we were to pursue any type of planning grant, it would behoove the planning Board to communicate with the, uh, Uh, HTC. Uh, because it's prior, uh, grant application for I think it was half $1 million for capital improvements under the mass Works program. So when the Commonwealth reviews these applications, they are always eager to see that there's more than one organization, a board that's involved in the application. It just strengthens the score that you receive. These these applications are scored, uh, so that there's that the the it's apples to apples when they're reviewing applications. So if you do you have this it says community one step for growth fiscal year 27 full applications.

00:19:14,849	S4:
Yes.

00:19:15,329	S1:
Uh sample template.

00:19:17,009	S3:
So question Marty is that is that applicable to the MDI?

00:19:21,529	S1:
I believe so, yes.

00:19:23,130	S4:
It's because it's the.

00:19:24,240	S1:
One stop program, so I.

00:19:25,960	S4:
Okay.

00:19:26,440	S1:
I believe it is. Now. You know, if you were to call the Commonwealth, maybe they would correct me, but I believe that it is. And yeah, and the applications really are similar. There are some nuances to them but so.

00:19:44,519	S1:
There if you go to page.

00:19:49,839	S1:
Five. So the thrust here is they don't want a lot of words. So you have short project abstract 500 characters. And then if you go to page six this is the meat of it to some extent. Project narrative 2000 characters. Scope of work 2000 characters. Project implementation timeline a thousand characters. Um, progress to date and I won't go through all of this because some of it is not actually precisely germane to what we want to talk about tonight. All of this has to be filled in. But, um, long story short, and in submitting an application, it has to be crystal clear what the town is seeking. And we really want to focus on what the Commonwealth is looking for, not what we're looking for, but what they're looking for, because it's up to them to fund our project. And if it's so idiosyncratic that it doesn't touch on what they're focused on, then we will not have any any hope of getting the grant. But in some of the materials, as I mentioned, there's specific reference to public realm and streetscape improvement once you have a plan. Wayfinding and signage improvements. Public facility and gathering space improvements. So we essentially can plan to do those things. And so in to to kind of facilitate the discussion. I ask Jonathan to just give us a summary of what the advisory committee did in with respect to the town center and the and the three. A a lot of that information was really never presented to the planning board, and it wasn't included in the town center code that that utilized, um, submitted. And then I also want to ask Amel to talk about, uh, the public realm, uh, And if we were to seek a grant, we would want planning for the public realm and potentially also, um, design the preparation of design guidelines. And so Amer will speak to that. And then we can have an open discussion about, uh, what, what's likely, what's feasible, etc., etc.. So, Jonathan, you're up.

00:22:45,539	S2:
Um, so, see, I need to I guess I need to be promoted to a.

00:22:53,259	S2:
You know.

00:23:51,690	S2:
You guys can see that. Yeah. Okay. So the advisory committee, um, was about 12 folks gathered from various interests in the town to help, uh, create kind of focus group and a feedback channel for the process that you went through to develop. Uh, The the three a compliance and the form based code. And what we did is we organized a series of interactive workshops that didn't involve util that really involved the the volunteers and we and why that's showing up there.

But. 00:24:37,369	S2:
Uh, and what we did is we started off by trying to create a common language. And I think understanding how we worked on trying to create a common language dovetails nicely into what Mani has just talked about in terms of filling out these forms and creating a narrative in that, uh, we tried to use in the, in the workshops, common accepted professional nomenclature and definitions and elements in planning, especially when it came to the to the preparation for feedback on the form based code. And I think that, like I say, dovetails directly into how this narrative needs to be set up and how to put whatever our, our final goal is for, um, a grant proposal, how to put that into through the lens of something that the, the state will understand and accept. So, so that's the, the, the point of the first part of this. And then I just wanted to show a sampling of the sorts of things that we worked on with the advisory committee that were shared with you, teal, but not necessarily shared beyond utils. So in other words, they were they were sometimes pretty specific, uh, thoughts, ideas, connectivity, uh, vision that helped inform why certain pieces of the form based code are the way they are. But the ideas didn't necessarily get shared forward. So it might be useful for the planning board just to see a glimpse, just a quick glimpse of an overview of what that process was. But before I start that, I just wanted to go through just a couple of, um, uh.

00:26:25,509	S2:
Constructs that I think will be useful for us to understand for both the, the advisory committee work and also filling out these application forms. So the first piece starts with, I don't know if you can really see this, but uh, it started with, uh, Kevin Lynch, uh, basic principles about what are the elements of, uh, basically a memorable place that you want to be. And that's sort of what we all agree is, is valuable for Hamilton. And that's in the underpinnings of what the state is looking for. They want economic development, development and housing development. And the way that happens is to create a place people want to be, a place that's memorable, place that's desirable place. It's walkable and safe. So the elements, you probably can't really see them that well here. But there's five basic elements pathways. So that's sort of focused on the on the pedestrian, um, roads, drives, walks, trails, anything that's, that's focused on, on uh, movement and, and pedestrians and, and free connectivity around the, the, uh, the downtown. The second is, uh, landmarks. And that would be any kind of a, uh, structure or place that is an orientation point or a wayfinding element or a focal point and could be a building. It could be a park, it could be, uh, just something that that kind of organizes the downtown. So an example would be the community center is kind of a organizing landmark. So is so is the public safety building. Uh, for that matter, so is Pat Park the other. The next is nodes. And a node is really just. If you think of a of a, a place to pause or an intersection where you might linger a bit, it's, it's if you think of a water movement, it's an eddy in a, in a river or a stream. When you think about pedestrian movement, it's a place where you pause and talk or look at something or take a breath, make a phone call, whatever you whatever you're doing. So that's another component of really the sort of five really basic components of, of a memorable place or, or downtown. And I know this says campus planning, this, this, all this was taken from another project of mine, but it's it's Kevin Lynch's basic principles. Uh, and then the next is districts. And we talked about that basically ad nauseam with the three a process. What's the difference between different neighborhoods, different streets? What what makes up that character? Why are they different? Why should they be zoned different? We talked about that extensively in the form based code and in the three a process and then edges. So this is edges are really important in the public realm. It's when you're in an outdoor room. What makes up that outdoor room. Is it a series of buildings that have common frontage or setback? Is it a row of trees that creates a canopy? Is it, um, some other element that forms a memorable space that feels like you've.

00:29:34,849	S6:
You've.

00:29:35,289	S2:
You've you're bound and and and held by something that could be topography. It could be trees, could be fences, walls, buildings. So those are five really basic components that were talked about in the advisory committee process. And you would want to be aware of as you develop, uh, either design guidelines or especially public realm standards. And then you can start breaking those down into finer and finer grain. And that's what some of these things are on the other side here. Uh, and I won't go into that in in detail here. So then if you break it down even further. There's a fellow named Christopher Alexander, um, who's author of something called a pattern, a pattern language. And that's a fairly universal, more refined set of patterns, which this is there's a series of samples here with diagrams that talk about. It's really through the lens of s from a human psychology point of view, from a physical space design point of view and from a uh, uh, just sort of a universal response to, to space or public space. What's the theory behind why people are drawn to this spot? Not that. Not that spot. Why do they go to this part? Not that part. Why do they sit on this bench? Not that bench. That's what Christopher Alexander is about. And he has lots of patterns. Hundreds of them. And I pulled out a few of these for, for this particular application. And, uh, they.

00:31:13,029	S2:
They really are something that you look at in more nuance when you dove, when you dive deeper into looking at the public realm. So examples are courtyards or arcades or activity pockets or garden walls that become seats in a node. Those are examples of Christopher Alexander type type patterns. So those are some of the overarching principles that we tried to share with the the fellow members at the in the advisory board, so we could have a common language when we looked at the downtown. So now we'll just do a really quick, uh, sampling of some of the work that we did specifically with the advisory committee. So we started off obviously looking at base maps. We looked at. We looked at the Google Earth maps, we looked at at assessor's maps and really tried to focus in on what, what the makeup of the the downtown was. And we looked at which buildings were important landmarks. There's that term again, what the edges were, where there were nodes, that kind of thing. And we looked at that closely. And then we asked and we went through other principles that that are often used in, in planning, uh, such as, uh, what, what comprises a walkable street, why your street trees and parkway and parks and greenways are beneficial. What is street oriented architecture? Street oriented architecture just went through some of those principles. I'm not going to go through all of these, these elements. But again, this was sort of the preparation for how to have a group discussion about this and kind of need to if we're going to have a if we're going to have a conversation about filling out these forms and agree on what these forms should focus on and how the what the wording should be in them, we kind of need to have a shared language. So that's that's what this preparation was then. What we did with the advisory committee is we started off with a set of questions, basically, okay, you've got these terms, these, these elements of of what comprises a memorable downtown that has a sense of place. And we started to look at what are some of the the patterns or elements that you notice in wandering around Hamilton. Some of these use different words than I just mentioned that Kevin Lynch used, but they're they're basically synonyms. Like it talks about patterns and edges. Will patterns are kind of districts. We've already talked about edges, so we asked folks to to to walk around and look at where are their clear edges that that make transitions between neighborhoods where, where do, uh, buildings and street patterns change and why might they change in those spots? And we ask people just to start to fill out some of those, those those questions and, and be ready to, to come in and talk about them. And we also talked about very favorite places where you place the places you want to linger. Uh, um, and that's in in some sense that's landmarks and nodes. And again, back to that, that, that nomenclature that I was just mentioning. So we gave them some words around that and then said, tell us about what your experiences are, what places are special that you'd want to linger in, and what places do you not want to linger in and how might you improve them? So we went through that and sort of set of questions and discussion. Then we talked about walkability and connectivity. And so this is back to two pathways that I was talking about as an earlier term. And we asked folks to talk about where they like to walk, where they're comfortable walking and where they're uncomfortable. Where were the challenges? So like an interesting thing that came up over and over is when folks were walking from Peyton Park to Pingree Park, they didn't want to walk around a long Bay road. It felt really unfriendly. So often they went down Willow Street, which was quieter, but it didn't have sidewalks, so there was really no good solution. So it was really interesting feedback and a lot of anecdotes, and we just sort of gathered that information and, and, and sort of categorized it and mapped it and had further discussions based on the mapping and the patterns that we saw. Then we talked about, okay, you've looked at what what's really special about downtown Hamilton, what's challenging and what you wish you had more of and what you might modify. What are some sort of patterns or principles that you'd like to have going in the future. How would you like to have more of what you like and less of what you don't like? And that was this task E at the bottom here. And I don't have all the answers here, but they're all collated. They're actually all public record because those were all submitted to to you till then. What we did is we developed a few kind of sample ideas or principles of how might you take some of these observations and turn them into, uh, first of all, patterns and mapping, and then how might you how might you, uh, turn them into, into something that's more actionable? Uh, so portions of it was a were about, uh, uh, what are the differences between the, the various districts and zones and organized by street. So up here you have the just the general, the idea of the public realm and what's viable, what's walkable, what's the you know, what are the ideals for for street furniture and lighting. And then we started separating out the the various, uh, differences in corridors, the Bay road scenic corridor, the historic downtown, and then these this term alleys was if you thought of and I think we've talked about this before in the form based code process, but if you talk about Bay road as sort of the scenic corridor and railroad and some of the other roads off of it are, you've got the spine and then you, you have these, uh, alleys or, or branches off of it. And to think of Bay road as the organizer and then the subsidiary things or the branches off of that talked about that and how, how might that how is it working? Well, now, what's not working, what's not connected? So this is just sort of a development of some of those ideas. and how might we activate some of those? Those areas that that are less accessible or deep lots. How might we connect some of these? These spaces and all of that with the idea of activating or revitalizing the town? Because one thing that we've talked about again, in the past is how the challenge with downtown Hamilton is that there's barriers. There's a barrier with Bay road, a major state road, sort of cutting it through the middle. Then you've got another diagonal cut of the railroad tracks where you only have two places to cross within the downtown district on Asbury Street and on on a cross railroad to to the.

00:38:39,500	S2:
Hamilton Crossing property. And that to a great extent those two elements really slice the the the downtown Hamilton into a series of fragments that are hard to connect. So talked a little bit about what can we what can we do to compensate for that or enhance that? So those were some of the principles that were talked about. And again, the reason these are important is if we're going to talk about the public realm all of these goals tie into, do you just beautify or do you look at these goals and see if you can do better than what? Right now, the way downtown Hamilton works with its, uh, challenges with connectivity and traffic safety.

00:39:26,690	S1:
So that so so that's.

00:39:28,809	S4:
That's really, um.

00:39:31,130	S1:
Great, because ideally, if we got a planning grant for the public realm standards, the information that you put together with the advisory group is public Information that goes right into progress to date. You know, we we have.

00:39:52,800	S2:
We have some analysis.

00:39:53,760	S4:
We have analysis.

00:39:55,119	S2:
And it can be mine.

00:39:56,440	S1:
Right. And then the HTC also had some planning done as well that can be mined. Yes. So I think that strengthens any kind of grant application. We we have the language. We have ideas as to how to address the key components that these individuals, Kevin Lynch and Christopher Alexander, I assume they're academic planners that have written extensively about this. So so we've got a leg up.

00:40:28,559	S2:
Yep. Yeah. This is based in in in standards of planning. Right. It's not made up.

00:40:33,760	S1:
So we do need a formal plan. You never gave us that right.

00:40:39,199	S2:
So but that would be one thing that we would be asking the consultant to do.

00:40:43,360	S4:
To.

00:40:43,559	S2:
Do. But what we would do is we could go through, have the correct language, have the correct goals, have.

00:40:49,030	S4:
A thousand.

00:40:49,750	S1:
Characters.

00:40:50,989	S2:
Yes, I think a thousand characters is. Why don't we figure that out as two pages?

00:40:55,429	S3:
I've read a page.

00:40:56,590	S2:
Yeah, 500 a page.

00:40:57,670	S4:
So your pages.

00:40:58,469	S2:
Your two pages. About two pages. 12 point type, standard spacing. So, so 2000 characters is about four pages. So anyway, so.

00:41:07,829	S3:
Just Marty can do.

00:41:08,670	S4:
It.

Yeah. 00:41:11,269	S2:
So another another piece of the information that we, that we gathered that helped inform the advisory committee processes. We had the good fortune of having the chairman of the historic District Commission on the advisory Committee, and he shared historic photos. So this is a little hard to see, but is quite a lovely photo of a road. Um, and you can see that it's tree lined. It's an outdoor room. So there's an example. Downtown robe with an edge.

00:41:42,829	S4:
Yes, Where?

00:41:43,670	S1:
That's right.

Downtown. 00:41:44,750	S3:
Looking south from Bolton. Looking south from Bolton Road.

00:41:50,429	S4:
Streets.

00:41:51,389	S2:
So, in any event, um, you know, street trees aren't just beautification. They also strengthen. You know, they strengthen a sense of corridor, a sense of place. So this this was, I thought, a very compelling photograph. It was it was one of our inspirations for thinking about Bay road as a scenic corridor. And how could you enhance that and bring that back to its former glory?

00:42:13,710	S4:
It's quite a distance from downtown there.

00:42:17,110	S3:
Yeah.

00:42:20,670	S2:
What's that thing here?

00:42:24,510	S9:
That doesn't exist anymore.

00:42:26,869	S2:
So losing my slide stuck.

Um. 00:42:32,230	S5:
Let's see.

00:42:33,389	S6:
Here.

00:42:38,670	S2:
Let me try stopping the share and seeing if I can restart this.

00:43:31,820	S2:
Soon to be having some technical challenges here. I don't know what's happening.

Um. 00:43:45,610	S1:
Did you lose your Wi-Fi connection?

00:43:47,769	S2:
I'm not sure.

00:43:51,769	S2:
Doesn't look like it. No, I didn't.

00:44:06,289	S2:
Maybe for some reason. The key. There we go. Okay. It was just for some reason, everything was locked up. Um, okay. So what we did is we took a, um, that base plan, and we started experimenting with, uh, elements on this. That would be, uh, in alignment with some of the goals. Aren't they? Don't exist. Right now, we experiment with connectivity that doesn't exist. Buildings that don't exist. Uh, elements that don't exist. But what could be possible if you took a more visionary approach to downtown? So this is an example of one of the illustrative plans that we looked at. And we took a stab at, at uh, looking at where commercial might go mixed use might go, residential might go. And some of these were folded into the form based code. Some of them were not. We looked at the idea of how might we create more connectivity, or could we create pedestrian connections, for example, between, uh, Cummings and the, the crossing of the railroad? And that would be that's through private property. But if you have a vision, if you have a, uh, an example of how things might work and an incentive to do it, there's no reason why somebody in a development can't say, okay, I see what the town is after. I'd like to offer that as a an amenity to the to the town. And then in return I get, you know, I get my.

00:45:45,710	S1:
Right.

00:45:46,230	S4:
And.

00:45:46,989	S1:
You know. And I hate to interrupt.

00:45:49,510	S4:
Sure.

00:45:50,190	S1:
Uh, so if we were to get a grant, we would hope that the planners would would give us the tools to make that happen. Yes. You know, to have, uh, shared parking among different property owners, whether that would be through reciprocal easements or what. But they could the planners could identify how we can implement these types of visions. That would be part of their quote unquote, scope of work.

00:46:20,710	S4:
Yes.

00:46:21,150	S2:
So the point of this isn't to say this will be done or we want to code this or this is required. The point is that you can see, for example, physically these are the there's these are very deep lots on Bay road. There's enough room for there to be buildings at the backs of these lots, and to have crossed through parking, and you'd have to have cooperation between neighbors, but with a little bit of vision and and small incremental change, you can often achieve those things. I personally, in my work, have achieved those things in residential settings between residents. I've also achieved them in commercial settings. I think in the past I've mentioned a case study, for example, where we had three neighbors get together on the Gloucester waterfront. They all had, uh, permitting deficiencies with the state and the town, and they were able to eliminate those permitting deficiencies, those those sort of violations. And in return, they created the first ever pedestrian promenade along the waterfront. So here's a, you know, a public amenity, a public realm amenity developed by a private concern through cooperation through the town as a result of guess what? A master plan, right? For 50.

00:47:36,260	S4:
Years.

00:47:36,860	S2:
For 50 years there in the master plan, it said we wish the town wishes. We don't know how, but we wish we could connect this to this and connect that to that. And we wish that would happen. So here's an opportunity for the private developers to do it. And then they they got something town got something. And the rest is history. So it can happen. Can happen. Not saying any of this will happen but it can.

00:48:00,940	S4:
It can happen.

00:48:01,820	S2:
And that's the point. So in fact, there's even something very ambitious over here. I see it, there's enough space here without intruding on any of the buildings to put in a, um, you know, a state regulation roundabout that would calm traffic and create a focal point, a gateway to town. Now, I'm not saying that the state would necessarily buy it or that Hamilton would buy it, but it's physically possible. Is it desirable? That's up to Hamilton. Decide. Um, there's another example here of another back to some of these terms. Gateways or nodes? Here's an example of a node coming down scenic Bay road. What if instead if it was just being the trees in a in in a in a row creating a corridor? What if there was a little opening. There's some of this is already here. This part's almost already here in front of the Winthrop School. You just have to put it on the other side. And now you've got this. You you come down the scenic corridor and it opens into a room, and there's the gateway to to Hamilton, to Peyton Park and to the school or whatever this is in the future. So these are just examples of thinking, taking these principles and using them in the, in the downtown space. And again, if you don't have a vision, each developer is just going to be looking through your own little lens and doing their own little project within their own property lines. But if you have a vision, especially a vision of the public realm and some cooperation and collaboration. There's anything's possible.

00:49:35,880	S4:
So?

00:49:36,440	S1:
So, I don't know, uh, in the interest of.

00:49:39,599	S2:
Um, I can I can move it along.

00:49:41,119	S1:
Yeah. Because I want Amel to want to have a little more discussion here.

00:49:45,320	S2:
Yeah. So. So anyway, what we did is we went through this, this thing and each each of these, there's lots of components here. And each one of them is put through a lens of what some of the goals that were, that were established so that from the core values. So this is just keying it all in, you know, and talking about parking and, and networking and uh, mixed use and whatnot. So it's just it's breaking it down into the pieces and saying, how does this serve the interests that we established? And just looking at.

00:50:15,320	S4:
The I.

00:50:15,679	S1:
Mean, this is amazing for any kind of planner to have this, um.

00:50:22,719	S2:
You know, it's a it was a focus group. What came out of a.

00:50:25,199	S4:
Focus group.

00:50:25,760	S1:
I know, but it's still it's very sophisticated coming out of a focus group, really.

00:50:31,199	S7:
Was this artifact from that focus group shared with this planning board yet?

00:50:34,559	S4:
No, it's.

00:50:35,159	S1:
Doing it right.

00:50:35,679	S4:
Now.

00:50:36,119	S2:
Doing it right now for the first time. Email received every bit of this information. Our assignment was to have this focus group gather the information and then share it forward to your teams so that there was agendas approved, agendas approved minutes and work product.

00:50:52,440	S7:
Yeah, it looks like there's a lot of great data points here and I can't read it from this angle. So you'll share it with us over email and Mike.

00:50:59,679	S2:
Yeah okay. Yeah okay. So I'll stop there.

00:51:03,800	S1:
Right.

00:51:04,239	S4:
So okay.

00:51:05,000	S2:
So sorry for the delays in there.

00:51:06,840	S7:
Oh it's great.

00:51:07,639	S4:
So here's it. So, um.

00:51:11,119	S1:
Obviously I've been talking to Emil. Emil. But, um, the the this is.

00:51:18,840	S4:
We.

00:51:19,519	S1:
Want planning grants. So what do we want to plan? We have two options, really. And the question is whether we can get both. So you can plan for the public realm. And pretty much, uh, that's what Jonathan focused on, the public realm. Am I correct?

00:51:37,829	S4:
Yep.

00:51:38,670	S1:
Uh, but the design standards, it would be great if we could get both, but. But Emil can speak to both the public realm standards and also the design standards, because I think a lot of people think design standards. That's just we're going to tell you what your building should look like. And I don't know if you all have, um, seen the, um, the design standards that the HTC put together. And they're, they're old now, but it's essentially a vision of the downtown that's kind of, uh, neocolonial, so to speak. It, it it's more like, what should the buildings look like? But, uh, Design guidelines are much more than that, and they're really not intended to dictate what the buildings look like. So much is how they relate to other buildings. But I'm going to let the real architects speak to that as opposed to, um.

00:52:43,860	S4:
What would you call me?

00:52:46,659	S1:
You can speak to it better than me. What's that?

00:52:49,420	S4:
Facilitator.

00:52:50,219	S1:
Facilitator?

00:52:51,739	S3:
You pass those down.

00:52:53,019	S4:
Oh, sure.

Okay. 00:52:55,699	S3:
Thank you. Um, yeah. And talking with Marnie. Um, let me just say the util in the original scope of services to hire a consultant. Um, it was in the scope of services to do public realm standards. Period. Util agreed to it because they responded to our RFQ saying, yes, we'll do it, and we'll do this at this stage, and this is how long it's going to take. Uh, lo and behold, a couple of meetings in. We see a slide on the screen that's that made a distinction between public and private, and it was made clear by util we are not doing the public standards. We are not going to make them in the bylaws. We're going to deal only with the private realm. So what that essentially meant, and I pushed Zoe on that and she said, no, we're not doing it. We're just not doing it. I said, well, of course it was in your agreement. And I raised a lot of.

00:54:00,090	S3:
A lot of ruckus with a lot of people from top to bottom, and got nowhere. But essentially this would be if we were to continue with the public space standards now, not as not as bylaws, but as guidelines, because he feels position was this is public space. We can't put we can't put laws on it. So we can make a guideline so that when the town Tim Olsen, whoever wants to update a road or anything, they have some standards now they can look at and say, okay, the sidewalks have to be this and whatever. So I think it would be a natural for us to follow into the public space standards. Number one. And number two, what we want to discuss just briefly later. Well, what about folding public standards in with design guidelines. And we'll talk about that in, in in a few minutes. So I think those are two reasonable things to do, either one at a lower cost or both of them at a higher cost. But I think within the standards that they allowed of 100,000.

00:55:10,280	S7:
Should we be aware of the reason that they would not touch the public realm? Is there something to be concerned about there?

00:55:15,400	S3:
Well, uh I got two responses during the meeting. One was from Matthew and he said we are not going to do a 70 page downtown code. You know, he was looking at that.

I. 00:55:32,920	S3:
You know, he was looking at downtown Hamilton's zoning bylaw. And it's a pretty simple document. And it's not elaborate in any other than cell towers. It's not elaborate in really any particular area. Um, so he felt it was sort of out of skill with what, uh, my guess is in talking with them a little bit. Is that three a project sort of derailed their progress. They spent a lot of time that I think they did not anticipate on the three a project, and they were also loathe to get people upset with anything. I brought up the parking standards. As Jonathan pointed out, there was parking proposed or we the idea came up. Why don't you have parking shared parking between two buildings. And it makes sense for everybody who has a business there. And it's good. It's good for the public. Uh, and they just didn't want to touch it because they saw sort of a red flag. If they cross a property line, they've got other issues. And the concern was getting town wide approval.

00:56:40,670	S7:
So it wasn't a legal concerns. More of a lot of work for them.

00:56:44,750	S2:
The three day process made it messy. What made you walk on eggshells? Yeah, is really the gist of it.

00:56:50,349	S3:
And so they became very timid in their approach.

00:56:54,110	S4:
But also all.

00:56:54,869	S3:
These all these ideas that we gave them, you know, were.

00:56:58,510	S4:
As a practical matter.

00:56:59,909	S1:
They had a budget.

00:57:01,389	S4:
They had.

00:57:02,269	S1:
And, and it was getting eaten up for three days.

00:57:04,949	S4:
Yeah.

00:57:05,150	S2:
So in summary, I wouldn't let.

00:57:07,150	S3:
I don't I don't mean to. Yeah. Focus on that so much I just gave a.

00:57:11,230	S7:
No no I only asked because if there's something we should be concerned about, it sounds like it's more of a business.

00:57:15,300	S2:
It was a political issue.

00:57:16,579	S6:
Not a.

00:57:17,219	S2:
Technical issue.

00:57:18,139	S5:
Okay.

00:57:19,219	S2:
Suffice it to say that.

00:57:20,579	S3:
Just making a point to say this would be a natural second step.

00:57:24,539	S5:
Okay.

00:57:25,139	S3:
Form based code number one. So this follows right in line with that in my opinion. And then if we wanted to tag on the design guidelines we can. But I just put together this sheet a couple of sheets. But if you wonder what's in the public space standards, this is kind of an outline of what you could have. Imagine being there just to review the public realm is from property line on one side of the street to the property line on the other. So it includes the front lawns. If they're if there is one, sidewalks, streets, including parking lanes. And it would include street lighting, street trees if we could get them in there. So it's everything really that is between private property on either side of the road. That is the public realm, and it is really crucial to get. Uh, a public realm that has some vibrancy to it that looks alive. That looks, you know, it's not strictly utilitarian or I mean, beautification, but it's it has a function to make the, uh, the place safer, improve the walkability, encourage people to go downtown and stay downtown and to move about downtown in a safe and comfortable fashion. That's a really a sole purpose of improving that public realm.

00:58:43,530	S7:
Includes streetlights, street signs, telephone poles, power lines, all that. Anything within that realm.

00:58:49,369	S3:
Correct. Not power. That's power lines with telephone poles.

00:58:52,570	S7:
I guess that's not included.

00:58:54,050	S2:
Respond to them.

00:58:54,769	S3:
Yeah, you.

00:58:55,050	S4:
Would.

00:58:55,489	S3:
Respond to them.

00:58:56,130	S2:
But yeah, you don't move them.

00:58:58,090	S3:
Street lighting probably one A is controlled by the state with these very tall lamps. What we would do is introduce really a pedestrian light right along the sidewalks. That is much Uh, lower, and it's more decorative. And we could pick a style and say, okay, this is the town center lighting fixture to be used again, just to create a little cohesiveness in the downtown that this would be appropriate. We could change it on Willow Street, perhaps, or whatever. So that would be that's all of that has to be studied. We have to look at the streets in terms of what's the traffic speed, what's the potential for parking on that already? Railroad has parking on two sides. Willow I don't think it has parking on one side, but it probably is wide enough to get at least one lane of parking on the side. And then we look at just look at this for a minute, uh, streets and sidewalks. So we look at the traffic zones where the where the high speed traffic, uh, and where the slower speeds identify the street types and the parking lanes. Then we look at the pedestrian zones, sidewalk types, and allow allowed uses. The pedestrian zones will be determined by how is that? How is that particular street zoned? For example Willow Street, its mixed use encouraging commercial on the ground level, residential on the upper level. So you could there's a potential you could have restaurants there maybe on the on Willow Street or other other types of small scale commercial. If you look at railroad already, that has their right up against the sidewalk, solid street wall on either side. Uh, that's one. Where is it different? That's really pedestrian oriented. Strictly for retail with with the windows and so forth. So that is that's how you we would kind of look at that to see where we could put in street enhancements. But it also is non vehicular Thoroughfares. Those are paths or walkways or greenways that we had. We had looked at at, um, with the, uh, advisory committee, you know, identifying the scenic Bay road as a potential greenway that could be working on street enhancements, crosswalks, curb extensions, outdoor dining, perhaps bicycle lanes and that sort of thing. Wayfinding signage. That's one thing that the state is looking for. Site furnishings might be benches, bike rack racks or waste receptacles. Again, there was some of that in the HTC that they were proposing along railroad toward the wheel of street intersection. Uh, pedestrian lighting. I just mentioned that street and walk fixtures streetscape character. This is where we want to be very particular in the design, landscaping, street trees, pavers, walls and planters. The streetscape Character of Bay road is going to be one thing, and it'd be quite different from what you're going to see on Willow Street, which would be very different from railroad. It's not a one size fits all. It is what's going on on that street, what's traffic speed? What's the parking? What are the authorized activities on those on those streets? And that'll determine kind of what what would be permissible there or how you want to lay it out. And also the existing right of way is existing. So we can't really control that. But this would also give us the opportunity if we, if the town were to create a secondary streets. As Jonathan was pointing out, say, between the deep lots where pair of buildings and then you had between the two, you had a passageway into a parking lot out, or the idea of Carriage Lane sort of discontinue the cul de sac, but actually continue that road back to the Cumberland Farm site and then tie back into either one, a bay road or a walnut. Anyway, that to eliminate that cul de sac would be a benefit that you get more of a network of streets than than dead ends. So the last thing is the civic spaces. So they're basically two things in a public standards, the public right of way in the civic spaces. What what we need to do. And one thing that was missing with us here was the, the idea of creating these pocket parks. So if you're walking along a greenway, you come across, if there's an opportunity and it's something that could be could be a found opportunity between two buildings or that, but it should be part of a public property where it could be turned into maybe a small park with, with benches, maybe in some landscaping in there where people could just pause in the walk. And again, it's just another, uh, feature in the downtown that would make it more appealing. Uh, and then activity type and character, that would be for civic spaces. What is the activity? So that basically is the public space standards. That's what we would work, work on basically as content. You know, unless we come up with some other things on a second page is, um, town center design guidelines. And there were three basic categories at a minimum site and landscape organization, architecture and signage. The site and landscape organization is the relationship of the the uh the building, the circulation to the natural environment. Number one. Number two, the relationship to the community. That's, you know, how does it fit in terms of scale, character and so forth. Open space, plazas, courtyards and context. Again, this is all for private development. Where to put there? Where to put your parking in there and trying to separate pedestrian vehicular circulation, surface parking, landscape design. So that's site and landscape organization. The architecture again a relationship to the site, uh, historic contents context, which is really important for Hamilton. Form and space, scale, massing and proportion, building elements, material, color and surface, texture, equipment and service areas. And lastly signage. This is private signage for businesses. Come up with a family of signs that could be could be accepted. Not a single sign to be repeated over and over again, but one that where there's a relationship relationship between the site and the architecture that would get into maybe color, materials, texture, whatever the graphics, text and information on the sign would be important. Um, you could you could have in your overused signage just for identification. It's not for advertising. So you could be really pretty specific in terms of what your guidelines are going to require. So you, uh, you prefer not to have something like walk ins. Welcome. I mean, that's that's my personal opinion about that. Uh, but anyway, the it's for identification, for ease of getting around communicating in the downtown and then materials, color, texture, uh, signage, landscaping and lighting, which is critical for traffic and so forth. Uh, so those are the three elements there. I also included a page from a town center guideline. Uh, and again, this is not we are not going to be doing the guideline. We're not going to be writing it. But this is one sample how it was set up, say using materials, color and surface texture along with photographs to kind of express what the ideas or the statements are. So you have at the title in red materials, color and texture. There's the overview. What are you talking about? High quality building materials helps establish an inviting sense of human scale. That's important the human scale. So then you look at CC 41. Use building materials that contribute to the visual continuity of the town center. So it doesn't say use building material A, B or C, but it's it says refer back to the rest of the town in your materials. And then it talks about durability and it talks about them second last bullet. And do not use imitation materials such as synthetic lab siding, stucco as IFC or penalize, brick or veneer, stone veneer or plastic except in limited applications such as for an accent on upper floors. Um, so that's that's something. And I do not use highly reflective materials. So each one of these bullets is a guideline or a way to achieve that particular request. Use building materials that contribute to the visual continuity of the town center. So this is just a sample of what a design guideline would look for that could look like with this particular topic. So that kind of a real nutshell is the, uh, is the composition of, of each of those two.

Um. 01:08:34,899	S3:
And I guess what we're asking here is, uh, I think Marni and I both feel that the public space standards is, is the next step, and that based on the form based code which was recently adopted, it would be a natural for this to be the next step going forward to deal with the public realm and in a way that now would be all appropriate while it's still fresh in our minds what we were doing right. And U2 is coming in at some point to show us giving examples of administering the code in a way.

01:09:10,210	S1:
So and ideally, it would be helpful to have the design guidelines done at the same time. So a grant to cover those two components. The question is and Mark, I will we really need to hear from you. The question is.

01:09:29,250	S1:
Whether that's achievable whether the Commonwealth. So this is this is the Office of Economic Development. Whether they would look kindly on the development of, uh, of design guidelines or whether they would be more amenable to just the public realm standards. Clearly they mentioned the public realm in their. Their own guidelines. They don't talk about design guidelines. But when you think about it, we have the form based code. We have a history of of attempts to make the downtown, uh, more serviceable for everyone. Um, and so it's logical to do the public realm and the design standards. So how much would that cost? I mean, how much does that cost? So if if we ask for $80,000,

01:10:33,399	S1:
are we likely to get it? If we ask for $70,000 for just the public realm? I mean, it's the back and forth and and so this is where, um, Mr. Conners can come in and really help us decide which way to go and which will be most successful. And. And, and we will have to reach out to the HDC, because clearly they are very much invested in this already. And they may be able to contribute some monies regardless of how much all these projects are viewed more favorably. If you have more, you know, other entities other than the municipality, um, contributing either money and in this case it would be expertise as well. I mean, oversight would fall on Mark and, and uh, and Joe, uh, so what do you think? Oh, we do have. We do have one. Um, one. I don't want to overstate this, but Pat Shannon, who used to be Joe's uh, assistant, is now in charge of the one stop program. So he worked in Hamilton and he's very familiar with Hamilton. So I looked at look at that as a positive because whatever we say, it will resonate with him because he's been here.

01:12:03,899	S4:
Yeah.

01:12:04,579	S2:
I did say, um, they really emphasize geographic diversity.

01:12:08,739	S6:
Like.

01:12:09,739	S2:
The one every town in the Commonwealth that have this train. Hamilton's never received this grant. Most of the times around us have. So I think that helps us in the fact that we applied for this housing designation. That increases your score as well. And we apply maybe a month ago. I'm assuming we'll have an answer by this state by the time we apply for this grant. Um, so those two things that people will benefit us. As for the cost, I don't know exactly. I think we need to put together, like a one page proposal, and I could kind of shop it around the folks, but I would I would guess it would be somewhere in the ballpark I've but we spent time in the town center playing, if not maybe a little bit less, hopefully.

01:12:51,420	S3:
A little less, but I.

01:12:53,939	S4:
Uh.

01:12:57,300	S9:
I think Hamilton faces a set of very distinct, unique and serious challenges in designing your downtown. So you can't just sort of pull anything off the shelf.

01:13:14,380	S4:
Oh, no.

01:13:14,939	S9:
And use it. And I think if we were to have some money devoted in grants to selectively studying how other towns have faced these same 3 or 4 challenges, as opposed to just looking at what everybody's doing, it's like, how did they solve this? What did how did they accomplish this? So let me go through the couple of challenges, and this comes from spending a lot of time in, uh, for a variety of reasons. Lincoln, Concord, acting with the West Lexington, the western suburbs. And there's the first challenge is small scale. Most of these communities have had very extensive, very interesting downtown redevelopments. Most of these communities are linear, like ours. There's a major road that runs through it, and whatever there is for a downtown is, you know, half a mile either either either side along a road. It's not a lot like a hub of a hub of a spoke with a lot of roads coming in. So in some ways they're very similar to us. We have one a they have two way, uh, we, you know, we and, and and um.

01:14:40,289	S4:
And these are so but but but.

01:14:42,399	S9:
Okay. So there's some real similarities. The one difference is they are between 3 and 6 times the population of us, and at least twice the per capita income. So the purchasing power, the nature of the retail businesses that they can attract, they they can become destinations because there are 30,000 people, 30,000 wealthy people, and they have lots of restaurants and they have lots of stores were 7000 middle income people. It's just orders of magnitude different. So the first thing is, what do you do for a town that's very small in population, very small and resources, it's not the seat of the county. Right. There's no there's no reason for people to come here.

01:15:30,960	S4:
Okay.

01:15:31,279	S1:
But they're going somewhere.

01:15:32,199	S4:
Else.

01:15:32,760	S9:
Or they're passing. They're passing through. They're passing.

01:15:35,199	S4:
Through. But that is that.

01:15:36,520	S9:
That is a huge constraint. You have to live with.

01:15:39,239	S1:
Yeah, but we get them to stop.

01:15:40,869	S9:
That's maybe. Maybe. Okay. Second. The second. So scale the what are the economics of of a small, tiny scale center. The second even bigger. There are numerous trains running west of Boston. None of them go through the center of those towns. Sometimes it's by accident. I don't think it was planned, but but the the the the linear centers of downtown are in front of behind the train station is is not interfering with the absolute ground zero center of the town like it is us. So I think one thing we could do is we have the whole Commonwealth we could identify. I don't know how we do it. Maybe the MBTA would tell us, um, half a dozen other towns where the train stop is right at ground zero. You know, what did they do? Did they elevate the train? Do they elevate the train? Did they move the station back? Did they just live with it? You know, having crossings every 20 minutes during rush hour, creating huge traffic. What did they do? It is it is the dominant character of downtown Hamilton is the frigging train running through the center of town? What? What are the people doing? So that's the second one. The third one is, um, kind of interesting. I got to because I was traveling around to various schools, I noticed that almost none of them have schools in the downtown. You kind of think about that. Sort of makes sense. If you can put the school five blocks or if it's new enough. So you put the school five blocks off to the west or the south, then all the queuing and the cars and so on. Don't go down Main Street, don't create, you know, traffic jams. You don't worry about the kids crossing the major highway. It lights it. It just makes life a whole heck of a lot simpler. And that's interesting because we are in the decision making mode about this question. And if we could somehow use planning resources to say, you know, nobody's building new schools down downtown, they're building them a half mile away or some somewhere else. Um, so that's three. And the fourth was that I actually support most of the, uh, design standards that that Amel has chosen, which is that, um, all of these towns have parking, all these towns have storefronts facing the street, and they all have parking behind, whether it's parking for some event or parking for the stores or whatever else. They've all they've all bought into that whole concept and and it works. You drive down the street and you go, oh, this is really nice. And then you'd think, where do I find the parking? Because it was, you know, little handful of parking spaces along the street. You see the big parking signs? Oh, I see. We go behind and we and we and we. And we parked and that. That actually works. And then they're kind of the last thing is there's in terms of design standards, I noticed two distinctions. There are a couple towns like Concord where every little building has to be preserved because it's, you know, historically significant. And in addition to being charming. But that's all right. What they've done is they've just infilled, they've left all those buildings there, and then they've infilled them with things that, you know, are are not. They fit in even though they may not be, um, you know. Exactly. Then there's places like Lexington, as far as I can tell, they wiped everything out. They built, uh, half a mile. A quarter of a mile of modern. It's not modern. It's sort of traditional brick, uh, whatever it is. But they didn't. They didn't try and save anything. They said what's here is just sort of, I don't know. This was done sort of in the 70s and 80s. I don't know what was there before, but it obviously wasn't worth saving because they didn't save it. And they built everything from ground up.

01:19:47,399	S7:
And it's it's all commercial.

01:19:48,880	S9:
You know, it's it's kind of, uh, it works. Uh, but you don't walk by and say, like you're doing Concorde and say, oh, this is so gorgeous and cute and historic, you know? In Lexington you go by. It's very nice. Oh my goodness, look at all the cafes without without nice seating and everything else. But it's not cutesy and historic. It's just sort of, you know, nice, uh, new, uh, construction. So and but they both work, so you've got to be flexible in the design standards. But the one, the one thing was crystal clear. Parking in the rear. You know, where you can. The streets, you know, entrances, streets, ways, cafes, everything along the walking paths. You know, by the by the road.

01:20:36,829	S1:
And that's implemented in the town center.

01:20:39,029	S4:
Yeah.

01:20:39,229	S9:
Yeah.

01:20:39,510	S5:
Yeah.

01:20:40,470	S9:
The thing is, we we could use, you know, we could say we need money to study, you know, three problems or four problems that are really unique to Hamilton in order to make it a, you know, work in some way and pose the questions.

01:20:56,869	S4:
Right.

01:20:57,550	S1:
I mean, that's exactly right. I mean, I think almost because we have these challenges, it almost speaks to to the reason why we need planning. I mean, to really address the very things.

01:21:11,909	S4:
That.

01:21:12,670	S1:
You have to say.

01:21:13,510	S4:
Yeah, we.

01:21:13,949	S9:
Are we are a difficult case.

01:21:15,350	S1:
We may never be a total destination, but we could certainly be better for ourselves in Wenham. And and really, if it is a more, uh, amenable place to be, And it has aspects to it that are very appealing. People who are going to the polo matches at myopia or are planning to go to Crane Beach, they may stop and walk around because it's easy. It's not easy now, but it could be easier if we had a plan and we implemented a cohesive, uh, public realm standards and design guidelines. I mean, people could just say, wow, this is a cute blue crane.

01:22:00,789	S4:
I'll stop there.

01:22:02,149	S9:
Eventually, I asked the manager of Crosby's last summer. I said, how many people stop here on the way to or from the crane beach said, oh, tons. Tons and tons was his term. And then I and I clicked, clicked. I was somewhere down and Wenham and I say, give me the Crane speech. And they don't go up to Ipswich on a large yellow road. They go through Hamilton, and then they branch over onto Bridge Street and then somehow worked their way over to across 133 and then go out to that that way. And that's that's how you're directing. Not into Ipswich and out or away.

01:22:38,779	S1:
Well, it's you know, there are a lot of people come up and they go antiquing. So they go to Essex or there are some antique stores there, antiques. And in, in Ipswich, Bob, Bob or Kit's wife owns that store. Did you know.

01:22:54,140	S4:
That? What?

01:22:55,340	S1:
Bob Orcutt, the vet?

01:22:57,020	S4:
Yeah.

01:22:57,500	S1:
His wife owns antiques.

01:22:59,420	S4:
Antiques? Yeah, yeah.

01:23:01,460	S1:
Um, I was surprised when I saw him there. But anyhow, I think what you said is, is really speaks to why we need assistance. And we've gone a long way in developing the vocabulary and some really good ideas with the advisory group. And I think it's just a function of, of, of and we might not be able to determine this tonight, whether we should go for broke and try and do both. The public realm standards and the design guidelines, or just the public realm standards. Because I think that that. Well, tell me if you disagree, that that might be a better first step than design guidelines.

01:23:48,890	S2:
Well, I would just like to.

01:23:50,050	S4:
Operate, but please.

01:23:51,050	S1:
Speak to that because I don't want to speak for anyone.

01:23:53,729	S4:
Else.

01:23:54,090	S2:
With design guidelines. Design guidelines really are street facing. They're not backyard facing, right?

01:23:59,770	S4:
Right? Right, right.

01:24:00,649	S2:
So I would posit that that design guidelines are about the public realm. It's just on the private property.

01:24:08,529	S4:
Right.

01:24:08,930	S2:
So it's the the far edge of the room, i.e. the the street room is your building. And that's where the design guidelines, guidelines are focused. So that's one edge of the room. And then the next edge of the room is the is the sidewalk and the trees and the streetlights and the benches and then, uh. So you've got sort of layers that make this, this, this edge. So I think you could easily argue that it's all one idea.

01:24:37,880	S1:
Yes. For the exact reason you just said yes. Good thing that's on the record, because we.

01:24:43,399	S4:
Can.

01:24:43,720	S1:
Copy that and put that into the application.

01:24:46,560	S2:
And again, it's using standard. It's standard moment from planning. So it's really not different. Go ahead.

01:24:52,920	S3:
Sorry. You're trying to make that interface disappear. You're right. So that you don't know when where is the public. Where is the private. Where does where does one stop? Where does it take up. And the idea to create kind of an overall standard, uh, even if the work doesn't get done, I mean, it's going to be a large amount of work, but I'm thinking of like if the HCC, rather than applying for half $1 million for all the sidewalks in downtown, you could almost you can almost pick particular do both sides of Bay road as a project. Once you have the standards, you know that what you're going to do is have something unified in the future, because the other standards will be drawn up in a way that everything is cohesive. And that's that's the idea to get the plan in place first and the other. The other thing I like about design guidelines, it is informative to a developer who is interested in doing a project in the downtown area. They all want to pick up a copy and they look at it. And what do I have to do to get an approval? And they want to be as cooperative as possible. And where your design guidelines offers different ways to achieve a particular effect. If they can find that to be satisfactory for them, they'll do it. And so it's the idea of kind of leading the developer in the right direction to do it the way the town has decided to go forward. I just want to comment on. Uh, because I'm really sensitive to making Hamilton into something that it is not. And I think that, uh, you know, they're very few. And Bill pointed out there very to, you know, we're not Lexington, we're not conquered. We don't have the history and all of that. But but we do have something that is really desirable, uh, and that's what we ought to build on. And that's where I, I think the, the simplicity of Hamilton Town Center should be on the forefront. The landscaping, we don't make it too sophisticated looking, too fancy, too idealized, because that's not what Hamilton is, and I don't think it ever wants to be. That's the one thing I've learned in my years here. People will say, leave it alone. Don't change anything.

01:27:09,590	S7:
If you refer back to the master plan, the idea of open space and equestrian air, I mean, that's what people.

01:27:14,350	S3:
Open space.

01:27:14,949	S7:
Here for.

01:27:15,630	S3:
A single.

01:27:16,189	S7:
It's not meant to be a destination place. Other than the fact that people want to move here, to live here. Yeah, right.

01:27:22,619	S3:
Yeah. And that message to me on about Open Space is you. Every single plan, every single design in this town ought to be focused on open space and make that to design determinant, you know, how do you use open space effectively. And because that's the only way to continue this kind of rural feel to it. And that's really the kind of the key. So I don't see this as a project to kind of change dramatically. I think you come back in 25 years, you recognize the place and.

01:27:51,779	S7:
You just capitalize on the strengths it has today. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah. 01:27:55,500	S2:
And that's really what came out of the advisory committee is that wisdom is here are the things we value. We want more of those and less of these other things that are intrusions.

01:28:05,300	S7:
I agree.

01:28:06,180	S2:
The one thing I'd add to that list of issues we face is, is the lack of sewer.

01:28:11,739	S4:
Yeah.

Yes. 01:28:13,579	S2:
I was talking about pharmacy building.

01:28:16,100	S6:
That is vacant.

01:28:18,329	S4:
Which building? Oh. Oh, yeah. He really wants.

01:28:22,770	S2:
And, uh, he said the second storey is vacant. And I was telling him the zoning. You could do apartments up there or something. Um, but he said it doesn't. The building doesn't have a modern septic system. It has a fifth term that never came before modern septic systems. So if anything.

01:28:41,609	S6:
Could.

01:28:42,409	S2:
Be totally overhauled. And these lots are just teeny tiny.

01:28:45,850	S6:
Yeah.

01:28:46,970	S2:
You know, where do you put a modern septic system? Yeah, that might be something we could look at. Is because all these properties face the same kind of issues as parking and septic, things like that, or some kind of shared solution.

01:29:01,250	S1:
So, Mark, how do you think we should proceed?

01:29:05,569	S2:
Um, let's write up a sort of one page scope and chop it around to the board and make sure everyone's kind of on board with it. And I can send that to consultants and kind of get an estimate of how much that was done.

01:29:23,000	S1:
And should we.

01:29:24,039	S4:
Go? I would.

01:29:26,000	S5:
I.

01:29:26,399	S9:
Think the design standards are very important, but it's kind of like a cart in a horse. It's don't we need to know, you know, where the town is going, even if it's not going to change, you know, what about schools, community centers? What about the trains? What about, you know, the sewage system? It's. Don't we need answers to those questions before we start saying how we want the buildings arranged and what they look like? Or maybe, maybe it doesn't make any difference.

01:29:59,560	S4:
I don't think it makes any money.

01:30:00,600	S9:
It doesn't make.

01:30:01,359	S4:
Money. I don't think it makes any difference.

01:30:02,760	S2:
I think that as you make a place more desirable, you figure out those technical solutions they follow, you know, if someplace is desirable. You know, a perfect example is, you know, a destination community. Uh, hey, band is a horrible place to develop because every single lot is non-conforming and everything's on solid rock. You can't do anything easily, yet it's a very strong destination. So what people do is they get creative about septic systems, they get creative about parking, they get creative about these technical problems because they want to be there. So it's sort of like if you build it, they will come and you need to create something that is desirable. And then there's there then there's a motive to solve these technical issues. That would be my.

01:30:52,279	S1:
Okay.

01:30:52,640	S4:
So um.

01:30:57,239	S1:
We'll try and write up a one page, um, scope that will include, uh, the public realm standards and design guidelines and see where we go with that. And, um, you know, the first consultants I would get in touch with probably would be util because that hit the ground running. They, they wouldn't have to do, you know, 6 to 10 hours of familiarizing themselves with existing conditions.

01:31:32,069	S4:
Yeah.

01:31:34,069	S2:
And they've already seen all the ideas that came out of the advisory committee.

01:31:37,510	S1:
Yeah. I mean, that's what I said. They'd hit the ground running. So, um, we'll work on that. Um, and, uh.

01:31:49,750	S1:
So at the next meeting, we should have more information, and then we can, uh, uh.

01:31:58,829	S1:
You know, think about getting a rough draft of an application. See how we, um. And we will know at that shortly About our designation. Right, Mark?

01:32:11,619	S2:
I would hope so. I'll check in with you.

01:32:16,779	S3:
So the deadline then is.

01:32:18,899	S4:
June 3rd.

01:32:20,140	S3:
For an application. Completed application.

01:32:24,340	S2:
We submitted the housing designation back in February, so certainly by then we would know.

01:32:30,300	S4:
And we we.

01:32:31,819	S1:
Meet the criteria. So I think it's going to be.

01:32:35,340	S4:
Yeah.

01:32:35,699	S2:
I haven't heard anything. So I think no news is good.

01:32:38,979	S1:
Okay. So, um, we'll have to be, um, uh, careful about meeting this deadline, but I think we can do it. I think we can do it. So, uh, next item, master plan implementation, formation of a implementation committee. Well, my letter, uh, that I sent almost a year ago Failed to elicit a response, at least a formal response from the select board.

Regrettably. 01:33:16,210	S4:
Uh.

01:33:17,010	S1:
So I don't know if you've had a chance.

01:33:20,090	S4:
To.

01:33:20,689	S1:
Read my revised letter, which is okay, no implementation committee, but can we just as a town, have the boards and commissions and the town officials meet annually or semi-annually so that we can talk about the master plan and whatever boards and commissions are doing. They are working toward, uh, fulfilling the action items in the master plan and not working at cross purposes. So, um.

01:33:58,010	S1:
We could consider taking a vote on whether or not this revised letter should be sent and, um,

01:34:08,449	S1:
Preceded by any kind of comments or discussion as to how this letter could be changed.

01:34:18,210	S4:
I think we should send it.

Um. 01:34:23,250	S4:
I think we should send it as is.

01:34:46,090	S2:
Yes. The question would be, for a meeting like that to be successful, you still need somebody to create framework and facilitation.

01:34:55,970	S10:
And how would you do that?

01:35:00,250	S3:
Well, it's almost as if the planning board ought to take The Select board's role, you know, to organize it and.

01:35:08,760	S4:
Oh.

01:35:09,159	S3:
If anything is going to.

01:35:10,000	S1:
Happen. So I could add at the end meeting schedule, I could say that the planning board.

01:35:21,600	S1:
Is willing.

01:35:23,359	S2:
That wasn't that wasn't the answer I was suggesting, but I was posing the question as you were volunteering. I am not volunteering.

01:35:31,800	S4:
No, I asked.

01:35:32,840	S2:
For it to be a successful meeting. It has to have some framework.

01:35:35,760	S3:
Oh, absolutely.

Right. 01:35:36,720	S2:
Otherwise, it's just.

01:35:38,239	S3:
Somebody has.

01:35:39,039	S2:
A coffee.

01:35:39,399	S4:
Clutch.

01:35:40,079	S3:
Yeah I agree.

01:35:42,920	S1:
Well, I mean, the, uh. Or it would have to be organized by the town manager.

01:35:50,399	S2:
You can say, with the assistance of the planner.

01:35:53,399	S4:
Okay.

01:35:56,520	S2:
The problem with us just taking the lead on it is that we're often in the dark. You know what other boards are doing. Whereas Joe should have the right.

01:36:05,710	S1:
So he actually and, you know, at one point he did do this because I know I attended some uh.

01:36:14,630	S1:
Meetings that there were a number of people there, but the agenda is really the action items in the, um, in the master plan.

01:36:22,430	S2:
I mean, what you could almost do is in another paragraph, you could frame the preparation for it, which would might be that each board is responsible for taking their action items and, and providing a brief summary of where they're at or not at in preparation for the meetings, so that the facilitator can then put the agenda together. Yeah. So that could be right in this letter.

01:36:49,310	S3:
Yeah. There has to be. What's what is your goal when you have your meeting? Right. What are you trying to do? Right.

01:36:55,510	S2:
You know, they're just sharing information. That's great. But you got to get each board to organize Beforehand.

01:37:00,260	S4:
No, no.

01:37:01,380	S1:
I took my old letter and just cut and pasted.

01:37:04,739	S4:
It, so.

01:37:08,220	S4:
I didn't I.

01:37:09,739	S1:
You are 100% right. So, um, I will, I will add another paragraph and, um, we can finalize it, uh, at the next meeting.

01:37:19,939	S2:
You know, and then they can edit that paragraph, but at least you're creating the beginnings of a framework for a framework.

01:37:25,979	S4:
Right. Yeah. Right.

Obviously. 01:37:29,260	S1:
Okay. I will do that. And then, uh, so the next meeting, we can determine, you know, whether to send it. So on the agenda, accessory dwelling unit design guidelines, I think we've got enough design guidelines on our plate at the moment. I think we should just defer that for the moment. Um, uh, and the town center zoning we've really addressed in terms of the grant opportunities, but do we have any, uh, timeline from UTC on when they might start their presentations.

01:38:03,729	S2:
I'm hoping Monday I'll sort of have an internal meeting with them to sort of kick things out. And, um, I'll have a better idea of what we're looking at for a schedule.

01:38:15,210	S1:
Right? And so the next item is the pod, and Pat Norton was going to help us on that. And incredibly, he's not here. Um, so, uh, perhaps I will reach out to him and see if he, uh, had any suggestions about.

01:38:40,289	S1:
The language that, uh, we had come up with and, uh, I can report back. And then finally, the small, clean energy projects. Is there anything we have to do tonight with respect to that other than be afraid. Be very afraid.

01:39:01,050	S2:
There's just a one Peter in here. That kind of sums up where where the state is optimistic. I've spoken to Representative Heffner about this because the the way it's written now, the towns have to there was no effect in July in the town. Town. It's in effect for town starting October 1st. So I see incentives to do these things where they don't consider, like the town meeting calendar. Yeah. Um, because we typically have the town meeting sometime in October or November, special town meeting or annual town meeting in April. We don't typically meet in September and we are odd, I think have a meeting of one single item. So yeah, I've spoken to her and she understands. I think that it just doesn't work for counts on the town's schedule of government, so we're hoping that we can get that schedule adjusted because it's really got For our purposes. So we haven't heard back from the state, but I'm hoping that we get some flexibility with that. Um, the we will have to make some zoning changes because the way the state's written code, the sort of default local representative government, both local government representative would be the select board chair would be the person interacting with the applicant. And obviously, I wouldn't expect our Selectboard chair to do that or want to do that. That would fall in my lap. Um, but not every town can't plan there. So if the state kind of breaks the regulations in an odd way, I think. But, um, so we'll have to make some zoning changes to account for that.

01:40:37,399	S1:
Well, there's the last paragraph. Need help?

01:40:43,079	S4:
Because it seems.

01:40:44,079	S1:
Like we need.

01:40:44,760	S4:
It.

01:40:48,439	S2:
I do know that none of the state's not to a place where these are final. The regulator final, but the guidance is not final, so no penalties. Making changes for this in Springtown.

01:41:02,270	S1:
Oh right. And most towns again their town meetings are later in October right.

01:41:09,829	S2:
Yeah. Not in September. Late October.

November. 01:41:13,350	S1:
Right.

01:41:16,750	S3:
So at the next meeting we do have the high school solar.

01:41:21,590	S2:
Yeah, we have a few applications. Actually. We have the high school wants to do solar panels out of there.

01:41:29,630	S3:
Does that fall under this category then? Is that.

01:41:32,829	S2:
Because it's not.

01:41:33,670	S3:
Clean energy.

01:41:34,510	S2:
Active yet? It doesn't take effect until July. So it would just be under our local pilot. Okay. Um, yeah. Now we are preliminary subdivision for small three subdivision off of Meyer Lane. And we have a stormwater permit, so there will be a few applications. Planning process.

01:42:06,779	S1:
What's the stormwater management one do you know?

01:42:10,859	S2:
It's a single family home and things are dry.

01:42:17,180	S4:
Okay.

01:42:21,739	S2:
So I know we're jumping ahead here, but, um, have the has the high school.

01:42:28,460	S10:
Submitted, like, a decommissioning.

01:42:30,300	S2:
Plan for that? I know solar collectors have a limited lifespan. And then when the lifespan is up.

01:42:36,659	S10:
You have to do something about it in there.

01:42:40,220	S2:
Um, and so and there's also kind of environmental consideration for the decommissioning. Mhm. So I know I'm just the way it is, but.

01:42:53,779	S2:
I don't work. I'll see you in the application materials. I've dealt with solar applications. The town's done a couple of different things. They can hold like a bond, so they have to clean up once the decommissioned. Or they require some kind of plans that they go.

01:43:13,340	S2:
Forward with. I'm really looking forward thinking.

01:43:19,500	S2:
I'm just trying to think of things that think ahead. Yeah, sure.

01:43:33,300	S1:
Okay. Any other business?

01:43:41,460	S1:
Anyone? Well, I do have. I have to alert everyone I am going to be out of the country on vacation for our next meeting, and I am going to attempt to zoom into the meeting. Uh, but because I will not be in the United States and I cannot guarantee, um, I will succeed in that endeavor. I've asked Aimo to chair the meeting. Um, I will ask him to do that. In any event, just in the event I would lose connection or whatever. So I will do my very best to attend, and I will. Obviously, it's hard for me to keep my mouth shut, so I.

01:44:29,770	S4:
Will.

01:44:30,970	S1:
Participate, but Emil is going to be in charge.

01:44:37,289	S1:
So now.

Uh. 01:44:38,810	S4:
Oh. Yes. I move that we adjourn for the evening.

01:44:41,449	S1:
Do I have a second?

01:44:42,449	S4:
Second. All in favor? Hi. All right. All right.