Um. Open the officially open. The meeting of the Planning Board of the town of Wenham. Uh, it's a special meeting to work through, um, the subdivision rules and regs. So not our normal night, but, uh, it's Wednesday, April 22nd, 2026 at 6 p.m.. Uh, in the room. Uh, here are, uh, Margaret, um, I want to say young.

And the reason I want to say young is because my very first administrator was Margaret Young, Margaret Hoffman, um, a town planner, um, myself and weeks and our new member, Marcus Wright. Online, we have David Anderson, Scott Schneeberger, um, and then representatives from the Innes Land Strategies Group, uh, to work with us tonight.

The meeting is being recorded, and the recording will be on file at the town hall and on the website. They can get it from my office if they have it from the county office. Copy. Um, so our one agenda item, uh, at the outset is to walk through this, this particular, this new draft of

the subdivision rules and regs that's been put together by Ennis with input from, I think, the board and from, uh, and from our planning staff and any anyone else look at this so far. Or is it just been the planning staff it's been planning? I haven't had any too many comments from other departments.

Um, the building inspector has looked at it. He made a few comments at the first round. So they do have those. So I think we heard from Board of Health. Greg did send some. Um, great. Yeah. So Supriya has most of those. I'm going to do list and stuff. share. Oh, am I sharing? Can you guys see?

You can't see anything on there. Okay. That's fine. All right. Um, Supriya, is there anything you want me to bring up, or do you want to do it? Uh, I can share my screen. We just want to run through, um, the status of where we are and what's next. So I have a very short presentation for that.

Okay, great. And then I went through this draft and made some comments and had some thoughts. And I don't know how you want to handle that conversation, and I don't know if other members have done the same.

00:02:32,830	I hadn't received anything from anyone but you in other comments. Well, some some of the things I noticed are not worth having a conversation about because they're just weird missing words and the like. But some things are sort of policy questions that I think it would be useful, at least to raise tonight and start having

a conversation about it. So, uh. I, I do acknowledge the typos because between the transition from the PDF to the word, every time we look at the document, we are coming up with something that slipped in the transition. Uh, but the point of this draft is to make sure that every

department and the planning board and the town staff had an opportunity to look at it so we can kind of wrap it up and have a complete, proper final draft, um, for the town. So I'm just going to quickly go through this. We I'm also joined by Sam and Sam. Do you want to introduce yourself real quick?

Sure. Uh, my name is Sam Ford. I work with expedited engineering. I'm a principal here, and I'm helping as partially like a technical advisor for NSS. Mhm. Great. Thank you. So we are at the kind of the final task five, which is preparing the final draft and also looking for public approval and comments.

Um, I'm just going to walk through what did the first draft include? What does the second draft include and what we are still missing on town confirmation. And there are certain things that need a little bit of policy directions and what we are going to do next. So the first draft we submitted was on December 23rd.

And what this did was firstly transfer everything into workable word document, but also have a discussion with a lot of stakeholders and the planning board of what sections are missing and how to modernize this. So we added on to the existing subdivision regs more than taking out and doing heavy reorganizations, but also flag

sections that were inconsistent or duplicative that would need further review. The next draft we submitted on February 27th, um, and this one, um, try to take a look at the very heavy legal language and simplified it into normal English so that the reader, uh, it's more comfortable for the reader.

Um, we also try to streamline and clarify a lot of submission requirements and make it more simple. Um, there were two chapters of design and Construction. Um, standards that were two different chapters that felt a lot redundant. Or someone had to go back and forth to look at the design and construction standards for the same topic.

So we consolidated that into one chapter. Uh, we also reviewed all the timelines and deadlines to make sure that they are consistent. Um, and we also, um, had a long discussion with the town about how many street types are necessary and what exists right now. Uh, and this is something that which is why Sam is here today.

That Was a discussion that the town felt like we need to have with the planning board as well. So I'm going to hand it to you. Yeah, sure. So the I think the original draft had had five different, uh, street classifications, and we've now called it down to four.

Um, I think it makes sense just in terms of, uh, you know, where the responsibility for maintenance lies. I think with arterial collector and local streets, it makes sense that the DPW, um, you know, would be set to maintain those. The fourth classification is the minor street and common driveway, which is classified and discussed in the

definitions as a private street. Um, and therefore I don't think would need to be managed by DPW. Um, I think that this just ultimately reduces, you know, uh, some ambiguity as to what the I think it was a modified local. It was the fifth classification. Classification that we got rid of.

Um, and it's just, uh, again, it just it reduces and provides a little bit more clarity for, for designers as to what the road is, uh, where Street is intended to be. So, Sam, how do you guys want questions on topics? Do you want us to wait till the end of the presentation, or do

you want us to ask them as the as they arise? Um, I can just pause and we can. Yeah. I was just going to say, personally, I'm happy to to kind of talk through whatever, whatever questions you may have at the time. Yeah. In the definitions you've got, um, you've got descriptions of heavy volume and substantial volume.

And for a town like one, I'm one of those terms mean. I'm just wondering how we would think about that if we were looking at a plan. Yeah, I was gonna because a lot of the the current language kind of Allows for the Planning Board's discretion to define the street.

Um, and I think that part of some sort of preliminary process or initial conversation with the town should, should clarify that. Um, Supriya, you and I haven't touched on this, but as I was kind of prepping for this meeting, that was another thing that I was considering is, is, um, doing some sort of

understanding of of what volume would classify for each and have that set in the definition. Um, I don't know if that's answering your your question directly, but I think that, you know, if you're setting, um, you know, a trip generation number expectation within the definition that I think that removes additional ambiguity from, from it.

It would remove ambiguity. I'm not sure how you would go about figuring it out, and I wasn't sure if you already had something in mind if there was some definition somewhere in the statute or in the design, their manuals, that that could sort of, um, enlighten us about this a little bit.

Yeah. I think what I would end up I haven't looked at it yet, but usually Dot would have something of that. Um, and certainly could be something that I can discuss with Dot if they have kind of a standard for, uh, for volume on each of those roads. That'd be helpful.

Yeah. I mean, I think it's probably going to be obvious, but just because we have that language in there, it'd be useful to have some framing of what it is intended to mean. Agreed. Yeah. I think I could ask a question. Yeah. So I, I have a question about the minor street, um,

definition we do have in there that it's any private street access to three or less slots, each of which has frontage at least twice the minimum area required by the zoning bylaw. Is that something we want to maintain? That, um, these lots have to be 80,000ft in order to be a minor road.

I mean, that's a policy question that we should have a conversation about as a board, I think I think. Is that something that we can determine? Uh, you can determine as a board, make that choice. Do you think that's something that the board has the authority to change? I mean, it needs to be

consistent with the zoning bylaw. Yeah. This just refers to twice what the zoning bylaw, whatever the zoning bylaw is. Yeah. So, you know, our zoning bylaw right now is 40,000. So I'm just thinking we've had we do have some small subdivisions, right. We've had the two and three lot subdivisions, but they have these. They're these huge lots.

Uh, is it something that the board wants to think about? That perhaps we could reduce that to say, you know, we just leave them at 40,000. You could have a three lot subdivision with 40,000ft. I don't know, David. I don't know if you had any thoughts on that one. Talking about smaller lot sizes.

Do we want minor streets with.

00:11:06,370	Because the other part of minor street, it can be built to less exacting standards, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. Yeah. And then it's a private street, though minor streets have to remain private. That's something that we do now. You know, for those small lots, like on Maple Street and Lily Lane, they have to remain private because they're minor streets.

Understood. I think what do we end up with on these, though, is those great big cul de sacs at the end because they are such huge Lots. I think just personally going towards smaller lots would achieve a lot of the things we've been talking about generally as a town. Do we want private streets. On them though?

00:11:55,929	Doesn't aid affordability if you have to pay that, maintain your street. Yeah. I mean, I don't see a lot of incentive to having.

00:12:08,899	Smaller lots.

00:12:12,629	Sizes for big scale subdivisions. I mean, I don't see the advantage of cramming more houses onto a development like Spring Hill. I see a lot of advantages to having different lot size requirements for certain areas of town. Um, But I think in the subdivision rules and regs which are targeting the larger scale developments.

General, uh, like if you think about, can we talk about specific developments in the past that are closed? I don't see any reason why not. Right. Sure. Yeah. I mean like Lilly Lane. So if we drop this to.

00:13:01,169	50,000,

00:13:04,529	in theory, they could have crammed three houses back there instead of two. Is that better or worse for us as a town?

00:13:17,000	I don't know that they're going to do more affordable housing, smaller housing sizes. I think they're just going to be more crammed on the lots. That's how the developers make money. So I'm skeptical that this is the this is the vehicle that we would use to do housing density.

And when I'm in the areas that we think it's advantageous. Right. And I and basically you're sort of doing it back, back end wise for the minor street requirement. I was suggesting that instead of 80,000ft, a 40,000 square foot lot could suffice even on a minor street.

Although the whole point that is a minor street is going to be less exacting. The standards are not going to be as exacting. And if the more lots you have on it, the more traffic it will have. Maybe it can't be more than three lots. It's three minor streets or three. Right, right.

Right. Actual access to three or fewer lots? Yeah, to just three or fewer.

00:14:20,169	Uh, it was just a thought I didn't, because I know we've looked at we've had some of these. They've come in and they, they have 80. It's an 80,000 square foot lot it seems, with one house. So they end up having to be the $2 million homes.

00:14:37,100	But so you're saying that this twice the minimum area required is different from the old rules? Yes. Yeah. It's leftover from the old rules.

00:14:48,929	Um, I'm just thinking maybe on the minor street, if it was, if they were allowed to use 40,000ft, only three lots or less, though they can't use a minor street for four houses. If there's four houses or up, they have to go to, um, a better constructed road. To the road.

I mean, if the parcel is big enough to handle three.

00:15:16,100	80, 80,000 square foot lots.

00:15:21,299	They'll handle three 80,000 square foot lots. You know, if that's what they want to do. If that parcel is big enough to handle more, they'll go to a different design. Well, I think like we were talking. About, it's not. Going. To. It's not going to change their decision, I don't think. But say Lilly Lane say they

could have done three houses there. They would have been on at least 40,000 square foot lots. It would just be a they would have gotten an extra house in there. Um, but only three, whereas they could only do two because they needed eight. But I think without them, I think without design standards to sort of,

um, create incentives for smaller houses on the smaller lots as opposed to tall houses that aren't in character with the neighborhood. I'm not sure that the plan works. The idea works. I don't know if that's what you're trying. You were saying, David?

00:16:21,970	I think so, in. Scale of it. Yeah, this may not. You know, Margaret makes a good point. So this this may not be the right. The right place.

Um. 00:16:36,799	I've always. Just since. Since I've been watching this stuff, I'm always just concerned about.

00:16:45,899	Squeezing stuff in the spaces that aren't.

00:16:51,200	Squeezing stuff in the. In the spaces that do not benefit from being squeezed and infilled. It's not at scale. Is that what you're infilled? It's not at scale infilled. It's not, um, intentional by the town. We're not you know, we've gone kind of block by block and area by area through the town.

We know where it would be cool to get some more density. And we know the areas that, uh, but like.

00:17:29,700	Um, like, if you think about Lily Lane.

00:17:37,099	That would have been an awesome place to have had.

00:17:42,299	Five small capes. It could have created a really nice micro community. Micro neighborhood. Now I get it. That's not going to work for.

00:17:56,470	The current minor private street minor road language, because you can only have three lots.

00:18:04,369	Um, instead, we got two large houses. I don't know that allowing a third large house there would have been what we wanted. Okay. But I don't. But I think I'm talking about maybe something different than what we're trying to do tonight. So I want to be careful not to derail his. Spin us down a little ball.

00:18:29,170	Yeah, we can discuss a little more later.

00:18:36,769	I had a question in the Open Spaces section. Do we want to let. Do we want to let us continue through their presentation. And when we get to the Open Space section, can you hold your comment there? Oh, yeah. That's fine. I wasn't sure how we were walking through it. Yeah, that's that's that was my question too.

And it sounds like if we're in the topical area, we should ask the question and then continue through and wait till we get to that topical area. So if you have if you have one, just hold it. Does that sound right, Supriya? Um, we probably don't have anything about open spaces in

the slides, so we can just discuss that right now, and that's okay. Okay.

Scott. 00:19:26,670	There is a in 4.9.1. There was a term in proper cases in relation to whether or not there could there would be a park in a, in a subdivision. And I wasn't sure what, what improper cases meant in the context, and also why we wouldn't go or couldn't have a policy. That's more.

Once you're above a certain size, we require a certain amount of open space.

00:19:59,630	We can cross cross-check that with the zoning and see what what the zoning says, and then make sure that's reflected there. If there is a percentage in the zoning. And Margaret, you can correct me on that and make sure that that's reflected.

00:20:15,970	I think there I think there is a requirement, isn't there, in the. In the subdivision Regulation. No. In the zoning ordinance, if you have a, um, develop certain kinds of development, do require open space. Mhm. Or would that. Be used to have an open space. Um, what was called our, our old residential open space

development bylaw was part of the subdivision bylaw. But we don't have that anymore. Okay. We have flexible development which does require open space. But that's a that's not a subdivision. It's not really the same as subdivision. It's a special permit process. So there's a policy question for the board. Do we want to try to add that here.

We could I know when I think when the subdivision bylaw was written, there was a lot of opportunity for large subdivisions to be built, you know, with multiple multiple homes. And I think back then everyone thought, well, let's put a playground in, make sure they have a playground in here for the kids.

Um, and I think that was where that idea came from. I'm not sure it was necessarily just open space, but I think we can certainly have that somewhere. Um, I don't know if we could allow for more density. I don't think you can. Well, I mean, subdivision. What this says.

It says that the park or park shall be at least equal to one acre of land for each 20 dwelling units. Yeah. So that was for. 10% of the land area. Yeah. Um, and this is for large developments, obviously. I don't I don't know that we'll be getting a subdivision that large anytime.

Well, we didn't see anywhere that we could do that. To just get right. I think that I think the issue in that point is that, um, proper cases and I. Yeah, exactly. We can do. Is just cross-check that with zoning if there's a proper case scenario or remove that language, because otherwise

it's just subjective of what proper case can mean. I think. That's right. Exactly. I think if you just took the phrase in proper cases out that allows the board to require a plan because it says may also it doesn't say that we have to.

00:22:41,170	Okay.

00:22:47,569	Um, if there aren't any further questions, I can move on to the next slide. Sure. I mean.

00:22:57,970	So there are a few items that we still need the town's input on. So on March 11th, we received the town's comment on the draft tool. We're still waiting on further comments from different departments. We, the the forms and application forms will be confirmed by the town council. Um, we have a section about, um, inspection and supervision

that needs to be reviewed by the DPW, because we want to make sure that what we are adding is exactly what actually happens on the ground. So that's something that spending information. Um, there is some language that the town, um, has asked us to incorporate in the ANR plans that we add in.

We had written complete street design objectives. Um, but since the town hasn't yet adopted a complete street policy, we are going to take that entire section out. And once there is a formally adopted policy that can be added into it. Um, again, there are certain definitions that the town and

the Conservation Commission is going to clarify for us. And if the board is okay with the four street types, this is the point where we'll actually have diagram technical diagrams and cross sections for it in the next draft. Great. Do you want comments on any of this now?

Um, one of the things I can just run through the comments, the sort of major ones that I saw when I was looking at the draft. If that works for you. Yes. Um, the the the first, the first sort of substantive thing is, um, are we asking for underground electric utilities in all new subdivisions?

I think we are. There are some places in the draft where it refers to poles and, yes, wires and overhead types of stuff that I wonder if you could just do a close read to confirm that, because it's it's a little bit ambiguous what we intend. It doesn't actually say anywhere.

And I don't know if that's because it says in some other town bylaw that that's what we're aiming at. But we should if if it's not stated, you know, positively somewhere. It probably ought to be. Um, and. We can add that in the utility section so that the intent is clear. And then I'll cross-check for consistency.

Yeah. I flagged a couple places in that written comment document that I gave Margaret. So, um.

00:25:36,500	On page five in section 1.2 A, which I don't remember the title of it, but look, um, it's in the purpose section. It talks about environmentally sustainable and resilience subdivision design, including water conservation and modern stormwater practices, etcetera, etcetera. It doesn't say anything about, you know, encouraging or promoting, um, renewable energy use, um, in building, siting or

anything like that. I don't know if that's within the scope of something we can add here, but I think it would be consistent with our master plan to to have language like that. We can definitely. You're thinking about the configuration of lots. Just to keep in mind how a building would have to be

positioned to use renewables like that. Um, so that was one. Um, there's a definition of irrigation system on page seven that, um, it seems to inject kind of a normative requirement into a definition, which I think is not the smartest way of doing it. I think it should be stated somewhere that we're not

permitting irrigation systems, that somewhere be beside the definition of irrigation system. You know what I mean? Do we have is there a town bylaw at this point that says no irrigation systems in? There is no bylaw that requires that? Um. It's in the Water Department's regulations, though. The prohibition on new. Prohibition. Systems. On irrigation.

Cross-reference that somewhere here. Yeah. Under utilities, maybe. Or I don't know where you would put it. Streets, utilities. Um, sidewalks? I don't know, it. Says on the irrigation system. It's the definition, though. In in the definition. Ornamental landscape irrigation are prohibited in new subdivision. Right. And I'm saying you don't put a normative provision like

that in the definition. Okay. You would put it somewhere else in a report in the department. That was my flag. Okay. Okay. I don't know what the other attorney on the online might disagree with that, but that was my reading. Mhm. I defer to you on uh, I assume you were the ghost, the ghost

writer for Strunk and White or the Blue Book? Yeah. Except they didn't say anything about this, but whatever. I've already asked the heavy volume of traffic versus substantial question on page 12 and section 2.4. Sorry, I'm making you do this, but as long as we're all here together. Whoops, this is upside down. Where's page two?

Where is it anyway? It's in page. It's on page 2.4. And I'm not finding it here. Here it is. That's what I mean. Um, more than one building for dwelling purposes on a lot. This might get to your question also. Um, we've got if you if you want to.

00:28:47,799	Get a building. You can't you can't do more than one building. Um, per 40,000ft, exclusive of land and floodplain. Do we really want to be that prescriptive here, or do we want to say that it's, um, consistent with the zoning bylaw instead of that. Yeah. Consistent with the zombie budget.

So instead of saying such consent shall be limited to one unit for 40,000ft, it should say such consent shall be limited to the acreage as required in the zoning bylaw for the district in which the subdivision is located, or some language like that. Do you see what I'm saying?

00:29:27,170	Yeah. Keep that 40,000ft in case of changes. And shouldn't it reference not CMR, but are our bylaws. Yeah, yeah. Uh. Um. No, because the accessory dwelling units is CMR. You could also you could do the bylaws to you know. It is in our bylaws. It's in our zoning bylaw now. So our bylaws are slightly different than CMR.

We might want to we want to capture that. Okay, so that's another change to that paragraph.

Okay. 00:30:10,869	Um.

00:30:16,029	And that.

00:30:19,329	And all of these are written down. I'm just. We can't afford it. Yeah, because of the open meeting law. We can't. I can't send it around to the board. We have to have a conversation. I'm sure you understand that. So you can send them to them tonight, though, after the meeting, I'll send them your comments.

Right. I'm just going to go through and explain them if I can. So we're all here, um, in in section 2.8 criteria for board action, I think it would be very wise to expressly cross-reference the town master plan then in place as one of the priorities for boards to evaluate and coming to a decision. Mhm. Okay.

Um 00:31:02,569	on page 17, in section 3.2.2, and then again on page 18, in section 3.2.3 S, there's this this reference to topography and providing information about topography on the site in a general manner. I don't know what that means. Does it mean, um, existing and proposed with ten foot contours?

It would seem to be that in the preliminary plan, we would want some feel of the proposed grade changes and volumes to be moved to pushed around, even if it's preliminary plan. So Margaret also flagged that in her comments. So that's something that we look into.

And also Sam had, um, a comment about how much to include in the preliminary plans. And that's coming from the other side. Who actually looked at the subdivision rules? So, Sam, if you want to talk about topography at all. Yeah, sure. Um, you know, the advances in GIS, topography and using of mass

mapper, it gives a pretty good understanding as to what the total of a site currently is already. Um, so I think having general characteristics of topography is, is, is kind of hinting at that in using GIS topography from a preliminary perspective before anybody dives into full design. Um, my commentary was was probably stemmed from another

process that I'm currently in relative to a subdivision in which a, uh, a preliminary process is has essentially required that I design the full set of, of site documents at a preliminary stage. And in my in my view, the preliminary process is should be in place. More from a a discussion perspective.

Um, should have a general feel as to what the preferred layout would be for, you know, the client, um, have some understanding of, of general topography changes and kind of what the, what the approach would be, but doesn't really get into the to the nuances of here's my stormwater calculations, here's where all of my utility runs are,

everything of that nature because, um, it's, it's it's time for one from you know, I obviously work with a lot of developers and time is usually of the essence. Um, and so that's kind of coming from, from that angle. Um, I do certainly think that it could be put in there that you should have a narrative

attached for from an approach perspective. Um, yeah. But again, I also use preliminary processes in terms of neighborhood engagement. If there's not another vehicle in town, um, you know, proposing subdivisions in land areas that are, uh, you know, highly sought after or valuable to the to the neighborhood in general.

Um, I found that it's a good vehicle to initiate those conversations with different folks that are, you know, the interested parties that they can weigh in, you know, during that preliminary process and, and really try to, you know, put their thumb on, on what the end result is from a design perspective.

Yeah. No, I agree with all of that. But that's my kind of obscures my question, because I'm just wondering if you're saying that in a general manner means use GIS topography. Why wouldn't we say that or something similar? Um, we. Can just we can specify that. And that's the general promise also.

Yes. What Margaret Flack that we need to be specific. Right? So if we can just decide what that means and then it's completely redundant because we have subdivision, we have the preliminary plan requirements. And in J on you know, page 172, J says the topography of the land in a general manner.

And then you flip the page over additional subdivision submission requirements. You have s which says the existing and proposed topography in a general manner. And so I think the question is which one are we asking for? And is it a is it a standard part of the submission, um, and not an additional submission?

It seems like the language of S should go into J, and we should be specific a little bit more specific about what we mean by in a general manner. That's that was my comment. Okay. Yeah I agree with you on the preliminary. Doesn't need to be a final.

The preliminary means needs to be enough so we know what's going to happen. And we can give you or the developer a sense of, you know, gosh, that seems like a lot for that piece of property. Yeah, yeah. Um, okay. So that was my questionnaire.

00:36:09,369	Um.

00:36:12,869	The next one that's got any substance to it, um, is in the, um, definitive subdivision. It's basically the same the same thing on page 20, subsection M, line 6630 to 635. There's a requirement to submit a topographic plan showing existing and new. Can we ask for that on a separate sheet and have it

include the lot lines so that we can see what one of the things that I found when I've looked at some of the submissions here is everything is crammed onto one sheet that's really hard to discern what is what, but if you could see the lots on top of the topography, it would be super helpful.

Okay. Does that. Seem. Like something you would value? Yes. Yeah, definitely. Um. Just to just to comment on that too. Just I think that from a design perspective, having a, you know, a specific checklist of those sorts of things that the town would like is incredibly helpful. Okay, good. So that's certainly something that I've, I've talked about

within us and, um, could be brought in as part of this as well. Yeah. Even if I don't didn't review the forms. Presumably the forms have a checklist. Do they do the forms have a checklist? Yeah. Um, I don't I don't think so. We you should probably we. The firms don't have a checklist, but, um.

We had discussed with Margaret of because the language the, the some of the language needs to be retained in the preliminary plan and the definitive plan, and it's quite Lindi. So our discussion was that we can Ines can create a handout that just shows the timelines of what's due when and the

process timelines, as well as a checklist for. Oh, that would be super helpful. So yeah. Um, the next one I have is on page 21, section three, the tree plan. The. And I don't know if this is the way it's written now. I have, I have, I'm embarrassed to say.

But is the burden now on the tree warden to submit the plan and not the applicant? No, I don't think it's ever been that. Okay. But it's written that way now and so is it. Well, in this draft, it seems to be. Maybe I've written. Maybe I've misread it. No, no.

Margaret. Margaret, you have flagged that, and we have changed that. That that's not going to be on the tree board. So, yeah, that would have to come from the applicant, not our tree board. And the tree warden gets a opportunity to review it. Yes. Right. And is that going to be written into here too? Um. Yeah.

Yeah. The thing will be part of the review for all of the applications. Yeah. Great. But I mean, specifically with the tree plan, he should be reviewing and saying yes or no. Yeah. So it should say that I think. Okay. One of the, one of the earliest discussions that we had with

all the stakeholders was that they would like a copy of the plan and certain duration to and I think that specified somewhere. If not, I can cross-check, uh, an a specific window of time to come back with their comments. So that I think, includes the tree order to 2.

Okay, well, I'm sure we'll get to see the next draft. Right? So, um, I only have a couple more.

00:39:55,630	That I flagged as sort of policy questions or, um, unclear what the intent is. And that is. So the next one's on page 29.

00:40:13,099	Um.

00:40:17,670	There's a what is it? Page 29, section B one. I'm actually might be on the wrong page. Yeah. Um. It is.

00:40:32,369	I know, I know. Here we go. Sorry. It's, um, B one line 987 on page 29, it talks about releasing the performance guarantee and it refers to pavement integrity intact. After 18 months, we had sidewalks there. It's not just the roads, but also the sidewalks, pavement integrity. So that's that's a good point. Can we do that?

So it says pavement integrity blah blah blah blah blah blah blah, completion of all roads and sidewalks within the development. And I guess we could do it that way. Or we could say road and sidewalk pavement integrity intact after 18 months, however you want to do it, but just add sidewalks there.

Um. 00:41:30,670	Go ahead.

00:41:33,869	Do someone else have something. I don't. Think you know. Um. This is stupid. But on page 2928, line 98978. Sorry, there's a reference to a penal sum. Can we change that language? It seems kind of archaic.

00:41:56,800	It's in the it's in the it's in the performance bonds information. Um, 15 a reduction of bond surety. Maybe that's a something in the statute. Or is that. That's from the old one. It's a it's a I think that's from our old one isn't it. It has to be. It's. I can double check that.

If if Dan were here, he would know whether or not that's just something that is a term of art that they use, but it just seems like the wrong word. Anyway, that's my dumb thing there. Um, on on page 29, in section b v back on that um b5 little, little Roman five. There's functional integrity of

all parts of the drainage systems. Do we want to call out stormwater as well? Drainage and stormwater systems? We had that one performance bond in the subdivision. Then that will remain unnamed. That gave us heartache because we weren't sure if it was functioning. Remember that. And there was a street acceptance question and so on and so forth.

And I think the. I think it would be wide wise. A good idea to do. All that stormwater. Because the drainage system refers to the stormwater, but it's a stormwater drainage system. Right? Although there are also stormwater basins that are really not part of the drainage system, they're they're part of the.

I think they I think the whole thing is right, because the way the water drains and. Define them separately, and we talk about them separately, elsewhere in the rules. So I just think if, if we can if town council doesn't say don't do that. I kind of. Like I think it's a good idea to include that.

Okay. I can see that we can add to. See where it is, where I am. Yeah. Okay. Um, and then.

00:44:00,400	On page, I'm almost at the end, 54 to 55. We're mandating we're mandating seeded grass plantings between sidewalks and streets. Does that want to be seated grass. This is a question for other members of the board. Do I want to be seated grass or does it want to be some sort of

vegetation that maybe doesn't take so much water? I mean, it would. It's consistent all the way through town right now that it's seated grass, but Oftentimes it doesn't get maintained. Um, it gets mown but not seeded and kept up. And the question is, if somebody wanted to plant that little, you know, mini wildflower garden in there,

would that be okay? I mean, if the developer wanted to do that. If if we wanted a dry scape of some kind there, I don't I don't know how the answer to that. I'm just curious. Absolutely, absolutely.

00:45:05,800	No language for that is my point. I mean, how are they? How do you even how does a developer for like a Spring Hill, how does it even get a seeded grasp thought in that space without constantly watering it? I mean, because sprinklers aren't allowed? Right. So how did they even do that, they manually water it

with like a watering truck.

00:45:38,300	I think they don't get maintained very well. Uh, up until this point, um, irrigation has been allowed. So wherever there has been a sidewalk, the, the, the um, resident's irrigation system would typically run over into the sidewalk. Not that have if they told, we told them to take the heads out.

But I think in other subdivisions around town, you might find that those seeded grass areas are watered by. Just, I think, inconsistent of us to be saying you can't have any irrigation system and then requiring a seeded grass planting. Yeah. Um, have you seen any subdivisions or sand that have those sidewalk areas with other things besides grass?

Any other ideas or. I mean, I'm, I'm. I can't speak to being a landscape architect by any means, but I, I've, I've heavily relied on, um, you know, landscape architects to kind of dictate that using some type of normal grass or some sort of, as you kind of mentioned, I think was, was

kind of a wild flower vegetation. That's that's more, um, it feels more natural to me. I personally like it. Um, so I think, you know, removing some of that specificity does probably make sense as long as the, the town would, would like that.

00:47:05,300	That way you can work with the developer, uh, you know, to come up with something besides the grass when they present their, um, landscaping plan. Right? Yeah. Which is the thing to do. A thing to be sure of is that it doesn't end up just being plain that that there's nothing not that there's not nothing

there, you know. Right. So I don't know if you guys have the ability to come up with some examples from other ordinances or something that are considering water conservation and sidewalk development, and offer us some suggestions there, rather than just mandating seated strips of grass. Yes, we can. We can look at that. How to frame that language?

That would be great. And I think it's not just in that one spot. I think it's other places too. Probably in the street design section. Um, and then the only other thing I have actually, I have two other things. Sorry. On page 55, the very top line, which is, um, numbered 1981.

On my draft, um, there's a reference to the character of the neighborhood. I wonder if it could say the character of the town and the neighborhood. Yes, because one of them is small enough to be one big name. So maybe we don't need that. But on the other hand, there's this reference, um, references

in the in the um, master plan to the town's character and so forth. So just including that, I don't know that it's something that struck me. And then the last one and this is the last one on page 57, in section 4.10,

00:48:49,070	it's a section on protection of natural features. Can you add steep slopes and topography or steep slopes to that? So in other words, we're preserving natural features not just of the kinds listed, but also trying to preserve significant topography or steep slopes or something like that to avoid lots of cut and fill.

00:49:19,130	And that's what I had. Those were the comments I saw when I went through it. I just wanted to bring up one more thing that the town had pointed out that they want a discussion with you, which is the dead end Street Provisions. Um, section 4.1 G. Um, and the question was, should those be retained since

random has so many cul de sacs?

00:49:50,199	4.1 where is it? I'm sorry. Can you just give me this something to look at? What page around is that on? Yeah. Um, it is 4.1 G dead end streets. Which looks like it's page 34. 34 and 35. Yeah. Um, I see it here on 37. It could be 36, 37 on the other side.

F g dead end streets. Yeah. So the first thing it says is dead end street shall be disposed.

Just. 00:50:25,599	When that's basically all we get are dead end streets. And why do we get them? Right now, if you look at a map of Wenham, it would be very difficult to connect roadways any like large row with any other main street because of the topography and wetlands and things.

So people find large lots and then just go in and create what they can. So it's difficult to connect. So that's why I think we get them. So but we it says it I mean it says discouraged unless justified by topography, existing conditions or rather special circumstances.

I mean, the thing I was thinking about is that so much of Wenham is wet. Yes. That you can't really get from here to there. Um. I just think that that we have something in here that says that they're discouraged when we Do you know? Do we discourage them?

This is what I was wondering about with this language. I mean, it's not. It's not. What would you say instead?

00:51:34,500	I don't know, because the idea is to be present. The discourage is to. And having to leave a so that if it's if it's impossible to connect, um, you, you have cul de sacs, but the intention should be connectivity. But if it's not possible, then of course it's fine. That's how it reads.

But if there is some other letter. Yeah, I don't think we've ever had anyone submit an application and say justify the dead end street, you know, and I don't think I haven't heard us ever have a conversation about this section of the bylaw but said, well, you know, why can't you connect to something.

And who raised the issue? The slits or I'm sorry, who raised the issue for us to look at? No I did. Oh, you did okay. Okay. Only because in the time I've been here in the subdivisions that we have, um, dealt with. I haven't heard this conversation come up.

Even though it's a it seems like a not a big part, but it's certainly a part of the subdivision regulations that the board, when it was written, wanted to have connectivity, wanted to connect subdivisions. Um, I think the big one was, um, William Fairfield, you know, that was a big subdivision that I think

followed these subdivision regulations and. Connects connected both ends in the middle. Yeah, it moves around right and comes like that. Whereas I don't think we've seen one since then but has been able to. Well, we've tried to get it to connect through to Beverley, the Spring Hill one. Right. We made them connect for.

Yeah. Fire access only, not the gate. I don't know that they could have connected because of the topography down the other side to. Um. No, that wouldn't happen. So. So I guess I'm wondering what the question is. Margaret, are you saying that this doesn't do enough to discourage them? No. I think my question is, do we?

For me, it's like, why are we even saying that? They're discouraged. You know, because they are. Okay. Don't. I mean, other people have a different view.

00:53:57,900	I mean, you would want to encourage. I, I could see moving a little 2 to 1 and 1 to 2 here because then it would read and maybe even titling G dead end streets. Discouraged. Yeah. Okay. And then the positive statement of the policy the board encourages the planning board, encourages connectivity and discourages isolated streets.

That's a bit I like that. And then you have connectivity. Yeah. And then having the second one be dead and three should be discouraged. Or maybe you shouldn't even say should be discouraged. Just say must be justified

00:54:35,170	by topography, existing conditions or other special circumstances. And then three seems redundant again. Mhm.

Um. 00:54:47,469	And I don't know about this business of dead end streets and creating frontage. I really haven't thought about that except. Where they create frontage for lots in excess of minimum requirements. We we don't we don't really consider this section usually when we're looking at. I would love it if somebody drew for me what that even looks like.

00:55:17,199	Yeah. So even like the next one, which should not be longer than 500ft. Um, and most of them, the streets themselves, underneath one of them are.

00:55:34,199	Low density areas. Are those defined anywhere? What are low density areas? You should never pointed this out because I'm like really? So whereas I, I went I, I kind of hopped over all this street, the technical street stuff and I was going to say, can we have the town engineer look at that.

I think my thought is how to implement this section. You know, how do we review for this and how does the board, uh, you know, is this information enough for the board to make a decision about a dead end street? And is it necessary? You. You could add a section into the application that says like

dead end street justification or something of that nature so that it has to be addressed. If that's if that's if this is like a key thing that the town is, is hoping to discourage or explain, put it on the designer to actually have to address it in some fashion.

Yeah. I like it because also, I mean, I'm just sitting here thinking like, I can't think of a single dead end street in the town, which I, I like. Right, right. Yeah. I mean, I love I don't mind dense neighborhood. Well, it's it's very personal. I mean, the great neighborhoods of Wenham are not dead ends.

Right? I think what we're dealing with now is a lot of infill, at least in town. And so it lends itself to dead end streets. But there may be parcels out there that we hadn't. We don't even know about. Honestly, that may come in and we would want to discourage a lack of connectivity.

And I think they can be. I think sometimes people want to live on a cul de sac because it's more private or because it's, you know, less trafficked or something like that. And so it may be that developers think of this as more valuable, I don't know.

Mhm. Um, but if the town has a policy matter would like connectivity in order to get police and fire around town and to encourage, um, I don't know, walking and biking from one end of town to the other as we discussed then I think we should retain the policy and

figure out how to say it in a little bit more direct way. And this is less redundant because as I read this, it's like super redundant. It also has specifics for the construction of the, um, of the dead end streets, you know, the turnaround sizes and things like that. And then even number was at

nine, where turnaround is laid out. Um, the areas used for the circle may not be included in the areas of the adjacent lots for the purpose of determining the conformity. This that clause. I don't fully understand, um, conformity to the minimum requirements under the zoning bylaw at the time. It does, you know.

So is that saying that a dead end street cul de sac doesn't qualify for frontage? I don't know. I don't quite understand that phrase. So also, if you flip over the page and on page 35, there's this table where it has arterial collector and local and minor streets.

And it talks about low density areas and high density areas. And those are supposed to be determined by the planning Board. We have never done that, have we? I think there's a definition of those. Are there isn't there a definition of low and high density? It says it's to be determined by the planning board.

So does it suggest that there's no definition? Oh no. Here it is. It's you're right. It is up front. Yeah. An area where the lots are used for single family dwellings and there are 40,000ft or more in area. So that's the whole town basically. Yeah. Um, except for a little bit in and by the library.

Um. 00:59:50,769	I mean, I guess I don't have the, I don't have the technical chops to review all these food standards, but I just don't. Right. That's and that's. And I don't. Have to. And I don't have the, the technical chops to say these are 19, you know, 80s versions of requirements. And we're in 2026. Can we modernize them?

I just don't have any feel for that. Um, so Supriya and Sam, I don't know if you've gone through these with that in mind.

01:00:24,030	We have, but that is also another section that we would really like the town engineer to take a look at, to make sure that it aligns with what the town wants to see. There were a lot of discussions about turnarounds and the fire department being very specific about what it likes to see, and

we have tried to incorporate that. But again, if if we have more input from the department that actually deals with that, that would be helpful. Okay. So I set up a meeting with Sam and our DPW director and myself at some point to go over this just so that, you know, two

engineering kind of guys can talk to each other. If that would be helpful. If it's helpful for you, I'm happy to. To meet for sure. I guess the policy direction would be we'd prefer not to have airport runways in our little rural town. So I, you know, just trying to get the standards to be

modernized and reflect the character of the town would be great, because I think we do hear sometimes from developers. Well, yeah. It's that. Why? Because you make me make it that way or it's that ugly, you know, it looks like an airline runway because that's what your standards require. Yeah. We've we've talked about different radii for different

kinds of streets. That's that's certainly been part of the conversation throughout this process. So a lot of that should be reflected in he's already and have been addressed. I just don't know how to read it and evaluate that. So if.

01:02:07,000	Yeah. If you'd like for me to sit down with somebody in DPW or town engineer, I'm certainly willing to do so. Okay. Um. He is. He's away this week. He'll be back, um, early next week. So I will send out an email. Uh, Supriya, I'll copy you and Sam, and I'll bring you right

in, and we can sit down and talk about these just so we get. I just want to make sure we have something that the board can implement. You know, that we all understand what these requirements are. Great. Okay. All right. Is there more? I went into my long song and dance, and I don't know if

there's more to your presentation that I'm ignoring, and I don't want to do that. No, this was the last slide, and I. I think you covered almost everything that Margaret has flagged and things that we are going to be incorporating. So I'm just going to stop the presentation, um, right here.

But basically our next step is to take everything that we discussed today, every other department comments that we have received and everything that Margaret has flagged, and then work on the the final draft of this document. And also, again, make sure that there's no leftover characters and typos from the PDF document, and then have the

draft in front of you with the handout, um, with the checklist, but also the street cross sections. Thank you. Um, and you have the list of things that includes the knits that I saw to that beyond what I brought up tonight, which were more policy. I think Margaret, Margaret forwarded your comments to me this evening.

Great. Thank you. Thank you. Um, but, David, you didn't have any formal comments that you wanted to submit that there's at this point. Not yet. Okay. I assume it'd. Be a deadline for those. Sorry, David. I just want to make sure I know when they have to be submitted.

01:04:17,929	Um, what is your timing? Sure. I'm going to defer to Margaret to give the project. I think the grant deadline is June, and we are trying to wrap everything up as soon as possible. Our first goal was to submit this final draft in April, but I think we're looking more at mid-May at this point.

So you need comments from us in the next, you know, by May 1st. Is that right? Yes, please. To be useful. Mhm.

Okay. 01:04:58,230	I'll make sure all the department's comments and questions have been answered for you to Supriya. Right. Yeah. All right. I'll contact Richard, DPW and Sam, and we'll set something up so we can talk about those requirements for streets. Thank you. Sure. All right. Thank you for being here on a.

01:05:24,969	Wednesday night. Stop and think with the money.

01:05:32,900	Very good. Thank you all for your time. Nice meeting you all. Thank you. Thank you. Take care. Thank you. Thanks, Priya.

01:05:47,000	So we have minutes from last time. Let's See. I have an arm.

01:05:57,369	Thank you. Scott. And then next time, we have to. Next time we have our normally scheduled meeting, we need to vote officers because we're now all a new board. Um, I bet dad is away because of school vacation week. Oh, because his wife is a principal. Oh, okay. Um, so. So this is the red line version.

Did everyone see this? Did you have a chance to look at it? I did. I didn't see anything that Scott didn't flag.

So. 01:06:42,230	Although Dan Pescarolo has I'm noticing right now on the screen. Top line. Um. It's Pescarolo, not Pescarolo.

01:07:22,800	I think I said something at the beginning of the Cabot cabin Forms Forbes presentation, basically. Oh, yeah, there I am, the chair. Noted. The board could not. Okay, good. As long as that's there, that's important.

01:07:43,969	What is going on with the 47 Maple Street stone wall? Are you. You were going to end, and I sent him an email today. Um, he has not, um, went back to me yet. No, but he hasn't done anything either. I don't know what we're going to do. No, I don't know who did yesterday.

He hasn't done anything else yet. He was. You know, he did say he was waiting for the weather to change, so I'm not sure. Oh, wait. Let's see.

01:08:11,869	He said we're going to be doing what we spoke about at the previous meeting and rebuilding the wall to be similar to the natural walls around when I'm hoping to start it next month. Next. Month, which would be May. Okay. Go on. So, so over the next couple of months is kind of vague.

Sorry, but that's that's not what we asked him to do. We didn't ask him to build a wall that was similar to other walls in. When we asked him to find rocks from the property and use those field stones to create a wall that replicated what he turned down. Took down.

I don't want him to be mis mis. Under a misapprehension. And we get into a situation 2 or 3 months from now. I know we're small town and whatnot, but, you know, Rick Woodland has been tirelessly advocating for this, and he's right, by the way. So I don't know if that needs to be a fall communication from

you, Margaret, but I think he needs to be and we need to clarify to him now before he gets started. He needs to reconstruct a wall with field stones from the property that resembles the wall that he took out.

01:09:29,069	Looks like Margaret is typing that email right now. I am.

Okay. 01:09:42,699	Okay, I'll keep on. them. And then I think that, um, the only other thing is m Hoffman should have a space, but that's seems silly to worry about. And whatever's at the bottom of the screen, we can't see when we're ready. The next meeting is adjournment. ET cetera. Etc.. Is that good?

01:10:05,430	Yeah. Um, of the guys on the screen, you were both here. Do you want to suggest. Do you want to make a motion to approve these minutes?

01:10:19,100	I will make a motion to approve the minutes of the April 8th, 2026 meeting, as amended or as edited. And I will second that. Okay. All in favor? Motion is second on the floor. Weekes is I.

01:10:39,029	Anderson I. Remember. Okay. Thank you, I think. And Marcus, I mean, you can vote. Yes, but if you were not here, actually. Yeah, you could have seen. You could have said you weren't. Yeah. Take a vote, man. You can do it.

01:10:58,100	All right. All right. And then. So. So our next meeting is May 13th. I think I'm just 13. Yeah. It's Wednesday, May 13th. We have, um, a the greenbelt has applied for, um, a hammerhead lot on the Maple Street property, 79 Maple Street. So we have that application in place, and I'll send that out

to you and look at it. They want to break off the the existing house, the big house with the barn and everything from the little they want to cut off 15 acres, but they want a 50 foot frontage. So they're creating a hammerhead block and. They have enough Eight. Oh, yeah, they're 15 acres.

So yeah, they only need, what, 8000 180,000? And, um. Yep. So May 13th. May 13th at 7:00 pm. Do I have a motion to adjourn until May 15th? May 13th. I'm sorry. Wednesday, May 13th at 7 p.m.. I will make a motion to adjourn until May 13th at 7 p.m.. Okay. All in favor?

This one you get to vote on.

01:12:15,670	Anderson, I. I don't cry, Marcus Marcus I. I and that is at seven, right? I it sounds like as opposed to left I am is going what am I going to do that. Um. All right. That's it. Yeah. You're inaugural meeting. I appreciate you sitting through it. Not having.