 There he is. Okay. Okay. Mr. Marshall. I see it's 633. You have a quorum of planning board members. Amherst media is with us here. You look good to go to me. Thank you, Pam. Welcome. Welcome to the Amherst planning board meeting of January 17, 2024. My name is Doug Marshall and as the chair of the Amherst planning board, I am calling this meeting to order at 633 p.m. This meeting is being recorded and is available live stream via Amherst media. The minutes are being taken. Pursuant to chapter 20 of the acts of 2021 and extended by chapter two of the acts of 2023. This planning board meeting, including public hearings will be conducted via remote means using the zoom platform. The meeting link is accessible on the meeting agenda posted on the town websites calendar listing for this meeting. Or go to the planning board web page and click on the most recent agenda where the zoom link is listed at the top of the page. No in-person attendance of the public is permitted. However, every effort will be made to ensure the public can adequately access the meeting in real time via technological means. If we are unable to do so for reasons of economic hardship or despite best efforts, we will post an audio or video recording, transcript or other comprehensive record of proceedings, as soon as possible after the meeting on the town of Amherst website. Board members, I will take a roll call. When I call your name, unmute yourself, answer affirmatively, and return to mute. Bruce Colton. Here. Jesse Major. Present. Janet McGowan. Here. Fred Hartwell is absent and Karen Winter is absent as well. I, Doug Marshall, am present and Johanna Newman. Present. Thank you all. Thank you. If technical issues arise, we may need to pause to fix the problem and then continue the meeting. If the discussion needs to pause, it will be noted in the minutes. Please use the raise hand function to ask a question or make a comment. I will see your request and call on you to speak. After speaking, remember to remute yourself. The general public comment item is reserved for public comment on items not on tonight's agenda. Please be aware the board will not respond to comments during general public comment period. Public comment may also be heard at other times during the meeting when deemed appropriate by the planning board chair. Please indicate you wish to make a comment by clicking the raise hand button when public comment is solicited. If you have joined the Zoom meeting using a telephone, please indicate you wish to make a comment by pressing star nine on your phone. When called on, please identify yourself by stating your full name and address and put yourself back into mute when finished speaking. Residents can typically express their views for up to three minutes or at the discretion of the planning board chair. If a speaker does not comply with these guidelines or exceeds their allotted time, their participation may be disconnected from the meeting. Okay, so the time is 636 and we are now at the first item on our agenda for this evening. That is minutes to be approved. We have the minutes from November 15th of last year. Does anyone on the board have any comments on those minutes? Janet, if I look like maybe you made said something but you were muted. No, I didn't say anything. I have no comments. They look good to me. Okay. All right, Bruce. I moved to adopt the minutes as presented. Okay. Thank you, Johanna. I second the motion. Thank you, Johanna. Any, any last chance to make some comments? Anybody want to do that? All right, then we'll go through a roll call for the, for these minutes of November 15th. Bruce. Hi. And Jesse. Hi. Janet. Hi. Johanna. Hi. Well, that's five in favor with two absences. All right. So that those are the only minutes for approval for this meeting. We'll go on to public comment period. So I'm seeing. Typically I read the names of the people I can see who are attending from the public. And I will read those names now I see nine people. Allen Snow, Bill Brown, David Loring, Janet Bernardo, Rick Rice, Robert parent, Tim Cooper, Tom Reedy, and William Brown. Okay, so members of the public. Would anyone like to make a comment on a topic that is not on tonight's agenda at this time. I guess we will move on. I don't see any hands raised from the public. All right, at this time, we will go to item number three on the agenda. And the time is now 639. This is a joint public hearing with the tree warden. So Pam, if you would please bring the tree warden over into the participants. In accordance with the provisions of mass general law chapter 40, chapter five C scenic roads and chapter 87 paragraph three shade trees. This joint public hearing of the planning board and tree warden has been duly advertised in the daily Hampshire Gazette and posted on the town's electronic calendar. So this concerns site plan review 2024-04 and special permit 2024-03 with the town of Amherst at 70 Southeast Street. This concerns scenic road removal to allow relocation of a site access drive to mitigate congestion due to proximity to the main street East Street intersection. At South 70 Southeast Street met 15 a parcel 47 public shade trees impacted by this project include the following trees. This is a high stem maple with stems of 1818 12 and 10 inches. All that all kinds of all those numbers consisting of the diameter of the stem at approximate breast height. This is a 24 inch ash which may be required to be removed for safety. Do we have any board member disclosure associated with this hearing. I do not see any. In that case. Chris, are we going to go on to the applicant presentation. And would that be Alan or someone else. You are muted Chris. Alan or Tim Cooper but I think it should probably be Alan. Okay. Mr snow welcome to our planning board meeting. Thank you. Good evening everybody. So, if it might be Tim Cooper, Tim Cooper is part of the, the project. So Tim may want to give the actual presentation why they need to, you know, make sure that we're proposing to remove those trees for the driveway. Okay. I can give you the quick one, but he'd give you more details. All right. Tim, I see you and the participants. And so welcome also and tell us what you're trying to do. Thank you. I can. I want to share my screen to just to bring up the location and I also have, I just want to mention in the gallery. We have our design team Rick Rice is also with the NISCO David lowering bill Brown and Janet Bernardo are all part of the design team. So if you want to bring them in or not, they will be helpful in this or the next hearing for questions. Do I understand that you're with the NISCO design. I am the project architect manager with the NISCO design. Correct. Thank you. Do you want to just bring those folks over now or do you want to wait until we start? They will. They will start bringing them in. Okay. I will do that. So here is a view of the existing condition in the trees in question. There are the two trees, one directly south of the. Existing north site. Egress. Excuse me. Which is the maple tree and then the ash, which is cool. Tim. Could you give us some context for where this is. On the overall site. Absolutely. So here is an overall site plan of the existing school. With the entrance at the south end and the egress. To the north. All traffic currently enters and south and exits to the north. We are going to zoom in around this exit with the two trees that are just to the south of the exit south of the main street, south street. Intersection. So the intersection would be just where my cursor is. And this is the egress from the school. Can zoom out a little bit for. Context, excuse me. So the maple in question is just south of the existing drive. And then the ashes at the corner of the site. So. As part of. The overall main project. This drive will be converted to an entrance and egress for. Staff and parent vehicles. So there will be three lanes. It will be widened and move to the south. So we'll be moved away from the intersection at main and southeast street. That movement will move it into. This maple tree. That movement is basically to mitigate the traffic concerns with the queue with that intersection. So we would like to move that entrance down to give a little more space. That is why that tree is slated to be removed with the current design. The proximity to the ash tree and the condition of the ash tree and site lines, which we have to get out there and look at may require that that ash tree be removed to, but that is why we have made the decision for both of those trees to be potentially removed. The maple tree with the current design definitely has to be removed. Okay. Do you have anything else you want to say in your introduction? I do not. It's a fairly straightforward part of the project compared to all the other moving pieces. Okay. All right. I know we had some, at least a couple of board members who made a site visit today. But I'm not sure. Do either or any of the folks who did want to say anything about the trees? All right. Bruce is shaking his head. No. And I thought. Janet, you have your hand up. So I went and looked at the trees. You know, the maple is clearly if you widened that exit or entrance. In any way. Definitely the maple tree came out. It wasn't clear to me from the map or from. From like the location of the other tree. I didn't know where that tree was vis-a-vis the new road. So, you know, I wondered if it could be saved, but I didn't have any like maps to say. Excuse me. I'm sorry. So I wasn't sure it had to be removed because I wasn't really sure where the road was going to be. So I didn't, and I couldn't find a map that really showed that clearly. I just had two small maps in my, you know. Maps in my packet. So I didn't know where it was going to be. All right now. And it sounds like Mr. Cooper isn't even sure that the ash will be affected or not at the moment. So. The, if I may respond to it. So the drive moved to the south. The curb line is right at the canopy edge. So depending on the health of the tree, it could very well survive. But, you know, for the sake of safety, not obstructing any views. And before the decision was made to keep it. The few that is on the screen now shows the drive in the final position, which is widened to three lanes. So two can exit and one would come in. And that northern most lane in the new position would be right in the stem of the existing maple tree. So that's why that. Okay. And is the ash tree the species of ash that's subject to the emerald ash borer? That Bill Brown might know better than me or would certainly know better than me. She has been left in. I couldn't remember. Have we brought Bill over or not? I knew there was one more person, but I couldn't remember. Yeah. Which one? Bill Brown among the. No, he's. He should be moving over. Great. Here he is. Okay. I think he's going to move over. Okay. I think he's going to move over. And Steve Stanis is also, he is part of the design team too. So if he could be led in, that would be great. Thank you. He's on his way too. And then Jenna Bernardo, when I was trying to move her over, she was declining at this moment. So. Okay. All right. So, Mr. Brown, are you able to hear me and respond? Very faintly. You might get closer to your microphone. Okay. That is, is an aspirin. We think it's susceptible to. The ash more. It seems to be in fairly good condition now. We have graded the site so that we could save this tree with, with attempted to save that as part of the plan. But the concern is, you know, in the future as we're going through construction. We are staying, we are close to where the edge of the canopy is. But our concern is that over time. Because of the ash war and construction that's going on. That it may need to be renewed, but we're not certain at this time. Okay. Janet, I see your hand. So I just, I wanted to add that it does seem like a very sensible idea to move that exit or. I mean, you know, I mean, my kids went to school there. So there's a million times I was making a turn right or left. And it's because it's so close to the intersection. And there's not like a really clear left hand turning lane or signal. It is really kind of a very tight, complicated sort of turn. So making it further south, I think we'd ease some of that. On the other hand, the trees are lovely. The common is lovely. We all, you know, and they look good. I mean, you know, I mean, you know, you know, maybe we could do something saying, you know, give them permission to cut it down if needed with the, with a preference to save it. Yes. Okay. Janet. All right. We have very few members of the public left. In fact, I think I gathered Janet Bernardo as part of the design team. And I'm not sure if we have any members of the public or the second item on our agenda or third. And I'm not sure about Robert parent, but. Are there any members of the public who want to say anything about the, this proposed. Impact on the trees. Yeah, I'm not seeing any hands from any of the three of them. Chris, I see your hand. Yeah, I just wondered what the. Yeah. I'm not sure what the position is. I know we received a memo, which I think was included in your packet. From a member of, or it was either included in your packet, or it was emailed to you from a member of the public shade tree committee who had comments. Actually, he was reporting on what the public shade tree committee decided. So perhaps Mr. Snow would like to make a report about that and then tell you about it. Sure, Alan. Okay. So I would just say, I'd like to just follow up on a couple. Thoughts that came to mind over the tree itself. This is the maple or the ash, the ash tree. So unless, unless, you know, all ashes are susceptible to emerald ash borer and. Unless the town wants to put in. The tree. Funding to inject the tree to preserve it from emerald ash borer, then it will die eventually on the tree is surrounded by. Probably a half a dozen other large ash trees that are. Well in decline and dying from. So it's just a matter of. Couple of years or so before that tree is in decline. So. I think it's going to fall apart. It's going to be now. So we need a tree here and for it in two more years. I would probably be cutting it down because it's, it's falling apart. Over the public way. So I did meet with the public shade tree committee. We did discuss it. I was told essentially that there are two phases to this project that there's sort of the temporary driveway fix, which is going to be. In and out of the north and most exit. So buses and. And non-school. Non-school bus vehicles, parents, et cetera. Going into the school. The southern entrance is going to become. The construction entrance. So for a period of probably two years. This area is going to be used as a. To get in out of school. For day to day operations. And then after the, as a project gets close to finish. The dry will then be sort of moved again a little bit to reorientate it. With a new sidewalk. A little further south. Even further south. The expansion for the temporary. So. I. You know, the silver maple tree is perfectly healthy. You know, it's growing because it seems to have any. Structural problems at this stage in its life. And they can get quite large. And they have a, you know, a history of becoming very large and self-destructing. If they're not cared for or improved. Because they do grow so fast that they are known to be weak wooded trees. So. But that's a long ways away. It's a perfectly healthy tree. So. As you have in your packet noted that they. You know, we're okay with the ashtray coming down, but they would like to see efforts made to kind of find another. Design to save. The silver maple. If possible. So. That's their opinion. I don't see how. I don't see how we can achieve the goals of expanding the driveway there in either direction. Without impacting significantly the root zone of that tree. You might believe the trunk standing, but I don't know how you get the. The. The temporary driveway in there. So that would be up to be a design. Task that's above my. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. The ability. So. Unless it moves all the way to the south, the wood line to the south. I would say I could say that tree. And the save the silver maple is the multi-stem maple. Yes. Okay. Rick. Right. I see your hand. Yeah. Thank you. Just to be clear. The driving the purpose of the design is to get as much distance from the curb. As far as the. The desire to move the. North driveway curb cut as far south as a site plan would allow. Which. Which brings it into conflict with the multi-stems silver maple. There is. And that is to. Get as much distance from the curb cut to the intersection as possible. Without doing that. There is no other design that's possible. have to stay where it was to clear the tree and widening the driveway temporarily could easily be accomplished by going to the north instead to the south. But we went to the south because that tree would have had to have come down any way to further the final design configuration of the driveway. So again, for the purposes of the early site package, we can tell those bidders not to do what was shown, not to take that tree down, but instead widen the driveway to the north. But that still leaves us with an issue of the driveway configuration with respect to the intersection to the north. Right. And I assume there's not enough frontage on this site to move the driveway entirely past the maple to the south. Is that right? Correct. Okay. All right. Thank you. Bruce, I see your hand. Yes. For the record, I guess I should say that although I'm not a member of the school elementary school building committee. I have attended all but probably three or four of the meetings that they've had in the past three years. So I'm rather familiar with the project. I haven't been participating beyond that, but well, actually I have. But I do remember many of the conversations, particularly around site selection, whether we would have the Wildwood site or the Fort Rivers site. And one of the principal concerns against having the Fort Rivers site was the problems of traffic management at this, in and out of the site. And I, if Rupert Roy Clark, the building, the superintendent of the schools, sorry, the maintenance department superintendent of the schools, were here, he would express a very strong concern about trying to mitigate, which is what does the design team are doing here. So it's a serious problem that is trying to be solved here. And it seems that the best solution is to move that driveway. So I'm representing, I think, not just my own view here, but some of the other folks on the other committees who have been chiming in on this. And also my personal opinion, as I saw that tree, it's a multi-stem tree. It may be healthy, but it's not particularly attractive. I would think under the circumstances, I would strongly support the removal of that tree and planting another one that can grow and eventually look a lot nicer than that multi-stem fellow that's currently there. All right, thanks, Bruce. Janet. You know, in terms of trying to move the exit entrance north, there's actually a little sidewalk there because a lot of kids come through that intersection. There's a monitor there. And so you'd have to move into that sidewalk. And then right next to the sidewalk is a light pole and another tree. So you're kind of very constrained on going north. And I think going north just makes the traffic problem worse. I've been there a few years ago just looking at the site. And it was just when the buses were leaving and the custodian actually goes out there, stops traffic and lets all the buses leave at once. That doesn't help the parents, but it really was an extremely quick exit of all buses. So that was actually encouraging to see. So I do think that the south, you know, taking the two trees out is required. It'd be great. Or, you know, saying, you know, I mean, I would take out both trees and say, plant something else to the south where the ash tree was that can live, you know. And so, you know, you'll keep the canopy going and have something nice for the future. I'm not sure what species. I'm not really an expert on that, but I know Alan has a big vision for the town. All right, thanks, Janet. I guess I will show my hand here. I also support removing these trees. I agree with Bruce's expression that the traffic management at this site is a major challenge and anything we can do to allow that to be managed in as positive a way as possible, I will support. Are there other comments from board members at this point? Chris and Alan, do we need a vote from the board approving the removal of these two trees? I had one more question, actually. Okay. I'd like to know what are the plans? Two concerns. One is what are their plans to replant trees either in or next to them? In or next to the public way so that we maintain tree canopy along that stretch of street. And then could they just briefly talk about the tree planting? How many trees are we planted in the new school area? Okay. Tim. I'm going to ask Bill to answer that question. Okay. Nobody hear me. Okay. You're still a little faint. Go ahead. Thanks. I'll get closer then. I haven't done an actual count on the amount of trees that we're planting on site. But it's roughly 100 trees in total. And we didn't consider putting trees along this edge because we didn't know if the ashtray in particular was going to be taken out or not. But if it is, we can certainly locate a tree along the public way. As a replacement for the ash that we're picking out. All right. I guess, Alan, did you have any. Suggestions for species or build? Did you have anything in mind, Alan? You can go first. So I would just say that I'd be happy to work with them to, you know, select a location in the public way there where they can plant, you know, one or two trees depending upon space and the species. We can discuss that as I learn more about the details. The construction. All right. So maybe we can make that a condition of our approval that. The applicant work with the tree warden to. Identify and some and provide suitable. A couple of suitable replacement trees. Sounds good. Okay. Any other comments from board members. All right, then I will. Imagine a motion. That we, that we see. That we approve removal of the multi stem maple and the ash tree. As requested by the applicant. On the condition that the applicant work with our town tree warden. To. Provide at least one and probably two. So that we can make that a condition of our approval. So that we can have suitable replacement trees to be planted in the public way. As replacements. Chris, that sound reasonable. And close the public hearing. And oh, yes. And close the public hearing. Thank you. All right. So let's. As a motion. I'll make the motion. Jesse. A second. All right. Thank you. There are other board comments before we go run through a vote. All right. I'll start with you again, Bruce. An eyes in favor of the motion and a nays opposed. Hi. Jesse. Hi. Janet. Hi. And Johanna. Hi. I'm an eye as well. That's five in favor. Two absences. Thank you, Alan, for joining us. So I'll just say that I am in favor. Of that motion as well. So. Okay. Are there any. Procedural things related to your hearing that we need to do. No. Okay. Since I thought this was a joint hearing between you and us. So it's, I, I'm, I'm part of the hearing. I agree to remove the tree in my role as tree warden. I agree that the two trees should be removed. Okay. You are welcome to stay for the, as much of the rest of the meeting as you like. Okay. Thank you very much. Okay. All right. So the time now is seven. Oh, six. And we will go on to the next public hearing. In accordance with the provisions of mass general law 40 a, these public hearings have been duly advertised and notice thereof has been posted and is being held for the purpose of providing the opportunity for interested citizens to be heard. This is a joint public hearing for site plan review. 2024-04 and special permit. 2024-03 for the town of Amherst at 70 southeast street. Located at map for 15 a parcel 47. Located in the RBC and FPC zoning districts. A joint public hearing to request site plan review approval under section 3.3 30 of the zoning bylaw. To construct a three story. 105,000 750 gross square foot elementary school building. With associated site improvements, including parking and athletic fields. And to request a special permit in accordance with section six. Table three. Footnote a of the zoning bylaw to modify maximum building height requirements. And section 5.1 zero. Of the zoning bylaw to allow for the filling of land. To raise the first floor elevation. To the high water table. Do we have any board member disclosures? Sounds like Janet has already disclosed that she had a child who went to the existing building. I'm not sure that it really affects my decision that much. It gives me a granular level of detail on certain aspects, but. All right. Yeah, I think many of us have connections to this project, but I'm not sure any of them. Rise to the level of conflicts that we need to disclose. Okay. All right, so Tim. Why don't you come on back and make your presentation. Thank you. Just so it's clear as we're going to introduce our team, Bill Brown is landscape architect. Janet Bernardo and Steve Stanish are with Horsley Witten. They are our civil engineers. David Loring is with par. He's our traffic engineer and Rick Rice is with. So with that, I'm going to give the overall. Overview of the project and our team is here to answer any questions that I'm sure. We'll come up. I'm going to one second. I'm just going to share the presentation. So starting with the existing Fort River school. There's one story, 82,000 square foot footprint on a 31 acre site. The existing school is sort of sprawling, which means it's not really suited for a modern 21st century education and a lot of the spaces are pretty far from exterior wall. So the lighting and the conditions within the school in general are not what Amherst would hope for an elementary school. On the existing site as we talk briefly in the tree hearing, all traffic enters through the south and egresses at the north. There is parking to the west and south of the building. Bus drop off is in the lane closest to the building on the west and parents drop off by circulating through the parking lot to the south and west of the building. There are plain fields and play structures all around the building to the east and south. There is a softball field on site with lights in a skinned field. And there are basketball hoops on the pavement to the north of the building. The athletic fields that surround the building are not particularly well drained. And so they are subject to flooding for a lot of the year. And then I should mention to the east of the site is the Fort River, but it's a good ways into the tree line, which is separated from the school from the trees. And there's a fence and then south of the site, there is a faringbrook. So there are setbacks and there are some natural resources, some wetlands, some habitat areas, all of which are outside of the limit of work for the project, but we will certainly be accommodating. There is some compensatory storage, some that we'll be doing some minor re-grading as the flood plane extends onto the site and we will be manipulating the ground within that, but the building itself is outside of it. Moving to the proposed site plan, we have separated the vehicle traffic on site in the proposed plan. Parking for staff and parents will all enter and exit through the north entrance, which will be wide to three lanes. For parent drop-off, parents will come in, circulate through the lot and drop-off at the west end of the building. Traffic for that drop-off pattern will be going through the parking lot, but teachers will be in before drop-off and they will be leaving before. So there will not be active parking during that, all of which is to say there will still be staff control of the drop-off situation as there is now. The southern entrance to the site will be dedicated to buses and service and vans. They will all loop through down here and be able to discharge students to either the door at the center of the building or the main entrance depending on how staff wants to bring students into the building. Surrounding the building there are areas for structured play directly north of the building in the cafeteria. There are basketball courts to the east of the building. All of this is on Pass Vault. The playground itself is on a resilient port-of-place surface. And then in addition to the outdoor play areas, there are programmed outdoor educational spaces. There is a forest floor garden. There is a planter garden, a pollinear garden, and a pavilion that is sized for one classroom to be outside. All of these amenities are focused on the southern half of the site so that the existing school represented by this dash line can operate with enough parking for the staff and enough play area for the children attending to operate close to normally wall. All of this is being constructed south of the construction fence. The school will be net zero. So there is support for that goal with PV on the roof and in the parking lot. The PV in the parking lot is supported by canopies. One of the things mentioned in the development report is that the canopy structures are within the 30-foot setback of the side property line here. That setback is double because of the use. We do believe we can get to the typical 15-foot setback, but 30 feet might be difficult. We could move this last bay south, but it's something we'll have to talk about with the board. In the introduction, we mentioned the other waivers that the project will be special permits that the project will be seeking to mitigate the high groundwater on site. The existing first floor of the school will be two feet above the old Fort River School. So there was some fill to bring that building up. We will also be including underslab drainage to additionally mitigate the high water table. And then the red line that has appeared is the extent of the flood prone conservancy. So the building does extend into that. So we'll be seeking a special permit to have the extent of the building in that zone. Some of the existing constraints we are working around on site, but bringing all of the building site amenities, things that are working for the program that we are looking to have operating on day one, that is why it's all clustered down to the site. So as soon as the school is built, there can be a seamless transition from the existing Fort River School to the new building. There are just some views of what the building will look like. The view on top is approaching from the bus loop on the south entrance. We're about halfway into the driveway looking at the building from the west. The building steps up from a first floor or a single floor massing with the administration and the music room in the cafeteria and it steps up to a three-story classroom beyond. The view on the bottom half of the page is looking from the north as you would be leaving in the parent drop-off drive looking at the building and you can see the three-story classroom behind the library and cafeteria. Just some closer views there. As you're getting closer to the building here, you would be at the beginning of the van drop-off, which is off of the bus drop-off loop to the south. This is the main entrance, which is in this particular view obscured by some plantings. The gym. And then there's a second entrance to the building to the south. Another building of a few of the building from the north. That is, those are the plans and the views of the building. I don't know how much else you would like to get into, but we have utility plans. We have lighting plans. We can also open up to questions. I don't know how you would like to proceed. That is the overall of the, of the project and, and the benefits that we see from it. Okay. Thank you, Tim. I'm sure we'll come up with a few questions for you to show us a little more of the design before we're done. All right. So. You mentioned. The solar panels going 15 feet. Going into the 30 foot required setback. And I didn't remember hearing that before. Chris, do we have a complete list of the waivers? That particular item is not a waiver. It's a special permit. And it is mentioned. There are a couple of times I think one is on page two of the development application report. Where the side setback is mentioned and the side setback normally in this district is 15 feet, but because this is an educational use, the setback needs to be 30 feet. And the setback for the solar canopy that's proposed appears to me to be five feet in one location and 10 feet, five feet for the canopy and 10 feet for the post. Now it is possible to, to have a special permit to modify that setback requirement. And at the bottom of page two is a description of the footnote a special permit that the applicant may choose to take advantage of. The applicant has a couple of different choices here. The applicant could pull back from the property line 30 feet and then meet the zoning dimensional requirements or the applicant could apply for a special permit to modify that setback requirement and then choose what, you know, how much he wants to modify it. And it's kind of a tradeoff between having more solar canopy available or less solar canopy available. And so you may choose to grant the special permit for this modification in order to allow the school to have more solar panels. Okay. Yeah, I guess I had missed that on the development application report. Thanks for pointing that out. They have not yet applied for this particular special permit. So it is a special permit that they need to apply for going forward. Okay. And it's a planning board special permit. So did you want me to list all the special permits that they need? Well, I think it's going to be useful to have them all in one place. Yeah. All in one place. You know, I mean. Sure, I can. I guess that just seems to me like a good place to start is, you know, at least to be clear about what, what explicit permission we need to give. Well, I can talk about it now and then I can provide you with a document after this public hearing session is continued. If you choose to continue it. So the first special permit that they need is to modify the height of the building. The height of the building is allowed to be 35 feet in the RVC zoning district. So everything to the left of that red line is in the RVC zoning district. So what they're proposing is a 43 foot high building and 35 feet is allowed in the RVC zoning district. So that's one special permit that they are asking for from the planning board. The other special permit that they're asking for so far from the planning board is to allow the filling of land under section 5.10 of the zoning bylaw. And that limits the filling of land either 2 feet over 5,000 square feet or 5 feet over 2,000 square feet. And they're going beyond that because of the filling that they need for the athletic area as well as for the building. So they will need a special permit from the planning board to do that. So what I'm saying is really along with the site plan review, they need a special permit for the height of the building and they need a special permit for filling of land. And that's embedded in this report, but perhaps it's not clearly. Well, those two items were in the introduction. Yep. And in the advertisement for this hearing. That's correct. Yeah, it was just the third one that made me surprised that that hadn't been mentioned yet. The canopy. Yeah. I think that was in the revised development application report, which I just sent out yesterday. Yeah. It sent one out previous to that. And then I sent a revised one out yesterday. Right. So there's another special permit that the applicant needs for a special permit to locate two structures in the FPC zoning district. And the FPC zoning district is not the same as the hundred-deer floodplain. So there's no compensatory storage required, but there is a requirement of the zoning bylaw to have a special permit to locate a structure in the FPC zoning district. So that's, there's that portion of the main building. And then there's a little outer part of the building. And the FPC zoning district is not the same as the main building. And then there's a little outdoor learning structure. And that is shown right there. Yes. And that's a little, I think it's an open-sided structure with a roof and pillars. So that's another, it's an accessory structure that will be located in the FPC zoning district. So they need the special permit for that. And then what we realized kind of late in the day was that they also need footnote A special permit from the zoning board of appeals. So that, that special permit to locate a structure in the FPC zoning district is a zoning board of appeals special permit. So the planning board needs to know about it and acknowledge it, but doesn't need to act on it. And as part of that special permit from the zoning board of appeals, the applicant will need to get permission under footnote A to locate a structure that's taller than one floor because the limitation on a structure is only one floor in the FPC zoning district. And it is also over 20 feet in height. So they'll need a special permit from the ZBA for the structure that's over 20 feet in height. And I spoke with the building commissioner and he felt that the legal ad that has been published for the special permit from the zoning board of appeals can cover those three items, locating structures within the FPC zoning district, having a building that's more than one floor and that would be a footnote A special permit and then having a building that's taller than 20 feet. And that would also be a footnote A special permit. He thought those could all be encompassed in the zoning board of appeals review, which was originally scheduled for January 25th. I had made a mistake in the development application report and I think I said it was going to be February 8th, but it's actually January 25th that the advertisement was for the zoning board of appeals may not be able to be able to have a quorum on that day or that night. So our staff person, Rob Wachilla, who staffs the zoning board is trying to see if he can have a quorum for that day, but if not it would probably be sometime in early February that this would be heard by the zoning board of appeals. So I think that is the extent of the special permits, which would be, I guess in the end, it would be three from the planning board. It would be a special permit for the height, a special permit for a filling, and a special permit for side setback for the, for the solar canopy. The one that you have not received yet is the side setback for the solar canopy. So Mr. Cooper will be submitting that unless the applicant decides to pull back and not put the solar canopy so close to the property line. So I think that's, I think that's it. Thank you for running through all that, Chris. That is helpful to hear it. Janet, I have seen your hand for a while and I'm now ready to call on you. Thank you. Chris, I got a little confused on buildings and structures. Can you say which is the ZBA structure? Like what are the special, what structures for the ZBA has to approve? I kind of was writing my notes. It was the school building and the, the shade structure for the outdoor classroom. So it's the building itself. Okay. Thank you. It's part of the building. It's only about maybe a quarter to a third of the eastern end of the building that's going to be located in the FPC zoning district. So that's the part that needs the special permit. And then that little outdoor classroom needs a special permit. Okay. Thank you. All right. All right. So actually I'm going to ask Bruce a question since you've attended most of this, the school building committee meetings over the last many years. Was, do you think in the site selection, it was understood that all these special, that these permits would be required? Bearing in mind that I was not a member of the committee. I just witnessed and so forth. And I probably didn't get all of the packages and so forth. But I would guess that at this level of granularity, the answer would be no. In terms of very specifics, because of course we hadn't designed the building then. So for example, the, the, the array, one would not have any idea that we would need that as far as FPC. And since I'm not sure it's possible, but I don't, I don't recall that being discussed. But actually Tim was, Tim was, it would have been involved in more extensive discussions than things that didn't happen in the meeting, for example, which probably represents the greater value of his time on the project. Probably definitely. Okay. So, can I respond to that? Yeah, sure. Thanks Bruce, Tim. Sure. So we have known from the very beginning about the flood prone conservancy and the issues of the floodplain and the setbacks from the Fort River and the Farringbrook on the site. That being said, we did not know that all of the permits listed. Certainly not the. And I guess if we had read everything, we did, we did not know about all these permits, not for the PV. So the PV location was not determined when we chose the site, that it's ended up where it has so that can be operational on day one. I mean, you'll see a large open parking lot just north of where the PV is located, which is honestly a perfect location, except it's not available until the existing building is taken down. And so to comply with the net zero bylaw, you have to have your energy production systems, your high efficiency system operating when the building is operating. So that is why it is pushed to where it is. You could push it further onto the grass, but it's in our view not a good design decision to put opaque PV canopies over where we want something to grow. So, you know, once we've considered the many facets of the project, that PV canopy got pushed into that location. That is why it is there. So I will say that one was not known when the site was selected. We did know that we would be coming before you and the ZBA. When the site was selected, but we didn't know at this level of granularity to use your words, which I think are good, what we would be applying for. Okay. Yeah, I was thinking more of the fill and the height. But that's fine. Thanks. Thanks for. Okay, Bruce, is your hand still up? Yes, it is definitely the fill. That was a very big recognition then site selection that there would be a cost associated with this site over Wildwood. But the reason I had my hand up was if I could imagine the intent of the bylaw that doubles the distance for a school for setbacks and so forth, it would not be that it would be trying to push solar arrays back. I would think this is probably way before anybody thought that they would be solar arrays associated with schools independent of the building. So I would guess that we would be. I would be comfortable in supporting this. This particular aspect of a special permit application, because it's not really the educational facility, the educational spaces and all of the activity associated with that with humans involved that is impinging in the setback. That is way, way back. And there's really only a mechanical device that's on the setback. And my guess is that that we could reasonably agree to do this without creating the kind of precedent that might embarrass others. All right. Well, I mean, you know, this is a solar array immediately adjacent to a residential property. And I can imagine us having other solar arrays adjacent to residential properties with neighbors who are looking for much greater setbacks from their land. So, you know, maybe I'm arguing that it should only be 15 if we have a rather than 30, but right under the circumstances. So I understand what Tim's saying. I basically support. Right. And have done for quite a while. Okay. Janet. So, um, do are we going to discuss this particular special permit right now, or do you want to like pull back the lens and get the whole overview? Because I do have a bunch of ideas for this. Um, this particular issue, but I'm not sure. Should we talk about it now? So. Yeah, I really kind of just wanted to get a. Overall picture of the permits that we were. Going to discuss. No, I think that was a great thing because I didn't, I hadn't tracked it at all. I mean, I did. Yeah. Yeah. I think that would be a good thing. Okay. And so. Let's kind of head in that direction. And Chris, you wanted to say something. I wanted to say that you haven't yet received the application for the special permit for the solar array. So I think it makes sense to put off that discussion. Thanks. Right. Okay. All right. And, um, so. So we have two sort of main overall overarching. Charges of before us. One is the site plan review. And the other is this, these particular, the two special permits that have been applied for. And so maybe I, it seems to me, maybe we should start with the site plan review. Does that. Anybody object to that? Um, So. I guess as I read through the, uh, material that we were sent, uh, you know, I felt like the traffic and the water management. Were probably the biggest issues for me. Um, and so I'm going to want to ask a few questions about that. And so, um, you know, Hannah, I guess I'm kind of opening up the floor for general questions about the site. Thanks. I was mostly hoping we could get a report back from the site plan or from the site visit that happened today. Oh, yes. Thank you for reminding me. Of course. Yeah. I think was it, was it Bruce and, uh, Janet who made it out there and managed to get back. Um, so. Do either of you want to give us a recap of what you. Heard and saw. Janet would be the one because she's got the fresh eyes. I have fresh eyes and then Bruce has detailed eyes and Christmas there also. So I think we could do it as a group effort. Um, so we basically went to the site. Um, and we, you know, um, Mr Cooper showed us where the door was the front door, and it's kind of in the parking lot, the side parking lot. Um, I wanted sort of a big view of the site because I mean, I've been there a million times. There's, there's a rip before River is behind it to the right or the south of it is fearing Brooke. Um, and then there's a chain link fence, keeping all the students in on the north side of the site. There's a small wetland. And I think there's another floating wetland somewhere else. Um, it's a wetland that my children have disappeared into. And never been seen again. So apparently it's cut. But that then. Um, we. Basically, um. In the part, the parking lot on the side, which is now used for, you know, um, parents to drop off their kids. There's a whole collection of pine trees, white pine trees that will come down because the building will be there. They seem happy, but they're just completely in the way. Um, the pavement of the parking lot and the roadways will be, you know, standard asphalt pay. Pavement. I had asked about whether there was like curbing in the main parking lot to the west of the building. If there's going to be a kind of a break between all these lines of cars. Cause I thought that I had. Wonder wonder about the safety of that with terms of kids running with so many lanes. Of traffic. Um, I. We questions were asked about why there's not, um, the entire parking lot is not covered with solar panels. And. You know, which, because this, this, the forever site is actually identified as a place. That we could have large scale solar. And the answer. Um, Was that they could extend the panels, but the purpose of this project. Was to build a net zero elementary school and stay within their budgets. And so while they're the, the, um, Canopies could be extended. They really just stopped where they had to stop. Um, Um, but they're, you know, there's a possibility it could be extended. They also wanted to make sure that, you know, they may turn the lights on the first day. That, um, everything was, it was a net zero building from. Day one. Um, and not day, you know, three months later or whatever. Um, What else did we talk about? Um, We talked about. You know, the different landscaping. Um, Like that around the school, there's different play areas. And there's the, the student, um, after a classroom. Um, Closer to the trees. There's kind of a natural forest floor. Um, You know, place with a lot of trees at the campus. Um, You know, place with a lot of trees that the kids can do sort of creative play. And then also there's a whole no mow grass area to the south, which I became obsessed with ticks, because I'm obsessed with ticks. But apparently that's going to be like a pollinator area, meadow. Um, part of the educational component in tying in with the organic garden and some other pollinator pollinator friendly, um, plantings. Um, I don't know how that will be handled in the future. If the children do wind up with ticks. Um, I had questions about the storm ward management because it's, you know, it's, it's a river. It's an extra river. And so, um, Mr. Cooper showed us. Um, and I think it might be good to pull up a map. There's like different places that. Water is held and kind of clean through a sand, sand kind of, um, surface. This is out of my wheelhouse in terms of expertise. And so Mr. You know, Bruce, please help me, but. Um, there's like a culvert that goes north. South on the site kind of, um, kind of where through the parking lot, as I recall, but right in front of, um, The parking lot with all these different shrubs is kind of a sand filtration system, obviously underground. Um, it will hold water until it's ready to go somewhere else. Um, there's another, um, kind of rain garden. Um, in front of, I'm trying to think about the north side of the building. Um, and then there's all this underground infrastructure that he didn't go into huge detail with, but I think they'll present later to us. So water will be filtered through grass, through ring, I mean, sand, ring gardens held until it's ready to go. And then it goes south. Um, I guess to these, I don't want to say culvert, but then eventually would be released into the fearing brook clean and pleasant. Um, and then the, you know, we talked about the need to raise the site up to, you know, avoid dampness. Uh, what else? I'm trying to check my notes. Um, the athletic fields will be improved. And that they're going to, there's like two phases to the project. The first one is to build on the school and all the infrastructure around it. Um, move all the kids into the school phase two would be demolish the building and improve the, all the athletic fields that you see to the north. Um, I had wondered if it was enough space for so many kids to play, but they're going to do recess and several shifts and there'll be different playground equipment. I had asked if they're going to save the playground equipment because there's really four sets of equipment. Two sets, which are actually fairly new. And I think, um, you know, Mr Cooper said he thought it could be saved, but it would be expensive to save it. Um, so, um, you know, you know, some, the town official he had spoken to sort of recommended new equipment. Um, we had talked about the lighting and where the highest lighting would be, which is around the building. We talked about the timing of the lights. We talked about whether the current light poles that are around the soft field could be reused or like, um, just cut down and, you know, really sort of huge Bruce had a lot to say about that. And I think that's. Um, I had a question about where the priority habitat was. It's not in the grassy area. It's in the tree area. So it's not a natural, that whole area is not really in our purview or the priority habitat won't be affected. Um, and then we talked about the entrances and exits. Um, and that, you know, basically keeping the school buses and the kids discharging and getting off separate from parents and staff or parents picking up people, kids, um, is done kind of as a safety. You know, I think it's logistically easier, but I think also it's safer to keep kids out of that parking lot as much as possible. Bruce, do you have anything to add? I, uh, I was tracking you on Chris's, uh, um, notes that she issued a moment ago and you hit every base that she hit plus a couple of your own. So no, I don't. We also talked about, um, there's a crossing guard now at the north exit and whether one might be needed at the south if kids are coming across the street from the west, particularly if when the East street school is developed into like a fairly large housing situation, which I think is in the hopper, there is some low income housing behind there. And I do know kids come across and I, you know, ostensibly they should walk up to the intersection, wait for the lights and then cross. And that intersection is like the slowest intersection waiting light situation. And so I wondered if kids would just want to cut across from the common and just get to school. And so I don't know if that could be a permit condition later. If it turns out to be a problem, but I do think that's a kind of a possible stick, you know, a danger or safety issue. Okay. Thank you, Janet. That was extensive. And he's a group effort. Thank you and Bruce and Chris for going. Chris, anything you wanted to add? Okay. That covers it. Thank you. Okay. Doug, if I may. Yes. One of the things we didn't do, which I had on my list, but forgot to as I wanted to look at the mural. And I wanted to look at that because the design review boards, single condition really, or one of two was that we should seek to retain that mural. And I confess, I can't remember seeing it. So perhaps I could ask, I don't know, Tim, whether you're familiar with that mural. Or anybody who might be, is that a mural that's already outside or is it an inside mural? What are we dealing with here? It is an exterior mural, which is essentially painted plywood fastened to the exterior of the building. So if it were to be saved, it would probably be in an interior condition because it's not built, constructed, fabricated in a way that would last the lifetime of a generational building. But on other projects, we've also scanned photograph, if you will, of artwork on other media. So that is something we could look at. And have you got any plans to incorporate it at this point? We have identified areas in the building and we have continuing meetings with the subcommittee that's designing the building to finalize the locations for them. But in exact location and an exact extent of the existing mural, no, we do not have that at this point. But you have a definite plan to either reinstall it or replicate it somewhere in the building? We know to be clear, we have identified areas in the building that could be used to host art. What that art will be, whether it's that mural or some other art that is commissioned or drawn from somewhere in the district has not been decided. Okay. All right. Thank you. All right. Are there general questions from the board? That we should entertain at the moment? I'm also thinking that it might be useful to have your civil engineer go through the water management plans. And have your traffic engineer talk about the traffic mitigation to the extent that we haven't heard of yet. So those guys can kind of get ready. Johanna, I see your hand. Thank you. As part of the traffic mitigation plan, I would love to hear more about what the vision is for cyclists to enter the site, park bikes on the site and exit the site. Okay. So I think we should, starting with civil can Steve or Janet, if you're here, do you want me to share a plan or do you have a plan that you can share to give an overview of stormwater management system? Yeah, I can give an overview. If you have a plan to share, that would be helpful. Sure. So our general stormwater management plan consists of a bunch of different tools from our toolbox to try to manage the stormwater on the site. And these pieces include water quality units, deep sump catch basins, sand filters, rain gardens, bar retention gardens, as well as a grass to soil. We're using each of these on different parts of the site varying because the site is varying in different types of soil as well as different depths of groundwater. I can, I guess I can go along the site from top to bottom and left to right. So where this cursor is now, just below that, if you're looking at the northern parking lot, there is one of two sand filters. What this is is a shallow, shallow intake area that has a few different water quality units that are taking in water that are draining to this area for the parking lot. This is lined and has an under drain to it. This upper sand filter connects to second sand filter where the cursor is now. That's also taking the southern portion of that parking lot. These two sand filters are connected and have multiple outlets that eventually drain to the double culvert that runs through the western end of the site and out to Fearing Brook. It connects to the northern portion of the site where there's a wetland located as it's conveyed through the site. And as you know, that Brook ends up going to the Fort River. The point, these water quality units as well as the sand filters are to help with treatment of stormwater that's running off the parking lot and that's generally on site as well as help detain some of the water on site. So we are meeting our peak runoff rate that is matching the existing condition. That is the major staff and parent parking lot area. As you go to the southern portion of the site, the bus and service drop off area, there's a bioretention located there. That is handling the majority of the stormwater that is coming from the paved area around in that section. It is being treated in a slight depressional area there. And that also has an underdrain to it and drains and connects to that double culvert as well that runs underneath the smaller of the two islands in that bus service drop off area and then out to Fearing Brook. Another stormwater control measure that we have is a rain garden that is near these basketball courts. It's taking surface level runoff from the multiple play areas and withholding some of the water and treating it within this area. This water eventually overflows to the other side of these walking paths area, walking path areas as where you're seeing the cursor now and drains to the Fort River. There are some smaller stormwater control measures that include stone trenches that help reduce some of the debris or anything that's coming off of each of these playground areas that are surrounding these basketball courts that are helping with some of the sediment removal prior to getting to these larger rain garden area. In addition to these stormwater control measures that are typical for clean water, there's also one or two locations where we're also we have subsurface infrastructure that is helping detain water, which includes the athletic field as well as this playground area. Each of these are designed with a subsurface stone reservoir to help with draining of these facilities, but it also helps with delaying the timing of that runoff from these facilities. Both of these, both this playground area and this athletic field, trained via an underdrain pipe underneath this walk that you're seeing that's running north south to the east of the athletic field and end up training to the Fort River as well. Okay, are you, that's it? I would like to pause. If you have any questions of what I've explained so far, I can go into detail. Does anybody have any questions at the moment? Janet. This is a little throwback to the site plan report. The question had sort of come up for me reading the conservation before they did the NOI of who's going to maintain this system. So it turns out, talking through with DPW and the school maintenance staff, the school will be on like a calendar for inspecting to see if drains need to be cleaned out. And then if they do, then DPW will do that work. And I think that is in the concom's permit. And it might be an idea for us to put it in our permit. So it's just the idea of a maintenance schedule and who is in people's landings. So that's one thing. I forgot my second point. I'll have to remember. Okay. Go ahead, Steve. To touch upon that, that is correct. There has been an agreement between the Department of Public Works as well as the school for the different pieces of the operation and maintenance of these different control measures throughout the site. There is an understanding of who does what and when. We have provided an operation and maintenance manual detailing what is needed for each of these different control measures. To my understanding, the level of maintenance for the school is typical. Mowing and weeding is needed as well as picking up general debris in each of these. Whereas the Department of Public Works is typically looking at cleaning up catch basins as needed. Or doing anything that requires mechanical sweeping or general vacuuming for different control measures. Okay. Bruce. Given the history of. Most of water problems associated with the school building itself and the interior spaces of the present Port River building. I think it's important that we ask. With regard to the building itself, the footprint. I notice in the drawings there are, well, I might call conventional footing drains and probably some under slab gravel. The building has been lifted two feet. You've told us, is there any, beyond that, is there any special drainage provisions to ensure that this building doesn't have a ghost of a chance in hell of being beset by anything similar to the problems that the old school has had to deal with for the whole of its life. So we have that typical foundation drain. That's in here. That should be tying into our roof train runoff that's leading away from the school. Beyond that, I would defer to. Tim or Rick, that maybe you'll answer that question. All right. I just want to clarify is that we have under slab. Drainage, so it's not a typical footing drain. If that does exist on a drawing in some old set that is leading, but that will connect to the roof training system and that will eventually, but just to respond to Bruce's point. Yes, we are lifting it up. We are breaking capillary action with a porous fill. We are doing drainage later. All of which is a built suspenders system for making it nearly impossible for water to travel upward. Okay, Bruce. Any other questions? Sorry. No, it's a legacy. I've got many other questions, but they'll be coming in time. Okay. And Rick, I still see your hands. You want to add to that. I was going to add that. The new building in its new location. The finish floor elevation is higher than the existing buildings finished for elevation. So we're pulling it up out of the natural groundwater elevation. And we're also raising the elevation of the athletic fields to similarly pull that up out of the get it higher and then have gravity drains. As Steve mentioned, draining that off toward the river makes it easier for it. Okay. Thank you. Johanna. Thank you. And now might not be the time in which case put me in my place, but the direct drainage of the fields into the river just made me wonder what the management plan was for the fields and whether that management plan. Included application of fertilizer and pesticides. And if so, what was being done to reduce impacts on the river? Okay. Tim, anybody want to, oh, Janet, I see your hand. Yeah. Yeah. Just for the record, Janet Bernardo with the horse, the wooden group. The operation maintenance plan that we put together and we have discussed with the school department as well as the management plan to include the types of fertilizers and pesticides that could be placed on that field and the idea of minimizing it to the greatest extent possible. The basically the underdrain system, water will fall on the grass, work its way through the material and then get into an underdrain so it takes some time to get to those pipes. And then it's a whole like fanned hexagon kind of system that eventually brings it all the way to one, well, there's three actual outlets along that path. And the wooded area is still like greater than 200 feet from the river. It's like the wooded area that's there is, that's the habitat that you, I think we're mentioning. There's a good long distance. So we have had the discussion and it is in the O and M plan for this athletic field. And I recall noticing in the communication from the conservation commission that there was also some conditions around fertilizer in their order as well, correct? Yes, that is correct. All right, thank you. Johanna, any other questions before we go to Janet? Okay, Janet. So, you know, I hear all these details of the stormwater management. I understand it conceptually. I have no way of really analyzing it. And so I'm hoping that the town engineer is going to take a look at it and give us the A okay or make recommendations before we sign a permit. So is Chris, do you think that we'll get something from Jason skills hopefully soon? Or Chris. Yes, we, we sent the transmittal to Jason and we've reminded him a couple of times. So I'm hoping that we will get a response from him. But the Aaron Jacques, the wetlands administrator has reviewed all of this for the conservation commission. And she's very knowledgeable about drainage systems. So I would say that her review is probably equal to what Jason would do. But we will still keep asking Jason for his review. Okay. Janet, anything else? No. Okay. Thank you. All right. I guess I had a question. You know, I see, or I you've described these sand filters. Swales. Rain gardens. All of which I assume rely on gravity to move water down. And I guess my question is, are any of these items. Below the level of the, of the water table. And, you know, I guess there've been repeated references in some of this material and previously to the high water table of this area. I understand you're raising the building. And I now understand you're raising some of the athletic fields. But is either so, I guess are the invert elevations of the, of the water table. So, So, where we are planning. Do you want to answer this one? Yeah, you got it. Okay. So where we are planning. Some of these control measures that's. We're determining whether or not they're above that water table. Some of these control measures will be lined with a liner. To prevent any intrusion of that ground water table. But for the most part, when, when we have done our. Test bits in each of these areas. We're taking a consideration what kind of control measures we're actually going to use. So they're a bit shallower than your typical storm water control measures that you'd see on a regular site that don't have groundwater issues. So, So, So, And we do have a lot of depth to play with, so we're staying out of that ground, not typical ground water that you'd see on site. So. Anything to add, yeah, I'm just going to add that there as you know, we mentioned there is the large twin culvert that crosses through the site. And that became our control. So the inverts of our final invert needed to hit the, like the top. The top of our pipes need to hit the top of that culvert was the goal. So that it would be above. Above the bottom of the culvert. It's a. 44 by 27. Correct. And so if we have a 12 inch pipe coming in, it's coming in at the top. So it has that separation from the bottom of the culvert. So that was kind of our goal is to keep that culvert as our controlling inverts. Okay. Thank you. All right. Any other questions on water at the moment? All right. Tim, is there somebody from your. Team that should go through the traffic conversation. We have David law ring here. I will just. Preempt his comments to saying that. You know, in discussions with the town, our purview sort of ends at the property line, but. And off traffic stuff we've discussed, but is not part of the project. So with that. I'll let David talk about what we have done on site. Um, Rick, I see your hand. I want to say something before. I want to just say about the. Not just leave Tim statement that. Our work stopped at the property line. The town has retained. A different consultant. To look at traffic control measures related. From the project off site and that report. Is due to them in February. And I got that information. Uh, from, from Paul Backelman. Through. Yeah. Great. Thank you. Um, Mr. Marshall. Do you want to take a look at the. Um, I guess I will mention, um, That I was thinking if we, if we, it doesn't seem like we're going to get anywhere close to finish tonight, that maybe we. Target something like 9 30 for trying to finish. Get to a stopping point. Um, Mr. Marshall, do you want to take a break? Oh, that's a good point. It is eight o'clock. Um, Sure. Why not. Um, I guess I will mention, um, That I was thinking if we, if we were going to finish, get to a stopping point. And, um, so I just want to plant that seed. Um, however, yes, we usually take a five minute break right around eight o'clock. So my clock is showing eight oh six. Uh, feel free to take a break and turn off your camera, mute your, uh, microphone. And turn on your camera at least when you come back at eight, 11. So five minutes from now. Thank you. I don't need one at the moment. Thank you. I'm back, but I'm going to keep my camera off for a few minutes, but I'll be listening. I'm sorry, Jesse. Could you say that again? I'm back. I'm just going to keep my camera off for a few minutes. Okay. But I'm still here. Rick, can I assume that your hand is a legacy hand? Yes, it is. I'll take it down now. Thank you. Okay. And that before we, before we get to David, I wanted to ask one more question that I have was having trouble remembering before the break about the water to wait for everybody to get back. I love Jesse nature's screensaver. So beautiful. I suspect that some of the biological material he works with. That's right. I wonder what. You know, if you're there, please come on back. I wonder what Jesse's scale is. Is it microbial or is it galactic? He's probably microbial. It's an embryo implanting in the uterus, if you have to know. Oh, it looks like a carabine. I hate to ask, which is what? The red mobile shape is the. It's a mouse. And then the inside of that is a very early mouse embryo, making contact. Good heavens. That's what I do for work later. Okay. We've got, we've got you on a back. So we've got our. Our board representation. Before we get to the traffic, I just wanted to ask one question of either Janet or Steve, I think it was. Is it my, am I understanding our conservation regulations correctly that. You, since this is an existing site with an existing building, it's developed. And therefore you only need to treat. Or maybe control control. Or. Hold or filters, whatever verb we need to use. So we need to be able to use. More of the, of the stormwater than is existing. Is currently being controlled. Is that true? The storm water management handbook that is. From the department of environmental protection DEP. They. They have specific standards that we need to go by. And we need to match. There are other standards in the city that we need to look at. So we need to have a strong water runoff over free development stormwater runoff. So if it was a wooded site, we might have to do a lot more than we have to do because it was an existing school, but we are reducing our peak flow under our proposed conditions from what is currently flowing towards. The Fort River. are containing water and holding it so that the peak flow is lower. Correct. Okay. Because of groundwater, usually you would want to infiltrate as much as possible but because groundwater is high, we couldn't infiltrate as much as we typically want to and like to. We are proposing infiltration under like the athletic fields and the playground and and in the rain garden. So we have some areas that are particularly shallow stormwater features. The sand filters are a little deeper so that they could hold back some of the water. Okay. And one other question prompted by your saying you have very shallow features particularly on the play fields. If I want to set a baseball base and you know how close to the surface are your infiltration pipes? You know if I need to put a stake in the ground to hold a volleyball field of volleyball net or there are actually two feet down. Yeah I was going to say Bill Brown actually did that design there two feet down. So there's 24 inches of cover over everything at a minimum. Yes it's the like the rain garden that is behind the basketball courts. That is more it's kind of a landscaping feature. It will have plants in it that help provide water quality for the runoff that's coming into it. So it will you may not even understand that it is actually happening for stormwater management because it will look like a garden. Okay thank you. Anybody else think of any water questions while you were taking a break? Okay Mr. Loring I think you're on. Why don't you talk to us about the traffic control within the site? Okay well part prepared is David Loring our corporation. We were the traffic consultant for Denisco for this project. The main goal of our project we prepared a traffic impact analysis which I believe has been submitted to the planning board in May of 2022 that reviewed both the Wildwood and the Fort River sites doing a complete traffic analysis and study for those two sites. Now as we turn attention specifically to Fort River we were involved with both looking at the on and off site at the conceptual level when we did that traffic impact analysis. So we've got the two separations as you've seen come up with the bike or the bus and the drop-off loop designing that to accommodate the buses and drop-off procedures looking at queuing based on the information provided from the school department for the number of buses and vans that will be used for the drop-off then confirming the geometric movements to allow that geometric shape making sure that we could dual bus lanes through there and accommodate it with geometry. That also has the bike and pedestrian walkways associated where they'll come in off of southeast street and cross and then enter through likely the main entrance of the school. The northern section that Tim alluded to earlier includes three lanes one lane in two lanes out. Traffic is intended to come in from the drop-off parent drop-off loop through the parking lot and then would queue up along the east lanes that had in a north-south orientation. Within the parking lot itself we included raised crosswalks or a raised table if you will to ensure that speed would be controlled through that parking lot for the protection and safety of both all users kids and you know people traversing back and forth through the parking lot. There's we added signage that are shown in the signage plan. A lot of the impacts are off-site and we did provide conceptual level of improvements our opinions on what could be done to at least alleviate some of the traffic concerns for this site. I don't know how much more I can say or you want to hear but because Tim touched on the overall patterns earlier but I can be glad to elaborate further on any specifics with regards to the traffic and the layout that's there. All right thank you I guess I'll I don't see any hands so I'm going to just start off with a question. You talk about the the I'm going to call it the student drop off because we're dropping off students um along the east side of the parking lot and if I'm dropping off a student I'm going to want to do it at the south end right because that's where the front door is when it's raining cats and dogs. So how are we going to keep people from stopping at that southeast corner and queuing up behind that and how are we going to get them to actually use the entire east side for drop off? Without speaking out of turn I think I may have to rely on some of the Dinesco staff as well but the parking as we have viewed the site you know in its existing conditions the staff and faculty um play a large role in managing traffic on the site and I are expecting that they will continue to do so so that as parents come in they'll be encouraged to go to the head of the line if you will and queue up behind them to form that queue along that bay. In our discussions with staff at the school it is understood that there will continue to be staff controlling functions. We have made at least one accommodation that there is a pull-off at the south end here which is a sort of flush curb with area for four cars for a noted need of students that require additional time need to be settled before they broaden the building which could potentially clog the queue so there is an extra accommodation made here at the south but you know as you allude to parents have to participate and park and cooperate and they don't always model the best behavior but um we have given them the opportunity to do that. Okay and am I correct that if I don't want to go all the way to the south end I can cut off the loop by going along your tabled east west connection there that's north of the solar panels? David to the extent during drop-off hours we were not going to the staff is not going to allow currently cars are guided through the parking lot with cones I would imagine that will be blocked off in a similar fashion during peak drop-off and pickup areas times I should say part of the reason that that is there is partially to slow traffic as David mentioned but also there is a community asset here that doesn't require the entire parking lot so there's that shortcut there it's designed for flexibility but we certainly have safety as the highest priority and and those sort of shortcuts the dropping off in the parking lot we can't prevent it but we will do everything to discourage. Okay uh Johanna. Thanks and I'm sorry if I missed this but would you be able to just trace with a cursor like if you are a parent in the morning driving your kid to school what is the route that they take? Tim's coming in the north entrance turning right going into the west lane coming all the way down and following the outside loop so the right lane within the parking lot is not part of the loop but traveling south in this lane and then traveling north in a tri-violet which is two lanes wide for the entire extent. So I was going to jump in this is Nate I really echo Doug's point about queuing parents I don't understand um you know especially in inclement weather why someone would drive another 200 feet beyond the drop off to drop their kids off there and not you know at the entrance when they're there and so I think it's going to be confusing and um I don't know you know if you couldn't route traffic the other way uh so um I just think that that's that'll be a you know a management issue that I mean you know have staff have you might need multiple staff out there that are just constantly waving cars along seems you know to a burden to put on the on staff you know to when it could be that it functions differently. I think in the mornings you generally have people coming in just dropping off so it's not so much an issue in the morning with queuing up it's the queuing up in the afternoon for the pickup where we're lining the parents up to to pick up their child in the afternoon and the other reason for not reversing the flow there is we get into crossing of traffic patterns with people trying to get in and out you're crossing traffic so we were trying to avoid that as well so by providing the queuing on site we're getting motor vehicles and parents off of southeast street and onto the site and then they would queue up so it really becomes the afternoon situation where we're looking to park the cars and allow parents to pick up their students as opposed to the warning words typically a quick drop off in the route. Okay um Jesse you're the next hand I see great thanks I was just going to reiterate Johanna's question from earlier is there an intentional design for bikers how will they flow into the traffic pattern and where is our other bike racks involved somewhere? There are bike racks Bill I don't know if you want to jump in and talk about the location of the bike racks there too here. So what we've done to accommodate the bicycles is at the north and south entrances there are sidewalks that come in off the street they're 10 feet wide that accommodate walkers and bicyclists and on the south entrance as they come in they follow the entrance drive and then they cross the road at that point they'll need to get off their bicycle and they'll cross the road then make their way to the front entrance and there's bike racks right to the left in that location and then if you're coming from the north you're coming in north of the entrance drive that's a 10 foot wide sidewalk for bikers and for people walking they continue down and then there's bike racks that are right to the left playground right in that location. Jesse any other questions? Okay on that subject is there any covered bicycle racks or provisions inside the building like a shower for staff who might want a bicycle to work and show up and need a shower? There is not a shower in the building and the bicycle racks are not covered. Janet you are next. I wonder in that spot if you're coming in from the south where the bikes have to cross to the to the to the other sidewalk is that could be sort of raised or kind of marked off in some way I know there's just buses coming in but you know anytime you have little kids who are a little clueless in any kind of vehicle it seems like anything would slow that down would be something to alert the bus driver like I'm going to slow down not that they're going that fast so I just wonder if there's some way to get some lines there or raise like a table so it's like the vehicle knows they have to slow down. The other thing is is in terms of queuing like that's a problem at every school where if there's 40 parents trying to pick up a kid at the same time there are lines everywhere so I appreciate the problem of queuing it you know we have a bus system that will take you everywhere there's lots of kids who go to after school activities now and parents are and guardians are driving them but I just I don't know how you get around it when you have you know one exit or entrance to the building and 40 cars and I think people who are driving just have to wait or park go pick up their kid and walk back to their car so that's a problem at Fort River now at half the size I'm sure it's a problem at Wildwood and stuff so I just think you know the more our parents are driving the more they're sitting at lines you know all right Janet I actually think think it's a little it's sort of exacerbated here because the drive does not go along the the length the primary frontage of the building you know there's really just a very short moment where the drive is close to the building so I think it's going to be worse than than Wildwood and probably Fort River well the way Fort River operates now is you come in through the south drive and you go into the side parking lot you never go to the front of the building and you have to go around and there's a staff person sitting there waiting for you to get your kid out and so there is this very strange kind of it's you know I think that one of the many principals at Fort River really wanted to separate the kids away from the buses and so institute that as a safety thing so there is a whole group of people waiting to pick up a kid or to drop a kid off at the side entrance and there's a staff person there Fort River has sort of a little side entrance that's in the front but on the side and so I just think the more people using the car the more people waiting you know okay all right well I know I'll never be in any of these wines so Johanna you're next thank you um yeah it's I mean it's possible that we just can't come up with an ideal here but there I guess I have I just want to voice a couple of concerns I think it is really not ideal to have the bicycles and pedestrians crossing the street where the buses come in I think we are trying as a town to encourage non-car traffic and so covered bike racks go a long way to making that happen if folks from the design team haven't been at Fort River for a morning drop-off I encourage you to go and observe it sometime because basically they don't let kids they don't let parents drop off their kids until a certain time and so even in the morning there are often dozens of cars queued up you know snaking around the South parking lot and into the driveway just to drop off their kid um and I think I had one more thing um I just need to find my notes um and then I I kind of I'll admit I kind of hate the fact that the pedestrians and the cyclists are smooshed together onto the same infrastructure I feel like um it it ends up like I don't know right in regular society cyclists are supposed to share the road with the cars and you're not supposed to ride your bike on the sidewalk and I just think it like continues mixed messages in no man's land for cyclists when that's actually I think a problem we have the opportunity to solve so those are my concerns David do you have any response to any of that most of the site design is fell under uh others we didn't get involved as much with the bike and pedestrian layout so I think certainly we can provide you know I will make a couple of comments as a traffic engineer looking at it it's difficult we want to get the crossing for example on the bus loop raising that we I know we did discuss and consider it it is a managed entrance if you will that would be that is intended to be signed for buses only so we are talking about the buses and that type of a vehicle only which should be intimately aware of the situation and setting that they're coming into you can put a raised crosswalk there it will add a further traffic calming device but it's something that the buses are going to have to traverse over so we can go either way with with that I guess the actual bike and pedestrian layout and walkways that were designed by others on the Dennis Cotein yeah I think they can probably better respond sure yeah so I'd like to make a comment on the on the on the path of travel on the southern end we actually looked at putting the path on the north side but there are a lot of existing trees right very close to the curb that provide a nice buffer for that house so that's why we kept the sidewalk on the southern side and are crossing alone we could put a raised table on that location if we did that it would require us to install a catch basin at that location in order to mitigate the water that would back up and in that location and then there's you know philosophically how do we deal with cars and bicycles on site and having younger kids potentially coming to the site um I would prefer personally to have them in a sidewalk situation than part of the road system just because of the conflicts with bicycles and cars for younger people for adults it's easier to manage I think that the children it's much more difficult all right I guess on that subject David you made one comment that the bicyclists would need to dismount when they crossed the road is that just good practice from a traffic engineering point of view or is that something we actually need to expect children to do I actually did not make that comment I think Tim did when he was explaining it sorry okay I'm sorry uh I think then maybe it was of no concern somebody I did not make that comment but okay sorry never mind uh Bruce um a couple of things you should remember that we have a fairly substantial array of solar panels over the parking in that end of the the site and to your point Doug when it's raining heavily um this is an unusual feature because we don't usually have sheltered parking and my guess is that in the situations like that people would make use of that in ways that you know we will have to we can't yet fully predict but I I think we should remember that we have this unusual feature a rain sheltered parking area um I have a question related to the bikes as well um I noticed that down in the south of the building uh entry uh there are the bike locations there I counted them there are eight of them as far as I can or at least accommodation for eight bikes and I didn't notice or count the the the provisions to the north of the building but uh it's uh but nonetheless when I counted those I had one assumption and one question the assumption was that there's not really many of them and certainly they're not sheltered it seems to me that there is a rather minimal expectation that anybody is going to ride and I kind of assumed that it would be staff that would ride and not uh kids but of course kids may decide to ride I don't know the question is what was the basis for determining the number of uh bicycle accommodation I mean I know we've we've got data on how you figured out the number of parking for cars how did you figure out the number of parking for bicycles because it seems to me to be remarkably small if I remember what my school looked like uh you know 70 years ago whenever it was um there was actually um eight bike racks south and nine bike racks north they accommodate two bicycles each rack so there's one on each side okay so that's 16 and 18 whatever that is 35 or so um and we've got uh 275 plus staff so we've probably got one to 20 more or less in terms of humans that are coming and staying at the building um I know some of those kids are so young that you would need extra wheels on the bike for them to actual ride but still that's it's not many is there uh you've also the answer is that we've got uh somewhere between 30 and 40 uh capacity to accommodate somewhere between 30 and 40 bicycles um how did you figure that out how did you figure that was enough or how do you figure that you would allocate that number and not 10 or 100 well you're given a number from the school staff okay okay well I guess that you know there's certainly room to to accommodate more it seems to me that we should expect that there would be revision for not only accommodating more but also for in the future for the to provide shelter I know providing bathrooms and so forth is a good idea too particularly if staff are going to use them but that may be a that's that's a another order of magnitude but uh figuring out how we could uh double or triple the bicycle accommodation um I mean if we just look at schools in other countries and perhaps I know I used to look at buildings in Europe and so forth and that was 20 or 30 years ago and we're doing similar things now that they were doing a long time before us and if the same is true of uh of non-vehicular transport we should be ready for that uh or at least not do things that would stop it from happening I don't know whether we can would how we would condition this but I certainly would like to see uh the the possibility of readily uh doubling or tripling that bicycle accommodation and and and sheltering some of us all right all right Bruce um you know I mean as I look at the plan I can see what look like opportunities to you know to extend or install bicycle racks that would just increase capacity um I guess you don't need to think about whether we should make some sort of condition and uh you know maybe require a revised site plan that shows uh locations for future additional bike racks or something like that. Janet? I have sort of a general comment that um there's a lot of space on this site I mean there's a lot of space to the south of you know the bus entrances um there's some nice landscape space between the southern part of the parking lot and then the bus lanes which I'm sure almost no one will ever use because no one uses it now um so I you know I think of when I think about where we could put things or extra parking or things like that I just think oh let's maybe you can just move it around a little which could I of course drive the designers insane but I just think there's a lot of flexibility on the site um I have a question a really specific question by the entrance the southern entrance like there's I don't know if this is just intentional or not but there seems to be like a path all the way along the bus drop off but then it stops and it's green um right by the building is that intentional do you mean to stop the walkway there yeah that's fine I should that is a drawing error this error this square yeah is paved it is not green uh and it was not intentional sleight of hand it's just a graphic error this is where the transformer the dumpsters um it's the service area the maintenance facilities okay doors here and this is all paved and there's a screen wall and planting that protected from the entrance oh okay and then the the the entrance is to the right then where the buses drop the kids off right or correct there is a door right here for student access which is uh walking through a stair that takes you immediately to all three floors so if someone came out that entrance and made a right hand turn towards the parking lot or just towards southeast street would they would they just walk into a building or is there no sidewalk along the road there in that square no it's continuously paved from here to here okay okay get it then okay I don't see any other hands okay here's a couple Chris go ahead so I just wanted to mention that we have a full-size set of drawings here in the office and it's really good to look at so if anybody wants to come in and look at that set I'd be happy to spend time with them because it does show a lot of details and it's hard to see some of the details on the set that you received in your packet and it's also hard to you know manipulate the computer to see everything because it kind of loads slowly so feel free to let me know if you want to come in and look at the big set and it may answer you know a lot of your questions and Chris I'm assuming we don't get through everything tonight when are you thinking we would continue this hearing to so that we kind of have a sense of how long it will be before you know during which we can think about coming in to look at the set and not be too late to bother I would have to ask Pam for her advice on that we have upcoming meetings on January 31st February 7th and February 21st the January 31st meeting is going to be about Hickory Ridge and I expect that's going to take some time and we'll also probably want to talk about University Drive but I believe that February 7th would be a possibility for continuing this public hearing and then there's also February 21st as I said okay do you or do you know if we are on the project's critical path at this point is there urgency to us getting through our review the early site package which is clearing the ground south of the construction fence is already on the street going out to bid the contract will be awarded in February that being said the design for the final situation all layout of everything of that project will go out to bid in July there are certain deadlines that we have to meet in terms of MSBA review and a lot of other things but our general position is that the sooner the better but obviously we are happy to work with you on your schedule okay and I guess in terms of the the two special permit applications that that we know about you know the the height and the fill I assume if we were to deny those that would basically blow up the project is that right okay that is a fair statement okay no pressure uh Bruce I've got quite a few questions but let me ask one first that relates to the traffic we've looked at the way the traffic will eventually be managed and in my mind it seems to be rather thoughtful and somewhat ingenious and certainly better than was feared when this site was first being thought of in comparison to say Wildwood but there is a moment in time basically between the time when the school building is completed the building itself and operational as far as having students in it and the period when the existing building has been torn down and the north entrance essentially is not available so I wanted just to find out what's the plan for that period how long is that period and what's the plan for that period is obviously going to be suboptimal but I think we should know how suboptimal so in the period after the school is built and they are demolishing the existing Fort River school and constructing the parking lot north of this line there are accommodations for temporary connection between which will allow half of the parking that is constructed to be used and the drop off to south that being said there will be a deficit of a good number of cars for the new building and we are working with the district to figure out how that will happen whether it's part of this is constructed during the phase one and it will exist in the state of a binder course but not totally finished but usable for parking for staff or if for a few months staff has to be parking off site we understand that it is a difficult and logistically problematic situation for September to potentially December of 2026 but it's something that we will work out with the district all right Bruce can I keep going sure there's a generator down on the well near that white building there this is a net zero energy building but we the one thing that's not non fossil fuel is the generator it's going to be fairly close to residential properties but there's apparently some kind of sound enclosure so I just wanted to understand what what the what the what the DB level of this generator is likely to be how often it's likely to be an operation presumably that hopefully never but it's also it's going to be tested regularly so that'll probably be the major operation so what is the expected times of operation how loud is it and what is the sound enclosure that's referenced it will have to be exercised once a week I believe I can get you the other information I don't want to give you a decibel number and be wrong Rick I don't know if you know I don't have off hand but we have we have an acoustic consultant that is also looking at off-site acoustic issues from all the equipment and the generator enclosure is one of them and it would it will be sufficiently quiet and meet those requirements and the there is flexibility is to when it's exercised so it's whenever they decide to to run it if a neighbor complains and I'd be surprised if they did because they will likely not hear it run it's it's a it's a diesel engine is is what the sound would be and uh they can certainly it's not an automatic timer for for the exercising and it can be done at any time and it can be done at a time when it's uh not uh obtrusive at all okay what about the sounding closure it looks like the building itself is going to perform some sort of blocking at least well in in one direction the building will block it another direction we have fencing around it and the acoustic enclosure itself is mitigating factor for the for the engine noise okay thank you um Doug shall I continue I think so sure um we've got comments from the fire departments and there are they really come in the form of what I would have thought looked like conditions there's stipulations and there's well I can't count them all up but they're closely close to 15 or more and uh and I'm not sure how this uh how we're expected to deal with this or whether we don't need to at all um one one thought that I had was as we supposed to make a condition of any approval that all of these uh uh requirements in the fire department member shall be met um and uh so I guess I could start by asking uh has the design team uh seen this reviewed this and are there any uh because for example 2c it says a fire hydrant no it doesn't I beg your pardon it says a hydrant shall be added to the south side of the new school and shall be within 100 feet of the new fire department connection um it was this is this for example uh part of the current scope or is this an additional item and are there any other items on the fire department uh transmittal that are a surprise uh and will cause difficulty or is this as far as the design team concerned something that is uh more of this perfunctory and that we you'll just make sure it all happens um we have seen the memo that the result of many of these items is a meeting that we've covered about multiple meetings that actually we've had with our engineers and the fire department we've discussed the locations of hydrants the locations of knock boxes adjustable panels and all that has been discussed for them and the uh best location in the building from their point of view um I don't want to say it's perfunctory but we are certainly going to do all of this and one thing that they have requested in here is a stamped turning movement analysis we've done some but we will do a final one that makes sure all of their equipment uh gets the 360 degree access to the building that this site is designed to provide okay um well we can discuss amongst the other board I guess how we handle this but it doesn't sound like it's general it's it's it's problematic in any way uh Doug should I continue yes Bruce um the uh we have uh something that hasn't been shown or discussed or mentioned but certainly exists albeit uh below ground and you can't see it um is the so-called geothermal well but basically the ground connection for the system that's heating and cooling the whole building which is taking heat from and delivering heat back to depending on the season I think it would be good for us to know where that is and what the extent of it is and and what it means to have one sure um south of the building east of the entrance uh at stair b that we've been talking about essentially from here to here there is an array of 84 wells that will be about 500 feet deep um with a steel casing and a polyethylene loop in them which will bring all of that piping back to a vault which is south of the building all of this is completely underground and unseen um and unlikely ever to be accessed um and then that system will be connected to a heat pump in the uh mechanical room on the third floor uh so this system will function as a heat sink uh in the summer heat will be pumped into the ground and winter heat will be extracted from uh the relatively constant uh surface temperature of the earth and then all of that he will move out to a water to a water heat exchanger heat pump in the building it's 84 wells 270 tons I believe and is it a balanced annual load uh yes oh I mean yeah as you're leading to the geothermal systems if you're drawing too much heat or putting too much into heat eventually they become less efficient uh but it is a balanced annual load we've had Tim wellspring is our engineer who was handling the design of the system okay more Bruce yes one or two let's say um in I can't remember which drawing it is Tim but in the crosswalk at the southern end of the parking area just south of the array structure there is a note that says detectable warning panel and then it says typical so first of all I don't know what a detectable warning warning panel is and because it says typical I imagine there's more than one of them around the place so could you tell me what it is and where they are and why they are uh it is the tactile surface at any crosswalk and maybe Bill can explain it in but it's the bumps on the sidewalk whereas you cross the street but I'm sure give you a much more technical uh description I got it now yes okay and then also in areas where there's flush curbing for instance uh along the band drop off zone we have a flush condition with bollards the bollards protect the pedestrians that curb is flush and it gives someone who is disabled or has trouble seeing it gives them a warning that they're about to enter a vehicular zone thank you and if I may Doug one more certainly Bruce let's get through them the existing athletic field has light poles which are to be removed um and um I've I've mentioned to the building committee a number of times I say what's going to happen to those and I I get vague answers which basically indicate that people aren't terribly interested I think or concerned of course understandably there's a huge project and there's all sorts of fish to fry and and and silly old 40 year old wooden poles don't quite pass muster or get get the Guernsey but I think I know that these are a valuable resource they don't look like it but they're probably about I don't know 12 or 15 inches in diameter at the base they probably go into the ground but it's only the above ground portion that I'm interested in and they come up I don't know 40 plus feet high maybe 50 and there's half a dozen of them and it seems to me that the wood resource in this is valuable it's probably as often is poles that we'll put in that time ago that the quality of the lumber is much better than we could source today and that we shouldn't just trash them and I would like to think that these poles were going to be cut down I mean lifted and cut and lowered down perhaps sectioned into two or three 16 plus foot pieces and taken to the perimeter of the site and stacked and made available to someone I will probably propose a condition to achieve something like that but I want to just have a design team say what are the other any problems with that I mean you possibly know more about what the quality of this wood is than I do so is what I'm is what I see as a resource and something that can be salvaged is this am I looking at is this something that's worth pursuing or should we just let the dumpster take care of it my bothering law was alignment for electric and gas and you'd be surprised what they can make out of old poles but we I had a very pointed conversation with both Rupert and Guilford about what they wanted to retain on site and as far as those light poles the the lights themselves and all the controllers are being saved for future reuse we discussed the notion that the poles could be you know the part that's not buried you know you could end up with a 10 foot shorter pole and does the town have any use for them and while they have taken delivery of any unused curb and things like that the town has expressed no interest in finding a use for those poles and I believe that a light pole is is treated against rot and I don't think that you can saw it for lumber but that's just a supposition on my part I've seen a lot of utility poles leaching tower and creosote so I don't I think that if somebody had a use for them as as poles would be number one unfortunately the town's not ready to take on storing those for future use anywhere what I did tonight on the way back is I called a friend of mine Tom Harris who's one of the regional entities that fusses around and and and gets stuff like this and source them up and sells it sells the lumber back into into into the into the cabinet industry and various others and at a astonishing price so if these are not treated they're probably worth something and obviously apparently not to the town but that doesn't mean that they're not worth something to somebody I think but I will do is I will in the next two or three weeks but to whether that went up until when we can continue this meeting if we do which we will I'm sure I'll see if I can find somebody who's interested in this and if I can find somebody who's interested in these poles I'm going to propose a condition that commits the project to at least putting them in a place where that party can collect them okay Bruce I think that's it for me now okay thank you for your apparently very close review of the drawings Janet you've been very patient thank you I have a punch list too um I look at the parking lot in the north part and you know cognizant that this is going to be many more um this is the larger school than what we're used to seeing um and I picture like after school events and you know little little siblings and going to events and running through a parking lot that has rows upon rows of cars but there's no I there's no islands there's no trees there's nothing to slow kids down I'd be happy them for a little kid to you know basically run into a granite curb fall on some dirt then run across you know four lanes you know several lanes of traffic and park cars and so you know I I know there's a waiver of the condition for having you know islands and landscaping I don't think this is a safe parking lot for small children and um I just you know it's just it's a lot of rows of cars it's you know so you know a lot of traffic coming in and out and there's no you know all these cars will be parked and some little kid could just dart out and no one's going to see them and so I would love to see this redesigned or you know in a way that you know the current parking lot doesn't have um it sort of splits in two there's a granite curb with some dirt that divides it and you know the kids can or adults kind of step up onto it stop for a minute and look and then step down and so I would love to see this parking lot a little more attractive following the code a little better um the trees would be nice to prevent sort of a heat island effect I would love to see a solar canopy but that may be way in the future so I just don't think this design is particularly safe with so many parked cars and sort of an easy way for young children to run kind of unseen between cars and nothing really no place to stop um the next thing is um you know there's also a request for a waiver of an like a screening of the homes and I don't really understand that because it seems to me um you know this is going to be an attractive school a parking lot not so attractive you know I think it'd be relatively easy to put in um you know an evergreen screening around the homes you know to kind of give them year round no view of the parking lot and things like that um so those are two kind of landscaping things I'd like to see in the next round um and then in terms of the the special permit that you haven't asked for for the parking lot canopy I think you could if you're just trying to put the canopy in I think you could put it over that kind of cross piece walkway or you can just add it later like as I remember the bylaw and voting on it in town meeting you know net zero doesn't mean to doesn't mean that the site has to produce every you know ion or whatever of electron of energy but that you can actually buy green energy also to fill that gap and so I would see if you know extending the canopy a little bigger over the the parking area um to the north with the idea that it would go in later or maybe you know you could put it in you know when you know at some other you know either put it in to cover that kind of walkway or just add it later when you're working on the parking lot so I just think the net zero thing like having everything turnkey jammed on that little site may not be the best thing particularly for the neighbors who are in the backyard who are now just staring at you know a lot of solar arrays which I know from being on the solar bylaw working group isn't everybody's favorite thing and so I would just those are sort of things I think you might look at for the next round. All right Janet uh I'm going to ask you one question about your first comment about the parking lot it at least the way I read it it looks like there's four rows of cars I think so it's hard for me to see it and that reminds me that that's basically the same as the parking lot at mill river which I've never really felt like it was terribly unsafe how many how many spaces are here it is four rows of cars it's 175 spaces all right so I mean it's definitely longer than mill river that's for sure but I but in terms of the width and the direction that people would be walking you know to get to the fields it's not that different and anyway I just kind of mentioned it I also have wondered about those waivers for the for the parking you know in terms of the islands and that kind of thing you know coming kind of on the heels of our conversation about hickory ridge where there was also a conversation about getting rid of some of the or waving some of the parking requirements you know it starts to feel like when we have a town project some of the parking requirements are sort of optional and I'm not sure I really am and I'm not really sure I'm comfortable creating it creating that precedent so um anyway yeah there's I think there's space you know to put some you know some landscaping here making it more attractive it could be also a place where water goes and the trees help hold the water on the site you know um but I just I just it just seems really big and I just picture kids scurrying and I understand what you're saying about mill river but you know this parking lot's going to be used at night for school events or you know night which is sometimes 4 30 in the afternoon um and you know parents are distracted and you know kids run right um I guess uh Tim Janet's comment also makes me wonder uh for the green sort of swale that's between that main parking area and the drop-off drive is that easily traversed by a pedestrian it's not so steep and slow that's that's not that's not easily traversed by a pedestrian because that whole zone is depressed slightly in order to hold water but there is a sidewalk that extends the full length of that sand filter and swale from the north end of the parking lot so if you have gotten from the parking spaces to that green zone you are on a safe separated sidewalk that will bring you all the way to the crosswalk to the entrance right I guess I guess what I'm thinking about is there's there's a second uh desire line so to speak you know for not for people who are headed to the main entrance of the school but for people who are headed to the ball field for their you know their softball league or or the ultimate frisbee league that's happening on Saturdays and so that green swale is actually a barrier for a pedestrian is that right well it is but there's two connectors so the northern part of the parking area which I would imagine where most people would be parking there's a sidewalk that takes you towards the east and there is not there is a crosswalk there it's not shown on the drawing that takes you over to the fields uh-huh and then there's one at the south end yes yeah how difficult would it be to put one in the middle can I add one thing yes please shut so the the upper sand filter is about two feet deep and the side slopes are around three to one so though it's like a kid it's only gonna have water in it during a rain event and for you know 24 48 hours after a heavy rain event kids will go through it um we're not totally expecting them not to it's not so deep that they can't it's okay they'll run up and they'll run down and we don't really want them to because it's planted and you know it's that the goal of it is to function but we won't be surprised when they do okay and and the slope of it to clarify is not sloping immediately down from the edge there's a flat area just to describe the profile there's there's not a sidewalk on the on the drop off side but there's a flat area uh to the dimensions of which maybe janet or steve can but it's it's it's how it's built okay yeah I mean just looking at your rendering it's not obvious that that's you know got some gradient to it so okay uh janet go ahead you're you're that's basically it I just think um planting screenings slow you know something make this parking lot more attractive and safer for people to move through um you know if you haven't kind of a little island you know like I've stood on those islands waiting for cars to go by you know you feel a little better when you're up you know up in the air a little bit um but I just I just think you know let's follow the bylaw and make that a little prettier I mean the rest of the site looks really nice and also there's this big asphalt expanse I just nothing it's safe and I don't think it's particularly attractive and I think you have space to do stuff with it you know um did I make a comment relative to the screening sure Bill um when we designed the parking lot we took great care in not disturbing the buffer between the parking lot and the property moving so the trees that are that are currently in that area they all remain we can look at it but I think it's going to be hard for us to put an evergreen screen in without disturbing the trees that are existing that are there so that's why we didn't show any screening in there in that area because we preserved what was there but we certainly can take a look to see if we can add some screening in that area without disturbing the existing vegetation you know I think it's a great idea and I'll go back and look myself because I'm not sure what it looks like in the winter I mean I think there are evergreens in there and it is it's very there are some yes there's a real separation between those houses and the school and I think that's a nice thing to preserve and there is also a berm which I'll admit this this is the first time I've been it when there were not leaves on the trees for the probably southern two-thirds of the lot so one of the acceptable ways to mitigate in the code is a berm that is at least three feet height of block headlights and that exists if you look from the south end of the parking lot to at least to the middle and probably a little bit more okay I'll let's look at that again and if I could just add looking at that whole area that's north of the school there seems to be a lot of real estate up there and it seems like you slide things around but the width of that athletic field every foot east and west and north and south was hard fought so that they could do overlays of alternate frisbee in the various games then you get to the east and you get into the replication areas and not wanting to not being able to get farther into the wetland jurisdictional area you we've got a two-lane access road that we want to have well spaced from the edge of the play field and then the sand filter have a certain width so when the design team says we'll look at seeing if we can fit some planting in there moving everything over 10 feet isn't the solution to getting it there because every it seems funny to say with that width but everything that everybody was advocating for is jammed in there all right anything else Janet no oh thank you okay all right thanks all right I guess let's see we only have two attendees left and I think they are both for our next item on the agenda so I'm not even going to ask for a public comment at this time Bruce actually break you get your hand up first okay Bruce I was simply going to move continuation to if Pam has got the answer I think it was February 7th wasn't it uh move continuation of the public hearing to February the 7th at 645 I suppose I think that's all I think that's all that's necessary yeah Chris does does that uh 645 work for you should we make it a little bit sooner so that we don't have to wait to uh you know get to the clock to 645 I think we usually have public hearing scheduled for 635 and we may not get to them right away okay get to them sooner than 645 so I would say 635 is a good time 635 is fine okay so I'm happy to second your motion Bruce um any any any uh comments from the board that you need to make tonight as opposed to in a couple weeks not seeing any all right then why don't we run through a roll call to continue to February 7th at 635 Bruce hi you're on a list Jesse hi uh Janet hi uh Johanna hi I'm and I as well all right the motion passes five in favor two absent the time now is 919 so thank you Deniscoe and all your uh associated consultants appreciate your work on this and uh we hope to see many of you at least uh in a few weeks you will thank you very much thank you okay all right we'll now go to the next item on the agenda which is actually old business topics not reasonably anticipated do we have anything any old business no we do not uh Janet it's actually it's it's not old business it's it's a question about um I was wondering when Dodson Flinker is going to start it's consulting work on the design review guidelines for downtown is there kind of a work plan and then um very strong suggestion that maybe we put this on the planning board website because I think it's going to have a lot of interest in people and um you know listed as a current project and maybe some way people can glue in or I don't know offer comments or just see what's going on I just think there's going to be a lot of interest in this so but the first question is when does it start and what do they do what are they doing it started today and Nate can talk about it if he wants to but um I I believe that their task is to try to sort out a schedule that is slightly different from the schedule that they had proposed in their response to the RFP because of some constraints that we have with one of our grants so um they're going to be moving ahead moving ahead to a proposal work plan um we do have an idea that we want to put this project on our town website um we haven't quite decided that yet but Engage Amherst is a subscription and it is renewed every year and so this project is a at least it is a two-year project so we're not sure that Engage Amherst is going to be the right platform for that but we haven't quite made that decision but Nate may have more to offer on this topic because he's really the person in charge of the project okay yeah I think Dodson's um they're looking through existing conditions um documents you know they're coming up with a timeline and schedule so we'll we're meeting with them in a two to three weeks to kind of get that set up they'd like to have a working group uh stakeholder group that they'd meet with you know four to five six times in addition to you know um outreach meetings so they you know they like to have kind of this stakeholder group meet with them initially and then throughout the process um to um work through ideas and this is in addition to kind of the whole outreach you know phase so they're hoping to do you know a sort of visual preference survey stakeholder meetings public meetings different things you know um this spring and in the summer and so uh you know they're kind of outlining all that and we'll try to get that going in the next few weeks as Chris mentioned we do have a community planning grant for streetscape standards we need to have a report um kind of in a rough draft by the end of June and so their focus really is on kind of a visioning and community engagement and then the streetscape piece you know um have something going by July and then you know continue working on both you know kind of the building and site design standards and you know more kind of visioning and things throughout the summer and you know into the winter and so um you know I think it we've given 18 an 18 month timeline and so you know although it seems like it's a long time you know to kind of set it yeah and how to put it all together and then have an iterative process where we review things and you know um it'll go so they have a pretty they have a you know they have a timeline and a task you know a kind of a chart and they're modifying that and we hope to kind of finalize that soon and then we can figure it out I agree with Chris I think the um engage amorous may not you know we don't want to have a put it on a platform that we then have to migrate from um so we'll probably put it on the web on the um town's website under the planning department or planning board wherever it can be linked multiple ways um and then you know as documents get um you know generated they can be up there we can try to figure out how we want to receive public comment and uh yeah so that's something where we discussed a little bit today so we have a few few things to have homework on for staff but they have some homework as well okay you're muted Janet oh Janet yes you are muted I think it'd be great to put on the planning department or planning board is like under the new projects thing because I think the new project we have is like 11 East Pleasant Street and I know you know be good to have a few places people could look for it so all right maybe we'll hear and hear an update at our next meeting or maybe two meetings from now all right um so that was it for old business now we'll move to new business time is 924 first item is request for determination of applicability on Pelham Road I can speak to that um I really just gave this to you because it's an interesting project we don't always send you um the request for determination or we would be sending you things all the time this is something that was received by the conservation commission and they're required to send material like this this applicant to the planning board but as I said you know many of these things are not of interest to the planning board um but this one I think is interesting because it's the remnants of an old coal gasification plant that was located at the intersection of Pelham Road and the Fort River I think it might have been on both sides of the road and the town has been struggling with this for years trying to trying to remove any kind of contaminants and then monitor for you know what's happening to the contaminants so this is really just a request for determination of applicability which means that the applicant is requesting um for the conservation commission to approve wetland limit lines in this vicinity and then I imagine they will be applying for notice of intent to put soil boring locations they want to locate 13 soil borings um and this will help them to determine how much of the material that is contaminated is still there um you can see that there are two little huts I guess one on the south side of Pelham Road is that right the south side yeah um is a little greenhouse and on the other side there may be a structure as well and it's also um got a chain link fence around part of it I think um but anyway there they have been monitoring this for years pretty much ever since I started working in the in the planning department and it's an interesting project to follow and I know you will see it when you drive down Pelham Road it's nothing that you have to do anything with but I just thought it would be interesting for you to know about it and to know that um the town is continuing to monitor these um this situation all right well then I guess I was mistaken that Tom Reedy was waiting for this project to come up he was just enjoying our earlier conversation I guess oh he he may have been interested in the Fort River project because his office is right next to Fort River so he's a and a butter so he may have been listening so he could get more information about the project okay all right uh do we have any other new business none that I know of all right any form a a and r subdivision applications none oh any upcoming zba applications that we might be interested in and I need to share I'm not sure if my other colleagues do not at this time okay other than the ones that are required for the Fort River school which we already tried right um okay then moving on upcoming sbp sbr and sub applications nothing really no nothing new we haven't received anything all right all right and uh time is 9 28 and we will go to the committee and liaison reports bruce anything from oh actually uh no nothing to report on that but uh I suddenly realized I have a question um I can I uh this is jumping back to the previous uh business can I ask my question it's about the uh um Olympia Drive project which we approved uh almost a year and a half ago and and the site has not been disturbed and I wonder whether we know anything about why they have not moved forward uh and whether they were intending perhaps to do something similar to what they did with spring street and and redesign the thing to a whole lot you know to a lot of difference to types of units uh I it suddenly occurred to me to ask that question I hope that's in order otherwise we can put it off until next time well I you've asked the question chris do you have it you know what's going on I haven't spoken with them about that project um in a long time I don't know if either of my colleagues has spoken with them no but I know they're busy you know it's trying to finish up spring street in 11 to 13 east pleasant so it might just be uh you know and other things there might be a you know order of priority and you know I haven't heard that it's not happening I just think it's delayed with their other projects good enough nothing to report on pvpc all right um I think that since our last meeting in december uh cpac did meet and approved uh most of the projects that were that applied for money this this time around um there was some trimming of budgets most of it proposed by dave zomek and other folks at the town on town projects um but it seemed like a pretty smooth process this this year caron is not here to talk to us about the design review board chris anything on crc I understand that there's still um well I should back up and say crc has been repopulated um it has I think four of the same members and one new member so jennifer taube pam rooney pat de angeles and who am I missing mandy joe mandy joe the most I shouldn't forget her no because she was the chair um then at friccate is uh also joining so um we haven't worked with them yet I think that they did have a meeting recently and they're picking up the I haven't worked with them yet but um they're picking up the rental registration project and trying to move that forward and is the solar bylaw with that committee as well the solar bylaw is also with that committee but again they haven't done any work on that one yet okay and is there any statutory deadline for them to move that out of committee yes june okay they were given a deadline of june yep great all right um I guess that's that's all our committee and liaison reports uh I as chair have no no report tonight chris pam any report from staff have you got a new staff member no um and I'm not sure I don't think that it's been advertised yet I did send it down to HR in December so we're gonna have to um give them a nudge shake them a bit yep right let's get you some help um okay all right well we didn't quite make 9 30 but the time is 9 32 uh unless anybody else has any uh anything to say we can adjourn I will say please do try to go and look at the drawings I think that would be I know I I haven't done that yet and I feel the need after tonight's conversation particularly all the good questions that Bruce noticed that I wouldn't have had a clue about but yeah and I have to say that we didn't give you the whole set of drawings we gave you about two-thirds of it because it was just too much of a monumental package so um there may be things that would be enlightening to you like I don't think I included the grading plans people who look online can look at the grading plans but I don't think I included them in the in the paper packets so looking at the drawings live and in full size is really a good uh good exercise yeah um I don't know I it's probably tell me if it's out of turn because we closed or continued the hearing but would the Wildwood site have required as many special permits and waivers I think probably in the end it would have um we didn't really scrutinize this project until fairly recently so when the site was being chosen you know they were asking us well what kind of permits do you need and the site hadn't been designed yet so we didn't know that it was going to be 43 feet and we didn't know you know necessarily that it was going to be in the FPC zoning district and you know so there were a number of things that only came to light once the thing was designed and so I think uh you know as I said we don't really scrutinize these projects until we get an application and then we really look at them closely but before that you know our our our review is a more cursory review right well it would have been uh it would have been uh equivalently challenging from a traffic management point of view the issues would have been different but uh they were similar uh in extent uh the site is much more compact so they would have been issues draw and of course it's a sloping site quite extreme there is a lot of fill on that site actually uh uncompacted fill that the building would have been going over I can imagine that I suppose that may not have manifested itself in in the permit related questions before us but the challenges of those as a wildwood sites were considerable the only way I'm going to say given the zoning district I think it would be the same in terms of height you know could be coverage step backs okay fill parking so you know I just think that to design both sites and present them to the planning department for thorough scrutiny in order to know what kinds of permits might have been required for wildwood okay well I guess I you know it's just sort of in the back of my mind like well what what choice do we have we have to approve this so okay so far as the field is concerned I think that's true um yeah otherwise we maybe be able to the sort of things that Janet was pushing for Rick push back I mean I have to say this is an extraordinary design team that they put together I had my doubts initially I challenged Kathy on one or two points but Denisco have demonstrated a just extraordinary commitment to this town and to this project including Donna Denisco who as the principal I thought well she'll be there for the first little while but Donna is at every meeting for two and a half years and doesn't look like stopping they chase down every ferrith they respond to public comments and so forth considerably and seriously carefully and so but they're just they're just a wonderful group of people and we're very fortunate to have them okay that's my view anyway well thank you for that endorsement all right well on that positive note we can adjourn time is 937 welcome back in 2024 thank you thank you all have a good night Chris can I ask you can I ask you a question sure um minute