 I just scared everyone into silence that kind of. I think we'll get started. This meeting has a narrow agenda. Which is to say that we are only going to review changes to the RFP. And that's the draft that Nate sent around. About a week or so ago, I think. And by and large, those are changes that have been asked for by the town manager. Not everyone, but. The most important ones. And those are the things that we need to review. Nate provided a summary and his note about the meeting. Before I go to that, I just wanted to note that. There's probably a little bit more information that was in the prior draft about the project background. The descriptions of the East street and Belcher town road sites. I don't know if anybody has any questions about any of that. Before we go to the more critical issues. One other thing that caught my eye. Which we didn't have before is that. There's reference to the two buildings on the Belcher town road site. And basically it says. The developer is responsible for determining whether they'll reuse removal. Or demolition. Although that is expected to be done in concert with the town. So that's new. I don't think it's particularly critical. But I thought I, I wouldn't mention it in case anybody has any questions about that. I thought I, maybe I made this up. I thought I noticed sometime that it somewhere in there that it suggested that one of those buildings was so old that it might have to be reviewed by the. Historical commission or something. Is that true or did I make it up? I don't know. It says that they may want it to have it. Reviewed by the historical. Yes, there. But do they, do they have to, I mean, I guess my question is, is that a thing that could be in the way? Like you can't take this building down yet, even though we want to, because the historical commission has to review it or. Is that a roadblock? Or could that be a roadblock? I just was wondering. It is, it is, I guess, because that's true. Apparently. Yeah. No, the building is pretty old. So the commission could put a 12 month delay, but the, you know, if it's a comprehensive permit that, you know, the applicant would request to waive that provision of the bylaw. So, you know, but the demolition delay bylaws, you know, would apply to this building. So it's always going to be there as a review mechanism. Okay. So that, so that's just something that we missed when we did it, I guess, because we didn't notice how old it is. Oh, no, I mean, I know, I think, I, I know, I think staff was aware that the, you know, the assessor's card says like the 1930s. Cape. So it was, we're always aware that the property was an older building. Okay. I just said, I don't remember going through it in, in what we were looking at. And probably, of course, it was a 1930 building. It always was. But I didn't notice at least that. That was a thing that make, it makes sense to say it here to me if that's an issue, but I don't think we had said it in so many words before. That's all. Yeah, I mean, I can share my screen and we can just go right through the document, John, if that's easier. Okay. Yeah, we can look at some of the specific provisions. I think there are only three that we need to take a look at. So Erica says she has a few, you know, she can. She can hear us, right? But she somehow can't communicate out. And so if you're hearing this, you can always try quitting zoom and trying to log back in. You know, or sometimes when this happens, I feel like restart my old computer, but maybe just quitting zoom and starting all over would help. I don't know. I don't. All right. She said, all right. It's too bad. I was just, I think I don't know who I told recently, my wife started a new job and she was meeting her like 20 minutes to get to work. And so she got to work. And then I saw the person team through zooms and she had the same problem Erica has right now. So she had to email someone and say, it's not working and 20 minutes later, the IT person. I was basically like, well she called me on like, just restart your computer and at work, but the IT person had to like go into like your video settings and do all this stuff. And I'm like, oh my goodness. Right. T just asked, we have you rebooted and it's like, anything else yeah all right so I can share my screen we can just go through the document I think that's probably you know pretty easy um see all the changes are in uh in a different color so I don't know if it's red here I mean if that's is that is that legible to people yeah for me yeah so you know you know the town will lease the property just to say it convey lease is some pretty similar um the new one here is you know a submission two-step requirement and that's in part because later on in the document we say that the east street school building is required to be reused and so the thought was to have a letter of intent 30 days after a site visit and you know then depending on what what happens with those letters of intent for instance if no one submits one we might amend the RFP or you know figure out what to do so that means you know if we don't receive anything that means people aren't interested in that requirement so it just became you know this is like a two-step process now and you know I think that's the best solution it could give us time to amend the the document yeah the value of that is we don't have to wait 90 days to see if we get uh submissions in response to the RFP if we know within 30 days that people have or have not submitted letters of intent then we will know pretty well where we stand and can determine whether or not as Nate just said we need to make changes to the RFP so uh well that makes me feel maybe a little bit better about the fact that the thing now demands the reuse of the building which to me is a mistake but at least there's a way out of it I guess by somebody having to by getting no responses and then you have to go back and then you assume you know why you got no responses it seems kind of the town can reach out but um yeah I mean the town manager really would like to try to see the building saved and so and that's this is kind of the way to structure it um it's probably other ways but it could get a little more complicated this might be the most straightforward way yeah and if we don't get responses this Nate said we can query um the people who have been requested uh or asked to bid potentially and try to determine why they didn't bid but we certainly don't want to be at a place where um we don't get any bidders right that would be bad I wish I I confessed to wishing that um Paul was here so he could tell us why he so much wants to reuse the building well you know a staff met with him um I met with him and Dave and Rob a few times and you know he you know he thinks there's value in the building so you know the he did say came you know he has some somewhat of a preservation background and so he just you know uh he he wants to just see if there's some creativity out there to do that um I mean you know it's a it's a contributing structure in the East Village National Register District so he was saying you know the the building is not as if it's something that you know and I think some of it is the Historical Commission has already kind of indicated they would probably issue a 12-month delay on that building you know more so than some others in town or other properties so you know there is already an you know there would be some inconsistency with the you know if the town manager or others said let's take it down I mean for instance the trust wants to take it down and the commission right now probably the Historical Commissioner if I say let's not take it down and so it's hard to be middle here with different interests okay well I don't see Erica's come back no we'll join us but I haven't seen Erica yet either um there is a product webpage and you know not everything is out there and uh I did get emailed last week a number of documents for the property so I just received that on Friday from different people so I have to you know that can be uploaded um there's nothing else that's changed so far in the document is that the one about the I looked for the one is Nate the one about uh the dump hazardous waste removal or something that was referred to I couldn't find but is it there now that's not there um I that's that's one of the documents that was emailed to me on Friday so I don't okay it's just you know it has to be built to um to include everything yeah just with respect to the letter of intent there's actually a little bit more information about it and what's required of a potential bidder on page 13 so we'll come back to that issue when when uh when we reach page 13 yeah they were saying the town is responsible for fixing the culvert issue on the east street school site so there's a you know the wetland scientists identified a damage or a failing culvert um you know just a little bit more about the building that has a newer roof and and uh gutters um and then you know this cost estimate so we did have the materials tested and then we had another contractor I think it was a buy actually then run a cost estimate based on all the samples and they came up with like a square foot cost uh based on materials and where where it was located in the building so I think it was about 70 000 or something so it was a pretty accurate estimate from the contractor that often does the work um and people should understand that those costs would be or much of those costs would be incurred even if the building's going to be demolished because you can't just take the building down and take it to the dump you have to remove those hazardous materials first um so if not all then at least some of those costs would be uh required of the developer even if the building is not going to be reused right Erica if you you've joined us again hopefully it works but um maybe it hasn't the um what else maybe she could try just calling him I don't know we did mention the gas moratorium here um just because I actually don't think that there will be any new connections so even on the belcher town road there's gas to the site and we were told that they wouldn't um they're not they wouldn't do anything with it so the town's right to recreational lands we try to make it a little bit try to explain that it doesn't have to be uh you know like a straight shot that it could be you know it could be a flexible way to get to that back portion of the east street school site um you know but that the public would need to get back there and so we'll see how you know how what kind of response we get in terms of how you know getting along public access to the back of the property that's something we've always considered but in belcher town road like john said we're we you know it's up to the developer to decide what to do with the structures there's two houses um you know we're not prescribing anything so they kind of have to propose what they'd like to do um and here's you know new things about the building here you know there's one paragraph that says the developer will be responsible for the reuse however the town expects that the developer will work with the town to explore alternatives and so the town you know the thought here is that even if the developer selected there'll be many months before anything happens and so the town would continue to see if there's a way to move the building or do something with it other than demolish it but that's the newer building right nay uh any building actually either building okay either building yeah i mean the newer one would probably be easier but um you know i i had to have to habitat many months ago and i was gonna do that again and others but it's not you know it's not as simple as let's just pick up the house and move it maybe for some people it is but it is a modular house i heard cool uh rob saying so that even then i mean it'd be easier to move it in one piece as opposed to taking it apart might be like five pieces and then um you know it has to be a place to go right to put it um everything so it's uh but anyway so yeah there's uh in the two houses i mean the older house actually the cape has been rented and it's it's that's actually been more used than the house in the back the newer one um you know the tenants you know the tenants are gone now but um you know it's not permits with the you know parenthetical s there's still the idea that it could be one permit for both properties it could be two different permits it really depends on i guess the developer and what they they decide so let me stop you for minute nate did the process of um the tenants moving out of that older house cost us anything no i did i did a little research and so their lease when they signed the lease um i don't know why they go uh as of october uh 15th 2020 or 2020 2019 they're supposed to give notice if they're going to stay or not and the lease was pretty clear and said that if we don't hear from you then it's it's you know because they indicated when the tenant signed the lease a year ago that the owner didn't want to rent as of july 1st this year the owner was going to just stop leasing the building anyways and so um we heard from rob and i worked with kendrick and there's some emails where the they said that the tenants uh didn't opt to renew their lease so there's never they they knew when they signed the lease that the property was not going to be they couldn't renew so the town's purchase of it was happened months after that so that you know this was okay so it didn't cost us anything erica if you have questions um i said you can hear me put them in the chat and then you know the belcherton road site like rita said it can go up to 100 ami and you know so that's typically above the 80 but depending on how it's permitted all the units could be counted on the sub-size housing inventory so it's just verification yeah that's typically the way the state does things for example in rolling green there are only 41 affordable units but the entire development of 204 205 units are all counted in the state subsidized housing inventory right oh here's the chat um all right the um we didn't add a little bit more in terms of energy um efficiency i took out a few things um but we do have you know this a little more detailed list here so you know something worth discussing if i guess my question was i that those things are fine i guess but if they're here should they not also then be in the comparative criteria we tried to do that with all the other stuff yes we if we approve this tonight i think that would make sense carol you know comparative criteria has been slightly updated but not um yeah it hasn't included these things and so you know erica did say you know the passive is it would this be considered a passive house like do we actually want to say that or just have this list of four or five things um you know i think i think it was still a question um what are we saying i mean some of them are not for instance like oh yeah we're saying highly advantageous main so we're not saying they're required um yeah but there's a few more below what you have on the screen too nate i know i think those have all been uh oh yeah sorry yeah like um this one's still kind of this is something i think that trust could discuss this uh inclusion of um uh dual head electric vehicle charging stations so it's kind of it's in either or right now it says two level dual heads or depending on the number of units it could be a required ratio so you know do we just leave it at that or we how do we what do you what is the trust thing about this one um i think one of the issues here which came up in the uh forum on uh sustainability and affordable housing is that we don't want to build a building that in five or ten years has to have substantial renovations in order to meet the town's climate goals now it's possible that between now and the time that the successful developer applies to DHCD for subsidy money that the DHCD requirements represented in a document called the QAP will have changed to push further in this direction uh for people who did go to the uh sustainability forum uh it was interesting that there was someone from state government talking about this um she does not work for DHCD but a sister state agency and the sum of what she said is DHCD is not moving fast enough so it's hard to know exactly what to expect um and i guess i also don't know uh what these various pieces will cost the developer above and beyond um you know what they're able to finance it maybe it all works out i just don't know but i think it's good to have them in yeah i mean what about the dual head charging stations though you know i guess to me that's something that you know i don't i think the energy efficient building stuff could be you know um i think that's fine it's not a requirement it's highly advantageous and we're you know uh but this one is a must you know include the the vehicle charging stations i just um wouldn't we want it um at least one at both locations so i think probably a ratio it was better you could you could you could say um you know one for per 10 units or whatever it is or one for 20 units um in each location something like that yeah i agree i also agree with the ratio i mean reality the situation is more and more discussed companies are going to go electric you know some of them are going electric by next year um you know higher and low and lots of it so you know based on what john said you know you don't want to build something that you have to do a lot of add-ons or you know new construction and all that so i think a ratio would be something that we should we should strive for nate i my recollection is probably something that was recommended by stefanie stefanie chicarello was the town sustainability officer right um did stefanie have a recommended ratio no maybe she does i just put one for every 20 units uh and you know i can go back to her and just see if you know what you know maybe she wanted the trust to consider something but i didn't there was never any mention of what the ratio is or what the you know i'm sure there's a number of ratios but i think it should be um each each um location should be considered separately so so if there's 34 units at east street then there should be one or whatever yeah and if there's another 20 units or 30 units the other one there should be one there or two or whatever it turns out to be right right but you can't put both you can't count one at east street and put them both at else your time no whatever yeah that's what nate has he has one unit for every 20 units for each property okay or each property yeah that's good yeah we can see where that goes um um yeah all right i think that you know north square had it uh has them and uh and others are trying to add them how many do they have nate they might have two two dual heads i think that's it like four total so four and but and they have what 128 total units yeah i mean during the permitting it was discussed as you know there was a big discussion about how many what was the demand for that and so you know they had said they'd be willing to put more in in the future if the demand was there so i think you know there was a i think the permitting didn't want to require you know like eight dual head to you know you know like you know a large amount but there was a discussion about how the ability to add more in the future so i think we went a little low at first just to know you know does anybody know if you have you know at least one there it makes it easier to set up a second or a third that's what i was wondering yeah you have to you have to pre-plan i guess as long as you have like the if they were in conduit and everything that makes it easier you know because i think the idea was that they were going to have two near each other and then in the role of parking it could just become like a bank of stations so i think they plan for it you know in this certain area of the parking but right that's what i assumed but so if you want to put in another one that side by side with the ones that are already there if you already have as you said the electrical conduit coming through maybe a fairly simple matter to set up a third or a fourth or a fifth yeah i mean it's interesting you know you said i used to think oh this is great but you can't just it's not like free i think you have to yeah you have to sometimes they're based on membership or certain ways the charging stations work so it's not like you can just uh come in just charge your car for free but it's you know it's still pretty nice how does the town charging station work behind town at all i think it's the same thing i forget well i don't know what it is now but originally we were using um you know like a program you get a card okay and so i think at first it was free actually but then we went to um a program where you have to be like a member you might be able to pay like a one-time use fee but i'm not i don't know what it is now if that's changed but originally that's the way it was okay should we make that uh covered outdoor bike racks we do have winter here that becomes a structure i don't know do we require that or is that something a developer would opt to do well it's preferred amenities so it doesn't actually have to be a requirement but i think it would clearly be better if the outdoor bike racks were covered they're covered i mean i guess the difference is what's there i guess bike storage to me implies that there's um if there it's in a in a building or you know it's more than just a rack right is that okay i know am i reading that too much into that if someone said bike storage what do you what do we but it says but it says bike storage and outdoor bike racks so it's saying two different things and the outdoor bike racks it doesn't say anything about whether i mean maybe they should be covered they just have a roof or something yeah so if we say bike storage and outdoor bike racks are we to me the bike storage that would be either inside or inside a shed where you could actually store your bike as opposed to like a bike rack and your mass bike storage is inside in the basement and then we put the hooks on so where the students can store their bikes if they're not using it during the winter for example right and bike racks is usually where you put it when you're utilizing it during the day or two or three times two to three times a week let's say that so there is definitely a difference um some of our bike racks are covered others are not so it depends yeah i feel like with the bike storage option we don't need covered bike racks necessarily because that could always be an option right i mean i'm just saying about 132 north hampton road when they discussed the bike storage all of a sudden it was oh let's do a covered covered bike storage and became oh that's a structure and what about lighting and you know it wasn't like oh let's just put up a little you know whatever it became a thing that they had to have you know designed and cited and you know it wasn't like oh let's just put up like a pergola or something it's like oh now it has to have a security and lighting and electrical and so i don't i don't know if we want to push that if we have if we if we're saying we have the ability to have like internal bike storage yeah i see your point i i think we can let it go for at this point yeah so in j here's the big change was deleting quite a bit about the school and just saying that require that the building be reused and incorporated into plans and you know just described that 30 days after the site tour there'd be a letter of intent submitted um and if we don't get any letters then well we're not requiring a non-site management office i think originally the rfp had said that but i think we're just saying that it's an option just so you know depending on who who is the developer they may have another office in town or regional office they may not necessarily need you know we don't necessarily need to require an office on one or both property so um are people comfortable with dropping the requirement that there be at least one office we thought last time um two meetings ago we had talked about that at least having one office on one of the sites i remember talking about that but i didn't see it on this actually what part of it says that one of the houses could be used on the belcher town road one of the houses could be used as um a rental office or something like that right it does right i think he says that yeah i think we're you know we're saying it could be but we're not making it a requirement right you're not making it a requirement correct but i thought we had said that we wanted one that would say both sites they what what nature said was maybe somebody doesn't need an on-site one because they have another office in town but this doesn't even require that maybe their office is in springfield right me no so that's not it seems like it go ahead oh it's just to say looking at the language it says ideally both sites would have a community room so i guess that's to me say wondering you know if a tenant has to meet with somebody on site in one of our strong preferences is that there is property management with a strong relationship building process with tenants like where is that going to happen if we're saying ideally there's a community room there doesn't have to be an office like where where are we going to meet with tenants and build strong relationships if there's not an office or a community room like what what are we under the covered by cracker yeah i mean i mean erica typed in that she thought there was we you know the trust that agreed that there would be an office on site um so for you know tenant discussions or anything like that so um you know would we say that there'd be must be one an on-site management uh at least just one at one on-site management between the properties or something i mean i think that i think there should be at least one and given that the two sites are only half a mile apart you know it's pretty easy walking distance that should be sufficient and that's what we had discussed one for the would serve both yeah i do not have like an unless they have an office in town i mean what a you know for instance like what a beacon were to do this they had an office at rolling green they had north square they'd be like i don't really want to put a third in uh in here or do we still want to have an office an on-site office you say unless they have another office within a mile i don't know i mean they just say something because otherwise they can have no office no anywhere so it either has to be it seems to me it should either be that there must be one at one of the sites unless they're unless the man at property manager has another office within x distance of the two sites a mile or something rolling green from belcherton road is it is it a mile or more anybody have a good that's probably more than a while actually i don't know well if you unless you're a crow from belcherton road probably it'll be a little less left at this must include one on-site management office and we'll just see what happens yeah i like that yeah i think that's what we should have yeah and i did it change i i might remember wrong but i thought i remembered that we had that there should be community room not just there was a suggestion of some community rooms i think that the way i read the language carol is that there should be at least one community room but ideally there would be one on each site okay that's not what it says what does it say like where is it ideally both sites will include a community room but before i didn't say it before this statement was included with the on-site management office so it was a the sentence said the development must incorporate non-site management office and and i conclude a community room it was unclear um but if we want to change that to say the development must include one community room and ideally both sites would have one i think that's what i thought we were trying to say so let's say it i don't know where it is nape where is that yeah but right now we go from one community room for each site right nape doesn't it go for that i'm right here so there it is okay it just says ideally both sites will include a community room but to me that's just a uh that's the highly advantageous piece it's not a requirement well i think it should be advantageous to include at least one community room and then highly advantageous is both sites but do we want to say that the development must include one so it's you know yeah that's my sense of what the group sort of pushed for when we discussed this in the past that there would be at least one community room but if the developer could put one of these sites out together the development must include at least one community room and ideally both sites will include a community room and then we can work maybe maybe it would say each site will include i don't know anyway whatever you know this and the advantageous piece would just be incorporated into the criteria yeah i you can wordsmith it a little bit later but i think that the yeah that's fine that this is true all right yeah erica said she thinks that would be really important to have one of both sites but i think that you know we can leave it here for now and um you know this is kind of just reiterating what was above with the letter of intent it says you know we have 30 days from the site tour and the letter will provide a clear understanding and willingness to pursue the reuse of the building and so you know there's a little bit more below we'll get to um we didn't change the bedroom count per person you know mix um we clarified the land development agreement piece just says that the developer will work with the town to explore relocating the structures that are on belcher town road now and we're still requiring a minimum of 40 affordable units between both sites so you know that's that's that's what could be the minimum yeah i think that should be the minimum yeah we deleted under construction obligations you know demolition of the building which you know that could be reinserted if needed um just clarified a little bit about the 100 percent am i in belcher town road because of use of cpa funds hold on on this on this section paragraph two underneath underneath the part where that's been changed yeah there's a clause there that doesn't really make sense it's it's the maximum thing that's that may be charged for an affordable unit under this clause common the developer shall include allowance i think there's a something missing there oh maybe there's a period here just like that the maximum i think i think um i think i was supposed to say that may be charged maximum monthly rent that may be charged is x or or is 100 percent of the fair market value or fair market fair rent charge to 10 i think 3 percent of the monthly just in across oh yeah so i think this one um would be yeah i actually think this should be moved to go to here you say monthly rent shall include an allowance for utilities okay yeah that makes sense yeah yeah the rents are pretty high i i'm getting a spreadsheet together for inclusionary zoning and it's pretty amazing actually what an affordable rent is it's i don't want to say it's not affordable but it's thanks rob um let's see what else we have a 99 year so you know the town if we lease the property what we do like we get on olympia oaks you know would be a lease 99 year lease ground lease to the developer and under additional funds we just mentioned that we have you know cpa funds and tax incentive financing just that they're available and an offer may apply for them so for the letter of intent we say that it would include three things a clear understanding of the design costs and implications for rehabilitating the school identification and description of the project team including partners um would assist with the reuse and identification of two funding sources and so something that would just show that they're you know if anyone is interested they have the and they put together a team and understand what's that what you know what it actually means to do that i mean the most important is that first one where the developer has to acknowledge that they understand that they are required if they go forward with rehabilitating the east street school building you know just reinserted the 10 percent of shall we three or more bedrooms that's just repeated from up above um the comparative criteria we can insert here it's we have it um and the letter of intent we're just saying submitted to anthony delaney the procurement officer just like the proposal that reminds me of another sort of question sure um remembering that um people thought that last time there were questions that anthony delaney didn't answer and we didn't even know that they hadn't been answered and we were going to try to have some way to make sure that the trust knows uh the communication that anthony gets so that that doesn't happen again and i wondered how how that's supposed to happen or if that's supposed to happen where is that concern yeah i think we would just i think um you know i think before or when this is getting ready to be issued by the town we could just you know i think there is an internal discussion about what's the communication process because anthony anthony is really kind of like the clearing house right he doesn't necessarily answer the questions he might have to email myself or the wetland um specialist or dpw or someone in the town so really you know he's just he's helping to get the questions directed to the right person and so i think um i think just no i think just having that discussion about like you know always copy me and someone else ever any kind of question comes in like just you know in that way we know that it's um that they're there can we require the developer to copy you or to copy the uh chair of the housing trust uh i mean just actually let's just let me make a note um let me just make a note right here about copying um another staff person on all communication let me just make make that we could probably do that we can make that request that way we just you know right i can ask um you know this was still everything that that you know that the trust and everyone developed for the development team it's growing a little fast here we had at one point changed it to um requiring that they have 40 b experience the developer itself but now we're saying the development team shall demonstrate successful experience in permitting projects in 40 b so that way it's not just the you know someone on their team would have we need to have experience with the 40 b process so you know doesn't have to be the developer or uh you know but at least someone on their team would um and erica asked about the letter of intent yeah it is really just an affirmation that they understand the process of we're using the school so just we talk about that but just want to make sure um development financing none of this has changed i don't know if there's any other comments um the letters of intent you know it just has town staff will review them really it's you know if they if we if if a developer if an applicant submits one then you know you know essentially if they meet those three criteria they're you know then they move on to submitting a full proposal but if they don't you know if no one submits or or staff thinks that it's not sufficient then you know we have to decide what to do with the process but there are some requirements that presumably they don't start working in rfp until they hear back yes your letter has been accepted right or something like that right i mean if they're really if they're really serious about it they might already start you know doing well right but i mean they don't officially yeah right something this does you know this would push out the timeline so we discussed about having like a 90 day response uh time as opposed to like 45 days or 60 days it would actually be a a longer window for you know from the time this was published to the time that a full proposal would be due mate what if only one potential bidder responds with a letter of intent is the town comfortable with going forward with only a single bidder i don't know why wouldn't they if it was a good if it was a good proposal why wouldn't you be satisfied no i wouldn't say that if it's someone who seems like they are really serious about it then the town would probably entertain it i mean you know it would be fine with me i just wondered whether the town would have any reservations no i think it's really depends on how well the letter you know doesn't meet the criteria because in the end the town's you know isn't at a position to stop the process and we have to get a full proposal to determine whether or not um we want to you know at that point except or reject it so well if you have only one are there requirements about how you deal with the competitive criteria because if there's only one letter of intent and then the r of p you get never gets above the minimum requirements for anything but always hits the minimum requirements do you have to award the project no okay good yeah i mean you know the idea hopefully would be that if there's only one uh applicant at the letter of intent stage that they would follow through would have a full proposal and they would you know um it's it's time and money and effort for them too right so my thought is they would do the best they could to to you know submit a proposal is is the number of letters of intent that the town receives a matter of public record prior to the conclusion of the procurement good question yeah it might not be it might be all considered one procurement process so until we get the actual proposals the letters of intent are are not public that's a good question for the lawyer probably yeah let me just type it in right here i i i'm kind of i'm thinking actually that they this might be considered one procurement process and so that the letters wouldn't be public until we determine the process is over that's fine i'm just asking yeah i know it's good one am i typing okay um and you know the town manager i think carol you asked this earlier like what what's the process or who you know who has the authority over this so you know it's a town property the school a committee voted that it was um you know they essentially um disposed of it or transferred it the rights to the town and so it's under the care and custody of the town manager so the town manager you know with advice from staff and the trust would put it would and legal counsel and the procurement officer would finalize the rfp and then it's also the town manager who decide a review committee so you know there could be up to you know i say three to five people who would review proposals uh you don't want to go more than five would that committee be formed in order to review the letters of intent no or just the letter or just the proposals it just the proposals i'm not sure let's see i'll go scrolling down it wasn't i'm not sure how many uh i think that's really it those are the changes uh yeah i think that's that's everything that i saw yeah okay well at our last meeting we voted uh unanimously i think it was six people attending to accept the prior draft so we need to have a vote to decide whether or not to accept these changes um just do the entire revised draft uh or we could take it kind of subject by subject and see if everybody is comfortable with uh the letter of intent with the requirement for reuse of the east street school with the sustainability requirements and with any of the other changes that are represented here so do people want to talk about these issue by issue or uh just do really a single vote erica makes the motion to accept all changes okay so there's a motion on the floor is there a second to erica's motion a second are you agree okay uh sit seconds okay so we're at the point where is there any discussion is there anybody who feels concerned enough about any of these changes uh or all of these changes that would cause them to uh vote against the motion i just have a i think a clarifying question i assume that because some of the changes here will trigger changes in the criteria that if we vote to accept this we're voting that the criteria will be changed to match this that that's part and parcel of what we're saying is that true yes yeah there's only two criteria that are affected one has to do with the design concept and nate's already adjusted that one to take into account reuse of the east street school the other one is the sustainability requirements and i think we already discussed that it's our expectation that those would be changed to include the uh elements that we've already discussed in this meeting and that are in this redraft so that's sufficient carol yes thank you other questions or comments i'd say that i agree with carol's earlier point that i think it's a bad idea to require the east street school to be saved i think it's going to it's going to potentially delay the process and possibly not get the best design but i'm not going to stay in the way i'm accepting the rfp because of that i i also have reservations rob i'd be lying if i said i didn't um i think those for me at least have been satisfied with the notion that we require the letter of intent it must be submitted within 30 days of the rfp the potential bidders have an opportunity to see all the relevant documents and to actually walk through the school itself at least once and if at the end of 30 days we don't get uh sufficient interest or any interest then we've lost 30 days and perhaps a bit more but it's not as much as we would lose if we had to wait 90 days to see if proposals come in i think though i think though that we might um waste time we might get two people to developers saying yeah i can work with that in 30 days my my evaluations that we can work with that then 60 days later you say oh i really couldn't come up with a proposal that makes it work so now we've wasted 90 days and now we have to we have to you know reissue it um i agree there's that risk um i i um i will say that we reached out to three potential not-for-profit developers on this issue and asked them their opinion and in every case i'm talking about wayfinders home city housing and valley community development they did not think it was a good idea to make this a requirement but to be honest we're kind of at loggerheads with the town manager at the moment and so my inclination is to say okay let's see what happens with these letters of intent um and and then go forward there that's fine i guess i still have one reservation and that is that the letters i would don't think i would be especially happy if there were only one letter of intent if one person thinks they can do it this way by saving the school and we have immediately automatically crossed out the other two people say who could do a really good job by not saving the schools and that's bad i don't think that's a good situation so at least i want and before before we go clearly with only people who will do it this way i want at least two letters of intent my two cents but i think we might only get one full proposal anyways and so i think you know that's that's a to me that's a somewhat unrealistic way to do it because then we'd have to say then then we'd have to at least have two proposals what if there's two letters of intent but only one person one applicant falls through with a proposal that often happens and so then the town you know there is a decision making point where the town could say we don't have enough information or it's not competitive right because you only had one response but we have to at least get to that point um and so what if i mean i just there's only if only one proposal i'm just saying two letters of intent and then whatever happens happens but at least you start out with the possibility of two people who think they might be willing to try to do this or who think they can do this understand what they're trying to do and have the intention of doing it but i'm i'm not i don't know what i'm i don't know how i vote but but but it does it really it's a concern at wasting time and also ending up with what to me ending up with something that might be uh less than the best that we could have gotten out of the properties if we hadn't made that demand all you need is one good developer me like at the end of the day well that's right but do you know that the good one is the one who's going to say they're going to try to save the building that's well my question yeah my question you know i think having those other requirements in the letter of intent um and the you know the the trust in the town have the right to pull the rfp at any point if they felt that the one letter of intent was inadequate you know there are provisions within kind of standard language um that the town could withdraw now it's not something that you want to do but if you felt that you had a really inadequate developer who submitted the one letter of intent then the town could decide not to go forward yeah also if i mean again this is not ideal but if we only get one letter of intent and one proposal if the proposal is inadequate um then the town is not obligated to go forward to accept that proposal so i understand your reservation carol um but uh i i think the letter of intent is our best hedge against the risk of uh not finding uh one or more developers who can do a decent job and incorporate the school into their planning yeah because i know i'm going to type in your comment um just to share back with staff so uh erica asked if you know john read in a are you reviewing the letters of intent and part of the decision-making process so i think it's just staff right now that would review the letters of intent i think the idea would be that if they meet those three minimum criteria they would just you know just they'd move the applicant would just move right on to a full proposal process if they want to go but it's not there's no comparative review between letters of intent it's really just an individual review of each letter that they meet the criteria any other comments or questions uh erica asked staff with housing development experience yeah i i hope so sorry i didn't get that nate erica asked what you know staff with housing development experience review the letters and i said i hope so you know as opposed to say like having you know one staff person read the letters well the staff member with housing development experience is rob mora is there anybody else nate i mean i could review it we could have other people review it my thought is town staff isn't to me it could be plural so i'm not envisioning just uh you know one staff person but we could clarify that if we want okay are we ready to come to a vote i can see not everybody smiling that doesn't mean we're not ready to come to a vote okay i'm gonna poll everybody uh for their uh yes or no erica actually i you have to write chat yes okay yes yeah rob yes will yes a legra yes cid yes uh carol uh i guess so that's very resounding affirmation and i vote yes so did i miss anybody i don't think so i don't think so okay so that gives us uh i believe seven votes oh did i will did i reach you yeah okay so that gives us seven or eight votes i was count seven i i think i counted correctly seven votes okay you know this is great so what this means is tomorrow you know i can forward this on to the manager's office and then um you know officially ask legal counsel to review it and get that you know get all that going um okay how long do you think before this thing hits the street and we see what's going on um that's that that's the decision of the town manager i mean i think i i don't i don't know if they you know if there's any um you know it's probably a few weeks just to um lead time to notice it you know there's probably i forget what it is but there's to get it posted and uh it's probably like a like a 10 10 day lead time so um you know if we need a week to review it and then a 10 day lead time i mean i end up um you know what it takes a few weeks then okay well i i can't uh say more about my eagerness to um make this available and to uh see what we get in that 30 day period yeah i mean erica said end of june my thought is somewhere around there you know i forget i forget how long it takes actually to post it like in the central register in bolton and everything i feel what the lead time is but i know one i know one has like a 10 day lead time like it's posted on a wednesday to be published like it's like a week later on monday or something it's i forget what it is but anyways okay i mean some staff i mean staff's already seen that this is not you know previous version went around to number of staff so i think you know i think even with legal council review my thought is the template and format that's used is really good and so it's just a matter of having another set of eyes review it for consistency you know i think all the local decisions about what we went over in terms of design guidelines affordability and everything i mean legal council may have a question about that but really their point is to look at the you know the you know make sure everything is consistent and we're not somehow contradicting ourselves or it's not something that's you know shouldn't be in there but in terms of all the other local decisions it's not really to me they're they can look at it but it's not like you know it's not their opinion to change it right i mean they can they can say oh this seems like it's an odd requirement but the trust you know we've discussed it enough that it's that i think they'll agree that it's that it's a local decision to be made i could be wrong seeing it when the comments come back but that's the way when we did it previously with the street school that's what that's what happened yeah okay more seems like sometimes it takes them a long time to do that even if they don't have that much to do the legal review part yeah i think you know right i think it's going to be a matter of then the time manager really making that you know priority for legal to make that a review can we request of him that he do that make it a priority sure john said john will remind everyone he's good at that okay yay john okay made erico was asking about the um evaluation criteria so are you going to do the final edit on those and then incorporate it into the yeah and i'll send it around to read to you you and uh john hornick and john page just for a final look okay great yes interesting i work on a mac and i don't know if that's why some of the formatting go you know then i save it to the one drive um and so i think sometimes just like between those different you know software is it just it can throw a monkey you know a wrench or whatever in it and so um i don't know what happened before like all the different numbering and uh the font change some of my fonts are not consistent anymore i mean it's like little things like that not not big but it's just you want to get it right yeah yeah yeah okay thanks nate for all your work on this i do appreciate it yes well and you and everyone else i mean i know is that carol rita erica right i don't really put the effort in francis francis yeah yeah okay well thanks everybody um we still have another meeting in about 10 days on thursday june 10th so i'll be sending out a rough agenda for that meeting uh on wednesday or thursday of this week thanks everyone and there's a few members in the uh in the attendance and so just let them know we you know the only topic of the agenda was just reviewing the request for a proposal and the trust's loaded to forward that on all right i think we're good i'll stop reporting in a minute and i guess okay again thanks everybody for attending this special meeting