We get started.

Welcome back. This

is before we get started.

We have a public speak portion

where any individual may raise an issue

that is not included on the agenda

and it will be taken under advisement by the board.

There will be no opportunity for debate

during this portion of the meeting.

This section of the agenda is limited to 15 minutes

and any individual addressing the board during this section

of the agenda shall be limited to five minutes.

So does anybody have anything that is not associated

with five Auburn Street, which is a bit odd?

I understand we're seeing nothing. We'll move on.

This is a continuation of the public hearing

for five Auburn Street, an application

for Metro West Collaborative Development.

The applicant requests approval

of a comprehensive permanent under MGL chapter 40 sections

2223 in the zoning bylaws

for the multifamily dwelling development

and associated site payments.

Welcome back. So just in terms

of the agenda for tonight, I think we're gonna start

with the peer review on traffic and civil.

Does that sound right to you? Yes. Okay.

With that, do we have Mr. Wong? Is it?

Yeah. Okay. Do we have Mr. Wong, do we have you?

Can you hear us? Oh, he appears to be muted.

Okay.

Effort to, to try to unmute him.

There we go. Mr. Wong, can you hear us?

I think we were on

Mute, so maybe he didn't hear

what he was spoken to.

Oh yeah, it looks like our audio is off.

Yeah. Scooch over or

Not? There you go. And

And video

We go.

Okay. Mr. Juan, can you hear us now?

That did not solve the problem. Oh yes. Oh, there we go.

Hi, how are you? Sorry about that.

Let's just check your audio here.

Can you talk so we can see if we can hear you?

No, we can't hear you.

How about now? Oh,

can you hear us now?

Hold on, let me invite

Pegasus in right back.

She

Bless you

Mr.

Just so everybody knows, while we're fixing the audio,

I had Amanda hand out two things.

This is the waiver list with the red line,

which we're gonna show on screen,

which will show you all which waivers have been eliminated

due to the changes in the plans.

Okay. And then the other one is the updated one

with the new order.

Okay. Then order in terms of the letter in orientation

Right now we've removed some, so we just relet them.

Oh, I'm sorry. I get, and this is the one we

hope you'll adopt.

Yeah, yeah. Bless you.

I thank you for your patience Mr. Wong. Thank you.

Can you hear me?

Pegas or Pegasus is gonna grab him too

so he'll be able to hear everything.

Okay. Alright, good enough. We're efforting,

Did you get the,

Did you get that memo?

This or I've read, I've read, yeah,

It's mine, but I have a copy so go ahead.

You sure? Yeah. This guy.

Hundred percent.

100%

thousand percent I print.

I printed them off. Pardon? That too. Oh yeah.

Thank you. Oh yeah.

Hello? Are you able to hear me?

Yes. Yeah.

Great.

I think we got the audio working,

so thank you for your patience.

Yeah, thank you. Well appreciate it.

Just, I'm gonna give to hold you just

for one second till we get Amanda back

and she'll be here momentarily.

It's gonna be presenting.

That's really up to the,

usually those are on, that's what I

is Roberts pool lane.

The little, like the 50 foot cut.

16 and I'm not sure.

You mean like the one where you're coming down?

Union You bank, right? Like the church? Yeah, right there.

It's like, I think that's what it is. Okay.

I think that's it.

I've never heard of Robert's program. No,

That's the first one I've heard of it.

If only I could find

A map.

If only you had a supercomputer right in front of you.

That's my wife's time.

You could look it up in the supercomputer in your

Pocket.

One there a device.

Allow piece, piece of information

Every, I love a picture of a map

of everything that we need.

Okay. So there's, we are. Okay, so here we are.

This is Central Barcode. Is there. It's right down here.

Right. So you go down Union Street, right there.

It's right there. That would be, is that

Robert?

I'm not sure what the whole Oh, don't

Even, yes.

Robert Sproing. You were right. That's it.

I feel like I've seen a sign my daughter plays soccer down

there as I'm always dropping them off

The chair.

Without you, there's no me

Again.

Thanks. Thanks everyone for your patience while we work this

little technical difficulty out.

There we go. Okay. Amanda?

Good? Yep. Okay. Okay. Thanks very much Mr. Wong.

Thanks for coming and thanks for your patience.

We're gonna turn it right over to you.

Okay, great. Thank you Mr.

Chairman and members of the board. My name is Wing Wong.

I'm Wood McFarland Johnson and I am your peer reviewer on

transportation items for five Auburn Street.

So I have a presentation that I'd like to share with you.

Please let me know if that comes up for you at all.

Lemme try this again. Okay.

Please let me know if that shows up. Yes,

It does. Yep.

Okay, great. Oh, hold

One sec. Hold on one sec.

Is it possible to turn those TVs on?

Can we get it on here too?

Sit behind to turn around. Turn behind.

No, does

I can try.

We got another TV right there too. Yeah,

maybe not. Only

Way be to do the projector, I'd have to hook an HDMI

to this screen here.

I can do that if you want.

Yeah. Yeah, the projector be on here.

TVs don't.

Oops. Okay.

The TVs don't, but you can put it on here.

You we'll go that way. Thanks.

Corner Church Street.

That fucking fascinating. I'm the one who has,

And thank you for accommodating me,

for joining me Virtual, for joining,

for allowing me to join virtually.

I've been dealing with it, with IT illness

also over the last week or so.

So I, I do not want to get any, anyone sec.

So thank you for doing audit

to allow me to join here virtually.

So I have a quick presentation that will

basically go over the peer review letter that I prepare.

The letter itself was prepared in two parts.

One was on the traffic study that was submitted last year

and another part was on the site plan,

which was submitted a couple weeks ago.

And these are the scope items that are listed here.

That's part of our review

and I will go over each one

of those topics as we move along.

Move along tonight. So we'll begin with the study area.

The study area itself cover

the site exiting onto from Marin Street onto Route 16,

as well as the Union Street intersection as well

as the pond row intersection on Wellesley.

So for the size of the development, we felt that the

study area is more than adequate.

So we, we, we concur the study area in terms

of existing conditions.

The traffic data was collected

during the commuter peak hours as well as the pickup

and drop off times at the Riverbend school.

So we felt that was appropriate as well.

So we didn't have any comment on that.

The traffic engineer also noted that the traffic data

that was collected was not adjusted down

based on a seasonal adjustment.

And so it provided a slightly conservative analysis.

So we concur with that approach as well.

The crash data included the last five years,

which did follow the state guideline as well.

So we didn't have a comment on that.

In terms of future growth,

seven year background projection was used

and that followed the state guidelines.

A 1% background growth per year is also appropriate as well.

The study itself mentioned about the St.

Benedict Academy relocation expansion

and estimated some trips based on that project.

However, no backup calculation was

included in the traffic study.

So if we could just request for that

and just take a look at it as part of our review

and say we, we completed a review for that as well.

That'd be great. In terms of the site generated trips,

the land use code from it was used appropriately for this.

And I do specifically recall from the December meeting here

that someone involved a question about whether

or not the trip rates reflected the peak hour

of the adjacent roadway network

or the peak hour of the site itself.

So I just want to close the loop on

that particular question.

So as you can see, we took a look at

what it would be if it's the peak hour of the generator

rates and what that would be.

And it basically resulted in two additional trips

during each of the peak hours.

So because of the minor differences between the two,

the conclusion of the study wouldn't have changed,

but I just wanted to close the loop on that question.

In terms of operational analysis, the procedures,

the results all follows industry standards.

So we don't have any comments on that.

The one comment we did note that was

that the Sink Bend Digger Academy relocation,

the volumes di was dis redistributed.

Instead of taking a left from Route 16 on Pleasant Street,

it was res redistributed take a

right movement, which is appropriate.

However, most of the right movements

that we observe actually used Robert Scroll lane instead

of coming down to the Union Street intersection.

So that's a slight change that could be made

to the study itself to reflect that

barely any right movements actually come down

to the intersection itself in terms

of possible mitigation measure. Can

I just stop you there just for a second?

I just wanna make sure we're just go back one.

So that comment is that cars traveling westbound on Elliot

don't go all the way to the intersection to take that right.

To go north on Union? Correct.

They they take the, they take that earlier right.

And cut through, correct?

That's correct. Essentially the church, they go

around the church and that's like a channelized right turn

lane and so they don't come down to the intersection.

And so, and, and what's the impact there

and what's the, what's, what's the net impact of, of,

of the fact that you recognize

that this is occurring, if any?

So basically we will end up taking some of the volume out

of the intersection so the operating operation results

of the intersection will be slightly better than

what is shown in the study report itself.

With that said though, I think the conclusion overall still

doesn't change, but you get a, a better picture of

what the actual operations are if you take this out

into future conditions.

Okay, thanks.

In terms of mitigation measures,

the traffic study itself evaluated several

potential improvements at the yielding street intersection

and one of them is performing signal timing adjustments.

And I felt that, you know, that alone

should be an a mitigation that can be easily implemented

and may for this intersection to offset some of the

impacts from this development itself.

I think the, in the last meeting,

four second additional delay was thrown

around a little bit there, here.

And if we look at the future condition analysis,

the morning peak hour, especially

the intersection in Union Street, worse, worse

by four seconds or so.

And if the signal timing adjustments were made,

it basically offsetted those four seconds in the morning

peak about ten second improvements in the afternoon peak.

So slight improvements,

but I think it's fairly equal to the impacts

that this development is expecting to have.

Another mitigation measure here is a potentially adding do

not block intersection markings at the Auburn

Street and Riverbend intersection.

So when we send out engineer out to the site

to look over the operations,

and this is in a typical Wednesday on January 8th,

we were able to see long queues in the afternoon

backing up from the Union Street intersection past Auburn

Street and head towards a Wellesley town line.

So we did see that queue ourselves

discussed in the last meeting quite a bit.

So having seen that actually happening, which is consistent

with the result of the analysis, we felt that having

to not block intersection markings could help cars exiting

both the Riverbend school as well as Auburn Street itself

and have a, have a pocket have a space

that they can enter Alley Street heading westbound

towards Union Street.

So that is it a quick summary

of the traffic study review.

So before I get onto the site plan review,

do you have any question regarding the traffic study itself?

I, I'm certain there will be some, so

let me just take a look at my notes for a second

and anybody on the board feel free

to ask whatever questions you deem appropriate at this

Time.

Just to be clear, these mitigation measures you're

suggesting are independent of the project, is that correct?

They could happen together as part of the project,

especially the do not block intersection markings.

So, you know, can definitely help

with the additional traffic

that are expected on Auburn Street as well as the Riverbend

intersection itself.

And certainly signal timing adjustments

as the traffic study did identify, there are additional

future measures that can be done

to really improve the intersection

at a very different level.

But with the project, with respect to the project itself,

I certainly feel that single timing adjustment at a minimum

would be a good enhancement as part of it

to mitigate the impacts.

Can you just give us a sense of what these,

the more extensive improvements independent

of the development that that might be considered?

Sure. Some of that could be including wide up the

intersection to include additional turn lanes.

I think that was something that we did observe

as a potential, a reason for some

of the long queues that we saw.

So those type of improvements would be that next level,

that longer term level where it's gonna be a lot more costly

and certainly will take a lot longer

as well given the site constraints

that are at the intersection itself.

So those are some will be a longer term improvements.

Okay. Anybody else have any questions on

the board right now?

Do you have any comments here

before I ask if anyone else has any questions?

So we, we have both of our consultants here. Oh, okay.

So it's up to the chair when you want them

to respond when the board is done or?

Yeah, I think we're gonna hold them off

and we're gonna let some interaction between the peer review

and folks who might have questions about what

was just stated.

Great. And then we'll be prepared to respond.

Absolutely. Are we gonna do site plan?

I want do one at a time. Traffic.

Yeah, just, just because they're definitive, right?

There's a hard, hard line here.

Does anybody here have any questions

that they'd like to pose?

I think you'll, we'll have you pose them to the board

and then we'll ask Mr. Wong to respond

to the extent appropriate.

Yes ma'am. If you could just come up to the podium

and give your name and address for the record.

Hi, I'm Chris Carson den.

I live at the corner of Elliot

and Auburn about the Sprool Lane.

I go that way. I don't go up Sprool Lane,

but I go 16 west every morning

and one day a week I go SPR Lane

to go downtown Natick to go to work.

There's so many people coming out of the Riverbend school

that go up Sprool Lane

and then they take a left on 16

'cause they don't wanna be stuck at the, the,

the intersection to take their left a pleasant.

So, you know, it blocks

so many cars from taking a right onto union.

So I just want you to be aware of that.

That happens all the time.

So there's people behind each other on Sprool Lane in front

of the fire station trying to take a Right.

It's got nothing to do with St. Benedict's.

So I, you know, for me it's a little bit difficult for me

to, to sort of visualize, I think

what you're saying is not unimportant.

Could I invite you up here just to show us

on the, on the plan?

Just Mr. Wong, can you back up to show? There we go.

That's right there. Yep. I think that'd do it.

Can you just come up and show me, show us. I think

Sru Lane is in front of the fire

station, correct? Correct.

Yeah. So this, this

Is that shortcut?

Yes, the shortcut that where the arrow is.

So come and tell me what you're saying.

I'm just having trouble visualizing it.

I wanna make that clear. I didn't know I had to come up.

It's me, not you.

All right,

so you're going 16 west, you're coming out of Auburn Street.

Well go go right there. Perfect. That's it.

That's where oriented, that's school.

Okay. Where's Auburn? Here's the pizza. So this is Auburn?

Yep. Auburn. Okay. You're coming out of Auburn, you're,

you take a left, you know if you're lucky enough for someone

to let you cross over.

We talked about that at many of the meetings.

So you wait to get out

and then you come past the fire station

and there's all these Riverbend folks

and I'm not blaming any of 'em, it's just they're going,

they're going this way to come back to Pleasant.

So they're blocking Sru Lane and it's not the same. St.

Benedicts did it all the time.

So there's less of it,

but there's a lot of Riverbend people

who don not wanna get stuck.

It's 16 in Pleasant. They do not.

So they go down the shortcut and then they take a left

and they cannot get out.

They cannot get, they can't take a left,

they can't take a left here

because this, this Union Street is mobbed with cars.

So then we're all sitting there waiting for this person

to take a left because they didn't

wanna go to the intersection.

This happens all the time. So I wanted to explain that.

Okay. That shortcut there becomes pretty crowded.

So they go right, they go right to go left,

They go right to go, they go right to left.

They treat it like a duck handle. Yeah, they go right.

And, but St. Ben did it every, all the time. All the time.

Yeah. So now they're coming from all

different parts of Natick now.

So we don't see as many of them

because they're just crossing maybe from Pleasant

to go down to St.

Benedict's. So then you've got,

you come out on my regular day when I'm going 16 West

and there's so many people trying to turn left

and nobody going east is letting anybody turn left.

So I just want you to visualize. That's helpful.

This is what happens every morning. Yep, that's helpful.

It's probably an hour or two of that.

Okay. Thanks very much. Think of what

Else I wanted to say

Mr. Wong, were you able to see that?

I was able to, thank you.

So those are one of those long term improvements that may

or could be potentially implemented is adding

those extra turn lanes.

So there is a pocket for potential

left turn cars at that location.

But again, that's gonna be a lot longer term

and put a left, it's, it's gonna be a lot more challenging

to implement because of the site constraints with all the

buildings and the adjacent roadway.

So, but that's,

that could be a longer future term

improvement outside of this project.

Got it. Okay. Anybody else wish to be heard?

Okay, seeing none, did you want to invite a response?

Sure, sure. Thanks

Scott Thornton.

Good evening, Mr. Chair. Good evening.

Members of the board, Scott Thornton with Vanessa

and Associates, we did receive

the peer review letter from McFarland Johnson

and we are in the process of preparing a formal response

in terms of the, the overall letter, I think

there was a lot of agreement.

I think there were eight of the 14 comments related

to traffic where there was no, no comment required.

The other six required short answers

or clarifying information.

One of the examples of that is the,

is the backup for the St.

Benedict reassignment of, of traffic volumes.

We will prepare or we will provide that we agree

that the, that there's not much difference in the,

in the peak hour of the generator

or peak hour of adjacent street traffic

trip generation numbers.

We use the peak hour of adjacent street traffic.

That's the, the typical, typical time period

that we use for these types of developments.

In some cases it's the same, the peak hour,

the generator is the peak hour adjacent street traffic.

But we acknowledge there's a couple trip difference

between the two related to the Robert Spro lane use.

We, we had scoped out the study area,

the num the locations

and the intersections to be studied with the,

with town staff and neither end

of Robert Sproul was included in that.

So we acknowledge that that traffic would want

to take the right turn onto Spro

and then up, up to Union Street.

But we felt that we needed to include

that volume in the analysis.

So we assumed that they would be making the right turn at

at Pleasant and Union, even though

that's not likely to occur.

It just presents a more conservative condition

for the analysis as I think Mr. Wong indicated.

And in terms of, in terms of the impacts

and, and signal timing adjustments

and things, you know, the, the project has, so at the,

at the intersection of Auburn Street with Elliot Street,

that's where there's an impact

of four seconds at the intersection of Union and Pleasant

and Elliot, there we're looking at an increase in delay

of 0.2 seconds in the morning

and 1.2 seconds in the evening, which we don't feel

that there's, that that's, you know,

that's a significant impact due to the project.

We did provide some analysis for potential options

that could be implemented there by the town at the request

of, of town staff and,

and identified a number of options

that could be implemented there.

I think there's some value in that in that process.

Can you share with us what the response you,

you got to that, if any? Was

I, I think, I think the town engineer was appreciative

of the, of the, of the, of the

options that were noted.

We basically noted

that things like the signal timing adjustments, you know,

that's kind of low hanging fruit

that could improve operations.

Bigger changes as Mr. Wong indicated would

require some widening, some corner takings,

which may not be feasible, but,

but I, I do believe the town engineer was appreciative

of the, of the recommendations that we had for,

for improvements that could be implemented there.

Sure. Lemme just stop you just for a second, Amanda,

do you have any feedback on that from the town?

Just in terms of, you know, the sort

of willingness if you will, to, to do at least

as described, the low hanging fruit.

I mean every our, our peer review,

their development consultant says change the timing,

that's gonna improve the condition.

Are we willing to do that? I'm saying we

as the town, so I haven't

Received a letter from town engineer yet.

Yeah. So that would be something I would want to,

unless Mr. Wong has.

Yeah. And Mr. Wong,

do you have any feedback from them on that?

From the

Time engineers? I

Do not.

Okay. Alright. Alright. Did I, I stopped

You.

Yeah, just, just one more thing.

The, the pavement markings, the, that's

that are on the screen there, we're not opposed to

to, to the town implementing those,

but that becomes, you know,

an ongoing maintenance agreement that the town would have

to pick up to reapply those markings.

I assume they, they would, you know, on a busily,

busily traveled road, they, they tend to wear down quickly.

So that might be something where those markings would need

to get reapplied every couple three years.

But again, we're not, we're not opposed

to it if the town wants to, wants to implement it.

Okay. Alright. Good enough.

Does anybody have a on the board have any questions?

We're gonna hold you there for a second.

Does anybody here have any follow up questions

if you'd like to address?

Yes ma'am. I'm just gonna have her share

that with you for a moment.

If you could just give us your name

and address for the record and you can address the board

and we'll kick it back

to whoever's appropriate to answer it.

Okay. Susan Shago eight Auburn Street.

I walk at the intersection of all of those streets, union

Pleasant, route 16

and Sperling, if it's called that

is where the fire station is.

Is that what we're talking about? Yes.

Has anyone thought of what happens is the Montessori school

who wanna go east on Route 16 will go up to Sperling

and then around and they get back on?

Is that the same comment that was just mentioned?

No, this is something different.

Yeah, this is when Montessori school people wanna go

west. She was talking about

Can again, I'm gonna have you just demonstrate it

for everyone here just

so we all know what you're talking about.

It's just difficult for me to visualize.

It would work, visualize

It on the

Can.

Do it right over there if you want.

Oh, okay. I just have a suggestion for the town, that's

All.

Oh, we're just trying to understand the comment. I, I,

Okay, so where is,

That's all

The Montessori right there.

Yep. Rather than try to get out onto Route 16.

Onto Route 16. Yeah.

That they're wanting to go east

and it'd be hard to do with traffic.

They'll come over here then come down here and then go east.

Okay.

So one of the things that might help is

that if we put a no left turn here, I don't know if

that's feasible or good or bad or whatever.

Sure. Amanda, why don't we just make a note of that.

Thanks. Okay, thanks very much.

That's not unlike the earlier comment.

I think the suggestion was

that the people were going west we're going taking a right

to go west and you're saying they're going right to go east?

Yes. Yeah, both.

They were going right to go south.

Right To go south, right To go right Pleasant go south.

Right. To avoid that intersection is essentially what, okay.

Julie Uni Rotary. Yeah. Perfect. Okay.

Anybody else have any questions? Okay.

Yes sir.

Come on up and give your name

and address for the record and just address the board again.

Mark Bugden 32 Elliot, the corner house.

This is something that came up last time from different

people who bike and walk.

Is there anything we can help make it a little bit safer?

Because with all the activity, these cars going left

or on the block, schools coming in and out.

Some, there's a family that ride bike

with their kid to the school.

It's just kind of, kind of a lot of too many moving parts.

Yeah. Is there any way from the traffic study that

could offer some, suggest some suggestions

to maybe organize things a little bit more

signage or something

For pedestrians?

Yeah, sure. We'll put a note in there. Thank you.

Okay. Anybody else here have any questions? I, I don't, no.

Do you wanna say anything else before

we go to the next step?

No. Good. Okay. Thank you Mr.

Thank you very much Mr. Wong,

why don't you go on to part two.

Okay, I will do that.

And I would also add that, you know,

in my professional opinion, you know, project like this one,

you know, I do agree that it's,

it generates a minimal amount of impact.

However, if, if we always keep saying that

for every development, eventually you're gonna add up to,

you know, the, the roadway network over time.

So I'm always looking for something that's reasonable.

So that's where, you know, some

of the signal timing adjustment suggestion comes in.

It's a relatively low cost work to implement.

And so I hope the time will consider that coming forward.

Okay, thanks very much.

Okay,

so onto the site plan itself.

I'll start with the site driveways.

They're located roughly the same location as the existing,

I'm sorry, did we lose this?

Did we get out?

I don't know.

Oh, hold on one sec. We just, we lost the screen here.

Let me reshare it again just in case it's on my end.

Okay,

One

Sec.

I don't think it is 'cause we can see it on the main screen.

We just can't see it on the projector.

I see

Somebody was watching

said a speaker just changed.

Yeah, here he comes

on the projector mode.

You got the project mode on the top right.

Do scream hearing. There we go.

Bingo. Two for two doing that.

Okay, you're back on.

Alright,

I'll start over from the top just in case

King.

So we'll start off with the site drive locations.

Both of the site drives are located in a very similar

location, two existing conditions

and we felt those were adequate as there wasn't,

there's not a whole lot of change in

terms of where they're located.

The traffic study did include

talk about trimming vegetations

to maintain site distance out of those site driveways.

When we did our site observations, we did try to approximate

how those will be located.

So having that commitment

to trim vegetation going forward in the long term,

we'll just ensure that the adequate site distance provided.

In terms of site circulations, we did review the latest

turning movement diagrams that was

provided as part of the site plans.

And those did show that the

anticipated vehicles circling the site are able

to circulate it without any problems.

That includes a firetruck as well as box trucks.

One clarification I did note here is the

trash bin pickup operation.

So in the previous site plan, I believe the,

the trash pickup trucks were shown to be able

to go directly in front of the trash cans

and be able to pick 'em up and dump them in the back

and put 'em back and back up and exit the sites.

However, what the current layout has is, I'm not sure how

that operation will work, so just request

for clarification on that end.

And then my last bullet here is recommending on street

parking to be restricted on operating street altogether.

And I'm gonna explain that on my next slide.

Are you able to see my cursor at all on screen? Yeah. Yep.

Okay, great. So on the left side,

this is the recommended on Streete parking,

figured I was included in traffic study.

On the right is three different versions

of the turning movement diagrams

that came a couple of weeks ago.

So I'm gonna go ahead and explain the left first.

So on this diagram, the red are the areas

that was recommended to restrict parking.

The green is where on street parking could be maintained.

The blue is where the existing

or proposed driveways are going to be.

So what this diagram, I'm gonna show here on the top side

here, which is the northeast corner next

to 32 Elliot Street.

So a couple of spaces were shown to, to,

to be accommodated for on streete parking.

However, looking at the turning movements,

this is the fire trucks, you can see

that the turning movements do require a good chunk

of Auburn Street in order to make that movement.

Those two parking spaces were roughly about there.

So that's entering

and then exiting again, they're very close

and could potentially conflict with these type

of vehicles movements.

And I would also say

that the box truck movements are very

similar to the fire trucks.

So in this case they're,

they have similar potential conflicts with that.

So because of that, I would recommend, you know,

taking away these two spots up here in the top corner here

as we move down the site,

the next green spot I wanna call your attention

to is this right here.

And this would be between the two site driveways.

And so if I get your attention back on the diagram on the

right, that would be this space right here

between the, the two side trucks.

And as you can see from the firetruck,

and again with the box trucks is very similar.

It does require a lot

of space on Auburn Street in order to make that movement.

And right in that little corner there,

there is a potential conflict with these parked vehicles.

And so for that reason, I'm also gonna recommend maybe

we restrict that as well.

Now if I get your attention to the end of Auburn Street,

both of these areas shown as green,

where on street parking may be accommodated.

However, on the right hand side, on the last diagram here,

this is a fire truck at the end

of Auburn Street backing up into the site drive

and turn around to exit Auburn Street.

Now in the memo that I receive, the applicant did mention

that the proposed site drives were widened a little bit in

order to accommodate a movement such as this

because the, the residents have spoken up about difficulties

for emergency vehicles in the past to make those type

of backup movements.

So that's why this, this was

provided in the driveway for change.

And if you look at this diagram here, how much room that the

firetruck needs to, to have in order

to make this backup movement, I'm gonna recommend

restricting parking on this side as well.

And additionally, if we look at the last house here,

because the driveway vehicles back out of that driveway,

it is recommended to not have parking at that.

Anyways, apo opposite of the driveway.

So with that, another reason why

I'm recommending not have any parking on street from here.

Now if we go to the last green strip that's up here,

similar case to the house at the last, at the end

of Auburn Street, I would recommend not having on street

parking opposite of that driveway out of 32 Elliot.

And so that leaves us with about a couple of spots here

where vehicles could potentially park.

And those spots would be roughly right out here. It's tight.

Could they do it? Potentially,

but you know, if it's just the two spaces

that could be available, it may need to confusion

and inviting more cars to come in

and park where they're not supposed to.

So for all these reasons here, I'm, I would recommend

restricting on street parking on Auburn Street.

And I do want to clarify in my letter, it wasn't specific

that I'm not asking the applicant to, to make that work

because they don't have the ability to do so.

This would be something that the town would have to do

outside of this project to have

that officially be restricted.

And if you have any questions, please feel,

please feel free to stop me.

Wow, I I guess we

Could do it next up. We,

We could.

I think maybe, maybe we just do it periodically

as we change topics.

Just, I don't know, maybe it won't be easier. Maybe it will.

Does anybody have any questions about what we just saw?

Just to reaffirm

He's proposing no off on street parking at

all on Auburn Street? That's

Correct.

For a variety, for a variety of reasons.

What does that, I'm presuming it would predominantly be

guest parking on Auburn Street.

We don't know who's gonna park there.

No, we don't think we need any guest parking.

There's 41 proposed now, one for each unit plus nine

for visitors and tradespeople.

So we don't believe that Auburn would be used

for guest parking, but for our project anyway.

Other guests on Auburn.

Where would people park if the 42nd car came up?

Well, I don't, I don't think we anticipate a 42nd car,

but if it, if it did, it would probably park on Auburn.

But we don't anticipate that it didn't come up in our study.

I don't know if Scott wants to speak to that, but

Sure.

Yeah, so, so in terms of

parking demand, we've got data from

the perfect fit parking report.

We've got data from the ITE parking generation manual.

We've got data from Metro West's own Medway project

that indicates the parking demand is

around, is between 0.9 and 0.98 spaces per unit.

We're proposing a rate of 1.27 spaces per unit.

So there's a fair amount of,

of additional space that's there.

You know, in in general the visitor, I think the,

you know, the, these aren't,

these aren't single family homes that, that may have a,

a lot of people coming to visit at once.

I think we've got enough space for, for, you know,

home health aides or,

or contractors if they need to come in, repair people.

I think that's what we're, that's what we're,

we're tasked with providing.

Okay. Maybe it's more of a marketing problem than

So all

Of the, any other questions here?

Have secondary houses, but,

Okay.

Seeing none, folks. Yep. Come on up sir.

They have 50 feet back.

Just again, your name and address for the record.

Thank you sir. Ed Shago,

down street eight Auburn Street, Natick.

I have a general question and I don't know the answer.

There's a church hall right now either for sale

or under agreement or something like that.

I candidly don't think it's gonna remain a church hall.

I think it's gonna become a church or something like that.

That said, sir, how is the added traffic

pattern, are vehicles from that change in use of

that building gonna affect all of this?

Excuse me? Are you talking about number 40?

I'm, I'm bad on numbers, sir.

I'm, I'm, it's a church hall

that the congregational church owns

to the right of the schoolyard.

It's right now minimally used St.

Benedict's used to use it. Yes.

Where is adherence?

Oh God, I, Hey look,

I'm mommy, I can't read maps

There. This

Is all, do you know what I mean?

Site and that's right there.

It's, it's kind of a vacant building.

We know anything about that.

We know it was

lifted for sale.

It seems to be off market, but we don't know anything.

It is limited in terms of parking.

It only has two parking spaces. So what can go there is

Are you limited?

No.

Yeah, what I'm hearing. Can you hear that?

Yes sir.

Okay. You did hear that? Yes, sir.

Okay, so that's, it's only got two parking

spaces associated with it.

So the use of that space would appear

to be extraordinarily limited in scope.

I'm just gonna toss out that if the current use of

that building I think is going to dramatically change.

Okay. So let, let, let's, it's, it's difficult for us

to determine what it might be,

but let's do high play,

play the hypothetical game just for a moment.

Yes sir. What's the use?

You, you go what's, what's the use? Just pick

Probably a church.

Okay. So if it turns into a church,

the church is gonna have to supply parking

Where

They won't be able to supply parking.

Makes the use difficult. Even under the Dover Amendment.

It'd be very, very difficult to get that.

I agree with you. But that said,

people are gonna park there where either on Auburn Street,

Lemme stop you there just for a second.

If, if the town is smart enough to accept the recommendation

of its peer review consultant

and makes the entire length

of Auburn Street essentially a no parking zone, then anybody

who does park there will be subject to being towed.

I wouldn't think it would take too many cars

getting towed from there.

That people will,

will likely learn that you can't park there.

There'll be signage just like there is anywhere

in the town that you can't park.

Okay.

I, I think, yeah, so I think I would, I,

what I really was curious to know is

what the folks on Auburn Street thought about the fact

that there would be no parking on Auburn Street.

I, I think from what I heard the first time around,

that would be a good thing.

You know, about 10 years ago that was proposed

that the town put up no parking signs

and we were all vehemently against it.

It's a neighborhood.

And today,

I confess ignorance, sir.

Fair enough. Fair enough. Okay.

Does anybody else wish to be heard? Why? No.

And we're just gonna have you restrict your comments

to just the segment that, that Mr. Wong just covered

and your name and address for the record, if you would.

Roger Scott. 40 Water Street.

I understand the ratio,

the parking place is two tenants was 1.27, is that correct?

That's right.

Alright.

And does everyone that's going to move in

and sign a restriction that they can only own one vehicle?

No.

So they could have two cars.

You got, you have gonna have families in there. Correct?

Let me, let me, let me ask

specifically about that question.

Right. So our management company would assign spaces

to each unit and it would be one space per unit.

And that would be made clear during the leasing process.

So if anyone had two vehicles, they would likely opt not

to live in the community.

So it's a matter of good faith people.

No, I I think, correct me if I'm wrong here,

but if you have 20, I'm sorry, 32 units,

that's 32 spaces you're gonna supply 41.

Those other nine spaces are not gonna be for residents

to park a vehicle full time.

Correct? Correct.

So the, how,

how do you control the parking in those nine other spaces

through the management company?

There'd be signage. What, who would park so far?

We heard workman would park in them,

guests would park in them.

So would there be some, would there be some sort

of sticker system for cars registered

to park in your parking lot

or assigned spaces? How does that work?

Right,

So

the management company would mark certain spaces

as visitor parking and there would be restrictions around

how long people could park in those spaces.

So people who were staying overnight

or longer term would not occupy those spaces.

And if they did, if they occupy 'em unlawfully,

in other words, I move in there,

I've got two cars in my family.

I park in the visitor space every day, 24 hours a day,

then my car's gonna get towed.

Correct.

Okay. Are we going to have a management team on

24 hours a day

or we just have somebody passing through

to manage the property?

It will not be, we won't have on onsite

management 24 hours a day.

But we will have on-call management 24 hours a day.

And if parking violations were noticed by other residents,

they would be reported to the management company.

So there would be somebody available to respond to a

situation that the person coming in with

that 42 40 second spot can contact

you guys and you'll send somebody over

and have a tow truck come and take that 42nd car away.

Is that how it works?

So let me just, so, so we're clear. I'm a resident.

I'm one of the 32 lucky people to have a parking space in

that lot assigned to me.

If I pull in at midnight

and someone's in my parking space,

what do I do? Is that the question?

Pretty much, yeah.

So they would, would they call the management company?

The management company on-call staff?

They would call a tow company

and the tow company would do their job.

Right. We would have a contract with a, a tow company.

Okay. Thank you.

Thank you. I saw another hand. Yes ma'am.

My name is Patty Malone.

I live at 31 South Lincoln Street in the neighborhood.

So I have to admit, I'm not, I don't, I'm not good

with stats and just that number, just

common sense wise just doesn't make sense to me.

And I'm willing to hear which one

And listen to which one, just

so we know what you're talking about. Which number

The, the 1.27 per household.

'cause some of those units, some

of those households are gonna be three bedrooms.

I know when I went up to town

when this project was first proposed

and there was a, a meeting at the community senior center,

one of the people of the proponents said to me, oh, it's,

you know, for 60% would be set aside for natick residents.

So if you have three school teachers in Natick

sharing a three bedroom unit, which I would think

that would be something that would happen.

Hold on, hold on one second. Let me, let me, let me,

I just wanna make sure the premise is accurate.

These are three full-time adult work, working adults.

Do they income qualify for one of these units?

That would be unlikely.

That would, I'm sorry. That would,

So it's, it's unlikely that three

full-time working adults

who live together would income

qualify for one of these units.

Okay. Because the total units,

the total amount of income would have to meet the,

the That's right.

So what if it was a, you know, you have a high school kid

that lives in the household.

It just seems to me so,

so intuitively I'm not, I just need to grasp it. Okay.

And, and again, I understand,

I think I understand the question.

If I am a family who's gonna move in there and I have a wife

and we both work out of town out of Natick

and I al we also have an adult child

who has a car, we can't live there.

Right. 'cause there's nowhere for our cars to, to be,

there's, there's not enough parking

for my family to live there.

I have to make a choice. Well, my wife

and I can commute, our son can get a ride.

But if you have three people

and you only have one parking space,

this is not the place for you.

Okay.

And then even holidays,

people wouldn't be able to come visit. It

Just, there's there's gonna be nine guest

spaces on the lot.

People will have to adjust accordingly.

Okay. Thank you.

Okay. Thanks. Anybody else? Yes ma'am.

Carol Joseph. 12 Leach Lane.

It just makes me think that Water Street, Lincoln Street,

river Street are gonna take the brunt of, okay.

They ran outta spaces.

Now visitors will go

and park along those roads, which are narrow as well.

Let me just ask you a question 'cause I don't know

that area well enough.

Are those, is law, is parking a lawful on those streets?

Yes. Yes. So all I can tell you is that streets,

people can park on the street.

I agree. I agree. I agree.

But then unfortunate for the people

who live on Auburn Street, that now they have visitors

to their own house, they can't park on the street anymore.

Like that's taking away what they have as a property owner.

I just, I find that really unfair

to people who are on that street.

Fair enough. Okay. Thank you.

Anybody else have any questions, comments? Yes, ma'am.

Hi. Donna Rado.

I live at for Auburn Street directly across

from the Hi building.

Hi. So I have three grown children that don't live

with me and they all drive.

They have partners, spouses,

and I entertain holidays, et cetera.

We're, I have one driveway.

Where is everybody gonna park just to come visit me?

How many cars can you find your driveway? Two.

That's gonna be difficult.

I hear there's plenty of parking on Water Street.

There's nine on, on the parking lot,

Which they won't be happy about.

Touche.

Great.

Yeah, I see a hand back there.

Hi, mark Oel. Tovan five Water Street. Hi.

I just wanna say wasn't funny. We respect you. Respect us.

Okay, thanks very much.

No offense intended. Who else would like to be heard?

I just have a,

I see a hand. Yep. Come on.

I, I know you gave it once before,

but just for the record, we'll have you give your name

and address again.

Hi, Chris Carson Bugden, 32 Elliot Street

about the parking and the 1.7 cars.

Oh, before I say that, I wanna thank all of you. It's

1.27. Go

Ahead.

1.2. I wanna thank all of you for everything you do

because you work so hard.

Thank you. Zoning board.

I mean, you do this all the time for our, for our town.

So thank you. I wanted to say that before, but I forgot.

Thanks. Thank you. So we're just,

I just wanna paint a picture.

We have a family like you said, David,

you said we have a family, a husband and wife

and maybe three kids.

Sure. Okay.

So we're basically not really allowing the other

person to work because they can't get there

really when we allow one car.

So if this whole project was shrunk

and the two buildings that are beautiful

that you redesigned, I appreciate it.

Were cut in half, then we would have parking

and we would create an appropriate project for this site.

I think we can't penalize adults who might wanna work

and might wanna get there.

Stop you just for a second. 'cause I just wanna make sure

that the premise is we understand the premise.

Yeah. The premise is I think people should have two cars.

I'm a question be able to have two cars. I'm

Gonna ask you a question.

Yeah. So what you're saying is we want

to introduce more vehicles onto the site. You wanna

Shrink the project so that we can make it appropriate.

So whoever lives there can get to work.

If they wanna make a living,

One of the primary concerns

that we heard from the neighbor, neighbors

and the neighborhood was the impact on the

roadways from cars.

Yeah. But if the project was shrunk, right,

if it was demen, if, if it was made smaller,

then we could accommodate the people that live there

who might wanna make a living.

We can't, we can't penalize them by giving them 1.2

cars per unit. It just doesn't make sense.

So what's your math? How, how, how many, how big

Nine people in the school maybe how many,

how many cars would that be?

There'll be single people in there, I don't know, 13 cars

for that building and then maybe 10 or 12 in the back.

Given both, each unit gets two cars.

That's 20 plus 13, 33.

And then maybe a really nice recreational area

to make the quality of life for these folks

that are living there nicer.

Then having just a couple little spots on the grass

for chairs that they have to remove all the time.

I just think it's just too big. It's too big.

We're not providing the tenants with what they need. Okay.

They need vehicles to get to work

so they can afford to live.

I mean I think that was, that's why we, you know,

affordable housing, we want

people to be able to get to work.

Right. We don't wanna have somebody have to stay home

because there's only one car.

I mean, you know, we need to get to work and I, and I

and bicycles are grateful leisure, I,

I am on avid bike ride bike everywhere,

but not to work on union and 16.

That's not realistic to go and get dressed every day

and show up in an office.

You know, like from a bicycle, that's not gonna work. Okay.

So I think if we, we were thinking about making this more

of an appropriate project, we would shrink it so

that there's a park, a place to sit and recreate in the back

and two cars for each spot.

So I think that's, that's what I wanted to say.

Okay. Thanks very much.

Does anybody else wish to be heard?

I have a, well, Alan has a question.

Oh sure. Go ahead. Didn't see it. Yeah.

So I was over there on Saturday driving

around taking a look

and I just wanted

to have a curious question, an honest question.

The residence of eight and six Auburn

and four Auburn, are you concerned

that you're gonna lose any on-street parking whatsoever?

'cause you have parking garages in the back of your house.

So my question is, are you concerned about losing any on

street parking on Auburn Street?

Yeah. Why? Help me understand that. Please.

Are you at number eight? Yes. Okay.

I have an image of your home

Here at Sugar eight Auburn Street.

Yep. That's a great question. Number one.

Number two, thank you for going down there.

Number three, in spite of what some of you may think of me,

I have friends and they come and visit query.

Where are they gonna park? What am I gonna do?

I can't say, Hey, you gonna park down the street.

They'll think I'm crazy.

No sir. By, with respect, by the advantage

that I'm looking at your garage in the back of your home.

Yes sir.

You have ample,

ample parking spaces for numerous cars.

I do not. I'm not seeing how you're worried about losing

street parking on Auburn Street.

You both have number eight.

Number six, you have in the, in a loc,

very large house in the back.

You have your own garage, two car garage in the back

of your house and about 150 feet worth of space

that you have parking available

before you get to Auburn Street.

Can't because I wanna go outta my garage,

which means the car that's in the driveway.

I have a choice. I suppose I can hit it or drive around it.

Okay. It's tough to do.

I'm looking at it not in the ivory tower,

but realistically it won't work.

The driveways are too, all of the driveways on Auburn Street

are either too narrow or at number four.

Too small. It looks great on paper.

It doesn't work that way.

That's why I went, that's why I actually went and looked.

I'm So, let me tell you something buddy.

I appreciate you going down there. Really. Thank you.

I'm very impressed.

If I had known that I would've given you coffee.

Thank you. I appreciate that.

Thank you for your, thank you

for their attention to that. Thank

You.

Did you add something? I did.

What's the, what's the zoning as of right here

for number of parking spots,

what would you be required at to put the current

Two spaces per unit? Two

Per unit.

So here it says, falls below the town's requirement of 45.

That's what's, I'm sorry.

In the peer review,

We're asking for a waiver from the parking.

If that was question I say 45,

I must

A waiver.

Okay. I think we just got done with something there.

Are we all set? Anybody?

Did you want to respond to anything that you heard? No.

Okay. Did you wanna say something? Okay, Jeff, so your

Magic,

I think there was some confusion

for me just in terms of the total parking requirement,

because later in your

comments right here.

Oh yeah. Find, find that, hold on a minute. Yeah. This

Is what I have on 5 0 8

You say, okay, here we go.

It says, assessment included in the original comprehensive

permit application indicates a parking supply of 29

to 41 as appropriate.

The reduction of parking by four spaces result the

relocation of the trash enclosure, which induce?

Oh, okay. I'm sorry. This is supply not requirement. Oh,

We've reduced it to 41.

From 45. Yeah, yeah,

Yeah, yeah.

Okay. From 45. And that you'll see when we go over.

You lost four because of the way you moved the Yes, yes.

Trash. Yep. Okay. Okay. Mr. Wong, you're back on.

Let me pull this aside. Okay.

Let me know when y'all see my screen again.

Yep.

Okay.

So the next topic I'm going to discuss is a D accessibility.

So on the first bullet here, it corresponds

to the top right figure that's over here.

This is the Northern Site Drive.

So we have a sidewalk within the site that connects

to the sidewalk on Auburn Street.

So this particular connection here is the one

I have concerns with.

Certainly a detectable warning panel is meant to help direct

a visually impaired pedestrian

to cross the street indicating that this is

what it would cross and in this particular layout

that would send them across Auburn Street,

which I don't believe is the intended location.

Additionally, when two rams do meet like this, there needs

to be a five by five level area for turnaround space.

And I don't believe that that is provided here.

So my recommendation is, re-look at this area.

I believe the previous site plan actually had the sidewalk

come up upstream of this wheelchair ram,

which then would make it comply with a DA,

or at least have the ability to comply with a DA.

So that's what this comment is about.

My second comment, I don't have a figure for it,

but it's about the existing ramps at the Auburn Street

at Route 16 intersection.

Those two ramps right now do not appear

to meet a DA compliance,

and my recommendation is to upgrade 'em as part

of this project so that an entire a DA accessible

route can be provided from Route 16.

Itself down to the site with all the improvements

that are being proposed in here.

So that's my second comment.

On the third bullet here, this will direct your attention

to the figure on the bottom right,

this is located at the Southern Drive.

There's a crosswalk just west

of the driveway opening itself.

And what I noticed is the proposed sidewalk itself is

proposed to be four feet.

And when there is a wheelchair ram at the end here at the

crosswalks, those need to have a five by five level area

to meet a DA accessibility requirements.

So I would just recommend

to provide those at these two locations.

So that is regarding a d accessibility.

Any questions before I move on?

I have none. Anybody else have any questions? Okay. Yep.

Keep, can you hold on for a second?

Well, we do have a question. Yep, sure. Come on up.

Ed Shari eight Auburn Street.

I really wanna thank you guys for your patience.

It's to me overwhelming.

I have two questions miss through you, sir.

I would like to ask Mr. Wong,

there's not a sidewalk on the even numbered side

of Auburn Street, is that proposed to be changed

On your side?

Yes, sir.

That's off the project is Locus. So

Say again?

I I said it was off Locus, so I, I suspect No, but Mr. Mr.

Wong's probably not the one to answer that. But go ahead.

Who? I was just gonna say that currently the,

the project is not proposed any sidewalk on the other side.

On the even number side. Yeah, correct.

Not proposed.

Is Armond Street

through your proposal, Mr. Wong?

And I'm asking through the chairperson. No,

He's our guy.

He's on, he he's with the town.

Say again. He works

For you. Mr. Wong works for you?

Yes.

Is there a proposal, sir, to widen Armond Street

and if so, on what side?

Even numbered or five Auburn Street side?

Not, not proposed.

It's not proposed.

No, you're not proposing to widen Auburn Street.

They're not proposing to widen Auburn Street.

Okay, thank you. Yes ma'am.

Carol Joseph, 12 Leach Lane.

Who pays for the

wi the widening of the wheelchair accessible

sidewalk issues.

Is that the town who pays for that if

It's on site?

I I I'm absolutely positive it's the applicant.

If, if it's off locust, Amanda,

Well it would be dependent on whether it was something

that we worked out in mitigation or if not,

but putting a sidewalk on the even side would be difficult

because there are two very large trees

and other I think he's talking

About

But on like route on like Route 16 to cross?

Yeah. To get those to be compliant.

Who pays for that? The town, which is

Not one.

Well, I think that the,

the answer I'm hearing right now is it's possible

that it can be worked out in a, in agreement

with the applicant absent that agreement.

Then if the, if those areas were to be improved

by the town, it would be by the town.

Okay. Just fact that there's, they're trying to ask

for more money from the taxpayers here

and one more thing that the taxpayers are gonna have to

do to accommodate the people down in South Natick.

So I don't feel like it should have to be a tax payment.

I think if, correct me if I'm wrong, Mr. Wong,

but during Mr.

Wong's peer review of this site, he recognized that two

of the existing areas that are in South Natick have

non-compliant accessibility

and he's suggesting that they should be made accessible

notwithstanding this project may EV be built.

So for that, do you have an objection

to making those sidewalks accessible? No,

I think that everywhere in the town should

Okay. Should

Have

That.

Thank you.

The town.

Okay Mr. Wong.

So on the next one, we talked about parking a little bit,

but we'll come back to this topic here.

41 spaces are being proposed now instead of 45.

Certainly I think if the applicant is aware

and if not already a waiver would certainly be required to

hold, hold, provide spaces less than the town file.

I'm gonna stop you just for a second.

We're having some trouble with this, but it's back there.

Well, it was back there now I'm back there.

There it is. Now it's back there.

So if you lose it up here, turn around, we can see that,

we can make that, we can turn that a little bit.

Jeff's, Jeff's getting that going here.

Okay.

Request five minutes.

I'm gonna turn this thing.

There we go. Thanks. There you go

Or something.

Continue Mr. Wong. Thank you. Please.

So a waiver, you know, the applicant,

if not already would need to submit a waiver

for not providing 45 spaces for the town's bylaws.

So that's regarding the parking supply.

Now what we did notice too is that stalls 15

and 16, they're noted to be ev charging ready

with the size of eight by 16,

I believe is the size currently proposed for,

based on the USS four recommendations

that was produced in 20 2023,

EV charging stalls that are accessible needs to have, needs

to be 11 feet wide by 20 feet long.

And the reason for that is that anyone who has a mobility

device need to be able to go

around the entire vehicle in case the charging port is on

the other side of the vehicle, not

where they exit the vehicle.

So that is a little bit different than a standard

van accessible space or any type of accessible space

and that's why there is an extra width

that is required there.

Additionally, at the charging station itself, there needs

to be a level landing space that's

provided to access the charging station.

It is not unlike a level area that's at a wheelchair ramp,

so that needs to be a five by five space.

So seeing what the site is currently on, on the figure here,

on the bottom right, these are the two spaces

that are, are in concern.

The space here seems extremely tight

to provide those level areas

for those charging stations in the future.

And additional the sizes currently do not meet those

recommendations of the USSS board.

So I do recommend maybe ev reevaluating

where the these two spaces should go.

Okay, continue.

So next up, pedestrian bicycle,

bicycle circulation overall. Sorry, I'm gonna

Stop, I'm gonna stop you right there.

Yes sir. Maybe grab a seat right over by that microphone.

Sir, you took the

Words right out of my mouth.

Up. I'm precinct

eight ten eight Auburn Street.

I have a question about the ev charging.

Who pays the electric bill if I want charge my Tesla?

You can't charge your Tesla. I

Don't have a Tesla.

You've been spying on me.

No, that is, it's not the town,

It's the applicant with some kind of a cod device.

They, they, they'll work it out however they work it out,

but it's not gonna be on your

dime, it's not gonna be on the town. Thank you.

And again, sir, and it's worth mentioning

your patience is admirable.

Ah, I appreciate it, thank you. If it

Weren't, I would've told

Yes sir.

I think

Roger Scott 40 Water Street.

Just a clarification on those two parking places just

mentioned, are those part of the 41 spots?

Yes.

So that means

that those two spots actually can be inactive as far

as the tenants go because somebody else might need a park

and charge their electric vehicle

or if there's more than one electric vehicle in residence.

Where, how does this, how does this plan out?

We're gonna wa we're gonna ask,

Would you please repeat the question?

Yeah, sure. So I think I got it here.

You got, those are two accessible parking spaces

for ev charging, which means if

there's nobody charging,

essentially your 41 spaces is really 39.

Right? So those, any ev charging spaces

that would be available on site would have charging

capability, but they wouldn't be restricted only

to electric vehicles.

So non-electric vehicles would be able

to park in those spaces.

We do wanna talk a little bit about this

specific recommendation when our civil engineer has a chance

to, to respond to questions.

So just so I I just find it easier

to do these things in real time.

You know, we have a comment and a response.

It may be a little ungainly and I'm sorry for that.

I just don't want to get an hour into this thing

and have 'em jump back to where we were a long time ago.

Just for me, it's easier

to have these things compartmentalized a little bit.

So to the extent that you want to make a comment

or your team wants to make a comment to something

that's being raised here, raise your hand

and we're gonna let you let you address it.

Come on out.

Jennifer was 57.

Thank you very, thank you very much.

I'm Dana Ella with Merrill Engineers and Land Surveyors.

So we, we re reviewed the, the, the,

the peer review letter.

Thank you very much for that input.

In looking at the, the recommendations on the, the site for

ev parking spaces for, for a DA accessibility there,

the recommendation that was noted was 11 feet wide

and a, a length of 20 feet with a,

a five foot wide access aisle next to it.

You know, in order to do that on the site, we probably,

we'd likely end up losing one more space.

We, we've already lost four spaces

by looking at the angle parking

and moving the dumpster, et cetera.

So we, we prefer not to mo lose any more spaces.

It is just, you know, as, as we all have have been talking,

it's very tight out there.

We feel that something maybe in the middle might be more

appropriate for this, you know, this site.

I, I think as we've shown it now, we provide a, you know,

most EV vehicles are on the smaller side, so we've used the,

the compact space to allow for it.

It, it also provides a very accessible a DA route

to both buildings to to place the, the spaces

where we show them currently.

So we feel this is the, the best space on the site,

you know, for the project right now.

But we can certainly, you know, look at different options.

But this, this seems to work best with the site as it's

Sure currently.

Mr. Wong, let me ask you a question, just US access board,

is that different than the, the,

those numbers different than

what the A A B would require in

Massachusetts for accessibility?

Yes. I don't believe the Massachusetts Architectural

Access Access board specifically addresses EV parking

or ev charging parking spaces.

So that's where this document comes from.

I referenced the date in the, in the letter itself.

So that was specifically made,

has additional recommendations for the EV charging

And but is you,

I specifically assessable EV charging,

But again, a re a requirement

or just a sort

of a design recommendation?

It's a design recommendation for the reasons that

unlike a standard accessible space, a person

who has a mobility device could potentially need to go

around the car itself in order to access the charging board

charging ports and that's why they have recommended

to have a wider space than your

traditional accessible space. Sure.

Okay. Okay, thanks. Okay.

A anything else before we have him move on?

I think that's, that's really all

the only comment I wanted to

Make for now.

No,

just now that a while ago it just hadn't been addressed yet.

Oh sure. Come on up.

Marco O kil, Tovan five Water Street.

The school across the street from us on Water Street has

is one of those parking spaces as well.

I think it's a misnomer that electric cars are small.

They used to be, you know,

back in the day a Prius was pretty small,

but now Lexus is electric in a, the,

the big Tesla truck, I don't know what they call that.

That's Tesla truck. Pretty large vehicle.

Cyber truck. Cyber truck I think

So, I think we can't count on electric

vehicles being little anymore.

Now things have changed.

Sure. Okay, thanks very much.

Okay, Mr. Wong.

Okay, so the next topic, pedestrian and bi circulation.

So sidewalk is provided throughout the site

and so pedestrians should be able

to access anywhere from the site to Route 16 itself.

Elliot Street. In terms of bicyclists, there are two sets

of bike racks that are proposed on site for anyone

who wishes to park or to lock their bicycles there.

So there is that availability as well.

But one thing about circulation is I request

for clarification of the crosswalk between stalls 15

and 16 over to the fire excess drive,

fire department, excess drive.

And that's again in figure here on the bottom right,

that's this crosswalk here.

I believe the main entrance, main entrances

to the buildings are off the screen, they're above.

And there is another crosswalk that can be utilized

to access the new building as well.

So just curious, the purpose of that crosswalk there,

Is that something you want to address now or, or later?

Good evening. Dana Alveo with Merrill Engineers again.

So the, the purpose of that crosswalk is to provide access

to the dumpsters that are adjacent to it.

So that will provide access from the existing Elliot school

as shown currently.

And then the new building will have access just

along its front walkway.

So that will, that will get both buildings accessible routes

to the, the new dumpster pad.

Thank you.

Sure.

You're on.

Good.

Do see that for you again?

Oh, Mr. Wong, you're, you're, you're back up.

Okay. Thank you. I I I wasn't about Harry, sorry.

So the next we have is emergency access.

Really the only thing we want request for is confirmation

that the Natick Fire department has review

and approved the site.

One of the concerns that we noted in the letter is

that the access to the backside of the new building

currently, there is no way to access it.

And again, that is something

that I think is more appropriate

to comment by the fire department.

It's just something that I pointed out based on previous

working experiences and other peer reviews where

that issue came up in, in a different town.

So I just wanna bring that to attention.

No, you wanna address No,

I, yeah,

So Amanda might be able to speak to this more,

but the fire department has reviewed our adjusted site plan,

including the adjustment to the fire lane

and have not indicated any issue without being able

to access the rear of the building

because it's a fully sprinkled sprinkler building.

Yep. The one small piece they haven't reviewed is the

mountable curb and the, the,

the pavers that are located there.

But we're, we've requested their feedback

and don't anticipate that it being an issue,

but obviously they can speak.

Sure. And we have nothing there yet, right?

Yes sir.

Roger Scott, 40 water street town meeting member

last year in the town meeting, I introduced an article

for the safety of dead end streets, which limited the size

of any development to 15 units just

for the sole safety issue of the new tenants as well

as the old residents in the neighborhood.

Now since that time

and since we last met here, there was a major tragedy

in Los Angeles that nobody, nobody

anticipated would ever happen.

Now that really in supports my approach to this thing that

if you make it so difficult for the fire department to,

to act on as a very dangerous situation

has happened in LA

or it happens in many parts of the world,

they need to have access.

There was one hydrant

that's near Shari's house at Shari's house

and the next hydrant is on the corner of my street,

which would be a heck of a length of hoses.

I don't know how they'd get that

and set up to rescue 32,

probably a hundred plus people as well

as the tenants that live on the street.

There are a lot of trees behind that

and we've experienced some extreme winds in

the last couple of weeks.

I think all of that has to be looked at.

And I would like for the safety, you know this

to be signed off by all participants, all the boards in town

that approve this, the fire department,

the safety councils in the town, anything

that's involved in this, it has to be written out there.

Explain the potential danger

to any resident going into this location.

If this is going to be allowed as 32 units, there has to be

transparent potential dangers built out there so

that people know what they're buying into

and for their own safety that

either this hasn't been addressed by the town

and have a legal counsel of the town approve it, as well

as everyone signing off on this thing

that this is a potentially dangerous situation

that can endanger lives

and I don't wanna have that happen. So

It's gonna be looked at by all the,

the various departments of the town

and that document you just referenced will not be created.

What was the result of the town

meeting thing you brought up?

Unfortunately the vote didn't pass, so, you know, it was,

it was, to me it was accessible

to any dead end street in the town.

So if you put a maximum of 15

and it's, that was factored into this thing too

because I think previously with 10 units coming from

a private builder and 32 by this particular group.

So it was sort of like trying to say, well

what do you think you could manage in this area

that wouldn't endanger the neighborhood?

And you know, this is a changing world

and this is real things happening. I'm

Gonna stop you.

Okay, thanks. Okay, next. Thank you Mr. Wong.

That's it for my presentation.

There are several small comments

that I also made in the letter itself,

so I'll just go forward to getting the response from the

applicant for those, those are minor enough

that we don't need to bring it up at the setting.

Okay. Let me just take a look at my notes on your,

on your comments for a moment.

Okay, you, you, you hit all my,

all the points that I had noted.

Anybody here have any questions over here? Any questions? I,

I did have one on the parking probably maybe

for the applicant, but There was,

there's gonna be 32 assigned spaces to 32 units

that leaves nine overflow or leftovers.

How many of those are restricted to handicap?

And, and then I guess it gets into, you know,

would you add another handicapped spot if there was a

handicapped resident with a reserved space

or would you assign them one of the proposed handicap spots

and then what happens to the spare

that was otherwise gonna be assigned to them?

I'm trying to figure out how many,

you said it seemed like there were about nine available

spaces in addition to the 32, but if some were all,

or many of those are restricted handicap,

I'm just wondering how many spaces you really do have

available for non handicapped vehicles for overflow.

Sure. And Dana, I might ask you to come back up to,

to speak to the assignments of the units,

but our expectation is

that we're providing the adequate number

of handicapped accessible spaces for the accessible units

that we are created.

I'm not sure if we've gotten to the level of detail

of indicating whether any

of those are available to visitors.

Dana, do you have,

So, so right now we have four

a DA accessible units in the, the, the development

and we're providing four spaces for the,

you know, each one of those units.

There wouldn't necessarily be any

accessible units outside of that.

We could certainly look at that if that is something

that comes up during the, the,

you know, future design process.

But typically that that's been enough.

But we can certainly add more if, if needed.

Just for the record, I,

what I was showing you here is there's two would be the

requirement from the A A B one

of which may must be van accessible.

The proposal is four spaces, two

or two of which are van accessible.

Okay. And I think because you have four access,

four good one units, yeah, four accessible units. Yeah.

So I guess the expectation would be

that the four handicap spots would be assigned

to residents of the handicap units.

Correct. So they, that would be, that would still leave nine

unassigned non handicap spaces.

Correct. Available for visitors. Okay, good. My next

Question and those four units are

after the adjustments that were in the memo sent,

this is 41.

41 spaces is are currently being proposed. Okay.

Did you want to go ahead? Is

It our turn now?

Yeah. Okay, great.

What we'd like to do first is, is call up Dana to go over,

we have a presentation, it's gonna show a lot of

revisions both to the site plan,

the feedback we heard from historic,

the feedback we heard from the planning board

and I know that Kaitlyn wanted to say

some brief opening remarks.

So we're just gonna, we're just gonna pull up our

presentation that has all that information

Or do you think that's not okay?

That's okay at this point

with our technology no problem, no problem.

I'd love to say yes please. No problem. We're struggling.

Can she join the

Zoom? Does she wanna present?

Is that the deal? Yeah, I'm joining the Zoom.

I just, yeah to see we can give

her No

Is she gonna be able to get onto here?

Yeah it's gonna Oh

Okay. These would

Be the same.

Okay, great. Mr the chair? Yes sir.

Just like any zoom call. Oh yeah.

Just to request that the speaker

Move the mic up

A little bit.

Yeah. Oh sure. Yep, will do.

Okay. So thank you everyone again

for being here this evening.

I'm just gonna give a brief overview of where we have been

with the project before handing it over to our consultants

to talk through the updated design.

Next slide please.

Oh, why is it?

I am changing it on my end

so I'm not see on my end, which is weird.

Okay. Presenting different

screen she's presenting.

Yeah, but it's not the,

lemme try this.

It's

Working on the tv. Think that is really strange.

I have the right thing. I can see it at the top on the

Pegasus but it's,

I mean we could try the HDMI if it doesn't

Work.

I don't think that was

The issue.

So is that there's this does it on my computer as well.

If it's not on there it will actually,

you can scroll on here

but when you mirror it it freezes out.

So it'll be on this one

and it'll be on the one in the back.

So maybe can we turn

that up against the windows worked for

The last Sure.

Full

I think Waiting on your end.

Alright, lemme try. Hold on. It's still not working.

It's weird. It just suddenly showing on mine

Not working.

It's working back there.

It's the

same thing there we, oh it's happening back there so it

Works back there.

Let's all look,

That's weird.

Okay, we'll I'll look back. There You what? There it is.

Oh, there we go. Oh, okay.

Just a lag takes a minute. Okay. Okay.

Okay, so I'm just gonna talk very briefly about our

public engagement to date.

So since being selected by the select board

through a competitive RFP process,

we've had significant public engagement

and input on our proposal, including open houses,

the NAD process through the conservation commission,

several select board meetings, zoning board hearings,

and presentations to the historic district

commission and the planning board.

We've also had significant additional feedback from a number

of other sources, including written comments

and letters from community members

and through the project eligibility letter process

from the National Park Service

and the Massachusetts Historical Commission as part

of the historic review process.

Feedback from the Natick Affordable Housing Trust, a number

of meetings with the Town Design review team,

which includes town department staff

and one-on-one meetings with Abutters.

We've taken the feedback and updated our plans

and site plan to reflect many of the comments received.

The updated design that you're gonna see tonight

was the basis of the peer review report

and the basis of the historic district commission

and planning board presentations

and memos that were provided to the board.

Tonight we have already gone through the traffic

and civil peer review,

so we'll be reviewing the architectural

and site design updates

and reviewing the updated list of waivers.

Before we start reviewing the changes,

I wanna highlight some of the, the, some of the things

that have not changed all of the community benefits

that were described in our RFP response have remained.

Our proposal will still provide 100% affordable family

rental housing available to households making up to 60%

of area median income.

The number of units and unit mix has not changed.

Our proposal will also preserve the Elliot School,

a treasured community resource in accordance

with the strict historic rehabilitation standards

of the Department of the Interior.

Our proposal continues

to maintain the lawn area at the corner of Elliot

and Albertan Street as open space

and our proposal still incorporates ambitious sustainability

goals, including energy efficiency improvements

for the existing building

and pursuing passive house certification

for the new construction building.

We are also still making significant site storm stormwater

management improvements to benefit the Charles River.

And finally we'll be making accessibility upgrades at the

historic building in addition

to making the new construction building fully accessible.

In terms of what has changed, we have revised our civil

and landscape plans

and adapted our architectural plans for the new building

so it better reflects features of the historic school

and the character of the surrounding neighborhood.

We are grateful for the comments to date

and believe that our updates

to the proposal have been responsive to them.

I will now turn it over to Dana to walk everyone

through our updated site plan.

Thank you very much Kaylin.

So looking at this initial site,

I can just give you a quick overview

of the, the site and the location.

I know you're, you're all very familiar with it.

Just briefly, number five is located on the southwesterly

side of Auburn Street at the intersection

of Elliot and Auburn Street.

It has the Charles River located to the southeast of it,

located in blue back there on the screen.

The site consists of approximately 2.8 acres

and contains the historic Elliot school along

with its parking areas, play areas,

and associated site features.

The location of the parcel is within the residential general

zoning district and the existing topography on the lot is

relatively flat within the developed areas.

It slopes gently basically from Elliot Street to a

existing fence at the top of the, the steep slope

that goes down to the the Charles River.

The existing site currently provides no stormwater treatment

or recharge of, of runoff.

The majority of the runoff from the rooftop areas

and the existing parking areas just flows overland untreated

towards the Charles River currently.

Moving on to the, the next slide, this is the

previous site plan that was submitted

and reviewed with the board on 12 9 24.

We'll go through in more detail.

Since then, we've made a lot of modifications

to address a lot of the, the comments that were received

at the, at the previous hearing, as well as other design

meetings to this point.

The next slide is the site plan for the, the landscaping.

Rebecca will be going through this in more detail just

to discuss all of the, the changes

that have been made there, made there.

And lastly is the renderings for the architectural plans.

As you can see, there's, you know,

this is the original site plan.

We've, we've made substantial changes as you'll see on the,

the final site plan

or the updated site plan, that there's major changes

to the massing and the, the size

and the, the layout of the, the existing buildings that have

have reduced the buildings

and substantially modified the, the layout

of the buildings themselves.

Cliff and Anna will be able

to go through that in more detail.

We re received a lot of comments to date.

We, we've heard a lot and made a lot of revisions.

These are kind of some of the, the more

important comments that we received.

The first one was excessive impervious surface on site.

We looked at the layout, tried to reduce things

as best we can and, and modify the, the parking

and the, the driveways accessing the,

providing accessibility to the parking areas.

By modifying this, we've been able

to reduce the impervious area by over,

over 2,800 square feet.

The location of the trash area enclosure was not noted

to be ideal in in some of the comments.

So knowing this, we've relocated the trash enclosure

to a more efficient space outside of the fire lane

and drive aisle and away from the dwelling unit's.

More, more importantly, excuse me,

the vehicular site circulation could be upgraded.

We've made some modifications to the site to address this.

We've elevated the fire lane, relocated the trash enclosure

improved the a DA access, adjusted the drive aisle

and parking stalls, widths over at the EV charging area.

It was noted that there was in insufficient open space

and planting areas in, in order to improve

that we've modified the layout of the site

and the parking that this will provide increased

and improved open space

and planting areas adjacent to the new building.

This is something that Rebecca will be able to go

through in more detail along with the next comment

was received relative to the selection of,

of tree species being ill suited for the site.

Rebecca has made some modifications to the species in the,

the revised landscape plans.

And lastly, the river overlook design, impedes

neighbor access and, and snow storage.

From a a landscape perspective, Rebecca will also be able

to address that.

In order to address that, she has removed the

proposed seating from the river overlooked design

and the last item that was noted was emergency access

for Auburn Street neighbors could use some improvement

in order to try to assist with that.

We've increased the radii

of the southerly driveway entrance, allowing easier access

and maneuverability for emergency vehicles leaving the end

of Auburn Street, allowing them to completely to turn around

and exit the seat, exit the street driving forward.

Moving on to the next slide. This is the updated site plan.

Since the last hearing,

these plans have been revised in an effort to try

to address comments that were received at the various

hearings and from different dire

design review comments heard.

To this point, the parking area is the prob is

one of the bigger changes that's been modified

to provide angle parking.

This allows the driveway width

to be reduced from 24 feet to 18 feet.

The width of the driveway

and parking area between the two buildings has overall been

reduced by four feet and we've reduced the width of the

walkway adjacent to this parking area by one foot.

This allows for more landscape area between the parking area

and the new building.

We've also increased the space size for the compact

or ev spaces to eight feet wide

and 16 feet long as requested.

The dumpster area, as we discussed earlier,

has been relocated.

Originally it was set adjacent to the

easterly side of or westerly side of the new building

that's been relocated kind of around the, the corner there

to an elevated space adjacent to the

snow storage area and the bio, our retention area.

Number two, we've

also shortened up the fire department access driveway

to reduce the impervious area.

On site a DA access has been

provided to the dumpsters from both buildings.

The relocation of the dumpster

and the change to angle parking results in a loss

of four spaces total.

Now we're at 41 spaces where the,

the original site design had 45.

This still meets the minimum parking count,

which was calculated by Scott Thornton.

From that it was set at 41 spaces minimum.

So we've been trying to hold that throughout the,

the modifications to the site design.

The asphalt for the fire department access drive has been

removed and will be replaced with previous papers

and slope curving.

It'll be, it'll be an, an elevated area

with slope curving protecting it from

the adjacent drive aisle.

Next to it the dumpster will also be set up on this

elevated slope curving area.

The pervious pavers in this area will eliminate the,

the need for a a, a third bio retention area

and subsurface infiltration system to treat the,

the stormwater from this, from this impervious area,

the slope curbing is mountable.

The firetruck will be able to, to easily drive in

and access the side of the building from this area in total.

As mentioned before,

the asphalt area on the site will be reduced

by over 28,000 square feet

with these revisions additional

128.

I'm sorry, did I what You said? 28,000. Oh I'm sorry. 28.

Oh I just added a zero there. Sorry about that.

Additional pre-treatment has been added to the bio

retention areas that will remain bio retention areas number

one and two, we'll add additional pretreatment which will

bring it into compliance with the new Aquifer

protection District.

Regulations that were recently passed,

wheel stops have been added to all parking spaces

that are adjacent to curbing or buildings.

And the curb radi at the southerly entrance has been

increased or the it,

the curb radi at both entrances have have been increased.

But the curb radi,

curb radii at the southerly entrance has been increased a

little bit more to allow emergency vehicles visiting the end

of Auburn Lane to this will allow them to be able

to back into the site, turn around

and drive out forward out of Auburn Street.

After leaving the, the site we have, excuse me,

we have added Ballards at all a DA ramps

where there's parking spaces adjacent to them

and we've also added Ballards at the new building corner

that is adjacent to the fire department access drive.

And lastly all a DA ramps on site

and even the a DA ramps within Auburn Street will be treated

with the, the detectable warning strips at the,

the bottom of the ramp itself.

That's pretty much it with the site design modifications.

I can pass it off to Rebecca, she can go through that,

the landscape modifications.

Thank you Dana. Hi everyone, I'm Rebecca Bhan,

landscape architect for the project.

Everybody hanging in there.

So as Dana noted in response to this reduced impervious area

and the modified building,

the new building on the north end, we actually gained a lot

of nice open space.

So we are providing additional screening on that north end,

giving a little bit more separation to the residents

of Auburn Street from that building.

Breaking up the massing a bit more.

You can see on the plan if I put my glasses on I can see too

the lighter green circles are the existing trees to remain.

Those are primarily around the perimeter of the site.

There are no existing trees

where the proposed new building is.

If you've been out there, you know it's a really large

field right now just grass.

So we'll be adding a lot of new trees along Auburn Street

to continue that street line street tree line.

And then in filling with evergreens

around remaining property lines

to provide additional screening

and buffering question had come up previously about access

from the existing church onto the site.

There's a small pathway, we're planning to remove that

and we are now showing more detailed planting plans.

We have a hedge and some trees in that area

so there won't be access there anymore.

We actually looked at, there was a request

to change out some of the tree species.

A couple I think red maples

and white pines just have been overused over time in Natick.

So we've swapped those out with sweet gum and tulip tree.

I also eliminated the beloved oak tree from the list

because it drops something every season

and there was concern about it dropping acorns

and things that could be a hazard on

walkways or parking lots.

So those have all been swapped out.

There's a new planting schedule on the black

and white drawings that we also looked at the existing

species, the town has an inventory of all

of the trees on this property because they're currently

in the public realm.

So we have that whole list and so we've been able to compare

and make sure we're not like continuing that the monoculture

or over planting trend in the

area on the overlook.

I know it was mentioned that we've reduced some

of the scope early on.

I think in the RFP response we talked about doing an

overlook or boardwalk and things like that right now

because we heard that residents

of Auburn Street are using it to back up

and get out of their driveways

and the town DPW has been storing snow there in the winter.

We're really reducing the scope and scale of that.

We'll do the invasive plant species removal

and mitigation in coordination

with the conservation commission will maintain the flagpole

in existing lawn and maybe do some replacement plantings

as part of that conservation mitigation.

But otherwise DPW will still have hard blanc

to store their snow

and the charis can continue to back up and turn around.

We do have evergreen trees proposed to limit views

of the new building from Pleasant Street, which was one

of the concerns we heard during this process.

And we've added or relocated the bike racks.

We have three bike racks proposed for a total

of six bike parking spaces for visitors.

The residents park in the buildings and bike rooms

but those have been relocated

to right near the main entrances to each building

so they'll be convenient to everyone coming visit on bike.

And I'm really excited about,

'cause I'm excited about trash all the time,

but the trash revisions

are really allowing more flexibility of use

that we've raised that entire area up

to one level at the grade of the building.

So that new permeable paver area can really be more

of a flex space as long as there isn't an emergency,

which is hopefully most of the time.

So you could have, you know,

yard games being played out there.

Sidewalk chalk, just like a little extra space that's

separated along with the new lawn on the north

facade and Auburn Street end of that new building.

We do have solid board fencing details now in the drawing

set in the black and white version for the trash enclosure

and the property line south of the new building.

We've, if you go to the next slide,

updated the site plan site lighting.

I know this one's really hard to read

but it has the important numbers that you'll wanna see that

where we're have very limited

0.1 in just two isolated areas,

which are a little bit easier to see on the next slide.

You can see on the left south of the great lawn there's

some Ballard lights just to light

that little fire lane driveway access.

Those will be screened with plantings

that can't be reflected properly in the photometry.

And then there's one little area at the south

where the light for the emergency door in far lane will be

cut off by a solid board fence.

The biggest change is that

because we eliminated the access door on the wetland side,

yes that light will go away completely.

So that one, which is probably one

of the more noticeable be just

out there in the dark on its own.

That one's gone completely.

So otherwise throughout the site the

light levels remain the same.

All of the fixtures are dark sky compliant, full cutoff

and warm color temperature to be perceived as less red.

So now on that wetland side,

you really only have the ambient light from the units

and we were questioned about the flags.

If there is a flag, if the flag is lit, it will be

with a downlight from the pole itself, not with uplights.

So we'll make that determination as we proceed along.

I don't think I missed anything.

So I think D Davis Square is gonna take over,

go through their building changes.

Hello, I'm Cliff Palmer,

a principal at Davis Square Architects.

I'm here with Anna A. Scott whom you met at the

previous hearing.

So, and I've heard,

I'm sure I'll be corrected if I get any numbers wrong,

we've got some very active listeners here.

Anyway, I'll pick up on feedback that we have gotten

and then our responses

and then quickly go through images that

that I think back up those.

So I think the one we've heard from a lot

of different parties is that the massing

and the scale of the building aren't a good fit.

We've made very big changes on that front.

We've really redistributed the massing of the new building.

We've introduced sloped roof forms

and you'll see these in greater detail in the images,

the architectural language, of course massing is part of it,

but the architectural language is sort of more on the style

side, not consistent with the Auburn Street

and South Natick neighborhood.

The slope roofs have helped us really integrate a lot more

of this sort of indigenous design elements

that exist all around us.

The roof forms the design of building elements like bays,

window treatments and smaller elements that are decorative

but do help with the visual scale

and a variation in the materiality of the building.

So we made big changes on that front.

There were comments about weak relation of the new building

with the existing historic structure.

We have also looked at that very carefully.

I think one of the biggest things

that you'll notice is the overall composition

of the new school.

There's a a classroom building which is where all

of our residential units will be located,

but there's also about the same scale

of an auditorium building.

There are two different pieces connected with a little open

area walkway, kind of a pergo structure.

We've replicated that idea in our building.

Massing really breaking up the massing of the front piece,

the Auburn Street piece

and the back piece that's furthest away from our

closest neighbors.

Lack of landscaping of the open space between the buildings.

I think you've heard a lot both from Dana

and from Rebecca about the differences it's made by

reducing the width of the parking courtyard between

because we've reduced the width of that front piece

of the building significantly.

We really do have a lot more space now for plantings

that include both larger planting areas

at the front building

and planting areas between the walkways

and the larger mass in the back.

I will point out that it,

and it hasn't been mentioned to this point

but I'm just gonna put it in here, is as far

as useful open space, I think it is important to note

that within walking distance of our site,

certainly on our own site we have a very big open lawn.

I'll let the site people tell you exactly what percentage,

I think it's about 15 to 20% of the entire lot is

that front yard that we're not proposing any development in.

And there are also five walkable parks within six tenths

of a mile that do include the,

include the multi-purpose park, the Honeywell ballparks,

the Memorial Elementary School, the Shaw Park,

and of course a little park that's at the dam.

So there are lots of walkable areas

that provide both passive

and active recreation opportunities

for the residents of the building.

The last comment I thought was a terrific one that we heard,

which is that the materials

that we were presenting really insufficiently

showed the views from other perspectives.

We'd been focusing really in our initial presentations

of the views from Auburn Street.

We've looked at a lot more locations as Rebecca mentioned,

and in some cases have even add some landscaping

to enhance the screening from those perspectives.

So we can go to the next slide

and you can start to see some of what I was talking about.

I'll start with the, of course the new building.

Although I will say I keep in mind that the

school building itself, the notion is

that it is a very careful historic restoration.

So we're not really allowed

to make big changes on that building.

It will just be made much, much better.

Of course the use is changing radically,

but the the energy consumption, accessibility

and really maintaining it for the long term is what

that scope is about in that building.

In the new building, I think you see the

scale and the massing.

We have a small kind

of single family scale piece on the front.

A really a radically different width of that facade

that's facing Auburn Street.

We've provided sloped roofs instead of flat roofs in all

of the primary views of the building.

The third floor units in our previous design,

it was a flat roof building.

All the third floor units were ex an extension of,

of the floor below In this new plan,

the third floor units are,

are embedded in the roofscape of the building.

We've changed the colors quite a bit.

You know, we've looked around, there are a lot

of white buildings in South Natick.

We think it works well on this building as well.

We're using some roof color in the, in our new building

that we think will relate to the masonry in the

existing school building.

And then of course adding, as I had mentioned

before, some smaller scale pieces

that are very commonly deployed in single family homes

that really help break up the boxing us of,

of even small homes.

We can look at the next slide that is a, just a

reminder of where we were.

I think this slide probably best shows the difference

that you see when the front piece is much narrower

and the space between the historic building

and the new build and the

and the new building has increased quite a lot.

What you see in these images of the new building,

we've cut down on the density of the trees

so you can actually see the facades of the building.

But the trees that you do see depicted in

that rendering our trees, that correspond to

what Rebecca was showing in her landscape plans.

That last view is sort of close to elevation views.

This is a perspective view

and I wanna point out

that in all the perspective views we show,

because there have been questions about

what you see up on the roof

'cause there is a flat roof area in the building

that you'll see a little bit more of and a little bit.

These are perspective views

that actually do include the mechanical equipment on the

roofs, the flat roofed areas of the building.

So what you see in these images is really what you get,

you know, up to the level of what we know at this point.

We're not at even design development

but we've made very good guesses based on,

on comparable size buildings of how big the equipment,

the rooftop equipment would be.

They are in these models.

So as I, I think that's really important to note that

that's not something that we're not dealing with regularly.

The next image, you get a even a better view of that,

of that idea of really breaking up the

massing of the building.

Taking the, the more monolithic concept

that we had moving the entryway so that we'd have nicely

proportioned two different pieces tied together with

corridor space and you'll see that in the next

view a little better.

That's a shot looking into what a corridor light

that will bring, make those corridors in the building,

bring light into the inside of the building,

we think is both nice for the residents,

but really important, an important element to break up

that overall scale of, of the big building.

What you see to the right of that pedestrian there.

Resident is part of the building

that we think makes a nice connection over

to the historic building.

The, I think you'll remember from some of the other views,

there are large bay really

prominent bays on the school building facing

that courtyard on our back piece.

Those correspond actually quite closely to those gagged bays

in the, in the larger half of the building towards the rear

of the site quickly.

Floor plans are next.

I I just wanna recap, it's 32 units

nine overall counting both buildings.

Nine of those units are in the school building.

We can do very little changes in the

plans of the school building.

We have to retain the existing corridor widths.

We can't break down all the walls of the classrooms.

And we have the good fortune

that the typical classroom size is very close

to being the one bedroom size that meets the, the

requirements of the funding sources

and also just make nice one bedroom units.

So nine of those units are in the school building.

The 23 new units are in the new building.

You heard earlier that we're providing four

group two units

and group two units in Massachusetts,

Massachusetts Architectural access board

language means fully accessible units on day one.

There are actually two categories,

but it's basically fully dimension dimensionally consistent

with fully accessible units.

We are providing four of those, which is 12.5%.

The code requires 5%

but we think it's a really nice, nice, a nice thing

to provide is enhanced accessibility in the building.

In addition, in the school building

which is exempt, the school building

is in a architectural access board is exempt even from group

one units, which are sort of generically known

as adaptable units.

However, we are making three of those units,

group one units.

So the accessibility picture overall is really

way above and beyond what code would require.

The, in the, I mentioned

before that the auditorium building, that's where all

of the common use spaces are.

Any of the significant common use spaces for the residents.

There's bike storage office space for the management company

conference room, but we haven't decided

where the mail's gonna go yet.

We haven't met with the post office.

We're not at that point in the design yet.

All of those common uses are fully accessible in the,

in the auditorium wing of the, the two building complex

that makes up the historic buildings.

The new building is elevator fed.

So all of those units will be either group two,

which is four

and then the remainder of those 19 units will be,

will meet group one requirements which are the so-called

adaptable units.

So that's the building notion elevations

to the left, you see the Auburn street elevation there.

I think you see really the big difference.

Before what we had in massing was close

to a uniform width of the building

that went the full round of the building.