Needham Select Board, 9/22/26

Thank you for watching!

Recording in progress. Good evening and welcome to the Select Board meeting for Tuesday, September 22nd. This meeting is being broadcast by The Needham Channel, The Town's YouTube channel and via Zoom and it's being recorded for publication and later viewing. in accordance with the open meeting law if anyone else in the room wishes to record the meeting they are required to notify the chair first so that the chair may inform our other attendees I see uh that we have the Needham observer and the Needam local but I have not received notification from anyone else. Is anyone else planning to record the meeting? Okay, thank you Okay, so we are going to start as we always do with public comments. And I believe we have someone here who would like to come up and give a public comment. Come on up. You can have a seat here. All three? Okay, fantastic.

I'm gonna ask you to make sure to introduce yourselves name and address please. And generally we try to keep comments to about three minutes.

We understand. So we're going to divide it up so it adds up to three minutes. Perfect. I'll start, my name is Sue Kessner My name is Susan Kessner, I live at 41 Brentwood Circle in Needham and this is Margaret Pantridge who lives on South Street. I don't know the address. 945 South Street and with us is Rob McClain as you probably know our newish library director. We are here representing the program committee of the Friends of the Needham Public Library. The Friends, as you probably know, are a nonprofit group dedicated to promoting the public library and providing it with additional resources beyond our taxpayers' and Dollars. We have been presenting programs to the public for over 50 years, not us but for over fifty years. We are here because we want to cordially invite you, the Select Board and of course all of the residents of Needham and well beyond, to our 2026-27 Salon Series.

You should have received from Miles a list of the programs It looks like this. highlighting all seven of our programs this year plus our three annual book sales, which is one of the main ways we raise funds for the library. Each year we get actually a little bit more ambitious in our programming. Margaret and I are co-chairs. We think this year's lineup is especially interesting, so we wanted to bring it to your attention We like to think that Needham, like the Great Hall concert series in Needham are Our programs are helping to establish Needham as an even more culturally vibrant town. And in the great tradition of public libraries, we are making it a place that offers great cultural opportunities under the rubric of all are welcome and free to all.

So this year, and this is one of the things that spurred us to come before you. We have a really particularly great program Nathaniel Philbrick, who wrote In the Heart of the Sea and won the National Book Award for Nonfiction for it. He also wrote Mayflower is going to be speaking here at Powers Hall on November 17th at seven o'clock about his new book, about the California gold rush. And it will be free to the public and all are welcome, but you have to register. And we're especially excited because Nathaniel Philbrick is a big name author We have presented many great authors, professors and experts but we've really never presented as part of our regular series anyone of the stature of Nathaniel Philbrick. and he's coming to us while on a national book tour.

And most of his other, in fact every other appearance in the Boston area is paid you have to pay to go to it so it's a nice opportunity for Needhamites and the friends are presenting this program in conjunction with the library itself. We've formed a collaboration, usually we do our programs more or less separately, but we joined forces on this one. And this opportunity came to us for two reasons. One is that we have Powers Hall since the library's renovation. We've got the right venue for a program of this stature. And it was one of the points that we made in our pitch and then the other reason we're able to do it is really because of Rob McLean, our new-ish as Sue said. Library Director, who had experience working with national publishers and nationally prominent authors in his previous job in Weymouth.

So he brought that knowledge and skill to Needham with them. And it's something that we've always wanted to do, and never been able to do it before. So we're really thrilled to be able to this And you might be wondering what we're asking of you. And we're simply asking you to come to the program if you're free and to bring your friends and family and to help us celebrate Needham as a vibrant cultural... Center, and a place that can attract an author like Nathaniel Philbrick. So we hope you'll join us. And we urge you to sign up soon because the seats are going fast. you're welcome and i just had we have some um flyers that about the philbert program so hope to see you there thank you i was able to attend the concert on sunday first part it was fantastic

great thanks well that was the best kind of comment so thank you awesome OK. Is there anyone else in the room who intended to make public comment tonight? I don't see anyone. So we're going to move on and we're gonna go first to our first public hearing which is a Eversource grant of location at 47 Robinwood Avenue, and I expect we're waiting for Joanne Callender.

Good evening.

Hi, Joanne.

How are you? We are well thanks how are you wonderful great thank you great now we can so every source is every source grant of location to install, actually we're not installing anything. We're relocating a pole 20 feet north of its current location on Robinwood Avenue and this is to make way for a new driveway that's going to be for the new home at 47 Robinwood Avenue. And I would also mention that we should have included an additional petitioned for eight feet of conduit, but unfortunately we neglected to get that into the board. So I will be back at your next meeting to ask for conduits for this same project.

Okay, thank you Joanne. Well so Madam Town Manager I would usually ask if everything was in order it sounds like it's not so much

Well, I think we are requesting the board move forward with the poll requests in front of you and that piece of it is in order. So we're just going to treat as two matters. Two separate matters.

Okay do any of my colleagues have any any thoughts they want to offer on this?

All right. One question, the existing pole will that be removed soon after the new pole I know that the wiring will have to be changed

Exactly. So I really can't say yes or no to that question because it depends on what other utilities are currently on that poll, so all the utilities have to be removed off before Verizon can remove the poll. it goes through a process we'll move ours for sure and then the next utilities would need to move theirs before the poll could be removed

I know there's a long backlog of polls being removed by Verizon, so I guess we can expect to have two polls there for some amount of time.

Well, I would hope not because the homeowner needs that pole removed in order to have his new driveway. So hopefully sooner than later. Perfect. Thank you.

All right, super. This is a public hearing. Is there anyone in the audience who is here to make a comment on this matter? Come on up So just have a seat and let us know your name and address, please.

Bill Vigger, 59 Robinwood Avenue. I actually have a similar situation. I have a pole that's been sort of in the center of my driveway that a lot of cars frequently back into delivery drivers. We've been there for about nine or 10 years and I'm constantly picking up tail lights You know, I have friends that have had thousands of dollars worth of damage. And we're actually next door to 47 Robinwood Avenue. So I'm the husband of Ali Blower and Yeah, I just wanted to inquire about the process. I put a call into Eversource have not heard back from them but anything I can do literally the poll right next door to that that's in the same sort of ominous position

Yeah, okay. So I'm gonna... That's not something that we're going to talk about here but we will have the office of the town manager get in touch with you and help you to figure out who it is that you need to call. I don't think it's Eversource I think as we talked about just with this poll, it's probably Verizon. They own the polls so that it's like kind of a complicated process. As the Vice Chair mentioned there is a long backlog on their end, and this is something that the town will endeavor to help you with.

That would be great. I've talked to the builder who's working with Eversource but I have not heard back from them

Okay. Can you just, can we just make sure to get your name and info? You guys will connect. Super.

Wonderful. Thank you. You're 39 right? 59 Robinwood Avenue

Okay, great.

Thank you.

Thanks. OK, anyone else in the room who wanted to make a comment? Anyone else online? OK. All right then I think we have decided we're only talking about the poll tonight. So if anyone is ready, I would welcome a motion.

Move that the select board vote to approve and sign a petition from Eversource Energy to relocate one pole on Robinwood Avenue. Second.

All right, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Okay great the motion passes Joanne uh I know we have another one but we'll see you back on this one next week yes great so the next one is uh 99 Hillcrest Road

Yes. Eversource is seeking a grant location to install approximately 19 feet of conduit into Wenling Road, if that's correct pronunciation. And that is to provide underground service to a brand new single family home at 99 Hillcrest Road.

okay thank you everything in order it is yeah okay um colleagues anyone opinion no no okay anyone in the public uh here to comment on this grant of location in the room? Looks like no. Online, it looks like no, OK.

In that case? Madam Chair, I move that the Select Board vote to approve and sign a petition from Eversource Energy to install approximately 19 feet of conduit in Wendling Road.

Second.

All right, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Okay, motion passes. Thank you Joanne. See you next week. Thank You see you next time All right, the next thing on our agenda is a joint meeting of the Select Board and Commissioners of Trust Funds. So I'm going to invite the commissioners to join us here at the table maybe next to the microphones great welcome and if you first of all if you could call your meeting to order and then perhaps introduce yourselves so the public

All right, so calling the meeting of the commissioners of trust funds to order. My name is Julia Cosentino, 265 Great Plain Avenue in Needham. I am chair of the Commissioners.

Thank you

Daniel Burns, 6 Luart Drive and I'm the secretary of the commissioners.

Excellent nice to see you both again All right, so I'm going to just turn this over to the vice chair who has been talking with you about appointing an applicant to fill your vacancy.

So we met all three of us with, well we met four times as a committee I believe. Three times maybe? Three times as committee and we called for applicants for the vacant seat. It was advertised for two consecutive weeks, three postings on NewsU Needham We received 10 applications, which was fantastic. There's really a lot of interest and we interviewed all ten in the videos posted you can watch them It was actually kind of difficult in choosing who to recommend. We ended up recommending two applicants, of which one will be appointed. The two applicants we recommended were Deborah Bedecker and Katie McDonald. I'll just briefly say a couple of words about each of them. So Deborah has lived in Needham for one year, so she's a new resident but she has 30 years of Institutional Investment Experience, including with tax exempt foundations endowments and pension plans. Katie McDonnell has lived in Needham for 15 years

has 25 years of experience in philanthropy, also endowments. And they both have very good experience and so we're really happy that there's such a wealth of interested and qualified applicants.

Do you guys want to speak to your feelings about the candidates or do you have a recommendation?

Why don't I start and we can see if we end up at our recommendation. Step back a little bit, we did receive 10 applicants. They all had a wealth of experience in finance business Technology, Community Service. What we used as sort of the gating skill was working with endowments because our trust funds are endowments and they require a CERN approach to investing, a certain approach to expenditures. and an overriding focus on the donor's intent. And so that's why these particular candidates rose to the top because of their significant experience with endowment funds and philanthropy.

When we think about what the skills are required for this job in addition to having some endowment experience, I mean, the mission of the commissioners is the prudent investment of trust funds. The trust funds and the second part of the mission is the proven expenditure But there's also one other element, which is to try to encourage civic minded individuals in Needham to contribute to the trust funds. So here we had one candidate with, again, significant investment experience which goes to one of the missions. And then another candidate with significant fundraising experience which goes to encouraging our citizenry to donate. So it's not an easy call, here.

I think if we were to look at the core of prudent investment and prudent expenditure, then Deborah has the investment skill set. The question, though, is what about the extent to which we want to encourage citizens as well as Katie's longtime residency in Needham? So I presented issues. Why don't I turn it over to Dan to sort of fill some of it in.

Sure, so I think you did a great job at sort of spelling out how we think about the mandate. And Julia's background professionally is very strong on the kind of Trust and Legal side. My background is more kind of compliance operations, kind of light investment management accounting and so as we consider these two, well as we considered all the candidates but in particular these remaining two We were trying to think about who would be, not so much who's better per se because that's a difficult question to answer given the multiple tasks but who best complements the two of our professional backgrounds. Do you want to take it from there?

Yeah. And so what we came down with is that investments and the assessment of managers, outside managers because of course there's an outside manager that assists us would be a skill set that we would tend to prize more because it rounds out the skills that we already have. and Deborah fits into that category. But I don't know if the Select Board has other things that they have in mind or if Josh, you want to add anything to that so...

I don't have anything to add. I think that's a really good characterization and I appreciate, and I understand and I agree with your thought process.

I would just say that barring any reason to do otherwise my inclination would be to go with your person, your recommendation. And it seemed to me in watching the deliberations that you were were fairly clear that you had a singular candidate who was your choice. And it would be my recommendation that we appoint that person.

Yeah. First off, so I watched the interviews and I was amazed by the depth and professionalism of the candidates. And like we got these from Needham? there was a lot and they were all really very well qualified. And so I was impressed with Deborah as well, I thought she was Very well qualified. You're hiring a chainsaw to cut butter, she's very strong on that. I would defer to your recommendation then.

Kathy? Yeah, the question that I was going to ask was the one that you just answered which is what do you feel you are most missing in your group and you've answered that so i think that was the you know the one thing that was on my mind as well would in fact complement the skills that you have. Keith?

No, I would defer to them. It's too bad sometimes we only have one opening when we have so many good candidates but there is an election! We can remind everyone there will be an election next April maybe some of the candidates will take that into consideration as well.

Yeah, so an important reminder that it's important that this candidate understand that they're appointed until the date of our next town election which is in April and that if that appointment wants to run, that they would not be listed as an incumbent. That they would run with whoever else decided to be a candidate.

And I believe in the notice asking, calling for applications it was clear that it would be service until the April town meeting. We didn't get into the detail of incumbent or not but there you go.

All right, fantastic. In that case...

I would make a motion that the Select Board and Commissioner of Trust Fund vote to appoint Debra, I'm going to butcher her last name, Bordicker, is that correct? Okay. To the Commission of Trust funds until the next town election. Second.

Right. So

do they vote?

we get to vote all together you guys can vote and then if they want to make their motion a separate motion yeah okay um all right well in that case for the select board all those in favor of emotion say aye aye okay that's five four

So I make a motion for... Yeah, you're going to make a notion to appoint your candidate. Okay so I move that Deborah Bodicker be appointed to fill the vacancy that now exists on the commissioners of trust funds. Perfect. So moved. All in favor?

Aye. Excellent, we are delighted that you now have a third commissioner and unless there's anything else that you want to say on this

then I would invite you well we're excited for Deborah to join us and grateful that she applied excellent and grateful to this

Bodie in the Town, and Miles for just kind of helping us through the appointment process and for generating so many great candidates. That was very nice.

It was great working with both of you. Thank you. Do I now adjourn? Okay, I move that we adjourn. So moved. Okay, there we go. Thank you.

two person committees are a blast. All right, so the next thing on our agenda is to introduce the Superintendent of Parks and Forestry. And for that we're looking at I think Shane Mark Tim, come on up. Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't see you. I just assumed that he was sitting in a chair. All right. Welcome, especially to you, Tim.

So I'm very pleased today to come before the board, to introduce our new Superintendent of Parks and Forestry. Tim's been with us for two weeks now originally we thought about bringing him in on your first meeting but that was his first day so we figured we'd give him a little bit of time to address to Needham. Kim comes from us, from the city of Brockton where he was there for about 15 years, and then before that the golf course industry. We know he has some big shoes to fill in Needham and certainly a presence in the community so we're really excited to have him on board.

excellent welcome thank you do you have anything well um you know obviously uh i am very excited about this opportunity it There are many facets of this position that are really exciting to me, and I look forward to serving the town and performing all the duties along with the job.

Excellent. Well, we are delighted to have you. I've already been in at least one meeting with you and have appreciated that. And so you do have big shoes to fill but I feel confident that you've got it all under control. So thank you and welcome.

Thank you. Welcome. It's a very visible role, and you may get some flack from residents but you know what? It's okay because it's a really important job. Absolutely, 100%. So thank you.

I just echo what John said, we're here to support you and I've been lucky enough to already meet with him. Reviewed Memorial Park, got a little bit of intricacies there and he was great and very understanding, took a lot of great notes. I noticed some things have already been done driving there this evening. So I appreciate a lot and anything we can do to help you, please feel free to reach out.

Will do. Thank you.

Welcome to Needham. It's great that you're here. I'm always surprised and pleased when we see people coming for us, new hires, the range of things they study. And you were a philosophy major. So, three questions.

Favorite philosopher? I favored political philosophy more than something like symbolic logic. So, I would say probably Thomas Hobbes Oh, okay.

That's a personal favorite.

All right. Number two, meaning of life. I'll skip that one. Green grass. And third question, favorite tree?

Ooh, controversial.

That is a tough one. So I went to Union College and my grandfather was professor there and lived on campus and there's this beautiful garden behind his house. It was called Jackson's Garden, and he actually was the first person to discover Dutch elms disease, taking out all the elm trees at Union College. Very heavily involved in the landscape of Union College but in Jackson's Garden I actually named my son Jackson anyways there was this beautiful old ginkgo tree that I remember climbing as a kid. So, I guess I would say the Ginkgo.

All right.

That's a surprise. That was a good one. Thank you very much and welcome.

Well, thrilled to welcome you. And Thomas Hobbs actually is my own personal favorite. So we have a connection there. Score. Leviathan, anyone. But also I really noticed all the in your resume, all the work that you've done with other groups with the state with environmental groups, etc. And I really liked that. That was great.

Excellent. Well, welcome. Thank you. Two weeks in, you're no longer new. This is your moment of glory. Good gloves are off. The gloves are off, exactly.

McLean's still milking the new library director. That is fair. That was unkind of me. Thank you very much.

All right. So we are going to talk about next the purchase and sale of secondhand goods, and our policy about the same. Welcome, welcome.

Good evening, how are you?

Very good, how're you? Good.

Keep a little lock up.

Good evening. Welcome, gentlemen. Tell us about it.

So thank you for the time to discuss secondhand goods permitting which is both required by certain ports of MGL and Bylaws. The reason this is on your agenda today is over the past year, we have seen an increasing number of transient metal buyers come into town host weeklong buying I don't know what to call them buying, they set up shop in some of our local hotels. Some of you may have received mailers about these and because all purchasers and sellers of secondhand goods need to be licensed. This is something the board needs to do, if you recall on two of your previous consent agendas. These were approved under our current process, which does not have a policy because we haven't really needed one up until this point but in discussing with

Some business owners and in discussing with the police department, several concerns came up relative to transient vendors versus our traditional brick-and-mortar secondhand goods stores. think Closet Exchange, think West Bridgewater Coin out right across from the police station. who have a very strong relationship not only with the town administration but the police department whom and who we all know and are trusted actors within the town to be good neighbors and act with integrity in their sales, have good processes. And they have a long all of them have longstanding relationships with the Needham Police Department to not only ensure their inventory, but consumer protection effectively. And a concern that is raised is when someone's coming into town and perhaps they are making a sale or rather a purchase of goods

not to say these businesses are fraudulent in many cases. In most cases, they're not perfectly reputable folks. There is a concern though that they could make a sale. They may have committed some sort of Again, I don't want to put the wrong words out here but maybe not be the most above. They could take advantage. There's the potential for less than above board transactions and this policy specifically would put into place conditions that would reduce the risk to consumers, to Needham residents and our neighbors who come into town engage with these businesses and they're here in the policy. They have both an inspection, it's making sure their scales are done through our relationship with the county

and again just to provide that added level of engagement communication and assurance that things that we don't really worry about because of that long-standing relationship with our brick and mortars who would not see a change in practice through this policy. To summarize, There's a need for this because of folks coming into town, doing precious metals buying. The steps being recommended here would apply only to these transient vendors not to our current brick and mortars and it would be to help assure our residents are being treated fair protected yeah and we're happy to answer questions

have there been issues or is this preventative?

I think it's a little bit of both. There are two things that we wanted to concentrate on a level playing field other towns cities around us have these policies in place so what was happening is they were coming here and they were facing no Registration, no policies and really no structure. So that was we wanted to make sure we got on a level playing field but also we want to protect the consumers a lot of times these type of businesses will come in people will see that In the past what we've seen in these type of, they call them like pawnbrokers, pawnshops that people will bring stolen materials there to sell. Our ability to track that, to track the pieces that are taken and bought were able to now go back if those items appear on

you know another police department put something out this type of ring or watch or something was stolen we can go back and check our records. We can submit this information to Nespin which takes all of the pond sheets from most of the towns around us puts it into a database so if Franklin has something where party A is selling a lot of stuff and they come to Needham and they're pawning a lot we can match that up and say okay this now this is something off with this so It'll help our detectives assist them in investigations and protecting our residents and the consumers that come to town.

Okay. May I ask a question? Sure. Are the proposed regulations for merchants without a physical storefront different than ones with a physical

So they are a little bit more requirements. we, when the I don't know what the name of the store is came in. We met with them they had a store and I think it was East Bridge or I always spoke with these bridge water police We went down to them, we told them what we would like and they've cooperated with us. Our detectives go in there occasionally speak with him. We'll get records he's good about handing that stuff over But they're a brick and mortar. The transients will come and go, so they're going to hit and leave. And if we don't have the ability to track what they're doing, we have no way to go after that or search that because they've already left. So that's the main difference. Prior to that There was very little buying of jewelry or accessories in town at the jewelry stores and so forth.

Absent, obviously the clothing exchange is different but...

I guess I completely understand the need to have regulations at a similar level as brick and mortar. But the Needham Observer just had an article last week about business regulations, and how they're potentially too onerous Is it a safety reason to have them above and beyond what brick-and-mortar establishments are regulated under?

Yeah, it is a safety issue. But it's also making sure that everyone's on a level playing field because if they come in and they don't have any type of regulations at brick-and-mortar do It's not fair to them, so we have to track the brick and mortar. And there are a little bit more guidelines in place because they are transient. And that's what we do to make sure that we're capturing the information we need.

and I think to your point is the brick-and-mortar folks in town our long-standing business have a good relationship this does not propose any changes to them they are operating with good business practices we do not wish to just add additional regulations to them. It's the folks who we don't have that relationship as a backstop, too, to the chiefs point saying if there's hypothetical situation, gold watch is stolen in the next community over gets brought. Will we want to keep a 30 day log for the buyers? here that we would have to say, oh, we actually had this and you said that you have this. And we'd like to do that. Whereas to correct me if I'm wrong, but we have the relationship with the precious, not the precious metal buyers in town but the brick and mortar second hand good buyers to say hey you have this watch and they would cooperate with us.

They hold it and they'll wait for a certain period of time and then they'll take action on it but it gives us an opportunity if there is something suspicious whether it's potentially involved in a theft that we can track it.

One more question, would this apply to pop-up establishments? for a temporary period of time are brick and mortar but not permanent. I think that's a very good question.

I'm not sure that we've had a business case where it's a pop-up secondhand goods seller.

essentially they're doing that now for a week or weekend. It's not, they're not coming in for months but they'll come in for you know couple weeks and move to a different state or two a different part of Massachusetts so I would assume that if someone wants to come in on a pop-up depending on the length of time, then I think that would apply because it's not consistent brick and mortar is how I would approach that.

Madam Chair, if I could. I want to thank you for bringing this to us. This is something that obviously isn't a merchant issue with this is a new thing that they're coming to our town. To the extent to which other towns have these kinds of rules and we don't, I feel like we would be attracting maybe some of those lesser desirable or people who are looking to evade rules frankly if they may be attracted to a place with no rules. And so to me this is a loophole that you have appropriately found for us to close so I appreciate the work

This all kind of came to light from a couple complaints. People, other dealers in the industry saw these ads for Needham and were like calling us saying hey What's going on? What regulations do you have? Why are these people allowed to just come in and sell things? So it kind of came to our attention in that manner. Bill?

The last bullet point on this where we have talks about, you know for a second hand goods merchant without permanent physical storefront the very last line says notify the Needham Police Department and Office of Dates, Times and Locations of Operation, if multiple periods of operation occur. I'm hoping that they notify you any time they come and not just in multiple operations so I'm not sure why the multiple operations

So that's a logistical piece as it relates to a license that is issued for sale of secondhand goods. This is where Mass General Law comes in, this is an annual license. So even if they're coming for a week, this is an annual license. If we know that they are coming from multiple points in time, we need to be notified of that because there only The town is only able to issue this license on an annual basis. It's one of the springtime licenses that you get with all the other low frequency pool tables, taxi cabs.

But if they come once, they notify us when they're coming? Yeah.

can you help me understand this again the last bullet point but on the policy yeah it says in addition to providing some of the information about their scale having been inspected etc they're going to agree to, and then there's a list of things that they're gonna agree to keep the log of sales and hold purchase goods for 30 days. How do they agree? Is that just like a attestation or something?

It would be. It would signing as part of their application and maybe sign on life soon under the penalty of perjury. Okay.

We had something recently in that those people emailed pictures of the items, a log of the So then we can give them to detectives and say hey you know if anything comes across that you looking for these items here they are.

No, I like this. I think there's an issue with especially art theft of the transient seller, the transient buyer. So I think this gives you some tools to work this thing.

I just want to confirm that this is intended to disincentivize illegitimate businesses from doing business in town. It's not meant to disincentivize legitimate businesses from doing business in town.

It's there to make sure they're following the rules and the guidelines, whoever comes in. It's not pointed towards one or another. If somebody that has ill intentions and sees that there are regulations and they have to do this, okay, there's regulations there, I'm not going. Well, Needham doesn't have them, we're going. So this is to make sure everyone's on the same playing field and it's directed at everybody so that they understand what regulations are in place and have to abide by them to conduct their business.

But it's not for anti-competitive purposes. Not at all, no.

No, not at all. Consumer protection, really. Thank you.

Craig?

thank you all all right very much thanks

Okay, next we are pleased to welcome Timothy McDonald, the Director of Health and Human Services. to speak with us about the Community Nutrition Revolving Account. Hi!

Hi!

It's been a while since you were here. It has. Welcome back.

Thank you, nice to be here. The request to the Select Board and to Town Meeting is to consider a revision to an existing revolving fund we have had in place for decades now a traveling meals program more than 50 years old and we have a revolving fund which supports that program. We pay out to the hospital who currently prepares all the meals for the Traveling Meals Program from that account, and we take in receipts from Springwell which is the Aging Service Access Point acting on behalf of the state a handful of private pay clients as well as charitable donations from the Friends of the Needham Board of Health and Traveling Meals. And the program runs relatively in balance, maybe a slight surplus The request is to broaden the language that governs that revolving fund in a similar manner to what was approved by town meeting last May.

when we moved the Immunization Revolving Fund to be a sort of more general public health services revolving fund. The hope is that the Traveling Meals Fund could become a community nutrition fund, which would potentially allow us to pay money out for and take in receipts to support congregate meals, potentially at the Center of the Heights community dinners and other sort of supplemental nutrition events. Senior food insecurity is a growing issue. And I think this will give us a little bit more flexibility as we try to address that across the HHS divisions.

Great, and just to be clear you are asking for more flexibility in the funding sources and payment ability that you already have but you're not asking for there's no more money? I mean this is not a budgetary request.

Not at this point, no. So right now for example we have a program at the Senior Center called Dinner Bell We are not able to pay out from a revolving fund or take in money from it, so we receive a donation from a community partner and we may say that there's a suggested donation from everyone who attends. Sometimes you get lucky and you come close to recouping when you have that process. If you actually charge people, you come very close to actually making a balance there. When you're asking for donations, you don't. but this will allow more programming down the road. That's the goal, I do think it complements the physical renovation that we're going through at The Cath right now to expand the kitchen to add the handicap accessible rear entrance and expand some of the program spaces. And it is sort of one step to hopefully position us for a broader community nutrition program.

Obviously, that's one of my goals, one of the goals of the Board of Health and the Council on Aging, but that'll be submitted as part of the town's normal process.

What's your sense about senior food insecurity? Is it growing, is more than we realize?

So we did a comprehensive community health survey over the summer in the public health division. We closed it a few weeks ago and the epidemiologist and the assistant director are actually still crunching the numbers So I wish I had a nice stat to say this. What I will say is, and I don't think it's a surprise to the Select Board, Needham has a community that's changed the nature of it over time. People who bought into the community a long time ago and maybe on fixed income have seen their community become quite a bit more affluent. And if you are at a fixed income, that's challenging especially when in light of sort of the inflation and then especially the food related inflation We are going to do a qualitative data gathering project, so key informant interviews focus groups this fall to try to supplement the quantitative data we got in that community health survey. So I do hope to sort of Be able to present both the quantitative and qualitative data and paint a fuller picture.

Anecdotally, the social work team at Aging Services works with a lot of seniors who are struggling to afford medicine, food, utilities rent or mortgage if they have it. It's challenging. I realize I prepared a slide deck and then didn't talk about it at all, but I think that's okay.

That was a very nice slide deck. Reading it in the packet.

I actually have a question of something that's on the slide. So talking about the limitation of the current fund, the Traveling Meals Revolving Fund, that it can only receive money from one program and if you get other food-related revenue it has to go into the general fund. Is this something that you're experiencing now, like that this is happening?

So there are two options if we take in the receipts and there isn't a revolving fund set up then we do have to deposit that into the General Fund We can do the sort of tactic I suggested earlier, which is there's a suggested donation. We'd love for you to make a donation so that we can continue doing program like this again. If if you charge, you come close to breaking even if you ask for a donation you're at 50%.

Would changing the revolving fund make a change?

It would allow us to spend money for a broader group of programs. So not just the traveling meals, but other home delivered meals to seniors or a congregate breakfast program at the senior center.

But I'm just trying to understand this particular situation where you're saying asking for a donation versus taking payment, does the revolving fund change? Yes.

we wouldn't have to ask for a donation. We would say, it costs this much and we would use our normal process that we used through the income verification with the social work team for people who need Free or Reduced Price, which we already do for programs and the trips that the Council on Aging does.

Okay, that's helpful.

I'm very involved with Travelling Meals and the Friends of Travelled Meals. I'm delivering Traveling Meals tomorrow morning, so I know it very well. And I love that this is going to be able to do more by doing this but my only concern is with a new name The Community Nutrition Revolving Fund. I don't want people to lose sight that traveling meals is still part of the community nutrition fund so i think We have to make sure that, I don't want someone to say like oh it's Community Nutrition Revolving Fund so community nutrition is now they may think of it at the cath. So I have to go to cath and I can't get a traveling meal. So i just wanna make sure we can and I'm sure your people can do that to make sure that people still know that the traveling mails are available but I think it's a good point to highlight like we can work with Amy to try to make

Obviously, the Traveling Meals program is near and dear to my heart too. So I don't want it to get lost but I do wanna try to make it a broader fun that gives us a little more flexibility.

I totally agree with that. I just don't it to give lost.

Yep, we'll definitely focus on that.

I think the flexibility is really important, especially as you have so many programs that you want to run. I guess the two components are to change the funding for existing programs, which seems like a no-brainer. It means that you can run your programs more effectively than what you're already doing The second component of new programming, I think we just have to talk about what that means because if there are budgetary impacts like more headcounts to run these new programs how is that going to be funded? Is that through the budget? through charges to the revolving funds. We just need to talk through that because there are pressures on her shoulders.

Yeah, what we have in place this year because the renovations to Cath are affecting the game room and the fitness areas for a couple more weeks, basically three months in total. The physical renovations are impacting the kitchen and the cafe where meals are usually eaten and the rear vestibule to be through the end of December, beginning of January. So right now we don't have any place to prepare meals at CAF. What we've done this year is a partnership with Needham Public Schools so we are paying the Needham public schools to produce at a school cafeteria under the supervision of, you know, the cooks and the site managers and ultimately up to Emily Murphy, the director of School Nutrition.

healthy, nutritionally appropriate meals for seniors that are then delivered to cath for consumption on site and also delivered to some folks that qualify in the not quite traveling meals but still need a home meal program. that's not our title of it we've come up with something a little wittier than that but the general idea they're producing 60 meals a day for us right now um we've done it for two months we've gotten a lot of positive feedback about the improvement in the quality of the food. The food previously that would be served at lunch at Cath, like physically on site was from a vendor that Springwell hired in Waltham that froze everything the night before sent it to the senior center, we microwaved it. It was food but it wasn't of the highest quality. The Needham Public Schools nutrition team does a pretty darn good job so people are pretty happy with what they've been getting last couple months.

When you go back, when you have a kitchen at the CAF are you going to bring it back to a vendor or stay with the Newham Public Schools?

So to Springwell temporarily but I think one of the things that the town manager and select board in the finance committee will see as part of this year's budget process is a request for some funding support. When I think of I think it's sometimes a little bit easier instead of thinking about and others. So I think it's really important for us to be thinking about how do we get to the price of $750 or $8 for a meal which is what the Needham public schools will charge including sort which is not insignificant actually, the cost of packaging and stuff. So how do you get to $8 a meal? What is an appropriate level to charge seniors? is it $1? Seems like a good deal for seniors. Is it $8? That might be expensive and hard to do for some people. What's the sweet spot? Is it three, four or five? What sort of subsidy could the town potentially provide?

Is there a role for the Friends of the Needham Board of Health and Travel Meals, and the Friends at the Center Heights to do fundraising to support those goals because they are organizations that are 501c3s that are targeted to support that population. does it potentially also rely on the hospital? The hospital is a great partner and has supported the public health division in the traveling meals program for a long time. The hospital, um, is eager for us to find a new home I think we're not bad people, but they have space constraints and operational constraints. And it would be a lot easier for them if we weren't taking up capacity in their kitchen. Would the hospital be willing as part of a community benefit or a pilot program to support part of the costs of doing a community nutrition for needy seniors?

um and if you put all those things together can you run in balance or in a very slight surplus that's my hope i gotta figure out how to make that math work thanks for thinking creatively about that

Excellent. Anything else? All right, thanks. Thank you very much. All right.

Madam Chair, I'd like to move the consent calendar

second excellent idea okay any discussion uh the appointments as well okay and the appointments

while you're doing that can just point out that for early voting and voting there's parking on chapel street now available in the consent oh there's one yeah

All right. All those in favor? Say aye. Aye. Okay, I passed.

All right so next item on our agenda we're going to welcome up Madam Chair um the planning board's notice for 7 p.m and we're a little shy of that so i can do town manager report or we can do wonderful i know it's a rarity

All right, great. Town Manager's Report.

Let me just orient myself here. Three items First, the board I know is aware of our next community mural that's going to be going up at 1299 Highland Avenue next to Mathnesium on the Grossman Company properties. I just want to flag that the artist, David Tang Olson will start work October 7th. So folks will see it's a very visible location and just wanted you to be aware that that will be coming soon. This Thursday, we have a public meeting requesting public input on the Action Sports Park and Pickleball designs for out at Claxton. And so this is the second

community input on that design and there's been good engagement but we always want more so that's this Thursday the 24th at 7 p.m at Memorial Park Fieldhouse and on Zoom for anyone who's interested. I feel like I need to start talking more slowly and also So friendly reminder, whenever it's fall, September or October I always put my public health hat on and say it's time for flu shots. and we have a number of clinics set up with the public health team. And the easiest way to look at the schedule is needhamma.gov slash health. but we have clinics most Wednesday nights September 23rd through October 21st. A clinic Saturday, September 26th and then our public health nurses will be out at the Harvest Fair on October 4th. So if you just want to be super efficient with your time and your schedule, you can stop by and see them there.

So we want folks to remember to protect yourselves and protect those that you're coming in contact with all throughout the day. and I have nothing further. But we have three minutes, so maybe committee reports?

We'll talk about many reports, yeah. For those who don't usually stay till the end of the meeting, this is where we go through when we talk about the sort of official functions that we have attended and partaken in the week. So we'll start with

Josh and I attended the future school needs group for their first meeting recently, looked at some numbers. Then we're going to be looking at some more things come December 15th, right?

Yeah, and probably a meeting earlier like December 1st, I think. That was good.

Good to be involved with that.

I also attended the Town Common on Sunday. Many of my colleagues were there as well. It was really, really nice. A lot of beautiful weather, a lot of people just celebrating the day and community so it's good.

Very good. Kevin?

Since we last met, we've met with Babson President Spinelli and his leadership team. There was a 9-11 ceremony. Memorial Park trustees have met and Bill was there too. On Saturday, the parlor did the info session in the tours it was the takeaways from this was This project checks all the boxes. Walking through the building, this place is absolutely on borrowed time. It was sewage backs up, ceilings are What I went through was no insulation, so now they've added drop ceilings and the ceilins are really low. I just grew like six inches This weekend. But it's actually a mess, classrooms are crammed and the hallways in the stairs are fully undersized so it was actually sort of eye opening to remind myself what an awful building it is. It showed terribly. Needham Circle on Saturday as well

Well, I was there. That was great. Avery Newton and Dina Krieger and so many volunteers did so much work. It was great to see them. Very good.

yeah I think the things that i went to have already been mentioned but i do just want to highlight the Needham Circle event because i think it was really incredible that residents of the town came together and themselves planned this event to really bring people into the community and to give people avenues to participate because I think there are many people who maybe want to participate and don't know how so i thought that was really great

Excellent. Well, I guess for me, I attended many of these things, Needham Circle, Babson Breakfast, 9-11 observance. and just in the last minutes before we move along to our next I don't want to mention of course that it was Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, the Jewish High Holy Days since our last meeting. And so just wanted Wish everyone a Happy New Year, those who observe and those who don't. And that's it. MyCloxa701 so we're going to move on to the presentation of the planning board warrant articles. So I'm going to invite the members um of the Planning Department and the Planning Board who are here to come and join us.

at least from a roll call my understanding is because this was noticed that we have to open a planning board meeting that's what my understanding well there's three of you here so go right ahead and so forth. I'm Justin McCullen. I am the chair of the Needham Planning Board, and I'm opening up this meeting September 22nd to present articles to the select board. I recognize that we have Artie Crocker Online, I don't know if he's been brought over for a roll call?

Yes.

Artie, present. Oscar Mertz? Here. myself and Adam Block, present. And we also have a leave from our planning office so I do recognize that we have quorum to open the meeting. So, Madam Chair.

Great. Fill us in. I see that you have two articles on the town hall warrant.

I'm Justin McKellen, chair of the planning board. The full planning board actually Eric Greenberg could not make it tonight is here this meeting together with the Planning Board Director Lee Newman. I will provide the overall framing. Oscar Mertz will take us through some of the technical diagrams of the presentation and all board members will be here and available to discuss any questions that you have. We'll keep this presentation brief, approximately 10 to 12 minutes possibly so the select board will have ample opportunity for questions. The slide deck that we're going to bring you through refers to these proposals as Article 1 and Article 2. My understanding in the draft for the October 19th special town meeting, it is actually Articles 8 and 9 so just from that perspective. These are two targeted zoning measures for SRV district. They addressed a building form and massing first when an attic or half story in new construction becomes a functional equivalent of a third floor

and second, the height of a flat roof buildings and the amount of vertical wall mass that can rise directly beside a neighboring property. they do not resolve the broader questions of FAR, lot coverage or maximum house size. Those issues remain on our work plan for May 2027. So first, the half story and the attic proposal. Can we move to slide three? Perfect. Article 1 is intended to preserve the meaning of a half-story in qualifying new construction that portion of the half-storey above the second floor with an interior ceiling height of five feet or greater may not exceed 50% of the second floor area. The practical purpose is to prevent an attic configuration from becoming a full third story in everything but name. The packet defines new construction as either a new structure on a vacant lot or construction involving demolition of more than 50% of the building shell, excluding a single story attached garage.

The explanation also includes a two-year look back, so phased demolition cannot avoid the threshold. So slide three Oscar can you take us through these diagrams?

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Good evening, board. We are addressing these two articles this fall and we've had some discussion on the planning board about that because we believe that these are actually very workable on their own and that they are agnostic to a future conversation about FAR coverage. so although others may feel we should keep everything in one package for these discussions, we think that these are actually beneficial and can be done without having any Any impact at all on what we have as discussions going forward. So this is you'll see in here the description for what attics actually are calculated, how they're calculated. This is relatively generic and used on other towns

but it shows you that anything over five feet in height interior up to the ridge or anything higher than that gets counted as space, whether you actually use it or not or finish it or Calculated as square footage. So these are the two ways that you can see whether it's a sloped roof or whether it is a double-sloped roof like a hip. You can see how the area is calculated.

That was pretty much the... So basically, the article does not eliminate attics, dormers or usable space. It establishes a proportional limit so the upper level remains a half story rather than a full third floor. So article two is height requirements. Article 2 is easiest to understand as two separate controls. One limits the overall height of the flat roof structures, The other limits sidewall or top plate height for both flat and pitched roof structures. The first addresses overall building height, the second addresses the vertical wall mass that is experienced by an abutting property and Oscar will bring through for Flat Roof's proposal reduces the three applicable height limits from 35 to 27 I'll let him bring you through that. It also establishes a 21 1⁄2 foot sidewall top plate limit and requires an upper floor roof portion to step back six feet from the second-floor side face, so I'll have you kind of bring that little bit through.

Yeah, the next slide. So again this is an article that's being brought forward because coming out of the large house committee This is actually trying to address something that has never really been addressed before. As you may know, the only way heights measured in town is with this set of measurements that you see here which is 35 feet to the highest to the Ridge, or it has other ways of measuring it from the center line of the street or at any one point. there's a collection of measurements but that is generally the only limit we have whether you have a flat roof, a pitched roof or any other form of volume so This was intended, the next set of diagrams that we will see are addressing flat roof and side yard wall height because those actually have been coming into play with more

We'll see a little bit more in flat roof construction and we've also seen some indications where there was literally a three-story wall built on the side yard. So we feel this was actually important to bring forward and clarify, so this is something that could go forward as an independent article. So this is one way that we show the measurement, a 3D diagram that shows how we calculate the average slope for a project to get its height and that the maximum height from an average grade can be measured from the average grade and that that average grade has to be either the existing grade or the new grade in which, and take the lowest height to get your maximum height. Next is just another way of looking at it from a side view to show you that when you're actually measuring from the center line of the street, some cases your slopes might go down from the street.

So you may have an advantage, so you have an option to measure from the third point of your center line of the street and take that as your maximum height instead of some of the other ones. So it's another option for measuring height. And now we go to other diagrams for the flat roof, so this is actually all new. And now you'll see that in doing this we have decided, made some decisions and had some conversations about what was a reasonable adjustment to what would be a maximum height for flat roof construction. As you know, in words measuring the maximum height of a house is two and half stories. So two and a half stories in a pitched roof is typically an attic definition. So it's sort of your half story, you're kind of the room under the half story In flat roof construction, you sometimes see that there are portions of the second floor that pop up and create sort of a one-and-a-half story height.

So that's why we continue to use that two and a half story description, but in Flat Roof the numbers change. So you'll see here that the reduced maximum height for a flat roof is 27 down from 35. If you do measure it from the center line to the street, it goes from 32 to 24 And then we have that maximum height at any one point on a lot that goes from 41 to 33. So this is a new set of numbers that we have not had before. Okay, next. Diagrams are again trying to help you visualize it as three dimensions so you see how the building's built and then it also shows you that you'll see a configuration here that I'll get to in the next set of diagrams, that the higher of that first floor area is not allowed to come to the sides of the building. So it's allowed on the front, allowed in the back but not on the sides. Continue? Next slide please thank you and then again this is shows you

basically a two-story line and then you see that extra 2 1⁄2 stories which is the maximum height of a flat roof. Next? So the changes being proposed for maximum height are now are now addressing what I just referred to, which is the sides of these houses. And so this has never been done before But in a way, it's trying to capture or to delineate a maximum height there because we've seen actually three story walls being built. So we would like to avoid that because if we feel that maximum of three stories particularly since it's not legal um it would be very detrimental on the side because you're in a very close proximity to neighboring houses so it's the most

most places the place that we are most concerned about controlling height so the flat roof here what this is talking about as a vertical side yard height and it's measured to the top go to the next diagram It'll help keep going. So this is for pitched roofs, this is a side yard and it shows you that the top of the side wall plate which is where it has a horizontal top of It's measured from the top of the foundation wall. That is 21 1⁄2 feet, and that this also is combined with the overall height which is still 35 feet to the maximum height of the roof. Keep going. Next slide. If you have a sloping site, again, you have that additional measurement which is 41 feet for any point on the lot. So it cannot be greater than 41 feet. Keep going.

Next slide. And so this is the kind of thing that we are looking to avoid, you see on the side there's a three-story wall that literally doesn't have any setback at all it just goes straight up on that little 3D diagram, you can see that you basically would have something that is considered actually not allowed. But this kind of thing that we've seen sometimes it's done without being caught but in any case we think it's good to describe this and create a Warren article for it. Next slide. And so this would be what you wouldn't typically see, which is two stories and you see the Basically, the horizontal line of that top plate ends at where the second story is. And then you can build a gable above it or you can turn your gable and it goes as a sloped roof that goes away from that side yard. And and Dormers have a certain set of requirements, which are set back actually from that face of wall.

The dormers are set 18 inches from the actual face of the main building Next slide. Sorry, those are what would be allowed? So this is all allow the first line had that three story wall which is why we would be guarding against. Thank you. Yeah. Next slide, next slide thanks um so now the flat roof diagrams are again now we're getting into this uh that stepped condition where on the side yard you have a two-story maximum of the same as same maximum 21 and a half feet from the top of that wall to from the foundation wall but now If you're going to pop up for that extra half story, it has to be set back six feet. And this is essentially visually to allow for that to recede as your closest to it when you're in that neighboring house or when you are seeing it from the side. Next slide. And that's just the same thing, measuring to a sloped wall. So this again shows you that there are several measurements. There is the top plate at 21 and 1 half, then there's the maximum height

from average or 33 from the highest point on a site. So this is now just an elevation to show you what this looks like. Hypothetically, it's a sort of a generic house that can have a one and half story area in the center and it could become all the way to the front go all the back but that the sides have to remain at that two-story limit you can see that sort of stepped box on the right

I have a question. The first article said that the third story could be no more than 50% of the second story? Is that what's depicted here?

No, because this is not That's a good question, but in this case we are just addressing this as sort of a different kind of box. that is intentionally pulled back from the sides. So this is an envelope condition, so the chances of somebody doing that entire box raised up it might be the front portion, it might might not go all the way to the six feet. So that is, with a math on that would be greater but it's actually the second floor so there's no limit to the second for this is not so if you were talking about fifty percent there is no attic built in a two-story flat roof. That's the second floor popping up to be one and a half stories, so we have a maximum height of 2 1⁄2 stories but we don't have a third floor attic which is actually space above the second floor that you can use or not use.

So there's no space above this second floor here, so there's nothing, there's not limit.

So where it says two and half? is that above the second floor?

Two and a half is the maximum height of the building. So it's higher ceilings. So when you have a flat roof like that, no, it's just a higher second floor. right so if you if you drive by Brookline and you see that new building that's built to the left of Mitchell towards the high school you'll see yeah so you'll then some portions are higher than others but it's all on the second floor so there's no third floor in that. So, there's not reason to limit that to 50%.

So this would be like a cathedral ceiling portion of your second story?

Right.

Thank you.

Yeah, that makes sense.

It does. Is it the last time? I think so.

I think so, yes. So obviously these provisions they work together the overall height rule controls how tall a flat roof building can be The sidewall rules control how much the wall may rise directly beside the neighboring lot That's why both measurements appear in this article. The Planning Board separated the issues it believed were sufficiently developed from the broader questions that still need work. The half-story and height provisions can be stated and illustrated with the fine measurements. The FAR and lot coverage require further analysis of different lot sizes, existing and non-conforming homes Redevelopment Effects, Related Policy Choices and as well as a regulatory framework that's changing by the month with 40A as well ballot initiatives. for splitting lots, etc. So a lot of this is we need to kind of take that calculus and put that into our work going forward. Let me see.

So that's essentially what we did. So in summary, warrant Article 8 keeps the half-story from operating as a full third floor and qualifying new construction. And 9 reduces the flat height, as we spoke about in the sidewall massing. these are the focused amendments they do not predetermine the larger house decisions scheduled for later on next year and the full planning board uh and lee are available for your questions thank you

Madam Chair, I'm just curious. Do we have lots of new flat roof houses coming into Needham?

there have been a number of new construction houses over the course of the last several years where we've found that developers found nuance in the existing zoning bylaw that creates an effective third floor, which is an unintended consequence. And the public policy aim is to remove that offense to your neighbor. So we wanted to find a way that would allow for some measure of a flat roof, which may come back in fashion. That like other things will you know, we'll come and go it in housing design

but we wanted to reduce that visual burden because effectively becomes like a three walls you know from your neighbor's perspective and and over the course of years, the planning board has brought zoning reform where we've found that developers are are finding these nuances and creating these unintended consequences. And so... an example we wanted to break up the massing of a house for instance at 32 feet in so the setback would have to be on a sidewall will have to adjusted and town meeting passed that, in part for the same reason to break up the bulk and the appearance of a house. And it's an imperfect science, we do as good of a job as we can and we have the greatest skill on the board for this

to really understand the visual impact for our neighbors and for the community. So it's a function of public policy aim, to try and avoid those circumstances going forward.

Keane. Thanks for doing this and this has been a long time coming, and I'm still feeling like there's a lot more to come. There is more in May and I look forward I think Article 1, soon to be Article 8, the 50%, I think that's fine. It's clean and straight, it makes sense. and I see the point on article two, the side wall. It is like these some of these houses are it's like a container ship has docked along your property line and there you have this thing on your property So I appreciate you doing that. I do have a problem with the pitched roof, I think still allowing it to what 35 and 41 foot max is a lot still but I'm not going to have money in potters now.

I get it. Can you just clarify, though? What is the total high reduction?

So the overall height, it remains at 35 feet. We haven't adjusted the pitch roof.

Okay, so pitch roof has not come down at all?

And that could go to 41 foot with the slope, right?

At one point in the site if you have a really steep slope site. You might have that 41 feet come into play and that usually means it's so steep actually have a lower level or basement that might be exposed and that's why they added the additional restriction but you can't have dormers if you have three stories exposed on that back wall, which would mean you'd have almost the appearance of a fourth floor. So if you could have your two stories come out, your basement come out and then you get a pitch and that's 41 feet up to that ridge But because it's actually potentially 33 feet, they added an additional zoning requirement that you can't do dormers on that 41-foot height.

So I hate to be a nitpick here, but It's my recollection, while working on the Large House Review Committee that actually height was one of the greatest factors in people Feelings, the survey that we did which assessed a whole slew of houses it seemed to me that the height was one of the things that made people feel like the house too big the most frequently. That was like one of the factors that was the most-frequently cited. So can you help me understand? Is there a height reduction to come, or is there no height reduction?

I think what we've found is that over the course of time, developers have raised the grade. And oh, great you have 35 feet but in actual fact you might have 45 feet because they artificially and that house now towers over your neighboring house so those underlying provisions I think have been modified in prior years by town meeting together with this we are

preserving as much creative freedom as the market may reasonably want while eliminating, you know, the visual offense of how that 35 feet might actually be implemented. That's why we've installed these controls, for instance at 21 feet between the floor plate of the first floor and getting to the top of the second floor So these other technical controls, which we'll have to explain in more adequate detail at town meeting. really do a very good job at controlling the height in ways that haven't really happened in the past. To reduce the offense of height, to reduce the appearance of it

So it sounds like you're going to add to that.

So I think the 50% attic reduction is also something that is a bulk control. And I was on that committee and also understand there was recommendation that we do look at height, I still think should. But I think the challenge there is The ability to reduce this 50% of that attic space over the second floor will tone down in many cases, or at least reduce the desire to pack more gables and fit multiple gables. and Dormers, which add square footage to the attic. So when we looked at a lot of those houses on the committee Oftentimes, it wasn't just 35 feet but it might have been that there were two gables at 35 feet.

They were facing you on the street or they might've been facing you one the side where there were other things that we're creating a lot of busy attics that were busy and bulky So the 50% is a good way to start reducing some of the busyness and some of that drive to make more square footage in the attic. because you're only going to be limited to 50%.

I don't know if anyone can hear me, but I have my hand up. I was going to chime in as Oscar, repeat essentially what Oscar was saying that we're looking at the outliers of what's going on. and we certainly saw that the bulk of the what's called half story, however you want to call it. The bulk of a half-story which essentially became a third story was a big part of the outlaw, or a big-part of the boat. And so we absolutely believe... I think most of us actually believe this will have an effect on reducing the boat and reducing the visual impact of the height of it Yes, it certainly would have been nice to reduce the height. I can certainly appreciate that and like I would have liked that myself but that being said This will absolutely have an impact on the bulk of height and the visual height. So, the bulk or the whole project in a visual height of what things look like.

as Oscar was saying, we would have Gables in the front of the house and two of them with almost looking like spires because they were going up incredibly steep pitches. And that would just be looking absolutely massive We'd have a dormer on either side of the house, which is essentially going to almost the full height. You're not going at 35 feet in the front and the back but it would be going quite high so just It just made the house look massive. This will have an effect on reducing the bulk, I absolutely believe that.

Thanks, Hardy. So I hear you saying that you're controlling the box. Will we in the fall get to look forward to controlling the grade?

Spring, I hope.

Spring? Yeah.

What did I say? Well, spring, May when you bring the rest of the

So we're not, the planning board's not intending to further modify zoning for grade because those provisions I think have already passed at prior town meeting.

The two variables that you measure from the lower of finished or existing.

That was a recent change, but it did address that.

It was to address that problem with the skirts that were happening around the houses.

Thank you. I guess just one note that I would make is that while I appreciated your introduction and your discussion, and I know this is a different presentation than the one you will make to town meeting but it would be good to have a discussion of why these changes are being made that they you know because town meeting will remember the genesis of this whole project and so relating it back to that would be helpful I think for them

when you had your public hearings and things the builders must have not loved every of it but they probably can live with it did you was their biggest pushback on something or are we seeing more like oh my gosh i got to get something done because this is going to be changing or have we not seen it because they realize that it's not that bad actually?

So this public policy has actually been developed in part as a result of the large house review committee that included builders on it and designers, architects. and in addition to that, as a function of the recommendations of the large house review committee coming to the planning board. The planning board convened its own process with architects in part, you know, with the expertise that we have on the board and also with other builders. that talked about the function of height and the relationship of height to the appearance of the box in a lot. And and participated in meaningfully developing this new policy that would preserve design freedom for the marketplace

but most importantly, eliminate the offense that height can have on our neighbors.

and just the crux of the article is, the first one is going to be reducing or limiting the amount of 50% of the second floor area. correct today? And the second article is going to be reducing the height, but only for flat roofs.

No, it's actually just targeting the height of side walls and adding New measurements for flat roofs. So it's sort of a combination of adding maximum heights for flat rooms that we don't have, but also adding this description of maximum heights per sidewalls which affects

all buildings not just flat roofed buildings and in the spring do you expect to come with other items that would tie in with this or like totally separate from this

there are other dimensional requirements that we can use to come up with something that you know will also go toward this. This was This has been a long process we've had to come through with. I mean, this might have been the lower hanging fruit because there is there are so many different variables with lot size, with conforming non-conforming all of these things we want to make sure that we do something We don't regret and we want to do something that's meaningful, yet also still respecting the person's most expensive asset that they have from a financial perspective. There's all of these things coming together. And I think that we're going to have to also take into account all of the regulatory framework, it's gonna change as well. So we need to figure that out because some of that is interesting to say the least.

More specifically the planning board is looking now between now and uh the end of the year to develop uh and reform public policy as it relates to floor area ratio and lot coverage and we intend to in spring town meeting in May come to town meeting with a zoning reform related you know, a reduction in the floor area ratio and an reduction in lock coverage. And as we do that we will unfold a public process so that we're hearing from our neighbors, but we're also hearing from architects and builders to understand what point makes the most sense for their community.

but right now you feel like these two articles can stand on their own. They can stand, they can stand

As good zoning reform as part of a plan to reduce some of the large homes that we've seen on various lots, particularly smaller lots. that also don't in and on themselves, like the height reduction zoning article wouldn't seem to have an impact on the real estate market. So that was one of the things that we're trying to figure out as we're coming to town meeting, what is the financial impact on taxpayers in the town? So that's certainly a factor. We don't see there being a correlation with the height.

It's with respect to the reduction of the floor area or the inclusion of the four area in the above the second floor. that in and of itself wouldn't have a specific identified fiscal impact on the value of the home. We anticipate there being some fiscal impact potentially, and it has to be quantified. It has to better understood you know when we reduce the floor area ratio, the bulk which is the largest control for large house review and also for lot coverage.

Yeah, no I think well first did you get any comments during the public hearing?

No comments at the hearing and one letter. And a letter. Yes we did get a letter as well.

We did have other correspondence during the process, but at the hearing itself.

Yes, correct for these two potential warrant articles no we didn't but or were that one obviously is what adam was saying this whole process after large house and came through we we obviously had a public couple different um opportunities to be able to hear from the public and be able

Yeah, no I was just curious. I think- I do see like how these can stand alone and they- I guess the way you've explained it I think is good. It doesn't change the volume of what is typically constructed today. It just really changes the massing or The configuration, but not the volume. You can build essentially as much floor area now as with this article, with the exception of closing unintended loopholes. That's what I think the intent is. So I think it makes sense and I want to thank you for taking the time to do this after town meeting in May. It makes sense, and I know you spent a lot of time over the summer doing this so thank you.

Thank you.

Alright, anyone else?

Mr.

Chair, I move that we adjourn the planning board meeting.

Second. It's been seconded. Any discussion on the matter? Hearing none, we have to do a voice vote because of Artie is on Zoom. Artie?

motion to adjourn thank you select board for hearing us thank you yes okay motion to turn oscar yes all right and chair votes aye we are adjourned

Okay, next up is our Great Plain Ave at Central Ave Intersection Improvements. We'll welcome Karis Lustig and Tom Ryder, our Town Engineer. Excellent. Can you share all about these very complicated looking plans?

Sure, so I'll just start. Tyler cannot be available today as the work we're covering this for him as well. But today, we're just going to give a little brief overview of the project that we have funded for Great Plain Ave at Central This was a project that was funded in the 2024 annual town meeting and also partially funded through the chapter 90 process. It's a project that's been in the works for some time. I think anyone who has traveled through that particular intersection can acknowledge that there are some deficiencies for all users at their current configuration, and so we set about doing a design in this area. One sort of point of note is, you know, we are somewhat resource constrained, right? So it's either you're resource constraint by what resources you can put into the area or the physical location.

And in this particular location even though it is Fairly Wide. We did look at a couple of different alternatives when we did our analysis here, so we looked at doing potentially a roundabout at this location which has some movement benefits as well as if you stagger it correctly, some enhancements for pedestrians as well. Unfortunately we didn't have the right radius to be able to incorporate that into the design So we were sort of left with a more traditional method of looking at signals, continuing the signalization of that intersection. I just wanted to do a brief kind of on complete streets as it relates to the project and then I think Tom will go into the project itself but the main reason we're ahead of were in front of you today is that we have a proposed article at town meeting looking at a small taking that the property owner

adjacent to the intersection who owns the Presbyterian Church, has indicated they're willing to donate to the town. When we look at Complete Streets or we look any of our projects, sort of the philosophy behind it is really do you look at all modalities when you think about design? It doesn't necessarily mean that you include all modalities and it doesn't necessary mean that like, it involves striping or building a physical asset. It means that when you look at the use of that area what is the best use of the space that you have to accommodate as many needs as you can? So I think sometimes there's a perception that complete street means that you do everything in every location, and that's not how it applies here. and then also because we live in New England and all of our properties were, many of them were developed before we had cars. We have some limitations when it comes to like with the road, you know, our existing utilities on the road and those things also provide some limiting factors.

So in this particular project, we did look at every modalities. It is a major intersection of two major thoroughfares within the town. And how can we make it is accommodating for vehicles, large vehicles, pedestrians and bikes. And because of the volume of traffic that goes through that intersection in order to accommodate that volume of successfully, we weren't able to come to a good on or off-road separated bike accommodation. I will say the plans that you have in front of you are not the finalized plans. We're still finalizing some of the layout as well as the drainage, so there may be additional amenities that we're talking about adding including like a stop are currently listed on your plans. So at that time, just to talk about the changes?

Yeah yeah so you know too We're about 90% done with the intersection improvements. The proposed plan will create some geometric changes as well as modernizing traffic signals We did meet with the Presbyterian Church representatives several times, and they agreed to allow an expansion to create a turn lane from Great Plain Avenue onto Central. If you can see the layout right now, there is a 50-foot right away. But in the intersection it is kind of offset quite a bit So it was kind of hard to plug in other roundabouts or other opportunities we looked at. doing additional turn lane movements as well, as well as a park land too.

So the roundabout would take up more property and perhaps go into the building of the Presbyterian Church, which is not ideal. drew away from that portion of the project.

We should also, the parkland that's in the middle is under Chapter 97 as well.

So that was another issue that we had on doing the new term of movements as well. So like I said, we still have some pending final edits. We do have some drainage One of the conditions that the church wanted is that we do some more drainage, which is great. That's what we want to hear too. So we're going to take all the opportunities to accommodate them on that, as well as the additional road area that we're creating for that return lane. So we will be adding quite a bit more drainage treatment in that area. So as far as this project, it will improve the traffic flow, reduce congestion and queuing during the evening peak hour. The intersection currently operates at a capacity and it will be over capacity by 2033.

Two of the alternatives that were studied, one involved just doing the signal changes to the intersection We already did this back in 2019 to balance the flows. So, problem with this traffic signalization right now is like you add more green time to Great Plain Avenue than it and Central Avenue gets backed up, you know vice versa. And this is a condition with the current traffic signals that we have right now they're not modernized so we will be modernizing the traffic signals allowing video detection and I will assist greatly too on the optimization So during peak hour, channelizing the return lane will reduce the overall delay by about 46 seconds for Great Plain Avenue. and there's going to be probably some other expected benefits as well.

the Central Avenue slip lane that goes on to Great Plain Avenue. That was noted too through Traffic Safety Committee There were some conditions where pedestrians felt like there were conflicts because there was no stop there. So we are going to signalize that lane and that will reduce or eliminate those pedestrian conflicts. That will be an exclusive pedestrian crossing area.

I just want to note there's some topography differences there that make navigating this intersection somewhat challenging. And that's why the elimination of the slip lane was not could not be achieved as part of this project and that's why we opted for full signalization of the slip lane

Right. And removing the island, that's not really an option either. It would create a huge wide area and no refuge for pedestrians so we left the refuge area and if you try to tighten up that intersection, then you won't be able to get truck traffic turns at all. Currently, we have a problem with the term movements on Great Plain Avenue into Central. So the Presbyterian Church by donating that property will allow better term movements for truck traffic. the construction will accommodate full ADA accessibility. Currently, we have loop detections which makes it very difficult for bike accommodations. There are complaints that The loops are not detecting the bicycles on there so when we upgrade to the video they'll be helpful as well.

I think that's about it. We expect to have final plans after town meeting to go out to bed.

Is the church, is that the 11 and a half feet that we're getting from the church? That's there right? And then the slip lane, the signalization is going to be on that. Where's the signalisation for this?

The pedestal will be on the island and then there'll be another pedestal on the pedestrian side so they can actually, a pedestrian will be able to engage the walkways.

That's a long walk if you're on Central Ave. all the way across there, so I think it's good to have the island in case people don't and I think that it is good to signalization as well Pedestrians and cars will both have that signalization. I think that's a good plan.

We did hear complaints about pedestrians trying to cross,

That curve is hard, so it seems worthwhile to do that there.

And right now we have apex crossings at those intersections which are longer and we'll be pulling that in with unidirectional crossings so it will make it more accommodating for pedestrians as well.

That's good, yeah.

Madam Chair, thank you. I think this is it makes sense I'm going to go through this intersection a lot and it's a busy intersection particularly at drive times just a couple questions about funding is this a chapter 90 project or is this

so um in the year that this project was funded uh the town manager was unable to fund the entirety of our public works infrastructure article and at that time it was decided that a portion of the project would be funded through chapter 90. but the The majority of the funding will be coming from the Public Works Infrastructure article.

Which was already funded?

It was funded in 2020.

So it's already, okay. And then what's the timeline for construction?

So it would be summertime and then so if we go to bed in the wintertime, we'll give plenty of time for materials to be delivered. That's always the longest period of time currently too. So it would be a summer project, and then probably final paving would probably be in the following year. But we expect to try to get it done over the summer as much as we can.

and then I just mentioned one thing it's not directly related but if you go back to the map north of the intersection along Central Ave on the east side, the sidewalk just abruptly ends. There's a gap in the sidewalk. It sounds like that's not part of this project but that is very dangerous. People are crossing all the time because of that gap across Central Ave and I hope that can be addressed If not in this project, then with a different project.

Right. I did have them look at that intersection the previous year to see what we can do on that so it's not part of this project like you said right? Thank you.

So just bottom line in terms of the benefits here, when we see like big backups going down Central Ave. In both directions this should help that?

This will help. It's more going to be safety focus than capacity, but there is going to a capacity benefit. Yes.

How was that? I love looking at maps, seriously. So anyways, I wasted hours looking at this thing. It's interesting. I'm wondering what are the shoulders look like especially around the park and stuff? Is there any space for bicycles?

So I think one of the things we talked about is that the sidewalk is going to be wider than a typical sidewalk. So it's going to 8 feet instead of our standard, which I think works well, particularly for like elementary school age children who might be biking there. Obviously it doesn't work for somebody who's biking at more car speed but from that perspective area, and we will be talking to GPI just about what signaling we can give about integrating into traffic or out of traffic for those who are biking on the street as well.

Right, because my sense is bicyclists and the enthusiast who's coming out of Wellesley and stuff like this is a big section for them. And same with Central Ave going into Dover So it looks like a scary choke point for a lot of bicyclists. And I appreciate Complete Streets, they would all love bike lanes, they'd love separated bike lanes. At this point I'd settle for a wide shoulder and that be something at least to give some sense you're not going to get hit by a side mirror Thank you.

Yeah, I guess just with the visibility that you said there was a height difference, good typography difference Will there be visibility for bikes coming? You know, with the slip lane and I don't know. very busy diagram honestly it's hard for me to put myself in the position of a through biker potentially again not a child but someone who's just heading off to their more recreational or you know biking out in the less populated areas. I guess i'm also wondering it seems as though we're adding at least one row of pavement here and you mentioned that the sidewalks are eight

is there you know along central lab I think further up we've done a lot of green you know rain garden swale type of installations to mitigate Stormwater Runoff. Here we are adding pavement and it sounds like we're going to have a pretty big sidewalk so is there any, are there any features here that would help

So we haven't developed those features yet, but we talked with the church and we were talking about doing some marine garden over on their side of the property while we're going to be doing infiltration underneath the sidewalks.

infiltration underneath the sidewalk. So they're like semi-permeable sidewalks?

Well, there are going to be chambers so there'll be a collection point and it will go to chambers.

Oh, OK. That's great. And so just to make sure that I'm reading this correctly, the red is the taken land donated voluntarily. And that is partly in a lane and partly on the sidewalk?

Yes. Yeah, the existing portion of the existing sidewalk is actually on their property already. So yeah so formalizing it and adding the lane addition

So I just memorialized that there is no process to donate land. It is through a taking, so it sounds more aggressive than it is when we've accepted roads in the past. It's actually like a consensual taking. So the residents ask the town to take their roadway. So it sounds It sounds like we're doing something more but it's the only method by which we have to acquire the land.

Yes, thank you. More eloquently said. All right great well does anybody else have any questions about this?

So this is for the, this article about the land taking? Yes. Perfect.

Great. Thank you both very much. The next thing on our agenda is the senior property tax deferment cap and we'll welcome Dave Davidson, our deputy town manager and director of finance to explain that.

So, Madam Chair on the special time meeting warrant for October 19th is an article to increase income limit that a senior may have in order to still be eligible for deferring a portion of all their property taxes. Currently, for the current year The ceiling is $51,000. This would if passed would increase that ceiling to $75,000 The other thing that it would do is to have the income ceiling increased annually by the amount that the Department of Revenue increases the ceiling for income for the circuit breaker.

That's a property tax credit program that the state has for the state income tax. and this has been a model that is being relied upon by many communities in terms of increasing the deferral amount.

And is that the same amount? I mean, is $75,000 what that amount is now?

$75000 is what it is now. If you go to Department of Revenue's website, you'll see the number is $7500.

Okay, so we bring it up and it just advances automatically at the same pace.

That's the one clarification I'm still waiting on, whether it's automatically it happens. Whether it's a vote that the Board of Assessors have to take annually or if there's a follow-up vote that has to be taken by town meeting, we will know that answer before we go to a town meeting. but the whole intent is to indicate that we're not looking to have a static number again, but a number that will move as the ceiling is increased by the state.

and that's why it sunk down to 51 or stayed at 51. Yes, the town did increase the amount

quite a number of years ago, under the statute. The program exists as a matter of law to be able to defer taxes. but the law has embedded that annual income is, and I say annual income. It's actually annual receipts So even monies that may not be taxed are taken into account in determining one's ability to defer taxes, and that's $20,000. communities by local option, by accepting statute which is local option. Which is what was done before and which is what we're doing now is to increase that ceiling. and again as I said $75,000.

Any estimate how many more people this might affect?

It's hard to say because you only know who has applied and been eligible. There have not been many, only one or two applications that I have heard of because it is confidential. in my time here were not eligible to defer. The number of deferrals ranges from below 5 to 6 a year, and I've seen it as high as 14 in the year. Even some folks who defer taxes may defer and are eligible to defer taxes, may file an application to defer tax this year but for whatever reason the next year they don't. They still do not need to pay the tax that they deferred, that gets delayed until either they sell the property

or otherwise convey the property that does not necessarily mean a sale, or the death of the taxpayer. There are provisions for a couple that if If the spouse who received the tax deferral passes away, the spouse may continue provided that the spouse would be eligible and presumably If they were eligible as a couple, the surviving spouse would be eligible as single. Okay and this is a deferral? for the continuation of the deferral. That's the only thing that would stay, the collection of the amounts upon the deceased of the taxpayer who was the applicant to the deferal.

This is an annual application?

They have to apply annually, correct? Because income could change and then they're not eligible.

Is this $75,000 like on your 2025 or this would be for 2026? For fiscal

If one's applying, the 75 is for fiscal 27, fiscal 28. Okay. because of the timing, because the commission of revenues made the determination that's going to impact 2026 tax returns, which are going to be filed in calendar year 27. So there's always a delay.

So this is a deferral program, not an abatement program.

This is a There's a deferral. That means that there's no legal action taken against them to bring the collection because you're obligated to pay the tax unless you're allowed to defer the tax. and the deferral is, the annual rate of interest is 4%, whereas If they were not deferred and they were paying it late, they would be paying 14% interest.

4% annually. And if a person is approved, their application's approved in the given year and so that year's taxes is deferred that's deferred until the sale, correct?

They can be deferred. Until the sale Commands, or the death of individuals. So yes it could be 20 years before they would have to pay that interest is accruing and to be clear you don't have to PAY the interest annually the interest accrues on the taxes over time. One can elect to just pay the interest if one so want, but generally if they're deferring it's because they don't have the extra cash anyways.

And so then after they're approved in the first year, say the second year their income increases and they're not eligible for the next years. That first year is still deferred until the end?

Correct. Once you've got the deferrals approved for a year You do not need to pay that tax until, again, the sale of the property, conveyance of the

is that clear to residents? Do they get like annual bills on the deferred tax or notices of the amount that's owed?

They would have to follow up just to check on the balance, but they do know what they've signed. It's a recorded lien And in fact, the law is that you can't defer no more than 50% of value of the home inclusive of the accrued interest.

I just want to make sure that people don't apply and get approved, and then forget about it until they sell it and get surprised.

I can't say what any one person may or may not be paying attention, but the fact is that it is knowable. and anybody doing a search on the property will know that there's a lien against the property for the payment of the taxes.

Thank you. And you have to apply as a household, correct?

No, for instance you have to be age 65 first thing. Second is you have live in the property. Third, you have had to own the property for five years. And fifth, you've had to have been a resident of the Commonwealth for 10 years. Your spouse may be younger and would not be eligible but you yourself can defer the taxes.

One spouse does make a lot, the other does make alot?

Oh it's the combined income. it's all the resources that are available to the applicant.

Great, any other questions?

Okay thanks Dave, appreciate it.

All right. So we're going to move on to the town manager. I guess, we've already done the report so we're gonna just head right into the article positions.

Thank you, Madam Chair. And in the revised fact sheet there's two motions and I think it might make more sense that the board takes them out of turn So the second motion is related to a recommendation that you remove Article 18, which is to authorize acquisition for right-of-way at DataMav and South Street. This is the intersection improvements that occurred at a prior meeting. The property owner had additional questions for us, so we want to give it more time. So my recommendation is that you remove it and we will keep those conversations going and revisit it for Maytown meeting.

I would make that motion at this time, Madam Chairman, that the board vote to remove Article 18 authorized acquisition for right-of-way debt amount in South Street.

Thanks, Bill.

Second.

All right. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. OK. Motion passes.

Thank you. So I think if it's helpful, I can just walk through each article I think you've had presentations on everything requested, but I will also note you do have another meeting before town meeting if there's anything that you want to wait on.

and so article one before madam chair before we begin could I just like to make a comment that you know October 19th is a special town meeting historically special town meetings have been for business that, you know, is of an urgent matter that we want to bring to the town together, taken care of and to balance the budget and things. and in the past, you know last year we had 11 at the special town meeting. And we had 18 until about 10 seconds ago. Now it went down to 17 but a lot of them there's some pretty meaty ones on here you know we're going to go through them obviously but like when you talk about Pollard, when you talked about zoning bylaws we had a half an hour presentation tonight just on that which could go longer when we talk about the general bylaw with tree protection, when we talked about you know the general authorization for right of ways and probably not going to be long but there are some of these gonna be taking up some time. And I would hate to be

you know at 11 30 at night talking about general bylaw general wetlands protection because it's a very important thing so i just think as we're going through the articles tonight and we do have another meeting that We may want to think about, do all these articles really need to go forward to this special town meeting on October 19th? That's just a thought.

Yeah, I agree. And I think that there are many who do. I would also just say that the town of Needham is a large entity or corporation The idea that the corporation would have one business meeting a year would be ridiculous. So So yes, and there's a lot of stuff. There's a lotta stuff that people are really invested in and really looking forward to seeing so I think we need to approach each one of these carefully.

That's all I'm saying.

Article 1, the first three articles are all related to Pollard. So article one is appropriate for the construction so this is the big item for town meetings approval to authorize us to borrow for construction of that project.

Madam Chair, I move that the Board vote to support Article 1 in the October 19th, 2026 special town meeting warrant. Second.

All right any discussion?

Sure. So on August 3rd, I talked about how some of the new proposed building is deficient relative to the MSBA standards and then on September 8th I discussed how some of the proposed building designs is deficient relative to what we currently have across Pollard and High Rock. I just want to point out a couple other things about The proposed design does not satisfy all of the deficiencies identified in the statement of interest that was submitted to the MSBA. So, in the Statement of Interest documents it says that currently The media center is 2,747 square feet smaller than the MSB's recommended size. That's relative to the current two grades The proposed design is 3,006 square feet smaller than the MSB's recommended size. So there's a greater deviation rather than a smaller deviation

locker rooms was identified as a deficiency in the statement of interest saying the locker rooms are undersized for the school and do not safely accommodate the number of students who are scheduled to use them during PE or the after-school middle school program In the proposed design, there are zero locker rooms and instead two changing rooms totaling 700 square feet which is far smaller than the 2,120 square feet that's currently in the building. In terms of shared classrooms we discussed a little bit last time having fewer classrooms in the building than the existing facilities means a greater utilization ratio and that teachers will not have their own dedicated space. That was identified as an issue in the statement of interest saying that due to shared classrooms, teachers also do not have a dedicated space for their preparation time. So that's just something that was highlighted at the time as something that, that was a deficiency that was hoping to be resolved. And then relatedly on utilization rate we discussed that 85 percent utilization

That was in the statement of interest as well, saying that the school has had to adapt to utilizing a much higher classroom utilization rate than is typically seen in middle schools which is currently 85% or more. The proposed design would not lessen that. And relative to High Rock, High Rock has a classroom utilization rate of 71%. So it would be a higher utilization rate compared to High so just for all these reasons we're building a 50-year building or more and my feeling is that the design really matters, the details really matter Not only is it deficient relative to the MSBA standards, not only to what we currently have but also to what said we wanted. So I'm not going to be supporting this.

Anybody else?

I just think we had the school committee and the designers and all of them across the table for us, and I'm not an expert on this. they are. So I have to rely on what they came up with and what they, uh, they cameup with, I thought was a really good plan then. And I think I can see that they put a lot of thought into that.

Thank you Bill. Anybody else? Yeah, I mean just we need this. We need a new school and this was incredibly well thought out, and the MSBA obviously thought so because they decided to fund us at $80 million. so saying yes to this gets us that 80 million dollars, saying no to this does not get us the 80 million and puts us at square one. So I am very strongly in favor of this.

OK. Kevin, anything?

I agree this is a good project. It's well planned, well designed and we should do it. I appreciate that it's a big price tag but we need the school built.

I guess I would just add that in the final analysis, the MSBA approved all of the changes and alterations that were made by the school committee. and agreed that they matched the educational plan, and would accommodate all of the students that were planned for this space. And that is why they funded it and specifically approved all of changes. I recognize that this represents an enormous burden to the community in cost, but the cost of doing anything else is substantially similar or greater. And I think this will have overall a beneficial impact on our community, so I would support this as well and I guess I would be looking for a motion.

in that case all those in favor vote aye aye and those against no okay so that's a four to one

Article 2 is to appropriate the balance of the feasibility funding for the Pollard Middle School construction. The total project cost for the pollard project is $325.4 million that is assuming that we are expending the full $2.75 million in free cash that had been previously appropriated by the 2024 Annual Town Meeting This article would allow us to carry that balance forward from the feasibility stage into the detailed design phase so we can utilize that free cash.

so madam chair we move that the board vote to support article 2 on the October 19th 2026 special town meeting warrant second discussion manager can i ask the town manager is there an estimate of what that balance is

We'll do a final accounting right before town meeting because we're able to continue to charge staff time to that feasibility amount. But current estimate is around $30,000. Thank you.

All right, all those in favor? Aye. Those opposed? Motion carries. Article 3.

Article 3 is the home rule petition related to the article 97 requirements we have to comply with for putting geothermal wells under Warner Field, which is under the jurisdiction of the Park and Recreation Commission. The only thing I want to note on this article is that we've continued conversations with the Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs. They are reviewing our language, so if there's technical changes that they want, Town Council will make these those to this article before it goes to print.

so madam chair i would move that the board vote to support article three in the october 19th 2026 special town meeting awards second discussion

All those in favor say aye. Aye. Those opposed? Motion carries Article 4.

Article 4, we have two unpaid bills from a prior year these require town meeting approval because our fiscal years have closed and so we would like to pay these invoices that we received past the deadline

Madam Chair, I move to the Board vote to support Article 4 in the October 19th, 2026 Special Town Meeting Warrant.

Second. Discussion?

This requires a nine-tenths vote for town meeting.

Yes. All those in favor say aye. Aye.

as opposed motion carries article 5 I think I'll speak to five and six together which is our general process is that we come back at the fall special town meeting when we have the assessments from the MWRA for both water and sewer so we do now have those assessments that is what's reflected here in the changes to those budgets that had been approved in May

Madam Chair, I move that the Board vote to support Articles 5 and 6 in the October 19th, 2026 Special Town Meeting Warrant. Second.

Discussion? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Those opposed, say nay. motion carries both motions five and six or both articles one motion okay so article seven moving on

Article 7 is at nearly every town meeting for us to be able to pass the public education and government programming PEG funds from our cable providers to our public access station.

Madam Chair, I would move that the Select Board support Article 7 in the October special town meeting.

Second. Any discussion? All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Those opposed? Okay, motion carries. Article 8.

Article eight is the first of the two articles you heard from the planning board on tonight so this first one is about the half-story restriction

I'd be happy to take a vote, but do you traditionally we've waited your call?

Well,

since Bill brought up the issue of I mean, I'm not going to die on a hill for this but I feel like this could be one of the ones that could be withdrawn and brought in May because I know there's been a lot of work on it. A lot of years, but I don't see that this is going to really of an urgent matter, even though we want to get it done. Because I was trying to get out of them to say like Yes, every builder is coming to us because they're afraid that these are going to go into place. So they come to us and building, building, but I didn't hear that so to me that might be and I just think zoning is better, because it gets complicated. It's better presented in the spring.

I get you, but I also think then in the spring it's going to be planning-palooza because this will be Articles 8, Articles 9 and every other thing they've been working on. And I think in a weird way These are small potatoes, this is a low-hanging fruit. We can get these through at least we've We've got that done. And I do think maybe we have a commitment to the residents of this town, that we do work and we work hard. You're right, I see your point but I think we could take this on.

I also point out that these articles are inserted by the planning board, so I don't think the select board can withdraw them.

Okay.

Well, we are the warrant committee but I don't think we would approach it in that way certainly. We would not just summarily remove other departments' articles. We'd have conversations with them. where we are now. What's here is what's going to be printed, but we do have the opportunity to remove articles prior to town meeting. So this discussion can continue of what we all, the community feel is really important to accomplish at this town meeting The question is whether we're going to include it for printing, and that happens when?

This is your last meeting before it goes to print.

So really... So we're not waiting. I think it actually goes to the printer like

This week.

Not that quickly, but... So I do think we need to make a decision tonight and if we are not going to summarily remove other Department's articles, then I think we need to vote to approve this one. And if you feel strongly that this is something that the planning board should choose to remove, then that would be an avenue to pursue if we, you know. As we move forward but I don't think it would be appropriate to like not put it on the warrant tonight I'm hearing no objection. So, I'm going to assume that we all feel that way. I don't disagree. We as a town meeting and we, as a towns sort of have been talking about this for a really long time. It was proposed originally as a citizen's petition or

portion of this came to be out of that citizens petition. That was quite some time ago and so I'd hate to postpone that deliberation because it's been such a long time coming. But I do understand and agree with your point about the length of the warrant

But Madam Chair, I agree with Kevin that I could go either way taking a position tonight or in two weeks.

Sure. All right. Well, do we feel like we want to postpone our position?

What is the point of waiting two weeks?

It just won't be in the warrant that we recommend it.

What would we learn in two weeks?

Typically, we get feedback from residents. Again, I'm not advocating one way or the other because as Heidi said...

I'm worried really about the feedback from residence and my only concern with this is like the the ability to get that evening done, honestly. I feel like this has been pretty well vetted

I mean, you all feel that we should go forward. I'm not going to vote against this because I feel it's worthwhile. I get it's just do you do it now or the spring but

To me, if you want to put it off that doesn't necessarily mean that you would vote to not support it. Vote to support or not support to me is about the substance of it. Do we want to get it done? It's a separate decision, is this just too much for one evening kind of thing. So I think we could vote to support or not support whoever you come out I mean, I'm supportive of it. And then it could be a later decision that it's just too much for October.

But I think if we vote to support it, I find it highly unlikely that they're going to decide that they wish to withdraw at a later date. And I'm not saying that's good or bad, I'm just saying it's highly unlikely. If we vote to support it tonight, I think it'll move forward. As we go along, we still have other things down the line.

I guess I'm not sure that's true. Just because we support it, that's only one factor in the decision. They may for example think that this is a very crowded agenda and people may not be able to give it the time. There's other reasons, I mean our voting to support it to me does not mean that there's no chance of it being moved to May.

I would also like to send the message that the select board supports these articles because i think they're good articles and they will have an impact you know on on the shape of buildings in our town

Madam Chair, I move that the Board vote to support Article 8 in the October 19th, 2026 Special Town Meeting Warrant.

Second. Okay, all those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Those opposed? Okay so the motion passes we support the article and we'll move on to the second planning article Article 9 Do we want to do a separate motion for that, Mr. King?

Sure. I move the board vote to support Article 9 in the October 19, 2026 Special Town Meeting Warrant.

Second. okay all those in favor say aye aye as opposed okay motion passes all right so we come to article 10.

Article 10 is proposing to create a single parcel historic district at the Wyeth House, 178 South Street. And to speak to the timeliness of October this was requested in May we did not have enough time under Mass General Law requirements to go through the single parcel historic district process in time for May. The current owners are looking to sell. and so I think the impetus was bring this to town meeting before the ownership changed hands.

And I think that the current owners are looking to sell with this protection?

Correct, thank you yes yeah this is all voluntary

Okay. Madam Chair, I would move that the select board support Article 10 at the October 19th special town meeting. Second.

All those in favor say aye. Aye. Those opposed? Okay, motion passes. Article 11.

Article 11 as the tree protection bylaw, which two members of the sub-court served on that committee and had a couple presentations on.

Madam Chair, I move that the Board vote to support Article 11 in the October 19th Special Town Meeting Warrant.

Second.

Do you want to go?

Go ahead.

Oh, I was just going to say Okay, I'll pat our backs a little bit. I think the committee did a really good job. The tree committee like it was very collaborative you know lots of back and forth compromises some people got what they wanted, some people didn't. I think it was good committee work. The thing that surprised both of us during the hearing last week was the exception or exclusion of town-owned lands and I guess i would support an amendment to have town-owned trees included in this as well.

I mean, I could go into the reasons. I think municipal projects are for a public good whereas private development is for private gain only and that the town is governed under multiple mass general laws about the treatment of trees and property. They're always in the cases where they are removing trees it's often mandated because of you know drainage at edges of fields for example like at Claxton and the town already follows a two to one Replanting Policy. I also note that, you know if you exempt the town and have and there isn't a possibility for replanting, then maybe a project is going to generate a fee which they're gonna pay into the town. It's gonna have to raise from project funds, pay in to the town replanting fund and used to plant more trees.

That's the town paying itself, which I see no benefit in given that the town is going above and beyond in my estimation at planting trees generally. So I wouldn't support a municipal exemption, but I would note that The Pollard Project does adhere to the mandate of the tree bylaw. They are saving enough trees much more to exempt them from the responsibility actually for planting more trees. So in this case, it's actually not an issue. But generally I think that the aims of private versus public are so different that it's not beneficial to exempt a town. especially in a town like Needham that does spend so much time and energy meeting the community expectation that they preserve.

I don't think it's just about the Pollard Project. There are many town-owned parcels of land with trees on them, and I think that the Town does The example is Claxton. We had to take down trees for the remediation, but we planted way more. So I think that fact that we generally comply or do more than what would be required under this bylaw just makes it an easy choice for me. Why not include them if we're going to do it already? The optics of just exempting the town doesn't look good to me.

Okay, we disagree. Bill?

Madam Chair, unfortunately I like trees as much as anyone else but I have some concerns right now about this way this bylaw is written. I've heard from some constituents who are very concerned about the way it's written, the obligations for two years afterwards. You know if you want to do something to your property after you bought it is it going to trigger another tree thing? How is this going to be affected to ADUs? Question seven on the ballot in November could allow by right 5,000 square foot lots. if 5,000 square foot lots are allowed. You could have a 10,000-square-foot lot which we have now split into five. Is there going to be enough room and how you're gonna deal with the trees? I would love to hear... We met, I think he's gonna be our new tree warden tonight you know I would love to hear now that he's here I would have to love hear his input as well also there is you know We're saying 25% Wellesley, which is 50%, so I think 25% is not really a lot and this goes into play.

So as it's currently written, I will not be able to support it.

Madam Chair, I would say I feel some sense of urgency of getting this done because the trees are being cut down all the time. And so as we wait, more trees are cut down. So that is my view.

Having gone through two elections, I will tell you everyone wants something to protect the trees. This is a slam dunk. People are desperate for this. They're heart sick when they see lots clear cut and I think they want something done The comments I got are, why hasn't this happened yet? Why is it still going on? Why can't you guys figure this out? This may not be perfect. but I think there's an urgency to do it. I think it's sort of a signal to the residents that we are working on this and we take this seriously so i think we should support it for the fall

and what I thought you know it may you know we could address some of these things to bring back to the springs but i understand you don't miss Dowd thinks that there'll be more trees gone. I'm not sure how many more, but that's just my opinion 14 football fields yeah Yeah, but not between now and the spring. I don't think that will happen. Every year.

I just wanted to address at least one... There was a long list for you. just rattled off. One of them was ADUs and I just we wrote this by law to allow zoning bylaws to take precedence, so ADUs are allowed via zoning and that's not in dispute. The tree bylaw wouldn't prevent the creation of an ADU And I think that's true of many of the sheds and so on, but a lot of the objections that you raised had to do with. that doesn't cover them all. And I'm not even sure that I remember them all, but I have also spoken with developers about this and there are some legitimate questions

I think that my hope is that we built enough discretion in for the tree warden to make some critical decisions. I also think that as Kevin points it out uh it's past time for something this may not be perfect we often find that there are bylaws that require some adjustment, and this may be one of them. But unless we implement it and get started, we are not going to know that. We're going to just lament the loss of trees. So I guess I would say I hear you and I am 100% willing to work towards perfection, but not at the cost of having a bylaw in place. So I would support this article. Anything?

Do we need a motion?

Yeah, I think so. We had a motion and a second.

Right. Okay.

Josh is keeping track. That's right.

Okay, so in that case all those in favor of supporting this article say aye. Aye. And those opposed?

Nay.

That's a long bylaw. Article 13.

12.

12, I scrolled by. Oh yes, thank you. Article 12 digital legal notices.

This is a home rule petition to allow our legal notices to be posted digitally as an option. I'd say in terms of timeliness for the board's consideration, if we bring it to October town meeting um we can file it right at the beginning of the legislative session but if you wanted to defer until may we could file it late so I think it's from my perspective, operationally it could go to either.

Can I just ask then about the cost? Since we don't have Newspaper, print newspaper in town anymore? Oh we or oh it's not it's the hometown weekly is still printed. It's just not delivered

Correct, we still do legal notices to Hometown Weekly and we're currently budgeted for that. So again I think this is a great tool and resource it also can wait.

I feel this one though was a slam dunk This will take two seconds. If it's not unanimous consent, I'd be surprised. But you were. I've been surprised before.

You know what? Just because it's new, it would get questions. So I'm happy to defer this.

I would feel this is consent but I realize you just jinxed it.

Yeah.

Madam chair, I move that the select board remove article 12 from this October 19th special time meeting warrant.

Okay and do we have a second? I'll second it. Do we want more discussion? No. All those in favor of Josh's proposal to remove Article 12 say aye. Aye. Are those opposed?

Nay. I didn't vote.

I'm saying nay. I heard you. You're saying nay? Okay, it's three to two and the motion passes. We will see this again in May. Okay, Article 13. You just jinxed it. You can't have it both ways. Article 13.

Article 13 is updating the income limits for the tax deferral that you just heard a presentation on.

yes madam chair i move that the board vote to support article 13 in the october 19th special town meeting warrant second okay discussion all those in favor say aye aye are those opposed

Okay, passes. Article 14?

I'll just make a timeliness note on article 14 and 15 both changes to the revolving funds the revolving funds annual limits get set in May. So if we're gonna structurally make the changes to these two revolving fund, we need to do that in October have time for the attorney general to approve the bylaw amendment and then we would kind of start fresh in may setting the annual limit so So Article 14 is establishing the Park and Rec Revolving Fund to a more modern type of revolving fund.

Okay, and I would just say I'm hopeful that Town Meeting has seen this kind of restructuring before. And so as long as we have a really clear explanation

So Madam Chair, we move that the select board support Article 14 in the October special town meeting. Second.

All right, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Okay, those opposed? Motion passes.

Article 15 is the restructuring from traveling meals to community nutrition as you've heard tonight.

I would move the Select Board support Article 15 to amend the General By-law Traveling Meals Revolving Fund Second

All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Those opposed? Okay, passes 16.

Article 16 is to allow us to do the friendly taking at Great Plains Central that you just heard about and timeliness as we would like to put this out to bid to construct in the summer of 27.

Madam Chair, we move that the Select Board support Article 16 of the October 19th special town meeting.

Second. All those in favor? Aye. Those opposed? Okay, motion passes. Article 17

Article 17 is the presentation received from the Conservation Department and Commission at your last meeting to update our general wetlands protection bylaw. the Conservation Commission did hold a hearing and they had no attendees at that public hearing

Madam Chair, I move the Board vote to support Article 16 in the October 19th, 2026 Special Town Meeting Warrant. You mean 17?

Yeah, 17. Right?

Oh, no, I'm sorry. I forgot to scroll.

I will say, I actually have some concerns about this one. I think the intent is great once explained it's pretty simple but I don't think it's It's clear what it is without that explanation. So I'm kind of worried about that, and I also feel that having one public hearing at their regular meeting is not really sufficient for public Notice or Public Forum. So I don't know if anyone else has feelings about either of those things?

I totally agree with you. And I would make a motion to withdraw Article 17

Yeah, I mean, I guess I would just want to say that I think this is important and I do support it. But I would wholeheartedly support it on the May town meeting warrant.

And I just, as I stated before, I don't think we want to end the night with a complicated article like this.

I second your notion, Bill.

Thank you. Oh, you have how many motions?

Wait now we have two motions.

No because no one seconded his. No one did?

All right, so we have an unseconded motion. We have a motion that is seconded to withdraw Article 17. So let us vote on the one that is Okay, the motion is to withdraw Article 17 and all those in favor say aye. Aye. And those opposed?

Nay.

Okay four to one. So the motion passes and we will withdraw Article 17. And Article 18 is already withdraw. Okay, great. and we already did the town manager report, and we've already talked about our committee reports. So unless... Chair I move that we adjourn.

Second.

All those in favor? Aye. Good night.