Select Board April 23, 2026

Good evening. I'd like to call to order the Wellesley Select Board Meeting of April 23, 2026 in the Giuliani Room at Town Hall. Here from the Select Board are Vice Chair Tom Ulfelder, Secretary Colette O'Frank, Beth Sullivan Woods, Kenny Largess, and myself, Marjorie Freiman. Town Council is with us, Tom Harrington and Eric Russell, and of course our Assistant Executive Director, Corey Testa. Our first agenda item is Citizen Speak. I don't think there's anybody here for Citizen Speak, so we'll move on to special town meeting preparation. Everybody has received council's draft of the motions and this afternoon the board received two additional sets of drafts of motions. So Beth and Kenny, would you like to introduce your motions?

I have a couple of questions that we have. it seems like the select board wants clear direction from the town on how to proceed. So what I try to do is think through how do you actually get that information in a town meeting setting through motions. and so what I did was say okay motion one here is what was proposed by the Commonwealth and motion one basically tracks the Commonwealth's language and it's a yes or no vote and if it's a yes then I think that basically answers the question. If it's a no then it moves to a more structured approach where we would split the motion. Corey, can you pull up the actual language? So motion two essentially says if motion one does not pass,

we will continue engagement with the Commonwealth and pursue modifications to the proposed development as follows. And the way it'll work is we will split the motion by each prong one through seven. So prong one, development is located immediately adjacent to or on the existing parking area so as to minimize footprint. and people will vote on that. Question two, substantial majority of the property be permanently preserved as open space or for passive recreation? and for passive recreation. Three, scale and intensity of development including number of units be reduced to the extent feasible. Four, meaningful mitigation of traffic infrastructure public safety impacts.

five that the environmental and climate related considerations be addressed, six project comply with applicable local regulations including inclusionary zoning, and seven that we preserve all of our rights and options available to us. and that absent substantial consistency with the foregoing, the select board shall not pursue an agreement or take any other action related thereto. so in my view this gets us the direction that we have asked for and I did speak to Tom earlier today he said legally this passes muster there's other hurdles you have to run this by the moderator and it is not probably your typical approach but it seems to elicit the information that we're looking for.

Beth? Thank you very much, Kenny. It's a very thoughtful approach.

Thank you. I think our approach has an upfront part that's more spelled out. And I was thinking about the fact that I believe our goal is to get the ingredients to understand what to negotiate and where the will of the community is and are we close enough. to be able to reach a deal with the state or not. And I was concerned that with the question that we went over on the warrant that With an up or down, we wouldn't know how far apart we are. And so I looked at this as building blocks for negotiation. And I think I went more granular. than Kenny did in terms of how to do that.

from what I read the motion one portion of Kenny's makes a lot of sense to me to see up or down. I don't know if I would say you don't do the second piece If the first piece doesn't succeed, I think you might want to know where are the edges that you might want to pursue. So I'm not sure. If motion one carries, you don't do motion two? If motion one carries, I think you still need parts of motion two. because motion one doesn't necessarily have some of the elements that are important to negotiate. So that's just my thinking off the top of my head. but I went through areas that we have heard from the community and that we have discussed as negotiation points where we've either seen some flexibility from the state or we have seen no flexibility.

how much of the parcel, what's the minimum amount that we believe should be preserved? And I think that will give us a good sense of Tolerance. And we can agree or disagree on how the breaks are. What's the maximum number of units that we think are acceptable? And again, it's directional. What type of housing are we targeting? Where are the gaps in the community that we would see value as a community? because we do talk a lot about where there are housing gaps and despite all of the development, we haven't addressed the housing gaps. So that seemed to me to be a fruitful area to get some insight on.

area D in talking to Tom Harrington I think this one may not work I was thinking about the size the the primary size of the unit to help understand the price point and the scale. I think we may be better off doing a market price. to get a handle on that affordability piece, like under a million, a million two. So I think this space thing may be better at a price point area. Number E, gauging how important the community feels it is to have traffic mitigation and roadway improvements addressed.

This one I did as a scale and several of these are on scales because I think when you have so many ingredients it's good to have a sense for what's more important and what's less important and in the framework of town meeting We can't really do a trade-off and we can't have people rank things. The tools we have don't do it. So I looked at this gradation as a way to do it. Similarly, how important is it to move the traffic so it enters MassBay directly? How important is compliance with inclusionary zoning? This is if we're looking to shorten. I think we've heard from the state that this is something they've already acknowledged, but I left it in there. Preserving municipal rights and rules and regulations.

and then the last one which I will acknowledge not being a lawyer is probably not clearly worded and again I'm not sure we need it because I think the idea of being party to a development agreement is something This board would likely want, if we were to negotiate anything, we would want it memorialized in some and so forth in a very meaningful way. But that's where I was going because I also think it will be easier for town meeting to look at the components and that way it'll be easier for us to see there's a path to some form of a project or there's a path to no form of a project that's acceptable to the community. And the last thing I'll say is our voting system has the capacity to handle all of these questions.

The electronic devices can do kind of polling. Corey, can you please put up the motion that was first circulated to the board?

Marjorie, can I just say two things on that? So on L, I think the answer to that one is extremely highly likely to be very, because we're essentially asking, do you want a binding agreement or not? And then D, I think is in large part derivative of B, it depends on how many units, what the size is, but I think these are all really good questions.

So Marjorie, the other thing that and it looks like Kenny has a similar strategy in breaking things out. One of the things that I heard in our discussion is, well, there can be motions to amend. I think in terms of kind of being transparent with the community about their choices and also being efficient, a motion to amend takes a very large amount of time. And so it may be easier to lay out the options and decide which ones we want to pursue or not.

Thank you. I'm sorry, Corey, I meant the one that Town Council drafted. Yeah. Oh, thank you. Yeah. We're going to address all these versions. I just want to put the original one that Council drafted because it contains some of the elements that you've both described, but not all of them.

Tom do you want to say a couple words about why it's drafted this way?

operating under the assumption that you get a yes vote on this. this would be the document that you would take to the state saying here's our marching orders right so it's it's not the warrant article it's the motion it's what everyone votes that's gonna that's gonna give you your authority to negotiate and so The idea was, and subject, assuming you were going to have changes, but I started out with not putting a number of units in there and not putting an area in there so that that becomes part of the negotiation. I think from the board's perspective, the size of the develop and the number of units is directly related to the hoops or the regulations that they need to follow. If you want fewer units, you want to make this an easier project to permit and to build.

If you want to tighten up on environmental regulations, that's going to cost more, so the probably the give there is is a higher number of units and so I spelled it out to say that that it would be subject to our zoning bylaws, our general bylaws, our wetlands protection bylaws, our water supply protection overlay district, and it may be subject to inclusionary zoning bylaw. Inclusionary zoning might be a must-have for you, in which case we'd want to change that language. But I think that's the way the board wants to think. where do you want to apply pressure and where are you willing to give? And that's where I think we wanna give you some leeway. And then it's all,

based upon the idea that we're going to get a permanent conservation restriction conveyed to the town for whatever remains of the land.

Okay, other board members' reactions?

So the way I read this is it's three parts. The first part is, Town Meeting authorizes to enter into negotiations with the state to build housing on the parking lot. So are we...

I would actually, so it's on and around the parking lot.

Sorry, on and around. It's the same language. So it's, we're focused on just the small area.

Right, so I would say it's something greater than the 4.4 acres of paved land of pavement is it you know is it a half acre more is it two acres more that would be up to you

Okay, so the first part is stick to the smaller area. The second part is exclusively you're gonna follow our bylaws regarding wetlands, water protection, when we say overlay, water protection overlay, okay. So that's a zoning bylaw. And inclusionary zoning. So those three things. So two, environmental runoff, I guess is probably the second. Yeah. and the inclusionary, and then they're gonna give us a conservation restriction essentially. so essentially all we're really asking for more than they've proposed is they're going to comply with wetlands water protection and I mean inclusionary zoning they

they sort of offer. But what it doesn't say, Kenny, is the number of units.

That's still to be negotiated. So essentially we're negotiating over units on a parking lot.

But we have no... No, I think you're negotiating over the number of units on and around the parking lot.

Understood.

Understood. I think those things are the those are both of your drivers you know is it 180 units is it 150 units is it holding to 4.4 is it five and a half is it six you know that those are that gives you your wiggle room

So let me play devil's advocate. If I'm the state, what's the trade here? They're gonna give up less units and I mean... I find it hard to believe they're going to build over the wetlands. That's hard for me to believe. The water protection I think is a real issue. And inclusionary zoning, I don't know that that's much of a give for them. So I don't know really what we're I don't know how this gives us direction. It gives us some direction, but I think the other approach gives us clear direction of what our marching orders essentially are in terms of negotiating this. Deal. This gives us definitely something.

I think the other two approaches give us clear, and we'll see by the vote numbers if we take that approach, what people really care about.

So I mean what I think we're trying to elicit from town meeting members and residents is a discussion. I think there's going to be votes but really for me what matters is the discussion and so what I'm really interested in is how we frame a couple of things I thought the presentation last night to advisory was really helpful and it was a great basis for our presentation. I actually really liked Town Council's presentation of the difficult to thread needle. Here's the potential issues we could litigate over. We can't really talk about it very much, but here's some things to consider when you're thinking about that. I think that another couple of things we need to put into it is If we're negotiating, what's important to us? And I think we need a slide to say, and these are my thoughts on it, and this is not all inclusive.

I think it's a different approach to the same motion language and survey. is to say to time meetings, when we're negotiating, these are the things that are important to us. The conservation restriction in the majority of the forested land, the number of units and the density. And those you can't really bifurcate them. it involves a potential range of units and it involves a potential range of acreage being developed. So that's an issue we have to negotiate on. having mass bay entry and exit via Route 9, having mass DOTs engagement on Route 9 intersection improvements, no mass bay parking on the site, application of local zoning regulations, inclusionary zoning, wetlands, site plan review for the runoff issues, and then the types of housing. Workforce Housing, Senior Living and Special Needs Community.

So, I mean, the way that I was thinking that we can get to these answers is to make it clear to time meeting members that these are the things that we're thinking of When we ask you to enter into negotiations, these are the things that we're going to negotiate for. And ask people to reflect on that. so I think they all get at those things in different ways and so I mean I want to hear what other people say about which path they want to take forward because I think they all get us there because all we're really doing is listening to the conversation to help advise us as we go to the next stage.

I think listening is great. A certain number of people are going to stand up and talk and others are not gonna stand up and talk. An actual vote on, I think we've generally outlined the same things. I think, If it's 51-49, that's helpful to some extent. If it's 85% to 15%, that's very informative. So I think actually having people vote gives us much cleaner direction. And I think the discussion will still happen, but I think it'll happen in a more structured way. Way, then a broader motion. My sense will get people coming up to the microphone and telling their opinion of the project. whereas the other things, the moderator will have more ability to funnel the conversation to the specific question.

My hope would be that if we were to use this language, that Marjorie presenting for the board would finish her presentation and would then verbally address what our hope is in terms of the deliberation that would be taking place in town meeting. and give examples of what outcomes there could be that would be helpful for us. I think we could use for example you know Beth's outline and a number of the questions I think we could use specific polling to help further define through definitive votes how town meeting feels. But what I'm mulling over is whether I find greater value in watching the deliberative process take place.

So rather than so clearly focusing them other than the polling questions, whether I would find it useful or more useful to have Testa, Ulfelder, Wellesley, Councilor Testa, Ulfelder, Wellesley, Councilor Testa, Ulfelder, Wellesley, Councilor does a good job of focusing them more quickly. I'm just sort of thinking through whether I think that's the best outcome or whether there's something a step or two back from that that Marjorie can shape. at the end of the presentation through her comments about how we expect the deliberation to unfold, assisted with polling through the kinds of questions that Beth has outlined.

My concern about Beth's questions is that they're not all inclusive. In other words, if you vote for, let's just say people say, I take 150 units but on no more than 4.4 acres. Well, then you have to understand there's a tradeoff. It could be more stories. I mean, there's only a certain way you can fit that number of units on that property. So there's more that goes into it that people might not realize when they're answering the polling question. I happen to really like Kenny's approach. I think it's really thoughtful and it actually reflects what we have been saying to the Commonwealth, all the things we've been saying in our letters. and it's important that we, I think it's important that we share with town meeting members and residents what in a form like this,

what we've been saying in our letters and our comments so they can see it. I can shape my comments, but I think this is very helpful. And this is where you could have motions to amend. If people say, well, I mean, I'd like to modify this condition. I move that we modify motion two number one or motion two number three. And that will drive a conversation on each of the elements. This is fine legally. Tom?

It is, yeah. So what I told Kenny was I have no concerns with it legally. I need to... look at my town meeting time and make sure that we're putting it into the right format. Right.

Tom, can you turn on your microphone please?

I'm sorry about that. So what I said to Kenny was I think it's fine legally. I want to look at town meeting time to make sure we're putting it in the right format and I want to make sure that the moderator is comfortable with the format we're proposing. I did have a conversation with him today. I didn't talk to him about this, but I did talk to him about other things. I do think he'd be comfortable with this. So little work to do. I don't see a reason not to proceed this way if that's what the board wants to do.

Can I just ask a question? Can you explain, Kenny? I don't understand. At the end of it, it says that absent substantial consistency with the foregoing, the select board should not pursue an agreement I just want to understand that better and make sure that we're not tying our hands when I don't know what substantial consistency it is and I think we've run into problems with that in other areas.

We can play with those words but what it's essentially saying is if this doesn't work we can litigate them.

the whole thing. Unties your hands, kind of.

Yeah, but I was literally throwing this together today, so you're not wrong.

There's a couple things I would add to Kenny's. I think Beth's point and Colette's points about housing types. are important and I'd like to see us aim to get kinds of housing that we have said all along the town needs as opposed to the high-end condos because we need other kinds of housing. and I would add the development agreement, I think. The Commonwealth, as far as we know, has not allowed a tripartite development agreement. That's correct. and so forth, but it doesn't mean that we should negotiate one with the Commonwealth and then they offer a conveyance to the developer that's not consistent with what We agreed, so I think it's worth pursuing.

The other thing is that I would say in number two that a substantial majority of the property be permanently preserved under a conservation restriction held by the town. I think that's very important as opposed to maybe the developer or somebody else. This gives town meeting members a sense of what's important to us and they can tell us what's important to them. I think the numbers may be less helpful because we need direction on a path.

Beth? So I have, I think, two areas. The first is, if you can put up the one from Tom.

Yes.

I like the idea of getting feedback on the general package that we think is out there. I don't know how town meeting's going to react to having nothing that anchors it. And I'm afraid we could be really misled by people, each person seeing in it what they want to see. so that they can see in it, oh, on or around the parking lot, that means five acres. It's 4.6, that means five, as opposed to that means seven or eight or 10. So I think... people could get a little balled up there without any specificity and without any sense of density. I don't know if compliance with the town's zoning bylaws means a certain density. If you're building on five acres, if we're assuming a certain density or are we assuming 180.

What version are you talking about?

I'm on Tom's version because for me the thing that caught me off guard and I like the concept is that The warrant is narrower than the motion. And I'm just not familiar with going from narrow notice of this size, this, this is our concept and I think we are apt to get a lot more discussion which is a good thing and a lot more amendments to say allowing the construction multi-family housing on five acres of land and then someone else will say with No more than X number of units. And we'll have a lot of, well, we can't really control the motions to amend, and I'm afraid the vagueness will invite

a narrowing that may or may not reflect our desire to get feedback on the general framework we think of what's on the table. I have concerns about that. I do think it should be Inclusionary Zoning is one of the other musts. I don't see any reason that if every single person developer who builds here helps keep us above our 10% why we would let the state who has the 10% rule off the hook on inclusionary zoning. So for me, that's a must. I have a hard time seeing neighborhood impacts in this language. And I think that the traffic and the roadway mitigation

is a supreme element of a negotiation and not including it as something that people would vote on. I don't know what to do with that. So I'm afraid that the vagueness of some of those things is going to lead to more discussion figuring out what we mean than not. I preferred, even though I didn't like the numbers in it I'm willing to accept that that's what we think is a proxy for the state's offer. So I would rather see the numbers in it and add wetlands, water supply, traffic, town zoning bylaws to the language.

Giving the numbers though narrows the parameters within which town meeting thinks the select board might be negotiating. because if one thing goes up, something else may have to go down, or vice versa, or we may have to say inclusionary zoning it's gotta be above 10%, maybe it doesn't have to be 20% because that's costly for the developer. But the more there are specific numbers in here, the more people could be surprised by an end result and think they didn't authorize it.

Right, but I thought that was the point, to get feedback from the community about what number... they think is palatable so we know that it's not binding but we know what our parameters are and so having no number I'm not sure how that's helpful for us because we can enter into negotiations right now on this. It doesn't give us the direction from the community about how much land, how much density, how strict. So I would even go back back more to the warrant language and put the other conditions, the zoning bylaw, the wetlands, the inclusionary zoning as separate points so that it's part of This is the basic construct. This is what they've offered us.

And then go down the punch list. Okay. Tom?

I think there are a few points that need to be clarified for example I think we have to be very clear what framework we're offering to town meeting I don't know that we have a framework that has been But are we sure that we can put something that we call a framework up on the screen? And secondly, I don't think I would say that town meeting advisors saying that town meeting advised the select board to negotiate within the framework proposed by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Because I just think that approving their framework, they've have proven that they will change what it is that they

Oh, you know what, Tom?

Your mic's not on. People won't be able to hear you. Pull your mics closer because people at home can't hear us.

So my main point was two things. One, I think we have to be very confident that we have a framework that we can propose to town meeting with confidence.

Do you mean what the state has represented to us?

Well, not what the state has represented to us. That's what concerns me. But what we can hold the state accountable for in our representations to town meeting which is no different than why we weren't comfortable doing the visioning.

Do you don't think that the letter from HLC and the notice are a good enough framework to start with?

I think it is close. I think it's maybe what we have.

I think that's all we're going to get.

Frankly, right. And then the other thing was, I would change the wording to say that town meeting advise a select board to negotiate within the framework proposed by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts because I don't want to give something up. and I want to be able to go into those negotiations following town meeting and know what it is that we would be looking for.

So I use the word framework for the reason Marjorie just alluded to. This is, except for the seven or eight acres, which was pulled from a discussion that I understand happened, everything else is pulled right from the letter that the notice the public notice that they sent so I would be comfortable with framework I agree with you it's not a comprehensive so I think changing it to negotiate would Good idea.

So can I build on that? I would put negotiate based on because to me within means you have to stay seven to eight acres and maybe you're at... five or maybe you're at six or like you can go outside of it better, I think.

So Council's motion takes out the seven to eight acres. Would people feel better if this doesn't say seven or eight acres and leaves on and around the parking area, which is what the letter and the notice say?

So the seven to eight acres caught me completely off guard, but I'm going to, I thought about it. and if I wasn't in the meeting, if that's what we believe was the last conversation. and to Tom's point before, representing what the state has represented to us as the bones of a negotiation structure. I feel like it is most transparent to anchor it around the number that they gave us. So whether we have that number in writing or not, I think someone can move to amend it to five acres or whatever but over the last two days I have thought about the fact that

Marjorie is our lead person, you have said, I want feedback on what the state's presented. And the state hasn't presented all these other pieces that are important to us, but they've presented the building blocks of land area and density. I don't know how we have a conversation with up to 240 people without having a concrete universal understanding of what on or about means or what multifamily housing looks like in the eyes of the state. And so I think this is- We won't know either one of those. But this is fairer representation. So I'm trying to say is I've recovered from seeing it before. and I believe you are correct that we should put out there what we have heard and see if people are on the page or not on the page.

And that's why I said regardless of where they are on the page, I would like to know where the tolerances are, where the thresholds are.

I actually strongly disagree with the wording negotiate based on. That opens it up too far. Kenney had approved the framework which presents a stark question for town meeting negotiate within is slightly different and allows us more flexibility while staying within the framework and I think Kenny's right. We mean to present that clear a question in motion one. It's motion two. where if people defeat motion one that you open it up for more variation. So I would ask that we revert back to negotiate within.

That was the intent was to say this is this is the framework of what has been offered to us. And if I think within allows us It's intentional, too. It's 180, we're essentially saying, on this amount of land. So town media can tell us if they're good with that. so I agree negotiate within is better and I definitely agree anchoring it in seven or eight acres if that's what they're saying makes sense because the town should know that on or around is not just on the fringe it's Under some version of the math, it's almost doubling the parking lot.

Well, if we're going to represent the framework, that's part of the framework that they've been talking about. And town meetings should know that.

Yeah, my guess is listening to us say that we have a public safety radio relay that can't tolerate more than a certain height of building. And we have building height, which is one of the things we can control. they could have been thinking okay well if it's only and they've never said 4.4 acres they've said five acres so they you know only we know the exact acreage of the parking lot but maybe they were thinking that in order to have something acceptable it would have to be on a little bit more land if it was going to be that number of units because they've never budged from that number of units.

Klitz. I'm fine with how it's drafted as it's shown on the screen. I understand the points that people have raised. Again, I'm going to defer to the lawyers here. If it's negotiated within the framework you think is better, I'm fine with that. I think it's fair to say seven to eight acres for the reasons that everyone has mentioned that I think people need to understand I think there's been an awful lot of conversation about five and we need to have the conversation about seven to eight which does allow a little bit less density and people need to understand that and I think it's important that it's juxtaposition beside what's conserved because you know there is an offer a significant offer on the table people need to think about that as a piece and the state sees that as a significant concession yeah not that I mean that's what they think so

So let's assume motion one passes. I would like us to get feedback on the elements in Tom's proposal, the wetlands, inclusionary zoning. which I think, Kenny, if I read this, I read it quickly, but the structure, I think, leaves out any discussion of those if it passes. And I think we should get direction from town meeting. about some of the elements that I think I haven't compared. I think a lot of what you laid out is similar to what I laid out, but I think those things that aren't density and land area, we should get feedback on

regardless and then if it's rejected you can skip those and go to number two and get the full feedback.

Yeah, go ahead Tom. Here's my concern. Town Meeting represents all of the precincts in town including areas far from this location. We know that there are environmental concerns, particularly water displacement from the wetlands. As I've said many times, downgrade impact of creating impervious surface in this location. I don't think that we should leave it up to town meeting as a whole about a requiring environmental permitting wetlands regulations. so that we're ensuring that if town meeting generally supports housing at this location that we're recognizing that there are some

Testa, Ulfelder, Wellesley, Councilor either aren't as concerned about, and I don't mean that in a heartless way, but it just doesn't occur to them. They're not living with the water in their basement.

So going back to Colette's first point, I think it was her first point, if the presentation includes a review of everything we've told the state is important to us, and we say motion one encapsulates the things that we have told the state are important to us. I think motion one is really about the number. That's what I think motion one is about.

So my question following on to that point, Marjorie, is see if motion one passes. does that or does that not preclude us then, I don't think it does, from continuing to negotiate with the state for the things that we think are important.

No, I think it does, but I'd like to explain to town meeting that we've already raised them and these are things that we will continue to want to discuss with the state. They're not left out. but it's a different condition than the end condition in motion two.

Marjorie, could we have a motion that says that town meetings support the select board views these as mandatories in negotiations? compliance with XYZ, whatever.

Well, Camus' motion 2 says substantial compliance.

Right, but his motion 2 only gets asked if Motion 1 fails. And my concern is if Motion 1 passes, then there's no... mandate or acknowledgement in public when we go in to negotiate that says, we have told town meeting that these are our kind of necessities. I would say like maybe it's a 1B and that further town meeting supports that these are requirements of any approved development. Water Protection Zoning, XYZ, kind of like you put in your motion. It just pulls those out to be separate than the offer on the table.

So that's just not how real estate negotiations take place. And we can't be handcuffed that way. I think it's clear to us what elements are really required to protect the interests of our residents. But we can't walk into, we don't have the leverage or the power in these negotiations to go in and put a piece of paper down and say, take it or leave it as to these conditions.

Tom. Just a minute, Beth, I'd like town council to answer.

So I would be careful about using absolutes. like that for the following reason. Because remember, so we want to know what town meeting thinks. We need guidance on a settlement. But remember, there's still the one hand and the other hand. The lawsuit, or the settlement. And because of the nature of a lawsuit, this board is the one that understands the likelihood of success and what that's gonna take, right? So you're always going to have to weigh that part against the settlement. I think you need to give yourself the flexibility to understand what's going on. with the law component when you're striking or not striking a deal.

So can you explain to me why it was okay in your proposal to include them as mandatory?

So that's the mandatory there is that they're going to comply with the wetlands bylaw the Water Protection Zone, and maybe inclusionary. So that was an option. I wanted to put that out there to understand those are things that you can say, these are things we're going to do. but at the end they're still just advising you on those.

Right, so that's what I would like to have them advise us, that they believe those are important elements of the negotiation, which is, I think, what you put here.

So would you put that in motion one?

Well, so motion one right now is the bones of what they represented. And I think what we talked about with the Warren article is Marjorie said it would be helpful to know if the bones are viable or not. And for me, if you're going into negotiation, you don't want to go in with just that. You want to know that the town wants these other components. and I thought that was what was valuable about having it laid out here or in Kenny's version or in my version.

So what if we take the numbers from motion one and make motion two motion one with those numbers? I want to make sure I understand what you're saying. So the question is, if we want Town Meeting's advice to include having been told and understood that those conditions are important to us. Could we just do motion two and put negotiate within the framework of the state but do motion to.

So Marjorie, that's... You're saying motion one, and at the end, comma, and that any such agreement be pursued only if consistent with the following conditions.

Right.

So we have one motion and then pursue with, I'm sure we'll tinker with it a little bit. Yes. The numbers after.

Yes. It's still flexible enough for us to negotiate all of the factors that are important to us. It shows town meeting which factors are important to us. We will have reviewed what's in our letters and what we've told the state. and to Beth's concern that there be something we could point to to say this is what town meetings advice is, it's inclusive.

So Marjorie, I think that's where I was. I wouldn't take out motion two because motion two is if motion one fails, but I would copy that bottom sentence and put it under motion one so it's like, Motion 1, Motion 1B, and then if 1A passes, you go to 1B. If Motion 1A fails, you go to Motion 2.

It's too complicated. We're overthinking this. I would just... The question was whether they're going to advise the select board to negotiate. That's our original motion, and I think that should still be the focus of the motion, but we can give them some more conditions. that they can say are important to achieve substantial compliance with.

Kenny, what do you think about the idea about one motion, but including that last phrase and then going on to the points?

I prefer two motions, so it's a stark contrast between results. I think we could stipulate somewhere that these things like the protection you know wetlands protection and the water runoff issue and inclusionary zoning are important it's almost like one of the resolutions we've done. We could stipulate that. So if somebody ever wants to, remember, why is this important? Somebody's gonna look at this and say, is this important to the town of Wellesley? And if you say that upfront, as a lead into the entire thing. These things are fundamental to our town and phrase it in a generic way. You've put that out there. No matter what happens in all of this, this matters to us. And then you go from here to there.

So, Kenny, do you...

I'm sorry.

Go ahead, Tom.

Town meeting will have seen both motions before they vote, so they're certainly capable of saying I'm favorably disposed to motion one, but now that I look at those other numbers, I think this needs to include. I'm hoping we'll get a flavor. from the speakers to motion one.

My concern about motion one is that too many people assume we're going to negotiate 180 units. even though it says negotiate within, because it says the framework proposed by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. And I'm not exactly sure what town meeting would consider negotiating within the framework is. Corey?

A few things. Council can clarify or confirm for the board and the public If something's not explicitly included in the motion language, it doesn't mean that the board cannot consider it a priority during the negotiation or during a settlement with the Commonwealth. it's non-binding and it's merely considered advice from town meeting and through town meeting the rest of the public so to Colette's earlier point at the start of the meeting we're really looking for the questions, the debate, the discussion, and the votes as guidance to the board as to how to proceed with this matter. So if something is missing from motion one that's included in motion two, I think town meeting in preparation for special town meeting, the members will understand what your priorities are as a board because they've been paying attention to this. for nine months.

I do think looking at this and listening to advisory last night, this is a very good job shaping the discussion and organizing the discussion and makes it a little bit more stark, which I think would help town meeting members. but I just wanted to clarify that with town council that if something is not in motion one and if that were to pass, it doesn't mean it hamstrings the select board in terms of what they can and cannot negotiate.

That's not my, I'm sorry Tom, one second. That's not my concern. My concern is it'll affect the vote because people won't understand that it includes those things.

So can I just clarify? Motion two does not come up if motion one passes. that's why I was suggesting moving some of the elements under motion two so there's redundancy on those directional items but I wouldn't junk up motion one because motion motion one the way it is is the proposition without any of the agreements to these additional things that's why I would have a a sub-piece if motion one passes. If it fails, you're going to motion two, and then we're covered.

Why can't we, I mean, just as a layperson here, why can't we say that the town meeting advises select board whether or not motion one passes that the select board continue to engage with the Commonwealth within the framework or outside the framework to pursue or something to see whether or not Motion 1 passes. Tell us how you feel about these things. Can we modify the introduction so that we get to those questions if Motion 1 passes or not and keep them separate?

So I think, and as I'm thinking about this more, we do want to treat motion one and two as a single, they're two parts of one motion, right? So we're not offering two main motions. We're offering two parts to one main motion. And so we do need a way to tie them together some way. And I haven't figured that out yet. And I think I can figure it out, not on the fly, you know, in the next five minutes. But that's, we do need a way to tie them together.

So it's not either or, that's what you're saying? It's not separate.

It's, they're two parts of one motion.

and we'll get to both, we'll talk about both.

We can talk about both or we could I'm still thinking about it but we could find a way if I mean I think the assumption is that you would not get a yes on motion one and that the meat of the discussion would be on motion two

Well, that's why I'm not sure that one wouldn't be inflammatory unnecessarily. Because two gives us More flexibility and more clarity for town meeting.

Can there be discussion and debate on both pieces and then a vote on both pieces after? Can that work?

You would need to find a way to make them two parts of one motion.

Right. I'm just saying, can the... can the discussion and debate be separate and then the vote at the end kind of thing? Do you know what I'm saying? I don't know. Just trying to make it efficient.

I don't have a problem with 180. because we have no reason to believe that the Commonwealth of Massachusetts is going to go below 180. I think that's what ought to be put in front of town meeting.

It's straight up.

And so I think we're likely to get a cleaner, not that I'm hoping for, you know, a cleaner rejection. of that, when everybody understands, I think it's misleading for us to presume that it could be 150 or 130 or 120. So again, it goes back to Kenny's point about putting a stark motion in front of people prior to moving on to the longer deliberation, which would be motion two.

So we're not voting the motion language until next week. Yes. So have we shared enough that we can give town councils a chance to try and work with this so that we can, because I'm not sure that we can wordsmith this on the fly. I certainly can't contribute anything to that. I'm sure I can't.

By the way, one word I would change, if you could go back up, is just a suggestion. in motion to, in this framework proposed for the development, the select board should continue negotiations with the commonwealth rather than engagement.

That's fine.

and then what I, I'm assuming, Kenny, that the way we deal with the, ultimately the question of litigation is it's a break from this motion on to motion three.

Yes, exactly. Because, I mean, if motion one passes, well, let's think about that. Because if motion one passes... there's a scenario where it just breaks down, right? So you have to still authorize the money no matter what.

with the clear understanding that, you know.

You mean Article 3? Article 3, yes.

Yes, right, yes.

Thank you. That we only spend it if it's necessary.

Right. We just want the authorization.

So I have a question about motion to the sub points. Is it necessary to make a motion to subdivide or can we just present them as separate elements? Is the idea that people might just say the package we agree with?

That's what we wanted to say.

I'm just asking because the way it was written, it says step one, vote to divide. Step two, sequential. Are you thinking that you would definitely want sequential votes or that you would accept a package vote?

Well, motion two, I think you have to split it into multiple votes in order to elicit the information that's helpful. I think if you present this as all or nothing, you're going to get a bad outcome.

So I agree with you. That's why I'm asking if you have to build in a motion to subdivide or if you can just present it as individual motions underneath motion two. and I guess it's a question for council because it seems to me that that's a mechanical piece. I just don't know if we know ahead of time that we want each element have been taken up separately if we need to go through a motion to subdivide.

Why can't we just present it like this and have people move to amend if they want to? And then you can have a vote if there's a move to amend.

So that was my second question, Marjorie. Are we expecting that on these seven, maybe nine items now, as Marjorie suggested, housing types and development agreements, are we expecting that each one is going to have an amendment to tighten the definition of what it means or that the vagueness is going to be... We don't know. Usually when people debate things, if they don't know what meaningful or substantial is, is that going to be enough direction for us? Because they may just say it's not clear enough. I guess they'll amend it.

Yeah.

I think they have to leave us if we get to two they have to leave us remember we're asking for advice this is not a binding vote so I think it has to be there has to be wiggle room in the wording that we can

I do think on bullet point four, I would recommend that we consider whether that should be reworded. In other words, what I'd like to get at is that the Commonwealth be instructed to direct MassDOT to engage with the municipality to correct traffic infrastructure deficiencies. I'd like to be much clearer because this nonsense that they don't This nonsense that they don't control MassDOT, this is what the governor wants. The governor picks up the phone and calls the commissioner, MassDOT, it says get out there and start working on a fix for the traffic infrastructure problems. So I think the way you have it, I understand you were trying to put this together. but that's one where I would tighten it up.

I would tighten it even more. I would say move all student parking off of Oakland Street and create a new access egress onto Route 9 for MassBay traffic.

I might make that another separate point. because I think there are two distinctly different issues in terms of traffic management and I'm less confident about one than I am the other.

Tom, what do you think of securing an agreement from DOT to address? So something that is more than just engaging with DOT, that it's... it gets the commitment from DOT.

Because we'll get that about 10 years from now.

And that's not how DOT projects operate. That's just not what they do.

Well, I mean, I think at the beginning of the meeting when I sort of read down here's the things that are important to us, which Marjorie has listed a couple of those things that we talked about earlier, I think This language is fresh. It was quickly drafted. I think it needs to be revised, not just by town council, but we should be able to redline it. and send it in to town council to take our feedback to build into it so we can have a more meaningful discussion on it on the second time.

keeping in mind that we have to, as Kenny said, provide some flexibility so that people, I mean people have to understand you can't say this or nothing with the state. Right, we have to be realistic, we have to be reasonable, and there are a lot of things that are important to the town.

The other thing I would do is... and I'm interested in your reaction to this, Kenny. At the very end, I would take out the phrase, should not pursue such an agreement, I would take out or to take any other action in relation thereto. That could be read to preclude litigation.

Yeah. Yes. And I think that entire blurb needs to be.

This is going to be really fun.

We aim to give you and Eric fun.

That's our goal.

Kenny, can you turn on your mic? Sorry, silly question.

You need to pull them really close. People watching on TV or texting me, they can't hear us.

Town Meeting, we put a warrant out. We put a main motion. So that package of motions are main motions. So typically, you're supposed to have only one main motion. that main motion can be divided into subsets which is what we're doing here we just kind of need to add to the division between motion one and motion two but so The idea being that if, so let's assume this were not one motion, it were two. The debate would end after the vote on the first one. So it's like, oh, we vote yes, we vote no. We've got nowhere to go. So we need to tie them together so that it's multiple questions.

Got it, that makes sense. And to my point in the memo about a motion to then address all seven or however many points, can you hardwire that? into this, or does somebody have to stand up and make a motion to subdivide, essentially to deal with one through eight independently?

I think I can hardwire it, but I'm going to confer with the Bible and see what I get.

If not, then Kenny, you'll be standing up. I'll be happy to stand up.

Give him his own microphone.

So Tom, if it's one motion, when do you vote? Do you have to discuss one and two and then vote?

No, you can discuss, you know, part A, vote, part B, vote, part C, vote. You can do it that way.

Is it like 2.1, 2.2? Is that what this is? You vote separately at motion one?

you could yeah you know we have four motions yeah that's what I'm confused about the main motion because I'm used to separate you know 2.2, 2.3, 2.4 yes we've divided that motion into four parts

So can we do that proactively on this?

Yeah, I think we can. We're going to figure it out, just as a thought. So motions will change. Motions will be amended. Town meeting does what town meeting does. I think it would be interesting to encourage people as opposed to amending you know make your amendments maybe we could have okay we're now looking at the numbering that we currently have motion to paragraph one I'm going to take comment on that for the next 10 minutes and then we're going to move to motion to paragraph two I'm going to take comment on that you know give me your yeses, give me your nos, let's get our little feedback and then you're getting your feedback that way without the pain of the motion practice.

Well, that's what we want is the feedback because it's more specific. That's a good idea. I like that. Okay. Anything else for tonight?

And again, just to confirm, Tom, you'll be speaking with the moderator? Okay, great.

We're in constant contact.

I assumed that's who you meant by the Bible.

Okay, so as Colette mentioned, we are meeting again here 6.30 Monday night, the 27th. We will finalize the motions. vote the motions, send them to advisory so advisory has Tuesday and part of Wednesday to review them. They have their public hearing and discussions the 29th. Madison will have to see whether they're ready to vote that night or not. And the warrant closes Friday morning 9 o'clock and motions are due Testa, Ulfelder, Wellesley, Councilor Testa, Ulfelder, Wellesley, Councilor Testa, Ulfelder, Wellesley, Councilor

Marjorie, do you know exactly what Madison is thinking an advisory is going to vote on? It's unclear to me whether they're acting as... a mini-UN here, a mini-town meeting and voting as if they were voting on the motions. I'm not clear on what they...

I'm not sure they know yet.

Marjorie, could I ask you a question about the presentation? I think you mentioned pictures of developments. Are there pictures? Not yet. Where are we getting pictures?

From our consultants. It's going to be a very simple proposed design so people can see what something could look like on a certain site. Amount of land with a certain number of units.

How does that fit into this? So I thought we put our consultant on hold. Honestly, during visioning, we put him on hold and we never talked about taking the consultant and reactivating the consultant or any... guidance about what to envision for us. So I think that's something we should talk about.

Well, what we're envisioning is what the state has proposed. People have one idea in mind because they've seen one picture from one resident and we want something from planners to show us another idea.

I'm not sure we want that.

Careful. This is not an agenda item. I'm a little uncomfortable wading into this, I think.

Well, the consultant has been engaged, Beth. We made Tom and Megan and Corey and I called Michael because we think it's very important. to have a visual for town meeting to see. People have no idea what anything could look like other than one picture they've been shown. but I thought we hired them to do a visioning session well that was part of it that was an element of it and they know the visioning session is not happening but they're going to give us a mock up I think that's really important to Showtown meeting members because nobody has any idea what we're talking about.

I think advisory was well at least one member of advisory was alluding to that when he was asking hey what's the acreage that Wellesley Green's on how many units is that I think people are trying to get a sense of what are we talking about here I think I think we kind of owe it to time meeting members to give them a sense of, you know, on seven acres, eight acres, it looks like this. 180 acres of units looks like this. I don't disagree with that.

I just don't. I mean, I don't remember what the scope of services said, but I don't remember if that's within the scope of their services. So are we paying them to do something that we didn't hire them to do?

No, they engaged Beta to do this kind of design work. And the scope of services has changed. but we don't have the new one.

So within the original scope they had up to two designs schematics and because we didn't do it for the visioning we still have those on hold so we asked them to do this for special town meeting to give town meeting members a sense of based on the HLC letter that was sent to us on April 13th what it would look like based on topography, based on Wetlands, based on setbacks, based on everything in the HLC letter were to move forward, just to give town meeting members a base sense of what it could look like. because to Marjorie's point, the one image we've seen as a board and the public has seen was a pretty rough, just a picture of building stacked on top of a building, which doesn't really give you any sense of what it actually could look like on the site. And again, they engage two sub-consultants, Beta, which is

a traffic consulting group to talk about traffic and all that, and then Kamoine to do financial impacts.

Right, and Beta's doing the schematics too. They have different divisions.

I would love for them to show what another three and a half acres of forest being cut down looks like if they're doing this. Because I think when you say it's four and a half acres or five acres, you're like all right you add another three and a half it's x percent which is a relatively small percent but if you look at that parking lot that is a huge area of land and if you then take that and superimpose that on the forest That is a whole lot of trees coming down. I mean, it's a lot of space coming down, and I think it'd be important for people to see that.

There, in addition, when you look... When you look at the parking lot, you're actually looking at well more than 4.4 acres. There is an additional, I forget what the number is entirely, but it's two and a half.

close to three acres that are already immediately adjacent and clear of any forest where is that because I literally went there yesterday and I remember you saying that so I kind of drove the perimeter where in the parking lot is that

towards the rear and to the north, which could be open space.

So, but it's all rope, for lack of a better term, roped off by a, by a railing essentially, right? The railing goes around the perimeter. I don't remember seeing like a clear cut non-paved area.

I suggest we wait for the schematics because it's hard for us to envision. We're not planners either. And I suggest we wait and see what Michael and Beta send us.

It'll be a lot easier. I'm just going to say I'm uncomfortable with us creating visuals of something that may or may not be what a developer would do in representing images to town meeting that may or may not present more beautiful, less impactful construction than would ultimately be realized. I think the board should see these images before they're finalized and presented broadly as our vision of what

It's not our vision. It's one planner schematic of what one development could look like. We can't control what the developer is going to design. but we need something for people to be able to visualize at least one concept. We've told them we don't want them to block the public safety, that they know what our height and setback requirements are, and there are parts of the permitting where HLC at least has conceded that the town can control. and they're going to work within those.

What land area are they working with? Is it not fairly standard practice if you're doing a visioning or something like that? I am pretty sure that... The MassBay meetings had tables outside with pictures of, hey, this is what it looked like. I mean, these things have been floated out there in other scenarios.

They had a lot of pictures.

What land area are they planning on?

I don't know, Beth. Let's wait and see what they design. They know all the topography and all the water and all the boundaries and all the bylaws, so let's wait and see what they do.

I really don't think we should continue this discussion. It's becoming its own agenda item and it wasn't on the agenda.

OK. Thank you very much. We're adjourned. We'll be back on Monday night.