Select Board October 28, 2025

Good evening. I'd like to call to order the October 28th, 2025 meeting of the select board in the Giuliani room at Town Hall. Here in the Giuliani room with me are Vice Chair Tom Ulfelder, Secretary Colette Ulfrank, Beth Sullivan Woods, Kenny Largess, our Executive Director Megan Jopp, and our Assistant Executive Director Corey Testa. This meeting is being held in hybrid format. Some participants may join via Zoom. The meeting is being broadcast live on Comcast Channel 8 and Verizon Channel 40. and on wellesleymedia.org and available for later viewing on Wellesley Media. Our first agenda item is Citizen Speak. Is there anyone here for Citizen Speak?

Marjorie, I just want to say I'm here, Jim or Bernie, on Zoom.

Yes, thank you, Jim. I was going to introduce the members of the planning board when we got to the joint meeting. Okay. Okay, turn to Megan for the executive director's report.

Thanks, Marjorie. Just a few quick updates. So just a reminder, special town meeting starts Monday, November 3rd at 7 p.m. at the high school auditorium. So the motions and their advisory book are online. and we actually have a couple hard copies left at town hall if anyone wants hard copies of the advisory report and we can print motions as well we have a couple updated motions that will be ready the first night of Town Meeting. We're still finalizing the bids on the Baylor and Compactor. And we have an updated number to the board we'll discuss later for Teams rooms. So we'll have a few and we have a slight revision on Article 13. So those motions will go to town meeting members in advance, but we'll have hard copies at town meeting on Monday night. also the W select board edition went out digitally this week and so I want to thank everyone for their positive feedback on that.

Hard copies are going to every household in Wellesley. They're at the printer and should be, we actually thought they'd be arriving today in mailboxes but I think it's going to be likely Friday actually a slight delay at the printer but so look forward to seeing a hard copy of that in your mail and and as part of that document there is a communication survey we've already gotten people taking the survey so appreciate the folks who've already done that but we'd love to hear from residents on how you want to receive communication and the types of communication that you would like from the town. So we'd encourage everyone to take that survey. It only takes three minutes at best to take that. another quick reminder we have one of the last flu shot clinics is October 30th so this week on Thursday at the Wellesley Free Library main branch That's from 1 p.m. to 2.30.

You can register at the health department or you can just come and you can register on site. But we do encourage people to register online because they have been very busy in terms of the flu clinics. and then since this is the last meeting of the select board before town meeting and before Veterans Day, I just wanted to remind everybody about the Veterans Day celebration ceremony which is November 11th at 11 a.m. in front of the War Memorial. There is a veterans breakfast before that at the library. Beth, what time does the breakfast commence? I forget what time that commences.

So I believe they're sending out invitations to all registered veterans in Wellesley. If a veteran does not receive an invitation, they should email maybe you, Megan, Town Hall?

they can feel free to email me or Dan O'Neill our veteran service director I think it starts at 9.30 yes but it is limited seating so people really need to contact the town if it rains that day we continue to have the ceremony it will just be moved indoors to the Great Hall so if you if you want to come please come and we'll accommodate you outside or inside and we do have an excellent speaker this year who's a former Top Gun instructor and so it really is a ceremony for all ages. And that's it Marguerite.

Our next agenda item is a joint meeting with the Planning Board. With us tonight are Chair Mark Charney, Vice Chair Tom Taylor, Secretary Patty Mallett, and Jim Roberti. And I'll ask you to, oh, sorry, Kathleen Woodward, sorry. and I'll ask you to call your meeting to order please Mark I call this meeting to order

So move to call a joint meeting between the select board and the planning board and to name Marjorie Freiman as the chair and Mark Charney as secretary.

Second. Jim?

Aye.

Mark?

Aye.

Aye.

Yes, or aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Marjorie can't hear you.

Sorry. No, I turned it off. Sorry, Jim. So we'd like to welcome Judy Barrett and Alexis Lanzalotta from Barrett Planning Group to provide an update on the Strategic Housing Plan and Executive Summary. Please note that the plan and updates that Judy and Alexis will discuss are the deliverables from the RFP and the work that they were contracted to do. it will be up to the town which if any of the suggested strategies we want to follow up on and implement and where the town would like to focus its resources. the draft plan was presented to the select board and planning board on June 3rd and since that time town staff and the Barrett group have received and reviewed public comment and Judy and Alexis will review the modifications and additions to the plan that have been made since that time.

This meeting marks the culmination of the engagement and the delivery to the town of the final plan. I'll turn it over to you, Judy and Alexis. Thank you both for being here.

So thank you so much. I'm actually just going to say hello to all of you and tell you it's good to be back. A lot of work did go into responding to the comments received. I hope the town is able to work with the plan. and that you're happy with the changes that were made so I think Alexis really has a nice slide deck ready to go to kind of cover the changes that were made I'm going to turn this over to her You're on mute. There you go.

Yes. Thank you. Thanks, everybody. It's great to be back with you to discuss the final plan. So as Judy mentioned, I do have a very brief slide deck just to focus on the changes that were made primarily. And so I'm going to just go ahead and Right. Okay. Can everybody see that screen? Yes. So the presentation is just going to, again, just give an overview of what the project scope was and the purpose, and then talk about the updates that we made to the plan since we saw you in June and since we received the public comments, which were very, very helpful to us to understand how we can make the plan as usable and useful for you.

and then it'll conclude with kind of just a final kind of commentary on actually using the strategic housing plan So the project scope and various purposes, this is a very boiled down snapshot here, but this was intended to be a comprehensive and forward-looking document that evolved out of the town's housing production plan and the scope tasked us with trying to take kind of a strategic approach to the creation and development of a diverse range of housing. and the community engagement really was intended to focus on involving the community in the planning process to gather input, address concerns and at least begin building consensus

And then really the big piece was looking at and trying to get an understanding of Wellesley's housing needs and challenges outside of that Chapter 40B 10%. because the town had achieved that. So that final piece there is really where local policy comes in because when you don't have a state mandate giving you kind of a directive, you're going to be really given the challenging task of setting local policy and so as we kind of talk about the the final takeaways with you using the plan we'll kind of give some commentary on what this plan is and how it hopefully can help you with that. But with that idea of local policy, the town right now is I think one of the things that we realized early on was that

you know because you had made such great strides and a lot of progress since the HPP in achieving housing targets there was a lot of kind of questioning about well why are we doing this you know we exceeded our 10%, we adopted MBTA communities. And so without that kind of state mandate, that policy, if you will, people kind of wondering what the motivation was. And so that really is tricky to answer when there is not... It has to be rooted in local policy at that point. And so... part of what the scope asked us to do also was to look at the existing town policies and there is a strategy as you may recall from the previous draft about you know taking another look at those but just to give you some context of what the housing policies are currently.

And they're pretty outdated, if you will. And so in 1985, the town adopted its fair housing policy and which quite simply reads it is the policy of the town of Wellesley acting through all of its agencies to ensure equal housing opportunity for all people without regard to race, color, national ancestry, age, sex, religious preference, or marital status. And it goes on from there. And then shortly thereafter, a few years later the town adopted its affordable housing policy which does give a nod to that fair housing policy the affordable housing policy is very focused also on what makes Wellesley special and integrating housing into that fabric.

So I'll skim quickly here, but the affordable housing policy reads, Wellesley is an outstandingly attractive residential community enriched by the diversity of its residents. Wellesley seeks to maintain and enhance its present character by preserving a mix of housing stock that includes low income, moderate income, and market rate housing. In establishing this affordable housing policy, Wellesley seeks to control its own growth and development. So again, this policy is... decades old at this point, but you can hear a lot of the similar themes. And so you are still at this point of being able to control growth and development to the extent that you can, but you're at this really great place of being able to decide, well, what are our housing policies? and then so with the HPP and the unified plan, those had numerical goals.

and so one of the pieces of feedback we heard was well why doesn't this plan have a numerical goal and one of the major updates that we did from the June draft until to the and so on. We, oh, I'm sorry. I skipped a little bit to, this is important, actually. I'm just going to backtrack a tiny bit because- So you're Ann Burt. Sorry.

Go ahead, Alexis.

OK, sorry. So the affordable housing policy went on to talk about some of those kind of almost guiding principles in how the town intended to do exactly what it just said in the previous statement. This is really kind of summarized, but the kind of criteria that the town, the current adopted policy is what you see here, again, summarized, but preserving single family residential character, avoiding urban scale projects, maximizing affordability in projects. I collapsed a couple of bullets there, but the spirit of that was really trying to get as much affordability as possible for as long as possible. providing local preference for Wellesley residents, preserve open space and protection of natural resources, not overburdening, existing systems and facilities, and lastly, respecting that fair housing policy. And it's challenging because one of the first things that you're going to have to kind of explore is, well, how compatible are these two policies with each other?

How compatible are they with the unified plan? How relevant are they? Should they be updated? Our hope is that the plan at least gives you some information and thoughts to help you wrestle with those conversations. So again, going back to that numerical target, because people were correct that the Housing Production Plan and the Unified Plan both had a clear numerical target. However, those numerical targets were based in state policy. And so just to kind of give a framework for what those were, the housing production plan had an annual goal of creating 45 SHI eligible units per year. and then the unified plan had a goal of creating 400 SHI eligible units by 2028. and both of those were rooted in 40B. For the housing production plan, it's very direct.

The regulations for housing production plans require that it include a very specific numerical goal of increasing your affordable housing stock equivalent to 0.5% of your total housing stock each year. And you could have a whole training on where that comes from, but that is a requirement of the plan. the unified plan. Also, that number was also rooted in 40B as the plan explained. At the time, the town was below 10%. And so that goal was set with a buffer, recognizing that the 2020 census was going to change the denominator. So there was a comfortable buffer there to get the town over that 10%. So Now that you're already there, we think it is great if as the town explores and considers policies or strategies.

that may, you know, kind of direct your housing decision making as you go forward. It is a really great idea to set goals based on kind of, it's a combination of findings and Community Values and Resources. And all of those pieces kind of juggle back and forth to allow you to set reasonable targets. So that is just kind of the context of the scope and what we were really looking to do for you with the plan. I'm just going to briefly talk about the updates from June to October. So just kind of a snapshot of changes. Just in general, we added commentary throughout the plan, highlighting community feedback. So we did hear both at the meeting in June and then also through comments, just a desire to really kind of

bring the plan back to all of the things that people shared not just through our engagement but through other conversations that have been going on about housing? The introduction we expanded to give a lot more context for the plan as a guidance document, not a policy document. The plan is not a policy. It is a guidance document. And then also giving really a lot more detailed findings and overview of strategies. We added, because we know that there is a desire to understand maybe how you could do some numerical goal setting, we added some suggestions for metrics that could tie into some strategies and referencing to the needs assessment where we go into the data that can help provide that context. and then we took that really revamped entirely redone introduction to create a standalone executive summary. The needs assessment we We had some requests for data, taking a deeper dive. Some we were able to accommodate, some we were not.

But we did do a further breakdown of the population age and we also added a housing type map. We had an age of housing map, which we kept in two, but also looking at the housing types. We did a much deeper dive into kind of understanding the housing mismatch based on income and affordability gaps it is a little challenging though because a lot of the income data becomes just kind of mushed together once you're over 100 percent AMI and that is where the vast majority of households are but we did with the data available we did do a kind of deeper look at the mismatch of your housing stock and your households based on income. We also did a look at the analysis of true SHI affordability because of this state's policy that rental units, if 20 to 25%, depending on the level of affordability, are deed restricted than all of the rental units count. So we just took a look at to see what the true affordable count is. the barrier section.

We gave some additional kind of commentary on the inclusionary zoning and also your natural resource protection, which fed into some strategy updates. And then we did a kind of a deeper discussion on those town housing policies. that I referenced at the beginning of the presentation. Just a few more little updates here. I just wanted to talk about the strategies that I'm going to share with you. We did not make Major, major changes to strategies. There were a couple that were added and then some fine tuning of language. So what you're going to see now is kind of the red text just indicates strategies that were changed based on feedback, very, very helpful feedback from the community. The strategy about the affordable housing trust kind of collapsed a couple of strategies there because at that point you were further in that implementation. Revise, and if warrant, revisit and revise the town's affordable housing and fair housing policies.

So that language about the fair housing policy as well was added. So how are you going to kind of bring those two together and create something new for you going forward within or as an appendix to the I'm sorry. Strategic Housing Plan for the Affordable Housing Trust. We got some feedback that maybe it should be considered doing this because the plan was putting a lot on your newly launched Affordable Housing Trust. So maybe scaling some of that back. Strategy about the MassBay site. We just updated it based on currently what the goings on that this was There had not been an official designation of that particular site during the last draft, so we just updated that language.

We added a strategy to talk really about really looking at kind of proactively looking at traffic improvements, especially now that the town is doing some really interesting data collection on traffic and congestion. and to see kind of how that can help your land use planning going forward. And then the last strategies that we updated had to do taking a little bit more kind of exploration about your zoning. I won't read every word here, but essentially kind of encouraging you to look a little bit more at how you can incentivize the type of development that you want in a few places within your zoning. and so the red text that you see there again is kind of just saying how can you really take kind of a deeper look maybe at some of the strategies and take a look and see what can you do to really incentivize the things that you want to see.

We did in the strategy about inclusionary zoning, we did really kind of re-emphasize that maybe you do want to amend to broaden its applicability and serve additional income levels because your zoning and your town-owned land are the most meaningful ways you're going to be able to reach the range of income that you need to reach to address the and the wide range of housing gaps that exist. So lastly, just using this strategic housing plan then. just kind of a final closing remark. This plan is not a policy document the way your unified plan is, but it is hopefully going to help inform your policy discussions. So it includes data and analysis that can help you guide your decision making and help you maybe set goals or track kind of the success of strategies that you choose to adopt.

And then it offers kind of just a suite of strategies that depending on the policies that you choose to go forward with can help you kind of get where you want to be to further those goals. So that is really kind of what we hope the plan serves How it will serve you going forward. And then that is all from us.

Thank you very much, Alexis. Are there comments or questions from either board?

Beth, so I don't believe in the original draft. We had a goal kind of set out to change the definition of the state's 10%. and including that in the plan to me acknowledges that there's been some sort of community buy-in that we no longer look at 10% as the 10% goal set by the state and that we're redefining it to be 10% absolutely affordable, not in the totality of apartments. that I will say made me uncomfortable that we are re-socializing a goal when in the community there's been a lot of Pride, and Celebration in meeting both the 10% and the MBTA community.

So I was surprised to see that and I was hoping you could speak to where that came from and why we feel good about including it in a plan.

Would you like us to address that? Yes, please.

Or whoever decided to put it in. I assume it was you guys.

So we did get some feedback from a couple of boards, actually. I'm not sure if it was the WHDC at the time or then the trust. And then also in the planning board discussions, not because trying to redefine it, But the fact is it's actually not even defined by the statute or in the regulations for 40B. That policy, I mean, it is a longstanding policy. and it is but it is it's in the UHLC guidelines for 40B. And so there had been kind of a report to the governor looking at a suite of potential housing you know policies to explore and that had come up I mean I think you know historically that is a question that has been raised the plan is not recommending, nor could it really change how the state is viewing it.

But there had been comments asking to really understand, well, what Wood, what do we actually have affordable just in case if that policy, because it is a policy, were to change so that we would be prepared? And then also, it is also just... was included to give kind of another metric, if you will, because there had been kind of a request for having some guidance to set some sort of target since you had achieved 10% under the existing state policy. So it was just one of several metrics that we suggested as something that you could consider.

I think the issue is 10% under the current policy scheme at state level is simply a metric for complying with state policy, but it is not a measure of housing need.

If I can just maybe add to that as well, Marjorie. So it was designated by case law, actually a Wellesley case, litigated under Al Robinson. the two provisions of law regarding to perpetuity as long as you remain non-compliant with zoning the units must remain affordable in perpetuity that was litigated by Al Robinson Under Ardmore 2, under Ardmore 1, it was litigated that as long as the, again, the units are noncompliant with zoning, that you could not have the market rate units without the affordable therefore they all should count. So that was established in the 80s and to Judy and Alexis' point has been a policy that is not part of the statutory provision and it wasn't prior to that litigation so meaning should the regulations be readopted which has been evaluated and

Congressman Auchincloss also mentioned that at a Charles River breakfast. And so that was also in this particular region. a broader concern that should just on a policy change not requiring any legislative action that provision could be modified that only the affordable units count. and so it's understanding where you then would fall within that percentage range which I think is an important number for the town to have as well.

Jim, go ahead.

No, I just wanted to reiterate that Congressman Auchincloss was going to take that to the governor, I believe, also. that number I think is in consideration somewhat as a policy matter at that executive level still and that they really haven't I don't to my knowledge I haven't seen anything that they either resolved it either way so that It makes sense to include it in the plan only because it's forward thinking. It's not thinking backwards. It's thinking where we're headed. And I think it's wise to stay there.

Tom. So I have a question. If you could maybe go back to the slide that had the two numerical goals, the housing production plan and the unified plan, is that possible to put back up? my question is about the unified plan because I believe this is what I'm asking you to confirm that didn't talk about the strategic or the SHI inventory number that talked about I think it said permanently affordable housing units. Is that true? Because so if that's true, then we've got one goal that says, you know, meet the SHI, which the one on the housing production plan stated and we met. thanks to the 40R mostly.

But the 400 units we did not meet because that doesn't count those 75% that fall in the SHI but aren't the goal that was stated in the unified plan. So we're kind of ourselves back and forth on what we say the goal is.

This is the slide you were referring to?

Yes. So I guess the question is, can you or anyone confirm? I believe those 400 units are actual affordables, not what was added to the SHI.

Well, this was the SHI-eligible unit target, so...

The one on the left, the housing production...

They're both. Those were the goals, yeah.

Those are both. We met the goal. So both of those are SHI goals? Okay, then I retract my question.

The plan says we currently have 589 affordable, which is bigger than that number.

Right, but that was the creation target. That was the addition target. Since the unified plan. Okay. So to add 400 units that would qualify for the SHI.

Okay. Because the rentals count now.

But they may not count in the future. Jim, did you want to add something?

No, no, just I'm with you 100% on that, Marjorie.

Okay, your hand is up, so I didn't want to...

Okay, let me take it down.

Anybody else? Tom.

When I read the executive summary, let me back up a sec. My main concern with any of these documents with any of the work that we're doing in housing is that they are neutral in tone and factually accurate. and I think it's how things are worded that are going to make a difference in terms of the community's receptivity to what's included in these various documents, whether it's this or any other document. I had noticed the same thing Beth did in terms of how 10% was treated and had an issue with the fact that there's a sense of judgment in the way it's worded in the executive summary and I think it needs a more neutral tone so that people don't react the way I did or it seems Beth did to reading that particular section.

There's another section that says, by contrast, greater support exists for reusing existing structures for multifamily housing in suitable areas. This is under community perspectives on page seven, talking about the Rios. I don't sense that at all. I'm sure there is some support for the conversion of single-family homes to multifamily units. But that is certainly not what I'm hearing and not to the level that would justify that sort of blanket statement. I think it was very helpful to have you lay out the initial statements that you made Alexis because it It points to the difficult situation we're in, particularly when we're looking at the decam proposal for the 45 acres at MassBay.

you point to the need for local policy for the importance of local policy to implement our housing goals but We have just a constant stream of state mandates that are becoming more and more imbalanced in terms of power, where the state is frustrated that communities are not meeting, their goal, not respecting our goal and our perspective on the community. And I think that's what many in this community are reacting to, what I'm certainly reacting to. is that you meet all of the goals, all of the mandates, and the goalposts are simply moved because the state wants to. and that is no way to help us or give us confidence in trying to shape local policy. It disincentives us.

Nevis, the work that we might do in terms of housing policy. You look at the affordable housing policy, and we're way past the ability to apply the criteria. that is in that policy. We're at a point where the state mandates undercut those criteria as satisfactory to the objectives that we need to meet in housing development. So we're in a very difficult situation at the moment. and I think that it is frustrating to the community, it's frustrating to us and what necessitates that we are really careful in these documents that they are neutral in tone and factually accurate because that's the only way the community is not going to react

to these documents and the only way that we can begin to develop trust and a collaborative approach to these conversations about any future housing development.

So Judy and Alexis, do I remember that the question about support for redevelopment of existing structures was in the I seem to remember a bar graph where people were asked, would you support redevelopment of an already disturbed property? if it was in the right place for multifamily housing as opposed to new development? Am I remembering that correctly? Is that where that came from?

There was a survey question asking about different development and redevelopment strategies, yes, and there was an option about Rios, and that's actually one of the strategies that we talk about is other ways that you can Zone to encourage the reuse of existing structures. But that was more of a general question as it was posed in the survey.

Right. The reason I'm asking is because I want to make sure that I understand what Tom is saying. And I read it as not factually incorrect because of my recollection of the survey. I don't you know you say there's by contrast there's greater support greater support could be one person it could be a hundred people but I do remember that the line in that graph was a little higher supporting redevelopment Okay. I just want to make sure that it was actually in the data and that's where that statement came from. Yes.

But you have to talk about total sample size. So how many responses did we have to that versus 29,000 residents?

Well, I think we can only work with the data that we have. So if we did a survey, then we're going to look to the results of that survey. That's what we were working with. That was the information that was available.

Jim?

So, you know, I'd like to respond to what Tom said. No, you hire somebody to make hamburgers, they make hamburgers. You hire a housing advocate or a housing people, they're going to... especially in responding to an RFP they're going to advocate in some sense of the word for housing production or to at least give strategies because we asked them how can we get beyond you know her first slide says How can we get beyond the 40 requirements and how can we get beyond the the the basically any state mandate? We're now going beyond to look at stuff like workforce housing or housing for for Elders, especially. OK, so we just that was the whole genesis of this thing that came out of. We also had a housing task force in the beginning that was done. Not really a neutral housing task force when it started. I mean, I was part of it in the beginning.

It was, again, a task force to try to develop a plan or start to think about a sense of new housing in Wellesley beyond the state mandates. have some problems and holes in them in that the state sees that 10% potentially may be something they need to relook at. because it doesn't yield – it's sort of a – you don't yield units that are affordable. You just comply with a statute or a regulation. And then we're seeing stuff as of – I saw it yesterday in the Commonwealth Magazine that – they're already judging potentially that the mass you know the MBA Communities Act has not worked. It was a bunch of paperwork potentially where people complied and got on board and got certified to be on board but the jury's really out right now as to how many units are going to be built.

Lexington of course was very very bold in their plan but now they've cut back so I mean The state is now trying to figure out the end game, which is how are we going to actually get real units on the ground? And we've been successful here. with the Nines. But other projects recently haven't been so successful. And now we're dealing with Mass Bay, which is another statutory scheme that's different than the others. And it's all... directed at getting housing built versus compliance with programs or plans. So I think that what Judy and Alexis and their team have done is what we exactly asked them to do, which is to come up with some ideas to produce housing, not to be neutral about housing, but actually to succeed and produce housing. And I also think, and Judy, I don't know if I'm remembering back. to something that didn't occur.

But I think that we actually during the housing production plan had a similar goal about taking multifamily like duplexes and bigger fourplexes and doing the same goal because this has been an ongoing goal. The idea of the goal is to not change the facade of the house, basically to keep it in a single sort of family character, but yet add more units to a house. The last thing I'll say is Jen, who Judy and I worked with back when Goldson had a little post on LinkedIn a couple of months ago showing her original house in Newport, which was a house that was exactly like we've described in this plan, a bigger three family that was made into like a four or five family. And, you know, it was totally in keeping with Newport. So, I mean. We've got to look at these things positively in its totality rather than how do the neighbors think or what do the people think.

I mean, I think we need to do what's best for the town, irrespective of all these either... people that are naysayers or even the Yimby's. It's just our job is to do what's right and build what's right and try to work with the state because in the end, I think if we don't and I've said this before and people don't like when I say it is the state's going to get tougher and tougher Tom not easier and easier.

Can I just point something out? The town's request for proposals which is what we responded to begins with the following objective. The Wellesley Housing Task Force has determined that there is an urgent need for more housing options in the Town of Wellesley, despite meeting many of the recommendations of the Town's Housing Production Plan and achieving the 10% threshold. that is what we were asked to do. And that's how we responded. So we didn't say that the town did Our job was to try to figure out potential strategies to address what your own RFP said you wanted to do.

Collette. Hi, Judy and Alexis. Thank you for your work tonight. And I appreciate the overview and the packet that we got to prepare for tonight. I think when I'm thinking about this, I'm trying to take a step back to where we were when we started this whole process. and so we were, I remember vividly being at the Tolles Parsons Center and we were trying to decide, okay, when we comply with MBTA communities, should we just do compliance or we should do compliance plus? and we made a very specific decision at that point which I really stand by and think was the right decision to do compliance with the MBTA Communities Act and then think about our other needs separately and therefore do a strategic housing plan. and we've had to defend that over and over and over again. And I still believe that that's the right answer. So we did our compliance and then we said to the community, okay, what is it that we need?

what is it that you can live with we're trying to elicit from people what what can you live with in terms of housing in town and I think that this gives us strategies and I'm going to go back to kind of what I said at the first presentation of this is and I think you've done a lot of work to reflect to the comments we had that night to say this isn't a policy, it's a set of tools that we can use as and when we want to do that. and every tool that we pick up goes through the public process. And so if we pick up something here, we put it on a work plan, either us, planning, the Affordable Housing Trust, whoever takes this up, it goes through the public process and there's lots and lots of opportunities to get engaged. all the way through town meeting. So I understand that this is a plan for housing. I'm not as concerned about the tone as perhaps Tom is. I understand that this is the reason we did this work. I do think that it's really important for us to plan as being select board, planning board, whoever it's our job to plan because

As we found out, you know, things change. I mean, the landscape can change any minute. And if you have a plan that you can help you address some things that come up, all the better for us. And so I'm supportive of this and thank you for your work in doing it.

Thank you.

Thank you, Colette.

Kathleen?

Tom? Yeah, so let me get a little closer here. So I see the project and its output as a list of recommendations that we can think about, ponder, and we will adopt some. We will not adopt some. I think it met the scope that was given to the consultant. and after the fact, it certainly would be nice to have more specifics, more meat, more benchmarking of other towns and things like that. we didn't ask for that and that would have doubled the budget or tripled the budget or whatever so if the question is I think we're here to accept that the work that was done was what was asked to be done. And I actually answer that in the affirmative.

and it's now on us to take that and actually make real meat from it and decide what works and put things in place to make it happen. and set the benchmarks ourselves. That's sort of our job, not the consultant. but thank you for the additions you did and the feedback you listened to because I do think you made it better since June.

Beth? So I do want to say thank you for the updates you did to the report. And I did see some of the things that we mentioned or many of the things that we mentioned reflected in it. I will say I struggle with a plan that doesn't have a target. And so absent a target, the target appears to be affordable housing. And I wonder about the target is affordable housing when we've talked so much about workforce housing, which doesn't qualify for affordability in the state. or Senior Housing, which may or may not qualify. So I struggle with a plan that doesn't have a target. I just, I do, I thought it was part of the scope. I've come to realize that we're supposed to think of this as a toolkit, but for me, it's kind of

it has all the tools of a toolkit but it also has a bit of attitude about a direction Kind of. And that's where I struggle. It's like kind of a little bit here, not fully. a lot of toolkit but I'm not really sure about the plan part. I'm sure about the guidance part but the plan part, Did you think that setting a goal or targets in different areas was part of the scope?

That was not part of the scope. I think we've been pretty clear about that.

I also think, Beth, if there had been clear consensus in the town about exactly what we wanted to do, targets would have been much easier to identify. But there's no consensus. So until we decide what we're going to do, how can you set a target when we don't have a plan? I mean, there's no consensus, and they were not going to impose on us and make prescriptive actions that in the end town meeting wouldn't approve or we wouldn't or the planning board wouldn't. I mean they tried to get us consensus in every possible way and consensus did not reveal itself. So I don't know how they make targets without a clear plan of how the town's going to proceed.

I mean, the last thing we were going to do was make up a number for the sake of responding to the desire for a target. As Alexis said earlier, and she's right, when the town decides sort of the policy direction it wants to take, then the whole conversation about Target becomes something that tangible that we or anybody else can respond to. but that was definitely not part of the scope. Go ahead, Kathleen.

Your reference to consensus I think is a nice segue to a little presentation I prepared because it helped me to organize my thoughts. I just want to say I found the strategic housing plan to be extremely informative. Very helpful, extremely comprehensive, and I was not at all taken aback by the tone because we did come at it with the goal of increasing housing in response to the outcry we have experienced. for years that there's not enough affordable places to live in this town, even for people who have lived here their whole lives and maybe want to downsize.

So just, but with respect to consensus, that is a topic that actually jumped out at me as I kind of read through this and boiled down in my mind what I could take from it. I believe that the strategic housing plan identifies emerging areas of consensus and opportunity to meaningfully address the housing needs of Wellesley citizens. If we want to achieve the greatest housing impact as efficiently as possible, we should as a town focus on where consensus and opportunity intersect. the strategic housing plan raised two examples of consensus, well really emerging consensus, and opportunity intersecting that I found especially promising. First, the SHP states that there is quote,

more consistent support for prioritizing housing challenges faced by current community members, including those being priced out of the community or unable to downsize within Wellesley, unquote. The SHP provides as examples of possible housing within this area of consensus as redevelopment, modernization, and possible expansion of existing affordable housing. this area of consensus intersects with opportunities offered by town-owned land. The SHP identifies the high cost of land in Wellesley as a huge impediment to affordable housing development. Redevelopment of housing on town-owned land provides a promising opportunity to address Wellesley housing needs by negating the land cost barrier.

The SHP points to the potential redevelopment of Barton Road and Morton Circle as means to, quote, improve the quality of life for existing tenants and provide additional mixed income units, unquote. The SHP calls for partnerships of town entities, including the Wellesley Housing Authority, the Wellesley Affordable Housing Trust and other boards and committees. along with a lot of public input as critical to achieving this goal. Another area of consensus the SHP identifies is the repurposing of existing structures for multifamily housing in suitable areas. the SHP notes that this practice better protects the current built out and natural landscape. This area of consensus intersects with the interest in revitalizing certain commercial areas and buildings in town and the major shifts in private property ownership such as the Haynes properties currently underway.

the consensus that repurposing existing structures for housing together with the dynamic ownership climate potentially combined with zoning incentives is another intersection of emerging consensus and opportunity. The SHP provides a robust menu of tools and strategies for the town to choose from. I believe that that the town should focus our limited energy and resources on the areas that offer both emerging consensus and opportunity. The SHP also makes clear that strong leadership, collaboration of boards and committees and abundant public input is critical if we are to meaningfully address Wellesley's housing needs.

So these are the most important messages that I took from this strategy, and I am inclined to support acceptance of the strategy.

Thank you Kathleen. Tom?

I do want to say that both Kathleen and Marjorie have articulated very important points, much of which I agree with. And I want to go back to a meeting, select board meeting, some weeks ago now. where one of the conclusions we came to is that the piece that's missing to really support any strategic housing plan is the comprehensive plan which of course is the planning board's responsibility but isn't due for some time so it's not as if you haven't done this. I think One thing that I perceive is that people in Wellesley are more comfortable talking about things like the tools in the strategic housing plan if they know where it might have an impact.

and if we agree to something, if we agree to the conversion of single family homes to a duplex or a triplex, where are we talking about that happening? I think it's that type of targeted understanding that will help us have a better conversation in Wellesley. I certainly hope there's been no suggestion on my part that we shouldn't receive this report. I think we should, and I very much appreciate the work that you all have done as the Barrett Planning Group. in working with us. And my comments about tone are not because I find any variations in tone to be egregious in any way. It's just that I've been trying to figure out where there is a common denominator for discussions within the community.

where is it that we need to reach in order to have everyone want to participate and do so in a collaborative fashion, and as Jim says, a forward-looking fashion, not looking back. I think if we can't bring the community together around the tools and the strategic housing plan, With the identification of specific geographic opportunities in the new comprehensive plan, we just aren't going to be able to move people forward. And I think in the face of changing state mandates, that's going to be a real and important lost opportunity to control our own destiny to the extent that state statutes let us.

Mark?

I just want to pat at your end, Doc.

I thought you did a very good job compiling everything that we heard in the public meetings through the strategic housing plan, but also what we've heard through the planning board. since it's been, gosh, must be a year and a half, two years. So we really don't have consensus within town. and but this report did identify I think the major topics that the community has been complaining about. and that we need to do something to address some traffic, public space. We don't have the answer right now, but I would think that the community would be happy to see that. We've documented their concerns in this document. So I thought with the ever-present

I don't want to say discord, but at every public meeting we hear from both sides, you know, multiple sides of every topic. I thought you did a really good job at at presenting it on paper.

Thank you. Kenny?

like Kathleen, I thought it'd be better if I actually organize my thoughts in advance. And I'm nowhere near as articulate as Tom, being a litigator, corporate attorneys are not as good at this, so. So I want to start by briefly reminding everyone what I said back on June 3rd. At that meeting, I raised three main concerns about the strategic housing plan. it didn't qualify it did not quantify the need that we're saying that we have it didn't assess fiscal or infrastructure impacts and that without those elements it risks justifying open-ended growth without any accountability I want to acknowledge that the final draft responds to some of the ancillary feedback I provided, but it does not fix the core issues I mentioned on June 3rd. A true plan doesn't just outline what we want to achieve. It defines how much, by when, and at what cost. It connects aspirations to data, priorities to resources, and goals to measurable outcomes. It gives decision makers a way to weigh trade-offs and know when we've succeeded.

The document in front of us has six broad goals and a general timeline, but it stops short of that next step. translating those goals into measurable targets, fiscal analysis, and clear accountability. Without those, it remains more of a vision than a plan. and that's especially hard to justify when we look at what the state and other municipalities have done. The Commonwealth's new comprehensive housing plan which covers 351 cities and towns is far more complex than Wellesley. used population forecasts, household formation rates, and vacancy trends to determine that Massachusetts, quote, needs about 220,000 additional housing units by 2035. City of Boston took a similar approach in its housing, a changing city housing plan where it explained the data and modeling behind its 69,000 unit goal. Other neighboring communities have voluntarily set their own numeric targets as part of local strategic plans. Let me be clear.

I'm not suggesting this plan should dictate what Wellesley must do or how many units we must build. That's a policy discussion for the town to have. But before we can debate that responsibly, we need to understand the need. Quantifying that need based on data, demographics, and affordability is a factual exercise and not a political one. What sets the best plans apart is transparency, showing not just the goal, but how the goals were developed. Wellesley has an opportunity to do that, to pair our goals with clear, data-based assumptions and make those calculations public. that would help residents understand the reasoning, build trust and create a shared sense of accountability. Some people have said, both I think hinted tonight and said in the past, that this is simply a set of strategies the town can use to choose to adopt or ignore. So why worry about this? The answer is that acceptance changes the document's role.

Once the plan is accepted, it becomes the foundation for future policy and other important decisions. It signals endorsement. it carries the weight of the town how the town prioritizes resources and evaluates projects and that's why it's important that what we accept is complete and measurable So as we're asked tonight to, quote, accept the strategic housing plan, I think we should be clear about what that actually means. To me, accepting means it would imply endorsing that this is a finished product. a plan ready to guide policy and decision making. I don't believe this document meets that threshold. The issues I raised months ago have not been adequately addressed. the version remains conceptual thoughtful yes but incomplete until we have a plan that quantifies our actual need analyzes fiscal and infrastructure impacts and establishes measurable grounded Measurable goals grounded in transparent data. I cannot vote to accept this. Thank you.

Thank you. Mark?

So first off, I just want to thank the Barrett Group for all the work they did on this. It was obviously a lot of work and involved a lot of different people. and so I appreciate everything you guys have done in this you know The planning board obviously plays a big role in all this. And I've said a number of times over the last few months that you know we're we're tasked with creating a new master plan for the town the master plan is as Tom mentioned is something that we're required to do every 10 years and so we've we've asked the town we'll be asking the town at town meeting for upwards of four possibly five hundred thousand dollars to to to go through the process of creating a plan that is going to take all of these elements that we've had in the past, the unified plan that we've done,

Housing Production Plan, this plan, and work with the community and work with the consultant to come up with the new master plan. so I look at this document and I think it's a bunch of tools that we can use there's elements in here that I think many of of us have, or many of you have all articulated, and I think there's pros and cons to each one. My goal is to try to find that consensus and try to build that through the master plan. In this document, there are things in here that I think are contradictory to some of the stated goals. I sort of noted that there's an item about implementing a standard policy of charging a monitoring fees or requiring monitoring service agreements for any units created in the town's inclusionary zoning.

and I see that as like that's going to drive prices up because developers are going to bake those fees into the cost of their units and that to me troubles me because if we're really trying to do affordability, why would we be thinking that? I'm not a huge, like I grew up in Brookline, and in Brookline we have the house I grew up in, two family house was converted into two condos that's Brookline, you know Wellesley doesn't have those kind of Holmes that suit that. And I've said this before, the demand for them, you know, I don't see it coming. So I look at some of these solutions or these ideas and I'm a little, I have my own concerns about it. So, you know, I'm grateful for the work that's been done. I feel like there's a lot of areas where we could have done more. And I hope going forward, we as a board and as a town can work together on the master plan.

Jim.

I'd just like to respond a little bit to what Kenny and what Mark just said. Marjorie, you're going to be surprised because I agree. I think the most important thing I've taken out of this meeting is what you said. which is we charted up, we requested a plan, we started work on the plan and then we found out or we learned that there was a lack of consensus so it became not a good idea to set goals that were artificial where we really had to solve the need for the consensus and then set the goals for where and how much. And I think that is the key to what I was in a course at MIT and we had a plan and we came up with one idea and the professor said that one idea is the most important thing. that we could take out of this class.

And I think that one idea tonight is the most important thing that we could take out of this whole plan is that we asked them to do something. They did all the research. They tried to reach some kind of a consensus to see if there was one and there isn't. and there really hasn't been one heretofore. And I can see another situation developing with MassBay where there's not going to be a consensus there either. The tough part, and Megan will agree with me, I think, on this is getting all the 30,000 people in this town to the table. We get a small amount of people to vote, 30%. We get even a smaller amount to participate in these programs. Many are on the left and many are on the right of the situation. We don't get, as I call it, Joe T-shirt involved. He's taking his kids to soccer and basketball. So I think that the monitoring fees that Mark mentioned are pretty standard in the industry. I've seen them all over the state, so I'm sure.

that's why she the back group included those those are just to make sure that the developers actually stay honest and actually make sure they keep track of who's in the affordable rental units and and therefore I see something. It's a minimal charge. It's really not that important. So, and again, what Mark said at the end, I would take Iksha with is that It's not what I think about something. Really, it's not what's important to me. I mean, I'm not a big fan of walking in the woods, yet I'm supportive of saving the forest, but I'd rather watch a movie. But in the end, it's what's good for the town here with this housing situation. People coming into the town, people staying in the town are elderly. I go to the Lynn store every day for lunch and there's a lot of elderly people here that basically need support and you know come there to have their both meals so I mean I can imagine their housing situations aren't easy either so

We've got to look out not just for ourselves and what's great for a 40 year old, but what's great for an 80 year old and a 20 year old and a 30 year old so that we can have a diverse community. Because right now, from what Judy's data says, we don't have a diverse community. community, as far as age groups. It's an aging community, really. When I first moved here, we had kids that moved here in kindergarten and could afford to move into the town. Now it's very difficult to move into the town unless you're in fifth or sixth grade. it really you know it's it's something that we need to work on and I think in the end I think when Mark did say that I agree with is that you know this wasn't you know and I would say this in response to what Kenny said this is this is a $75,000 plan this is what we paid her to do she's not going to be able to do all these longitudinal studies and all these Studies with forward data.

Now you're talking about a $400,000 plan these days. This stuff isn't cheap. and in the end, I think that Judy and Alex and their team did a fantastic job on this. There was a lot of pushback on them. They stayed professional and I am definitely going to accept this plan.

so thank you Jim and let me just be super clear the 120 page document that we have has utility there are things in there that we can take out of it and that we will take out of it So there's no doubt in my mind about that. But this issue, unfortunately or fortunately, has become a political issue. It was used. at town meeting for Article 16, Article 17, Article 42, whichever side you stood on. And so that's what this document is. Full stop.

We have a politicized town meeting. The question is, should we have a representative town meeting? I have my doubts about that. But it is what it is. It's like a Congress. It doesn't represent the whole town, in my opinion. but we have to represent the whole town as a select board and a planning board and what Judy said in the beginning was that we had a lead. That was the important thing, that we need to lead, not Judy and Alexis. We need to lead. We can't be afraid. of what our neighbors say, or what our friends say, or we're not going to get invited to a cocktail party, or we won't get reelected. We have to do what's the right job. People don't want us, we get unelected or we don't run again. That's the way it is. And we are not at the same level. because we have a fiduciary responsibility to the town, the whole 30,000, to do the right thing. And I'm not going to worry about it. And you know me, I don't worry about it.

Thank you, Jim. I'm going to offer up a different perspective on the metrics and the goals because I actually think what the Barrett group did was more respectful than if they had chosen goals for us and assigned numbers. they recognized that not everybody is in the same place. And if they had imposed their view of goals and targets on us, we would have a much greater outcry. and I don't think that would have been fair and I think they recognize that. So they're giving us tools that we can choose and I'm not saying don't worry about it. I'm saying they're tools at our disposal that we can implement according to our timeframe and our planning and our ultimate goals.

But I actually think if they had put numbers in there, it would have been a lot worse. And I think they recognized that it wasn't a helpful road to follow. to put in numbers when you have groups over here who don't want this and groups over here who don't want this and groups who want this, but there's no agreement. So that's my perspective. Kenny?

I was not advocating for targets or goals. What I'm saying is the whole premise behind this study was that we have a need. And I don't know how you could... determine what these goals or strategies would be unless you know what you're trying to solve for. And if you don't know what the need actually is, if you can't quantify the need like the Commonwealth did you have nothing to shoot for and so I agree you shouldn't say we should build 50,000 units because we should shoot for that and be aspirational. I think before you do anything, you have to say how much we're saying we have a need. So show me the data that says we have that need. that's what I'm looking for and then we can work as Mark's saying a master plan can get us to in order to do a master plan I'm assuming we're going to have to say this is what we have and this is what we need and the plan will get us from A to B So I do think you need to quantify the need.

I don't disagree with you that setting random targets and goals without quantifying the need in the first instance is not helpful.

Well, there was some quantification of need. The Housing Development Corporation did a market study and have data. that was brought to the Housing Task Force on the mismatch between supply and demand for certain constituencies. and a lot of the need was developed through anecdotal stories. We don't have stories of everybody who moved out of town because they couldn't afford to stay or couldn't find a step down because they're gone. But we know that there are people who fall into that category. We know there are people who can't afford to live here. We know that we've had to expand the radius within which our police and firefighters can live to 35 miles. So we know certain things. And I'm sorry if I mischaracterized what you said, Kenny, but I heard you say targets over and over and over, and I thought that's what you meant was numbers.

and I think, okay, well, it's hard to have numbers if you don't have a plan and you don't have consensus about what you're gonna do.

But I think that's backwards. I mean, the state came up with 220,000 units are needed.

If we had a half a million, we could do that too.

Well, we do.

But it wasn't the purview of this plan, is my point.

That's fine. But as Mark also said, this was used... as a weapon on both sides of both Rios in Article 42. We should do this now. We should wait for the plan. We should do that. Everybody that was saying that was waiting for something in the plan to say, this is what we need. and what we have are strategies to address a need that I don't know how to quantify.

Okay, I'm going to leave it at that.

So I I completely understand not setting a target. I think what I was looking for is the the size and areas of need and then the town would prioritize where it wanted to bite off and how much. And I think that would help the town understand the path. And what, help me if it's in here and I didn't see it. how we get to prioritizing the size of the pain points and the priorities. Actually, we can do the priorities, but understanding How much?

meets different groups, what the size of the need is as opposed to what our target is and how quickly we should address it. I get that that's not within your purview, but I think part of for me market sizing and market characteristics is gaps How big is the gap? What will solve the gap? And then these are tools. If you choose this gap, these are tools for that gap. if you choose this gap. But for me, I was missing that, but I was getting kind of a strong leaning into maybe changing our goal based on a different definition of affordability or a different something and for me that's a little different than the pain point. It may be the pain point but it may not be.

Alexis? Thank you. I do want to say I really appreciate these comments. I want you to know that we spent a lot of time talking about exactly this. How do we talk about the demand? And I think one thing to understand with a lot of those approaches for the state's plan, for example. And I know you mentioned a community that had done their own as well. I think one of the challenges is that creating housing, it's not like a lever where if... because the plan does, for example, look at where there's major gaps by income level for ownership versus rental. So then what? Are you going to say, well, let's create that many units. It's not going to suddenly Fix it within your community because you're not able to create housing directly for the people in your community.

and that's why I think a lot of the plans that do the best job of looking at demand are looking at because they're looking at housing as a regional issue and not just a local issue. So in order for you to really have that kind of and the other challenge is also a lot of the really great resources out there for understanding housing demand they usually because of all of the kind of margins of error and whatnot that can come up with with the data sources that are used it gets more challenging the smaller the geography. So if you're really trying to understand Wellesley's housing needs and thinking of it just as this almost this lever, the data is not going to get you exactly what you need.

we can tell you where there are these gaps but then this is where that kind of policy decision has to come in because is your policy going to be to create that many units or to prioritize specific income groups within your zoning. I mean, it's ultimately going to be, I think that's where the hard conversations by decision makers are going to be what guides it. But I just wanted to point that out that it is easier to quantify these things when you're looking regionally as opposed to just within a community for a variety of reasons. talked a whole lot about this and I wish there was an easy answer that we could just give you.

The other thing that's hard is that there are foundational differences among people in town. Some people think there is X housing need or Y housing need. There are people whose opinions are represented in here. who think that current residents preferences and character of the town should be the priority. Protect the way the town is now, they should be the priority and we shouldn't be considering people who don't live here now. So if you have that kind of foundational difference, it's very hard to develop a plan that would be accepted or implemented. and I think that's part of what we were seeing and running up against is there's a huge gap Gap, talking about gaps, between what people see as the need.

I mean, you know, data can identify one need and people can say, well, that's not a need as far as I'm concerned. So it's really hard. We're approaching our time for this agenda item. Are there any other comments?

Are you taking comments from the public?

Marjorie, Jim, Steve Burt has been on the line for the whole conversation. I didn't know if he was gonna want to talk because he's been on the on the zoom with with with us.

Yep, I know. Thank you. Hi, Steve.

You're muted, Steve. Don't people usually raise their hands if they want to talk?

That's why I was just wondering, are there people from the public that want to talk tonight? Yep.

Go ahead, Steve.

You said go ahead, Steve.

Oh, I know. I know. It looks like a continuation of the last 25 years as I sit here. and listen to arguments that I've participated in for a long, long time. And I'm hoping that First of all, I see a lot of potential housing coming in for the first time in my career, and I must say I'm very excited about these opportunities. I think the The state over on Oakland Street is going to be a changing situation for the town.

And I think that we need to work with the state on that. I think it's an important concept. and I think we have to divide the conservation interests with the housing interests and make that project work. And there are a number of other ones that I think that we can do and Create More Housing. I've always felt that we took the easy way out in solving our 10% issue on on affordable housing and also on the MBTA using the The nines to get us out of both of those situations I thought was the easy way out. And so I was happy to see the discussion of bringing the affordable units up to 10%.

I think that's a laudable goal, a difficult one, but one that we should, as a town, pursue. I enjoyed participating in this with the Barretts in your housing review. I don't have an opinion as to whether it should be accepted or not because I haven't studied it in detail, but it was interesting to hear different people's perspective on it. thank you for the work that you did for the town.

Thank you very much, Steve. Barbara, are you here to comment? Okay. All right. Anybody? There's nobody else on the Zoom? Okay. I think I'll turn to Colette for a motion, please.

Sure. Move to acknowledge receipt of the strategic housing plan.

Second.

Kenney?

no Beth

Collette? Aye. Tom? Aye. Patty? Yes. Tom? Aye. Kathleen? Yes. Mark? No. Jim?

Aye.

Beth? No. and I vote aye. Judy and Alexis, thank you very much for all your work, for all the modalities with which you collected data all the work you've done since June. I do believe that this will be a productive tool for the town to use and we all look forward to the comprehensive plan so we can move things forward. Thank you both very much.

Thank you. Thank you, everybody. Thank you. Good night.

Move to dissolve the joint meeting.

Second.

Mark? Aye. Kathleen? Yes. Tom? Yes. Patty? Yes. Tom?

Yes.

Kenny? Yes. Colette? Yes. Beth? Yes. And I vote yes as well. Thank you to all the members of the board.

Sorry, Jim. Sorry.

Sorry. You're not here at the table. Jim?

No, I get it. Yes.

Okay. All right. The joint meeting is dissolved. Thank you to members of the planning board for joining us. Our next agenda item is an update from the policy subcommittee and I'll turn it over to Kenny.

So the policy subcommittee has been making pretty steady progress on a number of policies at this point. Our focus is to ensure that each policy is well vetted, practical to implement, and aligned with the broader strategic goals. Just to level set this. The policies that we're going to talk about tonight are the townwide capital planning committee policy, the encroachments policy, and the appointments policy. will also go over the work plan. So I'll turn it to Colette to talk about the capital planning policy.

So just as a reminder, on September 30th, a select board held its first read of the policy subcommittee's draft document to create a townwide capital planning committee. and invited comments from board members. Many comments were incorporated into the second iteration which was circulated in the Friday Night Mail. Marjorie had some comments in response to that document that was circulated and then Corey had posted that on the policy subcommittee website yesterday afternoon and it was circulated to board members at that time In the packet members were directed to section 3-5 which is the advisory committee's role and section 7-1 and 2 which is the committee membership for further discussion tonight. So what I'd like to do tonight is to seek some feedback on those two sections and then if we have time we can walk through the draft that was circulated yesterday by Corey and talk about some of the more substantive comments there.

So first, I'm going to turn to section 3.5, which is advisory's role. And I wonder if either Megan or Corey, if you can bring it up, we can look at that. but just by way of background that language there was some questions about advisories role that language has been clarified and when I drafted that language I really just drew from the town bylaws after we discussed it at policy subcommittee last week I did discuss the language that was going to the board with both the moderator and the current chair of advisory and to make sure that you know they were to get kind of initial thoughts on them from that language and they are both comfortable with the language as in their view it really does reflect advisories role and responsibilities So I think as a first item, I'd like to take feedback on Section 3.5, which is advisory's role. So Megan's just going to pull that up.

Yes, that's it. So in the bottom of the page there, you can see I changed the title of that section to Incorporation of the Townwide Capital Plan in the Townwide Financial Plan. and I specify the advisory committee what they're charged with, what the select board is charged with and then if you can just scroll down a little bit, Megan. and then it basically says that the advisory committee, we're basically charged with creating the budget program and the preparation and maintenance of the town mine financial plan. and advisory committee can request that we present the Tangmai financial plan to the advisory committee which they typically do and the proposed Tangmai capital plan will be incorporated into the Tangmai financial plan and then advisory can comment on that either in their report to town meeting or early at town meeting.

So that I wanted to just take feedback from board members on that section. Are they satisfied with that or is there more work to do on that?

Beth, I have a clarifying question. So does this paragraph mean that the capital projects will not be vetted by advisory?

So that's not their role. Their role is to comment on what we prepare for the town-made financial plan and the capital budget program. So that's what they do. They don't vet them.

But they do currently vet capital projects going to town meetings.

I mean, I don't think this changes. Nothing's changing. However, we're doing right now when we present the Townwide Capital Plan. and the Five-Year Capital Plan, they comment on it. They might be talking about individual warrant articles, which is a separate thing. We're talking about the Townwide Capital Plan and the Townwide Financial Plan.

So the capital projects each year going forward to town meeting will be vetted or will not be vetted by advice?

So they will comment on Warren articles the same way they do a relevant of the time-wide capital planning process. So if something's a Warren article, they will comment on it. doesn't change that.

And they can comment on Article 2, which is the townwide financial plan.

So I think if we look at the town-wide capital committee, they'd be looking at year two, three, four, and five and prioritizing that. Advisory doesn't necessarily comment on that and the year one would be what would be coming to town meeting in that particular year and that may that five-year plan shifts each year a little bit. The bigger projects though typically we try and align and I think the goal here is that that alignment would be more strategic in terms of how we would initiate those larger capital projects. So to that point, they would look at it on when it's funding year, appropriation year.

So as I see it, the only difference is that instead of us writing the capital plan and inserting it into the townwide financial plan. The capital budget committee will write that part of the plan and insert it into the townwide financial plan. Is that what we're saying? So not exactly. Because it's in the plan now that we submit. I just am trying to understand what the difference is.

So I would say that they are doing the work to make a proposal to us, but it's still our responsibility to, you know, if they make a presentation and a proposal to us, we still have to deliberate and decide, okay, is that what we're taking that? Are we going to make some amendments on that? So I don't think that it's really changing anything in terms of our responsibility or advisory's responsibility. Any other comments on that section, Tom?

I guess I'm a little surprised by the discussion that just took place. To me, it's very straightforward. You have the team rooms. that's going before a special town meeting, advisory vetted that project, but the townwide capital committee would have looked at that four or five years ago. and decided that that was one that was worth putting into the process so that it reached special town meeting this fall. And we, I think what I see us trying to do is to create a neutral, objective, qualified group who are looking at all potential capital projects from all sources and working to prioritize them

with the responsibility to do so in accordance with the metrics that are required and going through the weighting and making final determinations. To me, this is just creating an objective process to create what the capital plan should look like.

I just didn't understand it was called out with kind of such intentionality that I wanted to understand if it was a different and so forth. would go to advisory kind of simultaneously with being on the town-wide financial plan it could.

So what I was, you're right, nothing's changing here because I'm drawing from existing bylaw language. Nothing's really changing, yeah.

I think the language here combined with an advisory liaison role is perfect.

I think that's an important thing you just said, Colette. The bylaw still controls who does what. So this is more descriptive.

Okay, and then, so the next thing I wanted to go to is section 7, 1, and 2, which is the committee itself. Okay, that. Yeah, so. So that's great. Just down a little bit, Megan. So in our previous discussion, a question was raised with respect to committee membership. and then there were other questions raised in our policy subcommittee about having the executive director as a voting member of the committee. so I'd like to take board feedback on that and I think I'll take the two issues separately so before I start with that I'm just going to preface from my own perspective as I detailed in the presentation on September 30th

the town bylaws tasked the select board with coordinating the preparation and maintenance of the town's long-range capital budget program to present the five-year capital plan and recommends a method of financing and reports to town meeting on the substance of the plan, including recommendations and comments as appropriate. in my view the select board needs the appropriate tools to be able to execute that responsibility and the committee is purposefully structured with the select board having strong representation So as a first item with respect to the executive director's role on the committee, it's not unusual for a position similar to the executive director to have a voting position, but it's not mandated. It's not 100% the case. So being responsive to questions, I'd like to take feedback from board members as to whether the committee should have two select board members as opposed to a select board member plus executive director.

and then have the executive director as ex-officio member because I think the executive director's voice is critically important in the discussions because it's the that's a staff position that really has a broad overview of all that's going on in town and so in discussions with the executive director she's I think would have a preference for next official role So I would like to take feedback on that.

Can I ask you a clarifying question? Actually, two. Is the committee composition that we're looking at right now the unanimous recommendation of the policy subcommittee? That's one question. Second question, is the word designee meant to imply a member of the board designated by that board or a person designated by that board? because it wasn't clarified in the document.

Okay, so there is not a unanimous feeling on the Policy Subcommittee. Kenny and I had some differences and that's why we're having this discussion tonight. So you'll see Corey had put comments in. That's why it's coming forward. and then the select board designee I think you know I didn't want to say the select board chair and vice chair I think it's up to the select board chair as our in our typical practices that the chair will make liaison appointments and select who's going to be on the committee. in my mind it's a member of the board we can clarify that but I'd really like to get some feedback from other boards particularly board of public works and school committee

I think it should be a board member but I'd like to hear from other boards as well what I did see in practice was often particularly for the board of public works it's sometimes you know the Dave Cohen type person because they have such you know and detailed information about what the board is doing but I mean I don't have a strong opinion on that if you want to clarify it's a select board member as designated by the chair, we can put that in the text. I don't have a strong feeling on that.

So I have, and we can come back, I have bigger issues about the composition, but working with the list you have here, I have a strong preference that it not be a mix of staff and residents. I think the way you've constructed it here, it should be all elected officials. Whether that is a good model or not, we can discuss separately, but I think Under this construct, I would feel more comfortable if it was all elected officials.

so I've got one or two things to touch on here so right now I'm trying to get to the executive director so I'm trying to take feedback is that should we change that to a select board I'm hearing member as opposed to designee but rather than executive director. So I'm trying to focus on that first and get people's feedback on that. Tom?

I do think the executive director should sit on this committee. We don't have a town manager and therefore the executive director doesn't have and inherent level of power that would affect the objectivity of this committee's operation. I also think the executive director as we see with Megan has such a remarkable level of detail understanding financially and about the capital projects that it's an important voice. So I am very much in favor of the executive director. And quite frankly, I think the overall composition of this board is excellent. I have watched as the select board, DPW, and the school committee have worked through major capital projects.

There's a history of experience. within those boards that makes an enormous difference in terms of their value add as projects actually get underway. I see the contributions at the permanent building committee. I see the contributions elsewhere. and it is really critical for boards to have experience in major capital projects. I've been through more recently Morse's Pond and while the NRC's perspective as the landowner is critical in terms of understanding what their requirements are as stewards of the land they're not overseers of capital projects, and that became evident in that process. So they were a critical voice, but they are not who I believe should be voting members on this particular committee.

But in terms of the executive director, I do believe given their ultimate responsibility for a balanced budget under Article 8, in concert with the elected select board members. I think they're an important member of the committee.

Voting or ex officio? Do you have a strong preference on that voting? Other questions or comments?

Well, sorry to disagree with you, Tom. The executive director's role is to . . . . . and I think it complicates the executive director's role to have her as a voting member. My preference would be ex officio.

I can't say it better than Marjorie just said, so I agree with Marjorie.

Okay. So I'm hearing overall more consensus. Would you be satisfied with the executive director's presence on the board?

Oh, I certainly would. I think that Marjorie makes a strong point, as have others, and I can absolutely be persuaded either way. It's not one where I would hold up a change. But I do think the executive director's participation, because of their ultimate responsibility in crafting Article 8, and bringing that to the board for our approval is critical.

Okay so let's turn to the other membership questions and Tom you've touched on this a little bit but there have been questions raised about including other town bodies in the membership including specifically the Board of Library Trustees, the Natural Resources Commission and Recreation. So we did discuss that a little bit at our last meeting, but I'd like to get additional board feedback. so again from my own perspective the committees that should have representation are from the bodies in town bringing forward major capital projects which are typically the select board FMD DPW and schools. I'm just going to go through a couple of specifics on why library recreation and NRC in my opinion are not logical for the membership. the only major capital project the library has in the foreseeable future is the HVAC work and that's approximately 3.7 million which is less than 1% of the anticipated 400 million incoming over the next 10 years

and I would contend we need FMD's experience to determine on systems projects in general which ones need to be prioritized based on need. We have consultants reports and they're used to make estimates, but there's always a push and pull. The main library building is 55,000 square feet with branches of 8,000. That brings the library trustees buildings and around 65,000 square feet out of 1.2 million square feet that are overseen. It's about 5% of the square footage, so it's a small percentage. and Library. And I want to emphasize that this is major capital projects. Cash capital is a separate process. and in the current cash capital budget the library are very well taken care of. The library buildings are in very good shape and I think that reflects the Broad, support for our town needs, regardless of where they come from.

And this is not a loaded process. So the question of the NRC has been raised. Other than Morses Pond, the NRC has no major capital items in excess of a million, which is what this capital committee would look at in the future. Obviously, as Tom mentioned, Morses Pond is an important project. and the proponent would be invited to join the discussions of the project, but I don't feel that that justifies a permanent seat on the committee. Similarly, recreation has been raised, but as a body that doesn't own property, I'm not supportive of that. so generally I'm going back to a few guiding principles who are the principal bodies moving forward capital projects by their nature and the experience of the work that they've done they are sophisticated in terms of the town's capital process what is the board elected to do? And so the select board clearly has a fiduciary role in the whole town and has a responsibility to bring forward a capital plan. Library, NRC Recreation. They're not really elected with that in mind.

I'm going to go back to the Government Finance Officers Association guidance, which I talked about earlier in this process. It clearly states, and I'm going to quote from the original memo here, a big part of the challenge in deciding how to allocate a limited budget between competing projects and interests and usually these competing interests seek to gain as much as possible from the budget from themselves. When everyone does this the budget becomes overburdened and the financial foundation of local government is compromised. So by adding in additional boards to the committee, I feel worse at walking into that route of compromising the committee and the budget risks being overburdened. So I know it's up to other board members for comments on that. So Kenny.

just so Colette and I obviously talked about this my point of view was I thought more about it and I talked to some people that are not on this board about past projects and I think the elected bodies who have the potential to bring a capital project should have a voice in it. I do think that the select board should have disproportionate weight in representation on that board. I don't think it's different than a corporate board at all. You often see large shareholders with multiple votes. You would see a small shareholder who can't influence the outcome in any way. have a vote as well as a board seat. So I'm kind of envisioning it this through that lens is the select board would be whether it's

I'd be in favor of three representatives from the select board, one of them being the citizens rep, with all of the other elected boards that I mentioned being represented on it. that's my point of view I feel like it allows people to be included to hear the puts and pulls of the entire process and have a say but ultimately I do agree with Collette's point. It's our job to bring a balanced budget and we should have disproportionate voting power on that.

Marjorie? Oh, you're off.

I agree with Kenny that elected boards should have a seat at the table, but I would say when they have a project that's envisioned within the timeframe of the plan, be that five years or ten years. and that permanent membership should be reserved for departments or boards that regularly manage significant capital assets. this doesn't mean that all boards shouldn't be kept informed, which I think they should. I think transparency and communication is very important. and it also doesn't prevent a board or department sitting when they have a project that's going to come up within the timeframe of the plan. but I also think that to keep the committee nimble and productive, try to avoid quorum problems and commitment problems, that five to seven is a good number and I would prefer to have the significant

asset owners and managers be the permanent members and others join as appropriate one question on that Marjorie are you suggesting that if

I'll just use NRC, has a capital project that shows up on the five-year plan that they get a representative who can vote because I could support that.

And I just want to clarify, as it's drafted right now, they do have a voice at the table. They have a representative for when they have a project, but they're not voting at that time.

I just want to clarify that so it's drafted. and I would say that membership is appropriate when it's first proposed throughout the advocacy, throughout the prioritization, and throughout the setting of the plan that includes them. but it would be a limited seat at the table for that timeframe. And I also agree with two select board.

So you're meaning as it's drafted, they can be at the table when it's proposed and when it's discussed. Are they voting or non-voting? Right now it's drafted as they're non-voting.

No, I don't think they should be voting.

Can I ask a point of clarification? So on that, so typically when NRC has projects, they're never outside of Marsha's pond, which generally they're not unilaterally theirs. So DPW tends to be their capital arm. in that, you know, pond-dredging... Field Modification, Playground, they're their arm in terms of implementation. So I just say that in terms of the people who are doing the work and really estimating and putting the project together have a vote on that. and I would say that's the same for REC and they're all also all part of the playing field task force I know we have a seat on that too which looks at the upcoming needs in terms of either cash capital or broader capital projects. So they almost have like a feeder into the DPW vote.

because the only, I look back at the current budget for NRC, there's nothing coming forward apart from Morse's Pond, anything they have that's in cash capital, it's not here, it's just Morse's Pond. the playgrounds vary between schools and recreation but again that's DPW as you mentioned.

I agree with Marjorie. I have to say that in terms of an analogous situation, my experience at PBC on large projects, Townhall, for example, is that as the proponents representative, which is essentially what we're talking about for this committee, my comments and opinion are given are heavily weighted. If there's something that we feel strongly about that I raise at PBC, they pay attention. And unless it is a fundamental and the question of finances within the total budget which is what you'll see with something like Hardy and Honeywell where they're making some architectural decisions or decisions about materials that have a substantial cost impact. Generally, the proponent's representative prevails in terms of their wishes on a project.

So I don't think that voting versus non-voting is what really makes the difference. And the risk is that you have an odd number and you add someone and it's an even number and you've got a problem so I agree with Marjorie and I don't think that that the proponent, non-voting proponent, that their ability to influence the decision is really diminished by not having the ability to vote.

and the language that is in here is pulled from PBC's bylaws. It was modeled on the PBC model. but I'm trying to sort of get back to Kenny's point about well you know if they're voting you want them to have like a small vote but I'm not sure how we how we unless we've had the whole select board on the committee how we have they're at the table with a vote rather than they're at the table with a voice. Sorry Megan.

If you wanted to do that one thought could be that in, I'm sort of thinking of the associate member sort of role with planning, but what you could do is in those instances when a project comes on the citizen representative could not vote and the board to keep the numbers to your point sort of equal that could be so the citizen representative sort of is a select board appointment during status quo this one way and then as someone comes on they sort of become the associate member still participate but the other elected body gets the vote. .

That's no incentive for a citizen member to take the time to participate and get up to speed. Not only that, but I would go a little farther with the citizen representative and like PBC or other boards or committees, I would have qualifications. I would be looking for somebody that adds expertise in construction or construction attorney or whatever. Architect, whatever it might be. I would look for specific skills.

That's definitely true. I mean, what we've said in here is that somebody with either a construction or finance background and my own background I think it's really important in the first phase to have someone with a strong financial background because I think a lot of the things that we're going to be wrestling with here because we've we kind of have a capital plan but what we're struggling with is our capacity fiscally really to do it so I think we really need a strong fiscal long terms of CFO type experience so I'm not sure who's next So.

In these kind of discussions, I always try to look at what is the problem we're trying to solve. Because to me, the composition and structure of a committee depends on the problem we are trying to solve. and I have to say I am not clear on the problem we're trying to solve because as long as I can remember, which is pretty long, The plan, the capital plan has always outpaced capacity, always. and it always gets collegially sorted out according to our bylaws we are to build teams with our other fellow boards and it works out and it sorts out it may not be like a perfectly beautiful process but it does work out so we're trying to solve either a more

I'm not clear on what we're working out because that would help me understand how to solve it.

So I think that the problem we're working out is you know we've gone from you know the size of the town and the budget and the complexity what we're dealing with it grows all the time so we're not a small organization anymore and we need to have the tools to, I keep going back to what's our responsibility. Our responsibility is to provide the five-year capital budget program, time with financial plan, but it can be overridden and it has been. and what I think is really the issue here and now we're really seeing the outcome is that our bylaws allow any board to bring a capital project to time meeting which has happened. and most recently has happened with a really significant capital project and so moving that up in the capital plan there was no way to discuss well what does that do to everything else in the capital plan

and so and I'm you're looking at me like you know I'm listening to you okay so and so I think now the other shoe's hitting the ground or whatever what that metaphor is So we are trying to work out, for example, the solar panels on the schools, which has been something that's been on the work plan for some time in various different formats. the previous paths we've taken forward with that have not worked yet there's a grant of a million dollars on the table and we care funding that we would like to apply to this FMD doesn't have really a lot of bandwidth so can't really deal with it initially MLP we're going to you know run it and we were going to support them they don't have the skill set to do that comes back to FMD they really try and make space for it and then it's you know you evaluate oh actually it's a PBC project so now PBC are going to do it

what about the staff that the PBC staff are already working on preparing a number of things to bring to PBC they've got bandwidth problems So, you know, this is what happened at town meeting, which was perfectly in line with the... Talking about air conditioning. I'm talking about air conditioning. But that's not the only time it has happened before. but with a smaller project which maybe that one did not pass it failed at town meeting so I don't know what the ramifications of that would have been but you know we're seeing the ramifications of not having a structured process so that's a problem we have to fix so right now you know we've got a lot of goals that are not lining up like long-term time planning that's being you know Overridden. We have obligations that we can't fulfill. So that's the problem in my mind that we have to fix. So...

I don't see in here anything that prevents a board or committee taking a project to advisory and to town meeting. I don't see this fixing that. I actually support what happened because I think the community has a right or a board has a right to bring up a project that comes in and get community feedback and if the community values that, then it's our job to shuffle the chairs on the deck and make room for it. So if that's the problem we're trying to solve, I'm not sure a standing committee solves that problem, I think.

a very a tailored inter board where it's the chair of each of the elected boards and the select board Go through what's on the plan and we talk about our capacity, what's within the levy, what's outside the levy, what the capacity looks like, and we... collegially work it out. That doesn't seem like a big meeting to me. I mean, it's a meaningful meeting, but... that solves that problem, I think.

So let me respond to it because I think that this, and we'll get into the bylaws in a little bit, but I think this committee, and the work that they're doing, they're producing a report, a pretty detailed report. And so if you knew that there was a project that wanted to be at the top and the committee using sort of an evaluation process that is based on our goals so it's you know it's um it's not it's it's their judge they're using their judgment but there's a set of criteria they're going to make a recommendation with the reports of explaining why they're recommending things talking about how it's meeting the terms goals in various ways and how it's addressing all the criteria that we're talking about

should I think as part of their deliberations if you foresaw that someone was going to bring something forward to time meeting which they still can do and we'll get to that later the committee can then at least have a chance to say if that's brought forward here are the effects of that and then when it comes to town meeting town meeting is not making a decision in a vacuum which I feel that they were before because there was no as I said the last time we discussed this in in advisories right up of the town meeting article there was no discussion of what the impact that that was what was going to be if you bring something massive forward from year five it stands to reason that something in year one two and three might be moved out there was no discussion of that and so I think that this committee would facilitate that discussion and town meeting can make that they can still make that decision we can talk about that in a little bit but they'll make that decision with a lot more information to say okay if I make that decision I understand it's doing these are the knock-on effects

and I think having a tailored inter board is a not enough a tailored inter board is going to be what an hour two hours this is talking about a number of meetings over a period with technical expertise, building a really detailed plan and a detailed report. I don't think, I think a tailored interboard can't do that. And I think a tailored interboard falls exactly into what the GOFA always says, do not do it because everyone's advocating for themselves. Beth, can I just?

Yes. I think the problem we're trying to solve is establishing a clear mechanism as the controlling body for developing a capital plan because we don't have that now. We have a capital plan, but there are ways to bypass it. It's not transparent. It's not comprehensive. because town meeting did not go through everything that a capital planning committee would go through, all the criteria that are set forward in here. to fully understand and evaluate the prioritization for one project against all the others that had been in the plan. I think it's bad governance. to establish capital plans by having a last minute project that's not been on the plan to come in and derail other things.

It needs to be the recognized and expected pathway for all capital projects to go through. it's transparent, it ensures town-wide prioritization, it ensures fiscal coordination and planning, it ensures transparency, and it has everybody go through the exact same process. of Examination and Scrutiny. Otherwise, what's the point of making a capital plan?

Yes, see, so I don't see, I guess I don't see that happening here because you've got three boards. and then you've got other boards that do have projects. So we do have Clock Tower, we do have War Memorial, we do have Morrison's Pond, But I don't think DPW is the project owner or advocate in the same way that the school committee advocates for schools.

But the schools are on the committee.

No, no, no. But I'm saying the advocate for... Fuller Brook, the advocate for Morrison's Pond, the advocate for the War Memorial, the advocate for the Sprague Tower, the advocate for the library. I don't believe that advocacy is on this committee and I don't believe that there's any reason to anticipate that people that are advocating for their own projects are going to make way for other people's projects. It's not the job they were elected to do. So for me, I don't see this solving that problem.

Let me just touch on that a little bit. just again I'm going to say there is nothing nothing on the horizon that would trigger the capital plan for the library in the foreseeable future and you know it is

Collette for the War Memorial, the Clark Tower, Morrison's Pond, and Whites, if there's something with Whites. For me, it's either everyone's in and you're saying, okay, you're in, with your big town hat on and there's enough people with different lenses that it mutes just people that own specific big projects. Schools don't have that many big capital projects. I hope I mean they've got when they have them they're gorillas but they're not all the time

Well they do have projects that are on the capital plan right now so what I'm what I'm saying is and I put in the packet the next 10 years and schools certainly have projects there and there's nothing on the major capital project for the library and if there are projects where DPW is the proponent for with the exception of the HVAC system, which as I said, you really want FMD's opinion on that. But if the NRC wants to talk about the clock tower and the war memorial, they should. but I don't think that merits a seat on the committee that's talking about all major capital projects for the next 10 years. I guess we just disagree on that.

I just think at the end of the day we own what the projects are on the plan so this seems to me to be a layer that is and so on. and we were building long-term understanding of our funding capacity that's one thing none of them are guaranteed in any way to have investment experience, financial experience. There's a lot of Pressure on this board to line things up in an affordable way, recommend financing.

that's actually our job with our staff so that's why I'm suggesting maybe there's a middle step we should try out before something that's formalized and the last thing I'll say is the town has gone down this path before and that's why I'm not sure what the problem is we're solving because part of me here is it's not really the projects we're looking for an investment committee and we're looking for somebody to tell us what, like give us a better sense of affordability and managing and arraying chunks of money. But that's part of what I hear when I see this.

I don't know where you're hearing that. That isn't part of this at all.

So I know we're not... I'm not unanimous on this, but I'm trying to get to what's the majority consensus on adding library, NRC, and REC to, or one of those to this committee.

I just want to say you're not precluding any board or department from proposing a project and having it put on a capital plan. You're just saying when they don't have one on the plan, they're not a permanent member. I mean, there's all board meetings. There's presentations to the select board. There's the budget process. There's presentations to advisory. There are ample opportunities. to put things on the capital plan. But the membership is set out is the boards or departments that control the major assets, the people responsible for our financing, the person responsible for our infrastructure and facilities, which are the major considerations when you're creating a capital plan. I just don't see why you need a board that may have a project in ten years but doesn't have one in the next five to be a permanent member.

There's no voting representation for all project owners.

And I'll say what I saw in a pretty detailed review of as many municipalities as I could get my hands on. That's not the case because it's not best practice. And so the only time I saw a library on a committee was when a town had literally one capital project and it was a library. I never saw a library on it.

with all due respect you keep bringing up the library but I believe NRC has a number of projects and I just don't believe in having a committee where you bring a project and you are not allowed a vote if you're going to allow the others to vote.

But they have a voice. And I think you're disregarding our mandate as the town's you know chief executive body to look after the whole town that's our job and we've been trying to do that with the capital plan and I think we've always done a good job about making sure things go forward. But, you know, we are faced with too much requests. We need to have a more structured process to evaluate them.

Is one way to... to deal with what everybody's talking about is to say it's the select board has two designees and the other members will be those boards that have capital projects on the five or 10 year plan. because to Tom's point about you want somebody who actually has a sense of like an expertise in something that matters to this board, right? So there's nothing to say, and I'm not picking on the schools if you're listening, but there's nothing to say the school's designee is going to have financial expertise at all or construction expertise. There's nothing to require that. So I'm not sure we're solving that problem by just giving specific boards designees.

I don't disagree with your point Colette that why would somebody who doesn't have a project on this but I think you can address that by putting people boards with projects as members at that time.

And they are, but if you have one project...

I distinguish between somebody who could come and listen to a meeting and somebody who can vote. I think it's a wildly different thing.

I think that's a little dismissive they're not listening they're coming there they're a voice at the table and they're being respected because this is a respectful community we do it like Tom said at PBC we do it really well we know how to do this that we're not dismissing anyone, never have. And that's not our role to do that. Our role is to bring something forward for the whole town. All right, so I think I think we still have a disagreement on it, but I think I'm hearing majority consensus for the committee as it's structured, and I think it might be helpful. to go through to get feedback from other bodies which are some of the next steps so the next steps

Can I just say, people have raised points that are, and I appreciate you're not looking for a resolution on this tonight. I think it's respectful of all the perspectives that have been articulated to be able to think about it and come back to this.

so I think we had talked about the next steps on initial on this is to following a second bead to kind of have the proposed committee clean up a version of this and have the proposed committee circulated to department heads and boards for feedback across town and what I would propose is sharing a revised second iteration with department heads through staff and then asking department heads to share it with their boards and then asking any board who wants to talk to us about this that they put it on an agenda so that either I would go to them attend their meeting, answer questions they have, take feedback, understanding that I can't speak for the board, but I can answer questions and take feedback. And I think that's the next step that makes sense before we do any further work. could you have them come to us you can talk about it

so for me it would be helpful if the boards came and we talked about this policy together as opposed to Someone goes to each board. I think where we are not lined up, it would be helpful for us to hear the perspectives because maybe they don't see an issue. and that I think would be clarifying and it would help us kind of understand what those discussions are. So I would request we put it as an agenda item at our meeting.

How are we going to manage? that number at the same time. Why can't the policy subcommittee go to them and we watch the meetings, they bring us the results from those meetings, and we integrate it? after the fact and discuss it again.

Because I anticipate it would be obviously a school committee, Board of Public Works. PBC I think we should talk to them so they understand what we're doing I think MLP we should talk to them obviously NRC, library, recreation and anybody else that wants to talk to us. There might be boards that don't really want to talk to us. Board of Health, you know, Historical Commission. There may be boards that are just like, fine, this is your bailiwick. But I'd like to kind of put it out to them and offer to go and make a presentation to them. This is what we're doing. This is why. I mean I've always been very fair I think in representing what our board says and I'm not going to paint a different picture than what we have but I think I can paint that picture and ask them for feedback and bring it back to the board and you can watch the meetings

I agree with that. We have a very busy set of agendas ahead as we get past special town meeting, head into the holidays and go towards and I think at any given time there can be a decision for a board to come to us and talk to us but I'd rather empower the policy subcommittee to have the initial conversation.

they're the committee charged with developing policies for review by the select board.

I agree with that.

Ready for a road show, Kenny? Are you ready for a roadshow?

Sure. Mary Beth does it.

I know we have other policies on tonight I think Kenny's the next one maybe Marjorie and Kenny if it's okay with you I might suggest deferring appointments just given the hour but I think encroachment is much simpler

so the encroachments policy as I had mentioned before was dated and was on an old form and so what we tried to do was just rewrite the whole meaning put it in a different format, wordsmith it. I don't think there's really no true material substantive changes in it. What we tried to do is provide flexibility to account for the fact that Today we use a spreadsheet to do something and 10 years from now we may use some other mechanism to track. And so we tried to provide flexibility where it made sense. and we worked with the NRC and NRC staff to make sure that what were put down on paper was in line with what's happening.

so that's kind of where we're at like I said before the goal is to have select board approval NRC approval and then go to the other landowning bodies and say here's where we're at and Hopefully we get townwide sign-off on a single policy.

So can I ask you a couple questions? Sure. One of the encroachment issues that was brought to our attention was big boulders put on the right-of-way. and I wasn't sure in the applicability seven sections, I wasn't sure if it fell under landscaping, it's not a structure but that might be something you want to address, measures, anything that blocks access to the right-of-way.

Is that a police enforcement? I thought things that block the roadways.

I'm talking about a grassy area.

Yeah, I believe that's a police enforcement.

It depends, but it falls under the right of way, which is under select board of encroachments.

My other question is under the policy section, it says if cooperation cannot be achieved with correction of an encroachment, the board may take corrective action and may pursue further remedies as needed and I wasn't sure whether there were other specific remedies you wanted to identify other than a municipal lien because I'm not really sure what those other remedies are. I don't know if you wanted to be more specific.

Yeah, this is one of those where... that may evolve and we may not think of everything so rather than put together a list we're just punting on it saying we can pursue whatever remedies are available to us at that time.

Okay.

Just on that point I'd say where we've had a few wacky Testa, Ulfelder, Wellesley, Councilor Testa, Ulfelder, Wellesley, Councilor Testa, Ulfelder, Wellesley, Councilor going to be sold so you sort of work it out with the new buyer or on the sale of the land and so it is we've had some of those tricky ones where we've been able to resolve because of workouts

Okay, my... Marcia, can we just go back to the first point you made?

Now, I'm looking at the language. Your point is somebody made a point about boulders on grass fields or something. and Section 7 deals with how we're going to install boundary markers essentially to deal with the encroachment at that time.

Wait, Section 7 or under applicability?

Oh, I'm sorry. Am I in the wrong?

It's at the very beginning. where you lay out what encroachments may include but are not limited to. Because I've seen Hardscape in more than one place. you don't need to look at it now it's just a question to raise The other thing is when you say that from time to time encroachments should be reviewed, do we want to leave it that open? It's under procedure and one other place. I just didn't know if...

Again, that was just one where we decided on flexibility and let the underlying landowner decide how often to do that. I think if we become prescriptive, there could be pushback because I think some boards may own a small amount of land. It doesn't make sense to do it every X number of years or something like that.

And my last question is under procedure number... 6, 5. You have in places where the town takes action that the DPW shall document related costs to the town for potential recruitment, I assume? and number five says a board may develop a restoration plan and I wasn't sure if they carried out that restoration plan you wanted those costs documented as well. for potential recoupment. Okay. That's all I had.

Oh, yeah, go ahead, Tom.

My question is under on page two, prioritization of encroachment responses. where it says because encroachments vary in their impact and the town's resources are finite, the town will prioritize corrective action based on the severity and nature of the encroachment. Is that indicating the order in which encroachments are addressed, or is it saying that for the same type of encroachment there might be a different response from the town? or a different requirement to remediate.

and their flexibility like give people a framework of how to evaluate these issues and then make their decision about how to tackle the issue based on

Are you concerned or is there a concern that I would think we need to be similar, treat each type of encroachment in a similar fashion or the homeowner that has a more severe expectation from the town is going to complain that somebody else wasn't expected to go as far. So any encroachment, whether it's three feet or 20 feet, is an encroachment and needs to be remediated.

I can certainly appreciate that issue. My concern was if you put something like that in and it doesn't happen, I think you're actually in a worse spot. because the policy will say you're going to do exactly that. Here, if we own land and we treat it one way and schools have a similar issue and treat it differently. I worry about how we would communicate with the schools and say like this is how we dealt with that problem. if you have the same issue, you need to deal with it this way as well. I just don't know that the communication is going to exist and that there's going to be a true central depository that people are looking at to deal with those issues. When you were in those conversations, did it sound like that level of coordination exists?

Not really, yeah. And so I agree with Kenny. And then the other thing I would say to that is if you build a small structure on school land... you have a little time to resolve it you start drilling a structure on the We can't stop the water flow. I mean, that was the urgency with the issue upon Crescent Road when we had that encroachment. So I do think there's, you know, if you have a fence that extends, we had a ton of those when we did Fullerbrook Park. where we had, you know, as we sort of went along the path we remediated them with bounds because you had some time to do it and give people notice to do it. But I think of the aqueduct because we have a lot of land. and a lot of Aqueduct and so that's one where there's anything in close proximity not tree removal or things like that but more

digging, structure placement for certain, you know, you go to drill something. And I mean, if that is perforated, it's significant.

I do think we've run some risk with the language as is. On balance, I think the other risk is more pronounced.

Beth? So on number two in applicability, I think I had the same thought Marjorie had. I'm wondering if kind of like the sidewalk areas and that sidewalk land, whatever you call that, is where the rocks are. I wonder if things on the... What do you call that, Megan? That tree lawn? Yeah, the tree lawn within the right-of-way. Yeah, encroachments in the tree lawn might go in landscaping. And then in number seven, could we include safety in there? So public use, safety, enjoyment, and environmental value. So I understand the flexibility in the hierarchy.

I do wonder about the statement that the policy provides consistent yet flexible framework because I worry that we won't be consistent. that this is guidance, but I would probably take consistent and flexible just out. It provides a framework for how you address it. Or you could say guidance and framework. Yeah, something like that. And then my last question is more macro, which is, there are legal actions, letters that have to be written and sent and our boards are of all different backgrounds in terms of and I'm wondering if there's a way to say that it could be the board I don't know if it's the board, the staff, or town council, but that there's an opportunity. We certainly wouldn't want it done incorrectly.

so if town council could have a template for it or if they can consult with town council if they're unfamiliar with how to do it because there is a fairly prescribed process once you've decided to enforce. And it just seems like we should acknowledge that there is support there to make sure they do it properly.

I think adding language that essentially says if appropriate seek advice of council. Yeah, perfect.

That's it. I just want to thank you for putting the parts of the policy where they actually belong. It's a lot clearer this way. So I just wanted to say thank you. Are we ready for a vote on this one?

So are we moving to approve this policy and then, let me see, what do we see in the packet? Approval for socialization, maybe? Kenny, you had, it's in the memo, isn't it? Okay, so moved to approve the encroachments policy and once approved for the policy subcommittee to work with other boards that have land under their jurisdiction and request that they adopt the policy. to provide a single time-wide approach to managing encroachments.

And to allow the policy subcommittee to make changes as discussed.

and to allow the policy subcommittee to make editorial changes as discussed.

Second.

Kenny?

Aye.

Collette? Aye. Beth? Aye. Tom? Aye. And I vote aye as well. Thank you for suggesting, Collette, that we put off the appointments policy. That's right, we turned the lights down for planning, right, so it is kind of dark in here.

I appreciate it. I have no heat at home and some cold animals and it's just me.

Yeah, exactly. Okay, our next agenda item is special town meeting preparation.

So I wanted to just give a brief update on the Teams Room article. So we do not have a definitive number. Dave Cohen is going to get back to me specifically tomorrow. so it did the bids came in at a little over 1.8 million dollars the request based on communication with Linda Chow would be for approximately 1.8 I was just trying to refine is it like exactly 1.8 million or is it the bid came in at $1,833,000. But there are ancillary costs, you know, that contingency, et cetera, that also are typically contemplated into the overall budget request. which some of that likely is being absorbed by the additional costs, excuse me, the additional funding that I know the schools have to put towards this. They have approximately 400,000. So that's why I don't have the delta there.

But it's approximately a $500,000 increase from what the board had initially anticipated from free cash. So I wanted to alert you to that. you will need to vote a revised motion which I was hopeful we could likely do tonight but I don't have . I have a vicinity. I think it would be important to understand if there is consensus that the board would want to expend $500,000 additional dollars in free cash with the notion that I think you would need to vote prior to special town meeting the actual number because you won't reconvene until that time. unless you want to what day is today unless you wanted to to vote that at a quick meeting or something so I have uh maybe it's a left field question

but based on 60% design, how frequently are bids closer to what we expected than half a million dollars more? is that a COVID result I mean why were we underestimating by so much what a bid would be

I don't really know because you know for PBC we had an estimate of 5.9 for the RDF admin building, and it came in lower. And so, you know, these are modular structures. There could be, you know, pressure from tariffs, delays that are anticipated into it. It could be just that increase in market condition from when we put it out to bid. And to be honest, our past modular construction has always come in. High. I think they tried to calibrate that a bit here. And more recently, we had some lower bids for more of a local vendor. That person did not put in here. there certainly was in the bids was a cluster around the 1.8 so so clearly I would say that's a real defining marker of the market

which I think Dave Cohen would likely say that. So I think it's sort of a confluence. It could also be I think a lot of folks are moving towards modular so it could just also be a demand issue because of the duration of construction as well.

But you see, there was a cost estimator. I don't think the issue is going from 60% design to the accuracy of the cost estimation. There was a cost estimator, which there are for any of these major projects. they're perfectly qualified to create accurate estimates. What I would like to know, because I think it's our fiduciary responsibility, is what drove the cost up? before we agree to this additional money because unless we ask that question, we don't know if there are design elements that can be reduced. you know the DRB for example is an utterly is an entirely voluntary set of requirements they certainly add value as I said earlier today they solved a problem with an unsightly vent on the roof of this building. There are other projects that they've added value, but that doesn't mean that you have to take every one of their suggestions.

I don't know what that did to the cost. I'd like some more information about why there is this deviation in the cost. Is that controllable? Are these elements that can be eliminated without affecting the fundamental purpose and function of this building? before we agreed to increase by a half million dollars.

I agree I think the school committee is asking some of those questions let's make sure they're asking the full panoply of questions but I just want to understand what you said about the money My recollection is that we were going to put 1.28 million of free cash, okay? So that means with the $400,000 school had, that would have been $1.6. But you're saying now it's $500,000 more. So how much in... additional is being added to the $1.8 million bid for the other expenses that you expect.

I don't know. So the email I saw was that it went from 1.285 to 1.8, essentially a $500,000, slightly over. and others. The low bid was 1833, unclear whether that's the bid they're taking. And so largely that doesn't always include contingency or other So I can get that breakdown like we had from the schools on how we got to the 1.285 and get that to the board.

Right. So if I understood you correctly, you were suggesting that the 1.285 that we were originally contemplating from free cash would go up by $500,000. So if you're talking about 1.8 on the bid, and the additional amount, you're talking about over 2.1 or close to $2.2 million.

If we're being asked to fund 1.8, that would be my presumption, yes. I just wanted to get a sense of those additional costs. Absolutely. Otherwise, to your point, Marjorie, if the total cost was $1.8 million, then it's really, you know, a little over $100,000 increase. Right, yeah.

we will clarify okay thank you it's perfectly appropriate for us to have more information before we make that decision we have time to do that

and then they're waiting on one or the other bid that's not free cash so we have no role in that that's for the Baylor and compactor but that's coming from their reserve fund

Okay, any questions for Megan on special town meeting? Okay, next is administrative matters. So we have two sets of minutes and I believe Corey has received the comments that were being sent. So Colette, could we please have a motion?

So move to approve the minutes of September 30th and October 6th 2025 as amended.

Second.

All in favor? Aye.

Okay, the next item is the chair's report. I just have a couple of notes from Tom's and my meetings with advisory and school committee today. . . . . . and my understanding was that advisory was going to modify their agenda to include the revote on the special town meeting articles. . Schools are potentially releasing an RFP for an updated demographic study sometime this year. and the enrollment report should be in school committees Friday night packet. So if people want to review it in advance of their meeting next week, They're presenting it next week, but it should be available in public documents this weekend.

Finally, one of the boilers went out at the middle school. So they need to probably replace it. It was part of a redundant system. So there is heat and hot water in the building, but they need to restore that redundant system. Niki estimated at about $200,000, and there is money in the revolving rental income fund to cover that replacement. I think that was the highlights from advisory and schools today. And if there's nothing else.

I just want to say I think the schools did a really nice job at their budget workshop for us, briefing us on how their budget book worked.

Cindy talked straight for an hour and 40 minutes and took us through every section of the budget book. It was very helpful. There were 15 people there? Advisory? Select board?

but thank you to Cindy. We didn't vote what the 930, Corey?

I think the motion was just for the October 6th minutes, not including...

I said September 30 and October 6, 2025. I didn't say 2025 twice. So you're very sharp. Corey, I know you're right. I wasn't great. I was B because I'm tired.

But close enough. Well, and I didn't hear you because I'm equally tired.

So did it count, Corey? It did. Okay, upon that note, we're adjourned. Thank you, everybody.