Select Board May 12, 2026

Good evening. I'd like to call to order the select board meeting Tuesday, March 12th, 2026 in the Giuliani room at Town Hall. Here from the Select Board are Vice Chair Tom Ulfelder, Secretary Coletto Frank, I'm sure Beth Sullivan Woods is on her way, Kenny Largess, and myself Marjorie Freiman, Executive Director Megan Jopp, Assistant Executive Director Corey Testa, and Town Council Eric Russell. Is there anyone here for Citizen Speak? No. Okay. We'll move on. The letter is our agenda item. The letter is our agenda item.

Okay, so first of all, I'd like to thank the 200 town meeting residents and another 100, 150 town residents who were at the town meeting last night. people provided a lot of very thoughtful and helpful input, which was exactly what Select Board needed and asked for. Our single agenda item tonight is to discuss and vote the letter to DCAM, the Division of Capital Asset Management and Maintenance. regarding 40 Oakland Street, we received the notice of official designation of the land as surplus. on April 13th and tomorrow is the 30-day deadline. It's the town's last official opportunity to comment on the designation and use of the land at 40 Oakland Street.

So I've been thinking about this for a long time and actually up until the moment I walked in the room and We got a lot of very important input last night. While the majority of the people in the town meeting members in the room wanted the select board to move into negotiation, reserving the right to litigation. I fully recognize that a third of the people in the room wanted to move to litigation. and I initially thought, and this is kind of directed at Town Council, I initially thought our letter was solely intended when we received the notification to reserve our rights. as the last official time to comment. But I'm wondering, and I'd like to open a conversation after town council has an opportunity to speak.

I'm wondering whether the board feels that maybe it's more appropriate to include more of the input we heard last night. giving credence and credit and respect to what we heard in response to our request. So I guess the question is, what objectives are we trying to meet with this letter?

From my perspective, I think the objectives that you're trying to meet here are threefold. Stating the concerns that have been raised by the community, reserving the town's rights to pursue any other avenues available to it and specifying what you would like to see in the RFP. I think this is the last official opportunity to shape that. There may be more unofficial opportunities to engage with the state but this is the last step in the statutory process.

So with that input, Article 2 motion had a lot of things that were important to the board that we wanted to bring to town meetings' attention, to residents' attention, and to have everybody comment on. So what does the board think about including those comments, those conditions in the letter as notice to the state that these are the things that are important to us?

So I did think that they would all be in the letter. So my notes, I have a couple of notes of, here's a few things that were in motion too that are not here, and I just wanted to follow up why they weren't there. Briefly, that's what I thought.

so Marjorie I think everything should be in the letter I don't think we should leave anything out of the letter I didn't hear anything at town meeting that said the items in our list were not relevant to them and I thought the letter should be bolstered by the overwhelming feedback that the density was disproportionate to the lot size and the area. And I think that should be in addition to stating our feedback about the fact we don't accept the surplus designation. and we're looking for their rationale on that. I think we need to also explicitly layer in the fact that their density expectations are not acceptable to us in terms of because of the surplus and also because of the area.

That's really the aggregation issue that we've raised.

It is the aggregation. But it's also acknowledging that I guess it is the aggregation, but it's a combination of the aggregation and the fact that the land is forested land. and the parking lot, there's a significant question about whether it's surplus. So the density does, that 180 does not make sense.

I think it comes down to the aggregation question of the state using 40 acres on which they claim they don't intend to build to create a density denominator.

Correct. And that significant portions are in fact not buildable due to slope, wetland, etc. So it's kind of a combination.

Thoughts on density?

I'm all for including that. I think in general the approach should either be we include everything or we include nothing. But my comments suggested putting everything in and if I'm very happy to highlight density as a major issue in the letter.

I do think we can highlight density, but I think we can't say that it was unanimous because it wasn't. Tom, any thoughts?

I fully understand the reasons why people want to include everything. but I'm concerned that we as a board haven't talked about our strategy for negotiations and had a frank discussion about what we feel the trade-offs are in terms of what we choose to prioritize over others within that list. So I think the vote from town meeting last night was definitely in favor of option B. But what we don't know is how everybody felt about every item on the list. what we do know is that there will be trade-offs in terms of the

the Commonwealth's reaction to what it is that we prioritize and that we're looking for. So I guess this is a bit convoluted, what I'm saying. I was more comfortable originally with sending a robust response to the April 13th letter but not an opening salvo in terms of negotiations. and that we needed as a board to have more discussion about what it is that we wanted to put forward in negotiations. I don't think that that in any way diminishes the importance of the voice that we heard last night at town meeting. You know, my principal concern and why I understand people's frustration and attraction to litigation.

is that if we can't get elements of our priorities directly into the RFP, we have a problem. with the common law because this notion that they're going to simply append a letter of our wish list to an RFP and say we'll look favorably upon a developer who is interested in meeting some of these means nothing. they made it quite clear that the RFP controls the ultimate conveyance document and that that's what controls the project and how it's built out. So if we can't actually shape the RFP, we've got a problem. and that to me is what's going to lead us to more significantly consider actual litigation. So if where that is ultimately where I think the problem is going to be,

I just have mixed feelings about including all of these negotiating points in this particular letter

So that's where I was earlier today. And the board hasn't decided what our next steps are going to be or who's going to be involved in it, what we're going to do. So we don't want to get into negotiation strategy. but I'm not sure that putting what town meeting and town residents discussed last night as part of their decision on how they thought we should move forward necessitates us having them in hierarchical order or saying which ones could be the ones that we would litigate over. We're not at that point, you're right. We haven't decided that. but I'm not sure that that's mutually exclusive of including them in the letter as a way to respect what we heard last night.

Beth. So I actually think we're remiss if we don't include everything. Because if you're going to, well let's move it out of the legal thing. If you're going to a buffet, if the food's not in the line you can't pick what you want on your plate. So this is putting everything out that we care about that's a priority for us. When you go to negotiate, you're going to pick what you're going to eat that night. But this is just simply setting the table and saying these are the areas with which we have concern that we want addressed in the RFP. I am assuming that they have said they're serious about working with us. So if they get the letter, then there'll be negotiation. They're not going to take the letter and turn it into an RFP. but if they do and we don't have our items on it, I think we've done ourselves a disservice.

So for me, I don't feel a need to prioritize it but I feel a need to be explicit that's why I want to put in that the density that there has been meaningful conversation about the density aligning with the area of land that is buildable and not surplus. And I don't think we should leave that to their imagination.

I think just reflecting back on what Town Council said the purpose of this letter is it's sharing the concerns and there certainly was a concern over density it wasn't uniformly held but it was a concern reserving our rights. That's pretty clear. And then specifying what we want in the RFP. I think for that reason, it needs to mirror the motion language last night. And the motion language is public. We've talked about that to death. So I don't see what, I'm not a lawyer, but I don't see, I'm citing town council here, but I'm not, I'm not so acutely sensitive to what you're feeling, Tom. My initial reaction was, I got the motion language and I'm cross tying it one to the other and I was, I'm like, here's the four things that are missing. That was my initial reaction.

So I wasn't focused on what Eric had said when I was looking at this earlier. But if that is a consideration about how you're taking not an official position on the RFP necessarily, but you're putting out what you would like to see in the RFP. I think it's important since it's a public document and people absent that can spin it however they want. I'd rather it be in public saying, here's everything. And I tried to tweak the language slightly to say. the initial draft said the town requests the following requirements be incorporated in the RFP I tried to broaden that a little bit to say the town would like to engage the Commonwealth on a number of issues including without limitation and then I did what you did and ticked and tied it to the motion.

So I would prefer this approach unless there's a strategic or litigation reason not to take it.

I don't have any concerns about that language you suggested there.

Kenny, couldn't it be both? I mean, we would like to engage with the Commonwealth, but we also do want those things in the RFP.

yes and as I was reading what I wrote I think the words RFP should the acronym should be somewhere in that in light of what Eric said about the importance of that so we can play with the words too right

It reflects what the board thinks and what we heard last night. That not only do we want to engage with them, but we feel strongly that they be reflected in the RFP. So Eric, can we add a piece about the aggregation I'm not sure we raised the question of buildable area last time, but we did raise the area of aggregation. If they're going to build on five acres, why they're using the whole 45. as the multiplier for the four units an acre. So I think both the aggregation and the density issue should be in there as well as the pieces that were missing from the motion last night. is everybody okay with that?

So we did raise the wetlands and that the land was had terrain to it last night in the comments so I think you could infer buildable from that. I don't see a reason not to include it because it just puts another component out. That would be my feeling about it.

The only thing I'd say about buildability, we have no zoning provision that excludes buildability over a particular slope or grade. you could look at Clock Tower Drive which is constructed after significant retention you could look at Kimlow Road which has actually buildable lots with significant retention so it is very hard to say a lot is not buildable with different means of construction So I would leave that out because we have no measure that would be prohibitive like a wetlands provision or something along those lines. We have nothing that would preclude you from building on a slope of any kind. Terrain is not. A simple matter of being unbuildable.

But wetland is.

Under this particular thing, it's arguable. And keep in mind, we do allow construction in wetlands. You allow construction in wetlands with mitigation. It is not prohibitive.

We've requested that the building be subject to our wetlands protection. It's clearly subject to the state's, but ours is more restrictive, and that's the protection that we're asking the state to provide.

I get concerned about straying from the motion language because once you go into one area you're almost inferring that anything that's outside of the motion but not picked up in this is sort of not important to you. So I think this just tracks what everybody voted on. Right, but I'd like to re-raise the aggregation issue.

Not the buildability.

I don't think I have the language we're talking about. and I just looked at my email. Kenny sent a draft.

It was sent twice by Megan this afternoon. What time? 421.

So the last email I got was 235. I must not be loved today.

There was two. There was one a little bit earlier, 2.30, and then 1.20.

Yeah, the updated was like at 4 or something. It could be that that email has to do an update thing again.

Yeah.

So Beth, it does include the wetlands language.

Okay, so technically the parking lot area is 4.94 acres and I think if we're going to use a number we should be specific. it's closer to five than it is to four and they've said they'd build on the parking lot area and I don't think they're going to carve out that little bit where the vehicle is on the left side of the parking lot. I think that it should track motion B language.

Can we project this since we have people here? Can I ask those that are experts about conservation restrictions, is there any more specificity around the type of conservation restriction that we want to specify in this letter?

My preference would be that it is granted to the town with no cost. And we have no commitment on that yet.

I think we would also want specificity in terms of open to the public. We have some language in here.

We did specify publicly accessible open space for passive recreation. Held by the Town. Yeah.

Is there a broader construct of a conservation restriction? I don't know how these work, but that looks pretty broad, which is good in my... Yeah, that's very broad.

I mean, you could open it up to other types of recreation, but passive recreation, I think, is what people have in mind there. Yeah, okay. Yeah.

Yeah, because the other ways you could include both passive and active, which may defeat the purpose.

Yeah.

Do we want it to be Article 97? Is that a grade of conservation restriction? I don't know anything about the levels.

That's not a specific grade of conservation restriction. Article 97 would kick in because it's held by a governmental entity. So this would become Article 97 land. And even if it wasn't protected by Article 97, the conservation restriction itself would be drafted to last into perpetuity. So by the terms of the restriction, it would be protected anyway.

So Megan, what I was thinking about is when a town meeting, when we took our parkland and then we voted the extra protection on it, do you remember that? When we went through each year and put the parklands into different

that was just zoning that was zoning okay and that was more for clarity because we had our um our parkland tended to be single-family residentially zoned so it was more just to call out and actually the land that was protected just more definitively.

Eric, now that we're talking about specifically tracking the motion, the paragraph that refers to the Circulation and turning movements at Route 9 and Oakland Street and egress and ingress to MassBay was actually in the motion. I think if we're going to track the motion language we should exactly track the motion language because in the letter it's a separate paragraph.

So I had moved that. I think Nick and Robbie had originally included that in the bolded list, and I had moved it. because the bulleted list I had updated to refer to what goes into the RFP and I'm not sure if that is something that would be dealt with through the RFP or if that's something that has to be dealt with separately from the RFP through the state. If you think that that could be part of the RFP, then I would include it in the bulleted list, but I'm not sure of that.

If we put it in the list, you have to finesse the words a little bit because this is an issue list. and if you try to make it two things at once, you're going to have to get cute.

Yeah. I actually think with regard to traffic, it should be separate. it's a much bigger issue and I think the only way from a financial analysis that we're going to make headway with the state is if they view Traffic Infrastructure and Mitigation as a separate state project that runs in parallel at the same time.

I agree with Tom. I think it should be standalone. because it's not, I think the words will get really weird if you try to say, here's our issues and these should be in the RFP except for that one, which we acknowledge is sort of a state issue, not a developer issue. and this to me highlights the importance of that particular issue which I think makes sense.

My understanding was that state road to state land, the ingress and egress from Route 9 to MassBay could be a MassDOT issue. but the circulation and turning movements at Route 9 in Oakland, could that not be a developer issue?

I don't think you... I apologize for... because I know you're looking for an answer. I don't think the issue is whether it can be. It's whether it is... whether a developer is willing to take that on and meet other demands that we're making that are very important as well. I think if we could get the state to separate the Route 9 Oakland Street work and the parking lot and point of egress to Route 9, that makes it a financially better bet for developer financially.

I wonder if Megan if you could scroll up to the introduction to this because it's been changed from what Eric drafted which is here's the RFP. Kenny's language says here's what we want to talk to you about. We need to decide which path we're taking because then it might resolve this issue. and that to me is, I'm gonna toss it to the lawyers first to see if there's a reason that's better to separate it for RFP versus non-RFP. To me it doesn't, I'm agnostic.

I don't have a strong opinion on that. I think that's a strategic choice for the board how to approach that.

So this letter doesn't tell them how to solve the problem in the RFP or outside the RFP. It identifies the list of items. So for me, there's really no difference these are the items that are essential elements of the project for us and whether they choose to deal with one set of issues separately through MassDOT or whatever and others to put in the RFP for the developer, that's kind of their problem. Our problem is, these are our problems. So I don't feel a need to think through how they should best crack the problem. I think we should just lay it out for them. Going back to my buffet analogy.

In that case, then, in that introductory paragraph, we could accept the red line and then have the bullets mirror the motion language, and that would kind of finesse it, I think, unless you had...

Either that... or I think the language in the separate paragraph needs to be strengthened because even if MassBay says we'll take the parking off of Oakland Street, If there isn't a separate ingress and egress, all the traffic's going to come back to Oakland Street. So doing one without the other and us not having any sense of whether we're aligned with the Commonwealth and what they expect from the RFP doesn't really help us.

So then in that case I would argue we should just mirror the motion language because we thought that through for the motion language.

I think it needs to mirror the motion language. because that's critical. That's one of the most critical things is not to add the MassBay parking back onto Oakland Street. And if there's no other egress, that's the only place it'll go.

But I think that's why I'd rather, if that's how you feel, I'd rather take the current configuration and strengthen the separate paragraph. I think it is so important that the language in the motion was satisfactory for that purpose but does not capture the extent and importance of this issue and how we wish them to approach a resolution. and I think a separate paragraph does and that highlights its importance as an issue.

So you think it's more important for us to say here's the things you should put in RFP, here's the things you need to figure out yourself rather than saying here's all of our issues.

I don't see the traffic. I guess I just don't see it as part of the developer's responsibility.

Right, but if we take the approach of the current, the red line in the introductory paragraph, we're not delineating whether it's developer or state, which is saying, here's the issues.

I understand that, but I think that still takes place if it's a separate paragraph. And again, I think the language in the motion does not convey the importance and scope of the traffic issues that we need them to solve.

So, Tom, can I suggest that we use the motion language list, but that we take that paragraph and say, we believe it's critical for you to understand the scale and scope of traffic and pedestrian safety issues that persist, that exist and we believe will be exacerbated in this area so that it puts out there the importance of the issue to us, but it doesn't pull it out as a separate issue and give it different dominance.

I don't think that does anything.

I actually think it needs to be stronger than that. I think it needs to say that the project would be untenable. unless all of the MassBay parking is removed completely from travel on Oakland Street. It's not enough to have a parking lot on the east side. It's important not to put that traffic back on Oakland Street. and I'm not sure we've been this clear about that. But I mean, that's one of the most important things.

But you see, I agree with you and that's why it needs a separate paragraph.

I don't care whether it's a separate paragraph or not, but I think we need to be really explicit that just moving that parking lot isn't enough.

I think it's just standalone personally but the whole point of this letter is from the statutory reasoning for this letter is to put us on notice of what they're doing so that we have opportunity to respond to inform the RFP. So I think the RFP language needs to be, I screwed up the drafting. of what was there. So that needs to get back into the paragraph leading up to the bullets. and I think you can leave the standalone paragraph where it is without going into the detail about that. I don't think anybody's gonna come back and be like, hey, you didn't say that's part of the RFP, so that's not gonna happen.

Right, as long as we're explicit about what we need.

So you'd like it strengthened a little bit?

I'd like it strengthened a lot because just moving the parking lot

Understood. So if we're strengthening the paragraph, the word we want assistance with it to me is awesomely weak. I think we want them to facilitate and execute whatever the correct legalese is on that. But I don't think we just want a little bit of help.

because it's state road to state road. It's not, you know, it's them.

You got enough there, Eric? Yeah, I think so. Yeah.

You know, I think the reason this is so important is because when we've looked at existing RFPs for projects that the Commonwealth has been looking at under the AHA, they are alarmingly weak. in terms of what they're asking the developer to do. I think that one of the reasons why it's so important that this issue be a separate paragraph, for example, is we're trying to send a message that the simple construction of homes on a parking lot is by far not the total project that Wellesley expects to be completed and that the impact of not doing a number, taking a number of these steps in completing this project is going to leave us with a terrible problem. There's an existing problem already. It's just going to be worse.

There needs to be a much larger consideration of the issues that the Commonwealth has to solve. And I don't get the sense that they understand that at this point. I think they think they're just going to append a letter from us that has no binding effect and they're going to go along with a skeletal RFP and that's going to be it.

When you think about the RFPs that Joe McDonough drafts, he has everything that he wants in the scope of the response. He lists what criteria would be highly advantageous, what are advantageous, from what Megan says, these RFPs are very bare bone. And if we can't get more specificity into the RFP, Tom's right, we don't have anything to hang our hat on.

Right. And I think when we issue an RFP, we are trying to get what we want, right? The state's issuing an RFP in this case, because it has to, and it wants housing, right? That's what it wants. So they are incentivized to draft that as vague and as broad as possible. So I think it is perfectly defensible to leave that as a standalone paragraph because it's not the developer who's gonna fix that. So you could distinguish it from the list and it's in there. And I feel like as long as it's in there, we have ground to stand and say, hey, we highlighted this fact.

So, and I apologize if I missed it but shouldn't we have in here that we look forward to partnering with you on the RFP and meeting to further define the scope I think we should be assumptive about it.

Let's be realistic. I would not recommend including that language.

We don't have to do partner, but we should be assumptive about the fact this is the beginning of the conversation to develop an RFP. and that we look forward to meeting with them and discussing these issues in more detail. I've never sent in a proposal and not followed up with a client.

I just don't think there's any basis at this point to assume that we're looking forward to. That's something we're going to have to work out.

Can you pull up the last? I think the last paragraph solves it. because it says while the town submits this letter for purpose of continuing constructive dialogue, I'm sorry, in spite of the serious concerns, town appreciates the opportunity to comment blah blah blah while the town submits the letter for purpose of continuing constructive dialogue. I think that tells them we intend to continue.

That's about as specific as they've been with us. We want to continue a constructive dialogue.

And we got the message. In the lead-in to the issue list, the town would like to engage the Commonwealth on a number of these issues.

Okay, anything else? All right, we have some members of the public here. Would anybody like to comment?

Thank you. Doug Youngin, 162 Oakland Street. Thank you for letting me speak. Just to follow up, which is kind of apropos of what you were talking about with the negotiation. I brought it up last night about waiting and prioritization. And I just think that's a huge issue. You just talked about traffic. So that's great. have you ever had like a like a working group or negotiation team or something that noodles that it feels like there's a lot discussed at the meeting last night and then all of a sudden it's going to be really fast some people are saying we might see the RFP in the next month or so and if the the town's position isn't clear and you know and I know you got a lot of opinions last night about how to negotiate but one thing's clear you got to anchor it it's somewhere and I feel like

the points aren't anchored, they're not prioritized, and there's no consensus. I brought up density last night, I brought up So I think that that's what the neighbors, I mean, and if the density comes down, then it can be on the parking lot. So that's one thing. The parking lot is still, I'm trying to understand We're seeing that it's on the town records as 4.23, and now it's back up to 4.9. I know there's a big swale area in the front of the property, so I don't know how they're going to count that as even buildable. Land. So how do we get that straightened out?

I'm not sure it would be buildable, but it could be open space as part of the lot area.

Okay. It just seems confusing why that's over half an acre.

Well, because I think the 4.2 is explicit to the paved area.

Correct.

Yeah. So, I mean, the parcel obviously is bigger than that, and they've committed—I think the five acres has been stated significantly, and in Marjorie's slides last night, it showed— how you would demarcate that, not just the paved area, but how you're comprising that. The development site is not going to be 100% impervious. and so it's too early to tell based upon any potential design. But five acres has been their ongoing statement of what they anticipate.

Well, some of it might have to go in the wetlands. I'm not sure. And then I just heard something that tipped me over a little bit. Continue a constructive dialogue they did not respond to you in 90 days. That's not a constructive dialogue. I agree with Beth on this one. There has to be, some quick pushback and meeting scheduled. Otherwise, they're just going to steamroll on RFP. That's from my perspective. what they've shown so far. So which goes back, is there any thought of some kind of working group or negotiation team or anything like that?

You're a little ahead of us.

Well, it's going to come fast.

Our job today was to get the letter ready, and our next task is to decide what we're going to do next. We will discuss. are hierarchy of criteria, what we're going to do, how we're going to engage the Commonwealth. We're just not there yet.

and anything we can do to help. We got a lot of emails and people that can weigh in if you need to get some more polls or anything like that. Thank you for your time.

Marjorie, can I just make one? So I think one of the challenges for the public is going to be when the select board enters negotiations, that's not going to be public in any way. So I just want to make that clear because I don't want to have people be disappointed. But they are not going to be able to discuss their hierarchy or their strategy anyway in open session. I just want to make that clear.

Anybody else want to comment?

Hi, so Raina McManus to Mulherrin Lane. I just have a quick question. What time are the comments due tomorrow? Is it 5 p.m. or midnight, do we know? We don't know. Okay, so if we were planning to send in our own comments, would 5 o'clock be a safe bet? Sure, close of day. Okay, very good. All right. So I just want to start by saying thank you all for your work, truly. I know we've all got to stop meeting like this, right? It's been going on a while now. Anyway, and I know that I'm not the only one who has been pouring over last night's results and trying to make meaning of what was expressed. it was clear that people don't like the deal of 180 units as offered by the state as only 11 people chose option A. That says to me the majority of people in the room didn't like the density. Option C, oddly written as proceed directly to litigation, sounded like the monopoly card, go to jail, go directly to jail, do not pass go, do not collect $200. that's not the way things work in the real world.

Still, option C received 75 votes indicating clear unhappiness with the 180 units or the density. Option B, negotiation with its 11 mitigation items certainly seemed the most reasonable choice and surely 118 people or 57% of people chose it. We're curious, we'll be curious as to how you plan to address the 2BD density to reduce it as there are 10 other items, but clearly it's the density. and when we say 20 units, it's because we want to save the forest and want the 40 acres to be removed from the density equation to leave 20. and we'd also like the 20 units to be multifamily and possibly all affordable. So not like the single family mansions we heard about last night. One vote last night, however, was very clear, the overwhelming yes vote on Article 3 to fund litigation.

This clearly indicates our town supports you to stand up for our rights and to protect this forest and the neighborhood. Please hear us. 180 units is far, far too dense for this area, the forest, the neighborhood, and our town. If you address density, the other 10 items on the list almost go away. Six weeks ago, town meeting decided that Rios, and this is a Rio on steroids, were too dense for our neighborhoods. Well, this is our neighborhood. I heard a lot of people express concerns specifically over density and again I feel the overwhelmingly positive vote to appropriate funds supports us. I would also ask you to continue to explore all legal means to drive down density, including working with our state legislatures to change the law to exclude our natural resources from surplus, not just Article 97 land. I still believe this is a terrible oversight that would solve this entire problem.

And finally and quickly, when you talk about maintaining public access to the forest, it's so important that the parking also be maintained on the lot if not the top of Longus Avenue will become a parking lot. I know what you're doing is not easy but I hope you listen to common sense and your constituents. Thanks for your service and thanks for letting me speak. Have a good night.

Anybody else? Jessica?

Thank you. Jessica Graham, precinct D, 21 Grantland Road. I'm not sure what you want to hear. Okay. I want to thank you all for the countless hours and energy you're putting into this. I know it's a lot. Last night, I neglected to clarify a question In option B, we called it negotiation with the Commonwealth. And I'm not sure, and no one asked what are we negotiating. So my question is, are we negotiating the fact that this is, the land is Article By the state's own wording for article 97 land,

it should be designated as 97 land and it should not be designated as surplus so my question is is that one of the negotiating items that was voted for in option B. And I'm not sure people, if it's not, I'm not sure people understood that last night.

Well, it's not one of the explicit conditions in B, but I can't speak to any or all of the points we may be negotiating.

We haven't discussed it. talking to the state about designating the land not as surplus can be a negotiating point?

I don't know. The board hasn't discussed it.

Can I say one thing, Marjorie? Yeah. So you effectively get there by the conservation restriction, right? I mean, you don't back it out of the denominator if you do that. So you have to negotiate the units down independently. If you get them to declare it Article 97 lands, it is by definition outside of the calculation and they could only do 20. So that would be the benefit of what you're saying.

Yes.

What the motion said was get a conservation restriction on the property which for protecting the forest is effectively the same thing, but it doesn't address the density calculation issue. So that would be a better outcome, but that was not in the motion.

So can I just, so one way I looked at it, I don't know if others looked at it, but when it says minimize density to the greatest extent possible, the biggest lever on that is Article 97 land. So I assumed that that was inferred as a strategy to minimize density to the greatest extent possible. Indeed.

Eric?

I think you can read that into D. I don't know that it's... I don't know that it is negotiable. The state will be taking a position as to whether a designation has been done in the past. The parking lot clearly has not been designated as Article 97 because it is put to a different use right now. but I don't know that that's really a negotiable item because it's about facts that exist in the past.

Yeah, so the reason I thought that it was, I guess I didn't maybe read it as strictly as that, but I thought where that was an item and it said negotiate and leave open the option to litigate that there in between those polls you were covered on being able to argue article 97.

I think we need to curtail any conversation of what we're going to negotiate. We don't know. We haven't discussed it yet. It was not explicit in the motion.

I agree with that, Marjorie. I would just say one thing that does not go to what the negotiating point is. The state can declare any of the land that it owns, Article 97 land, right? That is one of the possibilities. I'm not talking about whether or not to negotiate or any of that. But it is one way land becomes Article 97 is by the state designating it as such.

In general, that's correct. At this point, I'm hesitant to weigh in on what is possible given the fact that the college has already declared it surplus. and it's in someone else's hands at this point.

That's an outstanding legal issue and we're not gonna get into that.

Okay, I just wanna say then my hope is that we looked very closely at the wording for designating for Article 97 land and the wording for under surplus land and I found inconsistencies in and I think it was a mistake that the town designated it as that the state designated it as surplus land and I was hoping and I believe a lot of people last night when we talked about the possibility of litigation were under the assumption that that was one of the negotiating factors we would

asked for them to revisit or talk to us and point out where there are specific words that are saying that I believe saying it is not surplus land. And I think a lot of people thought that was going to be part of the negotiation in option B last night. And I think that's why so many people voted for that.

I don't have my piece of paper tonight. Leslie Hanrahan, 5 Putney Road. Thank you for all that you've done. I know it was quite a lot of work, and we all appreciate it. I just wanted to recap what I learned from last night, which I'm still processing what I've heard. But what I heard was that 94% of town meeting members voted not to take the deal the state is offering. So that was very important to me. They rejected only 11% or whatever.

6% voted for option A. So that to me says that people did not take the deal that the state put on the table. 83% appropriated the funds to litigate and give you the tools that you need if you need to go in that direction. 57% specifically asked you to negotiate with the state on the following points and I appreciate all the motion language but to the common individual, I tried to just quickly say what does that say? It says to me the points that are in the motion language are the size of the site to be developed and what is to be conserved as stipulated in A, B and C of your motion language. that's on the table. The reduction of the size of the development from four units per acre, that's D.

the range of housing types to be considered that's E. Relocation of the student parking lot at 50 Oakland Street that's F. improvements to parking, circulation, and traffic, and all the things that you've been talking about this evening, that's G and H. Adherence to local wetlands protection and water supply district protections, that's I. and the importance of 20% inclusionary zoning to the town. That's J and the development agreement, of course, K. So I was just trying to put it into like normal person language rather than motion language. 38% voted to litigate to protect the entire forest and eliminate or dramatically reduce development and what I learned was I looked at the precincts and precinct E voted this at 63%. So that's the neighborhood giving you direct feedback. That's pretty significant.

Precinct C, 54%, Precinct G, 44%, Precinct B, 39%, Precinct D, 32%, Precinct H, 30%, Precinct A, 29%, which is about 30%, and only F was significantly lower at 8%. So I just wanted to bring those up. It's just a quick thumbnail sketch. I hope that in your work and in your letter and in your ongoing discussions that you convey town meeting members' wishes in those, and I know you will, but that data popped out at me, so thank you.

All right. I just have a question. Marjorie, if we're taking resident feedback, I'm a little worried about taking it until five o'clock. I would think maybe something like noon would be more appropriate so that if there's feedback that and I'm assuming at this point it's going to be you know the chair working with executive director and town council that needs to get done before I have no idea when the deadline is if the deadline's five it's five o'clock We're not going to have a chance to look at it again. Realistically, the feedback can't change the letter significantly.

I believe Raina was asking for private citizens, neighborhood groups and all that to submit comments as in either support of or in addition to the board's comments, not comments on our letter.

Oh, I see.

Directly to HLC and DCAM. Right?

Got it. OK. All right.

OK, yeah.

Erase the last 30 seconds.

you're not under the same 30-day obligation the board is but it can't hurt to do it in a timely manner the way we are. So we're gonna do it by five. So that's the same I would suggest for you too.

Yeah. They said they would consider comments received within 30 days. So exactly. All right. Anything else?

should we vote to have the chair finalize with executive director and town council based on okay so vote to have the the chair of the board finalize the letter to the Commissioner of DCAM and the Secretary of EOHLC working with the Executive Director and Town Council to incorporate the comments as discussed at the meeting. Can we include special counsel? Do we need special counsel? I mean, I think Eric's drafted this.

Actually, special counsel.

Okay, and so to include special counsel Nick Shapiro. Okay.

Second.

All in favor?

Aye. All right, that's it for our agenda right now. All right, thank you, everybody.