conversion permit for the former fire station at forty schools street in lynn building at twenty one markers market street the former keating funeral home chris we do the w you and i just want to say that you're blazing a path in town history i'm ok we have town council here as well we're going to have a lot of questions as i'm sure you're going to have a lot of questions we we really haven't gone through this yet we have a lot of information i think maybe it would be best to let you kind of explain maybe what you're thinking as far as development or you know future plans we really haven't gotten very far with those at all short term wise you know we recognize the town's desire for redevelopment whether that means redeveloping the properties as they exist or tearing the properties down we of course in favor of anything that improves the town because we have the building of thirty four school street that abuts these properties so it is in sent in a sense that the reason why we've been in these properties was really to protect our little corner of the world because our current building houses fourteen tenants and also our our business that judy's flowers is in the basement and we have twenty seven employees of our own so we really want to kind of protect our little corner of the world right off the bat we're going to be boarding up all the windows to protect it from the omits every window in that in the funeral home has been broken so we want to protect it for the winter time just so it doesn't get any worse on the inside but over the last five six years it's the inside security pretty rapidly because it's been exposed to the elements with all the broken windows and doors the fire station that we are currently in talks with a local businessman that wants to purchase  us that would take place after the closing which is scheduled to be there always was going to be tomorrow looks like it might be next week now but it's the immediate short term plans and just just for everybody's understanding in the audience and and who may be watching at home the purpose of this is to administer the conversion of the ministers municipally owned property in a manner that will be in harmony with the intent of the zoning bylaws and will ensure the integrity of what in neighborhoods so that's why we're going through this process right now is is arranging more that you want to add as sold is integrated into the existing pattern of the neighborhood in the spirit and consistent with the purpose and intent of the zoning by law so this board does have broad authority under this particular permitting provision no sale lease or occupancy agreement with respect to municipal property can be consummated or completed unless the board issues such a permit so it's a very significant step and the in the sale process in fact both by the by law in pursuant to the memorandum of sale that's been executed by the the purchases with the town as a result of the auction it's a requirement that the the buyers have assumed to obtain this permit to move forward with the sale the criteria for review is quite simply as stated you folks have the authority to consider whether or not the proposed use of this property is consistent with zoning bylaw and that it would fit in with the existing neighborhood are not be detrimental to the existing neighborhood within which the property is located in order to make that type of decision it's obviously necessary for the board to have  you know sufficient information in order to gauge the impacts of the effects that the proposed project would have by law doesn't fact state for us specific types of documents at navigant is required to submit one is a detailed description and site plan for the proposed use the second is the number of employees or residents which will be retained or housed on the site eight the third is projections of traffic flows and propose access a grass provisions in the fourth is documents which would address other concerns that the board of selectmen maybe consider necessary and appropriate in order to make a determination so just based on the limited documentation that perhaps the board has seen i think it will be somewhat difficult at this juncture in the end in the process for the board to render any substantive decision on the impacts that this proposed views may have because we don't really know specifically what t proposed use is i certainly think the pilot contemplates a more comprehensive submission of material for the board to review prior to being placed in the position of making a decision on the permit  application that being said what the board the board has basically three options when an application for such permit is filed you can you can grant the permit without conditions you can grant the permit with such conditions as the board may deem appropriate to meet the criteria of the by law or you can prohibit a particular proposed use you can deny an application for a permit which basically sends a whole process back to square one there's no need for the board to make any final determination tonight let me to say that for the record i mean it's your call obviously this is a duly posted hearing where he had to hear whatever information or evidence may be submitted by the applicants as well as interested folks  the community but it would be permissible in my view for the board to continue this hearing should it deem it appropriate to allow for additional information whether it's that which you require or whether it's information that's specified in the bylaw to be submitted to the but that afternoon i heard that you were the successful builder and it took a second to the sink in and then i thought about us as well given that you own the property next door this is a great opportunity to combine possibles and to  in in my mind that i don't know other people's minds i had a picture and that's why i was glad you got it where you could move your business up to you know the common side and actually have you know retail on the first floor maybe professional offices and or maybe housing on the second or third stories as well disappointed when i went to her that you just going to basically reuse the the fire station for you know office building and a lot of things really really wasn't that you know i had this vision of the i want to know a spark of you know something fantastic in downtown foxboro that would you know sort of propel other developers to move in and build similes spectacular projects you know did it ever cross your mind that that might be one of your plans well we definitely encourage development and as i said to mr kagan where you know we're not we're one hundred percent on board if a developer has an offer that you know we can't refuse to buy the parcels and do you know knock on the buildings and put up something spectacular as you envision we are all for it so we're not against development at all i mean we are forced by trade you know we are not all knowing the right way i mean we're not we're not building develop developers you know i don't have any architectural background or anything like that we're forced out of the dilemma here is that in order for to grant this useful conversion we were looking for the recipients of this conversion to have such plans we didn't know that it was going to go another few steps and that's part of our dilemma is that we were hoping you would be the folks who would  take it in and converted and build it and make it spectacular we did no there was going to be secondary and perhaps tertiary sales down the road and that could take a number of years they just say a few words here the board  it's time to pull that together amount of just a few days obviously because you know you're looking at the i mean you don't really own the property yet but you hope all the property and therefore you buy having not only ship you you then move for them on the on the plans because this was an option there's no certainty that though that they would have actually owned up until they had their bid was finalized so therefore the the the the the lead time that you would typically occur if this was a sealed bids an area where is different than that we've got downtown area we mentioned that at the at the auction itself that we we hope that that will be the case now when we talked about what your plans were you did mention that you were willing to certainly look at some options for having some approaches the whole thing but we don't know what that means and i think probably we need to hear more about that because you know i'm not sure what a great offer means i just don't i don't have enough information understand where we are in have you spoken to other develop is what we've we've talked to some people to see if i look at it but no developer has approached me ok i have the duty to developers i spoke to before the auction took place said that the project itself is not desirable for them to move forward just because of the costs you know tearing down buildings but now it's a to major project you know not hundreds of thousands of dollars but millions of dollars is what i was told so when when bill had approached us and said we enthusiastic about redevelopment we said absolutely but it was one of the one of the issues is that we all know currently the key component is the large building at thirty four school st that we currently own and for anybody to do any major redevelopment we'd have to tear down our hall now so when i had said to mr keegan you know we would be in favor of moving but obviously would want to be motivated by an offer that makes sense for us i mean we do have ten thousand square feet in our current business in the basement of a building we do have twenty seven local employees that we employ and we do have fourteen tenants we have fourteen businesses in our building as it stands now get them as you know if a developer came in and said listen i know what you paid for thirty four school st i know what you paid for twenty one market street i'm going to off you two hundred thousand more dollars than what you paid well that in my mind is not a motivating offer actually move forward with that developer if you do it to a developer came in and said listen we want to take this whole place over we're going to buy oh next door the house next door we're going to go over to mr altman's building next door we're going to take it all and of absolutely be in favor  it's if it's beneficial both for our business and well for our fourteen tenants and when you say you bought it it was a defensive bid what were you trying to defend against well we we wanted to make sure our property in the rear where our raj bays are in the back of the building we actually share half of the parking lot with the old funeral home so basically our parking lot is split right down the middle and our concern was a somebody came in and did do a major development plan they could literally cut the back half of our parking lot straight off making our building less valuable the biggest criticism for our building is not enough parking so losing that parking was a big concern not only for us but for the mortgage holder on our our building which is our bank so they've been very supportive of this purchase force as well because obviously they want to see the value of our building stay at the level it's at as as opposed to decreasing so it's not so much we don't want to say you know we're not looking to be land barons and to be absentee landlords and just leave buildings vacant and you know sit as they are we would love to redevelop the funeral home if it doesn't get knocked down and build into a sixty foot building as it states in the paperwork in front of us all you know we'd love to redevelop the funeral home into a commercial business on the first floor and there's already two apartments on the second floor so i mean that's that's within my comfort level as a amateur developer  raising the buildings and putting them up on our own without you know that's not in my comfort level so that's when mr keegan it said well he knew some developers that may or may not be interested in the project and i said well we are always willing to  listen absolutely where they are every day seven days a week so if anybody wants to talk about redevelopment we're all ears and i don't know if they are it's about i'm certainly reaching out to folks to see if they would take an interest in writing is what we're looking at that we do we're happy to listen i think for the four hours owning by law the twenty one days is obviously not a long enough period to get the detail right that our bylaws requires what is our process of continuing this and giving them i mean where we you guys can continue it for as long as you like i mean it will if a developer approaches us and says they have a grand plan and provides us with that plan you know we'll certainly bring it back to you guys and present it if my phone doesn't ring and nobody present any plans you know i may be sitting here in four weeks and saying you know we're in the same boat we were four weeks ago you know we're a local business looking to expand our little corner of the world you know we have a buyer that's ready to buy the fire station use it for his offices on the what his plans beyond that but he's a local guy been in the community forty years he's got a business here in town so you've got a couple of good local businesses that are looking to continue and grow their roots here in town so i would hope the board would lease consider that as as a positive as opposed to bringing in outside of elop or with you know who knows what plans what type of conditions  could we put on this if we were to i'm not saying we should approve this tonight but what kind of conditions could we put on if they wanted to go ahead and sell the fire station where  developed within a certain period time or you could happen we could say that this is the kind of the valve that you want to see occur on this property there's lots of different conditions that you could place on three passes the funeral home small parcel behind the fire house and the fire house and those three passes were auctioned off as one option item the reason being is we wanted to see and it's in the master plan and wanted to see that area developed in such a in such a way that it would be a large enough so that it would kind of kick off things one of the things that would kick off would be the requirement far in hansing the sewer that would night only enhanced that building the development that building but also ran down to be connected down the street to help the neighborhoods that would be able to connect connect in a developer a bell would have and would have understood that and would not have decreasing the ability for a larger project that would kick in that sewer that would kick in everything for downtown and that was the intent of auctioning off that property so if we were going to make one of  the condition my suggestion for condition would be that that property would never be able to be broken up it have to be developed the property that you bought at auction that auction unit would have to remain like that and not be it could not use that would be a condition that i would like to see because otherwise it defeats the whole price of the whole reason for putting that property on the auction block develop that every input like the patents are even businesses would call for more so a which would mean you would have to hook up his saw a line to the market street and then go down it would be a requirement what you would be doing would be enhancing that area and it would be a requirement you would have to do it if you put something up on the second floor it's not going to help the development of that area because it's not going to do anything it's going to be the status quo and we don't want we don't want the status quo that's why we put it up for auction and also the things that you suggested that putting you know knocking down the building and putting excess  allowed in the foxboro center overlay district that's one of the things that are not permitted another thing that's not permitted is storing vehicles in the firehouse that's not permitted so you've got things that you can do you have things that you because we want to make sure what goes there is in the best interests of the town of foxborough that's the whole reason it was put up for auction i mean in this specific things that were that were written down  mean i went on the website and i got all the information that was provided pre action i got all that information i looked up there the references they rules and regulations of the downtown area what you can do what you can't do the goal that the town wanted which would be economic development for the downtown area you know sewer in a nice building and stuff like that joins you know what i'm saying here i mean if you had a i hear you know message loud and clear yes i mean lead me when i heard that you had won the auction i was thrilled to death i thought wow this is great news and then the next day in the newspaper when you were asked do you have a plan you said no plan and i really i was really i was really astonished and i was really stunned when i got this the other night that this election's meeting this is the plan it's only a page it has what you're required by the municipal conversion is a lot more planning a lot more detailed plans because otherwise we can't we can't give up this municipal property on this it's not going to work it's not going to work for the town it's not going to and it's not going to work for you either  e i had a couple concerns sides of the letter and i know there's really a quick timeframe quick turnaround time from the time you you made the commitment in and got the winning bid to today these things take time to develop and i understand that but it starts with a plan you have a tremendous opportunity i don't think you realize the opportunity that you have but obviously you need you need some help to see it through that's number one number two any restrictions that we put on th we transferred to anything any future sale so if you were to sell a parcel whatever restrictions are for development for the entire parcel will transfer to the new owner so they'll be required still meet those with those conditions so for us we have to be very careful because we don't want to put conditions on a conceptual project that doesn't exist a theoretical project and actually hamper your ability to either sell for bring in a developer you guys maintain the equity you contribute to real estate is equity in a development in a joint venture back on or about december fifteenth two thousand and fifteen after the auction there are certain terms and conditions that govern the sale many most of which had been previously noted in the the notice of sale one of them is a guaranteed performance requirement and i will read it says quote the buyer is buying subject to a guaranteed performance of the amount bid and entered into the memorandum of sale guaranteed performance is understood to mean that in the event of a default by the buyer necessitating a resale at public auction for any lesser amount the buyer will pay the difference between his her bid and that of the resale bid so whatever amount you bid default by you folks and this memorandum of sale in the town is forced to resell the property later on they sell for a lesser amount the difference between the amount the town sells it for and that you had agreed to sell it for is as a permit from the board of selectmen prior to the closing date be cited here and so that is an obligation under the agreement that you have assumed as well to be here tonight to obtain the permit so it's very significant that  we try to find a way to work this thing out yet i don't know if you have consulted with counsel at all but you may want to just talk to an attorney just to make sure that you fully understand the terms and conditions of the agreement i think the board is willing to work with you as we have heard here today about  we need to make sure that we're all playing on the same playing field and understand the ramifications of what's going forward this permit is a prerequisite to the finalization a consummation of the sale so it's a necessary step that has to be accomplished prior to we moving to the next step where you may want to consider selling the property to another developer one of the question how much assistance can  town give the duffys in in fostering relationship with with the developer or assistance with with zoning or anything else is it just you're on your own come back to others with a plan or because obviously what we want to see anybody get hurt you know they they made to try to make a major investment in a community we obviously have certain goals and in ideas of what we want to see that developed as what type of assistance can we give them you through town manager of the building department to try and in line people up with the developer or you know what's our limitations how far can we go how far can we not go i think there's a very fine line there because we have an agreement here we're in the town on the one hand it's a seller and these folks are the buyers so they bought this property of public auction as high as better that being the case they're entitled to a deed to the property provided that they meet all the conditions of sale which we were just discussing i would be very reluctant to play too aggressive a role in terms of trying to locate  identify a developer to whom they can sell the property because that's in their control quite frankly they have they have earned that right by winning the auction at the highs as high as better so i would be wary of trying to lead them in any particular direction toward transfer to another entity because that's their prerogative and their profit alone and since we're selling the property we gave away that right in large respect to determine who's going to develop it working with the applicants to try to find tune what proposals they they may want to submit to this board or are to line up an appropriate development for this particular site so the town can help in that regard but i  would i would suggest that the town not engage in trying to find any successor entity because that's their prerogative under the auction outcome thank you would have any questions think i think i think it's obvious we're not going to solve this tonight yeah all right and i think we came into this meeting knowing that there wasn't enough time to really resolve this i think is you said in a month's time is enough to fine tune the plan or to come up with a  very definitive plan i think a month's time to find a developer or partner if there's any significant interest out there i think that would be probably a good time frame it could take longer than i mean i mean that's just the nature of these of these situations you know be short term and be long term you know i mean i don't know i mean i know i know a couple of developers but the ones i talked to said they weren't interested but maybe with suggestions from from mr keegan's office or you know they may know a developer that's interested in the project but we certainly can't impose any one on you but certainly if we can we can certainly let people know the property is right there we're open to that soap to get a ration yeah absolutely absolutely so i don't know how long that process would take obviously the the closing and just on that as well because we don't technically we don't all of it so we can't i don't know how much detail i can get into a developer about developing something that we don't all  well i think we're really looking for is first the vision and secondarily try to put some some numbers and dimensions in occupancy to the vision i don't want to mislead the board by by painting a rosy picture that i'm not comfortable with i would i would want to come in from the board and say we'd like to build a big building under their requirements that you guys provided that you know mr quest fair provided without having somebody to back that without having somebody auction is developed and as one possible you can't you can't break it up it wasn't auctioned off that way because the town anticipated that that entire area would be developed well it shows that on here is three right you know so jenny i know it was it was sold off as as as one auction but from a zoning standpoint because a separate parcels you upset back requirements for each parcel the we can put conditions on it bill can you come up to the microphone to put you on the spot considering your are your are  center overlay district was designed to maximize the value of it and the reason it was sold as one property was because the town realised you couldn't develop the fire station to its maximum potential if you didn't have the parking that the other was a would provide so by separating them you're limiting the  ability to really develop that fire station because it becomes a standalone with no property you know so i understand but i understand about the eighty one x process to make it for construction purposes for development purposes you know that can be done but if you do separate them you lose all the potential there the mixed uses that can be done in the hallway as mike my question is as it's presently constituted can we put a restriction that they have to be that they cannot be broken up with a separate with a separate parcels the municipal conversion permit is very much like a special permit the board's use the granting authority and its special permit and this is called its approach permit a prohibition so you can condition it any way you want just says the planning board conditions a special permit just as the other boards on board can this it's their decision and you can do that as well and yes you can do that in my opinion and you can put that condition will if we so choose to be that's a public hearing if there's anybody in the audience that has any comments or anything to say know lorraine brewer one twenty six mechanic street i just have a question about the permit the conversion process and if whatever conditions are placed on that conversion permit if those conditions are not met and there is a time frame aspect to it what happens to that situation at that point t thank you as mr barr had noted this is akin to a special permit it's these conditions that would be imposed would be zoning restrictions on the property that would be enforceable through the building commissioner  time time conditions having certain steps completed by certain dates defendant can be structured in a number of different ways and they can have different recourse are different ramifications if they're not met the permit could be revoked for example in the event that the condition is not met with a timely fashion in which case without the permit the sale could be revoked as well and  in effect be a revert or i provision would have to fashion the language accordingly in the condition to make sure that's clear to that point but if a a timeliness condition is not met i would suggest that it should be imposed by the board  incorporated into the special permit in such a fashion that it would lead to a default under the special permit and by specific language in the permit document furthermore a reversion or  revert are of interest back to the time whereas the the the applicants permit holders rights would be terminated all together to own the property and that's where the guarantee performance comes in not a guarantee performance is really a pre final presale requirement the guarantee performance wouldn't kick in it wouldn't be triggered unless and until the an applicant a faulted and then the town was forced to sell the property to second better are a second party so that would be a totally different type of remedy what would happen if we put restrictions on this property that they can't or me what happens then the the building commission would have the right to and for if if a permit was issued with conditions as i said they would become zoning conditions that would be subject to enforcement like i would say in like they their original intent was to sell the fire station and redevelop back here so what if we put the condition that you can't that property is all one and it doesn't fit into what they want to do they don't own it yet they walk away or well i would suggest to the board that make a condition much like a special permit or comprehensive permit condition contemplate that there is approval of the permit you folks would in all likelihood not approve the permit if you can't approve the end lang concept that's being presented to you for approval if the only proposal submitted to the board is one akin to what was presented thus far are elaborated but involve a much smaller scale development to separate develop another parcels i don't know that the board would be doing itself any favors or doing the town any favors by approving a permit as applied for and and then conditioning it into a totally different project so the condition follows the approval in other words so i think you first have to get your arms around and be comfortable with who you are the building concept will then work on the bengals that's exactly