that evening everyone welcome to the board of selectmen meeting for june tenth we are going to enter right into executive session and then should return around six fifty five to enter into our regular open session mo a move that the board of selectmen enter into executive session about six thirty p m to conduct strategy sessions in preparation for negotiations with nonunion personnel to conduct a collective bargaining session or contract negotiations with non union personnel chair forty eight hours in advance of the meeting seven o five sharon watson southcoast gail grant acceptance for fiscal year fifteen seven fifteen sharon wason billboard advisory committee update seven thirty david feldman town hall working group selectmen update i wanted to thank the founders a committee cindy had monica fiz lurd for all that they did for organizing the founders day it was a great success great turnout we ran out of candy early on in the parade but next year will bring back plenty more thank you everybody for all your work it was really a wonderful day also zip trip visit was also very successful it was great to see all the different businesses out on our common and great attendance by a lot of folks from town all congratulations to my johns for being named our hometown hero and once again thanks to everybody who contributed to that to that day  jim could you give us an update on the upcoming turf stop that occasion sure today being tuesday this thursday if you're watching it watching this meeting this thursday at quarter of six there is a dedication ribbon cutting ceremony for assam burns family for the sand burns community field and just very briefly about five or six years ago there was a grassroots effort to bring a turf field then there was a mad gift from the craft organization the n f l and then the community group match that gift so up to about four hundred thousand and then there was money left over from the high school renovation project school committee thought this a cause that would merit a warrant out of coal so they presented it to the town the town voted it so then we have the funds to build the turf field that was built in the fall and then a group of students surely have to sam's passing  sam burns passing from pretoria solicited this school committee and showed how sam's life met the criteria to have something named a public building or public facility named after him school committee voted in favor of that so for the school children left this fall we wanted to do a ribbon cutting ceremony in rubber crafts going to be their school committee members are going to be there deb spinelli just be nice if you could show up at quarter developed a housing production plan and we're working hard on getting the housing trust up and going after met with mr keegan and we've discussed that already second year we received the money for the downtown that was just voted the town center zoning that was just voted in may this year we received money to update and revise our subdivision rules and regs and for the fourth year what i wanted to look at zoning along route one the last time there was a thorough look at the zoning on route one was nine hundred eighty nine kathy did some work in the master plan but she did enough work that to board felt they were really wanted to look at that in more depth one of kathy's keep my niece kathy mccabe our master plan consultants key findings were that the amount of retail business in our area is twice as much business as can be supported by the people who live here so people drive to the emerald square mall they drive to the wrentham outlets they drive to patriot place from outside the immediate region that we live in so there's pretty clearly not a whole lot of demand for more retail you know we're already serving two times our population so what does it mean you know office parks are getting to be a thing of the past and we don't have any good ideas about what the zone should be so we really wanted to look at that we wanted to look at what our community needs were what the marketability was what we're going to get the best tax return on a lot of  one is within various groundwater protection districts what kind of uses are appropriate given environmental constraints what we learned in chestnut green and in our new foxboro town center zoning is that we really like to incentivize better design how can we do that on route one and the last question we wanted to tackle was if there was a sewer on route one would we get more of better kinds of uses and use that data to go after grants to figure out how to get sewer to route one so i spent a lot of time working with the staff at our regional planning commission i am a p c as well as talking to representatives of the craft group who are the largest landowner by foreign route one to develop and refine our application and with your consent i would respectfully request the board authorized the when i hear things like you know if sewer comes we'll get more of this or will get more that the town per se doesn't own a lot of land up there so it's all private right groups we regulate it through the conservation in the planning board you reaching out to the craft because they have quite a bit of property have that right but is that the older businesses that are there that are on the parking lots or undeveloped land similar to what a group is doing with the billboards reaching out to the different owners do you envision the same thing that would there would be a group one business group so you'd hear from them what they want versus what i want on behalf of the billboard committee i'll talk about that in a minute but i think that that was a very successful process we had a number of group one landowners above and beyond the crafts involved and the smaller landowners brought a different set of concerns but equally valid and i thought that the dialogue the town officials and board members got a different view of how we impact you know what we perceive to be a small change is some not sometimes not seen as quite so small from the other side of the table so i think it was a very productive exercise and i anticipate using a similar process as we go through the zoning ok and just last question we're looking at it from so i'm going to get a consultant with that and to look at foxborough i typically am a p c does the work on a house and that the board was extremely pleased with the downtown zoning analysis the foxboro center zoning analysis as well as the drafting these are typically twenty five thousand dollar contracts there's not enough money to draft the zoning but we thought a really detailed and concerted look at the actual uses i think they relied on the businesses to try to bring the zoning forward and it always died this time the town was proactive and they got the zoning change so you going to see that route one development from south going north i'm not sure what happened walpole but when the  the looks at it and they look at it more of a regional up and down a few miles as well yeah i had tried to plan and in conjunction with one of the other towns and most of the other towns in walpole for example the zoning district along route one only goes back about four hundred feet you know it's a little deeper and read them but it does isn't the size of the lots we have in foxborough but i think we need to look at what's happening  charin and walpole and read them and understand what what driving the development in those communities if that's something we want to encourage or converse lee discourage ok and you've got the last three so this would of this grant is to investigate what could be done that's correct who we pay we don't pay anybody there is a if m a p c doesn't work there's a transfer of funds from the mast department of hundred nine excuse me the southern quarter is highway business which is also the zoning district down around the one forty ninety five interchange you know either changes to the we reached out to the state economic development council we have we've met with robert anderson who's the metro west mass office for business development representative he was very helpful in the  process with embeds as we've talked to a number of people in that office have if they get any feedback from businesses from across the country that may be looking to relocate to massachusetts if you got any type of feedback from them what type of businesses are typically they're looking for something with transit connections or you know not suburban locations like we have but  we look at they send out periodic notices someone's looking for x number of acres with water or water and sewer highway access and i take this very seriously so we do keep our eye on what people are looking for for what they can thank you thank you so once you go through this process sharing with them a p c input with that how would that relate to the master planning process as that continues to develop as i said kathy did look at route one but not in a lot of depth and this would be i anticipate one of the refine so that would supplement the work that's in the master plan and then just for clarification so this is from the commonwealth of massachusetts south coast rail it's not necessarily a grant to look to create a train station no it's not south coast rail is the restoration of train service to new bedford paul river and it will start in stowe along the providence line go down through east and they'll be two stops in east and go through like bill and then can continue continue south excuse me and when they looked at the communities that will be potentially impacted by having more commuter rail they looked at the immediate community where the stops are located the town next to that and the town next to that those are the impacted communities and because where as close to easton as we are redeemed to be potentially impacted by having additional on page three so is this example cation support development containing a mix of residential and commercial uses and you say yes within the next question does the supplications with the development of new housing with a residential density of at least four a it's not answered right because there's no housing currently allowed along route one and so it would if it if so as a man in a right ok all right and just to know if you missed it i will correct that state's designation of route one is a priority development area and that's one of the things that they specifically want to study so the fact that we're proposing to do work excuse me proposing to do one is already an economic development overlay district as recognized by state law with you know some expedited permitting and all and that is typically around the stadium  something i was referring to the primary economic development zone district right because once that one set is designated you're put on the to refine the supplications with many other people that you talk to i did talk to mike segue i talk to members of planning board so some of the one business where you talk yeah well other than the kraft group i talk to mike but i'll just michael yeah well this isn't due till july first but i'm out of town for eleven days so i wanted to get it done and get it in so you do you need a vote from us to either tonight or your ne think there were some typos in the copy you got and there's evidently a clean copy in an action item folder do you know if it's there diana we have it right here to thank sharon for all the work that she's done on this project was a tremendous amount of work and coordination and you know really just to see how the process rolled out was very educational for everyone around the table and i think it  worked very well a tremendous amount of input from all the businessmen on route one tremendous representation from the craft organization this that many hours there and obviously spent many hours working with our consultant so  really appreciate how you organize that for us sharon thank you i have a deep appreciation for the work that gabby and diana and all the people who post meetings and take minutes and file minutes and and just the work that keeps the town running now that the billboard advisory committee was appointed by this like when the end of last summer and this like when is our chairman is selectman lorraine proof that includes reader from the planning board barney over from the zoning board bar garber from the board a sewer water and sewer commissioners building commissioner bill cass bear and myself it was prompted by the fact that the zoning board had two applications for electronic billboards they are not currently included in our by law their concern was that if they granted a variance that should the town ever decide they didn't want them someone would have the privileges of those signs forever so we initially discussed the digital billboards as proposed and realized that the real problem was the entire sign by law it hadn't been updated since  hundred one or something and we spent a meeting discussing what the various problems were and decided we needed to have the signed by law as a whole written we came to you  received your permission and got money to do so issued an r f p and retain the community opportunities group in december they started their work with the public survey and they had up one hundred forty two surveys returned which is a record for the all the work that they've done and similar projects they've never had so many people tell them about signs and we use the from ation from that survey throughout our process overall eighty percent of the respondents felt that the signage and box pros attractive average are very attractive seventy six percent of the respondents favored continued local control over the appearance of signs and felt that board level design review was essential and with regard to digital billboards about seventy two percent of the respondents were supportive of digital billboards although the vast majority of those felt they should be restricted to route one so again the survey really strongly influenced the new by law and as lorraine mentioned we were very fortunate to have a strong protest patient in the business community and almost equally strong participation from citizens we had a number of citizens attend multiple meetings and we had multiple meetings we've held thirteen meeting so far we tried very very hard to become finished in time for this past and who will town meeting but we just ran out of time we the primary change is that our own will by law was moved intact from the zoning by law to the general bylaws but it still references zoning districts and a number of things that have to do with zoning we're proposing that they'll be three signed districts and town the most restrictive will be around the town center and then it's a radius around the common the least restrictive are those lots that have frontage on route one or lots in the same ownership connected to lots with frontage on route one and the remainder of the town is kind of the middle ground you know the three bears approach to life we also felt that we've worked hard to develop a twenty first century by law one that addresses new technology again we're regulating by signes which is defined in that by law and not by sounding districts that's and then another complete by a lot together what was very important to the committee and to some of the folks from one was that there was equity for lots on route one that if you had frontage on route one there weren't certain privileges for somewhat owners and not others we wanted to make sure that we were more sensitive to the needs of the business community that they could change technologies or change signs without going back through a whole complicated public process in keeping with the planning board's general approach to incentivizing rather than regulating we really want to do it said vice better science if you have a better sign a higher level of design is determined by the zoning board can get a slightly bigger sign and lastly we wanted to clear more readable by law the residents don't understand what it means the business owners don't understand what it means and certainly the board members are having trouble reading the existing bylaws so we're hoping that we vote this thursday to recommend a draft bylaws submitted to you for a future town meeting warrant and we will be then going through a public process where we'll explain that draft by law to anybody that wants to listen we've touched base with the ag and we'll be setting up a detailed workshop for them and you to the board of selectmen and anyone else who's interested in early september we will spend an entire evening and go through all the nuts and bolts and everything that is contained in that by law again we really tried to be ready for this year's annual town meeting in just ran out of time but  feel like the by law is a much better by law for having taken a few extra weeks it feels right at this point and i think it's a good balance between protecting the town and and letting business owners make reasonable use of their property and advertising what goes on there thank you so i think you know having that open forum is really going to be to rethink it in terms of being able to take the time necessary for to understand and also for the entire writing let's why we wanted to do it in early september a four they got into any war for a possible town meeting just spend the time and really drill down into the bylaws so that they now understand why we made some of the decisions that we made right timing wise you expecting to present this to a special tommy in the fall should there be a special town meeting in the fall it's our goal to be ready for that town meeting you know the folks that applied for digital billboards are waiting with bated breath here that aren't just the water and sewer commission in the history with the billboards now those two overlapping or is this totally separate is there any coordination with the past efforts on the billboards or is this a quick clean sweep of we think this was a clean slate moving forward i think that there was some disagreements in the past about how some of that was handled and i think that the reason part of the reason this committee much hard work this is this is been in the meetings and good work well i was only one of a very dedicated group of town board members and other employees believe me only one said thank bill you know from the school department so it's really a good question of participants i just want to thank all the members because when you get fifteen people in a room sometimes it doesn't doesn't always go north and south like you want to want to be but everybody's been well behaved in staying focused so i think the first thing we want to do is identify all potential sites that the town or parcels that are for sale in addition to the current site and in really weighed the pros and cons of what's available what could be what should be including the post office we've identified a subcommittee to look at site options and those members are going to weigh each site in a limited and those sites based on the scoring system based on  him provide reasons why they were ruminated i think it's important to rule out all potentials just to take out all distractions at this point we are going to look at doing some test borings in the parking lot in the rear town hall to identify the viability of possibly building behind there we need to verify the impact of the bury granite foundation from the old school that was there and see if that would actually impact construction before we can all that that site we're also initiating a space study for each department to identify the true needs today and also in the future we're going to use the  a space study as a as a guideline to start we will start looking up preliminary possible financing solutions one of the most important things is to identify ways to keep the public informed throughout the create a link on the town web page so we can update the public whether it's with meeting minutes or pulling mary plans of of space and maybe even a facebook page dedicated strictly to town hall but it's important to keep the public informed as much as possible throughout the process we've also established a preliminary timeline as we go forward because we want to have an end game and an end  date so we have a target to shoot for if we keep it open ended these meetings will just last just keep going and going and going and i will never get to get to the goal line so right now we have a r a p for architectural services we want to get out to the street by stemberg two thousand and fourteen looking to present in requests soft cost funding needs and proposal a fall town meeting in november of two thousand and fourteen if we have a meeting present requested package of funding for construction of a town meeting in september two thousand and fifteen a lot of things need to fall into place for these dates to happen but i think everybody on the committees is is committed to doing that we've identified subcommittees to make the process a little bit easier no report back to the bigger committee but so far everybody has checked their egos at the door and dave work on this a little bit but it had nothing to do with you couldn't before your time i got contacted by two out of the three business owners that submitted our of piece when we were looking to rent space and it was a couple  weeks after the selectmen said no but they read in the paper and they didn't get the reach out from whatever committee received the arab piece in a way it was presented to me was look you know we hired spent a lot of money on architects put a hard into this we thought we had a good package and some of them or this that they felt that in get a response back in the town almost like they were used just to check off the box because the advisory committee said check off the box or the building committee  so if we could reach out to those three businesses and say we're moving in a different direction we may have done it but as of a couple weeks after it was just it felt good to be so i don't know if that same committees around but maybe it falls on you as a town manager to say the r p wasn't james freeman of that he's a treasure the foster alliance club and he dresses to tom finance director i'm discards and we have the foster alliance club i'm pleased to present the facts for historical commission with the enclosed donation of five hundred dollars to benefit third item is a notification from the ninety nine restaurant that they're going to be shut down for five days beginning on july twenty eighth two thousand and fourteen to complete a routine refresh of the restaurant is really actually have to take on this we have to i think it was interesting that one other theory the reason that she said she wanted to resign was basically to give room for somebody else which i thought was admirable the second a second motion fro you like this is this next one is a math problem this is an application again by the ninety nine restaurant and they're asking for a one day entertainment license and they're telling us in the previous communication that we're going to be shut down for five days beginning on july twentieth and that five day shutdown includes the twenty fourth yet this is a one day entertainment license to actually be held on the twenty fourth a day that they said they're going to shut down