Good evening.

I would like to call the August 12th meeting of the planning board to order.

Please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance.

Pledge of allegiance to the flag of the United States of America.

One nation invisible liberty.

My name is Joe Fiole.

It's an honor to serve as chairman tonight.

Members of the planning board sitting tonight to my right of Victor Hellenic.

Bianca Carlson.

Good evening, Sam.

Sean Lewis.

Good evening.

And to my left town counselor Jeff Hatch.

Hello Salem.

And Board Secretary Damon Norcross.

Good evening.

We have Jacob LaForte as a planning director tonight.

The agenda for tonight is follows.

We have only one item of old business that's young land holdings LLC site plan.

That's a public hearing for a 7200 square foot warehouse and office building with a conditional use permit for a reduced wetland and prime wetland buffer at 92 Lowell Road.

Any withdrawals tonight?

No withdrawals.

Okay.

So go to the abut, get some abutters, please.

The abutters are as follows.

If you're here, please indicate by saying so.

Thank you.

Okay.

So you accepted this plan on March 25th of 2025.

Since that time, the applicant has uh received third party engineering approval.

They eliminated the second curb cut.

You'll recall at the last meeting, there were two curb cuts proposed, and they've uh since reduced that to one.

Uh they did go back to the the zoning board of adjustment and received a revised variance for the total gross floor area.

The initial variants did not include the uh mezzanine, so they've included the mezzanine, so it's 7,200 square feet.

They replaced uh the red maples on the uh on the uh western portion of the site with uh evergreens, eastern red cedars, and that was to provide screening for the residential abutter for the planning board's recommendation.

They updated the lot coverage calculation.

Uh they've added landscaping at the front of the site, and they provided lighting details and submitted a truck turn plan for a low bed truck.

Uh just to give a kind of a recap of the proposal here.

So uh this plan has since been updated, but this is from the slides back in March.

The request for the conditional use permit is still the same.

So you can see in green, this is the edge of the existing tree line, and then this is the area of the uh prime wetland buffer.

So this area within here was uh was disturbed, and they are seeking after the fact approval a conditional use permit for that that just um that just disturbance that was done.

This was again in May of 2022.

This was the site in 2024, a little hard to tell because it was taken in the uh winter, I believe, or no uh March rather early spring, but this was the area that's been disturbed.

You can also see that on street view here, and then uh this was the site in March of this year.

Uh they are proposing to put the building within that area of uh of disturbance.

So again, the tree line here, uh prime wetland buffer here, and then the building is in this location here.

There's a lot of discussion at the previous meeting about the request for the conditional use permit.

The board previously advocated for the applicant to explore alternatives, potentially relocate the building further from the wetlands.

Um minutes from that meeting in March were included in your packet.

So in terms of the rationale for why the building needs to be located to the rear of the site, the applicant did provide this truck turn plan that shows uh a low bed uh trailer or low bed truck, uh circumnavigating the site.

And uh you'll note here as I noted in your review form, and then also on the slide that our site plan regulations uh state that a purpose of the site plan regulations are to provide for adequate provisions of traffic circulation, and then also internal site circulation shall be designed to accommodate the appropriate design vehicle for the project.

When the applicant submitted this, the concern was that you know this this truck turn plan conflicts with the majority of their parking spaces.

I think they've got 14 spaces, and it conflicts probably with uh you know at least 10 of them.

I would imagine, you know, when you when you follow the uh the path.

So in response to the concern that was raised by staff, the applicant did submit a uh a three-point turn plan for the same low bed truck, and uh that's shown here, so it shows the truck coming in, and then doing uh you know a three-point turn without conflicting uh with the spaces or the building.

The board asked uh again for the you know the exercise to be whether or not the building could be located to the front of the site.

So when the applicant submitted this, I said, you know, is this the only way that this site can work and it only worked if the building is located in an area, or could you put it further to the south, further towards the front of the site, and could you still navigate the site with the low bed trailer?

Uh the applicant did move the they showed uh an exercise where they moved the building 10 feet uh forward, and there are conflicts with the building in that instance, and then also the parking spaces.

One thing that you know we didn't we don't have documentation of, and I think the applicant will speak to more is the exercise that if the building was located in the front and the parking was to be located to the rear, could it then function?