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2020-Fall CPC questions-WF10.18.20    To: Community Preservation Committee From: Wayne Feiden, FAICP, Planning & Sustainability Re: CPC Fall Round Questions and Responses Date: October 18, 2020 Thank you for considering the CPA applications that Planning & Sustainability is coordinating on behalf of our partner boards. Conservation Commission Fund  Please provide a breakdown of expenditures from last year (explain how the fund was used). Because we had several large named projects with separate CPA applications, the Conservation Fund itself has not been funded for the last year. As a result, we are providing you with the closeout report from our last two CPA Conservation Funds. Remember that the Conservation Fund is a small percentage of most projects. Property Name Greenway Unit Expense Type Acres Cost Fields Mineral Hills Land purchase 120 $21,200 Northern parcels Saw Mill Hills Survey, recording 25 $15,531 Ward Ave Easements Mill River Greenway Recording 1 $75 Galena, Walker Mineral Hills Recording, taxes, assessment 5 $7,282 Sheldon Field CT River Greenway Survey 6 $4,800 Burts Bog Burts Bog Survey, design, site assessment 100 $3,560 Ventures Field CT River Greenway Land purchase 3 $3,900 Randall Beaver Brook Soft Cost - survey 20 $4,950 Williams Saw Mill Hills Land purchase and survey 21 $3,987 Old Wilson Rd Rocky Hill Site assessment 7 $2,399 Kensington Mineral Hills soft cost - survey 0 $5,000 Pine Brook Connector to Broad Brook-Fitzgerald Lake Greenway  Is the project title? Yes - Corrected above  Please define “environmental justice area” and “historic landscape” – what are these?     Environmental Justice populations, sometimes referred to as frontline communities and statistically far more likely to be under-resources, are US Census Block Group whose annual median household income is equal to or less than 65 percent of the statewide median ($62,072 in 2010); or 25% or more of the residents identify as a race other than white; or 25% or more of households have no one over the age of 14 who speaks English only or very well - English Isolation Historic landscape are in this context, broadly land uses important to the history of the CT River Valley region that are in decline and at-risk, historic rural villages, agrarian and agricultural areas, cemeteries, and forested viewsheds.  What mitigation measures are planned upstream for Pine Brook downstream (gas line, etc.). We do not short term plans for any active mitigation. We are focused on a “design with nature” solution to preserve the existing hydrology (beaver pond, stream, and natural stormwater retention) to hold back water and prevent more expensive and active mitigation. Our long term plan is to eventually acquire a key parcel off Rick Drive to find an alternative maintenance access route to the Fitzgerald Lake Dam. At that point, we will remove the beaver deceiver pipes we use and allow even more water to be stored on-site and fully restore the natural hydrology. Water-Based Recreation 1. On page 2 – some information in the narrative appears to have been omitted. That line should read that we expect to get to the 10% to 25% design stage of the selected option, whatever is needed to get us far enough along to apply for a PARC grant for implementation. (10% if we end up designing complicated projects, e.g., a bathroom building, and 25% if we select simple improvements, e.g., concrete pad for port-a-potty). 2. Provide a detailed scope of work and qualifications for the consultancy. Qualifications: A team including a landscape architect (it help identify options and approaches) and a professional engineer (to bring construction plans to a minimum of 10% design and provide construction estimates), with experience in recreation projects and accessibility for persons with disabilities. Scope of Work (the project team will be asked how they will work on each task): 1. Assist the City in its outreach to and dialogue with multiple stakeholders, including abutters, neighborhood organizations, potential management partners, and recreation users and especially those from frontline/environmental justice populations, the Department of Parks and Recreation, the Department of Public Works. Settings will include stakeholder interviews, public forums, and testing the incremental and selected design approaches. 2. Provide concept approaches for incremental improvements to three river access points: Chartpak/Orange Dam, Cook Dam, and Pine Street Dam/Cross Street. 3. Provide concept approaches for substantial improvements, including sanitary facilities and accessibility for those with physical disabilities, at two river access points: Maines Field and the Northampton Connecticut River Greenway.     4. Advance selected concept to a minimum of 10% design, with sufficient detail to ensure that the final design can be completed within six months (on a separate contract) and including advance construction cost estimates and renderings of the proposed approach. 3. How will public engagement on this be conducted during winter months and during COVID? We will use three public engagement approaches, all of which we have used for other public engagement processes during Covid (and most of them prior to Covid): 1. Stakeholder interviews, of neighbors, neighborhood organizations, potential management partners, and recreation users, especially from frontline/environmental justice communities, will happen either in-person or remotely, depending on the stakeholder’s preference. 2. Drop-by open house hours will be held at each of five sites, socially distanced and over enough time to avoid congestion, for informal dialogue and to be able to visualize individual comments. 3. The community forums will be held remotely, with extensive outreach using City, community organization, City Councilor and other email lists and social media platforms. Affordable Housing Fund  Is this request intended to mirror the Conservation Commission Fund, where the CPC is asked each year to contribute?  Essentially it is the same concept, cover due diligence and soft costs and other relatively small costs that leverage much larger projects. There are a few subtle differences: 1. CPC has already funded Valley Community Development Corporation with their own Affordable Housing Fund. We will not have any overlap and will carefully coordinate what the city needs to do (from the proposed fund) and what VCDC does. 2. Costs are generally much higher, per project, for affordable housing than they are for open space. Usually this means that the fund will only pay for due diligence and soft costs and not any part of acquisition, although in some cases some small amount of acquisition costs could be covered. (For example, this year we purchased a parcel of land for one affordable unit for less than $10,000. If we had such small costs the affordable housing fund could be used to assist. 3. The web of affordable housing funding sources can be more complicated, so we will coordinate to maximize the funds we get from outside of the community, similar to what we do for open space, only more so.