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Oak Street Public Meeting Notes City 8.14.23Hello All, Thank you for attending the meeting regarding the City-owned Oak Street parcel on Monday August 14th.In the body of this email are my notes in bulleted format from the meeting,with the second bullet being any comments that I have at the moment.If there is no comment,then it has been noted and we are investigating.Attached are the meeting notes from Rachel Loeffler from Berkshire Design’s comments.Also attached are the conceptual drawings presented at the meeting and the grading plan. We heard lots of great feedback and will be investigating all of those that are relevant to the design,mitigation of issues,and communicating better with the neighborhood.As the project lead,any comments,concerns or questions about the project can be addressed to me and I will work with the appropriate party. The Planning Office will work with Berkshire Design to incorporate the feedback we heard into the design.We will have another neighborhood meeting with an updated plan and you will be notified via postcard (if you are a 300 ft.abutter),City Councilor Rachel Maiore’s email list.If there is an email to a neighborhood listserv,then please forward that to me.The goal for this project is to have all of the design work ready and to the Planning Board for a site plan review before June,2024. If you have additional concerns,please feel free to reply back to me or Councilor Maiore. Common Concerns ●Protect wildlife ●Privacy concerns ●Noise pollution ●Save the tree canopy ●Fix Stormwater issues first ●Just don’t want the project ●Back door lights /headlights from the homes ●Conservation Restriction on the portion not developed Design Issues ●Bike only housing ○This will not be a requirement,but the developer can choose this as an option ●Six units in one building or two buildings instead of three? ●Make houses one story,keep lower than current houses ●Homeless people on the site now,what to do about them ○Homeless services have been engaged to make contact ●Can we use porous pavement on the driveway,even though it is more expensive? ○There is also a maintenances cost where materials can get inside the pores ○Maintenance cost will fall onto homeowners,half which will be low-or moderate-income ○City will not require porous pavement from the developer Construction ●Construction too early in the morning ○Construction cannot happen before 7 AM ●Clean up site where DPW dumps snow near the rail trail ●Take fill from Crafts Ave. ○Will not be much fill from that site Other Concerns ●Where do the kids play when all of this is developed ●Use tree arborists from Smith Voc ●What is the adjacent multi-family building doing ○They are an abutter only ●Taxes will increase as a result of this ●Property values will decrease ●What is the maintenance plan for the parcel ○The homeowners will maintain the portion that is theres,the remaining parcel will be owned by the City and apart from the stormwater infrastructure,it will remain wooded ●Lots of trash on the site now ●Driveway at the bend in Oak Street dangerous ○See incident report below,including comment on traffic calming) Comment Regarding Access from 110-118 Oak Street Is there a way that an easement/ROW to the city parcel could be negotiated with the owners of the apartment complex at 110-118 Oak St.,to access the city property from the north and place the houses on the north end of the city's lot instead of the south end.This would allow the houses to be located farther away from any existing houses on Oak St.,and would negate the impact of the proposed driveway going so close to the house at 32 Oak.Street.Maybe that ROW could still be used to install a diversion system for the street drainage system,and that system could be put at the southern end of the city lot where the houses are currently planned for. Gaining access to the city lot from the current driveway of the apartments would probably necessitate that driveway becoming a city street,so I know it would be complicated,but I'd strongly urge the Planning Department to consider the idea City Response We will not be investigating any further accessing the City parcel through the 110-118 Oak Street parcel /apartment complex. First,getting to the City parcel would be more difficult from a property ownership perspective and the terrain is not ideal.Secondly,we would be disturbing a more wooded area overall by having to go through more woods,just to get to the suitable portion of our site.Third,the terrain that is suitable for development on the City parcel would have to go through the area that we are investigating for stormwater management.Lastly,any driveway to the apartment complex would likely have to become part of a shared driveway with the apt complex or a City street. Creating a new City street is untenable,especially if fiscal responsibility is a concern. Incident Report on Crashes When people have concerns about speeding,they can complete a Traffic Calming Request via the DPW.This prompts the concern to land on the Transportation and Parking Commission (TPC)agenda.The police department will then do a five-year look-back for collisions,install covert speed devices to gather 85th percentile speed data,and the DPW looks at existing design and conditions.We haven't received any requests for Oak Street,so I don't have a Traffic Calming Response form that would include all this data.I also can't recall any recent complaints about speed or safety on Oak Street. According to the Records Bureau five-year collision assessment of Oak Street,excluding the intersection with Bridge Road there were only two collisions: ●2019:A vehicle passing a parked car struck the side mirror (157 Oak Street) ●2019:A vehicle struck the rear of another vehicle causing minor damage (157 Oak Street) Based on this data,Oak Street is not a concern from a traffic safety perspective.