EP Planning Board 11/20/24

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good evening like to call the November 20th planning board meeting to order please please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance Al to the flag United States of America to the

stand under item three is the approval of planning board minutes um we are going to table those until December 9th that would be the meeting minutes of August 19th August 26th September 9th and October 15th I would entertain a motion to table to December 9th second and have a motion by Mr crook second by Mr Miller all in favor please say I I item four under new business for discussion consideration and or action

vote regarding the following matters master plan subdivision submission Land Development application number 20247 ldp major applicant David Sison owner of touchdown reality cor Group LLC street address 100 wag trail location M 408 block 10 APLE 24 the above master plan submission has been revised that is currently proposing to convert the former nursing home into 26 unit residential apartment building that

meets the definition of adaptive reuse therefore no use or dimensional relief is being requested is the applicant here yes thank you Mr chairman thank you Joel want to

just I do proceed thank you Mr chairman and members of the board for the record Joseph Brennan attorney on behalf of the applicant um uh thank you for the introduction uh the application that you have before you as mentioned is for a master plan approval um of a land development application uh for the property at 100 Trail assessors map 408 block 10 parcel 24 um this application is under the Adaptive reuse

provision as you had mentioned um meaning that we don't need any dimensional or use variant um um approvals or relief as part of this so what the applicant is looking to do is convert the ex abandoned unit right now into the 26 uh residential apartment building units that would be all built within the current footprint of the building no additions or extensions are being proposed as part of the application um

the parking uh we meet the parking requirements as well um we're providing one per more than one per unit um on the site uh the actual parking provided is um can you come it over here is 36 parking spaces as part of the project and um the as a whole that's that's pretty much like the entire application we're just looking to convert the two floors from the existing abandoned unit into the

residential units with uh the 13 being on the first floor and 13 being on the second floor evenly uh split um I'm sorry that is so distracting to me so I apologize if I'm a little off and what no we apologize also we we'll try to muster through it um so as as part of the application um uh the property just to inform the board is also currently in receivership so the applicant is under purchase and

sales agreement to purchase it contingent upon appr approvals of the residential units um with that being said I I'll get back into it but I think it's probably more proper at this time for me to hand it off to the architect who will kind of go through more of the facts and and what you'll see some of the outside elevations in the architecture that's being uh provided and the floor plans as well of the

project thank you Joel if you could just swear him in please please raise your right right hand you promis to tell the truth the whole truth nothing but the truth I do and for the record my name is David Sisson and my business address is 345 Taunton Avenue here in East Providence um I'm the architect for the project uh I believe it was mentioned I was the owner of touchdown realy that's not true

the owner is here but it's not it's not me and the other one thing I wanted to set straight we are proposing 35 parking spaces not 36 the site currently has 36 we're we're removing one as part of the process I'd like to speak a little bit about the site to begin with because we have the site plan up on the board um the site had uh slopes significantly from the front to the rear

as does the entire neighborhood um there's quite a bit of topography in the neighborhood um the site around it has residential houses with a church to the east side um the residential homes I believe are all single family mostly a single family neighborhood um this nursing home has been there for quite a long time since approximately the 1960s uh it is a singl story building from the wampo trail side but because of

the slope it becomes a two-story building at the back so it's built into a hill it's like a got like a walkout basement but it's really a two-story house or sorry two-story building excuse me for the Neighbors along Trail they view that as a one-story building for the ones that are along the backside they see it as a two-story building it's it's much taller back there the building is dilapidated it's

abandoned people have broken into it it's a mess it's moldy uh it's gross um we hope to turn it into a new uh Building inside and out and make it look very nice likewise the site is in rough shape um plantings uh uh the the parking lots Etc are not that great today it's a mess we'd like to improve that our site plan that's on the screen right now is diagrammatic and I want to make that

very clear to the board and all the neighbors who've come to join us tonight we do not have an engineered site plan we don't have landscape architect on board yet we do intend to do that we do intend to get a civil engineer uh and the landscape architect to help us with the landscape issues with the fencing with the storm water and all that to the city's satisfaction and to the satisfaction of the ordinance

we're proposing uh filling in fence there's there's the neighbors some of the neighbors have nice fence along the along their property lines I believe there was some concern about us encroaching onto their properties that's not true we have no intention of encroaching on anybody's property with this but we do hope to add fence on our side of the property line and add landscape on our side of the property

line per the ordinance to make this nice and help buffer the site from the neighbors and from the view of the neighbors um so I noticed a couple things that were pointed out to us that uh we'd shown some existing fence where actually would be new fence that kind of thing along the uh Eastern property line between us and the church there's an existing uh probably historic stone wall

through there and it we didn't really show a fence through there we'd like some guidance maybe uh the the church has asked for a little bit of fencing towards the rear of the property I think we'd be able to do that but as we come towards the front of the property there's a ston wall that we think probably doesn't make a lot of sense to to take out because there's an existing

Stonewall it's quite beautiful um and historic and we we don't think that would uh want to come away or make sense to have a fence along there but of course we'd happy to listen to opinions on that um we're working to buffer the parking lot uh with plantings along the uh rear and front property lines uh and also work on the parking lot we're plan on removing some pavement at the rear of the parcel uh resurfacing

and restriping that that parking lot back there removing some of the sheds off the back that helps improve our uh perious area on the site and at the front we're going to be uh reworking that parking lot primarily uh to allow um fire truck access the fire department's asked us to get a fire truck up there right now it's too narrow they really struggle to do that and uh

so we're going to help them out at the front of the building meet the uh required fire codes in terms of fire truck access and so um the the front of the property is going to receive maybe more pavement work because we need to uh get the fire trucks through um beyond that the site is going to pretty much stay in the configuration it is today uh we're not changing the exits from the

building we're not changing the um roof on the building uh we are going to changing the um exterior walls of the building uh so right now today the building is a uninsulated concrete block building um from the street side it looks like a brick building but that's a brick veneer over the concrete block uh it's uninsulated so this thing doesn't even come close to meeting mon modern energy codes uh it'd be uncomfortable

and be inefficient we want to make it an efficient building so we're going to be adding a layer to the outside of the building of insulation and finish uh it's called ephis exterior insulation and finish system that's basically adding insulation with the finish on it to the outside that does make the building slightly larger on the outside I want to point that out because um it would affect our setbacks ever so

slightly few inches um we're doing that for code reasons adaptive reuse ordinance allows us to do exterior changes for code reasons this is definitely a code reason to do it um we'd also be changing the uh Windows a bit um changing the size and configuration of them I think it makes the building look better it's pretty pretty random right now the way it looks and uh I think it would make it look

better to everybody inside and outside the building um if you want to go forward in my drawings there we can look at some of that stuff um if you go for to one here's our our floor plans I don't know how curious you are about the layout of these but you know we're basically taking the um current rooms uh gutting them out um reconfiguring them and uh you know making like you know one

and a half rooms in an apartment two rooms in an apartment that kind of thing um the inside of the building will all be new uh we're not going to have uh we're not going to keep anything in there um going to upgrade all the uh the plumbing electrical HVAC systems um I believe we're going to end up with a building that's all electric uh the gas service um probably won't be used

anymore does have gas service today building does have a sprinkler system we're going to have a sprinkler system when we're done um uh let's see what else um going to provide uh the tenants with with nice apartments that I believe our our our uh developer owner will speak to that will be a market rate but a very competitive price on market rate so be very nice apartments at a decent price um if you

go a little further forward in our set here go go one more um yeah so we got uh elevations or sorry our renderings of the building so this is the front of the building and I don't know how familiar you are with the building you've probably got some photos in your packet from the existing building we're going to do a bit of a change at the front mostly just to modernize the front of

this and right now it kind of has the the 1970s bank or greek temple look to the front we're going to change that a little bit um and then if you go one more uh yeah here's a rear of the building uh and and you know it is a wall at the rear it's it's like that today too and we're um you know keeping that we're not really allowed to uh make

additions or anything off the back of this so uh you know we're going to we're going to hopefully clean it up make it look nicer but um it is it is taller at the rear uh and of course you know some landscaping and and improvements to the parking lot um I don't know if we got any more photos in here that you can see there there's a site uh showing 200 foot

portico on the building that we're hoping to improve a little bit um that's about it I'm happy to take questions from the group um and answer any questions you may have and and cover anything that I I forgot to mention thank you Mr assistant any questions from the board Mr assistant very good thank you very much have Mr cord sir oh I'm sorry yes sir I've been away

a while I forgot that part okay so um I I'm looking at the uh letter that you sent to the planning board uh in support of the application and there's one sentence in here uh that that frankly um causes me to pause it says landscaping and fencing will be provided as shown on the site plan in order to screen the project and parking areas from the neighbors if we haven't provided Ed landscaping or fencing to the

satisfaction of the ordinance we request a waiver from the requirements in those areas I heard you say in your presentation right now um at least on two occasions maybe three that you were going to be doing landscaping for the ordinance I believe that's correct that we will be doing it per the ordinance we're not seeking any waivers on that well this application I apologize um that was a copy paste from

our prior project and when we um we're looking for more units on this and we we've tightened it up so we're not going to be seeking waivers well then I'll have to do you have a correct um David that I believe that is that is the one I submitt yeah that's that's stated and I believe that's just a typo uh from the applicant so this entire sentence David would you feel comt correct I would feel comfortable

striking it we'll meet the ordinance with that Mr qu yes very good uh anybody else with you I'm just gonna speak go ahead so so I thank you to the architect for that and so now I just want to kind of further just describe some of uh uh the discussions and things I know that the uh neighbors are represented by Council um him I know he submitted a memorandum to the board um him and I had

an opportunity to talk and I just kind of wanted to go through some of those items and just discuss it and you know provide our argument on our side too as I know he will um shortly um so the first one being um this this visual screening I know we had mentioned that we'll meet the requirements of the ordinance um I think that as part of our application we're providing uh a major

Improvement to what exists there today um aesthetic more aesthetically pleasing than what exists there today um it is a vacant rundown dilapidated building as explained by the architect and as time goes on somebody is going to do something here it can't just remain vacant forever um and so I think what we're providing and staying within the the constraints of the ordinance meeting

it I think it's a major Improvement to what already exists there this building's been around a long time anybody who's moved into the neighborhood has known that it's there when they when they purchased their properties this isn't something that came post anybody purchasing them so we do believe that we're making a major Improvement there and that that should be a major consideration as as part of

it um second I know that there's discussion about the storm water and flooding so in the memorandum um it discusses that there in the back neighborhood there because the property slope there's there's a lot of flooding that takes place um we didn't submit it as part of our application because we don't have an official map on it but from what we can see and what we gather the architect with his maps that it

seems as though that problem may be coming from multiple places but either way as part of our application we have to provide a at the next stage a storm water management plan and and for runoff and we will certainly do that the engineer will stamp that he's he'll be licensed um so if and I know that the city has their own Engineers too who are very qualified and they review that

information and they provide the reports to the planning department um so I know that and I'm kind of piggybacking onto the next one that they're asking for an independent review to be hired um we don't feel that that's necessary from that end for the same reasons that we'll have to provide a stamped plan that will show what's Happening with the storm waterer runoff the city has an engineer

that can review it and then um on top of that as well for any type of bonding discussion with landscaping or other improvements as I mentioned that this property is under receivership and I do know that the receiver is is here tonight so I don't know if he's going to speak but I don't think that I I think I'm portraying it accurately that even after the sale of this property he has

control over reviewing and ensuring that the improvements are done correctly because he can't come off as receiver until the building's complete as a whole and and and has a certificate of occupancy so you have three full layers of protection already in place our own engineers and PE and Landscape Architects who have to stamp plans the city engineer and then the receivership as well and as I mentioned this is

already an existing building an existing problem so anything that will provide for storm water management is an improvement to what's there today rather than the problem to be continuing and I would also add that you know the that report will show what what's coming off of our property anything that's sloping from the church as well which seems that's something that's not within our

control we can't we can't mitigate that storm water either um so I just wanted to mention that um to the board um I know that there was an encroachment concern I had spoken to the attorney we have no problem I think that the neighbors have he he explained to me right for the mean they've already contacted a surveyor we have no problem sitting down and working with them to ensure that there's no encroachment

issues and then at the next phase that they agree with that and that we'll be submitting our uh updated plans if there were to be an issue as well at that stage so we can agree to that um the other item the other two items I think that there were is one the dumpster location so I mean we we are um we had proposed a location on our plan which is

very similar to where it existed today um the city has asked for it to be moved I think it says to the northeast corner of the parking lot um we have no problem with that but when speaking to the uh attorning for the neighbors they actually seem to want it where in the area that we had it on our plans where it exists today so we defer to the board

for your decision on where you prefer we really don't mind wherever the dumpster does go in either one one of those two places and then the last item that I just wanted to ease some of the neighbors concerns they were concerned about smoking on the premises so and asked for a smoking area um we the applicant as part of his business and I represent him on many other projects

they are uh they own it they build it they rent it and they do their own property management they don't sell it to anybody else and they put in their leases that there's no smoking allowed on the premises as a ho so if a neighbor sees somebody smoking they can snap a picture send it to them and then they can begin the non-compliance for eviction proceedings that would come along with that because they don't want

smokers um additionally if the neighbors still wanted he'll provide a gazebo for people but he doesn't want to encourage the smoking since they're asking for no smoking by putting like um those little Trash trays or or putting signs that say smoking here because we don't want to encourage that we want no smoking on the entire premises um so with that being said I I think that wraps up everything

that we had discussed um so I can answer any questions that the board does have um from there either myself uh the architect or the applicant himself uh thank you very much um just a quick question Keith I noticed a peerreview for traffic um for preliminary um is there a peer review also for the drainage is that what you're asking for you know that's what the um the neighbor's attorney is asking for

um it it might be be it might be best to leave that to the Judgment of the city engineer in my opinion time comes that's that's fine you we as a board rely on staff for that so if they tell us they want a peer review we'll deal with it um before preliminary hopefully yeah and traffic it is our normal thing to do with traffic um especially because it's not you know city engineer isn't necessarily

a traffic engineer it's a little bit of a specialty comes to storm water management it's definitely in the city Engineers wheel wheelhouse but if he thinks that's necessary that's something that we can uh that we can do okay very good thank you any uh questions from the board to the applicant Mr Miller um this may I don't know if this is a better question actually for um the city staff that are here tonight but it

looks like the existing location of uh the trash receptical area is within the required setback boundary so I guess this would be a question for Patrick is that the reason why you're asking them to move it no it didn't have to do a bounce setbacks I believe the thought was to try to get that uh that dumpster storage area as far as possible away from the uh the ab buding single family and still

allow it to have you know still be uh up against the pavement rear paved area so it could have access you know from a dumpster so but um you know that that's something it doesn't necessarily have to be dealt with tonight that's something we can deal at the preliminary plan stage with more detailed you know engineering existing proposed Contours things like that a landscape plan could help us too determine the exact

location thank you thank you very much sir appreciate it thank you um staff please oh I'm sorry goad Mr yeah I did want to followup question and and this is really just for a clarification for everybody um you're saying you're stating as I understand this with regard to storm water runoff that our standard the state standard um is that water that lands on this site will be gathered on the site and will

not run off that site onto another person's property um and you're saying that you understand that and that's what you're complying with yeah will certainly comply with whatever the ordinance requires of course code I just wanted to make sure you were saying it so everybody would understand that yes now um but you did say something else that also seemed like a concern you said that there was now

storm water coming off from the adjacent Church property which is uncontrolled is that right I I meant not within our control like I can't we're not going to put storm water measurements on their property that's what I meant by it yeah if it exist again I don't we don't know for certain because we haven't done any kind of drainage report but when the architect has a maybe I should let him

speak to it would you like can have him speak to it he has like a program that shows like the Contours of the area and where things go though it's not officially stamped but and I'll have him just quickly talk about please that that would be the best I I brought this to Mr Brennan just before the meeting um I took a look at the State of Rhode Islands GIS map for

the neighborhood and that helps guide us for what the natural Topography of an area is um the front of this site is a high point in the neighborhood uh but it's not the only High Point in the neighborhood and the neighborhood has a lot of slope when water hits the ground or hits the top of a building or whatever it's going to go downhill uh and it's going to go downhill no matter

what it hits um the neighborhood does have a lot of slope on all the properties every property has slope in this neighborhood and so any specific property can deal with its own storm water but of course it may also receive storm water from other neighboring properties and so the the point is we're going to do storm water mitigation on this site to deal with this site storm water whether that's storm water that

comes from the sky and falls on the property or comes from adjacent properties and runs out of this property before running off this property what we can't do is we can't mitigate storm water that falls on other properties and flows off those properties onto yet another person's property does that make sense right our goal our goal goal is to make the storm water situation from where it is today better in the future

for this site and the neighbors to the best of our ability but um we can't cure the entire neighborhood if there are other storm water problems does that does that make sense it it makes very good sense thank you what what I was specifically asking about was storm water running off from the church property um I hate to use a bad pun but once it's there it's an act of God

right and and once it comes on to your property you're not saying oh no no that's going to be that's not our responsibility it's there right and it I'm not I'm not a civil engineer so I'm not going to try to tell you stuff outside my expertise but I believe our goal would be to regardless of where we get it from we're going to work to mitigate it very good all right fine

thank you and and just to quickly piggyback on that I do I do a lot of this permitting work in general and sometimes too we can kind of like uh once we get our storm water report in sometimes that information can be used and sometimes we work in concert with the city and sometimes a city can add a drain pipe somewhere that alleviates more than anybody could even expect it

but I don't want to I'm just throwing that out there that that is possible out there but I again no control over that and it might not even be possible but I've seen it happen thank you very much appreciate it any other questions from the board to the applicant seeing n thank you very much thank you um i' like to hear from staff Keith or Patrick one of the two yeah we prepared our staff report

for this application which was sort of a summary of the the application for the board one of the things I looked at is the comprehensive plan consistency with this application uh conformed to our adopted comprehensive plan adopted in two uh 2010 um our conclusion was that it does conform to the comprehensive plan um just as of note you know the um the state's adaptive reuse law that was passed in

2023 does say and does say that adaptive reuse like this when you take an existing building existing commercial building um add residential units to it is a permitted use in a case like this um so we've know mul by Family isn't normally allowed in this Zone that adaptive reuse statute um does make it a permitted use and the state did that because of the obvious housing crisis going on here um our report had to look

at the uh general purposes and required findings of the subdivision of Land Development regulations which found that it met those um those standards and those requirements here um it summarizes comments we received from other reviewers like the zoning officer um who clarified that no use or dimensional variances are required with this updated plan um had comments from the Fire Marshall who said that he was satisfied

with these plans at this master plan more conceptual level um and they've requested that the front parking lot be wided a bit widened a bit which is what they did in these plans the access to the rear is very narrow but they said they can get back there if they need to and we have uh recommended motions here if the planning board decides to approve this the first one is to uh enter certain

documents into the record um there are several listed in the report um some of them are documents from City staff some are comments from members of the public um there are three that we are looking to add to that one is a letter from the Reverend Z dated October 22nd 24 and I think I will have to uh to Mr Hanner for the other two oh actually the other two uh Mr

chairman are right in front of you there I believe um can't read them from here but yeah we we have them one of them is the summary sheet provided by the applicants by the resident attorney correct right I think we have a total of eight correspondents I believe so total of eight and that are like comments from the residents the second motion is the approval of the master plan here

um the planning board Grant conditional approval of the proposed modification as proposed subject to the following conditions and we have five conditions in here it doesn't necessarily cover everything that we've been talking about tonight but um I'll just read these here and we can go from there on number one is that a landscape plan storm water plan lighting plan and traffic impact

study are submitted by the applicant at the preliminary stage of review number two that the proposed trash area is moved to the Northeast portion of the parcel of the rear parking area to diminish noise and odors that have the potential to impact the abing single family dwellings at 39 Milburn Road 51 Milburn Road and 55 Milburn Road number three that all expenses incurred by the city for the public notification

requirements are play paid for by the applicant number four that the preliminary plan is based upon the approved master plan and further that the preliminary plan and supporting documentation meet the requirements of the East Providence Land Development and subdivision review regulations and number five that the proposal shall meet applicable city state and federal regulations and requirements and we've talked about

other possible conditions I recommend just holding off discussion on those until we hear from public instead instead of finalizing these things very good thank you Keith um any questions for staff from the board being none thank you very much Kei um next we'll move on to uh public comment or the attorney for the public first and then everybody that wants to be heard will be heard here tonight we'll start with you

sir very good perfect thank you could you just give me a name and address for the record for Jo please very

good you see it

good evening Mr chairman and members of the board uh my name is Steve cypo I'm an attorney with the firm gidley Sly in marusac in Providence um what I would like to do tonight is is summarize what is what is in the memorandum that I already provided you um I mean everything that the that the neighbors are requesting is is already put there in writing for for you and I hope you've had an opportunity

to see it um I would just like to summarize uh that present our our argument and then uh several of my clients who were the parisons uh khazarians and fitzpatricks would like to speak as well um so when when I was first retained by them I I went over to their properties and I saw what this building looks like from from their yards and it is it is big it is imposing and and it's

it's an eyesore it is it is uphill it's it's really it's really shocking to see like the appearance of this from from the backyard and that's what I I hope is Illustrated here in the uh in the photos I mean we've got you know they they've got their pools and their kids swing sets and things in the backyard and and the folks on the the top floor of this building have a pretty clear view of

what's going on in all of their backyards right now uh at one point somebody did plant four trees along the fence line they're spaced pretty far apart they really don't provide much of any screening at all there's really no effective screen from the kazarian's property there is but from the from the Fitzpatrick's and parison there's really no screening at all the building um and

so the the first point that we wanted to address was just that that visual screening um the uh you know we we talked about in my in my memo uh I cited to article 16 of the subdivision regulations which say that uh you know the the Landscaping that is is intended as the buffer and as the street should provide a transition between and a reduction in the environmental aesthetic and other

impacts of one type of land use upon another it should lessen the transmission of noise dust pollution and glare from one lot to another and it should minimize the negative impacts of storm water runoff to enhance and protect surface and groundwater quality uh and so you know the the city Council has has said that multif family buildings don't belong in this zone for a reason this building is really an

exception that we have because of this brand new adaptive reuse statute so you know I understand it was pre-existing it's been there for a long time but the use of it is being intensified in a pretty substantial way the nursing home was a very low impact neighbor a very quiet neighbor with employees on site to keep things under control all the time and and this is now an apartment

building with with that could come and go we don't know who they would be there will be more traffic there will be more noise families children and and what have you it is there's no question this is a much more intense use and so intensifying a use and bringing a use that really otherwise would be prohibited in this Zone I think it should come with corresponding measures to uh protect the neighbors from from

the change this will bring um so in addition to the uh buffering and screening uh We've also raised um you know we we want we want the flooding and the drainage issue corrected we do I I blew up the photo here that shows really like it's almost like a pond I believe they've said that they get like ducks and geese that go swim around in it um in their backyard

and then it runs it continues to run down to the next street and I've been told it ice is over on the street the water that comes down from here thank thank you mayor um it it does uh it does cause a problem further down on on the I can't remember the name of the road off off the top of my head but Hadley Headley Circle so so it this this is a problem Beyond just

beyond just the backyards getting uh flooded um it is it is also a safety issue with the so and and I understand we we requested a peer review um I understand that the city's Engineers might be also very well capable of of reviewing this um but part of you know we're asking for peer reviews and we're asking for Bonds in these things because what one of the also in addition to

Adaptive reuse one of the other things the legislature did starting effective this year was this is the only public hearing that you'll be having on this so every concern that we have and every possible thing that we could request from you we need to bring to your attention tonight because there is no public hearing at the preliminary plan stage anymore um and so that is why you have such a thorough memo in front of

you right now a master plan where you might not have had that in the past um so this is this is really our opportunity to bring all of our concerns and everything we want you to consider tonight um and so in addition to the buffering and screening the drainage and the flooding I I know that Mr Brennon talked about you know we want to complete that fence line to make sure that that

remains private and that deters any trespassing there is a a good deal of fencing there but it's not complete so I you are able to walk from their backyards into the back of the um the nursing home or the apartment um parking lot uh there's there's no fence preventing that entirely right now uh the dumpster I think that we are fairly well in agreement um that is an issue that affects the fitzpatricks the

most and they said that they were happy with with that being located where it was when the nursing home was operating and if you go back there now you'll see that there are the fence posts that were there there was a fence around that old dumpster and those posts are still there so we know exactly where it was uh then um and and they said that you know as far as noise and smells that was that

location was was not a problem where it had been so if that's agreeable to the board I believe that's agreeable to the developer and my clients as well um I was also I was encouraged to hear about the um the uh you know that they don't want tenants that smoke we have the that the parisons are very susceptible to that that was why we were asking for an area that they could be designated uh

away from them but if they were if they would agree to make you know no smoking anywhere on the property a condition of approval then I think that would uh satisfy the concern in that regard I don't know if they're willing to agree to that as a condition but I would ask the board to to impose it then because that seems to be what their plan is and that seems like everyone's happy with that

result um and then as far as the uh the encroachment issue uh the uh my clients have been in contact with a surveyor they expect expect to have a survey I believe within about four weeks and we would like a condition in the approval that that says that they will meet and confer and you know compare their surveys and make just to make sure that there's no issue there uh we we're not

accusing them of anything and uh but we we do see that there there there could be uh I guess I was just explained to me that at one point in time the owner of their house was also the owner of the nursing home so I think historically there was a little bit of maybe paying as much attention to the property lines in the past for that reason uh so if if

uh you know if there's a condition that they meet they can per before preliminary to make sure that's not an issue um I've spoken with Mr Brennan and and he he seems to be perfectly willing to be cooperative with that um so I I don't think that should be an issue either um but really like what what got me involved uh was that there were there were two Community meetings uh one of

which involved a city council person uh and and my my clients and I think other neighbors and you have the correspondents in your packet uh did not have a good experience uh with the developer uh they felt like they were not treated respectfully and and that caused them to to Really you know worried that that this might not be a good neighbor um they came in contact with uh Reverend

Zog from the uh Episcopal Church uh also in the city next to one of the developers other properties who who was explained that that she's also had um a difficult relationship with him uh so that is what prompted us to ask uh you know for this extra level of um I don't know peace of mind that could be provided by peer reviews and by having a a some kind of assurity I mean

we would prefer a cash Bond but aurity posted to make sure that all of the things that you require and that your ordinances require are done properly and then also that at least for 5 10 years that those are are maintained and that the city has funds on hand to make sure that's done uh this is a request that we're making because of this you know negative experience that that that my

clients and and some of the other folks in the community have had and and we think that you know we've presented you sufficient evidence to justify um doing that particularly with the landscape architect I think it would be very important to have a peer review independent uh landscape architect you know my clients know that they want buffering they want trees along that fence line that blocked the view but

we're not Landscape Architects so we don't know what type of trees or where or how many would do that effectively and to have you know two opinions to Aid the board in in getting there uh would be extremely helpful um and then another thing that we would like is as far as we we did notice in the back it does look like there's at least one maybe more trees that appear as if they've been

flagged to be removed and and we would like to see all the trees remain in place for now until the landscape AR architect can take a look at that and and see what the value is of what's already there um if there are trees already there that could be incorporated into a landscape plan um we wouldn't want to see any of those those come down before before the the value of those is is evaluated by a

professional um so I think that that really covers uh the summary of of what was in was in our memo um I would you know we would ask that these things be incorporated as conditions before preliminary and again this is this is really our only opportunity to come in and and address you in this in this way and so that is why we're bringing this all to your attention now at master plan

yeah I agree with that but um this board we like the public can speak at every single one of our meetings so if they follow our agendas even though it's adaptive reuse it doesn't matter to us I I appreciate that they the public can come and speak during preliminary if this passes Mass I I listen to everybody's point of view and we'll debate it right there at the night of

the Mee I I appreciate that I prepared for tonight you know with the assumption that this was the only public hearing I I I I mean that that has been my experience I I do this work in other towns I represent other towns and I have seen that that is kind of the trend is even though the law has changed it says it's not required a lot of the the

chairman and a lot of the boards are allowing comment even when it's not required be allowed so I I really appreciate that not with this board we we listen to every single resident no matter how long it takes that's just the way we operate in my 14 years on the board chairman who's not here tonight he'd say the same thing he that's what he does okay yeah I that's that's what

I've seen is is they've changed the law but a lot of the boards haven't changed their practice okay um just one thing Keith with the peer reviews um can you address that at all um as far as if this passes master um if you're going to require these peer reviews what these these people are asking for yeah if if we do the peer review and which we typically do for something like

a traffic study um you know the applicant would submit the traffic study and we would uh have an outside objective reviewer review their plans issue comments to the board the expense would be paid for by the applicant to have this outside review that could also happen with the Landscaping plan okay very good thank you just so you know we heavily rely on our staff so they give us all the stuff

we hash it out for as long as we got the packet and then we make our deter and some of the communities I work in are smaller towns that don't have the resources that the city does so peer reviews maybe are more common uh in a smaller town where there's not as much resources at the city level but I I really and and if the city's Engineers if you're comfortable as far as the

drainage and the storm water go go um but I really think that at least for the Landscaping it would be really valuable to my clients of eyes uh from a professional on that landscape plan so we we have an excellent our engineering Department's spectacular our engineer is spectacular so our staff talks with him all the time on these projects if he feels there's a need for it then there

will be a need for it so we again we lean on those professionals okay okay well I I think that that concludes everything that I I wanted to say I'd be happy to answer questions or to turn the floor over to my clients who would like to testify um yes just any questions from the board to the attorney seeing none Mr K no no okay um we'll take public comment now public

comment is open um if you want to line up just give Joel our solicitor your name and address for the record please and and uh have at it thank you

bill you okay with that you want to swear them in or whatever you want to do you're in charge you're in charge please thank you for the record please raise your right hand do you swear that the testimony you're about to give is the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth thank you it's I will good evening my name is Lisa Fitzpatrick and I along with my husband live at 51 Milburn road which is

directly in back of the proposed building at 100 wamp Trail I have lived in Ken Heights my entire life but I have lived in this home for almost 39 years I bought my home in October of 1989 with my husband we purchased it from the late Dr logerquist Who owned Health Haven nursing home which is the original name of the nursing home that you see my husband knew I wanted to bring our children up in this

neighborhood my entire family including my mother went through all the inreased prodent school systems we are longtime townies we updated our home in the first few years to include a pool in our backyard decks finish the basement so my children would have places to play with their friends as they got older we added a driveway that made it able for them to park their cars over the years we had some issues

with the nursing home dumpster overflowing bread or milk delivery trucks too early in the morning waking up our children but we always knew who we would call we called the management at the nursing home they were there someone 247 and they handled the situation they did their best to be good neighbors the parking in the block back lock was relatively quiet as they never had more than six cars in the back again

if there was an issue we would call occasional alarm car going off we would call and they handled it most people do not realize from the front that what we see is not what they see from Trail and many people are surprised urised that it's actually a second floor one of which looks directly into the backyard even with our six- foot fence that we installed as my husband and I creep into

our 60s we are watching our older parents deal with home life his mother at 92 is difficulty going up and downstairs my mother has had to move into an assisted living we watched as they struggled in their homes and decided Ed we needed to update our home we no longer needed to prepare our home for our children we now needed to prepare our forever home for ourselves in the last two years we have

put considerable money into preparing our home for our retirement we brought our washroom dryer upstairs we took the tub out and put in a Walkin shower we replaced all our windows we updated the stairs outside we put in central air and installed a nice gas fireplace what I did not prepare for was the nursing home would be sold to a developer to turn it into an apartment complex as they say in real estate

location location location I worry about the noise from Cars of 18 cars going in and out the back at all hours we know no one works just 8 to 5 anymore I worry about parties in the backyard at all hours the amount of trash that will accumulate in a dumpster that abuts my property will I have lights beaming into my bedroom window at all hours my peaceful backyard

will no longer be that who do I call do I call the developer will there be Management on staff 24/7 we are already hearing that this developer has not been responding to other properties that he owns when my husband and I began putting money into our forever home we did not expect this to happen and I am devast stated that my home may not be my forever home please think of this residential

neighborhood and the changes that will happen to it in closing at a meeting that we held for the Neighbors in September the developer showed up and said he was only there to answer questions I was the first to ask I asked him if he lived in my home would he stay and live there he would not answer me he said it's a done deal I said you did not answer my question you said you were

here to answer questions I'm asking you yes or no would you live in my house he again said it's a done deal I'm asking this planning board to let this developer know that this is not a done deal that we as East Providence residents of this neighborhood taxpayers lifelong townies have a say in what happens to our future forever HS thank you thank you very

much raise your right hand do you swear that the testimony you're about to give is the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth thank you just state your name and address for the record Thomas Pearson 55 Milburn Road our our property also buts the rear of the U 100 trail and I won't I won't even pretend to try to repeat what uh re just said to you but just a couple of backgrounds my

wife Margaret and I are 75 now we've lived in this home for 45 years we're lifelong townies we both graduated from East Province High School uh our kids grew up went to all schools in in East Province and uh when we first bought the home the nursing home was there and I have to admit I a little pause as to whether or not um this would be a problem but I we frankly was the only

home that was for sale in Ken Heights at the time that we could afford so we took a chance and said well we'll sell out in a few years it turned out to be a lovely neighbor for all the reasons that Lisa has said so we've never had any concerns and I I'm pleased to hear some of the things that the uh architect and uh attorney has represented that they will

try to do but I think the one point they have haven't really addressed is some of what Lisa said is this the noise concerns bother us greatly I mean this it's going from a quiet nursing home to an apartment complex of which we do not who know who the tenants will be what hours they will come and go at night most of the parking will be in the rear which is where our home AB buts the

property and we have great concerns about that as far as noise abatement as far as privacy and security as well so those are our issues and I think we spent a lot of time with our attorney to come up with what we think are reasonable U conditions be you to consider and approve for this property especially the fact that the Adaptive reuse uh law in my opinion has taken away our prop our rights as a property

owner that in the past we would have been able to at least object to a zoning variants use variants before uh this body or the zoning body that's been unilaterally taken away from us so I think our only recourse is to ask strongly ask that you give us these conditions so that we can have some sense of security that um will continue to have a a joyful neighborhood that we would there for the last 45

years thank you thank you very much sir raise your right hand you swear the testimony you're about to give is the truth the whole truth and nothing but the true please take your name and address for the record Zachary and Allison gazarian Zachary obviously um both lifelong Towes wife and I born and raised East Providence went to school in the state moved back to RH Island had children B our house um and really over

the last seven years raising our two small children in Ken Heights has just been tremendous for us such a small tight-knit close family oriented neighborhood uh our backyard um we have a partial view of 100 um and our attorney mentioned some of the trees that had been marked potentially to be cut down those are very important for us that's really the only offer that our backyard has is some of the taller

trees um and our backyard is largely private due to an undeveloped area of uh hope Congressional Church that runs and abuts the the back of our property um my wife and I spent a lot of time um since we purched this house making it you know a place that we want to you know spend a lot of time um spend a lot time in our backyard we have our playground um we

have a nice you know pool in our backyard we spend a lot of time back there with our children um and our main concern is the storm water runoff I do have a a video prepared as well um that this be addressed um with the renovation even small you know mild rainstorm floods through the um H through the Pearson's backyard and runs directly into our backyard as you can see here this is just even an average

rainstorm um and basically you can tell right we can't get to um my children's playground or even the shed without waiting through several inches of water um and we did note as well that it continues on through our property into Headley Circle the house the street behind our house and it does freeze over and it is a sa of concern as well but um I'll end there um thank you so our

other primary concern is the privacy of our backyard which largely Echoes things that the Parsons and Patrick have already mentioned um I did specifically to our backyard want to point out the bottom right picture you can see that's from our backyard at 61 Milburn and you can see that we do have a good amount of screening um from the existing trees specifically the large pine tree that is

in the northeast corner of 100 log um and so we have a really strong interest in those trees remaining and more U mature Landscaping being put in um just a a couple other things we also just really to the lighting point also want to make sure there's not additional lighting carelessly placed that will be in like our kids bedrooms at night um and also the know concern but a lot of

the same concerns that have been said so I don't think I need to go into them in so much detail but um I also did just want to share um that my husband and I have had two interactions with the developer um in our experiences with him he was very aggressive in his words and his tone he was a bit careless with the truth um and he did really seem to

attempt to deceive a lot of residents into um a being being agreeable to his third floor addition by saying that without that third floor he would not have the financing for any general property um improvements including the storm water so due to some of his questionable and frankly alarming um interactions with us we were motivated to hire an attorney despite having two children in daycare um we don't have a

lot of financial wiggle room in our month-to month P but it was so concerning to us the way we were being treated that we weren't going to get um a fair experience here based on his words with us and that he was not really a man of his word that would be a neighbor we would be excited to have so um you know we really hope that you take that into consideration especially now

that we know that a lot of his questional behavior has impacted the quality of life of his Rumford neighbors we really feel like conditions in writing and um potentially a maintenance bond is really important to hold um anything that you think you deem necessary for it to happen we we need to have those things in writing and hold hold them to it thank you very much thank you very

much please raise your right handed do you swear that the the testimony you're about to give is the truth the whole truth nothing but the truth please state your name and address for the record har Atwell um um my mother lives at the house at 82 when she is in a butter um the home is in the name of the CLE Family Trust I'm the executive along with my mother I'm here to represent her

as well um my father who is also the owner of the house passed away last week um so regr in speak well was so I guess I had a lot more to say when I thought that this was going to be the original threeory unit with per unit that was proposed because we live a little bit further back so um you know that would have seriously you know affected our view it very

imposing um but and although I do want to say for the record that while I am still against the multif family apartment building in our residential neighbood I do understand that we adaptive laws that were quietly passed by the general assembly last year any objection of mine is probably a mute point of course I still do have my suspicions that once this is approved another plan will be submitted to the

planning board for variant but again I suppose we'll have to that bridge um but when it comes to these apartments I do want to assure everyone that this is not about not in my backyard a lot of people say I mean we all live in East Providence right figuratively speaking everything is in our backyard uh this is about protecting the Privacy health and safety of the neighboring of Butters and what is going

to become a multif family apartment building that is literally in our backyards and that we have every right as a Butters to be um I encourage anyone who may not believe me as to how close this building is to the neighbors on Milburn um to to please um take a walk down Milbourne those pictures do not do it justice I mean I look at them and I walk by there

almost every day with my dog I drive by and my parents have been in that house for 20 years it still shocks me to this day when I walk by and down that street that it is literally an imposing structure right in their backyards so like I said if anyone has a hard time dring that just walk down the street you don't even have to go into anyone's backyard all you have to do is turn your

head and look and you will see what looks like two stories here um sorry um and while I'm sure that a prior nursing home may have had its challenges you know with the neighbors we can all probably agree that having the elderly live behind you is a much different Dynamic from having an entire building of active and families living right up so all of us that live in Ken Heights

I mean we all live on a small lot right maybe 7500 8,000 square feet on average we all typically have one neighbor to the right one neighbor to the left and one behind us the closest abutters to this property have a neighbor to their left one to their right and now if every unit that is proposed for this apartment building has a minimum of two tenants that's 52 active not sedentary neighbors

living directly behind them parking their cars right up to their property line with the noise the lights and the exhaust permeating their yards with no proposed substantial buffer to alleviate the light this isn't about that one neighbor who's building a debt too close to the property line this is about in almost 20,000 foot building with a minimum of 52 people moving in almost up to your

property this will without doubt certainly affect our right to privacy both Visual and auditory will also affect our health with the increas noise light and exhaust pollution as well as our own personal safety and that of the property of our property with the increased traffic so this brings me to my point of how do we work together to respect the boundaries privacy safety and health of

weab Butters considering this will most likely be approved I believe that at the bare minimum you must require substantial landscape buffering between Defence line in the parking spaces arities that are densely lined up to provide a soft privacy fence will help to obscure the building and obscure the windows from prying eyes on both sides it will also help with a light pollution from the building and from the

headlights of the cars entering the lot it may also provide a buffer against some noise and again I'm obviously not a landscape architector so asking for a clear Mo I think um um allowing this structure without proper buffering will significantly affect the personal well-being of all Resident of Butters who didn't ask for this misguided law to be passed but now have to live with the

consequences I'm going to assume that everyone on the planning board is a towy I encourage you to stick by your fellow townies and do the right thing and Grant our reasonable requests it is the right just and moral thing to do I'll end by quoting a line from Robert Frost poem mending fences which is quote good fences make good neighbors this suggests that clearly defined boundaries and

buffers can help maintain positive Rel relationships with neighbors by ensuring everyone respects each other's right to private space good health and safety on our properties thank you for your time and consideration thank you very much raise your right hand you swear the testimony you're about to give is the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth thank you please state your

name and address for the record paa Perkins 24 Headley Circle I'm here at as a neighbor uh but also as a representative from Hope Church uh I've been a member of that church for the past 50 years the topic I'd like to bring up is the water control problem which has been an ongoing problem I'm going to have to say at least well for the last 30 years that I'm aware of

um I it was mention that they have no control over the water that comes from the pope Church property I can tell you that it doesn't it comes from the nursing home property onto the Hope Church property and down onto Headley Circle the city is aware of this there's been conversations about it the city has asked permission of Hope Church to put in a Swale at the back of our property

um which we've granted uh we'd like to solve this problem as well it's been a serious problem for Neighbors on dead ly Circle I know that one family has had to replace their driveway repeatedly because of the water that has come into their yard sat on their driveway Frozen and caused it to crack and and be destroyed numerous times I'm sincerely hoping that this body will very seriously

consider this water issue and make it a water issue that belongs to the property owners there because that seems to be where it it's coming from um and I felt that as as a neighbor and also as a member of the church we wanted to be vocal about the fact that we're concerned thank you thank you very much I um Daniel moram jumped the gun sorry you swear that the testimony

you're about to give is the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth yes now please state your name and address for the right um Danielle moram I'm on 59 Glendale I'm actually in the neighborhood um on the other side of pet Avenue but I am an active member at um Hope Church so there's a few concerns that I have even living across the road now I take Trail quite a bit and

um my concern would be we have you we have presented to us 2 units um as someone else had already said 26 units if you have two per two adults per unit um 35 parking spots will not be sufficient enough for that many um tenants so uh I'm sure that the tenants that are going to be moving in will be parking on the street or they'll be also using the

churches parking lot um um also they um I wanted to also bring up that the church has a daycare in the basement and they do have some outside facilities um you know these are all smaller small children now I know um I think it was the architect that mentioned that they were going to do some screening but less screening on the church's side um that they wanted to keep that um that stone wall because it's historic

um I I feel that it needs to be even more so um screened because of the children um I mean I I have two small kids of my own and um they both have like an IEP in East Providence so they go to the East Providence school but prior to that um I inquired for jails side daycare um to have them put in there because they're um you know big part of East Providence Community um so

I just want I just want you guys to think about the number of units that are actually being proposed um why 26 why not 12 why not you know 15 this 26 is just going to be that much more more trash that much more cars that much more parking that needs to be put in the place not just the 35 parking spots so that's all I have to say and um I'm

sure they're going to be parking too on the street which is also going to be uh kind of hectic driving along there so thank you thank you very much please raise your right hand you swear the testimony you're about to give is the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth I do thank you please state your name and address for the record my name is Libby Merill and my

address is 57 Fairview AV I also live on the other side of chav in Ken Heights can I ask a question too I ask qu great okay so I'm here actually to express my support for redeveloping a 100 Trail into multif family housing I'm a resident of Kent Heights though not an immediate a butter um so I also am sensitive to the all of the requests for water um abatement and um buffering that

the abutters have um the reason that the Adaptive reuse law was past as we know is because one of the best ways in Rhode Island where we are densely populated and we have older housing stock to add housing is to redevelop already built areas one of the only ways we can accomplish that we are in a massive housing crisis since I've lived in East Providence the last seven years my

property uh list price has gone up 40% I can assure you my home is not worth 40% more than it was seven years ago and my income has not gone up 40% in seven years um if I were to try to move into East Providence now to buy my house I would not be able to buy my house right now um or afford the mortgage so we absolutely need more housing one of the

best ways to lower housing prices is to create more of it um I have a young child who goes to Ken height school and I want her to be able to rent an apartment in East Providence when she's in her 20s I don't want her to be um priced out of East Providence I want her to be a lifelong towy if that's what she wants um and I want her to be able to

rent a one-bedroom apartment in 20 years if that's what she wants um so there's a there's an affordability crisis we need more housing I want I I'm hoping we will get more adaptive Reus in East Providence there's a lot of vacant properties along waren AV maybe some of those can be multi family housing that would be great I live right near there um the one question I'm going to ask

though the question I wanted to ask is I haven't heard anything brought up tonight about the affordable units um and I know that with the Adaptive reuse law 20% of the units have to be held as affordable there's no public packet that I haven't se that I've seen is that part of the plan um I would defer to Mr Burn's uh planning director but I think that would be something for this is a master

concept plan I'm not sure um ke could you address that please it's not proposed as um an affordable proposal it's just market rate so but with to qualify for adaptive reuse it has to be 20% affordable I think it doesn't need to be for the statute okay um there's there's certain uh benefits to doing that for the law but it doesn't have to be okay so there won't be necessarily affordable units

right this got it um okay I know I yesterday the Rhode Island um Coalition for home also was did a whole presentation they were talking about how the fair market price for one bedroom is 14 uh $1,417 a month and I believe the units are going to be renting for higher than that so I just want to be like mindful of that as well that would be something I would urge the planning

board to try to push um and then also hopefully um holding the developer to some of the um buffering issues that the neighbors have brought up and thank you thank you very much ra your right hand do you swear the testimony you're about to give is the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth I do name and address for the record please uh Joseph Patell 82 pth

Road uh I would first like to say that in my eight years of sitting in one of those chairs on the city council I've never been more entertained during a meeting uh so I appreciate uh the uh uh the entertainment um first of all I had something else I wanted to talk to but the staff member just said that it's not part of the statute that 20% of anything under adaptive use

provision uh be 20% low in moderate income housing but yet I'm reading it right in the statute under Section 2 B the development includes at least 20% low and moderate income housing so and anyhow that's one of that one's a new one um but the reason I'm here this evening is I've been a realtor for over 30 years a real estate broker for in Massachusetts and Rhode Island and I got

to tell you and also as I've sat in that chair over the years I don't think there's any development that I've ever voted against uh if they were up here responsible this law that was passed by the general assembly has had a ripple effect of unintended consequences on various communities this case being one of them and one of the most severe that I've ever seen putting a 26 unit apartment complex smack dab in

the middle of a residential neighborhood now we've heard about values what do you think it's going to do to the value of these people's homes that live right next to the this thing it's certainly not going to go up and that's not what they bought bargain for when they came here but any event the main thing or the reason I came here tonight was U you know I don't believe that this

proposal uh is before you under the right provision this proposal is here on the Adaptive reuse provision that law that was passed by the state and I read through it thoroughly several times so I understand it pretty good and it is for commercial buildings commercial buildings the law says specifically commercial building so I wanted to find out what the definition of a commercial building was well lo and

behold not in the city's ordinances or in State LA are they Define quote unquote commercial buildings there are commercial uses of buildings for example you've seen doctor's office or dentist office in a house likewise you've seen residential units in M building okay this law I think primarily was intended for the conversion of commercial units and Commercial settings to housing where it

was not allowed not the opposite in any event this particular use the nursing home health Havens elderwood whatever you want to call it whatever it's been named over the years was a non-conforming use in an R3 residential Zone this non-conforming use was abandoned well over two years ago okay and I know that for a fact because my mother was a resident there and she was one of the

last ones to leave when the owner had to file a receiver ship so since June of 2022 that building has been vacant now City's ordinance says if a non-conforming use is abandoned it may not be reestablished so that use is gone that's back to an R3 Zone and somehow residential use it's just a big old building that you could use as a single family house that's according to the city's own

ordinance it says if any non-conforming use is halted for a period of one year the owner of such non-conforming use will presume to have been abandoned and such non-conforming use unless such presumption is rebuffed by presentation of sufficient evidence of intent not to abandon the use so it's been abandon for two years for the own ordinance it says it goes back or it may not be re

established so that this proposal is not before you properly and if I was sitting in your chair or if I was on the city council they would have to come back and get a variance for a because this will not stand a test of law I mean I don't know how the staff didn't see this may mean it's black and white so I can I can address that just for the information that we have Mr

Bello so our zoning officer at pental spent probably a couple hours with our solicitor's office they had an in-depth conversation and it is their opinion with the city and the zoning officer that the revised development proposal does indeed meet and comply with their respective adaptive reuse reg so that that's the information that we have well I'm here to correct TR we have to trust our solicitors office I don't

know if Joel can speak to this um but that's the information that we have so fully complies and I understand that but look you got to remember I sat here for eight years the city solicitor and the zoning officer will tell you whatever you want to hear and stamp it they can say whatever they want they can have their opinions but I'm looking at black and white that use has been abandoned

and under the city's own ordinance it cannot be reestablished so therefore this proposal was not here properly before you under the Adaptive reuse now if the solicitor or Ed perment were right here I'd asked them the same question how do you get around that well I completely understand your thought I don't think she can go forward but for us this is what we have in front of us from our solicitor's office staff

I don't know if Keith the Patrick could address this at all just trying to get to the bottom it yeah sure um yeah I mean I agree with you on this issue that uh you know ental who deals with this more than anyone along with our city solicitor did come to this conclusion what does that mean like just what I read out I mean that's what the information that we have

do you have their opinion we would look at it obviously we go right through the packet um again from Ed pental after having an indepth conversation with the solicitor's office it is my opinion as the city of East Providence zoning officer that the revised development proposal does indeed meet and comply with the respective adaptive reuse regulation so I'm not an attorney so I can't I I just can't I have to go by

what they're telling me because they're the ones that are going to have back if it's not right so Chris i' I've known you for a long time certainly have know you to be a very reasonable fair man appreciate that based on what I've just read to you could you come to that same conclusion regardless of who opinion you got from where and who told them to write it I mean again without being an

attorney and really looking into it and not been you know privy to those conversations between the solicitor's office and the zoning officer I I don't have an answer for that Mr Grant um Mr Miller just to be clear uh as as I understand it it's it seems to be the city's opinion or the city staff opinion that this property is vacant it's not abandoned it's it's vacant is that correct and I'm with

someone on the staff clarify that I think so I mean I haven't heard a determination from the city solicitor or the zoning officer that it is abandoned yeah Mr bres I Mr C yes um I I I don't want to change the subject but there was another issue raised here which was with regard to the minimum 20% affordable uh units uh can you address that specifically why it's not in this uh master plan

either you or Joel Joel can you address that at all Mr botello's concerns about the affordable the 20% affordable I'm just echoing Mrs Miss Merill is concerned oh absolutely and we would like to get right down to the bottom of it so if Joel could address that for us if he can unfortunately I was not part of those discussions that was solicor Marcelo and the zoning official I've been the assistant solicitor for

less than 36 hours at this point I I certainly will look into it but I Bo you're gonna have fun with those two I'll tell you right now I think this is why Mr Marcelo didn't want to attend tonight's meeting yeah you knew I was gonna be here um any the solicitor's office will look into it thank you thank you Joel regarding the affordable housing I do have the uh the

general law here which says that um this is section 45 24 37 h two one um which says that under density for projects that meet the following criteria zoning ordinances shall allow for high density development and shall not limit the density to less than 15% dwelling units per acre one of those criteria is the development includes at least 20% low and moderate income housing it then goes on to

say in section two that for all other adaptive reuse projects the residential density permitted in the converted structure shall be the maximum allow that otherwise meets all standards of minimum housing has access to public sewer and water service or has access to adequate private water such as a well and wastewater treatment systems the density proposed shall be determined to meet all public health and safety

standards so um it offers that 20% to say that towns can't have if it's 20% towns can't make it the density less than 15 units per acre but it doesn't have to be affordable housing thank you Keith does Jo what he just read to you did you I guess so you know I mean the the the keyword is uh shall allow which doesn't say will allow so it's uh the spirit of the of it's

there but it's just not part the developers package got it but I mean let's get back to the abandonment issue because there's been some question about that because the ordinance goes on to uh Define abandonment if I just could get back to Mr Miller on this abandonment of a conforming use doesn't talk about vacancy abandonment of a conforming use shall consist of some overt act or failure to act which

would lead one to believe that the owner of the non-conforming use neither claims nor retains any interest in continuing the non-conforming use unless so such owner can demonstrate an intent not to abandon the use well they abandoned it over two years ago got nothing to do whether it's vacant or not they abandon that use so it goes back to a non-conforming use which is abandoned and may not be

reestablished it's just that simple if that pental and the solicitor was sitting here right now i' ask them how they get around that because all of you sitting here and I want this to be part of the rec there is no way around it that I can see no way and I think as the planning board you really need to investigate this further because if you let it if you let this go it'll just continue

going on and on and on and these unintended consequences of a not wellth thought out law and a rush to just provide people with housing is going to have Ripple effects all over the city and the state so this is going to get cleaned up I I I'll take up the charge on that um you're saying that it's not a matter of it being vacant that it's abandoned and it can't

be the same use no it says reverts back to what it just right but but just reading for what what the ordinance what we're talking about is a different use than was formally what the building was being used for what does that mean well just means that there's been a change in use but and I also will have to say I I'll also have to agree with Mr Miller

um two years you you just said that your grandmother was in the building my mother your mother I'm sorry um and and so the building has been vacant for two years use has been abandon for two and the building has been vacant doesn't say anything about vacancy yeah I Joe I'm just going to interject again I I can only go with what our solicitor gives us and look if you want to push

this thing through go ahead um that's that's where we're at Sor right now we're just trying to get all our information sounds like some of the questions I'm getting are kind of like that because if I were sitting there I'd want these questions this question answer this use was abandoned it goes back to residential that's what ordinance says adaptive reuse is not subject for residential use commercial

buildings now I tried to debunk this I looked up tried to find the definition of commercial building state law ordinance there is no definition commercial building only uses that use was abandoned more than two years ago any I don't want to no that's all right no I don't want to repeat myself say um ask hold on one minute ke Patrick are you concerned going forward with a problem with this with an issue

with this because if you do we'll table it right now and we'll have another meeting make sure that stuff's all hashed out you know one of the things I'm looking at is the definition in state law of adaptive reuse which is the conversion of an existing structure from the use for which it was constructed to a new use by maintaining elements of the structure and adapting such elements to a new use

it does say for the use for which it was constructed constructed as a nursing home um I'm not an attorney but I don't think that the concern over abandonment trumps the Adaptive reuse statute especially with that definition in state law Mr gr thank you Mr Miller one additional thing I was that I would point out is um obviously this this meeting was supposed to have taken place you know in Prior months so

we have had time to you know do our own research as I have had I know walk the site and one of the things that I did was I looked at the tax assessor database that is uh managed by the city and that lists every property in the city as well as the type of use and the city lists 100 Wong Trails use as commercial number two whatever that means it doesn't say anything about that

it is no longer under that use even though it is vacant or abandoned I guess it still says commercial gotcha and Mr chairman may I add that we've had planning staff the zoning officer the city solicitor we met a number of times uh discussing this and whether or not if it meets the Adaptive reuse ordinance never once never once did the issue of it the building being abandoned come up in convers

well maybe it should have don't you think did anyone ask the question um well I'm not privy to those meetings at all so I mean I do have a concern with what you're telling me Joe um but again we we sit here and we just you know we we have I looking right at it it you know in-depth conversations with these two and they didn't bring it up so I don't know it's up to staff if

they're comfortable with us proceeding with a possible a legal problem is what I'm getting at go Mr chairman I could just interject here so reading again from Rhode Island general law 45 2437 section H actually right above where uh the planning director was reading uh H reads adaptive reuse not withstanding any other provision of this chapter adaptive reuse for the conversion of any commercial building

including offices schools religious fa facilities medical buildings and malls into residential units or mixed use developments which include a development of at least 50% of the existing gross floor area into residential units shall be permitted oh I'm sorry shall be a permitted use and Allowed by specific and objective Provisions I'm not privy to what you're pointing out I don't have

it in front of me so so as you you're familiar as a state law and our local ordinances have a list of definitions I challenge you to find the definition of commercial building you won't find it because it doesn't exist it's only uses I would agree are you trying to say that 100 wampo Trail is not a commercial building correct cor because under the city's ordinance that's what it says you looking at please 19 d417

again I don't want to keep pleading ignorance I literally was sworn in less than 36 hours ago but I I think we're talking apples and oranges I don't see how this city ordinance would Trump the state law that says any commercial building can be repurposed for residential uses again I will talk to solister Marcelo about that he had the conversations with the planning with the E owning director not

me I mean look you know the simplest answer is always easy you know instead of the word salad that we get by state lawmakers you know uh there is no definition for commercial building they use that expression in their law so I had to go find out what the definition was it doesn't exist only uses so our ordinance clearly states if a non-conforming use is abandoned it may not be reestablished I mean this isn't

rocket science people I mean I don't get anyhow I appreciate said what I got to say it's up to you now no Joe I appreciate your points they're well taken and I will I will direct staff look into this with the solicitor's office you know the days are being thorough long gone but anyhow thank you Mr

Bello good evening members of the board my name is John dorsy I was previously appointed by your Municipal Court as receiver for the property located at 100 Trail I do want to in a couple of minutes I don't want to take up too much of the board me one second Joel can you just s in please attorne okay needed to very good name and address for the record would be great sure John dorsy 207 Quaker Lane

West Warwick and again it's it's nice to meet the members of the board I wanted to introduce myself your municipal court appointed me back in March of 2023 as receiver for the property at 100 wamp anog trail and I just wanted to put a little bit of context as to how this property made its way before the board what's going on currently in the receivership proceedings in order that

this board has a full understanding when it's considering the pending application of what's going on in in that process as well so going back a little bit historically at the beginning of covid as I'm sure the board members are very well aware it was not a real good time to be operating nursing homes there are a lot of challenges uh the facility at wag had a very similar experience the

ownership at that time went through efforts to effectuate a transaction of the property to an out ofate nursing home operator those parties entered into a a purchase sale agreement and part of those agreements from our diligence indicate that the seller had agreed to close on the land transaction remain in place operate the nursing home for a period of time while the buyer went

through its regulatory licensing process with the Department of Health and then the idea was the seller and its operations would exit the property and you'd have a new buyer in place unfortunately the buyer never completed an application with department of health during its process to put together an application it started making modifications to the building itself significant modifications particularly

in the basement level of the building when the city learned of that the city immediately issued a stop work order on the property your building department and enforcement folks made significant efforts to try and get in contact with the buyer of the property they've cited the proper for violations they've reached out to try and make communication with the buyers of the property and that was to no avail there

was earlier in 2023 a water pipe that had burst inside the property required Municipal resources to try and address it and at that point being out of enforcement options the city put the property into receivership to deal with the public nuisance conditions much of what you've heard from some of the neighbors what you heard from the applicant in terms of what was going on at the property is very accurate there

were pumping issues or rodent issues I can tell you after my appointment there was enough activity that were required to put in um remote video surveillance at the property to deter access and so in parallel with doing that once I was appointed my task from the court was get out to the marketplace try and look at every option possible but put the property out and it's part of a

thirdparty sale process buyers would not only be making commitments to acquire the property for whatever they agreed upon what approved purchase price would be but they also have to make contingencies within their agreement as to how they'll correct the conditions of the property so that the city would be in position to issue a certificate of occupancy and the property would be put

back to a productive VI so my my goal in all this is I I represent the property not the the developer the applicant in this case I I want to see the property left better than where it started we went through and marketed the proper for many months um I met with a lot of different groups that had expressed different interests some different ideas for the property we had some of those

groups fall off during the marketing process because of some of the challenges with the site U we did have a couple of groups that were interested and ended up competitively bidding for the property um based upon a residential type use the applicants offer that was put forward was the best both in terms of its purchase price and the contingencies that the buyer was willing to make in terms of what it would do to

correct the conditions of the property and those contingencies included not only applying to this board within a certain amount of time but once it it once it gets any approvals for the properties it will be required within set amount of times to actually complete the construction work so um I I want the board to have that context so that the board understands that if the board does

Grant any type of relief the buyer here once we close is not off the hook it's not a situation where they can just develop the property in the ordinary course they have to do that under the oversight of the court and in fact there's a reversionary interest in the deed that would be provided to the buyer that up and until they get a certificate of occupancy from the city my job as

receiver will be to monitor whatever this board and through the permitting process is approved to make sure that the buyer actually develops a property and conformance with those approvals and permits so I just I want the board to have that context and I want the the neighbors that are here um I I hear their concerns I I think the board should take them seriously I'm encouraged by the buyer's efforts to put

together a professional set of plans and proposals here I've heard their vision for the property and again my my main goal and I I don't have to live next to the property but my main goal is I want to leave it better than found I'm also encouraged I participated in the calls between Council representing some of the neighbors and the developer here I think on a lot of these issues or at least

several of them they're not all that far off things like the dumpster location designated smoking areas and the encroachments I think um I think the de the developer and the neighbors interest should be aligned there and I I don't think they're far apart um the only thing I would share with the board in terms of the other conditions or requests for conditions that have been raised my experience is similar to what

the city's described in terms of peer reviews if the city has resources my experience is you utilize them if you don't have resources or need supplemental resources that approach makes a lot of sense in terms of bonds the only thing I would recommend to the board is and I I understand why the neighbors submitted that request now in light of some of the ambiguity as to what they would be able to do in public

hearings or not to I think it's a little too early in the process to require a bond because again there's going to be oversight by the receivership up and until the buyer gets its certificate of occupancy from the city main purpose of the Bond would be to incentivize the buyer to construct in conformance with approvals and make sure there's Financial stability to get that done there's there's already a court ordered

measure of security in place in that I as receiver have a reversionary interest in the property until the buyer does what it's supposed to do so for some reason the applicant decided I either can't construct the building or I don't want to construct the building what would procedurally happen is I would go back to our municipal court and I would ask for a declaration of default under

our purchase and sale doing it and I would ask the court for an order converting the property back to the receivership so it is a serious lever that that's in place the the part that if I look at it critically of the board that I don't think you can answer right now without more information is just postco are there anything things that come out of either storm water or out of landscaping that would really

necessitate a bond after that Co is issued and so my my suggestion would be take what the neighbors are saying seriously but I think you need more information before you before you make the final decision on that but in in terms of the application itself I very much support it and again not here on behalf of the developer I support it because it's going to leave the property in a much better position than it is

today that it has been for some time and if the board has any questions in that regard I'd be happy to answer them any questions from the board uh yes chairman uh thank you for coming forward uh my even nicer to have you a little earlier in the evening um didn't want to get in the way of the developers application but I understand I so the so the first

question I think this is on a number of people's minds uh right now I believe the development property is one an option it has not actually physically been or been purchased at what point does that take place so the way that the process works in this type of receivership is first the Municipal Court to approve a sale of the property that's been done so the the applicant is under a court approved

purchase and sale agreement they're also has to be a process to clear the title for the property so that the purchaser can get the title commitments that it needs that's been completed and then the way that the agreement was structured would be that there would be a period of time for the buyer to come before this board and present its development applications because it's subsequent

it's Milestones post Clos are really construction related at that point they've got to get permits they've got to get going with the work so we built in it's it's not necessarily a contingency of closing but we built in these Provisions to give the buyer time to come to this board and ask for approval of its development plan so that once we go to a closing table we know exactly what should be

constructed um there's one particular element and it's been mentioned another number of times but it's struck me so far as being rather vague um and that that's the issue of the encroachments um are we talking about use encroachments or are we talking about property boundaries my understanding and I brother Council here can correct me if I'm wrong I think all the parties are speaking the same

language and we're talking about boundary encroachments in terms of property lines that that's what I took it as we'll need a class one survey on that for preliminary anyway correct Patrick definitely need a class from watching the presentation tonight I mean I took from the neighbors that they don't they don't want somebody encroaching on their property line which I take the same position I took from the

applicant that we don't want to build on your property so I I think there's an interest to line there Mr chairman Mr C yeah I do have a concern about this we had a similar instance um years ago in which we did table the because there was an active I think correct that was up off of Gro ra but I think it was a this is a different circumstance did I'm hoping it

is going with you know this is a master plan which is a concept and on with to preliminary if it is approved um that's when all that will take place am I correct Keith when you have the class one survey there'll be a lot more information to go on and just to just for understanding where are the property line questions I mean on the original drawing I think they were documented um in somebody's

memo with the with the possible encroachments the objectors

that'll definitely be addressed with a class one survey very good then all right thank you I any other questions gentlemen from the board and if I if I may I apologize I didn't cover this my initial presentation and I just didn't want to interrupt the the other folks that were speaking um to the board but I did want address the abandonment issue that was raised and I just for clarity I'm

addressing it as the current owner by way of the receivership of the property the and I I was not part or party to the discussions with the solicitor and the zoning official so I don't know if this was their only consideration but I have to imagine they at least took this into consideration when this property was put into receivership back in March of 20123 there's first a temporary phase

and there's a temporary appointing order that's entered by the court and then shortly after that if the court makes the requisite legal findings it will enter what's called a permanent receivership order and in each of those orders there's Provisions for the stay of any Acts or actions against the property and that doesn't only include legal actions like filing a claim in court that includes any act that would

affect the status of the property and the purpose of that is to put a freeze on whatever the current situation is for the property because the receiver steps into the shoes of the ownership and it's meant the receivers job is to protect the interested parties of the estate and figure out what the situation is what makes the most sense moving forward and it the only way you accomplish that is

by freezing the property legally at that point in time so there's been no use abandoned my my instructions from the Municipal Court were quite the opposite it was Market this property for development get abatement proposals come back to the court with proposals and and the court will approve you know what's what it feels is in the best interest of in this case of of the community in the

City and so that and it's not something that I expected folks to have that ready to go tonight but it's something I think the board you know should should at least be aware of I I think that um you know based on both of those orders there has been no abandonment of the use of the property I appreciate that um just the residents's concern um again I'm going to direct the staff to see if we

can get uh inwriting something from our solicitor and there zoning office that to put it to bed um for us just understood okay I really appreciate it thank you thank you thank you very much I'm going to close public comment unless somebody else would like to come up and speak You're the I'm going to give you the last word anybody else for public comment you sure can so as I said well I

live directly in back this is for you oh Lord um we were the on that actually called because we heard the fire alarm going off in 2022 um nobody was responding we went we called we went to the front we the police department were there and they go oh everything it's like like Niagara Falls inside it's going that was in 2022 you said you didn't take over until 2023 so what happened to 2022 to 2023

that would mean the pop property was abandoned why nobody was in it thank you very much um anybody else like to speak public comment seeing them we're going to close the public comment um end of it what I would like to do is bring the attorney up for the resident first for his last words and then the applicant for his last words and then we can deliberate among the board thank you all you

sir uh thank you Mr chairman I I I don't know that I have a lot to to add uh except to reiterate that after everything that we've um heard tonight we we we would still maintain our request for all of the items listed in our um memorandum I I think that you know what we've heard from from the uh the receiver and others is that these uh these conditions would uh be appropriate

for the Neighbors I think that we carefully tailored this to ask for things that are that are reasonable and that are within the board's power to Grant thank you thank you very much thank you Mr chairman and members of the board for all of your time tonight I know this has been a long hearing um I don't have much to say and I apologize jumping topic to topic because there's a lot to talk about just

to quickly brief over for myself um first um I know that the attorney for the Neighbors had mentioned no smoking as a condition of approval on the premises we have no problem with that and I don't I'm not sure if the city has the ability to put that as a restriction on a property but if they do and we're okay with it just so you know um second is um the to meet and compare surveys

for the encroachment as I mentioned we have no problem with that the only thing you heard some um uh testimony from the receiver that uh there's a certain timeline to this so I do this a lot for a living so from from our end we have no problem comparing surveys and ensuring that there's no encroachment um they've said that their survey is about four weeks out I've been in this business a long time four weeks

quickly turns into eight quickly turns into 12 quickly turns into 16 so we would just ask if we could maybe put like a cap on it that we compare surveys within eight weeks which I think is reasonable given double the amount of time that that their survey requested um that way it doesn't hold up our timeline with the receiver um I'd have to just defer that to staff what does that look like going

forward there a time frame can you put a time frame on it key see with the stipulation would

yeah I mean would the uh would the would the comparison of surveys have to occur before the preliminary plan is is submitted

yes yeah I don't know I mean I I appreciate the concern that you don't want to be held up to the preliminary plan could be held in perpetuity in theory if there's no timeline on it um yeah I mean we our staff usually deals with that I'm not going to sit here and put a time limit on what what something's going to get surveyed which goes with the next piece of process if this is

approved that fair enough Keith yeah it'll certainly be you know taken into consideration no matter what stage it is if there's another survey that shows there's some sort of discrepancy there something we'll all take very serious okay the next item um is um someone had mentioned removing trees in the back that they had seen some pins or Flags The Proposal is to not remove any trees

except for there might be one or two small ones in the front but nothing in the back that is being removed as part of it um um that I know that a lot of people mentioned the church letter and that they're concerned that they won't be a good neighbor but I would just highlight that in the that I represented the applicant as part that easan agreement that the discrepancy that we had was

more of a of a business one when it came down to the paving and how it was going to be done I do know that she did threaten litigation but we resolved that without any issue and then in her own letter she goes on to state that we're good neighbors and that they don't have any problems with any of our tenants and to to go on top of that um I would just

add that that um it is market rate so generally I know people fear uh low uh in come and affordable tenants but we we wouldn't be proposing that as part of this project um then um someone mentioned lighting about lights coming in the back um I just want to alleviate their concern that the regulations require you to be dark sky compliant with new uh proposals which means all lighting must be downward facing and be

shielded so that it's only view that that way that the glare can't go out on other people's property um we already discussed water regulations in the runoff extensively I don't think there's any need for that um and then parking was mentioned but we meet the requirements the state law requires one parking space per unit we actually have excess of of nine that we're proposing versus versus that and then the last one

was just um the screening on the church side with the stone wall the architect did mention that but from what I recall he just said he would look from guidance from the board on what to do because there's a stone wall there the board preferred to preserve it great if they prefer a fence great and that that's Mr chairman thank you thank you very much appreciate it one quick question for you Mr cro

uh a lot of the discussion has really been um and I think from the standpoint of the neighbors um the Landscaping itself and what it would constitute um are you folks ready to commit to putting Evergreen along that back lot uh it seems to me that's really a major part of all this and I think somebody mentioned Arbor ID which I don't think would gain enough height to really provide the type of screening

that the you know property merits um is that something that you folks are willing to agree to now um Mr cook one second so we let me just get how how far apart are you guys the attorney for the residents and you how far apart are you on all of these asks um when it comes to the peer review we're far apart when it comes to the uh in regards to third parties reviewing um

in regards to everything else I think the only other thing I'd say we're far apart on is the also the bonding and then the screening I guess so I wouldn't I don't even I haven't seen a they haven't provided us a proposal either just to say that they want their own landscape architect to review for appropriateness which comes with subjectivity since we meet the zoning ordinance anyways but um

those are the only items that I think we far apart on if I sumarize that right go ahead Mr cple

okay thank you very much Mr C yeah there was a question in the back Mr sis correct yeah we we have no problem with agreeing to Evergreens or tall abraitis along the bag oh one please thank you thank you okay okay thank you that yeah we we we were told that one property is already screened very well and we're going to keep those trees so and I think it's a direct neighbor in the back that

we're discussing so however far along their property would go because I know our fence Line's very long I don't want to commit to the entire length of the back but to what would visually assist them I think we have no problem with that but I would object to of course to the peer review to pay for a third party to review it too since I I don't believe I I think the city has very adequate

resources to handle that review and then we have to have our own landscape architect stamp it too I would agree we do really have good resources for that purpose um and if that issue came up again later I think that's an issue that can be crossed at that point thank you appreciate it thank you very much Mr Grant yes sir Miller the final question that I have for um City staff

um Patrick do you know if the city is really hung up on um moving the proposed trash area even though it sounds like that wasn't really a point of contention or is that something that um the city would be willing to work with the applicant if if we were to Grant some sort of approval uh I think we're very flexible on uh where the trash U receptacle area is where the dumpster is

located I think we would like to see the landscape plan first then we can make plan on the termin thank you thank you Mr Miller um yeah I mean this is a tough one because uh you know I don't what do we do with the building just sitting there and um I am I'm probably inclined to approve master plan with all of the conditions that the neighbors's attorney is asking so that's where I'm at with it

I mean these people have lived there forever I've lived in East Providence 42 years um their concerns or their concerns with a project like this so I mean I don't want to put any added burden on an applicant but these concerns from these neighbors I think is really is something that we as a board need to address so that's where I'm at with it anybody else yeah Mr chairman um I do agree with your point of

view um I think this is a special and somewhat unusual project um I can understand the concerns of all of the uh local residents uh and but I also do have great trust in our planning department um although I will ask them on your behalf to do your absolute best to make this right um the the conditions that were provided by your attorney um most of them really basically are the nuts and

bolts of what we already have in the regulations and I think you're just asking us to make sure we follow the rules um so I can't see any discrepancy any reason to suggest that that's an undue burden on the developer um the only thing I would ask I think uh I don't think do we actually meet the developer here tonight I don't know who that person was

um you may have oh well sir I I I will just say this and I I'm not trying to chastize you uh you may have gotten off on the wrong foot with some of your these local resid resents you're going to be a resident to them they're going to be a neighbor to you and vice versa and um I I wish you the best in making sure that someday when it's all done somebody

from the neighborhood brings you a pie and thank you right because the area is an iore and this project does need to be done thank you Mr crook any other board members please hearing done yeah I just want to say that regarding the conditions here I think we might have to really painstakingly go through them here just because um you know there's a lot of them when you break them out in the neighbor's

requested conditions and you know just even the wording of them make sure is what how about just the the attorney's memorandum um in whole that's what I'm looking at here yeah right great slopes I'd oppose to to the requirement for the peer review for the landscape I would defer to the city on that and would not have that as a St the landscaping for the peer review for the Landscaping no no

sir correct can I ask the city how often we require a thirdparty pair review for Landscape Architects um I haven't seen it I've only been here for about a year and a half just to answer that we we have in the past multiple times uh peer review on a landscape the only thing is a Keith could know better than this if it's got to be something on paper for preliminary right for

landscape but we can address it then and there if if it's something that sta feels it's needed or whatever we've done that in the past so but we need a I mean this is just a concept obviously for the public but um once it comes to preliminary we got a dialed in plan and Landscape is usually on it correct Mr cook I mean it landscape is pretty heavy

on it so I'm not sure at this stage if it's peer review I I could could agree with that um I just want to make sure that the residents get their Fair Shake yeah yeah Mr chairman I think where we've worked with this before uh we recommend it in the case where there is some concern about the adequacy of the landscaping design that was done before let me let me let me flip the whole question

around you see the preliminary plan and the Landscaping design that's on it is absolutely fabulous why would we need to review in that case correct I agree with that right so what we're saying is as a contingency that it would be done if it was felt we needed it at preliminary yes corre if we felt that it was advisable okay have it done Miss Lopes what there was something that's it just that

yes one of the ones I'm looking at too that you know is a valid issue but just the wording of it is one that the developer must correct the storm water flooding problem which is very open to interpretation um that would need to be dialed in a bit so I mean with the storm water um staff is asking for the peer review correct on the storm water um well that I don't know if that's been

decided tonight you know we we talked about before how the city engineer usually reviews those and ask for peer review when he feels it's necessary okay but I I don't want to cut any Corners with these residents though right so again um if you want to try and dial it all in for specific things but I would like to see all of the residents concerns at least adequately met I'm not talking about spending the developers

money on peer reviews um because we do have good staff and when that preliminary plan comes to us it's very detailed and we can pick it apart and approve it or deny it uh any part of it so that's where I'm at with it and the public is the public is always invited to every meeting and can speak and we listen and we you know if we got to address something or remove something or

add something or approve or disapprove that's that's what we do and and Mr CH we do have the latitude to request the peer review ourselves correct right I I just for sake of clarity and simplification and a little bit of cut and paste uh the the one two three four the fourth item all which is the designated smoking area uh why don't we just uh scratch that out and not

consider it so this is now a non smoking Zone get a man and then with that modified language I think that the rest of the four should

go yeah I mean I'm going to need Joel to Joel to unload all Joel you're going to need to all of that for a motion welcome to the planning board if I can clarify Mr crook yes please want to not have the stipulation about a designated smoking area but were you were you looking for some sort of uh condition that smoking is not allowed there or just to eliminate that that's

what we're saying smoke smoking will be prohibited on site that's um I guess my concern which is a little Aran I guess I don't want I don't want smoking to be something that the zoning officer has to investigate if a resident is smoking I I don't really think Joel you could I don't think we can actually control any of that can we I mean if the poor I don't believe the city no I mean

if the applicant if he's got people smoking on his property that's nobody's gonna I mean it's not his fault that would be to the owner of the property least that not the city I mean you could tell him not to but it's not against the law so and nobody's GNA call so I don't I don't get out of it and if someone did call I don't think there's anything the city I think it's minute compared to

what we're what else we're dealing with here with the residents I think the the concerns of the residents are my number one thing right now so um I don't know how you want to decipher it all Keith if you want to give me something on paper there that I can I can do but right now what I would like to do is I'll entertain a motion to enter the documents into the record that

are in the staff memo and include the written eight correspondences from residents with those documents to be entered into the record yeah Mr chairman um I will put the recommendation on the on the record um these are the documents to be entered into the record the following doc documents are being requested to be entered into the record they are plan set last revision 101624 certificate of completeness dated

9924 email from Captain Charles E Carr Fire Marshall dated 10724 email from Edward mental zoning officer dated 10824 memorandum from Stephen J cple Esquire dated 10224 email from Allison Kazarian dat 10102 24 email from Aaron slayen dated 10104 email from Carrie Atwell dated 10824 email from Libby Merill dated 10724 email from Thomas and Margaret Pearson dated 10424 uh and are we also going to add

the other three that we have uh received today and a total of eight and that those would be um the summary of neighbors requested conditions of approval here I got it uh email from Michelle Martins Botello uh dated November 18 20 2024 and give me a document I'll put it on this one thank you sir oh and letter from church of the Epiphany uh dated October 22 2024 motion made by Mr crook seconded

seconded by Mr Miller all those in favor please signify by saying I I I guys have it uh Keith I'm I'm gonna defer to you for how you want to proceed with the uh Xing that or start with the um the ones that were in the staff report P um number one was written as that that a landscape plan storm water plan lighting plan and traffic impact study are submitted by the applicant at the

preliminary stage of review um you might want to add a landscape land naal landscape architect you could also add to that whichever ones we want to be subject your riew traffic impact study we pretty much always have subject to peer review um but this might be the time to decide what we're going to so let's start with the Landscaping so the landscape plan storm water plan light lighting plan and traffic impact

study is submitted by the applicant at the preliminary plan stage of Rue you want to remove some of that is that what you want to do I think we could just um add to it which ones we want to be subject to peer review so we'll add to it which ones we want to peer review traffic is a given but we've sort of debated forth um storm water in landscaping can't we just read these

ones in and then just tack it on yeah we could do that um so let's go with this I'll entertain a motion um there five of them I'll entertain a motion that the planning board Grant conditional approval of the proposed modification of previously approved ldp as proposed subject to the following conditions so in number one that a landscape plan storm water plan lighning plan and traffic impact study is submitted by the

applicant at the preliminary plan stage of review and add which peer review by staff that they would like to do as far as landscape architect fair enough Keith I'm sorry could you repeat that so the landscape plan storm water plan lighting plan and traffic impact study is submitted by the applicant at the preliminary plan stage of review and you're going to add on the landscape architect peer review possibly the

traffic study and the storm water right and I'll entertain that motion on the first one so moved second Mr crook seconded by Miss Lopes all those in favor I I second is that the proposed trash area is moved to the Northeast portion of the pel of the rear parking area to diminish noise and odors that may have potential to impact a budding single family dwellings at 39 milb Road 51 mil Barn

Road and 55 milb road is that correct yeah and this one we talked about just not having okay so we're g to strike have this to have this where the neighbors feel it's uh more beneficial so you want to strike to yeah I think we could right let's strike to that all expenses incurred by the city for the public notification requirements are paid for by the applicant so moved motion made by Mr crook seconded

by Mr Miller all those in favor please say I I that the preliminary plan is based upon the approved master plan and further the preliminary plan and supporting documentation meet the requirements of the East Providence Land Development and subdivision review regulations second on a motion by Mr Miller second by Mr crook all those in favor please say I I I and that the proposal shall meet all

appical city state and of Federal Regulation and requirements moved motion by Mr Miller second by Mr crook all those in favor please say I I all oppos no thank you very much now we do I mean do we want to add other conditions of approval that we're on you tell me let's take a look uh we already have on there landscape plan she'll be subject to a peer review um

just going in in order on theirs the next one was that the developer be required to post a cash bond for the Landscaping in my op I'm not oppos to that in my opinion it's something that maybe we do in the preliminary plan stage rather than the master plan stage again I think we receiv AE that uh I believe he did yeah so we're going to leave that alone for now ke

okay uh we also have that the fence line be completed to protect privacy and deter PR trespassing I didn't see that one say that again that line be completed to protect privacy and deter trespassing um so moved if that's second motion by Mr crook second by Mr Miller all those in favor please say I I I since when they they have proposed was that the rear exterior lighting be dark sky compliant and designed to prevent

light pollution directed towards their properties so moved no motion moved second motion by Mr Brook second by Mr Miller all those in favor please say I I um the next one they I proposed was that the developer must correct the storm water flooding problem um you know covered in a way and the number one we have for them to submit a storm water plan um if we do have this on there I

think it would need some sort of clarifying language don't we really cover this already and I would like to cover that down the road because they're not I mean they're kind of it's I don't think they're adding on to any uh flooding problem over there everything's existing there right now as far as I see um the next one proposes that the developer drainage report be subject to peer review we've already covered that

um cash bond is listed again we've covered that dumpster location covered that designated smoking area we've covered that yes sir

yeah I I have no problem with that I really like the communication between the two of you that's what we're here for right just to try to get it hashed out but then we don't even need to take a stand up no no Mr Burns last one that's proposed here is that um in condition that would require the developer to meet and confer with them meaning the neighbors before final plan approval to compare their surveys

and ensure there are no encroachment issues um that Keith just a quick question on that what what stage would that be if you could read that again final final approval what my question for the city is is that currently expected any applications that would be receiving approval where they would have to do uh an an assessment of like the lot lines to ensure there's no encroachment or is this more like

usually it's just an issue that is reviewed when a type uh when a when a survey is submitted and would that occur beforehand yes preliminary correct yeah prelimary plan is we're going to see it yeah i' that I would I would make a motion for that yeah I think that's all going to be covered PR liim with the staff that they'll take care of that cor Keith yeah that would be reviewed and

you know we made sure we'd look at any other surveys that the neighbors come up wither with the town engineer city engineer also all right I think we've covered everything Jo I think we've covered everything okay yeah I think so so Mr the question is that you know they sort of made motions for each stipulation and I guess that covers everything right it's a I think it does we made motions

for each of the recommendations in the staff report as well as additional recommendation as well as the attorney list I think we're covered the motion I think that was the last one then okay thank you every thank you everybody for coming thank you very much hope we made some progress thank your project appreciate you coming really do thank you very much okay let's uh finish the meeting here if we can please

we could just finish the meeting real quick if you could just leave give us one minute we'll clean it up um next is number five number five is the next scheduled planning board meeting is Monday December 9th 2024 make a motion for that please uh so moved second y motion by Mr Miller second by Miss Lopes all those in favor please say I I and next is can entertain a motion for

adjournment uh just before that just before that hold hold the phone do we have to enter uh approval of the minutes I tabled them we Ted so that is T I don't I didn't get them in my packet yeah I didn't either okay uh motion to adjourn so yes second all those in favor I I

oh wow that is a tough you must have memory