1.24.2024 Redevelopment Authority

uh welcome to the Wednesday January 24th 2024 meeting of the Redevelopment Authority recording of the Open Session willed at government television ww. gv.

us person went to the up open meeting law any person may make an audio or video recording of this public meeting trans meting for Medi are therefore Adis transmission are being made whether perceived or UNP perceived by those present and deemed acknowledged and admissible call and ke and um Ron rusin is not in attendance uh also participating on SAR paage executive director Council Kim fola who I believe

coming a little bit later please come later yeah and Karen Martin our project manager and executive assistant um public hearing potential end demand taking property known as assessor map 229 on D Street anyone an interested in speaking dur in public hearing please sign me which I believe you did under the provisions of mgl c 121b and 760 cmr2 I he open the public hearing potential and Main taking property known

as assessor map 22 9 onal Street Corner ofal Turner Street be heard State their name and address for the record each person will be given three minutes to speak please your comments to the chair and liit comments only to the subject matter of this public hearing any written comments received uh by the RDA executive director prior to this public hearing will also be considered part of

the record of this public hearing I don't believe we receive that no okay um so I'm going to open up the hearing to uh any any of the speakers well I I believe it's just me so um my name's uh RJ Richie I'm a director of legal services for Liberty Utilities New England natural gas company Corp um DBA Liberty and um we are currently the the owners of the subject property here so um I did want

to want to make a brief comment um which is basically that U Liberty has been in discussions about the possibility of selling this property um since January of last year and have um and it has been working um with that party to try to reach an accommodation and an agreement on what the fair market value of that property is um unfortunately um we haven't been able at this point to to

reach um an agreement on that um but Liberty would just want to reiterate as it as it has um to that party that um it's a uh it's an entity that's um you know been um in this community for now at least a little over 10 years and um we take um our place uh and our um obligation to to serve uh our customers in this community but also to be a good

corpor citizen very seriously and so um we've uh we've always uh tried to support um any City initiatives and we understand how important this project uh is to the city and um and really look forward um to collaborating with the city um in any way that we can and so um again we are we'd um you know would be happy to um discuss uh with f um uh you know any type of uh

accommodation that we could reach um with respect to this property and um we're you know sort of ready willing and able um to participate in in that process and you know just want to um be sure that it's clear that you know Liberty is is not trying in um in any way to be uh a roadblock to uh the development of the Waterfront thank thank you AJ Could you um could Karen just get all the contact

information that way if if we want to reach out after this meeting we know yeah certainly I have I have my card so I can um I can give that to her as well app and Johnny just for the record um I'd like to incorporate all the urban renewal Amendment documents including the approval by dolc all all of those documents should be incorporated into this public hearing as part of the

record we have all of those documents that were submitted to the state the approval all of that should be part of this hearing so whenever we put together the package at the end we should include all of that okay thank you thank you RJ anybody else uh we'll be in touch yeah look forward to that okay uh since there no uh coms motion to close the public hearing yes M yes thanks a lot for

coming all right thank you thanks appreciate it sorry to make come out for no no problem warmer yeah we'll turn up the thermostat have a good evening and my my cell number is is the best if you want to just put put an as to that y great thank you thank you have a good night so uh bo I need a motion uh to make a determination to the property

known as s 22 lot 9 on Street m is eligible to be taken by demand as a decent substandard of blight in open area under the Waterfront Urban uh renewal plan as amended do I have a motion Mo second second John ER yes yes John madas yes K yes John we have to do another one no okay we're good uh next item is uh approval of uh the Open Session minutes

from uh December 12th 2023 any comments on that questions anything no no good uh need a motion to approve motion to approve the Open Session minutes of December 12 2023 yes yes yes next item is war have 7,000 total anybody have any questions on that

one no questions so entertain a motion to approve the January warrant in the amount of 17,869 approve the warrant as as presented second John yes yes Jo madas yes thank you uh next item is the audit for fiscal year 2022 uh Joe you going to speak to that it's not 2022 yeah yeah the audits for 2022 the one before we're just starting 2023 okay so missing that

yeah um I do take a look at the audit um as presented on Allen uh for f 2022 and substantially looks fine nothing no glaring issues um for presenting our our financial position um and I would uh recommend acceptance of the audit as presented so I just need a motion to direct um CLA to finalize that 2022 audit and based on Jones approv uh authorized the executive dress excuse me executive director and Treasurer to

assign the CLA representation letter accepting the 2022 audit I can't make the motion I make the motion second second yes M yes thank you um seems like we have a Karen is this a duplicate uh are we doing the same thing on the next thing no this is so we can it's the proposal for this year's order yes I didn't have the one previous okay uh uh following up on that

I'll a motion to accept the quote from clo to provide audit services for a fiscal year ending December 31st 2023 and authorized the chair to sign the quote dated 112 2024 in the amount of $26,000 motion to approve second John yesc yes John yes and yes thank you uh next item City here doc update Karen's going to bring us up the date on what's going on over there yes uh um so City

Pier itself is um pretty much all closed up for the winter the only thing um from the winter or well it's lingering from the last meeting is um Shephard group did um we did enter into a um a small contract with unit prices for them to help us with any type of you know maintenance issues on any of our properties so that did get executed um right around the holidays so um we have

that on board to see what the demand is and see if we're going to need to utilize it much in 2024 so that's good the docks themselves are technically now 100% complete um in the um warrant was the final bill from Coastal and the final bill from beta engineering um so all costs from that are pretty much wrapped up tight in this warrant and um we're looking forward to opening them in the spring um we're

still trying to um coordinate with the Harbor Master and work with the city to see what we're going to actually get for support to help out with the docks and um uh you know we may have to think about um you know some outside help potentially because we don't really know what the demand's going to be there um you know we need someone to really be looking at the Docks making sure they

they're um being maintained properly and that storms aren't damaging and stuff like that so um I don't have a lot of marine experience so we might have to do some Outreach for that but we we'll see as time time moves on it's pretty protective in that area but um I think that you know we definitely want to stay on top of it they're a great system there were a lot of money we want to

make sure we maintain them properly so um we will definitely um be looking into taking care of them the only other thing that has come up is um our insurance uh provider did their site inspection and they want us to install no swimming signs and um fire extinguishes I've talked with the um the fire department the city fire department and the um inspectional Services guys who do handle

the um fire extinguishers and it looks like we're probably going to need seven to eight of those and they just we're going to probably I've um got to call the two um local fire extinguisher companies and see about probably Mount them in a cabinet on one of the on the piles they have to be every like 75 ft and um we will put them the fire extinguisher in the cabinets for the season and then at

the end of the Season Take the fire extinguishers out so they don't freeze over the over the winter so I got to get a price for that and we'll probably install those whenever you know probably March April when the weather permits and we put the gang way down so it'll probably be sometime late late March early April and we'll um you have to do no swimming signs um and those will have

to be at roughly the same um spacing as the fire extinguishers per the insurance and so it's going to be like seven of those too and they'll Pro they'll just be a a as far as as I can understand they have no particular parameters for what the sign needs to be so it'll be similar to those signs we put on the no fishing I'm going to put no swimming surveillance cameras in use and that'll

probably be right in the same area as fire extinguishes so it doesn't look like a billboard you're walking down the dogs so um so that'll all be things the insurance company did agree that it was okay to wait and do that once we open the uh the docks um in the spring so that um I'm going to be working on getting proposals on all that so that is forthcoming so Karen is it just in the

area of the docks or is it all over it's just just the area of the docks yep just that's what triggering it because we have the docks yes so um it's just along the dockway so um so that is that did they they put the white caps on yes yeah yes and the Caps are all pointing in the right direction now some of them you know the piles are tough because they're not all even and

they're not all um uh dimensionally perfect so but the at least the Caps are all pointing in the right direction so um it looks good the dogs look really good um and that's because we use the best kind of piles you can get yeah but they're just not dimensionally perfect yeah so it's a six one half it do but it um it looks good it looks really good uh on the uh the beta close

out one of you guys want to speak to that the environmental yeah we uh so uh beta is working on the environmental close out I sent in the package the um proposed um aul limits the draft plan for um uh for the activity and use limit plan so basically it shows the whole parcel of 600 Deval Street the aul limit uh is roughly the whole parcel is roughly 6 Acres the aul is 2.9 acres and

it basically encompasses the PE property from just on the walkway side of the property where you know where the walkway comes up from point Gloria and then runs parallel to dval Street and then down both peers so basically the whole Pier section of that property will have the aul applied to it and we just have to give beta um our approval of this and then they will proceed with um

uh the next phases of the close out and they're hoping based on um some back and forth emails with Joe at beta he says that they're shooting for the end of February or the beginning of March to be completed with that close out so um so we just need a a vote on this okay so I need a motion to approve the draft activity and use limitation plan dated 12923 600 Wall Street

second yes M yes and yes thank you awesome event 24 um I don't we don't really have too much of an update we are planning to get together with the um the team probably in the next week or two uh we want to start talking about budgeting and and finalizing some dates for the events uh we are probably going to also talk about um you know we want to do that opening

for the docks so we're probably going to Banter around what we want to do and how much um you know the RDA will probably need to sponsor that event so we'll have to think about what we want to do and and costs and so forth but I hopefully we'll bring more stuff to the um febrary meeting think we can sail the Mayflower in there or something well we could ask

you know or the Constitution we can have that brought down does have to turn around every so often kind of um we can unleash the battleships and have them come over tall ships are coming in are they I don't know I think either this year or 26 something like that yeah yeah look into that um so more to come on that and then um the improvements to the northern portion AKA what is it North

spit Northern spit we're calling it Northern point I like spit better point we can call it internally spit I didn't make that up that's what it said on the map well I think the engineer put that on there but you know it was a Friday afternoon we don't know where that came from but when we were writing the proposal Northern Point seemed a little more tasteful and so the good news what you got in your mailings

is that I'm going tomorrow to the state house to present uh for three minutes what our proposal is and the fact that we've been asked to present pretty much means where they've looked very favorably on it and they will vote on it tomorrow and so what we gave you are pictures that were taken by a drone I'd never gone out with a drone before so that was really interesting um the uh the program

officer of the seaport economic um Council said that um she thought it would be good to show slides that are aerial slides so uh we didn't have any really so we went out and took them and I'll be walking people through the fact that the slide with the City Pier in it uh will have Moorings on either side and then you see the Northern spit there and will'll be red developing that and that will enable us

to have a place for people to fish and we will have um Seaside vegetation um it will be a less formal kind of landscape than the city here is and we'll deal with the erosion and rebuilding some rebuts and revetments and um dealing with the rip wrap that's kind of washed away in areas so we'll really be Shoring up the structure and so that's um that's the primary part of our application but then the city would

really like a third moing field or a third New moing Field up near the uh boat ramp that's open by Centennial Park And so there's a picture there of that area and that um Waring field area so that's what I'll be presenting and I thought I'd share these photos with you and um I expect that to be a really good meeting to attend the mayor will be attending it um virtually okay thanks thanks s um let's

see next uh Pleasant Street Flint um so we haven't made gang Buster progress um uh I spoke or had some email communication with Emily this week they um she's continuing to work with tyan bond for the um the meepa uh requirements and they're working on the E EF um we're hoping to get the um final well or the draft to go to d d hlc of the urban renewal plan by the end of

next week and we're going to review it at our monthly call which is the following week February 7th I think is our call and as long as everyone's in agreement we're going to then submit to hlc and they'll take 30 days to review that draft and we'll get some comments back and in the meantime the meepa stuff will all be gting along in the background with Ty and bond so hopefully

um uh by the time we get the comments back from hlc we'll um have something from tyan bond that we can um submit and get that moving forward also and I don't really think much else I want to add on to that um that last year um for the OneStop application we applied for funding for um this project on the waterfront and this year I'm hoping we'll app apply for funding for something related to the

Flint neighborhood so um you know I'm not sure that's where we'll go but basically we have our kickoff meeting with City staff on uh Monday that Jasmine the grant writer has called and uh last year we found that um the city could apply for a grant in the planning category could apply and then there's a lot of massworks applications you can put in so Paul furland will be figuring

out what water and sewer applications to put in um so we're uh I talked with Dan egar and we're going to encourage Paul to put in applications for the water um the water lines that need to be added to Alden Street because we really want to redevelop Alden Street but you've got to get those water lines in before you want to you know want to rip it up before you

then redo it and more new development is coming to Alden Street and it's a street that has lots of sidewalks in areas that are really not accessible the seniors who live in some of the developments there feel like walking uh the sidewalks is really difficult and it is so um so that's what that's another hope is we need to figure out how to get funding for all the work that we planned and so

that's um that's one thought and then the other um possibility is that we could ask for planning funds to start planning the improvements that need to be made on Pleasant Street and while we're we applying for State money we know that um Congressman aen Claus is working on an ear Mark that he hopes will be able to help the Flint so um his earmark might be for infrastructure uh implementation and I'm

not sure we have all the plans that we need so um this is just giving you a flavor of what we're thinking about and talking about and next meeting I'll have more definitive sense of where all of the city staff and our input kind of ends up and um then the I think it's in early February we need to put um a letter of interest in and you don't have

to but that means that you get feedback so we get feedback about an application and then the applications I think aren't due until June maybe so we have plenty of time to write the application but this is the time to really conceptualize what we want to go for and I'm really happy we have this process with the city staff and our grant writer and Seth joins and we just talk about you know

what should we apply for and last year we couldn't apply for half of what we wanted to apply for but they did get funding for a parking study and that's um we've got proposals for that and Karen and I have been asked to review them nice so so that's a little addition to the Flint neighborhood update you want to um just update on the uh master plan yep so we had our first

kickoff meeting with uh our Consultants at stantech and uh many of them came in virtually from wherever they were and participated and we had a few um with us in our meeting and we are starting our first um we're going to have uh conference calls um once a month uh every two weeks and um I guess they'll be on Zoom or and so we'll get together and talk about where everybody is in the

process and right now their focus is on getting data looking at the mass do plans um really looking at all the economic analysis and so that's going to be the next month or so that's really the focus and um so we'll have our first call lots of people Johnny will be there uh Ken Karen uh Dan aiar and me and uh many of the team of consultants and we'll just have up to an hour call to

talk about where we are where we're going and and I think having these every two weeks will be very helpful because it will keep everybody um focused and moving forward so it's very exciting to have gotten that going yeah it's a really it's a really impressive group of people it is all different they have all different uh Specialties and I think we made the right choice comfortable and I'll give a little

update on the mortgage discharge that we voted on at the last meeting uh it went through we received $100,000 when the sale went through and so that was a nice present for us right before Christmas and um so we resolved that well and um received $100,000 yeah anything else no I think that's everything for me okay uh the chair makes a finding an open session would have a detrimental effect

on negotiating position with the public body purpose of the executive session is to approve the executive session minutes from December 12th 2023 and discuss strategy with respect to real estate transactions at assessor map 22 lot 9 on Ball Street and 191 Commerce Drive both locations are Fall River um I need a motion to enter into executive session and not to return to open and not to not to return to open session

motion to enter into executive session not to open session yes M yes thanks everybody