10.23.24 Redevelopment Authority

R okay W folks welcome to the October 23rd 2024 meeting of the Fall River Redevelopment Authority uh person went to the open meeting law any person may make an audio or video recording of this public meeting or may transmit the meeting through any medium attendees are therefore advised that such recording or transmission are being made whether perceived or unperceived by those present and are deemed acknowledged and

permissible start with the roll call John Erikson Lis kzel Ron rusen yeah and ke uh Joan um M could not attend tonight we also have participating Sarah paage our executive director John coplin legal council Kenny Viola administrative consultant and Karen Martin project manager first item is to excuse me approve the uh minutes from September 25 any questions on those if not I'll entertain a motion to accept second

second yes lcos yes Ron ring yes yes thank you next item is the October warrant which Joan has gone through total is 9677 any questions on that if not I want a motion to approve motion to approve the warrant for October 2024 in amount of 9677 29 second second thank you johnon yes Lis K yes Ron Ron yes and ke yes okay um next item oh uh a few weeks ago

uh Sarah Joan and I got together um with our long overdue uh review and uh I'll uh there's an amendment to um the employment agreement uh for Sarah um entertain a motion to approve the the amendment to the employment agreement I just I sorry I haven't read it yet I just seen I did print it but I haven't so this is going from starting January of this year which is already

passed Y and it's going for one year no no till 2026 October 4th 2026 that's the term yeah extended that's the whole I've usually since the beginning I've had a three-year contract but there's a review yeah that can occur each year okay why are we doing a month a year and 10 months any reason why we're ending October 4th 2026 well my original start date was October uh 4th that's theary

date and so then it my increase was moved to January 1st because of just time and Joan and Johnnie suggested that we um make up for that okay motion to approve to have motion to have John sign us on our behalf the amendment to employment agreement for sah second second yes bcos yes Ron R yes and thank you uh Karen going to update the uh audit 2023 fiscal year yes the

2023 fiscal year and audit we were um close to having it finalized and then when it went through the quality control qaqc within um the auditor's office they are um recommending that we change how we're recognizing the um uh the revenue from the school 2501 South Main Street as a purchase versus lease Jan Sarah and I met with them yesterday to discuss it it's a little up in the air how we really want to do that

um uh there the gasb standards actually go into play in 2025 it looks like but they're recommending that you handle these type of capital assets um that you purchase for potential sale in a a different way as of um current so um we're going to hem that we're going to look that over a little bit more detail and determine make a final decision and then that we'll be able to finalize the

um audit so um hopefully by next meeting we'll be able to say it's a wrap so if they want you to change as if current why can't we accept 2023 so part so part of the problem is is we bought a building it's a capital asset and we so and it was um we're releasing it to the school department so that's um you know deferred inflow of of money and which we

would just take over time as each month goes by what they're saying is it's a building that could you could potentially be reselling and that was probably the intent of why you bought the building that you should actually count it as a sale in 2023 as opposed to deferring all the income to come in over time and so it's more like substance over form and it's just a matter of it's it's purely accounting auditing has

nothing to do with the re the real world of how you handle it and the legal ease of it and all so that that's that's that's what they're um recommending right now there'll be no more ta tax consequences if we do it all in one year we don't pay taxes so it doesn't so so it doesn't really impact Us in that way if we did there'd be a much these um accounting standards are for you know

government state municip municipality so you know none of them are tax so it's a little bit different than if it was you me or anyone else a business so right thank you uh okay next item excuse me 1151 Innovation Way map W9 lot5 the uh two Covenant uh waiver requests which is uh the Kelly engineering attachment with um the two waivers regarding Frontage setback and loading facilities um if

there are't any questions on that I'll entertain a motion to approve those two ra waiver requests are we okay with this no okay no no the trees are in the right place the I don't know where the trees are supposed to be I don't know what the bo would be they B the right way I had brought it to you before they did this more appropriate W request and since then they've done more extensive

landscape plan it clearly shows um the a good buffer and they are including irrigation and I've gone over the CC you know the covenants with them because they kept saying oh we're meeting all the covenants and then I'd say well are you needing this and so they're agreeing that um they this is the only um requests of waivers that they're making now and that they will give plans when

they give them to the building inspector for the building permit and at that point they will potentially ask for other waivers but they know the few things that aren't covered yet that they have to put in their final PL so we've gone back and forth and I have a letter here that Johnny can sign that specifically States at the bottom that we look forward to reviewing the final plans when they submitted to us and for

final approval so I think we're covered in every way why aren't they asking for all their waivers now they're not allowed to well they they have to go through a final approval and um final approval by who us okay it's in this covenants I have like memorized right I understand but usually all the wave of requests come at once why are they Poss them out because as you can see in the

covenants they have the right to ask for tell me it's okay to build my building in this configuration which is really what this is about can they have truck parking on the side and we they have to get written approval from us so they want that written approval now and then we'll they'll show they haven't shown us anything that demonstrates it will be lead they haven't put the bike rack on

and a couple of other things so they really need to know that they can keep spending money on Architects and we're not going to come back and say oh you're putting the building in the wrong place so and the way the covenants are written it clearly has a couple of things upfront that say you need you know written approval for this if you're going to flip your building around so

and then Pages down it says you have to bring your final plans so you know well we I think they have every right to ask for these two waivers and then maybe they'll have more maybe they won't where are they in site they're they're in the middle of it they sent me all of questions and issues he said that he believed that they were um conforming to um Zing well zoning but also um the site

plan review covenants but also the covenants for the park but but Dan doesn't discrimination no no he doesn't but he but you would think you would say that if they have plans Advanced enough for site plan review yeah that they would be asking for those covenants now or those waivers now as part of their site plan review because the plans for site plan review are pretty Advanced right that's

not what the Covenant say the Covenant say that they have to give us their final plans when they give them to the building department I don't see it's I don't think he says that it does I'll show it to you I brought it cuz I expected you to uhoh well I I wrote those so I don't been some time a long time ago it's a long time ago just yesterday it happens to the best of us

can so we do a motion on this they should all at the same time approve the wave request pending approval of final plans yeah you're only doing two pieces of okay they got to come back all right perfect cuz they Haven I can see cuz site plan review I a plan for a one unit building they come back with 10 12 different requests maybe that's what they're thinking that you know they

don't want to do one request because Danny's going to change Danny doesn't ever ever accept the first one never never never never happens and then even on the second one he says and then after that before you do build I want you to do this I'm like I do that I get an engineer to do it all at once and it just aggravates you but it happens so what am I looking at here because it

says upon receipt of adequate and sufficient plans and specs the F shall within 60 days after notify the grantee of its writings and approval and and at the bottom it says the plants need to be given to us at the same time they're submitted for a building permit and they're not there yet says such approval however will be conditioned upon certification by granting that the same plans inspects as

submitted to the F for approval have been submitted to the building inspector and then we have two months to approve them I don't I don't think it's a big deal I just never seen it done like this usually they have all usually they have all their waivers up front right because now we're we're partially approving waivers subject that I I I don't know well we're approving two waivers when we

haven't approved their project so we could come back and say well great we approved those waivers but we're not going to approve it because it's not lead or something else okay ready for a motion uh yes I a motion move that 1151 and Innovation Way map W19 lot 185 Covenant wave request be approved pending approval of the final plans by this board second second J yes yes yes and ke yes thank you okay I

think that covers everything yeah I think it's l that's pending approve the final approval sub to final approval Karen you going to talk about Martin Pier yes um so we are um going to pull the water meter down at City Pier on Tuesday uh the 29th and then once that's done I'll notify the irrigation guys to do blow out all the lines and close it up for the winter and I talked

to Tim today um the landscape guy he's planning to have everything um cut down and cleaned up final by Thanksgiving so um so it'll all be put to sleep soon um the environmental close out um Sarah's working with Joe on just some final revision so I'm really hoping by the next minute um meeting I can say that um it's been submitted the per um the final permanent solution so we're we're uh

we're down to the wire on that um and cathodic protection we had our kickoff meeting today uh we met with um Carlos from foth the dive team and um the C cathodic protection specialist say that 10 times fast and um the plan is is that next they're hoping right now the diver's just got to go back and um double check his schedule with his team but they're going to try to get out

there next week to do the site survey and then once the site survey is done they'll get that information to the um cathodic protections um engineer and then he'll start drawing up his um design documents and we're hoping to have a draft by the middle end of December so that should kind of progress along nicely um and will be done this year or will be done in Spring the so once we

get the design um um in a f like a shape where we it's good to go um we'll have to start the permit and we just have to put the concom and we have to put a notice in with the amior engineer so we're hoping to get bid documents pulled together and every a bid package ready for like may I think we said today so that's our kind of our

Target so is the is the site survey they they were going to do next week is that all underwater or um they'll be um actually going to be Carlos will be at top and he's going to chalk off I think they do like every 50 ft and then what they do is um he does some magnetic thing on the top where they send you know they figure out the depth to the

mud underneath and then um this the diver is down low and he pops up and tells them what to write then they go to the next 50 ft and he goes down checks it pops up it's you know kind of tedious they're going to actually the they're going to push a dolly around on the site so the guy up the top will have the dolly and so they're not going to

actually use a boat the diver is going to go right off the dock and into the yeah so he's not even going to bring a boat so and they'll have tanks in the truck so yeah they won't need a boat for that so that's good um anything new on uh Northfield uh yeah Northfield um we just got today I was hoping to have something to really um show and talk about tonight but we literally we've for

the past two days had some issues with getting copies of the plans printed but it's resolved um I so we got the plans this afternoon and I'm just going to start we're going to start reviewing them I talked to bill at beta we're going to have um like an initial round of comments back to them next week and then I'm um we're targeting to have something to really show everybody at the next meeting

good um SAR do you want to talk about um flint and Deval and the her yes so Ken and I had a call with Emily inis of inis Associates to talk about where we should go with the NEPA uh requirements and their certificate for our environmental um uh e our uh environmental notification form and they're requiring that we do a whole other uh form for them and that's an environmental impact report and they um

pulled out lots of things that we mentioned that the city is doing and so we're thinking that one way to make this far less complex is to push back and say while we mentioned the city is doing these things they're not in the purview of the Redevelopment Authority and we cannot be responsible for commenting on these and so we realize that part of the problem is that we may have given them

more information than we should have because we didn't that whole neighborhood um road map for revitalization what nothing I've just noticed you don't have a microphone oh but I sh AR so um so we included the whole road map for neighborhood revitalization they really had a lot of program elements and they pulled those and and there are elements that really require the city to agree with them ultimately and put these

programs in place and so we're thinking now that we should resubmit our urban renewal plan because they allow you to do that they say if you've revised your urban renewal plan since you sent it in with your first um you know your first documents then put in the new one and if we remove that there are a lot of things that um would no longer apply and we put that in as an

attachment so uh or an appendix so um one of the things that really is getting balled up is that we were told we had to pick something in the um in the area to do this armat test so an engineer runs it through a computer and looks at um you know some of the issues are how many years is this um structural change going to last and will it last through climate

change and so we took Stafford Square which we mentioned a few places in there and had Engineers run that and included that so now they want all kinds of analysis about Stafford Square which is not our project and you know we could engage with the city and the water department and try to work through all of that but but tie and bond says it'll be 20 to 25,000 to go through that and

that's not even our time or the city's time so we have a few different options and we haven't decided yet exactly which one to pursue um we could also limit the area of the urban renewal plan but that would require that we redo all the maps so um so we need to talk with tyin Bond and just figure out what we think our most strategic approach will be and I guess I should say you know we

looked at just don't don't proceed with the urban renewal plan because this is so crazy uh proceed with it to the extent that we get city council approval and uh the housing Department's approval and wait until we decide we really need it completed because it's pending meepa approval and or a couple of different ways to try to simplify it um one of the fears with the way that we're thinking about is that they might

say Well since you've so dramatically changed your urban renewal plan now you need to go back and do your original environmental notification form again so we need to really analyze this more any thoughts on that you've been nodding a lot in no I just the whole process of things is always makes sense know on doing what has been done to get things to pass so that's that update uh on the Deval Street corter

master plan we took Congressman aen Claus on a tour and that was really um really good and he was really interested and he and his staff are interested in helping in any way they can so um we've done that and um we got a lot of comments back from the public open houses or the open house and um nothing was really surprising um I think one of the questions that people still have is what

the maximum height of buildings will be and um people were asking about the right Street bridge and how it should be a fishing pier and there were a lot of comments of various kinds in here but one that really stood out was wanting to see trees around parking areas and trees around the whole development some shade trees um one was wanting a rooftop restaurant bar which people assume will

be built into it um one was a fountain and a couple of people were interested in requiring historic building materials especially Fall River Granite so that's just a little nothing that I think we aren't you know isn't a possibility so I figured pcking would be the big one huh I figured pocking would be a big one well there were a lot of questions about parking people someone commented that it

was would be good to have parking at the MBTA station as an overflow um and there weren't as many comments on that as I think we expected but we bent over backwards to explain where parking would be so how did they even find out about the uh but how did they find out about the uh train that's going up on it how do they even know about that ask about it discussed it oh he

discussed at the thing Al so he said that besides his pocket there maybe over there than he asked about that overflow yeah I just wondering how they found all I I didn't know about it I don't think overflow is not deing yeah right I mean they're I'm not sure that this was referring to the decking I think oh you just R more using the parking over there okay get I didn't realize how they knew

the the decking was going was a possibility that it would be decked but there was no Cy about it yeah so in terms of the developers is hym still tomorrow is that zoom and then CCF is next week3 November 13 November oh November okay so we are continuing to introduce developers to what we're you know our draft master plan and to get their feedback and hopefully to interest them to potentially pursue it later on when

we're at that point did did did we already do the one with the provence guys with the PE that's next week that's NE that's next week that's the zoom that's that's next week okay did Jake got it do we ask jakeob about if he would uh I don't know how to say this that the Redevelopment Authority take over the project is he in favor of it did you anybody ask him that question would he

have any decision on that I don't think we've discussed it no do you know if he's in favor of not I have no idea no idea would it help if he was in favor of it I think we got to take one step at a time okay Sarah is the is the downtown her different from the one you just discussed that's a different status yeah so I haven't really reported much on the

downtown urban renewal plan um and and there are some uh new developments that will be useful for us uh there's a new TDI fellow uh Jim mck who got that TDI District going with us um was promoted and he's in a much higher position at Mass development and um they did a serious search and included me in the um interview process along with Michael Sullivan and Patty rioo and um Ashley

from frack and um so we ended up Mass development hired Nick schonberger and um he's had a few meetings I know he met with Ken we're trying to schedule a meeting ah okay I I thought it had happened um he has a lot of good experience he did work in Somerville D on their covid Relief Fund for small businesses he um did an outdoor dining grant program in Somerville and he worked with the CDC

the Codman Square CDC which is a kind of nationally renowned Community Development Corporation and he um has an interest and a lot of experience working on um food uh food establishments in um downtowns in cities like Fall River and so they're hoping to build into this space on Troy street where frack and um Fall River mocha is um they're hoping to have some kind of um they're calling it like a food food court where

entrepreneurs would have little um opportunities to um have a cafe or various food offerings so he's going to be working with the owner of the building and with um Frack to see um if that can happen which would be great because every time there are events over there um there's not an easy well Scotties is around the corner but you know if you could have a cafe right there that would

be great so you mean like in that back room or yeah well there's a side room that is under construction and then there's a back room and it doesn't look like a ton of space but um they believe it's enough space to do something around who's who's they uh Mass development is funding it and uh I guess I guess my point is why are they making those decisions in a vacuum as opposed is that the best

location are there other locations that may be better located well the other thing I was going to say is we're putting a partnership back together again and so the partnership could say well that's not the best idea I'm just that's a little bit off the Beaten Track there I'm not sure how many you know it's a good building you know it's nice for what it's speak I'm just not sure how many people that would it's

not a hight traffic area I me if you're going to if you're going to sustain a food court or you're going to sustain something I think you're going to need to have more traffic so you can talk with them about that yeah just because that's the first time hear yeah so I guess it's been in the plans for a while um BCC was interested at one point to bringing their Hospitality program there part of

the thinking is that um Frack is Staffing the larger space and um you know it's a space that mass development invested in and they're willing to um they want to see if that's a possibility yeah I'm just saying the infrastructure for food CTS is expensive yeah yeah you're talking depending on how big it is you could easily be $100,000 if not more and food court may be the wrong name for it they were

talking about communal kitchen but it's not really you know it's not you can't bring your jelly and go meet jelly there in that kind of communal kitchen so um so it's still very much in the conceptual phase okay thanks but it's great to have him here and the other thing is that the business improvement district attempt Took a ton of time and energy and kind of derailed some of the

other things we were thinking about so some of that energy is being picked up by the development on puras street and their linking with um uh Jerry Donovan's um uh dunnies and there's kind of a little group of restaurants they really starting to collaborate on special events and um doing things together so uh Patty's starting to call it the dining district and um we're hoping to

get a number of people um in who are in that area to get together and um you know expand the partnership that we've had that is not you know the people who were in the original partnership probably aren't the ones who want to be in it now I think we're assuming you're in it I don't know yeah nobody's ever I I guess my point it died it it really yeah

CU this is the first I'm learning about all this so I have no opinion what I think it's a good idea I just don't know enough about it to comment intelligently about it so the thinking is we'll have a meeting with people in December and invite you and a bunch of other people and say okay we had an old partnership do you want to help think about a new approach and we'll see you know you

all have signed on to the partnership agreement originally and then an amendment of it a year or so ago so um so that was kind of our uh formal involvement do you know if the new the new Viva um location there is that actually open yet yeah it is it is and they're redoing the they're creating a patio okay and that patio will be able to be a place for little events and um

music and so that helps create this concept of a dining area that you can go over to tequila lime and then you can stop by and listen to some music and go to the Belmont and you know um that's the thinking but it's very early good anybody have any other uh questions if not um chair makes a finding that an open session would have a detal effect on the negotiating position of the public body

the purpose of the executive session is to approve the executive session minutes from September 25th 2024 discuss strategy with respect to potential real estate transactions for properties located at assessor map 22 lot 9 on the street at the corner of Turner Street and at 45 anaan Street Fall River I'll entertain in the motion to enter into executive session and we will not return

to open session I'll make a motion to go into executive session with the intention of not coming back second second John ER yes lcons yes r r yes and ke yes thanks everybody