7.11.22 Conservation Commission

welcome to the fall road conservation commission uh meeting being held at public hearing on monday july 11th 2022 at 5 30 in the first floor hearing room one government center forward for mass pursuant to open meeting laws any person may make an audio or video recording of the public meeting or may transmit the meeting through any medium attendees are therefore advised that such recordings

or transmissions are being made whether perceived or unperceived by those present and are deemed acknowledged and permissible can we start with roll call chris boyle louis ferrara john brandt jim kusick paul emerald okay also we have tonight dan aggie our conservation agent nina pavo recording clerk gary letts from frgtv and we're missing uh james hornsby tonight first on the business old business

we have a request for a certificate of compliance sc-24-722 owner applicant is juan fernandez uh project locations 178 lake avenue cessna's map is d-21-006 followed by alexander guruzki on behalf of the applicant an applicant requesting a certificate of compliance and this was tabled from june 6 2022 meetings uh commission members if you remember we had tabled this while they were in the process of getting the zoning

some zoning reviews and also an additional permit from the city council both of those permits have been secured all the work on the site's been completed sites completely stabilized i would recommend that you issue the appropriate certificate of compliance okay can i have a motion for a certificate of compliance so moved second second uh roll call vote hi all right aye aye okay motion passes

uh next is a notice of a tent sc-24-803 owner applicant is blunt realty llc blunt fine foods project location is 630 current road assessments map is z-03 a portion of lot 2 lot 66 and 65 filed by a level design group on behalf of applicant the african purpose is to construct an additional 19 100 square foot manufacturing addition and 4065 square feet of maintenance addition to an existing warehouse

office facility this was table from june 6 2022 meeting again commission members i uh spoke with the attorney representing the applicant as well as their engineer dan campbell this afternoon they are requesting a continuance of tonight's hearing i had met with them prior to the last meeting with a lengthy list of proposed or required revisions to their plan set which they were in the process of doing

it they have sent me a draft letter in response to the comments that i have given them through both the notice of intent filing and site plan review i will be meeting with them tomorrow to go through all those items and they anticipate being ready for the next year okay in august so can i have a motion to table to uh like august's first meeting

next new business request for a certificate of compliance se-24-376 owner applicant of eastern piping and engineering inc project location is 866 warren street assessor's map is f-01-008 filed by stephen r pereira of prior law on pc on behalf applicant applicant has requested a compliance indicating the lapse of the order conditions no work related by said order good morning mr chairman martin good morning

uh this came up as a title issue uh apparently the clients in 2002 uh had obtained the order of conditions since i did not represent them at that time i simply inquired what had transpired and from what i understand it was simply a cost benefit analysis when they determined that to build i think it was a walking bridge between a parking lot and and the factory they said the cost was just prohibitive

they did not understand that they had to take some action as a result of this and as i say it came up as a title issue with the pending sale of the building so we're requesting the certificate so that we can put it on record and clear the title any questions no attorney borrow yes sir um stephen yes for the record meeting just make sure that you put down stephen ferraro

um attorney for error is correct there was an order issued i visited the site no work has been done that was authorized in that order so we checked the box on the certificate of compliance form just saying that no work was done and that the order is seized so can i have a motion of certificate of compliance i'll make a motion to issues to the compliance second uh roll call vote hi all right all right

hi hi okay welcome pass thank you thank you sir thank you mr chairman and commissioners uh next is a request for certificate of compliance nc-24-201 owner applicant is family homes construction project location is 76 78 76 78 august street assessor's map is 1-26-0-0036 filed by alfonso borges requesting a certificate of compliance commission members i was able to go out and look at the site

nina was great with pulling in some old files and different perimeters that had been around so again this was brought up again by i believe a finance or a sales situation where there were two outstanding orders of conditions for this property one actually i think it was file number four so the fourth order conditions that the city ever issued uh which we're not necessarily dealing with now um so there

was an order conditions that was issued for the construction of this subdivision the roadway work the detention ponds drainage utilities nothing specific to this law however all of the land that's part of the original subdivision plan is encumbered by this order of conditions so you are not issuing a certificate of compliance for all of the work that was done that applicant or owner has never come in

requesting that certificate of compliance this is this what we would call a partial release would eliminate this title issue from showing up on the board's title so you would be issuing a certificate of compliance a partial certificate of compliance has no work for this specific parcel was permitted through the oil conditions so the old order conditions is still hanging out there and theoretically you

could have another 20 homeowners that need to come in at some point in time we had a good run for a number of 20 years where a lot of this stuff didn't get caught on titles a lot of title attorneys will only go back a certain period of time but it seems like now people are paying a little bit more attention and they're finding all of these outstanding orders and i think

we'll be seeing more of them needing to get cleaned up like this so far we've been lucky where it hasn't been okay they did have the project or not so they've been they've been pretty clean either not done or wasn't part of the actual work anyway okay so just don't clear this for the undeveloped property no it was a house building okay okay so there's a subdivision built this was one

of the lots well away from the resource area so they went through the whole process built their home a number of years ago they were nowhere near the resource area so the the subdivision road down at the end of the cul-de-sac part of it the detention pond some utilities that was the construction activity permitted so there were a number of lots that fell outside of okay so there's no activity

specific to their law okay that was issued and this was just triggered based on sale of property yeah again we actually have in the file copy of their um their title report that was done by their their title attorney and that's how they found out it was brought to their attention that they had this issue okay okay so can i have a motion for partial uh certificate of compliance on the

locations of 76-70 august street motion so made a second a roll call vote hi all right hi hi hi okay uh next is a land acquisition for natural diversity grant program submitted by department of community utilities requesting to approve and endorse land grant the dcu wishes to acquire the primary project protect the 7.1 acres of farmland or blossom road within the northwest up a pond to

protect the city's water supply and complete the acquisition of the antarctic farms to establish a bio reserve environmental education and discovery center mike how are we doing thank you mr chairman thank you commissioners so um the water department which is the department of community utilities water division um we'll be applying for a land grant with the eoea and it requires uh the legal authority of the

conservation commission to sign off on the grant the grant is due thursday and what it is is we are in the process of acquiring adirondack farm which is a nine acre farm located on the west side of blossom road and the intention is to build the long awaited long sought after uh via reserve discovery center so in an effort to uh you know put together a funding package this grant is to acquire the seven acres

of the nine that is uh qualifies as conservation land right now it's um it's it's in farm uh it consists of prime and state uh recognized uh you know uh agricultural soils um and it's uh it's it's a it's an opportunity to um it's an opportunity to locate this environmental center within the site of the northwest of the pond it's really the last parcel um that a very unique parcel and so we're just seeking to

um we'll be applying for um about 270 000 uh from the state grant okay well you know me mike any time you can get uh land for the city and preserve it i'm all for that right does the board have any questions no i just like to stay for the record more importantly it's it's one of the last possibles and if you've been to the site and i have it's unforeseen farmland and it pitches

directly back to the reservoir and going back to when the reservoir was first established um you know they made enormous land acquisitions in order to protect the water quality of our reservoir and this would be the last piece of one of the last pieces i would imagine right in ensuring that our drinking water supply was protected yeah it really is i mean um uh you know we sort of take that for granted that

the whole surrounding watershed is protected but there's actually a small handful of um shoreline parcels that are privately owned um not only are we going to protect the farm but we're uh we're also going to get a donation of two of those parcels from national grid in the process so it's a real um it's a real coup for uh for us as a project so good good wait did you have you acquired the

farmhouse part of the parcel yet oh no no that's something this is this is this is teed up first okay would we be involved in the second part of it or no are we looking for different fundamental muslims to buy that no okay this is this is specifically for the seven acres which is conservation land and and it's all you know zone a and zone b for the northwest upper really critical watershed land

i only lived down the street in batman so my kids grew up going to that petting zone did they know that there was a petting zoo but we went there often often yeah those um the folks who owned it were there for 40 years wow yeah they really had a great army there in their early 20s now my kids but it was it was a while ago since we've been there but yeah

it's a great spot one of the great legacies of this project is the fact that um these folks were good stewards of the land and they also uh had that sort of impulse to educate and to you know they were very generous in in opening it to the public so this is kind of a situation so what i what i would ask tonight is for um i brought the um

the signature page of the grant and if it's possible that you might be able to sign tonight if you you know uh decide to do so and um if there's it's possible to get a copy of the minutes of the meeting that will be included in the grant package we could put in the meeting like we could get a motion to fully endorse the department of community utilities and requesting a land grant for the 7.1 acres

we highly support it yep

minutes too so okay thank you probably sign that too i would love that

so

oh my good luck on that thank you so much it's a great opportunity for the city all right next up is the request for determination

ah that's okay we got a short meeting tonight anyways all right next request for determination with accessibility uh owner applicant city of fall river department of cemeteries and trees project location dwelling street assessors map is b-17 applicant is requesting a applicant is requesting request of determination of acceptability whether the work depleted or planned preference is subject to wetland protection act

chairman thank you members of the commission alan silvia state representative uh for many years you know we always were concerned about cook pond all of us now improvements have been made caspia for example and of course one of the major concerns was the mill or king phillip mellon most of that is down homes are being built as i speak and we've noticed over the years that that brush along um cook pond

on dewelly street from the armory down to the northwest corner of the pond um the wall has been improved uh but the brush is so 100 year of years of briars and to the point where you if you drive by there you can't see the pond at all we were able to uh when mr kofari who was the developer there purchased the site the agreement with the city was to

give a portion of that where crown linen was about nearly an acre again at the northwest corner of cook pond to be green space so the community would have accessibility uh from that area uh because there is no uh access other than the state p uh the cusp here um so um i've been asking for um lots of money from the state to uh make improvements along there i asked

for 250 000. they gave me 125. that's not unusual but it's dollars to reduce um that greens that the briars and the brush uh to leave the trees of course but if it was at all possible uh to clean that up to make the pond more accessible and beautify the area i've been out to the site most of the brush it needs to be clear invasives anyway you get um japanese uh you get

not weed you've got japanese honeysuckle you've got most of them are invasives anyway so in with respect to improving or enhancing um it's probably beneficial to have them removed again the the project just so that you get an understanding is so the back of king philip mill as the representative stated there was a parcel that was conveyed to the city um which is a little bit of a triangular

apostle so that's the technical parcel that's listed here and then running along the edge of dwellings as far as basically as the money will take us um it will be for conceptually vista pruning uh eradication of uh of invasive species and lastly you can put that no um no earth removal right or stump removal will be will be allowed so technically it could be classified as a resource area protection or

enhancement project okay and fall into those exemptions and it would great great to see if this you know this could be ongoing this maintenance could be ongoing yes without soil removal the invasives will be right back in another few years so what happens is the the maintenance part of it is strictly funding okay so if there's if there's additional funds or somewhere of course the city and the representative have

greater plans for cook pond in general and there are different brands and different opportunities that everyone is looking at um to do other things around the entire pond so this would be a first little step to maybe get some people excited to be able to see what it is and see what an amenity this could be for that end of the city and who knows what kind of funds you know nothing gets done without funds

so whatever i'll keep asking i know so this this is only for normal maintenance right now just to clear some brush exactly what have you yeah and then depending on the funds we might go further than that absolutely and i'll ask 125 sounds like a lot but when you are technically dealing with invasive species that have to potentially be treated correctly cut correctly you'll get you'll blow through that 125

no absolutely no i think it's great that we're doing that and that we're throwing some money in that area because i drive by there all the time you know it's right next to your orders it's really a beautiful pond uh you know people you know just like the gentleman was saying prior we take it off for granted and for years you know we always looked at cook pond as a

place where you know the water was had poor quality because the mills were dumping and people were throwing their old tires and not the case anymore you know the water is cleaned up you know no one's dumping there uh the people are fishing to be able to have access to that pond for recreational purposes would be an incredible resource to the entire city the future maintenance of it will be the city once

you develop every the uh open space there right well i hope that we can get more resources to i mean just like the oh the the weekly the monthly maintenance will be the city that'll take you i mean it would fall back under basically under cemeteries and trees yeah you know to go out there and do whatever means because a portion of this land is actually i mean it's not

the edge of the water behind the wall yeah it's it's along the water adjacent to the parcel that the city owns so moving beyond that you would have to deal with all of the private homeowners or landowners that go around the rest of the pond yeah and i remember about a year ago bill kenny uh who was the planner funny you know a few months ago he was starting that process with we're looking at it again

so maybe when the idea was can we get the 250 that would have maybe allowed us to do greater things so baby steps it's one of those things to create access through well right now it's just a clear ultimately it would be great so further down in the southern end of cook pond there's a beautiful fishing pier right that the state had had funded maybe eight years ago ten years ago

so to maybe to provide some additional access from where this cleared out area is so when i was saying you know get this cleaned up and then people can get excited about hey could we maybe put in a little kayak launch or a canoe launch you can make it down here into the pond you know fish make it down to the other pier you know it runs all the way down into tibetan

you know no it's a great area that there's a lot of things that could be done there one thing i did notice mrs sylvia is that wall that was there um i know there was some maintenance maybe a couple of years back where they did the um the joints uh around the rocks and stuff like that i don't know if you notice but there's an area there that needs to be

they did that work there but that work was not done they did that during the colby crisis there was some money uh received from uh community innovation yeah um cpc money i think and uh but yeah there's a hole in the wall now the work that they did there to me it seems like they could have done a little bit better and now i notice when i drive by there that certain sections of the

wall further down where they did the work i needed repair as well so that's i know that you always watch that area there and that you're in charge of getting the money because it would be it would be great the armory itself you know they're going to have a 25 million dollar facelift it was a half federal half state that that that money's already been uh appropriated so they're going to put all the fencing up

there and that's that's really going to clean up that area because you know for so long you know people go by they don't even see the pond uh it'd be great to have that business you can see it in the winter oh yeah or the whitney is it but who wants to see it in the winter it's a great initiative i'm happy with that thanks so much any other questions

so can we have a motion to uh have a uh abrasive brush and weeds pruning but limited to no uh earth removal or stumps so moved six seconds hi all right all right thank you for all coming um we could probably take five through eight i'll make a motion to take five through eight okay okay uh let's see first five is recipient correspondence review and discussion availability of partial second on that motion

second second second roll call vote hi all right hi hi jump in the gun there let's see uh five is a receipt of correspondence review and discussion availability of partial permit solutions statements for rtn 4-0027360 regarding 65 alden street next is receive a correspondence review and discussion and recording of activity of the use of limitations for rtn 4-0027360 regarding 65 alden street

seven is receipt of correspondence review and discussion availability of phrase two comprehensive site assessment for rtn-4-0027360 regarding 65 alton street and eight is a receipt of a correspondence review discussion of hiking trail repair and maintenance at payne road freetown state forest can i have a motion to place on record motion to accept okay second roll covo hi all right hi hi hi okay

and then last before we get to we have an update on um tia murray way terry murray so um if you guys remember that was the wetland alteration that you guys have given the enforcement of all the work is completed um plant species tree species all the elevations are correct the post and rail fence they have not installed the required signage that we asked them to put on the fence stating that this is

a wetland area no dumping so the engineer called me last week and i told him once the signs get up submit their certificate of compliance and we will review the certificate of compliance for the project and potentially lifting the enforcement order at the same time i would anticipate that being done uh so that they could be on for the next meeting okay you also stated they uh put

a couple additional trees up too yeah so at first when the when the plant came in they had only proposed um shrub species um so we did require that they put in 10 red maples as well so we can ensure some shaded canopy there they did a nice job it actually looks it looks better than if it was grass for the people to have to cut you know it doesn't give a little landscape feature

hopefully once it all goes in it'll be a little bit wild but they spent a few dollars out there so i think the commission were good stewards of the of the resource area by making them jump through these hoops probably not something that that somebody would have had to do in the past so i think it was uh well done good good contract it was very receptive it's always easy when they have home

sales pending yeah so that you have something all righty so gonna have a motion for approval the minutes from june 6 2022 meeting motion to approve minutes seconded hi hi passes uh no public input nope okay can i have a motion to adjourn motion to adjourn executive local vote hi all right