7.26.23 Redevelopment Authority

I'd like to welcome everybody to the Wednesday July 26th 2023 meaning of the Fall River Redevelopment Authority recording of the Open Session can be viewed for government television www.frgtv.us

kind of called meaning to order personally to the open meeting law any person may make an audio a video recording of this public meeting or may transmit the meeting through any medium attendees are therefore advised that such recording a transmission are being made whether perceived or unperceived by those present and are deemed acknowledged and permissible need a roll call Johnny Erickson

okay also participating with Sarah page executive director John Coughlin Council Kenny fadola administrative services consultant Karen Martin project coordinator assistant uh first item this year's approval the Open Session minutes from June 28th to three anybody have any questions on those minutes motion to accept second second John Harrison yes yes Ron Russen yes uh you all have a copy of the warrant and 33

434.11 John went through it um any questions on on any of those motion to approve warrant actually I just said it wrong yes it's 94. 94 is 47701. so um motion improved water and 94 4701 second Jon Erickson yes Wisconsin yes um I'll entertain a motion to authorize the treasurer and executive director to proceed with opening a higher apy money market account at Bay Coast Bank and the transfer of

10 million dollars into the new account uh roll a motion to uh authorize what was that motion you have to quite fries the creation of a new money market higher interest account at baycoast Bank and um we got a 4.5 interest rate which is great and we want to and we had voted to put money in higher interest accounts and so this is just voting to open this particular account and have you all sign your um

signature cards is it a certain term or is it just yeah is there a certain moment has to be left in it no no okay and I have all the form see we can sign after the meeting and Lewis I need a copy do your driver's license with you yep I need a copy of that and take a picture of it got everyone else's so I need a motion to authorize

motion to move the 10 million dollars into big Coast at a four five five percent interest rate in flea market second second generation yes those coming with this Joan Medeiros yes Ron Russian yes thank you here um what do we need anything Karen has some updates here a few little updates on City Pier um so all the electrical outlets were all installed in time for the Fourth of July event out there and they worked out

really well they've come in handy in the locations they're at and are working great and I have locks to put on each of the outlets so that we can lock them for security the events so far have been really well received um we had to cancel the first yoga session due to Mother Nature um and her Reign but we had one last Monday in this past Monday and there was more at the second session than they

were at the first session so I think that that's going well um and the second um like picnic performance is this tomorrow night and it's the city Pride night and um they're hopeful we'll get a good crowd kite night went really well and um they did like they did rethink a little bit of the setup for this next event but I think it's going to work out really well and hopefully it'll be well attended and

um there's music tomorrow night right I think they're having a like a small band like she did for kite night I think it was two people so I think it's a similar similar thing the big one will be um The Narrows one on the 27.

she's already advertising for so but that's outside of the Thursday night yeah so um that'll be a he's gonna need the cam walks I think and everything for that so um I'm not sure he's he's thinking the setup all through now I was going to set it up so we'll have more on that one I'm sure yes we had some new plannings down there I don't know if you guys have seen them

but it looks good looks really nice a few of us were there uh yesterday the folks that are starting the uh the the um drawings of the yeah I was going to give a quick update all right you want to talk about that right and then I was just going to say Linda big is working on those signs for the no fishing and so the sign for the no fishing is going to look like no

fishing surveillance cameras in use and they're going to be at the Three Pot points on the pier she's going to get back to me by the end of this week with she's just been really backed up with um when she can when the installation is going to happen and then these are the ones that are going to go at Innovation Way no trespassing overnight unauthorized Vehicles will be told at their expense and big will Towing and

Recovery is going to be they'll they're about the only ones in the area who can actually tow those storage trailers so um so he was amenable to help us with that so these will go up um at the same time are they local company he's in a Sone it there was no floral companies no all the Fall River companies that I talked to referred me to him what to tell what um to tell

those storage trailers on online Nation one Commerce Drive 191 yeah 191. we jumped over to that because yeah this is for Commerce I thought I thought you're talking about something at the City Pier oh no no no no no no no she got off on signs yeah so I got off on the side so oh she's gonna let me know by the end of the week so she's um she's a little bit backed up

so I said okay um and then for the docks uh Coastal Maureen set up their temporary fence yesterday right by um so if you look just down from City Pier where the docks are going to line up they've they did like a square right it with a the entryway will be and they're going to actually start the demo work on Monday um and then um the fabrication of the docks got a

little bit delayed because of the shop drawing submittal and approval process they work in two-week increments and so we got pushed like two weeks so the docks are due to be delivered and started to be floated in place on August 28th and we're hoping to become substantially complete by September 1st Coastal Marine is going to get us a letter from structure Marine confirming the delivery date so

um there'll be a little bit of extension to that contract but hopefully that's going to be the only the only blip and we'll be able to get it done quickly they're going to be doing all that work off a barge so um all parties I've notified the Harbor Master I've let the mayor's office know because who knows what people might call about I've let um DCM know that we've started the

project so they've all been notified so hopefully things will go Fairly smoothly um and we'll keep you posted on that um but that's kind of it for City Pier Johnny did you have any thoughts about the meeting we had out there no no I mean it like it was nice to see them explain how all the bits and pieces and how it's going to all go together with the railings and the ramp and everything

sounds like it's going to go smoothly the weather cooperates yeah

so uh we need to to vote to improve the scope of work for the master plan RFP um you guys familiar with what this is this is the Route 79 yes so the board approved our um going ahead uh to find a consultant for a master plan and to apply for a grant so we applied for the grant and um applied for a hundred thousand from the state and through the One-Stop

process and the board had approved fifty thousand dollars so that we could start the master planning early before we even know if we got the hundred thousand and so um Ken took the grant proposal I wrote and turned it into a scope of work and um a an RFP we're going to show that to John work on that a little bit more just the details of when it will go out and

um how will make decisions about it I guess one question for you is do any of you want to serve on a committee to review the master plans so you can think about that you don't need to let us know right now okay okay yeah and um so so we think it's a really good scope of work and um we're wondering what you know it so we basically want your approval of the

scope for us to go out and put out an RFP should we just run run through a little bit for people at home because they don't have the stuff right that's true yeah okay so um so the this is the the project scope of work so Sarah and I worked diligently together to try to get a scope that was going to be pretty inclusive and really dig into a lot of different things as we

look to develop Route 79 so the first aspect of it would be to um full development of a public engagement plan that includes community visioning and review of proposed options a detailed marketing Workforce housing market analysis to assess market supply existing and projected demand current rents projected rents initially achievable and in the future to determine market rate to determine

market demand for private sector development and the financial feasibility of residential development a commercial slash service sector market analysis to determine market demand of a feasible commercial uses including restaurants cafes and Niche retail a phase one hotel analysis to determine uh supply and demand facility recommendations and room Revenue projections we also looked um recommendations to strengthen and

improve neighborhood connectivity between Route 79 and your body neighborhoods interviews with Master developers of comparable Urban projects and implementation and implementation strategies based on findings suggestions for revisions to existing Waterfront Tod zoning site plan review and design standards framework for projected building Heights and square footage for residential restaurant Cafe

commercial and other land uses parking space for projected land uses prospective drawings and a bird's eye view of the proposed developments a mobility and connectivity analysis for the development parcels and their entrance and egress points an assessment of existing and future parking demand and approaches to meet this need and development of an operations and landscape maintenance program for new

development area Veterans Memorial Park City Pier Heritage State Park and identification of an annual linkage fee structure for landscape improvements and maintenance in those areas so we're testing everything we could possibly test to see what what what the demand is for things how they would be situated along the waterfront how they would be compatible with one another uh along the Waterfront in the

scale and size the development of these types of activities and how it all fits into the essentially the drum of a new Waterfront Community a neighborhood that has close proximity to the commuter rail and what impacts if any it has on a summary of the emboding neighborhoods that are close to the the Wall Street area certainly those areas you know that run along North Main Street say from

Brightman Street up to Turner Street right so I think there's there's a good I think this is a good scope of work obviously everything is subject to to change but I do think this gives us a good um a good jump off point to try to get things moving forward so that when the construction is done City in the Redevelopment Authority and others are ready to move forward

that's it yeah so I'll entertain a motion to approve the scope of work for this RFP for 179 Duval Street Corridor master plan so move second all right Erickson yes yes Ron Russen yes thank you yes next item is um group to submit the proposed amendment to the Waterfront urban renewal plan to the executive office of Housing and livable communities well let me explain let me give some background about that um

so we had thought that um the consultant had well the consultant had talked with the people who were involved at the executive office of Housing and livable communities which always was um dhcd and so we're trying to get used to this new acronym and they had implied that this could be a minor Amendment but can encouraged me to talk with the consultant and make sure that we weren't going to be pushed into

making a major Amendment and she our consultant talked with Maggie and Maggie said that it's possible that it can be a minor Amendment but it's possible that they will require it to be a major Amendment and pointed out that the Armory was a minor amendment when we did that Amendment but it was just a transfer from the city to the Redevelopment Authority and a transfer is exempt from being a major

Amendment it would be a minor Amendment so because of that and because we have time frames we're trying to meet we want don't want this to go on forever now we think we'll consider it a major Amendment which means that we'll need to take it to a public meeting to the planning board and ideally have you vote after we've had the public meeting where the public could have made suggestions that cause it to change

and then bring that back to you and then take it to the city council so this all was a curveball of this afternoon and so we don't have all of those timed out but we can send them to you so I had a thought for sure that we were bringing this to you to vote on and you can vote on it but we if we make any changes we'll need to bring it back to

you and ask you to vote again and I'm disappointed that we have to make it a major Amendment but she's afraid if we that if there were times she would put it in as a proposed minor Amendment than if they pushed back and said no it needs to be a major Amendment then we'd go through that process but we don't want to take the time and risk learning a month from now that we have

to go through that process Sarah does this document speak to that yes well that's the document we thought you would we would want you should appears to be tweaked then well if the public meeting uh indicates we should make changes to it then we would want to bring it back to you otherwise we were planning to submit this right so so we can we can still vote to to see yes you can vote to proceed

um with the next steps of the um amendment process to the Waterfront urban renewal plan okay are you familiar with that John no I didn't I hadn't looked at this before what what did you ask I asked if John was familiar with the mine uh made um major plan change process I am with those regulations I just hadn't looked at this specifications right because I think they're now we get into statutory time frames for public

hearings notice and those types of things so this is not going to be something that occurs quickly right um what's our time frame for needing to get it done well there's no specific time frame but it's you know hopefully sooner as opposed to later right but I think we should just probably in the next few days just to try to put some sort of calendar that recognizes all the different steps that are necessary of a

statutory time frames is there a Prohibition from filing a minor Amendment while we proceed with the major at the same time well I think from understanding you correctly when I'm reading between the lines is that same and I thought this was going to happen I said this yesterday yeah you did I wish I'd known this a few weeks ago well yeah summary um that this is a major plan change

you're going to consider that no matter correct right so there's no reason to file at right might as well just jump into proceeding with the the process for a major plan change and adhere to those regulations and get the ball started yep and just these two but this will do having said excuse me having having said that all the information that they put together is very helpful right so it's

the same it's all the same it's just that you know they may be just like tweaking the corn a lot in the gas station yes yeah yeah so there's um they went through the necessary Pride the information from minor plan and a major plan is really not that different but for the procedures the procedure in the public input and the vote of the council and the planning the planning board and the council

yeah so that means that we're probably with any luck in the september-ish Maybe depending on the planning board schedule the planned planning board in the city council and the statutory periods in between the Consultants really had thought that they'd gotten an okay to do it and that's why they're consultants and not Economic Development professionals twice they actually did a nice job in the

preparation of the information are they I'll give them credit for that so so I I do need a most approved the submission of the proposed amendment to water from urban renewal plan has developed by stantec to eohlc formally no we're not going to now this changes when we just learned this right before the board meeting so now we're um what you're approving is to go forward with taking it to public meetings before

we send it to the state agency it's all about a motion to take all steps to file a major Amendment right and then if this changes you come back but if it stays the same you just keep going through we have a motion for that so move with John just said second person yes yes do we need to adjust their participation or are you going to carry this yourself the board

the next step of preparing the major modification application well that's true now we need to expand the consultant's work presumably um we have prior approval up to 15 000 and contracts only 7 500.

so we think I mean a good chunk of the work's already been done right I think so I just thought I think there's a year just gotta come you know there's there's now a cost of Public Notices there's cost for preparation of documents as you know other these ancillary costs you think that 15 000 covers I'm not sure I think we should now say maybe up to twenty five thousand yeah just to be

honest I guess a little wiggle room there yeah so we're voting for the chair to um you want two separate motions sure one to accept this and the other one to go up to 25 000 on the hour we're not really accepting anything right now we're just there's a vote to move forward with the firing of a major modification plan we're not accepting this although this will be the basis for the initial

preparation that material and I think there's the one vote that's that is that vote on the table and there's a second vote that's going to be to expand or increase the line item for 15 000 to 25 000. okay so we already have the motion the second book yeah so we're gonna do one and then we're gonna go back together okay yes now a motion to change the heart feet from the increase the uh the funding

because the funding for the consultant from 15 to 25 000 for the Waterfront plan second wait a minute do we want to be so specific as a consultant or the consultant in any ancillary courses right yeah yeah and and it's up to 25 000 up to 25 000.

second so we have to reword that yes yeah I understood it no but Karen needs to get it down correctly repeat it one more time

yes uh who's gonna speak to the downtown historic district I will um we have um we've had our Consultants send a letter to the historic commission asking that we not have to create three separate I think I told you the last time they came back and said you should have three small historic districts because there are non-contributing buildings in between we had him go back and ask that

we be able to just create one historic district that they came back and they said we considered it and we feel that you can't just have one and we don't really understand that given other districts that have more non-contributing buildings and have very similar situations so our consultant at our request developed a list of places that have had one historic district with similar disjunctions in it and we're hoping to

have some conversations that may um help us convince them differently do you want to speak to that no I think that's a good way to put it we think there's a legitimate argument that can be made for one District based upon past precedent of NASA Stark and creating districts that had non-contributing Apostles and properties and what we're asking for it doesn't seem to be you know we're actually we're

adding two two buildings pretty much you know it's not a big deal so I don't know why they're forcing us to go up this road it doesn't really make sense I'm sure they have their reasons but we'd just like to see if they consider a reconsideration of what their current position is we have more information to bring to them to get them to change their mind or we have we got we got examples in that

cases but just previously approved okay districts that have non-contributing Apostles within them and what they're trying to do is have these districts with no non-contributing Apostles they've just you have two buildings that are eligible one building is not eligible so the two buildings that are eligible are a district skip over the non-eligible then you have seven buildings that are eligible that's

another district and there's another three buildings that are not eligible and there's five buildings that are out I'm just yeah but that's about it but that's it's like they jump they Leap Frog as opposed to just putting all in one dish you can say okay these three buildings are non-participating in the other one District you can't get tax credits for these buildings that's very simple

and typical you know they're the districts are assumed to have non-contributing buildings and he tried to pull them all together with a theme which is important to the historic commission and we don't quite understand and the the whole thing is and this is how we're trying to do this to make the buildings downtown more marketable for housing the only realistically in today's development climate

the only way to make those buildings really cash flow is through historic tax credits and so you'd actually on the upper level should be creating housing Niche retail and other services on the sidewalk levels but at a time where Massachusetts is needs more housing this is a way to get it done right so this should be fit within the overall framework of trying to create more housing

and it could be a mixture of affordable marketing Workforce it could be whatever but at least the properties themselves would be you know much more developed you know much more financially feasible from a development standpoint if we can move in that direction but when I had talked with them in the beginning and mentioned historic tax credits they understand the importance of historic tax credits but

it was very clear that they said our process is not really about historic tax credits it's about creating coherent historic districts depends on the reviewer yeah yeah

that was just an update do you think you'll have how long you think it'll take for them to get back so we need to well he they got back to us and said that they wouldn't accept that they said no so but we're new information you're just going to submit it so we're going to now ask for a meeting with the appropriate parties to take another fresh look at this thing

right there'll be a new set of eyes a little new people making requests to the right people just people no that's it okay uh Jeremy's finding an open session we have detrimental effect on negotiating litigating position in the public body purpose of the executive session is to approve the executive session and minutes from June 28th 23 and discuss strategy with respect to potential litigation regarding City Pier

project yeah license agreement for a parking lot for City Pier beds since there's no new information or vote we're not taking up the property at 25 on South Main Street I need a little call to enter into executive session in return to open session John Erickson yes those Carnival Medeiros yes Ronson yes thank you yes

I'll entertain a motion for the chair to sign the closeout change order number six in the final requisition from Mas for an amount not to exceed fifty nine thousand dollars the requisition will not be approved by fr-r-a until signed off by all other parties and check will not be issued until finer requisition is fully executed so move second second generation yes yes Ron rouson yes

yes last item is I'll entertain a motion for the chair to execute a parking license agreement with 614l some sorry 6148 LLC to provide parking for City peer events in the Waterfront at the lot between Taylor and Hathaway streets uh for a 11 month term starting August 1st of this year to June 30th of next year for a cost of 27 500 paid in advance anything to add to that or paid upon

full execution license agreement in advance second yes Ron rouson yes genius anybody have any other items discuss move to uh motion to again second Wisconsin yes thanks everybody