9.27.2022 Redevelopment Authority

all right I'd like to call the order the Fall River Redevelopment Authority meeting Tuesday September 27th 2022.

pursuant 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 with a perceived or unperceived by those present and are deemed acknowledged and permissible I'd like to start with the attendance of roll call please

Johnny Erickson president Joan Medeiros here Joe Marshall here and Keane here and note that Luis is uh is not in attendance uh also participating uh Sarah page executive director John Coughlin our Council Ken Fiola administrative consultant and Rochelle our executive assistant uh starting with uh the first item approval of Open Session minutes from August 24th and September 19th we all received a copy

I read mine it seems okay is there a motion to accept I move we accept it was a September 19th August 24th and the night we've received both uh I move we approved August ine and women August 24 and September 19th yes yes okay is there a second to that second second uh all in favor aye aye anyone opposed so moved we also received a copy of the warrants and uh

and we've gone through them are going through mine uh is there a uh any discussion on the warrant or is there a motion to approve the warrant a motion to approve the warrant as presented as presented um is there a second to that second second by Johnny all in favor of signify by saying aye aye so moved um we're going to take things a little out of order because we have a guest

Attorney Peter celino so the item number seven on your agenda we're going to um plan on dealing with right now and uh reading it uh discussion and potential vote regarding the amendment to the LDA with lit Fall River LLC for Innovation Way property um did Peter did you want to say some words or do you need to say anything I was just going to give an overview of what we're asking and where we started I

think that's okay so for record-keeping purposes Peter celino 550 Locust Street Fall River Council to LIT Fall River LLC the subject before you relates to 1180 Innovation Way more specifically a land disposition agreement that was dated November 20th of 2015. and at that time the agreement was somewhat conceptual it was to bring Amazon here to create their fulfillment center the site plan that's

attached to the recorded LDA is vague it doesn't show parking it more or less shows a building envelope and that's it and so my client had received a request from Amazon to expand for instance truck parking the site is employee parking and a variety of things which ultimately necessitates an amendment to the LDA that's on record and so what we're here for tonight is to ask that the updated

site plans be adopted as an attachment to an amendment to the LDA depicting the trailer Sparks to the East and again for everybody's benefit a portion of the site is in Fall River and a portion is in Freetown so there's three things going on there's a site plan review in Fall River site plan review in Freetown and then there's your Authority Under the LDA um so for The Limited purpose of the

Redevelopment Authority we're here to ask that the site plan as presented the amended site plan be used and codified into an amendment to the LDA and the highlights are that we now show two spaces per employee the visitor parking is designated and they're in the Fall River Side there are 64 trailer parking spaces on the northeast side of the building facing Innovation Way so those are the

substantive amendments to the plan from the Redevelopment Authority side of things questions could you say that again I said there are two two new trailer areas right I think the other uh yes uh and that is in the Freetown side so I think this is our side the new Fall River trailer parking depicts 64 spaces right here which would be the northeast side of the building in Fall River

but given that the LDA covers free town and Fall River we would be concerned about the Freetown part too as well Fair Point you would be okay I think the amendment covers everything so that's the entire site plan right it doesn't matter what side of the line yeah yeah I I submitted the plans with all the sheets there's conservation sheets and so on but yes so are we your first stop you haven't

gone to site plan yet or the submission so the site plans are submitted um and I we were I believe waiting for comments from the city I know there were tied up relative to sewer water comments um but as recently as last week I Know Dan Aggie I was working on it okay so it's sort of a I guess a parallel path kind of project because you have the Freetown side of

the Fall River Side and then the Sports Authority too so I had a chance to talk with Dan and he said that he was really wanting to hear our opinions um before he sent his um long I guess he has two or three pages of comments on the site plan and um the one condition that um is being uh we're being encouraged to pursue is that we've never had truck parking in the front of buildings on

Innovation Way it's in our covenants that truck parking always be in the back and then in fact all parking not be in the front of the building but we have waved car parking in the front of buildings but we've never waived truck parking so what makes Amazon somewhat different is there's a large Hill and you don't really see the parking from the road but in any case we the suggestion is that we ask that

rather than just a chain link fence around these new parking areas that we ask for a you know a non-permeable fence uh not see-through fence and that we ask for um landscape uh you know shading around the whole um screening around the whole uh areas of the truck parking because that's consistent with how we've required screening of any parking from Innovation Way so even though you don't exactly see

it from Innovation Way you see it when you drive down into what is now a pretty attractive Amazon site and um that was that was a suggestion

any other questions of uh to Selena you see I don't have a copy of the plan with you say the Box doesn't care the drugs foreign

taking place in the south West area of the pocket they probably have 40 50 truck beds there and it doesn't look that great secondly we've got a little bit of a precedent setting issue here what's going to happen when other people come forward and ask for the same sort of relief I think this is a little bit different because you do have that screened area back from Innovation Way um I think the other issue here is

whether or not weeper has to be notified here because now we're going to be creating I think more and perfect impervious surface results of adding additional blacktop to the area and there's a finite schedule of the previous service that we keep representing the various new filings so I'm not quite sure if this meets that or if it's a minor plan modification it's a plan modification but the wrong new beeper

guidelines now that just went into effect that really for the complicate things in terms of environmental justice impacts and all this other stuff yeah but this wouldn't be an environmental justice Community it's not close to one I don't think it is a mile away so you're going to be hitting environmental DJ communities I thought that the Innovation Way might be a mile from any e.js yeah

okay in any event I just think that you probably want to get somebody you should look at the deeper issues here just to make sure that we're not violating any deeper issue not to complicate things but well you got to be aware of them you gotta be aware of things that you know leap is going to be constantly up there as a result of these other projects and everything else

like I said Dan may be able to clarify that a little bit further but who's who's the engineer of record high point they're Massachusetts so they should probably ask you know seek an opinion from beat below and get some guidance from egress this triggers anything in terms of plan modification Peter if I remember my discussions with high point a couple of months ago I think they had said that the two areas

one area already has parking right yeah and then the other one I think they said that the approved site plan from uh Fall River had showed parking there and that it never was built so that would be helpful it was that a site plan approval those days Ah that's fine okay yeah and that wouldn't mean that meepa approved it so yeah we're still gonna vote it's up to you I mean you can do the vote contingent

contingent upon the fence and screening contingent upon final sight playing approval and contingent upon I think so I I don't wanna tie everybody up you know you know if we're gonna do this or we're not going to do this so um I I would any other questions of how many more Ken no okay how soon do they think they'll get to capacity with this parking like they need to do all of it now yes

we're going to be moving the trucks from the first one I'll ask yeah I mean they don't belong there we should ask well from what I understood this summer um one of the issues is that Amazon is filling trailers with products and then leaving it in the parking lot and that that and there's just a huge amount of additional distribution demand has required that they have more truck parking and that one of these areas at

least from a couple of months ago was going to be um done with an extremely thick concrete pad because when you fill these trailers with product they're very heavy and they need a specific kind of parking and then they're all ready to go and then a truck can just come up and hitch on and take it and so it's kind of a whole distribution strategy and the demand that are causing the need for this essential parking

all right well that's helpful I um what what we'll do I'll ask for a vote with the contingencies associated with it and once we clarify those we can authorize me and that's the vote I'll ask for authorized me to execute the amendment on the LDA with lit Fall River to enable the development of additional truck parking for the Amazon facility contingent on the the mepa data the fencing what was the third item

so what was it fencing landscaping and Landscaping and final site plan and final site plan you don't mean I mean yeah just vegetative screening around a um solid fence so those things being said with those contingencies can we uh can we have that motion that's the owner that's the owner of the uh indeed went to when it was sold back in 15.

Clarion Clarion may be the they may be like the member of the LLC or they manage it or something they give us a letter of authorization in the following um but the current deed of record is yeah which is a Delaware LLC yeah okay any other questions you know do we want them to come back with the screening and the fencing for us to see or do we are we good with

letting them do something that's not see-through well we we definitely want to know what's what's being put out there right yeah we agree I agree yeah I mean I think some of it I don't want to speak for Dan but if we say these are our conditions yeah would he would he bring that into site plan review and make sure that that was part of the process or was he letting us do it

entirely independently or I think he would I think that uh I can tell him that we want him to um understand that that's part of the conditions decision yeah those are the conditions I mean I'll add the language to the amendment saying you know solid fencing vegetative screening but I don't know whether Dan would be the best person to monitor that the site plan review if you wanted to come back here

they do what we ask if we ask them to do I don't have a problem as long as we see what it is do you see any problem with those those asks I don't know so I'm going to recommend that we not take a vote and table it into the next meeting if that's okay well you'd rather table it I wouldn't but I just think hearing what you're saying given that we need Dan's input it makes

sense to me that this would be a cohesive vote as opposed to this piecemeal option where I appreciate the courtesy to me but I don't think in the overall development I don't think it's good yep I think there's too many unknowns so you can you can wait a month then is that what you're saying or did you waited this along yeah I mean it's one of those things if if if Dan's gonna have two pages of

comments they're going to be waiting yeah okay but I just think to say for instance uh what the meepa question what answers the meepa question I think Dan needs to say we need X right from an expert and this so okay to me there's too many unanswered questions with the three contingencies so if you feedback from Dan your plans get revised we can just attach those to the Future Amendment right like for instance the

vegetative screening off the top of my head six foot everybody more or less what kind of fence yeah show it all on a plan I got to get the plan appended to the LDA and then I think it's cleaner than everybody's and then this this plan will match site plan review and you can just do it once right okay because otherwise I see another ask for another amendment yeah I agree with you yeah we

won't be done all right um with that feedback is there a motion to table that I have a movie table second second all in favor aye aye anyone opposed didn't know what the date would be uh yeah the um

I'll tell you for sure I think it's the 19th 26th you're right you're right yeah 26. okay okay thank you all oh you're welcome thank you all right next item on the agenda the City Pier 600 Duval Street and you want to start I mean yeah um so the good news is that they hydrose Seated on Friday um and I'm still waiting for confirmation of exactly when all of the other pieces are being done but um

today have made it very clear that they are trying to get back on site as fast as they can and that they are planning to address all of the items including the concrete they said over the next few weeks but they haven't been able to fully remobilize yet so um you know I think that will be on them to make sure that they are carrying all of that out and I'm in

constant contact with Nick to try to make sure that all those pieces move forward well um so then Johnny I want you to weigh in on this he and I met with the corrosion specialist from SGH The Firm that Johnny connected us with and you're waiting for a report and um you know well uh yeah so he um just I don't mean I wanted to talk about this I just want to make sure some of it

may or may not be for executive session I just want to make sure we talk about the right topics yeah it's just it has to talk about that in executive sessions yeah I mean I'm just gonna say we don't have the report yet so right we don't we can say that there or no we don't know right what the report is going okay there you go yeah what else has to do with uh so then the

other things are when we want to have the dedication so options might be October 29th November 5th I doubt we want to do it on Veterans Day weekend and then if we pushed it even further into November it would be the weekend before Thanksgiving which probably isn't great so okay so depending on how long it takes for this hydro seeding to really take hold the good news about the hydroseeding is

that they did do as you're supposed to a very um thin layer of hydroseed so if you're putting it over existing grass and the grass has been as Joe has been telling us really growing a whole lot better over the last couple of weeks so um and they did fill in some of the area with where there was pooling and um they've hydroseeded over all of it and um so we would expect that the grass

should be looking much better by the end of October but it may be smart to go with November 5th if people think that would be a date that would work hmm and we definitely need to check with the mayor and um you know a few other people to see if they can make those dates so it may make sense for us to pick a couple of dates yeah do you mind

any of those things work I cannot do the 29th or the 5th oh no no you guys can do this I can do the 29th what about the following week the fifth no after the 12th veterans veterans Day weekend Oh you're not a good evening I'm away yeah it's going to be hard I think yeah it is but you gotta you gotta pick one though or two yeah it has to be a Saturday right yep

I don't know well that's what the families of the family of the person where dedicating the peer to suggested but it doesn't have to be I wonder if it could be a Friday afternoon that yeah we got to just be wary of the time of the day because daylight savings comes in to play at the end of October that's the weekend of the fifth yeah right yeah so we could conceivably are you here Friday the 4th

I'm not here that week in between those States okay I'm not either but you still have to I mean it's not like we're not going to take a board Vote or anything so so it was there well I'll be I'll be going to November 17th it's okay don't worry about me well don't worry we should come up with some dates oh this is terrible well the only one would be the 29th

because we don't know we want to make sure it's ready a week's not going to make a difference right that's October the fifth or October or whatever 29th but you can't make the 2019 than I can did we float the 22nd or was that not a night yet well that's very that gives us two weeks to well the grass is still an issue and that gives us just a little over two

weeks to plan which would be really tough oh that gives you three weeks right 53.

because today's the 27th all right so you're suggesting the 29th or the fifth back again well or do we think we want to try to shoot for the 22nd I don't know it just what's another week I mean my fear is that it won't be ready that's all but maybe it will be is the plan to have it in that Circle and just take the fence down or what's the plan

I mean you're not going to go walk out on the grass anyway yeah

thank you

oh I know but when I'm killing the ground uh I don't know I think the later the better when do you leave Joe didn't do it that week leading up I'm leaving the the 17th of October to the 17th of November so I'm not going to be here so you'll miss it I'm definitely yeah oh dear but we still have to get it done

you could open it and have a dedication in the spring no you want to do it all at one time I I'm not a fan of dedicating something after it's open but open dedicated to yeah what about Saturday the 19th the weekend before Thanksgiving well that was my first choice but then we lose Joan no right no do it then you lose jump do it what about the 18th Friday

the 18th what time are you still around then I'm away I'm away from the 10th to the 19th okay we're all out of here Johnny just came back so we're good 19th is I use that as a as a date everything should be ready by then yeah for sure you can't go much after that and to be able to take the fence down with certainty but yeah I think you got to go later

so we need a second date okay

what day is better then during the week during the week yeah yeah if you want to get a public relations hit on this thing better off to have it on a Friday as opposed to a Saturday so so why don't we talk to them and see a Friday Friday afternoon of before one of these dates works yeah I think that's fine it was just thrown out there yeah that's a good point yeah you probably at lunchtime

isn't it huh even Friday at lunchtime have some sandwiches yeah actually if you did a noon event yeah you're right so let's shoot toward the 18th then oh yeah yeah she won't be here Saturday or Friday all right well let us know then uh well what about uh so Friday the 11th and that in Friday is the Veterans yeah you can't yeah well then there's Friday November 4th you got the fourth and the 18th yep

find out which one of those works for the parties that need to be there oh and it's actually Friday the 4th are we thinking Saturday the 5th as well or are we trying to really move it to Fridays we'll give them the way you can't give them the choice they want Saturday but check with the mayor's office and find out which one is better but I think the Friday based on what Ken

said Friday is preferred yep so say the fourth and the 18th but we've got Johnny and Joan for those days right because I'm not available and you're not available right right and I'm only here the fourth but I'm okay on the 18th yeah okay she's okay I just want to make sure the earlier date we have coverage okay fourth I would be here okay so 4 5 18 19. okay

all right I'm so sorry we're gonna miss some of you wow well as long as it gets open I have to have some we're certainly didn't have events in the spring so yeah okay any anything else on uh opening and you mentioned also on the agenda operations yes so the good operational news is that um the city will buy the trash cans that are consistent with the city trash cans okay and

um then you don't have to put them out to bed we have the city purchase them the city will put them in on going out next week to look at the locations of them and then we will pay the city back okay okay and these are the regular type of trash cans yeah and they'll uh uh collect yes and they're collecting the trash anything else relative to operations no I think that's it okay good thank you

um next item is phase four of uh City Pier so options in we're waiting for Mass dep to get back to us about the chapter 91 license and um we expect them to approve that sometime soon the design of the docs has been pretty much completed and we are putting in a Secor Council Grant proposal on Monday and so it was really important to get a budget and get the design of the

docs so that we could write all of that into the seaport proposal and the docs are coming in somewhere between seven hundred thousand and eight hundred thousand and we got a confirmation letter Joe and I received today with information about the state year mark and so we're still proceeding ahead to put the project out to bid around October 5th or so and then try to um get the peers put in In The End by

the end of December before any time of year limitations may be imposed by the spawning of fish in the Taunton River so the goal is to get it out to bid pick a contractor um the early November and get them out there putting the peers in before the end of December using the earmark and then hopefully we will be successful in a Seaport Council Grant and be able to finish the docs and the

whole project to next spring you're talking about the pilings by 12 31 again the docks because the piles of what really is an issue with the time of year restriction so we'll be good to go next spring for sure well um I should tell you that I talked with Ellen Sevilla at the seaport Council and the state funding hasn't been allocated for this funding round so they hope that it will be I'm assuming that's the

economic development bill and so she said that's the caution is that you're applying but it's possible the state money won't be there and then your application would go into the spring ground

uh you've already covered the design the bidding and construction of the dots so I won um uh one detail is that last time when we applied and it's been encouraged this time that the city be a co-applicant with us because it's typically designed for the municipality to be an applicant or a co-applicant and so what we want to do is have our chair co-sign with mayor Coogan to make this application and so

um I would like the board to authorize the chair to cosign a submittal letter and agree to the submittal of this proposal right I'd entertain a motion to authorize me to sign that okay so I move that we authorize the chair to sign the submittal letter with the mayor as a co-applicant right and that's ready to go right October for October one it's it's coming together okay yeah but we we shouldn't

have a problem with that dinner yeah we shouldn't okay and um Jane will be back Jane our grant writer will be back Thursday from her vacation and she's been saying that she's ready to help me finish it and it should be fine and um the other thing I should tell you is that there's a 20 match in what we're using for the 20 match is the funding that we're now that we've been committing to Beta to

design the pier the whole project to get the chapter 91 license and we can also include money that we have put into City Pier over the last couple of years okay so we have plenty of match and um and we'll be applying for both the cost of the construction and everything that needs to be purchased as well as engineering fees for the construction period so we'll be able to include the costs of beta during the

construction and the work that goes on in the spring should be minimal yes it should be yeah because you can drive 30 piles in a week yeah well we'll be having to pay for the pile piece in terms of oversight right is that what you're talking about no I'm saying we're we we won't have the grant until the spring so we'll be paying for the oversight of the piles which is in the contract we have right

now with data but next spring when all the docks go in and you know there's a more complexity in the spring and we'll be able to take the contract that we have with beta for the spring portion of construction and have that be part of the seaport Grant yeah I think the complexity is more of the pilots and if it's like you're just attaching the docks to the pilots yeah

but you've got to create you've got a link to the sidewalk and you know put that fence in and there's some complexity that they're still working on designing that they'll be supervising but we can you know we'll work on what that costs yeah the one other thing we talked about is made me sleep control variants will be right the gangway so right now we have an 80-foot gangway which is about eighty thousand dollars yeah

most marinas throughout the region have saw architecture architectural variances from the architecture um to shorten the gangway for those types of uses can you tell you about architectural access yeah for accessibility correct yeah because they said in speaking to Marine owners they said first of all nobody's ever seen the Navy for gangly and then the movement of 80 feet you know with the water moving and

everything else is getting a little gets a little uh complicated sense okay um again I'll entertain that motion if if we're done discussing that is there a second to John's motion second okay all in favor aye aye anyone opposed okay so that package is all pretty much all set yeah that's ready to go put out a bit

they're giving us some slightly revised numbers and they've been helping answer a bunch of questions and you know the pieces have to be put together over the next few days but all the pieces are pretty much coming together so we go out to the fifth oh ing out to bid I thought you were talking about the proposal um we're not sure if it's necessarily the fifth I got the sense it might be

slightly beyond that but it's you know early October early October we had asked them to project to the fifth but I think it will be a bit later than that

the next item is Pleasant Street road map and urban renewal plan

we had always known that Emily has a multi-week trip planned to Europe for October so we're planning around that and we're expecting to take the urban renewal plan to the city council now in January or February and we're shooting for that and that one of the next steps is for me to organize the meeting among 10 Dan aguiar the city engineer Mike Dion from Community Development and I to really go through the road map

that's been developed and make sure that everyone from the city side and our side is an agreement that this is work that we agree should be done and just really confirm that because on the some recent calls that really has been not full agreement and Dan was just pulled into the process so we want to make sure that um that we really have good agreement and then um then we can finalize the road map and

then the road map um gets merged into the urban renewal plan they've done an analysis of the properties that would be listed in the urban renewal plan as properties we might want to acquire and so there are lots of pieces of that are moving forward the new pink in everything is we knew that the new meepa environmental justice Community regulations could be an issue for us and mipa now urban renewal plans

in these communities require mipa approval and miba has been unclear what exactly their process was because we're the First Community to be doing an urban renewal plan under the new mepa regulations so our team has been working with mipa having conversations with them about what exactly the process is one of the good pieces of it is that when we go through the process and we get amoeba certificate it will make the

process for developers easier it will to some extent clear some of the path for developers who would also have to go through Nemo now it's going to take more work and an amendment is being drafted by tie and bonds who are the consulting firm that's part of Emily's contract the they're developing a whole plan of what it will take to get this approval and it looks like that might be around twenty five thousand dollars

which I thought I would need to bring to you for your approval but in the meantime I learned that the Hub Grant will cover it they recognize that it's really important and I think they recognize that we're the guinea pig and it will help kind of figure out this Meep or process and so they have funding for these kinds of things so they're going to fund it the challenge is that

it will add time to our process and it will just be a whole new project that we have to include in our completion of this project do you want to add anything I don't know it's uh it's very complicated probably going to add a year close to a year for approvals I think they think it can be done in a couple of months well we have to get the approval don't we have to get deeper approval

before we go in front of the city council or not yeah so we haven't seen the tie-in box I can tell you that just between public hearings the filing of the we expanded enf which is a 30-day comment period like yes Ken would you mind stepping up here because we've had some complaints from the audience that uh can't hear you all the time thank you sure I'm saying that just the filing of the expanded EMF

um that's what that's at least a 60-day period and then the filing of the eir if even if it's done simultaneously I think that's going to add more time to the whole situation so I don't see that happening in a couple of months I think it's probably closer to nine to 12 months so we're a year behind in our urban renewal plan I think so with this act with this added added permitting component

and I'm not sure it doesn't really help developers because I don't think any of the development there is going to upset any meepa thresholds right so they'd be developing those those Parcels as just as a matter of right I suppose it's not like you're developing vacant land and you're doing a lot of you know things that trigger the NEPA process itself I don't think this process this eir process fits

within the urban renewal plan right but it's something we have to deal with I don't think they've thought it out when they did these things no right so I just think it's going to make it much more complicated and time consuming you're gonna have to have a serious a public meeting so I don't think this is going to happen quickly unfortunately so once we get the outline from tie and bond about all the

pieces pieces of this process I'll certainly send it out to the board members who are on our planning team do other people want to see it I do make sure it's uh yeah yeah it's a good read I look forward to the sleeping not motivated okay so I'll make sure we send that out to everybody um anything else on page four well I'm sorry the government renewal plan um I think that's pretty much it Joan

you've been coming to our meetings is there anything yeah no nothing no I have to add in uh going into executive session as uh I make a finding that an open session would have a detrimental effect on the negotiating position of the public body and on the litigating of the public body so in order to go into executive session I would entertain a roll call vote the executive session is to approve the

executive session minutes from August 24th and September 19th and to discuss strategy with respect to litigation in the Bristol County Superior Court issue that we have docket number 2273 cv0535 and with respect to potential litigation regarding the City Pier project and for real estate transactions on the agenda including Innovation Way and 72 Bank Street so if I could entertain a motion

uh to go into executive session and not come back into Open Session Joe I realized that when we revised the agenda I added 40 add that to your list okay so it also includes to also include 45 and one Street are we coming back into oh and as I was saying we wouldn't come back deploy move we moved to uh executive session all right is there a second to that second second by in uh roll call

Joan Medeiros yes Joe Marshall yes and Keane yes okay so moved