The Fall River Zoning Board of Appeals convened on April 21st, 2022, at 6 p.m. at One Government Center. Joseph Pereira, Vice Chair, presided over the meeting. The board unanimously approved a special permit for OSR Investments LLC to demolish an existing automatic car wash bay and construct a new, larger one at 364 Bedford Street, finding the proposal not substantially more detrimental to the property. The vote was 5-0. A significant portion of the meeting was dedicated to an appeal by Stanley Street Treatment and Resources Inc. (STAR) concerning the Zoning Enforcement Officer's denial of a permit to operate a 30-bed drug and alcohol treatment facility on the second floor of 75 Weaver Street. Attorney Richard Burke, representing STAR, argued that the facility's services were educational in nature and thus protected under the Dover Amendment. Sherry Ellis, STAR's CEO, elaborated on the educational curriculum and structured daily programs for clients. After public comments in favor, the board voted 3-2 to uphold the building inspector's decision to deny the permit. In other business, a request for an extension of previously granted relief for Advanced Dental Spa at 825 New Boston Road was handled administratively, as the original two-year grant was still active, rendering an extension unnecessary. A variance request for Joaquin Fernandez at 178 Lake Avenue was continued to the May meeting. The board also addressed a clarification request from Marino Zachary Benavides of 154th Street Trust regarding a road opening at 146-150 Purchase Street, advising him that such matters fall under the City Council's jurisdiction, not the ZBA's. Finally, the minutes from the March 17, 2022, meeting were unanimously approved.
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City Officials
Education
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good evening i'm joseph pereira vice chair of the zoning board of appeals for the city of fall river it is 6 p.m on thursday april 21st 2022 we are meeting at one government center in the first floor hearing room pursuant to mass general law chapter 38 section 20 subsection f i hereby notify all persons in attendance that this meeting is being recorded with both video and audio devices
0:30paul miller government tv gary leet is recording both video and audio version if anyone desires to make an audio video or combination recording thereof please notify me now and i should make a public announcement of your intention our recording secretary this evening is the lady immediately to my right patty again present this evening from my left are permanent board members john frank who was our clerk
1:02james calkins dan de pierre and alternate member richard zahadi also in attendance as director of planning caitlin young patty have all petitions to be considered being properly advertised and all parties all interested parties notified in accordance with the rules and regulations of the zba and mass general law chapter 48 as amended yes thank you i declare the april 21st 2022 regularly scheduled meeting of the
1:35zoning board of the city of fall river open for such business as shall regularly come before it i remind all persons presenting before the board including the petitioners of otters anyone in support or anyone opposed to the petition that your presentation should be limited to three minutes questions and responses must be directed through the chair the board's rules and regulations direct
2:03the board to specifically look for information which supports the petitioner's claim as such the petitioner should identify and factually support the basis for the petition i hereby advise the petitioners and all interested persons that this is the zoning board of appeals the board's authority exists personally to mass general law chapter 48 and is limited in scope and deals with
2:32the use of land regulated by chapter 86 of the ordinances of the city of fall river additional permits licenses reviews and or approvals may be required for the specific development and or use which is the subject of the petition before the zoning board this evening the clerks in the building planning engineering and licensing departments are competent in the discharge of their duties as clerks they are however not
3:05attorneys and are not competent to give legal advice the action taken by this board has a real and lasting effect upon title to your real estate i urge all petitioners to seek competent legal counsel before filing your petitions and after a decision of the board has been made for example there is a city ordinance 2015-11 section 10-1 requiring site plan reviews a copy of the ordinance is available at
3:38the city clerk's office or from the planning department i remind everyone that the building inspector is the zoning enforcement authority and you are here this evening because the building inspector has deemed that your proposed action is contrary to the city of fall river's zoning ordinances the city charter section 9-18 mandates that all multiple member bodies develop and adopt rules or policies for
4:07public comment we have adopted such a policy which in short provides for citizen input or zoning on zoning board specific matters at the end of this meeting i disclose that the official copy of the follower of a zoning ordinance is available at the city clerk's office one cannot rely on the online ordinance with that we will open with a request we normally open with old business i have a request to change order
4:45and i will ask council on item zero one if they are okay with this uh item number three is osr investments llc care of attorney thomas caloran attorney claren has another hearing this evening in the town of somerset and is afraid they might close the bridge and not allow him to enter if we're here too long who's here for stanley street thank you very much i would think we'd need approval from the others also um
5:21that are before well the only two before are not here oh okay that's that's another issue we'll have to take off now i will check the tape for somerset just to make sure good evening mr chairman members of the board ms agnier miss young name is attorney thomas killarin officers at 350 north main street in full river massachusetts i'm representing osr excuse me osr investments llc who is the
5:55owner of the subject property as well as the applicant before i delve into the um into this matter at hand i would like to thank attorney burke i did speak with him outside in the hallway and he did acknowledge that he'd be gracious enough to allow us to jump the line so i appreciate that and i appreciate the board accommodating my request as well uh the property before you was at 364
6:18bedford street in florida massachusetts an existing car wash i believe it's called cliffs car wash if i'm not mistaken uh with me tonight i'm i'm sorry as well as sir carpenter who's one of the uh who's the manager of the llc uh so it's an existing and operational car wash um the applicant purchased the property sometime in 2021 um he had planned on demolishing the existing automatic bay
6:46and constructing a new automatic day that's why we're here before you he was not aware that that was going to require a special permit he began the site plan review process and through that process he was notified that he would need a special permit would need to come before this award so he's currently already involved with site plan review and is continuing to work with the city to address the issues
7:08that they've raised but again we're here before you tonight asking for a special permit because there's an existing automatic bay and what i'll call two self-serve bays those two self-serve bays can handle four cars at one time the automatic bay at issue is operational to an extent unfortunately it breaks down quite often and it's becoming more of a headache for the owner than really reaping any any benefits
7:39originally he looked at just replacing the mechanics inside the automatic bay unfortunately the automatic bays that are constructed nowadays don't fit in the same size automatic bay that that's already there so what's before you is a proposal to demolish the automatic bay and then construct this new bay which would extend out approximately 10 feet from the existing building line towards
8:03the front street if you were to look at the property today and there is a in existing conditions and proposed conditions existing is here proposed here you'll see that the building front is flat the existing bay will stick out about 10 feet from the front of the building it complies with all setback requirements in all respects with the exception of the existing uh westerly uh prop excuse me building line is about
8:306.68 feet away from that property line so we have a pre-existing non-conforming structure again we're going to knock down the existing bay construct this new bay but it's not going to impact that side yard setback that's already closer than allowed by the bylaw the the new automatic bay will be constructed on the easterly side of the property and will maintain a distance of 66.1 feet
8:52away from the east silly property line and the new bay as constructed will be 35.5 feet away from the front property line again maintaining all appropriate setbacks i do have a photograph of what the property will look like once completed i can certainly turn this into the board so that you can make it part of your record um i'm sure you're familiar with the property or had an opportunity to drive by the property
9:20it's a little bit depressed as it currently stands today the applicant is going to invest a substantial sum of money try to beautify this you know fix the parking lot stripe it have better directional arrows in terms of points of ingress and egress is going to mark the vacuum spaces so there's going to be significant improvements that are going to be made to this property as opposed to what's
9:42there presently so we're here again tonight for a special permit we're not looking for a variance it's a pre-existing non-conforming structure that we're looking seeking to modify and um obviously we'd be happy to entertain any questions from the board understanding that you're still within the setbacks i'm just curious as to why this is coming forward to 10 feet is it just for traffic flow no uh all the new
10:05automatics that i mean this is a 30 year old automatic that's in there all the new automatics that are there cannot fit in that 28 foot bay because back in those days we didn't have these pickup trucks and huge trucks and stuff now all the automatic bays are made so the minimum you need is about 34 feet of length and this bay is only 28 so because of that there is no way i can
10:27fit an automatic wash in that size unless i replace it with another 30 year old machine but but i think also i think to your question mr pereira was you know why are we shifting it forward can we push it back and i think that really does have to do with traffic flow as you can see before you enter the automatic bay there's a pay station there and in order for vehicles
10:46to be able to make that turning radius around to access the pay station and then get to the bay that's why it has to be set closer a little bit to the front uh to the front street um than the existing structure any questions from the board hearing none i would entertain a uh emotion anybody is there anyone present uh in favor of the petition anyone imposed they're hearing none this a bifurcated vote
11:30and on the special permit that we first find that it is not more detrimental yes right yes uh mr chairman i move that we find that this proposal is not substantially more detrimental to the property than the existing second it's made by jim clark in the second by dan de pere discussion on the motion opening some favorite john franks yes jim carkins yes dan de pere yes rick sahari yes and vice chairman prairie yes
12:23i can think of none that being the case uh who's the second on this please second you second thank you dan uh then on the motion uh john frank sorry i just had an epiphany no signage change uh sorry we're we're using there's going to be a new sign but it's going in the location of the existing sign it's going to comply yes the existing pylon we're just going to refresh the existing pylon okay sorry
12:51yes my answer is yes jim carkins yes dan de bear yes and rick sahari yes and vice chair pereira yes great thank you thank you very much getting over the bridge thank you appreciate it didn't watch it for the record mr chairman yeah we'll just add it thank you thank you so much okay
13:29it takes us back to old business stanley street treatment and resources inc dba star care of attorney richard burke this is an appeal of the decision of the zoning enforcement officer denying a permit to operate an institutional group high one table abuses 86 36 to 30 bed drug and alcohol facility on the second floor of 75 river street and a cmd commercial middle district section
14:0486201 this has continued from march 17th um just as a matter of a little bit of history this body had a question when this initially came up regarding the ability to hear new evidence that had not been a part of the original application with the building inspector since that time with corporation council involved additional information has been presented to the building inspector
14:36uh that additional information did not change his mind regarding the uh the original petition we have correspondence in hand from the building inspector saying that his decision to deny stands which puts this now squarely in our court spoken corporation counsel yesterday and in writing this morning and with that item from the building inspector that denial then um we are at a point that we can move forward on
15:11this petition now there is the question which is before i turn it over is we know that there is additional information that has been presented to the building inspector i see your your best but i've got it over here understand that this sat because it came in in bits and pieces i think it stayed with the planning department because we didn't know where this was going if the building inspector had changed his ruling
15:43it became a moot point so we did not scan it for everyone for the record and i can supply you a copy of this we did create basically a menu yesterday that detailed out for our board um the various items that are in this additional information that you set so because we just didn't have the capability to scan all of this i wouldn't even try to email this um so that everybody has
16:19from your your letter regarding the um the various therapies you know etc uh such as you know anger the power of self-talk coping skills uh you're more than welcome to have a copy of this so you know that this was distributed to the board members at this point in time with that i'm going to stop talking and turn it over to you council thank you mr chairman um just in regard to that matter of the
16:51additional material um i we did um you know file it with the with the board and then we sent an e-file copy as well but i brought with me today for each of the five voting members an extra copy because i i wasn't sure if there had been time to pass it out and i i would simply say i'm going to cover it but we would think it would be helpful to us if the
17:19board would review it because it basically does describe what stars does in detail and um with me as as sherry ellis and um and the materials is some materials that she authored she stars uh new new ceo so if the board would like additional time obviously you can't review this tonight but if you would like additional time we would be amenable to continuing this to give you that additional time to
17:48review it before you vote may i pass it out mr chairman yes you may thank you and i will on the question i will turn to the board as far as the wishes of the body these are not in color and they're they're double-sided just to prevent killing too many trees but the um there are color versions that we file uh electronically and also there's a set that the board has
18:22uh which is in color but but everything is there in black and white and double-sided um we um just to summarize what this this matter is about tonight um star has constructed their new building at 75 weaver street um what's at issue and still uh before you tonight is that there is a portion of the building on the second floor that is not finished and that's because of uh the disagreement with the building
18:54inspector and that area is basically in the middle of the second floor it's 15 double bedrooms which would be able to accommodate a total of 30 people and what that would be for is for alcohol and drug treatment approximately half of the clients at any one time would be there for what star refers to as acute treatment services which is detox and then that takes about three to seven
19:27days typically and then the other half of the clients that would be there at any one time out of the 30 so about 15 and 15 would be in what is called clinical stabilization care or css which is um after detox a further 21-day program of education and training to help people stay sober and move forward with their their life the building inspector has looked at that use of of drug and alcohol rehabilitation
19:59and under the state building code it fits in a category of what is called institutional group and we don't disagree with that what that basically is about in the building code is determining what you have to do for fire code compliance what you have to have for exits for people however just because it's that way or it's called institutional under the building code and it was built
20:29that way we built it for all of those fire standards all the exit standards so it's in compliance but under zoning our disagreement with the building inspector is that that same category doesn't doesn't just carry over it's one thing under the building code and it's another thing under the zoning bylaw we submit that what star's program would be is an educational program and there is what's called the
20:59dover amendment under the zoning statute of the general laws chapter 48 section 3 and what that basically says is that zoning bylaws cannot prohibit or regulate any use of property for educational purposes by a non-profit educational corporation and in the materials that we've submitted to you it's clear star is a is a non-profit educational corporation the issue is whether this program for
21:29the drug and alcohol rehabilitation qualifies as an educational program or educational purposes and actually the the commercial mill district zoning bylaw says if it's an educational use it's allowed so what we've submitted to you is that essentially everything that star does is educational and along those lines in the materials that i passed out tonight is the letter that sherry ellis wrote dated
21:59march 4th which i would ask that you read and consider and just to summarize from that letter to describe why what star is looking to do is educational sherry starts out the letter by saying recovery from an addiction requires a relearning of how to live um and everything that star does has an educational approach to educate clients about their disease whether it's the detox or the clinical
22:28stabilization there is a curriculum that clients have when they're there that covers the educational components of substance use disorder management there's they follow star follows the same program as case laws recognizes is educational called dbt cbt it it's dialectical behavior therapy and cognitive behavior therapy basically the clients that would be there for the detox or the 21 day program that follows
23:04they have a very structured uh nine hour program each day that they're there and what we've given you and what sherry i think has helped make clear maybe clearer than our initial packet is is showing you when you're there what your regimented schedule is you attend this program and this class in this class and it's it's a combination of of classroom and group instruction that is uh geared toward helping people
23:37understand their disease what triggers it how to cope with it um what skills they need to stay sober when they when they leave star it's done in group settings and also people work on their own individual plans the goal is that with this support and training clients will be able to manage their substance use disorders there's education and treatment that's needed to understand the ideology of
24:10their substance use disorder and the tools that they need to reduce their risk of relapsing we gave you um examples of the types of educational programs that are there i know i have three minutes so i can't possibly i could go on for an hour about the legal matter but we gave you actual copies of cases on this and just to quote from one of the leading cases which is called mclean hospital
24:37talking about what is educational under the dover amendment the court says in that case that educational as used in the dover amendment has been construed on numerous occasions as a broad and comprehensive term the protections of the dover amendment are not to be limited only to those facilities closely analogous to traditional schools and colleges and the court goes on to say in this mclean hospital case for example
25:06indeed we repeatedly have held that a program that instills a basic understanding of how to cope with everyday problems and to maintain oneself in society is incontestably an educational process within the meaning of the dover amendment and among the materials that we've given you are our cases of drug and alcohol treatment programs like stars where courts have said there is an educational component to these programs
25:36and um they qualify under the dover amendment so just exactly what star is seeking to do has already been before the courts in similar cases and they have clearly said that the dover amendment applies the purpose of star's program is to help people leave lead better lives and education is is critical to the success of that program um and i think that's clearest when you look at the schedules which are in the
26:09materials that people have to and the types of classes that they take um every day on this nine-hour regimented program that they're there um which i think it makes it clear that it is an educational component we would be happy to answer any questions that you have and we would ask that you consider a continuance if you think that it would be helpful for you to digest those materials that we've given you that
26:38obviously you haven't seen before tonight to understand what star is doing and why we're saying to you that we believe that their program is is educational in nature if it is educational then it qualifies clearly under the dover amendment and and i think and thank you very much for that thank you for the brevity on all this but um i i cannot speak for for all the members of
27:05the board i know that our planner is is well versed in uh in the dover amendment uh actually when this entire issue came up i dove into the dover amendment no pun intended and it would seem that as time has gone on with each appeal that ends up in front of the courts the amendment seems to get stronger and stronger and stronger the case law has in in many ways pushed the boundaries of
27:39the definition of education that said i'm not an expert in the dover i've read too much about it in the last few months as i'm sure that some of some of the others here have done as well so i i appreciate the um i appreciate the materials that you know really lay out all of the different programs that lay out the regimented schedules etc are there outpatient treatment as well are the people that come in in
28:16the morning and and sit in on various groups etc or is is everything the in within the 30 bed unit are you talking about the second floor are you talking about the first floor because we have occupancy on the first floor that already has outpatient services within it all right that's that's what i thought that's it but it all falls under are you saying that star's mission is education
28:45i'm saying that star's mission is education and it's outpatient treatment in our health center we have a health center that delivers regular primary care so that is on the first floor and that isn't what's at issue here um the primary care is seen as something completely different and outside of that scope i'm looking at the broader scope of that definition so in other words those that are coming in for clinical
29:14clinical assistance however you want to call it whether they're walking into the first floor you still consider that educational as well on the substance use disorder side absolutely because it's a constant um it's a constant education people that initially come in for detox need to be educated on that process and then the 21 day process of the step down to learn how not to relapse is all education and
29:43to the extent that they have medical needs or may need follow-up outpatient care that's a continuing educational program that everything that star does but as sherry said the building inspector has issued a permits for the rest of of the building the only part of the building that is at issue is the is this this 30 beds for the 15 uh double rooms because of the question of the of the
30:11dover amendment as to that but again as i said we we strongly argue that that is essentially educational as well in order for people to succeed yeah i i think that it's important and i mean that when we're zoning her you're applying for a zoning chain while you're playing applying for an interpretation as an education and that has to apply to the total operation of the facility because that's what
30:42the zoning pertains to and and there's wording in in that case that you cited that that says predominantly education it's not just that an element within the building is so that's why my question was going to be does this pertain to the second floor or to the building i think the um do you want to answer sherry yeah so any any of our substance use disorder treatment within that building so
31:17everything on the first floor where we're treating anyone who has a substance use disorder the application is there we do we use the same dbt skills groups the same cbt skills groups we run programming both individual and group treatment on an outpatient basis so patients come into the facility again this is about a continuum of treatment so that your sobriety is maintained and you can contribute and do all of the
31:42things you can to reach your potential despite the fact that you have a substance use disorder so everything that we do at star is really educational because that's the only thing that works for substance use disorder in the long term and we use our entire continuum of treatment that way and this is kind of what i was i was alluding to is the fact that as cases end up in front of the courts the
32:13the point on the the the amendment has gotten much sharper the interpretations have gotten much sharper so that that predominantly statement that was involved in uh the mclean case i think has pretty much been eroded away by subsequent uh subsequent subsequent decisions so i i hear which i hear what you're saying and the argument being made by ms ellis and council is that everything they do is education
32:47and you know with the backup for it are there other questions from the board at this point before i turn to to caitlyn for another input john you always have a question i my only one uh i was leaning a little more on the predominant side but there's a huge medical component to this you know there is people show up at your location in an ambulance for a lot of times
33:21not as often as yeah people get transported there in ambulances regularly i won't say that it never happens it does happen so there's a there's a there's a huge medical component to this and i understand the building inspectors thought process yeah um and i believe that's why we're here today to either uphold his decision or not um period i think that's all we're dealing with today right okay
33:48the cases do talk about um where does the where does the sorry how are me to cut you off but you go into the educational component with all this stuff here this all starts after the medical component is i don't see resolved but diminished it starts the moment anyone walks through our door substance use disorder is a disease that requires education education around understanding it
34:18understanding triggers understanding why and understanding what happens and the second anyone walks in the door that starts and so you may not feel comfortable dividing the two apart however the case law and i i've done quite a lot of research on this too the case law has supported very consistently that substance use disorder treatment withholds upholds the dover amendment and that is both for outpatient
34:50substance use disorder treatment as well as for inpatient so there isn't that kind of delineation between when someone walks in and needs a detox because the moment they walk in you begin in that moment to educate them as to why their body and their mind responds the way it does to substances and why someone else can do something and they cannot and so we start at the moment they walk
35:12in the door mr chandler just a little just one point just to clarify i'm a little confused here the the denial that was issued by the building inspector um was there any component about education in his denial primary education or anything of the sort it was based on things other than did you have a problem
35:49his initial letter talked about how it was institutional category under the building code and that's how it fit for fire code and other issues and he carried that same category over to the zoning side and said well it's institutional one it's institutional in the other and we we presented to him the the materials originally that we filed with the board and then there was a big packet initially and then this
36:19subsequent new packet that i passed out tonight we went over with him we were unsuccessful in getting him to agree that the dover amendment applied but that's that's the issue and so yeah i guess what i'm saying is that um in his thinking and his denial the educational component did not play into it at all he didn't he was stuck on the fact that it was one thing under the
36:43building code and it therefore had to be another the same thing under the zoning code and we we argued that he was correct about the building code it is institutional and it should be built for that fire code but under the zoning side it's educational because of the dover amendment because if education is involved in the process then the dover amendment takes over he didn't accept that argument but we
37:09you know we advanced that same argument to him and we frankly think he's wrong which is why we have appealed and um why we think education is is primary and to answer your your question mr frank actually in this um mclean hospital case and in other cases the courts have said it's almost impossible to separate the therapeutic or medical side from the educational side and that you shouldn't
37:35even try to do it if there is an educational component that's important the fact that there's also a medical component doesn't make it not educational and that was an issue that actually came up in this mclean hospital case in other cases because it's so hard to separate what might be medical what might be educational um and the court sided with the educational side and and that case is in the
38:00materials that we've passed out tonight as well final point of clarification was that he determined the dover amendment did not apply is that correct he never said that um he just said he denied our appeal and but i guess that's implied and that he couldn't get past the fact that he categorized it as institutional under the building code therefore it had to be institutional um he never really
38:35said i don't think it's educational or i don't believe you're doing education he just was stuck by where he fell under the state building code he never mentioned the dover amendment he never mentioned it i don't think he mentioned it in any of his letters so to your yeah and i'm going to kick it over to caitlin in a second to your question what's in front of us is his denial as this being institutional i1 right
39:04okay in this process there were discussions that brought new evidence in front of the building inspector which i find extremely unusual but it was allowed so new evidence went in front of the building inspector which is the packets that we have here and at that point in time the argument was made to our building department that this disqualifies under the dover amendment it's completely within the building
39:35inspector's purview to not go down that road so i think what you were saying is you feel this is this appeal right now is kind of clouded because the denial was based upon the institutional use as opposed to the educational use yeah within his denial the educational use did not come up at all um i don't know that he mentioned it but i guess the point of this appeal is that
40:08we come to this board and say we disagree with the building inspector we think him being stuck on it being institutional is just incorrect and that this board should take a fresh look at it which is your right and uh to which this is the same thing that was denied two years ago three years ago sorry i don't know where we're at uh essentially well yeah i think initially then the building was
40:35built right initially there were the building inspector agreed to that that building permits could issue for medical offices and and the rest of the building uh he what he didn't agree to which is all which is what we're here for tonight is he didn't agree basically what you have on the second floor is the plumbing comes to a stub in the wall and and nothing is built out in the middle because he he did not agree
41:00that these bedrooms uh these double 15 double bedrooms could be could be built um and that's that's what we're appealing so the rest of the building is built it's just that on the second floor there is this unfinished area and we haven't been able to proceed with that part of of star's mission okay dan apparently you're inpatient now who is that open to is that open to the city residents or is that like
41:30surrounding areas some swansea or the reach that reaches out to springfield massachusetts uh we generally do not drop from springfield people from springfield generally don't come from to fall river generally we have people from fall river somerset the surrounding smaller towns dartmouth new bedford that's the predominance of the people that end up in our walls okay so as far as the uh the outpatient treatment part
41:56people can get there to get the treatment like again if you had somebody come in from springfield and they go through the program and then you're going to treat them on an outpatient basis what are you doing we wouldn't treat them on an outpatient basis generally people will go back to their area of ties especially if someone comes as far as springfield or worcester like would they move back
42:14out the same way if if someone from faux river goes to worcester for treatment which we have a lot of that a lot of people will go to worcester to find a bed and go to treatment or westborough and then they'll come back into the area and we'll treat them outpatient we would pass them to a provider in springfield for their outpatient treatment thank you i i caitlin i'm going to turn to you for a second
42:39for any input you care to give and i've got a couple of thoughts regarding timing yeah so i guess my does anyone on the board have any specific questions just like to hear your opinion what you're thinking of um i think that you know keep in mind the two-prong piece of the dover amendment you know is it the edu is it that the education component is significant and you know is it a primary
43:04or dominant which is kind of what you've already like summarized in discussion um though you did bring up a good point which is i i didn't realize that the building commissioner never actually commented on the education use he just indicated that it was not an institutional use i have his original december eight letter here i can i can yeah i have um and then he he issued his subsequent decision just for tonight
43:34which he said he was sticking with israel with his denial yeah but this is his letter um you're correct his subsequent communication said that he was holding to his original decision yes which brings up questions in my mind and that's the fact that was the original application presented to the building inspector using the dover amendment yes as the substance yeah in the initial appeal that we we
44:13filed because remember there were i guess there were two two appeals one's already in court that was as to the building as a whole and then we submitted a building permit just for these remaining 15 double bedrooms that he denied but in that in that there was another thick package that went into him there that would be part of the this appeal tonight the original filing of this appeal i think it was in january and
44:45that we submitted to him a big thick packet of all the dover amendment cases materials about stars educational programming sherry felt that we could be clearer on that and i think she was right and also you know newer programming that had happened and she had been hired in the interim and wanted to give you her summary and description of star and what they do so that's in the letter that you
45:14have that i passed out tonight but yes definitely we submitted to the building inspector our argument that um and it's in our our initial appeal that the the dover amendment um apply we just he just we we could not get him to move past that it was institutional under the building code therefore it should be institutional under the zoning code um we just were unsuccessful in getting him to to see it our way but we
45:44definitely argued it to him and for that you could look back and actually i think maybe some of the cases including um the case that i read from tonight are in that initial packet um that would be part of our our first appeal so we we've given you a lot of materials i'm afraid good or bad
46:10it's interesting to me that in the materials that he he doesn't really the building commissioner didn't fight against the claim of doverman he just held with the fact that it the institutional use aspect do you know what i'm saying that's the one thing with this that i i wonder if we need more clarification on from him what do you what do you think i feel we do because what clearly states his new letter that just
46:38came out that i just read again to myself to make sure that i was provided regarding to the dover amendment i suggest that the hearing go in front of the zoning board of appeals so he was definitely had dove this time his mind when he was right so it's interesting because the original denial that we're dealing with does not address and the original letter it says that you've provided to me it says that you know
47:03the attorney has informed me that star is an educational facility and permitted pursuant to the dover amendment please provide documents as we request in the past it shows you an educational facility in particular the institutional use group so in that letter they requested information um regarding the it as being an educational facility basically asking can you defend your dover amendment um you know stance
47:28but that's all it states in here and what you'll see in the in the initial appeal that we filed is the packet in the letter i think it's stated july of last year which went with his review of this current before you and you'll see clearly we made our pitch arguing the dover amendment in all the cases and we we provided him with copies of stars programs and that sort of thing um so
47:57i don't think there's any question that he knew that we were arguing the dover amendment and what we were doing um we and we sherry wanted to make her argument as to why it was educational and that's why we asked at the last zoning board meeting we'd be given a chance to submit those materials we did also resubmit that to the building inspector um unfortunately it didn't for us it did
48:22not change his opinion but we think he's wrong and that's why we've appealed it to you to ask you to review everything again now it's my understanding if the dover amendment pertains that if it is classified as educational then then the fact that it was classified as institutional has no bearing and then it cannot be or the zoning board has no no effect period that's right yeah the i mean
48:56institutional for the building code it's been built to comply with the institutional part of the building code which as i said when you look at the building code of course it's like what do you need for fire safety what do you need for this width of exits that sort of thing it's been built to comply with that but if it's under the dover amendment then we have a right to do it it cannot
49:17be denied and that's what we're we're arguing we should be able to build it and use it any additional questions from the board again just one point of clarification if in fact what jim is saying is true is that it's found that it's primarily educational in nature then we have no authority as a board is that correct it wouldn't come before it shouldn't but if there's an adverse decision that
49:46it's not then it has to come as an appeal of that incorrect determination okay all right thank you all right that's correct that's absolutely correct we disagree with the building inspector's decision we think he's wrong we've appealed it to your board to review the educational argument again and hope that you will agree with us and if you do then the building inspector would issue the building permit and we would be
50:14allowed to move forward do we need more time on this folks i really would like a somebody to tell me why the dover i mean meaning either the building inspector or the law department to tell us why they we why the amendment doesn't pertain i mean we asked we requested legally and then it's not here what we requested was what clarification could you take new evidence that had not been presented to the
50:48building inspector that's what we asked for and the answer we got was you know in form of an email you can do it okay do we need to gather additional information i think so see if we can request from legal a opinion or the building commission and or the building commissioner an opinion as to why it wasn't specific why it didn't specifically fall under the dover amendment is that what i'm hearing because of foreign
51:20there are no findings within the yeah right i think we need a determination that the building inspector found that that does not pertain in order to if that's his grounds i would agree um because i want to be crystal clear i don't want an ambiguous decision coming out of this board based on all of the information that was provided in regards to the dover amendment i suggest that a hearing in
51:54front of the zoning board of appeals continue as previously advised i i can't see it any clearer than that that's right i think what they're asking is why why he denied it right that's kind of what you want clarification based on all of the information no it's it's clear why he initially denied it it's because the institutional use and institutional requirements that's why he denied it
52:21all right yes and and and that was the primary reason he denied it now in light of the additional information that's gone to him over the last couple of months or last month whenever it went in he's saying in light of the dover men and i'm i'm holding to my original decision which is fair okay which which is fair he's the building inspector he's not not city law department and we're only the zoning board we're
52:56determining whether or not he we can only uphold his decision or not decisions this will overturn his decision based upon our bylaw our bylaw says that if this were educational it can be there state laws the use can i believe the educational use if you look at the table of uses is pretty much right across the boards as a yes
53:32if we're not going to continue i'm going to ask for support and or opposition you're right that that letter was was clear now now he's saying i've looked at i've looked at at dover and i i still say no that's like that's where that's the only issue that i understand about is there anyone present who wishes to speak in favor of this petition sir please identify yourself for the record my name is james hornsby
54:13i reside at 260 lake avenue in fall river i have submitted material previously in february i thank you for i see some nods thank you for looking at it on the back of it were a bunch of signatures that i gathered within 48 hours because it was rushed i tell you i could have gathered 500 but but the reason i i should also say that i am the associated with saint luke's episcopal church on warren street
54:51i have been a member of the city of fall river school committee and i currently serve on the conservation commission i respect very much the work of volunteer boards and i have always felt in these boards when serving and when observing that it is really important to think of the welfare of our city as a whole in addition to the minutiae and the the emotions and so forth
55:30so i ask you to fix them wrong and to wrong judgments for wrong judgment and to simply approve this i had commented before that about jobs and not being a lawyer i can tell you that i think this thing is i've read i have read some stuff but i heard this today the dover amendment applies it's just going to be more litigation and then it's going to be approved um
56:01i was going to speak personally more at length about my cousins two cousins young women bright personable terrific future heading for college both became addicted at different times one had very good treatment and i'm glad to say that she's she's alive well and occasionally i see her pictures as they circulate in the family emails the other cousin did not get treatment and diet simply treatment was not available
56:49for her so i ask you to approve this but i also have one other qualification that occurred to me during this discussion i have been a resident for 30 days 2 3 10 minute 10 hour 10 weeks 10 30 days 30 days 10 days each time in an educational treatment center for drugs and alcohol i don't know if anyone else has that qualification in the room but uh it was part of my training both as a
57:36clergyman and as a social worker and i took part in this it was led by the drug person and drug the drug chief of the new york city who came to puerto rico and led a number of the sessions it was all education it was all education and some of our teachers were were residents who had been there and were were clean and they shared their educational experience and their educational
58:17learning and how they how they had to shift their lives how they had to learn new things this was educational and it even and the stuff was so moving that i signed up three times to live in a rotten prison which is where we were housed a rotten prison in puerto rico in rio piedras and with terrible food but it was educational it was this and this and this it was
58:56group education which is what i was there for and i did group and i did group group work in mental health with kids and adults for about 40 or 50 years after that but i just share that as another voice that this is that treatment is educational treatment that i have to change my way of living and i have to understand better and believe better that's education thank you thank you reverend for sharing
59:40is there anyone else who wishes to speak in favor
59:52um thank you my name is dawn marie alivera i'm a member of signals church um and also a uia member i wrote this whole excuse me so could you get this your address please for the record uh 45 division street fall river okay thank you sorry to interrupt that's okay this should be under three minutes so just bear with me um it is my hot's go to make a difference for the betterment of people's lives
1:00:30i know what hardship is and i know what a horrible tragedy it is to even lose one beautiful soul due to drugs horrific hold draining the life out of the afflicted they have been hurting for far too long they began taking drugs as a means of escape from their pain even for just one moment but without their realizing all that the drugs would steal from them these drugs would steal their precious life
1:01:07i plead with you all to help your neighbors to know that their life matters help them to end their suffering they do want a better life for themselves drugs have stolen their dreams of what they wanted to be in this world we must give back to them the chance to have a healthy and happy life we must provide all the best tools possible for them to achieve a healing these are our brothers and sisters
1:01:46let us walk together hand in hand let us be here for each other let us create this healing space on weaver street thank you all thank you for your input i'm going to give you this paper so anyone else who wishes to speak in favor is there anyone here wishes to speak in opposition they're not at rest with us now folks entertain a motion so that we can open discussion is there anything else you
1:02:21care to add at this point i think you've sherry you know we'd be happy to answer if you have any other questions or anything but i think we thank you for hearing us thank you for the presentation it's just one of what the case that is currently going before the court has that got any bearing on this whatsoever it's it's sort of been pending um depending on what this this will resolve it
1:02:54if you vote in our favor tonight but it's still pending if you vote against us we'll join this with that case and ask the judge to make a decision under the doper amendment
1:03:12i'll entertain either a motion to approve or a motion to deny or to continue yeah we might need more i don't know if you want to hear from the cooperation council i think corporation council made it clear that once the we could he made it clear that once the building inspector inspection services came back with a statement upholding or overturning their prior decision at that point in time if
1:03:48the building inspector upheld then it was in it was with us yeah i think that the question was asked a little boy department was can we hear additional and that was the one that they really they didn't rule on whether or not he or the law department thought that dover applied i don't think that that was the question that was put before i will make a motion to uphold the building inspectors decision
1:04:23motions made to pull the building inspector's decision which is a denial of the application do we have a second on that one we have a second by dan de pere motion by john frank any discussion at this point my view is that with the materials that have previously been submitted which and then your comments with your research on the dover amendment and and that the the decision is going to be clear
1:05:01that uh the dover amendment does apply and therefore that the decision will be overturned so i i believe that it should be granted vote the other way yeah i will yeah thank you that mean and i appreciate that that input um that being the case a yes vote in this case will uphold the building inspector's decision a no vote will be against upholding the building inspector's decision um john frank yes jim calkins no
1:05:41dan de pere yes rick sahari no okay joe pereira yes um i do thank you um we're not taking it lightly in fact we're taking it very seriously so yeah i wish i wish you the best okay thank you very much i'm sure we'll see you again thank you thank you
1:06:29okay the next two are going to be oh so easy case number one under new business and advanced dental spa care of attorney peter a celino 825 boston new boston road lot p dot 14-001 we received a letter from attorney celino uh to miss alex uh as you're aware the undersign serves as counsel for advanced dental spa owner of the auctioned property my client and i are in receipt of the agenda for the april
1:07:1021st 2022 meeting of the fall river zoning board unfortunately i have a scheduling conflict that evening as a result of being in florida for the april school vacation therefore i would ask within i would ask of if the within requested relief could be allowed administratively this is an interesting one inasmuch as is requested relief was previously granted at a public hearing the request is simply for an extension
1:07:41of the previously granted relief to the extent that the matter cannot be handled administratively i ask for the father of a zoning board of appeals for a continuance of this matter uh to the main meeting so i may present kind of present this communication to attorney assad and board members and advisor of the outcome was it mr chairman are the dates on this thing the dates that were published
1:08:09because these dates are totally moot you and i and and our esteemed planner are all in the same place so at this point in time march 20.
1:08:20that's what i was going to say we're in there which is something we've been dealing with with a lot of permitting applications across the board uh between planning et cetera during the state of emergency the governor actually halted the tolling period for permitting that included permits that were issued before the beginning of that and after that so um what some what some communities are
1:08:53doing and some people are seeing this as is the time the period of time that um passes or basically it gets paused and then the amount of time gets added towards the end of it i've got a memo here it's regarding a different project but i i use it on a lot of things to help um figure out the dates it would be roughly an additional like a hundred and uh i want to say it
1:09:20was like 120 days um difference if you were to take out the tolling period so technically it would have been like right now we would still be within the one year after that june 15th end of the state of emergency that's one way to look at it and then i know it's very very won't be the case i get it there's a shelf life well there's there's a shelf life on a decision
1:09:48and if the shelf life starts in march of 2021 it's going to run out that much quicker so they're saying they need additional time so i believe and my recommendation at this point and explain what they're talking about because they're right no so believe ourselves the state of emergency occur yes the state of emergency occurred before it was approved but they the governor through all the interpretation of that
1:10:22that involved things that were permitted before the state of emergency and after and the reasoning for that was appeal periods the reasoning for that was appeals the reasoning for that was a lot of things that we weren't able to hear or some communities wouldn't have been able to deal with i think that's what it comes down to is the some communities piece but look
1:10:50it says in 2021 yep that had to be at that time for a year which would take us to february of 22. but it wouldn't be until the appeal period was completed and the decision was filed okay so let's say and they're just asking for to extend from a period of march to september so i mean they that that i think it's just not well written well they've got
1:11:22the wrong year is what i mean you know
1:11:34and it says commencing yeah would i would say it's probably a screamer considered scribner's error okay because because february he would have a one-year date from february of 21.
1:11:47or even if it starts when the appeal period ends it would be march march 12th and i have i mean we we passed when we passed the motion on considering we have the effects we we said that our policy that we would grant the six months the application do we have a copy of the original application that you're looking to extend you have this i have a decision
1:12:20i mean if it's advertised wrong you want to see the decision john yeah so if you have the um no i want to see the application i don't have that well no the decision wasn't the decision was the 20 so the package came back march 25-21 so that that would give him a one-year date to march it's a two-year date and that's how it's recorded i am reading the recorded decision
1:12:47and the motion made by mr calkins and seconded by mr sahaiti the board unanimously voted 5-0 to grant the petition for a two-year grant oh so he doesn't we don't even need to hear this he won't yeah i think he's you're welcome i think he thought it was just a regular old one year do we want to get the opportunity to come before us next month just in case he wants to clarify this uh
1:13:15i don't really have to filing fees again and all that i mean this is something administratively could be handled maybe no yes you can i think so yeah i i make a motion that this gets it handled administratively can we do that you can do that there you go discussion john frank yes jim calkins yes dan de pierre yes richardson haiti yes and vice chair pereira yes okay that was easy really
1:13:48i won't i won't tell you that he was uh wait we stayed there we got another one we just voted to handle it administratively but does that mean to prove it it's already it doesn't need to be approved well then it's correct it's still active for another year i think he filed based on the decision that it was one year so our administrative handling is we will let them advise him yeah good job
1:14:16and we can't go beyond two years so right no correct but we started doing that last year during yeah
1:14:29okay on item number two uh joaquin fernandez uh carol of attorney petery salido this is at 178 lake avenue lot g 0600.
1:14:42this is very straightforward i won't read about the fact that he's on vacation again but in this particular case he is asking um he is stating that his client consents that i asked the board for a continuance of this matter to the main meeting of the following sony movement so this in this case is not an administrative issue this is in as a variance so he's going to have to come in and present
1:15:11if anybody wants to probably have a copy of the application um i would entertain a motion to approve a continuance to the may meeting i'll make a motion to uh continue question made by dan de pierre uh second second discussion that was john
1:15:49yes carkins yes stan to pair yes and uh pereira yes okay all right so we picked up an extra item um and this is a clarification on a case that we decided upon last month uh 154th street trust mourinho zachary benavides trustee 146 148 150 purchase street n-8-a comma 49 request for clarification on the modified decision filed by the city clerk's office on march 31st 2020 good evening members of the board
1:16:31just identify yourself mourinho benavides 150 purchase street ballroom massachusetts my understanding is your bank is not are they not agreeing with that decision or not understanding our decision they want basically a decision that says that you guys agreed to open up the road you can't do that no we don't even have this that's got to go to city council absolutely cannot do that we've given an extension of 120
1:17:14yeah right but yeah the bank's not clearing the buying that basically they're thinking that we're not going to get the road to open up and they're going to do it alone explain to them that it's a there's a moratorium yeah this has been yes so what we did was we had offered generously 120 days after a close it was a number of different uh issues that triggered one of which was post
1:17:46a transfer of the property and you're saying the bank won't transfer the property without that no they're not wanting to do it are they just maybe i'm asking to read their mind are they just afraid that 120 days won't be enough no i think they're just afraid that they're going to issue a loan and they're going to say no to opening up to the street i i would have to agree with
1:18:10my associate dan de pere that if anything it's got to go to the city council but i don't think they're going to raise they're going to lift a moratorium on on a road opening but then again that's a different body it's not us so what's the chances they're not doing because we have purchased straight 15 months after that road was constructed we have openings yeah that's because pipes failed yeah
1:18:38but those aren't zoning issues it doesn't yeah i mean we have no bearing that was failure we've done all we can repairs so i mean all we're dealing with is title issues based upon the byway and that's all we can do um and giving the extensions to those 120 day extensions is as far as we can go i've got nothing else to do i've never come across this to where we
1:19:10even if we had come across it we don't have the authority to to even make a recommendation about a road open it's completely outside the boundaries of what we're entrusted to do we only have so much we can do i can't i can't go down in that you know ask to borrow a fire truck because you know we work for the city so how do i get i sold a lot to a buildable lot
1:19:36to someone which is in the same street he's got stakes up so what's the what's going to happen with that i don't understand that i'm really not getting it because how's it going he's going to be building i sold a lot to someone to build a house so he's gonna have the a san may show he's already got stakes put up he's gonna have the same issue that i have yeah yes
1:19:57but again it's the city council matter we can't change the road opening we can and and if anybody can it would be the council i don't know who you know on the council let's go to the city clerk's office right and file with them and have to yeah yeah just have to get it no then actually that goes to the engineering department we have to send a letter to the city clerk
1:20:20that they are requesting a road opening and bring forth a hardship on on the road opening question because now i'm faced with a property that i vacated because i wasn't told about the road just came up i don't know where i have a property that's been vacated no tenants one of the units have already been broken into and i'm faced with empty empty property and something that i've been sitting on for eight months
1:20:48but everything the reason the reason you were here last month was to deal with the issues of the road opening which we couldn't give you the road opening there was a moratorium so we allowed some time in there additional time i understand what you guys did the bank's not getting the bank's not i understand your concerns i understand the problem that you have right now but we can't fix it
1:21:21we we did everything we could in fact we were pretty generous with 120 days yeah and i get that and i just the bank's not getting it it's not processing it so they they want you to to come back for a road opening come back to this they want to know that that route is actually going to get open to feed the back house in that case i would i would speak with the engineer
1:21:45oh it's not the end it's a city council it's the city council through the engineer yeah okay not that i wish i could i wish i could solve everything if i could i wouldn't be sitting here at 7 22 on a thursday night and i appreciate it so city city council engineer okay thank you thank you very much
1:22:34was it exciting
1:22:50lots of homework um that being the case jim calkins has made a motion regarding the minutes that i had here and then the evening started second right here to wave the reading in the minutes and accept the minutes as uh from the march 17 2022 meeting we have a second by john frank is there any discussion on the motion john frank yes jim calkins yes dan de pere yes
1:23:29make this one easy yes favor yes yes everyone thank you