[Speaker 1] (1:34 - 1:35)
Go ahead.

[Speaker 1] (1:39 - 1:47)
So thank you for coming tonight to the second public forum sponsored by the Hawthorne Reuse Advisory Committee.

[Speaker 1] (1:47 - 1:53)
Most of our members are here tonight and we are eager to receive your thoughts and comments.

[Speaker 1] (1:53 - 2:00)
I'll speak for about 15 or 20 minutes and then we'll open up the floor to you for the remainder of this evening.

[Speaker 1] (2:00 - 2:05)
We do have the hall until 10 o'clock because we are anticipating thousands,

[Speaker 1] (2:05 - 2:09)
but probably won't need it until 10.

[Speaker 1] (2:09 - 2:12)
But everybody should have time to speak,

[Speaker 1] (2:12 - 2:13)
which is good.

[Speaker 1] (2:14 - 2:18)
There are comment cards on the table near the exit,

[Speaker 1] (2:18 - 2:25)
so they're open-ended comment cards, and please feel free to take one and tell us anything you would like.

[Speaker 1] (2:28 - 2:31)
Please raise your hand if you were here at the first public forum.

[Speaker 1] (2:34 - 2:36)
Okay, thanks.

[Speaker 1] (2:39 - 2:46)
And raise your hand if you were at the first meeting at the Hawthorne restaurant many couple years ago.

[Speaker 1] (2:47 - 2:49)
Okay, all right.

[Speaker 1] (2:51 - 2:51)
Okay,

[Speaker 1] (2:51 - 2:52)
next slide please.

[Speaker 1] (2:54 - 2:58)
Our committee is 12 people and their names are right there.

[Speaker 1] (3:00 - 3:01)
Next slide,

[Speaker 1] (3:02 - 3:02)
Emil.

[Speaker 1] (3:07 - 3:16)
So this all started with the Warren article in June of 2022 and at the last forum I read this whole thing through.

[Speaker 1] (3:17 - 3:18)
I won't do that tonight.

[Speaker 1] (3:18 - 3:22)
as it would really duplicate things. But

[Speaker 1] (3:23 - 3:27)
The main takeaway from the warrant article is that the use of this site,

[Speaker 1] (3:27 - 3:34)
and this is the single Hawthorne site, could be for its current use as a restaurant or any other purpose authorized by a future town meeting.

[Speaker 1] (3:34 - 3:40)
So it is fairly open-ended if a public process is held and we go back to town meeting.

[Speaker 1] (3:40 - 3:50)
The other requirement from the town warrant article is that there be public access along the coastline regardless of the plan that gets selected.

[Speaker 1] (3:54 - 4:03)
Um most of you probably know that uh our committee came out of uh the the sort of failed or incomplete process with HDR.

[Speaker 1] (4:03 - 4:20)
I'm I'm not going to review that again I reviewed that the last forum but uh the uh the townspeople in general weren't pleased with the outcome of that process it it being a public library and it seemingly coming as a bit of a surprise to people who had

[Speaker 1] (4:20 - 4:22)
participated in that process.

[Speaker 1] (4:26 - 4:28)
So in response to that,

[Speaker 1] (4:28 - 4:36)
the select board appointed our committee and asked us to create a recommendation for the single site plan,

[Speaker 1] (4:37 - 4:39)
and then they'll take it from there.

[Speaker 1] (4:40 - 4:45)
I will speak in a minute about the possibility of a double site option.

[Speaker 1] (4:48 - 4:50)
Next slide, please.

[Speaker 1] (4:53 - 4:56)
I won't read that mission statement through,

[Speaker 1] (4:56 - 5:00)
but the important highlights of it are the site analysis,

[Speaker 1] (5:00 - 5:01)
goal setting,

[Speaker 1] (5:02 - 5:03)
alternative development plans,

[Speaker 1] (5:03 - 5:04)
and building a consensus.

[Speaker 1] (5:05 - 5:08)
I did read this through completely at the last forum,

[Speaker 1] (5:08 - 5:17)
and I imagine that I'm hoping by now that the townspeople understand what it is we're doing and what we're going about.

[Speaker 1] (5:20 - 5:25)
The Committee started in mid-March and has held 12 meetings,

[Speaker 1] (5:25 - 5:27)
every one of them open to the public.

[Speaker 1] (5:27 - 5:29)
We have done a lot of work.

[Speaker 1] (5:29 - 5:32)
The Committee has educated itself on a wide variety of issues.

[Speaker 1] (5:33 - 5:39)
We have looked carefully at the Humphrey Street context and the history of the street and the site prior to 1967,

[Speaker 1] (5:39 - 5:41)
which is the year the Hawthorne was built.

[Speaker 1] (5:42 - 5:44)
We have gone as a group to the site,

[Speaker 1] (5:44 - 5:47)
tried to grasp the size and scale of the lot,

[Speaker 1] (5:47 - 5:50)
and tried to picture various site plans on the lot.

[Speaker 1] (5:50 - 5:54)
We have drawn and discussed about 20 site plans for the single Hawthorne lot,

[Speaker 1] (5:54 - 5:59)
and have eight or nine site plans to discuss for the potential double lot.

[Speaker 1] (5:59 - 6:03)
All of these plans are on the town's website at the Hawthorne Committee section.

[Speaker 1] (6:04 - 6:08)
I would point out that while there are 20 to 25 plans,

[Speaker 1] (6:08 - 6:12)
don't let that overwhelm you. They don't represent 25 different concepts.

[Speaker 1] (6:13 - 6:20)
Many of the plans you'll see if you go to look, many of the plans are simply revisions or improvements to some of the earlier plans.

[Speaker 1] (6:21 - 6:24)
In terms of different concepts, there might be five or six there.

[Speaker 1] (6:27 - 6:31)
The committee, depending upon which plan we are examining,

[Speaker 1] (6:32 - 6:32)
has discussed who,

[Speaker 1] (6:32 - 6:34)
the public sector or the private sector,

[Speaker 1] (6:35 - 6:37)
would build certain portions of each plan.

[Speaker 1] (6:37 - 6:41)
We have discussed the possibility of selling or leasing a portion of the lot,

[Speaker 1] (6:42 - 6:44)
again depending upon the plan being examined.

[Speaker 1] (6:44 - 6:50)
We have studied the financial pictures in approximate and comparative terms of many of the different plans.

[Speaker 1] (6:51 - 6:52)
To the extent possible,

[Speaker 1] (6:53 - 6:57)
the committee is trying to approach the problem with objective deliberation.

[Speaker 1] (6:58 - 7:00)
Next slide, please.

[Speaker 1] (7:02 - 7:07)
Okay. This is a very important slide,

[Speaker 1] (7:07 - 7:08)
very important.

[Speaker 1] (7:08 - 7:15)
I will just briefly touch on those headings and describe what they are briefly.

[Speaker 1] (7:15 - 7:20)
Financial and economic factors relates to the costs and revenues to the town of any given plan,

[Speaker 1] (7:20 - 7:21)
whether immediate,

[Speaker 1] (7:22 - 7:23)
short-term, or long-term.

[Speaker 1] (7:24 - 7:27)
We weigh the environmental and ecological factors.

[Speaker 1] (7:27 - 7:29)
Those refer to the amount of green,

[Speaker 1] (7:29 - 7:31)
the amount of park, vegetation,

[Speaker 1] (7:31 - 7:32)
permeable surfaces,

[Speaker 1] (7:33 - 7:36)
amount of resource consumption to construct and maintain,

[Speaker 1] (7:36 - 7:41)
tempering of the microclimate, the long-term resiliency and responsibility of the plan.

[Speaker 1] (7:42 - 7:44)
We examine parking factors,

[Speaker 1] (7:44 - 7:45)
evaluating the quantity,

[Speaker 1] (7:46 - 7:47)
visual impact,

[Speaker 1] (7:47 - 7:48)
permeability.

[Speaker 1] (7:48 - 7:50)
Who does it serve and is there revenue?

[Speaker 1] (7:51 - 7:54)
We evaluate the building arrangement and or park arrangement.

[Speaker 1] (7:55 - 7:56)
We look at the spaces created,

[Speaker 1] (7:57 - 8:00)
either linear streetscape or more courtyard-like focus,

[Speaker 1] (8:00 - 8:02)
the sense of enclosure created,

[Speaker 1] (8:02 - 8:04)
either in street or in courtyard,

[Speaker 1] (8:04 - 8:06)
the placemaking quality of a plan,

[Speaker 1] (8:06 - 8:07)
the landmark quality,

[Speaker 1] (8:08 - 8:09)
the imageability quotient,

[Speaker 1] (8:10 - 8:10)
the views created,

[Speaker 1] (8:11 - 8:14)
and the degree of reinforcement to the sense of a physical downtown.

[Speaker 1] (8:14 - 8:15)
town place.

[Speaker 1] (8:15 - 8:20)
We check for the degree of alignment with the goals of the Humphrey Street overlay district,

[Speaker 1] (8:20 - 8:25)
the degree of contribution to the overall economic vibrancy, diversity of uses,

[Speaker 1] (8:26 - 8:29)
and retail commercial activity of the economic downtown center.

[Speaker 1] (8:30 - 8:39)
We consider the responsiveness and sensitivity to both the preferences and needs of the townspeople of Swampscott and the issues that the town faces now and will face.

[Speaker 1] (8:40 - 8:42)
Finally, we weigh the timing,

[Speaker 1] (8:43 - 8:44)
durability and realism of the plan,

[Speaker 1] (8:45 - 8:48)
which consists of the degree of clarity,

[Speaker 1] (8:48 - 8:48)
the simplicity,

[Speaker 1] (8:49 - 8:50)
the complexity of the plan,

[Speaker 1] (8:50 - 8:55)
and we identify the sequence of events and the players involved to execute a plan.

[Speaker 1] (9:02 - 9:05)
I have just briefly touched on each category.

[Speaker 1] (9:05 - 9:14)
There's really much more that could be said about each, and in our committee meetings we do discuss all of these issues at much greater length.

[Speaker 1] (9:15 - 9:16)
To the extent possible,

[Speaker 1] (9:17 - 9:22)
we hope we are modeling this approach for the townspeople. It's very important,

[Speaker 1] (9:22 - 9:26)
we think, and we encourage all of you to keep these factors in mind,

[Speaker 1] (9:26 - 9:35)
keep these factors in mind when you think about which plans you like and which plans you don't. Think about what does each plan achieve or not achieve.

[Speaker 1] (9:41 - 9:41)
Currently,

[Speaker 1] (9:41 - 9:46)
the committee has concluded that any development of the site should include a blend of five ingredients:

[Speaker 1] (9:47 - 9:49)
some amount of green space park,

[Speaker 1] (9:50 - 9:52)
public access and walk along the shoreline,

[Speaker 1] (9:53 - 9:54)
some amount of buildings,

[Speaker 1] (9:54 - 9:56)
some amount of parking,

[Speaker 1] (9:56 - 9:58)
and some amount of revenue generation.

[Speaker 1] (9:59 - 10:05)
The amounts and arrangements of each of these considerations has yet to be determined.

[Speaker 1] (10:06 - 10:17)
The committee also concludes with regard to the single lot scenario that we will not support retaining the Hawthorne restaurant building nor its parking lot.

[Speaker 1] (10:22 - 10:27)
The committee is nearing completion of its review and analysis of options for the single lot scenario.

[Speaker 1] (10:28 - 10:33)
After the committee in the near future makes its recommendation for the single Hawthorne site,

[Speaker 1] (10:33 - 10:47)
we'll turn our attention to what possibilities exist in the two lot scenario in the event that the town purchases the church parking lot and also gains access to another parking lot on Blaney Street in the event that the church school is demolished.

[Speaker 1] (10:47 - 10:51)
In a few minutes, we will look at some of the double-site plan options.

[Speaker 1] (10:52 - 11:00)
But first, let's look back quickly at the five plans that we showed at the last forum and briefly refresh our memory of them.

[Speaker 1] (11:02 - 11:03)
Emil,

[Speaker 1] (11:03 - 11:04)
the next slide, please.

[Speaker 1] (11:09 - 11:12)
So that plan shows the existing Hawthorne restaurant.

[Speaker 1] (11:16 - 11:17)
which you're all familiar with.

[Speaker 1] (11:17 - 11:22)
The rest of the lot is an asphalt parking lot.

[Speaker 1] (11:23 - 11:24)
Next slide,

[Speaker 1] (11:24 - 11:24)
please.

[Speaker 1] (11:26 - 11:31)
We showed these plans, by the way. These are the five plans we showed at the last forum.

[Speaker 1] (11:31 - 11:36)
B2 is a full park plan with a small parking lot,

[Speaker 1] (11:36 - 11:39)
and it's meant to be, if it were built,

[Speaker 1] (11:39 - 11:41)
it's meant to be a state-of-the-art park.

[Speaker 1] (11:41 - 11:43)
Not just a great lawn,

[Speaker 1] (11:43 - 11:46)
but a park with trees and shrubs and vegetation,

[Speaker 1] (11:47 - 11:47)
planting beds,

[Speaker 1] (11:48 - 11:49)
meadows, a fountain,

[Speaker 1] (11:50 - 11:51)
gazebo, many, many features.

[Speaker 1] (11:52 - 11:55)
This is not the design for a park,

[Speaker 1] (11:55 - 12:01)
but it's meant to get the juices flowing about what elements and features a park would have.

[Speaker 1] (12:02 - 12:03)
Next slide, please.

[Speaker 1] (12:06 - 12:09)
Okay, this is a streetscape scheme.

[Speaker 1] (12:10 - 12:16)
This probably would be the most familiar to all of us. It's a very traditional solution.

[Speaker 1] (12:17 - 12:20)
to filling in a gap on a main street.

[Speaker 1] (12:21 - 12:32)
You can see that the buildings are arranged very straightforwardly along the sidewalk to create a sense of enclosure and to complete the space along Humphrey Street.

[Speaker 1] (12:32 - 12:36)
They are held back one thing that's a little unusual.

[Speaker 1] (12:36 - 12:41)
They are held back about 30 feet from the existing sidewalk and you can see small tables,

[Speaker 1] (12:42 - 12:42)
cafe tables.

[Speaker 1] (12:42 - 12:44)
The idea is that if that's a brick.

[Speaker 1] (12:44 - 12:46)
A brick plaza area,

[Speaker 1] (12:46 - 12:53)
restaurants or coffee shops could have outdoor seating and eating there.

[Speaker 1] (12:53 - 12:57)
The space between the buildings is about 30 to 35 feet,

[Speaker 1] (12:57 - 13:03)
so it's a good gap, and that came out of listening to everybody's desire for a view,

[Speaker 1] (13:03 - 13:07)
even though this is a fairly straightforward streetscape plan.

[Speaker 1] (13:07 - 13:11)
There's a pretty decent view and sense of the park beyond.

[Speaker 1] (13:12 - 13:15)
There's parking for about 30 cars behind the buildings,

[Speaker 1] (13:15 - 13:20)
and then about roughly half the site would be developed as a park.

[Speaker 1] (13:20 - 13:24)
And we haven't drawn the paths and the gazebos and the planting beds in that park,

[Speaker 1] (13:24 - 13:27)
but that park would be developed in the same manner.

[Speaker 1] (13:28 - 13:31)
All the parks you see, whether they're the full site or half site,

[Speaker 1] (13:31 - 13:35)
would be developed in a state-of-the-art manner.

[Speaker 1] (13:40 - 13:52)
Our argument for a plan like this would be that it does indeed sort of form a traditional main street and the shops on the first floor, we would specify shops and retail and commercial on the first floor.

[Speaker 1] (13:53 - 13:57)
The buildings could be two stories or three stories and could have other uses above.

[Speaker 1] (13:58 - 14:02)
Next plan please. So this, this...

[Speaker 1] (14:04 - 14:09)
In this scheme, the buildings are perpendicular to the street as opposed to parallel.

[Speaker 1] (14:09 - 14:21)
They do still form some degree of streetscape because there could be a second and or third floor level above the opening that you see to the courtyard beyond.

[Speaker 1] (14:21 - 14:24)
That's an option that could happen.

[Speaker 1] (14:25 - 14:31)
But the idea behind this is that the town square or the public square is between those two buildings.

[Speaker 1] (14:31 - 14:37)
And those buildings would again have first floor retail commercial and above could be other uses.

[Speaker 1] (14:37 - 14:39)
And as far as the heights of the building,

[Speaker 1] (14:39 - 14:40)
again,

[Speaker 1] (14:40 - 14:42)
they could be two stories or three stories.

[Speaker 1] (14:43 - 14:45)
The park beyond,

[Speaker 1] (14:45 - 14:48)
the courtyard is open to the park beyond and there's a large view.

[Speaker 1] (14:48 - 14:50)
Those buildings are about 80 feet apart,

[Speaker 1] (14:50 - 14:53)
so from Humphrey Street,

[Speaker 1] (14:53 - 15:00)
the view would be, you know, very large toward the park and people would sense the park and the ocean beyond.

[Speaker 1] (15:01 - 15:03)
Uh next slide, please.

[Speaker 1] (15:05 - 15:07)
So this is this is a c a hybrid.

[Speaker 1] (15:07 - 15:15)
So it's attempting to do both. Uh it creates some p some pretty strong streetscape with buildings along the sidewalk. You notice this in this

[Speaker 1] (15:15 - 15:35)
Drawing the buildings are not set back to create cafe space because the idea is that the courtyard behind the buildings would become the focus of of cafe eating and intensity. So again the courtyard is open to the park beyond and and the parking again is fairly constant at about 30 spaces.

[Speaker 1] (15:38 - 15:38)
Okay,

[Speaker 1] (15:39 - 15:41)
you can you can leave that on the screen.

[Speaker 1] (15:45 - 15:50)
So, let's see what the public had to say about these plans.

[Speaker 1] (15:51 - 15:52)
Next slide,

[Speaker 1] (15:52 - 15:52)
please.

[Speaker 1] (15:56 - 16:09)
So, we've received so far, and Krista and Marzia are collating numbers and still receiving questionnaires. But so far, we've received about 545 questionnaires.

[Speaker 1] (16:10 - 16:11)
You can see for yourself,

[Speaker 1] (16:11 - 16:24)
about 230 favored the full site park and about 244 favored some combination of buildings and revenue and park.

[Speaker 1] (16:25 - 16:28)
The interesting thing, I mean, that's plans E3,

[Speaker 1] (16:29 - 16:29)
E4, and G1,

[Speaker 1] (16:29 - 16:32)
so those, so people who wanted the combination,

[Speaker 1] (16:33 - 16:38)
you know, very slightly, very marginally outnumbered those who wanted the park, but it's close.

[Speaker 1] (16:38 - 16:45)
But what was interesting is of the 244 who wanted the combination of buildings and park,

[Speaker 1] (16:46 - 16:52)
a full two-thirds favored the courtyard scheme of G1, and that was interesting to us.

[Speaker 1] (16:52 - 16:58)
I think the committee felt most warmly toward G1 of those three plans also,

[Speaker 1] (16:58 - 17:01)
so that was kind of a nice alignment in a way.

[Speaker 1] (17:02 - 17:09)
Fifteen people favored keeping the Hawthorne Restaurant building either as a restaurant or as some other use.

[Speaker 1] (17:13 - 17:22)
As I said earlier, there are comment cards on the table at the back, and Krista is still collecting comments and collating.

[Speaker 1] (17:23 - 17:31)
The Community Development Office will issue a sort of more sophisticated and textured report than just these sort of raw numbers.

[Speaker 1] (17:34 - 17:34)
Okay,

[Speaker 1] (17:34 - 17:36)
next slide,

[Speaker 1] (17:36 - 17:36)
please.

[Speaker 1] (17:37 - 17:38)
Oh, I'm sorry,

[Speaker 1] (17:38 - 17:39)
go back to A,

[Speaker 1] (17:39 - 17:39)
Emil.

[Speaker 1] (17:46 - 17:48)
Okay, right there is good.

[Speaker 1] (17:52 - 17:57)
So let's take a look at some basic financial factors in the four plans.

[Speaker 1] (18:00 - 18:06)
Financially each each plan starts with a common denominator which is

[Speaker 1] (18:09 - 18:37)
Which is the Hawthorne restaurant and its parking lot would come down for any one of these four plans, whether it's the park or the buildings. The cost to remove the Hawthorne building and the full parking lot and prepare the ground somewhat, leaving a fairly rough graded site, the cost to do that would be about $650,000.

[Speaker 1] (18:37 - 18:40)
dollars. And and that's a good number based on real estimates.

[Speaker 1] (18:41 - 18:50)
So six hundred fifty thousand dollars would be town cost public cost and every plan would start in a sense saddled with that cost.

[Speaker 1] (18:50 - 18:53)
So that's a common denominator in terms of financials.

[Speaker 1] (18:55 - 18:57)
Okay next next slide.

[Speaker 1] (19:01 - 19:02)
Okay so to

[Speaker 1] (19:03 - 19:04)
build a full site

[Speaker 1] (19:05 - 19:07)
park on the site as shown here,

[Speaker 1] (19:08 - 19:13)
with parking and features and amenities and the items we've spoken about, not just a lawn,

[Speaker 1] (19:13 - 19:18)
the cost to do that would be about seven and a half million dollars.

[Speaker 1] (19:19 - 19:24)
So if you add the $650,000 for the demo of the Hawthorne to that,

[Speaker 1] (19:24 - 19:29)
you could use the rough number $8 million for B2.

[Speaker 1] (19:29 - 19:32)
It's an $8 million charge to build B2,

[Speaker 1] (19:32 - 19:34)
you know, give or take a couple hundred thousand.

[Speaker 1] (19:36 - 19:45)
In addition to that, the maintenance for that park every year would be between $35,000 to $40,000, and that's every year.

[Speaker 1] (19:47 - 19:54)
That plan of the park by itself doesn't directly generate revenue. There's nothing about it directly that generates revenue.

[Speaker 1] (19:55 - 20:01)
but it certainly can be argued that if the plan were to draw lots of people to the site,

[Speaker 1] (20:02 - 20:08)
the additional people in the area might add to the patronage of the surrounding restaurants.

[Speaker 1] (20:09 - 20:13)
But that's the only revenue piece of B2.

[Speaker 1] (20:14 - 20:15)
Okay,

[Speaker 1] (20:15 - 20:16)
next slide,

[Speaker 1] (20:16 - 20:16)
please.

[Speaker 1] (20:20 - 20:25)
Now, to develop plausible costs and benefits on plans E4,

[Speaker 1] (20:25 - 20:26)
G1 and E3,

[Speaker 1] (20:26 - 20:27)
that's this one and the other,

[Speaker 1] (20:28 - 20:29)
you know, the courtyard scheme and the hybrid,

[Speaker 1] (20:30 - 20:32)
requires making certain assumptions.

[Speaker 1] (20:33 - 20:38)
The revenue for any of these three plans depends on the square footage totals of the buildings.

[Speaker 1] (20:38 - 20:44)
It depends on the uses within the buildings and the portions of the site that are private versus public.

[Speaker 1] (20:45 - 20:52)
Building uses matter because we tax commercial property at almost double the rate that we tax residential property.

[Speaker 1] (20:54 - 20:58)
So the exercise we're doing here is not to give you precise numbers,

[Speaker 1] (20:58 - 21:12)
but it is to give you reasonably accurate orders of magnitude so that we have some idea of what we're looking at in round numbers. Now for cost estimating purposes to keep it a little simpler than it could be.

[Speaker 1] (21:13 - 21:24)
Uh I'm gonna tell you some assumptions about E_ four, G_ one and E_ three. And Emil just scroll scroll quickly through the next two and then back. So there's a four, there's G_ one the courtyard

[Speaker 1] (21:24 - 21:32)
and the hybrid. So yeah, you can leave it right there. So those three plans uh if we if we assume

[Speaker 1] (21:33 - 21:37)
That each of them has 25,000 square feet of building,

[Speaker 1] (21:37 - 21:39)
which is reasonable.

[Speaker 1] (21:40 - 21:43)
It's a little light, but 25,000 is reasonable.

[Speaker 1] (21:43 - 21:50)
And we say that the first floor in all the schemes, the first floor is devoted to retail,

[Speaker 1] (21:50 - 21:50)
commercial,

[Speaker 1] (21:51 - 21:52)
and shops,

[Speaker 1] (21:52 - 21:52)
and restaurants.

[Speaker 1] (21:56 - 22:07)
Then we can say that the property taxes generated from those buildings would be in the neighborhood of $200,000 a year.

[Speaker 1] (22:08 - 22:16)
If the total square footage was raised to $35,000, again, for all three plans, doesn't matter which one.

[Speaker 1] (22:16 - 22:17)
Emil,

[Speaker 1] (22:17 - 22:19)
can you go to the next slide, please?

[Speaker 1] (22:20 - 22:22)
No, the other way.

[Speaker 1] (22:23 - 22:25)
Right, hold it there. So again,

[Speaker 1] (22:25 - 22:32)
this is a different building arrangement, but to get cost estimates the arrangement doesn't matter,

[Speaker 1] (22:32 - 22:38)
it's the total square footage. So we're going to say that again this is 35,000 square feet as are the other two.

[Speaker 1] (22:38 - 22:42)
If the total square footage is 35,000 square feet,

[Speaker 1] (22:42 - 22:50)
then our committee estimates that the property tax from that size would be approximately 300,000 per year.

[Speaker 1] (22:53 - 22:56)
The other questions will be at the end.

[Speaker 1] (22:58 - 23:13)
The other revenue generation from these three plans would come from either the town either leasing part of the property to a developer or selling a piece of the land to a developer.

[Speaker 1] (23:14 - 23:17)
The town is not a developer.

[Speaker 1] (23:17 - 23:19)
The town is not a general contractor.

[Speaker 1] (23:19 - 23:24)
So it isn't likely that the town would want to take on building these buildings.

[Speaker 1] (23:24 - 23:26)
It's just not what municipalities do.

[Speaker 1] (23:26 - 23:26)
Stu,

[Speaker 1] (23:26 - 23:34)
so one way to skin the cat with all three of these plans that have buildings would be to lease

[Speaker 1] (23:35 - 23:45)
You know, you could draw a line at the edge of those buildings where the park starts and lease the front half of the site to a developer or sell it outright,

[Speaker 1] (23:45 - 23:48)
and we don't know what the revenue would be,

[Speaker 1] (23:48 - 23:48)
$1 million,

[Speaker 1] (23:48 - 23:49)
$2 million,

[Speaker 1] (23:49 - 23:50)
$3 million, we don't know,

[Speaker 1] (23:50 - 24:03)
and then a developer, you know, following the contours of an RFP that the town would write carefully and include, you know, conditions and qualifications, and then it becomes a negotiated.

[Speaker 1] (24:03 - 24:07)
process so that the town gets, you know, what it's wanting,

[Speaker 1] (24:07 - 24:12)
then that revenue would occur.

[Speaker 1] (24:14 - 24:17)
There is a cost to these three plans.

[Speaker 1] (24:17 - 24:22)
Each of them has roughly 50 or 55% of the site. I'm sorry.

[Speaker 1] (24:22 - 24:25)
45 or 50 percent of the site as park.

[Speaker 1] (24:25 - 24:26)
So the,

[Speaker 1] (24:26 - 24:37)
you know, you could call it the back half of that site, that would cost approximately four million dollars to build. So, so while these plans do generate some revenue,

[Speaker 1] (24:37 - 24:48)
they do have a cost. And if you think about it, it makes sense that they, that the four million number would be valid. It's, it is roughly half the eight million dollars for which we have.

[Speaker 1] (24:48 - 24:53)
have estimates on. So there is a cost to each of these as well.

[Speaker 1] (24:53 - 24:59)
The revenue is larger perhaps than the costs, and it's certainly a contrast with the full park plan.

[Speaker 1] (25:11 - 25:15)
So let's take a look now at some of the double lot plans.

[Speaker 1] (25:16 - 25:18)
Emil, you can go forward a couple.

[Speaker 1] (25:20 - 25:21)
Okay,

[Speaker 1] (25:21 - 25:22)
right there.

[Speaker 1] (25:22 - 25:27)
So we're going to show you tonight three double lot plans.

[Speaker 1] (25:28 - 25:31)
These are just three of many possible.

[Speaker 1] (25:33 - 25:37)
They do have a commonality to them and that is the,

[Speaker 1] (25:37 - 25:38)
again,

[Speaker 1] (25:38 - 25:44)
the back half is a park and loosely worded the front half gets buildings and development.

[Speaker 1] (25:47 - 25:52)
So in this scheme, which we're calling a streetscape scheme,

[Speaker 1] (25:52 - 25:54)
it should look somewhat familiar to you.

[Speaker 1] (25:55 - 26:00)
It's very consistent with the other streetscape scheme for the single lot.

[Speaker 1] (26:00 - 26:03)
You have buildings along the street. They're held back, again,

[Speaker 1] (26:03 - 26:04)
about 30 feet.

[Speaker 1] (26:05 - 26:11)
Cafes and tables and restaurants along the street. A fairly large opening to the back half of the site,

[Speaker 1] (26:11 - 26:12)
30 or 35 feet.

[Speaker 1] (26:13 - 26:21)
And then the addition of another building to the left to take advantage of the square footage we have.

[Speaker 1] (26:21 - 26:26)
And the park is quite large because it utilizes the two sites.

[Speaker 1] (26:27 - 26:28)
Next slide,

[Speaker 1] (26:28 - 26:28)
please.

[Speaker 1] (26:31 - 26:41)
This is, again you can see, it's partly a streetscape scheme and has kind of a grand courtyard in the middle.

[Speaker 1] (26:42 - 26:44)
It's large enough, it's almost a town square.

[Speaker 1] (26:45 - 26:49)
That space in the middle is drawn at 100 feet by 100 feet.

[Speaker 1] (26:50 - 26:53)
There's no magic to 100 feet. That's the way it came out.

[Speaker 1] (26:53 - 27:01)
But you can see it's really, really nice. It's like a living room opening to the park itself.

[Speaker 1] (27:03 - 27:09)
The space between the two streetscape buildings is very large. That's about 75 feet,

[Speaker 1] (27:09 - 27:11)
so it's really large.

[Speaker 1] (27:11 - 27:14)
So if people are on Humphrey Street,

[Speaker 1] (27:14 - 27:15)
they're going to look in,

[Speaker 1] (27:15 - 27:16)
they're going to feel the opening,

[Speaker 1] (27:16 - 27:20)
they're going to see the town square in the middle,

[Speaker 1] (27:20 - 27:22)
and they'll see the park beyond.

[Speaker 1] (27:23 - 27:25)
And again,

[Speaker 1] (27:25 - 27:27)
with a scheme like this,

[Speaker 1] (27:27 - 27:32)
the hope is that there would be intense retail and commercial activity and restaurants and cafes.

[Speaker 1] (27:32 - 27:36)
bays, you know, gathered around the central space.

[Speaker 1] (27:36 - 27:38)
And in blue that's a large fountain.

[Speaker 1] (27:38 - 27:45)
That again to give you an idea of the scale that's a thirty five foot diameter fountain, just to give you an idea of the scale.

[Speaker 1] (27:48 - 27:50)
So uh next plan please.

[Speaker 1] (27:52 - 28:18)
So this this this again is it should be familiar the these these themes repeat this is a little bit more open courtyard scheme it's not as grand as the previous one it's weaker on streetscape you notice the buildings are a little bit sideways to the street so it's not as strong a streetscape but it's but it's still decent and again the idea would be that there's intense retail activity.

[Speaker 1] (28:18 - 28:43)
in the courtyard you know with with hopefully restaurants and cafes and shops and on all three of these schemes that you're looking at again the buildings the buildings could be two stories three stories or they could be a combination they don't have to be relentlessly one story you can mix it up to get the result to get the effect that you want

[Speaker 1] (28:48 - 28:55)
So at this point, we'd like to open the forum up for public comments and thoughts and reactions,

[Speaker 1] (28:55 - 28:58)
and we'll listen carefully.

[Speaker 1] (28:58 - 28:59)
Thank you.

[Speaker 2] (29:14 - 29:16)
call on people or should I just give the mic out?

[Speaker 1] (29:16 - 29:21)
Oh, it it would be better if you you'd call on them because they have the you have the mic. Um,

[Speaker 2] (29:21 - 29:22)
Okay.

[Speaker 1] (29:22 - 29:27)
and could we just ask for your name when you uh when you start, please?

[Speaker 2] (29:27 - 29:29)
Alright, so say your name and I'll ask someone else.

[Speaker 3] (29:29 - 29:35)
Anita Farber Robertson. I live on Puritan Road, and the the question I have is

[Speaker 3] (29:36 - 29:44)
You did not mention what the cost of maintenance would be if we had a park only with no revenue stream,

[Speaker 3] (29:44 - 29:49)
the difference between what the continuing cost to the town would be.

[Speaker 2] (29:49 - 29:53)
Are you asking what the maintenance cost for a full park is?

[Speaker 1] (29:53 - 29:54)
Yeah, well I'm thinking,

[Speaker 1] (29:55 - 29:55)
assuming

[Speaker 2] (29:55 - 29:58)
It's $35,000 a year for a full park, roughly.

[Speaker 1] (29:59 - 30:04)
Okay, and we have no offset revenue in that, in

[Speaker 2] (30:04 - 30:04)
That's right.

[Speaker 2] (30:04 - 30:04)
There's

[Speaker 1] (30:04 - 30:04)
that.

[Speaker 2] (30:04 - 30:09)
no revenue with the full park other than there's sort of a...

[Speaker 2] (30:09 - 30:11)
Synergistic revenue,

[Speaker 2] (30:11 - 30:11)
I suppose,

[Speaker 2] (30:11 - 30:11)
right?

[Speaker 2] (30:11 - 30:17)
If a lot of people are coming there, then hopefully they buy a pizza across the street. So, but the park itself,

[Speaker 2] (30:17 - 30:17)
35

[Speaker 1] (30:17 - 30:20)
It was 35,000 is what you estimate,

[Speaker 1] (30:20 - 30:20)
the

[Speaker 2] (30:20 - 30:20)
,000

[Speaker 1] (30:20 - 30:21)
main.

[Speaker 2] (30:21 - 30:21)
maintenance per year, roughly.

[Speaker 1] (30:21 - 30:22)
Thank you.

[Speaker 1] (30:22 - 30:23)
Thank you.

[Speaker 2] (30:23 - 30:23)
Yeah.

[Speaker 3] (30:26 - 30:27)
Let's see.

[Speaker 1] (30:27 - 30:30)
Hi, my name is Myra Galco. You haven't mentioned parking,

[Speaker 1] (30:31 - 30:34)
which is a terrible problem on Humphrey Street.

[Speaker 2] (30:35 - 30:53)
Um every Yeah, we the committee talks a lot about parking and we have provided what we think is an acceptable minimum of parking for each plan with an and that number hovers around 30 spaces and um

[Speaker 2] (30:54 - 30:59)
we feel that is sort of the least we can give these plans.

[Speaker 2] (31:00 - 31:02)
Oh, I'm sorry. I'm talking about the single lot plan.

[Speaker 2] (31:03 - 31:05)
We have to make a distinction between single lot and double.

[Speaker 2] (31:05 - 31:05)
So I'm sorry.

[Speaker 2] (31:05 - 31:07)
You're probably asking about this plan,

[Speaker 2] (31:07 - 31:08)
right?

[Speaker 2] (31:08 - 31:13)
The double lot plan is twice that. It's 50 to 60 on the double lot plan.

[Speaker 2] (31:13 - 31:13)
Sorry.

[Speaker 2] (31:15 - 31:26)
But we we we aren't fans of the parking we're providing the least we think that that is sort of reasonably acceptable if we provide much less you know it becomes a little laughable.

[Speaker 2] (31:30 - 31:32)
Merit Oh, I'm sorry. Oh,

[Speaker 4] (31:32 - 31:32)
Hi.

[Speaker 2] (31:32 - 31:33)
sorry. Wait a minute.

[Speaker 2] (31:34 - 31:35)
Yeah, go ahead.

[Speaker 4] (31:35 - 31:42)
My name is Brenda Sheridan. I live on Kensington Lane. Um I had a question and a comment or two.

[Speaker 4] (31:42 - 31:52)
My question is, you said the committee decided that you are not going to consider keeping the building.

[Speaker 4] (31:53 - 31:56)
I was reading something in the Globe about,

[Speaker 4] (31:56 - 32:01)
they were talking about the reuse of downtown office buildings to make them into apartments.

[Speaker 4] (32:02 - 32:11)
And they talked about the vast majority of cost of anything is putting in new foundations and utilities and all that.

[Speaker 4] (32:11 - 32:16)
And so they're reusing these buildings so that they don't have to put all that money in.

[Speaker 4] (32:18 - 32:31)
I have not heard why you have just decided not to do that. And when I filled out the survey, I wanted to vote for not any of the above options,

[Speaker 4] (32:31 - 32:32)
and that wasn't a choice,

[Speaker 4] (32:32 - 32:33)
so I had to write it in.

[Speaker 4] (32:34 - 32:38)
So when you say 15 people said they wanted to keep the restaurant,

[Speaker 4] (32:38 - 32:45)
those were 15 people who took the same initiative I did to actually write that in because it wasn't a choice.

[Speaker 4] (32:46 - 32:53)
So I think that's not a fair representation of what people in the town might be thinking because you didn't give us that option.

[Speaker 4] (32:55 - 33:00)
So I know I spoke about this the last meeting. I sent you guys a mocked up drawing.

[Speaker 4] (33:00 - 33:02)
I think if you leave the restaurant,

[Speaker 4] (33:02 - 33:03)
you put a nice...

[Speaker 4] (33:06 - 33:15)
deck patio thing all the way around it, there would be access, you can have public access inside, you could turn that whole parking lot into a park.

[Speaker 4] (33:15 - 33:33)
There's so much more that you can do and the fact that we have a park plan that's gonna cost eight million dollars, we have other plans that are gonna cost four million dollars, plus we're gonna give away the rights to those buildings, we could end up with a pot shop and a liquor store.

[Speaker 4] (33:33 - 33:43)
And, you know, who knows what, but we may not get a vibrant shopping district at all because we'll have no control over that.

[Speaker 4] (33:43 - 33:45)
So we've already spent $7 million,

[Speaker 4] (33:46 - 33:47)
I think, on the property.

[Speaker 4] (33:47 - 33:51)
We're talking about doubling that and then having maintenance.

[Speaker 4] (33:51 - 33:57)
I look around at our parks right now and no offense to the Department of Public Works who does a really good job in this town.

[Speaker 4] (33:58 - 34:01)
But our parks are not well kept up.

[Speaker 4] (34:01 - 34:05)
We've got broke, you know, not broken, but rotten railings all along King's Beach,

[Speaker 4] (34:06 - 34:06)
Eisman's Beach,

[Speaker 4] (34:07 - 34:25)
Fisherman's Beach. We've got all these beaches with places to sit and look out over the water and they're not maintained. So we're talking about $8 million for a state-of-the-art park next to Lynn Scott Park, down the street from Fisherman's Beach. What's to say that this is going to be any

[Speaker 4] (34:25 - 34:48)
different. It feels like a boondoggle and the fact that you guys have just out and out said we're not going to keep a perfectly good building that could be renovated and used for good um is just it's stunning to me and the fact that you're not even giving that as an option when you ask for surveys tells me that you're putting your thumb on the scale.

[Speaker 4] (34:49 - 34:56)
And not giving the people in the town the fiscally responsible and open options that I think we all deserve.

[Speaker 2] (34:59 - 34:59)
Yep.

[Speaker 2] (35:01 - 35:24)
Well, you I I did see that article in the Boston Globe that talked about retaining the structures of buildings and so forth this this is a little different than an office building in Boston which might end up being renovated for residential apartments or condos and you're talking very big numbers and many units so the analogy is a little different here but the reason the committee

[Speaker 2] (35:25 - 35:42)
You nanomet unanimously uh decided that we that we didn't want to recommend keeping the building. And I w and I want to say our committee doesn't do much unanimously. Uh we we uh as a group have lots of opinions, but uh just to give you a couple thoughts,

[Speaker 2] (35:42 - 35:48)
if we keep the Hawthorne, that precludes precludes any green park whatsoever.

[Speaker 2] (35:48 - 36:02)
Uh if we if we keep it as a restaurant because the parking for that's a twenty two it's a fifteen thousand square foot usable building is twenty two thousand gross. But fif let's call it fifteen thousand usable to be conservative.

[Speaker 2] (36:02 - 36:13)
A restaurant that large needs a significant significant amount of parking. It has it has a hundred and nineteen spaces now, maybe we could steal twenty. But it but we couldn't steal enough to make a park. So that was one factor.

[Speaker 2] (36:14 - 36:30)
It does preclude any view other than when you're enjoying the restaurant, of course, or walking or walking around if you, as you said, if you create a walkway around it, which which wouldn't be easy, but let's let's assume we can do it, then then there's a view there.

[Speaker 4] (36:30 - 36:30)
But

[Speaker 2] (36:30 - 36:30)
But

[Speaker 4] (36:30 - 36:30)
again,

[Speaker 2] (36:30 - 36:31)
but there isn't.

[Speaker 4] (36:31 - 36:31)
I

[Speaker 2] (36:31 - 36:34)
Let me just finish, then you can give me take another whack at it.

[Speaker 2] (36:36 - 36:43)
The other thing it doesn't do is it doesn't align with the Humphrey Street overlay district guidelines and goals.

[Speaker 2] (36:43 - 36:48)
It doesn't remedy the gap or the break in the streetscape on Humphrey Street.

[Speaker 2] (36:49 - 36:54)
That parking lot has been a gap in the streetscape for 50 years.

[Speaker 2] (36:54 - 37:00)
We've all got used to it, but it's actually a very ugly and unattractive development there.

[Speaker 2] (37:00 - 37:01)
I mean, that's the truth.

[Speaker 2] (37:01 - 37:02)
We became used to it.

[Speaker 2] (37:02 - 37:03)
Um

[Speaker 2] (37:04 - 37:21)
it's a flop environmentally. The parking lot is a large heat sink. Um now that could be remedied again if you reduce some of the parking, you plant trees and so forth. But but they are factors. Um it falls way short. It falls way short of the

[Speaker 2] (37:22 - 37:36)
or the entire committee's explicit criteria. We we have um Emil could you could you go back to uh the factors slide? H hang on I'm gonna call on you as soon as I finish. Um go go back to the factors slide, Emil.

[Speaker 2] (37:39 - 37:40)
No keep going back.

[Speaker 2] (37:44 - 37:44)
Yeah right there.

[Speaker 2] (37:47 - 37:49)
So the committee has a motto,

[Speaker 2] (37:50 - 37:51)
no plan gets a pass.

[Speaker 2] (37:51 - 37:53)
No plan gets a pass.

[Speaker 2] (37:53 - 38:01)
Every plan has to be, has to go through this sort of gauntlet of measuring up against these criteria.

[Speaker 2] (38:02 - 38:03)
And you mentioned financially,

[Speaker 2] (38:04 - 38:06)
the committee is not convinced.

[Speaker 2] (38:07 - 38:19)
that the Hawthorne left as it is, even if it became a successful restaurant, outperforms the three other plans that we showed you with buildings in terms of revenue to the town.

[Speaker 4] (38:19 - 38:21)
Can you please let me re

[Speaker 2] (38:21 - 38:21)
Yeah. Yeah,

[Speaker 4] (38:21 - 38:21)
redirect you

[Speaker 2] (38:21 - 38:22)
I'm almost

[Speaker 4] (38:22 - 38:23)
on?

[Speaker 2] (38:23 - 38:23)
done, just

[Speaker 4] (38:23 - 38:24)
Okay.

[Speaker 2] (38:24 - 38:25)
be patient, be patient,

[Speaker 4] (38:25 - 38:25)
You're

[Speaker 2] (38:25 - 38:25)
I'm

[Speaker 4] (38:25 - 38:25)
just almost putting

[Speaker 2] (38:25 - 38:26)
done.

[Speaker 4] (38:26 - 38:26)
words in my mouth.

[Speaker 2] (38:30 - 38:32)
The other uh the other um

[Speaker 2] (38:34 - 38:40)
You know, the last thing I'll say is that of all the possible options that people talked to us about,

[Speaker 2] (38:40 - 38:46)
and they talked to us a lot, of all the possible options, park,

[Speaker 2] (38:46 - 38:47)
development,

[Speaker 2] (38:47 - 38:47)
mixed use,

[Speaker 2] (38:50 - 39:03)
Leaving the restaurant in place with a parking lot is probably the outcome least expected by the town, if if you believe in sort of the idea that the town purchased this with certain expectations.

[Speaker 2] (39:03 - 39:04)
So go ahead.

[Speaker 4] (39:05 - 39:15)
Okay. So first of all I sent two Marzi and I sent to the members of the select board I took your drawings and I mocked it up and put a park behind the restaurant.

[Speaker 4] (39:16 - 39:22)
The restaurant does not have to stay as the hawthorn exactly as it is. It's a really big building.

[Speaker 4] (39:23 - 39:33)
The place on the right where the bar is with the great big open windows let that be open community space with nice comfortable seating like an indoor park.

[Speaker 4] (39:33 - 39:35)
And you can have a smaller restaurant.

[Speaker 4] (39:35 - 39:41)
You could not have it not be a restaurant. It could be smaller indoor retail space. It could be something else.

[Speaker 4] (39:43 - 39:44)
The parking lot saying

[Speaker 1] (39:50 - 39:55)
You renovate. You can make that restaurant not the building not ugly.

[Speaker 1] (39:55 - 40:01)
You can move the dumpsters. You can put solar panels on the roof. You can put a deck around the back.

[Speaker 1] (40:01 - 40:09)
What I'm asking for is imagination in reuse because that is the environmentally responsible thing to do.

[Speaker 1] (40:09 - 40:36)
do to reuse what we have and not tear things down and not spend so much money we're cutting funds for the schools we're telling the town that we can't have all these other things that we want and yet we're coming up with this pie in the sky multi-million dollar plans to do something and completely taking something simple

[Speaker 1] (40:36 - 40:38)
off the table.

[Speaker 1] (40:39 - 40:49)
That's what I'm asking is for you to reconsider something else, not just leave the Hawthorne as is. Nobody wants that. Nobody's going to vote for that.

[Speaker 1] (40:50 - 40:54)
But when you look at that schematic of how big that restaurant is,

[Speaker 1] (40:54 - 40:55)
it's massive.

[Speaker 1] (40:55 - 40:59)
There's a lot of space in there and it could be used for different things.

[Speaker 1] (40:59 - 41:07)
I think when we have things like the farmer's market gets rained out or somebody's getting married in town and they want to get pictures by the ocean.

[Speaker 1] (41:07 - 41:08)
and it's raining.

[Speaker 1] (41:09 - 41:14)
Well maybe it would be nice to be able to go inside to a public venue with these great big beautiful windows.

[Speaker 1] (41:15 - 41:33)
I went to the Hawthorne Hotel in Salem today for lunch and when I was finished I went and sat in their lobby in the nice comfortable chair and I was able to sit and write for an hour in a public space. We don't have that in this town.

[Speaker 1] (41:34 - 41:38)
I went to the senior center last week. That's a wonderful space.

[Speaker 1] (41:38 - 41:40)
It's not my space.

[Speaker 1] (41:41 - 41:48)
I can't, I don't consider myself a senior and that's not my space. I'm not a veteran so I don't go to that space.

[Speaker 1] (41:48 - 41:54)
I don't have children so I don't go to the schools. I don't sit at the playgrounds because I think that would be thought of as weird.

[Speaker 1] (41:55 - 41:57)
I don't do those things.

[Speaker 1] (41:57 - 42:06)
There's so much money and so much resources put into this town for very specific groups and you leave out.

[Speaker 1] (42:07 - 42:10)
Those of us who don't meet those criteria,

[Speaker 1] (42:10 - 42:15)
those of us who can't afford to go to the mission on the bay,

[Speaker 1] (42:15 - 42:17)
who can't afford to belong to the yacht club,

[Speaker 1] (42:18 - 42:22)
who can't have an indoor view in the winter of the ocean.

[Speaker 1] (42:22 - 42:23)
It's unfair.

[Speaker 2] (42:27 - 42:28)
Thank you.

[Speaker 3] (42:37 - 42:37)
Hi,

[Speaker 3] (42:37 - 42:45)
my name is Tanya Lillick. I'm the chair of the Open Space Committee in town and I just have a few things to say.

[Speaker 3] (42:46 - 43:01)
I just want everyone to remember that the original reason for purchasing this property by the town is to have this as public green space and that's what town meeting eventually, I mean originally voted for.

[Speaker 3] (43:01 - 43:03)
I know things were changed but that was the original intent.

[Speaker 3] (43:03 - 43:06)
And I really have a lot of people say that to me today.

[Speaker 3] (43:07 - 43:09)
Isn't this supposed to be a park? Wasn't that already decided?

[Speaker 3] (43:10 - 43:38)
So, you know, keeping in mind too the first round of surveys a few years ago showed open space as the preference, and so far the current sure survey is pretty close in terms of fifty percent prefer like full-on park, and a lot of people prefer a large amount of park space. So, we have to remember that this is a once in a lifetime opportunity. This is a unique waterfront park, it's a quality of life amenity, something you can't put a price on.

[Speaker 3] (43:38 - 43:43)
The sight lines to the ocean we will lose forever with these two and three story buildings.

[Speaker 3] (43:44 - 43:46)
And it can be the gateway jewel to our town.

[Speaker 3] (43:47 - 43:48)
We also,

[Speaker 3] (43:48 - 43:50)
people have mentioned environmental,

[Speaker 3] (43:50 - 43:55)
you know, not having the pavement and the concrete. It improves air and water quality.

[Speaker 3] (43:56 - 44:01)
It reduces the impact of flooding, which is going to be a real problem in our town coming forward.

[Speaker 3] (44:02 - 44:03)
It's a sense of community.

[Speaker 3] (44:03 - 44:05)
Parks bring people together.

[Speaker 3] (44:05 - 44:06)
Music, events,

[Speaker 3] (44:06 - 44:07)
yoga.

[Speaker 3] (44:07 - 44:09)
Parks are shown to reduce crime.

[Speaker 3] (44:10 - 44:12)
It can be used in all seasons, ice skating,

[Speaker 3] (44:13 - 44:14)
be our own frog pond,

[Speaker 3] (44:14 - 44:16)
like in Boston.

[Speaker 3] (44:16 - 44:18)
Um, financially,

[Speaker 3] (44:18 - 44:20)
let's get to where people really want to hear about,

[Speaker 3] (44:20 - 44:20)
I guess.

[Speaker 3] (44:21 - 44:23)
It will bring visitors who spend money.

[Speaker 3] (44:23 - 44:26)
It will be an amenity for the new Hadley Hotel,

[Speaker 3] (44:27 - 44:28)
bringing people to stay there.

[Speaker 3] (44:29 - 44:34)
It helps the local businesses. They really need our help bringing people in.

[Speaker 3] (44:34 - 44:35)
And it increases,

[Speaker 3] (44:35 - 44:37)
parks increase property values.

[Speaker 3] (44:38 - 44:42)
So, um, I'm a little frustrated by the process so far too about the generating revenue.

[Speaker 3] (44:42 - 44:48)
I feel as though there hasn't been due process given to the fact that parks can generate revenue.

[Speaker 3] (44:48 - 44:50)
They can be rented out for venues,

[Speaker 3] (44:50 - 44:51)
weddings,

[Speaker 3] (44:51 - 44:52)
birthday parties.

[Speaker 3] (44:53 - 44:58)
Lynch Park in Beverly charges $5,000 for residents and $7,000 for non-residents for weddings.

[Speaker 3] (44:59 - 45:01)
We can and we should charge for parking.

[Speaker 3] (45:02 - 45:04)
They charge $25 for parking at Lynch Park.

[Speaker 3] (45:05 - 45:07)
We can sell permits to food trucks to come.

[Speaker 3] (45:08 - 45:10)
We can encourage festivals to come,

[Speaker 3] (45:10 - 45:13)
and we can charge a fee for those festival people.

[Speaker 3] (45:14 - 45:19)
We can develop a friends group to raise funds through private donations and grants for the park.

[Speaker 3] (45:19 - 45:23)
We can have community volunteer groups for maintenance and park upkeep.

[Speaker 3] (45:23 - 45:29)
We can charge future real estate developers a park impact fee or have incentive zoning.

[Speaker 3] (45:30 - 45:36)
There are many grants available for building parks. I hear the price tag, but there are many out there.

[Speaker 3] (45:36 - 45:39)
Marcy is a whiz at finding grants.

[Speaker 3] (45:39 - 45:44)
We also have the new CPA funds that we can use for building and also for maintenance.

[Speaker 3] (45:45 - 46:01)
So, let's keep this in mind. The town is not in business to be a business. This was not the intended purpos uh purpose for this plan. Um the Athina's family gave the town a real deal on this uh property and let's uh you know let's do it. Let's take the opportunity, let's not waste it.

[Speaker 3] (46:03 - 46:04)
Thank you.

[Speaker 1] (46:09 - 46:27)
Hi, I'm Jennifer Dorsey, and I had a question about the slide that mentions the choices, that neck and neck horse race between some people wanted or thought they wanted this one and some people wanted

[Speaker 4] (46:27 - 46:28)
Emil?

[Speaker 1] (46:28 - 46:28)
this one.

[Speaker 4] (46:28 - 46:29)
Emil?

[Speaker 4] (46:29 - 46:31)
Emil, can you put the comment slide up,

[Speaker 4] (46:31 - 46:32)
please?

[Speaker 4] (46:36 - 46:36)
Yes, thank you.

[Speaker 1] (46:37 - 46:49)
So um I have worked on public projects before and I know how much work it is. So I'm sure you guys are not looking for more.

[Speaker 1] (46:50 - 47:06)
But my question is would you consider doing another survey? Because, as an example, at this meeting a month or so ago there was no mention of how tall those buildings would be.

[Speaker 1] (47:06 - 47:32)
at all and now tonight I'm hearing two two and a half three stories that changes my response to that survey because I had said well I I could envision some nice little one-story buildings with a park behind it but I now rescind my vote knowing that it could be a two or three story building so if you did another survey

[Speaker 1] (47:34 - 47:58)
Um, first of all it adds more data, which is always good from a marketing perspective, but you could also add on this woman's option over here, so that we could finally see if there, you know, how many people in town align with her and we could you could ask more questions. Would you be opposed to two and three story buildings? Or would you like this version with a one story building?

[Speaker 4] (47:59 - 48:06)
Yeah, that's something I could talk to I'd have to talk to Marcy and Krista about that I mean it sounds like a good idea

[Speaker 4] (48:07 - 48:13)
So we'll we'll talk about that in the community development office and see see if there's a way to do it

[Speaker 1] (48:21 - 48:22)
Hi, I'm Kate.

[Speaker 1] (48:22 - 48:23)
Is this on?

[Speaker 1] (48:24 - 48:25)
Can you hear me?

[Speaker 1] (48:27 - 48:30)
All right, I couldn't hear me. Sorry,

[Speaker 1] (48:30 - 48:31)
I'm Kate Green.

[Speaker 1] (48:31 - 48:32)
I live on Greenwood Ave.

[Speaker 1] (48:33 - 48:35)
Just a couple of things.

[Speaker 1] (48:35 - 48:35)
I have three things.

[Speaker 1] (48:36 - 48:37)
One, as far as open space goes,

[Speaker 1] (48:38 - 48:39)
I am a town meeting member.

[Speaker 1] (48:39 - 48:43)
It was clearly presented to town meeting as open space,

[Speaker 1] (48:43 - 48:45)
and that's why I voted for it.

[Speaker 1] (48:46 - 48:49)
I give the committee a lot of credit.

[Speaker 1] (48:49 - 48:50)
I'm on a couple of committees.

[Speaker 1] (48:50 - 48:51)
I know how much work they are.

[Speaker 1] (48:51 - 48:58)
And you folks have clearly done a lot of work. And to consider maybe a one story option for a small building,

[Speaker 1] (48:59 - 49:04)
you know, that kind of thing is, I think, a good thing to present to people. The second thing.

[Speaker 5] (49:06 - 49:13)
I'm a little confused about the one lot two lot and if you could give us an update on what

[Speaker 4] (49:13 - 49:13)
If we

[Speaker 5] (49:13 - 49:14)
are we

[Speaker 4] (49:14 - 49:14)
can do kind this.

[Speaker 5] (49:14 - 49:33)
of voting on is you know what are the possibilities of having the two lots because that changes how I view it if we could have one lot being mostly park and the rest have maybe some smaller buildings that would change how I would think about it and then the third point that I would make which is really the one I was most concerned about

[Speaker 5] (49:34 - 49:39)
We're talking about 545 people. That's three percent of the people who live in this town.

[Speaker 1] (49:41 - 49:49)
I work on committees, I know it's really hard, I would say this is a very light turnout, um and again without being critical

[Speaker 1] (49:50 - 49:54)
The only reason I knew I missed the first meeting because I didn't know about it.

[Speaker 1] (49:54 - 49:57)
I knew about this one because I happened to see it in the item.

[Speaker 1] (49:58 - 50:01)
I haven't gotten, I'm a town meeting member.

[Speaker 1] (50:01 - 50:07)
I haven't gotten anything about surveys about the property or what's going on.

[Speaker 1] (50:07 - 50:12)
People are really busy in this world and I know my neighbors are all working and.

[Speaker 1] (50:13 - 50:21)
to to expect them to kind of have to go out and look for this is really hard and I would hope that that we would get a much higher

[Speaker 1] (50:23 - 50:34)
um response in terms of the survey, maybe the adjusted survey because I liked the comments that were made earlier. But I think that this doesn't who knows if this represents the town or not.

[Speaker 1] (50:35 - 50:36)
And so those are my comments.

[Speaker 2] (50:36 - 50:42)
Yeah, it is, it's certainly a great point that when 500 people respond,

[Speaker 2] (50:42 - 50:48)
it's, you know, in a town of 14,000, it's difficult to know what it represents.

[Speaker 2] (50:48 - 51:00)
And the only thing I can tell you is the committee doesn't draw conclusions, you know, necessarily from the 545 people. It's another piece of...

[Speaker 2] (51:00 - 51:09)
data for us but we try to be careful about well can we say this reflects the town or not it's just it is difficult to say yeah

[Speaker 2] (51:11 - 51:16)
I mean what what what do you do with it right we have these conversations yeah

[Speaker 3] (51:18 - 51:18)
Hello,

[Speaker 3] (51:18 - 51:21)
my name is Sammy Lawler and I'm

[Speaker 3] (51:22 - 51:25)
I represent a lot of the thoughts from the Swampscott Conservancy.

[Speaker 3] (51:25 - 51:29)
I just wanted to read a little bit, share some of those thoughts with you.

[Speaker 3] (51:30 - 51:46)
So the directors of the Swampscott Conservancy have reviewed and discussed that presentation made by the Hawthorne Reuse Committee. And consistent with the Conservancy's prior position regarding the use of the property,

[Speaker 3] (51:46 - 51:48)
we offer the following comment.

[Speaker 3] (51:48 - 51:51)
And I personally just want to add on,

[Speaker 3] (51:51 - 51:57)
I so appreciate the committee. I sat in on two of them and how hard you all worked.

[Speaker 3] (51:57 - 52:10)
Brian, your drawings are amazing with all the various options and the thoughtfulness you've put into them to present different ways of viewing the buildings and different ways of putting it all together.

[Speaker 3] (52:11 - 52:14)
It was no small task and we're very grateful to you.

[Speaker 3] (52:14 - 52:15)
to see those.

[Speaker 3] (52:16 - 52:24)
As the Conservancy's stated mission is the protection and enhancement of Swampscott's natural resources,

[Speaker 3] (52:24 - 52:29)
and we act as an advocate and spokesperson for open space preservation,

[Speaker 3] (52:29 - 52:42)
we believe the property should be primarily open parkland without any sizable structures. We understand that a large segment, if not the majority of the town's residents, have also

[Speaker 3] (52:42 - 52:47)
stated their preference for the property to be mainly developed as a public

[Speaker 3] (52:48 - 52:49)
Park and Plaza.

[Speaker 3] (52:49 - 52:59)
It was an artist's rendering of this park-like vision of the property that led many to vote in favor of buying the land at town meeting.

[Speaker 3] (52:59 - 53:04)
And there was strong support for open space in the public forums that followed.

[Speaker 3] (53:05 - 53:10)
The surveys conducted show that the most important use for the property was, quote,

[Speaker 3] (53:11 - 53:13)
public park open space.

[Speaker 3] (53:13 - 53:15)
While the less important was,

[Speaker 3] (53:15 - 53:16)
quote,

[Speaker 3] (53:16 - 53:17)
create revenue,

[Speaker 3] (53:18 - 53:27)
we believe that there's a strong preference for more rather than less open space expressed at the August 20th forum.

[Speaker 3] (53:29 - 53:30)
Unfortunately,

[Speaker 3] (53:30 - 53:37)
over the years, access to the coast in Swampscott and open space in general has decreased significantly,

[Speaker 3] (53:38 - 53:40)
giving way to private development.

[Speaker 3] (53:41 - 53:44)
The public's connection to the ocean has diminished,

[Speaker 3] (53:45 - 53:55)
which is regrettable because Swampscott's Waterfront is something that makes the town different from other communities. If the focal point of Swampscott was only Vernon Square,

[Speaker 3] (53:56 - 53:59)
it would not be so different from many other towns.

[Speaker 3] (53:59 - 54:09)
What makes Swampscott unique is the seacoast. It gives residents a sense of place. What better way to secure and enhance that connection?

[Speaker 3] (54:09 - 54:15)
And then by creating an oceanfront park at the gateway to the town,

[Speaker 3] (54:16 - 54:21)
one that allows unobstructed views of the water and could include,

[Speaker 3] (54:21 - 54:25)
among other things, as you showed Brian in many of your drawings,

[Speaker 3] (54:26 - 54:26)
terraces,

[Speaker 3] (54:27 - 54:30)
native plantings, gardens, play structures,

[Speaker 3] (54:30 - 54:36)
maybe a stage area for performances and, of course, seating areas to enjoy this.

[Speaker 3] (54:36 - 54:39)
the spectacular views of Nahant Bay.

[Speaker 3] (54:40 - 54:48)
It was commented that the town parkland already exists nearby with the town hall lawn and Lynn Scott Park,

[Speaker 3] (54:49 - 54:58)
but these are not waterfront properties and they do not contain state-of-the-art amenities that a new park at the Hawthorne property could contain.

[Speaker 3] (54:59 - 55:01)
It is also not true,

[Speaker 3] (55:01 - 55:02)
as has been suggested,

[Speaker 3] (55:03 - 55:06)
that the park would be limited only to warm weather use.

[Speaker 3] (55:06 - 55:16)
use, and that an indoor structure would be necessary for year-round use. Aside from the fact that people frequent parks during all seasons,

[Speaker 3] (55:16 - 55:32)
there can be a wide range of cold water activities at the park, such as neighbouring Salem's successful Frozen Fire Festival has entertainment and crafts or market streets, outdoor skating, just to name some examples.

[Speaker 3] (55:32 - 55:37)
So while not opposed to structures on the property,

[Speaker 3] (55:37 - 55:49)
the Conservancy does believe the majority of the property should be open space providing clear views unimpeded by other buildings or structures. For this reason,

[Speaker 3] (55:49 - 55:58)
and to ensure public has access to the coastline as required by the warrant article at town meeting, we believe that the hawk

[Speaker 3] (55:58 - 56:00)
Hawthorne restaurant should be removed.

[Speaker 3] (56:01 - 56:09)
And then I will do the grace of skipping ahead. The part that I love best is talking about Olmstead.

[Speaker 3] (56:15 - 56:20)
Parts are the lungs of the city Frederick Longstead is quoted as saying,

[Speaker 3] (56:21 - 56:22)
and the heart of the community.

[Speaker 3] (56:23 - 56:43)
In the landscape design he advocated for consulting the genius of the place in all. In other words any improvements of the landscape have to pay close attention to the inherent character of the land. In our seacoast town that would mean enhancing our connection to the shoreline.

[Speaker 3] (56:43 - 56:45)
line not creating barriers to it.

[Speaker 3] (56:46 - 56:49)
Thanks again for all that you've done so far.

[Speaker 2] (56:49 - 56:51)
Yeah, I just want to add one thing there.

[Speaker 2] (56:52 - 56:55)
Marcy, hang on one second.

[Speaker 2] (56:56 - 57:05)
Often times people comment about Frederick Law Olmstead and, you know, and claim that he'd want to park here.

[Speaker 2] (57:06 - 57:07)
I...

[Speaker 2] (57:08 - 57:15)
My degree is in architecture and I spent a long time studying urban planning and parks and I'm very familiar with Olmsted's work.

[Speaker 2] (57:16 - 57:18)
Homestead designed the monument area,

[Speaker 2] (57:18 - 57:23)
and there's a certain rhythm and rhyme to that.

[Speaker 2] (57:24 - 57:26)
If Homestead were here today,

[Speaker 2] (57:26 - 57:29)
I actually feel confident he would not say,

[Speaker 2] (57:29 - 57:30)
oh, you need a park here.

[Speaker 2] (57:31 - 57:35)
I mean, he didn't just go around saying put a park every place you can put a park.

[Speaker 2] (57:35 - 57:39)
I mean, there's a whole sort of design concept to these things, and there's a rhythm to these things.

[Speaker 2] (57:40 - 57:43)
He would probably say this is the place where there's a gap.

[Speaker 2] (57:43 - 58:10)
gap you have a lot of open space across the street you have the park I designed which has logic to it he'd say you know if we're going to claim Armstead he'd say fill in the gap make streetscape let there be a let there be half a park toward the ocean and have your public access and have have a beautiful park it still would be a very substantial park but you can do more than one thing and I think really that's the approach our committee has been trying to sort of

[Speaker 2] (58:10 - 58:19)
find a way to get to. Let's do let's do more than one thing, let's let's let's fill in the gap and let's create a memorable downtown.

[Speaker 2] (58:20 - 58:23)
So so that's that's that's been one of our goals.

[Speaker 4] (58:24 - 58:24)
Ken?

[Speaker 1] (58:24 - 58:28)
I think I've got the, do I turn this on or it's on?

[Speaker 1] (58:29 - 58:50)
My name is Senator McNerney and I just want to point out, you know, a couple years ago I thought it should just be a park and it shouldn't have anything on it and it shouldn't be a loud venue, it should be a nice peaceful venue and I completely changed, I haven't changed my mind with regard to not wanting a loud venue but I have changed my thought about whether or not it should just be.

[Speaker 5] (58:50 - 59:07)
a park only and let me talk a little bit about the finances first off you know at one point that area was sort of like the elephant in the room and nobody was talking about it and then we did buy it but we haven't paid for it yet we bought it for seven million dollars but we haven't amortized that cost yet

[Speaker 5] (59:08 - 59:11)
And we're going to have to, let's say we pay that back over 20 years,

[Speaker 5] (59:11 - 59:14)
it's going to cost another five million for the interest on that seven million.

[Speaker 5] (59:15 - 59:23)
If we do renovations for eight million dollars, it's going to be another five million on top of that of interest costs to pay that back over 20 years.

[Speaker 5] (59:23 - 59:25)
Right now we have an opportunity,

[Speaker 5] (59:25 - 59:28)
it's the next elephant in the room and we really haven't explored the opportunities.

[Speaker 5] (59:29 - 59:34)
It's the empty lot next door and what we could do, we've seen two drawings and I agree we should see.

[Speaker 1] (59:58 - 1:00:02)
And then when you add all that up and you start thinking about it and you have the extra land,

[Speaker 1] (1:00:02 - 1:00:09)
then you've got even more opportunity to consider whether or not something should produce some revenue on that space.

[Speaker 1] (1:00:10 - 1:00:15)
And it wouldn't preclude the ability to have a really beautiful park and really beautiful views of the ocean,

[Speaker 1] (1:00:15 - 1:00:22)
but it also would have the opportunity to produce some amount of revenue to offset it so that we can have it all.

[Speaker 1] (1:00:23 - 1:00:29)
And I think that we need to see some drawings that reflect that opportunity and spend more time on that than on the single lot,

[Speaker 1] (1:00:29 - 1:00:35)
because if that is a real opportunity to get our hands on that second lot and add it to the first one,

[Speaker 1] (1:00:35 - 1:00:38)
then that really opens up what we should be thinking about.

[Speaker 1] (1:00:38 - 1:00:44)
But I can't imagine that when you consider the interest cost of what we would be borrowing to get all of this done,

[Speaker 1] (1:00:44 - 1:00:49)
that we should consider and be open-minded toward something on the lot.

[Speaker 1] (1:00:49 - 1:01:13)
lot that would produce revenue and what's the most opportune what is the what is the best opportunity I mean we do have a winter winter months and we have to consider if a restaurant can basically produce that revenue and without it taking away from the opportunity to make a lot of parkland right there so I think that we should be looking very closely at the second lot and the and the two lots together

[Speaker 1] (1:01:15 - 1:01:18)
and kind of rethink and open up our minds toward that opportunity.

[Speaker 2] (1:01:19 - 1:01:19)
Yeah.

[Speaker 1] (1:01:19 - 1:01:20)
That's all I have to

[Speaker 2] (1:01:20 - 1:01:20)
The

[Speaker 1] (1:01:20 - 1:01:20)
say.

[Speaker 2] (1:01:20 - 1:01:21)
committee,

[Speaker 2] (1:01:21 - 1:01:33)
actually the committee is anticipating wrapping up its work and focus on the single lot hopefully in the next meeting, the next single meeting we hope to complete it and then move to the double,

[Speaker 2] (1:01:33 - 1:01:36)
move to examining the double lot scenario.

[Speaker 3] (1:01:39 - 1:01:41)
Chris Howe, Lexington Circle.

[Speaker 3] (1:01:42 - 1:01:45)
Could you pull up the page that has the article that town meeting voted on?

[Speaker 2] (1:01:46 - 1:01:51)
Yes, Emiliano, it's the first, or it's near the beginning.

[Speaker 2] (1:01:53 - 1:01:54)
Yeah, there it is.

[Speaker 3] (1:01:56 - 1:02:07)
So I just wanted to have it rewritten because there have been some statements that this is what the town voted for open space, but I think if we read into this, it's it it it opens up for open space and other options.

[Speaker 3] (1:02:07 - 1:02:18)
So it really has to this, you know, we we were buying a piece the town was buying a piece of property with with the hope of of improving the downtown area. Open space, yes,

[Speaker 3] (1:02:18 - 1:02:20)
but there's a lot of other options there.

[Speaker 2] (1:02:21 - 1:02:25)
Yeah, yeah, our committee agrees that

[Speaker 2] (1:02:25 - 1:02:28)
Our committee spent our whole first meeting debating this issue,

[Speaker 2] (1:02:28 - 1:02:37)
and then we did agree finally that it's fairly open-ended. The only requirement is that there be public access along the coast,

[Speaker 2] (1:02:37 - 1:02:43)
and that any other use goes back ultimately to town meeting for approval.

[Speaker 2] (1:02:43 - 1:02:51)
But the committee didn't feel constrained that it had to be a park, according to the article.

[Speaker 2] (1:02:52 - 1:02:53)
According to the warrant article.

[Speaker 4] (1:02:56 - 1:02:57)
Hi, good evening.

[Speaker 4] (1:02:57 - 1:03:02)
My name is Nancy DiGiulio and I am a part-time resident of Swampscott.

[Speaker 4] (1:03:03 - 1:03:23)
And I actually made a buying decision to buy a unit at the converted convent on Blaney Street after having gone to a few meetings when the Hadley School was going to be redeveloped by various investors who were providing presentations. And the one that we ended up picking,

[Speaker 4] (1:03:23 - 1:03:25)
Clearview,

[Speaker 4] (1:03:25 - 1:03:32)
I believe Charles Mallory indicated that he would be very happy as a developer to help us look at

[Speaker 4] (1:03:33 - 1:03:38)
the Hawthorne area and give us concepts and ideas of how that could work.

[Speaker 4] (1:03:38 - 1:03:46)
And I'm not sure we have explored that because municipalities working with investors and people that do this all the time,

[Speaker 4] (1:03:46 - 1:03:49)
I think it truncates the process a little bit.

[Speaker 4] (1:03:49 - 1:03:52)
And knowing we want open space and potentially revenue space,

[Speaker 4] (1:03:53 - 1:03:56)
I think perhaps that's something we could explore.

[Speaker 2] (1:03:58 - 1:03:59)
Thanks.

[Speaker 5] (1:04:02 - 1:04:32)
Hi. My name is Laura Wayne. Um I'm very excited about the open space in the park, just saying that in general first. Um before tonight's meeting I was very pro B_ two. And I was like adamant about that after every meeting. And then hearing the numbers and seeing the cost of how much it's gonna cost and seeing what the revenue would bring in was like an a-ha moment. It made me realise okay that is smart to have a mix of the park and the revenue. But I'm curious if it would be helpful for people to hear what that revenue would be

[Speaker 5] (1:04:31 - 1:04:47)
would go towards in the town so would that pay for obviously the construction of the park and the maintenance of the park but then after that what would that money go towards like would that help with lowering taxes would that help with fixing sidewalks like what you know what would that revenue help the town with

[Speaker 2] (1:04:48 - 1:04:58)
Well, this state law, if the town did an RFP and either sold or leased, say, half the site,

[Speaker 2] (1:04:59 - 1:05:02)
The sale price of that parcel,

[Speaker 2] (1:05:02 - 1:05:08)
I think by state law has to be applied to paying down the debt service on the seven million dollar,

[Speaker 2] (1:05:08 - 1:05:11)
you know, money that we paid for the site.

[Speaker 2] (1:05:12 - 1:05:15)
So, so it that some part of the money would go to that.

[Speaker 2] (1:05:16 - 1:05:19)
But the property tax revenue,

[Speaker 2] (1:05:19 - 1:05:22)
say it's 250,000, say,

[Speaker 2] (1:05:22 - 1:05:28)
per year, that would go into the town's, you know, tax collections and the town would use it for its budget.

[Speaker 5] (1:05:30 - 1:05:36)
And then one last question. Um when would the town know if it's gonna buy or not buy the the second lot?

[Speaker 2] (1:05:37 - 1:05:43)
I don't I don't know the answer to that question that's that's in the select board's hands.

[Speaker 6] (1:05:44 - 1:05:46)
Senator, I'm coming. Oh.

[Speaker 6] (1:05:50 - 1:05:52)
Yeah, send here. I don't see how.

[Speaker 6] (1:05:52 - 1:05:53)
I don't see how.

[Speaker 1] (1:05:53 - 1:06:00)
I don't see how the revenue that gets created is going to get to go into the town's general fund for quite a while.

[Speaker 1] (1:06:00 - 1:06:02)
I mean, if we're buying all of this property,

[Speaker 1] (1:06:02 - 1:06:04)
it takes years to pay it back.

[Speaker 1] (1:06:04 - 1:06:11)
And you need to use the revenue to pay back that debt so that it doesn't undermine other services that the town is providing and the cost of that.

[Speaker 1] (1:06:12 - 1:06:16)
I mean, if we don't do something that produces revenue,

[Speaker 1] (1:06:16 - 1:06:22)
then we're going to have to fit inside the lower level limit of Prop 2.5 or do more debt exclusions in order to...

[Speaker 1] (1:06:22 - 1:06:27)
to afford the extra taxes to pay it back. And even if we get grants,

[Speaker 1] (1:06:27 - 1:06:30)
we're not going to get grants and other kinds of offsets to pay back,

[Speaker 1] (1:06:31 - 1:06:35)
especially if we want to seize the opportunity to buy the extra lot.

[Speaker 1] (1:06:35 - 1:06:40)
I mean, that's the opportunity that's going to serve that extra lot and the existing lot that we've already got our hands on,

[Speaker 1] (1:06:41 - 1:06:43)
the town's long-term,

[Speaker 1] (1:06:43 - 1:06:48)
long-range vision of the real opportunity of that all of combined space.

[Speaker 1] (1:06:48 - 1:06:51)
But it's going to be expensive. It's more expensive than...

[Speaker 1] (1:06:50 - 1:06:56)
If anybody's been thinking, because nobody's been talking about the interest cost on any of that, and it's interest over 20 years,

[Speaker 1] (1:06:56 - 1:07:00)
so I think that, you know, all the revenue is going to go to pay all the debt,

[Speaker 1] (1:07:00 - 1:07:11)
and when all of the debt is paid off, then we're going to have all the land to enjoy it for our descendants and everybody else in the town, and we can enjoy it in the meanwhile, but we've got to pay the debt as we go.

[Speaker 2] (1:07:12 - 1:07:13)
Yeah,

[Speaker 2] (1:07:13 - 1:07:21)
I do agree with that. I didn't mean to say I know how the town would use the money I don't know how the town would use the money whether it's three hundred thousand a year four hundred thousand a year

[Speaker 2] (1:07:22 - 1:07:24)
It would be money that the town would have,

[Speaker 2] (1:07:24 - 1:07:42)
and you're absolutely right. Maybe it would go to debt service. I don't know what it would go to. The only money that would be, I think, fairly directed is the money that would go toward debt service if we sold a piece of the land. But the rest of it would get used by the town as it knows best.

[Speaker 2] (1:07:45 - 1:07:56)
Yeah, the other, I would add one thing, you know, I've been using the numbers two hundred thousand to three hundred thousand annual property tax. That's for the single, that's for the single lot only.

[Speaker 2] (1:07:57 - 1:08:01)
So our committee hasn't hasn't got to the double lot yet.

[Speaker 2] (1:08:01 - 1:08:12)
We will very shortly, but it stands to reason that the property tax in in a ballpark sense the property tax is from the, we're showing we're showing anywhere from fifty thousand to

[Speaker 2] (1:08:13 - 1:08:35)
you know, sixty thousand square feet on a double lot so the so the property tax values could, you know, be roughly, again, I emphasise roughly doubled. So it might be four hundred thousand to six hundred thousand just just in very round numbers. So it's it's not it's not small numbers if you if you put, you know, fifty, sixty thousand square feet of building on the site.

[Speaker 2] (1:08:36 - 1:08:39)
But we but we haven't, you know, gone through that exercise yet on the committee.

[Speaker 2] (1:08:40 - 1:08:41)
In terms of double what?

[Speaker 7] (1:08:45 - 1:08:55)
Um, my name is Matt Corbett. Um Walnut Road. I d had just a little bit of personal commentary and then a sort of question around um some of the financing and fiscal numbers.

[Speaker 7] (1:08:56 - 1:09:09)
Um I just wanna add my voice to the the group in favour of a predominantly open space with minimal structure. I do feel like uh when structure begins to happen, it

[Speaker 7] (1:09:11 - 1:09:28)
It creaks. Um and if you look down Humphrey Street, the changes we've made to Humphrey Street over the last twenty years, particularly some of the condos further down, we've built what amounts to a little bit of a canyon. We, you know, the developers are are gonna, you know, obviously try to get as much as they can out of the property.

[Speaker 7] (1:09:29 - 1:09:29)
Um

[Speaker 2] (1:09:43 - 1:09:45)
Can you speak into the mic a little

[Speaker 1] (1:09:45 - 1:09:45)
Oh

[Speaker 2] (1:09:45 - 1:09:45)
bit more?

[Speaker 1] (1:09:45 - 1:09:46)
sorry, I was getting feedback. So

[Speaker 2] (1:09:47 - 1:09:47)
Oh.

[Speaker 1] (1:09:48 - 1:09:55)
So I just think we shouldn't if if we can help it we shouldn't squander this opportunity and only comes along once every 50 or 100 years.

[Speaker 1] (1:09:56 - 1:10:22)
That's my personal commentary. My question was I I feel as though a lot of the side side of the soccer field conversations etc back when this all initially came up were uh more holistic uh in terms of the Athena's properties in general. And I'm gonna probably bully a little ignorance here uh and as to what's happened with uh the Glover properties, but a lot of people I remember discussing this uh couched it in terms of

[Speaker 1] (1:10:23 - 1:10:36)
We will be able to get open space by using the Glover property as a sacrificial lamb, so to speak, for the the overall big picture. And the revenue to pay for our what we want to pay for will ultimately come from

[Speaker 1] (1:10:37 - 1:11:03)
uh residential building at at the Glover property. I understand there is some enormous complications with that property particularly since it's spread across three towns. And I've honestly lost track of what's happening there. But is there is there any truth to that notion where um we could look a little bit more holistically understand this is the Hawthorne committee and not the Athena's properties committee um to looking at

[Speaker 1] (1:11:04 - 1:11:10)
ultimately using Glover to pay for some of the things and perhaps even then some on the Hawthorn property.

[Speaker 2] (1:11:11 - 1:11:27)
Well, our committee hasn't looked at the Glover site at all and we haven't discussed it and I don't think we know what's going on with the Glover property. So we have had no connection whatsoever to that.

[Speaker 2] (1:11:35 - 1:11:37)
Christa? Christa, down here?

[Speaker 2] (1:11:42 - 1:11:43)
She's had her hand up.

[Speaker 2] (1:11:44 - 1:11:45)
Don't forget her.

[Speaker 2] (1:11:46 - 1:11:46)
Yeah.

[Speaker 3] (1:11:46 - 1:11:46)
Okay.

[Speaker 3] (1:11:49 - 1:11:50)
Hi, I'm Mary DiCillo.

[Speaker 3] (1:11:51 - 1:11:53)
I appreciate all the work that the committee has done.

[Speaker 3] (1:11:56 - 1:12:06)
It's trying to balance a lot of needs, a lot of viewpoints, a lot of um com you know opposing um people have different

[Speaker 3] (1:12:07 - 1:12:13)
A few points on this. Hopefully as this process goes forward it becomes a,

[Speaker 3] (1:12:13 - 1:12:17)
we went through this with the high school back in the day.

[Speaker 3] (1:12:18 - 1:12:23)
This building that we sit in was very contentious 20 years ago.

[Speaker 3] (1:12:24 - 1:12:28)
And you know there were gives and takes on all.

[Speaker 3] (1:12:29 - 1:12:45)
all sides, and this neighbourhood took a huge hit um during that period of time. And um I was involved at as a school committee member and uh with that effort. But um so I think that

[Speaker 3] (1:12:45 - 1:13:11)
to do this without any consideration for uh finances uh you know when um Cinnamon Norney just uh brought up the long term it's short term and long term cost benefits and um you we tend to ignore some of the financial burdens in the town um we also have a middle school that's

[Speaker 3] (1:13:11 - 1:13:38)
uh gonna be in need of repair. You know there's just a huge amount of um planning that needs to be done and I'm delighted to know that we have a town planner now on board that can hopefully um welcome to her can be looking at this and I'm hoping that all of the this isn't being done in a vacuum and I can see that you've been calling on people but I do think that there needs to be some realistic

[Speaker 3] (1:13:40 - 1:14:01)
You know, on the one hand you can't say that the schools are being deprived of f you know of school funds and yet not realise which in fact the schools are gonna you know middle school um but then there's the reality of so where's the give on all of this? Everybody's gonna have to figure out what they want to do. My concern is

[Speaker 3] (1:14:02 - 1:14:14)
On Humphrey Street, we were promised back when Captain Jacks was taken down,

[Speaker 3] (1:14:14 - 1:14:18)
and that had open views along Humphrey Street,

[Speaker 3] (1:14:18 - 1:14:22)
that streetscape, you could see out to the ocean.

[Speaker 3] (1:14:22 - 1:14:27)
And a private developer came in and the town was promised.

[Speaker 3] (1:14:28 - 1:14:34)
That would be, that would, there would be archways in part of that development.

[Speaker 3] (1:14:34 - 1:14:39)
And instead there was a very large building put there and right out to the sidewalk.

[Speaker 3] (1:14:41 - 1:14:42)
I don't know.

[Speaker 3] (1:14:43 - 1:14:49)
how something like that can and also the height was higher than it was supposed to be.

[Speaker 3] (1:14:49 - 1:14:54)
Anyway, my point is, and I'm not a planner and I'm not an architect,

[Speaker 3] (1:14:54 - 1:14:58)
but I know when something gets built,

[Speaker 3] (1:14:58 - 1:15:01)
the town has to be paying attention.

[Speaker 3] (1:15:01 - 1:15:07)
And I think one of the things that we don't do well here and haven't done well is to manage.

[Speaker 3] (1:15:08 - 1:15:32)
the development and we think I'm not going to go into a lot of you know we all know where what's been happening here this is is prime the link that I'll make here is we are also facing and I don't know if you guys have talked about 3a the state law about development and being able the developers can come and develop whatever they want if they

[Speaker 3] (1:15:34 - 1:15:54)
can it can get the land and so that's what we're up against and we have no as a town no defense against that because we've adopted the 3a restrictions on that which means that close to the transit multiple family transit housing so if we don't maintain

[Speaker 3] (1:15:55 - 1:16:04)
As a town, control over the development of this, however it gets done, it's going to be done for us by whomever, by the state,

[Speaker 3] (1:16:04 - 1:16:05)
by private developers.

[Speaker 3] (1:16:06 - 1:16:16)
So I think the caution here is that it's too, everybody knows it's prime real estate and we should be very...

[Speaker 3] (1:16:18 - 1:16:25)
thoughtful and patient and deliberate about what we do because somebody just said once it's gone,

[Speaker 3] (1:16:26 - 1:16:30)
it's gone. And I do think that the two lot,

[Speaker 3] (1:16:30 - 1:16:33)
I would go with what Cinder mentioned,

[Speaker 3] (1:16:34 - 1:16:44)
pursuing the two lot idea is going to be important in terms of contiguous land. It opens up options.

[Speaker 3] (1:16:44 - 1:16:46)
It may be expensive in the short run,

[Speaker 3] (1:16:46 - 1:17:05)
but in the long run I think the option would be better. I do think it has to be some mixed use and the the suggestion that I would make in terms of the slides is to do a side by side by side uh of the parking because people get really hung up on parking just

[Speaker 3] (1:17:05 - 1:17:08)
because people do to town you know whatever and

[Speaker 2] (1:17:08 - 1:17:09)
Yeah,

[Speaker 3] (1:17:09 - 1:17:25)
to to just it's it's not really shown very well on the on the drawings but I think if you make that is just one slide of these this is what this parking looks this is what this one then people have a more visual aspect of it so thank

[Speaker 2] (1:17:25 - 1:17:26)
you yeah,

[Speaker 2] (1:17:26 - 1:17:26)
thanks.

[Speaker 2] (1:17:26 - 1:17:31)
Yeah, I want to pick up on a couple of things you said and sort of reinforce them

[Speaker 2] (1:17:31 - 1:17:35)
Emiliano, can you go to the double

[Speaker 4] (1:17:35 - 1:17:35)
So he

[Speaker 2] (1:17:35 - 1:17:36)
slide,

[Speaker 2] (1:17:37 - 1:17:38)
the first one.

[Speaker 4] (1:17:39 - 1:17:39)
So he has one.

[Speaker 2] (1:17:42 - 1:17:42)
Uh.

[Speaker 2] (1:17:44 - 1:17:47)
Uh, go go to the next one, please.

[Speaker 2] (1:17:48 - 1:17:48)
Okay.

[Speaker 2] (1:17:48 - 1:18:00)
So you mentioned finances. The committee is really excruciatingly concerned about the finances of any plan that we do.

[Speaker 2] (1:18:00 - 1:18:00)
So,

[Speaker 2] (1:18:01 - 1:18:03)
I mean, it's not the Trump factor,

[Speaker 2] (1:18:03 - 1:18:12)
but we are really concerned about it because we think the town has a lot on its plate now and coming in the future, as you mentioned.

[Speaker 2] (1:18:12 - 1:18:14)
So we're really concerned about.

[Speaker 2] (1:18:14 - 1:18:39)
out you know analyzing any plan we recommend for short-term costs and long-term costs and how do these things play out how do the numbers play out because it that's a very important thing and then the second point you made which which I like very much because we're we are concerned about it is whatever plan the town does you know if it can if it combined if it's mixed-use if it combines buildings and parking

[Speaker 2] (1:18:40 - 1:18:41)
You know, Ed Park,

[Speaker 2] (1:18:41 - 1:18:48)
it's, you know, it's a little complex because there would be a private developer involved responding to an RFP.

[Speaker 2] (1:18:48 - 1:19:00)
The town is going to have to be super vigilant and super sophisticated in negotiating with a developer, you know, before signing on the dotted line.

[Speaker 2] (1:19:00 - 1:19:06)
And that can be an amicable, cooperative process,

[Speaker 2] (1:19:06 - 1:19:07)
but...

[Speaker 2] (1:19:08 - 1:19:24)
But we talk about it and we're concerned about it because, you know, this is a pretty picture, right? It shows, you know, a 60-foot opening between the buildings. It shows a living room to the park. I mean whether this is the plan you want or not, if the town chooses a plan.

[Speaker 1] (1:19:28 - 1:19:36)
we would like to create enough conditions and qualifications that are reasonable that would still attract developers,

[Speaker 1] (1:19:37 - 1:19:37)
but that would...

[Speaker 1] (1:19:38 - 1:19:51)
guide them and create you know guardrails around what could ultimately happen you know whether it's whether it's height whether it's square footage whether you know whether it's general arrangement of buildings it's the number of parking spaces

[Speaker 1] (1:19:51 - 1:20:01)
Like our committee is very aware that there's a long way from a picture to reality and so we are very concerned.

[Speaker 1] (1:20:01 - 1:20:07)
We think it would take a really sophisticated effort by our town to,

[Speaker 1] (1:20:07 - 1:20:17)
you know, town officials to sort of pull it off and so everyone could sleep at night and know that the final product would be, you know, would bear a fair resemblance to what

[Speaker 1] (1:20:18 - 1:20:22)
the town sign up for, you know, again, what whichever plan you're looking at.

[Speaker 1] (1:20:23 - 1:20:35)
So the parking, the parking here, since you asked about parking, I think that's, that's probably about 55 spaces on that. The parking is on the right and the left.

[Speaker 1] (1:20:36 - 1:20:36)
But,

[Speaker 1] (1:20:36 - 1:20:40)
but thank you for your comment. That's these things are high on our mind.

[Speaker 1] (1:20:41 - 1:20:43)
So Margaret,

[Speaker 1] (1:20:43 - 1:20:43)
Chris,

[Speaker 1] (1:20:43 - 1:20:45)
did you want to Brian. grab the mic for Margaret?

[Speaker 2] (1:20:45 - 1:20:51)
Brian, Bill Demento, Precinct 6 town meeting member.

[Speaker 2] (1:20:51 - 1:21:02)
I like this particular plan that you have up on the screen now because it does offer some revenue and listening to Cinder,

[Speaker 2] (1:21:02 - 1:21:07)
and no one knows more in this town about how finances work than Cinder,

[Speaker 2] (1:21:07 - 1:21:15)
it reinforces my feeling that we have to do something to get some income out of this property.

[Speaker 2] (1:21:17 - 1:21:19)
As to the second lot,

[Speaker 2] (1:21:19 - 1:21:19)
the church lot,

[Speaker 2] (1:21:20 - 1:21:23)
I look at that as it would be wonderful,

[Speaker 2] (1:21:23 - 1:21:32)
but I can't understand how that could ever work because for the church to sell that land,

[Speaker 2] (1:21:32 - 1:21:35)
I believe the church has to close.

[Speaker 2] (1:21:36 - 1:21:38)
The church is not exempt from zoning.

[Speaker 2] (1:21:39 - 1:21:42)
They have a parking a lot.

[Speaker 2] (1:21:42 - 1:21:47)
unless they're going to get another parking lot somewhere else, unless they're going to tear the school down,

[Speaker 2] (1:21:47 - 1:21:50)
I don't know where they're going to get the parking for the church.

[Speaker 2] (1:21:51 - 1:21:52)
So you can't have both.

[Speaker 2] (1:21:52 - 1:21:57)
But before your committee, and I really think this is a great committee,

[Speaker 2] (1:21:57 - 1:21:59)
I've watched several of your meetings,

[Speaker 2] (1:22:00 - 1:22:07)
you can do it before you get into it, you've got to find out how are you going to do it legally.

[Speaker 2] (1:22:08 - 1:22:13)
Otherwise, it's a waste of time to get into all the uses for the church lot.

[Speaker 2] (1:22:14 - 1:22:16)
I just don't, it's beyond me.

[Speaker 2] (1:22:16 - 1:22:25)
I'd rather see you concentrate on the main lot with some income producing to deal with that huge debt.

[Speaker 2] (1:22:26 - 1:22:30)
I'm not so worried about whatever it is, five million for

[Speaker 2] (1:22:30 - 1:22:31)
The church lot,

[Speaker 2] (1:22:31 - 1:22:34)
but I don't know how you can do it.

[Speaker 2] (1:22:35 - 1:22:36)
So that's my concern.

[Speaker 1] (1:22:37 - 1:22:38)
Yeah, I think the select board,

[Speaker 1] (1:22:38 - 1:22:40)
yeah, I hear you, and it makes sense.

[Speaker 1] (1:22:40 - 1:22:48)
I think the select board would be the entity that's looking at whether or not there would be more parking on Blaney Street,

[Speaker 1] (1:22:48 - 1:22:53)
you know, for the parochial school to come down and there would be parking created there.

[Speaker 1] (1:22:53 - 1:22:56)
My understanding is they're going to look at that and figure

[Speaker 2] (1:22:56 - 1:22:56)
What is

[Speaker 1] (1:22:56 - 1:22:57)
out the best.

[Speaker 2] (1:22:57 - 1:22:57)
this,

[Speaker 2] (1:22:57 - 1:22:58)
a secret?

[Speaker 2] (1:22:58 - 1:22:59)
secret look they're making?

[Speaker 1] (1:22:59 - 1:23:00)
No,

[Speaker 2] (1:23:00 - 1:23:00)
No.

[Speaker 1] (1:23:00 - 1:23:09)
no, it's not a secret. It's just that our committee is not the committee that's, you know, that's talking to the Archdiocese.

[Speaker 2] (1:23:09 - 1:23:12)
You're not, but you're not concerned about whether you can do it or not?

[Speaker 1] (1:23:12 - 1:23:12)
Well,

[Speaker 1] (1:23:13 - 1:23:14)
our approach is this.

[Speaker 1] (1:23:14 - 1:23:21)
We're doing our job, which is to come up with options for the second, you know, for the two lot option. For example.

[Speaker 1] (1:23:22 - 1:23:24)
L1 on the screen now is the two lots.

[Speaker 2] (1:23:25 - 1:23:25)
Right.

[Speaker 1] (1:23:25 - 1:23:50)
So where we see our job as for the moment and it might change, but for the moment we we see ourselves as needing to draw options that could that could be used uh if if the town if the town gets the second lot. And but but maybe maybe there's an assumption that you know that the town will figure out uh you know whether or not that lot on Blaney Street is in play.

[Speaker 1] (1:23:52 - 1:23:57)
But for the moment, we are just going to proceed as providing,

[Speaker 1] (1:23:57 - 1:23:59)
you know, here's an option.

[Speaker 1] (1:23:59 - 1:24:05)
It may help the town decide whether they want But to buy the land.

[Speaker 2] (1:24:05 - 1:24:07)
where under the gun,

[Speaker 2] (1:24:07 - 1:24:10)
how many years has it been now since we bought it?

[Speaker 2] (1:24:10 - 1:24:15)
That can't stay at Anthony's restaurant at $2,000 a month forever.

[Speaker 2] (1:24:15 - 1:24:18)
Something has to speed up the process here.

[Speaker 2] (1:24:19 - 1:24:21)
I don't know. I don't know.

[Speaker 2] (1:24:21 - 1:24:25)
Should you be considering things that are at this point a dream?

[Speaker 2] (1:24:26 - 1:24:27)
You've got to deal with reality.

[Speaker 1] (1:24:27 - 1:24:32)
Well, well, we're our committee is nearly complete with with the single lot.

[Speaker 1] (1:24:32 - 1:24:38)
You said, you know, look at the single lot, you know, maybe one more meeting will make our recommendation for the single lot.

[Speaker 1] (1:24:38 - 1:24:40)
And we'll be done.

[Speaker 1] (1:24:40 - 1:24:42)
I mean, that part of our work will be done.

[Speaker 1] (1:24:42 - 1:24:45)
And then we'll turn our attention to the second lot,

[Speaker 1] (1:24:45 - 1:24:47)
and we won't take forever.

[Speaker 1] (1:24:47 - 1:24:47)
You know,

[Speaker 1] (1:24:47 - 1:24:50)
we'll take a couple months and we're done.

[Speaker 1] (1:24:50 - 1:24:56)
And then it's information the town has and it'll be, you know, the select board will take it from there.

[Speaker 1] (1:24:57 - 1:24:59)
But we will have done what we could.

[Speaker 1] (1:25:00 - 1:25:01)
And I got to say,

[Speaker 1] (1:25:01 - 1:25:05)
I want to brag about our committee. We've done in six months.

[Speaker 1] (1:25:05 - 1:25:15)
We've done in six months ten times the job that the consultant did, you know, in in two and a half years. So so we're moving fast.

[Speaker 2] (1:25:18 - 1:25:18)
Thank you.

[Speaker 3] (1:25:21 - 1:25:21)
Okay.

[Speaker 3] (1:25:22 - 1:25:28)
Hi, I'm Mary-Jean Nevels. I live on Aspen Road. I have a couple, from right here, I have a couple

[Speaker 1] (1:25:28 - 1:25:29)
Yeah, I was looking for you.

[Speaker 3] (1:25:29 - 1:25:32)
comments and questions. So the question

[Speaker 3] (1:25:33 - 1:25:43)
The comments I have, first of all you're talking about the Hawthorne property as it currently exists and it's sort of being a dearth.

[Speaker 3] (1:25:44 - 1:25:51)
I kind of like having the open space there and the white picket fence with the Hawthorne's pretty flowers.

[Speaker 3] (1:25:51 - 1:25:55)
I don't understand why that is a problem personally,

[Speaker 3] (1:25:55 - 1:25:58)
you know why it's...

[Speaker 3] (1:25:59 - 1:26:02)
It needs to be filled in, I guess. So that's one comment.

[Speaker 3] (1:26:03 - 1:26:07)
The second comment is regarding the survey.

[Speaker 3] (1:26:08 - 1:26:22)
I also viewed the survey as these buildings were all going to be single story and not two and three stories. And that strongly changes my mind.

[Speaker 3] (1:26:24 - 1:26:35)
I really don't want to see two and three stories there. So I think the suggestion about maybe another survey with a little more clarity would be helpful.

[Speaker 3] (1:26:37 - 1:26:42)
And the sustainability of businesses along Humphrey Street.

[Speaker 3] (1:26:43 - 1:26:56)
The the properties along by Lincoln's Landing and they are The stores turn over very frequently. It's hard to keep a business in there and we're talking about adding more businesses

[Speaker 3] (1:26:57 - 1:27:01)
Is it sustainable I think people really need to think about that

[Speaker 3] (1:27:02 - 1:27:08)
Do you know are we we're just going to be creating empty office fronts or empty storefronts?

[Speaker 3] (1:27:09 - 1:27:33)
um that nobody really wants to rent. Um and then the questions I have um the first one is about the Hawthorne revenue. Um I I understand now it it it's part of the town but how much was the town collecting um on the Hawthorne property before it became part of the town? So in other words I'm trying to sort of

[Speaker 3] (1:27:34 - 1:27:39)
What was the revenue there versus what's the revenue we're going to get if we put stores there?

[Speaker 3] (1:27:39 - 1:27:40)
Do we know that?

[Speaker 1] (1:27:40 - 1:27:48)
Well, the Hawthorne right now, the Hawthorne right now pays $150,000 a year in property tax.

[Speaker 3] (1:27:49 - 1:27:49)
Okay.

[Speaker 1] (1:27:49 - 1:27:52)
It pays $24,000 a year in rent,

[Speaker 1] (1:27:52 - 1:27:56)
and then it pays $2,400 for a license fee,

[Speaker 1] (1:27:56 - 1:27:57)
liquor license fee.

[Speaker 1] (1:27:57 - 1:28:02)
So that's about $175,000 per year at the moment. Plus...

[Speaker 1] (1:28:03 - 1:28:08)
There is a relatively small food and liquor sales tax.

[Speaker 1] (1:28:08 - 1:28:18)
I say relatively small now because the Hawthorne's not doing as well as it did. But maybe it's a total of 185,000 per year from the Hawthorne right now.

[Speaker 1] (1:28:19 - 1:28:23)
It would have been higher, you know, 10 years ago when it was booming.

[Speaker 1] (1:28:24 - 1:28:26)
So that's something.

[Speaker 1] (1:28:26 - 1:28:29)
The restaurants charge 7%.

[Speaker 1] (1:28:30 - 1:28:31)
On food and drink,

[Speaker 1] (1:28:31 - 1:28:37)
6.25% goes to the state. In each town, the town where the restaurant is, gets three quarters of a percent.

[Speaker 3] (1:28:38 - 1:28:50)
So what you're saying is it would be, given the revenue on the stores that would be there, it's sort of a wash between what the Hawthorne was doing

[Speaker 1] (1:28:50 - 1:28:50)
Well,

[Speaker 3] (1:28:50 - 1:28:52)
and what, because you said something about 250

[Speaker 1] (1:28:52 - 1:28:53)
no,

[Speaker 3] (1:28:53 - 1:28:53)
or

[Speaker 1] (1:28:53 - 1:28:53)
our

[Speaker 3] (1:28:53 - 1:28:54)
300,000.

[Speaker 1] (1:28:54 - 1:28:57)
committee believes that the

[Speaker 1] (1:28:57 - 1:29:19)
um like take L1 for example this is the double-site plan we we believe that the revenue that would be generated by these buildings 50,000 square feet of buildings beats you know beats the revenue generated by the Horton restaurant let's say let's say the Horton contributes 250,000 a year you know it does better let's say it does better or it's a new owner

[Speaker 1] (1:29:20 - 1:29:21)
I mean, again,

[Speaker 1] (1:29:21 - 1:29:22)
these are ballpark numbers,

[Speaker 1] (1:29:22 - 1:29:27)
but we think we think we can, you know, we think we can beat the restaurant revenue handily.

[Speaker 1] (1:29:28 - 1:29:31)
and still create half a site park?

[Speaker 2] (1:29:31 - 1:29:35)
And is that based on single stories or three stories?

[Speaker 1] (1:29:35 - 1:29:36)
No, no, yeah, good point.

[Speaker 1] (1:29:36 - 1:29:40)
That is based on the combination of two and three story buildings.

[Speaker 1] (1:29:40 - 1:29:41)
I'm glad you asked me.

[Speaker 1] (1:29:41 - 1:29:45)
Yeah, it doesn't happen with one story buildings.

[Speaker 1] (1:29:45 - 1:29:48)
But I have a question for you because this would help our committee.

[Speaker 1] (1:29:48 - 1:29:51)
We were a little puzzled that some people,

[Speaker 1] (1:29:51 - 1:29:52)
some people who commented

[Speaker 1] (1:29:54 - 1:29:58)
You know, stated this preference for one-storey buildings and didn't like two and three.

[Speaker 1] (1:29:59 - 1:30:08)
Why, why do you feel that way when the rest of Humphrey Street is clearly two and three storeys? Why the need to stick at one storey? We we couldn't

[Speaker 2] (1:30:08 - 1:30:08)
Because

[Speaker 1] (1:30:08 - 1:30:09)
figure that out.

[Speaker 2] (1:30:09 - 1:30:13)
I think someone else made the comment about it feeling like a canyon.

[Speaker 2] (1:30:14 - 1:30:19)
And you put two and three stories up and you've hemmed the whole street in.

[Speaker 1] (1:30:19 - 1:30:20)
Okay, so...

[Speaker 2] (1:30:20 - 1:30:22)
Like where Captain Jack's is,

[Speaker 2] (1:30:22 - 1:30:23)
again,

[Speaker 2] (1:30:23 - 1:30:27)
you know, we were promised spaces between the buildings and that didn't happen.

[Speaker 2] (1:30:28 - 1:30:32)
And it does feel like a canyon. It feels like a big solid wall going

[Speaker 1] (1:30:32 - 1:30:33)
Yeah, so I

[Speaker 2] (1:30:33 - 1:30:33)
along there.

[Speaker 1] (1:30:33 - 1:30:34)
understand your comment.

[Speaker 1] (1:30:34 - 1:30:37)
Of course, the Concordia, which is what you're referring to,

[Speaker 1] (1:30:37 - 1:30:40)
that's, you know, four and a half stories, so that's not...

[Speaker 1] (1:30:39 - 1:30:40)
It's not three,

[Speaker 1] (1:30:40 - 1:30:42)
that's four and a half, so that's one difference.

[Speaker 1] (1:30:42 - 1:30:44)
But that's puzzling because,

[Speaker 1] (1:30:44 - 1:30:57)
you know, small town streets, you know, across New England are two and three stories routinely and the streets are sometimes less wide than Humphrey and it doesn't feel like a canyon.

[Speaker 1] (1:30:58 - 1:31:05)
I mean, if you go to Melrose Town Center or Concord Town Center or New Report Town Center and you walk up and down those streets,

[Speaker 1] (1:31:06 - 1:31:07)
they're charming,

[Speaker 1] (1:31:07 - 1:31:08)
they're totally charming.

[Speaker 2] (1:31:08 - 1:31:08)
But

[Speaker 1] (1:31:08 - 1:31:09)
They're

[Speaker 2] (1:31:09 - 1:31:09)
they're not

[Speaker 1] (1:31:09 - 1:31:09)
they're

[Speaker 2] (1:31:09 - 1:31:09)
actively

[Speaker 1] (1:31:09 - 1:31:09)
two-story

[Speaker 2] (1:31:09 - 1:31:10)
blocking

[Speaker 1] (1:31:10 - 1:31:11)
three-story building so

[Speaker 2] (1:31:11 - 1:31:14)
they're not actively blocking a view of the ocean that we could have

[Speaker 1] (1:31:15 - 1:31:15)
But

[Speaker 2] (1:31:15 - 1:31:15)
otherwise.

[Speaker 1] (1:31:15 - 1:31:19)
well, let's let's stick with the canyon thought and then we'll go to the view so

[Speaker 1] (1:31:20 - 1:31:23)
Isn't that a refutation of the idea that it feels like a canyon? In fact,

[Speaker 1] (1:31:23 - 1:31:32)
nobody who goes there says this feels like a canyon because the street, you know, Humphrey Street is, you know, my God, it's not narrow. It's probably 90 feet from building front to building front.

[Speaker 1] (1:31:32 - 1:31:33)
So the scale,

[Speaker 1] (1:31:33 - 1:31:39)
the scale of a three-story building on each side, and you can check this tomorrow by walking down Humphrey Street,

[Speaker 1] (1:31:39 - 1:31:41)
there's plenty of places where there's two and three stories on each side,

[Speaker 2] (1:31:41 - 1:31:42)
Mm-hmm.

[Speaker 1] (1:31:42 - 1:31:44)
it just simply doesn't feel like a canyon.

[Speaker 1] (1:31:44 - 1:31:48)
So that, we're having a hard time with that, just so you know.

[Speaker 1] (1:31:48 - 1:32:00)
Um, you know, it's a very traditional, typical development of main streets of America to have two and three on each side and some intensity, it is some intensity,

[Speaker 1] (1:32:00 - 1:32:02)
I mean, there is certainly a sense of

[Speaker 1] (1:32:02 - 1:32:08)
spatial enclosure, but but but that's considered desirable as long as that as long as it works, um

[Speaker 2] (1:32:09 - 1:32:12)
But I'm afraid it's not I'm part of it is I'm afraid it's not gonna work because

[Speaker 1] (1:32:12 - 1:32:13)
so

[Speaker 2] (1:32:13 - 1:32:15)
that we can't seem to keep the storefronts

[Speaker 1] (1:32:15 - 1:32:19)
yeah, well okay, but that's a different issue. You know, the success of the shop is different than the height of the building.

[Speaker 2] (1:32:19 - 1:32:19)
Okay.

[Speaker 1] (1:32:19 - 1:32:22)
Okay, but the other thing I wanna pick up on is view.

[Speaker 1] (1:32:22 - 1:32:27)
If you have a one storey building or a three storey building, you can't see through it.

[Speaker 1] (1:32:27 - 1:32:30)
So if you're on the sidewalk and it's lined with one storey buildings

[Speaker 1] (1:32:31 - 1:32:32)
You can't see the ocean.

[Speaker 2] (1:32:33 - 1:32:33)
True.

[Speaker 1] (1:32:33 - 1:32:39)
So it doesn't make a difference to the view whether the building is one, two, or three stories.

[Speaker 1] (1:32:39 - 1:32:46)
What makes a difference to the view is whether there are gaps, and that's why that 85-foot gap is there.

[Speaker 1] (1:32:46 - 1:32:49)
So in that particular drawing,

[Speaker 1] (1:32:49 - 1:32:52)
it won't matter whether the street front building is a one, two, and three story.

[Speaker 1] (1:32:52 - 1:32:53)
It won't matter.

[Speaker 1] (1:32:53 - 1:32:56)
You won't have a view until you get to the gap opening.

[Speaker 1] (1:32:57 - 1:33:03)
So this is sort of important because these are really fundamentals of town planning.

[Speaker 1] (1:33:03 - 1:33:08)
And believe me, everyone can prefer one-story buildings if they want.

[Speaker 1] (1:33:08 - 1:33:15)
But you just have to be harder about why you think you like one-story buildings because you don't have a view.

[Speaker 1] (1:33:16 - 1:33:16)
So,

[Speaker 2] (1:33:16 - 1:33:16)
That

[Speaker 1] (1:33:16 - 1:33:17)
yeah.

[Speaker 2] (1:33:17 - 1:33:18)
trend.

[Speaker 1] (1:33:18 - 1:33:18)
Okay,

[Speaker 1] (1:33:18 - 1:33:19)
sunshine,

[Speaker 1] (1:33:19 - 1:33:19)
that's a good.

[Speaker 1] (1:33:19 - 1:33:20)
That's a good.

[Speaker 1] (1:33:21 - 1:33:22)
Yeah, so

[Speaker 2] (1:33:22 - 1:33:22)
Yeah,

[Speaker 1] (1:33:22 - 1:33:28)
Sunshine is a very good one. Our committee is very aware of where the sun comes from on this site,

[Speaker 1] (1:33:28 - 1:33:30)
and we've talked about sun shadows.

[Speaker 1] (1:33:31 - 1:33:32)
On this drawing,

[Speaker 2] (1:33:32 - 1:33:32)
right.

[Speaker 1] (1:33:32 - 1:33:35)
north is not up, south is up on this drawing.

[Speaker 1] (1:33:36 - 1:33:40)
So the southern light comes from the ocean side.

[Speaker 1] (1:33:40 - 1:33:44)
So if you have three-story buildings along Humphrey Street,

[Speaker 1] (1:33:44 - 1:33:46)
and you see there's cafes,

[Speaker 1] (1:33:47 - 1:33:48)
they're set back 30 feet.

[Speaker 1] (1:33:49 - 1:33:52)
The cafes will be in shadow for sure,

[Speaker 1] (1:33:52 - 1:34:07)
the street side cafes during the summer, that's of course desirable. The street itself won't be shaded. In the summer the sun is very high. So when you do when you do sun when they when people when architects do sun studies, they also look at the sun at different seasons.

[Speaker 1] (1:34:07 - 1:34:14)
So now it's what is it it's late it's middle September so the sun starts to be a little lower so shadows get longer. But

[Speaker 1] (1:34:15 - 1:34:15)
But again,

[Speaker 1] (1:34:16 - 1:34:17)
Humphrey Street is very wide,

[Speaker 1] (1:34:17 - 1:34:20)
so you can test this out yourself.

[Speaker 1] (1:34:20 - 1:34:24)
I mean, walk down Humphrey Street on the southern sidewalk,

[Speaker 1] (1:34:24 - 1:34:28)
you know, walk down at 2 o'clock in the afternoon and tell me if you think it's not bright,

[Speaker 1] (1:34:28 - 1:34:29)
you know.

[Speaker 2] (1:34:29 - 1:34:37)
So I've taken up much more time than I planned. I just have one more question that I think is important to me anyway.

[Speaker 2] (1:34:38 - 1:34:42)
What's the process? So you're going to come up with...

[Speaker 2] (1:34:43 - 1:34:47)
One recommendation, it goes to the select board,

[Speaker 2] (1:34:47 - 1:34:47)
does it have,

[Speaker 2] (1:34:47 - 1:34:48)
so.

[Speaker 2] (1:34:49 - 1:34:52)
That's w yeah, what's the process? I guess

[Speaker 1] (1:34:52 - 1:34:52)
So,

[Speaker 2] (1:34:52 - 1:34:52)
I'm

[Speaker 1] (1:34:52 - 1:34:52)
yeah,

[Speaker 2] (1:34:52 - 1:34:53)
open-ended

[Speaker 1] (1:34:53 - 1:34:53)
our,

[Speaker 2] (1:34:53 - 1:34:53)
what is the process?

[Speaker 1] (1:34:53 - 1:35:09)
our, our committee um our committee hasn't decided our committee hasn't decided exactly whether we'll rank a couple or three plans and and maybe send three plans, you know, but but sort of with one two three, uh or whether we'll just send one plan,

[Speaker 1] (1:35:09 - 1:35:16)
d you know, this is our strong recommendation and here's our here's the plan we like, you know, we we the committee has to decide that.

[Speaker 1] (1:35:16 - 1:35:19)
But w whatever that decision is, one plan or or a couple,

[Speaker 1] (1:35:19 - 1:35:35)
we send that along with a report because we're going to explain we're going to explain our choice. It's just not just a plan and talk about it and then we'll send it to the select board and and at that point it will be up to the select board,

[Speaker 1] (1:35:35 - 1:35:37)
you know, to decide.

[Speaker 1] (1:35:37 - 1:35:39)
what they'd like to do.

[Speaker 1] (1:35:39 - 1:35:54)
I mean we are just sort of an advisory you know we're giving like our opinion and advice you know we're hopefully reflecting the town but this select board is really the ultimate you know ultimate decider.

[Speaker 3] (1:35:58 - 1:35:59)
Yes, it

[Speaker 1] (1:35:59 - 1:35:59)
Yeah,

[Speaker 3] (1:35:59 - 1:35:59)
does.

[Speaker 1] (1:35:59 - 1:36:15)
ultimately it would ultimately I don't know how soon but ultimately it would yeah yeah because it's a it's you know it's it'd be a it'd be a plan and a use that would be required town meeting would be required to vote on it yeah oh

[Speaker 1] (1:36:19 - 1:36:23)
you have it good go yeah

[Speaker 4] (1:36:24 - 1:36:25)
Margaret Sommer.

[Speaker 4] (1:36:25 - 1:36:26)
I have a voice problem.

[Speaker 4] (1:36:27 - 1:36:28)
Town meeting member.

[Speaker 4] (1:36:28 - 1:36:34)
I just want to comment that over and over again we've been told there would be a view of nature,

[Speaker 4] (1:36:34 - 1:36:36)
a view of the ocean,

[Speaker 4] (1:36:36 - 1:36:37)
and it was cut off.

[Speaker 4] (1:36:38 - 1:36:45)
When Marion Court College was converted to condos, we were told there'd be a harbor walk,

[Speaker 4] (1:36:45 - 1:36:50)
but there's nowhere to park over there to take the harbor walk.

[Speaker 4] (1:36:50 - 1:36:53)
You have to live there to take the harbor walk.

[Speaker 4] (1:36:53 - 1:36:55)
When Concordia was built,

[Speaker 4] (1:36:56 - 1:36:56)
oh, well,

[Speaker 4] (1:36:56 - 1:37:00)
there'll be plenty of vision of the ocean as you walk by on both sides.

[Speaker 4] (1:37:01 - 1:37:01)
No,

[Speaker 4] (1:37:01 - 1:37:06)
there isn't. The whole design of it takes up every scrap of space.

[Speaker 4] (1:37:06 - 1:37:18)
To the right of it is another group of condos. Nothing against condos, and I think they're both beautiful. But they put their big air conditioner to the left side, outside.

[Speaker 4] (1:37:19 - 1:37:22)
of the second group of condos, right?

[Speaker 4] (1:37:22 - 1:37:24)
So as you walk by, what do you see?

[Speaker 4] (1:37:24 - 1:37:25)
They're air conditioned.

[Speaker 4] (1:37:25 - 1:37:27)
They don't even camouflage it with plants.

[Speaker 4] (1:37:27 - 1:37:32)
You see the air conditioner and the whole design of that property blocks your view.

[Speaker 4] (1:37:33 - 1:37:36)
Up the hill from there,

[Speaker 4] (1:37:36 - 1:37:38)
all the neighbors,

[Speaker 4] (1:37:38 - 1:37:39)
that's you,

[Speaker 4] (1:37:39 - 1:37:42)
all the neighbors there had an ocean view,

[Speaker 4] (1:37:42 - 1:37:45)
and when you'd walk in that area from up on the hill, you'd have an ocean view.

[Speaker 4] (1:37:46 - 1:37:56)
Somebody built a big beautiful house, and to the right of the house they built trees, and to the left of the house they put a big air conditioner outdoors, right?

[Speaker 4] (1:37:57 - 1:37:58)
So as you walk by,

[Speaker 4] (1:37:58 - 1:37:59)
you see nothing.

[Speaker 4] (1:38:00 - 1:38:00)
nothing.

[Speaker 4] (1:38:01 - 1:38:04)
So do they put those things in front of their house? No.

[Speaker 4] (1:38:04 - 1:38:06)
They put them on the right and the left.

[Speaker 4] (1:38:06 - 1:38:08)
So their neighbors all lost their ocean view,

[Speaker 4] (1:38:09 - 1:38:11)
all the people who take walks there.

[Speaker 4] (1:38:11 - 1:38:13)
Over and over again,

[Speaker 4] (1:38:13 - 1:38:14)
people commit.

[Speaker 4] (1:38:14 - 1:38:21)
So even though I'm very pro-business, would love to see private sector companies buy those buildings,

[Speaker 4] (1:38:22 - 1:38:28)
they will tell us what we want to hear and they will do what they want.

[Speaker 4] (1:38:28 - 1:38:30)
Because when Concordia was built,

[Speaker 4] (1:38:30 - 1:38:33)
we were told there will be an ocean view.

[Speaker 4] (1:38:34 - 1:38:38)
So, yeah, so there's a lot to be skeptical about,

[Speaker 4] (1:38:38 - 1:38:45)
and I do appreciate the committee and everybody on it, but we've had a number of times there's supposed to be,

[Speaker 4] (1:38:45 - 1:38:49)
and that language will be a coastal walk or something.

[Speaker 4] (1:38:50 - 1:38:53)
You can't, you wouldn't be able to do that really with the restaurant there.

[Speaker 4] (1:38:54 - 1:38:57)
I mean, if you've ever sat on the deck, you're looking, you're over the water.

[Speaker 4] (1:38:58 - 1:39:06)
So that's all. Really fight to preserve all of us being able to connect with nature and the ocean.

[Speaker 1] (1:39:07 - 1:39:13)
Yeah, I'd like to just briefly say I agree totally with that point. It's a little bit what we were talking about earlier.

[Speaker 1] (1:39:16 - 1:39:20)
If the town created an RFP, it lists the conditions,

[Speaker 1] (1:39:20 - 1:39:20)
preferences,

[Speaker 1] (1:39:21 - 1:39:21)
qualifications,

[Speaker 1] (1:39:22 - 1:39:25)
so forth and so on, and then developers respond,

[Speaker 1] (1:39:25 - 1:39:27)
the town negotiates with one.

[Speaker 1] (1:39:27 - 1:39:36)
I really think that the people who represent the town in negotiating with the developer have to be smart and sophisticated,

[Speaker 1] (1:39:36 - 1:39:38)
they have to be able to read plans,

[Speaker 1] (1:39:38 - 1:39:39)
and they have to be committed to...

[Speaker 1] (1:39:40 - 1:39:51)
exercising sort of the power of the town to say no before everybody signs up to get to get whatever plan to get whatever plan it is you know that you're referring to I mean there's

[Speaker 2] (1:39:51 - 1:39:52)
But it

[Speaker 1] (1:39:52 - 1:39:52)
just

[Speaker 2] (1:39:52 - 1:39:52)
hasn't

[Speaker 1] (1:39:52 - 1:39:52)
this yeah

[Speaker 2] (1:39:52 - 1:39:53)
happened yet.

[Speaker 1] (1:39:53 - 1:40:07)
I mean there's there's no substitute for that I mean we can go through our committee the select board can go through its work the town committee the town meeting can vote yes but at some point when the developer sits down with the town the people on the town side of the table

[Speaker 1] (1:40:08 - 1:40:19)
um have, you know, have to believe in the you know the vision, they have to hold the developer to it. I mean it is a negotiation. So it that you know that keeps me up at night too.

[Speaker 1] (1:40:22 - 1:40:23)
Yeah, there's here.

[Speaker 3] (1:40:42 - 1:41:02)
Hey I'm Dan uh from Hopelands Road, uh just not my main point, but really quickly, the buildings other than maybe these ones looked a little too small to have s two stories. If you if you kinda have elevators and stairs that's gonna take up a lot of your floor space that could have been used for more tables if it's a restaurant or whatever else is gonna go in there.

[Speaker 3] (1:41:03 - 1:41:04)
Um

[Speaker 3] (1:41:04 - 1:41:11)
My major point was this is more or less across the street from that boutique hotel that the town wants to have, correct? The Hadley?

[Speaker 1] (1:41:13 - 1:41:13)
Yes.

[Speaker 3] (1:41:13 - 1:41:20)
If we're gonna want if we want revenue from that, whatever we build here needs to attract people that are gonna stay in that hotel.

[Speaker 3] (1:41:21 - 1:41:27)
So the open space committee had a good point about how other towns charge five to ten thousand dollars to rent out their parks for weddings.

[Speaker 3] (1:41:28 - 1:41:33)
Now I had a wedding, I paid a lot of money to rent out a up private a public park for

[Speaker 3] (1:41:33 - 1:41:37)
And it is, it's true, you can have, you have the rehearsal dinner at Mission on the Bay.

[Speaker 3] (1:41:38 - 1:41:43)
You can have, you know, pictures with the Boston skyline and the hot bay in the background.

[Speaker 3] (1:41:44 - 1:41:47)
You can have photographers come in, florists come in for businesses in the town.

[Speaker 3] (1:41:48 - 1:41:52)
So I think that, you know, a wedding site here would be a really great use of the space.

[Speaker 3] (1:41:54 - 1:41:57)
And when weddings aren't taking place, it would be a good third place to have.

[Speaker 3] (1:41:58 - 1:42:03)
like a brewery or comedy shows or a cafe to hang out in things like that.

[Speaker 3] (1:42:07 - 1:42:17)
So you got to think about like what do you leave Swampscott for? Like I like to go up to Beverly to get the cabot and the off-cabot for comedy shows. We could have something like that for events here so people don't have to leave town.

[Speaker 3] (1:42:17 - 1:42:18)
They can stay here,

[Speaker 3] (1:42:18 - 1:42:20)
keep their money, you know, in town.

[Speaker 3] (1:42:21 - 1:42:25)
I think when you do drive by the site does have to be clear there's a park in the background.

[Speaker 3] (1:42:26 - 1:42:33)
So I it's another reason I'm not in favour of having two or three stories. You gotta be able to tell that there's you know something back there to go see.

[Speaker 3] (1:42:34 - 1:42:43)
Um I just recently moved here, I came from Medford and I know there's a lot of vacant shops around in a much more popular area. So I'd be really concerned about

[Speaker 3] (1:42:43 - 1:42:48)
what business is and how you're gonna get businesses to move here and stay here and not have turnover.

[Speaker 1] (1:42:50 - 1:42:51)
Okay, thank you.

[Speaker 4] (1:42:54 - 1:42:54)
Hi.

[Speaker 5] (1:42:55 - 1:42:56)
This is on. Yep.

[Speaker 5] (1:42:56 - 1:42:56)
Yep.

[Speaker 4] (1:42:56 - 1:43:19)
Hi. Gina Cobbett, Walnut Road. Um I have been around for a long time, grew up in the area and have been walking on Humphrey Street since I was probably a kid. Um I don't find that walking on Humphrey Street is as pleasant as it was twenty five years ago. It is a canyon. I know you don't see that, but I walk it five

[Speaker 4] (1:43:20 - 1:43:21)
times a week if not more.

[Speaker 4] (1:43:22 - 1:43:33)
It's it's dark at certain times of the day and I walk it at 5 a.m., I walk it at 6 a.m., I walk it at 10 a.m., I walk it at 4 a.m. and 8 p.m.

[Speaker 4] (1:43:33 - 1:43:39)
It's not pleasant to walk by anymore. And I had the opportunity to live near there for a while.

[Speaker 4] (1:43:39 - 1:43:42)
It was beautiful then, but it's changed.

[Speaker 4] (1:43:43 - 1:43:47)
We put more buildings in and don't have that beautiful open space.

[Speaker 4] (1:43:47 - 1:43:56)
I think we are gonna miss that one in a lifetime opportunity. We don't need probably all the beautiful things you're adding to that park as nice as they are.

[Speaker 4] (1:43:57 - 1:44:01)
We're a small community. I think people would be happy with benches, open space,

[Speaker 4] (1:44:01 - 1:44:06)
some beautiful flowers in certain areas and some native bushes and trees.

[Speaker 4] (1:44:07 - 1:44:25)
I don't know if anyone's familiar with it, but my daughter just finished her Gold Award and she made a beautiful section at the conservation near Muskrat Pond where she took fallen down tree sections and made like places where kids can walk across and a bench.

[Speaker 4] (1:44:25 - 1:44:43)
It doesn't have to be sophisticated to be nice. It doesn't have to be super fancy with a beautiful fountain. It can be simple and still beautiful and probably a little more responsible to maintain because yeah, it is hard for our small community to keep up with everything we do have.

[Speaker 4] (1:44:43 - 1:44:50)
And I know there's a lot of people in town that would probably be happy to volunteer and help and also help build things.

[Speaker 4] (1:44:50 - 1:44:50)
I mean.

[Speaker 4] (1:44:51 - 1:45:00)
Many years ago we built a park over near where the football field is in the parking lot and we had adults, we had kids from the high school,

[Speaker 4] (1:45:00 - 1:45:04)
the middle school and they built this really fun park for the kids to play at.

[Speaker 4] (1:45:04 - 1:45:16)
I know there are kids and adults in this town that would be happy to donate time or things to build things with but we don't have to have it as fancy. You could simplify it more.

[Speaker 4] (1:45:17 - 1:45:23)
and still have it for each venue or weddings or people having just birthday parties for their kids.

[Speaker 4] (1:45:24 - 1:45:31)
But the open space would add to the town and the community and allow us to enjoy what we have here,

[Speaker 4] (1:45:31 - 1:45:40)
which is unusual for a lot of other places. But thank you for your work. I know you guys have worked really hard and they are beautiful drawings and renditions.

[Speaker 4] (1:45:40 - 1:45:42)
And it's nicer than what's there.

[Speaker 4] (1:45:43 - 1:45:44)
And I have nothing against the restaurant.

[Speaker 4] (1:45:45 - 1:45:50)
But when I thought about us purchasing it, purchasing that property,

[Speaker 4] (1:45:50 - 1:45:55)
I thought of it as a nice place for families to go and have a picnic. You know, it's hard to find cheap.

[Speaker 4] (1:45:56 - 1:46:17)
And yet enjoyable places for families these days. And that would be a nice opportunity for our town and our community to be able to just congregate there and like other people have said, have festivals and other additional things there. But I appreciate that and I hope I hope we're able to do something that's good for the community in the end.

[Speaker 6] (1:46:40 - 1:46:53)
Hi, my name's Paulette Tattersall, I'm relatively new to the town, I've lived here for about three years. Um I just uh um have a couple of comments. Um first of all, interestingly enough, I moved from the Concord area.

[Speaker 6] (1:46:54 - 1:46:58)
And I just want to say that Concord doesn't have three and four storey buildings.

[Speaker 1] (1:46:59 - 1:47:01)
Not three or four. No, two.

[Speaker 6] (1:47:01 - 1:47:01)
Right.

[Speaker 1] (1:47:01 - 1:47:02)
I live

[Speaker 6] (1:47:02 - 1:47:02)
But in they

[Speaker 1] (1:47:02 - 1:47:02)
Concord.

[Speaker 6] (1:47:02 - 1:47:04)
were but they're 300 years old.

[Speaker 1] (1:47:04 - 1:47:05)
I grew up in Concord.

[Speaker 6] (1:47:05 - 1:47:13)
Right. So we're both from the same from the same area. I mean it's a very different experience. I agree with the lady prior to walk down Humphrey Street.

[Speaker 6] (1:47:14 - 1:47:15)
It's not Concord Main Street.

[Speaker 6] (1:47:15 - 1:47:16)
It just isn't.

[Speaker 6] (1:47:16 - 1:47:25)
Um you talked about having a traditional main street. We don't have a traditional main street here because we have high condos

[Speaker 6] (1:47:26 - 1:47:32)
already, and that side of the street actually only has one retail

[Speaker 6] (1:47:33 - 1:47:42)
outlet, which is the one at is Mission Bay with the ice cream store there. Um there is no other retail on that side.

[Speaker 6] (1:47:43 - 1:47:48)
Um so I think that's something to think about. I agree with the lady here who said that

[Speaker 6] (1:47:49 - 1:48:00)
the shops uh sometimes turn over really fast. And the question that hasn't come up here yet that I have is the new development that's going on in Vinon Square.

[Speaker 6] (1:48:01 - 1:48:15)
Because if that's new shops with new revenue for the town, um are we really gonna need that many more shops down this area? It's just a question and I think it's a consideration, that's all.

[Speaker 6] (1:48:15 - 1:48:42)
I don't know the uh the lady who was talking about the money, I totally understand all of that. But does this property have to pay for itself is a question that I think we all need to answer. I agree with the wedding venue. My daughter's getting married next year. I'm horrified by the prices of weddings and venues. So I do definitely think that that is a viable cons uh viable option for the town. I know it seems weird.

[Speaker 6] (1:48:43 - 1:48:58)
But um it definitely is um in my view. Um and then the question I have, there's two things. One is is it gonna be creepy behind those buildings in the evenings at the park?

[Speaker 6] (1:49:00 - 1:49:02)
All the buildings that you have,

[Speaker 6] (1:49:02 - 1:49:09)
say for example there or some of the other drawings, is it gonna be kind of creepy to be in the park in the evenings with

[Speaker 2] (1:49:13 - 1:49:14)
Yeah.

[Speaker 1] (1:49:14 - 1:49:30)
you don't have to answer it right now but I think it's a consideration to think about and the other thing that I have wanted to say one other thing or two things one is do you know the height of the condos that are already on that street

[Speaker 3] (1:49:31 - 1:49:31)
Yes.

[Speaker 1] (1:49:31 - 1:49:34)
Okay, so the three-story ones,

[Speaker 1] (1:49:34 - 1:49:38)
would that be the three-story height that you were talking about for?

[Speaker 1] (1:49:39 - 1:49:39)
Any

[Speaker 4] (1:49:39 - 1:49:39)
The best

[Speaker 1] (1:49:39 - 1:49:40)
shops.

[Speaker 4] (1:49:40 - 1:50:05)
the best building to use as a gauge for the height and scale of what we're envisioning is the building that used to be Popo's hot dogs and it's now Kel's cream right right across the street from the site Kel's cream where people go and get frozen yogurt and ice cream so that building is probably I don't know exactly but it's probably 32 33 34 feet tall it's a three-story building wood structure

[Speaker 4] (1:50:05 - 1:50:07)
I don't know if you guys can think about it.

[Speaker 4] (1:50:07 - 1:50:15)
It's 40 feet wide and it's 55 feet deep and that's very much in the vocabulary of what we've drawn.

[Speaker 4] (1:50:17 - 1:50:20)
So that's the height, that's your question.

[Speaker 1] (1:50:20 - 1:50:21)
Okay. Okay,

[Speaker 4] (1:50:21 - 1:50:21)
Yeah.

[Speaker 1] (1:50:21 - 1:50:23)
so we'll take a look at that.

[Speaker 1] (1:50:23 - 1:50:37)
The other question I or comment I did have was is there any chance of a public private partnership where we pay for that second lot through GoFundMe or something like that. Give everybody the opportunity.

[Speaker 1] (1:50:39 - 1:50:46)
This is a once in a million opportunity to buy two properties that are just unbelievable for the town.

[Speaker 1] (1:50:46 - 1:50:59)
And it seems such a shame not to think in terms of other people wanting to donate money or resources or time to these properties.

[Speaker 1] (1:51:02 - 1:51:24)
You know, I hope that these committees that you guys are doing um and the selectmen would think about that as an option rather than the town having to pay for everything. Now I don't understand the implications of that, you know, tax-wise or anything like that, but um it's seems like that would be an opportunity. So thank you very much for your work because I know these things take a lot of time. I appreciate it.

[Speaker 5] (1:51:30 - 1:51:41)
Hi folks. Mara Lau, Outlook Road. Thank you so much. I think there's so many great ideas that have been presented and introduced this evening and supported.

[Speaker 5] (1:51:42 - 1:51:44)
To throw my support in,

[Speaker 5] (1:51:44 - 1:51:57)
I would, I'm certainly in support primarily of a park scenario, although, you know, I've sat in several of your meetings for the group.

[Speaker 5] (1:51:58 - 1:52:17)
I do see that we could benefit from a public building that could be multi-use, that could be year-round, more of a long deeper building that, you know, we have such a robust market on Sundays at Town Hall.

[Speaker 5] (1:52:18 - 1:52:23)
This could be all year-round, the building could house a variety of...

[Speaker 5] (1:52:24 - 1:52:26)
you know, kind of an indoor outdoor feel.

[Speaker 5] (1:52:26 - 1:52:33)
And then my most important part of it, I think for me would be that it has public restrooms.

[Speaker 5] (1:52:34 - 1:52:36)
I just think that when people are,

[Speaker 5] (1:52:36 - 1:52:38)
you know, trying to get their walks in,

[Speaker 5] (1:52:38 - 1:52:39)
have small children,

[Speaker 5] (1:52:39 - 1:52:41)
we are just so

[Speaker 5] (1:52:42 - 1:52:51)
you know, willfully lacking in public accommodations to get people, you know, into a bathroom when town hall is not open.

[Speaker 5] (1:52:52 - 1:52:58)
And I think that that is a really significant and important piece, you know, for that downtown area.

[Speaker 5] (1:52:59 - 1:53:05)
So that you don't have to duck into a restaurant that you may or not be patronizing at the moment.

[Speaker 5] (1:53:06 - 1:53:18)
You know, I just want to also say along the lines of lots of people have brought up the concordia and other development, you know, developer things that have really gone awry.

[Speaker 5] (1:53:20 - 1:53:24)
Too big, and it's left me with a very untrusting feeling.

[Speaker 5] (1:53:24 - 1:53:29)
So I really do want to see that this property stays in the hands of our town,

[Speaker 5] (1:53:29 - 1:53:34)
for the best use for our citizens for the long term.

[Speaker 5] (1:53:34 - 1:53:37)
I think that it can be something that's staged in.

[Speaker 5] (1:53:38 - 1:53:40)
It doesn't all have to be built at once.

[Speaker 5] (1:53:40 - 1:53:48)
Not every tree has to be planted all at once. I think that we want to keep in mind something along the lines of...

[Speaker 5] (1:53:48 - 1:53:50)
the Richard Martin Park in Boston.

[Speaker 5] (1:53:51 - 1:53:55)
It is just a beautifully built park,

[Speaker 5] (1:53:55 - 1:53:58)
you know, right alongside a very busy road there.

[Speaker 5] (1:53:59 - 1:54:06)
It's it's pretty spectacular. His service is all ages and I just think that's the feeling we want to go for.

[Speaker 5] (1:54:06 - 1:54:07)
Thank you.

[Speaker 4] (1:54:08 - 1:54:08)
Thank you.

[Speaker 4] (1:54:24 - 1:54:28)
Is there anybody else that would like to sp say anything? Are we oh is somebody here?

[Speaker 4] (1:54:31 - 1:54:32)
Right there, yep.

[Speaker 6] (1:54:32 - 1:54:34)
Anita Farber-Robertson again,

[Speaker 6] (1:54:34 - 1:54:35)
town meeting member.

[Speaker 6] (1:54:36 - 1:54:37)
I live on Puritan Road.

[Speaker 6] (1:54:38 - 1:54:40)
I hear all,

[Speaker 6] (1:54:40 - 1:54:48)
I mean I know that part of what gets me out to this meeting is because of what I experienced with the Concordia and being totally shocked.

[Speaker 6] (1:54:49 - 1:54:52)
that we didn't have the see-throughs that we were promised.

[Speaker 6] (1:54:54 - 1:54:57)
But I hope we learned from that.

[Speaker 6] (1:54:58 - 1:55:05)
I hope, I mean, that's why we put the Humphrey Street Overlay District and we put those things in.

[Speaker 6] (1:55:05 - 1:55:14)
I keep thinking back to a couple years ago, there was some smart Alec person in Marblehead who built a house.

[Speaker 6] (1:55:15 - 1:55:20)
That was not what was approved in slightly the wrong place,

[Speaker 6] (1:55:21 - 1:55:24)
and the town had a backbone,

[Speaker 6] (1:55:24 - 1:55:28)
and they made him take that house down,

[Speaker 6] (1:55:28 - 1:55:30)
the brand new house that he built wrong.

[Speaker 6] (1:55:31 - 1:55:32)
They made him take it down.

[Speaker 6] (1:55:33 - 1:55:42)
If we have a contractor who says there's going to be spaces here for us to look through and they don't have them, we can make them take it down.

[Speaker 6] (1:55:42 - 1:55:44)
We just need to have the backbone.

[Speaker 6] (1:55:44 - 1:55:47)
If we put that in the documents of agreement,

[Speaker 6] (1:55:47 - 1:55:59)
I think that we just need to have learned from those lessons and then have the backbone to stand up for what we agreed.

[Speaker 6] (1:56:00 - 1:56:10)
So I'm not afraid of agreeing to something that I think will be beneficial just because I think the contractor might not do what we agreed to.

[Speaker 6] (1:56:10 - 1:56:14)
If they didn't, we'll make them do it over.

[Speaker 4] (1:56:15 - 1:56:15)
Yeah.

[Speaker 4] (1:56:17 - 1:56:19)
Yeah, I think the key is like not to get to that point.

[Speaker 4] (1:56:20 - 1:56:23)
But the key is, but I hear your point.

[Speaker 4] (1:56:23 - 1:56:28)
The key is in, you know, the sit down before contracts are signed.

[Speaker 4] (1:56:28 - 1:56:32)
The key is in the town negotiating with the developer who bids on an RFP.

[Speaker 4] (1:56:32 - 1:56:34)
You know, hopefully they'd be for developers.

[Speaker 4] (1:56:34 - 1:56:37)
And you talk to them. If you can't get satisfaction with one,

[Speaker 4] (1:56:37 - 1:56:38)
you move on to the next one.

[Speaker 4] (1:56:39 - 1:56:45)
The idea is not to have a confrontation at any point with the developer. The idea is that.

[Speaker 4] (1:56:46 - 1:56:54)
All along the way you're you're each checking with each other, you know, are you each getting what you want and and it's it's it's a negotiation and it's not quick,

[Speaker 4] (1:56:54 - 1:57:00)
you know it but but that's the that's really the only way to guarantee that

[Speaker 4] (1:57:00 - 1:57:15)
you get an opening where you want it you know the drawings have to reflect that the developer has to buy that idea he he has to get profit and overhead with that idea in mind at the beginning he you know if he can only have 12 apartments

[Speaker 4] (1:57:16 - 1:57:19)
You know, the town says he had 12 apartments,

[Speaker 4] (1:57:19 - 1:57:21)
that he has to be able to buy into 12 apartments,

[Speaker 4] (1:57:22 - 1:57:23)
still get his overhead and profit.

[Speaker 4] (1:57:23 - 1:57:27)
If he can't do his job, if he can't make his numbers work with that,

[Speaker 4] (1:57:27 - 1:57:30)
he tells us right at the beginning and we and he's not our guy.

[Speaker 4] (1:57:31 - 1:57:36)
So there's no substitute for just having all the hard conversations at the beginning.

[Speaker 5] (1:57:38 - 1:57:39)
Okay.

[Speaker 7] (1:57:40 - 1:57:40)
Hi.

[Speaker 8] (1:57:41 - 1:57:42)
My name is Steve Chiodi and Kristen.

[Speaker 8] (1:57:43 - 1:57:47)
We live on Hemingway Road in Swampscott.

[Speaker 8] (1:57:47 - 1:57:55)
And I don't know how many of you work, still commuting into the city, into Boston,

[Speaker 8] (1:57:55 - 1:57:58)
but I work 25 yards,

[Speaker 8] (1:57:58 - 1:58:02)
25 to 50 yards away from the ocean,

[Speaker 8] (1:58:02 - 1:58:03)
and I can't see it.

[Speaker 8] (1:58:04 - 1:58:07)
The buildings just totally obstruct.

[Speaker 8] (1:58:08 - 1:58:09)
The view of the water.

[Speaker 8] (1:58:10 - 1:58:12)
I just wanted my voice to be heard.

[Speaker 8] (1:58:12 - 1:58:18)
These buildings should not be any larger or higher than one story.

[Speaker 8] (1:58:18 - 1:58:19)
There's no way about it.

[Speaker 8] (1:58:20 - 1:58:21)
You'll have darkness.

[Speaker 8] (1:58:22 - 1:58:24)
You'll feel like you're in a corridor.

[Speaker 8] (1:58:24 - 1:58:32)
And it's just so secluded, it will not sustain the community.

[Speaker 8] (1:58:34 - 1:58:36)
and what they want to feel.

[Speaker 4] (1:58:44 - 1:58:47)
Well, you know, I don't know what to say.

[Speaker 4] (1:58:47 - 1:58:54)
If you have a one-story building, you can't see through it, so you can't...

[Speaker 4] (1:58:57 - 1:58:57)
Well,

[Speaker 4] (1:58:57 - 1:59:00)
if the sun is overhead...

[Speaker 6] (1:59:01 - 1:59:01)
Uh.

[Speaker 4] (1:59:01 - 1:59:03)
It if the sun is overhead,

[Speaker 4] (1:59:03 - 1:59:04)
it's

[Speaker 1] (1:59:04 - 1:59:05)
it's

[Speaker 2] (1:59:05 - 1:59:06)
dark sky and a stream.

[Speaker 3] (1:59:06 - 1:59:07)
Thank you.

[Speaker 4] (1:59:07 - 1:59:07)
Thank you.

[Speaker 2] (1:59:07 - 1:59:07)
Sorry.

[Speaker 4] (1:59:07 - 1:59:08)
No,

[Speaker 1] (1:59:08 - 1:59:08)
Yeah.

[Speaker 4] (1:59:08 - 1:59:09)
it's alright. Thank you. Thank you for your comments.

[Speaker 1] (1:59:09 - 1:59:12)
Yeah, no, let me let me just say something and then give the mic back if you want.

[Speaker 1] (1:59:14 - 1:59:14)
Yeah,

[Speaker 1] (1:59:14 - 1:59:15)
okay.

[Speaker 1] (1:59:16 - 1:59:19)
Any case, your comment is noted,

[Speaker 1] (1:59:19 - 1:59:42)
okay. It's just it's it's it's hard for me not to say you know, I I I don't want to refute your comment, but it's hard for me to just hear you say that. I live on Oak Road, I walk I take a walk every day and at various times that I walk from the fish house to Lynn's Red Rock Park and back. I mean I I see people in the audience who see me every day who d who are walking. So

[Speaker 2] (1:59:43 - 1:59:50)
So I'm not making this up. And I cannot relate when people in the audience have said it's dark or it's a corridor,

[Speaker 2] (1:59:50 - 1:59:54)
you know, it's dark, one woman walked many times a day and she said it's dark.

[Speaker 2] (1:59:54 - 1:59:58)
It is the opposite of dark. I mean, whichever plan you like is fine.

[Speaker 2] (1:59:58 - 2:00:04)
It's just hard for me to understand your reasons when you tell me it's dark because I don't know what to do with that.

[Speaker 2] (2:00:04 - 2:00:08)
I mean, our street is, Humphrey Street is so bright at all times of the day.

[Speaker 2] (2:00:08 - 2:00:28)
That we've we've had traffic accidents from the east and the west because the sunlight the low sunlight is in people's eyes. There's almost no time a day where it's dark, you know, so so whichever plan you like is good. But but it's it doesn't resonate when you tell me it's dark. I mean, I don't know what else to say. Pardon?

[Speaker 2] (2:00:31 - 2:00:31)
Closed?

[Speaker 2] (2:00:32 - 2:00:33)
Enclosed?

[Speaker 2] (2:00:34 - 2:00:34)
Yeah.

[Speaker 2] (2:00:36 - 2:00:36)
Yep.

[Speaker 2] (2:00:37 - 2:00:41)
Yeah, do you mean you feel a sense of enclosure rather than darkness?

[Speaker 2] (2:00:43 - 2:00:44)
Maybe.

[Speaker 2] (2:00:44 - 2:00:44)
I don't know.

[Speaker 2] (2:00:47 - 2:00:48)
Krista, let's... built.

[Speaker 1] (2:00:48 - 2:00:49)
Brian,

[Speaker 1] (2:00:49 - 2:00:50)
Brian,

[Speaker 1] (2:00:50 - 2:00:51)
Bill Demento,

[Speaker 2] (2:00:51 - 2:00:51)
Yep.

[Speaker 1] (2:00:51 - 2:00:53)
Precinct 6.

[Speaker 1] (2:00:54 - 2:01:01)
I wouldn't want anyone to leave here tonight thinking the town of Marblehead has any more backbone than the town of Swampscott.

[Speaker 1] (2:01:02 - 2:01:14)
Because, in fact, that Johnson case where the house was torn down was a result of the next door neighbor taking it to court and having it torn down,

[Speaker 1] (2:01:14 - 2:01:16)
not the town of Marblehead.

[Speaker 2] (2:01:17 - 2:01:19)
Right, I remember that case very well.

[Speaker 2] (2:01:19 - 2:01:22)
It took a long time to get that house down.

[Speaker 2] (2:01:24 - 2:01:27)
Then a lot of dollars on the part of the butter.

[Speaker 4] (2:01:28 - 2:01:41)
I don't mean to make more work for you, but given the hype discussion that we've had tonight, would it be helpful to for somebody to draw a rendering of what it would look like with the hype rather than this bird's eye view?

[Speaker 2] (2:01:41 - 2:01:53)
Yeah. Actually our committee our committee um had a town planner come in and and he uh mocked up some photographs uh of Humphrey Street looking at looking looking back.

[Speaker 2] (2:01:54 - 2:02:02)
Standing in front of Mission on the Bay and then looking back slightly uphill and showed us what a one-story building looked like, a two-story, a three,

[Speaker 2] (2:02:02 - 2:02:03)
and,

[Speaker 2] (2:02:03 - 2:02:09)
you know, we were not dismayed by what it looked like.

[Speaker 2] (2:02:10 - 2:02:36)
The sense there is a you know a sense of enclosure. If you want to say that word there is a sense of enclosure and definition that that is created to a street by by by two and three story buildings on each side, but sort of paradoxically town planning likes that. I mean it's sort of it. This is very interesting. You know I mean I come from a town planning background. We seek out

[Speaker 2] (2:02:37 - 2:02:57)
open-ness and enclosure. You know, we we actually look for a sort of a rhythm. You know, people, you know, a town if you had a town planner here he'd say it's really nice, you start up at the Rotary by the pond, you drive along or walk along either way, pass Red Rock Park, and you and then you're walking along or driving along and to your right is this wide open vista of the ocean. This is a town planner talking.

[Speaker 2] (2:02:57 - 2:03:03)
And he'd say, it's wonderful. It's like this huge sense of freedom and limitlessness.

[Speaker 2] (2:03:03 - 2:03:05)
But then you hit mission on the bay,

[Speaker 2] (2:03:05 - 2:03:12)
and all of a sudden there's a, you know, if we filled the gap in, the idea is that all of a sudden there is a sense of enclosure.

[Speaker 2] (2:03:12 - 2:03:13)
Not darkness,

[Speaker 2] (2:03:13 - 2:03:15)
you know, not canyon,

[Speaker 2] (2:03:15 - 2:03:19)
but a definition. And so the street would march along,

[Speaker 2] (2:03:19 - 2:03:20)
the Humphrey Street would march along,

[Speaker 2] (2:03:20 - 2:03:24)
and then you'd get to Fisherman's Beach, and all of a sudden you'd pop out.

[Speaker 2] (2:03:24 - 2:03:49)
out right and then on your right there's openness again so it's town planners think about rhythm and they think about sequence of moving you know moving through spaces in a sequence um and so the idea of definition to the street especially if it's a retail you know if this there's some little intensity of retail shops however small you know there's a vibrancy there and it's not the vibrancy of the openness

[Speaker 2] (2:03:50 - 2:04:18)
where the ocean is open on your right. So it's, it's, you know, the town planner would say you you pass mission on the bay and then all of a sudden the street, he would say the street leaks, the street leaks out onto the asphalt of the hawthorn. I mean so it's it this is you know it's interesting, it's just it's just the way people feel three-dimensional space, you know, this just shows how much it can vary. The the the other interesting thing is people forget what they get used to.

[Speaker 2] (2:04:19 - 2:04:20)
And I'm sure in 1968,

[Speaker 2] (2:04:21 - 2:04:23)
when the wharf town was first built,

[Speaker 2] (2:04:23 - 2:04:25)
a lot of the old timers probably said,

[Speaker 2] (2:04:25 - 2:04:26)
man,

[Speaker 2] (2:04:26 - 2:04:26)
this is terrible.

[Speaker 2] (2:04:27 - 2:04:28)
I'm sure they did,

[Speaker 2] (2:04:28 - 2:04:28)
right?

[Speaker 2] (2:04:28 - 2:04:30)
There's a big parking lot, it's open,

[Speaker 2] (2:04:30 - 2:04:31)
it's like, what happened?

[Speaker 2] (2:04:31 - 2:04:32)
The view's blocked.

[Speaker 2] (2:04:32 - 2:04:42)
Whereas prior to that, there were buildings along the street, you know, from 1900 to 67 was probably more the vision of the town planner.

[Speaker 2] (2:04:42 - 2:04:45)
The buildings marched along both sides of the street.

[Speaker 2] (2:04:45 - 2:04:45)
street.

[Speaker 2] (2:04:45 - 2:04:46)
There were three,

[Speaker 2] (2:04:46 - 2:05:02)
the post office was a three-story building at the top of the hill across from uh the the insurance the Cassidy insurance company. So there's a three-story building, then there were two-story buildings. And the Horthon restaurant originally was in a two-story building right on the street, right on the sidewalk.

[Speaker 2] (2:05:02 - 2:05:11)
So the original Horthon prior to '67 was on the street. And and of course prior to '67 everybody thought that was wonderful.

[Speaker 2] (2:05:12 - 2:05:18)
Because that's all, you know, that's all they saw, that's all they experienced. So just it's it's interesting.

[Speaker 4] (2:05:19 - 2:05:24)
I think I think if it's uh if you're gonna do another survey then it would be great for people to see the rendering.

[Speaker 2] (2:05:25 - 2:05:25)
But Yeah,

[Speaker 4] (2:05:25 - 2:05:25)
you need that to

[Speaker 2] (2:05:25 - 2:05:28)
is a good idea. The other thing that towns

[Speaker 4] (2:05:28 - 2:05:28)
But it's an economic

[Speaker 2] (2:05:28 - 2:05:28)
can do is

[Speaker 4] (2:05:28 - 2:05:29)
thing.

[Speaker 2] (2:05:29 - 2:05:29)
I Yep.

[Speaker 4] (2:05:29 - 2:05:33)
just want to say is that um shops have garbage and everything,

[Speaker 4] (2:05:34 - 2:05:34)
so

[Speaker 2] (2:05:34 - 2:05:34)
Yep.

[Speaker 4] (2:05:34 - 2:05:37)
I don't know where that would all be in these renderings.

[Speaker 4] (2:05:38 - 2:05:42)
and you know it's part of society where they're going to put their garbage or

[Speaker 2] (2:05:42 - 2:05:44)
No, it'd be on the back. They'd be on the back of the buildings.

[Speaker 4] (2:05:45 - 2:05:47)
Yeah, I'm not sure where the back is though. Yeah.

[Speaker 2] (2:05:47 - 2:05:52)
Well it would it could be between the parking lot between the parking lots and the buildings

[Speaker 2] (2:05:53 - 2:05:53)
Yeah

[Speaker 5] (2:05:56 - 2:05:59)
Yeah, one more question comment. I do want to say something first.

[Speaker 5] (2:06:00 - 2:06:02)
Respectfully, I am the town planner,

[Speaker 5] (2:06:02 - 2:06:04)
so just want to chime in here for a bit.

[Speaker 5] (2:06:05 - 2:06:06)
There are

[Speaker 5] (2:06:07 - 2:06:13)
You know, different factors we do consider about main streets and this type of development,

[Speaker 5] (2:06:13 - 2:06:15)
but tonight we're just here to listen.

[Speaker 5] (2:06:16 - 2:06:18)
So thank you all for your comments.

[Speaker 5] (2:06:20 - 2:06:21)
Thank you, Chris.

[Speaker 5] (2:06:21 - 2:06:22)
Hi.

[Speaker 5] (2:06:22 - 2:06:22)
Thank you, Krista.

[Speaker 5] (2:06:23 - 2:06:23)
Okay,

[Speaker 5] (2:06:23 - 2:06:23)
more.

[Speaker 5] (2:06:23 - 2:06:24)
I just want,

[Speaker 5] (2:06:24 - 2:06:27)
let me just tick off the rest of the things here on my list real quickly,

[Speaker 5] (2:06:27 - 2:06:34)
which was a lot of reiterations of similar points, which is my concerns for the retail aspect of it.

[Speaker 5] (2:06:34 - 2:06:43)
And, you know, fortunately, post-COVID, we have become a delivery approach to shopping and not,

[Speaker 5] (2:06:43 - 2:06:46)
you know, a foot approach to shopping. So I do think.

[Speaker 6] (2:06:46 - 2:06:52)
I think that real full-time stationary shops may,

[Speaker 6] (2:06:52 - 2:06:55)
you know, would not be successful.

[Speaker 6] (2:06:56 - 2:07:01)
Some type of a pop-up approach that could maybe live in that one story,

[Speaker 6] (2:07:02 - 2:07:12)
you know, multi-use building that, you know, my brain is envisioning to be successful there could be, you know, used for things certainly for the town but also,

[Speaker 6] (2:07:12 - 2:07:21)
you know, for other uses as well and even potentially rented out, you know, certainly for some of the other activities that people mentioned.

[Speaker 6] (2:07:21 - 2:07:50)
as a possibility seem seem terrific I just want to also mention quickly that you know attending your meetings Brian and and in the group's meetings would really be beneficial because you you have been great about giving opportunities for public comments during them and and I certainly have appreciated that so I just think as many meetings as we can all attend you know either virtually or

[Speaker 6] (2:07:50 - 2:08:13)
or in person really does sort of support you know the the idea that that we are collectively coming to these determinations and that it's not set in stone by just a small group and that you're taking our opinions seriously you know whether we've filled out a form or whether we're just speaking them and

[Speaker 1] (2:08:13 - 2:08:14)
Yes.

[Speaker 6] (2:08:14 - 2:08:16)
then I I think lastly

[Speaker 6] (2:08:17 - 2:08:36)
The historic component, we cannot lose sight of the fact that it is very adjacent to an Olmsted property or Olmsted vision. And so town-wide, we have lost a lot of historic feel to our town. So I do think being mindful of that is certainly significant.

[Speaker 6] (2:08:37 - 2:08:38)
Thank you.

[Speaker 2] (2:08:38 - 2:08:39)
Thanks.

[Speaker 7] (2:08:45 - 2:08:47)
I don't think we have any more comments, Brian, so I think

[Speaker 2] (2:08:47 - 2:08:50)
Are there any more comments or are we all set?

[Speaker 7] (2:08:50 - 2:08:59)
I think we're all set. We just wanted to thank the the community for everybody who who came out today um to share your comments and your feedback to the process to date um as Brian had

[Speaker 1] (2:09:06 - 2:09:15)
to really look at the the renderings. So what we would like to encourage is for you to continue to stay in tune, take a look at the the the uh

[Speaker 1] (2:09:15 - 2:09:17)
The website, the project website,

[Speaker 1] (2:09:17 - 2:09:18)
as Mara had mentioned,

[Speaker 1] (2:09:18 - 2:09:22)
attend the meetings. We'd love to hear additional feedback and comments.

[Speaker 1] (2:09:23 - 2:09:40)
We'll go back and regroup with the committee and come back to all of you and perhaps with another survey or try to figure out how do we capture the information that came in today and how do we gain additional insight from the renderings or the discussions that we have had today.

[Speaker 1] (2:09:40 - 2:09:42)
So thank you all for coming as you walk out there at the

[Speaker 1] (2:09:42 - 2:09:46)
uh the larger scale of the renderings if you wanna take a look at them. Thank you.

[Speaker 2] (2:09:47 - 2:09:47)
Thank you.