[Unidentified]: Recording in progress.
[SPEAKER_04]: Oh, I can tell you, just in terms of getting another member, we're putting out another call slash push with the, with the city for people to apply. So hopefully that will, it's catered like a typical Craig. So we'll be able to, get a new member soon. So, and those of you who are watching at home and public access, you know, if you're interested, please contact the city, actually in any board commission, not just ours, but we're the best one.
[SPEAKER_07]: Especially ours.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
[Unidentified]: Oh, good. Hi, Heather. Hello.
[SPEAKER_07]: You are our quorum. So we can start now.
[SPEAKER_08]: Sorry, I had to find a place that I could get reception. Sorry.
[SPEAKER_07]: That's okay. No, we're very glad you're here. So I will open the hearing at 637 on Tuesday. I'm sorry, it's Wednesday, December 7th. And Thank you all for returning tonight and for the revised plans. If the representative for the applicant would like to discuss the revisions, that would be helpful.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay. Good evening. Tom Hughes with Hughes Environmental Consulting. Here tonight, we've got Dan Chen from the architect's office, Gabe Cicerello from Medford Housing, and Steve Sawyer from GM2, the engineer on the project. I think the bulk of the comments that we had to address were stormwater related and engineering. So I'm just going to turn it right over to Steve. Steve can run through it. And then if you have any general questions, we've got folks here to try and answer.
[Soria]: All right, Steve Sawyer, GM2. I guess I'm in the hot seat here. So yeah, so we took a hard look at the storm. There were a fair amount of comments from Pam Morell at DEP, and then some comments, also comments provided by the commission. We really looked at it hard and revised the stormwater treatment systems, which I feel addresses all of the concerns. I think what I'll do, is it okay if I can share a screen?
[Hurtubise]: Steve, you're all set. All right, very good. All right, we all set, everyone can see?
[Unidentified]: Yep.
[Soria]: All right, so I think what we've done, so all along we were converting this swale to a grass swale. We didn't have the room to do any serpentine or additional plantings in it. What we do have is we have a forebay to dissipate the velocities and settle out any heavy solids, but we have a grass swale. Actually, I worked with Tom for a planting mix for the swale in the grassed areas of the basins. One of the comments was this basin here was within 50 feet of water of a resource area. It's actually not the top of bank, but it would be the Mystic River itself would be the resource area in question that we need to stay away from. But we couldn't with this system, so we actually converted it to a bioretention area. It's a thicker soil media, provides enhanced treatment through the soil media. And we've rimmed, in the next slide, we've actually provided planting in the upper areas, the top foot and a half of the basin itself, and then the bottom of the basin itself would just be the grass area. So that's That's this western side. We fully hold and treat and recharge the required volumes set forth in DEP requirements, a half inch water quality volume for all the paved areas. And we ended up at a B soil for this site. I think that there are mixed, the test pits indicated mixed mix mature. There's some areas of sand fill, some areas with tighter soils fill. It's a mix. The clipper ship trail or the clipper ship path, all of their stormwater calculations for this area, they ended up with the soil class B. We felt it was a good indication of what the soils behave here. That's what we use for the soil classification for both of these systems. Now on the eastern side, so originally we weren't treating. We were letting this portion of the lease area go and just let it run into the paved swale. This side, we were planning to curb this side anyway, and we had a break. Actually, there was a break here, and I think there was another break. to allow the water to continue to flow off as it does today on the existing pavement. But with this, what we decided, okay, let's, while we're curbing it, let's collect it. Let's collect this entire paved area, this entire eastern side of the drainage area. And now what we're doing is we provided actually, I think this is the type of swale that I think the commission and the CPC application was envisioning On the western side so the serpentine some bulges with some planting, so we we actually had room to do it on this side, so we provided that swale into the into a four bay this system we moved it was a little longer and narrow with the overflow into the into the river mystic river. To. To simplify the overflow, we've treated everything. So what we've done, we've pulled this 50 feet away. We've maintained this as a infiltration area, infiltration basin. There are sands underneath. We found some sandy material underneath. We did throttle back our infiltration rate, I believe, from substantial, I think, to 2.2 inches per hour, which is a very conservative infiltration rate on this. With this basin, we actually have, in the calculations, I think we're well above the requirements. We had room, so we went beyond the requirements of the half inch. and the recharge, I believe we're, I think our water quality volume is somewhere around almost an inch here on this. I think it was 0.8 inches or something in that neighborhood. So we had the room, so we did provide extra treatment beyond what's required. And what we do is we overtop and we discharge, there's a stone swale here that we tie into the existing swale that runs underneath the future, the future Clipper City path. I'm gonna jump to the,
[Unidentified]: Jump to my next lawn.
[Soria]: So here's an enlargement of our infiltration basin. So what we've done is around these areas, we've provided most of it's gonna be a lawn, a mix, a seed mix. I think I specified the seed mix up in, Where did I put it? I know he specified it somewhere. Yeah, here are the two seed mixes. Tom did a little research here to find out, to come up with something that we thought would provide a a robust and durable planting mix in these basins and in the swales. And he came up with a warm season grass mix, because this can go both ways. It can dry out, and during long dry periods, it will get dry. And then the detention basin mix for moisture sites. And his thought is what's going to happen is the species in both of these, what what works best will end up surviving and thriving. So we kind of provided a mixed base there, a mixed seeding mix. So then along this area, the perimeter areas here, We're gonna provide a planting schedule here, some native plants, some, what is it, red osier, dogwood, summer sweet, silky dogwood, shrubby, I don't know, Tommy can tell me what that is, and inkberry. So Tom helped me out with some good native species to plant in this area. So it'll look good, and it provides a great environmental benefit here.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right, and a shrubby sinkfoil. Those should be an eye. Oops, yeah.
[SPEAKER_08]: Oh yeah, sinkfoil, yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: But confoil must be a beautiful plant.
[Soria]: Confoil, yeah. I was thinking the ocean, I guess. Okay, so and then as far as the profile, we have the grass whale, it dumps into our forebay. We do have, you know, we dissipate the energy with a riprap embankment, then we end up with the loam and seed, and this is the mix that Tom had talked about. And then we, to provide a concise weir, concise overflow, what we did is we're putting a concrete, it's a basically, well, it's a concrete road curb, long, rocky, concrete road curb set in elevation so that it will slide over the forebay and then into the main treatment area, the main section here. So we'll have plantings up in the higher, The grass is on the lower area, same thing here where we have the weir and then this overtops and then out into the... the swale and into the Mystic River. So with this treatment, we provided ample pretreatment and with the bioretention area, we actually achieved the 90% TSS removal. And part of that is you do have the enhanced soil media here of the three foot or 30 inch, I'm sorry, the 30 inch planting soil media in the bioretention basin. So now as you pop over to the Oh, so the water quality swale, what we see is we plant the grasses in the center. And then what we do is all the plantings would be placed on the side. And I'm going to have to jump back to my other plan. Hold on a second.
[Unidentified]: I'll get back to those swales now, I think.
[Soria]: So what we have is, Tom came up with this planting scheme. So we have the grass swale, we end up in a little bay here where we have 16 tubelings planted in this area here. We have another little embayment here with 12 silky dogwoods there, tubelings. And then on here, on this side, on the eastern swale here, we have 10 red osier dogwood tubelings in this area. We bump it out for a few more tubelings here, and then some pussy willow tubelings down prior to discharging into our forebay. So I think that's a provided great pre-treatment. We're only using it for pre-treatment, not full treatment. So from here, from our treatment swale, we run into our forebay. And from our forebay, we overtop and we run into our infiltration basin. That'll be the lawn, the seeded mix here. And then from there, it overtops and flows out to the existing swale. So that's where we're at. I think it's some response. I think I feel I was very responsive to the comments. And I think this is a great plan for treating the stormwater. We've really cleaned up, you know, currently there's no treatment at all. And with the housing authority project will be a great improvement to the water quality. Upon Heidi's request, I did reach out to the DCR contact at For the clipper ship path, of course, I can't remember her name. That's why I'm an engineer, not a salesperson. I spoke with her a little over a week ago. But their plan here is they're just going to rip the pavement up. They're going to rip the pavement up and then put in trap rock and riprap to mitigate it, to make sure it doesn't erode some robust stone and heavy stone in this area for each of those, which the water is already clean. At that point, you just don't want it to become erosive or any erode the bank or cause any hazard there. So I think that's a good plan for that. So we're tying into that, to both of those points there, that condition that they're providing. Their hope, as far as their schedule, I think they're hoping to get funding over the winter. And I think they're hoping this is gonna be a project next building season, which I believe, Dan may be able to follow up, Dan Chen might be able to help me out. I think all this work in this area is part of the long-term improvements at the housing at the Saltonstall building. We're going to follow them. So the good news is, okay, we have a certain point to tie into and any kind of piping that we were originally thinking of going underneath. And then the complexities of pulling up the riprap and replacing the riprap, we've mitigated that. And so we'll be tying into the two areas where the point discharges are into the river that are going to be stabilized by the by the Clipper Ship Path project. So I think I've covered everything as far as the stormwater improvements on the project. And I feel we, you know, I feel very responsive to the comments and working with the commission and the DEP on this project. You know, granted, it is, you know, it is a mix. It is a mix of redevelopment, new development, but as part of the redevelopment, regulations say, if we have the room to do it, we should make the extra effort and provide the water quality treatment. So I think I'll wrap it up with that and turn it over for questions. Tom, if I missed anything, let me know.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let me just point out on the seed mixes, the reason we're blending two mixes is, as Steve said, we get a broader hydrology range of survival for the seeds. In addition, the warm season grass mix tends to be slow growing. And so the restoration moist site seed mix that we're proposing tends to establish faster. So we'll get some good natives in there. And over time, I don't expect to, I think there's like 10 or 15 different species there. We'll probably come down to four or five that are really dominant. And it may actually be different species in different areas that dominate depending on, you know, if we've got any portions of the basins that are wetter than others, then we've got, you know, an appropriate seed in that area that will kind of take over. And, you know, so I'm pretty happy that we've also gotten away from sort of a lawn to something that, while it is grasses, it's going to really be dominated by grasses. It is provide some value.
[Soria]: And Tom, I think the maintenance that you recommended was they get mowed once a year, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. Because they're natives, we shouldn't have to do anything more than mow it once a year. And that's really to keep the woody stuff from kind of getting in the way of the swale. We'd mow the core of the swale. The areas where the dogwoods and the pussywillows and all that are going, that would just be kind of left alone, maybe some trimming with a weed whacker around those shrubs to keep the grasses from getting out of hand. But because we're using natives, they should be much lower maintenance anyway.
[Unidentified]: Thank you very much for that. That's very helpful.
[SPEAKER_07]: We'll turn this to the commission now and see if you have any questions for either Tom or
[SPEAKER_01]: I can jump in. This looks like from I think the first time that got brought before us, this looks fantastic. It's great to see a lot more vegetation, a lot more utilizing the space to provide treatment. I have one question on the bioretention zone. This may be a question for Tom more than Steven. looks to be a relatively deep practice. And looking at the cross sections you guys have, it looks like a lot of the plantings are going to be subject to more than a foot and a half of inundation on a regular basis. Is that a concern for plant health long term?
[Soria]: Actually, I can first, I can respond to that first. That's why our planting areas is up on the banks. So this is the, that's our deep area. So we've planted, done the heavy planting up around the rim with our deep, it's really just that one deep sump that's very deep. And this shelf is only, I think it's a foot and a half deep here, 18 inches. I'll turn it over to Tom now.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, the elevation of planting that you had there on the cross section lists four as the base. And so I'm comparing that to the invert of the weird five and a half.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. So these plants can all withstand some level of flooding and some level of inundation. What we typically do is these things are planted and we kind of observe the plant survival in the first year or two and it becomes pretty obvious if we've misjudged or mischosen a species and then we look to swap it out with one of the plants that's thriving or we look to choose a species similar to one of the plants that's thriving. You know, it's not uncommon to You use your best professional judgment to put these things in, but it's not uncommon to make a change after planting if one of the species tends to be a little less resilient than you think it might be. But I've had good luck with all of those. in bioretention areas before. And in fact, the biggest problem I've had with those is when they've gone in on the basin floor and the grasses kind of overgrow them and dwarf them. And then the guys go with the weed whackers and cut them down. So having them up on the sides, I'm actually feeling better about it. I think there'll be sort of more out of the way of the routine maintenance and the guy in the mower.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay. Is that type of kind of informed replanting included in the O&M plan?
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not sure if we included it in the O&M, but it would be part of our, before we come in for a COC, we'd need to demonstrate that we've got plants surviving there. And once it's, once they're established, we shouldn't need to do anything with them. But Steve, I don't know if you have any more on that.
[Soria]: Yeah, well I was pretty, that's one thing probably we could do as we, you know, as it's planted and such and get some recommendations from Tom. I was, my O&M has just replaced, you know, it's kind of the stock one, replaced vegetation that's died off. And one thing I did do is provide an open access so you're not going, I wanted to provide an area way in and out of here with a mower so they don't have to sneak their way in. So it was that gap is for a reason why kind of trying to keep our planting areas separate and also distinct. So as far as the maintenance, it can be achieved. And I think Tom brought up a good point is, you know, with the COC, probably, you know, there might be a good idea to update the O&M based on what we see out there over the, you know, as we, you know, during the construction period and during the growing period, as these systems take hold, refine the O&M to meet those needs. Because, you know, the bioretention areas do, you know, they are maintenance, they do require maintenance. That's one of the drawbacks of them. It's not horrible. It's just, if you have a landscape contractor out there doing the general maintenance or doing the maintenance, they just need to be informed.
[SPEAKER_07]: It was actually one of my comments was that the O&M plan needs to incorporate the shrub plantings. I'm very pleased to see the number of shrub plantings there. And I want to make sure that the Medford Housing Authority's investment is protected and not run over, which often happens. Yes, exactly. And I also want to. Hopefully we won't have a summer like we did this past summer, but I want to make sure that or just mention that it may be wise to water in the shrubs when they're first planted to keep to reduce the mortality. and don't know if there's any ability to do so, but that would be, that would help the shrubs for sure.
[Soria]: Yeah. I think that's something that could be done, you know, where, you know, the good news is I, you know, get, you know, the, the housing authority is going to, they're going to want to keep that area looking good. and a nice area for the residents and such. And so I think we have, one thing, I think we have a little more control here than a lot of the projects I'm involved with. Okay, you have a developer, they turn over, they sell it to somebody and they're gone. The good news here is our client, the owner, has a vested interest in the property in perpetuity. So I think we have a much better probability that these areas will be cared, upon planting, they'll be cared for. and then in the long-term to be cared for. And this, the other thing is just kind of your, well, kind of the bocce area and the patio kind of overlook or it does overlook this. So there's gonna be a reason to keep these plants flourishing and looking good here.
[Unidentified]: So that's it. Great, thank you. I think that's it for me.
[SPEAKER_07]: Oh, great, thanks. Could we return to the full view so I can see my commission members?
[Soria]: Oh yeah, sorry. Comment near the screen.
[SPEAKER_07]: So any other commission members? Do you have any comments?
[Hurtubise]: Nothing from me, thank you. I like it. I'm very happy with the changes. I think they did a good job.
[SPEAKER_08]: I'm very impressed. We don't usually get more than. So this is wonderful. And Heidi, I thought you summed it up nicely and much more elegantly than I would have with regard to our experience with mowing and brush hogging.
[SPEAKER_07]: I've seen it far too often, unfortunately. I also appreciate the seed mixes that you are intending to use. Interesting. The New England plant, sea mixes are definitely, are good mix for sure. I'm going to, I presume that we're going to want some monitoring at least annually of, sorry, of the shrubs and the basins to ensure that there isn't erosion, rilling, die off, et cetera.
[SPEAKER_08]: Is that something that- Heidi, you're referring to more than what we normally have in our requirements.
[SPEAKER_07]: I'm not sure what's in our requirements.
[SPEAKER_08]: Well, we definitely have, you know, replacement of shrubs, et cetera, et cetera, but sounds like you're asking for a little bit more.
[Unidentified]: Well, yeah, this is an annual, something that would- Yeah, no, this is good. Was that something that the applicant was intending to do?
[Soria]: That's my question. Yeah, as part of the O&M, we do have an annual, annually, it's a perpetual condition that these are to be monitored on an annual basis and with shrubs replaced and maintained. I don't know if they, I'm sorry, go ahead.
[SPEAKER_07]: Oh, no. Will that be part of the revised O&M?
[Soria]: Yeah, well, currently it is part of the O&M, but I think what I want to do is the upgraded is get a little more detailed in how how the maintenance is performed in the mowing and such. But yeah, well, we can stress the fact that, OK, on an annual basis, any of the you know, the the any dead growth to be replaced and and such, we can add that little little more stress out a little more as far as within the O&M.
[SPEAKER_07]: I think we can condition the permit to require a revised O&M prior to construction.
[Unidentified]: Any other potential conditions?
[SPEAKER_08]: Were there any that were discussed in our previous meetings? I'm just wondering if they were listed. My memory is failing me here. No, then just, okay.
[SPEAKER_07]: And a question to Gabe, if I could. Do you think that there can be some training of the maintenance crew to recognize the shrubs?
[SPEAKER_09]: Yeah, most definitely. We have very blessed at the Medford Housing Authority to have an amazing maintenance staff that are always eager to learn. I've worked in a few housing authorities and I can't speak highly enough of our maintenance staff and the care that they have for our developments. If you ever have a chance to go by, they do a really good job keeping up with everything. And we know how important So it will be under very close observation and the staff that we work in there will be very caring of everything that's gonna be on the site.
[SPEAKER_07]: That's great to hear.
[SPEAKER_01]: Heidi, is it worth adding any sort of condition in the off chance that DCR doesn't get their funding to proceed next season that the soils need to be stabilized through to the river just in case this project moves forward before DCRs?
[SPEAKER_07]: If this project moves forward before DCR, I presume the swale in that area will remain bituminous.
[SPEAKER_01]: But the other swale, I'm not sure. The other swale is bituminous? Yeah, it's also bituminous, I believe, yeah. Oh, okay, nevermind then.
[SPEAKER_07]: So, not ideal, but stable.
[SPEAKER_07]: Do I have a hear a motion from the commission to issue an order? Do we have any public tonight, Heidi? I do not believe so, but I certainly will ask, is there anyone here from the public tonight?
[Unidentified]: We also lost Dennis.
[SPEAKER_07]: I saw a message in the chat that he had to step off. I have to log off for a second, but the meeting will continue.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'll make a motion to approve with the condition regarding the O&M fund.
[SPEAKER_04]: I'll second that.
[SPEAKER_07]: Excellent. I'll do a roll call then. All in favor, Craig. Let's see, here's Eric.
[SPEAKER_04]: Hi.
[SPEAKER_07]: Heather. Hi. Alex. Hi. And myself as an I. Thank you very much.
[Hurtubise]: Thank you so much.
[SPEAKER_07]: You're very welcome. Thank you so much for coming back tonight and incorporating both ours and DEP's comments. It's great.
[SPEAKER_09]: Thank you. Have a great night. Thank you, everybody. Bye Heidi. Thank you so much, everyone.
[SPEAKER_07]: Have a good evening. Welcome. Nice to see you.
[SPEAKER_09]: You too. Bye everyone. Bye.
[SPEAKER_07]: So I will also request a motion to close the public hearing portion of this.
[SPEAKER_08]: I make such a motion to close the public hearing on the site.
[Hurtubise]: I second the motion. All in favor, Craig. Aye. Heather.
[Hurtubise]: Aye.
[SPEAKER_07]: Alex? Aye. And myself as an aye. Okay. Do we have any other items to discuss this evening?
[SPEAKER_04]: I just realized, do we not need to approve the minutes from the last meeting?
[SPEAKER_07]: Oh yeah, let's do that. I just closed the hearing though. How do we, we can, what's that? We can do it the next meeting. It's not. That's what I was just going to say. Oh, we have to remember.
[SPEAKER_08]: Could we ask our agent to please include that on the agenda for the next meeting?
[SPEAKER_07]: That would be brilliant. We'll do. I did read them.
[SPEAKER_08]: So did I. Sent in little corrections.
[SPEAKER_07]: Thanks for the reminder, Eric. I slipped my mind.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, sorry. I think of that sooner.
[SPEAKER_07]: Well, at least you remembered. So, and we have, we can do so within three hearings. So. Great. Take care.
[SPEAKER_05]: I just want to check Dennis. Is there anything else we should discuss before we go? I don't think so. Not for right now. So I think we're good. Yeah. We were just having some issues with other meetings trying to use zoom and it's been a thing. So, but I'll let you know. I'll send you an email tomorrow. If anything comes in for our next meeting.
[SPEAKER_08]: How about I do that, just to. And the date of that, just remind me.
[SPEAKER_05]: The potential one would be the 21st of this month. But if people are not around, then it would be January 7th.
[SPEAKER_08]: Okay, thank you very much.
[Unidentified]: Great. Thank you.
[SPEAKER_08]: Bye.