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HomeMy Public PortalAboutCPC packet 062222Town of Brewster Community Preservation Committee 2198 Main St., Brewster, MA 02631 cpcmeeting@brewster-ma.gov (508) 896-3701 MEETING AGENDA June 22, 2022 at 4:00 PM (Remote Participation Only) This meeting will be conducted by remote participation pursuant to Chapter 20 of the Acts of 2021. No in-person meeting attendance will be permitted. If the Town is unable to live broadcast this meeting, a record of the proceedings will be provided on the Town website as soon as possible. The meeting may be viewed by: Live broadcast (Brewster Government TV Channel 18), Livestream (livestream.brewster-ma.gov), or Video recording (tv.brewster-ma.gov). Meetings may be joined by: 1.Phone: Call (929) 436-2866 or (301) 715-8592.Webinar ID: 837 7728 4808 Passcode: 326439 To request to speak: Press *9 and wait to be recognized. 2.Zoom Webinar: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83777284808?pwd=NjB3WldRTGRxb0l0WXhIS1J0Y1NOQT09 Passcode: 326439 To request to speak: Tap Zoom “Raise Hand” button or type “Chat” comment with your name and address, then wait to be recognized. Community Preservation Committee Faythe Ellis Chair Sarah Robinson Vice Chair Sharon Marotti Treasurer Elizabeth Taylor Clerk Roland Bassett Jr. Christine Boucher Bruce Evans Peggy Jablonski Paul Ruchinskas CPC Assistant Beth Devine 1.Call to order 2.Meeting participation statement 3.Declaration of a quorum 4.Public Announcements and Comment – Members of the public can address the Community Preservation Committee on matters not on the meeting’s agenda for a maximum of 3-5 minutes at the Chair’s discretion. Under the Open Meeting law, the CPC is unable to reply, but may add items presented to a future agenda. 5.Discussion and possible vote to extend ADA Field improvements project award. 6.CPA Coalition Steering Committee opening 7.Discussion of update from Town Administrator regarding future meeting formats 8.Reminder – funding applications for Fall 2022 Town Meeting due by July 1. 9.Project Updates 10.Approval of Minutes from 5/25/22 11.Matters Not Reasonably Anticipated by the Chair 12.Announcements 13.Next meeting: Wednesday, 7/13/22 at 4 PM 14.Motion to adjourn Date Posted: Date Revised: 6/17/22 TOWN OF BREWSTER 2298 MAIN STREET BREWSTER,MA 02631 PHONE:(508)896-9430 WWW.BREWSTERRECREATION.COM WWW.TOWN.BREWSTER.MA.US OFFICE OF RECREATION COMMISSION Dear Community Preservation Committee, We are writing you today to ask for an extension for the funds that were granted to the Recreation Department for our ongoing project for ADA improvements to the Freemans Way field complex. We are working in collaboration with the DPW to lower our costs and believe we can finish the Freemans Way portion of the project with the roughly $70K that we have left, but it will not be finished by the end of the fiscal year. The DPW is involved in numerous projects including improvements to the CCSC properties, the dog park, spring clean ups and we anticipate the work at Freemans Way being pushed back to the fall or 2022. Because of all these unforeseen circumstances, we are asking for a one-year extension, with a chance to re-visit this again next year. We hope you understand, and if you have any questions feel free to contact us. Regards, Brewster Recreation Department Brewster Recreation Commission From: Stuart Saginor Sent: Thursday, June 9, 2022 10:03 AM To: faythe.ellis@outlook.com Subject: Do You Want to Guide the Future of CPA? Help Guide the Future of CPA: Join the Coalition's Steering Committee Do you love working on your local Community Preservation Act program? Do you get excited when you think of all the great work being accomplished with CPA? Do you want to help the Coalition plan for the future of the statewide CPA program? If you answered YES to these questions, then we have great news for you! The Community Preservation Coalition's Steering Committee is now accepting applications for open “Community Representative” positions. These seats on the committee are reserved for representatives from cities and towns that have adopted CPA and wish to provide input, expertise, and perspective on the Coalition’s statewide priorities and programming. It Takes 5 Minutes to Apply: We Want to Hear from You! Click Here to Apply Candidates can be current or former members of local Community Preservation Committees, CPC administrators, local CPA advocates, or engaged municipal representatives. All are welcome to apply, though preference will be shown for those currently serving as voting members of a local Community Preservation Committee. Applications will be accepted until Friday, July 1st. The Coalition's Nominating Committee will be reviewing all applications this summer, and we hope to bring on new members in the fall of 2022. If you have any questions, please contact Chase Mack at chase.mack@communitypreservation.org. Community Preservation Coalition Partner Organizations www.communitypreservation.org To unsubscribe from this newsletter, click on the "Unsubscribe" link below. We will immediately remove your email address and you will no longer receive CPA Update. For any other changes, such as updating your email address or adding additional recipients, reply to this email and let us know what changes you'd like to make. During the Select Board meeting on Monday June 13th, the Board voted to continue with the same committee format for the first two weeks of July: In person (without any restrictions on the number of committee members and support staff) Virtual Format Hybrid Format Please note that regardless of your meeting format, public participation will continue to be by remote means only and all in person meetings will continue to be televised. The attached memo was shared at the Select Board meeting, the current state provisions is due to expire on July 15, 2022. The Board voted to transition to the following format effective July 18th, note that should the State approve to expand remote participation in July, the Board may revisit the timing of the implementation of the below. Committees can meet in hybrid format but a majority of the committee, including the Chair (or Vice Chair if Chair is remote) must be physically present. Fully remote participation will no longer be permitted. Please note the Chair will be responsible for making sure that there is a majority of members in person. If there is not a majority of members in person, the Committee may not meet. Please let me know if you have a change in Chair after July 1st. Public participation will be allowed to be in-person, but remote participation will continue to be an option for residents to the greatest extent possible. All committee meetings will continue to be livestreamed/broadcast. Please see the attached draft of the Select Board policy on remote participation and town government access channel which has more details. I will continue to schedule all meetings, it is important that the type of meeting is correct in the attached calendar, as we need to work with BGTV staff for televised and recorded meetings. Please review carefully and contact me directly with any requested changes. Thank you, Erika Erika Mawn Executive Assistant to the Town Administrator 2198 Main Street Brewster, MA 02631 (508) 896-3701 ext. 1100 www.brewster-ma.gov Beginning March 21, Brewster Town Offices will be open to the public Monday through Thursday from 8:30 to 4:00pm, and by appointment on Fridays. For the latest updates on Town services, please visit www.brewster-ma.gov Community Preservation Committee Minutes of May 25, 2022 Page 1 of 5 2198 Main Street Brewster, Massachusetts 02631-1898 (508) 896-3701 FAX (508) 896-8089 COMMUNITY PRESERVATION COMMITTEE Virtual Meeting Wednesday, May 25, 2022, at 4:00 p.m. MEETING MINUTES OF MAY 25, 2022 Present: Community Preservation Committee (CPC) - Chair Faythe Ellis, Vice-Chair Sarah Robinson, Clerk Elizabeth Taylor, Roland Bassett, Bruce Evans, Paul Ruchinskas, Peggy Jablonski Absent: Treasurer Sharon Marotti, Christine Boucher Also Present: Cynthia Bingham, Select Board; Donna Kalinick, Assistant Town Administrator; Jill Scalise, Housing Coordinator; Patricia Hess, Historical Commission Chair Faythe Ellis called the meeting to order at 4:01 pm and announced a quorum. This meeting will be conducted by remote participation pursuant to Chapter 20 of the Acts of 2021. No in-person meeting attendance will be permitted. If the Town is unable to live broadcast this meeting, a record of the proceedings will be provided on the Town website as soon as possible. 1.Financial Update and Community Preservation Coalition Update Faythe included the most recent financial update reflecting the votes from Town Meeting. The same assumptions were in the Warrant in terms of estimated Tax Revenue and estimated State Contribution. Further down, the spring Town Meeting requests – one edit is the Pennrose Cape Cod 5 amount is $105,000. No further comments. Community Preservation Coalition Update – Faythe doesn’t know who is on the mailing list from the committee but included it because it is interesting information. It includes information about two new towns who have joined the CPA and 5 on the November ballot that are seeking to join the Community Preservation Act, including the city of Worcester. No further comments. 2.Summary of Town Meeting Action – Article 9 and Article 14 Faythe said she knows many of the Committee were there, but there were some who could not be there. Our funding Article 9 passed with very little conversation. She included here an update about the amounts Pennrose received from other Towns on Cape. Orleans - $2M, Eastham - $100K, Chatham - $100K, Brewster - $100K, Truro - $100K, Provincetown - $20K, Harwich - $100K - very much a regional project. No further comment. Article 14 – we recommended to the Select Board re: adoption of the CPA statutory funding formula. Faythe included the final version of the of the handout they discussed at our last meeting. As it turned out, the article came up last in the sequence of articles using our lottery system. After Faythe read the introduction to the Article, 5 people spoke favorably and 5 spoke against. There was a question of a quorum, there was not a quorum, so no vote was taken. In the video, the conversation begins at hour 3, 2 Approved: VOTE: Community Preservation Committee Minutes of May 25, 2022 Page 2 of 5 mins, 40 seconds. Sarah said it was interesting handing out flyers, every person she handed a flyer to, she spoke with about what they liked and didn’t like. Many felt it was not clear. Bruce asked if that means the formula will stay the same for another year. Faythe answered it will remain unchanged. Peggy said the former Select Board member, Pat Hues, gave the perspective of should we consider codifying the target allocations which might make it more acceptable to those concerned their interests wouldn’t be addressed? She said she feels a bit frustrated that a group of folks from a broad cross section of the town, represented in the CPA are here on the Committee, and the question is how we make people feel comfortable that the Committee is going to make good decisions. How do we bring this forward so that if we believe people would be more comfortable with some sort of bylaw with the percentages codified? She would prefer that rather than bring it back and have it voted down. And 2nd – when we are dealing with funding over $1M, she doesn’t understand why that cannot be directly following the budget on the agenda, and therefore, we wouldn’t be in this position again – to have that Article at the end due to the lottery. It felt very disjointed. Faythe said she would like to include a more in-depth conversation in a future meeting to discuss this. She would like to help frame it so that what we discuss is productive. We will have a more fulsome discussion again on a future agenda. Elizabeth asked if the Article could come from the CPC instead of the Select Board? Faythe said it’s a bylaw change and that would be a Select Board sponsored article. More to come on that. 3.Discussion and possible vote to extend November 18, 2019, CPA Grant to Affordable Housing Trust for the Preservation of Subsidized Housing Inventory Jill Scalise addressed the committee and said this is a follow-up on the material in the packet. It is a request from the Affordable Housing Trust on their $500,000 grant to preserve properties that are on our subsidized housing inventory. The Trust has been working for the past two years on two properties, one on Shawn Circle and the other on Yankee Drive. They have been working on returning both properties to active use. The process has been very laborious and time consuming. This afternoon, Donna and she were on a call with Department of Housing and Community Development (DHCD) and this property is moving forward. DHCD is in negotiations with the mortgage company who owns the property. It will continue to have its affordable deed rider; it is just working on the next steps on how to get the home to be fixed up and then to be sold to an eligible purchaser. Yankee Drive was on the Town Meeting Warrant and the Town did vote to transfer the custody of the property to the Affordable Housing Trust for the purpose of rehabbing it and then selling it to an eligible purchaser with an affordable deed restriction continued. We have worked very closely with DHCD on this and this tax taking procedure took about a year and a half. Because of the time it is taking, the trust is asking for an extension to this important work of two additional years to continue this important work. Having some of these funds available so the town can step in in case something becomes available quickly. If there is an expenditure over $50,000, that will go to the Select Board for approval. Donna said that when we finally received word that the town owned the property on Yankee Drive, it was really a big day for the Housing Program. This was a house we had been working on for many years. Obviously now we need this money because we are at a place where we can rehab the home. We will be expending money on rehabbing these homes and get them back in use. At the end of the day, if we can get a family or couple into a home, we have done a lot of good. The CPC is part of that work. The problem solving is quite laborious to move these along. Motion to extend the Nov 18th CPA Grant to the Affordable Housing Trust for the Preservation of Subsidized Housing Inventory to extend that for two years. MOVED by Roland Bassett. Seconded by Bruce Evans. Community Preservation Committee Minutes of May 25, 2022 Page 3 of 5 Roll Call Vote: Bruce Evans – yes, Elizabeth Taylor – yes, Roland Bassett – yes, Paul Ruchinskas – yes, Sarah Robinson – yes, Peggy Jablonski – yes, Chair Ellis – yes VOTE 7-yes 0-no 4.Discussion and possible vote on Historical Commission request for FY22 Administrative Funds Patricia Hess addressed the Committee. Patricia said this started when the Brewster Conservation Trust obtained ownership of the property on 6A. On the property are two buildings. One building was used as a spa, next to that building is a small building people referred to as a barn. The barn was one of the original schoolhouses in Brewster. It is the only remaining schoolhouse that has not been demolished. It is the only schoolhouse that we may be able to do something about. The Trust has indicated that they are thinking of demolishing it all because they want to make trails in the back. To look at all the options, we need to know if it can be saved and restored from a historical specialist. We are asking for a historic specialist who we have used in the past through the Cape Cod Commission. Patricia Hess contacted 2 – and one responded, David Ottinger. He is known by the Town and is very well respected. We are asking for him to come down and look at the building to see if it is worth saving and give us a write up about his conclusions. The money will cover his travel expenses, his time looking at the building, and his written report. The request is for $400. Paul wondered if the $400 basically gets you a “preserve it or not,” with no cost estimate. Patricia Hess answered that we understand that the building may not be salvageable, and we don’t know if it can be saved. Paul said if the answer is that it can be saved, will it include a rough estimate of cost. Patricia Hess answered yes, he will give us a ballpark estimate. Paul asked if the Brewster Conservation Trust was open to this investigation. Patricia Hess said, yes, they indicated there is no firm decision as to what to do with that property. They are open to considering saving it if it is feasible. Faythe supports this as a member of the Historical Commission. She thinks ideally it would be great if the owner paid for this, but without that, she supports this request to the CPC. Motion to provide the $400 fee for the exploration of this property. MOVED by Peggy Jablonski. Seconded by Roland Bassett. Roll Call Vote: Bruce Evans – yes, Elizabeth Taylor – yes, Roland Bassett – yes, Paul Ruchinskas – yes, Sarah Robinson – yes, Peggy Jablonski – yes, Chair Ellis – yes VOTE 7-yes 0-no 5.Member renewal process for delegates of other committees Faythe said there are 4 of us whose memberships are expiring at the end of June. (Faythe, Rollie, Bruce, and Christine) Procedurally, we need to go back to the boards we represent and ask to have the committee vote to appoint ourselves or another member to the CPC for 3 years. At that point, we need to provide an email to Colette so she can update her records and we can go in to be sworn in. That’s the process. She thanked Bruce for asking the question which prompted her to research the answer. 6.Review of updated project listing Faythe and Elizabeth went through the list with the Committee. Faythe said they will figure out all the liaison information and get it worked out. Elizabeth asked where we are with Pleasant Bay Boating. Faythe said we are still negotiating with them on the wording of the loan note. They have been reviewing the latest iteration with legal and hasn’t heard back from them yet. Faythe thanked Elizabeth Community Preservation Committee Minutes of May 25, 2022 Page 4 of 5 for her work on the project list. Elizabeth asked Rollie if the White Caps were totally done. Rollie tried to get Chuck Hanson in to speak to the Committee. Elizabeth said she shows the money was spent. Donna Kalinick said the project was finished. We received the last certification for payment from Lawrence Lynch. It was paid. All the punch list items were done. She considers that project done. It is a successful project completed. Faythe said she would like to have a final summary from the grant recipient. She would welcome the opportunity for them to come in to give us a final report. Rollie said Chuck Hanson said he would be more than happy to come in to do that. Paul asked about the list to the Affordable Housing Trust, for example, the initial $100,000 was sent to the Trust but not expended; even though the money has been committed but not expended, should it stay on the open projects until the money is spent. All the money has not been expended so how should it be listed? If it’s closed on our side, Faythe would vote for showing it as a closed project even if the trust hasn’t expended all the money yet on their side. She is open to discussion. Paul said he is fine with that. Donna Kalinick weighed in as a Trust member. The Chair is going to reach out for another joint meeting to discuss some of these issues. It is not the same as other projects because much of what they are doing is ongoing and takes a long time. She thinks it is important the Trust is communicating what is happening with our programs but doesn’t feel there’s a lot of value in having to go back for the same thing when there is money left over. In many other towns, the money is given, and it has to be used within the confines of CPC programming and if you need more, you have to come back and reapply. Because the Trust was new, we agreed in the beginning that being project specific was important, so the CPC was very much involved in the building of the program. But in the long term, we need to discuss what is the best way to provide the things we want to provide so the CPC is sure the money is being use the way the CPC intended it to be but that the Trust has some flexibility to run the programs that are related to housing. It is important for us to have future discussions around this. 7.Project Updates: a.Dog Park Grand Opening b.Other a.Faythe and Bruce represented the CPC at the Grand Opening this weekend. Those of us who are dog park people, Faythe really encourages everyone to go and look at the beautiful new park. It was a very nice event. Bruce said for the people that have some misgivings about it because it is not outside recreation for people, the owners are there and are recreating as well, so the donation was legitimate. Faythe said she follows the park on Facebook, and it really is fun! Sarah said the park is stunningly beautiful and all should go! b.Nothing further. 8.Approval of Minutes from 5/11/22 Motion to approve the Minutes of 5/11/22 as presented. MOVED by Elizabeth Taylor. Seconded by Bruce Evans. Roll Call Vote: Bruce Evans – yes, Elizabeth Taylor – yes, Roland Bassett – yes, Paul Ruchinskas – yes, Sarah Robinson – yes, Peggy Jablonski – yes, Chair Ellis - yes VOTE 7-yes 0-no 9.Matters not reasonably anticipated by the Chair- none Community Preservation Committee Minutes of May 25, 2022 Page 5 of 5 10.Announcements Donna Kalinick said all Town Offices will be closed on Monday due to Memorial Day. There will be a Memorial Day Ceremony held in front of the Council on Aging at Noon on Monday. 11.Next meeting: 6/8/22 at 4PM – staying virtual MOTION made by Elizabeth Taylor to adjourn the meeting at 5:02 pm. Bruce Evans second. Roll Call Vote: Bruce Evans – yes, Elizabeth Taylor – yes, Roland Bassett – yes, Paul Ruchinskas – yes, Sarah Robinson – yes, Peggy Jablonski – yes, Chair Ellis - yes VOTE 7-yes 0-no Respectfully submitted, Beth Devine, Recording Secretary Packet of additional documents available on website for public review.