2008-06-25-PB-min - Laserfiche WebLink

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PLANNING BOARD MINUTES MEETING OF JUNE 25, 2008 A regular meeting of the Lexington Planning Board in the Selectmen’s Meeting Room, Town Office Building was called to order at 7:30 p.m. by Chairman Hornig with members Zurlo, Manz, Galaitsis and Canale and planning staff McCall-Taylor, Henry and Kaufman present. *****************************ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT***************************** The Beal Company: Peter Nichols, Senior Vice President of the Beal Company, Ed Grant, Attorney, and Gary Larson and David Warner of Larson Associates were present. Mr. Nichols said they were coming before the Board early and informally to share some thoughts. Recent studies have resulted in changes to the building location, but no footprint as of yet. The Ledgemont 1 building was first and was mostly life science research; the Ledgemont 2 building space is currently occupied by offices for Vista Print. A planned commercial development (CD) for a Ledgemont 3 building was proposed to Town Meeting in 2003-2004. The applicants inferred that Town Meeting did not want it in the area of the lot near Spring Street and they withdrew the application and the warrant article. Vista Print Headquarters wants to expand and that would be the reason for a new building Ledgemont 3. Mr. Gary Larson continued the presentation and stated he was involved with the Ledgemont 2 facility and was familiar with this property. There were two parking structures; a main entrance off Hayden Avenue, and a looped driveway center to the facilities, which was highly vegetated. The issues of the campus were 8-10% slope; wetlands; and a conservation restriction, and the applicant was looking at the north corner between the garage and the wetlands where they could utilize the grade and existing road and relate it to the existing parking. Mr. Nichols said it was a 36-acre site with wetlands that made up 30% of the site. He felt that there was a disadvantage as the wetlands are excluded from the developable area and that would be quite a penalty and he hoped to encourage the Town and Planning Board to reconsider how the wetlands calculations factor into the FAR on this site. It was noted that there was an old colonial road to the Hayden Woods area and a meadow that needs some restoration work. Board Comments: Mr. Canale said the Economic Development Task Force (EDTF) was looking at a number of things to revitalize commercial development. They are evaluating the CD process and its shortcomings in order to make the process smoother, and address the issue of developers having to provide costly plans without clear guidelines and assurances that the plans would be acceptable. He wants the Board and Beal to work