2021-02-03-EDAC-min - Laserfiche WebLink

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Town Of Lexington Economic Development Advisory Committee February 3`'d, 2021 Draft minutes for the meeting of February 3rd, 2021. This meeting was held remotely pursuant to Governor Baker's March 12, 2020 order suspending certain provisions of G.L. c. 30A, section 18 and subsequent orders imposing strict limitations on the number of people who may gather in one place. Members present: Rick DeAngelis (Chair), Larry Smith, John McWeeney, Charles Minasian, David Pronchick, George Burnell Liaisons and Town Staff: Mark Sandeen (Select Board), Jill Hai (Select Board), Charles Hornig (Planning Board), Bob Creech(Planning Board), Sandhya Iyer (Economic Development Director), Amanda Loomis (Planning Director), Casey Hagerty (Economic Development Coordinator), Sheila Page (Assistant Planning Director) Guests: Keir Evans (BxP), Ben Myers (BxP), Catalina Padilla(BxP), Cindy Arens, Todd Rhodes, Ed Nardi (Cresset Group) Rick, Ben & Keir stared the conversation by encouraging the efforts of engaging the development community during the Hartwell rezoning process. Keir said that, "Set a really effective way to encourage development, and, you know, I wish that there were some other towns nearby that would follow your guys examples so our applause on that effort." Rick discussed HIP zoning bylaw and the clauses and wanted it to be less prescriptive, "What I think we would be looking for as a, as a landlord and developer would be the best way I can describe it is like a less prescriptive way to get there, it's really helpful for the town is to establish." Keir provided examples from projects that BxP has led in the City of Boston "there are examples of this I'm thinking, particularly in Boston's I just went through just went through a permitting process there, where the city recognizes that some of the things that it was asking for are either not yet achievable, or are prohibitively expensive from a technology standpoint but of the technology is coming in a couple years right so they put a large demand on a project I was working on there to be able to meet that forthcoming requirement in a few years, so it meant, you know, demonstrating that we had put in place." They continued discussing the Sustainability and Electric Vehicle charging station requirements in the bylaw and pointed out that, "the reality of implementation are I think sometimes overlooked by policymakers in the community that don't understand the technical limitations that we have before us today." They further discussed the, "the potential initial costs and operating costs associated with those compliance pathways"that are in the current Sustainability standards associated with Hartwell Rezoning. Mark Sandeen proposed an offline conversation to discuss this further. Sandhya volunteered to coordinate a meeting. Rick continued the conversation and said, "I think this is like such an important conversation and I'm happy to see Lexington leading." He also mentioned that this is setting the stage but"this