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HomeMy WebLinkAbout1955-03-10-BOS-min 1 SELECTMEN'S MEETING March 10, 1955 A special meeting of the Board of Selectmen was held in the Engineers' Room, Town Office Building, on Thursday evening, March 10, 1955 at 7:30 P.M. Chair- man Bateman, Messrs. Reed, James. and Maloney were present. Alan G. Adams, Chairman of the Planning Board was also present, along with Mr. Charles H. Vincent, Plant Engineer, Mr. Edward H. Roemer, and Mr. Leicester Coit from the New England Telephone & Telegraph Company. The Acting Clerk was also present . The meeting was held for the purpose of discussing takings from the Telephone Company for the proposed parking area on Waltham Street. Mr. Alan Adams started the discussion by stating there hadn't been any major changes in the original plans of the parking lot. The whole idea is to en- Waltham courage the growth of Lexington center. If it isn't Street done, it will encourage people to go to other towns Parking ill to do their shopping, either Bedford or Waltham or Area some other nearby town which does have parking faci- lities. The original plan was for all of the tele- phone driveway. Mr. Vincent: As I said before, I don't think that any- thing has been changed. We need some room to get by the building and we need room for 1 the parking of our own vehicles. We don't want to give up any of our land; we would have no access to our building. Mr. Adams: You can go in through the back. Mr. Vincent: We can' t have any other cars on our property for liability purposes. We would like to have a thirty foot space from our building. All equipment must come in through the rear end. We have to have access to this build- ing and control of the driveway. We nor- mally keep fifteen feet for our driveway. We were froed into a business district. It's not ideal by any means. To keep enough room in the back we had to put the building near the street. As you can real+ ize we have spent lots of money on our of- fice and we look forward to the growth. 2 CD Mr. Bateman: Have you any idea when you will build on to lir this building? Mr. Vincent: Possibly in two years, by 1957. Mr. Roemer: Lexington is one of the fastest growing dial equipment offices. We have also planned for one additional story. Mr. Adams: There have to be two entrances on Waltham Street. You require fifteen feet from your building. Mr. Vincent: (Designating spot on map) Over here you mean. Yes, to have the driveway and proper separa- tion. Cars can't park in there and we are afraid of a fire. Mr. Adams: Anyone else got any alternative solutions? Mr. Reed: This proposed addition you have in mind, was that an original plan or something new that was to take care of Lincoln and Bedford! Mr. Vincent: No, in all our plans in cities we always buy enough for growth. There' s nothing new in that. As a matter of fact, Lincoln is about one tenth of the building. That is one dif- ficulty we have, equipment must go into the building a certain direction. Mr. Bateman: Unless you go up on under a second floor. Mr. Maloney: When you built this building these units were not completed? Mr. Roemer: There' s no need for them at this time. When we talk about a unit we talk about one com- plete market unit and really now about two thirds of the market unit is installed: Everything that is in there now is complete in itself, but is capable of expansion about one third. Mr. Vincent: Once we start a new unit on the second floor it will be completely separated. If we ean't complete the market unit, the whole part of the equipment will be wasted. We can get a total of tan thousand stations on one unit. Whszi we fill up all of this equipment we go up on the second floor. Mr. Adams: What you are worrying about is not the land for the building. You state you have enough land for many years growth as far as the ac- tual building goes. The land that you are worrying about is accessibility. The parking lot will not interfere with the building or tke. construction of the building. Mr. Roemer:: If we have interpreted these plans correctly. Mr. Adams: Accessibility is what you mean? Mr. Vincent : The way the equipment is laid out we need the room to get into the back. Mr. Maloney: a should think it would be an advantage to have the parking lot there. Mr. Vincent: We hale to put a fence up there to divide the property. Mr. Reed: We would lease this property from the prop- erty owners while we constructed the parking lot. Mr. Vincent:. We would have put up a fence to prevent cars from corn on our property and then we can' t go on z= f`% property. We will do every- thing possible' to prevent any hazard to the \ public. Mr. Maloney: We are talking about the part you are not going to build upon. You won't be using the part we 're talking about for twenty years. Mr. Roemer: Mr. Vincent and I are ally the real estate men of our company bu we have a Board of Direc- tors. As long as we7`Can have access to the rear and space for 4yolne parking. Now, there aren't going to begreat many people in this building. We don't used a great many spaces for parking. Possibly twelve employees will be in this building. Mr. Maloney: You mentioned about protection in fencing it in. If that small area were leased to the town, would that relieve your company of any; liability connected to that strip? Any porgy-'' tion that we didn't get along with the town?: would lease for a dollar. Mr. Vincent: It still wouldn' t get away from the fact t t we Mould have cars parked at our back door4 Mr. Maloney: In this set-up there would be ample parking in the rear of the building rather than put, a • fence or some barrier there. Mr. Vincent: The only sure way to keep people from parking iA to put up some sort of an obstruction, if you give up the idea of the sale of these eight lots. Mr. Maloney: We don' t think we will hurt you at all but we do need your co-operation. Mr. Vincent: We are not going to fight over five or six feet. We will have just a concrete curb just to keep the cars from driving across the prop- erty. A low six inch curb or similar. Mr. James: How many telephones were connected here? Mr. Roemer: One market group will take ten thousand tele- phones. Mr. Vincent: We filed plans :d. th these blue prints to show the elementary building. 4 Mr. Roemer: In Lexington any place we build we have to go before the Board of Appeals. Mr. Maloney: I think you are making somewhat of a mistake. If you go along with this parking area, it will be owned as a .municipal parking area. Your parking area will be kept open and protected. I was just wondering if it wouldn' t be worth a trial and just see what can happen. The care of it and everything concerned about it woudl be private way but handled by the Town. It would be a duplidate interest. Mr. Vincent: I think what you mean is a possible co-owner- ship. Mr. Maloney: I think that your barrier would create some type of hazard, plus the fact that you would have heavy equipment moving in. There would be the possibility of moving in there with a big trailer truck and moving right in. Mr. Vincent: Our legal people mould insist that we have barrier. Mr. Bateman: I gather that the way it stands in the present matter you would like about eight spaces re- served for cars.. But until the time that you put up these future additions, you wouldn't object. Mr. Vincent: We are going to use them• in two years. Mr. Reed: You w uld consider leasing us these eight spaces until such time as you would need them? Mr. Vincent: We would probably start building in 1956. Mr. Reed: I don't want to argue about it but we would like to have it. When we leased it from you we would improve all of it. Mr. Vincent: I don't think we should come under fifteen feet. Mr. Roemer: We have oil tanks there. Our oil tanks are right in the middle of the driveway. We have two tanks out there. One is Diesel oil mad one for heating oil. The tanks are approximately four or five feet from the side of the building. Mr. Bateman: Suppose we use just part of their driveway? Mr. Reed: What about putting a sidewalk in between? Mr. Vincent: We try to build most of our driveways fifteen feet. Mr. Maloney: If we don' t do this now, we are going to have a condition on Waltham Street where each person will have a driveway. That is not a condition to exist ona busy street. In other words, if we can bring this thing to a point, we should and soon. 1 5 Mr. Roemer: We see no objection to the five foot on the driveway. But in the rear we will consider a possible lease for these five or eight parking spaces. We have no objection beyond that thirty foot line. Mr. Adams: Then it' s about time to discuss price. Mr. Maloney: You heard what I said about price. If you are in a position to discuss price in al 1 fairness we would like to know. Taking what we can get is another thing as far as the value is concerned. We want you to be fair with us and we want to be fair with you. Mr. Roemer: We would be willing to sell to you at the same price we sold to Lyons. Mr. Vincent: We got $800.00 from Lyons for 1186 feet. Mr. Reed: The Planning Board is sponsoring it. Mr. Maloney: We are going to submit the plan, but that doesn' t prevent us from making any adjustments. Mr. Adams: This will be paid for out of the Parking Meter Fund« Mr. Roemer: If we may have it, we would like the adopted plan from you. The meeting adjourned at 9:00 P.M. A+ true record, Attest: Acting Clerk, Selectmen