Sept 15 - CPPC: A Fog of Words
Michalak and Clancy attended. Michalak reported.
7 Channing Rd:
Jammal scheduled a site meeting and, at the last minute, cancelled. Clancy, Michalak will schedule again.
Later on, Michalak said that submitting the 25% design did not depend on meeting Jammal: "that connection/spur is in the plan”. All they wanted is Jammal’s approval of the spur/path planned for the side of the Chase building. But Michalak conceded that the only thing he can see changing in the 25% are the access points such as the spur. [My guess is that they are likely to back down when it comes to the spur.]
Soil borings
1. Borings that required Keolis/MBTA were completed last week (week of Sept 6).
2. Two other borings to be completed by the end of this week (week of Sept 13th). These Pleasant St borings moved away from the ROW "to reduce cost and easier access”.*
*Via FOIA request, I received Nitsch-GZA-Clancy emails. This ROW issue may have been that MWRA objected to the Pleasant St boring locations. A summary of the information in the emails is presented in the calendar page.
3. One boring on the south side of the underpass has not been done. The boring could not be done because the area is “saturated” and the crew concluded that their truck would have “sunk” and decided to wait for the area to dry out but Nitsch “will work with GZA if and when they really need the boring”. Bowen pointed out later that she had heard that GZA had had water issues at other sites. [It is worrisome that Nitsch seems poised to pressure GZA into dropping this boring. But funny to hear about the water/drainage problems at other sites also *glub glub*.]
GZA will turn in its report in 2 weeks ( week of Oct. 4?) instead of the standard 4-6 weeks. Nitsch plans to submit the 25% by the end of October.
Pleasant St abutters - Historical Commission
Copley-Wolff gave Nitsch a “rendering” of the “final submission”/design. Nitsch is preparing a package for the abutters if they wish to meet in order to “inform as to what will be done”. Copley-Wolff is also preparing a rendering for the commission.
"These meeting will not hold up the submission. It is to keep the abutters and commission in the loop and get comments they have.” [Comments that deal with “treatments” such as fence type or plantings will be considered for the 75% phase.]
Visions of the upcoming months
October 25% submittal —> 90-120 days review by MassDOT —> Nitsch responds to the issues raised and "the ones that Nitsch agrees to will be incorporated in the plan” —> Those not agreed to get resolved in a “comment resolution meeting” —> If there is a major change it gets introduced in the design prior to the presentation at the MassDOT public hearing —> MassDOT takes 40 days to prepare the public hearing —> after the hearing, there is a 10 day public comment period —> Nitsch responds to the comments —> Nitsch moves to the 75%.
Nitsch envisions the public hearing will take place April-May/Spring. But Michalak admitted that MassDOT schedules the hearings based on a project’s TIP year. The further out the TIP year, the longer that MassDOT delays scheduling the hearing. [Currently, BCP is not scheduled for any earlier than 2027 assuming the new TIP policy does not flunk it.]
Leino wants to present the 25% design after submission sometime in early November. He and others make it clear that there is no changing this plan. Clancy tried to nudge them into presenting before the submission to “address obvious issues ahead of the MassDOT comment period". He was summarily overruled by Leino and others.
Michalak: “I don’t know that - as Russ said - that we want to let people think that there will be another round of revisions to the 25% …”
They will begin planning the presentation at next meeting Sept 29th.
[For years, the CPPC used to say that abutters should wait until the public hearing to express concerns/complaints because they would be taken into consideration at that time implying the plan could still be modified. At this meeting, they dropped all pretense that that was the case.]
CPPC reporting
MPO Ad Hoc Committee
Same talk from Friedman as reported for other meetings including Sept 1 in the vein of: we are doing fine, the MPO will be happy with us, the BCP is a shoo in, etc.
Today - Sept 23 - the MPO approved the policy changes and they are now open for public comment. Once the new policy is fine tuned based on comments (if applicable), the MPO Board will vote the final approval. TIP Manager Matt Genova indicated that that final vote may be sometime in Nov-Dec.
The new policy will apply to the TIP funding cycle of 2023-2027 and that is the cycle that will apply to the BCP when the 25% design plan is submitted.
Town Day
Lots of people came for material. Muson and Sugarman emphasized how people had asked persistently for details. This is one reason for the planned 25% design presentation in early November.
Next meeting: Sept 29th