Monthly Archives: August 2016

BoS on8/16

BoS

AGENDA (Subject to change)

7:00 p.m. Public Hearing, Application of Ehren Roder to solicit in Medfield on behalf of Solar City located in Marlborough, MA

7:15 p.m. Public Hearing, Kingsbury Club Medfield for alteration of premises; add outside pool area to include a snack bar to serve alcoholic beverages and food

Selectmen requested to sign Chapter 90 Environmental Punch list for proposed construction/repair work on Philip St. bridge

Update on Water Ban and on Hospital Water Tower

Letter from Kleinfelder to MA DEP, concerning Cumberland Farms MA DEP on source of CVOCs at Cumberland Farms

Notice of ZBA hearing for Ghazi Elias for a determination or variance to locate auto repair, sales, engine repair facility in BI Zoning district with secondary aquifer overlay district located at 50-52 Park Street.

More on walkable housing

Mark Fisher’s wife, Lucille, supplied this – When I was with Mark at the Mass Municipal show in January, I attended a workshop on creating walk-able communities for all ages sponsored by AARP.  Here is the link to some information:  http://www.aarp.org/livable-communities/


Via that AARP link that she cites, one gets to the article below.  I like the scale of the “missing middle housing” below for the density I see at the Medfield State Hospital site, except for the most dense ones on the right, but I do see live/work space as needed.


Whole article here

Missing Middle Housing’

Between costly, cramped city apartments and oversized suburban McMansions, there’s … what? Here’s why mid-sized, walkable new housing disappeared and how we can get it back

An illustrated streetscape showing Missing Middle Housing

The range of Missing Middle Housing includes a variety of building types: duplexes, triplexes, courtyard apartments, bungalow courts, townhouses and more. — Illustration from Opticos Design, Inc.

Daniel Parolek has designed projects of all sizes. In New York, he worked with esteemed architect Robert A.M. Stern on homes for former Disney CEO Michael Eisner and rock star Jon Bon Jovi. He was part of the design team for the renovation of Anaheim’s baseball stadium, and he helped create a sprawling entertainment complex at Tokyo Disney.

Subscribe for Free! The award-winning AARP Livable Communities Newsletter

But the Berkeley, California, architect prefers and is best known for small-scale, multi-unit or clustered housing in livable, walkable, urban communities. Parolek has even coined a term to describe his compact concept: Missing Middle Housing.

“Missing Middle” can mean:

  • Carriage houses
  • Townhouses
  • Bungalows
  • Courtyard apartments
  • Side-by-side or stacked duplexes
  • Four plexes
  • Small multiplexes with five to 10 apartments or condos
  • Work/live units

Looking for your water ban postcard?

water ban-2

Your water ban postcard was mailed to you at the Medfield Post Office on 8/3, and is still on its way to you (via parts unknown).  Mike updated us (email below) today on best guesses as to where they are.


I just spoke to the acting postmaster for Medfield and this is what he tells me about the location of the 5,000 neon green postcards that were delivered to the Medfield Post Office a week ago last Wednesday (August 3). He said that they were sent out the same day to Brockton, where bulk mail is sent to be processed electronically. The Brockton postmaster has searched that facility with “a fine tooth comb” and they are not there. The Medfield acting postmaster says they are not in the Medfield Post Office. He said it is possible they were sent by mistake to a processing facility in New Jersey, which handles bulk mail for New York, New Jersey and New England. That facility has a three day turnaround and, if so, they should be coming back to Brockton today or tomorrow. If that happens, they will be sent back to Medfield for delivery, He will let me know as soon as he has any additional information as to their whereabouts. In the meantime, Maureen Anderson had to write out a personal check for $800 to the post office before they would send them out. Payment had to be by personal check or money order, as they would not take a credit card payment. If we had put it the payment on a town vendor warrant, it would have delayed the mailing by a week.  That $800 turned out to be $6 short and Susan Cronin in the Treasurer/Collector’s office had to pay another $6 before they could be sent out because the total cost was $6 greater than the post office employees had calculated. The post office also said that the form, which Maureen had downloaded and filled out to be filed with the mailing, as she had been instructed to do by the post office, was the wrong form and she had to fill out another form. I  will let you know of any further developments.Mike S

A walkable MSH

Good article (full article is here) on what people want in a housing – walkability – with good insights to use at the town’s Medfield State Hospital property.  I can see making MSH walkable by the housing being dense, with small versions of the stores, restaurants, offices, and amenities residents want, plus transportation connections. In ten years I can see autonomous vehicles providing the needed transportation connection to downtown and the trains/MBTA, but until then maybe a small local bus.


We Want More Walkable Neighborhoods — but Can Our Communities Deliver?

11/30/2015 08:50 am ET | Updated Apr 30, 2016

“The most requested neighborhood characteristic of all buyers is walkability,” real estate broker Andrea Evers recently told a reporter for The Washington Post. But, in an article written by the Post‘s Michele Lerner, Evers went on to say that “very few areas” in the greater DC market meet the desired criterion, particularly if the prospective buyer wants to be within walking distance of a Metro transit station. And that, in a nutshell, is the good and bad news of walkability.

 

Let’s elaborate on the good part: More and more of us want to be within safe and comfortable walking distance of the destinations that meet our everyday needs, such as shops, places to eat, services, parks, and good transportation options that can take us downtown and to jobs and other places we want to go. It’s the hottest trend in real estate, sought by buyers and renters alike.

The day the thunder died

Final installment today in Bill Massaro’s account of the removal of the old water tower at the former Medfield State Hospital site.

Bill did salvage for the town a 5′ X 5′ piece of the water tower, for which I am now entertaining suggestions for its use – maybe the base for a sign for the Water Department???

For my Facebook and LinkedIn followers, please know that I restored both those links yesterday, and I do not know how many days they were down, but all posts you missed are available at the blog https://medfield02052.wordpress.com/

20160810-WJM-MSH water tower demo-day 8.jpg

This will be my final daily report…

Day 7 had finished with approximately 2 full tiers of  plate remaining.

As of  6:00 p.m. today–Day 8–  all demo work is complete.

All the steel plates, including the bottom(floor) plates have been cut and stacked.

Four roll-offs were filled and trucked off-site today, and I estimate  that no more than 3-4 additional roll-offs will be needed  to remove the remaining plates.

 

So  shipment of all the steel to the scrap facility and demobilization of the tower demo crew should  still complete late Thursday or early  Friday.

 

Bill

Tower demo day 7

Bill Massaro’s ongoing careful accounting of the ever shorter and quickly disappearing Medfield State Hospital water tower.

20160809-WJM-MSH water tower demo-day 7

Day 6 had finished with approximately 2.5 tiers of  plate remaining.

Day 7:  As of  7:00 p.m. today  approximately 2  full  tiers still remain.

Only  1/2  of a tier was removed today.  This was  to facilitate  access to the tank floor and the cut sections that had been dropped there over the past 6 days.  Most of today was then spent dragging out these sections with the bobcat, cutting them into smaller pieces, and stacking them for loading and transport to the scrap facility in Everett.  One full roll- off left the site this afternoon.

Goal is for all of the remaining standing  sections to be down by end of shift tomorrow (Wed -Day 8) .   Removal of the tower’s concrete base is not part of the tower demo firm’s (ALL Industrial) scope of work.   Shipment of the cut plates to the scrap facility should complete Thursday or Friday at the latest.

Bill

Energy Committee

MEC

Medfield Energy Committee
Thursday August 11th, 2016
7:30 PM Town Garage
Agenda

  • Acceptance of July 14th MEC meeting minutes
  • Energy Manager/Facilities Manager Considerations    – Fred
  • Energy Manager’s report:                     – Andrew
    • Garage Solar RFP
    • META grant for MAPC to prepare Energy Reduction Plan
    • Mass Energy Insight
  • Next steps Green Communities             – All
    • Plans for energy audits – COA        – Marie & Paul
    • School building energy improvement    –
    • WWTP & Water energy strategy        – Fred B
    • DPW building, Diesel/Gasoline strategy    – new DPW
    • AECOM proposal status            – Fred D
    • Public Safety building strategy
    • Update of other energy improvement projects
  • Solarize Medfield Status:                    – Marie
    • Plans for Medfield Day Sept 17th
  • LED Streetlight Maintenance Contracts        – Fred D
  • Other business
  • Next meeting  September 8th, 2016  at 7:30 DPW conference room

 

MEC Meeting Minutes – July 14th, 2016

Attendance: Fred Bunger, Cynthia Green, Paul Fechtelkotter, Maciej Konieczny, Pete Peterson, Marie Nolan, Andrew Seaman, Mike Sullivan and Kelly Brown, area DOER representative.

  1. June 9th meeting minutes accepted as presented.
  2. Energy Manager’s Report
    1. DPW solar RFP prepared by New Ecology awaiting DOER review. Target early August RFP out.  Solar Design doing interconnect design.  Green Skies(WWTP solar contractor) eager to bid.
    2. Applied for META grant (new OATA name) assistance for developing 20% energy reduction plan. Up to $7500 available. Andrew to prepare application for Select Board approval
    3. Andrew to get all information up to date on the Google Cloud.
    4. Andrew to sign up Energy Committee members as “read-only” participants in MassEnergy Insight program to track Town energy usage.
  3. Discussed Andrew’s leaving.  Andrew is now working remotely at 15 hours per week.  He will be finishing up on projects and will continue to input information to the 20% reduction plan. He will be in contact by phone ((757) 620-8883) and e-mail.  Andrew will move in late August or September.  Andrew will submit weekly reports to Mike Sullivan and  Energy Committee Chair Fred Bunger.  Fred to meet with Mike Sullivan, Jeff Marsden and Mike LaFrancesca July 20 or 21 to determine plan for filling Energy Manager position.
  4. Solarize Medfield: NE Clean Energy is selected contractor.  Their bid was higher quality with better guarantees.   “Meet the installer” presentations scheduled for July 27 at 7PM in Town Hall and August 18 at 7PM in the Library.  Another will be held in September at the high school.  Solarize Medfield will have a booth at Medfield Day on September 17th with Energy Committee to help man the booth.
  5. Green Communities 20% Energy Reduction Plan.
    1. Schools:  Plan to dig up old audits of schools and to plan new audits for MHS, Middle School, Memorial School and Wheelock School.  Audits to be an early task for new Schools Facilities Manager.  Future of Dale School is uncertain, so despite poor energy use intensity (EUI) Dale will not be studied.  MHS EUI of 87.4 vs K-12 median of 58.9 may be reasonable given the amount and time of use of High School facilities.  Several schools energy improvement projects have been identified and plans for further energy improvements should be based on audit results.   Paul F. and Fred D. to follow up.
    2. DPW Garage, Gasoline and Diesel:  Plans for improving these energy users to be a priority for the new DPW Superintendent Maurice Goulet who starts work August 1st.
    3. Sewer and Water:  WWTP and Water system managers will be asked to use Mass Energy Insight to calculate EUI for Medfield systems to see if there are opportunities for improvement.   Fred B to follow-up.
    4. COA:  EUI of 83.1 vs median of 45.3 indicates large opportunity for improvement.  Marie to work with Roberta Lynch to set up energy audit.
    5. Library, Town Hall, & new Public Safety:   These efficient buildings may have limited opportunity for improvement.
    6. Pfaff Center:  EUI of 105.6 vs median of 67.3 indicates large opportunity for improvement.  May plan for energy audit.
    7. Streetlights:  Plan for purchase of streetlights and conversion to LED is prepared.  Awaiting confirmation that maintenance contract would be acceptable to Town leadership.
  6. Kelly Brown provided advice on preparation of the energy reduction plan.
    1. Be aware that lighting conversions do not cut energy usage very much although they may be financially attractive.  Concentrate on HVAC and the bigger energy users
    2. Energy Audits should cover both electrical and fuel usage.  Suggested that RISE Engineering has capability to do both. Other companies mentioned doing town energy work are Horizon, World Energy, and AEC.
    3. Trash hauling energy usage may not be subject to the 20% reduction requirement.
    4. There are opportunities for energy improvement in consolidating energy management systems and retro-commissioning systems.
    5. Kelly recommends a preliminary consultation on the Green Communities submittal in late August or Early September.
  7. The Committee celebrated Andrew’s wedding and mourned his leaving with cupcakes & refreshments.  Good Luck Andrew!!
  8. Meeting adjourned at 9:30

Next meeting Thursday August 11th.

 

Tower’s penultimate stand

More of Bill Massaro’s saga of the old water tower’s demise.

Bill told me last night that, thanks to his diplomatic skills, that the town can have a piece of the old tower cut to order, if we have a use for it.  I thought it would make an interesting base for a sign, for something, somewhere.

Does anyone has any ideas for what the town could do with a really heavy 10-12 feet tall curved piece of steel?

20160808-MSH-water tower-demo-day 5.jpg

 

Day 5 finished with approximately 4 tiers of  plate remaining.

 

As of  7:00 p.m. today  approximately 2.5 full  tiers remain.

 

High tier cutting requiring the crane is complete.  Remaining tiers will be reached from ground level and work should go faster.

 

With repair of the bobcat  completed at 12:00,  removal and stacking of the previously cut material was restarted.

 

Don’t have new completion date, but will try to have one for next report..

 

 

Bill

Bill saves a piece

Bill Massaro salvaged a piece of the former Medfield State Hospital water tower for posterity.  We were told that those rivets that held together the old water tower were the reason that it had to be replaced, because they could not withstand any more sandblasting – that and the fact that the tank was 19′ below the level of the Mt. Nebo water tower, which made for problems within the system – both combined to make the new tank the proper, albeit expensive, solution.

20160807-MSH-water tower piece.jpg

My Day 5 Tower Demo report will be out later today.

 

In the meantime I thought Medfield Historic might like a piece of the old  tower.

 

I have a video of a vertical slice being cut this afternoon and a video of it coming down.  The foto of the cutting will be in today’s report, but at  17 MB  the video  is too big for your home e-mails.

 

When I have time I will have to try to pare it down, as well as others I have taken, but for now, see below for foto of the piece of that slice the demo guys cut off for me for the Town.

 

Bill

The disappearing tower

More from Bill Massaro’s documenting of the water tower take down.

20160807-MSH-water tower-demo-day 4.jpg

Day 4 finished with approximately 7.5 tiers of  plate remaining.

 

As of  6:30 pm today  approximately 4 full  tiers remain.

 

Demolition did not complete today as originally scheduled.

 

Although the entire West side of the tank was removed in the morning, mechanical problems with the bobcat halted the  removal and stacking of the cut plates in preparation for a planned off-site removal on Monday.

 

Dismantling of the tower should now complete Monday.  Removal of the plates off-site is dependent repair/replacement of the rented bobcat.  I will advise in tomorrow’s report.

 

Bill