ORDER-2020-3 : Petition of National Grid for Pole Relocation and Conduit Installation on Cerretani Way

Transcript (~24 min @ 58:32)

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▶ 58:25 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: go to the Committee on Appropriations. It is now 8 o'clock. We do have a public hearing scheduled at this time. Order 2020-3, Petition of National Grid for Pole Relocation and Conduit Installation on Saratani Way. Is there a motion to, I see that we have representatives from City Hall as well as from National Grid. Is there a motion to suspend the rules? So moved. Second. We have a motion to suspend the rules made by Alderman Mortimer, seconded by Alderman Forbes. All in favor? Aye. any opposed we are now under suspension of rules if we could ask miss Prakas Alice and the gentleman from National Grid I apologize that I do not remember your name though we have seen you here before to speak on this order would you like to give an introduction on this order and the work being proposed yes hi

▶ 59:13 Speaker 6: how you doing my name is Brendan Powell I'm an electrical engineer with National grid and the order before you tonight is to relocate a pole on Sarah tiny way which is the access road that runs adjacent to Shaw's and dumps into the city parking lot runs parallel to Main Street this is to relocate a pole which will eventually see the pad mount transformer and that transformer will feed 524 to 530 Main Street it's for a new electric service it's the three

▶ 59:51 Speaker 6: story building and this pole this should take us about a day to do the work we plan on doing a normal working hours seven to three Monday through Friday and

▶ 1:00:06 Speaker 6: we will restore the sidewalk panel where we remove the pole to the pre-existing

▶ 1:00:17 Speaker 6: condition that it was before yeah I think that's all I got thank you I'll

▶ 1:00:18 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: note that there are several documents attached to the order in IQ I'm too as well mr. Marcus Ellis would you like to add anything sure so I did provide a

▶ 1:00:26 Speaker 7: comment memo and I think it was probably put up on IQ I'm too today hopefully everybody received it I know it was probably mid-afternoon when we put it up so does anyone want me to go through what's in it I would like that okay so we just outlined our conditions as Brendan said this is for 524 to 530 Main Street the the size of the building the scale of the new building it can't be fed off of the existing electrical service and it can't be fed underground off of Main Street because it needs a larger transformer and more capacity than then is available so so the new power would come off the back to this new transformer the recommendation on the plan was to put the pole 20 feet from its existing location Rick can tone and I from my office went out measured and we felt 24 feet was the right location there is the Shah's supermarket carriage return and 20 feet was a little close to that and then there's a tree a little beyond that so we thought 24 feet was just the right spot so you can make note of that no problem there's a requirement to meet with either me or whoever i designate for my office to obtain the street opening permit and confirm the final locations requirements for

▶ 1:02:00 Speaker 7: markouts of existing utilities adhering to all of the requirements in terms of fees and insurance and bonds and everything for our typical permitting process notifying anybody impacted by the work 48 hours in advance um having proper pedestrian safety it is a heavily traveled area so pedestrian safety accommodations and police details as needed um as brendan mentioned restoration of the sidewalk panels and then we're also recommending what we call what we're referring to as curb to curb restoration of the trench the trench is going across the road so it's pretty much meaning you know cut back a foot beyond the existing trench and then just a pavement patch essentially but it's curb to curb in terms of the width of

▶ 1:02:50 Speaker 7: the road as always space needs to be left available on the pole for the city per our ordinance number 10 mentions that the the design appears to lose one parking space and I believe that is going to be the case but I we did put in here that if there's any way to position it such that the parking can remain with the same number of spaces that would be our preference I didn't go into great detail looking at how they could move it around and looking at the existing versus the previous parking spaces those spaces are sort of an unusual case where they span the city property and the private property that as I recall the property line goes across at an angle so each parking space has a different number of feet of space into the private property and one of the Planning Board requirements was to have the the 524 Main Street owners provide easements back to the city to ensure that those parking spaces would be maintained so we'll have to work with the owners of the building to be sure that that's maintained but there is that potential to lose one space but there's really no alternative we did look unless the spaces can be made narrower or shifted or something that becomes more obvious once the building is a little farther along I don't think that's going to be the case and then natural grid will require easements on the city property for the transformer and we're requiring national grid to do all the paperwork all the recording all the costs the city doesn't want to pick up any effort or cost to put those easements in place and then lastly it's our understanding that this is being built to also handle the property that's soon to be redeveloped right on Essex Street here so it's basically going to handle the majority of that corner this one transformer can handle both projects and that's we've discussed that at length and that's our expectation is that there's not going to be another transformer that we're back here permitting when that project comes up there will be conduit to connect the new building to this transformer but there won't be another above-ground structure or another pole needing to be moved so that outlines my comments and then we were asked to give an update on the downtown study and on the Essex street um the explosions that had happened and what's been done since then so if you want brendan

▶ 1:05:31 Speaker 6: to do that now sure okay so i'll touch on essex street really quick just because that's a little

▶ 1:05:38 Speaker 6: bit faster um our underground crews did go through and replace all of the cable onto that street removed all the old lead mains removed the secondaries installed all brand new plastic new connectors pretty much from main street all the way down to where the pull line rises back up again becomes overhead so that is pretty much handled there'll be an official memo that'll come from my planning engineering department to you guys now in regards to the electrical study of main street our team's still working on it we're making good progress we are identifying some more

▶ 1:06:23 Speaker 6: difficult areas particularly between upton street and grove street is the areas that are the most concerned they're they're kind of at their limit for what those transformers can hold we expect to be able to produce a report that will highlight those areas specific buildings based off of what they can be built what they can be built out to hold and identify which ones may need a transformer and which ones might need a pole line in the rear of the property or

▶ 1:07:02 Speaker 7: some various things such as that and we have had two very productive meetings with Brendan and dan cameron and another engineer from their staff where emma and denise from planning and i have met um with them to go through the um the extent of the study so we've we've produced a map showing all the way from hospital square to wyoming all the properties that we want them

▶ 1:07:31 Speaker 7: to consider and um and then we've had a follow-up meeting to talk about what this study really will look like with the sort of build out information that we were putting together for all those properties based on what could possibly go in there with the current zoning and the current number floor restrictions and things in the different neighborhoods and so basically we have we have underground through all of downtown as you all probably know and so when there's a limit on that underground infrastructure there's only so much more we can tie into it and so as you take things off and put them on transformers in the back fed off of poles it frees up a little bit of capacity in the underground system potentially for another project so if there's a project that's particularly challenging down the road where we don't have a space to put a transformer maybe that's the one that gets the the underground capacity from the existing Main Street system but the reality is we're probably going to have where we have a lot of this already but we're probably gonna end up with pole lines across a block back from Main Street through the parking lots or not a block back but through the parking lots in the back to feed as we see new buildings coming up and then the other thing that the city is doing proactively is previously there's been a lot of resistance from developers to figure this out at the beginning of a project so we're encouraging Denise is encouraging anyone who comes through the door and starts asking about development to go to National Grid right away so that they can identify space ideally on their own property for the transformer. These last two projects really didn't have the space, but also they were farther along in design by the time they realized that they wouldn't be able to do anything with the existing underground. Now that we're all aware of the situation, we can push everybody in National Grid's direction right out of the gate. MMTV building, they were already talking to National Grid. about how to feed that one without a new infrastructure on the ground.

▶ 1:09:35 Speaker 7: So that's the goal. And I think we gave National Grid a year from December when we first requested this study and we will certainly have it, I would say, well in time for that deadline.

▶ 1:09:46 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: Great. Thank you very much. Seeing that this is a public hearing, we do have at least one alderman in queue for questions and comments but if we could open the public comment portion of the public hearing I'm gonna ask you both to step aside just for a moment thank you and see if we have anybody here from the public with questions or comments on this order before we move forward with the board's comments we have a motion

▶ 1:10:11 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: so moved second was that Alderman Buccia with it with a motion to open the public comment portion of the public hearing seconded by Alderman Mortimer all in favor any opposed this is the portion of the public hearing where any member can come to speak on this order regarding the petition of National Grid for pole relocation and conduit installation at Saratoni ways anyone here to speak on

▶ 1:10:34 Peter D. Mortimer: that order motion to close the public comment portion of the hearing second we

▶ 1:10:37 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: have a motion made by Alderman Mortimer to close the public comment portion of this public hearing second by Alderman Boycelle all in favor aye any opposed public comment portion is now closed if we could ask our guests to join us once

▶ 1:10:57 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: again thank you very much and in queue I have ultimate voice L thank you for

▶ 1:11:00 Robert A. Boisselle: coming this evening looking at the diagram that we have here the pad is that going to be raised off the ground that's correct how far up it sits on in

▶ 1:11:12 Speaker 6: a 10 inch precast concrete slab and I think six inches of that will be in the ground so it should be four inches off the ground okay now in this particular

▶ 1:11:23 Robert A. Boisselle: area you have a lot of parking that's going on behind 26 and 20 Essex Street and you're going to have parking now behind five on the 524 Main Street parking lot and there's also CBS that at 516 has parking how are you how are you protecting this particular pad from getting it so we install bollards which

▶ 1:11:47 Speaker 6: are concrete filled pipes that are 9 feet in length and they are 4 believe it's 4 feet under the ground and 5 feet above the ground and they surround it on

▶ 1:12:01 Robert A. Boisselle: all sides okay very good now when you mentioned that you're going to be putting this in there for future of butter so the Essex Street area is going to be covered you mentioned I think the corner area is the 525 32 Main Street and around the corner Essex Street are going to be covered with this that's

▶ 1:12:25 Speaker 7: correct so right 24 to 530 and then around the corner that whole block on

▶ 1:12:32 Robert A. Boisselle: Essex Street well I'm looking at the 532 546 Main Street that will not be

▶ 1:12:38 Speaker 6: covered that's beyond so like yes or no it depends on how we want to order

▶ 1:12:41 Robert A. Boisselle: that's what I'm talking about here yeah that's the building in between there's

▶ 1:12:43 Speaker 7: one building in between that that we've been told will not be served yeah you

▶ 1:12:49 Robert A. Boisselle: have a building you have an alleyway then you have the Essex Street businesses

▶ 1:12:57 Speaker 6: and so forth small businesses right but it is you got to remember we do have existing ducts that run on Essex Street and underground in Main Street so when that developer comes along and someone buys that turns it into a four-story building the requirement for his electric service may be that he connects the pad that we install to the underground ducts that are existing in Essex Street so yeah but that's worth that length then I can run along the side of the road in the existing ducts and then go enter that building from that side the capacities there there's just not a direct route at this time because there's no developer behind that yet so if that makes okay thank you

▶ 1:13:34 Robert A. Boisselle: thank you very much Thank You mr. chair are there any additional questions or

▶ 1:13:45 Manisha Bewtra: comments I'll move you to remind us what the timeline is for the next steps on

▶ 1:13:50 Speaker 6: this so I believe once this petitions passed I'll have to check I believe we're still waiting on some other paperwork from this customer before we can proceed with him just some internal stuff paperwork list of meters and

▶ 1:14:07 Manisha Bewtra: tenants and stuff like that with regards to the downtown study something I've been wondering is are there other alternatives like for example if we were I know we don't have this in ordinance in place right now but if we were to require solar or some other type of way of increasing electric capacity without necessarily the additional transformers is there are there ways to do that or is that something that you guys have talked about I think there's ways that

▶ 1:14:35 Speaker 6: electricians and developers can decrease the size of which they need to what they need to connect to I think the industry itself hasn't necessarily caught up with how efficient things are today I think a lot of the stuff a lot of these a lot of

▶ 1:14:55 Speaker 6: times these buildings are oversized what they actually use but we have to go based off of we have to install equipment based off of the information that they provide to us so if they say that they're going to use a certain amount even though i know that they're not going to use that much i can't give them less than what they require or what they said they require

▶ 1:15:19 Speaker 6: because i'm not taking that liability if they really do use that much and i install some equipment that's that can't hold that capacity then we go back and do it again so it's i don't

▶ 1:15:30 Speaker 6: know it's based off the industry and you know I don't know I certainly if if we

▶ 1:15:40 Speaker 7: were to move forward with something that's requiring some sort of renewable energy it would cut down on on the energy needs from the utility company I'm not sure though how that works in terms of cutting down on peak loads which is probably what you're sizing for right yeah so it's certainly something to think about I think it would be great if we can do something I don't think it's gonna solve the whole problem because I think with you know when you're changing a one-story building to a four-story building and you're putting a restaurant in and you're putting you know eight units of living space as opposed to two it's gonna be really hard to not have the total energy usage go up and to offset that whole difference but anything helps for sure great well I'm

▶ 1:16:28 Manisha Bewtra: really glad we're doing the overall kind of downtown-wide study because I think one by one as these buildings turn over as or as we you know max out based on our current zoning just thinking ahead is great so I'm glad we're doing that and to the extent we can loop in the Energy Commission on those conversations to to see if there are creative solutions we can I hear you that you know going from one story to four story isn't gonna completely solve the challenge but both in terms of adding poles like the physical the beautification aspect but then the opportunity to add renewables would be

▶ 1:17:12 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: interesting as well thanks thank you Alderman Suarco Thank You madam

▶ 1:17:15 Michael P. Zwirko: president um two questions for you first regarding the Essex Street issues has there been a report that's come out based on what the impetus was for that

▶ 1:17:29 Michael P. Zwirko: event as well as any investigations into the event as well I'm just not familiar with one or if one's being produced the company did an internal investigation I

▶ 1:17:35 Speaker 6: just have not seen that myself yet that's just for the guys are there well

▶ 1:17:47 Michael P. Zwirko: above me so but it was completed I'm not sure yet okay and then I know a resident that lives on Essex Street that's been dealing with a lot of strange electrical issues prior to the event and then even afterwards so to the extent that there is excuse me an investigation that has come out certainly it could be forwarded to this board in some way that'd be appreciated my next question was on the actual transformer itself it will be taking up a parking space but it will be good for use of the the future building on Essex I'd like to see if we could find some way to repurpose the existing space that's left over we just had an earlier order about you know bike share maybe the second half of that parking space could be colored for bike shares to be placed there or other type of maybe small mopeds should someone have them things like that so just try to use the space in a creative way I know it's probably going to cut into it where you couldn't park but that would be helpful yeah that's that's a good idea I don't

▶ 1:18:48 Speaker 7: know if it was mentioned at all during the prior the bike share conversation but we are planning a meeting did anyone mention that okay so the planning department and mass in motion and engineering division have a meeting scheduled in September where we're supposed to bike around we'll probably rent line bikes and we're gonna try to select good locations for for bike corrals looking both downtown and probably at the commuter rail stations so that will certainly keep that in mind because yeah a half space that's left over is a great place to put something yes yeah thank you thank you madam

▶ 1:19:33 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: president any other Alderman wishes to speak for the first time talking about

▶ 1:19:38 Robert A. Boisselle: this extra parking space in your opinion do you you want the public to be around these types of generators or trends units you so forth they're meant to be

▶ 1:19:53 Speaker 6: in parking lots and they're safe so I mean I don't want anybody sitting on it

▶ 1:20:09 Speaker 6: or I don't know I guess I understand the question I don't want to hear a year

▶ 1:20:15 Francis X. Wright Jr.: from yes this is a point of information I believe the unit you're talking about I believe is similar to the one that is next to one City Hall Plaza back in behind the Lucas law facility which I agree I necessarily want anyone sitting on it however i believe i saw a number of children sitting on it when we had the parade we were setting up for the parade and it did seem perfectly safe and with the bullets around it it doesn't appear the cars can get at it without running it just just asking a question no no i'm

▶ 1:20:47 Francis X. Wright Jr.: just trying to point out an example of what i think is there i mean i don't think they're particularly aesthetically pleasing um but you know with the need for electricity with all the gadgets everyone has this desire and a will by everyone to operate the various electronic devices and they all require electricity and thus they all require these transformers and I believe it will be similar to that either one of you

▶ 1:21:14 Speaker 6: know it'll be slow that's just in the back parking lot here yeah that's a switch it'll be a slightly smaller footprint than that be smaller okay

▶ 1:21:21 Robert A. Boisselle: thank you thank you thank you very much Thank You madam chair any further

▶ 1:21:29 Peter D. Mortimer: comments we have a motion motion to recommend for passage second a motion to

▶ 1:21:31 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: recommend for passage made by alderman Mortimer as this is in the full board would you consider making that a motion for passage yes it's a motion for passage made by Alderman Mortimer seconded by Alderman Boycelle on discussion all in favor aye any opposed that order passes thank you very much for the information and for joining us this evening thank you thank you motion

▶ 1:22:00 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: for recess of the full board meeting a motion for recess made by Alderman Mortimer seconded by Alderman Forbes on discussion Alderman Zwirko I withdraw