 So this is provisionally titled Community Resources Committee Process for Advising the Council on Policy and Bylaw Measures. And then in parentheses I added, which can then be turned into the report with recommendation back to the council. So maybe we can just create the report as we discuss type thing. A is clearly identify the purpose of CRC review, which is the purpose of this step is to ensure that all CRC members are on the same page regarding why the measure is in front of CRC and what CRC's role and ultimate response to the council should encompass. For example, is it to give feedback, make a formal recommendation for or against adoption or offer advice on a matter for which no action is being contemplated by the council. So that's sort of where this started and it will put us all on the same page to begin a discussion. Andy, you said you had some specific comments. Yeah, the first specific comment came from the discussion of the work that we're doing with the planning board on the master plan revision in that discussion on Monday. And the second comment comes out of the housing policy referral that has been made to us. So going to the first one, Alyssa made several comments about the policy and the nature of the work that's going on. Actually comes a little bit out of the housing too because she also mentioned the fact that there's been a lot of work with housing policies over the years that have taken significant amounts of time and expertise to develop and that we have used consultants to develop some of the housing policies that currently exist and do we have the capacity. So I was wondering what I hand wrote on my copy was what I called 2A under B, which is just because it fits in after 2 and it would read something like this. Does CRC staff or volunteers have the knowledge, skills and resources required? Is a consultant required and are there funds available for that purpose? So I put it down as two questions under one bullet. So pause there because that was the first of the two that I did. Does the staff need outside help and have the money for it, is that right? Essentially yes. I wrote it a little bit longer because what I wrote and it's just between B2 and B3. Does CRC, staff, or volunteers have the knowledge, skills and resources required? Is a consultant required and are there funds available for that purpose? So mine's already on my hard drive but yeah, we're not having success getting it this way. So does CRC, so you're looking to, I think the way we're formatted B it would just be an added number three and so we'd have five sections but let me make sure I got that right. Does the CRC staff or volunteers have the knowledge, skills or resources required? Are consultants required? Are the funds available for that purpose? Is what you're looking for and that is part of B for Janet's sake, the audience since we're having problems projecting it, is initial identification of stakeholders, information needed and prior recommendations. Yeah. We're trying to get mine display working and can't seem to find, she found the right copy. This is actually copying it, so Janet will have a copy soon, so we're going to wait for the date. I just have to restart my computer. Wow. Do we have one now for Janet? Excellent. So I'll get my computer updated then. Now that she has it, let's not worry about it. We'll work on it later. I have mine. Yours is working. Yours is working? Okay. So you have a copy? Okay. So it's my computer apparently. Yeah. Because I ignore the update. But thank you. Otherwise I can't connect to the Internet. Okay. So we've got something now. Yeah. I apologize to the chair that I didn't get this tour in advance, but I did this early this morning. So yeah. So does anyone have comments on, you can see it in writing up there what Andy was talking about, which is determining the knowledge of who has what we need for that. Do we have any comments on that requested addition? I am still just bowled over by the cost of consultants. So my inclination is to see how far we can go with what we have and if we hire consultants to have it be a rather limited area. Because we spent an awful lot of money on consultants and then we don't listen to them. Maybe we should, maybe we shouldn't. I don't know, but I'm just thinking about the parking thing where there are some good points in there, but it's really, it's not really going to have much of an influence on what's going on. So I think the point of this is to have that discussion early as to whether we think we can do it ourselves, how far we want to try to do it ourselves, especially if we're thinking about what's coming forward, the housing policy coming forward and similar conversations we've had. So I personally don't see a problem adding it into that sort of template of let's discuss that as part of the identifying who might be able to help us and all. Any other thoughts? And Andy, you said you had one other? Yes, I don't know if it's going to have time for it today, but I had suggested a possible interim step that we might take regarding the housing policy referral for affordable housing. So I got down to the end and I said, where would that fit in? And it came out to then can CRC respond to the council by the date requested? Should CRC recommend interim policy to the council? And I just put those out there as two things and the chair will be cognizant of what I drafted as a possible interim policy on housing if she wanted to bring it forward, but it flowed out of the same place. So I wonder if instead of the fourth sort of D, the referral, because that's sort of at the end of the process, if we move that part up to A and have an A1 and an A2 as we're identifying the purpose of our review, we also discuss should we have an interim process? Can we meet the timeline as that part of the very first thing we discuss? What would that be sort of comport with your thinking, Andy? Yes, this wasn't intended to be placed where it was written. I just at the end, as I was going through the policy, thought of it and decided to write it down so it would be somewhere in my copy to bring it up today. Did you have other comments on that particular comment? Any other comments on this document as a whole? This is a separate thing. Can you re-send me my SharePoint document now? It reads the agenda when I go to put the impact statement. I don't know how that happened. I will try, but apparently those updates killed my internet access in town hall. So I'm not sure I can now because I can't even like create a new message here. So I will make a note somewhere that that needs done. I will read the changes if we're going to vote on it tonight. But are there any other comments on what was presented? Let me finish this. We took public comment already. I have not specifically put this one on as public comment, but I will accept public comment at this time. So is there a public comment? Can you come up, Janet, to the mic? Thank you. Janet McGowan. So I worked on the CEI, the impact statement on the team act. I don't know what it stands for anymore. And I'm really excited to see a lot of that lifted and used here because I think that kind of very comprehensive deep look is what we need probably in all aspects of our life, but particularly when the town council is acting. One of the things that was really important to the team act was consulting with the public on these issues and collecting information. So I don't, I would, especially since you have a community, something, participation officer, some way of reaching out to the public, it doesn't have to be meeting, maybe just doing something online or something. But there's tons of people in our town that have a lot of information and have a lot of input concerns, ideas, and that could actually help, you know, the assessment itself. Another thing that was really big is that this idea comes out of the environmental impact statements and a bunch of things they do in Europe. A similar kind of community impact statement for EU actions by agencies. And so an important part of the environmental impact is to look at alternatives. And there's always a no action alternative, which sometimes is best. And also just saying the goal is not to have a decision made or one idea being proposed, but to look at the range of options on the table and evaluate their impacts. Obviously you don't want to spend the next decade of your life looking at every decision in this, in this way, but it sort of pushes you back as a decision maker to say, okay, you could do this or this or nothing. And sometimes nothing looks great. Sometimes in your discussions or research, another alternative would emerge and you kind of look at that. And so the whole goal is to get better information to make decisions. And I just looked at this. So I'm wondering if you could add an alternatives analysis into the decision making process or the assessment process. And then finally, I just read this very quickly. Is the endpoint like a report or an assessment that goes to the town council that just says, here's the analysis. Here's what we looked at. Here are all these impacts. And we're not making a recommendation, but here's the information and then separately making a recommendation. So I mean, I'm wondering if the report is just like more, if you can do it, objective. So I will remind the committee members that we tend not to comment on public comment, but we have not finished our own discussion. So if we would like to continue our discussion before we hear a motion, that is perfectly fine. So thank you for your comment. And if you want to include what you've heard as part of our discussion, you can. Dorothy. Well, I think that we have to do the things that are listed here. But I do not see CRC as a think tank or a study group that issues reports to someone else. I see us as part of a government body that is to issue recommendations. Although I do think that the idea of always remembering no action should be in there. And I think looking at alternatives is good. But I could also see, we're not here to spend all our time. I mean, I'm an academic. I don't see that our job here is to be academics. But to look at things, think about things, and I also think we should consult with the public. And I know there's a lot of expertise in the town, but we're supposed to come up with proposals which can include taking an action or not taking an action out of a certain kind. So that's my kind of thought about that. And I realize it's a very delicate balance. We don't want to just be people who act. We have to be people who think and weigh and evaluate and look and hear from people who know the past, which is why, truthfully, I always enjoy what Alyssa has to say, whether I agree with it or not, because I like knowing what happened in the past and how it worked out or think about how it worked out. But then we look at where we are in the present and we're all worrying about where we're going in the future. And I think we have to be cognizant that we're connected to a body of government that's supposed to do some actions to make changes or to protect things or add new growth, whichever. If we look at D, the CRC vote regarding referral, the purpose of this step is to make a formal recommendation to the council to guide the council in its actions, the report on this step. For me, we are recommending and we are reporting on how, why, alternatives, et cetera. So I feel like your suggestions are embedded in that indeed. I personally, and I'll take up one other one about Dorothy's comment about public opinion and all. What will become four was up here. It was three at one point. The CRC believe it has enough knowledge regarding town resident and business opinions. So as we start the analysis, we'll be saying, do we have an idea? And if not, how do we go about getting it? So I think we've embedded some of that in there, not specifically in terms of how, but at least looking at do we have that knowledge or think we do? And if not, what else? Also, we always have public comment here. Anything that comes back out of this goes back to council. Council always has public comment. And so, you know, we've got district meetings and everything. But we can certainly look at that as part of embedded into what information do we need? Andy. I guess the question that I would also want to at least have this committee focus on is, in addition to opinions, which is where what that is essentially reading right now, is there any expertise that is available in the community? And when I'm thinking about our work ahead and affordable housing, I can name several people who live in Amherst and have worked in the career of affordable housing development who could potentially be approached as to whether they have any resources that they may offer to us from their own experience. And whether we want to broaden it a little bit to encompass that aspect. So with that comment on the new number three that goes with your handwritten comment, comments, Andy? Yes. Which was knowledge skills resources. I just added another quote question. Is there any expertise in the community that CRC might be able to tap into? Which would I think address what you just said? I think that would be a good way to approach it. And I did write at the beginning it says the CRC staff, CRC staff or volunteers have the knowledge skills. So sort of was reaching out in that direction also. Does the committee think we are ready to vote to potentially adopt this as sort of our review template I guess is what I could call it? Dorothy? I would like to ask Mr. Zomek if he has any thoughts on this? Overall I think it's a great start. I do think the areas that you've identified particularly number three, I think having, you know, we know that there is a great deal of knowledge and expertise in our community. So having being open to having people, those experts come in and talk with you would be great both from a staff standpoint but also, you know, experts in our community, volunteers who work in the academic community or the professional community here. I think Dorothy your comments about consultants are, you know, they're important. Having worked in town for many, many years I do think there are many occasions where we do as a community almost demand outside expertise from consultants. We use them in engineering. We use them in parking studies. If we proceed with a zoning, a rewrite of the zoning bylaw, we are going to need to bring in experts from outside of Amherst. It brings new perspectives, new ideas, et cetera. So I think that was good to hit on that. I guess my final suggestion might be that this, you might vote on it, but it be a work in progress to see how it works the first couple of times you use it and you may amend it a little bit. So I think it's a great start. So if we are ready for a motion before anyone makes that motion, I'd like to read the changes from the document in front since I'm the one that cannot put the document up. The first one is under A, clearly identify the purpose of CRC review is to create two numbers. The first one would be what's already there. The second numbered two would be can CRC respond to the council by the date requested should CRC recommend an interim policy to the council? I don't know whether policy is the right word there. Interim action maybe? Because it's not always a policy. So I'm going to change policy to action and interim action to the council. So that's the first change from what's in front and what's in the packet. The second change is under B, initial identification of stakeholders, information needed and prior recommendations. It's to insert a new number three, moving three and four to four and five that reads does CRC staff or volunteers have the knowledge, skills or resources required? Are consultants required? Are the funds available for that purpose? And is there any expertise in the community that CRC might be able to tap into? Those are the changes that I from what was in the packet. If people are ready, is there a motion to, I guess it would be to adopt? Well, I will make that motion. It's to adopt this community impact report template. Is that what I call it? So Dorothy, is that the motion you're making? So I move that we adopt the community resource committee process for advising the council on policy and bylaw measures. Awesome. Is there a second to that motion? Any more discussion? All those in favor? Raise your hand and say aye. It's unanimous with one absent. So I will get that to Athena as changed so that we can get it posted on our committee web page as a process we have adopted so people can see it and also get it into appropriate SharePoint folders and all that it adopted. That brings us to item C, which is designated title designating a CRC member to attend planning board meetings regarding the master plan update. So did I put the update? So in the packet is a draft update process memo. And I included this in this. This was their draft. I do not know whether anything changed. It's okay. From the draft. But inside of this draft, there is a section that says on page two. There is, I think it's on page two. It's on page three. The paragraph under, in addition, there are chapters for introduction, goals and policies and implementation. In the middle of the next paragraph, it says the planning board will invite appropriate staff members and boards of committee to send feedback. A representative from CRC is expected to attend these meetings. Any additional CRC or town council members are encouraged to attend these planning board meetings to gain a better understanding of the update process and stay informed but not take an active role in the planning board discussions and during the public comment period. When I was speaking with the planning board chair about this, the planning board chair indicated that the sentence a representative from CRC is expected to attend these meetings was intended as a participate also in the meetings. Not just attend for sort of on the council level, what we've been talking about as liaisoning for updating process but as potential for participating in that discussion. I don't know the extent to participating, but certainly beyond what we as a council had discussed a liaisons role would be. And seeing that that was their hope, I felt since a liaison could not satisfy that role given our restrictions on liaisons that we as CRC probably needed to discuss and potentially name a representative to do that formally. The goal would be planning board still meets Wednesday nights. And so if a CRC member is speaking as a representative of CRC, it would be important for CRC to have discussions about that prior to. And so the goal would be to make sure since planning board meets on Wednesday nights and we tend to meet Wednesday mornings, we would be able to have a discussion on Wednesday mornings about what they're seeing Wednesday night so that the representative can go in with what CRC discussed. And certainly this is a trial balloon from all sorts of views in terms of how this is going to work. But I think the first step is to at least designate someone from this committee to be the person attending as the representative to report back on those discussions that we would have in the morning. So let's talk about thoughts on having that designation and then we can talk about who. Dorothy. So my mind and this is I think I think we you mentioned that might be a problem. Planning board it was not listed on the committees. That the GOL thought they needed to have a commit a rep on a liaison for and the planning board is the one that is now in charge of the revisions of the master plan and will come back to us. And so that would be to my mind you would be the best rep there. Wednesdays were a problem and in that in case you can't do it then I would like to do it. I've been attending but then that means that you could then attend the zoning subcommittee which is now on Tuesday nights. I don't know if that works out. First of all I think that the first what we're going to look at whether was whether that we wanted this and then who and I think that it's an excellent idea. So if we can get that out of the way then I'd be happy to speak to appointing someone. Andy do you have any comments on whether we should be doing this? Yeah there isn't much in the way of comment because I'm always in favor of collaboration and communication. And this is consistent with those principles. So it sounds like we're good with making that designation. I think just as long as we understand and keep track of our roles and that it has to be that the body that we're talking about wants that level of participation. Otherwise we can attend and move back. So that I think that's a delicate balance. But I do think that it's important for the two groups to know what's going on and to be in constant communication as long as we don't step on toes. It's hard for me to volunteer somebody who's not here but I think that Steve would be an excellent person to take on this role. I don't know whether he can do it in terms of the evening or family issues right now. But I think he has a wide range of expertise that would be helpful. It also seems to me that whoever the person is has to be representing CRC not themselves. So I'm going to address Dorothy's earlier suggestion that it might be wise for me to be the person. So I have a regular Wednesday night conflict that weekly except in the summer would present a conflict to attending the meetings. Certainly when planning board asks the chair of CRC to attend on an occasional basis I deal with that conflict but I would be very hesitant to agree to be a representative when I don't really want to have that conflict on such a regular basis. So I, if anyone's thinking, you know, I know Dorothy suggested that might be an issue, a potential I would decline to be the representative on that regular basis. I certainly talked to the chair of the planning board for other coordinating issues plenty of times but I think it would also be good for CRC to expand that representative role anyway as we talked about it, the retreat about expanding leadership opportunities and this is certainly one of them too. So that, as it relates to me, Dorothy has been going to the meetings. She is CRC's vice chair. So that is a name I would also put out there as a potential representative because she's been going and she is our vice chair. Steve obviously is also an option he's served on the planning board before and has been through this process. I don't know whether we have the ability to designate someone today or whether, you know, with Steve absent it's hard to even know whether he would consider it or not. It sounds like Dorothy, you would consider being the representative, is that right? And as I have been, it's not quite sure what role they want. I mean I think they want to have an ongoing conversation or a channel of conversation with you which you say that is already been set up. I think that's very important. I have basically just reported on and I have tried very, very hard not to say anything at the planning board because they're pretty strong and they know what they're doing. So I'm not sure to what degree of participation they want so that might need to be clarified how that would be. I do think it has to be done carefully. Dave. The one thing that comes to mind as I'm thinking about this and Andy said communication, collaboration is do you need to think about this in the context of our next discussion which is the zoning question, the zoning discussion. And so the idea that we've been talking about is that a modest update to the master plan would be occurring simultaneously to a more robust review and update of the zoning bylaw which is a much bigger lift, much heavier lift. So I just wonder as you're thinking about your own sustainability, how many meetings you go to, I would hate to think a couple of weeks from now you might be thinking well do we need another representative or to represent you all with the planning board on zoning. I don't know. I just wanted to throw that in the mix. I don't have an answer but it just strikes me that you all are worried about your own sustainability so is this one person that is going to meetings or is it two? I don't know. I'll just put that out there. Well if I had to choose I am very interested in the zoning subcommittee. So you know we can't speak for Steve. That he might be a good rep for the planning board and I would stay doing whatever I'm doing with the zoning subcommittee. I would just add too though that everything the zoning subcommittee does comes back and is discussed at a full planning board meeting so I think it's important to recognize that again I was just thinking you know we're probably going to talk about some sort of parallel structure in terms of process of modest updates to the master plan and more robust rewrite of the zoning bylaw but you know everything has to come back through the planning board at their regular meeting and be discussed so I just didn't want to think two of you would need to be at every planning board. I don't know. I'm struggling a little bit. So I think for the purposes of this conversation it's important to keep this representative designation constricted to when the planning board is discussing at their meetings master plan updates and changes because that's the process we are on right now and that the memo sort of talked about that those updates will be as of this memo at the planning board not at the zoning subcommittee and it's when they're specifically saying here are the changes we're discussing. One of their proposals was to have a CRC representative there. Again to try and make this process more smooth so that when that final draft comes we've already we've been as a committee kept updated on what the changes are potentially done stuff. So this is not in my mind if we're designating representative it is solely for that update that the council just passed its own process on that communication portion and all and with the planning board's desire not sort of representative to everything the planning board is doing that would completely to me conflict with the liaison role and potentially get too involved in an independent body's work. This is the essence sort of at their request for this process. Andy do you have any thoughts on anything right now because you have not been in this so I just want to make sure I get anything that you want to say out there. So the I don't really have anything to add further to the discussion that we've been having about the communication role and having representative. I think that we've had a robust and healthy conversation. The only thing that I added that is where these handwritten notes is on this section that we talked about public outreach and participation is required and as I was rereading it this morning for coming over I realized that we didn't say anything about using Amherst media using other media including social media and also in the social media context whether Amherst indeed but sort of how do we reach out to the community? Alyssa alluded to this in the Monday discussion of making sure that there's the most robust possible community engagement in the process at some point and whether that we just want to encourage that I believe. I would add that the Amherst Indy has been doing a good job of reporting on some of the committees and I would say in a pretty there are opinion pieces in it but there's just some plain straightforward reporting on committees that have been that are useful. So I think given that we have two potential nominees on the table one of whom is not here I'm not going to seek any motion today because we absolutely need to talk to the other potential one. I will as chair go to Steve and talk to him and I'll talk to Dorothy too and then I'll put this back on the agenda in two weeks I don't believe Dave correct me if I'm wrong Janet might be able to correct me too updates the next planning board meeting probably will not have actual update language at the meeting are they ready for a first you know this one has starting with some of these sections are those any of those sections potentially ready for the next for a planning board meeting within the next two weeks. Chris Brestrup is going to join us for the zoning so she might I'm sure she can answer that question. Okay so maybe if that question is there will be something maybe we designate an interim before a permanent before we can talk to Steve or something so that we make sure if that is going to happen before our next meeting we've got someone ready to go but so we'll wait for Christine to be able to get that and again keep in mind some of these sections these these might be very modest you know adding a section adding a link I mean this isn't you know going to be change every section you know with an extensive rewrite it might just be adding links to you know land use or natural and cultural resources the update to the open space and recreation plan was completed in 2017 and here's the link to that document so Chris can give us more in a few minutes so why don't we sort of table this for now we'll put it on next time's agenda we might come back to it this meeting depending on what we hear from Christine do you know if she's going to be able to join us shortly because our next item agenda is zoning bylaws okay if we're ready if she's ready if not we can move on the minutes let's finish them okay so we will skip over to minutes we have three sets of minutes to adopt January 8th 2020 January 29 2020 and February 3rd 2020 the February 3rd ones are our retreat minutes the minutes from January 8th are that are in the packet are revisions that I proposed they were very minor I think a word was missing on page 2 I added the word pay it said the maximum that a resident would is three dollars so I added the word pay and art in one place I found was not capitalized those were my changes recommended changes to the January 8th are there any other recommended changes no January 28th minutes January 29th minutes which day are they January 29th not 28th are there any recommended changes to those minutes those minutes are extensive eight pages that is not a knock on you Athena we love your minutes too not hearing of any changes to the January 29th minutes Rob we're going through minutes while we're waiting for people so we'll be ready shortly and then the next set is the retreat minutes of February 3rd are there any recommended changes to those I'm not hearing any changes so at this time I'll accept a motion to adopt the January 8th, 2020 January 29th, 2020 and February 3rd, 2020 minutes as presented that's my motion Athena and Pat 2nd all those in favor raise your hand and say aye that is a unanimous with one absent vote so we are done that which means we are moving on to item 4A zoning bylaws to recommend a plan for approaching the zoning bylaw revisions this was referred to us on November 18th we first had a very many discussion on December 18th we are bringing it back now that the master plan process that we came through has been approved by the council and the planning board has actually approved their own process Dave has a hand I just wanted to preface this by saying that I didn't ask Rob or Chris to prepare anything I said that you were going to have maybe a second follow up conversation about process so I didn't want to put them on the spot with a presentation wasn't planning on that but I do want to acknowledge that both Rob Mora and Christine Brestrup are here to help us or answer any questions if we do have any as we begin this discussion too we had a prior discussion at that discussion the discussion sort of focused around um whether I think I had presented that the staff was thinking it might be a good time to look at zoning bylaw changes in a comprehensive manner obviously we would not be the ones looking at them ourselves um but we have to similar to the master plan try to come up with some sort of process for dealing with them as they come up whether they be comprehensive or whether they be non-com, you know it could be a proposal for changing an entire section or the entire use plan or it could be a proposal to change a sentence in one section of the bylaw um depending on what's coming in time flood mapping will have bylaw changes we already know that from our Monday night presentation when they come what is our process for evaluating doing the hearing working with the planning board because we have this um council motion and approval to do a joint hearing how are we going to get to that and do the exchange of information required which I think goes back to what Dave said is when we were talking about the CRC representatives for the master plan updates as they are presented at the planning board meeting is that something we want to consider for this or is a liaison to the council or to CRC sufficient what do we want to do so I that's my intro I haven't prepared any proposed plan or anything because I think we need the committee to discuss what we're looking for and looking at um might it be helpful for Chris to give us kind of an update of where the where the planning board and zoning subcommittee is in their discussions about zoning that might be a place to jump off just hello I'm Chris Brestrup planning director good morning um so the planning board and the zoning subcommittee of the planning board have been looking at potential zoning amendments for a long time and they've developed this chart which I just passed out which sort of highlights the zoning changes that they think are most important um the ones in the top tier are in the blue tier are the ones that they think have highest priority the second tier which is kind of a salmon color is the second priority and then the third tier which is green is the third priority now these priorities shift around as the conversation goes on but this is um as they decided at last January I think it was January 14th that they um produced this list so the zoning subcommittee and the planning board are eager to work on zoning um they see a number of issues um related to downtown related to housing related to parking um signs inclusionary zoning um so lots of things that they would like to work on they haven't really um submitted anything to town council over the past year because they recognize that you all were doing your processes for everything and um you know weren't really in a position to take on zoning although you did um you did take on a zoning topic last summer where you repealed the old zoning bylaw and replaced it with the new zoning bylaw um in order to bring the zoning bylaw into conformance with um the town charter so that was um actually a very good sort of dry run or maybe it wasn't really a dry run it was a real run um and you know sort of set a pattern for how you might do this in the future I think between Athena and me we can um reconstruct the pathway that we used back then we had some pretty good help from well Lynn Griesmer was very um involved so was the then town clerk Margaret um and we put together a pathway to bring amendments to the town council so I will um with Athena's help resurrect that and perhaps be able to present it to you the next time we meet um the planning board as I said has a number of things that it's particularly interested in it also has some money where at least we hope it has some money it has $40,000 from a previous year and we're hoping to get another $60,000 in this year's capital budget to um higher consultants to help us with zoning and there are a couple of areas that we feel like we could really use some help one of them is parking parking is really a difficult nut to crack and the picture of it keeps changing throughout the country and in the state and advice you know we get different types of advice from different entities so we'd really like to take a close look at parking there's always a discussion about parking in every site plan review that comes up whether we should follow the bylaw or not follow the bylaw and grant waivers so that's one item another item is signs and um Mr. Mora who's here with me today has been struggling with the signed bylaw for um years ever since he first arrived it's very it conflicts with itself and it's um really not into the 21st century in terms of what it requires and what it allows there was a recent supreme court case that um struck down any any use of um content when you're evaluating signs so that's something that we have to deal with and we haven't dealt with it yet we've been getting advice from Bob Ritchie about that but um we haven't put anything together yet and then we have inclusionary zoning which again is really um a topic of conversation constantly about you know how how how much do we want to require of developers um how much do they want to how much do we want them to be partners with us in providing affordable housing so we think we could use consultants on all three of those topics parking signs and inclusionary zoning and there may be other things as well um Rob Mora has a kind of comprehensive um view of how to approach the zoning bylaw um which he will probably want to speak to you about uh this morning um but I'm speaking from the planning board and the zoning subcommittee point of view and just letting you know what they've been thinking about um as you mentioned miss they are very interested in getting their flood mapping zoning amendment through soon but other things come up like uh voting requirements for the planning board for site plan review um as a result of changing the size of the planning board from nine members to seven members um we have a kind of residual or vestigial uh requirement in our zoning bylaw which is really based on having a nine member planning board and it doesn't really make sense anymore since we have a seven member planning board but we actually have to make that um change in the zoning bylaw we can't just reinterpret the words that are there because they're you know black and white words we can't reinterpret them so probably what I envision is going to happen is that Mr. Morrow will lead um um a major rewrite of the zoning bylaw if you all agree with that and if the planning board agrees with that and then periodically over the next six to twelve months we'll be bringing smaller things to you or individual things to you just because they have a kind of a short time span that has to be acted on um so I think that kind of summarizes what I have to say about zoning and maybe Mr. Morrow would like to share some thoughts with you about his major rewrite. Would you like to? Sure. Very quickly I think it'll help as you think about process but um I am planning to join Chris at a planning board meeting coming up in the beginning of March and also the zoning subcommittee just before that but so far very generally I'm thinking about this in three different levels you know looking at a page by page review of the zoning bylaw from the very beginning we need to really address the design and layout formatting of the bylaw you know so we're not turning the book sideways looking at tables we have it made up in various places that don't work well together when we're trying to put it together and update it so really clean that the basic formatting of the bylaw in that level it also include improving the graphics that you see in the bylaw today and also the basic corrections where footnotes refer you to places where the language isn't there or it's the wrong reference and then adding definitions you know these are the types of changes that I think are going to be mostly or entirely prepared by staff and presented to the planning board for review or the zoning subcommittee first and then review to the planning board the next level would be taking a look at a lot of these things that's on the schedule in front of you there that may have already even been prepared in the past by the zoning subcommittee possibly even reviewed by the planning board and start to look at how to incorporate those into bylaw where they fit and get those ready propose additional graphics where we could use some and really I guess work on examples like design standards fewer special permits residential and commercial zones we are often asked about where can we put a craft brewery and our bylaw just doesn't have that opportunity in the locations that they would want to be set in so it's really starting to look at things that we see day to day that might be smaller amendments or opportunities to put into the bylaw and then the third level really gets into things Chris was probably talking more about where we might want to bring a consultant in early on and work with the planning board from the very beginning parking regulations considering whether or not 40R moves forward apartment standards so really bigger discussion items that would really address areas of bylaw that need to be looked at so that's the way I'm going to approach it in the meeting with the planning board of these levels of amendments where hopefully if we get a positive response to that we'll be able to staff start working on this right away with at least the first level and part of the second level so your first task is cleaning it up making it more easily understandable and internally consistent and then that's going to help it make it easier I guess to deal with some of the tricky areas that people have been talking about is that how you see it right and try to create the framework to insert you know those those larger amendment possibilities and not to say they're all going to happen you know right here that we're calling out a comprehensive review of the bylaw but we'll along the way we'll be able to decide which ones we want to move ahead with now which ones might need more work and might take a little bit longer but at least we'll have it in mind and we'll have the bylaw designed in a way that it will be able to accept it and integrate things like you know form based code standards with our current use based code standards so we'll be able to really set that up what do you need from us as a council or as a committee maybe a little direction so you know we are kind of working our way through the very beginning of this and we're going to start with the zoning subcommittee start with the planning board and hope there's you know a positive response to this idea hope that everyone will either already know or recognize how much work the bylaw needs and every area that I talked about it's not that we want to do this just for fun it really does need it really does need to get looked at it's a big task I understand that and hopefully we'll at least be able to all agree that it should be looked at the bylaw review committee had counselors on it on the second iteration of it would it be helpful for counselors to be working with you or would that be an impediment serious and not might feel like a blanket yeah I think I'm you know open to that hearing what you think about that and you know absolutely we want to figure out when's the right time to bring those amendments in pieces through the various to the various committees including this one because I think it will be helpful to have an opportunity you know to talk publicly about what we're working on every opportunity we can have that you know our zoning subcommittees are late in the day planning board or at night this is a nice daytime meeting so I think that'll help to have all those opportunities so there were a couple of issues that have one that you described and one that I thought of additional and I just want to put them out there on the table and the one that you described and just take a little bit more onto it is the sign regulation because Rob you were working with the select board when it existed previously and my colleague Ms. Kruger was very concerned about the sign regulation and I just wanted to explain to the committee that some of the issues that she raised were the appearance of signs and sort of the visual and how it affects the appearance of our commercial areas and our downtown things like window coverage how much of a window gets covered by signs and some types of shops whether we want flashing signs signs that are just placed on the sidewalk and the frustration that you were expressing was is that the way the bylaws written doesn't allow us to really address some of those concerns that she was raising so I would hope that as we go through the signs we don't lose some of the issues that had been raised and talked about at that point and the other one has to do with the marijuana retail bylaw whether that should be revisited because the way the bylaws currently constructed what we've effectively found is that it's virtually impossible to consider whether we would want to have marijuana retail in our largest commercial district our town center and the without getting into the complications because you know what they are whether that should be something that we as a community have an opportunity to revisit. A few questions and way in. So I think personally what Rob presented of that review on the three layers is appealing to me you know there are as Andy said some parts of our zoning bylaw that really do need addressed in a large manner but we need to be cognizant I think of you guys' time and ability to do stuff so some of it might need consultants and all the question I would have goes back to what Pat asked which is what do you need from us is more of and this is something we need to talk to the planning board about too and potentially the zoning subcommittee is in this new form of government also has to hold a public hearing on all zoning bylaw changes whereas in the former form the only public hearing that was held I believe was at the planning board level and so what I think and we have as this committee has been tasked with the body of the council that holds that public hearing and we have been asked by the council to hold it jointly with the planning board and so what I think we as a committee need to discuss what I'd like you guys' thoughts on this too if we're going to be holding a joint hearing how much information and how much involvement should we have in the development of that bylaw as CRC prior to the holding of that joint hearing it's my understanding I guess that the hearing is held sort of when the bylaw is pretty much ready to be presented sort of as a final draft you hold the hearing and then you make any changes necessary at that point not sort of pre-development and if that's the case should CRC be involved pre-development or not and if so how much and how and I think that's where we get into this process so I'd like to hear staff's thoughts on when it might want to think CRC's involvement or the council's involvement in zoning changes would be most helpful and most useful and then I guess it's up to us to figure out what to do with that but then also the committee's thoughts on that so just to start out I think there are some items that probably wouldn't be that interesting to the CRC you know the formatting issues and you know potentially some of the smaller changes that need to be made in order to make the bylaw consistent and then there are certainly things that the CRC would be interested in such as making adjustments to setbacks and heights and different things in the downtown and the BL and some of the areas that have recently experienced a lot of development so you know keeping in touch is certainly a good idea and then I'm not exactly sure what the process would be but I would think that you would want to have a lot of input or a lot of exchange of ideas in those areas that are large and potentially controversial and probably less involvement in the smaller things because it wouldn't really be a good use of your time so how to sort that out I'm not quite sure yet how to do that. Do you have any thoughts Rob? Yeah so I think we will know more after we have the discussion with the planning board how involved they want to be in the development working through the process of developing the bylaw amendment and how much the zoning subcommittee will do along the way but it seems to me that there should be multiple visits here as we're developing larger sections of the bylaw and you know perhaps as Chris said the smaller items could be grouped you know chapters one, two and the definitions section could be grouped together as a couple of presentations to this group and probably done efficiently that way and then we can spend more time on some of the bigger pieces but I'm not sure there's a really good prescription for it but you know more than once before we're at the point with the planning board to say we're done and ready to send this along Yeah just as we were talking about process I just was reflecting back on what our former form of government process was like and it was frequently painful because friends who were on the zoning subcommittee and planning board would spend hours, days, weeks, months, years developing a proposal and then bringing it to town meeting and because town meeting only met twice a year and there was no ongoing communication method it didn't pass and the level of frustration for those, for the planning board that had spent so much time working on these things was just tremendous and the advantage we have with the council and one of the things that was put forward by proponents of the charter was year round government and the fact that the body is working year round so we're into a very tricky area and I just wanted to observe that because we don't want to incur an infringe on the role of the planning board but on the other hand we want to make sure that the communication exists so that we can use the new form of government to avoid that level of frustration that existed with the prior form of government it is a fine line and it's sometimes not I'm not sure how to walk it for example at the zoning subcommittee I have tried not to sit at the table and not to take an active part but because we were told we weren't I wasn't officially a liaison but we were told that we weren't to really get into things where we didn't belong and yet I know that Chris Brestrup has asked my opinion at various times and so I think what I really want to know is what level of involvement communication is it just listening and being able to report back to the council is it reporting if I asked a question about what CRC said or has done being able to answer that because I think we want a good process and we don't want people annoyed with us so I'd like to know what kind of interaction you were looking for from CRC so it looks like there may be a formal process for interaction which would be Mr. Mora and myself coming to CRC meetings and presenting what has been developed by ourselves and by the planning board and maybe, I don't know about this maybe there's an informal process where CRC members attend zoning subcommittee and planning board meetings that is a little bit less clear cut because it's not clear whether CRC members are speaking for themselves or speaking for the CRC so I suppose if that could be clarified there may be some value in having CRC members attending the planning board meetings and zoning subcommittee meetings and communicating information that they hear at the meetings to the CRC so the second thing I'm not quite sure how that will work, the first thing certainly we're ready and willing and able to come to you and present things. I think you will probably need to discuss how you want that informal information passing to go about and maybe discuss it with the town manager what I'm hearing is things are coming at various potential levels from Rob and Chris some sooner some later some as they need to be coming what I'm hearing from the committee here is potential involvement prior to that hearing that we probably would really like to have the information before scheduling the public hearing for the council's point and potential even input into what that change might look like depending on what it is prior to that hearing so we don't schedule a hearing and us ourselves have really no background on what we're holding the hearing on that the staff is willing to come to CRC meetings during the development to gain that feedback and I think I'm hearing from the committee that that would probably be useful and so maybe what the next step is for me to attempt or someone if someone else is willing to attempt to draft sort of another flowchart essentially that says here's maybe how things might work that includes communication with the planning board chair and the zoning subcommittee chair I have no idea what as I sit down to maybe do this what it might actually look like but involves a lot of stuff without stepping on planning board's goals and their their sort of the main creator of changes and drafter of changes and proponent of changes but to try and avoid trying to come up with something that avoids that the legislative body doesn't see it till the very end and therefore feels they had no input and then feels their only option is to reject something that then creates all sorts of things to try and get a better smoother process that might allow things to hit that compromise level if needed prior to it coming to the full council which would also require CRC communicating regularly with the council on what's going on too and so it's not just the five of us getting the input it's the whole council so if people are willing I am willing to attempt to come up with something that's probably not words that's more flowcharty right now that maybe we might be able to look at an idea because I think from my speaking with the planning board chair and from what Chris said today some things and what we heard on Monday about flood mapping some of these hearings are going to be happening probably within the next month or two and so to have an idea of what we might want to do before those hearings need held might be useful does that sound like an okay plan for now on this matter and he's like as long as it's not me I'm good so I will attempt a flowchart based on the conversation I'm seeing some desire for a member of the public to make public comment I had not set anything out for specific public comment but I will accept something at this time if there is a desire for public comment so Janet McGowan the planning board and the zoning subcommittee and just as to the last question about the flowchart I would suggest talking to the planning board first about before you make the decision on how to communicate with them and the planning department because I think that might have been faster in the last process I'm not speaking on behalf of the planning board of the zoning subcommittee I've been on the zoning subcommittee for I don't know and we have been focusing on a bunch of past proposals that almost made it through town meeting about increasing the size of accessory units I think from okay I think I'm turning it off then increasing the size of accessory units from 800 or 900 to 1000 to 1100 to make that more viable and we're also looking at the footprint of that in compared to smaller houses looking at the multi-use buildings requirement that would allow a parking garage on the first floor or parking on that and to just make a tweak to that and also at the collusionary zoning trying to expand that or current bylaw to include more residential developments and that's maybe a little more complicated but the idea was here are things that were already approved almost made it through town meeting and some changes could probably get through quickly to the town council and also they're important and urgent you know from my perspective the zoning subcommittee has really struggled with information about zoning like when changes can come to the town council we heard that you know the town council is waiting for zoning changes that it can't handle it and now we're hearing about more recently the planning board and the zoning bylaw subcommittee have heard about you know Mr. Moore doing a zoning bylaw rewrite that's just technical fixes and then today this seems like a very different presentation so more of the zoning bylaw subcommittee meetings have been consumed with not understanding how or what we're going to come to or what the council can handle and also we're really confused about the information we hear when someone says the town council it and I've talked to my own councilors and they've said hey we're waiting for bylaw changes so there's just a lot of confusing information so it seems like now the planning department is assuming the town manager is proposing a zoning bylaw overhaul with three levels and so I just have to just put it out there like I'm on these two committees and I don't have a handle on what's being proposed and if it's a you know zoning bylaw overhaul which I would support because it is incredibly dense and confusing I think it'd be nice to know what's being proposed and to do it in a orderly fashion the three levels make sense to me and outside consultant makes amazing sense to me because that's what Northampton did the city of Somerville spent seven years overhauling its bylaw it's an interesting model and has a lot of form based zoning but it's like 700 pages and it's hard to get through you know but it's a city it's a huge city and so you know I understand the need for some quick changes I understand for intermediate changes on the zoning subcommittee level we've been super focused on housing because those are really urgent in terms of increasing sort of small scale housing and inclusionary zoning so I feel like all these committees and things we need to kind of communicate better and maybe better communication with her own planning department I'm just kind of it feels chaotic to me this is normal and you probably looking at me thinking yeah we've been doing that for a year but it's hard to as a committee or planning were to work on things without knowing what your partners are doing so thank you I'm going to go back to the question I had that I asked Dave on under 3C the designating a CRC member to potentially attend planning board meetings regarding the master plan update I had a question for that Dave thought Chris would be able to answer which is for the master plan update in the next two weeks or so do you see the planning board receiving any actual written proposals for updating the master plan from any of the sections like any actual updates I think that the planning board will be receiving an update on March 4th so if you wanted to have someone attend that meeting that might be helpful it may be possible for us to get something to the zoning subcommittee sooner than that but the way things are looking right now I doubt that that's true so I think that probably March 4th and maybe get something to the zoning subcommittee by March 3rd they meet the day before now might be more realistic okay thank you so that is for the committee's purview that is a week after our next CRC meeting so that means I don't think we need to at this point unless the committee believes differently designate an interim person to attend those meetings until we can designate an actual person we're missing a member today so we're hesitant to designate someone with missing a committee member Chris so while we were talking about zoning I was thinking that it may be worthwhile for you to designate a CRC member to attend planning board meetings to talk about zoning and that member perhaps would be able to speak for the group if the group had discussed any of the items could report to the planning board about what CRC thought about what was coming up and then could be a source of communication just as you've suggested that would work out with the master plan I think that would certainly improve communication but I think it would have to be clear when that person was talking as an individual and when that person was talking as a liaison from the CRC thank you we have not really the CRC has not talked about specific issues of zoning we would do so if we were told here's some issues talk about it first you know so we would have to do that I think that's why we're embarking on this conversation about a process for when zoning changes happen how do we talk about them and when and all so yes that's where we're getting to okay so that brings us to I think announcements I guess before we conclude on zoning I think this has been a great conversation thank you to Rob and Chris for joining us I think Janet made some good points I think we all have been patient throughout 2019 we had a new form of government you all are doing a wonderful job overall balancing all of the things and you know I go back to I'm not sure who said we're flying the plane as you're building the plane so it seems to me that the time is now right for us to develop a process for looking at the zoning bylaw and I think Rob and Chris kind of outlined the framework of that that still needs to be vetted with the zoning subcommittee and the planning board in more detail and then going back to what Andy said earlier in the meeting communication and collaboration that's what we're talking about here my last point really is about you know I do think we need to be as efficient as possible so we're going to stumble a little here in the early going as we figure out this process but we all need to be cognizant of bandwidth of the council of the zoning subcommittee, the planning board and of staff so we just need to figure out how this back and forth communication goes to make sure we're not duplicating efforts et cetera so it's a big lift but it's critical I think we all know as Rob and Chris said and I think many planning board members through the years have said the bylaw needs to be redone and so if we're all engaged if we're all committed to it I think we roll up our sleeves and dive in. So in your mind when the issues of zoning which the zoning bylaw has zoning subcommittee has been working on when do you think those issues could come I guess before CRC and then before the town council for a vote you're well I would look to Chris to Rob and I'm not sure we're quite there yet I think zoning subcommittee and the planning board still need to talk that through right blood mapping needs to come because there's federal and other timelines that we must adhere to but I think it would be up to the zoning subcommittee and planning board working with Rob and Chris to create are there some things that can come now or and then later are there some things that are grouped as Rob I think mentioned you bundle a bunch of things that are related and bring that but I think it's a little immature to say what's coming next I was wanting to know whether we're talking about three months six months nine months blood mapping is is coming once all the appeals have been resolved and we do believe there's going to be one appeal then we're going to get a letter from FEMA that will say you are now entering your six month compliance period so during that six month compliance period is when you'll be asked to adopt the maps and the zoning so my guess is the based on FEMA's schedule and I say that in quotes last summer we thought we were going to get a letter from them in July and we didn't get the letter till November so it could be a while but I just wanted to let you know that it could happen soon but it may not happen until early next fall somewhere in that window and we'll keep in touch with you and let you know when it's coming and I think that Mr. Moran needs to have his conversation with the planning board about what his thoughts are about updating rewriting the zoning bylaw before we have a sense of whether the planning board wants to move ahead and bring certain things to you ahead of this big rewrite or not we really don't know right now so thank you so I had inadvertently skipped something on the agenda which is council housing policy that was referred to us we don't have time for a full initial discussion but I want to mention what Andy alluded to earlier which is he had forwarded me and it will be in the packet it is in SharePoint right now a potential I read it as more of a resolution that would essentially be proposed to the town council on an interim basis of saying we encourage the town to continue with its efforts and investigations on affordable housing while we develop this policy so what I would like to know from the council from the committee is this something they would like to pursue to potentially present to the council a sort of interim type resolution or something that says keep up what you're doing while we draft this and if so then I would ask people to look at what Andy drafted send me the comments so that I can come up with something for next meeting as a proposed item if that is something this committee would like to pursue I would like to pursue that yes pursue it so it is in SharePoint it will be on what Andy drafted will be on the website as part of this packet so that I can include something in the next packet if there are any requested changes to that please email me directly and so before I post the next one we'll see if it can go up on letterhead and stuff like that with that that's all I'm going to do with council housing policy right now given time I was not sure we would get to it anyway so next is announcements are there any announcements not seen any other than I do want to make an announcement as we move into zoning bylaw changes as things come up at some point we will have to hold hearings they will probably be joined with the planning board the planning board meets Wednesday nights I foresee that we will join them at their meetings for their hearings instead of attempting to do them at 8.30 in the morning so I will try my best to give you as much notice as possible on when those are looking to be scheduled so that we can mark our calendars for those because it will be noticed as a joint meeting so we will need a quorum of this committee at those meetings but just keep in mind I think the meeting started at 7pm and so the hearings would generally be at 7pm for something like that but I wanted to put that out there as we go forward with this we might end up being having a couple of dual Wednesday meetings morning and evening or things like that but I will figure out something the next item is next meeting agenda preview I think we are moving into a time so as of this meeting we will have the designation of a CRC member for master plan update that will be back on the agenda zoning bylaw flowchart type thing will be back on the agenda housing policy will be on the agenda I do not plan on this point there were other things on the sort of future agenda items that have referrals there are two transportation issues we have not dealt with in a while I do not plan on putting them on our agenda given the intended GOL change or proposal to change committees those items would not stay with this committee if we adopt a new committee structure and so at this point given our enormous amount of things to do with planning, zoning and housing policy I intend to just leave them sit there until we see whether there is a new council structure passed on to that new committee and off of our agenda completely so those are the three things I see putting on the agenda if there are master plan changes I will try to get them on the agenda so that we can talk about any updates coming to the planning board on that March 4th they would be on the agenda for hopefully our February 26th meeting so it will be a full agenda for everything and my guess is that will be generally the agenda for the next couple months is zoning, master plan and housing in some various configuration anyone have any requests for any additional agenda items not seeing any so any items not anticipated not seeing any therefore I am going to declare us adjourned at 10.23 am thank you all