 Called to order the February 1st, 2016, reading of the Arlington Redevelopment Board, being recorded by ACMI. First on our agenda this evening is a discussion with the Capital Planning Committee about certain buildings in school, including Central School, with Stephen Andrew and Barbara Thornton, from the CPC with us this evening. Next we're coming forward with your idea in front. You can just introduce yourselves and then get right into it, please. I'm Barbara Thornton. And I'm Stephen Andrew. Next note. And we are here to start at the 40,000 foot level and say we're here because we're representing a fellow committee, the Arlington Capital Planning Committee. I have not ever been before you before. We don't talk, we don't meet, and it just seems sort of silly, and it particularly seems silly this year when we were reviewing the long-term status of a number of these buildings here. And Charlie Fawcett sort of stopped us and said, wait a minute, we don't own those buildings. Have we talked to the Arlington Redevelopment Board? No, we haven't. Go do it. So we're here to say that we review these buildings and it would be helpful to us, and probably a helpful and healthy thing for the town as well, to share perspectives on it and we can share our perspective. But primarily tonight we're here to ask you yours. If you've thought about this overarching civic block concept and if you've thought about the context of the central school and these other properties in that context and if not, let's talk about it. And if I may add, the way this has been coming before the Capital Planning Committee over the past several years, we've been a part of the planning director request, but it doesn't all come from that department. Sometimes it comes from health services, we have the senior center and so forth, but there's been requests that come through about this building is in need of repair. Let's go and repair the building, specifically I'll mention the carriage house. Carriage house is in dire need of repair and the question always becomes, okay, if you repair it, what are you gonna use it for? Well, I really don't want to diminish the answer, but it often comes out like, well let's fix it and we'll figure out how to use it. And I think after a year or two or three of this, we're starting to say, let's not fix it and figure out how to use it, let's figure out how we can use that building and now we have the senior center meeting somewhere at this building and figure out maybe what the best use of these various buildings are and then fund the projects accordingly. Otherwise, we will fund the project that will embed, in some cases, current uses, which may not be the best uses. And we just felt like it was a good opportunity to come before you because these buildings for the most part come under your stewardship and talk about heavy, and Barbara said, have you thought about this? Do you want to start trying to think about this or have you got enough on your plate where you say let's just, we have to move the way that you've done, let's just go back and just fix what's there which we'll address differently. But you said this a letter back in December, part of the precipitate in our meeting tonight, surrounding the Civic Block, Carriage House and College Central School, which I think is a main concern of the ARB. Right now because it is managed and at least out by our power board and the high school. So I think the main thing we should talk about is the central school condition of the central school. And I understand I met with Christine earlier last week and she was, I know she was invited, she told me that she may not come tonight. I don't see her here, but we talk about what she knows and she is engaged in, let me not repeat it if you already know, if you've got a report from her at all. Okay, she has undertaken a contract with an architect planner, I've got the notes in my notebook here. And he's doing a review of buildings. He's doing a review of the central school building, I'm sorry, just the central school building. And she expects that she's going to have a preliminary report in the next few weeks from him that's going to give an estimate of what needs to be done, which we didn't have before. What we had been, what we had as Steve said, we had this, what we'd like to do with the building and we'd like to knock this out and move this here and change this around, but we didn't have an assessment of the building and he's come in and he said, pre-World War II infrastructure, it's going to cost some bucks to make this just a building that stands up for the next several years. So it's not even so much question of use, but he's also looking at that and she's established a senior citizens advisory committee of which I'm a member of senior citizen center advisory committee. I'm a senior citizen too. I'm not here, I don't think so. No, no, you're okay. But you're not on the committee. So that's a fairly big committee and we've met once twice last spring and that will be reconvened when the report comes out and then they'll look at specific uses. In the interim, there's discussion about the possibility of a senior center being added into the high school, which we have got the approval to go ahead with. So that's, so then the question becomes, is this a permanent smaller version of a senior center that's located in different places? Is this a temporary location for a senior center that's going to be relocated someplace else or what exactly do we want to do with it? But I think that's sort of the committee's programmatic view with under Christine's leadership. But for you all, it's really this sort of bigger view of how to use this building as part of this civic block, which the master plan came up with. So yeah, I think the building that concerns us, I don't think, what on the road is that under? No, so this is the only building that is under our purview of the ones that are listed here. So definitely keep that in mind. So it's the only one that we can kind of speak to or kind of go back and forth on. The other thing is it shouldn't be confused between the senior center and everything else that's this building, right? I mean, there are tenants in this building, there's actually a very large tenant, but I think moving on soon, right? So that space is going to come up for release, probably within the next year. So there's the senior center piece, which I think is what Christine is addressing, as far as architectural plans and everything else, looking at it, seeing whether this space is being used as best as possible with respect to HIPAA and some of the counseling that they're doing. So I think we need to be sure that we're talking about the same things. So with respect to that, it sounds like Christine's kind of working towards that. That's great, I guess, and we definitely would like to see what our architects come up with and that type of thing. From my perspective, I mean, then there's the rest of the building, which we need to let out, I mean, we need to lease that. That's an important part of our being able to cover costs on this whole building, so that the senior center can exist in here. So with respect to that, I think one of the issues that we have is, we can think about best use and everything else, but the fact is, in a year's time, this thing's gonna be up for lease and if the stairs aren't fixed on that side, if the door outside right here isn't fixed, if we don't get some of these things fixed, then we're not gonna be able to lease it out. No tenant is gonna wanna come in. It's not just cosmetic things. There's systems in the building. Well-passed and useful life that needs to be replaced. So we appreciate that you're saying, hey, let's think about this holistically. Let's think about how we wanna use this building. That's all well and good, but at some point, you're gonna have a big white elephant here if you don't make some of these, what's almost getting to be dangerous corrections on things. I mean, look at that. So I think we need to keep that in mind. I think we're aligned because the Capital Finding Committee sort of has a bond term view of things. They got a 20-year bond and that's what we look at. What's this building gonna be in 20 years, not what it's gonna be next year? So that's the perspective that's going on. Yeah, I guess we take more of a lease type of approach than the 20-year right now. So the typical lease might be between five and seven years potentially. So I guess we're thinking more in terms of that. What can we get? And I fully understand. Yeah, but that's the stress that we're under if we're losing a big tenant. But I think what we're trying, the conversation we're trying to have, that's fair and you've got this imminent, urgent need. But one of the things we're trying to do is get the bigger conversation because you've stopped on the path of only looking at it as a lease building and you've already drawn some conclusions. Now, that may be all you wanna do with it. We're saying there may be other uses for the building in its entirety and saying for the benefit of the town, revenue is certainly a benefit. Now I'm a financial person, I get that. And you want a couple of costs, you don't want to be a drain of the cash flow. But in the long run, you can stop doing that, Michael. And you may have already made decisions that negate any discussion about the long term. You block the salvation of things that you then say five to seven years. Well, we'll talk about this in five to seven years. Our point is, why can't you talk about it now? So that when you make these more urgent, timely repairs, you're doing it with an eye towards still being able to come up with new decisions, bigger decisions, possibly, on what the building should be used for by the town of Wellington in the long run. And I think that's part of the scope we're trying to have. Rather than just sit back and say yes approved, yes approved, we're trying to make sure that we're urging some longer term discussion at the same time. Take care of the immediate. But let's not lose sight of, you might have some great opportunities to do something with this building. Yes, okay. And I think that's a great conversation to have. I will also say that from my perspective, the redevelopment boards kind of marching orders are to take this building and make sure that it's not a drain on the town. And that's what concerns me is I want to make it as self-sufficient as possible. It's always been a challenge as far as, since I've been here, to make it self-sufficient because the senior center doesn't pay anything. So everything else has to pay for what it is as well as what we are able to get from the capital budget. So I'm not saying that the dialogue isn't good, that the conversation can happen or shouldn't happen. My only point is, is we just have to understand what the consequences of not doing things ends up being. So. I think we sort of have a good opportunity right now because when we wrote this letter back in December, we didn't have any sense at all of what Christine was going to hear from the advisory architect. But, and she had asked for 200,000 and then 2 million and we said no. Which is just a recommendation, it's not a decision. But we said, no, this doesn't, we can't support this because we're not seeing what that money is going to be for. And it was more like it was just for programmatic uses for senior center. Now that we understand that it's more for the infrastructure or will be probably next year, I think we would support it next year. But Steve's point, I think there's an opportunity here for us to figure out between our two committees what our perspectives are. Maybe one of us should come in, our world lasts from the beginning of September when all of the department heads send in their capital requests. And then we meet about every other week through right up till Christmas Eve. And then take a break and then go to the finance committee to present our recommendations. So that's, it's really a fall period where we really crunch the recommendations for capital in it. And it might, if you want to think, not decide now, but at some point, do you want us to come in and kind of give you a report of the public buildings in your purview that have financing requests? I don't know if you see them automatically. Yeah, I was surprised that Christine did not even know that we had recommended that she not get funded. That was a surprise to me. So there's an opportunity to kind of knit together communication a little bit, I think. Can't or any? Yeah, I hear what you're saying. And I very much agree with what you're saying there as far as having an understanding of what the plan of the future is before we spend money on it. But I think Mike brings that very good point, too. Is there a way we can separate something out of work, short-term life safety fixes, and then long-term master plan and fix that? And I think that is something that we can both share and then have a better understanding of. And then I think having a dialogue as far as what the plan for the center is, is very good because we do want the other spaces to support the senior center. And we felt that's something that's a bold one. Right. So I think, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt. But I think that's exactly, I think, if you discern, that's a good term, life-saving for the life of the building thing that have to get done immediately or in the short run to make sure we still have a building to talk about in the building. Yeah. And make sure we're not creating a massive grain on the town. And I think to some extent, that's sort of where we started to push back is it was unclear which this was. Yeah, which each of these things are. And I think part of it is this, you ultimately have jurisdiction of the building, but you do have this sort of split jurisdiction with the senior center, with another department. And all we're trying to do is say, let's sort of get people in the room. Do what, fine, do what needs to be done. You don't want the building to go on the lease in the short run. But let's start having an eye towards what the ultimate purpose would be. The fact that we've got this high school, which is not your concern immediately, except as residents of the town, if you could, going on as well. And an opportunity to once again, a major building in town to look at how our services that are provided by the town, which building does the house in, and what makes the most sense. I mean, we tried to have this discussion, so we even go well with the jobless house, that's one that actually, it did get away from us, well, from my perspective on the camera playing, because once you started, then you couldn't stop. And that's one of the things that happened with old building, once you stopped. Yeah. You stopped. Terrible. And sometimes they were surprised behind the wall that you then have to dress this man's dress immediately. So again, I think, Ken, that's exactly what we're trying to do is identify what other things that have to get done that we still do in the short run. But let's have an eye towards, what is the discussion about the ultimate long-term use? What are the best use for an asset of the town to buy one? Say, just one more thing about Civic Block, and maybe you can add something to the concept that our interest in the Civic Block was not to advocate for a particular use and not to advocate for it to be a senior center, but rather to keep in mind, just like you said, well, life safety code, an overarching goal of making this Civic Center of Arlington for civic purposes. So if there are offices that are scattered around, can we, instead of rebuilding them someplace else, can we put them in here? Is there savings for that? Geez. So sorry. Yeah, I must have talked a little bit. Anyway, that's all. Great. I think this is a great idea, long overdue. How do we start the process of looking at the big picture, knowing that we have to deal with the immediate, do we do it with the master planning group or what do you suggest, Laura, then, Ted? I think I need to talk to the town manager first to see what he is thinking, if anything, and then perhaps the master plan of the Mutation Committee could take on the... I think this idea of the Civic Block and finding out how you can get mixed governmental use or mixed non-profit, things that contribute to the town that we can, it may be a way to think long-term about it. And kind of synergy. Right, so I think it's a great idea. I think we should be involved in it in some way. I'd like to know how that's gonna happen. You know, I think that there were so many recommendations that came out of the master plan and we started with the ones that we're working on right now. And I think as things get underway here with the zoning bylaw changes, we'll free up the staff to sort of take on, and the master plan implementation committee to sort of get to the next level. But we don't have the capacity to take on all of the implementation steps at one time. But I think that I know that there's a lot of interest in the historic properties and dealing better with them, the town on historic properties. And I think that will be the next order of business after the zoning bylaw changes are ready for town meeting. We could probably start before they go to town meeting, but we're still, they're still changing and the staff is working on them pretty much full time right now, but we're also short staff. We'll put it on the list, high up. Well, I very much appreciate your interest. And let's keep chatting. Yeah, I'm gonna keep chatting and see how we can, I don't know where to start either. Stop the conversation, that's a good start, and then figure out what, and then make sure we're fully conscious of the urgent imminent needs, what you have to do to keep the leasing going while we're... If that's what we want to do, at least have that conversation right up front. Thank you for coming. Thank you. We appreciate it. Thank you for coming. Thank you for coming. So moving on to discussion of an amendment to the lease between our board and the Mr. Berber Watershed Association, which does have space in the Central Sloan is more about tenants. So we'll lower off, you could tell us a little bit about what they're looking to do here. Yes. The Mr. Berber Watershed Association is a relatively small nonprofit. When they first started, they had a small office on the second floor of this building, which they had for free for a little while. And then as they grew, and I think mostly they get grants to do testing and advocacy for the Mr. Berber, and they recently got another grant and are growing again and they wanted to get a little bit more space short term. I think they're asking for a 305 additional square feet. We have an office that we can give them that they're satisfied with. They paid less than most of the tenants in the building. They pay about $10 a foot and we're just proposing to expand, to expand the space at the same rate. It's a space that we're not getting any rent on right now. So this is just an amendment to the lease. Their lease comes up fairly soon, I believe, September. And so we'll be renegotiating with them at that time. So this is an extension only for the summer? No, they're gonna move in February 15th, I think. Okay, so from now until the fall? Yes. Is this the space under? Yeah, it's the space that Fred was in. Fred was in, yeah, okay. Yeah, who just takes care of the building. Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. Okay, any? I agree. I move to, when I move to accept this, I move to the lease as described. And authorize the charity sign, you know. Authorize the charity sign, this lease. I'll write this down. The master. We have a second? I'll second it. All in favor? Aye. We are a few minutes ahead of schedule, so what I'd like to do is take a five-minute recess until the 7.30, you want to go to our position? No, we'll have to kind of do that. Okay, that's all right. So we'll take a five-minute recess up until 7.30. We'll have a discussion on the mixed-use zoning amendments. If anyone did not get the handouts or the agenda that are up front here, please come up and grab one. That is a summary of the mixed-use changes. We have more detailed summaries. If someone's interested, but we just want to kind of get the gist of it out. We're gonna put the minutes, which isn't on engine, what is that? But we put it up for the last time. Would you like a nice copy? No, I'm here. You haven't? I'm sorry. It was the absolute one. Well, let's do it. Let's do it. Let's do it. I'm worried. It's then now, and we'll remember. We're talking to January 1st now? Are you ready? Yeah, that's the only one we have. Is that something I can get a copy of at some point? I don't know. You haven't released yet. I don't know. Can you email it to me when it gets released? Okay, that'd be great. Thank you. Okay, you're gonna need to put the presentation in there. And then we'll get to by the front, right in there, right in there. And then we'll take that. I'll be there. I'll be there. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. We're still on insulin. Would you like... I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Are you listening? Are you listening? Now, now. Can you get me my tracker for sure? Sure. Okay. I'll make sure that's dad. that was one of the smallest papers from 1931, but they put it in time. So if any space gets in there, it's in the same thing. Yeah, they did the same thing. So they stuck it in Arlington, and they have to get it put down in there and just choose to see. All right, so it's about 7.33. I'd like to bring us back in. Next on the agenda is discussion of zoning amendments for mixed use in Arlington, and I'm going to turn it forward to Ted Fields to lead us through some of the proposed changes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As many of you know, over the past two and a half years, the town has been engaged in preparing a master plan. That was endorsed by the Renewalment Board and Town Meeting last year. And in the course of compiling that master plan, we, the planning department that spearheaded the effort along with the master plan advisory committee, heard a lot of resident input, including a desire for rejuvenating the town's commercial districts, including those along Mass Ave and Broadway, rejuvenating the commercial properties in those commercial districts with new types of businesses, new types of uses that really kind of are flourishing with the more modern economy that we have, the post-modern industrial, the information age economy, the creative economy that's starting to emerge in the 21st century. And a lot of people also really desired a developed mixed use in our commercial districts, meaning combination of residential with retail, offices, other types of commercial uses in the same building, so that you have a lot more activity in our commercial districts. You have a lot more vitality. You have a lot more just vibrancy in our commercial districts, especially along, as I said, Mass Ave and Broadway. And in the course of developing the master plan, we, the planning department and the planning consultant really enumerated a number of benefits of mixed use development, including the fact that it adds development where there's already infrastructure. It doesn't use any sort of green field development or any sort of vacant land that really you don't have anymore in town. It adds to the tax base where it accentuates the value of existing parcels in the tax base. It revitalizes business districts by providing customers for local businesses, restaurants and cultural institutions. It adds to street life, might life and social interaction and a sense of community, especially in the central parts of town where folks want to see more activity, want to see a wider range of uses. And the residential units that are attracted to these types of mixed use developments and the downtown type of environments that they proliferate tend to be small, serving smaller households, especially elderly people and young singles. So it would help to diversify the town's housing stock and would help to lead to what they call multi-generational housing where people can move out of single family homes and stay within town and move to smaller units closer to services, closer to shopping without the need to drive to access those services. And in many cases, such units may be relatively more affordable for different people in terms of the income spectrum. And then finally, such development really helps to reduce car dependence because it's developed in many cases on top of or next to services, commercial services, government services, cultural institutions and transit facilities like bus lines on Bass Ave and Broadway. It reduces congestion, reduces pollution, reduces landing from parking, and it reduces, in many cases, the number of residents who commute out of town. So it helps with the overall sustainability of the town in that respect. After the master plan was adopted and endorsed, the planning department set about with the master plan implementation committee to develop some zoning bylaw amendments that would make developing mixed-use properties more easier and more practical. And to do that, we've expanded and added definitions to include some new types of industries as well as to define to define mixed-use development itself. We've also allowed new industries and mixed-use in all business and industrial zones except there's no residential uses in industrial right now. And we've allowed these by special permit. As part of the special permit process, we would increase maximum FAR at 1.5 for parcels under 20,000 square feet in business and industrial districts. And we would also slightly increase maximum height to four stories in the B2 zone and industrial zones with a step back after the third story. We'll define step back for you later on with the Gamble Associates presentation. And we will increase the maximum height to five stories in B2A, B3, B4, and B5 zones again with a step back after the third story. And it's important to realize that in each of these cases with a height increase, we would also maintain the existing residential height buffer regulations that would require a reduction in the maximum height by one story instead of two stories that's now called for. And in terms of parking, mixed use structures would be allowed to reduce the amount of parking required as part of the special permit process as long as they adopt this transportation demand management plan that would really kind of enumerate how they would reduce reliance on cars. It would allow shared parking and mixed use developments. So the business uses would share parking and residential uses as long as the activity pattern was complimentary. And then finally, it would exempt the first 3,000 square feet of commercial space in the mixed use development from parking requirements. This would be an incentive for commercial use within mixed use structures. So that's our mixed use zoning amendments in a nutshell. And with that, I'm going to turn the form over to our consultants, David Campbell and his assistant, Brian. Hi, good evening, everyone. My name is Brian Gregory, and I'm my colleague David at Campbell Associates. We're invited by the town to sort of play through what the ramifications are of the changes to zoning violence and sort of provide a litmus test of the building forms on sort of generic parcels that exemplify the type of parcels you'd see along Broadway and the Matzhab corridor. Under the new guidelines, we've produced the kind of development that the town's master plan was looking to foster. So this is just an aerial, but the town center, the edge of Somerville, there's Broadway sort of linking up with Matzhab, and so we're really looking along the commercial corridors to encourage the type of growth the town is looking to have and just as a little point of departure, so our firm was a sub-consultant on the comprehensive master plan. And then one of the recommendations of that comprehensive master plan, which was a set of design guidelines for these sort of major corridors in town, the Millbrook, the Minuteman Bikeway, and the commercial corridors of Matzhab and Broadway, we also generated a set of design guidelines for those to start to describe what type of urbanism you want there, what general types of building forms and uses we're going to activate those spaces and increase the sort of vibrancy of these cherished corridors. And so we're excited to be back and to be looking now at what are the sort of tools the town has to reduce those buildings that we're looking to have along these spaces. So I'm going to sort of start with the vision and work back to the details, this is how you're acting. You have an idea of what you want and then we start trying to sort of draw back into the nuts and bolts of how to produce that. What we're looking for sort of is these types of mixed-use buildings here where on the first story, since you're along maybe a busier street, you're not looking to put residential right up against the edge. You're looking to reinforce the street wall and so a base of retail parking towards the rear, the building up towards the front to flow out to receding that you see along like Newbury Street and other locations. And then a mix of smaller housing units that they've talked to again, as Ted mentioned, provide that sort of multi-generational housing and provide housing stuff that really is in demand in Arlington but you don't have much of a supply of. So this is just maybe another view trying to show how creating vibrancy maybe connections to some of the main corridors like the Minuteman and such. There may be the want to allow that level of flexibility in the zoning to allow for, after you have sort of step backs, to allow for some height here to be able to provide maybe outdoor amenity spaces or other things like that to tenants to again sort of bring the vibrancy of the building to its edges and allow for more diverse architecture. So along those lines what we ended up doing was doing a little study of the parcel specifically along Broadway and indicative of a number of them and sort of created a generic catch-all parcel. So this one, you know, Broadway or Mass App would be along here. There's always little side streets sort of connecting in sort of picked a corner condition to reinforce how you would meet that edge because it's sort of got two faces. But this one's about 90 feet along the main way at about 120 feet deep. So you're looking at about 10,800 square feet at 11,000 square feet. So that falls within that under 12,000 square foot. Things that we're looking to do. And sort of the basic way to start to lay out this site if I was, you know, looking to develop it, you know, good urbanism dictates the building should be towards the street edge. It's where the visibility is. It's where the pedestrian realm is. Parking is shielded towards the rear. It also puts more space between this building and what is most likely an existing residential fabric. And then there's different setbacks. So, you know, based on how this is calculated in fact there's actually within the zoning it dictates that in this instance it would be 9. And then, you know, the setbacks along the edge of the parking because you want to sort of create a landscape buffer. They don't need to be exorbitantly deep, but 5 feet is enough to allow for a visual screening. Moving forward then, you know, going into a little more depth is there's sort of rules of thumbs for development. So that's the next litmus test in a way. Parking lots if you're looking to sort of do double parking with the central drive aisle 3 feet wide or so. Buildings can range a little bit, but if you're looking for residential, you're looking 55 to 65 feet. It gets you an interior corridor and rooms on either side. Something akin to what you'd see in a hotel hallway sort of deal. And then moving forward again with those parameters you can start to sort of lay out a ground floor. And so in this instance based on sort of the last comment G under the proposed zoning bylaw changes, this idea of exempting the first 5,000 square feet, I think is sort of a novel way to encourage commercial retail on the ground floor because currently there's a lot of parking usually in zoning tied up in that. So it discourages people because all of your parking suddenly gets gobbled up by one, and you end up with a single story retail, a CVS or just housing. If you're looking to get a mix of both, there's sort of the liability you need there. So sort of playing this one, it worked out rather well. This is about 3,000 square feet. So as a developer you might come forward to say, well, okay, let me see if I do that. I don't have any parking associated with that yet. So that's a good starting place. You have a stair core coming down here and here, let's say for the upper stories, you know, the lead two of them at some point. An elevator for a sort of urban design standpoint as well as a marketing visibility standpoint. The retail comes to the front corner sort of the 100% visibility. There's a lobby accessing both the primary street as well as a connection to the parking. So far so good. Then sort of testing on the other side of the ground level. Parking spaces are about 9 feet by 18 feet. So we're dividing that out and leaving some radius for turning and for enter and entrance, as well as accommodating spaces for handicap. The site can accommodate comfortably about 15 spaces. And so while by the zoning you don't need those necessarily for the retail that helps to have some, that's going to start to control for the housing, the residential units above as we go forward. Oh, and I should mention, sorry. The other test would be to make sure that the exterior space which in this is sort of aligned around the outside in order to provide a buffer to the sort of adjacent properties. You sort of just run that and that does check out 1400 feet. The demand would be for about 10% so, I mean 1,800 so. So then the next thing you're looking at is that if you roughly put print of your building, how are you going to calculate how big of the building? Well, that's generated by FAR, floor area ratio. And it's basically taking the size of the lot and so that's 10,800 square feet multiplying it by the FAR, which is being proposed at 1.5. And so you realize there's about a little north of 16,000 square feet that you can develop. And then the next calculation you're going to do is the size of the floor plate. And based on what we sort of outlined here, just multiplying it up it's about a little shy of 4,000 square feet. So, roughly 16 divided by roughly 4. You're looking at about a four-storey building. That seems about the density you're looking for between 3 and 5 along commercial corridors. So again so far so good. And so the yellow space would be residences and it's the elevator and stairs coming up. So then the other parameter though is for the increased height in order to sort of visually reduce the presence of the building, especially from the commercial corridor, we're looking for a step back. And these are different than a setback which is the whole building. A step back happens as you move up the building, it steps back. And so here, since this is only a four-storey building and not a five, you've got maybe a smaller step back of about 5 feet. Along the edges that front commercial corridors to again, there's the reduced the height of the building without reducing the amount of developmental space, appreciably. And that offset can go into the needs for like, you know, sprinters and rooms and other things like that and sort of a basement scenario. So we're still at about four-stories. Looking at the units, just taking a sort of a quick rule of thumb from a lot of the units that are being built on the periphery of the city. You're starting to see smaller units as affordability becomes more of an issue. So moving in line, something along assembly row, which just sort of built in Sember Hill, not too far from here. You have a little bit of 900 square feet for a two-bedroom. About 675 square feet for a nicely sized but sort of small one-bedroom. And then you can go all the way down to a studio would be more 500 is the next slide. But each of these, the two floors above the retail here break out into about four units with a nice mix of two two-bedrooms, two one-bedrooms for floor for a total of eight. And then moving up. This floor is a little different just because of this sort of step back up here. It does allow these units to have balcony space or outdoor space, which is great for bringing sort of the inside of the building out to the edge. But on this one you'd end up with a two-bedroom, a one-bedroom, and then the reduction leads you to studios at about 500 square feet, which is about appropriate. So moving forward, you can sort of see if you put up the walls as it was in between the units. You end up roughly with a volume of a building like this where you have the lower three-story portion and then the taller four-story portion with a step back there and a small step back maybe for the entrance of the building. And then sort of moving back towards the parking to again sort of provide that test. 15 spaces, 12 units, 1.25, which actually works out nicely. Every unit could have one space with either visitor parking or a space or two for the retail level. And then so just moving forward one more, a little less of a diagrammatic, a little more aspirational. This is what maybe the articulation of the building is, you know, or retail the bottom and awning signaling the entrance, smaller windows, the residential, maybe even an outdoor space or a green room coming up for stories with the parking pulled to the rear and a face proceeding in front. So the end result, I guess the overarching idea is that yes, the changes as a plan were I a developer or the architect of the developer, it does allow me to reduce a building 12 units, mix of the units, 3,000 square feet of retail which is, you know, a large cafe type of space so it bears out passes the limit test as it was. And with that I'll turn it back over. Thank you. We also have some members from the master plan implementation committee here tonight so I give them the opportunity to speak a piece about how this came together. Thank you. I'm Charlie Glowskis, co-chair master plan implementation committee and as a co-chair for the master plan advisory committee and with me are Joe Barrow who's also co-chair and Ralph Wilmer members of the implementation committee. First thing I want to say is mixed use is not a new concept in Arlington. Arlington was a streetcar suburb, there were probably tracks on Massachusetts Avenue and if you look at the capital block it's a prime example of mixed use with retail on the first floor residential above Arlington Heights is the same where you have retail on the first floor look at the five and ten and residential above so this is not a new concept in Arlington nor is a new new concept to a lot of the inner suburban communities in the Boston region. I think it was a new concept that's come back in a different form and as Ted alluded to some of the uses have changed as well that are being proposed in mixed use or loud uses and that's an indication of how the economy has changed over time as well. So I think what we're really looking at in terms of any proposed changes to the 21st century economy and housing needs have also changed as well Ted alluded to the need for senior housing, the need for single people who don't need that much space and there's also the possibility of having affordable units as well people who need more affordable rents. So we fully support this through the entire planning process, all the public meetings we had this came out over and over again as a way to spur economic development, revitalization in certain business districts I think the main thing is it's also revenue positive for the town. We did have our consultant look at certain scenarios with buildings such as Brian showed in fact there was a net positive revenue stream for the town with this type of development so it's really a lot of benefits go along with mixed use development so Joe or Ralph want to add to discussions. So I guess just a couple of thoughts from I again, Joe Barton co-chair with Charlie that's quite an implementation I guess I'm a transportation person so I'll just mention a couple things about the transportation and parking piece of this although I'll first echo what Charlie just said about the fact that this was something we heard I think repeatedly and consistently throughout the development of the massive plan which took two and a half years or so was a desire for more mixed use but I think it's important to remind everybody that it's along the commercial corridor dipping our toe in the water or any locations where as Charlie alluded to with many of the locations a lot of maps out and even some extent on Broadway we already have some form of mixed use and this is just trying to further spread that or confirm that it's something that people want to see. In terms of the transportation I guess just a couple of points to make one is I think there is a long and I think pretty successful history with the type of transportation and management measures that are contemplated in the zoning amendments I mean I think the fact that it's generally would be exclusively would be through a special permit review so that gives the granting authority the ability to review what's being proposed figure out if it makes sense in the context of the location that's being looked at and the transit is available as well as the other modes that are available in very strong bicycle network through and around the town so I think that's something else that we can in terms of reducing car transportation demand so I think this is I think structured very well to create those kinds of that review to make sure that there's actually an ability to get so they didn't just sort of check a couple of boxes they really had made a commitment to doing the right thing and I think the sharing parking piece is also very important as the folks from Gamble Associates demonstrated this type of development as they sort of contemplated here would have parking both by having a 3,000 square foot kind of de minimis exemption for the retail which is not uncommon in sort of more denser locations because you know there's on-street parking and you know that there's some level of non-vehicular demand but also the ability to do shared parking in a situation like this where we have retail it's more likely to be active during the day and then residential which is more likely to generate most of its parking demand overnight the ability to trade off back and forth between the two so whether it's you know just doing a de minimis exemption or having a shared parking arrangement you know these kinds of you know shared commercial and residential developments often you know don't need to meet every single parking requirement separately which is I think one of the challenges we have right now with the zoning comes to I think this you know this is a I think a wealth from the master plan and the implementation committee's perspective I think the staff and the consultants have sort of translated what we wanted from a policy perspective into some you know what seems like a good approach to making it real so like Charlie said I think we're fully supportive and we have a working group of the implementation committee that sort of talk through the details and I think we made some good tweaks and adjustments to get to where we are today Thank you Mike So don't have to buy actually could someone just walk me through so so it's the article 6 so just kind of going through that so I was just trying to this is what was passed out back in the yeah yeah exactly and so from the so just helping number one is we're just a step back greater than I see that's after the third story it has to be step back part of my ignorance but how do you know how far the step back is? Is that already in the bylaw that it would be five feet or is that something that would have to like get in there as well that's something that actually we haven't determined a standard for yet we're looking at different standards or whether to have a minimum step back that has a but we would need to have that as a piece of this minimum and then have the ability to the ability to do to go further back I think we want to get the reading from the Gamble Associates of what would be a step back that would work from the perspective of the street without making a whole floor unusable and embarrassing so I think it's probably and that would make its way somewhere within that would be important this is still we're still amending the next time you say this it will be more in the form of an amendment I just wanted to make sure I wasn't missing something that was already somewhere else because if the Lord knows about our bylaw it well could be somewhere else I think as a concept it's fairly no to the bylaw it is no to the step back the step back is a variation so this is what we had seen before so I guess I'd be addressing commentary around height and that type of thing in several of the different districts I think the four story that we saw with the fourth story kind of step back that seems like that could fit in most places in town in my opinion I think the five story with the step back after four I think you know I wonder whether that just doesn't get a little bit a little bit higher than what we're used to anyway but with respect to that you've got two different numbers on the height maximum like say you'd say B2A is that just why does it say five step back that's in the current zoning bylaws for the height buffer so depending on where where you are located it right now calls for a reduction in height a reduction if you're okay so the second number is the buffer number we're keeping that in but we're modifying it but you're modifying it alright and I think the thing that might be helpful when we start really digging in on height and that type of thing is most of these are at 3 and 35 now the central business B5 is 5 most of the others are 3 or 4 okay that might just be helpful just to understand what we will be changing because it is kind of hard to do other than that I didn't have too much for right now okay well let me stop one of the first concerns is we want to encourage affordable housing as part of this fix is we use district care how are we doing that the 5 law says that if there's more than 6 units 15 percent have to be affordable so what is the number of units here? 12 so 12 units you'd have 2 affordable units automatically yes but that's the bylaw but the existing bylaw yes how are we encouraging more well I think the units are smaller they may be less expensive of course they may be less expensive no we can't let people do anything you don't want but how do we encourage it's a question and I've seen other towns do and they don't they don't say they don't require more they leave an option so if a developer wants to provide more affordable housing they have an increase or a bump in the FAR it's fair I mean we're trying to be fair we're not trying to dictate people I'm just bringing it up as a question I'm not trying to tell you know I'm just thinking that if we want to encourage more affordable housing how do we go about doing that above and beyond we have right now that's one thing I want to bring up and I've been saying do we want to think about having some trade-offs for that that's all let's talk about that I'm not saying one is right let's talk about that if that's not for us that's okay but if that is for us let's see what we can do but we're encouraging that from developers they're not going to give it away for free I don't see anybody doing that Charlie you want to respond to that I think what we heard in the master plan if I think they need was a lot of property along Massachusetts Avenue brought by a lot of residential neighborhoods and so I think that's why a lot of the height restrictions the higher you can go the more units you can get the more opportunity there is for more affordable units we need to respect the abutting land uses particularly the residential communities and there may be sites where the residential neighborhoods are set back even farther in those cases maybe it will go even higher but we didn't propose that I agree with you that it's pretty generous so what about the sites that are only 50 feet back or 60 feet back or 80 feet back okay so I'm just saying that all the setbacks that we've been talking about is always up front what about setbacks in the back if it's within a certain distance and I'm saying what if we have setbacks in the back where if someone looked further up a patio or porch out there that looks out to a nice view and that could be advantageous and I can see a developer wanting to say okay we have a penthouse levels but we have more setbacks so that higher rent or higher cost for that could offset the cost of building less because you're pulling it back it's always this tradeoff but giving them more value for what they're building for their product we're increasing our value to the neighborhoods that's all I'm saying and we thought about that and I do also want to mention about the 5 feet can we maybe keep it moving more than 5 feet because 5 feet to me is not an occupied space 5 feet you get up there you might have a small chair but you don't really live up there if we just gave a little bit more space now if you become a space where it's an outdoor space that someone could spend time and live up there a little bit and act in life you could have more yes but but you're not mandating I'm just saying that if you're not going to encourage these two would encourage these things they're not going to happen I just don't think it's happening I mean if you say 5 feet I'm sure they're going to build 5 feet and they say hey here's your balcony I will say that is that would be a special permit condition if the board or another board in special permit training authority feels that step backs for a certain project beyond the minimum are required I'm sure they could put that into the conditions for the special permit under a specific project but we are open to different no I respect that too but then the other thing is this as a developer trying to purchase land to put up a project if they don't know what all the real regulations are there's some interpretations or depends what requests are they're not going to know how to value that land and they're not going to want to take the chance development is all about risk and managing risk so if they knew more there's less risk then that's in itself encouraging development so as long as you encourage development by being clear one point related to the affordability assuming that this is a form of development we want to encourage having the shared parking arrangements and not forcing a developer to meet all of them separately a parking is an expensive thing to provide and it provides economic values to the developer so the extent that we're providing shared parking arrangement that reduces their cost of development could enable further affordability whether through official affordable units or reduced rents we see that a lot on the changing side is that we can get reduce the parking demand let the developer create more space for actual apartments or whatever that does help with affordability it's a marginal contribution but obviously every piece of things that I was wondering whether you'd ever seen parking being the thing that gets decreased in order to because around here apartments can't that's what we see more about parking than we do anything else so usually parking dictates how many units right but I'm saying if you have an affordable unit you don't need a parking spot for it or something like if you were to I'm just I'm not either I'm just saying do you ever see it I think some of the other ways of encouraging parking to say if the site is tight right now you have no covered parking if the parking is covered let's say the building overhangs the parking now that becomes FAR correct it would increase yes so one of the ways of having parking maybe help with that event make it more affordable so you can build a little more maybe from the first 5, 10, 15 parking spaces that are covered doesn't count it gets exempt from and then that gives you a ability to have a little larger building above for the tighter sites I'm not I'm just this is early I wanted to continue talking up here but we're down here in the details and I don't want to get down there in the details but yet we should be at that details here at this meeting I'll leave it up to professionals to think of that a little more but I'm just thinking in terms of broader scope of what we're trying to encourage and I applaud what we're trying to do here encouraging both our family, encouraging all the stuff great I just wonder about the questions about how we go about encouraging that that's just the general answer any what's the residential height buffer just explain how that works well in general terms depending on where a property is located generally on Mass Ave or Broadway if there is a residence within depending on the direction of the residence within a certain distance the height of the building is reduced so those are maintained in this that's in the current bylaw and is that the other number that's in the list since 5 or 4 is it listed here right now if it's 5 if a building questions in the height buffer go down to 4 but that's not what you have here in the height in the table on page 4 well I followed the existing format of the table where there's two heights listed the first height is the regular height the second height is the height in the height buffer area just put a note I'll mark that you need the education that's good I think that's great and what Mike said I think is important to put in existing heights so we can see the the setback I mean I like David and Brian to weigh in eventually as you develop I was going to go the other way saying if you have some incentives only 50% of the frontage has to be setback but as I'm hearing you guys talk and you can talk that's more of like an incentive package you got to keep it clear I get it you got to keep it clear so you can't be vague about it but I like your idea of somehow there are things that you could trigger to allow you let's say you did something else that would allow you to have less setback so there's more flexibility for a developer who's really going to want to get a higher rent out of that third floor that he's going to want to get out of that second of the lower floor so it's a little tough I could imagine for some way so is there some kind of tradeoff if you want to go 50% not setback you would have to do something else I'm just asking that might be a way to play that I'm worried about the developer having to reduce that those units that he's trying to build a stack of maybe there is some kind of incentive package that goes above and beyond that says a special permit that allow under certain circumstances like you're saying to go over parking for a certain proportion of your parking because you could do an L-shaped building that over some of the first bay of parking that's in your 60 foot you could actually make an L where it goes back and you wouldn't be credited with that parking garage some thoughts for the future I guess am I hearing you say that you don't think we should require a stepback after the third floor I'm worried about it I was thinking when I read it that it should be 25 feet for 50% a minimum of 50% or something because you're concerned about the loss of the floor I am, I like the setback but I'm worrying about people trying to build buildings and then setting the most valuable floor back or the two most values so I I'm kind of deferring to you sure can I address this? these are all dialogue but wait I don't know since the right so what we're really talking about here is a dimension of 5 feet across a building that's 15, 10, 10, 10 45 feet tall and we actually think in our experience that 5 feet does visually diminish the overall impression of the height of the building from the primary street although it's not that much dimension in your right can 10 feet would actually be right here so that would be a 10 foot setback on this building that's just a general prototype that's supposed to represent probably 100 different properties along one of these corridors which is very difficult to determine but if that were 10 feet yes it's a bigger terrace but it's actually now more difficult to get a double loaded corridor in that dimension because you've got a corridor here that's serving both units on either side so it actually makes it a little bit more difficult to program the apartments or that would be fronting the primary street and this is just our recommendation we know that this is going to take a while to pan out but if there is a 5 foot setback if this is the street the ground floor a 5 foot setback actually achieves the tension that people feel in that building and if it is actually here well that makes a very big difference in how you perceive that building from the street actually people will think that's too big for Arlington we disagree we think 4 story is actually about appropriate for many of these corridors if there is a modest setback of 5, if it's 10 it's going to be a little bit more difficult to program so what our initial suggestion to Ted and Laura maybe it's a 10 foot dimension over the course of a 5 story building and within that dimension while a developer might be incentivized to do certain things there's greater bicycle parking there's more transparency on the ground floor, there's better materials I think that is a dialogue that's worth having because I think you need carrots and you need sticks and you definitely need clarity so we are in the weeds but I'm actually glad that we are because this matters a lot in how people perceive height and density and shadows and you're right it's not just on the primary corner if this is a house next door in the back of the street boy they care a lot about what that setback is so to answer their question I think in our judgment 5 feet after the third floor will diminish the height of the building that's the first thing in 5 stores we think that needs to be 10 feet now the question is, is it continuous? well interesting enough when Brian was developing these he didn't assume that it was continuous because you actually don't want miles long the Broadway or Mass App to have the exact same profile so to have some playback and forth we need some liquid you don't want you don't want a ziggurat along the entire length you actually want some variation that's a good thing if you set back more in that case maybe you're allowed to fill out the corner or something like that to give you a little flexibility with that setback and we haven't even gotten to talk about incentives but I think that's a good mechanism to achieve what you're trying to achieve I think incentive is a way to talk to and encourage this type of change I just want to address that one part pending pending is correct it's 5 feet or 10 feet it's already affecting the unit already there's a double loaded corner of you saying it's what, 62 feet? the building is originally 55 to 65 feet let's say it's 60 feet for the hallway let's say 6 feet 8 to 10 and then let's say I've done a lot I'll say 6 because the 5 quarters is pretty much what you're going to go with if it's going to be developed it leaves you roughly 23 and a half feet 24 feet kitchen that's going to be 7 feet, 8 feet that leaves you from the kitchen to the outside wall which is usually living dining but if you bring that back 5 feet all it makes is the living dining a little smaller but if you bring it back 10 feet you offset the living dining I think this is too abstract of a conversation actually I'm assuming that dimension but in theory you're right what we're trying to do is find a sweet spot that doesn't mandate a particular profile which is not appropriate for an historic town across the entire corridor in fact the depths of these dimensions they're too varied along the width it's just a coincidence that this is 120 feet deep and you're right there's many ones that are less deep can we take it an average work I mean it ain't that many properties up and down mass average we could find an average dimensional definitely a good thing is to start off understanding what that average is or the range the average square footage is about 10,000 square feet of the actual dimensions there's nothing else from the board the one thing I'll say is I'm actually kind of coming around I think just because we're putting given our timeline here what we're trying to do I think trying to figure out all incentives and what would be the right thing without first trying to get kind of the dimensions right and what we want to present I guess I get concerned about losing our taking our eye off the ball of the mixed use and entirely if we start saying you get a little bit more affordable housing or something like that I mean I think at some point we have to rely on our inclusionary zoning and that type of thing so I think maybe on this go around figuring out what dimensionally we want and do want mixed use just without thinking too much about this and incentives might be the right call but that's how it's been said I'm going to open it up for question and answer if there's any public hearing it's fairly informal but I still ask that as I call a new station name and address for the minutes Thank you Mr. Chairman and Crystal Loretty a couple comments questions first has you taken account of a couple of blocks on Broadway actually conformed to this example in these dimensions I think that's a very unusual situation I bet there's less than a handful of blocks that we call upon why would you decide? Yeah, you know if you find blocks that shape that are available on Broadway unless you piece together existing blocks another or some? It might be one or two I guess the other thing a couple of things I would note that in the proposal I like the fact that you've added the height buffer zones and that I think it's a lot more palatable in other ways than before have this kind of strange discontinuity in the floor area ratio requirements based on the block size and frankly if I was a developer and I had a lot of 22,000 square feet I'm going to lose that 2,000 square feet as quickly as I can and that just seems a bit strange to me you've got a 50% bonus in the floor area ratio by reducing we're having a smaller block and I think about the implications of that Go ahead Well, given the fact that the average size of the parcels we're looking at along the way as I said 10, 11,000 square feet and under an earlier iteration back in 2012 of mixed use zoning amendments there was concern about large FAR increases for large parcels in business and industrial zones we thought that 1,000 square foot limit was a good trade off so that you wouldn't get you wouldn't raise concerns about overly large development on large parcels but you would provide you would encourage mixed use development on most of the types of parcels that you see along MassAd and Broadway it is just a kind of balancing act that we're doing right now I guess the other thing I am a bit surprised that one of the things that came out in the master plan was the way the current zoning works with having a lot of less intensely zoned parcels and I'm surprised to see as far as I know that there's not any proposals to up zone some of those parcels particularly those that are in the kind of core business areas we have every attention that is the next priority we just couldn't handle more than this this year we are doing we just try to pick the most important things we want to recodify, we want to change the zoning map we want to deal with historic properties we're doing a housing plan but we just couldn't do more than this right now that is a very high priority for us to and I'm wondering can you do them separately and I'm wondering if for some of the smaller less intensely developed zoning districts are you pushing you know pushing because you know those are interspersed within the more intensely developed districts as they are now I'm almost wondering if we shouldn't know what we've done at the time but that's a decision we will have to make just a couple other other points I think the master plan is wonderful because everyone can read into it what they want to and one of the things I think that's worth looking at is the visual survey where people express what their preference is now my own reading of it is when you start to look at the different heights of the buildings in the commercial areas people are really happy with three stories most people are happy with four stories most people are not happy with five stories and that's my spin on it I encourage you to take a look at the master plan and see if you agree with that and in terms of affordability I have to wonder in this type of example one I suspect we're still talking about rentals as opposed to condoms at this point and my guess is you're not going to get more than one affordable unit in those there actually is a incentive in the zoning by law now for promoting affordability my knowledge has never been used but essentially I think we need to be honest about what we're creating here and it's going to be very expensive commercial or market rate units and then one affordable unit and then on the ground floor you'll have commercial and it will be chain stores you'll get Dunkin Donuts you'll get other national maybe Starbucks because they're the ones that can afford the high prices that new development requires and that's what you see in North Cambridge where you've got the Dunkin Donuts and one of these four or five storey building we can talk about coffee shops and everything else but I think we people need to have a very clear eye of what's going to be going on here the other thing you see in this building like this in Teosquare and Somerville is that the grounds of the commercial space in the first floor is vacant for I would say literally years they finally get some health chain this all looks great in this kind of planning I think you need to think very carefully about it and also what you're displacing because a lot of the charming small shops and things are the ones that like the low rents of the existing Other comments? Questions? Bob Boz I have a curiosity question it was stated earlier that this is not a new concept that exists in the East Arlington and the Saturday Heights but I'm curious if this bylaw we address existing properties those units that exist today are relatively substandard built years ago they have no elevators small spaces, small thousand spaces if a developer only wanted to go in and dramatically change those units I'm wondering if this bylaw if there's anything that would address that most of those properties have zero parking so we already have existing retail we already have existing residential residential but if they do more than a 50% improvement they've got to adopt new zoning or comply with new zoning I'm not sure how this will help the mark can that be considered a way of helping them actually could come in with no parking for a special permit and especially if they could provide some parking they're near the one of the public blocks or something but I mean we have set this up to be as flexible as it really could be for parking you really could come in with no parking if the board felt like it did when you say an existing building that someone's going to come in and renovate the existing building but are they increasing the footprint or changing the use or are they just fixing the building if you were to take the capital the theater building commercial first floor two floors I think of three floors if someone could go in there not change the footprint but totally gut the upper floors build nice apartments by doing more than a 50% renovation I think they have to comply with current new zoning regulations I don't believe so but I know that's what I'm saying usually when you do renovations what you're saying is greater than 50% you have to meet new codes sprinkler systems fire alarm systems that kind of stuff there having help yes but I don't believe zoning the zoning is massing in size and scale and you're not changing that rather than the impression of the renovation cost exceeded 50% of the value of the building you had to comply with the then current zoning who can check into that I think none of us know what's the answer but that's important that's something we'd like to see absolutely existing buildings repurposed changed that's a huge part of this idea because you have to say why haven't they been improved after all these years they must be a reason for that it's money but it's worth finding out Hi, Jill Mayrak 1167 Mass Ave a question about industrial zoning you don't sort of talk too much about that in these changes and I'm wondering whether mixed use would apply to industrial and is there any possibility of mixing residential into the mixed use in an industrial zoned area that is we've been asked a number of questions about that there's been during the master plan process we have people who were advocating for not allowing residential in industrial zones like there is now keeping the bylaw that way other people advocating for the certain types of residential in industrial zones like artist lofts or affordable housing other people recommended treating industrial zones as mixed use districts and having no restrictions on residential in those areas I think for right now we have a number of different types of industrial districts in town are amenable to having residential in them and some of them aren't and some of them have industrial service type uses that a lot of people kind of want to preserve and if we allowed residential uses in them in those zones they would be rapidly replaced by mainly residential development so I think for the purposes of this set of zoning amendments there's a pretty tight control of residential uses in mixed industrial zoning districts but that doesn't mean down in the future as we recodify and reduce some of the zoning districts and the boundaries of the zoning districts we might not change the industrial zoning to allow in certain circumstances residential in industrial districts and it would be on a sort of case by case basis to apply across the board if we change the zoning it would apply to everyone so a couple of ideas we tossed around but did not propose this round were to have two different kinds of industrial zones an I-1 and an I-2 say for instance and one would allow some residential like maybe along the Brook we would want to allow some residential both to incentivize development along and also because the Brook could be a really nice place to live but maybe keep some other zones only for industrial that's one thought another would be to have it if you're right along Mass Ave or Broadway to make those allow to change the zone so that we would allow mixed use there but we didn't do that this year and we really we did hear a lot of people say we want to lose what little industry we had here so we want to do that very carefully so we are considering it but we're investing a lot of time into the question so for this round we don't really address residential and industrial but we are looking to back down the road future changes don't you have this mixed use with other residents in the residential as what says the idea was not to be very careful we don't lose what little we have but I think it makes so much sense on those larger lots to be able to incorporate residential in with it it's a balance so I think that's a really good point that we have to look toward that what we're just worried about having it completely go away the industrial uses which are part of the mixed use environment but I think that's what happens in this strategy but it does make sense particularly these larger sites that could be wonderful mixes of office residential with some industrial like has already happened in a way around 22 mil if you count in the medical office building and Shadex and all that so I'd like to hear how that would be played out so that's something that would happen eventually or is it on a case-by-case basis it's not a case-by-case we could address it next year we'll put it on next put it in the list I think just tonight I committed to do three things Mr. George it could be on a case-by-case basis by the owner before town meeting the premium site was industrial years ago and it was reasoned to commercial and it became residential I think that is what if it's already owned why couldn't they call I'm sorry I'm a panelist if it was already owned parcel couldn't they request that it be changed the owner wanted to go ahead and redevelop it change the zoning you can always do that town meeting spot zoning well let me not necessarily it would be town meeting I have another question the unit sizes that you put up there were very small we've had lots of complaints about small units but where particularly like 360 in the affordable units of Brigham's where someone can't even fit queen size bed in the bedroom and still be able to stand and open their closet and take things out so I think you need to be careful about what you propose or you sort of focus it down on essentially people that would use single beds most of the elderly residents that we provide free beds for in their units they can't fit in a single bed they need at least a double and prefer a queen size even though they should let themselves because they tend to roll and fall out and things like that so I think you need to be very careful about proposing a one bedroom of 675 in 202's which are HUD elderly housing 650 is the size that they typically do and those units are tiny so I think you need when you look at that I think you need to be very careful about what you're proposing because otherwise you end up with extraordinarily tiny units which a lot of people aren't even going to be interested in renting it doesn't matter how affordable or how expensive Go ahead Ken I think the square footage they show a spot on I think they might be moving on a large side in a few areas but I think it's fairly accurate on what's marked right now as far as square footages and from those square footages I've seen units where the major bathroom fits a queen comfortably I mean you're not looking at these big houses we're looking at more compact living and I would say that I disagree with you as far as what you think I think that is a fairly representation of what market units are and there's enough space there and people are renting them people do like those spaces I think people are living more compact nowadays and they have less stuff less baggage with them in all aspects senior I call them city covers they don't have as much and I think making it that size makes it more affordable for people to actually get into and that should have a space they can call their own I disagree with you I've done a lot of development and 65675 is very small for one better Ralph Boomer one of the members of the Mass Plan implementation committee I think it's important to note that I think that was just an illustrative example of what could happen on a typically sized lot but the zoning itself will not dictate the size of any of the units the developers of any particular parcel will decide based on market or whatever other considerations what the size of the unit is but the zoning and nothing in what's proposed here specifically delineates how big or small the unit would be I understand that but a developer is going to look at that will be marketable and what they can then charge for that rent that will make it a building that works and all of that takes into consideration what square unit is in the unit so just be aware that if you go ahead and assume that everything can be downsized you're going to be changing the market here in Arlington and I don't know what that will do to the rentability of the units and the vacancy rate Cynthia Campbell Basso I was just going to reiterate what Kin said we have a bunch of smaller one beds that fly right off the market they're around 550 to 650 square feet we have a few larger one beds that are around 900 to 2,000 square feet some feedback we've gotten some people walk in and say this is too big I don't have enough furniture for this so I don't think and I think that having small veterans that don't accommodate the beds in that design because you can make bedrooms some of our 600 square feet one beds can accommodate kings and you can open the closet of the doors and have a night stand to walk around so it's just the design the way out but the smaller the one beds I feel like they're more popular Other comments, questions, concerns this will be further discussed to public hearing on March 7 what shopping needs to some degree with staff and with the MPIC and I would encourage everyone to be there what actually went into the warrant is it this detailed version or do you have something more general there's a general mixed use warrant that's been inserted it was discussed in the evening you know what I didn't bring it I'm sorry that's what was discussed at the last meeting I think I can make it available to anyone who wants to see it tomorrow I'll send it to let me know or email me tomorrow and I'll send it to I meant to bring a bunch but I didn't know whether or not it was emailed out no the warrant article the language warrant article well it's different staff will make that available staff will make that available but just to reiterate there will be a public hearing after these are workshopped March 7 March 7 location to be determined it's going to be the senior center so we can have a little more room moving on to parking the parking as proposed is the big change is to allow by special permit a reduction in the parking requirement and it's not specified how much as long as there's transportation demand management so a plan would need to be developed and implemented that would encourage people to not need a car to not have a car to use transit, to use biking to use any alternative methods that would help to reduce the amount of parking required and the reason for doing that is that it allows more development, more residential and commercial development on the lot if you don't have to use the whole lot for parking and we think that most developers if they can will provide some parking but there are there are properties that alone they said that just have no parking and we don't want to preclude their development so we want to try to be as flexible as we possibly can everything will come before the board for a special permit so you'll get a chance to exercise your judgment on whether the parking the parking of land is adequate Joe, did you want to speak? I think that mostly what I said earlier about the like I said the history of successful TDM I think there's a lot of places both in more urban areas but also in town like Arlington and Dentzer commercial corridors where these types of measures have been successful and as Laura said the fact that this is a special permit process means that there's an opportunity to make sure that the developers are making a substantive commitment to those alternative modes and promoting them whatever they might be and also to make sure it's contextual and makes sense in the location that they're actually proposing to develop in and I think as I said earlier in response to Ken's question I think providing shared parking or allowing partner requirements to you met in a municipal lot or some other lot that they have an agreement with does create the ability to make the development more affordable or to use the space available for more economically or so productive uses when generally parking is not perceived as a benefit it's just something you have to provide whether for the market or for zoning or both that is provided the mechanism to satisfy those requirements in another way and I think to also do what Ken said earlier the more certainty that can be provided the better so obviously the special permit granting process is a risk in of itself but hopefully over time you sort of develop a body of almost jurisprudence to say okay this is how this can work and this is what has worked well in the past so I think over time there's hopefully transitions into maybe not never away from a special permit at least into a set of guidelines or kind of known process to get to a point where the developers feel like they're not sort of walking into a known when they enter into this process but again I think it meets the helps to meet the mixed use requirements but also has benefited of itself and certainly goes along with the types of input we've heard fairly consistently throughout the master plan development process thanks Mike just one question I think we are still limiting ourselves to no less than 50% of that required right no oh that came 120 solicitors 126 so that was a new package yeah okay so that one line came up okay just to want the parenthetical yes exactly that was my only question it's something else it's been changing the deadline I'm okay can you comment no I think pretty much fine with this I think diminishing the parts of the permits is a good thing that encourages the use of the means of transportation that's a good thing any any public comment question I was just trying to understand with the clarification also right as it reads now the board could say you don't have to have any parking it does as long as you have the TDM yeah I think that's just a couple points I think that leaves a tremendous amount of uncertainty for the developer because if they want to build it doesn't have any parking it seems to me it's an awful lot of work to put together a proposal and only to find out they may not get that and I would question whether going down to zero this isn't too much particularly when for transportation management plan I don't know how effective it's because there are things to encourage people not to drive you know until they actually think it's built and it starts operating I don't know I could caution you yes developers kind of know it's to gauge you wouldn't put pop up a five-story building and put zero parking spaces because you know they'd be really hard to run you need to have to factor in a certain number and be realistic I know applicants come in and view apartments and probably one in four, one in five don't need a parking space so it's a pretty good gauge comments thank you again this also will be discussed on March 7 I would very much encourage everyone to come again thank you for your input for coming today moving on to scheduled upcoming meetings we discussed Thursday night at our meeting we need to meet again on either the 8th or the 29th I would suggest that the 29th would suffice I don't think we need to meet three weeks in a row there's some we need to do some meeting on the 27th we had kept the kind of kick this out tonight keeping the 8th and the 29th though the 29th is fine as a refresher prior to the March 17 I feel like I should be out at a party on February 29 really how many times do we get to go out on February 29 let's keep it short we'll go we'll go for a few right I think one of the things we might want to talk about at that time is if we want to adjust anything before we go to the public hearing oh I think so if anybody has any thoughts about that tonight please let us know either now or by email or call by whatever method if you're not comfortable with something let's get it right let's get what's comfortable to bring to the public hearing okay so that'll be our agenda for the 29th okay so the 29th is next my uncertain agenda I'm here we had continued the discussion on the January 11th minutes to tonight I think everybody's had a chance to review it I know Mike was not in attendance at that meeting I had no changes I had no changes I'll also do that I motion to approve the minutes it's on January 11th second all in favor great any other business comments questions I would like to put this agenda sometime in the future we will okay that's all after probably after the March 7th I think there will be a broader discussion the central school's uses its needs complications it's a little bit of a whole business but I did have a question the last meeting before this one the different dimensional changes that we're making am I mistaken but at some point I thought we were getting closer to what the state moving from the 7 foot 3 inch to the 7 foot standard brings us into compliance with current Massachusetts building was that the only thing that was Massachusetts building the 4 and a half the 3 and a half okay so it was just a 7 3 to 7 okay that's my only question I'm just curious as to because I think we should make that particular one clear as we talk about it I don't think we do anything else I'll move to adjourn second all in favor thank you