 I'm calling to order the Arlington Redevelopment Board meeting of Monday, May 18, 2015. Brief agenda this evening, beginning with a discussion on the master plan implementation committee. Yeah. Thank you. I wanted to let you know what is a lot of info on here that doesn't have anything to do with the development. So we're going to need to keep going. Yeah. Well, yeah. Yeah, sure. I can get that far away anyway. I'm suggesting that the community 11 members, as you see, the development board, talent manager, DPW director, director of Inspectional Services, master plan advisory committee, and the master plan advisory committee. So two slots for people who have been on the master plan advisory pages for continuity. A talent meeting member, a member of the finance committee, a member of the CPA committee, and two at-large seats where the talent manager would recommend make the recommendations for appointment by the selectman. And it's about the size of the master plan advisory committee, which is a big committee. But my suggestion is that we, I think we need to have DPW director and Inspectional Services in the early years of implementation. And then we could revisit this and possibly work to them off or have them make a designee to the committee. Have you talked to the Inspectional Services director and the DPW director? No, I've talked to the talent manager about my interest in having them serve. And he thinks it's worthwhile. OK. I also should say that I think that it may be possible that this committee could keep its meetings down to quarterly. Because a lot of what this committee is going to do will be to kind of say, tag your if, and set the schedule for every year of what we're going to try to accomplish a year from now. And which is the lead board or committee or department head and who are the support committees? And then it's kind of right heard. But just to make sure, and this committee would prepare an annual report to town meeting and for the submission to the annual report every year so that everyone can see what progress is being made. Are there, in the board's view, is there anyone who is missing? I have a question before we get to who's missing. And that is with where you say redevelopment board, town manager, DPW director, and so on, until we get down to be at-large folks, are those designations of a redevelopment board? Or is that the board has been serving? My suggestion is that it would be either a liaison from someone chosen from the board. And I think in the first year, at a minimum, that's advisable. After this thing is rolling, I think it could be a designee. But just so I'm clear, we're talking about one member of the board, one member of the finance committee, one member of the CPA committee. Yes, I'm sorry, that wasn't explicit. I got it. I should have said that. I think that's the company. So the town, so I guess a couple things. Redevelopment board appointee, town manager, DPW director, director of inspectual services, that's the plan advisor. Town meeting member, I think typically the way that you would see something like that is a town moderator. What a point? What a point. Yeah, a town moderator appointee. CPA, a committee appointee. And then the two at large. I guess the one thing I'd say on the at-larges is you've got here recommends for appointment by the select men. I guess the question I have is, this is our committee, though, right? So maybe it's the sort of, I don't know, it just seems. If the redevelopment board member is on the committee, you want selecting buy-in. I don't disagree that they should have an appointment or something like that. It's just, I don't know, it just seems kind of strange for them to be appointing to, maybe it's just the use of the word, maybe it's just a turn-up phrase. Selectment designee is almost like, I wonder if it's more bad. Or maybe on 10 on 11, you might divide it up a little bit and have one that is appointed by the town manager and approved by the select men, and then one that's actually appointed by the select men. Well, I think they'll always do it like this. Oh, because they don't want to do it. So maybe this is the right, I guess it's right. I guess that's fine. It's just, I'm so used to a committee being a select men's committee or, you know, a town meeting committee. This is really a redevelopment board committee as weird as it sounds. So that's just the, that's just the strange part of it, I guess. I had a couple of other thoughts. First, Carol, you have on the list your master plan advisory committee twice in five and six, so you don't have. What that's supposed to say, what it's supposed to mean is there are going to two seats that would be filled. From the master plan advisory committee. Okay, I got it. Any thought about maybe conservation commission or more of a historical commission or a historical district commission? I think that's possible, but then you want maybe someone from recreation, and I mean, there are a lot of things going on in a huge committee. I was hoping that you could get that through item one, five, six, and nine. I guess. Redevelopment board master plan one, master plan two, and well, did I say, yes, and nine to be a committee member. It's possible you could get some of that through 10 and 11 as well. Because when the call for candidates goes out, we can make clear what areas the master plan focus is on. No one in our league can miss that yet. I haven't seen too many committees with a DPW director appointee or a director of Inspectional Services appointee. And I'm just, I'll be curious to see as to their reaction because I know they're very busy and sitting on a committee versus serving the committee, or providing information to the committee or something like that. I think it's just a little different than what one would usually see in that situation. I think you're right. I should have brought a copy of the plan up. When I think of the implementation steps, the first six of them, and then sprinkled throughout, there's a lot of zoning recommendations in the near term. And that's where Director of Inspectional Services is also the zoning enforcement officer. So part of my thinking was that he's gonna be very important to that early process. And if it's only quarter league, I would think they're not a policy making board. So I don't think there will be... I guess I'd like to hear his reaction. I mean, I think it's a little out of the norm and I'm curious as to, not that they're both great. So I'm not saying that, but it's just kind of like I can see it being, well, why wouldn't we just report to you? And also I think there is a potential awkwardness if the zoning enforcement officer is serving on the committee and the committee decides this is the project that we wanna support. And then it comes to the building inspector for approval and the inspector finds something that he can't approve from an enforcement of the bylaw point of view. I don't know, I mean, it just seems like it could potentially put... But I think that might be one reason why you do want him at the table at the beginning of the meal. If there is a... It's, I don't really see the committee actually making zoning bylaw amendments or reconfying the zoning bylaw, but more setting it in motion. This is now implementation steps five, seven, 14, and 90 are the ones we're gonna focus on this year. And that might be more a second or third year because frankly, a lot of the zoning should be handled very soon because it takes so much time and you lose opportunities or you can get stuck with redeveloping scenarios that aren't consistent with the master plan if they come forward at a time before zoning has been updated. So where I'm headed with that is I think that the Inspectoral Services, the zoning enforcement officer would then work, really roll up the sleeves and work with a group that's working on the zoning. I don't necessarily... I'm just not sure it needs to be part of the committee for that. I mean, I'd be interested to see what they have to say. I'd be happy to get their input and report back to the board, both DPW and Director of Sexual Services. DPW Director serves on the Disabilities Commission. Oh, he does, okay. Just offer that as an example. An example where the department head is a member of the committee. What else? Anything else I can work on between now and June 1? I don't think so. I guess from what Bruce said, I mean, maybe it would be, I guess it'd be interesting to see what the town manager might be thinking with respect to, you know, two, 10, 11. And I'm guessing maybe it's potentially the assistant town manager or something, and two, or himself, I guess. And then 10, 11, you know, are we gonna be able to pick up between 10 and 11 on the Historical Commission or something like that, so either that or... And, you know, maybe on the Master Plan Advisory Committee, if you could also get a two for there, or someone who's also on the Open Space Committee. I'm sorry, Mike, can you repeat that? I was gonna say maybe you could get a two for on the two Master Plan Advisory Committee. Folks, I know of at least one person who's also on the Open Space Committee. I almost said open source, right? That's nice. That's the exact answer, that's work. So, for example, on the Open Space Committee. Because I think that's another one that you just don't see here, right? Or recreational. It's so difficult, because you just talk about cross-functional, right? I mean, it goes against every single thing we do in town. You know, at some point in time, it's gonna get hit by this. So, you know, you wanna make sure that all constituencies are kind of viewed, but you can't have a committee of 22, so. Yeah. Okay, let me see what I can do to report some to you on June 1. Okay, good. Moving on to the ARB Designee for the Open Space Committee, speaking of Open Space. Yeah. The board's designating to the Open Space Committee was indicated that she's no longer interested in serving. I have not been given any potential candidates to offer to you, but if you want some potential candidates, we could try to find out who's out there. If the Open Space Committee knows of anyone, I could also try to do some outreach to see who might be a good designate, but do you have ideas yourselves from folks you know in town who might be inclined at the Open Space and Recreation? Who's out there? Forget the recreation aspect, it's very important. Yeah, the person I think of is already on Parks and Rec, I think, so. It can be among yourselves as well, and they serve for a while. We could volunteer, have some feedback. Yeah, I vote for that. We could volunteer the idea, the name, the number. Or two. I don't have any ideas coming to mind. No, it helped my head, but no. Not getting there would probably be a good idea. See who's out there who might be interested. Okay. Yeah, I think too, because you've got younger kids. And then sometimes that's a nice place to be for someone to take that position. I was writing, so I want to make sure. Your point just now was that there are a lot of people with young children who use the recreation services. Who might be very interested. I just want to be sure, I heard that right, when you're writing. Yeah, I know. Okay. We get kind of one and then two, like. Hopefully we made it. Now I'll start approaching people at the park. Exactly. I'm sure I'm going to be hunting them down. They're shy away from you even more than usual. Usually it's because of my kids. That'll be you too. Okay. I've put in front of you, by the way, while we're talking about open space, a, it's not my best writing, but a draft for your consideration for the letter of support that was more authorized in March. Yeah, you can wait until the end of the meeting. Oh, I didn't see it. Yeah, I don't think we could. I don't think we could get that one out there. I was just kidding. All right. All right. Thank you. Hi. Put it on here. All right. So next up is a work plan update. Okay. That's okay. I'm sorry. Bruce and I are pretty good chairs. He's okay. So the first item is, we just took care of it, actually. It's time to get an implementation committee going for the master plan. We've already started a couple of implementation steps. One is preparing design standards that would eventually, ideally be incorporated into a zoning update as zoning standards, design standards, excuse me. David Gamble is working on these and we have the walking tour in April to get input on what buildings and design aspects of our commercial centers are appealing and are elements that we want to incorporate into almost like a standard or a code, not for cookie cutter sake, but to guide property owners and developers in what Arlington considers to be appropriate for Arlington. So the board will hear from David Gamble at the June 1 meeting that will be on the agenda and he'll show you what's done so far. Also, May 29, the board, excuse me, the staff is, we're having a zoning retreat. We're just taking the by-law and you live with these by-law and you know it's shortcomings or where it's outdated or where we think in our opinion, in our professional opinion it is, and then when you go to sit down to try to think about it, you forget. So we each took a section or an aspect and we're going to try to summarize what the issues are and what some opportunities would be according to the master plan for updating and improving. We're hopeful that, I'm hopeful that we have some amendments for our next town meeting. Whether we have the whole thing re-carified, I doubt. But I think we'll have some zoning changes. I don't know. Wasn't there, I thought there was some money set aside for to go through the zoning by-law to kind of rationalize it, if you will. The approach as you can see initially is to re-codify the existing by-law. To make sure it's internally consistent. Right. We could take that approach and not touch anything substantive. Whether or not the implementation committee will recommend that or whether the board, I think the board needs to give some thought to whether we try to make some improvements to the substance of the code. Again, I think you're trying to balance we've lived with this by-law a long time and we will be living with its product for a long time. Every year there are developments that are done according to this by-law. So now we've come out of this two-and-a-half year master planning process in this kind of sense that now we can really get to it. So you could re-codify by-law all at the same time and not lose any more opportunity to be really ready or you can take more time on the substantive. So I think my recommendation I think we should make some substantive changes and have some discussion over how much we could also do in re-codifying by-law. I don't I don't think we're going to throw out the whole thing and start from scratch and we could do that. But I also talked to some other communities who hired companies to come in and come in online in different where it really lives online and it's no longer a paper document and they've been a little disappointed. I think we want a lot more than that out of this next change. By the same token if we hire someone to do substantive work there's a learning curve that they'll need to climb. They'll have the benefit of the master plan which will help them. But we've got some momentum and familiarity the community does. A lot of the volunteers have been bored I think you've all gotten much more familiar with our existing zoning by-law. So I kind of want to keep that while the master plan is fresh in everyone's mind a little hesitant to have a two or three year zoning process where we don't have any zoning changes until you know for anything two or three years. I agree I think that makes sense. I think that you know there are some substantive things that we probably want to address sooner than later and just you know putting all those things on the back burner while we focus on the procedural or rational or you know re-constructing it. It does sort of take a wind out of the sails I think. It's a little anticlimactic you know I think it's anticlimactic too. My only concern is that it's so complicated right now is that if we start doing substantive changes and we layer them on top because we're not in a position just a whole cloth you know to change it up. I do get a little concerned given the complexity of the bylaws that currently stands that you're going to start pulling a thread when you do something and the next thing you know is that thread is going to keep going or you know in shifting on you as you're trying to do other things. That's my only concern I guess as far as you know I guess what I'd love to know is as we go through that I'd love to know that it's the inconsistencies I guess that concern me most of the bylaw one thing to the next and you know I don't know that you lose momentum if you lose some of those some might be the point if you at the same time. Yeah and you know what I'm thinking you're doing is being sort of mindful of you know and that's when you want to come up to recode a bylaw and so we need to do some substantive changes to build on this momentum for example to have a provision that talks about mixed use which was a big focus coming out of the master plan I'm sensitive what you're saying though Mike I mean if you have you know a bylaw that is really just a patchwork series of amendments on top of the bylaw there's no there's nothing to attach it to it's like it's so flimsy underneath that you know when you start putting something that has real meaning that you don't necessarily know the consequences of that are going to be as it flows through to the brass that's my only concern This gives me direction actually I have some thoughts on if you more information to help us consider how to move forward I do like the idea of a kind of a hybrid if it's possible I'll try to find out what it would cost to recodify and whether the process would preclude any substantive improvements Yeah and I think you're kind of spurred another thought if all we did was recodify then when we got around to the substantive changes that we want we're beginning to fall back into what we had before which is you know a bylaw with a collection of amendments and I get it over time it's going to be that way anyway but it would be nice to have it would be nice at the end of this process that we have a codified bylaw that reflects the substantive changes that we all want to see coming out of the master plan process I think it's it's good to have two trains running at the same time I think that was more my point just to make sure that I think we have to be a little bit careful given where this bylaw is right now you know we're not just the patches we put on aren't used to our disadvantage somehow we're not careful And of course some of the other things that are being implemented are the obvious Preservation Act committee was an implementation step and that may happen because town meeting approved the composition of that committee and the building maintenance position was a recommendation that was made pretty early in the process and it already had a lot of legs so that's great that's very good so I think that's it for master plan town town meeting presentation that's a relic from the previous iteration most of the implementation so the next item which really should be item two I wanted to just let you know that the conveying the NPT fines to some stewardship fund is in process it might have been accomplished but I've asked that that it hadn't happened so it is now it is underway I think it was kind of up to the cracks so I apologize but that's so such a school lease is there is one here is ready to be signed and that's with your own senior association which is here of all that the board 23 maple street needs to work because there is kind of a list of things they wanted to change in the lease or questions Mr. Krueger Watership Association is ready to go I should have that one for you June so I think 20 maple street will be one of June end of June and on maple street now that the budgets are approved I'll be updating the request for proposals for the exterior work of 23 maple street if you have any questions on that or don't remember what that's all about let me know it's going do a rerun again on such a school I received alternative sketch designs on how to treat the site paving and I will be getting some recommendations from stone conservative on what to do about the brownstone steps on the cavity street entryway the brownstone is and ice melt doesn't go long and it's been many years of pitch battle between the two so the brownstone is really pitted so we need to know from what our most responsible step is because that's part of the original material from the time the building was constructed so that will then have some specs prepared I need to get some degree of comfort between the building occupants and the historical commission historical history's commission not all of it would be under the jurisdiction of courtesy it's important because it is a historic building in the historic district so if any of you are interested in seeing the sketches before I go to the commission let me know I did get some input from the dpw director on them because I think it's important for us to know how long he thinks they're going to last based on how we know and so which ones are advisable from strictly public works perspective because we don't need to include that ingredient in our presentation so the Jefferson Cutter House Heather LaValle is the director of the Dowell Museum she worked very hard in preparing a grant application with Patrick Guthrie from the historical commission the collaboration I really have to give them most of the credit they really did a lot of work on this it's for $150,000 it will help us leverage 75 grand from the state if we're successful and we'll use 75 all-rate authorized funds from COG and the cattle program to match the state grant for a total of 150 we did any update on gateways at the moment we not since before town meeting the next few are pretty much status quo anything involved is usually new on these work tracking updates except for with regards to economic development the department did prepare at the Selections request some standards to use for all businesses in anywhere in Arlington for outdoor seating the board has two or three or four applications before it right now the board is open and so we provided that to them and they'll prepare some version of standards and then I'm hopeful they'll issue a couple permits for Robert LaValle so we talked about committee vacancies and we talked about the implementation committee the community preservation act committee I might be trying to get like a joint outreach announcement to try to send out a call for candidates work with the town manager's office I expect that Andrew Flanagan and I will be doing a lot of the staffing of the community preservation act committee initially at least so and the housing plan we submitted a grant and were told that we have good reason to expect that it will be funded to help us update our housing plan they're now called housing production plans and we had a housing plan we would update it to conform to today's standard and staff and I agree that we really should have an advisory group working with the consultants on the housing plan so we need that advisory group staff as well so there's a lot of demand right now for a good volunteer talent that would we're suggesting someone from the housing the housing authority director staff or a tenant housing corporation of our Arlington director staff or tenants if there were other non-profit community development corporations in Arlington producing housing we probably want them as well but housing corp is the only one so we want them involved a private owner or tenant of an affordable unit a parent with children in the Arlington public school system or a school employee in other words we're trying to get at someone who would be looking for housing and concerned about the need for housing and affordable housing in Arlington a real estate worker or an attorney for their professional perspective and council on aging staff or board member so if you have any suggestions on any this would be an informal ad hoc committee just for purposes if you have any thoughts on anyone we've overlooked or any type of talent we've overlooked let me know is there anything that you think I've overlooked that any ball we have in the air that I haven't reported on okay what do you think? it's everything alright I'm done then with the work tracking that is approval of minutes April 27th and April 13th I thought the 13th looked good and on the 27th the only change I had was Mr. Care versus Ms. in the third paragraph okay I have four sisters April 13th that was at 27th I'm sorry and usually I don't care I just thought that was fun use your term to have that word on the minutes for the 27th I'm listed as both being present and absent well actually there may have been a few meetings but I was absent that means and on the 13th excuse me for interrupting but it's not that you were just late no I was not and on the 13th in the last paragraph fourth line Mr. Gamble said the goal of the design standard should be to identify what the fiscal aspirations of the manifestations are and I had a problem with this because I would prefer to read something along the line Mr. Gamble said the goal of the design standards should be to illustrate the form and appearance of the master plan's recommendations or something to that effect I just thought the way this was phrased was I read it a couple times but yeah I finally got it I like what you said illustrate the form and appearance of the master plan's recommendations that's under that I had no problem with the 13th minutes I moved to approve the April 13th minutes as amended second I moved to approve the 27th minutes as amended did you do blue no I just did the 13th did you have something else and no but I was stating oh right sorry about that second all in favor I abstained and then we had a request late last week from a resident of the town to go back to minutes from November 3rd of last year during a zoning application he was concerned that some of his questions didn't make it into the minutes I told him that we'd bring it up at the meeting tonight but my feeling my feeling on minutes that old is that there's no good way to go back and reopen those I did look to see whether video of the meeting was available and it's not it's the first time in Hollywood I think there are only two meetings that that's happened minutes should really be a picture of the meeting I don't think they need to be a verbatim rendering of every conversation that happened I think the general sense of what occurred at that meeting is reflected in those minutes but I'm not suggesting anyway that we go back six months and reopen anything from that part back I don't think it's fresh in our memory that I think we might be doing more I'm good to take that so I agree with what you're saying Andrew I've always felt minutes are supposed to be an overview of what happened but not a transcript no and if they were designed to encapsulate everything that happened and everything that was said the minutes would stretch out to be pages and pages and I think we're fortunate that we have Carol taking excellent notes and Amy transcribing those into a very good record but they don't need to be an exact replica it's if that were the case we'd have a stenographer here I agree okay alright so that closes that item Carol did distribute a public body checklist for creating and improving meeting minutes we'll add that to tonight's minutes as opposed to documents used item for future references to what the purpose of meeting minutes is supposed to be if that purpose is to serve and I think I point out that I think Carol and Amy in transcribing what it is that you take notes on and then I think in improving the minutes that we do follow these I feel good about that thank you for providing this you're welcome anything else I'll move to adjourn I'll second all in favor aye