 Welcome. I'm James Milan and this is town meeting matters. Today for this session, I'm going to be talking to the director of our planning department, Jennifer rate about several articles that are planning department related that are current work articles for this year's town special town meeting. And without further ado, Jenny, thanks for joining us. Thank you. Nice to see you too. Nice to see everybody. And we are right on the cusp of the special town meeting that is happening in the fall. So I think we'll spend our time today, really focused on matters that are connecting the planning department and town meeting. And, and then we'll broaden things out for our next episode. Great. So if that works. Well, for you, let's start with the zoning specific articles there are. There were six of them presented I understand that only two have been voted to move forward. So obviously we'll focus on those in what whichever order you would like, why don't you just take us through them. Okay, excellent. Well, article 20 is one of the ones that was recommended by the Arlington redevelopment board for action by town meeting. That article was actually inserted at the request of the redevelopment board. And it is a zoning bylaw amendment that would allow for parking reductions in two of our zoning districts which basically our zoning districts that for the most part cover our three business districts so not to confuse the two but we have Arlington Center we have Arlington Heights we have Capital Square and East Arlington, and those are basically our shopping districts. But they have a, even though you see a business community it actually is covered by different zoning districts, which means that different things can happen in in those different zoning districts. Two of them are ones called our village district and the other one is our central business district be three and be five, where the majority of the businesses are in those business districts. And they are basically buildings that are older structures, many of them are historic particularly in Arlington Center, they are covering saturating entire lots with a building. In essence, there is no way through our Arlington zoning bylaw or through any other bylaw to reduce parking to zero. So that means that when a business turns over. They now need to meet new parking requirements, the redevelopment board and the zoning board of appeals don't have the ability to say well you don't need to provide any parking at all. They're all set go in and reduce it to as low as zero they can reduce it down to 25%, which was a zoning amendment that was made in 2016 to the zoning bylaw, but they can't go anything, any, anywhere below that number. And what do you this amendment would propose to do that. Yeah, excuse the introduction but what do you mean by 25%. So that's an amendment of what's required under the bylaw for parking based upon use now that reduction actually applies to all different types of uses in our business districts in our multifamily zoning districts, and in our industrial district. So that reduction is just applicable to be three and be five, because we see it as being a way to remove a barrier to businesses being created or expanding in those particular districts only. It's only related to business use as well. It's not related to residential or mixed use development. That's what the other part of the bylaw is so it's actually amending a section of the bylaw that already allows for parking reductions. This is just a very specific window of a reduction that would help our business community that we saw as a barrier in the bylaw right now. I think that perhaps like me, a certain segment of our audience is not sufficiently familiar with both lexicon and the actual the way that these things function in such a way that it would be helpful for all of us. If you just elaborate a little bit more and explain a little bit more why how it is that this will remove an obstacle and who is going to be benefiting from this or in what way the community is going to be benefiting from it more specifically. Sure. Well, I'll walk you through what it's like to me to propose something in Arlington, a proponent who might be a business owner or building owner. It could be a brand new business that's opening up it could be one that's existing here that wants to expand could be a developer of a building that's trying to make a use change where the use was formerly office let's say and now they want to turn it into a restaurant. In order to make those changes they have to file an application for a special permit either with the Arlington redevelopment board or the zoning board of appeals. Most likely it's the Arlington redevelopment board if it's located in any one of these districts because it's a long Massachusetts Avenue. And that is a trigger for the environmental design review special permit process, which is an application that gets but gets filed it gets reviewed by staff. It goes to the board for their review, and it can be a it can be a lengthy process to comply with both all of the zoning requirements, the public review process, and any design or facade improvements and that sort of thing that needs to also be reviewed and approved by the board as part of a permit with parking requirements, you have to fulfill the parking requirements either through by providing parking on site, or by asking for a reduction. In that particular requirement area, and the reduction can be actually met by providing transportation demand management which is basically saying that there would be you could choose different methods by which you'd be able to provide either employees or visitors to the business with other options instead of driving to that location so it could be like bicycle bicycle parking. It could be transit pass subsidies. It could be car pooling I mean there there's a number of different options actually allowed in the bylaw or other things that could be proposed by an applicant. The thing is you can't go down to zero you can't say well I'm not going to be able to fulfill this requirement at all. I either through transportation demand management methods or otherwise. So in that case, if in and we've had this happen earlier this year, the redevelopment board can approve an application just so far. Even the zoning board of appeals would have to actually the applicant would have to go to the zoning board of appeals for a variance, because they can't provide parking on site which is a very arduous process for an applicant who's just trying to open up a business of some kind. And let's say it's a restaurant which has a lot of parking required to go through all of those steps and hurdles could take months. And again if we're if we're aiming to remove those barriers and welcome new businesses into our community. We want to both reduce the amount of time the number of boards and commissions that have to review things and try to make it a process that's as smooth as possible to get a new business open, which is a benefit to the community in multiple ways, as well as to our business districts, and the people who live around those business districts and hope for new businesses to come in. So we're so that's essentially what happens though would be a longer application process, and also a very high threshold a very high bar to get a variance from the zoning board of appeals in order to proceed. If we had every single business that are in those particular zoning districts have to apply for variances from the zoning board of appeals in order to change their use because they can't meet parking requirements would be a very big burden for every business in this community as well as those we're trying to welcome. Totally makes sense to me now let me just let you know what I understand what and then we'll move on. And that is basically your your really this is all about just trying to clear hurdles out of the way either because of time or because as you say of just really high requirement requirements that are tough to meet. Reduce those hurdles just to be able to encourage new businesses to come in or businesses to you know transform themselves or expand etc. So basically, just clearing the way for for more small business opportunities here. Yes, absolutely. And I think that as part of that it's also preserving buildings where it would be completely impractical and ineffective to create parking in a location where a building is covering the majority of a of a lot that you can build on. And that's not what I think Arlington wants to see in its business communities. And I don't think that we want to be encouraging that either. So it's in accordance with the master plan. The Arlington Heights neighborhood action plan also talks about the importance of encouraging business. And of course capital square has done a great job with that as well. All right, well thank you very much for for taking the time to really clarify that. And that takes care of our article 20 we also said we were going to talk about article 21 which I have to tell you I, I have read it's very short. But it's entirely obscure opaque to my eyes so you can go ahead and do the same magic you just did and make make things clear for us. And my best this is a town owned parcel so owned by the town of Arlington. It's on Grove Street. It's adjacent to the existing parcel where the current Department of Public Works building is actually, you might you might see it as one building but it's actually like a complex. So like a campus with many different buildings on it right now, including our salt shed. So there's, yeah, it is. You are right and I think for most people they passed on Grove Street they see the one building they may even come and drop off, you know, some kind of recycling or their compost or something like that and don't realize that in that yard behind the building down a little grade where they can't see a bunch of other buildings. And then we're going on there, and the buildings have been not renovated for a very long time, not significantly so. And so, as I think most town meeting members know and probably the, the broader community knows, there is a plan to have a very substantial facility in the campus. And it's, it's quite comprehensive. There's a lot of facilities in order to make sure that we comply to have, you know, better spaces for vehicles for storage for of course staff. And to make it much more user friendly to the public which it's really currently not. And, you know, to make it safer for everybody. I think that those are some of the, you know, the things that they're looking to do what that are goals in the program for the new facility. What happened was a couple of things one is the they've they investigated initially sort of how they could achieve all of these goals on their existing footprint. And they went through a number of conceptual designs and phases through that exploratory those exploratory scenarios, continue to find that the footprint was going to grow for the site. And the footprint is basically it's an industrialist owned property, and the industrial zone is different than the one that abuts it, which is our one, which is the single family zoning district. And very few things happen in that district for a reason. It is zoned for single family homes and very limited other uses, certainly not industrial uses. The two happened to be adjacent because historically, that's how it evolved in our zoning by law in our zoning map. The parcel that's adjacent to it is actually a zone single family, despite the fact that it's prior use was a gas tank. So, for whatever reason, it's it's zoned our one we need to rezone it to industrial though because in the iterative process of design. The DPW found that they one needed to expand their footprint to not just include additional space for their facilities, but to they needed to expand their parking availability. So these, these two articles seem to talk a lot about parking and that's that's hopefully not always going to be the case but in this case. The parking lot has to expand because the facility itself is expanding not just the footprint, but also expanding somewhat the program. Initially, when the DPW was proposing their renovation, they were proposing to include inspectional services and DPW, you know, places for personnel to operate their offices, etc. What happened was during the Arlington High School renovation process they found that the information technology department also needed space to be housed. And so moving that operation over to the new DPW facility will be I think better for everybody better for the efficiency these are three and three of our departments that provide critical essential services to our community every day. And so we want to make sure that they're housed properly and that one in particular can no longer be housed at the Arlington High School property. So that expanded use the expanded footprint and the need for more parking is part of the reason for the the move into the adjacent parcel. The other reason though for the rezoning is because of the use. As I said, you can't have industrial uses in the R1 single family zone. And two of those uses are the salt shed which straddles both the industrial lot line and the R1 lot line, and then a fueling station, because obviously the DPW has a number of different vehicles that they utilize around town, and they refuel them on site. And so they need to have a fueling station, which happens to be located on the parcel that's owned for R1. So the rezoning of this parcel which is only this one. It already has a curb cut it already has partially parking on it will allow for the increased parking as well as the new uses which are not currently allowed in this existing zone. So that's the reason for this article 21. Great. And that takes care of the zoning portion of our conversation today. And the one other thing I would like to ask you about is the fact that there is also a war an article that's dealing with the establishment of a an affordable housing trust. And I'll leave it to you to again, explain what the, you know what the contents and the, and the significance of this is. Well this is a great opportunity for Arlington I mean this is one where it's, you know, getting all the tools that you need in the toolbox to create and preserve affordable housing has always been important to the town of Arlington. Whether it was encouraging the creation of the Housing Corporation of Arlington, or establishing the Community Preservation Act which allows us to have some funding for affordable housing as well as other activities. The town has been committed to creating a preserving affordable housing. We just need one more tool, if not many more in our toolbox in order to be successful. One of them is the establishment of the for an affordable housing trust fund, which would be the bylaw itself is just establishing the bylaw. So it's establishing for the purpose of the fund, the trustees and their membership, sort of their duties and their powers. It talks about the role of the select board and the next step if it's adopted would be for the Attorney General's office obviously to approve it, and then for the trustees to be named, and for them to organize themselves to have the certificate of trust which basically the declaration allows for them to have their powers and actions sort of codified as part of an annual action plan. And so those are sort of the steps moving forward. The bylaw itself though is essentially just allowing for us to accept what is allowed under the state statute, the adoption of a municipal affordable housing trust fund. So this is basically a body that will be dedicated to the preservation and creation of affordable housing. It will have eight members, one is an ex officio member, non voting. And then the other seven are voting members that are designated by the select board, one of whom would be a select board member. The next six people would be representatives from various types of expertise areas that relate to affordable housing, as well as a commitment to the goals and actions of the housing trust. We also propose that we would have to at least two representatives from local housing organizations, a lower moderate income person who knows who is also familiar with tenant or resident types of issues. And these are very broad as allowed under the state statute, and we haven't strayed too far from that. So it could be a whole range of different activities to create new housing could be the creation of housing where we are buying down a single family property and creating a first time home buyer opportunity. It could be municipal assistance programs. It could be something more where we contribute a certain amount of trust fund dollars towards an existing new housing construction opportunity that relates to affordable housing. So there's a there's a real wide range of activities that could actually happen under the umbrella of the trust. The difference in how we did it in Arlington and what's proposed is how we've inserted the role of the select board. The select board's role is everything from, of course, appointing and designating the trustees to also playing a very important role in any borrowing and any real estate activities. Some municipalities in the Commonwealth have designed trusts that are a lot more provided for a lot more autonomy of a local trust. The trust is designed with the spirit of wanting to work very closely with the select board, and to get their really important advice and guidance at critical points in time when we're making any real estate decisions, as well as then making sure that we're working in coordination with the controller and the treasurer, who would be the custodian of funds. There are reports to town meeting I'm sure there would be many opportunities for people to engage in discussions about the trust activities, including when we established the annual action plan. And a lot of the activities would be in relations to specific goals and actions that are already codified in plans like our housing production plan, the master plan, and probably the community preservation plan as well. So there's a lot of really interesting opportunities with this particular warrant article, and I'm hopeful that town meetings sees it as an opportunity as well. Just a couple of quick questions in follow up one is in talking to about this with with some others in town. A couple of things came up and one of them I think you've already addressed in describing how, you know, how, how things will function and the ability that people will have to have input in the process and etc, and that has to do with oversight. Again, as you've described it this is just the very preliminary step to establish something which then will need to be, you know, figure out what the what the rules of operation are going to be and all that stuff. It's going to sound like there will be plenty of opportunity for both institutional bodies such as the select board to exercise some oversight as representatives of the community and also for community members themselves to weigh in. Absolutely. Yes, lots of opportunities and both of our local housing organizations have helped to weigh in a little bit on the creation of this it's also it was developed by the housing plan implementation committee. That implements the housing production plan, which is the plan that was adopted by the select board and the Arlington redevelopment board in 2016. So the housing plan implementation committee has had a really strong hand and helping to develop this and move forward. I really appreciate all of their input, as well as my own staff, of course. And, and quick point the housing implementation development committee is that what you just said, housing plan implementation committee housing plan. I see. They, they, they, it is composed of folks from the community as well as people from. Yes, all residents. Yes, six residents. And they are, they range in background of with expertise and working with housing organizations, the executive director of the housing corporation of Arlington three town meeting members person who knows about community and economic development finance, affordable housing finance real estate, kind of a broad range of expertise there. So the one other thing that had come up was capitalization so how will assuming everything goes forward and you know where will the money come from and some people have said, Well, don't we already have the CPA working, you know, funds working via the CPA for this is this. I'm not sure if people don't recognize that it's necessary and on the last to have more tools as you said but how will it work or how do you envision that that this is going to be funded the trust fund. Well there there's actually a real big, another one of these wide range of revenue sources that can go into the trust and be established just for the use of affordable housing. And the other thing from obviously a general appropriation from the town which is not what we're requesting but could happen in other communities have done that to special bylaws that require payments in lieu of affordable housing say through inclusionary zoning, or other bylaws that might talk about the need to contribute to an affordable housing fund. So for example, our short term rental fees. There's a percentage of those funds that are set aside for affordable housing. So that's the tax portion of that could go towards affordable housing grants of course and donations, whether it's donations of funds or land or property, actually, either, or any all can be accepted by the trust. So that's what the formation of the body does as well and then as you said Community Preservation Act funds. Some other communities utilize federal funds as well that come through the community where they don't have, you know necessarily a more formal way of executing home funding or CDBG funding, but CPA is something that the trust could apply for annually when it comes out as part of an application process which I'm sure that they will do. But they would need to submit an annual as part of their annual action plan they would need to submit a proposal to the CPA for those funds. How it differs is that CPA is a funding source it's not an action. It's not a place of action. The trust is a place of action and the whole point of the trust is to be timely and responsive to opportunities so many people talk about losing affordable housing and providing market rate affordable housing. The trust can actually play a role in either buying down properties, providing rent tenant assistance or even helping with acquisition of a property like that. And now it wouldn't necessarily be the trust buying the property, but it could be working to help another entity get that job done much more quickly that happens frankly in between town meetings. So getting to go to town meeting to do these types of activities is very challenging, particularly in a very tight rental market and real estate market in general, in general. The trust is really a vehicle to operate in a much more timely manner, and an efficient manner, and also in a way can help to aggregate some of those resources including CPA CPA. And really pulling things together to both look at existing resources and capitalizing on those, as well as leveraging new. So it's really a very powerful tool for Arlington to really maximize the maximize the resources we have both human resources as well as the capital ones, and to really get something new and interesting happening here. You said in a timely fashion like just a timely way to react to opportunities in a way that could be lost if you had to kind of go through the, you know, the more traditional mechanism they would likely be lost. There's no doubt about it. It's a especially in a market where things turn over very quickly they turn over, sometimes off market opportunities are happening and you know we want to be able to identify those areas where we want to preserve affordability and be able to act quickly, but we also want to think about other options as well and so the, the other activities that I mentioned are also things that the housing plan implementation committee has talked about but I think again what will happen is if this is if the bylaw is established, and the trustees are named then they'll talk about the types of activities that they'll put into the the annual action plan and have a community dialogue about that. So it really does you described it as at the outset as a really potentially really powerful tool here for something that the community as as held as a value for a long time and I know that my in my own conversations with you and with others. Over the years, as we wrestle with how to deal with the issue of affordable housing and in Arlington. We've been. We've come up against a lot of what this may may help resolve so let us let us, and I have to say, for whatever it's worth it feels to me like this is going to be a no brainer for town meeting but we'll see. I mean, one, one last thing I'll say about it is that 115 other municipalities small and large have adopted municipal affordable housing trust funds based upon the state statute. 77% of them have Community Preservation Act funds that they utilize so the, the, the, the, the, these are complimentary things they're not in opposition of one another at all they're meant to be a compliment, and they're meant to leverage one another. So it's really a great opportunity for the town. All right. Well, with that, I think we have spent a good deal of time in the weeds with you today, but also I think coming out for, you know, speaking for myself and hopefully for the audience with a much clearer and more thorough understanding of what these three particular areas entail, and what, again, the significance of them is for all of us. So I thank you for your time very much. Look forward to seeing you again on the other side of town meeting in which we will be talking perhaps about a broader array of issues, but I think part of our ambition at ACMI and beginning this series is just to make it a little bit easier to folks in the community. Just how intrinsic the work that's happening in our planning department is to are all of our lives and the quality of our life here. And we've begun that process here. And so again, I've been speaking to Jennifer rate, the director, the director of our planning department, and we will do so again soon. Thank you for your time. And we'll see you next time.