 Still so busy, Maria. Oh my gosh. I basically work seven days a week. I don't have weekends. Oh my goodness. It's a good problem to have. Yeah. Then you're home all the time. Then. Yeah, I don't go to any sites or meetings. Yeah. Okay, Chris. I'm about to make you the host. Okay. Okay. Janet has arrived and I did see Jack Jemsek in the attendees. So you can move him over. If you choose to self, all right, but I'm about to click, make Chris breastrupt the host. Okay. And then can you make Maria the co-host? Or do I? I don't know if I can, I can't now because I'm no longer. I'm going to make her co-host. There she goes. You can do it. Okay. Our screen is, is just a purchase panelist. So it's fun. Yeah. All right. I'm making you co-host anyway, Maria, because in case something goes wrong, they're to get us out of it. All right. All right. And, and Chris, I have my phone. You can text me. Otherwise I'm going to say. Have a good meeting. Hi. All right. So are we recording? Yes. Okay. All right. Yeah. Welcome to the Amherst planning board and zoning subcommittee joint meeting. It's Tuesday, February 2nd, 2021. Okay. I'm going to do a roll call. And I order suspending certain provisions of the open meeting law, GL 30, 18 this meeting of the zoning subcommittee and planning board is being conducted. Via remote participation. And I will do a roll call. Janet McGowan. Here. Doug Marshall. Present. I'm president Maria Chow. And I know Tom long will be a half hour late. So I'm going to do a roll call. I'm going to do a roll call. I'm going to do a roll call. I'm going to do a roll call. Yes. We'll just. Make note of that. And then. Andrew Andy is not able to make it. I think. I can't remember who did meeting minutes last week. Or who volunteered to do the minutes. Andrew did it the first time. Yeah, I think it was Tom. Okay. So we don't have minutes. That's all right. Any announcements. No announcements. Although Janet wanted to talk about. The bill 52 50. And that would probably come under topics. Not reasonably. Got it. Okay. All right. I'll try to end it a little early. And I also want to make sure we have time at the end for public comment because. We have public comment at the beginning agenda item number two. If anyone in the public has something to say that's not. Okay. So I'm going to move on the agenda tonight. I'll look for a hand. I think I've been doing this every meeting. People who are present are more. Pam Rooney and Jack jumps. And I see no hands. So we're going to item three. Zoning priorities. A update on work. On zoning priorities. I imagine that's why Rob, you're here. Maria. Yes. I'm sorry. Do we need to actually appoint someone to do minutes this time? Oh, yes. Thank you for reminding me. Any volunteers to take minutes last week? Looks like it's up to Janet or me, you know, you're the only ones here. So. You want to do rock, paper, scissors or. You can do it. Thank you, Janet. Thanks. All right. That means I'll probably do next week. Do you want to make sure that I get a transcript is, do I have to do something here? Myself. Last time Andy just emailed. Pam, I think, and Pam was able to send it to him. Along with a video because he liked to watch it too. To remember who said what. So I would email Pam. Do you think, okay. Do we have to, we don't have to do anything to get a transcript then. Oh, it says live transcript is available. I'm. Do you see a live transcript across the bottom of your screen now? Yeah, yeah. It just, it just started. Yeah. Assign someone to type. What does that mean? Who do we. I don't know, but I think, um, Pam knows how to access that file later on. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Thank you, Janet, for volunteering on the minutes. And thanks for the reminder Doug. I completely forgot. But all right. So update on work on zoning priorities. Okay. Okay. So I'm going to go through this. Chris or Rob, you guys want to. Talk about what you've been. Talking about for the last week. What isn't Rob do this? It's really good at it. Thanks. He's more organized than I am. Hi everyone. Um, so, you know, one, I guess. Reasons why the last zoning subcommittee meeting was, uh, postponed and, um, you know, I think it's a great opportunity. I mean, I think it's a great opportunity to have, you know, I mean, I think I'm really at the work plan that was previously developed and trying to figure out how, you know, how are we able to help the zoning subcommittee and ourselves try to accomplish these. Uh, tasks that, uh, we've been asked to address, uh, some of them by the council, some of them are our own priorities. And, uh, you saw, we, we took a little time. Uh, to figure out, um, where we need to go in the next coming weeks and, uh, started looking at, uh, a more, uh, workable work plan, uh, for all of us. And that's, uh, going to be discussed, uh, in, uh, more detail tomorrow night at the joint CRC planning board meeting. But what we know now is that, um, we have brought in all of the planning department staff to assist, uh, on this and make that a priority and a cut of the work plan that we're doing, uh, with Chris and I on these items. Uh, so we've got the, uh, the few items that the council has asked us to address. Uh, you, you've already started working on some of those, the BL and I see on the agenda, you're talking about footnote M tonight. Uh, while you're, you know, working on those staff is also addressing, uh, or looking at different, uh, concepts, uh, for BL, looking at apartments, looking at, um, of the, uh, in the future, um, Uh, with the inclusionary zoning mix use standards, um, we're hoping that we can bring, uh, in the coming weeks, uh, some more detailed information and support documents for, uh, everyone to, to start considering, uh, and working with, along with the work that you're doing. Uh, but I think at this point, you know, that's where we are as we're. frame, uh, not so much the March 15th target to have these, uh, amendments ready for consideration. It's going to be, you know, quite a bit after that, uh, and, uh, you know, just so you know, uh, staff is committed to working on this with you, uh, as you, uh, work on certain aspects of it. Chris, feel free to add anything to that. Um, well, we also have a couple of other things that we're working on, like apartment definition of apartments. And I think, um, Rob mentioned mixed use building standards. And along with all of this, we're still working on the recodification. And then we've got a couple of things on the back burner, like flood maps and demolition delay. So, um, all of that is kind of moving forward at the same time, but we're trying to focus on a limited number of things. And those are the things that Rob mentioned, BL, footnote M supplement. I think supplemental dwelling units is another one. And mixed use building standards are the ones that we're really, um, you're putting the most of our focus on right now. So tonight, um, you all are going to talk about footnote M and we're going to, um, chime in. And I think, uh, different people have submitted documents since the last time you met, um, Doug submitted something, Maria submitted something. I think Janet had a, um, an outline that she might want to talk about. And Pam Rooney had something that she submitted. So I don't know how Maria wants to, um, move ahead with this. And Maria, of course, submitted something. Yes, you did. So I don't, I don't know how you want to, um, talk about this, Maria. Well, I guess, um, one thing just about the work plan and, uh, should we not discuss work plan because tomorrow we're going to have a joint meeting with the CRC and really go into that. So should we just, you know, uh, have that discussion later and just dive into like footnote M? Is that what you, I think that makes sense to me. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, I agree because I think having the whole board, uh, since we're missing some CSC members anyways, and we're going to talk about it all together, um, makes sense to just get into that tomorrow night. Yep. Um, Janet, do you want to talk about this particular, um, agenda item or the next one? Actually, I wanted to talk about, just to have a question quickly for Rob and Christine. So, um, you're saying that right now, the Learning Subcommittee, we're working on the moving BL into footnote B and footnote M. And then, um, is, and then the planning department is focusing on the recut, um, definition of apartments, inclusionary zoning. Mixed use standards and, um, as well as just the huge amount of work you're doing in other areas. And then this is a really long list of zoning changes. So I wonder about like, as you're talking about individual ones, looking down the road at other ones and the effect that they could have on what you're working on. So, and then, you know, if there's any back and forth, but you know, like, are, is the, so that's the first question. The second question would be, you know, are you working, is the planning department working on stuff that will come to us in a little while? I guess that's a, I thought that would be the discussion for tomorrow because more members would be present. Um, I don't know, Chris, do you want to get into? Has it been worked out or, I mean, well, I could talk about that a little, I think some of the things that the town council has asked us to do, we're kind of putting on a back burner for now and we're trying to focus on things that relate to the downtown and more housing and, you know, that's why we're focusing on the BL. We're wanting to, you know, get more housing in there. We're looking at footnote M. So we're trying to get more housing in there. Supplemental dwelling units is another opportunity to get more housing. Mixed-juice building standards is obviously something that we've been struggling with for a long time. So things like putting footnote A on to lot coverage and building coverage, I think that's one of the things that we're kind of putting on the back burner for now and some of the other things that the town council asked us to do. So, you know, you can't focus on everything at the same time. And the zoning subcommittee had an opportunity to discuss the BL zoning district at your last meeting, I think, or maybe that was your first meeting, I can't remember. The last meeting was canceled, I guess. Is that right? I think we've had two. We've had two. Anyway, one of those meetings was BL. I'm not exactly sure what the second one was, but this one is footnote M. And so we're thinking that it makes sense to bring things to you sort of one at a time and not overwhelm you by having you discuss all of these things at the same meeting. And the staff is working on these things in the background and doing a lot of research and trying to create some of the same kind of maps that Maria and Doug have already created to understand what the impacts of some of these zoning amendments are. So so is that I think that's an answer. Yeah, I think that's great. And I think I'm really excited about the planning department really putting this as a charge for them to work on. So, yeah, but why don't we just get into footnote M because I feel like we're going to have this discussion tomorrow and more in depth and with more people who are making the decision. So it makes sense to just go into the next item. So, Janet, is that your hand raised still from the first? Oh, I'm sorry, it's still right. I just I guess for me, it's I understand why we're going one by one. I'm trying to lower this hand. But I also think the lot coverage one, you know, sort of supersizes so many things. And so I think, you know, that's always in the back of my head that, you know, it's the most comprehensive change to the town and whatever working on, you know, if it's a mixed use building or an apartment building or, you know, something in the BL, if the lot coverage is really up for grabs or can really extend to the setbacks and they're waivable, really talking about like a supersizing thing. And so I will bring that issue up as we talk about it. But I mean, but, you know, if we made all these changes and all of a sudden this huge change came in, I would I would feel remiss that we hadn't caught that earlier. So that's that's but I can talk more about that tomorrow. So, OK, so I don't be footnote. And Doug, you can share screen, not as a host, right? You can. I think you can. Yeah. So do you want to talk about your charts you showed? Because I think that actually sets up what I my work. Yeah. So sure. Sure. Oh, so sorry, we're we're moved on to item B discussion about removing footnote section six, table three, zoning bylaw. So that's what that's going to show. Right. OK. So I trust you can see a screen with a bunch of pink and green on it. Yes. So may may I just inject this for a minute? Maybe someone should describe what footnote M is. So who are out there in the audience will understand what we're doing. Yeah, I can do that. I'm sure you can do it much better, but I can literally read it. Yeah. Why don't you do that, Maria? OK, so right now. Footnote M is on table three dimensional regulations under RG for basic minimum lot area and additional lot area per family. There's a low footnote M under RG, the column for dimensional regulations that says basically in addition to the areas for this table. In addition to the areas required by this table for any existing dwelling units on the lot, the density for new townhouses and apartments shall not exceed one dwelling unit per four thousand square feet of the remaining lot area, or in the case where there are no existing dwelling units, four thousand square feet for each new dwelling unit beyond the first unit. So right now under RG for the first lot, it's twelve thousand square feet required for the first unit. And then additional lot area per family is twenty five hundred per square feet. But if you're a townhouse or apartment, as footnote M says, you need four thousand for each additional unit or if there were no units. Four thousand. So we're trying to see what impact removing footnote M will have. And I hope that made sense. Because what that means is basically you can have smaller lots that are allowed to have townhouses and apartments. And Doug and I did a study on what that means for the RG. Did I explain it? Yes, thank you. Maria, can you say that in smaller lots that what? What was that? You said that it allows smaller lots to have apartments in townhouses. It allows, yes, because the requirement, if we remove footnote M, you no longer need sixteen thousand, for example, to have a two unit townhouse. You only need fourteen thousand four hundred. Is that the method? Yeah. So, you know, basically it reduces the amount of square footage for required for the lot to have units for townhouses and apartments. Does that make sense? OK. OK. Yeah, Doug, take it away. All right. So. What I did was I started with Chris's twenty sixteen memo and that talked about some of the generic lot sizes. So kind of based on that, I came I did this as a mathematical study. So I took four sort of examples of lot sizes. And that's here along the left hand column, A, B, C and D. Lot A is ninety five hundred square feet. B is fourteen five hundred C is twenty one thousand and D is fifty thousand. So to get any residential development on a lot, you've got to have the twelve thousand square feet minimum that Maria just mentioned. So obviously, Lot A is not developable. You you can't even put a single unit on a lot unless there's already one that's pre existing non conforming. With Lot B, you you devote the first twelve thousand square feet to the first dwelling unit that leaves twenty five hundred for the for additional dwelling units. And with without footnote M. Well, with footnote M where you need four thousand square feet for each additional dwelling unit. Actually, I guess I'm saying that there's one. Oh, yeah, you can't have any more because you don't have another four thousand square feet. Unless may I just interject that if it's a duplex, you could have another one. It's only if it's a townhouse or an apartment that you can't have another one. Thank you. Thank you, Chris. Yes. So. I guess that might get into the. Definition of a duplex versus a two unit apartment building. But we can leave that for another time. So so in so on a fourteen thousand five hundred square foot lot, you would not be allowed to have any additional units beyond the first one. If it were an apartment or a townhouse. And so you'd end up with a total of one unit on that parcel. Now, if footnote M, which wants you to use four thousand square feet for each additional dwelling unit were eliminated, then it would go back to the numbers that are in table three, which is twenty five hundred square feet for each additional dwelling unit. So in that instance, this lot size B. You would be allowed one more dwelling unit from that twenty five hundred balance remaining and then you'd have a total of two and then lot size three is twenty one thousand. Same the same math works straight through. So twelve thousand goes to the first dwelling unit. Nine thousand remains for the additional ones. And in this instance, you know, you could you could have two additional units because the four thousand would go into nine thousand twice with a little leftover and you'd have a balance of three or if we eliminated footnote M. You could fit three additional units, which would result in a total of four. And likewise, if the parcel were fifty thousand square feet, which is about a little over an acre, you know, you could have a total of about ten units under footnote M or sixteen without footnote M. So down here under the notes, I've just repeated some of the other constraints on apartments and townhouses that are in the in the code or in the in the, you know, the regulations and, you know, in all cases, apartments and townhouses in district R. G. would require a special permit. So that is a pretty high. Bear or a threshold to require, you know, right out of the gate. In addition, they're only allowed to be permitted by special permit in these three conditions here, where you where you're close to a heavily traveled street, you're close to business, commercial or educational or you're within an area already developed for multifamily use. So, you know, I think that's going to start to prompt a conversation. You know, maybe about what does what does heavily what does close mean? Is it within twenty five feet or is it within a quarter of a mile? So and Maria will have a little more to say about that later. Then we've still got the definition of apartments that limits them to be between three and twenty four units. And if you are building an apartment building in the R. G. For every floor you you create, including your first floor, the nominal setbacks in table three need to be increased by two feet per floor for the side and rear dimensions. And then finally, we are, you know, we we limit apartment building unit mixes so that no more than half of the units are of any one type. So, you know, that was that was the analysis in terms of numbers for sort of prototypical lot sizes. Could I? Oh, I'm sorry. So the second thing I did was to go back to what is to the R. G. And start to look at, well, what have we actually got here? In terms of of lots in the R. G. District, since the lot size has so much to do with how many units you could build. So the pink is units that are under twelve thousand square feet. And the blue is units that have frontage less than the minimum one hundred feet that are required in table three. And I will say that there is some overlap. So there so, for instance, you know, there might be some some green colored lots that are also lacking the one the lot area. But, you know, I thought this was relatively instructive. To show how many lots in this area are basically pre existing non conforming. You know, there really couldn't be any development on them without consolidation of lots. Because we just don't have a big enough lot or we don't have the frontage that's required. I thought it was kind of interesting to see that up here in the northern end of Cottage Street, you know, all these lots have one hundred feet of frontage. So they must have been done around the time or shortly after this this particular requirement for one hundred feet of frontage came into existence. That's also true of some of the other lots here and there in town. And I was intrigued that, you know, these four lots here. You know, this one on the on the left was configured so that it has a hundred free to frontage along Fearing Street there. And that's why there's this jagged property line between the two halves of what was originally one lot. And similarly, the same thing happened over here. The reason that lot. Let me just zoom it in here. The reason that is not a straight line is to give you a hundred feet of frontage along here. So it's clear that the regulations have affected how the town was laid out and how people continue to subdivide. Lots. So at that point, I guess I'll stop and turn it back over to Maria. Yeah, thanks, Doug. But I learned a lot from that study. I Jack, do you have something to ask about Doug's what Doug just presented? Is that what you're? Do you want to speak, Jack? Yeah. Hello. Oh, I was just wondering about the division there in terms of the the area, you know, that you had. Those parcels, those four parcels that I signaled out, they were all large enough. They were all over 12,000 square feet. So that was not a problem. Yeah, I was just I was just thinking of like a quarter acre. You know, some round number, but I guess I guess I need some background in terms of of those numbers in terms of. What we're dealing with. With regard to lot sizes and Amherst. I'm not sure I understand your question. Um. Well, if we go back to your table, you had like a 9000. I mean, some of those lot seems too small to even be. There we go. That ninety five hundred that that that seems. Not I'm I'm wondering where that came from. And it just seems like it's well, well, I guess. The ninety five hundred really represents every parcel that's colored pink on this map. OK, why? OK. You know, because every every parcel that's colored pink is less than 12,000 square feet in area. OK, so if there's no if. So, you know, if there's an existing house on that parcel now, it can stay. But if there's no house on that parcel now, there can never be a parcel, a house on that parcel. OK, yeah, and put footnote and put footnote and won't change that. Hmm. So I mean, I just think a quarter quarter acre is being like a threshold just from my experience. So that would be more closer to that. What's your other 12 12,000? Yeah, I would I jumped up to 1450. Yeah. Yeah. OK. You know, that's that's a little more than a quarter acre. Yeah. So I'm just in my mind, I just have a quarter acre is kind of like for for a single home is kind of like the the minimal amount. But I didn't realize there were smaller lots with an Amherst. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. OK. Thank you. Yeah. And you know, I didn't do this, but pretty much all of these parcels have a house on them. Yeah. So, you know, and and we're not, I mean, I guess maybe Rob or Chris can talk, you know, I'm not aware of any. Endangerment of public health and safety by having houses on lots that are smaller than 12,000 square feet. OK, thanks for the question, Jack. Janet, you have a question for Doug? Yeah. So I was going back to your chart with the pink and green. So if could you pull up or make another chart with lots that are, you know, 45,000 square feet or 50,000 square feet? Like, would that be something that you could color in? Because then we'd have a sense of how many lots could have like 16 unit apartments? But that's that's my study. So I'll. OK. So OK, so then OK, then my next question is going back to your first chart. Any of those lots that have a house on it could have a supplemental dwelling unit or a supplemental apartment. And my question so that so any house could be have at least two units on it to start with. And my question for Chris is could any of those houses also be turned into a triplex or fourplex? Could it, you know, either by I've been kind of meandering through the subdivision subdividable house or the converted house or, you know, all the different ways. And I know that in the RG, you can go up to a fourplex. So so if we're looking at like trying to get more units on a lot. There are other ways to do it. So I was hoping to have your chart, maybe also consider that, you know, you could have more units without. Entering into the realm of footnote M. Well, you are still limited by the allowable lot coverage and the setbacks. So but if you had a big house on a small lot, that could be a three family or four family from what I'm reading on the code. But am I am I missing something, Chris? Or if I had a big barn, you know, on it, you know, that that could be converted into a fourplex. So am I missing this or am I getting this incorrect? May I answer that? Yes. So yes, you can convert a a larger house into multiple dwelling units. And I think you can go up to six dwelling units in the RG zoning district. You can only add one dwelling unit if you don't have the correct lot size in a converted dwelling, you're allowed to get a modification of the lot size for the addition of one dwelling unit. So you can't have that modification for any more than that. And yes, you can build supplemental apartments. You need a special permit to do that. You need a special permit for converted dwellings as well. Supplemental apartments do not require the additional lot area per dwelling unit. Supplemental apartments have a limitation, which is that they need to be owner occupied. So depending on your point of view, that is either a good thing or it is it's a limitation. So a developer would find that to be a limitation because he would presumably not want to live there. But a homeowner would presumably think that was a good thing and could have a rental unit or a unit for a family member on the property without having the additional lot area. Supplemental dwelling units are limited in size. Currently, they're limited to 800 square feet or 900 square feet if they're fully handicapped, accessible. So when if I was going to convert a larger house into six dwelling units in RG, does it have to be owner occupied or is there any other restriction other than 300 square 350 square feet foot per unit in terms of? I believe and Rob can correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that for converted dwelling, it has to be owner occupied. And you could go up to six units with special permit if you if you were if you had enough lot area. In other words, you'd need the extra lot area per dwelling unit to go beyond one additional unit. So putting them is useful on that way because. You would only need the 12 to 2,500 per unit. But if you were to do a converted dwelling. Averted dwelling would require 2,500. Oh, it's the same. Oh, per dwelling because it's not an apartment and it's not a not a townhouse. OK, so OK, so so that that if you could do it with the so that, you know, for three, four, five or six dwelling units is not considered an apartment. It's just a converted. If you do it under the converted dwelling section of the bylaw. OK, when you apply for something, you have to choose or we choose for you which section of the bylaw you're applying under. And so there's no requirement that the dwelling units be different sizes or anything like that. So OK, so Rob, Mara has his hand up. Maybe we want to hear what he has to say that I'm full of water, full of hot air or something. Yeah, please speak. So I need to unmute you. Yeah, so to answer one of those questions, the maximum number of units in the RG and the converted dwelling provision is four. Four. And the other question about onerocupancy, they it does not have to have onerocupancy. The converted dwelling standards does allow a resident manager to exist in place of an onerocupancy requirement. There's some other criteria that have to be met for the board to the zoning. This would be the zoning board of appeals that would be issuing the special permit to find in order for the onerocupancy requirement not to be applied, has to do with location to heavily traveled streets or educational areas. There's a couple other criteria. And if they find that, then it doesn't necessarily have to have that condition. So if you had a house that was on a small lot that was big enough to convert to four units, is there a minimum lot? You know, can you say no, you don't have enough lot? You know, your lot isn't big enough because that's that's right. So the for the four units, you would need the minimum twelve thousand square feet plus twenty five hundred for each additional unit. So this isn't a footnote matter under converted dwelling section, but you do need that additional lot area. The twenty thousand five. So that kind of leaves, I think I see why you're asking the student you're trying to find out can you still not get rid of footnote and but still have more multi family and it's up to four units. Basically, if you want to do townhousing, the partners, you need a pretty sizable lot if we put them and I can show where that would impact because it's not too many places. Actually, that was a good study to do. Doug and I talked, I forget when, but we kind of talked about what Doug touched on. Where, you know, where are the main arteries of downtown? Where are those heavily trafficked areas? And what I did was just I just use the entire RG. I didn't say, well, let me just I'll be easier if I just show this. So OK, thank you. Can I, Maria, can I ask one question while while you're bringing that up? Mostly a question, maybe for Rob. Have you had people that built a large dwelling on a lot, you know, maxed out the buildable area for a single family house on a lot and then came back five years later and converted it to a multiple dwelling structure? No, that that doesn't generally happen by the definition of the converted dwelling that structure needed to exist for at least 10 years. The principal structure. So we, you know, we haven't seen that yet that I'm aware of. OK, so there's a 10 year rule of thumb about that. Yes. Great. And I know that. Can you guys see the diagram? Yeah. Yes. OK, yes. So the arteries that sort of the main heavily trafficked corridors Doug and I talked about were this is a family name. Yeah, Main Street and Amity. Yeah, Main Street and Amity. This is Route nine. And this is North Pleasant one 16 North Pleasant East Pleasant, you know, kind of changes name as you go north. And then this is Triangle here. So those are the sort of what we just selected as all right. Those are the heavily trafficked areas. And then next criteria is if it's near already a lot of areas that have a lot of multi family units are already like developed in that way. And so I first I drew the arteries and then this sort of purplish gray thing is a one mile radius from the center of town. So you can see it's all pretty walkable. These are the three unit parcels in town. These are three unit parcels plus the four to eight unit parcels. These are the what I just said, as well as sorry. I'm sorry, I don't I couldn't find your little hand. OK, I'll start back. OK, so these are the three unit parcels. The ones that are in this sort of cyan color. Those are all the three unit parcels in the RG. Oh, sorry, this is the RG. I hope that's clear, the sort of beige area. OK. These are the three to eight unit parcels in the RG. These are the three to eight and more unit parcels in RG. And then this is all of the non-owner occupied parcels. So, you know, I'm not saying they're all rentals or all condos. I don't know exactly their criteria, but it just means that these are either, you know, eight or more units per parcel or they are probably rentals because they're not owner occupied. And based on all of this, I then took. A Doug's study where he, you know, he showed the nine, fourteen, twenty and thirty thousand square foot parcels and what that meant as far as once you remove footnote M, what is the impact? It seemed like the only impact, you know, the first two square foot is you only added one unit per parcel. But by tying it up to thirty thousand to fifty thousand, that's when the numbers really jumped. And so what I use as my criteria was all the parcels over thirty thousand square feet and along these orange colored arteries. So we'll start here with Amity and Maine. The big red dots are the properties that are thirty thousand square feet and up. I added some letters just because those parcels are larger than thirty thousand. But, you know, it's a historic project there. There is the church. This is Emily Dickinson. That's the women's health of women, women's club. These are over thirty thousand. This one's a little far back, but it's got frontage. And then this is a historic in and that's a church. So along the Amity and Maine, these are the parcels that have over thirty thousand that I kind of consider these are close ish. The ones that are smaller dots just mean they're further away from these corridors. That's the only difference in the size dots. So if we look at route nine, there's only a couple that are Amherst College owned that are over thirty thousand. And then along here, that's all Amherst College, just Amherst College. And then there's pretty much nothing. This is the only area that's in RG. There's not much directly on this corridor. I guess you could count this because it's in an area that's already got a lot of multi family units or it's not occupied. Along this corridor, there these are all under thirty thousand that you get some up here that are over thirty thousand. And so. And then these are they're over thirty thousand, but they're, you know, I guess you can consider they're close to a lot of multi family in your artery. So as far as Doug's chart, I don't think I can get to it. But what happened with the numbers? Um, maybe I can get to it first. Let me stop sharing. Maybe Doug, you can pull it up again, if that's possible. Um, once you got over thirty thousand, your units didn't double, but they weren't like, you know, you just added one or two units. It would go from a screen. It would go from like, yeah, from 10 to 16, you know, at fifty thousand. And then at thirty thousand, I did do the math and wrote it down somewhere, but there's no way I'm going to know. But it, you know, it was a sizable jump. So anything below twenty thousand or actually anything below thirty, I didn't even bother with because it seemed like if you remove your gaining one unit, once you go to thirty to fifty thousand threshold, that's when there's impact. And if it's. Um, if you remember, OK, maybe you stop sharing. I'll go back to my my diagram that shows the red dots. Oops, wrong button. You turned on my printer. Um, there's. You can see it's a handful of lots. It's not a huge impact. Maybe Chris and Rob, you, you know, something else I'm not seeing. But I just I don't see too many lots that aren't already, you know, this one's already. These two are already, I forget what they're called, but they're already, you know, developed with multifamily apartments and units. And so there's only a few that would potentially be impacted. And as Doug said, they would need a special permit. They would need to, you know, go through a pretty big process. And it's not an easy task. So I guess I'm sorry. The little red dots, are they what are those? Those are over thirty thousand square feet, but they're smaller just because they're not as close to the heavily trafficked areas. And, you know, they're a little more setback, but they are adjacent to other multifamily parcels. And so that was one of the criteria is like either it's heavily trafficked or it's near areas that are already highly developed. So that's why they're smaller. And some of some of these are already developed for multifamily. Yep. You know, or even like the one of the ones in north along East Pleasant there. I think that's already an Amherst housing trust property. Yeah. Yeah. So it's not a huge number of un I don't know what unrealized parcels that could potentially be impacted by footnote and being removed. Chris and Rob, do you see something I'm not seeing as far as like the sort of beginnings of why footnote and being removed was brought up as like why this might be something that could bring more housing. I mean, I guess you potentially are seeing that doesn't or so that. So this is a SRO project, but you know, there is this it's not as big a impact, especially a couple with Doug's chart about, you know, it's not just adding one or two units. If you want to add five or six units by removing footnote. It's it's maybe what is that 15 lots. So I guess you could say if I may say this that it would allow some units to be developed that wouldn't ordinarily be allowed to be developed. It's not going to be a huge influx of new units. But that's probably a good thing because we're not going to be flooded with, you know, tons of new units. So depending again, depending on your point of view, we need new housing. Maybe we don't want, you know, a lot of big developments, but it's good to know that there are parcels that are available to be developed. And, you know, we need all the housing we can get really without going beyond our master plan, without developing in our hinterlands and our farm fields and our forests and those outlying areas. We want to develop in places that are already developed. So if we can find places that are suitable for development. Then that's a good thing. They're already near services. They're on sewer lines and water lines. They're on streets that are already there. You don't have to build a subdivision. So the fact that there aren't a huge number of these things, I think is probably a good thing because you're going to scare people too much. What is the number? I mean, so so that looked like 20 40,000. I mean, so they looked like they were 20 or 30 of these 30,000 square feet or more. But there's so could we quantify that? And then also, Maria, can you do an analysis of all the lots over 30,000 square feet and, you know, the little the smaller ones and the bigger ones? And, you know, because I think, you know, when we talk about, you know, I don't that doesn't look like a handful to me. I think of a handful is like three or four, maybe six. But we're talking about 20 places that could go up to the maximum. And then as those places develop and as the town adds more and more multiple houses, that opens up more lots that are, you know, the more multifamily housing you have, which we're trying to encourage and the lots on the, you know, whatever the interior neighborhoods open up. So I think it's probably good to say how many, you know, all the lots, there are 30,000, all the lots that are bigger everywhere, because at some point they could be developed. And I think, you know, would we be changing the nature of the RG by having all these apartments and 10 houses built in? I mean, I think you have to take the long view. But this doesn't look like a handful to me, but I know that, you know, 30 years from now, you know, it's it, you know, those other lots will, you know, hit the criteria, which is. So you're coming out from the other side. You think it's too many that would be impacted? Whereas Chris, I don't think it's a handful, what you're describing, but I'm just wondering, could you show all the lots that are 30,000 or up and then we can just start counting them, you know, it's 22, but a lot of them already developed. I guess I could have shown which one for already, you know, had been developed so that 22 subtract out. Um, I can already see from my perspective, three of them are already, you know, that four, four or five of them, actually. So it's probably like 15 lots that are over 30,000 that don't already have, like, you know, multiple apartment complex. They're maxed out or I don't know if they are. I haven't, you know, like one of them is Aspen Heights. They're further out, you know, toward Belcher Town. Um, so I guess I'm just trying to get the data because I, you know, it's like, you know, what's the possible build out? Um, and then by the way, I think there's somebody raising their hand in the audience, but, but, um, but so I, you know, my question is like, what's the build out 10, 20, 30 years from now? Um, and then the other question I have, which is, um, you know, so I would like to see what this all could look like. And then if somebody combines a lot, you can make a $30,000, $30,000 square foot lot or 50 by putting two lots together. And then that could be another, you know, dense apartment complex or townhouse. I talked about that scenario and, um, it just seems like for a developer to purchase that amount of square footage and then go through a special permit and then develop, you know, put the money in to develop however many townhouses and apartments. It just seems like such a hypothetical situation that's not likely. I mean, we can talk about, you know, all the situations that are possible, but I think the idea is that, um, if we remove footnote M for 90% of the scenarios, is this, what is the impact? Is it detrimental to our town? And I like this idea of having this, I keep saying this, we have this toolbox of various types of housing. And I like that point that Chris made out, you know, it may not look like a big impact, but all the different types of additional housing we can bring to Amherst is all in the right track. And so, right, Jenna, I think we do need to understand the impacts more. And so obviously this would be something that'd be good to continue studying, but initially it seems like any small lots, it's not worthwhile. Anything large, it is. And then what we need to do is think through what current lots, over 30,000 are not already maxed out and what that might look like. So those could be good next steps as far as studies. Yeah, I think it would be helpful. The other thing is, if we go back to, um, Doug's first chart, I think I missed writing something down, but I have a question for Chris and Rob. So if we take footnote M off of, um, the additional lot area family requirement, what is still, what is left there is footnote A. And footnote A will allow a board to reduce the additional requirement of 25, 2500 square feet to something smaller, right? Because footnote A is very flexible. And, you know, so is that, am I reading that correctly? Because the footnote A will still be there. So it's not like, if we take footnote M away, it's not like it has to be 2,500 square feet per additional unit. Rob, do you want to answer that? Yeah, that's, that's correct. And it would, it would, um, it could be modified by footnote A, the 2,500, but the 4,000 cannot currently. And so if we looked at Doug's chart, we could, we could say, okay, if the, the additional lots was pushed down to 1,500 or 1,000, then the multiply, there's a multiplication effect there. And we can't predict what boards would be doing in the future. I mean, if you pulled footnote footnote A off also, it would at least have some threshold, like, you know, there'd be some bottom to that or top to that or whatever, how you want to look at that. But Doug, can you put your chart up again? Cause I, I've completely, um, forgotten what the maximum would be for. So 16 units. So I just added, I just added this line while we were talking. So there's what 30,000 would be. Oh, you only gain three. Oh, I should be higher, virtual. Yeah. I mean, I mean, overall, I view this potential change as a very modest, uh, reduction in the multiple obstacles or thresholds that a developer would need to overcome to end up with an actual project that people could live in. So, and then the dwelling units could be like one, two, three, four bedrooms kind of thing. So you can't. Okay. Um, well, and, you know, based on what we know about the market, I suspect 50% would be one bedroom and 150% would be two bedroom because, you know, there's not, uh, sufficient or the maximum demand is for the smaller units. Well, yeah, for now. So, um, Rob, Rob Maher wants to say something. Maybe we should. Yeah, please, Rob, enlighten us. Thanks. Um, I think, um, this was a few minutes ago, I wonder, I wanted to make a point about a smaller parcel, um, because I don't think this idea is really targeted to get the 16 unit apartment building, uh, with, with the building coverage limit and the lock coverage limit, the parking requirement, it's really not going to work out well, unless a large number of parcels are combined, uh, for that to happen. And, and I, you know, we've, we've sat with developers to try to, you know, look at that option. It never works out. And I don't think this is going to make a big enough change, but I think it's interesting for an investor that owns a two family on a 22,000 square foot lot. Okay. Because under, with footnote M, they're limited to just that, um, the, the additional unit, uh, if they have an existing duplex on a, on a 22,000 square foot lot. Now that adding that one unit, um, maybe Maria will know this, but maybe I don't know if anyone else will, that's a trigger for sprinkler systems, you know, for a building. So when we talk to the typical investor of these smaller buildings, that generally discourages that, that conversation right from the beginning. But if we removed footnote M, now that two unit building could be turned into five units with 22,000 square feet. So now it's a little bit more interesting financially for an investor to look at that option. So I think, you know, I, and I, and I understand the 30,000 square foot, uh, you pick that number to start with, but there might be even, you know, a more meaningful impact to adding units in a little smaller size lot down to 22,000 square feet. Oh, interesting. Yeah. I had not considered the parking being the thing that was the deal breaker for the larger lot. So that's really interesting. I mean, I think that's a really useful incremental growth that can happen, that we need in our town. I mean, I'm all about that sort of infill of housing where we can. So that's, that's great. That's great to know that. Well, that starts to beg the question. You know, most of this RG district is within walking distance of, you know, the primary employer in town and the downtown commercial district. So I wonder whether the existing parking might be relaxed to allow more people who could just live in town and work in town without having a car. Can I, I agree, Doug, can I have a question? And I guess maybe you guys discuss this before I arrive. Sorry, I was late. What, what is the, what is the, let's call it the worst case scenario fear that we have here of removing this, right? Because if, you know, Janet's saying, you know, there might be 20 lots, Maria's saying maybe 15, even if there were 10 that people actually decided to build out and they maxed out those 10 lots with housing, what is the, what do we see as the problem? Like what is the worst case scenario that we're trying to avoid when we do that? I guess, so I'm just trying to get a sense of whether this is an aesthetic issue, a, an economic issue, a landscape issue. I just want to know more about what the concern is. Well, I think Christine has said that footnote M was put on after Spruce Ridge and maybe Tanbrook were built. And so on basically a one acre a lot, a little bit more than one acre, you could have 16 units with multiple bedrooms in it. And then when you go around the RG, you know, that's, that's, that's a lot of density in that neighborhood. And apparently the neighbors were unhappy and footnote M was put on by town meeting. And so, so I think, I think that the question is, is having 16 units, they could be two, three bedrooms, one bedroom studios, you know, at least 16 people living in it, maybe 32 or 42 on a one acre throughout the RG, is that, and you know, is that it, is that something that people you want to see, is that something that the neighborhoods want to see, is it going to impact the RG, which is, you know, as we know, you know, not apartment housing primarily and not town housing. So, you know, that's, that's a question. There are people in the audience that might want to weigh in. There's a couple of hands up there, but I think that that's the question is that there's a limitation on it. If you take off footnote M, we're talking at least 16 units. If footnote A is applied, we might be talking 30 units on just about an acre, that's, is that the RG? Will that change the character, the historic nature, the, will it affect the neighborhood quality, you know? Well, if it's all undergrads, we know that would be probably problematic and things like that. Well, I guess, you know, that saying the statement that Spruce, forget the present, Spruce Ridge, it's kind of like the same argument about the downtown building saying like everyone hates them. It's not the case. It's not the case that everyone thinks that that project was bad. So I feel like that's a hard question to answer, Tom, because it's not black and white, I think some people like the buildings and some people don't and we can't say which is very wrong, so. But is it going to open up opportunities for more affordable housing by having a bigger housing stock within walking distance of downtown? I don't know about the impact. So, you know, I think those are questions we want to ask. Yeah. OK, well, I think the zoning so many has had a good discussion of this. I'll open it up to some attendees so that we can make sure. So, Jack, you're very spoken. Is that right? I'm going to let Pam Bruni allow to talk. There we go. Oh, so Pam, can you unmute? I am unmuted. OK, so if you just keep it to three minutes or less so we can make sure we get I mean, this is this is I had hoped a little bit more informal conversation than a public hearing. So I but I did want to say thanks to Rob for bringing up the fact that it really is at about twenty two thousand square feet where you get the opportunity to put on for additional units to a property so that if Doug and those are really great graphics, by the way, of the really small parcels, which kind of if we could do an overlay of the really small parcels that are that are essentially under under twelve thousand square feet or actually. Nineteen thousand square feet. That would sort of we could set those aside and say there's probably not much ever any issue with having those get developed as apartments or townhouses. I'm I'm a strong supporter of. Increment are small infill. I think the New England style of house is that of sort of the build on build on and as long as it is in context and and is meeting the square footage needs of the properties. I think that's that's a good thing. It would be really helpful, though, to see all of the properties that are greater than twenty two thousand square feet. Just so we have a sense of really the total numbers. Now, if if anything over twenty two thousand square feet already has a multifamily house on it, that's good. That sort of takes it off the table to for future development. So we're really left with the subset of those that are single or do plex now in in on lots that are greater than twenty two thousand square feet. So if something is a little over that, I mean, so a half acre lot, obviously could put you know, five five dwelling units on it. And I think that to answer Tom's concern, I think it's really the context where the RG is already fairly dense. Meaning we've got, you know, eighty feet from from property line to property line. Sometimes it's down to sixty. That's very comfortable. I don't think anybody complains about that. In fact, we love it. I think it's where you have an intrusion of a parcel that can put on. The number of units that we're talking about is where it's a concern. I needed to echo also. I think it was Janet's comment about footnote A that has, you know, been requested to apply footnote A to lot covered across all all zoning districts. That's kind of a that's kind of a concern for sure. And let's see. Oh, as far as parking, I would say that we're still in Western Mass. That's all I'm going to say is yes, we can walk to the to the town center. Yes, we can walk to the post office. But unfortunately, we still need a car to go grocery shopping. And so as much as we would really like to eliminate the cars in town, I think that's probably still something that we're going to have to deal with for a while. Thanks. Thanks, Pam. All right, Kathy. I'm unmuting. I'm just going to build on what Pam said to avoid repeating, starting with parking. I don't know how many of you who have driven around these streets, but a lot of them don't have sidewalks. So there's no place to safely walk. So people walk in the streets. If you people, unless you say you cannot have a car, if people start parking in the streets, the streets, which are already narrow, will get narrower. Amity has a problem now. And Lincoln certainly has a problem. The neighbors came to talk about parking on both sides all day long, sometimes through the night. So you can't grow grocery stopping very easily. A lot of the people who live there already are elderly. So I think we can't just imagine a world without cars. I visit a couple of people on the street, these streets, and it's really useful that they have a driveway because my car then doesn't have to be on the street. So I think it would be also good. I love the maps and what you've done if you could post them to indicate which of these little side streets that have houses on them do or don't have sidewalks. One of the things I think is odd about our zoning code when I look at it is that the word almost is either never mentioned or rarely mentioned. And when I'm looking in other places, they talk about a concept of insufficient street that there are houses but there are no sidewalks and it's a narrow street. So if we want more density and we want people to be walking, we've got to allow them to be able to do it safely. So just a few of these diagrams adding whether the streets have or do not have a sidewalk would be a useful additional piece of information. Thank you. OK, thanks. Jack. Yeah, I just wanted to go back to the figure. And with the boy. The dots are the red and green. The red and green, yes. And I just I know the AC were, I think Amherst College. There's one other. An notation there that I didn't understand. If you go through it, that was yours, Maria, you had you had the letters. Oh, yeah. OK, so H means historic. OK, OK, I missed on the age. That was all. I'm I'm really easy. OK. I'm Jack and that's why. Thank you. All right. OK, let's see. Other two very spoken. So. I guess after we talk at their joint meeting tomorrow night about the work plan ahead, we'll know more about where we push these studies and how far and if the planning department will help us focus on certain other areas or more on these areas or oh, sorry. So, yeah, it's really great having you here, too, Rob, just inputting on, you know, like immediately, like why certain square footages are not good and some are. And so these are really great discussions, having people who have the actual data and facts, you know, chime in right at the moment when we're sort of going around circles discussing you. So that's it's really great. I don't know if anyone else will see I lost my agenda. But if anyone else has more to say about footnote M. So could in terms of next steps, could we have the charts kind of more expanded for like with Doug's chart adding in the other ways to add additional units? Like the yeah, I think I mean, if we're when we talk tomorrow about, you know, the focus and what we're working on, if we're with the ZSC is tasked still to, you know, study footnote M and study the BL. I think, yeah, we've got a lot of good ideas from all the input tonight about like what next layers of data to look into. So I just read premature on saying, all right, next meeting, we're going to do this because I think tomorrow is going to be a good discussion about the work ahead. So is there so I think it's I think thing is, is that, you know, I feel like I'm on a multi-year getting to know the zoning bylaw and I'm a little afraid of what Ben is going to do have to kind of relearn it. But as I see the many, many different ways to add units to houses and lots in Amherst is that, you know, it's a pretty generous town in progressive time in terms of letting people add on to their houses. But and it's a pretty complicated group of ways of doing it. And, you know, at some point, it would sort of like, let's simplify this, but I think that if we're going to go to the CRC or the town council, you know, it's, you can sort of say, oh, you know, this footnote M does this, but actually, I feel like they have to understand the range of options. And so they might just say, you know, a fourplex sounds fantastic, you know, or that's enough 16 sounds like too many. Or if footnote A applies to the additional things, we're talking 32 units, you know, that can be 64 people on a something more, you know, and so I feel like if we don't present that information and the complexity of it, or the number of lots that are 30,000 or 22,000 or more, it's like people won't really see it is because tonight we're not zoning for this year, we're not zoning for, you know, studio apartments, we're not zoning for students. We're zoning for Amherst for decades, you know, it could be the next 50 years. And so, you know, what's, I actually think we should know what our buildout is right now, and what it could be as time goes on. And so those, you know, you could do that. And in fact, UMass has done that for us for, you know, our projected buildout under current zoning. But I think I don't want to pull back. I think, you know, these charts are super useful because it's so you get to look exactly what is there. And you know, when Doug's saying you can say, oh, 16 units, that sounds like a lot. That sounds fine to me. Bring it to the neighbors, bring it to the town and people discuss it. That's what that's the public process that people want. And I think the town counselors are going to want that. The other question I have is, is it possible that these things that we're talking about, we're not going to be talking about in two weeks? Is that we'll find out tomorrow, Janet, honestly, I think there's going to be a big discussion about work plan ahead. And I feel like us guessing on it right now is not really worthwhile. But yeah, I think that we'll really get into it tomorrow night with the joint meeting in the CRC. That's exactly why it's a joint meeting, I think maybe to ask those. But yeah, I see items C is discuss next steps on approach to research analysis, impacts, drafting, so it's exactly what you're talking about. I think I actually didn't see the agenda until so I think we I honestly want to table that just because tomorrow is going to really describe the path ahead. I just feel like, oh, I don't know, Chris, does that make sense or do you think it's worth us? Yeah. Yeah, I think that makes sense. There are some more people out in the audience that I want to make sure we had number four, which was, oh, the topic's not reasonably anticipated. What was that again? That was something Janet wanted to discuss and it's worth discussing. So we have this new, I guess it's a budget bill that was just passed, but it has a lot of owning attached to it because the governor is very interested in creating more housing. So one of the things the new bill contains is an easier mechanism for adopting zoning regulations that allow a town to increase the number of houses or dwelling units in town. So it reduces the required vote from two-thirds down to a majority for certain types of zoning amendments, and most of them have to do with housing. And then the other thing it does is it reduces the required vote to approve a special permit for projects that have to do with housing. So we have to figure out, we've gotten a whole package, which I haven't read yet, and then we've gotten a memo from KP Law, who is our attorney, describing, sort of giving us a summary of what they think is in the bill. And more will come out about this. And I'm sure that the state will be holding seminars about, you know, exactly what does this mean and how do you fit it into your zoning bylaw. But we need to know about it and we need to figure out, are we going to need to make any changes? And we're not sure about that yet. We have to have more internal discussions and we probably need to speak with Joe Bard at some point, or one of his partners, and get advice from them. But for now, you know, we think you should know about this. And it may, it may make some of these things easier to pass through the town council if they have to do with increasing the number of dwelling units in town. So that's about all I have to say about it. And I wonder if Rob wanted to say anything more about it. No, I think that covers it well. Okay. All right. So we'll hear more about that topic. I'm sure as it gets developed, I want to leave the last 10 minutes of our meeting for public comment, because I don't want to leave. And then it's just me and Chris listening. So let me make sure we get to these people. There's Pam, you still have your hand out on those from earlier, but we have Dorothy Pam, Laura and Hilda who want to speak. And if you just keep it to three minutes, we can get to dinner by 6 30. So Pam, I'm just going to put it in because you've already spoken. But if you do want to speak, you'll be last, but I'm sorry, I did not see who raised their hand first. So I'm just going to go down with so Dorothy Pam, you want to see a new house? Okay, I'm going to. Can you hear me now? Okay, Tom asked what is at stake here? And I think that one of the issues is, are we trying to create more units of housing? Or are we trying to create affordable housing? Because the two at this moment in the district and I live in the district you're talking about. Okay, my house is on your map. That's the issue here. New housing, what has been happening is that speculators or developers, whatever you want to call them, have bought up and continue to buy up single family houses, and then turn them into multiple student rentals, where they can make a lot more money. And therefore, the prices of the houses are going up there, you know, no matter what the prices of in this of the RG, at least, amity, sunset, Lincoln, whatever, they're going up. And so people say, we don't have affordable housing. That's because of the competition. If you want to have affordable more housing, then I don't understand where the discussion of, of if you're talking about larger units, inclusionary zoning is going. Just never assume that some people keep assuming more apartments means affordable housing. That's not what's been going on in this district. And the whole rental registration law was put in to stop the actual, you know, blockbusting that was going on. And Maria asked, it wouldn't why would a developer buy a bunch of single family homes? Well, that's been happening right now in the last month at the north end of sunset. A very good developer, Barry Roberts, has bought two single family homes. One has been had students in them. The other was a single family home, but they're, they're built single family homes and has been buying up houses on fearing. I have not talked directly to him. But I heard through a second party that he was thinking of perhaps doing condos, which is something that many people have said there was an interest in. But it's coming into the residential neighborhood. So there is because we have a limited space, there's going to be some conflicts going on. And I think that just you should not have an assumption that more housing means more affordable housing. I was really interested in learning from Rob about the sprinkler limit. And I forgot what was the number of units that trigger the sprinkler. I live next door to a very large house corner of Lincoln and Amity, which may have 16 students in it. And it's had one fire and it had another small thing, but it has a sprinkler system. And so nothing terrible happened. And, you know, I think sprinkler systems when you have a lot of people is very important. But why do you want more lot when you add units or perhaps a building has a shadow. The higher the building is, the more shadow it casts. So you may want to have more land around it. And the house on the corner has a lot of land around it. So I have been living very peacefully next to that dwelling and have not been bothered by the fact that there's that it's very dense there. The people on Lincoln have the view of the 20 cars that are parked there. They're not so happy. So those are just a couple of comments for Tom who may be not as familiar with this neighborhood as I am right now. Okay, thanks Dorothy. Mora. Can I unmute you? Or can you unmute yourself? There. Okay. Yeah, so I was curious about what happened at the last meeting at the end, there was some talk of changing the zoning in the BL to something similar to the BN and is that are we going to ever come back to that? Or is that something that needs to be brought to the CRC or where does that stand now? I can answer that. So staff is continuing to work on that on that change with Rob Mora and we'll be coming up with something and we'll be presenting it to we'll be presenting it to the CRC sometime in March, probably, but we're continuing to work on it and we'll be giving reports on what we're working on as time goes on. Great. Is that the only question you had, Mora? Well, I had one other question about that. I thought before that, that supportive housing unit was built 132 North Hampton before that was brought up that the regulation that an apartment building 50 percent of the units couldn't be of the same size. I thought that was tossed out by or voted down by town meeting. It's only when three units would, you know, that's got only one in studio in one bedroom. So that would have to have that wouldn't fit under the that's only if it still existed. There is a zoning bylaw that says if you have a building that's 100 percent affordable, that you don't need to comply with the requirement that that half of the units can't be of any one size or more than half of the units. So in other words, the building at 132 North Hampton Road is 100 percent affordable and it does not need to have 50 percent of its units as some other size units. What about Spring Street or the one that Amiris wants to build? That's all one bedrooms, right? Spring Street is different. It's a different well, Spring Street is a mixed use building and it doesn't have that requirement for sizes of units. And Amiris Building is also a mixed use building and there's no requirement for a mix of unit sizes for that building either. Right. OK, is that it tomorrow? Yeah. OK, thank you. Hilda. I just have two very quick comments to make and one is that when most footnotes were put in back in the 80s, basically we were having a lot of very fast development that was coming in by Gates and Johnson representing outside interest A.J. Lane and and came in and proposed the Amity Street condos the Salem Street condos. And when they came in with their projects and also I like to point out the the Mill Valley Estates, which was affordable housing, came in asking for the maximum number of units that would fit on a parcel. And for example, I do know that at the Mill Valley Affordable Estates, they have 34 acres of which 22 were upland and they came in asking for 208 units. And after a lot of negotiation and appeals to the housing committee in Boston, they now have 134. The zoning board of appeals cut them to 78. And that was the mentality then people came in with a the maximum they could put on a parcel and they immediately got caught. I had room for 13 units on North Whitney Street in a parking lot. And I could cut to eight. That's where it was. And and the the Crow Hill neighborhood, which is Spruce Hill at High Street, when that project came in, they got really up in arms and the whole neighborhood got organized. And that's when the four thousand feet got put in. And the other thing I wanted to say, getting back to the House Bill 50 to 50, the thing that intrigued me most about that was the ability to have a affordable cluster, owner occupied starter housing. And I really see in this town that varies between 50 and 60 percent rental. And I don't know what the number is going to come out after all this new building. In the 2020 census, I don't know how it's how it's going to ratio of rental to affordable, but it's been overwhelmingly. Rental units with, you know, the home market, home or occupied people being the smaller part of the group and the ones that are the paying the highest taxes, I think. But in any of them, I really think the lack in this town is middle income starter housing and workforce housing that people can own and get a foot in the door and start building equity. So that's what I've been pushing for. I don't know who said me, too, but. But I think that's really what the need is, is owner occupied starter housing. And I'm very intrigued by that part of the law, which I sent to various people. And you don't have to go to 40 or you can do it under 40. Yeah. All right, thanks, Zelda. All right, Pam. So it sounds like it looks like you did have something more to say. I'm really amused. Yep, yep, thanks. I wanted to make a comment more about the density of some of these properties that I looked at, Tanbrook condos, Spruce Ridge condos and Salem Place condos. And I think when I was when I was thinking about the 4,000 square feet sort of requirement for additional units, I applied the footnote M formula to those properties that were developed before footnote M came into being, but I wanted to see where they fell out. And my math showed me on three or four different places. Oh, also Village Park up on East Pleasant Street. It averages out around 10 dwelling units per acre. And if we were to talk about, in fact, inact the elimination of footnote M, then maybe there's also an opportunity to insert some other mechanism that really says in the RG district, the scale and density of Spruce Ridge, Tanbrook, Salem Place, Village Park is decent. It fosters community. It's a scale that still is in context with the neighborhood. And it is roughly 10 units per acre. So maybe that, maybe that, I don't wanna call it a cap, but maybe that designation is really something that we wanna play around with. Maybe that's more important than the 4,000 square feet per dwelling unit. When I did the footnote M math, I think you actually would lose a couple of units anywhere from 10 to 25% of the units would have fallen away with footnote M. So if people are comfortable with the 10 per acre, maybe that's a target that we should be using instead. The other last comment about footnote M, it still feels really important as we try to address all of these affordability issues that relaxing the need to mandate a distribution of unit sizes or unit types, still feels really important to me that I really don't think the town benefits with full buildings of studio apartments. It doesn't push us in the right direction. Anyway, that's it, thanks. Can I butt in before you hang up? That you gotta fix the mixed use building by law. That's the one that really needs fixing before anything. And then I also want to say Tambrook was built before footnote M. Okay. Tambrook was cut way back from what they had asked for too. I forget how many units would have fit on that parcel, but this is small that was back in the 80s. All right, thank you everyone for your comments. I'm glad that Rob and Chris were here to hear that and transfer it to the rest of the planning department because in our work ahead, yeah, all of these sort of various inputs from various people were really useful. So next meeting, we shall see. And then I think, yeah, Tambrook, the joint meeting between plan board and CRC will know what our path ahead is and go from there. So all right, adjournment. Thank you everybody. Thank you very much. Bye bye. Thank you Chris. Thank you Rob, see you guys. Bye. Bye.