 Good evening. Welcome to night one of several hearings on the town meeting zoning bylaw amendments, more articles heading into town meeting 2020. Before we begin this evening, I'll just give a quick rundown of how the process will run over our next several meetings. The board will listen to the component and public comments. We will not take any action until the end of all of the articles done in the past. After all the articles have been presented and all public comment has been received, the board will deliberate and then vote. Right now that meeting is tentatively scheduled for March 26th. That may be moved. We'll know about that later this week. Regardless, we'll have plenty of time before town meeting. So as is typical process, we will begin with the proponents. We'll hear what they have to say. The board may or may not ask questions depending on what we have to question. We'll open the floor for public comment. Once public comment has finished on any particular article, we will adjourn that to the time being and move to the next article. We will continue to collect written comments up through the close of all of these hearings when we vote. And as is our custom, we will continue to have open forum at the end of these meetings so that if someone is not able to comment in public on a particular article on any given night, they will still have an opportunity to do so in person and on camera during that open forum period. As we move through public comment, this evening, though, I would ask anyone who wishes to speak to keep their comments specific to the article at hand. So first up, we have article 34, which is a zoning bylaw amendment clarification that makes use, presented by Chris Loretty and ten minister voters. So I'd ask Mr. Loretty to come up and make this presentation. And please use your microphone for the back of the folks in the back. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As even your board knows, mixed use means two or more distinct land uses. Article 34 would simply add the following phrase to the definition of mixed use, provided that any such distinct land users are not otherwise prohibited by this bylaw as individual land uses in the same zoning district. And to understand why this is important, you have to remember how zoning regulates land use. For each zoning district, town meetings has yes, no, or maybe to those distinct land uses. Yes means you can build something there by right. You just get a building permit. No means you can't build it at all. And maybe you need a special permit. And the special permits currently by the airbie or the ZBA as applicable. The airbie cannot change those designations. It has no flexibility to do that. The ZBA can not grant a use variance, cannot grant a use variance for prohibited use because Arlington does not allow use variances like most communities in Massachusetts. The airbie or the ZBA can only decide whether the special permit is merited for those uses that are designated as special permit uses. In fact, section 3.3.3A of the zoning bylaw requires the boards to make a determination that the designated use is a special permit use as designated in the bylaw. So if anyone wants to change what is prohibited use and make it an allowed use, they simply have to amend the zoning bylaw. Now in the mixed use and then came up in 2016, town meeting didn't change that. It did not change what the prohibited uses were. And that question came up at town meeting. I know that because I raised it. If you look at the zoning bylaw, mixed use is allowed in every business district. But that does not allow any prohibited uses across all those business districts. And as an example, I would say adjusted to consider the example of a gas station. Now gas stations are only allowed in the B4 zoning district. You can't, a proponent cannot come forward and say I want to put a gas station in the B1 zoning district. And I'm just going to add a convenience toward that gas station. And you can call it mixed use. And therefore you can allow that gas station in the B1 zoning district. That is not the way the mixed use bylaw was passed. And the ARB has sorted repeatedly at town meeting when it was passed that prohibited uses could not be allowed as part of mixed use. And you did that personally, Mr. Chairman. And so did your colleagues at the time. So the legislative intent of town meeting was clear at the time because they are redefined before town meeting and that's how they voted to pass the mixed use zoning bylaw. I'd like to address some of the misunderstandings and I think misinformation that were there in the memo to staff. And the first is that this amendment has absolutely nothing to do with conflicting zoning districts. It applies to a development or a single zoning district. It applies to development in multiple zoning districts. The only thing that really does is reaffirms that within a particular zoning district, the uses that go into mixed use have to be allowed as individual uses in that same zoning district. And this amendment is entirely consistent with the master plan. The master plan says absolutely nothing about the ARB overriding the prohibition of particular uses through the special permit process. It does, and the mixed use change did promote. I mean, mixed uses were promoted through the bylaw change and they did that through changing the dimensional requirements for excuse. You can build bigger, you can build taller and you can build closer to the property lines for a mixed use development. And that's how mixed use was encouraged through this amendment. My amendment doesn't change that nor does it reduce any flexibility that the ARB currently has. So I see a number of benefits for this change. One, I think it does as the memo stated, clarify just what the definition does in terms of allowed uses. And I think that's important both for the ARB for staff and for other town officials, particularly at a time when we've seen a lot of turnover. We have a zoning enforcement officer who's now on temporary leave who knows whether he's coming back. There's been turnover in your own board. It's a constant in any organization and this will affirm how the bylaw was passed by town meeting at the time going forward. It will be able to avoid permit appeals. I'm confident that if you grant a special permit, for mixed use that includes a prohibited use, you will get an appeal of that permit. And I think you want to avoid that and protect the town's interest. As a quasi judicial body, you have to, you cannot arbitrarily interpret the bylaw every time an applicant comes before it has to be done consistently. And it's also essential that town officials keep their word to town meeting. So I say that both as a former town meeting member and as a former member of the development board, that I really think that suggesting that the ARB now has the authority to override what town meeting has designated as prohibited uses within the zoning district, really amounts to just a power grab. And I frankly think it's very unwise of you to proceed with the claim that you can do that, particularly if you're trying to get significant changes made to the zoning bylaw by that very same town meeting. So I'll leave it at that. As I said, I don't believe this bylaw change makes any substantive change to what is allowed currently, which is clarifies what the ARB presented to town meeting within the zoning bylaw has passed. Thank you. Thank you. Questions from the board? Yeah, thank you. We're still ready to open it up for public comment. Please state your, raise your hand. I'll call you up and ask you to use the microphone. Mr. Seltzer, please state your name and address for the record. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Tom Seltzer, Hurley Street. There are a half a dozen articles on this year's warrant that have been proposed by the board as routine administrative corrections to the bylaws. They're fixing small errors, addressing some oversights and that it's clarifying language. I believe that this article is of the very same nature. It does not change the intent of the bylaw by one IOTA. It simply adds some needed clarification. To refresh your memories from the 2016 town meeting, this is what two members of this board repeatedly told the members regarding this bylaw. The uses that are permitted in a particular are the ones that can happen in a mixed use in that district. So just to clarify on that one. The use that comes into a neighborhood has to be in that district and it also has to be within the character of the neighborhood. Again, the use has to fit the neighborhood. It's already allowed under the zoning. It's within the permitted use of parking garage. Mr. Seltzer, Mr. Hurley has submitted this as part of his residential complex. The gas station will be permitted. That use is not allowed to be permitted. I know it is kind of repetitive and that's because it was kept to town meeting multiple times. Can you either turn up the sound or wait until it's finished, please? Okay. Turn this into a service. Okay. Make your point. Town meeting was told that this means it has to fit what is already allowed under zoning. It was absolutely clear as was presented to town meeting, but the language of the bylaw apparently is not so clear to some. So it's time for us to clean it up. Mr. Watson raised this very point at the January 6th meeting of this board, although it is missing from the minutes which are up for review tonight, but you can see it if you want to look at the ACMI recording of that meeting starting at the 69 minute mark. The board declined to take any action at that time. This is your opportunity to properly clarify this law. Thank you. Thank you. Is it working? It's surprising that this article is not welcomed by the parent department as a very necessary housekeeping protocol. I was at the town meeting hall, two members, at least two members of the redevelopment board assured us that users in a mixed-use building must comply with those already allowed under zoning. Mr. Kerr, who is no longer a town meeting member or redevelopment board member, said in mixed-use buildings users allowed must fit with users already allowed under the zoning in that district. And my notes also say that Mr. Belal said users allowed in a mixed-use building must comply with users already allowed under zoning. He made several other similar remarks including only users permitted in a particular district are the ones that can happen in that district. So I need to ask you, I mean, is town meeting going to become a game where the biggest lie wins the day? That's really a lie, Mrs. Ward. So we don't want that to happen. So please do use this as a housekeeping protocol that's much needed. Thank you. I would encourage people not to make personal attacks. There is no, I'm looking no possibility. Thank you for your comment. Thank you. Anyone else who'd like to speak to article 34? All right, Mr. Ward. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and Mrs. Board. Well, as some of you know, I have a lawyer who knows a little bit about zoning. And even if I had known nothing about some current events, looking at the zoning bylaw and how mixed use fits in there and what it says, if someone asked me, can I build a, I don't know, a bar room in some district where they're not allowed, I would have to say, well, is a bar room allowed in the B1 district? Don't see it there, well, then you can't do it. And I think that although I think that it's very clear apparently that some do not. And I think there's no harm. And if any time you can add clarity to something so that there's no possibility of error or confusion or dispute about it, it's a good thing to do. I don't see what could possibly be wrong with that. Thank you. Thank you. Any other comments on this particular zoning article 34? Seeing none. Table article 34. I move to article 28. Zoning bylaw amendment conversion of commercial to residential. Mr. Warden, please come back up. It was taken where I was. Thank you, Mr. Chair and members of the board. John Warden case history. I put this article in because it's, and this is something that's been in the zoning bylaw for a while. If a person has a mixed use building containing both commercial and residential units, and he decides to change, sorry, one of the, one or more of the residential, one or more of the commercial units to a residential unit, he can just do that as a driver. And it seems to me that's, so basically you could build an apartment building with the, but call it an excuse, with the minimal setbacks, well, I guess it's, I don't know if there's any setbacks, minimal side yards, no backyards, et cetera. And then you can say, well, we decided these stores are gonna work, so I'm just gonna convert it to all residential without asking anybody. That seems to me is a flagrant violation of the intent of the law, which is to mix these two uses. And I think a perfect example, and it may become a perfect example, is the large building that looms over the summer street, just at the, just beyond the rink where the work force street tees with the summer street. And that building is, these stories are, I think, and it has a bunch of identical-looking windows. So the bottom floor is supposed to be commercial uses in the upper floors contained, I believe, just shy of pro apartments, so they only have to provide one affordable. Now, as the law stands now, we decided, oops, gee, we can't find any stores or any offices that want to go in here. I guess we'll just convert the rest of these units to residential. All I'm saying is, I'm not saying you can't do it. What I'm saying is, well, you gotta ask, and you wanna make affordable housing because we've already got enough market rate luxury type housing. Not only kind of housing, and I've said this before, and I'll say again, the only kind of housing that we should be adding at this point where we're so dense already is affordable housing because that is a responsibility, the preferential option for the poor. And that's something that to a moral condition, you might say, of zoning, that we gotta give those people who are less fortunate than us some kind of a break and the break is you give them affordable housing. And so all I'm saying is, yeah, you can turn it into residential, which you should be for affordable housing. After all, you got this project, an idea, you're gonna have it mixed. And the comments that the staff provided, I really don't understand, but they didn't seem to grasp what the essence of it is. We're not saying you can't go mixed housing. We're only saying if you convert a commercial space that was permitted to a residential space, you gotta ask and you gotta make it affordable. So it seems to me, I don't know why anyone would think that doesn't make sense. Thank you. Thank you. Any questions from the board? Mr. Benson. Mr. Ward, not a couple of questions. One is, I agree that the town needs more affordable housing. And most of the housing that's getting constructed now is pretty expensive. But there are lots of different levels of affordability. There's affordability as set forth in the bylaw, which is very low. The bylaws, I think 60% of the median income, something like that, which is very low. And then there are all different levels of affordability between affordable housing is defined in the bylaw and the high-end housing that you just mentioned. So I'm wondering whether you think all levels of affordability are needed in Arlington or whether you're saying only affordable that meets the definition of affordable is needed in Arlington. Mr. Benson, I think if you want it, if we use affordable in a section of the bylaw, it seems to me we have a definition of affordability. We do. But if you want to address that issue, then you ought to amend that definition to put in your rainbow of affordable issues. I'm not saying that doesn't exist, but I think the point is the people who are at that lowest level, they're the ones that really need to help. Other people can find it somehow. And- How are they gonna find it? How's a police officer or a fire person, a fire officer who wants to live in town gonna be able to find it? They're not gonna be eligible for affordable housing. Let me finish, they're not gonna be eligible for affordable housing. And theoretically they're not gonna buy the million dollar homes that are getting built and you're basically preventing someone from converting in any way that would provide apartments that were affordable to basically middle income working families. I just wanna see if that was your intention. I think if you wanna have this range of affordability, the way to do that is to amend the definition to provide for those various things. I was looking at the affordability. Did I write this only by law? The definition's in there now. But you're dealing with them and you've written something based on- Let me ask you a question, Mr. Benson. How it's supposed we didn't have this language in there. And the developer decides without having to ask anybody, I wanna change this shop to an apartment. How are you gonna get him to give a 20 million income to people? That's not the point. The point is you're preventing someone from building, from converting and building that sort of housing. Second question I have for you is usually the way affordable housing gets built is it has to be a large enough project as Housing Corporation of Arlington has done. So they're able to go to the state and eventually get some state tax credits which they can use along with some other funds to build them. They're never gonna get that to convert a storefront to one or two apartments. So how do you see that anyone is ever able to put the financing together to convert one or two apartments in a converted building to affordable housing under current market conditions? How is that going to happen? I don't know. Right, because it's not going to happen. Can I finish the answer, please? Thank you, sir. Did they get any financing to do the inclusionary required inclusionary unit? And you know the reason that the required inclusionary unit starts at six is you basically need five market rate units to subsidize the cost of one affordable unit. That's why the inclusionary zoning starts with six unit buildings or six units. So it seems to me you need to explain how somebody is going to actually able to build one or two affordable units. The building they've already got all they have to do is put curtains in the window. No, they're converting something. They have to put in a kitchen, a bathroom, bedrooms. It becomes expensive, Mr. Warden, to do this. Well, they wouldn't do it if they were planning to make some money on it, would they? That's exactly the point. And that's why this thing is not gonna result in any more affordable housing. It's just gonna result in some buildings not getting converted, not getting fixed up. It's just a recipe for static. Well, that's the way you see it. So obviously I'm not gonna change your mind. Thank you. Any other questions? Any one question? Yeah. This article is only geared toward existing mixed use projects or new. Because I knew it doesn't work because if you're gonna not have any commercial space to belong, we were not gonna prove it. But it's only existing mixed use projects that they want to convert to all housing. Is that what you're saying? No, I didn't say all housing. That's my message. I'm sorry. Take this while there's the microphone. As a sexual access, if they want to convert the commercial to residential, they should ask, they should get a special permit and they should make it affordable. No one's forcing them to do it. That the whole idea of mixed use that you're gonna have is tax paying, taxable, non-public service expenses put on the rolls. So maybe we can make a little money out of this building instead of losing money out of this building. So you're, I wanna ask you a yes or no question. Is this geared toward existing mixed use buildings or all buildings? I would say it's all mixed use buildings, yeah. Existing or new? Well, what's new? It say there was a piece of property somewhere here and I proposed to put a mixed use building there and I built a foundation, a structure, a whole new building. That to me is new. If there's an existing commercial space on the first floor and apartments above, I would say that it's existing. Okay, all right. No, I would say you should apply it with them all. Okay, that's my question, that's a thank you. Anyone else? Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Warden for the comment. If there's anyone who wishes to speak to this or ask Mr. Warden a question. Mr. Seltzer. I have an address again, please. Mr. Chairman, thank you. Mr. Chairman, Don Seltzer, Ernie Street. Actually, it wasn't one of my speaking about this article, but I just, the talk about affordable and whether firefighters, teachers could afford these units. I just wanted to ask a question. I think there may be yarn might be able to answer it. Exactly under the town's definition of affordability and under the inclusionary 50%, is it that these apartments have to be affordable to a family that makes 70% of the AMI? So the definition off the top of my head, so, bear with me, it is divided into home ownership and rental projects. So for rental projects, thank you, Jean. Coming in, great. So I'll read it off, just so that we have the address. Okay, we only care about the rentals. Okay. So for rentals, rental units price such the rent, including utilities shall exceed 30% of the income of a household at 60% of the median income. So that is correct. It's at 60%. Okay. And what's the affordability ruling for people who are purchasing? Oh, for purchasing, it's 70% of the median income. Okay, and the AMI that applies now, I believe is around 120,000. So we're saying that basically these affordable apartments are geared for families making on the order of $72,000 a year. They're not low income, they're sort of moderate income. I think we're, unless we have some hard numbers, it's irresponsible to have that discussion. Okay. It depends upon the family size, a household size, determines. We're just guessing at the income level. Okay, I understand. But I think the point is that we're not talking about low income families, you know, we're talking at roughly a moderate type of income, comparable to what a teacher might make. Thank you. Anyone else wish to speak to this article? Mr. Loretta. Thank you, Mr. Chris. I was wondering, can you clarify that your understanding that in a mixed use development, there is no possibility of the commercial portion of it being converted to residential without first attaining the approval of your report? Yeah, I don't think I understand your question. Well, I think what Mr. Warden was getting at is we'd like to avoid a situation where somebody does a mixed use development. Well, for example, takes like a one story commercial property right now, deals on residential units up above, and then later on decides that for the first four they want to convert that commercial to residential. And what I'm asking is, could they just go to the building inspector and get a building permit to convert that to residential? It would depend if they had to get a special permit in the first place, which most likely they have to. They have to re-order a special permit to change the use. Because I think what Mr. Warden was expressing is that to prohibit that unless that formally commercial use was for low water incomes. I honestly don't know myself right now whether there is a possibility of doing that conversion of the commercial portion to residential by right in any cases. And if it is, then I think that's something, if not through this bylaw change, I think the board should look at it in the future. Thank you. Anyone else? Let's just speak to our article 28. Yes, sir, in the back. Sorry, I don't know your name. Steve Moore. Steve Moore, people on the street. Use the microphone. Thank you. Yeah, my name is Steve Moore. I'm 64 people on the street. And this is just explaining my ignorance as much. And it's a question for you folks. If a developer develops a misuse project that they are approved to do that, I'm going to mix juice by them. What is the limitation on conversion after building for that particular developer? Meaning, is there any limitation? How many years, for instance, if a developer would have to wait or owner would have to wait for potentially converting the mixed use part to the residential type activity that we're talking about here. That's it. I think I understand your question. It's my ignorance. And I'm going to back up and you can stop me if I'm not answering your question. If someone were to bring a plan to the redevelopment board, which was to be reviewed under the special permit process, the board issued a special permit process for whatever that might be, to change any use, special permit would have to be reopened. They would have to come back before this board, whoever was sitting on the side of the table, that point whether it's six months from now, 18 months from now, 20 years from now. Special permit has to be reopened for a change of use. Is that into your question? This would still have to be reviewed and approved. Okay. And that applies to a mixed use permit? That you said special permit. So a mixed use project would be a special permit process. Okay. If they were changing it so that I wouldn't know you on the longer mixed use. Right. The analysis would obviously change there. So the conversions that they're speaking of here, that currently are mixed use, but maybe they're trying now to convert commercial spaces to residential spaces requires a return to the board for approval. It would be a change of use. Yeah. And to be clear, I have not heard of any change of an existing mixed use building where the owner is seeking to change the use from commercial to residential. Okay. That's what I expect of them. They're going to be much better. Anyone else? Okay. Thank you all. Any other questions from board on article 28? Or article 34? Oh, we're still here. All right. So we'll table that for a future date. If anyone has further comments, questions, concerns, please provide them to the board. Again, we'll accept those as writing. The reason I'm moving on is because I'm going to take articles 43, 35 and 36 together as they materially cover the same issue. One is proposed by board and one is proposed by Marvin Lewitson, who is here with us this evening. The third is proposed by Gamie Maslin. I hope I pronounced her name correctly. She's asked that we vote no action on that as it's substantially similar to the article that was proposed by the redevelopment board. So since Mr. Lewitson is here with us this evening, I'll ask you to come up and present yours first. And then, Jenny, I want you to go and we can discuss. You can explain to us what the differences between two are. Thank you. Thank you. I'm Marvin Lewitson, 18 West Street. I guess in part I'm looking at my articles being different from the one proposed by the board because I feel like it's significantly less restrictive. Unlike some other issues that have come before the ZVA and I believe the other articles which was effectively withdrawn, this isn't really specific to a particular establishment. I'm really looking at this as pretty much a town-wide issue. For years as a town meeting member, I've heard a couple of different things. One, we have no commercial tax base, which is, you know, something that increases the residential taxes. We've also heard that the town has been advocated for three vigorous business districts, now in the East and center in the Heights. I'm sure all of you are well aware of the number of empty storefronts in town and, you know, storefronts have been empty for a while. We've recently had a couple of places closed in Heights. Restaurants have been an incredible driver, I think of business in this town and drawing people to the town. It's made around a really highly desirable destination. It's my belief that people coming to restaurants actually get to see other town businesses while they're here that they might not have previously been aware of and have the opportunity to come back and shop at. So I feel like there's an incentive from that standpoint that may affect other businesses as well. And it creates a more desirable looking town when storefronts are not empty, when there are things in them, when there are businesses in them. You know, I can tell you the difference in kind of restaurants between when I moved to the town in 1980 and now is phenomenal and it's certainly greatly appreciated by me and my neighbors and my friends. When I look at the article proposed by the board, I feel like it's very restrictive and I feel does not support the opening for new businesses. I've submitted a list of approximately 25 restaurants to the board with my article, none of which at this point appear to meet at least three of the transportation demand and management plan articles. They all seem to have been functioning really well. I've talked to people from different parts of town. Nobody seems to be particularly bothered by the fact that there is street parking required to be a person who partakes of these restaurants. And I feel that to have a significant number of issues, which if you just had a storefront, if you're just not a sidewalk, if there's no off-street parking available, I don't see how it's possible to have many of the elements that are proposed in this draft article. I feel like it would be really good to have parity for new businesses coming in. If you don't make existing businesses do this, it seems like it would be unreasonable to make new businesses jump through hoops and tend to discourage the development attempt. While I'm aware that there was a provision for a special permit, that also seems to be somewhat arbitrary to me and there aren't any real guidelines dictating who might or might not get a pass on the parking restrictions and even with the permit, it seems to infer that there will be other requirements in place, it's not kind of a complete waiver. For these reasons, I think it's not unreasonable for restaurants to have the opportunity to open and create more business in town. I'm not suggesting that this be the case for every business. This article is really specific to one type of business. It's about it if the board has any questions. I have a question. So this, you're, the wording of the, I'm very sympathetic to this, by the way. But I do have concerns about the wording that you wanna ask you about. It says to encourage new businesses. What do we do with the business that currently exists in Arlington, a restaurant that wants to move to a new location and expand? They're not a new business, but I am new at drafting warrant articles. You'll have to forgive me. Okay, so you would want them to be covered also? I think so, yeah. Okay. Yeah. And I'm also not aware of that many really large spaces in town that are in Arlington that can be moved in. Or even they don't have existing parking. There are big spaces in the center, but there's the, you know. Or even a current restaurant that's going to expand. I mean, I'm aware of restaurants that have expanded into the space next door. It's not a new business. But with new business, I'm just afraid that they would get caught up and not be eligible for the no parking because they're not a new business. They're just expanding. And therefore they would need to meet the parking. So I'm discouraged that the word new is in the bylaw. The second thing, let me just mention the second thing that I'm gonna ask you if you took a look at this. So if you take a look at the use table in which you cross out restaurant, which is great to do it, but then at the very end of the table, it says any other use permitted in this bylaw and then it has, you have to figure out which one it's closest to and that's the parking by, I think, and I wonder if you thought about this or talked to the town council about this, by deleting restaurant and not saying restaurant, no parking, but just deleting it. I'm afraid that it defaults to the any other use permitted by this bylaw, which then has a parking requirement for it. I wondered if you talked to the town council. I actually sent this into Mr. Heim but did not get that back as a response. Okay, I'm simple with that. It would be my expectation that some of these, if this might be something that would be amended on the floor of town, you need to correct those. But we can do it except the new thing might be a problem. Well, I think the new thing is in the warrant as a purpose can be read as the purpose but not so restrictive as to only apply to new business. Anyhow, I just wanted to get some clarity on those things. Thank you. Yeah, thank you. Any other questions? Can you do that something? Does this apply only to restaurants? That's my intent. I feel like there are so many other issues that would be opened up if it were more general that I was kind of moved to create kind of a free-for-all. Okay, that's where my support stops right there. It's just that there's so much population that can support somebody in restaurants. And you can't build, I don't think you can build a whole commercial based on just all restaurants and housing, it doesn't make a balanced town. I think we should have other things in there that would help. And I think there's no parking, you should extend it a little more to encourage some more of that because that is just restaurants. I think that's where I think if you just encourage restaurants, it's not quite enough where I think that you say it's a little restrictive. I think your thing is a little restrictive because if you look at the industrial area there, the work bar is extremely successful. And I think that could be somewhere else where there's parking lotations, is it being not as extensive because that happens and it's not parking there. I agree with your concerns. Part of it for me in drafting this again, this was something that came up after the ZBAs appeared to indicate that they were not able to issue a variance for a particular establishment. Okay. And for me, while I agree that it would be great to encourage other businesses to come into town as well, I think that if I were to open a restaurant, I would look very carefully at what the market was and I don't really see oversaturation being possible because I think people will realize that there are only so many bodies that will come to them. I also have talked to a number of people who express some concern about the idea of getting rid of all parking restrictions. And so from that standpoint, I wanted to limit my approach. Okay. Thank you. Thanks for your question. I think what I'll do is have the department present on its issue and then take public comment on both at the same time. As they do to attack on the same problem. And what we'll do is end up deciding which one we choose to go forward and the night that we go. Sorry, my sister's too hard. Let me, yeah, is it like trapped? Yeah. Let me do it all. This is really a reports article. Really. All right. Well, so this article 43 is about the reduction of parking requirements in the B3 and B5 zoning districts only. That is probably one key difference between this article and the other words applicable to any business district, I believe. Although it actually doesn't say that specifically, but I believe that was what the intention was. So that's one key difference. B3 and B5 is what this is limited to. And that is because that covers the majority of capital square in the Starlington, Arlington Center and Arlington Heights. In each of these, we reviewed them and noted that there is plenty of on street as well as in two of the instances, some parking lots, particularly, of course, in Arlington Center, the most of the parking. And the parking lots happens in Arlington Center. But there is some flexibility that's possible in any of our business districts. The probably the primary issues that's really impractical to create new parking on most of the last that we have in these particular business districts and where, of course, the board and the community would like to encourage new development and growth and potential and exceed the potential of commercial development in the community. That means taking a hard and close look at requirements that might be getting in the way of that. And I think parking, as we noted from a recent case that was reviewed by this board and approved, we were unable to fulfill the requirements for parking. So it was deferred to the zoning board of appeals where it was ultimately approved by now to still, of course, under the appeal period. But nobody should have to go through that level of an experience in order to open up a business in the town of Arlington. Further, just related to the impracticality, rather, of creating new parking in buildings that essentially saturate an entire lot in those cases, open down Mass Ave and Broadway and in other locations where there are these districts. We have buildings that have historic significance and that also creates another challenge. I think where we're trying to encourage some levels of preservation, if not wholesale preservation, we're not planning to access into a building to create parking. I don't think that's anybody's intention here as well. So geography, topography, and building saturation on lots that creates significant constraints to the creation of new parking. This, as was noted by the prior petitioner, this does require TDM, but actually in reading what we drafted as the proposal, we do say May. May require the applicant to incorporate methods as set forth in sub-paragraphs A, B, and C. So I might take that back from the report, the reported memo that was submitted to the board, whereby if we find that there is a reason to not, because of I think what was mentioned against by the other petitioner, it's not possible to impose upon applicant TDM measures for whatever reason, then we could leave that requirement because the word May is in there. I think though, just thinking that through a little bit more carefully, if we are going to encourage people to shift to other modes, if we want to stick by our bike parking regulations and other things that this board has recently adopted, we may wanna take a closer look at when we choose to waive such requirements in the future. It is also, of course, lastly consistent with many recent plans as well as one that's underway, which is the Sustainable Transportation Plan. This, of course, came most notably from the Arlington Heights favorite action plan, where a lot of the constraints in that particular business district are pretty evident in terms of new development, parking being one of them. So I think major differences are we're limiting it to B3 and B5, it is really not, it's actually more expansive than the other article because we're not just talking about restaurants, so we're talking about multiple different kinds of uses. It does cover most of those business districts, so I think that creates more opportunity and the word may, hopefully, takes away the issue of the requirement potentially of TDM. So I think that covers everything about this article. Open to questions. Okay, questions from the board? Go around, back here. Any, none, either? Okay. Public comment from anyone in the audience, we're still ready. Thank you, Chair. Public questions, who are some of the comments or something that I'm still losing on this article? My reaction was the same as Mr. Benson's, that they didn't really do what he wanted it to do by simply eliminating restaurants from the indication of how many parking spaces you need or because it does say it's not listed in that table and it's up to the building inspector to determine the closest similar years and that's what's required in a number of spaces. Yeah, is this one? So I would... You came up here to get your pen. So for that reason, I would not recommend going forward with that article, but I would not have been going forward with your article either. And I'd say that for a couple of reasons. It seems pretty clear that both of these articles were the result of the experience of a recent applicant for a pub in Arlington Heights. And I think this means a lot more thought than what's already gone into it. I frankly was quite surprised that that applicant was referred to the ZBA for variants. Can I say that? Because I don't see any reason they needed variants once you learn what they were doing. Your work was fully empowered to grant relief. They didn't get parking there. Once they established that off-site parking agreement with another business in that area, you were able, with the transition and management plans, we used to require parking to 25%. They had eventually got a written agreement with another business to provide parking for more than 25% of what was required. It was actually no reason for them to get variants. Now I don't know what the timing of this whole thing was. I did, and I didn't go to the ARB hearing for the social permit. I didn't go to the first variants hearing. But after the first variants hearing, I did speak to the attorney for the applicant. And I was frankly astounded that he didn't seem aware of what the flexibility provisions already were in zoning by parking. Now eventually, they came around to that. But there really was no need for that variance. Now having said that, the other thing that struck me is there seems to be a different way of enforcing the parking regulations with these types of businesses. And historically, as I understood it in places like East Jonathan restaurant came in, where a store was previously the applicant was essentially giving grand fathered spaces to what that store had. Now as a matter of fact, they had no on-street parking. But for example, if the store was required to have 20 spaces, it was presumed that when the restaurant came before the board for a special permit, they already had 20 spaces. As I've even covered bylaw, I'm not sure that was absolutely kosher. But in some ways, it was a rational way of dealing with what the change was from one use to another. If the restaurant didn't require any more than 20 spaces, then they certainly weren't making the non-conformity even worse. And I think you might want to look into that type of, or qualifying that type of procedure in permitting the buy-about to make that as explicitly possible. Once you do that, it can kind of cross all types of uses. So under that past interpretation, the only time the applicant for a new use would have to provide more parking was if the new use required more parking than the old use. And this was back, I think, before the board could reduce the parking promise to 25% of what was required. I guess my point is simply that the bylaw as it's now already provides quite a bit of flexibility and I'm not sure it's already enough. And the other thing I don't like about your own proposal is why is it only B3 and B5 districts? Why not B2 and B4, for example? One of the smaller businesses on Broadway, RB2, is it being that this is something that's desirable and maybe desirable for them as well. So at this point, since that applicant in our audience has received the relief, they were looking for that. I really think this is certainly something that Meris is looking at, but I think Meris is looking at it in a much more comprehensive way and maybe I would suggest coming back next year with something that cuts across all of the business districts and looks at how this has been handled at my house and how it might be in the future, particularly given the additional flexibility that's kind of been built into the bylaw. Thank you. Okay, thank you. Anyone else wish to speak on either of these articles for your parking? Okay, thank you all. I'll just table that until our next discussion and that closes the public hearing portion tonight's meeting. Article one or agenda item number one is finished. So thank you all for coming. We will take everything under advisement, vote in the future. That's next time. Thank you, Mr. Liu. So moving on to organizational meeting there are our rules and regulations we were required in the year to adopt elect a chairperson and a vice chairperson. We've been attempting to do this, but due to a lack of core kinds of meetings, it's fall into March, but we'll move on to that this evening. And so I will take nominations for chair and vice chair. It's like a nominee, Andrew Bono. A second. Okay, accept. Thank you. All in favor. Aye. Aye. And for vice chair, thank you. Nominate Kim Lau. Second. All in favor. Aye. Aye. Good work, keep things status quo for another year. Thank you all for serving and being active regardless. Agenda item number three is director's updates. So Jenny, just to provide us a quick update of staff updates to the projects. Thank you, my daughter. Sure, thank you. I'll use this, I guess. I need to come back for it. So just quickly, we, I think I mentioned at the last meeting that we had our first discussion with myself, Andrew, Adam Chaplain, Diane Mahon, and Doug Hyne to talk about the warrant articles and to talk about which article is the board, my review that are not technically the review of the board and also what might be reviewed by the select board. And so I wanted to share that with you and I don't have an exact date as to when we're going to talk about these particular articles, but I'll figure that out. The articles that we thought would be helpful to have the board opine on and potentially vote on. And then I would provide a write up essentially about our discussion about those articles back to select board via Adam are four different articles. The first one is the fossil fuel infrastructure bylaw, which is article 13 and being heard and discussed by the select board on March 23rd, which is a meeting that I will be at actually because also that might as CDBG and then also that evening is the trust fund, which is article municipal for what has a trust fund establishment of that article 19 as well as article 20, which is the home rule petition to request a real estate transfer fee. So those three articles plus CDBG is going to have an March 23rd. And they've asked for this board to discuss those articles and potentially have a vote of some kind just to talk about your support of them or lack of support potentially and any other comments that you wish to share with the board that could inform them of your opinions about them as they relate to development and other potentially plans that were working on future plans, existing plans, et cetera. The last one that they asked for your opinion on would be the town committee on residential development, which was article 15, is article 15 but was already heard by them on February 24th where they already took a vote actually that evening but they still ask you to talk about that as well. And then they will be talking about all of the parking discussion that we just had this evening. We'll really just those two warrant articles now about parking reductions. They're gonna also talk about that and they will provide me with some feedback on what they discussed. So I don't know if there's anything else to add about that unless you were at the meeting. So I think the point of this is that our vote would be non-binding. It would be just informational I think for town meeting members who are voting on those articles that are moved forward to town meeting. I don't know that there's a whole lot of value to be gained through discussing article 15 at this point since it's already been moved no action by the select board, but on the other three I think probably worth at least revealing and having a discussion of as a board and making a recommendation before the 23rd. We have a meeting on the 16th which is a very busy evening. But I think we could probably squeeze a quick discussion of those three items at the end of that night. And what we would be doing is again there we would take a vote really just to forward an opinion up or down to the select board to assist them in making the wrong decision. I think the recording of that vote and the discussion would go into our report to town meeting in some fashion. But again, it's not going to be a binding decision. It's really just an informative discussion that we put on record. Is there something for us to leave for now? There will be. Yeah, when we, if we're doing it on March 16th then I will provide all of those any information that I have about those home calls in advance to you as part of your regular agenda. Does anyone want to discuss those items? Any further questions about that? We'll discuss them on the 16th and that will take a vote on those that night as to our opinion. Anything else, Jim? No, that was the main update that I wanted to provide at this point. All right. So we are quickly moving through this evening's agenda. We are now at Open Forum which I will open up members of the public to come up and speak. Raise your hand and I will ask you to come up. Mr. O'Rourke. I have a question for the board. Do you know when your last meeting wasp? The date on your last meeting? Last Monday, last Monday. What was the actual date then? I think you can look at your calendar and figure that out. March 2nd. Today's the second. March 2nd is today. It was February 24th, the meeting. Yeah, sorry. My question pertains to the items used for one of the public hearings last week pertaining to the Atwood House. And apparently prior to that meeting, there was no documentation posted for that item. And I see that it is posted for, as correspondents received for this meeting. But the date is listed forward, it's February 25th. And so when did your board receive the documentation prior to the meeting, or was it not received until afterwards? We received it the night after the meeting. He kept the meeting. We received the documentation at the meeting and I chastised Mr. Nessie for doing so. I told him just to let me finish. Asked him to provide that to us and then continued the hearing when we would receive it and review it formally. It actually says right in the package that it was posted at the time that it was received, which was February 25th at 8.03 a.m. My question is what is your board's policy when you don't get the documentation in advance as the applicant is supposed to? Because the hearings held that night, wasn't it? And I guess I would have expected they hadn't provided adequate advance notice and documentation at the hearing to simply be postponed to a later date without anything happening during that evening. But apparently there was some discussion with the applicant and we did take some public comment. My concern is that it really puts the public who, and that's the very reason you have a public hearing as a public to be heard, really puts them at a disadvantage if the documentation of what's being discussed isn't available in advance even at the hearing for those people. So I would simply ask that situation happens in the future that you just tell the applicant to go home and come back at a later date and provide the information in advance. So both of you could see as the board to review it in advance as well as the public. Thanks. Thank you. Can I just respond to that? So there was no expectation that there was gonna be any documentation and we did actually have things to discuss with them that was outside of the documentation. They were supposed to come back with a timeline that they were going to verbally tell us, which they did. We declined to take any action or discuss at length what was in, they presented what was in the document, but we declined to take any action on it because of the fact that we and the public had no opportunity to review it. So we did act as was requested, which was to have to hear what their progress was. And that was very important to us in order to move this forward. Thank you. Thank you. Anyone else who was just speaking during open forum? It's seen none. I don't know if it's true. Oh, sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Apologize. I think you're not in my mind. No. Name it after. Yes, Charles, I was on the matter and asked you an increasing one. And I wanted to make comment that what you're talking about at the select board is a really great, great time. We really think that's terrific as a town meeting member I think last time with all that happened. I think part of what some people were feeling was that all of this was just coming out in a very silent kind of a way like we had one member of the finance committee got up and expressed support. And then later another one got up and said, no, it's not a good idea. And I was just, I don't know how possible it is, but just suggesting that maybe whether some of these things do involve town finances or maybe even in school enrollment, maybe there could be some consultation across some of these committees as well. So that adds town meeting members to not just getting something from this board, but also from the other boards that are affected. There's a lot of times questions and concerns involve town services or school involvement, so I think it's great what you knew at the select board and it really makes it much more informative for town meeting members to be able to get the extra point of view. And we can't explain it to the finance and the school committee, that'd be great. Thank you. Thank you. What else? A motion to adjourn. Motion to adjourn. Second. All in favor. All right. Great. Thank you everyone. We'll be back here in two weeks.