 I'm going to call to order the Monday, March 6th, 2017 meeting of the Arlington Free Development Board. Thank you for coming this evening. Before we begin tonight, I want to welcome our newest member, Gene Benson. Thank you. Welcome to the board. I'm sure you'll find it educational and formative and lots of fun. And lots of work. We're glad to have you. Thank you. Oh, thank you. First on our agenda this evening is as relates to the 43 Summer Street EDR hearing special permit dock at 3522 received correspondence from the applicant's attorney requesting the continuance. Kind of an open-ended idea. Did we get a date in, Bob? No, we've not gotten a date. I think one of the things they wanted to do before they came back before the board had to do with environmental testing because that came up the preschool, which is two doors away, was very concerned about that, the condition of the ground. So they are doing like a second round of testing right now, I think, which they will have the results of before they come back. And as well as other new documents, new site plan and other plans. How far along are they on some of the documents we requested? I don't know. I've asked them a number of times if they know when they'll be able to come back and they haven't given me any date at all. So I think what I would do, I don't know if we need a motion for this, we can grant the general continuance not to expire that their application won't be automatically approved within the 90 days prescribed by the statute. We have an agreement with them that they'll come back when they're ready. Before the 90 days expired. Before, okay. And this is the only correspondence that we've received to Laura's point. So we don't have any, I mean we could choose a date which in this case I would suggest May, the first meeting in May, I guess, because of the timing of everything. I'd suggest that as a target date and let them know that we'd like to have them back but not to move forward with any publication until we have that confirmed with them. And also all the meetings during town meeting will be abbreviated. So. Okay. Do we need a motion for that or is that just a comment? I would suggest a motion. I hear by motion to continue this docket number 3522 to May, I'll put you at the date in May. I'll close it up. I think you should reference the 90 day period. Yeah, within the 90 days prescribed by Chapter 40A Section 9. 90 days from what? From the original date? 90 days from the original date. Is that, I mean he's giving you permission in this letter to not stay within the 90 days. The second to the bottom paragraph. That was how I read it. Yeah, so. I, yeah. It's supposed to be 90 days from when they had the hearing. So we would certainly make it certainly be. I would suggest, we will have meetings between now and then. Obviously, I would suggest that we continue this to the first meeting in May if it starts to get close. Then we ask for at least Bob to come in and just put something in writing to avoid the expiration of that 90 day period. Okay. So does King have to amend or? Withdraw his motion and put it on the table. No one second. No, I withdraw it. You can. No, I'm going, go ahead. You're doing great. I motion to extend the hearing to May or first available date in May. The first available date. Dr. number three, five, two, two with understanding that the 90 day expiration is agreed upon by them. Let's say the 90 day expiration period stayed. 90 state. Yes, sir. Second. All in favor. All right. Hi. Good. Yeah. Okay. Next up on the agenda is a discussion with Karen Thomas. All right. One of the proponents of town meeting warrant article nine, she emailed Jenny and David and myself and asked to have a discussion with the board regarding buffer zones and her town meeting warrant article. So Karen, if you could come up and introduce yourself for the record, have a seat in front of us. You can drag a more comfortable chair. My name is Karen Thomas. All right. Yes. 157 Newport Street. So yes, so just a little bit of background. I think you are probably familiar with this issue, but just everyone's on the same page. So when registered marijuana dispensaries were approved, medical marijuana dispensaries were approved by the state in 2012. There was a 500 foot buffer zone around places where children commonly congregate that buffer zone was intended to be included with the zoning rule that was passed by Arlington a couple of years ago, where we've limited RMDs to the business districts of the town, however, the state ruled over the summer that we had inadvertently eliminated the state buffer zone when we zoned RMDs for the business districts. And as far as I'm aware, that was not the intention of anybody within the Arlington to get rid of those buffer zones. So the point of this report article is just to put back what we wanted to be there for a long time. The language that we used was that from the town of Burlington's buffer zone, just because it's a little bit more specific than the states where the states says places where children commonly congregate is rather vague. So we use the language from Burlington and that language is identical to a substitute motion that was proposed by Jason Coalfield last fall. However, at the time it was ruled that this substitute motion was too different from a different motion proposed by the marijuana industry. So it didn't go to the town median because it was too different from what did go to the town median. Sorry, this is confusing with lots of warrants being proposed over the years. So at any rate, I've had discussions with Christine about what she thinks, what the Board of Health thinks, and what the Director of Health think about what the buffer zone should be. And so the Board of Health has proposed revised language and I will let the Director of Health speak about what that language entails. But just to make sure everyone's aware of the differences between what we're proposing and what the marijuana industry put on the town median agenda last fall. The one last fall would have allowed a registered medical marijuana dispensary to be next door to preschools and would have allowed them to be next door to athletic fields and playgrounds. So that's the major difference between what we're proposing and what was voted on last fall. So I think if I may speak. Please. Thank you. Thank you. So Christine Banger, I know how from who is the Director, I represent the Board of Health. So Karen had come to the last Board of Health meeting and the Board had asked that I work with Karen and the proponents of the warrant article nine. So looking at the warrant article that was originally proposed and in discussions with town council, it appeared as if the proposed article may may have been too comprehensive. It may have potentially zoned out the use in town. So looking at what are the most sensitive public health and public safety receptors in town. We came up with the list that you have in front of you working closely obviously with the police department and others in town to look at where do we see areas in town that could potentially be a problem for this type of use. We obviously don't want to see a facility pop up across the street from high school next door to our late Catholic. I think those are those are the areas that we were looking at. So what we have in front of you is a proposal that we feel not only protects the public health and safety of the community, it also you know still allows for sites to operate to as you see from the map here, the dark red sites are the sites that are still available. So as you see from this map, the color map, the gray areas are the actual buffer zones around the sites. We came up with a list of addresses. I used both licensed facilities through the Department of Early Education as well as so we have group homes, athletic fields, so athletic fields where permitted events occur for children through the work department. We used addresses from a number of various organizations, so those are all plotted on the map. So as you can see, there are still sites available, so it wouldn't essentially be zoning this out of town. So there are sites still available in the heights in the center as well as in the east. I think, you know, we did look at this strategically from, as I said, both a public health and a public safety perspective. We feel as if it is very fair and a good proposal to forward with your approval to town meeting. With me here tonight is also Chief Fred Ryan, who has worked over the years with me closely on issues in town as well as a whole host of other drug issues in town, both within the youth population as well as the general adult population. So if I may, turn it over to Chief Ryan to give his perspective on this issue. Thanks for having me. Thanks, Christine. Thank you, Christine. Good evening, honorable members of the board. Fred Ryan, police chief, thank you for giving me the time. And at the risk of sounding a little bit cynical, I've looked at the data and, you know, there are 168 people who are certified to receive medical marijuana in our lifetime. So we have to assume then any entrepreneur who sets up in our community will draw upon a demographic from outside of Arlington, people who we are unfamiliar with and likely will come to Arlington to acquire their marijuana. And, you know, our concern is that without the buffer zone, we could potentially have a demographic coming to Arlington that wouldn't otherwise come to Arlington to acquire their marijuana and bring with them other people who may not have, because remember with the security plan, with the dispensaries, only the person certified can actually enter the premises. So anybody they travel to Arlington with cannot enter the premises. They have to wait outside, wait in a car or what have you. And these are cash businesses and delivery is also an option. And the police department is concerned about the impact of the quality of life in and around dispensaries in the future. And this just makes good common sense. You know, it speaks to our values in our community with a great education system and our investment in our education and youth sports and just the general quality of life. And I wholeheartedly support this foreign article. Thank you for the opportunity. Thank you. Just to be clear, this is not public hearing tonight. This was the proponent asking to have our conversation with the board. Our public hearing on this will happen next week. This is really just a fact-biting informational courtesy to somebody who took the time to put a warrant article together and asked to be included on the agenda. So we won't be taking a vote tonight. This is really just an informal discussion. I thank Chief Ryan and Director Bon Jovano for coming tonight. But this is a good time for our members of the board to ask questions of anybody that's here ahead of the public meeting next week, public hearing next week. Ken. Do you have one question? I appreciate this coloration. It makes a lot more sense now because I could not really understand if I've been white before. You're saying that there are zones that are still available for a legitimate marijuana distribution, medical marijuana distribution plan, right? What happens in the future if someone all of a sudden puts a school right next to it so that spot will also disappear then? Or are we establishing these red zones that you say right here are the areas that you can put medical marijuana and now it's been by the zoning article saying zone for those areas. If someone choose to put a daycare center or one of the lists you've put there, right? It will not exclude that area anymore. So I think the intent of the law is to protect the health and safety of children. So if there's a facility that children are using, the intent of the law is to protect the children in that facility. I realize that. I totally agree with you there. So I'm answering your question. So yes, in the future if a new school is cited in a particular location where there is not presently a marijuana dispensary, presumably if the school is aware that a dispensary is there they wouldn't choose to locate there. But if a school opens up in a place then you're right. The 500 feet around that school would no longer be available. And I would only add that the original state regs called for the 500 foot buffer zone and some of this is uncharted territory. I realize that. That's why I'm asking you. Following law, this is a very difficult question I'm trying to ask you because I don't want to get to the point where today we say these four zones are OK, but then by our actions a year from now or two years from now we have no zones available because of a daycare center or a park or so forth. And now there is, I mean, I believe that town voted over one only 68% to support this medical marijuana not recreational. That's a totally separate thing. So I think the town is saying we're supportive of this medical use and purely medical use. Now I'm talking now that we should have the ability to have some place to put it. And I agree with you. Appropriate place is critical. Well, to clarify, to clarify, to some extent, just for anybody who has questions, this is not a retroactive statute. This is not a retroactive bylaw. So it won't impact the R&B that's already been approved. No, it won't. There's the one coming in there. Right, but I just think that's important to put out on the table. But with respect to what you've made, it gets us back to the baseline with the original ranks. And all the issues you raise would have presented themselves had we not inadvertently done what we did to exclude the buffer zone. So it's just getting us back to the baseline that was good public policy to begin with. I might say that the people of this town voted to legalize medical marijuana in an abstract state. They did not vote on the particular question of where to situate a medical marijuana dispensary within this town. I think if you asked the people of this town to vote on that specific question, you'd get a very different answer. No, I would agree with you there. But if we get to a point where we put this in and don't have some sort of fair deal where there's no, there will be no place that can go. So I think practically that's not going to happen. If you look at the map, it's very unlikely that a new school is going to open up within 500 feet at the areas that are dark red. Maybe not a school, but what about a daycare center? So I think that's also unlikely. I mean, if you look at especially the areas in Arlington Heights, there's no place to put a daycare center around those locations. And then, I mean, the other place along Pleasant Street, yeah, there's no place you can put a daycare center there right now. So while your question can be asked in the abstract, I think in a practical case of what's on this map, it's not going to happen. And then even still in the abstract, and it's the point of the law is to protect the children. So you're saying that if suddenly the population of children in the town increases and we need more schools to accommodate this town, that we should start sacrificing their health? No, I didn't say that either. I'm just saying that if we allow certain spaces for this to happen, there should be all spaces that school can go into, a daycare center can go into. But if they choose to go in that area there, it doesn't affect someone else that's already there or someone that's, I mean, right now you're designating five zones for this. Well, they're not designating the zones. They're just examples of what's available. But those are the five zones that are available. Maybe I'm way off here. I'm just trying to play the advocate on the other side right now just to see if we're fair. And the devil's advocate to that is that one of the existing schools can move as well. I mean, it's a zoning for the situation on the ground. I mean, you look at what you have there, and you protect what's there. Children who are going to school are there, so you protect them. I'm just trying to express it. And I'll just leave it that because I think it's kind of, we can debate this most of the day. Go ahead, David. So we granted the special permit for the proposed Water Street facility. And I know that was just one piece of the permitting process that that proponent has been engaged in. So I just want to understand, is that in fact done, or is there a potential here that that could change the siting? It's done. That's right. It's that they're moving forward. They're getting a Board of Health permit probably by July to operate. In the process of reviewing the security plans, at least. Yeah. And we also look pretty closely at their security precautions. Yeah. All right, so this really would only affect any additional dispensaries that were proposed for the town. And they could under this proposed buffer zone change, they would only be able to be sited in the areas indicated in dark red on the map. And we have 168 people in the community eligible to get met up in marijuana. How many children are there? Well, one, actually. Where do those 168 people go now? Salem, Cambridge. And so Cambridge is the next closest dispensary. Are there any proposed sites in any other neighboring communities in Burlington, Lexington? Summerville, I believe there will be two. Cambridge, I know of Meadham, Boston, Quincy, Salem. No more currently proposed in Arlington, though? No, but to be honest with you, the Board of Health does receive phone calls from firms that are interested in moving to town. Obviously, they're sent over to the select man. There is a process. The Board of Health is later on in the process. So they are sent out of the province. The reason I'm going down this line of question is I'm wondering how many more than those 168 may start to fill into town if this room is open and whether there'll be the demand for an additional arm date in one of these other districts. So the current facility will be doing home delivery. If somebody is unable to access the one of the center, they obviously could have a delivery. Probably ask this question back in the original hearing back in the fall, but what's the criteria for getting a prescription and being able to access one of these facilities? I know that's not something that the Board of Health necessarily sets, but I imagine you know the answer. There is a longer list of conditions that one must have in order to receive a recommendation from a physician. I have heard that it is pretty easy to get a card. I can't speak to how easy that is. I haven't obtained one myself. But it is a recommendation by a particular physician. I believe that there will be a recommendation by the current Water Street facility, which physicians may be able to do it. OK. Recommendations. OK. David, anything further? Do we have any idea what the interplay might end up being between this and changes related to recreational marijuana? So I believe the state's still trying to figure that out. I do know that question four did outline the ability for medical facilities to convert over to self-recreationally. I know that the town, the Board of Health, is really in favor of putting forward a vote to the community to try to ban recreational marijuana. I think that there's so much to learn from other states. I don't think jumping into this right away. I think the Board of Health is really interested in letting the community take a vote to take a step back. So I think it's hard to say. The state is still trying to navigate that. I know that there has been a shift, and maybe the timeline has increased slightly. So it's not going to happen as we originally thought. But I know the entrepreneur's vision is one line for medical and one line for recreation. I thought when we approved the medical marijuana facility in the water street, that we've put a provision in the saying that if they were to also do recreation, they would have to come back to the Board for approvals. I thought we had put something like that in there. That's a condition that's in there. I do believe. I also recall that saying that that was not in their lands. That's what I remember, too. That can change. That has changed. My most recent conversation with the attorneys, I did explain that the Board of Health is in favor of pushing forward for a local vote. And they said that they wouldn't say that they're not interested because it is a business. And that whatever decision was made by the town, they're still moving forward with the medical. But obviously, they would be interested in recreation with that work. I thought we said not on that site, not on that approval or that special permit. So question four doesn't allow the local government to take any action to prohibit a facility to become recreational. So unfortunately, that's one of the issues that's being discussed at the AG's level because I think that's something to take local control away on that particular issue. It just didn't make too much sense. So I think there's definitely a lot to learn over the next, I'd say, six months. I know the town council is trying to figure out what steps we can take as a community. But I do know that the local control in question four was eliminated. We have very little control. But we do control the rights to have mental health marijuana. And I thought it was one of the conditions. It's a special condition of their permit that we ask them to come back here in the event that they're considering. There's any consideration for recreational marijuana at that facility. They would have to go through that process anyway, even though as Christine has noted, there's not final regulations. So we don't have all of the guidance that we need in order to move forward. We know that they will inevitably have to come back to us because it would be an amendment to the special permit regardless of what the use is that we're talking about. Any amendment to a special permit would have to come back. And then I just want to say one more thing is that one of the articles for special town meeting, which is in your packet, is the moratorium. And that would basically buy us, I think, about three more months. So more time to plan, essentially, in the absence of clear guidance. I guess one more point I was going to make really quickly is my understanding, again, of recreational marijuana is that if it were to move forward in town and say, even after a vote, and the vote was that people wish for that use to remain in town, only one facility could open up, potentially? Or is that you're going to vote? I'm not sure. OK. That's my understanding of having spoken with the town council about this as well. It's one fifth of the number of liquor licenses. The liquor licenses. My understanding, anyway, from that conversation, it would be one. OK. Or so. OK. Vandy? Chief Ryan, I just want to let you're here. What, if you compare it, you've got a CVS pharmacy. You've got liquor stores, and then you've got this medical marijuana dispensary. How do you compare those? And what are the various dangers of each one of those so that I can put it into context? What's dangerous about a medical marijuana facility? And how do you see outside influences? And how does that all work? What's the metric of the danger that you see as the chief of police? Yeah, interesting question. One analogy I can make is we have a hotspot with group homes, with particularly one on the Heights. And we know that the convenience store nearby, although we work with them, Christine's office has worked with them to try to prevent them from selling tobacco to children. But tobacco is going to divert it to children. We know that in our olden Heights. And my concern is a diversion of marijuana from those who possess a medical marijuana card into the hands of our children. And Christine, that's an interesting youth risk behavior survey data that indicates some trends around the perception of use of marijuana among children being more acceptable. If you look at the demographics of those who have a medical marijuana card, the overwhelming majority are between 18 and 50. And there are only nine over the age of 70. And so our concern is not only with this group, but those who come to Arlington from outside of Arlington with a car are then diverting their medical marijuana and profiting from it by diverting into children in the community. Now, obviously, recreational, if and when recreational marijuana comes to Arlington, that will have an impact as well. But it's that diversion piece. And the second piece to worry about is the delivery. Although I'll admit it is a pretty good security plan. I think you all have seen that as well. But I worry about cash and marijuana are valuable commodities in the community and the delivery setting. And I can't predict what the challenges will be. But I worry about the impact that it will have on neighborhoods. And I worry about the diversion into the hands of our children. So if you're going to a CVS and buying Vicodin, couldn't you have the same exchange with somebody who wants to buy it? And we have that difficulty in the community now. One popular drug of choice is Clonopin, where some kids have Clonopin prescriptions. And Clonopins are getting diverted into children's hands. And we know about that. So that exists just the way people wait outside the liquor store when you were a kid to see if you could get somebody to buy you a six-pack of beer, kind of thing. Well, now they use social media. We're dating ourselves. So all of that is controlled by you, obviously, by the police department. And you have ways to do that. And you have a way to look at it. You've got liquor stores. You've got drug stores. You've got now R&D. Is the location that you are putting it, is that the best way that you feel to avoid the kind of interaction that you're talking about? Well, I think in terms of, you see, our focus is prevention, whether it be sale of alcohol to children or tobacco to children. We would prefer to work with the merchant to prevent that from occurring rather than playing gotcha. And we've done a lot of work with merchants around that very issue. You may see when we go out and do alcohol stings, we advertise in advance that we're going to be doing alcohol stings. And a lot of folks will say, why would you do that? You're not going to catch anybody. And we say, well, that's exactly what we want. We want zero violations. So folks know that the pressure is on. They're likely to ramp up their compliance efforts. And so the point I guess I'm trying to make is we can work with merchants, regardless of what they're selling, around compliance and getting proactive about preventing violations rather than playing gotcha after the stuff is landed in the hands of children. That's our philosophical approach to it. With tobacco, Christine's office, alcohol, obviously, and the same thing, I've had these conversations with the dispensary that's playing to come to town. We are willing to work hand in hand with them to prevent the diversion type activity that I'm describing. I don't think that will be 100% effective. And that's what concerns me. Do you think it helps to push away from downtown areas and so forth as outlined in this thing? Or is it, I thought at one point it was stated that, well, you want it where you're going to be most businesses going on, most activity on a daily basis. So that's where you're going to be anyway. That's where you're monitoring. That's where lights need to be turned on as opposed to going farther out, where the lights are lower. So that was a question because it was in my mind because I thought we talked about it a while ago. Yeah, I think the theory there was we have a lot of good business people in town. And the peer pressure among the merchants would have a positive impact on preventing some of the things that we're talking about. But with large sums of drugs and money, I worry about a robbery. And a close proximity to a place where there were children could be a recipe for some real devastating consequences. And to the extent that we go back to the original raids with the 500-foot buffer zone, I feel that it's good public policy for our community to take that approach. And it would be helpful to the police in preventing that diversion and the injury to our beloved children. Thanks. Gene. Can you talk a little bit about how this diversion happens? Because I'm not in that world. And I don't really understand how somebody buying medical marijuana because they have a need for it ends up with young people in the community. So like alcohol, we expect that marijuana will wind up in the hands of children coming from medical marijuana dispensaries. Like the example it was given, apparently some of you guys when your children used to wake around the liquor store. I just heard about this. Yeah. I don't know what you're talking about. But a simple example, a car load comes in from Belmont. One of the young men has a medical marijuana card. Goes in, acquires the marijuana, comes out, gets in the car. They go to a nearby park. Now they're using marijuana in the park. And in order to pay for more marijuana, sell a little bit. And that funds the acquisition of more marijuana. So it's what happens with alcohol. It's what happens with illicit drugs now. And we would expect that some level of diversion. And I talk a lot with the entrepreneur going into Water Street. I want to know how they're screening their employees because a lot of the diversion comes from within as well. And so we want to work with them around preventing employees who might have some criminal desire to divert it out into the field. And what age children would this be diverted to, like, five-year-olds or seven-year-olds? What age is the target age for this person? Our Youth Risk Behavior Survey, 12 to 17-year-olds, typically would be the first to start using marijuana. Obviously they're using it younger, but not at high enough levels. Can you explain a little bit then the connection between proximity of location and the diversion because people are driving to the park from wherever it is? It doesn't matter if it's 500 feet or 1,000 feet. They're driving somewhere else. If they're doing it on social media, it doesn't matter where they buy it. So explain a little bit to me the connection between proximity and the diversion. So we would expect that some folks would use public transportation to get to the dispensary and then commute by foot and then back out from the dispensary and head back toward and perhaps use along the way. And so it's during that acquisition of the marijuana and then commute back to public transportation where it's highly likely that they'll use along the way and then there's opportunity right there for impact of quality of life. So they walk out and they're walking down to the dust and go to an nearby bench and they're starting to use it right there? That's what we anticipate. Are they allowed to do that? And that's what other jurisdictions have experienced. Are they allowed to do that under the law? We do have a prohibition against public consumption. However, there's no teeth in the fine collection mechanism. So we can issue fines. And we could go up to somebody publicly using marijuana and ask them to identify themselves. They could say, I'm Mickey Mouse. They don't have to give us a positive identity. We could give Mickey Mouse the $100 citation and there's no teeth in the law to collect that $100 citation. So the sponsors of the medical marijuana initial question, I would argue intentionally puts in loopholes in the belt question. I think this is more for Christine maybe. Where are the private home day cares that are on this map? So those are mostly scattered? Are they the orange dots? Or are they a combination of regular day care and private home day cares? Do we know where all the private home day cares are? What do they need to do to get licensed? There's a license through the state. And their addresses are listed on the state website. So let's say this does pass. It would be easy enough to just pull those addresses anytime there's an applicant and plot them on a map and make sure that the site would work. For the most part, those change, but they're further out. They're further into the neighborhoods. And so I don't think that they would have much of an impact. The home day cares, that is, have much of an impact on the business district. Just following up on that, would there be any mechanism that if, for instance, somebody applied for a private home day care license and they were within 500 feet of a dispensary and they didn't care that that application would be denied in the interest of protecting the children? So is there any mechanism if we do have the 500-foot buffer zones and someone living within the buffer zone decided, despite the existence of the dispensary, to seek a private home day care license, is there any provision for denying that on the basis of the presence of the dispensary? There wouldn't be. No, it's a state license. And we would have no authority to do that. Under this, if this were the case. So in some sense, we can achieve some of the aim by limiting where the dispensaries are cited, but we can't entirely control what other activities involving children might choose to move into the buffer zone. My layperson perspective on this, you all have subject matter experts on this business, but it's about that date and time when the application's received and the analysis occurs at that point. Obviously, the world change is moving forward. And I think that was the intent of the original 500-foot buffer zone that many other jurisdictions have. Clearly, things will change years or decades down the line. It's just like Water Street. This is adopted by Tom Meading. They're exempted. How old are the children who go to the daycares that are on the dots? What are the age groups? They could be 0 to 5. So connect that to me to what was said earlier about the age where the diversion happens. It's 12. So I think when it comes to the daycares, it's the perception. So children are going by this facility every day. And over time, it becomes normal. And the perception of harm and the perception of risk is low. So by the time they're 12, it's easier to engage. And that's really the concept behind that. And I think when we look nationwide, daycare centers are included in most of the buffer zones across the states that have medical marijuana approved in the states. So I think when we look from the public health perspective, it's the perception of risk and the perception of harm that we want those children to grow up believing that that's something that they're going to have to push off till later in life. If they start between the ages of 12 and 17 with marijuana, we know that depression is more likely by the time they're 24. The youth brain is developing up to 24. And there's a lot of science and a lot of research behind really trying to push off the use of alcohol, tobacco, other drugs, till at least 24. Obviously, the age of alcohol is 21. But we would obviously like to push that off as long as possible. But where we're seeing the age of youth starting generally in Arlington with marijuana at age 12, I think the longer we can push that off, the better. So I think it is a great question. It is something that I was looking at. And why daycare centers? Why would we care? I mean, it's just the going by these facilities every day and becoming a regular part of life and seeing people going in and out that allows them to, over time, believe that it's an acceptable drug to use. And by the time they're 12, it's just a normal part of life. If I could add on to that also, as Chief Ryan mentioned at the beginning of this meeting, there's only 168 people in Arlington that have prescriptions. And as Christine mentioned and has been reported in the Boston Globe several times, it's laughably easy to get a prescription. And there are physicians who have been arrested for giving out prescriptions to basically anybody who comes in their office. There was a Boston Globe expose about that, the physician who got arrested because anybody who came in his office, he gave them a prescription. So we know that there are good people that will be going to these dispensaries. We also know that there will be bad people going to these dispensaries and that they will attract bad people. And that's just being adults about this and recognizing the way the world works. And I believe the dispensary has offered the town a certain amount of money every month in exchange for this permit. And if you look at the sum of money that they're giving us in order to pay for that amount of money, they're expecting a lot more than 160 people to be using this facility. So they're expecting a lot of people to be coming in from out of town. So that means that this facility will be drawing in people of ill-repute from the surrounding communities. So now you're concentrating them in one particular place. And you're concentrating them in a place that's within 500 feet of a preschool. So now the risk of something bad happening to the children walking to this preschool has now been compounded. We're engaging in a social experiment here. We've never done this before. Let's go into it with our eyes open, being realistic about human nature and trying to avert bad things instead of reacting to them after they happen. Just quickly, Mr. Chair, to Mr. Benson's question that Christine impaired driving is another major concern of the police department. Those impaired by the consumption of marijuana as they go to get more marijuana traveling by these daycares, whether they're children 0 to 5, creates a serious public safety risk. Combined with the fact is that there's a lack of an enforcement mechanism here. We don't have the standard field sobriety testing that we have for alcohol impairment. And the SJC has a case under review where we can use the, which is known as a horizontal gaze and a stagmas test to check for marijuana impairment. But I do worry about impaired drivers in our neighborhoods. Getting back to the other point, for the places that have opened around the state, is there any evidence of increases in crime and lots of people? I don't know anybody's collecting data on that. Character showing up at these places. Well, there's plenty of anecdotal stories, yes. I don't know if anybody's collecting data on baseline data or follow-up data on quality of life issues. That's one thing we've talked about internally with our crime analysts to make sure we understand our baseline of activity around Water Street to be able to measure any change moving forward. That would be the responsible thing to do. But clearly, we've heard about anecdotes around the state, yes. What have you heard? Impaired drive. From people who are using medical marijuana or just people who are using the illegal, or how do we know it's medical as compared to illegal? Well, you have to understand, sure, you know, you pull over a car, a car load of kids, one has a car, the others don't. Some give you fake names. There's marijuana in the car. They know it's basically legal. Again, I don't mean to sound like a cynic here, but, you know, this is what we deal with in the field. And we would expect that to occur moving forward with dispensaries in our life. Thanks, helpful. Go ahead. I do want to wrap this up because we're getting... Sorry, this is a good discussion. Just a couple. I just wanted to look at some of the definitions a little bit. So in the current proposal, there are three categories that... We're looking at the chart, which was prepared for us. Yeah, yeah. So this is what you... And also the, I think, does this track the board of health? Yes, I'm sorry. Yes, that's... Proposal? Yeah, okay. That's what I thought. So there are three categories that, if I read the key correctly, are not explicitly mentioned, but fall into other categories. And can you just explain which categories those three fall under? And that's the facilities in which children, common land, congregate, license providers of educational, recreational, and healthcare services to children at parks and playgrounds. Sure. So I'll start with parks and playgrounds. So the... As proposed by the board of health, it says specifically athletic playing fields were organized, permitted, and then soccer. So that's a little bit more specific than parks and playgrounds. So it's a subset of parks and playgrounds. So not all parks and playgrounds only those with athletic fields were organized, permitted, and then soccer. With respect to license providers of educational, recreational, health care services, again, a subset of that is included, right? So licensed childcare programs, residential care programs, public and private schools. So that's a subset that providers of educational services to children. And then facilities in which children, common land, congregate is what was in the state law. And as we noted, that's vague and needed definition. So the definition is what we have provided. Okay. That makes more sense. The way it was presented on the chart, it sounded like those categories were entirely subsumed by the defined categories. Oh, sorry. Yeah, I should have said it's a subset of that. Okay. It's included. And then my last question just had to do with how the distance is measured in establishing the buffer zone. In the Board of Health proposal, it's 500 feet measured in a straight line. I don't know whether there's other ways of measuring or what the best way of measuring is. So that was taken right out of the state, the original state regulation. So I mean, you can obviously look at other communities to see what they've used. But I think taking it right out of the state right, which is what we originally thought was in place in Arlington, was sort of the way that we thought was the best way to put this forward. OK. Any other questions? Just one thing, but just in the letter, I just noticed that the town had inadvertently voided the fiber. That may be true, but that's not the way I remember it. I remember it as that we were at the town was going to be thinking about it themselves, given that Arlington were not like every other town. That was a guideline that the state had. But I don't think it was inadvertent. I think it was purposely in order to assess what could happen and what the police department thought was a good idea. Concentrations of businesses around the downtown might have been a good idea to have, that's where your surveillance is highest, versus pushing it farther out. Maybe I'm wrong, I just want to, personally, I don't remember it that way. I didn't think it was inadvertent. So from the email? It says the town had inadvertently voided the fiber and food buffer zone. I'm just saying, I don't know if that language is correct. That's a memo from Duck Hyme? No, I think that's in your email to that. But now that I see what you're saying is that this kind of blunt instrument, I mean, I see the logic of it, is the way you think it's going to be the safest in this town. And that rings very strongly. I mean, my recollection is that when town meeting voted on this, it was town meeting took its vote. And then at a subsequent time, the state changed its interpretation. And that kind of changed the impact of what town meeting had voted on. I think that's right. And that's my recollection from these discussions back in the fall is that when the vote was taken at town meeting, it was assumed that certain things would be in place. And then the state pulled things away and said, no, it doesn't. So I mean, in that sense, it was inadvertent. Yeah. We'll have opportunity to ask more questions and get some more information. Next week, the public hearing forward to it, you will face a lot of questions from any other people, I'm sure. But thank you for coming in. Appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you. It's helpful. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Oh, everything else is mine. That's just a letter. Yeah, it's just my only letter. Thanks, ma'am. No, he's handing it to us. Oh, sorry. Back to Jenny. One little quick thing about this conversation, which they left the room now, they could have heard this. But just so you understand, you are the, because at special town meeting, you voted no action on something very similar to this, only you can bring this back, kind of similar to the discussion that we'll have about the, or that we already did have about the driveways. Because it was voted down by town meeting, in other words. The only entity that can bring this back to town meeting is the Airbnb. Otherwise, if you vote no action, then the no action continues. For two years, basically. I think that's the timeline. Sorry, I'm going to look at you if you can confirm it. Can I ask a question? Yeah, go ahead, Jane. If there is no action, what's our rule now? What does the town have if nothing changes? Then the town has no buffer zone. No buffer zone. So only the special permit process is there? The special permit process. The special permit and the border valve. And the border valve. And actually, the select man, too, will have to go through the signing process. So it actually is. It still has a robust series. It's a fairly robust process to go through, to choose an appropriate site and to choose the appropriate location in town. There are several checks on how that actually is cited. And I know from discussions that we had back in the fall that the waterway location was really one of the only sites in town that every ward that had a say in where it went felt was appropriate. And the reason that that was chosen was because of its proximity to town hall and its proximity to the police department and the fact that it is in a medical building so that there would be some surveillance capabilities but also some peer pressure from the other people in the building in the neighborhood to keep things on the up and up there. I'll talk about it in further detail next week. Let's see what the public thinks. Let's see what the public thinks. OK, special town meeting. Jenny. Actually, I'm going to turn to Laura in a moment. But this is so special town meeting in your packet. You've got, I think, basically a bunch of public hearing notices, which I apologize or display them that way. But it is the easiest way to convey all of the zoning articles. So you've got ones that are for annual town meeting. And then you have one sheet that's for special town meeting, including the ones that we've talked about in previous discussion. So right now, we're looking at the one that says public hearing zoning bylaw amendments, article one, zoning bylaw amendment definitions for open space usable. The reason for this amendment actually came from the residential study group, which has been looking at the issue of, as you know, for annual town meeting, we're talking about driveway grades and garages. And one of the things that the group had been talking about is offering some sort of incentive to get surface parking on lots, rather than having garages at all. How could we potentially incentivize a builder or developer to put surface parking on a lot? And so one of the discussion points that emerged with the residential study group was making changes to open space. But it was thought of, after we had already completed the annual town meeting, warrant article. So that's why it became a special town meeting warrant article. And it actually became necessary to achieve some of the things that the driveway bylaw intends to. I think that as well. And so I'll let Laura speak to some of the more technical side of it, and also can either one of us can answer questions. There's anything else that I missed. But do people already understand what the main drive weighs, that I think last meeting? OK. So this is something to speak. One last change that is meant to be an incentive for developers to provide the parking on in the side yard, as opposed to underneath in the front of the house. So one of the things, one of the requirements in the zoning bylaw is, and I wish I had my bylaw with me because I don't remember the exact percentage. It's about 30% of the area of the square footage of the house, the floor area, has to be open space on the lot. But in addition to that, the area has to be now basically 25 by 25, or a circle of 25 feet. A driveway cannot be included in your open space. So if we're asking people to put the driveway on the side, and we're also asking them to put a buffer between the driveway and their neighbor, that cuts into that backyard area that can be used for open space. And so it doesn't decrease the total amount of open space on the lot, but it increases that circle, that contiguous circle, from 25 to 20 feet. So that contiguous area can be a little bit smaller. We would still have to provide the same amount of open space. If it wasn't there, it would have to be someplace else on the lot. So again, it's just meant to be an incentive to get people to do that side yard parking as opposed to the underneath parking with the steep driveways. Is that clear? I think it's very good. Like all zoning, it's complicated. No, I think it's very good. I think it's a good article that encourages what we've been trying to zone out by the slopes of the driveway. I think this is a way of not saying no, but a way of encouraging. It's alternative. Saying, I think this is a very good thing. And not having 25 feet, which is very difficult to do, and reducing it on 20 feet is a very fair compromise. We'll have graphics to display. There will be visuals so that they can be even better explained. So I remember the discussion and the pictures we were looking at. So is Article 1 for Special Town meeting just kind of an additional technical piece in order to implement everything we discussed? Yes. OK. This was an idea that came up as the residential study group got into the actual language of the other part of the driveway article, and it did. A. Article 8. So what was decided in that group was that incentivizing alternatives was necessary, but there had to be some reason for developers to want to go do these things instead of just keeping the status quo. So yes, this is a technical change to ensure that everything proposed as part of Article 8 is available once July rolls around, and these are put in force. So Article 8 says there should be incentives. And Article 1 for Special Town meeting makes it possible for there to be incentives. Yes. So then linked. Yes. And so we think, but can't be sure, that Special Town meeting, I think, is the same night as the annual time meeting. But in all likelihood, these things will be discussed within close proximity to one another. So we can cross-reference. Although, we'll be in different town meetings, technically. Yeah, I don't know if we technically can. We can reference it, but we cannot bring it up and vote upon it until we get into that portion, the Special Town meeting. So it'll be an interesting linguistic challenge. We can certainly make sure that assuming we decide to go forward with these, then any presentation to the public before town meeting understands that they're intended to match. Which one comes first? Sorry. We'll probably have Article 8 first. Because we're going to have annual town meeting, and I think that this is the first night in all likelihood. April 24th, we'll get to Article 8. And then I don't know when Special Town meeting will begin. Does it after the regular town meeting? It's the second day, so that's Wednesday. Why are they having a Special Town meeting? There must be something on there, then. Don't answer that. Actually, I don't have the full Special Town meeting warrant in front of me right now, but there are a number of articles. There's always a Special Town meeting. In conjunction with Town meeting, pretty much. I mean, in the three years, I was. Right. So it's not unusual. And it's not just for this. If we support 8, then what happens if Article 1 doesn't get sent? It means we don't have any incentives. One less incentive. Yeah. Well, there were some incentives in Article 10. Sorry. Go ahead. I have a couple of questions. One is, does this mean that there'll be less green space on the lot? Tell me how this works, where you're allowing more cars to depart on a lot. Well, we're not allowing more cars to depart on a lot. We're trying to incentivize people to put the driveway on the side like they always used to do instead of cutting into basically the front yard, which is what many new developers are doing now. So we think the amount of driveway space will be the same. And therefore, we won't be losing any green space around the houses. Well, could also be that. The houses. No, I think the houses have to be smaller in order to accomplish the surface parking. Yeah. And so that's part of the reason that we've changed the, we're proposing to change the open space requirement of what you're actually, we think you're actually going to see is less of the heavy slope, high slope driveways down into a garage below surface level. And instead of taking that in the middle, especially with the two family homes of going up and down here, separate those out. So you actually will have more of a traditional front yard than any of the new constructions. We also lower the parking requirement. So we don't think an unintended consequence of this will be more impervious surface? Well, there will be probably more concrete than, yes. Then the drivers are very short when you have the driveway in front. Right. But it's just cuts the street. You know, the street frontage is impaired. But it does also require the vegetation between property and there are other landscaping requirements that I think we have for that. And again, it's the visuals that we're talking about overall. Gene, I think one of the things that this does is it takes the square footage of the impervious fronter house, puts it to the side. So the front house is more green. So the area that's facing the public has more green space because there's no driveway in the front that goes down. What happens is now you have more green space in front and it might be a little bit more impervious on the side that's not facing the public. And then what the one does is allow, you're not reducing the amount of square footage of green space in the back. But it's just the dimension of it. So the back house could be a little further back, but you can count the amount of square footage. Instead of saying it's 10 by 10, you might go 8 by 12 or something like that. But this allows people to do both. Would they then be able to have, let's say, they build a house on the driveway surface level. Can they then continue to have their front driveway and put a driveway on the side? So they end up with that. You can only have one curb cut, except by special permit. And then you can have two curb cuts. I think they could have one go like that and you'd end up with two driveways. One driveway, but park a couple cars on the side of the house and a couple cars in front of the house. With one wide driveway? Yeah. You don't need a much wider than one car to do that. I'm just wondering. It's interesting thought of what actually controls that. It may be the impervious paint up and runoff issue that stops you from painting over your home yard. Yeah, I think that that's where the storm is. Because what you're saying is technically that's what you could do, right? But anybody can do that now, right? Except they can't necessarily do it on the side of the house. And they're able to. Yeah, I think that I understand what you're saying. But I think that's offset by the amount of impervious material you can have. And then also, like Jenny said, the storm are. Right. But that's a good question. There's a question from the audience. Yeah, a question. Steve Robillac, 111 Sunnyside Avenue. Will this generally reduce the minimum horizontal dimension of usable open space from 25 to 20 feet? Generally, what do you mean generally for everybody? So for example, OK. So for example, I live on a lot with no usable open space because the minimum horizontal dimension is 20 feet, as opposed to not 25 feet. I'm wondering if I'm going to get open space if this passes. And one of the reasons I think this could be interesting is like one of the something I see come up in ZBA hearings is the discussion of pre-existing conditions where a lot has no usable open space. If you shrink the dimension, now the open space laws might apply to places where they did not apply before. Well, this does say newly constructed single two family duplex or three family dwellings. This is limited. Can we try to answer that question that Jean has, the unintended consequence? What could result in more? Yeah, it's just it would be good to know that. It's a really tough question to answer. I don't know if it worked. Maybe it is going to be interesting to try to see what other checks on that are existing. So we're in the midst of doing like a sketch up of looking at possibilities so we can measure the space and the dimensions of a driveway, that kind of stuff. Well, if we see that there are one or more scenarios where what Jean's concerned about could occur, can we still tweak the exact language to? It wasn't within scope of the warrant. Not the warrant, not the warrant. But your vote. Yeah, the language that we'll be posing. That's right, I'm looking to rewrite the language for this one. We did. OK. As long as the actual wording is within the scope of the warrant article, you can. There's leeway. Yes. Yeah, we're not sure. I mean, obviously, we wouldn't be changing the warrant article. Is the committee meeting on this now? Yes. Yeah, the next. Yes, of course. Wednesday morning. Could that be brought up? Once a week. Yes. Yeah, it'll be discussed Wednesday. Yeah, it will be up. Then could that question be posed at that point to the study group? Yeah. I think probably it'll be more answered by staff. But we can also talk about it with the study group and add it to that mix. I'm just wondering if what you're saying in your mind, Jean, is that one driver would go under, and one driver would go here, or that one driver would go right in front of the house? Because that actually is front yard parking. No, I know. But if the house has a garage, and they can drive that way, they can drive that way. They can take it with them every next week. Is that possible? I just see that very difficult to do, because in order to get a garage down below, you're going down a grade. So if you were to take, before you get to the house, take the left or right, you'd already down a certain grade already. But if your garage is at grade, at grade, then you encounter, or if it's less than 15%, whatever, is in eighth, then you have the possibility of doing both. I'm just trying to think of ways of saying you can't do that. But I can think of ways where you can. That's a good idea. No, that's a good question. Staff. We'll look into it. I know. Troublemaker, my first chance. It's a great win. Why you're here? Pressing. That's exactly right. Do you want to join the residential study group, by the way? They just signed you up. Wednesday morning at 9 o'clock. That's right. Yeah, no, I did tell them about all the meetings. There are plenty of other committees you can join. OK, Housing Plan Implementation Committee, as long as we're moving on. Yeah. In your packet, you will see a memo that, well, to take a step back, the Housing Projection Plan that we worked on last year, you approved it in June. The select one approved it in July, and the state approved it or adopted it. I guess we adopted it. They approved it in October. So we've had an approved Housing Projection Plan for a couple of months. We wanted to set up a Housing Plan Implementation Committee to look at the recommendations and start to talk about how we're going to implement some of them, if not all of them. And I asked everyone who had been on the Housing Plan and Project Committee if they wanted to stay. And four people said that they did. And that is in this memo, the first four people on that list. And then I advertised on the town website and in the advocate for more members and got four more people interested. So we have a committee of eight that I would like to ask you to approve their working under you. Since you oversaw the Housing Production Plan, the implementation will also be under you. The people that were on the committee before are Lori August, who's the social worker with the Council on Aging, and obviously has a lot of concerns about elderly housing and aging in place and aging in community. Pam Hallett is the Executive Director of the Housing Corporation of Arlington. Pam LaBaldwin, who works at, I actually know the taker, she works at the Graduate School of Design, not the Harvard Joint Center. But she had been at the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies for 20 years and has a lot of connections there. And she's also on the HCA Board and Kate Casa, who's an affordable housing consultant. The four new people we got were, and I've spoken with all of them and they all have a lot of housing experience and community experience. Patrick Murphy, who's a high school teacher in Chelsea but a former Lowell City Councilor and Mayor. And very interested in community organizing, I guess you could say. Katherine Levine Einstein, who is a Political Science Professor at BU. And Woodward, who is a self-employed, nonprofit, management consultant with housing experience among other types of experience. And Samara Clayman, who is the Director of the Brooklyn Improvement Coalition, which is their Community Development Corporation. So it's a really, a very strong group that I'm excited to start working with. Do we want to vote on it? Yes. I moved to accept the recommendations of the Planning Board staff. Yeah, it's the staff. The staff for new members of the Housing Plan Input Mutation Committee as described in the memorandum, March 6th, 2017. Second. All in favor. Aye. One thing I forgot to tell you is that I've also reached out to the housing authority to see if anyone, either on their board or staff, would be interested in joining the group. I have not heard back yet, but I hope to. And if anybody on this board is interested, please let me know. High-Power Group. It's possible to get a tenant from one of the places on it. From the housing authority? Or from some subsidized housing. At least one person on this is a tenant. Oh, they are, okay. Not in affordable housing. Yeah, I was wondering. Okay. We did have a tenant of HCA at the housing plan advisory level. Uh-huh. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that person was helpful. We saw the discussion, so I think that's a good suggestion. David, were you baptized? No. Okay. See what I can do. We have to get something from the housing authority. Great. Yeah. Joining Reconciliation Update. Yeah. All right. So in your packet, you have two different documents that you may look the same. Apologies. They're addressed to different directors, if that helps. One is on the top, which is a recent memorandum from RKB Associates to myself and Laura from Judy Barrett. And it is, the subject is Arlington Zone Review and Reconciliation Framework. And then the second one, just for reference, is what has been called the zoning audit. It's an appendix that you can find in the master plan. I just provided that to you as a point of reference because one of the first tasks for RKB as part of zoning recodification is to update the audit. So this is technically the update to that audit. So that was why I put the two in there. And then I would just say that, so this document was actually delivered to the zoning recodification working group last week and discussed at that meeting. And we had representatives from RKB at the meeting talking with us. We had lots of questions. We also talked about the timeline, which as you know is marching long, including we are hopeful that we'll have some sort of first reading in the next few months. And that we would actually have a public forum in July. I think we chose the date. I'll get that to you. And then we would have the final public forum be in September so that we can get to a special time meeting, obviously. So that's always been the goal to have a special time meeting in the fall to adopt a new amended zoning file off. So the purpose of the memorandum is really just summarizing, again, the things that they found that are not working, including looking literally piece by piece, article by article, and in some cases, really drilling down quite deeply into things that need to change. I would just say that I think some of these things are new, but then the old memorandum, many of the things that are in here still hold true as well. So you could basically go back and look at the two together. And I guess the only other thing that I wanna say to kick up the conversation is they've made a suggested framework for reorganization of the zoning by-law. And I think that this is a very good time for you to look at the suggested framework and provide any feedback to staff or to the zoning recodification working group because now is basically the time where we are going to start rewriting things. So we did have feedback from the zoning recodification working group, but I think it's appropriate for you to also think about the organization of the zoning by-law. And if you could reorganize it, what would it look like? So some of the things that we've talked about, for example, are taking signs out of the zoning by-law, which is a conversation that we've had, I think over a number of years and now with the more recent changes to sign permits and approvals at the actually at the Supreme Court level. There's definitely an impetus to change the way that we do sign approval process here in town. So that might be like a parallel process where we make amendments to the town by-law because there's also a process on the town by-law about sign permitting. There's also a lot of administrative and sort of things that are like practices that we need, that we, if we take them out of the zoning by-law, we are able to amend them a lot more easily. And by practices, I mean how we administer the zoning by-law, how we administer the special permit process, things of that nature. There's a lot in the zoning that could be out of the zoning. So that's part of this whole CUNA initiative and also potentially reorganization. Did I miss anything that anybody else who's participated in this process thinks is important for the rest of the board members to know about? And then Steve's in the room, he's also a member of the working group. Well, one thing that is in here that you may or may not have noticed is reframing what we do from an environmental design review to site plan review. Yes. Which is more consistent with current practice. Yeah, you mean generally, as well. More with what we're doing, are you saying? No, generally, outside of our own. But it is also a good practice that you're generally speaking, that is what you are practicing. You're doing a site plan review, not exactly, but mostly. Right. So yes, it is. Yeah. So I don't know if I missed anything else though, that anybody else wants to share. Yeah, I do want to ask one thing. When I was reading through this quickly, maybe I didn't quite understand it. On the non-performing use and structures. Which page? In the suggested framework. Oh, okay. Well, it could be that, but also, I read it naturally in, I think you're right, Andy Feech. It's on page five, suggested framework. It was on page five. It's right at the bottom of the general comment. Yeah. I read somewhere, where I said something like it was the goal to eliminate or get rid of these non-performing spaces or structures. Lots. Lots, yes. Yeah, lots. And I just want to say that half of, I think the entire town is in non-performing. Yes, and so. I don't think we're talking, I don't think we're going to go down that route. Yeah, and that's what I was. I think that that's what you meant to think of. I guess you know what? Every town is like that. Every older town is like that. Yeah, one of the things that we've talked about in the residential study group is how something like 1% of lots in Allenten are actually appropriate for language and zoning. Everything else is non-performing here, so that's not something we're good at. But I think that what they're talking about is looking at recent case law. This goes back to the earlier zoning audit, which talks about a case out of Norwell from 2008. And more recent appeals court decisions that might have a bearing on an update to Article 9. So I think what she's talking about is she wants to sit down with planning and building and the special services matter to talk through the impact of those that recent case law and cases in court. Yeah, this. Maybe in the old, yeah, in the 2014. So, but something I'll look at. Just another. That was pretty much it. I just looked at that and read that. I'm like, wait a minute. As long as you're here, Steve, is there anything you'd like to add? I mean, Steve Romlack, 111 Sunnyside Avenue, I think you guys have covered everything that I remember. Go ahead, Jere. The only thing I saw from a very quick look, and I didn't have a chance to compare this to my law, I was a little surprised that they put accessory uses and special regulations as compared to maybe the use regulations. So I was just wondering if that was the best place to have put it in the reorganization. That was the only thing that jumped out at me, really, in looking at it. Yeah, we haven't, I'll ask them. And that's a decision that hasn't been made. It hasn't been put anywhere yet. So this is a suggested framework. Right. And there may be good reasons to have it there, but when I looked at zoning bylaws, you sort of want to see the uses and then see the accessory uses. Right. And that was the only thing that continued. But maybe the standard practice is that. Try to find out. Okay. I think we wanted to have this discussion because I want to make sure that you're all up to speed, and what's happening with zoning recodification, especially before a town meeting where there's gonna be discussions about zoning changes and zoning amendments. There's a zoning warrant article about changing the residential district from R2 to R1, for example. I mean, there are things that are coming up and that will be at town meeting that I just want to make sure you have an understanding of where things are, how things are moving along with the recodification process and how they may or may not relate to that process. That rezoning is not sponsored by them. No. So that's a resident initiated article, which is 10 days ago. But you shall have a public hearing about it. So you will be having a public hearing about it. So after the public hearing, then we would make a recommendation. So you're going to consider the schedule. Go ahead. Okay, so on the 13th is the public hearing on the regular town meeting articles. On the 20th is the public hearing on this open space. And what's the second one? The more. The more, sorry. And then the 27th is when you'll vote on both, on all of them. And probably also vote on a draft or a four to 10 meeting because it seems like we might not make a date of the third. We might have to revise the schedule. Now we might be down, gee, members. So the next three weeks are pretty critical. The three weeks are, yes, are very critical. They became more critical. It's a good thing we scheduled all the meetings. Me too, I can't make it before. Yeah. April, yeah. Four? Oh, so we have to, we have to move it. Okay. All right. Well, April, we're going to have April off. There's really four. Except for a town meeting. Except for a town meeting. Except for a town meeting, right. I'm sorry. We need more than four, right? That's why. No, actually, I thought you needed three. Well, I think now that we have five, we could have three votes. But I think it's important for all of you to vote on the report to town meeting. That is your voice at town meeting, technically. So that's what we're talking about, is the vote on your report that goes to town meeting. So we'll accelerate that process. I don't think there's any problem with that. Well, I mean, I suppose we can amend it at the table. Exactly. Because we can't know ahead of time what your vote is going to be. No, but I think we're going to take a stab at it. And we'll say as amended, and we'll figure out a way to distribute it thereafter without having a meeting so that we can submit it to the individuals that need to receive it in a prompt manner, timely way. We don't have any other meetings scheduled before town meeting. So unless you want to schedule a different meeting date. So sorry to get sidetracked. Right. Someone might have to get it off. I might have to not be on Monday if we need it to. Right, exactly. Director's report. So this is a very quick report. I think now you've really drilled down that we have annual and special time meeting. But I feel like I'm repeating myself. But I wanted to bring to your attention, in case you don't already have the warrant, I think I've provided that to you at a previous meeting. But now the official warrant. I gave you an unofficial warrant. The official warrant is on the town meeting page of the town's website. So feel free to go to that for reference. But I wanted to give you just a taste of all of the different types of things that people in the Planning and Community Development Office have been working on related to town meetings. So they are things that we've been talking about. But there's also other things like we are discussing a parking benefits district. And we're happy to answer any questions about that. We always have an endorsement of the Community Development Block Grant application. And then we're also going to have, in relation to zoning reciprocation, we need to request an appropriation for additional funds to hire a consultant for the policy type of work that we've talked about wanting to do to get the zoning aligned with the master plan. So there's the kinds of things that are coming up that I just wanted to keep you up to date on. And then we also updated the schedule that's also been distributed at a previous meeting. It includes now all of the residential study groups' meeting dates in March, as well as a public forum that they are holding to discuss their various articles that they're proposing on April 6. And then lastly, just a quick thing. We were able to secure the services of a consulting conservation administrator, who happens to be a former Conservation Commission member. I, Lee and Coleman, and I put in my report for office hours. And even if you have any questions about that, she'll be working for the town on a consulting basis through the end of this fiscal year. And then everything goes according to plan, be able to hire a full-time environmental planner in the next fiscal year. So that's my report. So in April? Yes. Are any of the previously scheduled meetings now off the schedule? So we could not meet on April 10, because it's a holiday. We can't meet on April 17, because it's a holiday. So the only meetings that we had scheduled in April were April 3 and April 24. It seems like we are only going to have three people here on April 3, which to me does not make for the best voting situation, particularly on a report that has to get to 10 meeting. And the report is due, as you can see here, April 11. April 24, you are going to meet probably for a half hour and then adjourn to 10 meeting. That's basically a meeting on April 24, unless you want to meet earlier. I thought you said April 6. That's the public forum. That's the public event. I'm OK, April 3. I apologize. Wow, the whole world just turned. Because I heard you say April 6. Can we rewind that? Why did you? Why did I think April 6? Because there's a public forum. Because there's a lot of meetings. I can do April 3. Sorry about that. Totally. All right, so we need to. April 3 is your meeting. We still have the not April 10 or 17. But Jean will not be here. I will not be here. I'm sorry to say that. But you can vote on the. You'll be here to vote on the actual, the motions and the votes that we're going to take. And we can run the draft by you too. I mean, we'll run it by everybody ahead of time. You can get us comments. And should we be at the public forum on the 6th if we can be? I think that would be great if you can be. It's not. I did not make it a requirement or I think that it's not an additional meeting for you. But they will be talking about the two warrant articles that are technically one of them is being proposed by the redevelopment board, which is article eight. But the majority of time I have a feeling they're going to talk about the construction control agreement stuff, which is all the town bylaw amendments. So that doesn't obviously not fall into your purview. But they would, of course, still enjoy your support, as you know from previous meetings with them. So any other questions about my purport? Anything else? We don't have meeting minutes. We received the. So right now the way that it works with meeting minutes is our administrative assistant views the recording that ACMI does at every one of your meetings and then takes the meetings, the meeting minutes from the office. She's we are now talking about her actually attending our meetings so that she can not only view the recordings but have a better sense of the interactions and take better meeting minutes. So she will be here next week, for example, and probably in the weeks after that to take meeting minutes. But we did not get the recording from ACMI until I think it was late on Friday or at some point on Friday when it was posted. So she did not have the time. That was a long meeting, our last meeting. So she has not been able to complete those meetings, which is why they're not on your agenda. But I'm telling you this for two reasons. One is, I'm sorry, you don't have the meeting minutes because I think that's helpful to look back at what you talked about. But also second thing is you should anticipate that the administrative assistant will be attending future meetings in an effort to provide in the form of Chinese and summer Easter meetings while I have them. Just one thing, Jenny, you were out of town when I emailed you that I may not be able to be here on the 27th. On the 27th, yes, I still am. Yes, and that's still a possibility. Yeah, I mean, I think it looks like that's when we're gonna finalize the votes on March 27th. We can do it with four people here, but I don't see how we can move that up because you won't, well, let me ask you a question. You're having your public hearing on March 13th next week on all the zoning for annual town meeting. Would you feel comfortable voting by March 20th the following week, and then we can move? Well, the way we've done in the past is we have the public hearing. We vote at the next meeting. It just happens that we've been on every other week schedule. I'd be comfortable voting on the 28th so long as... For annual town meeting. I mean, honestly, I think we vote on the night of the hearing if you wanted to. It is the tradition to vote on another media. I don't know why, though. Well, I think it gives. That's up to you, yeah. In other words, if you can't be here on March 20th on the 27th, only if you move the annual town meeting votes up a week, you would only miss the, sorry, special town meeting vote. However you want to do it. I'm comfortable voting on town meeting articles with one week, like Laura said. We could vote that night if we wanted to. Okay. One week after. A week after. Yeah. I think usually something happens between... Yeah, there are things that can change. We have a vociferous meeting and then there are some cleanups that we sometimes do. Sometimes they're edits. Edits, the votes. And everybody feels a little more comfortable to let the dust settle for a minute than that we have at the meeting. And then we'll ask for additional comment to be supplied via email or by mail. But a week is still more than enough time for people to weigh in on things. There's really only one article that hasn't been discussed. And... That's true. You mean the residential change, yeah. Everything else has been known by the board up through tonight where we've had the discussion about the buffers on. So I'd be very comfortable voting on the 20th on those articles. Okay. There's the board tour. I'm a special town meeting. There's the... So that's the following. That's why I want to... You would have four here but not five. Yeah. So we'd vote on town meeting. We have the hearing for town meeting on the 13th for the 20th. We have the hearing for special town meeting on the 20th, vote on the 27th. Right. And just the date it won't be on the 27th. Possibly. It's still possible. Yeah, I think it's important to have all five members voting on those articles. The other two are important but are less... They haven't been through the board with the same degree the others have. I think it's our new way in on recommended votes. I'm still trying to work out the schedule. I have to be in Chicago early the next morning. So depending on when I have to leave, they impact whether I keep it here on the 27th. Six or five and wait out. Logan first and her word. That's probably not early enough. But we definitely want to keep it all the time. Keep it all the time. Let's keep the April 3rd meeting. Let's keep the April 3rd meeting for the report. It doesn't work out. Nothing else? Someone, please move the adjourn and this home. Second. All in favor. Bye. Bye.