 So good evening, everyone. I'd like to welcome everyone to the March 12th meeting of the excuse me the March 21st meeting of the Arlington Redevelopment Board. This open meeting is being conducted remotely consistent with Governor Baker's executive order of March 12 2020 due to the current data for emergency in the Commonwealth due to the COVID-19 virus. This meeting is convening remotely via Zoom. I have posted on the town's website identifying how the public may join. Please note that this meeting is being recorded and that some attendees are participating via video conference. Accordingly, please be aware that other people may be able to see you and take care not to screen share your computer. Anything that you broadcast may be captured by the recording. At this point, I'd like to take a roll call and confirm that all members of the board are present and can hear me. Starting with Kim Lau. Present. Gene Benton. Present. Melissa Tentacolas. Melissa. Present. Thank you. Steve Revola. Good evening, Madam Chair. I'm Rachel Zimbari, the Chair of the Redevelopment Board. We also have two members of the Department of Planning and Community Development with us this evening, Jennifer Rates. Present. And Kelly Linema. Present. Great. Thank you very much. So this evening is the third night of public hearings for the warrant articles proposed for the 2022 spring town meeting. There are four nights of hearings for 18 articles consistent with the past night's hearings. The ARB tonight will be hearing from applicants and public wishing to speak on each of the articles as scheduled. The board will pose any questions to the applicants, but we'll reserve discussion and voting on each article to recommend action or no action until after all hearings are completed on April 4. So typically for each article, we will hear from the department first regarding the memo that they have prepared, followed by up to a six minute presentation by the petitioners. We will then take questions from the board, followed by public comments. We will then ask the petitioner to address any questions and take final comments from board members. Before we begin agenda item number one, which is the continued public hearings for 2022 annual town meeting. I'd just like to run through the, the procedures that we follow as part of the public hearings. So first the scope of this public hearing is the subject matter that was posted in the agenda for this evening. I'm wishing to address the ARB on the subject matter of the agenda shall signify your desire to speak by raising your hand through the, through the raise hand function in the participants button at the bottom of zoom. When I announced that consideration for public. When it's time for public participation. Before being recognized to speak each person will preface their comments by giving their first and last name and street address. Each person addressing the board on the subject matter of the agenda shall limit their remarks to three minutes. You will only be allowed to speak again at the discretion of the chair for each particular article. If you receive any oral or written evidence, but such evidence is restricted to the subject matter of the agenda item in material or unduly repetitious evidence may be excluded. Everyone present at the public hearing is requested not to applaud or otherwise express approval or disapproval of any statements made, and that includes using the reactions button at the bottom of your screen. All participants shall refrain from, excuse me, participants shall refrain from interrupting other speakers and conduct themselves in a civil and courteous manner. Speaker should address all of their questions through me as the chair, speakers shall not attempt to engage in the debate or dialogue with ARB members or other participants. Questions may or may not be answered during the hearing and will be addressed at the discretion of the chair. Often I will take questions as they are posed and group them together for for the petitioner to address as a group. With that I'd like to go ahead and move into agenda item number one which is the continued public hearing, and we will start this evening with article 45, which is a zoning bylaw amendment related to appeals. This article was inserted by the request of Sophie Migliazo and 10 registered voters. At this point I'd like to first turn this over to Jenny Rait to see if she or Kelly have any highlights that they'd like to cover from the memo that was prepared by the Department of Community Planning and Community Development. Good evening, Rachel. Jenny Rait, Director of Planning and Community Development. I don't have anything in addition to add to what was briefly stated in the memo, which is that we feel that this, the bylaw already constructively covers this matter and we're not, we're, though we're not certain exactly what the petitioner is trying to provide to you. And so we'll look forward to the presentation this evening with perhaps Mark and Sophie, more one of them. I see Mark here in order to understand that a little bit better and then be able to maybe be able to provide additional feedback but from based upon what we understand, we believe that this is constructively covered under the existing zoning bylaw and allowed understate law. Great, thank you Jenny. So is Sophie Migliazo with us this evening. She unfortunately is not but has asked me to stand under stat I'm one of the red 10 registered voters who supported the article and perhaps and says due to her being a committee member of another committee for the town that is meeting this evening and preparation for the town meeting. Thank you very much. So if you could please introduce yourself by your first last name and address. I would love to hear your presentation. Just know that you'll have up to six minutes to make your presentation and then we will take questions and comments from the board. So please, go ahead. Thank you chair, thank you to the members of the Arlington redevelopment board and to the staff of the planning and community development who are present here tonight and already begun considering the proposed warrants. My name is Mark me also 175 Pleasant Street. So familiar with who's proposed the warrant article in question. I think the, you know, the thrust of the proposals which are actually quite surgical, in terms of adding just a few words and phrases to section three of the existing zoning bylaw. I have a single purpose in mind and that is to clarify at what point parties may seek review of complaint that they might have filed with the Department of Special Services. In cases where they feel like enforcement is is lagging. Now, it is true that there is some language both in the bylaw and in the underlying statute that speak to appeals. And specifically there's there's some quite exact guidance given as to when the building inspector is to respond to a complaint that's been filed, namely within 14 days with a response as to whether or not the building inspector feels like a complaint as merits or whether there's a violation that exists. However, there's there's no further guidance in terms of timing as to what should happen and when. And this is I think leads to some confusion in circumstances where the building inspector does not deny the complaint where where the building inspector firms or a silent as to whether a violation exists. And doesn't take. Let's say immediate action to, to address the, the, the, the precorded or the alleged violation of the zoning bylaw. So I think the spirit of the zoning bylaw is that at a appropriate point in time that a complaint feels like if he or she feels like that complaint is being acted upon should have some sort of recourse to the zoning board of appeals, but there's very little context almost none in fact and the zoning bylaw as to when that time is ripe or when, when that matter would be ripe for appeal. As a result, I think we're doing a bit to service to both parties, people that live in town that would, that are bringing complaints under the bylaw but also a disservice to the esteem members of the Board of Zoning bylaw who themselves are sort of thrust into an awkward position of trying to decide when or not a matter is right in fact for the review, since there's no guidance and in the bylaws that stands today. I've, I've had the occasion to speak to several, several attorneys who are specialized in this area I know particular expertise in this area, but I have spoken several attorneys that have expertise in this area and I've spoken some past members of the Board of Zoning bylaw for the review of appeals and no one, no one is actually quite sure when it would be appropriate if no enforcement action has been taken to bring a matter before the board. I certainly don't think it should be the case that there should be some sort of immediate right to appeal to the, to the zoning board I think the intent of the bylaw is to give the billionaire inspector and his staff. There's no discretion and ample time to, to act upon complaints and to address them as they see fit. But I also, I don't think it's the intent of the bylaw that things can slip sideways for months or years, as is sometimes the case today in Arlington without effective action being a two ballot complaints. So the proposal that's been put forward is simply to clarify for all parties that refer to the bylaws when it would be appropriate for them to the board. And if I'm not quite sure where I am on the time. But I did want to respond to one last point in the staff memo, if I may. I'm happy to do so an hour later in the question and answer period. You still have two minutes so please feel free to go ahead. Thank you Madam chair. I noticed that the, the end of the memo that was provided for your consideration remarks that this is the last sentence and the memo you might have in front of you says in the current for me but the zoning bylaw nor Massachusetts general law preclude a resident from taking civil action against another resident who persists and violating the zoning bylaw. I actually don't think that's that's accurate. Unfortunately, I just received a memo earlier today and I have a chance to submit a presentation for your consideration but I would refer parties to a court case it was a court of appeals case Massachusetts decided in April of 2020 it's called in ski the building commissioner of Douglas, and it goes into I'd be happy to read relevant portions to the board if you'd like but, but basically what it says is that courts do not have jurisdiction as a general matter to, to decide the rights of zoning bylaws brought by individuals against other residents of their towns, because the statute. This would be Massachusetts general chapter 40 section seven specifically says that that there is exclusive jurisdiction to hear these sorts of issues in front of the is in the first instance from in front of the board of zoning appeals, and then only afterwards could they be brought to a land court upon appeal or the decision to go to appeal so there is no equitable or other right of any party to bring complaints or a matter to the attention of a quarter other deliberative body in Massachusetts except through this initial process which runs initially to the building inspector and then to the to the board of zoning appeal. Okay. Thank you very much I appreciate it and we'll direct other questions to you as we receive them from the members of the board. Thank you. If you have any time left or by exhaustive you are through your time. Thank you. Thank you. All right. So at this point, I'd like to turn it over to the members of the air be for any questions, starting with Ken. Yeah, when I first read this article I was a little confused because I thought we had this in place already. I really thought that the air be or ZBA. The board members don't enforce. It's the ISD that does the enforcing. And, and that was always pretty clear. We don't, we may do policy we may, we may do approvals of stuff but we don't enforce. That's not in our charter. If I'm wrong, then I'd like to hear about that. The other thing I hear is this one part of this language. I'm not sure it's a part of your thing was a part of Jenny's review was the building inspector is to initiate civil action if they do not have done so to do complaints, the compliance satisfaction. I mean, so whoever's complaining, if they're unsatisfied, that means you're saying they that the building inspector still has to continue on with his initial civil civil action or if the building inspector says this is a compliant. He's already made that determination. He's not there to make the complaint complaint. Maybe I'm saying it wrong. Happy. He's making a judgment. I'm not sure is that language they're correct or not. Curious to see what my other board members say, but I just think this right now is just repetitive right now. That's my thoughts right now. And, Jean. Thank you. And thank you. How do you pronounce your last name again I'm sorry I didn't catch you. Alright, it's me also, but anything close is fine. I don't think I was very close I apologize. So thanks. Thank you for bringing this to us. I do have a couple of questions. If you look at the screen 3.1 point to be. It says no later than and the number of days is absent. Do you have a date number of days you'd like to insert there. We propose the language with the blank because I defer to the collective wisdom of this body actually to help inform what would be an appropriate number here. The only other sort of specific time frame that's referenced in this section of the zoning bylaws is in 3.1 point to a which is also on the screen you could see in the second line there that with it 14 days of the receipt of a request for enforcement and zoning bylaw the building inspector shall investigate the facts and give written notice to the owner. Excuse me. And if the building inspector finds evidence of a violation shall give notice to the owner. So the only time frame is 14 days in this section. I do think that the building inspector ought to have and should have a reasonable period of time to pursue enforcement if the property owner that's maybe the subject to enforcement action isn't immediately compliant right though the building inspector has ample tools to bring to issue finds and to bring both civil and criminal actions against property holder that is not compliant with the zoning bylaws and that takes time and I understand that that's fine. That said, I do believe it's the intent the 14 day period being rather short, shorter than you know necessarily proposed if I were writing this fresh. I do have the impression that the intent here is for the firm enforcement to proceed promptly. So I would have thought that maybe something in the range of, say, four to six months, 120 to 180 days, would maybe be an appropriate period of time to see whether the building inspector is in fact that the complaint and if nothing has happened with and say that for the six months period of time then it should at least be I would have thought clear for a complaint to, to invoke an appeal to the Board of Zoning Appeals if nothing's happened in a period of time. I would have thought say a year would be too long if nothing's happening. So somewhere between three months in a year you think we fit. I'm willing to hear other people's views for sure I would have proposed four to six months. Yeah, okay, thanks. One of my concerns, other than trying to understand the amount of days that you thought would be appropriate is. So let's say you pick three months. There's notice and demand, but it's going to take six or nine months to come into compliance you, whatever we put in here we've set up a situation where you have some zoning things are fairly easily fixed, and some take a lot of time to fix them. Whatever I'm concerned that whatever number of days you put in here, there will be something that takes longer. So that's one concern that I have about this cause altogether. The other concern that I have is just how much the building inspector can accomplish how busy the docket is, how much time it would take, and rather than have the priorities be driven by a date that's put in here. The priorities need to be driven by probably health and safety which I think are the main things that the building inspectors looking for. So if the building inspector needs to balance. And this is the date that we've added to be versus I need to do something for health and safety, I want would want the default to be for health and safety, rather than, you know, a number that drives something to happen so it's very sympathetic to the idea that it makes sense to put a timeframe in here, but I think there are really countervailing reasons why it might not make sense in this instance. I wonder, I don't, I don't, I don't have a solution for that mark, because I see where you're coming from, but I'm just concerned this sets up a bed dynamic by doing that in. And so if you can think of a way around that would be great I'm not sure you can think of it off the top of your head, but you're always welcome to email, generate with suggestions, things like that for how to deal with it. But if you take it a year which was like the long end of what you suggested, then maybe that wouldn't be so much of an issue but you know, at some point I'd like to hear after all my colleagues speak from the building inspector's office about what they think about this. If you go down to 3.1.3. Why did you add or any other agency or person from, you know, right now if, if I make a complaint for something in the, to the building inspector and continue with what the building inspector has done. Why should somebody else be able to step in any other agency or person and continue something where I've chosen not to continue something. And so that one relatively directly that that language is meant to track chapter 40 a section eight, which is the mercifully short section of Massachusetts law that defines the appeals from the granting authority. And so it says, if you'd like to hear it I can quickly read it or phrase and it says an appeal of the permit granting authority as the zoning by ordinance or zoning by law may provide, maybe taken by any person agreed by reason of his ability to obtain a permit or enforcement administrative officer under the provisions chapter or by the regional planning agency and who's area or city of the town is situated by any person including an officer board of the city or town or a betting city or town agreed by such order decision of the inspector of buildings or other administrative issue official excuse me in violation of any provisions chapter ordinance or the bylaw adopted here and so the reference to agency or person was just simply to track in a slightly more concise form the the language of who is entitled under section eight of the MGL to bring appeal. Yeah, well I mean that's helpful to know because I didn't track that the way you did. Thank you but I'd asked the staff not tonight but to take a look at whether you somehow made this broader by just saying any other agency or person, but let's go beyond that and then can you bring up what can was talking about on the screen. I don't know what you mean, I'm sorry, do you mean can can mention something. You're right there under step step provide the following additional can sit considerations relevant to the article. Oh, okay, our section not the not the edited and then go up maybe three or four sentences that's what I was looking at. Okay, got it. Thank you. Okay. Can you go back because I didn't read it that way. And clearly if, if that's the way it read that presents the exact problem that can was mentioning that if the building specter is determined there's no case. You shouldn't be forced to go forward. I didn't read it that way though. I think we just need to take a look at that and see if it's a real problem that needs to be dealt with in in these revisions because I may have missed that but I didn't see that coming up as an issue. Maybe me Jean, don't worry about it. No no that's okay no we should take a look at it can that's for sure. And I guess, maybe after my other colleagues are done will ask the billing inspector my last question for is, I mean, have things come up where you think this is necessary. Is there a history of concern that the billing inspector hasn't acted in, you know, a prompt enough manner that this is necessary. The motivation for the wind article article is grounded in specific experiences where complaints have been brought violations have been found to exist by the building inspector's office, but then no fine or other enforcement action to place. Did the people come, did the people come in to compliance let's say if they gave them 30 or 60 days to move a fence or whatever, did they do that. No, no that the non compliance and persisted persists. So why. So I, how does, how does what you put in here. Change that because wouldn't 3.1.3 still give you the opportunity to go to the board of appeals in the situation you just mentioned. In the situation I just mentioned yes I think after I would, I believe it's untested but I believe that after say a two year period of inaction that the board of zoning appeals would likely agree that there is effectively a rejection of a complaint or a non enforcement of a complaint and I think at that point would accept jurisdiction that, but it's not clear to me sort of at what period of time they would exercise that discretion. I would imagine that if somebody tried to appeal after say two or three months of non enforcement or pending enforcement however you'd like to call it. And I think that's that the zoning, the board of zoning appeals will likely reject that as saying there's not been enough time. And I think that'd be appropriate for them rejecting that circumstance. It's not clear, however, at what point it becomes appropriate for the board of zoning appeals to take on the matter and the whole thrust of this proposal I'm, you know, happy to engage by the whole thrust of the proposal simply to give a clear indication of when it's appropriate and when it's not appropriate finally for someone to be burdening the board of zoning appeals with with an appeal or with an attempted appeal. Prior to the building inspector having a period of time adequate to to address the matter and as on his or her own discretion. I think I think there's, you know, benefits to both the board of zoning appeal and potentially the building inspector's office and to all residents in town to have clarity about what is the timeline for which the building inspector should have discretion to pursue enforcement as he or she thinks fit and and when if no enforcement has actually been becoming should a party be able to go to a board go to the zoning appeals, the board of zoning appeals, and when, you know, frankly the board itself should know when it's, you know, and, you know, it's appropriate for it to begin reviewing such matters. I think you think we could not make these changes and instead the board of zoning appeals, if it was in regulations, set out some standards under which it would determine I'm not saying they would do this I'm interested in hearing from them about this. You know standards that they would use to determine at what point it would be appropriate for them to hear an appeal so again the idea is that if something's going to take six months to ameliorate. They're clearly not going to do anything for six months, but if the six months have gone by, and nothing happens, then maybe they, you know, then maybe they would entertain and appeal. I'm interested in hearing from the ZBA, if there's a way that they can accomplish this through their rules and regulations, that would be better than than this because we're still left with some uncertainty about when they get to the board. So Jean, I'm going to actually Jenny has her hand up I'm going to throw it over to her to weigh in, and then also remind us, I believe that there is a warrant article for the ZBA to be able to set their own rules and regulations which is, which would address then Jean what what you're referring to as well so Jenny I'll move to you next. Thank you. I appreciate the questions and the discussion that just occurred. It made me realize that one thing we did not include this in this memo to all of you is that this section of the bylaw was amended during zoning legislation to be shortened, because it is one of many sections of the zoning bylaw that previously had been very expansive, and had literally stated 40 a section eight in great detail and so we had shortened it, where it just says as in general 40 a section eight as amended and felt that that captured, you know, enough to basically point to state law without having to repeat state law which is the way that the prior bylaw had been worded in many cases throughout the bylaw so I just wanted to make that one clarification it actually had been previously more expensive. That said I actually, I'm not sure I like this shortened version that's being offered because I think it actually, it might be a little bit confusing and you'd end up going to general law 40 a section eight to understand what exactly any other agency or person means. So I just wanted to provide that one piece of clarity around why, why it looks this way and what it happened in prior discussions about including citations of state law in the bylaw. Thank you Jenny. Any last questions. Sorry. Any other questions for now thank you so much and thanks for the clarification. Great, thank you. Jean, before we move on to Melissa you had mentioned wanting to hear from the building inspector did you have a specific question such as you know the challenges that currently complying with that I think I'd like to pose if we ask him to weigh in a specific question for him. Yes, I think it would be, what are the challenges. He currently has, and how does he or the department prioritize how they handle things that come to that complaints. Great, thank you, I will. I will direct all of those questions to inspector Tampa at the, at the end of the questions from the board. Melissa, any, any questions for the petitioner. I was curious, Mark, in terms of a concrete example, it would be helpful if you could maybe run through an example it sounds like you have personal history with it. And if you want to explain that, but I'm trying to understand it from like just a practical application. Okay, so there is specific examples that probably be maybe not entirely appropriate to get into the details in this form, but I'd be happy to speak. Hopefully if you wish to reach out and discuss that. But I can't, I think offer one point which is the timing pressure on the other side I think we all recognize that the bill inspector does a great job for the town and has many demands on his time and I know that multiple town meetings have considered or I think there's been multiple proposals and including at the 2021 town meeting about whether there should be additional staff made available to the to the building inspector's office in order to assist with enforcement since there there's a bit of a lag or a dragon in that regard but the one thing that I would just like to remind folks on is that, you know, there are statutes of limitation for how long requirements can exist before it becomes grand pilot. Right. And so this is the timing pressure for both town and the complainants and I guess the building inspector, the relevant statutes regarding the relevant section of measures that deals with a deals with the statute of limitations specifies exactly what stage of enforcement proceedings need to be achieved in order to told the statute in order to preserve the ability of the town to eventually take enforcement action against a noncompliant situation. So the the language about institute you know so the specific language that had been offered in 3.1.3 about instituting proceeding to zero proceedings and not been as to the time set forth that that the point of reference in the institution proceedings is specifically to get to the enforcement to a stage where the statute of limitations is being told and that the town has done enough to actually preserve its ability to continue to enforce against a noncompliant situation. So, so that you know I think that it and that is in the instance that I referenced earlier where there was a complaint that was brought in no no effective enforcement. No fine no civil action many sort of criminal action have been brought within over two years after a determination by the building inspector that the violation existed. And you know that that eats into a significant chunk of the relevance actualizations. Thank you. Well said to give any further questions. Yeah, I think we're going to ask our building inspector just a few questions and I just want to know from his perspective how this helps or how this works as a tool in terms of, you know, his getting his job done. Great. I will add that to the list. Thank you. Steve, any questions for the petitioner. I have nothing beyond what's already been asked. Okay, great. Thank you. Let's see so I'm inspector champ I think you're here with us this evening. There were two questions that were asked that if you would be able to answer it before would be appreciative. The first would be the benefits or challenges of complying with a time period is proposed in this resolution. And the second being how do you and your department prioritize responding to complaints those are the two questions that I heard that would be helpful if you were able to shed some light on this. So, probably, obviously we prioritize anything that involves safety or that can become more of a violation, such as working without a, you know, working without a permit or open excavations. I don't think we're going to be able anything that is, is not becoming, you know, not becoming dangerous and not actually changing in any way until, you know, anything of more priority is already dealt with. I think that the biggest issue is, is that, you know, with this particular resolution is that it started at, you know, two years ago roughly the beginning of the pandemic I was under the direction of director burn at that time. And at the time that that he retired. This was before legal for their opinion, which I did not send it to legal. And it involves an existing non conformity that as everyone would know on the board that you know it sometimes takes a significant amount of time to determine how long that has been in existence. And that's such to the case where I recently reversed part of the determination. It, you know, it on this original, you know, which was what was originally considered a violation I've reversed my determination on it, and found that it had been in existence long before the 10 year period that the state allows. It was one was there another question that that I didn't dance. I think you started to get to it which was, you know, the benefits or challenges of having to comply with the new time period is proposed which I think you started to get to with the fact that you've been. It's an iterative process and, and it's taken some time to get to the, the determination of the timing for the existing non conformity but perhaps if you could expand on that. This proposal is centered really around putting in a specific time period and I know that Mr Benson's questions were around the benefits or challenges that you and your department might face with having a specific time period per range of potential zoning issues. So, I mean, obviously we have, we have statutory requirements that, you know, that take a precedent to anything and putting a time period on something would only be effective during a time that we were able to accommodate, you know, all situations. Within the time allowed, but you can't account for a situation in which, you know, your, your staff is depleted by by 40% for a nine month period. Thank you. Can I say that you have your hands up for another question. Yeah, I just want to confirm that 10 years is is the mark for pre existing condition right once it's been in, once it's been something there for 10 years, then it's a pre existing condition. Alternate it looks like Inspector Tampa has his, his hand up to answer that. It's 10 years if it was installed without a permit if it was done with a permit. It's six years. Thank you. Thank you. Let's see. I'll. Jean, I'll. Sorry, I'm trying to pull your face up here on the screen. Did, did all of the questions that you had for the building inspector where those answer did you have other questions that I did not post him. Those are great. I actually have one more question for the petitioner. Yes, result of something that he said, and I'm getting the impression from his presentation that he's a lawyer. So, I'm, I'm just wondering, do you think this could be rewritten so that the, the, the trip is not, you know, or the date is some, some not some number of days after the request, but just so that the sexual limitations doesn't tall. That's a good question and a good, a good thought. You know, I think the item to remember with respect to the statute of limitations is that it doesn't get told just because it gets appeal to the zoning court. Right. There has to be more than that. So you have to leave in prod time for both the zoning board to take the matter into advise it under advisement, but to, you know, to get on the calendar to brief them to get their response. And for if, you know, and then there's, there's a further appeal of how that process to define in the statute to the land court. So, you know, you have to get to the land court in order for things to actually toll. So you have to leave in ample time for that whole process to play out. Why wouldn't the statute begin running after the ZBA issues its decision. Additionally, that's not how the Massachusetts legislature wrote the statute, the construct for tolling isn't a isn't a feature of the Arlington zoning bylaws it's a feature of the Massachusetts general laws. So I would, I would suggest thinking about if there's a way to rewrite this so that the pertinent issue is the tolling of the statute limitations. And if you wanted to do that, you could bring it back to us. I'm certainly happy to entertain suggestions of exactly that story so I thank you for making it I'm, I'm certainly not wedded to the reference other agency or person and 3.1.3. At this point, and I do feel like the reference of number of days from the request and 3.1.2 B is is appropriate 3.2.1 a already requires the building inspector to have done the entire investigation and to have made a determination about the violation within 14 days of the request. So, once the 14 day mark has been reached, either the building inspector should have found there is no evidence of a non compliance, and therefore issued as a pagan, in which case a complaint if he disagreed or she disagreed would have an immediate right to appeal. No issue there that that part of the zoning bylaw works is written. And therefore, the building inspector has made a determination, either not made a determination or made a determination that a violation does exist. And the only question at that point is issuing the fines, or instructing town council to begin other enforcement action, actually think more burdens, I could be wrong and I defer to Mr. to the inspector to, to weigh and he obviously knows much better to job than I possibly could, but I would have thought the more burdens and part of this entire process is him having to investigate make a determination of 14 days, and then once it comes to enforcement, I would have thought that'd be relatively, I would have hoped I hope on behalf of town, or as a member of resident town I would hope that that's less burdensome on him and that the burden of that is just more towards town council or some other officials in the town. I mean, it's what really it sounds like you're getting at those not all we want this person to be fine. What you're getting at is we want the zoning violation to end. And that could theoretically take some amount of time because after noticing the demand that violation has not been abated by the time set by the building inspector. So that says the building inspector finds a violation, the building inspector then gives a set period of time by which it has to be abated. And so what you're concerned about is either they're not acting within the 14 days or that the time to abate is so long that it tolls the statute of limitations. Am I getting that right. Essentially right and yes, and maybe to clarify I didn't mean to limit the building inspectors discretion to set an appropriate amount of time for rectification so if it really was, you know a situation as you described where it takes nine months to a to abate a non conformity and his order is specific as to the deadline for the for the non conformity to be addressed by the honor. And I don't, I wouldn't expect that necessarily to truck the language that was offered. I think in some cases, at least the ones I'm familiar with. There's not necessarily a deadline for abatements. It's just in order to obey. And then it sort of drags on without I would be interested in that. Otherwise, I've expressed my concerns about this. Great. Thank you, Jean. I appreciate it. So at this time, what I'd like to do is open this up for any public comments. Any questions or comment that the public might have. If you would like to speak, please use the raise hand feature under the participants button at the bottom of your screen. And as I call on you, please introduce yourself by your first last name and address, and you will be given up to three minutes to speak. I will start with john warden. I can't hear you, Mr. Warden. Thank you john worden Jason street. I'm meeting member and one of the signatories on. This is not many of these article. The only point I wish to make and this was discussed by the building inspector at the zoning bylaw working group meeting last couple weeks ago now. Next Wednesday of March. The point I should like to make is some not too many years ago, an additional an additional person was added to the inspection department and the specific person of that person was justified by the fact that he was he or she, I don't know what the gender was, was going to deal with enforcement, because enforcement at that point was found to be So this person was going to specialize with enforcement. So this person came on staff but I don't know what happened then because apparently there is there is still a problem. So I think I just wanted to say that that's, that's part of the history behind this that the there was an attempt. The meeting voted the attempt to add this person and the salary etc, to the staff to do enforcement and then. And then the building inspector said well, if the. This rate or Mr. Light lineman can verify this that there were this for himself to the coven and the staff sure I don't know what the staff sure just are and the incredibly expensive rebuilding the public works department all this stuff was getting in the way of they're doing their job but I really think that the job what job ought to be done there shouldn't be any zoning violations even those found by the inspector and then, but then nothing is done to get them correctly. I think that I think that's what this this article is getting at and I think it's something we should think well on. Thank you. Right. So the next speaker will be john work excuse me, Chris. Thank you, Madam chair Chris already 56 Adams Street can you hear me okay. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, I like to offer just a perspective on this one as a former member of the ARB and to as someone who I dare say, has made more requests for enforcement to the inspectional services than anyone else in town or close to it. As we look at the current bylaw as it relates to enforcement I guess I see several issues, and I appreciate the proponent for bringing this article forward. First under 3.1.2 a And this is a somewhat minor complaint is that it says if the building inspector finds a violation he'll notify the person responsible but it doesn't say anything about notifying the complainant. And it seems to me the complainant should be notified as well. And that same section says that the building inspector has the discretion to set the period on during which the violation has to be corrected if indeed there is one. And that's fine. But when you get to section B. If the violation is not corrected. The building inspector shall institute appropriate action, but it doesn't say when he has to do that and it seems to me that is where a deadline should be established that if indeed there is a violation with within a certain period of time, the that that enforcement action or appropriate action will be taken as of right now it's entirely discretionary. And in my experience and I want to emphasize that my experience was with the past building inspector and not with the current one. Things just didn't get enforced and get done even if there was a violation. And I would suggest that that a change that should be made is that there'd be some deadline for taking that appropriate action if the, you know, if the violation is not corrected within the time determined by the building inspector. And finally, I would just like to add that under section 3.1.3, there was an appeal process to the zoning board of appeals, but people, you know, should understand that if you want to bring that appeal, you're out 400 bucks. And I think that's a fairly high burden or large burden to place on someone who just wants to get the bylaw enforced. And I hope indeed if the ZBA has the discretion to amend those fees that consideration be given to lessening that amount, particularly if a violation has been found but not corrected. So I'll leave it at that. Thank you. Thank you. The next speaker will be Joe Bobby ours. Hello and thank you. I, I just wanted to suggest that. I'm sorry, could you please introduce yourself first last name and address. That's okay. Thank you. My name is Josephine baby ours I live at 59 Edge Hill Road in Arlington. And my concern is that we are requesting the building inspector to perform a number of things at a specific deadline where he may not have the sufficient staff or resources to be able to implement these requirements. And I worry that having specific deadlines of certain number of days or times may impact both the development that's going on in the in the Commonwealth, but also his ability to address new issues in terms of code implement implementations new environmental regulations. That may occur. And I don't, I saw that he reported a 40% decrease in his staff. And I suggest that that is inappropriate for the board to require specific timeframes for for this kind of enforcement without sufficient staff. That's all I have to say and thank you for hearing me. Thank you. The next speaker will be Steve Moore. Yes, thank you. Madam chair Steve more Piedmont street. I just participated in the board and zoning boards in favor of. I'm sorry, Steve I'll reset your clock if you wanted to go ahead. Thank you. Thank you. I just want to say. The new building inspector. Last building inspector was there for quite a while and had his way of doing things and ran the department his way. He is now retired after a long and very hard service and we appreciate that. However, I think we need to give the new building inspector a chance to sort of establish and run the department his way. I think a lot of the desire coming out of this particular article is based on the many stories and scenarios that occurred under the old building inspector that now perhaps are going to be approached somewhat differently. I think we need to give him a chance to do that. I think we need to give him at least a year and moving beyond cove it because staff reductions changed. All of our experiences, unfortunately, and in some cases, fortunately, but I think we need to give the building inspector a chance to, to establish the new approach himself and if it turns out after a year that folks are still finding that violations are not being mediated fast enough, for whatever reason, we need to consider adding even more staff like Mr. Warden mentioned had happened recent in a couple years past because I think the town is looking for some significant enforcement of it zoning rules that it already has. I think the new building inspector has has heard that and will act accordingly and we need to give him the chance to with appropriate staff to do that. And if it's not enough staff, then we need to come back and check out the budget in a later time meeting to perhaps increase the staff room. Thank you, madam chair. Thank you. So, at this point, without seeing any other hands raised, I will go ahead and move on from public comment on article 45. I'll turn it back over to the board to see if there are any additional questions again remembering that we will reserve debate for April 5 or excuse me April 4. Any final questions from Jean. Thank you. No, I'm fine right now. Thank you. Thank you, Melissa. No, I'd like to follow up with the applicant on understanding like his own personal story. And then I'd like to follow up with Chiampa just because I feel I'm concerned about kind of staff levels with regard to this. I know there's constraints on the other side, fiscally for our town. And when we impose these additional regulations, I need to understand that better. Great. Thank you, Melissa. Steve, any final questions for the applicant. No final questions. Okay. Thank you. And thank you very much, Mr. Mezzo, for your presentation this evening. Thank you for listening to my attention. I'm happy to speak with Melissa at her convenience and if I may just clarify an earlier part of my statement. I wanted to echo Mr. Moore in stating or rather, you know, he alluded to it but I'm happy to confirm that. The experience I was alluding to was under the previous building inspector and I wasn't meaning to offer any commentary or or judgments as to, you know, to the good work that the current building inspectors is doing. So thank you. Thank you for the clarification. Appreciate it. Thank you for your time this evening. Appreciate it as well. So we'll now move on to article 39, which is a zoning by law amendment related to mixed use in business districts specifically the maximum floor area ratio allowed for mixed use structures in the business district. This was inserted at the request of David pretzer and 10 registered voters will go ahead and start by asking Jennifer rake if she has any highlights or any comments that she would like to add to the memo that was prepared by the Department of Planning and Community Development. Thank you, Rachel. I'll be very brief because I think that we will have a long, we will have a presentation by David and we also have a number of people here that I'm thinking tonight would like to speak on this particular article. So in brief, I think you're, we will hear from the petitioner about their perspective about why this is necessary the background that I provided in the memo just simply highlights the department's past with the board our efforts to look at FAR and potentially that as alongside other matters to encourage better development, particularly along our major corridors like Broadway and Mass Ave. However, when we had looked at this previously, we had actually proposed changes that were increases ranging from 1.5 to roughly three FAR not not not quite the same and across multiple business districts different types of changes that were initially proposed. I think that is in keeping with some elements of the master plan, as well as the board's goals. I do think that it is, it merits a discussion about what we what we are looking for, and also whether or not changing FAR really has a major a significant impact on development. I think that as I said, there are many other matters within the zoning bylaw that cut into new potential development that are not being addressed by this bylaw, nor any other zoning amendment being proposed on this warrant. So, I think with that I'm going to pause, and I'll be happy to answer questions or provide additional commentary and turn it over to Mr. David Pretzer rather. Thank you, Jenny. David, we would love to hear from you if you could introduce yourself by your first, last name and address and then be happy to welcome you with six minutes for your presentation. Certainly. Let me just. Slide's up. Should I present my screen or are you presenting it? If you could just let Jenny know when to advance this screen, she'll present them for you from the presentation you submitted. Thank you. Okay. Yes, so hi I'm David Pretzer from 44 Grift Street. And I'm here to talk about my proposal to increase the FAR limit for mixed use buildings in Arlington. Next slide. So, there are some really nice buildings that exist in Arlington today that many people in our town love that would not be legal to build under current zoning. Why is this one major reason is for area ratio. Next slide. In 2016, a town meeting voted to allow mixed use buildings as tall as five stories with some restrictions in business districts, but there hasn't been on construction of buildings of that scale since then. Why one major reason is floor area ratio. Next slide. This is FAR or floor area ratio. I'm the board is already aware but for anyone else. I just like to briefly say it is the ratio of the floor area of the four space within the building to the size of a lot. So, for example, a building with a floor area ratio of two could be a two story building that covers the entire lot, or it could be a four story building that covers half the lot, or any number of variations, as long as the floor area of the space within the building is twice the sort of the ground area of the lot. And as the board is aware, our business districts are a couple of different classifications of land that are on or near our major transit quarters of mass Evan Broadway. They allow commercial mixed use buildings mainly and they're currently a mix of single and multi story buildings. Next slide. And the status quo today in terms of the zoning bylaw is the max floor area ratio for mixed use and business districts ranges from 1.0 to 1.8. The zoning in these districts theoretically allows three to five story buildings. In many cases the FAR limits make this impractical to actually build. Next slide. So my proposal and article 39 is to increase the floor area ratio to 4.0 for mixed use buildings in the B2 through B5 districts. Next slide. So why is it a good idea to increase FAR limits? I think there are a number of good reasons. Arlington's housing production plan and master plan view increased mixed use development as a goal for several reasons and this would help with that. I do subsidized affordable housing units by our existing inclusionary zoning percentage, which only provides benefit to the town. If we actually have new construction that then creates the units. It would support public transit by allowing more people to live near existing public transit and reduce their dependence on private cars. The FAR doesn't really determine what the buildings look like. We have other mechanisms that are zoning that are easier to understand and more effective. And I don't think FAR really is the best way of achieving our zoning goals. Allowing this development would increase Arlington's tax base via new growth, which provides benefits to our town without the ability to build these mixed use structures. The only development we're going to see would be 40B developments, which are likely to be only housing, which doesn't get us the benefits of mixed commercial and residential space. And allowing this construction would increase the vibrancy along our major transit corridors of Mass Ave and Broadway. Next slide. So just to give people a clear idea of what floor area ratio is like and what this might accomplish. I want to share some buildings currently in town that wouldn't be allowed today under our current zoning. And also for comparison purposes, building that was proposed recently and some buildings in nearby municipalities as well. Next slide. So everyone always loves to talk about the capital block and I also love to talk about the capital block. It's a very nice building in East Arlington that I'm sure we're all familiar with. It's a three-story building. And currently its FAR is 2.6, which is significantly above the maximum on their current zoning of 1.4. So I think buildings like this are really add to our town and it would be great if we could legalize more buildings of this sort. Next slide. Here's another building in Arlington that is also similarly exceeding the current currently legal FAR that I think we should be encouraging. Next slide. This one as the board probably recognizes was proposed about a year ago as a building in East Arlington near the capital block. This was proposed as a four-story building that included a building above the parking, which is an efficient use of space because it was using the space above the parking for additional units. It has a particularly high FAR of 3.2, which is more than double what's currently allowed in its zoning. This would have produced also 20% affordable housing units above the bylaw required minimum. And the ARB was unable to even consider giving it a special permit because the FAR that was proposed was beyond the requirements and the ARB was unable to give an exemption, legally unable to give an exemption to that FAR limit. Next slide. Here's just another example of a building in Watertown that's a mixed use building that would be above what's allowed in Arlington today. Next slide. And here's an example of a building in Davis Square that you know would have an FAR above three like the one that was proposed in East Arlington. Next slide. So here I really feel like we've got an opportunity to legalize buildings that we love, enhance the vitality of our major corridors, increase tax revenue for our town, and make the height limits at town meeting already approved, possible to attain in practice by increasing the FAR limits for mixed use in business districts. This is a small but important change. It promotes housing creation, it promotes public transit, and walkability of our commercial areas. We have the power to improve our town's zoning and I think now is a perfect time to take this step forward. I would love to hear any and all questions. Thank you so much, David. We will start with you for any questions. Thank you and thank you for bringing this to us. I guess my only question is why for, as opposed to another number. Sure, thank you. I think that's an excellent question. When I presented this late last year as you remember I was initially proposing this with three and some of the feedback I got from the ARB at the time was to consider whether a higher number would be more appropriate and so I did some additional communication and research and for this proposal I went with four as a round, as a sort of a round number that would allow all my sort of target example buildings. It aligns with what Watertown allows in their central business district, which was a basis for comparison. You know basically one of the things I was looking at is we have the proposed there, my example of a four story building that had an FAR above three, because it used units over parking I personally think that units over parking is a very efficient use of space that we should encourage. And if we want a five story building to be possible. In such a configuration. It seems like we need, you know, some have the FAR somewhere in the 3.5 to four range to enable that. I can certainly see adjusting these numbers. Part of what I was going for was just a fixed number to sort of simplify things rather than having a bunch of different requirements but it could also make sense to have one FAR for like a four or five story buildings are allowed and a lower number in four stories and a lower number for three stories. I think if the board wants to pursue that direction I think that could also make a lot of sense. Does that answer your question. Yeah, thanks. I guess I'll just comment that. Yeah, I remember when you came a few months ago to discuss this as a possibility. I'm not sure every member of the board suggested going above three, but I'm interested to hear what other members of the board have to say at this point. Thank you. Thank you, Jane. Can questions or points. Yeah, thank you David bring this up. This is for as a bright you're saying right David. So my my understanding is that mixed use buildings and business districts already require a special permit and this wouldn't change that but I'm not really sure about that. Okay, let me rephrase my question. I would like to get this bonus of far far of four. I would like to bring in the inclusionary clause in there and saying that if there was affordable housing with this, then for is is allowable. It's a carrot, you know, and if there was, if there was no affordable housing then we may go over lower number or go number as is. I think you are 100% correct. Having a low FIR does prohibit development along the corridor and you think this is one of the tripping factors. I think there's others but we can we think we're talking about this one right now. We can adjust others but I think if adding some sort of clause in there about affordable housing. I'm sure we once we get to the size we're going to get there anyways just because the number of units and everything else. It's already already in play but we may want to go from 15 to 20% or something along those lines where we have a carrot out there that that also encouraged a little more diverse housing. I have a question to make sure that we're giving kind of quick guidance and we can come back to this as well after everyone spoke in and we've heard from the public. Are you suggesting a percentage above the existing inclusionary inclusionary zoning to get to trigger the four. Yes. Okay, would you consider that David. I think, I think it's definitely worth considering. My concern is that I don't really have the data and I'm concerned that if the inclusionary zoning percentage is increased too much, then that might make it too difficult for these buildings to actually be built my understanding is that with the current 15% we've seen that's been using the inclusionary zoning and not under 40 B and so I think I definitely be open to increasing that but I, but I would, you know, like to depend on the expertise of the board and the planning department and ensuring that the number chosen isn't going to be so high as to make it difficult to actually create housing. So I think that's my main concern but I could definitely see changing this to only apply to buildings that are going to hit the inclusion existing inclusionary zoning, which I think in practice they would likely anyways, or something that would be more of a density bonus I think those are all worth considering. Thank you. Melissa, any questions or for David. No, not at this point. Thank you Melissa Steve any questions for David. Yes, I do. So I was a town meeting member in 2016 when this was passed and you know I can remember some of the discussions about far and hide at the time. I would wonder, I'd like to know if David would possibly consider a friendly amendment, which rather rather than going with a fixed FAR of four to essentially double what's allowed in the mixed use or allowed in the four mixed use in the designated districts, basically, but capping it at three. So essentially that would still give us a range of that they are values between two and three my rationale for proposing this is as follows. As the director mentioned there's a number of, you know, regulations that affect what can be built. And, you know, in addition to FAR we have a FAR like dimensional regulation in our zoning bylaws it's called open space. Basically this is a portion of a lot that's not occupied by a structure or parking or used for vehicular traffic, but the requirement is based on a percentage of the gross floor area. The more open space requires. Now, it's not obvious how these two interact. So over the weekend I sat down drew a bunch of tables and just kind of worked out numbers. And with a three story building, you can accommodate an FAR of two but by the time you get to two and a half, you run up against the limitation of the open space. So five stories this happens between an FAR of three and three and a half. So between two and three, I think actually calibrates the regulations to, you know, the other dimensional requirements and still makes it possible to, you know, to give some opportunity to reach the height limits of the districts. So I guess my first question is, David, would you be open to a change like that? Yeah, thank you for your question. I think I'm definitely open in general to playing around with these numbers and I understand that it's the board's, you know, discretion what the main motion will being if the board ends up recommending action on this article. I will say that my personal thought is that for a five story building, I would prefer an FAR limit of at least 3.5 because I'm concerned that an FAR limit of three would be too restrictive for a five story building to actually get built based on the examples that I've seen. And I think if I think if the board or the planning department has better data that shows otherwise, I'm definitely open to hearing that. But based on what I've looked at, I think that's my main concern with the specific numbers that you say, but I'm definitely open to modifying these numbers in general. Okay. Thank you. Nothing further madam chair. Great. Thank you, Steve. Any other questions from members of the board before I open this up for a public comment. We will have an opportunity to follow up with questions following public comments. Okay. I don't see any. Sorry. I do have my hand. Oh, I'm sorry. I couldn't see a gene. I just wondered if it based upon what Steve has suggested, whether Steve or is a little, or maybe Jenny can explain why in each of the business districts. There's one FAR for buildings above a certain square foot, and a lower FAR for building larger building seems a little analogous to me. I'm just wondering if there was any explanation. Jenny, would you like to feel that one. Steve waving. Now I, my recollection and I invite correction if this if I my recollection is wrong, but the, there are two FAR limits one for parcels under 20,000 square feet and one for parcels above 20,000 square feet. My understanding was that with the smaller parcels, it's you're working with a tighter space and there's, you know, the space itself is more constraining. So the higher FAR was kind of, it was intended to be a little bit of a break to just deal with the, you know, the restrictions, the inherent restrictions of having a small smaller parcel to work with. Anything to add to that. Just to make it clear that it also relates to building height. So I mean, it's, it's, it's both FAR and building height. I mean, in case that's not evident. The two together and depending upon the size of the parcel that's why you have those two different rows, which are, which is throughout the bylaw when it talks about mixed use. And can you, Jenny, can you just remind us the FAR that was approved for the industrial districts at Tom meeting last year. Let me, let me get back to you. Okay, that's fine. We can return to that one after. Any other questions for either Jenny or the. Sure. Okay, so at this time I'd like to open article 39 up for public comment. Again, please use the raise hand function as I call on you please introduce yourself by your first last name and address, and you will have up to three minutes to address the board. And we will start with John Warden. Thank you madam chairman. So that's why my picture isn't shown. That's a setting on your end. That's not something that we control. Well, I pushed the thing that said picture but nothing happened. Well, if you could just introduce yourself please first last name and address will have to go ahead and move about it. We'll speak and speak out of the darkness and thank you. John Warden Jason Street. I think this is a my opinion a bad idea. I think if we want to do something about mixed use. I think the first thing that has to be done doesn't require any amendment to the bylaws, what it requires is for the board to go back to the discussion of 2016. When this was adopted by they persuaded town meeting to adopt this. Mixed use for vision. And they were, and the talk was about vibrant shops on the first floor and maybe offices upstairs and some residents is further up. And this old little community would be doing all this stuff together. And what we've gotten is apartment buildings without the setbacks of open space parking etc. The apartment buildings require, and it's, and I'm sorry to say, I spoke at the town meeting, I urge you to support an amendment that would put some requirements for specific percentages of resident of non residential use commercial infrastructure or whatever office uses that pay taxes to the town, but don't send any kids to school or any of that stuff. And, and that was not approved, because we were assured that you can trust a redevelopment board they'll do the right thing, but look at the reader, we look at the mixed use buildings you have approved. The one on summer street has one little office that's used by the management of the building. Well every good building has a management office anyway. The, the one that's going up now across from the high school is going to have one little shop in the corner or something like that. And, and the one across the street, Carney's folly has a bunch of blank windows at the ground floor. So these vibrant commercial retail uses etc. have not existed. And it's because the board has not insisted on doing what the indication was that they would do when they got town meeting to approve this. And they, and someone says, Well, it's not economically viable. We can't. What they're saying is I can't make a huge enough profit. And I've never seen the board say, show us the, show us the figures, show us your construction costs, show us your margin of profit that you expect. So they just say, Oh dear, well, we can't. Okay, well, we'll let you have an apartment building, but please put a little shop in the corner. That is the improvement you need to make. And you can take that decision yourself by, by doing what you indicated to tell me you would be doing when you got Tommy to approve this. Thank you. Next speaker this evening will be Steve Moore. Yes, thank you madam chair Steve Moore, Piedmont street. I only will have one. One calm one. This will be my last comment tonight on like last week where I seem to speak on everything. And I, again, I want to thank the planning department for their insightful memos I find very helpful to give, give good perspective on what this means sort of in the context of what the zoning currently is and what's being proposed. I've got to say that I don't, I don't support this sort of piecemeal approval to rezoning and zoning changes. I, I feel that they often represent a very, very narrow set of interests and definitely do not necessarily represent wide consensus, particularly from from the folks who don't follow meetings like this, this closely. And I don't, I don't think that that's particularly healthy I know that the eventual goal here is to, to go to town meeting. I don't, I don't find town meeting a good venue to do this sort of thing ad hoc, as was evidenced in 2019 when the ask was too big and everything went, went down in flames that particular year. I do think that that the air be in the ZBA and the planning department should be basically annually putting forth a slate of changes that incrementally change zoning. And bring that before town meeting every year, rather than have citizen motions like this that really aren't done in a coherent consistent framework or fashion. They just look at a particular thing that, again, might represent a kind of narrow interest. I don't think that's a good way to deal with these, as you know, clearly very contentious issues. And as is heaven is by, I can see all the people that want to speak on this one, one thing. So I would, I would hope in the future that the various boards and planning department get together and present annual, again, internally consistent and coherent slates of changes. And we discussed them at town meeting that way, rather than piece of me. Thank you very much. Thank you. The next picture will be Barbara Thornton. Thank you Barbara Thornton 223 Park Ave and precinct 16. I love this. I love it as a city planner. I love it as an Arlington resident and I love it as somebody who likes to walk down neighborhoods and find them interesting and vibrant and fun. And there's any concern that this won't work in Arlington or what it takes to have enough of residents upstairs in order to make those fun street level stores exist, because that's what we're talking about we're talking about the ratio between people who live upstairs and people that are on the street that the stores on the street, I suggest you go to Portsmouth, New Hampshire and walk around. It's half the size of Arlington is a fun place to go, and they have four and five story apartment buildings that you don't even notice that they're there, except that as a city planner I know that those apartment buildings are the main streets, the street life on the main streets, the residential areas, strawberry bank all there you can preserve it, it's not affected, but the street life on your commercial quarters is fun. The only other comment that I that I want to suggest in regard to Steve Revelex comment about open space, the parcels in Arlington on the main quarters are really small. I would like to say you're going to take the parcel and you're going to require more open space. And I wonder if there isn't a creative way we can think about looking at open space per block, rather than open space per parcel. That's it. Thank you. Yeah. The next speaker will be Brian McBride. Hello, Brian McBride 36 Eastern Avenue. Thanks to the board for the service of the town. So I'm concerned. I'm a citizen with a lot of planning training or background but I'm just concerned about the scale and scope of some of the developments that I've seen proposed to the town. I'm not sure how this particular item fits in with that scale that I'm worried about what I see the outwife expansion I hear about the Muger property and I'm just worried that the scale of the town is going to be changed detrimentally. You know, we're in this economic boom in Boston in Cambridge I heard in the news today that Boston created more jobs than any city but for others in the whole country. But boom's come and go right we've seen digital and Wang we've seen the Rust Belt, the urban flight and so forth I just want to advise the board to be cautious and think about the legacy in the future, and what we're leaving for our town and make sure that the scale of the city. The town is livable and appropriate for, for what we're looking for just urging some restraint. Thank you. Thank you. The next speaker will be James Fleming. Am I audible now. You are yes. You caught me doing this is. So I like this article a lot. Sorry, James, could you just introduce yourself. Right. Sorry, James line Oxford Street. I really like the article. Aside from capital building there are a lot of older commercial buildings in East Arlington, where even an FAR that that's currently there is not enough for them to go to a second story which I think is ridiculous. And the reason is that their lock coverage is extremely high. So like 90 95% of what is covered. It's how they used to build buildings. So I think at minimum, you need an FAR at like two to go even up to a second story. I don't think four is the right number for now. I think it's a bit of a big change but I think you should at least go to two, and to Steve's point maybe even up to three, just to get a few more stories on there. People who built those buildings would never have imagined they would stay one story forever. It just it wouldn't have been think they would eventually add a second and a third story they would have added other uses apartments, you know whatever have you at the time. And as the community developed they would become more intensively use the streets would get better improvements. It would be a nicer area. That's how you build wealth and wealth is what we tax in the town to support everything. So I don't think that we should get in the way of that some degree because if we do and keep the current regulations, then whatever is there right now is the peak. And we wouldn't really ever get much more. Thank you. Thank you. The next speaker will be Jennifer Seuss. Jennifer Seuss 45 teal street. So I think David for bringing this article to the attention of the board and to the community. I I think this is a good idea so people often are nervous about zoning changes because of the unanticipated consequences, but it's just as often leak true that a zoning change is ineffective because we don't you know because maybe the interrelation either wasn't understood or maybe for political reasons, you know wasn't disentangled. And I think that's very much the case here in 2016, the town meeting voted over two thirds we did not have housing choice at the moment to allow three up to five stories on the quarters if they're mixed use with the setback at three feet at three stories. And there's a lot of excitement about what that could bring. And in the intervening years what I've heard from people is a lot of frustration that they didn't see more building and sort of confusion about what, like, why don't we see more building what what's the barrier here. And it took me a long time to understand what the barriers were and I think this is clearly one of the barriers that the fr is too too low. I appreciate the board's consideration and thoughtfulness about this about getting the numbers right. I don't have any particular view about whether four or three is the right number is clearly needs to be higher and I'm glad that there's such great expertise on this and very careful thoughtful consideration. So I appreciate that we have a citizen bringing this and I also appreciate the expertise of the board and the planning department in making sure that we get everything right. I think this is something that time meeting should consider I think it's it's reflection of what they've wanted in the past and and I hope you get to give us another chance to sort of go back and and sort of get it right and reflect sort of what we were looking for in in 2016. So thank you. Thank you. The next speaker will be Stephanie and Hansel. Hi my name is Stephanie Hansel I live at three Cleveland Street. I believe this proposed changes to extreme. This isn't an incremental approach this is a huge exponential increase in the floor area ratio and I don't believe it's applicable to the type of business districts we have here in Arlington. I did some research on maximum floor area ratios and comparably sized business districts and nearby towns and no town has an FAR in all of its business zones. For example, Brookline has a maximum FAR of 0.5 to 1.75 Coolidge corner for example is is 1.75 FAR Newton has, you know, standards from 1.0 to 2.5 and 2.5 is only allowed by special permit. The town that was given as an example Watertown has a maximum FAR of 1.0 in its regional mixed use districts. I think the point is that not one size fits all different types of business districts and I'm very concerned that this proposal is for a very large increase across almost all of our business districts, which are neighborhood business districts which are village business districts they don't seem to be able to accommodate the type of density that the petitioner seems to wish for. I'm concerned by the loss of business space that this is going to cause because we've seen it already, the example that the petitioner gave about the proposed development at 1.9200 Mass Ave was going to be resulting in the loss of 7500 to 8000 square feet of business in the heart of a business zone in East Arlington, and that's really unacceptable and there's no guarantee that increasing the FAR by this much is not going to cause that we're going to see that again and again. In conclusion, I just feel that this is a really broad and sweeping change, and it really does not allow us to see the potential impacts of this, a more carefully specified and realistic proposal could allow for us to really evaluate that better to engage in wider community conversation and planning and we could also make those changes that we really want because we would know what the goals are. And I just really think that there has to be a balance and this proposed amendment isn't the isn't a balanced amendment. Thank you. Thank you. The next speaker will be Don Seltzer. Thank you, Madam Chair, Don Seltzer Irving Street. Fiddling around with key elements of our zoning bylaw is not something to be done lightly. As our planning department described it, floor area ratio is just one element in an array of dimensional restrictions. It is unwise to simply say, well, why don't we double or triple or even quadruple in some instances the allowable FAR without evaluating the wider consequences. The presentation given this evening is superficial and factually incorrect in its specific examples, which I have detailed to the board in a letter this past week. The quarter street actually has an FAR of just 1.66, which is well within the zoning limit of 1.8. And the primary reason that the Capitol Theater could not be built in its present form is that it lacks the required 30 foot setback in the rear yard, providing both required parking and a buffer from the abutting homes. To add in this trip, the FAR drops to only 1.36, again within our current bylaw maximum. Not every lot is suitable for five story buildings. Here is an example of a B3 district property that is a good fit for such development. This is a 180 mass have 14 commercial condominiums in a three story building with both street level retail spaces and offices offering jobs within walkie distance to Arlington homes. The lot contains parking for employees and customers and a buffer from the homes on Chandler and Egerton. The current FAR is about 1.0. Finally, one could add two more floors of residential with upper story setbacks and roof decks. The primary use would still be commercial, but with an additional 9,000 square feet of accessory residential. The resulting FAR, it would be just 1.4. This is what is possible today with their current FAR limits. I would like to hear and use my remaining time to answer any questions from the board or planning regarding the details in my letter. Thank you. I don't believe that we have any questions. The next speaker this evening will be Catherine Peterson. Hello. Catherine Peterson from 31 Chandler Street. Can you hear me? So my concern about this is, first of all, I'm just wondering if you've considered polling citizens around citizens in Arlington just to see if people are fully aware of this proposal and or what a proposal like this might do to the character of the town. I think that we need more voices involved in this. So that's one of the points I wanted to make. Another point is that we're just coming off of a pandemic and we haven't yet given businesses an opportunity to recover. And so we don't know yet what the use might be of the spaces that we have, like if we can even accommodate businesses and all these new spaces that would be proposed. That's another concern is just a dramatic move at a time when we're still in recovery mode. Another concern is I'm just wondering about the accessory dwelling units. So part of the argument for this from what I understand is providing more affordable housing. But we just recently provided ADUs. So we're supporting the use of ADUs, but we haven't yet studied how that's going to happen. We don't know yet what's going to come about from that. And I'm just wondering why also making another dramatic change in the character of the town without first seeing how that change is going to actually unfold. I also have concerns about whether the town schools can support a dramatic far increase. So those are my main concerns. Thank you. Thank you. The next speaker will be Elaine. Hi there. This is Elaine Maynard. And I reside at 13 Chandler Street in East Arlington. I think I just want to take a brief opportunity to sort of support and mirror the some of the comments of other speakers. I think that a far increase to 4.0 is dramatic and unprecedented in towns similar to Arlington. And I also think that projects need to be evaluated on their own merits. So I think that we should really assess with the risk factors and potential benefits. And so, you know, I certainly recently lived through the 180 to 200 Mass Ave proposal. And that proposal in and of itself was lacking in a lot of evaluation of some very, you know, kind of basic concerns. I see this as a project by project consideration. Those considerations range from everything to appropriate and timely traffic studies to an assessment of, you know, how neighborhoods will be impacted, how can how the overall community will be impacted. So I certainly support and get the need to for more mixed use in Arlington. But this feels to me as I think a previous caller said, you know, very broad and kind of without bounds. And, you know, I think that there's a thoughtful evaluation that needs to take place on a project by project basis. My concern is that, you know, this sort of sets us off in increasing something dramatically for the purpose of increasing something dramatically without really thinking about, you know, kind of all the the bits and pieces that go into the thoughtful assessment of the project so appreciate the time and appreciate the opportunity to voice my concerns. The next speaker will be KD. Might that be Kelly Doherty. Okay. Sorry, I apologize for the confusion Kelly Doherty I'm at 12 Chandler Street. And, and I want to reiterate what everyone says. I mean, the supporters as well as the folks who are concerned, and I happen to be among the concerned. I think we all value the, the vibrancy of mixed use town Arlington is a mixed use town already it's got, you know, the beautiful capital theater in my neighborhood is one of the reasons I moved here and one of the reasons I've stayed and live here and love it. I think we all want to encourage development projects like the capital theater. The problem is, is I don't think we've really studied this particular proposal adequately so I want to agree with the folks who've expressed a concern that a wider review and perhaps a bit more study is buried. For instance, some of the development projects that were listed, and that have occurred in Arlington already have actually removed commercial space and they are much more heavily residential. I can speak vocally to the one at 1 9200 or 180 200 that was proposed. There were many neighbors very vocally opposed to that project and I don't want this to turn into my personal views on that project but it gives a really good example for why we were opposed and one of the issues was the parking garage beneath all of the residential development. They were going to shrink the commercial space and then they're going to put a parking garage there, which works beautifully in Portsmouth I agree with the planner who'd mentioned that. But I think a lot of us may have concerns about Mass Ave becoming a parking garage corridor and we do have to think about the repercussions of that on the vibrancy of a walkable community. And on the vibrancy of the commercial development that we want to see encouraged in town. So I'm opposed to increasing the FAR for specific projects so I want to reiterate the folks who have said, let's offer a carrot. But I don't think it should just be affordable housing I think that should be on the list, but I think brick facades of beautiful you know make the developers really work for this type of, of grace that that the town of Arlington is going to grant them, make sure that in doing so, they are meeting all of the objectives of the town, including traffic traffic is a big issue, especially when you look at access and egress from parking garages because in many cases, that is going to be on the residential street, and not on the Mass Ave corridor. So these are all key considerations so I think we just need to study this a bit more and have more wider community input. But I think that that I don't want to say we're opposed to mixed use this is, you know, we love mixed use. We just want to see it done properly, and a really wide swath of something of this size. And I really damage our town for years to come so I do want to express my concern about it. Not right. So thank you for listening I appreciate the time. Thank you. The next speaker will be Matthew Owen. Hi I'm Matthew Owen I'm at 164 forestry. I like to voice strong approval for this warrant article, although as with members of the board. I don't know that the exact numbers like in the current draft of the warrant article are you know exactly what needs to be the final numbers and that that's something that may need to be worked out before this finally gets to town meeting. But yeah this is a proposal that I even sort of independently thought was a good idea based on attending redevelopment board meetings. One example was the the board, you know, last fall approved a mixed use proposal at Mass Ave and Medford Street, and that's over sort of the field Papa genus and that that proposal maxed out its FAR at 1.5 So we only managed to add sort of one story of residential above the commercial space. So essentially for that space, at least if they're, you know, including any parking there they were, they were pretty much limited to only a single story of residential as part of that And I think that's, yeah, just not enough for a sort of the vibrant mixed use commercial district especially like right in Arlington Center there. It's kind of ridiculous that it sort of cats the building height for that use at effectively two stories considering that down Medford Street half a block there's a residential building dating from 1890 that's three stories tall. And so it doesn't really stand the reason that there are stronger limitations to the building height now effectively than there, than there were 130 years ago. So yeah, I just like to suggest that the board, you know, maybe fidgets with the numbers but recommends this for approval by town meeting. Thank you. Thank you. The next speaker will be Sarah Tuttle. Thank you so much for letting me speak and for this. My name is Sarah Tuttle I am at 44 Grove Street. I am definitely married to David. But we are different people and we have different views so I wanted to speak my perspective on this on this this evening. I really love this proposal, and I love it because it's so specific, because it makes possible development that otherwise meets goals and requirements that our community has as somebody who has my family has a long history in Arlington. I love this community. And I see what we what we could be and I see what we are and I love what we are but I know we could do better. And I feel like our low FIR limits right now really prevent us from meeting community goals like an adequate affordable housing stock, like buildings that that provide this vibrant community in this vibrant walkable community. And I just really want to underscore that for me a big selling point of this particular proposal is that it makes possible development that otherwise meets the requirements of the town that what this does to me is remove a bill is remove a block from our potential. And I just wanted to state that. Thank you. Thank you. Let's see the next speaker will be Aaron Holman. Can you hear me? We can. Thank you. Okay. Aaron Holman 12 Whitmore Street candidate for town meeting and precinct six. I oppose article 39. I see it as one more attempt to raise owning limits and density. I think it's motivated by a desire to increase the town's tax base by converting business space to more valuable housing. This density might be justified if it created affordable housing. This article dispenses entirely with the false claim that greater density will create affordable housing. Indeed, it doesn't even mention affordable housing at all mixed use was an earlier attempt to facilitate the conversion of business to housing. This is another Arlington's development priorities should be to create more business space and to create more truly affordable housing, not the fake affordability that's called 40 B. This article will facilitate the creation of not merely market rate housing, but luxury housing. And so at the expense of what we need more business and more affordable housing. Like mixed use, it'll further the cannibal the cannibalization of our remaining business districts longer range, it'll facilitate the conversion of Arlington to an all bedroom community. This is socially and financially unhealthy for multiple reasons. Arlington described Arlington as a golden gated ghetto. This will make Arlington less affordable, not more. The fun to quote the fun and vibrant and quote street that previous speaker described relies on a host of low wage service sector jobs. Arlington needs better jobs than that and proposals to turn Arlington's main streets into an amusement park for its residents. It sells the town short. Because of its mixed jobs Arlington's already becoming a town where those who live here can't afford to work here. And those who work here can't afford to live here. This article by facilitating more conversion to dense luxury housing will worsen that. Finally, the annual rate of our of increase in Arlington's municipal budget is excessive by any measure. Arlington has resisted making difficult financial choices. This, the, this attempts to delay the day of reckoning further. Again, I pose article 39. There are better ways to develop our real estate than this. Thank you very much. Thank you. The next speaker will be Chris. Thank you madam chair Chris already 56 Adams Street again, can you hear me. Yes. Thank you. I'd like to begin by questioning this assumption that the current FAR is too low. And I think there's been a lot of misinformation about that. The staff and both sites report by MA PC that suggests that mixed use buildings are effectively limited to two stories. The staff memo itself sites a figure of one and a half to two stories. I would like to ask the board there be which is the only board in town that can approve mixed use special permits. How many mixed use special permits have you approved that were for one and a half in two story buildings. As far as I know, everyone that you have approved is three to four stories. So the idea that the existing zoning by law prevents mixed use developments of more than two stories is just absolutely false and everyone needs to understand that. Another thing assumption I'd like to challenge is that the current zoning by law is inconsistent with the master plan. I've heard a lot of talk about trying to build buildings mixed use buildings that were five stories. In fact, the visual survey that was done as part of the master plan indicated that most people did not like five story buildings, and at most they wanted them to be four stories. And if you look at the current zoning by law, it does in some cases allow buildings up to five stories, but that's not the norm. In most cases they are limited to three or four stories. And in the B2 zoning district, they are not allowed to be more than four stories ever. So this one size fits all in desire to have five story buildings all around town is not consistent with our current zoning desires is not consistent with the description of the current zoning districts. It's particularly inappropriate in the B2 zoning district. And I think that really needs to needs to be examined. And I would close just by echoing one of the other commenters who said this is a complicated area, and it shouldn't be left to amateurs, you know, as much as I appreciate some residents putting forward zoning articles or their own articles. So this is really something that should become that should come out of the board, acting in its role as the planning board, and considered holistically, because certainly, I wouldn't disagree that in some areas, particularly in the central business district. Some of these fars could be tweaked, but this one size fits all is really inappropriate considering the distribution of the various zoning business zoning districts around town. So I hope the board will not approve this as it's proposed and will not approve it at all this year and take a much closer look at it before doing anything. Thank you. Thank you. Any other member of the public wishing to speak before we turn it back to the board for questions. Great. Seeing none. I'd like to just follow up. I asked a question before we move to public comment over to Jenny rate and I think specifically David, one of the reasons why I asked a question about the maximum if they are for the industrial district districts that we just approved was that when we went through that process. There was a lot of nuance and coming up with that particular number of three in terms of bonuses based on use and other levers that could be used in order to get to that point so Jenny, if you could maybe just give a quick top line there and then I'll give a little bit more of my my thoughts and David. The original question was, what was the FAR in the industrial zones that we adopted at town meeting previously. And the answer to that question of course is three, as you can see in the zoning by law but the nuance that I wanted to make sure was clear to this body, as well as to people who are listening is that we talked about height. And we talked about subject to amenity requirements as outlined in this section, which are all of the development standards, plus exceptions to maximum height regulations in the industrial district, which then talks about if it's over 39 feet or three it's subject to very specific criteria, the standards are outlined here. And I'm not going to talk about all of them but I think that the point is that it's it's there's a caveat to both the FAR as well as the height that I just wanted to make sure was clear to the board of course or just to remind folks. If you're thinking about the FAR that we talked about in relationship to the industrial districts. I appreciate it. So one question I would have for David and the, and the board and again David I'm not sure if this is something that you're interested in perhaps pursuing or thinking about prior to, you know when we meet to to vote on this on an April 4 but you know hearing some of the feedback about the, the, the jump in the, and the change of the zoning the FAR across the board to four is whether or not you give any approach, or any, any thought to taking an approach similar to the way that we approach the industrial districts in the same way that we approach parking reduction with the transportation demand management plans in that it's, there are a suite of a suite of elements that should a developer incorporate within their building whether it's maximizing business use or increasing the increasing the amount of affordable percentage of affordable housing beyond inclusionary zoning, or streetscape enhancements or renewable energy sources etc. That there is just a simple option for the board to increase the FAR, let's say, up to, to double what it is today for some of those, those types of things so again I'm not sure if that's something that you'd explored or something that you would be willing to explore, because I think it would fit your intent of what you have stated which is to increase the maximum floor hour ratio allowed. But I just wanted to get your thoughts David on that type of approach. I think that's really worth exploring. And I'm definitely open to that idea. I think, you know, there's potentially a lot of complexity and nuance, it exactly, you know what incentives make sense. And sort of, from my perspective proposing this article, I was trying to sort of keep it relatively simple and address what I saw as sort of a mismatch between the sort of the allowed the allowed heights and the FAR. And so I think, you know, potentially there's some value in increasing FAR without adding additional requirements and then perhaps allowing a further increase with requirements, but I think there's a number of avenues and certainly like a density bonus for meeting certain goals is definitely something I'm generally in favor of and could make sense here. Okay, thank you. So what I'd like to do at this point is just to refer to the board members again for any any additional questions or requests. Because I think that if any, you know, you certainly could decide to just keep the, you know, the motion as as submitted and have us vote on on that on April 4, or if there are any changes that you would like to make we need to receive that prior to to the fourth, and I think we'd like to be able to give you some some good guidance on that if that's something you'd be open to. So, Ken, I'll throw it over to you for any thoughts for say but before we conclude on article 3039. That's a good question Rachel I think some of the stuff you brought up about having more incremental or more emphasis tied in with the release bonuses is good. I also liked what Steve said, maybe four is not is the appropriate number all across the boards maybe just doubling them from three to two is what may be maybe a better number. I just don't know how we can get there get there from here, right, because today's the 21st, and we have the forth coming up and you have to submit this into us a week before. Is that right, Jenny. So, I'm not sure how we're gonna get there. I'm not sure how we're gonna approach. I'm not sure all the numbers are there that I can support right now. So, let's see what the business board thinks I mean I'm not gonna. I still know how it's going to work. Thank you can change. Thank you. Thank you to the board, at least for last couple of years that something needed to be done with the FAR and the business districts. And there were many examples that we had. And I can think by the way of three mixed use buildings that are only two stories high that we have issued special permits for during the time I've been on the board. And the whole problem on mass ad and Broadway is that many of the buildings don't have a large lot. They don't have the lot that Mr seltzer showed in his presentation. And so we're dealing with something other than what he showed. Just a revelac suggestion that the way to do this is really to just double what the current FAR is I think that would get at what the board had been talking about for some time. One of the things that we are bringing or maybe bringing to town meeting this year are some of the other things that you mentioned Rachel there will be, I hope, a zoning article to require. We will be putting together at least part of that package to bring to this town meeting any help. You know, when we last proposed this in 2019, we will be putting together at least part of that package to bring to this town meeting any help. So, in the last year of business in 2019, I was the largest proponent to say if we gave people the ability to build up or do a greater floor area ratio. The trade off should be what can suggested is more affordable housing. I think that is still something we should consider for this was I think that's the one piece that we discussed that that isn't here that we should discuss and see if we can come up with some way to do that I'd be, you know, I think it would work up to 20% of affordable housing, but I'd be interested in having the staff take a look at that. Thank you Jean Melissa. Yeah, I don't, I don't know if I have too many comments right now specifically, and do you appreciate you know your effort to bring this forward. I understand, you know, from a perspective of you know, vibrancy and liveliness, you know, the idea of adding density kind of makes sense. I think, though, for my experience, it has to get to really leverage that density and really work with your property owners to see what are the other elements. So I'm a little bit reserved to kind of supporting this in and of itself. Even though I understand what Jean saying we have a package somewhat with the other pieces of proposal and a little reserved to you support this entirely at this point. Any questions or additional thoughts on potential modifications prior to the fourth. No, I do take Mr Benson's remark about some of the parcel some of the business parcels being small. You know, my favorite fun fact about cap the zoning in the Capitol Theater is that there are 1100 theater seats, and there is one under curbed zoning there is one parking space required for every four of them. So if you were to recall, actually, there's, I feel I could think I could confidently say there is no way that building could be permitted today with today's parking requirements, unless we allowed them to build a really impressive parking podium. And I think one of my, you know, as we go forward and, you know, our 100 year old single story commercial buildings are aging. I'm, you know, so my concern is that these properties might be developed, but we would lose a significant amount of building just to accommodate, you know, what are modern parking requirements. You know, which is yet another thing to work on. I do like the I also agree with the idea of, you know, turning this into a density bonus. You know, do, do have this have something in exchange for the higher FAR. It's, it's a tight timeline but yeah, it is what it is. Thank you. Okay, so what I'd like to come to some consensus from the from the board because we need to give David a little bit of direction here. We like him to do some work in terms of trying to create a a revised motion that includes incentives, or come back to us with, I haven't heard a lot of support for four, but there has been some gelling around double where where we are today. And again not saying, David that there's an approval in the in the realm of just what we've been talking about because we won't be obviously debating this until the fourth and I think that, you know, what we've all been discussing is that there is, there is some nuance that perhaps, whether it's for this town meeting or future town meeting, we'd certainly love to work with you on. In terms, I think that we need to give David some some direction as to which way we would, we would like him to move or perhaps ask him to explore both and come back to us with what he as the petitioner would would would like us to to vote on. So, I'll just go through one more time and and see if there's some consensus we can achieve there. Otherwise, David, I think I would just like you to take what you've heard and synthesize that and you can certainly ask any any questions as we finish as well so can any any final thoughts here. I would definitely lower it, I would recommend lowering it to maybe double. I think you have a more, we would have a more appetite toward moving on along to a vote. I don't think there's much anything else right now that you can do fast enough and do do adequate enough. There's still all the issues but I think just by doing that this is enough to get it least have a good discussion. Yes. Great. Thank you, Jean. Yeah, I mean I think a couple of choices are to double which Steve had suggested and leave it as simple as that. If I add on to it. What can I suggest in something that increases the amount of affordable housing. I'm just not sure that between now and April, we're going to be able to land on what should that increase be. That's my one problem so in some ways I think the one and Melissa may sort of not be there on this but I think what I feel is maybe an emerging consensus. We're going with double, double in the existing FAR and leave everything else, because we're not ready to go there yet and it's the sort of smallest incremental change we could make for this. Thanks, Melissa. Any other guidance for David. No, not at this point. Thanks, Steve. I just want to make an earlier suggestion double but no greater than three. Okay. David any final questions for the for the board. I want to thank everyone for their time and perspective I think this has been very educational for me and I will get you some revised options as soon as possible. Thank you. Thank you so much for your time this evening for the presentation. All right. So with that we will now move on to article 34 zoning law, excuse me zoning by law amendment related to definitions around porches and projections into minimum yards, and I will hand it over at this point to generate. Well, I actually don't have anything specific to share from our memo for this particular article or the next two. So I think probably just best to listen to petitioner I did. I did suggest some amendments to some of the, what had been initially proposed by the petitioner and I think it would be helpful to talk about that but after we hear from. Well, these are technically the air piece so I keep thinking of Christian you're the petitioner but I know you brought them to us, but we had more time to think them through a staff in our department memo. So I'll stop referring to you as the petitioner, but I think since you had proposed the initial language, after giving it a little bit more consideration, we have some suggested amendments so. But perhaps Rachel it might be helpful if Christian actually does. Yes. Yeah, we'll turn it over to Christian Christian. Thanks Jenny. Alright, Christian if you'd like to say a few words about article 34 and we'll give you the same opportunity for article 34 and article 36 when they're up as well. Thank you so very much. My name is Christian Klein I'm a resident 54 Newport Street. I'm also the current chair of the zoning board of appeals, and I had brought before the board. Several articles, which deal with items that come before our board regularly, and that we would like to recommend to the town that we adjust our zoning bylaws in order to address common questions that come before our board. And so the first of these is this proposed article in regards to porches. So a lot of people residents in town come before the board because they would like to add what's referred to as a farmer's porch to the front of their house so a porch that extends the full width of their house. These are very common features all over town. And in most cases, there is a house where their neighbor to the left and the neighbor to the right already have these porches on the front of their house and they come to the board requesting them. And they are currently they would be built into the front yard setback. And so we do in our bylaws have an existing section that specifically deals with projections into required yards. But they just don't mention the word porch specifically. And so we had wanted to provide a definition for what a porch is and then to include that under this section so that it's clear when people are looking to figure out if they can put a porch on the front of their house what the procedure is. And so that's the sole reason for bringing this before the board tonight. Thank you. Great. Thank you, Christian. Before we get to the members of the board for questions I believe that when you keep before previously and we spoke there was a question about whether or not we needed to separately define porch open porches and enclosed porches so I wanted to see if you have given that any, any thought. I have thought about it a little bit and it, it's something that we might want to ask Mr Champa about as well as to what the interpretation is. We do in our to the zoning bylaws that is today has no definition for porch. Excuse me does but it, it's a very limited definition. And but there, the document does use the term enclosed porches and it does use unenclosed porches. And I'm not proposing to adjust those. I do think they would be it would be helpful in the future to add that at those definitions. What I've tried to do is clarify that a porch in and of itself has to be at least open on one side that is not just a covered area but it's covered but it has to be at least open on one side. Thank you. All right, at this point, I'd like to go through the members of the board for any questions you might have for either Jenny rate or Christian Klein, and we'll start with Ken. No, I have no questions. Great. Thanks, James. I, you know, and Christian and I had discussed this at some time in the past, but didn't see the word until recently. I, I don't understand and I need definitely tell me what it means to say open on at least one side as a definition of a porch. Christian. Thank you. Yes. So, when we consider. So, there are a lot of porches where, you know, a typical porch is attached to the house on one side has three open sides. There are certainly circumstances where there's the porches in an L of a house and so there's building on two sides of it but so it's open on two sides and there are lots of situations more sort of with high rise build, not necessarily high rise apartment buildings where a porch will be open only on the front and the two sides will have building on it. And so that's the intent is to indicate that that there it is not enclosed on one side. So no windows on that side. No window no wall, you know, obviously we'll have to have a guardrail. You may have screening but that it is not weatherized in any particular fashion. So I've got a neighbor with a porch that is, it has a wall, about halfway up on the three sides that aren't the sides that aren't directly connected to the house and then screens. On those three sides so are the three sides that don't have full walls considered open. I would consider that to be open yes. Okay. Okay. So if the ZBA is going to end up having to do this, you might want to if you get the authority to easily amend your rules and regulations to expand upon this and the rules and regulations, maybe with some drawings or something like that to make it a little clearer about what that what that is. Yeah, that was the only question I had about this particular warrant article. Thank you. Thank you, Jean. Melissa, any questions for Jenny or Christian. Christian just curious how many, you know, in a year how many people come by with this, you know how many, maybe applicants get addressed by this question. Steve can verify this as well. I think last year we were probably somewhere between eight and a dozen. I believe that that sounds about right. Thanks. Madam chair was Kelly holding her hand up. Yes, she is. Sorry, I have to scroll way down. Kelly. I know I just looked through the staff memos to the ZBA just on those cases. You know, typically it's two to four a year but last year was an outlier and I think that was because of probably delayed applications due to the pandemic and then just an unusual surge so we hit 11 in 2021. So, yeah, but if the language is cleaned up and it helps the ZBA, then I think that makes sense. Thanks. Thank you, Melissa. Steve. No comments. Great. Thank you very much. So at this point, I'd like to go ahead and open. Article 34 up for public comments. Any member of the public wishing to speak about this article please use the raised hand function in a couple seconds. All right. So seeing no public comments. I will just go back through the board to see if there's any final questions. Like what am I just asked at this point to see if you could just use again the raise hand if you have any final questions I think we went through everything for this article. All right. So I think at this point we'll move on from article 34 to article 35, which is a zoning by law amendment for yard encroachment. Again, Jenny had mentioned that she didn't have anything specific here so Christian Klein, I will turn this over to you for any thoughts that you might want to add related to the yard encroachment article. Thank you Madam Chair. So this article is sort of brought forth that relates somewhat tangentially to the prior one. So, in town, the current interpretation of the zoning by law is that if you have a porch on the front of your house. It may be enclosed without it being considered an addition because it's already. It's already considered to be enclosed space. And what is what happens when that occurs is that then the big quote foundation wall of the house, the sort of the forward portion of the foundation is then moved to the front surface of that of that area. And at that point then the building sort of steps forward and that sometimes happens within the front yard setback and this is something that several other people have tried to address with in prior years with with different amendments that have not proceeded through town meeting. And so what we basically will the board, what our board has been doing on these requests where people are looking for porches to be constructed in the front yard setback is where specifically including conditions that they cannot be enclosed and they cannot be considered the front wall of the house. So that it does not cause this this interpretation of bringing the front wall of the house forward because we don't feel that that's what the zoning by law is intending. And so that is the reason for including this language. And I had spoken with with Kelly line of earlier, in regards to the highlighted section in under D. And so that's the language because it just because it is included in a and B as well. And so it's just a as a repetition of that language and so but I leave that up to you as to whether or not that is something that that the board wants to consider. Thank you. Thank you. Let's see we'll turn it over to Ken for any questions. No, I have no questions on this too. Gee, I have no questions. I'm okay with the staff's proposed solution. A few words. Great. Thank you, Jean, Melissa. No questions at this time. Thanks. Great. Thank you and Steve. For a simple concept that is surprisingly hard to put this one into words I think Mr Klein and staff has done a great job. No further comments. Great. Thank you. Let's see. So at this time we'll open this up for public comments. Any person wishing to speak please use the raise hand function. And remind reminder to please introduce yourself by first last name and address and you will have up to three minutes. So the first speaker tonight will be Chris already. Thank you madam chair Chris already 56 Adam street again. Just a couple comments on this I support the intent of it. I am troubled a bit by the proposed change that staff has made. I don't think that strike text should be struck as they have. And the reason I say that is the business about extending or being within the foundation while is important for the ZBA and and for their authority and need to act on a special permit it relates back to the section 8.1.3 of the bylaw because if once you start working outside of the foundation and you get into the question of whether it's a significant whether you're significantly increasing the non conformity. So I think that should stay there. And I don't think it's a valid criticism that they're perhaps imposing their own definition of foundation. The bylaw is quite clear that within the bylaw terms can be defined that are not consistent with the state building code. All it says is that if a term is not defined in the zoning bylaw than the state building code definition applies and indeed if if this amounts to a definition and there's nothing wrong with it. I think it further further strengthens the ZBA's hand in dealing with enforcement of this section so I'd recommend leaving it in. But there is one thing I find troubling about this and it pertains specifically to to decks, because if you look at section 5.3.9 B that explicitly allows someone to build a deck within the rear yard setback, say 10 feet. So if I have a conforming lot I have a 20 foot setback from my to my real lot line I can by right to the 10 foot open deck on that. Now let's say this change comes in under section D as it's written, I could then convert that debt to say a new expansion of my kitchen, just with a special permit. Before I put the deck in and just built that new kitchen into the rear yard setback, I would need a variance and I would suggest that the ZBA would be very reluctant to give me that variance and probably shouldn't give it to me. And I'm just concerned that the way this is written it allows for that kind of incrementalism that that really is contrary to the intent of the zoning bylaw. I'm wondering if there's not some, you know, changes that can be made to address that kind of thing. So, you know, so you don't get into that situation where potentially either that is allowed or it's allowed as a special permit when it really should have to go, you know, over the greater hurdle for getting a variance. I would just make one kind of procedural recommendation request of of Mr Klein, that is, if indeed these articles are things that are supported by the ZBA, I would recommend that they go into the warrant as ZBA articles, not articles under his own name, because I'm 10 registered voter articles under chapter 40 a the ZBA alone is entitled to submit zoning bylaw changes and I would encourage them to do so under their own title, you know, when, when they agree on changes need changes that need to be made. Thank you. And for clarification for everyone. These were actually inserted at the request of the redevelopment board after discussion with Christian Klein. Christian any further questions here I don't think that the board had any concerns with the with the corrections or the amendment excuse me proposed by the by the staff any any general fund on your end. To Mr Loretta's point, I would ask the chair, if you wouldn't mind asking the building inspector about the question about enclosing a deck. If it creates a new non conformity whether that would I mean that obviously would work as a new non conformity would require a variance as to whether he has any concerns about this language in regards to that. We can do inspector Tampa. If you could answer that question but any concerns you might have about creating a new non conformity through the language that is proposed. Yes, Mike chapter director of inspectional services. I mean I think I think that once where we have an online system and we have better connectivity to decisions and it'll be, it'll be easier for people not to create that loop around for themselves that you know I think that right now it's, you know would be we would have to read every decision at every permit application. To, you know to avoid a situation like that. Thank you. Let's see. I'll just go through the board one more time to see if there are any final questions on article 35 before we move to article 34, starting with Jean. I'm just picking up on what Miss already said is a question for the building specter and Mr Klein and that is, whether the first sentence and D should not say except by special permit but except by various. I will. Who did you want to direct back to you. Mr Champa and Mr Klein. I'll ask Mr Champa to wait. That's what Mr Loretta was saying. I'm sorry at which point in in in in D which is added the first sentence. The very end of it says except by special permit. I'm just wondering whether you think it should say, except by various. Certainly if enclosed it would, it would be by variance. I think that that, you know, for an unenclosed porch I think this should be, it should be special permit I think the people should be allowed to, you know, to do that but you would but if it's enclosed you're basically extending the house you're even if it's a porch if it's enclosed it's part of the house it's an extension of. Thank you. Christian Klein. Thank you. I wonder if it would be acceptable after special permit to add or variance as required, or or special permit or variance as appropriate. You could do that. So Jane again as this now has been taken up by the redevelopment board I think. I think if that's something that you feel that we should add to that that that's something that we should review with with with Jenny and Kelly and and ensure that that we think that that doesn't create additional confusion by providing the or. Right yeah I think Jenny and Kelly and maybe also with Mr champion Mr Klein. What is to be something that works for the building inspector and for the ZBA. I think that's something that you would be able to perhaps just take follow up following this, this meeting this evening and and make sure that we have alignment there prior to our meeting on the fourth. Great. Melissa, any further questions on this article. No, no, not at this time. Thanks. Okay, thank you, Steve. No questions madam chair. Okay, great. Thank you. So, between now and the fourth sounds like Jean will follow up with my champ Christian Klein and Jenny regarding potentially adding by special permit or variance as appropriate. Make a note. All right. That will conclude article 35 will now move to article 36 which is a zoning by law amendment related to large additions. Again originally proposed by Christian client and inserted by the request to the redevelopment board. And I will turn it over to you for any, any discussion that you would like to have regarding this article. Thank you madam chair. What we're proposing are a couple of additions at the end of this article. And so large additions. There's two criteria for large additions it's either 750 square feet or 50% or more the buildings gross floor area, but we've never specifically indicated, whether it's the greater over the lesser of and so we have had a couple people contact me trying to get a sense as to which is which is correct so I always interpreted it the same way I just, we wanted to include it in the bylaw with this language to make sure it's clear. And then there's been a lot of questions that come before the board about additions that are large that there's a house, there's a, there's additional work being done on the house that is increasing the gross floor area by more than 750 square feet but it is not being considered a large addition and it's not coming before the board seeking a special permit under under the section. And so we had proposed, putting forward a statement that excuse me, that the clarifying how the determination is made because what the what the building department does is because there are these two exceptions, whereby an addition that is constructed entirely within the existing foundation walls is not considered additional space and so that doesn't any so if you have an addition that is 1000 square feet where 500 square feet is within the foundation wall and 500 is outside, it's not considered a large addition even those 1000 square feet. And so we had proposed, putting forward that that kind of an addition would be considered a large addition and more what what we would like to do is have the ARB determination as to what they think is the appropriate action. If that's appropriate then that's, then that's fine if they disagree with that that's fine to I just think we need to be clear in the bylaw as to how this is being calculated. Great. Thank you very much. And so can I'll start with any any questions for or article 36 Christian. Before we talk today I thought I understood this. Now I'm a little confused. I apologize for that. So, this really brief okay, if an addition is less than 750 square feet is not a large, it's not a large addition. But if it's greater than 50% of the of the foot growth for the area right. It's, it is, if it's less than that still capable of degrading that it's a large addition, or and or is somewhere in the middle. You lost me there. Madam Sheriff I may. Yes. So if you have an addition, if, if you're, if you have a 1000 square foot house, and you are proposing a 600 square foot addition. Okay, it is not 750 square feet, but it is more than 50% of the gross floor area, and it would be the lesser of 750 or 600 so in that case the 600 would be because it's more than 50% the size of the house would be considered a large addition. Subsequently, if you had a 2000 square foot house, the threshold to be either 750 or 1000 square feet so the 750 would. Okay, so both applies. So both apply it's just whichever is the lesser value of those two. Okay, sorry. When you said the lesser that's where you're confused. I have no other questions. Yeah, I agree with that. Great. Thank you, Ken. Jean. Thanks I have a question in a common. The question has to do with the highlighted one at the bottom I want to make sure that I understand this. So, if none of back to where we were before. Thank you. Yes, that highlighted one right now. So, if I'm proposing an addition to my house, which is more than 750 square feet. But it's all within the existing footprint. Let's say I'm going to put an entire second story on a one story house. It's not be considered a large addition. Because of added sentence in the bottom. That says the use to determine shall only include additions outside the system. So if I put a whole second floor on my house, it's not a large addition. Is that right. Okay. I have a question to answer. Yeah, it's her question. So, but I'm sure it's the, the second bullet under six. So there's a two boss excuse me the first bullet. So the addition. So, because it can be with it. So shall be allowed. So it's no alteration shall be allowed. Unless the addition is constructed entirely within the existing foundation walls. It's not considered a large addition. Okay. So if I were to build a second story. It would not be considered. A large addition. That is correct. And I would ask the building inspector. To verify that. Madam chair, if you would. Sure. I'll turn it over to Mike Champa to verify his. Agreement with that statement or disagreement with that statement. No, that's correct. Great. So if, if I'm putting the second floor on. I'm also expanding out the side. It's only the area that's expanding out the side. That you're going to count. To see if I meet the. Seven 15 feet or 50%. And does the 50%. Include the second story I'm putting on or not. Turn that to Christian. I hate to play past the buck on this, but I would love to pass this along to the building inspector. Okay. We'll pass this on to Mike Champa. So anything within the foundation. Going straight up does not count towards this. Regulation does not count towards a large addition. So it's only. What's, what's beyond the foundation wall. Right. That wasn't quite the question I was asked. If I'm. Do you restate it then? If I'm putting a sec. Let's say I'm just going to do a. An extension out of the building. And it's more than 750 square feet or 50%. Then it's a large addition. But if I'm putting on a second story at the same time. Do we count what I'm putting on? Do we count what I'm putting on? No. Okay. So I'm. So, okay. That answered my question. My concern about this. I raised this, I think. When. When Christian came to us last time, I may have raised it at the zoning. By low working group, but I may have forgotten to raise it. The zoning by low working group. I think. And I'm interested. From Mike and Christian. Does this really even make any sense to have this. As long as. The addition. Is not into the setback. It's not violating. You know, the amount of open space you have to have. Etc. Etc. Why are we doing this at all? What problem are you solving? Yes. What problem does this solve? Okay. I'll turn it over to Christian first. Thank you, Madam chair. So the. The reason so that. For the two separate. Alterations. The first one is just to clarify. Which of. Either option A or option B at under six, the seven 50, which of those, which are the larger. So that's all fine. The final sentence. Is to put into the zoning bylaw what the current interpretation is from inspectional services. As to how this bylaws to be interpreted. I misstated my question. My question was what. Do these two things. Problem solve this entire bylaw. On large additions. What problem is it really solving? Like, why is this even in the zoning bylaw? Why don't we care. If I put an addition on my house. That's more than 750 square feet. If I still have enough open space and. You know, and I'm not in any setback. Why, why don't, why do I need to go? To the ZBA for that at all. I mean, what problem is this. Solving. That's a, this is, I think. I think we should go ahead with this, but I would like us to come back next year. To determine whether this is. Unnecessary work for the ZBA. And really not needed. You know, as long as. The additions. Don't violate any dimensional. Requirements. So I'd like us to review that next year. Sure. Right. Okay. We'll definitely. Yep. Keep a. Keep a note on that one to come back to. Right. I think that's outside of. Right. Definitely outside of the scope of what. What we're reviewing. Okay. Thank you. Go to Melissa next for any questions. I do not have questions at this point. Great. Thank you. Steve. Oh, I'm sorry. Before I go to Steve, I see the Jenny has her. No, okay. No, no, I'm sorry. I'll wait for Steve. Okay. Thank you. Not remembering Steve next. Okay. Thank you, Steve. I just had one question. Now I, I understand that the. Last sentence in the last paragraph is effectively taking the current interpretation and putting it into the bylaw. That's, that's good. That's great. It lets people know what to expect. Now. As I recall the original proposed main motion was a little different. But based on the staff memo, it sounds like it would. Possibly have created a significant increase in the workload for the ZBA. And I'd just like. To get Mr. Klein's opinion on whether. He's okay with the changes suggested by staff in that last sentence. Christian. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Yes, indeed. So. As I had originally proposed it. It would include all area. It would include all area. It would include all area. And as I had originally proposed it. It would include all area. Within the 750 square foot calculation, which is different from what the. Inspectional services original. And current interpretation of the bylaw is. And. After speaking with. With staff. The recommendation was to. Make it. Be the current interpretation from inspectional services. And I think that. I think that would be a good direction to that. And as you, as you note that, that the change would have. Obviously brought many more cases before the zoning board. And I think the members of the board would be. Fine not to. Not to have the additional. The additional caseload. I think we're, we're fine. And from my perspective, I'm, I'm perfectly fine with it. As long as it's clear as to what the intent is. Great. Thank you very much. Steve, any other questions before I turn it over to Jenny. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Nothing further. Madam chair. Thank you. Okay. Jenny. Thank you. So I just the, the, the main thing to point out is this is, this is a special permit process. So it essentially creates a notification to people when something like this, a large addition is happening. And I think that that's one of the primary reasons why it is in the zoning by law. From what I understand. And from looking at this in 2016, I think that there's been a lot of, a lot of, a lot of, a lot of changes to large additions in the special permit process. Expanding the level of notification. Is something that has been discussed previously. And so therefore expanding the number of things that apply to the special permit process. So I just would say that, you know, to Jean's point, or to Jean's question, why is this here? I do think that. You know, there's a, there's a process here behind this. That is administrative in nature. And I think that there's a lot of, a lot of changes that are happening. And I think that's something like this is happening to, you know, in a budding property or in the neighborhood. And there's interest. But it is not necessarily being done by right. So that, that is my understanding of some of the origin. Of this particular section of the bylaw. I'm sure there's much more to it, but that is, that is one piece. Thank you. Thank you. All right. So at this time, we'd like to open. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Up for public comment. Any person wishing to speak, please use the raised hand function. Please make sure to introduce yourself by first, last name and address. And you will have up to three minutes to address the board. We'll start with Don Seltzer. Thank you. Don Seltzer Irving street. I'm a little confused about the definition of alteration versus addition. I think that would explain or give an example of an alteration. That would come under review. Using example that Mr. Benson just gave of. Adding an extra floor onto the house where it's clearly within. The footprint. That doesn't seem to be subject to review. So. Is there a type of alteration that is not an addition? If I sound confused, it's because I am. So I'm just hoping that someone could clarify. Thank you. Thank you. Christian Klein. I'll turn that question over to you. And if you would like to punt, we can do that too. I will allow the building inspector to correct me if I'm, if I'm wrong on this point, but an alteration is a reconfiguration of existing space. So I'm just hoping that an addition is an increase in the amount of space. Thumbs up. All right. Thank you very much for the clarification. So our next speaker this evening will be Chris already. Thank you, madam chair, Chris already 56 Adams street. Just a couple of points on this. I'm, I'm actually surprised to hear how the bylaws currently being interpreted. Because my understanding was always that. That's 750 foot limit. And if you went outside of the existing footprint at all, then the special permit review was triggered. And my understanding is at least initially when this bylaw amendment pass and it goes way back, that's how it was being enforced. So I'm, I'm frankly surprised to hear that people are saying that. The way it's been, the way it's enforced is only if all of, you know, you're only counting the gross flurry addition outside of the existing footprint. I don't think that's the way it always was. And I think if you look at the plain language, the way it was originally written, this term about the addition is constructed entirely within the existing foot foundation walls. The clear implication is that if you're adding flurry outside of the walls at all, then you count that plus whatever you added inside to, to do the test of the 750 square feet. So I'd be that as, as, as it may, and to get to, to Mr. Benson's point, I think in most cases, like a place like East Arlington, wherever this flurry is added, even if you're adding it within the existing foundation walls, you are within a building footprint because there are so many non-conformities with respect to the yard setbacks. And finally, I would say the way this is being changed just further adds to the point I had before about counting the footprint of porches and the like, either within or outside of the existing building footprint, because the previous change that was proposed by staff would make those porches within the footprint. So even if you enclosed the porch, added new gross floor area, it wouldn't count towards that 750 square feet with that other change they were making. So that's another reason I believe, you know, for that, that other change that was proposed, those porches and the like should be considered to be outside of the original building footprint. Thanks. Thank you. All right, so I'll just run through the, the numbers of the board to see if there's any final commentary before we move on, starting with Ken. No, Gene. No. Melissa. Steve. Nothing here. All right. Thank you very much, Christian. I appreciate you being with us this evening and for answering questions and working with the department on the final wording of these articles, much appreciated. My pleasure and thank you to the board. Thank you. All right. At this time, I would like to see if there is a motion to continue the public hearing for the one articles for 2022 town meeting. To next Monday night, which is March 28. So emotions. I will second that motion. Right. It looks like a roll call vote starting with Kim. Yes. Gene. Yes. Melissa. Yes. And Steve. Yes. And I'm a yes as well. All right. We will now continue. Agenda item number one, the warrant article, public hearing for 2022 town meeting to our next Monday night meeting. That moves us to agenda item number two, which is the continued discussion of. The special town meeting zoning warrant articles. That we began discussion on last. Week and I will turn this over to Jenny rate. Jenny, are you back with us? I know that you are moving locations. If not. Kelly, I will turn it over to you. And I look like Jenny is back. So Kelly, I'll turn this over to you. Right. So I just wanted to know we submitted the warrant. We did. We submitted the legal notice to the advocates that will be going live on Thursday. This was included with your packet for the agenda tonight. We'll be pulling together the. Proposed to vote language for that in the next few days. I don't know if there were anything, any other comments that the board wish to make regarding the proposed amendments and Jenny's here now so she can kind of fill in. I don't know that we. I had to submit a legal notice regarding the. The warrant articles for special meeting. Yes. Let me share the legal notice. So one moment, please. So I just, I mostly just wanted to share with the board that we, you know, the, the, um, special town meeting is actually may, depending upon whether or not the select board voted on this this evening, but I believe it will be May 11th. That is the proposed date. And so we obviously needed to make a deadline. For filing the articles. So. There are three. One of them is the family child care by law amendment. Which, you know, of course, we're going to be preparing the language for the same thing goes for signage. I made one change to this one that is slightly new, which is, and this came up in our discussion, which is, um, adding electric vehicle charging stations rather than just shared mobility. I just, I thought. That was more expansive. Um, and, and probably, you know, the level of specificity we actually need. Um, and then the last one is this, uh, section that was discussed, um, with town council, uh, with regard to 8.1.3 C. Um, and that was really it. I just wanted to make sure that the board knew, um, this, this happened. Uh, we were able to get this, uh, the legal notice posted. Um, And it will be published on this Thursday, the 24th as well as the 31st. And we will, uh, Have a hearing on this, um, On April 7th. And, um, you know, subject to what we can accomplish on April 7th. We may need to have another potentially add another hearing date, but hopefully we can, um, move through these articles on that evening. Um, One sort of sidebar is that on April 25th, we said we would begin at 7 p.m. I am, however, I'm wondering if we might be able to meet up for these hearings to start at 7 p.m. Is fine, but we will have a special permit hearing that same night. And so I would like to ask the board separately if we can maybe meet. At 6 30 p.m. On the 25th. Just due to the fact that town meeting begins at 8 p.m. And I think that that's crushing a lot. Um, Into one evening. So. Jenny just so that I can confirm the agenda for that evening will be a special. Permit. Um, Hearing. And, uh, Voting on the memo. For town meeting. Correct. Yeah. We'll have a special report. Yeah. A separate one. Right. So you have two family childcare special permits that will be coming before the board on, and we would like them ideally to come that night. Okay. Great. All right. So we'll let's run through and we'll take any, um, two things we'll ask each one of the board members. Um, number one, your availability to start at 6 30 on. Uh, April 25th. And, um, the second, uh, whether or not you have any questions about the, uh, the legal notice that Jenny shared with us this evening. So we'll start with Kim. Um, both questions are no, I have no issues with starting earlier. I have no questions with legal notice. I do have one question. I'm not sure it's. You want to say this, but, um, Is the town meeting going to be virtual or we're going to be in place there. I don't know the answer to that question. Sorry. When I know I will share that information. I don't think that's going to happen. So, um, we've scheduled these meetings by zoom. At least in early April to just sort of continue what we've been doing. Um, but we had decided that we would start meeting again as of April 25th in person. But I think we're going to be in a meeting. I've done in years past where we had to stop. Leave our room and walk across and go into. And, but if we're having a virtually, I don't think that's going to happen. So, um, we've scheduled these meetings by zoom, but we're going to be in a meeting in April 25th in person. But I think that we also agreed that it's subject to whether or not town meeting is being held virtually because of the issue of sort of. Needing to get to town meeting, which might be physically challenging. If it's not in the town hall auditorium. And so I'm not, I'm not a hundred percent sure I can't answer yet. Sorry. Okay. Fair enough. Great. Thank you. Good question. That's all we have to do. Yes. Let's start at 6 30 PM start on the 25th or the legal notice. So yeah, let me just check. Course I got confused. What? So. So we are regularly going to start at seven on the 25th. And we'll do six 30 instead. That's the proposal. Yes. The here. The hearings will start at seven, but if we could meet at six 30, no problem with that. The legal notice looks fine. Thank you for making those changes based on the conversation. Jenny, you probably saw that Doug and I had some back and forth emails about that article C, and you and I should probably talk about that, and I think we might want to ask Christian to weigh in on it. Okay, yeah, and actually you're reminding me, Jane, that we added, we put in modify or remove as a result of that correspondence. Yeah, sounds, yeah, I thought that was great. Thank you. Sure, you're welcome. Jenny, and now that you just mentioned that to Jane, I just want to make sure that I'm clear on the timing as well. April 7th is when we will have the hearings. April 25th is when we will simply vote, the 630th is simply to vote on the prepared, not to have a hearing, correct? Right, yes, right. April 7th is the hearing. April 25th is when we would have a special permit public hearing, not April 7th, sorry. Yeah, there's two, there, we were talking about two different dates there. We don't have time to notice a special permit public hearing for April 7th, so it has to be April 25th. Okay, great. Yeah. All right, thank you for the clarification. Melissa, 630 starts, does that work for you on the 25th? Any question on the legal notice? No question on the legal notice, and yes, 630 I can deal. Okay, great, thank you. Steve. So, I will have no trouble making a meeting on 630 p.m. Monday, the 25th, and the legal notice looks fine to me. All right, sounds good. Anything else, Jenny, that you need from us on agenda item number two? No, that was all. Okay, great, thank you. In that case, we'll follow up about that particular amendment, and if anybody is interested in following up on the others, please feel free to reach out. Great, thank you. So, with that, we'll close agenda item number two and move to agenda item number three, which is open forum. So, any member of the public with us this evening who wishes to speak, please use the raise hand function, and you'll be lauded up to three minutes to address the board. Okay, seeing none, I will close open forum, and that brings us to the end of our meeting. So, don't believe that there's any new business? So, if there's a motion to adjourn, I'd love to hear that. So, a motion to- Fantastic. Is there a second? Second. Fantastic. We'll take a roll call vote, starting with Ken. Yes. Dean. Yes. Melissa. Yes. Keith. Yes. And I'm a yes as well. So, thank you, everyone. We will see you back next week. Have a good evening. Good night. Thank you. Thank you.