 Okay, so welcome to the 10th town meeting members of the town of Arlington, everybody. Welcome to the 10th session of our 2021 annual town meeting. It's Wednesday, the 26th. Let's start off with our Star-Spangled Banner, please. Thank you very much. Okay, tonight is our 10th, like I just said, our 10th night of town meeting. We still have, including 43, I believe 12 more articles to go. This evening, we have three more motions to get in on article 43. We've been giving all of the proponents of the article itself. They asked for 10 minutes and the movements of all the articles got seven minutes each. After this, I'm gonna ask that we try and adhere to our voluntary four-minute rule for our floor speeches. Right now, we have about 30, 35, I think someone said. People on the list to speak. If we give them each four minutes, that'll be about two hours worth of speaking. I anticipate we're probably gonna spend most of tonight on 43. And when we get to it, after we go through the pump and all the motions are amended, I'm gonna give you what my thought process is and how we're gonna vote on this. I've been giving a lot of thought to it. Okay, Chairman of the Board, Mr. Steven DeCorsi. Thank you, Mr. Moderator. It is moved that if all the business of the meeting has set forth in the warrant for the annual town meeting is not disposed of at this session, when the meeting adjourns, it adjourns to Wednesday, June 2nd, 2021 at eight o'clock p.m. Second. If you object to doing so, please use a raise hand feature in Zoom. We have one person objecting. Looks like we're back on next Wednesday. Okay, so does anyone have any? Oh, let's close the check-in attendance voting at this point. We're up to 224 members. Does anyone have any announcements or resolutions? If they do, Ms. Kelleher, do you have an announcement or a resolution? Yes, I have an announcement, Mr. Moderator, if I may. Yes. Karen Kelleher, a Precinct Five. I'm also a member of Arlington's Housing Plan Implementation Committee, or HPIC. As you may know, the HPIC is a volunteer advisory committee appointed by the New Development Board to advise the town during preparation and implementation of Arlington's Housing Production Plan. This year, the town, led by the Department of Planning and Community Development and advised by the HPIC is updating the five-year 2016 Housing Production Plan. The existing and updated five-year housing plans address important topics to the town, many resonating at this year's town meeting, including strategies for creation and preservation of affordable housing and for increasing housing diversity. This includes housing for all household types, including but not limited to seniors and families. Having an updated housing plan will inform the work of the various town bodies who work on housing and will help the town advance the Arlington Affordable Housing Trust Fund established by town meeting last fall. It will also guide the town to develop a range of community informed strategies for how Arlington can meet our local housing needs. The plan is funded by the Community Development Block Grant program and will be facilitated by Barrett Planning Group, LLC and the Horsley-Witton Group. The planning process will engage many town departments, boards, commissions, organizations and residents and we hope you. Clear, equitable and transparent public process is critical to this plan. Everyone in the community is invited to participate and everyone's voice matters as we seek solutions to address Arlington's housing challenges. We hope that everyone here will mark their calendars for the first virtual public workshop for the plan. So if you will, please right now take out a pen or open your digital calendars and save this date, Wednesday, June 9th at 6.30 PM. Zoom information is posted already to the town's calendar on the front page of ArlingtonMA.gov. This time was specifically selected so that town meeting members may still participate even if town meeting is still going on. Again, that date is Wednesday, June 9th at 6.30 PM. At this workshop, the consultants will present data and information gathered through research and stakeholder interviews. Most importantly though, there will be ample time for discussion. In addition, a community questionnaire is open through Friday, May 28th on the HPIC webpage which can be found under the boards and committees page on the town website. Other engagement opportunities will include at least two community meetings this fall, an online implementation survey and a joint presentation to the Slack board and Arlington redevelopment board. In addition, I note that on July 13th at 7 PM, the town is holding a community conversation titled Who Can Live Here, Who Decides and Why to Frame Conversations about Fair Housing in Arlington. The town and members of the HPIC will be promoting all the events and meetings regarding this plan for a variety of channels which include the town website, town notice emails on social media, outreach to stakeholder groups and organizations. We would also like to encourage you town meeting members to share these engagement opportunities with your constituents and other interested stakeholders. More information about the housing plan is available on the HPIC page in the news section of the town website and linked to from the town's Facebook and Twitter pages. Please join us for the June 9th and the future housing plan events. We hope to see you and residents from your neighborhoods there. Thank you, Mr. Robert. Thank you, Ms. Callaghan. Maybe we'll be out by June 9th and we won't have to rush through your event. Does anyone else have any announcements or resolutions? Seeing none, I call for any reports of committees. Seeing none, we have for us Article 43. So we're gonna restore the debate from Article 43. And that will bring up our reserve speaker list. And the next, once we get that up, the next speaker on the list is gonna be Winnell Evans. It's gonna introduce her emotions. Ms. Evans, you have the floor. Thank you, Winnell Evans, precinct 14. I move my amendments on Article 43, which have been previously delivered to town meeting. I am in support of ADUs, but not as proposed in Article 43, which would make Arlington much more permissive than any other community in the greater Boston area. My amendments address two of the deficiencies of the article. The First Amendment seeks to specify the duration of short-term rental, a term which our bylaw does not define. Airbnb currently shows 28 available stays in Arlington, but there are only two short-term rentals registered with the town, despite the fact that registration is required. This speaks to me of how difficult it might be for inspectional services to enforce a nebulous, quote unquote, short-term regulation. And I believe it will make their jobs much easier if that term is defined as regards ADUs. I've suggested a minimum of six months, a rental duration that is longer than transient occupancy. In popular markets such as Arlington, short-term rentals can be more profitable than long-term ones. When ADUs serve as short-term rentals, it undermines the objective of adding smaller dwellings to the local housing supply and creating housing that's more affordable. And a reminder, neither unit has to be rented. The non-owner unit can be occupied by a family member, a caregiver, a nanny, or a friend at no rent. The minimum rental period would only apply if a unit were rented. In contrast to Article 43, almost all other communities where ADUs are allowed specify no lodgers or require a family member to occupy the ADU. The Second Amendment seeks to require owner occupancy of one unit, again, as almost every nearby community does. The 2019 ADU proposal drafted by the Redevelopment Board made owner residency a requirement and tied it to the Certificate of Occupancy with annual renewal required. The current ARB recommended vote does not tie this requirement to the Certificate of Occupancy. It links it to the building permit. There is nothing to bind any future owner to residency. ADUs could very quickly become multi-unit rental buildings. The current ADU proposal may also provide an additional incentive for developers to buy small, moderately priced homes as they come on the market in order to demolish them and erect much larger homes with large additions or separate structures for profit-making ADUs. The proponents say that their research found that the owner occupancy requirement discouraged the creation of ADUs, but they haven't said which communities they looked at. I did some research and found that the following communities in Eastern Massachusetts all require owner occupancy of one unit, Acton, Bedford, Boston, Brooklyn, Burlington, Cambridge, Canton, Carlisle, Concord, Dedham, Lexington, Lincoln, Maynard, Melrose, Milton, Newton, Peabody, Redding, Sharon, Stonem, Wakefield, Wayland, Weston, Westwood and Wilmington to name only a few. The levering report from Tufts University in fact found that strict requirements by towns did not have the dampening effect one might expect and noted that even towns with varied liberal regulations saw few ADUs created. The main barriers were economic and especially for older homeowners who found it more feasible to sell and move rather than to invest in creating an ADU. Both of these amendments offer very basic protections that are especially important in dense areas of town like East Arlington or for non-conforming lots where houses are close together or on private ways where neighbors can play a large role in one's life. And both can be relaxed as the rollout of ADUs takes place. If we see that this is happening with no issues then we can remove these requirements. The main hurdle now is to make ADUs work for all. And if we err on the side of caution at first that seems reasonable. I urge you to vote in support of both Evans amendments. Thank you, Mr. Moderator. Thank you, Ms. Evans. Do we have a second on her second? Yes, we do. Both of her amendments have been seconded. And the next speaker is Ms. Beth Benedict. Can you hear me? Yes, ma'am. Hi, Beth Benedict, Precinct 21. First, I wanna thank Barbara Thornton for crafting a well thought out and well-intentioned article. We know ADUs are popular. They allow us to bring in extra income. They allow us to age in place. They create housing for friends and families among only a few benefits. But folks, clearly there are too many amendments here trying to fix this particular article. We do have a fix. We have a solution and that solution is article 15 on the 2019 warrant. The article that was brought back by Al Tosti. That article, well not perfect either was thoughtfully and carefully created by our own ARB. And it just needed some tweaks. So let's tweak it. Let's take the time to do this right. We have the time. Let's find a compromise. Let's take time to align this article with other similar towns and communities and get residents input from all the districts in our town, especially East Arlington where the neighborhood is so dense. Let's take the time to put in real safeguards for all types of ADUs. Let's take the time to put in a real complaint process. One that is user friendly and clear and responsive. One that has a good and effective resolution process. That way, if ordinances aren't followed or units become unsafe after several rental cycles we're all protected. Folks, let's compromise and find a middle ground. We can do this. We've got the time. Let's take that time that is needed to bring back an article that allows us to have ADUs in our great town. An article that protects both neighbors and neighborhoods. Thank you. That's Benedict Precinct 21. Thank you, Ms. Benedict. Ms. Benedict's motion has been seconded. That brings all of the, I might count 13 amendments in front of us. So what we're gonna do now is commence debating on them. So we're gonna debate for a little while. Let's try and keep it to four minutes each. My current thought process is when it comes to voting obviously we're gonna do all the motions prior to the main motion of the ARB. I think that my thought process has gone back and forth and after consultation with our assistant moderator Adam Oster today, Adam had a good suggestion. My thought process was first to vote Ms. Benedict's which will vote her first for that motion first. Then my plan was to vote Mr. Tosti's motion. And if that was successful dispose of all the other motions without a vote of somehow just figure that out. But then after Adam's suggestion, I believe that and he believed that maybe some town meeting members who like some of the amendments and like the main ARB motion. And so in order to give everyone a fair vote and to make it a worthwhile process for debate and to drill down to what everyone really wants, we're gonna go the long route. We're gonna go through all the votes on all the different motions. And then when we finish voting all of those will vote for Mr. Tosti's motion substitute motion. And then depending on the outcome of that we'll take the final vote either on the ARB motion as amended by all the amendments or on Mr. Tosti's. So that's gonna be how we're gonna end up voting on this. And I put some thought process into which motions are gonna be voted in which order. And I'll explain that at the end when we're about to vote on them. So that's gonna be our plan of attack once we get through all the debate. So I'm gonna try and call on people to check it in. But I'm also gonna kind of roll around to make sure we hear all sides of the argument. So the first is Michael Brown. Yes, thank you. Can you hear me now? Yes, sir. Oh, thank you. This is Michael Jacoby Brown from Precinct 17. And I'm gonna say a few things. And when I'm done, I'd like Phil Tedesco, the main draft of article 43 to be able to speak to some of the proposed amendments. But now I'm rising, well, actually I'm sitting down, but in support of article 33, allowing accessory dwelling units often called in-law apartments. I think the in-law apartments can be helpful in many ways. Although, as some have already pointed out, I can also see some problems more about that later. But first, what's good? Well, for example, my dad, Bob Brown, after his wife of more than 60 years and my mother died, he moved into, in effect, our in-law apartment, the other side of our house. Like many, our own home of about 1,000 square feet has two bedrooms, one bathroom, and with our daughter still home, known room in our own home for grandpa. So he moved into what was our in-law apartment. And that was good for us. And I think also good for the town. My dad joined the council on aging and contributed his artistic gifts there. He designed and made the silver ceramic metal for the council on aging 5K run. So if you have one, thank my dad and our in-law apartment. My dad was also a US Army World War II veteran who served in France, Belgium, and Germany. He joined the Arlington High School Intergenerational Book Club. I bet he had some good history lessons for the high school students. So in-law apartments will allow elders like my dad, who otherwise could never afford it to move to Arlington. The in-law apartments will also help parents. They will, as we did, have a built-in babysitter. This will allow parents of young children to not have to pay a babysitter when they want a date night. This will help couples' relationship. A date night is good for couples with young children. Now that I think about it, it's probably good for couples with not so young children or those without children at all. But it will also help Arlington restaurants hard hit by COVID. Many parents are more likely to go out to eat when they don't have to pay for a babysitter thanks to grandma or grandpa next door. Now, some have pointed out the problems. I see them too. For example, a lot of elders can be hard of hearing. I know this because almost every week, I get a glossy brochure in the mail telling me to buy a hearing aid. And other people, my wife, for example, often tell me, I don't hear so well. I also know that people love the music they heard in their adolescence. So with elders being hard of hearing, we might have elders playing old Frank Sinatra or Duke Ellington records real loud late at night. And this could be a problem. But when I think of the benefits, free babysitters, more date nights for parents of young children, more people eating out in Arlington restaurants, children getting to know their grandparents, elders who otherwise could never afford to live in Arlington, contributing their wisdom and skills to the town and our young people, hey, sounds like a good deal to me. And if the music gets too loud, just ask the kids to yell probably like your parents did to you. Hey, grandma, grandpa. Michael, that's our music. Michael, let's stick to the article and the benefits also you and Mr. Tedesco are limited to seven minutes total. Yeah, I'm done. And I would ask that Mr. Tedesco have some time to respond to the amendments. Thank you very much. Thank you, sir. I'm done. Yep. Good. Mr. Tedesco here. Yes, Philip Tedesco, 74 Park Street, precinct five. Are you able to hear me? Yes, sir. Thank you. I have to say that position we've heard is really unfortunate because article 43 at its core is very modest. Under article 43, all setback, high dimensional and special permit requirements of our zoning will continue to apply to accessory dwelling units. What it does is allow ADUs as a use subject to those limitations and requirements. While there's too much to comprehensively address in my time, I would like to highlight some key points. The first is just what kind of numbers we're talking about. Even if article 43 results in more ADUs here than anywhere else in Massachusetts, it will add about 15 ADUs a year, which is less than one-tenth of 1% of new housing due to our neighborhoods. Well, Mr. Tosti has suggested that thousands of ADUs be added under article 43. It's unclear what, if anything, that's based on. Since the average number of ADUs in Massachusetts towns that allow them is about 2.5 a year, the real risk here is something overly restrictive like the Tosti motion that results in no or very few ADUs. For context, 10 of the 37 Boston area municipalities with ADU bylaws average less than one at each year. The Tosti amendment off the bat prohibits ADUs outside of R0 and R1, and then also prohibits them on non-conforming lot, which extends the ban to over 40% of houses in R1 and almost a fifth of houses in R0. Article 43 follows our existing zoning for adding space. So if you could add space for a bedroom or home office, you could use that space for an ADU. Under the Tosti motion, you can add floor area for an ADU and in fact, any floor area is ever added to a house. It's forever eligible for an ADU. In other words, under the Tosti motion, if you add a bedroom for a child, you can't later turn that space into an ADU. And at the same time, the Tosti motion disregards the guidance of state legislation and on the reasonably limits the size of ADUs to one third the size of the principal dwelling measured after you carve out the ADU space. So the Tosti motion further is limited only to those with very large houses to begin with. We've heard a lot about detached ADUs. Under article 43, converting an existing ADU, a garage to an ADU close to the lot line requires a special permit. It's a public discretionary process and requires the ZBA to find that the ADU will not impair the integrity or character of the district. Under article 43, only homeowners, not developers, can create ADUs and we've deliberately made it so that the housing corporation of Arlington can create additional affordable ADUs which the Tosti motion and many amendments will take away. Taking a step back, article 43 is about homeowners building space for their parents or in-laws for kids to move home to Arlington. And the fundamental question before town meeting is whether we wanna have ADUs only on paper but they fact though keep them effectively outlawed in all but the narrowest of circumstances or do we wanna allow Arlington homeowners to be able to choose to create ADUs as long as they comply with zoning? I hope you'll agree that allowing ADUs not just on paper, but actual ADUs are good and important for ourselves and our neighbors and support article 43 is drafted. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Tedesco. Steve Revillac. Good evening, Mr. Moderator. Steve Revillac of Precinct One and I will try to keep it to my voluntary four minutes. So one of the uses of an accessory dwelling unit is a means of providing a rental unit. So I'd like to say a few words about rentals and just rental arrangements in general. Now, if I had the money, I could go out and purchase a few single and two family homes around town and rent them out. And as far as I know, I wouldn't need to live in one of these buildings in order to rent it. There's not an owner occupancy requirement for landlords. Now, and also as far as I know, there wouldn't be any restrictions on who my renters could be or how long they'd be able to stay. For example, if I had a renter that wanted to do a tenancy at will, a month to month self renewing lease, I'd be able to accommodate that request. So to reiterate under normal circumstances of renting a place to live, I could go out, buy a couple of homes, rent them out to whomever I wanted to. I wouldn't have to live in any of the buildings, the length of the time of the lease and the amount of the rent would be up to me in my tenants. That's just ordinary arrangements. And article three is simply trying to do that with ADUs. So I noticed that a number of the amendments before us tonight are trying to put restrictions on the owner-tenant relationship. And I think a lot of these would be highly unusual in any other context involving renters. I'm also a little concerned that some of these amendments might be casting renters in a bad light and as if they would create some sort of a menace that the town needs to be protected from. And I really disagree with that. Other amendments are trying to add restrictions on where and how ADUs can be built, particularly Mr. Tosti's motion that would limit them to conforming lots only. Now, as we discussed under article 38, Arlington has a lot of non-conforming lots. And by passing it, we addressed an inequity that prevents those homeowners from building energy efficient homes. I hope we do not pass something this year that creates a similar inequity for homeowners that want to spend or want to build the ADUs. And finally, I'd like to say a few words about East Arlington since it's been mentioned several times in conjunction with this article. I live in East Arlington on a street full of, what are really non-conforming duplexes. Now my neighbor, Chris, two doors down, she had a basement apartment in her half duplex. And it was basically as close to an ADU as you could get without actually having one. Some of her tenants stayed for short periods of time and some stayed for longer. I was on a first name basis with several of them. They were my neighbors and they were good people. And the other half of that duplex was another couple. You know, they didn't have an ADU like apartment but they routinely rented their spare bedroom to boarders. So in short, the house next door to me is a duplex. And for years, there were two families living there and extra renters living on each side. You know, with that lived experience, I have no concerns about a few more renters in East Arlington or, you know, the idea of putting ADUs in duplexes. In fact, I kind of liked that environment. Having a few extra folks around led to some nice backyard conversations, the occasional potluck dinner and a stronger sense of community. So to my mind, Article 43 is basically would really take my lived experience in East Arlington and simply make it legal to do. So I'm completely fine with that. I hope you will vote for Article 43 unamended. Thank you, Mr. Moderator. Thank you, Mr. Everlack. Greg Christiana. And while we wait for Mr. Christiana to get up, now we're open for debate on all of the amendments and substitute motions as well as the main article. So if you have any questions or thoughts on anything now is the time to do it. So Mr. Christiana. Christiana. Yes, Greg Christiana, Precinct 15. I rise in support of Article 43 and against all of the amendments in discussions about zoning changes like this. We hear a lot about changes to the character of our neighborhoods. I love the character of our neighborhoods. It's a big part of why my family moved here several years ago. But I think a lot of us have been waking up to some harsh realities in the past few years, realities of inequity, affordability, and policies that keep communities exclusive by excluding those without the privilege of high incomes, which is exacerbated by restrictive zoning that perpetuates an inequitable status quo. Our responsibility here is to weigh all these considerations. So in recent weeks, I've listened to what a lot of people have said about Article 43. And I've come to realize that one factor seems to motivate opposition more than any other. And that's fear, fear of changing the character of our neighborhoods, fear of unintended consequences, fear of ADUs spreading unchecked throughout our neighborhoods, fear of like the increased kind of rental population. And Steve covered that, so I'm not gonna speak more about that, but I think 100% what he said. And on Monday, we even heard about the fear of neighbors erecting guard towers over their garages. But none of those fears accurately reflects the realities of what Article 43 actually do in the real world. So let's be clear about the vetting process that this article has gone through since an earlier proposal from ADUs came before town meeting two years ago that's been talked about. Article 43 has been researched and developed through a public process where there was ample opportunity over a period of months, multiple months for public input. And ultimately the ARB, the Select Board and the Diversity Task Group have all supported it. And that's no small feat. That's a pretty rich diversity of perspectives represented there. And I'm sure this article is still imperfect and I'm comfortable with that. This article won't solve the problem of affordable housing. If we're lucky, it'll make a small dent. But after we pass this article, I hope, we need to try another approach and then another and another until we crack this problem. We can't just study problems on paper year after year. We have to try things out in the real world, delaying or kneecapping the deployment of real solutions for affordable housing in the real world has costs. People say that we have time. Time has a cost, maybe not to those of us who are privileged, but certainly for lots of other folks who are not. So delaying or so these costs, they perpetuate the kinds of restrictions that have historically worked against diversity, equity, inclusion and affordability. I'm sure these same sorts of arguments, the same shapes of arguments were probably made 50, 60 years ago. And we look back on that not so kindly now. And so the moral cost of the status quo motivate me on this article, more than a desire to preserve the status quo through fear about how our neighborhoods might not look exactly the same in the future. And Article 43 does this by extending the rights of homeowners for more flexible living arrangements and income opportunities. This article in its unamended form is a symbiotic between homeowners and affordability. And that strikes me as a very clear win-win. So I ask that you support Article 43 to take this modest early step in the right direction and that you reject all these amendments which would constrain the made article in ways that will dilute its already limited ability to diversify our housing stock in Arlington. Thank you, Mr. Moderator. Thank you, Mr. Christiana. Joshua Bell. Thank you, Mr. Moderator. Joshua Bell, precinct eight. I have a question that I don't know if someone can answer, but we've kind of tossed around different projections of how many ADUs this article would create Article 43 versus the Mr. Tosti's amendment. Does, can anyone reflect on that? Who's got some expertise? Ms. Zumbary. I'd like to defer to Jennifer Rae, please. Okay, Ms. Rae. Jennifer Rae, Director of Planning and Community Development. I believe we were going to have Barbara provide answers to these questions, but I'm glad to step in if needed, Mr. Moderator. Okay, well, as long as she just answered the question. Ms. Thornton. I might say while Ms. Thornton's unmuting that my recollection was that when Article 9, Article 15, I guess in 2019 came up that the projection was it might create, you know, three to five ADUs in the year, something of that sort. Mm-hmm. Yeah, Barbara Thornton here. Yes, how many do you think it's going to create Ms. Thornton? The difference between the two, Tosti versus- ARB. I'm not sure of the question, but I think the significant difference, I think the sense of the question was, what's the difference in the capability of the Article 43 to produce ADUs versus the Tosti motion? No, it's really a question of whether there's going to be a stampede of creating hundreds or thousands of ADUs. I see, I'm sorry, Josh. Thank you. No, there's not going to be a stampede. I would be very, I would be delirious if there were five ADUs a year. And of those ADUs, they will be the type one within a house ADUs. There may be one or two extensions and there may be one detached version of an ADU every maybe three or four years. Okay, thank you very much. That's based on the statistics nationally and regionally. Great, thank you very much. I guess I'll try and be brief, but we've talked a lot about affordable housing. We know that affordable housing is very, very difficult to create. It requires either public subsidies or it requires increased density. It creates changes that people seem to be reluctant to accept. And I see this is just such a natural and obvious way to create affordable housing. A, it's going to increase the total inventory which may have some very small impact on supply and demand. But I think importantly, it's basically a smaller space. It takes less investment to create it. And so I think it's likely to be rented out for a more affordable price. It just makes sense. It has all the other benefits that Mr. Brown and Mr. Revillac and everybody have talked about of building better community and helping people stay in their homes and intergenerational stuff. So just again, I think that it's kind of a no-brainer to me, I've been in town meeting for a long time. As others have said, it's very easy to say, oh, yes, let's study it a little bit more. Let's proceed slowly. But even if we kind of adopt Article 43, I think it's unlikely that there's going to be a huge change and it's going to be a small necessary change. And this doesn't end the matter. We can always tweak it in the future. But in this particular case, I think it's better to tweak it slightly wide open for those five or 10 units as opposed to putting it on a trickle of one or two or zero units. So I fully support the main motion and I oppose all the amendments because all those also have unintended consequences like not letting the housing corporation of Arlington create units on their properties as well. Thank you very much for your time, Mr. Moderator. Thank you, Mr. Lobel. Sanjay Newton. Good evening, Mr. Moderator. Sanjay Newton precincts 10. I'm excited about ADUs. In particular, I'm excited about three things that they make possible. First, the HDA would be able to cost effectively add some additional units of permanently affordable housing to their existing properties in the R2 districts. Other nonprofit developers would have this opportunity in the future as well. Second, as Mr. Lobel just talked about, we would get additional small rental units spread throughout town. And I think that's really important. We wouldn't be congregating all of those small units in one area of town. Third, I'm really excited about opportunities for multi-generational living. My mother grew up in a house that had been split into what we would now call a main unit and an ADU. When she and her siblings were young, her grandparents were able to help care for them. As they aged, they were able to help care for her grandparents. But the important thing was that the privacy and independence of living next to, instead of with, made that situation tenable. I don't think that my, well, anyway, they wouldn't have gotten along if they'd all lived in the same house. I'm excited to allow this kind of use in Arlington for families that might want it. Now about the amendments, there are so many amendments. When it comes down to it, I interpret all these amendments as either limiting the number of properties that would be eligible for an ADU or limiting who can live in a property once it has an ADU. I just, I don't share the fear that an ADU with people in it is scarier with than a garage with cars or a home office addition. And so I just, I don't find the amendments compelling in general. I hope you will join me in voting for Article 43 and against the various amendments and substitutes. Thank you, Mr. Moderator. Thank you, Mr. Newton. David Fretzer. Thank you, Moderator. David Fretzer for you saying 17. I just like to speak in favor of the main motion. I think this creates a strong option for homeowners to create smaller, less expensive units, which would be a strong positive step towards addressing Arlington's housing challenges without changing the size or any of the dimensional aspects of what's allowed. It gives homeowners a way to help our neighbors stay in Arlington and allows them to accommodate their relatives and children to just build stronger neighborhoods and stronger communities. Today, we have zoning that makes it legal to make homes larger and more expensive, which is already changing the character of our neighborhoods and contributing to our housing cost challenges. This simply provides a new alternative that has a lot of advantages and gives homeowners that ability. And I think that in terms of garages, I think that we really need to be willing to put people over cars and not prioritize space for cars over space for people. I also want to say that the main motion has been developed in public over the course of years and has lots of opportunities for input and has been dramatically improved over past proposals by incorporating that feedback. I think now is the time to pass it. And I just want to say that I want to really support the main motion and compare it to some of the alternatives. I just, I think some of the alternatives by preventing nonprofits from creating permanently affordable units by making it harder for homeowners to sell their house if they had as an ADU or by requiring longer rental terms for renters in an ADU than any other unit. I feel like those are just barriers that prevent ADUs from moving up to their potential. So I encourage everyone to vote for the main motion. Thank you, Mr. Moderator. Thank you, Mr. Pretzer. Alexander Bagnell. Alex Bagnell, precinct seven. Thank you, Mr. Moderator. I move to terminate debate on the article and all matters before it. Okay, we have motion to terminate debate in the article and all matters before it. It's been seconded. Okay, so motion to terminate debate in the article and all 13 amendments or 13 motions, I should say. So as we open voting, please migrate back to the voting portal. If you wish to terminate debate, please vote one for yes. If you want to continue the debate, vote two for no. If you can't do either, please use the chat function in Zoom or text your vote to Mr. Gorowski at 617-575-9266. All else fails, call Ms. Brazile, 7-8-1-316-3071. Okay, all right, we got a thumbs up. We can close voting. The motion fails 61%. We have 142 in the affirmative and 90 in the negative. We need a two thirds vote that would have been 66%. So if it fails, we're gonna continue with the debate. Michael Ruderman. Thank you, Mr. Moderator. Michael Ruderman, precinct nine. I speak in favor of Ms. Benedict's amendment to refer the matter to committee. I believe the strongest support that we can see for her benefit is that it is in a sense what in town meeting time is described as the motion to commit or refer. And it's interesting to actually look at what town meeting time says about a motion to commit or refer. If the proposition will want more amendment and digestion and the formalities of the House will conveniently admit, they refer it to a committee. And I think that's what we're experiencing tonight. There is simply too much here to digest in this medium, in this medium of non-face-to-face conversation where we are so strictly limited to one person at a time, there are things that still need to be hashed out here in person, the most effective way to do it. I'm not satisfied that this is the best that we can come up with. And again, I would like to see Ms. Benedict's motion passed so that we can have some more discussion on this. And please, don't tell me that I'm afraid of ADUs. Here's what I really want. In real estate, we talk about a bundle of rights or privileges that come along with owning a piece of land. One of those is you can build on it according to the rules and zoning of the community. We are about to confer a major change, a major addition in that bundle of rights, the ability to develop a property which presently is illegal to further develop. This makes the property more valuable and we can have all the touching stories that you like about your father, your grandmother, an elderly friend, a neighbor. But if that's what you really want, that's what we have to write. That's what we have to put into the article. In conferring this benefit to develop properties further than what the law currently allows them, who are we giving the benefit to? Well, we're giving the benefit to people of obviously with property. People with property and people with capital, the capital to invest to create the ADU within the property. Who are the people that we so frequently say we need more of in Arlington because diversity is a good? Diversity is a goal. Diversity means not just the color of skin but economic and social diversity. How does conferring a benefit to people with capital and property serve the social good of creating more diversity in town? People it doesn't unless we require it to. And that is what I would argue for. Once we can get around the table, face to face and come up with a version of this article which will not have such a long list of amendments that frankly and disappointingly, I hear some of my fellow town meeting colleagues throwing up their hands and saying, no, can't deal with just, just, just vote. No against all the amendments, just pass the article. Come on, let's go, let's get done. Let's go home. Well, we're already home, but you know what I mean. So I would urge you to be patient. Take this once in a, I don't know what time, opportunity to require a huge new benefit to actually work for the social good. The way to do that is to send this question to committee. Ms. Benedict's amendment offers us the opportunity to do that. Thank you, Mr. Moderator. Thank you, Mr. Gorderman. Adam McNeil. Adam McNeil, precinct six passed. Thank you. Thank you. Jennifer Seuss, folks just to remind you, you can lower your hand if you no longer wish to speak by using the raise hand to speak button. It turns into a lower hand. Ms. Seuss, you have the floor. Hi, Jennifer Seuss, precinct three. Can you hear me? Yes, ma'am. Okay, great. So I have talked to lots of people across town about housing issues in general. And I have to say that there is a lot of excitement about the ADUs. And people are not necessarily excited because they're going to add an ADU. After all, it's very expensive to do so. So it's not going to happen that quickly. People are excited about the possibility that they could if their family needs required. And I am worried about the both the substitute motion of Autosti and also the amendments that seek to pretty dramatically limit who can add an ADU and potentially make it economically infeasible. We know that banks might not loan to people to allow them to build something if there's an uncertainty about whether they can, whether it might become illegal if they were to say be pulled out of their house for a couple of years for a job situation and so forth. And so I really urge you to pass a very clean, a very simple proposal that has been well vetted that has unanimous support of the slack board of the redevelopment board. And redevelopment board looked again, very, very carefully at all the amendments and substitute motion and unanimously reaffirmed their support for the original motion. It's not radical here. It is giving families an opportunity to use their house in ways that might suit their needs. And eventually when those needs go away, adding some natural affordability to the crosshound. And so I urge you to support the original motion and reject this, the amendments. Thank you, Mr. McMillan. Thank you, Mr. Gordon Jamison. Thank you. Excuse me. Thank you, Mr. Moderator. Gordon Jamison, precinct 12. I want to thank Mr. Tesco, Christiana, Revillac at all and Ms. Seuss as well for their eloquent comments about the article. I support voting for the main and against all other motions and substitutes. Substitutes in particular seek to either delay us moving forward or drastically limit who can do this. So we'll get nothing out of either of those proposals. And the other motions do similar things of different bits and pieces. The reason I would have moved to terminate, except it didn't work so well very recently, but I want to remind the body that, excuse me, we have three primary reporting bodies that come in before us with main motions that they've taken the time to review and develop. The select board, the finance committee and the redevelopment board. And the people who are on the redevelopment board, think about this and spend hours upon hours that many of us don't have to craft an article that adheres to current state law, profits from past and current discussions. And I'm all in favor of Article 43 to pass without amendment. Thank you very much, Mr. Moderator. Thank you, Mr. Janus and Phil Goff. Thank you, Mr. Moderator, Phil Goff, precinct seven. I'm not a big fan of the substitute motion nor the amendments with one exception. I do have a question about the one amendment that someone interested in perhaps, the one that I don't remember the number or the woman who proposed it, the one that limited the number of ADUs to one per parcel. And I have a question about that one to perhaps Mr. Heim or Mr. Byrne or the latter. And I know that's your job. So I'll let you- I think it's Ms. Lori Leahy had one per lot. I believe that's it. Thank you. Ms. Leahy, go ahead, Phil. We'll bring Leahy up while you speak. And she can answer perhaps someone else. I'm just wondering, will there be legal issues related to properties like mine and many others, especially in East Arlington where you have condos in two family houses and they're a condo associations that sort of have parts of the property. If one condo owner wanted to put an ADU in the basement, another one wanted to put, say a rehab to redo the garage, would inspectional services, would they be reviewing the ADU proposals by individual property owners or would it need to come formally from condo associations? I'm just wondering, is it even really possible to negotiate a bylaw like that if in fact we did pass that amendment? I'm just wondering if the legal issues perhaps would make it impossible. Sorry if that's a complex question. Yeah, I'm not even sure. Ms. Leahy could address that. I'm not going to give you a good time, May, but I'll leave that up to you. Yeah, let's ask Ms. Leahy if she can. Otherwise we'll ask Mr. Heim if he would have an opinion on that. Ms. Leahy? Hi, Lori Leahy, Precision 21. I'm not a lawyer or a person that could address the legal aspects of that, but I do believe that these kind of issues are worked out between condo associations all the time. This is a particular ADU, it's discussing ADUs, but they discuss all kinds of things like I can't even think of one right now, but should we expand the driveway? Should we, I don't know, put an air conditioning? I can't tell. But I think that this would be something that they would have to discuss and maybe have to go to an association if both of them wanted to do it. My reasoning behind it is to prevent a two family from becoming a four family. And that's why I put that amendment in. So thank you. Thank you. Would you like Mr, see if Mr. Heim can give you a further answer about a legal issue, Mr. Gough? Perhaps, yeah, and then I do have maybe one minute of comment after that, thank you. Okay. Mr. Heim? Good evening. Do you have any opinion on that? Good evening, members of town, meeting Doug Heim, town council. The one thing I guess I would want to make clear is that the right to do something under a zoning bylaw doesn't obviate or necessarily prompt your condo docs. So if your condo treats a garage as common space, you don't have the right individually develop your garage. Now, as Ms. Leahy is suggesting, it may be possible that condo sort of bylaws, if you will, as opposed to town or zoning bylaws might be amended to arrange for how they would handle especially common areas. The, I think most acute issue is whether or not folks condo docs would address a condo owners desire to place an ADU entirely within their own unit. So I hope that that's helpful, but I would just want to make clear that this wouldn't necessarily address every issue, condo owners own property in a very specific arrangement and might have to make their own individual provisions and decisions about things like that. Thank you. Okay. Thank you, sir. Those were helpful responses, I appreciate it. So just to finish up then, I think like some others in town for sure, I have some concerns about what may result from this bylaw. However, I'm personally willing to give this a try. I think there is some real potential here. This has been discussed for a couple of years. If this doesn't pass, it's going to continue to be discussed for many other years. As we've heard from Robert Thornton and I guess some others, we're not talking about a radical change, five, 10 units here. And I think that, you know, to me, what's really compromising, you know, the quality of life in the neighborhoods in this town are the McMansions, the side-by-side kind of pit houses, you know, looming over garages, some of the overbuilt gut rehab condo projects I see in East Arlington. And with ADUs, I mean, I would love to see some, you know, modest-sized homes and small homes no more than 800 square feet built for in-laws or even God forbid, new residents. New residents that aren't necessarily pulling in over $100,000 a year, like many of us in Arlington here. So I'm still going to put a little bit of thought into that one amendment, but I would advocate a no vote on the other amendments and the substitute motion. And let's move forward with Article 43. Thank you very much. Mr. Gauth, Leibahayam. Leibahayam, Precinct 11. I moved the article in all matters before it. Okay, another motion to terminate the debate. I'm just Leibahayam. And is it kept seconded? It's been seconded. So we're going to go for a vote on terminate debate. Okay, we're opening voting. So migrate back to the voting portal. If you wish to terminate the debate, please vote one for yes. If you don't want to terminate the debate, vote two for no. Chat your vote in yes or no to terminate or text 617-575-9266 or call Ms. Brazil 781-301-781316-3071. I won't serve or overload. So cast your vote, text or chat your vote in, okay? All our manual votes have been entered. As soon as we get down to zero, we'll close voting. And the motion to terminate debate is successful 160-73. It is a two-thirds vote. And I so declared the debate is terminated. But once we go through all the screens, we are going to then commence voting on all of the amendments in determined order. Big chart out. First, we're going to vote on Ms. Benedict's motion. So Ms. Benedict has put before us a motion, a substitute motion to refer it to a committee. Adam McNeil has a point of order before we commence voting. Mr. McNeil, what's your point of order? Adam McNeil, reason six, thank you. Could you clarify, it looked to me on the screen that the main motion require a two-thirds vote. I thought it was a majority vote for that. If you could cover that, thank you. Yeah, everything is a majority vote, including Mr. Tostes and the main motion because they are as of right and they can be done. So that makes them a majority vote as a two-thirds. So if we have it as a two-thirds, we'll correct it when we get there. Okay, thank you. Yes, Adam. Thank you, sir. Ms. Anne LaRoya. I had the same question just to clarify whether each and every vote is majority or two-thirds, but you just answered that. So thank you. Mr. Moderator, are we ready to enable voting? Yes, on miss Benedict's, we're going to enable voting. Thank you. So if you're in substitute motion, which would refer the whole question and all the motions and the amendments back to a committee for further study, you'll vote yes. If you don't want to do that, you want to proceed ahead, you'll vote no. So use the portal vote yes to refer back to a committee, no to continue the voting trail or use chat or yes or no on that or text to 617-575-9266. Okay, well, our manual votes have been entered. So as soon as we get down to zero, we'll close voting. Miss Benedict's motion fails. We have 53 in the affirmative and 187 in the negative. So the Benedict motion fails. So vote, I so declare it, that ends this Benedict's motion. The next one we're going to vote on is Preston's motion. Let me find that. So in Preston's motion, what I've done is I've found looked through the entire group of motions and grouped them into groups that do similar things and or if they stand alone and we vote on ones that are kind of standalone or if they're together, I'll mention that. So Miss Preston's motion, she wants to insert a bullet point that an accessory dwelling unit in a garage or other buildings shall be at least 15 feet from an existing residential dwelling on the abutting property. We just voted on Beth's. So let's show Joanne, there we go. So this is Miss Preston's motions, we're going to vote on that. Adam, I don't know if John is back or who's back, but I'm concerned that we may be losing a lot of Ticktown Me members because of the storm. I agree, Mr. Foskett. I do still see 206 people in the room, but I don't, I can't recognize if John is back yet. Well, you also don't know that they're live, right? I mean, this is a question. Yep, you're right. We don't know if they're still in a, if they got kicked off, but their name is still in or if they're actually still with us. This is Doug Hime, town council. Is Mr. Oster still with us? I am indeed. Mr. Oster as the assistant moderator, you are serving as the moderator in Mr. Leone's absence while he tries to rejoin the meeting. May I address the meeting, sir? Yes, I can do that. But I guess I think the first order of business is to see who is really connected and who isn't. It's not clear to me if, if we can't count on the num, the participants list to show people who are actually here. Emily, I don't know if we have a quorum. I'm gonna let you go and call John because they're open. Mr. Oster, if I can make suggestion, I was one of the people who lost connection to the meeting and I was finally able to rejoin. With any members, I do suggest that you try to take an informal poll to see how many members are actually on the meeting at this point in time. If there are enough members on the meeting, we can take a vote to recess while we try to get more folks back, given that it's almost 1930. But I've spoken with Mr. Leone, he's trying to get back on. I was just able to get back on myself. Mr. Heim, I think that's a very good suggestion, but I'll ask your opinion, why don't we just recess for 15 minutes? Since we would be doing that shortly anyway. Sure, I think that makes sense. The problem is how do you communicate that to the meeting if they're not connected? Mr. Foskitt, if I may, and I'm mindful of the fact that I'm not a town meeting member, so I don't ordinarily have the right to address the meeting, but these are unusual circumstances. I won't be in contact with Mr. Chaptolain and Mr. Leone to try to see if we can send a message out to town meeting members by email on the town meeting member list. Hold on one moment, sir. Yeah, I'm back. Oh, you have to start my video. Mr. Moderator, you should be okay to start your video and audio. I'm back, I think. Odd, can you hear me? Oh, I took my jacket off. Mr. Moderator? Mr. Heim? I just spoke with Mr. Chaptolain, the town manager, and he did report somewhat germane to Mr. Foskitt's concern that he is in the meeting or he thinks he is, but he can't see or hear me talking to you folks. So I've recommended to see if he leaves the meeting and rejoins it, if it will, basically put him back on the same page. I tried that a few times and it did work. It also told me the meeting had terminated. Mr. Moderator, this is Charles Foskitt. Yes, Mr. Foskitt. I think they, it seems to me that there are 250 people out there that we can't easily determine if they have fair and reasonable access to the meeting. And so this is in violation of the, I don't know if it's in violation of the town meetings, open meeting, emergency open meeting, low requirement, but it's certainly in violation of the ones that I've been reading to the Finance Committee meeting every time we meet. And if we can't assure that all those people are there, I don't think we should be having the meeting. I think we should adjourn. I know like Ms. Mahan, I have spoke to her, she's can't get back in either. And right now I appear to have 212 attendees, whereas earlier in the night we had 225. So I noticed at least 13 people who haven't come back in. I'm sort of on the same wavelength as you, Mr. Mr. Moderator, just to, I just, my Zoom just cut out and left again. Oh, now getting back up to 217, 18. Mr. Moderator, can you take an attendance vote at this point in time? Yes, we can. I don't know if we can take a, if we invent a new article, Adam, call article 43 attendance. Yes, Mr. Moderator, I think that would work. Yeah. Let me queue it up for you. Okay. Before I do that, I would have to close voting on the previous amendment, which is Ms. Preston's amendment. Yeah, we'll just, we'll close voting on that and we'll create a new Ms. Preston amendment. We'll call it Ms. Preston two, because she only has one amendment. We'll have to take a re-vote on that because that's the vote that we lost connectivity on. Okay. I think we can actually vote right over the existing vote and we'll just take the second collection, but yes, I'll close voting and then create a new attendance. Mr. Heim, while we do this, can you put your council thinking cap on and give us an opinion as to the viability of continuing the meeting this evening when we have an unstable connection and we don't have the full compliment we had before. So meeting members, once he creates a new vote, if you're able to get to the portal, just vote attendance on the new vote. So just do an attendance vote when we get that chance. And I did see two points of order. Maybe while we can bring Mr. Warden up on his point of order while we try and vote this attendance vote. Mr. Moderator, I couldn't find Mr. Warden in Zoom, so I allowed Mrs. Warden to unmute herself. Okay. So Patricia, if you could have John use your computer and bring his point of order forward. Hello, can you hear me? Yes, ma'am. So, yes, John and I, John has completed his Zoom connection and mine is very unstable. We'll see what happens. I've only gotten into it once in the last 10 minutes. So John, John is only asking for you to use my, here, you take my headphones and you can talk to him. You'll have to sit here. Okay. Here you are. Hi, John. Well, I was just, we've lost sound, I guess. At this point, John, we are debating if we should continue the meeting with an unstable connection or Mr. Hines is going to put his thinking cap on and think about that. We're going to have to go back to the meeting and see what happens. We'll have to put our thinking cap on and think about that. And we're not sure if we have all the town meeting members over here before back in or not. Well, I heard you say, the last thing I heard you said, we had 212 people here. Sounds like, it's going to be a quorum, but if people are being blocked out, that's not. Yeah, I think we're up to 228 at this point, which is about where we were before. But is the sound, but no, I don't know. We don't have any sound here. Maybe Pritchie, you have sound? Well, I guess you do. Yeah, you do, because that's my headphones. Well, that's okay. I'm sorry. I'm on her headphones. I've been permanently muted. Yeah, you can't even get back into the Zoom. I can't get back into Zoom. You can't get back into the Zoom. You can't? Okay. I'm sure other people have the same problem. I don't want to keep you from dealing with them, but I get to vote, I would vote to adjourn until we can get this thing straightened out. There was a hell of a thunderclap, I'm sure you heard it. Yeah, I think it was right off my front door. Well, it didn't, my dog woke up. But then I heard the fire truck, so I think so many people got hit by lightning. Okay, I'll give you back your headphones. Okay, well, thank you. We can close voting right now, Adam. Liva Hayam has a point of order. I can try to get back into the Zoom. I'm trying to get back into Zoom, and what? I'll try to get back into the Zoom. Ms. Hayam? Mr. Moderator, are you out? I'm sorry, are you leaving for Ms. Hayam? Yeah, but she hasn't popped in yet, Mr. Ms. Hayam, Ms. Hayam. I got booted too, so it did it right as I was... Oh. There we go. Thank you. I was in, I just wasn't acknowledged. Liva Hayam, precinct 11, this is more a point of information than a point of order. Mr. Moderator, last fall when precinct 11 was without power, the meeting was determined to continue with just one precinct defected, and I certainly would encourage us holding the same standard for tonight's meeting. So what did we do last fall? Last fall, precinct 11 was without power. Yeah. And we had notified you and other town officials, and the meeting was continued regardless. We adjourned, we adjourned for the evening. No, no. We continued the meeting. Ah, okay. Well, I think we may be back up to full strength, but I'm gonna ask Attorney Hayam to make an opinion, give us an opinion of what to do, but I appreciate that point of reference. Thank you. Okay. Mr. Moderator, this is Dugheim Town Council. Yeah. I think that the meeting has two options. The first, and they're sort of iterative. So the first option is to take a recess, which we're due for now anyway. Recommend that anybody who's having connection stability issues log off and rejoin the meeting to try to correct any issues. There do appear to be a handful of folks who are on the meeting who have not at least been able to vote that they're in attendance, although some 223 people have been able to access the meeting. So the first thing we could do is have a recess, recommend that anybody who's having issues with their connection stability, log out of the meeting and then log back in. I don't know how easy it would be to send a message by the town meeting member list and to basically summarize same saying if you're having connection issues, please log out of Zoom and log back in. It does appear that we've had a few folks report that they can hear only one side of a conversation that's happening. So that's somewhat concerning. If after that 10 minute recess, these issues don't seem to have been resolved, I think that you have the ability to join the meeting basically under an emergency circumstance until our next scheduled meeting. The open meeting law is a little bit of a red herring in the sense that the open meeting law doesn't apply to town meeting. I think what's critical is that we have confidence that people can engage in the meeting. You don't have confidence and I think there's more discretion to adjourn the meeting to the next date. But I would recommend that we try to have a recess, suggest people reset their Zoom connections and come back in 10 minutes. If we can send out a message to the town meeting member email list, recommending the same in case there are folks who can't log in or can't hear what's being said right now. Hopefully that seems to resolve most people's issues from what I've been hearing from different sources. Okay, so why don't we do that? Let's, Miss Brazil, can you send an email to the town meeting list to have that ability from home? Yes, I can. Just tell everyone to log back in. Let's take our 10-minute break, maybe the connection will stabilize. So we'll check back in in 10 minutes and we'll continue the meeting. I think we're pretty much back to where we were as far as the number of town meeting members that we had before. And then we'll just continue at that point and hopefully everyone's back in. Because right now we had 224 in our first attendance vote and we had 223 in this attendance vote. I think we're pretty much all the way back. Maybe there's one or two people out there who haven't been able to log back in, but let's send an email out and hope to get them back in and then we'll continue after our break. Okay, everyone wanna check your audio settings and as soon as we get back in, we're ready to go again, I believe. Mr. Moderator, I'd like to offer a suggestion. Sure, go ahead. If we wanted to check in with folks who couldn't or think they have an audio problem, we could have them raise their hand and zoom and address them. Okay, is the raise hand feature open? Yep, okay. So if anyone having an audio issue, please use the raise hand feature. You should be able to hear me talking right now if you can't. Okay, we have three people that have no audio or each feature. Yeah, I guess I should keep talking. You'll have to forgive me. I took my jacket off because it was getting a little hot in here. We don't have any central AC in this old house. So I'm not putting it back on. It's kind of a silly leftover from the ancient days anyway, especially the tie. So did Mr. Preston and Mr. Warden, did you check your audio settings on your computer to see if that you can reconnect to your speakers? I know I had to do so. Did we try calling John and Joanne to see if we can get them help? Mr. Moderator, do you want me to put the tech numbers in the chat and the Q&A? So folks who are having trouble hearing right now, like maybe they see people talking but they can't hear it, they can call our IT staff and they can help that way. Oh yeah, I'll put on make a sign if I can write back, which check Q&A as we know the two of them are on but they can't hear. So while during that break, I did take a moment to figure out how our voting is gonna go. So if you can't hear me call Q&A, they can't hear us, I don't know what to call. Mr. Moderator, we've also been reminded that there is a live transcription. So I will remind people in the chat and Q&A that they can use that as a resource too. Well, you can't read this, can you? Pretty low tech. All right, so if those people have instructions in the Q&A, we're assuming that they know enough to go to the Q&A. I think we're pretty much back up to the town meeting members who are here. So what we're gonna do when we get back in in one minute, we're gonna give thanks. If anyone's still having audio issues, raise your hand and John and Joanne, your hands are down at the moment. So I'm thinking that they're good to go. If anyone's useless saying, if you can't hear me, raise your hand, cause they can't hear me. All right, so what we're gonna do when we get back, we're gonna vote on Ms. Preston's motion first, then Mr. Hyams, then Lori Leahy's, and I'll explain which one, then Lori Leahy's again, and Mr. Warden's three motions in order that I explain, Mr. Gersh, Lori Leahy's second, then Wynell Evans two, then Patricia Warden's, then Al Tostes. I chose those because I grouped them into similar groups so that they speak to the same issues. So I'm gonna assume that those two are back. So let's go back to the meeting and get going again. We'll take a, so the first one we're gonna re-vote is Ms. Preston's and let's open the chat. Okay, so we're gonna open the vote on Ms. Preston's amendment. Ms. Preston wishes to accessory dwelling unit in a garage or other accessory, shall be at least 15 feet from the existing residential dwelling on the existing property. If you're in favor of Ms. Preston's amendment, please vote yes, one for yes or vote two for no if you do not wish to have that restriction. If you can't do that, please use chat or text your vote to 617-575-9266. Okay, as soon as you get all our manual votes entered. Okay, all our manual votes are entered and some closed voting. Ms. Preston's motion fails by a vote of 56 to 173. There was a question if we could speed up voting by not running through the screens. Unfortunately, we can't do that. The enabling legislation requires us to show the screens but we're gonna run through them as quickly as we can. The next one we're gonna vote on is Mr. Hyam's, Christopher Hyam. Mr. Hyam wishes to change, you have to get a special permit if your accessory dwelling unit is gonna be within 10 feet of a lot line. If you're in favor of moving the, by right 10 feet of a lot line, you'll vote yes. If you're not in favor of moving it, you'll leave it where it is, six, you'll vote no. So right there, we see 10 in the ARB's version. It says six feet right there. Mr. Hyam wants to change it to 10 feet. So we can enable voting and as soon as we get all our manual votes in, Mr. Hyam's, we all set, Gabby. Well, one minute, okay, we're still entering manual votes, okay. All our manual votes are in, we can close voting. Mr. Hyam's motion fails, 73 in the affirmative and 155 in the negative. It's a vote on Mr. Hyam's motion and I so declare that ends the voting on his. Now we bring up Lori Leahy's starting out with B1. Which one is it? This is Leahy. Unfortunately, I didn't let, bring them that way. Let's see, let's look at the three Lori Leahy ones, not that one, the next one, that's Leahy one, go on. That's Leahy two and there must be L3. That's the one, so that's L3. So Ms. Leahy's third amendment, which you see in front of you there, any residential district and accessory dwelling as permitted as an accessory use in any single family dwelling if all of the following conditions are missed. So she's in her current, she's restricting it to RO and R1 zones. If you wish to restrict ADUs to R0 and R1 zones, you'll vote yes. If you wish to have them as all R and B districts as the ARB recommends, you will not vote for this. So if you're in favor of restricting to R0 and R1, you'll vote one, cast your vote. If you're against the restriction, you'll vote no. Or you can use the chat and cast one if you, chat. Yes, if you wish it and B2, blah. On the chat, yes, if you wish it to, no, if you do not wish it. This is on Ms. Leahy. So Ms. Preston has a point of order. Preston, can you hear us? We can hear you, Ms. Preston. Can you hear us? Yeah, finally. Thank you, Mr. Moderator. I couldn't even vote on my own amendment because I presume it was the lightning strike that interrupted a lot of the connections. Though I was talking to everybody and I was, I finally got on the Q&A page and explained that I couldn't hear anything, still I couldn't vote. And I was wondering what is, if some people can't vote because of that, it's okay. Or what is the rule on this, please? We took an attendance vote and we thought we were back to the full strength we were prior to the lightning strike. And we had as many members on as we did then unless we were mistaken, if you were unable to vote, you had the options of, could you use the portal or you just didn't have audio? Well, it was on and off. I didn't really have audio, but I was on Q&A and I explained that I was having a lot of trouble with the audio and I talked to Julie about it. Did you report for your vote? I really wanted to vote and I was afraid I'd missed some votes. But I don't know. Well, frankly, Ms. Unpressed, I understand you're at problem and I have sympathy, can you vote now? Not on my amendment. I know, but your amendment, frankly, had a vote of 56 and the affirmative and 173 in the negative. That's different than having the right to vote. But anyway, yes, I can vote now, at least momentarily. That's the best I can do for you right now, Ms. Preston. I'm sorry if you weren't able to vote on your amendment. Then what do you do if you have a technical difficulty? You can chat the vote in, you can text 617-575-9266. You can call Ms. Brazil. I do. In touch with Mr. Dennis Lowry or Andrew Willis or Chris Fickett. They can transmit the vote to us through the chat. I did, but not in time. I'm sorry about that. So if there's a time limit, I think we should all know it. There's been a time limit since the first meeting of a minute and a half. No, time limit to report. It's that minute, that minute and a half. We originally were one minute and we extended it to a minute and a half. And we found in the first nine and a half meetings that that was sufficient. Of course, we've never had an outing of this nature, but we're sorry we weren't able to vote on your amendment. And it's the best I can do, Ms. Preston, I'm sorry. Is there anything else? That's enough, I think. Okay, thank you. I really value my right to vote, so. I do too. Okay. And we don't want to disenfranchise anyone. That's why we've taken the steps we did and have. So we'll endeavor to get all of your votes from now. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Marshall? Thank you, Ms. Marrere, Terrence Marshall, precinct five. This might be self-explanatory, but I just want to pose the question for this amendment. Obviously the amendment is posing that it would restrict it to Romeo zero and Romeo one zones, but in zones that are two family dwellings, there are legacy homes that are still standalone, single family homes in those zones with that. Right, it would be only the R1 and R0 zones where it would be allowed. If your single family is in R2 or anything else, they would not be allowed there. Okay, thank you, Ms. Marrere. Thank you, sir. Let's close voting on this article, on this motion. They lay he three, sales 36 to 194. Okay, and three fails on 36, and affirmative 194 in the negative. That's about my declarant. That brings us next to lay he two, and lay he two, she wants to only one accessory dwelling unit may be created on any lot, regardless of the number of dwellings that exist on the lot. So only one ADU on a building lot, but that's lay he one, that one. Here we go, this is one we're voting on, this is lay he two, only one accessory dwelling unit may be created on a lot, regardless of the number of dwellings that exist on said lot. If you're in favor of this, you'll vote one. If you're against it, you'll vote two, no. One for yes, two for no. Chat your vote yes or no in, or text 617-575-9266 or call Ms. Brazil, 781-316-3071. Okay, all our menu votes are entered as soon as we get down to seven seconds, six, five, four, three, two, one. Let's close voting. Okay, lay he two fails and he voted 62 in the affirmative, 168 in the negative. So that's a vote and I so declare it on lay he two. Next up is John Warden. It's to John Warden. Again, I didn't do them the same way. Nope, that's Laurie's. Let's look at John Warden's three votes. It's that one. Nope, not that one. That's number one. Let's try Warden the next one. That's W2, let's try the next one. That's the one. So this is John Warden's motion. So he wants to amend section 5.9.2.B3 where no off-street parking spaces are required in connection with the creation, but if a tenant has a motor vehicle, they shall make provisions for off-street parking. So he wants to require off-street parking if the tenant has a motor vehicle. Let's enable voting on that one. That's W3. If you're in favor of Mr. Warden's amendment to require off-street parking if the tenant has a motor vehicle, you'll vote yes. If you're against his amendment, you'll vote no. If you're in favor of this amendment, you'll vote yes. If you're against it, you'll vote no. On the portal, cast your vote. If not, chat it in or text 617-575-9266. Okay, we have all our main no vote center. We can close voting. Mr. Warden's W3 fails by a vote of 47 in the affirmative, 182 in the negative. That's a vote, and I so declare it. And I'm voting on Warden number W3. Next, we're gonna go to Warden W2 on this one. If they are owned by a, if the ADUs are owned by a nonprofit or governmental entity, both the principal unit and the accessory dwelling unit are forever restricted as affordable units. So if you're in favor of that, you will vote yes. One for yes. If you're against it, you'll vote no. You can use the portal to cast your vote. One for yes, two for no, or chat it in or text 617-575-9266 number. Okay, all our manual votes are entered, and we can close voting. Warden two fails by a vote of 56 in the affirmative, 173 in the negative. That's a vote, and I so declare it. Next up, next bad up is Warden one. Where he wants to restrict the size of a dwelling unit to one third, the floor size of the principal dwelling unit or 750 square feet, whichever is smaller. So that's Warden one. Yep, so if you're in favor of the restriction for the square footage, one third to gross floor area of the principal or 750 square feet, whichever is smaller, you'll vote yes. If you are not in favor of that restriction, you will vote no. He wants to lower it from 900 square feet to 750. So when you have a chance, use the portal, go ahead and vote yes or no, cast your vote or chat it in. Yes or no, or text to 617-575-9266. Okay, we have all our manual votes entered. We can close voting. That motion fails. We have a vote of 40 in the affirmative and 187 in the negative. So vote and I so declare it on Warden one, 40 in the affirmative, 187 in the negative. That closes voting on that amendment. Next amendment up will be John Gersh's amendment. Mr. Gersh seeks to remove the ability to have an RDU in an accessory structure. So garages, et cetera. Mr. Gersh would just have it in the principal dwelling. He would strike out the accessory building being used for an accessory dwelling unit. So Mr. Gersh's amendment seeks to do that. You want to, so limit that, vote one for yes, cast your vote, vote two, no, cast your vote or chat it in. If you're having trouble using the portal, please use the zoom to vote yes or no or text it to 617-575-9266. That phone number should be burned into all of our memories by now. As soon as we enter all our manual votes, I'll enter it, okay, we can end voting. That amendment fails by vote of 47 in the affirmative, 181 in the negative. That's a vote and I so declare it on the Gersh amendment. Next amendment up will be Laurie Leahy's remaining amendment. I think this is Leahy one. This amendment requires a sworn affidavit that it is going to be, who's going to be the owner is going to live there and as in front of you. I don't want to try and summarize but I might not get it right, requires owner occupancy. So if you're in favor of this amendment, we'll vote one for yes. If you're against this amendment, you'll vote two for no. So each year the owner has to file an affidavit with the building department that is still owner occupied. So vote one for yes, two for no, cast your vote or chat yes or no to the chat or text it in. Six, one, seven, seven, five, seven, nine, two, six, six. Okay, we've entered all our manual votes and we can close voting. This Leahy's L1 fails by a vote of 52 in the affirmative, 177 in the negative. That's a vote on L1, 22, 177. It's a vote and I sort of clear it and that ends the voting at amendment. Next up, we have Ms. Evans amendment. Of course, I didn't label my paper ones the same way. Nope, the other one, I'm sorry. And Ms. Evans amendment again requires an affidavit to the building inspector that will be owner occupied. Must provide a evidence to the building department in favor of that amendment. We'll vote one for yes, two for no, or you can chat that in. So if you're in favor of Ms. Evans amendment regarding owner living in the, that the owner will reside in either of the units, vote one for yes, we'll vote two for no if you do not want it or text, chat it in or text yes or no. As soon as we enter our manual votes. Okay. All our manual votes are ended, are in, we can end voting. Ms. Evans, two, fails by a vote of 59 in the affirmative, 174 in the negative. That's a vote on Evans two, so I sort of clear it. As soon as we get through the screens, we're gonna vote on Evans one, which restricts the use of short-term rentals in excess of withdrawing units. Requires any lease fee for at least six months. So no air B and Bs. If you're in favor of this amendment, you'll vote one for yes, cast your vote or no. You can cast your vote or text or chat it in. 617-575-9266. The current amendment we're voting on is before you right now. If you want to insert an excess of withdrawing units, shall not be rented for a period of less than six months. Rentals shall be under a written lease. If you're in favor of this, vote one for yes or two for no, cast your vote, chat it in or text it. Okay, all our manual votes are entered. We can close voting. Amendment fails by a vote of 69 in the affirmative, 161 in the negative. And that's a vote and I sort of clear it. Ms. Evans E1, 69 in the affirmative, 161 in the negative. That closes that amendment. And that brings us to Patricia Warden's amendment. Ms. Warden's amendment seeks to either the principal unit or the ADU, whichever one is rented, shall be an affordable rent as defined by the Arlington Zoning By-Loss. So she wants to make one of the units affordable at all point in time. If you're in favor of this, you'll vote one for yes, cast your vote, vote two for no, cast your vote, chat it in or text it, 617-575-9266. Waiting for our manual votes as they're all entered, which they are now. We can close voting. That amendment also fails 49 in the affirmative, 178 in the negative. That's a vote on Ms. Warden's amendment. So declare it. Okay, so, so far, all of the amendments have failed. So we have now before us either the TOSTI motion, which is a substitute motion, which would replace the ARB in its entirety, or we have the ARB motion, main motion is printed in the report. First, we're gonna vote on the TOSTI substitute. So if you're in favor of Ms. TOSTI substitute motion, you'll vote one for yes. If you're against the substitute motion, you'll vote two for no. You can chat your vote in or text it, 617-575-9266. Okay, so you'll be able to vote. Vote one for yes for the TOSTI substitute, vote two for no, cast your vote, chat it in or text, text 617-575-9266. So entering our manual votes at this point in time. We're getting lots of chat votes because of the delay of the system. So it's gonna take a few more moments. Okay, all our chatted votes are entered. We can close voting and the TOSTI amendment fails by vote of TOSTI substitute motion fails by vote of 62 and the affirmative 175 and the negative. That's a vote on the TOSTI substitute, so declare it. That brings us to the main motion of the ARB as printed in the report and as unamended by any of the previous votes. So we have now before some main motion by the ARB as recommended in their report. Mr. Moderator, just a note. Yeah. I've corrected this vote to make it a majority vote and not a two thirds vote as people had seen before. Good, thank you very much. We appreciate that. So I hope everyone heard that. Mr. Krawski has made a correction to our automatic vote tabulation. So what is now majority vote as it should be? So if you're in favor of the ARB recommended vote as printed in the report, you'll vote one for yes. If you're against it, you'll vote two for no. You'll chat your vote in or text it to 617-575-9266. You're still able to vote even though we're looking at Mr. Krawski's screen. There we go. So your votes are still being tabulated. So go ahead and try and vote through the portal. One for yes in favor of the recommended vote. Two for no. Chat it in or text to 617-575-9266, okay? All our tech support votes are in. You can close voting. And the motion carries by a vote of 189 in the affirmative. T48 in the negative. That's a vote. And I so declare it 189 to 48, 26, vote 189, 48. That's a vote. And I so declare it. And that closes article 43. Now we've got 10 more minutes. We can go to another article. Next article before us is article 54. Mr. Moderator. Mr. Foskett. Thank you. Mr. Moderator, I have sent some modifications on article 54. They're basically administrative. And I sent a copy of the document to Mr. Adam Krawski. And if you could show the red line, I would be in a position to easily describe the changes. Okay. Very good. Mr. Krawski, can you open the article and show that red line that Mr. Foskett sent to you? Here there's everybody. Hi, there's your team folks. Everybody working hard for us. Okay. Thank you very much. So Mr. Foskett. Mr. Moderator, Charles Foskett precinct eight and chairman of the finance committee. So the first change is in the section that says voted and this number 671,485 is the actual number that's in the finance committee report. And it should not have been changed and somehow it got changed in the process. The second number, the second change is that this number should be, it was typographically mis-entered. It should be 122,284. And it is transferred, not appropriated because the appropriation is already into 671,485. If you can move down a little bit, Adam, these dates that were put in the document were not correct. So they're now corrected. Where are they under number? Under Jonathan police patrol officer association 12 and three, they're 2018, 2019, 2020. Okay. And if you could slide down a little further, Mr. Karowski there, please. And so this number 95,568 should be 93,568. Again, it's a typographical error. And if you could slide down a little bit further, please. And the number 549,381 should be 549,201. Very good. Thank you. Mr. Karowski, let me ask Mr. Foster, hold one second. These are all on the annotated warrant under red line. Is this slide on the annotated warrant? They have not been posted yet. Okay, can we get them posted tomorrow? Yes. Thank you. Go ahead, Mr. Foster, I'm sorry for that interruption. Thank you, Mr. Moderator. So article 54 reflects collective bargaining settlements negotiated by town management with significant effort over a long period of time. Despite the fact that you've seen some numbers change from the printed finance committee report, the substitute motion does not change the total amount that we are appropriating in the budget. So the total budget that the town meeting has voted previously remains the same. In summary, you're being asked to appropriate an amount into a reserve fund for collective bargaining. The settlements have been reached much to the credit of both town management and union leadership. And we are redirecting the funds to meet the needs of each of the settlements and appropriating the unused balance into a reserve fund to cover future settlements still being negotiated. In addition, the settlements reached since the start of town meeting where two agreements before prior to town meeting, one was via an arbitration agreement with the police union and another was via a negotiation with the library unions. Those settlement numbers were already in the police and library budgets that you previously voted. A very important point is that in addition to these funds, you are being, excuse me, I just lost my place here. You're being asked to exercise your authority and power as town meeting to affect two things. First of all, to appropriate the funds that have been outlined, but more importantly, to approve the collective bargaining agreements, which is a necessary condition under mass general law. Without town meeting approval, these contracts cannot become effective. The finance committee supports this amendment and the agreements as fair and beneficial to the town and we strongly urge your favorable action on article 54 as amended. As I noted, the settlement is the result of extensive effort by town management. And I hope, Mr. Moderator, that you permit deputy town manager and finance director, Poole, to explain the details, the objectives and the philosophy applied in reaching these settlements. Thank you very much. Yeah, Mr. Poole, do you wish to tell us anything? Thank you, Mr. Moderator. Sandy Poole, deputy town manager and finance director. We have a pattern in place for FY22 for our settlements of a 1.5% cost of living allowance. And our settlements with the library and SCIU reflect those as do the wage increases that we have here for our non-union and management employees. In each instance, there are, particularly with the library, there is a slight change in how they have spread out those wage increases, putting some money instead to their longevity payments and taking a lesser cost of living arrangement, but it still fits a pattern. The other thing that these collective bargaining agreements put forward is giving recognition to Juneteenth. Town meeting has already recognized this as a town holiday, but in terms of the benefits accrue to our workers, that is a matter of collective bargaining. And so in addition to town meeting voting on recognizing the holiday, we have to amend our collective bargaining agreements. And we've done that in the case of our library people to say that if they will get a regular holiday and library would be closed on Juneteenth if Juneteenth falls from Monday through Friday, if it falls on a Saturday or Sunday, the library is open. And so those workers will get a floating holiday that they have to use till the end of the year. For SEIU, it's simply a holiday for them if it falls from Monday through Friday. The other thing that I want to point out and Mr. Foskett mentioned is that we have a collective bargaining arbitration award from the Joint Labor Management Committee which represents a closing of the contract over a three year period with our patrol unit within the police department. This was a significant and time consuming arbitration. Ultimately, it came out in favor, I think of the original, basically original terms that we had proposed. And so therefore falls in line with the other settlements that we've had with our other unions town. It provides a two to one collective cost of living increase over the years. It changed the step programs for the patrol officers to give them a couple of other steps but keeping those other steps at sizes that kept it consistent economically with what our other unions got and made a few other changes to the contract for the period of FY 1920 and 21 in terms of just some other things in terms of sick leave use and so forth that the town had asked for and the arbitrator awarded to us. And so we think all of these have resulted in good settlements for the town and we urge your support for them in addition to the support for putting money aside to settle contracts with our remaining unions. We still do not have contracts with police and fire going forward or with AFSCII going forward but we think with this pattern set in place we'll be able to settle those contracts in the future. I would be happy to answer any questions and thank you for your consideration. Thank you, Mr. Poole. Just to excuse me for one second town meeting members if Sean Keane is there, Sean can you co-host Adam Korolski? We lost Adam temporarily and he was our host we need Sean to rehost him. Does anyone wish to speak to the event to the article we can still entertain speaking while we try to get Sean to co-host Adam. So if anyone wishes to speak to the article now's your chance. I'm not showing anyone on my screen. I still have a screen so I can see who wants to speak. I'm not showing anyone. So what we're gonna do then is it's 11 o'clock I'm gonna call for any notices of reconsideration because we can't seem to get Adam back in and it's 11 o'clock so we're gonna adjourn to the next meeting. Oh, Dennis is now host. Oh, we could actually take a vote. Dennis, can you make Adam host? Yes, I'm doing that right now. All right. Mr. Lowry is making Mr. Korolski a host and Adam is gonna be able to bring up the vote on the article because I don't see anyone who wishes to speak to it. Okay, so we're gonna take a vote on the collective bargaining article as printed in the finance committee report and as amended by Mr. Foske this evening which will show up on the interactive on the annotated warrant tomorrow. If you're in favor of the collective bargaining settlements, please vote one for yes. If you don't agree with them, vote two for no. You can chat your vote in or you can text the 617-575-9266. While we wait to get our manual votes entered in the last few minutes I just wanna make one note to town meeting members and to the general public as we have done for the last several meetings all of our resolutions in the high 90s we're going to have a pro and a con speaker four minutes each to pro the person in presenting it and anyone who was opposed would be the con they get to get up and give four minutes on each and that's all the debate we'll have on those resolutions and then we're gonna vote. So if anyone wishes to contact me to be on either side go ahead, you know, my text my excuse me, you know, my email. So as soon as we get our manual votes, we're all set we can close voting and that motion passes recommended vote is 203 in the affirmative three in the negative. It's a vote and I so declare it. So at this point, excuse me we're gonna take any notices of reconsideration on any of the articles that we passed tonight either 43 or 54. Just a moderator. Yes, sir. Charles Foskett precinct, the chair of the finance committee I moved or having voted in the affirmative I move reconsideration. I mean, I move yes core but on the reconsideration list for article 54. You're putting a notice of reconsideration of 54 in. Thank you, sir. Tongue tied. Mr. Foskett has put in a notice of reconsideration on 54. If anyone else has notices of reconsideration please use the raise hand feature and zoom. Mr. Klein has a point of order. Mr. Klein, what's your point of order? Thank you, Mr. Moderator. Christian Klein, precinct 10 just in light of all the storm related activities this evening, I just wanted to commend town staff on their handling of the situation and getting us back in order to continue the hearing this evening. It was much appreciated. Thank you. Thank you very much. We appreciate the kudos. Everyone did work hard to get us back in tonight and Tom eating members gave their part two and bearing with it. All right, we'll see everybody next Wednesday. Have a good Memorial Day. Thank you very much. And that's that.