 The Thursday, January 28th meeting of the Parliamentary Redevelopment Board, recorded by ACMI. First on our agenda this evening is a report and discussion on the Master Plan Implementation Committee on Residential Zoning Amendments. We have Ted Fields and Laura Wiener here to present to us. Ted. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And as we discussed at the last meeting, the Master Plan Implementation Committee has directed the staff of the Planning Department to look at making some tweaks to the residential dimensional and density zoning requirements. These potential amendments are summarized in your packet on the sheet. We start off with some definition changes, basically summarizing or basically changing the definition of a basement to define it as a story if it's more than three-and-a-half feet above the finish grade instead of four-and-a-half feet as it currently stands in the bylaw. Similar, it will be a similar change of cellars. With attics, we define an attic as a story. If it's ceiling height exceeds seven feet. The story, we insert packs making it height of seven feet or more because it's a habitable in line with the Massachusetts Building Code. We revise the half-story definition to mean space in the roof where half the area is less than seven feet high or less than or equal to seven feet high. Instead of seven feet three inches as it currently stands, we make a similar change in the text of the gross floor area definition. Defining space in an attic that's over seven feet instead of seven feet three inches as applying to the gross floor area calculation. In terms of open space requirements in R0, R1, and R2 zoning districts, we propose to increase the mineral requirement for usable open space to be 40% of gross floor area, not 30% that it currently stands. And then finally, we make three provisions to the parking requirements. We propose planting couplers on side yard paved driveways. We introduce a maximum slope standard of 15% plus or minus on driveways in R0 through R4 districts. And then finally, since it's just a recent change since the last meeting, we propose to allow two driveways of 10 feet width each as well as one driveway of up to 20 feet of width in R0, R1, R2, and R3 zones. There's one more change since the last coming that which was we had talked about including the basement subsurface basements and subsurface garages rather in gross floor area. But after discussing it with the building inspector, we kind of realized that that would affect commercial and mixed use properties as well. Anybody that has parking underneath and we felt like that was something that we didn't want to do. So that was sort of a monotone consequence. We hadn't realized that that was sort of a problem. And also for the board's directions, we prepared amended drawings for you to illustrate these changes. I don't have large drawings of the two joint defective tube curb cuts on duplexes, but I have a smaller drawing that you can review. I made up this actually in a little bit of a second. If you want to see that, I'll show you a little bit. So those are our proposed changes in a lot of stuff. Take questions from the board first. Do you have any comments or recommendations on Ted's presentation? No, I just want to reiterate that a lot of these recommendations or at least looking at the zoning was part of the master plan and the implementation table. Because there were a lot of, there was citizen concern about the size, the massing of a lot of the housing that's going in small lots. And so one of the recommendations was to look at this in more detail. And if there are any comments from the other committee members who are here, Jill Barr, Ann Roy, or Wendy Richter, then they have some comments on this. I would just reiterate what Charlie said, but also that I think in the discussions we had between the last time this was discussed at the ARV and tonight we did look, we listened to the comments that were made to the ARV. We also looked at the proposal that had been made from a group of residents and tried to take into account some of that feedback as much as we could while still sticking to trying to be in spirit of what we heard in developing the master plan and what's in the document. So we tried to sort of pull it all together as well as taking advantage of some of the resources from the staff to update things that were felt to be problematic in there. Wendy? I don't have a comment right now. Ann, I see you. No comment. No. Right over there. Okay. Mike? Yeah, I guess it's as much a process question as anything else. I think the information is great and definitely where the discussion, consideration, and the like. Our job here tonight though, Mr. Chairman, I just want to make sure I understand it correctly, is for the submission of just warrant articles. You know, that this, you know, what we aren't looking, you know, obviously the processes warrant articles go in, you know, we then work with staff on potentially recommended quotes that we, you know, discuss and have a hearing and everything else. That's right. And it's, tonight's meeting is not to have a public hearing. Any discussion on proposed warrant articles will happen at a March 7th meeting. That includes articles from the master plan implementation committee. Right. Articles we intended to propose and any articles that come before us from residents and who have been signed off on the 10 registered voters. This is just to continue and I suppose finalize some of the discussion that's gone on over the last several years. And to make sure we get our placeholders and we're as far as the different discussion points that we want to have. Right. And to the discussion tonight is to be able to craft proposed warrant articles for submission. The way the two conversations intersect though is that the residential zoning article is very, very broad right now. And if we were able to kind of say, yeah, we definitely think we're going to move forward with these. We're not sure about these. We could, we might be able to flesh that one out a little bit. And that something staff would like to do is go beyond what's in looking at what is going on now. And they seem fairly specific actually. Well, the residential one is the most widely mentioned line type of change. Okay. I think, you know, I think it's the board is comfortable with it that way. Yeah. I mean, I mean, I think my own view of warrant articles is to keep them broad so that there are substance that people want to make or whatever else that they won't be too out of scope. That's the way that others want to go about it. I'm assuming that others will probably end up doing their own citizen petitioned articles if they'd like to do something different, but with respect to what's in here. So, so just kind of to that end, we've got the residential one, which is written right now fairly open. So I guess the thought would be that we could put our percentage or something like that in there. The one I should talk about open space or something like that. And my thoughts on that is, once again, I guess I just lean towards more of flexibility as we get into even more discussions and things and everything else. So that would be my comment on that. So I think I'm okay. I don't have any other questions. Okay. Well, I think these changes that you've said before is pretty good. I think it's taken an account of what we've heard so far. I like the fact that we're looking at the second driveway. That's a good thing. I think also understanding the consequence of including the parking garage on the basement and how the broad ramifications. I think that that's a very good thing. And I think everything else was pretty simple that we owe. Well, at least I said you support before. So I think I don't really have any comments on what's here, which increase the area to be counted of the total house. And therefore triggers more setback. Yes, it triggers more usable open space. So the usable open space is a combination. Well, it's a usable open space, but it's also front yard. Well, no, what's happening is the maximum slope of the driveway is pushing the front of the house back. Is this an under? Yes, that's an underground garage. That's the basement garage. Because the basement can only come up three and a half feet, set up four and a half feet with the maximum slope. It's pushing out the driveway high feet in beyond the front setback. Is there one that doesn't have, that's the next one down that doesn't have the underground? Right. That's the side yard drive. So in that one, what's shrinking is purely block coverage? The usable open space. The usable open space? Yes, the increase in the usable open space required to be set aside. Which then pushes you up against the 25 foot? Yes, it pushes the back of the house back. Why is the usable open space always in the back? Well, in this case, it doesn't have to be, but because you're using part of the front yard as parking, you get more usable open space in the back. But you couldn't count any of the usable open space in the front? We check this with the building department, the instructional services department, and the way they interpret the usable open space definition right now, they just count one continuous block of usable open space. Excellent. So you best serve to put it in one block, which comes to the back because you've got a driveway. Right. Correct. So I keep reminding myself each time, this isn't about FAO, there's a secondary metric we're using to change, right? The effect. Yeah, it's about small changes which affect how big a house is, which then affects setbacks, correct, which potentially limit the size of the house. Correct. And what Mike has commented on, I think we can have a discussion about the proposed law and articles now to go in. The idea in further discussion of the specifics of these plans will come in a future meeting. Mike, do you have anything further to say as far as the... No, I think, as I mentioned, I tend towards more general warrant articles, so I like it this way, but I certainly like to hear what the other board members, you know, think about that. I think, you know, as we listen to things, I always hate for things to be out of scope and for things that they don't need to be out of scope. This is really the right way to... I think I agree as well. I think there still is some work to be done. I think another public hearing is worthwhile on some of these actual proposed changes, but again, that's to come on March 7th when things are finalized and to be held at a public hearing. So as far as these particular warrant articles go, at least as far as the residential zoning changes, I think we're satisfied with what you know. Can I just... One more thing I want to hear your opinion on. So we have basically... We've separated out the parking changes, but other than the parking changes, we have all of the residential changes in one article right here. We could have more than one article and separate out the definitions, the open space, the parking is out, but we could separate it further, or we could just do it as one. What do you think the advantage to separating it out would be? I mean, I think when you tend to do that, I'll just give you... Once again, my take is it can make the town meeting consideration a little choppy, versus kind of dealing with it all in one. Not that the moderator can't take a couple articles together or what have you, but I know in the past like some... For instance, on when we were doing high school signage and stuff like that, not that anything ever came of it, but I think we did that all in one article, even though it was taking bits and pieces to all sorts of different parts of the bylaw. I guess the only thing I can think of is that the definition changes are tinkering, and the open space requirement change is a little bigger and could be a little more controversial, so we could lose all of it if we can't pass the useful open space change. On the other hand, maybe we want to have a little ball or nothing. Okay, I see what you're saying. So you're saying, essentially, have a warrant article talking about to change definitions of the bylaw and basically crib the exact same language that's in here. You could almost do that, right? And then underneath it, you say to change the open space requirements of the bylaw, blah, blah, blah, you know, to encourage responsible new residential development. You could actually... But aren't you going to go through a potential adjustment to please as you define the actual... Yeah. Yeah. ...to terminating? I mean, I think what Laura is saying is that the definitions stand alone. Can stand on their own? I think so. And the open space can stand on their own? Yeah. I think that makes some sense. I think that makes some sense. What about the parking? That's already set. That's already set. Yeah, I think I'd prefer for them to be separating definitions of open space and parking. I think if open space had a bylaw... I see what you're saying. ...to make one more warrant article. And I think you're... Yeah, I think we can do it right here and right now. Sure. Bruce, we're here. We'd be able to write it up more eloquently than... Yeah. I mean, the other thing is people get zoning fatigue between five and 10%. We'll try to put it in the order of importance. That is true. Thank you. But it is what it is. It's trying to decide in January what April and May are going to look like. And to be honest with you, with respect to that, oftentimes the moderator will put them together even though they'll have separate quotes. So you could debate them together as far as fatigue is concerned. So I think what we're talking about is making article D now article E and changing article C to say, to see if the town will go to amend the definitions set forth in the zoning bylaw to encourage response on your zone, put in a limit of changes. And then get rid of including but not limited to. In D. I'm sorry, in C. Does it go in D? Oh, do you put the definitions after the change? So I think what I was thinking about saying was zoning bylaw... C would be the definitions. Right, C would be the definitions. D would be the open space requirement. Correct. E would be as it is. That's what D was. Right, so... So we're adding one. C could be... C could really stand... C could stay alone. I see what you're saying. In your adding article D that says to see if the town will go to amend the definitions of the zoning bylaw to encourage responsible new residential development, semi-colon, or take any action related there. Is it going to be certain definitions? Certain definitions. Yeah, yeah. Okay. And you don't think you have to call out all the definitions that you're going to change? No. I doubt you, because that'll be... But you want to start with the definitions of C and then out of D. D is the... Is what C is. Yeah, C is now D. Yeah, and then you add a C. U, D. Yeah. Parking. Yeah. Yeah. I don't think it's necessary, because you could do like an A and a B, but still, I think it's fine if... I think one of the problems... It's kind of strange that all three of those will have the same title to them. It's almost like you want to say zoning bylaw and then presidential zoning changes. Dash definitions. Yes, yeah, definitely. Dash definitions. The second one is dash open space. Well, we got it including, but not limited to there. So, I would just say, because it could be something other than open space in the end, that's kind of the catch on one. Well, right now it's not even... Yeah, I mean we really did... You just, okay, so open space. Quite a bit. Okay, so let's do definitions. Perceive. Alright, I'm trying. So definitions, percieve. Dash definitions. Dash open space. Which will now be D. Which will now be... And then E. And then E. And then E. And then E. And then E. And then E. And then E. And then E. And then E. And then E. And then E. And then E. And then all under C. And then go any... Dash definitions. Dash open space. Dash parking. They each have their own. So C, D, and E. Right, exactly. So adding a C. They're all the same preface. So C is doing by law a minute of them. Exactly, same thing. Dash. Dash. Oh, you're changing the title. Oh, you're changing the title. Okay, fill it up. Yeah, that's just the title. Because I thought it was kind of weird that they don't have the same definition. Yeah. I mean, the same title. They need a better nickname. Exactly. Okay. And then this art we'll see will be almost the exact same. But it will say, see if the town will go to amend the deaf, certain definitions in the zoning by law to encourage responsible new residential for all applicable residential districts. I agree. Okay. Yeah. So when the warrant is set they'll be numbered one to five, or five to ten. Yeah. I gave them letters so we wouldn't get good with that. Exactly. Because we don't know what the numbers will be. Got it. Okay. So do you have enough for the minutes and to record it? Yes. So I'll move to approve the request of the redevelopment board to insert five articles A through B. Well, actually before we go, should we review A and B? Oh, yeah. Okay. Article A is. Is it possible to get a copy of what you're looking at? Yeah. It's here. It's here. There's plenty of copies here. Yeah. We can't really do that. Yeah, right. My arm's on a line. Article A is the Zoning By-law Amendment for mixed utilization of industrial zones. To see if a town will vote to amend the Zoning By-law to revitalize business and industrial zone districts by altering and expanding definitions to include mixed use, include new industries and allow mixed use in all business and industrial zones, and to further modify the national regulations for mixed use development to B2, B2A, B3, B4, B5 industrial districts, or take any of this action related to the underlying articles, the underlying ideas here will be presented Monday night at our meeting, which will be held in the Senate Seater Center. That's right. Ground floor. We will have an in-depth discussion of those in presentation at that point. I'm constrained to have these in my tomorrow. I think A is sufficiently vague. Not broad to give us some wiggle room depending on what happens. Monday. Again, further tinkering of the actual articles can happen after the facts until the public hearing on March 7th. Yeah, I'm okay with Article A. I'm okay with it too. Article B is the Zoning By-law Amendment for parking in business, industrial, multi-family residential zones to see if the town will vote to amend the Zoning By-law to facilitate an incentivized development by allowing a reduction of parking requirements in R5, R6, business and industrial zones by special permit, or accompanied by an accepted plan to manage transportation demand to be defined in the by-laws' transportation demand management or take any action related there, too. So, quite your problem, AMB. Just so I can make sure that I don't want to get into the details of any staff recommendations or anything else, I'm just trying to figure out. Do we think A is sufficiently broad to deal with mixed-use parking and the changing of that parking? Or is that what this one is supposed to do? And why is it only R5 and R6 then? It's in multi-family residential and commercial only. It's not meant to deal with residential parking. Oh, business and industrial. Okay, business and industrial zones. Okay. I got it. The intent is that it should be on the commercial corridors, not in the neighborhoods for this transit. That's one of the reasons why the commercial corridors work better for reducing parking. So, just purely from a consistency perspective, so you didn't go with the same language above with respect to business and industrial zones, but actually laid out B2, 3, B5? Is that just because B1 isn't in there? Yeah. Do you want to make sure that B1 wasn't touched? And the other thing I guess I'd say is you say zones in the first thing, you say districts in the second. That's a good question. Yeah. Should we consider business and industrial zones? I think just from a consistency say, because I look at that, I see them all, and that's why I actually didn't notice it said non-below business and industrial zones. Because I was looking for the actual zones. The changes for the B1 are written. And I think that makes a ton of sense. So I'm not trying to scoop it in. I'm just doing it from a pure consistency standpoint. Because it reads better. Yeah, it does. So changing A to now say mixed use development in the business and industrial zones. Yeah, at the bottom there. Right? Yeah, right here. Business and industrial zones. And then you go, can you list them? Is that what you're doing? No. We'll just say business and industrial zones. Oh, you won't put all of them. Got it. And then in this one. Yeah, you can. Yeah, he was trying to correlate them. He was trying to match the language. And we called out our five and our six because it was in our four. Yeah, no, that's fine. No, no problem with that. This one gets all the districts taken out but this one remains. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Andy? Yes. Okay. To approve articles A through E as a request of the redevelopment board to include in the warrant. In the warrant. As amended. As amended. Thank you. No second. All in favor. Aye. Aye. Thank you. Thanks. Again, the deeper discussion of the mixed use amendments will take place Monday night in the senior center meeting again at that point. It's appropriate time to move on to our next agenda item which is a schedule of our upcoming meetings. So I guess we're going to do a look at this. Please go ahead. Schedules a meeting Monday. February we have not, we've had some having agenda yet. We may want to have one more. I don't know if you can project right now or if you want to schedule another meeting before we get to March 7th public hearing. And I think we can't decide if it makes use till we see what happens Monday. But since I think a lot of people here are interested in the residential and a bunch of people just left who are interested in the residential. Do we want to schedule another meeting in March? I'm sorry. Can you just go through the schedule? So obviously the first, that's easy. We have already stated that's for to talk about next year's. So you've got eight in the 22nd just as placeholders. Those are scheduled to run the calendar. We have the room, but we haven't we don't have an agenda yet. For all the items. Or are you trying to tick off different parties? I'm thinking it'll be mostly warrant articles. Yeah, but here you're just doing mixed use. Right. The ones you're not designating. That's right. All of them. Do we know whether there are any special permits on the horizon or other major issues? So in Monday's meeting, just mixed use, not parking. And parking, yes. Okay. So we've covered. Not residential parking. Not residential parking. No, I get it. We've done residential. We've done residential. These are the next two. So these are A and B, and we've done CD. I guess I feel like we need to. Then maybe we'll review them all. Well on March 7th is the public hearing. Right. So. Yeah, I'm going to have trouble on February 22nd probably because that's the CPA. That's the day the CPA receives all the products. I think we've got a meeting that night to discuss them. So frankly, I'm probably not going to want to miss that. So I might have, I need to take a look and I can confirm with you. But I think that one might be, that might be in between two. Mm-hmm. I mean, maybe you, maybe feel ready to go with what we have. And then, then you could just. Well, we have the public hearing scheduled. We do have a public hearing scheduled. Yeah. That really is the time for broad discussion of what's out there unless there are any further changes. Well, is the time, is the thought that, okay. Yeah, I guess, I guess one more talk amongst the board about the red line changes. You know, or the recommended of staff, you know, before we go into that hearing. So that would maybe we're as familiar as possible with it. Okay. As questions come up. Yeah. On both. I mean, maybe, maybe for the 29th, could be either the vote. I think could be a meeting and could just kind of run through with staff's recommendations. You know, of course, once again, we've got a hearing. And then, I don't think our expectation probably to vote that night on it. No, we won't vote until the following meeting. The following meeting, which we can still discuss. Right. And consider. So, but I, it does seem like if there's going to be some type of straw man out there, you know, as the potential changes for that public hearing for people to react to. Right. Are there, is there an MPIC meeting in there somewhere? Not scheduled, but we had said that we would schedule one after you guys decided you're scheduled. Especially on the mixed use that they would make a recommendation. How extensive is the mixed use changes? There's a lot, there's a lot of definitions that are added because there's some, first of all, mixed use isn't defined. Then also, we're adding some new industries, some sort of artisanal type. Fabrication. Fabrication. Right. Then there's, we're allowing more FAR, increasing the FAR, that's allowed. And in some cases, increasing the number of stories, but not in every zone. And then, then there's the parking. Right. The key thing is, it's not huge. We're increasing if there are mainly four parcels that are 20,000 square feet or less. Not for large, large parcels. I think we'll need at least one more meeting to discuss the outcome of Monday's meeting, but then any potential further residential thoughts we might have either as changes are made or we have a chance to digest things a little bit more. Mm-hmm. I think, you know, there are people who have, well, those people that just left came because they had something to say, I think. Yeah. So it's better to know before the hearing, I think, than to have it all come out of the hearing. Well, although maybe it's nothing new that we haven't heard of it. Let's schedule all four. Okay. I never know until I hear. Right. But isn't that what the hearing's for? Yeah. Yeah, I mean, that's... Yes. And you don't have to decide at the hearing. No. You don't decide until two weeks after that. Yeah, right. Oh, no, that's... I think oftentimes, you know, for me, that is the time for everyone to come forward and speak their piece. Because the other part of that too is everyone gets to hear everyone else at the same time. Mm-hmm. Which I think is helpful. Mm-hmm. All right. Um, so what do we want? No, I'll take the board's input on this. So we want to have a meeting on the 29th to do a final refresher on some of the changes coming in before we have the hearing on everything. I always wanted my birthday to be on the 29th of February. Really? It's a bonus day. It wouldn't have been every four years to just have a crazy part. We can hold it in reserve. Everybody put it in your schedule and if we need it, we'll do it. Let's do that. And I'm sorry, are we meeting on the 8th then too? Only if you decide on the first that you want to. Uh, let's hold it and then we can decide. So both the 8th and the 29th are holding? Yeah, yeah. But we won't meet on the 22nd. We won't meet on the 22nd. Feel free. I just think I'm going to be stretched on the other ones. No, we'll not meet on the 22nd. We'll hold both the 8th and the 29th. Okay. The idea that we'll only meet on the other ones. We'll see. Yeah. Well, we can have this discussion again on Monday. I'm sure we will. Correspondents, received the letter to the zoning board of appeals from that Andrew, from Andrew commented on 20 Westminster. That was just a summary of our meeting. Discussion. There was a letter from Mark Lessis of a broker who had contacted me after the last meeting. He had heard about the meeting, but wasn't able to come. And he wasn't able to come tonight, so I suggested that he write you a letter, which he did. And then that's all for the correspondence. Okay. Noted. I think we just got the minutes January 11th at night. Oh, yeah. I emailed them too, but if you're not ready, we can do that on Monday. Well, I haven't read it yet. Okay. We won't have we won't have tonight's minutes ready for Monday night. Do you need me to send them again? They're in this time. No, I'm fine. I'm fine. In front of me and I was in here. So any new business, other business that you've discussed? All right. I'll look. Are we on something? I'll move to adjourn. Second. All in favor. All right. Thank you.