 I'm Jennifer Raid. I'm the director of planning and community development for the town of Arlington. Welcome to everybody for being here tonight. I'm still not loud enough. That sounds a lot better. You're right. Let me start again. Welcome. Thank you for coming here tonight. I'm Jennifer Raid. I'm the director of planning and community development for the town of Arlington. Really appreciate you all coming out this evening. I also wanna say recognize my staff, Ted Fields, and Laura Wiener, and Joey Gleshko, and anybody else? No. And so the Arlington Redevelopment Board is also here. Maybe you could stand. If you wanna introduce yourselves, just your names. Sure. Andrew Bonnell, chair of the Redevelopment Board. To the law. It might be him. And then members from, oh, and, from the Redevelopment Board. Hello. Sorry. Andy West. And the Master Plan Implementation Committee. I know some of you are here. If you're here, if you could stand up and say your names. One name. Probably the last one. No, chair. Four more. All right. Great. Thank you. So this is, as you can see, a forum that is co-hosted by these three groups. And tonight the mission is to talk about the Zoning War in Articles six through 10. And all of you have already read my PowerPoint. I know that. So, so bear with me. I am going to, this is a little bit of an educational informational forum. And it's also an opportunity for you to ask us questions. My staff are here to answer a number of technical questions that you might have. I'm going to walk through everything. As you can see, here's the agenda for the evening, which included the welcome and the introductions. We've covered that. The overview of planning and the planning process in Arlington, we're gonna talk about that just so that if you're not familiar with what we're doing here in the planning office or the redevelopment board or anybody else who touches the planning land in Arlington, I'm gonna tell you just a little bit about that, just a wee bit. And then also just tell you about sort of the origin of why we're here tonight. Well, why we're here to talk about the Zoning War in Articles tonight. So, and then I'm going to review the Zoning War in Articles just six through 10. And there will be time for Q and A. Everybody on that same page? Anybody think they're not in the right room? No. All right, so here's a very simplified version of zoning for Arlington. The zoning bylaw is a very long document. I'm digesting it for you in a very simplistic way, but in a way that I hope is easy to understand, which is the purpose. What is the purpose of zoning? Why are we talking about zoning in Arlington? There's a lot of zoning that you're going to hear about, particularly at town meeting when it starts. We realize that that's not just the zoning war in Articles that are being heard tonight. So it's important for you to understand what is zoning and why are we talking about it. Some of you might think, oh, I understand it, I don't need this, so that's fine. But I know not everybody's on the same page and it's helpful to get everybody on the same ground. So the purpose of the zoning bylaw in Arlington is quite lengthy and has some very clear purpose. The first thing that I'd say is the most important thing in the zoning bylaw in Arlington is about health and safety. The importance of health and safety is the underpinning of most zoning bylaws across the country. You want to make sure that you're understanding the uses, that you're separating the uses and you're protecting public safety. Appropriate review and quality standards are also a major part of our zoning bylaw. How we review the projects that go in and what standards we use to measure them up that says this is the right thing for Arlington. So those three items that you can see on the top are the most important things. The other important elements of the purpose of the zoning for Arlington are the items listed below. They include economic development, housing, having access to services and amenities and also the importance of quality of life, which I think we all can relate to. So the background of planning in Arlington is much like the background of planning in any municipality in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. It's governed by Chapter 40A, which is the State Zoning Enabling Act. Not gonna talk a great deal about 40A, but I just want you to know that there is a State Zoning Enabling Act. Then Arlington has its own zoning bylaw, its own zoning map. We also have an extensive table of uses, table of dimensional and density regulations. We have a whole set of conditions about parking and how you can load and unload vehicles. We also have other requirements in the town that many of you might be familiar with, including historical properties and historic districts. And then there's other separate local bylaws, including things that address important wetlands or conservation issues that we care a lot about. And those can be special local bylaws that are also applied during the planning process and signage you can see here. So the Arlington Redevelopment Board is a five member board. There are four members right now currently. We're missing one member because we do not have a gubernatorial appointee at the moment, but the four members that are here are appointed by the selectman. The other one is a gubernatorial appointee, Designee, and they have three separate authorities. The first one is as a redevelopment agency, hence the Redevelopment Board. So as a redevelopment agency, there are pretty extensive functions and powers, but they mostly operate as a planning board. A typical planning board has the purview of reviewing local special permits, zoning that's coming before the board, projects, project review, environmental design review, and other items, and then a board of survey. So they have three very important functions for the town. We are the staff to the Arlington Redevelopment Board, the Department of Planning and Community Development. So just to make that clear, we're also a 13 member agency department. Not sure how many people realize the number of staff you probably often see four of us a lot, maybe five, but we actually have 13 members. It includes members who do housing rehabilitation activities, people who monitor buildings on behalf of the redevelopment authority, the conservation administrator, and the other planners that you've seen here tonight. And we also are assisting multiple town committees. And we have the authority to function in the way that we are tonight, which is to help to adopt zoning amendments. And through that, there are multiple mass general laws that govern how you can adopt zoning amendments that are included up here on the screen and in the handout. The way that we do that is you, first you have to initiate an amendment, and actually a lot of different entities can initiate a zoning amendment. You obviously know about two of them because you know about the Arlington Redevelopment Board and then there are 10 registered voters who also initiated a number of zoning amendments, but others can also choose to initiate zoning amendments under the state laws that are listed above. That includes regional planning agencies, that's Metropolitan Area Planning Council. It could also be a property owner who happens to be affected by a potential zoning change or an outcome of zoning and the zoning board of appeals and the selectmen. So there are others that can initiate these things. Once it's initiated, then it goes through a process of being heard, and that's the posting of the warrant, the provision of notice, notification to people to participate and understand more about it, the holding of the public hearing, in the case of the ARB, the public hearing that we held was on March 21st, and then the affirmative vote potentially by town meeting. In the case of this town meeting, because you need two thirds, so that number is 168 voters would have to say yes to the zoning warrant articles, any of them in order for something to pass. And then the next step is, of course, it going to the attorney general for review so that it may be approved by them and included therefore in the zoning bylaw. So before I, I'm gonna pause for a second to see if anybody has a question about what is zoning, the background of planning in Arlington, my department, the redevelopment board, or any of the other things, the aforementioned items. If not, then I'm gonna move on to the zoning warrant articles because that's why we're here, right? So the zoning warrant articles six through 10, they include the things that are listed on the screen. Basically, there are four items. I realize that there's a lot of pages for only four items, but it's really, we are really only doing four things. We are proposing to make revisions to the zoning bylaws table of uses. We are also proposing to make revision to the table of dimensional and density regulations, the definitions section, and off-street parking for both residential and commercial districts. So why are we doing this? We are hoping to make these regulatory changes to address the Arlington master plan strategic goals and recommendations. How many of you have read or looked at or seen the Arlington master plan? A lot of you, not all of you. Do we have any other, do we have copies still? We have a lot of copies. We're gonna bring them here. So you have a copy if you didn't raise your hand. If you want one, if you like reading it online, that's totally cool. But this is what the Arlington master plan looks like. My understanding is that 75% of town meeting voted affirmatively to adopt the Arlington master plan last town meeting. And so as a result of that, we have been trying to work towards advancing a number of recommendations in that plan. So that includes the first thing that's on the screen, which is unlocking the development potential of business-owned land, providing opportunities to meet, play and grow in Arlington, making sound, fiscal planning and also realistic choices, enhancing flexibility in the business districts to promote development of higher value mixed use properties and promoting vibrant attractive commercial centers and control the size and the scope of development in existing residential neighborhoods. Now, with a master plan, master plans do not traditionally get that prescriptive. They don't say, well, what exactly does that mean? How are you going to unlock the potential of the district? How are you going to protect and control the scale of development? That's the next step in the implementation process. So the master plan does not say specific things about the zoning warrant articles that I'm about to tell you about. So the origin of those changes there before comes from a number of different things. The first and foremost item is the experience working with the zoning bylaw. And so another question for you. Who here has had any experience working with the zoning bylaw, just if you had to do work on your house or? So some of you, some of you. So we at the staff, the redevelopment board, the number of the members of the master plan implementation committee have all had a lot of experience working with the zoning bylaw. And we've also talked with people who've had a lot of experience working with that zoning bylaw. So that's, I would say, the first and foremost underpinning of the origin of these changes. And then it's followed by a number of planning processes. Some of you may recall, and this predates the master plan, there were a number of studies conducted by Larry Koff and associates that relate to economic development and the importance of commercial revitalization for the town of Arlington. And they were successive studies about that. So I've just put the collective one on the screen here and in the handout, which is the vision and master plan for commercial revitalization, which was completed in 2010. So that was number one. Number two is sort of, there's four items that all kind of go together because they're all collectively part of the master plan but they were individual processes through the master plan. So the first being the visual preference survey. There was a visual preference survey conducted as part of a number of engaging sessions when the master plan was being put together. And at one of those sessions, a poll was conducted where people could see a photograph on a screen and say, a question was posed like, do you believe that such a property is the appropriate scale of development in a particular district? So that, for example, and people could vote using probably keypad polling with yes or no or I'm not sure, I'm not sure what you used at the time. Was it keypads? Maybe, hands, hand raising, keypads? It was keypads. Okay, usually it's keypads. So you voted on those things. And so it was a poll to determine how people felt about different scales of development. And overarchingly I would say that people supported greater density in commercial districts and they also felt strongly about protections in neighborhoods. So the visual preference survey is an important item that's part of the origin of these changes. Also community feedback throughout the master plan process. And again, I mentioned there were a number of different activities that were conducted over a two year period with the master plan. Lot of feedback on these were only focused on two items tonight, which is the things that are related to items, articles six through 10. So that community feedback was important as well. There was also a zoning audit that was conducted through the master plan, which was very helpful. And of course the recommendations. And then more recently a residential parking analysis. So the master plan, which is now being brought in by Laura, is a document that has a lot of recommendations meant to be implemented over a long term period. This is 15 to 20 years that we're talking about. So we're not doing everything all at once. We're doing the things that we can do. And we're doing them, I think, very efficiently in the past really only the last six months that things have really gotten kicked off and started. And that began with the establishment of a master plan implementation committee, which is a 10 member committee appointed by the board of select men. You saw three or four of the members, I believe one walked in this evening. And so far these are just, this is a sampling of some of the things that the master plan has helped to move forward. The adoption of a complete streets policy just the other evening, commercial district design standards, implementation of the CPA funding process, work that's been started on a housing production plan, implementing Arlington Center parking management study and helping to amend the zoning bylaw. The amendments to the zoning bylaw that are talked about in the master plan are very extensive. We as a group collectively over the months that this process has been going on have chosen to focus on the five ones that you'll now hear about. So article six, article six deals with mixed use. Most of you know that mixed use, the mixing of uses is an important vital component of the commercial corridors along Massachusetts Avenue and Broadway in Arlington. And we want to make sure that it continues to be a vibrant place where we can see greater development and we can also continue to add new uses and also think about things that could happen in terms of multifamily housing and mixing uses that are currently not allowed or are difficult to mix in the commercial business districts throughout town. So that is the main component of article six. And article six would go through a special permit process. This is not by right. This would have any development, new development would have review by the Arlington Redevelopment Board through our environmental design review. So it would not be an automatic that something would change or that something would look different or that something would grow to a height that we do not want. So that process would still remain. So that's a little bit about article six. There are two new uses that are proposed. I realize that again, all of these zoning articles have extensive pages of things but the article six includes the addition of two new uses. We have artistic and creative uses added as well as artisanal fabrication and which includes software studios, application developers, collaborative office research space, basically spaces that we know is current for the century that we're in and current to the economy that we're in and we want to encourage those types of uses. We want people to come to Arlington to be able to have those kinds of businesses and to be able to use their space in a way that creates that kind of vibrancy and dynamic. And we want them to also frequent other businesses, frankly, when they come into our commercial areas. So those are main components of article six. Article seven is a bit of a companion but is a separate article about parking. Based upon the parking analysis that we conducted using Metropolitan Area Planning Council, we determined that we could potentially reduce parking in the commercial district. So amending the off-street parking and loading regulations to establish lower parking ratios that would actually reflect the parking need and demand along those corridors. Again, Mass Ave as well as Broadway and in industrial areas and multifamily districts. And that would mean that we're offering that as an option. So if a developer said we would like to provide alternatives to parking, we don't want to go to that ratio. We say, well, you can try transportation demand management or other options that again, in this, what in today's world, more people are looking for other modes of transportation. And so if you do that, then you can potentially get a reduction in the parking requirement. So that's the incentives to have fewer cars on the road, which I think we would all welcome here in Arlington. So now on to the residential zoning requirements. We have article eight and we have a diagram. So the diagram is simply showing you and hopefully it's easy to read. I know it's in black and white, but hopefully it's easy to see what's being proposed here. There are two facets to this particular article. So again, amending definitions. There are five or sorry, three, five, six, I can count. Six amendments proposed. Basements, sellers, story, half story and attic. That's five. We have to make these amendments for one reason, which is to align with the state building code. That's the piece in the top, which says to seven foot three inches to seven feet. That aligns with the state building code. The other amendment, which addresses the basement and sellers is the idea here is to lower the seller, I'm sorry, a basement seller, less than four feet six inches above grade, technically leads to two and a half stories being built above that basement seller. And it's not considered a full story under our bylaw. So if we make that change, this proposed amendment, then technically only one and a half stories could be built above that basement or seller if it's considered a story. And in this proposal, we are saying that the basement with these changes would technically be considered a story. So this is again, to get at some of the concerns that we've heard and be as responsive as we can by also being, but also being reasonable about it, responsive to some of the concerns about neighborhood growth and development. So the house on the left is the house that's built under current zoning and the house on the right is the proposed, under the proposed article eight. I'm gonna hold the questions till the end, please. So article nine, article nine is amending the table of density and dimensional regulations to encourage responsible new development in residential zones, which would reduce the maximum size of new homes and existing homes with large additions by approximately five to 17% and increasing the open space requirements. And that's a range. It's not necessarily going to be five up to 17%, that's if you have a two family. So you, I'm giving you the whole range of possibilities. And if you go through, again, all these pages of the table, you'll see that change happen depending upon which type of home you're proposing to make an addition to or to build. So again, the house on the left is the house that's built under the current zoning and the house on the right is the house that would be built under the proposed zoning. And for this one, we've got attics that are considered half stories if they are less than half the area under the roof, I'm sorry, wrong one, open space requirement. Currently is measured in relation to the gross floor area. And that means that right now what's required is 30% open space. We're proposing that it goes to 35% open space. You can see the required usable open space change, which then could potentially have an impact on the required overall floor-to-area ratio. Does anybody know what a floor-to-area ratio is? Seriously, yes. Would you like to answer? Over the lots of eyes, right. So that's the difference between the two, the division of the two, and that produces the FAR. And so many of us who have seen what's been happening in Arlington observe that the FAR is changing, and particularly in some districts. So this gets at potentially a slight reduction in that FAR, that coverage. Next one, article 10. Amending the off-street parking and loading regulations to require maximum, rather than the minimum, slope of 15% to maintain safe egress. And so for this one, this is changing basically the grade of a driveway. And when you change the grade of the driveway by what's shown here, what's happening is people are going to have to potentially move the house back on the lot. The setback would change, and there's a required front yard setback right now on any lot. It would move back, we estimate by about five feet to the sidewalk, I'm sorry, the house to the sidewalk changes by about five feet. And then again, thereby potentially reducing the overall floor-to-area ratio, or the amount that is occupied, the density of that lot. So you can see the change. The one on the left is the one under current zoning, and the one on the right is the proposed zoning. Limiting the driveway grades. And part of this is also in response to the, again, another condition in Arlington, which is the slope of some of the new driveways being built in certain parts of town, where you see the two garage doors and the very steep driveway. So this slide is now showing you basically the collective impact of articles eight through 10. Showing you what everything would look like if put all together could potentially address some of the concerns that have been raised about protecting our neighborhoods in Arlington and protecting the character and the scale of growth. So again, merged all together for you, for your viewing pleasure. And with a view of something, a conditions that could include a house with a dormer, a house with what may look like three stories, but may look like four stories to somebody else. And what also looks like a garage under the home. And again, everything altogether, reducing the overall percentage by about 6% of the total home being built on a lot. So I believe that covers all of the zoning warrant articles. So quick review, first two zoning warrant articles. Article six is about mixed use. Article seven is about parking reductions in relation to parking demand and need. And article eight looks at the basement, the seller, and the story and the attic issue. Article nine is talking about dimensional and density regulations related to the size and scale. And then lastly, we talked about the driveways and the grade. To have the overall impact of potentially reducing the scale of new homes. So now, questions. And I'm actually gonna ask my staff to come up here. Because they're gonna help with some questions. So yes, I know you had your hand up first for a while. I'm sorry, I don't know your name. I don't. You presented that in the context of new construction. How does that affect renovations to existing houses? Particularly with impact to the elevation change for the basement. How does article eight affect existing homes building additions, is that fair to say? Especially the change in the basement. Who wants to take that? If for additions and changes built after, let's say article eight passes, they're built afterwards, then the provisions of article eight would apply to those additions or changes. So does that mean? Actually, and Chris, we have two other answers. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. We are going to answer questions. Yes. I'm just trying to take the long hand. So we have plans to finish our existing basement. So if I have an existing basement, and I'm going to finish the existing basement, how does this impact that? So your basement is not finished right now. It would, if article eight passes, then the amount that your basement sticks up out of the ground would be reduced from four and a half feet to three and a half feet. Without looking at the specifics of what you want to do, it's very hard to say exactly how the article would affect you. So despite the fact that you're presenting this in a company's view, it's not that it's view, construction, like a new house gets renovations and that's what you're standing for. Yeah, let me try to straighten one thing out though. Finishing or not finishing your basement doesn't affect anything. This is simply a dimensional requirement. So if that basement existed right now and it's four feet, six inches, as an average around, then it's actually going to affect going up. It's not going to affect what you do with that basement. You can do whatever you want with that basement. It's just whether it's considered a story if you decided then to go up. If you were to add on to the top of your house, that's what it would come into effect. What if I put an addition out the back? Then these rules would come into play depending on how you would go into the ground, how much would come out of the ground and the overall height of your building. But your existing basement already exists. Your house is in place. Finishing it won't make a difference. It's if you want to build on top of the house, the overall height of the house is what we're concerned with here and what this affects. So there was actually, you had your hand up at one point. Should we do a hand up? I'd like to continue this conversation. I have a question. Sorry, okay. There are a lot of hands, so how many hands are up? Okay, I'm going to go right here, Steve. There is, I actually have two questions. I actually have two questions. One, regarding the definitions. I know you mentioned the change from 73 to seven feet and the attic was meant to apply with state building codes. So in my case, the definitional change that would matter most would be the height of a basement just because I happen to live on a little hill and it's drive around back parking. So I just out of curiosity looked to see what the state's definition of a basement is. Now they measured a little differently. So where we use the average grade to the ceiling of the basement, they use grade to the finished floor above the ceiling of the basement. But they use a measurement, they're cut off as six feet, which would be, I guess, about five if you went from, you know, ceiling to floor of, or yeah, from the ceiling to the finished grade. So one question is, you know, I can understand why you changed one, you were altering one definition to comply with state law, but on the other hand, changing another definition so that it moves farther away. My second question is from what I understand, house that was made non-compliant by, say, the passage of Article 8, a homeowner could still potentially do renovations if they were to file a special permit, is that correct? So we're not the zoning enforcement officer. We don't enforce the zoning. So if you're asking questions about zoning enforcement, okay, well, we're not zoning enforcement officers. The answer, so excuse me, one second. So I'm Rick Valarelli, one of the building inspectors, probably one of the most popular questions we get asked is to do some additional space in the attic. So I'm gonna go back to the first question. So the first thing we ask when a person comes into the building department, a lot of requests for attic renovations in two family houses, for example. What's the exposure of your basement in relationship to the underside of the floor joys to the finished grade below? If he's got an exposure greater than four feet, six inches, and more than half of the perimeter of that house, that basement is already a story. He needs to go to the zoning board of appeals for a special permit because he's already maxed out, he's got nowhere to go, he needs special permission. It's a permit that we cannot give by right. Does that answer your question? So the proposed change drops that from four foot six to three foot six. It's an individual case, it all depends on your property. And Steve, I think we did some elevations. We are property. Yes, I guess I'm just above, I'm safe by about an inch or two. Right, so let me just elaborate just for once. So if it's close, we ask for more documentation from a survey or an engineer, anything that will help us determine whether that basement is or is not a story. So the proposal here is to drop that from four foot six to three foot six. So may I finish my second question? So regarding special permits, from what I had spoken with the folks in the building department, and from what I understand there were 25 knockdowns in Arlington last year, and about 117 residential additions. So for, now I also looked at the number of dockets that the zoning board of appeals has heard. And according to their agendas for 2015 at least, they had, they heard a total of 17 different cases. So what I'm, one of my, just one thing I'm curious about is if there are a number of houses made non-compliant and the owners have to seek out special permits, how will this affect the workload of the ZBA? Well, it's gonna increase it tremendously. Okay, thank you. Okay, yeah. Thank you. Appreciate that. Okay, John, I'm gonna actually get the other mic. Thank you. Okay, you're welcome. I'm gonna go over here. John has a question. Thank you. It's not actually a question. It's a clarification or something that, well it is kind of a question. And the question is, why don't you propose a further amendment to your article eight that says, to simply says this basement, new basement requirement, which is for new buildings an excellent idea, will not apply to buildings built before January 1st, 2016, 2016. That solves the problem this gentleman was worried about. And in our little zoning group, and we put forth the other articles that I guess you're not gonna talk about tonight, the real reforms of the zoning problem. We talked about this extensively and there's a lot of hills in Arlington and there's a lot of folks who have, not these monstrosities, 92% FARs, but nice little houses, they're on a hill and they've got a basement exposure that is more than three, six. And maybe it's five feet on one side and six inches on the other, but it averages out. So they really should be exempt. It's not, I don't think you should change the rules for them in midstream and make them go and get a very insurmountable permit or something. Now, and so I would encourage you to do that. Okay. We appreciate the input. I also, I have some questions about, I know your favorite thing, mixed use. I have three questions about it actually. One, now, Ms. Rait was not here, but Ms. Weiner was, three, four years ago, you brought forward a mixed use proposal and is exposed in town meeting as a Trojan horse to bring in a lot of residential development. Is this materially different because I cannot find in it any requirement that any particular part of these new buildings would be devoted to commercial uses? The amendment as written does not require a percentage that has to be retail or commercial. And the reason for that was in discussions that we had with other communities, we, everyone encouraged us to keep it as flexible as possible. However, since it is a special permit use, the ARB would have some discretion over that and would be able to decide if it was appropriate for the location. So it could be one little shop and 98% apartments if they thought it was appropriate. I think in listening to the board's deliberation of this article, they have every intent to make sure that they're in any mixed use project that comes before them for a special permit that they would have a sizable and robust commercial element and not just a token commercial element. But it doesn't say that in the law. Right. We know what you say these guys think, what's the next lot gonna think when these people are gone? That I cannot answer. And that's why we have a government of laws, not of men. Now, there are a lot of vacant storefronts in Arlington. You must know that as the economic development coordinator, particularly around the center. Have you any studies, any indication that building these new buildings with a lot of flats on top of the shops is there gonna be demand for all these new shops? The experience from other communities is that mixed use development helps create demand for commercial uses that are part of the mixed use developments. Are gonna go downstairs and buy their whatever's. All right, third question. Suppose some developer who wants to do one of these things, and by the way, I think 60 feet is too high for East Arlington. The capital height is about what it should be. But does one of these things somewhere and there's a row of single story 1920 shops like there is up to the center and he buys these and knocks them down. What happens to the little people who are in there running a business and three years later, they say, well, you can come back and we'll rent you a smaller space for twice as much money. How's that gonna work for those folks who are already giving us service and goods and so on in Arlington? It's very speculative. Yeah, that's very speculative. That's very hard to. So actually, let me go to the back, I'm sorry. I know there's a lot of questions, so I'm gonna make my way back here. Hi, I was just wondering if we could go back to the finishing of basement and or existing attic space with Article 8. So I think we're in a similar situation where we have a home that was built in 1930 on a hill. Our basement's a walkout. We have a walkup attic that we had plans on renovating and we wanna really understand how this will impact the ability to do that. Either one of you wanna take the question. So your question was how will Article 8 impact your ability to, your basement is currently not finished or it's not a walkout basement? It's a walkout basement that's unfinished and a walkup attic that is unfinished that we plan to finish both. Depending on your plans for finishing it, Article 8 would lower in terms of the attic. It would declare any space that seven feet or above is habitable in line with the state building code. And it would also, if it sounds like you're not planning to increase the amount of your buildings. It's all within the current structure of the building. So then it probably would not impact the basement very much, your basement plans. Excuse us. Rick. Would you like to take this? Again. And the attic also. Setting enforcement. Hi, I'm sorry, go ahead. No, I just wanted to make sure that it also didn't impact the ability to finish the attic as well. It should not in your case. Okay. So I encourage everybody that's thinking, I encourage everybody that's thinking of doing a project to come down and see us. See Mike and I. There are a lot of different things that come into play. It's a little bit difficult to understand. I get phone calls every day, dozens of them. And I ask the people to come in. It's to your benefit to come down and see us so we can look at it. Every case is different. The rules apply, but every case is different. But it sounds to me like you'd be okay. Thank you. Okay, so we have a lot of questions about individual conditions. Do a lot more of you have similar questions? If you do, I think the advice of Rick of going to talk directly with them about your particular situation would be helpful. For the forum tonight, I want to answer questions specifically if you have other questions about the amendments. So where did my other mic go? Oh, sorry. Maybe we can line up if you have questions. Because otherwise I'm randomly giving the mics out. I'm sorry. I think if you could line up, that would help me. Right here. Line here. So you have a question. Yes. I have a question about existing homes being knocked down and new homes coming up. How is this all, is it going to affect it tremendously on the size of these new homes? And all about how is it going to affect it? That's what I want to know. So if these older homes are getting knocked down and new ones are getting put up. Right. So the overall impact was a reduction by 6% of the total of what you would see in terms of the home, like the new home. How would it address knock downs in the same particular manner? I don't know if you want to add more. In the lots. In terms of new construction, if articles. Two families, particularly two families. Well for single and two families, if articles eight through 10 pass, then all three of their provisions would apply to new construction. So you'll generally have the total size of those buildings reduced, depending on circumstances by an amount between six and 12. But we're not changing the frontage, is that correct? Sorry? The frontage is the not changing. It's still 60 feet. So just the area of what you can build in that. Correct. Right, we've got a line forming. I know there's hands up, but it would be helpful if you lined up because there's a lot of questions, it seems. Thank you. First, I guess on article eight, question on this figure. How did you calculate that figure of 5,520 square feet for the gross floor area? The designers, they plotted out on the diagram a house of the maximum size house that could be built under current and under article eight zoning provisions and they calculated the square footage from those dimensions. It appears that they're calculating a full story on the third floor. 40 by 46 is 1,840 square feet. If you multiply that by three, you get 5,520, but if our bylaw limits the third floor to a half story, then you can't build a house. They're also considering half of the basement as gross floor area in that calculation. And the figure on under existing zoning? Under both? Yes. Why half the area of the basement? Because they were assuming that the other half is used for a garage base. We're getting back to the questions and people have been asking about the modifications to an existing home. If your basement now becomes a story, why would you go for a special permit? Wouldn't you require a variance? I think that's a question for the building inspector. So pre-existing non-conforming under section nine of the zoning bylaw is the answer. Okay. I really think you need to put the grandfathering and has been suggested. Moving on to mixed use. Okay. Am I correct in understanding that there is no minimum lot size for a mixed use development? It depends on the district that's being proposed, but I don't believe there is. So if I say one could find a lot in a B1 district that was 3,000 square feet, I could decide to go in and I think I'd like to put an auto body shop on the first floor with an apartment on top. And I could do that, sell the condo on top and have my auto body shop on the first floor. Is that right? If the ARB grants you a special permit to do that. Whereas right now, because the B1 district is primarily made up of one and two family homes and the types of businesses that have occupied them, that would be my only option. And I guess that's the other question. There is no, the way that mixed use is defined, there is no limitation on which uses are mixed. So if I wanted to have a commercial parking garage on the first floor, that could be one of my uses. And I could have any other use on top of that in qualified or the mixed use dimensional requirements if the ARB granted the special permit. Yeah. Because that's a use. I mean, mixed use is any two uses, is that right? Even if the underlying use is not permitted in the district as an individual use, is that correct? No, I'm not, no, but I'm just giving examples. Right, I'm just giving examples of what I think are problems with the way this is written right now. Because what it allows is by putting these uses under the rubric of mixed use, you can now put uses in that currently aren't allowed in a particular zoning district. That's why the redevelopment board strongly feels that they need to adjudicate the mixed use process through special permits. But can the redevelopment board turn down a special permit application just because they don't like the use? I don't think so. The other question is, is a real oddity in the way the dimensional requirements are listed in the proposed bylaw change in that smaller lots allow more dense development. That's backwards from the way the zoning bylaw currently works. So if I have a lot that is, say, 22,000 square feet, do I have to, can I say I want to comply with the denser requirements, or do I have to comply with the less dense requirements? Currently, as proposed in article six, in most business districts, lots over 20,000 square feet keep their current dimensional requirements for mixed use. Lots smaller than 20,000 square feet have higher FAR provisions allowed. So can I subdivide my lot and say, half my building's in one lot and half is in the other lot, and therefore I want the higher FAR requirements? That's speculative. Okay, well I'll let others continue. Thank you. I was wondering how this affects the back of a house because I noticed in part of it, you have to have a lot of land in the back to build something. So in my case, I have a driveway way in the back, but I wanted to move it toward my house and build a garage next to the house. Now, the height of the garage wouldn't be higher than my house, so that would be okay, right? I mean, height-wise, it's all right. But I was gonna make the rest of the yard bigger with the former thing. Is that acceptable? Again, individual cases need to go to the building inspector, but what Article 9 would do is increase the amount of usable open space required to 35% of the lot area instead of 30%. So basically, I'm just shifting where my yard is so it probably would be all right. And the other question I have, which isn't addressed anywhere, is when builders build on a street that has every single solitary house the same type of wall because that's the flavor of the neighborhood, that's how it is, and a builder comes in and builds this pretty wall that doesn't even go with the neighborhood. Is there anything that can be done about that? Nothing's ever addressed about that. I would think builders should have to look around and say, oh, everyone here has a nice brick wall as revolutionary times or whatever, but we're building a square wall with little sparkles in it. I just don't understand how that can be allowed. Okay, and these zoning amendments don't address design issues that would be separately dealt with during the permitting and review process. So what, oh, thank you. If it's passed. But isn't that the one we don't wanna pass? Okay, thanks. Okay. Okay, well, next question. I'm also in a neighborhood with a lot of sloping lots and I'm curious in terms of Article 8, do you have any sense what proportion of the town is affected by this, like how many existing buildings might be covered? Don't start talking yet. The town, obviously Allington Heights would have more of a fact, but they are scattered. Mike and I were talking not so much possibly in East Allington, but once again, every case is different. You really need to call us and come down and see us. No, I understand that and I'm not doing anything to my house, but I'm just thinking for neighbors of mine that may be thinking of doing something. You know, if this is gonna affect, say, 25% of the structures in town, that's a really big deal as opposed to maybe affecting 2%. And it would just be helpful to me if I had some sense of coverage. Yeah, I'm sorry if we don't have that information. But if I could go back to the person that wanted to rebuild the garage, I just wanted to tell you that's an accessory structure. So you would mention going up to the same height as your house. So an accessory structure is maxed out at 20 feet. If it's detached, it's one thing, or if it's attached, it's a different story. Come and see us with the plans. Come and see us with the plans. I'm sorry, I thought you meant detached. Next question. Hi, I was wondering a little bit about the keypad surveys. Oh, the surveys. I was wondering if you could elaborate a little bit more on that. If you could go back to the elevations that were just up there. Which one in particular? The ones that were just up there, the elevations from basement to the peak. Yep, yep, right there. This one. Yeah, this one, yeah. So you're saying we're talking about two feet over 35 feet or so. So to the untrained eye, these two structures are gonna look identical. And from what I understand, the interest is to reduce the size of the structure. So I was wondering a little bit about what the surveys, the keypad surveys that you were talking about, what kind of images were being shown. Because, and the only reason why I'm asking this is because I've heard the term ugly houses thrown around a lot. So I'm wondering if the design of the houses is an issue here, more so than the size, because I mean, I'm not gonna notice the difference in these two structures. Do you understand? Because I understand the preservation issue here. You know what I mean? Do you wanna talk about the images used in the master plan? They're actually, in the master plan, you can see toward the back the visual preference survey it's called that will show that the different images that were used. Were the images, were they of noticeably larger structures? In different styles. Yeah. Because these aren't noticeably. Right, no, that's true. You know what I'm asking? This one by itself does not make a huge difference. The ones that make a huge, a bigger difference are nine and 10. Okay, and those images are in the master plan? I can see those online. Yeah, put this one in the back if you, take one with you when you go. I'll have a kid get it up for me because I wouldn't know how to do it. You know what I mean? On the computer. Oh no, it's not on the computer, it's right. Oh, it's, okay, all right, thank you. I brought in 10 of them. You can look at the visual preference survey information in the appendices, and it shows how people voted at the time, et cetera, and the images used. I guess I don't necessarily have a question, I actually have three quick comments and kind of following up on something this gentleman was saying earlier. I guess I was kind of surprised that we're not talking about all these zoning articles on the warrant. There are a lot of things that are going to be potentially impacting us tonight. I'm a newly elected town representative, I'm trying to figure all this out, and I would have really appreciated having that dialogue and discussion to understand not just these specific articles, but all the articles on the warrant. Second topic was, there was a discussion in particular with article eight that is a reasonable approach, and I guess I've lived in Arlington in two different houses, and not one of them has ever been on a 6,000 square foot lot in a flat lot, and I guess reasonable varies depending upon where you're at. If I was in East Arlington, maybe that's reasonable. In Morningside or the Heights, maybe it's not. I guess I would expect the articles to represent what's reasonable for each of the different areas of Arlington. Okay. And I guess the third point is, again, I was newly elected, I knocked on hundreds of doors, talked to a lot of people, and this was a big concern to the majority of the people I talked to, and the one thing they were concerned about was the new construction. They weren't concerned about reasonable additions to existing houses, and when I look at these articles, potentially in addition to the other articles that are on the warrant, I see how that could really limit anybody for making any changes to their house, and I'm not sure that's really what the people are concerned about when they're actually looking at significant changes compared to minor changes. They're looking at the significant changes, new construction on small lots, not minor additions or reasonable additions that are currently being done to existing houses. So I guess those are my comments, not necessarily questions, but thank you. Yes, thank you for those comments. Hi, I'm Jonathan Nyberg. Just want to say quickly two things. One, just want to again say appreciate all the work you guys have done because it's a lot of work, a lot of collecting data, et cetera, and I think all of us, no matter what your thoughts are, want it better and more wonderful Arlington, so thank you. And the other thing I just wanted to say because I think it goes unsaid when we talk about special permit, variants, et cetera, the average person doesn't realize it's going to cost them thousands of dollars. You have to hire an attorney because it's hard to differentiate all this stuff and it adds thousands and thousands of dollars and many times, months and months and months to a process. So I just wanted to say that just for reality check. Okay, thank you. Good evening. First, I just want to say thank you to Mr. Warden about some possibility of a grandfathering for existing owners of properties as of a certain date of this year. Okay. As a contractor, I deal with a lot of questions with potential clients so forth and so on. Those questions also are answered by the building department to try to simplify a lot of the questions that a lot of folks have right now, individual cases. My basement is this. My lot size is that. Under this change, if someone wants to do a second level addition. Now just, they've got a ranch or a small cape. Doing a traditional second floor addition. If their basement is considered a story. So now our basement is one story. Our first floor is a second story. The half story, you can't do a second level addition. Correct? Under this proposed article. That's correct. That is what I'm trying to get out in the open. That everybody is asking and getting around this question without overburdening the building department in the resources with numerous phone calls, meetings, slowing down the permit operations. It has some serious ramifications to the values of the property in this town. You will diminish values. You will basically handcuff families that are moving into this town. You can tell by the schools, the enrollment. Everything about this article needs scrutiny. And if you're trying to do some type of surgery, you don't go at it with a butter knife. You do it with a scalpel. If you want to stop a lot of the changes that you're not happy about, deal with it from a starting point, a specific date, not retro. I appreciate your time. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. So follow up question from earlier, I guess. What happens next? You're getting feedback. And then. Next step is town meeting. Right, so how do I find out what changes you made or haven't made? There's no changes that are being made between now and town meeting. We're not planning to make any amendments between now and town meeting unless the board wishes to do so and I can't speak exactly for the board if the board would like to speak to this. They can do that. But and. Right, so I mean you're getting a lot of feedback and if you're not going to actually address it before the meeting, then you're kind of ignoring the feedback and. So we're not, the board does not wish to talk about that right now. So I don't have an answer to that question. I'm sorry. Okay, so then. If they didn't make changes, we would definitely send it out via the town meeting. Okay, so then what is my next opportunity to follow up with what's happening? Is it an open vote? Is that and like, how does that work? You said two thirds of 160 odd people had to get together and vote, right? And how do I know what's going on there? So the recommended votes of the Arlington Redevelopment Board will go before town meeting and those we are going over right now what those recommended votes are. At that meeting, people can make amendments. They can, and vote their conscience either way, but it's members of town meeting that have that right. So are you a member of the committee? No, I'm not. Okay. So I can't make an amendment. But I also hear that you guys could on recommend your current articles. So what we have before, what is currently going out to town meeting members of the recommended vote of the Redevelopment Board, which are as presented, this is an informational forum. It's not a public hearing or one that's a vote is expected out. One that a vote is expected afterwards. This isn't a public hearing as that happened back on March 21st. Please, yes. And so the town meeting members who are here, please, if you're not a town meeting member, voice your concerns or your input to them, please. And it would be an amendment during town meeting. Exactly, a substitute motion. Town meeting starts April 25th. Okay, yes. In my neighborhood, I live in East Arlington, the issue of these new houses coming in that don't always fit in the neighborhood is an issue. It's not always about size necessarily. And the changes I'm seeing here all seem to be about size. And in some ways, maybe they're major, but in some ways, they seem pretty small. So I'm just curious to know what kinds of things do other communities do about this issue? Because I know it's not just an issue in Arlington. Other communities, for example, Lexington just passed a number of residential zoning amendments to their zoning bylaw. They actually put restrictions on floor area ratios or residential homes and variable setback requirements and a number of other measures. Other communities do different restrictions on lot coverage. The amount of, what a, the amount of land. Can you just restate that in sort of more lay terms because I'm not familiar with all of that. Sure, in Lexington, they, in certain circumstances, in residential districts, they governed how much the total square footage of a house could be in relation to the lot size. And it's a different process and we don't have design guidelines for every house. We have the historic commissions and the historic district commission has some say over the design, but it would be pretty unwieldy for every house to go through a design board. Well, I... I think a lot of towns are struggling with this, but there isn't that much you can do. I will say this, having gone to many of the master plan workshops and not just participated, but listening to people, when people were excited and positive, they were thinking about the uses that would be possible. You know, the main boulevard with the shops and all the great stuff that could be there. When people were fearful and negative, it was about the way that things would look. So I realize this is getting away from these articles. I would like to learn more about how we could, without being unduly burdensome, address some of those issues in the town. Yes, I would like to reassure any residents here who have this basement problem that I intend to at town meeting make an amendment, make an amendment if it's acceptable to the moderator, to grandfather, these basement provisions of article eight. I think that residents who have bought a house in a given area need protection from the trauma of turdons. They also need protection of the understanding that they had when they bought the house of any additions or renovations that the law allowed them to do when they bought their house. So I really think article eight basement dimensional changes have to be grandfathered. Thank you. Okay, sounds like a motion. All right, are there other questions? Yes, okay. Get this to work. Articles eight, nine, and 10 seem all sort of poking at various ways of reducing the floor area ratio. But don't actually just reduce the floor area ratio. Why do we choose to do it this way, with respect to percentage of the open space, which has to be at least 25 feet in every dimension, which gets us into a lot of complicated places with weird shaped lots and all kinds of things like that. Why not just regulate floor area ratio? You could do that, the decision was made to go about it in the ways in which you see on the screen. So, can you tell me why? Can I tell you why? Would anybody like to explain that origin? Yes. We looked at floor area ratios and it was very difficult to pick the right one for a whole zone because the lot sizes are different and the heights are so different than the East Arlington and we looked at lots of different things and we didn't feel like we could find the right number that wasn't gonna allow in some neighborhoods the houses to grow a lot bigger than they are now and in other places control it more. It was just, we looked at what the existing floor area ratios were by neighborhood and they were so different throughout the town, it didn't, we just couldn't come to a place where we could figure out what the right number was. Hmm, interesting. Okay, thank you. So, if I understand these articles correctly, it seems like the fundamental thing that I'm hearing about the teardowns of single families and putting up two families is not being addressed. Am I understanding that correctly? Is there anything that's happening that's going to reduce the number of teardowns and replacing them with larger two families? Not in these particular articles, no. On your lot, that's just, if you're in a two-family zone, everyone has the right to have two units. Okay, so a related question is, I understand that if you have a historic home, but you are not in a historic district, then there is no protection. It can be torn down and replaced with a two-family. Is that an accurate understanding? I guess that depends on the definition of historic. If it's recognized as historic, no, you have to go through the historic. A one-year delay. If I have a historic home in a two-family zoned area, but I'm not in a historic district, I could delay it for a year, and then it gets taken out. Right, depending upon if it's on the, there is a local historic property registry, right? Okay, so there's that. And then there's, of course, other designations of what is historic. You have to be on that list in order to trigger the demolition delay by-law that John was just mentioning, and that lasts a year. Yeah, a year, so what? Well, the master plan does talk about recommendations around demolition delay, and also about appropriate inventory of historic resources. So these recommendations, the zoning warrant articles, are not getting at every issue that we've raised tonight. We are getting at some of the issues. That's why I was trying to explain earlier, we may have gotten away from it a bit, that this is one part of implementing the plan. There's a lot of new ideas and momentum, frankly, in this room. I know that there's also challenging feelings as well about the things that we're talking about, but there's still time, and there's other things to do in the future. So we're open to those things. Hi, I wanted to thank the member who spoke up earlier for her comments and her coming forward and telling us what she will be voting on, or recommending. I wanted to say that I'm on the second floor of a two family, and my husband and I have been working over the last seven months on an attic renovation. Article eight and nine will jeopardize that. We've invested countless hours and thousands of dollars already. Well, if you have a building permit, I don't think you have to worry. We don't yet. We're just about to submit for that. We've finished the plans recently. So I just wanted to say that you have to consider these people. Thank you. I was waiting to all the other questions. I did have a question about article seven. I guess if you could just summarize, there's a lot of parking issues in town, but I can't really figure out what this one's about, and I want to know what the intent was and what you would like to see. Okay, so article seven to start off with only pertains to the commercial zones. It does not pertain to the residential zones. It gives the board, the redevelopment board, some flexibility to reduce parking requirements. Substantially, if the builder or the owner can prove to the ARB that they have sufficient parking and that they will be providing incentives for residents or users of the building for the tenants or owners to use transit, to use bikes and or walk or in other ways, maybe they'll have zip cars there so that everybody doesn't have to have their own car or maybe two cars. So it's a hand in hand thing that you would provide incentives for people not to need a car and you would have, you can prove that you have enough parking, you could reduce the parking requirement. So but then what would happen to the parking space? And is it that you can build more? You can build more on the lot. Oh, okay. So it's like increasing the size of the commercial lot, but that's right because not the size of the commercial lot but the building on the lot because one of the things that came out of the master plan was that people felt like we had more room to increase the density in the commercial corridors and that would help build the vitality of the commercial districts. So that was the intent. That was the intent. Yeah, thanks. I'd just like to make an informational statement perhaps to some of the people who are new to the town. You can ask anybody to speak at town meeting if you're a resident of the town, if you have questions about anything. And also if you need to know your town meeting members, I say this in trepidation, but you can call the town clerk's office and ask for an email copy of your town meeting members. And this is Janice Weber who works in the clerk's office and is a town meeting member. I'd like you to elaborate on the incentives that are provided to own fewer cars and how you actually intend to implement that. So some of the suggested, it's called transportation demand management and it would include having bike parking, not just a bike rack, but maybe covered parking if you're in an office that you might provide a shower to encourage people to ride their bikes. You might provide T passes to your employees or to your residents. You might have spaces for a zip car. You might have a car pool, reserved parking to encourage people to share rides rather than everybody bringing their own cars. Those are a couple of them. So this is specifically for commercial and industrial. And multifamily. Oh, and multifamily. And multifamily on Mass Ave and Broadway in commercial districts, yeah. Okay. Thank you. Not in the neighborhoods at all. Okay, thank you. I had a little follow up question about the basement redefinition, sorry. And I have no personal stake in this, but when you redefine some people's basements are gonna turn into their first story of their house, if you had to make a ballpark guess, are most people's basements turning into the first story of their house or like about how many are we talking about? I mean, any ballpark? No, you don't know. Okay. If you wanna think about percentages, think about this. If you wanna think about your server being up, right? So you're email working. 99% uptime sounds great, right? 365 days a year. 99% uptime means three and a half days of downtime. Okay. Arlington Heights, it's gonna be a pretty big percentage. It's gonna be, or it's gonna be a measurable percentage, which means it'll be a good number of houses. I have a follow, okay, now here we go. Yeah, follow for the woman who was, the second floor of a two family is considering finishing off the third floor. Now, I have a couple of questions. Article eight, that has nothing to do with the size of the lot, right? That's just the house by itself. So a lot of people have bought the second floor of a two family with the option, with the assumption that they could finish off the third floor. Is that gonna negate that? I mean, how does that impact the ability to finish a third floor of a two family? The circumstance of the house and the basement. I would say most two families in Arlington are the exact same footprint. They're the same layout, they're very similar. How is it gonna affect that? It will prevent you from finishing the attic space to make a half story. It'll just slightly lower the threshold for what a half story is, from seven feet, three inches to seven feet. Yeah, I'm asking about the attic, yeah. So it would not affect the ability to finish off the top floor. In most cases, I would say no. Okay. Again, it's a case by case basis. You should really ask the inspirational services department for an exact determination on a particular case. Okay, thank you. Any other questions? Any other comments? If not, can I say goodnight to everybody? And thank you all for coming out tonight. It was very helpful for us to hear your thoughts and opinions and your questions.