 Great. Good evening, everyone, and welcome to the April 7th meeting of the Town of Arlington Redevelopment Board. This open meeting of the Arlington Redevelopment Board is being conducted remotely for the governor's extension of the remote meeting provisions of the executive order of March 12, 2020, due to the state of emergency in the Commonwealth through the outbreak of the COVID-19 virus. For this meeting, the Redevelopment Board is convening via Zoom as posted on the Town's website identifying how the public may join. Please note that this meeting is being recorded and that some attendees are participating via video conference. Accordingly, please be aware that other people may be able to see you and take care not to screen share your computer. Anything that you broadcast may be captured by the recording. Please also be aware that you may not share imagery in your background while you are speaking. Anything that needs to be presented needs to be submitted in advance to the Redevelopment Board. So let me go ahead and move to a roll call to ensure that all of the members of the board are present and can hear me starting with Ken Lau. Ken, you're unmuted. Ken, can you hear me? Sorry, I had speaker on off. Oh, that's okay. Just we're just doing well. I couldn't figure out what was going on. Okay. Okay. Gene Benson. Present. Steve Barbalac. Good evening, Madam Chair. And Melissa Tentacolas. Present. And I am Rachel Zembery, Chair of the Redevelopment Board. We also have Jennifer Rape from the Department of Planning and Community Development. And Kelly Lynam from the Department of Planning and Community Development. Present. So this evening we will move right into our first agenda item, which is finalizing the report to 2022 annual town meeting based on the hearings and the deliberation that occurred over the last five meetings. Thank you so much. Jenny and Kelly have done an incredible job capturing all of the discussion. Within 24 hours. Thank you so much to you and your team. For pulling all of this together so quickly. And so I think what might be best. Jenny and Kelly, I know that several of us submitted. Revisions to you in advance. If you want to take us through how you already worked to compile some of those documents. So I think it would be great if you could take us through it. I think it would be fantastic. So I'll turn it over to you. Thank you, Rachel. And thank you to you and Jean and Steve for providing comments. They're all merged into this document. Additionally, some. Edits have been made by myself and Kelly. Just sort of some clarifications and some things that we saw. That needed to be changed. So I'm going to just go page by page and I'm going to talk about some of the things that we're interested in. I'm interested with this agenda. So everything is in track changes except for commas. Apparently we missed a lot of commas, which is really unusual because I love the comma so much. So I'm sort of surprised by the number of times I missed it. But I'm going to tell you, I'm going to walk you through the things that are, I thought, you know, important to share. Through track changes. So I did delete the comments because the comments are all about how we addressed those comments when we get there. And mostly I did that because just a lot to see on the screen. And I didn't think that that was necessary for the substance of your conversation. So you can see the edits on this page. I think. Let me know if you have, if you have anything else. Otherwise I'm just going to roll through. Okay. That sounds great. I think maybe we'll pause. Once we get into the articles will pause after each article for a minute. I'm going to go ahead and do that. Okay. Thank you. The board members. One, one quick thing here. The video for April 4th. Is it on the YouTube? Already. Kelly. I do not know. I'll double check right now. Okay. So I didn't put it here because I'm not sure. Sometimes it's not immediately available. So if it's not available by tomorrow morning, I'm going to go ahead and put parenthetically that it will be available on the ACMI YouTube page and maybe just have a link to that. That's good. Okay. This is just the link to. And a video, by the way, I just changed this and Steve's recommendation and you'll see it throughout is instead of action, favorable action. And then of course no action remains the same. Okay. So article 28. So with this one, we, we, we addressed the issues here about sort of what this really encourages and this was a blend of three different commenters. So, you know, we want to have more vibrant building facades and activated commercial uses that encourage public engagement. And also make it clear that it's providing the board with some standards that you might apply as part of your environmental use, special permit proceedings. A comment was made that it would, it would be important to, well, it was actually in the tree one, but then I realized it probably was relevant here as well. So that the tree, the next one, I also clarified why every 25 feet will get there in a second. But for this one, I thought, well, maybe it's also important to explain why we chose the footage that we did. And that of course is sort of the same argument. It's their very small storefronts in terms of like feet. So we made that clear here and gave some examples. This was actually from the memo. I just thought it was relevant. So are there any of, and then Rachel had noted throughout that this was sort of like a fragmented vote sentence. So I've made the change here, but in the rest of the document, it's already an accepted change because I didn't think you needed to see it 18 times. So that's the change that was made. So I'm going to go back to that. I'm going to go back to that. I'm going to go back to that. I'm going to go back to that. This is one sentence now. And you can see that I moved favorable action here instead of just action. And so the same thing goes throughout. So. Any. I like that sentence. The wall facade articulation, but I wonder if it works better as a footnote. There. But it's up to you. I'm sorry. I wonder if it works better as a footnote, but I wonder if it works better as a footnote. The wall facade articulation. Just that whole addition. I'm open to whatever the board wants to do with this addition. I don't mind it in there. I see what you're saying, Jean, just in terms of making it. More concise. What I like about it is, especially since this is specifically for the use of town meeting members, I think it helps them put in context, but some of the. Additional standards really are, which I think is a good ad because I, I know how hard it is sometimes for people to contextualize what. What some of these dimensions are that we. Who are used to talking about those sometimes told together. I don't, I'm. Not going to work Smith too much tonight, but I just feel like the second sentence starting while facade articulation, it's sort of like, but where did that come from? You would have expected to be somewhere sooner. So maybe it could flip the first sentence so long to say. I don't want to. I don't want to. I don't want to. To saw as along our own to commercial districts are substantially shorter than. You know, well, no, no, leave it. That's all right. I'm not going to mess with it. Sorry. I don't want to. I think everybody's job. There aren't other strong feelings about it. We can leave it there and we can go back if you want to look at, you know, do one more sweep through at the end. But. Do you want to move to the next one? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think what Jean is saying in terms of making that the first sentence and then having the rest, the rest of it does. Flow together. So I'd be fine with starting the. You're suggesting to start the paragraph with the text that Jenny added. And then. Correct. If we keep it. Well, I thought the sentence would work better. With. It said some of our facades along Arlington's commercial districts are substantially shorter. You know, a minimum of 50 to 80 feet. Which would be appropriate. In the industrial district. So you just. Flip it. I see what you're saying. Got it. This is really about what we're doing. You know, that makes sense. I agree with that. To start it with contextualizing it with the rest of it. And then comparing it later than to the industrial. Got it. That makes sense. Is that better? Yeah, then you just have to change the minimum. 50 to 80 feet. Which are appropriate. Right. For the industrial district. Okay. Does that make sense? Yeah, that does make much more sense. Okay. Great. Good change. Okay. Anything else. All right. I don't see any other hands. All right. So next is article 29. Jenny, do you mind to just expand it a little bit? So the margins are smaller. So I could. Yeah. Thanks. Thanks. Big, big. That's good. Yeah. Good. All right. So, um, Thank you. Yeah, you're welcome. I'm sorry. Yeah. Was that a hundred? That's 150. Let me know if I need to make it bigger. Um, Okay. So this was where the request was made about why the 25 foot spacing. Does that address your comment. Jean. That's from. Oh. Yes. Um, and that was it. Here. Great. Any, uh, any other comments on. Article 29 discussion. Looks like we're good. Okay. Uh, this one just, it looked like what happened here. Uh, Rachel had a comment that this was actually not the whole quote. Um, I think it wasn't clear because the beginning of the quotes was not actually there. And then this is actually in the plan, but it's in the. Description of that priority. Um, so I moved it down here. And I put quotation marks there. And then these are Jean's additions. Um, and I think particularly this one is important, which is about how the death, the death of a child is related to the death of a child. Um, and it relates to the amendment. Um, it's related to some of the other terms used elsewhere in the bylaw. That was a good catch. Thanks. Um, are we missing a, an end to the quotation? So in the area that starts, then it's your action plan. So here, solar, maybe, yeah, it must be. Yeah. I think that's right. Is this the end of it, Kelly. In Arlington. Yeah. Yeah. And also technically, if you went dead. A paragraph as a quote, you don't have to have quotation marks. Yeah. Well, I don't think we did it this way actually in another one. So I want to make, I want to go back for consistency because we did quote from another plan, but it doesn't look like this. So I'm going to go back. That's like a formatting thing. We'll go back to tomorrow. Great. I just decided to leave it this way for the purpose of our discussion tonight. Great. Okay. Yeah. And the board. I was just one last thing was the board was obviously the air B, but I think that probably wasn't clear because we were talking about. Something else. Up there. Like it could have been the select board. All right. Any other comments or. Edits. On this article. All right. Looks like we can move to 31. This one, there's some comments from Steve about the word quantum. And then I think we can move on to the next slide. And then we can move on to the next slide. And then we can move on to the next slide. Which we changed threat was changed to thresholds. And then I believe this is Jean. Making it clear that it was about. This is, this is specific to our special permit. So that was really important to make it clear that. It's not broadly in the by-law about housing choice. It's specific to our role. Granting special permits. And so of course it's, it's, it's the law now too. So we can move on to the next slide. Any other comments on 31. All right. These are. This just clarifies that. But so I only know, I don't know if the zoning board of appeal. Appeals had a hearing. To adopt their rules and regulations, but I wanted to make it clear that we, we did. Maybe. And, and have. They have cents. I don't know. Is it two or three times now. That we've amended our rules. That's enough. I don't think you have to count, right? Okay. I don't know about, I don't know about the ZBA though. I don't know their, the process they used. I think this was your comment, Jean. I'm mad. I just thought if we knew that the. ZBA. Had a public hearing. To when they adopt them, it would be. Yeah. We don't know. Do you have some relevant information? Yeah. Steve. Just as to follow up on number of times. Possibly adding the changing the last sentence in that paragraph too. And. And they have been amended multiple times. Anything about the ZBA's process. I recall the ZBA having. I don't know. I don't know. Rules and regulations at the time I joined. Although I was not. You know, not part of the adoption process. Okay. I think, I think it's okay without that. My, my own opinion. I think that's fine. I don't think we need to specify it. And if there's a question, Christian. We'll be there to answer it. Right. All right. Any other comments on. 32. This one. Rachel pointed out that. There was a little, like, really it was a 2019. I thought it was 2021. Well, it was 2019. And it was also 20. One that we amended half story. So we amended it in 2019. That was actually through work with the residential study group. And then we amended it in last year. And then we amended it in last year. And then we amended it in last year. Because we had found an older reference to the pre. 2019 definition and the bylaw. We did that through an administrative amendment. You need to fix the sentence now. Please. Right. Approved administrative amendment. You don't need was made. Right. In there. Yeah. Yeah. That's true. Okay. Anything else. All right. And then Rachel, you had a comment about, do we need to mention that we've changed the hatching right in this? And no, it's not really part of the bylaw. But I think that when we were talking about putting this, and we just wanted it in for, you know, to explain that this is what we're talking about. Yeah. I didn't, I didn't necessarily think so. I just wanted to make sure that we didn't need to highlight it in some way. Okay. I was going to say the hatching exists in the current bylaw. And so putting it back isn't really a change. It was just. Didn't come out that one time. Yeah. This is just an illustration. So if we ever want to change any of the illustrations, we can do that without having town meeting vote on them. Oh, that's good to know. Yeah. So if there are other illustrations that you feel need a little work, please feel free to let us know. I think we have the ability to change them. Great. Between Kelly and Steve. Okay. Okay. Do you want to move on? Yes. Let's go to the report. Thank you. Okay. This is an amendment by Steve. I. Sorry. Now I can't remember why you wanted to clarify this part. Oh, yeah. So the, um, the sentence that was struck in recent years as EBA has approved these projections with the condition. I think that relates more to the next article, um, I think the next article, I think that relates more to the next article. Okay. That was basically the motivation. But you didn't want this to be moved to the next article, or did you? Uh, no. Okay. I think the other, the other, uh, the discussion for the other article was fine. So you need to push the word. And after the 5.3. Right. And we'll provide clarity. Thank you. Thank you. Any other comments. Or discussion on. 34. We want to 35. This is. Pretty straightforward. Um, I, I just wondered that sentence that starts with currently, is that actually current? Um, That is currently how it works. Oh, you know, Jenny. Okay. Okay. Yes, we do. Yeah. Sorry. I forgot. I deleted that comment as well. But yeah, you. The question. Was. Two applicants proposing, you know, or allowed to do so by right now. You get a special permit. Okay. Any other discussion? All right, let's move on to 36. Similarly, some light edits here. All of you. It's good to me. Any other comments or. Discussion. All right, let's move on to 37. Um, this is just, uh, we missed the designee piece. I'm just making it clear. It was multiple decisions. Third party is hired by the U.S. Obviously not the town. That is it. Any other comments or discussion? Let's move to 38. Eve requested. Making it clear that this is the fair housing action plan. This quote. This is how I did this quote. So yeah, I'm going to go back to the other one and it'll look like this. By the way. This is the direct quote from a plan. So I'll make sure that it looks. The net zero action plan one from earlier from the solar bi level. We'll have the same citation and the page number. Great. Um, and then this one obviously had a lot. So I'll go through, um, mostly just how we worded the. You know, two, um, opposing votes and the three supportive votes. So I'm going to go back to the other one and it'll look like this, by the way. I'm going to go back to the other one and it'll look like this. I'm going to go back to the other one and it'll look like this. And the three supportive votes. So. Um, I'll let you read. I'll make it bigger. The last sentence notes needs to be noted. Cause all the others are best sense. The board for the notes. Right. Thank you for adding that. I thought that, um, the. Um, response that was really succinct. That Jean, I don't remember what that was you or, or Ken gave. Yeah. Well, whoever it was. It was really helpful. And I think. It also talked about. Yep. The word that should be the. It says the board also noted. The amendment. No previous. Right. Left hand. Left hand margin of the previous line. The word that should be the right. Oh yeah. The amendment. Also there. Sorry, can I just start? We were all talking about. Yeah, I just have one morning that I, um, in that last sentence where it said, um, would not increase parking. Be demanding on the town's water or sewer infrastructure. Should we say, um, I think the point, Jean, that you were making was that it wouldn't exceed the capacity of the town's water and sewer infrastructure. To me that those are statements that are kind of subjective and not objective. And these statements seem to me that they're. Very objective statements. When they're just subjective to those three board members. But they're not, I mean, Jean's, Jean's citing the, um, the director of public works. And they're not subjective. Not all of those things. That was just infrastructure. About the water and source. And the parking. I'm just curious. I'm just because it just seems to me that. Part of the issue was that there wasn't any study on. The parking. It doesn't increase. So. Right. So there was no question about. Increasing or decreasing is just. We're leaving it the same. So, so we, we didn't address that. Right. The same with open space. It doesn't. All of the same open space requirements remain the same. So the only thing that we're addressing is. The infrastructure. Right. Well, you know. I'm sorry. We've got. Two concepts in the last sentence. And one, you know. And maybe what we should do the board, the previous sentence. The dimensional requirements remain the same. And I think what we want to say is something like. And there's no change. In the parking. Or open space requirements. And then. The last sentence could be the board further node. Noted the amendment would not exceed the capacity. Of the. We don't need the parking because that was above. Oops, where did that go? You don't need the parking because we put it in the previous. Sentence and you don't need to open space because we put it in the previous sentence. So the set that sentence would then just be. The capacity and. The value of people's homes. I think that makes more true to the intention. Right. Yeah. Steve, you had your hand up, did you have further edit on this paragraph? No, Mr. Benson. I think. beat me to beat me to the punch, I was going to suggest focusing on dimensional, the fact that none of the dimensional requirements are changing first, and then move on to the other things water and sewer and so on. Gene or Steve would either of you like to add again because this is reflecting the conversation I think, and the points that you and and can made. Would you like to add any reference to the to the director of public works because Steve I know that some of this is based on a conversation that you specifically had with him and and shared with the board. Is that something that you think you would like to add to this. So you, how well off the top of my head. So the last set the last two lines of that paragraph, the board further noted the amendment would not exceed the capacity of the town's water or sewer infrastructure. That is, per correspondence with the director of public works close per end. Yeah, that looks good. Okay. Any other comments before moving on to the next paragraph. Alright. Let me know if it's easier to read these sentences with just accepting the deletion. Okay. So what's going on there. I think member in the second, where you have lastly, restruct lastly, it should be members supporting I believe. I don't know that that was so I think this was all of our those of us who supported and did not support felt this way I don't know that it's just members supporting the amendment felt that there was a lack of accurate information and unfounded statements, etc. So, if this is I'm fine with eliminating that this is board members felt again I don't think that this was just this was specific to the members supporting the amendment and if Melissa feels differently. I would want to move this to the paragraph that talks about the discussion of the members supporting the amendment but I believe that it was all of us felt that there was a lot. Part of our Melissa my concern is the fact that there is so much misinformation and concern and there hasn't been a public significant public outreach so either this could align with what Melissa and I in our no vote had discussed or it could be the overall sentiment of the board in general so I'm open to discussion on that. But I don't think it was the specific to the those who were supporting the amendment. I'm troubled by the phrase perpetuated by opponents of the article I think that's unnecessarily inflammatory. And I suggest, you could say all board members express concern about the lack of accurate information about the amendment and the need for more a more room robust data driven. So I'd leave out the whole and I just think that's unnecessary inflammatory. Can we identify that the lack of accurate information. I want to make sure that it's not construed that that's from the petitioner. Yeah, it's part of the public discourse. So if we can find a better way to identify that it's. I'm going with that change. Why don't we say lack of accurate information in the public discourse. That's fine with me and get rid of about the amendment we don't need that because that's what this is about in the public discourse. And I think this last sentence is part of what Melissa and I had indicated was part of our lack of support of moving this article forward so again the question is do we want to say that this is all board members or that's why the word lastly was in there I think because it was a continuation of the points that we were making as to why Melissa and I, and we're not able to support the article so I don't know who struck the lastly but I, and I think that's this this last sentence. Apparently I did. Okay, so, but if you are all in agreement. Now, about that perspective, then maybe it's worth noting in a second sentence that this lack of information that you know that the two board members who opposed, opposed to the amendment. I felt very at so strongly about these concerns that that you know led to voting no or some I don't know you not coming up with the words as well as I want to. Yeah, I think that's an important point Jenny because while we all were concerned about the lack of active information in the public discourse. I think Rebecca and Melissa that might have been a factor that sort of led them to vote no while I had that concern too but I, it didn't sway my decision to vote no. I think that's there. I think that sentence needs to be rearranged somebody can try to do that if they want to. I would say this. This is one of the factors for right. Or a, this was a consideration. Yeah, a consideration a factor and remove strong. I would agree. Right. Yep. Yeah, this factor was a consideration. And should the last word in that sentence be amendment or article, article, right. Thank you see. We have two, two lines up we need article two right and up near the top, there's amendment should be article. So we have to sort of go back and catch them all. It's in the first. No, no, no, no, no, that that amendment needs to stay. Because that should be a suite of comprehensive and connected amendments. But the first line of the paragraph. I think this one is okay. As amendment. But do you want to change that to article as well because this is also article this one is the amendment of the article. Right. You want those all to be article. Then there's one more amendment to change the article to. These four change. Okay. The last sentence or two of this. And then the second one. And then the second one. The discussion is sort of like, maybe redundant now. So I'd like us to take a look at that when I'm done. Copying and pasting. This one, which basically summarizes what we said before. Well, you could say in summary. The amendment. Or the article. Maybe it should say does not change. Rather than maintains. Yeah. Another amendment needs to be changed. Yeah. And just to confirm, I know we spent a lot of time on the last couple paragraphs. I just. It's been a minute now since I read this, we talked about genes. Change to restrict the size in the opening. Correct. No, actually, I don't think we talked about it here. So. I think we should add something about that. It just says expressed interest in limiting the size, but we should probably be more clear about that. Gene, is there any wording that you'd like to add there? I think it was an important change. And just want to make sure that it's clearly. Articulated. I mean, I, I thought. That sentence didn't. That's fine. You think that's enough. Not without saying anything more. Right. I think it needs a little refinement. So in living, limiting the size of new units, specifically we're talking about. Two family and duplex units. Because we can't limit the size of single family. To include the square footage. So I would add. Limiting the size of new. Two family and duplex units. Using starting by law language here. Hope you find. Oh dwellings. Thank you. Thank you so much. To include the square footage limit of starter. To include the 1850. Square foot limit. Of a starter home. That's fine. That's fine. I think we have to say. Two family and dual duplex dwelling units. Because we're not limiting. The whole thing with just limiting. Yeah. Yep. Any other. Editions or. Changes. I'm sorry. It just, it says limit, limit. So. So how about to include the 1850 square foot. To include a maximum of 1800 square feet. Maybe something like that. We had the word each. Why don't we say this? The free board members in favor of. The article chose to limit. To 1850s. The. Chose to limit. To limit. To limit. To limit. To limit. To 1850s. The chose to limit. The size of new duplex and dwelling units to say the maximum. I think this is important because I've heard a lot of discussion. That makes it seem like it will immediately be that size. The maximum size to. And then to get rid of include the. Right. Jean. Do we need to work each? Jean. build the two units, right? So they can still big the set the big McMansion. Yes, they can still build the big McMansion or a small McMansion. Is McMansion written in here anywhere? No, I think you should put it in there because that was part of the discussion a lot. Well, I don't like the word McMansion. I don't either, but it was used a lot discussion. Maybe what we should do to get close to it is, well, let's look at the sentence first, right? Three board members in favor. The article chose to limit the maximum size of new units to 18 transgressors feet in the starter home that aligns. Okay, so then we have, well, we do have those two size limited units should sell for less than one larger house. So there it shouldn't be to 1850 square feet, which aligns with the definition of starter home in 760 CMR 59.00. So Jean, you don't think we need the word each after the square footage? I think we do. I think that's a good call. Yep. Yep. I'm impressed. You can still read the sentence with all the crossouts and different colors. Do a lot of editing. That's better. I think. Okay, great. I'll go back up to the top. You do one more read through. How about that? That was good. So Melissa, I think that sentence where it talks about the minimum lot sizes and single family use districts ensure that only large high cost housing can be built in those locations gets to that point you were making about that being part of the discussion. I don't know if you wanted to emphasize that anymore here. But I think that first sentence or that first paragraph is where it was a big part of the discussion. Yeah, I mean, I think that's where people are coming from. I mean, I guess for them to see that language captured in the discussion to me makes sense. Keep going. Madam chair. May I propose so in the line in the 12345 line on the screen the eight so we have 1850 square feet each may I propose a comma after each. Thank you. The other thing we might want to do is is where the sentence starts members we might want to make that a new paragraph. I think the only thing I don't see that was captured was a little bit more my concern about you know diversity because I think I felt like I addressed the issue of segregation historically. And I think what I was thinking about was also socioeconomic diversity and I think I said that you did if if you want to put that in here I would like to be able to find in the Fair Housing Action Plan where it talks about how actually homeownership is a gateway to more diversity in our community. So I would want to make sure that I have that reference. But I do recall you saying that Melissa. Melissa, where would you propose adding that? I mean, I guess I just thought after the two board members I think we could maybe put it at the end of that paragraph before we get into the all board members that works for you just because we're you know that the conversation was and we talked about options and then we talked a little bit about starter homes. But you know, I feel like that is still important to reference because it especially as we open this with a fair housing plan and talk about the segregation I don't feel like that I want that to be lost in our conversation. Because we brought it up. Yeah, so do you have a proposed sentence that could be lead into Jenny's excerpt from the fair housing plan? I honestly feel like it's in conflict with the Fair Housing Action Plan is what I'm trying to say, perhaps, which perhaps I should have tried to resolve that prior to this evening. But I'm sorry that I did not have a chance to. But it is in conflict with that statement. Jenny, you're going to have to help me walk me through that because I'm getting lost. The statement that you're making about diversity, the Fair Housing Action Plan found that the number of BIPOC families are able to purchase homes in Arlington. That's actually in the Fair Housing Action Plan, not saying it as eloquently. But if I can find that section, I won't be able to do it while I'm on the screen is Kelly. Kelly, are you here? Yeah, you're there. Sorry, I moved all my my faces around. Could you take a look for that? Yeah, I have a sentence here about in the United States home ownership is a primary mechanism for households to build wealth. Is that where you're, and this is a lack of access to home ownership opportunities for persons of color is one of the many factors that can perpetuate economic inequality. Is that that's not the section? Okay. No, it's specific to Arlington data. And so let me um, we could switch. Yeah, that's fine. I mean, we don't have to put that. I mean, we had to put it in but like it doesn't have to be this moment. What I'm trying to say is that I would say my my personal my professional opinion is that your statement is in conflict with facts that are in the Fair Housing Action Plan. We've used the Fair Housing Action Plan as actually an introduction as to why this article is actually emerged from the Fair Housing Action Plan. Not the housing plan came from the Fair Housing Action Plan. It was merged into the housing plan subsequently. But that and this statement here is saying that single family districts have been a mechanism to promote segregation historically. But in Arlington actually there's a finding in our Fair Housing Action Plan also that talks about diversity in relationship to home ownership. So to too slightly different pieces, Melissa, I'm not I'm sorry, I can't go into greater depth with everything but and I'm not able to flip my screen. It's this. Well, you don't have to necessarily even if it's incongruent. I mean, it's my statement during the discussion, which I'm just trying to allude to. So I mean, it might not be like aligned with all the plans and studies. But I mean, I think part of my thinking and part of what I shared in during the discussion was that diversity in terms of, you know, racial diversity is one thing. And then I was trying to talk about socioeconomic diversity in in or are you talking about so maybe I'm talking about two different things or I'm just trying to say I wanted to include that that I said, I'm not clear as to what specifically related to socioeconomic diversity you're looking to. We need a statement to be able to I'll just go back to what I guess the recording because I'm not remembering right now. And I don't know exactly where things are getting tripped up. Can I ask a question? Sure can. The reason why you want to make the statement Melissa, is that's the reason why you're voting against this? Or this is a topic he's wanted to bring up. I'm a little confused. As part of my thinking. Pardon me. You're thinking against why you voted against this or voting. Yeah. Like I'm trying to think not only because we're making a land use change and during that discussion, and a lot of focus was on diversity. And maybe I think what was happening in my mind, at least at the time, I think I feel like people were talking about ethnic racial diversity. And what I was trying to also say that is like what we're doing was not necessarily creating different economic options for people. And I was thinking of diversity in terms of racial economic variety, people who earn less people who earn more. And I know historically disadvantaged, you know, groups have been it's been difficult to buy a single family home. But that's at different price points anyway. I'm saying that this just keeps in my thinking was that this keeps things at, you know, $900 million plus still in terms of socioeconomics, based on your income as well as alone, let alone your racial or your ethnic background, it still limits people and it doesn't create as many options to me. Now, is that family total research? I don't know. So can I propose then a statement? So can I propose a statement that, you know, Melissa Tintacolas also expressed a concern that this article did not address, did not adequately address I think the affordability, did not adequately address affordability or for different income levels for different income levels in creating housing, in creating additional housing choice. Yeah, for debt, I would say for diverse income levels like that. You type that Rachel or is that handwritten? Can you reread it? So I can type. No, I just bumble through that out loud. I don't have that written down. I've got it. I've got it. Hang on, hang on, Kelly. Tintacolas also expressed a concern that this article did not adequately address affordability for different income levels in creating additional choice, housing choice. But didn't they state that this article doesn't address that at all? They did. And Melissa saying that the fact that this article doesn't is part of, well, I don't want to put words in your mouth, but what I'm hearing is you're saying that the fact that they didn't, even though they said that wasn't what the article was for, was a factor to you not supporting it. Right. Because we're saying it's supposed to be. I don't want to debate it now. I just, I want to be clear as to what you're saying that we're capturing. That is clear. That is clear. All right. Okay. One little thing that I just want to make sure I, I also included another edit here is that there was a point made about the real estate transfer fee would be nice to have in place to generate funding, because it sort of relates to that point now, this new sentence. But I put in here in a footnote to make it clear that, and as an update, if you're interested, town, town meeting passed a home rule petition in 2021 to allow Arlington to, to establish a real estate transfer fee for property in Arlington. The bill was actually filed, had a hearing and was reported out favorably last month and referred to another committee. So I don't know that that will mean it will have success. It also if it's passed, it actually still has to go through a ballot, you know, question process, but I just wanted to make it clear that that was something that the town had in, you know, progress works. Okay, that's good update. Thank you. All right. Any other edits for article 38 before we move on? All right, let's move on to article 39. Okay. So on this one, the addition here is that we confirmed with town council that this also meets the simple majority vote. We had noted actually in the staff memo that the prior amendment or article might have actually met the simple majority vote, but that we clarified that that is not the case. And that is because two family is not, does not meet the definition, even though it's increasing housing potentially. It does not meet the rule of multifamily as defined in housing choice, which is three or more units. So it does not meet the what would meet the this threshold requirement to lower it to a simple majority from the two thirds supermajority. But this article does. So I just wanted to make that clarification this evening. Great. You're welcome. And so with this one, I think we added a couple of things that very minor overall. That's it, actually. Great. Any other additions or corrections for this discussion? All right, let's move on to 40. When we when you vote no action, we don't include the motion or any of the material. So there's two no action votes here. And so this is one of them. And the article 45 also had a no action vote. So we don't include the main motion or any material provided by the petitioner, which is why it's not here. There was a comment as to why we wouldn't include the map. I'd be happy to include a map if you want to, but that is why it is not here any longer. These are the minor amendments. Any other additions or corrections? All right, let's move on to 41. This is also a simple majority vote. And this one, we were asked to include those research, a little bit to add the research information in here, which was in the memo. But this is just sort of the consolidated version, which is the research that indicated that we have an excess of parking spaces at many existing apartment buildings. And then Jean added a note here to make it as clear as possible that we have not were not amending the parking requirement for public housing. That is what it is right now. You know, I think, I don't know if it's worth going back. Is the whole thing now mixes up article and amendment from one Yeah, I'll have to I'll have to basically go through and figure out. Yeah, I'm not going to be able to do that while we're looking. Yeah, no, I'm aware. After that other exercise, I need to go through and figure it out. I will. Thank you. Any other changes? All right, let's move to article 42. Oh, sorry. One other thing that I've changed is some of these had like sort of a redundancy where we had kept language that was actually from the petitioner. So what I've done is I basically put it into like a added a row to a table to just say this is the section of the bylaw because this is just sort of, you know, ended up being repetitive. For this one, I actually, okay, this is all that was added. I just right before this, I was at an Arlington Commission for Arts and Culture meeting and they voted unanimously to support this article. Would it be okay with you for me to add that language here? Or do you just want them to? They also said they would like to speak at town meeting, which of course is up to them. Two of the members of that commission are town meeting members. But I if you are interested, we could add that to this. They also benefited, as you know, Rachel, from the ability to do, it says right here at the, you know, the role of the Commission for Arts and Culture. We do talk about it, do we? No, I'm concerned about adding that because we also had, for example, the zoning bylaw working group gave us an email with their support and non support for certain articles and we haven't included that. So yeah, in point, we didn't discuss it. And right, you know, we're not including other bodies that express support or non support for these articles. Yeah, that was, and that that that was from the master plan implementation committee. They and they did not have a chance to review everything and they'll provide a report to ten meeting where they can do that. So ACAC will probably do the same thing. I just wanted to make sure I communicated that to all of you. I appreciate that. Yeah. Thank you. And you know, perhaps in the future we can more specifically mention that when we have specific town working groups and committees. But since we didn't, we probably shouldn't include it. Right. Any other additions or corrections for this article? Right, let's move on to 43. Just this little amendment again. It just was repetitive. Yeah. Any other additions or corrections? Let's move to 44. Again, a couple of additions here and that was it. The other additions or corrections. So the last one is 45. Any other additions or corrections for 45? That is everything. Thank you so much for capturing all of that, Jenny and Kelly. So at this point, our next step would be to vote to approve the memo to be submitted to town meeting. Jenny, is there any other, the memo as amended? Jenny, is there any other stipulation you need within that vote? I need this to be these words. Right. Is there a motion to approve the report as amended? Is there a motion to approve the, what are we specifically, what do we have as the title? Your report to annual town meeting. Yeah, I'll move to, I'll move to, what is it, approve the Arlington Board, Arlington Redevelopment Board's report to town meeting for April 2022. As amended. As amended tonight. Great. Thank you. Is there a second? Second. All right, we'll take a vote. Ken? Yes. Dean? Yes. Melissa? Yes. Steve? Yes. And I am the yes as well. That is approved. Thank you all for your edits and Kelly and Jenny for keeping track of all of that. So while we are still in agenda item number one, we won't be able to open agenda item two until nine o'clock. While we're talking about town meeting, I just wanted to note that typically, so Jenny, did you have an update first of all on whether this will be in person versus, versus virtual or nothing official yet? Okay. So if this is in person, we would, so our meeting will be in person as we know the night of the 25th before town meeting, but this is in person. We like all the members of the board to attend on night one and it's up to members of the board as to whether or not you attend the other members of the board are up. I will be in attendance as well. Jenny, at a minimum, if it is virtual, the attendees are more limited. And so we would just need to know in advance as to whether or not you would want to attend. During 2021 town meeting, Jenny and I attended each night as well. So I think it would be great if you could reach out to me specifically and we can talk through that. I would love to have some additional voices. This is about our meeting, I think on the 19th. That was intended to be in person. 25th. 20, whatever it was. However, if town meeting is the same night and it's virtual, it will be difficult to get from an in-person meeting back home to a computer. So I think that if town meeting is virtual, it would be better to switch our meeting on the same night. I think that's a good point. Jenny, do you, I know we're just basically waiting to hear. Jenny, I don't know if you have any perspective on that. I figured we would switch. If we're in person, then we'll be in person if we're going to be virtual, then we would switch it. If we're in person, then we'll be in person. If we're in person, then we'll be in person before posting the agenda. It is a public hearing with a notice. That evening. This is hand raised. I don't know if he has an update. Yeah. So I was looking at the select boards agenda for Monday and one of their. One of their agenda items is discussion and potential vote authorization of virtual town meeting. I think that's a good point. Okay. Great. Yeah. Yeah, I thought it was going to be this week. I had hopes for that, which we talked about on Monday night, but I don't have an answer right now. And I think the conclusion is that the select board, as Steve noted, is going to discuss it. And so we'll know. That night. Great. So that'll be far enough in advance that we can post. The, whether our meeting on the 25th will be virtual or in person. You know, we'll have to. Great. Jenny, any other logistical. Items we should bring up relative to town meeting. That's really the only one that I had on my list. I think the only other thing would be that. You know, there's been a little bit of, well, there was a lot of excitement sharing the solar. And so we're going to have, we're going to have, we're going to have, we're going to have potential amendments with the clean energy future committee. And I think similar to how we did the article presentation on, from last year, we might want to engage. Members. Of that committee to join us in a presentation. Especially if it's so, if it's virtual, then we're, we're going to need to record videos. We'll have. I don't, there won't be a virtual presentation. It's a video presentation. I don't know if that would be in consultation with Jean. We can follow up on that. If that would be okay with you, Rachel. That makes sense. And Jean, that might be one where again, if we record the video, I typically just banged through all the recordings with, with Jenny, but that might be one where I would welcome you as the representative from the redevelopment board since you worked so closely on that article, rather than myself building questions that, that evening. And I don't know if Jenny, you were suggesting that maybe a member of the clean under future committee do the actual video. Or do you want. I think that could be possible. They're very short, you know, so having multiple people speak is not always easy. I think, I think we did that with an article last year and it just, you know, you have three minutes basically for each person. I mean, maybe ask Shelly, I think if she'd be willing to do it. Okay. Okay. The alternative is, or it doesn't have to be an alternative. It could be, and we could have asked her to speak at town meeting. And since you and Steve are town meeting members, you could use some time and give it to one of them to speak if they're not town meeting members. I'll follow up with you. By the way, and I will follow up with the entire board when I have information as I noted previously. Great. Thanks, Jenny. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you to town meeting before we. Move on from agenda item number one. Okay. So. We have about 13 minutes until we can open. The public hearing for agenda item number two. We could take open forum. Out of order and do that now. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you to the rest of the board members. I think I'd like to go ahead and do that. Thumbs up all around. Okay. So at this time, I would like to move to agenda item number three, which is open forum. So any member of the public. Wishing to speak. What I'd ask that you do is please use the raise hand function. And we will. A lot you up to three minutes. To speak with the board. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Great. Seeing no hands raised, we will close open forum. And so that since that is the only other item on our agenda. What I'd like to do is. See if there's a motion to. To pause our, our meeting and to re adjourn at nine p.m. For agenda item number two. Okay. And then we'll move to the meeting. So is there a motion. To. Yes, Steve. Madam chair, I move that we adjourn until nine o'clock and then resume with. With hearings for the special town meeting warrant articles. Thank you. Is there a second? Great. We'll take a vote. Yes. Jean. Yes. Melissa. Yes. Steve. Yes. And I'm the S as well. So we'll all pause and we'll see you. So it is nine o'clock. And we are going to go ahead and move into agenda item. Number two. I'll just give a minute or two before we, before we move into that agenda item for Ken and Jenny to. Return to the screen. I'm back. You're back. Fantastic. And there is Jenny as well. All right. So welcome everyone back to the ARB meeting. We're now going to be moving into agenda item number two, which is the opening of the warrant article public hearings for 2022 special town meeting. We have three articles that will each. Received discussion this evening. Please note that the redevelopment board will be. The public hearing. We'll be asking any questions that we might have about these amendments, but we will be saving our deliberation and our voting for the April 25th. Meeting before. Regular time meeting. So I'll just quickly run through the procedures of a public hearing. So the scope of the public hearing. Is the subject matter as posted in the agenda. So I'm going to address the redevelopment board on the agenda items. We'll need to identify that you'd like to speak when I open this up for public comment. By raising your hand. To raise your hand on zoom, please use the raise hand function at the bottom of your screen. After being recognized to speak, each person will introduce themselves by giving their first last name and street address. Each person addressing the board on the subject matter shall be given their first last name and street address. The board can receive any oral or written evidence, but such evidence is restricted to the subject matter of the agenda item. In material or unduly repetitious evidence may be excluded. Please do not show material on your background screen. All materials that you, that you would like to share with us. If you have any questions, please feel free to ask them in the comments section. On the background screen. All materials that you, that you would like to share must be, must be sent prior to the redevelopment board. Or to generate with the department of planning and community and development. Each person president at the public hearing is requested not to a clause or otherwise express approval or disapproval of any statements made or action taking take or excuse me, but please do not use the, the, the, the emoji buttons or the reaction buttons within zoom. Speaker should address all questions through me as the chair speaker shall not attempt to engage in a debate or dialogue with the redevelopment board members. We're hearing participants. Questions may or may not be answered during the public hearing and will be addressed at the discretion of the chair. Let's see. We will go ahead and now move into our three articles that we will be reviewing this evening. So the first article is article a is owning by law amendment related to family child care. And so for each article, what we'll do is we will ask Jennifer rate from the department of planning and community development to provide an overview of the memo that was provided by the department. I'll then ask for questions. And any comments from each of the board members before opening the floor up to public comments. And we'll go ahead and kick it over to Jenny for article a. Thank you. I actually, sorry. Kelly, could you jump in for a second? The document that I have. This is not our memo. Is did you. Did you, I mentioned earlier, sorry, before we started this hearing semi apologies to people who are jumping in right now and may not know what I'm talking about, but we had incorporated some edits from Jean. Is that in them? Is that in a different document? Let me just stop. Hang on. It's in a special town meeting. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Hearing. Or seven 2022. Then the one with Jean's initials has his comments. Got it. Very minor comments. Except for the ones that are. Well, none the less wanted to be looking at the correct document. Very important for a public hearing. So. These are edits, of course, in our memo. But I'm not going to go into that. I'm not going to go into that. I'm not going to go into that. What becomes exactly the report to town meeting, but it's something that we can use to at least frame. The discussion. So. This is a by-law amendment that addresses family child care as was noted. And we've discussed this previously where. We advise that the. Currently. We had in 2019 at the annual town meeting voted to amend the by-law to comply with the Dover amendment. Of course, that did not include this particular use. That was limited to religious nonprofit, educational and childcare facilities. But we, I think at that time in retrospect, we should have addressed family child care because these are smaller. Basically home daycares. And what has happened is that most recently we've received a couple of special permit applications. That have been brought to our attention by the clerks office as needing a special permit. Despite the fact that we actually have 17 family child care providers. We've only had and 12 are licensed for up to 10 children. Two for up to eight children and three for up to six children. This is the first time that we're receiving notification to go through the special permit process, which will happen later this month at a public hearing separately from this conversation. We had spoken about this in the run up to filing these warrant articles where we talked about how family child care programs as I just noted are divided across this sort of up to 10 children, up to eight children and up to six children. There were different feelings expressed by board members about maybe having a special permit or a different process to apply depending upon the type of family child care program. But we'll of course talk about that. There are strict standards already in place for licensing these types of uses and providers. And, you know, we are just recommending that essentially through this amendment, the family child care use in the residential, all of the residential zoning districts and all of the business zoning districts would be turned from a special permit to an allowable use by right. And then similarly, currently actually the PUD is the only place where you could have a family child care, which as you might know doesn't really make any sense. There are no homes in that particular zoning district. And then in the multi-use district that covers that one zone, which is basically Arlington 360. So we're suggesting there that changes from special permit to a Y as well. And with that, I'll turn it back to you, Rachel. Great. Thank you, Jenny. I'll ask for any questions or comments from the board. Again, we'll save our deliberation and our voting for the 25th and we'll start with Kim. Yes. A couple of quick questions for Jenny, Rachel. Is that okay? Absolutely. Please go ahead. You stay here. They're about 12. License. Home care providers, home child care providers right now. Out of those 12, they're up to 10. Do we have, do we get a lot of complaints about traffic or noise or anything else like that from those centers? Or did they fit fully well into the neighborhood? We have not received any complaints and are not aware of any record of complaints about these particular uses. In people's homes. Because I don't, I don't only see a problem myself. We're having these in the business. Or, you know, mixed use or, you know, the UDs, but in the residential. I just think. I'll let the rest of the board talk about a little bit more. But some of the, the 10 or 12. Child care in the residential district, maybe. There had to be some sort of threshold I was thinking about. I think I was the one that brought up the number of kids. In the childcare, you know, six is not that, I don't think that's that big of a deal. Up to six, but I think we said getting up to 10 or 12. It's just getting to be a. Quite a crowd. Around pick up time and drop off time. And just around playtime. Outside playtime. So that's my only concern right now. I'll let the rest of what discuss it and see what they think too. Thank you. Yeah, I actually think is this is fine. I think to me, the big question will be. How do we put in our rules and regulations. About this. But I think this is certainly fine. To do since there won't be any more than 10. Yeah, 10 can be loud. But I think those are the things I hope that we can. You know, work through in what we put in our. Rules and regulations to implement this. So yeah, I have no real questions. About. Great. Thank you, Jean. Melissa. I'm fine with this. I think I'm concerned a little bit about noise as well or anticipating. Neighbors being concerned with noise probably really and how that kind of translates to complaints for building. But. Jenny, we haven't had any kind of complaints on noise or parking then feel comfortable moving this forward. Jenny, just to further on Melissa's. Question there about whether or not we've had, or Kim's original about having complaints about noise, would that typically come into you or to inspectional services? No, it might, I mean, it might be reported to inspectional services. It's probably more likely to be, you know, something to the town manager's office or the police department, I suppose, depending upon the noise complaint could go to. You know, I don't know if it could go to the board of health, I suppose, but probably more likely one of those other departments. Again, I'm not aware of any complaints about. These, any of the childcare providers. Want me to go downstairs. Melissa. Thanks. That's okay. All right. Thank you, Jenny. Any further questions? All right, Steve. I was actually a little surprised to see that this wasn't already covered over, covered by our Dover amendment changes. I have no questions. Great. Thank you, Steve. And I didn't have any questions either again to. From what I understand from the memo is that, you know, per some of the, and Jenny, please correct me if I'm wrong, that per the interpretation of the Dover amendment that. This really does belong. This really does in terms of the classification belong to be treated in, in a similar fashion to the way that we're treating these other uses. And so this is. Correcting and nonconformity and that. And so I'm going to go back to. I'm going to go back to Kim's. Question about how. Kim's question might be something that we could. Address in the rules and regulations piece. Is that fair to say. I'll, I'll take the first part. The first part. Yeah, I think that this should be an allowed use by right. That is apparently how Kelly did research on this with other communities. I don't think that's fair to say that. I don't think that's fair to say that. But in summary. Most other communities just allow this use by right. And might have some very limited to no review. Internally of any. Any. You know, you know, details that we're talking about here. Like. Parking or circulation or any of those things. It's an allowed use. So I don't. I don't think that's fair to say that. I don't think that's fair to say that. I think I suppose it could be addressed as part of the board. Rules and regulations. That's. That is one way to handle that. I, again, I. I would suggest minimal. Levels of rules and regulations around this particular use. We already have a review process set in place for Dover. Uses. And I would just basically say that it would, it would just follow along the same. So. Use. That makes sense. Kelly. Yeah, I just to note that I looked at a number of neighboring municipalities and this use is allowed by right in almost all of them. If anything, just with staff of a review. And in part, because these businesses are both accessory uses their accessory to the two. And then the other thing is that they're very neighborhood serving uses. So, you know, while you may have people dropping up in cars, you probably have an equal number of parents or guardians who are dropping off by walking their, their. Walking the child to the, to the. Family daycare location. And I think the other thing that you may see probably more than anything would be like a request for a small sign. But that also is not all that common. Great. Thank you for the clarification. Kelly. Just a quick question because Kelly mentioned accessory use. I think if we change. The lines in, in the. In the charts to why they won't be considered. Accessory uses here. They'll just. Be considered. Allowable use. In those districts. Do you think that's right? Because alternatively we could. Make them accessory uses. But I think this is probably cleaner to do it this way. Jenny, I'll. Give that one to you because I. Ask you to respond to that one. I mean, are you suggesting that we. Simply strike. Accessory use. I mean, it's written as an accessory use. I just raised that as an issue. But I don't know if it's an issue though, because again, these uses are highly, they're already regulated and there's a whole licensing process. The use could not stand alone. It would be in somebody's home. That's the whole point of the family childcare at home. I think it's fine. Yeah. Okay. I'm just. Yes. Because Kelly. Use the term. Great. Yeah, we're just the tables. The tables are. This is like, you know, the flipping from our tables and our by-law. So this is how I think we currently classify it. Is that correct? Yeah. Kim, did you have any follow-up questions? Before we move to public comments. No, I'm sorry. I just questioning, you know, maybe jeans, correct. We said in the rules. Where. There are. When the home home childcare is larger. They may make an effort to make staggered pickup and drop off. That's all just to minimize the impact of the neighborhood. That's something that's very simple, nothing. You know, where they have to do a special permit or go through the whole thing, but they just make their best effort. To stagger. Staggerated. Once it becomes larger than 10, but that's going to be a simple rule. That we just ask. Great. Thank you, Kim. All right. Any other questions? Before we open public comments. All right. At this time, I'll ask any member of the public wishing to comment on an article. A to please indicate that you'd like to do so by using the raise hand function. Seeing none, we will close public comment on article A. Any other further discussion from the board before we move to article B. All right. So at this point, let's move to. Article B, which is a zoning by a line. Excuse me, zoning by law amendment relative to signs. And I will kick it over to Jenny. I'm actually going to kick this over to Kelly. Who, um, we, um, we had a lot of discussion about this and she's done the background research and also, um, looked at some of the comments that we received from Jean about this particular. Um, amendment and the phrasing of it and how it might be within scope of the warrant article or not. So I would like to have Kelly, um, discuss this one. Rachel. All right. That's perfect. Thank you, Kelly. So this is a, um, this is this amendment or this article came about because, um, the sign by law was adopted by town meeting in 2019. Um, but at the time, we did not have very many publicly accessible EV charging stations. And we also were using line bikes, which is a dockless bike share program instead of blue bikes. Since then we have had a number of requests for the installation of, um, publicly accessible EV charging station on private parking lots. Um, for example, in, um, like a supermarket parking lot. Um, and a lot of these charging stations are advertisement driven. So they would be included. Included in this would be a certain element of signage. And our sign by law does not currently allow that. Um, at the same time, we have, um, accepted a contract. We've gone into a multi-year contract with blue bikes and blue bike stations have an area of signage on the station. Um, part partially to, um, advertise blue bikes. Um, but also this could be used as like a map or way finding. It could also be used for, um, local advertising or municipal advertising. And again, this is not, this is also not allowed. The purpose of this amendment is to create definitions for a shared mobility docking station and a definition for an EV charging station. Um, by calling it a shared mobility docking station, we're looking to not limit ourselves only to bicycles, just in case there is some sort of unanticipated future form of shared mobility. Um, and then allowing this, um, allowing these types of signage as an exemption. Um, within certain, um, dimensional requirements. So Jenny, if you can scroll down. Um, Oh, our numbers disappeared. Um. Oh, sorry. No, that is part of it. If you go down to the next page, it's the very end of the exemptions here. Um, so allowing signage for shared mobility and then allowing signage for EV charging stations within certain limitations. So we looked at what the current dimensional, um, with the current dimensions of these types of signs are, and we wanted to make sure that the, that an applicant for this kind of sign cannot exceed that size or the number of signs. And this was based on a comment by Jean as well as limiting the number of signs per docking station or number of signs per EV charging station. Um, and then also referencing, um, in accordance with section 6.4, 2.4 C, which has limits on sign illumination. So just making sure that those, those, um, are applied consistently throughout the town, even on these types of signs. Um, and then looking the other location, um, that we've addressed this in is 6.2.3 a four. Um, because signs are not currently allowed along the minimum bike way. And so we have included a clause here to allow them, um, specifically allow shared mobility docking stations because that is where a number of our, uh, Bluebike stations are right now. And that's it. I know that Jean had expressed a little, some concern about whether this was not in compliance with the warrant article. Um, because the warrant article does state that, um, the purpose of this warrant article is to create a new sign type. And, um, what I think we'd like to discuss with the board is whether. This would fall under, um, the ability to take any other action. Um, I don't know if that would be a good idea. Um, I don't know if that would be a good idea. Um, I don't know if that would be a good idea. Um, I don't know if it would be a good idea. Um, um, It would be a good idea to be aware, um, the ability to take any other action related there too. Um, I just want to add one thing. Thank you. Kelly. Rachel, it's okay if I add. Go ahead. Just that we are still creating a new sign type. That hasn't changed. We, we're adding a definition. Here. About the type of docking station. And then we're adding. these types of stations. So I do think that that is covered. How we handle it was not addressed in the warrant article, but for saying that we're going to amend the section of signs. So I think we could address it in multiple ways. Our preference would be that it is viewed as an exemption to be reviewed in accordance with staff review, any sort of other permitting that goes through inspectional services would occur, which has occurred with other EV charging stations, at least. Blue Bikes is different and is reviewed by our department and the Department of Public Works. Great, thank you, Jenny. Why don't we go ahead and start with Jeans and you submitted several comments and had a couple of questions already related to this article. Yeah, so when we had that, I mean, I appreciate the staff doing this. And I think when we had the discussion with the staff last time, there was a general understanding we needed to do something in the zoning bylaw for these types of signs and the suggestion that the board made that ended up in the warrant article was to create a new sign type. And as much as Jenny is right many more times than I am right at these meetings, for me it's stretching it too far to say an exemption is a new sign type. So I'm very troubled by that. I think it would be pretty easy to turn this into a sign type because you've done most of the work. The other concern, and Kelly and Jenny sort of, you know, adding those things, which were the other things that I mentioned. I mean, my other concern about having it as an exemption is then there are all of these other rules that are specific to signs that they'd be exempt from. And I just sort of think it's better to have it as a new sign type and therefore subject to all the requirements of signs rather than to exempt it. So yeah, so I'm having a hard time seeing how it fits as a new sign type. It's a new exemption. Do you have a specific section that you would propose adding the new sign type to? Well, there are a whole bunch of sign types. So you just- There are, so just add another. Yeah, just add a new sign type at the end that could be, you know, a combination of the mobility stations and the others and just move these things down there. Then it would be subject to all of the rules and we'd add these rules. So that's, you know, if we thought about it ahead of time and we didn't say, you know, it must be a new sign type, maybe wouldn't have said exemption would work just as well. But I think there's a little advantage to have it as a new sign type. But I'm happy to be told how I've gone astray. Eddie? Eddie. I just wanna note that- I'm really sorry, go ahead. I'm sorry, that's right. We did look at other bylaws in crafting this as well. And so just looking at Somerville and Cambridge and Harvard, Connecticut, places where they do have shared mobility stations like this, they are included as an exemption. So it's not without precedent to have it as an exemption. And part of it is because when you're looking at like bike shares, docking stations, they're not tied to a specific property. Sometimes they're in the right of way. Sometimes they're along a shared use path. And so it's a little bit more difficult to kind of pin them to a specific location. And they're also sort of a shared public good. Thank you, Kelly. Jean, did you wanna, anything further on that discussion? No, I just think we limited ourselves by the wording in the warrant article. And we can't do exemptions, that's my thought about it. Okay, thank you. Jenny. Yeah, just, I understand what you're saying, Jean. And one, my suggestion to be responsive to what you're saying would be that we just simply create the sign type, but we still exempt it. I think that that's still allowed because the warrant article is saying to create a new sign type at shared mobility. It doesn't need to say to exempt the use or exempt the type. It just says to update section two and 6.2. And 6.2 is pretty comprehensive, which included 6.2.1 and 6.2.3. And it could include, I forget the, maybe it's 6.2.6. I think there's a couple of other areas where we could add these signs. We have all the dimensions. So it's not, it would not be challenging to just say, here's the sign type we're talking about, which is also exempt. It might be a little bit awkward, but that would be the way that I'm suggesting handling it, Rachel. Jenny, why would you do that rather? I mean, since you already have everything you need here to say sign type and then to put these requirements in, why would you, I mean, you may be right. I'm just wondering why you would wanna exempt it. Oh, because I don't think that it should go through a redevelopment board review process. So I'm thinking that it's exempt from that review process. And the same thing goes for other sign reviews that we do that happened administratively. You know, when it's a similar process, essentially. But at least during that review process, we do have a reference in the bylaw that says it looks like this while we're making, you know, conducting that review. So I suppose that, you know, yes. Again, I'm trying to be in keeping with your comment. We would have the example of sign type and say, okay, yes, that's right. That's the example of sign type, but it's actually exempt. But it does look like that. Meets the dimensional requirements, et cetera. Yeah, I certainly think you could do that. You could create this sign type and say, if this sign meets these requirements in 6-M. Yeah, I think you could do that. That's exactly. That'd be great. So following on that then, we would need to add that to table, the table in C-IN, gosh, which is, sorry, I have to, 6.2.5, would that need to wait up in the table for 6.2.5 C for standards for permanent signs? If it's a defined new sign type? Yeah, we could do that. Yeah, we would add it to that. We would say wise across. Yeah, Gene, would that help you in terms of, would that help meet the point that you're trying to make in terms of ensuring that this is read as a new sign type of it is, if it appears in that table? Yeah, and, you know, and each sign type has, you know, awning sign must do this, bracket sign must do this. So the last one could be, we wanna call this, you know, mobility station and something sign. So I think, yeah, I think it could be done pretty easily. Okay. Great, thank you. Anything else, Gene? Nope. Great, Gene. Do these signs preclude advertisement? I'll ask Jenny to address that. No, they could, they might have advertising. Mostly the EV charging station one usually has advertising. So is that something that we should- Not the blue bikes stations. But they might in the future, I mean, if we're giving this- They could in the future, I suppose. I mean, one thing, one model that we're looking at and we're asking for an appropriation from town meeting, but if in order to help pay for the, for maintaining and operating the blue bikes stations that we have, if we, but we're also looking at potentially sponsorships. And so there is a scenario where we have, a sponsorship of a bike docking station and we could, this is a scenario. It's not illustrative of your question. The answer is that it could be like, some bank or some other business that is sponsoring that station, whatever the business type might be. Having some advertising on one side of the blue bikes because it's a two-sided sign, right? Sign that's attached to the docking station. So one side is going to talk about blue bikes, have a picture of people riding bikes. The other side could potentially have some advertising for that title, that sponsor of the station. This is just a scenario, but yes, that's where that advertising might come in. But it would be because they're sponsoring the station. Yeah, that's why I wanted to talk about should we put some sort of rules and regulations about that? Because I see the potential of having ads in the back of these things there. Like when you go, let's say you go exactly to a shopping center and they have these marquee triangular wayfinding signs, you know, where one side is the directional where you are in the mall and the other two sides are advertisement that has maybe have rolling screens there every couple of minutes to have a different ad up there or in some cases where it could be like a big large TV monitor where they just have advertisement going on all the time. And is that something we want to just talk about and you know, knowledge? Yes, we like that. We don't like that. Something like that I want to bring up because I think this could potentially develop that way where, you know, one side of it is all the blue bike stuff for the other side is a big advertising board that sells soda or whatever. You know. I hope it doesn't sell that just on the blue bike sign. But I don't know what I'm saying. I see what I'm getting at, right? I do, absolutely. I think that's unlikely and that's not really the model of the blue bike system. So the typical model of the blue bike system is one side it has advertising for blue bikes which is what it is. It's a statement about what is happening with the bikes in the docking station. The other side is typically something community oriented. I mean, for example, I've seen signs that are advertising farmers markets talking about an upcoming event in a community and there's a lot of different uses for that other sign face. And they're also, they're static. They're not like the moving signs that you're talking about that you might see on like a billboard or something like a digital billboard. It's not like that on the blue bike signs. So that's what I'm saying. Do we want to limit it to a static sign for now and limit that advertisement to community related information and that'd be fine. Or do we want to actually talk about having those as advertising and have all that stuff there and that in turn would help sponsor the blue bikes and sponsor bike repair or repair station different bikes. So I'm not sure, you know, I just think that we have an opportunity that we should talk about. And same thing with the charging stations, they're going to be a sign there that also could be used for advertisement or not advertisement. It's something that it's all new and I have to talk about it. That's all one thing I like to discuss with the board. And then the last thing is with the rules we're going to state that the signs, placement of these signs and with these signs are located, it doesn't interfere with a handicap person. Let's say we, you know, so if something sticks up beyond four inches it has to come down to the ground almost. So someone with walking cane can see that sign so they don't want to walk into these blade signs, that kind of stuff. I think that we're talking about two different things. We're talking about the placement of the stations as a whole different permitting process. So I think they were talking about that last time select board. No, but the signs. Isn't the signs different from the- The sign is attached to the station itself. It's not freestanding or anything like that. It's literally part of the station. It's all one big unit. So one end has the sign with the sign face, the bikes in a row and then some payment system on the other end. That's basically the shape of the station. And what about charging stations? The charging stations, as I've seen the ones that have been provided to us that we weren't able to permit are these sort of larger, just more independent freestanding signs with the charging connected to them. But they're integrated into the charging. They have the charging- Integrated into the charging machine. Yeah, apparatus. So Ken, to your point, would we be able to perhaps add something in here about the signage being integrated into the structure of the charging station or the mobility, shared mobility station? Would that serve? Yeah, that'd be fine. Purpose? And something about how they're not obstructing the public way or something to that effect. That's really what, I mean, that's, I'm sure that I have to scrub through the signage bylaw, but I'm sure that that is most likely covered because we have to do that for parking signage, et cetera. Yes, I'm okay with that. Jenny, do you have a concern? Only about the point about the public way. Again, that's where some of these are in, like on a sidewalk or in the parking space. I mean, most of them are in a public area. That's where they tend to be. So I understand that it's the obstruction piece. Sure, yeah, it's just that that's, my understand is just like, that to me is not a zoning bylaw issue because it is under, that is something that is approved by the select board. I'm happy to put it in, but I'm just wanna make that clear. No, it's just something for safety or so, just so it's not in harm's way or causes harm. Okay. Anything else, Ken? Nope. All right, thank you. Melissa. No, I'm fine. I think with the advertising, are we saying that it's eliminated as well? I don't think that's where we, well, I don't know that we've landed any place with it, other than I think there was a desire expressed to limit moving video on the signs, recognizing that a certain amount of advertising does typically occur within these signs. Ken, would you? I thought Jenny said it was more for community. Limited to community advertisement. Something like that. That's what Jenny said. That it could also potentially become a sponsorship. So if, like, let's say, I don't wanna put a sign up there, and we've got these Diet Coke signs all over, up and down the street, or some, I don't know, that's the only thing I, sorry, Melissa, I didn't mean to interrupt you there, but. Oh, you're fine. That's what I was trying to get at. No, we're not gonna ask Diet Coke to sponsor a blue bike station. We would be asking a community business to help sponsor, so it could serve as, this is a possibility, I'm not saying, this is the purpose of that other sign face, but it could be a place where it recognizes that sponsor. So, Ken, are you suggesting that there be a limitation to an advertisement, to community advertisement? I think what Jenny's telling me is not really advertisement. It's an acknowledgement of sponsorship on the other side. So I don't count that as advertisement, or it is, but it isn't. I mean, like, you see those little islands of all the plantings, it's saying, this planting is sponsored by, yeah, it is by somebody, either a company or whatever. Or a brother, yeah. So I'm assuming that's what she's saying, correct me if I'm wrong, Jenny, I don't want to put words in your mouth, that we'll be asking somebody to sponsor this blue bike station here and say, this blue bike is sponsored by a bank, for example. And then they might have something, a little logo there, but that's it. It's not like really an advertisement. I think it could be, if you want, you're limiting it potentially, and it could be more than that. I just wouldn't want to preclude that. I think we're, again, I think it could be something bigger than a logo. It could be more than that. Well, then, I don't know, then if it's that, I like to take a look at that and say, what is it? I mean, I don't think that should be then come up to, that if it's different from that, we should talk about, because I don't want to see advertisement up and down Nassav, where these locations are. I don't know what the rest of the board feels like. Well, let's turn it back to Melissa, because this was, sorry. That's okay. No, no, no, I appreciate your clarifications. Melissa, you had asked about where we landed with the advertising discussion, so interested in your thoughts. Well, I mean, generally I understand that, kind of putting these mobility stations in places, they need advertisements and there's hiccups with the signage, so you're trying to remove kind of the obstacles to the approval for that. Is that right, Jenny? Yes. Yeah, because number one, it's kind of hard enough as it is to kind of get the location and then you have these other obstacles. So, I'm trying to find the elimination. I think I'm comfortable with this. I mean, I think I know what, you know, Ken's going with. There's a concern that there could be egregious, you know, corporate signage. I mean, yes. Would it be limited to probably the box that, you know, the, you know, blue bike sign is on? Probably yes. So it can't exceed that blue box signage, right? Correct. Yeah, it would be on, you know, one sign face would have something about blue bikes and the other sign face might have something about a sponsor. A sponsor. But also might have something about a community event. Yeah, it could be something, you know, very community oriented. It could be a local business, but I mean, it could be someone who pays money, like, you know, Chase Bank or something like that. So I do kind of get a little concerned with that. I don't know if we want to limit that in any way, kind of some kind of bit of your generic corporate kind of thing, but overall I understand what we're trying to do here. So I want to move this forward. So I'd kind of, is there any way we can kind of curb that? What kind of, where it becomes borderline for advertisement or not? So perhaps I can ask that Jenny in a different way, these all still require administrative approval, correct? Yes. So that would be something that perhaps could be, that there would be a discussion at that point with you and the team in the department about. Are there guidelines that the administration piece, I'm sorry, go ahead, Rachel. No, that's all I had. Okay, so through the administrative review process, is there something in the guidelines that, you know, kind of slags for corporate, something like that? Jenny? I mean, those are things that we could review, of course. I mean, it's not like we're soliciting corporate advertisements. We'd be working to find a sponsor. If we're unable to afford the cost of the BlueBike system, we are going to have to find sponsors to pay for the BlueBikes. Otherwise we won't have BlueBikes in Arlington anymore. So just to be very specific about this, right? I understand. So if in order to make the cost work, we may need to figure out a way to allow for some advertising on this sign. I don't know exactly what that advertising might look like, but, and I'm not sure at this current moment how I would limit it because it would be, it would be on that sign face, the panel. Keep setting face, panel. I feel like I understand that it would need to be subsidized with, you know, some sponsorship or advertisement. I support the bike itself. I understand location is challenging and I'm understanding that, you know, in terms of signage, we wanna, you know, it's only one side from as far as we understand. But I think, you know, it's just, we don't have guidelines like, is it vaping? Is it, you know, something, you know, just some things that maybe as a community, we don't want to support and advertise on there, even though they might, and it's not, you or the program, it is the corporate reality that they will exploit that piece. So Melissa, I don't think though, again, because Jenny, correct me if I'm wrong, it's the town who's soliciting the sponsorships, correct? That's right, yes. So it would not be just open to any business. Right, so that's not a zoning bylaw item, that's a select board and or whomever would be working through the funding discussion. I don't think that belongs at all in the zoning bylaw. Who is an acceptable sponsor? That's not under our purview. So if I may, Rachel, I understand that. So what I'm asking though, is if we're opening it up to advertising, where are the guardrails for that? If it comes in the selectmen and the solicitation and some agreement, then that's fine with me. I'm trying to understand is if we just open it to all advertisements, and then next thing we know we're allowing kind of vaping because they gave us the highest bid for the sponsorship. Again, that's not under the purview of the zoning bylaw. That's under the purview. Who the sponsor is is not under this particular bylaw. Rachel, can I say something? Okay. I think what Melissa's trying to get at and is we're approving or allowing advertisement. Yes or no, that's within our purview. And if we do approve advertisement, we want to put some sort of guardrails or some sort of regulations or some sort of understanding what these advertisements are allowed. I think that's what we're trying to get at. That's what I was sort of mentioning earlier. What we can affect in terms of signage regulations are size and placement, not content. So what we need to identify then is on the face of that sign, do we want to go through that? Sign, do we want to limit on that sign face the size of the advertisement? That is something that could be in a zoning bylaw. Limiting content is not something that could be in the zoning bylaw in terms of who would be doing the advertising. Jenny, do you think that's a fair way? 100% right, yes. And as Kelly says, time, place and manner, that is what we can put. That's what we can do with our sign bylaw, that is it. So if you would like to see a proposal where the square footage of the potential advertising section is smaller than that's something that we can discuss, but we can't limit who is advertising on these signs. I'm gonna actually ask Steve, Gene, I'm gonna have Steve weigh in because he hasn't had a chance to speak yet and then I'll come back to you. Steve. Thank you. I'd like to jump back to Mr. Benson's request to have a new sign type in a table. I actually like that idea. One thing I like about our sign bylaw is it's got pictures and it sort of makes it easier to get an idea of what kind of sign you're talking about. Now with respect to the, now when we redid our sign bylaw a few years ago, we did so because it was not in compliance with a Supreme Court ruling called Read Versus Gilbert. And what Read Versus Gilbert said is that municipalities can regulate time, place and manner for a sign location, as we said before. And the regulations have to be content neutral. So I don't think we can actually regulate whether there could be ads. I believe that a movement on the sign, like a moving display or something is constitutes manner and we can regulate that. And I seem to remember our bylaw already doing that and if that needed to be specifically spelled out for these kinds of mobility signs, I'd be supportive of that. But otherwise, I think this is fairly straightforward stuff that I'm generally supportive. Thank you. Great, thank you, Steve. Jean. Yeah, a few things. I'm actually not so worried about the advertising coaster signs are gonna be pretty small. So I guess I'm not too concerned about that. I think that we do and I think this is right. We can make a distinction between on-premises advertising and off-premises advertising. So we could, and I think we do that, say, you can advertise your own business on your front window, but you can't advertise somebody else's business on your front window. And I think we could technically say the same thing to these. You can advertise yourself and thank your sponsors, but I think we could say you can't advertise another business, but I'm not sure, but I wouldn't go that way because I don't see the ads as being a really big problem. I wanna get back to the exemption piece and Steve and I are in alignment that it would be nice to have this as a sign type. I think one thing we can do, which is just say, if they meet these requirements, they're exempt from all the sign pieces. Alternatively, we can put these things in and say they're subject to all the requirements of the sign by law, except they don't need to get a permit if they meet these specific criteria. So I think there are a couple of ways that we can do it. The third way is if they're gonna be six blue bike stations, we can issue one for the staff, since we send this to the staff. The staff through administrative review can do one for all six of them because somebody, I think maybe it was you Sprachel said, but the staff will have administrative review with my responses, not if we exempt it from all of these things except the size, the staff won't have any administrative review. So I think we have to decide whether we want the staff to have administrative review or not. I'd say it depends, but if you want them to look at advertising and other things, yes. If you don't, I'd say then we don't have to have them do that. And then I just wanna mention one thing aside, because something Ken said got me thinking if we go back to the definition of shared mobility docking station, they're gonna be electric bicycles and they're motorized, right? So I think we need to think about what to do with that part of the definition that says our other non-motorized vehicles since I expect they'll be that and maybe they'll even be docking stations for motorized, those other little things people go crazy on sometimes. So I think- The motorized scooters, yeah. Thank you. And the thing with one wheel, do you see those? I forgot what- Yes, yeah. So I think we need to think about that, but even if they don't do, there are gonna be and there are in some other places electric bicycles and docking stations. So that's one thing. And then how about, I haven't seen any of their signs, but Zipcar, I think they're gonna start doing electric cars and they're gonna have to have electric plug-in for when they go back to the spaces. So, you know, I'm not sure where to go with that other than we can't simply say non-motorized vehicles, but we can't say all motorized vehicles because then you end up with Zipcar and who knows what else who are gonna have electric vehicles. So I did wanna mention that too, but going back now, I don't think advertising is a big deal. I think I like putting it in here as a separate sign category. I don't think we should exempt them from the requirements. I think we should just exempt them from meeting a permit if they meet the specific requirements there. But that's just another way to think about doing it. Rachel, I'm okay with going with what Jean said on that. Okay, thank you, Melissa. So we will have time for deliberation on the 25th. In terms of any items we'd like Jenny to take a look at or we'd like the members of the board to think on and perhaps share suggested wording too for Jenny so that we have something to react to when we meet again. What I'd ask is that we think about that. Although if the board is okay with me opening it up for public comment, I'd like to see if there is any public comment and then I'll go back through everyone on the board and make sure that we have a list of follow-up items before we move on to the next article. All right, so at this time, I would like to open the floor up for public comment. Please use the raise hand function if you would like to address this article. You will have up to three minutes and before you begin your comments, please introduce yourself with your first, last name and address and we will begin with Chris. Thank you, Madam Chair, Chris Loretty, 56 Adams Street. Can you hear me okay? I can, thank you. Thank you. Just a few comments. I guess I hadn't intended to speak on this one but after hearing the conversation, frankly it sounds to me like what the board wants to approve our billboards and historically that billboards are something that have been strictly regulated by the town and in fact they still are and they do regulate content because essentially they're saying if you're putting up a sign that doesn't advertise the business or what's happening in that location, it's not allowed. And now you're creating an exception to that because basically the town is invited in a failed business called Shared Blue Bikes. And I believe there's a warrant article before town meeting to give them another $100,000 per year out of taxpayers' money because they're not a viable business. And I think the board needs to think very carefully about how it wants to allow billboards to subsidize these types of failing businesses because I could see the select board, if they do it in this case, what other cases are they going to do it in? It seems to me this one really isn't ready for prime time and it might well be worth waiting to see what happens with that subsidy vote at town meeting because I suspect if that fails they're not gonna be in town anyway and this change might not even be needed. So I hardly think this is a proper subject for a special town meeting that needs expedited approval. I think what it really needs is a lot more thought and consideration. And I'd ask the board to give it that. Thank you. Thank you. Any other members of the public wishing to speak on this item? All right, seeing none, we will close public comment for article B and I'll just run through to see if there are any additional topics that we want to ask questions of Jenny of or request further past before our meeting on the 25th and I'll start with Jean. My one question is about contracts. So will the town enter into a contract with Blue Bikes if it is Blue Bikes? So no company will come in here without having a contract from the town. Is that right? Or the bike share? Yeah. Yes, we have a current contract with Blue Bikes right now. The other electric vehicle charging stations was meant to be private companies on private property. So there wouldn't be any contract. There would not be a contract now. Okay. The electric vehicle charging stations that have been installed in the town would have been installed by the town in public parking spaces. And there are at least one private that I'm aware of, but. There is one private one. Yeah, there's actually two private ones. Yeah, I think we should, I guess it's another reason to think about not exempting them, but maybe just exempting them from the permitting requirement and thinking a little bit about whether there needs to be any other distention between the two types. But I think it's, I'm not sure what the answer to that is. I think it needs a little more thought. That's it. Great, thanks, Jean. Ken? I think I'm fine for now. I think I'd like to think about this a little bit more. Okay. Thank you. We can get back to this, okay? That sounds good. Thank you, Ken. And I appreciate the topics that you brought up this evening. Melissa? No further comments. Thank you. Steve? Nothing further, Madam Chair. Great. Thank you. And I don't have any further comments either. Let's see. So we now will move to Article C, which is Zoning by Law Amendment related to non-conforming single family or two family dwellings. And I will turn it over to Jenny. And for this, actually, I was going to see if, I know that we have Pat Hanlon here, as well as Mike Champa. And I was hoping that in my presentation, if they are interested in adding to this discussion or being part of the dialogue, that they may potentially participate. Pat is a member of the Zoning Board of Appeals. And Mike is the Director of Inspectional Services. Thank you, Jenny. So I just ask if you have any specific areas that you'd like them to lay in on, if you could direct that to them at the end of your comments, that would be great. Certainly. And this whole amendment was raised by Town Council. And we have had a follow-up conversation with Town Council, which led to essentially, I think, the decision that the best course of action would be to delete the section, to strike it in its entirety, but in order to get a little more fuller perspective of that, that's where I would like to hear from, either Pat or Mike or both. Because after the review, essentially, we, you know, not to walk through the entire memo here, but we did talk about how the elimination would be the best way to address this particular issue, both the conflict that it presents and, you know, that it's essentially, it's creating the wrong structure for what this by-law is saying, it's the wrong structure in order to address this issue. Further, it's also somewhat duplicative. And then lastly, I think it's, the building inspector already has the discretion and the by-law outlines the discretion of the building inspector in section three. And their determination is key in determining non-conformities and determining any next steps that are necessary in order for a project to proceed. So again, this is not in compliance with recent case law and the determination has been made that the best course of action would be to delete it in its entirety. And I think I'll stop there. We did talk about some, you know, just as part of that conversation, we had to talk about things that were sort of like, perhaps the redevelopment board and the zoning board of appeals could look at some sort of joint guidelines. That was a little bit beyond this particular, there was more than just this amendment because this amendment really relates more directly with the zoning board of appeals than it does to the redevelopment board, which is why I would like to hear potentially from Pat. So that's all. Thank you, Rachel. Thank you, Jenny. So Pat Hamlin, I believe that you're here with us this evening. If you could introduce yourself and we'd love to hear your perspective on this article. Could you wait for just a second? Absolutely. I hadn't expected to do this, so I took my headphones off. Oh, no problem. So as you all know, the vested rights that and how you treat them is laid out in an obscure way in the zoning act in section six. And the basic rule in section six is pretty much described in section 8.1.3b. And the Bellaltic case recently sort of made it clear that you could have an, the key thing is whether or not, the first, the thing that starts the process going is that the building inspector would have to make a decision as to whether or not a structural change in a single or two family residential structure would increase the non-conforming nature of the structure. And if the answer to that question is no, then the structural change can be done as a matter of right. If the answer to that question is yes, then the structural change can be made only if the Board of Appeals makes a section six finding, which is essentially the same thing that we would do in the structure of a special permit. And that's sort of the way 8.1.3b is supposed to work. There is an additional situation that can happen and that is where instead of the structural change increasing the non-conforming nature that already exists, it could be an additional non-conformity. So this isn't going to help you, for example, if you've got a problem with intruding on a setback and you wanna make your house 40 feet tall. And so that's an easy case, but sometimes those kinds of decisions are not so easy. The way in which the courts envisioned this happening is that the building inspector will make the initial decision. There's always the possibility under section 3.3 that there might be an appeal to the zoning Board of Appeals of that decision that's there and not really an issue here. And if so, and where there's a situation where the increase in the existing non-conformity is increased, then the Board of Appeals has to decide whether or not the change will be substantially more detrimental to the neighborhood than the existing system. Section C is a problem because it reports to take as particular kind of circumstance where you extend the wall backwards or for sideways any way of extending it. And it defines in a way that in some cases is different from what you'd come out at in section by applying section B and says you have to do it this way. And while the Board of Town Meeting in the town has the authority to treat vested rights more favorably than the state does, it can give more protection to the property owner. It can't cut back on the protection that the property owner has by state law. And under some circumstances, section C is apt to do that. Now, so then the question is, well, what do you do about that? And I think in discussing it where we came out really is that section C in some ways does more harm than good. We have a structure that's prescribed by state law. We know how to make it work. The courts tell us how to make it work. Mr. Champa is obviously in the driver's seat on the initial determination of all of these things that sets all of this off. And if there's a situation where there's a disagreement about the way in which the zoning by law applies, there are procedures for dealing with those. So rather than trying, so it's clear that sometimes you can proceed as a matter of right. That's what the Bellaltic case suggests. It's clear that you can proceed if there's an increasing the existing nonconformity that we can make a section six finding and allow it. And it's also possible that the whole thing doesn't fall into 8.1.3B at all because it's an additional nonconformity that isn't regulated. And all of that is there if you just have B. You don't really need any more than that. And so rather than trying to reduce C in some better way or express it in a more general way or write more here, you can achieve the objective by writing less. And that's what the proposal does. And if I like Mike to weigh in if and whether or not, I actually would like him especially to weigh in if he agrees with me, but since we can't regulate content here, I'd like him to weigh in whether he agrees with me or not. Great. Thank you. I appreciate it. And so I'll see if Mike Champa, our Director of Inspectional Services could provide his perspective. Thank you. Yes, Mike Champa, Director of Inspectional Services. I do agree with that. I agree it conflicts with what's provided for by mass general law. I think that Pat understands that my main concern is that this is a, it's a different type of situation in which usually there's an article brought to try and solve a specific problem. But in this case, we're just taking something out. And my only concern, I mean, I think it's necessary. I obviously supported, but my concern is, you know, it's something that you don't see what other effects it could have until they start to happen. I think that a lot of what we deal with now is a lot of concerns that we get from residents, they're fully read in on the bylaw. So, you know, the question is, you know, how will that relate to, you know, to our concern calls down the line? And, you know, I think that if we're in, I think that if our interpretations are matching well with the zoning board of appeals, it won't end up with any consequence and it will be helpful. Chairman, can I say one other thing? I don't think this is going to change the outcome in many cases. It changes the procedure and the way in which you think about it and it changes what you write in the opinion. But in general, I suspect that there are only a few cases which would be decided differently as a result of taking this out. Some probably, but not very many. Great, thank you. I appreciate your perspective and will direct any questions to both of you that the board may have as well. And I'll start with Ken for any questions. No, I don't have any questions. I am supportive of this. I think this aligns with the state law. And I think it's something that we're doing already and it's makes it clearer and makes it stronger what we're doing. So I'm all set. Great, thank you, Ken. Gene? I agree that C has to go. I do have a question now or two questions for Mike and or Pat. So this sets up two situations, one in which it's a non-conforming, single or two family, but they're going to do something within the existing foundation walls. Therefore it doesn't increase the non-conforming nature. Second one is where they're doing something that does increase the non-conforming nature, but the Board of Appeals can allow them to do it anyhow. What about a third situation in which I've got a house, it's non-conforming but I'm going to do something outside the existing foundation walls, but it doesn't make it more non-conforming. Where do I find the answer to that in 8.1.3? Shall I say that again? Do you want me to direct that to Pat or to Mike? Where do I find the answer to that in 8.1.3? Can I, well, I'll take a shot when Mike thinks about it. Is the thing that you're, the key thing is whether, I mean, if you don't extend at all the non-conforming use or the non-conforming feature, if it's just a change, then you can do that. Right, where does it, Pat, I agree. Where does it stay that in here? I'm a member of the public, right? And I know my house is non-conforming. I go to 8.1.3 and I look at A and it says, oh, as long as I do something within the existing foundation walls, no problem. I look at B, well, if I'm going to increase the non-conformity, but what if I want to do A, but it's not within the existing foundation walls? Well, the problem there is that it's not prohibited. And B, it says no alteration, reconstruction, et cetera, that increases the non-conforming nature of said structures shall be permitted. That's where the prohibition is. There isn't any other prohibition. Look at A, though. A says I can alter, reconstruct, extend, structurally change as long as it's completely within the existing foundation walls. No, it doesn't say that. Yes, it does. Well, let me try this, what it really, what it says is that with all these changes, it says that is within the completely, within the existing foundation wall, does not increase the non-conforming nature of said structure. The meaning of that is only found if you look at B and you'd find that not increasing the non-conforming nature of said structure, it means that it's not prohibited. So the basic prohibition is in B. A is simply a matter of determining what increasing the non-conforming nature of the structure means. Okay, so let's say I'm going to alter, reconstruct, extend, restructurally change a single or two-family residential structure, but not completely within the existing foundation walls. And I'm not increasing the non-conforming nature. So for example, I'm too close to the lot line on one side. So I'm non-conforming. I am going to build out the house on the other side, but still not hit the setback. So I'm fine. So A doesn't cover me because I'm not doing something completely within the existing foundation walls. I don't have to get to B because I'm not increasing the non-conforming nature, but I don't fit into A because I'm taking a structure that's non-conforming, and I'm not making it more non-conforming, but I'm not doing it within the existing foundation walls. So if I'm reading these bylaws, how do I know where that is since it's not in A and it's not in B? Well, there's nothing that... I'm sorry. Yeah, my champ ahead is his hand up. I'm sorry, go ahead. I see him to address this one first. Thank you. Thank you. So I think you kind of touched on exactly where I was going with interpretation. I mean, I think that taking out C provides more discretion, but I think that if interpretations are important because there's a department and a board that both have discretion to provide interpretations when there is not a specific regulation. So I would suggest that we could do that, or I think we would be better off by replacing C with something that says what happens in those circumstances, like a non-conforming single family or two family residents, baby modified, extended, reconstructed, as of right as long as the extension modification altered structure does not increase the non-conforming nature of the structure. That's the piece that I think needs to be added to complete the options when you've got a non-conforming structure. So the question to Mike and Pat is, is it worth putting that in there, or do we not care? Wouldn't you also, Madam Chairman, is it okay if I? Sure, sure, why don't you take that and then I'll ask Mike for his opinion. Okay, so at the very least, that is a little bit too broad because what you'd have to include also is it doesn't create any new non-conformity. That's an assumption too, because it wouldn't be true. It is possible to create a new non-conformity in which case you would have the same problem you'd have to get a variance because you would be creating a non-conformity and you wouldn't be protected on that because it's new. All I can say is that we get those cases all the time and there just isn't any doubt that if you're not creating a new non-conformity and you're not increasing the non-conforming nature of this, then you can just do it and that happens reasonably regularly. And why do you get the cases at the ZBA if you can do it as a right? Oh, because sometimes you've got another kind of a problem. You've got a special, like a large addition, for example, where you're doing something in exactly the example and you may, but let's say that it's a large addition so there's a special permit is required to begin with and the question could come up whether you can do that because you've got a non-conformity on the left side but you're building on the right side and if you're okay on the right side, then just the regular rules on the special permit for a large addition would apply and you would need no special provision in the bylaw to cover that. So, Jean, did you also want to direct that question to Dr. Champa? Oh, yes. Non-conforming is such a... So, I understand where you're, you know, I see the merit in the wording but I think that what's really... I think that what's really at issue and something that can't be solved is that, you know, non-conforming can't really... Non-conforming can't be defined. It's open to interpretation for multiple people so I think that that's, you know, that's more in... I think that maybe in this case, as was said, you know, less maybe more and then see where, you know, see where that takes us. Okay, thanks. That was helpful. I appreciate it. All the discussion. Thank you. Thank you. Jean, did you have other questions? No. I think I suppose at this time. Okay, great. Thank you. Melissa, any questions? No questions at this time. Okay, thank you. Steve? Having served on the ZBA for a year and a half, I can say that non-conforming is hard or it has a tendency to be hard and I appreciated the little bit in Stas Memo about their mention of the infamous Second Accept Clause in Chapter 40A, Section 6. I think this is... I have one... I'm supportive of this. I would just make one friendly suggestion instead of striking C altogether in renumbering. I'd suggest leaving, you know, the lettered item C, striking the text and replacing that with the word deleted, just so that, you know, I presume there have been... I'm pretty sure we've had special permit hearings under 813C and just, you know, if someone were to look at an old special permit notice and look at the by-law, you know, I think it would be clearer to say, you know, this section has been deleted rather than to have them look at 813D. That's all. Great, I'll turn that suggestion over to Jenny because I think that that was a practice that had been addressed during recodification if I'm not mistaken in terms of what the preference was, but I defer to you on that. I mean, I hear what you're saying, Steve. We are trying to work with Inspectional Services to make sure that we don't quote from, you know, we're on the same page with the by-law, so I don't think that that should be a problem. To note deleted. No, to make it ABC, like we deleted that section and it's no longer there rather than say deleted. I think if we did that with other parts of the by-law, it would end up getting confusing eventually. So there's a lot of things in series. Great, thank you. Any other questions from the board before we open this up for public comments? All right, so at this time, any member of the public wishing to speak, please use the raise hand function at the bottom of your screen. You'll have up to three minutes and please begin your remarks by identifying yourself with your first last name and street address. And we will go to Chris Loretty for our first speaker. Thank you, Madam Chair, Chris Loretty, 56 Adams Street. Can you hear me okay again? Yes, yes. Okay, thanks. I guess I'm probably the only person on this call who was around at the time that section of the by-law was added. And it was done at the initiation of the then planning director, Kevin O'Brien. Because what was happening is people were putting additions on in the required setback where there already was an addition. And the issue at that time wasn't that they were trying to go beyond or more into the setback than previously. It was simply that they weren't, the belief was there that they weren't getting sufficient review by the ZBA at that time. And I believe in some cases they weren't even being referred to the ZBA. They were getting the permits by right. So for example, if I had say a 36 foot single story entryway on the side of my house that was in the setback and wanted to make a six by 20 foot addition, still not going into the setback any further, but say two stories high, the building inspector was saying, well, that doesn't increase the nonconforming nature of the structure, you get a building permit by right. And the only thing I find troubling about taking C out is as Mr. Benson said, A is quite clear if you're within the existing foundation walls you're not increasing the nonconforming nature. But what if you go outside the existing foundation wall and what if you go outside in particular in a required yard setback? Does that increase the nonconforming nature of said structure? Because according to the court decision if it doesn't then you just get a building permit by right. And I'm concerned that if that's the way the bylaw is going to be interpreted even when you're building into the required yard setback and putting a 100 or 200 square foot addition on, I believe in those cases the matter should be referred to the ZBA even if it is only for a special permit and not a variance. So that's the real issue here is I think the bylaw is not clear on what constitutes a nonconform, an increase that a change that is an increase the nonconforming nature of the structure. And that's all that C was trying to address. I believe even before C came in if you wanted to build closer to the lot line and the existing nonconformity you were pushed to get a variance. Now, I realize that the court case says that's not necessarily true under Bilalta if you've got a nonconforming structure. But the issue of taking C out while it may deal with that inconsistency with the state law what it doesn't do is provide any guidance on when you've got a nonconforming or when you're increasing the nonconforming nature of the structure by building in a required yard setback. And I think this is something the ZBA needs to work with the ARB on to get that in writing in the bylaw. And I believe it's entirely consistent with state law to do that. It's not saying you need a variance it's just saying when, you know essentially it's adding, you know more detail and more clarity to what is begun in A and defining when you have increased the nonconforming nature of the structure and when you haven't. So I'll leave it at that. Thank you. Thank you, Tuti. I'll run back through the members of the board and see if there are any additional comments or questions before we move on. And I'll start with Ken. Nope, I'm fine to know. Great, thank you. Jean. Nothing else, thank you. Melissa. Nothing else at this point. Steve. Nothing for me, Madam Chair. Okay, great. Thank you all. Thank you, Mike Chimba and Pat Hemlin for your perspective on article C. And thank you, Jenny and Kelly for preparing the memo and all of the discussion points for us this evening. So with that, I would like to see if there is a motion to close the warrant article public hearing for the 2022 special town meeting. Rachel, did you close public comment? I did not. I will now close public comment. Thank you, Ken, for article C. And now I will ask if there is a motion to close the public hearing for 2022 special town meeting. Thank you. So motions. There are a second. Second. All right, we'll take a vote. Ken. Yes. Jean. Yes. Melissa. Yes. Steve. And I'm a yes as well. So thank you everyone for weighing in during the public hearing process. We will return to these articles on April 25th when we will deliberate and vote on each one of these three articles. That'll be in person or remote depending on what. To be determined based on the select board meeting on Monday evening. And that's a 630. Jenny correct me if I'm wrong. I believe it was 630. Oh, on the 25th. Yes. Thank you. Yes, thank you for the clarification. All right. So that brings us to the end of our agenda this evening. Any other items from the board? All right, seeing none. I will see if there is a motion to adjourn this evening. So motion. Second. Take a vote. Ken. Yes. Dean. Yes. Melissa. Yes. Steve. Yes. And I'm a yes as well. Thank you all. Have a great evening. Thank you. Thank you. Bye. Bye.