All right, Amoris Media. I'm going to put Amoris Media over in the panelists, Mr. Marshall. Usually that's where they are and see what happens. up to the panelist
I think is how that goes. Okay, there we go. You play the piano, Jesse? Can you serenate us while we're waiting? Maybe. Maybe another year. I grew up playing. My dad's an amazing pianist. This was his piano and he was moving apartments and couldn't fit it in his
new apartment. So, I benefited, but I haven't played in quite a while. But it's on my to-do list as soon as as of next Thursday. I have an empty nest, so I have lots of time. Oh, well, I'll come and listen. Yeah, give me give me a few months.
[Laughter] Yeah. You don't think you can have hot cross buns done by September? Okay, I can play that today. But you know, I know in the house we moved into there was an upright piano and the owner had said, "Well, when we when we looked went
to look at it, the kids were playing playing on it." She's like, "Oh, do you guys do you want me to just leave it here?" And it it would took up a lot of the living room and we talked about it and we said we decided not to. And then afterward, I'm like, "Man, we should have just kept it because it would have been cool to have." Yeah. I know it would have been noisy. And uh
you know I I kind of played but I'm not you know I took lessons but I wasn't great. It been cool just to be able to sit down once in a while. Instead we have a keyboard fulls size keyboard. We had one for a while and then we made
a deal. If you move it you can have it and someone took a look on it. We just leave ours out on Pine Street. It's amazing what people pick up when you leave stuff on Pine Street. Okay, Mr. Marshall, I think we're good
to go. I do see Ammeris Media in the house. You have a quorum of the board. Um, let's see. My clock says 6:35. Um, I'm going to I'm about to make you the co-host. I think we're good to go.
Okay. Thank you, Pam. You're welcome. Welcome to the Ammeris Planning Board meeting of August 20, 2025. My name is Doug Marshall and as chair of the Amoris Planning Board, I am calling this meeting to order at 6:35 p.m. This
meeting is being recorded and is available live stream via Amoris Media. Minutes are being taken pursuant to chapter 20 of the acts of 2021 and extended by chapter 2 of the acts of 2023
and further extended by chapter 2 of the acts of 2025. This planning board meeting will be conducted conducted via remote means using the zoom platform. The zoom meeting link is available on the meeting web agenda posted on the town website's
calendar listing for this meeting. or go to the planning board web page and click on the most recent agenda where the Zoom link is listed at the top of the page. No in-person attendance of the public is permitted. However, every effort will be made to ensure the public can access the
meeting in real time via technological means. In the event public access is disrupted for reasons of economic hardship or despite best efforts, we will post an audio or video recording, transcript, or other comprehensive record of proceedings as soon as
possible after the meeting on the town's website. Board members, I will take a roll call. When I call your name, unmute yourself, answer affirmatively, and return to mute. Bruce I am here. Fred Hartwell,
I am here. Jesse Major, present. I Doug Marshall, I'm present. Uh, we believe that Angus Mloud will join us around 7 o'clock. Uh, Johannes Newman is not with us at
this point, at least in the meeting, and Jara Smith present. Thank you all. Board members, if technical issues arise and the discussion needs to pause, it will be noted in the minutes. Please use the raise hand function to ask a question or
make a comment and I will call on you to speak. After speaking, remember to remmute yourself. To the general public, the general public comment agenda item is reserved for public comment regarding items not on tonight's agenda. Please be
aware the board will not respond to comments during general public comment period. Public comment may also be heard at other times during the meeting when deemed appropriate by the planning board chair. Please indicate you wish to make a comment by clicking the raise hand
button when public comment is solicited. If you have joined the Zoom meeting using a telephone, please indicate you wish to make a comment by pressing star9 on your phone. When called on, please identify yourself by stating your full name and address and put yourself back
into mute when finished speaking. Residents can express their views for up to three minutes or at the discretion of of the planning board chair. If a speaker does not comply with their these guidelines or exceeds their allotted time, their participation may be
disconnected from the meeting. All right. So, first item on the agenda is uh review and approval of minutes. We have the June 4th minutes from this year available in our packet. Did anyone have any comments or edits or changes or any
other thing to discuss about these minutes? I do not see anyone raising their hand immediately. Jesse, thanks. Um, like I thought they were pretty accurate. So, I move to approve the minutes. Okay.
Um, anybody want to second them or is that hand raised to you, Bruce? Okay. Bruce has indicated he would like to second the motion. Uh, board members, any further comments on the minutes or are they just perfect
the way that Pam and Nate drafted them? Perfectly satisfactory. Perfectly satisfactory. That's a pretty tepid comment, but it's sufficient. Meets expectations, right?
Meet expectations. Okay. All right. Uh, in that case, we'll go ahead and vote on the June 4th minutes. Please vote yes if you are in favor of approval. Starting with you, Bruce. Yes. And Fred. Yes.
Jesse. Hi. and Jara. Hi. Thank you, Jara. And I'm an I as well. That's five in favor and two members absent.
All right. Time is 6:40. Perfect timing. We are now up. Oh, actually, we're up to the public comment period. Yeah. Um, at this point, if there are members of the public who would like to make a comment about a topic which is not on
tonight's agenda, this is the time to raise your hand. While you are deliberating whether to make a comment and raise your hand, I will read the names of the attendees that I can see on my Zoom screen.
We have seven attendees, one of which is Ammerst Media, one of And then we have Howard Eert, uh, Jacob's iPad, number two, Ken Rosenthal, Maria,
Mora Keane, and Pam Rooney. All right, I still don't see any hands from members of the public. One last call. Okay, the time now is 6:41 and we will move on. All right, the next item is a public
hearing advertised to start at 6:40. So, we are in compliance with that. Um, this is for site plan review and special permit SPR 2025-08
and SP 2025-01. The applicant is Archipelago Investments LLC. Uh, location is Gway and Lannon Lane. This hearing has continued, excuse me, from four previous occasions.
May 7th, June 4th, June 18th, and July 16th, all of 2025. So, the preamble reads, "Request site plan review approval under section 3.325 of the zoning bylaw to construct a new
mixeduse development with three buildings including 140 residential units, approximately 12,000 square ft of commercial space, 180 parking spaces, and associated site improvements, and request a special permit under
footnote A of table 3, article six of the zoning bylaw to modify the front setback uh beyond the maximum required building height to exceed the maximum allowed and the number of floors to exceed the maximum allowed. This is located in the
BBC village center business zoning district on map 25B parcels 52 and 58. All right. Do we have any board member disclosure that needs to be made for
this continuation of this hearing? All right. I don't see anyone suggesting they have a disclosure. Nate, uh, oh, and by the way, the time now is 6:43 and our member Angus Mloud just joined us.
Welcome, Angus. And you haven't missed much. Um, and so we are now, uh, Angus, just so you know, we're starting the first of the three public hearings for this evening. Nate, uh, do you want to
introduce this evening's conversation? Yeah, sure. Thanks, everyone. The applicant has requested a continuence again without testimony uh, to September 17th, and so they are still working through the conservation commission and don't have anything to present to the
planning board tonight. All right. So, we need a motion to continue this hearing to September 17th. Um, Pam, shall we go ahead and say 640 again? Uh, well, we could say 6:35.
Did I write 640 somewhere? This was actually No, the the the hearing we're in right now start was advertised for 640. Um, but if you want to start us at 6:35, that's fine. Um, Nate, what do you I say we can do
6:35. We don't have anything else scheduled for the 17th yet. No, I think that's fine. Yeah, 6:35. Okay, let's Great. So, I'm gonna call on Jesse and then Bruce. I move that we continue to September
17th at 6:35. All right, Bruce. Thank you for the second and thank you for the motion, Jesse. All right. So, since we are not taking testimony, I'm not going to ask for any comment from board members and we'll go
directly into the vote. Um, so we'll start again with Bruce. Hi. And then Fred. Hi. Jesse. Hi.
Uh, Angus. Hi and Jara. I however point of a question of clarification. Are Angus and I allowed to vote on the continuation.
Uh I'll defer to Nate. Yeah, I don't see why not. You're not voting on um a decision. You're voting on a continuence. Okay. I Okay. And I'm an I as well. That is six in favor. for one absence.
Uh Jesse, your hand is still up. Yeah, I had a procedural question for the Okay. Um I don't I haven't been on the board long enough to know if this is a frequent occurrence with projects that they get continued continued continued. Is there not a mechanism basically to say to the applicant, let us know when
you're ready rather than us spending time every couple weeks continuing it? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I mean I you know I offered that um date to Kyle Archipelago. They thought they would have something ready by then. So you know I think some of it is it's taking
longer with the conservation commission. Um there is a way you know we could you know we could push it out even further or you know we try to typically you know continue to a date certain. So it's, you know, if for instance in September, if it seems like really there's no progress, maybe we just say
like December, you know, like but it's it's it's unusual to have this um this many continuences. There's been, you know, project with the zoning board that had it uh the other year. It was continued for over a year. Um but it's it's pretty atypical.
Okay, thanks. Okay, I guess we will move on. All right, let's see. Oh, that's interesting, Pam. The way this was advertised or listed, the next one. The next one was advertised for 635. So,
I guess we're in compliance on that, too. You know, are you looking at the opening comments? I I am. I am. Well, guess what? I think my imperfections are showing. So the agenda Oh yes.
Um the agenda was archipelago at 6:35 and the inclusionary zoning public hearing is at 640 and then the article 5 ADUs that's going to be 6:45. Sorry for that confusion. Okay. Yeah, I do see that in the agenda
that you sent me. Yep. So uh okay, thanks for the correction. You're welcome. So, just for the record, the hearing that we just continued was really advertised for 6:35. I was incorrect about that.
All right. So, we'll start the next public hearing now at 648. um advertised for 640 uh on the zoning bylaw article 15 inclusionary zoning to consider amending section 15.171
of the zoning bylaw by adding new text that would allow for project specific determination of the fees in loo value for affordable units to be made by the permit granting authority. This is continued from August 6th of this year.
All right. So, Nate, I suspect you should start us off here. And are you going to share that word document you brought you sent us a couple of days ago? Yeah, thanks everyone. Uh, yeah, the I'll I can just give a summary and I I can share my screen. So, you know, after
the planning board hearing, the CRC opened their hearing last week and discussed this amendment. Uh there were some questions about you know median family income and kind of what's the kind of what's the base number and what's the multiplier um you know they they you know uh you
know they kind of want to get at what's the kind of purpose of the payment in loo um you know is it to construct a new unit is it to you know how would the town or trust leverage it and they suggested you know a small change to the factors and the criteria that are considered uh they continued it I think
really just to have the planning board um have a future discussion. I think that you know they were seemed pretty uh comfortable with with it. You know, there were some questions about the range. You know, so 10 times the median family income they thought was pretty
high. Um you know, I think Gaston isn't here this evening. He emailed me and he said, you know, what he's seen through the two hearings are friendly amendments. So, you know, there's a been a few suggestions by the planning board and CRC. And you know he his point is to
stress you know flexibility and um and you know an ability not necessarily to have to change you know every so frequently. So um for instance you know there was discussion or could you have a narrower range or say a more precise calculation of development costs which I
think is actually difficult to get to pin to but right now we could say you know $350,000 per unit but then next year we might have to then change the bylaw and go through this process to say 500,000 and then the year after say whatever it is. And so you know the range right now it's four to 10 times
the amount of the median family income which you know median family income say is 120,000 right now so four times is 480 up to actually a lot of money um is you know what happens in that range and so you know as we discussed I think it
actually to me becomes something that an applicant would have to you know if they're asking for this it's a special permit request so really it's a an opt out of actually providing the units in the project. So, it's an opt- out request and it's a special permit process. So, you know, it's discretionary and usually there's some
discussion. So, you know, as I mentioned before into the CRC, I I think that there'd be, you know, some expectation that the applicant would would provide some, you know, some information, whether it's their development cost or what they think is reasonable in terms of a payment. And the board and staff
can always then ask questions. And so, um, you know, they could come in and say, I think four times is what it cost me. And we could say, well, you know, here's our experience with recent affordable housing projects or here's what we think it would cost the town or the trust to build a unit. We think it should be more. Uh, and then there really is a discussion about that. Um, I
think it's really difficult to pin down a precise number, hence the range. Um the CRC did ask about median family income and honestly we could say like a cost per square foot basis plus a multiplier but it gets you to the kind of it gets you to the same thing which
is a range of of you know a payment amount and so I feel comfortable with median family income you know it's not an indicator necessarily of construction costs but it is reflective of the you know the median income in the area and it goes up and down every year based on
other factors calculated by HUD. So it's a reliable number. it's consistent. It's published every year and we don't we don't have to try to calculate it. I would hate to use some some number that is you know put out by some organization that isn't as reliable or use you know
the CPI and some multiplier and you know I'd ra you know anyways I think the formula is what it is there. Could there be another one? Sure. I think it works to get a conversation going about what the correct payment is. um you know when I emailed the board I you know I had two questions you know you know really does
it provide a good process and is the range appropriate and so I think it's you know I think it's still something to consider um uh I'll share my screen in a minute you know the board last time had it said maybe the the lower amount should be five times the median income keep the 10
and then add you know cost of delays to the factors the CRC said they weren't quite clear about what that meant Um, I think that, you know, if we wanted to add it, I think we could clarify it a little bit. Uh, and then the CRC, you know, wanted to include project costs in
in their in the criteria. So, um, you know, you know, it says market conditions and other things, and they thought project costs was also important. Market conditions may mean other things, not just actual costs for, you know, the project. So, with that, I'll share my screen.
if this is visible for everyone. Yeah. So, you know, what's highlighted in yellow are the changes that have been discussed over the planning board and CRC. So, five times we'd remove the four, we'd add project costs and then
cost of delays. I mean to me we could if we wanted to we could say the delay in um constructing or occupying the affordable units or other affordable units which I know is what it's getting to but um you know
sort of ambiguous at the moment right and you know and I I think you know the question of what's the purpose of this and I you know I've said it and I'll say it again that when we looked at this the consultant we um the town hired said you know sometimes they would see the payment and loo opt of being
something that's kind of a high bar, right? So you don't want to have it be such a low payment that it's easy for a developer to opt out every time. Um, and so the, you know, this is a special permit, so it is a discretionary, so we don't have to say yes. And then, you
know, they also, just to clarify, in this section of the zoning bylaw, if it's six or more affordable units um are required by the project, half of them have to be provided anyways. And so, you know, they have the ability then to ask for half of them to be located offsite
within 500 feet or the same zoning district or this payment option. It could be a combination of those. You know, if it's fewer than six required affordable units, you know, there's they could they could ask for um different, you know, different options as well. Um, and so like I, you know, I think I I may
have mentioned, but to the CRC sometimes I think a smaller project that only has one affordable unit or maybe two, even three, they might say, well, is, you know, if a developer is not familiar with affordable housing, maybe the payment option is something that they're seeking because they just they don't understand affordable housing or they,
you know, that to hire an agency to do the affirmative affair marketing and monitor the units might just seem like a lot of work. You know, staff can always talk to them about that. There's examples in town now where this has happened. So I feel like I think there's kind of more understanding and knowledge of how affordable housing works than
there was just five years ago in Ammer. So um but you know I think we we have this option and you know uh really this was in response to one project where the board didn't think the bylaw offered flexibility and so you know what's offered here is flexibility. I you know
I feel like that this could be written another way as well to get at some number. Um but for now I think it's fine. All right, Nate, we've got three hands up, four hands, so everybody's eager to comment. We'll start with you, Bruce.
Well, for the moment, I'm not going to repeat anything that I said last time. Um, thank you. But I'm I'm simply going to say I think the the cause of confusion with the CRC is because they've got cost of delays plural. that indicates that somehow the
project itself may be delayed in some way and that's absolutely not what I was proposing. It's simply cost of delay. It's the delay between when the affordable housing becomes uh online as created by a project that's already
underway and when affordable housing would come online if the payment in L is made when the whole damn thing has to be ramped up and so forth. So it's the cost of that delay which may or may not be considered relevant but it's the
proposal of including that phrase cost of delay singular in here is to uh uh trigger uh the question and uh and there may be some reason why actually
the delay is significant and uh and and the there is a cost as determined by the planning staff perhaps as advised by the housing trust and that some uh dollar amount flows from that. Um I don't know whether we need apart from getting rid
of that s uh need to explain that but uh um I mean we could equally say well project location project costs they all need to be explained but I think um if people need to uh understand what is meant by that they simply come back to
the minutes of this discussion from years previous and they read it because the only entity that needs to know this is the planning board and the planning staff. I mean pime primarily because they can then explain it to applicants and
whomever else is interested. So cost of delay is all I would suggest deleting that s is all that I would suggest that will make uh make it clearer. Oh and it's also I think that you mean to have the the four times
um parenthesis sorry the four parenthesis 4 should be deleted right. Yeah. Well, yeah, I think that's a discussion point. So, if the board, you know, makes a, you know, makes a decision tonight on some of these fact, you know, ideas and
I can, you know, I would clean this up as we go. So, you know, you think, you know, right now I'm showing both options. You know, it was proposed that it's it's four now um and then no more than 10 times and then the idea was um
suggested having five. So, I'm just keeping both. Yeah. Okay. Well, I've made my case five. I'll leave it that for the moment. Okay. Thank you, Doug. That's it. Thanks, Bruce. Cher, thank you, Chair. Um, I agree with
everything that Bruce just said. Uh, I'm curious by Nate, maybe you could remind me like who names the multiplier or the figure or the range? Is that provided to us by staff? Is that initially proposed by the
affordable housing trust? Um, and who is in charge of providing data related to market conditions, project costs, unit sizes, all that kind of stuff? Nate, sure. Thanks. Yeah, the, you know, staff and the housing trust worked on this.
So, the way, you know, the existing bylaw reads is up above. So, it says, you know, shall be four times the current median family income, right? So, you know, it's a the way the board interpreted that previously is that it's really just that number. It's
four times whatever the MFI is. And so, the discussion was, well, should we have a range to provide some flexibility? And so, you know, what the trust determined was no more than 10. I mean, it could be no more than eight. It could be no more than 12. I mean, I don't you know, but I mean, like, who's the first person
who says it should be this number? It should be here in this range. It should be x amount of dollars or it should be seven times. Yeah. So, you know, my thought is that the applicant is going to come with a request and they're the ones who are going to have a number
and so if they don't then, you know, staff would work with the house, you know, so the permit granting authority or special permit granting authority is typically the planning board or um excuse me, zoning board. The municipal affordable housing trust, you know, would play an advisory role. So, what you know, previously when this happened,
we asked them to comment on it. But for instance, if a developer just came and said, "Oh, we'd like to make a payment in Lou and and then we had this range and they don't provide a number and they, you know, say, oh, you know, I just want to do the the least amount." I'd say, "Okay, well, it's four times."
And I'd say, "Well, you know, North, you know, I'd say say, you know, community homes in North Ammeris was just built and there, you know, it's $600,000 a unit for that for that construction roughly." And then to me I you know I would put that in a memo or something with the planning board if it was through the planning board and you know
to me that then that's the conversation the developer is like no I think I only want to do 480 and I'd say well given the location of this project you know they're large units whatever right I think it should be 600 the developer can you know then it's a conversation during the public hearing uh and that's what
kind of happened previously except for then there wasn't this ability to negotiate or determine what would be a you know the payment option So, you know, some of it's, you know, there's discretion there. So, it could be that the developer saying, you know,
look, I'm only proposing studio apartments, uh, or one-bedroom apartments. You know, they're not in a village center downtown. I think it's I'm on the lower end, and maybe that makes sense given the project location and the size of units. And so, that's why the addition is is added to the
text. I you know and you know and it could be that um you know for instance I said to the CRC a developer may have owned property for a long time so the total development cost of a project may be cheaper for one person who's not acquiring property compared to someone who's buying a
property right so if someone spends a million dollars on a property there's site development costs or demo costs and if someone's own owns a property and they're just modifying it and they have a you know units already there then that project cost is lower so you that might be a factor into this equation. So, I
think there's, you know, I think all of that would be discussed with staff and an applicant and with the housing trust and the permit granting authority. Okay. So, just to like just to restate, it sounds like procedurally the the developer would request a paylue
and present a figure that would be at least four or five times depending on what the final uh language is. Then you and the planning staff would come up or would dig up some relevant data to you know either well just to give us a reference point not
necessarily to say it should be more or should be less and then it's up to us as a board to come to a consensus on what we feel is the appropriate multiplier or the appropriate cost. Correct. Okay. Great. Last question and then I'll
seed the the uh seed it to my my colleagues. Has any developers who have worked in Ammeris who have pursued a pay andloo or built under the requirements been asked what their thoughts are on this amendment or have any provided
comments or feedback or anything like that? uh we you know the the the product that made the payment in Lou they you know they were willing to discuss a higher amount given the product location in in units and so um you know they they
haven't been asked directly um I think some are not willing to say whether or not how they feel about this um so yeah I you know I guess yeah I would be cur I would be curious just
to know like you know um I would be curious to hear what their thoughts are on like the range like is that a is that a good thing? Does that in introduce you know uh well no I I won't go down a rabbit hole but I it would be interesting to hear the
perspective of somebody who's going to be utilizing this program if they feel like it'd be a if this makes sense to them and they feel like this is a reasonable way to go about it. Um right. Yeah. Yeah, I mean I think the it is a big range and so that's where to me
I you know if someone if another project came in and this were you know in place I would recommend that the applicant propose a number right they they come in and they propose a number that the board and staff can respond to otherwise you know we'll propose a number sure for them
you know to me I like I think 10 times is unreasonable for probably a lot of projects right uh you know and I'd say that right I mean it just seems like a lot Um, you know, I do think that there is a cost when the money gets to the housing trust. It's in, you know, it's a it's a
public entity, so there are additional costs in terms of how, you know, that may be used to um fund affordable units. And so, typically, if it's, you know, if the town manages it somehow and there's public procurement and prevailing wages, that's, you know, we could say there's a
20 to 30% increase in cost compared to say a private development. So, some of it would be all those factors considered, but I'd really encourage an applicant to say here's what I think is appropriate and why. And so, you know what? I mean, right now saying Shelby
four times, it doesn't offer that. I mean, if we said at least four times, right, then it it might get to the same same place. I think the range is just, you know, right? It offers that kind of the low and the high. Yeah.
Okay, great. Thank you very much. All right. Thanks, Jar. Jesse, thanks. Um, one minor thing and one actual comment. I think the B is in the wrong place provided shall be at least five times more. But that's a minor
grammar thing. My real comment is I'm a little confused or uncomfortable and I think I'm thinking similar to Jar. I'm a little uncomfortable with the idea that this is a negotiation with the board. Like I certainly I don't feel qualified to figure out what the number is. If staff and the housing trust are, why
isn't this written as it shall be at least five times more as determined by staff with consultation from the housing trust? Because it should not be a applicant coming here trying to convince us, oh, it's only worth this much money and here's why. Like it it again it feels a
little strange and outside at least of the certainly the expertise I have and I think collectively as a board I'm not sure we're qualified to set that number. So why are we the ones deciding what the number is?
All right, Jesse. Um I will say you're reminding me of some of the parking conversations I've had with developers about how many parking spaces they needed to provide. and it was up to us to either accept or reject the arguments
that the developers were making with all of the expertise on the board, which was not very much. So, uh, I guess Jesse, you're finished. And, uh, yeah, just to sum that up, I don't know if Nate wants to respond to that.
If there was a definitive body that could make the number, that would be more logical to me. Yeah. I mean, I guess one thing that I mean, I'm going to jump in here. I see the three three hands we have now. Um, uh, you know, this came up because we were we had an applicant. We had the
previous bylaw and I think it was the housing trust that said, "Hey, you know, that's four times seems low." Well, I mean, one response we could do is we just change four to six or or eight or, you know, 20, whatever. and
and then see if anybody ever uses it, which we don't really want to encourage anyway. So, you know, instead of getting into the negotiation, we could just bump it up and, you know, maybe somebody would use it in 10 years and we'd say,
"Oh, well, maybe we need to bump it up again." I can just continue. I I do like the idea of a range, though, because I was surprised with the Hastings project that the housing trust said, "Yes, that's great. have them pay. So there's clearly
project by project specific what makes sense from the housing trust perspective and that's why I'm thinking maybe they should be involved in determining what's appropriate for each project. Well, I mean Nate did say that they'd be advising, you know, in that situation, but you're right. It's not mentioned
here in the bylaw. So that's not automatic. Yeah. Sorry, just to jump in, but I I know um the other day when I see that I feel like adding it here, we could say, you know, like something like with consultation from the trust, but I do think it might be important to add something
here about the about the trust. Um yeah, you know, because otherwise it's it would be only at the request of the permit granting authority that they weigh in. It could be that, you know, the permit granting authority doesn't even ask their their Yeah, I mean that's a nice reminder. And you know, I I know the applicant from
earlier, they talked with the housing trust before it ever got to us, right? And um not everybody would do that, but this this might encourage that. All right. All right. Moving along with the other hands. Uh Fred, you are next.
Um, yeah, I I'm not all warm and fuzzy around project costs. Um, without a little additional language there, maybe capitalized or something.
I'm not sure how that is supposed to be calculated. And I think it probably should be. And I'm wondering if there's a maybe just capitalized or something, but uh could we Well, Fred, um you know, I guess I I
will comment on that quickly because I deal with this a lot in the work that I do. Um, I think this is actually project soft costs, which which is a term of art that includes the the non-construction costs
associated with getting something built. So, it's designer fees and it's permitting costs and engineering and that kind of thing. So, you know, to me, if we added soft costs, it would be pretty clear. Well, that that would definitely be
helpful because I took this uh clearly the wrong way and I wouldn't be the only one, but thank you. Okay, Nate, what is that consistent with what you thought this was? I mean, I think it could be both, right? Soft cost and construction cost. So, we
could say like total development cost. I mean, to me, the TDC is a more is how you'd refer to it with housing. Okay. Okay. I I mean we could we could say soft costs, construction costs, right? We could even just, you know, I I don't
Well, if total development costs is a a a standard term of art in the affordable housing world and it it includes everything you that it takes to get a project built, then that might be
perfectly appropriate. Okay. All right. Fred, anything else? Well, then you take out cost of delay in the last line. Ah, well, I think I think Bruce would object to that because
Well, then I then I want to know a little more about exactly what that is. Well, I mean, you know, the cost I still think cost of delay is kind of ambiguous to anybody who's not going to listen to our minutes here. Um, I think it's the
cost of postponing the delivery of the affordable units to a later date. Not certain. That's exactly right. I just used delay because it was one word,
right? But but it's Yeah. I mean it really hasn't been clear and um you know I mean with that substitution it's actually a social cost right I mean we're not talking or are we about talking about the alternative cost of
some other entity providing it later maybe under a public process that has higher total development costs. It's it could be the cost of delay but you know it manifests itself first and foremost in the fact that the people who would
move into the project as uh ordinarily created would have to wait two years. So there's two years more rent they're paying uh and that's that's a cost and you're right it's a kind of a social cost right so I don't I don't know if we've
actually perfectly words smmith that yet. Yeah, I would. Sorry, just determined. I if we were to keep something like that, I would want it to be clear because it has to be in the bylaw. We can't we can't ask folks to refer to some, you know, some other document or a meeting. Um, I understand Bruce what you're
saying and Doug as well. So, if we like that idea, I think we, you know, we can work on a phrase or two uh this evening. Okay. Well, why don't we come back to that in a minute? Fred, are you all set? Uh, yeah. as long as we settle this.
Okay. All right. So, we'll keep that highlighted till we get it worked out. Angus. Yeah. I just have two comments that are kind of extensions of things that I I mentioned at the previous meeting. Um, one, um,
I I think I'm curious. Um, so I listened to the CRC meeting and the housing trust representatives at that meeting said that they're uh their presumption is kind of the same presumption we've been operating under which is that the goal of these payment
and lose is to uh mostly discourage their use, right? To to make it costly. The default should be and is to provide affordable housing units. Um, at at the same time, the housing trust when they met here in our last meeting also talked about the importance of kind of having
bespoke policies and flexibility. And so to Jesse's point, you know, I I I I too am a little uncomfortable with us being the deciding factor, but I understand that the housing trust wants some kind of flexibility that they don't currently have. Um, at the same time, I'd love it
if the housing trust came up with kind of a statement of how they view these um, payments in lie, what what their goals are as a as a group, which would help guide us in making our decisions. And I love the addition of with consultation from the housing trust. Um,
so that's just one kind of general comment. It's not a change required here, but something I'm thinking about. The second thing that I I briefly mentioned at the last meeting, but I want to maybe spend more time on here is um I I've expressed and and I heard people on the CRC also expressing that
that 10 times number is too high. And so I'd like to kindly propose that we maybe reduce that number to something like 8. So it's a 5 to8 range as opposed to 5 to 10. Knowing that we can raise that number should we see fit. Um, I, as Nate
mentioned, I I too am skeptical that there's going to be many projects that a 10 times number, a 1.2 million number or thereabouts would make sense for. So, I'd like us to maybe consider reducing both raising the floor and reducing the
ceiling a little bit. That's all. All right. Um, Nate, uh, do you want to comment on those suggestions at this point or shall we go on to Bruce? Uh, no. I mean, I think, yeah, I I think
a a narrower range is fine. I think, you know, I think the payment in Lou is, you know, like I said, I think there's probably different ways to calculate it. Uh so we're providing one and I do think it's you know I don't want to say it's um messy but you know I think every project is going to have its own factors
and variables and it's really difficult to determine what is the right amount. So we could take the approach that Doug said and just say five times or six times and then you know what and then a few years we realize it's not being used. Maybe we lower it. Maybe now cost of construction is really high or lower so we change the number. I think the
range is trying to get us away from, you know, having to adjust the bylaw so frequently. And it's hard to adjust, it's hard to get a bylaw to account for market conditions and variables, you know, like a housing, like the housing market. Um, and I think, you know, I think the planning board is a is a fine
place to to have this discussion. I agree there may not be expertise on the planning board in terms of construction costs and market conditions. and you know staff may not also have some of the answers. But to me, that's where the developer is asking for a special permit because really what they're what you know the bylaw is well you provide the
units and if you really don't want to you have to then make the case why you think you can you should be awarded essentially a payment in L for those units and so you know um you know and and I think that was asked of the housing trust kind of like what's the purpose of this payment like how they
view it and you know it's interesting like it could be that they recommend it very very um infrequently and maybe they recommend it because they there's another project that the project has one affordable unit but they know that they could leverage
that money to then get more units because there's something on the horizon and so you know you can't you know how do you say that in the bylaw or they need to capitalize themselves because they have they're not getting they don't have any more money um and so to me that's a discussion that happens say you
know right with consultation from the housing trust when this is requested Um, so yeah, I think that there's probably um, you know, like I said, I I think that we would do our best to make it reasonable. Uh, and this is a special permit request. So, it's not as if this
is something that a developer is guaranteed or by right. It's really a discretionary permit. It's an additional permit uh, along with a project application. So, it can be, you know, a site plan review use. So, it's a byright use with conditions from the planning board. And then they actually will apply
for a special permit from the planning board for this payment in L. So it's a separate application that if it's denied the the site plan review and the project essentially unless they want to say well it can't go forward without you know if I have to provide the affordable units I'm not going to do it. Then you know I
think then it becomes a really a big discussion at the planning board. Okay why can't you provide however many affordable units you're required to. Um, you know, if they someone says they really can't provide four affordable units, you know, I think it would be a fair question for the planning board in that
special permit hearing to say really why not? Like is what's you know, you're providing them anyways? They're going to be market rate units. What's the difficulty or challenge of affordable units? And so, you know, I think it's a part of the bylaw. It's a public process. To me, I wouldn't actually feel
comfortable saying let's let's have staff determine it. really it's something that should be determined in my mind in a public open meeting as part of the zoning bylaw. Okay, thank you Nate Bruce.
Um I'm with Angus. Uh last week I sorry two weeks ago I thought N was fine. Uh I think I said or I thought at least that that has a kind of a a slight level of gobsmacking intimidation and given that
our goal or the goal of this is not to encourage uh payment in Lu I thought 10 was a a kind of a almost intimidating range but I think Angus' more intelligent suggestion I think uh the
range from 5 to 8 is is a is plausible and intelligent and 10's a bit of a showoff. So, I'm I'm good with eight. In fact, I think I was joint advocating for eight. I'll I I will continue to
advocate for five because the whole thing started because four wasn't enough. And and as you know from last time, my calculations indicated it almost always will not be enough. So, four to eight sounds perfectly good. And I think uh the range is right. Uh, I
mean that there is a range is the way to go here. Um, Jesse, I I'm not troubled by this being given to the board to uh to to make the final decision to make a decision on because we've well because
we're very well supported and I would expect that the uh basically there are three entities at least that are coming together to provide uh some input on what the right figure is. The first will be the developer as I can see that that's the logical way in which it will
happen. The developer wants to kick it off. They will make a proposal and offer and then it will be evaluated um by the housing trust or let's say planning staff uh with the housing trust in a way in in in such a way as to advise us. So we will um come to a deliberation on
this with uh being well briefed. So even if I wasn't wellvered with this, which as Doug says, when we have to make the same kind of deliberation in relation to parking spaces, I'm no better uh informed about the generalities of that
particular set of propositions than anybody else. So I'm and and and we we do that fairly frequently. So I I think we shouldn't be troubled by being expected to make this because we'll be well supported and well briefed and it
is our job to take data and understand it and we'll ask questions such that we do understand it and then to make a decision and to make a decision between the range of five and 8 I think is the right range here. Um, I I'm not going to say anything more
about the cost of delay except to say that I've made the case. Um, if that if we decided to strike that from the uh the list, I I wouldn't go to bed weeping. I think it's a relevant factor,
but it might be um a relevant factor that's too difficult to make uh clear as to how it should be applied. So, um, I'll let others decide whether we want to improve that phrase, and if
we've decide we can't, I won't object to it being stricken. All right. Thank you, Bruce. Chair, chair. Um, the I have two comments. Uh, and to borrow a phrase from Bruce, I also won't go to bed weeping if these
aren't um agreed upon. Uh, I'm fine with the eight being the cap of the the range. I do think we are handicapping our negotiation abilities if we do reduce it. Um, but I agree that probably there's not a lot of reasonable times
when that would actually be reasonable. Um second the I I'm not sure we need to spend time doing too much defining of the you know and shall account for market conditions total development cost
cost of delay because at the end it says and similar factors. So I read this to to inter I I interpret this as a list of for instances like these are major data points that should be considered but we don't need to necessarily
you know define them splice them down to to specific calculations because I mean market conditions in itself is a hugely ambiguous term and could mean a lot of different data points. So you know I'm
comfortable with this being five to eight. I'm comfortable with this including the shall account for X Y and Z as is. Um I don't know if we need to spend a lot of time nailing them down. Fred, I 100% hear your concern about it, but considering the fact that this is
and similar factors and that a lot of these terms can mean a lot of different things, I don't know if we want to spend a lot of time trying to define those given the unique characteristics of every development that may come across our
board. So, JR, would you be fine with ending the sentence at the word trust? I would be. Yeah. I'm again I'm not gonna weep. That has some attraction for me too. You know, it's like when we get to the negotiation, we'll
take into account whatever we want. Exactly. And and to Bruce's point earlier, you know, um I do feel better about us, the planning board, making that decision because we'll be well briefed considering we'll have the data points of what the developer has
proposed, what the housing trust has proposed. And I really would love some kind of thoughts on from staff about where they feel a reasonable range within our range might be. Um, so yeah, I would absolutely be comfortable having
a period after housing trust. Okay, great. Jesse, thanks. Just quickly, um, two points. Yeah, I'm still uncomfortable with the idea that it's a negotiation just because that leads to all kinds of, oh, we know this developer, we've known this
developer a long time, we don't know this developer, blah blah blah blah blah. I don't like that at all. I feel like it should be someone else saying, here's what this project should pay for this purpose, period. But again, not a big deal of me. Um, what about how about if language is just
at least five? Don't put a cap on it. We seem to be have different opinions about 8 10 limiting ne negotiation. If it just says at least five, it could be six, it could be eight, it could be 20, right? Not that it would be, but it leaves a
lot more flexibility project by project. That's all. Thanks. Okay. Thanks, Jesse. I will say I kind of like having the top and bottom range because it gives a developer at least a
you know a a worst case scenario to to to fear you know and that it won't be any worse than that except we're we're saying they're going to come to us with a number. I also don't understand that but yeah that's okay. I mean
okay. All right. Uh, I'm not I'm not hearing a lot of consensus in all these comments, so uh maybe we just punt it all to CRC. Angus, you're next. Yeah, I would just say I think potentially removing a limit could
be a good future step. To me, that the first step is seeing if we if a range works. Um, if if flexibility and options work, see if someone takes advantage of this. If the negotiation goes well, great. we have a, you know, some proof
points. Um, if it doesn't go well, then maybe we need to reexamine having a range at all, right? Um, and maybe go back to a set number. Um, but I I I for the same reason that Doug mentioned, I think having an upper limit is a good start and then if it goes well, maybe in
the future we just remove the upper limit entirely or the future planning board does. All right, Bruce. I think Fred was before me. Uh well maybe not.
Zoom thinks otherwise. Okay. Well, in that case I'll say it seems to me to support your position in trying to steer us to a conclusion on this that there essentially two questions we could ask. One is uh do we
agree a range? And the second is do we agree with uh yours and Jar's uh proposition that we end the sentence at the at trust and and uh and I personally think yes we should have a range uh for
the reasons being discussed and by the way I think the lower limit should be five and the upper limit should be eight but we could we could seek agreement or consensus or whatever um uh on range and then also on how we handle that last
phrase. But those seems to be the two basic questions. Mhm. And I'll say I support the range between five and eight. And I'm maybe not an advocate, but I'm comfortable with uh uh removing the list of factors to be consideration because because of what
Jer said and what you said. Okay. All right. So if that helps. Thank you, Bruce, for uh articulating those two points. Um, Fred, why don't you go ahead and then maybe I'll ask for a straw poll on both of those.
Uh, yeah, I'm uh I'm good with five to eight. Um and uh I yeah I think the uh
I'm also comfortable with uh just uh removing the specific characteristics and uh uh just stopping at the sentence at the end of housing trust. Okay. All right, Nate. Yeah, I I would
just say that, you know, as a special permit, it's nice to have some criteria. So, I know it's not an exhaustive list, but to have some, you know, a few guiding points as to what that determination is and how, you know, how you land in the range. And so, to me,
it's um, you know, you might say, well, that's part of the discussion anyways. I think it doesn't hurt to have it in there. And I think it also offers an applicant and developer, you know, criteria that they would understand in terms of how the permit granting authority would make a decision. And so, you know, I like to have it in there
because, like I said, it's, you know, it's it's both, you know, educational for the board and for the applicant and it provides some guidance in terms of a discussion how you, you know, how you negotiate the range. Um, so, you know, if it if it was really controversial, I'd say sure, take it out. to me it, you
know, I think it lists a few factors that are important to consider and, you know, it's it's not an exhaustive list, so there's others, but I think it it's a helpful um piece of the statement. All right. Thanks, Nate. Bruce, Nate, are you saying that it would help
us as a deliberating board in uh in expressing findings? Uh because now what you said reminds me is we would in in making this decision. Am I right in understanding uh do do I understand correctly that we would need to uh
establish some findings in in order to support the uh the decision on the uh on the number within the range. So is this you're saying this is this is a structure for findings is what you're suggesting. Is that correct?
Right. In in essence it it can be right. So then you say here's why we think it's seven times. We think the you know size of the units, its location, it's you know I think it's I think it helps frame that.
But if it weren't there, we would do that anyway. Probably. Probably. Jesse, thanks. Um, what if it instead of and shall account for 1 2 3 4 it said and may may account for
or may consider these things that way because the way it written now is we would have to account for those things. Yeah. Or with consideration should consider these factors so that it's reminding us to do that but it's not requiring data to back up each of those points.
Okay. All right. So, um why don't I ask for a straw poll on the uh the range? So, I I don't I know Bruce supported the
range and I'm seeing a thumbs up from Jesse. Fred's got a thumb up. How about Angus and Jara? So, it looks like all of us are fine with a range.
And then, um, with Nate's endorsement of the last, uh, phrase that we've got in the draft, it sounds I'm kind of, uh, willing to, uh, to leave that in language even though I thought it was kind of
attractive to take it away. And um but then I think we we are left with the conundrum of the cost of delay. And um I guess um I mean I think earlier I had sort of
thrown out or made up um in lie of cost of delay something like the cost of postponement in the provision of the units. I don't know if that's any if that's a fruitful way to think of it or not. Um,
so does anybody else have any other ideas for how we might wordsmith that so that it's it's more descriptive? No, I think uh what you said cost of
postponement is a clearer states more clearly what I mean by cost of delay. So I would certainly u postponement of delivery of the units or delivery in delivery of the units.
Yeah. Then that's that's the definition of delay in my in terms of what I was uh originally intending. Okay. Comma. I always think there should be a comma between and
yeah I like the Oxford uh comma myself. Yes. I know the Guardian disagrees with me but I have any number of arguments. Many people feel strongly about that and it it's no it's not been a clear consensus uh at least that I know of. Well, my mother used to my mother used
to say that uh if you talk about you go to the shop and she says you shall get milk um eggs, bread and butter, and if you didn't put a comma between bread and butter, you would come back with a sandwich as opposed to a loaf of bread and a and a punet of butter. And from
her point of view, and I learned that at six and haven't changed, it's a fundamentally important uh piece of punctuation can lead to all sorts of ambiguities if it's not there. Right. Right. Okay.
Um, let's see. Bruce, your hand is up. Oh, now I'm just scratching my head. Oh, my hand is up. Yes. So, so is the other virtual hand, not your Okay. So, so, uh, does anybody want to make another
comment about the current draft that we have? Are we do we think that what we've got here looks like a consensus for the group? And so just quickly to just to um discuss so you know with the planning board so there was the the zoning amendment that was referred by
council and so this would be the planning board's recommendation back to town council. So you know you've discussed the amendment and you think that it should be modified to say 5 to 8 and you've added you know the language with consultation from the housing trust and included a few more factors. And so
that's, you know, staff would work on a memo to the um to the council to explain that. So, you know, your recommendations are adopt the zoning amendment. So, the vote would be, you know, recommend these changes to the amendment and adoption. And so, we would, you know, we we would
uh show council what those changes are and then they they decide if they want to keep those or not. I'd also, you know, the CRC is meeting at the end of the month, so I'd bring this back to the CRC and they'll make their own recommendation, right? So the CRC, I will say they also continue their hearing because if they
the um they have the time the time frames to make uh to get this back to council is harder if the CRC closes their hearing before planning board. And so they will typically try to close their hearing after planning board. It just makes the the sequence of everything easier. So you know they
didn't necessarily continue it thinking the planning board would continue it again. I think if you're ready to vote you can and then it'll go back to CRC. Right. Okay. So Nate, you're you're teeing us up for a motion to recommend this draft uh as as amended in this in
this meeting and our previous discussions to council for adoption. Right, Bruce? Well, I just have to say so moved now. Oh, good. All right. Um
Angus second. Thank you. All right. Um I'm going to ask for public comment before we vote. Um we haven't had a chance for public comment. Do any of the members of the public that
are listening want to weigh in at this point before we vote on uh recommending this to council? Okay, I am not seeing any hands raised from the five attendees.
All right, we'll go ahead into the vote. Um, I'm going to go in a sort of a reverse order. Uh, starting with Jara. Hi. Thank you. And then Angus. Yes.
Um, Jesse, hi. Fred, hi. And Bruce, yep. I am an I as well. That's six in favor, one one absence. We recommend the
proposed bylaw as shown here on the screen to council. So, Nate, you'll you'll draft a memo. And I forget uh I think actually I think Chris usually review let me review it before it went to council. I don't know if
Yeah, I'll share it with you dog as chair. Okay. All right. Uh the time now is 7:40. Um seems a little bit early for our break given the agenda in front of us. So, why
don't we go ahead into the next hearing time now is 7:40. This is a public hearing uh advertised for se 6:45. So, we're okay with that on the zoning bylaw for
article 5 accessory uses continued from August 8th to cont consider amending the zoning bylaw by rescending section 5.011 011 accessory dwelling units as amended October 18, 2021, effective November
1st, 2021, and replacing it with a new section 5.011 that includes a includes provisions for a local ADU and for the protected use ADU, which are permitted by right in
accordance with the affordable homes act. All right. Um, any any board disclosures on this discussion? All right. All right, Nate, take it away.
Sure. Thanks. Hi, everyone. So, yeah, again, the CRC held their hearing last week. Um, and you know, I sent a document recently that had a lot of track changes and highlights and it might be confusing and we don't we can jump into that in a minute. I think
um staff um you know read more decisions by the attorney general's office, the state's legal team. They've made more decisions on town meeting votes and so they've offered you know they they're posting them online in their in their legal review. And I spoke with an attorney
with the town council KP Law and so I just there's a few clarifications and I think one's an important one. you know, with the local ADU, if we if we want more than one ADU on a property, uh, then the second ADU has to be by
special permit. We can't we can't have it be by administrative review. So, the irony being that we could keep a local ADU and say that if it comes first, it's by administrative review, but if the
protected use ADU is permitted first, then the local ADU is by special permit. And honestly, I think that's a waste of time for the permitting board um to spend, you know, have a special permit for an ADU when a protected use ADU,
which is very similar, is allowed by a building permit. And so I'd rather not have a special permit process for that. We we we do it now. I mean, I will say we do it now. Uh, and so maybe it's not, you know, and to me then we would want to have the local ADU, right, have a
certain size or have have some reason why we still think someone would go through that special permit process having already done a protected use ADU on their property. So I think, you know, I think it's a discussion point. The CRC, you know, when I mentioned this and
I said, you know, honestly, I'm kind of leaning toward just having only one ADU, the protected use ADU, and scrapping the local ADU. the CRC seemed to agree with that and so I think the it would simplify the bylaw.
Um we could reduce you know some of the conditions and requirements. There was a discussion about what size is a protected ADU. So it can be the state definition or it could be larger. And so right now you know the towns allowed ADUs for many years for decades
actually. We used to call them supplemental apartments. uh we used to just call them um uh in our building permit application, we just had a different name for them. So, you know, there's there's probably over 30 or 40 ADUs permitted in town. You know, a fraction of those, a fair
amount of those are probably over the size limit that's allowed by a protected use ADU. And many of those were permitted, some of those more recently were permit uh that requires owner occupancy. So if we, you know, kept the protected use ADU to the state standard of 900 square feet
or half the gross, you know, we're calling a habitable space or smaller and we only had that one, the existing ADUs that are bigger than the protected use are pre-existing non-conforming, meaning that the owner occupancy remains, but they're also then allowed to do a second
ADU by right, the protected use. If we made our protected use bigger, a thousand feet to capture all the accessory dwelling units we permitted, then all the ADUs we permitted are now protected use and those owner occupancy requirements on the 30 or 40 ADUs no
longer applies. So, we can't enforce those regulations. And so, it's a discussion, do we, you know, do we want to keep a local ADU and have two options? uh which you know someone might use um you know they might use it first actually then through the administrative
approval and never do a protected ADU and we're giving them that option of a bigger ADU with an owner occupancy requirement. We'd have to write into the bylaw though that if that's the case then you know like I said that conditional if it's second then we need to it's required by special permit. Uh
there's no way around that. the AG's recently um said that. So I was hoping that it was an interpretation that was different, but no, they've confirmed that in a legal decision. Uh I think the previous guidance from the state was a little unclear on that. Uh so I think
that's a big one. Do we want to have two ADUs? And then if not, you know, what's the what's the right size for a protected use ADU? Uh in the document I'll share in a minute, there's also clarification with the language. So the CRC had a number of comments that I highlighted in yellow. Some of it was, you know, like this statement doesn't
seem to make sense or is this regulation reasonable? Uh they thought we should regulate ADUs in terms of short-term rental. So the legislation and regulations allow that. Currently the town we don't regulate short-term rentals. It doesn't seem to be as much
of an issue say as Cape Cod or the Burgers or certain places. Um but you the CRC is considering adding that as one of the requirements that you know we it it's a way to mention um you know according to Mass General law they define a short-term rental and then we can say we would prohibit ADUs from
being used in that in that way. Can we do that? We we can yeah we we haven't we don't do it now. The AG would be okay with that. Yeah it's it's it's specifically allowed in the legislation and then supported by the rules and rags. So, you know, Mass
General law chapter like 64 or whatever section defines short-term rental. And so, we can't So, communities have been trying to take it the other approach and saying you have to have a 12-month lease or you have to do something. And they say, "No, that's not what a short-term rental is. A short-term rental is so
many consecutive days being rented within a 30-day period." It's not you have to have a long-term lease or you have to have year- round tenants. It's really that definition per Mass General Law. And so, you know, if someone is if we put that in there as a requirement and someone um you know, has an ADU,
they still can rent it. They just can't use it as a short-term rental according to Mass General law. We don't typically get into that anyways, right? I think the building commissioner inspection services finds that it's an odd thing to try to start regulating. We have the rental registration program which is
voluntary, but it captures, you know, over a thousand properties or units and it's been pretty effective. And so the rental registration program we've had on the books for a few years manages the rental uh program pretty well, the rental properties. I think the idea of regulating short-term rental was to
discourage, you know, um not necessarily the impact of it being rented, but the impact of pricing. So a short-term rental might be priced differently than another type of rental. And I think I think I think it was actually the Cape Cod area that pushed to have this in the legislation. I think they were worried about two things. one is short-term
rentals that are um you know ADU is being used for short-term rentals is then not providing you know some housing stock and then it's also creating it's not helping the price dynamic because short-term rentals can be priced in a way that say a longerterm rental isn't
and so you know I don't you know I don't think it's a bad thing we don't do it otherwise in in the you know elsewhere so other short-term rentals you know that are not ADUs are not going to be regulated but the ADUs could be if we wanted So um
so our current bylaw the maximum size of an ADU is a thousand square feet. So currently it's a thousand and then you know although it's not in the bylaw we have to honor the protected use ADU. So that's you know 900 square feet or
right but but if we wanted to not not cause any of the existing ADUs to become non-conforming right we a thousand would be the appropriate area for us to
make the a single ADU classification now right I mean I I mean there's concern that in a you know the difference between 900 and a thousand you could get another occupant I mean honestly I would almost say 1100 square feet But what we found, we had 800 or 850. Then you know
what we found is that originally we allowed it to be bigger for accessibility purposes to have wider hallways or you know the turning radius in a bathroom to make it visible. But honestly what we heard from contractors is that you know at 900 square feet and when it was smaller it's
actually difficult to have sometimes to have a nice design and have comfortable living spaces. At the same time someone could say well that means you'll just have another bedroom. You could have three or four bedrooms. I, you know, to me, whether or not it's 900 or a thousand, if someone
wants to put four people in an ADU, they're going to put four people in the ADU, whether it's two bedrooms or three or four, right? They're going to figure out a way to fit fit four people. I don't think going from 900 to a,000 is going to cause overcrowding in an ADU. That's my opinion. I think others have a
different opinion, but um I think the concern though, Doug, if we did a thousand, like I mentioned, is then all the ADUs that have been permitted that have owner occupancy requirements, that's no longer applicable. So, right. Okay. All right. Um, so I see Jesse's hand. Go ahead, Jesse. And then
Nate, why don't you share your document when after that? Thanks. A couple questions about the conversation so far on the short-term rental. What happens if an ADU is built and then the owner moves into that and
wants to short-term rent their main property? We don't stop that now, right? No. So, this would that that would just be the ADU, right? Just want to make sure I understood. Yeah. Um, and then what's the real problem
with existing ADUs becoming non-conforming? It's just I don't I don't think there's any problem. I think that they would then, you know, they would be allowed to add a protected use ADU onto them. And do we know like how many are we
talking about in town? Like I said, there's probably I don't you know, we didn't keep great records previously, so you know, uh since we've implemented a different permitting system, I have better numbers, but like I said, I I wouldn't be surprised if it's 40 accessory dwelling units in town. And maybe, you know, you could say
that half of those would are now protected use ADUs given their size and then half aren't. So, so maybe there's two dozen that would then be non-conforming that could build a second one because of if we eliminated the current Okay, thanks.
I mean, it could be more. It could be 30, but right, it's not, you know. Okay. Uh, yeah, I'm not in favor of doing anything that unwinds uh existing zoning decisions that, uh,
create an owner occupancy requirement. Uh and so I would be I you know I I think the way that we had brought this forward in the housing
subcommittee is is appropriate. uh and uh yeah I I understand that the legislature has largely tied our hands but to the extent that it hasn't I think
we should do what we think we need to do in general uh which we we can't on the protected use but uh knowing full well there's probably going to not be a lot of
interest in the that zone between the protected use and the upper limit in our bylaw. But to the extent that it's there, uh I want to see the regulations uh that we want to see enforced, I want
to see them enforceable. All right. Thank you, Fred. Um, Angus. Yeah. I I just wanted to say um I I uh I listened to the CRC's meeting last week
and they seem to be quite freaked out at the idea of two separate ADUs being built. Um a protected use and a local use. And I agree with you, Fred. I think it would be pretty rare that someone would do that.
um unless people start to uh I don't know. Um but uh but the council members seemed really worried about it. And so I think it's I it's highly it seems highly likely that they're going
to push for just one. Um and so I I do think it might be worth us thinking through what just one could look like. um and what and what that would mean. Bruce, um
yes, I read this this thing through twice and and and you're right, it's very difficult to read because there's so many revisions and most much of the revision is simply changing uh accessibly dwelling with it to ADU. So there's a
you it's really hard to read and find out what of the yellow text is actually significant. Um and I don't think I really um mastered that. But that that's just a preamble to why I'm having a little bit of difficulty here. But I
guess my question would be how would we achieve uh what Jess what Fred and I think Jesse are are advocating which is that we we don't unwind the protection that we have. Uh
what is the what is the proposition that does that? Is it a single ADU at 900? Is it a single ADU at a th00and? Uh is it something else? Uh, Bruce, are you I think I'm ask asking.
Are you asking Nate maybe or I think so. Yes, because Nate is anybody who has an idea about that. So many hours into this and that's the problem because this has been a moving target for golly almost 10 months now or certainly nine months.
So Nate, you you are my opinion. Yeah, I I um I want to know how we achieve what Fred said. What's what do we do? What's the what's the route to uh getting Fred's uh
result? Right. I think Yeah. I mean, I think if you wanted to be simple, you would just allow a protected use ADU at 900 square feet, meet the state's definition, and we have, you know, a dozen local requirements, and that's it. and we
don't have a local ADU at all. And then the ones that are pre-existing are pre-existing. Um, and so, you know, anyone moving forward would have just have the ability to do a protected use ADU, nothing bigger. Um, so, you know, if for
instance, their their their principal dwelling isn't very big. They might not get to 900 square feet. They're only allowed. Yeah. Yeah. That's that's detail. That's detail. the the the question is uh so if we have a if we if we if we go with a single ADU uh proposition 900 and it's
the protected ADU size and cry then we create non-conforming ADUs that are more than 900 uh is does that in any way compromise the uh the goal that Fred's uh articulated?
No, I mean we still we still can keep a local ADU. Like I said, we'd have to make make it we'd have to write a conditional approach that, you know, if it were permitted if it were the, you know, essentially the first ADU, it can be administratively approved, which
seems silly that we'd allow administrative approval for a local ADU that's bigger. It has an owner occupancy requirement, but then if the protected use were in place, it have to be by special permit. But but hold on. Uh I thought my question was if we had a single if we if we only allowed a uh a
protected ADU. In other words, I guess the bylaw I does that mean that there would be no no mention there would be nothing in the bylaws in our in our land use zoning bylaws about adus because it would simply be what's uh governed by state
law and we would get rid of uh uh everything else and then we would have this uh this this small raft of non-conforming buildings in backyards. No, I we'd still I would recommend still having a bylaw. So, we could take what has been proposed and, you know, whittle
it down and get rid of, you know, any any mention of a local ADU and you have a page and a half for the protected use ADU. So, you still have, you know, the the purpose applicability. You still have a zoning amendment. Uh, but the amendment is it's it's a 900 square foot or whatever,
right? Yeah. Okay. So, we have one we do it that way. And is that it sounds from uh Angus I applaud your diligence in going to the CRC. I thought of doing that but I didn't have the I wasn't I wasn't
I wasn't I wasn't man enough. Um does that sound like what the uh the CRC were heading towards in their thinking based on what I heard? Yeah. Um, I mean, I think there was some discussion about whether to make it 900 or a,000. Um, I
think some of the council members were leaning towards just 900. Some were leaning towards a,000, which would mean essentially no non-conforming ADUs. But then those those non-conforming ADUs, as I understand it, would lose
their um their prescription on owner occupancy. And that's what Fred's concerned with. And that's why I think putting the ceiling at 900 and creating non non noncon willfully creating nonconformity
is the way to solve the problem. Am I missing something? Well, I mean I guess I I want to interject. Um, what we're trying what what Fred's trying to protect is the 30 or 40, say
the the 30 potential units that have already been built and everything from this point on would be would not be owner occupied as a requirement.
I mean if we only have one type and over time so you know what is it is is is that protection on those particular 30 ADUs so important
that it's worth the complexity of the bylaw to protect it. It's I suspect that Jesse's and Fred would say yes. But what's the complexity? The only complexity is nonconformity. And that doesn't seem to be a
complexity. Well, it's it has sounded like it was uh it was going to be more complex than just having a single ADU type that we allowed that was a thousand square feet.
That's why I asked Jess made that question and Nate's answer was that it wasn't. All right. Nate, am I misinterpreting you? No, no. I think I was going to um I I think what you said is fine, Doug. I was
going to have Jesse comment and I was going to just offer a comment. Okay. All right, Jesse, go ahead. Thanks. Um, yeah, I'm definitely in favor of keeping the owner accuracy where we can. I don't think that's a dealbreaker for me. I don't think because it's a
relatively low number. However, I would comment that if that goes away and there are then properties with an ADU and a single house, single family house, the
attractiveness for that to be bought and flipped into all rentals is high. More beds, more money. Wherever we land, I would not be in favor of increasing the size of the protected ADU. I do
think there's a difference between 900 and 1,000 ft in terms of the economics of building one for student rentals. I do agree if you want to fit four kids in there, you're going to do it anyway, but I don't see why we would relax that standard.
I think at least the discussions in the subcommittee, you know, have been a lot about and I'm rehashing just for those of you who weren't part of them. You know, the the emphasis of this law was to increase housing for families and residents and
in our town that's not what's going to happen and we can argue about it a lot. I feel very confident in the short term that's not what's going to happen with any ADUs that get built. they will be student rentals. So that's the position I'm coming from
when I think about this. Okay. All right. Um D, I just want to make a comment. Okay. Go ahead. Sorry. Yeah. So we still could keep the local ADU and for those who want to uh build
one. So you know we're defining a local ADU as being bigger than a protected use but not bigger than 1,200 square feet or we say 90% of the habitable space. So you know the AG really wants to have some delineation and it's we're using the size. So if for instance a household wanted to build a local ADU
have it be 1100 square feet. There's an owner occupancy requirement on the property whether it's ADU or whatever the principal dwelling and they can do that. They're still then allowed to have a protected use ADU. So they, you know, but they are, but the owner occupancy is still going to remain
on the local ADU. And so when they build the protected use, if they were to do that, the way the state works and the what, you know, the town's attorney said was, well, you can't require owner occupancy of the protected use ADU. Um but you you know in in their opinion
they can't then try to undermine a previous land use decision or permit that said well you know there's an owner occupancy requirement and now we're going to try to negate it just by doing a protected use ADU. So I don't know how many people who want to have a larger
ADU with an owner occupancy requirement on the property are then going to turn around do a protected use ADU and vice versa. I don't know why someone who did a protected use ADU first is going to go through the special permit process to add a local ADU. So, we'd have to put it on the books that way. We can't, you
know, we have to would write our bylaw that if it comes second, we'd have a special permit. So, it seems kind of like a messy process. It may be used once in a while, but we would still allow that option of a local ADU with owner occupancy. And I know that some there have been some inquiries in town
that have, you know, property owners have been following this and they said they would like a larger ADU and so they would be willing to have that owner occupancy requirement. Um, you know, there's been 10 ADUs in the permit process since this took effect this
year. Um, three only three are in construction. It's it's I think a lot of people thought that they could just apply not realizing that they needed plans or a survey or other things. So, there have been some homeowners or people who literally just tried to submit a building permit with no information and they thought I think
they thought they could just poof, I don't know, have an ADU, not realizing that we saw the town has a lot of requirements. Um, but to Jesse's point, you know, when I looking at those, it seems like most of them will be rentals. Um, you know, some of them are non-owner
occupied properties. It, you know, will they be students? I'm not sure, but I think they'll be, you know, it's not it's fine that the rentals, but some of them will be student rentals, uh, knowing who the property owners or applicants were, but I I don't know how in the end how that would what's the
proportion, you know, over a year or two what that means. But I agree in Amoris, it's probably likely more student rentals, but we could we could keep the local and have that option. I just said, you know, it'll be a different kind of bylaw. There's still two. I agreed, Angus. The CRC was like, "Wait a minute, that there's two on the property, but I
think in all likelihood, I think there'd be a limited instance where there's going to be actually two built." Um, I could be wrong. Okay, Bruce. Um,
I I think I understand where you're coming from, Nate. You're basically making it possible for somebody to build a slightly larger ADU. Um I think that's the only benefit that that occurs to this and then you're also
saying that although technically that would mean that uh there could be two and I guess it also means that if the uh the um the local ADU came first it wouldn't even need to go through a
special therming process um before a second one could arrive. Um, so it may not even have the uh the the occupancy requirement on the local ADU
if it went in a certain order. Um, it seems to me that we don't get much from having that additional possibility uh at least much positive. It's a bit I can see that there is, you know, there's a bit more choice involved and so forth,
but it seems that we're opening a door for a fair amount of grief. Uh, and and I think the grief is probably going to come from folks who aren't as sanguin or aren't as um kind of relaxed and clear-headed about it as you are in
terms of what the likely outcome is going to be and so forth. Cuz I think you're right. It's probably unlikely, but it's not impossible. and and and and uh and it seems to me that it's likely to uh engender a fair amount of
commentary that would be uh that would confuse the issue and I don't know that we get that we get enough positive in order to deal with having to explain the the complications of having created a bylaw that can get two EDUs on a property and and maybe even not one of
them having an owner occupancy. uh limitation. So I'm not in favor, at least I'm not yet in favor, I haven't been pers I'm not yet persuaded that having allowing a local ADU
having a local option is is is a is a is appropriate or is good idea. Okay. So, that sounds like a vote to just have a single protected use ADU. Jesse,
thanks. We're we're sure this whole section of the bylaw couldn't start with a property can have either a local or a protected ADU. Like that the attorney that the state would say no, you can't do that. I don't
understand that logic. any property. So is, you know, if you're allowed to have an ADU, so it's any any um property where a single family home is allowed in a zoning district can have an ADU. You can't say either or. So you can't say, "Oh, you're allowed a local,
but not a protected." You're always allowed. But if there's already I'm saying if there's already a local Yeah. that should count as an ADU. Nope. Nope. not a protected use. Not a protected use ADU. So it's a it's a so right. So it's a specific
definition and you know it's now right a protected use. We say protected use under zoning. So I mean the states made that decision. So right so a lot of communities might say wow like amoris wow we've allowed ADUs for years and now you know we have a bunch that are not a protected use ADU.
Well those properties get to put another protected use ADU and we can't say no. You good, Jesse? Yep. Fred? Uh, yeah. I'd like to
uh reopen. Uh Bruce made a a very intriguing suggestion that I I think we should come back to. And um I I think
I think I'm now persuaded to uh just go with the uh protected use ADU and uh have the others that have been
permitted over the years uh that are above the 900 foot limit uh simply become non-conforming. Uh, and I I I never thought I would be
in favor of this concept in anything. I those of you that have served with me on the planning board before, uh, one of the things that I always look for is avoiding the creation of
nonconformities. But I think in this case given the nonsense presented to us by the state legislature uh this may be the lesser of evils.
Uh and so if we went with this then the existing ones that are out there would continue and thereafter you would never build an ADU
that was larger than 900 square ft. And I'm not real happy about that. But, uh, the legislature is forcing us to do stupid things because the legislature did a stupid thing and I'm, you know, I
can get my head around this. So, yeah, I've I've kind of come to a different position on this. All right. Thank you, Fred. I'm going to call on Pam Rooney. Uh, she has her hand up and obviously she's a counselor and on the CRC.
Um, Pam, if you could bring her over. She has her hand up. Thank you, Pam. Welcome, Pam. Thank you, Pam Rooney, 42 Cottage Street. Are are you speaking as a citizen or as a council member? I think as a citizen, somebody who's
interested in the deliberation tonight. Um, it may or may not affect what I think about next week. Um my my question is really in this discussion about local versus protected
ADUs. I want to hear from Nate. If we keep local ADUs, if we keep uh as as we move into creating protected use ADUs, that's great. They're 900 square
feet, blah blah blah. the the existing ADUs that may or may not be conforming. I have the very specific question. If there is a an ADU that does
not meet the criteria of the state, does that local, I'll call it local, ADU, maintain all of its existing conditions, including the cap on four
unrelated occupants and the requirement for owner occupancy? That's that's really my big question. All right. Thank you, Nate. It it does. So, however, you know, that was permitted in terms of conditions or
what regulations were in place remain. So, you know, if you right, if you if there's, you know, we'll call it the local ADU that's already been permitted and even if it's not 900 square feet, right, but it's bigger than the formula for calculating a protected use, that
remains, you know, it'll we'll call it a pre-existing non-conforming ADU. and any conditions associated with that remain. So, all right. Um, thank you, Pam. I guess I Okay,
Jesse, and then Angus. So, so that seems to solve the problem that Fred and I were struggling with, right? If they're non-conforming, they still have to be owner occupied. They still have one person limit. So, then to me, there's no reason to
keep it. Okay. All right. Uh, Angus, but just to clarify, those houses with that pre-existing now non-conforming ADU could then also build an additional local uh protective use ADU.
They could. And just to clarify, although you can't require owner occupancy of a protected use, it doesn't wipe out the previous conditions on the permit. So the protected use ADU couldn't be owner occupied. And maybe you could argue that the principal dwelling couldn't, but that pre-existing
non-conforming ADU has to be owner occupied. So at least, you know, one unit on the property has to be owner occupied if that was a condition of the pre-existing non-conforming ADU. Okay. All right. Um, so Nate, uh, you haven't
brought up your draft yet, and I know Bruce said it was confusing and difficult to read. Um it seems like we are at a point where we are likely to ask you to heavily edit it
to just um just uh comply with the protected use ADU. So yeah, so I've done that and unfortunately I didn't share it. I have three I have a few other versions I was working on just in case of different scenarios
just to make it easier. It still has a lot of might have a lot of highlights and things that are questionable, but um I I did draft that and so well why don't why don't we take our break before we we go dive into your draft and
get, you know, down in the weeds of that. So, I'm seeing the time is 8:17. Uh Fred, I'll call on you if you want me to. Fred,
I was just going to ask if Nate if you could put that on the website. Uh I then I could print it out when I come back from break. Yeah, you know, I'll just I'll forward it to the board right now. Um Okay, great.
Thank you. All right, so 8:17, 5 minutes from now, I guess, is 8:22. you know, 22, 23, please come back and turn on your camera at least to let me know you're back
um from our break. [Music] [Music] Pam, we can hear you. You can? Yeah, you can hear me humming. Absolutely.
I hum at work, too. Yeah, it's it's been noted. Not a problem. Just wanted you to know. Thank you. a lot better than my whistling, which drives my wife absolutely nuts.
I've been working on whistling. I used to be able to just do the normal whistling, but there's that kind that people can do with like like you can't how they're going to do it. No, like now having to do that. Yeah. You know, like all of a sudden you're at the dog park and somebody goes,
"Yeah." So, I even looked up to try to learn how to do that. Like, it's this whole thing. But when I get that perfected, just kind of like Jesse with his piano, I'll I'll I'll share.
Maybe we'll have planning board music night. Yeah, I will just listen. You can do a pogo stick or something, Doug. [Music] I'll play the spoons, right?
Oh, yeah. Pretty pretty low skill level there. If I may, um, while we're waiting for Oh, well, Fred's back, so we can we can resume. Go ahead, Bruce. Well, I it's just the the mention about having a
planning board singing night reminded me of something that uh I was thinking over the last couple of years. You've had invited people toward the end of the summer over to your place and I was thinking that maybe this year I would uh invite similar event hosted at my place
which is pretty spacious out in the seven acres we have. So, uh, that might be a a topic. Uh, I don't know. Is that can that be put onto the night's agenda or should I just send an email out?
Um, well, let's see how this evening's conversation goes and how how late it is when we're ready to entertain additional things. you know that would be that would be essentially a social event without uh just for the record without
any conversation about uh matters before us. So it's just just the way we behaved at your place. Yeah. Yeah. So um you know I think I think you could just pick a night and send us all an email. Okay.
Um you know you might want to consult Nate or and my wife somebody else Yeah. about when when would be a good night for to get the most yield, so to speak. And it would be a family thing, you know,
we want to probably be in September while it's warm and the kids can come and everybody can be in or out and that sort of thing. So, uh that's what I'll do. No need to discuss it any further. I'll just uh Well, we'll wait for your email.
And I second Bruce's I proposal for a party. Yeah, it's been nice in the la the last couple of times when we did that. It's it's nice just to see people in person and see how tall they are.
It is. Especially if it's Pam. I'll try to perfect my whistling by then. Oh, yes, that's true. And Jesse, can you bring your piano? Yeah. All right. So TAM is 8:27 and we can resume our actual deliberative
discussion continuing with the ADU bylaw. Um has anybody had any further comments or further thoughts while they were on break? [Music] All right. Um why don't I ask Oh Jesse,
go ahead. Just one ask now or later. At some point we had I thought added language about the four unrelated and that's now no longer here. Did I miss that conversation?
Um Nate, I don't know what you think. I don't think we ever really discussed that. That's in a different part of the town bylaws. I believe it's not but I I know at some at some version of the ADU discussion we had included it.
Um but I don't and I don't see it which that was a decision. I'm just wondering what happened because I would certainly be in favor of that. I think it was subcommittee. Oh sorry previously we had said well it's mentioned elsewhere in the bylaw
will rely on that. I think also uh the AG's office would say having any type of occupancy restriction is an unreasonable regulation and so they might say that having four unrelated is unreasonable but it would still apply because of our
rental registration or not. Um it's debatable. Okay. Oh, how many people can you cram in 900 square feet? Huh? Well, you know, the it's the plumbing code is the has the
strictest square foot allowance uh or the or the least amount, I guess. So, um you know, I I I don't know if it's like six and 900 or whatever it is. It's some it's an odd thing, but you know, um you
know, if you're on septic, it's also how's your septic design in terms of number of bedrooms it can handle. So, there's other factors. Amoris is mostly water and sewer. So we don't have that issue. But yeah, I think the foreign related is would other other bylaws have
tried it and AG has denied it. So I I think it would be I don't see why we would put it in there. Uh the rental registration is a general bylaw. It's not a zoning bylaw. So I think that it's more appropriate there and could you know we could argue that it could be enforced because it's not zoning.
Okay. Thanks. All right. All right. So, Nate, do you want to share the version that was just a single ad single local? Sure. So, uh it's if this is visible, it's
dated August 15th and you know I can go through there were the highlighted versions previously in the document discussed by CRC. So one was there had been a statement here at the end of this uh saying that an ADU can enable a
property owner to age in place or earn supplemental income. And the question was do we need this? Uh and you know the model bylaw from the state had it. I agree it wasn't comprehensive. I removed it. We could put something back. I mean I don't know if it's necessary. So in this version
anyways I removed that state. Yeah. I personally I don't think it's necessary. Yeah. All right. Uh, under applicability. So, you know, this has been modified. The town permits one type of accessory dwelling unit, a protected
use ADU in accordance with Mass General Law Chapter 48 section 3 and 760 CMR. Um, you know, this language was added single family residential zoning district. That's the how the state defines it. And
so it's just a clarification, you know, essentially any single family residential zoning district that allows a detached single family dwelling by right or by special permit, including the RO, RLD, RN, RBC, and RG zoning district. So that's
um um let me ask you one thing and then I'll call on Bruce. Nate, I thought in an earlier meeting about this, you had said that if there was uh a little apartment building on a on a
site that an ADU could be allowed or would be required to be allowed there. So, do we have any zones that would require would allow
some other type of housing other than single family that where the ADU would be required? Yeah, I think that's the confusing thing is the state calls it a single family residential zoning district. Uh, and it's not it's not a district that only
allows single family houses. Correct. Okay. So, all right. So this makes sense from the sort of legal context, right? Okay. Right. So it's not saying that you can only have ADUs on single family homes. It's saying that ADUs are allowed in any
essentially in any zoning district that allows a detached single family dwelling. So you know, we allow single family dwellings in just those zoning districts only in our residential zoning districts. Um the attorney, our town attorney recommended putting in the single family residential phrase because
that's part of the rules, state rules and regulations. Okay. Um you know some communities that don't have many zoning districts, they might have say just a residential and commercial uh you know agricultural zones, they allow residential units in their commercial district. So now they have to allow ADUs in their commercial
district. Bruce, uh did we answer your question? you asked my question and it was fully enough answered. Okay. All right. Thanks. Go ahead, Nate. Sure. Uh, you know, I think there had been some discussion about having and we
can modify this, you know, consistency of how we spell out Mass General law and the sections. That's a minor thing, but um, you know, it's recommended that when we define it, you know, we include the references to state law and the CMR, the
mass regulation. So you know the definition you know what we say here applicability you know an ADU shall meet the definition per master general law as well as the regulation and then this is something that uh um you know just defines it the land the
use of land or structure for a protected use shall be as of right requiring only a building permit. So none this really hasn't changed. Uh and then an ADU may be completely contained within a dwelling attached to it or separate. again, that was in there. That hasn't really changed.
Okay, so definitions, uh, these are, uh, you know, there was a question from the CRC, do we have have them in this section of the bylaw or do we have them in article 12 of the zoning bylaw?
I think it's fine having them here. Uh, because in this instance, a principal dwelling to me is really only as it relates to the protected ADU. We define principal dwellings differently. So in accordance with the state regulation, a principal dwelling shall mean a
structure regardless of whether or not you know it or the lot is conforms to zoning and contains at least one dwelling unit and is is or will be located on the same lot as an ADU. So essentially that's where Doug the apartment building, town houses, whatever
in our zoning districts are is considered a principal dwelling. Typically in our zoning bylaw, when we say principal dwelling, we refer to a single family dwelling. So I think when the state first came out with these the legislation, everyone was thinking, oh, a principal dwelling is a single family dwelling. But then they
clarified it in the rules that no, it's a structure. So the principal dwelling is a structure that has at least one dwelling unit. So any type of dwelling unit. So would it be useful or helpful for to to introduce this, you know, after
the words principal dwelling to say something like for the purposes of article five only? Can I say it up here? Oh, you do? Okay. For the purpose of this section of the zoning bylaw. Okay, fine. Yep. Never mind. Go ahead.
And if I could just interject, everywhere else in the bylaw, I think we we use the term principal residence, not principal dwelling. I didn't I didn't find any principal dwellings. I did a quick search. Okay. Yeah, I think yeah, semantics, right? I agree. That's different. I think it would be confusing
though if we define principal dwelling in our bylaw. Um I mean, I guess it's a decision if you want to put these definitions in article 12 or five. I'm comfortable keeping them in article five. Well, at least this first one since it really only applies to this
article. I think that makes sense. And then the protected ADU, uh, nothing's really changed here in terms of how it's defined. I did slip in the thousand square feet. So, I guess we would reject this and go back to what we had had previously,
the 900, right? Oh. Um, that's funny. Where did that go? Uh I'll I'll work on that. Um and that is 900 square feet of habitable space. So we end up with the gross
footprint being greater than a thou than 100 900 square feet. So we said what we had said was um you know instead of saying gross square feet we say you know half the floor area of the habitable space or 900 square feet whichever is smaller. So
Bruce seems like we should also therefore have to define habitable space. I mean does it include an entry? Does it include a a closet? Does it include uh I mean am I going to start getting fast and loose and clever, you know, being a smart
architect and uh start trying to you know figure out what habitable space is and and and and drive that number down which I might do. A habitable space is a defined term in the bylaw already. Oh, it is. Yeah.
Okay, good. And it and it and it was aligned with how building code defines habitable space. So, in essence, you are getting, you know, a larger unit doesn't include, you know, the utility closet if it's for, you know, a water heater. That's okay if it's already defined,
Nate. I'm sorry. I'm not as familiar with as I perhaps should be. Uh, so let's see. Um, okay. I'm just going through the comments I sent you in the highlighted version from the CRC. I think it's easier once
we once we uh, you know, once we only have the one ADU. Now, for the general requirements, you know, there was a question of inserting the short-term rental idea. So, that's not, you know, that isn't here yet. Um, Angus,
sorry. I I just had a question about the protected use definition. Y, you cut out um the 1/2 floor of the principal dwelling. Is that not part of the state definition? Oh, it's here now. It's not larger in Florida. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm looking at
the old version. Sorry. Yeah, I just Yeah, I just put it back. Um, and then general requirements, you know, an ADU shall be located on the same lot as the principal dwelling. Uh, there shall be no more than one
protected use ADU permit on the same lot in accordance with the CMR. So, that's the state says that, you know, really you're only allowed one protected use ADU. Uh, there's no minimum lot size required and there's no additional lot area required. So that's
that hasn't changed. The more permissive dimensional regulations for a detached single family dwelling, principal dwelling or an accessory structure shall apply to the ADU. And by that, you know, it's whatever is the most flexible. So you know, whatever has the uh greatest
amount of lot coverage, whatever would have the smallest setback. Uh you know, I think the building commissioner asked what is exactly meant by permissive. It's it's a term they use in the state regulations. If we think it's somewhat confusing, we could change it.
So essentially, you know, if in our in most of our zoning districts, we only have a 10-ft setback to an accessory structure or a height equal the setback is equal to its height. And for a detached single family dwelling, we might have 20 feet. For an accessory structure, we have 10 feet. So an ADU is
allowed to be 10 feet from the side or rear property line. And then in that zoning district for instance we have the height requirement the more permissive height requirement between an accessory structure or a single family dwelling allows is applied. So we can use the setback for an accessory structure but
because our principal dwelling or single family dwelling can be two and a half floors the accessory dwelling unit is allowed to be two and a half floors. So you know it's a combination of dimensional standards applies to the ADU.
Um, I I could imagine in L if if Rob didn't like permissive. What about any of the dimensional regulations? No, the the state's been clear is they they they'll say in the regulations it's the more permissive of the regulations. So,
okay. All right. Um, you know, do we say flexible or you know, generous, you know, whatever. To me, this is um I understand it. I I know if it's if it's not clear to other folks just like you know I think it's important to say
it and you know for instance in two years from now someone's reading this like what does it really mean? Um least restrictive right? I mean you could say the more permissive i.e. least restrictive and say it two
ways. I don't know. I'm I'm I'm not saying you really need to do that, but yeah, I you know, I'll just put that um uh you know, we had this curb cut. So, we had said if feasible, we just clarify there should be no additional or separate driveway curb cut unless
allowed by the Department of Public Works. So, we you know, just clarified that statement a little bit. Yeah. So, this reads that you cannot have another curb cut unless allowed by the Department of Public Works. Okay.
Which they typically do anyways. All right. But I think I to me it's important to have this there actually is an ADU that was proposed in town and the owner went and put down a gravel pad essentially put it creating a second driveway not realizing they needed to get approval.
And so then it hap, you know, some of like I was telling the CRC, I, you know, I look at the zoning bylaw as, you know, an educational tool as, you know, for the staff as well as applicants and homeowners. So, you know, we could say that a lot of this isn't necessary if it's repeating state law, but usually we
try to simplify it into terms and language that is understandable. So, you know, to me, this would be important to have in there just as a another mechanism to alert, you know, staff and an applicant that they need to contact public works.
Would it be even more clear to say no additional or separate driveway curb cut to serve the ADU shall be permitted? Uh, well, we I think having unless allowed by public works, I think. Yeah. Yeah.
Unless Unless allowed. Okay. Right. Just changing this. Yeah. The the there shall be. I don't know. That's that's just a little soft. Brad, I see your hand.
Uh yeah. I have a question about the DPW. Uh back under the previous charter, additional curve cuts went to the select board and um is this now the just the DPW and not the council? I'm just
asking. I'm not sure. I'll look into that. That's my understanding. All right. Well, good point, Fred. Uh let's see what else. So there was you know we have a parking plan uh and
uh there was a question asked at the CRC you know would the res residential property rental property bylaw cover this and it doesn't necessarily. So, you know, the staff thinks having these requirements in here, you know, is is is
important in addition to the rental property. So, if someone is renting a property, they have to provide a parking management plan. It doesn't allow conditions on it. And so, this is saying is that a parking plan should be submitted that meets the landscape design and landscape standards for the zoning bylaw. So, it's a little little
more prescriptive than just submitting a parking plan. I think it was also asked, you know, do we require this of single family homes uh by the CRC and it would it be an unreasonable regulation? And I would say it's not unreasonable because it doesn't nullify or prohibit
the use of the ADU or construction of the ADU. It's actually talking about the parking for it. Uh and I think we could argue that it actually meets, you know, a clear objective. it's uh you know meets a municipal purpose to have
standards for um a parking area. So I I would be comfortable saying that this is although not applied to a single family, you know, the state's uh restrictions are you can apply something to ADUs that aren't applied to single family homes in terms of say zoning unless it meets
three criteria to be reasonable. And I would say that this is a reasonable request right here. So, okay. You know, it's fine until we're until it's struck down.
Yep. Um, if the principal dwelling or ADU will be rented, you have to follow the residential property bylaw that's been in there. Um, exterior lighting shall be downcast. you
know, on-site storage shall be a waste management shall be um you know, within an attached garage or accessory building or screened. Again, you have to provide a management plan if you have a rental property, but it doesn't get into the specifics of having it be screened or how it shall be contained. Again, kind
of like the parking plan, I would say that this is a reasonable regulation, although not applied to single family dwellings. Can I uh suggest that the word occur be replaced with be located?
Yep. You know, we have that we've had always had this. So, most of this is, you know, has been existing language. It's been reformatted just now applying to the protected use ADU. You know, no more than three parking spaces. And it was recommended that we added this next sentence or or phrase that according to
the regulation, no additional parking space shall be required for an ADU located within half a mile of a commuter rail station or bus station. And so, you know, some communities are trying to insert some language saying that you have to have at least one parking space
for an ADU. And the AG has been coming back and saying you don't actually you can't require that if it's with within a half mile. and and in and how they define a bus station, you know, the PVTA bus stops are considered a bus station.
And if the rail service came back to um uh the depot, that'd be considered a commuter rail station. So, anything within a half mile of a PVTA bus stop or if we had a rail stop, you are you cannot be required to um require one
parking space for that ADU. So I see I see two hands and um go ahead Fred and then Bruce and then if neither of you ask my question I'll ask it. Uh Nate uh I have a quibble with the
word per. Oh yeah is a is a preposition. It means for each and uh that use is is kind of a slang use. It should say in accordance with
All right. It's a very small quote. No, it's fine. I after I wrote it and I sent it, I I kind of thought the same. All right. Thanks, Fred. Bruce, well done, Fred. Um I'm wondering again
on the definition side uh I was wondering whether bus station needs to be defined. It's cuz I would have thought that this doesn't apply to us because we don't have a rail station or a bus station and aren't likely to have one in town.
um a commuter one and uh but you say that bus station actually means bus stop and I think uh that really either should say bus stop or somehow clarificate clarify bus station
is there a reason why we shouldn't be concerned that just putting the language from the buran is it seems to me that's going to cause confusion yeah we we could throw a definition in there. The um in the regulation they say a bus station, excuse me, or commuter
rail station is a point of um you know um um like getting on or off embarcation. Yeah. Or something. Uh and it has some other phrase. And then so that's it's a really it's kind of a broad term. And so
the way the AG has been interpreting that is saying yes any essentially any bus route or formalized bus route that has a bus stop is a bus station. So I agree when this first language first came out everyone was saying well uh the
way it was worded is that you know only something on like a Peter Pan or major bus route is a bus station right it's not these little local bus stops and a commuter rail station is really like north station it's not you know anything else but the interpretation of the AG's office has been different so
so I would suggest that we get rid of rail station or bus station and simply put uh a bus stop because that's what we mean that this is in the regulation. So I think if we were going to do anything I think we would add a definition
to it. Well, could you just why is but we were talking about what's reasonable before with regard to parking plans and management plans and and wouldn't uh saying a bus stop be reasonable in the same context? I mean, we don't have to state the uh
regulation. We just have to conform to it. Well, would we if this language is exactly what's in the legislation, could we put it in quotes and then some a comma that says something like means bus stop? Something like that is seems to me to be important.
Commonly known as a bus stop in in common parlance or something. Well, yes. So, as you say, put it in quotation marks and then say, "And for the purposes of our law, uh, a bus stop
or as as uh stated in some, you know, opinion number 3000 from the attorney general, a bus station includes local bus stops." It seems a a heavyhanded way of saying
what we want to say. And then and unless we're going to have a uh the the AG come down on us, uh I would just say put in bus stop and see what happens because that's I mean that's what people are going to
understand and and I suppose okay that yeah I'm just going to put the stop there for now just that that's that goes a long way there I think. Thank you Nate that gets it for me. So Nate, um I'll ask my question
now, and I do see Angus's hand. Um if we're able to limit the number of parking spaces at these ADUs, could we say two? Um you know, if we're worried about these being rental units
and packing students into them, could we could we be more restrictive? We could. We could I think you know the difficulty will be in determining you know is the
uh well it might not be difficult in some properties it might be difficult to determine is the parking serving only the ADU or is it also serving you know the principal dwelling or other units on the property. Uh you know parking space is not the same as say the drive aisle
or other things. So, you know, I Well, if it's hard if it's hard to actually distinguish I don't know. Okay. I mean, I don't I don't feel strongly about it and I you know, so I just was curious.
We could we could say two. I mean, to me that if we say three on-site parking spaces, that's you know, someone has created right really a parking area, right? It's off their driveway or off a drive aisle where cars are parking. Uh, we could say two. I just
Okay. All right. Well, I'm not going to advocate strongly for it. So, Angus, well, yeah, I guess continuing the parking discussion, I'm just trying to understand what would be the appropriate
number of spaces um in terms of a parking plan that the building commissioner would approve, right? So, you know, the bylaw had at one point said two spaces per unit. Now, it has something different in terms of what's the right approach. So,
you know, I think they would look at, you know, how many bedrooms, maybe what the lease agreements are, and then just what and it actually asks in the application form, how many parking spots are you providing? And so then they just want to see that they're actually in the right location. So, our bylaw says you
can have no more than two spaces within the front setback. And so, you know, if you have a double wide driveway and it's say 80 feet long and you're willing to say all my tenants are going to stack their cars, that's fine. And then that's the plan. So then if you
know people start parking on the lawn and there's a complaint, the town can enforce it and say, "No, the way you're supposed to park your cars is they're supposed to be stacked in the driveway." And so the purpose of the plan isn't to say, you know, is it the right number of
parking spaces? It's to say this is the way the cars are going to be parked and we can enforce that if there's a complaint really. Uh and you know, and so it might be that if someone says, "Oh, I want 12 parking spaces for five bedrooms." Maybe the inspector will say, "That seems a little odd. You know, are
you exceeding your lot coverage or dimensional standards?" Uh but if you know if they're proposing something like that and it seems like an anomaly and it meets all other parts of the bylaw that could be allowed and so you know this was the housing subcommittee discussed this. So, you
know, we have a maximum, but we also have we wanted to the recommendation was to also put in this about, you know, within a bus stop location because, you know, like I said, a number of communities actually require ADUs to provide parking. And we're taking we were trying to take the approach of
saying we we just have we just don't want a maximum number. The concern would be that you'd have a lot of pavement for um an ADU. So, okay. Uh Bruce, um I think I'm actually going to
advocate that we keep it at the three. Um because Nate says there's other ways of providing for greater parking and it's not really that convenient. Uh I'm reminded actually I think it was a a planning board uh uh application that we
had. It was either that or or local historic district commission. Um actually I think it must have been the planning board uh on Spalding Street right at the end of Spalding Street. We had an applicant uh who um there was
disputes with neighbors involved. So it got a little bit kind of uh um distractive, but I think essentially this uh um applicant was actually trying to put some intelligent parking in because they had this kind of stacked
arrangement. And I remember thinking at the time that this was a better idea for the uh the the the the housing condition that they had which included essentially an ADU. So it it seems to me that the Sporting Street experiences tells me
that we shouldn't uh squeeze that maximum number down. Uh that that that actually three is probably a good number. That's fine. All right. Um so then you know we have you know to the extent feasible a newly
constructed detached ADU shall be located behind the front building line of the principal dwelling closest to the street. You know staff thinks this is reasonable. Um you know it it's really qualified by that to the extent feasible. So there may be instances where it isn't but
otherwise you know we would encourage something that's not necessarily you know in the middle of the front yard. uh m you know there's been some discussion I think by the planning board and even staff and so you know uh about
removing this so I you know I I' you know we talked about this last time um so I'm either way if we think that M is not necessary it could be removed
well I know I was the advocate for for allowing a front entrance on a ADU And I have not changed my opinion, but I'm not going to belabor it. Thank you, Chair. Um, so Nate, when we
say to the extent feasible, like this is an administrative approval, right? So that that judgment of what is feasible would be made by the planning staff. Is that right? Right. And so
it would be right or you know the building commissioner building or the inspectors, you know, and this would be, you know, if a lot is, you know, generous in terms of its size and they have an ADU and they decide to put it really close to the property line and then they're like, "Oh, and by the way, here's where I want to put the stairs."
Staff would say, "Well, geez, you have all this space around the ADU. Couldn't you configure it differently?" Right? But then some lots might not have right the frontage or the width or the shape to allow it. Um you know I think in the previous discussions there were some saying well
you know is it does it conflict with the provision above and is it you know does it really do anything and like Doug said you know won't someone design something that works and so do we really need to start getting into you know how the stairs and entrances work? I so I'm I
you know I I can go either way on this actually. I'm not I would sorry go ahead sorry I was just gonna say to um normally I or under I I would I would
maybe even suggest striking L&M but considering it is a staff level administrative discretion I'd be okay though I would still prefer that we maybe take out M. It feels a little bit
like we're treating ADU residents as secondass citizens or something trying to hide their entrance from the front. Um, and I hate to open up this can of worms at 9:00, but I I I do like Fred and
Bruce's idea of having a local ADU that has an owner occupancy requirement that allows for larger structures. Um, I'm again I'm sorry for opening up this can of worms again, but I've just been thinking about it more and I certainly
understand the concern about two ADUs being on a property, the concern about um and the silliness of needing to go through a special permitting process for a protected um ADU, a protected use ADU.
But I worry that our fear of the spe the silliness of the special permitting process and the fear of these potential two units on a property which we it sounds
like most of us feel is probably unlikely to happen. that the fear of those two things are preventing us from achieving the goals of increasing the housing supply in Ammerst by providing protected use which presumably would be
for you know renters. Um, my ideal scenario, and call me a naive, of course, is that I love this idea of the owner occupancy requirement for a larger 1,200 square foot uh, ADU because
that's more the housing type that I see when I think about intergenerational housing or if you have a kid with special needs and needs to live with you, but maybe you want to have a separate residence. So, I absolutely hear you, Jesse, on
your concern that like you add more square footage, you're just going to get more students, but I wonder if there still is a way for us to find this medium where we're allowing for the protected use, but we're also allowing for these larger owner occupied ones that can perhaps
help unlock the housing supply for other homes that are currently um stuck in the housing filtration process. Uh, is there any way that the staff could do like a rough back of the napkin
assessment of like how many properties could feasibly fit two of these ADUs? Um, you know, and again with the special permitting process, the 900 square ft one, if that has to go before a special permitting process, I
think we'd probably likely agree that it would make sense and would be permitted. If we feel like a second ADU is problematic, we'll reject it. So, I feel like the the
fact that a second ADU would have to go through the special permitting process is a really good barrier against excessive ADU development, especially if, and correct me if I'm wrong, especially if they need five out of seven of our um votes to get
that approval. And so I guess I'm proposing opening up the the idea of having a second a local ADU with an owner occupancy requirement that is larger. I guess I don't know how that necessarily affects the thousand foot uh existing ADUs and their nonconformity.
But I I worry that our fear of what could happen with this ADU bylaw is significantly impacting the positive impacts that it it also could have. And so I'd be curious to hear what others think about that. Yeah. Quickly, if I may, just I want to
just clarify that a protected use ADU would always be by um a building permit. So if that were to come second, it wouldn't need a um a special permit. So, okay, you know, it would only the only time a special permit would be needed is if
someone built a protected use first and then came with a local ADU after. Okay, so you know the scenario to me allowing a local ADU, right? If someone is like, oh, I really want a bigger ADU, they'll choose a local ADU with the owner and but they would it would be required to
be owner occupied, you know, right? And then if for instance they decided two years later to do a protected use ADU they could and that owner occupancy requirement of the local ADU isn't removed but the protected use you know have you
know can't have that restriction. So you know you're still have an owner occupied unit on the property uh you but you're allowing two additional units on that property. Right. Okay. Thank you for that clarification. All right. So
Jara has proposed we reopen the conversation about the second ADU, the local ADU. Uh Fred, your hand was up before. Go ahead and make your comment and um maybe
I'll look for anybody who wants to endorse Jar's request and see how much support there is for that. Uh yeah, I I think it is an unnecessary complication.
Remember that uh quite frequently if uh you're thinking about a second ADU, you might also in probably in most cases
would qualify for a second dwelling unit under a normal special permit proceeding anyway. So, it seems to me like that's a unnecessary complication to go back to this. I would oppose that.
Okay. Thank you, Fred. Um, anybody else? Jesse? Sure. I'm not opposed at all. I was reading the room before and sort of thought there wasn't interest in that. Um, I I think it's fine if it does
complicate things a little bit, but I don't I don't really think that's a problem and I don't think it will be very much used at all to be honest. But all right, I guess I will say I'm I'm not opposed. You know, I'm I I I'm
I guess we would probably need to continue the the meeting, the hearing, and uh kind of regroup. Do Do you agree, Nate? Uh I say, Doug, that Angus and Bruce have had their hands up. Um Oh, really? Have I Oh, I Oh, I'm sorry.
I had my Zoom lineup moved over to the right. Uh, Bruce, actually Angus is before me. Okay, Angus. Yeah, I was I was just gonna say I I think um
I one of the things that I like about the idea I my my goal is to simplify the zoning bylaws wherever we can. So, I I I'm I'm with Fred in that I like the idea of just keeping it simple, but I think a couple of things have been said tonight that make made me kind of
rethink things. Um, one hearing from Nate that if someone had a local use and then decided to do a protected use, they would still h it would still have to be owner occupied. That that's changed kind of my perception of things a little bit that um
that in order to to to still, you know, own the property, they would they would it would have to be owner occupied. So, that's that that's changed my mind a little bit. And then I think the other thing that I'm hearing that I I really like about what the housing subcommittee did with the initial proposal is there there was a sense that um
some families do want a bigger unit for a variety of purposes for extended family, what have you. And so this idea of having the owner occupied local use 1,200 square foot option is really great for current residents, future residents
who are who own their houses. And then this local this uh protected use would likely be a lot of rentals, right? Um to to Jesse's point, but I I I like this idea of trying to figure out how to balance both um
yes, we have student rentals that are going to get that are driving a lot of, you know, concerns about housing in this town, but figuring out some way to still prioritize current residents who own and occupy their homes to give them options. I I like having uh giving them more
options and that's that's what the housing subcommittee seemed to be trying to do. Um so understanding a little bit more about how the requirement of owner occupancy would work if someone were to then build a second ADU help helps me understand things a little bit better
and I and I like Jer's idea now now that I understand that more. Okay. Thanks Angus Bruce. So that means that the if we had the uh opportunity for a local uh ADU that
would mean that uh we would be keeping the uh the uh those existing ADUs which have been achieved by a special permit that are larger than 900. They would be back in the conforming column I guess. Mhm.
Which I guess is okay. There was no downside to that particularly. It's just that there was no particular downside with them being non-conforming either. Um, so to be clear, I was wasn't advocating two. I was actually advocating the opposite that we should
have one. But uh, and I was advocating that because I just thought it was likely to be misconstrued. And perhaps I was just wanting to try and avoid what I thought might be a bit of a
train wreck. Um but um but I as I said earlier I think I agree that it's unlikely to be widely uh executed and and if it is it it does contain the the the owner occupancy. Um so I guess I don't feel strongly one way
or the other. But what I had my hand up for, I'm sorry, is to say I agree with Doug and with Jara that number M is um I I think that's doesn't uh doesn't rise to the price of admission.
All right. Thanks, Bruce. That that helped me delete it. Yeah. Put us over the top. Yeah. I you know I you know when you're talking about the owner occupancy piece it reminded me that in discussing this with staff the you know a property owner could put a covenant on their property
so it's not zoning right it's a it's a private matter so even if they build a protected use ADU they could put a covenant on their property that one of the units needs to be owner occupied right it's just it's a something that they do on their own
it's outside of zoning in any town purview it then becomes a legal issue between you a potential new owner, but that's a possibility. I don't you know why why would anyone do that? Well, so say some say we only do the one
protected use ADU, but there is a family or you know the property owner wants the wants one of the units on the property to be owner occupied. they they could put they could themselves write in you know a covenant on the property to do that and so uh
because they want to right because they you know that's you know it's again it's not a zoning matter we wouldn't the town might not even know about it you know it becomes a legal issue when something happens with the property but um the difference being if it was a
local ADU uh you know and you know it's in the bylaw you know there is some town control over it uh and it goes through some kind of you know building and you know administrative review process. But I think the option I was mentioning I'm just saying I just want to put it out
there that you know there are some properties that have covenants on them that have nothing to do with the town or zoning. I think it would be odd but it you know. Okay. So Nate, um,
you know, given the hour, uh, it seems like it would be worth us continuing and coming back to review a draft that has the the the second option with the local ADU. Do you agree?
I think um, or do do you think we can get through the alternative fairly expeditiously? And I do see two hands so far. Yeah. Yeah, take those comments. I, you know, we put the definition back in there for a local ADU.
And then we'd have the requirements specific to a local ADU, which we had seen before saying, you know, like owner occupancy, some design standards. So, you think it could be fairly expeditious? Yeah. And we had previously had like four or five conditions for the local
ADU, and I might really only suggest two of those or maybe three. And then uh All right. Well, let's get those I'll take those two comments and you can take a few drafts. Uh Fred, why don't you go?
Whoops. You were You're now muted. Yeah. Now, yeah. Um Nate, I uh I understand putting a covenant uh on a on a property. Um,
but without the force of the zoning bylaw, uh, I'm not an attorney, but seems to me that a subsequent owner could decide to remove the covenant.
Uh, so I think I I kind of think that is irrelevant unless someone can persuade me that my understanding of the law is incorrect. Okay, Jesse. Uh, I was just going to comment that um
I think where this started moving the local was maybe mostly in response to I think Angish comment about being at CRC and listening to the counselors and I get that and I respect that. I also would like to think as a planning board if we don't if we say something different and justify it that that would
hold some weight. So, I'd be happy to work on that justification with you, Nate, and the rest of you about why we think this is the way to go. Okay. So, Nate, do you think you've got uh the material we could use to
or are you frantically cutting and pasting? Maybe we'll take another five minute break while I was um I think I have it. Um uh I'll share my screen.
Let me just figure out which version. Um, you mean we can't just vote on a recommendation to council that we endorse whatever it is you come up with? [Music] Do we do committee reports or something while he's doing this?
Yeah. Yeah. I you know, so I, you know, there'd be we'd have to modify the applicability here a little bit. You know, two types of ADUs. I think the the the what we had done before was we just referenced what they were. So local ADU in terms of how it would be approved, we
say administrative approval was highlighted in yellow is we'd have to clarify and say that if it were a second the second ADU permitted, it would need a special permit. So you know there's that piece in the definitions we have the
definition of a local ADU. Uh so it it mimics a protected use ADU except that we say you know 1,200 square feet or 90% of habitable space um whichever is smaller. The CRC asked what is the whichever smaller is
referring to. So I think we could you know add a little clarification there. And then at the end we had had you know specific requirements for local ADU. So here's the owner occupancy requirement.
with something filed at the registry. Uh something about the design so that its appearance and scale is compatible with the principal dwelling and should be accessory to the principal dwelling. Um you know here we have the design review principles
um and the provisions of 10.38 those are special permit condition findings. Our current bylaw has language about that in terms of accessory dwelling units. almost of the opinion that these would could be deleted and then what we're left with is just to
clarify that you know the dimensional standards found in the bylaw for accessory structures apply so that you know it's not you know it's because we're saying in protected use it's more permissive so someone isn't you know we're just clarifying what standards apply to a local ADU so um
[Music] okay and yeah so that's that's how it read I mean I don't know what people feel about how people feel about these the designer review standards or the 10.38 findings. Um
uh Angus I yeah I I personally think those two can be cut. I I I think the compatibility with the principal dwelling and clearly accessory is more more important than those. I would support that personally. Bruce,
I I do too. Uh I I think it's one thing for the planning board to be uh uh in deliberation on on design principles and uh and and so forth, dimensional standards uh in in a in essentially a public
forum. But uh the big difference here is that the building commission is not in a public forum. And uh I guess that we shouldn't obligate them to do the sorts of things that that we uh perhaps uh
asked to do but to do in a in a way where a fair amount of accountability is uh you know pertains. So for that reason I think I would say take B and C out. Right. So Nate that's at least three out of six
of us. Sure. Um yeah and so you know we've gone through the rest of these requirements you know so I think what we would say here um we'd have to you know modify this again because some of these we'd want to apply
to the local ADUs as well. So I think it's just you know how how you parse out the requirements and how to say that cleanly. Um and yeah, I mean I think we could continue this and we could come back with a cleaner version. The CRC is
meeting at the end of the month. And so you know um you know the planning board can have its set of recommendations and the CRC can have its set of recommendations that go back to town council. You know we try to uh balance the comments so that you see what the CRC said in the you know and vice versa.
It may be that you know the planning board you recommend this local option and the CRC might not might not recommend it right they might really recommend just the protected use option and you know I think that's okay and then it becomes something that town council has to reconcile and it's you
know discussion with staff and you know Doug you could be there and the chair of the CRC and so you know why you know essentially what was proposed to council was the two options and then you know what would be just explained back to them is during the hearing process You know, I mean, I would say that the
planning board had, you know, had a lot of consideration and thoughts given to what is a local ADU appropriate and, you know, in the end decided to keep it. Here's why. And the CRC, if they decide not to, would say, well, we actually think it's simpler to have one and, you know, we really like the idea of just
allowing one ADU on a property. And, you know, I think I think that's a I think that's fine, right? I think we've really worked in the past to try to have the same version from planning board and CRC go to town council and it may not be that that always happens. So,
well, I mean, we also have the have the option of meeting next Wednesday. The CRC won't meet till the 28th. So, there's not Right. I mean, we could meet next Wednesday and uh hammer it out and be
done by the time CRC meets. Okay. Um, Angus and then Bruce. I guess I'm just wondering if we could make a motion not to um, you know, accept the the wording here because I it needs to be cleaned up and all of that, but just to make a motion
saying that we support having both a local use ADU and protected use ADU. So, instead of having a follow-up meeting where we clarify exactly what the words are, we just put ourselves on the record saying we support having both options. the CRC may either endorse that
or not. And if they don't, then the council knows that we have two different kind of takes on this document. Nate, do you think that would fly or do we really we really need to show up with language? Yeah, I think you know in the previous
version I shared it was for two and so it' go back to that. I think um you know under applicability we'd say like the town of Ammeris permits two types of accessory dwelling units you know a local ADU and a protected ADU and then we have the sub points A and B where we
say a local ADU shall meet this um and we'd add that it needs a special permit if it's come second and then it would be the um you know the definition and then these requirements I think what I would have to do is just make sure that the general requirements that we work
through A through So, you know, we I mean to me I would say you know general requirements for protected use ADU and where applicable you know you know as applicable the local ADU. So you know if you know um
so some of these might not apply. I don't know. I'd have to just see how we'd have to you know what we had done before is we had maybe the simplest thing would be to continue. Yeah but to continue. I don't think it changes the And are you are you okay with us continuing to the first meeting in
September? Yeah. I mean, so we'll just prolong the whole process another couple of weeks. Yeah. I mean, I think Yeah. I think you know, like what Angus was asking was like a straw poll, right? Or kind of just some kind of like a some consensus
if the two the planning board is going to go with this 2 ADU option. you know, I'd bring that back to the CRC and I'd have, you know, what we worked on tonight and then the other version which doesn't have them, uh, you know, as just the protected use and they can discuss it as the CRC. So,
well, I guess what I'm hearing is a couple of people who are advocating strongly for including the local ADU and the rest of us are kind of okay with that. There's no particular objections and we can have time to think about it.
I don't, you know, All right, Bruce. Um, I was going to move a continuence au continuation. Um uh and and and I think
that effectively Angus achieves your uh motion because we're continuing with a constructed uh uh text on the table. So I think that that's indicative of how we are, you know, the mood of the
of the board. So, if that would be acceptable to you, that the continuation essentially achieves what you're suggesting, um I would uh move the continue the that the hearing be continued to and then tell me the date and time.
All right, Pam. Um what is it like? September third. We have September 3rd or September 17. Well, I think uh do we have a lot on the agenda for the third yet?
No. Let's go ahead with the third. I think I would like to try to keep this moving. So, we can say 6:35. Okay. Okay. So, move. Uh Fred.
Yeah. Is there a meeting of the housing subcommittee between then and now? I think there is right because the housing subcommittee could kind of go through this line by line at its next meeting if that's ahead of the
full board meeting and then be in pretty good position to move at the board meeting in September. But I don't remember when the next Jesse do you remember when the next one is? We actually don't. I'm just working on that those dates now. I was going to
send them out to you. We could try and meet next week if we want to. That would be helpful. Um, but no, there's nothing scheduled at the moment. Self officially next week would be great for me. Okay. Okay. So, we have a motion on the table.
I will second it since no one else has uh to continue this hearing to September 3rd at 6:35. Red, your hand is still up. Are you? No. Okay. All right. Is there any further
discussion before we vote on a continuation? All right. Uh I guess I'd need to ask uh we have a few members of the public that are still here. Uh if any of those members of the public would like to comment on where we're at in this
hearing before we continue it, uh please raise your hand. Uh now, okay, I don't see any hands raised, so we'll go ahead into our vote. Uh starting again with Bruce. Uh I'm an I.
All right. Thank you, Fred. I Jesse I and Angus I and Jara I and I'm an I as well. That's six in
favor, one absence. All right, the motion carries. This hearing is continued to our next meeting. Time now is 9:28. We will go to the next item on the agenda, which is planning board
elections and reorganization. Um, Nate, I'm going to ask you, should we postpone this again because of Johanna's absence or should we just go ahead? I suppose we could vote her into all the
all the positions in her absence, couldn't we? Yeah. I mean, I don't you know, it's on the agenda. If the board isn't ready to vote tonight, that's fine. I think I just wanted to have it on there to start a discussion. So, typically, you know, around this time every year, we vote,
you know, officers. That's also a good time to look at committee representatives. So, the trust Yeah. the the uh CPAC representation that's kind of timesensitive because they get going right around now. They would. Yes. They may have already
met over the summer to disc, you know, discuss their process, but the proposals are due. Yeah. September. So, well, I know when I when I did it that one year, I felt like I came in in the middle of the process.
All right. So, board members, um would you like to vote tonight and go through this now or should we I mean, what's the likelihood we're going to have everybody together sometime this fall? uh feels like we keep putting it off.
I guess you know September 3rd if we want you know we could say vote committee representatives or the you know decision signatory and maybe not officers. I don't know if everyone plans to be here on the 3rd of September. As far as I know
I plan to be my baby is due on August 31st. It'll hopefully come late, but uh just that caveat. So, you'll be sleepd deprived even if you're with us. Yeah. Right. Exactly. Or extremely anxiously waiting for
Right. for the beeper to go off. Yeah. Um Okay. Well, I mean, I'm not going to push it, but uh Angus, I see your hand. Well, I'm just wondering if it'd be helpful to hear what Jarro might be interested in, especially if he's going
to not not be there for that. And and I'm also wondering for the Community Preservation Act, how often do they meet? So, they uh Nate, do you want to describe it or should I start with my what I understood from when I did it?
Yeah, I mean, I'll just say, you know, the Community Preservation Act, so you know, the town has a search charge on property tax. So, you know, we get a fair amount of money. say it's a million dollars with state funding as well that the CPA committee has to allocate towards projects for open space, recreation, affordable housing or
historic preservation. And they they call they you know put out a request for proposals which are due at the end of September and then they meet to review those proposals, hold the public hearing and try to and make recommendations to town council. And in recent years
they've they've kind of truncated the process so that you know they try to have the recommendations done by the c end of the calendar year. So it used to be that it took longer and they met you know over an extended period of time. Now they meet to me I think it's like sometimes it's like every Thursday of
the month or three Thursdays a month for three months to try to get their recommendations uh in order and they want to do that so it's early in the budget process for the town. So then the CPA, the council and town manager know what the CPA recommendations could be. So um I was actually going to look on
their web page. They might actually have their meeting schedule already posted for this coming cycle, but it is, you know, so it's October, November, December. So for three months, it's pretty it's it's pretty intense. I don't know, Doug, if you want to add. Well, I I mean it was pretty close to weekly
between when the applications are received at the end of September into the kind of the beginning of December. And so they didn't, you know, they didn't meet over the break between Christmas and New
Year's, but uh they were done by then. And um so but but among the uh sort of liaison positions that we have it is unique in that you have a fairly intense
period of activity and then you're done pretty much. I mean there might be one meeting in the spring to talk about what's coming in the next year. Um, and it's also, uh, I thought it was kind of a feel-good, uh, committee because you're
giving away money. Um, you know, I mean, the hard part is, you know, uh, most of the proposals are are good ones and you have to choose which ones get money, but you have total flexibility. You can say, "We're going to give money to all of
them and just distribute it among all of them." Um so um you know that's that was kind of my take and it it it also introduces you to to the representatives from other town committees who also are
liaisoning onto this committee. So there's somebody from recreation, there's somebody from historic preservation. Um, and so you you at least get a uh a Zoom acquaintance with uh some of the
other people who support the town in other capacities. Angus, your hand is up. Yeah, I was just going to say I mean I I I'd be interested in that one, but I but I I'm also open if other people are interested as well. Yeah, I will sorry to jump in. I also
say that it's a the planning board is a specifically named I I think actually in the state legislation as one you know town board that would send a representative. Um they they do post their packets. So they met uh in June just to lay out kind of the cycle for
this coming year and they it looks like they have meetings you know three in November and three in December. Okay. It actually doesn't look like they're meeting in October. So, you know, it looks like over the course of six meetings, which will include a public hearing or two, they hope to have all
their recommendations made. Um, so if you went to their the CPA committee web page and then looked at their packets, Angus, if you wanted to, you could see some more information. Okay. Well, um, Nate, do you think we should
vote any of these tonight? I mean like if Angus is excited about CPAC and nobody else has an objection or wants to compete for that um you know is it would it help CPAC for us to do that sooner rather than later? It would I mean I
think we could you know vote vote you know one tonight and if we didn't vote DRB rep for instance we could do that at the next meeting but I think given the you know the sequence and timing for CPA if if Angus is interested. I think Johanna last time seems like she had um
some commitments in the fall or something there was always something that didn't work. Yeah. Well, I mean, we didn't have a representative last year and it right that was really unfortunate that we weren't able to wrangle anybody.
So, Angus, if you are um you know amendable, looks like Jara and Bruce are ready to nominate you. That's exactly what that's exactly right. Yeah. I motion to nominate Angus
as our representative for CPAC. Second. Okay. And Bruce, I second. Okay. All right. So, uh, any discussion? All right. Um, do we have to formally
vote this, Nate? Okay. All right. So, no discussion. We'll go right to our vote. Uh, starting with you, Bruce. Hi. Uh, and then Fred. Hi. And then Jesse.
Hi. And then um Angus. Hi. And Jara. Hi. All right. Congratulations, Angus. And I I I'm an I as well. I'm sorry. Six in favor.
Angen. Don't you know in politics it's the tradition to vote for the other guy? It used to be we didn't have a straw man. Okay, great. So, we'll do the other positions later. And and Nate, is it
true that our vote was actually just a recommendation to Paul for for Angus to be the representative and I think formalizes it, right? And then typically it then um is
reviewed by council. So I'll send that along and you know Angus we can be in touch and if you have any questions about the CPA committee too let me know. Their web page is pretty good. Um so yeah. Yeah. No we'll for that on. It's a recommendation of the town manager. So
right all the more reason to have done this tonight I Yeah, I can I can I think it sometimes it takes the town manager a little while to It took six months to get me onto the commission, remember? Right.
Okay. So, we'll come back to more of that in in our next meeting. So, well, let's put that on the agenda for next meeting. Could I speak real really quick, Doug? Sure, Jared. Sorry. I was just going to say just in case I am absent for the next one when
elections are held. The only position that I'm interested in is being on the housing subcommittee. So I just wanted to state that for for you all. Okay. Sure. part of the agenda item is also you know uh signing of decisions if
we're moving on and you know there's no requirement that all the all board members sign decisions and so it's been a local practice you know and in terms of you know if it's necessary I think sometimes it t it can it takes time to get a lot the decisions and then often board members ask if staff could sign on
their behalf and so you know I would recommend that we have the chair or their design sign a decision uh you know some communities don't have any decision or any signature staff will sign or they just you know have a stamp saying approved. Um so I think it's you know
it'll you know we have the new decision format and if we have one signature I think we can then get decisions out faster after the hearing's closed and to me that's important. U you know I don't know how the board feels about it but I would still send the decision out for the board to review provide staff any
comments but really we only have them the chair assign or their designate. Okay, Bruce, given that we've taken the time about 45 seconds for Nate to make the case for this, uh uh it sounds to me to be
extremely intelligent and I would move that uh uh that we um adopt the process of a signal signature of the chair on uh decisions approved uh by the vote of the
board. Um, I think that's it. Okay. Thank you, Angus. Second. All right. Any discussion from the board? Gee, we should have left all the motions
till this time of night and we can just run run through them. Okay. Uh, once again, um, this time I'll start with Jara. Hi. All right. Angus.
Yes. Um, Jesse. I. And Fred. I. And Bruce. Yep. And I'm an I as well. That's six in favor.
All right. So, we have accomplished that as well. And Nate, I assume there are no uh further steps with that. I mean, staff can just incorporate that into the documents that you produce and coordinate with the chair and there's
nothing else needs to happen. No, you know, in in the uh bylaw and in the rules and rags, we would say the board. And I think, you know, historically, we would say, well, it says the board, it's the whole board. You know, I looked at some other communities where staff will sign on behalf of the board and it says the
board and so they, you know, if we wanted to amend the rules and regulations, we could just to add that clarification and we could say that it's an annual vote every year. I don't know that it's necessary. I think, you know, we'll record this vote and we can move forward just doing that. Okay.
All right. Time is 9:41 and I unless somebody else wants to jump in and volunteer for a committee tonight, we will leave the rest of this for next time. Um, general housing discussion number seven
on the agenda. Um, given the hour, uh, Nate, is there anything we absolutely need to talk about that tonight? No. the housing subcommittee met and talked about kind of the rationale. So you know there'll be an updated document that can be sent out. Um I think we
really talked about when you know September October having a meeting you know outside of a normal planning board meeting whether it's in in some you know some location in town to residents to comment on the overlay. So uh yeah I
think we're working through it. I we'll we can discuss it at the next meeting. You know I think you know it gets down to the details like what type of housing units or housing type do we want you know from mixed use to apartments or social dormitories what are some standards there and you know that hasn't
been solidified so it's really still kind of talking about right what's the right approach in terms of setback and density and I think there was you know some discussion about you know three stories near the street and then six behind and having some
provisions for you know, a multi-use path and some design standards and open space requirements, but it hasn't been finalized at all. I think it's still, you know, it's it's the rough document that was reviewed by the board previously, so I think it's been refined
a little bit, but there's still a lot of questions. I think, you know, um I've reached out to different departments. I need to kind of follow up and get hear from them. I know that, you know, public safety had some concerns at one point and the sewer line would need to be replaced if some of this happened. So,
there's questions about how who would pay for that. Um, but I still think, you know, it's a it's a concept worth pursuing. And I think that we're trying to figure out when in OC I forget actually if we had a we had a tenative date maybe in October, maybe. I think it was in coordination with u one of our
one of the town counselors up there and their regular right constituent meeting. I will say I feel like we ought to have something that's more concrete before that meeting so that we give something we give the residents
something to react to rather than saying hey what do you want or what do you think? I mean that just could be a free-for-all, right? Yeah. No, I mean I feel like we have the district boundary. We have step back, you know, setbacks from Meadow
Street and North Pleasant. We have some dimensional standards. I think it's then a question for the board and housing subcommittee. You know, what are the housing types we want to permit, how to permit them, and how how much design standards do we have or is it really really flexible? So, you know, you can,
you know, behind 300 and 400 feet from the streets, you can have six stories and we're not going to have provisions for open space or, you know, I think that's where I think the discussion has to go, right? Otherwise, it's um, you know, we could submit a bylaw that's very simple and a lot of it's left up
through the permitting process. It's really then through the permitting, we'll know what the site looks like. I, you know, is that accepted? Yeah. the the board makeup will influence what's allowed, right? Okay. Yep. I plan on working on that um in the
next few weeks. So, yeah, I think we could talk if we talk about it two more times, I think it would be ready for the public. Okay. All right. Time is 9:45. Uh any old business that was not anticipated? Nope. No.
How about new business? Nope. Nope. Um, form A and our subdivision applications. No, nothing. ZBA applications. Anything we might want to see? No.
Uh, SP, SPR, SUB applications, nothing new. We had mentioned, you know, the 363 Main Street, the Bruno's, uh, right, pizza. So, they they, you know, they're working on an application. It'll be a site plan review with a special permit
application because it had a special permit uh from I think the '9s. So, you know, when that's ready, it'll come to the board there. You know, right now there's a a a restaurant, a pizza, you know, pizza place, and then um apartments. They want to add an apartment and reduce the size of the
commercial space. So, it'll be considered a mixeduse building. Um they're not making many changes at all to the exterior of the site. It's really, you know, interior changes. So, okay. All right. Time is 9:46. Um, planning
board committee and liaison reports. Bruce, anything for PVPC? Uh, there's there's an upcoming meeting. It'll be a face toface meeting. Uh, but that hasn't happened yet. Okay. Uh, Jesse, anything for housing subcommittee? Just heard about it.
Okay. And with uh Karen gone, we don't have a DRB representative. We will need another person to serve on that board. Um Angus, yeah, I'm not volunteering to serve on
that one, but um I was just going to say um I know my understanding is the planning board at one point had a zoning subcommittee as well. Um and that's something that in future meetings I'd like to to talk a little bit more about. Um I there are I had a conversation with Rob Moira and it's and there's a lot of
things um in the zoning bylaw that could could be simplified and would make his life a lot easier that aren't necessarily housing related. Um so just something that I'm thinking about in the in the coming months. Okay. Uh Fred.
Yeah. On that on that topic, uh I I agree. I in my first six years on the planning board um for the latter four of those six years, yes, we had a zoning
subcommittee and I chaired it. So I uh yeah, I I think I that you make an excellent point and I think that that I don't I don't think that should have been done away with you and me, Fred.
All right. Um, so I will make one comment about uh sort of on that topic and that is I do hope I I hope we can fill all the sort of required positions that we are expected
to be liaison with and I don't want subcommittee participation to make that hard or or impossible. Um, so please re please be considerate with
your time and and just keep in mind we we do have a couple of other positions that need to be filled. Um, otherwise I don't have any I don't have any report from chair um Nate, anything from you guys?
How's how's your staffing? Have you hired anybody lately? Uh, no. There's the search for the director of planning and economic development. So that's ongoing. I think the hope is to have someone in the position by um say October one.
Have you got all the sort of lower levels positions filled? We do. So you know there's uh you know two planners and then we have a part-time housing planner. Uh so yeah. Okay. Great. Uh nothing else from staff? No, I was
going to, you know, to Angus' point, you know, about a house a zoning subcommittee, you know, I would like to think that, right, we could um make efficiencies in the zoning bylaw and then have time at the planning at the full planning board to talk about whether it's zoning or planning projects
or planning, you know, initiatives. It it ends up being difficult when every, you know, it, you know, a zoning amendment can it takes a lot to to discuss and a project review takes a lot. So, um, you know, I think I agree with Doug that, you know, there are a few leaison that we should have and a
zoning subcommittee, you know, um, it can talk about any parts of the zoning bylaw. Staff can also initiate it. Sometimes it's nice to have a a forum for it. And so, that's where the zoning subcommittee would come into, um, play. Two members would be fine. You know, it has to be posted. Um, you know, it could
meet, you know, has to have, you know, follows public meeting, open meeting law. So minutes has to be taken, agendas posted. Uh and then the idea would be really that any subcommittee the planning board I would want to have direction from the planning board. So you know you can come to the planning board say here's you know 10 things that
staff think could be fixed. The board could discuss how to prioritize them and you know Rob or others could have ideas. Um I agree there's some things that seem simple and then it might take longer than we think. Uh but uh yeah, I think
it's worth looking at um you know, some some parts of that. So I don't you know, I just you know, if the board thinks we have time at our regular meetings to start putting in zoning, we could. Um well, I mean, you know, between you and
Pam, you keep track of what's on what what what each of our meetings is going to be uh what needs to be on the agenda. And so if we have a meeting where it seems like we're going to have a fairly light agenda. We could
certainly insert some of that, right? I mean, I know we've talked about things we could do to the general bylaw to the general zoning bylaw in, you know, a couple of years ago, but uh right, that that list is probably still around.
Yeah. Okay. So I guess we have come to the end of another planning board meeting. Uh time is 9:51 on my computer. So uh if it does anybody have anything else? We'll
wait we'll wait to hear from Bruce uh our invitation to his social event. And uh otherwise uh we are adjourned. Have a good evening and we'll see you on September 3rd. Have a good Labor Day.
Yeah. And good luck, Jara, with your new arrival. Thank you. I'll need it. Good night.