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hey Mr Marshall uh we are recording Amis media is with us and they gave us the good to go thumbs up sign uh you have Quorum of the board at 6:32 I don't believe we have any attendees at the moment um but I'll just keep watching oh one has arrived so yes the attendees are coming on in I think we're good to go all right
Thank you Pam welcome welcome to the emmer planning board meeting of February 5th 2025 my name is Doug Marshall and as chair of the emeris planning board I am calling this meeting to order at 6:31 P this meeting is being recorded and is available live streamed via ammer media minutes are being taken pursuant to chapter 20 of the acts of 2021 and extended by chapter 2 of the acts of 2023 this planning board meeting
including public hearings will be conducted via remote means using the zoom platform the zoom meeting link is accessible on the meeting 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 adequately access the meeting in real
time via technological means in the event we are unable to do so for reasons of economic hardship or despite best efforts we will post an audio video 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 Cen
I am here bred Hartwell I am here Lawrence clutz I am here Jesse major present hi Doug Marshall I'm present johana Newman is going to be late and we will try to announce her time of arrival and finally Karen winter present thank you all board members if
technical issues arise we may need to F pause to fix the problem and then continue the meeting if the discussion needs to pause it will be noted in the minutes please use the rais hand function to ask a question or make a comment and I will call on you to speak after speaking remember to remute yourself to the general public the public the general public comment 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 raised 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 name and address and put yourself
back into mute when finish speaking residents can typically Express their views for up to three minutes or at the discretion of the planning board chair if a speaker does not comply with these guidelines or exceeds their allotted time their participation may be disconnected from the meeting all right that's the the Preamble we can move on to item one of our agenda minutes we have the December 4th minutes uh in our packet uh board
members any comments on these minutes Bruce uh I'm good with the minutes with the singular exception uh which probably ought to change uh I'm listed on page two as making the motion but I am listed as oldum and not so in so far as the possibility that people might think that Jim Alm has replaced me on this board might want to
put a c in front of it otherwise I'm prepared to move to accept all right rris can you just tell me what topic that what what topic oh um it's the motion and I just a minute I made a note here I said it's on oh I see it item number three got it yeah page two motion my apologies that's all right I mean that's we do that all the time well at least we know somebody looked over before the
[Laughter] meeting okay uh let's see Bruce you want to go ahead well let's see Jesse up for a while do you want to make make the next comment whatever it is yes I actually had a one minor suggestion of a change I was just trying to find it it was in the subcommittee report I was listed as saying I could tell you now or you would hear about the
consequences of the report later I didn't I wasn't a fan of that term consequences but um sorry let me let me try and find the exact buring because it was just a little negative sounding and I don't think it meant to be um help push oh there it is the bottom of page one uh sorry top of page two Mr major noted that the housing subcommittee met last week he said he could provide a report now or the board could hear the
consequences of that meeting later maybe we could just change that word to be summary or something so it doesn't have a negative conation or he a report of that meeting yeah report will be fine thank you yeah and with those two changes I'd move to accept the minutes all right anybody want to second the motion to I'll second you be k i the further
current second okay you can decide who to record as having seconded that I have a lot of scribbles that's why I make errors when I write the minutes all right we know Jesse made the motion and I put down Karin somebody seconded it yeah yes okay Bruce said he deferred to Karin so I put Karin all right so are there any additional comments before we proceed with the
vote all right um I guess I'll just go straight through the roll Bruce hi Fred hi Lawrence muted I hi okay Jesse hi uh uh no Johanna yet Karen I I'm and I as well six in favor one absence
motion carries so we have those motions approved or those minutes approved all right time is 6:38 next item is public comment period uh so members of the public now is the time to raise your hand if you want to make a comment at this time regarding a topic that does not appear
later on our agenda um I usually read the names of the people I can see as attendees so I will do that now we have three attendees one is a person named Christine brep a uh Elizabeth verling and Janet Keller so that that is the sum total of our attendees excuse me at
at this time um despite my long my lengthy introduction for that I still don't see any hands raised for public comment so I guess I will assume none of the three folks listed or that I named want to make a public comment at this point so time now is 6:39 we'll go to the third item on the agenda which is the open space and Recreation plan
discussion regarding the process and updates of the updated 2024 open space and Recreation plan Nate may I assume you would like to introduce that sure yeah I don't I don't have anything to share I was hoping to have updated goals objectives and strategies that might come at you know in the next meeting or two um I just want to let you know that staff's been working on the plan and so we had you know Outreach efforts done last year into the fall uh you know it's a it's a state
prescrib plan with 11 chapters and uh really section you know the latter sections six through nine are the you know section six is about the goals and seven eight and nine really lead you into the action steps uh and an action plan map and so we've been working on that uh and so you know the planning board has to review it and approve it and send a letter to the state when we want to have it submitted and so we're hoping to do that by probably by June 30th of this year we
thought we might need it earlier for some Grant applications we still might but we're working with the assumption that we have a few more months and so we've just been really working through it um it is a long plan right now we're trying to consolidate it I think it's over 200 Pages it seems like a lot of them are getting that big um and you know we're considering it a new plan so we had a plan in ' 09 a plan in 2017 and now this plan our current open space and Rec plan expired last year in 20 24 I think we're going to just call
this a 20 you know 2025 plan and submit it to the state and try to recommend that it be in place for 10 years the St the state has the discretion they used to be for three to five years and it seems like for the effort to update it it could be longer um so I had presented it a few months ago and I just wanted to bring it back to let the Plenty board know where it is and what's happening all right do you do you plan to bring it to us at some Point soon or
are you going to wait several months I I'll probably bring it back in March you know at that point we'd have hopefully the goals and everything ready and we probably have a draft plan that could be shared you know in advance of a meeting and board members could read it and then we could talk about you know different parts of the plan okay uh board members any questions or comments about that document and the process
okay uh members of the public any comments about the open space and Recreation plan okay not seeing any hands from either set of people all right uh time is 6:42 we'll go on to the fourth item on the agenda accessory dwelling unit
sure neat thanks yeah I could speak to that we uh the uh inspection services department has been working to you know set up an online application form which they've done I think it went live today so you know the state enacted the new protected Adu legislation and now it's effective and so anyone can apply for you know this new definition this new accessory dwelling unit we also have our existing bylaw which is in place and so really
someone could apply for the local we'll call it a local Adu through our bylaw which allows you know a th square feet but comes with the provision of owner occupancy and some other conditions and some Pro possibly some land use permitting and then there's this protected Adu that you know now is allowed by the state and so you know until the planning board or others make a decision that's kind of this parallel you know Adu will have um the state
updated the regulations they've been finalized and so what was sent in the packet was uh a marked up version they were just finalized this week you can download them online I I did and I hadn't verified to see they someone from the state said there weren't any changes but I haven't confirmed that and so really now there's a set of regulations the state said by the end of January but now here we are February that they would also have a model bylaw um and that hasn't come out yet so you
know staff's been waiting to see how the state would interpret parts of the rules and regulations as well just because we have some questions um we met earlier this week and you know it doesn't although the rules and regulations clarify the legislation in terms of some things it doesn't for everything and I know some other communities have been posting questions online and you know building Commissioners or staff have been talking um so I think you know we can I can share the screen we can go over them we were working on a draft bylaw and you
know right now I feel like the rules and regulations Are You Know cover a lot of the questions we had and I think probably half the BW we had is now inconsistent with the state regulations so you know my you know my question for the board would be do we need a a second Adu bylaw uh we could just even include just a definition of protected use Adu in our zoning uh and then we could just keep the bylaw we have and just say it's a local Adu that you know is you know so then we
have two we always allow two options um or we could try to come up with a bylaw that can follow the state um regulations and legislation I feel like there'd be very few requirements or conditions we could have uh you know that would be reasonable or could fit the regulations and so that's kind of why you know staff decided to wait for the state just to see what they what they say are you know example of reasonable regulations so you know they say you can't regulate the
design any more than a single family home you can't regulate dimensional standards really any more than a single family home um you can have occupancy requirements for you know the for the Adu or principal dwelling um you know you so you know some of the things we had in our other BW we talked about um some de some kind of design standards or three or four which probably are considered unreasonable we had some dimensional standards which are probably unreasonable uh we had some things about
you know um kind of minimizing a lot which hasn't been determined but people are asking and uh so there's a few things like that um you know we had the submittal of a parking management plan which is in our current bylaw which is not inconsistent with the state so in our current bylaw we have you know like 20 General requirements and three or four maybe five of those are are in compliance with the new state legislation and the Building Commissioner and staff can ask someone who's applying for a protected Adu so we
say it needs to have a parking management plan a property management plan comply with the rental registration by law and all those can still be enforced and applied to the protected Adu but a lot of the other standards we have you know about where parking tner can't happen or the entrance has to be on the side of a building all those things would probably be considered unreasonable and so you know I guess right now it's kind of a question and discussion with the board you know do we want to investigate a few parts of we were proposing as a bylaw and have you
know staff and possibly KP law the town attorneys look into it a little bit and come with something in the next month or two you know I think some communities are doing that I know we've um Rob Moore The Building Commissioner has talked to a few communities and they said they're just holding tight until the state you know their template bylaw comes out because um you know that'll ostensibly have some clear you know conditions and standards that other towns can apply there is uh the state offered which is
unusual for cities or towns I mean for for cities especially to um send draft bylaws to them for their review and so they don't typically do that and so you know if we have some questions we could do that all right uh I'll State for the record I think uh Johanna just arrived at 6:48 pm. Nate was there anything else you wanted to say or you
finished I'm finished for now okay so I see three hands up um we'll start with Bruce um Nate you said that the state hadn't produced uh the model bylaw yet but the attachment that you gave us which had a lot of uh strikeouts and additional red and all this sort of stuff is headed uh uh State uh Adu regular ation revised State ad
regulation so um I would have I understood that that that the state that that was a state document and I was going to ask you whether the uh the the the strikeouts and so forth in that the red is that done by the state or is that done by you taking the state model and adjusting it no that was a state document so that was their edits after the public Hearing in
January uh you that wasn't that was a state group that did that when I sorry when I me a a state BW they were actually going to provide like a template zoning bylaw for communities to use so different from their regulations you know possibly a template zoning bylaw or general regulation or something you know you know could be a general bylaw how to regulate adus I thought that that's what that would have been because I noticed there's a very large number of definitions and some of those definitions will be relevant to cities and towns like Cambridge for
example or or you know in the city areas with definitions of Transit stations and so forth and others but that won't probably be so relevant so I thought the the plan was you you take this and you the towns take it and then they adjust it and then uh because there's no model bylaw that's going to work for um all towns and so it'll have to be adjusted by one town after another and
then presumably go back to the state bureaucracy for a review just like all bylaws do is that yeah I mean you know we I mean my thought is the state wants adus to happen and so I think in the revised regulations they clarified a lot that had been asked and there's still some pieces that need to be interpreted but to me it's basically they're saying just give the Adu a building permit right don't waste your time trying to regulate it with all these other standards or
limmit occupancy or only have two bedrooms in the Adu or all these other things they basically say I to me it's like they're saying we put a lot of detail and description in the rules and Rags just follow it um you know there were for instance model or bylaws from towns with fall town meeting that they were passed you know in the fall October November that said you know limit adus to three occupants limit adus to one and a half stories and they had different dimensional setbacks than they did in
their zoning and so my guess is the AG's office at some point is going to have to review those and deny those parts of the bylaw because it's really inconsistent with the regulation so these communities you know were proactive try to get something on the books ahead of February 2nd but before any state guidance came out and so you know I think some of those conditions they have are are you know really can't be allowed yeah well I I'm I guess I'm comfortable with the idea that we have a current bylaw which has got the
provision for a th units which we keep that so that we don't have a basically create a whole class of non-conforming adus and it's it's an Adu uh which is bigger and you apply by special permit but alongside that is the by right and I imagine that it would be appropriate to have some uh um Preamble or statement in the at the beginning of that section of our bylaw that says this bylaw is supplement is is a is additional to the
by right uh um State uh law so so people don't people who are out of town picking up the the our bylaw don't get confused about whether they think somehow amus has got a special condition that this is in the extra condition then we should make that clear but otherwise I agree with you it doesn't seem as though it's worth our effort to create because we know creating new bylaws is quite a lengthy process with the public hearings we have and all that and and it I I'm kind of
with you Nate it doesn't seem to me as though we need to do that or certainly not yet we could probably delay a year or two before we find out whether we really need to or not all right um Jesse thanks um couple of questions I'm a little confused about this idea of having the two remain and I guess my confusion is it's not like someone can want to build an Adu and then choose which set
of bylaws they want to use right are you saying we only leave the old one for the existing ones so they wouldn't be still in compliance like what and is it only if someone wants a 950 or 1,000 foot that then they would go to our other bylaw but if somebody what if I wanted to build a 900 foot one but follow our standards for some reason would that be okay or that's automatically the protected one and like I'm just thinking of what possible
differences and problems we could have with that situation yeah no it um yeah it's a good question no we'd allow the two and it'd be an optional Choice it's kind of like right now someone if someone wanted to have two units in on their property and they have a big house they could do it as a duplex an Adu a converted dwelling or a subdividable dwelling or maybe even a townhouse right so there's many routs to get to that kind of end number of units and so you know we we had always thought maybe
we'd keep the existing byaw um when I asked our an attorney at KP law with the previous rules and regulations you know she said you could keep it both to not have the non-conformities but also a lot of communities are doing that just to allow you know something different so you know we don't need to right we could change our existing one it's just that it works and it had been working and so if someone really wants to have that big it's really if they just want a bigger Adu that they would go that route but they would be subject to that bylaw you
know if someone's like if someone qualifies as an protected Adu my guess is they're a protected Adu unless they voluntarily say I want to be you know they'd have to let the town know I'm applying under you know the whatever you know section of the bylaw and then you know with that would come an owner occupancy requirement and whatever else is in there so an owner could do that voluntarily okay well they I mean if if a proposal shows up with the Building Commissioner and it's bigger than 900 square
fet Rob's going to say well you've got to do it under the other right even if they're not aware of it right and if it's below 900 he'll probably just approve it because it's it's by right well we have two separate applications on our website now that there's a few um I haven't looked at it but there were questions to that effect saying you know there's the state we have our local bylaw you know and just a few questions that you would answer that would help guide you to what application you'd
submit so um the idea would be that by the time someone is actually getting into the application they're aware that they're you know applying under the new protected Adu or our existing bylaw okay can thanks can I ask my other question yeah um I guess the question is do we want to dive into our proposal for the change now or do we want to wait and bring that back about our proposal for the student home definition relating to the Adu
bylaw yeah so you know Jesse and I have been emailing and he was asking if the student home definition could you know still could be applied to adus and you know in some instances you know the Building Commissioner I think it would be called would be deemed unreasonable but maybe not and so you know I told Jesse we could talk about it tonight because if the board thinks it's something we would want to investigate staff could look into it and we could ask our attorneys to look into it and so you know in the what's always been in the rules and regs
are these prohibited regulations like you can't require owner occupancy and then there's these unreasonable regulations and it says that you know if it has to it has to not do these things it can't like make it you know essentially nullify the act by making it impossible to create an Adu or you know there's a few other standards and so you know essentially if our student we could if the plany board thinks our student home definition can withstand those conditions then it could you know be in our bylaw and apply to accessory
dwelling units and you know my thought is there's probably a number of communities that have some standards and conditions they'd like to apply and they're be kind of doing the same thing you know going through those conditions and the regulations and you know they're going to say well I think it works and that's kind of their argument and then it becomes you know it'll become a legal discussion if at some point someone disagrees but you know so I think there's you know definitely some standards and conditions that you know we could say we think are reasonable
that others might not and we we could have it in a bylaw yeah there's a couple other additional points I'd like to add and I would make the argument that I think it would still be okay if we're ready for that discussion if we're not I'll hold off well why don't we let Fred make his comment we'll come right back to it Fred red you are still muted yeah just cleared it
um yeah I I agree with Jesse uh and um I'm very interested in this process Nate about uh you can submit uh uh bylaws for to the state for review I would love to see this particular Point reviewed um let's get an answer to it because it's you know it's it's not really
restricting anything it it it just says uh okay this is a definition student home uh no you you can't have both uh occupancies a student home there's no owner or occupancy requirement there uh it doesn't I think it's got a reasonable shot especially you know I think the the state will uh uh when they look at it they they are you know have to be aware
that it's coming from amoris Massachusetts and I think pretty much everyone in the state understands that just maybe amest has a uh a serious issue here uh and this is not really obstructing the uh movement toward accessory dwelling units that the state has in mind uh in terms of uh the occupancies that I
think the state wants to create uh and our this idea of no more than one uh of of the two can be a student home that uh I think would can be argued I would certainly argue that supports the public policy objectives that the legislature had in terms of trying to
create housing uh and I don't think the legislature was trying to create dormitories they were trying to create family housing uh and this is a this is in the town of amers this is a very effective way to approach it so yeah I I would I would support this all right um I guess I'll make one comment since everybody's had a chance to comment so far and Jesse I'll go
right to you I think this does create a disincentive for people to build an Adu because the chances of them uh renting one of the one or the other units is diminished just because most of our renters are students and are there enough you know non-student people out there to to occupy the second dwelling on that property I I don't know but uh I
can imagine if I were thinking about an Adu that that would give me pause Jesse go ahead thanks um so I guess we're diving in so Fred brought up several of the points I was going to make but I would start with saying I would not assume everybody knows this is coming from Amerson we have an issue so we really whatever I totally agree we should send the bylaw and get their response and I think we need to frame it in the way of the problem that we are experiencing
very clearly I would also point out maybe some of you saw the Hampshire Gazette article today that uh provin toown marus B and Tucket all got exemptions from this because of a short-term rental problem airbnbs driving out long-term residents that is exactly the argument we need to make that our student housing problem is driving out long-term stable
residents I I 1,00% believe that I know many of you do I do think that's a problem we have I also fully believe this change is trying to make more housing for that population of permanent residents so we can very effectively make that argument um I looked at the specific language Nate unless something's changed between what the the sections you sent me I don't think the way we proposed it is contrary to the language that's
actually in the bylaw and we can go through the specifics if the committee wants to look at it um but there were two sections specifically and again the way we worded it was very intentional that we're not requiring owner occupancy which is clearly we can't do and we're not restricting use of the Adu in any way there are two units we're saying both cannot be a student rental or student home as we've defined it so I really don't think it goes against the
way it's crafted I would also point out it's clearly not quite done because and I'm no lawyer but that one section says that basically there's no there can be no requirement that a protected Adu be subject to a use and occupancy restriction does that mean I can build an Adu and open a petting zoo can I open a concert hall in my Adu like obviously there's going to be restrictions right so clearly the it's in process and really my point is
there's there's room I think to accomplish if the majority of the board agrees that we should move in this direction um Doug to your point disincentive because there might not be long-term residents who want to rent the other unit isn't that what the town wants I certainly believe that's what the town wants I don't know and I would try and refren this for staff and for
our KP law if we go that way to help us figure out how to regulate this in that way to encourage long-term stable residents yeah I mean well I think you know sometimes we think if adus as being you know the owner of a property would not live in it but you know to me it's also a way to age in place and downsize and then actually the current homeowner or Ren you know resident or tenant would live in Adu and they might then rent the
existing you know principal dwelling and so there's probably so you know ideas that we you know we might have one path and what we think is going to happen but there's different ways it gets used and applied I will say the way the regulations are written uh accessory drilling units can be permitted and they're allowed on any property in a residentially Zone District that uh has just a dwelling so it's not limited to a single family home or a duplex you know a
townhouse property has you know could have an Adu an apartment building can have an Adu now and so you know I they they clarified that in the updated rules and regulations and it was asked at the public hearing and I think the state you know they they don't you know they call they Define a principal dwelling they don't call it a single family home and then so the way it's written is that you know essentially any zoning District that allows a single family home uh and allows residential units can have
an Adu so a lot of our zoning districts in town all will have adus and it could be on more than just a single family home or a duplex you know it's somewhat strange to think that you could have you know like an eight-unit townhouse building that now can put an Adu on the property uh but that's that's the way it's written um and you know I think Jesse your point about the short-term rentals I think the state has always been aware of short-term rentals and they always allow the regul of them uh or you can prohibit them with Adu bylaw
in legislation so whoever you know you know propose this and put it forward always had short-term rentals in mind I don't think they had the same you know concern about student rentals or other rentals sorry to interrupt but the language I read was that the concern was they're driving out permanent residents as the basis of allowing it and we are facing the same problem that's my point
right I think but it's couched under a short-term rental I understand it wouldn't be the same language but the rationale would be the same no I I agree I agree I think the impact and what happens is the same I just think that you know know the birk sheers had concerns about short-term rentals right that they're you know it's it's replacing what they thought was going to be other housing stock um so you know I don't know if the board we want to go through the regulations or look at the bylaw um if there's other
you know questions and so um you know well I guess I'm G I'd like to make one more comment Jesse and that is um you know from from outside of ammer and perhaps from Boston it could look like ammer has a problem with short-term rent PE or with uh with with people being driven out by students and wonder why we didn't just build more housing and uh if we refused to build more
housing that's our problem um so so I'm not sure everybody's going to be as sympathetic as as we hope agreed but a we're not preventing adus from being built and B let them tell us that then why are we going to decide what they're going to say in response to something we're proposing no no dis don't no disagreement with that [Music]
approach so Nate why don't we look at the regs and I guess one one question I had about the regs was how widely disseminated are they and accessible are they you know if if I'm a new builder in town and I want to know what the rules are wouldn't I just go to my my zoning bylaw and you said you talked about putting a sentence at the beginning of this section or whatever that this is
one Avenue and there is this other Avenue is there any advantage to us including the model bylaw for the state in our bylaw you know incorporating it into our document so that you don't have to go somewhere else to find the other rules when it when it's available maybe yeah um yeah I mean right now the way this you know it's a good question too I don't you know I don't know how Builders
find out if they subscribe to a certain you know list server resource and so you know there could be someone who applies you know contacts the town and applies for an Adu then it's it's really on staff to alert them that there is this new regulation and so when we met this week that's what we've decided that you know there's one or two staff persons who will you know help anyone who applies and you know and help them in terms of you know educating them what's ail ailable for options and so you know
we we're kind of operating under that assumption that it's our responsibility you know other communities might not right so someone might not really even yeah I I agree like a homeowner I mean most homeowners probably you know don't even know right so they might say oh I'd love to build this a little you know maybe a small unit on my property they don't even know that it's called an accessory dwelling unit right and so hopefully someone's going to help them whether that's their contractor or or an official or something you know the state has it on their website I don't know you know I I get it through email um through
different Lister or or subscriptions I don't know how how others receive it yeah I guess it seems to me we probably ought to have a sentence or two at the start of the bylaw of the Adu section that says there are two Avenues one is by right from the state uh and you know here's where you can find it or something or or or here it is listed um
and then there's a second one that's peculiar to ammer and you know here's here's the rules for that uh or you know go to that section so I just think I just think something UPF front to set the context for anybody as they enter the process before they show up at the building office with a set of plans or whatever um you know I just don't know how how well people prepare yeah I mean
that that still is a process that's a zoning change so I feel like if we're going to do that we might as well talk about what else we'd have yeah like I said we've already put it on our inspection services website and on our building permit application so okay hopefully we capture it at least there all right well I don't feel strongly about that because it's not going to be me that's confused but uh you know maybe maybe see how it works and whether you need something else Bruce um dou I kind of shared your thing
your concern mildly and it became less more mild still I think when I thought a bit about this I think we can all imagine that every small builder in the state is going to know very well that this represents an opportunity for them to be able to build things where they don't have to go um through the complicated regular proc I mean special permit process that they typically hate to do so something that happens that
creates work opportunities that are simple and un complicated for small time Builders I think the word is going to get out through that through through through that means as well so I I think that U along with what Nate said about what's on the website and what the building inspectors are going to say when people come in the door and so forth suggest to me that it's not a big it's not going to a big problem that there's not going to be a lot of confusion that the commercial
opportunity associated with this by for so many small town Builders is going to essentially be the solution to this problem all right you I will say that you know other you know uh Property Owners both for that would you know be owner occupied adus have called and asked about this but then you know other investor own properties have inquired about this so I do think we are going to see you know uh properties that can take advantage of this and have it become a student rental
you know I you know I don't know if it's going to be an overwhelming change um or not but you know I I think when you're talking about University Drive overlay you know I like the conversation in the context that it's really about providing housing I think we need to then continue to look at other areas in town to allow dense multi-unit housing we've talked about the apartment uh overlay I feel like East ammer I'll say Gateway again areas around University I feel like we you know am can't do it alone so at some
point I think we probably have to talk regionally UMass put out that RFP Jesse that you mentioned at the last meeting seeking some ideas that's G A GNA be a long kind of long-term approach but um you know in the shortterm we could see a fair amount of applications and you know I think it's worth working on changes to the bylaw whether or not we come up with a whole new you know set of regulations but even Doug to your point could be just small changes we want to make to our Adu section now like the that intro or
something or you know if we put a student home definition in and you know so I'd say we should work on something in the next month or two and then try to get it to council as soon as possible anyways if we think it's it's it's we should well does does uh does it have to go through Council before it can go to the attorney general or whoever no if we if the Plenty board if we work on something and we have a draft you know bylaw and you know three meetings I
would send it to the state you know because we'll you know we'll get their guidance and input right they might come back and ask us to justify some of our conditions and then we'd have to justify it in terms of the regulation so I mean I'm hoping it becomes a you know it's a an iterative process with the state too not just no this doesn't work but there's a chance for a town or municipality to explain why they're doing something so would we start by asking k law the question or is there any point it's too
new they don't know any more than we do yeah I think they would probably take a conservative approach you know with a safeguard of the town in mind and so I think some of it's too new you know for instance this the rules and regulations say 900 square feet they mentioned gross square feet they reference the building code and then they mention basements but the building code doesn't factor in unfinished space as part of floor area
calculations it's habitable space and so you know we're we ammer through the Building Commissioner and the inspectors they're going to interpret it a certain way and other communities might interpret it completely different and so you know it's unfortunate because I guess that was asked a lot about how they're kind of calculating the denominator in terms of how much space do you have and how do you get up to what you're allowed for an Adu and but you know they use some language that isn't really you know it's kind of zoning language it's a little
building code language but it's not really any in either place right and so I think communities are going to have different interpretations of what it means to calculate the 900 square feet half the dwelling unit or 900 square feet whatever is smaller even on that I feel like communities are going to have their own interpretation and it's too early to tell what which one is right or what you know and maybe they're all going to be right and so in terms of the student home or other conditions think it's too too early to say whether or not it's inconsistent unless it's you know
you know if the state asks I think we then we we go have a conversation about how we think it's Justified okay Jesse thanks um Nate so you said some invests some LLC owned properties did inquire already is that like one five 20 what are we talking about because this has come up a few times in conversations like is there going to be a be Rush you know I'd say there's you know I I feeli it a few and other staff have it
could be that you know a half dozen owners or you know managers have asked you know that it's more they they would represent more than you know half a dozen properties you know it could mean 10 Properties or 20 I don't I don't know they don't you know no one said you know it's not like oh I'm looking to put adus on 30 properties they just call and say I'm interested in the this new legislation and that might mean on one property that they own or manage or it could mean 20 you know so the my logic tells
me basically as soon as we can we should send something to the state and say tell us if this is okay or tell us what other kind of justification you need rather than spending a very long time in this committee with KP law with staff to then maybe send it to the state because they're going to be the final Arbiters anyway right so well no as a if you have a town meeting it goes and it gets reviewed by the AG's office but because we have a council form of government uh it's usually just our town attorneys that
reviews it the state doesn't and then it no no but but if we if let's say that happened and it passed our Council and then it got challenged wouldn't that go to the state no just be a lawsuit it'd be a lawsuit it'd be a judge not a not the not the yeah once yeah that's that's what I was getting to that as a with our form of government once we pass a zoning Amendment it doesn't get reviewed by the state it becomes just a legal issue after that in terms of you know an
appeal to the Building Commissioner first could be then Superior Court or land court and then then sorry just to follow up something else you said you think that KP law would be conservative meaning they would tell us we couldn't do this right and I because you know they're going to have the interest of the town right they're not going to say well let's you know put some regulations out our maybe question able that could lead to a lawsuit right they're going to say let's be safe on behalf of the
communities they represent and so unless there's other guidance from other you know they're talking to other attorneys AP law represents multiple communities across the state um but you know like I I mean this just got finalized uh last week and like I said you know there's this question about how you calculate square footage right I mean so I feel like there's yeah I I'll just reiterate the fact that other communities are being given exemptions for the same
rationale different situation but same rationale makes me think we have to push forward on this if if the majority of the board agrees with me I mean it's that simple all right uh Karen so I just want to weigh in that I absolutely agree with Jesse that this is our chance and that we especially I I didn't read the paper today but um you know it just makes sense that if certain communities
because of reasons that the state recognizes are able to get a waiver that we should certainly push for what we all realize is is uh a really legitimate reason that that our town has to be cautious in just creating a lot of housing that's going to be uh student dorms because we do want to create housing for for everybody and if there
are so many student dorms we haven't got a chance we're gonna we're going to lose the neighborhoods that we have all right um so one other thing that just occurred to me was that this could have the result of Distributing students more broadly across town uh rather than having them concentrated say right around the university um which could be seen as a
good thing or good could be seen as a a negative thing how do the supporters for this feel about that Jesse yeah I agree and that could be great meaning I assume you're thinking okay neighborhoods where they are not typically rentals might decide to build an Adu right and rent to students so I'm thinking more about areas that are already rental and is it better to have students concentrated
kind of in their own areas so to speak UND okay I misunderstood what you're saying yeah yes I mean we are trying to decide where those areas should be right that's what the overlay is about I agree with that I also agree that the town neighborhoods should remain permanent resident neighborhoods so the established
neighborhoods like the one I live in like on the north side of campus and granted there're the ones around the University where where you live Doug I think we need to fight hard to keep those as viable permanent resident locations and I think that's what we're losing okay well I think that's where I probably disagree with you so Bruce um I I think if you you're right Doug and this just head in a kind of a
Distributive way as opposed to a consolidating way although there's no reason why it couldn't be both um I wouldn't object because I think the way in which the uh we're trying to establish this would be that there is a a mix that that half of the uh the the the uh the property that has this Adu on it would have a a more permanent resident it may be an owner or it may be rent to somebody who's not a student home which likely is a more permanent
resident which is part of what Jesse's talking about in terms of maintaining familyfriendly neighborhoods with some kind of maintained vitality and that's that's that's that's the that's the stakes here so I support the idea that we should U find out get an answer to this I also support the the the proposition if that it be uh delivered in a way that it represents that we are interested to the greatest degree
possible in getting a positive answer to this from our point of view so I wouldn't want to I mean I would try and figure out a way of not having this particular message carried into battle by a lawyer with a chariot with square wheels on it um that we would want to instruct the lawyer that uh that that the uh the essence of this is to get a positive answer and is there way this can be approached in a way that that has that outcome um I definitely think that uh the way in
which you approach uh something like this has got your attitude or the attitude of the communicator has got a lot to do with the way it turns out or it's got something to do with the way it turns out and so I wouldn't want to go through the venue that we knew was a more conservative Outlook because they they the the lawyer might have the interests of the town uh and of course that's the interest of the town is viewed by the lawyer which is as you say a more conservative thing which is basically to
prevent the town from having to deal with more lawyers and costs of lawsuits and this kind of thing so I I I would like to think that uh this could we could get an answer from uh from from the draft EES of this thing um maybe that's just my design mind thinking because I'm always trying to figure out how you get uh uh you know the the the data that you can uh rely upon to design something that's going to be durable and worthwhile and that's kind of what we're
trying to do here we're trying to get a situation that the um as Fred articulated quite well and Jesse as well I I support the proposition that we should try our best uh to uh have this interpretation enshrined and accepted in this uh permitted use all right uh Karen uh maybe one of the reasons why Jesse and I are so um adamant about
perhaps Distributing this in the town and not having it concentrated is that we live in an area where we see that there's a definite Tipping Point there are people that have lived in the middle of town for years and years and love it and they've suffered through the house next to them and the next to them and pretty soon they're surrounded and they're going to sell their house and the whole thing uh you know another section of town is no longer a place
where there's somebody that cares about planting flowers or how many cars are powered in the front and is that really to the town's advantage to have the middle of town this GP resident close to the university go that way I I don't think so I think it's worth our effort to try to keep that balanced and in order to keep it balanced we really need a restriction like this because we are the source where the investor can make the most money the the fastest by just
buying an old Victorian house filling it with students putting an ad0 I mean count up the amount of rent you can get for students and you'll realize that there's no longer going to be a staff person a faculty person a family even seniors that's going to be able to compete and then we've lost the center of town pretty quickly and it's going to be very very hard to get back so Distributing in town even though you
know that's doesn't sound good it's a way of keeping balance all right uh well I certainly can read the room we've got four members in favor of this uh at some point we'll probably need to vote on something I see Jesse and then Lawrence thanks just to give a clear example of what Karen's talking about I'm sure you're all familiar with mlen Street uh when I moved here 18 years ago probably the moving from North Pleasant
Street the first five or six houses on four houses on both sides were student rentals as of now 18 years later that has crept down another seven or eight sorry nine houses basically past Bon Street all the way to paid Street just two years ago uh 68 mlen sold and became what's going to be a student rental in response to that 54 and 50 Mullen 50
Mullen long-term residents have already left and are now renting there to students 54 told me they're probably going to move too because as Karen said they're just in the middle of a hundred students and it's unpleasant to live there this is like I think one of the older streets in town and and it's the center literally the center of our town we want people to move into town we can't let this happen everywhere
we can't have complete streets that are nothing but student rentals there there won't be a downtown that's my view thank uh Lawrence I I um I'm I'm uh conflicted and so I I would uh I would welcome the opportunity to hear a little bit more um because I know some of these discussions prate might have on the planning board too but
um uh I I am I'm very sympathetic to the the the position that that um Jesse and Karen have have described here I mean I think it's I I think we all agree that um uh dealing with this is is an important issue it's an important issue for the future of the Town um personal I I am conflicted about the proposed
definition of a student house um because I'm concerned that it creates um in in the context of our town it makes a lot of sense but on its face somewhat arbitrarily a separate class of individuals just based on what they are pursuing in their lives um you know this is this is kind of ad absurdum but you could imagine a situation in which there
were a bunch of firefighters who chose to live together and people didn't like that all hours of night they were having to run off to the fire station and so there's some future restriction that you know the town won't allow uh won't allow firefighters to live together I I know it's it's it's an absurd example but it it's on its face outside of the context of what we're talking about here no different than saying people who are attending undergraduate or graduate
classes so I just I I I I'm just I'm really conflicted about this because I I understand and and I'm very sympathetic to the issue that you're describing but I just I I remain unconvinced and frankly a little concerned that the way to address this is to to Define sort of a new class of of people in our town in this way and I
know that you know you all rightfully have been very clear that hey this is not anti-student this is this is pro permanent resident um but even that question a permanent resident i' I've I've lived in town for almost two years now I don't think I could describe myself as a permanent resident I hope I'll be here for a while um but but how do you define that are we trying to dissuade people who you know may not be students but but may just want to live in ammer for a couple years um I I just
I I worry a little bit about that approach to solving this problem which I agree is something that needs to be solved and I don't I don't know if this is the appropriate time to raise it but but I just it's been it's been eating at me and I would um I would appreciate you know just a little bit more context about this before I support moving forward with with asking the the state for an
exception all right lawence um I will I will insert uh I'm not opposed to asking for some clarification on this um I think that'd probably be a good thing whether it's something we could do and then once we know that then we can argue about whether we should do it and if we should do it where we should do it or where we should not do it because I think you could have Zone that uh had that requirement and maybe
have a zone that didn't I don't know I mean I think there's different ways to think about how it might go forward so uh Jesse go ahead thanks Doug Lawrence to your point um couple thoughts one is I I I agree in principle it's exactly what you're saying um I would say you know students are not not a protected class I know that's not the reason to do it but that's just the
fact um many other populations are as we all know I would say I haven't been involved in this debate that long a couple years but this has been a conversation for 30 years at least in the town nothing's happened ever for any kind of Regulation as far as I can tell we who came up with this largely I think thanks to Bruce are leaning on other places that have faced similar
problems and this was the solution that had been put in place seems to be somewhat effective as far as we can tell has withstood any legal challenges if there were any right um so that's why we landed in this direction there were other possibilities talked about minimum distance numbers of unrelated people different things like that right all each has their own problems each strategy has their own problems um how do you define a permanent
resident I don't think it's length of time I think it's year round occupancy is what we're talking about probably more than any number of years maybe we need to refer to it in that way and really what I think it comes down to is good stewards of the property and the neighborhood and I'm not saying all students are bad stewards I'm not again I'm not anti student at all but when you're only here Nine Months of the Year you just can't
be you can't be a good Steward of the community and the property in the neighborhood I think it's very difficult so that that's why that's these are things that help me be okay with this idea of defining this population all right we'll move on to Johanna we the biggest issue is that we have
historically deferred building housing while the population at UMass has increased and now you know it's like gotten to the point where it's a crisis at the state level so we're seeing state level policy come down and I can't help but feel like we are like spending a bunch of time working on the minutia of something that will only moderately address the problem when we should be doubling down on our
efforts to figure out where in town can we add housing to help alleviate some of the pressure on the neighborhoods that we do have um so you know I'm I suppose open to exploring this but I feel like it's a distraction from the core policy work that we need to be doing as a planning board which is let's you know if we need more housing in town let's figure out where to make that happen with the least resistance and get it moving forward I
think you know we've made some progress on University Drive and I don't know I I can't help but feel like we're kind of like rearranging deck chairs when there's a much like we need to build another ship all right Nate you're next sure thanks Yan I I agree however you know the state you know ProMag the Adu legislation and regulations and I think it's something that you know a lot of communities are trying to figure out how to address um so you know for me I
think it's worth you know I took some notes um about what we would present if we wanted to with the state is you know so we could have General requirements in a bylaw you know one would be a student home definition you know we ask for a parking management plan I I think we could limit the amount of parking spaces so ironically some places would actually require parking because then the Lots aren't big enough that it actually that then they can't make the unit so that's why they have this
provision where you can't require parking with a half mile of a transit station or stop but you know we've talked about the concern of actually having more too much parking and so you know the Building Commissioner wasn't sure about this but at one point we talked about you know could you try to limit the number of parking spaces uh for an Adu because you know they don't the regulations say you can't you know and you know so I consider having something like that in there we have in our byw we had you know no separate driveway curb cut unless approved by public works I don't think
that's unreasonable and so what I'd want to do is you know come up with say a number of General requirements we think that could be part of a bylaw and send it to the state and just say here's what we do we're not I I think that given the rules and regulations they I feel like they clarified enough that you know we can't you know the BW we were working on previously you know it's four page or three pages like I said I think over half of it is just now unnecessary so I'd want to come up
with like what are the general requirements and at the same time like you know we are talking about right where where else could we have housing and allow density and so you know we we're talking about um University Drive isn't done yet it's getting going back to council but we've talked about e sammer or other places and I think we need to continue to have those conversations you know the market study mentioned you know kind of allowing density some areas and then maybe measures in other areas that you know actually protect the neighborhood so
Gregor Shane the housing planner part-time um planner housing coordinator for the town and I met with uh Lehi um graduate students and professors this week to talk about you know they're looking at um you know they call them um alley Flats but they're proposing something similar in Pennsylvania is talking about maybe having some an Adu legislation so we met with them and they you know in Bethlehem they have kind of a similar problem but they've they have some areas now where they've zoned to allow for students and then outside that they limit it to two
unrelated and they've taken some pretty aggressive approaches to try to you know manage student housing and other things and you know it's a different kind of planning context and you know layout of the streets and neighborhood and everything but it is interesting that they're you know they so you know they're representing a few other cities in Pennsylvania and towns that have colleges and universities and so it was it was a great conversation um and so they see it as they're trying to do many things at once you know maybe a student boundary
District plus allow adus plus allow dense development plus you know I mean all you know it's everything that we've probably been talking about and they're also trying to figure out how you know how many things can you prioritize and move forward at the same time okay uh Jesse then Lawrence and then Fred thanks sorry a couple other points I left out of the rational the motivation in my mind which is also that sort of what makes a town long term it's
families students don't bring children they won't go to our schools they don't use the public library these are things we as a town just decided to invest tremendously in schools and libraries right they don't generally go shop downtown they don't support the local restaurants certainly not in summer and shops and so it's that it's that holistic view that I'm thinking about and Johanna I agree that this is
not the major goal but I also feel like we have to take every opportunity we can to do what we can before it's too late because it's a one-way decision now I mean I just got data from 20 years of sales in amorist I haven't quite gone through it all yet but what I suspected was true I can't find any examples of an LLC selling to a single
owner not one once they go to a student rental by owned by a management company they are never returning unless UMass disappears and that's probably unlikely I'll be out of a job because I'll disappear too so that but I think that's that that's what's motivating me all right Lawrence you're next yeah I guess first of all I really appreciate
the background and the and the context is really helpful as as uh I think and and learn about these things um I guess my question is did does the board need to take action in this instance in terms of a vote or or is Nate sort of uh empowered to move forward with getting more information Nate what do you think yeah what I um I what I'd want to do is come up like
I said with a set of General requirements we'd have you know I just added one a property management plan and you know bring it back to the board could be at the next meeting and say here's what I think would be the you know number of conditions we'd want to apply to the protected adus and then we would you know you have one more discussion and then send it to the state and so um you know and you can always email me individual members if you have ideas I mean if you want to search the internet
and say oh you know looks like this community is doing this I mean I'll do a little bit of that too talk to staff um you know like I said it's you know I feel like we're kind of limited because they the way the you know updated regulations state regulations are really clear about kind of design standards and other things so for instance you know we had a provision that said like you know basically you couldn't have an Adu in the front yard and now they're saying well you can't do that you can't kind of have that that standard except in a local historic district but I don't know I mean you
know so it's you know it's like okay well then do we just do we still try to have it and ask that I mean it seems like they're just gonna say no you know we clearly here's the here's where we say we can't but in our you know BW we had looked at a few months ago we had a number of these kind of standards and conditions to me that are no longer um you know relevant or or applicable because they're inconsistent with the regulation so you know if there's things that members think about after tonight
you can email me and then I can look into it and include it or not for the next meeting and have like I said a number of conditions that we would send to the state and say Here's you know my I guess i' phrase it as it yeah here's some context and here's what probably what we do is we'd create a definition in our bylaw protected Adu that meets the state and then we just assign these General requirements that they'd have to meet you know I don't think you know we had said we don't want to allow more than one on a property which you can if you want to do that but we said we didn't didn't want to do that but if we
wanted to you know I think we was at our discretion um and so really would be what are these other General requirements we think could be reasonable on on on adus okay Jesse um Nate or anyone do you know how we can get the language of the exemptions that were granted like how that process was and what the specifics were cuz I feel like that would really help
us I just don't know how to get that named a couple of towns I would Thinkin toown ncka Martha's Vineyard is well I would think the planning director in those towns or maybe even their website might list their bylaw if it's already posted well but I guess well I'm thinking is if it was a if the state granted an exemption will all that language be public somewhere I just don't know where to look yeah I mean I
guess that's the question you know I'm talking about you know a by law but are we you know the board also want to look into an exemption that's why I'm asking it's like I'd love to see that because I would think we could pursue that route also and if it's not through the planning board maybe we can talk to our Representatives you know like go after that way at the same time not not instead of but pursue all these options like I just said all right Nate so can we assume
you'll come back to us in a at the next meeting with something to suggest yeah I'll work on that okay Karen um I have a question Nate when you were just talking to other towns about what they were doing and you said that they pursued Avenue of maybe having dense students population in one section and in another where only two unrelated people could live I thought that we were
no longer allowed to uh have for example four unrelated is this another stage or how come they can do that yeah it's another state um and even then I mean we we still have the four unrelated in our zoning bylaw it just becomes a difficult thing to enforce uh so you know other states have different you know enabling legis ation or laws that may allow it to be a little easier Pennsylvania is one of them so there's been a few examples
from there kind of Mid-Atlantic other states do it as well okay all right any other comments on this from the board all right I'm gonna call on members of the public if you have comments you want to contribute to this conversation please raise your hand uh Pam field Saddler can we bring Pam Rooney over give her her give her her three
minutes we do believe we can hi Pam hi Pam hello Pam give us your give us again and then tell us whether you're speaking as a counselor or as a private citizen a private citizen um pamaron 42 Cottage Street I greatly appreciate this
conversation um it just makes me want to sit on the planning board and be part of this conversation in in real life um a couple things are going through my head the conversation about um students being somehow a protected class and and categorizing them as such is needs to be debunk um we are in fact really really strongly trying to support a community that is uh year round
residents and so all of these all of these actions are in support of leaving homes available essentially for four year round residents to occupy um I appreciate and support the idea of um restricting if we can if we can go that route uh one of two units if you have an Adu that it is um one is for
students and one is not um I don't believe it's restrict oh and if we and if we apply a uh a term student home to a unit um I think that's a perfectly viable strategy in town um State College does that and it allows them to fact be more efficient in their regulations um if we name it it doesn't
mean that we're restricting we're just naming it um and if only one of the two units can be a student uh unit that I think is really important I would love to see us uh reach out to find out what uh nck what the exemptions were that nck and Prov Province Town got I think that's very important and then last lastly just thinking about um reasonable regulation which I think the
the state the state uh bylaw gives us the opportunity for and since we do have a cap of four unrelated people in our zoning bylaw then I want I want us to be able to at least pursue the three or four in an Adu because of the size um the other reasonable regulations would be I feel that you know the basic
conditions that we already have that it kind of fits in the neighborhood that it is compatible with essentially the architecture of the existing house that does not seem to be unreasonable 15 seconds thank you I'm done okay all right thanks for letting me speak
certainly okay Pam field Saddler why don't we bring over Janet Keller hi Janet hi uh thank you for the opportunity to comment um I uh urge you to consider adopting the housing sub commmittee recommendation that only one of the two
units can be house student housing or something in that I mean you've discussed a lot of things so um these are comments that I wrote uh before uh you started your um very robust discussion um and um for uh looking ahead to the general housing
discussion um I urge you to return footnote m to the original dimensions of 6,000 square feet for um additional units in the RG Zone um to in order to decrease density and retain the character there thank you all right thank you Janet I don't see any other hands from
the public all right any last comments from the board on this topic I think we're almost at8 o'clock so we'll take our five minute break once uh We've run out of things to say about this uh I don't see any hands from the public and none from the board so Nate well you've got your charge to put together some some reasonable uh conditions
or whatever we want to call them on on our proposal and and we'll see you next time or we'll talk about them in the next meeting okay time is 7:53 five minutes from now looks like 7:58 uh folks let's take our five minute break turn on your camera when you come back so that we know you are back thank
you
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all right time is 7:59
Pam I think we can turn the the timer off at least for a I thought I did but let me give it another try it's still running but I'm still seeing it we may need it we may need it later but uh it's not a big problem
I don't know all right well we'll stick with it I assume you can still restart it if you need to yeah I mean but before I've been able to take it away but yeah tonight when I hit the x that says close it continues to show here H I don't know what that's about sorry Mr Marshall that's fine okay not a
problem all right so we've got everybody but Nate back did it there you go I did it but I might not be able to get it back oh there's Nate so okay so we'll time now is 8 o' and the board has reconvened we will continue the meeting I believe we are up to article item five in the agenda which is General
housing discussion first first uh topic within that General topic is footnote M discussion so Jesse I think you are the spokesperson for the proponents again I think I suppose so unless anyone else would like to volunteer um okay so um hopefully you all had a chance to read the memo that Nate put
together based on our discussion at the subcommittee and just to Briefly summarize um Fred Hartwell our current member was the originator of footnote M uh I don't remember what year apologies Fred and it was put in place to have a minimum square foot requirement of 6,000 ft in order to build an additional dwelling
unit um that was approved by town meeting unanimously in 2005 that 6,000 square foot quirement was reduced to 4,000 square ft and has been that way for the last 20 years uh some of the rationale for that was in this memo we think it's now time to return to the original 6,000 ft requirement and the main rationale is because of the
discussion we just had frankly because of the new Adu state law which removes or does not allow an Adu to be part of the square foot calculation sorry yeah you can't use an Adu as part of the calculation for an additional unit meaning if you had a property with the house they build an Adu they want to build another unit that's not calculated in the square
footage as land basically another dwelling already there so it just would help us maintain in our opinion the density standards that have been in place for the last 20 years even if we bump this up to 6,000 given the new Adu by right hopefully that was coherent okay all right board members
comments uh Bruce and then Lawrence um I think it's worth going into the uh the the 2005 rationale a little bit um which was uh uh a rationale which was persuasive at the time at town meeting I guess but which um seems specious really because uh I I think Fred I can't
remember Fred would you made this argument at this last meeting or whether you made it at the Housing Commission housing subcommittee meeting but but essentially um the notion was that uh footnote M as it originally was promulgated created uh density limitations or or a situation which limited the density potentially in the RG uh to a greater extent than it did in the outlying uh Village Center zones um
and that seemed uh to people at the time or the argument made that it should seem to uh that that was kind of backwards and that we shouldn't uh imagine that the outlying areas would have a a greater density but what wasn't uh made clear in that uh comment was that the the the uh the outlying areas in the village centers uh where the density was
possibly greater potentially um under the 6,000 um uh put no Dam requirement um very small patches of of the of the town and and small patches in areas where larger densities was appropriate and and by comparison to the whole of the RG area which is a much greater area vast you know comparatively vast or comparatively significantly
larger and so the comparisons were specious because they were comparing smaller parles with much much bigger pels in in the center of town and and uh and we thought uh we being the housing committee housing subcommittee that that that argument that prevailed in in uh 2005 should not have and uh um I think
that's it from for me for the moment all right Bruce Lawrence yeah I was I uh that that was really helpful and and mostly answered my questions I I wanted a little bit more um uh background on what the the um the 2005 rationale was but um this this is really helpful oops you have muted you muted you muted of course I did was I muted
that whole time or no you just no just when you said it very helpful yeah I uh the memo was very helpful it sounds like Nate did the bulk of the the drafting of that so uh so thank you to um whomever developed that it was uh it was really helpful and understanding this issue okay Fred yeah um one of the things that I would urge you all to look at is the write up
that Chris bre did on the uh 1993 uh action in town meeting which I I brought the petition forward for it's a it's an incredibly detailed uh recounting of the history there which frankly I had forgotten some of and I was in the middle of it um
there was an extraordinary amount of very careful research and discussion uh that the uh the way I originally framed the petition was somewhat different and uh the planning board uh looked at it and took it very seriously and uh you it's this is all written up in in Chris's presentation she did an excellent job and
uh when it came out the other end uh the planning board supported it town meeting supported it unanimously uh Francesca maltz who was the moderator at the time uh stepped down afterwards and and came up to me and shook my hands and looked me in the ey and said you just saved the general residence zoning District uh and in fact that's how I got
on the planning board the first time because the very next morning uh I had a phone call from the town manager's office uh can you come down a town hall and fill out an application we're putting you on the planning board that's that's actually how I got on the planning board the the first time um but yeah uh this uh has been very very carefully looked at uh and I I urge all of you to uh to go
through Chris's report all right Jesse Jesse you're muted thank you just add one more Point um which are the were the last two bullets on page two if you've had a chance to look at it hearkening back to the conversation that Johanna just brought up about our other conversation the subcommittee didn't think this is the solution to this problem but it feels like a small
immediate change we can make which will move us in the right direction um so I just want to make that clear also for the other members who were not part of that pretty lengthy discussion that that we do think uh with Nate's suggestion actually that there's time and room in the near future to really look at the whole zoning bylaw around density again and probably revamp and this is just a small quick action step we can take that's all thanks okay Nate uh do you and staff have a an
opinion about this yeah I mean I think it's a first step that you know it's part of a larger discussion we've had about what's appropriate density say in the RG or other zoning districts and so we have looked at staff had looked at foot changing footnote M you know 2020 2021 uh and we realize that it allows for quite a bit of density um you know some of it is
because the lot sizes and everything are not consistent in a uniform size although we have a minimum lot size you know the lots are a lot bigger and so um I think that you know we've often talked about having um you know reexamining kind of what is the right the right density and I think with the housing production plan um underway and hopefully done this year in the next six to eight months we'll have some strategies in terms of you know approaching that and so I think this is a I think this is a a first a
good first step so for instance you know when we had this meeting I mentioned with leh high and others I said that Amor zoning right for for the longest time has not done a very good job of allowing like middle density you know say three to 10 units or 5 to 12 units it's you know three units and above has is an apartment building and then we regulate everything really heavily and one two units so you know what we what we've seen right over time and it was partly because UMass expanded back in the late 60s were these apartment
complexes and then we changed zoning and said no those can't happen anymore and then we didn't really change zoning very much for 40 50 years uh and then we changed it in the 2000s and 201 teens but what we didn't allow like we don't allow cottage style development we've never been really good at saying we could have five units on a property and here's how and so I think if we want to have infield develop that is appropriate you know in my mind the footnote change is one is one way to do it and I think we would then look at it and actually
have a better density formula or calculation that would apply and I think that's a much bigger study but I think for now you know when Fred talked about how they researched what the right amount would be you know 6,000 seemed to work um and I could see it as part of a strategy that the 2015 comprehensive housing market study said is that you know let's I don't want to say d ify but let's have some controls in residential neighborhoods and then let's have other areas where we allow greater density like we did on University Drive so again
I think it's you know a a balancing act of having a few different things moving forward at the same time so while we're talking about the put note in we could also talk about the apartment complex overlay or east ammer and we're you know kind of championing a few different strategies okay any comments on this from the board at the moment I'll go to the Public Public I'm sorry Nate go ahead I
was just going to mention too that the footnote M um where what it really applies to is that just you know town houses and apartments and the way those are permitted are still by special permit um you know the way we've interpreted our bylaw now in terms of having multiple single family homes or duplexes in the property is different than it was previously so you know I think the change is something that the board can discuss and could um be a proponent of and like I said and then there's you know other ideas that would
probably you know be discussed as well but I just want to you know it's not to me as if it's you know there's we still have our pering paths in our residential use classifications right it's not changing any of that it's really this additional lot area per unit so do you think this is consequential and it's worth our time I because I'm not sure what actual problem we're trying to solve by doing this yeah I think what um you know there's been a few properties that were looked at like I said given their size
and their location the RG you know through the zoning they could end up having you know six or eight units and it's more than probably what some or were expecting could happen on the on a property and so you know sometimes having just this you know a smaller lot area um per additional unit you know you might look at a few and say oh that that looks pretty good but then you know because our you know we're not on a grid system and not every lot is a uniform you know 120 by 200 or whatever it is
you know I'm getting these you know there's probably more lots that can have greater density than might be originally anticipated so you know I do think that it would I think it would help I think you know as Jesse mentioned too with the adus now they're not counting towards um the density calculation so they don't factor in in this formula okay Jesse um to your question Doug I would offer it's worth our time here because
it would save lots of time with some of the recent examples that have gone to the local historic district committee to the zoning board and been rejected multiple rounds so it would prevent some of those proposals by density so think about the amount of time was spent a by the designers and the owners by the town committees to then get to the result of no we don't think this is appropriate and so it restores some of that so I think on
balance it's probably time saer okay all right um Johanna we may not have the answer to this but I'm curious how many do we have a sense of how many Lots in town this applies to and like what the shift in potential unit generation would be like would it
be from 200 units down to 50 units I don't I feel like I vaguely remember the planning staff doing some of this work a couple of years ago um May yeah yeah I don't have those you know I think we could revisit what was done um and then come up with some other you know maybe some change in in buildout but I don't I don't have that now I think the the thought was that
this would apply I thought I was think it was only in the RG district and so it's not you anywhere else and like it applies to just two uses apartments and Tow houses so you know when we had done our density calculations previously in RG I think we were working under the assumption that you could have multiple duplexes on a property which is now not allowed and so you know the difference being um you know at that point we could have said oh well here's
a you know an acre property you could put six you know or four duplexes and get eight units and now we're saying we don't allow that so you'd have to do it through an apartment building which you know is allowed it's a different permitting it's a maybe the same permitting but the construction of an apartment building uh triggers Sprinklers and other things that say single family homes and duplexes don't so I feel like it's a hard thing to say well we've just reduced this kind of buildout potential because you know the
construction methods and some of the code requirements are different that impact it I mean granted it would reduce it but I don't know you know to what magnitude all right uh Fred um yeah uh again uh yeah uh Janna
um if you look at uh um the history that uh Chris put together uh I don't know if you if you I think that was circulated to the board was it I think it only went to the housing subcommittee we can I may have just gone to the housing sub Committee in that case never mind uh it it should probably go to the planning board but
anyway Nate is that something you could circulate to the rest of us yes y that'd be great because we got the memo for the meeting but we didn't get the backgrounder so that'd be great all right uh members of the public any any of you want to comment on this why don't you raise your hands while we listen to Bruce just suggesting perhaps that in addition to Chris's memo I thought there was one uh
uh memo that also could be added I think as I recall we the housing subcommittee Nate you gave us six or seven files Chris's memo was one of them uh it does a a fine review of the 1993 situation but then it moves and it says um I still have to uh research uh the reasons for the uh re uh reversion uh in 2005 now
maybe there's a more recent version of Chris's memo that that moves forward on that but there is also the planning board report of a two town meeting which gives the uh the reason why the 2005 change was made and I briefly summarized it earlier but if you're sending stuff to us I think of the seven things you sent Chris's memo but I would add the planning board report from 2005 two town meeting
relevant to that warrant article would be also helpful to include do the do I would suggest both of those two files go okay uh pam pam you had your hand up briefly was that a mistake that was a mistake thank you for asking okay and I haven't seen any hands from the public go up while we've been while we listened to Bruce so I guess at the moment I will assume there are no public comments on
this um so what would be the next step uh Nate you'll send the rest of us some information and we'll take this up at a future meeting yeah I already sent it just a sec a few seconds ago so um oh good I'm ready to look at it yeah read it tonight please no I think yeah we can pick it up at another meeting you know I think if there's other questions uh that you'd want staff to look into you know
Yan I think your question about you know change and um develop po development potential um if you know if there's other other things you know we could you can email them to staff after this meeting and we could come prepared to have another another discussion um and if the board you know wants to discuss it or or thinks it's something to move forward I'd want to um it's a simple change and so you know we could just send it to council and have it be referred back to planning board in CRC you know or we would we could try to
get in front of the CRC before it goes to council and say Here's what we've been thinking about um just so they you know have a preview of it before it becomes you know kind of a zoning referral well we've got two of them in the audience so right yeah I mean I don't I think I think the more important piece with this would be kind of rationale in context right I think that what it's doing is easy to understand as opposed to say like the urive overlay which is pages of
new information this is a something that um you know is straightforward and that it's really about the explanation and so I don't I don't I don't think it's a heavy lift necessarily I think it you know might generate discussion though Jesse thanks trying to respect those of you who are not at the subcommittee meeting and that you haven't had all the
information I don't want to make a motion but I think I'm going to make a motion because it's clearly going to come back anyway meaning if it goes if we vote and we move it forward to council it's going to come back to CRC and back to us for public hearing right so there plenty more time for discussion and I feel fairly confident those of us who are going to vote to move this forward our opinions are not going to change and we vote to move it forward two weeks from now also so I'm going to move that we uh
what over the right languages adopt this change in footnote M and move it to council for consideration okay Karen I second all right any discussion Bruce
um I think I would support this motion the only reason that I would be hesitant in supporting this motion is that I wouldn't want to feel that because there are four of us on the housing committee and seven on the board that those of us that have had this more fullsome discussion might believe that we know what we're doing and then would force a vote through the planning board and that doesn't feel right and I don't think it feels right to Jesse either except what
does feel right I think to both of us is that this is such a small thing and it feels like we should just get on with it and that would be why I would vote for it and why I wouldn't vote for it would be what I just said and since you're probably going to ask me to vote first could we go backwards yeah I can start with Karen she second I vot I well we're not
voting yet oh um yeah I guess I will say that I'm I'm starting to feel a little bit uh uh I don't know what verb to use but um having how about railroaded railroaded was the first thing that came to mind yeah um you know having four of you in a separate subcommittee meeting and then
showing up with a majority in favor of something um does feel a little bit like what's the point of having a planning board meeting um when you know the decision happened in subcommittee um so I I am feeling that way and I'm I'm not happy about it um I also uh I still don't really understand what the problem is that we that this would solve so um you know having having
the historical Local District commission shoot down a a uh you know a project that would have built more units in town you know it's not obvious to me that the problem was that the project got too far um the possible problem was that the historical commission didn't want to have more housing in town and that's to me a problem so I think I have a kind of a fundamental difference of opinion
about um frankly how neighborhoods around the university should or shouldn't be allowed to evolve and I realized that Jesse and maybe Karen live in those neighborhoods my neighborhood is one of them too and I think I'm a little less sentimental about the uh the the value of the existing uh neighborhood uh layout I
guess I'd say than many other people in town so uh perhaps that's just me and the minority but um you know I'm so I'm I'm not particularly happy with where we're at but I recognize that the majority of the the folks on the committee probably want to proceed with this and um I mean I have question for Nate which is do we need to have had any more public uh
advertisement or any did this need to be any more defined on the agenda in order for us to move this to Town Council or can we just go ahead with this now yeah the planning board is allowed to sponsor a zoning Amendment you know by Statute and local and Charter right um we don't I don't think we I'd have to verify I don't think we have any any other prescribed process in our rules and regulations for that okay so we can we can go ahead with this right okay yeah and I think you know what I was
going to say Doug I think for the housing subcommittee and you know they you know and for the planning board you know my hope would be that once the housing production plan is is done that provides some framework and so then the planning board can provide you the whole board can provide guidance to the housing subcommittee in terms of say priorities um or things to look at or say here are the few you know maybe ideas to look at right so is it you know the apartment complex overlay is something the board's discussed and it's on the agenda next does the housing
subcommittee then really work on that then bring it back to the board or are there you know General things that the housing subcommittee would look at like the RG or you know whatever and so uh you know I think we can provide direction to the housing subcommittee I mean I don't necessarily see the harm in Waiting if we want the rest of the board members to read what was submitted right um I just emailed it you know tonight okay all right fine um Lawrence and then Karen and then Jesse Yeah it was just because I I I understand the urgency I understand that
there's a majority that wants to move forward with this I'm I'm actually like my inclination would be toward supporting the change but I I don't love having to vote on something that some folks on the board have background on that I haven't had access to um so for that reason kind of in principle I'm going to vote against the motion to advance it but you know I'm very open-minded and and maybe even inclined to um to vote differently when it comes
back to us which it sounds like it will okay Karen um so I think Doug I think that if you had been part of the whole uh long complicated historical uh commission review of that particular project you would have probably thanks you would have you you would feel differently I don't think that we think that our neighborhood is especially precious I
think there were so many people that called in and there was a realtor that said if this happens here I can guarantee you that I won't be able to sell another single family house in the center of town so there were a lot of things that caused us to be really alarmed here and I think um as far as the subcommittee goes we maybe didn't make we we weren't able to explain exactly well enough to those of you that
haven't spent as much time as we have on this why this is a a little step that we think we should do right now and it's really only because it's not because we don't think that the whole uh downtown should be looked at more carefully and have you know proper density put in some of the big Lots we we agree with this but we want to preserve uh a living space for people that are not students and that is really in danger if we're
not careful and with the Adu thing being sort of pushed by the state right now um the the whole density thing is a little bit out of our control uh if we if we don't take some precautions right now and that's why we want to make this a little bit of an a a UR gency to have that foot note M back in place that gives us more time to be able to then uh
assess how can we rezone the center of town so we do in fact get more density but we do it in a way that doesn't mean that there's going to be just flight of everyone that's living here and no longer a town of ammer so you know it's just that we've spent so much time in the details and we weren't able to communicate it uh perhaps as well as we should have so I'm sorry we don't want to Railroad you thank you Karen Jesse thanks um so
if we can bring this back in two weeks I'm gonna withdraw my motion out of respect for this fact that you all have not had time to absorb the other background material I don't you know that was my hesitation in the first place recognizing four of us are a majority of the board um but I would like to then discuss this a little further as a board meaning um provided all the information were provided things
that come out of the subcommittee I do feel like should be able to be discussed and voted on oh yeah if there's adequate time right and again I recognize you didn't get it so fine I really it's not my intention to have no discussion and move things forward um to Nate also I just want to clarify something you just said about the subcommittee were you suggesting that the full board should
then tell the subcommittee what topics to work on yeah I mean if Doug's you know so typically a subcommittee would be formed to you know further uh work of the plan of a board that they don't have time to do at the regular meetings and so you know I think the housing subcommittee has been discussing a number of different housing things we bring it back to the planning board but could be that the planning board discusses as a whole what they think the housing subcommittee could spend their time researching whether it's you know um you know like this density thing in the RG
or is different zoning Amendment or you know like I said I think the housing production plan is going to have a number of goals and strategies I think the Housing Trust is going to look at some and I think there will be some that are more uh squarely for the planning board and I think the board could say we we really like this idea of say this development method and they could it could ask the housing subcommittee to research it and then bring it back to the board um and so there's a different ways that a subcommittee can operate and so in other boards and committees I've worked on you know it can be really
specific task driven or it's just general you know look at housing and come back to us with ideas or we want you to look at these three zoning possibilities and then come back to us so it's you know there's different ways to manage it from my own perspective I think topic suggestions we'd like you to work on this issue are great but I I wouldn't enjoy it if it were restricted to those topics and suggestions I feel like we I was
encouraged to make try and form this subcommittee so that we could think broadly about the housing situation which those of us on the subcommittee are very passionate about which is obvious in our recent discussions and so I would not want to be restricted to certain topics so I hope that's not what we're talking about all right any more so uh Jesse you have withdrawn your correct I I with draw the
vote and I hope we can bring it back in two weeks all right um any further discussion of that topic all right all right we'll move on to the potential overlay for exist existing apartment complexes Nate um or Jesse has that been discussed in the housing sub committee
at all we discussed it very briefly um but Nate suggested would be on the agenda tonight so we really didn't get any further than we were last all right well Nate do you want to say anything more about it before we open the discussion I guess it's 8:35 so we're I don't know if anybody's starting to wear down and whe whether we want to have a long conversation tonight or not yeah you know I haven't um you know we I emailed a few things around at one point you know some of the historical stuff we
had talked about North ammer I think there's been some discussion about whether or not North ammer is the appropriate place um and so you know beyond that I haven't I think you know I've just been working on the University Drive so I just submitted the memo to council today uh you know I was at CRC so that that's been kind of the priority to move the University Drive overlay the apartment complex I I haven't you know I I listened a bit to the housing Forum the other week uh in ammer and you know they
mentioned you know why does the town not have a 4dr or could we do other things it's interesting I feel like if we allow this um apartment complex overlay if we had it established say it was by site plan review with design standards and conditions it really functions as a 4dr even though we don't call it that and so I think it's a you know again it's an opportunity to for something toen happen it may or may not be realized right so just like the overlay it's providing an opportunity in the hope that it will have something will happen and so you
know I as I mentioned I just think we should small start small in a discret area and you know previously it I think it was going to be like this blanket overlay over every property that had you know a certain number of multi-unit buildings or something and I don't think that should be how we approach it it could be that you know North amoris has some standards or conditions that are different than other parts of town so I think some of it would be really you know someone had mentioned maybe East Hadley Road I just would want to say you know are we sure about North amorist and then you know what do we
think is the right uh density you know the market study said four to five times what's there just to incentivize Redevelopment and so you know I was driving around town the other day and I'm like I in North amoris you know three stories along the road maybe four and back I mean what's the right height and density is it do we um you know really want to encourage certain design forms or you know or do we or is it pretty minimal in terms of
how we allow it but we have you know a few Provisions about what you know what kind of density we want and then it's really up to a developer to propose it I mean I guess that's some of the questions like how how prescriptive and detailed we want certain things or are we it's going to be really flexible so board members how do you feel about that uh do you w to prescribed very much or you know is I mean is that area of north north of the campus where there's like two and three
story apartment buildings now um is it sort of out of sight and out of mind it's not part of downtown it's not doesn't really contribute to the sort of self-image of the town uh Do We Care Lawrence yeah I was just going to say I I was looking at the uh packet I cidly I don't I don't feel super well equipped to have this discussion right now like I
don't I'm not sure I have enough of the background at hand to but well I'm I probably don't contribute constructively to many of our conversations but uh particularly in in this instance like I I just I I I don't know I mean could we and I know we had this this came up at a previous meeting and and there was some there were some materials that were shared around as as you noted Nate but um could we maybe you know reshare around the resources and have a have a
deeper conversation at a future Point uh I think I saw Nate not his head yes um I suppose Nate you you probably could just tell us which meeting this the the materials were shared in and we could just get them off the town website yeah we'll I'll send things around again uh probably this evening and you know I think this will be more than a one meeting conversation yeah um you know
say you know I just you know for instance when I mentioned the 4dr you know the the idea is we looked at it for downtown the idea is you'd allow you know you'd up Zone an area to incentivize development it' be by it could be by site plan review there's an affordable component in 4dr and then there's some design standards but it's pretty it's pretty loose right so you might end up getting a build building you know for instance you might think that oh we're going to get flat roof buildings and they're going to look like this but then all a sudden you might get a modern building and you might be like oh that's not what we thought about but you know you you're G
you have to allow because it's site Point review and you allow for that flexibility in design and and architecture and everything and so you know with this overlay it's you know that's kind of the question with this apartment complex overlay you know do are we going to get down to you know some really strict design standards or building Ming standards or things or are we just going to say you know maybe it's a few different things as it gets closer to North puant Street if it's in north amoris or Meadow Street and the rest is really the internal
parts of the site is really it's up to the developer you know like we don't have much lock coverage or dimensional standards it's just really flexible and you know we the you know the town would and permit granting Authority would respond to proposals you know we're not going to say like you have to have this much open space or this or this or parking it's just you know a really flexible uh development tool you also talked about the uh affordable unit ratio that a 40R would come with and I
guess you know are we thinking about this as a general housing area or student housing area in which case I'm not sure the affordable uh ratios are really applicable if we want to just if we want to put students in the whole thing you know so that's another question we should talk about yep y yeah Johanna thanks um Doug you took some of the ideas out of my mind but you know I was just looking at the map of for example
the presidential apartments and like the North Village Drive and the puffton Village area and you know I mean I know there are some people there who are not students but I think you know the vast majority of the people who live in those developments are students right now and the Prospect of having them go from you know relatively spread out low slung single story or maybe in some cases two-story townhouse townhouse style to
denser seems like you keep the students housing where the student housing is think that would be desirable add a bunch of density there add a bunch of units that alleviates pressure on the neighborhoods and then it seems like I don't know I'm not an architect or a developer but it seems like the less the fewer conditions we put on it the more it increases the likelihood
that maybe a developer steps up to redevelop one of those areas is that accurate so we would like want to figure out okay what you know what's our if the the primary objective is to generate housing what are kind of the Baseline standards that we would want that housing to meet um rather than trying to be too prescriptive about it in a way that we might be for an area that's like on the town common or really like in the heart
of towntown yep um Bruce and then Jesse um I substantially agree with you Johanna I just for those of you that may not know which maybe nobody I do live in this part of town and I drive around it see it fairly regularly um the part that we've been discussing mostly the uh the the the puffton Brandy Wine townhouse and and maybe a little
further up towards uh presidential is is really rather secluded it's uh it's got a bunch of old houses along East North Pleasant Street which screen essentially the uh the housing to the West uh from the the other end of it there's the 116 and wetlands and so forth was nothing from that end um the most conspicuous uh aspect of this consolidation of apartment uh
developments is on Meadow Street and that's where you see townhouse apartments and I think probably if anyone of you have seen townhouse you could probably agree that it's probably the ugliest development that you've ever seen anywhere in your life and almost anything I dare say anything would be an improv movement aesthetically on the townhouse so if we went in with absolutely no standards at all my guess is that there would be a net Improvement
doesn't mean we should completely void our interest or whatever but some people might see responsibility but Johanna I agree the bar is pretty low this is definitely not downtown and it's definitely not a historic district and it's not seen uh except as I say townhouse and God would I like to see the end of that um so I think we can approach this overlay or
this area an overlay in this area with uh with what I've said in mind I could say other things but I think for the moment that's the point that I will make for the moment all right um couple things come to mind one is would we include Hobart Lane on the east side of uh North Pleasant Street I know that's been traditionally a pretty heavily student occupied area and I don't know if there's other parts north
or south of that the other is I would probably start with some sort of height limitation um I I can imagine most of you wouldn't want to see a 20 Story Tower there uh but maybe I'm wrong Jesse thanks do um I largely agree whoops you just m largely agree with what's been said I was going to add a couple of points to
consider I think these properties are pretty deep and that's why they're largely not seen from North Pleasant Street I mean going east west there there's a lot of land so I could imagine being not very prescriptive at all except saying okay very generous setback you can be one or two stories maybe and then beyond that up to whatever we decide five or six stories and I think that would achieve the kind of density we're talking about I also feel like
there's opportunity to potentially require some mixed use on North Pleasant Street which I think would be a positive for the residents there and other Town members potentially I don't you know again it's up to and and I would love to let the developers be creative and figure out their Solutions I don't know that would have to be the full 75% like we're talking about University Drive but I do feel like there's some opportunity there the same time I'm a little torn because I'm not sure how well the north Hammer Center stores are doing yeah I mean
didn't didn't we want to encourage the Commerce in uh in that Center in that Village Center but yeah but I don't know that I would take away from it I think it's a combination of the right kind of places is my own personal thought but anyway that's a different debate um I was also going to not not make a motion but ask maybe the planning board wants to ask the subcommittee next week when we meet because I don't think we'll be talking about footnote M or about edus since I think we're moving those along to take on this issue and bring back
some recommendations uh for our next discussion I think we could accomplish that Jesse I second your informal uh motion oh sorry I left I left I left out one piece mostly for Lawrence but really for all of us you know when I first joined the board a year and a half ago we had that's when we had those couple of inperson meetings and I did find that um exercise of all looking at
a map together and talking about these places very useful so I think it would be great for us to do that again even if it's just five minutes not in person but on this format just to look at the map have Nate or someone else talk us through each of the districts we're talking about just to get us all back on the same page I think that would be beneficial all right Nate can you can you give us a plan or a map markup at some point yeah yeah and I you I think based on the conversation tonight I could
there could be a document next time with you know some dimensional standards and you know between you drive overlay you know the uh BL overlay that was proposed a few years ago and some other things I think staff could come up with you know a draft of something would you rather do that or would you want the housing subcommittee to talk about that I think they can talk about it tooo next week it'll help that conversation okay yeah but I think a map with boundaries that might be
useful okay yeah I can say yeah I'm looking at the map as you're talking so it's probably unfair that I you know for people who aren't familiar I'm you know on my Amorous Maps right now and my other screen and looking so yeah well my internet pipe is too small to do too many things at once uh Bruce um one other thing that we might want to reflect on uh I think I talked
to I raised this with unate or maybe it was at the end of the uh the housing subcommittee meeting and it was something that my wife uh uh Drew to my attention we we we do talk about things occasionally and and it being in this end of town and she's a pretty active uh interest in this part of town with the district one neighborhood committee and so forth um she pointed out that uh um how these uh housing uh Institute uh housing uh uh
developments uh have they been condominium ised she said um because I thought oh that's an interesting question we uh uh of course at University Drive we're talking about Parcels that are essentially under one ownership and they would be purchased and something would happen and so forth but uh it turns out as as because Mary goes and figures things out a little bit further and she tells me uh that she thinks that there's some degree of
condominum isation of townhouse but probably not a puffton or brandy wine um and of course given the townhouse is the bane of my well it's not the bane of my existence but if anything was going to change up there I would love it first to be townhouse of course but this can be Wishful thoughtful and all that sort of business but uh it does seem that we should be mindful or at least informed about that fragment about fragmentation of ownership and title and how
uh likely how difficult it is to imagine uh something um in the overlay being redeveloped if it's got a fragmented title because I imagine that what would have to happen that there would be aggregation of title uh before something could happen so that would mean back to Johan point that the fewer restrictions and the maximum incentives would be
necessary to override or to overcome that kind of initial inertia um and because of course with fragmentation you you get this potentially invidious situation where you get holds outs and things like that and I think any developer who's thinking of consolidating uh title and so forth is ever aware of that and it may be uh a reason why they wouldn't do it unless the incentive or the payoff was potentially really
handsome so that was an observation brought to my attention by Mary and which I talked to Nate about last week and I relay we haven't we haven't we haven't discussed it it's really just an observation that can be confirmed uh and uh or or Quantified but does seem to be an issue for us to consider or that would an issue that would affect the likely outcome of what we're trying to achieve well I mean wouldn't that show
up on the property card for those properties um I guess first of all I've never seen that on any of those property cards I can also say I've had some interaction with several of those properties and none of the ones I've interacted with had any evidence of condom condom ation um but that's just my experience um Nate would would it show up on the property card if there were
multiple owners in that way yeah I I think I do think townhouse has been kind of minimized with through with different owners the rest of them appear to be under you know the property still as you know one owner yeah I mean it's something that I think then the condo association would have to vote or something but I again you know could a developer who sees an opportunity you know you know manage that and I I'd say probably it's just you know it it does
add a little bit of complexity to it you know I think when staff i g say when staff looked at this you know 10 years ago some of the reason was we were hearing that the apartment you know the owners and managers are saying the apartments are in need of Capital Improvements and you know is it the right time and so I think it's still the right time for some of them and some of them have already started doing work on on them and so it's like you know if we I feel like if we wait 10 more years they'll already have spent a fair amount of money to put you know new roofs and
siding everything then they won't really you know be a little more expensive or difficult to change um so I still think it's a you know something that's worth pursuing and if you know if we find that North amoris is complicated is there other areas that we could you know adapt our thinking to um but let's we can focus on this one first and okay
Johan um thank you um Doug when you mentioned Nate showing some maps of where this might be affected um made me think like once there are maps then things can start to feel real and I wanted to just quickly ask what the process is for just like engaging the public and engaging abutters and neighbors and stakeholders in the process I mean we have these public hearings and I know you know the agenda gets posted but is
there anything beyond that for in particular like the I don't know yeah the folks who live in that area Nate what kinds of things can we initiate yeah I mean if if for instance the board is would like to pursue this and we're at a point where we could we could you know mail we you know we don't typically but we could mail Property Owners or a Butters and say Here's what we're thinking we could have a you know have a specific meeting addressed to
this where you know it's advertised you know we welcome public comment and so you know we could call it a forum or a meeting but right I mean there's different ways to do it um you know I think with the University Drive overl you know when we did hold our hearings I mailed all the property owners the notification and the memo um again that we don't usually do that for a zoning change I do think this is a little bit bigger so yeah I mean there's different ways to to ask for public input and so you know for this kind of
thinking it it could be that we we we spend time doing that um you know I guess some of it would be you know if there is opposition you know does the board still think it's an opportunity or a priority to pursue right and so you know I'm assuming some people won't like the idea uh and so you know is it that you know part of the bigger goal of say the town's comprehensive housing policy you the master plan and other things is here's where you know there's approp this might be an appropriate area to
increase density and so you know even if it's not a popular idea would the board still want to pursue it you know and so someone would be like you know if we're doing this do we frame it and say Here's why provide some context you know uh you know are there things you do if you if this happens are there things you would like to see or things you don't want to see and sometimes I feel like having some framework is better than just saying you know we're thinking about this what do you think so maybe you know if we want to engage the public you know
if we spend some time talking about it we can think of kind of like I said some framework to gather opinions and maybe it is Maps maybe it's you know images or research in terms of where it's been done and you know kind of guide them a little bit more than just asking like what do you think of this idea we could help them understand it more and okay Nate one other thing uh comes to mind and that is what's the is there a point at which
we would run up against a limit on the uh water treatment plant to process uh sewage from a lot more people in town um and um you know at what point is that you know we can we could up Zone everything to 20 stories and you know a thousand people per per lot but um at some point
that's an issue that the town would need to think about and are we anywhere near that or or is it just not something we need to worry about yeah I I I haven't heard that we're nearing it but I think you know it has been asked in other situations and so you know when we had a pretty pretty extreme drought a few years ago you know there was considerations about okay what you know if this becomes a a more regular pattern what does that mean for
you know our drinking water and waste water and our public you know infrastructure um but I think you know I think our system has has capacity so I don't you know I don't know I can I can verify that with public works but I know the system has a lot of capacity I mean I think part of the conversation is too like I said you know I don't think amoris can solve the housing problem for the region and so you know some of it would be if we think we like this idea of North ammer I think you know having a discussion about what we think is
appropriate density and uh you know that that could be part of the overlay you know whether it's a square foot calculation or unit calculation uh you know because I do think that you know uh UMass is uh our housing consultants for the housing production plan is UMass is starting to collect uh kind of more granular data in terms of off-campus students uh since the pandemic and so we have some of that and you know like we said it's a it's thousands of students and so I don't
think I'm not expecting that you know between north ammer and University Drive we're going to somehow alleviate you know the pressure of a few thousand students but maybe we can help and maybe there's other you know like I said if if it's not Amorous as as there Hadley or other communities as there discussions with UMass like I said they're putting out that RFP so you know I would want to make sure that people aren't thinking like wow we're proposing Southwest Towers in North Amis like that's not my vision maybe some maybe the planning
board or others might think that's okay but I'm not envisioning you know really you know something like that there or maybe someone's like wow that's a great idea we could actually do it we could solve it we could put 5,000 people really nicely and wow we just we it's a you know there's our Silver Bullet I'm not I don't know I'm not I'm not there yet but maybe board members or others might be but you know I'm just starting to think like okay if we if it's one and two stories now and we can get up to four stories that's double the density but there's a lot of you know kind of
unused space right so it's like I feel like you could even with only two stories you could actually have you could double the density because of the layout of the the site planning wasn't great and if you had if you allow four stories and better site planning you could you know maybe triple or quadruple the density and not really you know have such a you know such a huge development but I guess that's something once we look at maps and have conversations board members could weigh in
on yeah I guess that's that's an interesting question what's a couple more Towers um Bruce um I meant to say this earlier the it seems that uh this overlay um we don't necessarily have to have it a mixed use uh do we could it not be Apartments because we talked about apartments at University Drive and there was a a reason why many of us all of us to some degree I think felt that uh life on the
street commercial activity generating same and such was important down there but I think it's absolutely not important at all in the part of town that we're thinking of and number two when related to that which you said Doug or someone said there's uh considerable um retail development in North Amis that is uh could could benefit from an added market so instead of thinking of four stories as uh three floors of
residential and one of business I would think that it would be all residential and it maybe it's five or six um uh or maybe it's a mix of that and some way we could get uh a variation which would be nice um but nonetheless uh I think that Apartments would be the uh the the the the type of use that would probably be best suited in the area we're talking
about all right Jesse thanks um yeah I was also just looking at a map and listening and thanks then it never occurred to me to put a huge Tower there I gotta consider that now I mean I mean all seriousness there might be opportunity towards the west of those long lots to have you know more than we've been talking about I don't I don't think a 20 Story Tower but it does seem like I don't know six to eight stories could fit nicely tucked away in there
and almost no one would ever see it um and Bruce just to clarify what I said before about commercial potential there I wasn't thinking of big requirements I was thinking of wouldn't it be nice if we're adding 5 to 600 people to that area to have a laundromat and another pizza shop and a mini mart there that might benefit everybody not not the extent we're talking about at University but I largely agree that apartments are are probably the right way to go so it sounds like there might be Nate
some interest in at least allowing some mixed use buildings near the street maybe and so that could be part of the the concept Bruce Bruce are you hoping to speak oh yes I am sorry about that um that idea of a
tower uh again I hadn't thought of that either and it's not something that I necessarily would Advocate however it's probably something that you I might be inclined to explore particularly if uh it was possible to perhaps have an entry from 116 which would uh um basically U allow for a different way of handling a great deal more traffic that would possibly be generated so
uh I don't know whether there's Wetlands to be crossed down there or not uh the 116 would even contemplate that but uh but but it's it's it's not a stupid it's it's not an immediately insanely stupid suggestion or thought [Music] nicely couched all right um time is 9:04 um Nate we've had an opening conversation do you think you've got a
little bit of the sense of the board I do yeah I mean it is really interesting um you know I like to you know I if I see this as the overlay you know if it were you know from say presidential north of Meadow Street I'd like to think the whole thing has one big site and I agree that you know having some mixed use could be beneficial in there having some open space could be beneficial and so you know how do you write and overlay when there's you know multiple properties and it may not happen at once
and so um yeah so I think there's some good considerations here about how to approach it uh and I think um yeah I think I can you know talk to staff and come up with some ideas and have something for you know the next meeting or two okay you know I will say that we allow we could allow some of these to be redeveloped now but it's with a special permit and the bar is a little high right in terms of finding that a Redevelopment is not more detrimental to the neighborhood and so really what we
to me what we'd be doing is we'd be making it you know through site plan review with standards and conditions uh that would be reviewed by the planning board and so we'd want to have some framework and some you know like I said standards and conditions and dimensional standards that work and so you know kind of like we did with University Drive overlay certain setbacks and height if it's near residential you know maybe different setbacks along the street some creative ideas for the interior of a site you know I mean even if someone wanted to
put a new public roadway in or roads I I think I feel like someone could come at this and say wow there's some really great opportunity here uh if we can you know work together with neighboring properties okay any more discussion tonight of this topic all right time is 906 and we'll go on to next one next agenda item old business topics not
reasonably anticipated do we have anything Nat or Pam nope if I could interrupt did you want to take public comment on that particular item that we've just well I had I think I had asked for it at one point and I didn't get any sorry I think I didn't get any hands but I can certainly ask again uh any of the four members who are still four members of the public who are still here Pam Rooney all right Bruce that was productive let's bring Pam
over hi Pam hi Pam Cameron 42 Cottage Street thank you Bruce for asking for public input um I would suggest that people go back and I do not remember the year but there was a fairly um well coordinated and very comprehensive uh form-based zoning proposal that came to town meeting that was defeated because it seemed like it
was forcing density on North amorist but many of the concepts were very well um thought through and and you know if it had been completed in its entirety would would create a um sort of a dense but well-coordinated development in North amorist so just suggesting that that
somebody find that proposal and take a look at it before you um talk about apartment overlays thank you all right Nate does that ring a bell maybe um would this I mean I heard the phrase form based Zoning for a while early in my residency here and thought it came to town meeting would it have been in the last 15 years or would it have been
before that no yeah when we shortly after we did the master plan we had um or during the master plan we had uh I'm bling on the name do a urban form analysis and they looked at the kind of the North End of downtown and I think North ammer subsequently then North ammer and so um I I can find that okay all right so we have Janet Keller next and sounds like Pam Rooney has something to say after that Janet hello Janet hi um I would just S
Suggest um that you take a look at the wetlands Maps um especially in the western part of that area um and and I would ask that Nate does that and um show them to us um at the next meeting thanks all right thank you
Janet Pam can we bring Pam back hiam pamon again 42 Cottage Street uh it was the the North amorist and Atkins corner I think were done at about the same time and these were proposals that were brought to town meeting uh and mostly defeated by residents of North amorist
so obviously there needs to be some Clear Care taken but some of the concepts were very valid and worth looking at again thank you all right yeah that yeah sorry that that wasy I just I was online looking it's you know from 201 10 to 2012 all right I don't see any more hands from the public any more comments from the board on
this all right we'll go on uh old business I don't don't think there was any unanticipated old business is that right Pam and Nate okay uh same for new business do we have new business that we need to talk about I don't have any all right for a anr subdivisions well we have one that I can
show you however we have not um it's been reviewed and scrutinized by Chris bre and the Building Commissioner and Nate however we haven't heard back from um the town engineer so I'm going to show it to you you and um ask that you think about endorsing this or having the chair endorse this with the idea that um um or with the caveat that if the
town engineer comes back with a comment um so we would look for a motion that it's or a consensus we usually just do with these that it's okay for me to sign as long as the town engineer does not have any objections that's correct thank you so this is property at 720 South 1720 Southeast Street this is the gray
Family Estate this is one big property here and they are looking to divide it into actually three Parcels so what they're calling lot one is actually the home parcel that's got the residence on it what would be considered um parcel a here in the middle uh is property that would be sold
to the folks who are actually farming it now the biodynamic farm and then parcel B um would be retained with the with the gray family um but as you can see parcel a and parcel B would be uh labeled not buildable lots and this is because they don't have any Frontage that is
correct yeah so they have they have these Pathways here to get to those other areas so this one here we take you take them out to here this this parcel B has sentimental value to the gray family um yes and this portion in the middle is already being farmed by these folks the biodynamic farm so they're actually selling this portion of
land to the folks who are farming it all right board members uh are you okay with me signing this once we hear back from the town engineer and assuming he has no objections [Music] all right I see several thumbs up and hear no objections to that so Pam let me know when you hear
back from Jason skills I will I will all right I assume there are no other an anrs no other an anrs tonight no how about zba applications anything we should be aware of do you want to talk about green green leaves yeah uh green leaves has submitted an application to um you know
they when green leaves was permitted there was a number of phases and developments and there was one piece that was never uh finished and so they're going to a special permit to modify you know older permits um they want to uh I think they were going to construct a community building which they're not going to and make some changes to the original plans and so you know that's the transmitter was sent out and it's you know headed to
the zoning board all right and it's a pretty big development you know it's south of Northampton road kind of behind Aspen Heights so is it something anybody wants to see or at least like a site plan or anything um not seeing a lot of enthusiasm on your faces is it just the hour it's 9:16
can't we talk about green leaves for a while uh okay all right so I we're gonna let that one go okay anything else from for zba no that's it all right how about the S spr SUVs those we have several yeah we have uh on March 5th we're yeah so I guess we um you know 422 AMD street is coming back to the
planning board at the next meeting you that's the development down in the corner of AMD and University Drive and then uh the Jewish community of amor has submitted a site plan review application to put a solar canopy over their parking lot so that'd be modification to a site plan uh there's changes to also the you know some um concrete pads and a few utility a little utility work uh the emmer soccer club or ammer soccer association is proposing to put a storage sh at uh Plumbrook Recreation
Area so that'll need a site plan review I'm not sure exactly what you know I think it might just be a shed I'm not sure there's anything else there and then archipelago Investments has submitted a site plan riew application to develop the properties around Atkins the BB C Zone properties and they had applied for a variance from the zoning board last year and it wasn't approved and so they've come back with a new plan for mixed use buildings and it would be
a site plan review application with waivers for height and and various things and so um that's you know would probably come in later March um the Jewish community of amor probably in early March I think the Atkins one you know Kyle Kyle Wilson wants to get in front of the planning board and have a conversation it's you know there'll be some things that'll come later if the if the hearings continue he realized that this will probably be a multi-part hearing that needs to get in front of
the Conservation Commission as well um but he's looking for a few waivers you know this I think his idea is if the planning board he wants to see where the planning board you know how it looks at this project and that can help him you know with the rest of the kind of permit review um so those are three that are you know in the works all right Bruce Nate that capelo Atkins end of town would be an informational hearing initially so no
they' they've submitted an application with uh you know information they you know we asked for a number of submittal requirements which they they met most of them and then they're going to ask for waivers or uh to have some things be submitted after the first hearing so they're continu to work on it uh given that it's a pretty extensive project well so the hearing would be opened and continued yes probably multiple times right it's kind of similar to The Amity
Street one where you know he they have a plan for the Conservation Commission but the Conservation Commission may ask for changes to the site plan and then it's going to you know come back to the planning board and so okay so I'll be T listing a lot of continuations before we're done yes yeah yeah yeah the site has arsenic and so uh there's you know it's a really complicated site topography a bunch of things and so I think they're trying to
manage all of that and it I think it's just going to take kind of this process between Conservation Commission and planning until it can be worked out okay all right uh Committee in liaison reports Bruce anything on pvpc nothing there's a meeting next Thursday so maybe next time I'll have something but not this time all right Jesse anything you want to follow up with housing nope you have heard everything we've talked about okay
six sets of minutes waiting no all nothing for design review okay um I guess I don't I only have one thing I will say for CH as chair um m the March 5th meeting I will be away and Johanna will preside um and I and I staff wanted to go ahead and have that meeting because of the um the uh I think it was the Su
application or it was the uh jca the site plan review that we needed to get through uh that's it for me uh Nate and Pam anything from staff I was going say uh the design review board has looked at updating their design review principles and uh you know there was a it was it's not you know too extensive but we sent that to
Dodson and flinker to help with their downtown design standards and I think the design review board it will continue to talk about that and it may be that they would want that to then be part of a zoning change that would come to the planning board so you know that's something that might be coming to the planning board in the next few months okay so you know it's just something to be aware the uh I was going to say that Dodson and flinker still is you know going through their process with the downtown design standards and so uh they were um they're hoping to have a few more meetings then you know open meetings in
the next few months they did two online surveys and they'll beholding more information they're trying to refine the goal and vision and get you know a little bit more um you know material that then the public can respond to so just you know for the board and everyone just you know stay tuned that's still ongoing I think that's probably about it for now when is that process expected to finish uh I think it actually goes until this fall so you know it has another you know eight months the idea would be that
they have kind of draft uh design standards in the next six months and then we've allowed you know a number of months where they whether it's them or staff would go to different boards and committees or maybe we'd have combined meetings to get input on it and so to allow for you back and forth about what works and possible changes to it so you know probably some preliminary standards out you know in the next few months uh you know both for the streetcape and
then for building fronts and um design okay all right anybody any anyone have anything else all right time is 922 and I guess we are adjourned thank you night night he good night everybody record night Pam good night Mr Marshall we'll see you
soon I'll be in touch yep