e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e long enough they just make you senior [Laughter] right all right there are so many people in the room I don't know if we have all our Zach folks here you so there's Vic all right I think we have our Zach folks uh apologies for the slightly late start everybody I'm going to start with the uh the script and then we'll update the agenda and then we'll roll forward pursuant to chapter two of the acts of 2023 this meeting will be conducted via remote means in accordance with applicable law this means that members of the public body as well as members of the public May access this meeting via virtual means participants May access the meeting through the remote meeting link as posted on the meeting agenda and through the town online calendar when required by law or Allowed by the chair persons wishing to provide public comment or otherwise participate in the meeting may do so by raising their hand or otherwise signaling their intent to speak this meeting will be recorded please take care to mute your microphone unless you have been recognized by the chair we will now confirm attendance of all members please respond with present if you are on this call first of all my name is Ted Barker hook and I'm the chair of the zoning advisory committee Mary Larson Marlo president uh Ron Foy present Arnold Cohen mut pres there we go uh Kristen borato no Madu Chandra SAR no Rachel rosson no Sam seder present beautiful Curtis Smithson no I'm just updating my own attendance as we go and Vic pry present excellent so and Madu was a no right yes M do was no Sam is here Vick is here great uh for everybody in attendance we have an adjustment to the agenda we will not be discussing South Street Hayward street tonight um as the I don't know if applicant is the right word the petitioner is not the right word um the party that brought the issue to Zach was unable to attend tonight so we're going to put that um discussion off for a month John what did we say May 13 what did we say y looking right now yes May 13th okay so for those of the public here for that discussion I imagine we'll see you Monday May 13th I assume that's a Monday let St a look yes it is a Monday okay um I suspect that some of the room will clear out fairly quickly at this point but you are more than welcome to stay everybody and be a part of our other discussions uh the next thing I'd like to do is move a vote of the minutes of March 11th up to the top of the list um zoning advisory committee were you able to read the minutes does if you were does anybody have any changes or amendments I assume silence is acceptance so let's have a vote of whether to um I don't know what the verb is publish the minutes make official the minutes whatever that ver verb is I'll let John decide uh so let's have a quick roll call vote uh Mary Larsson Marlo I think we need a motion first so I oh you're right you're right I move to approve the minutes second approve that's a good verb can we get a second to approve the Y yep okay now let's have a vote thank you Mary Mary Larson Mar yes Ron Foy yes Arnold yes Sam yes Vic yes did any other committee members join since I took attendance no and Ted Barker Hook is yes so approved duly approved so uh with South Street Hayward street um delayed a month next on our agenda is discussion with the permanent building committee Dan McIntyre regarding the center school and Elmwood School buildings I don't think John did you send any information about this out ahead of time if you did I missed it completely I did not okay so Dan are you here yes I am great can you fill us in on what we're chatting about because I think we're all other than knowing the properties in the dark okay so as I'm sure you're aware the Perman builing committee is looking at potential uses of the center school and Elwood School uh we had a number of a public Outreach meeting to figure out what the public might want to see at those sites and there were a number of suggestions most of them Municipal uses relocate Town Hall over there ta Rec facilities a community center uh an integrated prek program to get it out of America on school and build another one down either Center or El School uh but one of the uses was to not really a youth but one of the suggestions was to sell Center School um say that again I missed that to sell Center School okay uh and that was for a couple of reasons one to generate some income for the town either through the sale of the property or more likely through a tax generation on a property that's not generate any taxes right now uh but also to uh help simulate the downtown revitalization as articulated in the master plan so the municipal uses a pretty easy to understand and evaluate uh a sale of the property a little more complex uh what road do we want to if we were to sell it so we had a number of meetings with the select board we met with the planning board uh Chamber of Commerce and we came up with a mixed use development as a potential way to generate income and Spark Downtown Development uh many people thought that the center school property was uh a very unique property being located right there so I I do have some slides I can run by you to like if I can I'm happy with that John has control of that stuff so hopefully he can give you some control I saw John turned off his camera oh there it is all set I think we're good to go right can everyone see that yes all right so what we came up with through that group think was a a mixed use development so we developed a request for proposal uh to determine you know what interest there might be in that property and what the value of that property might be so the the key components of the request for proposal was the mixed use development uh we looked at a number of uses most of them um small commercial personal services um things like that not a not a big chain store or anything like that just kind of a small small businesses small professional offices another key component was to save the 1928 building uh we talked a lot about residential units um we know commercial by itself may not be sustainable so we wanted to throw in some residential units to kind of a kicker to help promote commercial growth down uh and we came up with a maximum units of 45 uh an age restricted and an attempt to uh minimize impact of schools and then we wanted to make sure at least 10% the quable uh with respect to dimensional requirements uh a new building would be no greater than existing buildings uh we also only wanted to use the front 6 acre parcel uh for those not familiar with the c of scho property it's actually comprised of two Parcels uh split by an Editon or eversource Corridor so we've got a front 6 acre parcel and behind the EV fls blanes another about 5 A2 acre par so so we thought that the back land should not be developed and keep that as open space it's an integral part of the trail system for uh for the town so we wanted to keep that off the table and we also thought it was important to have some unal parking as part of L Development Center Schools for uses on the common as well as just additional parking so down to so we sent that RFP out well advertised and we only received two proposals and of those two proposals only one met the RFP requirement so that in itself gave us some idea of the interest in this parcel to to the private sector so we're reviewing the one proposal that met the RFP requirements and a quick summary of that was uh they're proposing 45 two-bedroom condos with five reserved as affordable and those would be constructed in an addition off the back of the 1928 building uh part of the school the 1950 Edition and the 1980 Edition would be raised uh to make link to this addition OFA they' be 5,000 ft of commercial space on the first floor of the 1928 building not a lot of detail is provided but most likely some sort of restaurant in there and then they would take about a third of the six acres and just keep that undeveloped because they didn't they didn't see it need to develop all of it so we we did a review of that and there are some Town benefits to that uh the developer offered a $100,000 purchase price uh and that was based on the fact that there's a lot of cost in demolishing the building that has this materials in that old building uh so they offered $100,000 for land and build the estimated annual tax revenue once completed would be $375,000 a year year uh that was estimated by our testor department based on the information submitted by the developer uh another benefit is the cost of voides uh we estimate approximately $2 million uh liability to the town for has a material on the site uh demolition as well as historic renovation of the 1928 building uh and that is important for the historic Commission and uh I think most people in to see that saved so there's some cost avoidance in this poal as well and it also it may not meet the master plan goal but it certainly supports the master plan uh by developing property so to do this proposal would require resoning of that area and well here's the the plan of what it looks like you may have seen this in the media um a street Town Comet over on the left the 1928 building right here they would demolish the back the existing building build 45 condos here with th story parking on the first floor and some Standalone parking garages to the north and that was a picture or architectural rendering of what it would look like the 1928 building staying the same with a new way po back so he says this one is going to require resoning and that's where I wanted to get some opinions and thoughts from zoning advisory committee on what they think private development like those so here's the downtown area now you can see Center School highlighted here this is the 6 acre parcel uh the development would include the 1928 building the new Wing here uh this undeveloped dog leg on the property would be what the developer deserve open space to complement the back five acres of town would also have this this area is currently know resident a which is essentially single family farms um the downtown business district starts over on the other side of the thir Street there and over by the bonic Falls that's a downtown district there are couple of properties this is the vaa building one as that's in the resident area but is essentially office building uh the old Price Building here the mix use this good to some professional offices and some residential so our our committee is kind of making the rounds to various Town committees to get their input on our evaluation of this proposal and we thought that the zoning advisory committee would be a good first stop for that to get some thoughts on their opinions on revising or resoning this particular property for mixed use development so with that head i i u turn for any questions okay great thanks um Dan you're not hoping for a a final decision from us tonight we can make this at least a two or three meeting discussion yeah especially because I don't think any of us were were prepped and thought through any of it yet right and that that was kind of I design I think you know we talked to S board we talked to planning board we talked to uh Chamber of Commerce we had public Outreach um we had thought about coming to zoney advisory but we thought well why don't we leave them kind of out of it for now so they can look at the proposal kind of fresh without any biases uh on what they thought about it whether that was right or wrong decision that's that's where we are and we understand that nothing's going to happen so this is going to involve number of meetings with various board more public Outreach before right right I didn't mind mean my question to be accusatory at all day and I hope it didn't come across um so sure we'll we'll take um some questions from the committee first and then we'll go to the public um I have one question that pops into my head right away uh I'm looking at that map I'm looking at the woods to the southeast of current Center School which you said is going to remain open space will that be given to the town or is that just a pledge from the developer that will leave with that their proposal would uh feed that act to the town so that would be given to the town and then when I look at the northeast corner where it kind of juts out would that be the same idea or the developer hold on to that uh that didn't come up in the discussion um there there's over there uhuh could you do me one other favor please Dan on the map that we're looking at now could you approximate the the apartment part of The Proposal how far back it would go beyond the current Center School yeah would it go into that playground back there would it would go back to about where the S Center School right around there okay all right so the structure is a little bit bigger than than the current multi rotting section of school and they are proposing to kind of Center it behind the 1928 building so you can see the existing building here is relatively close to Beth Kelly's house which is right here uh they're proposing to kind of split the difference between be house and TBL loocks over here um and I guess that brings my oh I'm sorry I didn't let you finish no no go ahead that that brings me to my last question at least for now um this has been in the press in the media um if you will are are you hearing anything from the abutters at this point is there a loud outcry is there a quiet murmur is there Applause well you've been doing this long enough to know it's not going to be CLA but uh before wanted to leave that option available before we sent the RFP out I did meet with each of those of Butters so it's actually three of the Pavlov I met with them I met with Beth Kelly and also the starter which would be the third of butter back here um obviously there's concerned any any change is going to you know set up there their their antenas and be nervous about what that change might be um housing was not the favorite of anyone we talk to with any of our public because just housing is just not popular right now in town given the fact that we just spend all that money in schools right um and also the traffic implication of you know 45 JS there about that the commercial uses they are concerned about that with respect to privacy noise that type of thing but yeah there's definitely issues that have to be worked through with any type of so to recap they're concerned about residential but they're concerned about commercial um you know what you I mean go ahead the other options that we're reviewing here are u a new kindergarten program a new parks and recf Facilities uh those all come with specific impact as well and right but it's going concerned about that um you know when you answer my last question you reminded me of one more I had I thought and maybe John you can help with this and then I promise committee members I'll I'll be quiet um I thought and I think this came up maybe when the whole Legacy Farms plan was was being proposed and developed I thought there were rules against language with age restrictions in developments that we had to back out of that for one piece of um the Legacy Farms development am I misremembering or is this different in some way does that John do you know yeah Ted that has to do with uh the affordable housing component of it okay you couldn't restrict affordable housing to um ages you had to they had to have uh family availability so in this particular proposal I think it was uh five affordable units those would not be age restricted because we're not allowed to do that what was that okay great um I see Ron at the top go ahead Ron thank you Ted um first of all I'd like to thank Dan and the permanent building committee for all the hard work that they've done I've been to several of the public hearings and uh you know I I think that we have an opportunity to use this parcel as another anchor for our downtown and keeping with our master plan and any kind of a change that that we bring is going to bring more traffic to downtown nobody wants that on the other hand we have to breathe some real vibrant economic life into this and and having high density populations downtown will do that so I'm I'm in support of that Dan the one question that I had was I'm I'm a little bit puzzled by the lack of interest in the RFP and wondered if you had received any feedback relative to you know there there weren't enough of this or it was too restrictive of this or you know if if we could put 60 units in there then you know we could offer the town a million dollars rather than a 100,000 what's I yeah I mean is there any idea that that maybe a different RFP might um make the numbers look a little bit better for the town well I I was disappointed as well ra you know we had we had done a request for interest prior to it and we had U probably eight to 10 interested parties in this but when we did the RFP only only two the other one that we had to reject did propose 60 units and the feedback we got is the more units the better uh and we got that I'm not only the developers but our our own uh architectural team thought that the highest and best use of this property would be high housing uh but we really had to be toer to the public out for that was not what people wanted town so we' settled on the 45 and and maybe if we went higher we'd get more interest um but we're also at this particular time we're also struggling with higher interest rates there not a whole lot of development going on the hkin drug property came on the market at black same time so we were competing against that so there's a number of things going on here but uh density was definitely a higher density would be would bring in more forers does that answer your question Ron yes it does thank you you're welcome Mary hi I'm going to Echo um Ron's um uh statements about you know this is great progress um over the last time I you know heard about the plans and so on I think I think the committee is doing a great job and um and I think that overall this this plan the the the details of the RFP um are right spot on as to what this area needs um and I um I mean I would think that yes you know traffic is traffic is traffic and that's true but I would think that it's a little less traffic than there was for the school buses that used to be going down there all the time so um it really should be a trade-off and better than a vacant building that the um the town would be responsible for um demolishing or upkeep or whatever the case may be um I do have a question regarding the parking for the commercial um Venture in the in the you know first floor of the uh 1928 building um did they you know talk about the designation of which parking spots would be and how many there would be for that he didn't say a specific number but they felt that this area along the pad log a property line would be suitable for the restaurant because it's it's got the best access into the into that particular so be right here they've got some handicap spots here there was some discussion about changing the direction of travels have you come in this way so the cars could be kind of parked with the headlight T right at P waterfall on there need to be a lot of discussion for screening there obviously but it would be right in Deer for for both public and parking for commercial activities yeah that makes a lot of sense um so I you know obviously the numbers would have to work out in terms of uh the square footage of the restaurant and so on and um the parking that that would need um I'm sure there's a little bit of street parking possibly available along the common that would supplement that for a restaurant um or other commercial um Venture so but I you know I really think that it's it's a good plan and I hope um that the you know the public support can be um can be recruited for it um I don't see any other committee members hands raised but maybe you're just waiting for a quiet moment that if I may yes please Sam thank you um so looking at the plan I see the uh entrance and exit uh on Ash Street so nowadays Whenever there is anything happening at the common um you know obviously you know all the parking spots fill out all around and then sometimes even even behind the school so um I guess was there any thought put into how some of that like public events might be impacted and the parking around that area um and also if some of the Overflow parking from the residents uh could potentially take some in that space we we really haven't got to that level of detail on this all okay okay anything else Sam not at the moment not not thank you uh any other committee members who might be waiting for a moment Vic here so please VI go ahead so I understand the abitor or it's not been yet publicized to the public comment for this or are we waiting to be opening for the public just want to understand how would the residents around this property would be impacted and would they get a chance to say on this are you asking me that question or Dan Dan okay yeah we we've got to uh we have reviewed it at a permanent building committee meeting um not well attended most be not well attended uh we would have to um do a little more public advertising do do a real public meeting that too much further uh the select board uh would like us to go St then that might be a good time we look pretty well attending advertised meeting so it may be a select meeting that we do that okay that answers your question Vic okay any other committee members Dan I I'm gonna come back with one quick question um the developer right now suspects that a restaurant would be in the school is that the only commercial that would fit or is there hope for other commercial maybe on the second floor I I don't know well the yeah there there's three floors of that 1928 building the lower level is not really suitable for anything that was going to be kind of the the storage lockers for the for the condo unit and mechanical equipment uh the second floor was going to be the commercial um primarily the restaurant they thought there might be enough space for retail um but not a whole lot of detail about that uh no who really determin that until they get into into more details U the third floor was reserved for use by the qu of owners as a as a community center and private oh interesting so it sounds like our mixed development is quite possibly One commercial site and a whole lot of housing it is Primary Residential yeah okay um all right Ria I know that you you put a little something out there you had a question about parking did it get answered or do you still have questions or comments I still have a question and a couple of comments um wonderful think I see 98 spaces total for this project is that correct uh I think that's about right so I have a huge concern about trying to put a restaurant of 5,000 square feet here because I work with restaurants um they uh a restaurant of this size now it could differ depending on the type of restaurant it is but um a restaurant of 5,000 square feet would have at least 150 space uh seats and would be needing something in the neighborhood of 110 spaces just for their business that's for someone who is successful you can certainly lease to people who will not be successful but but I'm going to tell you right now this kind of site you really do need to have a draw here um because it's not anchored by other um it's not anchored by a grocery store or some other nighttime life uh business night lifetime business um and you know I much rather see this be a Comm you know a residential um project with a community space um uh whether that community space is partly um you know used for a kindergarten or a teen dropin center or something of that nature now you are facing a problem at 45 units because you don't get um public money um at this small scale shuberry just went through this with one of their buildings they were looking at 45 units or 40 units and they just they weren't getting they had the same problem they put the RFP out um and nobody showed up and it's because of the way these things are financed and how they how the the cash flow means that they have to be flipped to a larger company who will pay the right rate and they have a benchmark of a minimum of like 60 to 80 units so that's where you're that's why you're not getting the love you're getting the love from Chuck because he's he's hackington homegrown right um and he he has faith in this but I think the restaurant here is a big problem because it doesn't there's not enough parking for them and the the units uh to be successful and also it's just sort of its interior it's not you know it's it's hard to place that here um where it's not near another commercial space um I don't know you know I'm I've been doing commercial real estate in the retail area for 38 years now um and it's it's one of those things where I just see projects have got to you know allow for that commercial um parking uh especially in the Suburban area like this now if if this were to change then you know we' look at something make sure that it's just you know it would work but that's that's my my understanding now those those sentiments pretty much Echo what our architect of being that riew this good as well very concerned about viability of that want the B part yeah just keep it residential and and and use this as a you know a community center that basement space or that lower space of the 1928 building is perfect for that I mean certainly would be perfect for storage for you you know the apartment people well actually I don't know is this condo or apartments I never got an answer to that this one is condos it is condos okay so yeah so condos they definitely they they look for storage uh a lot of these people are like me that we're going to be moving to a smaller spot and we can't get rid of all our stuff in one Fell Swoop um anything else Ria no that's it is there anything else from the public okay the the question um Dan that you came to us with is what would we think about rezoning I think is what it boiled down to in the end yes yeah your your thoughts on that and what the mechanism is to really make that happen if if the to they want move forward or something likely well I think the answer to part two and here's where I'm always happy John's here to correct me when I'm wrong I think the mechanism would be we would discuss it if we liked the proposal and then like the idea of resoning we'd recommend it to the planning board and then if they liked it it would go out to town meeting and then it would be a vote I assume that would need a two-thirds vote John it would depend on how the wording is written there is a provision for simple majority on certain multif family zoning districts but it if um so let's for discussion sake again I I don't don't really want to come to a final decision tonight and hopefully the rest of the committee doesn't either on what we think um but for discussion sake for right now if we assumed that the proposal in front of us stayed as the proposal this would need to be rezoned downtown business um it would be kind of a little island separated by the common from the rest of it John what would be the what would be the zoning need I think we'd have to develop a unique zoning district for this lot so an overlay I don't know I think i' just get rid of single presidential a and make it something else John guch do you have thoughts I guess it would uh depend on what the town is trying to achieve you could definitely do it as downtown business but then it would uh potentially require a special permit because it wouldn't be ground floor retail with resal top um could just create a whole new zoning district for this parcel um I guess it would be we'd have to talk about the goals for what we would be looking for out of a zoning district and then go from there and if um if Chuck he did Ria's advice and decided to leave the old building mostly community space the then we're talking about a development that's only residential if that were the proposal would we need to reone for that since it's residential a what are the restrictions believe a single family resid I'm sorry Dan I didn't understand that I I think resident a is single family residential I think family would require variant or reding I don't know Zing well enough to be able to just immediately go this is what a is and this is what B is so that's why I asked so through the chair yes please there is no zoning District in town aside from downtown business that would allow multif family bu right but that would downtown business would require ground floor retail right okay so it this whether that becomes community space or stay commercial this doesn't fit any zoning we have anywhere into not currently okay all right does any I what I'd love to do is now stew on this but does anyone else have any other questions or comments or feedback um I like what Ria said I think as a committee we have to be careful it's not our place to tell the developer what they need to do but we certainly can think about their proposal and if we have issues why we have issues and give some feedback right um so public committee any other final thoughts on this before we we think about it for a month going once twice oh Mary are you putting your hand up no I I saw a little movement up in the corner of my screen all right so we will put this one down um please uh Zach uh give it some thoughts um I don't know if it'll show back up in the independent and Hop news and our other sources but if you haven't read the article in the independent or hop news or both wherever it showed up uh committee members please go back and do that um I didn't hear anything in what Dan said that contradicts what I read in the paper but um it might be helpful to go back and check that out Dan thank you very much thank you for the work your committee does thank you okay it is five minutes to eight I think um all right I wonder I don't mean to put you on the spot Ron but when we had our um last meeting you brought up wanting to discuss uh adus um and I wonder if you might expand a little bit on why you brought it up and what your goals are and then we could spin that to the way John and I entered it in the agenda which is comparing two different solutions to at least what I understood your reason being okay um John if you could uh share that portion of the zoning bylaws is 210 1226 and just to start out I think we have a terrific Adu zoning guideline in place right now it it's it has all the right language to do what we want to do um it requires a special permit it it the goal is maintaining the residential character of the neighborhood all those things I think are terrific the the problem that um I'm I'm hoping that we might consider addressing is the issue of the cost of housing has gotten so far out of control that it's not just affordability it's attainability and there it's it's just very difficult and so this is kind of where I get into I think Ria brought it up at at my station in life I want to stay in my home as long as I possibly can okay but let's say 5 10 15 years from now it's too much for me to manage but one of my kids said you know if we have this accessory dwelling unit added on to your house you and Mom can move into that and we'll move it we'll move our family into the big house and allow them to get back to Hoppington which is the place that they love more than any place else in the country but they can't they can't get anything here but we could accommodate it and that would take care of our need which is you know we want to stay where we are we want age in place but it it's just not there so the only thing that I want to look at is section g area limitation such accessory unit shall be limited to a ma maximum of 800 square ft in floor area okay and 800 square feet okay if if you're a single person just coming out of college and you get your first apartment you can live there but for my wife and I to move into that from where we are it just seems to be too restrictive in terms of the design and really the character of what happened in has become in terms of size of housing so I the only thing that I would recommend that we take a look at is expanding that square footage to 1200 square feet to give an architect an opportunity to put something together in in a square footage that an aging couple could age in place but in a different part of the house not there and that's the other thing I like about the Adu is it has to be attached to the main property so it's you know it has a separate entrance and exit and all that kind of stuff but it's attached so it it it just it it feels like we've done a lot of the right things but as as as we've gotten older and accumulate a lot of stuff 800 square feet is just not enough to to do anything with and and that's why we we'd like to just consider that upgrade um one of the things that I'm working on is trying to find um other communities that have successful adus and what their square footage is I haven't been successful at that but that's uh part of my research in in bringing this forward but that's that in a nutshell increase the side from 800 to 1200 I think it will really enhance hington ability to have a little bit more attainable housing to to let the you know more people get into town to let more people get into town the the families like in your example the kids move back when you say more people get into town right that's I mean that's all part of the existing language it you can only do that if if it's if the person is related to the to the primary homeowner and I don't see any reason to change that right um I had another thought in my head and it it completely went away that happens to a lot [Laughter] um all right I have thoughts but I'm going to sit on them for a moment um does anyone uh want to share before we do the what the way it's phrased on the agenda versus revising Garden Apartments does anyone have initial thoughts on Ron's presentation yeah um Mr uh chair or Ted or Ted Ted is fine um so with these um in-law kind of Apartments uh as I understand it you know especially if it's limited to a relative uh so you know um some somebody might might be living in a house and they and they'd like to uh have their parents come in in this inla apartment and uh maybe uh do do an addition to the house but what happens when they uh sell it does it you know are they going to be able to find a buyer who's also going to want to have a relative live with them or uh you know is it does it restrict your ability to sell or you know I'm just wondering about that not everybody is buying a house that that's going to have their uh you know their parents or in-laws uh living with them um probably most people don't so just wonder what one thought about that is in the existing language section c additional living unit shall at the discretion of the board of appeals accommodate up to a maximum of three persons provided that the owner of record of the structure is resident of the structure which includes the accessory dwelling unit um and then the um section K occupancy permit addresses all of those issues as to what happens when there's a change in that situation it's all spelled out in the language already here okay how does it spell it out I was just looking at it myself trying to trying to find a key line but if you've got it right there Ron well it's it's um the initial occy permit shall remain in force for a period of two years from the date of issue provided that ownership of the premises is not changed thereafter permits may be issued by the director of Municipal inspections for succeeding two-year periods provided that the structure and the use continue to comply with the relev Provisions so occupancy permits shall not be transferable upon change in ownership or change in occupancy usually these in apartments don't they have like a separate kitchen oh yeah a separate entrance separate access it's it it is a separate dwelling un I think did we eliminate that there had to be access from the main house into it or is that still there we did eliminate that right I thought yeah do do John um the wording that you had shown earlier is it is that based on the newly passed newly as in three years ago um past uh changes correct okay good so yeah so we eliminated the um uh relationship direct relationship um of the of the um primary dwelling to the occupants of the um Adu and um and at the time you know just I'm sorry I I kind of cut the line in terms of whose hand was raised that's okay I think we can all get along okay um at the time we we had envisioned that we would make a series of different changes to the Adu Andor some of these other bylaws to um to potentially um make them um more accommodating to some better housing but um but Arthur brings up the or Arnold Arnold sorry AR right just I saw Arthur another name on here so I I don't know how many times people have called me arur but I don't know why I'm so sorry um Arnold um brings up some really good points and that I think we need to um be able to address those issues that people might have um so some of the things that came up at the time that we passed some of the other changes is is you know what happens when somebody sells it and you know so on and obviously it can be rented out to somebody who doesn't um is not related you know so these are not going to always be the situation of of family relationships but um but the um the and the zoning the zoning enforcement officers in town are not necessarily going in and you know checking what people are living there all the time and and relationships and so on but um but it can be um it can be written into have some control over um you know the number of people that live there and so on um so I you know I think we need to be sensitive to the concerns that people have and perhaps even put a restriction about airbnbs if that's you know a concern that we find with the public um but um but yeah I mean I certainly support making these more realistic for living units so um it could also be instead of restricting it by square footage it's um a square footage comparison to the primary dwelling um a percentage of square percentage or yeah something like that so that's another possibility okay um I'm GNA go to the the other two hands Mary I I remember our discussions on this last time but I I only kind of remember them I think a lot of what we talked about in 2021 or maybe it was 2020 for 2021 town meeting but was a shifting understanding of what family is and then we we ran into trouble you know um I'm missing a legal term I was trying to find but we ran into trouble if there's a couple that's clearly devoted to each other but they choose not to marry but they've been living with each other for 10 years that's a family in everybody's book but they're not related in any way but the wording that I see under l um the only non-family we don't Define what a family is but it says a caregiver or service provider or an additional family only if a member of the additional family is related to the owner of the premises is still the wording I'm looking at and that's after the 2021 update so I think what is written was trying to Hue to the intent of um well Arnold you are I mean I'm sorry Ron you are plenty healthy you you are healthy and young uh regardless of what your birth certificate says but I think part of the idea was if your folks are are getting more infirm and need help you can put help in there or you the family in the big house are helping out um I think the language still at least the feel of the language is it's never supposed to be an apartment for extra income would you agree Mary no I think that the way it is worded it can be Loosely interpreted um and that um we took out all the defining factors about family what family is defined as and it can now be a rental property but we did specifically say it could be a rental property Rio was on the board at that time too um are you still here Rio oh she is okay I am wait hold on Ria I'm coming to you then okay so so the way the way we defined it um it was it was an ability to without expressly stating it um it would be available for rental um to anyone essentially um yeah because because we took out the that in the language no it doesn't expressly state that but reality that's was there a wink wink to that reality is that what no it's it's realizing that the zoning enforcement does not you know document exactly who the people are who live in these places in any of our homes let's face it so Ria can you help us with institutional memory do you have other things to add from those meetings well I do remember that I pointed out that um my partner and I were not married um and his son came to live with us and he was in the portion of my house which is a legal Adu because that's how I had it permitted back when I did my expansion when I first got here um and I think that the the language that was changed was to um allow for a caregiver not necessarily a family member to take care of somebody in the house or for uh a young adult to live in the house you know in a separate area or an elderly person to live in the SE area but the fact of the matter was is I think we all came to the conclusion is how is this going to be enforced unless there was a problem that was my memory that it was about enforcement um you know it unless you have a problem if you know someone is you know renting out a portion of their house in Airbnb and the people are partying and you know doing whatever and that's upsetting the neighborhood you know then then then you'd have a reason to call someone to investigate right but otherwise it's no and know I do a lot of airbnbs I do a lot of vrbos I mean I'm constantly going visiting places and and uh you know there there's some some heavy duty lease rules that you know you sign up for when you do that it's just you know it's like if if anybody is is being obnoxious in a neighborhood you're going to call the police [Music] right um Sam thank you for being patient what are your thoughts oh no problem I'll be brief anyway um I was just going to share my thoughts really and and had one small question so uh I I love the spirit of of this uh Adu I and I happen to have my wife sitting next to me we both thought being that we're not familiar with it um we thought this sounded like a great idea Ron so um but immediately my mind also went to enforcement and how do you make sure this doesn't become a uh a rental property uh for strangers and so uh I guess my only question I have uh would be I have an Airbnb down the cape and I know that every year I have to get a permit and I have to get it inspected uh whenever they decide they wanted it inspected wouldn't that allow for some enforcement I guess if if if the town has it that capabilities I don't know if we do like I I can't see zoning enforcement obviously but but to to officially be able to rent and generate income from a property you have to get a permit and get an inspection John is that do we have that language in in our our bylaws somewhere about renting a property or is that a state thing that's just overarching no um there's nothing in the bylaw that would require any kind of like license or permit or anything to rent a property I don't know of anything at the state level I know um we talked about in Zach and it came up at town meeting last year the short-term rentals and how do we regulate them and um the best option we could come up with was a licensing process versus a zoning process because they were so hard to enforce zoning wise so I would think the same type of um rental question would have the same answer it's going to be really difficult to enforce zoning wise right um Vic was your hand up earlier did you take it back or was I seeing things no I had my hand up earlier I was more talking on the rental side but looks like Mary and already covered it and my questions on that because it's hard to enforce is one second is that what I felt is that you know I'm example I wanted I dwelling for my parents to come but my parents decided not to come I invested something out there so I would always look at an option how do I rent it out so okay um so those who have been around might remember my my thoughts um I'm really worried about enforcement as well um and I think yes we we have inspectors that can do that do they want to do that will they do that I'm really doubtful um in a meeting we had years ago th this is not your language run I'm not ascribing this to you in a meeting we had years ago a Zach member said something like it's pretty close to this uh we need to allow bigger units so that our parents can live with dignity and it struck me as so profoundly offensive um 800 square feet might not be all that big the house I'm living in is a th000 square feet before we put our family room addition on it's only in 1,000 foot house and we had two kids and two adults and I feel like a th000 feet was plenty for a family of four to live with dignity my and again those aren't your words Ron I'm not ascribing that to you um my mother-in-law lives in the senior housing over by the senior center and each of those units is roughly 400 square feet and plenty of them are filled with an elderly couple sharing 400 square feet um and I've never sensed that my mother mother-in-law feels like dignity is being denied her because of the square footage to me the spirit of the accessory dwelling unit is not to build a second house a 1200 foot Adu is bigger than my whole house and to me that goes beyond what the purpose of an Adu is supposed to be and so I really hesitate I really resist expanding those numbers particularly when there we are I think all of us somewhat worried about enforcement and the larger we allow an Adu to be the better chance it ceases to fulfill what we think the purpose of the Adu is and simply becomes a rental property um for my own point of view if I was to consider getting behind making it bigger I would want to talk about proportionality more than just regular square feet um because I also think if we just do square feet that can really change the feel of a property if for example now I live on a teeny tiny lot but there are other Lots around me that have roughly the same size house and they could double the size of their house with a 1200 foot Adu um but it would look bizarre it would really look bizarre in our neighborhood because that's not the field of the neighborhood if on the other hand you had a 5,000 squ foot house and you added 1,200 ft that might fit and so if I were to consider something uh I'd be more likely wanting to talk about some sort of proportional measurement of the size of an ad so those are my thoughts but I'm not ready because of all of those reasons um I thought it would be worth exploring what JN has thrown out a couple times which is another way to deal with allowing more affordable Andor attainable housing is to look again at our garden apartment um by law which right now is pretty much inoperable because of a change that was made in in in 2018 um I wonder um so I wrote down some notes for Garden Apartments but I wonder if it might be better if John you feel like you can do it can you uh talk about how Garden Apartments if we addressed under approval criteria number seven um how maybe that might satisfy some of the very understandable um hopes of of runs and others yeah just pulling that up now the silence scared me suddenly I thought I was offline and all of that went out to nobody everyone see my screen yes so Garden Apartments um is there a chance John you could make it a little bit bigger I'm having reading the words yeah I don't know if you can't you can't I can follow along on my own but I don't know if everyone has bylaws in front of them if you can't you can't did that do anything I I think that's the same size it was a second ago but that's all right go ahead all right um so Garden Apartments are a uh provision in the zoning that allows for um units in in a certain development um essentially like a condominium development I believe Daven Port was developed on the garden departments uh preserve and maspenock woods were under Garden Apartments and so it allows for certain Provisions um to do and I I'm not necessarily prepared to speak about all of the provisions but I do yeah some of um some of the things are uh you know minimum of 800 square feet for two bedroom units and 600 squ feet for one-bedroom units you know they're limited to two and a half stories um can only have 12 units at the most um and then they have to uh include affordable housing and that's the that's the thing that is limiting them now because uh let me find what section it is ah yeah I think you referenced it before decision criteria for concept plan special permit um the approvable criteria is this number seven and the planning board has to make a finding that the town of hopkington has not met its stat goal to provide 10% of the housing stock as affordable so what that means is if we are below the 10% and therefore open to chapter 40 BS this could be utilized by developers uh through a a town approved process right uh to increase the housing and I guess with the Hope being that if we're allowing Garden Apartments we would get to the 10% faster under a way that the town has already established um so until we get below 10% Garden Apartments and Village Housing and residential districts are two bylaws that are essentially paused um and so all these types of developments which could be useful in Hopkinson are effectively um not applicable and so there's been discussion at planning board level and at Zach level do we look at these revise them to remove the affordable component or not to remove the affordable component but to remove the affordable 10% limit uh in order to approve and allow for these types of things and then rework it to be a development that Hopkinson residents are looking for more of in the future right um yeah and I think that that that criteria number seven is if we think that this is something that addresses some of um uh Ron's hopes um approval criteria number seven is one of the first things we'd have to reconsider because this is an impossibility until then um Ron were you able to look at the description of the Garden Apartments coming in I did not okay so then I won't put you on the spot to say would this fulfill some of what you were hoping I mean it's not going to fulfill sharing a house with your kids I get that but as far as being an option for a more attainable housing and stay in H um so I'm not going to put you on the spot run unless you have a thought no I I I think that Garden Apartments are a great way to get more attainable housing here the problem is um most of them you know it's the price points have gotten so crazy when you're doing construction of any kind that I I just I don't know how what what the right size is right right um it just seems like all of the new developments in Hoppington are getting bigger and bigger and bigger yep it's it's just you know when you talk about proportionality you know it's you know my neighborhood isn't proportionate from one end of Chamberlain Street to the other end of Chamberlain Street is right just because of that's how it devel especially that newest end of Chamberlain exactly um okay well why don't we well let me ask this do uh Zach members feel like you can discuss Garden Apartments or would you rather have a month to look over it I might highlight a couple things that I saw but I don't want to have a discussion if people don't feel prepared Mary I see your hand again um yeah and that's um just just commenting on Garden Apartments i i i person personally think that we should take out the provision seven there um to allow for Garden Apartments but I I think we'll just run into the overall um dislike of multi-unit developments in town because people just think of you know more children in the school systems um and as Ron was saying it you know really may not address the issue for um for elderly people trying to stay in town you know so um for a variety of different reasons um but I just also wanted to offer up that you know I've gone through my notes while we've been talking but um my notes from from our last round of discussions on this three years ago um I forwarded one chart that just kind of just breaks down all the different um bylaws that we have for multi-unit housing and and Compares them a little bit so that's that's just an easy thing for people to look at to get oriented about the different bylaws that we have um you forward it to committee members for us to before next meeting everybody yep okay great thank you um and that's you know that that is simply to help you know before you delve into each of the um bylaws in detail that's it's a good overview um and yeah that's that's about it um so one or two thoughts I have and then I think it might be best for us to then say okay this is our next discussion please go do some reading um I think I remember uh a public forum where uh an in town developer said that maybe we should open these up again um and allow Garden Apartments again and I think our response was because it was pretty close to to when criteria 7 was approved we said no no no we just dealt with that we're not going to take that up again I would be interested if we want to explore the idea of removing criteria 7 um and asking some of our local real estate developers to join us to to hear what they think um I also think very much that yes the the town is terrified and with some good reason of more res presidential expansion in town and I think that's certainly something we'd have to keep in mind um one or two of the components that I saw that I thought were interesting to our discussion um is one of them was in fact um what's it under requirements number four I don't know if that's on the screen or not um Garden Apartments may contain one or two bedrooms um which right away I mean I don't know how many bedrooms are up on the penthouse the Trump Tower but I would think that a one or two bedroom apartment makes it not all that grand an apartment um it still is not the same I understand as an Adu but it might make it so they're not uh crazy expensive uh one bedroom apartment shall contain a minimum of 600 square feet um I don't know if imposing maximums would help or make it utterly unpalatable to a developer but it might be a way of trying to limit the grandiosity of of apartments in town with the goal of more attainable housing the other thing that I saw that really caught my eye and I am not a developer and it's just caught my eye is requirement number one which is on the screen right now anyone wishing to build a garden part uh anyone wishing to build Garden Apartments may do so only on a site containing an area of not less than 10 acres of usable land um so I don't know what 10 acres is I can't just picture it so before this meeting I Googled what does 10 acres look like um and it gave a bunch of different examples like real life examples of 10 acres the one that was most helpful to me so I'll share it with you is go to Midtown Manhattan and if you go 6th Avenue to 7th Avenue and then two blocks by streets that is 10 acres and it struck me that that's a pretty big lot um and maybe allowing Garden Apartments on smaller Lots might make building one or two smaller apartment dwellings appealing and then maybe we have a chance if we remove criteria number seven for more small not massive development type housing options I have no idea if I'm on the right track or barking up the a wrong treat um but those were the things that jumped out to me when I looked at Garden Apartments um does anyone have any other thoughts or or anything before we table this till the next meeting didn't Dan just mention that the Center School parcel is about 11 acres so that's oh didy I missed that but that would be the full parcel right six acres the front and the back but I'm I'm just saying in terms of square footage right right you know uh so what that would mean roughly is the front part of Center School with which I imagine all of us are at least somewhat familiar you'd have to almost double that before it's available for garden apartment development it appears seems to me if you could get that front I mean ignore that it's Center School and we have other plans just looking at the lot if you can get that size lot and want to build a handful of apart or smaller and build a handful of Apartments there may be some appeal there that might also not terrify the town about massive growth at a 10 acre again when I looked at that Manhattan picture um it's it's essentially half of Central Park South and then he goes south two blocks there's a whole lot of building going on in that area so anyway those were my thoughts um oh there's a hand yes Ria thank you I'm glad you're here Ria our term is coming to an end and we're gonna need to restock just throwing that out there I appreciate that Ted um I I really uh tonight's agenda caught me and said I said you know I got to weigh in on some of these things I think I can help um I think you're on the right track when you talk about about um maybe adjusting that 10 acres that minimum of 10 acres I mean I don't know where that came from except for the fact that perhaps way back when when big swats of this town did not have sewer or water um that that may have been you know sort of a a benchmark um to manage a project like that um uh but I that's like crazy Ian I'm glad you're affirming that for for me I didn't know if I was nuts on that oh yeah no no no because you know what you know in every growing town you want to have um different varieties of housing you don't want to have it all look like um the apartment complex which I I don't know what it's called today um but on Lumber Street you don't want to have all our housing looking like that you want to have you know housing that is you know a bunch of different kinds of housing um and and it's a lot easier to grow as a town if you've got smaller tracks that are developed this way than if you put all your eggs in one basket of these big apartment complexes um it just you know we're still trying to get you know get a breath of air of all the the new families that have come in here I think it's just been the the the type of housing that was approved all of a sudden you know what I mean it just all it just slammed us and um you know the that Elwood school I remember coming here in 2004 20 years ago and looking at the building and going God this is a sick building why do they still have the school you know it's 20 years later we're still we're we're trying to attack that prop because we were attacking the other schools um but it it is it's going to be tough for me to live here on a fixed uh income in a couple of years no question about it the taxes are too high for my house so um I I don't know what the next step is but I think you are on the right track on maybe uh loosening that and maybe John has some history on on that I I have no idea I mean I just never looked at the Garden Apartment bylaw before that's all thanks great thank you Ria I'm so happy you're back with this Ria it feels right is I don't have to be here every month okay um anything else on this issue for now and then um I don't know if this ought to be part of the public discussion Ron I just want to make sure you feel um certainly from me heard and not attacked um I I don't want good thank you for the thumbs up um good okay so we will this will be on the agenda to continue our discussion um please if you would uh take a look at the Garden Apartment bylaws by the way John I just want to make sure I read this correctly right after the garden apartment comes um oh I'm on the wrong page now comes Village housing um but Village housing is only affordable housing did I read that correctly yeah I believe it's um H yeah I haven't looked at this in a while because it's not it's also not true because at first so yeah I don't I'm not ready to really discuss the details but yeah I don't think the Village housing has actually ever been used in Hopkinson some of the kind of the Preamble material is word for word the same as Garden Apartments so I didn't understand the difference and then I thought I came across that it is all affordable housing right so that's not necessarily part of the discussion we're having right now so I think we can limit to Garden Apartments for this this chat so please take a look at that and uh hopefully we all come armed with more thoughts and opinions there we have one last agenda item and Ria I'm very happy you're still here for this although I understand you're not on the design review board anymore um but you were for a while and I think I hear your voice from maybe my first year on Zach regarding this um so uh I I I don't know John if you can help me here because the truth is I was only able to spend a little bit of time with the design review section of the bylaws but it's really not a very long bylaw I think um well Ria I'm going to give it to you in a moment if you're willing to take uh reflect on your time with drb um but my memory is the concern was um drb which is a committee that unlike ours has specific specific requirements to be on it specific expertise to be on that committee and yet when they made recommendations they were only recommendations that there was no teeth of any kind it was just whether the planning board agreed or not and my memory is often the design review review board felt unheard or marginalized by the planning board at the time um so John I mean I'm sorry so um Gary trenel and I talked about this a couple times over the last couple years um and whether it might be helpful to find a way to give the design revie review board a little bit more muscle um I don't know the best way to do that um but maybe if you're willing Ria could you give us some experience you had on from your years on the design review board and yeah sure like it was working and what felt like it wasn't for you guys well sure I mean I you you've T talked about a bunch of different things the first thing being the qualifications to be on the board um uh you had to be in landscaping or you had to be an architect or um and then there was a couple of people at large um but uh you know um design review board is only used for commercial projects um basically uh any project that you know uh offer you know is being being used for income let's just call it that um it's not used for uh residential housing um at all um uh so the purview is very specific what I what I discovered is that many of the people that were on the board you know didn't have any kind of experience of you know just being in the commercial World um on a regular basis so there was one that was one defect because I I don't think there's a lot of people people who can volunteer to do this stuff but then on the other side of your um uh your comment um Ted is that uh yes there were occasions where we would make recommendations and um the planning board didn't really look at our recommendations now this wasn't all the time but there was certainly certain times that you know there was an issue where we felt that you know why are we even here we're spending our time reviewing stuff making recommendations to the best of our ability and then um it wasn't it wasn't being utilized now the problem is is that design review board is um a subjective opinion it is not a legal you know there's no legal Benchmark for it so that's where it gets kind of Muddy uh and John you can support that statement I think because you told me that's what the problem is um and I and I can see why we have design review but I almost feel like design review should be a sub um uh of the planning board so that there's more continuity there instead of uh two separate boards if you will um because I think in other towns um I if the design review board is a a subset of the planning board then um it is more direct communication direct you know you actually are part of the the the conversation when you're reviewing a site out there so hope I answered your question Ted I think so um I wonder I I think John you've also had some chats with folks regarding this stuff can you give any thoughts from what you've seen or heard uh mostly just with the design review board members you know similar in nature to the other comments that we've heard but um it's always confusion when we're doing signed permits which is kind of the main thing that they do or the I shouldn't say the main thing but the more common approval let's call it approval that they do and it's really just a recommendation of the zoning enforcement official um so they you know a lot of the stuff that they do is received by the applicants and addressed but there's no obligation by the applicants to address those comments because it's just a recommendation so there's a little feeling of as Ria said you know why are we doing this if we don't have any Authority um so that's that's what I've heard okay um so I've got a couple questions um again Ria if I don't know if you signed up for all of this tonight but I I find having you here really helpful um I'm again skimming quickly through the design review section um number one I don't see any language but I could be missing it because I'm skimming that says it's only for commercial properties maybe it turned into that but is there Lang to Ria's Point um the design review board has two charges sign permits to review signs which are usually going to be just on Commercial properties and uh to review site plans residential uses are exempt from site plan requirements oh okay okay it would be S okay um my second question is um and and maybe maybe I'm misreading as I read about the design review board it sounds like very much like Zach it absolutely is a subset of the planning board um and I wonder after all number one is the chairman of the planning board or his or her by the way we might ought to have slash there um in the language for that but chairman of the planning board uh his or her design I mean right away that indicates to me it's meant to be a subgroup of the planning board not a separate entity but Ria if I heard you correctly you said it certainly felt like a completely separate entity yeah it did feel that way um it felt like like um our meetings and recommendations um you know they were written up but then it we weren't part of the planning board hearing so we weren't there to maybe emphasize um that these were the these were the reasons for making these recommendations you know I don't know I'm I I I've been now off of that for two years um so it it to me it just felt as though um it was a nice thing to be able to do um but it it again if you don't have people who are really knowledgeable about you know site plans and signage and Commercial businesses you know you get a bunch of people saying well I want gold lettering you know I mean it's like and and it may or may not work for that business in that particular area whatever but you know it certainly chatting about it making sure that it does fit into the grand scheme of things is is important it's just that it's subjective it is not it is it is not like um a state B you know law that show you know there's some Benchmark there's nothing it's just does this fit within the the style and the character of the Town John in your time with us in town and working with the planning board do you remember and those of you who are currently on or recently were on the planning board do you remember times where um a commercial development came up and part of the planning board meeting was what does design review board recommend or is that not so Mary you have was that a regular part of the discussion yes it was a regular part it was like on the on the agenda and um um but it was understood you know and it and it depends on the chair how much they emphasize it um but um it was understood that that design review board it was um I guess some of the some of the people some of the chairs and some of the other um planning board members would say we take the design review board recommendation to be pretty important and um but it would it was still understood that there were recommendations there weren't requirements because that's the way it's wed in our bylaws you know so um so you know they would uh sometimes a developer or whomever would you know kind of say well you know this this part doesn't really work I think the signage was taken more seriously than the design of the building elements and things like that um but a lot of developers would generally Bend to the wishes um and you know just accommodate things but there was there's at least one situation that I know of and I'm sure it's happened more but in which um um a lot of work went into the design and review by the planning board after the design review board but the design review board you know about the signage and and placement of signage and then um through a series of um changes to the design um of a particular location um they went through the zoning ADI um no zoning board of appeals and Zoning Board of Appeals couldn't care less basically I mean again it was the members on the zoning board of appeals at that time of course it varies based on numbers but yeah they they they didn't care that planning board had had documented all of these things that they were going to change and were going to do and a lot was based on design review board and there were reasons for it and um and Zoning Board of Appeals said H doesn't really matter to us and you know just basically gave them the green light to make any changes they wanted to to the design and you know I I was involved in that one and I you know commented and I said I was on planning board when this was approved or you know I can't remember exactly details but but yeah and it said this was this was not the intent and then they they just went to the nope this is what the bylaws say and no we you know it doesn't doesn't matter doesn't matter negotiated at the time so um so yeah that that uh that was really eye opening for me I gotta say that John um I'm going to ask you in a moment if we were to consider if if the group lik the idea of giving uh drb a little bit more muscle I'm going to ask you in a moment what might be some things we could look at but do you have any other Reflections John from your planning board meetings in recent years with regard to this or planning board uh zba relationship no no additional thoughts at this time okay right uh anyone else in the group have thoughts I'm about to ask John where we might look to to strengthen design review board but before anyone else no all right John so I don't know I don't know what they do in Westboro or any other town you might know more about than we do um what are your thoughts what are what are some ways that we might consider if we chose to try to strengthen that board uh so there's excuse me there's two ways that you could um affect the drb's process right it's through the sign review process and through the site plan process um I'm not going to speak towards what westbro does because it's a little different so things don't match up equally but I would say um if you were to look at this the sign permitting process you could create a new permit that was issued by the design review board that uh criteria for what signs should include um and design guidelines or design requirements or standards um so I think they'd have to happen at once right you'd have to develop the standards and then you could Institute aign permit so that you knew that the design review board was going to adhere to those standards and making those decisions and it wasn't completely subjective um the second part would be basically the same thing without a permit issued but having guidelines for site plans and having design Review Board review those site plan applications according to those standards or guidelines um this could be for certain there could be standards and guidelines for different areas of town so site plans within certain zoning districts could have certain guidelines and site plans within other districts would have different guidelines or you know several different guidelines some being similar some being different um but I think for both the site plan and design review and sign permits you would need to establish standards first first and really understand what you'd be wanting the design review board to look at in order to have that Authority if you just give them Authority it could turn into a subjective argument at every time I don't think I don't think that would happen with this this committee because they're all knowledgeable and reasonable um but you know that's not a guarantee moving forward so you want to have these regulations kind of set in stone what their role would be and what they're basing their decisions on um so you'd want to have a set of Standards or guidelines for both site plan and signs and then the standards for site plan would have would probably have to be different than the standards that are currently in Zoning for planning board because planning board is the uh Arbiter of those standards so it would have to be more Landscaping facade color material type standards for developments so I'm looking through the table of contents um if I'm assigning myself and hopefully some others come along with me more homework um are you suggesting that we need to study article 27 signs or would the signage stuff be captured in site plan review which is article 20 no because people get new signs without going through site plan review somebody buys a building okay a new company buys a building and wants to install new signage they don't have to go through site planine approval but they do need a sign okay building permit so for those taking notes at home the homework would be article 12 I mean I'm sorry article 20 XX site plan review then probably certainly design review where we have the design review board stuff there and then and that's 21 and then signs is 27 would need to be looked at um and then hopefully we can pick that up next time Ria I have one more question question for you um because I I meant uh only to appraise the design review board with the uh requirements of who can serve but you saw it as a little bit of a weakness kind of um am I understanding that correctly well I I think that um the standard of of a commercial building is quite different and look and feel and everything like that than a residential house um and people seem to want to put a lot of these um some of the members wanted to put the commercial buildings into the scope of what a house would be like and I and I just I just disagreed because I said look at you if you want to put a business in a business building you got to make sure it's going to be successful right and there are elements that make it successful so that's my own my own personal gripe that's not that's I think that makes I think that makes some sense and if we do move towards giving design review board more muscle we might also want to consider if they're only dealing with businesses who we have on that board so what I want to do really quickly in our last little bits um is Reed who's on the design review board and I'm curious Ria if you would be comfortable saying we ought to add this type of requirement like somebody in commercial real estate say um or do we have too much of something else does that make sense r i i i i do believe are you not comfortable with that well no I I I think that it's just hard to find people in our town with that kind of background I mean there's a couple of us sure but um you know I I was thinking of because it's all a learning process had none of us started uh you know with this B you know bucket of knowledge of how to do volunteer work for the town we we weren't born this way we we had to learn it somehow way right so what I was going to say is that what I think might be a really good idea is if the design review board is doing a big project that maybe one of those members is actually you know at the planning board hearing that reviews that project so that that actually gets transmitted more clearly than just a piece of paper that you've got to read another thing you know what I mean like it's much more it's less the requirements and more stronger communication yes is you really are advising yeah yeah I think so besides maybe changing some language that might do some stuff too yeah I mean you are restricted as to what you can actually do with this design review board by the state laws you know so there is there's that you have to consider but it's like I I believe the project that uh uh Mary Larson was re was talking about Not only was I on the design review board but I was on the board of appeals and I was having to chair the night that the thing came down and it was horrible because I was like wait a second this isn't what what we wanted but I had no teeth because of my role in the board of appeals that night it was really a mess um and I you know it was UN forunate but I think it turned out okay in the end believe it or not so um well that's good well yeah we all we were all very concerned about it but you know like I said the board of appeals has a purview that's different from the design review board and the planning board right it is all about a law that is actually you can is black and white pretty much and do you want to go outside that black and white it is there a a overwhelming reason to do that that's what the board of appeals is all about but anyway okay hopefully I question no I I think you've been very helpful and like I said whether you're a member of the public or you wanna coming back when the term ends um either way I would love to uh certainly with this issue um sounds good T you have my number I think you still have it I believe so I do you know let me know okay uh and then John I think I'm G to try to find time to swing by Town Hall between now and our next meeting and maybe you can help me a little bit more with some of the nitty-gritty that you covered because that was a kind of a fire hose of information that I certainly wasn't able to take in sure the chair just want to mention also um when you're looking at the bylaws just remember that there can be a small section in the zoning that says the you know for example the the design review board has the authority to issue sign permits based on regulations and guidelines that they adopt and that that could be it right and then the separate documents that we would use that would really enumerate all the requirements and the guidelines and stuff could be outside of zoning so we don't have to think about how do we squish this whole thing into zoning um we can try and do it in two pieces okay all right we are up against the Cino rule which is we must end by nine o'clock um and I I like that rule so um may I get a motion to adjourn don't move and a second great where is my here it is uh here we go Mary Larson Marlo yes Ron yes Arnold yes Sam yes and Vic yes and I will go ahead and make it unanimous 855 feels like a good time to break off on until what did we say May 13th was it I hope everyone does well and maybe does a little bit of zoning homework before we get to that meeting Okie do happy Marathon weekend you guys oh happy Marathon everybody yes nice seeing you Ria