Okay. Uh, let's see. Make sure your phones are silenced. And, um, we'll start with a roll call. Alexander Graham present. Dave Gavin present. Tom Bousad. Bob Kedar.
Okay, we have John Bette will not be with us tonight. He's away. Um, like to welcome Bob to the planning board. Thank you for volunteering. We really need your help. We're glad you're here. Also, we'd like to welcome Paula, who is now
working with the planning board as well as the building department, and she's a very cool girl. Hey, hey, Paul. Oh, we have record. Yeah, town planner Val here tonight. So, um we'll go ahead and open the meeting.
And um I think as far as reorganization, should we just wait till everybody's here? Yeah. Recording in progress. Push it back to September 8th. We'll just we'll wait till everybody's here. Yep. Okay. Um
so our first uh first thing on the agenda tonight is uh approval not required which is also called an ANR um 198 and 200 Main Street.
Well um Val uh thanks. So, we have um an ANR plan where two neighbors got together and decided to swap some land or not really swap, but one neighbor is selling land to the other. So, 198 and 200 are the
neighbors. 200 has the land. 198 on Main Street is buying about uh little over about two acres of backland from number 200. And that includes the driveway. and they're reserving a driveway for number
200 to keep using that same driveway to get to their house as they have done for a long time. So, it's an R20 zone. Both of the lots remain well over the minimum and it's a better uh frontage for number 198 and
the frontage on 200 is more than conforming. So, I'm recommending endorsement. Excuse me. You have it. Just go to the mic just because there's people listening at home. We have a huge
audience here, you know, at home. Okay. All three people 198 has purchased 200 and is selling 200 to the new to somebody else. So, we have
it kind of backwards there. Yeah. So 198 owns 198 and 200 and is selling 200 with two acre approximately two acres of land. We don't have that information. So thank you for sharing that. Okay.
Yeah, it's a good uh good purchase. You finally have a place for your boat. Leo Leo's boat. Leo's boat. Yeah. He thinks it is. Anybody have any questions about this? It's pretty cut and dry. It has all the
frontage. It has all the square footage necessary. It improves uh 198 makes it more conforming than it was. All the above. We need a motion to endorse.
I'll make a motion to endorse the ANR plan for 198 and 200 Main Street, Kingston Mass, uh, as presented. Second. Has been moved and second. Any further discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor say I. I.
I. Opposed. Extensions. It's 400. There you go. Simple enough. Yeah. I mean, uh, we could get up and sign the plan now if Yeah, we don't have a lot of an agenda, so we can, uh, there's a couple sign.
Um, and then is there a myar here too at the end? Is there with the, uh, you have to use those Sharpies that are on top of it? Do we want these copies signed too? No, just the myar. Just the myar. Okay. We need three signatures. So, one more
person. Okay. Myars are going to be shredded. A couple of them. They're trash. They're not trash. They're going to be distributed. Oh, okay. You need an extra. What's that? Do you need an extra?
No. distribute like 14 copies. All the departments Okay. Um, you want you want to grab that now? You can go ahead. I'll take sure. Next on agenda is zoning article for
town meeting. Uh, thank you. So, we have a something I've seen in some other communities. This question has come up with the U attorney general's office of whether or not somebody can build an ADU under this buy right bylaw and then condo off condo
it out and sell it to another owner. And the um attorney general's office has weighed in and said that this is a land use question, not an ownership question. and they're going to allow towns to require that the ADU stay with the main
house because it's accessory to that house. So, um, language that's been approved in other towns defines legal ownership within the ADU bylaw that the proposed ADU shall be accessory and not be legally separated or conveyed apart from
the principal dwelling in order to keep the accessory nature of the ADU. And I think we should include that in our language so that there isn't any question um because we know the AG will approve it. And I just um want to check
with council whether to put it under accessory related definitions or just within the context of the zoning itself. But um we haven't heard back yet from the AG on our zoning from Springtown meetings. So we're still got our fingers crossed that there's nothing um out of
whack with that. But in the meantime, this is something we know the AG would approve. So, we can vote on this. Yeah, I have to The reason I brought it up tonight is um I have to run a uh get legal notice to the newspaper by Friday in order to make the town meeting
warrant uh for a public meeting. So, it doesn't really We're just voting that that we'd like to go to town meeting. Yeah. And it we don't we don't need to know where it's going in the zoning book to do that. Right. All right. So, for anybody who's
listening, um, ADU is an accessory dwelling unit. Um, the town of Kingston's had the a bylaw in place for a long time and it has worked very well and um, it has kept families together. It's kept basically finances in the in
the family too rather than, you know, having a parents live in um, in other facilities and what have you. It's worked out great. And then one of the reasons why it really worked out great in the town of Kingston was because um it was to it had to be owner occupied.
So that meant that either the ADU unit or the main house one the owner had to live in one of those two units. Unfortunately, the state has uh shoved another uh thing down our throat here. And now um not only do they not come to
the planning board to get it approved because it's as of right which before you had to go to the get a special permit with this planning board. Um not only do they not have to do that it's as of right but they also it also does not have to be owner occupied. So the the
concern uh is that you know landlords are going to be buying houses and putting extra houses in the in in the yard and renting them out. And um essentially it becomes like a two family in a way. And also there's no limit to
how many of these things you can do in your in your uh in your backyard. But the one smart thing they did do was the only only thing that's as of right is the first one. After that, you still need a a special permit. But it does change the bylaw a lot. A
lot of people concerned about it. I'm one of the ones concerned about it. I know Val's concerned about it somewhat as well. I think everybody on this board was concerned about it, but there's not much we could do about it. So there's what we that's our dilemma. And uh so now we're just looking to um
make sure that uh people don't get misled into thinking that they can um subdivide it after they build it. It has to remain one lot. Unless of course they have the the frontage and all that stuff down the
road. Wouldn't that be right, Val? Yeah. If they have the right frontage and everything down the road they can separate it, then they can separate it. Well, we're saying that they can't. We're saying that they can't even if they have the front edge and they have the they meet the bylaw. Yeah, it's accessory to the other dwelling.
I'd like that. Okay. someday if we wanted to start allowing smaller lots or um but I mean let's say let's say someone has 10 acres and they have a they have a main house then they have an accessory dwelling
you know there tons of acreage and everything else they still with this they still would not be able to separate it is what you're saying correct okay I just want to understand because it's accessory to the main house right someday we might be looking at zoning in a whole different way but right Now, um
the the idea of creating um miniature lots and and or different lots with these when they're accessory, they're allowed by right because they're accessory to another dwelling. The AG is saying that they want those to stay together.
The state is wonderful giving us gifts. This is one of them. Then uh uh MBTA zoning was another wonderful gift from the state. uh and then go back a ways and you have the uh 40 Rs and 40Bs.
But not much we can do about it. No. Anybody want to have a discussion about this? I just had a question. Um how would adding an ADU impact this uh septic system on on given pieces of property?
Each one is is investigated by the board of health or the sewer department. Okay. So, that would be governing it. In Tom's example of having a 10acre uh facility and you put a number of on there, would then it be might be
required to have separate septic systems for each one of the It depends on depends on the unit and and the board of health makes those determinations. In in many cases, the septic system is feasible and they're have to tie they're able to tie it into the same one. Um I
know that the the state rule laws on the ADUs does change some things. I know that one of the requirements is that you have to have a 1500galon baffled septic tank, which I don't know why they they need to be baffled, but I
mean it seems silly to me because if you have a 1500gallon tank and your septic system is fine, why why change it? But yeah, I don't I have no idea why they threw that in there. I wish they'd throw it out. Yeah, because it's really silly. It's baffling.
It does not help there. Well, yeah, it's baffling. Very good, Val. You You know what I don't like about it is that um Thank you very much. Yep. Good night. Good night. Um, one of the things I don't like about it is the
state has has mandated that we we can't be unreasonable, right, in our decision making in our requirements for ADU, but they're being very unreasonable on that one themselves. So, I don't know why they even push for that. I don't
know why that even came up. Why not let each town do it the way they want to do it? But any other any other further discussion on that as far as the language goes, um I agree with it. Um as it's written here, I I
think it's important. I I think it's a shame that there's no they didn't they're they didn't let us mandate occupancy uh landlord occupancy um because I'm worried that this can get out of hand very very quick. That's my opinion on it. Um, I think we
should do everything we can to protect our town like like we always do. Um, try to conform if we can. Um, I think this language will help protect us at least a little bit. I still am a little confused why you wouldn't be able
to separate it. Well, because then it's not accessory anymore. I know. Now it becomes a separate dwelling. We can wait till spring if you want to if you want to debate it a lot more. You know, we can wait till springtime
meeting and look into it. We can always change it if it doesn't work this way. That's fine. I I don't really have problem. I just it just probably if you had 10 acres, you're not going to go for an edu. You're probably going to do Dave. It probably helps to lean into the mic a little bit. People can't hear you.
I said if you had 10 acres, he probably would subdivide it the house instead of doing ADU. That's true. Yeah. All right. So, uh, so what do we need? Just a vote to that we we agree with this and we want to send it to town meeting for a vote.
Yeah. What what we'll do is you you're saying let's go ahead and hold a public hearing. Yeah. On this concept and then you'll vote at that time, right? Like we usually do. Yeah. All right. So, we'll just have a vote that we will uh we will advertise for a public hearing on this for the town
meeting. And this will save a spot for us uh on the u on the warrant. Yeah. On the warrant. Everybody understands it? Mhm. Uh you somebody want to make a motion that the the to vote in affirmative of
having a hearing for this word where however you like. I'll make a motion to have a hearing on this uh zoning bylaw change for the accessory dwelling unit. Second.
Moved and seconded. Any further discussion, questions? All those in favor say I. I. I. 400. Great. Great. And I'm realizing that I emailed all of you the minutes, but I didn't print out
hard copy. I could run down and do that now. Or if you all had a chance to look at them in your email. I don't know who was there for it. Do you? I was the shaman. That's all I know. You weren't there. So, I wasn't there and John's not here. So, we wouldn't be able to vote on it anyway.
True. So, we'll wait. Okay. We will meet at the next meeting, September 8th, um because we have a site plan review that's scheduled for that night. Um over
on Bishop's Highway, the old convent. There's a potential reuse of that um those buildings. Not changing the buildings at all, but a slight expansion of the parking lot. Are they still going to subdivide it too?
No, it's just going to stay the way it is. Um using the existing buildings, refurbishing the insides, um looking at it for like a rehab facility with some additional parking and that's it.
So perfect. Yeah, the parking's coming to us for site plan review. That's good. Had a lot of interested buyers, but it's it's two acres of zoning. It's uh it's in the Yeah, we haven't had anybody kicking
tires on the corner lot in a long time. No. So, um but we will plan Oh, you're talking about the other building. You're not talking about the school. Not the school. Oh, you're talking about the other one where this where the police have been using it. Yes. The mothership. Yeah. All right. Okay,
that makes sense. Yeah, the other one I don't know what's happening with that. I haven't heard anything lately. No, nothing's No, nothing's happening with that. You want to uh you want to announce what happened with the water? Oh, yeah. the um about a week and a half ago, two weeks ago, the water moratorum
was lifted and um that's generated a lot of building permits and uh so the planning department is wishing that it could get um a a real part-time admin that has the time to dedicate to the
planning department. Um Paula does her best and supports the building department first and uh you know we've already brought this up with the town administrator to take a look at it because we we thought we might get busy and we are getting busy and so
what changed? Um why was that lifted? They had a change of heart. It was a two one vote. Really? Okay. I thought it was I thought the mortorium was based on some actual
like numbers like they couldn't pump enough water or you could take that up with the water commission. I'm curious. It's like weird. Okay. It's strange. No, we don't know. We don't No one really knows what exactly happened, but it changed. Yeah.
And it's it's probably a good thing. There's a lot of people looking to do projects. We have the um Windgate has a project that they um um we expect them to file for a special permit to um bring in a lot of units
that that they already had permitted years ago. Years ago we did that years ago. Yeah. They knocked the houses down. Is that what you're talking about? Right on No. Knock two houses down right on No. Right on Lake Street. Oh, yeah. I know what you mean. Yeah. Yeah. Years and years ago.
Yeah. This is a a plan that had uh like duplexes 55 and over which is wonderful. Um you doesn't doesn't affect the school system, doesn't affect a lot of things. Um also um in their plan I I was there when they did this a long time ago. Do
you remember how long? I want to say 12 to 17 years ago. Yeah. And they kept the the the permits active the whole time. Right. And um they would have a hard time doing this without the the moratorium being lifted even though they were kind of
grandfathered in a way in my opinion because they kept everything active and it was approved. And originally they wanted to do something they have land across the street from the um from the entrance to Windgate. They wanted to do something across the street. They've agreed not to do anything with that. And I think maybe even the town might end up
with that. I don't know. Yeah. I mean they haven't actually filed yet but this is something that we talked about during the moratorum and we expect them it's a really nice project for the town to come to us soon which is exciting. So we're starting to um life getting
breathed back into the town and um we're hoping that more of that will keep happening. Yeah. And uh we you know there's activity at the mall which is good. Y um and then um activity what's going on at the mall
just a lot of discussions a lot of discussion a lot of plans a lot of place to close a lot of plans of of retail with the new owners and uh stuff like that new owners with money um and and ideas right so Val's been working with them a lot
putting time in with that and that that is moving in the right direction love to get that assessment of that place back up you What was it assessed at what time? 90 million or something. I forget. It was 10 times 10 times more than it is now. So, yeah. 90 million.
9 million now and 90 million then. That's the difference in the tax bill. Yeah. And that's not even converting it in today's dollars. So, right. Um, and what other news do we have? Oh, we're we're getting ready to launch the
online building permit system. Um Paula and I have been working on that a lot in the last couple of weeks and we hope to go live midepptember and that should uh help to smooth some communication gaps that
we've had um with everybody getting all the information at once on the permitting system being able to see the plans in the fire department um in the water department and at town hall all at the same time with this new system. So, is there a lot to learn on this for for
you and Paula on this? There's a lot for me to learn and a lot a lot a lot of programming to do to to get it to set up right. But, um once it's set up, the user part of it is not that hard. It's pretty intuitive.
So, we've got some tests running for um inspections and things like that this week. Um but it looks like it's working good because this is our third one. Yeah. First one we we bought um and luckily this was not bought with tax dollars
money the first time. Um company came and we we bought the system from them and when it didn't work right they said well your computers are not compatible with it. But they they sold it to us anyway.
Uh and then this last one had some holes in it. Right. Yeah. We ended up getting this software, but for some reason, for cost-saving reasons, they they purchased it without the um support manual, without
programming and without um onboarding, which of course, given the busy nature of town hall, made it impossible to implement. So this time around, we've gotten the onboarding support and the pre-programmed stuff rather than trying
to invent reinvent the wheel for Kingston. And you you've used this in other towns, right? I used it in Ducksbury. It's used in Plymouth. Um, this is the first time I've tried to implement it. But, um, I think it helps having worked with the
software and also having done permitting for a long time and knowing like getting everybody involved in terms of all the overviews, the fire department, the water, sewer, um, all the other departments are engaged in the process. So, um, by running tests now, we're
figuring out whether or not we're picking up the permits when we want to, making sure people have a chance to put eyes on them. And, um, it's going it's going to so far it's going pretty well. So, yeah, that's been a big project for the last
couple weeks. We have, I think, five grant applications pending in September. We have uh we've asked for a master plan uh update from the state. We've asked for improvement grant for engineering
for the Adena from the state. We've asked for cleanup of the Maple Street Fire Station from the state. Uh we I don't know if I can remember them all. We've asked we've put in two grant applications for exit 20 and Tarkland 53
intersections. Mhm. Um that's all for engineering and um we might even get some of that for construction if we got both grants which would be fantastic. Um I think there's one more that's escaping me. But we're, you know, I
wrote a lot of grant applications in June and so the time's coming where we're going to hear on all of those um hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars. So we're hoping that some of those come through. So the way it used to be in the building department, we had u we had two people
in there. We had Debbie and we had Paula and then Val had full-time person in the planning department. Now there's nobody in the plan with Val. There's one person in the building and Paul is helping in planning. So we have
one person instead of three. So, now that this moratorum has been lifted and we got the we got the uh the votes for the for the mall and all those different things that have happened, it's going to pick up and we're going to need that help. So, it it
gives us a a better leg to stand on as far as trying to get help. Yeah. Prevail and then Paul can do one job instead of two. Right. That's the hopes. Just an unrelated question. When does the warrant have to be ready for to go
to the town meeting? A warrant? I don't know the dates. I know that for us, we have to get it well in advance of everybody else. Uh I don't have those dates in front of me, but it's I think it's posted on the town administrator's website. The timeline, but it's usually
closed sometime in I want to say mid to late September and town meeting is October 28th. But we have to have our zoning advertised in the public hearing before all of that happens. So, we're a long lead.
Okay. Anything else? We good? I got a question. Um, last time we Well, last time we were here, we were talking about they're going to skip the parking at um the restoration church, I think it was. Yeah, we're still waiting. They're not paying Grady. So, Grady hasn't gone out
there. Oh, because I know they were supposed to do like an apron or something. That never happened. Great. He's never been out there to do the design. No design yet. All right. Probably trying to put some money together or something. Um, okay. And I think that's it.
Oh, I do have one more. Oh, sure. Um, uh, Sean Turner and I have been working really closely together on transportation planning, as you know, and, uh, we walked Main Street with some of the residents, um, to talk about
sidewalk repairs and also long-term planning for Main Street. We got the $50,000 grant from town meeting. And we're um, we've contracted with Apex Engineering. They came out. We walked the whole south side of Main Street with the residents and talked about uh
short-term and long-term plans and we'll have some outreach um in the early part of the fall with the neighborhood to just talk a little bit more about um long-term planning designs and we're going to do some um schematics that will
get us prepared for making more grant applications in the spring. So, um that's that's that program. that's moving along. And then on the ADA transition plan grant, that'll be wrapping up in September. Um that that's
something that was independent of this board, but that I um was the spearhead on that, got the grant, and then everybody's been helping them inspect all of the facilities that the town owns for ADA compliance. and it just gives us
a checklist and sort of a prioritization and that qualifies us to apply for grants from the state which is a good thing we voted for the MBTA zoning agreed that it was a a good idea from the state it worked out good for our town a lot of that's because of Val
and u now it gives us the the opportunity to apply for grants and probably more grant money available just because it's less towns applying so that's a good thing and uh the the main street thing. There's been a lot of complaints from the neighborhood and
different things and um and we were having some I was in the office with Valwash who was talking to the gentleman the two or three different guys on the phone. Yeah. Highway highway uh superintendent and couple other gentlemen and um the idea
was maybe we should instead of taking the money we have and patching everything, maybe should come up with a long-term plan and make it really right. Yeah. So, we're going to do side some places where the sidewalks are down to this wide. Yeah. You know, there's no it's a mess.
So, we're going to do emergency repairs or we're already doing them um so that we reduce the hazards that are out there, but then we're going to be applying for grants and by the time spring rolls around, we'll have those schematics. We'll know what it is that we're going to try to do with Main
Street. So any further repairs would be done with those schematics in mind so that we're not building something and then having to unbuild it. Right. Um and the last update is uh that I have is tomorrow night I'll be before the selectman. Um we're updating the
complete streets prioritization plan. Again it's all about grant funding. Um, we spent Sean and I spent a lot of time with Apex Engineering looking at all of the uh, townwide transportation plan and the old complete streets plan which was
done by a different engineer and we took all the information we had and Sean's a new set of eyes on that and we updated the complete streets plan and we're going to upload that and then we hope to apply for grants starting in the spring
again because we'll be back up to our 500,000 that would be eligible for. And you're right, any of these grants I've mentioned tonight, we wouldn't be eligible for applying without the MBTA zoning. And we get to save potentially save them
all at the same time and create tax base there. Yeah, it's huge. So, it's a win-win. And hopefully, we're going to have some announcements coming from the mall very soon. We're waiting. Yep. Impatiently. Yep.
So, Okay. Okay. Well, um maybe we have a motion to uh adjurnn. So moved. Second. All those in favor? I I We are now adjourned. Thank you. Boom. Lights off.