recording in progress together. Good evening and welcome to the June 25th, 2025 Yarmouth Planning Board meeting. I am Joanne Crowley, chair. Uh the public is welcome to attend our meetings in person or via alternative public access provided on the town of Yarmouth
website. Our meetings are generally held on the first and third Wednesdays of the month, but additional meetings are added when needed, such as uh this evening. I'll begin by taking roll call. Uh Susan Brida, present. Deardra Gayquin,
present. Will Rubenstein, Jim Sabin, Peter Slovak, here. Ken Smith, present. Joanne Crowley, present. Seeing that we have a quorum, I'll now call the meeting to order. And I would ask that you join me in the pledge of allegiance. Pledge allegiance to the flag of the
United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. First item on our agenda this evening is
um a request from a petitioner for us to approve uh an ANR plan uh 1977A. I'd ask you to please refer to the memo uh from our uh planner town planner Kathy Williams uh June 23rd memo
regarding this plan. And I welcome Karen Healey uh this evening from uh representing the petitioner. Um uh this approval uh and not required ANR you know an ANR is being requested by
Darlene and Demetrios Mios at 116 North Main Street South Yarmouth assessor map 70 parcel 45 and Susan Johnson 118 North Main Street South Yarmouth Mass Assessor Map 70 parcel 44 are for zoning district
they have already received zoning board approval. approval. Um, and we have uh the uh representative for the petitioners here, but Kathy, would you like to first run through your memo in any way or we'll just turn it over to Kier? I think you can turn it right over to Kieran. I have no issues. Okay,
great. Good evening, Madam Chairman and members. My name is Kieran Healey. I'm a land surveyor with the BSC group and I prepared the plan for number 116 and 118 at uh North Main Street. Uh the issue that happened here is that when this building was constructed, it was over
the property line. So basically, we're doing a simple land transfer. This portion comes with 116 and this portion goes with 118. It's the same amount of land area, just a simple swap to make the building compliant. Um it has been to the ZBA as you mentioned and it was
approved by the CBA. Other than that, I'll be glad to answer any questions you may have. Any questions from the board? Just one. couldn't make it. No neighbors are okay. The it bothers everyone is fine with the the uh transfer. No, no negative comments. I was not at the ZBA hearing,
but I cannot imagine anybody would have a negative comment other than the two people that are involved. So, um it doesn't affect anybody else's property. Um just out of curiosity, I don't need to take too much time, but how does something like this happen? The same thing. Thank you, Madam Chair. Yeah. How how does some how does a
building get um back in is it from way is is the building that is crossing over the property line an older building uh it's been there for a while. It's not 100 years old but it's not 50 either. It's somewhere somewhere older than 50 years. Um there was a time when the building
department did not require foundation as bills for buildings and when that happened some builders would just go ahead and not hire a surveyor to stake it out and the building could potentially be off the property line because of that. In today's world, the building department require as bills at the time of construction. So, it
eliminates that issue. And is there an um a reason that this came to light now that you can share with us? A sale a sale of the property when somebody went out to do the inspections. They found that property line doesn't make sense. And then we were to make sense of it. And this is
what we found. Okay. So, we want to move this along so that that transaction can take place. I'm sure they'd be very happy to get it signed off tonight. Okay. Thank you, U Mr. Healey. Appreciate your question. Certainly, Peter. Something like this can't be fixed with an easement. Um, is that is
that correct? You can't give it it wouldn't conform with zoning. Easements don't allow you to meet zoning regulations. They allow you to transfer out to traverse land, but they don't allow you to to construct on adjacent property. Um, and definitely not on top
of the property line. Anything else, board members? Did you hear? No. Okay. Cath, did you have any anything else? Okay. So, may I have a motion to approve ANR plan 1977A?
So, move. Second. All in favor? I. Thank you, Karen. We appreciate Thank you very much. These paper ones. Yeah, we can sign those after. going to do one here. Ancestry.com is going to have a lot of
certain Kathy here. Thanks again, Karen. We appreciate you coming. Uh, next on next on our agenda, we'll sign the paper copies afterwards, Kathy, as I will take care of that. Okay.
Uh, next on our agenda is a continuing discussion on our local comprehensive plan development. Um, this evening we're going to review and discuss um some uh recent products we've received from the BSC group. um as
uh the draft capital infrastructure and facilities section which we did not submit um with the original submission to the Cape Cod Commission. Um so you have that in your packets this evening. Um I had a chance to look at that uh
earlier and have made some suggestions. Um so I think that what they're what they see what the planning board is seeing now may include some of my suggestions. Kathy. Okay. Um and secondly, uh Union Studios Horsely Whitten in our packet, uh we have their
report on mixeduse development, including the results of panel discussions and review of our VCOD zoning provisions and recommendations. And then finally, Kathy got word with regard to this special town meeting, and we have a schedule that we'd like to
review. So Kathy, I'll turn it over to you now. Sure. Sure. I think um I know Jeff's on, but I think he's kind of going to be kind of listening and and take keeping track of all of our comments here. Um so we did work on together um the capital infrastructure and facility section. And I think I just
want to emphasize and that's in your packet um that these are largecale capital facility and infrastructure projects specifically to accommodate anticipated future growth and development. So there's a lot of capital projects that are not large or do not necessarily are required. They're nice to haves and they're important to our
community for other reasons, but they're not um needed for future growth. Um so we have included here a very brief overview of Yarmas municipal budget. I think there's some people out there who probably don't understand what our budget's made up of and that we have four enterprise funds and that they kind of pay for themselves. Um so the brief
summary there and then just kind of an overview of the town's capital improvement plan. Uh and then the capital budget committee and what they kind of do. uh when we did our stakeholder interviews they had came up with some key issues that the capital budget committee had identified. So those were really came from them. So we kind of highlighted that that's coming
from them regarding you know how do we fund the remaining se um sections of the municipal wastewater program making sure that we have the 10-year capital for both our municipal and school buildings. Um needing a 10-year plan uh for rolling stock and then also long range um we
need to address in some fashion our long range systematic approach to addressing shoreline protection and coastal infrastructure. Those are usually pretty big projects that cost big bucks but don't necessarily come with any particular grants associated with it. And they're also concerned about other unknowns that may result in capital improvement projects for the town. You
know, whether it's um increased regulations like we saw when the POS um maximum contaminant level kept going down all of a sudden we found that wells that were fine before now at the lower level now be required to have treatment. And then also we don't really know what the severity of sea level rise and
climate change may have and how that might impact our infrastructure needs as well. And then the last comment from the capital budget was just getting you know regular maintenance into the annual budget um in order to um avoiding things becoming so bad that we now are required
to become a capital improvement project versus a general maintenance project. Um, one of the sections that's required in the um, from the uh, Cape Cod Commission's LCP guidelines was that we needed to include some type of section that talks about our existing infrastructure systems and our
challenges. Um, this is just an overview of the major systems. It might be a little um, a little light. You might want to flush this out a little bit. I'd be interested to see what you guys had to say, but Joanne and I had talked about some of the major systems that are here. We might want to specifically mention the library and buildings because that's a new capital project,
not just a um building assessments and maintenance. And then just talking about some of the recent actions that have been related uh to capital improvement. Talking about those five facility condition assessments that were done on town hall, senior center, fire stations one and two, and then the um DNR um and
recreation building on route 28. That was a great report. They all identified a bunch of issues. Now we're going to start pecking away at all of that. And I think um capital budget will start seeing it in this round some improvements on some of these buildings in order to um to to address that those
assessments. And of course we're also working on the recreation division is working on the recreation capital assessment and field study that they're doing. So ultimately down the line that'll probably result in some type of capital projects uh as well as the schools also working on their five and 10 year capital plan. And then just kind
of giving a shout out to the whole capital improvement guidance document that has really streamlined the entire process that has really um made a significant difference I think in moving forward with our capital improvement projects. And then the kind of the brief introduction into the actual table that's following this again highlighting
that these are major infrastructure projects and they're specifically related to allowing us to do growth and redevelopment. Um I did want to highlight that we do have some very specific ongoing studies um that are going to probably result in future capital needs. As I mentioned there's that way to water assessment that's
being done. There's also being a stud study done on Long Pond about the water quality there. We have the Madak Keys utilization project. We also have that um coastal flooding and sea level rise study south of Route 28 that'll probably identify some road projects that we need to address. We have some potential land
acquisitions in the hopper. And then of course that recreation uh assessment. And then and when Joe and Joanne and I were talking um she kind of wanted to emphasize some of the historical projects as well. Some of the um that may not necessarily be town projects but
are are important for our community. Um and some of these are related to preserving our history whether it's like restoring our historic churches such as the South Armouth United Methodist Church or the Quaker meeting house and and you know historic interpretive signage and then restoring all the historic markers. Um, and then just kind of emphasizing that although there's a
lot of um, things that help our community and are very important to our community, we're not including everything in the kitchen sink in the in the capital improvement project. So, I don't know if anyone had any questions on that before we get into the table at all or
any any uh comments or questions? Yeah, I mean the board Mr. Smith. Yeah, Madam Chair. I mean, just as you know, I'm on the capital budget committee and, you know, this is, I think, a great outline and, you know, a great presentation of what we're trying to get done. There's,
you know, from a capital budget standpoint, every year there's far more requests than than what we can handle. Um, so it is trying to prioritize what needs to be done and how can we try from a capital standpoint for the town get out in front of it. And I think it's well laid out here. Uh, you know, you
you touched on some of the major issues. You know, coastal res resiliency certainly is a huge issue. This who knows where the numbers are going to end up there. As you touched on, you know, what's it going to take to make this town more resilient than we currently
are? I can't even begin to tell you, but I know that sea level rise is a real thing and we're, you know, we're going to have a problem here someday and how do we get out in front of it? So, we've tried this year with Bill's help and he's been a tremendous leader in helping
us head down the right path of trying to look 10 years out in 10ear increments because I think if you look further than that, you're just going to go crazy. You're just going to be chasing your tail. Um, you know, but looking at just some of the stuff you've highlighted here, you know, from the building standpoint, the library, that whole, you
know, trying to get a library that's more modern and potentially one central library for the town, I think it'd be a huge improvement. Um, rather than the, you know, West German South, that's my opinion. Other people may think something different. The fire station on
Old Main Street, that's already in a flood plane and it's a 50, 60, 70 year old building. there's, you know, there's a problem with having a one of our key stations in the location that it's at. So, that at some point is going to need to be addressed. These are all huge
issues and and I'm glad to see that they're pointed out here. But, I guess what I really wanted to point out that this is taking a look at a 10-year snapshot from a capital plan. We really can't look further than that. Who knows where funding is going to be? Who knows where free cash is going to be? Who
knows what what's going to happen? So, it it really I think it's well laid out and I appreciate the the comments and the changes that you made. I think the key for tonight is as Joanne mentioned, we submitted the draft of
basically all the other sections or most of the other sections to the Cape Cod Commission on June 18th, but we kept this one out because we wanted to work on it and run it by you. So, the goal here is to make any edits, identify any edits that need to be made so that we can submit this to the commission as soon as possible. Um the the one thing
that I did find when I was looking at other um communities and how they did it in their LCP, sometimes they would have like a capital improvements action items. We have included our capital within the areas of the different
elements within the plan. I like it that way because it it it identifies very clearly that this is related to this and this is related to that. I don't know if the commission is going to say no, we want to have a specific action item for that, but right now we're including it um within the various sections u which I think works better for us I think that
so did you want to so again just echoing what Kathy just mentioned the expectation the outcome for tonight that she needs from us is any um adjustments or edits to this particular document so
that we can send this off in draft um in draft to the Cape Cod Commission will have opportunities to see this as well as the public to see it. Um and and uh um so we we just that's kind of the what we need to be able to do is green light
this for Kathy tonight. So any specific comments you have on adjustments at its changes or things that might be missing um uh would be welcome. And like Joanne says, we got another shot at this. This is really just are we doing it right? Is this the format that you're looking for?
because when Jeff and I met um with the with the commission, they said this can be somewhat of a tricky section that they've identified for other communities. So, are we on the right track? Um so, that would be good to kind of just know that where we stand even if we're editing adding something. Uh the good news and the bad news is that we
are making a lot of progress. So, we have to keep editing the document as we're going along because progress is being made on a lot of things. I guess madam chair I'll jump in again and say that from a standpoint of the document itself I mean you've outlined
all the major c I mean the list is you know the capital list that we saw last year was vastly larger than this but as you touched on there was a lot of small items that really don't belong on this list. I think
you've put the major stuff on it. I think the layout is easy and understandable. I I'm 100% in favor of leaving it as is and seeing if the commission kicks it back and saying, "Hey, change this, change that." But I I can't believe that the way this is laid
out and spelled out, I'd see them making a lot of changes. They're very they want to work with the communities. They're not trying to push anything on us, but they just want to make sure that we're covering everything that they need. And that's kind of why I went back to the template to make sure that we were hitting all of the things that they had identified under that
section. H how are the priority items in terms of years? Who decides that? That's a good question. Um and that's a question I kind of have for the commission because um other communities kind of say priority two years now. Is that to the start? Can there be a range from when we think we're going to start it and when
we're going to finish it. So that I think is probably something that needs more thought as a community, but that's not something that necessarily the commission is going to tell us. You have to do it within a certain time period. that this is kind of us kind of BSC group and myself kind of identifying you know what we think might
be the time frame for for some of these but I think we do need to get some more clarity on what that means from the commission. Yeah. Yeah. And I'm not sure Ky there is a lot of clarity right now as far as because the priority right now at the moment is wastewater. That's the that is the priority and you know very
candidly it's hugely consuming. you know, the the ticket price for a sewage system in the town as you can see is a huge huge number. So to you know to just jump in and answer Peter that I think the priority if you to put it you have
it laid out and it happens to be the first item on your list because I truly believe it's the number one thing that is consuming the town right now and not consuming but what I mean by is getting it done and getting this first phases done before we can move on to the next one. I think that's one of the other
things that we need to look at is the targeted action plan. Um I think that needs to be literally a little bit more targeted. I think basically um the table kind of includes every item that we had. We need to prioritize those as far as what we think the action items are and importance
level as we go through and then kind of probably summarizing the idea. And if people wanted to go back and find out exactly what we're talking about, they can look at the action item that's detailed uh within the plan. But the actual table of the targeted I'd like to get that down a little bit a little bit more because what that's going to do is
say complete phase one wastewater with identification of effluent and then you could say how many years that's going to be who's responsible for it you know in more of a general in a general fashion right because it's like 23 pages right now so but because how will this actually as a document age in terms of
time because the LCP we're not going to do this again for another how many years so will this document become outdated more quickly in terms of the years and the times and the priorities. What needs to happen is there's going to need to be some monitoring, benchmarking and and
revisiting this on an annual basis. Uh and probably I'm sure the select board also will probably want us to come back to them and and kind of say how are we doing on some of that? Maybe we need to modify some of the tables in order to update them as things are getting done or not getting done. And like Ken says, there's stuff that's gonna we're not
even thinking of even right now that might pop up in five years from now, two years from now. We just don't know. You have no idea. This is stuff that's in in front of us right now that we do know. We know at some point we need an elementary school with, you know, Emmy Small. That's that's a given. What's the
lifespan left in that school? I can't tell you that. I mean, I I think looking at what's here in front of us, it is a 10-year document. It really is. And it's going to have to be looked at during that 10 years. And then where do we go after 10 years? Some of it will be completed and some of it won't, you
know, so and we'll complete other things that aren't even on here. That's right. The one thing in here that just jumps out at me is, you know, the drinking water supply as being part of it and it's currently not funded and the priority is 3 to five years. So, it just seems seems as though that should be
maybe more important. I mean, Ken brings up the school, but at least the school says within five years. So, I did and that's tied to funding and everything else. But I mean I don't understand why the drinking water supply is not right now we have enough but in and the time
frame can vary. I don't know the answers to all those questions. So I sent an email to Lori Visala the water wastewater superintendent identifying that we have have concerns about this. We have 750,000 gallons per day uh of new growth allocated in the sewer system. What do we have in the in the
existing uh water system? uh and if it's getting close, what are we doing in order to see what we can do to to allow for that growth that we have identified in the sewer system and match it with the water system. She's she's been away, so I haven't heard back from her. Um I mean, there's obviously there's going to be a greater need for water if we use
$750,000 outgoing. That's got to be double triple incoming, right? Incoming. So in terms of what it's all average daily flows but um I I thought our our gross daily was like over four million gallons 3.54
million gallons per day for all eight phases the average day for the for the wastewater average day for wastewater. Yes. Well that's that number is annualized because that you know the numbers in the summer are vastly different than they are in
the winter. So Right. And that I think I don't know what the multiplier factor is, but there you know it's probably twice for max day and like four more for peak for peak day. Um the water system obviously you know what can we pump right now and then we have
our water storage tanks that kind of help with some of those peaks and during the day and that type of thing. So this is something I need more information from Lauri on in order to to identify that. But I did notice there was nothing in capital improvement for the next 10 years related to new wells or even uh
well redevelopment or anything like that to improve and increase output. So that that is more information is needed and I do know you know that capital budget met with Lori during the process this year and you're right there isn't a you know there isn't a funding for it. the
concern, you know, with the discussion as I took it really wasn't an issue on that we're going to run out of water if the town continues to to grow. It's more about, as you were touching on the well infrastructure system, the water piping system, everything that brings the water
out of the ground and gets it to us. Um, that really is the goal of improving that. There's plans in place right now to improve the monitoring system that's within the water system right now to know what wells are working properly, what aren't. Right now, it's a lot of is
done manually and they're trying to get ahead of all that. So, there isn't any number because there's a lot of numbers being put together and I know that's one of the things that we're going to see this fall um from capital budgets. Matter of fact, we're having our first meeting this coming Monday to try and
get out in front of it. Uh, we already have our schedule laid out from next Monday until December 31st. Starting September 1, we're going to be meeting every Monday right to the end of the year. Wow. Yeah. And you're staying on capital budget,
Ken? What's that? Does that mean you're staying on capital budget? Well, I think I was told to stay on until this year. So, but that but that is an enterprise fund. So, they do have they do have reserves. They do have a little bit of money. I'm glad you mentioned that because it is an
enterprise fund, but the one thing that we do know is there will not be enough money in the enterprise fund to do everything that needs to be done to the water system in the town of Ymer. Just so that's out there. What the number is, I don't even want to venture a guess.
Even though they raised the water weights, we still have very very reasonable water. Extremely reasonable compared to some other towns. Um, any other any other comments on the again for Kathy's purposes here, we want to try to make sure the capital piece is
something we're okay to send along in draft. Do you need a motion, Julian? Just we just need a general consensus of the board. I'm okay with it. Uh, I mean, if there's things you want to move around in terms of um the table and
priorities, we certainly can do that. Um, but From my perspective, I think this is this is a good start and it's going to change anyway. Yeah. With water first. That's the important piece. Um,
okay. Everyone, could I just um Okay with that. I don't know if you can hear me. I just have one quick comment for I want to thank Kathy for for helping put this together. And just one observation about the priority list. And I think this is more for when we when we release this for the public comment and and ultimately when we get to town meeting,
you know, they we're setting a priority on some of these projects, but I think it doesn't have to go in for tomorrow to get this to the Cape Cod Commission. But I do think something a sentence in there to say that the priorities may shift over time because if for example there
was you know a large uh amount of federal funding made available for POS treatment or or water quality treatment you know those types of projects if there's funding available might move up in a faster timeline. Um, but just kind of creating that that flexibility within
this, you know, cuz you're going to get people at town meeting who might really look at the priority level and it's not absolute set in stone. There there has to be some flexibility in this um to allow for for changes or funding or or opportunities that might raise up a
project faster than it was charted out here. So, like I said, I don't think it needs to go into the draft for for getting it into the commission, but I do think just creating that that observation, the little bit of flexibility in this document to to let people kind of know that that might shift a little bit. But but but I think
the the important point that Peter has made is we need to define what that what that word means on this chart. We Yeah, we need to we need to come to some consensus on what we think that means. um and and and be able to articulate
that as we go forward. And and Madam Chair, just based on what Jeff mentioned, I'd actually even put a little stronger say the priorities will shift over time based on conditions, whatever. We can't predict what's going to happen in 5 10 years. I mean, he's right with the word may, but I'd
actually like to see it a little stronger. Yeah. Um, to me, a a natural important, you know, high priority would be a contract that's already awarded that's a six-year contract, right? That clearly is an that's a no-brainer. Um, or one that's
out to bid. Um, one that's in the in someone's dreams, well, less so. Uh but that's I think what what would be helpful to to so that we all agree and and the town um agrees what that what that column means. What do we
what do we define that as? Maybe it's not a priority column. Maybe it's more of a time frame column. I don't Oh, there you go. Is this is this format the commission format, Kath, or is this ours? I think they say priority um that they're looking for, but I can
look at it and we can change it. We can say what we think it needs to be. So what what was your suggestion? I I mean it's more of a time frame. It's more of a it it really it doesn't identify what's a priority or not. It just 3 to 5 years on water supply. I mean
that doesn't really say if it's a priority or not. Is it a priority in three years from now or four years from now or five years from now? I think it's priority and I think that's where the targeted action plan would would help dubtail some of this. I think you maybe the structure of this chart we once we
figure out how we want to treat the the targeted action plan and we expect to get some feedback from the KP commission on that you know that might help define a timeline or a priority for this for this chart as well. Yeah. The commission re if I recall is low, medium and high.
Right. That's right. It is. Um so why don't we adjust the t the header here to time frame Peter? Is that what you're thinking? I that was first thing. I mean that's I don't Is it a priority? Yeah, I think that's a good idea. Jeeoff, that's okay with you.
I think that would be okay with me. And Kathy's been working on this, too. So, if we can change that header, you know, and then submit it to the commission. I think that would be fine. Okay, great. Any any other any other specific comments on this? Okay, so we have
something that's good to go. Okay, great. I think just briefly um you can talk about the schedule. Uh sure. So Bob right now did talk to the select board about um special town meeting and they're going to do it. I think they
haven't formally voted but seems very favorable that they'll do it on November 17th. Uh which is nice because it gives us a couple extra weeks than what we had originally been thinking. So I've included in your packets kind of trying to get an idea of where we stand with regard to the schedule. As you mentioned, we sent out the uh the bulk
of the draft of the LCP to the Cape Cod Commission on June 18th. We've got a good handle on uh the uh capital. We I'll make those few minor edits and send that out tomorrow. Um but on July 9th, we've asked the commission to provide their comments to us and they've kind of said made it sound like they were going
to be able to do that. And this is where things get a little dicey, a little bit tight is um you know, I don't we don't really know how many comments the commission's going to have. If they have, oh, it looks really good. We just want this little here and this. we're probably in in pretty good condition to go out um you know to meet on the 16th.
Have a good idea at our regular meeting of whether we feel good about going out for our 30-day public comment period. Right now it's tentatively shown as being from July 18th to August 18th with us uh going to the select board in between there on their August 5th meeting. Um I just put in our
continuously put in our regular meetings with an idea what we might want to talk about. Obviously, we also have I've included in here all the discussions that we'd have to do on our zoning amendments, which we haven't even gotten really uh teeth into quite yet. Um, so I've I've included those conversations
in here. So, um, and I've I've given a little bit of flexibility with regard to um when we're going to meet be meeting um to review the LCB public comments. And again, we don't know how many public comments are going to be provided. It could be something very simple to do. So, I have
a little extra week there either on August 20th or on August 27th. You mean to be in the planning board? Okay. Sometimes people come in wandering in and they really want Fincom or they want somebody else. Yeah, for you. That's excellent. We're just air
conditioning. It actually feels like it's not even on. I know. Um I can I can adjust that. September 3rd, you know, uh we're basically hoping that we can have the uh public hearing uh for the LCP on September 10th. It gives us a little bit more time and then um we need our
warrant language, draft warrant language um by the 12th of September. Um the 17th, we're hoping to have the public hearing on the zoning amendments then. So, we're going to be very busy. And then um they need the final draft of the warrant is needs to be submitted by the
30th. And then the big October 21st is um the latest date with which we could present our zoning amendments to the select board as well as they may want to meet with us earlier on the LCP. But that would be the last date that we could meet with them um because then they need to um approve the warrant that night and and um and then special time
meeting would be on the 17th and then we could meet in December and see what we need to do to move it forward with getting it to the commission for their certification because there's another public hearing um from the commission as well. So just busy.
Um so this based on the schedule, Kathy, the select board will see a draft August 5th and then the next time they'll see something would be October. Yeah, I think it'll be sometime in
between there. In all honesty, I'm just saying that's the last date that we could do the um Yeah. When when are they meeting? They meet Oh, I don't have it right here. Oh, no. Here I have it here. Yeah, they meet on the the select board
meets on the 23rd of September. They meet on October 7th. So, any of those meetings would work. I would prefer to get it in earlier and just get the zoning for the 21st. Okay. Any any questions on the schedule?
No. Okay. Um I think we I know we wanted to move um that I we're going to pick up with um the BSC group, right? And with I think
we're we're done. I come the LCP. I did include in your packets the full uh copy of what was submitted to the um Cape Cod Commission. Feel free to review it. I am going to go through it with a fine tooth comb. I know that Jeff is going to be looking at it and his crew as well. Um, and I've also asked them to start
working up a list of the maps and the graphics and things that that would be included because we need to continue working on it even though we don't have the kind hoping that we're fine with the Cape Cod Commission because we can't wait to get their comments and then move forward from there because there's a lot more things that need to be done. um in
in that regard. Um I mean I did start taking a look at the um the matrix uh because it's kind of the first time we've se seen this. Um how what kind of c what kind of calendar would you like on uh comments and edits and changes to
that? um how how quickly would you that you know most of it we've seen the the the um the word portion but I think the the matrix part is is relatively new and I've already gone through it and I have some comments but just wondering what time frame are you looking at for that?
Um maybe we can Jeff chime in as well. That's kind of what I was talking about. I think it it's 23 pages and we need to do something to get this more targeted. I think because I remember when we met with the commission that they were really talking about um
these are your targeted action. We have great actions, but I don't know whether it's just not a verbatim copying of those action items, but something small smaller, maybe we're condensing them in a slightly different way. Um and then then it becomes, you know, the prioritization. I think most of those
things that are on the list quite frankly are high. If they're super low then they're probably not high. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know if Jeff has anything um with regard to it to a timeline but probably if you have any ideas with regard to prioritization because the ideas are still there, the action items
are still there, right? Um I think there can be some, you know, my read of it is there can be certainly some condensation of the language. Um I know that we just kind of ripped what we had and threw it in here. Um, and there's I think there's some there's some language that can
definitely be condensed. Um, but I I do have a question in terms of the the submission um and how this is organized on the matrix if the action item under a goal is action one. Does that make it the most important?
I think that's the insinuation. So that's why I'm wondering whether we might want to look at that as putting them in this particular order. So this is I was going to jump in real quick because I I think and I think getting like Kathy said getting ideas or making
thinking about how you would prioritize them. I I personally am thinking that it would be helpful to get the feedback from the Cape Cod Commission before we do too much work because I think there's two elements which is the targeted action plan and then there's the matrix
and the guidance suggests the targeted action plan is the required item. The matrix is kind of the the is all the actions listed in one place. And so I think that one of our options would be to wait to see how the KP pack
commission looks at what we have listed for targeted action plans and tells and if they suggest that you know one or the other needs to be more targeted. What we did just for getting getting the matrix populated is I think what Joanne said is we took all the targeted action items that have already been identified and we
put them into the matrix and we did want to have the conversation about condensing the language which we could do that now if it's a if it's a mirror copy but we didn't want to go too far into editing and changing all the actions kind of until we heard from the
Cape Commission. It's it's an important kind of pivot point for us. Yeah, that's that's I think that's an important point, Jeff. Thank you. Um and we're expecting July 9thish that that week to hear from them. Okay. So, we'll wait to
hear from them on um on that. Um uh and I only asked the question about um again I know there's a column for priority on this low, medium, high on the matrix. Um but I was just curious as
to whether the the listing of the actual action items also sets a priority. Um because as an example on the very first page on uh water resources waste management the rack is the number one. I
rack for me would be the last. I think when we had when we met with the select board, I think that was kind of their general feeling is what's most important comes kind of first. Um these these were kind of put in what are the ideas and we got them all down. But I do agree with you
and I almost moved that one around. I think we we as the planning board should decide what the priorities we think in the order and then what does public say during the public comment period and and kind of move things around. I think the insinuation is that the order matters
even though it may not per se. It could change tomorrow. I mean, we might think it's important today, right? But as you've said, as M. Ken Smith has said, it could all change tomorrow, right? Um,
so, okay. Um, so we'll wait to hear from the commission on that one. Okay. Um, should we move on to Union Studios and Horsely Whitten?
Good evening everybody. Hi there. How you doing? Doing well. Excuse me. We're in air. We're in air conditioned spaces so we're doing just fine. We should be too. Thank you.
All right, Kathy, do you want us to jump right in? Uh, Kathy's adjusting our air conditioning. She'll be right with you. All right. She's turning it on. That's a good idea. Hopefully we're having a little bit of technical reviews, but um hopefully you can see the slides now and
you'll just direct me to move through them as we did before. Yeah, we can see them. Okay. Excellent. So, have at it. All right. Well, great. Hey, good evening everybody. Uh, as a reminder, my name is Jeremy Lake with Union Studio. Uh, I'm joined tonight by my colleague Erica Thornton and Nate Kelly from
Horsesley Whitten as well. Um, Nate was with us last time. You couldn't see him. You couldn't get connected, but he was listening in and he's going to be a big part of the conversation tonight. So, I'm glad he was able to get patched in appropriately. So, I'm just going to do a kind of a quick recap of where we are, what we've been working on, and then I'm really going to pass it off to the two
of them to kind of walk you guys through the the bulk of the content that we want to talk about tonight. So Kathy, you want to go ahead to the next slide? Um, again, as a reminder, I think our real point of emphasis emphasis here is the village center overlay district. Uh, that's what we've been discussing so far
and what we've been really really diving into. If I can go ahead to the next slide. As a reminder of our schedule, it's been a fairly quick effort. Um, we kicked off back in late April. Um, and tonight is our sort of final meeting with you guys. We are intended to sort of wrap up our
piece of this work by the end of the month, which is Monday. Um, so, you know, based on what we talk about here tonight, we'll kind of wrap up everything we've been working on in a final report, get that submitted, and hopefully that te's you guys up for all these important next steps that you're talking through. Go ahead to the next
slide. Um, and just as a reminder when we were in front of you guys two weeks ago, you know, I think that the bulk of what we talked through were these three sort of schemes or scenarios or, you know, yield studies just to kind of give you some visualizations of some of the things that we were talking about. And as you'll recall, we looked at these
generic sites. One was an acre, one was two acres, one was 3 acres, and just played around with some things like was it a corner condition or not? You know, some of some of the other contextual things that might be trying to play off of. Um and in each condition we showed you know a mixeduse strategy typically
commercial on the ground floor along the main drag with some residential units above on the 3acre site. We even included some residential units in the back that didn't have commercial underneath of them. Um and as we described at the time there's a lot of variables that could be at play. Um so
we tried to simplify things just to make it apples to apples and and drew these up assuming you know a typical unit was a thousand square feet because we didn't know what unit types were potentially being proposed. um we didn't really know what the uses were. So we just did sort of generic uh you know averages for some of the
parking requirements. We looked at two per thousand is the sort of retail requirement and we were at 1.25 spaces per residential unit. Again just to help us generate these visualizations, show you what we were seeing or talk start to talk a little bit about some of the challenges we were coming across. Um,
and really I think the the three main things we want to talk through with you guys tonight are one, there was a request that what would these look like if we had parked the residential at two spaces per unit because that's a pressure point that you guys have heard a little bit about. Um, so in in a minute, Eric will kind of walk you
through what those look like. Um, two, we were able to host a what was called a fiscal feasibility panel, which was really just a conversation with a couple of local developers um who have been trying to, you know, work on this very issue in this very this um exact setting. Uh, and they gave us a lot of
sort of great input around the things that they're sort of butting their heads against, challenges they're facing, things that they think that would be useful. And so we're going to try to summarize that conversation for you uh tonight, which Erica is also going to do. Uh, and then I'm going to pass it over to Nate. and Hate's going to walk through, you know, he's he's been
reviewing the zoning. Um, and we have a number of recommendations around again what we've been hearing in our conversations with you guys, what we came up across when we started doing these studies, some of the things we were hearing about when we were meeting with the developers, and again, team you guys up for the sort of next stage, the next efforts that are coming. But again,
really wanted to sort of highlight some some big picture issues that we think are are definitely something you guys should consider. So, um, with that, I think I will pass it off to Erica to walk you guys through the, uh, revised schemes. Great. Thanks, Jeremy. Good evening, everyone.
Thank you. All right. So um first off, so as Jeremy mentioned, I'll walk through just sort of the comparison from the previous schemes that we showed um on June 4th and then looking at the sort of same uh commercial parking ratio, but then increasing the residential parking
ratio to two dwelling units per unit. So on the 1acre site, this is sort of the simplest. Um once you with the Kur Marshall, you end up with 20 spaces left. So you end up only being able to fit um the 10 10 residential units um on
the space. And so this we're showing uh about two to two and a half story uh building. You could do it two and a half with the thousand square feet per unit, but if you know I did put two there because theoretically if you did have some smaller unit sizes, you could probably get that into two stories. Um
and so this brings the density down from where we originally had 16 volume units per acre. Now you're down to 20 10 dwelling units per acre. So it increases your commercial ratio um percentage um to 44% of the site versus 56
residential. So So again, in this particular scheme, it it doesn't look particularly different, but as Eric is highlighting, you lose, you know, six of the 16 units that you would have had because you just need to accommodate that many more parking spaces for the couple units you have. So, this one it looks a little bit
funny cuz they look the same, but you'll see as we get to the other ones there'll be a little bit more of a visual impact. All right, next slide. So, for this site, this is the 2acre site. Um, so this one, it's a it's a little bit different. Um, and so
when you um look at the commercial parking, we have uh 28 spaces. is the way this works out. Now, um I'll I'll backtrack into this first. So, um when we looked at what we did with the all of these scenarios, I wanted to, as Jeremy
mentioned before, we sort of had these assumptions that we made. And so, we kept most of those the same, but also wanted to say, well, let's look at this and make sure we keep into account um the base, you know, zoning that you want to keep that commercial mixeduse frontage on Route 28. So I know some of
the the scenarios we had showed before sort of didn't really take that into account necessarily. So we we've kept that through with all of these studies. So when you do that um we ended up here where you have those two commercial mixeduse buildings on the front um we
end up with 14,000 square ft of commercial which is 28 spaces. And then for the residential units um that puts a little bit of pressure. So you could imagine, yeah, maybe a developer might keep all three buildings along the street and decrease the height, but
really that means less units overall. And so there's a little bit of a pressure there to maintain the height at three stories, which is permitted, uh, which gets the US residential units up to 28 units and you can have your parking that increase the parking where that building has been removed. So you
end up with 56 spaces um, at that two per dwelling unit. So only a slightly less increase than the first scenario in density. So you end up with um instead of 16 dwelling units per acre, you have 14 dwelling units per acre and a fairly
similar percentage um in your ratios from commercial to residential. So it's dropped from 36% commercial to 33 and um 60 instead of 64% residential, you're now at 67. Next slide.
Erica, can I ask just a general question? Uh, the and I I think I I I think I know the answer to this, but I'm I'm not sure. The the parameter there on two units per 1,000 square feet for commercial
is our requirement as per the zoning. Right. It's sort of an average of what we looked at as the requirement, not taking into account that some are some of the parking requirements are based on occupancy and not square footage. Um,
but like restaurants and stuff. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Yep. So that would, you know, increase parking as well potentially, but then you do also have a shared parking provision. So, um, you know, you might end up at three per 10,00 with if shared parking was allowed
to be used or something like that. Um, so it would really depend on the uses and since we didn't really know that in this scenario, that adds a lot to the equation. We we kind of just averaged out what's in the what we saw in the zoning. Okay.
Thank you. Yeah, no problem. Are there any other questions on that? You can go to the next. I actually let me let me just follow up. In your experience, is is two spa two per 10,000 kind of a standard uh for for this kind
of uh commercial uh mixeduse development. I I could jump in and say that that's Thank you, Jeremy. That's relatively low. Um, again, it is so use dependent it's kind of hard to know. But I will say when, you know, when I'm tasked with just doing a generic loading study to
start a project off, I'm usually probably assuming four per thousand as a starting point is what I think is a more sort of conventional average. So, in a way, the two per thousand for the commercial is is ambitious. But again, it it's so use dependent without knowing the uses, it's a little bit tricky. And
I do think that Erica mentioned the provision for shared parking. It's one thing we also couldn't really factor in because we don't really know the uses. But I do think it is fair to assume that there there could be some shared, you know, scenario. So if the two per thousand sounds a little low and
the residential sounds a little low, well, maybe it still kind of works out on average if you, you know, can actually do some amount of shared parking. So um Okay. Thank you, Jeremy. Yep. Kathy, are you able to go back one to the 3acre site? Yeah, Liam has to do
that in the back room. Yeah. Oh, okay. Thank you. Um, okay. So, for the threeacre site, uh, a little bit similar in that we lose, um, buildings on the site like we did with the 2acre. However, with this one, we were able to say, well, let's
keep that, um, still all of the buildings are lining each of the streets in the in the corner. So we have the again we maintained that mixeduse frontage along Route 28 and then we kept the residential buildings lining the the corner street and then the two buildings
in the the back um were removed in order to account for adding more parking for the the residential units. So um for this one we end up going from 17.3 units per acre down to 14. Um so it's and then it's 24% commercial to 76 residential.
So, and it it added about just about 20 um 20 spaces. So, we're at 42 units um to 84 spaces. And the commercial all remained the same in this scenario. So, basically, we lost 10 units as a result of of having to accommodate for
additional parking. Okay. Are there any questions on those three case studies before we move into the fiscal feasibility? I do have a question, Madam Chair. Yeah. Yes. Uh, Mr. Slovac, did did you consider or analyze how this layout might work on a
non corner lot position? Not in this size. No, I I don't think in this scenario, yeah, we weren't tasked with that particularly, but um yeah, I will say yeah, non- corner condition gives you a lot more
flexibility in the sense that you don't have sort of the two edges that you feel as if you should be trying to hold, right? So, I do think it gets easier if you're a non-corner condition to accommodate that much more parking in the back and still, you know, provide the the frontage along the main drag.
But in this example, putting the number of buildings you have on a non-c corner might be more difficult, right? Uh potentially. Yeah, I I think you could still do it. I think what's what's you know, even in our first example there on the left, we had a few buildings that were sort of back off of
the frontage of the roads. So, we're trying to create a little internal green space so they would still feel like they have frontage and things like that. So, you know, I don't think it's impossible to imagine even if this wasn't a corner site, you could still have five buildings. It'd be hard to get all five of them up on the main road potentially. Um, but I still think there's ways you
could be clever about designing that where they would feel not like they were sort of lost in a sea of parking. Thank you. Great. I I will say with regard to this site um this change in terms of the alternate um
just for my personal opinion um I like much better than the original with those two small buildings in the back that were trying to accommodate you know 10 extra residential units and two relatively small buildings. Um the I
don't know. It seems like the layout feels better it with the additional parking the alternate site. I'm I'm curious as to your opinion Erica or Jeremy on that. U do you have a do you have a sense of which one of these you
like better? I mean I think I would suggest Well, I'll give you one thing that we were thinking a little bit about is in this scenario there was an assumption that there might be residential neighbors just behind And I'm sure depending on the neighbor, they might prefer that there are other homes on the other side of that property line versus
cars and headlights. Another resident might say the inverse like I don't want somebody living 20 ft away from me. I'd rather have a parking lot. So I think in that sense it's a little bit agnostic. I do think big picture, you know, I think the hope here is to get that much more housing, you know, built out near. And
so, you know, I don't think it's an unreasonable approach. the one that has those two buildings sort of tucked back in there and that gets us 10 more units which is great but again there's so many variables at play like what what are those units how much parking might those need what are the uses of the commercial spaces you know it's a little hard to
you know to know so so um I don't know that I'd say I prefer one or the other I was glad in both scenarios we were able to do something where at least the buildings were what were up on the frontages and so you don't sort of see a big you know because it's a fairly large parking area that we're showing in the back of this by the time all said and done and So, the fact that either
scenario at least takes care of building up the the edges of the streets, I think was the the real win, right? I I just think that the two smaller standalone buildings uh I would think because they're standalone uh would would cost a fair amount more
than if they had just been somehow 10 or eight or some portion of those units could be incorporated in the other buildings. I mean, I I'm guessing, not knowing that standalone structures automatically cost more than trying to have an extra couple of apartments in a
building. I'm just guessing that that's a good guess. Um, just the plumbing, the access, the, you know, the doors, the windows, the whole thing. You're right. Yeah. The only the only nuance I will add is that there are triggers in the
building code where if they're standalone, maybe they don't require, you know, the same level of sprinklers or, you know, things along those lines. I also say that one of the things we were trying to show, for instance, on the the two larger footprints that are there, those are eight unit buildings on two floors because we were assuming
there were four units per floor. And if you can limit a building to four units per floor, you only need a single egress stair. there's one stair in the middle that feeds all of those units. And the second you add a fifth unit per floor, a sixth unit per floor, now you need two sets of stairs, a corridor that connects
them. So there are these little things that do have an incremental cost to them. I think as a general statement, you are correct that if you can consolidate things into larger footprints, it does generally save. But I will also say there there are these kind of thresholds in the code that you
need to be aware of that may or may not, you know, actually end up saving you that much money in the long run or those smaller buildings if they're maybe just town houses might be a higher value unit. So even though it might cost more, might be offset a bit by what you're actually able to charge or get for rent for those units. So um I I think your
intuition is correct, but I would just say it's more nuanced than that really in the end. Okay. Thank you. So for the um we have the fiscal feasibility panel discussion next. So here we're just I'm just showing some of the questions that were sent to the
panel um prior to and some of the discuss questions and discussion that we had um during the session as well. And so really it was a discussion about what are sort of some of these advantages and disadvantages that come along with financing mixed juice projects. What's
the market like for in Yarmouth or what type of um resident they might see? And what's um what can the town do? What is some of the challenges developers face? What do they what sort of issues do they see when they try to develop in Yarmouth? And what kind of incentives
can the town um provide in order to encourage more mixed use development? Next slide. And so the first set of I've broken these into two slides here. It's a lot of text, but I'll try to just summarize
it. Um, the first discussion I've broken out here is discussing sort of the financing and the market scenarios. Um and so we heard from the just team of developers that we had on the call that mixeduse buildings can be an advantage
if um you have a scenario uh where there's already a market. There's existing buildings that um existing businesses that they can use to leverage um that that the banks can see that as a as a fair favorable scenario. Um but there is something to consider and that we we you know we've probably heard this
a bit but it's not a build it and they will come kind of anymore that um there's a limit to the amount of retail and commercial that the market's going to support. Um, we also heard that senior housing and high-end uh residential are sort of
the current market, but that there's definitely an opportunity as well as probably a very large need to provide workforce housing um and housing to younger professionals. And so there was a lot of discussion about, you know, being able to have an owner who can
maybe rent out uh upper upper units, have residents above them, rent those out to either employees or other tenants or maybe it's younger professionals in town um that wouldn't wouldn't mind who would like to live in those sort of mixeduse properties. Um they also highlighted that uh
financing projects has become very difficult. This may not come as a surprise to many of us, but that the costs to build are just very very high right now. And so developers need to push um they need to get more units on a project to make it viable. Um so some
numbers we heard were 25 25 or more. Um obviously that's was sort of just sort of an estimate that probably depends on a lot of factors sort of the what type of project it is. It's all mixed use or all residential or some variable in between. Um, and they also highlighted
that the market in Yarmouth can be challenging because the rents are lower than other areas that they develop in. So, um, vents that are closer to Boston, places that are served by rail can charge those higher rents that make the project a little bit more viable.
Next slide. Sorry. And so the last portion um that I'll touch on here before handing this over to Nate is the zoning per zoning and permitting processes as well as the development incentives. Um so we heard
that certain things that really make a project more difficult to um finance or to make the costs work. uh as well as to encourage the developer to want to come forward um and present a project and um
be that site and design standards can add cost to the construction. So the you know we heard that banks aren't they're agnostic to the design standards. Um so they don't provide more money just because you're providing a nicer looking building. Um affordability requirements
bring down on that net re uh revenue. They also highlighted that um if you could modify the zoning requirements. Um some of the discussions we've had during these couple of sessions center around this as well. Um having more vibrate uses uh increasing the height, higher
density, not having minimum unit sizes. Um that those requirements actually in the end sort of make it so that there's less units on the project which makes it less feasible. Um and also that if there's some sort of limit to the uses that they can put on the site that could
also make it um not feasible for them. Uh so simplifying the permitting process and making it more predictable. Um we heard that they felt that you know there's and this isn't just unique to Yarmouth but that there's a lot of overlapping stakeholders. There's a lot of committees. There's a lot of steps to
get a project approved and that's quite costly and they're sort of when they don't know the outcome they're not sure of it. are less likely to um present to put forth the project. Um, another issue that came up was the sewer. Um, so there was just sort of a
general request that if the town could clarify when those the completion of the sewer project that would help developers plan. Um, and I will say that some did say that um, you know, you can sort of if you get enough units on the project
that you can disperse the costs of the sewer, the current cost of putting sewer in um, over those units. But I think that it was still highlighted that having that timeline, having that understanding will help owners plan um, for what they can expect. Um, and then lastly, under zoning and
permitting processes, we heard that the current parking pro requirements and this type of mixed use and development of one and a half cases per unit did not seem to be an issue as long as there's not a lot of those larger family unit sizes, the two to threebedroom sizes.
Um, so lastly, the uh development incentives. Uh, some things that were highlighted from the developers that town grants were the sort of the preferred route. um just you know basically handing a a check out for the development which they see as a is you
know they just did want to highlight that's obviously tax revenue back to the town um when it comes back through increased growth. Um but also tax advance incentives and also that potentially the town could look into state grants that might be available. Um
and another incentive would be um it's sort of this is sort of both fun polyfalls under the permitting and incentives but just to create sort of a a a one-pager a guideline to sort of what the steps of the process to get uh to get approved. Uh what types of development is the town looking for? Um
things along that nature. Sort of a quick a quick read that they can get their hands on to understand what that process is. Are there that was a lot of information to to put out there, but if there's any questions? Um, feel free or we can pass
it along to Nate to get to the review of the zoning provisions. Any any questions or or comments? Thank you, Erica. Appreciate that. Um, we'll continue. Great. Thank you. Thanks so much.
All right. Good evening, everybody. Thanks for having me. I'm glad I could uh join see my face, hear my voice tonight. Um and it was great to come back to this work. As you know, this is work that uh we had helped with in this original conception. Um and so we
developed uh I think a fairly detailed uh memorandum uh for you all to sort of go through this piece by piece. Um it was no surprise um you know BSC group did great work and and they looked at this bylaw as well. Uh so there's a lot of common
observations, a lot of common themes and the early observations that the union had as well. So I think we're in many respects we're all um reinforcing a lot of the the issues here as we look at this as outside professionals. And I
think hopefully our our memorandum just went into a little bit more detail on some of these items. And I'm going to go through some of the highlights. it would take quite a long time to go through all of the minutia of this but um you know again you've heard some of this stuff but uh I'll I'll hit the high points
here as we go through. So, uh, relative to permitting, um, this was just mentioned with the developer discussion and others have talked about this. Um, there's the interplay between site planner view and special permit. And one observation I wanted to make um because
I I hear um the way this gets talked about either in in the board discussion last week uh with, you know, folks coming to the microphone or or with the board themselves. Um, this is a minor point, but I think it's important. Um, I think you all know that site plan review
is essentially a byite mechanism. It's just a more robust review. Um, but of course, if you meet the standards of the bylaw, the town is compelled to approve. That is the definition of byite. I think it's just important for you all to maintain this messaging as you're going
through. Uh because a lot of folks are asking for more by right, more by right. Um there are some places where you can offer more by right, but that is included in the site plan interview process. And making sure that the public understands that and applicants, I think, is going to be um important for
you all as you continue. Um more substantively, um you know, I remember we we talked about this issue way back when when we started this about the special permit granting authority. it just wasn't something that the board at the time wanted to take on. But we kind
of feel like this is I I mean I you know I recognize it's sort of a change in operation and that can be scary for a community. That's kind of the way we've always done things. Um but this is this could really move the needle I think is if you switch the special permit
granting authority uh to the planning board. I mean, there's still that focus on making things by rights, but you've strategically provided some areas of relief uh within the bylaw um that keeps folks out of the variance process, which
is important. And if you could combine um a planning board special permit with the site plan in tandem, like not sequentially, um you're taking potentially months off the permitting process. And that's incredibly valuable
to the applicant and it's it's valuable to everybody involved for these goals. So I think that's an important one that we would sort of put at the top of the list. Uh with regard to the use table um you know you heard this from the BSC group uh and and we will we will
reinforce um you know the table has over 50 notes on it today. Um, and that just, you know, as as professionals who write a lot of zoning, if we're sort of stepping into a community for the first time, then that suggests to us that, you know, you're probably due for an
overhaul of your use table. That's a bigger effort and a bigger conversation. Um, but it's something to to think about going forward. Um, another general observation is that, you know, as a lot of you probably know, communities are
getting more uh granular with the way they talk about housing types. So, town homes, duplexes, triplexes, quadplexes, all sorts of different quote unquote missing middle types, cottages. Um and so considering expanding the menu uh
that you have in the use table may be beneficial to help you sort of think through these different options. And then another uh option I noticed here was you know the employee housing um and I think potentially with with you know real reason here good reason um is
fairly tightly restricted certainly in the VCOD it's not allowed or with limited exception but you know as as someone who is a you know I'm the president of a company who is headquartered in Sandwich Mass and um you know we're white collar jobs and
we're struggling to bring people to the Cape because of that housing issue. And so, you know, it's a it's an issue that I see firsthand as an employer. Um, so I think, you know, considering uh revisiting that piece uh is is probably
in everybody's best interest. Next slide, please. Um, looking at the use table specific to the VCOD. Um, so again, there's about 130 uses. Um and we went through this line by line and I identified in the
BCOD there are 38 with at least some subtle difference. Um even it was just a note uh we marked those. Um of the 38 uh there were only 12 differences between VC1 and BC2. So on the sort of western
edge there, western half I should say. And in the eastern half with the VC3 and the VC4, there's only 11 differences. So there was a lot of alignment when you looked at those paired together. Um but overall even you know looking across all
four we really looked at this and thought you know I think you could combine this into a single district. Um there's probably, you know, eight to 10 issues, eight to 10 uh differences that need to be ironed out, whether one area
has a special permit difference or a different note. Uh but we do believe it's feasible. So as you go into this, uh we recommend that you you know, you see that as a real possibility that this could be one overly district. And then a sort of a very singular thing getting
back to that housing uh piece, that housing menu as it were. Um even if you didn't expand the menu, uh we do think that allowing duplexes is something that could um could be added in here as potentially infill opportunities on some
of the edges and some of the smaller uh parcels. Uh that that could be something to think about. Intensity of use. So this is where you get into your dimensions. Um uh there's already been plenty of discussion about the height and you see
the doc the um the diagrams that the union developed. Um those buildings are significantly taller than the 35t limitation uh that you have there. So very attractive uh very um you know
desirable configurations um go through that numeric ceiling. We really do think that you should regulate on story alone if anything. Um as Jeremy has mentioned um the way you uh the way
stories are thought of traditionally is like oh 10 ft per story and it's really not the case especially in these mixeduse buildings where when you go sort of grade to ceiling um like in the interior of that first floor ceiling you
could be talking 15 ft of space right there. if folks really want to create a nice spacious uh commercial environment. So, um I think that that is really a place where you've set some unintended limits that you could easily take away
if you just take away the number. Um I think considering significantly smaller lots would help. Um this could help with pathways to ownership. Um if you were to, for example, consider um cottage type subdivisions. Uh on the financial
side, um this really helps with natural affordability. This helps with financing and it's something boards don't often think about because you're getting behind the curtain on the proforma. Um but again, it could really look like everything you wanted. Um but on the
ground you would have significantly smaller lots and and that would just provide more flexibility um without um creating you know any any sorts of design issues because you have great design uh oversight here. Um reducing
frontage. So of course if you reduce lots of size you got to reduce frontage. Um and then there were some small surgical changes to the setbacks we uh we recommended and a lot of this came from our discussion with union as they started to sketch these things out. You know, you're turning the corner off 28
and all of a sudden the setbacks, you know, sort of jump back and these are small items where we think uh you can make some adjustments and you know, every foot is precious in these environments uh when you're trying to get these projects to pencil out. So I think there's some small modest changes
there on the setbacks that wouldn't have any material detriment and would be beneficial um and provide design flexibility. Next slide please. Um intensity views continued um impervious cover limitations. You know
this this is something that the town I think has been regulating for a very long time. Um, and it and we, you know, this is not a bad standard. Um, but in in these environments, in these sort of mixed use environments, it's almost a
false standard. Like what you should be when you're worried about impervious cover, you're worried about heat impacts, you're worried about storm water runoff, uh you're worried about recharge, like those sorts of things. and regulating the design of storm water
management, regulating the landscaping and the design controls. That's really how we recommend this issue get managed, not with sort of a blunt instrument of just blanket imperous uh cover. And in a very similar sense, the density caps
like this is another one where it is almost sort of a false standard where um density in these environments is really firmly regulated by uh parking um you know market driven parking and your
parking requirements. Um so you know you saw this play out in the sketches. um there were no super alarming densities being proposed in those very desirable uh configurations and the parking was really driving you know the residential
uh density uh in that piece. So, uh, we think that removing density caps would, uh, do nothing but benefit. And then I think the other piece that that Jeremy alluded to is if you did bump up against that density cap, say you were, um, you
were capped at eight units per acre as you are in some of these districts and you could get 12, you know, based on some of these sketches or 14. Um, you know, that's that's a significant hit on the financial side. Um, and it's also
encouraging developers then to make those eight units as big and luxurious as possible. So, they're going to be very expensive to try to sort of cover that gap. Um, mixed use requirements. Um, you know, again, this was a like a really heavily debated discussion back
in 2011 2012. Um, and the the intent of course is to try to make sure that you're getting as much of that commercial as you can. Um, time Back then it was hard to occupy commercial space and it's gotten dramatically more
difficult. Um so we think there are ways you could still call for um commercial along Route 28 um with some you know maybe slighted exceptions from one one uh one situation to another. But we do think that you know potentially uh
removing those numeric requirements relying on design uh to govern that and giving a little more market flexibility um could be beneficial to that. And then one of the sort of the broader questions and I alluded to this with the use table is um comparing the subdists um beyond
use we looked at setbacks building height. So setbacks there were minor differences from one subdist to the next. Building height, no difference. Inclusionary zoning provision. There was a specific difference in the BC2 that I think may no longer be relevant to that
situ that that area. Um Kathy could confirm that for me or or give more background. Uh residential density, we strongly suggest just removing that um for the reasons already discussed. And then the design standards like going through this it really comes down to
light posts and fencing are like the two substantive uh differences in that. And there was a desire that you know it would be a little more human scale on the VC1 VC2 side perhaps a little more intense bigger scale on the VC3 VC4. Um,
but we don't we don't think that that's necessarily um should keep you from thinking about combining these districts. Uh, next slide, please. Uh, parking and loading. Um, so there
has been discussion about increasing the multifamily parking uh to two spaces per unit. Sounds like there's been some history in terms of requesting relief. So you you certainly can do that if you want to stay away from that special
permit. Um but we do not recommend increasing the minimum parking requirements. Leave that gap, leave that flexibility. You know, we talk about in a memorandum. Um there are other forces at work when it comes to parking. Not
only the zoning is a piece of this, but there are the market considerations um where the developer has to answer to the target audience and the lifestyle that they would want. There's the banks and and the the financing stack as well.
So, um a lot of those parties will will want to make sure um that you have enough parking. So, no one's going to underpark. I I really just don't think that that's a major risk for you. Um so I think just allowing that flexibility,
giving them some room um to to play with different options uh with their proform and with their financers and with your regulations is is important. Um I would recommend um significantly softening the loading requirements. Like
right now it's very strict. It's like you must have dedicated space um for for every business I believe is the way it's written. Um and in every mixeduse environment that is successful um far more far more buildings have no
loading than those that do. And you know this is part of doing business. Um they they figure out ways to do this all over the country every day. Trucks show up early. Uh trucks show up late. Uh
delivery services have a wide variety of vehicles, a wide variety of sizes. Uh they can park in the parking area um you know at certain times of the day. Um, so I I think that this is uh this is an area that you can just consider like
significantly relaxing and just asking them to show you where it might happen during site plan review and if it looks reasonable, I think you can move on from that issue. And then a sort of small thing that um Kathy raised and and we agree is that um you know this is kind
of an incremental thing. The parking stall standards now are at 10 feet uh for minimum width and you can reduce that to 9 ft. If developers feel they need 10 depending on who's going to be living there or you know how they best
feel things are going to play out they can do that certainly but giving them that flexibility reducing that um you know by a foot you know over the courses of 50 spaces that adds up. And I this may be lastly here uh the design
standards. Um so we sort of took a step back uh looking at this and kind of one of the first things we we see here is that your design standards haven't been updated in over a decade. Um they still look good. They they still have a lot of
good material in there, but it's probably time for a refresher. And if that is something that were to occur, you could consider pulling the BCOD into this new document, you one of the things that we had to refresh our memory on is like how much teeth, how much weight do
you give these design uh standards? And you you really do give them some some heft. Um so they're not very soft design guidelines. They're pretty they're pretty strong. Um and the way you and the way you review them is pretty strong. So in that regard, I think
you're not really sacrificing much by taking the VCOD uh design standards and moving them into that document and it gives you an opportunity to sort of redo all that um at once. Um and then lastly, you know, I'm just reflecting on the experience we just had talking with developers. Um it
would be good to try to get granular uh with some of these developers and looking at the design standards. We've we've had um you know very candid discussions with developers and other communities and they'll just say it's the lighting I can't deal with the lighting these things are so expensive
these light posts that you're asking for and can you just change that and it'll be great to great to get some of that feedback just to see what people have to say and to see how that adds to their expenses uh going forward and see if you want to make changes uh based on those recommendations.
I think that may be our last slide. Yes, it is. Yes, it is. That's it. Thank you, Nate. That was uh that was that was really a very good summary. Uh I also uh just as an opening comment, I want to
thank you and the uh and the team um for giving me a tutorial on VCODS. uh you know, we only we only uh dive into them when something comes in front of us. Um but your um your evaluation of
where they're similar and where they're not um made me go back to my zoning bylaw and actually look at it. Uh and so I appreciate the opportunity to do that. Um thank you. and and Kathy has always
been a a fan of trying to take a broader look at these at our bylaw and trying to streamline it a little bit. And so I I find your comments to be to be very helpful and we appreciate your uh evaluation. Um but I'd like to open it
up to questions and comments. Um uh Kathy, I didn't know if you had any to start with or we'll just go to the board members, whatever you prefer. No, I think this is the, you know, the initial discussions. Obviously, there's a lot of things that being presented here that would require us to have a lot of
conversations with our community uh and hopefully move some some of these suggestions forward, but there needs to be more detailed discussion about it. But it's a very very good start. Madam Chair, I'll just jump Mr. Smith. Yes. And also, thank you because I did
the same thing you did. I I went and last, you know, today at work, I actually spent a little time going through the the book and seen the VCOD information and bylaws and saying, "Holy smokes, there is a a lot there and there's a lot that's the same
and there's such little idiosyncrasy differences in some of them that I do think this really should be taken as an eye openening standpoint to say, you know what, let's take a good hard look at it. There's a lot of material and I think there's going to take a, you know, a lot to go through it. Um, you know, I think the
number one factor driving what we're trying to do here is projects that come in front of us is they really have to be fiscally able to get the project done. That's really what's going to drive stuff happening. And if we can take down some of the roadblocks to make it happen, I think we should take a good
hard look at it. Peter. Yeah, I I will in support of our current zoning bylaws. As a commercial appraiser, I will say that I find our detailed use section very helpful if I can go there and and not have to question whether or not what I'm appraising is allowed by right or not.
So, um but I understand it is lengthy. So, um that was pretty much the only comment I was going to have. Yeah. Um, I would I would like to make the the comment that um under you've mentioned a
couple of times uh Nate that um the recommendation that we allow two family homes in the VCOD. I'm not sure if you know this, but uh and you probably do, but the public may not know. uh the planning board put forth a uh an
amendment several years ago to do just that and uh in in a particular VCOD two was it two Kathy I forget it was all of them oh it was all of them it was all of them to allow duplexes uh two families and um the board the select board at the
time and one member in particular was just adamantly opposed to it and so we pulled it and we did not go forward with it even though we had some community support for it. So, I look forward to putting that back on the table for something for us to do either
incrementally or as part of a broader review of um of uh your recommendations as we go forward. Um that was quite frankly a disappointment for us. Um we had had developers come forward who had indicated an interest that this would
work for them um because of building code. Apparently, there are different building codes when it's only a two family. Um, and uh, so I I appreciate the fact that that is front and center in in in your in your report. Um,
uh, what can I add to that? Certainly. I I heard your point, Nate, and and you had mentioned that we have a lot of small parcels and adding duplexes by right might um allow some infill or allow th that use to to sort of fill some of those spaces. I mean, small
parcels is really all Route 28. I don't know what the percentage is, but it's it's pretty much there if you're if you're everything's under an acre pretty much, except for the corner lots and a few other lots. And I just wonder how that can age down the line allowing
duplexes by right because there are a lot of properties um again as an appraiser, I was curious. I went back and looked since 2023. I found um 13 commercial property sales in Route 28 and the average lot size was 38
acres. You know, out of those 13 sales 38.38 acres. So, um you know, there was um the little caboose sold and that was 7 acres, but then on Bridge Street um next to the gas station it was 07 acres. So, there's a wide range, but the
average on the 13 was 38. I didn't count um the shopping center sales. Um Hearth and Kettle Plaza. Um Jack bought the um center across from um the um next to where the Cavaliers used to be up at West
and um Cranberry Cranberry Bog Plaza was brought. So I didn't count the larger plazas, but just looking at the smaller owner occupied type properties. So there are a lot of allowing duplexes might open up that for a lot of people. Um, I don't think the density would change. The point of the duplexes was really
what Joanne was talking about was that it was the building code and that with duplexes you didn't need sprinklers, but with anything more than that, you need to to have a sprinkled building and that adds cost to a project and that's why the the developer was hoping to move forward. I don't know whether the
current the new building code um does anything with that with duplexes or not, but that was the impetus to try and do it. The density wouldn't change. So the you'd still be allowed x amount of units per acre. It was just the type of units like they were talking about getting more granular in the types that we're allowing and allowing duplexes. It helps
people with costs because it decreases things like sprinklers. Yeah, you certainly can. You know, it would it could be an opportunity on those smaller lots. I mean, I live in a duplex. I'm sitting in my duplex right now and my lot is 3 acres. It's a sort
of three-story duplex building, very comfortable fit. Um, but I think the other opportunity is, you know, and and like Jeremy's probably seen this type of thing before is when you think back to his sketches is in he may have had a um,
you know, mixeduse concept. He and Erica put some mixed use along Route 28. that back space. You know, they were trying to maximize sort of that true mixeduse feeling, but you know, putting three or four duplexes in that back space is a is
a very affordable way to sort of like fill in that area, transition into residential area, um look great, um provide some natural affordability, um and not have super high parking demand. So like there's there's different ways
to to weave that in there and just sort of like maximize or optimize that that space even in larger parcels. Yeah. I was going to mention if you look at our website you'll find a lot of projects where we are basically designing at multif family densities but with single
family detached or duplex types just in close proximity and with small footprints because that does to Cathy's point mean you can build in the residential code not the the you know the more commercial IVC code. So you're delivering the high density but in types that are more affordable that are also
by the way a little more valuable too. Right? The average person is willing to pay more for a little standalone cottage than they are something that's attached to six other units. So I think that's we're just trying to build in that little bit of flexibility if if there's any any way to allow for that. So was the selectman's disagreement with it
because I I agree with that allowing it as a as a almost an accessory use or or as another use on the property. Um but the selection didn't you made it sound as though as a standalone the only use on the property duplex. They didn't like that. I don't I can't
recall. I thought it Go ahead. It was mostly and this of course goes to a conversation we're just having back in the day. It was mostly design. Um now keep in mind there was a there was a there's a goal in the town for home
ownership. Duplexes say rental. That's number one. and that a lot of people were concerned about introducing a lot of rentals into what is currently a homeowner neighborhood combined with the recommendation that they're talking
about about loosening design standards. That was just a killer to some of the residents saying you're going to double the density and they're going to look hideous. So that was there was a real backlash over it and it was very visceral. Um, and you know, we it wasn't
explained properly. So, if we're going to support duplexes, and they can be very, very nice. There's a lot of duplexes near in my neighborhood that are very, if they're designed properly, um, and look lovely, there's not going to be a backlash to it. But drive down
West Yamoth Road about a quarter of a mile on the right hand side, and there's got to be, I think, six or seven units that are duplexes. That is what they want to avoid. Look at how horrible that it's. not the resident's fault, but they're not maintained. There's parking on the front lawn. There's no green
space. There's, you know, cars all over the place. That's people's idea of duplex, and that shouldn't be their idea of duplex. This was just in the VCOD, but I think what happened at the I think what Susan's referring to is that there
were some, my recollection, there were some members of the board whose vision of duplexes were townhouse road going to the dump, right? were West Yarmouth Road. Whereas we had a developer who had come forward with some preliminary
plans. I think had actually gone to site plan review with development in VCO in a VCOD on Route 28. Mhm. Um and we all at the time the planning board and the public thought this was a a really good
idea and again a single member of the board convinced others from my recollection and they said no and so we couldn't go forward. I think the other thing is we were making a lot of changes to the VCOD but that were going to help the uh Parker River landing project and
we didn't want to get those good basic Yeah. We had to make those changes. Yeah. Yeah. we really needed to make those changes. We didn't necessarily want to um kind of divert the attention or bog it down with with this particular thing knowing that we could bring it back at a future date with more education. That's a very good point,
Kathy. It was linked it was linked to what we absolutely needed wanted to get done. We absolutely needed that for for the Parkers River Landing. But yes, certainly you know in in my experience with real estate to make a change successful it has to be
incremental. These are we have to make small steps. Huge sweeping change in real estate doesn't work. People get overwhelmed with it. You know, density, design, setbacks. So, if we're going to pick up,
you know, a notion and support, let's say we decide to move forward with doing something about with with duplexes, it has to be, I think, in well thought out, incremental, and say this is just a small piece of the real estate picture. this is what we're we're going to examine and and make it work and then
people see success by but but I think advocating huge changes in by right huge changes in design huge changes in you know whether it's going to be duplex or standalone I think is just too overwhelming and and my experience is if you do have a plan pick something in the
plan work it through do it right then you've got you've got one one brick in the wall that that's exactly what we were trying to do with that VCOD. We picked one district on 28 and thought, let's start. Let's start in this one small zoning
district because there was interest. It wasn't the whole town. We weren't saying duplexes everywhere anywhere. And you know, we just didn't have the support of the board, which is unfortunate, but maybe we now will um on some of these changes, which I hope will will be um
important. Um, I did want to raise a a couple of other questions on the report and this goes Peter to your question to Kathy today with regard to minimum size. You had sent her a note. Um, in the in your report um you had mentioned let the
developers propose as many units as they can park because parking will be What do you I'm on uh what page I'm on seven of 13. Seven. And you also recommended removing minimum square footage for unit size.
Um what has been your experience with that in other communities? And I know that Kathy got back to us with um what we have here or what the code I I know I have the piece of paper here somewhere. Kathy same here. I'm like where is the Yeah. Where is that piece of paper?
Peter has it somewhere. Oh, I have it here. Afford affordable standards are different than regular Um but I I'm just curious that recommendation um where have you found that to be um uh you know beneficial in
other in other uh uh projects that you've worked on. Um so so there there's two I think you raised two issues. The density piece and then the unit size. Is that right? Yeah the density not so much. I think we're
done with the the two family duplex thing. But on unit size, unit size, I my memory is not what it used to be. I will admit. So you look at the the color of the hair on top. It was not this
color back in 2012 when we were starting the the VCOD. Um, in my 25 years now of doing this type of work, I think I can only remember one other community
that regulates the regulated bedroom size and I can almost unit size. Um, there were probably, this is a separate issue that you're not dealing with, but I can probably think
of a half a dozen communities in all my experience that regulated bedroom counts. So, they would say, "Oh, we want uh no more than this many studios or or we want this p minimum percent of twobedroom or you
know, that sort of thing." So, they're sort of tampering with the with the market a little bit, but that's sort of a different issue. That's all to say that um it's rare it's it's quite rare to see communities, at least it has been
in my experience, um that regulate the size of a unit. I understand the concern, right? You don't you don't want unlivable units. Um but there's sort of two things
going on. You might think of it as like not a value judgment but like sort of positive negative influences. So like on the on the um you know on on on one end
small units units that that we might find it hard to believe people find attractive are very attractive to a lot of people. M uh people are living in super small units. Um and a lot of these
units are u being fully furnished and decked out and micro designed by the developer. Um so you it's turnkey. You you walk in and there's all your stuff and and there's your units ready. That's sort of an extreme version, but um it is
to say that a lot of folks are very comfortable, especially if they can afford it, um living in a nice small uh a nice small unit. Um and you know again just to sort of reiterate the you know
that what's what's driving this is the parking you know that that is that is really going to sort of um regulate the the number of units and no one's going to finance the bank's not going to finance the the
investors are not going to finance um projects that um you know that that have unlivable unlivable units. You have the added layer of um you know your building
official, your building inspector um looking at these things. There are a lot of other forces at work. Um so you know a lot of times we'll talk about we sort of step back and we say okay what what's where does zoning work best? and
and this is an issue where we just don't feel like zoning really works well. It's not a great place for it. Um we have seen some communities, this can be ownorous, but they've asked for floor plans like what's it going to
look like? Um but again, you know, in Massachusetts, things get a little dicey when a zoning review starts going inside the building. Um like from a legal perspective, you try to stay away from that. you know, you're looking at the exterior, the form, the location, the
light, the the the, you know, the site, uh, in terms of the design. Like that's that's the lane that zoning drives in. And as soon as you're getting into the, uh, the interior of the building, you know, typically in our practice, we we
try to get people to to back off to to have boards back off and let other other issues kind of drive the boat there. Thank you, Nate. Um, any other any other questions? Um, Kathy, are you you're good? No, I'm
I'm good. Great. Um, Nate Nate, thank you so much. Uh, again, uh, I I I appreciate the fact that you um you you somehow made me go back to my zoning bylaw and look at it again. Uh, as a
member of the planning board, I think that's important. You don't read zoning every night for for pleasure. I I should be do I really should be doing that. Um do you have a podcast going that I could I could join in. I can imagine two followers. Uh I I really I really
appreciate your time this evening. Thank you so much. That was great. Thanks. Okay. Could I make just two I just wanted to make two very Yes. two very general statements before we we end up leaving. One is I did want to thank the couple of folks, the couple of developers that
joined us for that fiscal feasibility conversation. Kathy would know who they are if you guys are curious, but I also wanted to share that they were very appreciative of the fact that they were being asked to weigh in on these things and they were very open to continuing to weigh in on these things. And I do think it is a clever way of thinking about, you know, Nate suggested if you're
rewriting your design standards, have a conversation with them to understand what the real pinch points are or the real problematic spot so that you know what you're really trying to address or change. So again, I just wanted to give them sort of a public thank you and and they themselves suggest that they'd be happy to continue these conversations
moving forward. And the other general point I just wanted to state is, you know, I just want to make sure it's clear too that I think the overarching goal here is to try to simplify the regulations, not to get rid of the regulations. You know, we're not trying to suggest, you know, there are no setbacks, there are no coverages, there are no, you know, it's really about
trying to take something that might be ownorous at the moment and make it sort of as simple as possible just to reduce the number of calls Cathy gets to try to clarify something, the number of meetings you have to have with that team to try to get through something in approvals process. It's really about simplification, not sort of opening the
floodgates or suddenly suggesting, you know, everything should have a thousand units built on it. So, I just I did wanted to sort of state that publicly, too. Thank you. Thank you, Jeremy. We we really appreciate your efforts here. Uh your team, Erica, uh as well. Thank you so much for uh helping us along on this
important journey, uh that we're on right now. Uh thanks again. I would also like to thank them, especially considering that we had such a short time frame. They've done an astounding amount of work in a very short period of time and very high quality. So, very much appreciated. Yeah. Thank you so
much. Thank you. Thank you. Great job. All right. Now we got to do something with it. Yeah. Need to finish the LCP people. That's right. Do something with it. That's the first thing to finish. We We got something going here. That's a good thing. Yep. It's great. That's a
good thing. Uh next on our agenda, uh Madaki's update. The only thing I would say is that the um the survey is out and available and it's open through June 30th. Um and that the um muck is going to be having a community workshop
on July 15th. uh it's going to be here at six o'clock in the in the hearing room and also via remote access very similar format uh that as what we had for the January LCP where there'll be a presentation and then there will be some
facilitated questions to kind of hone in on some of looking for some additional information based on some of the survey results that that were received and where else we need to kind of you know get some additional public input on Kathy is a survey on the town website or the madakis go to the madakis
utilization project. It's there. Okay. Yep. And the link should be right there. Okay. Uh, next on our agenda, meeting minutes. Uh, may I have a motion to accept the minutes of June 4th, 2025? Second. All
in favor? I. Great. Thank you. Committee updates. Library building committee. Yes. I'll give you I'll give you I'll give you uh I'll give you an update and we obviously excuse me um from personal observation it was a tremendous amount of work in in
six weeks. I mean we were here all the time uh very very time intensive reviewing proposals reviewing you know credentials for architects but very worthwhile. So that was one observation. Um the second now that it's and of
course the the outcome was that the the Simpson Field across the street has been identified as the preferred site uh for a for a new library. Although I must say the in the public meetings uh that we had and we had multiple and all the all the project meetings were open to the
public and people did come um neighbors did show up. Uh there was still a very strong sentiment though for local libraries and we use the word library people always say my local library not my so there there was um and the sentiment last night was that
at least my observation was that the the new library is almost like a replacement for the south Yamoth and West Yamoth. Um, one of the recommendations from the from the project, we had four recommendations or four pieces of the recommendation was that the board
absolutely give serious consideration to keep West Library open. Uh, that is another whole other conversation what that all means. But, um, from a process point of view, I have to tell you I was I I think the town got cheated. I think
the the the project team itself got cheated. Um, and this is sort of a cautionary tale of what happens when you take other people's money. When you take state money, it comes with a lot of strengths and the ability at least again
I thought there was going to be a lot more analysis about uh not so much the architects because their credentials were well they were well laid out. I thought there was going to be a lot more conversation about the site um because of our long range plan, what we've
talked about, you know, in terms of developing the town, what the town wants. Um so much of that conversation was limited or non-existent because the state didn't allow it. It wasn't it wasn't part of their evaluation criteria. So I was thinking, you know,
thinking several times, gee, that might be great for the state, but is it really good for Yarmouth? Um, and I think some of the other there was there was not there wasn't there was no but I think there was a recognition that maybe if we had done the town had been planning this
and the town was going to pay for it. Um, the conversation I think would have been entirely different. There was a lot of conversation about matakis. Um and and and it it should have been more fruitful I think in my opinion because a lot of people think the library if we're
going to have a civic center that would be a perfect place to put it but because of the time frame the library board had to get this thing done and ready in schematics to the state by December and Madakis isn't even going to be fully developed so we couldn't have that
conversation. Um, I think the town I think it's a loss for the town quite frankly. Um, because I think we should have had that conversation. The the residents should have been able to have a real thoughtful discussion about what would happen if we put the library there, maybe move town hall there. Then
that frees up this space to do something else with the space across the street to do commercial development as opposed to a civic center. That is kind of our long range thinking that we would that we could not have that conversation. Um and
I and I think I think um I think the town was diminished by it. I really think the town should have been able to have a time frame didn't work. They have they have this deadline that they have to meet. Um so much of the criteria on site selection was dictated by the
state. Um and um like so much packing expansion. The expansion discussion I thought was like ludicrous. Uh cuz we talked about not doing anything beyond 10 years. Don't plan on anything beyond 10 years. They wanted expansion space for 25 years from now. Uh several people
got up in the audience and held up their cell phone and said, you know, this is what kids are using now for a library. They're using their phone. Um they use their phone to get all sorts of information. 25 years from now, libraries may be smaller. Uh they may be just doing discs and thumb drives and
all that kind of stuff. They may be smaller. We couldn't have that conversation because the state requirement for this project was you had to have expansion pace in 25 years. Do I think that's realistic? No. And I think it again cut down on a fruitful discussion about sites that we could
have looked at but couldn't because because of that requirement. Um parking again it parking was driven by the size of the building. The size of the building was basically driven by a lot of criteria that the state said if you've got a director it has to have your office. If you've got this you have
to have this kind of space. So the types of space and the the dimensions of the space were a lot of it was was um u an artifact of the state. The state people think this is what the library will look like. Um, and the library board did what
a board should do. I mean, years ago, the libraries, as we all know, were woefully underfunded and they went looking for money because they had to do something and they they got accepted into this loop of getting state funding and um there are a lot of strings of it.
I think it's a cautionary if we're ever going to do something like this again, I think people ought to realize exactly what comes with taking state funding for something a project like this. Uh because what may be great for Yamoth uh the state's going to say no, we we know better and this is what you're going to use our money. This is what your place
is going to look like. Um and and that was I mean we we came to a conclusion I think um I West Yamouth the the uh public hearing a week ago last night this room was filled. They were standing out on the hall. Uh 90% of them were
West Yamoth people uh very dedicated to the library. I think this that Buddha Sluckman really re really um recognized that um you if we really believe in the free village concept that is the anchor of the West Jamoth village uh and I
think the economic opportunity for development is huge. Uh couldn't talk about it because the site was too small. I said something about well we could we could get building close to that if we
did two stories. uh it's not efficient. What's the trade-off between efficiency and maybe developing, you know, really developing a West Yamoth village with huge economic opportunities because that end of 28 is going to come online for us and that's the end that really has
economic development opportunity. Uh so it was a mixed it was a mixed bag that very very hard um very thoughtful. They did we did a tremendous you know a lot of work. Bill Scott was phenomenal guiding us through the whole thing. Uh Judy did a great job as the chair. Um
and I think if we had had more time, honestly, I think that we they we may have even had another public hearing uh to go over some of the findings. Uh but the time schedule was really murderous. Uh and uh but anyway, we presented last
night. They were all in and off we go. Okay. I remember uh I was on the Finn Finn uh FinCom for a long time 20 years ago. The the same conversation about creating a new library came up then and one of the committee members stood up with his Kindle. He goes, "This is a
Kindle. We won't even have libraries in 20 years from now." Oh, you know, and that was here we are. Yeah. Same conversation. Yeah. It's too, you know, as a civic entity. It's too bad the town, you know, we uh you know, these these these grants
tend to you be given to the poor of towns. Um if we had the money, we probably would be fixing because everyone loves South Yamoth. Everyone loves West. We'd be sort of beefing up what we have and retaining the historic and the charm and the and the history of
those two entities because everyone is, you know, upset that South Amethyst is going to go not be a library. At least it will be they there's some movement now to have it as a museum. Someone apparently has come forward and expressed an interest in having a museum. Uh so the building and the sort of the community that's developed down
there will be will be will be retained. Um the the so it it you beware when you take other people's money, but I think that it was so obvious that it wasn't going to be the town's priority. Uh and when the
money came up, the opportunity Um if if we didn't submit the grant proposal for this time, we would have to wait 10 years. Oh yeah. And they struck while the iron was hot. I don't blame them. And I also think the concept of the library has so much changed to being
a place for community actions and meeting places and that that our current buildings couldn't handle that. So there's a tremendous amount of meetings that go on in the library. I mean, some woman in the Stop and Shop that lives in Swan Pond. They have like a crochet
group that meets at the library. Um, yeah, it's a much more a lot of people do I don't know why because I keep seeing Joanne Crowley does this over at the senior center. Why they're doing tax returns in the library when I know you're doing it at the senior center. Um, so yes, you're you're absolutely
right. You're absolutely right. The whole notion of libraries has changed from just to go learn something to community to to creating community which really only enforced the West Dermath idea because that is the center of our camp. So it
was very interesting. It was very interesting. I I just don't think that that we may have ended up in the same place but I wish we had had a better discussion about it. Yeah. Okay. Um any other committee uh reports out? I I do have one quick one. Uh the community
preservation committee did meet uh last week. Um and we laid out our calendar for the coming year in terms of proposals and projects. Um and we'll be that uh I think um the notice for uh project
solicitations will be out soon. So we'll be ramping that up um for the fall. Uh we also had um an executive session with regard to the purchase of property that the town is interested um in acquiring.
I can't disclose where it is or what it is. Um uh but I one of my comments that I made was um with regard to um the the town partnering with CPA funds on the
purchase of of land um and that other sources like free cash um and and perhaps even capital if it's appropriate um and that there there be some kind of partnering and not just a come to the
bank the CPA because we have money for open space to buy it. Um, so we'll see we'll see where all that happens. We're waiting for appraisals and things like that, but we wanted to kind of give a wink and a nod to go forward on it. So,
so that was my meeting last week. Um, board member items, any other individual board member items? Just one thing. Um, last night at the BOS, um, and this may end up, they may come in front of the planning board to give us a presentation. There's a new company in
town going to do, uh, is it fiber optics? That's the stuff they put on the polls. Fiber optics. Uh, in competition with Comcast. Uh, they're just getting organized. They've apparently they've done some work already in the western part of the states. It's called Gateway.
Uh, made a very nice presentation. There it will be competition for for Comcast. Uh they may they may be doing some outreach to the various boards just to come and make presentations and let us know what's going on. Uh but the board the select board was very encouraged to see that we're going to have some
competition uh for um what is that fiber optics? I I don't know anything about that stuff but competition for Comcast. Uh, so that was one that was a that was a I think a brand new information that people had no idea was going on. Okay,
that's great news. Yeah. Uh, that's what everyone said last night. Great news. Yeah. Uh, any anything from you, Kath? In addition, I mean, we went through the special town meeting calendar. Um, are we good? We good on everything else? We're good. So, okay. Uh, our next
meetings are July 2nd. Um, I apologize, Kathy. I I think I sent you a note regarding July 3rd. Oh, for me it's not July 3rd. The meeting is July 2. What you meant? Yeah, it's next week, isn't it? Madam Chair, I thought we had made a
decision about maybe maybe cancing that. Yeah, we did. So that's why I'm raising it. Uh because I think the meeting I say the July 18th, I think I made a mistake. It's July 16th. It's July 16th. And um but I think that's where we're I'm going to we need to start talking about the
zoning changes and start drafting some stuff. And I need to have a little bit of time to coordinate with um other people the the building commissioner as well as the um proponents of some of the changes and their attorneys and stuff so that we can get some language down and and start
moving that forward. So no meeting on July 3rd. That would be great. Okay. Thank you. Yes. Good. Awesome. Nice. that is one week apart because you can't even prep for it and then have it. I mean, and then you got to clean up for it. Um, all right. So, we'll we'll plan
on the 16th then, Kath. Okay, great. 16th. Sorry about that. No worry. Um, may I have a motion to adjurnn? So, move. Second. All in favor? I I All right. Thank you.