AI-generated transcript of Community Development Board 11-18-21

[Alicia Hunt]: So comprehensive plan by its very nature makes recommendations and informed zoning change. We are very aware that there are many things in the city that need or should be probably change in our zoning. At the same time, our zoning hasn't been changed comprehensively since 1965. And in that time, state laws have changed, edits have been made to the zoning ordinance, things have changed, things have gotten a little messy. So the city council decided to engage attorney Mark Bobrowski to in layman's term, clean up recodify the zoning ordinance to bring it in line with the legal statute that we're operating under today. This city council has been working very hard with Attorney Bobowski for over 18 months on this zoning, they have met many, many times in committee of the whole on this. Last month they finished their work, and they voted it out of committee. Legally, the next step is that they must send it to the Community Development Board for a public hearing. And that's what this is here tonight. That's what brings us here. So as Andre said that the Attorney Bobrowski will be presenting the proposed ordinance, and he'll present what it is that the City Council changed in this. Um, we do have the ordinance, um, that we're reviewing online available. Amanda, can you drop that in the chat? Um, and if there's, I should have had you tell me if there's an easy way for those who are watching along on TV, um, to get. To where that is, if people would like the copy of the revised documents, um, there was a press release earlier this week. So I think that's still linked from the city's main webpage. if you can check that while I finish the statement. So it is our preference this evening to keep comments and the focus of this on the changes that have been made and recommended by the city council, that that is the scope at which we are looking at, although the entire ordinance is part of the legal scope of this evening. We do realize that there are a lot of things that are outside the scope of what is being discussed this evening that people want to see change that maybe should be changed. And we do expect to do that in a comprehensive process at the end of the comprehensive plan and our expectation is starting around next summer. However, We do have a staff person on the call tonight whose job it is to collect any comments and thoughts that are not relevant to the changes of the city council, but should be fed back to our comprehensive plan consultants. So we will be capturing those. However, if comments are truly in that vein and not about the changes under consideration this evening, you can email comments to compplan, C-O-M-P-P-L-A-N, at medford-ma.gov. Additionally, we will continue to be having public meetings about the comprehensive plan and looking at changes, looking for changes. We haven't scheduled the next public meeting, but we are anticipating that to be in February or thereabouts. So this work by the city council can really act as a positive bridge for the larger city process that is going to occur with the comprehensive plan. And so we're very excited to have this in a clean, organized manner to start our work next summer. And in the meantime, there are many, many changes to get through this evening. And so I am going to turn this over to Attorney Bobrowski. Attorney Bobrowski, thank you very much for joining us this evening. And I think we're going to give you the floor. I'm sorry, Amanda, can you was there any place that people who are watching on TV can easily follow along?

[Amanda Centrella]: Yes. So if you wanted to for you mean the draft documents. If you wanted to access those you could go on to the city website page for the Medford Community Development Board. And then if you scroll down, there's a heading that should say current filings, and in there there are folders for you know filings that are current with the board and at the very bottom, there is one for zoning recodification documents. and they should all be there.

[Alicia Hunt]: On the city's main webpage, the second news item is public hearing on new proposed zoning ordinance. And on that news item is the links to the summary of the amendments, the table of contents for the proposed ordinance, the draft proposed ordinance, the use table and the dimensional table. All right, Attorney Bobrowski, the floor is yours.

[PQNVkYiOrIU_SPEAKER_12]: Thank you. Good evening to everybody. I've had a wonderful time working with the city council so far and members of staff. And I'm glad to see that this is broadening out a bit now to get some community involvement as well. I've worked in more than a hundred cities and towns in Massachusetts doing this kind of job. Probably my biggest city was Lowell. which I did back in the 90s, but some of your neighbors, Chelsea, Revere, Salem, Fitchburg, New Bedford have all been, Haverhill most recently have been cities I've worked with, but I've also worked in many small towns, medium-sized towns. And I'm always picking up new tricks wherever I go. So hopefully some of those will make light in your, Ordinance as we go through the process, I'll try to explain why it's in there. I think the easiest way for me to do this will be to share screen and to put the ordinance up and scroll through it as Alicia said, section by section, stopping, asking questions, four questions from the board. And then if the board is willing from the audience generally, then moving on to the next section. So if that makes sense, can I share screen?

[Unidentified]: Yes, you should.

[PQNVkYiOrIU_SPEAKER_12]: So this is draft number nine, which is the current draft. And what I'll first do is just give you an overview of the draft and then indicate to you what has changed. This is a very short section, section one is always I call it the handshake of the ordinance here. So the outline here is purpose, authority. This is obviously something that cites the Enabling Act, which is Chapter 40A, but it also cites the Home Rule Amendment, which is Section 89 of the Amendments to the Constitution of the Commonwealth. And then it goes into a bit of detail on scope. It's basically saying that nobody can build anything or use land unless it's in compliance with this document. Its applicability is one which is in contrast to other things. You have to comply with zoning. You also have to comply with general ordinances. You have to comply with wetlands regulations or the health regulations. So this is just something which pursues a goal under chapter 40A and amendments Some of these amendment regulations you had already from 5.1, 1.5.1, 1.5.2, you have these in your existing regulations. And lastly, severability, so that if any part of a section of the ordinance is declared unconstitutional, the rest of the ordinance would be salvaged by principles of severability. When I look at this in the context of your existing ordinance, I don't know if you can see that. I probably have to drop it. Authority is new. Scope is new. And that's it. Those are the new pieces. So this is pretty boilerplate. I generally use the same thing from place to place. It outlines the basics of the zoning power. And there's not a lot of law there. For the most part, it is introductory in nature. I'll pause there and ask if there are any questions.

[Alicia Hunt]: And just before the board jumps in a housekeeping item, I apologize. If anybody would like closed captions, you can click on the CC button that says live transcript at the bottom of your screen to get closed captions.

[Andre Leroux]: Great, thank you. Thank you, attorney Bogrowski. Any questions or comments from members of the board about section one? Hearing none, any questions or comments from members of the public?

[David McKenna]: Just if you could explain section 1.5.2 about when do you have to get an engineer involved for a petition versus when can you just submit a petition?

[Andre Leroux]: And could you just, for the record, state your name and address, please?

[David McKenna]: Yes, David McKenna to Vine Street in Medford.

[PQNVkYiOrIU_SPEAKER_12]: These are existing rules. So whatever the past practice has been, nothing has changed here. This form of petition is exactly as it's worded in the current ordinance. So if somebody on staff has a hands-on experience with this, perhaps you would be the right person to answer.

[Andre Leroux]: Anybody from the city wanna tackle that one? Again, there is no change. I apologize.

[Alicia Hunt]: We were doing a housekeeping thing in the background. I didn't realize. I didn't hear the question. I apologize.

[PQNVkYiOrIU_SPEAKER_12]: The gentleman asks, in 1.5.2, when an engineer in the sixth or seventh line would need to get involved when a petition is submitted?

[Alicia Hunt]: So a registered engineer on behalf of the applicants All of our filings to the building department need to be stamped by a registered engineer, at least if they go as far as site plan review into zoning.

[PQNVkYiOrIU_SPEAKER_12]: I think the answer's in the sentence. If the amendment to the zoning map is subject of the petition.

[Alicia Hunt]: Oh, this is about changing the zoning.

[PQNVkYiOrIU_SPEAKER_12]: Yeah, changing the map.

[Alicia Hunt]: Right, if you're gonna change the map.

[PQNVkYiOrIU_SPEAKER_12]: Yeah, you need a picture at that point.

[Alicia Hunt]: Sorry, my apologies.

[Andre Leroux]: So that would be the threshold. But again, just to emphasize, there's no proposed change to this section. This is existing language.

[PQNVkYiOrIU_SPEAKER_12]: Right, and we've only in fact made one map change in the recodification, and that was a new office two district, quite small, to offer some opportunities that, as Alicia said, have arisen with time.

[Andre Leroux]: Great, thank you. This is the easy stuff. So why don't we move on to section number two?

[PQNVkYiOrIU_SPEAKER_12]: Well, it gets pretty much easy here too, because as I just said, we've only created one new district. It would be here where my cursor is, office two. And the purpose of it would be office R&D. And you'll see the use table and the dimensional table have both been amended to provide for various uses and dimensions in that district. So the map will change. And we're assuming that this provision on the zoning map will have a new iteration. There's also overlay districts and special districts that are established in section nine. The plan development district is a new district. The MUZ is an existing district. And I believe that the boundaries of districts is part of the existing ordinance. And it basically just tells you how to interpret certain features of the map, like where the line separating districts is in the center line of the street. And that's this language here under boundaries of districts. And then split lots, I'm just gonna check with my earlier coded draft. Split lots is... I believe that's new. I believe that's new. Yes, split lots is new. So this just says how to interpret zoning when the lot is divided by a district boundary as established by the ordinance. And then that's 2.5.2. And the second 2.5.1 is when it's partially in and partially outside the city. And these are very boilerplate standard provisions that you would add for split lots.

[Andre Leroux]: So this, again, this section has not very many changes. And I think the plan development district, which was the new special district might be worth some conversation, but why don't we tackle that when we get to section nine, which is where- Yeah, that will come up in section nine. Right, so board members, any questions or comments about section two?

[David Blumberg]: Andre, this is David.

[Andre Leroux]: Yes, please, David.

[David Blumberg]: I just wanted to, I think for the benefit of those who are listening and interested. I just wanted to try to clarify the proposal would add additional. I'm trying to get the right word districts, the office to for instance would be a new district. but the process of identifying where on the map that new district lies or any process of changing the boundaries of the districts would be separate from what we're engaged in currently. I just wanted to, I think that's correct. And I wanted to clarify that for folks, if that is true.

[Alicia Hunt]: So the City Council would submit a map change, but they have not reviewed and submitted a map change to the planning, to the Community Development Board yet.

[David Blumberg]: Okay, so I just wanted to clarify. I think the public would, I imagine one of the issues people would be most interested in is, hey, are the boundaries changing here? And to clarify, that's not what's in front of us.

[PQNVkYiOrIU_SPEAKER_12]: No, you're right. That's the only change that we've made here in the recodification. It's perhaps useful at this point to jump in and say that recodification is usually three things. Number one, bring the ordinance into compliance with existing changes in state law and in case law. Number two, fix internal inconsistencies where the old ordinance said turn left and another provision said turn right, figure out which way to go and eliminate one of them. And the third is add provisions that address glaring omissions. For example, definitions needed to be addressed significantly. And there are other places where there's a hybridization of one of those three things or two of those three things. Go ahead.

[Alicia Hunt]: I didn't say with regarding the map changes, the city council has has had some preliminary discussions during the committee, the whole of where the 02 district would be applied, but they have not reviewed a map change in city council meeting yet and reviewed it to the planning board. That is definitely something that is open for discussion, but there are no other map changes even being contemplated during this recodification.

[David Blumberg]: Andre, this is David. That was just my question for clarification. I appreciate in particular Mark's explanation of what recodification entails. I think that's helpful for people to hear as well.

[Andre Leroux]: Thank you for pointing that out. Any questions or comments from members of the public? Again, if you do unmute yourself, please state your name and address for the record. Okay, hearing none, let's Mark move on to section three.

[PQNVkYiOrIU_SPEAKER_12]: Okay, so section three is use regulations. And the primary feature here of this is a revamped use schedule, table of use regulations that I think is a lot simpler to use than at least the one I tried to use obtained online. But as with map changes, we've tried to minimize changes to the table of uses to those necessary for the reasons you do a recodification changes in state law, new things that we hadn't and couldn't have imagined in 1965, et cetera. So I've changed the abbreviations that are used to something that would make sense to a lay person, board of appeals, CDB, CC for the city council, Well, I have the use table, I'll bring that up next. Before we get to the use table itself, just walk you through some of the provisions for accessory uses, which is section 3.3. These are already in your existing ordinance. And then I added some provisions on accessory uses in all districts. That would be accessory scientific uses. That's mentioned in Chapter 48, Section 9. It's pretty obscure, but a scientist is allowed to, by special permit, work on scientific development or related production in the home. And second, family daycare homes. The default position in the statute is that a family daycare home, there are two types, small and large, can be allowed by default if you do not address them. Small family daycare home is up to six children, including resident participants. Large family daycare is up to 10 children, including resident participants. Those are defined terms. The definitions of those terms are in Chapter 15B, Section 1A. And again, this is an opportunity many people in most communities have taken advantage of. Anytime you have a need to drop off child, go to work, Your choices basically are family daycare homes or family first family daycare homes. And then the next step up from this would be a child care center, which is in many cases a national chain accessory uses in the industrial districts.

[Andre Leroux]: Excuse me, Mark. Sorry for interrupting. Just before you go on, could you just maybe explain to the members of the public what the term accessory uses is, because that's the whole section, and how it relates to the use, like the map and the use table?

[PQNVkYiOrIU_SPEAKER_12]: Sure. There is a section of the use table that addresses accessory uses, but let's back up one step. An accessory use is a use which is customarily associated with and subordinate to the principal use. So typically it would be something like a garage. That would be an accessory structure likely. Family daycare is a very good example. It's done out of the home. It is always something licensed by the state in a home setting. And it's not the principal use of the property. It's a secondary use, if you will. And it meets the definition of an accessory provision. There's a definition in the back in section 12 for accessory. Generally accessory uses have to be on the same lot as the principal use, and they have to be incidental and subordinate. So in other words, they can't overwhelm the principal use. A typical court case would be, you know, once they become the primary or dominant use, they're no longer accessible. Many people have struck it rich doing internet manufacturing, delivery of product, the whole house becomes literally a cross between production plant and a distribution facility. There's actually a case from Hadley that I'm thinking of. And when it just gets overwhelmed like that, the courts properly say, that's not accessory anymore. Go find a building in the commercial district to do your work. But, you know, a lot of accessory uses, including home occupations. I think the last statistic I saw was that 65% of Americans work out of the home. So we're coming up on that. Residential accessory uses include boarders. And we had a long discussion about this. Boarding is not more than two unrelated persons in a dwelling occupied by the owner. Prohibitive accessory uses would be unregistered motor vehicles, more than one. And then the following uses are prohibited, accessory uses are prohibited in the residential districts. Auto repair or service, outdoor storage, display of materials or goods, and overnight parking of any commercial vehicle with a gross vehicle weight of more than 15,000 pounds. That's 15,000, GVW is about the size of a large van, the ubiquitous vans that you now see roaming the street. And then there's a new rewrite of the home occupation provision. It divides home occupations into two categories. One is as of right, and the other is by special permit. So the as of right home occupation is one which is not accompanied by any employees, and it doesn't include any customer or client trips to the location. There can be employees, but they have to be resident employees. That's the key distinction. home occupation by special permit is also conducted within the dwelling, but it can have no more than two persons employed who do not reside on the premises. And the thinking here is that a special permit would be required because it's a little more traffic in a neighborhood and parking, and there would need to be a special permit proceeding in order to make sure that the neighbors are protected. I think I'll stop there and then I can jump to the use table or we can reserve the use table till the end of the discussion entirely. But I suppose it's six and one half dozen of another.

[Andre Leroux]: Great, thank you, Mark. You bet. Board members and Mark, just so you know, I think it's easier for me to call on people and facilitate a conversation when I stop your sharing. So maybe when you do your presentation, you can share again. Okay, no problem at all. Great, thank you. Board members, any questions or comments? Okay, seeing none. And Mark, I basically have a, oh, go ahead, David.

[David Blumberg]: To sort of redirect Mark a little bit, having watched many of the council meetings on this topic and senior presentations, One of the things that stuck with me, Mark, is in particular with daycare situation where By law these things can can occur, really in any district if I obviously correct me if I'm wrong, but that because are but that's the default position in the statute. And because our ordinance didn't speak to some of these topics. We were left without as much sort of controller we weren't putting parameters on the uses so if you could just touch on that because I think it was a very interesting point you made on many of the meetings.

[PQNVkYiOrIU_SPEAKER_12]: Well, I always like to illustrate it by playing the curmudgeon. So I can easily understand and live next door to without any problems a family daycare facility, which has up to six children, including resident participants. I love children, I've got three. 10 begins to make me think that perhaps I would want a little bit more mitigation proposed in order to make it a smoother transition for the neighborhood. And so that's why my default position is small by right, large by special permit. And I think that's what special permits are for. It's not a use so great that you want to just lend it a carte blanche, but it's not a use so bad that you want to prohibit it. You want to hear more about it. You want to be able to shape it. You want to see if it fits. That's what special permits do. And just because you have a special permit requirement and a hearing requirement doesn't mean the answer's no, it just means we'd like to think about it. The oddity here though, make no mistake about it, is that childcare centers, which I represent a national chain of childcare centers, and their business model is 185 kids. And it's by right, because it's Dover protected under chapter 48, section three. Childcare centers, schools, as I don't need to tell Medford with the Tufts College case being the lead case and religious institutions are the protected Dover amendment uses.

[Deanna Peabody]: This is Deanna, I had a question. So in the current ordinance, do we not have anything related to family childcare?

[PQNVkYiOrIU_SPEAKER_12]: There might be an old, I'm not in my office, so I didn't bring the old ordinance with me, There might be something that refers archaically to nursery school or something like that. I see that a lot. You know, this stuff wasn't invented until 19, I believe that the childcare center material came into the statute around 1989. And the preamble to the legislation was due to the serious shortage of childcare in the Commonwealth, here's what we're going to do.

[Andre Leroux]: questions or comments. Board members. Any other questions or comments.

[Alicia Hunt]: There are not comments from the board members. There is one thing that I feel like. In doing our due diligence. I should just raise. We should be aware of there's there was a lot of discussion at the City Council level about, uh, people living in It's the section of borders in a dwelling and the renting of rooms. We had three unrelated persons. It was changed to two unrelated persons. But it is an interplay with what's also allowed around the definition of a family, which occurs much later in the ordinances, and then plays in the lodging houses as well. Attorney Bobrowski, do you think it would make sense, perhaps a better verse to sort of explain that? It's this interplay between definition of a family, which obviously is at the end of our entire discussion, but is critical to this idea of borders and why the city council changed the number from three to two here.

[PQNVkYiOrIU_SPEAKER_12]: Okay, so I'm just jumping ahead in my unshared version here, family is one or more persons related by blood adoption or marriage living and cooking together as a single nonprofit housekeeping unit, provided that a group of five or more persons who are not related by blood adoption or marriage shall not be deemed to constitute a family. This is a takeoff on a very famous U.S. Supreme Court case called Belter versus Boris. It actually occurred in the 1970s. And it was a situation in which the town of Belter, think SUNY Stony Brook, it was the college nearby, passed a regulation that no more than two unrelated persons could live together and constitute a family. And there was no limit placed on my large Polish-American family, as long as we were related by blood, marriage, or adoption. And so the landlord sued because he wanted more renters, and the renter sued because they wanted more people to share the rent. Went all the way to the US Supreme Court, and in a very famous case written by Justice Douglas, he ruled that it was perfectly legal to do that. So I've worked in many of our college towns, from Amherst to Bridgewater, which I'm doing right now, to Salem, to Fitchburg, and all of them have had their own spin on how many unrelated people can live together, usually with an eye in a college town towards the number of students that can share a house. Here the answer's four. In Amherst, it's three, it's not four. And so that's just a political choice that was made. If you have no definition, for example, the town of Tewksbury, if you were to look at their zoning bylaw, it just says any number of people living together as a single household. So it could be unlimited people, unrelated to each other. And then when you start adding borders on top of that, you can see how it defeats the purpose of having a limit in the first place. So if I can only have four unrelated persons living together and they can have two borders who are not on the lease, a border is not on the lease. So four of them can be on the lease and two more can come in as borders. And that's, we had this discussion about where does this begin and end? And then I believe Paul Mulkey, your building commissioner pointed out to us that five, would be a boarding house. And that's how we eliminated that now.

[Andre Leroux]: Thanks. Well, it's definitely, definitely something that I personally would like to get into when we get to the family definition, because I think, you know, blood marriage and adoption are not the only ways that family units are constituted nowadays. So I would be certainly interested in exploring broadening that.

[PQNVkYiOrIU_SPEAKER_12]: The year after the Belter case, or two years after, there was another case decided by the US Supreme Court called Moore versus City of East Cleveland. And in that case, they had actually ruled that a certain degree of kinship was a requirement of being family. And it was obscure in terms of the degree of kinship, but the Supreme Court went the other direction and said, if they're related, you cannot bother that associational right and that right of privacy. So the boundary is some degree of, I think any degree of kinship is the way I read the East Cleveland case.

[Andre Leroux]: Well, you know, Medford's a very LGBTQ friendly community and I'm part of that community. And by that definition, my partner and I, long-term partner and I would not constitute a family. So personally, I'm very interested in that. And I think on behalf of many others too.

[Alicia Hunt]: Actually, I actually understand it to say your partner and you could have two other people unrelated by blood living in your house and the four of you could declare yourself a family and that would be legal in the city of Medford. Is that correct, Attorney Bobrowsky?

[PQNVkYiOrIU_SPEAKER_12]: Up to four unrelated individuals constitute a family. So if it's a single family house, it can have four unrelated people living together, sharing the common amenities of a single family dwelling, cooking facilities, that kind of thing.

[Alicia Hunt]: If they had adopted children, that's not a problem. You could have eight adopted children or foster children.

[Andre Leroux]: I was just going to say, I see some comments from members of the public. Roberta Cameron.

[Roberta Cameron]: Thank you, so I'm a little bit confused as to what would happen in a situation where some of the members of the household are related by that definition and some additional members of the household are unrelated by that definition. How many, you know, if you have four related people and two unrelated people, are you, have you exceeded the limit of people who can live in a household together under that definition?

[PQNVkYiOrIU_SPEAKER_12]: Good question. So four people were related. I don't see that as triggering anything in the definition of family. You could have eight people or 12 people or 15 people who were related and it would still be a single family home. Adding the two unrelated people, I think would simply be a matter of, I think it would require a degree of interpretation. from the building commissioner's office. The intent here clearly is not to have 15 family members and two unrelated people. I'm just speaking for the group who was in discussion about this, and I don't think I'm wrong in assessing it that way.

[Andre Leroux]: And Roberta, can you just for the record, could you just state again your name and address for the record?

[Roberta Cameron]: Roberta Cameron, 12 North Street. And I just have to register that I'm not satisfied with that response because it's a very real situation and it's a very non-answer to the real situation. So I'm not really sure where that leaves a household that has a mix of related and unrelated people.

[PQNVkYiOrIU_SPEAKER_12]: It's a good question, duly noted.

[Andre Leroux]: Yes, Jackie, and then we'll go to Barry, go ahead.

[Jacqueline McPherson]: So, um, I am heavily familiar with the, the, um, the, the law case, the legal cases that surrounds around planning and housing and zoning and so forth. haven't just received my AICP, but one of the things that I'm a little concerned with using Beltier versus Flores, and I would never argue this with a jurist doctor at this point, but I'm just a little confused as to why we're referring to a 1974 ruling as opposed to progressively looking at how families are defined going forward. Is it just to protect Medford's ordinance? Is it just to have a proper ordinance in place? Is this something that can be hashed out pretty much with the public so that it fits Medford? I'm just trying to wrap my head around why we're going back to a 1974 court case ruin and how that played out.

[PQNVkYiOrIU_SPEAKER_12]: Well, the answer to the second part of your question is yes, you can shape an answer here that fits Medford. Like I said, Tewksbury, and I've recodified them years ago, and they haven't changed this, says any number of people living together as a single housekeeping unit constitute a family for purposes of their bylaw. So that's an answer that suits them. I think maybe this is an issue in Medford historically because of your college student population, and maybe that's not the right answer anymore. So this is definitely something that can be reviewed.

[Jacqueline McPherson]: Thank you for that. I just wanted to bring it up for the public to explain how very much important it is to have the public's voice in this and to help shape the audiences going forward, especially as it relates to Mefford and not so much ancient history.

[PQNVkYiOrIU_SPEAKER_12]: Long Island ancient history.

[Jacqueline McPherson]: Thank you so much.

[Andre Leroux]: Barry, and again, name and address.

[Barry Ingber]: Barry Ingber, 9 Draper Street. At one point attorney Bobrovsky made a statement about defeating the purpose of having limits on the number of people in a unit of housing or in a single family dwelling in the first place. And I guess I don't actually understand the reason to have any limits other than health and safety reasons. If they aren't health and safety reasons, business does the city have in restricting living arrangements of private individuals?

[PQNVkYiOrIU_SPEAKER_12]: The only practical justification that I can offer you, having worked in all of the, most of the flag bearers of the state's higher educational system, is that there has always been, and it may not be important or necessary today, But it still remains important in Bridgewater, Fitchburg, Salem, Lowell. These are all flagships of the state institution. And this has always been part of the discussion there. And I think the historical remnant is that students were difficult to police in some areas. And this was a way of trying to get a municipal hand around the problem.

[Barry Ingber]: Yeah, I guess I would just want to state for the record that we as a polity do not have any business intervening in people's living arrangements in that way. And that it is not only students who choose to live in larger groups.

[Andre Leroux]: And that's becoming an increasing issue with the elevated price of housing and the need for for young families to kind of share expenses and childcare, et cetera.

[Barry Ingber]: And seniors as well, I would point out seniors as well could be making that choice. Generational arrangements as well.

[PQNVkYiOrIU_SPEAKER_12]: I'm having a time warp experience because immediately after these Supreme Court cases were decided in the 70s, a friend of mine, Edith Netter, who I believe was teaching at MIT at the time, wrote an article about the impact of these court cases on alternative family models. And so you can probably still find it. It was in a national publication. And she critiqued it in much the same way you're doing now.

[Andre Leroux]: Thank you, Mark. William Snyder.

[Paul Morgan]: Thank you. I just wanted to bring up our own situation and ask a question. My wife and I have a single family house and we have a lodger in two of our rooms. And so it looks like that is no longer gonna be allowed. And my personal solution is gonna be that area of our house is gonna now be an ADU, I guess. But I wondered if that was the intent, I see in the use table that there used to be lodgers allowed in single family one, two, and general residential, but now it's only starting at apartment one. And so I want to get a comment on that. Is that the right interpretation? And then just a little bit of a response to the other discussion, which is across the street earlier in the decade, in last decade, We had a single family house whose absentee owner was renting out to seven unrelated people with seven cars that were parking all over the lot. And that was done mostly for financial reasons. And it was an impact to the neighborhood because it impacted the character of the neighborhood. I don't mind a family of seven, but having seven unrelated students, each with their own car, Um, it was not allowed and it was stopped, um, by the. Ordinance and this in the building department at the time, but I'm more interested in just hearing that there was a motivation to remove the lodger provision. And I assume that part that's partly replaced by the ADU. Is that right?

[PQNVkYiOrIU_SPEAKER_12]: I think that's fair. We we've had a lot of discussion about this. I'm, I'm glancing at K. six in the use table, which is renting of one or two rooms without separate cooking facilities to lodgers within a dwelling unit, to one or two total lodgers. So you're right, that has now moved to apartment one, apartment two, apartment three, and C1. Those would be the districts in which it's located. And the ROS, SF1, 2, and GR are no's. So I guess that's a political question.

[Paul Morgan]: You know, obviously this is a public hearing, if that's something that... Yeah, it's more to the city council, I guess, but I just, I mean, I'm happy. I'm very happy with the ordinance and I really thank you for making these revisions and the ADU is gonna work out well for me, but I just thought that was kind of a significant change to make all that no longer allowed.

[Amanda Centrella]: William Snyder, could you provide your address for the record?

[Paul Morgan]: Oh, sorry. William Snyder at 87 Warren Street, Medford.

[Amanda Centrella]: Thank you.

[Andre Leroux]: William Navar.

[William Navarre]: Hi there. William Navarre, 108 Medford Street, apartment 1B. I have a few things to say, but first I wanted to ask a question because I'm rather confused. I guess it's technically at the table, but There seems to be lodging as an accessory use, and then there's an idea of a lodging house. And I don't really understand how those intersect, because to me, if you have the usual occupancy of four, and then you have up to two lodgers, that equals six. The lodging house is where there's five. So I guess I'm confused on why we have both, how those interact. It's a little confusing to me. Accessories versus primary.

[PQNVkYiOrIU_SPEAKER_12]: A lodging house is a principal use in and of itself. The business of the place is lodgers or boarders. It's a boarding house. So there isn't any other family there supervising boarders. It's got a lock and key on each room and people live there generally for a shorter period of time. Boarders in a single family home are accessories. The purpose of the single family home is that it's the family's home, but if you rented one or two rooms to a lodger, then they would be accessory borders. And there's a provision that we looked at back in the text that covers that. And all of this relates to the family because in the case of the accessory use, it's added on to the number of people that meet the definition of family, at least as it's in the draft ordinance now.

[William Navarre]: Okay, so if five tough students who are trying to deal with our housing crisis, because of our lack of housing, rent an apartment together and sign on the lease as five individuals, they're not a family, but maybe they're a lodging house, is that right? Because they're all lodging together?

[PQNVkYiOrIU_SPEAKER_12]: No, I think if I were the students and I wanted to make a legal argument, I would say four of us are on the lease and we're entitled to do that because we are a four unrelated persons and we constitute a family as defined by the word family. And then the fifth person is a border. They're not on the lease.

[William Navarre]: And OK.

[PQNVkYiOrIU_SPEAKER_12]: Right.

[William Navarre]: All right. I think that I think that raises certain questions about if that's OK, because obviously I think that border is going to be likely at a more precarious position legally if something goes wrong with tenants' rights or something. So that's a concern I have. I'm a little concerned about limiting people's options to be able to live in the housing we do have during our housing shortage. I know it's a political decision, but I hope the Community Development Board will think about that. I'm glad to hear some of them are looking at this carefully. Because if we don't have enough housing, limiting how intensely we use the housing we do have is not ideal. We need options for people who are, even less than ideal options for people who are on the margin of homelessness or having to quit school or quit their job and live someplace else. So I think that's really important. I think that a lot of the, I heard another commenter say that parking was the issue. I really hope that the Community Development Board and our zoning process in general can eventually address that, because I think that we're doing too much to ensure that everybody can find a parking space, to the detriment of people's ability to find a place to live, that people are having to commute very long distances or give up city life altogether or something for that reason. So I hope that we can address that at some point, the idea that our zoning got to make it very easy to find a parking space, makes it very difficult to find a place to live, I think. So I hope that the Community Development Board and their zoning process looks into these issues.

[Andre Leroux]: Thank you, William. Next up is Eileen has her hand raised.

[Ilene Lerner]: Thank you, Eileen Lerner. I live at 9 Adams Circle in Medford. And I just wanted to agree with Barry. And William, I just, this is a huge and complex issue and it affects many people in different ways. But I think that the city has no right to inquire into people's living arrangements, I really do. And I understand Mr. Schneider's distress over the situation he described with a lot of students living together. But I think we should be about policing behavior. If those students are living there quietly and respectfully and taking care of the property and even being part of the community, who cares? But if they're behaving badly and disturbing everybody, then that's a problem that needs to be addressed. Maybe the police need to be called. I don't know, maybe people need mediation services. I don't know, but I don't think that the way to address a behavior problem is to get a blanket solution for everybody. I think this piece of the proposed ordinance is discriminatory against people that don't have much money, against seniors. Yeah, I mean, against the LGBT community. I mean, it is 2000, almost 22. And We're not going back. We can only go forward. And yeah, we need housing. Women like me who never have been paid what we're worth. So you end up with a little bit even less social security than a lot of other people, maybe because you worked in social services, you know, and now you have to pay a lot of money in property taxes. And now they're going to come along and tell you how many people you can live with. I mean, it is just unbearable. You know, and I just am very against it. And I think we ought to leave the concept of deciding whose family and who isn't. It's like the one drop rule, you know, about being black, really. If you think your family, even if you live together and you share expenses and you're concerned about each other, you're family for that period of time that you're living together. And yeah, I guess that's all I have to say.

[Andre Leroux]: Thank you, Eileen. And Paige Lieberman.

[Matthew Page-Lieberman]: Yes, how's everybody doing? It's really good to hear everybody speaking. It's kind of rare, you know, we have a zoning meeting. A lot of people are speaking up on behalf of those, you know, some of the many marginalized people in our society.

[Andre Leroux]: I'm also speaking because I- Sorry for interrupting, but could you just say, name and address for the record?

[Matthew Page-Lieberman]: Matthew Page Lieberman, I live in 15 Canal Street, apartment 15. I'm here in public housing. So this is not a single family building and I cannot, have anybody else. I cannot allow people to live in my unit. But as for those who can, I think there are a lot of questions that we haven't really gotten any clarity or answers upon this yet. I don't know. I don't see any impending problem about masses of people trying to live in houses and like avalanches of people falling out windows. I don't understand. Is there some kind of threat that we see on the horizon? I haven't heard any justification for why this limit is being imposed. And by the way, Mr. Bobrowsky, I thank you for all your service in helping us with this, but I still, I'm not getting some clarity when questions are asked, well, what if there are two people that are family and there are three other people? If we say, well, I'm not sure that ought to be the decision of somebody down the line, that creates all kinds of situations where you have some kind of bureaucrat kind of arbitrarily trying to make these calls and who should be able to live with whom. And this question of, well, quite possibly it was because of the students once upon a time. We're talking about right now. What is the justification for limiting people's ability to have the kinds of living arrangements with other people that they would like to have? I think when we're going to start restricting anybody, we should be incredibly clear why we're doing that. And I haven't been able to hear that yet. What is the justification for creating this three new zones, no, this may not be able to exist. So I'm very, very glad that we're able to speak on this. And I hope that this can, we're not going to pass. We're not going to allow this one through. And even if there's something on that, perhaps somewhere down the line, we can even address this and make sure that really stupid attempts like this do not get through any other zoning propositions. Thank you so much.

[Andre Leroux]: Thank you, Matthew. We'll go to David McKenna next.

[David McKenna]: Thank you, I'll be brief I just for the my comment to the council members who are present and the board members is I think that there should be lodgers allowed in single family housing I have a lodger and if this is codified, you know, that will be illegal. And I think it's part of the solution to you know a lot of seniors in the town are complaining about their property taxes. Well, you know, they have a giant house with one person living in it. And if you want to pay your property taxes, get a lodger. But if the city makes that illegal, now we've created a whole nother problem. So I really think we need lodgers in the single family, multifamily, you know, section. So please put that back in. And I agree with everything that was said about the family members, you know, let it be five or six or seven. If that creates a parking problem, then let's regulate the parking. you know, let's charge more for parking passes, let's limit the number of parking passes per residence. I'm fine with that, but to, you know, I think William put it beautifully. If we prioritize giving people a place to park such that it makes it hard to find a place to live, you know, where our priorities are all out of balance. So that would be my comment. I really appreciate the lawyer for helping us to understand all of this so that we can direct our grievances in the appropriate direction. Thank you.

[Andre Leroux]: Thank you, David. Did you say your address for the record?

[David McKenna]: It's a two vine street in Medford, David McKenna.

[Andre Leroux]: Next up, Alex lesson hop again, name and address for the record.

[Alex Lussenhop]: Hi, Alex, 30 Wright Avenue in Medford. I just want to address something that hasn't come up yet, which is the addition of the restriction on family daycare homes. I struggle to see why it's necessary to add a restriction there for meeting a special permit for a family daycare that wanted to have 11 or 12 children. As someone who recently had to find childcare, for my two-year-old, it's extremely, extremely challenging to find childcare anywhere in this region. It's so competitive that you have to get on wait lists years in advance, and it suggests to me that the supply is just extremely, extremely low, and we shouldn't be putting up more roadblocks to this sort of thing. You know, daycare workers and family daycare providers are not people who are generally, you know, very wealthy who can sit through months and months of special permitting processes and take a lot of time out of their days. It's not a highly paid profession. So I just am concerned with putting up additional roadblocks to something, especially if we, if we've been having issues and problems with it, that's one thing. But if it's just sort of an imagined concern, then I would urge us not to regulate it unless there's a real problem. So that would be something I just addressed there for the record. Thank you.

[Andre Leroux]: Thank you, Alex. Mark, I don't know if you want to respond to that at all in terms of the context of the discussion so far.

[PQNVkYiOrIU_SPEAKER_12]: It's totally a political choice. There's three acceptable positions. You can let the statute work by default, in which case both large and small are allowed by right. Or you can choose to bifurcate the process as I suggested is my default position, small by right, large by special permit, or you can put them both on special permit. So it's any one of those answers is correct. And the only difference between them is political.

[Alex Lussenhop]: Can I just ask a follow-up question, actually? Large and small, is that discretionary? Like, can we define large and small, or is that defined?

[PQNVkYiOrIU_SPEAKER_12]: No, it's a state. If you look at General Laws Chapter 15b, Section 1A, it defines family daycare, what is it called? Family childcare and large is also defined. And those are the definitions in the statute, up to six, including resident participants and up to 10, including resident participants.

[Andre Leroux]: Okay, thank you. Thank you. Councilor Bears.

[Zac Bears]: Thanks. And, you know, of course, the minute I joined the meeting and started watching, I said I wasn't going to say anything, but here I am. And no, what I'm about to say, basically, we had a long and in-depth conversation around the issue of lodging houses, lodgers, and the family slash relatedness piece of things. So I'm just prefacing by saying that it was a long and in-depth conversation. I thought where we landed was that we wouldn't make conditions for the accessory use more restrictive, but we did want to make sure that we weren't having lodging houses in those districts. So, you know, I'm just putting that out there that I agree with a lot of the comments that have been made. And I put this in the chat as well. Look forward to the recommendations of the Community Development Board, but I definitely agree with everyone here that I did not think we were making things more restrictive than the existing ordinance, and I don't think it would be smart of us to do that. at this point through this recodification. And I also agree with the idea that we shouldn't be defining family, that our definition of family should be as open as possible. So I just wanted to put that out there. Thank you all for your work and for reviewing this document. It's complicated and we put a lot of time into it. And I think there are some things that still need to be ironed out, but I look forward to what you all have to say about that. Thanks.

[Andre Leroux]: Thank you, councilor. Yeah, I liked the way that you put it in your chat. I'm just going to read it because I thought it was very elegantly said. I agree with comments about not restricting the number of people in a dwelling unit based on relatedness and moving to a system based on health and safety instead. Next person with the hand raised, Katie.

[SPEAKER_14]: And again, name and address for the record. Katie Cornog, 44 Powerhouse Road Extension. I am concerned about daycare use and about large numbers of unrelated people living in single-family home districts. I don't think either is beneficial to the community or to the neighborhood. Frankly, I would like to see the restriction on daycare to be free. And I don't want to have borders or unrelated people living in my neighborhood. So I'm just voicing, I guess what is a minority opinion here, but I just want to say there is another side to the issue, which is, You know, in our neighborhood, it's all single family, but there's one house that has a bunch of unrelated students living in it. And they have many, many cars that take up a lot of parking. They are not involved in the neighborhood at all. We don't even know who they are. They never introduce themselves. They never say hello. They're very unrelated to the neighborhood. And Um, you know, as far as daycare goes, I don't want a whole bunch of cars coming in and dropping off kids every day. You know, I want the neighborhood to be for the neighbors. I don't want to see these unrelated people living or coming in on a daily basis to a single family neighborhood.

[Andre Leroux]: Thank you, Katie. Next person, Barry, going back to you.

[Barry Ingber]: Barry Ingber, 9 Draper Street. Do you have to do that every time you speak? Probably. Yes. Thanks for giving me another chance to talk. I just want to state that I don't think that the negative attitudes towards people living in groups goes back to students. I think it goes back further than that to immigrants. and that immigrants have used living together, and still do, as a way of gaining access to housing when they're first getting started in a community, especially in cities. And in light of this, and in light of our histories of of racial covenants and redlining that we need to be really careful when we use the concept of neighborhood character and what it is that we're actually saying. And, you know, I think that we do most of this stuff subconsciously. I'm not accusing anybody of being evil or being deliberately prejudiced. But I do think that we should be interrogating ourselves when we make statements like that. What is it that we actually mean? And what is the end result of those cultural practices? And I think I'll stop there and I'll keep my mouth shut for the rest of the meeting. Thank you for letting me speak.

[Andre Leroux]: Barry. William.

[William Navarre]: Hi there, William Navarre, 108 Medford Street, apartment 1B. I'm mostly commenting on this now because it seems appropriate, and I don't know when it'll come up again and if I'll be on the call when that happens, because this meeting is going to be long, I suspect. But Barry mentioned the term neighborhood character, and I feel very similar to the way he does about it. and I wanted to just point out as a follow-up that it appears several places in our zoning code that phrase neighborhood character and so I think we should ask ourselves what it means and if we like that meaning and so on if it represents our values and I hope just as the Community Development Board continues through this process if they can hopefully know that Barry and now myself have pointed this out, it could cause your ears to perk up and revisit that question. Thanks.

[Andre Leroux]: Thank you, William. So seeing no other hands raised, I think we can, and just so everybody knows, I think that, you know, we'll probably need some time to kind of reflect on the feedback that we're getting to have some time to put it into actual recommendations for the city council. So, where I'm coming at this now is that let's try to get through as many of the sections as possible here, as much of community's feedback, and then come back on December 9th to with some, you know, concrete ideas about how to, you know, what changes we actually want to recommend. So. So Mark, why don't we move on to the next section?

[Amanda Centrella]: I have a quick question. So I had some written comments that were submitted to our office ahead of this, and two of them were more general. And one kind of had very specific, detailed recommendations that went by section. And so I was considering offering to read those recommendations as we address the sections. Does that sound all right with folks? Because several of the comments reflect on section three.

[Andre Leroux]: Yes, that'd be great, Amanda. If you want to just do the general ones and the ones on section three right now, that'd be great.

[Amanda Centrella]: Sure. Too many tabs open. All right, so the first more general comment is from Nino Susi, 8 Grandview Avenue, Medford. I would like to comment on the lots split by zoning districts change and how it may affect a historic district. There is only one instance that I know of, but there could be more, especially considering that a new historic district is being planned for Forest Street. If a portion of a split law is in a local historic district, I do have concerns as to how this proposed new rule could potentially impact historic districts in the future by allowing commercial influence in the form of structures or parking lots and would ask that perhaps specific verbiage could be included in the new ordinance to better protect our historic assets.

[Andre Leroux]: And then- Well, can we just, Attorney Bobrowski, do you have a response to that at all?

[PQNVkYiOrIU_SPEAKER_12]: No, I think that's in keeping with my understanding as well.

[Amanda Centrella]: A set of, so some of the more specific recommendations for section three come from William Snyder, who I have his address, where is it?

[Andre Leroux]: William's actually here, he was one of the speakers. One of the speakers from earlier.

[Paul Morgan]: I'm on line two, it's 87 Warren Street.

[Amanda Centrella]: Thank you, William. Um, so first recommendation was for section 3.3.6. Um, under two resident districts be, um, outdoor storage and display of materials or goods change to be outdoor storage or display of materials or goods. Otherwise one could store materials but not display them and be compliant. And then 3.4 home occupations The use home occupation is not defined. I realize this is referring to working at home or to businesses operated out of a residential property, but occupation also means occupancy or merely inhabiting a home. So I thought that could be made clearer. Recommend put a brief definition of home occupation in definitions.

[Andre Leroux]: Thank you. That's a good William. I had thought about that as well. Thanks for pointing that out.

[Amanda Centrella]: You're welcome. And then I have one last general recommendation. This is actually from a board member, Christy Dowd, who was unable to attend tonight, but she states here, I'm not able to attend Thursday's CD meeting, but I would like to express my support of this proposal first as a Medford resident and then as a member of the CD board.

[Andre Leroux]: Bernie Bobrovsky, over to you. Section four.

[PQNVkYiOrIU_SPEAKER_12]: Okay, so with your permission, I would actually think that just to get it done and put it in the rear view mirror, we might put the use table up. I'm sorry, I picked the wrong file here.

[Andre Leroux]: Happy to do that.

[PQNVkYiOrIU_SPEAKER_12]: So what am I looking for here? Conventional table, use table. And the use table is, I think, vast improvement, at least format-wise, over the old use table. I've tried to regroup things into logical clusters here and to walk through this, keeping residential uses together. You'll see that missing from the old residential uses are references to assisted living facilities, the senior housing facility, a new item includes assisted living, but it also includes independent living. And it would also include congregate care. Some things like multiple dwelling class A, class B, there was a distinction in the old use table based on height. So the definition now has the height and it makes the use table easier to read. Pushing forward here, community uses are generally the ones that most people would think of as exempt so Museum community center Are just local flavors three four and five are the so-called Dover amendment uses These are called Dover amendment because back in the late 1940s the town of Dover banned churches from all residential districts and The Supreme Judicial Court, I'm sorry, the legislature stepped in and said, you can't do that. And they passed the earliest version of the so-called Dover Amendment. It was broadened later to include number four, educational purposes. And it was broadened again in 1989, as I said, to include childcare centers. These three uses enjoy the same protection. They cannot be prohibited or put on special permit. reasonable regulations can be applied to them with regard to certain dimensional requirements. That's the degree to which they can be regulated. These are municipal uses and you're free to treat municipal uses as you see fit. If you want to give municipal uses an exemption or a partial exemption, that's within your power to do so. Municipal uses do not get an exemption unless you specifically grant it. So that's why six, seven and eight are there. Essential services is, more or less the public service corporation exemption set forth in chapter 48, section three. These things are usually regulated by DPU or DTI. The rule of thumb here is that you can put them on special permit. If you push too hard, they have the power to go to DTU and ask for an exemption from local zoning. And the DTU really doesn't have to wait for you to push too hard, but they like to observe and respect local customs. So it's a board of appeals thing across the board. Understand that if you push too hard, they can go to the state agency. And then hospital nonprofit and other institution are from your existing regulations today.

[Andre Leroux]: And Mark, before you move on, could you just explain for the members of the public who are not used to looking at a zoning table, what these letters mean and the columns up at the top?

[PQNVkYiOrIU_SPEAKER_12]: Yeah, well, these are your districts at the top, and those are the abbreviations for the districts that are established in town. The only exceptions are the last two columns. PC is parking code. There's an explanation for that in the section on parking. And LC is loading code. And so with one glance, you can see that a museum is allowed in the APT1 district by right, and that it has a parking code of E and a loading code of A. So that's If you're somebody trying to start a business in town, you could easily glance the deeper we go into this, the more business oriented it becomes. Let me use that as an example.

[Andre Leroux]: I just also want to point out, people probably understand the Y and N mean yes and no, but the CC stands for city council.

[PQNVkYiOrIU_SPEAKER_12]: Right. BA stands for board of appeals and CDB stands for community development board. That abbreviation indicates that they are the special permit granting authority for that use. Special permit granting authorities are not equivalent to forum shopping. Only the designated special permit granting authority, and those would be the three, have jurisdiction. And it's not up for grabs. The bylaws telling you that if you want a special permit for the keeping and raising of livestock in the industrial district, you have to go to the city council right there. And you could not go to the planning board, for example. Commercial uses, we start to see this operate a little bit more in terms of business, entrepreneurial spirit. So again, if I'm looking to come to town and start a trade professional or other school operated for profit, that's number four. That's not the same as a nonprofit public or higher education school. Well, what's that? you would know immediately that the districts that you can do it on, do it in would be the C1, C2 districts. You can do it in three districts by special permit from the city council and the fourth district, the MUZ as of right. So that's the way that the letters are interpreted or are intended to be read. Adult use is a broad category, but this is nothing new. And there's different kinds of uses that could be conducted under the adult use banner. brewery or tap room is new. I remember adding that as the ordinance amended, was amended by the council. Here's some office uses that are grouped together.

[Andre Leroux]: And I'm sorry, Mark, for interrupting again. Just again, one question that the community folks might have is where does the, you know, it's been a lot of talk about cannabis businesses. How does that fit into the zoning?

[PQNVkYiOrIU_SPEAKER_12]: I'm trying to remember. When I bump into it, I'll call it out. I don't want to go too far ahead looking for things. So retail and service uses, we did devise two additional, your old ordinance just said retail grant, go for it. But there was a big difference between 180,000 square foot Walmart and a neighborhood convenience store. So we've divided this into three categories. These are defined terms. Retail sales are allowed. Convenience retail is mid-range. and neighborhood retail would be smaller scale because it would be targeting an area the size of a neighborhood. Consumer service establishment obviously is something that is more focused on service uses rather than retail uses. Paranormal service and sales was in your existing ordinance and trying to get...

[Andre Leroux]: And the city's director of economic development, Victor Schrader has his hand raised. So let me let him jump in. Okay.

[Victor Schrader]: Thank you, chair. On the marijuana uses, there's a section in the ordinance related to marijuana uses and the zoning for each license category is included in that section, but it's not reflected in the use table.

[PQNVkYiOrIU_SPEAKER_12]: So those would be in section seven or eight, I can't recall, but there's a section on medical and a section on recreational, if I remember correctly.

[Andre Leroux]: And does that, Director Schrader, does that need to go into the use table at some point or how is that being handled?

[Victor Schrader]: I don't, I don't know technically if it does. It's pretty clear in that that section of the ordinance that retail marijuana establishments are limited to industrial and C2 districts, all other marijuana establishments types are, are open in terms of application. They are governed by the host community agreement through the city, state licensing, and ZBA process. So they're kind of unique in how they're regulated.

[Alicia Hunt]: Would it be awkward because they're not as of right, and they're not something you would apply to the building commissioner and then apply to the ZBA for if they were rejected, so they would need their own code?

[Andre Leroux]: It might be worth considering doing that though, because I think it would make it helpful to have all uses reflected in the table.

[PQNVkYiOrIU_SPEAKER_12]: Duly noted. We've grouped motor vehicle related uses together and miscellaneous commercial uses. Most of these are as they were within the existing ordinance. We did up parking area or garage accessory to a principal use, which is within 500 feet. I believe that the old one was 300 feet, but people are more accustomed now to 500 feet. I want to point out that solar energy systems are a current evolution in thinking at the land court, at least, and at least one case now at the appeals court. One of the judges of the land court, the chief judge, Piper, ruled a couple of years ago that solar energy, which has a differently worded section of provisions protecting it in section three, completely different words by the legislature than we're used to, functionally the same as a church, a school, or a childcare facility, and that effectively they cannot be banned by a municipality, but they can be made subject to reasonable regulations. Don't know where that's going, calling your attention to it for that reason. The cases that are typically involved in the early growth of this doctrine are smaller towns where they've banned large-scale ground-mounted facilities in residence districts, and the providers are fighting that. And because of the land court's point of view, they seem to be winning that argument, but the fight isn't over, so. These are the heavier uses, freight, industrial, research and laboratory. I think new here would be number, 11, the mini and self-storage warehouse. I believe research and testing laboratory was in your existing. Victor, do you recall if we added that to the use table or just to the O2 district?

[Victor Schrader]: That's not new to the use table, Mark. That was existing.

[PQNVkYiOrIU_SPEAKER_12]: Okay. And you can see the new column here for the O2 district. So when you ask what's that all about, well, It's about the sum total of the entries in all of these different line items and whether you can do them or not in the O2 district. So if you're interested in what uses would be available in O2, just peruse this column forth from the end and you'll see scrolling up and down what you can do in the O2 district. So these are the accessory uses that are available summarized here in the table as well as in the text. And I'd say that the chief changes that I made were to especially focus on the community uses and to make sure that there was statutory consistency in your reference to them. I mean, it's one thing to say church or school, but that's not what the statute says. The statute says primary use of land for religious purposes and education has its own wording as well. And then we also broke out a few things that just needed to be refined a little bit. So retail isn't one size fits all, it's three sizes are more appropriate. And those are the changes as well.

[Andre Leroux]: Great, thank you, Attorney Bobrowski. So at that point, let's just take some, let's see if there's comments or questions from the board members, followed by members of the public. And then we will take, I think, a five minute break to give everyone a chance to regroup, especially Attorney Bobrowski, maybe get a drink of water if he wants that.

[PQNVkYiOrIU_SPEAKER_12]: I turn off my camera, go to the refrigerator if I need to, don't worry about me. Okay.

[Andre Leroux]: Board members, any comments or questions about the use table?

[David Blumberg]: I think this is one of the more, has been one of the areas that has been in need of the most help in zoning, having attempted to use the existing table. It's very impractical. Mark has touched on this because the definitions are off, you don't really understand what categories are intended. It's just so far out of date. And certainly there are judgment calls about what uses might want to be allowed in what district, but I think it's a very meaningful improvement to at least get this up to date in terms of the categories. So I just wanted to share that.

[Andre Leroux]: Other board members? I know we already did talk a lot about the border issue and the single family district, so I won't kind of harp on that again, but something that we'll maybe look at more closely. I go into members of the public, William Snyder.

[Paul Morgan]: Yeah, I just have a, I think it's just an oversight, but the, The draft references the off-street parking and loading requirements in the use table, but I didn't see them in the current draft of the use table. I think that needs to be added, that's all.

[PQNVkYiOrIU_SPEAKER_12]: What's posted as the current draft of the use table?

[Paul Morgan]: Maybe...

[Alicia Hunt]: I'll take a look, because I thought that the column that I think you're referring to is the one that's called, there's PC for parking and LC for loading. That's accurate on my computer, but let me open what the, I'm clicking through the, yeah, that's what's there. The October 1, 2021 version is what is on the website. So the column LC.

[Paul Morgan]: I see it now. Yeah, it's a different way of showing it. Okay, thank you.

[Andre Leroux]: Okay, so seeing no comments at this time, let's just take a quick five minute break and let everybody kind of stretch or get a drink of water. And it is, let's see, 7.36 right now. So we'll come back at 7.41. Thank you. Thank you. Great, thank you everybody. It's 7.41, so we will get back to business. Attorney Bobrowski, I did have one question actually while I stretched was the solar systems. Took me a little while to digest that a bit. Are you suggesting that those all have to be as of right or that they could be by special permit?

[PQNVkYiOrIU_SPEAKER_12]: Well, Judge Piper ruled that despite the different wording that the legislature applied to solar energy systems back in the 1980s, The intent was that they'd be treated like church or school or childcare facilities. And you cannot put a church, a school or a childcare facility on special permit. That's very decided. And the lead case is of course, Tufts College versus City of Medgar. So you can't require them to get a variance. You can't require them to be treated as non-conforming uses and structures. There was a companion case to Tufts College called Campbell versus City of Lynn. They're back to back in the book. And those were decided, those issues were decided in that case. So if Judge Piper's right, then that's gonna be where solar ends up going. Right now, the statute says, solar cannot be unreasonably regulated or prohibited except to promote health, safety, or welfare. Totally different wording. And this has happened way too often in the legislature's treatment of the issues in zoning. Use the same language.

[Andre Leroux]: Could that be subject to site plan review if that does happen?

[PQNVkYiOrIU_SPEAKER_12]: You know, more and more Dover amendment uses are subject to site plan review. In fact, we've added a site plan review provision in the back of the ordinance for those uses. Otherwise it's the poor building inspector who has to take this on when it comes in and he's on an Island and it's better to do it by a board in virtually all controversial cases. So I have, The land court decided about 10 years ago in a case by Judge Sands involving a Jewish cemetery in Wayland, that as long as you didn't use site plan review to say no, and you treated these protected uses with the degree of involvement that the statute foresees, then there's nothing wrong with doing it by site plan review.

[Unidentified]: Okay, thank you.

[Alicia Hunt]: Andre, before you move on to this, I want a housekeeping item. I believe, and I don't know if this is a ruling, that all comments, because this is a legal public hearing, that the board, in order to be considered by the board, must either be submitted in writing while the hearing is open, so people can submit them, there's no way we're going to close this hearing tonight, to the staff here and we'll forward them to the board or they must be made out loud. I've noticed that there are some comments in the chat and I appreciate that people don't want to make this go longer than necessary but I'm not clear that we can accept like legally comments if they're not either out loud or in writing to the the staff.

[Andre Leroux]: Okay well maybe I could say some of those comments.

[Alicia Hunt]: They could be read out loud and that would be fine. We have certainly done that in other meetings as well. I just, I felt like I didn't want people to feel, I don't know, I wanted this all to be transparent and this is being watched on television and played out on television and available in the recording. The chat will not be available as part of the recording, so that's why everything needs to be out loud.

[Andre Leroux]: So if anybody has made a comment in the chat that you would like to be in part of the, in the official record, just raise your hand and I'll call on you and you'll be able to read your comment. But in the meantime, okay, let's do that, Roberta.

[Roberta Cameron]: My apologies, I meant to, use the chat as a shortcut not to make it take longer so I'll just read it quickly and thank you. This is relating to the housing discussion that we had earlier. And my comment was that the entry level of housing is actually a room, rather than an apartment We need to ensure that a young adult who's not necessarily a college student, but who works in the local service industry is able to obtain housing in Medford, which is likely to take the form of a room rather than an apartment or an accessory dwelling unit due to the cost of housing right now. And I also agree that the option, particularly for seniors to be able to share their house safely, either with lodgers or as accessory dwelling units, which offer more privacy and security than a lodging arrangement is an important housing stability and affordability need. So I just wanted to make that comment. Thank you.

[Andre Leroux]: Thank you, Roberta. Anybody else? I do note that William Navar pointed out a typo on page eight, just saying that the C2 heading is duplicated. That has been noted.

[David McKenna]: I'll read my comment briefly. David McKenna to Vine Street. I noticed that MUZ zoning, mixed use zoning, does not allow boarding houses or lodgers. I think if any zoning should allow it, that would be a good place for boarding houses or lodgers to be permitted in the MUZ mixed use. I'm thinking about station landing, things like that.

[Andre Leroux]: Thank you, David. And then Betty had made a comment about businesses. Would you like to say that, Betty? I don't know if she's on yet, so I'll just I'll read it. So Betty had said that we lost a lot of small business storefronts with the loss of the Meadow Glen Mall. I hope city council takes that into consideration as they decide on retail zoning and perhaps giving a leg up to developments with small storefronts that present a lower barrier to entry for local and small business owners. Thank you.

[zMDmsK0LIsU_SPEAKER_03]: All right, section four, I believe we're on.

[PQNVkYiOrIU_SPEAKER_12]: Okay, so section four is dimensional regulations. I'm gonna scroll back here. And most, if the vast majority of this is not changed. So the first is the table of dimensional requirements. The only changes to the table would be the addition of the O2 line. I don't, I'm trying to remember whether Paul suggested any others, but they were tweaks. Nothing major was done. All of this is existing regulations, supplementary dimensional requirements, courts, minimum distance between structures, special cases, general application of yard requirements, front yard, side yard, rear yard, all existing language. In fact, that's gotta be changed right there. Let me make a note to myself. So that reference in 4253 is old. I'll find the new cross reference there. Application of height requirements, same deal. Minimum open space requirements, nothing's changed. Certain cases, nothing's changed. Accessory structures, there were some tweaks here, largely driven by the building commissioner. who had experience in the field and wanted to reflect that in his tweaks. And that's it for section four. I can show the dimensional table. Oops. So this is the new dimensional table, again, dated October 1st. a little bit easier to use than the old one, but it's the same table. And here, in fact, you would see the O2 additions. There's G at the bottom of the page there. There's your O2 language. Yeah, I think- Oh, sorry. Let me go back, kill the old one.

[Andre Leroux]: I think you might have to stop sharing and then share the right window.

[PQNVkYiOrIU_SPEAKER_12]: One of the interesting things about being out of the country and doing this is what works and what doesn't work in Zoom. I had a meeting last night with the board that they couldn't see me and I couldn't screen share. So that was the end of that, we continued. But we tested this out, Amanda and I, early today. So there's O2 across the board. These were Victor's recommendations and we put them in. I would focus on that as the changes to the dimensional table. That's about it for the dimensional stuff.

[Andre Leroux]: And maybe, could I invite Victor, the director of economic development to just talk a little bit about the O2 district and why this is being proposed.

[Victor Schrader]: Yeah, thank you, Andre. And thank you, Mark. This was really, it was a pretty robust discussion with City Council. I would say we proposed it in concert because The thesis here was we have districts in the community, commercial districts, such as the office, existing office, mixed-use, industrial. But really, none of those districts accommodate what we would consider a modern infill mixed-use commercial office building that could house lab, life science, or other commercial office uses. Because we're built out here, we need to kind of rethink, in our opinion, what the commercial district would look like for those types of buildings. So that's what we've tried to do. What you'll see It is a larger lot coverage, slightly larger lot coverage, some flexibility and setbacks, and kind of a middle range of density between the office district and the industrial district. And I think, as was stated earlier in the meeting, we haven't changed the map to include this anywhere in the community. But the areas that we're thinking about and would like to talk to the council and the community about are legacy industrial areas, where what we have now are buildings that are either nonconforming or industrial buildings that are very low density with lots of parking and not a lot of permeability in terms of the land lot coverage, not public facing. and not contributing a lot to the job base or tax revenue. So, you know, in our opinion, those are underutilized areas of the community that could be contributing and we think there's market demand for it. That's kind of high level. We can dig into the dimensional set here, if you'd like, and talk about those specifically as the board has questions. Just so the public knows, we did submit a letter to the CD board, giving them an overview of the thinking here for your consideration, a little background. for specific uses. And it's really difficult to right size new zoning districts like this for specific In a situation where, you know, someone needs a developer needs a couple feet here there and they they need to go for variance and variances are given very sparingly and by very specific need to meet specific hurdles in terms of hardship so. That's our recommendation, and we do that in other districts in the community. The mixed-use district has dimensional relief by special permit, but it's not broadly used throughout the community, kind of more of a modern approach to development of this type in an urban area than we've seen in zoning to date. The thought is that at this time, this could be a bridge to allow us to try it out in a couple areas of the community. And then as the comprehensive plan input comes online, we can rethink that, adjust, and start to think about other places that this makes sense throughout Medford. Great. Thank you.

[Alicia Hunt]: I think I would add one comment to that, and that is because putting in a district like this at this time is sort of directly contradictory to what I had said earlier about wanting the comprehensive plan work to come first. However, our office has been approached and we've heard from many developers trying to do life sciences in Medford right now that is not allowed, but through our zoning. And this would, the sooner that we have a tool to allow them to do life sciences, the better, because this is a very hot, field right now and people would like to develop here and we would like those jobs here in Medford and waiting actually six months is a really long time in the development cycle for these types of buildings right now because of the state of the world at this time. So that's why this feels a little contradictory to my earlier comment that the office was trying to wait for the comprehensive plan first and is putting forward this now.

[Andre Leroux]: district is really only commercial. It does not include residential. Sorry, Victor, you were going to say something.

[Victor Schrader]: No, just to kind of cap that thought by Alicia. We also are looking forward to folks' input on this. I think we wanted to have this be a starting point and get certainly CD boards' input and the community's input. That's all.

[Andre Leroux]: So these are basically just to kind of Recap, it's commercial only districts, right, in the office too, a new proposal that can go up to six stories. And it's not proposed anywhere in the map right now, but it is seen to be the scale that's needed to do some of the spillover, life sciences, development that we're seeing in neighboring communities. If I can, if I summarized all of that correctly.

[Alicia Hunt]: Any- That is correct.

[Andre Leroux]: Any questions or comments from the board or members of the public about the O2 district in particular?

[Unidentified]: Okay.

[Andre Leroux]: Attorney Borowski. Section five. Yes, section five. Here we go.

[PQNVkYiOrIU_SPEAKER_12]: So now we're getting into some substantial changes here and fitting that it would be done in what is widely known as the black hole of the zoning act, nonconforming uses and structures. So the easiest way to explain this is that when the legislature rewrote the zoning statute, the last time was 1976, try to get your head around that, they pointed out in work that led up to the legislation that non-conforming uses and structures could actually be terminated, wiped out, but somebody would have to pay for that. You could also, uh approach them with the option that they could never change that they were tolerated as they were on the day they became non-conforming and Non-conforming uses and structures become non-conforming as the result of a zoning amendment They were lawful when created or they were created before zoning And now the zoning has either changed or been adopted and these buildings or uses no longer comply That's the only way according to the appeals court that a non-conforming use of structure can be created So if that happened and you had a widget family in a residential district, you could make it stay just as it was on the day it became nonconforming. And the third option would be that you could let them change, expand, alter. And if they were to do that, what kinds of changes, expansions and alterations would be countenanced and would it be by special permit or would it be by right? So those are the ingredients that go into this section. You can see, that the threshold for a nonconformity is defined in section 5.1.1. That's right in the statute, which is chapter 48, section six. Commencement of construction or operation is a provision right out of the statute. In fact, it's one of two provisions in the statute that says zoning ordinance and bylaws shall contain this provision. So not one word has changed there. So then we come down to the action items here, nonconforming uses. What kind of uses that are today non-conforming can be considered for changes? One, change or substantial extension of the use. That comes right out of the statute. And two, change from one non-conforming use to another non-conforming use, which is not substantially more detrimental to the neighborhood. When a special permit is granted under the subsection, no use variance shall be required. I put that in there because I wanted to be abundantly clear that 5.2.1.2 is, for all practical purposes, the grant of a variance without the hardship test. So what it says is that if you've got something terrible today, it's a non-conforming use and it's terrible, but somebody wants to do something different there and it's better, even if it's slightly better, why not at least allow them to apply for a special permit to change the old terrible use to a slightly better but non-conforming use? In other words, New use isn't allowed either. The test case for this was a gravel pit in Winchendon years ago. And the new use that they wanted to start was a demolition landfill. Neither are a pretty picture. But the demolition landfill, at least in the minds of the ZBA, was better than a hole in the ground. And so they granted the special permit. The neighbors won, however, in their appeal, because the bylaw did not list that as a permissible change. So my lesson reading the case is why not at least offer somebody the opportunity to change one non-conforming use to another non-conforming use, which is not substantially more detrimental. I wrote the zoning in Norwood years ago. A client later approached me, he owns a building very close to the hospital, which dominates the center of town. And the old building contained six apartments and six storage units. The storage units were nonconforming uses. And he was also a nonconforming structure because his back of the building was too close to the lot line. What did he want? He wanted to put 12 modern flats for sale, not allow. We went to the board of appeals. We said, what you have there today is an 1890 building. It will never be rewired. He'll never get a variance to change it because of soil condition, shape, topography. Those are the prerequisites of the statute. It's just an undersized lot, not eligible for a variance. Why not use this provision, which I had embedded in the Norwood zoning without knowing I'd be back, and why not let him change it to what he wants to do? Done. It took four special permits, but it didn't take a variance, and there's a building there going up today, I hope. So that's non-conforming uses. Non-conforming structures, same show. You basically have to list the changes that are permissible, Here, luckily, they're both in the statute. One, reconstruction, extension, or structural change. And two, alteration to provide for a substantially different purpose or for the same purpose in a substantially different manner or to a substantially greater extent. The first is garden variety changed to a non-conforming structure. That's what happens. Unless it's repair, it's one of those three things. And the second is rarely discussed in the case law. There's only two cases. One's from Cambridge. It was the change from a garage to a, it was a change from a garage to a bedroom, I think, Nichols versus Board of Appeals. And then there's another case, a smaller case as well, but that's it, two cases in history. So again, the principle here is that you want to allow these things to change. You want to list the changes that are eligible and you want to put it on special permit. Variance required is the codification of the holding of the Supreme Judicial Court in Rockwood versus Snow-Incorp. And the court basically said, if you've got a nonconforming structure and you want to change it so as to increase an existing nonconformity or create a new one, it's a variance, not a special permit. And that makes sense. And you can see that the odd case in which the horizontal or vertical extension of an exterior wall at or along the same line will also require the issuance of a variance. So now we come to the place where 75% of the people who are watching meet the ordinance and that's non-conforming single and two-family residential structures. These structures are called out for different treatment by the statute. They're supposed to be given favorable treatment as opposed to the treatment that would be given an office building or a widget factory or a plain old non-conforming gas station. So it's supposed to be easier to change a non-conforming single or two-family residential Here, the question is whether or not the change increases the non-conforming nature of the structure. Those are mysterious words, aren't they? Those are right out of the statute. So years ago, there were a couple of cases that went all the way to the Supreme Judicial Court. I won't bore you at 906 with the details. Suffice to say that the judges ruled eventually that if That if a non-conforming single and two-family structure wants to change, you have to hold a hearing. And the hearing is two-part special permit hearing. First, determine whether the proposed alteration increases the non-conforming nature of the structure. If it does not, the court said, the applicant is entitled to the issuance of a special permit. That's not what special permits are. There is no entitlement to a special permit. You're entitled to a building permit. but you're not entitled to a special permit. So I knew the justices and I called to their attention the approach of Sudbury, which carved out certain things that we could just agree would never increase the non-conforming nature of the structure. And those are one, two, and three. If the area of the building, if the lot area is too small, but the alteration to the structure complies front, side, rear, building coverage, building height, that's a building permit. If the frontage is deficient, but the proposed alteration complies, front, rear side, building coverage, height, building permit. If the structure's in one side yard and the alteration will comply nonetheless with all current setback yard building coverage and not result in any increase in building height in the area of encroachment, that's a building. So this simplifies the approach that the Board of Appeals has to take with regard to non-conforming structures. One fourth question to ask, these are not and, and, and, and, this is or, or, and or. But the other point to consider is that if the proposed alterations to the non-conforming single or two family home will result in an increase of more than 100% in the gross floor area, that's a doubling of the size, it's a second floor on a ranch, then we ought to hold a public hearing and give people a chance to comment. So this is, you know, it's very complicated to explain it to you the first time. This is in at least 80 towns and cities that I've done. And my phone is not ringing off the hook. I think it's a very simple system. Two justices on opposite sides of the Supreme Judicial Court both agreed with me that this eliminated the conundrum of the entitlement to a special permit. And the ones that don't meet one two or three Go on to apply for a special permit even if you increase the non-conforming nature of the structure if it doesn't cause substantial detriment you're still Eligible to take the shot at getting a special permit Those are That that's for what we would call out here in Concord teardowns or not not teardowns extensions alterations More to be said about this in section 5.7 abandonment or non-use is the next one The statute says a non-conforming use of structure, which is not used for two years uh is uh Gone, it's it's lost its protected status forever So when I did downtown holyoke back in the 1990s There wasn't much left there that wasn't abandoned or not not used for two years today. It's a thriving live work art community So we added a provision that by special permit, the Board of Appeals may reestablish a nonconforming use of structure that is otherwise abandoned or not used. So you can reinvent these and make use of them rather than watching them just turn into dust. And then 5.7, reconstruction after catastrophe or voluntary demolition. Any nonconforming structure may be reconstructed after a catastrophe. That's in the regular law. But after voluntary demolition, that's a teardown. And the provisions that they would follow is the reconstruction has to take place within two years after the demo. If it's going to be built in the same footprint at the same volume, I'm sorry, the same gross floor area, then it's as of right. If the footprint is changing or it's getting bigger, or the GFA is getting bigger, it's a special permit from the Board of Appeals. And most of the people that want to demo something and rebuild it are going to pick three. So two is in there only for the rare case where they're building back exactly the same. 5.8, 5.9, 5.10 are basic standards for substandard lots. This has to do with people swapping side yards in order to avoid variances for additions to homes. And eminent domain is a rare situation in which a lot can be made nonconforming by eminent domain, nonetheless, we'll be treating them as nonconforming structures. So that's a rewrite. If I were to show you the section of, I can do that. I mean, this is basically a deletion of your entire existing ordinance on point.

[Andre Leroux]: Thank you, Mark. It's definitely, I think, much more straightforward than what was there before, and I appreciate that. I do have one question about 5.5 and the language around that. Let's see, does not increase the non-conforming nature of said structure by more than 100% of gross floor area. And you gave an example, which makes a lot of sense, which is adding a second floor on top of a single story ranch house. But the way that's written, it just seems really broad. I mean, could that also... It seems like it could also refer to additions on homes.

[PQNVkYiOrIU_SPEAKER_12]: It could. I mean, the reason I put it in is because the second SJC case, which is Bjorklund versus Norwell ZBA, they met current setback yard building coverage and building height requirements with the proposed changes to the single family structure. But it was quintupling in size. And I said, whoa, at some point there's got to be a hearing. And I just arbitrarily picked 100%. Doesn't need to be there. I thought, it was my feeling that if somebody wanted to double the size of a non-conforming single or two family home, the neighbors probably should get a voice. Winchester actually picked 50% and it filtered too fine. So everything was still coming in for a special permit.

[Alicia Hunt]: Maybe, would it be helpful, Attorney Bobrowsky, we get a lot of cases at our ZBA right now where a single or two family house, usually a single, wants to increase. So most people aren't aware that our zoning allows a single family house to be two and a half stories. And a half story is actually defined as the third story being 50% or less of the square footage of the lower, the second floor. And there are some calculations for dormers and stuff. And we had a lot of people coming who want to increase. They don't want to make a full third story, but they want to increase the size. They want to put in dormers. They want to blow that out a little. So if I'm correct in understanding, if that single family house is already nonconforming, then they would be allowed to do that additional area up there as of right, obviously with a building permit. But if the existing single family house was conforming to zoning, they would not be allowed to increase the third floor as of right. Is that correct?

[PQNVkYiOrIU_SPEAKER_12]: It sounds like it might be, yeah.

[Alicia Hunt]: And I raised that specifically because it is common that a CBA hearing has two or three of these.

[PQNVkYiOrIU_SPEAKER_12]: You'd be changing something non-conforming to something also non-conforming. But in your other example, you'd be changing from conforming to nonconforming. And that's generally where the courts have drawn the line between special permanent variance.

[Alicia Hunt]: I will say that this case of a third, a partial third floor becoming a larger partial third floor is a very common request in Medford and is usually seen by the ZBA as very reasonable request. So it would be nice if they didn't all have to come in front of, but that is certainly not doubling. That is most cases that mild increases.

[PQNVkYiOrIU_SPEAKER_12]: I have to say that my prejudice here is to allow anybody to make an application for anything that they think does not cause substantial detriment without putting arbitrary caps on it. Like no increase can be more than 30% or, you know, I see that a lot of times when I'm rewriting stuff. And if somebody has a good idea that doesn't fit in the box that's prescribed by a zoning ordinance, why not at least offer them the opportunity to present it? If you don't think it's a good idea, just say no. And I think people need to understand that when a board decides a special permit, it's not like the board, it's very unlikely that the board will lose. The courts are instructed to give deference to the special permit decision of a board of appeals, of a CDB, of a city council. The standard is whether or not the decision was fairly debatable. Think about that. I mean, we all remember the OJ trial. That wasn't fairly debatable. That was beyond a reasonable doubt. This fairly debatable is 51 to 49. And judges are told, Don't disturb a special permit decision or we'll reverse you on appeal. You're not the fact finder locally. Let the locals do their work.

[Andre Leroux]: So Mark, the solution to what Alicia was talking about could be to just make three floors conforming.

[PQNVkYiOrIU_SPEAKER_12]: Or maybe Yeah, maybe for a new building, the third floor might require a special permit to exceed the otherwise applicable coverage or GFA requirement.

[Andre Leroux]: But for existing structures, I mean, is there, do you have any thoughts about that?

[PQNVkYiOrIU_SPEAKER_12]: I watched, I actually had a case on the South Coast where Everything was calculated. You needed a degree in statistics in order to figure out what you could use, what you couldn't use. If you didn't have an accurate picture of the old building, how did you even begin the process? People were actually testifying. I've been in that basement and it's not six feet tall in the left corner, that kind of thing. My prejudice is to just say, look, let them come forward with the idea. look at it. If it's a good idea, give them a special permit. If it's not a good idea, send them back.

[Andre Leroux]: Right. But in these cases, they'd have to go for a variance, right? That Alicia was talking about.

[PQNVkYiOrIU_SPEAKER_12]: The only thing that the case law suggests requires a variance, and I'm not sure about the case. There was a case from Brookline two years ago called Bell-Alta, SJC. They said, over the opposition of the neighbors, that if the house is simply increasing an existing nonconformity, it always just requires a special permit. And there's an old appeals court case from Chatham, older, that says if the increase to the single family home is a new nonconformity, that needs a variance. And I don't know that in a footnote in the Valalta case, the court said, we realized that Dedrick versus Chatham is different, but we weren't asked that question today. So we're not gonna answer it. So it leads me to think that maybe that's a temporary place we're at. Remember, it's supposed to be easier for a single family home on principle in this law. It's embedded in this section six that a single family home two-family home should have an easier job of altering than a widget factory.

[Andre Leroux]: Right. Well, and it's all, it's just a little strange given like the Alicia's examples that it, it's more difficult for a conforming single-family home than a non-conforming single-family home to make that kind of change.

[PQNVkYiOrIU_SPEAKER_12]: Yeah. That's because the conforming home doesn't have an existing non-conformity. And so you don't fall into the trap of those two cases.

[Andre Leroux]: Okay, interesting.

[PQNVkYiOrIU_SPEAKER_12]: You're always creating a new nonconformity, which is always understood to create, to need a variance.

[Andre Leroux]: Board members, any questions or comments before we go to the public? All right. Hands raised. Craig, name and address, please.

[Barry Ingber]: Craig Nicholson, 68B Flag Road.

[Andre Leroux]: Having trouble hearing you. Could you? speak louder or closer to the mic? Sir, can you hear me now? Still faint. Oh, hold on. How about now? That's better. OK.

[Barry Ingber]: 68-feet flag road.

[Andre Leroux]: We just lost you again, just went like right down.

[Paul Morgan]: Really not hearing me?

[Andre Leroux]: Not great. Okay, I'll hold on. Can you try to connect via phone or if you wanna type into the chat, I'll read it out for you. And in the meantime, we'll go to a couple other comments. Thanks. David, name and address.

[David McKenna]: Yes, David McKenna to Vine Street. I love the, tone of Mark's comments about letting people to try new ideas. I think one challenge with special permits and variances is it just increases the cost and uncertainty. You know, certainly a lawyer who specializes in zoning likes that we have to request these special permits and have hearings and But it really, it increased the cost and in a city that, you know, in the past has had issues with people with political connections getting special favors, it increases the risk of that as well. You know, I live in East Medford where there are a lot of three story buildings in residential neighborhoods. I think it's a great neighborhood. I love where I live. Just give people a third floor. Because there are these bump outs that are effectively a third floor, but there's a little bit of angle to the roof. There's maybe a five degree angle. And so it's maybe it doesn't count as a third floor, but there's so many of them. Just give people a third floor. Don't make them hire a lawyer and get a special permit or whatever it is. That would be my comment.

[Andre Leroux]: David. William.

[William Navarre]: Hi there. I'm William Navarre, 108 Bedford Street, apartment 1B. I just wanted to sort of express the hope that eventually we can reduce the role of non-conforming in our zoning, the need for it, as in we should have lots of things that conform and very few things that don't. by updating our zoning to be what we want to see. I think a lot of times the zoning has painted ourselves into a corner. I remember attending one of the committee of the hall meetings and the attorney said, You know, we don't want to get rid of these, you know, neighborhood shops because they're a nice amenity. And it's like, if they're a nice amenity, they shouldn't be prohibited by the zoning. And I think that's the easiest and most logical way to solve the problem. And that's ultimately what we should do. Because as the example that Alicia had brought up, it becomes almost like a privilege to own one of these special non-conforming buildings. And it just seems really silly. It's almost like if you were to write out, like, what is the value of this property? The sessor looks at landed buildings, but it's almost like there's a third thing, this like access to a loophole due to nonconformity. It's almost like a thing of value that you also own bundled with that property. And it's totally ridiculous, I think. So hopefully we can fix that over time as we update our zoning to reflect what Bedford looks like and what it should look like. And hopefully when we see non-conforming buildings, those are the really ugly ones in the city that we really don't want to see, as opposed to like this beautiful thing everybody wants to buy because we can't build them anymore.

[Andre Leroux]: Thank you, William. So I'm gonna read Craig Nicholson's comment that he typed into the chat. Craig Nicholson, 68B Flag Road, Southboro. I'm an affordable housing developer. I don't understand the admittedly arbitrary threshold of an increase of 100% of existing floor area. If the addition still falls within the dimensional requirements of the district, there shouldn't be an issue with its increase from an existing structure versus the construction of a new building that would be by right.

[PQNVkYiOrIU_SPEAKER_12]: Well, that's more or less consistent with the debate between the two camps in the Supreme Judicial Court when this was all being decided in the 90s. One camp said, analyze how the structure is non-conforming, and if that specific thing is not changing, then there's no increase in the non-conforming nature of the structure. And that's a very precise, objective way of looking at it. That got three votes. Justice Graney led a camp that said, no, squint at it. And if it's going to look bigger, then it increases the non-conforming nature of the structure. So his test was very subjective and that got three votes. This was in an Edgartown case. Because the Edgartown board had said that they needed a special permit because it increased the non-conforming nature of the structure, that result stood and we were left with no answer. Then came Bjorklund and Bjorklund The camps were divided five to two. Justice Cordy only got one vote this time, and Justice Graney got the other four. And so the squint test won. And the squint test is very subjective. I mean, it really requires everybody to apply for a special permit, because they want to first squint at it and then decide if it's going to increase the nonconforming nature of the structure, whether to allow it. So it's a two-part test. Does it increase? Should we give it a special permit? My carve-outs just basically say, if it fits these categories, fine. The 100% on top of that, it's just my way of expressing my discomfort with the quintupling of the house in the Bjorklund case. There's no magic number there. I can tell you that other towns have done this without the number altogether, and I'm not hearing complaints. I know when it's been a small number, like 25 or 50%, I think 50% was Winchester's number and they rejected that eventually and amended their bylaw. And I think they moved it up to 100. In my hometown here, Concord, it's 100. Generally because I'm leading the zoning, that tends to win the race, but there's no, any number you want is either, either any number or no number would also work.

[Andre Leroux]: Any other questions or comments by board members or members of the public before we move on?

[Amanda Centrella]: I do have some written comments that I could share on this section.

[Andre Leroux]: Great, let me, I just saw a hand raised by William Snyder, so let's do him and then go back to you, Amanda.

[Amanda Centrella]: Sure, I actually think the written comments are from William Snyder, so.

[Paul Morgan]: Yeah, I was just gonna ask Amanda to, because of Mark's, Treatise on a subject to just skip to just the one on 5.5 which has caused some confusion But that's the only one I think is relevant now in mind if you could read that Because I'm on a mobile that would be great. Thank you sure

[Amanda Centrella]: So this comment is from William Snyder 87 Warren Street, and it refers to section 5.5 determination by the building commissioners such that proposed reconstruction extension alteration or change does not increase the non conforming nature of said structure by more than 100% gross floor area. It is confusing because there is no dimensional constraint now on gross floor area so that could not be a measure of additional non conformity. under general law, chapter 48, section six, any increase in nonconforming nature would still require a section six finding by the ZBA as well. Many kinds of objectionable intensifications of nonconformity might not affect floor area. So then are they allowed by right? For example, can I now replace my nonconforming house with a nonconforming five story building with the same floor area by only a building commissioner the floor area is less than double. I don't think that is the intent. Recommend replace the clause with determination by the building commissioner that such proposed reconstruction, extension, alteration or change does not increase the nonconforming nature of said structure and adds not more than 100% to its gross floor area. That's all.

[PQNVkYiOrIU_SPEAKER_12]: I don't have an immediate objection or no objection to the language. It sounds consistent with my intent. And if somebody could send me those exact words, Amanda, I'm pointing at you, then I'll look at them and thank you for the suggestion.

[Amanda Centrella]: You should have them. I sent them over in an email. Let me know if you can access them.

[PQNVkYiOrIU_SPEAKER_12]: You know, it's really valuable to have a second set of eyes on this. I think I mentioned at the start that this is the black hole. And recently there was a land court case interpreting my work. And I made changes to the, this is my model. Obviously it gets tweaked all the time, but I made changes to the basic document based on reading that land court case. And the land court was right. I was being confusing. So thank you.

[Andre Leroux]: Other questions or comments before moving on to section six? All right, let's move on.

[PQNVkYiOrIU_SPEAKER_12]: Okay, that's not it. Section six deals with general regulations. So these are the old favorites of parking, loading signs, et cetera. Didn't change much of the parking. There's some new ideas in here. Here's the code that we were talking about when we were looking at the use table. So this would tell you what the required parking is for the particular use at the end of the line. I know that we changed, we added a provision on shared parking. Here it comes. Oh, this is off-premises parking, and we also added a new provision on shared parking. Off-premises, I believe went from 300 feet to 500 feet measured within street right-of-ways. Parking size and compact spaces are described. These are in your existing ordinance. This is all in your existing ordinance. These are all in your existing ordinance for general parking and loading requirements There's some off-street loading requirements here as well In your and they aren't the same as they are in the existing ordinance This shared parking provision is new And I think shared parking is an interesting concept. I worked with the Dedham Planning Board. I was their council when legacy place was permitted and I got a real education in this from Walker parking consultants who are nationally eminent. And the whole methodology of figuring out how to use the same parking lot for multiple uses based on type of business, time of business, very interesting. So this is a concept that can reduce asphalt. And the most important thing I believe in this addition would be 6-1-10 on special permit. So the parking schedule is quite rigid. It says if you have, I'm just picking a use, a medical office building, you need one parking space per, I can't remember the number, it might be 250 feet of gross floor area. And it's prescriptive and sometimes it's overly prescriptive. So this would allow somebody who is proposing a use to propose less parking than the table otherwise would suggest. You could do that by a variance. I'm required by the tables to build 100 parking spaces. I don't want to build 100 spaces. I think I can get by on 60. Can I have a variance to build 60? Well, the answer is no. To get a variance, you need soil conditions, shape, or topographical constraints. You just want a smaller parking lot because your use doesn't need all those parking spaces. So why not let that go by special permit? instead of by variance because a special permit is a contest between benefit and detriment. And it doesn't have the hardship and the special criteria at the beginning of the test. So this loosens it up. It makes for possible trades between the city and a business or a business and a business in terms of shared parking and cross easements for parking. All of that becomes much more practical. And you'll see the same provision when we get to signs. I need a bigger sign or more signs. Well, I've been to too many meetings where that is a variance application and somebody is making up facts about how the soil conditions and the shape of the topography need a bigger sign. Just ask for a special permit. If it's too big, we'll tell you. If it's too many, we'll tell you. And so that's the approach that I would recommend there.

[Andre Leroux]: Mark, let's actually stop with the parking and the signs for a moment, because section six has a lot of stuff that the CD board deals with and is interested in. So maybe let's just tackle those two first. I do want to be clear with the public and our board members that most of this language is not touched. It's the existing language.

[PQNVkYiOrIU_SPEAKER_12]: I'm sorry, especially science. Yeah, the only thing I changed there I think was to add the special permit requirement and to correct the political site for the right.

[Andre Leroux]: Right. So, I think some of the. And some of the rationale for that is that the city is going through the comprehensive planning process, and that there's a desire to kind of look at these issues a little bit more, you know, comprehensively as a result of that. That doesn't necessarily mean we can't, you know, share recommendations with the city council right now. And in fact, I do want to put one forward. but I wanted to just make that clear for why there's not like, you know, the minimum parking hasn't been proposed. It hasn't been reduced or, you know, proposed to be reduced, so. That being said, I do want to say I love this the shared parking language I think that's great. And for anybody who's not familiar, you know, maybe watching this in the public that shared parking simply means let's say you have a bank next to a residential building, the bank only needs their parking from nine to five, the residential building needs some extra parking, you know, overnight. you know, they work out an arrangement, they write up like an agreement, it's reviewed by the city and approved or not, and then that helps with their parking. So we don't have, you know, empty parking lots when we need parking, things like that. So.

[PQNVkYiOrIU_SPEAKER_12]: And I've seen the special permit work quite well. When I did New Bedford, the city was given a proposal by Compass Bank, they wanted to put an office or a headquarters downtown. I think it required something on the order of, it was hundreds of parking spaces and it's in the middle of New Bedford. So we drafted something for this occasion and they built the headquarters there because they managed to reduce the parking to make it all work. And I've seen it used in smaller scales. I recall using it in Holbrook, right across the town line from Randolph four bay auto repair facility. Why do you need 40 spaces for that? That's what the table said. They came in, they got a special permit, they cut the parking in half.

[Unidentified]: Thank you.

[Andre Leroux]: Board members, anybody want to speak up? Yep, Jackie.

[Jacqueline McPherson]: I just wanted just to clarify something. So you said this language is as is. So this is something that us as a city board body currently have the ability to do within site plan reviews? No, I didn't think so for parking minimums. Andre, I missed the whole thing where you were trying to clarify that. And I'm just trying to put it all together because this is something that has sort of plagued us. During site plan review recently and I'm, I'm liking what I see in the language but I just didn't. I didn't realize that it was as is. Not all of it.

[Andre Leroux]: I mean, I think the science, there's this. A couple of important changes, right? So the signs one, we're not really touching or, you know, the city council hasn't touched yet. They may do that later, except for what attorney Bobrowski pointed out, which was this language around, you know, allowing the ZBA or the CD board to, you know, approve larger signs or additional signs provided that no substantial detriment shall result to the neighborhood or the city, but that would make it, you know, a more discretionary for the community development board or the special permit granting authority, which in many cases is the city council. So that's great. It just creates more flexibility because we don't know, you know, we always run into projects that need some special consideration. And so this gives, you know, the flexibility to the board and to the special permit granting agency, whoever that is, whether it's the ZBA or the city council to make that adjustment. And same thing on the parking. basically says the Special Permit Granting Authority or the Community Development Board may, by special permit or in site plan review, as the case may be, reduce or waive the requirements of this section if specific site or public safety considerations warrant such a reduction or waiver, and no substantial detriment shall result. So that is something that I think is a terrific change that would help us in our work.

[Jacqueline McPherson]: Yes, thank you.

[Alicia Hunt]: And if I may, Andre, to be clear, just because this is something that's very relevant to the City Board, and I've seen this coming up recently with the parking and the special permit, the idea is that if the project needs a special permit from the Zoning Board, then they would be the one who would grant this special permit. If it needs variances, if it's going to zoning board, they would grant it. If it's going to city council, they would grant it. If it is not going to any of them for any reason, but they would want this waiver, then they would end up with the community development board, or if this body was already the permit granting authority. I just wanted to be clear that the city board couldn't step in and grant it, and then the project goes to ZBA for other permits.

[Andre Leroux]: Right, generally, like our site plan review, a special permit with site plan review has been, you know, we send our recommendations to the ZBA, which actually grants the permit. But, you know, this would make it easier for them to do that. And it would give us, I think, more justification and recommending, you know, less parking. So.

[PQNVkYiOrIU_SPEAKER_12]: That was the intent. You got that exactly right, Alicia.

[Andre Leroux]: David McKenna.

[David McKenna]: David McKenna to Vine Street. I know that not a lot was changed here and you all would like to include substantive changes at a later date with the comprehensive plan. I did notice that the two new retail zoning uses of neighborhood retail and convenience retail, which really describes the development along where I live Salem Street, these old, you know, non conforming walkable neighborhood small businesses that we want to support so not everything is a big box store. They have these new required parking amounts that would make all of them illegal still. They're still nonconforming because they don't provide any parking, even though these walkable great institutions that we all use that have stayed in business for over 100 years. And so I would just encourage that with the creation of these new neighborhood retail and convenience retail to support small businesses that you eliminate the parking requirement. If they want to provide parking, They have every incentive to do so, they're allowed to do so, but requiring small businesses to provide parking really limits new development, it hurts our economic development. And so, and I guess we'll talk about larger changes to parking at a future date.

[Andre Leroux]: Thank you. William Navar.

[William Navarre]: Hi there, William Navarre, 108 Bedford Street, apartment 1B. I'm wondering, because I didn't find it in the old zoning. Maybe it's a little hard to navigate the old zoning. Is this parking maximum idea that's in here, is that new as part of the recodification or was that already there and I missed it? It says you're not supposed to put more than double the required parking in a residential zone.

[Andre Leroux]: Yes, that is new language. That's one of the few changes that's in there.

[William Navarre]: All right, I think that's an interesting change. Yeah, I appreciate that. Hopefully we can revisit this issue of parking more generally in the future, because I think that at some point there needs to be a philosophical debate on if it's the job of the city to make it easy to find the parking spaces given how hard it is to find a place to live and so on. Thanks.

[Andre Leroux]: Thank you. You know, although the city council, you know, has not, you know, addressed this issue, I think, you know, we have at the city board level, we have run into the excessive parking requirements on the projects that we've been reviewing. And so, you know, I think it would not necessarily you know, we could send a recommendation, I think, back to the city council and they could take it or leave it. And one thing that I would point out is that I think that the residential parking requirement is very much a one size fits all. that doesn't work for Medford's projects. So it's basically the same parking requirement for a single family home as it is for apartments, whether you're talking about multi-family or single family. So one idea that I'd like to put on the table would be to create a separate parking requirement for Um, for basically leave single family homes as they are, but then create a separate parking requirement that instead of being two vehicles per unit, that would be more like 1.25. I'm wondering whether what the board would think about sending a recommendation like that along. And of course, City Council could could take it or leave it, and there will continue to be more conversation, I think, after the comprehensive plan. But I think in the spirit of limiting the number of special permits and variances that are needed, that this could be a helpful change over the next year.

[PQNVkYiOrIU_SPEAKER_12]: Very consistent with the whole 40B experience with the actual parking needs of multifamily developments.

[Andre Leroux]: Do board members have opinions about that? Go ahead, David, then we'll go to class.

[David Blumberg]: Okay. It would seem like that would be a step in the right direction. I guess I have to look at this with clear eyes and think through what you're specifically proposing, but certainly concur with all your observations that Many of these developments are being required to put in more parking than I think we really want to see so your comments are consistent with what our experience as a board over the last couple of years so in principle supportive of anything in that direction, including your proposal here.

[zMDmsK0LIsU_SPEAKER_03]: Thanks I basically was about to say the same thing as David I think, you know, I think I've been pretty vocal about the fact that I, I think we're building way too much parking in this city so I would definitely encourage. Looking at that I do wonder though, if there are precedents for. Whether it's, you know, by unit type or by project type or something like that, where parking isn't dictated by the amount of dwelling units, or whether it could be whether it could be done some other way that that's more, you know, more tailored to the to the project itself and the community it's in rather than. Just a straight number associated with a dwelling unit like for instance, you know, projects that are to do you know something that's near the orange line or something like that, you know, should have a lot less parking required. So, it's a great topic to, to get more into, as we go forward.

[Andre Leroux]: that Jackie.

[Jacqueline McPherson]: And I just wanted to echo everything that David and Custard saying, especially I wanted to bring up anywhere where there's T O D or any, um, if it's a walkable area and there's access to multiple modes of, um, other transportation, then obviously you abolish some of these, um, the park requirements. I am. So I prefer I am so against these parking minimums, especially where the parking actually has to. It starts to build our city, right? And with it being so car-centric, so anything that we can do to reduce that is always favorable for the community, if you ask. And I'm one of the people that believes that there's a seriously high cost of free parking, as David Shoup has put forth, so.

[Andre Leroux]: Thank you, Jackie. Deanna.

[Deanna Peabody]: Yeah, I generally agree with you. I just had a question. So am I reading it correctly that Like right now, if they don't meet the parking requirement, they need a variance, a developer, but in this, if this new, even if we don't reduce the amount of parking, you know, from two to 1.5, now they could get a special permit through us for the reduced parking. Is that, do I get it? Do I understand it correctly?

[PQNVkYiOrIU_SPEAKER_12]: The thinking, well, they could get a special, they could get a special permit. The us is dependent on what the development board. Well, if the use requires a special permit from the city council, they would ask the city council for the parking reduction special permit too. One stop shopping, we're trying to make it easier. If the use is available as of right, and it's subject to site plan review with the CDB, then the CDB would become a special permit granting authority for the parking reduction.

[Deanna Peabody]: Okay, so the process is still being made easier for getting a reduction in parking.

[PQNVkYiOrIU_SPEAKER_12]: Two ways, one, it's the same board that you need the special permit from, and two, it is a special permit for the parking reduction instead of a variance.

[Andre Leroux]: Okay. But just to be clear, the city board doesn't handle a lot of special permits. No. It would stay with like the ZBA or the city council.

[PQNVkYiOrIU_SPEAKER_12]: Yeah, but when you look at the use table for the Ys under the CDB's jurisdiction, those would be the cases in which you would be an SPGA for a parking reduction.

[Jacqueline McPherson]: Okay, thank you.

[Andre Leroux]: So Mark, just to, if the board does decide when we put to compile our recommendations to send along something in this area, would it make sense to do it along the lines of splitting the A category of parking into like A1, which would stay the same for single family homes, and then maybe make like an A2 that would require 1.25 parking spaces per unit for all or some of the other residential?

[PQNVkYiOrIU_SPEAKER_12]: Nothing's written in stone in the code parking code box. We can just add appropriate letters. We don't need to use half letters or numbers. It's easy enough to change at this point.

[William Navarre]: and I'm very pleased, is going down this route and this conversation. I wanted to ask about a slightly different route you might also consider going, and I don't even know if it's legal, so we actually do need Attorney Bobrowski, I think. I'm wondering if, especially since if we're talking about 1.25, and one of the board members mentioned that the issue is the high cost of free parking, obviously if you have 1.25 parking per unit you gotta decide which unit gets the parking. Does our current zoning code allow either by special permit or in any configuration to allow the landlord to charge for the parking permits so that people who use a lot of parking in the development pay more rent than the people who use very little parking pay less rent? And is it possible to allow that either by right by special permit or Any configuration? I don't know. Basically, I'd like to explore the idea of charging for parking in these developments.

[PQNVkYiOrIU_SPEAKER_12]: I think the landlord could do that, but the problem with zoning is that the landlords change. So, you know, you'd be able to privatize that kind of an arrangement, but I don't know that you'd be able to make it a public policy document because all landlords are not alike.

[William Navarre]: Okay, but under the existing zoning, the landlords would be allowed to charge the tenants for the required parking? Okay, well, that's good. Thank you. I appreciate it.

[Andre Leroux]: Yep. Other questions or comments? So I did say we would stop at nine o'clock. It's six minutes to nine. So I want to take- Sorry, Andre.

[Amanda Centrella]: I have just a couple of written comments submitted from William Snyder, 87 Warren Street, having to do with this part of section six. So he mentions for 6.1.2 and 6.1.3, I did not see off street parking and loading requirements in the use table. And then for 6.2.15 exempt signs for number two, where it says official traffic and directional signs, all illumination permitted. The comment is the previous city solicitor Mark Grumley argued disingenuously during my litigation that this language exempts unofficial directional signs such that they may be on private property and visible to the public and have any size and any illumination. There is no definition for a directional sign. It could read no dogs and be a permanent six foot tall neon sign with floodlights. This is likely not the city council's intent. Recommend change the language to number two official traffic signs and official directional signs, all illumination permitted for such signs. And that's everything.

[PQNVkYiOrIU_SPEAKER_12]: And of course, Amanda, you'll be sending me an email. Thank you.

[Andre Leroux]: Thank you. So what I was gonna say is that we only have five minutes before nine o'clock. So I wanted to take the temperature of the board, whether you wanted to finish section six.

[PQNVkYiOrIU_SPEAKER_12]: You'll never finish it. The performance standard section 6.4 is entirely new. You might get through landscaping, but you'll never finish 6.4. And in fact, it's one of the things that I called out every time to the city council and the staff This is brand new and it's a lot and you really need to pick it apart.

[Andre Leroux]: Well, that's why it is something of a lot of interest to us and the CD board. I think it's great the direction it's going in. There's also the housing stuff coming up in future sections that will also take a lot of discussion. Well, I guess. then given the attorney's estimate that that would probably take us a long time, is there a motion to continue the hearing to December 9th?

[David Blumberg]: Underage David?

[Andre Leroux]: Yes.

[David Blumberg]: I'd like to offer a motion to continue the hearing until the evening of December 9th. Thank you.

[Alicia Hunt]: Is there a second? I second. Do we have a time for that meeting?

[Andre Leroux]: I think we... 6 p.m.

[Alicia Hunt]: Thank you. In the motion.

[Andre Leroux]: Yes. All right. A roll call vote by the board is required. So, Deanna Peabody.

[Deanna Peabody]: Aye.

[Andre Leroux]: David Blumberg. Aye. Jackie Furtado.

[Jacqueline McPherson]: Aye.

[Andre Leroux]: Les Andreson. Aye. I'm an I as well, so five, zero. Motion to continue tonight's hearing to December 9th at 6 p.m. is approved unanimously. And I wanna thank all the members of the public who are with us. I hope you can join us again in early December to continue the conversation. And thank you, Attorney Bobrowski, for all your time. Thanks to everybody.

[PQNVkYiOrIU_SPEAKER_12]: I enjoy this immensely, so I appreciated eager attention of all of you. Thank you very much.

[Andre Leroux]: Yeah, everybody was very, very positive with their feedback and very, very substantive. So thank you.

[PQNVkYiOrIU_SPEAKER_12]: I taught for 28 years and this is just a continuation, seven years after retirement from teaching. So thanks and everybody have a happy Thanksgiving. Thank you.

[Andre Leroux]: Thank you. We can continue the hearing, but we as a board still have to just make sure there's no miscellaneous items or announcements from the city staff and we also need to do a formal motion to, you know, to close the meeting. So I don't know if Alicia or Amanda, there's anything that you need to announce.

[Alicia Hunt]: I will just let you know that we have hired an administrative assistant for our office. Theresa Dupont will be starting on Monday, November 29th. So you may start to see her copied on things. We're very excited. Amanda is still staffing this board, but it's badly needed staff.

[Andre Leroux]: Wonderful.

[Amanda Centrella]: Um, a few small or just a brief thing, um, expect an email from me. I think not tonight. Um, but maybe tomorrow, uh, just, um, a conversation about scheduling. Uh, we have a couple of things coming up, um, a filing being submitted, I think probably tomorrow or Monday. Um, and then, uh, Oh, and I'll put this in the email, the MIT class that y'all met with last meeting, they're going to be presenting their final findings to the mayor and a couple of our staff, and you all are of course invited, no obligation, but I'll send you the invite information for that, I think it's December 6th. And yeah, I hope you all have a good evening.

[Andre Leroux]: Wonderful, thank you. Is there a motion on the floor to adjourn?

[zMDmsK0LIsU_SPEAKER_03]: I will make a motion.

[Andre Leroux]: Thank you, class. Is there a second?

[Jacqueline McPherson]: I'll second.

[Andre Leroux]: Thank you, Jackie. Roll call vote. Deanna Peabody?

[Jacqueline McPherson]: Aye.

[Andre Leroux]: David Blumberg? Aye. Jackie Furtado?

[SPEAKER_14]: Aye.

[Andre Leroux]: I as well. Meeting is adjourned and Happy Thanksgiving everybody.

[Jacqueline McPherson]: Happy Thanksgiving.

[Andre Leroux]: Good night.

Zac Bears total time: 1.44 minutes total words: 126