Redevelopment Board Meeting - August 10, 2026

Welcome to the town of Ireland Development Board meeting on August 10th, 2026. I'd like to call this meeting to order. My name is Ken Laauo. I'm chair of ARB. Can the other members please introduce yourselves? Sim >> Steve Revelac, Vincent Bodan, >> Michelle Shortsleeve, Shaina Corman Houston. >> We're also here uh with Claire Richter and Sarah Shorez. Um >> thank you. >> I want to first introduce that uh today's meeting is uh set up as a working session. Uh the public is welcome to join and be part of listening in but uh there will be no interaction between the public and the board for this meeting. We're trying to uh get as much discussion amongst ourselves to go over some of these topics. If you have questions, please send an email or um a letter to to us and we will we will uh respond to that in that nature there. But we want to spend some time just being able focus on just talking amongst ourselves about certain topics so we're not uh interrupted by uh other other aspects. I appreciate that very much. Mike, do you hear me? Or I'm usually pretty loud, so I'm not. >> Um, the first agenda uh is to review the meeting meeting minutes from July 20th. Do any of the board members have any changes? Steve? >> None here. >> Vince, >> I wasn't here. I'll abstain. >> Michelle, >> no changes. >> Sarah, >> let me Jen, >> none. Okay. Um, that one was the first one, right? Was this only Okay, that's first one. Okay. I have no I have no comments on the first one. >> Okay. >> Uh, can I get a motion to approve? >> So moved. >> Second. >> Steve, >> second. >> No. No. >> Oh, yes. Vince. >> This is July 20. Is that right? Abstaining. >> Uh, it is No, it's June 15th. Oh, >> my apologies. >> July. >> July 20th. >> Which is it? >> I'm sorry. >> July 20th. >> It's July 20th. >> Okay. Um, let me let me restart this again. Uh, do any have any changes to the July 20th meeting, not the June 15th? >> No changes, Mr. Chair. Michelle, >> no changes. Sha, >> no changes. >> Okay. Um, this is the only one, right? >> This is the only seven. >> Okay. I do have some changes then on this one, which is July 20th. Um, on page seven, uh, we're talking about the project, uh, 12, uh, Lanv. >> Yep. On page seven, uh, halfway near the bottom of the page, it states, "The chair expressed concerns about air flow in the basement. I like to scratch the word basement and replace it with parking garage." Um and then on the next paragraph down uh the chair said that any solutions I like to cross out if the if any solutions to the uh issues raised uh at this meeting results in architectural changes. Uh can you take out the word there and add raised at this meeting? The solution to the issue results accept the board. >> Say it again, Ken. I'm sorry. >> Okay. The chair said that any solutions to uh to the issues issues raised in this meeting resulting in active changes then we want want this to come back to the board. >> Okay. >> With any of these changes. >> I just want to clarify you know that just changes. >> Yeah. Any of those? >> Um, that's all I had. >> All right. >> Do I have a motion? >> Uh, I move to approve the minutes as uh as mended. >> I'll second. >> Thank you. Steve, >> yes. >> No. >> Pass. >> Pass. Michelle. >> Yes. >> I'm a yes, too. Thank you very much. All right. Next on the agenda is a working session with the affordable housing overlay committee with discuss uh proposed overate district. Um is it just you two here today or >> Beth Elliot is here. She serves us also a member. >> Okay. And >> I expect more people may come in. >> Okay. Um like I said earlier, if you're on the committee then you're okay to come back and discuss with us. Okay. But if you're not in the committee, I wish you to just give me questions later on. I just want to keep this as a working session between just us and the committee. Okay. >> Yes. >> So, can you just you'll let me know who's on committee and not on the committee that's bringing up questions. Okay. >> Just Carol and Beth and myself right now. >> Okay. >> Thank you. >> So, you want to say anything? >> Sure. I would just like to remind folks that meetings of the affordable housing overlay district committee are open to the public. Uh the committee uh may and often does invite public comment during their meeting and certainly any written comments uh to the overlay housing district committee may be submitted through the committee's contact who is Sarah Suarez who's sitting here to my right this evening. Um you can uh get in contact with her for her information uh if you want to communicate uh in writing. Um, and then we have the co-chairs of the AHA here this evening. >> Thank you. Uh, Carol, you want to make an introduction or Laura? >> Could you just say your names first? Just >> um, I'm Laura Weiner. I'm a co-chair of the affordable housing overlay district committee with Carol Kowalsski who's my fellow co-chair. Thank you for your time tonight. We are looking forward to this discussion and hearing feedback on our proposal. Um, our goal is to leave this meeting with a proposal that has the general consensus between both of our boards um and that we can take to the public in the fall for um for input from the public. There are two parts to the proposal, a draft bylaw and a list of properties that will be in the overlay district. We want to focus first on the list of sites. We want to know if you want to remove or add any sites to the list and if you have any concerns about that approach. We took a spec a sightsp specific approach as an alternative to the all over town approach of the first proposal which came about two years ago before the board um because we thought concentrating on the major corridors offered more opportunities for multif family housing because of bigger lots, more underutilized properties and better access to transit. After discussing the list of sites, we'd like to hear if you have any thoughts on the proposed bylaw which you have seen before and discussed with us. At the end of this discussion, we hope to have a draft proposal to take to the public in the fall to get feedback from the public. Our outreach activities will include um a table at town day, two public meetings, one in person and one on Zoom, and an online questionnaire. And we will report back to you on the results at the end of the um probably the end of the fall, I think. Um, and now I'm going to turn it over to Kyle Kowalsski and Sarah Suarez to discuss the list of sites and I'm going to move because I'm probably right in front of the >> Good evening. Uh, thank you for uh, having us here tonight. I'm Carol Kowalsski uh co-chair for um we really do appreciate you making the time to give us some feedback on the sites tonight and to review for some of the newer members. Uh we uh to introduce for some of the newer members to review for um more veteran members. The committee considered locations that the planning department and past planning studies prepared for Arlington had identified as candidates for redevelopment. Uh we then broke up into groups and scouted the locations to arrive at a preliminary list of sites to which we recently added churches considering the act this year. I'm seeing head nods. Thank you. Um so we'll we'll see what happens with that. But nonetheless, we think they should all be included. Um, we recommend they be included. Um, and so we agreed at the last meeting, we've been working under this assumption of some criteria, very few, but some important criteria. Um, that a parcel or adjoining parcels large enough for a feasible affordable housing development is one criterion. Uh, usually large enough to be eligible for low-income housing tax credit development. Uh the second criterion was sites that don't already have existing homes or apartments except for sites where significant additional homes could be added. And the third one is sites near buss, walking paths, bike lanes or schools or stores or services. So, we'd like to take a a brief look at some of the sites on the story map that Sarah prepared and provided to the board and then we'll um ask to take a more in-depth look at the sites to get your feedback, please. So, Sarah, do you want to talk about these sites or um we we actually if you've all acquainted yourself with the story map, we're not going to, you know, force you to sit through it right now, but if you haven't seen it, it's um includes pictures of most of the sites and corresponding with the map and you can um click on any of them and get a closer look at each of them. It's a great tool. Um this is a good example. >> I think going over it quickly would be helpful for some of the newer members of the board and just get re a refresh. Sure. I don't think you have to get too far in depth. >> Yeah, I've looked through many of them but helpful to hear your thoughts. Yeah. Um you mean besides the besides the um large enough for a litec project and Yeah. >> Do you want to start? >> Yes. So this is uh uh you'll notice on the map that we tried to distribute these we tried to find throughout town not just to say they're all going to go in this neighborhood. So I think that's a virtue of this list. Um this is behind the um way behind common ground. Um >> Monotony >> Monotomy Grill. Thank you. And it's it's an underutilized parking lot. Uh and we have a lot of pavement. Um, and it's often empty in Arlington and it really could be housing people even if we were to keep parking at grade. You can build above this as as the board knows. So, this is, you know, starting east, we could just keep going. Um, do you want to show the um the one uh just north of it? Um, oh, good. This is uh this is um East Arlington. This is walking, you know, for a lot of us it's walking distance to ill wife station. It's right on the Massav bus. Uh this is a very low slung development. It's one story. Uh you could even um imagine this being a really beautiful gateway development for the town. Uh we have a lot of automotive use. I think everyone knows historically that we were a miracle mile for the auto sales um industry and we still have a lot of remnants of that which is fine. We all need to have vehicles serviced from time to time but this could be a very good site. um keep going. And if I'm leaving anything out, colleagues, please speak up. >> Or if there's any property in particular that you want to talk about and discuss why it's on there. >> Would this be an appropriate time to talk about the approach in general as to the spots of these? >> This is wide open. I'm If you feel like you need a question, just speak right up. And I want this to be interactive. I don't want this to be a presentation. I think this is we have to work together on >> so we looked for open spaces basically and spaces that were strategically located for to be close to transit to be close to where people who live there wouldn't necessarily need to be car dependent. We uh Laura and I used to work together in the planning department. Sarah works in the planning department right now. And uh we have a lot of kind of long-term knowledge about some sites that uh just seem like they're very good opportunities. There are lots of sites listed here and we knew there were sites in common ownership with adjacent parcels that would com in in total be of lit or affordable housing development scale. >> Absolutely. No, I love I think that you all spent a lot of time going through and finding, you know, places that would be doable. You know, coming from a development background, it's one of the biggest issues is finding a a space that's big enough and affordable to buy such that you can pencil the deal. Um my concern though is from a legal perspective. So, spot zoning is generally illegal, right? So zoning particular parcels. Um it can be legal if it serves a public purpose. So this you know would be one of those potentially but usually what you see when it is legal is this spot for the fire station, this spot for the school. Um concern that I have with this is I I actually think each of these is very well thought out and where my head went is why don't we do a strip as opposed to spot zoning. Let me just finish my thought. I know that I'm new here. I know there's been a lot of background and so that's why I was asking about the background. But one thing I think we should consider as a board is the potential that this could get sidetracked by litigation if you know say one of these businesses is okay with being designated this um designation because it may actually increase their property value depending on what the property is. Um, but one of their neighbors might actually take issue with the fact that they don't also get to sell their property if the adjoining business did. So, I just wanted to hear a little more. I by no means do I think that we need to do what Cambridge has done and do the entire town, all those things, but there are a lot of these are in similar spaces. Um, and I wonder if there's a way to do a little bit more strict zoning so that we don't open ourselves up to litigation, first of all, and second of all, so that we don't impose kind of what we think will work the best on either the property owners who own these spaces or the developers. Like, for example, there's different developers. Some people are really good with historic tax credits, right? So, when I saw the Capital Theater come up, I said, "Oh my goodness, I know some developers that really do historic really well. I really want this building not to be, you know, bought and torn down or made into something else because I live in East Arlington and it's such a core piece of our experience. And then I went to look and it wasn't in any district that could be redeveloped with, you know, if you put two more stories up there, you could have 50 units and you have a LITC project. You put LITC plus historic and then you have a really easy to pencil. Well, nothing's easy to pencil up these days, but you have a a deal that really could work and could really enhance the neighborhood as well. So that was where my head went. So maybe not being new to this board, folks could talk to us a talk to me a little bit about why we're spot zoning here as opposed to >> This is Can I say a few things? We might be saying the same thing. >> Yeah. >> Um when we talked earlier about some of the stuff here. >> Yeah. >> One of our concerns was >> we didn't want this to to usurp our uh commercial and our business districts in town since we have so little of it. wouldn't have under 5%. And so we didn't want that to be replacing that. So um taking the strip approach was was something we brought up as a as a concern. I'm not saying it's right or wrong. I'm just saying that was one of the concerns. >> Mhm. >> And um we we didn't want that uh that kind of pressure. >> Mhm. >> Cuz right now housing is hot, >> right? And so, um, we're we're still trying to have like a balanced town and some parts where you you can have a walking town, you know, where you can go and get coffee, get a haircut or do what you want, which is the charm of this town. >> So, that's one of the things we uh we're we're sort of concerned about, saying, okay, we're not going to take away all the businesses because right now what's hot is housing. Mhm. >> Uh you do bring up a great point about um litigation and spot zoning. Okay. Um that's not my area of expertise. So I'm going to say >> I see too much litigation all day long. So my head goes there straight. >> I welcome you to the board for that kind of like um so that was just some the history of it commercial. >> Uh yes I can review the spot zoning um concern. Spot zoning is very well supported if there's a very deliberate planning process and a public interest served. It's from my career knowledge and working with a lot of town councils, it's in my experience highly unlikely that we would lose a case where someone were to say to look at this the out the hoped for outcome of this work and um say that there's a a spot zoning case to be had. It's not unusual to have an overlay district that's comprised of discontinuous discontiguous parcels. So, I'm glad you brought that up because it sure looks like little Swiss cheese. But um I can assure you based on my 30 plus years of experience that with the kind of work that this board and this committee and this town has undertaken for this effort over many years, I I think the the and the public benefit that would come from the affordable housing. I I don't think uh it's much of a concern. >> Yeah. And just one thing to add um to consider for the board, it doesn't usually take losing the suit. It takes the several hundred thousand dollars of fighting the suit to just the developer to walk away and for the town to decide that that's not a good use of our taxpayer money. So just something to consider. >> Yeah. >> Okay. Thank you. You want to keep on going with some of the other sites? >> Sure. So this is um Trinity Baptist Church on Massav and it has a very large lawn on the left side that could realistically have some attractive housing and still leave a nice setting and site for the house of worship for the church. And we all know this is the Fox Branch Library and a lot of U municipalities across the country are realizing that they can create a very dynamic uh asset for the communities by having housing re redeveloping their library sites to have housing combined with the library and I know there's some exploration undergoing um here and so this site makes sense to include we believe >> Carol if I could just interject. Um, >> we did a feasibility study on housing above a future Fox uh, library and I can make that study available to the board if you'd like to take a look at it if you haven't seen it already. Um, it's pretty thorough um, and it does a really good job describing what it would take to um, to install that that type of housing um, with a with a new Fox Library. So, we're doing some work uh towards that. Now, >> I was on the board when that study went out and uh one of the conclusions was that um it wasn't enough land. It was it uh it it did not qualify for a good uh life tech project like that. It it needed to be a little bit bigger. >> Yeah, >> that was that was the crux of it. that site location wise was great >> but it just wasn't big enough that you could not generate enough >> uh between what the library needed and what the housing above it just didn't work >> and >> along those lines and speaking with Erica at HCA who they've looked at this site too um the abuing properties there are actually she had suggested that they were potentially They aren't overly expensive. Like they could be put together. And I mean, as an East Arlington resident with four kids under the age of nine, that better not go anywhere. The Fox Library, we need that. Um, so I wonder actually if that would be worth including the adjoining businesses. >> Um, you know, and along those lines, I mean, I'm sure as a board we could say if there's commercial space, you can't you have to maintain it as commercial space. And not every developer could do that, but it would only allow developers that chose to maintain that as commercial space. Um, you know, so that could be an option too if you >> to add the adjacent businesses on Massad. >> Yeah, for that spot in particular because that would, you know, that study I did read that as well and it looks like it's only about 24 units and you really have to go home ownership there, which I think maybe isn't the our goal. >> Didn't work out well. >> Yeah. But but with the adjoining properties, if they if those did want to sell, then maybe it could be doable. And >> great idea. >> We really do need that library. >> Got as far as talking to the owner behind it cuz there's a carriage house back there that's sort of dog leg off the property and the house there. >> It just sold though. I did. >> Yeah. >> I like I had people in mind to do >> to do the library. >> The housing's coming out with some funding soon. Not just Gateway City. So that corner maybe maybe a corner. >> Let's keep on going. Go to our >> Yeah, this is the Arlington Convenience Site. It's um That's true. This is It's hard to tell from this photograph, but it's a corner lot, so it has um a little more space than it appears here. Um and it's of course right on the um right on Massav, so right on the bus line and close to so many services. While we're here in the well, I guess why don't we go to the two further down Massav and then go to but the four and then go back to Broadway to finish the east. So, this is a um Walgreens site. This is uh of course we I use Walgreens and this is a huge site and um we don't want Walgreens to necessarily go away and it's a really good commercial site but it's also one of the I think it's the only site where you could from Massav create a site design where you could have public views of Spy Pond. >> Even right at Spy Pond there are places where we don't have public views of Spy Pond. So, that's a great opportunity for redevelopment, for some really good redevelopment, and it's such a large site, it could be potentially combined with um other uses. So, that's something to think about. It was before my time, it was an AM grocery store, but it's um it's it's kind of hard to believe what's right behind that. So, um, we had David Gamble, um, do a design for a sketch of it, uh, years ago, 12 years ago maybe, where the development could be on either side of the site and you could have some, um, anyway, I'm getting into the weeds a little bit. We don't need to. I think you get the picture. And this is right next to it. So if we're trying to assemble sites and you know you want to have the zoning as you just commented yourselves on adjacent properties if possible. >> So these are a couple interesting buildings. This uh is a condominium office condominium building. The owners have um decided it's vacant. Uh there may be one remaining um business if they're gone. Okay. And so it's it's got the architectural do not resuscitate sign on it as far as I recall. I think it's still up. And the property next to it is also um it's not also anything. It's it's just >> potentially. Thank you. It's a VFW and potentially combined could be a great location for a good affordable housing development. So, going back down Broadway, there are some good opportunities. Uh, let's right there. Yeah, this is interesting. This is a very large chunk of asphalt behind the Lehey Clinic building. It has other uses as a gym. >> It's a massive parking lot. >> Pardon? >> It is a massive parking lot. >> Yeah. And it's a 4-minute walk to a grocery store. There's a bus stop right out front. So, it's it really seems like we should and I've talked to some developers who have multif family developers who have um said that they thought of that site too as one that could be good for u multif family and a affordable in particular. Could I also just make a statement? Um, that I believe is one of the only sites really truly sites in Arlington for IND industry or some sort of commercial because it's that wide open. It's that close to the um to tea where you're not hamstring by not having enough parking. I'm just saying that's going to happen. We have to balance that two together. But I I don't think that I I just don't disagree with it. It's a great site. It's also a great site for other things, too. >> Has the board and the committee considered adding any bonuses to include commercial? >> We are. >> Go ahead. >> I was going to say it is uh it is in the draft bylaw changes. Um but I think the one challenge with commercial is it's you need a different source of funding, >> right? >> Um and or if you're going to use going to do lit funds, you it's got to be some sort of a community service organization. So HCA was able to pull this off with um having Arlington Eats. Um but you know it's it's we don't we may not always have the luxury of having um you know a nonprofit community service organization ready to fill a space. >> Actually you don't need another source of funding. You just have to back it out of basis. So you just build a um empty shell and then you can fill it with whatever there's um a project that >> it's hard to finance that commercial as you know. You can't cross subsidize it with the housing and the >> um >> commercial the commercial market is so tight right now that >> unless you're doing commercial fit out for your tenant you have a hard time getting a decent amount >> although in I I would be interested to see it depends sort of what what neighborhood it is right if it's a walkable place like this where it might be a little different than some of the other commercial spaces that are hard to fill in some of the developments that we see. Um, >> so I would never want to see it as a requirement, but >> do we have a study of what Arlington's commercial like what is optimal for commercial in Arlington? What size? What >> we have sort of we have sort of one that's sort of done. We're still working on that right now. Mhm. >> And why don't we just table that to >> Yeah, >> that's coming up next later on tonight when we talk about u business district here. >> Yeah. But just if people have concerns that commercial, you know, a spot shouldn't be included in this because of commercial, I think we should consider. >> I like your pressure fresh approach. Um I've been told >> all along that it doesn't work. They don't play well next to each other. And uh I said, "Okay." >> Yeah. >> But if we can get it to work, it'd be great. I think what I'm hearing though is um allow for the opportunity for it to work as opposed to as opposed to create a requirement for it to work. Um and um and that I think I would be very much in favor of >> talking about mixed use or you talking about two different uses on the site or what are you thinking? I I think um I think any of the above um you know I I'm not close enough to to uh the overlay is proposed to know for to know for sure but but I think every every site's going to be a little bit different. A site like this might might be appropriate for multiple uses on a site. The library or for you know in in physical multiple physical spaces. The library site on the other hand um you know even even if it were something different than the library it would I imagine need to be mixed use there's just not enough space for anything but one building um with a mix of uses um but I don't know I I generally think the more flexibility um and creativity that is that is provided to um developers ers the better. Um, uh, let's let them tell us what what works. You know, they want to do cool things >> to allow it and not require it. >> That's right. Right. >> That sounds good. And note that um the um if you look at the um list of parcels here, we're not proposing that the zoning be necessarily in the street frontage, but just in the back where there's the less utilized part. Carol, you also said something a little earlier um backing way up about about um adjacent parcels and um and I wonder if uh if there's a way of treating adjacent parcels in the overlay. Right. So, so, uh, we you all and we can do some thinking about, oh, we think this is an appropriate adjacent parcel. Should we put it in? But, um, in the vein of developers are going to come up with things and be creative. Um, I wonder if there's space for saying um if a developer wants to assemble parcels and the main parcel or or even just one of them but uh is is in the overlay district and the ultimate uh the final development meets the the requirements of the district. um you know the overlay district zoning will rule even if um even if an abuing um parcel. Have you been eavesdropping on our committee meetings? Well, there's no open to the public. So, no, that that's great to hear because we've been um thinking about that from the beginning and trying to work on that language. So, that's great to hear. Thank you. I when that >> when we get I'll save it till when we get to the bylaw text. I do have some uh specific feedback on that origin of it of your drive. >> Okay. >> For example, we might think, "Wow, that gas station looks amazing." And then they might drill down and find that that's not developable, right? Because there's spillage or there's something and maybe the parcel next to it is better. Who knows? >> Y >> that's right. >> Okay. So, this is the Dunkin Donuts. There's um it's is this the one where it's a it's right next to this has been like this as long as I've lived here and I've lived here for so long it's like ancient times and this would be um again there's schools services it's so close to um the the playground and so this is a really good potential site notwithstanding the potential 21e issues that the developer would have to deal with. >> So, um the Duncan is right next to the >> Broadway and then >> I'm curious um is when you guys looked at that site um was the site big enough to support your I don't know 30 odd units of housing there u to make it >> 111 this one. Yes, that one there. >> Yeah, it's almost 11,000 square feet. >> Yeah, for for context uh for context, 10 Sunnyside, which is uh being developed into 47 uh is about 14,000. So, yeah, I I I think you could put a litech project there. >> Okay. I'm just wondering with the housing corporation's project with the food bank right next door. So, It takes care of the access to the property which is a challenge on 11 Broadway. >> Yes. Because I just remember the owner of that coming to us saying we need access from the playground and we said no. Um you know so I'm just wondering was this site good enough but okay sorry keep on going. >> Good observation and this is very close by. This is Eli's. And again, 21E, but we'll let the developers figure that out. And right next to it is uh these apartment units that could potentially create with an additional um story or two. This a lot of open area. This could be redesigned and redeveloped possibly. uh we would I think any developer here would have to be very careful not to displace people. That's a very important part of our criteria. But look at the acreage. It's 5.29 acres. So we didn't want to overlook the the potential to include this. >> I think that is a great site. Um, and I would encourage even going further and um, looking at the traffic islands and the streets in that area. Um, there's such a wasted space. Um, I you you go there, you don't know which way to go, left, right. Um, and if you're trying to merge your traffic, you're way out, you know, you you'll really take a long time to merge out there. And um and this is just a bunch of boxes. They're sort of scattered along this parcel here. >> Mhm. >> And I think realigning these boxes is a great spot and not losing um you know people who live there. I think relocating and do it in phases >> is definitely a great spot. So I I >> I looked at the site and I thought this is a great site >> and it's big enough. Just to be clear, any developer that gets federal funding is not allowed to displace people and they put up to $300,000 in their budget to find appropriate places and then people have a right of return. So >> if you're looking at a fedally funded project that shouldn't be I mean obviously it's disruptive to people when they have to temporarily relocate for sure. But >> I wasn't aware of the ownership of this. So I'm glad >> it actually doesn't matter. It doesn't matter who owned it before the federal >> because you're using the litech. Yes. >> Yeah. Li I don't Yeah, exactly. So it you even have to Walgreens would be we you'd have to relocate Walgreens. >> Yeah, just like a person. So Yep. >> Thank you. That's that's also good for us to bear in mind. You might just consider that little triangle between Warren and Broadway as a candidate. If that segment of road were ever to be um removed, at least as a vehicle throughway, it could be turned into a still a walking corridor, but you could somehow include that little triangle. We will uh I will ask Director Ricker during new business to uh give us an update on the town's plans for the intersection of Warren and Broadway. The >> town's been planning on that for um as long as I've been here. >> They've been talking about it. That's all that's happened. >> Yeah. C >> can I ask Carol the you you came to the board in the early spring with a list of sites. Is this the same list of sites or has it changed? So, I'm just if anything, we've added a few. >> We added the um the houses of worship. Um we've added >> um we've added more of the house of worship parcels. Um not they haven't been added to the to the the map yet, but they're on the parcel list. So, if you um were not looking at, you know, this screen necessarily housing authority properties, HCA properties. But I think you saw those. >> I mean, the reason I ask is that I think someone listening could think, "Oh my gosh, they're going to redevelop every church and every business." And, you know, I think it would be a miracle if one out of 50 of these were ever redeveloped. So, in my mind, we're >> creating just the opportunity for a handful of projects. And the more reasonable parcels we can include, the better. Um, the property owners still have their full choice of not redeveloping and most of them will not redevelop. But I I think adding more is perfectly fine with me. So when the houses of worship were added, um was it was it the congregations themselves or was it more along the lines of um uh Yigby eligible properties? Right. So, so schools um uh or things owned by by uh congregations that might not be a church or synagogue or whatever um itself. it it was all parcels that are owned by a house of worship um and that have a use code um that is consistent with being either um rectory church um in some cases I believe they have um like if the church owned it and it's operated as a school like that's all included. So these are the list up here right now um in green is all of the um church on parcels church house worship on parcels your point Vince will um come back to um because that's a very important one that this is not a redevelopment plan this is just creating zoning rights another layer of zoning rights on top of the um existing >> um to center. >> Sure. I'll try to speed it up, but you take your time. I'll just try to >> Well, this is good. I think this is good interaction. >> So, on Medford Street, the um Arch Dascese has the um the the two schools, Arlington Catholic High School and >> St. Agnes Church and the parish center. So, there's a lot of real estate here. So, um, we're including all of this. Um, I doubt this will ever convert, but, uh, we know that the, um, the arch diocese does develop, um, some of its property from time to time, so we wouldn't want to deny them the opportunity to do that if they ever decided to do that. and Russell. >> So, the Russell common lot uh that that's very important and we're not going to talk too much about that tonight, but it seems like an obvious opportunity for if the town were to want to engage in a design process. We don't want to deny them the opportunity to include in that design process and redevelopment concept, possibly having a corner of it having afford 100% affordable. The location is is terrific. Um, this is the Verizon building uh at the corner of Maple and Pleasant. And it has a parking lot in the back and a yard in the front. We just go by it. We don't even notice it. But that's a really good opportunity right there. >> Is that building empty? >> No. means for iPhone. >> I know, but back for back in the day when they had >> operators and they, you know, push buttons and connect wires, they needed all that space. >> There's definitely >> cuz I I'm not sure what's in the building now. I mean, you're not going to have switch gear or any of that kind of stuff. in that new one in a newer building that's >> Verizon's putting some new technology into some of their real estate, but I don't know if that's the case in this building. >> So, so all of the housing authority Arlington Housing Authority properties and the housing corporation of Arlington properties were all included. So, um that was at the request of their executive directors. Um, so we don't have to necessarily spend I don't think a lot of time going over that, but um 58 Medford Street um is is 58 Medford Street is included um only because I've been speaking this is the owner of um the project at 80 Broadway which is the five-story development. Um, so the owner of the property also owns this and he asked um he's very he's interested in being considered um for for any redevelopment work that could be done um especially as it's adjacent to the housing authority if there were any opportunities um there are you guys can also be including the funeral parlor next door >> if the board wishes for I'm just looking at size of properties. >> Um, and that was like a house with like kind of a large backyard, but that's about it. But if you include that parcel and the funeral parlor >> and then there's an office building sort of sort of jet in there somewhere, that now becomes a decent sized parcel. >> Good point. Noted. Thank you. >> I mean, it's just an overlay. We're not saying it's going to be that. I mean, we just we just want to look at getting the structure so we can do it. I just want to see, you know, >> one five chestnut. >> These are all housing authority property, so I'm just going to scoop over them. >> And here we have another large parking lot. Uh this is one of my favorite places in Arlington, but um you know, we could add to their the owners allowed uses affordable housing. Uh you could even probably do a couple different things redeveloping here because it's a lot of land. >> A another of our former uh car lots. >> Yeah. One of the last places to get really good fish. >> And this is across the street at the corner of Mill. >> Thank you. Mill and Summer. Now, across the street from Arlington High School is Banker Row. There's three banks right next to each other. Uh, and this could be a great opportunity if if even a couple of them were assembled. This could be um a really great opportunity for an affordable housing development. So on either side of Massav here uh are properties owned by held in common ownership uh on both sides. You could take your pick. I mean, as a as an owner of which side of the street you want to activate for affordable housing to redevelop, there's um across the street is the parking lot that this is so many parcels. It looks like one lot, but it's many parcels all in same ownership. So, they wouldn't have to assemble any of that. It's it's all owned by one if they opted to use that. And down behind on Apprentice Street is a a function hall. And is that the K KFC? Is that the Knights of Columbus? >> No. >> It used to be Sons of Italy. >> Sons of Italy. Thank you. Excuse me. So again, it's not a redevelopment plan. This is just creating new um this would create additional zoning opportunities besides the ones they already have. Can I ask, and I know this is probably a question out of order, but going back to Michelle's thought about strips, are any of these parcels also in the MBTA community zones? >> Most of them are not. >> Most of them are not. And I I just wonder if you know I know that there is a kind of logic that leads towards the larger sites for the litec projects but it's not impossible that someone might see some opportunity in smaller site or maybe a couple of smaller sites that are side by side and I wonder if looking at some of the zones that are in the Massav Broadway um multifamily district might also be included. you essentially have a a parcel with two overlay zones. And that might also be a way to even if spot zoning is not a concern per se to create some more contiguous districts that connect a couple of these parcels that would otherwise be discontinuous. >> So consider including some of the MBTA um the parcels that are in the two MBTA districts. >> Yeah. And and one reason to do that is that the board has been trying to to to exercise some degree of caution about redeveloping our commercial and industrial parcels. All of the MBTA communities parcels, as far as I know, are zoned for residential. We didn't reszone commercial and industrial parcels. So what you have are, you know, maybe smaller lots, but they're lots that are currently used for re residential and redeveloping them as residential would essentially not change that. >> We are trying to keep true to the criterion of avoiding um lots that have existing residential. Uh and I can go into detail on on uh the principles behind that. Uh we also met with the assessor, our late assessor in March uh to get information on the value of apartments, even affordable apartments versus commercial new construction in terms of new growth in the tax base. And we were um pleasantly surprised that even with discounting for affordable apartments, they still on a per square foot basis give us more bang for our buck in the tax levy in terms of new growth even while they're under construction than new commercial would give us. So, it's I I think the MBTA district and notwithstanding the fact that we will take a look at the MBTA parcels to see if some of them make sense to include. But, uh, for those two reasons, I think, um, we're trying not to go where there's already possibly lower market rate rentals that are occupiable and that are probably housing people who couldn't afford new construction in um, a conventional apartment. Um, so we we want to try to avoid those if if we can with this particular overlay district. But I take your point and I I will we will look for any of those parcels that you might want to add. >> Appreciate that. >> Happy to add as many parcels as you want. >> Thanks. But no, I I do appreciate that explanation and that logic and I I I think it's nice to see that there's that thought that's gone into it. So thank you. >> Thank you. And so right this is um a stretch on Massav where there's again automotive vehicle motor vehicle and um the myra is um changed hands recently. There's a lot of land here and I think that this is just so opportune this whole area. Um so I don't if unless anyone has questions about um Greater Boston Motorsports and the my former Myra Chevrolet. Is it still my Chevrolet? No, >> McGovern. Thank you. >> Um Eric, can I just interrupt one? >> I'm going to try to control this meeting till such that um we're going to move to the next agenda at 9:00. So, uh I want to give you give you opportunity to do some back end of talking about some of the zoning stuff, too. Sure. I just want to go 100% on this all these little sites. >> Yeah. So, if you want, we could stop here and um you get a flavor for what we're looking at, what we're picking. Uh and we'd be happy to address questions through the planning director if that's um you know, to be respectful of the meeting law. If you look at the rest of the sites and have questions or if you think we overlooked anything really important, of course, we could take that that feedback through planning director. What does the rest of the board uh think? I'm >> open. >> I think we've gotten a good sample. >> No. And I I think you're uh I agree with your your I think your uh selection criteria has been sound. Um it you're looking for parcels that you know are larger. um that you know tend not to have a significant residential use and that are um you know tend to be with the you know tend to have higher land value ratios and be good candidates for development. So uh or for redevelopment that all makes sense to me. I I I think I think the I think it's a good selection of sides. >> Thank you. >> I would just echo what my board members on each side here have mentioned. Um, I'm so glad you brought up the tax base, you know, again noting my four children. Um, it is a concern sort of what the cuts that are happening in the school district. Um, and so anywhere we can add tax base is a win um, in my world. Uh, and so I guess I would just echo what these folks had said is any way we can give flexibility. You know, for example, I love Shaina's idea that if there's one of the parcels in this district, you know, it could sort of shine onto the others and bring them in, maybe that would catch some MBTA um parcels because it is going to be hard to develop anything in Arlington, period. It just is going to be difficult. So, we're not going to see that much. But, if we could, you know, get two developments that get us to our 40B threshold and that get us a little bit more tax base in the next 10 years, I I mean, I think that would be great. So, I love these ideas of how can we add flexibility to sort of make it actually happen, you know, for a couple >> developments. Um, so so I think this is a great list. I think um uh I I think you've you've done incredible work. I um am thinking about what Michelle raised with the spot zoning and not being an attorney. Um wondering about how to think about that. And I don't know, you know, maybe you can speak to or Michelle can speak to whether um structuring or building into the into the overlay uh criti criteria as opposed to sites. So that so that the overlay is um is structured around um very specific criteria. um and and you know you've used very specific criteria to identify sites in the first place. So so that um that might be a way to protect against against um uh concerns of spot zoning. Now I I don't know if criteria could be structured such that it um such that they are narrow enough to um capture the sites the desired sites um but not a whole lot more. Um that was >> Thank you. Why don't we u move on to the I think we're in agreement here. Why don't we move on to the some of the zoning? Okay. >> Suggestions and we'll talk about that a little bit. >> I mean, if we need to take off. >> Well, I think if we need to schedule another meeting, we'll talk about Let's follow up. I don't want to get too much in. Uh, >> so may may I follow up with one quot with one remark just regarding um I I I think I'm inclined to trust Miss Kowalsski's um you know, career as a planner in terms of that. you know, this is a viable um or a viable parcel list for an overlay district. Uh the one thing I think one advantage I see in having a parcel list is that you you actually have a specific list of sites rather than giving someone a map of 12,000 parcels or which that's that's roughly what we have and then trying to sort out which ones are um candidates or not. So to be to me the concrete list is is actually a beneficial thing. >> Oh, I I think one way or another we need the concrete listing. So if it were if it were um uh standards, if it were qualitative standards, I I think we'd need to um release along with it. these are the parcels that we believe you know these are the parcels that that uh fit these standards we believe and someone could always I think come back and challenge and say no actually I fit too you know let me in let me in um but uh but it would also allow for evolution over time >> we haven't talked about that at all but someone would apply to ask to be added to the list as they have done with the MBTA communities overlay and I believe were added >> one >> by 10 meeting one >> two >> two I was going to say two one a year >> okay >> one a year it's a slow it's a slow process >> it just it just occurs to me that one thing we might do rather than trying to find some kind of funky way to write the zoning in a way that makes it also apply to adjacent parcels which seems a bit either you include it in the zone or you don't. But you could commit as a town to having a standing warrant article that the town would do outreach for anyone who wants to come and submit their parcel to be uh potentially included in the overlay district. And you might only open it to people who are immediately adjacent to the overlay district. So you don't just add this patchwork all over the place. But that could be something that the town could do to support the sort of incremental um addition of parcels from time to time. >> That could allay a litigation concern because people are more likely to if they really want to develop, they don't want to get in a fight with you. They'd rather bring forward an option that could allow them to. So that could help. Yeah. >> It seems unlikely that anyone who wanted to develop affordable housing would not bring it to the planning department fairly early on because they'd be looking for money. So, uh, we would know about it >> and could add it. >> Yeah. From the affordable housing trust or CDBG or >> what not from planners pockets. >> Well, we move on to next. >> Um, so we have the we have the draft bylaw. It is very similar to one you've seen in the past. Um uh re mixed use was something we sort of struggled with because of the feedback we got from developers was that it's very hard to use tax credits for mixed use property. But it is also conceivable that there might not be that might not be the only source of funding used. So we we came up with as a um sort of a compromise that mixed use would be allowed and a de at a developer's choice but would not be required even even um along the commercial corridors. But also to note with the exception of the Fox Library, none of the properties are in one of the three business districts. They're all between the business districts. >> Yes. Thank you for that. >> Yes. And a quick question. It says mixed use bonus, but I'm just having trouble finding what the bonus is. Is it just that the setback is reduced? >> Yes, the front yard setback. >> Okay. >> What's the We're we're still editing that section and that's kind of what we're hoping would be happening here. like try to sorry and and really trying to understand um a way that we can give the mixed use bonus um as an option for those that want it and how how like we initially was working on how to get it into the MBTA overlay like if we just put a 100% affordable but then we kind of got stuck and there's no other incentives that we really could have offered short of going up one more floor and we're still set on just those parcels that can really go up to six stories already. So, we can keep the same type of language um for an affordable the affordable housing overlay to have a mixeduse bonus where you're still trying to meet the 60% of the ground floor dot dot dot. Um it does get more it's it's a it's up to the board really. It's a little bit strict for an affordable housing. um developer to meet and I only know this from from HCA and their work with the um Emma's Court project is it's they're still having a lot of difficulties trying to justify the the space and and the design um based on based on the strict requirement of that commercial mixed use space. With the MBTA communities, we had a four story limit, but you could go up to six if you had affordable housing or mixed use. >> And with we chose to just do six. >> Yeah. >> Because we really want to make it as feasible as possible. And therefore we and and we discussed did we want to do a bonus beyond that and felt like six was something that the town has voted on. It's acceptable and we didn't want to um do anything that would jeopardize the proposal. So we don't it's not as strong an incentive as with the mixed use with the um META communities. I think um from my experience as a developer back in the day um six is actually a a number that is is hard to go. You either go six or you go 12. Um going between doesn't make any financial sense whatsoever because with six stories you can go stick frame over a podium. Okay. Once you go over six stories now you're in a high-rise. in a whole different category. Um, you know, female >> going over four is actually I think going over four is pretty difficult because you get into Davis making wages if it's federally funded, right? >> Based on storms, isn't it? Units. >> I I don't know about that. >> It changes the wage rate. >> The wage rate that's it goes into a commercial wage rate as opposed to the residential. But anyway, they can the developers can. But then, you know, take your point for sure. >> But then, you know, you start going high-rise and now you want to make high-rise work. You can you're looking at 11 or 12 stories. You're talking about steel and you're talking, you know, a whole bunch of other concrete slabs, the whole whole works. So, that's just different, >> right? >> And um that's just economics. >> Uhhuh. >> And then also, I don't think the town wants a bunch of 12story buildings around. Okay. So, I think that's just a no a no a no non-starter there, >> right? Is it above seven floors that you have to do steel frame or is it above six? >> Above six. >> It's it's really based on something really simple. It's based on the fire trucks hook and a ladder and if the if that ladder can't reach up certain height then it's classified as a high-rise building and then you go with different kind of structure. But uh the law says that that you can go with five stories of wood framing on top of a bo on top of a podium which gives you six floors. That's what you know. >> Yeah. I think that's the new norm. >> Mhm. >> I mean if you look at Paris and you look at all those buildings that are built at a certain height and just because that's the height they can build at. I think that is sort of what we're sort of getting into, you know, as a norm uh for the new parts of buildings. Uh I guess around turn of the century, it used to be those threetory um >> the triple deckers. >> Triple deckers. Okay. And that was the norm. >> But because the cost the cost of land and especially everything else now it's the it's gone up a little bit. So it's it's it's just a standard sort of >> so the the the the mixed use bonus is a significant bonus because the 10 ft is I presume on every story of the building that you can get it. So that really could change your project quite significantly if you can build to the sidewalk versus not. And I'm a little worried that if we just leave it as I understand it, it's it's left up to the board's discretion how much mixed use, how much space, and I just want to as much as possible avoid having a bylaw where the developer wouldn't know what they would need to do. And so I know it's tricky to say 60% or 30%, but we you might want to consider just putting a target so that it reduces our honestly we our discretion and and and makes it clearer >> guess work. >> Exactly. >> Now we can we can fight for years about the definition of 30% but at least having a number >> gives them some guidance. I we've tried um in most cases we've followed the MBTA communities um so I mean with the setbacks um would it make sense to just follow the wording that's in the MBTA communities >> maybe we can do even better I think is what Vince is saying >> well you finish and I have a few things >> I don't think it needs to be 60% if that's what you mean I'm open to a different percentage >> so just um A couple of on the topic of bonuses, I would encourage uh you to consider the word incentive rather than bonus. Um with MBTA communities, yes, we use the term bonus. And I I think there were members of the public who interpreted bonus as something that should be difficult to achieve where the intent was to uh incentivize certain types of development. So, um maybe maybe incentive would be a better word there. Uh it looks I'm glad to hear you're still working on that section because the I was sort of puzzled why the table had a 0 foot front yard set back setback in the corridor district and then um and then you know offered a zero foot setback for the m mixeduse incentive. Um, regarding since we talked about uh parcel boundaries, I was a little surprised by 592C where it says that basically if the overlay if a development consists of, you know, part of it's in the overlay and part of it's not, well then you can't do it. uh which I I think that's the you know would it would essentially work really I think it to me it would really work against the idea of parcel aggregation so >> should be the opposite >> yeah so maybe one parcel you know maybe one parcel adjacent to the district could be included uh and the the MBTA communities b um has or the MBTA communities overlay does have language to that effect uh finally um as far as site plan review goes I I commend you for um for referring to board regulations rather than EDR criteria. Um that's a whole other can of worms and I'll just let that go for now. But in terms of the what the standards for site plan review are. This is still a moving target, but both the House and Senate have put have developed standards for site plan review. And it's very likely that by the end of the year, one of, you know, one of that will some part of that in some way, shape, or form will be part of chapter 48. And we won't have to worry about the specifics because Massachusetts will have a uniform standard for sighteline review, and life will be well more wonderful than it is now. Um >> thank you. >> Can I uh uh inject something um with this setback? Okay. One of the things we considered uh was fairly highly debated actually uh with the MBTA is zero setback and um 10T 15T setback whatever setback there is >> um the setbacks and zero setbacks has to do with what the function of the first floor is. I think that's something you have to really look into because uh when you when you're doing mixed use, having a zero setback is great because it activates the street. It enliven the street. But when you're doing housing, you don't want zero line setback cuz you want to be walking by looking in someone's house or vice versa or someone just living in the first floor and seeing everybody walk by. So having a setback is nice and I I don't want to just say let's cram everything in there. Um so I think if the first floor we should look into that if the first floor is housing then we should talk about something having some sort of communal space there. Um you know one of the things I liked back um before was the front porches. I mean that all went away, you know, you know, with invention of air conditioning and so forth like that, you know, no one sat outside to cool down anymore and and that you lost that communal, you know, um, you know, seeing what's who's walking down the street and all that kind of stuff. But if we do something like a communal space that can have something like that, that might be okay. >> So, I don't know. I'm just >> be really beautiful, too. >> I'm just not trying to say Let's look into it. I'm not saying say yes or no one way or the other. I'm just saying we let's be cognizant of what just saying zero setback is a lot building but that's not what you want. you want to create a a lively space and um so >> so if there was a maximum like a minimum a maximum setback >> I don't think it's that I think we should talk about like depending on what function >> that happens >> but uses do change right you could start off with just the right use and it fails for some reason and then then what >> yes I know >> it has to be that >> but let's say uh we just uh approved moved this uh uh gas station up in uh um what part of town that is? It was was formerly a gas station and car dealership. Now it's sells marijuana. I mean uses change. Um you you just have to change it as things adapt. But when we first start off, let's let's start thinking about, >> you know, if we if we say zero setback, let's go in there with eyes open saying what kind of space are you creating there? You know, maybe you push it up and maybe it's half story up so you see people top of people's heads. I don't know. Um, just want to bring it up. That's all >> it is. That's so zero literally means to the sidewalk. So no street trees. Yeah, >> that's that's >> it's pretty d Yeah, it's pretty >> harsh. >> I mean, I guess there maybe there's an in between where it's not doesn't have to be a huge setback, but enough to at least have plantings or something. >> Plaza little plaza for the a transitional place that here's the public sidewalk. Here's this transitional area that transitions into um the residential. I think it's good food for thought. And then it does make the commercial a real bonus, you know, if you get five more feet or something. Um, and people who developers who really are committed to doing commercial are hopefully going to do it in a way that makes it work and it won't just be empty, but you never know. I think >> I mean we just we were going to ask if there were any other um things in the zoning creative things in the dimensional such as um if you were by a residential area should it be a different setback than if you commercial >> I'm sorry >> yes um >> yeah We talked about whether the setback requirement should be different if it abotss a residential zone than a commercial zone. >> This No, but it ab butts a residential zone. >> Yeah, >> that was one thing that >> I think what Steve brought up earlier and Vince too is the possibility of say you have u conjoining spaces. Right now, you have this affordable housing overlay or whatever it may be in this one parcel, but the parcel directly next to it is zoned R1 or R2, whatever, there's a possibility like combining those two zones and upzoning that extra parcel. And then with the MBTA, if the mixeduse building is abing a residential district, there's there was a setback uh which which had a setback. So you so you um uh you address that part and I think you should you should look into that. >> Keep that. uh like you know like you know if it's next to a residential you might want to step it down you know and has setbacks where it's not six stories or maybe four stories three stories or whatever and um so so you know there's no shadow overlays and that kind of stuff you know >> right >> okay so so my personal opinion is that we have a very complex zoning code here and um uh here in Arlington. And I would encourage um I would encourage you to streamline and be uh and be parsimmonious um uh to the greatest extent possible while while still, you know, achieving all of the specific goals that you're trying to achieve. Um but but I I think um you know the specific question you raised about about different setbacks adjacent to residential districts. My initial thought is let's not complicate matters more than we need to. >> Okay. >> Can I make a very specific suggestion? Um, in the spring, I believe it was HCA proposed a warrant article which was 50 article 56, which would have given the board the option to reduce the bicycle parking requirements for projects that were 100% affordable. And I think at the time our comment was, you know, maybe, but this would make a lot more sense as part of the affordable housing overlay district. And here we are. So what if you were to um add a line saying that the board may reduce by I think they had suggested 2/3 the number of bicycle parking spaces required. Um that actually the other thing we talked about was how was the parking in general, the car parking in in particular and um we decided not to change the parking requirement because the the zoning, our zoning bylaw has so much flexibility already to reduce parking with transportation demand management. and we wanted to encourage transportation demand management in this type of um development, but we could add bicycle a b a reduction in the bicycle parking as well. I'm I I don't want I I mean I feel like we need bicycle parking, but um >> I agree, but I think the kind of developers that we're looking at know their tenants and they know probably roughly how much bicycle parking they would need and we don't want to force them to build bicycle parking that will go unused. I think that was the idea, >> right? So maybe we could add um that that would be something that the board could review with the transportation demand management plan. as part of the transportation demand management. >> I don't know if we need to tie it to a transportation management plan per se >> just sort of the board would have the discretion to reduce the bicycle parking spaces request. Yeah, because as as Vince points out or actually as you point out, Laura, uh there's there's there is quite a bit of flexibility with parking, but there is no flexibility with bicycle parking at all. >> And if if you choose and I I I think, you know, I hear what you're saying about there being enough flexibility already with parking spaces that you wouldn't need to change the parking ratio. Um, and if you go with that route, one thing to just consider would be what if you what if we were to add to the list of transportation demand management items, things you need to do. It's just one of them would be a development that's 100% affordable or use your definition >> so that it makes it a little easier for them to obtain that reduction. >> So, put it in the bicycle parking. >> It's in the transportation demand management. >> Okay. partic what do you what are your thoughts about maybe also uh including location of the bicycle um parking thing that maybe only half of the bicycle parking requires to be on the ground floor uh and others can be put in in a basement or elsewhere right now as you as you're aware there's just so much stuff you put on the ground floor right now And you know, >> well, there's not a requirement that the bike parking be on the ground floor. The requirement is that you be able to wheel the bike to where the bike parking is. >> Okay. >> Um we have seen people put um we have approved projects where the bike parking has been in the basement and you know the the person would take their bicycle into an elevator and go down and and and come up when uh when the time came. So I I think we we do have that flexibility already. >> All right. I'm just seeing a lot of >> bicycle parking on the ground floor. >> No, no, fair. That's fair. >> And there's a fight for ground floor space right now. And I want to be well aware of that. >> Mhm. >> Uh it's not a hard and fast requirement that Yeah. maybe a something a sentence say, hey, you know, >> not to belabor it, but >> just to be sure I understand your I I I correct me if I'm um wrong about your point that we don't have to put bicycle parking only on the first floor that it could go on other floors provided there's elevator service. Is that >> provided access >> access, >> you know, or something, you know, like a ramp or somewhere, like Steve said, you wheel it. >> Yeah. >> Um so just a mention like that might be enough just to not be you saying, "Oh, well, you know, we got to put the trash room here. We got to put the fire command center here. We got to put the bicycle here." You know, then you just run out of space. Um, you know, so one of the things, sorry, you you guys all talk about this large size portable housing, okay? And I I I brought this up a while back uh early on and I said, "Look, we don't we can't fit these large parcels I mean large projects in these big parcels everywhere and can we think about something that's a little smaller, you know, and a little more intimate or something like that where, you know, now they got new rules now where you only need one egress stair. So, if we do like a four-story building with one eress there and and I don't know, I'm just wondering does it still pencil out financially? That's all I I don't know enough about this. So, um you know what I'm saying? So, >> I've been dying to share with you that there's this thing called the Spokane 6. I don't know if any of you have heard about it. It's uh fascinating. I I'm going to send it to everyone. Uh but it's it's what you're getting at. And so I respect that you said you wanted to stop at 9:00, but I I've got what you're saying and I'll let you finish your point, but I'll send everyone this exam. >> Oh, it's so interesting. Um, it's kind of the return of the um it's a double loaded three units ownership. Every unit has a porch and there's windows on all sides. um a architect in Washington state did this and uh presented it at a conference this spring and I thought it was really brilliant and you're going to look at it and say oh that looks just like Arlington. >> I was going to say it sounds a lot like the apartment I one of the apartments I lived in in Somerville. >> Interesting. I'll send it to everyone. And I think you'll be interested and your point is >> can you send to Claire and let her uh to sending it and then um >> I will distribute >> I like to also make that public knowledge too so it it be a part of the >> uh meetings. Yeah. For the record so that uh the town can also see that too. I think that's a great idea. >> Um I had a question about solar. So I think I understand that there there is a solar requirement the same the 6.4 for uh 50%. But it's just not going under environmental review, design review. Is that the idea? Is that so there is going to be a solar requirement under the current as currently drafted? >> Yes. >> Okay. >> So the town has um the solar bylaw would still apply. Um everything has to be designed um fossil fuel free. We're we're part of the demonstration program and everything. Um, and so we we had language in there that's stricken through right now that was just a little bit too specific, I think. Um, but it was about um offering waiverss, but we we already have a process in place if a developer wanted to if they couldn't provide the amount of required um solar area on the roof, they can or if they can't provide it at all, I mean, they can provide a waiver. So, I didn't >> I see >> in in an effort to simplify the bylaw as much as possible. Um, we I just took it out. I'm not really 100% clear why we had it in there. >> Uh, I may remember. >> Okay. >> Um, and I'll look to Ms. Elliott to uh to correct my terminology, but uh I believe the state comes up with a is it a qualified allocation plan? Um but basically the state or the the funding the funding sources have requirements for energy efficiency and solar and um we don't want to I I think we want to try to avoid creating conflict scenarios there. >> Yeah. I I would just similarly um similar to your flexibility question with the bike parking you know to the extent we can reduce the number of things being required it's kind of like the abundance problem right if you want to do all the things and nothing gets done but if we really want to focus on something we have to sort of strip out some things that are also really good so I would just say to the extent we can be as flexible as possible with the bike parking and with the solar requirement especially if we're asking this to be 100% affordable able then flexibility is good so you don't have to add solar credits and then that mixes all things up with lit and whatnot. Um I'm looking at your list of questions to see if there's any we missed and the last one was discuss review procedures and timelines similar to site plan review but quicker and I'm just curious is that possible >> write that in the bio. >> Well the proposal is 90 days. Um, I I think that's really tight. It's great, but it's it's rare that any board I've worked with has been able to do something in 90 days. Uh, but we we are going to have to watch to see what happens with the state uh because they may take care of that for us. But, uh, we have some ideas about a a a term that we could propose to that point. If you have your recommendation as well, we'll glad to take it. So you would write that in to the bylaw that it would if it were not reviewed within 90 days then it would be granted by right or something. >> We would have some kind of administrative approval but I I mean I really think we should have an administrative I if we if we don't have a deadline it with site plan review in particular it can be fraught. So you you're you're you've got a lot of professionals over here. So we're definitely going to take care of that. >> I think it's possible that a timeline like that belongs in your rules and regulations for your reviewable projects more potentially more so than the bylaw itself. But I'd be willing to have that. >> I second that >> conversation. Sometimes it's really really tough with with the greatest intention to to exite things. Um sometimes just with scheduling it's tough to do and to have that in there is just uh uh a burn that um I think you're going to get people trying to gain that and u get things passed that's not uh that should take uh some more consideration sometimes and I don't want to give that up But, you know, I believe the board is committed to expediting things. I don't see us saying, "Well, we'll get to it when we get to it." I think, you know, we've always made allowances saying, "We'll start earlier. We we'll stay a little later uh to squeeze that meeting in." We've always done that. So, I don't think uh making a rule is something that is necessary. It's it's just adding more stuff. Sure to it. If we weren't doing it, I say, "Yeah, let's let's look into it." But I >> Yeah, that's the only thing that I can think of is some way to give priority to an all affordable project. But then again, we're probably not going to go bumping other projects that were already scheduled for a hearing. But, you know, yeah, like you said, I it I don't think we have a history of taking a year to schedule a hearing. I think it's usually faster than that. >> I will say the comment was written when we were just getting started with site plan review and it it what the board and staff were all getting acclimated with it. So I I will say the past few projects that have been under the MBTA overlay have been going wonderfully. So um the comment is a little bit on the older side and you guys have been doing a really good job lately. If site plan review is getting more structured under state law, then we might be getting ahead of ourselves by even trying to fix limits that might be >> I I think I I believe um or at least one of the versions incorporated time limits >> and constructive approval. >> Thank you. I'm going to call you. Oh, just I appreciated the comments that our rules and rags might be the right place for us for this and our um our retreat is coming up in the not too distant future and I think there are probably some other things in our rules and rags that that we wanted to talk about. So, so maybe we get this on the agenda for for the retreat. >> Thank you. Thank you for uh coming and I think um we'll send you our comments or we have any additional comments and um let me know if you feel like you need more input from us. I I will be happy to schedule another time >> um to work for you guys. I think you guys do a great job uh what you've done um it's tremendous amount of work already. >> Thank you. We appreciate the work you've done here tonight. And we especially appreciate Sarah Suarez has been doing so much support for this effort. It's amazing. Yes. Thank you. You have no idea. She's a superstar. >> But let's um let's keep the communications going. >> Thank you. >> And if you need more uh time, we'll make time for you. Okay. >> So, just work it through Sarah or Claire and we will definitely make time for this. It's important to us for this. Okay. really appreciate it. >> Our next meeting uh agenda is August 18th. We're going to schedule the public meetings in the um fall. So, we'll let you know when they are >> community meetings. >> You could do um town hall or you can do it in here. >> High school. >> Whichever place is less expensive. >> Okay. >> I think it's free here, isn't it? >> Thank you. Thank you so much. >> Thank you. >> Um our next agenda is discuss about short-term goals from the comprehensive plan. Um Claire, do you want to start off? >> Yeah, sure. I' I'd love to. This uh agenda item uh was a request of Vince's uh a while ago, Mr. Bodan. Um, and I took the opportunity to go through the comprehensive plan and pull out the short-term goals um that at least in the comp plan uh indicated that the ARB has some responsibility for whether that's partial or full. Um, most of these you would have a hand in um one way or the other. And so I thought we could um go through them in particular the land use um goals um and I can certainly give you an update on where we are on some of those and I welcome any discussion or uh uh any discussion around um any of these um and so I'll start with um uh LU3 um which is to leverage town properties for redevelopment that adds housing commercial and open space uses responsive to community needs and interests. This goal was um was of great interest to the board when you uh voted to approve the the comprehensive plan and in particular we mentioned the Russell common lot um as a uh as a site um and that is uh in the comp planet is it is identified and called out as such. Um we have been looking in in at DPCD in my office for an opportunity to do some feasibility work and planning work around that site. Um and not just that site but sort of Arlington Center um uh at large um to see not just if there's opportunities for Russell Common but you know opportunities like that uh property at 366 Massav um etc. One of the things we talked about doing or at least um exploring is the idea of an urban renewal plan um potentially for uh for the center. Um what an urban renewal plan allows you to do is it's an very extensive planning effort with multiple opportunities for public uh comment and involvement. Um it is a uh a very intense uh effort. It's something I've had experience with not in Arlington but in other towns that I've worked in. Um that would uh what that allows the town to do is to um take uh property via eminent domain uh for development. Um and the development is uh is uh vested in the public interest which is uh uh explained in in the plan in the urban renewal plan. Another thing we could potentially do is just look at Russell Common Lot itself. um what the potential is there for uh development of you know resident whether it's residential commercial both um uh parking certainly would need to be replicated I think on that site um or uh you know any other creative scheme um that that may uh result in in uh potential development of that lot. I'm curious uh if the board is still uh interested uh in that. Um but it is uh you know I I will say our new uh transportation planner started today. Um so we will have more capacity in our office to to explore planning efforts such as those. >> All right. >> Are there any comments from the board? There's um depending on there there are a couple of sites I think where urban renewal plans would make sense. >> Um 360 Massav is one of them. Um 111 Broadway is is obviously another one. Um there's I I do think Russell I do think the Russell Common parking lot would be probably um you know a it I it seems like a it seems like a bigger I'm trying to think of trying how to say this try to go get the most bang for the buck. >> Yeah I I think Russell Common would give a lot of bang for the buck potentially. Definitely. >> So, the Russell common lot is definitely like the biggest uh opportunity to biggest geometrically, but I'm wondering in support of LU3 if we could do we have a list of town owned properties that are and you know presumably then you'd want to look at town owned properties that are not kind of currently like the high school or something like that. Um, so something like that in support of LU3. I think if we could get that for the next time we talk about this, that would be helpful. Um, but you know, we're we're aware that Russell Common is the biggest one. I think start starting small might be interesting and I think I've brought up some ideas before just in person of, you know, could we do some sort of little like visioning competition for the lot where we get >> uh members of the public involved. So it doesn't necessarily, you know, I know planning can operate by kind of you get get a grant for a big a consultant in a big project, but you can also start just by dipping your toes in the water by getting some interest um while you're lining up all the rest of it. So that's something I'd like to continue to explore. >> Okay, >> Michelle. >> Right. I don't have anything to add to that. >> J, >> nothing in addition. I only have one comment I wouldn't mind adding is um we should put some sort of um document together in saying u what's the percentage of uh commercial housing multi-use uh that's stuff we have I know we have some of the started already just get it organized as part of this package here >> and then compare that to uh other towns and then I want to uh determine um and understand why we need to do this um I want to be perfectly clear um saying well we need to do this for the following reasons um you know one of my things I'm thinking about is um people say oh you always want to grow you always want to grow But I want to explain why we want to uh why growth is healthy. And you know my my understanding of it is you know right now we have um an a tax override every 5 years or four years. >> Three. >> Okay. Three. >> But we have a tax override. Okay. is because we don't have enough taxes to support our our town the way we spend. So we have several options just like like you know if you run your family either you make more money, you spend less by cutting services or you grow I mean you know one one the other. So if you know we we decide that you know no we don't want to spend any more money then then let's see what we can cut or say no we don't want to cut anything we want more services we want this town to be more beautiful we want this then we have to do this I want to put that in perspective of all these other things >> and I think it makes a much better understanding of people wanting accepting what we want to do I think I think having that will think up front. >> Mhm. >> Will help a lot and um it helps me a lot just thinking about what I want and what I don't want. >> Mhm. >> Okay. And that that's my suggestion. >> Great. Right. >> That's all I had. Thank you. >> I'll just um quickly uh go through some of these others. Streamline the development review time. This is LU5. Streamline the development review timeline for proposed projects while maintaining the ARB's oversight of key design elements. We are launching. We have just kicked off a development design um guidelines project um that uh we are hopeful will the staff will be able to use um for some uh for our re our preliminary meetings with developers. Um the the plan is to to um get feedback from the ARB what you're looking for, what sorts of um uh uh design standards are acceptable. you know, really uh rather than have people uh come in and and learn, you know, at the first meeting what the board is thinking in terms of design, it's something that we can uh memorialize uh uh and use uh early on um when staff is working with uh developers. I think that that is something that will uh really assist uh with the speed of of uh uh of some of these approvals um to have uh better uh uh better application materials coming in front of the board. Um and so that is something that we are we're working on uh right now. Um I don't know if anybody has any comments on on that. Uh >> Steve, >> so wait, did you get to LU6? No, not yet. >> All right, I'll I'll hold I'll hold that. >> Okay. bits. >> I have to say I don't really know how to tackle this one. You know, it's either it's either a rewrite of the zoning bylaw to make it more by right, less discretionary, or it's adding meetings to the board calendar, or it's splitting the board into two boards where you have one that deals with warrant articles and another one that deals with projects. I mean, there's different ways to approach it. I don't know which one to take. I don't know if you've got other suggestions, but um it's a good one to keep talking about. >> Yeah, >> sure. >> Don't have any further comments. >> Sure. Um uh I do think to the extent that we can become clear amongst ourselves what what we want to see from developers what we want it to look like whether whether the things we've asked to see um really are what we want to be reviewing or or if there are things on that list that aren't helpful or are are articulated are stated in a way that is are not um uh yielding the documents that we want to see. Mhm. >> Um that that would be helpful to to make sure that um sort of as Claire alluded to the the packages we receive have in them the information we we need. Um, I think we can all think of groups that have come before us and and we've been able to uh within one meeting approved them with administrative review, right? Um, and groups that we've sent back half a dozen times because they just didn't understand uh or did understand and didn't produce what it was we needed. So, so I think that's some two-way work we need to do. Um, uh, and I guess another piece of that is is we might want to have an honest conversation with ourselves about what is it that we're reviewing, right? like like are there things that we're commenting on and asking developers to work on that uh really are outside our purview. Maybe the answer is no. Um in in which case let's just continue on but but but let's let's sort of have it. I think at our retreat it would be good to have an introspective moment about how we look at projects. >> Thank you. Um Claire, I do have one comment. I'm just um piggy packing up off our former chair and having um some design guidelines. >> Yeah. um that we can look at that can um that you guys can have to show other developers. When I even meet with developers, they they always say, "What do you want?" >> Yeah. >> Or what is it? You know, and so if we show them some images and stuff that, you know, that the board looked at and say, "Yeah, this is something what we're looking at because it it has these kind of characteristics." I'm not saying it's it's zoning law or it's regulations or anything, but this is like an image of what we're looking for, you know, it addresses the activity in the street that it u it's an attractive building because it's it's somewhat set back. It's not intruding. is should I show um Grun all sorts of stuff that we can all talk about and just have images and say hey this is stuff that we think uh we're you know we like and they can take it from there >> cuz uh you know we're not there we're not their architect we're not their designers we're not there you know but we can show them images and and say hey let's let's do that >> right >> um that be my suggestion >> great uh LU6 Six. Steve, uh, conduct an audit of the zoning bylaw to align with modern uses and allow greater flexibility, especially in business and industrial districts. >> So, I would s or I would request that we start with parking, off- streetet parking requirements. >> Um, as members of the board know, the capital square theater is my favorite non-conforming uh parcel when it comes to parking. uh that theater, you know, that use that building would require about 300 spaces, off- streetet spaces, uh if it were built today. My second favorite non-conforming parcel when it comes to parking is the hardware store in the Heights. By current zoning, that would require 13 spaces, and there are not enough square feet of lot space to fit 13 spaces. So there's one of the one of the grumblings that um we often hear is about um you know commercial site being redeveloped and there's less commercial space because the old site was built out to the corners of the lot lines and there were no off- streetet parking requirements and we have um our I I'll say they're they're very suburban to say the least. Uh so I I think this would be an area where um you know I I think I think it's an important area to tackle especially if we are serious about having more commercial development. >> Yeah. >> We don't want you know people building parking lots in a small building to subsidize them. >> Okay. >> Thank you. Yes. Um I was just curious if to some extent the right sizing zoning report acts I I guess this is an audit would go a little bit beyond what that report does which is just point out some of the areas where zoning bylaw is not up to date or aligned with our goals but an audit would have to go beyond just pointing that out and providing I guess specific recommendations. Do do you imagine what I'm getting at is do you imagine that this would be a project that we would hire a consultant for and get like a that kind of a project? I think there there's a lot of ways I think we could approach it and one is you know find a good entry point like Steve suggested which is parking um and see what staff can do um with with with that evaluation working with the board um and uh uh see what we can do potentially if this is another meeting like the one we're having or in our retreat um you know something like that. If this was going to be a whole of let's do it all at the same time then I think we would have to hire a consultant. Great. Yeah, I don't think we're at a point where we can decide exactly what we're going to do. >> Exactly. >> Um, so I'll leave it there. >> Yeah. >> Thank you, >> Michelle. >> Um, agreed. I think it would be any way that we can sort of streamline would be helpful, but I don't I haven't run into enough of the zoning bylaw yet to see where that would be with the exception of I agree with the parking um and potentially the bike parking. Um, we just need more flexibility, you know, in places where there's a bus line right in front where it's an old building in a place where potentially the worker population might be coming from far away and might not be likely to bike. Um, just a little more flexibility there. And then I'm sure there's other places in the zoning bylaw that things could be streamlined and made simpler, but I'm not aware of them yet. So, I look forward to learning about them. >> Thank you, Kayla. >> Nothing additional. Um, I would echo what Steve said and also I would add in one more and um, the one I want to add in is that we should look into why we don't have a nice high-end restaurant in town, but it's because of the zoning regulations. Uh, because we don't allow for the right size. I mean, I've been talking to some realtors. They say, "Yeah, because you need a special permit in order to get uh, you know, a restaurant above a certain size, like 3,000 ft², and you need certain size in order to have that kind of high-end restaurant. So, if the town doesn't want high-end restaurants, that's fine. But if we do, then let's see if we can adjust that in this in this thing here saying look uh we've been hamstring ourselves because we the way the zoning law is doesn't allow us to allow for a high-end restaurant or maybe we do. I don't know. But let's I'm questioning that. >> That's something we could certainly uncover in an audit or a a focused review um you know by staff especially if we go bit by bit. Um, all right. Um, and I think the reference to modern uses here where we're starting to have uh where we were having cha some challenges in permitting was um some of these fitness studios um that are going in and um you know how uh they are or are not defined um in the zoning bylaw. Um I I don't know that's just a a comment that I have. >> Um all right. Uh and then I'll do uh LU7 which is to monitor new construction and multif family housing overlay districts to evaluate the diversity of housing types produced levels of affordability achieved and the amount of commercial space developed. If needed consider zoning modifications to better promote the desired types of development. I think that um it's there's a a really interesting um uh sort of statistic or or at least an item that came out of town meeting this year and that is that you know using our MBTA uh communities overlay zone multif family housing overlay districts we have created almost 10 times the amount of commercial space um than we have in our regular mixeduse uh zoning uh over the past year or So, um maybe even longer. Um I think that we're that the multif family housing overlay districts have um you know really done pretty much what uh they were set you know laid out to do um by uh putting commercial uh you know opportunity where there was no before. I mean remember that that overlay only goes over residential parcels and so this is commercial space that would otherwise not be there or that wasn't there previously. um you know as well as in certain levels of affordability. I think, you know, I I I wonder about our affordability bonus um and uh you know, how we best apply it. Um you know, especially when we're starting to talk about, you know, are we combining bonuses? You know, what what are we doing? Um I think we could have a a very productive conversation um around that. Um it's uh again uh something that I think we you know can certainly track um in my office or in the office uh with staff um but you know continue the conversation here with the board as well. >> Thank you. >> Sure. >> Is there any questions from the board? >> Okay. You want to move on to the next page or you want to skip over? >> Sure. Um just I'll just say briefly um that the that the ARB was identified as um uh having at least some uh involvement in uh E goal ED2, H2, H4, and H12. Um I think you know H4, we talked about affordable housing overlay district uh this evening. Um you know H2 I, you know, I'm not exactly uh clear on what the board's involvement uh in that one may be. And then H12, I think what I'd like to see, you know, we don't get involved very often in this board with ADUs. Um, however, we do get involved quite often in design. Um, and if there was an opportunity for some sort of, you know, I think I believe on the state side, we've talked a lot or we've heard a lot of information about, well, what about a a pattern book of ADUs? Um, or a pre-approved design for ADUs or something like that. But I would imagine that this board would um be involved in at the very least reviewing um what those design uh standards might be uh for uh for Arlington. Go ahead. >> Boston has a nice pattern book. >> Oh, excellent. >> We we should steal it. >> I'll just check that one off, Steve. >> Okay. >> And if you don't want to do a design out of the pattern book, you can kind of keep doing it the normal way. But if you pick a design out of the p out of the pattern book, you should be able to walk in in the morning with an application and walk out in the afternoon with an approval. And I think that would just make a huge difference for people who are looking to do a simple ADU project. >> I really don't think that's going to happen again, but that's okay. >> In an ideal world, >> an ideal world. Okay. Thank you very much. And we of course we can continue I I will continue to update the board on on these um short-term goals and you will definitely be hearing more about them, you know, as we um as we continue to work on them. >> Pattern book should be easy, especially in the neighborhoods where all of the houses are cookie cutter. It's like >> there aren't a lot of choices. It's just exactly they all look the same. So >> you have a Do you have a garage? >> Exactly. It is. Is it concrete from 1923? Yes. >> All right. >> Thank you for putting that together. I'm going to move on because um we're running late. >> Yeah. >> And I apologize. Um next on our agenda is Allen Heights Business District. Can I ask Katie to step up and join us here? Hello everyone. All right. might zoom. >> All right. Uh, for the record, I'm Katie Lucai, the economic development coordinator. Um, here to just give an update on the Arlington Heights Business District. Oh, thank you, Sarah. So, the Arlington Heights Business District is a resoning initiative with the goal of promoting the long-term vibrancy of Arlington Heights. Uh, pardon this side slide is a little wordy. Present day Arlington Heights does not provide enough support for current businesses or future business growth. The current zoning has created small scattered parcels that make it difficult for businesses to expand or for new businesses to locate in the district. Many of the existing commercial buildings are also older, much older, and need significant updates or renovation. They're very costly for the existing businesses to maintain. Together, these challenges make it harder to attract new businesses and encourage investment in the Heights. So, to attract and support new business in the Heights, the current zoning should be updated to encourage appropriate commercial growth and redevelopment. Property owners should be incentivized, as we've discussed tonight, to invest in and improve their buildings, creating a more vibrant, we love the word vibrant, don't we? an appealing business district by adding more localized housing, increasing foot traffic through pedestrian friendly improvements, as is, you know, being discussed at town hall tonight at the select board meeting, while reassessing parking options will help support local businesses. Investing in our public spaces such as streetscapes, plazas, landscaping, and gathering areas will help foster a welcoming environment that strengthens the business community and encourages residents and visitors to shop, dine, and spend more time in Arlington Heights. Next slide, please. Thank you. So, this summer we're working on working through the initial draft zoning, uh, which I'll talk about in just a second. Most recently, the committee met on July 27th to discuss the initial zoning proposal. Since then, DPCD has received feedback from the Arlington Heights Action Plan Implementation Committee, which we are integrating into the draft zoning proposal. Uh we're now seeking commentary this evening uh from the board and we'll be continuing with draft zoning draft revisions and continued public engagement with the goal of bringing this to town meeting in 2027. Next slide, please. So, rather than writing an entirely new district from scratch, we currently propose reszoning the heights into an inner core and an outer core area by using the existing B5 and B2A designations. This simple shift meets our stated goals of reducing zoning complexity is slided cited in the comprehensive plan and addressing the development challenges identified by the right fit zoning right fit zoning right zoning fit zoning >> right size zoning by MAPC while directly implementing the vision of the heights action plan. Next slide please. So, this map highlights the 160 parcels included in the proposal at this time, showing the core B5 central areas shaded in purple. It's a little a little hard to see. Tried to replicate the colors in the existing zoning bylaw, which is also not very easy to identify. Uh, and the B2 areas in red. It creates a clear transition between highdensity activity nodes and adjacent residential neighborhoods. Next slide, please. So, as previously mentioned, we're continuing public engagement with two property owner roundts scheduled for later in August and in early September, tableabling at town day and a public forum to take place in October or November. Exact date to be determined yet. So, this evening really wants to um thank you. Well, thank you for listening and we'd like to hear from the board on your initial reactions uh and feedback regarding again this initial zoning proposal. >> Thank you, Katie. Um I just want to make uh couple of quick comments. A while back um um the board decided that there actually is three centers uh for a business districts. One is East Arlington, one is Central Arlington, and the other one's the Heights. and we decided to work on the heights first and we'll be addressing the other districts for coming years. So just to give a bigger broader picture u that's why Katie's been work focusing mainly on the heights but uh we have not forgotten about the other centers in town but there are essentially three designated centers right now um in town. Okay. Uh, does the board have any comments on Steve? >> Yeah, there. Um, because I I I can be picky about language, >> please. >> Um, I would suggest walkable rather than vibrant because I think I think you're they both mean the same thing. Uh, but um, walkable is a little more concrete, I think. Um, so general thoughts. This is, I think, in in a way a simplification of what has been proposed earlier. I like it. I think it makes a lot of sense to reuse existing districts and to the extent that they need to be tweaked a little bit to work for the heights, you know, the other places where those districts appear on the map, it's just going to benefit them. Um, I think B5 is an appropriate choice for the core and I like the use of B2A as a step down transition to the uh surrounding neighborhoods. Um, so far so good. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Thank you, Vince. Yeah, thank you. I haven't been able to make any of the Heights uh committee meetings and I I I wish I had, but I'm glad to see that this work has been going well. Um so I agree with Steve. I have a couple of questions about one one is that the B5 zone, like some of the other business zone, has multiple heights, and which one you can use depends on whether or not you're adjacent to residential parcels. It's the reduced height buffer area provision and so the parcels that are on the south side there which are adjacent to residential parcels would be much more limited in height. I don't know if the intention was to keep that requirement but it would limit what you could do there. Those a lot of those parcels are on a slope so that you could look at that in a couple of different ways. One way is that the height is going to be measured from some midpoint. So that for the residential parcels, the buildings are not actually going to be that high because they're coming from down slope. >> But on the other hand, you know, if you're looking at the slope from Massav, you'd have taller buildings or or lower buildings. And I'm not sure if the intention was to have them remain. What I'm getting at is is that I would suggest that you that because we want this to be a vibrant business district and a walkable business district, we might say that the reduced height buffer does not apply to B5 or at least to B5 in the heights. Uh Vince, um that's a very good question and I would say that we haven't gotten there yet as far as looking at that level of thought yet. But you do bring up good point. >> Sure. I guess I'm just trying to illustrate some of the kind of things that they're they're going to need to discuss. Um another one is F. Um I F is is one of the many ways that we control the size of buildings. But in my mind, especially for a business district, it's doing exactly the opposite of what we want. We want more stuff, right? Like we want F is a measure of how much stuff you can put on a lot. So you could put the same amount of stuff in one big flat building or in one smaller taller building. I don't see why we should be limiting it at all because we have other dimensional requirements that are doing a much better job of limiting the height and the setbacks. So, and and F varies by use. So, we have a higher F for a mixeduse building, but a lower F for certain uses. And I don't think that we have fully justified the logic of that. I would suggest looking at reducing or eliminating the F requirements. Yeah, I something we haven't talked in too much detail about um because then that would mean changing the F for for B5. Um but in the 2019 MAPC plan, they recommended eliminating the F completely. >> Yeah. And if we were to do that for B5, you know, it would merit a look at the other B5 parcels outside of the Heights, which is obviously not directly in the committee's scope, but it might make sense to just bring that proposal to the town and say, "Hey, if we're going to do it in the Heights, it might make sense everywhere." Um, that's all I had. I think it's it's a good simplification. It really does make it much more clear for businesses. And I I do want to say that size like you mentioned small parcels. I'm sure it is harder for businesses to for landlords to redevelop small parcels, but I also think it's really important because there's a lot of businesses that can't afford to rent out a big space, but so those small parcels are really important. So we're not trying to eliminate them, but the simplification is really helpful so that they're all playing by the same rules. >> Thank you, Vince. Um, Michelle, >> great. Um, I was curious actually just looking at the zoning map to understand. I thought I saw it somewhere in their materials, but now I I can't find it and it was one of the questions I had come up with, but there's, you know, at Bow Street there's the little triangle. >> Um, yep. >> And then there's a chunk that is a commercial building now, but is not included. And is that a correct? >> Is that Milbrook? Is that a wetland issue? Why is that not included? >> Fabulous question. So we specifically did not include any parcels zoned industrial. So that it is it's three different parcels. Uh it's all shared under common ownership. That's 30 40 park a 56 LOL also known as the former gold's gym site. Um >> with we've specifically kept that out for a number of different reasons. one because we have so little industrial zoned land in town in Arlington. Um and two to take a step back and look at the other opportunities for redevelopment and um make sure that whatever we are reszoning those parcels to it's is done with the highest and best use possible in mind. >> And is the tax benefit of industrial higher than that of commercial? No, no, it's not. Um I think >> it's it's more from a a protecting the uses. >> It's the same thing when we MBTA. Um we we set a goal saying that we're not going to focus on any of the business districts or commercial businesses and just see what how we can do to encourage more housing and have some incentive for um commercial base and that's and we took the same approach for um this uh business district here and we left the industrial zone and we'll address that at a later date when we look at focusing on how can we improve industrial stuff. So that was our conscious effort to do that. That's why it's sort of left out. >> Okay. Yeah. I would just encourage the board and the committee to consider. I mean, I think anytime you can give a developer the flexibility to decide what works the best for them and that land owner. I mean, do they want to continue that? Would they love to sell it? Who knows? Um, so I would just say unless there was a compelling reason that our tax base is much improved by industrial right there, it may stay industrial. Why not keep it both? Great. But I would hate to lose an opportunity for, you know, the big businesses that you're talking about or, you know, who knows or we work, whatever. You know, there might be other options that could be that could help our tax base. >> Yeah. So right right now those sites have the land value ratios are pretty high >> somewhere on the order of I think around 80%. >> Yeah. >> They good size they're not >> what does that mean? Sorry I don't understand that. >> So land value ratio is uh you take the value of the land and you divide it by the value of the property. So that 80% a land value ratio of 80% means the parcel 80% of its value is from the land and 20% is from the buildings. >> Sure. which is sort of the opposite from where you would ideally want to be from a tax perspective. >> Yeah. All I'm saying, you know, we could potentially grow there and what >> definitely it's it's something we've gone back and forth on continuously on whether or not to include it. And that's >> both from the town perspective and from our discussions with the property owner. >> Understood. Thanks. Um, Jim, >> um, I think I would echo my colleague Steve in particular, but I have nothing further. >> Thank you. Um, I think this is great what you got here so far, Katie. Uh, I just want to add in a few more things that this is a draft and there's a few other things that, uh, the committee has done. Um we've we've done a survey of um all the existing commercial businesses in that area and taking some planning uh norms where I think it's what you need uh 25 people living in a certain walking distance to support one foot of storefront as a norm is uh so we See, are we balanced? We have too much. We have too little. And it's we we did a survey of the whole thing and it came out that we have just about right normal now as is give or take. Right. >> Yeah. Yeah. But if we want to grow the um commercial and retail and whatever space there, we have to add more foot traffic and and and introduce uh uh more housing or more density. So that's so so we've done some stuff for that that will introduce that in here so we can say, hey, here's what we've done. Here's here's what we found and here's what uh we're proposing. That's why we're proposing this. So we'll be putting that in there. Um, another uh aspect of this that's uh that we'll be adding in is um parking. You know, uh we've spoken to some of the owners of these spaces and they say, "No, we don't is not enough parking." Well, we did a parking survey and of not only the Heights, but all three districts because it was it's more economical to do all three >> for Arlington Heights and East Arlington. >> Yes. And so we're pretty well we're not really under parked but we're not over parked either but >> so we're we're also in good shape there too. Sort of. >> We we need a little bit better parking management but this is this is a work in progress. >> Yes. Exactly. >> And then we've also done surveys of what people want in that area. They want more communal spaces. They want uh more walkable spaces. And that goes back to the line of well, who's going to pay for all that stuff? We going to raise taxes so we can have more stuff in there or what? So, we're also looking at things of maybe introducing parking meters. Not this all still up there. Okay. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> And um those parking meters could um fund some of that stuff, trash cans, lights, um stuff with it. what's what's happening in the center of town right now. There's some so some upgrades in the center of town that's happening with that. So there's all that stuff that's happening not only by just changing the zoning things are going to change that center there also a lot of things happening besides change the zoning you know um the town's made a commitment to upgrading certain things and doing things and maybe introduce some meters so that we can have some fund to pay for some of the stuff there. Um, we're talking to the owners and see what we can do to help them incentize what they want to do. Um, that's a good uh added two roundts we're doing. There's one more thing I I want to add into this thing, this timeline here. uh if we can is I want to talk to um leasing agents and brokers see what they think we need there and add it to that round table there and add another slot in for the time uh for round table and see it's you know it's the land owners it's the businesses and it's the brokers that that we need to understand what they want what we what they need what we can do to support them to get this thing growing. So, we're going to add that in there, too. So, these are all the things that uh we're doing. I just want to introduce it today as as an update of what's going on and see if there's any other suggestions you may have that, you know, maybe we're overseeing or not doing or whatever that you know, or come to a meeting and uh you know, and go from there. And um yes, Michelle, that um I I'll call the gold gym site. Okay, >> that has been very well uh debated back and forth. Should it be included? Should it not be included? And and it's going to go more around and around and right now it's not. >> See how it goes. >> But would would changing from industrial to E5 be upzoning or down zoning? Does industrial offer more possibilities or fewer or is just different uses? >> Um, that's a good question. because >> it's >> I I I think it's a question of even if we were to change it to B5, would that be flexible? Would would that really achieve the highest and best use for the site and include all the amenities for the public that >> so would ideally have? >> If you wanted to encourage non-mixeduse commercial, changing I to B5 would be a terrible mistake. Um, and that's not a not that is simply a function of the any other permitted use and the use associated use regulations in B5 and every other business district we have. >> It's it's a long discussion and I think we decided to table it. But one of the things that we looked at highly was >> uh Massav is a transportation route. Everybody is going to work or coming back from work, but living in the surrounding neighbors going through Massad or Park Street is it's high traffic. So what we want to do is encourage business is foot traffic. What's going to make them stop there and shop? >> Mhm. So, >> so there's all these things that we're looking at and um one of the biggest things I'm curious about with on this next meeting is what's going to what's going to encourage the business owners to to invest money in their property cuz we can change all the zoning we want, but if the owners don't want to invest any money or have no interest in doing that, they're not going to, you know. So, I think we have to send some sort of initiative say, "Oh, that owner there spent a little money and up and fixed up his property a little more. He's making a lot more money now and he's uh got a lot more foot traffic, so making more money." >> Mhm. >> Then the other than the other owners will follow suit, but they're not going to just say, "Hey, >> it's got to make sense." Yeah. pull money out of my pocket and just spend it because >> people think it'll look nice. >> So, it's it's a hard wrestle right now >> and uh it's been a long time and um you know I don't anything else Katie you want to add? >> I I thank you. Thank you. That's all I have to add. >> All right. I I think that's a good update what's going on here for now for uh for this. >> Nice nice work overall. >> Thank you. >> Okay, next on agenda is >> um project update. Oh, thank you for so much patience, Kate. I'm sorry to >> sit there. Um um this is something that I've asked u uh summarize for all the projects we have updated that we have approved and uh reviewed in the last couple years. and see what the status of those projects are at. Um, can you get bigger or >> Okay. Um, Claire, do you want to start off or >> Sure. And I, you know, I don't want to necessarily get um too into the details here. I think that this this chart is is great. It gives a good um explanation of, you know, where we are with some of these uh these outstanding projects. um and uh you know sort of assigns either DPCD or ISD um uh the the job of of continuing to update the board um on some of these projects. I do want to point out I included um along with this spreadsheet the deed restriction for mixed use development at the uh at uh 12 11207 Massab which is the hotel site. um been getting a lot of uh questions or periodically I get questions about is there a clawback provision um potentially in uh uh in the in the PNS and the and the and the deed um itself. Um but what I have found in in research and what the office has found in the research that we've done is that um while there's no you know clawback provision in particular uh there is there is a uh a deed restriction on the use of the property which is mixed use. Um so that would mean um it you know right now we he's we're talking about a hotel potentially with a restaurant um on the first floor. Um but what we would be you know which is sort of I guess a sort of a form of housing um above uh a commercial uh space um we would be looking at something really similar. This does not preclude a 40B for the site which has not been um you know proposed or suggested at any point but you know that's I think another question that has come up. Um but any uh development uh you know any 40B you know type uh uh development would still require the mixed use um um uh would still have a mixeduse requirement as part of the development. Um I also included a memo that I wrote after your meeting um with the uh applicant the developers for 190 200 massav. Um, I uh wrote this memo for the town manager who then asked if it could be forwarded to the select board and um uh we did that and so I wanted to include it also uh as part of the materials this evening. Um just sort of gives a recap of what was decided that evening and and what is is happening now. Um we will follow up with uh inspectional services to see uh where the applicant is uh in terms of providing uh updated the updated drawings we requested um the updated uh drawings that are also required by ISD. Um but we would uh I would have to get some more information for you to give you a full uh update on that project. But, you know, I think this is a good snapshot um of where we are and um you know, again, happy to keep the board updated uh as these projects progress. >> Go ahead. >> So, um regarding the first item on the list, uh 1511 Massav, >> uh does staff have any insight into the uh the applicant's decision to sell? >> That's a that's a great question. I think that that is on the table uh for the developer. It's something that they uh have discussed uh with with with the office. Um I I that's not a done deal by any means. I think the latest conversation we had with uh the applicant for that project was that they were going to hold on to it. Um so I I think they're they are still making decisions about how they are going to move forward. I think, you know, we did have a meeting. Staff had a meeting um with the uh the applicant and the chair and we made it very clear to them that um we you know, it was >> not not our desire that they sell the project. You know, we were very invested in them, you know, uh uh being their own tenants on the first floor, etc. >> Um and uh and they agreed uh that that was that had been part of the conversation. And so they were uh you know still uh somewhat committed to uh at the very least um being tenants in that commercial space. >> Um Steve, we did reach an agreement on um penetration of transformer at the corner of the >> Okay. Yeah. >> So I think uh we mutually agreed. I think it it'll look nicer than what was there before. >> So I think that's all set. So >> it's something that may that we should uh take a look at and be uh I think pretty sensitive to in the future is the location of the transformer. Um I think the utility is is um you know they are very clear and prescriptive in their requirements and I think that you know maybe this is something we could even look at in our development design guideline project is transformer location and what the recommendation of the board is and if that's to put it underground then it's to put it underground. Um but you know it has at least on a few projects that have been approved recently um come up as a either as an administrative approval or as you know come back to the board if you can't figure out where to put the transformer and I think it's it's become a real hurdle >> can I just >> sure please >> um that takes you 1511 okay just real as Okay. Well, that this one was a mixeduse building with uh underground parking or ground floor parking on the first floor. The biggest issue is located transforming at the corner of the building. It just we didn't want a big grill there on the corner of the building and that that's sort of been off now. We pushed to go back. >> Um 1398 is just um a subway or no Jersey Mike. >> They're open now. So that's we just cross that out. >> Um 1306 is a storefront right in the Heights that's boarded up uh painted kind of this um reddish orange or red. >> Well, it's only it's only one/ird boarded up now. >> Yes. And they >> they are working on it. Um you just I don't know what happened but they just ordered the wrong glass and just went over it was it's been bricked up for a long time. It's been an eyesore. So that moving along that that's good. Um Claire talked about this already. 1211 1207 which was approved I don't know how many years ago >> 20 >> it was before co okay >> and it was for hotel >> and then co hit and then it got delayed and then uh they couldn't find anybody to uh uh flag that hotel. So now they're he's sitting on it. So we just want to figure out what our rights are. >> Mhm. And so that's where that status is. Um 887 is um the project next to the high school. It's a really thin pancake kind of like building. Uh we put a bit of a tree in the corner of the uh the project and the tree died and we said, "Well, you still own a tree, so they're going to put back another tree." But all those apartments are condos, so you're not dealing with one owner. You got to get you got to talk to all of them and get them to buy all the owners buy one tree pot in there. Okay. So, we are working on that. Uh well, you know how things are. Uh >> uh Okay. 882, which is a building right across the street from that. Uh they put in the storefront the wrong color and then they're process of painting it this summer. >> Correct. a few years later, but you know, and a few they're going to touch up a few other things there, but that was the major thing. Um, this one here is I don't know what's happened to this one. This is the Atwood House, 821. >> It's right next to CVS. Right now, you can't even see it cuz all it is is just paved up with grass, >> but there's supposed to be um a mixeduse building there. And um the owner is basically in Florida and won't return our calls, right? >> Yeah. not just uh DPCD but um I have been in in uh uh I've connected with uh his attorney that representative in the process as well. She says she can't get a hold of him. So we will continue to try even if it requires you know sending a certified letter or something like that. Well, >> or we have to do what we did last time >> is we open the perop. >> Reopen the permacus. Yeah. >> Um that one's been going on since um I started on board about 11 years ago. So that's how long it's been going on. >> Um 449. Uh, I'm assuming that's >> that's the project you missed out on. >> Yes. >> The 455. >> Um, they they redid the elevations based on our second approval. >> Okay. >> Um, >> it looked better. >> If you squint and you're about a block away, >> it it looks okay. But when you get there, I don't know who called themselves an architect, but the cortis there doesn't match up with the existing cortis and the workmanship is just uh bunch of goop and and paint, but it's beyond our our jurisdiction. I'm assuming it's just going to be, you know, we'll see them in a couple years. >> Did they say they would replace the signage, though? Um, he said he'll look into it cuz I hated a blue sign. >> It Yeah, >> that is the logo color for the dentist. >> It >> just looks like temp signage. >> Yes. >> It doesn't fit in the space particularly well. >> Well, u the color is one thing. It just doesn't >> it looks like they >> Well, the quality of the signage is really poor. It's going to have to be replaced in a few years and then we talking again about getting a proper sign. But I agree with you. >> It's too small. It's just too small. >> Okay. And then um 363, it's that building that was shown on the affordable housing overlay and it's just a bunch of condo owners fighting about this because they so it's been sitting empty for the longest time. It's all boarded up. Um and hopefully we'll get something going. Right. >> Well, that can't be 363. That's that's a >> 366. >> 366. Okay. >> Sorry. >> Yeah. >> I just No, no, no. I was going to say it was on the wrong side of the street. >> Um 190 and 200 uh Massav, we just looked at that recently and approved their changes and I guess they're fixing the plans and they should be pulling a permit fairly soon. I >> I noticed they started the construction again. >> Mhm. >> So >> that's that's the one uh at Capital Square. >> Yes. Right next to Capital Square. doing the big hole right now. >> Um >> uh 29 uh 259. Um they they're just waiting for the uh demo permit to uh mature, right? Because they have a one year delay or two year delay. >> What? One year. >> One year. So once that's done, they'll start construction. uh 126 128 Broadway. Um >> so the uh in the last week they have cleared the sites >> so it is now a vacant lot. >> Really? >> Yeah. >> Yes. >> I haven't been down that street. Okay. >> Uh okay. And uh so that's good. That's going good. >> Mhm. >> And 30 Mystic Street. Um that was some sort of Asian club that was done. Uh >> Chinese cultural center. >> What? Chinese cultural center. >> Yeah. Okay. I don't know what's happening there. It they've done no work. I see nothing happening there. >> They they are slowly. There was they the owner put in geothermal. >> They put in geothermal um >> heating into the property and they've been encountering I believe some issues with that which kind of slowed the progress. But I spoke to the engineer on the project within the past month or two and it's still supposed to go forward. So, >> okay. >> Geothermals a no go because uh we tried at the high school and that didn't work. >> Yeah. >> Okay. Uh well, that's all the projects we've done and approved and the stats updated. I just wanted to make sure to see where we're at and just uh it's good to circle around make sure that all the stuff is um still being uh followed. There are a couple more uh 225 Broadway uh which is also demoed in a it's a vacant lot with a hole in the ground. >> 225 >> 225 that was the forplex the quadruple decker. >> Okay. >> Um and also I think it was 9 or 18 Grafton Street. It was the triple decker with the five units. Uh they've yeah they've they've gotten uh as of last week they had the first floor the rough fraing on the first floor and so you could see the outline of the building. Looks good. >> Okay. >> Anything else? >> I think that's it. >> I'll have to run this way next time when I go. >> I miss those two. Okay. >> Thank you. >> And we'll just keep this up as ongoing kind of list. U make sure if things get done we just cross them out. >> All right. Uh okay. Uh next we have uh is new business tonight and it's the first discussion the draft of uh NAPC. Uh Chris, do you want to talk about that or >> um Sure. I'm actually going to hand that over to Sarah who's been doing uh most of the work um on that. I believe what we're looking for this evening are um some comments or discussion points from the board on the draft. This is a draft um document uh that MPC has produced. Um yes. So thank you. The um the town is a part of the metro mayor's um housing task force which is run by MAPC Metro Area Planning Council. Um and one of the things that the town um uh this housing task force is made up of 16 other communities in our region and we've committed to um looking at different ways to increase our housing production in our communities um in an effort to address the housing shortage that we're having. So they MAPC was tasked with um basically analyzing all of the 16 communities that were included in um that are in this group um to look at our zoning bylaws and to start with multif family housing and see how our all of the zoning districts kind of measure against each other. Um multif family housing in their case is considered three families and above. So um Arlington zoning right now does not allow any three family by rights. Um so the report reflects that Arlington is very very very 100% non-conforming. Um because we don't allow any multi any three family by right outside of we do now with the multif family housing overlay. But um so what the report is look this is the first draft or it's been through a couple of drafts but we're reviewing the Arlington section right now um for any inaccuracies any clarification that's needed any sort of um changes that we want to see um it is only the Arlington portion so I mean it's still missing I mean we there are other parts that will be coming out with it shortly um to give more context but you know what you're looking at right now is just a rundown of the Arlington zoning, how it began, where we're at now, and um a list of recommendations that we could remove some barriers to um housing production. >> Thank you, >> Steve. >> So, yeah, I do have a list of comments and um I'm going to just in the interest of brevity, I'm just going to rip through them and send you a send you all a written copy. Uh I I think the history is gen on the first couple of slides is generally accurate. Um one of the one of the things that they noted is the Arlington uh the redevelopment board's role in sort of down in the down zoning of Arlington in the 70s. Uh I I find it really ironic that the planning department was created in 1969 for the explicit purpose of expanding the tax base as was the Arlington Redevelopment Board. That is the same reason we were created in 1971. Um I keep reading old papers and I I I'm very curious to see why we decided to turn around and run the ball down the field in the other direction, but I'm sure there was a reason. Um so uh so one um so slide seven which has the number 33 on the bottom or the seventh page slide of the PDF. Um I disagree with the language that they've used where they say that um all multif family parcels of Arlington and all zoning districts are non-conforming because multif family is allowed by special permit in R3 through R seven and B1 through B5. Um I think this also affects the chart on the previous slide page six where they show you know the most nonconformities are because of use and um I I I I don't I I think the I think they the the bad assumption might or the I think that mistake might might be clouding that document. Um I agree with the general statement about non-conformities because there is a very significant disconnect between um how cert certain residential district zoning is and what's actually built there. R2 in particular um I would agree with allowing multif family housing in the R2 district or at least amending R2 so that it matched the built environment that's exists today. Um, and finally, I'd like to just point out that the deck, you know, makes a couple remarks about, you know, um, a tendency to emphasize process and, uh, to to subjects to a lot of scrutiny. That's not a unique character to that's not something uniquely to Arlington. Uh, back in the 70s, everybody decided to do it. All the cool kids were doing it, so we did it, too. Um but and it is one of the reasons why Massachusetts currently has a housing shortage and some of the highest um costs in the nation. Thank you. >> Thank you, Steve. That's well put. >> Uh Vince, >> well, I'll fully defer to Steve as far as analysis of the history of zoning in Arlington. I have nothing to add. Um it's it's an interesting document. Just two quick things. One is that I thought there were a couple of, you know, poignant couple of pointed remarks about the ARB itself. Both, you know, well, the the the sentence that I liked was that the ARB is known to dismiss staff recommendations in favor of their own opinions, which creates unpredictability for applicants. Um, and you know, I think that the unpredictability is the specific thing that needs to be addressed. I don't know if this is going to end up proposing specific changes or reforms to um the town of Arlington that might improve this, you know, is it the scope of what the ARB reviews? Is it something like the size of the ARB or the, you know, I I don't I just thought that was an interesting topic to bring up, but then they don't necessarily take it to the next step of actually suggesting what reforms might help. Um, I thought the recommendations, you know, I really like them, including multifamily housing by right in our two districts. um taking the MBTA communities neighborhood multif family district standards and applying that you know bringing that into the base zoning and allowing existing non-conforming multif family buildings to be altered or expanded by right all of those sound great to me so um I think this is a nice document I don't have any other comments thank you >> thank you Vince Michelle >> nope don't have further comments I also thought that was interesting, useful, and the recommendations made sense. >> Thank you, Jana. Um, so I am also going to send some notes over via email mostly because they're they're uh very very detailed, very, you know, words uh yeah, very detailed typos and and similar uh as opposed to um extensive substantive um Uh, I would echo much of what Vince said. I thought it was a very interesting document um in uh particularly in the way it it reflected upon uh the board itself. Um and would have liked um would have liked some further thoughts on on uh proposed thoughts or solutions um to some of the challenges that were raised um or pointed out regarding the board. Um, I thought multifamily by right and R2 um was a sensible place to go. Um, and I thought, um, I thought the allowing existing non-conforming multif family buildings to be altered or expanded at that rate was something that that uh we should absolutely look at. Um, so >> thank you. Um, I will pretty much echo what I already said, but I'm going to ask try to answer Lint's question a little bit about the cuz this is about the history of the whole board and develop uh planning department. Um, I I will have to give a lot of kudos to the board and the planning department how we work together. Well, right now, but um go back a few years. Um seems like I'm the most senior one here, right? Uh and uh there was some tension a ways back and um is that what is that was addressing for that tension back then or >> I this project was well underway before I started so I imagining >> so I'm assuming that's what they're talking about then. Okay. And so it's not really uh what they're saying now. They're referring to what was before and that was like maybe 10 11 years ago. >> That's fair. But if the tension can exist based on the composition of the board and then the composition of the board changes and the tension goes away, then there might still be a structural issue. It's not you can't just wait until you have the right people on the board. Um, that could be it. But I seeing what I've experienced, I'm just going to say I think it's more more the personnel mixture of the people that was on the board and in the planning department that had some friction. >> And can I ask one question? And I don't know if those of you who know how this is getting put together, but is it possible that the recommendations might be more of like separate chapter that's generic to all the communities because the best practices might well not be Arlington specific? They might be fairly >> um is is that possible? Have we seen the full draft or is have we only seen the Arlington section? >> Uh no, I've seen the full the full draft. Um it's just because this is still a working document. MAPC asked that we just share the Arlington section for right now, but it it will be more um there will be more recommendations and there's, you know, more charts that show, you know, like how we actually compare, you know, with all of our zoning um with all of our development standards and all of you know, how we interpret basically our entire zoning code. it it will have more recommendations as a as a region of like ways that we can collectively be better about housing production. >> So would it be fair to guess that we have more layers of regulations than anyone else in the MMT? >> We can always look at it and say this this applies to us doesn't apply to us, you know, >> and um we'll just take it when it comes, >> you know. Um but I want to leave with one note saying when I looked at the what chart was that about the commercial space or retail space that we have available in all the in all the communities and um I think we in uh Lexington is the lowest in this area for uh >> but they're working >> am I on Uh, what page was that on? Uh, I apologize for this. >> Is that the vacant storefronts? >> Yeah, vacant storefront. >> It's a separate agenda item. >> Oh, okay. I was still stuck. I'm that really stuck going. comparing us to Lexington. Important to get >> and and okay, I I don't want to get us hung up, but one last thing that the the idea of harmonizing zoning between communities is not something that we do. As far as I know, there is like a national zoning outlet atlas effort to map the different ways that zoning is. But, you know, if you look at what R2 means here in Arlington and what R2 means in Lexington, I'm sure it's, you know, not completely different, but they're not the same. And there's no aspect of this, I'm just asking the question, that would involve communities aligning. not not in zoning bylaws necessarily, but you know, as we work regionally as this group, it could be something where like developing the pattern book for our ADUs or it could be um you know, looking at different platforms that we can use to streamline the permitting process like as a group. You know, MAPC is able to um work on behalf of the municipalities and like apply for funding for the municipal municipalities. So, there are some areas where regionally it might make sense for us to partner up on certain things with certain communities, but not that our zoning bylaws would necessarily be identical or anything like that. And in a lot of ways, it's amazing to have local control over zoning, but in in a lot of ways, you also create just such a difficult situation for anyone who's trying to build anything. you know, if these 15 communities, >> you know, not even going beyond that, but just if these communities had the same requirements or not even the same requirements, but just the same definitions, >> then life would be >> it would go a long way >> a little bit more wonderful. I I am just semi gobsmacked at that in the fact that Watertown has both parking minimums and parking maximums. >> I need to read their bylaw. >> All right, I'm going to move this along. This is a um >> Thank you, sir. >> Um next on our agenda is uh we want to schedule a retreat. >> Mr. Chair, I might I I was wondering how the board would feel about uh um scheduling the retreat uh with board input over email uh rather than trying to decide on a date this evening. Or we can try to decide on a date this evening. Just I don't know how people feel like. >> I'm okay with email. Can can you do that? The town has this thing called doodle. >> Yeah, we'll do doodle. >> We'll do one. >> We'll do a doodle. >> Yeah, do a doodle. Okay. I finally mastered that. >> My son and my wife. >> This the same is true for the board uh training opportunities. I think what we'd like to do a little more research on what's available to you and then we can send it out to um to the board um and you can evaluate you know what trainings are what you'd like to to see whether we'd like to host a training or whether you'd like to attend a training. We can um you know try to take a poll over over email for that one as well. >> Great. I I'll give props to the Citizen Planner Training Collaborative. Um I've taken about a dozen of their courses and they are totally worth it. >> Excellent. Okay. >> All right. Now to uh uh the next one. Katie, you're back up again on baking storefronts. This was very interesting to me and I find it uh >> for it. Yeah. >> Yeah. U I'll just I'll take Katie off the spot a little bit. um because I I did ask her to prepare this because I figured with talking about project updates and with some of the properties that we identified with the um affordable housing overlay district, I thought >> somebody might have a question about the vacant stores and what are we doing, which ones do we have and what um you know, Katie was was has been very patient um with all of my questions about the vacant storefront bylaw because I'm constantly pointing out properties on my drive to work and sending pictures to Katie and saying, Why? Why? Why? Um so, um Katie, I would be happy to have you explain. >> Sure. So, I mean, I know you, um are all pretty familiar with our vacant storefront bylaw. Um it's it's taken a couple of years since I started, but now everything's kind of on a similar timeline for enforcement, which makes everything a lot easier. Um, so in this memo, I kind of just outline. I'm not going to read it verbatim or anything like that. Um, I just kind of outline how h how how I do the whole thing, which is mostly using co-star. We have a subscription, so real estate um software. Occasionally, I'll ask uh Sarah to help me out with her other uh real estate tips and tricks and tips. Um, and also just I guess you could say boots on the ground observations. Um, I've also included the information I request uh from property owners when I send out vacant storefront letters. Um, which is primarily to register the property. Um, schedule a town review is a new request that um, Sarah has has kindly offered. uh to suggest to sit down with property owners, which is a great idea. Um so we're now requesting that these property owners schedule a mandatory meeting uh with us to present their maintenance and tenency plans if they have one. Um and then probably most importantly, which is uh to secure and maintain the sites. This was a particularly uh prevalent with 366 Massav. Um, and also talking about how we don't allow plywood with 1306 1308. Um, as I mentioned, the vacant storefront fee is valid for a year. So, they all pretty much just expired unless there's a new property that kind of pops up throughout the year. Um, I provided a list of who I'm currently enforcing the bylaw with. There's a couple of properties that are either under construction or I know that they have uh a lease underway or I've sent a letter because I would like to learn more information about the lease that is I'm being claimed to be underway. Um but lot of uh I'll say familiar addresses on here. Um and then I've also included photos and then as uh chair m chairman Laauo was pointing out um just to provide some greater regional context I provided some of the numbers the really fun and interesting chart comparing our submarkets. So, our Arlington submarket, we are these are all preassigned. Um, but we've been looped in with Lexington and Belmont and a little bit of Weston. Um, and it is interesting to see that we have the lowest relative vacancy rate um to our neighbors. Um, and I'll just note that the market asking rent is just an average. So, it's it's varied quite a bit. Um, but here also to just like answer any questions or other properties that you've been also taking pictures of and eyeing. Sarah, is there anything else you want me to highlight? Yeah. Uh well, I I something that I think the board could consider talking about perhaps in the future is how or with Katie, how are we doing with the with this by with this bylaw, the vacant storefront bylaw, like are we finding it to be effective? Is this incentivizing or maybe not incentivizing, but is this encouraging property owners to then do something with their property? or is it just they pay the $400 and call it a day and we're just like do is there anything else the redevelopment board or the town can do to compared to your neighbors our neighbors? >> I think I'll also say that um the actual fee is up to the discretion of the select board. Um, and if the you you as the redevelopment board would like to increase the fee, um, I I would love you to consider that. I don't know if $400 has really proven to be a motivating amount. Um, it is it's really just intended to cover staff time, but could argue it's it's not not quite enough. But food for thought. I think uh in the interest of time, let's table this. If you have any comments on this, let's bring it up at the retreat or send Katie your questions. I don't want to get out of here at 10:30. Um did not intend for this to run this long, but it's been a good night. >> Yeah. >> Um any new business? No one. >> I'll save it for next time. Thank you. Seeing no new business, uh, can I get a motion to adjurnn, please? So move. >> Second. >> Thank you very much. >> Yes. >> Time. >> Vote on motion. >> Oh, yes. Sorry. >> Yes.