##VIDEO ID:OT48DB9Nl_U## [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Laughter] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] h [Laughter] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Laughter] for [Music] [Music] [Music] one good evening I'm Bernard Green and this is the meeting a special meeting of the Brookline select board for November 4 2024 one day before election day and I hope everyone is either already voted or is planning and has a good plan to vote tomorrow um vote as if you're like life depended on I'm not going to make any comment as whether as whether it does but um okay so let start out with comments or updates from the select board anyone have any I have one that's AO aoo to what you were just saying um I ran into our our passed by our esteemed town clerk on my way into the building uh and he gave me a news flash which is that um 40% of registered voters have voted um which is pretty darn good but it does mean that 60% of registered voters haven't yet voted and uh in case people are wondering the number there is 177,000 177,000 votes have already been cast in Brookline so just echoing what our chair said um tomorrow is uh the big day for those who haven't yet voted um and that me so I'm I'm going to be heading out to rle school to vote um the other thing I just want to mention and it occurred to me as I was driving here tonight as we all know uh I hope everybody has figured this out it's uh we had daylight savings time the adjustment of our clocks on Sunday and uh what that means for people driving to a destination at 5:30 that happens to take them through the streets of of Brooklyn um is that uh it's as dark as um you know as night gets uh already at 5:30 and uh I think that takes a little getting used to and I think it's um uh equally true of pedestrians and of motorists that driving in the dark of night um is an experience that requires even more attention even more caution um and uh uh you know I could sort of feel the the nervousness of that it brings on that you've got to be really really focused on every single intersection every single crosswalk every single person who might be um riding a bike um in the street every person who's a pedestrian who might suddenly decide to cross the street um we we want Brooklyn to be um as they say uh when they talk about div Vision zero you know a town where we just don't experience tragedies um involving cars pedestrians bicyclists Etc uh but after the change of the um clocks um in connection with Daylight Savings Time suddenly driving requires a lot more driving and and biking and and walking as well a lot more attention to the usual you know measures of care that we take so I just thought I would mention that because uh it was certainly impressed on me when I drove over here tonight lots of people out and you know lots of situations where you really have to be paying attention thank you any other comments or questions or updates Okay no Okay Okay uh let's move on to public comment now I understand that there is an amendment to warrn article 18 concerning rodenticides that has been proposed by The Advisory Council on public health since we've already had our hearing I don't want to reopen a hearing on this article uh rather the select board later on will discuss and vote based on what we know um but uh Charlie Homer who's um I think he's chair of the advisory committee yeah um asked for time to present the acph amendment um which I will allow but not during the discussion of the Warren article but during public comment unfortunately he's not here but I'm going to take other public comment and if and when he uh speaks I will let him speak and then give one of the petitioners for warrn article 18 I think um Jocelyn Murphy wants to speak an opportunity to respond so uh let's start off with a regular public comment and see if anyone else wants to speak yes the first speaker is Linda pelky Linda I'm promoting you now Linda you can start your video and begin your three minutes thank you um good evening I'm Linda Olsen pelky a town meeting member Precinct 17 advisory committee land use subcommittee and the comprehensive plan steering committee um I'm speaking to you tonight to encourage the select board to vote favorable action on the banka blood substitute motion for Article 15 on access dwelling units while I'm speaking for myself I will say that discussions at both advisory subcommittee and among the Brookline by Design steering committee show me that issues around needing adequate setbacks and concerns around privacy and open space are all very important issues in the context of byright adus and support for any new Adu regulation will likely hinge on these topics I want to thank dick Bena and Roger blood for addressing these concerns in their proposal and for all of their work seeking a compromise we did spend time in subcommittee discussing with first assistant Town Council the issues around what constitutes reasonable regulation that the law does allow us to um insert in these bylaws and I understand from Mr B's memo that there are no issues as far as Town Council is concerned around the reasonableness of the regulations in the substitute motion we should also be aware that the Adu byright Provisions will apply apply to any single family dwelling unit regardless of which zoning District it is located in that means that single family homes in say a two family District could be located on very small Lots making very little space remaining for an possible Adu therefore the issue excuse me of minimum setbacks for byright adus is even more impactful in these other zones because this zoning Amendment would require a two3 vote at Town meeting I strongly recommend that the select board support the bank of blood's substitute motion which is much more likely to be supported by the AC and Brookline by Design and could therefore be the difference in garnering the required 2third vote thank you very much thank you Linda can um before you go on so um we're gonna be hearing a presentation by Roger blood and Dick Bena and then a response by the planning um Department later on when War Article 15 comes up that's sort of outside the normal way that we do things but because the select board directed the parties to get together and try to work out a compromise uh so it's it's a little different from other situations because of that I just want to make that clear um I'm not going to hold uh um dick and and Roger to um any limitation based on Linda pel's uh presentation but I just want to let you know that that is how we're going to do this thank you Bernard um also I realized I skipped reading the rules so I'll go ahead and do so notice yes thank you for joining us for public comment this is an opportunity for us to hear your perspective on the issues in Brookline that matter to you each person speaking tonight is limited to 3 minutes you don't need to use the entire time but you may if you like once 15 minutes has been met There's an opportunity at the conclusion of the select board's business for additional comments members of the public sometimes raise questions during public comment we may be able to provide a quick answer to a question but are more likely to work with staff to get a more thorough answer and respond over email we'll let you know when you have 30 seconds remaining and when your time is up please conclude your remarks at that time if you have more to say you're welcome to send an email to board members expressing your thoughts in Greater detail okay the next speaker is Dr Homer Who's online Dr homer I'm promoting you now you can start your video and begin your 3 minutes regarding warrant article 18 yes uh thank you very much appreciate the opportunity to speak to the select board um uh so my name is Charles homer I'm a town meeting member from Precinct a in addition I have the honor of serving as chair of the advisory Council on public health uh I'm going to make just some brief comments you should have materials uh from us concerning our Amendment proposed amendment for Warrant article 18 uh acph had the great pleasure of hearing the petitioner Jocelyn Murphy and reviewed all the materials in great detail uh acph uh firmly confirmed uh and agreed with the concerns that the petitioner raised concerning the second generation anti-coagulant or denti sdes we agreed that this presents a hazard to um uh wildlife and addition potential uh hazards to Children uh so we concurred with the desire for there to be stricter regulation uh and really have no disagreement whatsoever about the concerns and the issues that were raised by aabon and others concerning the potential harm associated with these redenti sdes we do firmly support however or in addition uh the integrated uh control which is used by the town as part of our road and control action plan uh to address uh issues of rats and other rodents in our community which primarily includes addressing the food sources uh but also includes a variety of other uh efforts um rodenticides are a very minor part of that effort but they are considered to be something that could be used in the event of emergencies our main concern really related to whether this is best addressed by a home rule petition um and the specific home R petition calls for the ability of the town to implement its own regulation of uh red denti sdes uh rather than a different vehicle um uh a resolution calling upon our state representatives both Senator Kem representative ATO and the other representatives of our community uh to express our concern uh to uh to the and to support existing legislation or legislation likely to be proposed uh we think it's quite different than other efforts where the town has requested its own ability to regulate because we had relationships um with for example restaurants food establishments and others for the other areas that we choose to regulate this is an area where in fact by the petitioners own words we do not want the ability to regulate we want the state to regulate we thought if we want the state to regulate we should ask for what we want um so that uh was our rationale um just a different vehicle to get to the same end um thank you very much I'm happy to answer any questions uh either now or later on in the discussion when you review this thank you thank you Dr her and next we're going to hear from Joselyn yes you may are you still need the slide yes please we will stipulate that owls are wonderful animals good evening Joselyn Murphy town meeting member from Precinct 16 this is a Bard owl that was recently taken to toughs by Brook Lin's Animal control officer the owl died of suspected anti-coagulant rodenticide poisoning soon afterward the acph motion is premised on four main assertions they assert that because esars cause immense prolonged suffering and death among natural rodent predators and because they harm domestic pets and children they should be curtailed we agree they assert that adherence to CommunityWide integrated Pest Management that prohibits or greatly restricts the use of esars can successfully control rodents we agree they assert that a policy prohibiting the use of ES SCS and public property in Brookline has been adopted we agree adding that like article 18 the policy was citizen petitioned finally they assert that pest control operator licensing and regulation of esars is performed at the state level we agree it is because of these assertions that a home rule petition rather than a resolution that simply punts this back to the state is necessary although we can see the black bait boxes housing rate rat poison throughout the town we don't have sufficient data on the frequency or location of escar boxes used by private Pest Control operators the bylaw contemplated under article 18 could solve that we disagree that establishing a regulatory framework to control the private use of esars would require significant Town resources the town has bylaws that have reduced the use of transf fats plastic bags and unsustainable containers these bylaws have not required significant town resources and yet they have achieved the goal of reducing the consumer use of these products in any event Statewide legislation would likely confer enforcement Authority on local authorities the acph concluded that Statewide action rather than local regulation regulation is the best way to reduce the harm caused by escar to date the state including the Massachusetts Department of agricultural resources and the state legislature has failed to take any meaningful action toward controlling the indiscriminate use of esars in Massachusetts and by our in inaction by our inaction we are allowing the immense prolonged suffering and death of wildlife in Brookline like the suffering that was endured by this barred owl local 30s is needed because our Wildlife Nature's most efficient rodent Predators cannot wait please continue to join a unanimous advisory committee Mass aabon the MSPCA the Sierra Club the Charles River watershed Association the Brookline Bird Club Senator Cindy cream representative Ruth Bowser and representative Bill McGregor in supporting the home rule petition that is called for in Warren article 18 thank you thank you the next speaker is Alisa panja okay um I'm not sure that we should have a hearing I was just it's public comment no public comment oh I guess if if everyone if there a lot of people going to speak on the same warrant article it's like having a hearing so it goes against what we're trying to do but why don't you go ahead uh good evening Alisa panja Precinct 8 um and I'd like to comment on uh warrant article 18 and my only observation is that the format of this warrant article is supported as as a home roll petition is supported by by our Senator Cynthia creem so I she must believe that it's an effective vehicle for trying to prompt the state into action and I wonder then why uh people would question that but I'm really here to comment on Warren article 16 which is uh just wanted to point out one it item on funding and I know that I sent you a letter that I hope you had time to read over the weekend or today regarding finding funding to support the administration of the warrant article if you look at appendix C of the urban Forest Master CL uh master um climate uh resiliency Urban forest climate resiliency master plan there is in there a u memo um from the moderators committee from uh town meeting of May of 2003 that recommended enacting a tree preservation bylaw and the contents of that tree preservation bylaw were substantially stricter than the Warren article that we currently have that was 21 years ago however the committee knows that at the time the town did not have the funding to uh support the Personnel required to administer such a bylaw so 23 years later 21 years later I'm wondering whether the town is really serious about supporting tree preservation if over more than two decades we're not able to find the source of fund funding for that article especially when the um Urban Forest uh climate resiliency master plan offers many different suggestions for finding funding so I hope that we can reach the point where we stop passing this on to Future generations and I appreciate that there's been turnover among town government but I hope that all of you will have the courage to dig in and find the funding for once and for all so that we can protect our tree canopy thank you thank you that concludes our speakers who signed up in advance is there anyone in the room or online who wishes to speak during public comment if so please raise your hand using the raise the hand and feet chair Fran peer I am not going to speak on any of the warrant articles I'm associated with Bernard I just wanted to make a comment that I've seen in in in um uh Paul and John's emails that the the big development in Chestnut Hill uh that's being brought down to a smaller size is cutting 115 senior housing units and I just urge the select board and the negotiators in the town to try to convince them that senior housing is really important and we need as much of it as we can thank you I wonder if I could help with that sure um so um the developer made a change between their initial proposal and the current one that resulted in a reduction of density they among other things they brought the highest point down from 20 stories proposed to 16 stories proposed and that still has not been settled by any means there's probably an iteration number three in the works um the units that were cut out what they did was change the housing for seniors from an assisted living situate facility or an independent plus Assisted Living plus Memory Care to um uh over 55 so they're changing the whole structure whole nature of what they're uh planning to offer and I'm not sure whether um uh whether people realize that that drop in the number of units uh reflects a change from a significant change of use and a significant change in the kind of unit that would be offered thank you and did you wish to speak as well I'm sorry I can't recall your name if you could please state your name my name is Kathy Jansen I'm from uh Precinct 11 and I just wanted to quickly say in regard to Warrant article 18 that there are many many Advocates across the state who have been in this business for decades longer than I have who I think know way better than we um and they have proposed that every town and city in Massachusetts that we can convince to get a home rule article and aabon is working on Boston as we speak to try and get as many home rule petitions passed so that we can put pressure on the state both to get the state to make a move which they haven't done even with years and years of fighting about this and also it would give us the ability if the state doesn't move to at least make some impact on the escar use it's a small impact in our small little town but if we took the amount of esars off the map that are being used now in Brooklyn and Newton and Arlington and Newbery alone many many many more birds of prey would live and many pets would not have high vet bills and die it it would make a difference not as big a difference as a state law but our fear is that a resolution will be ignored in the same way that they've ignored five years of the CR Club fighting the state to make a move on this five years of aabon fighting with the state to do this they've also fought on the federal level thank you thank thank you that concludes our time for public comment at the beginning of the meeting okay next miscellaneous um calendar approval of miscellaneous items licenses and contracts so we don't have uh minutes uh today so we'll move on um question of approving a community event requests for first light from the Brookline Chamber of Commerce contingent upon approval from an appropriate coordination with key Town departments such as the Brookline Public Schools Department of Public Works and police uh any questions regarding that anything you want to add looking forward to it yep um all in favor please indicate by saying I John vqu I Michael snon I Paul Warren I David bman I sh votes next question of approving an authorization to hire request from the director of Health and Human Services for the following position a regional Tobacco Control coordinator uh any questions regarding that or any information all in favor please indicate by saying I John v skak i Michael Sandman I Paul Warren I David Perman I your votes I next our main calendar uh items for the agenda um updates on previously refer town meeting warrant article chz you're sure um so in your packet apologies for the late breaking nature of it are two brief um reports draft reports for your review and comment and potential approval to go on the combined reports two Warren articles from the annual 2023 town meeting of May were referred to the select board specifically Warren article 17 about Canabis equity and more on Article 19 about the creation of a black and brown commission um the report summarize the activity that we have taken in response to the followup that you directed us to take uh specifically the the question of how the then new cannabis Control Commission regulations impacted our social Equity policies you had actually already updated your social Equity policy in response to what we to um Community uh input um and you did that after Warren article 17 was filed but before it came to town meeting so as of now um only social Equity applications sorry only applications from institutions that the CCC has certified uh as coming from disadvantaged Community there are two different classes of certification there um will be accepted for cannabis retail cannabis licenses in Brookline uh from now until 2026 uh but the law and new regulations do not require us to affirmatively create new licenses which was the question that came up at town meeting so this report answers that question on more Article 19 we summarize the work that was done is still ongoing um one with regard to uh the restorative justice work with Professor Susan M rosin um at the um Center for restorative justice at suffk University talks a bit about the investigation of the uh contentious debate surrounding War Article 19 and the language that was used there ultimately there were no findings of violation of the town's uh diversity uh bylaw but there um there are still open questions there um so those is efforts are ongoing in some respects and then there's just a summary of some of the work that has been ongoing since Warren Article 19 came to town meeting regarding the work that is ongoing and the efforts that are still being the strides that are still being made uh to make Brooklyn a more Equitable uh uh and fair place to live while we acknowledge um particularly that those efforts require the buyin and the and and you know the the support um from the communities that they're meant to help and that is an important part part of this that we are also working towards it's not just we have these great programs here they are take advantage of them it's making sure people feel that the government is something that can be trusted and something that we can that where the support um is genuine so it's not just creating the programs it's reaching people where they are and trying to build those connections which is part of what the restorative justice work intends to do too so those are your two brief updates if you have any comments or thoughts on the language uh welcome them do we need to approve the report or you do favorable action on this warrant article just you you can approve the reports it's not yeah it's a warrant article I'm sorry go ahead I'm sorry it's not Warr it's just a report yeah so I have uh I have two questions and thank you Chaz uh for providing the reports um my questions relate to the referral of Article 19 um and there there seemed to be two aspects to the referral one was the very contentious divisive uh nature of I think leading up to the debate um and the debate that caused quite a bit of division and I my sense is the restorative justice process was part of trying to help with that healing right and then the second uh thing is the the key question which was the subject matter of Article 19 which was the creation of a black and brown commission right um we don't really mention whether what is the at some point will we have the discussion about whether we need to bring back that black and brown commission or is it already incor ated into other boards and commissions how are we going to address that question it's my it's my hope and I stress that you know the restorative justice process is being run independently I don't have control over that process and that's by Design we really want someone independent to be in charge of this who has who could be a trusted voice um so it's not me it's not the board we are we are asking suffk to be an independent actor here um it's my hope that out of those conversations will come back something whether that's a renewed warrant article for a commission whether that's a discussion of how to revise I in some way to be make it more responsive I don't know what the framework of that will look like but I think it will come out of those conversations where there's meaningful dialogue about what's what's missing you know where where is the dialogue deficient where are we not reaching people who are members of marginalized communities and what can be done to correct that Mike what are we getting what or what do we know of the conversations that the folks from suff are having with the um the people who um the petition is for article one and Article 19 in the first place I have not received a report yet from uh Professor r m rosin on that I will follow up with her I know the initial conversations have just begun um so I think I I I want to hear from her but I want to hear from her when she's ready to give that update so my hope is that that's coming sooner rather than later since I know she's had initial meetings with members of the select board and members of the other members of the community so we should have updates from her shortly okay thank you so I guess one followup and thanks for answering mik Mike's followup question is very helpful um maybe if we could make a tweak to the report that speaks to this issue about how we're getting at uh the question of addressing the petitioner's original request which was uh was the formation of aiss so language like it's yeah I think how CH has described that as as a result of the restorative I agree it's just not it's not written that way in the report I agree with what he answered if he could incor that I can I can put I can put that sentence at paragraph you it's the hope of the select board that at the end of this process we'll have the information necessary to come back to perfect perfect but but without committing to any specific no it's it has to come out of the process right right okay um so unless there are any other questions that's I'll vote to approve warrant article 21 as amended um as amended uh which is is a warrant article because that's where we put reports of various committees and and other other bodies in the um combined reports so all in favor please indicate by saying I John vanak I Michael Sandman I Paul Warren I uh David peran I CH oai okay let's get into the um the fun part of our meeting um waren starting off with Warren article 18 um and I see Melissa's coming to the podium SC cards for all of the articles I can help walk you through but um you know there are you know staff also that can give you more of an update than I can uh for article 18 uh you discussed earlier tonight uh the board's current position is favorable action um advisor's current position is favorable action also um we had a late breaking resolution file by The Advisory Council on public health which you heard from the chair and the petitioner in response uh so that's kind of where we are with Team okay any discussion I think last time we we voted or discussed and there seemed to be agreement that uh we would um favor favorable action on the original version of the Lauren article is there any did we already vote did we already vote you did did you you did already vote Yes so you we voted already V we so we would have to reconsider have to reconsider that vote if you and so if you're satisfied with where you are you don't need to do anything I I apologize my notes are sort of jumbled to here uh okay any uh desire to reconsider no no it's uh kind of um it's a bit uh uh um bit concerning to ignore the um uh The Advisory Council but just the same I think uh listening to the whole of the commentary that's been made on this uh I'd like to go with what we originally voted okay so um our vote uh to uh for favorable action on the original version of the warrant article stands um do we need to do we do we need to vote on the the other we okay okay yeah the um the agenda says possible vote so okay so let's make sure that we identify which ones we've already voted on uh we on article 16 amend 8.41 to the town of General bylaws to expand the requirements of the tree preservation bylaw so article 16 uh when we met last week we were waiting for the advisory committee um to do some amendments they' they've since done that um they' voted favorable action 18 to 1 to4 on the article as amended and um since the petitioner is here um it would be helpful if she could outline what the advisory committee did to the article um because I don't have anything from them describing those changes and also it would be also helpful to know if you support and agree with the uh The Advisory committee's version sure so there were um there were two changes that we made in response to the advisory our meeting with the advisory uh committee one was to um add an additional exemption for the removal of trees when uh the trees on the lot are getting crowded so if the removal of a tree is deemed to be for the benefit of the in trees on the lot then there would be no mitigation required because it's being done for the overall benefit of the of the tree canopy on that lot and the other um exemption that we added which was one that was implied by state law but um we had a request to make it explicit was for um in the case when trees are removed because uh the property owner is installing a solar energy system and so there's Mass law that um prevents uh interference with the installation of solar energy systems and not just kind of codified it in the bylaw that if you're taking out a tree because you're putting in solar that you would be exempt from any mitigation requirements under the bylaw so that was those only those two changes and did you say you support yes absolutely raise your hand please okay you support that okay any uh hey David just the first change that you uh mentioned who would be be making the determination as to whether the removal of the tree is for the betterment of the entire canopy on the parcel um that would be a certified Arborist and it would be a certified Arborist who's selected by the homeowner by the town by whom um it would be the typically the property owner and and that is a service that the larger tree removal companies will provide um if you ultimately use them to remove the tree then they won't charge for the AR Arbor certification thank you so so Tom Brady doesn't have a role in that I'm sorry is Tom Brady are our our have a role in that so I'm not sure if he's on the call if he could answer that I um whether he might at certain times uh disagree with the position of a homeowner or certified rbur I would imagine that there's room for interpretation and that there might be a conversation but the bylaw as written um only requires that if you have that certification then you are exempt and that's similar to other exemptions um that are provided for trees that are dead or dying or unviable and so on and I would note that both um the cities of Newton and Cambridge have a similar exemptions from their tree ordinances oh uh yeah so um I had a quick question and then a comment so do we know the cost for an arist to come out and you know do an assessment and generate a report so if you are um we we contacted a number of the larger tree removal services and if you um if they come out and they're assessing the situation there were sort of two um two of the larger ones one said they if you hire them to do the work afterwards they would not charge um and the other just provided the report as part of their proposal with no charge um there are other companies that do charge of a fee um that's usually based on an hourly rate but it is possible if you shop around to obtain that certification at no additional cost um beyond the cost of having the tree taken down I I have a number of questions and I I don't want to take more than my share of the time um but I I'll start with just a couple and then if others have questions I'd like to sort of come back with a couple um the first one is is just sort of basic and procedural do we have in our packet this this latest version of the um amended and and what what is the document in the packet that is is that so 6A wa6 tree preservation AC amendments is the redline version of this is the redline version of it yes and a a and no further changes I I I thought maybe I heard reference to it's on page 109 more back and forth around page one well I'm I'm I'm using the other form of of I I've got it 6A waren article 16 tree preservation AC Amendment with AC amendments y um and and if anyone would like to read them I mean you know if anyone reads that right now they will notice that um as has been the case um there's been a lot of hard work done on this article as originally presented some weeks ago and every time there is work done on it certain stuff gets crossed out certain stuff gets added um and and I find it you know difficult um on this kind of a notice to figure out whether everything has been covered with all of the changes the cross outs and the additions um and the various um concerns that were raised along the way as this worked its way through the process I I I have a second question which is is this the version that was in front of the tree planting committee and the Conservation Commission when they met last week and um in neither case did they vote a um endorsement of the article they they voted to essentially issue a report on their discussion of the article as I understand it and if anybody wants to to disagree with me on that interpretation of of their meetings um please feel free to do so but um is this the version that they met had discussions and decided that they they weren't comfortable um enough to endorse it but they would write a report to explain their reservations bran you might know you you at I think maybe both I I was at those meetings so um I believe that they had the latest copy so that that the document that you have the 6A with AC amendments yeah that was provided to the advisory committee and the um Conservation Commission and the tree planting committee met afterwards um so they should have had the latest version and and and yet did not see fit to they they felt there were enough concerns that they didn't vote to endorse the article may I comment on that well yeah yeah I'm just trying to get some clarification on things um so there was a lot of discussion in in both meetings about whether first of all whether it was even in their purview um there were some U comments about questioning why they weren't involved in the process earlier even though we did contact them as soon as the article was filed and reached out and asked them if they wanted to meet with us and to review everything um and when we asked them to articulate what their concerns were to see if we could try to address them through an amendment they were unable to articulate anything concrete it was just a you know sort of nebulous concern that there might be unintended consequences or that this wasn't targeted sufficiently Etc which was very different from the other committees with whom we met that had very specific feedback and we were able to respond to it yeah um yeah thank you I mean I think that's that that is is is a um perhaps a fair summation but but this is the tree planning committee and this is the conserv commission and and neither one felt ready to support it I think because as you said um it's been a process where a lot of changes have been made and then changes to the changes and then changes to the changes and uh I think people are having a hard time figuring out where are we with this because at first it raised a lot of concerns have all of those concerns been addressed including the concern as to the impact impact you would have excuse me on um staff and the the the need to actually add staff at a time when we we don't we're not sure that there's going to be room in the budget to add staff so all of the concerns that almost all of the concerns that were raised during our review with the AC subcommittee and later with the AC and and we also had met with uh the um planning board and and M were able to make uh amendments to respond to their con concerns those are all in there there are other documents one of which um I provided to you which is a restated warrant article that has a summary of all of the changes made and the reasons there and that was also in the letter that I sent you so um I would be happy to answer any questions on top of that uh as far as a tree planting committee is concerned their um herview is to plant trees on public land um our warrant article focuses on tree removal on private property so I'm not sure what overlap there is there and um the perspective that they would be bringing to reviewing the waren article so that's just a question that I have similarly the Conservation Commission seemed to be if you know unsure about they at at least in my opinion seem to be waffling back and forth between thinking that this would somehow that people want to keep their trees and so there really isn't a need for this warrn article but then that this warrn article might actually cause people to remove trees so I in the absence of their letter which they have not yet issued it's unclear to me what their thinking is um and in fact I don't even know if they've voted yet they just voted to write a letter so we don't know what its contents are going to be and what the advice that they're going to offer will be okay um I I'll stop for the time being with this next question is the concern that was raised by Our Town Council and I I'm glad that he's here um has that been uh addressed to the satisfaction of the Town Council that um this does not raise constitutional issues as to property um so I think maybe we're going to have to hear from Joe on that is that okay Mr and and and did you see my our response in the the letter that we wrote to you there's a detail section that that provides yeah but presents still has concerns um uh but I have seen your letter so thanks Joe Ken and town uh Town Council sorry um so uh my concerns have not been addressed I've seen the response um address this at AC in this last uh their last meeting the evidence that's provided for the rough proportionality does not demonstrate rough proportionality it demonstrates that we don't have a consistent position on what proportionality is so if I were to have to defend this I would have the record demonstrating that it is not roughly proportional there is one graphic that shows it maybe there are two other studies that show it isn't so I would have a mixed record when I'm supposed to be showing that it is roughly proportional and I have to show not just that there's some evidence of rough proportionality that by a ponderance of the evidence meaning more than 50/50 that is roughly proportional and in constitutional analysis this is what's called heightened scrutiny um so it's not just anything can go um it's not as high as strict scrutiny it's not as low as rational basis it's heightened scrutiny so I'd need lots of evidence and actually I have lots of evidence that it isn't okay thank you thank you oh oh I'm sorry I thought you hand up just get getting ready to speak future I I have a question for the petitioner again so uh section 54 on permit issuance specifically sections d and e uh I see that the word excavation was removed and I recall that excavation was removed because of a concern that uh select board member Warren mentioned which which I agree with which was the issue about well if I'm clearing out a bush and my quote unquote excavation is a foot and a half is that really intended to invoke uh this bylaw and the answer to that was essentially no which is why that term was removed but my question is what if the excavation is for the purpose of putting in a New Foundation would that be covered by the word construction because an excavation for purposes of a New Foundation is presumably a lot deeper than right um I think that would really be a question for the building department but my assumption is that it would be because if you're building for a New Foundation you would need an overall building permit and then that and and therefore that would invoke the the warrant article at least that's my supposition but I won't pretend to be all I could maybe Town Council address that question about the meaning of construction and also would that cover excavation to fix a ruptured um waterline I've had that problem wait you have to be at the microphone to speak sorry you want uh your question answered or do you want me to answer well the the question I had well I guess I guess both but essentially what is the meaning of construction would that Encompass excavations that are larger scale so not what Paul Warren had been talking about previously about removing a bush and a few inches or a foot but where it's a significant excavation for putting in a foundation or as chair green stated for uh repairing a water line okay uh unfortunately I'd rather uh Joe Callen and Town Council uh unfortunately I'd rather uh the building uh commissioner answer that question because it's more about the building code than it is about our bylaws since we don't have a definition of what's the commencement of construction but I'm sure there is a definition of the building code but Dan would know that better than I would all right thank you sorry current the current trigger in the in the bylaw is construction that alters the footprint of a building and so in the example of excavation for a water line that would not be covered there there is a definition in the bylaw for excavation that that it that has been excavation has been removed if you're looking at the later the the most recent okay version yeah so that was in the original Warren article and I think as um Mr Pearlman mentioned we were having a trouble with wording it in a way that it would really go after what we were trying to Target which is ex excavation that could be harmful to the critical root zone of a tree that was not intended for removal and so it was really hard to do that without also pulling in things that were pretty innocuous and so we just pulled it out entirely sort of under the supposition of what Mr Perman actually said that the more significant excavation would typically be accompanied by construction and that we'd pick it up that way well and this my question may may maybe can only be answered by The Building Commissioner um so I too I think I rais this with with one of the petitioners about the W Construction um and you know when I see how closely construction excavation is related to construction so excavation or construction um if you know the the I gave a couple of examples about um if you need to reinstall your walkway which is an existing walkway and you need to pull it up um and lay down bricks or you have a driveway that needs to be repaved um or you have an ex existing um uh attached deck uncovered deck on your property um each I believe each one of those construction activities would require a building permit uh to do that and would that trigger with that building permit because it is construction um trigger the requirement to have uh an obrist if that walkway driveway or deck is within the distance to a tree yeah so so the so the trigger isn't um uh applying for a building permit the the trigger is construction activity that alters the footprint of a building so something like replacing your driveway or a walkway or even the steps or your front porch would not be altering the footprint of the building and therefore the tree preservation bylaw would not be triggered that was only triggered if you're altering the footprint of the building and and in entally um this is consistent with the trigger from the original bylaw that was recommended by the moderator committee back in May of 2003 had a similar trigger of construction that alters the the footprint of of a building one followup question so just because I want to make sure I'm perfectly clear on I'm not sitting down no okay great don't sit um so where it says um I lost it uh tree protection and mitigation plan which is item D under 5.4 which uh David Perlman had raised that's where it's specifically saying in the event of a um planned demolition activity or construction activity that alters the footprint of the structure that's that's where that's being covered yes exactly that's the criteria yes exactly okay thank you V answer my question David David I guess I just have a slight concern learn with this language from the perspective of tree protection which is altering the footprint of an existing structure so we have another warrant article that will be addressing accessory dwelling units that would be a separate footprint because they don't necessarily have to be attached anymore and to the extent and so that's one concern then the second one is to the extent that an excavation is part of a phased construction so perhaps a foundation is put in perhaps a property owner runs out of funds temporarily or for whatever reason puts a pause and we don't get to the construction portion of the project that clearly could have an adverse impact on trees but would not necessarily be covered by the warrant article so that's why I do think it's important that we have a firm understanding of what counts as construction and it sounds like from uh Paul Warren's question that this is not triggered by getting the permit from the building department so I think we need to know what is the trigger Berard yes so I my and I'm glad you raised Article 15 is you know that I had the map distributed uh with the graphic and how many actual Parcels will be affected uh by article zoning Article 15 um it's 8200 and Parcels that would likely be affected meaning it it fits the criteria of potentially adding an Adu is uh 4585 uh so 4,585 that and this is a work in progress that Cara brutin has shared with me but this is one of the reasons why I actually think we need to put this article in place you know we're going to go we have we are rezoning almost the entire town through this uh through this uh town meeting specifically with new construction uh for adus um and potentially article 14 I do think it's prudent that we that we support uh this article um I do think you you rais an an interesting question does does constructing an Adu um a new Adu or altering an existing uh accessory structure um count as changing the footprint well I think it would be because it's a new footprint it doesn't exist uh on the lot and I think you know the definition does cover a lot so I just for me I'm I'm I'm grateful for the petitioners working with advisory and planning board and the process has come to a consensus article um we're down to one article and it seems like it's uh it it is supported by those parties that have been involved so um given the potential amount of uh new construction that would be taking place uh depending on how this town meeting uh uh comes out um I'm I'm inclined to support favorable action on this amended article David and I certainly agree I'm not asking these questions from the position of wanting to oppose the Warren article it's more whether we might want to consider a further revision to make sure that there we really are protecting trees and properties to the fullest extent that we can and I wonder if one way to do that would be to specify how deep of an excavation because if clearly we're trying to avoid something that's minor such as 5T to clear a bush but we do want protection for putting in a basement which would be a much greater depth or just understanding what the term construction means exactly that's where my questions are coming from Mike yeah Mike I I think the um the question about Adu is an interesting one because someone could build an Adu with no structure and they currently in their back a brand new one right and the question is does that does that mean you're altering the footprint by adding a so the simplest thing to do would be to Simply uh add uh a reference to construction of um a set a new structure on the same lot uh and that would I think that would answer your question um broadly looking at the revisions in this uh I think a lot of really good work has been done on it and um with that one you know what happens with something that's as complex as uh as anything relating to uh permitting and zoning and and these sorts of things uh you always come up with some questions after the fact and they may be a need to tweak it at some point in the future but simply making that one change I think would respond to your question and and I I certainly agree with what you're saying but rather than wait for a future town meeting to do that tweak why don't we put it let's do it now yeah I agree absolutely that's the the sensible uh and I don't think you would have the petition would have any objection to that I don't know about the advisory committee could what's the tweak yeah what's the tweak oh the The Tweak is to to reference um of a new uh uh of a new structure yes so if you if we could put the uh the AC article up on the screen I think I have a proposed amendment you need to scroll to 5.4 D Tree protection and mitigation plan it's 5.4 D yeah got it it's in it is in the packet it is in the packet yeah why I I can pull it up okay so while while while she's pulling it up this is what D reads it says tree protection and mitigation plan in the event of plan demolition activity or construction activity that alters the footprint of a structure on a lot what I would suggest we do is say that in the event of plan demolition activity the creation of a new structure yeah or construction activity that alters the footprint exactly yeah that's exactly right yeah just in that insert that phrase and that answers the point and it's a good point so where where where excavation activity is crossed out under D yep the first cross out Tiffany we would add in activity uh so in the event of plan demolition activity creation of a new structure right comma or construction activity that alters the footprint yeah perfect I think you got it covered okay everyone agree on that John I have no objection to the to what was added so I'd like to move uh favorable action further discuss I had some question oh you have okay I knew you I'm sorry and and I I do want to say to the sponsors of this article thank you very much for all the work you've done and thank you for your patience and addressing all these questions um but uh you know and it seems like my my colleagues on the board at least some of them are comfortable enough that that they will see fit to to send this forward um with the latest uh of the changes um I'm not comfortable enough um I'm I'm not comfortable when I hear Our Town Council say it still is not it still raises constitutionality questions um and I'm not comfortable when I haven't um heard where the money is going to come from to add the staff um if I thought adding the staff would have a dramatic effect on our protection of trees um May you know maybe then I would just sort of swallow hard and say okay we're going to have to find money somewhere um I'm not I don't know where um and nobody has told me where uh what's going to be sacrificed so that we can add the staff to take our already existing tree preservation bylaw and may I pause here to correct if anyone listening tonight has the misunderstanding that Brookline never did anything as a result of the urban canopy report um I would like to help them understand that in fact in 2022 Brookline adopted a tree preservation bylaw um you can read all about it on the tree preservation bylaw page of the Brookline website there you will find that uh adoption of that bylaw was followed by a lot of work to create regulations for the um the enforcement part of that bylaw um a lot of work was done to explain to average people um how this bylaw might impact them um a lot of work was done to prevent there being any um uh harmful or unintended consequences to our storm waterer management um from this bylaw um a lot of work was done to create an FAQ um with a lot of useful information for people as to how they can figure fure out if our existing bylaw applies to them and their trees and their property and we've had two years and now we've decided the existing bylaw that we passed in 2022 doesn't do enough doesn't um doesn't achieve its objective uh sufficiently of protecting tree canopy that part of of what has motivated this um I agree with I've heard from some people who were very involved in the 2022 bylaw that they do see some changes some useful changes that could be made to the 2022 bylaw but I still can't figure out if those are the changes that we ended up with um and when I hear that the tree planning committee um didn't see fit to endorse this and the Conservation Commission didn't see fit to endorse this I worry that we didn't limit ourselves to the useful things that could be done to improve on these existing tree bylaw that maybe we've excuse me unnecessarily over complicated um the 2022 tree protection bylaw that we passed and um if folks will just indulge me one one more um comment here by accident and it was purely by accident because I was actually in search of some other information I happened to encounter a meeting that they had in Cambridge this past week Cambridge is regarded as kind of the model for this so Cambridge has had um a tree protection bylaw since 2021 that's how recent a lot of this is um so I I don't think Brookline needs to be ashamed that they didn't adopt their tree protection bylaw until 2022 Cambridge um at at one of their meetings of a subcommittee of their city council just last week got the first update since 2021 it's the first time that have gathered any gathered and reported on um any of the data from the impact of the tree protection bylaw that they adopted in Cambridge so uh just to cite a couple of key um data that were presented at this meeting in Cambridge and this is Cambridge larger than Brookline maybe not quite maybe not larger when it comes to the number of canopy trees but they've had only 190 permits that had to be granted for trees that otherwise would have been healthy and survived in 3 years um in Cambridge so that works out to 60 plus trees per year that um uh weren't going to be that uh weren't unhealthy weren't in in need of um removal and that actually required replacement trees to be planted Ed Under the Cambridge tree protection bylaw 60 plus per year and you know to to achieve that um and by the way there's no way of knowing given that presentation of that data point if those 65 plus people who replaced their healthy trees would have done it anyway that's usually the situation with people who have trees that you know they they wish to replace the situation is usually that it's an unhealthy tree that it's a dead tree that it's a tree that would not survive or it's a tree that qualifies for an exemption even under this proposed by law but only in 190 cases was it a tree that otherwise could have been left alone and would have survived and of that 190 we don't know how many would have been replaced anyway so it it does come down to you know what is the best way to protect canopy trees and I think a reasonable case could be made that um if we're going to add 60 trees that otherwise would not have been protected to our canopy our tree canopy per year there are other ways that we can do it that don't involve um you know creating a cumbersome bureaucracy for checking on every single incident of every single tree um every time it arises when we don't know how we're going to find the money to pay for the staff to do that so i' I've still still got a lot of reservations I and I I I I don't know if they can be resolved by the time of town meeting but I you know when I have reservations I feel like I have to put them on the table okay yeah um I I guess it's very dangerous to take a single statistic and run with it but if there are um a relatively small number of trees in the course of a year that need to be um replaced presumably there are relatively small number of trees that um uh that uh that that come under the bylaw and therefore need to be looked at um where is the the concern about additional staff that's well to protect those 190 trees required um also also check checking up on 578 trees that actually were were in need of removal in the course of in the course of three years yeah yes yeah yeah uh it's the information that was reported by the authorities in Cambridge so you know okay this is a debate between us if you don't mind you this is not a public debate I'm sorry um so you're talking about a couple hundred about 200 trees that have to be looked at in the course of the year no no no you have to go to the site every time a tree is to be removed the person the person has to have a someone come out to the site confirm either that it's dying dead or for other reasons you know qualifies for an exemption or is a tree that is actually protected because it's still healthy and you don't get an exemption for it and that only occurred in 190 cases in 3 years so but if there were a little bit less than 600 over the course of three years that had to be looked at yeah that's a couple hundred trees uh it's on average One A Day something like that I mean you know Cambridge could speak to how many people they have who are dedicated to this task but and I don't know that number yeah yeah just just I think it's useful to put that into context as you know it's not like somebody has to be employed to survey a forest every day maybe we don't need to appropriate money then all right exactly yeah so just addressing this cost issue the explanation provided by the uh Human Services subcommittee report on war article 16 says that the cost to the town could be as high as $272,000 annually for two additional FTE it sounds like Mike thinks it won't be anywhere near that high but even if it were it we are funding a new sustainability Division and preserving our tree canopy I would think would be part of their efforts um I see our to Town Council is either nervous or or he's shaking his head no sorry and I didn't want to cut you off but go ahead yeah I mean the answer to that would be no it would probably live in parks in open space um because that's where the tree that's where the public tree preservation work is going to be centered so um you may recall in the 20 23 override um there were actually two positions put into that override for the public tree canopy um and those are actually slated to be funded this year as part of the FY 26 budget when it comes to the question of where would this money come from I I have to be honest with you I don't know um the one the easiest solution would be basically to cut the public program and turn it into a private program but I don't think that's in the spirit of the override that's not would contravene what the voters voted for um we're looking at a $1.2 million deficit for FY 26 right now and I say we don't have the money we don't have the money um so I I I think we need to figure out we would need to figure out what we would need to cut where this where this Warren article to pass and I appreciate the petitioners are thinking creatively about this I think it's important to think through all the things the petitioners are thinking about but even when you think about you know one of the solutions proposed is well we can hire an outside contractor we don't we don't have the funds for that we could hire one ft and that that going to require Cuts elsewhere in dpw's budget so you know the thought is maybe we do ramp this up slowly and see where we go but the other portion of this raised by this conversation is it doesn't sound like this is a self- sustaining operation right we're not going to get we can't we can't bank it's the same way the state is dealing with the millionaires tax now right we can't Bank on that money to fund an operating position when we don't know the revenue we're going to get and the deta the details from other communities suggest that we probably won't get the amount of Revenue it would require to add one or two FTE so I understand petitioners don't agree with that analysis um but you know maybe if you're if you have data you're willing to send me I'm willing to be corrected on it but right may may I ask the petitioner a question about the funding mechanism and what their estimate would be that but let's be careful not to get into a all right another hearing um right just just the narrow question about the estimate of up to 272,000 annually could you speak to that or as to what you think a more realistic number would be uh there could be a slow ramp up if they Financial concerns from the town we agree with dpw's number we included an extensive proforma analysis where we ran 16 different scenarios using cambridge's data which by the way they've had their tree preservation bylaw in place since 2004 it was just most recently updated in 2021 they have five and a half years of data online we pulled all their data we looked at the number of tree um payments into the tree fund that they were average aaging per year and we model different scenarios and in all of the scenarios that we modeled the revenue um the payments into the tree fund were sufficient to cover the costs of administration so we're not disputing dpw's number we agree with that it would probably take two FTE at a minimum one to start but if you look at what uh cambridge's experience has been it has generated sufficient payments um far more payments than we're projecting for Brookline into their program to so that it is self-funding thank you okay any further discussion what what's what's the um you wanted to make a motion well yeah so I there's um nothing has been stated that that has moved me off of supporting the article so I um unless there's more discussion I'd like to move a favorable action on article 16 as amended second okay all in favor John Vanette uh no Michael sammon hi Paul waren hi David Perman I I guess I'll say I too although I do do have some concerns that John has so well thank you can I just clarify that as amended by the advisory committee and the warrant Amendment as well the one that you presented earlier right yeah okay okay uh next uh warrn article 8 uh regarding um minimum lot size requirements when granting a special permit for the conversion of single family building into two family units um yes uh so what war on article 8 The Advisory current position is referral to the comprehensive planning steering committee that vote was 17 to1 to2 I have not heard from the petitioner whether or not they intend on still moving the article despite the referral motion any discussion uh Paul I'm sorry oh I'm sorry you want either either way I I we're probably about to say the same thing well what I what I thought would be helpful is uh uh Cara brutin done some really heavy lifting over the weekend and early uh late last week uh for me with respect to all the zoning articles and I'm hoping could you pull up the map just just so that we can see it together I think I think this is in would be helpful or context um so um this this m app which is uh admittedly a work in progress um carara had uh messaged me today that uh the the uh the table on the lower right hand corner which is uh shows um the number of units that would be uh included in the zoning change not the units but Parcels then how many Parcels might be affected uh for article eight I think it's underestimated because uh they missed uh the F District but this graphic shows all of the zoning articles uh except it doesn't show article 10 and 11 and if actually 10 and 11 were included there that white strip down the middle uh would would be colored in because that's actually Harvard Street which is the NBTA communities act but you can see from this graphic that um almost the entire town is being rezoned uh during this town meeting uh every parcel just about is shaded now what uh what the uh planning department did was they colorcoded it uh by article so if you look at the lower right hand corner um War this this graphic depicts article seven um which is the uh two and a half story article uh article eight which is the one we're talking about nine uh now article nine which is the plus one the up zoning to two to three families article 14 which is a a tweak in uh the ownership structure of second units then Article 15 which is the adus and you know Tiffany if you could do me a favor and just blow up uh the corner go down to the the right hand corner table and just really increase that so we can look at it in detail again this is this is for context um so if you look at article 7 which we already voted for I'm not asking for a change in that but there are 5600 Parcels uh Parcels these are things that you could go look and see your address and see if you're if you're going to be uh uh impacted having a zoning change for possible article 7 for article 8 uh it's it's 4,000 Parcels um with uh approximately 1,00 Parcels that would be affected meaning it would be likely that uh the the configuration of that the parcel the building on that parcel would trigger potentially the creation of an additional unit um and that number is estimated because the F districts weren't included in in this specific analysis article 9 there's 2100 Parcels uh that would be uh uh directly having their zoning changed and then potentially another 1100 Parcels that uh could potentially add a third unit article 14 is the least one it's 700 uh Parcels uh with 240 units and the Whopper is Article 15 which is the Adu article uh 88,200 Parcels would have their zoning change and potentially uh about 4600 of those Parcels would have a would have the possibility for an additional unit uh being an Adu being added when I spoke of maybe two weeks ago about this that where we haven't looked holistically at the amount of zoning change uh that we're going through and the potential for the number of units that could potentially be created this gives you a sense of how extensive uh some of the zoning changes are and again that some some of them are well articulated and why but importantly when we did the MBTA communities act we spent an incredible amount of time talking with communicating with engaging with the community to get feedback um on articles um much of of of the articles that are before us um haven't had uh the benefit of that level of Engagement and I would I dare say that um I would wager that the vast majority of the parcel owners um don't even know this is coming right so and I appreciate our professional staff has done uh you know a good job with article 7 and planning they've done a good job with 14 and 15 uh the citizen petition articles haven't benefited from the same uh rigorous analysis and and impact analysis so um I just wanted to share that with you um and I know we're only talking about article eight right now but when I raise a little bit of concern about um the amount of change that's coming um I I thought it would be helpful for us to be able to see that together Michael so uh first of all that is a very very helpful graphic so um to the planning department thank you very much that's I I was actually um um I pulled out a book uh today uh entitled visual communication of quantitative information by a man named Edward tufty which is a superb piece of work describing how you communicate information like this and this gets it's an A+ uh it's it's great um I would I I think I was going to say Paul before you that that I would vote in I I would vote in favor of referring this to the comprehensive planning committee right from the GetGo I mean even if it even if we didn't have all of these other things going on um I do think it's important to note that the comprehensive plan planning committee produces a comprehensive plan it doesn't produce zoning art you're 100% right um but when you aggre at all of the things that we're uh we're doing it does obviously have an aggregated effect uh and this one uh in particular uh is something that probably belongs in the uh does need to get that that careful look and that communication with the the rest of the community uh so that's um that's where I would vote uh David I agree with what Mike is saying but it does make me wonder whether we should reconsider War article 7 now Paul and I had abstained on that one I think for the same reason that we felt that 78 and N should all be referred to uh comprehensive planning so that we're not picking winners as you put it uh but so that we are engaging the public process more and letting the comprehensive plan um influence what we end up doing moving forward and so I wonder if we're really going to be consistent on that should we be considering war in article 7 as as we can see from this very helpful map from a geographic perspective uh Warren article 7 impacts a majority of the town okay um so you have to find someone who voted um you know the right I'm I'm just asking the question somebody feels that way Mike well the the basis for um my vote at least on article 7 was that we were responding to a vote in town meeting uh and uh to me that's the Comm that's as good a voice of the community is one it's going to have in the um for for for this kind of a situation uh so uh I I would not move for reconsideration okay David that vote though was to address the concern about demolitions and so I understand how the planning department feels that warrant article 7 would discourage uh demolitions but you can we could also say that uh we should rezone so that everything is only one story that might reduce demolitions as well so there's some uh we can take an extreme position on something that would slow demolitions as well so I don't know if that in and of itself should be reason enough to not refer uh can I just recommend that the debate on reopening seven should probably get postponed until we can put it on the calendar right yeah so that's what I was going to say is we can't actually even put it on the calendar tonight we can't reconsider tonight because it's not the it's not noticed in such a way that we could do it so I again I I didn't want to reopen seven frankly for tonight um and I may not suggest we do it in the future I just wanted to provide context um and so I agree with Mike's uh suggestion that we uh that we you know go with what the advisory committee did on eight um and refer it refer it now it happens to be referred to the the the comprehensive plan steering committee it would be the subject matter and not the specific article because we're not going to bring the article okay so I'll take that as a motion to refer um and and I would agree with that since the petitioner said that she has a court case that solves her problem right um so on favor of and we didn't vote this already right okay just checking um I'm uh I move a referral with respect to Warrant article 8 I move referral to the comprehensive plan steering committee with respect to the um subject matter of uh this warrant article that accurate all in favor please indicate by saying I John vak I um Paul um Mike sanon I Paul Warren I David Perman I and chair votes I okay thank you so for article 9 the advisory committee motion is also referral 16 to5 to1 uh I have not heard whether or not the petitioner still intends on um making a motion under this article and we did not uh vote that either correct so I I would make the same argument on article n okay any objection to that same argument being let's refer to the the subject matter comprehensive planning yeah yeah yeah uh okay I move U that war article we on nine nine excuse me uh nine be the subject matter of War article 9 be referred to the comprehensive plan committee all in favor please indicate by saying I John vinak I Michael Sandman I Paul Warren I David Broman I votes I okay article 10 uh the advisory committee motion is favorable action 22 to0 to one and that's the Harvest she form base zoning um adjustments um Minor Adjustments right these a material right material adjustments for that the material yeah and this was put forward by the planning department yes okay okay um and any discussion or okay I'm Mo approve uh what do we Okay this is favorable action yeah I'm Mo approval a favorable action for zoning a warrant article 10 on favor please indicate by saying I John V SC I Simon I sorry Paul Warren I David fman I shair votes I next article 11 uh a motion of favorable action failed at the advisory committee 2-6 to2 okay and this is a um Stephen hein's proposal well but it's a planning it's a planning board's right presented to us by Sten um any discussion of that yeah go ahead PA so my you know my thought um our last discussion the primary issue raised was that our you know our investment in form based zoning which is significant um on on Harvard Street um was intended to provide for predictability to the development Community to provide for um an expectation of what the result would be by the those the abutters who participated in uh you know in helping to Define uh the work that the planning department did for form based Zing um and you know and and it's it's been in place all of a year um and you know to to offer uh to to provide the planning board with this dis pretty broad discretion um I think on on on massing and some other things I just I'm not in support of it I feel like we're we're we're undoing all the work much of the work that we did some of the work that we did for for form based Zing um so I don't know I'm I'm I'm not really comfortable with undoing that portion of it I agree with what we just voted uh for 10 but 11 seems like maybe a little bit too much Mike uh well I disagree um I think um it's very much in the spirit of uh of um making for form based learning is is great in the sense that it gives uh uh anyone a developer or anyone else a clear sense of what is available by right yeah uh and uh it provides a very straightforward process but when somebody comes in and says well you know we look at the materials uh that have just that are that now being allowed just been expanded perhaps if article 10 passes um we'd like to do something a little bit different uh and Steve's Steve hiken uh showed us the um building with the windows Miss uh not not aligned and my own response to that was I don't really care for that but uh that that's a designed decision uh that uh the planning board uh is uh is able to make I don't think that we're undoing anything I think we're making it possible to make the what is essentially pretty rigid structure a little bit more flexible uh and we have a very good planning board they uh and we have had for really for as long as I can remember uh and I I I trust that we will continue to have a planning board that doesn't uh go off the deep end uh in uh in in their findings that something that really strange is uh is acceptable and and U in the spirit of the uh of form baseding da I agree with Mike in part about the spirit of article 11 but the details really do matter and the notion that we're going to leave something to the discretion of the planning board the composition of which will certainly change over time that does take away some of the certainty which is the point of form based zoning I agree that there probably are more modifications that need to be made but I think the way to do that would either be with another article 10 style warrant article that comes back at a subsequent town meeting perhaps with defining some ranges uh he gave uh the planning board gave examples such as bay windows that maybe those were too narrow and why not have it up to 14t and I trust that uh Steve hkin is right about that but the way to address it is by establishing ranges so that there's still the predictability that we have some idea of what's going to get built and so that developers know ahead of time what they will or will not be able to do and I think ranges can accomplish that and perhaps broadening the materials list a little more uh but I'm not comfortable supporting just sort of a blanket discretion uh so I intend to vote no on this but it's not because I don't agree that there could be further adjustments I think it should be ranges and defined that's persuasive thank you yeah and I think David said it well um you know I think it's to to to have what a person an architect a planning board full of Architects might think is a better version of the design guidelines that we should incorporate in our reform based zoning is one thing to because they have in mind that they might have a better version um than is in the reform-based zoning bylaw that was passed by town meeting uh they should therefore be given kind of cart blanch to decide you know in which instances do they want to Grant um exemptions or um V variations you know to proposals that don't meet with the reform based the form-based zoning guidelines is just um to to essentially undo uh form-based zoning um and if they want if they want to get specific and come back just as they did with the building materials um the the distinction between this and what they did with building materials is clear um they they thought certain building materials were excluded that should be added and they met with the planning department and they came to some some sort of agreement on uh a proposed warrant article that specifies which building materials should be added that weren't in the original form based zoning this is very different um and uh it's different in a way that um uh I'm I'm clearly not comfortable with and and don't feel we should approve okay I I was persuaded by David's comment and I'd like to move no action on that but Mike well the I think it's important to read what it says here um that uh certain things may be allowed by the planning board following a public hearing with a specific list of findings um that uh note that uh elements to diverge from the uh uh from form based owning basically why the overall design is substantially consistent with the code in other words they can't if you anybody familiar with the statea center over at MIT it's a really interesting building um it's uh stack of books stack of books it looks like a stack of books it's falling over um and uh so I I don't think that that the statea center would be uh W would uh would be an overall design that was substantially uh consistent with the code I don't think it's going to go wild uh I'm sensitive to the point that we're uh we're departing somewhat but I David was very honestly David was persuasive until John's comments uh I'm I would be willing to to vote in favor of uhal thiso know what I said to contradicted David anyway I E logical conclusion which I appreciate in the spirit it's just in the spirit of getting through the night the night I was hoping to maybe offer up a motion did you already make the motion no you can make go for it Mo up uh no action on article 11 okay on favor please indicate by saying I John V this is in favor of no action I um Michael Sandman no Paul Warren I David Perman I and chair oai okay war on article 14 article 14 the advisory committee vote is 20-2 to2 in favor of referral to the comprehensive steering committee okay okay uh any discussion of this um SEC yeah I need to find my place again sorry pardon me I I need to find my place again excuse me for a second find it yep yep any discussion anything you want to say uh MOA okay um anyone want to make a motion I I'm I'm unsure on this one and I I think it might be helpful to hear from the planning department um if that's okay as to I've heard different things about this it's a it's a it's a minor change it just makes us consistent with state law um it's about ownership and currently we have different different Maria maybe you could help clear the air on what why do why why do we absolutely need this and what ises it doing sure Maria mlli senior planner in the regulatory division uh so I want to make it clear that the the actual two sections allow this this provision they already allow a special permit but for rentals they don't have the same parody for condos and we're just introducing that parody for at least one District where we think it might be helpful to again conserve some of those smaller buildings which are in the M1 District so we talked about maybe 8% of those Parcels are on the smaller side and detached why not have that parody for condos we've been approached in the last year by two homeowners not investors who could benefit from that so Maria I I had heard um one argument that the condo minium law has been in place for decades yes and this hasn't be has hasn't really been an issue um why is it becoming an issue now well you know I wouldn't have brought it up unless we had two constituents who were homeowners who are want to age in place that Boomer demographic is a very large demographic I think it's maybe neck and neck with the Millennials and so of course that demographic you're going to see more people aging and these questions are coming up about how can I stay in my community I don't I can't really afford to leave um I would like to move to say a single family on my same property um would would I be able to condo eyes for my heirs Article 15 cover that because Article 15 allows a an accessory dwelling unit and you don't and it can have separate ownership right right but these these two people they own two families so it's not like they were going to be able this is essentially allowing an Adu on exactly right and these are large Lots so these are like ,000 Square fet I do a lot of multif family development review where you can put 20 maybe 20 units um maybe not an M1 but you can certainly put multiple units and for something like that a developer would want to develop have it take up most of the lot and put up a big which is which is fine that's what multif family districts are for but then we also don't want to lose some of those in between middle middle um missing middle house housing uh forms um if they already exist why not allow people to make use of that um okay okay any other uh discussion I had a question yes I I don't recall if we heard whether there's been an advisory committee vote on this they voted to refer it they voted to refer yeah um our packet doesn't seem to include their uh report on it is that the report's not in there but Melissa had just said two to two 20 to2 20 to2 to two you don't always get the reports oh I get that yeah yeah that's unfortunate I'd love love to be able to read their report um David could you maybe give us a brief synopsis on why they voted to refer I was probably with you when they were doing that so I unfortunately I cannot Mar um Maria can you provide some insight and what is your position I assume I know Maria melli once again um if I can recall there were there was a lot of comments about different scenarios and I think it was maybe more of a philosophical um feeling that it was it was something that could should have been should be thought of um more holistically and um I would say that in my opinion it was just a little frustrating that people lost sight of the fact that these two sections already allow a special permit provision so I think that there was some um interest in trying to think of the rethink the whole concept in the bylaw which was not our point we just wanted to have parody that's all you would still need a special permit this isn't by right you still need a special permit you just need to it's a special permit and in addition to it potentially being a rental it could also be an ownership that's right but you need to do the special permit that's right okay um unless anyone objects uh i' more favorable action well favor please indicate by saying I John V go I I yes D that's what happened pirate respon that's a that's an ie with with a uh you know grumble in it um yeah I I I'm a little uncomfortable P I'm a little uncomfortable because we don't have the advisory committee yeah yeah yeah then this is not you know act like a pirate day it's yeah yeah Michael sandon I all War I vote r r yeah trying to figure out so we're voting whether to support yes this is favorable favorable action I would want more information I'm going to have to abstain okay uh chair votes I okay now the main uh main show here War Article 15 so Article 15 in your packet you have a memo from dick Bena and Roger blood you also have planning staff here advisory has not taken a position on this most recent amendment I just will remind you that Thursday is the deadline for the combined reports so if you want something to be mailed in the combine reports tonight's your opportunity to do so well will advisory have something but they won't I don't think they'll have it in time so they're meeting next Wednesday so a week from tomorrow they're taking this up so like why not cut it close we're not going to hear from them it's up to us okay so uh how are we going to do this it's going to be uh dick and and Roger first and then you're gonna respond or pardon me for the petitioners yeah petitioners go first okay so yeah I was wondering why they're coming up uh so Cara brutin director of planning Jonathan Simpson's going to be joining us in just a couple minutes um is this your last agenda item for today yes does anybody want to take a five minute break and see if Jonathan Simpson might join us no sure I think that's a great idea yeah thank you predict taking a five minute bre five minute break you've got my vote as a result of that that would be just to see if Jonathan can join us he had some oh early you're waiting for Jonathan yeah he had some introductory I think would be helpful and I can thank you important yeah hear something like that e you know if Jonathan is joining he should be he's he was he was going to join at 7:30 so okay oh gotcha e e for e e e e e we don't we're coming back in five four three two one we're back select board meeting special select board meeting for 11 uh for November 4th 2024 so miss brutin please make your presentation thank you War Article 15 yes so warant Article 15 again Cara brutin director of planning Jonathan Simpson will be joining us online as soon as he can um and he did have some kind of overarching comments that I think will be very important for you to hear from him um but in the interest of time we're gonna um you're going to let me know when he arrives and I'll I'll get started on our on our status update um so just wanted first of all speaking of Jonathan Simpson say thank you to Jonathan and Town Council um and also Roger blood and Dick B um Becca murri who's on on line with us um and really the lead of this article for our um department and Maria morali and poly selo have all spent dozens of hours on this article um and there's been a lot of back and forth a lot of understanding even when we slip back two steps you know of coming to a common understanding at least understanding if not agreement and everything um so just wanted to stop and say thank you um we this town runs on volunteers like uh Mr B and Mr blood um and they I know that their um source of energy comes from caring deeply about their community so I just wanted to with start with that um in mind um the first slide I wanted to just kind of set the stage with us all here is something that we kept losing track of and at least I did even within our department which is that when the state passed this law this summer to allow accessory dwelling units more broadly they decided very intentionally to put that language in section three of the zoning act this is the same section that people sometimes refer to as do cases um it's very A specialized list of uses that the state wants to make sure are not unduly regulated so religious institutions solar panels um handicap access daycares um education right these are um cases that we hear all the time and where there is case law that exists for the so-called section three uses um which in practice has shown a wide um difference to those uses rather than o rather than over-regulating locally we'll see how that all plays out I just wanted to make sure that everybody here understands that the state did intentionally put accessory dwelling units into the section three very specialized um subset of uses that should be broadly Allowed by right and not over-regulated now taking a step back so um thanks to Paul Warren for um asking and asking and asking to um get some map mapping going to have a better sense of what's going on um so this is a zoning District map um which shows all of the various zoning districts in town and overlaid hard hard to see here but um we can send you in the packets and you'll it'll be easier in just a second and black are all of the places where there are actually single family buildings um so there's wide places for example like the municipal golf course the country club um those big yellow pockets in the Middle where it's single family zoning but there's not single family houses there now what this warrant article does um is addresses where and how accessory dwelling units can be built layering that on top of the state regulations so that we have some um regulations in place that make sense for Brookline and um those regulations we're proposing would be anywhere where single family uses are allowed today so to give you a sense of what that means this is like a foreground map this is the same shape of Brookline these are all single family buildings so all of these buildings no matter what district they're in that's all of our single family um homes today so they are broadly throughout Town um except for some again the golf course areas the commercial areas um especially around coolage corner um and then one thing that we agreed to very early on working together is that although we should allow accessory dwelling units and not over regulate we felt comfortable making sure that there was a maximum floor area ratio of 130% of what the zoning table otherwise allows um as as a maximum cap no matter what else is going on so to give you a sense of what that means about 20% of these black dots would go away would not be able to add additional square footage in order to build Adu so graphically we're going from this to this that just kind of shows you how that it starts to um become a narrower set of parcels where they haven't already built more than 130% of what they're allowed to build by zoning and therefore would not by floor Flor area be able to build a detached unit um unless they took some part of their existing structure down if we could zoom back out a little bit can you just go back to those slides that was that was helpful yeah great so those are all the single family buildings right and those are the ones that are left that aren't 130% and is that your 4,000 the is that is that map to that kind of 4800 number yep so this gets us to that 4,800 number um so the f is just one layer of Regulation that's in this very complex article um others include the existing open space that's in the zoning um requirements setbacks which I hope will get a lot of direction from you all fun um there's one thing I would love from you all tonight as people that I work for and that is feedback on where you want to go with the setbacks on this warrant article so that we can take that move on and come out with article to move forward with um so we have F setbacks open space distance between um detached units in the principal structure maximum footprint that a detached Adu could be um the number of stories one and a half for detached units and there's some others in the in the details but those are the big ones okay know if we could zoom back out a little bit sorry thank you you might have to do it on your oh I'm s what um oh that's pretty good weird it looks normal let me see um so this chart was in your memo that we sent to you all on Friday and is basically a summary of where we're at with with setbacks so um right now principal structures so anybody's home multif family um there are different setback requirements from the side rear front yard and right now by special permit you can have that distance of setback go down to zero feet all throughout town by special permit with the board of appeals that's today's condition okay you can go down to zero feet for any principal structure what we are agreeing to is that for a detached accessory dwelling unit that those should be regulated even more than a regular structure and have some minimum side yard and rear yard setbacks that even by special permit you can't go beyond so for example um in the smallest districts in the S4 that first row there the S4 S7 um se7 TF districts um we are saying sure by special permit you can go down from what's otherwise required but no matter what happens the board of appeals would not be able to give a special permit for for an Adu um new construction or even a new addition that's less than 6 feet and where um de bka and Roger blood are 7 and A2 ft on the rear we're at 7 and a half they're at 10 um and uh S15 it goes up a little bit more and then s25 and S40 a little bit more so you can see where those differences are and again those differences are in your packet uh if my son were looking at this chart he would say what the big deal there's a couple feet here can't we get a deal done right so um also in your packet we put um a graphics from several different zoning districts um this one is kind of one of the more tighter examples that we could find the kind of worst case scenario where you would still be allowed to have a detached accessory dwelling unit because that's where um where the Gap Still Remains so this is an example of a two family T5 District um one of the other layers of regulations that I was talking about earlier is the minimum usable open space so that's in our existing zoning that would remain with this um in this case for and it's based on the square footage of the principal structure so when I showed you that forground of you know all of the black dots and then it kind of went down by 20% um this is an example this one lot here where they haven't built out so much by more than 130% they also have enough open space space in their rear yard that they um would still be conforming to the to the minimum open space so those are additional restrictions that keep kind of layering on of you know if you want to do a detached Adu um where would one likely put it where one could could one put it so this green box here is a 20 foot x 20 foot um Adu these things tend to be if they're building new construction tend to be square or fairly Square either 20 x 20 23x 23 something like that and what you'll see is um this is showing what would happen if this board of appeals granted the absolute minimum distance between side and rear yards um the side showing here is 6 feet away from the property line the rear is 7 and 1/2 ft from the property line You'll also notice that the distance between the green box there and the principal structure is only 7 and 1/2 ft that has to be a minimum of 6t so we're really you know very very tightly fitting something here in an extreme condition what you also see though is that green square is is 38 feet away from the principal structure to the rear okay and it's only 19 sorry 15 feet diagonally um from the green box to the side of butter and so generally in concept what I wanted to try to get across here is that however we adjust these minimum setbacks by special permit every foot that we increase in the rear yard setback will likely mean decreasing the distance to the side of butter so we're trading off the point of view from someone that lives in the in the rear that already has you know 30 40 feet of distance that distance getting even larger so that this person to the side of you now has a living structure that's closer to them that's the the main point that it it's it's pulling a string and in many of these neighborhoods that houses are closer to each other side by side than they are rear to rear I'm going to pause there in case there's a question no okay and then finally this is where we are strongly in agreement um and hopefully it'll be a little bit of levity at the end of this um this is the kind of structure that we we um would like to be converted to an Adu very easily this is an example of a lot that is not in a local historic district there is nothing that would prevent the homeowner from eventually demolishing the structure um it is also a structure that is in um Roger Reed and Greer Hardwick's book on historic garages in Brookline like it's you know it is um considered a very important part of the historic fabric but not protected regulatory while wi so um where we're at is we would like to see the structure to be able to be converted to an Adu without a special permit to encourage people to reuse these kinds of of buildings um however so this is the Red Top belongs to the Red Top house to the left um and the gray top is the um The Neighbor Next Door and the map to the right shows that kind of shifted 90 degrees so the red top square is this gray Square here the Red Top principal house is the top of the map and the gray top roof is at the bottom of the map here so this is a condition that we find all the time in Brookline where the um accessory structure like a garage like this does not align is not parallel with the side Lot line sometimes it's not parallel with the rear lot line because streets aren't straight and people make different design choices over hundreds of years um so this garage as an example it's in S7 District which is one of the smaller you know most um compact single family districts um the existing garage varies between three and a half and 7 feet from the side property line um and uh if you think about well what's a to that actual a butter to the side it's between 20 and 21 feet there are windows on the side of um the accessory structure in our version as I understand it um we would allow those windows to stay um we agree that they should probably be translucent in other words not see-through if they are um so close closer than six feet from that side property line um but we are saying that we think that they should be allowed to be operable move the window back and forth and the um blood and Bank Amendment as I understand it is that that could only be allowed by special permit if it's required by building code um so I think that's almost it oh yep so finally clarification slide um after the two memos that you saw uh we are both in agreement that there should not be further setback relief that's that um could be granted under Section 543 which is that section I was telling you about earlier where you could go down to zero we don't think you should go down to zero either um in their version they talk about how building smaller than 200 squ F feet should not be allowed to be part of a conversion if they're located closer than you could otherwise by special permit or an agreement that's an example of like a tool shed you know very small Tool Shed does that um to use Rogers phrased is that is at the camel with his nose in the tent to do something um larger and then we're also in agreement that these uh buildings that are looking to convert that they should be have been in existence for at least five years um so those are the the slides I don't know if Jonathan's joined us yet oh sorry okay do we know where he is do you want to text him yeah we're texting back and forth and I'm happy to turn it over to other part of the crew no I switch Yeah so Bernard are we going to hear from the amendment and then we'll have a chance to have questions for both yeah okay I think that's the best way fine yeah I assume Roger or dick are going to be very precise in terms of where the differences lie and not elaborate on where you agree good evening um I'm Roger bled um uh I'm on the housing Advisory board but not speaking for The hous Advisory Board uh yet because the board will not be taking this up until after tomorrow um we uh dick bank and I have taken to Heart your urging from the last time we met here to uh work as hard as we could to seek uh as much convergence and consensus with the uh with the department and the staff since uh since we last met and we have enjoyed many hours together uh with the staff and I as as with Cara I want to express our our um gratitude and um appreciation for their patience with us and we've all had I think a good educ a and exchange and that has resulted in a substantial um uh agreement on many things that were not um agreed upon the last time we saw you here and the narrowing of uh considerable narrowing of differences on most of the remaining uh items um however as you've heard from Cara there are several items that still remain um unresolved and um we we think it's mainly perhaps a difference in um the uh the priorities or the perspective perhaps that dick and I have brought to the to the subject uh compared with this with the staff's uh approach um I I'd like to take just a very brief um moment to to to share with you the um a few of sort of The Guiding principles that that dick and I have applied throughout this uh which may help explain um a bit where where we're coming from um even though the the metric differences might not seem that great at this point first of all I think we all recognize to begin with the the importance of uh both the states statute and the town's intended um passage of this article uh from the standpoint that uh we all want to um help erase the housing crisis and produce some housing through adus uh and and do it in a way that has the broad support of the community in town meeting but um while not unreasonably restricting and those are three critical words that uh that Jonathan Simpson for Town Council has been U very good at calling the balls and stri and Strikes in our long discussions um we have agreed I think uh we we are only uh seeking to include in this article what only is clearly required by the new state statute and to exclude everything else and and um I think I'm happy to say at this point that that's agreed and done a couple of things have been postponed and a lot have been removed um we um we We are continuing to acknowledge the need for the broad town meeting support uh to uh to have this go through with a with a high level of of support while at the same time not overstepping and and getting a strike called that we are unreasonably restricted we think that um we're pretty confident at this point that um uh that dick bers and and our proposal our alternative substitute um has not reached Beyond where where Town Council has said you've you've done something that unreasonably restricts um we um one one high priority that that dick and I have given to throughout all of these discussions um is uh to um acknowledge that very significant differences uh in the intensity of use of Any Given building whatever its Dimensions might be when we're talking about Dimensions the greater intensity of use of an occupied dwelling unit versus a vacant shed garage or Carriage House um in in terms of activity noise light you name it music um and finally um that I think we may be giving a bit greater um attention to the uh impact and the reaction of a Butters to the new bylaw that's providing uh you know considerable Authority here I've often said that um the every homeowner that begins to understand what's what we're doing um the first question they're going to ask is what what does this let me do and right behind that question is what does this let my neighbor do and we're trying to answer that in a way that will retain a broad Bas of support for this uh this the greater good here um as you'll see in dick Ben's remarks to follow and the the few visuals that we'll be sharing with you the two general areas and there are only two really um that remain um maybe for you to decide how how we should proceed as as Cara suggested uh the first are are setbacks and specifically how much added relief or side and rear yard setbacks are approp beyond the by right um uh as of right setbacks that are that we we have agreed on and are going to be in the in the proposed bylaw um and the second is um how we should set certain rules for what we what we calling pre-existing non-conforming unoccupied units and and these are the sheds garages and and carriage houses that are much closer to the line and there are hundreds and hundreds of these throughout the town largely in North Brooklyn but also elsewhere what what are reasonable kinds of rules that would produce desirable end results for the applicant for the abutters and for the the production of Housing and Cara gave a terrific example of a of a significant garage that we would all like to see uh converted and not demolished to to advance our our goals um so at this point um dick meca is going to do the heavy lifting and give you some more specifics of uh what how we view these two general areas thank you very much um dick PKA town meeting member Precinct 14 and let me start by thanking Cara for her kind comments and um let me reciprocate those and thank the department for their professionalism during this process we have spent a lot of time together um addressing some of the issues um let me just say that as you consider setbacks and the related issues uh I'd ask you to keep in mind um a couple of um uh facts that underly this um first is a permissible Building height will be increased from 15 ft for accessory buildings to 22 feet for adus with an occupied second floor so there's a significant increase in massing under either proposal right from the get-go and the setbacks are set against that backdrop secondly the affordable homes act does not allow the town to require owner occupancy uh so you're more likely to have absentee investors developers and landlords involved in this process and less likely to have neighbors working with each other to try to mitigate a butter impacts uh We've agreed with the Department on bught setbacks uh the bught setbacks for the smaller Lots ranging up to um the S10 uh districts would be only 7 and a half to 10 feet even without special permit relief um I would say a small correction is needed on both the department and The Substitute motion submissions uh the sidey setback I noted today for an SC10 district is only seven and a half feet and not 10 feet so we both have to clean that up um both of us did feel that the uh one family dwelling rear yard setbacks were unnecessarily large if they were applied to adus so they've been reduced by half right off the right off the bat for by right Adu development and in discussions with the staff and with Town Council there was no suggestion that the bught setbacks would unreasonably restrict Adu development nevertheless the department would go a lot further with special permits it would reduce sidey guard setbacks to as little as 6 feet in many many districts and in our view 6 feet may be adequate for a garden shed or a tool shed but it's not adequate for an occupied dwelling with all of its activity sound light and impacts on privacy and you can see that six- foot setback on the left hand uh under the Department's proposal ranging up to S10 districts the department would reduce rear yard setbacks even more drastically by special permit um from 30 ft to 7 and half half feet in most districts from 40 feet to 7 and a half districts and from 50 feet to 10 feet um in our very largest Halfacre and full acre districts um The Substitute motion uh proposes to start with a more modest special per uh permit reductions uh as shown on the table um 7 and 1 12 fet in the smallest districts 10t feet in the other districts for side yard setbacks and between 10 and 20 ft for rear yard setbacks the more drastic departmental setback reductions we feel do not provide adequate AB butter protection they're not required under the affordable homes act and they may well not be acceptable to town meeting for either the smallest districts or the largest districts and um uh as noted uh uh the I just learned from Cara that uh they have accepted uh our suggestion that uh section 5.43 not apply uh to further setback reductions we have some other differences um The Substitute motion proposes some additional restrictions uh and protections not included in the Department's motion when in a butterf facing facade is closer than 10 ft to an abiding property line its length Under The Substitute motion would be limited to 30 ft so that a developer canot impose a 45 or 50 foot long wall on an abing property uh and to maximize privacy and minimize the transmission of sound windows on such a facade close to a property line would have to be translucent and not operable unless there were no no alternative under the building code we also do give special protection to buildings that are historically significant or part of the neighborhood fabric allowing garages and Carriage Houses that don't meet setback requirements such as the one identified by Cara to be converted and expanded to a adus even if they are within one foot or 3 feet or three and A2 ft of a property line but not providing that op option to small tool sheds and garden sheds we also impose consequences if a developer demolishes without approval a building that has been deemed significant by the preservation commission and uh we have a broader anti-gaming provision uh than the department initially proposed but my understanding from m brutin is that again the department may be reconsidering their proposal in that regard yard and gaming is a situation where a building is put up um 6 feet from a property line as an accessory building for example and then immediately uh a permit is filed to uh convert that to an Adu the department has attached some photos to its um uh proposal or to its uh memorandum to this department um and I just want to make a few comments about those in closing uh the department has cherry-picked a few lots and then it has applied its special permit setbacks to locate uh potential adus on those lots let's take a quick look at what can happen with those proposals adus are located closer to the abing property rather than using available space on the developer property so here you see the abing properties and available space including in this case a swimming pool uh rather than an Adu on the next Slide the Adu is put in the corner near the abing properties despite significant open space on the developer's property and in this situation the Adu again is put in the clo in the corner close to an AB Butter's pool rather than using space on the developer's property but there's another issue that arises in each of these cases the outcome using the uh Department's setbacks and their and their guidelines just lost this thank you thank you very much in each case the Adu sits right on top of a tree canopy that's true in this case it's true with this case and it's true in this case and the reality of that is that with these minimal setbacks for sidey and backyards you're going to be putting the potential adus close to the property line and that in Brookline in these cases picked by the department itself and in many other cases the tree canopies are located on the boundaries between Lots where the department Department would locate its adus um using its setbacks so that is another concern frankly that we have and that is demonstrated by the Department's own slides and with that let me turn this back to Roger thank you so there's one um one last topic um that is um worth um finishing uh with you you about and it has to do with with Footprints um uh we are in sync with the with the Department on the wisdom of limiting Footprints uh as a matter of policy and it's only in the in the detail that um that I just want to share with you a little perspective um for for detached um adus both new and converted the department proposes in the S S7 and sc7 and S C and S10 districts to strictly limit the building's ground floor footprint to 530 square feet and um with a 900 square foot authorized maximum square footage what this does uh is the um the um required additional living area if one wanted to take the maximum 900 squ F feet allow it would require the remaining five um the remaining um 370 Square ft to be put up on the second level from a design standpoint that makes a lot of sense um I noticed quite quite many months ago that Newton um had done something similar and I spoke to the planner there and it was for the same the same reasons this our substitute motion um follows the same principles but we think provides greater flexibility for the benefit of whoever is going to actually end up living in the the new uh detached Adu um we we are proposing that the uh for the uh the S7 the smallest lot districts that um a 600q foot footprint be allowed and in the S10s a 700 foot footprint be allowed and I'll explain very briefly what that means um as I said this would re require first of all a less restrictive rule rather than requiring every last foot to be pushed upstairs and minimizing to the to the absolute limit the the uh the amount of the ground floor footprint um both of both the the department and and Dick and I for the larger lot sizes we we aren't proposing any any reduction in the minimum footprint it's would be 900 square feet the goal um um for both of these versions is to provide better design outcomes I don't need the slides anymore um uh and especially for the livability of the first floor we believe that the substitu substitute motion our substitute motion uh offers a more userfriendly and yet scale appropriate living and design options for those who will reside in these units the adus and especially for seniors Aging in place seniors and even more so for anybody who has a handicap member of their of their household um and um that the 600 and 700 Square ft would provide a reasonable ground four floor living space uh a one-bedroom or even possibly as many as two bedrooms whether or not they decided to put a second level on it um uh uh in in the S7 and S1 districts respectively it uh while while it would mean a lot uh in terms of the additional flexibility and design and living area for for especially those kinds of households it really wouldn't make uh any serious difference in the the amount of land that would be used or the uh or impinging on the open space rules Etc so um we're we're just recommending a bit more flexible approach to um to that particular uh concern it's not something that was something we we started out thinking that there would be um any serious differences on but we're we're offering it at this point Thank you thank you very much Michael Jonathan Simpson is on I'm sorry if you want to give oh a brief comment Y do you want to hear from Jonathan yeah sure go ahead Jonathan there is hello everyone um I I'm sorry to uh to have jumped on uh late um I appreciate uh all the work that everyone has done I'll Echo what dick and and Cara had said um I did want to uh to qualify one thing um that that dick said in his presentation um I have I have in working with uh with Roger and Dick and the planning staff I have been asked repeatedly whether certain things in this zoning Amendment would be considered unreasonable and while dick is correct I don't believe that the what is proposed as a byright uh setback um would be unreasonable RIT large I am fairly confident that there will be situations where the towns bu if we if we have a bught setback of that size particularly um that that there will be situations where we will be likely be situations where we will be found to be unreasonably regulating adus but the critical thing here is that those will be individual situations a landowner will attempt to will look at his property say I can't build an Adu or I can't you know the Adu I would be forced to build using these byright setbacks is completely um unworkable for me and will uh when they are their building permit to build the Adu where they want is denied they'll challenge it and we will have to defend that regulation and I think there will be C circumstances where we will not be able to successfully defend the regulations um in their current uh in the current zoning Amendment particularly if we are um attempting to demonstrate that the by right setbacks are reasonable that's one of the reasons why the planning department and I were proposing setback relief to the extent that we were proposing it was because it we think it will be able to channel what will end up being otherwise be legal challenges into the special permit process uh and that will give neighbors the ability to wait way in it will give the zba a certain amount of discretion to condition the relief requested it will let everyone sort of work together and try to find a better solution for the neighborhood um whereas if you have byright setbacks and only allow a small amount of relief via special permit my concern would be that you'll you will be um inducing uh many people who want to be build adus to Simply challenge the regulations and Court um however um like I said I that won't happen in all circumstances and I certainly don't I think we'd be able to successfully defend a lot of those but it is a real concern if if a if a Adu is uh a challenge is brought and our regulation in a for a particular lot is successful that Adu will be able to be built right up against the property line if that's what the landowner wants um there's no fall back regulation if our regulations are found to be unreasonable um so I think that's really why we were being as flexible as we were with the special permit relief and I so I do want to make it clear to everyone now that I do think that those byright setbacks particularly in the rear yard requiring you know 15 feet in some circumstances are going to be found unreasonable in some circumstances okay Mike so thank you so thank you Jonathan that's that's helpful the presentations were very helpful um I have a couple Co a couple of sort of overriding comments one is uh I know that we need the support of two-thirds of town meeting we also need to have conformance to state law and that may sound familiar from the Harvard Street discussion um and uh so I listen very carefully to what um what Jonathan says um the the other a couple of other sort of override comments what dick expressed the you know the thought that developers uh or investors might get involved in in buying single family homes and building an Adu and that would be the case no matter what the setbacks are realistic clim and if if that's the the consequence of going to adus then it doesn't matter what we do uh in terms of this particular uh warrant article and I think that realistically most of what we're going to see is conversion of existing garages existing structures there are a lot of large single family homes that have uh garages set in their backyards and uh wherever they are um they're going to be they're going to be eligible for for conversion um but I do have a couple of questions for um Cara in particular uh what's the any sense of the impact on the number of eligible Lots um from uh if you if the longer if the if the um more say the the more more cautious setbacks uh are adopted as opposed to the more liberal ones no is the short answer I don't I don't have that okay um that if we're talking about detached adus there's a certain minimum depth that people are going to want to bother with right and when you combine that with a distance to the principal structure in the rear setback as we were doing these drawings we were looking for the worst case scenario and um there are many times where that front to back piece with the how the structure was cited you know a 100 years ago is already kind of in the middle or towards the back um but we haven't done an analysis of every single lot all right p i that so it's kind of a tough tough thing to ask even um I do have based on the drawings that you have and for really for both of you um why not uh instead of uh requiring um a certain certain level of setback why not change to um uh switch to the nearest distance from structures on an adjacent lot uh in that situation you could guard against somebody putting a building even seven and a half feet from the adjacent house uh when they have you know uh when they have some additional space to to put their the structure I think Jonathan Simpson should answer that because we talked a lot about like what would happen if the if the cab butter agree you know if the neighbors agree that the outcome is good shouldn't we have flexibility for that yeah um Jonathan do you want to talk about existing conditions Mike I also think I raised that maybe month ago and it's out of scope of the article it's an expansion of the article uh okay I can't speak to that I well yeah no I'm sure that's what you heard I I wasn't aware that um and and there's nothing if that's the case then there's not much we can do about that but um just the same as anemic question uh I think I'm not sure so the you're asking if we if we switched metrics and rather than use setbacks we' sort of tried to measure it from the distance of a neighboring building neighboring neighboring structures um I I think that that is it becomes it's I think it's really only better in in theory frankly because you one of the things that that you I think dick mentioned in his in his memo you had a you there was the potential issue of kind of a an arms race so to speak of someone builds a structure on their property taking advantage of the fact you haven't built one on yours and then your your ability to build your your structure is now impacted because of what your neighbor has done um which isn't really the way zoning is allowed to work um it's supposed to be um uniform so you can't have a lot that is now treated differently because of what it's what's happened on something else some other person's lot okay all right appreciate the answer thank you I just have a quick related question uh did you look at as distances from an existing structure so as opposed to a structure on an abing property being within a certain distance of the main structure as opposed to related to setex that you uh we did I mean we there's a there's a six foot minimum from the principal structure uh other than that we we didn't um we didn't think it was necessary to EXP expand that any further um the essentially the the as you probably would imagine most and this is one of the things that I think dick and Roger have been very Vigilant against is it is a natural inclination to move these structures um so as necessary to preserve as much of your uninterrupted space as you can so I don't think there's really a um to the it would be I would not I would not not really even know how that metric would want we would want it to work in terms of all the the interests we have going on today how does the six foot minimum work with detach with attached adus it doesn't it's it's only for detached attached adus are attached to the principal structure right and my other question there we've talked a lot about exterior restrictions are there any interior restrictions so can an Adu have an interior connection to the main structure it can you have to allow the um well the interior connect it can share an Atrium but it needs to be a separate a separate unit um I think that it if a Adu was proposed that was you know had a uh opening into the main structure I think the building department would legitimately question whether it could accurately be called an Adu um but I think in most cases for attached adus you're you're actually it's more flexible in most of the cases if you want to just expand your principal dwelling you would just do that you wouldn't build an Adu and try to try to get more space that way well I'm just wondering for those who might want the future flexibility I I'm not sure that's a very good question I think you they have to have a separate entrance whether you could have a uh and also have a door between the units I genuinely don't I don't know you probably could but I would that would be a question for the building department all right the if I might the uh affordable homes act um uh defines an accessory dwelling unit uh to be one to be a dwelling unit that maintains a separate entrance either directly from the outside or through an entry hall or Corridor shared with the principal dwelling sufficient to meet the requirements of the State Building Code so it uh remits you to the State Building Code but it does allow that entrance to be internal to the building then one other question I have uh are there still differences between these two versions regarding a second Adu on the same parcel uh that issue has been deferred uh and we have both agreed to that yeah PA you have yep uh yep I want to uh ask Tiffany to put an image up on I have a couple images I'd like to walk through I think a picture is worth a thousand words here here with respect to distances um Tiffany if you could scroll through and maybe just to provide context it's the it's the picture with the be that shows the front of the uh property is cars so the so what I'm showing you is um and Tiffany's struggling with the images I sent so this is just scrolling through them what's that you can just scroll well so this is um Ivy Street um yeah leave that picture that's it's just not showing on the screen up here see oh there it is okay so this is Ivy Street this is uh in my neighborhood I'm very familiar with it um this was a um a property that was purchased uh by a developer it's a single family home um and you can't there's another picture Tiffany if you can get the front of the building they they added this um this accessory building and it's actually a garage and above it is Living Spaces but the the reason why there you go that's the one so you can see that at the bottom of the driveway that blue in the back so this is about a 22 and a half I think it's actually 23 feet high um from this is from the front of the building and then if you go to the back the rear one of the rear pictures um you'll just see that the the structure as I say is a garage in the bottom but could easily be converted to an Adu on the bottom living space and above it's meant to be like an alair type of situation uh the developer is going to be selling the home um and this is this is 15 feet from the property line so on the left there is another U uh uh building that's a that's a dwelling unit on the left um and on the right is the new building that's been constructed so this is actually an example that the planning department used as as what could be potentially be an Adu um and it just shows how big the massing is of a 22t high structure and this is 15 ft from the property line um if you could go to maybe the next picture that just says a little bit of a distance in the back there is a second floor to it um uh second level uh with uh this yep that picture right there you can see the green area that will actually be Windows uh and again it's 15t from the property line but those are going to be over overlooking into uh the the the structure that's to the left which is a a home um and I just wanted to share that because it's hard when you're seeing these boxes on uh on drawings it's very very difficult to understand exactly what you're talking about um 22 feet high uh 15 feet from the property line is a looming structure um over your over your property it really is um and so I for me this in line with maybe Mike what Mike had said a little bit you know this ultimately comes down for me uh I think the biggest issue is the setbacks um and I think from i' I've participated and listened in on just about every public hearing on this uh and was well found the uh land use subcommittee uh I think they've met twice on this uh really informative and the the I think the setback is going to be the thing that gets us to two-thirds or not um and I um my sense is that uh the setbacks that are being proposed by um the the the motion between with Dick and Roger um has a much better chance of achieving a two-thirds threshold um I understand what uh what Jonathan Simpson is saying is that might result in some challenges but you know if let's put something in place and if it gets challenged we can deal with that and if we need to make adjustments going forward but I don't want to antici ipate too much that we're going to be challenged and there therefore we should be um overly uh permissive um so again I'm just like the NBTA communities act I'm hyperfocused on getting to a two-thirds vote and um I think I think we heard was it was it Fran Perler or uh Linda pelky got on and said that she was supportive um of uh of Roger and Dick's version um and I think she actually said she would rep it so I I'm thinking 2third um I am really grateful for the work that the planning uh department has done I Caris said they've worked dozens and dozens of meetings in hours they really have uh in doing that and and I appreciate it and I do think though it would be very helpful for us tonight uh because we meet again next Tuesday but advisory meets after uh Wednesday so next Wednesday um I think we need to this down to one article um and make a recommendation on one article so that so that then AC can then move forward if if there's two articles that eight land use subcommittee is going to go have to deal with and adjudicate um I think that would be unfortunate it would be good for us to give them some direction Jonathan I just want to flag something this is sort of uh frankly breaking news on for someone in my position uh and I just want to make sure the board has all the information um the speaking with Mark Hurley of the Attorney General's office today um while I did not give her the actual a draft of the actual zoning um she was uh expressed thoughts that a revision of our Adu bylaw could potentially pass uh with a 50% Quantum of vote rather than a two-thirds um again this is the de the devil's in the details but I just wanted to make sure the board had all the information that I did I certainly I'm it was a it was a nice thing to hear I certainly appreciate Paul's efforts at building consensus no matter what but I did want to make sure you knew what I knew and is she gonna put that in writing she has already but the big thing is we don't we haven't sent her a draft yet so her word's not right I but she's ruled yeah I I appreciate that it' be very nice this is not the kind of War article I want to see passed by 51% this is the kind of thing that needs brought very fair very fair point um but I do have a question Jonathan explained the basis for trying to insulate ourselves from a situation in which uh a property owner challenges and then can build right up to the property line and I wonder um either dick or Roger if you could comment on the rationale and whether you think that what you're proposing would withstand that sort of challenge do you want to take that or at least take a scientific wild ass guess at it that being the attorney um I retired as a lawyer but I I would say that um uh the if you look at at the and and it was the uh table that was up before um the difference between the uh uh special permit distances under the Departments version and under our version um are a foot and a half uh with respect to sidey setbacks in the very smallest zones um four feet in the S10 zones which are 10,000 square feet or more and I would not think that a a challenge uh would be um successful there with a 10-ft setback uh that they could say well I could do it with six feet but I can't do it with 10 ft once you're in a 10,000 ft and larger lot um in the in and as I said in the very smallest zones the difference is only a foot and a half yeah um with regard to rear yard setbacks uh in the very smallest zones it's a 2 and A2 foot distance um uh through going up through the uh S10 zones so I think the argument that you have to go with the or you should go or you'd be advised to go with the Department's version uh because that would forestall litigation I think um is not persuasive to me okay I and and you know the the uh impacts in terms of setbacks become greater as you get to the Halfacre and full acre districts um I I'm I'm just not persuaded by the argument that uh that department versus substitute motion uh would be um get out of jail free card with respect to litigation okay thanks may I add to that briefly yes um I think everybody agrees that um none of us want to have um a raft of legal challenges and have the town in court for any of this um on the other hand um this is a very short window and most homeowners are not going to really grasp the the uh the the extent of what is being authorized here and um we are going to watch this very closely the department will Town Council will I think a lot of people um and if there were to be a even a small number of cases that got to anybody's attention that looked like they had Merit and that something we had passed might deserve a second look I think all of us you know we're thinking this is the first bite let's not scare everybody away and we we can come back as we have in the past with something that fits uh uh if a pattern we would we would fix it before it would be allowed to get um you know into a big defensive posture on multiple cases in litigation so there's a fix here and I think Paul you mentioned that as well may I may I add one other point uh just speculating here um if we start with the larger setbacks as proposed in the substitute motion I think it'll be easier to go to the smaller setbacks uh if it turns out that there is a lot of litigation that is necessary though I don't really foresee that happening uh that uh under housing Choice uh could well require only a 51% vote going from a uh small setback of six feet to a large setback if people are up in arms about what's happening because of the six- foot setback would almost certainly require a 2/3 vote and we might well be stuck with those six yard those um six foot setbacks even though a majority of town meeting and a majority of people in town found them unpalatable okay thank you John thank you very much um so I I hope this is a helpful note to add to the discussion I I want to sort of get down to what it's like what it's going to be like um in the minds of a lot of people who uh perhaps are in a position when we adopt an Adu law of of thinking about having an Adu in their um on their property or thinking about what what would it mean to uh me to have if my neighbor had an Adu on their property developed an Adu on their property um and you know I'm speaking from a little bit of experience of living in a single family neighborhood where over time there have been instances where um a neighboring lot was subdivided and a house was built um and then that happened again in a different situation arose at a different location with a garage that was converted to a combination garage and dwelling unit the the mental processes that people tend to go through um are something like um wow uh I'm not sure I want to do an Adu but I'm pretty sure if I do an Adu I don't want it to create friction with my neighbor so I better think carefully about how close it comes to the lot line and the neighbor's property um and if I can build it in a way that is not um too intrusive um that's probably the preferred way of doing it and you know to put the shoe on the other foot if you're contemplating the possibility that your neighbors going to build an Adu the the one outcome that you know you won't be all that thrilled with is if it comes you know as close as possible up to the lot line when in fact that neighbor could have built it or could could have um uh located it somewhere on their own property that is at that kind of a distance from their own property but chose to locate it where it intrudes into the neighbor's property just in terms of you know hovering over the neighbor's space and coming very close in terms of the what might be an you know an invasion of privacy um considered that by some people so I I think that a lot of people at town meeting who think like that and and I think there's quite going to be quite a few are going to be inclined towards the Roger blood and Dick Banker version of how to do this um and so I think Paul's right as to the version that's like to do better in terms of the votes it gets a town meeting um but I also think Paul's right on the substance of this that um we want to do this in a way that doesn't end up creating a lot of friction in a lot of neighborhoods and I think we have a way of doing it um but it's more as as uh Roger and Dick have laid out um and less as as the planning board has laid out PA okay uh can I ask Cara um you're hearing you what the board is saying uh last week we asked you to go back and see if you can work out your differences um you have just a few left few differences left is there any way that we can come out of here with one warrant article yes that would be you all giving us advice tonight I would love about effects I mean if we can just move through what what your direction is that would be that would be great M um I would support u a motion to adopt the changes recommended in setbacks by the um by the amendment the question is is the the department going to adopt those and and I want to make sure that we come out of this with one warrant article as opposed to your warrant article and an amendment well again you you you know we we won't move an article that you don't want us to move right so you know if you tell us move the substitute or if you tell us take the setbacks and then keep everything else in place um we we can do either of those things okay um but you know it's ultimately your you know we the planning department submits it but you move it so you tell us what you want to move and we'll move it and and you move it rather okay I guess uh Paul yeah I just I want to suggest first let's let's make sure that we we put things into proper context you know this we have two versions but it is their work right they collaborated together to have to come out with this outcome and the differences are really pretty minor right now right it setbacks um and there's a little bit of I think a tweak on on on the on the window thing if it's too close to the lot line um you know that so we have to realize they're 98% there that they did that together and I think that they should be commended for that AB no I so so yeah and so my what I would suggest is instead of saying I don't want to throw it back to and say go see if you can work out these differences again I'd actually like to vote tonight and support um you know one version over the other because they're so close and and I'm inclined to to move favorable action on the version that Roger and Dick had brought forward um and if the board support that then that would be the mo that would be the version that we're bring that can be our motion I just want to make sure that it's not going to create that that and maybe this is irrelevant but I just want to make sure that the planning department uh is going to be comfortable doing that that that that you know that what I consider sort of minor issues yes absolutely are not you know uh going to be a sort of stone in your craw whatever no this is this is a a town meeting process it'll be fine let's move uh uh on Article 15 uh as amended by um the dick binka and Roger blood um proposal um any that that sufficient uh language uh all in favor please indicate by saying I John Ben skak I Michael Sandman hi Paul Warren hi David croman I and chair votes I okay so we got a deal thank you very much you great work we have one more item and that is whether anyone wants to make a public comment uh now that we're at the end of the meeting um Tiffany is uh anyone out there no it doesn't look like anyone's raising their hand okay to speak in the room or online okay okay so that is the end of our agenda and uh there the meeting is hereby ended thank you thank you