##VIDEO ID:3rfsRZFR4Qc## e e e e e e e e [Music] [Music] good evening this is the town of Chad and planning board hybrid meeting December 9 uh 2024 at 5:00 pm please note this meeting is being recorded and will be available shortly thereafter for scheduled and On Demand viewing on any smartphone or tablet device if anyone else is recording the meeting please notify the chair and I see no one pursuant to Governor Healey's March 29 2023 signing of the acts of 2023 extending certain covid-19 measures adopted during the state of emergency suspending certain provisions of the open meeting law General Law chapter TW 30A section 20 until March 31st 2025 this meeting of the the Chad and planning board as being conducted in person and via remote particip participation every effort will be made to ensure that the public can adequately access the proceedings as provided for in the order a reminder that persons who would like to listen to this meeting while in progress may do so by calling the phone number 1508 945 4410 conference ID 928 2436 604 pound or join or join the meeting online VI via Microsoft teams through the link in the posted agenda well this is a live broadcast and suoc cast on chadam TV formerly Chad channel 18 despite our best efforts we may not be able to provide for realtime access we will post a record of this meeting on the town's website as soon as possible I'd like to begin with a road call um kathern helper kathern helper present Warren chain Warren chain present Bob warsha Bob warsha present Charlene Greenhall Charlene greenhalge present uh Frank Sher Frank Sher present Bob dewis Bob dewis present and art sprw I'm present I'd like to begin with uh with uh a review of minutes from no let's begin with November 18th 2024 are there any comments or questions from the board members on these minutes um I did send an email to Annie just letting her know just a couple things one uh should be planning board work session meeting minutes not regular meeting and then also um the vote to adjourn on the back should be a vote of seven Z and include Bob because you were there great and with that said I would move approval as amended okay and do I have a second I'll second all right I'll do a roll call vote on this um Katherine hurn I approve Warren chain Warren chain approve Bob warter Bob warsha approve Charlene Greenhall Charlene greenhalge approve Frank Shear I approve Bob dubis Bob dubis approve and art sprw I approve okay next we will go to the minutes of November 25th 2024 any comments or questions about this one I had three minor um items um under also present Town Council was there remotely so it should say remote um down towards bottom of the page the motion this is under the request for leas release of bond and also Annie I already gave all this to her a motion was made by myself seconded by Bob to release the bond and acur interest okay and then on page three um the First full paragraph a member suggested increasing Zone a I suggested that it read a member suggested increasing the depth of Zone a just to make it clear what we were talking about um I also had a similar one for and at page two it was in the middle of uh the paragraph West chadam neighborhoods uh Center discussion and I think is second third third uh sentence I was um not clear on that and I asked for um an adjustment really what we were talking about is balancing between commercial for certain percentage between commercial and uh residential and why don't you read what you suggesting as an adjustment so I've suggested is that the um I'll read the the entire paragraph if you don't mind Mr spou gave a brief overview explaining that the board would need to consider the buildout analysis scenarios presented by BSC group and dpw's Analysis of of the infrastructure capacity of the neighborhood center area he said that they saw far more development than expected in the buildout analysis and that the that much of the development was residential the board had previously changed or removed language about commercial properties from the proposed bylaw and therefore the balance between commercial/residential does not appear as intended instead of fails off the goal is for a mixed use Village Center and this is not solely a residential use the DPW letter said that the gravity systems can handle the increased flow but the existing Pump Station would not be a ble to so there were just some minor word wording changes yeah minor words but it it it shows the balance between the residential okay any any other adjustments Frank um on page three uh way down at the bottom a member asked about limiting short-term rental and it says that and Mr talerman said and I think it would be clearer if we deleted what was after said and inserted Mr Talman said that short-term rentals can be limited or prohibited within the district I agree that that's acate yes okay with those changes do I move approval of the meeting minutes as amended I'll second that I'll do a roll call vote uh Katherine haar I approve uh the minutes as amended Warren chain Warren chain approve Bob wsha Bob wsha approve Charlene Greenhall Charlene greenhalge approve Frank Shear Frank Shar approve Bob dubis Bob dubis approve and arts BR I approve okay uh next uh business item is certificate of compliance and request for Bond release this is 8 59 Main Street uh oh Dave Clark is I I assume you're going to be presenting good evening David Clark Clark engineering on behalf of uh 859 Maine LLC um if you're driven by it which you probably have uh you see it is uh substantially complete at this point um um all the Pavements in all the drainage is in all the Landscaping is in all the lighting um as I stated in my cover letter the only thing remaining is the easterly sidewalk connection to uh the marketplace I also provided the state's uh 25% uh design plan for the intersection um which shows something significantly different than what they're tried to get us to do on that same stretch so um we held off installing that section primarily because there's a public Shade Tree on that corner which was mentioned at at at the meetings when we were going through the permitting stage um when I look at the state's plans um I I think that tree can be saved and that's again that's the primary reason why we haven't done that work um and so uh like I said that that's the only outstanding uh infrastructure that has not been installed um I think the state is planning to go to the to 75% design drawing Sometime Late next year 2026 so it will be resolved one way or the other um in the next few years and I just hate to take that tree out if it if if it can be saved I think the town has more leverage than we do I tried to bring it to the state's attention and they didn't seem to care but uh if the community Gets behind saving that tree um it'll get saved well there's actually two there right one in each of the islands there's two well the larger tree around the corner is is well outside of what the state's planning it's it's the one that um you see the three parking spaces we have on the east side it's right in the middle of the middle parking it's right in the the middle parking space and it's a couple of feet to the north of that okay um so uh that's it for my presentation okay um any comments or questions of Dave U regarding this uh release Bond release looks great I yeah question uh Katherine and first of all I want to say I've driven by it many times and that property looks really good a huge improvement over what it was before and a great Improvement for the town as a whole um so I did want to make that comment I just want to know with the you're saying that eventually That Sidewalk may get constructed it it will one way or the other because the state does have a plan and uh in is and they are moving forward the last uh 25% plan I think is the dated July of this year so they are still moving forward slowly but they are so is there a portion of the perform performance bond that would be allocated to build That Sidewalk in future that maybe we wouldn't that we would still hold um back and what would that amount be I don't know what that amount would be um the state's plan is completely different than what they permitted okay for us to do so um uh so it's an unknown it's it's unknown in that uh if if we were to install it it would get it's not doesn't fit with what the state's planning for the intersection so it would all come out uh the rest of what we've done is part of their plan I think what they're doing what they're thinking of doing is making the The Walking service another 2 feet so it's a shared use uh but other than that all the curbing is going to be the same it's just the the curbing on the East End uh is definitely going to change if the state moves when the state moves forward with theirs so nothing we put in the ground is going to stay more than four years um Bob dois da who's responsible for that town of Chad Mike Mike but Mike D who's responsible for the town of chadam is responsible for that section a sidewalk all the sidewalks on 28 no but why did you've already put money into building a sidewalk there the state required it okay so who's responsible that section when the state does what they want to do there they're going to come back to you guys and they're going to say I don't think they're going you didn't put the sidewalk in there so we we want it this way now who knows but if if if they go forward with it it's a very small portion of the overall project when they redo that inter understand so how about uh either either some to keep some of the uh monetary value or I would I would even go with a with a letter uh drafted letter stating that if the state doesn't put that little piece of sidewalk in that they're still responsible to build it and then we I would release the all the money as long as they would they would uh give us a certified letter stating that if the state makes them put that in that they're willing to pay for it not the town of chatam I don't know who's paying for the intersection reconstruction I imagine the state is I I'm I'm just saying because it's it's on it's on to them to put the sidewalk game and I understand that it might not go there and that they want their money back and I but I think a certified letter saying if the state said hey you need to put this in when they're building it or if they just automatically hook into it then there's no problem I would think that that would be an alternative where they can get their money but they're still responsible to as a state for that little piece unless the state does something weird well which is normal I I get where you're coming from trying to make it as easy as I can for you but not but somebody has to be responsible for it I know what he's getting because it's on the plan back um in theory that would work with the exception that the state is not going to keep what we put in the ground I understand that that's why I'm trying to give you we would not be responsible for the change if it's in that if it's in that little purview area I think you should be only that little spot you you you're trying to grasp what I'm trying to tell you right uh I'm lost now if they come back and say look you you didn't put the sidewalk piece in we want you to put this little piece in to connect to the piece that we have now all right that's okay the state the state might just come in and just hook right to it the way they want and actually the it's a it's a very different intersection yeah we're tying into the existing sidewalk coming off of uh the market right and and they're and they're probably going to wipe all that out they're actually getting rid of that right lane yeah and and shifting it to the North so it basically it's going to be I think I submitted the plan uh I think it' be two side by-side cars with a right turn right um no I understand but that that that that alleviates any trouble they get their money we get a little thing that says hey if they come after you and say you you missed this little piece please put it in I I think there's a a couple complications there one you you the sidewalk that's in the in the front of your property you know adjacent to Route 28 that's 5T wide right uh what you built yes okay the state is now proposing that to be 7t because the bike Lanes went from in the street to raised yeah so they need to go through now that's an adjustment they did after the fact because when we were first looking at this plan it showed the bike Lanes out in the street and and there was only a 5 foot wide sidewalk so I think that's a complication they're going to have to do something with that bike lane all the way across that's all in the state right away so I'm assuming that's going to be part of their project they're going to take out the existing sidewalk that they just put in yeah could be could be the other thing is and I can I can understand what where Dave's coming from when I went out there and looked at this um until that adjustment to the north uh with the curb curb side there um there would there could be impacts to those uh at least one of those trees and I and I I see with the adjustment that the state is proposing there is a likelihood that they could save that second tree if you put a sidewalk in now you would wipe out and that's why it's probably good to postpone it until that whole realignment is resolved by the state's project I'm all for that yeah I'm just trying to cover yeah can I say a different story though that's the most traveled part of our our sidewalk in pedestrian traffic in in town and it's not going to have a sidewalk oh it will four years yeah well the I mean I mean it that's my concern is that okay it's temporary it's going to go be away but but there is a four-year period here now where that traffic and people walking are not going to have a sidewalk and I that's that's a concern they can go up up in through the parking lot down the sidewalk that way yeah well that's a good point um I is there some action that you can take Dave that you would be putting in a temporary sidewalk at least to put a connector in it doesn't have to be the full 5 foot wide um and that would at least alleviate that whole issue because I I agree with you I think get into American with Disability Act issues well yeah that's true too y so if if the tree has to come out in order for any type of sidewalk to go in this area yeah yeah you can see the states pushed the sidewalk um where we go move mov Target here so the state has pushed the sidewalk further to the north in the area where the tree is right um so right now we we do have a sidewalk in front of a facility but it doesn't go anywhere it ends it so and uh I was surprised I mean there is a connection that you could walk through the parking lot through the connector has be between uh your property and the Village Market uh parking lot yep and everybody's going to be walking through the parking lot anyway when they go from one end to the other I mean there is a a means to do that without being in the roadway yeah uh the market sidewalk is right here yeah and everybody I see that that takes advantage of the intersection and the sidewalks just walks across the parking lot um and and and they don't use this but um we'll do whatever the planning board wants uh it's just we just trying to save the trie well I'd like to i' like to hear from the other board members because if we're going to insist on a sidewalk where you're losing a tree may I ask yeah go ahead sorry um so is there any configuration that ultimately the sidewalk can be built without losing the tree and that's why you're waiting but you just think it's better to wait so that you know exactly what needs to be done I think we can get 4T of sidewalk but it would go right up against the tree and the problem is the tree is a foot and a half to 2 feet in elevation higher than the street because of the root ball um so so what's the advantage in delaying it just means we're going to keep the tree until the sidewalk is built no I I think um right now if you look at well you don't have it uh is our design plan um we're picking up the sidewalk here and going 5T and down this curb line and then ending it but but the but the tree is is right here and uh the state go back to that plan they're pushing the sidewalk way out here because they're getting rid of the right lane onto queenan Road okay so does that mean that I a little confused does that mean the tree will stay um they show it going on their plan but I don't see a reason for the tree to come out um because they are moving the sidewalk so far so I don't understand what the issue is is just that we want some sort of sidewalk now before the ultimate somebody can't walk along that roadway now because there's no sidewalk no sidewalk I see yes and so it's unsafe yes can I can I ask Christine to clarify something on this so go ahead we had um in looking at it queenanne road is also a Scenic Road so that's kind of right at the at the start of that so maybe that would have to go for a permit in order to have the removal that would be the first thing I see the second thing that I see is if you do some type of a letter um You' got to make sure that it has an ending time on it or something like that because we don't know when the state is going to actually do this and I I know that some of the things we've run across um since I've been here is that there there have been some planning board decisions that have not have been kind of open-ended and it's been a problem um so make sure you put a time limit if you decide to move in that direction uh and I I don't know if that would have any teeth as far as you know if it's not in by such and such a date that they have to put it in and and how the change of course would be the cost of of such a such a thing so well un unless you hold a portion of the bond um Frank you have a question oh um yeah let me um as I understand it the state has not finalized its plan is that correct okay correct so things could change MH um but we anticipate that the plan will be finished in two years or a year or I think they're shooting for 2026 to go to bidding okay so one possibility would be to uh reduce the bond yeah uh let's say from 50 to 10 um and then let's see what happens with the state plan I know that doesn't deal with the sidewalk issue but it least it well that that was my question is that if the state doesn't do anything would we require that the applicant is responsible for constructing some sort of sidewalk well that's the point of keeping ATT 10 yes no I know but I'm asking that question is that yes legitim a legitimate course of action to take that we'd be then putting the burden on the applicant to do that and withholding 5,000 10,000 of the bond to fund that in case the state didn't do it and as Mr chair your your point I mean I went and took a look at it as well and it's not ideal but people can go uh through the driveway right um avoid the road as a temporary state state projects had the tendency to drag on and um if if we elect a modification to the plan and maybe adjust those parking spots there so that the sidewalk comes down toward the inside of the parking lot rather than the outside there may be a way to accomplish this um with some Readjustment but again the reason for a $10,000 Bond two years down the road if nothing happens with the state with their project we could adjust this and close us out at that time I I would suggest we do something along those lines but hold the bond until we a portion of the bond so that we can at least make a decision at that point in a year from now when the state comes forward with clear definition the applican can come and request a reduction if they David is this on the tip pardon on the transportation and Improvement program the tip uh I don't know you don't know I don't know the states acronym it was very frustrating getting a permit from them to to do all this work uh they're D David user friendly anymore the parking that people are cutting through is not part of of the property that we're it's a completely separate property or it's part of the same property um um here yeah that those parking spaces because those are our parking spaces on our par those are your parking spaces so we if we made them a little shorter for compact cars and put a park a temporary um sidewalk right there we' take we'd have to take 4 and A2 ft out of the parking spaces cuz the the tree is is is right there right there so it's not like there's room on the other side right you you could extend the park uh the parking put two spes a little bit further cuz there's there's a lot of room in there to do that 4T you could still accommodate it and then and then you could close the whole thing out if you wanted to yeah and that's what I was going to say let I I really don't like the idea of having no parking even if it was just a line through the parking lot that said this is where the parking lot this is where our sidewalk is temporarily going so the question is is is that um mkot right away or is that town right away right right here right here is town of chattam that's Tom chadam okay and so that's a little bit underneath our purview then yeah I I like your idea Bob uh is move the parking spaces down they could be compact cars spaces and extend them a little bit and shift the curb down put a 4 foot walk in there I I can run that by the applicant but if it was me I would just go ahead and put the sidewalk in as planned and take the tree out um I I believe attorney Riley did file with the town back in the spring uh for removal of that tree um so I think we could go to work tomorrow if we wanted to uh was that approved when you f um I imagine it was because I didn't see any correspondents otherwise uh uh the bylaw was just passed on that and it's also the planning board would have to hold a hearing I was going to say it's on a Scenic Road if it's on queen an's queen an's a Scenic Road so the public the planning board would have had to have held a hearing so I don't know I know he filed it I think it was in May um so uh I assumed it was uh it was permitted at that point I'll I'll check in with the I'll I'll send you a copy of the application okay um well good thing I told him not to take the tree out because uh could I be a lot of angry people right so uh what would the board like how they like to proceed on this wait I one more thing I think if you wanted to take and shorten the parking spaces up for smaller cars that I would think just uh a regular asphalt sidewalk bare minimum with no curbing on it or anything like that yeah Ida of course but uh uh instead of putting all the massive Curbing and put concrete and all that stuff in there I think that it we could probably get by with a lesser quality sidewalk for the time being would that be well I think I think there needs to be a connector and oh yeah this is an Avenue to acction is with those adjustment in those spaces I would put the burden back on the the applicants engineer to come up with a an adjustment there hold so much money and we can review and processes as a second go R so am I correct in understanding we were proposing a temporary adjustment to the plans um and we'll withhold some of the bond to build those adjustments that leaves the tree in place but that the ultimate solution will be we understand by 2026 that um mot will come up with a better solution and then what will be the situation with the temporary solution that we've put in is it would it just be simply redundant and unnecessary or would it need to be changed well if it's asphalt it'll it can come out pretty I would think that the parking lot that's there you can incorporate the parking the asphalt that's already there so without disturbing the parking area maybe put a couple uh uh put your wheel stops there yeah you just reconfigure it right y just reconfigure it draw the line but so my question would be so how much money will this temporary configuration that leaves the tree in place how much can we anticipate that that would cost that we would withhold the bond 5,000 10,000 2,000 well he's going to put that temporary in now but you're still going to have to hold some money back in case the state has other ideas I would hold 10,000 back okay okay and and come back if the state hasn't uh plan that this is the plan of something then maybe you could come back and say look they're not going to do this they're going to do it outside my purview I think chrisy suggestion that within five years or something like five years we have to give them their money back that's fine I would make it I would think a little shorter I think that they they want to get this intersection done as you said the 27 was a was a bid date okay so by 28 they should be uh constructing it all right so we want to consider re uh releasing a portion of the bond $440,000 of the bond holding 10,000 yeah yes and asking for a temporary sidewalk that we connect between here and the adjacent property yes and leaving the tree in and leaving a tree and do we want to define a date that we I don't think we need to I don't think we we need to it was more just for a letter okay great in that case so move well Warren you I'll withdraw my S Warren yeah Bob this Warren um question for you is it necessary for a temporary sidewalk that probably wouldn't ever be ADA Compliant anyway um is it necessary that it be asphalt could it just be compacted gravel no it's already late right walking path it's not a it's not a sidewalk but right but it still has to be it's going to it's asphalted for you have to have it for a wheelchair yeah which which the Ada is only the slopes down to get onto it then down okay thank you I don't too many I would so move what the chair previously stated as a proposed motion and do I have a second I'll second can I can i y Mr chairman sorry clar yes that so we're releasing the bond but we're not issuing a certificate of compliance because no we're releasing 40,000 4,000 of the bond leaving and then when the applicant comes back in to release the additional 10,000 a certificate of compliance would be issued at that point in time is the non-issuance of the certificate of compliance going to be an issue for the occupancy permit no the chatam doesn't tie it okay perfect all right that's good never mind then okay all right then we'll do a roll call vote Katherine hper I approve Warren chain Warren chain approve award shaa approve Charlene greenal charlon greenal approve Frank Shear I approve and Bob tubis Bob dubis approve and arts Brew I approve thank you thank you okay next we have an approval not required 727 Main Street uh someone from the epan or ryer and wil good evening dve good evening David little can can you hear me yes okay um I'm representing Janet windmore who's who's sitting in the audience right now um this plan that's before you is essentially the same plan that you uh approved back in 2020 with the exception of the fact that we've altered the interior lot line between what was lot one and lot two it's now lot 1A and lot 2A um the remaining lot 2A does comply with zoning with respect to Frontage in area requirements um and lot 1A became a little bit larger so there it's it's a very simple change um and we would RIS request endorsement uh any questions from the board on this application uh right seeing none uh then need to make a motion to endorse the uh anr plan for for the division of land situated in chanam reped also move okay second I second the motion all right uh we'll take a roll call vote uh Katherine Halper yes I endorse um War chain I endorse too Bob wora Bob wora endorses um Charlene Greenhall Charlene Greenhill endorse uh Frank Shear Frank Shar Endor Bob dubis Bob dubis gonna abstain okay and art sprw I'll improve the endorsement board members will sign it after the meeting did our signatures get recorded with the registry thank you very thank you very much you're welcome okay so next um we have the West Jam Neighborhood Center discussion it's it's a presentation uh by Union Studios um Jeremy lake is going to provide a presentation on the missing middle uh we haven't seen this presentation or we may have seen portions of it but uh hopefully you can clarify this with us and then afterwards uh we can continue our discussion uh from the workshop at four o'clock wonderful thank you everybody so my name is Jeremy Jeremy lake with Union Studio architecture and Community design um and we were asked to come tonight to kind of share with you guys a bort of a synopsis of an effort we did a couple years ago at the Cape Cod Commission which was called community resiliency by Design because we think it'll be very informative relative to the things that you guys are considering out at West chatam um and it's setting the stage for an effort we're going to help you with there as well doing a couple of visualizations so you guys can really see the sort of impacts or how things are playing out um so let me tab through this a little bit about Union uh we were founded in 2001 we are Architects and Community designers uh our primary office is in Providence Rhode Island but we also have a secondary office down in Philadelphia um we are anywhere between 36 and 38 employees I always lose track but I think we keep growing by one or two people every couple months uh which is really exciting and great um and our mission is to use the power of design to enrich lives and strengthen communities we have a pretty broad uh portfolio of the types of work that we do um we do everything from residential I would say housing kind of is our main thing um but we do Residential at all scales we do you know large scale multif family building small scale uh Cottages single family student house housing market rate housing a third of our portfolio is affordable housing um as I mentioned we're Community designers that's really my primary role uh in The Firm um but we've also done some um uh Office Buildings we've done some hotels some Boutique kind of spaces so we do kind of a wide range of things but like I said sort of housing is sort of our sweet spot um and even though we are based in Providence I will say we also have a a growing portfolio of workout on the cape we do a lot of workout here we love working out on the cape here are some examples of projects we've done out here um upper left Heritage Sands is a c Community down in dennisport um upper right low uh and the lower middle Brewster landing and Maritime Landing those are a pair of 40b projects we did recently so primarily mar8 with a few affordable housing lower right SE Captain's row and hyenas are relatively recently completed the building you see there could have anywhere between 6 to 12 units in it and there's a series of those there um lower left is a revitalization effort in hyas 255 Main Street that converted uh this old office building into a sort of mixed use retail with residential above upper middle Ford at the walk uh at the Rock that's Supportive Housing for adults with autism Independent Living um and the rendering there is something that we're working on currently at Mash P Commons um extending the town center now at their first real big phase of residential there's a limited bit of residential at Mash P what we're really excited to be helping bring like a true mixed use vibe to mash P Commons uh but tonight we wanted to talk to you guys about Community resiliency by Design um this is an effort we undertook in 2018 and 2019 with the Cape Cod Commission um they approached us because they had just completed a pair of studies uh on the left the regional housing market analysis 10-year forecast this was published in 2017 but the data in it was 2015 data they were forecasting what was going to be happening with housing supply and demand over 10 years so into 2025 um and following right on the heels of that they did their Cape Cod Regional policy plan which obviously had housing was a big component of that amongst many other things um and what they found in these you know what these reports really highlighted were a number of challenges relative to housing supply and demand um obviously the the cape uh population was intended to grow over that 10-year period they expected growth of an additional 6200 uh full-time residents uh and the chart on the right I think is really telling um I know the colors are a little bit odd but that the yellow bar at the bottom is how much renter incomes were increasing Year bye which is let's say by 1% bump up to the Orange Line the rents that those renters would be looking at are increasing Year bye by 4% big gap there ever getting worse similar with the orange text you can see owners owner income increasing 2% a year but the housing costs increasing 5% a year so the problems that everyone is feeling are almost getting worse and worse and worse every year that's why we're trying to solve some of these issues right um they also notice other underlying challenges and and and things in the statistics behind it um I think it's very interesting to note Cape cod's housing stock is is 82% single family detached homes the national average is 62% Massachusetts elsewhere 52% so the overwhelming majority of houses is single family homes that's great if you're a family that needs a three four bedroom house but as we all know that's a actually a small percentage of the number of households that are out there there's a lot of singles couples roommates you know families that are only you know um two parents and a child so so there's a sort of mismatch if you will between the housing that's available and the actual need that's out there uh and the chart along the bottom again this was from those reports um comparing from 2015 to 2025 sort of the increasing Delta between what was considered an affordable home price um and what the median home price were and I highlight there I don't know if it's you know usually we're number one is a good thing but here I don't think it's so great that chadam was showing sort of the biggest gaps in terms of what the median house price was um versus what an affordable home price would be so it's a challenge all over the cape um at the same time that the Cape Cod Commission was doing these reports obviously the communities on the cape are well aware of this and we're trying to start to address these things so updating housing production plans doing a number of their own studies identifying areas where Maybe they wanted to either you revise their zoning codes create new policies um investments in infrastructure were ongoing um so this was an active conversation it wasn't just the Cape Cod Commission that was recognizing this as a need or something that was wanting to be addressed so where we got involved was the Cape Cod Commission approached us and said we really want you to host a series of community conversations um about how we could meet the increasing demand for housing um but do it with some Community input and try to find ways where people would feel like it was enhancing their existing communities not something that was sort of running counter to the existing character that people really enjoyed about the places that they currently live so really this effort um occurred in in five communities across the cape there were three initially which were Falmouth East ham and Orleans that we worked with later hyenas and sandwi also had us come out and do something similar um in the end though between those five towns where we had first and second presentations we also ended up um presenting it at the one Cape Summit both in 2018 and 2019 uh in the cape house Institute also had a series of workshops so over the course of a year and a half we were actually out here having this conversation with a lot of communities which was really great really exciting and now we're really excited to be out here talking to you guys about this I joked for a while I was going to make like a like a concert tour sh shirt of like all the places we've been so this feels like maybe we're kicking off the reunion tour which is really exciting so in each of the five communities that we worked again the idea here wasn't that let's just throw addition increased density you know everywhere in every place they had identified places where they thought that that was logical um in East Ham Orleans and Falmouth in all three of those places it was essentially places that were almost like a commercial core and you know the cape has a lot of conditions where you have fairly intense commercial uses and then almost immediately abing it as single family residential there's no real transition you know typically you would expect a little bit of a transition between those sorts of things um and that's rare to actually find out on the cape and that was the condition in those in those three towns where we were doing our exercise um when hyenas came on board it was a slightly different condition it was the East end of town that's the hospital down in the lower right hand corner they were doing a series of um infrastructure sewer improvements that they thought was going to Spur additional opportunity for residential infill and so it was a different sort of set of challenges or underlying opportunities that they wanted us to kind of look at and then similarly in sandwich it was down in South Sandwich they were going to again be extending um the sewer and so there were going to be again the potential for some new opportunities for additional housing and the question was what should we be doing about that how should we be taking advantage of that so again similar conditions in the sense that it was either existing conditions that felt a little out of whack or new infrastructure that was coming to place that suggested these were probably areas we really should focus on and try to better understand so we went out into the community we would we would have two meetings and in the first meeting we would set the stage everything I just talked about a minute ago the challenges of the supply and demand issues we made sure that the public that were there were understanding of that I think everybody was already feeling the pressure you know there was a housing crisis Brewing um but it was really helpful to kind of share some of those statistics so they they understood what was what was behind all of it and the the big scary thing that we started to talk about was density right you throw that word out and everybody kind of loses their mind it's a it's a scary proposition but our job was to kind of talk people back off the ledge let's kind of get a handle on this it's going to be okay so first and foremost we wanted to relay you know density is simply a mathematical calculation it's it's kind of I won't say arbitrary but it can take many different forms so this is an example of a project that we have that lower Rand Corner that's in East Greenwich Rhode Island which is where I live the cottage is on green on the left hand side is is what the zoning required or allowed so it's hard to tell from this image but to the left is the main street of East Greenwich right behind it is single family again that kind of common condition and this one lot was zoned as multif family up to 20 units per acre had all the kind of buffers and setbacks and things that you would expect to find in a zoning code but what the resulting structure would have been was nothing that anybody in the community actually wanted to see put there on the right is what we actually proposed so by basically ignoring everything that was in the zoning code we simply said we could do the same number of units but maybe concentrate the open space as something meaningful in the middle instead of stuff around the edge it became a Cottage Court same number of units so that's 15 units on 3ars of an acre so that's 20 units to the acre but in a form that the community suddenly got excited about we could we you know the community was when we said we're we're ignoring all of your zoning rules the neighbors were going great thank you you know we appreciate that because we recognized that there was a form where that was more appropriate so the other idea behind a lot of this is this this this what some people have dubbed the missing middle there there's these series of of housing types that were were common pre-World War II that we sort of stopped using a lot of after World War II and a lot of that had to do with the way that we wrote Our zoning codes that became more popular following World War II we kind of really made everything black and white you're either single family at like an unit per acre or you're multif family at 20 units to an acre and we didn't have this sort of fine grain of stuff in between that would had been really helpful previously for sort of addressing a wide variety of of um housing types um so the the idea here is let's let's sort of reappropriate these things and reutilize these um and really what this scale shows everything accessing dwell units Cottage courts duplexes town houses those are all effectively single family homes that are either attached or um you know configured in a compact setting the ones to the right of the line are what we're calling stacked flats that maybe in in Province we have a lot of what are called triple Deckers you know so it's three units stacked on top of each other um the middle one there a Manor House think of that as a like a Captain's House like a large single family home that maybe has four to six units inside of it all the way up to a walk up which is at its most 12 units and that's there's a building code provision where you can have a single shared stair four units per floor up to three floors so this kind of logic of a 12 unit cap on what that would be once you get beyond that you kind of jump into what you more typically would think of as multif family but again all these types used to be available to us and they're things that we think make sense a lot of the examples of work I've shown you so far from our own portfolio Falls somewhere in the Spectrum so the next thing we tried to do with the community is we we did this sort of exercise to help them agree that it it is kind of hard to tell what the underlying numerical density is so we would put up two images like these two image and say which one has a higher density so I'm going to ask you guys to sort of show of hands which one of you thinks that the image on the right has the higher density versus the one on the left so one one on the right show a hands nobody one on the left it's a little bit mixed most people are going on the left and that is in fact correct so the one on the left is a duplex and it's on .12 Acres so that would be 16 units to an acre in terms of density whereas on the right we were saying this is kind of your bread and butter single family home from the kind of communities we were working in on the you know around the cape where you usually have you know a quarter acre half acre lots that's two to four units to an acre but the point was if these two houses were neighbors you wouldn't suddenly expect that one was you know four times the density of its neighbor right so the forms felt correct it was the underlying metrics of the number of units the amount of land that was somehow different so we did this again with a couple other ones and I won't make you guys raise your hands on all them but you can think about it on your own as we go through on the right we had a much bigger structure but still at the end of the day the the math actually works out fairly similarly so and these are all examples from the cape by the way so the one on the right that's a structure that has five units in it on you know a quarter of an acre so it's around 18 units to an acre and again the duplex we were looking at a second ago showed another example in this case we were just trying to point out and technically both of these are what we would call a manor house so you know somewhere like three to six units in a single little structure the one on the left is half the density of the one on the right even though they're the both the same building type and then this last example which was one of my favorites um they're the same so you know it can be deceiving but the ones on the right which are these small little stacked Flats those are two units in those two little you know structures um it ends up working out to 20 units to the acre which is comparable to you know an apartment building that we would expect to be 20 units to the acre so again looks can be deceiving and in the end that's really what you're worried about is the form of these things and whether or not they feel like they fit in the density under lying it is important to understand but you can't always judge a book by that that initial um calculation so we would then go through is we would go through the various types that we were we were identifying as potential candidates for being used on the cape so Cottages tow houses duplexes on manor houses and we tried to sort of gauge in in those independent communities if we could find examples and sort of tune what we were talking about in terms of densities around those so this is just an example The Cottages um so in the lower left we found a bunch of cottages that were in sandwich uh in the upper right that's a cottage Community that's in dennisport and you do the math it works out to 15 units to an acre um in the lower right we would then put up some images and say okay but the character of it is important too so which one of these feels more appropriate we just had some good conversations with whomever was there with the community and we did that for each of the six types that we were talking about so Cottages duplexes town houses the Stacked Flats the manor houses and the walk ups and we so we go through those and at the end say you know which of these feel appropriate which of these don't feel appropriate and generally people were pretty supportive once you went through that of of understanding any of them could be if they were built the correct way I think it was also important to highlight and I know that'll be important where we're talking about um here in West chadam as well is that these same types can be mixed use so it it could still be a manor house but it might be that some of the ground floor is actually utilized as retail and we're all familiar with structures like the one on the right hand side there that you know Main Street anywhere USA probably over time with shops might have been offices upstairs could be residential so really the use is less important than the the form right the form is what makes it feel like it belongs and you know so as long as there's not a taxidermist in there or something right the the uses are probably less important to worry about all right so following the first meetings we then would put an online visual preference survey that folks would answer for us and we really tried to have this focus in on two issues which were style and scale because we were we were tasked with basically creating some prototypes for those building types that would be appropriate so on the left we said you know you think a building of the style would be a good fit within the study area and folks would just see one of these images at a time without any real context and just make a judgment call one by one and the way we organized the images we put in there is we had examples that were single family that were tow houses that were some small multif family buildings and we had them on a a spectrum from sort of most traditional to most contemporary and people would give us an answer of yes no maybe as to whether not they thought it would fit did the same thing with scale single family townhouse multif family examples but we'd go from one one and a/2 2 2 and A2 three and a half stories again just to see what people were generally thinking could be appropriate for those varying towns for those varying contexts so folks would be responding for their own Community if you will what was great is because we used these same images with all five communities we could actually start to sort of compare a bit too which was really useful so for instance on the upper right there when we showed a single story Cottage and said do you think a building of the scale will be a good fit again within the study area not the sort of broader felth but in that little Davis Straits Area fouth and what was interesting to see in a place like fouth most people kind of said no this isn't a good fit I think you're kind of underdoing it here you're not taking advantage of where this is in the site whereas places like East Ham were much more supportive of no that feels appropriate even though it's meant to be our sort of town center we're much more comfortable with something of that scale story and a half was sort of un universally understood as as feeling pretty appropriate and again as you found your way up the scale you low lower image there that was meant to be like a two and a half story um uh townhouse you know it could still be a pretty good fit Falmouth Orleans weren't too worried about that sort of scale but when we got to East ham or hyenas or sandwich generally folks were saying maybe not so much but I also think it's worth saying like in all of these right there's a spectrum so some folks were happy with any of these scales in in the study area um but again we were looking for some of those underlying Trends same thing with style um generally speaking I've been kind of jokingly referring to the the most traditional that's called that Pottery Barn you know the next one was more like Crate and Barrel crat and Barrel was pretty popular across the board we caught into a little bit West Elm people were kind of okay with it but when you got to the really really contemporary stuff no really nobody really felt like that was the most appropriate thing so again we went back we compared those again those were just the single family examples but we looked at the tow houses we looked at the multif family and again the sense we got was that things generally in the one and a half to the two and a half story range people were comfortable with in these study areas East Ham was a little bit lower one to two stories um similarly with style people tended to like the traditional buildings with simple detailing that felt sort of the most appropriate for the cape and were least receptive to the the very contemporary building buildings um and if there was anywhere that they were um were okay with something a little more contemporary it was actually East Ham which was which was interesting let's see so when we came back for the second meeting these were the kind of what we call we call these the sugar cubes the kind of just trying to describe a unit within each of these buildings so you could understand the types but the second meeting based on that input we came back and said so this is what some of those could really look like trying to take into consideration what we heard in terms of the style trying to take into consideration things we heard about with the um the scale as well so whereas on the previous slide if I go back you know we may have been suggesting some of these might be three stories or one story based on what we were hearing folks saying you know really thinking of things being in the one and a half to two at most two and a half stories but two and a half was okay not three but you know doing that Upper Floor within a set of Dormers makes it feel like it's appropriate and fits within the context in in most of the places we were we were talking to so again for each of these we went back through and tried to share okay okay so here's an example of a a stack duplex or a double decker again what does that mean the yield is probably somewhere in the 10 to 15 units to an acre um how does that work so in this case the blue showing that there might be a single story unit on the ground floor but there was a stair that would take you up to a two story think of almost like a townhouse on top of a flat and that's how there's two units in this building each with their own door in a building that feels like it could fit pretty nicely at least adjacent to a single family neighborhood um and also just making sure that it was also clear that you know it could a little bit style agnostic too so you could do two stories or three stories a little more traditional a little more contemporary you could actually combine these into a run of things so maybe you make it into a six-unit building that's really a series of these attached so it doesn't mean it has to be a carbon copy of the one that we did as the sort of prototype but again hopefully there's a version of it that would feel resonate with folks and they would think feels appropriate um we then would follow up with a couple of illustrative case studies and this is I think what we're basically planning on doing with you all as well with a couple of sites that you have in mind um so in Falmouth there was a parcel that was on the Davis Straits uh area uh there's a Staples here currently I think it is um but again you can see this like commercial use immediately to single family adjacencies and so we tried to show how you could build out a corner of this using a number of those different types and transitioning from the bigger ones you know the 12 unit walk-ups that might be mixed use when they're up on Main Street or up on that commercial parking Plaza but then transition back maybe to some manor houses tow houses duplexes as a means of then stepping back down towards the single family um neighbors that already exist just beyond um and what that could sort of yield in terms of a place and a and number of units and how it would park and all those things so so trying to make it sort of real if you will um East Ham a similar challenge right up on their their main road um with single family just behind so a similar idea of a transition but again remember East Ham didn't feel comfortable in the 2 and 1 half three story range so we capped ourselves at two stories and said what would the impact of that be in terms of how many units we might be able to get to fit out here uh and then last but not least again with with the first three Orleans um this was the governor prince in parcel um so again now showing it using some of the lower end of the spectrum types that we had talked about so We snuck a few little cottage courts in the corners um out to a mixed use building on on the main drag and what was nice about this collection was between the three we were illustrating how a combination of these types was yielding anywhere from 10 units to an acre in Orleans up to 20 units to an acre in in Falmouth so people could also kind of begin to visualize what the impact of the trade-off of that number is which I know is exactly what you guys are debating these days for West chadam um one thing I did want to quickly share what's kind of exciting is all three of these have have moved forward in their own ways um so in Falmouth they are working on a form-based code for that area that was sort of motivated and driven by some of the things we were talking about there um in East Ham we were excited to be part of a team that came up with a a master plan vision for not only the parcel we were looking at but also the tea time parcel and their Senior Center um to look at ways of in including additional housing and mixed use on those Parcels um and they're now working currently on a form based code for that area um and in the town of Orleans that Governor PR site um we went from working with the Cape Cod Commission on these case studies to working with the town helping craft a vision that was the basis of an RFP to now being a part of the team that actually won the RFP to move it forward so it's actually been kind of fun to be a part of that project and it'll hopefully be you know come to fruition and be a real thing um before we know it which would be really great quickly on the other two communities Hannis again a very different set of conditions here um we did show the option for things like in the lower left similar ideas of redeveloping underutilized properties with some you know something wholly new in those areas um the upper left retrofitting existing structures that's the 255 Main Street example I showed earlier where again that was a building that was really only used for commercial uses but adapting it into a mixed use with residential um we showed this idea of infilling underutilized lots there were empty parcels or big parking lots that had more parking than they needed There's an opportunity to put a little bit of housing on those and actually to hold up the sort of Street edges that everybody's trying to create um and also a strategy we hadn't talked about previously in the other communities was the idea of adding accessory dwelling units so there's a lot of buildings out there currently that have small out buildings they might be a garage or something else um we did find some examples of uh accessory dwelling units out there that's another viable strategy for adding additional housing especially in the sort of infill lot by lot sort of basis way and then finally in South Sandwich um this was a town-owned parcel so a big chunk of land that they had some recreational space on that was now going to be serviced by um sewer uh and infrastructure so again a similar exercise on an even bigger scale of saying if you created a new community here with a series of streets and blocks and sort of working that same transition of maybe the the lower scale types out at the edges and getting increasingly denser as you find your way up towards um Quaker Lane where you could have some mixed use you know the ye fields of you know 5 to 10 units at the edge you know 10 to 15 in the middle 15 to 20 as you're getting more towards the core really what this was meant to illustrate was that that resulting neighborhood could be as many as 440 units the existing underlying zoning that allows for one and a half units per acre would only yield 63 units on that same parcel so it's not to say 440 is the appropriate answer but simply that this is the opportunity if we're trying to solve for a housing crisis if you start to employ uh deploy these types you could find what is that comfortable number but you can certainly start to bridge the gap in ways that we think are are are useful meaningful and appropriate all right so West chadam visualizations um so what we've been asked to do is basically to take a similar approach here where building on those studies and efforts we had done let's do a few test fits and visualizations for a couple of the parcels out here based on the form based code that you guys are currently working on and reviewing um so this is the West chatam Neighborhood Center District at least as I've last seen it from a draft that was dated 10 2323 three um and so far these were the three sites that were identified as potential candidates to look at so we we said we could do three Parcels thinking maybe it would show a couple of different conditions or like we did with the earlier studies we could have one maybe be a little bit more of the denser types one maybe be a little bit more of the less dense types um but the these are the three Parcels in question I'll jump ahead to this slide so you can maybe get a better sense of what each of those are 1671 is the parcel that's a little mixed use sort of Plaza I think there's the post office is in in that particular one um 1652 is across the street that's the art gallery but it actually has a whole lot of land behind it um and then over at the the second Circle there 1589 Main Street again another little sort of retail strip I think that one has the liquor store in it um but again the thought was these are a couple partials that are anywhere from sort of two to three acres where we could begin to look at how what you guys are considering for your form base code would play out what it would look like how you know what an illustrative plan could be what that might then look like if we did a little 3D visualization as well not to say that that's what will be built there much like the examples I showed before you know Governor Prince evolved over time as it became real and people were doing the effort um but that's really what we are we are um talking about and considering here today so happy to answer any questions you have any thoughts or input you guys have about this exercise we literally just signed the proposal last week so we're getting ready to gear up for it we're going to have continued conversations with these guys to to do what we need to do with it um but again wanted to share both that background with you hopefully to you know hopefully it illust illustrate some of the things I know you guys are thinking through and considering and any thoughts you guys might have about this before we we jump into it well um what I just want to make the board aware of is we right now have not defined what is it that we're going to be heading what direction are we heading in I know it was in the draft but we are doing a a little bit of reassessment of that what is it that we would like these visual visualizations to be um if you if you change from one density to another the character and everything that Union Studios is going to represent is going to show something different so uh we need to provide some guidance to them um I maybe there is an a fashion where we could show a different density for for uh one or the other uh but not both on the same site but you get a character of it I'm open for any of your input though on it U Katherine you want to start um yeah I just a couple comments um I think what art said is very important we're looking at some possible revisions to the bylaw also there is there are more recent drafts than October 2023 U um I'm sure you know that the form based code that we include included in the bylaw um was based on a year over a year of work with Cape Cod Commission to integrate that form-based code into the bylaw and it did include um very detailed consideration should we have two stories should we have two and a half stories and it did include response from the community um at at every juncture a survey was sent out to the community um our comprehensive plan does ask that the ultimate zoning in the west chatam Neighborhood Center be determined by the residents and stakeholders in that neighborhood center so of course we gave extra weight to the community response from West chatam residents um just a little background you may know all this and please forgive me if I'm repeating it um so I think the form based code that we've got in the bylaw was carefully considered and reviewed also um I'd like to be sure that you look at at our historic business district um design guidelines which were um formally adopted by the planning board a few years ago as our design guidelines and which do pertain to the West chadam Neighborhood Center so every project that will be built in the west chadam Neighborhood Center would include the form based code AS defined in the b in the draft bylaw as well as hbdc design guidelines so um we'd love for you to look at that um and as you also noticed in the bio there are different zones and there are different um parameters for each Zone there's the a Zone and then a couple of B zones um we do want to have mixed use commercial especially in the azone and along Route 28 but I think we do want to see mixed use throughout the West chadam Neighborhood Center um so those were some points I was very interested in this is a personal opinion I'd like to express it in your work on a master plan Vision because I think especially coming uh meeting the housing crisis in chadam an issue that came up even in our discussion tonight is we do need to think of the whole town and we do need to look for areas in the whole town that can accommodate some greater residential density and we need to plan for that in terms of INF structure um but I do think taking a broader look um at the whole town not just the neighborhood centers not just west chadam neighborhood center but in terms of housing a variety of housing options as we say diversity of housing options um including affordable attainable it would be good if we can take a broader View and I would love to see perhaps a master plan vision for the whole t town about opportunities for um creating more options for housing um one thing that we also have been discussing as a board is as you brought up the kind of transition zones to the east of the West chadam Neighborhood Center in particular that would be a good opportunity to create some increased um residential density but we would omit the commercial piece there and it would be a transition Zone to the R20 zoning that is the rest of Route 28 so um that's something we want to keep in mind too other than that I did have a question sorry if I'm taking too much time but in one of your slides you mentioned I think it was in Greenwich that you ignored the zoning and you created that nice Courtyard yep so we'd like to I think I speak for we would like to see things that look more like that nice cour yard thing and less like the one on the left and I just wondered if you could share with us what you meant by saying you ignored the zoning right so we went and sought a whole bunch of waivers to try to do it the way that we thought made more sense why did you need those waivers because we would I think I I would want to hear from the whole board on this we prefer the one on the right yeah and and that's why I think you know I'm sure your form based code is much closer to the one on the right than the one on the left one on the left would have been the zoning that had been in place in East Greenwich for 40 50 years you know so I think that's it it highlights the underlying challenge a lot of times of the the dumb old zoning right and the form based codes are trying to tackle a lot of these issues so that would be the Hope right and yeah that's what we'll be looking at you know can we create something that's what can we create using form base code or what short one of the things we said we would do is if we see an obvious miss you know is there something in there where like this was not your intended outcome but because you said yeah % not 16% we did this or you know so I think we'd like to hear that feedback um one thing that happened at least some board members when we saw the buildout analysis that was done for us for maximum buildout um they did do maximum residential buildout and um it doesn't actually fit the vision I think of what we were looking for when we generated the form base code mhm so and that's always tricky because you know it's almost like you want to be focused on the minimum buildout like what is it we want to make sure we achieve yes because I can see why it's scary if you said if everybody applied this to its fullest extent and somehow M miraculously did it in the next five years this wouldn't be anything that we would recognize right so it's kind of it it is a challenging thing to kind of come to grips with a not everybody's going to do it B it's going to take a long time you know C it's moving Us in the direction we want to go but how you come to groups with that is is ultimately a challenge we'd like your feedback because we what we we would like to see maximum aesthetic um what we want to see in the visuals from you is the the maximum aesthetic production yeah yeah so um we did have uh a discussion on a couple of points that might affect um your visuals at 4:00 uh we talked about increasing the depth of the A1 Zone um currently it was set at 100 ft and I'm not sure what the board's leaning toward whether it's 150 200 whatever but the other thing that we uh uh are leaning toward in that first Zone there at least there we would have something like a 50% commercial and 50% residential we haven't really locked in that the the B Zone B which is to the rear of that is it could be all residential but it could still be a mix um so that all works into whatever density that we sort of give you um guidance on on all of this but I I think we're leaning toward a little bit deeper about 50% for commercial in that first Zone and then whatever the board would like to see associated with visuals as far as the density is concerned and maybe we do one with one density and one of the other Parcels with another density and just to get an idea uh just something to think about um Warren would you like to ask um yes thank you very much um very um got a sense of deja vu I think you know I go back two and a half years and we were looking at the same issues you have uh very uh specifically outlined and where we are to now is we've gone through form based code we've come up with multiple drafts and we have a draft which is newer than the ones you've seen yeah um and there's General agreement here that we're in we're in the right ballpark um and um um encourage you to make sure you've got the most recent draft of course um and uh as mentioned we um as a result of the buildout analysis that came up which um uh intended to maximize number of housing units um it has never been the position of this board that we're trying to maximize the number of housing units in the west shotam Neighborhood Center quite the contrary our principal objective is to create a neighborhood center where you can walk to most of the things you might need um it's going to be mixed youth uh multif family also addressing to some extent a affordable attainable housing but much more importantly trying to just create higher density and therefore presumably slightly lower cost um housing units um I was um would again re um encourage you to make sure you've got a copy of the historic business district uh designed guidelines because those uh really do affect the ultimate of what it needs to look like y uh the draft that we have really talks about uh a lot about form in terms of height in terms of roof lines in terms of uh setbacks and so on um and combined um they really do I think for each of us give a rough idea of what we think it's going to look like um I was really taken by the um the densities that you have presented out there uh every density that I heard you mentioned is two or three times if not more uh of the highest density that we are wrestling with here um we're our eyes are glazing over when we talk about 12 units per acre um and you know maybe we can maybe we could we can't do that it's much too dense well um I think there's a lot to be said for the way we present this um in terms of how you define what density is um because I was taken by what you showed as something that didn't look particularly dense but calculates out if you do it on a small quarter acre lot and Factor it up to an acre it's a very high density well um I was taken by that um in particular that um you know whether it's we seem to be zeroing in on somewhere between 8 and 12 units per acre um we are wrestling with what percentage of that zone a um needs to be commercial um the built out analysis maximized the housing and indicated that they thought there would be not much interest in the commercial area um for reasons I'm not sure I understood but at any rate they had a lot of housing in the zone a uh which in I would think would be very attractive for um Second Story offices for accountants and designers and um and when whatever um but at any rate um we're not a it what's important for me is that you understand we're not trying to maximize the housing units here we're not trying to create uh an affordable housing development what we're looking for is a mixture of all of that together there's a 40b development just to the East and there's one to the West um it would probably be helpful for you to take a look at what is being thrown out there in terms of what they think those might look like because they're going to be presumably in or close to the transition areas that we have yet to actually focus on because we're trying to get the the Center done uh before we worry about the transition areas from the center um but um it does seem to me that you're are going to be able to come up with visual representations of what the areas you've picked um as being perfectly acceptable areas uh to pick as to what it's going to look like and what it's going to look like if you have a density of eight or 12 under all of this same criteria that are in the draft as we we currently have it I can't imagine anything being deemed to be allowed to be higher uh or or um or dramatically larger we're um the only thing we've ruled out so far is single family homes um and um there plenty of single family homes already in the west chadam Neighborhood Center area and they're going to stay there probably they may be redeveloped over time okay but they can't be single family homes the ones that are there can probably maybe have an Adu put in them that sort of thing um but I would um only reiterate that please keep in mind what our vision is and that is that we create a neighborhood center um we're also wrestling with whether we're going to prohibit short-term rentals meaning anything less than a year um I'm a strong proponent of that they ought to be prohibited different ways to do that we can do it we understand but it's absolutely critical because otherwise we're going to create a lot of small units that are going to be short-term rentals and nobody will live there and the commercial area may or may not be successful don't know um but our objective is to create uh people who live there which addresses the housing concerns and demographic shifts that you started with um um and really I guess those are my comments for now but thank you go for it no thank you Bob yeah I we have that uh unfortunate uh study that said how many we could Jam in here and I think your role is to show what a what a 12 unit per acre site should look like um it doesn't it we we haven't got clear um numbers on what number of parking spaces are needed how much Recreation is uh or green space is needed um the the parking is particularly uh interesting because we have shared uh use between commercial and residential so it isn't like we need two spaces per per home but but we obviously want probably more than one um but I I I think you need to you need to give us some representations of how can we make this work have enough parking for everybody to park have some green space and what's really what does a 12 uh you know home or 12 units per acre really look like and is that feasible I mean all right maybe half of it gets that density and the other half is something else or or is it 20 in one portion of it and four in another rather than just a PL blanket 12 which was God awful ugly and nobody you know so uh I'm really encouraged by your designs to try to make that particularly that one on the left tell us how that can work at 8 and 12 I would say that would be a really really good de uh demonstration this is what it's going to look like with uh at keeping it at8 this is what it would look like at 12 we haven't specified number of of bedrooms in each each unit uh we have some flexibility there but if you were a designer and you had the ability to do 12 units per acre what is the most likely plan we would see yeah yeah and I think there's a lot of interesting things you got bring it up the density is only one of the factors so the parking requirement the size of the unit the amount of commercial all those things impact all of this right so if the units are tiny 12 of them in one building on an acre probably doesn't look so bad if the units are huge 12 of them in one building on an acre probably doesn't look so good if they all have four parking spaces all you're going to see is a parking lot there isn't going to be a building Associated right so I think with a lot of this we'll definitely look at what's in the code currently I think we'll test a little bit of these ranges you know to try to show you you know here's what we drew this assumed it was one and a half spaces per unit so just understand if you bump that up to two you know another you know 25% of the site just disappeared for more parking and nothing else changed right so I think some of this too we I let's not also worry that we have to get the exact perfect condition that we're showing anything we show I think we be telling so that when you debate if it was more or if it was less this would do this or this would do that so I think three sites is also helpful one site put a lot of pressure on one site three sites I think it was suggested maybe we could play with you know ones a little bit higher one's a little bit lower maybe we we when we review it with these guys come up with a strategy for maybe this one's got big units this one's got little units this one's got a lot of parking this one's got a little parking you know whatever is still being debated or is flexible is something we could try to look at so I have one more thing that concerns me and that is we you can design this most beautiful thing to get 12 on there but is that something that a a developer could actually afford to build at uh you know something less than $2 million a unit so I there has to be some consideration of is this is this something that would be attractive to a developer to actually build so yeah um yeah I see this as a bit of a stress test right because I'll look at it and I'll say here's what your regulation suggests we can do yeah here's where it's flexible and I'm fighting for the forces of good so I'm going to do this cool thing but if I wasn't so great I might push this right we might be able to identify where are those those loose ends where depending on how you read this you might get away with which is what you guys are worried about right at the end of the day you guys are thinking about worst case scenario like what's the worst case scenario of this whole thing so we got to identify where some of those spots are at least get you guys to understand there's a little bit of that always built in but you know largely it'll probably be pretty great so we'll see thank you yeah Charlie always always love this presentation I've seen it many times over the years it should be record quired viewing um because I think it goes to density what and when I was first on the board and you guys were all talking density I'm like well what are you talking about when you mean density um and what I like is that you can show us an eight or you know a structure that may have 12 units in it but it could easily be down siiz to eight units and still have the visual you know integrity and look really nice um and I I think we need to give some guidance to staff as to are we still talking the 100 feet which I think based on our buildout analysis we need to expand that uh you know for Zone a um and also um oh I just lost it oh geez I hate when that happens um but I think we need to oh and and the 50% rule I think we need to give Mi use um because right now I I grabbed the which I think is the latest uh version which was from June um and right now what we say is the first floor of the building the first 30% only needs to be commercial that's right that's it and that's it and I think that's far too little um so I think we need to to you know we need to give staff guidance so that they can work with the consultant to come up with the vision that we are I know we're going to get I mean I there's no question and and I think you are also going to do like you did in East Greenwich and go you know this really excuse the expression this sucks this would work really great MH so yeah there's no doubt that that would happen but but do have areas other than the a where it could be all residential so so we do you should give us both yeah yeah and I I think I will also suggest that I I know you guys are reacting to the numbers you've been given which is fair but also just continuing to Think Through make sure you're also not creating conditions that are going to prevent anybody from doing anything so like if you require too much commercial like if 50% of the building has to be commercial and I'm not going to put that on the second or third floor cuz I don't want to put in an elevator for instance suddenly the build only going to be two stories at because the ground floor had to be commcial so it is a it's a tricky thing so that's why I do think it's ultimately think about what is the what is the problem or the one thing I'm most worried about is it that I'm worried there's going to be Apartments out on that street instead of you know storefronts well the storefronts is the thing we want it sounds like that's what the kind of 30% was imagining we've been involved with some where it's like you can do Residential on the ground floor but it has to be convertible to commercial so that sometime down the road the seat the plate heights were high enough whatever the case might be we don't need to get in the weeds of it but there there are ways of thinking I would just say always come back to what is the problem you're trying to solve and make sure you're not overdoing it to to try to to get at that and there may be some creativity in that the the the back portion of a of the commercial could actually be an artisan Studio where they live and work in the same space very similar to um the Potter um uh Shadow oh what's his name um oh Gil Tom uh first name is Gil Gil he's right there he's got his studio and he's got his residence in the front building and the back building is his Kil and he's the parking in between that that to me is an incredible example of of and it's a small parcel of how to you know really utilize the par well I I think what um that sort of caught us on the visuals for the buildout where they showed um the the limited uh retail in the front or commercial in in in the front and the rest was residential and they were just following what was in this the draft bylaw their summary on that was well we're going to do 12 for everything right 12 residential units for every every site there and we're going to put this limited commercial in they said that the commercial would actually reduce from what's existing right now now I don't think that that's where we want to go I we do want to grow the the commercial a little bit more than what it is right now so and by adding also a residential component I think that's the reason why I'm not sure if the 50% is the right number and I think the information from Union stud can help guide us on this piece because you're right about that there's there's different context as far as uh parking and landscape and all of that so I'm I'm I'm not fixed on what that number should be right now I know it should be um better in depth you know uh and a a some sort of a percentage and we could name it as a as a minimum and then see what that what that develops in and and again I think maybe suggesting a couple of different things with staff having their discussion when stos might help us um I think that we they're going to they're supposed to at least at this point just provide us with one visual at each location is that right yes based on the contract all right so it was not the intent that we were going to do two at one location so if you wanted to do um as Bob you were referring to uh an eight and a 12 we would do one side with eight and another one with 12 so that to because it's going to be challenged to get all this done by the end of next month and still make decisions about final wrapup I mean the alternative is do two on the alternative is you do two on that first property on the left one is 12 and one is eight that's two of the three that we get yeah and skip a sign it that actually would be cheaper for them to do I would agree do do the three sides do the three sides again I think the other thing I would I would say is if you share with these guys what you're ultimately trying to get at we can I know you need to provide pretty specific Direction but we can also be a little bit creative about how we try to address the problem you're trying to have addressed so another way of stating it is a lot of this is numerical yeah right so I could draw one scheme and if I assume the units are bigger maybe there's fewer units even though I drew the same thing parking it's a little bit harder to kind of but I could say in this one I have more units CU my parking Count's lower so in effect you get more than one yield out of one scheme if that makes sense so we could help kind of test some of those limits because I understand what you're trying to understand and and and comprehend and that's why I said an8 unit a 12 unit building could easily be reduced by changing walls and such in the design to eight units right and still have the same character to it yeah okay let's just continue on and then we'll do a second around if we need to Frank okay um it's the first time I've seen the presentation I'm very impressed and I'm very excited about how you can input into our process and make it better um and um personally I I don't think I'd bother with a I go directly to 12 that's that's what we've unless we're going to change it unless we're going to change it change it I think that the conversation has to still be that uh we can't ignore the infrastructure no of course not so if you assume that it's 12 that's 12 every place and I'm not sure that that's a responsible way to go that's my opinion so I'm not interested in just doing one style for all three I think we have to have a couple of different on I'm saying that if we decide on 12 we should show 12 if we decide on eight we should show eight that's my only Point um the um I'm really interesting in any suggestions you have on how we can change what we have put on paper now to make it better to accomplish all the objectives that the members have set out here yeah and uh I see you haven't been taking notes but you may have to look through the video because there's an awful lot of input here yeah um that that would would would be terrific um just Just one thought I've got this is for for the board the the residential buildings in the back and the buildout analysis are look to me from a bird's eye view because that's all I can see are big and one one approach would would would be to say well you can't build build big buildings you got you got to reduce them so I was just thought to put out there um so that's it yeah on that last point I know that in East Ham for instance for a while I don't know if it's still this way but in their code they had a building could only be a maximum of a 3,000 foot footprint that's what I'm thinking so it it it was interesting because like what again what are you trying to get at is it we want it to be a village scale building does it matter if I put more fewer walls in there and it's more or fewer units or is it more about what is the resulting form that you're concerned about so some of those things are considerations you know again I want to see where your current draft is and what sort of things are in there about restrictions but that speaks to that point right that that we often think about height is a constraint but not necessarily the footprint which also has an impact so could I just make a comment I think think all of those um all of those points are in the most recent draft we do have a maximum footprint we also have a maximum um uh front elevation length and maximum um what's the word jut outs you know or like how the articulation you have to have articulation yes I think is 50 fet and maximum in the a Zone facing Route 28 it's different in the other zones but I think the maximum uh front elevation length is 75 ft with the articulation maximum at 50 ft I think maximum is two stories and I think um there is a maximum building footprint as well for and it might be different in each Zone I don't recall also just as I recall um we specify a certain percentage of commercial on the ground floor and we also specify a certain amount of transparency that minimum transparency in other words storefronts so that is all specified in the form based code great um but I do agree with my colleagues that we do want feedback from you anything that we can make the code better to achieve the goals that we want would be better so um Bob then we'll go around again I want to thank you for your presentation and that's about all I really have you guys have chewed this up and chewed it up spit it out two or three times so I'll ask one quick question before you go for a second round we've ented three F three sites but I think as you point out there's obviously different conditions when you get around to some of the secondary areas so is there some consideration to not doing all three that have the same Zone a condition I don't know what you guys were thinking about when you pick these three does it make any sense to do one that's around on one of the side streets that could be all residential or do you feel like that's so much more straightforward that this is really where you want to concentrate testing out how it how it looks but um my preference is the ones that front on rout 28 but I don't know what the board would like to do I I'd agree with that I I like the three that you've chosen it's possible this 1652 main might accommodate more residential in the back just because of its nature um and I did want to say we what we didn't mention to you is we did just have a meeting with our DPW director about the infrastructure capacity and I know no one likes to hear this but the reality is is at the current moment um not thinking of infrastructure improvements that could be done in the future but at the current moment um the pump stations cannot handle eight units per acre cannot handle 12 units per acre they cannot even handle five units per acre um there was another study done on this area back in 2014 when Cape Cod Commission worked with us on the visioning study for Route 28 and the density that they used was four units per acre so technically right now the infrastructure capacity is not at 8 units or TW it's at four units per acre um however that being said you know it would be a matter of course that infrastructure is improved in the future but right now that's what we're looking at and I think that's a decision the board has to make do we do these these visuals on a projected future or what the infrastructure can handle right now so um that's I know it's not a very happy you know it's not something that we're happy to look at but I think we have to and I don't know how much of a difference this makes and if I'm correct in this or not but for example there are some of the businesses who have who are in place now who are have been there for for generations and they're somewhat iconic uh to chatam of course anything could change at any time but it might be nice to include those in the Redevelopment of those areas of course we can't predict but one of them is Larry's PX um another one might be cream and Cone the post office might stay in place in any Redevelopment scen scenario those are three that I'd suggest um would stay in place yeah yeah it's a good good suggestion and that was actually a Big Driver at the in East Ham when we did the master plan with the town we have existing tenants here we don't want to imagine this means they have to go and actually there's a lot of time spent like okay you could phase this so they could move into that space and you know all that kind of stuff because it is an important consideration they are usually local institutions they're often local business owners right it's the residents you're talking about right yeah okay followup questions um anything from you Warren um only to indicate that one once we have the perfect draft zoning um we'd like all the help we can get in how you sell list to the town voters um because if you say density the answer is no right um and I don't think that's the right answer but any guidance where you can include in this as to how you how you go forward between now and town meeting to um to build a consensus that this is a very positive uh proposal yeah would be helpful okay um um Bob yeah U so uh one area that we didn't discuss here is the setback we've talked a little bit about uh uh some setback for the businesses so they could have uh restaurants and other things like that I we haven't totally clarified what that is but you should give us a nice what you think is going to really work given the the the nature of that that area um I'm going to disagree very much with Katherine that we should even consider anything but the but the 12 uh I I will point out to her that even with that maximum design the the achieved density was five .9 units per acre that was the worst case scenario in that study we're not talking about the anything that's crazy because you're not going to be able to make it 12 if if you put in parking and you put in the yeah no I want to correct you on that that was for eight units eight units so at at 12 now you're talking about uh 8.9 dwelling units 8 all right so in any case it's it's not if we go it's not 12 it's not 12 per acre over the whole thing uh the the the issues that we heard from The Today are should not in any way stop us from doing what we intending to do here which is develop a plan for the next 50 years the fact that we may have to put a pumping station in early should not have any more mention about stopping what we're trying to do here and um and and but just please you know I I I do think we want to see a residential only just because people need to understand what a good residential only plan can look like in that area I I I don't know the the only place that that would occur would be on the side street where then you would be allowed to have res own I'm thinking of the B but if we we only went with these three then then it is it is uh commercial in front on each of these three properties so I guess we have the mixed use on all three of these forget what I said about residential only um and and then I would only say to Frank the only reason we if we we do want to do 12 but um part of our decision as to whether we can do that is how it looks and so if we only get pictures of all of these three properties at 12 we have no idea how it might be different if it was an eight so I I'm going to let you be the judge of what you want to show us make these three properties look as nice as they can um make it make it you know give us give things that the is going to say I really want cuz Warren's absolutely we have to sell this to the public yeah and they have to be wow wouldn't that be so much better than what we have right now and and that's what we're we're counting on you to do y okay Charlene um one of the things the buildout analysis did not take into consideration are those green spaces are those Recreation place you know uh areas for children that may be living in these homes now so that's one thing that that did not take into consideration that we definitely want to include in visualizations because I think that is just extremely important yeah um other than that I got nothing more okay uh followup Frank uh yeah I I wouldn't take anything as a given if if you see anything that we should change uh please come back um and I I agree with Bob I I I think we should stick with the 12 um I I think you said it very well um so I'm not going to repeat it that's it well I think Charlene had a point if you have smaller units in the building at 12 and you say okay it's only eight units per acre you can make you can make the units larger in square feet and they're not downsized that but they all have less units so if you take a look at it from that perspective it may not change that much uh a de developer might come across and says I need the square footage otherwise I'm never going to be able to rent these or sell these or whatever so they're going to dictate a little bit associated with this and that might dictate how many units end up yeah what's becoming very clear to me the more I I learn is that 12 is not very dense so I just put that out any okay well um I think at Katie do you have anything that you'd like to add um so just a couple of things so one um we'll certainly get Jeremy the most recent copy Jer Jeremy and I have been speaking for over a year now so um that's probably why he has a an older version of the bylaw so we just signed the contract um you know as he indicated this week um but we've been anticipating this coming along none of the um the form um content of the bylaw had changed what what had really changed was the wording around um the number of units for housing and whether or not there were special permits and things like that so the form really hadn't changed um so I think that that um is relatively or or almost exactly the same as what had been sent before I think that you know just the expectation and I think that Jeremy you had mentioned that you need at least about six weeks to kind of come up with something yeah um and so I just want to put that you know make sure that the board is aware of that as we're looking toward town meeting um at some point in time fairly soon after that we will need to advertise a public hearing um and we need to come to some decision decision points and I think that the board you know I think we need to figure out exactly what that is you know the the commercial the a the depth of the A1 you know the amount of commercial space m and you know coming to some realizations on the number of units per acre I think that I mean the board just needs to make those decisions um so that we can move this forward and so I just wanted to put that out there because we're we're at December 9th and if we're waiting for the visualizations to be able to make those decisions we're really cutting it close because that's the end of January beginning of if I could add one more thing if we do reduce the density from 12 to 8 we're going to have to rethink the bonuses completely of course yeah so that and that's probably the hardest part of allh yeah um well I I really I it to me and it I it comes down to what's going to happen is how many parking spaces per unit because that that I mean putting 12 on there is not the problem putting 12 on there with two parking spaces and trying to get some green space in there is not is going to be a real challenge yeah parking is the one you can't hide yeah in other words with the buildings the images I showed you units could be bigger smaller stacked whatever parking is parking 10 a 12 unit you know 12 parking spot lot looks like any other 12 parking lot spot if it doubles it doubles there's not going to be underground there's not going to be structured there's not going to be any of that stuff right so in a way that is ultimately I I always say I hate to say it but a lot of the work I do is ultimately driven by parking I got to solve that first and I got to do the best I can do with that and work around it create something with it but okay yeah I I think we can open it up to the public now um if there is anyone who would like to comment I I raise your hand or I would just like to thank you all Captain Mike on up yeah I'm Rick levit from West chadam and U you all know me as a spokesperson for West chadam for a number of years the direction you're going in I think is just outstanding keep it up uh we'll get this done and I want to thank Union studio and Katie and Mike for helping to bring Union Studio here yeah the presentation was just outstanding thank you thank you we're going to definitely have more opportunities once visualizations come in so that you can get reactions and that might be what get some more uh input from the public we do need to take these out to the public after we do have some of the information from you and we refine what we're doing yeah with uh the number of uh uh the setbacks and everything else Mr chairman we also have Mr Buckley online stepen Buckley would to say something okay um Stephen would you uh like to comment it all yes I would thank you very much um I uh 20 in 2003 I was on the uh long range planning committee that came up with the comprehensive plan and at that time I was living on uh my father my late father's property which now is going to be the 40b right on the edge of um the the zone that you're talking about and I living there at the time I had said someday and uh this is going to be developed and I'm glad to say that it will be uh shortly and and actually it's something that was uh designed uh under contract uh designed by uh Union Studio under contract to Penrose so they might have put something else in there but I just wanted to say that keep in mind that um I thought that would be like a a margin or the middle housing I thought that there would be a a dense Village Center and then a ring you know around that including what would what is the former Buckley property so but now it's I just want to point out that there's going to be 16 units per acre on the former Buckley property so it's going to look if if you talking 12 that that's a good middle area to be able to say a little bit more little bit less but I'm just wanted to remind you that the center of gravity is going to shift um the as far as this The Village Center goes then and and so anyway I just wanted to remind people that's you're talking 12 and that or even eight and that that's going to be um but the former Buckley property is on it's going to be a 40b with 16 so um and the other part is that as far as marketing it goes I would say that it really should be remind people that we have a very popular downtown Village area that people come so they can walk around they Park and then they get to walk all around and do all kinds of things and perhaps you could even say it's a victim of its own success because when I grew up in chadam there were people living more people living in apartments downtown than there are now um so if it could be a little bit more mixed with you know an actual living area as opposed to a looking more like a theme park for quaint New England Village um if it was a little more vibrant I'm hoping that's what and I'm I'm bullish that Union studio will do something very nice because they've been following them for a long time and and I'm glad that they're involved now and also with the former Buckley property so uh those my thoughts and to say that just remind people if there's something downtown an aspect that can remind people of hey what if we did downtown up here in West chadam I don't think anybody's going to say oh that's terrible downtown we don't want it to look like downtown I'm trying to you know that's one way to sell it is to say more of what we already works thank you very much thank you um Katie anyone else raise their hand I don't see anybody I don't see anyone I did want to State I had one more slide that I'm not going to show but it was stay tuned because my colleague Paul will be here next week talking about those Penrose projects I know with you guys and so I I do think this was an oh I'll show it not that it's all that exciting it was just to say coming soon affordable andal housing and Main Street of meing House Road so a lot of things we talked about tonight are going to be on display here I'm not going to steal Paul's Thunder he's going to walk you through the whole thing and what was considered and projected but I do think it is interesting to think if this one is if if that's 16 units an acre it gives you a little bit of a visual that there is some open space Fair number of units the parking that's required one thing that doesn't have is a commercial component yeah so when you're thinking about it's not Apples to Apples 12 with a commercial component it's not the same as 16 without a commercial component so but any case all right okay um I think we can close out tonight then do I have a motion we had two things in our packet I'm just wondering why we got them um I uh I talked to Christine about this she said that we receive information like this from adjacent towns um on a regular basis um they they provideed to us there's nothing that we really have to do with it it's just to give us information about what they're doing so uh unless there's a reason for us to actually bring it up as a topic um it's there for information and if the board members would like to discuss whatever it is we can put it on an agenda for a future meeting I want to see A&W back not a bagel Hound all right uh do I have a motion to adjourn so moved second second um do a road call vote um Katherine helper yes I approve uh Warren Jane waren chain approve uh Bob warter approve uh Charlene approve green thank you uh Frank Shear approve and Bob dubis approve and arts BR I approve and the time is uh 6:55 did I get that right tonight 6:55 p.m. [Music] a [Music]