##VIDEO ID:ZG7bvYxcVAo## e e e e 6:30 and this being a meeting that was to start at 6:30 we're going to bring to order the meeting of the November 20th CH planning board um I just wanted to start with a couple things one is um that we are having um having both this and the work session here because there were some public requests for um the meeting to be televised and zoom of for our work session um that doesn't necessarily mean that we'll that people will have an opportunity to speak I just want to say that out of the gate um this is going to be us making a making a plan of how we're going to um address the regulations for the Adu in the work session that's one of our topics um so anyway this being the general regular meeting starting at 6:30 this meeting it will be recorded and televised um for um participation of people who aren't present in the room but should the recording go down we'll continue the meeting um as long as we're able to um first up we have public input which shall be limited to statements that are um from the public and not pertaining to anything on the that's currently the subject of a public hearing but that's under our jurisdiction as the chancelor planning board um so first is there anyone who'd like to participate in public input okay nobody on Zoom no so seeing none we'll start up with nine Progress Avenue minor site plan review good evening my name is Jeffrey I'm the engineer for Fabiana gz who's right here uh she's granted plus and I submitted a letter I don't know if the letter is front of you at a but I'm going to basically go through the letter and tell you what we're planning at nine progress have so granted plus of America is um a countertop fabricator they've been in business in chumford since 2014 their business is doing well and they need need to expand a little bit uh mainly to put some of the uh new equipment inside a building uh if you've ever been to a Granite Fabricator they bring in Granite and quartz and then they take orders and they cut the holes for the sink and attach the sinks and so forth to the Cabinetry I mean to the counters ship it off to the job sites and install it and that's fabiana's business um so I've submitted the plan uh which you'll see in a minute let's bring that plan up if you can Evan yep nine progress AB that is uh the basically the large square is the existing building it used to be AquaTech for you old Chumps for people that remember the pool company that was there I live in Carlile my pool was an AquaTech pool so back in the 70s and 80s uh this was their office uh so they have a a front portion that act the P basically the entire site is impervious right now what you see is the building is a large square and our new proposed addition in the back 2900 16 square ft is on this underneath that right now is pavement and then they have uh display uh granite and storage all around on the pavement outside so they're just taking some of that pavement building a small addition so they could put equipment inside to do the cutting and fabricating uh so so my note says the curent the property is presently and will continue to be in allowed use in the existing uh 1 a sorry 1A district or IIA District as a contractor shop indoor for storage fabrication delivery installation of quartz granite and other countertops the existing building is 808 squ ft concrete block building flat roof on 1 acre at nine progress AV uh this is an industrial subdivision if you haven't been there it's behind this one of the nursing's homes I'm going to say the wrong name if I pick it but uh and uh just off 129 the exterior has some overhead doorways uh in the rear of the building there are two overhead doorways and we're just moving those doorways will be closed off obviously with the addition and they're just going to move in the same location uh in the new addition same with a couple of man doors from a site perspective and the impact perspective this is probably the lightest impact you can have on a property since it's already all paved it's all impervious there's no change to the drainage pattern no change to the impervious cover computation essentially no change to what you normally would consider uh there's no change in the parking layout or anything they're having the same number of employees so they just want to build an addition it's kind of a glorified plot plan if you will um the uses like I said already it's a allowed use it's not changing and a 2916 ft addition is less than the 3,000 ft that you have so it's a minor sight plan per section 195 104g and we're here hopefully tonight to obtain approval so that she could build the shop and bring some new equipment in that she's already ordered you should have some letters oh I'm sorry should I go through them Evan I think yeah what would like me to do that mam so we have a letters from the fire department fire prevention office Thea members of the board regarding the application submitted for the site plan review for nine progress AV Granite plus this office finds the following all pertinent codes including but not limited to NFPA standards mgl chapter 148 527 cmr1 State Building Code and town of Chums bylaws must be conformed two for the design and construction the proposed addition plans must be submitted to this office as part of the building permitting process for approval separate stamped fire protection plans fire alarm and sprinkler must be submitted separately for approval by an appropriately licensed professional all inspections must be completed prior to use site plans depicting fire department access will also need to be submitted prior to approval this office would approve of this project under these conditions and we ask that you make this letter part of your approval process and public record sign Josh Abbott Captain fire prevention and we have no problem with that letter then we have um from public works from Sheila Joyce project engineer the engineering department has performed a review of the minor site plan application for nine Progress Avenue submitted for the applicant Granite plus of America the following contents of the submission were reviewed for appropriateness of method and accuracy as well as for compliance with town of chumford stormm water bylaw bylaw town of chumford stormm water management regulations division 3 sewer capacity and connection restriction minor site plan review outstanding DPW engineering issues not addressed a plan review of the minor site plan application submission DPW has no outstanding site plan comments or concerns forur comments no increase to the town of chumford Sor infrastructure shall be more than 500 gallons per day project does not proposed changes to sort infrastructure or usage per the types of establishments listed in Title 5 DPW identified nine progress AV most closely as a factory industrial plant Warehouse a dry storage space without cafeteria which allots 15 gallons per day per person the site narrative states that from an operational perspective no new employees are proposed recommended stormw management conditions consideration shall be made to add roof drain dry Wells to addition for the storm water runoff from non-metal roofs as nine progress AV is located within the zone 2 Wellhead protection area this is not a requirement for approval uh recommended General conditions of approval all materials within the public way shall comply with Town standards as set forth in the town of Chums DPW Street opening utility connections rules and regulations I don't think you need to read okay that's all right and then for from the police department no concerns nice huh that doesn't happen very often on the first go round uh we have no objections to either any of the letters okay and the conditions there in uh does anyone have any questions or comments for the applicant I have a couple of questions uh currently it's a paved area is it is is it marked for parking is it striped for parking right now is it currently used for storage of materials and there'll still be storage materials inside the building so how does the how is the storm water handled for the paved surface it's C caught in cash basins I presume and then there are and then is there does it just go off site it goes off site some of it goes to the back against rout three into a little sale that was built when route three was built and a little bit of it goes in the front on the street drainage and so now with the structure there you'll be capturing the water through gutters I presume and then that's going to how how you going to handle the storm water for the additional yeah we didn't plan on any the um Joyce mentioned that um Sheila Joyce mentioned that she wants us to look into putting in some on drywalls for that we will we will look into that I have to check with the architect as far as how the design of the but I'm pretty sure he's going to there are currently three down spouts in the rear of the building I think one of them will stay the same for the existing building the new addition we could probably put new downspouts and put those in the roof do they just flow onto the pavement and be Capt okay okay okay all right that's it Nita Chris nope Mike I with it John no questions okay um is there anyone from the public who has any comments or questions in the matter okay um I'll take a motion sure I would move to uh to Grant the minor site plan how about we close the we actually open's no public no public hearing no public hearing on this sorry sorry yeah I would move that we uh Grant the minor site plan second you know based yeah including all all conditions as stated and we have a motion by Mike rck and a second by John Susa excuse me um all in favor I motion carries okay thank you I like I like the easy on sometimes yeah we were all wish they all were okay I'm a little bit bugged done up here my paper okay next up we have a meeting minutes has anyone has everyone had a chance to review the minutes from October 23rd is that one that we had already already looked at and that was revised I think yeah yeah the we we covered the the so it looked okay to me anyone else have any concerns okay um next up we have uh so we don't have to vote because we already voted on that right no we no I think we deferred it we deferred we need to vote sorry okay I'll take a motion so moved motion to accept the minutes from October 23rd made by Mike second second by John all in favor I I carries okay next meeting date we have is December 11th um Evan what do we have on for December 11th uh December 11th you have a continuation of for pet is the only regulatory item you received an email from uh select board member uh Virginia ker Timmons um today I think uh scheduling a joint meeting with the select board for December 23rd to discuss cannabis uh retail only so you may want to consider place in an agenda item on your December 11th meeting to have an initial conversation about that in preparation for that meeting on the 23rd um the only other item that I'm aware of is uh as part of the open space and recck Plan update uh Nim Cog who's the serving as the consultant they're required by law to present and obtain approval from the planning board uh they want to schedule I guess an itial presentation with the planning board uh in December 11th seems to be a good date to do that okay um and then we also need we have I haven't seen it in my box yet but I might have missed it we have to discuss the um we have to meet another joint meeting with the select board for um appointing the alternate an alternate that's scheduled for December 23rd as well just the same day as what as the discussion oh okay 23rd can I just I ask that the 11th the meeting start at 7: p.m. I would love that just for the 11th yeah yeah I I don't have a problem with that anyone else have a problem with that that's fine by me better for me sounds like it's not going to be bad okay so I'll I'll take a motion to to adjourn this meeting to adjourn the regular meeting and then move into the work session at 7 pm I move to adjourn the November 20th um Regular meeting and move into the work session second motion by Chris second by Mike risbeck all in favor I okay now we're going to open up the work session we have eight minutes because you scheduled off for start at 700 p.m. oh yeah Jour till 700 p.m. it start late okay um want just take a recess for eight minutes well I mean we could actually is there anything that would Bor us from initial some initial conversation about the Cannabis stuff I mean technically it's not on our agenda not on our our agenda but it's right so then again I we've already adjourned the regular meeting I just with it take a recess for S minutes and yeah reconvene at 7 p.m. ch need to change the Buton e e e e e e e e e e e e I would say it being 7 o' we're going to open up the um work session and first on our agenda for the work session is is the um adus um there's a housing Bond bill um that was approved the takes effect on February 2nd that makes um accessory dwelling units um available as a byright option um they can't be they have to be the size of less than half the square footage of the principal dwelling or 900 square ft whichever is smaller and they are um unable to be unreasonably restricted by the municipalities um so the first thing I think we should maybe decide about is um I think we should also have probably this item put on our agenda for the December 11th meeting with an opportunity for some public input on this topic um and um and then I guess another thing I would like to have us decide is like how how do we want to handle it in terms of do we want to make the decisions or do we want to have a a subcommittee that makes the decisions that proposes it to us um the way I see it there's a few things that we need to decide the first of which is um the the bill is meant to address what's proposed what is pretty widely regarded as a dramatic housing shortage in Massachusetts um and um this is an effort to kind of slowly gradually increase the um available units and hopefully um lower cost units um without in the thoughts of the Commonwealth dramatically changing the um the makeup of the town I mean I guess that's certainly open to discussion um but so we can choose as a whoever makes this decision whether it's us or a subcommittee to kind of Orient ourselves towards seeing that there's a need and being as open to the creation of adus as um kind of the spirit of the bill expects or hopes looks towards um or we can um approach it with more of a we want to restrict everything that we can restrict um I was at the housing Advisory board meeting yesterday and there was it was interesting they uh there was a Mike was the representative that worked with us from ncog on the MBTA was there and he handed out the strategic planning um the feedback feedback from this from the launching of the Strategic plan on September 18th it was just kind of a list of what people said there was we broke into breakout tables and everyone wrote down their table what they thought were the important issues and so there was people that said there's not enough multif family we need more affordable housing we need more housing in general and then and there was people saying there's too much of there's too much multif family it was actually funny like every list had the opposite size of the equation so I don't think it's clear as far as you know representing the towns people what the town's people want and I think that we should make an effort to glean that um and I also think someone raised the point and I think it's a good one that all of us here are homeowners so we don't exactly have um we might not have a variety of viewpoints on the matter that might be relevant to this conversation I disagree I manage very large staff and most of them are in their late 20s early 30s and for me to hire people I'm very much aware of how much the housing prices cost and what these people are facing so to assume just because I'm a homeowner and I've been one for a very long time that I don't understand it I've got children who are young adults and who will be you know graduating from college looking from home so I don't think that's very fair um like I I hear it I hear it all the time because it becomes very difficult to you know attract and retain employees if I don't have them living close by so like I fully understand um what is at stake I also think we need to be careful because um you know I like I might I've got a question more so if how does sewer impact this if you're adding an accessory dwelling unit does that mean they hook up to our sewer like or is that like I more I get more questions about it rather than trying to solve the social economic issue that the St Evan has attended I just that was my little opening and I think this meeting in general is not we're not going to solve these questions tonight by any means I think this is just kind of an opening conversation to identify what are the questions and um Evan has attended yeah a number of um telea meetings where those qu what the questions are has been introduced and he kind of presented a little bit of that yesterday I was hoping he could repeat that today yeah well what I thought I'd do tonight is I assume most board members have looked at the November 4th webinar so I don't need to focus really on that what I thought I'd do is just briefly run through the the existing zoning Provisions that are relevant so the first one is the existing limited accessory apartment it's 195 6.1 that that existing bylaw could be revised to be compliant some communities have done that others have chosen to delete and draft a new bylaw the current bylaw as we all know allows laas within an existing single family by right building permit only um it allows new additions by special permit to the zoning board and it does not permit anything related to detached the next related zoning provision is 195 d8 which is pre-existing non-conforming uses and structures I mention this because this is critically important if you recall a couple years ago at town meeting this was um the the f and building coverage was in front of town meeting this is directly relevant to um adus if the town chooses to um not treat adus differently meaning not exempt adus from the F in building coverage limitations then any property that is under sized and it mathematically is capped based upon the the F and the lot cover percentages would continue to need to go to the zoning board that zoning board process is separate and distinct from the Adu approval because the zoning board would be providing zoning relief for f or lot coverage mathematically not related to the specific use of the square footage so that needs to be very that needs to be crystal clear and and very well understood um and I can bring up those slides we can talk more in detail about um the mathematical limitations but again unless unless the town chooses to exempt adus from those mathematical limitations then any property that um is mathematically capped will continue to go to the zoning board that would be for a special permit there's some members of the zoning board here who can uh potentially speak to that um that process the next section is one 95-111 which is accessory buildings this is also um critically important currently no accessory building which a detached Adu would be by definition is allowed in the front yard area so that that speaks to currently putting oversized sheds oversized garages between your between your front door and the in the roadway the theory being that um the front yard is to be uh open and visible for aesthetic purposes you don't want a a structure in front of a structure that same provision says that accessory buildings over 2660 Square ft are subject to the regular front side and rear setbacks so anything over a a large shed currently is required to comply with regular single family setbacks the reason that that's um relevant is that again if we don't treat adus differently then by default they will be required to comply with this provision and that speaks to whether the board in the town think that's a reasonable regulation or Adu should be treated differently um those setbacks for um RB a front is 40 side is 25 rear is 30 in the RC front is 20 side is 12 rear is 20 um then just hold on a second we go there so now right we have those same setbacks for single family homes and stuff like that and like for a regular single family home right um and if you the process to get an exemption for that is you go through the CBA correct so there is a process that correct for those reasonable there is a process to get an exemption from that if we do nothing correct I just want to make sure like okay yeah just just a point of clarification so the zba handles the limited accessory Apartments as a special permit but the setbacks from uh that sort of thing those are variances and there's different criteria the variances are much harder to establish so just keep that in mind as well the variances only apply to conforming Lots the 1958 again any lot that is undersized and a building permit cannot be issued by right automatically goes to the zoning board for a special permit variances are not required for um dimensional setbacks unless you're creating a new a new a new encroachment which would require a variance I throw a question up um I think it would be very valuable to know just what the exposure is here let us assume for the moment that we leave all of our setbacks and and such things in place as they are do we have any idea how many Lots in town uh would be by right buildable uh as opposed to special permit buildable uh for adus uh that'll give us a notion of of in a sense how big how big the issue is and how much work we we need to go to to uh to relieve the problem so do we have any of that kind of data or can we get it yeah yeah I know I know um former planning board member Nan Arrow uh looked at the assessor database and has provided that information so I can um dig that email up it's readily available upwards of 80% of all single family lots are undersized that in of itself is not not the critical uh piece of information if you're 20,000 square feet and less as shown on the slide here that's where the mathematical limitations on F and building coverage begin to become begin begin to be uh a constraint and how much how many are 20,000 or less I don't I don't recall off hand a bunch yeah I think the I have an the F piece of it I think I have an issue with that not the building coverage is how much space it takes on ground right the f is total growth square footage total growth square footage because I think that um limits a lot of people from going up right like if you have a single if you have a like a ranch and you want to add a second your goes you can't you run into especially if you're on a small little lot right like I think that limits people land on the second floor I do have concerns about if you're on a small lot and then allowing like going too close to the neighbors right like that makes it a city right if you got a bunch of like Westlands we start playing around with that but I like I wouldn't be a post at changing the F percentage of it all let me let me uh let me continue just briefly here so as it pertains to the new Adu law as I understand the the requirements the first one has been clarified at the webinars they are permitted by right anywhere single family is permitted by right within a a residential zoning district and there's a slight distinction there for purposes of chumford the r RB RC and RM are the only zoning districts that allow single family they all happen to be residential zoning districts the next one is uh we cannot Pro we cannot require more than one space uh per Adu the next one is a shell no more than one space can be required so while the Adu may be a two B parking we're talking parking parking sorry didn't understand the next one is a shell if you um if if two where 28 use on one laot of being proposed a special permit shall be required mhm that's right there within the uh within the U the law I thought okay so you can you can have multiple adus on a property the law allows for the opportunity but the but it has to be a special permit has to be obtained so the second one's not by right correct it's discretionary I thought it was only one up to a quirk one is by right yeah uh no more than 50% of the gross floor area of the existing house or 900 ft feet mhm whichever is smaller whichever is smaller uh they did put they didn't they did insert this um um opportunity to have two adus on one lot but it requires a special permit same size too as yeah I think it's not specific but it seems by default it's the same the same same criteria would apply multiple acres and then the last requirement is that the uh towns cannot um restrict um the ownership of an Adu or the principal dwelling then um the next series uh that's been covered in the webinars is well what's left for local options what what Kent Town's uh exercise discretion on well the first one's reasonable regulation specifically related to dimensional which are the front rear side setbacks bulk which is normally F and then uh you can apply site plan review um in in chum the planning board does site plan review um however in chum the zoning board historically is the regulatory entity that deals and and specializes in single family and two family um and then I think the question for at the local level is if we choose to apply site plan review is it for detached only is it for all adus is it for a certain certain size of an Adu are there thresholds um detach seems to be um of of most uh interest or sensitivity and then the uh third uh local option is allowing towns to uh regulate short-term rentals as defined by mgl which I believe is 30 1 days um or less as a short-term rental okay on the sore regulations the current regulations do not do not allow separate laterals and do not allow connections to any detached structure pool Cabanas sheds um pool houses things of that nature obviously detached adus aren't allowed so that's not that's not under consideration so but detached will be allowed by Ray so we're going to have to amend that anyway corre well not necessarily so just to summarize if the town wants to be um wants to embrace this opportunity to the maximum extent you'd have to take into consideration um the mathematical limitations on F and building coverage for certain Lots you'd have to also take into consideration the accessory uh building constraints um and you'd have to take into consideration um treating adus differently under the current sore regulations there's also nothing preventing the town from keeping all of those regulations in place and treat and treating a treating adus like any other accessory building you mention two different laterals what do you mean by that lateral is the is the uh the sore main from the street so the DPW s regulations do not allow more than one lateral on one on one lot but can you have can you have a sewer line hooked up to the um to the Sewer one the main house up on the sewer and then can the Adu be on septic uh so if we if the town does not change the sore regulations yeah detached adus will have to be on septic they have to be yeah now the if you follow the webinars and similar with MBTA zoning uh the title five is not within zoning purview so there's the zoning is by right but that doesn't mean that someone can get a title 5 permit it also doesn't mean that they can they can successfully get through the Board of Health Aqua for protection uh regulations can I uh throw a question out here if I may nobody else's got something immediate um one thing I noticed in there was that with the we cannot limit the ownership of the Adu now it's that the ownership of the building either one or is it the ownership of the building and the land underneath it because if it's the ladder then we've basically created a very curious uh way around anr and created a situation in which you take you can take lots that are conforming and by right divide them into lots that are non-conforming so now remember it's not absolutely necessary that the ownership of the building be the same as the ownership of the land but it's kind of traditional in New England to do it that way what what is there to say about that yes I just brought up the the webinar and there they're highlighting sections definitions or Provisions it has to be on the same lot okay by definition you're not going to be able to subdivide okay so so you can have an Adu and the Adu can be owned by somebody else but the lot still has to be owned by the principal dwelling it has to be on the same lot you could conduit a lot implies ownership you could conduit it you could you could you cond you cannot you cannot have an Adu on its own lot it has to be it has to be exactly yeah you could rent out both sure well that that what you say makes sense to me but the but the wording that I heard uh led me to believe that uh there might be a a fuzzy area in here well to your point can an Adu be built a um a non an detached Adu be built and then the land subdivided and sold as a single family home so wouldn't have Frontage has to have Frontage then well I mean in theory you could have an Ado that did but if we don't if it has Frontage in lot area in lot you could do it so essentially it is a potential way around well they could do that now though yeah they can do that they can do now that's true they so this is what the um the definition talks about is says shall not require owner occupancy of either the accessory dwelling unit or the principal struct but is there anything in there that speaks specifically to the ownership of the Adu I thought there was and maybe I misunderstood what you said initially no okay in that case the best you could do is Conduit it best you could do is Conduit okay so a current current zoning if we don't change the current zoning regulations at all is that something that the state would consider unreasonable with a language is no unreasonable uh forget what the term was there isn't a lot of clarity on that uh the webinars have have indicated that towns uh um don't have to do anything meaning you don't have to customize Adu zoning in it by default your existing zoning would comply and we've we've covered examples as as to where that where that would apply I I don't know to what extent and this again the webinars don't have the answers the guidelines aren't out yet presumably those would provide the answers but it's not clear to what extent hlc is going to use like an MBTA zoning methodology in determining reason reason ableness I don't I don't know to what extent they're going to look at GIS maps you know overlays aquifers and then and then look at all of our zoning Provisions to determine reasonableness so then it would fall to the courts no well I My Hope and I think others people others hope is that the guidelines provide some clarity as to what is reasonable right so which we don't have no there's been no discussion on that within the webinars so right now now this law comes in effect in February someone wants to add an Adu what what's their process what would be their process that go in front of the zba if we do nothing we do they they they would be applying directly to the Building Commissioner M and the Building Commissioner would basically be going through the same exercise that I went through with you tonight do you comply with with the uh 1958 19511 if you do you're going to get a building permit okay if you don't then you go to the then you're go you're going to the zoning board zba for a variance likely be some sort of special permit it's not going to be a special permit for the Adu it's going to be a special permit for relief from these from these dimensional right that's isn't that the variance process no am I misunderstanding there may be in some cases there may be a variance but it's going to either be a special permit once the lot is under sides it's automatically a special permit if the lot is conforming to lot area it's a variance and where undersized lots are creating a new um a new zoning violation or making an existing zoning violation worse that also triggers a variance so for detached there is no pre-existing violation that the side yard a rear yard is is vacant so you'd be you'd be you'd be applying whatever the required setback is so if we change the setbacks and F to accommodate more adus to make it less restrictive for adus and then they go through the process of subdividing and creating the two single family homes would that be considered a non-conforming pre-existing condition that would be allowed even with the I would think it's detached so if we relax the Adu requirements relax the setbacks relax the setbacks F they the the owner builds a detached Adu they then go through the process of subdividing and essentially creating two single family how would they be able to do that well that's my question would they be able to do that because it's essentially a nonconforming pre-existing the same line no no no it would have to be conforming no it's I mean it's good that there's a couple zoning board members here uh my understanding of the current iteration of the zoning board is that uh they are unlike past years they are very uh they are not inclined or very unlikely to Grant variances particularly for simply subdividing a lot to create a building lot okay they no longer do that the the the days of friendly variances are essentially over okay we weren't doing that in my day uh it dates back a while ago um but there was a time during in the last 15 years where it was it was a different time um and just you know simply adding a house in an existing neighborhood wasn't as wasn't viewed as uh controversial I don't know how else to put it the the the values of the neighborhood have changed over time um more importantly newer members on the zoning board while they understand the notion of a friendly variance they increasingly understand the the legal thresholds Council has a numerous times uh reminded them or or or increased their awareness that the legal threshold for a variance is to be granted very sparingly so that message has has gotten across so the notion the notion that um undersized Lots with with an Adu on it would then somehow be allowed to be subdivided I don't see that as a possibility okay you know one strategy here and this I'll just throw this out for conversation would be to modify our zoning bylaws to remove the restriction on the detached structure itself which is the biggest chunk of it leave all of the rest of the setbacks F and all of that as it is and that's why I say it would be very nice to know how many lot lots actually would be affected by that that could be done it could be done fairly easily it's uh some small wording changes uh we could then potentially at a later date consider whether relaxation or modification of the uh setback and F details uh was was warranted and it might very well be I mean I I I don't want to say that it wouldn't be warranted but we don't have to do this in one giant swallow yeah I kind so I'm a little shocked because I'm actually agree with you Mike um I know very rare um we should Mark this um but I like to also maybe you know to your point maybe open it to open to public comment but I like to see what comes out of the request I hate to dump it on this DBA but I like to see where we're running into problems like where people are having trouble and then we can make a more um precise change like like it's kind of like you know I like to see where the demand is coming from and what's preventing um certain things to happen so like I yeah EV I think I agree with you and so I would have made it open to public tonight except for we hadn't we had already posted it wasn't enough time so I thought this could be just a conversation amongst ourselves and then at the next meeting I think hopefully we can get well we we could coming back from the zba and also I know there's a number of people in town who are interested in you know whether or not they could have an Adu and what would be you did if you recall this this meeting was intended to be um invite to zba and housing Advisory board so there are members here here I think that's more than reasonable within the context of what you intended to set this up you know as yeah okay well there's two there's two things going on right one is the just do we want to change the zoning that you referenced right but then there's also the existing limited accessory apartment MH specifically you know and so the question is what happens to that uh because it has the provision of not being detached so does that immediately uh no yep as of right on on February 2nd that that existing laa bylaw will be um basically non-compliant so if we so I mean is one of the things we're going to look at is what kind do we want to see what kind of wording changes would be needed for it in order to be compliant so that it is still in place yeah maybe we could have council help with that which we probably won't be able to do until we have the guidelines which when are we expecting them now should be any day is what we hearing it's been a we've been hearing that ask is we have Glenn and um got a couple other questions ran yeah okay um Evan you talked initially about the the different um residential areas that this could be in but reading this it's I thought it said that it's specifically in single family residential zoning districts not residential districts that allow single family understood um Oh I thought it was the lad I thought the way I presented it to you is the way the webinar has presented it but the way it's written if you look at the legislation slide 12 I think slide 12 I'm not disagreeing with you a lot of people on the webinar that um the one agree with your interpretation remember the webinar was not was not um this one was put on by the state and they had several they had several um attorneys who are um in the municiple world um and that's that was that was their interpretation they weren't asked and obviously there hasn't been any any Clarity my guess and speculation is that um hlc has had some uh initial discussions or work sessions or brainstorming sessions with some of the uh Municipal attorney firms um and that appears to be a likely interpretation so that's an example where the guidelines would provide Clarity there's also a slide in here that talks about the uh the statute itself um now classifies adus as a as a do use so again it kind of gets lost in all the details but that was explained that the the state believes that this is such a critical um critical and compelling State interest that they've now classified adus as a as a protected protected as a protected use so that again that should send C messages to towns related to reasonable regulation which which leads some to believe that the state guidelines will Define reasonable setbacks reasonable regulation interesting although keep in mind that Dover does not as I understand it uh limit precisely the things that we've talked about the setbacks and uh and such it it deals with other things but it doesn't touch setbacks so agreed but but if hlc has the uh if they have the authority to issue regulations and they know that towns have have zoning Provisions such as chumford particularly F yeah um yeah the f f might be vulnerable I'm going to guess that the other ones wouldn't be and in any case it's going to wind up in Superior Court yeah that that particular issue so I think right here right now what towns are doing is you know they're they're crafting a a generic bylaw and there's many of them out there and some towns have adopted um recently adopted Adu bylaws um so I think we can take that step as Joel suggested maybe look start by looking at the existing laa and try to get a draft um uh you know a draft available uh ideally the Reg ations come out sooner rather than later and then we'll be able to customize the bylaw accordingly does the aquafer protection still um apply well the zoning Aqua for protection uh would apply any lot uh that has 2500 square feet or 15% whichever is more impervious which is which is in this case is building coverage would require a special permit the Board of Health stuff um presumably is going to be applicable okay you mean the septic Etc uh certainly for septic but they also have a regulation that um any any property within a Zone 2 that's doing any BL disturbance any activity is subject to a regulation MH so you can put just looking at the presentation here on page what slide I'm trying to look which slide this bottom 11 yep you can put a home child care facility in an Adu you can you can first line yeah you can put you can put home home child daycare as are not uncommon so you can put businesses I don't think that's the point of that bullet the bull they're saying that they're protecting adus like they have home child care handicapped ramps so that those that's just the do list the intent there is you can't necessarily put a a home daycare in an Adu home daycares are regulated by the state for you know uh layout space per child things of that nature okay could I say from my perspective what I would support is I as other members have talked about is um you know removing the provisions of our bylaw that that are in Conflict like the owner occupancy the detached unit provision I would not be in favor of wholesale changes treating them differently until we see the state guidelines because I see my my role as a as a planning board member is we're always it's always a balancing act we're trying to provide you know we're trying to balance the rights of property owners that want to add an Adu but we're also trying to balance the rights of the abuts to those property owners to make sure that they're not creating a situation where they can be so close or so imposing on their on their neighbors I think that's a that that's my concern yep yeah would agree with well stated yeah I also think aligning our terminology with the state would be useful good point with the definition and the the terminology of the MH use yeah like kind of when we did the storm water changes we took the state law and yeah okay I I do feel badly that you guys came and then we change we beat and switched because let him talk yeah so do you do you guys want to to cl to clarify these are Town officials and so we're getting input from town officials not from the public we invited them specific as part of our work session um to give us their expert input as zba officials um I'm not sure if there's other I mean Virginia also if you have anything you want to add but Brian and Glenn so these guys are both on the zba Brian's the chair for the public want to go up to the podium uh Glenn digs I'm a member of the zba um many of the topics that you've talked about tonight we've talked about many times in the zba because historically it's all Fallen to our committee and we have given special permits and variances one the one of the questions that comes up is how many is this really talking about there are very few Adas in town I talked to three real estate agencies this today earlier and asked them how often do they see one come up for sale and two of them said virtually never and one said maybe one a year if it if if that so I asked the assess to find out how many adus are in town and I'm still waiting for an answer uh so we don't know how much as that's going to impact as far as the state rules they are almost the same that Westford has right now the only difference is Westford did not like the idea of the 25% and the reason is if you moved into town let's say in the 60s you bought a ranch that represented maybe um 42x 24 was a standard size or a cape 24x 32 or a split and if you take 25% of that you end up with a number like 300 but what if you bought a if if you had a house that was built in like the last seven or eight years that's 3,000 square ft you could have an Adu that's bigger than the houses that were built in town uh in the 70s and 60s which didn't make a lot of sense so that would pit one type of Resident versus another type of Resident and so they decided that they would just live with 900 squ ft Max right now Chums is 850t Max rather than pitting one type of customer versus another type of customer the bylaws uh or it's not a bylaw but the uh that came out from the sewer department um created a special problem because there are two parts in it that are in conflict and they're looking at that and they're hoping to have some resolution uh during the winter they still have plenty of time to look at it but there's one part that says that adus uh detached adus cannot be attached to the current line uh but we don't have any detached in town so but there's another part of the what they talk about is that the town could wave meaning the zba could wave that requirement and say that it can be attached so they are looking at this conundrum and that they don't know which way they're going to go but they are looking at it they know it exists um the um issue in general about the adu's laws in town uh I was asked by the by our committee the zba committee to reach out to other committees in town to see if they would be interested in supporting the creation of a separate committee new committee comprised of members of the planning board uh the housing Advisory Board various interested parties and the general public to discuss the topic because it didn't seem that the the ada8 lules in town were matched to where the world should be now and so I started that but we knew that there was going to be some State provision coming down we just didn't know when so when this came down we decided to suspend the whole to suspend that investigation because this is the rules and it came down to this and it seemed that the question comes out to reasonableness now what can you change it talks specifically about the um setbacks and so forth that a town had has established now what the courts will decide sooner or later one of the towns is going to object to this whole thing it's going to go to court like Milton went to court over the MBTA where that goes nobody knows but it's bound to happen with as many cities and towns that we have so you can either join in or not join in the question is the biggest fear is how many of these two family lots are we going to create you know the you know if you're going to build an Adu in today's world you're probably talking about 300 Square $300 per square foot or more I tried to find that out from a builder today but I couldn't get an answer but let's say it's $300 per square foot so if you build an Adu 900 square ft that's 270,000 you're probably going to play another 100,000 and this and that so you got to come up with $400,000 to begin with to build an Adu and the question is if you're going to build an Adu and you're going to spend $400,000 the biggest drawback to that is you put mom and dad in it sooner or later mom and dad are not going to be here what do you do with it so in chsf you can either let it sit there do nothing tear it down uh or make some other use for it but you're basically throwing $400,000 down the drain the biggest change in the law to impact the creation of a lot of these units is that no longer do you spend $400,000 and throw it down the drain now we can rent it out to anybody and we don't have to live in the main house you don't have you could live in the little house if you wanted and let someone else live in the big house they open that up so when you took those Ru took those rules out when I talked to the Realtors they said that they looked at an Adu in terms of reselling a house like it was a pool if you found someone who wants a pool it's an increase in price if you found someone who doesn't want a pull it's a negative on the sale well they said we look they right now they look at adus the same way if you have a property it's going up a sale and you have an Adu if you have someone in the family who's going to live in it it's a plus but if you take the Restriction out which this law does that the that a family member has to live there you're taking the biggest restriction to creation of these units that there is because now you can make money and right now in Westwood that's the rule you can rent it out to anybody after it's after the die or whatever the case may be so there's a lot of uh guidelines to come fine points and the guidelines seem to be aimed at reasonableness um because reasonableness is what you believe and what you believe it there there is no common ground in terms of reasonableness so hopefully the guidelines will help to clarify that but you know the question is if you change the dimensional requirements are far for adus will they look on it as you're trying to get around the rules uh maybe yes maybe no but if you drop if you make the dimensional requirements less you're encouraging more units being built you'll be discouraging it if you made it bigger because you could fit less units would be able to qualify so there are there are many questions out there and really trying to do anything without any kind of guidelines is a little waste of time other than talking about the periphery stuff and again changing the language to more closely resemble you know what the state is talking about but as far as specifics that's up in the air and how things uh develop in terms of T's particular situation with the sewage um that's for the um um building department and Sewer Department to come up with and they're working on it you know there's also a question that if you have a small home and you let's say you come up with uh you can you allowed based on the size of the main unit you allows an Adu of 345 Square ft there are also restrictions out there in terms of boards of health of how many square feet you need to support a person 345 ft is not going to support two people they can't live in 204 345 sare ft and we in the zba we see that a lot of the times in terms of what people come in and ask for that you know it's if you say well they don't need two bedrooms they need one bedroom if you're a senior citizen in many cases you have to have two bedrooms one person snores one person has incontinence one person has this debilitating back pain whatever the case may be and they have to sleep in different rooms so you need two bedrooms so there's many you know nuances of this it's not as simple is and in the zba when we started to talk about this we would say well let's give 15 minutes of the discussion 45 minutes later we're still talking about it because it's like a tree you get up to one branch and it branches off now you got two more and then you got three more and then you got five more as you get to talk about it so it's not an easy topic uh to to just say we're done with it so I would encourage you to just wait for the guidelines it will take a lot of the inuendo off the table so any questions you might might have I'll be happy to answer them one one question I have in your experience what do you anticipate with regards to like driveways if you have a separate if you have a separate unit do you anticipate that people want to put in a second driveway for that unit the law says they have to have a separate second space is that correct Evan you cannot require more than one one all they need is one space so you know one space is 20 by by 10 about that's all you need and it could be off of the existing driveway going into the home and units don't need they can be created in all kinds of ways you can just take an existing garage 2ai garage how many homes in gelwood are ranches with 2ai garage or a small Cape with two car garage and you can convert the garage uh without the way it's written without any oversight they can just convert that into an ADA um so you can have it detached you can have it attached whatever the case may be it's um really kind of in its infancy and no one has thought about all the inferences of where things will end up it's kind of uh Virgin Territory you go to Mars you don't know what you're going to find there I have the information on the undersized Lots it's a email from Nan arway to the uh planning board at the time time back in February of 2023 based upon the assessor data RB zoning district has 8,028 single family Parcels 3500 are over 40,000 square ft 3,37 have a land area between 20K and 40K 1572 have a land area between 10 and 20 K how many 1572 385 are under 10k and then in the RC zoning District there's 572 single families again even though RC allows two family by right we're not talking about the two families for Adu purposes there's 700 572 single families in the RC zoning District 34 have over 40,000 sare ft 227 between 20K and 40K 247 between 10K and 20K and 188 under 10k can you send us that yep please um so but those numbers assume we're talking about a single family home that's correct does this law restrict it to a single family dwelling yes so so you couldn't build a d you have a two family on a lot you cannot build an Adu let me bring that up because I know it's in here rather have now when when you say that we have some particular situations in which there are by right division of a single family to multi uh houses that are older than a certain age I believe there's a there's a i isn't there a by right uh to uh divide the dwelling itself into two if you take a single family dwelling that's then had an additional living unit put into it does that for the purposes of this become a two family that uh so that would not be considered a two family no cut current currently an laa within a single family is assessing purpose is there still a single family with an aster of having an an laa so then they could have an Adu yeah sounds like it so some of the some of the bigger older houses in town would be perfect uh but I haven't seen anything in the regulations that restricted to single family dwellings I've seen only that reference to single family residential zoning District yeah I'm looking for that which is why I have a concern about the the interpretation of that wording because if it doesn't restrict it to a single family dwelling and it allows in any zoning that allows single family dwellings that's a very big difference in volume in chelsford well we're going to have to uh get clarity on that I'm just looking through here I don't see it readily clarified I say first we wait for the guidelines to see if they provide Clarity on that because it's sounds like it's come up in the prior let me go to the definitions I think it's probably clarified in the statutory definition of an Adu slide seven has the definition yep and I didn't see it in there either I think I can clarify this a little I think what Mike is referring to this is Brian REI the zoning board of appeals uh anything constructed prior to 1938 the Advent of zoning in town is by right a uh two family dwelling if the choice is made you need 600 ft per unit you need uh the setbacks the standard setbacks and there is uh there's a couple other I didn't have time to reference it but that that is what I think Mike is referring to which is not an Adu it's a it's a legal two family it's been created you go to the board of appeals it's not a special permit but it's by right and it's granted and you s to follow the building code but it's uh I I don't think there's a large number of homes that were here in 1934 but any that was would qualify for that and it's an attach oh it has to be it has to be attached so you couldn't build it in a barn or anything like that but then if they were a two family then by the definition they couldn't have they would not be entitled to the Adu in my opinion I think that's correct because they become a two family it seems reasonable I think that's I think that's the interpretation but it's it's worth getting Clarity on it I mean even the the copelan and paage um advisory that came out as of right in single family residential zoning districts and the the Adu is an accessory use to a principal residential structure is what it's referred to so yeah that that completely depends on the interpretation of that single family residential district we have four residential districts residential multif family which doesn't matter you can put more units on a multi you have RC which is the two family allowance and there's pockets of them in town they are already allowed to be two families they are not already two families but regardless of this law if you came in and said I want to make this a two family you would be entitled to setbacks would apply and now sewer would be a factor but that that so we have RB and ra uh those are all larger lots and entirely uh whatever number he said that those combined up to almost every one of those would be allowed if you want to cut your house in half or use the garage as Glenn said and make that an Adu you can you don't have a new lateral you don't have any restrictions you're not changing the F you're not changing anything not changing the lot coverage yeah but my concern is that if we relax if we eventually relax Adu I'm not suggesting you do I'm going reality we relax the ad um f and setbacks and the interpretation is such that an Adu could be added to A2 family I I don't think that would be a possibility the way I understand it but there is a lot to come out well that's what I'm hoping that is the case but if the interpretation is that an Adu could be added to a two family you could have a three family they could have ESS have I mean none of the webinars I don't recall any of the webinars getting hung up on that uh there was a lots of questions from you can seek The Clarity on it yep absolutely definitely uh and the other thing that I have a personal concern about is that uh if you own a house and you want to buy it and there's a garage on it to make it this easy and you decide to make that an apartment you don't even have to live there you can show up and rent out the house and rent out the garage and it's going to be more valuable than not running out the garage so there's uh my my concern is going to be a lot more than are anti that are anticipated uh because it's going to be easy to do and it's going to become a business by the house yeah I agree that's why inrease your rent say this but there's a lot of big um private Equity firms that have pushed this I think I think it's going to become a business honestly opposite of what it's trying to do because I think what ends up happening is these private Equity firms real estate firms will outbid the young nice couple people trying to buy home and they'll be stuck in the rental right and they're stuck stuck in the rent that's my biggest fear and that was my fear when I spoke to our state reps about this cuz that um there's a reason why it's not owner occupied um and I'm afraid they're going to start oh they can because they have the money to these for a long time and we're very uh diligent about the the relationship it's a family member that it's aach and we don't very much uh to clarify what you are allowed to have is 750 ft now so it could be 50 ft bigger than it is now and just be a rental property as Gan mentioned before building one of these is going to be expensive to begin with and if you have a family that's looking to do this it's going to be difficult to recoup the cost of four $400,000 of of building it however an investment company easily has that Capital to put down and make it an investment property so I I agree with the the initial steps of doing the minimum we need to do to get this in compliance and aligned with the state um but I think then we really need to take a hard look at how much we really want to go beyond that there's definitely a lot to talk about with this and I think and it's not necessarily under our purview but I think it's definitely the sewer is an issue because the Board of Health at least when I've been there consistently has expressed a very great concern about the a lot of the turning to septic that's going on and and uh and so I think that that that's something that we regardless of what we do I think that needs to be addressed how we're going to handle the SE uptic question and I think that if it's an existing house and you're not going to increase the size that's that's not a tool anymore either it's basically by right it already exists uh per bedroom is it 500 gallons a day and there's a fee for it and then you can do it you want to add a bedroom is that correct yeah a bedroom is 110 under Title 5 the the sore RGS cap uh an increase not to exceed 500 gallons per day I thought there were also using that as a calculation of what to expect if you did add the bedroom I think a a four bedroom house is what 440 450 a day yeah so if you have a three now and you make it a four or a five you can increase by 10 gallons something like that well 110 if you make it a four and an existing single family would be whether it's an Adu or or additional bedrooms I mean you can increase you can increase up to 500 gallons per day right in each bedroom is 110 and you're not going to be you're not going to be denied from the sewer to do that the way it's set up correct the the only constraint on the current s RS is it does not contemplate detached for any connection to the system right but if it's not detached though sure you know park a car outside the garage's already built you know it really is uh it's going to be a concern I I think it's going to be a lot more than people were anticipating uh Glenn is sure Bedford already has it and they're not seeing a lot of them built they're not seeing it done so maybe you know I'm just crying wolf but I I think that people are going to go in this and try to do it as a business and yeah I I I agree with you I think the larger like the better off towns like Lincoln Lexington where there's a high need for Nanny apartments that may be a different Dynamic and obviously you know those towns are a lot more expensive um but I think more like our demographic in our towns I definitely have heard that private Equity has been behind this Adu push the way it's been written um at the State House they're the ones that have been pushing it not individuals who want their parents to live I mean at the end of the day I think everyone wants the same goals to keep the town y sort of where it is it's going to have growth grow or die but this could really change a lot I mean 500 of them is going to put another school on the map so it'd be tough yeah even like and I even know speaking to people from L where their lot sizes are even smaller like they had concerns about this I I think very valid I know it's Statewide just looking at a little micro here to see how it's going to affect us well thank you for your work on this and see what we can figure out so sounds like we have a consensus to align the language so that our current Adu policy is not illegal yeah I would say minimal minimal change to comply with the state regulations we're going to have to do that anyway okay and then we can work with that as our base and then once the guidelines come down yeah I think we should have another meeting that has public input and then my question is past that should we have a subcommittee of people who works on it or do we want the whole the board to do it as board business if if the if the board's inclination is um minimal changes in order to comply let's review the draft regulation see how close our existing Reg ulations are to being compliant if we don't have to make any changes I don't think you really need a study committee at that point MH cuz based upon the planning board setting the you know setting the um the direction at that point there won't be really much to discuss assuming that our current regulations are deemed reasonable and and but we would have to um like if we want to change that Zing we have to bring the to Springtown meaning correct yeah and we're going to have to we'll have to either delete the exist laa Y in its entirety and adopt a new Adu or revise the laa accordingly yeah and will you give it to council to oh yeah absolutely yeah yeah we do that routinely okay yeah I mean I think that would be like just just to start right like this is what we're doing yeah I don't think we're going to have any feedback or guidance or anything for Springtown meeting but we might as well clean up what we can yeah um well I mean if the going to beep process minimum then maybe we could but well i' I've mentioned to the board previously that the the manager has indicated uh that a special town meeting prior to February 2nd um is amendable um and if if we as a town choose not to take uh town meeting action prior to uh February 2nd there could be a special between then and the April yeah but again like if I'm not mistaken I think you said like it would this it just becomes we still have to adopt the zoning changes by right but right but even if it goes into law on February that just makes that zoning by law irrelevant it also it also it also initiates the state law so people will be able to file for a building permit right and if hose if the Building Commissioner deems it compliant a building permit will be issued right do we do we know what the timeline would be to get such a change such a changes before a special town meeting prior to February what I what I can tell you is that the date of adoption isn't really the critical date it's the date of the first zoning legal advertisement okay we and I'll I'll confirm that with councel okay I think that's right but and then it gets backdated to that date right right but in order but in order to uh submit a legal advertisement for a public hearing we need the the draft the final draft right so I agree Glen I mean there's not much more we can do until we get those State guidelines is that something you want to take a first shot at or do you want one of us to or uh what what part the I assume you're the draft assume you're talking about the revision of the laa or anything else that needs I mean what I'm hearing is let's not let's not spend much more time on this until the regulations come out that's what I'm hearing okay I I I think I think we could reasonably make the minimal changes uh there's a difference between our bylaw does not comply and our bylaw is not considered reasonable it's a different process right so you want I'm more than happy to spend the time take long look at the existing laa make the uh track changes an attempt to um get it into compliance with with what we currently know that would be great could we have that by the next um yeah yep I don't think it's a huge change doesn't sound like it no that but it's a careful change would be it's a careful change still to be enforced would have to be brought to town meeting oh yes and we'd want to do that ideally before February 2nd if we could so could we also get the timeline the backed out timeline yep yeah let the while gun walking I'll look at it I mean legally he was saying that we don't have to have it passed by town before February we just have to start the process to have it approved by the town yeah but it's it's effective on the uh on the publication yeah just want to add a couple of things this is a small book but it's advertised on Amazon as a book it's by the US Department of Housing and Urban Development and they have case studies of where ad were very successful one of the towns that they use in this saying it's very successful is Lexington Massachusetts which is surprising but there are others and there are companies right now uh who already specialize in building nothing but adus and they take the homeowner through the entire process they helped them find the finance they work with the town to come up with a septic plan uh they build their units to complete uh standards of today in terms of construction standards they don't put in any gas in they only build them with electric and heat pumps and so forth so they're very efficient and they're out there marketing very heavily on a One-Stop shop to build an Adu that they do everything that the homeowner wants all the homeowner has to do is provide the money and that's it and and there will be more of these companies as time goes on over okay so just looking at the schedule here you meet uh January 8th and the 22nd presumably if we if we review the marked up laa bylaw on December 11th M um and maybe we have the state guidelines between now and then um we could we could advertise a public hearing we would literally verti it in December to open in January so from a planning board uh perspective there's enough time I don't know what the lead time is to actually call a special I think it's 20 days but I'm not positive on that 14 14 yeah so I think I think the month of January provides adequate time it's minimum but it provides adequate time but I wouldn't if even if the guidelines do come out I wouldn't want to rush additional work into this process I would want to stay with the basic yep for that initial draft and then then form a committee yeah yeah yeah so what you're saying if the state regulations come come uh are released and it and it defines reasonable regulation that our existing bile is not consistent with then we need to do a more involved process yeah after the initial passage of yeah yeah yeah okay okay good okay um one so next up we have the baod zoning review um EV I I didn't have anything prepared uh for this no I was just going to say that you presented us with multiple presentations that have been done over the years real yeah I mean uh you know my um my refresher messages would be that um while a lot has changed since the adoption of the beod uh during Co and postco and market market conditions have certainly changed uh sore limitations are a reality in in in Chums related to uh Business Development and you have the new board of Health uh regulations the initial strategy in my mind um Remains the Same where between the baod overlay tied to the seid the intent was to provide maximum flexibility from a dimensional regulatory perspective and the baod introduced business amend ities and multif family the Str the concern that was expressed at the at the last meeting where the board discussed this about the underlying zoning not being consistent with the vision of 129 overlay I don't disagree with that but the strategy at the time and I think the understanding was that because the the chumford place in the regional Marketplace was not we weren't necessarily um in a driver's position we were more of a secondary Market um that the town didn't want to um do anything where opportunities were lost I think the strategy was we want to be open to any and all reasonable proposals and we want to be able to have that conversation meaning the planning board in the town wanted to be able to engage and hear proposals if proposals had to be denied so be it uh as opposed to taking a position of trying to customize the zoning bylaw with particular uses in hopes that the market brought those uses that were desired so it's a it's a slightly different Phil philosophical um strategy but in my opinion because the market still doesn't appear to uh view chumford as a as a primary market and more of a secondary Market going into the zoning bylaw and beginning to eliminate or severely restrict uses such as warehousing indoor contractor condos things of that nature may not it it may just it may eliminate opportunities it may eliminate the only opportunity at the Market's available particularly where multif family doesn't appear to be um a political politically viable never mind infrastructure wise not viable I think the other last comment I'll make is I think the strategy with uh with the co8 and 129 it was never tied to um a time frame it was always about trying to accommodate the market in the now and not not not attempt to pro project what a future Market it may or may not be that's why the use table is so is so Broad and the definitions associated with the uses are so broad historically it hasn't it served the town well in the sense that myself or the Building Commissioner never had to say to an applicant your use is not permitted which which speaks to the town's interest in at least allowing somebody to present to the planning board which is which I which in my opinion is where you want that conversation to take place certainly if there are uses or scales of uses that are non-starters such as you know the warehouse one uh then I as I said stated I encourage the board to clearly articulate that and that's a good example the market clearly sees that and then they they go somewhere else um but my concern is we know we're not a primary Market we're not quite sure what our secondary Market is covid and postco have continued to change that 129 has unique uh challenges related to uh property values High depreciation um diverse ownership groups um all of those ingredients put together would lead me to uh to um you know recommend that Flex F ability and and maximum opportunity is best served while understanding that the planning board has um spe discretionary special permits anything over 20,000 Square ft is a special permit yeah so there's no the town is not while the zoning bylaw can create proposals that aren't necessarily desired or or proactively thought of the zone BW provides more than adequate protection via the special permits for the board to you know to manage that M um I I I have a few questions reading through those I was interested in and I haven't I don't think I've seen it lately I know that um there was annual presentations to the select board um about where do we stand now but what like what are the updated numbers like what do we what are the most updated how are the trends been since like 2019 I think was the last one yeah so what you're referring to is um former uh business development director Lisa  um I say former because she is uh within the last six months she is now the um HR Director uh so as you indicated she would provide uh quarterly updates to the select board she would highlight um major themes within 129 such as vacancy rates new businesses uh I think the summary of of of her tenure was that um vacancy vacancy square footage was reduced by a million square feet it went from a million and a half down to about 500,000 which is what percent that's about 5% okay which is considered a healthy Market uh vacancy rate that's excellent when it was a million square fet there were a lot of smaller Office Buildings that had vacancies the 500,000 Square ft that remains existed 2 3 4 years ago uh those were um a 330 Bila road which now has depressed and Triton so that one came off off the list the next one up is 300 Bila that's the one that's was recently in front of you for an applicability the next one up is 275 Billa 270 uh 270 uh Billa and then you had the two properties on riverneck so right there is your 5 to 600,000 Square ft when you look at the reports particularly the um um the mass development Crossroads report it talked about those as being like white elephants functionally obsolete um they weren't they didn't have any value because a developer or an owner would have to go in and demise what you know buildings that were created for single tenants and you'd have to go in and literally demise it into smaller spaces and that's very very expensive so Property Owners didn't do it proactively and then the other thing that that was a takeaway um with Lisa's uh reports and Outreach is it pre when these overlays were adopted and when that market study was done preco there was some indication that biotch and Life Sciences particularly small labs would reach chumford they were they were um rapidly going up route three and chuma was next in line it it never happened uh and you can blame that on covid you can blame it on a variety of things but the next in line seems to be a a um a similar theme with with 129 um related to a variety of market market trends that never never never really made it up to Chums and so that's why I say it's not necessarily a primary Market it's more of a secondary Market the problem with referring to a secondary Market is we've never been able to figure out exactly uh what that means at one time when DC you came to came to town it was it was referred to as businesses that would would look at Chums red 129 as secondary um functions not primary functions like their back office something and that's fine yeah um and so that maybe that still is our sweet spot I think what we're finding more recently is um there The Sweet Spot for 129 is small to mediumsized companies 20,000 40,000 sare ft um and with the exception of all those white elephants all those other buildings have that kind of tenant space which is why historically all of the buildings that are off the main main main berria road have not been problematic there small attendant spaces I see so the strategy and the the challenge for the town is you know how previously you know what do you do with those white elephants as time has moved on and I mentioned this to you at your last meeting 270 B road is the first example uh where a pro an investor was able to financially um make it viable to actually demolish an office building and build something other than an office building and I mentioned that you know last in line that trend has has been happening for over a decade started in Burlington Went to wuin went to Bedford went to b r so that's that's the lag that I think um 129 experiences what about the buildings across the street have any of them been demolished and rebuilt no none of them no what about the 500 ft that remains what is that large or small it's primarily the the larger bus buildings that I've mentioned so um uh three 300 boa is still listed even though it's you know it's transitioning uh two 270 is still you know still in a database riverneck road is still in a database so the 500 isn't it's not I wouldn't classify it as like we would a couple years ago where it was just completely vacant office without any plan I think as we now know all of those buildings the property owners have attempted or or or have successfully spoken for uh come up with a plan b or plan a and they're transitioning away from that TR office asset um you know the report envisioned a lot of things that I feel like didn't didn't come to fruition and it may be that they were tried and there wasn't Finance or support or whatever probably because of covid but you know things like um having regular meetings with the owners and trying I mean it seems like that's one of the big problems is there's so many owners and they all have their own agendas or timelines or financing available or whatever it is yeah and and so to try and you know get them all on the same Pages like hurting cats and but also like the trails and making Community making a community sense having the food truck Parks like yes none of that has happened so it's not wasn't due to lack of effort um if you recall or you look back at EDC minutes select board updates uh when Lisa was hired uh she aggressively networked organized um and if if you if you really look back um one of the first things that the EDC did with uh Lisa was create a video and at that time there were Property Owners giving testimonials that there was a buzz that's that's what they used and there was when we would go to um Regional um events along the Route three Corridor there was a lot of Buzz about Chumps red the ovalet remember the bod overlay was being adopted because we had press press lined up so that was that was quite an achievement and that served as a catalyst because all the other property owners and investors and commercial brokers wanted to know about it and so when we when we held meetings um they were well attended 50 60 70 stakeholders would attend uh business people Property Owners Realtors investors things of that nature and while they while some of them expressed an interest in collaborating for the for the better good um they all immediately acknowledge that um you know either they're small small locally owned properties or regionally based Property Owners or their large REITs and so as you mentioned the the diversification of the property owner models the motivations the interest didn't clearly provide a a common interest the other theme that came up was well we you know we'd like to see what the town's plans and actions are MH and the if you if you drive down there you'll see some way finding signage that was one of the primary Town Town actions um but beyond beyond that the town has not we did some sidewalk improvements uh but the town is not um and I'm not suggesting that that it was warranted or not warranted we haven't done any um kind of capital investment related to trying to create Trails or or wi in the road or you know make connect to Bruce Freeman or yeah none of those venues none of those are easy but we also know from speaking to the businesses and property own owners none of that really matters meaning none of them came to us and said if you make it look like a certain way if you provide um blue bikes rental bikes and you provide uh a food truck area or you create the activity none of them none of them stated um definitively that that would make or break any decision that they made so again it's not like comparing companies that are looking to locate in Burlington with where where the um the placing was important and again I think that speaks to um what kinds of businesses are looking to locate in Chums and what their what their uh labor pool is many of the businesses down there are tried and true um um software engineering so the the type of employee is as I understand it is middle-aged not young professionals so again it's not it's not the same the businesses aren't necessarily looking for the same environment uh that you that they would expect or need or want in Burlington or a wallam um they're I think they understand that you know their labor pool is driving in it's a convenience of driving in parking in large parking lots um and that they you know they're not necessarily looking for um that you know that mixed environment that's not to dismiss the notion of press and adding in some baseline amenities so that's so that was the strategy of of the overlay District it acknowledged that the the minimum goal was to get Baseline amenities in there I'll provide the opportunity which it does it then also had this aspirational vision assuming that the marketplace fully embraced it we we were never sure if the marketplace would fully embrace it all we knew at the time was that press was ready to go 3 4 years later at least to my surprise with the um success oppressed we have not received another inquiry of a you know an upscale fast casual restaurant moving in there not from a property owner not from an investor that may speak to the the notion as I mentioned to you at your last meeting RMR who owns the building that pressed is in it took them two years of internal strategy conversations to convince themselves that converting a small portion of an office building was in their best interest so that it speaks to the it speaks to the um rigidity yeah these these particularly the REITs are in a they're in a certain business and they're in a large portfolio and they are RIS risk adverse mhm um that may explain you know why you're not seeing um with 300 they didn't come to the table saying you know I I love I love the Pressed idea I got another one lined up when they heard your feedback I think that I think that send them back to the drawing board saying you know let's let's see if we can make a go of this but the point of the overlay again is to provide the market opportunity in in in the maximum flexible manner that we can do from a zoning perspective and then allow the planning board process to decide whether that's the right project for that right for that location I think the piece that I think the piece that the planning board struggles with and the community struggles with is is this aspirational vision and sitting here today I I can't tell you whether how aspirational it is the market study is is dated it's pre-co um so that's why I suggested you know if if the board is interested in revisiting the use tables I would strongly recommend we bring in um you know Market experts either people who own property down there or who who Market or broker the properties down there Regional Brokers or real estate professionals M so that you can hear from them what they believe how the market views Chumps well what about the aspect of the class CL B and Class A office space like what is involved like ours is all Class B and that's not good or 80% what makes I don't want to say that's a deficiency because that could be that could be the sweet spot for Cher's role in the marketplace assuming office is still a component of that meaning not every business wants wants Class A wants to pay for class A office space such as Burlington walam wuben so that's a secondary Market which is fine serves a per it serves a market purpose but because offices so office is essentially dead chumford has seen a lot of small medical um Medical Health Care businesses move in tremendous amount of um Medical Care in 129 now these are small uh dentist offices um um small Surgical centers very specialized that's a that's a that's a tremendous Sweet Spot uh and it you know it picks up on doctor's Park and and Center uh so that's clearly a market strength great location um the the concern I think with class B and C's is not necessarily the focus at its office in my opinion it speaks to um depreciation and lack of investment which was which was one of the initial themes uh that I presented when we were um trying to adopt the original seid is we can't we can't we can't force anyone to do proactive investments in Burlington wuin walam Property Owners would proactively reposition their their assets they would physically go in and you know build out new lobbies amenities demise floors because they knew there was market and they would they would proactively make that investment that does not occur in Chums never has and likely never will what they want what what in chum would they prefer to have a signed tenant and then they negotiate you know the tenant improvements so the overlays again were designed to send send a message to the marketplace the property owners of of we don't want zoning in of itself to be the deal breaker in many communities the zoning process was the highest risk mhm in chum we said well you know we already understand that you know you have high depreciation secondary Market there's unique challenges strategically we don't want zoning in and of itself to be to be the reason why you say no so that's why there was a buzz because our zoning we could literally say to stakeholders unlike our our compe is up and down the rout three Corridor zoning even in of itself doesn't say no the uses are allowed the flexibility under under dimensional requirements is there there's a will of the planning board in the town to hear proposals so that we can work with you in an attempt to get a good project approved that was a spirited intent and where where the planning board has has been given the opportunity it has worked um the problem has been is that we haven't it hasn't generated a lot of proposals and obviously more recently the proposals that we have been getting um weren't even weren't really even contemplated a decade ago no one no one envisioned or or projected um covid and the Fallout of covid and you know building warehouses it was it truly what you read is what the vision was and at the time time the market study indicated that you know chelwood was next in line to reap those benefits so maybe the discussion shouldn't be is the the overlay doing its job maybe it's how should we rethink what the purpose of the overlay was and reset expectations because I think hearing you describe it about removing the obstacles and allowing things to happen and the flexibility is very different from how it was sold at town meeting and and a lot of the presentation information a lot of the presentation information is more about drawing people in and and and if you build it they'll being proactive and and having it be very actively pursued the the 129 overl yeah so the the flexibility is is grounded in the SE yeah because the seid was adopted we were then able to take the next step on the the amenities the amenities was live work play at the time that was the buzz third AV in in in Burlington uh companies were trying to attract you know high value talent that young professional demanded a certain type of liver work play environment so that was the spirit intent of 129 but even that is allowing these things to happen it's not incentivizing or being proactive about it incentivized it because the amenities were allowed by right the retail amenities were allowed by right and then you tie it to seid which provides tremendous flexibility that traditional zoning doesn't doesn't allow it's it's trust me the the co the covid the seid flexibility give you an example let's assume someone let's assume someone some came to the board and proposed a a mini third AV a very very mini third AV maybe it was uh couple buildings going up Omni way and the board loved the concept but using regular zoning wouldn't have created a walkable environment the seid would allow that yeah I get that and but but my point is is that these overlays the the ba OD and the the seid are allowing that to happen it's not really incentivizing it it's not being proactive about it because we're not see so the the only free tools the town has is zoning no I agree so so there are other incentives but those traditionally cost money such as tiffs mhm there are plenty of towns that have proactively used Financial incentives to accomplish strategic goals and objectives it's not the norm because most towns can't afford it and it's also um not politically viable the towns that have done it are very successful marbar is a good example Burlington is a good example but those communities marbor in particular did it proactively Burlington wallam w the market drove said you know in order for us to invest you know $500 million you know we we need a tiff we need some financial assistance I'm not saying I'm not suggesting we do anything different I'm just suggesting that we tone down the expectations of what these overlays are intended for I completely agree with you and really talk about it more in terms of allowing the flexibility allowing the ability to to bring a number of different things in and and at least get the proposals to us right and that that's gotten lost it's gotten lost in the you know it's much is i' I've engaged with the planning board over the years but I you know I'm not going to I I would welcome the conversation like we're doing today and have the opportunity to kind of reset the table which leads to then you know um resetting expectations which is fine I think that's needed the community I think needs to be updated as to where we were where where we're going and what happened in between my hope is that that doesn't necessarily lead to that the that the overlays in of themselves were a problem and I think that may be the disconnect that people think that they were they were sold the story at town meeting the overlays never never implemented it and then the worst case is well not only did the overlays a to implement it but whatever projects we got were exact opposite of what we um what we wanted um and that I'm not dismissing that to be um to be not true but as I mentioned the initial strategy understood and acknowledged that we were not in a position to say no to anybody yeah and and I I say that I say that with you know now hindsight being 2020 it's not clear to me to what extent the town however you want to Define that what their expectation is of the 6 million square ft of commercial industrial space down to 129 back in the early ' 80s mid 80s it was the bread and butter of the CIP 82% of the of the town's property value uh was commercial IND was I'm sorry 22% was commercial industrial it's now down to like 1% that speaks to depreciation and market trends with real estate I always assumed that the town understood that the whole point of doing the overlays was to try to try to uh get that get that back to 22% allow as much private investment to occur without zoning being a traditional obstacle that that never has transpired but more importantly it's still not clear to me um what what how the town truly um relies on or expects what does it what does it want or expect from its 6 million of square feet down to 129 in the 8 million square feet commercial industrial townwide which is not NE it's not necessarily a zoning Centric discussion um but I've never heard um I've never heard anyone talk about that being a critical component of fiscal fiscal stability or or prosperity and it always puzzles me but I think when if you were asking people what their vision of 129 is I think the way it's described in the bod presentation is what people have envisioned but I think the challenge is is that how do we get there and you can't just do it by zoning the in order to get that Vision the town would have to be a lot more proactive right and if the one thing I brought up in the last meeting is that if even if you have the overlay with that Vision unless you change the minimum underlaying zoning you're still allowing some of that other underlaying zoning to to creep in like the warehouses and the stuff like that which could offset that Vision so I think people are undermine it that's what I meant undermine it so I think people's vision for 129 is pretty still accurate in the baod but the what we hear complaints about is when we allow projects with the underlying IA zoning and I think that's the disconnect is that if we brought up those standards and maybe it's changing the underlying zoning in that area to remove some of those other uses that isn't compatible with the baod yeah and as I'm hearing as I'm hearing you explain this you know I think there's a way again 129 overlay was aspirational but it can all it can still be implemented on a caseby casee basis incremental basis as opportunities like you did with with the um applicability that's going to take a lot of time mhm and it's not a cohesive um Vision that that incremental um implementation can be partnered by the town taking strategic Investments the piece where the town assumed strategically assumed um its role in the implementation the beautification the activation was where where we had transformative development projects or Redevelopment projects we would have been able to apply for State funding to do a lot of the beautification projects between the between the fact that the marketplace never was able to um propose any transformative projects in the notion of you know at during all this time the town was quickly um changing its attitude towards scope and scale of developments um I think the messaging start the external messaging started changing it went from a buzz to you know what's going on I'm hearing about Wastewater you know moratoriums I'm hearing about you know um push back on on on zoning approval so all of that was part of the changing Dynamic with the marketplace um you know I think if the internal strategy is to kind of revisit the the aspirational expectations that makes sense because I agree with you the community I think is puzzled by what's going on or what has been going on the strategy about going into the underlying zoning I think you need to be really really careful about that I I I do because the aspirational not only the aspirational vision but the aspirational uses don't appear to be coming to fruition um and then you're still challenged with those five or six um dinosaurs MH um and we still struggle with them I mean you know what what the board approved probably is an ideal but without having without having definitive Market data my concern would be you wouldn't even get the proposal and so I don't again I don't know to what extent the town the town can be patient I've heard Anita say you know the town can be patient well if that TR if if the town financially does not have any expectations for the square footage on 129 then yeah I guess we can be patient and go into the underlying zoning and delete uses that the town thinks are low value and wait my point is is there's been two or three real estate Trends where it never made it to Chums like how long do you want to wait so I mean that's that's why I tie this back to what is the town's setting aside aspirational Visions at the end of the day the town decided to build 6 million sare ft down there and in the early the early ' 80s it was a machine great employment great tax base it was a machine does the town strategically want to try to get back to that point and if so how do we do it I just don't know if that's truly the expectation or not historically and you've heard this from other planning board members the planning board has never looked at zoning as creating um winners or losers it's always been about good planning I kind of viewed the overlay as Not only was it good planning but it was a a strategic attempt to acknowledge that there were some fundamental Market challenges with the real estate down there I just don't know to what extent that is a driving Factor would it make sense at all to look at a um another like another Market study so I'm not sure the cost of that but for you know we all know market conditions change like dav's point about um you know Financial incentives there you may remember a couple years ago at town meeting a very large Semiconductor Company that has a big presence in chumford received two tiffs and I my memory's right town meeting passed it overwhelmingly and supported it but it was more following the chip shortage after covid every there was supposed to be this big movement to bring domestic production back but then we never and then based on what I'm seeing reading about stories if it's been very minimal it's come back and if it does it's probably headed to States outside doing one yeah so tsmc is doing a big uh move into the tiffs that chump has probably adopted I know 10 or 12 tiffs over the last 20 years they've all been very minor in scope and scale and they haven't been tied to a transformative Redevelopment um meaning the buildings look the same the businesses are the same so they're very small campus yeah they weren't they weren't about tearing you know buying up two or three properties and building a small you know mini third AV um that's that's how some communities and developers will partner to to do a transformative Redevelopment we just we haven't had that that opportunity um that market study was was a state Grant it was $125,000 okay so I'm not I don't think we'd get funded for that again yeah uh that's why I'm suggesting that you know maybe we bring in some stakeholders um we can you know talk to the planning board maybe the planning board wants to invite some other other State Community stakeholders maybe they're local Brokers or local Property Owners maybe there's some out of town and just get different perspectives um like I said the challenge for 129 has been it's never been a a clear well-defined market and even during the early 80s if you look back at the types of businesses that were there it was very very diverse so how come if there's only 5% vacancy the the percentage CIP has fallen from 22 to 17 I don't guess I don't understand that it's it's it's residences have gone up well yeah setting aside the residential Market let's just focus on the CIP you've had a you've had you've had lack of investment which leads to higher depreciation so back 10 years ago the average depreciation was 30% what's it now I don't know it's probably probably at least 30 if not higher um you had these white elephants which literally Str the property owner has struggled for at least a decade to figure out what to do with them we seem to be turning that corner um coming out of covid uh Property Owners I think you've heard Sam Chase mentioned this um property more property owners have filed for uh abatements um because of the the postco effect where the office buildings are have less um less return on investment so they're arguing that the uh properties are worth less some of that has been successful and some of it hasn't been successful but remember while chumra is only 10 miles south of Burlington uh in 10 I'm sorry 10 miles north of of Burlington and 10 miles south of Nashua that 10 miles makes a huge it's a world of difference in the marketplace again the trends that you see at 128 have never reached 129 and so it's just a variety of of just unique circumstances again there's there's no it's not a master plan development there's there's no one property on that owns more than 10 acres very Diversified have you have you ever compared the Burlington zoning underlying zoning versus our zoning at 129 and what's the difference and how they got attracted and why we're not being attracted the story of Burlington is all Market driven if you go back the town fought them all I mean there's some big structures down there oh yeah yeah yeah so like like so now now the town 30 years later the town has realized that that's their Cash Cow and they've figured out that they can they can buffer or you know buffer the rest of the residential neighborhoods kind of like 129 is it's set up in a similar fashion with the exception of the hard line along um Turnpike and Mill uh but much of 129 is is isolated um but it took Burlington 30 years before they figured out you know that the marketplace the pressure and demand of the marketplace and the value that it brought to the point where Burlington now does um routine zoning changes proactively um to accomodate uh multi-story biotech you know they're going you know you see it on 128 they teared on a four-story building that was only Built you know 20 years ago and they put up a six-story building so the Market's just completely different so it's it's difficult to compare app you know companies that want to be in Burlington don't necessarily want to be in chump and the one if they do want to be in chump it's for like it's likely for secondary operations M and and then you left with you know the big final statement is uh even if property owners in the town wanted to R retain the this the the five you know three three to five white elephants as office use how many how many 100,000 ft plus office users are actually in the market never mind looking at 495 so that's why I refer to it's functionally obsolete there's no there's no viable uses for those large Office Buildings and then where you you have a limitation on Wastewater you can't bring in a lot of Biotech life science companies even if they want to be here so finding out you know what is our what is our place in the marketplace takes takes time and effort our strategy was well we couldn't get any definitive answer we're going to be everything to everybody and that that's exactly how it played out okay but I like I mean I like I like Chris's idea of at least at least making an attempt to go back into the community and explain you know what is happened why it's happened uh maybe suggest that you know it's good it's good to be asked irational but this is more this is a more realistic resetting of the table maybe that's tied to the Strategic plan you know maybe that's one of the goals um I did articulate in my meeting we had a staff meeting today about strategic planning with the consultant and I did uh articulate one of the objectives of the board you know revisiting reviewing the overlays um so I think whatever the board decides his next steps out of this make sense you know and even even the notion of the board going back into the community and presenting and trying to get feedback on a vision whether it's aspirational or realistic could could be worthwhile but again to me at the end of the day it really comes down to you know how does the Town View the 6 million square feet and what is the town's expectation you know um warehousing isn't you know it's the lowest common denominator but is it is it a better option than letting a building you know remain remain vacant for an extended period of time which speaks to you know higher depreciation and incremental decline in the CIP values should we um table this should we what should we table this for now because H the I think we had I think we made good progress I have a I have a better understanding I I had never heard uh it expressed the way Chris has expressed it to me I knew that there was a disconnect but I was I was never able to No One articulated it to me yeah well okay so before we move along I mean what what do we take from this and where do we want to take next steps I mean do we want to try and bring in stakeholders and kind of reimagine what does the community want Evan why don't you why wouldn't we bring in like um cers or big those there's some major real estate they've all been marketing they've all have marketed properties down to 129 over the last 10 years so they're and get some feedback to this board just like what I can make the invite you know we can invite existing Property Owners You' you've met many of them as they've come before you small small medium and large maybe even inviting salup POI is another yeah voice from the and I can tell you I mean during Co he inquired you know but you know when he found out about the sore limitations and having to build a on-site wastewater treatment plant so I just those are all great stakeholders I just You' mentioned it multiple times right so what is the latest with the uh sewer impact in the town and the future of of a sewer plant yeah so the the uh the short-term strategy is uh DPW actively identifies areas where there's um inflow and infiltration into the system right most recent example is uh they've been targeting manholes yeah and they've been uh inspecting manholes and I think most recently they found 200 manholes that have II and what they'll do is they'll physically go in and repair those manholes and there's a National Standard that where they they can calculate the amount of inflow per per minute the gallons per minute of inflow and then they make the repair and then they can take that that uh that gallons permitted as a credit that credit go into the credit bank which is available for um purchase so on average over the last two or three years while this program has been in operation we've been averaging about 18 to 22,000 gallons of capacity needed to accommodate Trends continued with development per year yeah per year so you're if you look at the past uh two three years of planning board approvals it's been averaging about 8 18 to 22,000 gallons of new capacity needed mhm the program that DPW is running is is keeping up with Trends TR historical Trends where it falls flat from a strategy perspective is God forbid you had a biotech company knock on the door tomorrow we literally cannot accommodate you so that pretty much rules out any major Redevelopment so project that's aspiration transform it to residential single family then if we don't have the capacity for sewer and you're saying that like well even you mean with septic you could do that but even low value CP warehousing at least provides um CIP value because otherwise if you transition Auto single family they'll build it we know that they'll build it and you get more money out of it versus a Ware like a warehouse like all you have to do is I don't know I don't know that I don't know that to be the case I did the math last time when we were doing the whole um and I spoke to the assessors and we did the mass on warehouses if you look at something like yeah maybe get Sam to come let's get Sam to come too I agree this is why I asked maybe what extent does the town value it CIP it may turn out that the town doesn't value it at all to your point if the assessors and other people believe that 10 acres 10 acres of single family is is valuable and worth more to the town than one Warehouse then maybe maybe the strategy is maybe we've missed we got to re reposition our strategy that's you know we're saying that I mean but even residential right now is a problem because of sewer these have these are hooked up they have to have septic no these are already but the these properties already have a flow going into them so it wouldn't be yeah it wouldn't necessarily be a a Wastewater limitation I I think the concern there would be the town would proactively be rezoning to eliminate commercial industrial land and strategically want to replace it with single family yeah as long as you don't do like multif family because I mean the concern with single family is it um it doesn't necessarily pay it pay its own way doesn't cover its own costs if you have children it be too expensive to take the buildings down to put a neighborhood in right mult multi family other hand generally speaking it's cash positive right for the town the it's not a cash cow but it's slightly cash neutral yeah cash well I mean we should we should talk to the assessor and maybe our you want to you want to start with the with the assessors and then work away from there take you want me to reach out to some commercial brokers Property Owners okay and certainly if you have a any lists you know send them send them to me if you know someone at I can give you a couple of names yeah that out of from the Boston firms that yeah okay so maybe we'll do that in January yeah I'll I'll get started on it absolutely thank you it's been very beneficial for me um the other thing we were going to talk about not on this meeting but the that we were thinking about for Springtown meeting which is getting kind of close um was resoning Kate's Corner yeah think did we want to maybe put that in for a meeting and for the next for yeah probably maybe do it like a just a it's not a lot of space down there so it ought to be a fairly easy conversation relative to some of the other ones we've got and maybe we could maybe we could invite some of the neighbors to come to come would that be December 11th no I think I I think that I don't know do you think we have time for that on December 11th you got the Adu osrp thing the Cannabis discussion so but so now so then we're looking at January yeah yeah I mean if the if the board's going to prioritize trying to get um Adu assuming the state guidelines come out and get Adu wrapped up with a special town meeting I mean that may that may take your two meetings whatever extra time you have but and I'm not working with the state guidelines we'd be working just with the basic stuff for the special town the GU the guidelines may may Define what the Basics are may change what you think the basics are yeah we don't know I just don't know to what extent you're going to be able to prioritize um Adu between now and February or or April we got flood plane which isn't a major lift I think Kate's corner is very doable for Springtown meeting so let's do that when's the warrant don't January February want to try to Target your second meeting in January January 22nd no let's do the first first for Kate's Corner okay but can we send out letters I Cans I mean what if we post things in the neighborhood or something well I I'll do a direct mailing that's fine Direct mailing tell me how you know if someone could kind of just draw a circle for me I don't know how far we want to there's what's the district IIA that's right now it's listed as IIA that's what we're trying to change so I right let's let's do standard of Butters because I'm sure they'll tell other people okay so I'll do a uh a direct mailing inviting them to the January 8th planning board meeting to have a conversation about zoning planning land use there's two different commercial two different commercial zones there too where it seems like the ca there's I CB I thought too and I thought and I thought the roadside one was Inland and the one that wasn't roadside was actually on the roadside so so they're closing right that they they closed maed anyone buy it no no okay now oh so they just went forward and closed so they still own the property I'm sorry they still own the property yes it's closed okay um all right so next up we are we leaving the bayad and the zoning scheduled behind for the moment we have MBTA um so I was at the select board meeting on Monday um and I'm I'm guess I'm still a little confused but I my understanding is that the hitch is the um development agreement which is not our development agreement and that's where the most of the problem is according to the attorney general letter did they pass the new agreement no because there's some kind of an issue with um I guess chaml Crow has changed their name and a smaller part of traml crow which is a distinct I think subset of investors is now the one that's owning that property so it's not technically a change from what they said that they would keep it in traml Crow and stay for at least 5 years but the name changed so because the name changed and some of the individuals changed some of the individuals aren't happy about I don't know somebody described it as um people are saying if I'm going to sign my name what am I going to get for it why am I accepting this so Mark the guy that was here for everything apparently thinks he's going to get it all ironed out in the next two weeks and that will give them enough time to approve it by the end of the year and so they asked Mark and Paul Cohen asked for patience um there's just one remaining sticking item that they think they'll work out in the next two weeks there's not really much we can do about it nothing that we can do about it all right so and am I incorrect in that that's the that's a yeah it's a fair General summary is is that the case that that's the main problem with our comp with our general from the so the know where that is yeah so I mean as you recall that's not part of this letter or this agenda item there there were two letters one was the hlc review right of the um MBTA zoning which identified the need to modify development agreements what's in what's on the agenda tonight is the Attorney General's review and approval of the actual zoning okay article good the two separate and distinct legal reviews what you were referring to was in the hlc review right related to the development agreement so what is our action pertaining to the attorney general's letter tonight we have to I would propose that we have our Town Council review the Attorney General's well they have no they haven't they they indicated that they that they would that that that has not formally uh been circulated to the board I'm not aware that they have submitted a a review and recommendation so that we can certainly do well I don't think we can take any action until we have that correct so I think we need them to review the Attorney General's recommendations and see where there might be conflicts that would bring us out of compliance with the section 3A requirements and if there are any areas they can recommend some modifications and until that happens we really can't do anything do we think we could get that um by the next meeting because should be able to okay but based on what I read in the letter it didn't seem like that was necessarily going to impact our um compliance compliance standing directly with the housing office it might impact potential issues down the road if our bylaws are challenged or if anything happens I agree I don't there's no indication that there's a direct correlation between hlc 's final compliance review and the Attorney General's letter it's not to say that the attor that the hlc doesn't obtain a copy of it and say Hey you know we want you to also yeah make these revisions this the town strategy and intent is prior to December 31st regardless of the status of the development agreements or this letter we are going to submit the package as we have it m and we'll we'll they'll they'll be required to spend the time to review it and then notify us of of compliance status you know the not what happens if they come back and say well you you're not in compliance my expectation is that there's there's interim time frames and steps that would be required but it would be good if we can get this reviewed sooner sooner rather than later so that if there is some changes we can bring it to Spring Town meeting and in the time frame in between when those steps were being taken we wouldn't be out of compliance we would be working towards compliance right I think it's just a play on words I mean again I don't get the sense that the state's going to be taking a towns that are that have adopted and are attempting to comply you know the the da thing is a unique situation if it's not resolved clearly the record shows that the town has made all reasonable attempts and then this one here you know we have documentation what what council was reviewing and Advising the board that we covered we wrote it to cover ourselves to be compliant right so I don't I don't view these as you know obvious non-compliant issues yeah okay but I will I will um circle with councel and ask request that they uh provide a written response for your December 11th meeting thank you I make a motion to adjourn we need to adjourn all in favor I hi hi yeah we need to adjourn e e