##VIDEO ID:GeRGhSsWmEA## e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e good evening today's uh January 3rd 2025 welcome to the warrant committee um very exciting meeting we have the Milton planning board uh in attendance in person I think we might have one person on Zoom um and tonight we're going to be discussing some of the uh um zoning planning bylaws that are coming forward at our special town meeting at the end of this month um Karen could you call the role sure we have Tom Caldwell Steve ryes Lorie Connelly Liz Dylan Jay funling Peter M Julia Maxwell is on Zoom Aman Nas is on Zoom Ronald Sia and Judy steel are also on Zoom you have a quum okay and uh the planning board uh it's been so nice to come down here and meet us in the BL room they have also posted a meeting um for today so we're going to allow them to go through their procedural Hoops um in just a moment but um are there any hands raised Karen um no uh Judy raised your hand um before the planning board comes forward if you just allow us I'd like to recognize uh Judith steel member of the war committee uh Judy hi um Mr chair and if I may I would like to um share something with the committee this evening you can thank you um on January 22nd last week when we were discussing the senior means tax credit um specifically on January 22nd I made this I made a comment to Nick Milano Our Town Administrator um in regards to the tax increase um of 2 and a half% that actually happens every year and it was inappropriate for me to State it um I caught you Nick I'm not sure why I did that but I did and I I regret that I made that comment as I did not mean to to imply any wrongdoing on the part of the Town Administrator or his staff or actually anyone in town government in our town um The Proposition 2 and a half law allows municipalities to raise their taxes by not more than 2.5% annually our town as many other towns surrounding us do this go through this very rigorous process every year I appreciate the town administrator's work and thoroughness in his explanations to the warrant committee on a variety of topics I have discussed this matter with the chair you m Mr coo and with the Town Administrator Mr Milano um and I promise to be more mindful of my comments and interactions moving forward so I regret making this comment on so many levels and I regret that it may have offended anyone on this committee during these discussion I I really do enjoy working with everyone here and I think we do a great job on the warrant committee and um I just want to thank everyone on the committee and Mr chair thank you thank you Judy um I appreciate that uh and I believe probably committee does also and thank you um okay that being said um planning board if you'd like to come up you're invited thank you thank youone of course so everyone can see okay that's great that's great all right good evening um I'd like to Now call the um meeting to order for the Milton planning board um with us tonight we have um two members in person and um one in Zoom if you'd like to introduce yourself magel field member Cheryl toas I'm the planning board secretary and we have Jim Davis uh remote Jim Davis member great and Meredith Hall serving as chair um we also have staff with us um Cheyenne if you'd like to introduce yourself hi assant direct yeah and Julia Julia I think might be joining us at some point um no I'm here yeah Julia get CL great thank you so our staff who will also be joining us this evening um we're happy to be with you um to discuss the three zoning articles that will be on the February town meeting um I believe on your agenda the first item you have is the site plan approval zoning article yeah so what I was going to say is is that I I really would like to defer to you Meredith and your board in terms of the Adu site plan and then I know we had kind of a housekeeping overlay um article uh we've discussed the overlay article uh frankly we we just didn't have time if you want to start with that it might be the easiest one um or and I know that as to the Adu and the site plan you know we probably have a lot to talk about so yeah I was gonna say maybe we jump into the site plan and Adu and then just end with the easy one yeah no that's like it's always depending on the time because I I know you all have so much to talk about this evening and that is sort of a very simple um sort of straightforward article sure I leave that to you that's great um and what I thought we would do this evening um and Cheyenne you've been promoted as a panelist would you be able to pull up um the draft of the site plan uh review article yes that would be great that we sent over to the warrant Committee just to make sure and then I know um Jay you had sent over some um Redline comments I want to go through everything line by line because I'm sure all of you have different comments and I think what this will really um be helpful when we are going through the um site plan approval is to sort of understand what a site plan approval is I know for Jay I we just had a a conversation over the weekend and he didn't realize that most communities have a site plan review um article or or um zoning uh we actually currently already have a site plan review the article that we're proposing is a substitute because what we found is the language in our current article is very vague it's not specific so when a developer or an applicant comes before us we have things that are typical that we would ask them um with our in conditions which which are within reason but the um but they're not in the technically are zoning so this is more for clarification and to to simplify the road mapap when an applicant comes before us the times when site plan um approval are used can vary frequently um site plan appr will come before us um under a do Amendment um use um and do Amendment would be um say a preschool um currently we recently had on Central Avenue The Goddard School which was where the HK Club was that was under the do Amendment um we currently are looking at the gardener school on Blue halab that's under the do Amendment we had a we had a small um property on Robins on um which was really a a Fruit Stand a structure and that was under the do Amendment a lot of people said well why couldn't you just deny that the reason is because it's under the do Amendment so typically what we can do is we can add conditions to improve um the project improve the site um but really we're very limited um in being able to deny a do amendment project a church would be another example it would have to be something that we felt strongly enough that it could be held up in court would be the only way we could deny it we've never seen a denial um for because it's considered by right now the new Adu article is going to be also um is now falling under that protected use of a do Under the do Amendment so for that reason unless there was something so extreme that um that there was a reason um and it would really probably be the Building Commissioner who would deny it not the planning board for in an ad situation but we'll we'll go through a a lot of those items but there there are also times when a um a site is a very unusual site um for 440 Granite for example that um did not need a special permit but it needed site plan review because of the the structure of the way the site was um was laid out and very limited in what um a project could a use could be used there um often we have what will be a special permit alongside at the same time a site plan approval so that would be an example when we did um recently the memory care project at 111 Highland that was a special permit and site plan approval together um sometimes there's there's situations where a special permit is needed from the zoning board of appeals and the planning board will work sort of in parallel we work independently they're working on the special you know a special permit on that property and we're doing a site plan approval piece and we sort of work along the same timelines to end up with a um a permitted use for for a site so um the Henry's building that was site plan approval and special permit um the 36 Central was a combination of both so sometimes you'll see it in conjunction with with a um a special a special permit and site plan approval but there are times such as the do Amendment where they stand alone and other items that are in the article so um with that I'll go through and I just wanted the members also to add feel free to add things when we're going through or questions if um if people want to add items yeah don't I'll add I'll add a little bit um what the bylaw as we propose it really sets better expectations for an applicant for neighbors and serves as a road map for the board and making decisions so right now um our site plan approval section of the is very short and it doesn't have um the requirements for submitt as detailed as we have and as we have asked applicants so when in practice when we've asked applicants for things we haven't been on necessarily sound footing um and some of our decisions um you know we feel a bit tied our hands tied a little bit uh if the applicants Point specifically to the bylaw and say well we met the bylaw so we want to improve the bylaw um and it's really as uh I've been on the board for 10 years and it's been on my list of things to want to work on and so I'm really happy that we were able to do it and I'd really um be pleased if it passes and becomes our new U method of approving these the other thing I wanted to mention is um there's a section of the current bylaw and this is staying consistent with that but we're adding a little bit when it has to do with businesses and the reason for for is uh different kinds of businesses can have different kinds of impacts on neighbors and that's really the portion uh that we look at in and there's specifically has been noise traffic access Service uh odors uh lighting Etc and um and that's why um the business um piece of this is in here as well as the protected used over Amendment so I was just going to say I um in a unique position position because not only am I a planning board member but I have a special permit and a site plan approval permit so I have been through the process and so um I am sympathetic to applicants and I think having a road map makes life so much easier and it puts all applicants in town on the same playing field so it's frustrating as a business owner in town to see different businesses having different um um conditions and mitigation requests so I think it's um I think it's great as a um as a business owner in town and then as a planning board member um I I think it's great because um you it gives us a tool to to um to help an applicant and they know what's expected before they even put an application in so I think it's great from both perspectives um some people might think it could be restrictive as an applicant or we're trying to discourage or limit but it really um is really helpful so even before I would fill out an application I knew what was expected and it would save a lot of time and it would save a lot of money up front so I do um hope that you support it as as we do J oh Jim yes you'd like to add yeah real quick so I I um agree with my board 100% And I just want to reiterate that you know one of the things although I was late I wasn't on the uh planning board when 440 Granite was um was approved it um those that neighborhood East milon Square was really looking for a process so they knew what to expect um when something that big comes down the Pik is is being developed next to them and I think this site plan review really Nails it and not only protects you know allows the planning board up I guess ammunition to do our job you know helps out the applicants they know what to expect but also really helps out the residents so they know what to expect um and I think it's very important that this this be passed you know I'm not one for nine more pages of Regulation but I think it's very important and I think um I think we did a pretty good job here and i' love to see it past so thank you okay cheyen can you enlarge it just a little bit for those who are maybe watching in myself there that's great so going through the first we have the first section um is our purpose and this purpose was really derived um I I think IL from some other language that we had in in other adus um one thing to mention because so every every site plan approval that most municipalities do have site plan approval we did a lot of research looking at what other communities have done and what would work and what would fit into Milton um so I don't know if anyone has any question on the purpose here um and I can read it if you would like the purpose of the section is to Pro protect the health safety convenience and general welfare of the inhabitants of the Town by providing a means to determine whether proposed use of land or structure is in compliance with sound site utilization principles relative to traffic circulation and safety pedestrian safety and access off street parking and loading emergency vehicle access storm water drainage screening signage exterior lighting visual impact of parking storage and other service areas and consisten with the character and scale of surrounding landscape in buildings so I think that sort of sums up everything that we were trying to say um the next section is the applicab applicability um this and and just to let everybody know Town Council has already reviewed this and we at our last meeting um if there were any comments that he had we did make adjustments to them so I know um there's been some uh question on the the language I think on number B um AC fine and please stop me if anyone here has any questions but on the um the first line um whenever the site plan is required under the provisions of this of this chapter the procedures set forth in this section shall be followed um and Jay had a comment that he wanted to change the activity this to the activities and uses which requir site plan approval by the planning board board include but are not limited to and then we have four items J had reduced it down to three this section I don't think that we can change that um I talk to the other board members um but by adding because I think what you're really saying is include but not are limited to the following items that expands it in an open way that I think would be considered out of scope we would have to check that with our with Town Council can I respond yes yeah the reason I said that is because I mean first I saw the adud article would put somewhere else in the bylaws this requires a site plan and I thought oh are there other places in the bylaw say this repos site plan and there are the the puds and the great Estates and uh Landscaping businesses I'll say these require site plan so I didn't want to have other places in the bylaws say these require site plan but then here and it does not say it's only these four things so maybe that's a maybe that gets us out of trouble but I don't want to imply that it's only these four things and I appreciate your intent on what why you were saying I understood why you were asking that um yeah I I think we could ask Town Council um for his opinion about that um because you're right it uh site plan review is triggered in other sections of the bylaw how however it in those sections it's coming also with a special permit and I know this these terms we kind of um are just throwing at you but they they have a special permit is a process established at the state level and site plan approval doesn't have that same um I guess state level um requirements it's town by Town um so since it is a legal matter I do think it's Town council's should opinion should be sought on that um and I think the only thing you wanted to take out what we had is number three and you moved it to it was actually our our number four and you wanted to make it number three do you have a purpose that out I didn't I didn't want to take anything out I it was more of a style thing it was more number one is something we cover number two is something we cover number three is something we don't cover and number four is something we cover I just wanted to change the order it maybe I should have kept my mouth shut so I didn't intend to take anything out okay sorry no that's okay great but I I think you had a question about why U if it's interior work that we we are adding this I do have a couple questions about what's covered yes I don't know when oh no please I well is do you think now is a good time to discuss because well now we're on number four so yes because that was something that I did get an opinion from Town Council um um and it was something that Jay brought up um that he noted that when we're substituting um the old 12.4 with this new 12.4 we added the language um to ours saying interior work causing any change of use or size shall be excluded from the site plan review requirement with the exception of a restaurant bar or entertainment use in another section which is uh um Zone 275 um 3.3 F there is language which just ends with um interior work causing any change use or size shall be excluded from this site plan review requirement period so the the end if restaurant bar exception of restaurant bar or entertainment use um that's added to this but it's different from what is in a different section so asked um Town Council how he would address that because it would be out of scope for us to amend section 3.3 F because we've already submitted this article um and it's gone to the warrant so rather than um because we cannot amend that at this time what we can do is um at the suggestion of Town Council and of my board the board agrees This was um Peter melo's suggestion that at the end of saying with the exception of restaurant comma bar or entertainment use comma not withstanding any other zoning B bylaw Provisions to the contrary so as long as it doesn't contradict anything else it can go into effect so when we go so rather than having to go back and amend this language we can amend the other at at a future meeting but we can keep this language as is with those additional words with those additional words are we you intending for us to vote on this as a I just wanted to if does anyone have any concerns with that um wait could you read that again because and we could have Cheyenne do a red line on that and um so Cheyenne can you edit um welcome to the planning board I know this we won't do this for every item oh please do I love it after number four excluding why we go very late we would just say make that a comma from the side then everyone can look at this not withstanding any other zoning bylaw capitalized zoning and bylaw Provisions to the contrary period doesn't that go up in number three though not number four yeah oh I'm sorry yes sorry use use comma notwithstanding any other zoning B Provisions to the contrary the question does this now become a recommendation of the warrant committee since we've submitted it as a planning board to the warrant committee since we voted it at our last meeting um well I think we would like support of any changes so maybe we should go through all of our amendments and then the warrant committee could you all could propose propose it as amended what we've given because we'll have to do a green sheet on this so that way you can approve rather than going item by item item y um but first I would is that a something the planning board would support that change U and based on uh the town council's advice and Jim would you agree on that I like it I think it's great change yeah I'm good okay so just to be formal because we're not all together just a roll call vote if I could have a motion to amend do you do we are we going to have others are we going to do them maybe line by line are we going to do them at the the end if we have any other amends we should go at the end and do ours at the end too that would be more efficient okay all right um okay any questions on that I have another question about this one um and I'm not sure if I'm reading it right or if this was intended it looks like the old site plan you know what this is replacing the old site plan if I'm as I'm reading it it said if there's a commercial building and you're changing more than 800 square feet you need a site plan and the new one it says if you're making any change to a building more than 800 sare ft you need a site plan and we had fun before the meeting started this room is a little bit bigger than 800 sare F feet just for context so if I read this what I think is let's say we have a business that's more than 800 square F feet that's changing their let's say they're changing their entrance which is small less than 800 square feet I think if I read it right in the old rules they would not need a site plan and in the new rules they would because they're making a change to a building that's more than 00 square feet I guess my first question is is that what you intended my uh understanding from I don't have the language the old language in front of me but those did come to us for site plan approval anything 800 square ft that's actually what triggered 440 granded AV um it's what triggers the uh Milton Marketplace it's what triggered uh building on Adam Street pre previously that the Falcone owned it's yeah it it's triggered many is is that uh um alteration to a a commercial building any alteration big or small right yeah I mean some of them were if you think look at Milton Marketplace adding an exterior staircase um you know it it is something to consider but um we haven't found that sometimes um an application that is is I haven't found anything that say that is so minor that it hasn't really been beneficial to have some level of review in my in my experience but that's not to say there couldn't be something at that level can I ask a question yeah um and thanks for explaining that really helped me because I was thinking of the mil Milton Marketplace in my head as well so so this would cover that so because they would be proposing to have a bar restaurant right they're going to do that so that would trigger a site plan right that that's really what what prompted us to add um that is that's what jumped off the page for me I I thought the expansion of years which then triggered that they actually need to go to the zoning board of appeals which is really what's taking because everyone's like what's taking so long it's because I think they didn't realize that they there was it they needed both site plan approval but they also need to amend their special permit that's an example because it's a res residential neighborhood Zone and um so gotcha thank you it triggered both yeah I was going to ask about this so I think you might have just explained it Meredith but so this B Big B little B3 interior work so the original bylaw says interior renovation work that makes no change in the exterior appearance of a commercial building shall be excluded from this site plan review requirement so that would be if they were changing the interior of milon market so if they were just changing the interior of the plate for example or the restaurant you know the space that used to be the plate um here but of course they built out so this still would have been under the site plan so am I correct that here now anytime there would be um I just want to make I understand so anytime there would be interior work for a restaurant bar entertainment then that would be fall under here would still be required to get site plan review which is broader than what's in the original okay great I just want to make sure I understand because it Tri it triggers a a higher use level y um loading zones things that could be triggered like loading parking things that would have a greater effect right um because of yeah even our parking requirements are different for restaurant use than other commercial use so we we felt as if it was a beneficial trigger and those add sorry Cheryl those three restaurant bar entertainment use I'm just curious about the thought process of limiting it to those three because here it's a commercial building so it's any commercial building unless the exterior so I was just interested in why those three were called out well Meredith may I go ahead we were thinking that it's the numbers of people and therefore the level of impact okay that it could be for a Butters okay and possibly the noise um generated sry Jim you also had your I was just going to jump in and say in the hours you know typically bar restaurants are open later so it's nice to have a shot at at curving that for the residents yes J um yeah so there's the there's the details in the subsequent Pages which I'm glad we have so many details but it does look like you're expanding what you're doing a site planner review on four items one is the 800 square feet thing which we just discussed and maybe that's just bringing into line with reality another thing is I don't think you previously covered commercial parking lots but now you are that seems reasonable to me um the third one is you're covering adus now which we know why that's new um I might have questions about that I don't know if it should be on this or the Adu article and then the fourth one is the restaurants and uh I think that might be the place where you get the most diff dis you might get the most disagreement among town meeting or among the warrant committee with the planning board because I if you know let's say we're talking about something in a business district it wouldn't require any other permit um I like Peel Pizza let's say Peel Pizza goes away and is replaced with another restaurant tomorrow if they're not making any external changes one could say let's be business friendly and you know you're taking out one restaurant putting another restaurant in the same place let's not somebody could say let's not make them go through this process uh I know we're not really debating things yet among ourselves but so this might be the hottest point of all yeah the um if you've watched any of the um proposals in East Milton you will see that the impacts of these uses vary quite a bit so is there valet is there a lot of takeout is there um is the business uh breakfast lunch and dinner and so the impacts on the neighborhood are different for those different types of uses although the uses it's in a business district our business districts are very small and they're very close to all residents so they uh that are in that area in the vicinity of the business district so the impact spread out beyond the one or two streets of the business districts and and we um as a board have heard a lot from Neighbors about that and this is really responsive to what we've what our experience has been on the board the concerns of residents and it's not so much that um people are opposed but they want to make sure that uh things are address their concerns are addressed in in the applications and in the operations and the proposals and so um we we have felt that it's something uh when that would be beneficial uh and to keep it in this in this proposal and I would just say loading zones are the best example that can vary what you know what a coffee shop might need versus what Abby park or Navara might need for loading zones so it can vary and that's just one of the biggest impact to the East Milton neighborhood that is there was a loading zone that was lost that we're trying to reimplement and put back because it's a problem with with trucks just stopping in the middle of the road and all over East Milton Square and really wreaking havoc on an area that already has so much congestion and traffic so that's just a one example but there's yeah and and I'll just add the again Milton Marketplace the operation of the plate they had um deliveries that came in small Vehicles whereas um the deliveries for the proposed restaurant are going to be different than that and so you know that's a significant change and you know how can that um be looked at and managed for surface Zone Etc so um there are degrees of impacts to these kinds of businesses that I don't think you get from let's say a store or um another kind of commercial use hey uh Liz is it okay do you have a comment or a question okay um so I really appreciate that the planning board has taken into consideration some of the comments from East Milton as an East milon person myself um so thank you for that because I have watched all of those meetings and I know that that's the case so I appreciate that um my question was so the cost of all of this so I appreciate having this sort of more spelled out because I do think that it will provide people who are going through this process with more clarity um but a lot of this is probably going to be kind of expensive you would know the cost on the front end a little bit have you thought at all about the possible impact on small local businesses versus like locally owned Milton businesses versus is this going to bring in larger businesses that can absorb the cost cost then I had a second question which was enforcement so people can promise all kinds of things but as we've seen um sometimes even in East Milton it's not really your responsibility but I'm just thinking about when we have these requirements and people put their best efforts forward in the plan you know are those how are we making sure that people are going to follow through with actually putting the plants that they're supposed to do with actually having the road in control with actually doing the things that they promis to have so that's always been a challenge is the enforcement piece and no no we we're actually having you know that's part of what we're we're looking at and having to deal with too um that that has not been um some of those items have not been addressed but as far as cost I would almost like to get further through the site plan because I think it will start making sense okay because when we talk about some of the requirements for the application there's a big difference in an application that would be a memory care for example or a larger kindergart you know a school that would need civil engineering you know that would need um peerreview um traffic studies very you know things that would be um more consultant driven most of the things that you're going to see with the Adu are requirements that the building building department is going to require anyway so they're going to need a plot plan they're going to need because you're going to need to know what your setbacks are you're going to need a licensed architect because you're going to have to know exact square footage because there is a limit when we get to the Adu we we can discuss that more the building department is going to need plans for electrical you know the the um various utilities those are all going to be required and it will be part of our review but those are those are going to be necessary anyway somebody just can't put an Adu in and do it without a building permit so those all those things there's going to be requirements so what we're doing is sort of complementing with the building department is also going to what they normally ask because an applicant who is filing through the building department is going to get sent back and say go back you need to come and and you need those because they can't go out with a measuring tape and say okay is this what are these Dimensions it has to be provided um by somebody who's not just me at home drawing my li you know a certain carve out so it has to be done in a way that those cost because I think that's the really concern is smaller businesses or or um or individual homeowners um it's th those aren't really those aren't costs that we're asking for we're not asking for you know traffic studies from a you know a little it's a real it's a significant um project that would be that would be triggering those and it would be appropriate for that um and typically those applicants come in already prepared and often they'll already have Architects Landscape Architects you know um as part of their presentation um plans that they're bringing in so and so you know I'm a small business owner I'm a member um of the Chamber of Commerce so I I am very well aware of all the costs and what is frustrating as an applicant is um not knowing what the costs are going to be um so having um a plan upfront um is way better than every time you go to a planning board meeting you maybe need an attorney you maybe need to have your um engineer there you do a design then it gets changed it's all those little changes which become very costly so having a plan upfront and um is much more um beneficial as a small business owner um than um having a long drawn out process right now the process can be so long and drawn out and things change different things come up seasons change um so we are very aware of this the um cost to small business owners and because that is what our town wants I am a huge proponent of locally owned I actually would love to see no chain stores come to the town um because I believe that locally own businesses the life blood of our economy not just here but of of the US so um I I I think anything we can do um to help along um help the process along is is is is a worthy Endeavor one thing that um I think will save um cost for all businesses small and large is number C or letter C which is the um pre-application opportunity so we just one of the uh Nursery daycare centers came in with a full application and um we said Gee why didn't why didn't you take a anage of a of a pre-file meeting and get some feedback first and they said we didn't see that provision in your bylaw and so um we really think that this would be beneficial because they they now had to go back and re-engineer it um and one other thing I'll just point out in terms of costs is that uh we we did try and put in some triggers for certain requirements and then we also left in uh an opportunity to wave any particular requirement so if um if an applicant can come in at this pre file uh session or uh conference and having looked at these requirements make a request to have some waved and then during the hearing if we find that we actually need something that we've waved we can request it then so we we do think that this provides opportunity for uh being efficient and costs and that should be uh save cost for applicants yeah uh just question um I like how you've got a out section B I would suggest you start using Roman numerates though to break it a little further right um but I I do like how you got it called out and you've got these Gates that you go through to trigger zba Etc and things like that um we've talked a little bit about East Milton some of the impacts and thank you Cheryl for looking out the comments you made that was well I appreciate that um I look at the pre-application and if I scan down to Capital D Little D um down sorry uh subsection four five no I'm just kidding uh page 29 13 my question is around parking all right so one of the biggest things we always hear about is traffic studies and there must be the most amazing traffic study ever pulled because it's reused all the time so my suggestion would be consider a provision to have a timeline on that traffic C because the last one was pulled during covid so might be a little s as the kids would say right then I would say looking at um parking right so we look at the impact to what's happening with the residences in East Milton right we're losing four spots on that spot um what I would love to see and I know we're not asking for revisions right now perhaps but I'd like to see some more rigor around that triggering um traffic St or parking right can the building Park itself you know pretty easy question right you look at 440 Granite it does Park itself it's got enough room there if you start looking at some of the other ones it gets a little more Challenge and then the Overflow goes into the neighborhood so um for consideration as you look at potentially adding some gates it'll push it into another consideration purposely calling out parking I I see there's a parking analysis there but it's not clear to me you know on that if I'm missing I apologize I'm just trying to I think it would be not well we we depend on our peer review for our parking so to your point of whenever um any applicant has provided their um traffic analysis it all says the same there's no significant impact in the neighborhood every it doesn't matter what neighborhood you're in no and there's very there's few uh yeah traffic and there's there's also when it comes to site plan review because I'll address this because it's that is the number one thing we hear from any neighborhood in in town and even I mean especially East Milton I know it's a concern but it is a concern in other neighborhoods too and they'll say and blue halav for example which is a nightmare the neighbors were saying can we do we have a traffic study and they did a traffic study they they did it in the summertime which around Fourth of July week which we find we is also a time we asked them to go back and and revise that the problem is it is it is almost impossible to deny something on site plan review because of traffic and if if believe me the 40b projects everything it was always a a huge issue but there's just case law that it's going to be if you try if you try to do it it will be appealed and it will be turned over that decision for for parking it's it's just I mean in traffic parking we doing different yeah traffic is is the issue where it's that's an example where we do traffic studies but um but I hear what you're saying that it they're both trigger words right so Abol you say parking or you say traffic and enforcement my my colleague called out there is is a great one we just looked at that last week with some of the enforcement that it falls back on the police to go in there but or the select board to enforce something I mean I mean you know I know I I pulled up there was a Trucking in front of buger you know parked right to the left of bugers as everybody's trying to get into Basset Street and then there was I don't know if it was somebody doing um Uber Eats or if somebody had New Jersey plates but then pulled over and just put their flashers on so it literally was one lane for everybody trying to get in and out of Basset Street and it was 10:00 in the morning and it was just um already you know a gridlock so enforcement and I I hear so yeah that's good to keep thinking about how we can make that language better I think we need to add Personnel for enforcement so we do have a our the local enforcement is the building um inspector's office and they have an enforcement and it is unfortunately it's up to the neighbors or to the residents to call and um the enforcement officer so you kind of have to police but maybe if the calls come in then the enforcement officer will be out there more regularly um but or we just um put in for somebody else and it's almost 8 o' so I do want we're only on the first page soy just just want to clarify on do Amendment uses they still are required to meet the zoning requirements and so uh there is a zoning requirement for parking for example um and so if they weren't meeting a zoning requirement on a I I know there was something uh a question about what we mean by dimensional standards but if they would then need to go for variants to um if they don't meet the zoning so the use is protected but we still have review of the the way the use is being proposed to be put on a piece of property and that includes the way the parking is not just the number of spaces if that meets zoning We can question whether we they really need as many spaces as they're proposing as in the case of uh The Gardener school so yeah we'll talk about that when we get to the lawn p and reducing what we've asked for them to reduce um so J there was one more item that if we scroll down do us Inc um where it says this meeting may also provide an opportunity to discuss the procedures waiver requests and information the board will need to coord reviews um if the development requires if the development requires the other Town approvals Jay had sort of um let's see where are we in here try um other Town approvals and request impact analysis such as traffic such as traffic study I think what you wanted was just to break up that sentence yeah I just found a little hard to read I added the word of in the the middle there and I broke up the sentence yes so I think it would still have to be if to coordinate coordin if the development requires other Town approvals period I oh wait or and then you said you wanted to have a new sentence at this meeting the board may also request impact analysis such as a traffic study so you wanted to put period I gave it to you and right I don't know yeah that's I don't want to spend other people's time parsing gramar that was my suggestion you can take it or leave it well that's that becomes my question whether it's at this point um it has to be what's in your recommendation because it's been submitted for printing in the warrant it's kind of now in in your recommendation and not in ours um because our language has been submitted so uh any of these changes Town Council right and reviewed by Town Council so any of these changes that you're proposing we would suggest you get Town Council to review as well um that would go into the recommendation but so um I'm just suggesting it's not for the planning board to decide to make this change at this point in time any longer yeah I Mr Mr chair yes yeah I think one possibility is the planning board could take it back and look at the things I suggested and say we like some of these we don't like some of these and then bring it back to us fully baked and say Here's here after we don't have a we don't have a public hearing on this until the 20th and meeting so I think it's late to try to do that um just formatical right so this is just a grammatical change that would be requested yes I have no problem with that but it's just simply um cheen I think had well are there other um it would have to be subject to more um more substantive changes that are more important to you than a grammatical Pro probably I guess on on so to to save time I I'm not you know I know words matter um and you know my mother was a teacher grammar is important um but at this point in time I think it might be a little bit late and if we in the future we could keep his suggestions I I think we should um go through the questions and suggestions uh but I think something that's grammatical at this point I I the thing I think about like green sheets or recommendations is how how different are they from what the original languages and the more different they are the more doubt it casts and um I don't think for something that's grammatical I I would like to see a lot of Doubt cast uh we we have spent some time on this and we have we sent it to Town Council some time ago um the language in here has been this way for some time unlike the ad one maybe but um so when things get sent back for further study which is what I'm trying to avoid we don't want that they they tend to not come back for a while um and so yeah so then I think let's move through this um and just other comments and um that that were Jay had brought up um so if we move to the if we move on to the next page um and we scroll down um plans and plan content under that we've got submission application form plans and plan content under number six um Jay you had asked about providing grading when it goes down to site plans um that show setbacks the position of the buildings of the site buildings setback Dimensions point of vehic vehicular access and so forth it goes down to proposed parking and proposed grading retaining walls and then the last part of that sentence is and other information commonly required for site plan approval um so you thought that seemed General and open-ended uh Town Council did approve that and um Cheryl I don't know if you want to address that um in this language too that anyone else yeah I mean that just gives us um a something that forgot yeah if something that was forgotten that was not mentioned in here in the site plan approval and every site can be a little bit different and so you might not know what might need until you get there it's like when you get on a job when we get on a landscape job we can predict what is needed but you don't always know what's needed so you want to be able to um you know keep it a little bit open-ended and allow for flexibility so that's why that was in there just but yeah pleas um that that raised another question for me thank you um is this fairly standard with the things that your board would review prior to having it all written down so is this kind of consistent with the things that you would have looked at anyway but that weren't like yes exactly cified if you will in the bylaw so this is what people could have expected they just didn't I mean to your point Maggie they just didn't know so this just brings that Clarity forth ahead of time exactly okay and you know I think at this moment in time time our board actually has um some a really solid group of professionals who bring um something different to the table and we've all kind of you know have honed in on different things and so um like for instance a number eight the caliper size of trees you know that's important to me um and we found that on projects that we have to be more specific about because they'll come in with little Twigs you know and try to say okay this is your buffer screening and it's yeah and or or the planting plan that goes along with it and you look at the you know in front of the garded school and the trees have died you know we have to if we have that plan that site plan we can go back and say this is you promised the neighbors this buffer and now there's dead trees so you are require you need to come in and replace that for your neighbors that's a real situation where the landscape pieces is is important and to your point the size size Matters um so that's where that so that was the next item you were just wanting to CH did you want to change the word from Total existing trees to all existing trees thatum I didn't understand what it meant I assume caliper means size of total exist I just didn't understand what it meant yeah and that's also um Conservation Commission uses that as a standard too tool it's measured you know at breast height the calber of your trees are measured at breast height um um and so um so we we're trying to work with other boards and what is there accepted so this also comes to when you make when you're making a decision about what's an acceptable or adequate level of of landscape screening what are you measuring it by and so one way to measure it is against what's been lost and so that's the reason for the calculated caliber of the existing trees and of those being removed and then you can say well you're removing half of the trees that are on the property by size and therefore our expectation is that you will replace XYZ but if you don't have your starting points then you don't have as much information for your decision making but that's a it's a good question J so um so now bumping down to number 13 where it says parking and transportation demand management plan as described in 275 uh-2 .5 um you were asking what um why that was referenced here um it's parking and transportation demand management plan that would be in the case which we were talking maybe you know an East Milton Square where valet would be par Valley parking would be needed because there wasn't ample parking um offsite at the or on site um it could also be bike storage it might be a really dense area that you want to you want to encourage having a bike storage so that um that residents use bikes one thing that we've recommended um recently is we've talked about bus passes that we want maybe that it's a new condo building that they um that they offer the residents in the building a bus pass so that they can go and travel without having to to park a vehicle so feel free to jump in also with other things but I those are the type of examples that when we're asking if it's a really dense um location that um parking demand that they think about that um and to take as many cars off the road as as possible if it's if parking is limited in that area um so the next jumping down to number 17 which relates to um because often we'll sometimes we'll run up against a wetland situation um such as up on Highland Street or some other areas that we need to Conservation Commission to also weigh in on so this is um the determination of applicability issued and notice of intent filed with the Conservation Commission so sometimes in conjunction with our site plan approval that's not under our Authority so we'll need the Conservation Commission to weigh in and we'll need a letter asking you know have they done a drainage like what is have they done um borings what what do they think um will will be further required from consultants and civil engineers to to study that that site to make sure that there's not there's enough water retention or recharge on the site and it's the water because our biggest concern is that water is not going to go into flood into a neighbor's property so yeah my comment there and may not be it may be a problem with the website I just couldn't find chapter 15 of the B yeah I think it was that's a a left over before the codification the recodification where the numbering systems all changed I looked it up it is the Wetland section I think it's section 260 so that would definitely want to change from chapter 15 to section 260 I believe okay section so we should read section 260 of the general bylaws of the town of Milton of the town of Milton right could you put that in item okay yeah when we switched to the recodification it moved and renumbered things so that so we just so far have two things to umh um that um did you repeat the number sorry my mouse was dying so I can unmute myself are you looking it up J my correct I looked this up earlier was it section 260 says what L yeah what lens it's section 260 it says chapter does that matter if it's chapter chap chapter just checking yeah I don't have it open in front of me so and so the ne next question Jay had is um in Reading um all site plans shall be prepared by a licensed architect landscape architect and civil engineer here that's intended to be licensed all of those are licensed um it's further clarified if in the in the next sentence I think in the sentence all disciplines licensed in the Commonwealth yeah all so yeah so I think we can keep that language the same and then getting back to the question of how much does it cost to have this done is that a uh if the architect could plug her ears for a second is that an unnecessary expense saying that it needs to be done by a licensed architect so I can't done by somebody else isn't this one of the waved ones well the the whether it's licensed also in the building code is that there's triggers you know whether you have require a license or not the the thing that um was triggering this is that we don't want somebody doing their own site plan and saying the building's 10 feet away from the property line when you need the civil engineer to to certify that on the landscape plan we were getting civil engineers doing landscape design that is they're not qualified to do so we want qualified people preparing the plans that we're reviewing now whether you you think that's an extra expense or not it depends on the level of projects so if it's a project that we feel as if doesn't um necessitate something like that we can always wave it but the starting point would be setting our expectations and then waving it rather than having less in here and then asking for it and not if someone says well we'd rather not because we're not obligated to then we have no no further position on it at that point yeah I mean we're not going to ask for a civil engineering for adus it's you know it's it's it's um it's that's typically what we need for the larger you know and then the actually the EXP you know the gardener school that we're looking at right now they had proposed coming in with you know a lot of cut a lot of fill and they also were creating an issue where they had to have a disch you know they have to show that they can only discharge so much water off the site so they have CI civil engineering plans that they just automatically bring in we didn't even have to ask them and Architects they already come in with architectural drawings when you have that size of a project they just they that's how they apply and that's part of that pre-application process if they're missing something but all right um so now we can move down to uh Pro there's procedures which those seem fine outside Consultants I think this we've talked about this um the reason why the language is the way it is for outside Consultants um and again reasonable costs um there's times when we will have to ask for you know um a civil engineer or somebody to come in to do um some sort of analysis that um I'll just say this is standard practice yeah I I can say this was concerning to me very concerning because you know I can imagine you know a medium to large project I mean as you said you can't stop a project but you can tell a project sorry you know what we're going to need to do we're going to need to hire an outside consultant and they're going to charge $500 an hour for 500 hours well you haven't denied the project but but you stopped it so I'm not I'm not implying bad faith on the current planning board members or future planning board members it just concerns me we' used this for in prati sorry Jim that's I was just going to say it concerns me too and that's the danger in all this um hopefully with the pre-application meeting and the fact that we can grant waivers we um sort of pick and choose what is needed but sometimes things come up and sometimes you have to make adjustments to your drainage plan and sometimes it's a re uh re-engineering and it could be thousands it's not our intent but I don't know how to um legislate around that to be honest with you we have to give ourselves the opportunity on storm water design uh there are times when the town engineer reviews it and provides their opinion um planning board members aren't um civil engineers and wouldn't want to take responsibility for review of uh storm water management design and that's where we rely on the town engineer or peer review Consultants typically this is used to for peerreview Consultants on traffic and on civil engineering which is on the storm water management um I don't think in my time on the board we've had any other consultant um when 40 BS are done they they have some of these others which are listed here um again these um are standard practice this you'll find this in I'm sure in most towns um site plan approval bylaws sure would an example of that be the residents of East Milton when they had I think it was VHB doing water study right right that would be an example of an outside consultant helping would that be an example like right yeah so for we can also use um the memory care facility on on Highland uh very complex storm water management design there um and also a lot of concerned about walls a lot of retaining walls a lot of traffic and when we can we use our town staff I mean our fire department um will weigh in for because fire safety obviously egress making sure the the turning radius for a fire truck to get in and out of a site um is very important um the police will have you know sometimes we need um the police to weigh in on something but it's typically fire um and our Our Town Engineers that we we rely on and if if they can app you know we often will get a letter um saying that they have evaluated because we'll get the the the um applicant will hire a consultant but then we need someone who's an engineer to review what the Consultants provided because we're not engineers and experts so the um engineering department will evaluate those and then she'll provide the planning board a letter to say yes they've met all the the things that they've needed particularly if it's around a Wetlands um area situation and just so you uh what what will happen let's say we'll use uh stormwater design as an example the peerreview consultant will review the work of the applicants engineer and prepare a comment letter um and then the applicant engineer will provide a response usually it's a letter form and they might go back and forth a couple of times until they get the issues resolved they might change their design a little bit uh in again in my experience it's not been major redesign uh but it does give uh Assurance to the board um that an appropriate uh technical expert has given this a review um when we so that we can rely upon that in our decision yeah and our peer review is not hired by the applicant so they're way more neutral which I think is super important they're paid for by the applicant but they're selected by the town and it also might be the DPW that weighs in because a lot of time when you have a no a new project which is a large project they're tying into our existing infrastructure so you have to make sure that the the size of whatever drain that they're tying into is appropriate and that the D the DPW can certify that yes the capacity of the um this water and drainage um or if there's an easement that that it can be tied into that um again 11 Highland they were trying to tie it they didn't have a real good tie in they were trying to tie into winter Valley so we can't evaluate that whether it's the capacity so that you know we have the DPW to refer that so we try to use in-house whenever we can um but um many times you do need um they'll come in with they'll come in knowing knowing these issues on these on these sizable projects like this yep I like um with respect to e and kind of through out I think that from a risk mitigation standpoint for the town leaving it a little bit more discretionary is not a bad thing because if you start promising to people that in these circumstances you're going to have to engage an engineer architect or consultant and in all other circumstances you won't then as you said Meredith you sort of shut the door but also you oblige the town to do certain things that people can then um litigate so that part doesn't really bother me I think that um they also obviously have the right to appeal to a court if there is you know if they feel like the planning board has overstepped its B its Authority is what the statute says because I just went back looked um then you can bring it to the court I wonder though if there's a process by which they might be able to apply for kind of a reconsideration to say you know what I I don't know I'm not necessarily recommending this but in any of these instances if you were to say um this is not going to be approved because of XYZ if they have that cons reconsideration I like the fact that you discuss in advance of people spending money I think that's good I don't know if it's possible to do that a little bit on the back end before people have to go God forbid Sue about it well that I think is during the public hearing process we kind of yeah we do vet it it's a it's a back and forth and it's a discussion and um you know there are times when I've said no I can't afford that you know in the middle of a public hearing you know so um I you know I think boards I've been in front of past boards 10 years ago different makeup and you know I I think um I think board members are are pretty good I can't think of too many applications that have received an outright no vote I think we work through with the applicants maybe they withdraw without prejudice and then re reapply um so I I don't think we've yeah denied anything the only examples by right because this is we're talking about the by by Right Use the only examples that I know of in recent um were the 40b there were two 40b projects that were denied and those are by right but those were denied by the zoning board of appeals because they did not provide adequate data information on the drainage um and and civil engineering um request that the Z BBA had made those so they were but it was actually I think went to the D and I think that it was it was overruled and and so the applicant the developer um actually won the case in that which was I think a surprise because they had I think they had to provide some more information at a later time but um originally they had not so the original application for 440 granted AV had a site plan uh decision that was allowed for Less units than were proposed so the applicant didn't appeal that but rather came back with a revised application that did get approved so that that's one way I guess I guess an applicant has taken a into consideration the planning board's comments that were not what they had hoped for or decision that they had not hoped for yeah I I may just be shouting into the wind I'm I'm still concerned about this consultant fee uh Miss old field said several minutes ago she wants predictability as a small business owner and I think most of this document gives predictability and I love it but the unpredictability is oh we'll need a we'll need a consultant and we'll need to charge you for it Mr Davis said a few minutes ago but what else can we do well you could say we're not going to charge the applicant we're you know if we can't do the work inhouse with the volunteers and with the town employees then we're going to pay for the consultant ourselves yeah U shoot me because I'm suggesting the town pays for something um I and I guess what what I'm what I'm concerned about I had a previous boss who taught me that the language in a contract is not there for when things are going good the language in a contract is there for when things go bad and you don't like each other and you're butting heads and I can imagine applicant who for whatever reason gets on the bad side of the planning board and the planning board you know maybe with reasonable intentions says all right you jerk we're going to have to IR consultant it's going to cost a lot of money and it's a small business we can't afford it and also can't afford to sue you you know if I'm if I'm setting a spark in my fellow warrant committee members maybe this is something we'll examine more but otherwise I would just say that I really uh hope that you would consider what we've said tonight this has been a standard practice this is really important tool for the board and it's important for the The Neighbors particularly the abutters who always are very concerned about these impacts on their properties and their lives and having a second set of professional eyes look at this give some Assurance to those neighbors so um I would say that uh you should consider whether that outweighs the applicant you know potentially having to spend what is really short Change on this for these large projects and in my 10 years I haven't seen a small project where um these Consultants have been requested yeah this is I I do think uh Cheryl's point it's really protection for the bigger projects um you know as an protection for the town it's a protection for the town it's neighb yeah I um maybe I have more faith and sometimes I have not had a lot of faith in the town of Milton um but um I in my experience as an applicant working with the planning department of which there were different planners they worked with small businesses um this I I hear your concern about a small business because I am really concerned about that but this is for the bigger projects the town should not incur the cost of a bigger project just like you planning board members are volunteers and even though as I mentioned we have really qualified members of the planning board we're really lucky I think who we have we're still volunteers and some of the projects are very big and very complex and I think that should stay in there and if there is a small business I really think the planning department works with the applicants as much as possible because really the botom we cannot be unreasonable because it would not hold up in court and I think that's what you have to that we weigh every time we're we have an applicant before us we weigh heavily does this hold up in court because we're liable we're you know we neighbors Sue developers you know we we're very aware of that and so not being you know being within um what is appropriate is and defendable if we need it to be so all right let's let's keep moving um the next payf um or e no F sorry G um jumping down the next question which I think is a good question too um with the site design standards um the first I yeah connection uh under connections sidewalk shall provide direct connections among buildings entrances public sidewalk if applicable bike storage and parking your question was sidewalks why are we because I think your mind is going to ad to you I think we going towards really small things so this is covering a multif family housing you know um something that would be larger you're saying why do we require sidewalks um I'll just use the memory care for example they did not have a sidewalk in that plan in the driveway coming in off of Highland originally we recognized what if there's a fire what if there is um an elderly you know somebody trying to get out and walk they only had a the driveway to walk in and these are El this this would be elderly and people with Alzheimer's you know and possibly wheelchairs so we asked and it was one of the things actually brought up by a neighbor is why why aren't there sidewalks so somebody can get out and maybe maybe somebody walking up Highland Street would need to cross so we have a cross we ask for a crosswalk and we ask for a sidewalk um there are that that would be an example of when it's not in a plan but for safety reasons that's the only reason why and I don't love adding sidewalks or concrete when about all necessary but that was a time that it was it was a safety issue and that's what that would apply to um here can I say I hope my comments aren't dominating this at the expense of my fellow warrant committee members I'm just just just wanted to say they seem to be hopping from my comment to my comment and well and I that's why I said if anybody else wants to stop yeah no this pH it's fine we ask question so that's yeah and we um so design standard so we'll move down the next item um that was question was under e playground in Recreation areas um this says any any development um containing 40 or more units shall provide an outdoor play area or common space for use for families with children so it's it's Recreation areas as well as um areas for children um obviously if it was a project without children it would you know Fuller Village or something else that would have an open Spa an a recreation space and I don't know Cher If you want to ask I don't know maybe youry old person might want to go on a swing true a recre grand Recreation are liability a garden for people a garden yeah I mean Fuller Village has tennis a tennis court area that was designed into into that project and other amenities outdoor amenities what was the issue with this did we have an issue it says any development well containing what if it's age restricted senior housing age restricted that can just OS Community Garden or some other outdoor active outdoor space the grandchildren might come they might want to swing all right so going down to I landscape at parking interior and this said a minimum of a 5 foot wide landscape divider shall be provided between every 10 parking spaces and a shade tree shall be planted between every 20 parking spaces um this is something we've been doing more often to try to break up the per the concrete um create more shade parking lots tend to be just heat you know attractors so giving some sort of landscape buffer allows for it not to be such a hot um um you'll see a lot of things in here because part of what we do is we consider resilience that um climate resiliency and things that we can do to encourage that we've been trying to do more implementing of that so that's that's on new construction right on new construction yes so and you'll see it like when example a great example of how it was done properly was the library you know when the library was put in it's beautifully landscape incorporating so you're not just looking at a solid flat um black asphalt surface it has really nice um trees and ornamentals and um and shade so we're trying to do more of that but somebody who has an already existing parking lot it's only new construction I don't think the lands I don't think the Li goes to this extent like there are more than 10 spaces on the library in a row I think yeah which is fine I'm just trying to understand we're trying to break it yeah just breaking it up more we didn't weigh in on the library so that okay I'm just I just it was a nice with the middle buffer but you'll see some um they're trying to help reduce greenhouse gases down in Milton our greenhouse gases are up since our last so we need trees we're removing too many trees so having more trees where our cars are parked will help with that so taking the trees down on Basset is a is a good idea that that's what you're saying you to replace them just asking for a friend I'm just asking um jumping down to I oh excuse me we were at I sorry j um the last sentence um the buffer may include a fence or wall of no more than 3T in height unless there is a significant grade change between the par paring in the sidewalk this is to have we want you know a nice Landscaping to separate through from the sidewalk but what we don't want is um when you drive down a road and you're just looking at a solid fencing and people are putting up these big Stockade fences it's really unattractive and especially when you see I'm sorry for anyone who has it but a plastic shiny fence you know on a I know we should want we should really El a vinyl love vinl so we're trying to do more natural that's probably not sustain they're notable but it and keeping it low it's it's more of so you can see natural so you can see and you can see the Landscaping you know you can see when you a project um you can see the beauty of the building or the site without having just a big wall of um plastic or what yes whatever um okay sorry that's um so that's why there was a height in there again these are things if we need a waiver but um under o ground cover um ground cover plantings are preferable to to mulch wear practical large areas of lawn are not desirable um this was a this was something actually we just implemented at the gardener school and they had lawn uh a big lawn area in the front where we said you know this is more of a natural setting um rather than having something where you have to fertilize have to mow maintain what about doing something IR irrigate you know all the things that sort of trigger in a big lawn areas um making it more of a natural um field what do we it was actually I think there's wild flowers in it but it's more something with Native plantings we encourage in a site plan rather than having things that are invasives um but having it just be more of a natural which is um which is just better Woods actually yeah keeping a field um which is just more sustainable practice and um and it fits into sort of an the natural character of that site um so that would be when that is used um outdoor PE outdoor lighting um light levels shall not exceed minimum design guidelines did you mean maximum on that or did you mean minimum if you wanted to explain that just want to make sure and I get uh Jay's Point here but we don't want light pollution and we want the lighting to be adequate but really just at adequate so this gives a standard for that uh because what might seem adequate to one person could be subjective so this having this be um tied to a standard is um is why this is here U yeah thanks if I could you know again as an applicant reading this shall not exceed the minimum I mean I'd have to research what these guidelines are but so it has to be exactly at the minimum no more no less I mean if that's if the answer is yes that's fine but if not it's confusing we try to keep it at a minimum level but dark you know typically we also referred to it as dark sky compliant um we might ask for um things to be on timers sometimes that like for um a winter the winter Valley we um have looked at um that site and when we AF there was there's 30 new affordable units we were concerned that there's going to be light spillage onto the ab buding Neighbors in the Indian Cliff neighbors that are going to be or the abing roads that might spill over so we ask that those sometimes we'll say the back lighting when not being used are on a timer and even um on smaller projects so even I know my business um it's kind of common now you just if even if you get a light picture it blows it actually has your photometric plan right in it it's it's very common um and they all actually come with um Shields now I I I don't think it's much of an expense as you might think it would be and that is and it is clearly defined um in the engineer if somebody were to look it up and most um Architects are familiar um with this yeah I think again just for contacts this applies probably to the larger projects that we we review that have parking lots like the memory care facility where you know they can come in with a design that has a let's say a 20ft pole and they might only need four fixtures but we say 20 ft that's going to be highly visible and um it might cast Beyond where we want so why don't you switch to a 10 or 12T pole and you might have to increase the number of fixtures you have these are the kinds of conversations that we have so at least this sets the framework for the kind of conversation we're going to have at the hearing um Q mechanical equipment um you said does this mean HB that's exactly what this would this um a generator something that would be a ground level um um that that would refer to um and then jumping down to utilities um you said to the extent Allowed by utility companies we had locate utility meters to minimize their visibility um we have to we don't have a choice if a utility company dictates where something has to be but this just says sometimes if you have the opportunity put it behind that tree or put a you know somehow put it in a in a way that is um that is that minimize their visibility integr integrate them into the building and site design so there um would be worked into that um the renewable energy project shall consider access to solar it building placement orientation and design um and I your comment was could we add shade trees near a building which would prevent solar energy should not necessarily be removed and we I completely agree with with that statement um I think that's something that we talk about all the time so that would um that would be absolutely um part of it but we just like if people could consider if it's possible but not to require to cut down trees to do it um storm water management um this didn't have a verb yeah sorry another thing the application should include strategy that's and I would I think I agreed with that too is that or it should or shall I think sh sh is typically could be consistent with so sh is the op okay um General down to H um on B entries shall be clearly defined and linked to a paved pedestrian Network that include a public sidewalk again I would just use 111 Highland is the example when that um would be required moving down to G um infill Lots this was just a question of what an infill lot is um this is something that we run into occasionally with a lot of cut and fill and if you would like I was going to well the infill Lots also could be in the business districts where the buildings are um party party wall to party wall and then you might have um something that was torn down let's say um for example if you think at Milton village where the citizens kiosk is that's sort of an infill site because you've got buildings that have kind of have a same kind of Rhythm all of a sudden you've got that kiosk and parking around it it's kind of a a missing tooth if you will so that's I whether that needs a defin a different kind of definition than than that but that's what generally is understood as an infill lot okay um Park um H uh parking shall be subordinate in design and location to the principal building facade surface parking surface parking shall be located to the rear of the principal building a rear side of the principal building and you were just wondering why that was why that was in there um we tend to just consistently ask for that because it's a ically better that we're not looking at just a parking lot um we try to make that um the building a property as you know as attractive um however we understand when that doesn't happen you know and we don't force them and it's approved by the board yeah there are times yeah that it it just doesn't work for the site or there's not space that it has to be there so like on the I think again the old husa Club the the Gard school it ended up being in the front there was not just where the building and the playground was going to be in the back um if it's closer to a neighborhood yeah we try to keep it off again if you thinking of the business district you don't want it to look like um like route one type of commercial development the idea is you have a you know streetscape with a storefronts etc so some of these standards you kind of have to they may have been written with certain kinds of ideas in mind of what type of project it would be and they may not apply to all applications and so that's where it would get waved okay so I buildings greater than 40 ft in length measured horizontally shall incorporate wall plane recesses or projections having depth not less than 4 feet and extending um that basically is on all s you said is it just the front you were assuming is that just the front of a building that you would want you know not to have just a big flat wall which is exactly why we don't but there are times when it's visible from different sides so it would depend on how many different sides are you're exposed to if it was on Adam Street in East Milton you'd only be maybe in only seeing the front that's where we would that's um but if you think about like the ice house and it has um a fac you know a long facade next to a single family you know that this is where something like this would come in um or the back it could be that you have some circulation where you're seeing all sides of the property so you would want Windows to be consistent on all sides of the property you would want the you know the for it to have the same look to um all different sides so that's what that came from um jumpy and and I just want to add on something where it's as of right like site plan approval we've been advised that you need to be um objective and not subjective so rather than say at reasonable Dimension or at reasonable distances you have to give something so that's why it's so specific thank you okay um then moving down you had asked to delete um I oh no you you did not delete it you were going to then change of material shall accompany a change in form yeah I didn't know what reduced perceived bulk means and you know again I I I was sort of thinking I'd throw this out to you and you'd agree or not I I I was very confused by that phrase so I thought let's just strike it but sounds like we're not making very many changes I still don't know what it means but I don't need to which one the the phrase to reduce perceived bulk well you could do volume size to change the word bulk does that help understand what it means it saying it shouldn't be used to reduce perceived bulk right or you saying you shouldn't use it because we went to reduce perceived bulk I I and then and then when I got to that point I just gave up and said can we strike it but well you'll see buildings large buildings where people change material without a change of plane and it the idea about that is to to kind of break the scale some but it's ineffective and so we basically want to say that that's not acceptable and so the change of plane and the change of materials can happen together but don't just change the material so I think these I think this whole this section is sort of there's reasons why they're all in there I mean I don't know if we want to go there's anything that's um there's reasons I me the next one I flagged was the windows have to be taller than they are wide I mean restaurants have windows that are wider than they are tall don't they so that is typical of we do we ask for first floor retail that that is larger windows or display windows but when you look at the upper levels um or again I'm going to use the gardener school or the other schools typically we say first floor we want to be consistent and you're wanting the architecture to fit in with the town of Milton so you don't want big just Square SES all over a building um but of course a first floor retail that is consistent with display windows and that we we actually ask for more glass in those areas that that's more transparency that's where that language came from um than solids um but in commercial buildings but that's where what the memory care project um a lot of the schools that we do a lot of the buildings um we we ask there that's sort of the dimensional and again if it's a different type of architecture we look at that okay if I can skip to the next one the next one I am more serious about than a lot of my other comments you say garage entrances and services and loading areas shall not pace at street directly it would seem to me that it's a lot safer if a loading loading area is facing a street the truck can just pull in if the loading area is not facing the street there's a lot more turning and a lot more it seems a lot less safe and that's as I said this is something I feel more strongly about than some of my other comments am I am I totally off base well again we're looking at the thinking about the business districts uh with something like this and so if you um can not have it be your pedestrian Zone it's better so if you think about some places that you've been where you walk by a surface Zone and you smell the garbage you know I mean it's this says unless No Other location is feasible of course it has to be safe I mean that's part of the requirement um but this is really has to do with the aesthetic so if you have an option uh we'd rather have the aesthetic you know be onto the side or the back yeah but the Aesthetics seems to go against the say you know I'd rather have a big truck back straight in unload their whatever and pull straight out rather than and pull in and turn I'm I'm getting out yeah it guess it depends on the application honestly so it's one of those things where we set out what we'd like to see and then it gets discussed okay these are all about sort of setting out our things to talk about first of all these are the things we're going to talk about these are our preferences and if you suggest to us that you can't do that or you want to do it differently then that's what we talk about in our hearings okay thank you so yeah and I'll just use an example because we do site we did wall cut Woods site plan approval we were seeing a lot of condominium uh condo projects coming in um and applications where they were um putting all the garage doors right in front you drive by and so basically you go around the circle and you see garage door garage door garage door garage door and you've seen those examples of bad design so we at part of their thing was can we have a design so you have your garage on the side so you're looking at a beautiful front facade and not necessarily looking um at a wall of garages as you pull through a development and seeing you know 20 units or 30 units at a time so it's just is a better aesthetic if you can do it that way it's how Union Point is in Waymouth it's all garages all garages all garages for as far as developers getting away from the trend but it sometimes will just have to ask and that's something that if they see this in there they'll be oh we'll design it that way if it doesn't matter I mean they all they're beautiful but for you know the way they have the garages but it's just I appreciate it okay um so um I think Roofing Terraces set back that's normal okay that's we'll skip that um so Jay um getting down to J cheyen um that's B um retail you wanted to add businesses shall have a majority of the facade made up of Windows you were just thinking of a different way I I just thought it was hard to read okay that's yeah have greater proportion of transparency than solids so see through versus yeah this is just again kind of standard in other um if that's standard language that's okay I find it hard to read this goes back to we're very lucky to have Cheryl on the board because as an architect um you know she deals with this language all the time um and she is familiar with it so we're very the's very lucky to have her thanks Magie this is moving down to waivers um which explains a little bit more about how waivers um can be applied well she changed that word there businesses oh sorry we didn't want to change it sorry yeah I was reading from the red L version okay um M before we move to waivers I think one of our members may have question I'm sorry I didn't see her so with regard to big letters f i don't have the page numbers in front of me I'm sorry oh I think it might be on page three F G H yeah so big letters f g and H so that goes from page three to standards site design standards General Building design standard so and noticed a lot of those things really relate to when we were talking about it just now a lot of them really related to sort of commercial use seemed and I'm just curious because when we talked about the site plan review all the way at the top it said the applicability includes um adus but then when I read these individual things don't really seem most of them to apply to adus so I was just curious about that and also to Jay's Point again I don't feel this way about this board some board down the road okay different people um I just would worry that these standards like you have to have a garage that doesn't face the street well now I have a garage as part of my I don't know why I would house my car there in my tiny Adu but I have my garage and it you know I'm limiting my ability to have it face the road or I have to have a certain number of trees or whatever solar panels and things so I'm just curious about why we included adus here and didn't exempt them out of those um fgi whatever I said because they also fall under the do Amendment again these are things that are in here for for any site plan review that would come before us but it's going to be different for each site and it's going to be um what is possible on that to make it the best that it can be and sometimes you know people come in and they're like oh we didn't think about that like oh you could do it this way we did that with a gardener school they came in with a single story building and we said you know what could you reduce the the the size and the footprint and make it and they made it a two-story building and it was much less impactful um and less retaining walls and they're like oh we could do it that way so that's what this is about so um oh can I add on adus um you know the final regulations just came out and we were well into this um when we received those and we still don't have the model bylaw from the state so I anticipate we're going to have to we may have to modify things as we see what the state's F model bylaw is um and we may have if we keep it in here we may have to call out that these particular standards um don't apply to adus or don't don't apply in or set out separate things that apply just to the adus or subject to the limits in the bylaws or something like that what we wanted to have is a consistent place for everything that requires site plan approval so that's why we put it here um but we are sensitive that it's a scale that's different than everything else here right so uh a lot of these standards are really intended for a larger scale um and so if we have to come back and revise that uh in terms of the Adu I think we've been waiting to see what these final documents from the state look like before and but we thought we should capture it now and there and be able to take it out if even if we had to in May at the Maytown meeting and again we have to be able to defend any anything any condition that we would be asking that it it would have to be appropriate and not excessive in any way so um okay um sorry moving thank you good thank you um so waivers we were down to waivers um which is uh KL waivers hi if if I can speak to this yeah when I read it it looked like the board can only give a waiver at the pre-application and I wanted to add something that says oh maybe you can also give a waiver later that that's what I was trying to say yes it um I I don't know I don't know if you agree with that but no and that is um if after the application has been filed um during the review process in public meeting or hearing CU sometimes things come up during public hearings and the board determines the addition information additional information is required um they we would you know sometimes we would need more um I don't know that we would in the beginning say we needed a site plan I mean a um civil or or some sort of plan that we wouldn't actually know in advance that we would need so you're saying they if they ask for for a waiver but I'm sure things do come up that um a matter of fact I'm I'm thinking of examples where we require certain Road width and they might later come back and ask for a more narrow road width I think we've addressed that before I'm trying to think of things that an example of waivers that are asked for after you're saying after the waiver period can they come back and ask for a waiver later I'm saying it the initial language makes it sound like you can only Grant waivers at the pre-application conference as my understanding pre-application conference is optional it's recommended but optional so I wanted to add either either that doesn't happen or that does happen but for whatever reason they submit their application they're missing something they get rejected and they come back to you and say ah I applied I got rejected maybe this would be a second pre-application confence I like the last sentence gives us the opportunity to which last sentence the last paragraph in the section yeah okay sure yeah the board upon written request of the applicant wave site and building design standards of this section that's actually not the same as the submission standards submission requirements I'm sorry where were you you like the submission requirements yeah submission says you have to include 1 2 3 four five and they say well four doesn't apply to me I just wanted to give you a little more flexibility to Grant to waiver and I think there's a lot of flexibility in this document to Grant waivers yeah I think we would my experience would be that the applicant would request as many waivers as possible at the beginning and not during during the process but um um I I don't know I I I think the final is I mean the wording I I understand Jay's point but you know I think that does give I think it does as as member Oldfield indicated give give flexibility to Grant those waivers I don't know if anyone else in the committee do you have any I think that it gives you the authority to Grant the waivers whenever you want to however I think that the language makes it so that the applicant has to make the request at the pre application conference I don't know that I care I'm just saying that I think that you can grant the waiver whenever you want for any particular reason that you want well you have to have written request of them but I think they have to make their requests at the pre-application conference and that would be because wouldn't be deemed a complete application uh when they filed it if so that's the thing they they can't we don't have to accept an application unless it's complete m and um if we hadn't granted any waivers then we would have an incomplete application okay well no you would state that those that those studies or whatever are waved and I think at that point it would be a complete application right it's just the timing of the request for the waiver Jim right no I'm in it yeah and I I'm actually leaning towards agreeing with Jay um to give another opportunity for waivers I just don't like the wording of after the initial application is submitted and rejected I mean why do you have to quantify it like that or my El Grant such a word I don't think that's our language is rejected oh no I I know I'm just I'm just thinking it through it's all right that's all right you guys well again Town Council reviewed this well I I kind of I kind of come back to again what I just said which is that the planning department would go back to the applicant and say you we can't start the application because you have not provided all the information therefore a complete application and if if that's the case they they would say I would like to request a waiver not to submit XYZ planning department would take it to the board board would discuss it and we could Grant the waiver and therefore it's deemed a complete application we could start the public hearing so later for them to request it we don't usually see that it sounds understand the context for how it would come up what they're asking us to review they usually have a full application by the time it comes to us yeah that's true I've never seen it it come later I can imagine a situation in which somebody could say here's my plan I think it complies you say no those trees aren't you know sufficient enough or whatever and then they say well here's the reason why I'd like you to wave the whole tree requirement or something but I think that you know kind of I often think about the margin cases and so I think here what Cheryl's saying and what say Meredith makes a lot of sense that it would be on the front end um but I think you still have the authority as a board to make a waiver later the way that it's written as part of that back and forth process that Maggie was talking about earlier so but isn't the danger there that if we wave something on this project but we don't wave it on the next project we're going to wind up in court I mean it's so I think basically the way I I would see it and understand it is that um I wave up front I I present the application um it's rejected and I talked to you about the one piece of it that is rejected and I go back and then can request a waiver and refile is that is that how that would work so um there are time restrictions for if if you have a denial so what you would be better off doing is asking to withdraw without prejudice so that you could come right back with some additional or different information and we do see that happen and we see that yeah and if I can play Devil's Advocate a little bit to the response that I know Town Council has reviewed this wording I guess my response would be imagine someone on the floor of town meeting standing up and suggesting one or two or 10 of these changes that I'm suggesting now that that'll that'll that'll make for a long night so that's well hopefully they'll watch this meeting and we have questions we hope that they don't do that because we have spent a lot of time and a lot of years cherl more than anyone and perhaps it's not perfect but it's way better than what we have okay so I'm trying to bang at it and poke it every week anyone's listening it's way better than what we have and we've been working on this for months and months and unfortunately Town Council has had it for months and it's unfortunate he did not release it sooner so everyone could see it so I would hope and that the warrant committee supports it and I would hope if any town meeting member has a problem they should get it straightened out before town meeting for yeah I would just say too we've had public hearing open for two or three meetings with no comments coming in on site plan approval except perhaps one from former member odonnell who had a couple of questions about some of it and um some of that may not be answered until the AG reviews it or hlc reviews it and um you know what the like I mentioned with the adus the rags are just have just been continuing to be updated and um so it they have made a lot of um I guess Provisions in the regulations um that establish what is protected which means there's very few things that we can put in our zoning so and and even on site plan review um but it h it does allow for site plan review so if it allows for it then what are you going to review you have to have some opportunity to review if it's allowing for site plan approval so I think it's one of these things where it's probably going to go back and forth a bit and you'll probably have to revise it and revising our zoning is um even when we've worked on it for a long time is Not Unusual right so um even after the AG reviews it um we may need to make some revisions to it so right so every so I don't know if everyone knows but every um bylaw does go to the AG she's got 90 days to review she'll um uh review to make sure it's not in conflict with state law and then she sends the town a letter and if there's anything in it that um she is concerned with so then we have an opportunity to fix it great so let's just um we're almost in the home stretch here um if we can go down to can I real quick ask the next sentence that says if after the application has been filed I didn't know why that sentence was in a subject when a in a section title waivers and does it have anything to do with waivers well I think this is where the board's reserving its right to if it had wave something but during the course of the hearing it finds that it actually could benefit from something that we can still request it so I I suggested maybe adding if you need information additional information which was previously waved because otherwise it's just sort of open-ended saying the board can ask for anything which maybe the board can't ask for anything but then why is it a section called waivers it can be very difficult also to predict everything that we might like to see in an application um so this does preserve a right to ask for something that's not in the list okay and I I think think I I know it makes it look like it's burdensome but um who would have predicted like an exterior stare at a Milton Marketplace is is something that we're we're looking at so it's just hard for us to predict everything you know anticipate everything so it gives us an opportunity wood there aren't they they wood as well aren't they so I mean it's just yeah with the vinyl uh so so you know a lot of this is based on other things that we've reviewed but we we do want would like to reserve that opportunity thank you Sher so this getting down here um Jay I think this is where you had a different we had some things that were filled in that you for some reason didn't have in your draft so um cheyen if you can just scroll down under M authority of the board that was fine but when we get down to n timeline this is the timeline here um um authority of the board that was we down to n yeah so this is that's our is blank that's strange because it was on what and do you have what was just sent by Cheyenne based on our last meeting that's what this is this was but they should have that too I don't know but that that's what was have the same file name this this n if if you're looking at the the last sheet it says n timeline and it says o c approval those actually just got broken up so what it says for o is 10 so what I have on screen is the latest yeah so like in formatting drive to oh yeah and that's what has that makes more sense I didn't do the other side of the quiz wanted to go you sorry teacher um so timeline why don't I read through I'll read through these and you can see no later than 30 days um you wanted to add after the submission days it's a t that is a typo we can change that after the submission yep of a complete application and should be complete completed expeditiously in general site plan review okay so we got on that o the decision was your P so it's you have this language but it was just the P um project phasing this was fine this is um now it's to be consistent it's p appeal is q r is severability so and there were no issues on that that was just the letter it was the just the lettering so I just wanted to make sure that you all saw that and that is our article on site plan review yeah um now it's 910 do you want to power through Adu at this point and try to get through these or do you want we have to vote three changes we yeah we should we vote it's up to you chair because yeah I defer I mean they're going to still discuss but we can vote whether can vote right yeah and then we will we'll take it as show as a that's good I just want to make sure we weren't getting ahead of you all right so if you'd like to make them so can we just um show those uh Cheyenne we've lost it so this was Town council's language notwithstanding any zoning yep to the contrary sorry all right and we can scroll down yeah 17 changing chapter 260 from 15 chapter no chapter 260 chapter 26 chapter 2 I know but okay I just didn't know if it was supposed to be section yeah it says chapter and then but other things are refer we'll double check that with do you have have my computer FR what section I can look it up yeah just go to the um General bylaws of the town was it w it is it SE or chapter oh yeah it says chapter 260 there over here it say section oh no read you both chapter let's put chapter and we'll just verify it with Town Council I think it would be a chapter I think section is a mistake okay so well I say chapter okay chapter before too chapter chap just the number then that Chang and then application this was the application sell include and was it was after um under that right I wasn't paying attention under no later than days after of right so motion to accept yeah so I'll make a motion to accept the changes as proposed uh in the document on the screen this evening uh second okay roll call Jim yes Sher yes Maggie yes and myself yes thank you all thank you great so can I ask an open-ended question or sorry a high level question so I think there's a lot of improvements here but as we discussed earlier there's also you're adding things you're reviewing for example the restaurants uh would you and this is a trick question would you still think it was an improvement and better if we made all these changes but didn't say we're going to we're going to cover the restaurants I think that's an important part of our our changes it's all of this is we've sort of this is a cleanup of everything that we've had to deal with that are issues and putting it in writing um okay so it just it just is making everything more clear for an applicant um and right I I would agree with um um Meredith um we've applied uh Lessons Learned From applications uh over time to this which I I mentioned earlier that I've been wanting to do this um the restaurants are kind of a late addition to this but an import an important one um and I think um and any application that I have reviewed in East Milton Square um neighbors are just concerned about all of them and it's just better uh for all involved neighbors applicants and review bodies uh to be clear and to give the right tools and so um it it will make it easier we've plany board's had to go through some difficult applications because things haven't been clear and uh I think this would be much better I mean you're talking about the clear which I love that's the majority of the document I love the clarity but there's also the expansion of what you cover in site plan review you previously didn't cover restaurants that only made an internal change and now you are so those are sort of two components of this and so so one possibility might be to do the the other component but not so one one thing I'll say is I'm I'm going to use a particular example of the Milton marketplace where there's a there was a a restaurant that had hours from 8 to 2 5 days a week and then a new application which is increasing seating in the same square footage and increasing hours from 7 a.m. until midnight some days out of the week and operation seven days a week um and the kinds of service that requires in terms of delivery iies trash pickup odors from a kitchen noise those are all the things that we review in a site plan application it was if they had not put in that exterior stair it really wouldn't have triggered a review and we actually they didn't think they really needed a review and because it wasn't all that clear and we said we think you need a review and so you know whether by cooperation you know they they came to us but it would have been much cleaner and clearer and you know those impacts for the Neighbors we heard from a lot of neighbors who are right next to that property who were concerned about noise who were concerned about odors who were concerned about deliveries and so forth and we've talked through all of those and it's um they have to go back to the board of appeal it's a complicated type of Permitting there with a pre-existing non-conforming use but in any case it would have just been um at least it sets the expectation the next time that there might be something like that because the impacts are different when you're extending the hours and you're extending the type of business and also when you know better you do better we know more and we now when we're doing better with what we know and overall it will just be more helpful to everybody is is the goal so that this will be um okay I'd like to move on to ad8 and I think it would be good to get going on that but I that's why I was just going to say we want to try let's try to get through this this would be great okay so cheyen if you could also pull up our original draft of the Adu to make sure we have all the full language great and I'll just while she's pulling that up just to read for the public who might not know um the purpose and intent of the Adu um the intent of per permitting accessory dwelling unit is to increase the range of housing choices add dwelling units to meet the needs of smaller households and to make dwelling units available to moderate income households who might otherwise have difficulty finding housing allow dwelling units on single family Residential Properties or in a single family District that are that are appropriate for households at a variety of stages of Life encourage more economic and energy efficient use of the town's housing Supply while maintaining the appearance and character of the town's single family neighborhoods encourage the ReUse of existing accessor structures which may have historical or cultural significance or the preservation of which would generally contribute aesthetic value to the landscape neighborhood or town and provide an opportunity for homeowners who can no longer physically or financially maintain their maintain their single family home to remain in homes they might otherwise be forced to leave um then it goes into a definition section um which Jay I know you had a lot of comments on and wanted to take out quite a few of the comments we'll go through those because there's reasons why they're in there we basically took all of these from the hlc's regulations these were essentially just cut and paste lifted because we thought it would be good to have them in some of them we um I know you may not need um but there's reasons why a lot of them are are in there um so accessory dwelling unit um this is the definition of an Adu a self-contained housing unit inclusive of sleeping cooking sanitary facilities on the same lot as a principal dwelling subject to other otherwise applicable dimensional and parking requirements um and then we list we have a b c and those um there were no comments on when we get down to and again that was taken right from um hlc building code the mass State Building Code um just for reference sake if anybody needs that um bus station the reason why bus station is in here is because because I I think you would wanted to take it out um this is a requirement this is um referenced in what we are allowed to require for parking so typically we are allowed um one parking place that we are required to we are able to require one parking spot per Adu on a lot a a homeowner just to be clear can provide as much parking as as they want we're not we're not um asking them but we're limited unless it's within a half mile of a bus station which they Define more as bus stops or or trolley um and so that's why that the bus station is in there because if it's within a half mile um we we cannot require that there be a parking spot with that required so we'll get to that later but yeah I I think it's just we're going to need to capitalize it later under the parking requirement section okay great bus station Commuter Rail station these are all design standards a dwelling unit um these were all um there is a typo under dwelling unit um let me see where was that I think it was an and see oh I'm sorry you know what that's under gross floor area and we haven't gotten there never mind um so eohc fire code gross floor area um you had in that um under walls separating buildings or dwelling units that you wanted to see the dwelling and the unit capitalized that was this definition comes right from the r yeah this is right yeah so I don't think so yeah we're not going to change it we're going to just keep it shyan because it's it's directly from the regulations the way it's written in theirs um but there is at the last sentence a protected use size of oh you had be used sorry oh that was just how you had changed the I think that say GFA not GFS where there are multiple dwelling it's GFA and the regulations and I think it's gross floor area corre okay I didn't know yes it should say GFA not GFS and I noted and I don't know that we care but I know there was one other change that I um just they are before you go there Liz I think the point about protected use words I think those should be struck also I think that was a correct flag because it's not a definition and a yeah of an Adu and that's what J Adu it's under it's in that definition of growth FL area the there you go yeah I just um note that under dwelling unit you added this definition does not include a mobile home trailer however mounted um from the regulation which I don't have a problem with I'm just pointing out that was a little bit that was additional language that we added yeah yeah um but which we are allowed to do yeah I don't have a problem just saying that that's an addition for so let's just so we we changed Cheyenne can you highlight the GFA and and do we need to highlight that as just so when we go to vot tracking the changes yeah track the yeah GFA and then um we took out protected use so in Adu would be actually we should use our original language right we should remove the protected use but I think what maybe if you just undo those changes Cheyenne and then put track changes on it show up yeah it's it did oh pried use you said delete that okay okay got it that's okay perfect thank you cheyen you're much better at this than any of us could be so thank you um so next on here is uh historic district the reason why this this is one of the definitions also from the regs but we put this in because we may be looking down the road future local historic district we wouldn't have to come back and amend the article it would already this language would already be there um lot that's um that was fine there were no issues on that so we can scroll down dwelling again these are principal dwelling these are all definitions station zoning station so principal dwelling also says protected use Adu and we want to get rid of the protected use I believe I think that's right okay great thank you short terent I think all the definition the rest of the definitions were fine there weren't any typos there on then C General conditions and requirements for an accessory dwelling unit um one the last cent uh going down yeah on the last sentence by special permit variance waiver or other zoning relief or discretionary zoning approval um I think your question was where would that be where would an example be of a single family where would it be or it was sort of it's not a single family District like so we do have pre-existing non-conforming structure single family homes in business districts and we actually allow them okay they're allowed yeah so this is us being a little bit more generous because as I read at least the legislation not the regulations it only needs to be allowed in single family zoning districts so are we being a little more generous here no no this is required wherever you're allow wherever you allow a single family dwelling you have to allow an Ado okay thank you you couldn't build a new single family home in a in the business district it it's an already existing single or two I might beg to differ I think we do allow special permit we do allow single families in the business district districts it's um something that I think should be looked at but pretty sure underly is still residential okay that's good clarification um so yeah it's we would allow it to answer your question um under there shall be no more than um one and you wanted to capitalize Adu I don't have a problem with that can I say something funny about this uh the when we use Adu in an accessory drilling unit to we use it just Adu at the top and just call it you know accessory dwelling unit and just go Adu throughout the whole document yes I think so maybe we can do that at the very end with cheyen just just to make it for consistency where I it was okay I'm sorry I didn't mean to no cuz I had actually when we were drafting this thinking that this bug this bothers me and Jay's Jay makes a comment it it and that's how I caught it so right adus um shall not be eligible for zoning variants um zoning dimensional variances um propos to increase the number of allowable adus on a lot in in our new um with the new Adu um regulations we can um limit um one Adu per lot other a town could if they want allow more than one Adu which would trigger um going through the zoning board of appeals but we as an not we just because we're starting off with this we thought we don't know what kind of impact this is going to be to our building department we're we're we don't know how many are going to come online at once so we thought we'll start with um a limit of 1 Adu per lot but our understanding is that if it's a two family an Adu can be put into one of the units okay when I read the legislation State and I haven't really read all the rig or the model but when I read the legislation it says for more than one Adu or rental thereof in a single family district there shall be a special permit for the use of land or structures I don't know I I'm confus I'm honestly confused but Town Council you know I don't want it to be bounced back by the AG yeah Town Council is okay with it I guess I am that's sorry I it's the webinar that was put on by hlc indicated that towns don't have to allow for more than one but the regs could be different from that the time that they were at that webinar so it is good to get clarification thank you I agree yeah we definitely make sure um okay um so I think that was it then we jump down to four a detached unit um and you were wanting to put those in a lower case yeah it's not a defined term okay shall meet the dimensional requirements and you were just asking what are dimensional requirements so um that would be height uh of a building um side setbacks um what would be others um when we're looking when you're looking at single family residential zoning it would just be consistent but those are it's measurable they're measurable it things that would be included and every District can be different right there'll be different setbacks for different different zones um thank you so that was that on then six this goes down to gross floor area um of an Adu the last sentence um you asked to capitalize accessory dwelling unit but we're going to change those that should just be a ad Adu those are all going to be become Adu okay um number seven an Adu may be um rented for periods less may not be rented for periods less than 12 months um at a time and is prohibited from being rented on a weekly or daily basis the Adu shall not be used for boarding and lodging or other commercial use so the 12mth was consistent with what most leases are in in Milton um if you look on any properties being leased typically it's a 12month lease um occasionally there'll be a shorter term but um that would not be standard um the the boarding and lodging those are simply um vrbos it's a hotel referring like a hotel stay so we called all different types of things now Airbnb some people referred to we don't allow um any of that a vacation I guess my two issues 12 months I believe it's standard but if we're forbidding it could it be like six months wouldn't that accomplish the same goal of oh it's not a month to month but if you have a visiting Professor from out of the country who wants a six month rent it's not a hill I'm going to die on it's just we're forbidding this um and the boarding and lodging I think I know what you mean but then again I bored and Lodge myself and my family in my own house so I didn't know if these were well- defined terms in the law yeah I think it's a matter of you're related to your wife and your children it's when there's I think three or more people living in a house that aren't related to triggers of boarding house okay classification I just wanted to be sure that was clear and the 12 month no not interested in any wi room there well I mean if you want to argue for six I mean why not argue for three you know I live across from Milton Academy and one there's a teacher that wants to teach one class like I really I feel strongly about stopping transient housing in the town and I think 12 months is a good number yeah we sort of landed on 12 just for a and that's something I like 12 we could always amend it if we found it was problematic but later time I think Julia has a question oh yeah I was just um I had the some similar thoughts to Jay um I wasn't entirely clear on that uh boarding line either exactly what that meant um and then I also had the same thought around 12 months um as someone who has both been a renter and has rented property I own before um there are so many situations where uh you know only having that minimum 12-month option uh is not ideal and I understand we don't just want you know transient housing but when we think about um you know Helping Seniors stay in this community what if they are you know building adus to have that extra source of income and we're making it really challenging for them to find renters because of that 12month um limit so I'm I'm with Jay that I I would be in favor of considering something you know six8 nine months that allows a little more wiggle room than the 12 because there are a lot of situations where um yeah professors are are coming into town for a semester and just need a six-month lease and I think that could be a really um good option for uh the Adu setup I also wonder if um Milton Hospital is taking advantage of visiting nurses that go for 3 month periods um so I think it um that 12 month is something that should be thought through a little bit more so I think if you're an older person and you're renting out an Adu to help with your income um I think managing somebody around renter you know two renters as opposed to one renter in a year becomes challenging for an older person older residents don't tend to be um landlords um you know I'm thinking about my mother-in-law for instance and I think would' be better for her just to deal with one um renter than two well I mean that's their call we can't you know decide what's what's best for all of the seniors one thing that I find just in my real estate experience is people want more than one year because they want to lock in their rent rents have been going up so high so fast they I actually have people who often the landlords having to lessen the the the lease term or wanting not to commit to anything more than a year but often renters are wanting to lock in and they want a longer a longer rental period um I've I've had my own listings that are shortterm and my a landlord who didn't want and it was really hard to actually rent that unit for a six Monon one landlord didn't want to rent I don't doubt all that but we're forbidding something here should we forbid it it's worth the discussion yeah I it was sort of where our board landed um but you know certainly you could make a recommendation um for the war if the warrant committee wanted to to make a recommendation on that but that's just the language that we um felt most comfortable with just um coming in and this is all very new so I think the next um item uh you would delete eight it was a and vers versus and just a typo and do you see that and in Adu instead of and that was the only thing on that uh design down to design standards can we um on number nine bus station Community rail station could be capitalized to match the definitions yeah Trolley Stop is a planning board terminology that's not doesn't exist in the rags okay um thank you we had talked about that yeah um so the next oh design standards one exterior modification to a principal dwelling or accessory structure as well as the construction of a new detached units shall be architecturally compatible um with the dwelling unit including use of complimentary color da da so you were asking so detached unit shouldn't be capitalized since it's not in the definitions all right so detached unit we would lowercase that and again um this is consistent with language we looked at a lot of other adus and other towns as well um obviously if you're saying if there's a more contemporary home with a historic Barn structure um we obviously would not require but this this is under well what this is related to I'm sorry exterior modifications when you're changing the ex exterior of a building I don't know that somebody would be changing the exterior of a barn or structure if they wanted to keep that historic structure look so um I don't know what an exterior modification is it could be very L I had a question about all of the design standards so all of section D um in the regulations it says prohibited um unreasonable regulations include design standards that would not be applied to a single family residential dwelling in a single family residential zoning District in which the protected adus Adu use is located um are these all things that would apply to single family residential houses as well do we have that the difference is you can so we have site plan approval because an Adu falls under a um the do Amendment which does a do anything under a do Amendment does allow site plan review so these were things that typically would be looked at and I think we put them in here um they're sort they're consistent with what you see with other adus in other towns no I don't doubt that I'm just confused because the regulations say that for the design standards specifically you can't have ones that aren't applied to single family residential dwellings in the single family residential zoning District in which that Adu is located so I'm just wondering these requirements that are in our design standards are those requirements that apply to single family homes as well in Melton so the interesting thing is that you don't um when you have an Adu it's a second unit and so having a an an next serious St is not necessarily something that's contemplated in a with a single family so it's addressing something that's unique about an Adu I was more at the first one Cheryl yeah I'll come back to to that one and then the uh separate entrance as well um and having a pedestrian access to a the second unit is is important that those are not contemplated if you only have one unit right um then yeah the first one is a question right because um but what we're saying here is that it has to be compatible because you're adding the second unit and there isn't such a restriction on a single family because you're not necessarily adding another unit so I understand what the regs say and I think this is really a question whether what hlc is going to say about this um and the but but also they allow for um it allows for site plan approval for edus within reason yeah yeah within reason so um most most communities don't have design standards for single family homes unless it's in a historic local historic district um so I don't know how other communities are are handling this and we'll see and whether this will be acceptable or not or whether I personally think that we should see what the model bylaw looks like and I was thinking it was going to come out today um and it they said it was coming out I think today but if we get it before town meeting I think that could help guide us quite a bit it's only 9:45 okay I I would still say on number one it might given how this town likes its histor structures it might be good to put some words in there um again if you think I'm being annoying about this imagine someone on the floor of town meeting raising this point no that's why we're going through everything now here yes I don't have suggested wording I'm sorry what was the suggested wording for this I don't have suggest oh okay well you could take the shell we could change if we wanted to because right now it says a predicted um as well as construction of a new detach unit shall be ar architecturally compatible with the principal dwelling you can thank you you know what let's why don't we review that with would we really want something that's not compatible though well again if it's a historic Barn in a modern house do you want to make the barn no longer look historic that was my concern that's that's right I you lost me there's a historic Barn like if there's a historic barn and the house is not historic it's modern looking and then they want to modify their Barn to be an Adu and they do you know they touch the exterior they shouldn't have to make the barn they should be able to have the barn still look historic or the out building or whatever it is yeah I guess they should so something something if it's historic looking something something you don't have to change it let's why don't I run this by Town Council and ask if appropriate or you know some language that gives an option for a waiver on that but unless you could change shall to should um and that would and I'm I'm not saying y'all would shoot this down I'm saying the applicant will read the rules and we'll think well I guess I got to do it no that's well in any you're not looking at me so I'm just going to start talking okay um in any situation in which um if there is like an existing garage or an existing building that they're then converting into an Adu those buildings would exist and so people are accustomed to whatever it looks like already and so if you're not really touching the exterior so much maybe a little bit to have to then redesign it to go along with the main principal house so what we could do is similar language is number two is if sh say is encouraged to be architecturally compatible there you go and you're not mandating it but you're that would hold up better almost like expression but there something something nonconforming it's like already pris nonconforming I mean that's kind of what this is right because that's so shall be architecturally compatible with the principal dwelling um so what this is trying to get at is having some something that's an Adu that looks like it belongs there and not done as inexpensively as possible like a box that's just brought in and dropped in right it's so it's it's trying to do it within the parameters that the state setting which is pretty difficult but I I do think we could say is encouraged rather than shall if if we want to allow the sort of pass maybe pass must with with what the RS say but I don't know up to you but I just think it's more likely to be held up and you still have that language and people still see that and then they will do it and know what to expect but I think do we think there's any historic barns with a contemporary house in town yes that's our concern I do I do I just know people like their historic things and people will freak out if you don't make an exception for historic things you do whether it's real or not the freak out on town meeting floor will be real new detached unit is encouraged to be that's where if you take sh out because sh is has a very specific meaning and should or is encouraged to be has different meaning and that's why we when you when we get down to two you question the encouraged because we didn't want to cross that line and we didn't want to force that but we're saying you know it is encouraged um yeah and again because maybe this doesn't apply to existing but now we're adding a unit we're adding a driveway we're adding a parking space so we're wanting to encourage the a design a direction here again not clear if we can mandate it right number six um pedestrian pass will be provided from the sidewalk or driveway to the entrance of the principal dwelling and you were asking why a sidewalk to the principal dwelling yeah that seems to have nothing to do with the Adu is needed I think that certainly in in this safety issue and this part of the regulations it's just part of uh providing a appropriate pedestrian facilities which uh to encourage walkability so having a a a sidewalk provides an accessible route well that's to the Adu I'm asking why we're saying anything has to be done to the principal dwelling in this in this part of the zoning code again it's 9:51 p.m. not a hill I'm going to die on that's why I emailed these to you over the weekend I think you were just it's accessibility in general but um question um seven um energy code um was not in the list of definitions above so we did um one of our original definitions did you there's building code in fire code I I didn't see energy code I'm sorry okay so energy code we could add a definition or or take away the capitalization but the energy code that's applicable in Milton is the um stretch code the specialized stretch code and that could change the definition well so could the others that are def lower case maybe we put that in the lower case to lower case it's a lowercase on energy code it's great and I think later in that line we say requiring and that's I think we want to say requires MH unless the code requires such Incorporated y y agree good okay last page um number two under uh under process and procedural requirements creation of an Adu is an expansion of the existing or is an expansion of an existing principal dwelling or an attached accessory dwelling structure let's see you have here I mean this this I was just questioning what we've discussed earlier tonight you know should this require site parent approval and we've discussed this topic all right so we're good to leave that um number three a completed application form and filing fee in an amount determined by the building department we discussing this decided um first of all that would not be under our jurisdiction to decide what that would be and it could also change so if we put a set fee in there the building department May later change the fee we would have to go back and amend this article so this kept in a way kept it okay um but let say the town of Milton decides we don't like adus and our fee is $1 million well that's ridiculous we get sued okay it's $50,000 I mean the building department I think charges typically $100 yeah okay I'm just saying making sure that we're not unly restricting them a new for the town a new Revenue source of the Town exactly but that would be under their jurisdiction we wouldn't have control over that and the lot the the amount could change over time so um that was language we put in there um B and C you just had um capitalized dwelling in unit on both B and C and I think that was it for those so so we'll have a vote on from our board on we have any other questions oh sorry yeah any um I don't know I I'll defer any member of the committee have any further question on the Adu okay anybody online Karen yeah Tom this is Ron I oh Ron please uh um I didn't see any language about subing and I wasn't sure if that's that that's relevant here the 12mon language we talked about that does give me concern around sub leasing because if someone has a a 12-month lease what a sub lease also be required to be 12 months I just don't know how that works I don't know if it's irrelevant if uh we already have the landlord and one tenant so that that just jumped out of me typically that would be up to the the owner of the property if they would allow a sublet to happen um you would have a lease and then if for some reason the tenant wanted to um couldn't fulfill or wanted to move out and you wanted to have somebody sublet that apartment um typically that would have to be approved by the landlord on that term of rental I don't know that we could regulate yeah so sub subletting is not forbidden by this yeah correct okay makes sense but that's a it's a good question very good question I don't think we would have jurisdiction over that any more questions concerning this article I was going to raise another point so to Ron's question because it and I don't have it in front of me anymore but because it says that the lease should not be so I think a sublease is still a lease and I think that because it said shouldn't be used for boarding or other commercial purposes that language I don't know that a um you know to Jim's Point earlier I don't know that the tenant could then turn their leas premises into like an Airbnb even if the landlord agreed I think that that language is precluded so I think that's fine thank you LZ any anyone else because that is a concern no no I know said that so you wouldn't want the tenant to then turn around and turn it into and be running it into yeah that's why the boarding and lodging was probably General and Ron thank you for bringing that up it was a really good question so I just have as to the document are we is um we going to do like a search for that Adu like word find and change I was just making just and I think my second right here so I think my second question is do we have anything for Town Council to look at in this document are you going to vote this evening you or you have one thing you in in this document correct yeah we have that one item but we're going to have him look over we he's he has both of these okay um he has everything but I'll we'll send him this our amended version of this for review to make sure he has that okay um okay if nobody has any other questions and you have nothing else to add as to Adu or any more comments could we maybe do a little overlay District housekeeping yeah really quick yeah that's great um but do we want to vote on we need to vote on these Chang V yeah before we all right so is there a motion to approve um the amended article of AD you I make motion to approve the amended article okay great second all right roll call Jim yes Cheryl yes Maggie yes and myself yes okay great thank you and yeah in the housekeeping we'll go over cheen can you pull up this uh La the final um map updated map article yes I'm just going to save these changes really quick and you all have had a chance to discuss this a little bit that these are zoning articles overlay districts that have already been approved at town meeting and for some reason it was just um an oversight that the map did not accompany it so now anyone looking to do overlay development in these overly zoned areas can have a specific um map to to look at anyone wants to add anything any questions online no yeah we um uh the Town Administrator discussed with with this with uh this with us at length and the war Community likes Maps so we looked at it talked about it you know big map big map people here well you can see the history of all the overlay zoning that's been going on you know in the Milton Village and Central and oh yeah the potential for future Revenue yeah absolutely so um okay Jay you have a question can I ask about a different topic sure so um there is a Citizens petition which we'll have to be thinking about which and you and I talked before the meeting but I said I'd bring it up during the meeting uh and it say it's the citizens petition is asking town meeting to vote to instruct the planning board and I'm paraphrasing here to to prepare a 25 so-called 25% plan for the uh May town meeting and I was wondering if the planning board has any comments on this so I told Jay just to advance because T so we have not discussed this as a board this isn't this is not one of our articles so this is not um we have not had a chance to discuss this so we're not we weren't prepared to comment on this um I would refer you to town Council and um I know he's advising um on this do you know if you will have a comment as a board I mean it's just been sorry so it's basically a mandate forcing us to do a 25% plan by May no well they're they're want they're putting it on the town meeting floor so that's the question so that's I would advise speaking to Town Council on what um what actually can actually happened with this article so thank you all right okay thank you um well I I really appreciate uh the time I know we're missing one of our members uh Sean Fe but um mer Meredith as a chair and Cheryl um Maggie Oldfield and and Jim at home we really appreciate you taking the time to come in I think Jay prepared and others have had a lot of great questions but I think walking through it the way we did while arduous I think really educated a lot of people uh hopefully there're people watching at home and and gave a better understanding of site plan and all the work you've done in the adus and everything for the town so thank you from the warning committee and also uh thank you uh for the people of the Town yes no lights lights we're not talking about lights I thought we were talking about the maps yeah do we we did the maps we did are we going to talk about the light that was we did that's we're we're through with our article so it's not a planning board Artic that's not a planning board article oh sorry that's yeah I know I saw that I I should have said that in the very beginning for people who were maybe watching that that's a select board article it's not a planning board article so and the rest of the Articles as well so thank you yeah great so with that I would entertain a motion to adjourn from the planning board so moved okay all right roll call Jim yes Cheryl yes Maggie yes myself yes good evening thank you thank you great Bo appreciate it very much thank you thank you thank you great work long nights thank you for all of your work you guys are amazing second to the plan okay um coming back on Wednesday I'm looking to get some speakers for the lighting uh by law um and anyone else who can maybe speak to it um I know that they have a little work to do in terms of getting the review of the language for these articles I was hoping we could come back in on Wednesday and maybe discuss these more at length and have a a bigger conversation about them and obviously maybe we can just talk about some of the language that we made Corrections on thanks Jay tonight and I know there were a couple of things outstanding but maybe um at least get the majority of the conversation through and once we get the green light from Town Council maybe vote um we only have three weeks left until town meeting so um I trust we're going to come back on Wednesday and based upon the scheduling I can get from select board member and maybe others probably three times next week okay what is so for Wednesday you're thinking we'll mostly discuss the Articles we discuss tonight yeah I like to I like to to do an in-depth discussion okay of these articles all the planning board and just kind of get a feeling on where the board's at after that discussion in terms of voting so we can pull the trigger right right away once Town Council does what he needs to do with the planning board's question does that does that sound right I think this so you're thinking we won't be voting on Wednesday we could vote it's on the agenda okay I think we can vote on this that's why I put the vote I did the Dave humph we did the we put both on there just to give us the freedom um for people to come in and talk but we can vote certainly if that's where the committee thinks we're at and it did sound like there were a couple items in here that I can't read the mind of the other warrant committee members but some items in here that we might want to say yes or no to individual items maybe as an amendment um I mean yeah and we can have that conversation about this but I think it's just um just talking through each of the Articles uh these are significant things for the town so I want to make sure that we feel comfortable in our recommendation uh in the language and the verbage of the article before this gets on the floor of town meia so I don't know I think that's meeting I think that's a whole meeting for us Liz so then do you have any plans to have somebody come in to speak with us about the citizens petitions I'm trying to do that okay next week sometime yeah we need someone to stand um I think I think I'm going to have one person to come in um um and maybe somebody from the select board um or maybe a citizen um I don't know but uh all fingers have me pointing at at a select board member to come in and maybe Town Council yeah oh Town Council absolutely I'm going through um with Mr Milano and get him here um for us that's um we've had them usually at the end at the in the past and then the lighting bylaws next week with the guest yeah that would be with the citizens petition at the same time yeah I'd like to probably the same speaker maybe for all three I'll do my best I'm trying to find I was trying I started this weekend uh trying to find uh who could really accurately um discuss you know not accurately but just discuss us the the intentions behind it the meaning how it came to be um we've had citizens petitions in the past usually the citizen or citizens will will come in uh who've signed it um I don't know if that'll be the case but I'm trying to find a little bit of that too cuz it's kind of always good to hear some like you know not a town meeting member just you know a group of people who who came up with it um you know would come in just kind of hear it from their perspective uh so that's it so we're going to be back here on Wednesday planning board articles full discussion anything else we're looking to do and a potential vote if that's where we think we're at someone has their hand up chair thank you I um I wanted to mention since I know we were kind of in the email exchange um with with Mr Lawler about you know with the local historic uh District study committee and I know that you know you might been busy uh Tom and I was going to let you know if I like need to get with you about that filling you in or especially if you need me to kind of communicate with them uh let me know no absolutely and uh Aman and like every everyone else with our subcommittee and our the various we're going to be turning directly back to that after a special town meeting I'm on and I've had some conversations it's not on the agenda tonight but about with Mr laer in the historic district so um I can reach out to you individually about that yeah no of course happy to talk with you about just wanted to let you know no I appreciate it thanks they're meeting up soon so we historic to should come in uh Jay uh something I mentioned to you before the meeting uh so we heard from the planning board tonight about their view on all this and in particular I'm thinking about the issue of you know site plans for restaurants you know I just want to throw out there that we might want to have someone coming in to present the other side maybe someone who represents restaurants in town saying here's our feelings about the site plan we consider that just we had a conversation about that before the meeting I wish it would have stayed there but oh didn't mean to make you uncomfortable we'll we'll talk about that and I'll give it some consideration okay that didn't mean to put you on the spot okay um I I'm gonna say one more thing we got some minutes I'm going to bring minutes back up minutes so I'm going to surprise everybody with some minutes if you could just review them when you get the email and not just see it and not open it and not look at them uh Cameron works really hard on them and we have to get them done for the town please our comments to the warrant have they been submitted with the warrant they have okay they made the deadline thank you everybody who took time Jay Liz everybody uh who took time they were excellent Ron um Judy I want to really thank Julia uh for all your help I was instrumental and um no one's ever stepped up like that so thank you Julia Maxwell um Lori uh for doing the school comments taking on all three so I want to say it was really great um it's really great getting everyone's um hand in the uh everyone in the mix on those and um you know it'll be a similar situation with the annual those are a little more boor uh boring um some of them but I'm sure there'll be a couple of good ones for us to work uh with uh work on individually okay that's all I have does anybody have anything else I'd like to make a motion to adjourn second second all in favor yes yes yes thank you yes thank you thank you we are Jour see you on Wednesday e