##VIDEO ID:3f2C0iyUyGI## for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all hi everyone thanks for coming tonight first order of business is public comment we will receive oral Communications from members of the public members of the public May address the select board for up to 3 minutes longer with the permission of the chair the select board shall not engage in discussion on topics raised during public comment but may choose to add the topic to a future agenda this agenda segment will be limited to 15 minutes and less extended at the discretion of the chair do you have any public comment tonight seeing none we're going to move on to Grants gifts and Don donations we have a mass D sustainable materials y program which is smrp recycling dividends program Award of $1,225 motion to accept second any discussion on that Leslie this was the one that we mentioned last last time right do we know how we're going to spend it no that um I think you and I brought up the subject um and Tracy and Alicia and everybody else should know but it was because Christen puts out a uh okay that's just a copy of it the Board of Health hasn't met they'll have to determine how they're going to spend it okay all in favor I Executive Office of Public Safety and Security eopss the department of fire service DFS 20 uh fiscal year 25 firefighter safety equipment Grant Award of $15,500 motion motion to accept second is there a second second any discussion on this one gief did you want to speak to this at all or I can if you'd like me to it's uh so this is the continuation of our the process we started last year um we were lucky enough to get uh this is the second time within you know the year that we were we were awarded the 155 uh it is the uh it's just the continuation on trying to keep our guys safe safe you know our members safe by uh making sure we we meet the standard for the turno GE great so yes thank you is this a Federal Grant or is it a state gr this is a state Grant this is a state Grant yes we have two other grants in process right now through the state um safe grants for working with the Council on Aging and also with the schools we just haven't heard back from the state on those yet so great we're working on it got a pretty good Grant R we do we work real well good nice bringing a lot of money well done thank you Chief okay all in favor okay under new business we have the housing production plan it's a presentation by Ian burns from mvpc Woody the chair of the planning board is here do you want to speak first just going to introduce okay y plan board's been working hard uh on the 61 articles and the housing production plan it's been on the works for over a year and a half and they've been working with mvpc and and Ian's got a slideshow for you guys and I'll turn it over to Ian Burns thank you Ian thank you Woody W thank you Woody thank you very much it's good to be here with you all um again my name is Ian burns with the Mary Mac Valley Planning Commission I oversee the community and economic development team over there over the past uh really two years now we've been working with each City in town across the marac valley to update their housing production plan um this is a state guided plan that I'll explain in a little bit what it all means but it's been a great process um in Newbury we've gone through several public sessions and had some great meetings with the planning board and so we're glad to be here tonight uh looking for final adoption of the plan from the select board uh so I'm going to do a brief presentation I cut it down a bit from what we did with the planning board to kind of give you a summary I believe you all should also have a copy of the plan to review um but I'll do a quick overview and we can go right to the next slide here here so a housing production plan itself um if you are not familiar with the term it really is established by Massachusetts General law however they're uh mostly optional for communities to adopt although they are optional they provide um additional incentives if you have a housing production plan in place so on top of it helping you uh plan for low and moderate income housing needed in the community they help you develop a strategy to add affordable housing units and the plans themselves if adopted by a local community can offer a pathway to what call Safe Harbor under chapter 40b some of you are probably familiar with 40b which is the state law that allows developers to override local zoning um if you have not enough affordable housing in your community however with a housing production plan if you have a plan in place and then you produce a small amount of affordable units every year um you can receive Safe Harbor before you reach that state mandated minimum of 10% of your housing stock being designated as affordable that's a lot of jargon in terms of hyper breakdown if folks are unfamiliar but it really is just another pathway so as you're establishing more affordable housing you can get closer to your goal and have safe harbor from a 40b development in the process yeah can you explain to me what that exactly means Safe Harbor yeah so Safe Harbor is when you can uh deny a comprehensive permit so when a developer wants to build affordable housing in the community if you don't have 10% of your housing stock designated as affordable then they can override local zoning and build it anywhere they want essentially right and you essentially have to issue them the permit to do that if you have a housing production plan in place and you're producing affordable units to get you closer to that 10% gold goal you can deny a comprehensive permit a permit that comes forward from a developer um in the process because you have a plan because you have a plan and because you're making progress towards the 10% you have to have both so this is the first step the plan and then once you start making progress you can um get that certification that you can deny a comprehensive permit yeah thank you you said anywhere they want would within I guess my my question is is is it things have to happen first so that this this particular developer would have to own the property right so it would have to be purchased right what I mean is yeah is is a land and it would be known ahead of time whether we are in Safe Harbor or not right even before he buys the property right correct so it seems to me like a lot would have to happen for a developer to come in Buy chunk of new have us not in Safe Harbor and then just start building whatever we wanted and can he build whatever he want at that point well that recently happened at the end of Pearson Drive what's that that recently happened at the end of Pearson drive we have question yeah absolutely can have it the Cricut Lane project yes um in addition to that process of what we refer to as Safe Harbor a housing production plan in the process we went through here in Newbery and in all the communities across the region we work in was not only to talk about how are you adding units to get to that goal of 10% that I'm referencing in 40b but also just what are generally the housing needs across the community and how can we individualize this plan so IT addresses not just what the state is saying housing goals should be but what do you really need here and what can we um make sure do to make sure that residents have access to the housing they need so we kind of took a deep dive into the data for the town and looked at the housing stock that exists and compared that to what the the current demographics and demographic Trends are looking at to be able to say okay here's what might be the right fit for town here um we did that here in Newberry and like I said across the region so we wanted to do a localized fin to it and hopefully you can see a little bit little bit of that throughout the plan um so you can go to the next slide there Ian can I ask a question and maybe my answer uh also if because it's so local um in newb do we have restrictions on floor Heights meaning how many floors we can go up for a 40b could we build a eight-story building for 40b now in New and if we can a can't does the transit area allow that kind of condensed development so it's two questions so I'll start by saying that the the MBTA communities District us from that is like that's what I'm trying to tie it up to so those Transit districts would do not allow for that height in them they are have a height restriction I think we ended up with three stories and maybe two and a half yeah um in terms of the height that a developer can build under a 40b they can't just build literally anything they want it still has to adhere to what is appropriate for the site so they go through a process with the state I'm not an expert in everything every step they have to take with the state but they can't just build a tower and drop it there they go through an iterative process to get that approval um and typically they're the scale of what the other developments are in the area so in a place like Newberry I wouldn't imagine IM that a 40b would be six stories they' probably aim to keep it at three stories or below my question really would without trying to I'm not trying to put you on the spot at all but they could with a 40b enablement so something like this housing plan could make a lot of sense if you start to unless people want that kind of development yeah yeah there's always I guess an outsid chance I can't never say never um but that is that's why it's important to do this planning and have that that protection potentially in place um so some of you might be aware that the town already had a housing production plan these expire after 5 years so the last one was approved in 2019 and expired in 2024 which is why we're doing this process again this planning process began in 2023 in collaboration with the planning department uh we had a couple public engagement sessions uh throughout the process even more than what's listed on there so we of course had a virtual session on zoom and we had an in-person session with residents where we really brainstormed potential goals for the housing production plan process we also had uh several planning board meetings so we presented to the plan uh back in November to the planning board and that was open to the public in their uh ongoing conversations in December and January were also open to the public I will say at the same time this was happening as you all know we were also going through the MBTA communities process in Newberry so there was almost two housing initiatives happening at the same time naturally those conversations gelled in a lot of our meetings so we did have during that MBTA communities process we heard feedback about housing that we were able to incorporate in the housing production plan where some feedback might not fit with the MBT community's piece but we were like let's save that and hold it for when it comes time for the plan so there's some Advantage there when we did some public engagement with MBTA to be able to incorporate it here so these are the actual plan contents like I said you all have a copy I'm not going to go in detail in each chapter here tonight I just want to give you a quick highlight from each chapter so that you can see exactly what it looks like but the the state has a brief outline for what they require in each housing production plan so we're required to do a demographic profile and local housing conditions that's called a housing need needs assessment for the state then we're also required to list some housing production strategies and areas in the community where it might make sense to have additional housing stock uh given the recommendations that come out of the plan so we'll work through that a little bit in this presentation so I'll just show I think it's two or three data charts and I think you all have seen maybe some of this before in some of the other presentations I've been to the planning board or here before but a few key points number one are the uh demographic projections for the community so this is the age distribution projections um and this is looking at the percentage makeup of each age cohort over the next few decades in the community the big takeaway here Newberry like many of the other communities is that blue line that you can see sharply increase and then it does kind of level off in future decades but that's your 65 plus population so we are seeing a significant increase in adults over 65 here in Newberry and also in the region so we want to think about how we accommodate for that changing demographic what's important with this is thinking about the fact that that this is a projection based off of current trends and current demographic Trends so if you continue doing the same thing that we've been doing for the past 10 or 20 years this is what the projection is there are changes of course that can happen in the community that would cause those to to vary over time so when we think about your housing stock we think about okay we see a dip in that green line you're under 20 population um a healthy Community is a growing community and has a future generation in it so how can we make sure that we have maybe a steady flow or at least a a Hold Steady your your under 20 populations you have kids in the Next Generation in town and then we think about what housing stock is needed for that so that's some of the tools that go into this thinking when we look at demographic projections this chart's a little small so I'll just explain it to you this is the housing unit occupancy versus what the actual size of the housing unit is for this chart what we want to see is are people what we call potentially overhouse and when I say overhouse I don't mean that everybody wants to leave their house if it's too big for them but we know that in some cases we have folks that are maybe empty nesters their kids kids have moved out of their house they're in a four-bedroom home it might be a one or two uh person couple living there and they might want a downsize but there may be very few options in the community to do so what this chart looks at is how many people are living in the units and how big are those housing units themselves so on the left that uh purple and orange slice there is h four or more person households and three person households so you can see that's about uh 60% or that's about 208% of the households there and then on the right you have the size of those households the four plus bedrooms and the three bedrooms purple and orange again if you line up those colors you can see there's a lot more of the larger homes than there are of the larger families so the colors are corresponding there um and then on the right the blue and yellow um is corresponding to small housing units and small occupancy the left is the occupancy there's a lot of people a lot of twers households but not as many two-bedroom units um that you can see on the right there so what that's showing us is that there may be intense competition for those smaller units in town if some uh adults or empty nesters are looking to downsize I say that knowing full well that there are plenty of folks that want to stay in their house even after after their kids move move out so we expect a bit of a mismatch but when we see something that large that suggests to us that there's a good amount of competition for small units in town and we want to find a way to encourage options for downsizing should folks want to look for that uh the final data point that we have in here is cost burden what we look at here is are people paying too much for their housing than they can probably afford new is in a unique situation like some of our small towns where the Top Line there are renters in the community on the right that that brown section of the bar is what we call not computed because there's so little census data for renters in the community you have a large margin of error for Newberry so we're not shocked to see that there was a lot of either non- responses there to the census question um or some margin of error because there's so few renters to begin with but what this tells us is some general Trends in the community of how folks are paying for their housing and if they can afford it the middle bar is is your overall um uh occupants in town households in town and the Bottom bar are your owners and we see generally 30% of all households and 30% of owners are cost burdened which means they're paying more than 30% of their income on housing so that's your gross income too that's your pre-tax income when you're spending more than 30% of it that means you're not then spending that money out in your local economy at your local shops or restaurants that sort of thing so that Flags to us that folks may be burdened in the amount that they're paying and when we see that 30% that's a high number in terms of the households in a community so just to summary to bring that all together what we're looking at here in the community is maybe a potential for both population Decline and an increase in uh the over 65 population a decrease in your under 20 population um lack of housing options both for um new residents moving in and smaller homes for adults to downsize to and thinking about how all those demographics can interplay with um your housing needs in the community I'm going to skip right on to the next section um and talk a little bit about what the rest of the plan shows for context and recommendations um in the plan itself we break down what is called Housing Development constraints so that is factors like environmental factors infrastructure regulatory considerations we don't do a full scale analysis of here's your current sewer capacity and how here's how much more you can take in um what we do is we say okay there's no public sewer in these areas there's no access to public sewer in these areas this has to be considered when you think about the potential for more housing here so we know that with such limited opportunities for hookup to public infrastructure you're naturally going to be constrained with your housing options so that all factors into when we think about recommendations and what's actually um feasible in the community for potential more housing options um that goes along right with your environmental constraints about half of the Eastern side of town is Marshland and so when you're thinking about um what can actually be built how can we make sure we both protect what exists today in the Marshland um Plum Island those sorts of areas and then what are the areas that could maybe see more development while making sure we're protecting those places out there so that's part of the discussion what we do is site some other plans the town has gone through uh to keep in mind things like your hazard mitigation plan that you the process that you went through there and so we can look at the environmental factors to be aware of and so lastly this is just a a summary of each strategy itself as you'll see in the plan there's a full breakout uh Matrix of potential first steps for housing production strategies and detailed paragraphs under each of these um for how you can Implement and how you might want to think about implementation the top five strategies that came away from this process number one is actually already underway uh reviewing and modifying the existing accessory dwelling unit bylaw um that process started a few months ago with the planning board um we started this strategy production before we knew exactly how the new state law would shape up but your Adu bylaw looking at allowing for additional options for homeowners to build accessory dwelling units and that will I believe be coming to your town meeting this uh fall for that change so I'm sure you'll be hearing more about that soon spring actually spring sorry I'm getting my Seasons confused here um the next one exploring the feasibility of an inclusionary zoning bylaw what this refers to is um requiring multif family development to incorporate a certain percentage of units as affordable so what we see in other communities is that when they build um let's say 50 units of multif family housing the community requires 10% of those to be set aside as affordable so that could be five affordable units set aside or maybe it's 15% maybe it's 20% um in Newberry we've actually secured a grant in partnership with the town to study this and see if it'd be appropriate to adopt an inclusionary zoning bylaw and mandate developers to include affordable unit should they build in somewhere like um the MBTA communities District or elsewhere or if there's afford or if there's multif family housing built um in town number three establish an affordable housing trust um so the the town currently does not have an affordable housing trust that's not rare for small towns however a lot of uh the neighboring communities in the region that might be a little bit bigger do have affordable housing trusts what these are are an additional option in board made up of residents that can distribute funds uh for the use of different uh Housing Programs things like down payment assistance programs for residents those can be funded through a variety of ways number one is they're often funded through uh an inclusionary zoning bylaw like I mentioned earlier as part of those bylaws you can have a developer pay into an affordable housing trust if they're coming into town um affordable housing trust we also mention our often often paid for um through some other programs like CPA which I know has been a discussion in the past year in town but isn't currently but we mentioned in the plan that that has been uh what other communities have used to fund an affordable housing trust and be able to distribute funds to the community in order to have um programs available to Residents to Access housing they can afford number four is what we refer to as right-sized housing this goes back to those smaller units that I was discussing earlier there's a couple models that we mention in the plan itself as to how the community could encourage additional small housing types a key one that we mentioned is a new uh program called 40 y this is a new chapter of Massachusetts law that allows communities to adopt a zoning District it's an optional zoning District but it allows them to adopt a zoning District called a starter home zoning District or right siiz zoning District um and that zoning District would uh mandate that if a developer came in they would have to build smaller scale potentially detached single family homes instead of just large maybe one .5 or $2 million mcmansions in a typical subdivision but we could encourage and require and incentivize even developers to build smaller scale detached single family homes that could be accessible to firsttime home buyers or accessible to folks downsizing that program is really key because uh if communities adopt a zoning District the state will actually provide incentive payments to communities for adopting that zoning and on top of that the state will pay communities incentive payments for every unit that is then built within that zoning District we're tracking that close L to see if it be something viable for Newber to explore but we think it could be a good option for that right siiz housing and then finally we talked a lot about Community engagement and education we saw during this housing production plan process and during the MBTA communities process that a lot of residents were eager to learn more about housing and ask questions and understand what exactly the need was if there was a need if there is a need how can we address it um what are the tools that we can use uh we've seen uh local advocacy groups crop up in Newberry and in neighboring communities around housing and so so we think there's been some good momentum in town here about education on Housing Development and that should really continue so that uh not only residents are aware of the potential need and and solutions to it but also our local boards and commissions are aware of the need and potential solutions to it as well um I think I'm stopping there completion implementation timeline so you both have to adopt it the planning board adopt it the select board must as well um and then we will send it off to the state they have to review and approve the plan um to make sure it has everything that they request it is incorporated into a housing production plan um and I will end there happy to take questions on it thank you for your patience as we work through that thank you for going through that good job um that was very well done you answered all my questions um does anybody on the board have any questions how does this compare to the other communities that you represent yeah as as far as like in the middle of the road the two ends of the roads that's a very good question I would say unsurprisingly you're similar to a lot of the smaller rural towns that we're serving so as a refresher for folks we work everywhere from Lawrence to Newberry Port and so the like communities with you all we're with rally and West Newberry Groveland even those types of cities and towns the need is pretty much the same in all of those communities that chart I showed you about the mismatch between um the unit size and the number of people living in those households it looks pretty much the same across the region when we look at Cost burden that's the one area that's the bar chart that I showed that Newberry is doing a little bit better than its neighbors in terms of uh resident cost burden and so what we see across the region is that uh about a quarter uh to half of all renters are cost burdened and then we see um over a third of all residents are cost burden so we see renters are cost burdened at very high levels but less here so in Newberry um versus you know some of the other communities the goals are not too dissimilar um in this plan from some other communities what's unique about Newbery like I said is that Community engagement um the options for pursuing an affordable housing trust and what I've also noticed in conversations with the planning board is an openness to things like inclusionary zoning and others where there's some momentum already other communities are a little bit behind you in that that that forward thinking process I would say uh for future changes and I I think this might be more for us than you but the strategies what strategies are we looking at like what what what are we there's five strategies here that are in in this thing here right there's I know I know I'm familiar with all of them I'm just wondering which ones are we looking at adopting are we going to adopt all of them we going to adopt one or and have we adopted any to this point well I think and correct me if I'm if I'm wrong once we adopt this housing production plan the planning board in conjunction with the select board will look through um I think we are updating I think that's later on the agenda the um the bylaws for the accessory in units um adopting inclusionary zoning that's might be talking about that but I don't think that's going to be coming so these are this is just a like a a road map for the next five years and then in the next four years we start over again with another public discussions and public hearings and then we do it again for another five years it's like constantly evolving very much like a master plan where you have your goals and you might not accomplish all those strategies strategies over the next 5 years so that's when we come back and say what' you do what didn't you and how can we move forward you go ahead sorry I just now this has got nothing to do with density or anything like that as far as if a developer comes in and which the whole density issue is what we're going to move on to next with with with the uh the Z the zoning yeah that's which which is the next topic of discussion so this has got nothing to do with density or number of units per acre or or any of that is that correct no correct yeah what I was going to say is that I mean it's obviously important that you have the plan but you said we have to have performance to the plan so deciding what strategies to use are pretty important it's obvious and I I I I see this whole process is in the best interest for the town of Newbury yeah it's going to help us ward off another unfriendly 40b so when we accept this this goes back to the planing board for public hearings and such no it's already been adopted by the planning board we have to adopt this yeah that's that's the next one Jeff that's what's a little confusing and then it gets submitted to the state good which is it's it's needed yes yeah we need to have a housing production plan accessory by law auth is still one septic system that actually now I think can be two under the new state law it's different from what had that's what I had heard which makes good sense otherwise you're smacking everything together good all right any other questions one more yeah the projected population yeah through 2050 it's pretty staggering does the state is the is the thought process that that that this and obviously not this alone but this is are we are we really are we trying to turn that around is there a way to turn it around do we want to turn it around it's a regional issue it's not that's a great question because it it to me it's mindboggling that our population by 2050 is projected to almost be cut in half but we need to increase housing I so regionally the population is growing and and in Eastern Massachusetts as a whole the population is growing Newberry and other small towns are seeing a population Decline and that's really a result of the the net migration and out migration of residents both within Massachusetts or around New England or around the country and also folks aging out of the community and no longer being here anymore and there's not young families coming in to replace that and so we see that DEC yes and that's a huge driver of it is the cost of housing um and so thinking about we see it raising everywhere else the population why is it declining here and how can we like to your point reverse that Trend because that's concerning for a PO for a community see that's actually part of my question is is was do the statistics because I read I read all the information did the statistics assume that when we create affordable housing and we reduce the cost of housing which I don't know how they we're going to do that in nu but that that that the population is going to increase and and another thing that I read in the report that they talk a lot about is commuters so which which which to me I don't think new is a good example to use that against because when you look at where you can go in town in the town of newb to get a job where you're going to be in six figures or let's just say 2 $50,000 a year which is which is you know if you're going to buy a $900,000 house and like they talk about just just 40 Grand to put 40 grand out on a $400,000 house for a typical I want to say middle-aged person is almost impossible to come up with and then you're getting into PMI and all and all that other stuff if you can't put that 10% down so I I have a hard time trying to figure out and now I I get the the cookie I understand the cookie you know the carrot that's being dangled in front of us where we don't want to be forced into having the port 4A where we don't want it and so on and so forth to me that's about the only reason to do this because I don't see a need to have a housing production plan yeah well then you ask yourself though Dana where do you see owner's potential for this to hurt the town I'm sorry say the question again if you look at the perspective that that presented there's not many regulations or goals within that so where in your mind do you think something like this would hurt the town that's a really that's a really good question so otherwi meaning that why bother to get too involved because it's all going to work itself out you know well because I think I I I I like to broaden my Horizon like out to the state level and I I totally understand you made a really good you know you you you talked about how you know we're kind of a unique situation here in regards to the rest of the state and I guess the only thing I object to is that the state is trying to take this cookie cutter approach and apply it to everybody which I just wish maybe there was other options you know what happens with towns that have different demographics that that's all you know what happens when you build a three-bedroom house in the town of newb now it's a million dollars yeah that's the driver so you know for me when we get things like this and it's always been cuz I came from but Jeff they can they they'll sell too well and cuz I came from the planning board you know with Marthur I did seven years on the planning board if it's not injurious to the town and looks like it's information we I I keep it kind of dumb and simple because otherwise you could get lost in this this h bbal i I understand so I kind of want to go back to reframing the whole purpose of of having this here um this is a planning tool that's all this is it is a um the marac valley Planning Commission oversees 15 communities is that what you oversee 15 communities and they're putting together a regional housing plan and this what we're going to vote on tonight is going to be one chapter in the 15 um communities it that says this is what we are and if we if we don't have a plan and we don't drive our own future the way we want to go we're like a rudderless ship at sea that's just blowing her up well I think also Alicia the ability to have some Safe Harbor yes like if a developer came in and was able to finagle a hookup to water in Newport or something like that mean some serious devot by a rudderless ship when you don't have a plan and you don't you don't have a path forward you're going to be at the mercy of these 40 BS that'll just come in and and do whatever this this is I think I feel this is very important for the town of new to is this a requirement by the Commonwealth I don't it's not a requirement it's encouraged and you get additional um points in Grant applications if you have it um and like we mentioned earlier that protection for 40 BS but it's not statuto that you have to have it or else um situation so it's it's a best it's a best practice um I would hate for somebody to go pull out the marac valley planning uh Regional Housing plan and just not have the town of Newbery in there that we don't have a plan we're just nothing Alicia yeah can I ask Marthur a question go ahead marur and is it is it Dan Dan yeah how are you nice to meet you by the way I'm Jee Martha do you see any real pitfalls for us in this personally no not at all I think it's a it's a benefit and what it does really is it it sort of synthesizes and puts out a lot of the things that we've been talking about in terms of how to encourage different hous housing options and sizes and and get families back to town and yep makes sense to me right so you know even so multi benefits one is potential Safe Harbor if we're able to encourage the additional affordable housing but also just a road map for the town to really start looking at things that we've been you know we've been talking about inclusionary housing for a long time to try to get some affordable housing and um you know the the accessory um apartment by law we adopted we were one of the first communities to adopt that so you know this is a refinement of that but um the affordable housing trust is also something we've been talking about for quite some times how to establish that and that really is a mechanism that can help fund additional housing so it's all very much in line with issues that we've seen and things that we've been talking about the affordable housing Trestle that's not going to bring down property values no but it does provide um if you have and correct me if I'm wrong on any of those um if you have an inclusionary zoning bylaw for example and a developer is required to um build you know one unit for every four units that's one affordable unit for every four units that's built there can be a provision that they can do a payment in lie of doing that and right now we have no mechanism for a developer to provide a payment so that could go into an affordable housing trust or as Ian was saying if we had Community preservation act funds could go from that to help us develop some affordable housing so and to your point it doesn't bring down property values but then the trust could then disperse let's say a down payment assistance program to your point how can people afford it you can then use those trust funds for programs like that to help people get access to housing in the community they still so expensive though is I I have one more question is there is there any differences between the one we're doing right now and the one we did in 2018 yes can you explain what those differences are um the the most quickly the most obvious difference I would say is the one from 2018 had an extensive list of goals and strategies I mean I want to say there's like 20 a lot strategies listed in the plan and when we looked at that we felt like it was pretty impractical and a lot of them listed were kind of pie in the sky ideas so what we did this time around was really tried to narrowly tailor those recommendations and say what can be feasibly done over the next 5 years and what fits Town versus what we saw 5 years ago was a list of 20 that were seen pretty much in all of our communities and across the state and so we tried to make that more specific this time around and that's it that's that's the most obvious one I mean there's been plenty of other things but that's the easiest one to note yeah so if that was under that plan what was the production like the second part of the deal um that's a good question I don't know if you're actual unit production we list a couple things at the beginning of this housing production plan of some accomplishments over the last few years uh in the town um and Martha maybe you can speak to some of them if you know at the top of your head but um in terms of the actual numbers of affordable units there wasn't huge production of affordable units I would say in the community for the last few years but you've since permitted some so we have permitted so we'll be having six coming online yeah but we have a section at the beginning that lists a couple things that were accomplished the past five years yeah okay did I interpret that wrong that some of the accessory dwelling units would be considered affordable so there's there's small affordable and big affordable um so they they could be considered affordable in the sense that they might provide housing that is more affordable than you know our large housing but in order to actually get them to count on our subsidized housing inventory they have to be deed restricted and go through process right and so you can't require the homeowner would have to go through that process which in my opinion is unlikely because it's very arduous to go through that paperwork um and the town cannot require the accessory dwelling units to be to well I would imagine that would open up a bunch of discrimination laws on who you could have live I mean like let's just let's just call it an in-law apartment okay I only want my mother-in-law living there well once I open up that can of worms of of having it go towards a 40a or b or whatever it is then now I have to let anybody live there I I'm just throwing that out there is and I don't know if that's the true or not but I can see where people wouldn't want to do that so well it's not going to be restricted to family members anymore right it's not our current bylaw doesn't restrict it to family members and the new one won't either it actually can't okay so I'll entertain a motion to um accept or the adopt the housing production plan I'd make a motion that we adopt housing production plan and forward it on to the state I would check on that okay any further discussion all in favor hi hi thank you thank you all so much thank you you you're you're very clear thank you so much okay next is the the planning board is getting ready for some um Springtown meeting and cleaning up some of our bylaws so um there's some proposed zoning bylaw amendments that are um listed in your packet um this this vote what we need to do is we need to refer this back to the planning board so that they can have a public hearing on this so I would entertain a mo motion to refer the Amendments back to the planning board for a public hearing motion made second okay um discussion um if we want to um provide comments to the planning board um we're not going to do it now we're going to um the planning board you're always welcome to attend the planning board's public hearing which I think is going to be the end of 19th 19th February 19th February February 19th you can always attend that and if the board is amable or would like to entertain I'll add um this as an agenda item for our next board meeting uh to go through this and pull together comments to provide to the planning board that they can use um and that would be before the public hearing correct at our next board board meeting which is before the public yeah this February 11th I think is our meeting let me look hold on SS right 11 yeah 11th is our meeting and their public hearing is the 19th so but the planning board will so this way the planning board will have their public hearing they'll get our comments and then they'll do it then they'll actually will come back to us for the warrant so I don't know if if you're interested so here if you look at the uh the letter the cover letter that was provided from the planning board to us in your packet planning board hereby request um by unanimous vote vote at a regularly scheduled meeting held on uh January 22nd that the select board submit the following proposed bylaw amendments to the planning board for public hearing as required by Mass general laws chapter 48 Section 5 in preparation for the spring 2025 annual town meeting to be held on April 22nd 2025 the proposed amendments include revisions to certain bylaws as required for compliance with the state FEMA and EPA requirements as well as revisions recommended as a part of the zoning recod recodification project that former planning director Matha Taylor has been working on with Town Council planning board members zoning board members The Building Commissioner the planning department and other Town staff over the past six months this project has been identified as a priority goal in the planning Department's annual work plan in budget detail for several years as phase one of this effort the planning board is proposing several zoning amendments for your consideration we anticipate phase two of the project will bring more proposed zoning amendments at the next town meeting so a summary of the proposed zoning amendments in this round round one I phase one I'll call it is um an amendment to article one under CH this is all amendments to chapter 97 zoning so article one is the language uh is recommended by Town Council to be included as the general provisions of the bylaw so the updating language um the amendment to chapter 97 uh regulations of an overlay district with flood hazards um there's been updates to the flood Hazard bylaw required by FEMA for the town to stay eligible for the natural natural National flood insurance program along with adoption of newbury's new flood insurance rate map which will become effective on July 8th Town Council Mass DCR staff and newb flood plane administrator The Building Commissioner have provided the language and reviewed these these amendments um so that's the second one the third one is amendments to chapter 97 um zoning Article 5 special permits in gen in general um section 97 5A language has been added to provide guidance and decision criteria for the granting of special permits now section 975 C open space residential de development language has been amended and added to clarify certain provisions of the bylaw along with the proposed bylaw edits the planning board intends to review and update the osr regulations which will be done through a public hearing process later this spring uh section 975d there are common D driveways language has been added and amended to clarify certain provisions of the bylaw regarding common driveway design specifications and application requ requirements section 95 uh 975 G registered marijuana dispensaries and medical marijuana treatment centers as recommended Town Council the section is proposed to be deleted and combined with Section 975 H marijuana establishments um section 997h marijuana establishment section has been amended to include language related to medical marijuana treatment centers in article 9 special regulations Section 9 79a site plan review there's new language regarding preconstruction meetings has been added as recommended by the town storm water consultant for the town to stay compliant with the EPA ms4 storm water regulations in addition new language is proposed by the planning board um is to provide additional guidance for review and approval of projects requiring site plan review um number five is article 10 General regulations Section 97 10 C customary home occupations language has been added to clarify that uses which require a special permit under the table of use regulations cannot be permitted as a customary home occupation article six I mean article 10 number six article 10 um General regulations Section uh 10 9710 D accessory a Apartments as part of the affordable homes Act passed by the Massachusetts legislature in August of 2024 the construction of an accessory dwelling unit on a single family lot must be allowed by right without the requirement of a special permit if it meets certain dimensional criteria this lot goes into effect February 3rd 2025 in order to be compliant the town must update a successory department by bylaw originally adopted by town meeting in 2006 the proposed new section 9710 D has been reviewed with the support of M mvpc housing planners as well as Town Council is intended to replace the town's existing bylaw so this isn't an update it's replace it um number seven article 11 Administration Town Council has recommended the addition of language regarding granting of building permits and granting of variances in amendments to written definitions waren article 20 request town meeting approval to update Board of Selectmen to select board throughout the zoning bylaw that accurately reflects what this board is now named uh by uh update bylaw to bylaw throughout zoning remove the pyen between buy and law and to authorize the planning director to create a table of contents for zoning bylaw once all updates are made um in addition Town Council has recommended an eighth warrant article accompanying these amendments which would ask town meeting approval to change no that's the same thing okay sorry change the uh for select when to select Bo throughout the the zoning that I just I just read that and that's thank you for consideration of this request contact Chris uh wiy who's here or Kristen so that's bylaws in a nutshell any questions kind of a quick question of Marthur because it kind of got a little um mixed up with like EPA in velocity zones and and what a local look at that can be I mean we're not setting out locally to change like the Contour floodline or anything right well that's are we cont toour 10 now are we 12 so that's the the flood Hazard Mavs update yeah so that that's the I don't know if you want to yes so basically the this article is going to allow us to be compliant with FEMA's Maps so we have to vote to you guys have to vote to accept those Maps as well because if we don't accept those Maps many of the homeowners won't be allowed to have the flood insurance anymore now did they increase inre the don't think the changes are too extensive I I don't think so it's not like Contour 10 to Contour 12 or something right I don't think so I don't know if they've changed the base flood elevation quite honestly okay that's the thing that I'm you know with the area of critical concern out there and everything else when you start changing some of those Baseline elevations for your FL plane that gets serious I mean they haven't changed they haven't changed the Contours so the cc is still Contour 10 okay thank you any other questions I I just want to this so you're in you're going to have a select board meeting where the planning board is going to we're going to go through each of these like one by one we're going to we're going to feed our questions and Prov analysis of what of what this is and have comments and and submit that as a select board to the planning board only if the board wants to out of the public hearing if that's what we want to do well cuz I I I mean I can't absorb all of this you don't have to in in the moment right you don't you don't have to that's not tonight um we're have public just yeah tonight's just to refer it back to the to them so they can have their public heing as required by Massachusetts General La we've done it before we do it every year every time the public hearing on the 19th cor right and there will be a presentation on on each of these amendments and opportunity for questions and conversation H how it it that being said how is how would that affect the planning board's vote on adopting these Prov you guys have have you guys already adopted these Provisions no this so this is all the process the planning board is referring these these um amendments to the select board under the under the statute you have to refer them back to the planning board for public hearing after that public hearing the planning board will vote on which ones to recommend go on the Springtown meeting and they all have the zoning Amendments have to be adopted at town meeting so the so the well it seems kind of a mute point that I'm referring this back to you and then you and then you're just going to and then you can vote on it no no they're going to have a public hearing no I know but how in in the results of the public hearing how is that going to affect your vote well what will happen that's what I want ma maa correct me if I'm wrong what will happen is once we vote to kick it back to them they'll have their public hearing they'll receive comments if we decide to provide any uh to them and then the planning board will meet and discuss and go over these changes one by one then they'll vote each each change to recommend it to the select board it's a recommendation to the select board to then go to the warrant for the warrant then we'll get it and then we'll look through it and then we may decide we are the final de decision maker whe what goes on the warrant and what doesn't remember the one with the dog the dogs that you caught we do this all the time with I know you don't have to tell me I just am having a really difficult time you know referring this back to the planning board that's going to go to a public hearing and then the only the last Stitch effort would be whether I want to put it on the warrant or not the public hearing Dana might change the language in that package so you that was my question how how based on the based on the input from the public when is the public going to get an opportunity to absorb no to absorb this package before the hearing okay why don't you take that so the legal advertisement for the public hearing is starting on the 3rd of February so on the 3rd of February those draft amendments go on the website for public reading and when is the public hearing the 19th so so you they're going to get a couple of weeks exactly to to be able to absorb this before they show up yes to have an educated discuss opinion about it right to participate absolutely any more questions no you good though m I'm good okay all in favor I thank you thank you thank you thank you okay so lost my place here I am okay one this one review and approve 2025 business license renewals I have a common vuler for Kendall madm Island Cafe at 51 Norther Boulevard we you usually take them all one two three four five six seven do you want me to read them and we'll take them we'll take them all with one one vote is the board okay with that are these all renewals yeah renewals yeah join uh my apologies they apply to the town clerk so I'm not familiar if they're renewals or well it says business license renewals so well you know what we can tell because we'll know the businesses so mad mad math is that's a I know that y y so General business John B Seaman sculpture by Beverly Seaman at two Newman Road um General business Automotive subject to the restrictions and conditions of the special permit issued on 226 1986 and the variance issued on 1117 1994 by the Newbery Zoning Board of for the property at 24 Middle Road Michael Morris schneller BMW performance at 26 Middle Road Unit 1 General business fuel storage delivery Jeffrey Woodburn uh Little River realy trust at 17 Newport Turnpike General business Self Storage Brendan Kelly store yourself storage at 12 kway uh mobile coffee trailer m and Peter Aon by Coco at 12 Grove Street retail Foods common beul at vular vular in crafts gifs vitler vitler vitler vitler yeah H Matthew Koski tender crop farms at 108 High Road um this is all these are all renewals I would make the motion to sign the renewal business licenses certifications for 2025 I don't second on that I have just a question MH um this has come up before about this the variance issued in like 1994 can anybody give me any what is that about so in there was a special permit issued on February 26 1986 and there was an additional variance issued on November 17th 1994 that put restrictions it was B done by the Newbery zoning board um for the to put restrictions on 24 Middle Road so he can't doesn't his his license his business license is subject to those restrictions Matha did I say that correctly yes and is that because it's not zoned business because they have a variance they have a special permit and they have a variance okay thank thank you you're welcome okay any further discussion all in favor sorry okay old business colonial power group um National Grid uh so National Grid has it set its rates I think it was I'm going to ask Joy speak to this February 1st 2024 through July 31st 2025 their rates the rates were secured for the town of Newbury with two alternative Greener options available to particip participating residents so Joy I'm going to turn it over to you so colonial power shared with us National Grids notice of the proposed fixed basic Service rates for the period of February 1 through July 31st for the area that includes the town of Newbury that rate will be 14.67% multiple aggregate rates so that the multiple would be for the consumers who want more say and what kind of power that they're actually buying so having recently been awarded the Green community designation it seemed appropriate for Newbery to offer three aggregate rates so the First Rate is an in-kind match to that which National Grid offers so this meets the state's mandatory requirement for green energy that rate will be 12.81% so this is the product that town residents will be enrolled into if they do nothing during the opt out window um and I'll touch on that a little bit more in a moment the second option exceeds the Massachusetts mandatory requirement for green energy and actually provides 100% green energy but it's derived from wind projects outside of New England states that rate if residents want to choose that a separate rate because it's a more a a greater green energy is 12.91 the third option marries the increase of green energy local New England energy providers and still beats the National Grid rate called Mass class one Rex increases the green energy provided under the basic mandatory minimum by 25% and again is provided by New England providers that rate is 13.87% so the approximate 18 mil difference between the National Grid rate and the Newbery Community power Aggregates in kind match will be approximately $11.70 per month cost saving for customers so obviously I need to stretch uh to stress that power pricing is based on factors that are well above my understanding um that's why this is only intended to be a brief update to the board colonial power is going to begin preparing their educational material preparing their opt out mailers that will be mailed directly to each Newbury resident and they're also going to schedule information sessions um in late February and early March to help answer additional questions um this January contract date means Newber is on track to launch our aggregation program in April of this year um so as colonial power makes educational materials available will continue to up update the dedicated web page on the of Newbery website great any questions good explanation I think I think is is any of this going to be retro in other words when we can opt in if we opt in do we do we get to pick one of these options that you just talked about correct if they want to yes and if we pick the lower of National Grid will the electricity that I'm burning like like today revert back to that price no so there's no there's no retro Savings in this and um again we it behooved us to wait so that we could get the next so yeah yeah yeah now was this kind of an explanation for the fact that when we didn't return in the mail the fact that we wanted to opt out we were already opt out at that point but we're really not opt out that hasn't happened yet that's what I meant so we're really not opt out you're opted in automatically that's what I meant but we're really not opted in or anything because they haven't CH to be anywhere program hasn't started yet Lial it's coming coming so so that's good so National Grid came up with its rate at 14. 672 cents and the aggregate can beat it at 12.81% have two other Greener options so that's kind of cool does anyone have the right you can pay that carbon emission fee if you want to does anyone have the the 146 that is going to be after February whatever does anyone know what that is now oh I don't know what it is now yeah you can look on your energy B on your just to see what it is now so anybody so what what will happen I just want to because we're on TV I want to just reiterate one more time what's going to happen is you're going to be getting something in the mail and you have a choice if your if your default is National Grid that's how you default to get your your um your energy from not the dis it's the not the dis distribution not all of that stuff it's the actual powerg what it's called per kilowatt hour yeah it's that it's the generation of the power um National Grids going to their prices are going to be 14.67% separate to National Grid you will not roll back onto this they can't you're under a contract with them so there's people that follow this that know what they're doing and I believe there's quite a few of them so but this will be good because our residents that don't opt out they're going to get a reduction of about $111 a month in their in their electric bill it's a glass of wine it's it's helpful it's better than going the other way it's not February 1 yet D TR okay so that's um thank you Joy I think everybody's clear on that right yep not administrator's report thank you madam chair um so Monday morning you may have noticed a little shaking and quaking here on the town USGS National earthquake information center reported that um at approximately 1022 at 3.9 magnitude earthquake was detected near York Harbor main um several residents did contact the PD fire station Town Hall uh noted noting that they felt the impacts of the earthquake so any residents that um have any significant damage resultant of the Quake are urged to contact our Emergency Management director um Chief fiser um Chief Evans is here with us this evening congratulations to the chief he recently graduated from the fire chief officer Management training program extremely competitive highly demanding leadership and management program and Bravo congratulations well done that thank you thank you uh we also um have a firefighter job opening right now that's been posted internally at the moment um paramedic preferred correct yep so hopefully we'll get that filled quickly ored Street cul replacement project the Culver's in the water man's attached temporary Paving is complete roadway was opened on Friday with uh only one lane crossing over the bridge you'll see stop signs on both sides um just a reminder that they still need to close the roadway again in the spring for about a week for the final Paving loaming seating and the likes are they going to flare out that bump yes is that that's okay so that is going to be like fled okay oh yeah gotta thank you y I'm sure the public this is just a temporary opening y right we going that way yep um DPW is still looking for plow drivers um you may have noticed in your inboxes you've received conflict of interest law training uh you have 30 days to complete that and once you've got your um you passed your examination they'll send you a little certificate um and you can just turn that into the town clerk's office was that in this pack this week or the week in your inbox in your inbox in your email Y in your email um and the IT director is making appointments for the email upgrades you can contact joy to schedule a time that's convenient for you we'll be um doing I I don't know what the date of the actual change is it's early February right um it's my understanding the change will actually take place on Monday oh Monday and but that there will be a little bit of overlap so between the two the the old email addresses will still exist with a autogenerated notice to recipients that we are changing so if there are people who you forget to contact they'll know that we're changing over to go.org um and to make that Amendment on their end so hopefully that will fill in all the gaps yes and we also received a notification from whia they certified their end or access and deficiency funds at 1,209 898 thank you how was that compared the last year I don't have last year's number okay I know I've asked you these I think it's about the same I think it is about well typic I know you know typically it's about a 10% increase even for triton which is I don't know how we're going to make that sustainable but no no that's their access and deficiency access and deficiency oh okay I'm sorry that that wasn't they operating budget to us okay no that's their free cash yeah their free cash I think it was about the same last year roughly close enough I can find out and let you know that's okay so under correspondence we did receive a letter from um the town of um from xinity to the town of Newbury a programming ad advisory it's part of our ongoing commitment to keep you and our customers informed about changes to expended TV series we wanted to update you that Comcast right to continue carrying fuse TBD and fmhd expired at 8:59 p.m. eastern time on December 31st 2024 as a result absent a renewal of the agreement we are not currently authorized to carry HD and fmhd as part of our lineup in your area in our area the change will impact the following channels fuse HD channel 1414 and fmhd channel 1638 reach out to Carrie Morris the senior manager at Comcast if you have any questions they going to go up on the prices again it's always do okay so review approve meeting minutes I'll uh the draft meeting minutes I'd like to entertain a motion to approve the draft meeting minutes of January 6th 2025 second any discussion all in favor approved draft meeting minutes on January 14th 2025 to approve second any discussion all in favor I um warrant motion to sign warrant motion to sign once second all in favor I no executive session motion to adjourn motion to adjourn a second second all in favor