##VIDEO ID:k_2qr9YAH7Q## thank you all I wish I had more time for that Candace thank you for your patience we went a little bit over sure thing no worries okay and I'm gonna once Nathan is Nathan in the the waiting room Nathan is it is joining from the waiting room okay great hey I'm handing the meeting back over to you thank you sorry for the delay um so the planning board is uh now back in Open session meeting is being recorded and time is 7:50 all right is there anyone else uh see I see Candace is still with us glad to see that uh anyone else here um is there anyone that would like to make public comment tonight hearing none um is there anyone who is here to uh for landowner education and guidance a none okay now I on to uh the main show for our Open Session portion of the meeting which is the Massachusetts affordable homes act response zoning bylaw discussion pertaining to accessory dwelling units in particular and residential dwelling in general including affordable hous tiny houses and shs shsb Zoning by law article 7 rate of development so that's not to say we'll cover each and every one of those topics tonight um now as uh all of you know Michael has distributed a draft of some of the changes for the bylaw that he has organized into to uh different categories with a the red category being you know what's needed to meet the statutory requirement um like the blue category which is a just kind of an optional you know suggestive um changes we can make that tie in with our you know stated goals to um make some attempt at addressing affordable housing and with uh some other items in there that um may be noteworthy for the discussion uh so this point I'm G to ask Michael to uh share his uh screen and present the document um uh if you would Michael you know just kind try and kind of quickly run through uh the main highlights and then the power of film is connection excuse me I didn't hear that I ne what's that Ashley or Candace nope something anyway yeah all right well move on yeah um so what I ended up doing just to restate what uh Nathan said is I looked at the different parts of our existing zoning bylaw and you know there's things that the the newly passed state law requires so those are in red those are things we have to do um what I took away from our conversation last time we discussed was that we wanted to see if there was ways of using um our current zoning and expanding it to make things more affordable um separate from tiny houses but just looking at the accessory dwelling unit provisions and things related and then there's questions so when I told Nathan and sort of thinking about this meeting was that we won't have time to go into the weeds necessarily but I think we can either identify places that like we're all on board we're all against we want to explore more and I think we got a few months to sort of like work this all out but um so you see the red these are the things that we really have the state says you have to do so we like other towns had a requirement for owner occupancy for adus so you can't do that anymore um in terms of requirements for parking you can't have more than one parking space required so that would you know if you had more which we did not you would have to bring it down to one and then um there's a provision in there if you allow for more than one ad uh Adu that um so permit yeah the special permit um is is for if you have one but if you have more than one you you can allow for a special permit if you don't if you only have one it can it's it's uh s plan review so if we wanted one of the questions in here is do we want to allow for more than one Adu um in which case we could go into a special permit so this is a little I want an order of how it shows up and so it might be a little confusing I'm just going to to show you real quickly so 3.2 is about prohibited uses and the reason this is in involved in our review is that currently we prohibit mobile homes and individual trailers so one thing to do is to make that less prohibitive so we can come back to that but that's sort of why prohibited uses this here um the meat of it is accessory Apartments which are adus and I I'll come back in a second to go through this but this is sort of the whole part which describes what the conditions are and you'll see in this red this is where the state law requirements show up and then the last part is there's a subsequent section about two family and multi-dwelling family units and this is not about Adu specifically but this is about more flexibility in terms of creating more living space and if we wanted to loosen things up and I don't have any um suggestions here but you'll see in the gray it's questions that we might might want to consider and then there's a specific section about mobile homes and if we were to loosen up mobile homes as Adu we would want to look at this to basically say what are what situations of mobile homes are allowed um and then lastly the definition section this R is the official newly stated definition by um the legislature uh and then there's 's a definition that we could also change about mobile homes so that's sort of the high level part of it um does that make sense to everybody so far Okay cool so Michael I have a question I may have missed it what's what's the blue is that the new stuff and the blue is my recommendation for how we could um loosen things up a little bit if that was the planning board's desire um whereas the red we don't have any any choice um okay thanks sure um so in prohibited uses um it had been that mobile home parks uh mobile homes were not allowed they were prohibited and the suggestion here is that we explicitly say that um a mobile home on a permanent foundation is opposed to something that's actually can be moved um could serve as an accessory dwelling unit um and there and then it would have to comply with everything about adus um so differentiating between a mobile home that's on concrete blocks for example versus something that just gets rolled on with the pickup truck and just dropped um so that's the difference there these other ones here um b c and d they currently exist um where you're allowed to have a trailer of any kind um under certain situations so it's you can see it says as a temporary accessory structure and then it has to comply with the Board of Health and it can exceed 14 days um so that wouldn't change for things that are a temporary mobile home um there's the your the allowance for temporary use of a mobile home for home occupation and I know Nathan you had a question about this but home occupation is having a business in a home it's not about occupying um and then this is yeah and then the D is about using it for a site office for you know a project for a long a little period of time so those are just sort of tweaks if we were to if we were going to make mobile homes sometimes if if on permanent foundations allowable as Adu and other times not if they were still rolling ones you could do it under this so it's not changing anything it's just piing the language um this is where with the accessory uh Apartments the adus this is where it really comes into play um so the black is what we currently have and so what's worth noting is that we currently allow one Adu on a one acre lot now if you were to build a new house in SHO spray now you would have to have a minimum of two acres so if this is BAS basically saying is that you can put an Adu on a non-conforming lot of only one acre um so we can keep it the way it is we could I was talking to Nathan if you know if you if we wanted consistency we could see every Adu has to be on a 2 acre lot which is a 990,000 square feet um but I'm not necessarily suggesting that but we could do it um if we wanted to have more than one Adu on on a lot um which you know we're not requ ired to do but we could um we could have it be on a two acre lot like the regular home parcel um so that's sort of that um in terms of how many per lot and then the conditions I'll just cruise through relatively quickly um I added the fact that you can have an Adu for a two family dwelling um which give again a little more flexibility so you don't have to Adu just for single family residents but you can have a mul dwelling unit and it would still have to comply with setbacks Etc but we basically say it could be for and I wrote two family it could be multi dwelling unit if we wanted to um let's see do you want comments now or you want us to hold off hold on for a sec I want to do this really quickly and then we can chime in I changed the date which just you know it had been I think 2004 or something I just updated it um the red is something that we can't change um these next things are sort of the ones that we should consider uh Jeff Lacy when he looked at this stuff he said I think it was the whole planning board definitely to me and Nathan he suggested expanding from our current 75 feet um maximum from the primary dwelling um to expanding into 100 um it's something we can discuss we could make it bigger we can keep it at 75 um there's nothing in the law that says that we can't change that um this B here is related to another part of the our zoning bylaw which basically I think it might be subdivisions but I can't remember to tell you the truth I have to look but I took the language where essentially it's the concept is if you're going to do an Adu it should fit into the you know the neighborhood essentially um it should be protective of the environmental aspects around the house um and it should be in the side of the rear of the house it's supped to popping in the front yard um and then these things are things that I either copied to came up with there's a few other towns that had interesting things this I Nathan had questions about this is definitely something we should discuss but I was thinking if you have a lot with an Adu that Nathan doesn't know if this is legal or not um well Michael yeah let's uh we can C that yeah yeah so I don't know about that but the idea is if you have an Adu on on your property can you then Subs subdivide it afterwards as opposed to subdividing it and then you know basically getting a second resonance out of it um there's an issue of how long you would have if you were going to rent out an Adu how long um what's the minimum that you can rent it for um the reflective street signs I think I took from Auburn Auburn is one of the communities that has a very full Adu bylaw um the idea with Adu is that it would not have home occupation so you wouldn't have a business in it it's really just for residents um so site plan uh either basically this gives the zba the control over it oh no this is the one it has to comply with Board of Health and this would be the sighting um uh this one site plan review would go to uh uh this is just meaning this is the stuff that would have to be shared with the site plan review with a special permit um the way this ties into number I is the building code so a whole another conversation is about if we want to have tiny houses um tiny houses could be a subset of adus and we could Define tiny houses as as something that have a certain characteristics to them in which case they might be able to comply with the international appendix Q if not an Adu basically has to just comply with the building code um and then here this is this is just interesting for expansive thinking so this is in the multi-dwelling unit we currently require that for two family dwellings um that it has to be a primary residence for the owner so they're only renting out one of them we don't necessarily have to do this but it's a highlight for subsequent conversation um and then last but not least um this specifically gets to mobile homes um that they have to be they have to be occupied as an accessory structure to a primary dwelling unit um that's on a foundation it has to have water and septic it has to meet the setbacks um and then that's that so that's the whole kitten Kaboodle so yeah if people have comments or questions or whatever um and I I don't like I think we're going to have multiple conversations about this so Nathan do you want to facilitate the the stuff yes thank you um you know I I'm excited to have this conversation um Michael thank you for putting this together it's excellent work you know very comprehensive and you provide a lot of resources and um you know just kind of you know running through this a little bit with Michael before the meeting you know we're going to have uh potentially through our meeting in March to kind of hammer out a lot of the details on this and I think we should you know take as much time as we can and one of the things you I think we should consider doing is possibly having some like a prehearing or a for um something I think we should consider so just with that started um if anyone has anything that they want to uh jump into or or comment on you know please uh let's uh let's get the discussion going um I sent these to actually already to to you Nathan and Michael the requirement for six month minimal for the single units but there's no mention of um length uh individual units for a two family so I would have it consistently if it's six months minimal rental for a one unit then there should be six-month um minimal rental for a uh a duplex I'm for a multif family I sent that email actually to you and Michael you can reference it but I I I would put them in both thing is that if the second thing is that if you want to turn this on if you want to make sure it's not an Airbnb um you might have I'm not sure if I would want this or not but if you if you don't want it to be an Airbnb you might have some kind of filing system where people rent it rent it and then the file then it's filed with the land Court filed somewhere at the um town of shutesbury so you know um that the rental is going to be more than six months or not or you could just be independent but I I can imagine that people would uh use this as a source of income um and if our goal is to increase the permanent residence make it affordable housing then there must I would suggest that there be some way to see how long the rental is those are my two suggestions thank you Jeff I guess before uh I go to Robert I would just ask you know Michael I assume that you're more or less capturing comments as we go along um I guess you know for the time being let's keep them separate from your document to kind of you know keep what you have as a Baseline and and we'll have you know people's you know suggestions uh concerns or whatnot as kind of items and we can after everyone says their piece we can kind of look at it and figure out how to tackle it and I guess Mato uh you're taking minutes um which is pretty straightforward but I ask that you also uh do your best to try and note uh as we go um the suggestions that uh members are making so now I'm going to ask uh Robert you uh would like to uh go yes um I I I gather that these changes that you uh are suggesting Michael and I really like many of them are uh precipitated by the Massachusetts uh uh Home Affordable home act and there's a mandate within that act to make such changes yeah so so the changes that are in red are the ones that are mandated and then the ones in blue are this more the spirit of our prior conversation and it seemed like what I took away from our last conversation if we're going to open up this conversation and open up the zoning bylaws to tweak we should tweak it in and do a One-Stop shop of like if we want to make affordable housing more affordable in shutesbury this would be the time to do it so the blue are just totally open for discussion the red are not open for discussion because that's based on the legislature and just noticing in the act that grants are available for application by towns to support uh moves in this direction might be that might that be something that we would possibly consider um I don't know that I hadn't thought about it in that regard I mean it would be interesting you know the one thing I would say and I I actually it's convenient that Matteo is here um there's three categories of funds that are available to the town through the CPA so you know a town meeting we're always voting on C CPA stuff and it's usually historical Recreation because we never have any housing related stuff so there is a part of money in it's significant money materal might even know the figure that not only Grant wise that we actually have in the bank now if we wanted to work on affordable housing projects um but there are rules and regulations about that Mato do you know the figure off hand uh so right now the the balance in the community housing fund is 4,453 the balance in the reserve is 81345 and the balance in the um undesignated fund is 498,000 that's the what I was thinking about yeah but but a about 130,000 of that has been um is going to be going before special town meeting for the uh uh emeris High School track and field project thanks thank you Robert I'll look into the grants or you can and share it with me I I I missed that that's information that's interesting thank you uh Jeff do you have something else you'd like to say Jeff Weston or or is your hand just is this your hand is still up from before I guess it it wasn't but uh having these extra monies might make it possible to have a a grant if someone is putting in a sewer system in an a you know accessory dwelling unit or something like that it might make it more affordable to apply um to to make these units more possible so I guess one question I would ask is there's there's a couple of like fundamental questions so the one is do we have an appetite for considering allowing more than one ATU on a on a on a single plot um I mean on the one hand it creates more affordable housing opportunities and by definition based on what the legislature said these are always going to be smaller than the primary residents um so they're not going to be big um so on the one hand that's helpful I was explaining to Nathan the way I sort of envisioned it if you did that it's sort of similar to open space design and that you're creating clustered housing um the issue is just that if lots of people did it all of a sudden we get lots of little clusters and it sort of you know it's going to it's going to create um more population more you know you you could you could we could make it on only on bigger plots but I think there's there's things to ways to think about it but really sort of Are We interested in going beyond what the law requires which is requiring one on a lot yeah no that's that's a a good uh approach U Michael that is a question we should start to think about does anyone have any any thoughts on it I have thoughts um I don't know I I feel like it's all very consequential um but my initial take on it is that I would be in favor of more than one on a plot um I could they have more than two not if we don't let them okay so like and right now it's 45,000 square feet for one0 yeah okay and the second one we could make a special permit which is therefore you know it's a little bit of a higher hurdle and more involved regulatory perspective I mean I can say from uh from my time on the PTO and I was on it for like 10 years because my my son did a extra year of preschool um and also just being a teacher in western Mass like we're hemorrhaging people and it's I don't know if a lot of people are going to all of a sudden come to shutesbury to live here but it would be good for our school if we had more population and I really think we want to try and keep our school um but of course there's a concern with their just you know with really changing the character of our town so that's a that's a concern uh Keith so i' I've actually been thinking about shutesbury and the development patterns and and how our zoning basically mandates very low density sprawl I mean shutesbury is becoming kind of a giant low density subdivision um mandating New Lots have two acres so I think uh perhaps reducing the the lot size for for single family homes might be something to consider or or uh being more lenient with the adus um assuming Board of Health and wellwater issues are are not not a problem the other thing that I you know driving around town um and I was thinking about this reading the tiny homes uh document um part of what makes to me shutesbury kind of cool is the diversity of housing in this town we've got the Cottages down by the lake high density we've got the older houses in the center of town we've got contemporary homes we've got traditional Colonials federals salt box uh serious community so I I get a little bit um uncomfortable uh with the loose definition of rural character of the town and then there's some uh brief comments about uh making sure the new dwellings fit with the character of the neighborhood I'm like well geez character of the neighborhood's pretty hard to pin down because you can drive down any of these streets and find you know quite the diversity of uh houses some with quite a bit of character um so I I'm happy that that we're having that that you brought this up that maybe rethinking the density issue and um and having adus be a segue into reconsidering uh the development patterns which I suspect were in response to the the rapid growth of the 70s and 80s I think UMass expanded or something and and the town did see a bunch of development back then and as best I can tell um it's kind of tapered off and we don't have a whole lot of growth pressure uh in shutesbury I don't know how many build building permits get issued every year but I don't think it's very many so that's it can I just jump in with two things I just um I want to thank Steve I saw Steve sorry well I want to thank both Ashley and uh Ste uh Keith for those comments thank you both and uh yes uh Steve why you go ahead and then uh Michael all that thought yes I just want to clarify one thing when we went and redid our zoning bylaws back in 2008 it was to create a much more flexible approach to growth and development we used to have Keith we used to have uh 250 Frontage was the only thing you could do on the along the road we now have four zones we now have open space uh design we have flexible Frontage design if you have a if you have enough property so I think there's a lot of other options and I don't really think we're we're we are not no longer zoned for low density necessarily inert in the farest District yes but in the other three districts not necessarily so it was just a clarification I I'm not coming down one way or the other on the affordable housing thing because I I feel like I need to think about that more if we want to go beyond the one that would be allowed the two things I was going to add just I think in terms of the character of the the neighborhood comment I mean I think just from looking at other towns I think that's sort of like a standard insertion um but I in my mind I can imagine an Adu that's like cool and modern and efficient and stuff and is different from the primary dwelling so I mean personally I think there's a way of getting at that it it shouldn't be horrendous like it shouldn't just tick everybody off off because they just something in but different isn't necessarily bad you know like and who's and whose determination of horrendous is I guess what it's subjective um but I think like um for me personally I think we should play with a wording that feels inviting and flexible um the other thing I'll just mention it gets to sort of what you're talking about the rate of growth there and Deacon and Steve would know this better but um article 7even when I started looking at it I know that there was a period where we had uh a limited it wasn't a moratorium but it was a limited moratorium on development and so when I looked at that it looks like the entire article can be stricken because it only references a certain period of time um and so you know it's because I'm the culprit and I keep adding things to the zoning board I wanted to the zoning bylaws I wanted to offer up that we could actually take out a whole article and free up a little space so to speak so something to think about that is uh something think about I agree with that Michael I um we had to go through hell to get that permitted by the AG anyway even when we had a good case yeah it's it's kind of known that that is uh dead it's dead code is uh dead letter yeah it's dead letter right yeah um so thank thank you um Robert do you have your hand up Robert uh I was wondering about our discussion that um that uh it's discretionary for the municipality as to whether or not it allows more than one accessorary unit uh just looking at what is it Section 8 of the statute there's a sentence for more than one accessory dwelling unit or rental thereof in a single residential zoning district is shall be a special permit for the use of land or structures for an accessory dwelling unit um seems like uh it's uh making mandatory that the town have such a provision I don't I don't think it's requiring more than one I I think what it saying is that if you have more than one it's a special permit as opposed to a site plan review or um by right but isn't it saying that we have to have a provision allowing for a special permitting process for an additional unit um if we wanted one so it's not saying a town has to allow more than one uhuh that's my that's how I read it yeah I I haven't seen anything that says you have to have more than one cuz that's sort of the Revolutionary part for the state but every town has to allow one oh I I thought that that is what that sentence said okay I mean I think that that's something we have to look at I'm trying to the shall is if if if there is more than one so yeah and the definition under Section seven part three right you know uh you know so I mean going to the accessory dwelling Unit A self-contained housing unit inclusive of sleeping cooking sanitary BL same lot as principal dwelling subject to otherwise applicable dimensional and parking requirement that part three is subject to such additional restrictions as may be imposed by municipality including but not limiting to additional size restrictions and restrictions or prohibitions on short-term rental is defin in you know section one of chapter 64g provided however that no municipalities shall unreasonably restrict the creation or rental of un acccessory dwelling unit that is not a short-term rental so I think with that clause in the definition you know the creation or rental of UN accessory unit or accessory dwelling unit um I think that says that you can't unreasonably restrict one and if you are to allow more than one it needs to go through a special permit process um I have I don't have the special permit um language uh you know down well enough but right I think it is you know I mean that's a by definition special permits are discretionary so it's uh you know the the the second one I don't think has to be a well yeah I think given the it's a little bit uh ambiguous but I think given the reference to un acccessory dwelling unit and the uh section 7 definition part three um says that you're you know compelled to allow one by right or or by site plan review and that you know if you if there is another one allow that it's special perit right that's my understanding right for more than one it has to be a special perit I does that uh interpret um address the your initial reading of it Robert um well I I I hear what you're saying I just had to think about it I guess yes and I mean you know honestly I think uh we'll ask Town Council to think about it as well I'm going to do a slight digression here from our uh conversation and um suggest that we might have kind of a bare boned uh um version of this uh amendment that will address only what we are required to do to uh to be within the law as uh as written here in uh in the affordable homes act and uh a subsequent uh Amendment proposal that would would incorporate you know more uh broader changes um because I want to avoid a situation where I and I you know I potentially we we would want to avoid a situation where you know the town meeting uh votes it down um and then we [Music] are basically in a situation where our our or bylaws out of s state law right um well the one thing I'll say about that is because this goes into effect in February and so what I read was most Towns at least out here have Springtown meetings and so as of February it's law no matter what so true even even if we got shut down we would have to comply it just you um no that's true that's true um I I think you know I have a lot more appetite for being out of compliance for a couple months than I do for uh for years or however long it would be and you know it's true that if that were the case you know obviously we just need to uh follow state law but um you know I I think that I think it's agreed that the best practice is to try and you know have our bylaw you know within the bounds of state law well for the next meeting can I can have two versions that we can look at just the one thing I would say if I might yeah is what I with the one that we're looking at now what I tried to do just so you all know what my thinking was is I looked at the zoning bylaw to say what in this in the the zoning bylaw as a whole pertains to housing and availability of housing because it's it wasn't necessarily obvious if you just look at what the law requires you're missing the other things so I'm pretty confident I got everything I I could have missed something but I feel like the bounds of our discussion if we look at the section that I that I shared that's probably everything that affects housing um you know short of something like Keith talked about you know that you know what a primary dwelling requires for acreage you know I didn't include that but um I think this probably that's maybe the only one that in the you know looking at the setbacks we could change the setbacks and that would change things too yeah no there's a lot of uh there's a lot there um for this um but yeah and and um you know I don't know Michael if if I would ask you to separate everything yet uh you know I'm not I'm not pushing that hard I'm I'm saying that we should uh consider it because on the on the other side of that coin if we're trying to promote affordable housing uh tying it in there you know it's an opportunity to kind of put this stuff in and say you know it's like a package you know I mean that's what they you know it's like more Healy with the budget right you know and uh things like that um that's for us to consider and that's something we can uh you know hopefully receive feedback uh in the public hearing on and uh and act accordingly right but it's it's something I think we should just consider um for now uh Deacon I I just wanted to say that when when we did the new zoning um in ' 08 um we would have meetings uh devoted entirely to a topic like this I mean this is really complex with lots of unintended consequences and I would suggest devoting an entire meeting to it well I intend to have it on the agenda um no but I mean for like a couple of hours and preferably in person yeah well we yeah we can um that's a that's a a good uh suggestion deacon I think we can uh get together in town hall and yeah you know I mean you know maybe we should uh try and schedule an off schedu uh yeah that's that's where I'm going yeah yeah on off schedu meeting uh go to town hall and uh hang out for a little B um hammer some things out right this is complicated absolutely no it certainly is there's a lot of ins and outs a lot a lot of very a lot of considerations here right especially with things like short-term rentals um you know changing lot size requirements uh things like that um so we're um you know we're still kind of on that high level uh question of uh allowing more than one um I'm going to I'm going to just put a few considerations out there for everyone which is that the state law says that you can't restrict owner occupancy on Accessory dwelling units does anyone know uh would that apply if if if the municipality allows more than one by special permit does that Clause apply to subsequent adus or only to the first one only to the first one only to the first one okay yeah so that's good to know because you know if it were to apply to all of them you know allowing you know two adus you know that uh so OB obviously right the uh you know Clauses around ownership requirements are you know in place uh you know probably in response to you know some things that happened after the 2008 financial crisis where we saw residential um housing being bought up by investment Banks across the country which you know takes uh has a big effect on our way of life right you know you know they say the American dream you know home ownership that kind of thing right so if uh if investment banks are buying up all the residential housing and and renting them out that way then uh you know that can have a major impact on on that ideal and you know that's not to say one way or another on the Merit of that ideal but um that's that's that I think is part of the Genesis of some of these regulations that where you see on uh on own your owner occupancy for uh rental units uh so that's one side of it you know the other side of it is uh you know not everybody is Goldman Sachs right or uh not everyone is an investment Bank so there's um you know in preventing that eventuality you're you're also restricting people's ability to you know manage their own personal uh wealth as they see fit um deacon do you have something else you want to say at this point or is your hand just uh still up no I just didn't take it down okay now that's that's fine um anything can I jump in with something yeah but I was just gonna also note that the uh as far as you know adding allowing for more than one uh that's uh there's a lot we can do there in terms of you know adding requirements so that it doesn't become something that you know changes the town in a way where you we look back and say why did we do that right um you know like looking at the lot size right you know looking at the um was it rural sighting uh principles right you know that you know just in more generally speaking the way that this ties in with rural sighting principles I think is something that we need to look very closely at and think about a lot right so that we can uh to Keith's point about you know rural character of the town I mean some of that is kind of laid down there obviously there's a lot of variability but um there are some you know we do have some stuff there and uh you know this is going to open up for discussion um Michael I was just say another not to just resolve tonight but another big decision point is would we allow adus on more than single family homes so on the two family or multi-dwelling units um so that on one lot you could have multiple housing opportunities for multiple households and so it's another way of expanding the impact but um you know whether or not a two family or a multif family house has the owner requirement which it currently does you know if we took that away it could be multiple houses that are getting rented or currently it could be the owner in one a rental in this in the two family dwelling in an Adu or two adus so there's considerable growth opportunity there if we wanted to do it um but like with everything else there's also implications of what happens and I totally agree with Deacon I mean this is sort of three-dimensional chance if if you you poke one thing and change it you really have to think about what the impacts are on other levels absolutely now this is I'm I'm glad that we are um I'm glad that it's only November now we need to wrap this up and and get on to our next agenda item so I want I would like to just uh there's a few more things I want to mention U one is that uh you know and talking to Michael about his his research and preparation for this it seems like there's not a whole lot out there that uh um as far as research on the development of tiny houses in rural areas with septic and uh and private Wells and stuff like that and it seems like you know I mean basically it's kind of you know we've covered this before uh just with that uh additional cost the uh economics of it become substantially uh difficult um that seems to be a given uh that being said one thing I'm interested in that I don't feel like I have a good understanding of is septic systems uh and you know in terms of you know the general soils of shoot spurry you know what kind of population density can be supported reasonably you know within our town um I don't know how to approach that problem uh you know or or in you know kind of tangentially you know what kind of um what kind of options are there you know like if you were looking at say you know take the mobile home kind of situation right say if we were to provide okay you can have you know two or three adus you know and they could be mobile homes um or not or even just you know structures right um you know now you're talking about you know substantially uh larger um number of uh bedrooms on a lot potentially in a smaller area uh potentially on on a two acre lot so you're not talking about being spread out over a 10 acre lot or something like that you know what kind of um now if you have say you have this you know two three four of these Lots in a row that uh get into that you know is that what kind of load is that putting on um you know the aquifer or the soil in terms of uh those kind of septic systems right so I mean this is like very technical civil engineering stuff but I think it's something that we need to at least scratch the surface on a little bit uh before we finalize some of these decisions and I you know I don't know if um you know circling back to what Robert said about grants or I don't know if maybe the the CPA fund um you know I maybe I don't know if we can uh try and tap into that there might not be time before town meeting but uh if anyone has any ideas about how to pursue this information potentially hiring some sort of consultant to help us understand this information to inform our decisions I think that would uh be a good uh thing to try and uh get to so you know we're not going to talk about it more now but I put it out there um please reach out to me if you have anything um and uh we'll see what we can do on that does anyone else have anything that we want to uh do before we uh wrap this up and move on to the next uh topic you know Michael in particular yeah I got one just closing framework to share for people to you know it's easier to say it out loud than to read it um especially I think given Roberts continually interest in the tiny houses I think there's two approaches if we wanted to look at tiny houses so one could be the tiny houses are considered adus and they're just a subset of adus so they're smaller than the normal Adu and we could put a definition in our zoning bylaws and you know if we're allowed to do that we have I'm I'm waiting for furog to find out if appendix Q actually got built into the mass um building code even furog didn't know and so apparently Natalie bla was the representative filed SO waiting to hear um but so that's one approach is as Tiny Houses could be under the category of adus but defined differently and therefore maybe have a little bit more flexibility um so it complies with the appendix Q building codes as opposed to the Massachusetts building codes if they weren't um that's one way to do it or you can consider tiny house as being a primary residents in which case they're not adus and we also Define them in a certain way to create some flexibility so that's it's mostly tiny houses are adjacent to this conversation um they and I think it's sort of the ne like we should talk about adus and then figure out tiny houses where they fit in do we consider them primary or they or ad use and it's so I just wanted to highlight that I don't have any particular opinions about it Keith yeah the the whole concept of the the of the tiny houses and making a a separate section for them and if there's if they meet the building code and or that appendix Q of the international building code or whatever so they're permittable as Perman permanence I guess the tiny house is it a tiny house with wheels movable or is it a tiny house that we say has to be on a permanent foundation and in that case do we care how small somebody makes a house because I don't think we we don't address how big a house can be in shutesbury um so I'm I guess I'm curious why why they need to focus on on Tiny Houses I guess well I think without getting into this I know Nathan wants to wrap it up I don't I for me I don't think we're concerned about people will make it as small as they want it's mostly that if you choose to make it small and it's small enough that it can get classified as something else do you then get some flexibility in that you know like if if you could do a penx q that's more flexible than the building code so like it's mostly that and I do think the decision point that we should talk about next time or a subsequent time is on wheels or on a foundation regarding tiny houses um you know same thing with the mobile home part uh the mobile homes generally speaking but um you know I think it does imply different things if you can move something in and then can move it off it's a it's it's ultimately temporary where it's Foundation one could pick it up but it's more of a hassle Robert um well I realize we want to move Beyond this um but I am attracted to nantucket's def definition of tiny home which has a provision a tiny uh a tiny house unit may be a primary dwelling unit or may be located on a lot in Li of an otherwise permitted secretary secondary dwelling so uh it can really cover both areas right yeah now we'll we'll uh Circle back to it and you know we we'll uh I'll try and see if uh I can come up with uh justification for for parsing it out now um all right so I think we're just going to leave it at that um and uh um Michael do you feel like you need anything else as far as your takeaways or you're all right okay yeah we're going to do it so um thank you everyone for your uh comments so far I'm going to just ask that you continue to think about about these things um and any you know research that you do or you know uh ideas you have about it please share it with Michael during the interim and uh and that's that's that um uh Keith has uh put together a draft report for the uh site visit that uh was done at the uh Wheelock um solar facility um down on Pratt Corner Road uh Keith I I know we're a little bit later on than we initially anticipated but uh go ahead Keith why don't you um feel free to share your screen and uh I don't actually have it does anybody else have it on their computer easily I figured Michael would have it okay I've got it on my phone but okay let me know what you want me to do well I guess first thing is everybody had a chance to give it a once over and I I caught one typo uh Michael caught a couple a typo and then a uh a recommendation for for adding some language uh concluding language to the end um other than that it's pretty straightforward uh I tried to be objective uh I didn't take copious notes while we were out there this was I did it when we when I got back home after the after the visit and just wrote down some notes real quick um and then I got comments from Jeff and comments from Tom uh and I Incorporated those in there so other than that it's it's uh as I recall what we saw and and what stood out to me e you want me to share my recommendation since yeah please Michael yeah so overall I loved it I mean I was reading it thinking oh he's got a professional background as a regulator he's writing it like that it's really sort of fun to read um what I realized after the fact was what would be helpful is having a statement of to-dos that were agreed upon either by us or by the developer so for example the one thing that was particular is you know there was a com conversation between Jeff and Joel about the brush being near the battery um pads and you know Joel's saying oh we will you know we'll clear that up that's no problem so to document that um I don't remember us as a planning board agreeing to do anything but I think identifying what those outcomes were the at the end and what the to- do were so that we've got accountability going forward um that's the only thing I was suggesting yeah and I so I think I I when I and I think that's good since we had the conversation with Joel and he he my memory as yours is that he did agree to to do that the other thing and I don't know if we asked specifically when we noted uh there was some debris Tom brought up uh back near the back gate there was some like uh old crates or plywood or something that was in the brush by the fence um and I think in my recollection is Joel said oh yeah the people were supposed to have come and cleaned up all the debris and somehow they missed a spot or something like that so we could put that note in there to to go get the rest of that that debris out of there um I'm trying to think if there was anything else that was was of note that that they should take care of there was I don't think this is um an action you know we had the conversation about the potential of moving the road you it was you know if the site was going to developed um which was a it was a very informative conversation but I don't think there was any action related to that yeah I I thought about that that whole you know the back you know continuation out the back gate and I'm like you know I don't I don't know that we're there you know we all we all caught it so if it comes up in the future we kind of at least have an idea of the Genesis of it but I I thought for our purposes for this visit that that we perhaps shouldn't speculate out into the you know the what you know what may occur in the future but we agree all we all know it now anyway and so that's it I can uh can I can I make a comment I'm I'm not sure if we're done with comments no go ahead Jeff great so first Keith um fantastic job thank you for putting in so much energy and effort into um into doing this um the different regulations I've seen are you know a 10 foot uh difference 10- foot clearance between the lithium ion batteries and surrounding possible combustion but I don't think there's any reason why we can't um suggest or request a little bit more than that um the the possible dangers of you having a lithium fire and then spreading and we have a volunteer fire department and 92% of our forests are you know of our land is forested I mean we could request um 20 ft of non-combustible around the around the lithium ion or to the to the fence um we could request that or we could request at least 15 um I don't think just intuitively that 10 feet isn't um overly safe of non-flammable material between the lithium ion batteries and combustible material so I'd like to put that in as a request um um ideally 20 ft or to the fence um and see what they say about that it's just a question of coming in and cutting down some of the brush or putting a dumpl load of um of stones in between um the lithium ion batteries and um possible combustion there is um I can't remember I think it's in um area six where there's a whole cluster of um trees right next to it and uh this is a in my judgment a a minimal cost to prevent a catastrophic buyer that jump in just just a I think for a process suggestion um I don't disagree with you Jeff I think that we should separate out the report from the request so it seems like with the report we're we're documenting what we saw and I think what we could probably you know ask Keith to do is to say add a sentence that says the planning board will you know review the findings and come up with a you know request to the developer the operator um so it's documented that one we we saw what we saw and we had a conversation as we did um and we could sort of have the report being reporting on what happened but setting the stage for then a subsequent conversation maybe at the next meeting to say based on this report what does the planning board recommend um or request so the sort of they're separate because I think the way I took away Keith's effort was we're trying to be objective about what we saw and what occurred which is different from a recommendation of action unless we Mutual agree to it on site um so that's just I mean I would love to have that conversation to say okay we saw that the brush is really close to the batteries what do we want to do about it um what do we want to ask them for um but that just might two sense I don't know if that makes sense to other people that makes perfect sense to me to keep them separate but I'd like to have a future discussion about what would what we would request to have happen so here I I I get where you're coming from Jeff and my thinking was as I was writing this I don't know what Authority we have as a planning board I was going uh we that we were there to visit to see that they were complying with our special permits that we issued um so that's I I was looking specifically at that and I don't know that other than the special permit mentions you know the the electrical code the fire code uh related to electrical equipment I I think you have to purchase those documents to find out what the the you know the specific code is in section seven of the international fire what whatever it is anyway so I I I'm going under the assumption that inside those cabinets they have the proper smoke detectors as you know specified in the in the fire code uh the assumption that there again since Joel jumped immediately to say yeah we'll clear the vegetation around those battery pads I think that's um an easy one that you know he he seemed to agree to but I didn't want to get too far down asking for things or that we weren't weren't part of the conditions of the special permits it seems like uh and I think we also again want to be careful because as I looked at this site especially the vegetation growing up under the panels and from a fire perspective uh I'm a little bit less concerned about those lithium ion batteries and I am all those cables running up under those panels where there's brush blowing up against them um there's a lot of stuff that I saw that I'm like gez I would clear vegetation from all around every junction box and every other thing there but I don't know that we can demand that um or request it and then you know for ultimate fire protection they would gravel the whole 32 acres and say there you go you've got fire protection because we've removed all the vegetation um so I think there's a there's a in my mind a uh kind of a trade-off between having the site regrown and then having ultimate fire protection I I guess BR any eventuality if that makes sense well I I agree with keeping them separate and maybe then um Nathan we could have a separate discussion in terms of the things that we would recommend it seems like they are amendable to doing certain things like fixing the road when we asked them to and they didn't necessarily have to fix it as well as they did best interest to cooperate with the planning board of shsb prevent the possible devastating fire so I think um the the requests are not overly expensive they're reasonable and um we could request it and then see what happens yeah I I agree I I think we can request it there's no downside to requesting it they may not if they feel like we're requesting something that's unreasonable that we didn't set as a condition as Keith was referring to before we may not have a leg to stand on but we can certainly request under the um you know umbrella of being good a good neighbor a good a good corporate neighbor uh we certainly can ask MH we just may not be able to require that's all yeah yeah I'm I'm good with that agreed agreed so maybe we could have that Nathan we can have that discussion down the road in terms of um um first submitting the report that Keith um um beautifully wrote to um the next session to talk about different possible requests if if you want to have a this on the agenda that's that's fine um um so you know I don't know if uh I this report is more or less uh to just kind of document our our site visit and you know not anything and then it's going to mention a uh you know the plane board is going to deliberate and figure out what they want to do with respect to any uh shortcomings or uh you know actions need that need to be taken to uh conform to the permits Keith so yeah maybe we finalize this report roughly as it is and then I assume we're going to send a courtesy copy to the company to Joel or whoever the site manager is and in that cover that letter with the copy of our report have the language of requesting these additional items do do you want to send the report first or do you want to wait for the request as part of the report I would send it as a package yeah I I think that's a good idea they're they're not sitting on their hands waiting for this thing or not on their thank for all of your hard work um I did want to just before I wrap up I want to nominate Keith to write the report next year what I do well uh um you has to accept the report Nathan or are you good just the way it is I if I think uh let me can I correct the typos and then send it out for final yeah someone wants to um so does someone want to make a motion on this yeah I can make a motion Keith it's we it's normal you can just fix the typos after but I would what what's the name of this thing um yeah so yeah at this point it seems like you know there's not any substan sub substantive changes you're talking about typos or whatever so you can move something like uh I'll do it I I'll move to approve the special permit site visit report um from the site visit in August 8 2024 um assuming editorial changes um to address typos and to the subsequent conversation at this meeting I here second second any further discussion I'll call the role um Bressler hi Deacon hi P hi Raymond hi takea hi Weston was that what was that it said I okay thanks and I will abstain the motion passes uh I'm just going to uh make uh two quick comments on this um one the I've just kind of taken a peek at this uh project and what I didn't realize was that this uh there's been two subsequent amendments to the special permit one in 2018 that related to uh looks like drainage and um some solar arrays and then another one for the batteries and I I would just uh suggest that uh the somebody get that uh I mean I can actually uh do it but um if we get that second uh the 2018 Amendment and maybe just you know put that up on the website along with the first decision um and also as of now I've seen A draft copy of the special permit for the amendment for the batteries um and I did a somewhat extensive search of the uh registry and didn't find it recorded um so that may be something that you know could be uh looked into I mean and I'm I'm talking about this uh kind of strictly is uh um because this you know pertains to uh state law with respect to special permit decisions and there's a requirement and um section nine it's I think it's uh chapter 48 section 9 uh that relates to to the recording of the decision um by the applicant uh so if this is not recorded then that would be um a foul of state law so that you know is something that um you we can look into and also once we do uh get a the final copy of it we can include that on the uh public website uh the other thing I want to uh mention is you know with um some of these uh fire related concerns um it might be a good idea to check in with the fire department and and you can deliberate on that uh next time this is up on the agenda okay so I'm I'm I'm putting this information out there just kind of as uh procedural uh stuff okay now uh last things on our agenda are um member updates so I put this in is is a kind of a catchall uh if anyone has anything that they've been working on related to planning board business that they want to uh mention um other than myself anyone Michael you have nothing come on uh got nothing except that we're going to go back into executive session after you leave because oh are you okay just for just for a very little bit okay that's uh that's good to know um I'm just going to note quickly that we got that email from furog pertaining to pollinator Meadows and I'm gonna put them on the agenda in December um I I still need to send an email to Allison but uh she mentioned that it might be uh I think 20 to 30 minutes of discussion I'm gonna ask her to uh bring that down to 15 minutes it's probably going to be mostly her kind of uh reviewing some of the information she may have some materials which I'll uh try and get and distribute uh before then um you know there's a grant in place that is only going through the end of the year so uh you know she's hoping to uh be in there but I'm going to try and limit the time a little bit because we have a lot of these things in Flight um and I think uh if anyone's interested in that um you know that could be something that is uh kind of looked at maybe in parallel um to some of our other uh zoning discussions um but I'm not I don't really know a lot about it uh more to come on that just kind of a heads up on that okay um and that's all I have uh that I feel the need to uh bring up right now um so any unanticipated business from anyone that I'm una aware of no okay excellent um I'm going to thank everyone again uh for your contributions to the discussion tonight especially around our our zoning uh Amendment um items and uh and also you know special thanks to Keith you know writing a report that uh you didn't even get to vote on as an associate um you know I'm just you know your service is uh definitely noteworthy and just here to help well I appreciate it very much and I think I think we all do uh so thank you very much for that and and Michael as always uh your uh invaluable uh contributions and um getting all that information together for us to consider um please uh do what needs to be done I'm GNA uh Michael designate Michael his acting chair again so uh that we can um you could do what you got to do all right thanks thanks Nathan see you so I'm gonna move to take us back into executive session for reason number three to discuss strategy with respect to litigation if an open meeting may have detrimental effect on the government's litigating position litigation specific to complaint received from Kohl's regarding the shutesbury solar bylaw we will not return to open session and again I want to in invite Matteo and Keith and Tom to join us in executive session so someone want to second that okay I claim Steve is that one um so we have to roll a call in so Jeff how you vote hi Ashley Steve hi Robert hi beon hi I'm and I and Matteo can you turn off the recording again --------- ##VIDEO ID:Zx8cVwWKKT4## e e there Robert hello how are you okay how are you I'm doing right hey Nathan he's not there low key all these people unmute there is hey everybody therea welcome hey Jeff how are you doing good hey Adam Hi everyone Michael how are you Robert hello Nathan you're gonna start us right sure see it's 7 o'clock I see that we have at least the Quorum I'll call this meeting of the playing board to order and note that the meeting is being recorded it's not um this time uh I'm going to turn it over to Michael to uh bring you into executive session and uh to return to open session at uh 7:30 and that's when I will rejoin um so Michael I'll let you do the the formals and everything like that oh hold on before you go I'm so it looks like there's only uh if you go there's only three of us who are elected so think maybe you should have Tom and Keith join like you're the chair so you should invite them to be part of the Quorum okay yes all right I will designate uh Keith and Tom to um well you know let's uh let's give it a minute and see if uh who shows up okay um and yeah I will we'll do that [Music] um no Ashley said she was coming what's that Ashley said she was coming Ashley yes you hear from Deacon no I'm texting Steve now can I ask you a question for purposes of uh putting people in the waiting room yes Adam Costa Esquire and Candice pin Novak do they go into the waiting room or do they go into executive session Adam Adam's coming into the waiting room uh and Candice is gonna be have to leave uh go in the way um yeah okay so so Adam Adam will stay in the meeting and Candace goes into the waiting room that's correct thank you C Candace do you want to unmute yourself for a minute sure so we're going to go into executive session which means that only certain people can go in so we're planning on resuming at 7:30 uh if everything goes according to plan so if you wanted to log out and then come back okay just so you know what's happening okay at 7:30 yeah all right thank you bye oh yeah um I have a question does Mato stay in executive session or or does he logo um normally he would stay so hey Ashley hello Nathan you want me to take over now that we have a quorum uh yes and I just uh got on the phone with Deacon he's just having some technical difficulties but he's trying to get on the call so um Mato just keep an eye out for Deacon and Steve in the waiting room and for now yeah we'll designate our uh um Keith and Tom to serve as uh full members and then Michael when you know if Deen Andor Steve come in then you can swap out as needed can can I say something that this Point um I my understanding is that since we have a quorum with four that we don't need the associate members to um be voting members right now but I'm just I'm throwing this out I don't know that's that's true um so you know I'm Gonna Leave It uh you know Michael why don't you uh you know when it comes time to to vote um you know do the right thing and uh decide who's gonna vote if we don't have a vote cor if we don't have the uh thank you Nathan can can I can I bring in something else my understanding is that only the chair can make that decision so are you officially passing the chair over to Michael who makes the decision or I I I need some clarity in terms of who's going to vote for this C can I add something gentlemen yes so we're convening an executive session to discuss pending litigation and to the extent that there's any action taken or vote taken it's going to relate to uh discussions that are occurring uh with with pure Sky related to the pending litigation it's not going to be the sort of function that the planning board would be performing um that would permit it to utilize its its associate uh members so while the associate members are certainly free to participate um in the discussion and and participate in executive session to the extent that there is no other objection from the regular members um in terms of their ability to vote they they wouldn't have that ability in this context anyway Mato can I can I respectfully disagree um we've passed a special law that allows the um chair to give the Privileges privilege of the associate members to vote so that's what we're talking about so my understanding right now is that the associate members do not have the ability to vote because they haven't been given permission to vote by the um by by Nathan so um I I just want some clarity in terms of if we have to make a decision to move forward with um litigation or not in a certain way um my understanding is that only the people that have been elected have a chance to uh actually voice their everyone can voice their opinion but in terms of deciding who uh which direction only the elected people have a chance to that right now unless Nathaniel um Nathan Nathan I'm sorry unless Nathan gives the associate members permission to vote in that capacity well I would say since we got a full board except for Nathan I think it's sort of mood at this point that's fair well all right so I'm GNA you know uh say that the uh we're not going to designate any associate members at this time and you know go on to uh Michael you can take it from here here cool and um I'll text you when we're done yeah well you know what let's uh let's say we'll come out at uh 7:35 and I'm GNA just quickly update the uh agenda just to kind of put a note that we're planning on 7:35 due to a delay great that sounds good okay see you at 735 okay thank you so everybody I am going to move to enter into executive session for reason number three discuss strategy with respect to litigation if an open meeting may have detrimental effect on the government's litigating position litigation specific to complaint received from calls regarding the shutesbury solar bylaw planning board will return to open session um anyone want a second second okay I'll have I have Roberts since he actually said it um thank you Jeff for the intent um so Gonna Roll Roll Call in um and then I'll do a little business before we actually go in but Robert how do you vote yay je yay Deon hi Dave hi Ashley hi I'm and I okay so it's unanimous so we will be going to Executive session um at this point I just want to formally invite Keith and Tom and Mato to join us as well as