Good evening. This meeting of the Arlington Redevelopment Board is being conducted remotely consistent with Governor Baker's executive order of March 12, 2020, due to the state of emergency and the Commonwealth due to the outbreak of the COVID-19 virus. In order to mitigate the transmission of the COVID-19 virus, we have been advised and directed by the Commonwealth to suspend public gatherings and as such, the governor's order suspends the requirement of the open meeting law to have all meetings in a publicly accessible physical location. Further, all members of public bodies are allowed and encouraged to participate remotely. For tonight's meeting, the Redevelopment Board is convening via Zoom as posted on the town's website identifying how the public may join. Please note that this meeting is being recorded and that some attendees are participating via video conference. Accordingly, please be aware that other people may be able to see you and that and take care not to screen share your computer. Anything that you broadcast may be captured by the recording. So I will take a roll call to confirm that all of the redevelopment members are present. We'll start with Ken Lau. David Watson. Eugene Benson. Present. Katie Levine Einstein. Present. And Rachel Zimbary. I am present as well. And we have Jennifer Rates. Present. And Erin's work co-joining us as well. Present. Rachel, we're having that echo issue again. Yeah. Yeah. I apologize. It hasn't happened to me in any of my other Zoom meetings. So I'm going to turn it right over to Jenny for the first item on our agenda and then I'll hit mute. Did it just out of curiosity, did it correct itself on Monday? Okay. So the first item on our agenda. And before I get started, I just want to let you know we are up against a 630. End time needing to make sure that we're wrapped up by then so I'm going to try and keep everybody on schedule. So I'm going to start with a review of the fiscal year 22 Arlington planning and community development objective. Okay, great. Thank you. I, I just need to bring that up. So, so hi everybody. It's been a while and definitely not everybody in this group had been part of the last time we set goals. So I think this might be a new process, but the last time we did it. The last couple of times we did it, we talked about the, what the department is planning to do for the coming year. And that then led to us reviewing the goals of the Airbnb. And the reason for that is that my department provides staffing to the board obviously and so we want to make sure we're on the same path in terms of what you would like to achieve and what we need to change, etc. So we want to look at what we did this past year as part of our planning for the, for the next year obviously. So we'll get into that next but first just to introduce you to what we're planning to do next year with the department. For those of you who need to be, you know, need the sort of an update, the department has nine staff, which includes people who do work on economic development conservation energy efficiency and management. Senior planner who works on a range of projects. Aaron who works as the assistant director and also works on housing. And, and then basically administrative support staff and myself. So it is, it's actually it's it's a big group in one way but it's a small group because we have a lot of various things to achieve and you can see that in what we are planning to do for the next year which looks similar to what we do most years. Which is in essence to implement the strategies that are outlined in the Arlington master plan which is our adopted document from 2015. It is the document that we use that really is the umbrella around most of what we do. The master plan was not as comprehensive as perhaps we all would have liked so we have done we have taken some new steps and worked on some newer action plans that don't necessarily directly relate to chapters in the master plan but are certainly in the spirit of things that the town is trying to achieve so for example, we will have completed by next early next year the connect Arlington plan and so there's a actually a public meeting next Monday night which hopefully many of you will be able to attend to help us to look at the strategies and implementation plan for our long range transportation plan, which is called connect Arlington. And then of course begin to implement the near term strategies and the plan over the next year, and that will include some zoning recommendations but I don't have enough information about it just yet because we're still finalizing, we're still in a final planning stage of that process. You are familiar with the net zero action plan we've talked a little bit about that in the past and a couple of you have participated in conversations with the clean energy future committee. And we also anticipate that that plan will be wrapping up early in the next year with also some recommendations I do think though that there's at least one recommendation or two from that plan that are probably ready for sort of daylight and potentially something that we can advance to a more imminent town meeting. And then we have a number of other plans, including our open space and recreation plan which actually will be working on a new open space recreation plan for the next five years that's going to be starting next year. It's also an open space. And that's also a little bit of a little bit of a hoarsely written to start that process and it kicks off in January. We have the housing production plan, which is the five years concludes next year. And so we're in the. We have an RFP for that, and we will be hiring a consultant to help us to draft that new plan as well. That's a five year plan as well. of complications along the way and so that one is still not completed unfortunately but we anticipate that it will be completed next year. And then all of the things that we typically work on arts and culture action planning. We just received funding through the Community Preservation Act to work on the Minuteman Bikeway Vision Plan. We're working on an Archaeological Reconnaissance Survey for Townwide, the Stormwater Management Plan. This is the planning department so there are a lot of plans and they all require some sort of level of the public process with multiple phases but ultimately result in some set of recommendations that we then need to take a look at. And so everything on top of that is really all of our day-to-day work including obviously zoning work that we do on a regular basis, the permitting processes, some of which you are all involved in but a lot of it you're not involved in including work that we do with Conservation Commission, work that we do for the Zoning Board of Appeals and also work reviewing a variety of documents and applications and licenses for the Select Board. And then continuing to do a number of other, implement a number of other activities including work that we had started a few years ago on Whittemore Park, street escape improvements for Mass Ave Phase 2, which is a long-range project, continuing to work on Bus Rapid Transit to work on obviously our Community Development Block Grant Program as an entitlement community. We have a number of things that we're working on and of course this year has been pretty significant with two additional rounds of funding on top of our regular implementation of the Community Development Block Grant Program. I don't know if we'll have, you know, everything hinges on a federal government with a wonderful response to state and local governments and a big infusion of money could definitely have been and it could result in even more CDBG dollars coming to the community which will take staff time of course to coordinate and implement. So I don't call that out specifically but it is something that could also, we anticipate could happen. And we also have two pretty significant 40B comprehensive permits happening right now and my staff are helping with some of the review related to Thorndick Place and then we anticipate that the other 40B that just received its project eligibility letter at 1165 R Mass Ave will also be filing relatively soon and will also entail a large review process. So that's kind of a glimpse because this is basically what gets published in the annual financial plan. I have recognized that it's important to not tell everybody everything about every little thing that we do but if you look back at any of the number of the past four years you'll see that it's quite voluminous the work that happens in the department and that we're at a point now where a lot of the things that we're working on are very well integrated so that the net zero action plan is speaking to the Connect Darling 10 long-term transportation plan and that we're also looking through things through an equity lens even though we don't have a fair housing action plan we're trying to look at things through an equity planning process as well and you know a number of the other initiatives that we're working on I see them as being sort of stacked and integrated with one another very much so. So while there's a lot of details to share I just wanted to make sure that you understood the the suite of things that the department is working on in the in the coming year and that that will help you to then think about the things that you would like to accomplish as a board and on that note I will say I've reviewed the what you had hoped to accomplish this current year and recognize that there's many items that we didn't get to this year for obviously a number of reasons and so we can I hope that we can talk more about that next but I entertain any questions about the department's plans Ken. Yeah I just want to see if we can maybe well thank you for all that stuff you do I mean that is quite an impressive list you got there Jenny and that's a lot of a lot to get accomplished I just wonder if we can also add in there to look into the business the business corridor or the industrial zone and that's something that we always wanted to look at and I want to make that as part of one of the points that we should um yes but that's uh I think we have to do a little more than just that just work with property owners I think we have to give um let's let's talk a little more about that how we can do encouragements or how we can encourage property owners to do what to do more commercial or do more industrial because they're not they're not gonna do it on their own they're gonna do what makes them money and that's something we're gonna have to encourage them to do and then part of that was you put out a nice RFP I saw that for the modeling of all the spaces there can we add any responses back for that and how's that integrated into this thing here um it would be in the ARB's goals which is what we're going to talk about so I didn't write that up yet but I figured that that will be that's one of the items that we're going to talk about okay so no no you're you're you're reading my mind too yes it belongs in the but it will it it will belong in a section that I haven't written yet because that's what we're talking about tonight um which is the the 3d modeling um and no we don't have so I need to get one more response to that RFP great um and then I just want to point out what in response to the first thing you said about a little more than encourage these are just objectives so they're not they're not my full-on action plan for getting everything done or any of the staff in the department it's just a higher level objective okay do we have committees or a committee that's working on that alone like similar to we have a committee for like housing do we have a committee for uh for commercial development businesses um well we have a lot of we have a lot of groups that we work with in the community through uh you know the business groups but we don't have we have the zoning bylaw working group that's really the that's been the primary group working on zoning including industrial zoning which we are going to talk about uh not in-depth tonight but on the 21st so um maybe we can put a pin in the in how we approach that after that or that night um to talk more about how to how to implement those sorts of ideas that you you might have and David's been participating in that process okay um in the spirit of time I'll see if there's any other comments about this and then we should probably move into the other the review maybe no it looks like there are any other comments great let's go ahead and move right into the uh 2020 goal review here it is it's um we drafted this document after 2019 town meeting and I think we had uh some good discussion about ways to in particular uh revisit the housing conversation and that of course led to other conversations with the select board um but so that's that's partially what's happening in this document and then we talked about other other strategies of things that we wanted to take actions we wanted to take on zoning um this is divided into four sections there's also a section about long-range planning uh the properties and then how to support community planning goals so um I don't think I need to say much more about it I'll just let um anybody ask questions or for anybody who feels like you would like to continue this as a goal or if you want to add something new would be my my suggestion for how to approach this um part of the discussion before we jump into that I know that we have a lot of things coming up um potentially for this upcoming town meeting which the warrant is already open uh for uh even though we just finished the last one can you top line um a list of those those zoning um because there are so many items with impact on zoning can can you top line for us what those are because I think that'll probably play into this discussion as well you're on mute sorry sorry um I was trying not to have the speaker problem um so I just changed on my screen the the zoning amendments do you see that or do you see the other document I'm sorry sometimes yeah all right yay um all right so the this is uh this represents what I believe we would like to propose for spring town meeting this does not represent the entire universe of potential zoning amendment these these also by the way are just zoning warrant articles um the department of course deals with town bylaw amendments as well as uh zoning bylaw amendments um so for the new things that the board hasn't talked about yet include the three things on the top of the list the first one is we need to update our marijuana section of the bylaw to uh now comply with or potentially comply with marijuana delivery we need to discuss it at a minimum um and uh that so that's the main update to that section of the bylaw but we don't have the regulations yet from the cannabis control commission that's what ccc means um when we have them that'll help us to know how to make a proposed amendment uh the second item is what we're going to talk about in depth on the 21st at that meeting with the consultant rkg and herman um about the recommendations for zoning amendments to the industrial zoning districts um the zoning district um and it's based upon an economic analysis that we've been conducting for the past year led by erin and i think there's i think i think that the way that the the zoning is basically drafted perhaps with a few you know minor tweaks uh some of those are things that we just need to discuss that could be substantive issues um but for the for the most part it's already ready to go and so i would like to be able to keep that conversation going um the third item is there's two items actually from the net zero action plan that appear to be uh items that we think again in the things that are sort of in a more ready like uh easy to amend our existing zoning bylaw to incorporate those items one of them is a solar ready bylaw this is something that gene had actually brought up and i think is actually in our current goals to talk about solar uh planning and it's something that's in the net zero action plan as well um the other item from the net zero action plan is about um addressing the issue of building foundations in order to create so that any new homes that are created are net zero uh ready i'm not sure exactly what the terminology is to give you but uh that wouldn't be something that i think we would file but there seems to be some uh at least some of the members from the glean clean energy future committee who are interested in pursuing that but i figured the solar ready bylaw was one that i know gene had had expressed an interest in and perhaps others and so i wanted to make sure to put that on the list um so those are really the three new newest things this long list of 2020 articles in are basically all administrative amendments some of them were deferred from 2020 annual time meeting and then the last three items are new um so that the first eight you've seen before then uh the new one uh that's the ninth item under that list is to remove gendered terms from our zoning bylaw there's not that many but there's just enough um one is too many um the tenth item is to correct the upper story building step back which was based upon how it was actually adopted at 2016 annual 10 meeting does not reflect the language in our zoning bylaw which has caused a lot of problems and so we need to make that administrative adjustment in fact the attorney general's office version that was adopted is not what is reflected in our zoning bylaw so we need to make that correction and then the last one is we haven't actually adopted our the official zoning map for some time the the version that we have says that it's for use for like printing purposes um you know for planning purposes and we need to have we need we should re-adopt the zoning map uh because i think that in the future for some future town meeting perhaps a special town meeting in um next year 2021 um we'll have more zoning amendments that relate to zoning map changes we need to have an official zoning map i think to to make any more of those changes would be my my recommendation and i believe based upon our experience with article 21 would be erin's recommendation um and i don't want to put words in her mouth she's muted um and then the last suite of items here these five items are things that are holdovers from 2020 annual town meeting that were citizen petitions um that were not refiled for the special town meeting and so they'd be contingent upon the petitioners wanting to refile them as you may know we did not just automatically refile items that had been on the 2020 town annual town meeting we we asked the petitioners if they wanted them to be put on the docket so uh we would need to confirm that so this is the whole this is the universe thank you jenny and then you had mentioned before that too that we also have some potential zoning amendments coming from the transportation from connect arlington yes but because both connect arlington is not going to be wrapped up until early next year in earnest um hit this year's town meeting not annual town meeting but my my recommendation will be that we have a special town meeting at some later point next year and that it includes a number of zoning items because i i think that the other things that are not reflected in this list are all of the housing items but we had said that we were going to continue the housing dialogue we're going to also work on the housing production plan we're also going to work on an action plan for the newly established housing trust um that is being put into place and i think that the logical to me the logical course of action is to see that public process through as we discussed with the select board and then make recommendations on zoning after i think there are however some zoning items related to housing that we've been discussing that deserve to also be refiled but are likely to be refiled by citizen petitioners and not necessarily by the redevelopment board but we can talk about that great thank you um any board members wish to have comments david uh well thank thanks for the review uh jenny this is this is helpful um couple of questions one is um i'm i'm just thinking back i i think the department was able to do some community engagement activities around housing issues over the the course of the year despite the pandemic and i don't remember ever seen like a compendium of that information and the responses that were collected to because i i don't feel like i have a good understanding of of what what the community expressed interest in or concerns about in that process it was a very stunted process it's it started in february heron yeah and it ended in like may june i'll let everyone talk about it it went through june um there there is a memo that was provided um potentially to um i think we were planning on sharing it um earlier this fall we can dig that up and we share it um that sort of laid out the range of thoughts and concerns and suggestions from the community um i think we talked about it actually when we we didn't share that overview perhaps but we talked about it uh at the september joint meeting thank you jenny that is that's right um sorry that a lot of a lot of dates are in my a lot of meetings a lot of meetings um but yes there um there was an overview provided at that um and uh that uh could be um read discussed at a future redevelopment board meeting so we we would need to do more outreach and we would need to reignite that process that we talked about back in september um and devote staff time and resources and perhaps work in partnership with members of the community um as well as the housing plan implementation committee on this that that's the other thing is that some of these committees uh have about i think have the bandwidth to advance maybe one or two two items but they can't really do everything um and so i believe that the housing plan implementation committee will be particularly useful as we're developing the next hpp and we want their input on that but they also want to work on the transfer fee um which is basically a homeroom petition that will be going before our town meeting in spring um so i don't so i think we need to revisit the outreach component david i know i think what i would like to see is um us get to the point where we feel like we have done a reasonable amount of that outreach and gotten uh useful information from it um and then factor that information into uh whatever substantive zoning proposals we think are are appropriate and then turn back around have more engagement around what we're those proposals that we're thinking about and i would ideally like to do that before we ever put anything on the warrants um just to to be confident that we're we're heading in in a direction that's strongly supported by by the community um i don't think i'm not i'm not so concerned about um you know all those technical corrections that were were on the list that that's not what i'm talking about but and we don't have at the moment any any really substantive zoning changes um that that are contemplated for annual town meeting uh depending on i i think depending on what we decide to do with the uh with the industrial district uh proposals um but uh you know i i i you know i know the pandemic really slowed us down in this process and i i feel like we're we're once again kind of feeling pressed for time now for annual town meeting um to to do the kind of outreach that i had hoped to do um but it doesn't sound like we're except with the possibility of the industrial district proposals it doesn't sound like we're we're moving forward that quickly with with any other substantive proposals well that's up to the board um i mean there is the accessory dwelling unit bylaw and that's obviously there was a document posted uh and drafted but it may or may not be something the board wishes to pursue and i would guess that one of the people participating in this meeting as a as a resident as barbara thorton who is a town meeting member who will likely want to refile um some version of her proposal as well i i felt pretty confident based on our discussion during that hearing that uh that we did want to dig into that as a board and and perhaps um move forward on it ourselves and i was assuming we were going to discuss that a little later in the agenda yes later in the agenda yeah so and so right now the uh all the things you're saying david do you is there something in particular on this list of what i thought i would do tonight by the way is we're not finalizing this tonight i'm going to take your suggestions and then i'm glad to sort of draft it up and i'll give you a document to vote on at your next meeting the same thing goes for the next the conversation about rules we can't yeah adopt that tonight it's just right a conversation so i guess the one specific thing that was on the list um as being possible um for for annual town meeting one of the items um from from last year's annual meeting uh was uh the citizen article uh about clarifying uh allowable uses and uh for mixed use and it seems likely that that's going to come back around and i'm wondering if if that is is something that the board wants to proactively dig into and and think about whether uh there is any any action we would recommend taking uh so that this issue doesn't keep coming up it is on that list of i would we would need to get in touch with the citizen petitioners to see if they want to refile um it's on the other document all right but that wouldn't prevent us from from uh deciding to to do something uh proactively around that issue uh if you wanted to right that's up to the board so i have that i have that noted um what i what i think i'd like to do is to make sure that in the time we have allotted all of the board members have a chance to either respond to what's on this list or add like you just did other suggestions um so david i have that one written down um and we can certainly come come back to it for discussion after everybody's had a chance to um respond did you have anything else that you wanted to uh nothing nothing specifically zoning related okay um kim did you want to yeah i think it was either last year or the year before uh we had talked about uh revisiting the master plan and saying that the master plan uh was adopted uh corrective and wrong jenny what five six years ago 2015 yep so it is uh you know usually every five years you go revisit it and see how things that needs to be changed or modified or has you know um has things changed that we have we we shouldn't relook at it so i would like to say can we go revisit that as a board and see how appropriate it is uh or any changes needed or what's there is fine thanks ken i have that one noted as well for for discussion thank you anything else that you want to put on the table no i think um rachel jenny said that the other stuff i i had concerns about is covered so i'm gonna um not take up more time great thanks so much uh katie no i think um my colleagues and jenny have sort of covered all of my questions um yeah thanks great uh jean yeah yeah this is really helpful i've got a few a few things excuse me first i wonder if there's any reason not to bring the corrections and the administrative changes to the next town meeting they seem to be easy to do they seem to be needed to do and unless there's some reason not to take them to spring town meeting i'd suggest that we do take them so i'm interested whether jenny feels there's a reason to hold up on taking no i i didn't mean to make it seem like i did no i i would say we would we would file all those administrative amendments okay and i was recommending that we add the three new items that i listed at the top of that list which was the solar ready bylaw the industrial zoning and i'm recommending and the marijuana uses and then the items at the bottom of that list are citizen petitions so i just don't know that's all but yes i agree they are they should be filed yeah and i'll send i sent you um an email so many months ago you probably can't dig it up and i'll have to see if i can find it i found another um part in the bylaws that need to be corrected there's a reference to an incorrect reference to a section so i'll try to find that pretty soon i think we we put that on the list erin it's something it's just we will make sure that it's on there yeah in on this new list but i know that i forwarded that to uh we have that sorry so um second so i'm wondering if there are any zoning changes that we can make to help some of the funding of the affordable housing trust fund because i know the big push what we really need to do is to get the transfer tax um but i'm thinking there are probably some things that can be done on the margins um to um add some fees that would go to the affordable housing trust fund that's a whole bigger conversation than we can have tonight and maybe you know if you're interested i'll send you an email with some of my thoughts about some easy potential things to do for those but um while we're waiting to see whether you know the transfer tax happens either through special legislation or general legislation i think we should look and see if there are some changes we can make to the zoning bylaws start putting some money into the affordable housing trust fund so that's one thing um second is there was an interesting article i think it was today or yesterday's boston globe about the city of boston about to adopt changes to their zoning bylaws to help affirmatively further fair housing that that really important regulation the trump administration got rid of um guessing the biden administration will put back in place and i thought it would be really interesting to take a look at what they're proposing to do or what they're about to do and see if there are some things from that that we can incorporate um into our bylaws and i haven't looked at what they propose to do because i just read the globe article but i think that would be a good thing to look at either for spring or for a special town meeting sometime next year so i'd add that to our list um i think we need to and i think we need to take another look at if there are things we can do with the bylaws to to encourage more both affordable housing and workforce income housing to get built and i know some of this is part of the larger discussion about you know what to do about housing in the town but there may be some things we can do with the bylaws and i don't think we're going to get there by the deadline for spring town meeting but i think it'll be helpful to have them on our list so we can think about them for a special town meeting um in the fall um the other thing i had is the ad us which are a little later on so i'll save that part of the discussion till we get to the ad us oh and the the other thing i should mention is in addition to the two net zero things that you mentioned jenny i'm just wondering if we need to add a more um general clause to the edr having to do with environment and climate because the one is not really one that deals directly environment is more about built environment but i thought it would be helpful to maybe have a general one that's about climate and environment to give us more of an ability to look at that when we're looking at a permanent application great thank you gene um i just had um i appreciate everything that people have put on the table and we'll go back and take these one by one but i just wanted to add two more um to to this list um the first is seeing what i think is the great work that was done um by the department and um the the consultant to create the residential design guidelines and knowing some of the challenges that we've had trying to communicate the board's preferences and and work with a lot of the commercial applicants um starting the process at some point this year of looking at creating a set of commercial or business design guidelines would um be something that i i'd like to put on the table for discussion um and then the other thing that i'd like to put on the table for discussion specific to i think um building on kin's earlier question about how we can work to um assist businesses and spur more commercial development within town um is taking a commercial district such as the earlington heights business district and really looking at the at the zoning there and the challenges that the zoning map currently presents to commercial development um and studying that and perhaps making some um making some recommendations for um modifications to the to the zoning map um to assist businesses in their ability to develop the the properties um in our in our commercial districts so i wanted to put those two on the on the table so um i know we have ad use a little bit um later in our agenda um but the uh first one that i have on my list is to discuss um the uh davids what david put on the table about clarification about um mixed use and whether that's something that this board would like to take on or um do we want to wait to see whether the citizen petition uh is being moved forward so is there anyone that wants to weigh in on that i'll say i think the bylaw is very clear now and um i don't you know i think the only reason we would want to change it if we want to narrow the opportunity for mixed use and i don't see the necessity to do that i i would guess very strongly that you know that citizen petition is coming back um and we'll probably get to address it that way but interested in what other people have to think about it i i'm not sure i feel that the the bylaw is entirely clear um particularly i i think some of the in some cases there are references in the text to what's allowed in mixed use and in some cases it's it's the tables and it's a little i find a little bit ambiguous in in some cases depending on what section you're looking at as to what what controls and i'd like to go through and uh identify areas where there is ambiguity and and just eliminate it and you had something to add i would i would agree with jean i think it's what's there is i feel comfortable with and i think it's it's pretty straightforward so can i make a suggestion then just knowing that we have a couple others to get to as well um david if there's something that you had wanted to take a look at perhaps if you wanted to um take a look at any modifications you might suggest and then we could defer this to a future meeting um when we have the while the warrant period is still open so that we can decide whether that's something that we'd like to take on as a board do the board members feel that that would be an appropriate way to move forward any other comments on that proposal jenny well i just want to remind the board that we did have a hearing about this and discussion about it in march correct erin somebody else anybody um and there was not there was not consensus from the board in support of that proposal at all at the time now i recognize that we've experienced some new applications utilizing the mixed use portion of the bylaw and that might be might be influencing your opinion about it but i will say that the majority of the board did not support that proposal when we had the hearing about it in march great thanks for the clarification jenny okay um i just i just wanted to be clear i'm i'm not hoping that we adopt that citizen proposal as as our own i'm i'm just proposing that we perhaps take a closer look at the issue to see if there is any action we want to take which would not necessarily be in agreement with the citizen proposal thank you david and again i think if if you wanted to bring more jenny i was just going to say i i would not suggest that course of action at this time again where the mixed use bylaw is relatively and we're still experiencing having projects come before the board we're gaining experience with it we're coming up with new ideas about what we think should be mixed use let's give the bylaw more time before we go picking at things that we think need to be adjusted or corrected that would be my suggestion to the board i know that people in the community might not even agree with the statement that i just made um and maybe some of you don't agree but i really highly suggest you take more time with it and and and better understand it but i think that the way it's been utilized and applied does not have anything to do with um this correction wouldn't change the things that you might be thinking it will change um or that that even the citizen petitioner believes might change as a result of it so i would i'm i'm discouraging it because i think that we're the majority of applications we have are from the mixed use zoning bylaw so i would i would suggest that we keep it in place and get more experience with it and then and then have a discussion about what we think needs improvement and could change and kind of go from there i agree i would agree too gene i see you nodding your head yeah i i mean i agree i mean i think if david were to say here's something that is really perplexing that's in the bylaw that it would be something i would take a serious look at but i personally haven't found that but you know david may have found it i'll i'll take a closer look and but i you know i i'll i'll defer to the rest of the board on the priority you want to assign this uh and if i if i think there is something more critical i'll bring it forward great thank you david um see the next item we had here was uh looking again at the the master plan and jenny perhaps i can um pose this to to you in terms of um is there an intent or a date when when that does come up for review i mean it's uh it's a master plan without i don't doesn't exactly have a number of years on it ever right it talks about like short term near term mid term long term but it's not exactly clear what those terms were it it does um yeah it does provide like a range of years um i believe with the outer horizon being 10 years 10 years so we put into this year's uh goals that we would do what you're talking about um ken i i don't know that we will be we can maybe attempt to review the work of the master plan implementation committee they haven't met much this year at all but we can also think about the working groups that we have in place and this might speak to the point that you made earlier about like a group thinking about economic development or the commercial corridors maybe we need a working group on that and not we don't we don't have a millbrook study group anymore so um probably it is time to revisit that uh but develop and then maybe developing a process that's possible i i'm not sure what the exact timeline would be though so i'm i'm sorry to express this level of reluctance i i think we can do some portion of it i definitely agree it needs to happen i don't know how much is achievable next year with a public process the key the key part to any of that related to the master plan would be a public process and based upon the number of other public processes will be engaged in next year i don't know that i can add one about in the master reworking the master plan but i absolutely agree we should look at how are we doing does this you know do do elements of it needs to need to be amended and then do we need to look at some new study or working groups which was something that i think you were alluding to earlier and i i if it's okay rachel erin actually works with the master plan implementation committee so i'd just be interested in her insight on this one uh sure thanks rachel um i think that relative to updating the master plan it would be um i i would tend to agree with jenny that i think that there's certain sections that could take a deeper look and if we don't necessarily follow the exact prescribed recommendation or action in the master plan i think that's okay but to retool the document halfway through its term um or its you know general term of if we select 10 years it's um it it might be more useful in another year so to think about updating the document on as a whole um with uh 2025 you know creeping up relatively quickly um so i uh in summary i think i would suggest that um you know we can look at certain pieces of it assign it to a new working group or an existing working group or or bring back old working groups um focus on those pieces and then consider you know starting a new process relative to it thank you i'm fine with that it's just that a few years ago uh we talked about that stuff we talked about the same thing and the same discussion was to say yes we don't want we're not ready for it we should wait and address this in a year or so or i mean i don't want to keep on kicking kicking the can down the road i think we should just say look you know it is it is a lot but we should start at least looking at it i don't want to just say okay let's kick the kick the can on the road we'll paste into it later it's something that we're always referring to and if uh if if the direction's a little different then let's let's let's talk about it uh rachel and jenny may i quickly respond as well please um so i think um that's that's a valid point i don't want to kick the can down the road um we have a master plan implementation committee um there uh it potentially could use some reinvigoration of new members um and perhaps that committee can start taking on that discussion about where we need to look to see um you know focus on certain aspects but also look to see where specific course changes might be necessary um as a as a response to kin's comment thank you thank you erin i think that that definitely works let's kick that over to the erin and the master plan implementation committee um for next steps i just had one quick point on that i i'd also be interested in perhaps um finding a way to get an understanding of whether there's a disconnect between the goals and objectives as stated in the master plan and the public's understanding of um you know particularly projects that that have happened subsequent to that in support of the master plan um because sometimes we hear from the public that that uh they feel like projects are inconsistent with the master plan and then we have to engage in a back and forth with them about it and i'm i'm wondering if as part of that public process we can not just look at what might need to be changed but gauge what what is the public's understanding of the implementation has worked so far thank you david we can certainly add that to the the goals of that study um that sounds like a that sounds like a good maybe town-wide survey set of questions for next year though because we're already working on them for this coming year or so it'd be 2022 so um i i hear what you're saying david thanks jenny so gene i know that our fourth agenda item um is around zoning amendments and housing so if it's okay with you i'll defer your items that you were looking to add to the goals for discussion in that agenda item if that works for you great um you you did ask if we could look at adding a general clause about um environment and the climate to the environmental design review guidelines um i think we can add that as a as something we can take a take a look at um i was going to suggest that so that we have a an item here uh on the screen review and amend environmental design review criteria that was actually supposed to be a broader set of activities that we were going to engage in that i would still like to engage in not just about um what gene was talking about but i would say that what you're talking about gene is actually stuff that we think will be uh needs to be amended as part of the storm water bylaw which is going to go to spring town meeting 2021 so uh i actually don't have an answer to that do you erin by any chance did you talk to emily uh no i i haven't had a chance to talk to emily um since since we talked for an hour and a half ago um the but i i think that that comment gene's comment and request um and then the need to potentially update that storm water criteria relative to um a new storm water bylaw to be in compliance with the nifty's permit um and then also potentially looking at the all of the criteria as a whole is a good project to take on and i i would want to look at them all as as a suite of criteria rather than pick and choose one over the other because um you know i they were added to over time not significantly but a couple were added um so i think we need to look at how they all interact together um with an eye towards updating them to be consistent with plans and policies and and just current thinking around around these these items you know i would i was sort of thinking of something very general as i said which was more like you know um an edr criteria on environment and climate in which we look at whether the applicant's proposal is consistent with town plans and policies and guidelines and other criteria having to do with environment and climate so it doesn't directly say you must use this for storm water but it allows us to go where i don't think we've gone up to this point in looking at a lot of the projects and you know as the town might change its policies or plans we would not have to go back each time and change the edr criterion to be able to do that that's what i was thinking of i guess i can quickly respond erin please yeah um i i think that that's a good idea as well um i do i think we'll have to make some specific changes to be in compliance with the nifty's permit though um that will be very specific um but but um adding something in about compliance which is something that jenny and i try and weave into our staff reports um and our reviews of zoring them and some such but perhaps that is that is something that would be helpful um so that it's explicit thank you erin and i apologize my dog is losing his mind in the background behind me right now um so the last two items were um about looking at the any zoning impediments to business development in the orlington heights business district um jenny i see you took yourself off mute oh yeah i've just been off mute i think um no i wasn't nothing in particular yes i agree with that and erin and i spoke about it earlier and while i think originally we thought maybe we would have something we could talk about for spring 10 meeting i think we would prefer to have more time with that and also with the neighborhood the the implementation committee to talk about it as well as some property owners before we endeavor to change the zoning districts one of the recommendations if you some of you might recall from that report is to um basically consolidate the four business districts into one district um we're also talking about the industrial zoning district which is abutting that and i am then in that report there's a recommendation for an overlay district a pud sort of new type of district just for a couple of industrial parcels in that area i think we want to just take a look at what have a better proposal um that we think is worth uh really pursuing and also understanding the dimensional and density requirements for this new proposed zoning district and we're we're not there yet but we agree that it should definitely be pursued it's very relevant great thank you kim is that a committee or uh what is how's that how are you guys are doing how are you guys addressing that i wouldn't mind getting more involved in that oh rachel is uh rachel has been participating in these uh the whole time right the arlington night scene for an action plan uh implementation committee right but kin if if you're interested in becoming more involved it would be great to have your voice um as part of that too well if you're involved and you feel like that's good enough i'm not gonna i don't want to uh step on your shoes or crowd you you know i mean i'll say we have not gotten into any anything related to zoning yet it's really been more about um grassroots and placemaking um so this this is something that would need to be delved into in the coming months so again if it's something you're interested in um i'm sure that the committee could value could would value from your input as well yes i am okay great well um we'll make sure to include you on uh the ally carter from our department uh lets people know when those meetings are happening thank you great you're welcome and then um the last item we had on on here was um one that i put forth which was about the commercial design guidelines and whether or not that was something that again i know there's a lot a lot currently on on the department's fleet right now but it's something that i think we as a board could benefit from in the future i think for that one what i would uh well so we had like funding to do the commercial and industrial design standards which is what we have right now um and obviously to do the residential design guidelines that was a town meeting appropriation as well um i don't i think while we have some staff capacity in a limited sense to do some of this work um we can't even do the mod the 3d model that had been requested we we will need to hire somebody to support that project so i guess what i would suggest um for better or worse is that we would have to make a special appropriation of funds to do that sort of project i think it's too there is an existing base of something to work with so maybe it's not too much uh money but i think what you're really looking for is something much more detailed and that would require an architect to provide that kind of you know depth and guidance um which is why we have such a high quality document for the residential design guidelines great agreed Rachel can i just say yeah i mean i agree with you would be ideal to end up with um a document similar to the residential design guidelines documents for commercial industrial spaces um but i also recognize the um impediments to getting it done soon that jenny just mentioned maybe an interim step is we do have a set of guidance now and i don't think we've ever really pulled it out when we've looked at any um proposals and grounded our suggestions in any way related to those so maybe an interim step that we can do at some point is take a look at them and see if we can make better use of them and we've done up to this point i think there's precedent for for taking that approach because for instance on the issue of bike parking i think the board pushed uh proponents to do more on bike parking um based on um you know just general best practices before we had fully codified uh new guy new new bike parking bylaws in the town or created the town's bike parking guide you know so i i think we could we could take some preliminary action without a full-fledged guide available to us i will say that i've looked through them recently and they're thin so um i don't know that they're they're they're definitely not what we're discussing needing as a as a board but i i think your suggestion is good that everybody familiarize themselves with what we do currently have in place and that way at least we'll know better what we're the delta as to what we're looking for um when we define that through a town meeting appropriation if that's the best way to go okay anything else before we move to i know we're a little behind the time um our next agenda item which was proposed amendment to the ARB rules and regulations rule 10 okay jenny do you want to well what i was going to say is for the for the goals what i'm going to do is i'll i'll work with rachel and erin to pull together an updated document um and then i'll we'll talk we'll put it on the meeting of the 21st for a vote okay thank you let me grab that sorry hey jenny could ask one thing yeah we get the agenda and we have and has attached to it all the performance proposals sometimes i get a look when i'm going back and forth on what's the most current and what's not uh current anymore is there a way of putting a a watermark on the ones that that are uh outdated is part of our package in the novice agenda um just the drawings i don't need the the text in the drawings yeah just like a like a watermark saying this was this is superseded uh we'll figure out a way to do it i i'm sure there's a way i don't i don't know uh we've tried to in the i know you're not all doing it this way but we in the uh interactive version of the agenda not the pdf version we put we've been putting new on documents so it's clear what is new but i think that obviously doesn't carry into the pdf so erin and i can talk about how to make it clear and work with mary who posts the documents thanks i i can appear both what was proposed before and what's new to see what the changes are and sometimes it gets a little confusing i know you're talking about totally okay also sometimes those plans don't have a date a current date on them they'll have an older date but don't show that it was a newer plan set that's right yeah that's correct i do ask for that i don't always get it thank you can i add the word new to the pdf so i don't see why that wouldn't be possible to do when you put together the pdf oh no no i mean like the pdf is like the downloaded version of the entire meeting packet so it's not going to tell you which document in there is new it's going to give you everything that was once you've got the pdf couldn't you just go in it and add new to the documents that are new uh we'll figure out a way to make it work i'm not sure it's that um it's novus agenda is a weird system that we're using behind the scenes and i will i will talk with erin and mary about what what we can do to improve the document flow and uh so it's clear what's new um so speaking of novus agenda um rule 10 is all about that really so uh essentially what i am requesting is uh i'm i'm requesting to essentially codify what i'm already doing what we do in practice which is we post documents basically in accordance with open meeting law and and public meeting law we've been doing it this way for a long time when we first developed this these rules and regulations i think we were ambitiously hoping that we could move everything up earlier in the process we were also uh to some extent modeling ourselves after what the select board does for how they build an agenda the select board has a completely different agenda than we do and one that does not include working with applicants in large amounts of plans um that are then reviewed so i'm asking for these amendments really to provide the staff with the time they need to review things before they're ready to be posted um and to post things all at once that's that's the real driver behind asking for this and also to reflect the actual practice which is when we actually post things rather than what it says in terms of when we post things which i i can try to accomplish but i think it would be in piecemeal and i don't think that that's actually fair to the public or to the board so that that's the that's the spirit behind this um proposed amendment and just one more thing before you say um for your ask a question which is that this is a conversation it's not like a definitive if you don't want to amend the rules you don't have to but if you do decide to amend them what i would suggest is you recommend some changes and then we would post the document it will have a public comment period and a hearing because they're rules and regulations um and so there there's still a comment period so people can depending upon how we feel about this people can also make some statements about how they don't agree with it or they support it so thank you jenny i i just have one question then i'll turn it over to my colleagues for any questions as well when you say 48 hours um prior to the meeting date is that 48 business hours um or is that literal time 48 hours beforehand now it's um an error and you can you can talk about it you looked like you wanted to chime in sure um 48 hours as defined by the open meeting law is 48 business hours so weekends and holidays do not count which is why we post our agendas on thursday for monday meetings great thank you you're welcome uh any member of the board have any questions or comments i'm supported with this oh thank you kin jean i i mean for me the thing that was most concerning was that it doesn't get the agenda and and materials to us later than we do now because right now it's posted some time on thursday for the monday meeting and that's sometimes i mean sometimes that's fine but sometimes there's 500 pages to go through you know so um my my biggest concern was this would be compressing it and we wouldn't be getting it thursday but we'd be getting it closer to the monday meeting date so i'm thinking that rather than the at least 48 hours why not just put you know um three business days or two business days whatever it is prior to the meeting date so it's it's better understandable than 48 hours and if it's still thursday that's fine you know it's tight but we live with it for a long time but i would just make it a little easier to understand by saying whatever it is two or three business days prior to the meeting i actually just noticed that number five and number six say something different one of them actually clarifies that it's in compliance with open meeting law and the other one doesn't um i think it's okay to actually say in compliance with open meeting law every other committee and board and town posts things in the same exact manner um so but i hear what you're saying because 48 hours would be confusing if you think it's saturday david you look like you were gonna ask them well yeah i mean 48 hours is completely confusing me and and i think that's what we do right now but stand why it's confusing yeah one of our goals one of our goals should obviously be to uh eliminate confusion um the other thing is i i'm not exactly sure you know we have everything in the chart and with the exception of the 48 hour thing it seems pretty clear but then there's this paragraph below the chart that says members of the public can add things basically up to the last minute and i wasn't wasn't clear how that kind of interacts with the other all the other deadlines or basically it's outside of the deadlines um it's what we're doing again it's what we're doing right now if you look at our agendas we allow people to email us up to this evening essentially or the 4 p.m before the meeting and if they have visual materials which was something we agreed upon i think the summer that they would submit it by the friday so that we had a little more time and and this is all well i don't post things by the way i get the email and then i forward it to somebody else who posts it so we do our very best to uh to get the information posted but it doesn't always get there exactly on this timeline but i think it's only fair to point out that we do allow comments to be received for our meetings and um but that's an acceptable timeline it's it's after somebody has is reacting to the material obviously or it's during a continued hearing so somebody has something additional to provide you know no i i agree this is important to allow this and but i think that pushing it so close to the meeting is is responsive to the point the gene raised which is uh often as you don't we have enough time to review the materials neither does the public and uh we want to get feedback from the public and and this the problem with this i think from our perspective with allowing public comments to be submitted and included um up to that close to the meeting is it impedes our ability to review that material prior to the meeting um you know which sometimes is very relevant so you know i i don't can wait if we're if we're thinking about maybe pushing things well pulling things back even further to give us more time then maybe we can pull this back a little bit um uh to give us time to review anything that's submitted by the public in response to what's been posted i i agree with you in spirit completely and that's how these rules were already written was to give everybody more time and but in practice it's not working that way and it's hard to do and people are going to always provide more comments no matter what we do in terms of changing this in fact since these are our existing rules people are people people don't abide by them by the way other people including the people who provide us with emails at five p.m. which happens on a regular basis so i you know i hear what you're saying completely i think the biggest thing to focus on is um is how is the quality of the materials that are posted the making sure it's very clear what you need to review for that evening so that you feel more prepared in terms of giving you more time i i'm i'm struggling with that i currently don't know how much more time we can provide based upon the time between meetings sometimes um you know the realities for example we just had a hearing on Monday night the applicant has to come back by Monday one week later to give us updated materials which is actually quite a lot a quite a limited amount of time and then we're not going to post them right away we need to review the materials to provide you know to make sure they they're actually responsive before we actually post them and then we would post them with an agenda that will have other items on it so i i the one one thing i can look into i guess um and erin i don't know if if you know the answer to this but i think that there is a back end to know novice agenda that before it goes live there might be a way for the board to view items before they are active i don't know how to say it but like there might be a way that we can post some documents um i just i don't know enough about novice to confirm this possibility it's still contingent on our staff yeah and having the materials from the applicants to be quite frank so i know we still have one more agenda item um and um i think we have given some feedback on some you know a few minor clarifications to um to this proposed codification of really how how where we're currently conducting business are there are there any new points or questions that we want to make sure that erin and jenny are aware of prior to bringing this to a future meeting for further discussion and voting to potentially put this uh put this uh on the books one david you have one more thing um so i'm hesitant to bring this up because i i think it might involve more work by either the the planning department or inspectional services um but um i would love um especially on on the bigger projects to um have in my hand um before the hearing uh kind of a comprehensive zoning analysis of the project um because right now um um what often happens is sometimes we identify zoning issues that that get brought up um we the board members um sometimes sometimes fairly often it's members of the public who raise zoning issues uh some of which they're correct about and some of which they're not but oftentimes we were not otherwise aware of not having gone through the the full analysis ourselves so i'm wondering is is that something the other board members are interested in and is it possible to provide us with more information i mean i agree with david that would be ideal i've always thought it was um not the best process where each of us sit around in the three or four days between when we've gotten in the meeting and at least what i do is try to figure out you know where does this comply with zoning where does it i'm flipping through the bylaw on a fairly regular basis and as david said i think often we come up with things but sometimes we don't and sometimes the public identifies things correctly and sometimes incorrectly and when they identify something at the meeting incorrectly then i'm trying to flip through the zoning bylaw at the same time the meeting's going on trying to figure it out and i think there's a lot of repetition in the work that each of us on the board does that could be eliminated if there was a zoning analysis that went with the proposals so the board the the staff does some of that clearly in um the the memo that john jenny writes to the board some of that's in it but not all of it well that doesn't feel like an amendment to our rules and regulations by the way david i mean that's just something we can we can find a way and erin erin and i work together on the memos um to be clear but um we can we can find a way to uh provide a more in-depth uh zoning assessment i but i i cannot speak to the the level of uh interaction or um what we can do with inspectional services directly um they typically don't review things like at this stage they might review some component of it but it is not um i i don't think that that would be incorporated into our review i wouldn't i wouldn't recommend it be in fact um but i can work with erin on finding a way to improve our you know sort of uh really it's the first question in the uh in the edr uh which is the is the use allowed um and we can we can probably go a little bit deeper on that one well we'll find we'll find a way to to be responsive i want to be respectful of the time i do hear i hear what you're saying i don't know that it belongs and my my recommendation is that it doesn't belong in the rules i was just reading through them myself i only brought it up because it creates a potential timing issue and we were just discussing the whole timing of the materials oh yeah i i think that we can i i i understand what you're saying um and i also have heard we have certainly heard this before um so i will including uh more specific requests requests about uh zoning reviews um but erin and i will figure out a way to try to be responsive and we can um perhaps continue this on the 21st because we have a continued hearing anyway and we and then we have actually a new hearing they have a lot on that that's fair david does that address your concern great okay um anything else before we move on to uh item number four okay uh so we'll discuss this topic again jenny on the 21st yeah i think i'll just put on the agenda of the 21st i'll put an item for the for you to i'll just put the rule the new rule um and you can decide if you want to vote on it or not and then what if you do then we'll put it out for public comment and it'll come to a january meeting i don't know which one i'd have to look at the agendas um and then on the other item i'll also put your goals on there and you can you can review the draft the final draft and decide whether or not you want to vote on them that night does that make sense that works for me any um objections to that plan okay great uh so the last item on our agenda and i apologize that we only have five minutes left for this i know we have a hard stop at 630 for several people um is a discussion about outreach strategy and next steps for zoning amendments in the housing discussion so perhaps this can be part one of the discussion and we can continue it at a future meeting well i also think we started this when we were talking about the zoning amendments as part of item one so maybe because we have um there's members of the of the public who are participating who i believe want to talk about this with us it might be a better use of the limited amount of time just to have the conversation with them would be my proposal um but that's what i would suggest great any any um questions jean i'm just i don't know what to do with the adu's because we've got one more meeting and then i think the warrant articles are due before our next meeting after that now we have some more time okay warrant articles are due uh the last friday and january okay so we have time we can we can revisit that one i i'm sorry for stuffing it in there and i i've apologized already to the petitioner of her own adu article about that so um i would i would very much like to hear from the people who are also participating in this from the public great any anything else before i open it up for a public comment great um so any member of the public who has joined us today wishing to speak please use the raise hand feature uh which is through the participants button i'll just remind you that when i call on you please use your name identify yourself by your name and address and uh i will afford you three minutes to speak we'll start with barbara thorton great thank you very much first of all i want to say uh i'm sorry barbara could you just barbara thorton increasing 16 223 park av or lington thank you um sorry i got my last zoom meeting background here um i looked at the agenda quickly and i am i am concerned about your intentions regarding adu and david watson just hearing your comments at the beginning and not having had an opportunity to talk with you although i did reach out i it sounds like you have in mind that it would be a good idea for the adu to set up a competing article uh in the adu space for the arb to set that up and i i don't think that's really your intention but the second concern that i have is that i would like there's three points the second concern is i would like you to respect the fact that the community is out there talking about adu's in great depth in a number of different venues and for you to say that you need as the arb to set up a process where you can validate because it only comes to you what the community thinks is really not fair so i would invite you to you know keep your ear to ground find out where these discussions are happening and and what people are saying the third is i wrote to the i think a lot of confusion happened around the this process least for me and i strongly urge you to consider the the process that i outlined for you in writing after the arb hearing and and i was hoping that i would hear you discuss that tonight so you know an hour and a half into the meeting and i i don't think i missed it um i think it's really important if you are going to be have a clear working relationship with all of the citizens that want to put some ground some some legwork into legislation and zoning and things like that they have to know that they have a working relationship that what the rules of the game are what the deadlines are what the timing is are you going to get back to us or only or are you going to wait until you can tell us publicly at the hearing that that you haven't heard about this before and it's not valid so got to clear that up so that's that's that's three things please don't complete don't be clear if you intend to compete with me on an ad you proposal because i will be submitting one to keep your ear to the ground so that you hear what people are saying about this because a lot of people are talking about ad use in a very favorable way and three consider a written process that you understand and that the community can understand to go forward that's all thank you very much rachel for giving me the time absolutely for talking with me the other day thank you do we have anyone else wishing to speak up sorry jenny no i just want to respond to barbra's comment about not looking at the recommended approach that she had emailed previously i would like to say that since we didn't really we haven't really talked about the exact zoning amendments yet and we will be doing that at a future meeting that that would be the appropriate time to pick that up i'm sorry i didn't mention that earlier in point one but um i had them ready to go but because we were i didn't feel that we were really we're not in that space yet of talking about what we actually will be filing for annual town meeting and i think that that would come as part of that discussion including your recommendations as part of that conversation yeah can i just say i know your time is very limited to be together and to talk openly i am prepared to talk to any of you separately and individually about the intent behind those that memo thank you barbra i i appreciate your willingness to to engage it um very helpful thank you so much uh do we have any other members of the of the public who wish to to speak this evening uh alex hi there uh quickly i'd like to see i'm sorry i'm sorry alex bagnell wyman street prison thank you um quickly i'd like to see uh an outreach that maybe reached out across a couple of different areas and involved a more historical context for the housing discussion so that was not necessarily focused on a specific warrant article or a specific policy piece but educated the town more broadly on the history i think there is a desperate need for that and i'm deeply jealous of newtons bringing of richard rothstein and talk to them and having the library support that and having a number of groups get behind that uh so i will also be advancing this at the envision meeting later um and uh could see gathering a number of constituencies to try and do this and probably talking to katie talking great uh jenny uh it's okay to just respond i just feel the need to i'm sorry i appreciate it i don't i i i want this to be very much a conversation together and to have it also help to do the work for the housing production plan which i think will involve public outreach and input um and then also i just want to make note of the fact that we are going to be doing some sort of zoning 101 type sessions and even introductory sessions about town bylaws and things of that nature uh the town council has talked about doing this and we will find a way to take it up either with our linkedin community education or just through the town um but i wanted to also mention that the uh the library had been doing a democracy after dark i think is what it was called and we'd be happy to work with you on what you're talking about to have that kind of another housing forum i agree that we had a really good housing conversation this summer through the community conversations which included katie um and i think we should do more of that and i think it's very important as part of the conversation so i just want to support your point thank you thank you any other members of the board um wish to respond to either one of those those comments jean just quickly i to say i agree with arbor we do need a process and i think she put forth a good template for us to look at so that we have a longer time frame and a really ability to engage with members of the public who put in warrant articles having to do with zoning so i would encourage us to strongly consider her proposal or take it as sort of our starting point to put something similar together great thank you jean katie um just really quickly my kids are going nuts in the background so my my hard stop is rapidly approaching um but i just want to say that i really strongly support what both alex and barba are saying about really thinking broadly about what community conversation looks like um this probably doesn't surprise anyone familiar with my background but i have really strong views about community engagement and how it's traditional the the way we traditionally do it is fundamentally broken and privileges um of very specific subset of the population and i want to hear from the general public in arlington and i'm really excited what jenny's talking about with surveys i'm excited about some of the more creative ways of going out and actually talking to existing community forums and not just having sort of formal either zooms or you know hearings where we ask people to come to us like i think the onus to some extent is on us to go out into the community and learn these views um and participate in these broader conversations about housing so i think we're going to get a much more representative subset of the views about housing when we do that so um anyway i greatly appreciate um you guys attending the meeting and talking with us about how to do a high quality representative public process because i think we need that great thank you katie and any other uh comments from the from the board or from um jenny or erin before we move to adjourn just uh just on this point about barbara's suggestions and gene also supporting that and and katie as well um can we could we put that on our first meeting in january i believe that's january fourth the next meeting is when we'll talk about we have two hearings and then we have uh the industrial zoning conversation and i i kind of feel like and then you're going to vote on your the two remaining the lingering items from tonight i think that might be that might be about it uh unless you want me to stick it in that meeting but otherwise i'd prefer to do it january fourth if that would be okay i just want to make it very transparent and clear that that's that's more appropriate okay barbara any any concerns um my only concern is that that we have what is it january 29th that's the final day and i'm i just wrote to doug heim and i saw some of the things that you were discussing i'm not clear where i stand in this very unusual position do i need to go out and connect signatures again or you know so so i'm looking for that kind of clarification in in addition to what i need to do and i need that all done by january 29th so hopefully doug will get back to me but clarification from you on what you consider things that roll forward versus from from the prior intended april 2020 agenda to april 21 uh i'd appreciate i still think that january fourth is realistic for that um because we were we're going to reach back out to everybody who had submitted articles for 2020 town meeting who didn't want to refile for special town meeting um but again if the board wants to talk about this on the 21st i'll put it on the agenda i just was um trying to organize that i i'm just i'm just raising it for to put my perspective yeah because if you postpone it again from the fourth i'm i'm oh yeah no they can't they only have the the next meeting is that the that monday of the week that you're talking about after that so uh so we're on the fourth okay they being you us there's a hand up and i know we all have to go i'm sorry great great so um i'll take one more public comment and then we'll close the public comment period uh jennifer seuss hi sorry i i've only been able to watch part of this meeting which is why i wasn't originally going to speak um i just wanted to raise um my experience um with other things that's happened in town both in the school committee and um with mass avenue quarter project that oftentimes big messy public meetings can be cathartic for the community there's uh both by giving people an opportunity to express their frustrations and be heard but also i think it's really valuable for people in a room and it could be a zoom room obviously to hear that there's other perspectives besides their own and i what i've encountered again and again is our people who think the way i think is it is the right way and everyone else is ignore the these people in power are ignoring it and so being able to hear different perspectives are really valuable and i think that we have enough very strong housing advocates in town that if we had one of those big messy meetings and not very many of them but maybe just one we could bring forward people who are supportive of housing to give an alternative voice to the other people who traditionally show up so i want to encourage that kind of meeting i think that there's value in it it's not it's not the only value obvious there's lots of other ways to gather information but i think there's some value psychologically for people great thank you for that perspective and for sharing your experience based on on your other commitments in town jenny did you want to i know that you've responded to a lot of our other comments about public forum and and what we'd be able to accomplish i know that a lot of those things we've we've talked about pushing to a special future special town meeting with regard to to housing so that sounds like to me something that potentially timing wise would happen after we get through the warrants items preparing for spring town meeting uh yeah i i think a bigger forum is part of the bigger bigger process um i i certainly i do know what jennifer is speaking to in terms of it being cathartic in some ways um i i i don't like a messy meeting though i'll just be very honest about that i like an organized messy meeting um that would be my my preference but but i i i agree that we need a space for people to actually have a conversation i think that that's what i'm hearing and taking away and i think um that's been um there hasn't been enough of that there could always be more and that we but we also want to make sure that we're we're we're providing the right venue for people to do that i think that would be that that will be part of the conversations we have about the housing production plan um and certainly um other conversations that we've been talking about i don't know that it exactly fits to into a town meeting per se i i wasn't hearing that specifically i was hearing that it's just important to have these broader conversations to get lots of voices uh talking about the issues and not not only some voices which tend to go to certain meetings but not up not may not always be part of the conversation great thank you for clarifying all right um let's see uh with that i will close public comments uh are there any final um any other final discussion points from the board before we take a motion to close our goal setting meeting this evening all right do i hear a motion to adjourn motion second great i'll take a roll call vote to close the meeting uh kin yes david yes gene yes katie yes and i am yes as well thank you so much for everyone who attended and to jenny and eric for all the work you did to prepare for tonight thank you good night everybody thanks everybody good night good night


One and done what I said very early is the need for repetition, not we finish that one more go on. I love the beauty of the opportunity to repeat and to say the same joke again and to laugh hysterically again all over again. As I watch my twin great nephews growing up who've just turned five, they will tell each other jokes over and over again, fall down laughing and then get up and start again. So my niece who is a teacher has been sending me videos of her twin boys. And I've just been learning with them since they were about 18 months old through the video she's been sharing. I've been watching them carefully and repetition seems so part of what they get joy from. So part of what they get reassurance from. So that's that first idea that we shared. The second one is the possibility of taking things in isolation, which is necessary. We have to shine a magnifying glass or in some cases I like to think of it as a spotlight or a flashlight on something. And then we take it to context again, pull it out of context, return it to context to make it memorable. And so there's so many researchers I could quote or cite I mentioned just a few today, but the ones who truly know young children understand this need for both, for speaking and listening, for reading and writing, for drawing and learning and keeping that flexible and interchangeable. And that to make it memorable, they have to participate. They aren't just recipients. They aren't these empty vessels we're filling. We all know that image, but they are learning together. As I watched these twin nephews now at five, I watched how they've participated, been partners in the learning, made it theirs and then try to teach each other. I've even tried to see them help each other, read a page together, sitting in one chair, squeeze together and they're sharing the learning and that's part of the joy. And then thirdly, everything we've talked about today has been about language. The role of that early oral language foundation, taking talk to reading and drawing and labeling and writing and not always in that order. As I said, young children may often think they're writers by drawing a picture and making some scribbles. Say, will you please mail this letter for me before they think they're readers? And so giving them more opportunities to draw, label and write actually and talk reinforces the reading instruction. It's all these intersecting circles. So here's summary points to think about as our quick hour comes to a close. And just repeating that faster is helping the fluency. And this is about the idea that fluency is developed with repetition. And then see the same sound in many places in many different forms, that's the flexibility. So fluency, flexibility. And then I wanna add the third one, fun. So we're talking and I'm using three sounds. The fluency, the flexibility and the fun because to me, all of that comes together when we use language and get their enjoyment in learning, we're building the joy and giving them the opportunity. So thank you for the opportunity to share today. And I have a quote I like to always say that one and two may not be the right numbers for a webinar, but when one teaches to learn and your chat and your comments and your questions have helped me learn today. So thank you for both being a teacher and a learner today. Yes, Dr. Klein hears and Dr. Klein's, if you wanna follow her on Twitter, please go ahead and do that. Cause there's more that you can learn from her as we continue, I agree with you. Yes, when we all learned together, there were some great posts in the chat, great questions that came in as well. Really loved being here with all of you. So thank you so much, Dr. Klein. We appreciate you spending the time with us to share those three strategies, these three strategies that can be incorporated into classrooms to support early literacy starting tomorrow, your wealth of knowledge. And as promised, here is the handout for you all. Just gonna post it in the chat for you all. So this handout here, it goes over, it has those three strategies there. It has the links to all of those lessons. We really encourage you to take some time to look at those lessons, see how you can use them, look at those strategies and see how you can support them in your classroom. If you have any further questions, please go ahead and put those in the Q and A right now. And we'll get to a couple of them. I think, Adri, one question that kind of came in. We had a few people bring this up. Do you have any other advice on how to support students right now who maybe have not recovered from the pandemic and just need a little extra support? So any, from your perspective, any feedback or support that you have? I'm thinking in terms of the one thing we don't consider, but it was in the list of the three, the opportunity to write and draw. For children who've had limited time in school or been in reduced schedule, probably the thing that we've seen the most is lack of time for self-expression. And therefore it isn't only the gaps in the reading knowledge, it's also the gaps in the expression that allows that to deepen understanding. So even as tough as it is, finding a way around this beautiful globe of ours to write, to communicate, to draw is not playtime. It's serious work time for the brain. And it is never only about reading. It's about all of these areas. It's about literacy learning. And literacy learning is complex. And if we reduce it too small, we won't see the catch-up gains that we want from this time of limited opportunity. So all I wanna suggest is the one thing kids didn't get to do when learning was put as a distance was truly write and express themselves. It's got to come back and technology is our friend for that kind of retelling, joke-telling, writing about, labeling about. I didn't go to third because I just listed it as third in importance. I listed it because it's critical to round out a full literacy life. Fantastic, I feel like that that's great advice for us to, we only have three minutes left. We got to most of the questions and other questions we will make sure that we go ahead and get you an answer to those. So our goal for you is we would love for you to try one literacy lesson in your classroom in the next seven days. We would love to have you share with us how that lesson went. You can use the social media hashtag CISA or CISA lessons to share this with us. Or you can also tag Adria and them and she would love to see how you're using them in your classroom as well. We would love your feedback as well. So we'll go ahead and post in the chat a link to gather the feedback. I'm just gonna grab that really very quickly. There we go, it's in there already, fantastic. We appreciate your feedback so much. We would love to know what you thought of this session. So please take just a moment to give us feedback in that link right there. And if you are interested in more information, I know there were a ton of questions also posted about CISA lessons. Go ahead and check out that web.cisa.me for which slash lessons page. And there's tons of information there and there's also places that you can connect with one of us at CISA to ask more of your questions. We so appreciate all of you joining us today. We know that it's busy and it's hard to spend an extra hour in your day learning but we really appreciate it. We also hope that this time has been useful for you and you can go back to your classroom feeling like you have some new strategies to use to support early literacy in your class. And Dr. Klein, we just so appreciate you being here with us. So thank you so much and we hope to continue learning with you. Thank you so much.