Well, good evening everyone. We are now going to begin the March 14 meeting of the Arlington Redevelopment Board. This open meeting of the Arlington Redevelopment Board is being conducted remotely consistent with Governor Baker's executive order of March 12, 2020, due to the current state of emergency in the Commonwealth, due to the outbreak of the COVID-19 virus. For this meeting, the ARB 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 take care not to screen share your computer. Anything that you broadcast may be captured by the recording. So at this time, I'd like to confirm that all members of the Board are present and can hear me starting with Kim, Lau, President Eugene Benson, President Melissa Tintacos, President Steve Revola, Good evening, Madam Chair. I'm Rachel Zemberi, Chair of the Board. We also have Kelly Linema joining us from the Department of Planning and Community Development. Great. So thank you all for joining us this evening. The first agenda item tonight is going to be the continuation of the open public hearings for the warrant articles proposed for 2022 town meeting. This is the second of four nights of hearings for a total of 18 articles consistent with past hearings. The ARB will be hearing from the applicants and the public wishing to speak on each of these articles as scheduled. The Board will pose any questions to the applicants, but will reserve discussion and voting on each article to recommend action or no action until after all hearings have been completed, which is expected on April 4th. So the typical format for each article will be to hear from the Department regarding the memo that they have prepared, followed by up to a six minute presentation by each petitioner. We will then take questions from the Board, followed by public comments. We'll then ask the petitioner to address any questions and take final comments from Board members. So before we begin the continued public hearing, I just wanted to run through a few of the ground rules that we follow during these open public hearings for those of you who are joining for the first time. The scope of this public hearing is the subject matter as posted on the agenda as a procedure. Anyone who wishes to address the ARB on the subject matter of the agenda shall identify that you'd like to speak by raising your hand when I announce that we are ready to consider those items. To raise your hand in Zoom, please go to the participant section and click the raise hands button. After being recognized to speak, you will need to start your comments by giving your first, last name, and street address. Anyone addressing the Board on the subject matter of the agenda item shall limit your remarks to three minutes. If time allows, you may be allowed to speak more than once. That'll be up to the discretion of myself as the chair. And that will only be if you have a new and different point to make or question to ask. But again, we'll have to look at that based on the time as we follow the agenda this evening. In terms of evidence, the Board may receive any oral or written evidence, but such evidence is restricted to the subject matter of each agenda item. Immaterial or unduly repetitious evidence is excluded. Everyone present at the public hearing is requested not to applaud or otherwise express approval or disapproval that includes using the reaction buttons here in Zoom or any statements made or action taking at the hearing. Hearing participants shall refrain from interrupting other speakers or board members and conduct themselves in a civil and courageous manner. Speakers should address your questions through myself as the chair. Speakers shall not attempt to engage in debate or dialogue with the ARB members or hearing participants. Questions may or may not be answered during the public hearing. Some may be collected and addressed at a later date or collected and addressed at the end of public comment. All right. So with that, we will move into our first article for this evening, which is Article 31, a zoning bylaw amendment proposed with administrative amendments. This was inserted at the request of the Redevelopment Board. And Kelly, I will turn it over to you to see if you would like to top line the comments that were or the presentation that was made by the memo that was prepared by the planning department. Thank you, Rachel. Kelly Alayna, Assistant Director of the Department of Planning and Community Development.  These amendments are basically meant to address a couple of issues that have occurred. I'm just catching up on a few details. The first is to amend Section 3.4.3d to be consistent with the legislation signed by Governor Baker in 2021 around housing choice. And so this basically incorporates the exception of decisions of the Board of Special Permits that are in compliance with that housing choice legislation, which allows for a lower threshold of vote. The second amendment is to basically in 2019, when the bike parking bylaw was amended, it basically duplicated a section of the transportation demand management section. So this is basically just to include a statement in the TDM methods saying if otherwise not required. So making sure there's not a duplication of bike parking when it comes to calculating TDM. The third amendment is just to strike a duplication. So there's two duplicate paragraphs, word for word, in the zoning bylaw right now. So we're proposing to strike Section 8.1.4e and just allow the other to remain, which is 8.1.5. The fourth and fifth are really just to consolidate definitions. So right now we already have the definition for group home in the definitions. We also have the definition for accessory dwelling unit in our definitions in the zoning bylaw. And this basically takes both of those definitions and it puts them both into the category of definitions associated with dwelling. So it doesn't actually change anything about the definitions. It just moves them into one category. And I'm having to answer any questions about those. Great. Thank you so much, Kelly. And thank you to you and your colleagues at the Department for putting together such a thorough memo on all of the articles. Let's see. Let's start with Ken. Any questions for Kelly? No, I have no questions for Article 31. Thank you, Ken. Gene, any questions for Kelly? Just a couple really brief other questions or observations. In the article that does the fix on bicycle parking, a lot of those lines are underlined, at least in the copy I got. But I think the only one that really needs to be underlined is unless otherwise required. So I think that was probably just some sort of formatting thing that needs to be fixed. And then I know the intention, but in moving the definition of ADU and group home into the dwelling section, I think we should say more specifically, you know, we're moving it and deleting it from the previous location. But otherwise, I think they all look fine. Thank you. Great. Thank you, Gene. Kelly, did you have any? Yeah, I think that was just a scriber's error for Section 6.1.5. And then, I think being clear about what we're doing with those definitions, that's fine. Great. Thank you so much. Let's see. Melissa, any questions for Kelly? No, not at this time. Thank you. Thank you, Melissa. Steve, any questions for Kelly? No questions, Madam Chair. Okay. And I have no questions either. So with that, we will now open the meeting up to public comment for Article 31, the administrative proposed zoning by law amendments related to administrative amendments. So any member of the public wishing to speak, please use the raise hand function. And I'll give it a minute to see if anyone is interested in asking any questions on this article. All right. Seeing none, we will move on to the next article, which is Article 40, the Zoning Amendment to Expand Business Districts. This was inserted at the request of James Fleming and 10 registered voters. I will first turn it over to Kelly to hit any highlights that you'd like to cover from the memo prepared by the Department. Okay. Thank you, Rachel. So the highlights from this memo that we've provided to the board relate the petitioner is seeking to rezone four properties or four properties, sorry, five properties on four parcels. One is a two unit condominium from our five and four or two properties into the B3 district. This would essentially expand the B3 district in capital square area toward Cambridge. We took a look at what those properties are now and what they potentially could become if they were rezoned and if there were any limitations on those properties, if they were to be rezoned after the rezoning. Essentially, the current uses on those properties would be allowed to remain, they wouldn't be in conflict or there wouldn't be any nonconformancies created by the rezoning. As the petitioner notes, a rezoning would not require anything to be changed about these properties, but it would allow for additional uses to be put into place if those properties were sold later on or redeveloped at some point based on what either a future owner or current owner property owner wish to do with those properties. We looked at some of the historic zoning and did a little overlay and it actually maps right onto what zoning map looked like in around the 1970s, which is basically a consistent strip of business zoning. Then the one other thing to note is we know, we recognize that the board has discussed a desire to consider zoning amendments to encourage commercial development along these corridors. Just want to acknowledge that the board has already stated that if they were to embark on such a strategy, there would be a broader engagement and outreach component of this. That's about it for the memo. Great. Thank you, Kelly. At this time, James, if you could introduce yourself first, last name and address, and we welcome any comments that you'd like to make or any presentation about the warrant article that you proposed. Sure. James Fleming, 58 Oxford Street, Arlington, obviously. Just present through the slides as is and then take comment. Sounds good. Thank you. All right. Fantastic. Thank you. So this is basically my neighborhood, overhead view of Mass Ave, shows where all the businesses are, restaurants, bakeries, retail stores, a bunch of other stuff. It's really, really nice. I have a memory from last summer. My wife and I were walking home from getting ice cream at the movie theater and while waiting to cross Mass Ave, we heard the laughter clinking a plate bar and whatever else they, whatever else is in a restaurant. And it reminded me of how much we enjoyed being around with the people, just enjoying themselves, doing what they do, and that it was really fulfilling to live where we live because of how active it is. There's a lot of people out in the street just doing whatever. It's hard to explain, but basically just I enjoy being around people doing what they do. And so my thought was, is it possible to double down on that, whatever that feeling is that I have by allowing slightly more business, slightly more people in the neighborhood, which probably means adding more currency space. Next slide. Fantastic. So this, so I ended up walking down Mass Ave and trying as best I could to mark out the locations that had a business or that we're going to have a business. There was one that has one going in right now. And that they're basically full. The block that has, the block in red there is the one that has three vacancies. And that one was the subject of a redevelopment proposal that went before you last year. So basically I'm attributing that's why they haven't filled the vacancies because they're trying to figure out what to do with the property. So, yeah, so if the Starbucks are all full, then there really isn't much of an opportunity to add more business to the neighborhood. So you basically have to get to add more. And so that's what the rezoning proposal would do is it would take the business district and they would just extend it just a little bit up until the other B2 district, which is slightly to the east. So just nice, it's like satisfying to fill the gap in the zoning. And so the beginning to B3 would allow it to become either commercial or if someone decided to redevelop it, they could turn it into mixed use with the ground floor retail. And the reason I only chose four is that I had to submit letters to all the abutters, which costs $4 a letter. So keeping it small was a very high priority. And also I really wanted to reach out to everyone individually and for the owners and figure out what their opinions were. And doing that for a large swath would be just, I wouldn't have the brain space to do it. So I decided we'll start small and if it succeeds and I get the outcome I'm looking for, then maybe we take it further from there. Next slide. Sorry. I should have said next slide. This is the area being rezoned. Fantastic. So I was able to get some historical zoning maps and I realized that these used to be business a long time ago. And then sometime in the 1970s they stopped being business. There's a townwide rezoning that changed them to whatever they were at the time.  Next. Kelly already basically mentioned this that basically what's there now either would be continued to be allowed under the new zoning or would be allowed only with a special permit. But in either case you don't have to make changes and nothing would be out of conformance. The other thing is, and I know that I don't think Dana Mann is here. In starting this I wanted to make sure that if this was done there would basically be no impact natively on the property owners. So I asked the assessor's office about assessments and what Dana had said was that as long as if the zoning changes but they don't make any physical adjustments to the building so they don't change use so they don't extend it, then nothing would change about the assessment because the property tax rate is the same commercial or residential. And there's nothing different about the uses that would or sorry there's nothing different about the zoning that would cause the valuation to go up or to go down. So that basically was like well there's no there isn't something to be negative downside to doing this. So there we are. Next. So the other reason that I was thinking to do this is that this is in research I've done for a different warrant article but I think it bears repeating that if you have commercial use it makes really good use of the land tax wise. These are a couple properties in, well actually I'll start. The one on the left is one of the properties to be rezoned. It's an apartment building. Right now it's worth about seven million dollars an acre. So for that land area that's how much that's the value we get to tax. And then these, the two buildings on the right are a set of mixed use buildings up in our mountain heights where I used to live, which are two stories and they are worth about double the amount of money per unit of land they use. So I was like well it seems like commercial use makes really really good use money wise of the land in addition to being all the nice things about having an active neighborhood and things like that. And if these properties were rezoned to be three we would be able to have them be mixed use. Next slide. And you're you're almost out of out of time. Yeah yeah I'm almost out of time. Okay thank you. The last is that this is sort of an extreme example. This is a one-story leader bank branch in my neighborhood which is worth as much per unit of land as a eight-story apartment building in our Lincoln Center. So I was thinking well why the heck wouldn't we allow more commercial use just in general? It seems like it's worth it. Next slide. So summary. The rezoning more opportunity for business which personally I want for my neighborhood it seems like it'd be really nice to have more opportunity. It doesn't seem to negatively affect any of the property owners and that in general commercial and mixed use seem to make really good use of the land we have in town. Thank you. Thank you James I appreciate it. Oh I will one other thing. Of the I was only able to reach four or five owners just in general one one I was never able to reach. One is a post and I know he submitted a public comment and three that are able to reach were in favor but only one actually filed a letter or some sort of public comment. Great thank you that was going to be my first question. Okay so with that I appreciate your presentation James and I will ask Kim if he has any questions or comments to share with you. Hi thanks James for this presentation. I think you followed up with us as far as reaching out to the owners of the property and I appreciate that. I think having a majority of them interested in I guess this is called up zoning is best I can say and more or less a continuation of what's on Mass Ave which was there before I think is good. So right now I'm very supportive of this what you're trying to do here. I think it looks I think it helps tie in the fabric whereas no longer as hodgepodge as it was before I wasn't quite sure what happened. Why was where once was all business then all of a sudden it was down zoned to be residential and not allow it to you know Mass Ave which is a pretty wide street to grill. I think the opportunity there is also a good place to be picked where they're very wide streets and this allows the lower floors to actually activate and engage the sidewalks and have any seating areas or libraries out there so I think that's a good thing. So I'm supportive of this and thank you for bringing this up. Great thank you Kim. James any questions or comments for James? The only comment is I agree with what Ken said thank you thank you. Thank you Gene. Melissa any questions or comments for James? James or Kelly could you remind everyone here how this fits in with the goals of the master plan and the ARB because I think you know as you know Ken and Gene said that you know we are probably supportive of this but for me it's helpful and I think for the residents as we look to these changes they're plugged into greater bigger goals that we as a community have stated versus individual desires so we're trying to you know connect it and I would like to hear you explain that and share that. Thanks. As far as I'm aware it supports the master plan Kelly I'm sure has the specific language I remember the master plan's goal was basically street activation make the commercial districts more lively and I think there was something about just sort of a hodgepodge of zoning fixed and I guess this kind of addresses that Kelly please step in and save me. Yeah sorry you got first um so no it's really about livening the the business districts there's never a lot in the master plan on this but the other thing is just looking at the ARB goals for 2022 which includes specifically the action to consider zoning amendments to encourage commercial development along the Massachusetts Avenue and Broadway corridors and additionally looked at the Arlington Heights neighborhood action plan which talked about this a little bit much more extensively focused on Arlington Heights but I think expanding that throughout the town overall thing about just recommendations and additional action regarding zoning just to a desire to attract to address the zoning in the business districts more broadly to try to encourage greater commercial development and improving improving the corridors overall. Great thank you Kelly and James. Melissa any other comments or questions? No thank you for reinforcing that I appreciate that. Great thank you Melissa. Steve any questions or comments? One comment and one question um I was involved in the effort to recodify the zoning by-law back in 2018 and one of the goals that we had at the beginning of that project was to see if you know it might be better if it would be possible to consolidate some of the business districts. We had to drop that just because at the time it turned out to be more work than we had the capacity to do but this is sort of had that work on forward I you know envision it having looked something like this. The question I have for Mr. Fleming through you Madam Chair and this is a devil's advocate question. One of the comments I think that came I believe that came in this afternoon basically said something said something to the effect of you know you know it had the sentiment that Arlington should concentrate on filling its existing storefronts before it considers making room for any more and I was just wondering what your reaction to that would be. Steve is that a question for James or for uh that you'd like Kelly to that is a question for Mr. Fleming. Okay so James why don't you um take it take a first pass at that one. So uh the question is uh why expand the commercial district if we have vacancies in other commercial districts. Right that that's essentially what I how I interpreted it yes. Okay um so my thought on this is that you need enough residents in a close proximity to a business district to make it really viable and East Arlington by far has the most people per unit of land area whatever you prefer per square mile um and so it's just it's easier to have a business open here that is that serves the local residents because there are more people around it. So as to why I remember when I lived in the Heights there were a bunch of vacancies I don't know the particulars as to why they were vacant I'm sure there was there might be other factors but one reason I guess it might be that there weren't as many people in the area around it um but I'm I'm just sort of I'm speculating I would imagine that something to do with the amount of people that can support the business district um and so given that there were there didn't seem to be any vacancies that couldn't be explained by an owner trying to figure out what they were trying to do with the property said to me that if anywhere could have more commercial it would be East Arlington um which is why why this part of town and also I live here so I get to benefit from it if it happens. Thank you James can you look like you're something to add on this topic? Yeah I just want to add on to James's comment for Steve here some of the vacancies are not because they're because they're older spaces that don't quite adequately address tenants moving in they're small cut-up little spaces they're not deep enough there's not enough parking and so that's why there's some empty spaces and by having them empty and we're not creating more commercial space because they're empty is I don't think is a great way to go because these new ones will address those issues um and those other ones may fill in later on when there's more a little more density and there's enough more little more foot traffic but with these new ones that may or may not go in there would address some of those issues right away and so it's not like well there's an empty store here you got to fill it up before we give you more stores it doesn't work that way it works with what space is there the parking as James said earlier the foot traffic the size or the age of it um you know no one's going to actually invest in a commercial space if it's too small they can't grow or it's just cost cost prohibitive to fix the place up because it's so old I'll just leave it at that okay great thank you Ken Steve any follow-up questions or comments uh no thank you Mr. Fleming and Mr. Lau all right thank you Steve and I think I'll just um my only comment is you know again I agree with the others who supported this what um I appreciate about this is that it supports the potential of this space I don't think anybody on the board and James you certainly it's not done with the expectation that any of these property owners are potentially looking to to turn over their property in the in the near future but what we're trying to do is is create potential for the future should that be something should the property turn over yeah yeah my expectation is this to me this is a small little bet on my neighborhood that it'll happen and if it doesn't happen then oh well then you know I still get to live in a nice neighborhood with local business and and that's that great thank you any other questions or comments from the board before we open this up for public comment all right with that I will now open this up for public comment uh so anyone wishing to speak about article 40 please use the raised hand function I'll remind everyone to please introduce yourself by your first last name and address and you'll have up to three minutes to make your comments uh so the first speaker this evening will be Steve Moore uh yes thank you madam chair uh Steve Moore Piedmont street um I first want to ask sort of a pro forma question an obvious question I want to make sure I want to ask Mr Fleming if he or any of the other folks signed this for the inclusion of this article in the warrant this year have any financial interest in any of those properties uh I'll go ahead and did you have other questions what I'd like to do is is um yes I do collect your questions and then that that'll end your time and I'll ask James to respond uh okay um yes I have other questions um I want to um uh sort of build on what Mr Revillac had to offer in terms of filling up the spaces with that devil's advocate question I think there are probably a number of reasons why storefronts are are empty in town of which a significant amount are and I did hear what Mr Lowd would say um I'm not sure that that's uh wholly the reason to do with them being old and not necessarily convenient spaces I think all you have to do is look at the high school the one built next to the high school um on the first floor that uh perhaps still is empty but certainly remain empty built brand new constructions straight up from the sidewalk um that remained empty for a while even though it had all the monarchy means is built in I'm quite sure um and and I agree we need to before we I think before we develop any more uh business space like this um I think we need to work a whole lot harder on filling up the spaces that we have empty which are significant in town um I I and I also know Mr Lowd spoke with in terms of kind of a hodgepodge going from business to residential to business and honestly I don't find that a downside I find that's what makes our language interesting along Mass Ave is a very large tree in particular in front of the property shown 155 I believe it was Mass Ave that would uh would not last very long quite clearly if this was developed in that in a commercial space in my opinion I think variety is good not not necessarily bad along Mass Ave and I guess lastly I'd ask kind of a rhetorical question why would we argue that an eight-story apartment building of the one picture in the presentation is an improvement over the two two-story uh buildings that were shown uh also in the presentation as uh as a good thing the two that are there on the heights that flank uh Park Ave so uh thank you Madam Chair that's all I have to comment on but I would like to have that other that particular question answered sure thank you Steve so um James I think if you could answer uh that first question um whether or not you have any financial interest in in these uh four lots or five properties that would be great and then I see Ken with his hand up so sure uh no financial interest whatsoever great thank you and Ken it looks like you had a clarification to one of the questions that were just posed yes sir I just want to clarify with uh Steve that the properties mentioning where the ground floor is he says is empty is not empty that ground floor that ground floor space is a daycare center and um normally when that thing opened up it took about a year to get in but that's how long it takes to go through all the paperwork with with uh with the state to get all the licensing and everything else that's why it remained empty for that year while they're getting their licenses and they have been there all that time since uh they got the license and has been opened even through the COVID and everything else they might have slowed down or closed up a little bit during that pandemic but that store that space was occupied and it's it's fitted so I just want to make it clear that you know that's not that one there is not quite right okay thank you Ken appreciate the clarification um let's see so let's move on to our didn't Steve have another kid another question I think those are those are the only questions I think uh James said I'd like to address at this time okay okay thank you um let's see so the next speaker this evening will be um Adam uh Dozenberry uh thank you uh Matt Harris uh Addisbury Marathon Street uh just a couple of of of notes for everybody uh when we're working with zoning laws I much rather see uh I'm generally against these wholesale zoning changes um because you'll come to find that once this is done they'll beat the town and the community members will have a lot less say control over what exactly is could potentially be put in these spaces uh called as right stuff that is done on uh things that can be put on the property where the planning board comes in they come into a planning board as long as it meets the general criteria it's pretty much going to be allowed to go in um the way to address something like this I would prefer to see is you know a developer comes in they want to they want to put something in they come before the board of appeals of the town then we get to actually have a discussion we actually get the community involved we actually get the neighbors involved we can actually have more control over the way the building the property looks and feels with the rest of the community if you do these wholesale uh zoning changes a lot of that goes out when um the other so um it's you know it would be a better it would be better just to leave it where it is and then let developers come in uh and request a specific zoning change and then we have that we have the discussion and we have more control second of all um you know they're they're going back to the the open storefronts there at least three or four vacant storefronts right on Mass Ave right here in East Arlington all right uh and so uh and then also we're going to talk about the parking mister kin I believe is talking about the parking there's very limited parking out there as it is now so if we're talking about adding more business space we're going to have more businesses of people looking for parking so and traffic on Mass Ave so I mean I and so I'd like to think that we have we would want to do this in a way that the town has more control over what goes in and doing wholesale zoning just for the sake of doing wholesale rezoning is not the way to do that you know there needs to be ways to encourage current landowners current landlords to redo maybe reduce their rents and that sort of stuff to get that to allow people to come in to fill these vacant spots again the type of stores we want but I think the the the the focus should be on our existing stock and helping out our land our landlords to give them enticement to bring in other people to fill their spaces not just throwing up a whole bunch of buildings that could potentially remain remain vacant once they're up so you know please consider not doing wholesale rezoning and let's wait for a developer to come in and then we can have a discussion as a community about a particular project with a particular development and then if it everything fits out do do the rezoning then thank you you're a time thank you yeah thank you thanks and see I think what I'd like to do is after all the public comments is is complete um I think the board will address the timing that it takes um with the what you proposed as developer led zoning changes and just why that um how that's different than than what's being proposed uh so the next speaker will be Elizabeth Dre. Hi thank you Madam Chair Elizabeth Dre Jason Street um I have just a question um as someone newer to zoning so when I look at those 19 units they appear to be some of probably more mid-level or affordable housing units that we have here in Arlington and so I'm wondering if there's concern that make rezoning into mixed use will make that more get more incentive to developers to tear them down and rebuild and thus destroy 19 units that seem to be are probably sort of more of the mid to to more affordable housing and so is that you know is that a legitimate concern um is that a possibility and if it can currently be done using um get with a special permit then why uh why do that like why risk that we are going to incentivize developers to come and tear down some of our more affordable housing replace it with what will most likely be more expensive luxury apartments or condos um thank you uh absolutely so um I'm I'm not sure that I necessarily followed the last part of your um question uh because what is being proposed in terms of the change of use are uses that are not currently um allowed uh by right or by special permit even um within those districts so that that's really the correct so the change is to create that opportunity which is just that it's an it's an opportunity it's certainly it would be a challenging pro forma I think to identify that um pulling down a an apartment building of that of that size would um be an an economic win to just to change that fully but especially that apartment building fully over to commercial I think again what um the proponent is doing is looking to um to connect the zoning fabric and create potential opportunity although again it's it's hard for anyone to put their finger in the wind and and identify specifically um specifically again what what that pro forma would look like at this point um so let's go to the the next speaker uh the next person on our list is uh Phil Goff yeah I thank you Madam Chair you can hear me okay I can thank you okay my name is Phil Goff I live at 94 Grafton Street so just a handful of locks away from um the sites in question here um I think some good points are being made certainly on both sides and I'm not unsympathetic to some of the issues especially the potential loss of what could be or what likely is you know relatively affordable housing out there um despite that I am supportive of this article and I do hope that the ARP moves it forward to town beating I think the block in question very much is a gap in the continuity of the retail streetscape along Mass Ave and you know having multi-floor mixed use buildings potentially uh in the future along Mass Ave I think that is the future um ultimately so I think changing the zoning does make sense and certainly it would be consistent with not just the master plan but I can't even think of others but you know I've been at numerous I go to planning meetings all the time in town of Rarlington there's been definitely been a few that have been two different processes where there's always talk about we want mixed use buildings we want to have a bit you know a lot of people are okay with density but just along Mass Ave maybe on Broadway just along Mass Ave so I think this is an opportunity to do it so I think it is consistent with a lot of our policies and the master plan the continuity of the um and the ongoing walkability of Capitol Square I think would be enhanced with a zoning this is a better fit for zoning so I think that would be consistent um and I think you know more opportunities for smaller neighborhood serving businesses that residents like me and others who live nearby um I know the proponent lives nearby we could walk and bite too I think that would be a great thing to do um I know clearly we all know that they're empty storefronts um a couple in Capitol Square and elsewhere and I think that you know changing the zoning doesn't make you know an automatic change to you know the building fabric that's out there market conditions change and developer sort of understands that there is an opportunity to build a mixed use building and there's a high likelihood that business is going to locate there um I think that the the market so to speak would sort of you know decide in that case so that isn't something I worry about personally too too much so again I think B3 is the right zoning for this block on Mass Ave given that it is so close to Capitol Square um and I do recommend that ARP approve this article thank you thank you uh the next speaker will be Will McMillan you there I am can you hear me we can thank you thank you madam chairman chairwoman and thank you for just this people who care about our neighborhood so much I my name is Will McMillan I live at 11 Egerton road which is the first house behind the building that has Cambridge Savings Bank and the optician and the little gym and a huge parking lot that I guess that a lot of people use informally when they want to go to the Capitol and whatnot and I apologize for my ignorance um but if someone could give like a one minute explanation of what would be allowed if this were to change does it mean that the houses could theoretically be sold torn down and a big three possibly four-story like they want to do over where Christo's grocery store used to be is that we could have another one of those that would be retail on the first floor and then housing on top of that or does it mean that the houses that exist there could sort of have those funny cancerous storefronts grafted onto the front of them so that uh like uh daggs the current daggs is is sort of a store that's inside what looks like it used to be a regular housing stock and anyone have any tiny bit of historical perspective about why in the 1970s I mean maybe that was part of when the T was going to be extended possibly into Arlington I don't why it got turned backwards I'm just I'm just curious about all of that and then I'm wondering if anyone's gonna speak to the one current owner who is not a fan of this and just explain what her or his perspectives would be I have no opinion about this again I love that so many people care about this neighborhood I've lived here almost 30 years and I bike everywhere or walk everywhere and I love supporting our local businesses right thank you I think those are two good questions for clarification let's see just in terms of a historical perspective I'll just give you a really brief snippet and then we can certainly expand upon this this later but basically in the in the 70s there where where previously some of the business quarter had been zoned very consistently throughout where there were non-conforming uses everything was down zoned to basically whatever was on that that lot so if there was a house there it went from a business to a residential district based on whatever was there I think that's a very very simple way of talking about a very long process that was much more complicated and there there are other pieces within that but but that is a lot of what we're what we're seeing and Kelly if there's anything else you wanted to add to the historical perspective I'll ask you to this was probably around the same time as there was an apartment moratorium and the town studied whether it was interested in pursuing more taller apartment buildings along Mass Ave and Broadway corridor and that was so there was moratorium and then the zoning was basically zoning which is usually used as a vision for what the community wants to have was basically altered to preserve portions of Mass Ave the way that they were at the time great thank you and then Kelly if you could also give a brief description of just what is allowed within a DC three district I'm sure that there are other people on the phone or on the call today who are unclear as to what is allowed as a break for and this was a pretty long list and I would point anyone to the memo on page five of the memo that the planning department provided to the board which is included in the agenda this is all listed out but there are a number of uses that are allowed by right in the b3 district specifically just the highlights yeah yeah I think thinking about thinking about like there are residential uses that are allowed by right single two family duplex dwelling screw poems dormitories but there's a lot of institutional and agricultural uses most of the uses that are allowed by right are very small and so what's allowed by right is usually things that are less than 2000 or 2000 or 3000 square foot footprint so for like commercial office restaurant etc anything larger than that requires a special permit and that because it's a long mass avenue and especially if there's more than six units if you're looking at a mixed use building that would have to go through the environmental design review process with the redevelopment board with community engagement and a butter notices so anybody could come and hear and comment on what that proposal would be so it is it is a participatory public process for any kind of redevelopment that would occur and also just to note that it would also be subject to a lot of dimensional constraints if they are height setbacks etc that are all prescribed in the zoning by law great thank you Kelly I think that was very helpful the next speaker this evening will be uh Stacy bg is Stacy bg with us hi uh madam chairman uh yes she's actually in the same room with me but her uh her view would not be so i'm going to give her my computer okay that's great if you could please no problem um Stacy if you could address this call the volume down on my computer so there's a lot of echo apologies with technical difficulties no worries we work actually in the field sure you could just introduce yourself first last name and address um please please go ahead yes we can hold on i can't hear you i think the computer is coming up muted sorry one moment no worries okay now i can hear you okay you can hear me still we can yep if you could just introduce yourself first last and address um and then please go ahead thank you yes of course uh thank you a stacy bupavallis generakis eight marathon street uh right off of nasa up here uh thank you madam chairman and to the board for of course allowing us this opportunity um to speak um that being said i understand you know why there's a limit here so only three minutes so i'm going to have to try to pick and choose my points here and hopefully i'm picking and choosing the most salient one um i am just very concerned about um as adam said earlier about this turning into a business district where anything that wants to come in has a by right in the future i'm not opposed to businesses being there in the future i do think it would i go be better to when the time comes if the business wants to develop uh say this is what we want to do and evaluate it on a case-by-case basis um i am actually we are actually butters to the property i'm not sure if anybody else who spoke it is um it sounds like some of you are several blocks away um i i'm sorry i'm trying to go down my list and i'm picking shoes because of my time limit here i i guess my concerns when you look at the map yes when you look at the map overhead map and it's just squares i see how it looks like yeah everything else around it is but when you live here on marathons street or we live you can really it's hard not just like easy to tell for marathon versus me for massive how far step back the building is onto marathons street and how much train that into business particularly particular kind of businesses could affect those of us live right across the street from the property um i have concerns with training to be trained into business and for example marathon one of the things the marathon street is one way and there are and so those people who live in the apartment building now they know not to come out and turn right onto marathon street we turn into a business even no matter how many signs you put they're saying that's one way people can easily miss it or just ignore it and turn the wrong way on to mass onto marathon street and cause all sorts of accidents i'm concerned also to is um again i'm not against all businesses i wouldn't be against a restaurant with alcohol this is silly per se but i'd want to see it at the time just as a bit of an antidote i apologize i guess my talk has some comments on real problem um so what happens in zoom world yeah um i just as a bit of an antidote again keeping in mind that this is without a business here and that just residential because we are a little bit set back uh there was recently maybe about a four months ago or so back back and check my records and check the date um i had walked out of front door of our house and i had just covered in the middle of our steps uh a folded up face mask and like a cardboard tube that said a pasta which is the marijuana store up in the heights and i'm not i'm not i'm not against uh marijuana being legalized my concerns i my concerns i went back and looked at our security camera videos we unfortunately have security camera video if something happens and what had happened is there are some people just sitting in the middle of our front steps smoking getting high and chatting and it looks like what happened is my fiance went out because it must have been a sunday night to bring the barrels out to the front yard they heard the front door and went really quickly running so if we do have like a we do rezone this is something that would allow a restaurant we have a restaurant that serves alcohol and we get all sorts of drunk people coming there um and how close might my time do i need to like wait you can maybe you'll sort of back to my other points um what i'd actually ask you to do um you're more than welcome to submit um written any written points that you'd like to make to to the ARB and we will include those as part of our um meeting minutes for for um or for part of the meeting materials those will be posted um if you have anything else that you'd like to share okay okay i'll i'll i'll i'll try i'm not so great and say it's not easy for me to put stuff in writing as it is in oral could i just make one more quick point with my quick statement if you don't mind um yeah i'm really sorry because i i have to be consistent in the way that i um that i that i let everybody um move forward so we are we are at time um so i do apologize but you like i said you're more than welcome to submit anything that you that you'd like to in the future or again we'll have an open forum at the end of the meeting you're more than welcome to continue at that point okay i hope i have that opportunity again thank you thank you um the next speaker will be um um marcie uh lucubalus i apologize if i mispronounced your last name actually it's excellent pronunciation congratulations that doesn't happen too often um yeah so i'll try to be brief and i appreciate the opportunity to be camping could i just um yes if you could just um introduce yourself right yes thank you of course thank you yes um so my name is marcie lucubalus i'm also on marathon street um but we've been there the thing is we've been there for generations and generations um you know parents grandparents etc etc so we're old neighbors essentially um and it's that's very quiet um very pleasant uh neighborhood essentially very congenial neighborhood um i have some concerns i'll only highlight maybe one or two it's sake of time because i know there's probably many other people you need to get to at this point um i concur with the issue of having potentially having a business on the corner of this one-way quiet street that's a neighborhood with children and everything um and um i see this as a potential safety issue um you have people if that's going to be a business you have parking and the parking might be behind that particular building on the corner of marathon street if something would be done with that and it's a very serious safety issue concern for the entire neighborhood um the other one of many items that i have here listed um is the anytime you increase density and it would be an increase in density um you there's a potential degradation of the value of the neighborhood and consequently the value of the property too again if you have a business the area and you have parking and you have this quiet neighborhood transformed into something else so those are my just very few comments there are many others but i appreciate the opportunity um to actually put this into writing and i have actually a specific question for james thank you for very your very comprehensive um presentation james i was wondering do you actually live in this particular affected area uh thank you i i'm happy to have james uh answer that question thank you thank you very much yeah sure so we don't live there right now we are in the process of renovating a house at 15 mel road street um with any luck we'll be there by the end of the year um so basically if anything happens in this particular area we'll be able to see it from our front porch so kind of yes uh future yes great thank you james uh thank you the next speaker will be thomas uh thomas allure thomas allure hi yes hi tom allure 151 massachusetts avenue i live in one of the affected residences that this proposal impacts um i concur with um the last speaker great points about building a business at marathon street the one way is a huge safety concern right so there's a there's a couple of uh so like i'd like to start off with first you know understanding that all the petitioners that have signed this petition they are not um residences of either the any of the addresses that are impacted um as far as owners supporting it i know of no owners that are supporting this uh proposal so i'm not sure you know as far as uh you know what was said earlier you know what the case is but i've tried to reach out to my neighbors in such a short amount of time have been unable to um other other reasons for uh you know kind of looking at this holistically let's talk about trees someone mentioned it right i live 151 mass we have a beautiful magnolia tree a cherry tree next to us is a big apartment building that was called out in the presentation has two huge maple trees and next to us has big pine trees right so in the town plan orlinton actually calls out you know the the desire for tree line streets so this would definitely impact that um when you look at um you know overall safety um has has there been any traffic studies based on something coming in here that is both is mixed use right so there's a bus lane there's a bike lane there's only 956 parking spaces in all of town so what what is a town done you know to be so readily agreeable on supporting this proposal before any traffic studies have been done or any parking studies have been done so um that's you know a huge concern for us when you look at the b3 zoning it's at best elusive and i know that you've done a great job explaining it but there um in fact you know before i saw the agenda tonight my definition was that there are no property abutment clauses meaning my neighbor could build right up next to the property line so does it east orlinton want to live through a construction project that um right now could you know could be scoped for two years but with supply chain constraints we're probably looking at a three to five year project um additionally when you look at you know overall the um just the sense of the community and the businesses that are here you know this is a great mixed use of people you know we're just we're just looking at a couple things in this proposal that came out to me number one was tax money that could equate for the town and number two i felt it overlooked the actual human factor there are people that live in these residences there are people that have lived next door that can only afford to live there i myself had to work 25 years to afford our elington we sent our kids to high school here you know they grew up in this town and i think we're really not looking at the bigger picture from a holistic perspective safety concern parking concerns you know community concerns as well as look at your local businesses thank you moving to this town thanks you're in time i appreciate your perspective you know thank you thank you uh the next speaker will be alex bagnell hi um alex bagnell lineman street uh the housing debate in our elinton is contentious but one thing that both sides of it seem to agree on is that we could use more commercial uses to help diversify our tax base and changing a few anomalous residentially zoned parcels in one of our business districts back to their historical zoning seems like an obvious and easy step to take at the same time it allows for mixed use allowing for the possibility of adding much needed housing in a walkable neighborhood along a transit corridor contributing to i think our overall goal of less car usage as this board is experienced with projects like the hotel lexington arlington spot zoning creates unnecessary barriers to development that makes no sense for a budding parcels on mass af to have different zoning rules consistent zoning of these parcels increases the possibility that a new development on one or maybe even more of these parcels could actually trigger our inclusionary zoning bylaw creating capital a affordable housing uh my wife and i were two of the signers of this partition and no we have no financial interest in these properties other than we would like to be able to walk down and support more businesses in the capital square area uh now parenthetically we own a house within one lot of mass af and adjacent to a b-zoned parcel on a one-way street with a lot of kids and we're all very happy here and none of our kids have been run over and the business on the corner frankly seems to have very little impact on our traffic uh we and the neighbors like it very much and i uh strongly urge you to support this article thank you thank you uh the next speaker will be don selzer thank you madam chair don selzer Irving street um during the discussion i've been looking at the zoning map for this neighborhood and i can see the logic behind trying to fill in this one block gap between a b2 and a b3 district um what i'm wondering is why isn't it being considered to make this a b2 rather than the much more um dense or rather higher and um less restrictive requirements for b3 seems like a b2 neighborhood business district better describes this block than a b3 so i hope the board will give thought to uh the three options leaving it the way it is making it a b2 or making it a b3 thank you thank you uh the next speaker will be stephanie hansel hi thank you stephanie hansel here i live on cleveland street um i have some mixed feelings on this proposed article i do appreciate the desire to increase opportunities for business space in east arlington but i don't really see a real plan here this is the redevelopment board but where's the actual redevelopment there's no proposal by an owner there's no business person coming in with with a real proposal to establish a business it's just someone who kind of thought it might be nice if these properties were rezoned to the business district i personally abut the business district and i would be a little bit annoyed if someone tried to rezone my property without my permission so i really believe that we should hear more from the affected tenants who might potentially be displaced so that owners could rent to businesses and get a lot more money from that or the building could be torn down and rebuilt um and i do agree with some previous comments that if there is an actual proposal to redevelop a spot let's consider that i think this sort of you know wholesale let's just change it because we think it could be nice could be uh something that backfires on us thank you thank you uh the next speaker will be sanjay newton hello excuse me good evening sanjay newton ottawa road um i support this this proposal and i think it's a really good way about thinking uh holistically about what this map should look like um and i i'm i'm glad to see um some consistency being brought to it rather than you know the history that the uh chair mentioned earlier of you know let's take what's there and apply a zone to it um and thinking about what what could or or might be the opportunity for arlington in the future um i think that i think i'll leave it right there and just say you know i i hope that you'll support this and thank you very much great thank you any other members of the public wishing to speak on article 40 all right seeing none i will turn this back to the board for any additional thoughts or questions i'll start with uh gene yeah a few thoughts i guess one is people who own the property can also ask if their property be rezoned so you know whether the people who sign the petition have an interest in the property or not really doesn't matter what matters is whether we think it's the right thing to do for the neighbors the neighborhood and the town um addressing the idea that she just anything could go here without any approval i just want to emphasize that most things would require a special permit and environmental design review by the redevelopment board before they can be put on the property and the owners may choose not to do anything um with the property at the same time um i guess the only other thing i would mention is unfortunately because it takes a year to get to town meeting with zoning changes you usually don't have a situation where somebody comes in and says gee i'd like to buy this property but you know i need to have the zoning change that would more likely to be happened in a city where to go to the city council or whatever their zoning agency is and get zoning done more quickly but when you're talking about a town and town government it tends not to work that way it tends to work that um you have to deal with usually with the zoning that's there and so what this would just do is to provide uh some extra options to what can happen to the property i'm not expressing an opinion at this point whether it's a good or bad idea but just saying that a few of the comments i think are ones i wanted to respond to thank you great thank you jean and i appreciate you addressing the timetable for developer-led zoning changes as well that was one comment that said we've returned to ken any additional thoughts or questions for james before we move on to the next no i totally concur with jean about this i think a lot of people are a concern and i respect that concern but spot zoning is something that's very difficult to do and it does not encourage um development i think this board has been charged to help encourage development where we think it's where we think is uh is needed and i think that's what we're trying to do here um you know things are not going to be built right away things will still have to be reviewed with the neighbors and with us and people still have a say and say hey what you what you plan to put here is dangerous and we'll look at that as we do in all projects so i don't think this is just a license to go go crazy i think this is just an encouragement to get things going a little further i think just i think um continuing on this fabric and including you know a long mess is very reasonable so i'll just leave it at that for now great thank you ken um melissa any additional questions for for james no additional um comments it just in terms of moving forward james i think for me it's important for us to be very mindful of how it connect the dots to our master plan and our goals i said that at the beginning and that helps i think people understand why this makes sense you know when we're consolidating business districts when we're looking at the walkability if you're able to make that and articulate that well with our goals and all the effort that has gone on in the master plan i think um people will at least have the context for where this comes out because we're using the zoning as a lever to create potential for this area and it is it's albeit small i think that's important and if we can um you know explain that throughout this process i think that will be helpful great it's good advice melissa thank you uh steve any additional questions or comments for james um i do have well it's a comment more about the sort of historical aspects of wire districts uh are the way they are it this is just a follow on to what miss linema said earlier so prior to the mid 1970s our business districts were basically thick stripes on um you know on either side of mass af and either side of broadway you know these these business districts they allowed businesses they allowed apartments they generally allowed taller buildings so just from a form-based perspective you know you had um you kind of had all of the activity right along the main corridors and then it stepped back to smaller residential areas behind now in the 1970s i think i think this linema is correct in the sense that um the zoning simply captured what was there on the ground it's basically if it's if it's an apartment building now it's an apartment zone if it's um you know this kind of business now it's this kind of business district the effect i think has been to freeze things in place um it's probably lost us some opportunities over time because some of these sites under our current regulations are difficult to develop um interestingly one of the you know the characteristics of this rezoning process was that you know buildings that had apartments or parcels that had apartments um like one uh Nate that's you know relevant to this proposal became apartment districts um so if it wasn't a business it no long was no longer in the business district um the once you have something in a residential district it's very difficult under our current by-law to establish any kind of business there if you have something in that is a business district well it's generally fairly easy to convert it to a residential use so i mean this is another this is i think one of the reasons why we have had a gradual erosion of the commercial tax base over years um it's just our by-law doesn't encourage it but it definitely allows it um so i you know i do hope that we could take a broader more holistic look at some point but i do like the idea of taking um you know taking targeted approaches and looking at areas where you know some something different might make obvious sense thank you great thank you steve any other questions or comments from the board before we move to article 43 all right seeing none we will move on at this time so article 43 is a zoning by-law amendment related to zoning map amendment requirements specifically around the notification of a butters um i this is started at the request of james Fleming and 10 registered voters i will first turn this over to uh kelly linema from the department of planning and community development to um to top line any items that she would like to highlight from the department's memo sir actually i see james has his hand raised can we take a two-minute break so i can use the bathroom because i'm gonna be here for two hours longer uh sure i think uh why don't we plan on 846 we can reconvene um uh let's let's go ahead and take two minutes so that sounds great we'll start it again right around as soon as i see you return thank you thanks madam chair you stepped away for a moment steve looks like she stepped away well um we're taking a two-minute break steve sure sure no i understand i i think that was uh appropriate that you requested that actually is mr lous still on the call i don't see him maybe he's also oh there she is madam chair uh yes steve yeah just a quick question of pointing information um i think it was stated earlier that the charge of the arlington redevelopment board is to encourage development is that is that true uh yes so we can get into the nuance of the charge of the redevelopment board but um i'm going to table that fine fine i think that's a no problem thank you very much thank you thank you um okay uh james thumbs up are ready to go okay yeah okay so kelly i'm going to turn it over to you uh for any anything that you'd like to highlight on article four excuse me article 43 from the memo that was prepared or um i can keep this brief the section of penance arlington zoning bylaw since the late 70s um but just to note that changes to the zoning map do not require a butter notices under mass general law chapter 40 a section five um there are requirements about publishing notification in a newspaper for two weeks in advance of the hearing which is what we do um but there is no specific description of the a butter radius or any kind of notifications that are required for a map change um this amendment basically clarifies who receives a notification of a permit there are two other processes in town um that are that sort of lay out the a butter radius um so the con the conservation commission has an a butter radius of 100 feet for project areas and then the neighbor agreement which is article seven and the town bylaws has a 200 foot of butter radius and then finally just noting that the you know the department of planning and community development we follow the notification requirements of mass general law chapter 40 a section 11 when we do our butter notifications for any um redevelopment board hearings for environmental design review but again um state law is not specific about a butters um regarding map changes so I believe this this proposed amendment is trying to seek some clarity around who is notified as part of a map change great thank you Kelly I appreciate the background James you will have a few six minutes for a presentation on this proposed article sure um so I didn't submit any slides um Jenny or Kelly I I had submitted a uh a PDF to you yesterday or maybe it was earlier today um I don't think did is that able to be shown or is that not in the cards okay fantastic um so the main motion for this uh bare minimum what I want to do the bylaw does not require me to notify the owner of a property just the butters which we just talked about this I modified someone else's property which means in theory I would not have to notify them just the people around them and that seems wrong so that that that's sort of what I proposed and I think should happen at a bare minimum um I wanted to partly get your opinion on on this as to whether this provision should even remain in the bylaw so the PDF being shown here are the certified mail receipts that I had to file or the mail I had to send as part of their rezoning proposal um I get receipts for that and and submit them to the as part of the petition none of them have addresses on them they only have zip codes so there is no proof I actually sent them to the owners that um that I'm supposed to in the bylaw I mean I can I submit a list of the people who I sent them to and in theory you match the zip codes up but there is no there is no actual proof which to me seems like kind of a problem um the other thing is that the town actually sends out notices to everyone already within I forget what it was I think it was a couple hundred feet um and we got one because we we own 15 Melrose Street um so we got that letter in the mail so what I was wondering is is there is there a reason to even keep this provision in the bylaw at all given that there is no proof that I did what I'm supposed to do and that it seems like the town already does this and does a better job because they notify a larger radius around the property that's all okay great thank you James uh I will turn this over to Kim for to start us off on the discussion or um excuse me any any comments or uh any questions for James no I have no I have no comments in this one here I'm not sure I'm supportive of this right now but I'd like to hear more okay great thank you Ken Gene yeah thanks um I think I would support what James proposes to add which is the word owners and immediate butters just to clarify that uh what the where the notice goes is to the owner and the immediate a butter and I know in a way it's not technically legally necessary the notice comes later from um the planning department so people end up getting noticed twice but I think doing it just helps make sure the process works well and that people get notice ahead of when they get notice from the town so I would suggest what you had put in is the um as the main motion James which is just adding the owner and immediate words to to it thank you thank you Gene uh let's see let's go to Melissa any questions for for James or any uh comments no comments at this point great thank you Steve um I concur with Mr. Benson I've always read in this section of the by-law I've always you know felt that immediate a butters was implied by saying about just using the word a butters and I have no objections to extending this to owners I think this is a fine clarification great thank you uh any other comments from the board before we turn this over uh for public comments all right seeing none any member of the public who would wish to speak about the proposal for article 43 please use the raise hand function and we'll start with Steve Mark oh yeah thank you Madam Chair I guess I'm a little confused here um so what Mr. Fleming is suggesting is that addition of and for both owners and the butters to be included not the removal of the notification requirement that's my understanding that's my understanding James if you would um yeah that's right just add add the owners to the list of people because in theory I don't have to notify the owners right but really you probably just shouldn't do that okay Madam Chair that that that certainly makes sense to me as well um I think when I was hearing Ms. Lanema speak I thought she said something effective they follow the Massachusetts rule which is not to I guess I was just confused anyway never mind I support this it sounds very good I thought we were talking about removing no about a notification and I thought that was a huge mistake so thank you madam thank you yes I um I agree that I think that the clarification is important and I believe that the point was that Kelly was making was that um the Massachusetts ruling Kelly correct me if I'm wrong is is um there is no requirement specifically and so this is above and beyond what what is required by the state uh let's see the next speaker will be Christian Klein thank you Christian Klein and Tom meeting member uh freezing 10 Newport Street I just wanted to clarify that by adding immediate to a butters does that preclude people who are across the street who do not have a property line in common James would you like to answer um so when I you so the way I use I figure out the butters is through the GIS tool and if you look at if you click a butters for a property it only gives a shared property line not across the street so I guess this wouldn't change any of that it would just include the owner within the number of people to notify so if you if you had a corner property it would have the two abutting properties to the left the right but would not have anyone else on the corner except the interpretation that is the way I think that's the way it works right now and this wouldn't change that what I would like to do Kelly if you could uh if that is currently the correct interpretation I think the interpretation varies so what I know what we do when we're pulling in a butter radius is we put a pin in that parcel and we we do that we do that um the radius yeah yeah so if it if there is somebody across the street within that distance then that person is captured um I don't know if we if this I guess this is a question for the petitioners whether um parcels property owners and abutters across the street would be included as abutters if I could suggest if I could just make a suggestion James um actually I'll let question finish this time and then I'll come back to that to that point thank you um like my concern obviously is that I would prefer it if um if a butters that are across the street um who you know are not technically abutting abutters would have the opportunity to receive notice of such changes as well thank you great thank you um and James what I might suggest sorry I'll go to Jean next because I was going to suggest let's get a legal definition perhaps a immediate a butter and not a legal definition but it's important to remember that this is the initial notice that goes out later the town will send a notice to anyone within 300 feet so those folks who are let's say catted corner across the street will not get notice under the current bylaw or even with James amendment that he's interpreting it correctly but they will get notice when the town sends out the notice ahead of these meetings so they'll get notice that there's a zoning change proposed and what it is and they'll get notice that there's this public hearing about it so it's not as if they don't get notice but you don't spend a lot of money notifying people who are not immediate abutters at least that's the way I would think about it great thank you Jean um and uh it looks like Kelly has her hand sorry no wait till I can clarify that if this were amended we would also only send to the immediate abutters um we basically follow the text of this although we have interpreted it as a slightly larger abutter radius than just immediate abutters so if this were amended then we would also send that notice to just immediate abutters thank you Kelly yeah uh great so the next public speaker will be Don Seltzer thank you Don Seltzer Irving Street just the clarification on the definition of an abutter does this mean that it goes out to the residents of the adjacent properties or the owner of the adjacent property um obviously that it applies to like a apartment building um do you notify maybe an out-of-town owner of the building or do you actually notify the people who live there thank you James I'll let you answer that my understanding is that this is specifically to ensure that both are notified correct no this doesn't so from what I understand and what I've done is it's only the property owners who are notified currently and that are right now it's the owners of the abutting properties that are notified and this change would include the owner of whatever is actually being modified zoning wise to be included in the list so this doesn't change anything about interpretation well shouldn't change anything about interpretation of what its owner or renter but from what uh this is an email between Jenny and I um it was just the owners of properties that are notified so the proposal would would continue that um that current practice I think so if it helps I think we can strike immediate from the from the language just to remove any clarification about what the change is we need to say owners and abutters and then whatever interpretation is will just remain we don't have to add any muddiness into that I'm indifferent to that the main the main goal of this was either we keep it with owners in addition to whatever is done now or we just strike it entirely okay thank you uh gene yes I'm back again sorry um I think I I think um it might be helpful for James to have at least one additional conversation with town council about this and see if it can be slightly rewarded so it it encompasses what Christian Klein mentioned not only immediate abutters but also properties directly across the street from the property just to see if it's possible um to add that James is that something that you'd be uh willing to do before April 4th yeah yeah we can do that okay great uh any other members of the public wishing to speak on article 43 all right at this time I'll turn it over to any additional questions from board members starting with kin yeah I'd like to hear this again later on when James gets a little more um after this meeting with the council right now I'm a little confused as far as um and it's I'm easy to confuse so James don't worry about it it's not you I'm just a little confused what we're going from here and I don't know what we're trying to do um you know maybe I when I first read this I thought I understood it what you were trying to get at and then after hearing today's conversation I'm all confused again so I need um I need a little more clarity on this and hopefully when we hear about hear about this again it'll be a little clearer as far as you know what's what it doesn't when you say I could strike this or I do this or I do that and everyone has a different opinion I just don't know what we're trying to do here okay I'm sorry thanks kin uh Jenny I see you have your hand up welcome this evening thank you um I hope this does not make things more confusing but I'm sorry Jenny since you weren't here during introductions if you wouldn't mind just introducing yourself for the not at all I'm Jenny Raid I'm the director of planning and community development so right now we have the section of the bylaw that is not a requirement by state law 40a section five which is um or section 11 which is basically our notification requirements we follow that for everything else that we do which requires us to notice people within 300 feet of a property usually when there's a special permit that's the only time that we notify people we don't notify people of other types of zoning changes or amendments the only notice that we do is in of the the legal notice in the earlington advocate and of course all of the other notifications on the website etc that's what's required under state law this section was added to the bylaw to say that when you're doing a map amendment you need to notify a butters but it didn't actually say what that meant so we've in the very limited number of times I've interfaced with this section of the bylaw the interpretation is we just applied the 300 the 300 foot radius even though there's not actually any clarification of that all it says is certified or registered mail to a butters so what mr. Fleming is trying to do is add this one circle around a property when there's a zoning amendment a zoning map amendment specifically if you remove that section of the bylaw there is no requirement to notify anybody of a zoning map amendment if you slightly modify it to direct staff or petitioners to explain what exactly we mean by a butter then you provide a little bit more clarity I agree that I think consulting with the town council around what exactly would be in a butter and how to handle different types of lots makes a lot of sense but I just wanted to add that sort of nuance that we're not required to do this but if we are required to do it we ought to know what we're trying to actually do so hopefully you could even appreciate it gene any additional questions or comments for james Fleming yes I think it's ironic that james is just trying to clarify this and oh god expanding it you know there's an interesting way to think about this and that's why I think james should talk with town council because chapter 48 the zoning code in section 11 talks about parties of interest being a butters meaning immediate a butters plus people across the street basically so there may be a way to do this that lines it up really nicely with section 11 of chapter 48 so that's why I thought james having a conversation with the town council might help great thank you gene uh melissa any questions or final comments for james on article 43 no comments great uh thank you uh steve yes um one question for mr. Fleming and this is just to you know make sure I after all of that I just want to make sure my understanding is solid say we've got a parcel we'll call it p right the current bylaw as is worded means that if you wanted to change the district designation of p the requirement is that you send to a butters which means all the part property owners around p but not p itself and your change would also send it to the owner of p is that is that about right yes I don't know what the heck of butter means anymore after this interaction all I want to do is make sure that if you're going to change the zoning whoever you're changing it for is actually notified because it doesn't seem that that is at all required in the zone because that some someone around the parcel in question must be notified I whatever that is just please just stick stick the owner in that list for you just uh you just straight you just confirm that is what I was saying um I think mr. Benson is right uh in the well in the in chapter 48 there is a uh there is a term called parties of interest and some of the language in here would be could potentially be useful but thank you great thank you Steve uh so James I think you know the content says let's check with town council and uh we'll we'll continue the discussion uh on April 4th unless you have something you'd like to share with us ahead of time in which case we can get you on one of the um agendas prior to uh prior to April 4th sure okay great thank you all right so now let's move on to article 41 which is a zoning by law amendment or apartment parking minimums and this was also inserted at the request of James Slimming and 10 registered voters so uh Kelly I'll turn it uh over to you first before to James's presentation uh to highlight anything you'd like to point out from the memo for thank you Rachel um so the first thing to point out is that this amendment this proposed amendment from James is actually pretty similar to what was proposed in 2019 um I do want to call attention to the fact that it is only moving apartment building up into the you the residential uses for single two and three family dwellings um and it is keeping the public housing for the elderly as it currently is in the zoning by law so it's bringing parity between the parking for apartment buildings and the parking for single two and three family dwellings which is basically one space per parking unit or parking unit one space for dwelling unit um right now our zoning requires um a different calculation for apartment units for apartment homes than it does for single two family and three family dwellings which is like the ratio for apartments is based on the number of bedrooms and then the ratio for um those other types of housing is one space for dwelling unit um in 2019 and then now and now we've and since then we've actually looked at is Arlington over part what's the parking ratios we've also looked at the um MAPC right fit parking study um all of which have concluded that um one space per dwelling unit is is appropriate for the town um the other thing that we did look at is the most recently approved comprehensive permit for 1165 rms after a lot of parking studies of a number of apartment dwellings in the area also concluded that um the parking ratios for those there were there were more parking spaces available including an overnight parking then there actually were demand um so again showing that reducing the number of apartments um reducing the number of parking space required for apartments is is basically in one unit per apartment is in line with what the demand is um did want to also call attention to the fact that this is only applied to apartment dwellings apartment buildings which are only allowed in the r5 r6 and r7 zoning districts there are a lot in the r4 zoning districts through apartment conversions and those apartment dwellings apartment buildings are really located along our key transportation corridors which are mass add in broadway um so there's a map that in the memo um and then finally just inconsistency with the master plan and the connect Arlington the connect Arlington the sustainable transportation plan um both of those plans actually call for realigning our parking how much parking is provided and how much parking is required with the actual demand um so this this amendment this proposed amendment is very much in line with um reducing the parking ratios to actually meet demand um and just to note that those parking ratios requiring a minimum of one space per dwelling unit is just a minimum so any developer owner or builder could provide more housing or sorry more parking than that um but just needs to provide that as a minimum and with that I can turn this over to James great thank you Kelly James yep um I did have slides for this one great that's me there I am again uh next slide I guess cool um this is just the section of the bylaw that requires um the amount of parking per whatever kind of residential you have so if you're a single two or three family dwelling you need one space per unit which seems fine you'd probably build at least one or maybe more depending on how many cars you think you need you'll just do whatever makes sense for you um but apartments for whatever reason require more than one space per unit um and so uh the thinking was you know is that really the right amount is it too much do we do we do it less that kind of a thing uh thanks Pete so this this is sort of what what started me down this path is that uh most people who rent don't have more than one car which intuitively makes sense to me like if you're a single guy living alone uh you're probably not going to have more than one car uh except for one guy that I don't know um and that a decent chunk of renters don't have any car at all um which is great for congestion and you know roads uh that kind of stuff um but if you don't need a car it doesn't really make sense for us to require parking for you so I was thinking well it doesn't really make sense to me that we require more than one space per unit if at least looking at this pie chart the average is about one space per dwelling unit for the households we have been to and admittedly this is slightly old data 2010 to 2014 um but I'm I assume it hasn't changed all that much since then uh thanks fantastic uh so so this is my neighborhood um so we live in this circle um it's a nice little area um and uh our need for my wife's and my need for cars is dictated by our jobs and our lifestyle so since we're close to public transit and we have businesses and you know within walking distance uh we don't need to have more than one car we just we we tried that a couple years ago and it just works for us uh it's kind of nice uh next so these are a couple apartment buildings that uh I was uh I saw on the map and circled um and doesn't like if I was thinking well if we moved into one of them it doesn't make sense that we would add we'd have more cars um we're still in the same exact spot really um the only reason we'd have to we have to get another car is if we move to a new neighborhood that isn't this doesn't have as much local stuff or isn't just walkable doesn't have as much transit uh or if some other random circumstance changes like um like I don't know I take a job out in New Hampshire or something like that and I have to drive to work uh but none of those factors are influenced by the building that we live in so it doesn't seem it doesn't seem like a relevant factor next fantastic thank you um so uh in most cases the parking for an apartment is needs to be more than one unit um but this would just make it one space per unit and uh I know that the lots of strikeout is confusing um basically it's just a way of clarifying that what is there will stay there for public housing the elderly so lots of strikeout and then move it over into the the use column um next um so uh from what I remember there was a proposal last year for um a block in my neighborhood the old Christos Market Block um which for actually had proposed a half space per unit which was actually really surprising I was like wow that's not a lot of parking per unit um clearly they wouldn't have proposed it if they couldn't if it didn't break even or at least made a little bit of money so that that was sort of intriguing um and then the old the uh the building that was uh proposed a couple years ago and it's now currently being built at the tri block had proposed one space per unit so it seems that people who have money and want to redevelop are willing to throw the money behind one space per unit so I think you could argue that people would it's it's not a financial constraint to require or what do I want to say uh if you provide less than one provide one space per unit it isn't going to get in the way of you breaking even on your project out next um and this this is another warrant article um that I looked at um I got this I got this data looking at a warrant article from last year um this is an apartment building thing to my current street uh Oxford Street near Broadway um I took a look at how much uh tax revenue you got from the different parts of the property so there are apartments and then there's a parking lot obviously um and I looked at the what the assessor decided it was worth so the it turns out the um the apartment spaces are valued at 80 times higher than the parking spaces which is huge it's like well that that's and that's a huge amount more tax revenue from the space so why on earth would we require parking that you know if it's required sure they're sorry they're not required um if they really truly need it and they build it then then sure but if they don't actually need it and we're requiring it then we're literally throwing away money that we could be using for anything just through the streets the schools whatever we decide it's worth it it's it's just an enormous gain in the tax revenue if if we're requiring parking that isn't actually needed and someone can just build more whatever on it um next um the other thing is I was actually able to get in touch with one of the um uh the person who proposed the building from uh on the crystal's market block and I was able to ask them you know roughly how much parking costs to build so their their estimate was um five to twelve thousand for service parking and it it depended on the slope of the lot so if you need it if you were on a slope and you need drainage and all that other stuff um and that drove the cost but it's still in it's in the multiple thousands of dollars per parking space and if you need basement parking forget about it it's a fortune um someone's got to pay for that it means it's it gets passed on to whoever lives in it or if it's condo then it gets passed on to the owner um it if if it's not actually necessary we really just shouldn't be requiring it um next awesome um so summary uh one space per parking one space per dwelling unit um most renters don't have more than one car and uh if we require I think we're just leaving money on the table tax wise thank you great thank you James all right uh so we'll start with kin for any questions or comments for James on uh the parking um parking minimum adjustment for apartments I want to start off with saying uh thank you James for um taking time and effort in getting some of these articles together it took up quite a bit of time and naturally quite a bit of money and I really want to thank you for looking out for the interest of the town and um saying that um you know it's we're noticing that and thank you um as far as this article is concerned I am supported a little bit I believe um the way there is right now one parking uh one parking space per unit in apartment buildings is more than adequate um when we looked at um some of the affordable housing projects that were going up uh where we had the opportunity to reduce some of the parking requirements uh I forget um I forget her name was it Barbara Jennifer that was presenting those projects you know she she made several comments saying that her parking lot's always empty it's not full full capacity so that's a good reference to saying that you know we're overbuilding what we're requiring overbuilding and putting an added burden on to people who are building housing and also not leaving enough space for green space I mean if we have less parking spaces we can have more open space more green space more trees more grass whatever so I'm very very supportive of this article here thank you thank you ken gene any questions or comments um I guess my only comment was I would be concerned if these were not on mbta bus routes and some of them pretty easy to get to l life also and you know that's the way things work these days if you are at or very close to public transit you expect people to use public transit and people often move to places when they're close to public transit so they don't have to drive we've lived in our house for 31 years with only one car and one of the reasons why we moved here was it was a few blocks to the bus that went to l life and a few blocks to massive so we could take the bus down massive too so that's I think what people will look for um that's it thanks great thank you gene melissa any questions or comments for James um no comments I mean I think a lot of this is supported the high cost of free parking you know um the choup she piece does all the planners know that so a lot of it is unbundling parking from your building and thinking about that and the cost so I think there's a lines with that I think it lines with some of the things that we have set out to do um around you know figuring out how to kind of I would say um look at all the costs of development parking is up there and I think one thing I just you know it's not part of this but it's making it really explicit to folks that you know these apartments have limited parking I mean I think that you have to be able to communicate that when people are this is not you this is just my comment on people who market these units when they have reduced parking that's also part of it but um I support that and I support the direction this is going in great thank you melissa Steve any questions or comments I'm also supportive I think it makes a lot of sense to make the parking requirements for on for apartments on par with the ones that we have for single two and three family which means there's no real I don't see a very good reason why uh apartment should have more and I would just like to reiterate that this is a minimum and you know if someone you know felt very strongly that they needed more spaces they could always build them thank you great thank you Steve uh so at this time I'll go ahead and open um article 41 up for public comments uh please use the right tan function and I'll call on you in the order that hands are raised we'll start with Steve Moore uh yes thank you madam chair Steve Moore piedmont street I find myself commenting on everything tonight uh I uh I and I seem to be finding myself um I don't know in counter position to how what the comments I'm hearing from the board in general um first I want to say this is old data that was in the presentation although it was good to hear Ms. Lenderman talk about perhaps there have been some other studies which are more recent than what was in this this was a long time ago um as I remember the comments about the parking lots being emptied by someone had made during the affordable housing developments that those observations were done I believe during the early part of the COVID if I'm remembering correctly and that certainly is not typical parking has been a problem in this town for as long as anyone can remember and um the desire to artificially limit it to limit cars just isn't necessarily the outcome of limiting I mean uh the cars will appear whether or not there's a there's a limit if people need the cars and when it comes to the desire people saying that well you know I don't need one car and I live in an apartment and that's what would be probably be true for everyone I'm not sure that's necessarily valid particularly in many bedrooms I think apartment dwellers aren't necessarily single they're often two people with two separate cars and uh the idea that just saying well my experience is this and therefore I think that's the everyone's experience is going to be I don't necessarily think um is valid um so I one part one car per apartment welling unit as a standard even though the apartment may have three bedrooms and be large I know that was the intent of the original geared sort of parking ratio sizing and and I'm not saying that that necessarily is somebody we need to continue with per se but maybe we need to do this incrementally in that we initially offer a something smaller 1.25 cars per apartment building or 1.15 per apartment dwelling unit and see how that goes before we jump straight to one and then have a problem that we can't undo because now everything's been built only one and it didn't work and now we've got too many cars on the streets or there's an issue to do with with housing and cars I just I think there's a couple other options than going necessarily this way and I know that this issue is a bigger issue as Ms. Lenovo points out it's an issue in a lot of areas of town in terms of uh interest commissions boards and the like have input on this I think it requires more study than something simplistic like this approach thank you Madam Chair. Thank you the next speaker will be Phil Goff. Yeah thank you my name is Phil Goff I live at 94 Grafton Street and I am the founder and the chair of a group called Everywhere Arlington Livable Streets Coalition and I'm speaking on behalf of the organization not just myself for this particular article and you know we as an organization wholeheartedly support this uh warrant article we think it's a good start in fact um you know many of us think that one space per unit is really too high given that a lot of these apartment buildings especially newer ones are going to be coming online um along Nassav and mixed-use buildings potentially in the future with transit walking and biking opportunities until until this issue came up to be honest even though I've been on town meeting for a number of years I probably should have known better but I didn't even really realize our zoning bylaws were so suburban in many ways uh related to required parking for uh apartment units you know it's one thing for a developer to feel the need to build more parking a higher number of parking spaces than number of units but it's certainly another to for the town to actually require it so I think that you know the overabundance of parking spaces you know it's three things and um as the proponent really pointed out quite well you know makes housing more expensive in each space of five thousand dollars and that's surface parking if it's going to be in a structure it's going to be 30 to 40 thousand dollars I mean that's just making housing even more expensive um in town so I appreciate James uh pointing that out um each parking space is 350 square feet that's 350 square feet of more pavement uh and and less less apartment units and less green space and we don't need more pavement in Arlington and then I think third you know uh more parking than a developer really wants and what apartment dwellers really want it just encourages more cars um and I think a lot of people that are moving especially apartment builders uh apartment dwellers moving into Arlington they're they like the walkability the bikeability the transit the minimum and path etc and there's just really no need for the town to be requiring more spaces than a builder wants to provide so uh big supporter of this and um I hope it uh passes unanimously the ARB and then goes through town thanks so much great thank you uh the next speaker will be Stacy BG please I'm not sure if you've gotten your audio to work again for this one I see Adam's hand is raised is that to allow Stacy to speak on your computer all right well I'm going to come back to Stacy um at this point we will uh move to Jennifer Seuss yes thank you um so I have to say when I've watched meetings where the builder says I am building more parking than I need but I don't want to go through the process of trying to get a reduction because it's just too much extra work extra time extra expense um I find that very tragic uh so we have so then we have a building that's more expensive where obviously a developer a builder has to charge more to recoup those expenses we have impermeable land you know we have extra like paving where we could have something permeable like grass and bushes and so forth um and it just strikes me as as sort of sad really just very very frustrating that our zoning requires people to build things more than they than they need now I do think this is a fairly conservative proposal and I think it is likely that if a building is very close to uh the 77 or close to the red line that there still will be more parking than we need um but so it's an incremental approach um but I think it's worth considering you know doing this slowly and creating parity with the single and two-family houses that we have in town the requirements there um and honestly I think several years later we might want to reduce it further reduce the requirement further that doesn't mean that a builder has to keep to the minimum if you ever if they ever felt their project needed more parking they would build more parking but um but I feel that this is a sort of a careful modest proposal that's worth considering so I urge you to support it thank you uh I'll go back to Stacey B. G. see if your audio is working yet okay we'll move on to uh Adam doesn't vary I'm asking them to unmute but um is that to be working okay uh so we'll go ahead and continue moving on we'll move on to um Alex Bagnell hi Alex Bagnell Wyman Street uh let's let's face it requiring more parking for apartment buildings is one tool to discourage multifamily housing makes it more expensive and harder to fit on the lots it's a classic exclusionary move there is no good rationale for treating apartments differently from one and two family homes with regard to parking okay what does it get us uh small apartment buildings large parking lots do we really need to require the construction of so much typically impermeable surfaces to store our most significant carbon emitters we should be using public policy and zoning to promote walking biking and the use of public transit not more automobile usage our inflating parking minimums run contrary to just about every environmental goal this town has never expressed and I am delighted that you uh all seem inclined to support it thank you thank you um Jennifer Seuss I'm not sure if you're still here with us but if you are I neglected to remind you to uh when you introduce yourself add your address if you wouldn't mind just stating that for the record I appreciate yeah I'm awful at that I'm sorry um uh Teal Street 45 Teal Street thank you so much I appreciate it uh let's see so we'll now go to Eileen Cahill Eileen Cahill great um hi yes I just wanted to um you to consider could you just introduce yourself first last name and address uh for the record when we start sure Eileen Cahill Dixon F um I think it might be a bit optimistic that you're saying that you know what would have been a parking space because it would fit the requirement would be green open space I think one of the commenters said that um that would be great if that were the case I don't think that's realistic I think it's more you have to you have to look at this the um from the point of the designer the developer what they want to do is get as many units in as they possibly can so if now they don't have a restriction on parking you're going to have um you know they're just looking out to get make more money on their project so I agree with one of the commenters that this seems kind of like in a um based on the presentation based on like you know this person James's um like lifestyle you know or or his one experience in life as you know him and a spouse um it didn't seem very technical at all it didn't seem very objective so I don't really know how the board is like in support of it so quickly and I'm just questioning it it it seems like you need to take a step back and really think about all the repercussions just to make sure because I you know like I said it would be lovely if what would be a required parking space would be turned into green space but I really doubt that so thank you thank you uh we'll now go to uh Thomas Elor I guess um I agree with uh Miss Cahill and everything she said I think she makes some excellent points now we'll leave it at that thank you uh we'll go to Scott Mullen all right thank you can you hear me I can thank you oh thank you Scott Mullen 68 Henderson Street uh where I live with uh two we have two adults one first grader and a dog uh six bikes and one car which we parked uh in a space for four cars because that's how this little cottage was built uh many many years ago in Hendersonville um look this is a great conversation thank you for even considering this uh I mean I want to support the board that seems inclined to support this measure again this is a minimum we're lowering a minimum we're not imposing a maximum we're not we're not mandating anything we're giving flexibility uh to developers that are going to build here and I I do want to thank James for putting together a great presentation for those who haven't read the MAPC report the parking study uh it's really it's a great read we've got to add data to this parking's an emotional thing um but it doesn't need to be there's data here uh and we we we all might live different ways but we can all live in the same town so thank you for this and please advance this to town meeting great thank you very much uh I'll try one more time um let's see we have uh Adam uh Dustin Barry hi it's Stacy actually can you hear me now this time we can hear you now yes thank you okay because like I said technology doesn't really just like me for some reason particularly tonight um so anyway um I'm sorry first last minute repeat my address again of course yeah Stacy Bukovalsh, Jenerakis, 8 Marathon Street I just actually had a curiosity question um because the house I live in is actually it's a two family that's been in my family for 70 years and so we've had tenants over the years downstairs and like half the time um they've definitely had more than one car so I'm just curious where you got that um that information came from that most people most tenants only have one car I mean is there even a do I have a way to tell which houses and apartments in town are occupied by owners versus tenants and then conduct a survey or is that just an assumption mason among the person among your own reference group just a carrier I also question you said thank you for asking great thank you um I'll turn that over to James and Kelly who cited uh data um from a few different sources so James if you could cite your sources that were fantastic sure so the source for this data is the american community survey and they were able to break out the data into renting households and households that were um uh owner occupied so they had this is just a renting one um they also have the data for the people who own their households and how many cars they own um I didn't show that one just because it didn't seem relevant um so for rent for the renting households they found that um about half renter half of renters had exactly one car per household what they classified as a household and then about 25 percent had zero cars and slightly less than 25 percent had two cars and then there was some minority that had um uh three or more cars thank you James and I can just point out so we we refer to a couple of parking studies in the staff memo so the first one is the MAPC perfect parking initiative that was done in 2019 and they studied um overnight parking counts in uh 14 communities Arlington was one of them and Arlington um had an average of 0.73 parked cars per household overnight um there were multiple locations that were studied as part of that and it's a very thorough report um the second was looking at reporting from 2019 that looked at um Arlington 360 30 to 50 middle street 438 mess ad a number of other properties and looked at the parking parking utilization rates for those um none of which were over one space per unit and then we also looked at um there was uh there were multiple puddys parking studies done for as part of the proposal for 1165 RMS ad and those parking studies were done at various points recognizing that parking may have shifted throughout the pandemic so I believe they were done in 2020 and 2021 um just to kind of get a measure and and really just check the accuracy of those and those parking studies were done both by the developer team as well as our towns um our town's development review consultant so we just had those verified by independent consultants thank you very much all right uh let's see any other members of the public wishing to speak uh Steve we've you've already had an opportunity to speak on this one so I'm actually going to to move on um and I'll uh end public comment period for for this particular article um and move it back to the board so any final um questions or comments for James on article 41 starting with uh Ken no jean um no right melissa no and uh Steve uh briefly I um I agree with the earlier comment that this is a fairly incremental approach um I mean personal transportation is a significant source of is a significant greenhouse gas emitter and I know cars are very close and it's you know very part of our our culture but um you know I think that addressing greenhouse gas emissions and climate change will be we're going to be talking about these a lot more in years to come thank you thank you all right thank you James for article 41 uh we'll now move on to article 42 which is a zoning by law amendment related to open space uses this was also started at the request of James Fleming and 10 registered voters uh we'll turn this over first to uh Kelly lineup for an overview of the memo from the department of planning and community development Rachel um this is really you know in response to James's proposed amendment we just took a look back at what the economic development recovery task force had worked on throughout the course of the pandemic um they had worked with the select board in order to relax the requirements regarding temporary uses and activities in Arlington's parks and open spaces looking at this amendment it seems like it proposes to allow for those temporary uses to be codified in the zoning by law um and allow them to be used temporarily for both arts culture profit and not for profit and for profit uses um and it basically yeah it basically takes that temporary relief and codifies it um and the it basically it builds on the work of the economic development recovery task force which is in support of those types of uses thank you Kelly uh James I'll turn it over to you for uh six minutes again if you could and you've done it several times yeah first blast an address yeah James can be an octetry I will say it's it's supposed to say blessing and a curse that all of my articles are on the same night um uh next slide please um so so this is um uh first of all thanks to bob's frog for his pictures of the beer garden at Arlington center from 2018 and 2019 um where the town allowed the use of wood and more park for the event I I remember going to the first one it was really fun um this is from what bob bob's recording there was like a thousand people at the first one in 2018 and then 600 in 2019 uh it I can't imagine this wasn't a success by any manager uh local restaurants selling food uh local musicians playing and people just enjoying themselves it was great um this is a really good example of the town using its public space to create a fun place to live and these local businesses get to be supported as well next um so uh so this is uh this comes out of a conversation I had back in September with town council and uh Joe Connolly who's the parks director director um they look to this section of the zoning by-law to figure out what is allowed to happen in the open space district basically the parks um this so basically by the current ruling you can only have a fluid beverage concession whatever by a special permit um and you can't do anything for profit um is what their interpretation is and so what this uh motion would do is it would allow things for profit like um fitness classes which is why there's a line in here for outdoor recreation since they were business businesses were particularly hard hit by the pandemic um and then similar for um uh cultural arts Shakespeare in the park kind of performances or proposals that kind of thing that just seems like kind of like a fun thing to have and and uh I like to see that next um so uh the reason this slide is in here is that in the previous table there were a couple entries by special permit um which I thought was strange because they're not given by parks and rec their zoning authority um permits and it takes about two months to get through a process to have it by which point frankly your event that you were planning is probably not relevant anymore um it seems like an unreasonable burden for someone trying to do something temporary in town like you still according to Joe these no matter what you have to go through parks but having this requirement in here just doesn't really seem to make sense um this apparently wasn't a problem for the beer garden that happened in 2018 2019 because a little more park is under the control of the select board who can just vote to allow it yes fantastic thank you um this is another section of the not not the zoning bylaw but the town bylaws um uh so by removing that special requirement it doesn't mean those events are not regulated um we still can't have alcohol or under noise without um the town allowing it you can't have advertising without parks department and I actually I showed Joe Connolly this exact main motion and I asked him if it would if there was any reason parks department wouldn't allow or sorry not allow they wouldn't be able to determine what could happen in the park and what the rules would be and he said no basically no matter what the parks department gets the final say over what doesn't doesn't happen and what the rules are so uh I think changing this doesn't seem to be much of a problem uh in summary uh I would like more fun things to have in our business in our park space and I think it'd be great if God forbid we ever have a pandemic again businesses could use the park uh or you could just have performances you know on a semi-regular cadence for fun cell tickets that kind of thing that seems okay um and that even with this change uh we don't lose control over parks parks department so this to decide you know when and where and how something happens that's it thank you great thank you so much James uh I'll now turn it over to members of the board for any questions or comments starting with Kim no I have no comments on this I'm generally supportive of this great thank you Kim Gene I just have a question I don't know if it's for Jenny or Kelly or um James I I'll stop by saying I think it's sort of strange that people have to go to the zoning board of appeals to get a special permit to use a park you know that's usually not what zoning is for but I just want to make sure that if we delete the special permit requirements that there's still going to be somewhere in town where they will have to go to get approval to do an event in one of the open spaces so James I'll I'll um send that over to you since it sounds like you had spoken with uh the parks department about that yep yeah so so I I had thought of this and I actually asked I sent this main motion over to Joe Connolly and I'd asked him you know if we allowed these things with with parks department lose control over what happens in parks and he said no basically that there wouldn't be a circumstance where they wouldn't have the ability to issue not a not a special permit zoning wise but they still have to allow whatever it is explicitly and they get to set the conditions and things like that for what the rules and event has to abide by thanks and and for um Jenny or Kelly are there any open spaces in town that are not controlled by the park and recreation department but by some other part of town Jenny yeah the Whittemore park for example is under the authority of the select board um and then there are some spaces under the jurisdiction of the conservation commission but typically the types of activities that we're talking about happen in the open space district which is mostly the parks and rec commission and they have their own process for permitting which is what Mr. Fleming was talking about um so that would not be removed and the special permit granting authority is the redevelopment board not the zoning board of appeals sorry so the um the robins garden between the town hall and the library is who would give out a permit for that the select board and the same with Whittemore park the select yes yeah but the um those are among the many types of open spaces where pandemic related active exercise and entertainment types of activities and events were happening during the pandemic so it was a mixture of different types of open spaces so if we do what Mr. Fleming suggested there's going to be no open space in town where people can just show up without having to get permission from somewhere you would still need permission okay from one of the jurisdictions in order to have to do the things that are outlined um in this owning by law including the additions that Mr. Fleming is suggesting okay thanks so much that's it thank you gene melissa thanks um no i don't have any questions it seems pretty clear that you know this is kind of removing one of the obstacles they're still oversight and control on kind of one in terms of whether it's the board of select men or the parks and rec board if i understand this correctly depending on the location and the type of use so i am i am good great thank you steve uh nothing for me madam chair great uh so at this time we'll open this up to any questions or comments from the public and we will start with steve more uh yes thank you steve more piedmont street um madam chair i'd like to wait for it strongly support this particular motion on the part of mr fleming i think it's a great idea i um no i only wanted to uh to say the reason i raised my hand on the last question was i wanted to thank miss linema for having brought up that parking detail that was important to hear important to know and filled out my ignorance on the matter so thank you very much madam chair thank you uh any other members of the public wishing to uh to speak on uh the open space article right seeing none uh we will uh throw this back to the board for any final questions or comments on article 42 i'll just run through our roll call kin nope jim no comments melissa no further comment steve uh the pandemic reminded us that it's fun to be outside nothing further here here all right um so with that we will move on from article 42 uh to article 40 excuse me 44 44 uh which is a zoning bylaw amendment for restaurant uses inserted at the request of james fleming and 10 registered users um i will first turn this over to kelly linema to highlight any items from the memo uh that she'd like to mention for the board great and thank you steve for the kind of notes very nice um so in response to james fleming proposed article we just basically took a look at restaurant uses in town right now what's allowed by right in the business zoning districts um which both a restaurant and bank uses in those zoning districts currently have a 2000 square foot threshold above which you have to go through the environmental design review permitting process in order to receive a special permit um in order to open a business we also noted that small professional business medical offices have a slightly large a higher threshold um and fast order fast order food restaurants have a lower threshold so um there's basically just kind of like a different different set of thresholds in the b2 b2a b3 and b5 zoning districts um what we did note about restaurants is that there are a lot of additional permitting process that are required for for restaurants um so you have to go through a process with health and human services you have to go through a process with the inspection of services department um and then you also have to go through a process with the select four so those three processes together create a lot of different hurdles for a restaurant that don't exist for other businesses in town um and on top of that if you are looking to obtain a beer and wine license or an all alcohol license um do outdoor sidewalk cafe dining etc there's additional processes for those so I think we just wanted to look at what are the barriers to opening a restaurant in Arlington and how do those compare to other uses we found that there are additional barriers for restaurants we did also look at restaurants that have opened in the last decade in Arlington this is not a comprehensive list that's included in the memo um but one of the things that we noted is that restaurants either seem to be very large or they seem to be very very small and um now we don't know if that's a function of um the overall square footage of space that's available in some of our vacant storefronts um but what did seem interesting to me or perhaps for the board to consider is whether um whether what's absent which are those those restaurants that are between the 2000 and 4000 square feet if their absence is as a result of that additional permitting threshold so that's something for the board to consider and maybe james has additional information on them and that is pretty much over well I guess in addition we did provide some background information on whether there was a special permit required to open and I think the one thing to note is that the heights bob at 1314 mess out which basically is in that two to four thousand square foot um threshold actually had to go through two special permit processes one through the cba and then one through the arb which is adds a lot of time and costs for a restaurant to open and so with that I will pass this over to james great james if you wanted to start your presentation that would be great yep sorry uh if my camera dies uh during this then uh I sincerely apologize uh james alone 58 oxford street hopefully for the final time tonight next uh so uh so this uh sad to say that this was common ground um they closed recently um since the building was built before the current zoning by lot um so when they opened the restaurant uh they had a point of contention which that there wasn't enough parking um and the only tool that they had to open was the special permit um which are a tool that lets you kind of regulate uses that are allowed but where the the impact of the businesses that proceed to the town or those who live nearby um so uh I started looking at um basically like what is this special permit require of them what does it apply and and is it actually truly necessary uh next um so this is sort of the first place I went to was the section of the zoning bylaw for um for uh uses for restaurants um the important point here is that if you have a restaurant uh I'm ignoring fast order food um for the purposes of this article if you're under 2000 square feet you can basically do anything by right um you only go through like a signage review and if you're over that threshold then you go through a social permit basically no matter where you go um which kind of makes sense to me like like if you're a small restaurant you can't afford the process if you're bigger you're more likely to be able to afford going to that process so like that that distinction kind of like it has a satisfaction in my mind um next um the proposal for me is to uh increase the threshold for that that um that distinction where you need a special permit and where you don't from two to four thousand square feet um for context common ground was 5300 so they're they're well into the special permit territory even with the um the change and then um like sort of like like a one that I found that was like kind of straddling the line was not your average joes so like something like roughly that size slightly smaller is like the most you could have without a special permit and the heights pub is something that currently like just barely isn't allowed by the current ruling without a special permit but that with this change it would be allowed next yes thank you um so I thankfully I got some help from uh Steve Revlak on the board who actually was able to tell me sort of what the process is for a special permit just in general in detail so it's like there's a legal notice that goes out you advertise for a couple weeks you've got public hearings you've got as many as you as many of those as you need you get changes um from the town that asks for it there's an appeals period afterwards um but like like if everything goes smoothly it takes like two months um which is that's a lot and the town has a pretty wide latitude asked for whatever uh changes they think are necessary hi next so I I got unbelievably lucky and found the special permit for common ground and was able to find all of the uh things that they needed to do so um as part of this process they were asked to reduce their seating they had to have a dedicated section on their website showing where they were people would park in the neighborhood in the area um they had to sound through parts of the restaurant they had restrictions in light music and just it just kind of felt like it went on and on and on and that in the in the Arlington advocate that that reported the approval of the board the owner said that he couldn't continue to to go to the board and add like like negotiate changes at each appearance cost him ten thousand dollars that's like if the town is trying to negotiate the something like a size of a grocery store or an noxious development that seems like a useful tool but in the case of common ground it kind of feels like an unnecessary deterrent it doesn't it's not one that I want our town to have unless it's really really necessary that's a lot of money for someone to go through next um it also the the thing with special the special permits is that it it only applies to the one restaurant not to like two side-by-side so this is an example of um things that are and aren't allowed by special permit so on the right you have two restaurants that are each 15 times square feet both of those can go in no special permit the one on the left 3000 square feet can eat special permit in terms of impacts the neighborhood it doesn't seem like there would be a huge difference between the two maybe like a little bit more for a 2000 square foot restaurant but like this is what we're being protected from sort of a thing by the special permit and it doesn't to me it doesn't seem worth it to ask a business to go through that process um just in general next um we also know that the town wants restaurants they actually filed a warrant article to encourage active uses um and every survey that I've eve