to the town of Arlington redevelopment board meeting for March 27th 2023. I call this meeting to order. My name is Rachel Zanbury. I am the chair of the redevelopment board and I'd love it if the other board members could introduce themselves starting with Steve. Steve Revola, good evening. Eugene Benson. Kinnalow. And we also have joining us Claire Ricker, the director of the department of planning and community development and Kelly Linema, the assistant director of the department of planning and community development. So we will jump right into our first item on our agenda, the continued public hearing for docket number 3728 for 99 Massachusetts Avenue. And I will first turn it over to Claire to see if the department has any additional information that you'd like to add in addition to the memo that was prepared. Sure. I have no additional information to add other than the memo was prepared. This is the applicant is back at the request of the board to explain a few more details and tie up some loose ends and has provided the documents and the drawings that should do that. Great. Thank you very much. So I'll now turn it over to the applicant to see if you have any additional information that you would like to present to the board. Today were the callers of the sighting but I think James, our architect, sent a memo, said that he wouldn't be present but he addressed all the questions that you guys had last meeting. Okay. So that's it for now. Great. Do you have this selection or this is a range that you would be? Those are all the grades. Okay. This is the dark grade caller that used to do it. Graphite. Okay. Great. Thank you very much. So at this time I'd like to turn it over to members of the board for any questions or comments on the revisions that were submitted by the applicant starting with Ken. I'm fine. I appreciate your following through all our requests and at this point in time I have no question. I think the callers selection I'll leave a few guys to decide. But I'm sure the architect had a choice, right? Yes. It was this one. Graphite. It's fine. Okay. The darkest to gray. The darkest of the grays. Not the black but the gray. Gene. I appreciate all of the work that's been done on this. I just had a couple of things. One is this is more for us. The bike parking that is going to be in front needs approval from the town. So if the town doesn't approve it are you able to move that one bicycle rack to the back? Yeah. Okay. So we'll just probably want to put that in the decision that if the town doesn't allow it in front they'll go in back and they'll have to be assigned this as bike rack. Okay. Great. The other thing and I don't know this is I don't know if one of the parking spaces needs to be a handicapped space. If this were a new development, one of the six would need to be handicapped accessible. None of these are. I don't know whether it needs to be considering their spaces there now and none of them are handicapped accessible. I think that we probably should just put a note in our decision that says we're not making a determination on one of these whether these spaces need to be handicapped accessible. The building inspector will need to make that determination. I don't want him to think that we you know gave him a pass on that. I thought we sorry if I'm interrupting can I please go ahead. This is already a non-conforming thing saying there's no handicap assessment and we're not there not making it any. I don't know. I don't know that I tried to find the answer because the handicap accessibility is not it's a non-conforming use. The handicap accessibility is in federal requirements and I couldn't find anything in the federal requirements that dealt with this. So I don't know the answer as to whether even though it's a non-conforming use when they do this they need to. That's why I just want to say we're not making a determination that will be up to the building inspector. Okay that's it. Other than that I'm good with this. Great thank you Jean. Steve. I want to you know like thank you for working with us and I have nothing else to add. Great thank you. Claire would you be able to pull up the in lieu of a submittal the photo that they submitted of the metal panel? Yeah. Product. I just would like to see this guy. No there's a photograph that you had of their new building was it in the same flyer? Oh boy let me see. There you go. That's it. That can't be it. Yeah that looks like a standing scene. So I still would like to see the profile of this product. I know you said that you had ordered it but it hadn't come in today. I'm certainly willing to prove it on the condition that that is submitted for the board's review to the Department of Planning and Community Development if my fellow board members feel okay with that. But I think that again I would like to see that profile. Okay that's okay. Great. Any other comments or questions for the applicant before I open it up for public comment? Okay we'll open it up for public comment. I don't know if you have anything we'd like. Great thank you so much. All right so we'll close public comment on this first on docket number 3728. Let's see so any final discussion starting with Ken? No. Gene? No just when we approve this under 8.1.1 we'll have to say that adding the fourth floor is not substantially more detrimental than the existing non-conforming structure or used to the neighborhood so we'll just make that final. Great thank you. Steve anything else? Nothing aside from I agree with Mr. Benson's proposal for the finding of you know not substantially more detrimental. For me it's a matter of you know there's the difference between the the you know heightened massing of the existing half-story attic and the proposed fourth floor is is minimal. Great okay so I'd like to see if there is a motion from the board to approve docket number 3728 for 99 Massachusetts Avenue with the finding under section 8.1.1 that adding the fourth floor is not substantially more detrimental to the existing non-conformity or used to the neighborhood. Or used to the neighborhood thank you. With the special conditions two special conditions one that if bike parking is not approved in the public space in front of the building to relocate that to the rear of the building and the second is that the requirements for handicapped parking should be reviewed with the building inspector. Any other findings or special conditions starting with Ken? No. Gene? No we should just end with a bicycle that they'll have to put a sign on the front if the bicycle racks in the back indicating the bicycle rack in the back. Okay the condition for deciding material are you adding to the decision? Yes that's the thank you very much and that the that the applicant submit a sample of the metal panel to the Department of Planning and Community Development for a final review and approval by the Redevelopment Board. Steve any others? Nothing nothing for me Madam Chair. Okay thank you so is there a motion? So motioned. I'll second. Great we'll take a roll call vote starting with Steve. Yes. Gene? Yes. Ken? Yes. And I'm a yes as well. We're really looking forward to seeing your project come to life. Thank you so much for working with us. All right so that closes the hearing for docket number 3728 for 99 Massachusetts Avenue. Let's see so the non-zoning warrant articles um we had that on for eight o'clock that's not a hearing so I believe that we can go ahead and move into that agenda item or we could take the meeting minutes out of order. Why don't we start with the meeting minutes and just get those um get through with those and then we'll move to agenda item number two. So let's move ahead to agenda item number five which is to review the meeting minutes um and I will first ask Kelly if you received any um modifications to the meeting minutes ahead of the meeting. So um I received the modifications that I sent back to the board this afternoon so uh so it was uh just a couple of additions um thank you Steve and Gene and so I think sorry no that's all right um basically updating the docket number to reflect the right number um I sent them all back to you so I don't know if anybody else has had a chance to great so I'll um run through Ken did you have any other additions or corrections no Gene um none other than the ones that have been incorporated Steve uh nothing else and I didn't have any additions or corrections um so we'll see if there is a motion to approve the meeting minutes for Monday March 6th as amended so motion second we'll take a vote starting with Steve yes Gene yes Nemi yes as well meeting minutes have been approved as amended thank you so much Kelly and with that let's go ahead and move to the um non-zoning warrant articles agenda item number two which is to discuss and um vote on a recommendation again this is a um a vote for this will be the vote will be representative of the redevelopment board's um opinion on this item but it won't be an official vote for town meeting with regard to action or no action as I believe that this this article does this um Claire does this reside with Fincom I don't believe it is under the select boards or just because this is a town manager article does it not actually go to any board for official review and recommend which one are we talking about which one are we transferring properties or the working group uh I was talking about the transfer of properties the working group does go in front of the select board I believe so maybe let's clarify that let's just clarify some process oh it does okay the manager articles they will be going before the select board next week Monday okay which is why they wanted to have the ARB submit some sort of statement about support or or not or something in between um in advance of that so they would understand what the ARB's vote was before deliberating themselves great thank you and article 14 is also going in front of the select board it is my understanding that article warrant article 14 has been pulled okay and Doug is here and Doug is here he may have better information than I do on that the last I heard it was we're trying to find you on the zoom Doug where are you if it's if it's pulled do they still need to take a vote for no action I assume that they would much like we do this evening um for the article that was pulled for the zoning by laws yes they the select board does have to do that yes because there were other articles pulled okay so let's go ahead then and start with article number 14 and we uh I suppose don't need to have a discussion around this one if this was pulled is this correct but if we could just get some confirmation on that I'm not sure if Doug is able to confirm can you hear me I've got so small bear with us a minute Doug we're having technical difficulties hey Doug it's Claire can you hear me yes Claire hi how are you hi welcome to the ARB thank you for coming thank you so much I'm sorry that I can't be there in person I don't know that anybody would want me recording in progress great well thank you so much for um joining us Doug we are just getting into um the agenda item where we will be discussing warrant articles 14 21 22 and 23 so I appreciate you joining us this evening we did have a question for you regarding warrant article number 14 and if that has in fact been pulled from um submission for a town meeting and in fact if you do need the redevelopment board to weigh in on that or if that still is planning on going forward can you refresh me which articles are sure that was the strategic working group or the excuse me the working group related to strategic growth within the town that uh Len Diggins put forth so I'll be candid I'm not sure if the posture of that is totally resolved at this point in time the select board did not opt to take any action at their last meeting but I don't believe that that was final or determinative I think the the decision was to give Mr. Diggins a little bit of time to try to parse out exactly what it is that he's trying to achieve that may be different from some of the other frankly similar efforts that have been engaged in ranging from the master plan to a number of efforts by the ARB planning department planning community development budget revenue task force things like that great so I would not say that that is totally off the table if the board wanted to take a position on it it certainly can with this sort of highly conceptual framework that's been put in front of you if however you wanted to wait until uh the select board had an opportunity to hear a little bit more of a refined version of the proposal that would certainly be something that might gain your interest to do so great thank you very much um the challenge here is going to be timing and I think it might prove the board to discuss the the memo that was put together with regard to um article 14 at this time and um weigh in on our support or other thoughts or or whether we do support this this at all um and I think what I'd like to do is turn it over to to Claire um originally this was supposed to have been have come before the select board last Monday and ahead of that Claire and I did have a discussion um related to the the article and the discussions that we've all been having as a board related to the need to update the master plan specifically with regard to pulling together the work and recommendations that have been done by so many different working groups and committees related to strategic growth um among other issues within the plan including the housing production plan the uh the uh sustainable Arlington plan the transportation plan there there are many different plans that have all addressed strategic growth which we are hoping to wind together as part of the update to the master plan so I'll turn it over to Claire um to for some of the highlights of the the memo that you put together great thank you Rachel I think um we were surprised I to see the um motion by Mr. Diggins um about a uh a working group that would look at new growth in Arlington to develop a strategic plan around it um those activities are very clearly laid out in the mass general laws as sort of the um jurisdiction of the planning board which in the town of Arlington is the ARB um it's rather prescriptive um the elements that go into master planning but at least three of the items that are included reference economic growth new growth analysis of future land use as it relates to growth so I think that it's um you know it should be clear this board um that discussions of new growth planning for new growth are obviously you know your jurisdiction um I think that said um there is a benefit to working on a project like this in a master planning process which is iterative and where different um you know a working group perhaps on new growth might work with a working group who's also working on housing or a working group who might be um working on future transportation needs all relates and all is relative in this iterative process where we can um best collaborate together um we work better I think together um and not in siloed groups I think you know we come up with uh good answers and um actionable plans I would hate to work on plans that contradict or plans that have different goals or different strategies um it's very clear to me that this work should be done um you know under the terms of the planning board and a master planning process which we are looking to kick off um in January of next year so I definitely appreciate the enthusiasm absolutely this is something that we need to look at when we're developing the new plan and economic development section I think that it's a part of our plan that could be more robust could look at more um evaluation and analysis um and I think that's what we would attend to do um you know I I would love it uh if we could have a great committee um that was part of a master plan um group that could um that could suss this out and work on it um over time um in a master planning process great thank you so much um can I have one thing would that be all right Madam Chair please go ahead Doug just so the ARB is clear you don't necessarily have to get the zoom uh bombed over there by some friendly faces behind you uh you don't necessarily have to uh approve or disapprove of an article that's not technically in front of your comment can be as nuanced as you like you don't have to support or oppose uh you can raise the you know concerns or whatever uh in however whatever many you like uh one of the things that you can do if you're trying to sort of move forward tonight is to inform the select board's discussion which would be but I I can't even guarantee that that's going to happen it's still possible that the Schrodingens may decide um to hold off on this particular matter um or that he may proceed as I think you all know he's not proceeding as uh he can file this article as a resident petitioner not as a select one so um I just want to make it clear that you know as far as the options are open to you to to be very straightforward and direct and say no we don't like it say yes we do say this is a nuanced thing and um this is what we're working on right for both the board and town meetings permission great thank you very much Doug I appreciate that and I think what I'd like to accomplish tonight um again uh is really related to this memo that I appreciate Claire putting together when this when it came to our attention that this article um was on the table um what I'd like to request of the board um is any feedback on on this memo any questions you have for Claire any modifications to um attorney Heim's point if this is something that we would still like to deliver to the select board as as additional information or as um as information that will inform their discussion I think that would be that would be helpful to understand if the board supports this or would would prefer to see this type of a study group as recommended go forward so we'll start the discussion with Ken um I agree with Claire and her memo I think it's um something that if we have this another silo of this uh working group it's only going to make uh that much more difficult when we do go up and try to present some change um I think having a more rounded discussion of I'll reach of everybody is good but when you have that too many points trying to come in it's going to be very confusing for someone to say yes we we see your goals or no we don't see your goals I think this is going to kind of muddle it up a little bit so I would hope he takes his enthusiasm added to ours and just keep it going forward because we've been talking about this for quite some time and I'm glad we're going to go forward with this starting next year great so that's I'm not well elegantly as Claire said but yes thank you Ken jean yeah I think it was an excellent memo from Claire and I agree with what she wrote I was thinking about was was there any benefit to having a parallel process going on but for any minor benefit I might see I saw so many disadvantages um to have that process going on at the same time we're doing our you know legal responsibility to do an update to the master plan so I I think that I think it would be a mistake to have the two processes go on at the same time I don't I don't think there's anything in the master laws that prevents the town from having two processes going on I just think it's a bad idea and you know I think there's some way that we should communicate that to the select board unless mr. diggins with jeroses article great thank you jean steve well thinking just taking the article by itself I'm I'm actually quite supportive of it the idea that a you know a citizen petitioner yes he happens to be a member of the select board but is interesting is interested in talking about new growth and sort of like a longer term strategic just new growth in general in Arlington it's a bit of a departure from us but I think it's also a little bit overdue um partake and given that we are looking at a budget at an operating override either this year or next I think it's also a very timely proposal um yeah so those are my just by just for the for the article itself I'm quite supportive but I understand the logistical concerns of you know you know working it into um you know we have that we will be starting a master plan process hopefully you know hopefully we get the mbta community is taking care of this fall and that will free up free up our plate if it doesn't well we can sort of take that punch as it comes but I you know if you know I know chapter 41 is prescriptive in the eight sections that it lays out for for a master plan and some of the elements include new growth but you know because there's nothing that's devoted dedicated to it entirely um I'd kind of like to see you know us tackle that as a separate unit because as a municipality if we cover the eight we can do other stuff if we want to um and you know to that's you know to that and you know I think it would make sense to you know sort of try to hold off until we actually get to the master planning process great thank you Steve um and obviously I reviewed this with Claire and I'm I'm supportive of what's laid out in this memo in that um again one of the things I always look at is what what is already in place um what committees are already in place what what is somebody's actual job as in you know the Department of Planning and Community Development and how can we not be duplicative in terms of um the resources and the um volunteer time as well as the staff time that we're putting forth um so with all of the work that's been done through all of the plans that have been created to date that are relative to strategy for new growth and and direction that we have as well as the upcoming master planning process um I I really think that this would um again take resources both volunteer and staff resources um away from um work on this topic that are either already in process or are planned to to begin um in the in the near future so um what I would like to propose is um that the ARB um that the ARB um state a state their support for the um points as prepared in the uh memo um prepared by Claire and um we can deliver this then to the select board if and when the article does come come up for uh for review so we'll go through and see if um we can just take that as a as a roll call I mean it's not an official vote but um whether there is support for delivering this memo as written to the to the select board um when this article does come in front of them we'll start with uh Ken yes Gene I have a yes but sure and I think uh the but is I think we should say something along the line of what some of us have said which is you know it it's an appropriate time to look at growth and that will be part of what we're going to do going forward so of course it it's sort of implied by the memo by saying these are the things in the master plan but it doesn't quite say it directly so I would just add that little nuance to it sure that the timing that the current timing and it's an appropriate time to look at at growth and we will be doing and we will be doing so as start right okay we can make that modification sure good suggestion Steve um I would add another modification uh that we would encourage and welcome the proponent article proponent to get involved with the master planning process great we can do that too so I have no objections to either one of those recommendations but I and I think that again that's rather implied because I think look at it you know I I get the sense that this is something we want to do but it's a matter of timing and resources correct and and it's not only a matter of timing and resources it's a um it's a question of the right place to home this yeah coordination exactly so we can recommend that the applicant seek to um to um participate seek an opportunity to participate again because this will be a public process there will be many opportunities for participation at various levels well I wouldn't say you know we want or we suggest the proponent of the water article be involved I think we should say it more universally which is the public to be involved well there will be opportunities for the public to be involved and there'll be a working group that you know will include similar similar positions or something like that uh we can say that there will be a working group comprised of um of a wide range of constituents within the town not you know and because that is not as similar to what was proposed okay as opposed to we encourage him to do which sounds like to me a little like a backhanded slap yeah so I'm yeah all right I was trying to avoid just make the the backhanded slap of no okay okay we good got it okay all right uh so Claire will deliver uh that memo with the proposed modifications um if and when that does come in front of the select board um let's see so the next agenda items are just one thing if if mr diggins withdraws the article then I don't think there's any need to send it the memo I would agree so I time and you may have to do it but you know if he withdraws the article then I think the memo is not necessary would there be an opportunity to pull any memo prior uh if the article does not move forward absolutely so when the ARB issues its report typically you know you're issuing a report on articles that you believe that there's going to be some kind of positive action 90 percent of right some sort of action of the ARB to take in this particular instance you won't have the controlling motion right so for all zoning articles you have the controlling motion if someone's muscles made a substitute man you know but where you're basically issuing commentary as part of your report where you're issuing commentary to the select board directly um what you might want to just do is make it clear that uh you know director planning commutative or the chair is authorized to you know so amend the report or um amend your action to the select board if the article is neutral does it make sense yes um we good for 14 so let's go ahead and move to um the memo that was prepared by uh attorney heim on articles 21 22 and 23 relative to the transfer of ARB property to the town of Arlington um so Doug is there anything that you would like to highlight for us I think that the memo I appreciate first of all I appreciate you putting together the memo this is very helpful in terms of giving the board um some additional context and thoughts on um options uh for for moving forward so uh I wanted to turn it over to you to see if there's anything that you um would like to to cover from your memo I would thank thank you madam chair thank you I also wanted to give a sort of shout out to Mary Musinski who did a little bit of digging um and uncovered an interesting discussion back to 1981 when the central school was uh when this debate was sort of happening but in slightly different terms and one of the pieces of that discussion was the idea that the ARB needed to be the entity holding this property if it wanted to generate essentially revenue and that the idea was that no other town entity could essentially hold property for the purpose of intentionally trying to generate revenue as opposed to just sort of maintaining properties and things like that as we lease some other properties the town owns but it's not necessarily a for-profit enterprise um and it's interesting because in that specific lens we can see how much things have changed over time since 1981 because the central school's primary function is as a community space it's functions primarily as you know a senior center and a meeting room and then meeting room spaces and town offices and then certain private organizations but oftentimes at or below market rate for the benefits they bring to the community if uh or as soon as there's agreement on that so we're not really using the central school building in particular to generate revenue for the town as a revenue positive circumstance so with that sort of additional context the major things I would say is that there are really two reasons to move the properties out of the ARB's hands and into the town's general items the first is really legal right as sort of alluded to in the memo the ARBs really support to hold properties for a finite period of time for the purposes of redevelopment not necessarily indefinitely because what you're really trying to do through an urban renewal plan is address some specific condition it's a little bit of a hyperlocked term but you're sort of trying to address polite if you will right so you're trying to achieve a couple things under urban renewal I know the planning director has a substantial experience in this arena so I don't want to speak too much on on the purpose of urban renewal but and I think there's a question about whether or not at this point in time these three properties are really focused towards urban renewal or are they focused towards just providing important amenities for the town of ARB the second piece of it is just kind of practical so one of your main tenants if not your main tenant is really the town itself so the budgeting capital budgeting all these different sort of facets of things essentially the town is paying itself to both rent and then maintain these properties which can make it difficult from a budgeting perspective and also carry some interesting sort of questions about you know the ARB as a public body has more sort of constraints on it in terms of how it manages its tenants if you will then say the town manager who you know more or less manages all the rest of the town properties but so there's really primarily these sort of legal and sort of practical budgeting and capital reasons and some of that was kind of evidence recently by the renovations of the central school in which any project of that size and scope you know involves a lot of work with either an owner's project manager or the contractor the architect folks like that and it's a tremendous tremendous responsibility for the planning director and department to sort of oversee a substantial construction project and then you still have to involve the permanent town building committee so you end up having additional voices in the room which can be obviously good in many ways but it also means that you know the previous planning director was essentially managing a construction project in addition to the rest of our duties which is a lot to does a lot to do so if you have any questions I'd be happy to try to answer them as best as I can I'm not the expert on capital or operating budgets but I'll do my best and I've worked with wonderful planning staff over the years who have managed these leases very very well and as well as the town manager's budget analyst and other folks who are responsible for basically all the other properties and pounds I'm familiar with a lot of the those formal and informal issues that have come up great thank you very much appreciate the overview we'll turn it over to Kim to start the discussion thanks for the memo Doug I looked at that and I've been actually really struggling with this because I actually brought this up a few years ago I don't know three four years ago say how come we have these properties here and you know why we why are we landlords and why are we managing all the stuff and I've been thinking that I think it's that the managing of the three buildings is not our forte it should not be the forte of the the planning department but having these three buildings have the ability to say leverage different programs we think we need I don't want these three buildings we all also become town buildings and we don't have the ability to fit in like a senior senator or fit in um I don't know just thinking out loud here like a homeless shelter or or whatever that that we feel like is needed in this town and which we're trying to have the ability to do that and I think having these buildings um under our our jurisdiction gives us the ability to may maybe address some of these issues that may come up um I was wondering there could be a compromise where you know the maintenance and all the other stuff is the town takes care of but we take care of the future of the leases or of just that part so we ensure that we can use this as tools for for us um in managing the town going forward and I think there's something that you know I think is is good on our part and I don't know I was I'm going to take a break right there and see what the rest of my board members might think too was that a question for for Doug with regard to whether there was an option to kind of bifurcate yes the piece would you like him to weigh in yes okay Doug if you wouldn't mind uh weighing in on kin's question please thank you madam chair I I think what I would say is is that from the strictest legal term uh the property has to be sort of owned by someone so if you transfer the ownership from the ARB to the town the town will be the owner um I don't want to speak for the manager but I think the sense that I get from you is that what's really like is for the ARB to have some role in terms of helping to figure out how we prioritize utility of town buildings um and that makes a lot of sense to me uh but it would probably have to be a soft measure it's not something that I think I can bake into a about a transfer of property the transfer is conditioned upon the ARB retaining jurisdiction over who gets to be the leaseholder um I think it'd be more you know the ARB wants to have a role in terms of deciding how these buildings and maybe other buildings in town too as an entity that makes planning decisions um you know in terms of what are the needs of the town so it makes a lot of sense to me uh from a practical standpoint in terms of legally how you do that I think you'd just have to be relying on some political promises rather than a condition um or some kind of it's not really like an easement or a license or something of that nature it would be difficult to see how of the property maybe you could put a use restriction on that would be the most I could see you know is that you put a use restriction on saying that we want it to be used for these certain things the use restrictions usually have a either um more specific um a more specific idea like use restriction for mixed use or use restriction for uh you know educational or whatever purposes those are usually the the types of use restriction that you can put on a detail but but Doug you're thinking in terms of the town taking over the ownership of the buildings can we put put it the other way say we remain the owners of the building how can the town take over the maintenance and uh and upkeep and all the other stuff of the buildings well still the buildings still remain ownership of the ARB um I think that ma'am chairman please please go ahead Doug you know I don't know whether or not the ARB wants to have a more formal agreement with the town that it already sort of passed so the ARB is an interesting entity because you are simultaneously a part of the town but you enjoy this sort of distinct legal status for limited purposes right so for most purposes the ARB is the town and the town is the ARB but for the purposes of urban renewal you have this sort of extraordinary authority to both take property and then a lot of different allowances under procurement laws and all kinds of other things so that you can redevelop them so you know is it possible for you to broker some sort of arrangement with the town or the town would take care of I mean I think I'd have to defer a little bit to director Ricker in terms of how exactly the capital budgeting and stuff like that works now my guess is is that it's a series of conversations already about what types of terms you would want to have in your leases and things that are sort of suggestions or you know needs from the health department for example with respect to the capital facility so I'm sure that there's something that in theory you can do there wouldn't be an action under this article you could say they don't want to transfer them and then you know try to work with the manager to figure out how to put the operational capital needs of the building this over to the town manager's office we can't it though I'm not sure how inclined at least this manager would be to do that I don't know the manager necessarily envisions something that would be more similar to the to the status quo so at one point Doug I'm remembering a conversation that according to the town manager act the enabling act the town manager cannot provide you know do work on buildings that aren't specifically owned by the town is that the case so yes it is I think that there have been ways in which we've sort of tried to practically work around that for the town manager's office trying to provide some support for planning and community development but you know some of your leases for example now feature elements that were sort of drawn up by the manager's office to try to help support but they that's correct they don't directly manage for example you know the there's some decommissioned school buildings that we lease out and all that stuff is directly managed by the manager's office there managers the point of contact for those leases whereas your leases with your tenants have to be signed by the ARB and you know as you would expect then your sort of designated agents are folks within planning I mean I'll be honest it's a little bit convoluted because it's not like the planning department employees aren't employees in the town so it's not super clean but Claire is technically correct that the manager is not supposed to be managing properties that the town but Doug I have a follow-up question does the ARB still enjoy the ability to engage in real estate transactions such as leases without a public process RFP or do they need an active renewal plan urban renewal plan to do that and the reason that I'm asking the question is because it occurs to me that maybe it is a good idea to leave the ARB with the ability to enter into these leases since they also have the ability to lease to whoever they like is that true do we have an active urban renewal plan can the ARB engage in leasing direct so my understanding is that you do not have an active renewal plan for any of these problems if someone has better information than I do that's fine but you know your powers to engage in processes that are essentially more flexible than the rest of the town and public schools for example are rooted in the need to have some extraordinary authorities to help move things along in the most efficient and cost-effective manner without an active renewal plan it's not very clear to me that you can engage in the same I wouldn't recommend that you engage in procurement as if you were in redevelopment of the property at this point in time unless unless you were able to develop an urban renewal plan I frankly don't know again Claire may have more experience with this than I do if you could just develop a new urban renewal plan for property that had previously been redeveloped under the ARB no it's like once it happens and you redevelop it it's redeveloped so once that urban renewal plan either expires or sunsets or whatever um unless the property became blighted again it'd be hard to see you having those extraordinary authorities do that you shouldn't do any other follow-up questions I'm sorry so um let's move on to Jean and then we can summarize um some of the the points that I have heard for just further discussions yeah Doug well so thank you for the memo since the ARB is now the owner of the three properties if we say no does that end it they can't be transferred to the town do we have to affirmatively vote for the transfer I would not recommend that the select board proceed if you don't if you don't approve transfer I think it's possible that with town meetings support the properties could be transferred but I wouldn't recommend divesting a town entity of property if it's not willing to divest themselves thinking about what Doug has said and wrote in the memo about the properties being redeveloped um I'm somewhat persuaded about this building and the Jefferson cutter house I'm not persuaded about 27 maple that um it it it needs work you know we when we entered into the lease with the town the inspectional services the understanding was that they would move out when the new building dpw building was completed and then we would get to decide you know what to do with the building and so I'm hesitant to transfer that up because I think that's much more in our wheelhouse than this building or the other building so that's one way I'm thinking about about this the other way and and this relates to what kin had to say and what you said to Doug you know there are some tenants in here that are nonprofits that probably have below market rate because we thought it was good for the town that they were in the town and um they were doing good things I just don't know whether if this building is transferred and the cutter house for that matter if it's transferred to the town manager whether we can depend upon not this town manager because he's leaving in a few months but you know the next town manager or whatever to feel the same way and not feel that they want to maximize the income that they can make out of the building and I wonder if if you could respond to that concern I'm going to talk a little thank you madam chairman please go ahead Doug I'm going to talk a little bit outside my role for a moment but my my recollection of most of these conversations has been that the ARB and select board have more or less been sort of lock step in terms of the ways in which you wanted to use these properties that's been important for example to maintain some space for the senior's association and important to maintain artist space especially following the repurposing of the Gibbs school to be back so I guess my answer is mostly practical which is that the select board is the supervisor of the town manager so when you know you have strong community interested needs for certain types of services and programs the select board tends to be very responsive to that as a political frankly I think that the the bigger danger is the opposite right so there may be some things that might be politically less compelling that the ARB might in certain circumstances want to do with a space as part of an urban renewal plan I'm not sure frankly how much that really happens again going back to that 1981 sort of town meeting discussion there was a lot of pressure at that time by the select board and I believe a member of the select board got some 400 seniors to petition to keep the seniors in what we now all just assume and talk about as the senior center because it would never be anything different but in many ways that the chief pressure came from the select board and some of its members to keep the central school which most of it in some way she performed I know there's a few people around who were part of those discussions Mr. McCabe Mr. Warden a couple others and you know very much were putting pressure on the ARB as an entity to use these spaces not necessarily for what would generate the most revenue for the town but what would provide a benefit in a less player financial way but other and nothing more intangible so I'll just be real I don't I don't think that transfer the properties is likely to change that landscape if anything you all as appointed members might exercise a little bit more autonomy sometimes from you know this sort of whole of certain types of political issues thank you just you know I think it's fair to say that least during the time I've been on the board the properties have not been managed by the board they've been managed by the staff you know the only time we've gotten anything about it is oh there needs to be a new lease for something and and here it is and I think the example is the redevelopment of this building you know the past couple of years where I don't recall you know that we got to look at plans and look at layouts and and really have any say in in what was going on with the building and overall I think they did a wonderful wonderful job I'm not criticizing that I might have had a couple suggestions that they may have rejected but what I'm saying is we haven't really been involved so you know so it's it's it's hard for me to say that we should retain management and ownership of these buildings except I think we can do better with 27 Maple Street I think it's going to need work I think there's going to have to be some decisions made and again I think it's more appropriate for us to keep that and okay but if those of you disagree with me I'll go along with the group I think it's okay to transfer the Cutter House and this building but not 27 Maple you know I will point out the funny thing that happened when for a while it looked like we weren't going to be able to use this space until we mentioned we owned the building and you know I think it is true we did exercise that so we did exercise that ownership opportunity when we needed to and it would have been harder if we couldn't say we owned the building so I'll leave it there very good point Jean thank you very much Steve so I um one of the questions I had uh in this was do we still have an active urban renewal program um and my understanding is no that's and this is that's also for my vague recollection from the time when um this rate gave us a talk about you know urban renewal authorities and you know what the board had done in the past um so to me that's you know that's sort of like a check marks a check mark in the um we should hand it over hand the properties over column um now as as Jean said when you know places when these properties have needed work and maintenance and leases most of the work has been done by staff and um Madam Chair if I might ask um Ms. Ricker how do you feel about having that extra responsibility sure I'm happy to speak to that so I think you know in years past with a full staff and not a major construction project that the department has been able to manage the buildings has been able to manage the leases and the you know things like um I managed the Whittemore Park you know reconstruction there was you know some some stuff going around there that is I think a size project that is um that this department is capable of handling this project it's my understanding there were two things going on health and human services was building out their space at the same time um DPCD in the town were building out the upstairs floors and that there has been particularly in this building um some challenges around that I know that we are no longer renting say the kitchen there's some concern about safety cleanup building monitors who's going to be here um as people are using the spaces there have been you know we talk about below market rate leases upstairs we haven't been able to provide consistent air conditioning we haven't been able to keep the elevator running um so I think you know this is really kind of come to a head with this building which I think yes is too big for a department of eight to handle a major construction project on um I'm very curious about the idea 27 maple and I'd like to ask councillor Heim if that's a possibility if the ARB could retain an interest in that building um but I do think that in terms of staff and what we can do managing a project like this is a little beyond us something like 27 maple we could probably handle great um and I'll turn that question then to attorney Heim my understanding is that these are three separate articles uh so if the board um voted this evening in favor of support of the transfer of two of the properties and did not vote in favor of transfer of the third property that that is something that we could um in theory make as a finding is that correct and do you have anything else that you'd like to say regarding that that's correct so there are three several word articles with three separate votes um and to some degree um you know they represent three different stories um the ARB I think it's no there's no question that it's uh the redevelopment of the Jefferson Cutter House it's tremendous success although folks know this but my understanding the Jefferson Cutter House was actually picked up and moved to its current location in my office is actually the sister brother house to that house that shares the exact same layout before additions were added to both buildings so and similarly with the central school this has been a hub for government and civic and senior and lots of other activities for you know the last 40 50 years almost so those things are have been highly successful ARB projects and redevelopment the 27 maple has a more complicated history its most recent commercial tenant was essentially a group home for um for youth and um there were some ups and downs to that particular use it was a tremendous resource for an underserved population of folks but it also was a complicated thing to to to manage times um and so if the ARB has the sense that it would like to continue seeing that property through to a sort of satisfactory redevelopment I do want to be candid it's not clear to me that there's a redevelopment there's a permanent renewal plan for that property um I don't we we're we're occupying a little bit of a gray area with respect to what how are we going to take the next steps of that property but I I think what I hear the ARB saying is that there's a general interest in continuing to have an important role in what happens with all of these spaces like that 27 maple in particular is sort of unfinished work so I you can't separate this but I'm sorry for editorializing great thank you very much so um one clarifying question and one closing comment um we've kept saying 27 maple to refer to the building next door I think this is 27 maple um and next door is 23 thank you thank you um mine as well right that's right um but yeah general my general thoughts are as an urban renewal authority um I think we need an an active urban renewal plan to hold the properties and if um you know the plans have expired then we should turn them back to the town and to where you know in the case of 23 maple I mean if there is a desire to hold it then we need to ask town meeting to give us a new urban renewal plan those are my thoughts great thank you Steve um after reviewing the memo I also um I'm in a similar position where I I feel that if we don't have an active urban renewal plan and we need one to to hold the property that we um should support turning these three properties back over to the town my thought is however that I think I would like to make it clear um in any finding that we make this evening that the ARB would like to have a role in reviewing the tenancy for non-town occupied uses um to align with the master plan and the um the strategic growth plans for for the town my personal point of view councillor heim what about an MOA or some sort of agreement between the town manager's office and the ARB is that something that is relatively enforceable attorney heim um that MOA you know or an MOU between um two entities within the town is certainly um something that can help sort of make sure that discussions are guided in the future so that as I think mr. Benson pointed out there's a manager right now who's probably willing to do all the things that the ARB is talking about but who will be the manager you know six years from now um so yes I think that an MOA can be very helpful in sort of outlining roles and responsibilities um I think that 20s of maple might be a little bit in a different posture but yes I think overall um it's also consistent with the other sort of facets of um the master plan and the strategic uh uh uh growth plan so I think as the chairs pointed out and some other folks have pointed out there's definitely a pathway forward and what you might want to do is see if whatever common you're providing to the select board on these properties alongside your vote make it clear that that's what your expectation would be so that the select board um vote which is the main motion contains common language that reflects the expectation that an MOA or something of that nature would be assembled thank you very helpful thank you Claire for the suggestion um any other discussion before um we propose a uh a motion and a and a or a vote really since there's no actual motion that we are um voting on it's more of a recommendation please here's a vote at the end of his um memo right we would amend we would around right we okay so then it would be it's on it's a vote of um recommendation as opposed to an an action for for town meetings so um what I would like to propose after hearing uh the different points of view is that we vote as is suggested by uh attorney heim with the addition that the of a notation that the redevelopment board would like to have a role in reviewing the tenancy for non-town uses and um as outlined in an MOA to be developed jointly with the redevelopment board and the town manager's office I'm open to any suggestions modifications please I work to add there I like I'd like to add a certain percentage that the town can occupy because the town I don't want the town to come by and say this is this whole building is now town offices and we lose the senior center we lose the arts um I don't know what's a good percentage but do you have a recommendation for a percentage I mean as far as I know we have never voted on any leases based on profitability or money it's always applicability to the town and what the town wants so that's something we always want it so it's never a moneymaker situation I think that's fair that's a that's a fair proposal and we could identify again again without um I think what we need to probably do is review what the um the current percentages are today and perhaps identify that um again if we want them if we want the town occupied percentage of the building to not be greater than they are today although again we know that 23 maple is temporarily occupied by the town so you know that may be something that we identified that the MOA will be developed to include maximum percentages of town occupied square footage within these three properties I'll be okay with that you'd be okay with that I do want to ask Gina a question though because you do bring up a good point about 23 maple well what do you have in mind to do there I mean let's talk about it yeah we should talk about it so let me start to say if I'm I'm sorry to have to disagree with what's been said so far I think if we turn over the buildings to the town that it's the towns and I think Doug is right that the town decision on what to do with them is going to be driven by the residents and town policies and I can't see the town you know throwing the senior center out or you know ACA out or stuff like that so I sort of feel it's a clean break if we turn them over to the town they're the towns I don't want to get in an MOA when you know people are looking over each other's shoulders technically about what's going on however I do not want to turn over 23 Maple Street to the town if we need to do a new urban renewal plan we should go ahead and do that I so what can we do with it I think we need to have that discussion about what we can do with it it can be anything from figuring out how to turn it over for affordable housing to you know another you know another nonprofit I think there are lots of options I've often wondered whether we could you know turn it over for affordable housing but I don't know whether that would make sense but I don't I think that as I said before I think that's something that redevelopment boards do and I think we should be doing it so I would agree to the other two properties without MOAs just clean break and I'd keep 23 for us to figure out what to do with it when those leases are up in the town moves out and create an urban renewal plan to support the holding right that's where I am on that one Steve so if we were to in terms of blighted open spaces I could think of worse examples in 23 Naples and if we were to do an urban if we were to take on a new urban renewal plan that would not be that building just would not be in my top list of choices I think you know that we could do we'd get more bang for the buck on certain other properties in town I'm okay with turning 23 Naples over Kim Hannah on the fence on both both your reasons I mean yes it's not the urban blight it's it's a nice area it's a good neighborhood urban renewal plans are often in good neighborhoods I mean it you can look over so much of Boston or Manhattan for that matter where they've done urban renewal plans in the middle of nice neighborhoods so whether there are other properties and other areas that are worse sort of doesn't matter for this discussion you know to me at least what matters for this discussion is you know is this property something that's going to be need to be redeveloped when the town moves out I think the answer is yes are we an appropriate group to do it I think the answer is yes if I just park 23 maple street aside for a minute and stay focused on the senior center for a minute I like what the senior center is right now you know there's the senior center there's the arts there's you know there's this town's offices here it's a good civic building it's great I don't want to lose that mixture or that atmosphere I mean we hold our office we hold our music this this building is used you know quite a few hours out of the day and with a broad spectrum and I don't want to lose that I think it's important I don't want to lose sight of that and something that we worked hard to maintain I agree with Claire at the beginning of this project this was really hard for such a large project for you to for your department to manage but I think if we think of that in terms of you know you can you can increase your budget and have to do that and and so I think one of the hamstrings the press there was she liked to be in control of everything and I don't see that with you so delegating something is also possible you know you're smiling a dog I see you sorry go ahead Claire I have asked about the potential of hiring an asset manager for the ARB and for this department it's something it's a person that I've worked with before handles the leases handles you know those those sorts of things small construction who letting people in letting people out those sorts of things I don't know if that's you know a real possibility but I do think it's needed I think that you know there there were there were some challenges with this building two construction projects going out at the same time never works out well especially I think in the same project at the same time and I think that at the end of the day we ended up needing a significant amount of help from the town to wrap it up and finish it off um do I think that DPCD could evolve into a department that could maintain dispose of buyer property absolutely um do I know if that's supported by the town at this point I do not I'll just today may I interject something I'm sure please go ahead Deb I do want to just emphasize one important part again which is that department planning community development is a part of the town and it's also you know reports the ARB it's it's the ARB is such a I can't emphasize this enough there are very few redevelopment authorities quite like the ARB that serve a planning board function and also serve this redevelopment so it is it's not anybody's fault that this is all a little bit untested water sometimes because it's just I don't think it's it's a wonderful but unorthodox and the in terms of asset management I'm going to step outside my town council take off my town council in just a second I think you're much more likely to have an asset manager for the town if it's for the whole town all the town's assets so in some ways I don't want the idea that there's and the most likely place for that person to be doing their work is probably the Department of Planning and Development so it's not I don't want these things to be seen as mutually exclusive asset manager versus no asset manager for you know town versus planning community development because I think you know if you're going to create a new position again no mr. cooler well enough to say that the expectation would be that that position would be an asset manager for not only ARB properties but all the town properties that the town know it's just quite substantial by the way just a minor point just so everybody knows there's no surprise with this the select board sometimes owns properties but they don't have a meaningful distinction between the town and the select board it just tends to be how things were granted over or needed at a certain point of time so for example the DAV property was held by the select board on its deed but the select board is not different than the town you are different from the town because you own properties pursuant to this very specific authority thank you came did you want to continue no right i'm done okay so um i'll just add to that that one of the things that's attractive to me about dispensing both or all three properties and moving to creating an moa that could include um a specific carve out for how we work together with 23 maple um that's attractive to me is that for example it is frustrating to me that we built this building we created this wonderful space to be able to rent out at great expense to the town with the kitchen and we have yet to be able to um work through what i think is a it should not be as complicated as as it is to create access and security for that to be a revenue generating piece of this town again that was planned for paid for by the town and always intended to be a revenue generating piece of this property that again the redevelopment board had handed however we as a board have yet to be able to move that needle um but that's something again that we can work into the to the moa so i i personally don't feel that holding on to these properties is going to um further the interest that we have in them in any more meaningful way than transferring them back to the town so that the operations and maintenance of them is clearly identified and doesn't have to go through the circuitous route if we have an moa that and again i i think part of this agreement would be that it has to be a mutually satisfactory um moa that is created between the town manager's office and the arb for the oversight and um planning of these three properties that is my opinion and what i'd like to propose gene i'm not sure if that changes your perspective at all or if you still feel strongly about holding on to 23 maple i still feel strongly about 23 maple and i feel strongly that an moa is not the way to go with the other two properties partially because i'm not sure how we get to a mutually satisfactory moa in time for this to go to town meeting and even if we do when there's somebody owns the property but somebody else has an moa and what to do about it i just see that as rife with possibilities for things going wrong you know i think the owner owns it and that's it you know and i rely upon the politics of the town to make sure this doesn't turn into an office building that's why steve you are set in your in your support of turning these three properties over i'm uh but i'm not um i have no objections to pursue pursuing an mo you as you had suggested okay moa right not you but which is it memorandum of understanding agreement okay i think we hold it in mo x an m o an m o a e i o u it's fine i agree with you i will go and just let's turn over all three buildings with as long as we have a letter of understanding and the development of and mutually agreeable a letter of understanding and then i'll be okay with that and we all want the same thing i just want to make sure we just maintain it because i don't see this the select board or the town manager seeing any difference from us right now is the one in the future that it'll be different right than what we have right now okay so we're not going to come to a unanimous decision but i think we should go ahead and um create a motion that we can vote upon um i'd like unless there's any further discussion okay i'd like to see if there's a motion um to uh for the for the vote that was suggested by dug heim i will read that as well as the modification that we'd like to propose a motion that the orlington redevelopment board consent to the transfers of article 21 22 and 23 of the 2023 town meeting each of which seek to transfer title custody and management of its properties located at 20 academy street known as the central school building 611 massachusetts avenue known as the jefferson cutter house in 23 maple street to the town of arlington under the custody and management of the town manager with the with the provision that an moa is developed to the mutual satisfaction of the redevelopment board excuse me between the redevelopment board and the town manager's office that includes a maximum percentage that the town can occupy a maximum percentage of each building that the town can occupy and creates a specific role for the redevelopment board in reviewing the tenancy and use of non-town uses within the buildings so motion is there a second second we'll take a vote starting with steve yes jean no ken yes and i'm a yes as well so that vote is approved uh three two one thank you very much attorney heim i appreciate you joining us this evening thank you folks it's always pleasure seeing you thank you so all right excuse me for one second while i get back to my agenda so that closes agenda item number two non-zoning warrant articles so we will now move to agenda item number three which is the 2023 annual town meeting zoning warrant articles um we have completed our hearings for these articles so this evening will contain specifically discussion and vote voting by the board there will not be public comment period during the discussion of these articles if we do have questions for the proponents of the articles for those that have been put forth by citizen petition we will call you out and ask you to come forward to answer any questions if we do have questions during the discussion so i will turn it over to claire if you would like to run through how you have structured the the memo and then we will get into the um review and uh voting for each of the articles as they are uh in the order that they're presented fantastic make one small one small change uh sure can somebody just change my term through yes i did i did identify that uh for for kelly yes that there are actually two times which i believe need to be updated and a spelling of one person's name i'm gonna turn it over to kelly thanks all right thank you go right ahead please that's right um let me move this minute okay um so i did send back to the board today there were just a few corrections with spelling of names um a few minor corrections to some of the main motion texts from the articles of the board had put on the warrant article um and claire i think you had a different version open that had there we go this one yes so this one should have everything correct and then the the corrections that individuals had made to me are noted so the way that this is structured is this is basically the format for the report to town meeting um and so each there is a section for each warrant article starting with warrant article 20 26 um the first set of articles are the board's articles and so the way that each um section is structured is that we have the warrant article that was submitted um to the select board and what was published in the warrant then we have a space for the discussion so i think one of the things that i'm going to be noting tonight is the discussion that the board has because this is important to relay to town meeting um that will accompany your vote then um we'll all note the vote so there is a highlighted space there that has the vote and then what it'll say voted whatever the vote is that either no action be taken under this article or that the zoning bylaw be in hereby as amended as follows and then what follows that is the text of the zoning bylaw that would be amended if there is a vote to uh recommend action or to recommend that it is amended so that's the basic structure of the um of the document that you have before you and i'll just be taking a lot of notes tonight great thank you very much kelly uh any other questions for kelly or claire before we get started claire did you have anything you'd like to add okay thank you super so let's go ahead and begin with uh article 26 the zoning bylaw amendment related to industrial district development standards this was inserted at the request of the redevelopment board we'll start with kin for any uh discussion on this particular item i have none you supportive i'm supportive of this yes sorry fabulous thank you gene i'm supportive too i think you know it will be important to say in our discussion that this is fixing an ambiguity i know we won't say crazy ambiguity but it is a crazy ambiguity in the current um bylaw having to do with how much stormwater is retained and treated on site so this is fixing an ambiguity and we did it in cooperation with um the town's environmental planner conservation agent and the conservation commission so that they think this is an inappropriate way to proceed thank you very much gene steve um i'm supportive and i agree with mr benzen statement um nothing else to add great thank you very much and i agree i thank you gene very much for summing this up so nicely in terms of the um the uh clarifications that are are necessary needed and um which are created with the expertise of our um professionals within the within the town that this is something that the redevelopment board has identified um is a hindrance to our decision making not having these current standards in place when we see projects that come in front of us in the industrial district so uh at this time i will see if there is a motion to recommend action on article 26 the zoning bylaw amendment related to industrial district development standards so more should i'll second we'll take a vote starting with uh steve yes gene yes kin yes and i'm a yes as well so uh the redevelopment board's official vote will be for action for article 26 that is four to zero all right we'll now move on to article 27 which is a zoning law zoning bylaw amendment related to the solar bylaw in industrial districts this was also inserted at the request of the redevelopment board we'll start with kin for any discussion no i'm a supporter of this thank you gene i'm a supporter of this i'll just point out that it's necessary because last year the town passed the solar bylaw and it was approved by the attorney general in december and this just applies it to the industrial it applies in the industrial zone but this just fixes the wording in the industrial zone so it meshes with the bylaw on solar roofs thank you one second uh steve any comments um i'm supportive i guess i i agree this was you know a a couple of technical changes to get the new to get this part of the bylaw to agree with the with the new section 6.4 great thank you very much and i am supportive of this as well is there a motion to recommend action for article 27 the zoning bylaw amendment related to solar bylaw in the industrial districts so motion i'll second we'll take a vote starting with steve yes gene yes kin yes and i may ask as well we will recommend action article 27 with a vote of four to zero we'll now move to article 28 uh zoning bylaw amendment related to building inspector enforcement and i will start with kin for any discussion i am supportive of this i think this is correcting something that was uh improperly put in on our last meeting and it goes against uh state law so thank you um i'll just clarify that um when the when this initial um proposal was put forth uh by a member of town meeting the redevelopment board initially recommended no action um it was moved forward and approved by town meeting and then later um later deemed unenforceable by the attorney general so this is removing those uh unenforceable sections which um the redevelopment board was in is i believe in favor of uh gene that's correct i agree agree with this change great thank you steve i agree with uh removing the unenforceable provision from the bylaw great thank you very much uh so is there a motion to recommend action on article 28 the zoning bylaw amendment related to building enforce building inspector enforcement motion to i'll move forward is there a second second take a vote starting with steve yes gene yes ken yes and me yes as well that uh we will recommend action for article 28 at a vote of four to zero right we will now uh move to article 29 a zoning bylaw amendment related to downtown business parking minimums inserted the request of james Fleming we will start with kin for any discussion uh i have none i'm a supporter of this thank you gene i do have some discussion so kelly and i had a conversation today about whether the entire b5 district was within a thousand feet of a parking lot and do you know the answer now yeah so i i did a um a distance analysis in gis and determined that the entire b5 district is within 1 000 feet of at least one or more parking spaces in the russell common lot or the railroad lot thank you so much for doing that yeah so most of what has been proposed is completely superfluous all this really needs to say is non-residential uses in the b5 district shall not be required to provide off-street parking period because the rest of it has to do with either a thousand feet of a parking lot or transportation demand management but they're all within a thousand feet of a parking lot so we really just need to say non-residential uses in the b5 district shall not be required to provide off-street parking because the first clause afterward a thousand feet of parking lot is exactly what it is so we can simplify this and not have somebody five years down the road say why those put those other two things in there when they're all within a thousand feet of a parking lot that's well that's why can i answer please that's assuming that all b5 districts are the same right now they are if we change them we'll have to come back and do something with this but this is a central business district it's hard to imagine okay i just see us we're going to address zoning modifications along mass ab eventually when we get to it we'll deal with the parking at that time right now if we put all that other verbiage in it's just open up to why we do that since it's all within a thousand feet so what are your suggestions that it just say non-residential uses in the b5 district shall not be required to provide off-street parking period the end period the end but that's but this is not our um but we can modify anything that's come to us we can suggest modifications let's have our discussion and what we will do is we will um again because this is a citizen petition james has the opportunity to either accept or reject okay we let him you know we can identify whether that is contingent upon our recommended recommendation of action or no action um that is an opportunity for us to bring an applicant forward at that time fair enough okay steve so um well now that we've settled the thousand foot question i i like mr benson simplification if mr flumming is amenable to it thank you but yes i so i i do support the idea yes uh so my question is to the board is whether or not we need the modification in the last paragraph where it says other than b5 i think that other than b5 we are taking away the opportunity that we have for a residential reduction we can't have that so i i would take that i would take that out because i think that that takes away some of our opportunity to reduce parking rather than what i believe the the proponents intent is in putting that in so i would strike that okay so james if you would like to to come forward first of all is there any other discussion by the redevelopment board come up so if you wanted to come on up please i think we have a question for you james loving 58 oxford street great thank you james so as the proponent for this article would you be amenable to the removal of all of the text after the first section that ends in required to provide off street parking so we would amend or we would revise ask you to revise um b to simply read non-residential uses in the b5 district shall not be required to provide off street parking period cut everything else cut everything else and then um in the last paragraph you go down to keep going right there where we have underlined other than b5 to strike that piece right there because we've already identified that b5 does not need to provide parking um for the commercial uses and this allows us to still address b5 to still offer the same reductions for non-commercial uses for which currently it sir just to make a clarification that there would be no amendment to section 6.1 by 5c correct okay i also think there needs to be no amendment to 6.1 point 10 either right because at 6.1 point 2 short circuits it right so get rid of the amendment to 6.1 point 10 so be very simple yes please um jean you had inserted some languages well that was only if people didn't agree okay great so that's just so that's gone thank you gone okay so you're amenable to those proposed changes yeah okay is there a motion by the board to recommend action for article 29 as amended for zoning bylaw amendment related to downtown business parking minimums so moved second take a vote starting with steve yes jean yes kin yes and i may ask as well thank you james uh the article 29 has been recommended action with a vote of four to zero uh the next article is article 30 a zoning bylaw amendment related to one in two family usable open space this was inserted at the request of james Fleming and 10 registered voters we'll start the discussion with kin i'm supporter of this and i have no no modifications or questions great thank you jean i'm torn about what to think about this um all james example is that he gave last time were about how about if somebody wants to expand their building and therefore they no longer have the 25 foot by 25 foot piece for theoretically if they're a newer building with 20 by 20 and therefore we shouldn't have any usable open space at all another way to look at it is just to have simply said that usable space can be reduced by whatever addition is added to a building so there's still some usable open space that would otherwise be required now the other side of the coin was well you know because of the front yard setbacks and the frontage there's always going to be a 25 by 25 usable open space in front but i don't think that's always correct for a couple of reasons one is sometimes the driveway by sex the place and driveways don't count so the only possibility of having it is in the back of the house and secondly we have areas where if you build you don't have to build to the 25 foot setback if most of the stuff backs on the street or much closer to the street so there are going to be some places where the 25 by 25 usable open space is not going to be found in front so i'm a little bit torn about what to do with this because it would have been a lot easier to just say you can reduce the usable open space to build an addition to your house without getting rid of it altogether so i'm a little torn about what to do with it because on the one hand you have people should have a right to use their property on the other there's a deal that's made when you buy property that is we're in a society and what you do your property affects what happens to the next door neighbor affects what happens to the town and it's a bit of a balance so i want to hear what the rest of you have to say about this because i'm torn which way to go on it great thank you steve so i'm supportive of it um you know in in there you i think you could break properties down into several degrees of conformance i think that you know for the most part as as mr venson said there are cases where you can choose to build two existing setbacks rather than two existing non-conforming setback that's common on the street rather than 25 foot but i think for the most part um you know in the single family districts the that front setback will give you the the will effectively give you usable open space um i'm also supportive for the reason that any property who that has zero percent usable open space is already maximizing its non-conformity and the sort of weird way that ends up applying is that you know if you have no usable open space the open space requirements just don't apply to your property um where i do see this being beneficial is for properties that are that have usable open space and are non-conforming or properties that are on a hillside where the slope is such that it precludes um the existence of usable open space so um for non-conforming and hilly properties and properties in hilly area i think this is a benefit to home owners so i'm i'm supportive thank you steve and i'm supportive as well i i feel that there are um in many ways this is a redundant restriction to the um many setback requirements that are already in place and given the both topography which steve mentioned as well as the regular lot sizes and shapes that we have in town um i believe that it is onerous and um overly restrictive on property owners and creates an an unfortunate condition whereby um whether you're conforming or non-conforming um there are um undue restrictions on what you can can do with your your property so jean i'm not sure if you would like to comment again no no i'm convinced you're convinced okay uh so is any other discussion no i mean i was going to comment on jean's but if he's convinced i'm not going to pile on i'm fine okay okay uh is there a motion to recommend action for article 30 the zoning bylaw amendment related to one and two family usable open space oh action well there is one uh one issue with the main motion okay so we have an amendment so they're at the very last table in the main motion it looks like this is a leftover from the um the prior iteration when it was just in the r zero one and two districts before we had discussed um applying it universally so i i would propose to to strike those that last table consisting of uh the r zero r one and r two rows that's right we did ask the applicant to come back um and apply this to all of the districts so is there okay with that or uh yes uh james if you could come forward there if you wouldn't mind just um that was actually going to be okay oh sorry james oh so that was okay okay so the amended motion is there and then the original is there as well yeah just get rid of the original okay we're good we're good okay great thank you so much don't scare me like that thank you james uh is there a motion to what we call that amended then i guess from what it's i mean it was amended from it was a scrivener's error it was a scrivener's error okay perfect okay is there a um motion to recommend action for article 30 the zoning bylaw amendment related to one and two family usable open space inserted at the request of james Fleming and 10 registered voters so motion i'll second uh we'll take a vote starting with steve yes gene yes ken yes and i'm a yes as well uh so article 30 uh we'll have a recommendation of action which is corrections all right uh so the next article is article 31 a zoning bylaw amendment related to industrial district animal daycare use inserted at the request of christin anderson and 10 registered voters we'll start with ken for any discussion i'm supporter of this the only change is just adding a y in the i right in the industrial section right there's no verbiage okay uh gene so there are a few things to say one is that miss anderson and i had a conversation over the weekend and she informed me that there are at least two people who are interested in opening animal daycare um facilities any industries um and that there's a need for these facilities in town and that people often have their dogs go out of town um the dogs may like it but the owners would prefer that the dogs stay in town i used to have a dog my dog loved to get in the car but it just doesn't anyhow there are a few things that i want to point out one is that animal daycare is currently allowed in all of the b districts so the what was what i think slightly misspoken this time was they're not allowed in town there is one existing animal daycare facility right now in one of the b districts it's allowed um in b 234 and 5 you will not see it in b1 but you will see in b1 that we allow mixed use and as we have decided when we made the decision about the lexington hotel if mixed use is allowed then the underlying um are allowed also so therefore it's allowed in each one of the business districts in addition in the industrial district mixed use is allowed in the industrial district and the only limitation on that is in the bylaw is specifically says mixed use cannot include residential so therefore it is allowed in the industrial district in every mixed use building because it is mixed use and it's not prohibited under that proviso of what you can't have so all we would be doing is allowing it in single use buildings in the industrial district by doing this so i asked um the staff and they were kind enough to put in that report from MAPC on um the loss of industrial loss of metropolitan area and some some recommendations they made about it and the recommendations don't really line up completely with the report that was done for the town in 2020 but they're pretty close and one of the things they say if i could paraphrase them is take a look at what you really want to do with your industrial district see how it meshes with your master plan and therefore make a decision about what uses you want to allow and not allow and i don't think it's our job to um say let's change and allow use just because somebody wants to put a use in a zone it's our job to look and see whether it's consistent with sort of planning thinking about zoning and what we want to have for the industrial zone and in this case the only real issue is are we okay with having animal daycare in single use buildings in the industrial zone what do we want to step back as we said we were going to do and think about all of the changes to make to the industrial zone and put something forward hopefully before the town made it so i i'm just going to leave it there and see what other people think about it great thank you gene steve so there's um i i appreciated the report um from the matc report i especially appreciated appendix b um which actually spelled out the list of dor use codes that they consider industrial and which i wouldn't do there were some on the area i wouldn't be expected to and i can think i could safely say that the most prominent industrial use in arlington is most likely auto repair um and it's a prominent one in the industrial district but that's not the only place um i i also found some of the changes rather interesting where arlington loses one and between one and eleven percent but the area containing arlington and lexington gained six percent over the same time go figure but anyway with respect to this article um yeah i i agree that you know we should be looking at plans but i think this is a small enough change and it's it's something that we it just never came up when we were working on the industrial district um revisions so i mean i'm supportive of it but i do recognize that we probably want to go back and look more at the i district uses in the future thank you steve um i feel similarly um that's one of the things i think we talked about when this article first came up is that it's been our intent to look more broadly at all of the industrial district uses uh and what other creative combinations of uses we might be able to incorporate and what might have not what might have been left on the cutting room floor or not even considered when um when the list of industrial uses was was created so i i agree i think with steve um i think that i'm i'm supportive of adding this um type of use to the industrial use table um it's something that you often see in in industrial areas and other neighboring towns um again i i just want to make sure that um it's made clear that in recommending this there still is the intent of the redevelopment board to to go back for a future town meeting and um look more broadly and comprehensively at the industrial district uses my point of view um can any thoughts related to what gene um i agree what gene sort of says but i think this is an appropriate use of that area i think it's it's uh i'll just leave it at that i think i'm in favor for this uh and we should just have it okay um it's a good fit and it's allowed if we if we want mixed use right you couldn't put a daycare center it was mixed use but i don't think a mixed use take care and dog and housing goes well together can't put housing can't put housing no but more office so artists but i don't think that's a good i think a standalone is much better fit and no i have no issues with this gene i mean i think i think we're all in favor because i am too i just had an interesting conversation with town council about this last week because i did some research and decided that it looked to me like they needed to be permits issued for animal daycare in town and dog ended up agreeing but there's no mechanism to get that done now that's not a reason for us not to vote in favor of this but i think the planning department i think you know i would ask that you know we're good there is one animal daycare in town that probably doesn't have a permit there's nobody knows about it but yeah and now they do and the animal control officer position which might be the person to do it is vacant so if the planning folks could just follow up and make sure that something happens so that when you know when this happens and animal daycare start appearing that the town's ready for so that's Kelly yeah so i did talk with Natasha waden in the health department and she confirmed that permitting for this would be a kenneling situation even though it's not overnight there's still is a permitting process for kenneling whether even if it's just a daytime use and that is done through the police department through the animal control officer now that position is currently vacant they are hiring a new animal control officer but what happens is that you know a business goes to the town clerk to get their business license um or get their business certificate and then for additional anything that needs additional permitting goes then through the proper permitting channels and in this case that person would be referred to apd to pursue a kennel license do we know if the one has one now i'm sorry what the one that's open now do we know if it has i do not know that i didn't feel like it was necessarily right to remain to the remainder of this discussion to just be helpful somewhere in the town website it said something about this yeah thank you so much thank you for the clarification um so with that discussion is there a motion to recommend action for article 31 the zoning bylaw amendment related to industrial district animal daycare use it's slightly different than the one you're seeing so thank you so which one is it so oh sorry nope there we go this is this was just a this was a proposal by gene um to separate out the animal daycare use given the scope of the warrant article um and so this may be something to bring to miss anderson for her review and approval because because the scope of the article was just animal daycare but the draft was veterinary also but that's beyond the scope of the article so i suggested that it be narrowed back down to just animal daycare and when we take a look in the fall we may decide to expand it to vet but i think putting vet in there now is beyond the scope of the article so i just asked that it be reduced back to animal daycare that's a good point um miss anderson would you mind um coming forward get picked up by the mic if you sit right there so would you be amenable to the change that um that gene has recommended based on the way that the original motion was written sure that would be fine okay great thank you so much so is there a motion to recommend action for article 31 the zoning bylaw amendment related to industrial district um animal daycare use as amended so motion second we'll take a vote starting with steve yes gene yes ken yes and i'm me as as well for us this is fun more often thank you uh so uh article 31 uh we'll have a um vote of recommended action four to zero the next article is article 32 is zoning bylaw amendment related to build affordable housing everywhere um i will ask for this was inserted at the request of tom perkins and 10 registered voters my understanding and i'll ask um kelly to please confirm is that the applicant has requested to withdraw this um this article yes the applicant confirmed via email at the end of last week that he wished that he wished to withdraw the article great thank you so with that understanding um and first i'll ask the board if uh there is any discussion um before we move to a vote of uh no action no questions the only discussion was that i think we all agreed the proposal had significant flaws as it had been permitted and therefore it's nice that he was true the article steve now i i agree that the i agree that the proposal needed needed work but it um it was nice to see uh that sort of thing come up as a citizen petition agreed and i i also just want to identify again i know that the article needed a lot of work it was clear that a lot of work was put into the article so i agree it's it's nice to see um that and i hope that um thomas parkins continues to engage um with the planning department and and other committees that are looking at um opportunities to increase our affordable housing stock here at arlington uh so is there a motion to um uh for a vote of no action for article 32 the zoning bylaw amendment related to building affordable housing everywhere motion from no action second take a vote starting with steve yes gene yes ken yes and i'm a s as well so article 32 the redevelopment board will recommend no action by a vote of four to zero and i believe that takes us to the end of our annual 10 meetings don't joining more in articles so we will close agenda item number three actually before i close agenda item number three kelly is there anything else that you need from the redevelopment board related to the um the uh the report so no so what i'll do is i captured the discussion here i'll incorporate a few like some of you pulled out additional points from the staff memo so i'll pull some things in into a hopefully coherent discussion and turn that i'll submit the draft um word document back to you all um on thursday when it will go live with the arbs agenda and then you'll have the weekend to take a look at it and propose changes if you want to then turn those changes back to me i'll incorporate them all into a single document so that when you do the vote on the report next week hopefully it should be pretty easy to go through those great thank you very much so i'll also just state for the record before we close agenda item number three that the redevelopment board will meet again on next monday the third of april where we will review the final report to town meeting and vote as to whether to move that forward or any amendments that we would like to see okay so without we'll close agenda item number three and move to agenda item number four which is the mbta communities update and discussion and i will turn it over to claire great thank you um i'm sorry i don't have any materials related to this but i can um certainly update i thought it was pretty impressive and about how do you um scale up now public participation in this process especially since we're starting from bringing um the entire account in terms of our our canvas um so we asked a few general questions um trying to listen you know some uh established some five groups uh in a group about where the good district uh could be working and some of the questions we asked transit open space very long to try to get a sense of what we got some very very thoughtful comments we don't have very few people we broke out into groups discussed questions as we went through them there were like i said some great comments one of the ones i heard was why don't we focus on simply the area around transition we took up about a lot of um a lot of questions are being raised about the mbta itself and the state of the mbta and the mbta support this kind of massive policy change and scale that part um given their recent florals or omni work i should say um so i think a lot of um public discourse um a lot of good information i think generally people aren't supported um of passage and um in a few days after this initial public meeting um and your camera will be seen for a general um commonwealth that we showed some excellent leadership and she said that the non-compliant to the mbta communities will be needed at least by her office as um as um uh failure to comply with the fair housing act um which i think is something that we've been waiting for um certainly um you know stick uh a big stick um and someone to show um you know i i think a little more fortitude around this policy um but since she you know since uh the attorney general has made this announcement we had eight communities who were um you know sort of opposing the legislation and unwilling to participate in planning um and now we are down to four so slowly but surely i think you know everybody um you know the cities and towns that that this legislation will apply to our finding ways um to implement um our next working group session is tomorrow night and we'll be going over some of the results of the survey and um i believe utile who is our technical um assistance provider um has also worked up um some really initial um heat maps related to you know survey questions and and data that we're getting from the survey um and we will continue the way that we have been working which is work with the working group try to find um you know communication strategies and things like that that are scalable and then move on to planning another our next public meeting so great update i have thank you kelly please and now if i could just add so right now we have 550 responses to the survey um i would love to hit like double that at least if not even more um and so we're one of the things that we'll be talking about a lot tomorrow night is um stakeholder outreach and doing some stakeholder mapping just to make sure that we're reaching out to people i think one of the most beneficial ways that i've been able to engage with people on this even people who are opposed just broadly to the law or opposed to compliance is to just talk one on one and so i like that's one of those things where if if if people want to talk i i want to hear from people i don't want people to feel like they're being sideswiped or that they're being ignored just because they're opposed to it um because i do think if you have a conversation with somebody there there are ideas everybody's got an idea and so i would like i just want to make sure that we're like incorporating that um so yeah i think right now we're at a point we really want to encourage people to take this survey we're going to keep that open and through the end of the first week of april um and then we also have the visioning kits that may need a little bit of retooling but we'll work on that um and then utl will be coming in probably in like the next week or two to start working on that mapping um but i think you know we have sort of heard some really excellent suggestions for where there's some creative suggestions for where the district might go um and i obviously it's you know it's only slightly contentious at this point because we haven't put a pin in the map and uh it's going to be a little bit um more challenging as we go forward we're also working on an FAQ right now so i'm doing some investigation on um i did um i had a conversation with lily link who's the director of municipal engagement at chapa um and she's going to help provide some technical assistance she's putting us in with a cohort of other communities that are kind of similar to us and or have similar timelines and so in going to be talking about like engagement tools and initiatives and how chapa can help support us in that and that's free technical assistance from them so we're just trying to like soak up all the technical resources and free money that's out there um to make sure that that we have the tools that that we and the working group and that you will need in order to bring this um i bring a successful successful proposal to town meeting in the fall um but i you know definitely open i mean whether or not you're in the working group i think we're open to suggestions open to ideas open to critiques like i want to hear it all from people so let us know and i think i just like to remind the board um the working group was established you guys took a vote on november 7th to establish the working group you assigned kin and steve to the working group kelly and i were going to be on it we suggested tris marzela who's the community outreach specialist and then we you know solicited uh interest letters of interest from you know folks who attended the kickoff meeting and other meetings um in uh participating in the working group i had six people email me about wanting to participate on the on the um working group and all six of those folks are on the working group so thank you great thank you i have to say i attended that first meeting it was wonderfully well run and um i thought there was some good dialogue in many many voices and um differing opinions were all welcome so thank you very much kin any thoughts no great job okay yeah i also thought it was really well run i was uh participating also my my question and i don't i don't know how to do this is at some point things are going to come back to this entire board and you know before you put the pin in the map or the ribbons along the highways or whatever you end up doing i think it would be really beneficial to get our input because i think and this is sometimes happening in the past you know things are going to it's done it's ready for you well you know i know there was this whole process but so i don't know how you're going to manage that piece of it so that those of us who are not on the committee are kept in the loop and are comfortable with the direction and it's had it yeah i think i think well utile will be working on these maps starting in mid april i think that may be an opportunity at this we have a meeting i don't know if it's april so i don't know if the top of my head either we could either i don't know if the maps if draft will be ready by the end of april but maybe the first week the first meeting in may it would be an opportunity to devote similar time to this to kind of show the scenarios that that utile will be coming up with one thing that they have confirmed with us is that every scenario that they present as an option will be compliant like they will be a hundred percent behind that because they don't want us to be presenting something that could be perceived by dhcd as only partially compliant or less than compliant and therefore discriminatory so i think you know if if you're open to it we could probably bring those back to you before they even go back to the working group or before and definitely before they go to a public meeting at the end of may or early june we target may first the meeting at okay around may first i think we have one on may first and may this to you actually say it feels 100 different from previous times that's good just from inclusionary you know and i think it's i have a good confidence so i've i've got a couple questions one has to do with affordable housing so if you are inclusionary zoning by law our inclusionary zoning by law when it kicks in if there's a special permit required and this can't require a special permit if you look at 40a where it says you can do inclusionary zoning it says when there's a special permit so i think it would be really helpful to know how do you do inclusionary zoning when there's no special permit and know that pretty soon because i think that's an important thing to figure out in terms of what this is going to look like um there's probably a way but you know i'm not sure what i mean that the the glib answer is well 40a doesn't stop you from doing it other ways but the not so glib answer is why'd they just put that one way in 40a if there are other ways to do it so i think it would be helpful and maybe chapa or dhcd has been thinking about this but i think it would be helpful to get really some some as definitive as possible answer on how we could have inclusionary zoning without a special permit so i think that's a good point to raise because i think one of the things our department does is when even when the board approves something that has affordable housing units in it we work with the applicant months after the decision is made to actually like get the lottery out there make sure that we're getting those units on our subsidized housing inventory and i don't know how that process will work if it's not anything yes so i mean obviously we're doing site plan review then we'll be aware that things are coming but yeah that making like just the lottery and the adding things to the and even how we can keep inclusionary zoning without a special permit you know i think it's important to know you know i mean we'll clearly have to amend our inclusionary zoning bylaw but can we do it can we do it when there's no special permit issued i think would be helpful to know from a sort of a legal point of view are we hemmed in by the 40 a or not on that um so that was one piece what was the other piece i was going to ask you to look into skip my mind let me go to steve and if it comes back okay steve yeah there's um i do have a couple a couple of little asks um i noticed i went looking for the mbta communities working for a web page on the town website the first place i went looking was oh all boards and committees were and it wasn't there um i you know having it having a fine a more easily findable um you know web page on the town website with the like resources and materials that have and work products that have come up i think would be helpful just you know in general in that way you know my colleagues here can have a place to go look in when they want to keep tabs on us which is totally cool um and i'm also looking forward to talking a little more about outreach and um i'm you know also looking forward to the the thought of firing more bus stops yeah yeah and i will work with joan tomorrow to figure out a place for this to go we have a hard time sometimes and we have time to limited committees um they end up being news articles instead of individual web pages but um you know we still need to find a place to nest this into other parts of the website so it's more obvious jean did you remember your other item no but something else occurred to me okay i the other day melissa was still listed on the web page as a member yes and some of the dates and some of our some of your expiration dates are incorrect also oh um so i just that wasn't what i was thinking oh this is what i was thinking of so this is not so much like how can we do something legally as raising a concern so a couple people have said to me what lexington is doing that they think is a good idea is to allow these in the business district if extra density or extra bonus if it's mixed use and i just want to say i personally have a lot of problems with that because i don't think anybody can really predict what level of um extra will get you from purely residential to mixed use and i would hate to have some of the business parcels turned into residential because of this because the bonuses even if they figured out the bonuses right this year next year they could change with changing economics so i just think it's an impossible road so i just want to mention my deep concern when a couple people mentioned to me that they were interested in going down that route just i think one of the one of the points that that i've been thinking about trying to make is that so victoria um in uh canada just passed a huge missing missing middle initiative and they have a whole website with a lot of great materials and i love snooping around on stuff like this because i really feel like mbta communities is a missing middle initiative and one of the ways that they talked about this their initiative was that and they just presented like a like a puzzle it was like this is one piece in a larger housing puzzle and i think beyond even housing puzzle it's like this is one piece in um in just like a larger economic development and growth puzzle like when we talk about growth in the town missing middle housing is one piece of it and it's actually a piece that that we've been losing a lot of um and so this is this is kind of resolving some of that but also to not try to pack too much into this one initiative and maybe you know i think kind of taking the economic development concern and the business district concern like thinking about like you know what are the right ways to balance this initiative with the arb's other economic development strategies that are going forward in the fall and then other ways also you know sustainability and i i went to the clean energy future committee meeting last friday and you know discussion about among other things you know how can we limit carbon emissions from cars and you know transportation piece and and it's sort of occurred to me that we can think about this as a sustainability piece too if we sort of think of it in sort of like the 15 minute neighborhood thing like you know you're no more than a 15 minute walk from mass av or broadway because that's where the two major bus lines are and that's where you're going to have you know places where you can shop and things like that so i think sort of a bigger framework for it aside from my brief the economic development is this sort of sustainability framework and that was one thing that didn't really come out of the meeting you know the public meeting even though i like drove the moderator of my little group crazy by mentioning it at least a couple of times but um you know the sustainability framework and the idea of like either the five minute walkshad or the 15 minute neighborhood as a way to do that so you don't put this you know up in you know a part of town where people are going to need cars to get anywhere in town things like that so i just think that's a framework that you'll be helpful to sort of incorporate into the thinking going forward great thank you gene all right um so i think that takes us to the end of agenda item number four our next agenda item is open forum that we have all of our wonderful visitors they've left have no left the room so would our camera operator i actually do have something fabulous please if you would be so kind as to introduce yourself your first last name and address yeah my name is at least say hello so i had a technical issue and i got i just want to give you guys a heads up sd card i caught it right in time it was like a minute left so i popped up my phone got that yeah the footage deleted something so i initialized the media i thought i cleared out the card beforehand but it didn't so yeah my phone i got that minute so there's gonna be a minute of this recording that looks a lot different so i'll give you guys a heads up what's so so creative so creative and thank you so much for being able to jump into that on the fly come up with a solution and uh we appreciate you so much thank you very much i appreciate that in a pinch i generally have a gopro on me with at least an hour or so here we are thank you very much really appreciate it all right so we will go ahead and close open forum and uh our last agenda item is new business so i understand that we've had some personnel shifts at the have a new transportation planner yes so i'm thrilled with the happy news happy news the happy news is i have a new transportation planner um john alessi who formerly of the city of malden um he was the first um their first transportation planner um and he'll be starting on April 25th um he formerly worked with um jackie de wolf at maestat he was preparing their shirts for the space so he worked uh very closely with her um did one of his co-ops with her and then moved on to malden and is now coming to arlington so we're very very excited to welcome him and then some sort of sad news um for us but great news for him dj bow regard has left us the town of arlington to run maybe i shouldn't say that you left to consider uh further public service opportunities that have come up this year for him so he thinks he may move into some uh political life so he has left the town so he pursued uh that goal and absolutely wish him well but that economic development coordinator position is reposted as of today so just in time for the main streets conference in boston so i'm hoping you know got lost said she yes you know whipped some us and um you know of course i was actually thinking the other day when i was thinking about you know the animal daycare in the i district that we in the fall or after town meeting when we figure out what to do with the i district really need to work with the economic development person and now you guys want to do an urban renewal project is because it would be perfect i heard y'all say you want to do an urban renewal plan i wanted to do it on a property i won't mention anymore in mixed company there are several properties which the board is um discussed uh as as right for that type of approach intervention okay yeah i'm looking forward to that conversation as well great we were also uh um close to hiring we're interviewing a new office admin which i'm very office manager excuse me which i'm also very excited about so we should be up to full staff later than i thought but sooner than i hoped i don't know great well thank you and i um i know that it's challenging to uh navigate all of those different pieces so thank you very much great any other new business um so i sent you earlier today this afternoon um i did not see it i apologize no it's okay it's okay no i didn't expect you to see it um the um the housing corporation of irlington has filed a comprehensive permit application for 10 sunny side um that application came in a week ago and so we've distributed it to boards and committees and departments uh we are seeking feedback uh we the the zba is seeking feedback on this their desire um this is an exceptionally friendly 40b um they've done a lot of work with the town they've done already done a lot of outreach to neighbors and a butters of the property um they have already had a meeting with department heads to talk through some various they presented an earlier draft of the project before they submitted it to the town um it is of five stories 43 units 100 of which will be affordable at 60 percent of am i are less so it's a it's a sorely needed type of development and it's in a fantastic location um and not to be biased but it's you know i um it's like close to a grocery store close to the clearington hill bus turnaround it's like right off our broadway it's close to multi use paths and bike lanes and kind of everything you want i actually would love to live right there so um like i'm kind of jealous um so anyway but the the zba is looking to potentially not hire a lot of outside consultants for review on this because they want to make sure that it's um because it's the hca and they just want to make sure that they're um not overly burdening the applicant with additional reviews or additional fees and so what they are seeking is some design feedback um i know that this board i it's unfortunate that because of the zoning constraints this project wasn't able to be brought before this board um but i think there may be um if there would be like an opportunity to maybe even just do like a work session at an upcoming meeting um formulate some feedback to provide that um to the zba so that's part of their design discussion um that possibly i think next week's agenda is other than the report to town meeting and you know we can talk about fall zoning amendments but i think the economic development discussion may need to get postponed a little bit because best walk is not available next week okay um nor is dj so um so it may be something where if we could discuss that um if the board would be open to discussing that at the meeting next week that would be helpful to provide that feedback to the zba i thought that was great yeah i think that would be great yeah we looked at the muzzie ford one no muzzie ford but uh yeah myra i know what you kind of muzzie ford myra ford project that was uh that was helpful i think it was good the dialogue yeah okay so we'll put that on the agenda for next week and i will make sure that everybody here uh everything is posted on the zba's page of the website um there's just a link on the left side but i'll send the link out to everybody so you have enough you have a copy of those materials great sounds good all right any other new business can i ask any luck on finding our fifth member i have talked to a few people um i had a conversation with gene uh just when i came in tonight he has a recommendation so still in yes working on it um some very interested folks i want to make sure we've got the right mix of professions and input right did you be able to go to katie yes she is too busy let's not discuss individual candidates i don't think that that's appropriate okay for here yeah if you have specific questions for no yeah okay great um any other new business okay is there a motion to adjourn so move is there a second we'll take a vote starting with um steve yes gene yes ken yes namias as well thank you