Zoning and Planning Committee - October 14, 2026

We have an agenda of appointments first, and then we'll get into conversation about the historical ordinances. Our first item is item 29426, appointment of Nancy Greenberg for the Newton Upper Falls Historic District Commission. And we'd ask the appointees to come to the table if you Able to sit on, can we make room on the side so they can be picked up by the camera?

Oh, not for guests but on my TV.

Thank you. Councilor Getz, welcome to also remember the committee. Thank you very much. I'm so used to seeing you in person right now.

I know. I am sorry I'm away right now but I'm happy to be here.

Okay, so your appointment is to the Upper Falls Historic District Commission. We have some background information but it would be we usually begin by asking you or bring you Hi everyone, my name is Nancy Greenberg.

And I've been in Newton since 1998 when I bought my first house with an American bungalow and I lovingly restored it. And after that, I moved on to Mount Vernon Street and we restored another house. Now we're in Armandale where we are restoring the first house. Final. Third and final.

There are only 26,000 or so units.

So I've always had a love for old houses and architecture. And I think Newman has so many beautiful old houses And I'm happy that there are some historic districts to preserve the integrity, the architectural integrity of these old halls.

Well, and I want to say we're honored that you've served on the alternate member of Chestnut Hill. And I feel a little conflicted here.

I'm retired, and I worked for 30 years and 30 days at Oracle. And I put my heart and soul to it from when I finished. I said okay now I want to do things that I really want to

Wonderful. Well, comments, questions from members of the committee? Councilor Wright and then Councilor Allen.

So how old is your house? This house? 180 years old. That's a lot to mine. I love restoring windows. I've got a passion for windows. I can think of anything to fire and put it back together. And then once again, you know, and I'm starting with a cell phone.

So are they available for now or later? We have a 120-year-old replacement. But I relays 50 windows 6 over 6. Yes.

Thank you for stepping up. So you have a lot of real life experience on this.

I don't know if you should tell us, you're so skilled at redoing windows.

Thank you for being willing to serve.

I'm curious about the governor. The mayor's office has proposed a reconfiguration, I guess, of historic commissions because sometimes it's hard to get a quorum in local districts. And one of the reasons why folks are against it, it seems is because people won't have knowledge of the district that they're on because they don't live there. But here you are, an Upper Falls person living in Auburndale and having lived in my ward in Ward 2. So... I'm curious, are you in agreement that there should not be one citywide district where people serve from all the regions?

Or are you thinking it might be something that could work? For me, it would be to serve on the district that you know the most about. I was not given the opportunity to serve on Auburndale because there are other people who are serving on that, but I feel that I can fulfill the requirements for a famous historian. And for example, today I went over to look at a topic that's coming up tomorrow. Tomorrow is Monday. Um, they wanted us to look at the signing and I could not make them move into Marvel. And I know no issues with going for falls and becoming an opioid advocate which I happen to be very familiar with just now because Thank you for your answer I appreciate it.

The chair of the historical commission here is also a bicyclist, so I'm sure that you will find a welcoming comrade in there. We've been joined in the room by some non-members of committee, but also Councilor Farrell and Councilor Roach, and also Councilors Block, please. And also the chairmen. and so on. So other questions from members? So this is This is a question that normally the motion was made by the Lord, Councilor and the Lord.

Happy to make the motion. I wasn't sure if it's up or down. I'm happy to make a motion to and Nancy Greenberg to the Upper Falls Historic District Commission.

Okay, any other comments? Not all is in favor, we'll say aye. Aye. Opposed? Abstentions? Again, thank you very much for being willing to serve. I know that being a part of the Chestnut Hill Okay. The next appointment is Timothy LeBlanc to the Auburndale Historic District Commission. Mr. Leblanc happens to live at 33 Woodland Road, the same address But there's Greenberg with you. Yeah, so this will be an interesting conversation.

Yes.

We did restore the Dirty Street House and before I met Nancy, I restored it in 1896 to Victorian in Danvers. I lived in Salem in Gloucester so I've lived in a lot of historic The interesting thing is when electricity was invented, the house designs changed. When curved glass was invented, you know the Queen Anne's became really popular. The reason why the Queen Annes are painted so frill is because of so many colors on the outside It's because of the Industrial Revolution, they could make the scroll work inexpensive so everyone got scroll books.

So this is all really fascinating to me and I really enjoy looking at research each little piece of it. I won't talk about my previous houses but I think my other Half did a pretty good job on covering that. But I do want to bring up something that I pushed for. So, I sit on the Newton bill Commission. I'm actually, I just got elected as the chair of the commission for the next year. I am excited about that and also excited about serving on the Ogdensdale commission as well.

Any commission should see us as a community.

In our district, they were changing out the streetlights from the gas street lights to these colonial type of lights. and the neighbors didn't like it as much so I picked it up and I did some of my research and it turned out that our gas streetlights happens to be the very first The very first one was installed in Baltimore in 1817. I don't know when we installed ours, but it's the exact same design made by an exact same company and As I just talked about with the tour of glass and the details, these gas lights were quite the thing.

were extremely affluent in taking away those gas lights and putting it in colonial light, which has a backing in oil-like fixtures and not gas like fixtures. And the city was nice enough to say, we'll just put that conversion on hold for a bit until we gather some more facts. So that's one thing I've been thinking about.

Well, I'm interested to hear that. Unfortunately, the folks up on the ledges had their lights unplugged and undone before they had their replacements picked up. So that's been quite a conversation, but that's as far as... Thank you. Comments, questions from the committee?

So the report that you sent was recent? Yes. Okay so that means The changeover that Ned was planning is put on hold. Okay, good.

Yeah, I wanted to research to give some other choices that they could have went with and I've included some but then while I was doing the research it's like oh my god this is such a historical life. and this was so significant we shouldn't even look for replacements as we should look to to convert this gas light into like an LED light, but keep the shape of it. And I rode my bike around. Nancy and I both love bicycling. So I rode on my bike took pictures of different streetlights The most interesting thing is in Harvard Square, the lights are new but very reflective of this gaslighting. So there are choices out there.

I'll ask you my real question.

Okay.

Thank you for sending that over.

Yeah, I'm sorry to forget it.

So I'd like to ask you the same question that I asked your other half.

The

And you're better now, I'm correcting. So will you serve on two commissions? Yes. And what are your thoughts about whether The mayor's idea has merit or not to have one large.

Personally, I think that our meetings can run on already and if we group all the districts together It would be like a marathon meeting every month and I think that might be too much of a burden for the commissioners. I'm old. I go to bed at 930s. So, so So I think it's better served to keep them separate, but there's a lot of value in having commissioners cross-training to different And since I lived in Dukerville for 10 years, that made a lot of sense. And I see a lot the same problems and solutions come up on both sides

The interesting thing is different commissions have a slightly different view of things. And I think it's based on like, where the house is, what street it's on. It's like some commissions are more forgiving on using different types of gutter styles Making sure you use the historical shape. So it's just, as I understand and I support their differences, one of the things I love about Newton is that what, 13 villages? We're the only city in this country that consists of 13 villages. So we basically have 13 centers and all these centers evolved back in 1800, 1900 on their own merit. So I think that that should stay.

Thank you.

Guest has got her hand up. Sorry.

Yeah, thank you. Can you hear me? I just want to make sure you can hear me. Mr. Blanc, I was actually in the Newtonville Historic District Commission meeting when you were discussing You know, in terms of having a more appropriate lamp shape that you were able to find that would actually in fact be closer to what was being proposed in terms of the installation, the swap out to a solar light that was more comparable to what's existing in terms You're researching it and bringing it to the table, so thank you for that. Unfortunately I think some of these lamps may have already been switched out to that colonial style I've heard recently from a resident that lives on Birch Hill Road, just off of Highland Ave., that in fact some of these lamps have been switched out. So I think we need to hurry up and

fixture that was more equivalent to the existing gas lamp. So I will follow up with you on that because I sort of think that's critical and I think of it as being, you know, The swap out was done. I'm not appreciating that and I think we need to fix that.

If you didn't get my report, which I followed up like afterwards, let me know and I'll send it along.

No, but I'm more concerned that in fact some of those swap outs had happened with what was being proposed and we need to make sure that in fact they are the ones that you had identified because I think that's the appropriate style, you know, in terms of the equivalency with what's in existence right now. And then I so appreciate what you bring to the table. It's a benefit for us in terms of you volunteering for two commissions, and thank you for doing that. I really appreciate it.

Yeah, and it's no problem at all. I'm glad to serve on two.

We've got Vice President Councilor Kalis from Ward 8, a member of the committee. and I suspect there are more than members of this committee might be interested in a report because the lights are scattered all over the city. So if you provide a copy to the clerk, maybe we could just attach it to the report and then it would be part of the public record. Okay, other questions for, yes, Councilor Wright.

Oh, I just want to say thank you for serving and I saw your background in engineering that details Methodical research is very helpful in this area.

Yeah, it's coming with an engineering background. I think I come from a different sort of vein but it's like researching making sure the right type of wood is used in your house, making sure that I type of lighting issues in your policies are very important. So yeah, I think I do bring something to table and all your experience renovating them

Thank you, Mr. LeBlanc. Do you prefer LeBlank or LeBlike?

I don't care. Really? Okay. All the way through to work, I use LeBlink because they spell my name correctly. But if I talk to any French person as LeBlunk Thank you for being willing to serve on the Amadou Historic Commission.

I know we had trouble there and It's really great that you're willing to do this and it's really wonderful that you are both willing to be doing this because we've done so much. I've got a bit of a question for you. Do you think that the city is best or better served in a historic context of preservation by having new things that look like old things or would you prefer to have new things?

Okay, so I would prefer to have all things look like they're functional. That's my number one goal, but I know where you're going on. So I think when you look at those cast lights, a lot of those lights have been taken down. To have something that is of essence of that gaslight might be something that might work. and I'd be you know five to one on that but I think making something look completely new, completely different it's just not my style. It's so And this is why I seek out the historical commissions. It's a time and place for modern architecture, and modern light fixtures

Any other questions from the committee?

I'm happy to make a motion to approve, appoint Mr. Timothy LeBlanc to the Auburndale Historic Commission.

Okay, motion made. All those in favor will say aye. Aye. Opposed? Abstentions? Again, thank you very much and the process just as you I think are aware that this committee report goes to the full council. The full council make the ultimate decision, but the practice of the recommendation committee is to not experience all apologies. So you're welcome to come and listen to the vote, but it's a whole lot of other things will be voted at that time Knight, which is when we need you.

And I will share my research on the lighting to make sure that... Our clerk will help you do that. Okay. Thank you very much.

The next is appointment of number 30526, appointment of Sherry Golden to the Newton Historical Commission as an alternate member again for a term of office set to expire on October 19th. Oh, welcome.

Oh, thank you. It's a pleasure to be here. I walked in the room and I got close to meet Amanda. Amanda says, well, it'll probably be another 45 minutes. And I said, I wanted to stay longer.

because I know we're doing all the best.

Well, you're welcome.

The door will not be locked. So I wrote up...

When I first applied to serve on the Newton School Commission last spring, and I had a sense of it's work. I listened to a few other meetings I brought with me a long-standing knowledge of the history of Newton and historical homes, and had quite a background too, knowing a lot about homes.

But over the past couple of months, six months actually, conversations with the preservation staff and attending more meetings. And then studying the commission's history and procedures and ordinances I've come to appreciate how much more substantial these responsibilities are, as well for long hours and how complex the decisions can be.

And I'm still here.

Let me share a little bit where I come from. So, I've lived in Newton since 2002 and I've worked in residential real estate before that and surrounding communities. And it's given me, this work has given me an unusually close view of the city, houses, neighborhoods, people who move here, those who leave. and those who want to move here and cannot. And also the way they can read each other just over time, which is in particular evident since I got really involved with it since the pandemic actually

and being able to jump online and then listen to all these conversations. I began to participate, which I never really had before. So, you know, who brought me to this?

Before real estate My work is actually in media and cultural studies and social history, which has to do with teaching and developing a graduate program. And I would teach students how to look closely at texts

and their context. So this is really important when we think about preservation work because that is actually what we're looking at. We are looking at the text, the homes, the properties as well as the context

I was looking at who created them, who encountered them, how they represented their time and how their means could change across audiences in historical periods. because the meanings do change, you know, in how we look at them and how we live in these places. And that work strengthens my habits that I still rely on today. Curiosity, deep research, critical and comparative analysis and a willingness to look beyond what's obvious.

That background informs actually how I work as a real estate agent too. Actually we don't say agent anymore, we say advisor. Advisor Okay, that is the professional word we're using now. I don't just show someone a house.

I'll encourage people to look out a window. You know, people are often just looking at what's inside and look outside. What's really going on? What are the sidewalks like? What do the trees, what are the neighboring houses like? And what does this tell us? What is the story of a house and then what is your own story? So I'm really working on communicating with people continuously. And then what we can learn about the neighborhood, its history and also life of the community

So I have worked with historic homes, tear downs, partial demolitions, new construction. That work has involved researching property histories and records to spend a lot of time online looking at records

Understanding local ordinances and consulting with municipal officers and historical commissions. That's not just in Newton. That can be, say, Lexington where you're dealing with a household degree that somebody wants to turn into Congress.

Okay?

It also means helping people understand unfamiliar processes, anticipate the difficulties and make informed decisions. So relationships are really a central part of my work, and particularly when people have different interests. And the reason I mention that is because when I met with the preservation staff, and there were separate interviews for this, That's how I would handle conflict, which I thought was really interesting and really telling what's going on here. I'm like oh no they're asking me that you know what is their perspective? What's actually happening? And my answer was, I pause. I literally wait, okay? Because a lot of things happen in that pause. So I ask questions, I listen And I try to understand where everybody is coming from, okay?

And what matters to people. Why they're involved. And I welcome discussion and negotiation. Negotiation is my business. That is what I'm doing all of the time. But I do that through listening and I do it in order to come to a result because you can't negotiate forever and ever. You do actually have to come up with a result.

Not everyone's going to be happy with that, but you do have to do it. As a commissioner of an alternate I would carefully listen to the preservation staff. I really respect them. The more and more I listened, they're incredible.

The fellow commissioners of property owners and the members of the public

I do my own research when needed and ask questions when something isn't clear and evaluate each proposal according to the evidence and with Newton's ordinances.

I have a lot to learn. I realize how huge this assignment is and how much you're involved with demolition delays, preferably preserved. These have been all new and I'm happy to study them. Landmarking Preservation Restrictions, and understanding not all those terms but how they work within that larger context. So I would be honored to serve Newton in this capacity

Thank you for that statement. If you'd like, we can provide a copy and attach it to the record. or you can just go with your oral.

I think I'm good at going with the oral, I actually filled in some things that I did not have.

Okay comments and questions?

Thank you so much for serving and with your background. Well, you have the real estate background which is I think helpful too but then also you know the city and this is your full-time job You know, so I think you'll bring a good perspective to there and appreciate you stepping up.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Ms. Golden, thank you so much for offering to serve on the Historic Commission. I appreciate the wealth of knowledge that you will bring to the commission. I've had numerous conversations with you about specific properties and you have a good understanding of zoning Thank you so much for having me. Educating your other commission members. And I think that this will be helpful in terms of the conversation at a meeting, but Thank you so much for volunteering and in terms of your real estate background, I think you will also have that perspective that you can be adding to the conversation. So it's all a win.

and thank you so much.

Okay, thank you. Other questions or comments? Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Ms. Golden, thank Presenting for your presentation, I loved the way that you expressed text and songs and the idea of the legibility of the built environment. And actually you and our other appointees tonight both kind of I'll address that. It's wonderful. Thank you for that. I'd love to kind of pose to you the same question. How do you think about new things and what they should be? That's a very interesting question and when you asked our other nominee,

I said, that question's coming for me too.

So look at the context in which it is and that context is Newton. And so part of it is thinking about What is the essence of what is the surrounding architecture?

I have so many preferences with different types of buildings. I like old or new, but I think that it needs to somehow fit or it needs a dialogue between what is being proposed and what is in the context.

So, that's how I would respond. I don't think it makes sense to make something look old. Say you have a partial demolition, that's our best example. You have an old portion and then you have a new portion. And you don't want to have the newer part look exactly like the old, but it needs to echo.

It has to echo a conversation between the old and the new.

Other questions? We've been also joined by Councilor Malakie, not a member of the committee.

That's all right.

So I move to appoint Ms. Sherry Golden to the Historic Commission as an alternate member.

Okay, all those in favor will say aye.

Aye.

Opposed? Extension, the I-7. Thank you very much and thank you for your time and the time you will spend. We're just getting warmed up. Okay, thank you. And everyone is welcome. I want to now indicate we've been joined by the Chair of the Historical Commission, Dr. Cornelius So let me just give a little background to members of the committee and public again. You may recall a couple of meetings ago, Councilor Wright presented an elaborate bit of research on what has happened to properties in Newton over the last five years, especially smaller

Older houses that are built on somewhat larger parcels and those have been torn down and in many cases replaced by significantly larger structures with much higher value. and part of the focus, I hope that the committee is going to be to look at what responses we can make. And starting with historical ordinances because they are before us and there's something within our control Within the control of the state at this point, there are other matters that are going on in the state law that we've heard about and others that may come depending on what happens in the referenda. So the focus of the committee discussion I would like to indicate is I hope to take us through not just a review of our own ordinance but tonight some discussion about what other ordinances have done or what other ideas people have that might enable us to respond to some of the demolitions that have occurred to

to, depending on how the committee and ultimately the council feel about it, preserve some of these houses that are being lost if that's the will of both bodies ultimately. So what we've asked the staff to do, and we've been joined by the planning director. There she is. I'm sorry. Again, sort of out here. And other members in the planning department which I would ask her to Introduce as we go to take a look at some experience from other places and I specifically asked let's look at places that have longer delay periods than we have in this community and see if there are Anything we can learn from those, but also we're still open to our own opportunity. And what I hope to do is as a result of that conversation together since the committee about ideas if you need that the committee would like to have pursued

and then bring those back to the committee in more concrete form next time, perhaps with an opportunity for public comment as well so we can get a sense of this. And then see where we go as a committee to whether we would like to make any changes to our ordinance or whether we want to leave it the way it is. And then after the November election, to return to this topic again but with a focus in part on the zoning responses that we have to this issue because I think all of us, at least I have and a number of members of the committee I think have expressed this. I've heard time and again from constituents who are concerned about The demolitions and what is replacing them. And it is incumbent on us as the legislative body of the city to hear that voice and see what we can do about it. And if we can, we can. If we can't, we at least have this opportunity to go by without doing something along these lines.

So with that background, I would ask who is going to present on this from the department? Ms. Ferriero?

The three of us.

OK. Can we make rooms for you? Bring your chairs up and we will slide down.

Maybe you can take my chair, please.

Thank you.

Members of the public who are watching, you'll be able to see what the department is going to present on slides because I think the camera will take it out. There's a screen sharing. I think you can do that when the time comes. So just to fuel, people have asked that we try and identify everyone who's speaking as much as possible because it's sometimes difficult to understand that. But I would ask everyone in the department just to identify themselves again for the public and go around so that the public can hear that better than they can hear me sometimes.

Absolutely. Nora Colello, Chief of Long Range Planning.

I'm David Lewis and the Chief of Short Preservation Planning.

We'll see you then at the Long Range Plan.

I'll just start this with we were able to speak with more communities after we submitted the packet, so there will be some variations in this slide. So you're aware.

Yeah, I think as you alluded to Chair this is going to be a sort of expansion continuation discussion that we had at the meeting a couple weeks ago where At that time, we sort of gave an overview of the demolition delay process and ordinance here in Newton. As things stand currently this presentation tonight is going to be more of a focus on Things that are done in other cities. We were able to speak with representatives from a number of other municipalities around the state and have some case studies and some data there and then we'll provide some, highlight some areas that we think potentially could have some impact and sort of you all can discuss those at that point in time. So this is Sort of a little bit of background of where we've been with the docket item.

We were here a couple weeks ago, like I said, and then we are back today with a little variation on what we discussed last time

Let me pause you for just a second just to indicate that I brought you up here for this generic conversation, but did not read the docket item. So let me at least send that for the record because it's my fault. But if I can remedy my failure, this is item 291.26 which is a discussion of Newton's demolition delay ordinance 292.26, discussion of demolition of the lay ordinances in other communities and then 307.26 discussion amendments to preserve Newton homes there's also an item which involves potential amendments to our ordinance and then 30826 is a request to reduce the landmark voting requirement, which is part of the ordinance but not necessarily. But it does have some comparisons I don't expect to take action on any of these items tonight, but this is the introduction. I just want to make sure everybody understands that's what we're talking about.

And then we have another item relating to zoning, which we'll take up later. Okay, please carry on in my thoughts.

Yeah, so as I think we discussed a bit last time providing an overview of the demolition delay period here in Newton. Newton has a 12-month demolition delay for the majority of properties in the city. Any property over 50 years old gets reviewed when a federal demolition is proposed. and that delay period is raised to 18 months for properties that are listed on the National Register of Store Places. So, to compare that with other municipalities around the state This data comes from the Massachusetts Historical Commission, the State Historic Preservation Office as of April 2024. Of the 351 municipalities in the state, 160 of them which is about 46% have a demolition delay ordinance, have a process. Of those 79%, 79 of them which is 49% have shorter delay period that would be less than 12 months

I think the shortest is 21 days. I don't have a list right now, but I believe the shortest was 21 days and then I think there are some that are around nine months would be sort of longest or shorter than us 63 other municipalities have the same amount of a delay as us, 12 months. And this also includes a few other communities that do the same 12-18 month standard that Newton does and then there are 18 municipalities that have a demolition delay that is longer than 12 months, which is 11% of those 160 municipalities that have it delayed at all. So of those 18 municipalities with the longer delay period, there are three timelines. 15 of those have an 18-month delay. One community, Lexington, has a 20-month 21-month delay, and two communities, Milton and Watertown have a 2 year 24 month delay.

And I think it's also noted here that In Newton, the trigger for reviewing properties for demolition is 50 years, but in other municipalities they may have different things based on how their ordinance is written. Some communities assess it.

Great, thanks David. So as David mentioned Newton's ordinance currently provides a delay period of 12 to 18 months for The stated purpose of our ordinance is to preserve, rehabilitate or restore buildings that contribute historical and cultural heritage. And one feature of our ordinance is that replacement structures are reviewed for historical compatibility when an applicant seeks a waiver. As we have all been discussing, Newton sees a uniquely high volume of applications, nearly 300 full and partial demolition applications per year.

And this is likely in part, again, I've been discussing for many months due to the market pressure that we have in Newton which leads to a higher number of demolitions than elsewhere in the region. combined with our 50-year trigger which means that roughly 73% of the properties in Newton may be subject to the ordinance. The council has expressed interest in strengthening the ordinance to better prevent demolitions. So we looked at several peer communities to understand how their thresholds, delay periods and other provisions differ from Newton's and what approaches might be worth considering here. So first we looked at Watertown which is a useful comparison in that it's has a similar share of its housing stock that may be subject to demolition delay.

Like in Newton, Watertown has an estimated 73% of it's housing units potentially subject to delay using buildings constructed before 1970 as a proxy for the 50-year threshold because that was the best available data. Its median single family home price is approximately $1.5 $17 million, which is somewhat lower than Newton's, likely leading to slightly less market pressure. And similar to Newton, Watertown has a 50-year threshold but they have a 24-month delay period so obviously their delay is longer than Newton's. Watertown's ordinance is stated as intending to not only protect significant buildings but also encourage owners to find someone willing to purchase and preserve them.

So the commissioner in Watertown may grant a waiver if the owner demonstrates an effort over six months The delay may also be shortened if the owner demonstrates preservation efforts and Watertown has a public pre-review process involving the commissioner. the commission chair and another member. Differing from Newton, Watertown receives approximately 25 to 30 applications annually with about half going to a hearing and only one or two The City reports approximately 16 to 18 full or partial demolitions a year and the feedback we received from Director of Community Design in Watertown was mixed in regard to their ordinance. You can see the quote in green in the corner there.

They said, I think it is better than nothing but has not always been effective as we would like It can sometimes just encourage further neglect, but we have had some success and can aid in documenting if buildings are to be demolished. It's not entirely clear why Watertown has so many fewer demolitions, both in terms of the number of applications they're receiving and actual demolitions compared with Newton. It's likely a combination of factors and may be in part due to the longer delay acting as a deterrent, as well as that housing stock which is made up of a lot more multi-family homes as is, then what could replace them today? So again relating to that market record. Lexington takes a more targeted approach than Newton

to determining which buildings are subject to delay rather than applying their ordinance broadly based on age alone. Lexington's ordinance covers buildings Cultural resource inventory for those determined to be historically significant based on the inventory approximately 987 housing units or 8% of the town's total housing stock are potentially subject to delay. So obviously that's a substantial contrast to Newton where the age threshold captures approximately 73%. So Lexington ultimately provides an example of an approach that focuses more narrowly

and they have a 21 month delay period with some flexibility built in, particularly the provisions that allow the delay to be shortened to 12 months when an applicant has an approved site plan for multifamily housing or inclusionary units, which is worth noting as we consider how the demolition delay ordinance might interact with other committee goals like Attainable Housing.

I have a quick question just on the data here. So this kind of is comparing apples to oranges like a little bit So here the outcomes 2018 to 2022, so that's five years and 150. Yeah. So it would average to 30 a year that they would have a request because the other data you're doing per year I thought. Yeah thank you yeah we were just

pulling things fairly quickly. So that's a great note and quick match.

Just to clarify, in the case of Lexington we weren't able to get in touch with someone directly so we had to rely on data we could follow them. That's why it was different.

Yeah, you're completely correct. approximately 30 annually if they're spread out evenly. So yeah, looking at outcomes. Oh, Lexington also has a demo by neglect bylaw intended to prevent the intentional deterioration of properties. I know that's something we touched on in the last meeting and as Vice Chair Wright stated, Between 2018 and 2022, Lexington had approximately 150 demolition requests. And that also includes partial demolitions, repeated or postponed hearings, roofline alterations, etc. So that's not... and so on. So there's two useful considerations with Lexington

It shows both a more targeted approach and then secondary provisions around multifamily housing and neglect, which illustrate ways communities can use the demolition delay ordinance to address competing policy objectives and also unintended consequences. And the last one I will go on about is Milton. Milton offers an interesting comparison with a different age threshold. Its ordinance generally applies to buildings that are at least 75 years old or that are listed on the national or state register. So buildings constructed before 1960 as the proxy for that 75 year threshold

Approximately 54% of Milton's housing stock could be subject to delay, a bit lower than Newton's 73%. Milton is particularly relevant because Its commission has encountered concerns about demolition or partial demolition of modest post-war homes. I'm guessing that could sound familiar to some folks in this room. followed by much larger replacement homes. So even when a building is not considered especially historic, it's demolition and replacement can substantially change the scale and character of a neighborhood as was pointed out by the historic commission chair.

Just clarifying the volume of properties going through the process there.

Two to three applications received delay per year and usually lay out the delay.

Yet they're worried about the teardowns. So to... Do you want me? Yeah, please. So... They are having an issue where partial demolition isn't clearly defined in their bylaws and so There's debate over whether 90% reconstruction is a partial demolition. And so what people are doing is they're going in as a workaround, as a partial demo because they're not subject to the delay. So that's why there's so few. The same post-war homes are being targeted, they're just expanding the footprint as a workaround rather than raising the whole thing. Do you have a number on that?

We weren't able to get that, but... And that's a little bit tricky. You have to go site by site to define that because obviously there's a range on, you know, not all of them are doing exactly 90% sort of where is the the line between an edition, a true edition and a loophole or workaround. They did I believe try to adjust their ordinance or Byla, I guess they're a town to address that issue and then be successful.

I just want to make sure you all get through the presentation and then do you want Can you just explain a little bit more about that?

I'm gonna defer to David on Demo by Neglect.

Yeah, Demo By Neglect is generally a concept of like kind of as it seems Not taking care of the house, sort of letting it sit or building. Letting a property sit, leaving it vacant for a long period of time so that it then becomes deteriorated to the point that then there's an argument that it might not be structurally Do you have bylaws that not prevent people from doing that essentially? And I think that's something we may touch on later in the slides, but that is the general concept of what Joe Biden does.

So as it was mentioned in regard to Lexington, because they have that 21 month delay you can kind of imagine if an old home is just fully neglected for 21 months when come back there might not At a certain point, there's not going to be a whole lot to see. And so my guess is they implemented the demo by neglect ordinance to ensure that that wouldn't be kind of an alternate path to the demolition.

Can I ask a question? So as long as we talk about Lexington, what is the multifamily thing that you talked about? Yeah.

allow for a shortened delay if a property has an approved site plan for multifamily housing.

And is it just the site plan or is it like their zone for the MBTA communities area?

I don't, I definitely didn't have any Multifamily, I guess you can say it's off the use multifamily. Yeah, that's right. Not zoning district. So three or more units.

So carry on. You've got more to go actually, right? Mm-hmm. Okay.

All right, so next we're going to talk about Stockbridge which I know has been of interest to not just Newen, but they weren't surprised we were reaching out. So it is a different scenario in that it is more rural community. That's not to discredit anything you're doing To put it into context, the market pressures are significantly less here. And if only about a third of the unit, I mean third of median price for single family home there and they only have about 1,600 total units in the town. That being said, if they do have a 50-year threshold as well as any historically significant life new end but their delay period is technically indefinite. In the case of Stockbridge, they are

Their state of purpose is that they want to protect and preserve significant historic buildings as well as encouraging owners to seek out alternative options. Two features that are notable is that they do have to demonstrate an effort of finding someone willing to buy and preserve that unit. The other thing that's notable is the delay applies to both demo and alteration. So they're capturing more in that. In this case, it wouldn't be a Norton Zippy bylaw. The outcome is that there's very few applications They said that the bylaws deters most people from even filing real estate advisors, as I learned. Real estate advisors.

are just kind of no. And so they said it just becomes part of the conversation when people are looking at properties.

That being said, the properties that do go through the process

Even if they say they're denied the demolition, once they list the property it gets sold within that one year period so it never gets to the point of them coming back and saying okay I've waived it out.

You know, a little bit of time because it sells right away. So they did say that they cannot think of a single applicant who successfully went through the one year period process. because as soon as they list it, people are grabbing that property to preserve it. Lunenburg is kind of a sensitive region in terms Market Pressures and Existing Housing Stock. Their threshold is greater at 75 years or anything sort of way significant, and they have a delayed period of 18 months. They are, they've said that their bylaw is to protect the historic and aesthetic qualities of the town. And continuing private ownership utilization such buildings as homes essentially

They do require a bi-monthly report of your effort to sell. So every two months you're submitting something in writing saying this is what I've done. So that's the way of checking in on the actual enforcement of it. and the failure to submit that report can result in extended delay. So, that's how they enforce it further. The outcome is I have under 10 applications per year However, they said the delay ordinance has not been effective because most demos do not qualify due to poor conditions. So in the case of Lunenberg while I do have a longer delay and fewer applications coming in Most are in a condition where they're not salvageable, so the delay isn't even a conversation. So I think that's kind of the takeaway with a lot of these is there's interesting points from all of them but there's different

I'll also just quickly note something. The case studies are listed in order of, you know, kind of most comparable to Newton in terms of the context so close to Boston, higher market pressures, greater population to sort of the less farther out smaller towns.

Yeah, so we also pulled some additional different demo delay strategies from communities A little bit further information, but we are able to pull some things from the websites and ordinances. So Somerville I think is another one that Somerville has an 18 month delay period but one of their requirements or sort of potential options within their delay period is that An applicant seeking demolition can agree to either documentation of a building, salvage of materials or interpretive signage at the site which can allow

sort of create a situation where it's a different option to mitigate the loss of the historic building other than just design review and the construction of something that maybe looks like it fits in better. So that doc can be photo and video documentation or 3D renderings of a building that was to be torn down, the salvaging of historically significant and another historic building or where applicable interpretive signage that explains what was there prior to the construction of something. Threshold of Review, it's properties that are 75 years or older and some has areas of the city that are zoned out that the demolition delay doesn't apply.

The next one is Hopkinton, which is also an 18 month delay period. That's another one where they allow voluntary documentation of the building sort of as another option to helped mitigate the loss, create a permanent historical record, increase public information about what was there. That is, again, I think it's more of a voluntary thing or something that's conditional from the commission. A developer or applicant can allow either a member of the commission Somebody else to come to the site and do photo documentation or in some other way document the history of the building that was there prior to the demolition. So, and then yeah like I said it's not conditional on the law. So, and then another one is Salisbury which I believe actually was the similar delay period to us but it's something that we looked at as a different strategy.

They require applicants to demonstrate that alternatives to demolition were explored or they need to establish that there are significant structural issues with the building prior to demolition. This only applies to properties that are within a It really only allows for buildings to be demolished if there truly is no other alternative to demolishing the building. Yeah, yeah.

So Beverly doesn't actually have a longer delay than we do. However, through our conversations with other communities is actually the Stockbridge.

They said, oh, Beverly's talking about this too. So we called them up and I was able to talk to them today.

They are currently undergoing revisions to their ordinance. They've lost some first period homes, so you can imagine how sensitive the topic is there. Right now, their delay applies to properties 50 years old or more outside the historic district, which has some set of regulations similar to new. And of the things they're considering one of the notable ones was strengthening their signage requirements when there is a hearing for delay. They currently require a sign to be posted at the property when there's a hearing but they're trying to revise that to make it more obvious and also more informational for people. So like putting a QR code on it so that neighbors, when they see that sign, can quickly scan it and see what's going on

with the main benefit being you're promoting public awareness so you're drawing attention to the actual property it's right there rather than just a mailing or something that people may miss.

Yeah, so here's some after speaking with other communities doing some research. These are sort of places within Newton's current process and ordinance that we think could potentially have an impact in the demolition delay, it could be some options to consider. As we say here all of these would require further study and exploration prior Bixby, you know total demolitions in the city. So one of these would be finding ways to further incentivize partial demolition over full demolition and sort of Encourage people to seek that option out. Prior to an application, this could look like changing our threshold for what partial demolition is right now in Newton. The demolition of more than or removal of any

More than 50% of any single wall on a building over 50 years old requires a historic application. Thank you for joining us. Not in Massachusetts, but other where changes to the rear of a building or to the sides of the building that are more than certain distance from the front of the home don't have to go through commission review and potentially making the process easier for people to not have to go through commission review if they want to do a parking demolition and incentivize the home, obviously while still having guardrails in place so that you don't have a situation like Milton or wherever it was that people could do 9% demolition without actually going through.

We don't want that, but you can maybe change things to allow for a little bit more. Other options at the public hearing stage could be One, like the avenue that Beverly is exploring. Even currently for public hearings we send out postcard mailings to all neighbors within 300 feet of a building that has proposed that is going to be on our agenda for an NHC meeting. Those are sent out and the meeting agendas are posted online as well in the clerk's office Thank you for watching! The other option we thought about was conditioning documentation and or interpretive signage.

both in Somerville and in Hopkinton where documenting a historic building and or adding interpretive signage after it is demolished can sort of act as a record-keeping mechanism, but also increase public knowledge of what was there and if the building maybe is structurally unsound or is especially historic or architecturally interesting. ensuring that it is documented or adding a signage and allowing for the commission to condition that as part of the demolition delay decision could at least increase the understanding and appreciation of those sort of buildings.

And I'll just chime in too, this could also potentially be applied to partial demo. So as a building is kept in large part adding that signage to increase the awareness and documentation of what it

Next thing would be looking at something that all the communities we looked at did, which is lengthening their delay period. Right now, like you said we have a 12 month delay period but looking at lengthening that delay period could further disincentivize demolition. The other idea would be to add protections for demolition by neglect further protect historic architectural features and also reduce vacancies of buildings that we do see a lot of properties are purchasing immediately or vacant and then sit vacant for the entire 12 months that they are under delay. Then looking at strategies within the current waiver process we have, one idea would be either eliminating or lengthening the waiver period for full demolition.

and then offering a reduced waiver period for partial demo. Right now we do have, there is really no wait for partial demolition if people do want to do a partial demolish Thank you for joining us. Thank you for joining us. Potentially by either eliminating a waiver process for total demolitions or by lengthening it out and having a much shorter one for partial demolitions and a longer one for total

The other thing is requiring reports of alternatives to full demolition, requiring applicants to as part of their initial application or when they do come back for a waiver explaining what they did. The purpose of the demolition delay process is for people to consider other options and requiring some report of what did you do to look into Not demolishing this property. Did you have somebody look at the structural side of your property? Did you consult with an architect about addition? Did consider listing a property? If you did list a property, what happened there? things like that, requiring that report as part of the submission could at least help with the explanation of why the demolitions are taking place and could be considered as part

and then finally, if a demolition is to happen adding something some sort of material salvage or deconstruction ordinance. This is something that's done in cities other cities across the country and locally which ideally would preserve historic building materials and reduce waste of buildings instead of the entirety of a building getting thrown out if there are quality materials in it that could be swap in a quality material or item on their own building that could then help further preserve that and also That is all I have. If we don't have anything else, I think we can open up to any questions or thoughts.

Before you go there, I just want to clarify one thing. We had a conversation last time about the properties that go through the Newton process themselves, which are first have to be deemed historically significant before they get put in commissions for public hearing and being considered whether they're preferably preserved. And then if they're preserved, there's a delay here. There are these off-ramps that right now exist with the, as you indicated if I recall correctly, the chair and a member of the staff either you or and your colleague has to both agree it is not historic for it to get off the track. But one of the questions that I thought you would clarify, but I want to just make sure we're all on the same page

It is still possible for you all to deem or there is some way, is there some way that the commission can say even that property that it's not on its own historic or maybe its context has changed but because it is and increasingly rare things such as a bungalow or something like that can still get in front of the commission.

Yes, certainly the criteria that are considered by us at the staff level you know the architectural style and history of Again, it's very rare circumstances. It is a quite small percentage of applications that we see that would be found to not be so significant and not go before the commission. and generally it's things that are in some period of, some state of disrepair or you know sort of entirely change the context of the neighborhood and the house itself.

And I just as we've had members with a who are joining the Historic District Commissions. I think all of us know, but the public may not, that in Historic District Commissions demolitions are extremely rare. They just almost never occur because they're part of process of review. So we're really talking about Let me suggest as a process that we talk about the strategies here in When we get into a discussion, I'm going to ask members of the committee to ask clarifying questions and then structure the conversation. But I think the way that I would like to proceed is that there are sort of two buckets of strategies as you have outlined them. One is what we can do that may change the calculus about Demolition altogether, such as lengthening the period of time or the delay period.

And then there are things that maybe mitigate the loss might be the signing and so forth Probably a third category, which you might call process improvements would be a better notification to the public. But also there was a comment made prior meeting about notifying the board counselors or the counselors from the ward anytime a matter comes up just so that they know that that is coming out independent of the media debaters. So there are sort of different buckets that we may talk about but so I probably would like to structure the conversation around that if members of community are agreeable and then see what questions people have. Is that agreeable?

Yes. I'd just like to add one more thing to the last slide is With these, as what you said was perfect, there's multiple offerings and parts of the process where we can target things. and I would say with all of these, it's never gonna be a single solution. You're going to want to consider a combination in order to address

and I think that's an important point. Okay, comments or questions first before we go to the individual that matters? That's Counselor Albright.

I'm trying to understand the issue of you talked about Um, they have to prove that they offered it for sale. So I own a house. I sell it and develop them. Who's the one that has to promise to say that I I believe it's the person who's seeking the demolition permit. So we're going to ask contractors to make sure that they try to sell the house to somebody else?

I think we would do it via the owner of the home who's filed the historic application but the owner can't if I apply for historic demolition

That doesn't transfer to the contractor, right?

The owner at the time. So it would likely be a developer or if it's someone intending to live there who's going to demolish and rebuild for themselves.

I just want to be clear that we're asking the developer to make sure that he's trying to sell the house to somebody else who wants to preserve it. Can you clarify something?

I'm sorry. Sorry. I just want to make sure that people understand who's speaking today. Say again a little louder, Christopher?

Yeah, so if I can clarify when in communicating with Stockbridge the idea is that It's not anybody being sold to a developer in the first place because they know that the requirement for it to be listed, to be sold to someone who will preserve the home to turn that process. So basically the developer never even comes into play because the bylaw in itself is the deterrence. That puts a burden on me as the homeowner to go find myself somebody who really wants to keep my home

Well, I think that the way that it works is whoever is owning the home is submitting the application while it is under a demolition delay. So somebody... Somebody who owns the home, if you sell your house to somebody and you don't want to tear it down, you just sell your House with somebody. You're sort of done with it but then that person says I want to take this house down and they apply for demolition delay and then Demolition Review and get a delay period. They own it now, and it is now in these communities their responsibility You are just selling it to somebody, but if they then decide they want to tear it down, they then have to follow that process. It's how it works.

wants to buy and preserve.

Yeah, I'll just note the example of Stockbridge if you click back to that slide it's just In that particular case, it's a very different development pattern because they have a density of I think it was 0.1 units per acre so Typically, you would be seeing subdivisions where there was never a home and new homes being built in that way rather than here at Newton where we're a largely built-out city. And so new homes are going... existing homes were demolished and then new homes are being built.

Yeah, I had a question about Stockbridge because you said something about people are grabbing these homes and why are homes more valuable in Stockbridge than they So it's not that they're grabbing on... It's that when you are required to list it and you have to immediately put people who will preserve the home at the top of your priority list over developers.

There's going to be someone who's going look for that more affordable home and preserve it because that's in their budget, whereas the developer only gets the opportunity to buy if no one is willing to reserve that home.

I'm just going to start with my questions.

I want to get other people to change too.

Just make sure that I'm okay on everything else. You didn't bring up at all the impact of the energy code on renovations versus teardowns. What is the impact would be? Energy Code that we've got in place. And I would love to hear more about that at some point.

Yeah, we can definitely look into that. There's a specific definition for what a substantial renovation is Friggers, the new energy code. We can get that link.

Okay, let me just indicate the people I've had hands off. I've got Councilor Kalis and Councilor Oliver then Councilor Farrell, Councilor Dahmubed

You can take me off for now. My comment had to do with that conversation, but I think it's about the end of my question.

Okay.

Professor Kelley? Yeah, so I have two things. Albright opened with. So you didn't present it, but as you were talking couldn't it be that A house, somebody that wants to sell their house if it's over X number of years would have to sell it to a non-developer for a period of 12 months before they sell it.

If Andrew's on the call, I defer to him. You can't really say developer or non-developer as far as I understand.

I know the language is right but I just want that something you think about because it's not You didn't bring it up, but when you were talking that came up in my mind. The thing that as you're going through these and I want Mr. Cornelius to kind of jump in as well on this question here because I don't find any of these really compelling that are gonna help us to, and it's not your fault. I appreciate the work. I think it's great but Is there something that I'm missing? Like, do you feel like there's something really compelling here? Any four of you.

I can take a crack at it. We often talk about teardowns. Really, this is a historic preservation tool and so I think we can be potentially more targeted at preserving particularly historic buildings as a tool for preserving smaller homes on larger lots that are not historically In nature, I don't see this as an effective tool.

Yeah, I can say too, I think one of the things that we've The development pressures are just a lot different in every other town that we've spoken to and every other time that we been able to do research on. So yeah, in Stockbridge real estate advisors they know and that's something that the commissioner said to us in the email that we um the commissioner we spoke with um said that yeah they don't you know and people in Sockbridge know that if they buy a house in Sockeridge but they also only see, they have very few.

I mean, what did we say in the thing? There's like 1200 total housing units in Stockbridge and we see 300 applications a year It would take three years for us to demolish all of our, you know, not the way we do it that way. are very different sort of comparisons as it relates. So I think when you do have a smaller community like that and... I do think the built environment is just a lot different out in Stockbridge than it is in Newton and we happen to have a lot of development pressure. And, we have a ton of Small-ish single family homes on large lots. Like I think if you go back to the Watertown slide, Watertown has a lot of housing units and a lot

I'll just clarify you know in places that are more rural, if they're really adamant about a new home there's land available for it without demolishing it. That is a different factor I think With this docket item, it's what can we do within the delay ordinance itself to address it. But as we've said in all these conversations over two years now, at least, I'm sure much longer for a lot of you. There's no one single lightning strike that's gonna solve all of this and so with this we were saying okay here are some things we can do with the delay ordinance That will have an impact, but we cannot say.

There's no perfect comparison. I'll just add an impact on preserving historic resources. I think that's really the use.

Well, this is a form of discussion for the committee. because I think the question we're wrestling with is that some of these houses are not historic in the conventional sense but are important in the city's historical perspective and that's That's an issue before the committee, I think we have to resolve. But I want to get the questions out that people have. I've spoken before about the importance of dealing with zoning silos. Not disrespecting Mr. Cornelius, but give me a chance to get some of the other things here. Farrell, raise your hand. and as I hand over to make sure I get her on the list, but that's what I'm doing in the order right now.

Right, Dr. Brown? Thank you. I think we're mixing issues here, at least from my perspective. One is the preservation of homes that we think are historically important. And then the second is trying to preserve homes, in my opinion that would be made available to people with fewer resources but that we as a city have decided we really want to live in Newton and to have them have the ability Reasonable price, put some money into it to upgrade it and have a home that would hopefully be less than $1 million. As opposed to having someone tear it down

and build a home for three and a half, $4 million. So the demolition delay for me is I think there are two reasons. One is we figure out what we want to do about historically significant houses, but then we need to make a decision and think about what are the... What are we trying to save some of these houses for? And I'm not interested in developers wanting to come down and say, well, save the front wall. Build a great big house behind it and sell it for $3 million. I personally am interested in having a way, and I think there are things we can talk about this, to make it possible for people of modest means or more modest means

to not be outbid by a developer and with a relatively modest improvements have a home that they can live in. And that's what I'm talking about when I say this.

Well, let me just respond to that because of the conversation we've had so many times in this committee. I think a historical ordinance has the potential for accomplishing both objectives and certainly will take care The historic properties of the city that are not part of historic districts, but they are also important properties that may have that characteristic you described. So I would not Okay, and I'd like to keep both of those objectives in mind as we think through what we're going to be doing.

I just wanted to be clear about the fact that I'm not interested in the historic nature of a building. You were interested in... and properties that are good properties so that people can afford to live here, that we want them to live.

Fair enough. Is that, can I go on? Thank you. Okay. I want to recognize that I think I had Councilor Getz's hand up there Um, but I had Councilor Dahmubed first. So let me.

Yeah.

Okay.

Thank you Mr. Chair. I do want to go back and just clarify a little bit more some of the conversation that was started about the demo or the sale kind of conditioning to a preservation minded buyer. what if any in any of those cases were the teeth that came with because it sounds to me like maybe the best scenario was A town requires someone who is selling the property to provide some documentation suggesting that they have attempted to sell their property to someone who's preservation-minded.

but if they choose not to I mean does the town then take all of the added value from the home or something like what is that what what if they just choose not too they choose yeah i think in certain like i think Lindenburg was one

then they can do an additional delay but I think ultimately you know, I'm sure Andrew can chime in here about sort of the legal side of it Right, yeah. They won't approve the demo and they'll have the 12, they could wait out the 12 months. I think the idea is in these towns ideally there will be The idea is that within that 12 months or whatever the time frame is, somebody else will just buy it and that developer won't want to Once the delay has expired, they can still tear it down.

And if somebody who is preservation-minded makes them a reasonable offer, the town plant forced them to accept it as far as I understand. And then I guess the other thing is like if they sold it to somebody who they believe is preservation minded and then that person tries to tear it down, then that first would have to go through a process to do it all over again. Is my understanding of how that would work?

I mean, out of the ones we looked at, the one that had the most specific language as to how do you prove that you made that effort was Stockbridge and they acknowledge themselves no property has ever gotten to the point where they've had to show proof so they've never done it in practice even though the bylaws been in place for over a decade. In their case what they have written into their language is Something about how you have to verify that you have an advisor. I was going to say agent. You have to get it appraised and then you have basically show if any offers within reason of that appraised value came in. So, that's their enforcement mechanism but it's never been done in practice.

And it's ever been done at practice, pardon me Mr. Lewis, but it has never been because effectively it works so tightly then just no one tries. No one tries to work.

Definite period in their case. And there's so much available land that I think it's a situation with the development pressure where there is the opportunity

So until they build the Stockbridge Green Line extension.

Right, and when that comes, they'll have to rethink it.

For example, when I worked in Acton it was part of my job to review building permits and we very rarely saw full demolitions because all the new construction we were seeing were new subdivisions of vacant land.

Right. Mr. Lee at the law department apparently raised his hand, although I can't see it. I'm told by credible resources. Mr. lee do you want to add anything here?

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I heard planning call my name a couple of times. They did a great job of explaining it. I think the main takeaway that the council needs to understand is the city doesn't have the authority to force them to sell to any particular buyer. What we could do, and we already have a version of it is you could waive the demo delay period if they do X, Y, Z, if they market it in a particular manner. Right? But even if they market in a particular manner and they find an eligible buyer that meets that criteria, you can't turn around and say well you have to sell it to them. Really, I haven't looked at these bylaws or ordinances in these other communities, but it sounds like they don't have the alternative that we have in Newton where a developer, a property owner can present different sets of plans and say, I can get a waiver through that way. So it sounds like in these other communities, maybe not all of them but some of them this option of finding a purchaser that will not demolish and preserve it in some way which begs the question what does preservation mean in this context?

But if they do it that way, that's the only way to waive that demo period. So like I was saying, it seems like Newton already has a version of it. I caution against any assumption that this is going to force people, force property owners to sell their property to a particular type of purchaser.

That's a policy choice but at least legally they can That's correct.

That's correct. You can reduce the delay period if they were to do this, but at the end of the day you cannot say you must sell it to somebody who is going to preserve it

Okay, let me just again I'm trying to get people that have raised hands and I hope I've got them in order. Councilor Gordon? Well, I've got all three of you in but the order I have them are Gordon, Wright and Getz. Councilor Roche, I'm sorry. Thank you. Make sure I've got you down.

Am I even behind?

Okay. Thank your chair Baker. I wanted to respond to something that I want to say was that my Is this an okay time to be that?

Well, go ahead. Let's see where we go. But I'm trying to get through it.

Okay, so I responded to the idea of a period of time you are for somebody who wants to preserve a property. And in particular, I think about a number of houses that are in my neighborhood and in particularly the Aloha Bungalow. And I don't want to get into a discussion over the housing that was out there, because that's not what I'm focusing on. I'm talking about a house that was on the National Register of Historic Places that was of huge historic significance In particular, a feminist pianist piano player who lived there. This is the Warren Street. So I don't, I'm not, you know, it was a very big block that could have conceivably subdivided and had plenty of housing back while the Aloha Bungalow that had features that are now gone forever.

And to me, that went straight from being for sale to a real estate advisor who purchased it and then went straight to a developer. It was never offered to, you know, my husband and I would have been interested. It never went out. And there are a number of houses in my neighborhood where people have gone straight from, you Weekly, multiple letters weekly from people who want to develop on my street. And it's very easy. We'll give you cash. We don't need to inspect your house. So I respond to this in terms of at least making an effort And I think it covers, to Councilor Farrell's point, both historic significance but then also maybe some of these houses that are being sold quickly because they're in big lots. I also, and this again may be more for the discussion.

I think if we're going to think about lengthening of delay period, I think we already have quite a few houses in Newton that are basically undergoing a double bind neglect. And I think that that's a serious problem and I hope that we at some point can look at, I've had a number of complaints from residents in Ward 6 Where that's happening, and I think we all know about the Robin Street house that the city took by Henry V. Mayne, but that house was also being left to be neglected in the idea of it. They could do something with it that they couldn't have done previously. So kind of following up on this, and this is a problem we've seen in Ward 3 and other places and people get the letters and it goes directly to a developer.

So, it doesn't even get listed and there's a house in our neighborhood and we were at a meeting and like three people said oh my god I knew it was for sale I seriously would consider it, but they never got the chance to do it. So I don't know if there's some way we can require that, but if we can't, I was thinking... If someone sells a house and it just goes directly to the developer, maybe when a house is sold you can't get a full demo. You can't apply for a whole demo per year. you know so that's kind of adding it on. So they're less likely, a developer might be less likely to buy something he has to wait a year before I apply for the demo delay

unless they can prove, oh I did list it out to the general public and got different offers but if they go just directly to developers and a lot of these do on the teardowns. They just go directly there and so And people want to buy houses, but they're getting outbid or they don't get the chance to try. And how can we do that?

All right. Councilor Getz.

Hello, thank you. I actually regret not being there in the room because I think this is a very important conversation and the conversation that I'm getting through the computer is pretty choppy so It's all over the place here, folks. I would like for the zoning and planning committee to take a look at both Watertown and Somerville for the longer delays. Thank you so much for joining us. because I think those pressures, there may not be equivalency to what's happening here in Newton. So I think that there's a whole sort of matrix that we need to understand you know in terms of comparatively the effectiveness of the longer delays but also too How does that transpose into the inherent value of the redevelopment potential of each of these lots?

If that's making sense to anybody there, okay. The other thing I wanted to talk about was the waiver process because I really appreciated the planning department's sort of potential areas of impact. Because I think the two places that I think are critical junctures are the length of the delay period, but also the option of the waiver. Because I think that if we can think about creatively, you know, in terms of and I appreciated what was Mr. Lewis's suggestion that, you Eligible for demo and how that triggered the ability to redevelop. I think of this as being the kind of thing where The goal here is historic preservation, and we want to incentivize keeping as much of the original structure as we can. Thank you so much for joining us.

The effectiveness of being eligible for a waiver if in fact with the waiving of the delay, if in and so on. And then the other piece that I would say to everybody is that we already have demolition by neglect in our landmark ordinance. Section 22-75. We can take that language and transpose it into existing properties under a delay If in fact they start to profile that there's neglect going on, you know, so I sort of see that we've got it, you Thank you so much for joining us.

to think creatively about how we... I do think the delay period needs to be lengthened, but I also think we need to be creative about the potential waivers we can offer people for redevelopment of an existing property.

Okay, now I got in order. I've got Councilor Roche and then Councilor Malakie, and then I'm going to recognize myself. Councilor Rowe?

Since this is broadening a bit beyond the start, tell me about two points. One is, we have the discussion about the goals that we have to limit teardowns. and there are a number of different goals. So I wanna focus on the one goal that Councilor Farrell addressed, and then others have seconded. and that is the preservation of smaller homes to be more affordable. Couple of things, one is The values that we're talking about are, we can concede, assume for all without only they're all good values. What we're not talking about is the costs right? The reason why developers are able to buy these homes is they're paying more. They're outbidding. That's a premium that is well for the homeowners.

So we need to, and that can be ascertained. We can figure that out. That needs to be part of the conversation The second part is the cost of a sleep, right? A million-dollar home is roughly $10,000 a year in taxes. A two-million dollar home is $20,000. is $30,000. If we eliminate the teardown and the conversion to a larger home that is an ongoing tax expense for the city out into communities, right? In 10 years preventing a home from going on $1 million or $3 million in 10 years is $2 million, right. Does the city want to invest $2 million to preserve that 2,000 square foot home?

Let's call it 2,200 square feet. The million dollar property. I would argue that we need to make it clear that's what we're talking about to the public so they can get feedback. I would also argue that if you want to have a 2,000 square foot home, a million dollar home for people who are moving from the city Spending a million dollars, two million dollars over 10 years is not particularly efficient way to do it. Right? And so there are more efficient ways. The third thing if we think about the inventory of our 2,000 square foot home again I'm just putting that as a vote 1,800 2200 it doesn't matter but we're talking about smaller homes when we think Even in Farrell's example, that inventory is constantly being eroded.

It's eroded every time someone bywrites increasing the size of that home from 2,000 square feet to 3,000. So that inventory is always going to be at risk We need to be thinking beyond simply preserving to how do we maintain, increase that store of 2,000 square foot homes. It probably means giving up on the Priority for those being standalone single-family homes, right? Because unless we start subdividing lots but I can find new lots to create those new 2,000 square foot homes. Great to have a conversation about how much we want to preserve. We want to look and feel great things, but let's have a discussion about the costs

and the costs that are being borne by the homeowner who's losing their wealth and by the taxpayer, and I hate to think about residents as taxpayers. It's just like a bad way to think of them but They are taxpayers and every home that we eliminate the possibility from going from $1 million to $2 million or $1.3 million is an ongoing tax expense that is otherwise not going to the road, school and parks and blah blah blah. Thank you for coming to my session. Councilor Malakie?

Okay thank you.

I'll come back. Go ahead. Just to briefly address the last comments,

I think it's sort of, you know, we've got to decide is our priority going to be more and more money in this sort of Ponzi scheme method letting developers keep tearing down and building because we like the tax revenue more. Do we want to keep doing a place where not everybody has to be God knows what now Biotech, AI, whatever, hedge fund manager with a 5,000 square foot home. But anyway what I really wanted to say was I agree with Councilor Baker that I take kind of a broader view of what is historic Thank you for your time. Many, many styles represent the various eras of Newton. As I've said many times, I've got a 1925 bungalow.

Bungalows, which are unfortunately increasingly being torn down. I appreciate the mid-century modern that are, you know, especially that neighborhood north of Craft Street, you and I appreciate the unusual styles that are sort of sprinkled throughout the city whether they're in a historic district or not so it's valuable to me to preserve those, not just the I am actually kind of encouraged by what some of these other towns are doing, particularly. I mean, I think to me how similar we are to Watertown. We should combine two-year delay with a, as Councilor Guest said, taking the language of demolition by neglect and applying that everywhere. I mean, Councilor Wright and I are familiar with the House on

I don't know how many years before we could get ISD to force them to put in windows, which they finally did and then have since torn down the house anyway. But it's like I think the, um... I think one thing we might do that hasn't been brought up yet is this. We currently allow what a property can contain, we allow basically a developer to go to a and say, let me apply for a demolition delay on this house. So the developer does all that process and they do have to start the clock again when the house is sold but they have sort of safe time and they know that

They've got a fixed amount of time and they know when they're going to be allowed to demolish a house. It's only 12 months later and generally they've got another project going in the meantime. So we could require the demolition delay to be applied for by the person who actually owns the house, and only exercised by them if they still own the house. And I do like Councilor Wright's idea of having a waiting period for after it has purchased that you can't even apply for demolition delay right away.

So those are my main points that I don't think of. Thank you.

Do you want to recognize Councilor Block?

Thank you, Chair. There's only been one or two minor references to historic districts, local historic districts It feels to me like some of this conversation would be held by thinking about the ones that we have, their borders, their boundaries. whether they should be enlarged as a way of protecting a community, a neighborhood. And should we think harder about How we establish these historic districts so that the protections that we clearly want for historic purposes, but

There's this other aspect, which again coming back to Councilor Farrell's point. When there is a community that's identified then maybe everybody has a better There's a great chance of holding on to the certain size houses that we want because we want diversity in this city. We want diversity and all its forms and we're going to need diversity in our housing stock, in order to attain that. So part of my point is I don't want to forget about the historic district tool. I think we've got to look at every single one of our tools and figure out How they can be useful in the various goals that we have, and I acknowledge there are trade-offs. Roche sort of started down that road.

We've already been making those trade-offs, maybe not And maybe there's another category that is short of establishing a historic district, but instead of thinking about preserving structures for historic purposes, we also want to preserve them for community purposes. but it is more the context of these houses and what we find important as a community. And maybe there's

I'm going to recognize myself now for a few minutes. and one of the advantages I think about Bear Whidbey colleagues who've spoken before, but I want to set a few things down. I think that we have to think as a committee of these, I hope the committee will think about where we get the most response for the most The idea that you talked about, Councilor Block, is something we considered on the council about 20 years ago in some context. Actually it was in Ward 8. It was a conservation district. But it didn't get enough support to go forward. At least a decade ago, we considered historic districts in establishment in West Newton as well as in Newton Highlands if I recall correctly but they didn't get enough support to get established.

So as much as I would agree with you, there are probably larger sectors of the city that could qualify for an historic district I don't think that our time and effort is going to take us very far in that direction right now. It may at some point, and I don t minimize the value of your point which is that there are contexts Second, I want to talk a minute about the cost issue. I have discussed this issue with the chief financial officer about if we pass something that retards the degree to which new construction replaces demolished houses it's going An issue for us and the answer is no because we're not going to get all of these. We're going to make a difference in some but I doubt if we're going change 100% of the demolitions, we're gonna see some go ahead and some of those are going to be replaced

The cost I think is really important to recognize that every time one of these structures gets demolished and a new structure of significant size replaces it, there's a cost imposed on the abutting property owners in the neighborhood. because there's a change in the situation that they were involved in and their situation has now changed. So it is not that there is no cost to this change, there are costs of doing anything but there also costs avoided in terms of the impacts on the butters and neighborhoods from the loss of these structures, and also to the community at large because of the diversity of housing stock. And I personally feel very strongly about this issue. I live in a part of the city I couldn't afford to buy into today, but I was able to buy an old house and I took care of it. And I think it's now the oldest house in Newton that's still intact in its current condition. And as long as I'm there, it's going to stay that way.

But I really feel very strongly that that's an opportunity I had and other people should have as well. And so for me, The importance of this issue is to try and pull the levers we can that are gonna make the most impact with the least effort, and I see those as several. One, I want to be absolutely clear and I think the historical planner said so that we can preserve structures that are not by themselves historic but are historically important to the city. which is I think all of the classification that Councilor Farrell has talked about and others. Second, I think it's important to extend the delay period to 24 months. I think we should not look upon that as something that is beyond our capacity to do, whether we have the votes to do that quite frankly is up to the council and the committee. But I think it's something we should consider

Third, I think we should extend the delay period from moving from a four-month period to 12 months or some other period that may be appropriate and then look at what criteria we want to allow for waiving that delay period because right now I think we're effectively giving many developers in four months to live because they come in before us and they hand us a project and they say well this will mitigate the loss somehow but the loss of that property is not necessarily From my point of view, what I want to see just because we can review the replacement property doesn't mean that in fact it's a good trade. And I want To see some of these older houses and the housing stock in the city preserved So making it easier for the developer to do it is not necessarily where I want to see us go. But I'm just one member of the council and one member in the committee. Excuse me.

So I feel very strongly that the committee should consider strategies and structure for that conversation where we can decide this question among us, and then decided at the council level and see where we are. Now, if the committee is not interested in doing it and the council is not so be it. But I think looking at round-the-edges changes are valuable. I mean, we can certainly provide notice to people that the demolition process is being heard. We can certainly give historic markers where something's gone away but that doesn't preserve a single house So I'm in the business of trying to find a way forward that will enable us to try and reduce the number of teardowns in this city so that they can be maintained for the quality of life that we hope and value. So with that, I want to see a small vote from the committee on various strategies we've been talking about. I just wanna see whether there's sentiment about where we go. So one strategy is a delay period.

I mean, it's got a sense of the committee. How many members of the Committee are interested in extending the delay period without necessarily choosing the time? I just want to see if there is sentiment for that. One two three four five six

Right? Okay. I just have more questions.

No, no, I understand. All right. How many members of the committee are interested in seeing the demolition waiver period extended to try and extend the prerogative time beyond what it is now four months. One, two, three, four, five, six. Okay, how many members in committee would like to make clarifications if necessary to ensure that the important but not necessarily historic house is still possibly considered as part of the demolition process. We've heard that conversation, but I want to talk about making it explicit. All those in favor? Let me get a sense of the committee. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven. Okay. So we have those basic strategies. Now, there are others that you all talked about but I would like to have the planning department and the historic employers

come back to us with some draft language that would accomplish at least those objectives for us to consider next time. Because I think those are the most important that will get us forward in thinking about what we can do in this context.

Chair, just so that I'm able to direct staff efforts. This will involve a lot of consultation with our legal department just to ensure that we're staying abreast of ordinance and whatnot. We can try to get something together in a reasonable amount of time to continue the discussion. The one piece that we have not found a peer community that does is extending from, I guess, The purview of preservation beyond historic. So that's an area where we need to tread more carefully and it might require a little more effort. That's the one piece where we don't have a model to follow.

I understand. And as I've heard it, though, we have done that in very few parts of section don't go through at least the initial commission hearings I hear it. Right?

Yeah, and the language as it exists it still has to be found historically significant so if we find that there's absolutely nothing historic about the building itself or its neighborhood in any way, we're not sort of considering things like the size of it The ordinance as written And I understand that may be an area we have to think further about.

I've said my piece for this part. I want to come to some of these other strategies and talk about them in a minute, but that's it all.

So I have another strategy, but I just want to say that we're not taking into account the homeowner

Who is not a developer, but someone who buys a home and wants to demo it or make a major renovation to it and move into it themselves. And that person is going to be part of this delay as well. And I just want to be sure that we're understanding it's not always the developer that's being put out by this change. and the other strategy that I wanted to talk about was zoning. I know in Portland, I think it's Portland where they have you get a benefit if you wanna preserve the house and add a unit You get a benefit to the FAR. I didn't read it carefully enough to know, but there are other strategies that we're sort of ignoring here They can also preserve a house.

Well, we're going to talk about zoning strategies as a secondary option after they see what happens with the Heller question. I'm not, I'm deliberately not bringing those up yet.

Nothing to do with the ballot question.

No, I understand, but it's a zoning change. Yes. Right. But I want to focus on the historic district or the historical ordinance first and then we'll get to this

But this is part of the historic preservation. This is used as a tool to have what historic preservation- I grant you, but for the moment

I don't want to get into that conversation. At some point we may, but at this point I'm going to focus on... We're doing half a load.

It feels like half a lot to me.

That's fine. But I think I've got a sense of the committee that we want to move forward on these issues. May I clarify?

For the straw vote, are you looking for additional research and analysis or language?

I'm looking for language at this point. Because we're going to have to make a decision of whether we're gonna send something up to the council to vote on.

I think we need some research, you suggested three different areas but we haven't really discussed those in depth

Well, we talked about them today. We didn't talk about 24 months and what the implications are. We're going to have to do that as part of our conversation but I want to get a sense Who would you like to pursue these?

It might also be really challenging to get any kind of research on things like length of delay and impacts it can have because there's so many different conflating factors. We could ask until we're blue in the face staffed in these different communities, why do you think that your numbers are so much lower than ours? And they can come back with any number of answers but it would just be conjecture. Data in this area is murky, it only goes so far. So at least on the numbers and deductions, the length of the delay, etc., those quantifiable factors I think that Further research might not yield the kinds of guidance that you're looking for necessarily.

This is basically a policy decision and said, We're saying we know that we get this degree of demolitions now. We've seen the several hundred, and the question is are we interested in trying to retard the number of demolition that go on? If we're interested in doing that, we have these big levers. It's going to be an extended delay period and an extended waiver period. Now, you don't have to go there but the kind of analysis is not gonna tell you how much is going to make the difference.

No, what it will do is it will raise up consequences that we didn't anticipate and I think because they have their and they can think about those at least. We haven't even talked about, okay we think the positives could be this but the negatives could be that. We have to know what those are before we make any type of policy decision.

are writing in the language already. Well, we've got to have something to consider as a committee. This is part of our job to make a recommendation to the council. So I want to see us have some... The languages can be adjusted but I have a sense that the majority of the committees that people are interested in exploring the possibility of increasing the delay period and increasing the waiver period, and that clarification of the purpose for which properties can be preserved. That is the minimum.

Right, and I voted for those because I assume we're going to be discussing them. Yeah, but we're not voting anything tonight. No, I know that, but I don't want to vote next. I want to know what the positive predictions are, what they might be anticipated. Unintended Consequences, things like that. That's a fair point.

So I think even though it's not apples to apples, I think jumping into taking a deeper dive in Watertown So they have half as much housing that we have. And we have 300 denials or partials, and they have 16 to 18. that's a huge difference you know they're 10% of what we're doing and according with the data they had, they don't give half they have requests 25 to 30 requests and only 16 to 18 demos so Are they actually denying demos? Because those numbers didn't match. But anyways, and they have a longer period 24 months so I mean they're doing something right where it's We're greatly reducing it.

So only one to two delays are imposed, and that's for full delays, and then 16 to 18 full or part-full demos are occurring

But did you put in this 25 to 30 requests? Applications. So what happens, so the people apply and then they just pull it back? I think those are not brought to a hearing. But are they granted the demo? I would guess, but I can follow up for sure. But still, you know, they're looking at 20 demos a year.

Wait, wait, wait. Why don't we get back into a conversation about this in a sense You're asking, can you get better analysis than we have? I'm hearing the planning director say that they're difficult in getting any analysis going to make a difference. Now, as a policy matter, you may not end up deciding to vote for this because you don't know enough. But the problem that we're facing in the city is possibly citizens saying what are you doing about these problems? And we can talk about it to death, but we have for almost two years trying to do this. And I think it's time that the committee stand up and say, okay, we think it is in the best interest of the public to do If we don't and the council says no, then we're done. But I think the kind of information that we're trying to get is going to be very difficult. Yeah, just

To clarify, I do believe that the third item will probably merit more conversation and more research just because again we have no peer communities in each model. That's an area where there are conflating factors it's a in the wild, wild west. And we need to get a sense of where the boundaries are, council's comfort level with considering different factors, et cetera. Some people might consider cultural or environmental factors or housing actors with priority right? So that's an area that I think probably would merit further discussion and we can certainly Take a crack at some language, but that's just there. There are some limitations of the third one.

Yeah, and it's fair point Let me just recognize colleagues and then we'll go on here a minute. Councilor Farrell, then Councilor Roche, and then Councilman Elson.

Thank you, sir. Just very quickly.

Andrew? I'm sorry. Mr. Lee? You get preemptive opportunities.

I appreciate that, Mr. Chair. So I just wanted to chime in. I think I understand what Councilor Kalis is saying, that some of the items that you have brought up, it's not really ready for test because you don't know what it is that you'd be writing. I don't know how strongly the planning department feels about it, but when I was sitting here thinking about what kind of proposed text would look like, it wouldn't really look like much. I think it would look here is what it is in our current zoning ordinance in full detail so you can fully understand how the waiver process works, for example. And then say, now you tell us which way do you want to move it? because the waiver process works differently for partial demolition, for total demolition which is meaningful and there's a lot to it. We haven't gotten into that tonight so my recommendation would be that rather than we actually have proposed tests

We would have those highlighted sections that you winnowed out with these straw votes and then the committee can better focus on those particular items and come up with recommendations for staff to then actually craft that language.

I'm agreeable to that. Would that satisfy you? Okay, Councilor Roach. Thank you very much.

I think this is one of the most exciting conversations in my three years on this council. We're looking at a major issue for this city. Huge! And every comment that was made tonight has validity and needs to be discussed. We need to do this as frequently as possible, and have these conversations in my opinion. I haven't heard anything tonight that I would say, no, you're wrong. I'd like to talk about them too. But I just wanted to remind people that nothing is being financed here right now as far as I'm concerned. But there are steps that are being recommended which will drive us to continue this conversation. And I support the chair in what you're trying to achieve here today.

Thank you. Councilor Rowland? I think Councilor Wright's comments about Watertown are Good. One area that planning may look into is the difference between when it's built and what's available under planning, because they've got exactly double the density then perhaps one of the reasons we're not seeing as much demolition in Watertown is because the opportunity to build something larger isn't there. What's already built matches the zoning opportunities. But that would be an interesting question to kind of answer the question what this is.

I think, let me just comment on the process Again, our planning department is not an exhaustive resource. I think that Watertown and these other communities give us some guidance but they're never going to be one-to-one. And I think the ultimate choice we're having to make What we want to do for our community based on our sense of what it might do for us, I think the suggestion in the law department to have the framework in front of us and then talk about it next time makes some sense. I don't minimize the value of having these conversations to understand the full value of what Watertown does and anything we can learn. But it seems to me there are a variety of things that have come up in this conversation that are worth including besides what I mentioned before One is to import our demolition delay, excuse me, the demolition by another glyph ordinance. Consider moving that as well into this. We have the whole question of the threshold

Landmarks, which we really haven't discussed, but Councilor Block has given us information that's attached. The question of whether there is an opportunity in addition to these things to have a resource recovery element or some evidence of attempted sale. As part of our evidence, we haven't really built that but I'm looking at the reason why I went for those first three things because I thought they were the low-hanging fruit of opportunities that would have the most impact These other things may be valuable in doing and we may want to tie them up together and do this all at once. But I do think it's important to have the staff get guidance from the committee about where dispenses come. Yeah, I just planning department asked a question.

I think for our efforts, because a lot of these are interconnected it would be probably most productive for us if we can hear all of the things people want to do at once. because some things might contradict other things and it's just helpful for us to know all the potentials of what we're going into rather than just narrowing it to a few items because we might have to end up redoing work.

Let me structure that conversation.

I'm saying from a productivity standpoint, that's what we're talking about.

Relative to that, one of the things that you proposed was... And I'm trying to understand what it was. Are you talking about having all houses that are 50 years older or older would qualify for demolition delay?

That's currently the case, but they have to be historically significant to get in front of the commission. Right now, any house that's 50 years or older comes through the gate. Yeah, that's right now. That's not a change. So that's nothing new.

So there's no change though, saying right now the staff looks at the house and says, no it's not worth preserving, it's fine?

Well their question is the criteria they use but I've heard And this is the question that the planning director asked. Is there some additional language that might give the staff the ability to say, this house should go through that doesn't go through now? Mr. Lewis indicate that that's a relative and the chair of the committee commission, Mr. Cornelius is here I want to give him an opportunity here at this moment are categories that are not brought to the commission at all, right? Yeah, is that your experience?

Yeah. The ordinance allows the delegation of finding short and significant and there was a vote in part of the bylaws, the regulations of the commission that the combination of staff and the chair agreeing to something is clearly not historically significant means you just have to come here. So it allows us to sort of take out items that we feel won't be very circle-significant.

Are you proposing if that would change?

Well, that's one of the questions I thought we ought to examine. But we may end up not doing anything because the number of impacts are small enough and the difficulty of doing the research is great enough but it's not productive.

Generally, we have a dozen to two dozen applications a month and I think two or three. Yeah, it's a small percentage.

It is things that Doug and I in our experience... I feel incredibly confident we'd find very little support from the whole commission.

With all due respect to that point, if I may chair, there is one example where if you guys had notified us that this was on the list, I'd have been at your front door. You made an administrative decision that I think was terribly unfortunate and that's why I'm really hoping As soon as possible, put together a process for notifying us about what you're looking at. The house that I wanted to look at is torn and I just, I want to have a say in this. You don't have to listen to me, but I'm going to have to say it.

Thank you, Chair. Last comment. I spoke with Mr. O'Donnell today from Milton and I asked him how's the 24-month thing going? and he said it has mixed results. And I said, what do you mean? He says for example, what's happening now is they're applying for the demolition delay. They come in and I say to them well what do want to do with your plan? They say, we don't have any plan. We just want to get the clock running. So that's an outcome that we could expect.

We may have that. I don't want to minimize the difficulty of the challenge we're facing if we want to make any impact at all.

That's why I'm sorry that we're not looking at other options.

But so here's Councilor Dahmubed and then I want to give some guidance to the committee. Okay?

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I appreciate that this has been Farrell's point, a very interesting conversation and really robust and engaging. And I do want to say that I really have had your comments, Councilor Farrell in my mind all evening about how are we keeping that home? affordable for somebody. I care a lot about historic preservation, but I actually care and I think Councilor Baker, I feel sort of identify with you on this, a moral obligation to find a way to make housing affordable for people. And as much as I hear about teardowns, I also hear about I can't afford to live here and So I'm really struggling with that. And the reason that I didn't vote, or I was trying to not vote no but in fact not voting

I would like to understand when we continue this conversation, look at which sections and the language. What are the costs? To a seller, to a buyer of these actions, ideally broken out. You mentioned something about and no disrespect to your profession Ms. Golden but you must have a real estate advisor What's the cost of that? I understand these studies. I think some of these are out there in studies, some of them may not be. I would not be able to vote without understanding the costs of the actions we're talking about and their implications for, for the cost of living here. So I just, I feel the need to get that out. Understanding planning time is not infinite in all those things.

Again, I understand that. But again, I'm going to suggest that some of these costs are going We're not going to be able to do research in the way that the department, I want to focus on the language of the ordinance if we can so that we can have some conversation around that. Recognizing that there are going to costs of this as we've heard from various Members of this council are doing this, but the cost of not doing something to me is a vital important consideration as well. And that's part of the kind of calculus we're all wrestling with as we go through this process. I would like to see a framework for extending the delay period discussed along the lines Mr. Lee has talked about, a framework has discussed. It may be that the question of the definition of historically significant

does not need a lot of attention or may take a lot because the planning director indicated that might be a broader scope. We might end up not being able to spend much time on that, but I do think it's important to raise and look at our current language I think the question of importing the demolition by neglect into the ordinance is important to analyze. I think it's also important to look at if there Provision in our ordinance already about seeking a buyer. I think we have that language already in our ordnance to some degree. The question is, is it considered as part of the waiver provision or is it somehow freestanding? In other words, how does it work? Is it something that we need to massage in our own organs, or do we need think about something from another context to draw upon? I think the point about process is important which involves making sure notice is ample

to the people who are potentially interested in a potential demolition. And that would include not only councilors but the public, right? And then I think there's an interest also in the question of Resource recovery. I don't think that is a major one for us because I think that's a bigger and longer problem of sorting it out, but I think there was some interest in the committee about that. And so resource recovery is a part of this. It's not necessarily a deterrent, but it may be the same as an environmental matter if we really want to lose our positive resources that can be saved in any context of demolition.

Chair, one note on that is that Watertown specifically told me that they and multiple other communities are looking into the deconstruction ordinance in Floyd and San Antonio for two reasons. One being that it does make the cost of the demolition much higher which isn't determined Secondly, it also trains skilled construction workers which over time will lower the cost of labor. So there are two kind of affordability components behind deconstruction as well.

I think that's a fair inventory of what we've got now. In the context of those, once you put them together in a kind of a framework for us to look at in the ordinance. And I think we'd have highlighted sections and say this could go here or this can go here whatever work with the law department along the lines Mr. Lee's indicated and then bring it back to the committee and then we can have a conversation among us about which ones we want and what you know, the cost of doing something because obviously There is a cost for resource recovery, as soon as you've indicated. If you want to do that there's a cost of There's a cost of delaying the waiver. And there's one other criteria that I wanted to raise, that you didn't discuss but I've asked Mr. Pornita submitted about which is and the language for What qualifies for a mitigation for the replacement structure? The commission over the years has chosen, over the time that I recall

to waive the delay period when someone has come in with a structure that seems to meet your commission's collective judgment is a mitigation. And I guess the question I would ask is what the commission using as its own criteria reflected in the ordinance, or is there something different?

I think it's probably a lack of an ordinance. since the waiver criteria. It's probably an area to look at.

Okay, now we don't have any I would just suggest that if there are waiver criteria you think are not in the ordinance that you might consult with the planners and just give some thought to that Would that be reasonable? Because part of what is going on historically, if I can bear with that term in the historical condition has been a decision pattern over time that has informed your judgment collectively. that may not be reflected in the ordinance. And the question is, can we do better in our ordinance than we are currently?

Yeah, it's really one of the things to take into consideration with the waiver Instead of demanding something perfect, is it good enough? Realizing that I can just wait out and do whatever I want.

We understand.

There's a lot of compromise in just like could otherwise go in there as opposed to something that's sort of close to what I would have wanted.

Yeah, this is the trade-off we're wrestling with all the time. So anyway, is that a fair summary for you? Does that give the departments

Can you just ask Attorney Lee to restate the framework because I want to make sure I'm following all the places that this went.

Councilor Roach, do you have a question? Oh, I'm going to come back in if that's okay.

I'm sorry, the framework that Councilor or CIL or Space Solicitor, I thought was saying let's have the ordinance with The highlighted section that says if you wanted to increase the delay period, you would modify this section. The question is what's the number? And let's talk about that. But we would have those elements of the ordinance available without necessarily having a final language that's what I thought I heard you recommend Mr. Lee, is that accurate?

That's essentially correct Mr. Chair it would be this is a category for example waiver we're talking about waivers here are the important elements in our current zoning ordinance and then turn it over to the committee to

tinker with it as you see fit.

We would just be presenting the current ordinance with no changes.

Highlight the sections that would need to be changed in some way to accomplish what it is that the committee ultimately decides to recommend to the City Council.

But I'm also going to bring us at least an example. For example, if we were to take demolitions of labor If our current language might be improved by some language to know what that improvement could be. So you do want it? Yes.

Updated language.

Well, some of these things are going to be a choice of numbers. You know, if there's something I thought that it was a longer language, but now it is. Yes, it's an alphabet. It's a combination. because some of it you're going to have to decide. The language is gonna have to be decided, we're gonna decide the delay period. That's gonna be a language choice but at least knowing where it is. But there are some elements we don't have in our organs now so we will need some language from that conceptual language enough to at least understand what we're talking about. Look, this is not an exact science folks. We've been working on this for years. Circling around this until we get it, but I'm determined that if we can as a committee to move us forward. So if you have any questions, I ask the committee's indulgence just

Furbin, Councilor Wright and me as the chair and vice chairs so we can try to get those issues clarified so that we could present you with as much a decision document as we can.

Okay? Are you clear? Because I'm not on what is being asked. It's the, it's what Mr. Lee kind of outlined and then You do want her to massage you a little bit?

In various categories. So, for example, you don't have to give us new language for changing the belay period. Right? We can change the number from 12 to 24. That's That doesn't require a new name, right? Right. But if there isn't... If you're going to say let's move into the ordinance The Demolition by Neglect, where would that go? If you have a concept that there could be a resource recovery contribution. What does that look like? Here's one example from one community. Where would that go? That makes sense. Okay, that's what I'm trying to get at.

The other comment though is Totally understand where you're coming from and your opinions. You have very strong opinions, of course, of what we want included in what you don't when you just outlined it very directly which is great. What you didn't ask the planning department to do was any analysis And that's what at least three of the members here have asked for. An emphasis of the consequences of going to 24 or whatever other decisions we might make and I think that's important

Well, I think the problem that I have is that I don't think, as I hear it from the planning director, it's going to be possible for the department to give us... The House that replaces it is not going to be on the tax law.

But you're putting that analysis on a committee who don't have the expertise. I want the experts to be analyzing as best they can. So we at least have something to jump off, to read and understand and go from.

So essentially there's an academic exercise that we could engage in or a progression analysis That's a statistical analysis of what percentage of a given problem can be explained by X number. But I'm trying to explain to you the limitations of... The data that we have available to us and the fact Demolitions don't occur in communities. It's really hard for us to identify properties that could have potentially been demolished and under what conditions they weren't.

I think you're misunderstanding, though. It is more qualitative where You're looking between 12 and 24. And based on your experience, you're saying these are the consequences that you might see. I don't want to know about number of houses are going to affect but This is more of what you might see, kind of what Councilor Albright just said when she talked to the person in Milton. This is what they're doing. Those types of things. And we can at least...

It's just that they're squishy. Yeah. They are not going to be entirely informed by... It's better than nothing.

I'm going to get a strong vote of the committee on this because, again, I don't want to have the department spend time on an analysis of potential costs which are squishy to begin with. We know there are going to be costs as we're talking about it. But you're going to not be able to have, I think, an analysis that's going to get you somewhere where we can make a decision on the basis of that for the full council. Now, you may not agree with me, but I think that what I would like to have is at least bring back what I've asked the department to do. And if you look at those things and the committee at that point says I'm not ready to proceed unless I know this. Then I think we can do that, but I'd like to have that conversation around this constellation of things first because I don't think the department has an inexhaustible resource. We've given them a fair amount to do now

but I don't know of any document that they could generate that would tell you how much it's going to, what it's gonna cost to have some 20. Well, that's why I'm sorry.

They said qualitative based on their understanding of zoning and on the impacts of what could happen between 12 and 24. It's as simple as what Councilor Albright said, she called a person in Milton he said this is what we're seeing that's it I want to understand what the consequences could be both good and bad

Let me ask the director, is that something... We can do that physically.

That much we can do. It won't necessarily be comprehensive in school. There are certain areas that we can't try to flashlight into. but we can certainly give you like a generic profile. Absolutely, 100%.

Would that be? That's great. Okay. Can you all... You think you can do that? Yeah. All right. That's fine. I just didn't want to overburden them too much. Yes.

Clarifying question and I'm I defer to Noronis because she was the one that did the research before my time here. I believe there was some research we can draw on that was already done about basically those fiscal impacts that we should use to

Like we said, they're not perfect numbers but I think there's research you already have that Lucas built on this.

There's clearly going to be... Councilor Roche has been very articulate about it. There is going to a fiscal impact, right? The question is, did we make a decision one way or another? Let's stipulate that there are impacts there. But the question is The cost of not doing something is ultimately a challenge before us versus the cost of doing something. And that's what the council has got to decide, and this committee has gotta give the council guidance for due. So if I would... Just ask the Indulgence Committee. I will try and get you some information, and we'll confirm with the department to make sure that we've got something that's going to be as helpful as possible but not go into the kind of you know, macroeconomic analysis which I think is beyond our capacity.

So that's what that would be. A purely procedural question to some combination of the president and vice-president, chair and perhaps Mr. Lee when First time here. When this goes to the full council, changes like this, do these require the 13 vote or the 16 vote? This is a majority of those present in both.

Okay, thank you.

And by the way... Let's not forget, I think we got to do a public hearing on this.

No, we don't have to do the public hearing, but I said I'd initiate a public comment. I don't want to have public comment until we've got something to comment about.

Oh, great! I'm not saying now, I'm saying before the final vote.

All right, but I would ask the committee's indulgence to let the chair and the vice-chair work with the accounting department The next round of this conversation.

Yes, let me work with the department on that.

I think the planning director and I have some idea of where we're going in response to Councilor Kalis' point. Okay? But, we'll work that out. Councilor Roche.

Thank you. Recognizing that it may be a small bench of time I just want to make one brief comment which is We are completing in this conversation two goals. One is historical preservation, one is the preservation of smaller homes. I take very seriously and associate myself with Councilor Albright's are concerned that not talking about alternatives is going to lead to an incomplete solution. That is more true, I think on this Albright may well disagree. That is more true on the preservation of small homes than it is on the historic side. I think the historic and zoning alternatives are probably less of an issue on the preservation of small homes.

I think the alternatives are a much bigger part in the conversation, so here's my proposal The chair bifurcate this, limit the conversation along the framework to the historical concerns and then pick up the concerns about smaller homes in a broader conversation about alternative.

Thank you, but that's not what I'm going to do.

Well, thank you for allowing me to be heard.

My sense is we're in the committee and we're going to try and carry both issues forward in this context. And I'm going to ask the cooperation of the department to do that because I think we need to get through a decision that we can make at this committee and then we can take it up to the full council with the data but we've talked about this issue for what, four years? And it's time that we begin to move forward on it. And I just ask your indulgence to let me work with the vice chair and the planning department of the law department to try and get decisions framed for you, and then you can decide what you want to do. So is everybody comfortable with that? All right. Any dissent? Then I'll entertain a motion to hold on all three, all four items. All in favor?

I'm going to hear Randy soon.

All four, I told him we wouldn't get into that discussion tonight.

Okay, okay.

I mean, I just put it on the... I just wanted to reference the fact that you've got the vote.

Okay.

At some point, we're going to have to take that into account if we put language together in front of the same one. All right. Motion to hold? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Abstentions? Thank you very much. Okay, it is now. I want to get to the rezoning item but i think we can take a brief recess and then return and then see where we go okay? We may have to spend more time on that next time

Okay, the next item for everybody if you're with me. Time out!

If you want to have a side conversation, you're welcome.

We're going about flowers. Not in here. In the hall.

So we are going to item 57 of 26. Lighting, Using and Zoning. Now it's 10 of 10 and I'm sort of honored to Energy of the Committee and the Planning Department. But they have made a presentation, and I would like to have an opportunity to do what they are unprepared to do. That's agreeable to the committee. So if you can stand by for a little while longer There's more Coke and cookies and nuts and whatever.

Are we just going to hear their presentation?

Well, we're going to see where we go and then decide if it's all right. But they put a lot of effort in this, and I'd like to make sure that they get a chance to show their stuff.

Yeah, there's, well...

Just so you're aware, it's a shelf-stable presentation. If you do want to know what's going on... We wouldn't be offended!

Well I guess the question is

Your time and your energy, I really want to make sure that we honor that. This is an item we've been working on. Councilor Oliver, what's your report?

Well, maybe this is just a simple question We've gone through about all of this before. I know I'm a holdout because I had seen that Ward 1 properties, is there more to it beyond Ward 1? That we haven't Gone through?

Not that you haven't gone through. It's just the ones that were pinned for further discussion in the previous. A filtering down process. Well, let me provide a special point of reference right here.

So the nonadle stone will be more everything else will be a diamond with wood itself. It is about 40 slides? Which is mostly photos so we can literally

Well, why don't we do this?

In a few minutes let's go through the slide deck and then see what they have to tell you because it needs your energy. Is that fair?

I was just trying to understand what in here we haven't gone through. Page 107 in my book or 42 of this particular deck being the special permit criteria. Let them make that decision. It's not my decision, I'm just trying to understand what's next.

So let's go ahead for a little bit and then see where we are.

Great. So tonight we are continuing this discussion of aligning residential uses with dimensional zoning standards in business districts. As you all know, the item has been before the committee several times I won't go back too far especially in the interest of time right now but at our June meeting a method for rezoning in the mansion was established focused on rezoning lots located more than two parcels away from a major right-of-way and during that committee During that meeting, the committee also discussed a more targeted special permit criteria for residential projects that remain in business district. and I've requested to be looked at other areas in the city.

So then Amanda and I presented a citywide analysis of residential properties and business districts and the committee discussed which parcels may be appropriate for rezoning based off of what is on the ground today. This evening, we'll walk through four topics. We will extremely briefly revisit the state law considerations for nonconforming properties that recently went into effect as requested um by the committee at the last meeting we'll delve into the parcels of non-antem because previously we have been looking at kind of the area more as a whole. We'll look at parcels that community wants to explore based off of the discussion in August and we will extremely quickly present the revised federal permit criteria with the requested edits in regard to both context and definitions. So brief reminder,

MGL Section 40A property that becomes non-conforming may be exempt from certain dimensional requirements. So the takeaway here is that Rezoning in some cases may reduce development potential, but in other cases it may increase development potential.

So whatever becomes non-conforming that's the only thing they So if we, you know, change it and it meets FAR standards they can't exceed FAR but the setbacks are wrong.

Yeah, I don't think they can step back either way. But like height, yeah. So next slide. Inonantum We all know sort of where this started, concern around residential redevelopment using commercial dimensions through the special permit approval process. The question here is whether targeted zoning is the correct tool to better align the result with the existing neighborhood pattern on those primarily residential streets. So you can see the Notre Dame residential context.

And here, you can See the method that was established in the June meeting looking specifically at parcels that are more than two lots away from a major commercial right-of-way and so the primary areas that could be rezoned with that method or Murphy Court, Cork Court, Jones Court and Clinton as well as Cottage and Adams Terrace. This slide looks at what would actually change if the currently business use to parcels were rezoned to the adjacent residential district, which is MR2.

And just to kind of provide the key takeaway, rezoning doesn't produce the same results across all building types and approval pathways. And so given that nothing's being voted on today, I would just urge you to look into this before making a final decision to ensure that any property that you're considering rezoning is meeting the goal of that rezoning. Go ahead, next slide.

Before you leave, this is board one. This is your territory, Councilor Oliver. I just want to make sure that whatever information is going to make it possible for you to be comfortable in one way or another.

And given the late hour, you also have my email. You want to follow up on anything?

We can do it now or we can do a video?

No, no, if things come up in your mind.

Gotcha!

So, if I may? Yeah. All right. Because I think if I recall correctly we went through word by word and I was the only one I'm like oh hey what about me and they were like oh crap what about I took a look at the individual properties that were listed in the three, four or five slides here including not only Nonantum but Newton Corner. That was really hard for me to remember what that part of town is called. And I only have a couple questions here because I did take a quick look, I pulled up the assessor's database. Facts are not facts, they're best guesses in most cases. I didn't see any lot where FAR was in jeopardy of becoming non-conforming if we moved from BU2 to MR2.

There are only these two lots on PP that in Newton corner, Let's see, what is it? 2123 and 2527. This is on slide 17. They would go from BU1 to MR2 with these right if we were matching the residential And those two lots, I'm actually okay leaving them the way they are as BU1. The rest, I am comfortable moving to MR2 Simply because the only area that I looked at, and I'm going to put a question mark on this. Every single one of those lots becomes nonconforming for frontage. Nothing we can do about that, no matter what.

FAR was fine. I can't see or I should say I can make a determination at all on coverage So it seems to me that the context of all the other properties, Faxon, Dalby, the three courts all seemed to me to be reasonable moves to residential because they're all currently residential. They're in residential neighborhoods. They are off the main drag I'll call it of Adams Street which is primarily where all these are although two of them are off of Watertown, Dyson and Dalby. It does seem to me that change would make the most sense

Now, this is... Are you all clear? Our methodology to recap is, again, we defer to the Board of Councilors on the committee for those matters unless somebody else feels strongly otherwise. So the rest of them are things we've seen before, right? So if those modifications are made I think we're pretty clear on what the committee would be supportive of bringing to a public hearing. Unless there was something else.

Selected ones where there was ambiguity, so the ward councillor or other committee members had not made a determination either way.

I thought we decided now, but we have beyond mark one. We've still got some uncertain ones. Okay, so let's just go through those so we understand.

Can you just clarify what Councilor Oliver said?

I think it asked me to remember.

I think I understood it, but sorry. It's slide 16. You were saying leave those parcels as BU1. Is that right?

Yeah. Peabody, yes. Those two parcels, 21 and 25, right? Yeah, Peabode Street. Lee does it for you. Great.

So we can skip that first one.

Yes is not here.

No, I am. I'm here. You're moving on to Ward 5, right? Can you hear me? Okay, so the only you know I mean the one property Seven Hail was you know it's in the historic district. So I would keep it the way it's designated now. And, you know, it will be controlled by the Historic District.

Okay. No rezoning, just to be clear.

Correct. Yep. Thank you.

Okay. Question? I mean, where are we on the spot now?

It's West New and I was jumping

Oh, move those to residential.

Not the one on the top corner but the other ones. Top corner and right around That's on the top. And then all the other ones to residential. We're not official in this committee. Carry on.

That's residential. Yeah, I thought we said that. We wanted to check on the FAR and so I kept it in just in case. Where did we go?

Yeah, it's across the street from Residentialville too, right? So I would keep that one Residential.

Yeah, you're going from business to residential.

Yeah, same there.

I'm punished since they're not on the corner of it. They're not on Washington Street. They're in Parsons. Yeah, this is one parcel.

So that'd be a slight deviation from our method.

But it's the same from across the street, otherwise we're not rezoning the other ones across the streets. It's matching what is nearing the other side of the street. This is now looking at Commonwealth Ave and Ogden Street. It was that unusual property, we weren't here so we wanted to make sure I'm just going to beg your indulgence to

because there's youth, there's zoning and then there's... It's like what we change it to and from is not obvious in terms of how it impacts.

Can I just jump in and make it easier? The person who owns that lot or whatever is also owns the adjacent lot. So it would be developed together so I think moving into residential wouldn't make sense and it's in the middle of stuff right there so yeah it's from the development standpoint you know because that's What we're recommending as the basis of decision, it would mostly be turnover in conjunction with another. I doubt you would ever independently touch that one from a height impact standpoint. So single and two family detached is allowed. It would increase the buy right height allowance, it would not substantially change the special permit height allowance. Multifamily is allowed by Special Permit if you rezone but it would now substantially change. The difference will be marginal.

Same thing with single family attached, which also was only allowed by special permit. It would be a marginal change.

And rezoning would eliminate the opportunity for commercial? Yeah.

And what we're, so we would change it to be MR2 to match the parcels that use into it.

That's the method we've been using. If it is rezone residential.

And it would not allow commercial even by special permit.

There's like negative three uses that are allowed, but it's extremely limited.

Given the state of Auburndale Square I am still inclined to leave this as is. But actually, Councilor Block is here. Mel Rose is on the side there.

On the left, yeah. So that's sort of trapped in the middle of that whole thing. Yeah, exactly. And it's currently a business use zone, is that it?

Yes, yes.

So I think it probably makes sense to leave it, don't you? I think so. Yeah.

And I will add when there's these unusual circumstances if someone is trying to develop combination with another, they would just apply for rezoning if it should serve them. So I think that's...

Thanks for helping everyone.

Yeah. That's what I'm here for. Okay. Newton Center, Four Corners, Ward 6. Remind you where we're looking at these. We narrow down to these Sorry, Carthage Circle should have come out because I believe that one was removed at the last meeting. But Brent would have with the other two. So Carthay Circle is being rezoned tomorrow? Yeah. And I think the reason this is on here because I believe Councilor Roche wanted to leave it as is and I want to change it to residential. So there's all of them.

I don't know how strongly you feel about this.

Well, the committee has a process that I will respect and I have my opportunity to help out.

Yeah, this is deciding if it goes right here, so All right. Now that's it, we can go into special paragraph here and I swear this is fast.

So the exact same language as you saw last time just added add dimensions, did meet with Current and Law on this. Law had no concerns. Current reiterated that they feel this is met in the current Special Permit Criteria, but they were amenable to this language.

So anybody dissent from this language? If not, those can go to public hearing. Okay. So I think as I'm hearing it, you now have a package of potential site-specific resumings plus the special permit criteria. And the question is when we could do a public hearing. And I don't think we can do it immediately, obviously, if you've got to notice but sometime in December. I'm probably thinking about your second meeting in November, not exactly November Is the committee comfortable with this package now is at least enough to go to public hearing? It doesn't mean that we may not revisit it after the public hearing and people come forward, but at least we know what we're talking about.

Can I just ask about the language? The dimensions, if Clinton Street came up with this language would it have changed that special permit?

Land Use Committee would have had to expressly make a finding that the proposed use and dimensions were appropriate with the context of the agreement. So it, it would provide extra scrutiny in that scenario. But wouldn't it prevent it if they decided to? I mean, it's a special time process so they can ultimately approve what

They want to approve and deny what they want to deny, but If I may, what would have prevented it is it would have been on my list of Hey, this should go to MR2. And I would have said, oh yeah, that's even further in. That's MR2 They couldn't have gone to 1.42 at the end

Yeah, there's a number of factors. We've also changed the way heights measured and grades.

But that was because... Yeah, yeah.

The happy hour was huge.

A lot of people want to be heard here, so let me... Let me go to Councilor Wright.

Quick question for the lots of rezoning, do people get a letter? I think they should. Yeah, I would

State law does not require you to notify individuals in zoning exchange because it doesn't change the use, obviously. It's not like they are forced to change their property or whatnot. It is a policy decision that has decided upon by the community that in the future they would like this land to be X, Y or Z. That said it does potentially detract from the future value that they can get for their lands down the road. So it is a best practice to notify individuals who will do so accordingly.

I just wanted to make one comment on that. I don't know anybody when they buy a house look at their zoning. They look at the neighborhood and that's what they're taking into account. Now that I'm on zoning and planning, I would do it but up until then nobody looks at the zoning.

except for developers.

I'd just like to make a comment that part of the difficulty is who are most affected by Clinton Street were the people next door, who wouldn't have gotten a notice if we were dealing with just Clinton Street.

And also on the topic of notification and I'm going to pose this as a question But I'm pretty sure I know the answer. Did we notify the 1,400 or whatever lots that received a VCOD designation? I don't think so. I'm almost positive.

There was a mailing sent to every address in the city, but maybe I'm not sure what stage of the process that was.

I don't think I got somebody saying my house would be in these zones explicitly.

Let's focus on those when we get clear on them. I just want to make sure all the questions, there are a number of hands came up.

Well, I just wanted to say as somebody who serves on land Asking, expecting that committee to make this particular finding and expecting the committee to actually say yes or no in a significant number of cases. I think, well we have to say yes and no but it's all so hard to say no to something like this? Don't expect land use to be the brakes on something.

I just... That's not a good answer.

Yeah, well... Look, at least as far as we've gotten, if Land U says we're going to approve it anyway... But at least this language says you've got to ask about it when we try and make that finding. That's what we're trying to do.

In granting a special permit for ground floor residential use in business district, so this isn't going to happen more than I think this has happened four times since I've been on the council. So, I don't think it's... It's not something you're going to bump into every night by any chance. By any means, I should say.

Okay, other questions? I'm sorry.

I have the same question, Councilor Wright, but now I'm not sure what did we decide.

Let me come back to it. The sense is that for these individual parcels, it's appropriate to notify the property owners even though it's not required by state law.

Okay so I just want to say if we are doing that you should be really I'm sure you'll check the language so that people aren't alarmed and super confused. and however we know if we're going to notify them.

That's a fair question that you need to decide how to do that but let's pause for a minute just I'm just want to make sure I get all the questions out related

I think Councilor Baker's point about the impact of changes on a single parcel to its abutters, I think it would be nice if we notified the abuters. I think they might care and that seems like good community engagement practice. and then on this, I'm so glad that you pointed out that it said that very specific thing because I kind of lost track that that's what we were dealing with.

Yeah, to be clear. Sorry, I shouldn't finish it. It's all right.

Let's get clear.

Yeah, this wouldn't be adding it to the list of special...

Permanent criteria that land use looks at for all projects. It would only trigger in specific circumstances of ground floor residential and business. So it's a separate list from your typical special permit. That will help.

Yeah. Center answer.

Can I ask again about which was It's BU, it is still BU. It's on the list. But in a similar circumstance, if it stays as BU2... What criteria will land use use to make sure that the height doesn't go up?

Yeah, criteria. That was just... And it also... So partially because this whole process was started largely because of that project. If you go back one, you'll see the whole rest of Clinton except for the parcels right along Washington or along Adams, excuse me. are all in that proposed rezoning. So, all of those would be changed to MR and therefore could not undergo the special permit process at all.

Yeah, I can answer that This is also where like in almost every other example around the city, it's not a straight across-the-board decrease. This is the only one, except for some minor increase in the by-right height allowance of single and two family detached. Everything else decreases whereas we didn't see that clear change with all the other rezoning so they have that additional layer on top of the stuff you're looking for in a cranberry and the reason why. That's what I mean by the layer.

So is the committee comfortable with this language now and these parcels? Anybody consent from that? So the question just is, the degree to which we first pick a date and then second The date, I'll have to ask the council to let us schedule a public hearing but I've worked with the planning department to figure out when we can do it. Probably as I say second meeting in November is probably the earliest I could imagine us doing this but the sense of the committee is we ought to notify the property owner and the abutters because these are discreet.

Yeah, can't we be talking about what 10 or 20 properties?

Yeah, we'll have to check. I guess 20-30 and some of the abutters also are part of the rezoning. Manageable burden, I think your question is

And maybe, is this the clerk's office or the planning? How did we do this before when you did that?

Typically it would be the clerks' office where we can coordinate. I'm building a list from us so we'll get that going and you'll build a list for us as well.

Okay, all right. So is the sense of the committee okay to go to a public hearing on this now with notice to the property owners and the abutters? and with the text change, which is obviously just a general text change applicable to the special permit process in this unique situation. All right? So all those in favor of We're going to hold the item, but I'm going to get a sense of the committee to go to public hearing which is indicated. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Abstention? Okay, the ayes have it. We will work with the department and the clerk's office to pick it up. There was timing for this, but at least you've got something that we can take to a public hearing that may have a chance of getting us voted by the end of the year, which would be crazy. And I want to commend the department because you labored mightily over this

You know, there have been a lot of pieces that were considered and then dropped out as we went along. And some were very persuasively argued by other councilors not on the committee like what happened to Councilor Roche was fully prepared for Girded for Battle on Forge 6, and we didn't have some problems with us. I don't know.

Maybe this is so disarming.

That came to battle. Yeah.

So anyway, I want to thank the department and everybody involved in doing this. So I think that's it for tonight. Any questions or comments? Okay. I'd say we're going to move hold on this item. We voted to go to a public hearing, but I just need to hold the item. All in favor of holding it? Aye. Opposed? So I think that does it.