Zoning & Planning Committee - March 9, 2026

Members of the Council who are present in the room, and I'll go around and recognize them first as members of the committee, both our city staff and our clerk. We're also being joined by at least One member now. I see two representative town meeting members of Brookline and perhaps others will join later. And I see that we've been joined by the town administrator, Mr. Perry.

Yes.

So I'll recognize everybody if we go by, but I just want to welcome all of you to this meeting of the committee. And let me go around and introduce the members of the committee here. First to my left is the Vice Chair, Councilor Wright from Ward 3. Next to her is the president of the council, John Oliver Ward-Watt. Next to her, next to him rather, and Councilor Dahmubed from award four and then online we've been joined by I think Councilor Block and then who's not a member of the committee and also not a member of the committee but in the room

and let's see. and on line, as I mentioned, I believe, Councilor... Let's see all of that. Charm, you showed me how to do this if I had my computer. Okay, so the purpose of this meeting, and I'll read the item into the record, the first item on discussion, and I'll chair this section of the meeting, and then I'll turn over the second part of the meeting to the vice chair, is 99-26.

for the presentation of the discussion of the proposed town refinery zoning on Route 9 Boston Street between Hammond Street and Hammond Farm Parkway. Specifically, Councilors Baker, Grossman, Kalis, Farrell, Golden, Silver, Dahmubed, Lucas, Albright, Malakie, Wright, Getz, and Block, requesting a presentation and discussion about the proposed zoning and related traffic modifications under consideration by the Town of Refin for the Boylston Street As I mentioned in the cover memo to this attached to the packet, I was part of a conversation in the mayor's office and the town administrator was there and I felt it was important that the council have similar information for it so you can understand the potential impacts on the city and to the extent that there is information

and many more. Thank you. what happens in the Newton part affects Brookline and what happens in Brookline affects Newton. And so it's important to at least understand what is going on. I want to make clear that Brookline has the capacity of the right and the opportunity to do what it wants with its own zoning scheme. I would just say in a historical perspective, I don't know if Councilor Albright was on the council, but when we rezoned the Star Market, do you remember that long time ago? We did that and we had comments from Brookline at the time.

We were thinking about what happens with that the parking spaces set aside for it. And then also more recently, Chestnut Hill Square, you may remember, was the redevelopment that involved Wegmans. and one of the important decisions that council made in part from input from Brookline was to make sure that all the access to the site was from Route 9, not through Florence Street because of the potential both in Newton and at Brookline. So there's been a history of cooperation between the communities, even though it's been informal and not anything formal. So I hope that practice would continue in this context. but as a way of providing background, there's a whole presentation that the memo indicated that the town had put together for design considerations. There's also a traffic study that has been done. What I did was pull out

with consultations with the planning department. The slides that are attached to the agenda that I thought were the most relevant to be set the stage for Newton. And then what I would do is we would go through those.

Right in the chat, but we're coming back online.

Hello. We're having some technical problems in the room, but we'll be back online momentarily.

Okay.

But they obviously realized, not good on their own.

Okay, am I good? We were talking about there's a traditional cooperation between the communities. We worked there with Brookline when we did the Chesapeake Hill Square development, also a time of star market redevelopment. and Pattern and Newton, for those of you who are watching from Brookline, has been generally to do a rezoning a couple of the special permits. A very rare event would be to don't do that. but Brookline is considering something which is a major rezoning for the Route 9 corridor and I'm going to ask Ms. Wewell to take us through that and then Mr. Starkney will take us through the traffic slides and then we'll Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

so that we can stay abreast of this because it's a project or proposal that will go through the process in Brookline and be completed, we understand, sometime in May or early June. So Ms. Wewell, can you just take us through and show us a little bit of the context?

Yeah, thank you, Mr. Chair. So my colleague, in overlay districts along Route 9 in the town of Irvine. sharing the most relevant information from her finance materials.

Those of you who first visit the zoning planning committee tonight,

So my colleague Miles will be helping me.

We can go to the next slide.

So the site context. Next slide. So the Chestnut Hill Commercial Overlay District allows for the greatest height in the westernmost sub-district and generally tapers down toward the eastern extent.

The areas that allow the highest building height is concentrated in that 4.0 district on either side of Tully Street with maximum heights of 150 feet to 175 feet. And next slide. A zoning envelope is a three-dimensional space and many more. So shown here is the envelope based on the corresponding overlay district.

So I think that concludes that zoning overview that the Town of Brookline has in their presentation.

So let's just go through the other part quickly. It's important to understand that the town had engaged, as I understand it, a traffic consultant to prepare some possible responses to The traffic situation in the area, not all of which are dependent on the development. So I think it's important to understand that. And they require, in the case of Route 9, because it's a state highway, the concurrence of the state. Other matters within the town itself could be done by the town, but they set a context because a number of parts of Newton, but the area that's under study

I tell you, let's close the Zoom and resume.

We do.

Oh, sorry. We do.

No, we just don't know.

Miles, are you ready to show us something, or do we need to clear the deck? All right, let's try to watch the slide. So the purpose of the transportation study is important. This was just to try to evaluate the project, improve safety, Incorporated Pedestrians and Cyclists. Go back to second, Miles.

Same slide.

are not decided by anybody yet, but they're part of the package of considerations that the town at least has to be evaluated. So carry on, Miles. Go to the next one. So this is one of the modifications would be to try to improve the signalization of Route 9. I should just say parenthetically that a number of years past, Route 9 intersection used to be straight East, West, North, South at the same time. And it was modified a number of years ago. So it's East-West with left turn lanes You don't have to try and fight opposing traffic. And that has really made a positive difference in my experience.

the the um and does it mitigate the traffic on Hemingway Street and it has limitations for bicycles and pedestrians. for the town that's considering. And this is called the R cut. And take a look at it. It's a little hard to see, but the yellow lines indicate that the traffic movement going north and south would be modified so that you couldn't go south directly across Hammond Street. You would have to turn right, make a U-turn down by the FedEx building and come back and then turn right. And if you're going northbound, you would go north it would be a new loop down by Dunster Road and you would come back and go north after making that U-turn. And then the advantages for that particular

It's better for pedestrians. The potential challenge is required out of direction travel for some minor street movements. This is an issue that was considerable concern to members sent a letter to the select board just indicating concern about that as well I have copies of that for you. You'll make that part of the report. So go on to the next. The other is Hammond Pond Parkway and Heath Street with a roundabout. And this is a potential opportunity to narrow that roundabout to one lane, as I understand. And again, the thought here is that that would improve the flow of traffic and also the The question of how all of this works obviously has to be worked out.

This is not within the state's jurisdiction as I understand it. This is something that Brooklyn can do on its own. of the Department of Conservation Records. Okay, carry on. Hang on a minute. Anyway, the point is that they will go through T. And then there are various. I don't think the Transportation Board and Brookline has passed on this yet. and then there are other things that have to happen, but it's all part of the litigation possibility for this particular development. So that's sort of the basics. And what I want to do is open the committees up to conversation and questions if you have any about other aspects for this aspect and we also have the town administrator who can respond and I can also ask for comments from the town.

That was great. The R-cut is something, I'm an award aid counselor, and the R-cut is something that is really concerning, actually, because often, do U-turns and it gets into the main traffic and then you have backups on Route 9 that just go on forever. So I'm concerned about the R-cuts and I'm wondering what the The test and learn kind of scenario could be to understand if that actually works. You know, it's interesting because when That whole Wegmans shopping area went in. We added a lane where the state had to add a lane. Everybody was questioning whether that would work. Well, I think it's worked pretty well.

The archive could be the same thing, but looking at it, I'm very suspect. And I just like to hear more of, and if there's any background from what the, you're, Your studies have shown, I'd love to see that if you could, but if you could comment on that, that'd be great.

Thank you, Councilor, and thank you to the Chair for inviting me and the whole planning team and Newton. I just want to thank everyone for your time, for your efforts in this. We really want to be good collaborators here, and so it's great to have the opportunity to speak with you. You're not alone in this concern about the archive, right? When people see that on a map, when they see the overhead, they go, it doesn't make any sense to me. It doesn't make any intuitive sense. Why would we do that? It seems to add a step. It seems to, you know. Look, it seems to invite the sort of potentially dangerous crossing across traffic. There are a lot of concerns that just inherently arise from it. What I would say is a consultant is looking at those dedicated U-turn lanes a little further out from the intersection to try and defray that issue that you're talking about where a traffic piles up at the intersection anyway to try and make that U-turn. So the goal there is to separate that function out a little bit. That's my understanding.

But the other thing I'll say about this is this is one potential solution that the consultant that we brought in identified. Ultimately, the people who make a decision about this are the state. and the state is not going to make a decision about this without Brookline and Newton being on the same page and getting consensus on this, which is why we want to work collaboratively with you to make this happen. We're at this point now where we're talking about the zoning, we're talking about the design. We know that there are downstream impacts of traffic on rezoning. We want to mitigate those as best we can. We also want to Be deliberate in moving this process forward. I mean, the other thing that I noticed when I look at that map above, the bird's eye view of that area is you can clearly tell where the Newton border ends and the Brookline begins because Newton is developed and Brookline isn't.

We are underdeveloped in that area, and it is one of the last major areas where Brookline could see meaningful commercial growth in a way that would have a significant impact on the tax rolls. With that said, you know, Brookline is trying to do two things at once here. It's trying to both develop a long range strategy for that entire neighborhood. So there are Rezoning efforts there that are not attached to a particular developer, but have a long range goal in mind. and then during the course of trying to develop that the committee was approached by a developer who was interested in that parcel closest to Newton there on the I'm back there, City Realty, on the south side of Route 9. And concurrently with those broader questions about how do we want that neighborhood to look, how do we want it to develop, There were these specific questions about what could go in there, how could we go through that process.

And it's my understanding in working through that that the committee that was set up for that to reevaluate that area and the developer went back and forth several times. You know, the developer came in with a 20 story proposal. Senator McClain said, absolutely not. It's been back and forth several times now. And each time we've been trying to be, you know, make clear to the developer, but also the broader community because it's not just about those parcels and that developer's future, that it has to be well integrated, not just on the Brookline side of the border, but the Newton side of the border. and so you know one of the things that we responded to in terms of community requests not just a lowering of height but for example making sure that there's no Exit into the neighborhood there, making sure that we're doing the traffic mitigation, that we're asking for funds for our DPW to do work on our side. in terms of landscaping and maintenance of sidewalks and roadways.

So there's a lot going on here. But I think the big takeaway is the R-CUT Idea is an idea at this stage. It is one that I think it's worth thinking about, even though it elicits that strong reaction on paper. It's also something that's not going to happen without the state's say-so, and the state is not going to say yes unless both Brookline and Newton have an understanding together. This is what we want, and it's going to be beneficial for both of our communities.

perspective, with all the development there and how much of it is residential? I much prefer residential. I know that you prefer commercial but this would be great because and then also with that are you also building in Are you requiring that as part of this new area, meaning shuttles or bikes or things like that?

I'm not currently well versed enough on the alternate means of travel to kind of talk through those in detail, but I can ask the planning department on our end to follow up on how that process has been going. I will say that when it comes to commercial and residential, right, Statenbrook line is not the city of Newton in terms of the balance between commercial and residential. We're in desperate need of advancing our commercial tax base, but not all of this is zoned for commercial, right? There's the opportunity for mixed use. There's the opportunity for residential. And the further you get from the street, The more residential in character the zoning becomes. There's still the opportunity for commercial development. For example, there's currently a 40B proposal on the south side that's part of this rezoning. and it's got its PL letter, it's moving forward. But the developer has said that if it was rezoned, they would reconsider building and potentially look at transforming that into a hotel.

So it wouldn't necessarily be a total shift out of the It would be moving into a more commercial framework, but it would be capped at the same height as it would be in those neighborhoods. We're cognizant of the potential load on the neighborhood. We know that we're fortunate that it has access to the Green Line. We also know the Green Line is on the wrong side of Route 9 for most of that development. And so that's our big, you know, outstanding question is how do we work together to ensure that there is not just development there, but access, meaningful access. And that's going to take conversations with the state.

Wright, and Councilor Roche, I don't want to go

I'm seeing more and more road rage and people not letting people in, so it is a difficult concept. And I was just reviewing the documents quickly. It seems like you're calling out certain buildings are going to be so many floors or hotels, so much is medical law. or condos or whatever. So do you, I mean, it is called out somewhat in there. Do you have a rough idea like on space-wise? because again, it all comes kind of down to cars and traffic. And is each of these buildings going to have a driveway from Route 9 or do they kind of like funnel onto Heath Street? You know, just there's a lot of different conflicts there.

There's no new vehicular connection between Boylston and Heath to buffer Heath Street from increased traffic. We're trying to build landscape buffers and setbacks and height restrictions closest to the existing two-family residential areas on both sides to kind of preserve those. and all of those are built into the zoning. You know, the goal here is to make this complementary to the street on your side. You guys already have a significant retail development over there and, you know, significant high end commercial opportunities Um, Supermarkets, etc. We're not looking to duplicate what you're doing. That wouldn't make any sense. We're looking to build complementary uses. So, right, medical offices are contemplated. Hotels are contemplated. When we talk about Ground Floor Retail. It will be more along the lines of coffee shops and so forth. Although we've had requests from the neighborhood, for example, it would be great to have a neighborhood hardware store.

It would be great to have, you know, things that are missing in the area that aren't provided on the other side of the street where possible. We're looking for complementary, not competitive users.

Have you done any traffic studies or anything like that or a rough idea?

That initial study is the study that we've done so far, the design study that's trying to think that through. And we've done kind of informal traffic studies on that front. Again, we're at a phase now where we're trying to think about how to approach the state and have that conversation. and so we're not at a point where we're going to the state and saying this is it we want to do this saying we're going to have development here it's going to change the nature of Route 9 There's no getting around it. If it gets more dense, then we have to talk about how that impacts Route 9. So how can we mitigate the increased density in a way that also protects the people who currently use it?

Have you done a traffic generation study, though? I mean, that's a little different from the traffic mitigation measures.

Right. I don't know the answer to that question. I can ask the planning team.

Let me go to, I think it was then Councilor Albright, then Councilor Getz.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. So have you considered asking the developer, well, first of all, is all that property under the control of one developer?

No.

So there could be multiple developer opportunities.

Yes. So we have this one potential larger scale developer in city realty. We've talked to all the other owners of the properties. Some of them have said we're not interested. Some of them said we may be interested down the line. Some of them like that owner of the 40B has said, I will consider my options, but I want to see what passes at town meeting. That's the other thing to remember here is that, you know, take a step back from this. The Brookline Town Meeting has to ultimately pass this zoning. It would require a two-thirds majority. It's subject to amendment. And there's not consensus. I think there's vocal opposition in the community to some aspects of this that relate to height, that relate to traffic, that relate to all of these things. So it's not a guarantee that this passes in its current form or passes at all. Brookline does need commercial development, but there is a possibility that the town meeting ultimately says, you know what, we don't want this proposal. Take it back to the drawing board.

Under the current proposal, we have that one developer who's looking to redevelop that stretch that is closest to Newton on the southern side of Route 9. It's possible that that will change. For example, that developer's current proposal has a The opportunity to build up to 14 stories if a certain commercial density is achieved in the building. That's a subject of dispute. I know some of the members in the neighboring precincts would like to see that reduced, some of them significantly, and that would change the character of what could be developed there. So we are... There is a possibility that this will change, so I just want to be clear to you on the committee that... Until May, the zoning isn't final.

And even once the zoning is final, there's additional steps that need to be taken.

So does this one developer have multiple buildings? And I'll tell you why I'm asking is because have you thought about asking him to build a pedestrian walkway over Route 9?

We thought about that. I said to the chair and to the mayor when we met, that is the dream, right? The dream would be some means of easy pedestrian access over route or under Route 9. I would settle for a tunnel. It doesn't need to be an overpass. The complexity of a project like that with the state is monumental. They wouldn't be able to do it by themselves. They would really need our help. What I have committed to in our conversation with the mayor is we want the same thing there. The problem is because Route 9 has truck access, it's difficult to build an overpass and tunnels are incredibly expensive. But I'm committed and I know the mayor is committed to creative solutions to this problem. We have absolutely thought about it. They can't do it without significant outside investment. We would love to.

provide that outside investment. But again, it's going to be a team effort, and it's further in the future than this rezoning.

Well, I'm just glad to see that it's on the drawing board in some way, shape, or form. And one last question is, so how many units are in the 40B that they're proposing?

That's a good question. Let me pull that up. I have that information and I can get it for you.

While you're looking for it, is the 40B the only project that they're proposing? Or is it a multiple, you know, This and that and the other and one of them is a 40B.

That developer only has the 40B there. Okay. Further up the Brookline. That's further towards the, that's towards Heath Street.

Okay, well, and I don't really need to know that tonight. You could maybe just let us know later.

Yes, you know, so I'm keeping a list here of questions, and we will pass that along to the planning team on your side.

Thank you very much. I just have a couple of follow-up questions. The unit density for each of the zones, the west block, the east block, do you have any sense of that? Is it in the zoning?

The density is in the zoning. The FAR and all those things are in the zoning, and they provide for a certain level of units. But yes, and all of that is currently being ironed out. The select board is potentially taking that up tomorrow night. and they'll talk through what in practice that means in terms of if you were to build all housing here, what would it look like? If you were to build mixed use, what would it look like?

Yeah, and then the R-turn or whatever you called it, Yeah, that's actually really problematic at that intersection. You know, many times I'm through that intersection.

Many times a day is like blocks in terms of that specific intersection.

So I don't know that that's a viable solution.

So the question about scale, my understanding is, and again, subject to correction, is that the part that's subject to redevelopment right now, which is where the office park is, The other parts are not, except for the 40B, under any particular project. And these, as I understand it, don't have a special permit even yet, but they might. around 887,000 square feet for the towers. That's the proposal. FAR about 3.8. Commercial square footage around 400,270 residential units and 240 The other districts have no current development proposal other than the possible 40B design.

One of the concerns that I and others have expressed to the town administrator and so on. I don't know. Mr. Carey, is there a chance that that piece would be taken out in the warrant or is that?

Yes, there's definitely a chance. We're having those conversations. I think on our end, our concern is not the parking lot. It's everything else over there. It's the possibility. possibility, for example, of some of those residential structures maybe becoming small scale retail or like a boutique hotel or something like that, that would be great. It would be, again, a complimentary use in that neighborhood. Thank you for joining us. What's on our side to have that sort of awkward triangle there? You know, it doesn't unlike, you know, I think it's just a matter, too, of, you know, different philosophies on zoning. We're trying. When we get approached by developers and developers say, hey, can you rezone for us? Then that becomes a big concern. People say, we shouldn't be doing developer-driven redevelopment. We should be doing development

based on what we want to see, not what developers want to see. And so where we can, we're trying to balance those things. We're saying even when a developer comes to us, as is the case here, we're still trying to develop this as part of a bigger picture of what we want the neighborhood to look like. and as we said to the chair and to the mayor and to the planning team, right, because of that special permit that the Star Market has, it's very unlikely that the current owner would redevelop that in any way that would impact the star market without the star market use changing in some way. We're not trying to incentivize that change with this zoning. With that said, There's a chance that this parcel comes out of the zoning altogether just based on these conversations.

I would applaud that decision. I would just say that you are all aware of that exit from the Star Market onto Hammond Street is a very tricky one. And the town of Brookline really has been very helpful in working with the market to create that block that's sort of marked out. And it actually works. It really is astonishing how many people will not go into that so that you can get in and out of that. And I'm a little nervous about putting something up on the corner, even If you're talking about shuttles, if they come through Newton, they've got to get approval from our bus licensing process. Not that it's impossible, but it's just another step. So other questions from committee members? Councilor Roche, you had a question?

I don't want to belabor the R-cut.

I just want to say I'm in this area multiple times a day throughout the Market Lot, to sort of get around having to do the turning. Already people are trying to go the wrong way, sometimes down the opposite street to Heath Street. I've noticed when I'm there with all that construction going on in that corner, the movement still seems to be pretty good using the straight across. So I'm not quite sure what problem is, because I know it's written out here what the problems are. I figure it's also pretty easy to test, right? Not to see what happens, but I'm guessing that this is going to cause multiple problems further down on both sides, east and west.

There are also uses north of the schools and the institutions that depend on that intersection access. So it's not just the sort of the, just cars. School drop-offs and so forth.

Yeah, when I'm on this road, I see people, they don't want to stop for the pedestrian light that's there already because they've been waiting long enough. Then they see the light and they try to go through it. And I watch it all the time. I'm like, there's someone in the lot. So I just think we could be making it more dangerous.

Councilor Roach, let me recognize you.

So you said that the roundabout was narrowed to one lane?

I believe that it's

I'm sorry, I beg your pardon. Wonderful is a great question. Wonderful. Citywide preference is noted there. None of the traffic deals with

The merge, the crossover between eastbound traffic exiting We found traffic on Route 9 heading down the down ramp.

What we had proposed at the time, perhaps you'll remember this, Councilor Baker, then Alderman Baker, is that there be a frontage road In order to go into Chestnut Hill Square, you had to commit to that frontage road, and you also had to commit to that frontage road to Hammond Pond Park. that would eliminate the crossover. And so anybody

is going to be exacerbated. Are you talking about the Wegmans Mall?

Are you talking about the Chestnut Square? And you think it's a failure the way that you come out?

Yeah, and the indication it's a failure is, I mean, is not intuitive enough or safe enough that it doesn't require a police officer. You shouldn't need to staff that intersection If you did what I'm proposing as a function,

One thing, Mr. Administrator, that occurred with the Chesterfield Square is the grinding of the road was a condition of the building of

The winding of Route 9 from two lanes to three.

Yes. And the city of Newton actually was the guarantor of the bonds that paid for that. We didn't have to We didn't have to come through and actually pay for it because of the bonds work. But the point is that that project We didn't approve it as a special permit or as a project until we had an insurance of the lease of Wyoming Highway at that point. I think your traffic study about the generation is going to be important to figure out what litigation measures you mean because that's and may cause you, you know, to one question. you're the star market that reduces some of the potential development pressure. It's not because it's not imminent, but it's still apparent.

And then you have a sense of a little less demand. But again, I think the whole question How this corridor works is going to be critical because

Anything that's going to have a bearing on how that intersection works is going to be relevant to how we try and fix it. I know our police department keeps crash data on this. I can try and get that to this committee. Historically, we have had accidents there. It is a prime area for accidents. So I want us to be cognizant of not just pedestrian safety, but the safety of everyone who crosses through there.

for the questions, Councilor Coon.

Yeah, so Mr. Carey, what I know that's probably not of primary concern or probably not within the current traffic study. I'm not sure. But if you would,

I hope the administrators indicated the city will be part of the conversation in any event, which I very much appreciate because this is obviously a joint effect. Any other questions?

I just wanted to emphasize, we're committed to doing, we talked about this in our staff to staff meeting. We really like the idea of some sort of task force where we're working together on this, not just on the specific issues here, but Route 9 more broadly. It's a major thoroughfare. It's a lifeline to both of our communities. It's frequently snarled with traffic. There are a lot of things that we could be doing and so on. and so on. And so we all have to be ready. Under the current federal administration, probably not going to happen, but Things change.

And I don't want us to say that just because it's not going to happen now, it means it's never going to happen. So I think we got to be in good communication with each other to talk about how we're going to How we're going to ensure that the Our shared roadway continues to serve the purpose it needs to serve. This is a conversation that's being driven by a specific incidence, this rezoning, but I don't think this conversation should stop. when this rezoning is completed and we've addressed these immediate issues. I think we got to work hand in hand with the state to flag the continuing issues we have with Route 9 and how we can make it better.

I just want to say I've got a representative of the county

I can answer a couple of questions that came up. One was how many units are in the So that was one question. Another question, another thing that hasn't been brought up, actually is that this building is going to be very tall, right?

I don't know what that means. The other thing that I don't think that the traffic

at a bike lane.

The agenda study is part of the slide deck that was linked to in the memo that I put together to attach to the agenda. So all of the proposed traffic modifications and a variety of other things that are part of this whole idea are there to take a look at. And also, we'll have for you We do appreciate, Mr. Kerry, you taking time. It's not often that we get the town administrator or client to come to spend time with the city of Newton city council representatives. Thank you very much for joining. Any other questions? If not, I'd entertain a motion to hold because I think we want to see what happens today. to hold. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Abstentions? Ayes have it.

Perry, thank you and your colleagues very much. We look forward to continuing the conversation and learning more about this as it goes forward.

Well, very much. Great night.

Thank you for allowing me to make comments here as well.

You're always welcome. Thank you. I'm going to trade places with the vice chair because she's going to run.

Okay, so the next item is 59-26, Presentation and Discussion. for affordable housing deficit for low and moderate income households. This report, prepared by the Newton Housing Priority Task Force, formed in late 2023, analyzes the city's affordable housing What is the existing supply and what factors led to its development? Two, whom does the existing affordable housing serve? And three, how does the supply match the need?

Wright can actually do this Thank you so much for inviting us to share this report. Great. And you have it. You have it in your packet. I realized there was one tiny mistake. So when we get to it, I'm going to tell you, it was just like this. Yeah. See, you do know. I think you should do it. So this task force started in

And one of the things we realized is we didn't actually have a clear sense of what affordable housing we had, what we needed, or what the priorities should be. And, you know, You know, it's hard to choose where to allocate limited funds without some clear direction. So the citizen task forces, if we can go to the next slide. Housing Commission, which were then, as we got, we're in the middle of the process, were combined. And the Newton Housing Authority, along with staff, Please.

These three questions. Before I go on, I want to thank Esther Schlorholtz, who was the chair of the Housing Commission and is now a member of the Fair and Affordable Housing Partnership and Councilor Albright. And then on this, we have at least, I know, Marva Slotkin is from the Parent Affordable Housing Partnership is on screen. And perhaps other people. Next slide. Okay, I'm gonna, oh, we're now, some of the,

Is this the version you sent me? No, no, no, no. You have an older version of PowerPoint. Why don't I share my screen?

He has an older version. He must have an older version.

There's a what?

There it is. You see the title. Thank you. It was missing. All right, so the numbers, with one exception, the numbers in, and I

So it's an older person.

All right, I'm going to walk. Let me just tell you, this is the quick snapshot of what our housing cycle looks like. and the numbers, we stopped doing the count in June of 2025. And so this is from that time period. The affordable units in here are defined as 110% AMI and below that are in some way de-restricted. So they're not going to be, most of you I think will be, That indicates our compliance with 40B. These numbers are not going to match that for two reasons.

because that's how the state measures it. And two, under 40B, is counted on the SHI. But what we wanted to know is what do we really have for affordable housing in Newton? So this is not the only important housing issue for Newton, but we had to and many more. Thank you. It just gives us a sense. So in the one last caveat, then we'll be moving a little faster, but is that the total units We've tried to update, but they're not. That is less accurate. The affordable housing units, we've really spent a lot of time scrubbing.

But the affordable units, we're not going to have a great count until the 2030 census when they are. You mean the total units? The total units, that's right. So we, in general, we have about 33,600, 700 units in Newton. Of those, 275, or in a minute you'll see slightly more, are affordable. And the affordable units, 2,000, 19% of all rental units are affordable.

and almost 70%, 69% of our stock is ownership. So that's just what you would expect for a community like Newt. And that means, of course, that 31% are working. OK, next slide. One question.

Oh, wait. Can you wait? Sure. for all the houses that's being built.

That's the right to try and get that. I do on rental and I'm going to get, I'm going to, but just be affordable. Only thing I can was affordable. And that's one of my new slides. So this is the way we're going to, We have three sets of policy recommendations. We have recommendations for rental housing, for ownership housing, and for preservation. And for each section, we're going to give you Reynolds, then tell you what the recommended policy is. data that informed us in making that recommendation and ways we might implement it. So this is, Mayor Laredo said,

Next is we're going to look at update of affordable housing. and all right and we're going to just quickly move from this slide what this tells you what we but next slide this is the one place you know what you have an older one okay so I'm going to If you all look at your own slides, I think you actually have a question.

Can you do it?

That would be terrific.

Oh, I do have it on this one.

Yeah. We're going to ask Susan if you could change once more, and I'll tell you about it. Hi, Randy.

Hi, Randy.

and the three things that have happened is that the Newton Gardens project with 112 units has come online. We've put our money in now. All of the affordable units are not yet online because they're still waiting for some subsidy dollars. are available to be rented. And so we're showing those as existing. Our affordable housing, we have to get to the numbers that really we can count on having. We've combined our existing, and we've updated existing to include Newton-Darling. and we have in construction because we're pretty confident that if it's already in construction, it's gonna count. And so building three of Northland, this is by, piece that you can see.

There's my one mistake you're going to get. Building 3 of Northland is in construction. So we're pretty confident that that's going to happen. and we've added that into the permitted in construction. And for a total existing and in construction of 2,118 units. I think everybody's been around this long enough to know until you start until you break ground, it can't guarantee. Oh, we wanted to count what we've permitted. And so we added the balance of the Northland Needham Street. And when we cut this off, those were the changes that had happened.

and that adds 587 units for a total of existing and permitting of 2,705 units. So I think that we can feel good about making some progress in our rail unions.

The 587, that's not just Northland.

No, no, no. That's including everything that was in construction.

and actually on well those are not in construction so it'll be like on Craft Street because it's been documented and things like

If you want to know what's in that number, if you look at the The full report, it's actually in the footnotes. We provide the list of units and afterwards I'm happy to look at it with you. Okay, so next slide, please. So here are the priorities for rental that we're going to talk some about. Prioritize low-income family rental housing. and why do we do that? Because two to four unit housing that's generally available. It's not set aside for seniors or for people with special needs. families are

and we're not serving as deeply. And we'll go through why. We're really suggesting that, recommending that, that housing prioritize low income, which is 60%, area median income, and low. Lisa Stamer. Next slide.

So

We talked about types of affordable rental housing. Newton has much more senior housing than general housing that includes family. And you'll you know seniors serves 60 or 62 and over and it's 54 percent of our our housing 14 percent is Group homes and housing for formerly homeless and victims of domestic violence and general occupancy housing. That's everything else. And that's only 32%. And of that, a piece of that is for families. And so we're just going to go two slides, please.

General housing primarily serves moderate income people because most of the general housing exists because of 40B and inclusionary zoning. and they incentivize. Did you say, Miles, did you have something? Oh, I'm sorry. I was, I'm trying to count counselors who are in the room. I apologize. All right. Oh, and so that, And senior housing serves primarily low income because it was primarily created through deep subsidy programs. Next slide, please. So how do we grow this supply of affordable rental housing?

When we looked back at 10 years of funding review of city investments, and properties with 33 to 49 units spent an average of 64,000 per unit. Now I wanna tell you one other thing. We know there was enormous inflation in construction price over that 10 years. and larger projects so that it is an even larger gap. So we can't target permitting. Green, and Forty B.

And as we reach Safe Harbor, Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. We can take advantage of public-owned properties, both city-owned and the Land Use Study of vacant land that's available to look at. And state properties.

And I know you all have talked a lot about how do we get more state properties. And then the final piece, and this is a really active piece. The city could decide to incentivize private development of family rentals in the same way that happened with the armory. and so that's produced deeply affordable family units and that's a great model to think about. There are many tools that the city has to do that. Homeownership. Next slide. All right. Housing is affordable rental. 88 units. Next slide.

Affordable homeownership. Thank you. All right, so our recommendation is... that we rely on Chapter 40B and inclusionary zoning as the most cost-effective way to add in it. And that the city consider ownership housing as well. That we really make sure that we're clear about the policies we're trying to accomplish. Home Ownership and make sure that we've aligned. And this is a conversation that many communities

and actually state funding agencies have been having over the last five or six years. And I'm going to tell you why. So next. Why not just create it ourselves? Because creating affordable home ownership is extremely costly for the city. We can't access the state funds that we could leverage for homeownership. Newton is not eligible. It's only available to low-income census tracts. and Gateway Cities. So this is a really very conservative estimate if your total development cost is $800,000. Hard to get to these days.

That means the subsidy per unit. The one other way that the city encourages affordable home ownership is if an owner and actually a fourth. and provide just a few each year. But down payment and closing cost assistance and then there are state programs that provide mortgage insurance.

Both kinds of affordable housing trigger deep restrictions that require resales are paid to the original area median Next slide, please. and the blue line. The blue line is area median income over a 25 year period. And the yellow line is the is the So what happens is when you have those restrictions, you don't.

So let's go to the next slide. Homeownership doesn't equal market rate ownership. It's not, for those of us who have the privilege of being homeowners, it's not the same. It does provide Thank you. Thank you. You don't have advantage of the appreciating home equity for kids' college loans to support your business.

And so communities have really been grappling with what they're trying to accomplish and really thinking about ways that's a conversation that Newton could have. And I think that we don't always really understand what we're talking about when we say we want more affordable home ownership. And I'll tell you, Over 35 years, I've fulently argued both sides of this. So I don't think there's a right answer. And so the major recommendations, our major next step is Home Ownership, or even Middle Income Ownership, this is a good conversation for us to have. Okay, next slide. We're getting through this, and thank you for

Let's talk about preserving our existing affordable homes because we have more than 2,000 units, but we want to make sure that we keep them for the long term. So next slide, please. In the next 10 years, there are 302 affordable units representing 541 that are at risk of being lost. So remember that 100% and we're going to see that actually in an example in just a minute. of a rental project, it counts on the support of housing inventory. It was a way to make communities feel better about 40 feet.

when 40B was created. So you get 100 unit 40B and 25 of those units are affordable, 100 units go on the supported housing authority. That's why your SHI list overstates how many affordable units there are. And then other risks. Market Forces. We have a concentration. Next slide. The most important thing we can do, our most important recommendation is to plan for and invest to protect those 275 affordable homes. and that's an ongoing process. And that needs, I think that we're gonna see why that's a priority for the city.

and we can do that. We need a five to 10 year rolling inventory. It takes a long time to deal with expiry units. So you want a good lead time. You can't do it in the last year. They cannot be preserved. And then we need to stay on top of our really critical and we're going to just skip this one and go to the next one. There are Of those 302 units, there are 51 units with 223 subsidized housing inventory units that are at risk or have been

Those include an eight unit group home and I am not sure staff is checking on what happened with that. We know, those of you who might know Evans Park, that Benchmark owns with 23 affordable units and 115 supportive housing inventory units. It had expired and staff were not able and it's owned by Benchmark and Benchmark has another project, Cabot Park, with 20 affordable units and 100 SHI units that are expiring this year. and we don't know the outcome.

So this is really an important priority. And I just can't emphasize enough how much preserving what we have is really important. And so next slide. What we want to also, while we're doing that, make sure that we're thinking about these five companies, three of whom are nonprofits. making sure that they are able to have the resources The most vulnerable, next slide please, is the housing authority. It's not because they are not good. They're very, very talented, dedicated staff. .

Housing authorities are really challenged by long-term and it's resulted in really inadequate capital and operating reserves. So when you see a housing authority project in property and you say, Oh, that doesn't look as good as I'd like. That's because they are making do with really not enough resources. And we as a community want to be able to support them. So one of the things in the Affordable Housing Act, the state actually dedicated $1.5 billion for affordable housing. I mean for public housing. And that money is really, it is so competitive across the state. It will only go for properties that owe

Housing Authority has identified several good sites. And so let's think about being open and and working with them and hopefully they will focus on family housing as they're looking at that. But so that's a really immediate thing we can think about doing. And I'll tell you, as we did this study, My thinking about the support we needed to provide for the Housing Authority and then I started looking at where they stand in our housing stock and realized that's really the biggest base of our housing. So it's a hard lesson. So there we are. and I'm going to go to two last slides if we can. I have some recommendations for

There are three, and I think two are particularly important. There are three things that I think are worth continuing to look at. One is to refine our housing production goals. More important is if we are interested in home ownership, I think we need to have that conversation. And the final one that I don't want to under... Understate. We looked at affordable housing. I think that the effective middle income, the middle market definition in Newton is really like

and that's a really important become a leader among our peer communities. That's what our task force where we've got. Thank you very much.

So what I'm going to do is I'm going to get people raise their hands. When that person, you know, hones in on one thing, I'll let other people ask questions during that time, and then I'll take the next person on my list and go to that area. So I see Councilor Albright and... Oh, thank you.

Okay, so I have... She's also seen this at least three times. Yes.

Councilor Albright, Getz, Baker, any other Councilors that have some questions? You can have questions as we go along. I have a lot of questions, so we'll get to that. So we'll start with Councilor Albright.

people who worked on this study from these various task forces and commissions and committees. We are so lucky to have them. They all work in the field. Thank you so much for being all of you. Does the $80,000 per unit for homeownership and the cost apply? What did I say? We wish you safety.

even for a condominium, even for a 12 to 1500 square foot condominium, that would be below what we're seeing. Thank you. Thank you. Yes, but condominiums and zero lot line townhouses and things like that are great ways More affordable opportunities. Not really affordable, but at middle

And we don't ever have the housing staff, the planning housing staff, come to this committee. I'm wondering what you thought about having them Thank you. Thank you.

We didn't want to tell you what you should be doing. One of our recommendations is that we would like that five to 10 year rolling plan to come to the housing partnership. You're the... I think it would be great if once a year you had staff come in and tell you about the state of our existing affordable housing. help them decide where they should put their time.

So beyond just reporting to us once a year, I think

Back to page 17 is where you first had a question. and so I had a question just to understand it better sure so yeah I did go through yeah so these are home ownership places okay so you're saying You know, average of $800,000. And then the sale price is $320,000. So for developers, I thought if a developer has a condo project they eat that $480,000 that it costs for that unit as part of the kind of shares it about the other costs.

If the developer didn't have to do affordable housing, if in the way we do rental housing.

If we said, thank you, that's our- So with the IV and with our condos, we're not putting that $180,000 subsidy.

Okay.

BC, T, where the developer was explicit and said, we're building six because it doesn't trigger inclusionary zoning. So the 480

at seven, they don't pay the full cost of the 600.

Yeah, so they do a percentage of that. And let me tell you historically, and to 40B. And this was, he was able to do 40B homeownership projects that produced, he actually did far more than 25%. They tended to be 50 to 60% and he used the market to actually write down the cost of affordable. So it is possible to do those sorts to have, but it has to be a motivated developer and they were smaller. Sensing.

Okay. Councilor Albright, do you have some more questions? So what's the best thing to do? Should we ask to support their request or

You're talking about the 38 craft. I think that, you know, I'd love to hear It is difficult. We're in our most recent project that we invested funds in. We got 56, 58 units of affordable housing, of deeply affordable housing for $2 million. So less... then $50,000 a unit.

So, you know, you can, there's a lot of leverage, but mixed income housing is also a resource. We might even have a community conversation about in-load payments.

because whatever, I mean, we're the committee that's creating ordinances that might impact affordable and middle-income housing, so if you guys could all stay involved

I think the CBA should be working with them to see what they need. And from this data, it seems more family housing is really what we need, not the very deeply affordable ones.

because our family housing tends to be 80% AMI. And so what we really have a shortage of is Deeply affordable family housing. But all family housing is important. So that's something that they should know, the ZBA. So that's something that they should try to negotiate.

that in general staff are trying to do The most recent deed restriction that was fairly recent that I looked at was a 40-year. There are reasons, you know, think about private developers applying. As homeowners, you have to refinance periodically to reinvest and renew your capital. And so developers actually anticipate before they refinance. So affordable developers still have to refinance even if their use restrictions extend. So you have to keep, that's part of staying mindful about what our employees

You know where we are? Grit bottom. Grit bottom. So all of the senior There's usually missed debt and soft debt, and then you get to us. And so in the event of a foreclosure or a project that can't make it, Often by the time it gets to us, we're not even at the table. We're not even at the table. So it's really important that we stay on top of, and not just, are going to be refinancing, even if our use restrictions last. And to be good partners, to be good partners, developers are not bad people, even for profit.

So on this point, you mentioned Cabot, I think it's called, or units that are being rolled off. What are we doing to try to preserve those?

They had some conversations. It's the same developer for the two projects. It's Benchmark. And The Cabot property did just expand and has three new deep restricted units coming on. The city being sent it. It could be, you know, I would have to talk to the developer to understand. You'd want to understand What their situation was because they can make more money.

and law about something like this specifically and what options there are.

And I will tell you, I'm not going to tell you who it is, who really know this side of the business really well. I'm sure they're great citizens. I'm sure they'd be happy to. Anybody, I have a question.

So I thought most units coming online now are in perpetuality. Anyways, and I'm surprised to hear it's like 40 years. I thought we were doing all of them now. Okay. And, but what would be good, I'd like to see the data in

to put when they expire too. Those sorts of things would All right, the friendly 40 feet, and then that study that was done by the... Yes. I do think that that's actually something that we need to discuss.

What's the dream?

It's the one where they looked at all the...

and many more.

Well, I think if some of the counselors would like to do some thinking about that, I am happy to buy lunch and bring some folks who are really interested in thinking about it. and to see if we'd come up with a strategy.

Yeah, I mean, you guys explain how we got to, you know, there was a full inventory.

I absolutely feel that this is a launchpad. and that equation. And then I also feel like, you know, we, especially with the housing

and the state has absolutely, absolutely, the state really wanted to see what's called naturally occurring affordable housing. That's what Moving Gardens was, taking housing It's affordable and making sure it stays affordable.

Do you want to explain to people who don't know what the city did to help with that?

So the city went in very quickly. and help. It's being developed by, it is owned now by Wynn Residential, which is a large national developer and property manager who has great resident services. We provided very fast financing to help them move very quickly. and they, and Wynn has a lot of political clout. But we provided money to them. We provided, that's right, we provided two million, gosh, two million. Thank you.

And this is how many units? It's 112.

It's a very unusual. It's a very unusual structure. So it's 112 units. 40 in multiple buildings, great shape. I was astounded. 16 are extremely low income, 30% and below. Those are supported with rental housing vouchers that allow the tenant to pay 30% of and the rest of the affordable rent and those are the ones remember I said

and some are being provided by the Newton Housing Authority. And until we have those vouchers, those units stay at below 80% AMI, but they'll drop down and they'll be rented at affordable rents. The rest of the units, the 82 remaining units,

and that was a negotiation not just with Gwyn but with their investors who didn't want to be locked into having to income restrict 100% of those. They'll still be priced at 110%. So the rents will still be affordable. get really preserved otherwise those those units

So that's why NOAA is so important. Okay, on this subject.

Yes, I just want to say that Peter Sargent, whose device He said, I never thought I would see wind development and beacon communities come to Newton. And I think we can feel good about the fact that we have a housing trust only affordable housing, and they came to me

There's a lot of data and a lot of different perspectives here, but part of the value of having trust and getting the right part of it is that you're doing a lot of homework sort of outside our region.

What I'm trying to understand is if I hear this from an outside perspective, preserving your affordable units is your biggest priority. No.

Remember the three? and make sure we keep what we've got and then figure out what we want to do about home ownership.

If you could work at trying to keep the units affordable beyond their term limits, what does that involve and is that a better use of the money than to put it into one unit?

I don't think it's an either or. I think that it's a both and. We need to both be expanding our affordable housing. and because we have an extreme shortage of housing in the state as a whole and we're concerned with affordable housing. Losing.

went up as, as, and we had a plan to be adding new units and both were important and both were part of our financial plan. So part of the reason that we did that You're the experts and I appreciate all that.

I'm just trying to and I'm just trying to understand

and P.H. So we're already doing it, but we'd like to make sure that we know what we're doing.

Well, I guess I'm...

I know you want an answer that's clear.

I don't think you have an answer now, but I do think part of the value of this presentation is to try and simplify it out. We want to invest 30% of our assets in that. We want to have new family housing.

We'd like to invest 30% in that.

We'd like to have 30% in middle I don't know what it is, but I think the point I'm trying to get to is understand where your relatively simplified explanation that requires all this to get there, but at least says this is what we're about.

and sometimes then

We've talked about Are we going down the right direction? Are we not?

I think in general that produces this middle market housing more than deeply affordable. And they're both really important. Yeah, but I mean, I think that, you know, if...

in terms of inclusionary zoning, 40B,

People are really feeling like they want it. And so one of my recommendations is if that's a priority for this committee, if that's a priority for you all with your constituents, That's worth some study. It's an entirely different solution. is a subsidy that affordable housing can tap into. I was hoping nobody was going to ask because I have on my list of things to do to do a little research.

I think this is a gas. I'm sure there's somebody online. I see somebody online who could answer that question. But here is, I think, that that person's lease runs out and our SHI, our affordable units go down. So we are further

are way out of line.

on a plant on a condition that X percent be affordable.

So that they couldn't fall out of compliance if they fulfilled that duration.

Anybody else on this subject?

Thanks for the presentation. And one of the things you mentioned briefly was

under our capacity. We know new construction.

I've been to a lot of affordable housing. The people who really needed very low income and a lot of times it's not might be an 80%. So someone who could physically use that unit, they can't get it because it's out of their range. And so they will, you know, rent it to someone else. And that is another problem with that.

I'm sorry. Is there any...

I know the Cousins Fund was talking about other things, but it seems to me I think about subsidized housing and providing access to all segments of the community Thank you for watching.

often an accessible unit when you have that unit available you don't have someone who needs it and when someone needs it you don't have Cyrus probably knows this better than I. 5% tier one.

Yeah.

and many more. Thank you. That might be part of the support. These are all lottery units to begin with. Only a fourth.

Cyrus and others from where there's a unit. then then you know we could step in and say okay here's a unit we'll fund the conversion to fully accessible and it's much less because we built it ahead of time but it's the only way we've built for for, I don't know, 15, 20 years. So all of the units that we build are now accessible

That's right, it's adaptable.

Can I just add that one totally unmet need, not accessibility is one aspect of it, but the number of adult children living at home with their parents over the age of 22 is huge, much larger than you would suspect. and um I think I left out the word disabled disabled children living at home because I have one of the other friends myself The number of adult disabled children living at home with their parents is huge. And we do not study that. There's no research on it. We have no thoughts on how to meet that.

Well, and on that point, right, there's

Supportive Housing. Yes. In this are all developed by parents. And Newton's parents have been excellent about creating good housing options. A lot of times those group homes are not accessible, back to accessible. And so it's sort of a crisis within the group home industry across the state. One other thing.

Yeah.

When we did our tour of the different buildings, I found out at the police station, We're talking and for some promotions for police officers, they have to live in Newton and it's not required for the fire and things like that. So, you know, taking a look at that population. you know it would attract you know more police officers if there was something for them to live in Newton because we have that Okay, any other, another topic? I have a few, once you guys are done. Well, I was back to... Pardon? We'll get out before 10.

I am also available to talk.

One thing, the numbers, and you add the numbers in there, and we have a homeless shelter, and that's part of it, but that's short term, and I almost think the

Victims of Domestic Violence. And a lot of that's long-term, permanent. Oh, that is permanent? Yeah. And some of that is transitional.

But the transitional one?

and I have some of these, I'll send you an email with questions.

So one of the things I did a little bit of research, and this is with ownership, and do you know roughly how much... or AMI for units increases every year. It does increase.

No? It's the same number. Oh, duh. So here's, you've got me like, you know, past my bedtime, so I'm going to give you the whole answer. AMI, you're still restricted to... might have increased and will have increased hopefully. Sometimes it's gone now, but hopefully it will have been increased. But the other factor in how much you can afford

develop a little more equity. And a lot of the studies we have right now were based on that. The minute interest rates climbed, the amount of equity you could take out dropped dramatically. because you couldn't get the increased value of the house and what could be mortgaged was so much less. So it's actually,

Have they had in the past in the Boston area some of these affordable housing groups?

Because that's one of your concerns. I'm old. and I remember 2007, 2008. And so they're economic cycles. And... You know, in a bad cycle, developers are often really crunched. But have we seen it in new? I don't know. I actually don't think so. face very difficult choices and have had to defer maintenance for a while. One last question.

Yes. One of the things you said, we have 201 vouchers here in Newton. That doesn't seem to be in the numbers.

and if you're kind of doing affordable housing, couldn't that be part of another line item? Yeah, so we actually tried very hard I can go, you're renting a unit, and I can give you my Section 8. So there are, and we wanted to test that, but we couldn't get the numbers. A separate line item. A rough idea. We can't provide.

We only know it has the authority to test. Let me tell you, it's a very small number. 200, 201 are used in new.

And out of the 2,000, that's 10%.

So that's a great, that's a little bonus. Yes. Okay. Okay.

Any other questions? I'm done. I'll send my other ones. Oh, okay.

Yeah. Um, so we touched on, um, Well, there's a small time.

I think first, I think that there's a real nexus. Newhouse is very great. We're building to passive house standards. When we build multifamily units, We use less land. We preserve more open space, more trees. All of those are climate friendly. And I think that because those are the And I think you've raised this issue really nicely. We need to be talking more about how do we address both together.

Second question is, I read this.

I think we need to understand what we're trying to do before we even think about putting money in.

That is a level of clarity, which is welcome. Thank you. And then there's no mention, unless I missed it,

In the report, it's more clear in the written report. But I'm also thinking about the larger cost, which is the cost of time and the ability to get to the funding staff. Critical, 40B, and Inclusionary Zoning, and now by right development are in producing timely about the difference between communities that can move

Think about market-based housing as a regional.

of the region. And the region has a desperate need for affordable housing. And the state has actually quantified that. And so I think that of the Heart of the Region. We are trying to shoulder our points. and House of Baker and I. It's past our bedtime.

Does someone want to make a motion?

CHST.

Okay, all in favor to hold, say aye. Aye.

I'm just curious, as opposed to holding, like, would we redock it later? I don't know the answer to that.

and I appreciate an hour and a half. I would not have expected that.

Thank you.

Only because we couldn't go longer. I know. The pressure to close up. Well, I think there'll be significant pushback

Okay, and motion to adjourn.

Recording stopped.

Thank you.